3 ms·

Just saying "regulate" it is not an answer and won't give you the results you think. What you'll get is restrictions on speech. UK arrests thousands every year

by bko 3mo ago

Just saying "regulate" it is not an answer and won't give you the results you think. What you'll get is restrictions on speech. UK arrests thousands every year for what essentially amounts to mean tweets. There have been people that comment publicly on horrendous crimes that get harsher sentences than those that commit the crimes. At any point in time politicians could have enforced existing terms of service violations like kids must be 13 or older. But they choose to look the other way and target only things that's a threat to their political future. Social media helps organization and political action. Maybe you don't like the outcome at this point in time but it's a powerful weapon against those in power. It's no wonder politicians will try to neuter it. But it will not help anyone but themselves.

kraf 3mo ago
I'm not familiar with what you're talking about. Can you share a real world example of a case like this? You're saying a social media comment about a crime is somehow punished harshly and much harsher than the crime itself?
- kolektiv 3mo ago
  It's a common (and somewhat right-wing) trope, but it's not really true. Thousands of people aren't arrested for "mean comments" or similar. That isn't to say the UK has no problem with the balance of freedom of expression and regulation, but it is nothing like the impression you'd get from some sources. There are some high-profile cases which are commonly misrepresented to support these claims.
  - bko 3mo ago
    > Thousands of people aren't arrested for "mean comments" or similar What are they arrested for, or are you disputing the number?
    - inigyou 3mo ago
      Lucy Connolly was arrested for threatening to kill a thousand people, for example.
      - recursive-call 3mo ago
        I think generally the argument is that these usually aren’t credible threats, they’re hyperbole, and the police are overstepping by arresting people for saying they’ll do something when they have no evidence that that person would actually do that. A free society doesn’t arrest someone for saying “I’m going to burn down so-and-so’s house.” It waits until you actually go to so-and-so’s house with a can of petrol, and then arrests you.
        XorNot 3mo ago
        Sending death threats has never been legal. The statical lie with the UK numbers is the vast majority of cases are about the use of messaging services in domestic violence cases.
        deleted 3mo ago
        [deleted]
        bombcar 3mo ago
        It’s the same problem as amber alerts - the stories you here about are the dramatic stranger danger ones, but the vast majority of the statistics are “boring” custody disputes.
        ceejayoz 3mo ago
        > A free society doesn’t arrest someone for saying “I’m going to burn down so-and-so’s house.” I feel like it's a significantly freer society when others can't threaten to murder me without consequences.
        marysol5 3mo ago
        It's always weird that these "freeze peach absolutism" never seem to notice that death, is the ultimate censorship
  - philipallstar 3mo ago
    It is definitely true. It's "right wing" because the soft power is with the left (or was until maybe very recently) and so only principled people of the left (e.g. Bill Maher) and all the people of the right (either principled on speech or saying things that are more likely to be censored) are going to be talking about it.
    - marysol5 3mo ago
      What on earth are you on about, we've had 20+ years of right-wing governments. >and all the people of the right Tell that to the Tory MP who had me arrested for upsetting them, or the UKIP goon's forcibly removed me from their "Free Speech Conference"
      - philipallstar 3mo ago
        > What on earth are you on about, we've had 20+ years of right-wing governments. The Tories were barely right-wing, and they were in power for 14 years, not 20+, and for the first 4 they were in a coalition with the lib dems. Look at the immigration numbers in the UK to see how not right-wing they were. Insane to think that's actually right wing. > or the UKIP goon's forcibly removed me from their "Free Speech Conference" The UKIP conference removing you is not evidence of general soft power in the UK.
- bko 3mo ago
  Here's an example of Westmidlands police bragging about arresting a 12 year old for racist posts. There are 30 arrests a day for offensive online messages. It's not heavily reported for some reason but it's very real. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arrests-a-day-for-offensive-online-messages-zbv886tqf https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr... https://x.com/WMPolice/status/1282627004018364416 https://x.com/WMPolice/status/1282627004018364416
  - rwmj 3mo ago
    If you walk through a town shouting racist stuff you'll get arrested too, and rightly so.
    - bigstrat2003 3mo ago
      The kid is 12 years old. If he ran around shouting racist stuff in town, that should be addressed by his parents, not by an arrest.
    - asdiovjdfi 3mo ago
      In my Northern European small city, just yesterday, there was some non-native shouting "WHITE NIGGA" at children in the city center. Nothing happend to him.
- philipallstar 3mo ago
  Here's an overview of the situation: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62ln7mzd5ro https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62ln7mzd5ro
  - inigyou 3mo ago
    So people are getting arrested for tweeting they want to set fire to a hotel full of people? Seems good to me
  - ceejayoz 3mo ago
    Are you sure that link's the one you meant to share? > The former childminder from Northampton, who is married to a Conservative councillor, had posted an abhorrent message on X, calling for people to "set fire" to hotels housing asylum seekers following the murder of three young girls at a dance class in Southport in July 2024. > Yet the fact both men were able to address a huge crowd in London is perhaps evidence that there is rather more leeway for free speech in this country than those likening the UK to a "tin pot dictatorship" suggest. Seems fine?
    - philipallstar 3mo ago
      > Are you sure that link's the one you meant to share? Sorry, I'm confused by the question.
      - ceejayoz 3mo ago
        The link seems to make the opposite point you intended. Criminal threats with appropriate punishment, and regular old hateful speech is ongoing.
        philipallstar 3mo ago
        The link is far broader than that, but even in this case: there was no threat. No more than a university lecturer tweeting that he wanted a white genocide.
gherkinnn 3mo ago
I have no idea what you're on about. I said "regulate the proverbial crack" and gave two concrete examples of things going wrong. At no point did I hint at "stop people from conversing freely".
- philipallstar 3mo ago
  Regulating access to speech platforms is a difference of degree, not a difference of kind, from regulating speech.
  - marcosdumay 3mo ago
    Requiring universal access is a form of regulation, and the OP asking for regulating the platform, not the access.
ruszki 3mo ago
Currently, the fact that these large platforms can block you and they block you randomly (which is the case of Reddit for me, because I dared to use privacy protecting extensions when I commented on a subreddit to which I wasn’t subscribed; Instagram permanently blocked me because I used VPN when I wanted to login) is way larger restriction on my speech than removing these harmful platforms completely. Currently, I’m not allowed to react to others at all on some of these platforms. Even TV is better, because there is contact information for all of them.
- bko 3mo ago
  Sure there was basically a cartel in social media. You saw coordinated censorship campaigns to ban the former president of the United States for example. But I wouldn't discount the amount of political interference there as well. The last administration admitted to flagging individual posts for the social media companies. But it's true there is a lot of coordinated censorship even without state interference. But this tends to resolve itself as there is a market opportunity to create a better product. This coordination and censorship campaign has led to the acquisition of Twitter, which lifted its restrictions and other companies more or less followed suit because an open platform is obviously better for most people. And you had offshoots like Bluesky that had the old centralized censorious pre twitter acquisition policies, and things work out in the long run https://substack.com/@mleverything/p-41310456 https://substack.com/@mleverything/p-41310456
  - inigyou 3mo ago
    If it tends to resolve itself then why has it got worse not better? reality seems to contradict your position.
    - bko 3mo ago
      How has it gotten worse? You have a lot more freedom on all social media platforms than you did 4 years ago. What's gotten worse in some countries is the government censorship which I'm against.
Hikikomori 3mo ago
Regulate the algorithmic feeds and similar non opinionated regulations rather than content itself.
ClumsyPilot 3mo ago
We imprisoned kids for making an offensive video of a burning cardboard xopy of grenfell tower But we gave legal immunity to the corporate executives that forged fire testing certificates and caused the actual fire that killed over 100 people And when I say we have Russia-style corruption no one believes me
- marysol5 3mo ago
  >We imprisoned kids for making an offensive video of a burning cardboard xopy of grenfell tower 40 years are not kids bro. and wasn't jailed >The 49-year-old was given a 10-week suspended jail sentence.
  - ClumsyPilot 3mo ago
    > They were arrested on suspicion of a public order offence and taken into custody He was arrested, jailed, tried and convicted. He was not imprisoned, which I did not say he was. The only thing I misremembered is the age. The actual criminals that caused death of a hundred people have not been charged with any crime. Amazing how pointing out obvious corruption is unpopular here. Or do people honestly believe that making video about a crime should be punished more than the crime itself?
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
Nursie 3mo ago
> UK arrests thousands every year for what essentially amounts to mean tweets. Somebody is peddling lies in your direction. These claims don’t hold up to any sort of cursory examination.

by bko 3mo ago

kraf 3mo ago

I'm not familiar with what you're talking about. Can you share a real world example of a case like this? You're saying a social media comment about a crime is somehow punished harshly and much harsher than the crime itself?

kolektiv 3mo ago
It's a common (and somewhat right-wing) trope, but it's not really true. Thousands of people aren't arrested for "mean comments" or similar. That isn't to say the UK has no problem with the balance of freedom of expression and regulation, but it is nothing like the impression you'd get from some sources. There are some high-profile cases which are commonly misrepresented to support these claims.
- bko 3mo ago
  > Thousands of people aren't arrested for "mean comments" or similar What are they arrested for, or are you disputing the number?
  - inigyou 3mo ago
    Lucy Connolly was arrested for threatening to kill a thousand people, for example.
    - recursive-call 3mo ago
      I think generally the argument is that these usually aren’t credible threats, they’re hyperbole, and the police are overstepping by arresting people for saying they’ll do something when they have no evidence that that person would actually do that. A free society doesn’t arrest someone for saying “I’m going to burn down so-and-so’s house.” It waits until you actually go to so-and-so’s house with a can of petrol, and then arrests you.
      - XorNot 3mo ago
        Sending death threats has never been legal. The statical lie with the UK numbers is the vast majority of cases are about the use of messaging services in domestic violence cases.
        deleted 3mo ago
        [deleted]
        bombcar 3mo ago
        It’s the same problem as amber alerts - the stories you here about are the dramatic stranger danger ones, but the vast majority of the statistics are “boring” custody disputes.
      - ceejayoz 3mo ago
        > A free society doesn’t arrest someone for saying “I’m going to burn down so-and-so’s house.” I feel like it's a significantly freer society when others can't threaten to murder me without consequences.
        marysol5 3mo ago
        It's always weird that these "freeze peach absolutism" never seem to notice that death, is the ultimate censorship
- philipallstar 3mo ago
  It is definitely true. It's "right wing" because the soft power is with the left (or was until maybe very recently) and so only principled people of the left (e.g. Bill Maher) and all the people of the right (either principled on speech or saying things that are more likely to be censored) are going to be talking about it.
  - marysol5 3mo ago
    What on earth are you on about, we've had 20+ years of right-wing governments. >and all the people of the right Tell that to the Tory MP who had me arrested for upsetting them, or the UKIP goon's forcibly removed me from their "Free Speech Conference"
    - philipallstar 3mo ago
      > What on earth are you on about, we've had 20+ years of right-wing governments. The Tories were barely right-wing, and they were in power for 14 years, not 20+, and for the first 4 they were in a coalition with the lib dems. Look at the immigration numbers in the UK to see how not right-wing they were. Insane to think that's actually right wing. > or the UKIP goon's forcibly removed me from their "Free Speech Conference" The UKIP conference removing you is not evidence of general soft power in the UK.
bko 3mo ago
Here's an example of Westmidlands police bragging about arresting a 12 year old for racist posts. There are 30 arrests a day for offensive online messages. It's not heavily reported for some reason but it's very real. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arrests-a-day-for-offensive-online-messages-zbv886tqf https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr... https://x.com/WMPolice/status/1282627004018364416 https://x.com/WMPolice/status/1282627004018364416
- rwmj 3mo ago
  If you walk through a town shouting racist stuff you'll get arrested too, and rightly so.
  - bigstrat2003 3mo ago
    The kid is 12 years old. If he ran around shouting racist stuff in town, that should be addressed by his parents, not by an arrest.
  - asdiovjdfi 3mo ago
    In my Northern European small city, just yesterday, there was some non-native shouting "WHITE NIGGA" at children in the city center. Nothing happend to him.
philipallstar 3mo ago
Here's an overview of the situation: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62ln7mzd5ro https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62ln7mzd5ro
- inigyou 3mo ago
  So people are getting arrested for tweeting they want to set fire to a hotel full of people? Seems good to me
- ceejayoz 3mo ago
  Are you sure that link's the one you meant to share? > The former childminder from Northampton, who is married to a Conservative councillor, had posted an abhorrent message on X, calling for people to "set fire" to hotels housing asylum seekers following the murder of three young girls at a dance class in Southport in July 2024. > Yet the fact both men were able to address a huge crowd in London is perhaps evidence that there is rather more leeway for free speech in this country than those likening the UK to a "tin pot dictatorship" suggest. Seems fine?
  - philipallstar 3mo ago
    > Are you sure that link's the one you meant to share? Sorry, I'm confused by the question.
    - ceejayoz 3mo ago
      The link seems to make the opposite point you intended. Criminal threats with appropriate punishment, and regular old hateful speech is ongoing.
      - philipallstar 3mo ago
        The link is far broader than that, but even in this case: there was no threat. No more than a university lecturer tweeting that he wanted a white genocide.

gherkinnn 3mo ago

I have no idea what you're on about. I said "regulate the proverbial crack" and gave two concrete examples of things going wrong. At no point did I hint at "stop people from conversing freely".

philipallstar 3mo ago
Regulating access to speech platforms is a difference of degree, not a difference of kind, from regulating speech.
- marcosdumay 3mo ago
  Requiring universal access is a form of regulation, and the OP asking for regulating the platform, not the access.

ruszki 3mo ago

Currently, the fact that these large platforms can block you and they block you randomly (which is the case of Reddit for me, because I dared to use privacy protecting extensions when I commented on a subreddit to which I wasn’t subscribed; Instagram permanently blocked me because I used VPN when I wanted to login) is way larger restriction on my speech than removing these harmful platforms completely. Currently, I’m not allowed to react to others at all on some of these platforms. Even TV is better, because there is contact information for all of them.

bko 3mo ago
Sure there was basically a cartel in social media. You saw coordinated censorship campaigns to ban the former president of the United States for example. But I wouldn't discount the amount of political interference there as well. The last administration admitted to flagging individual posts for the social media companies. But it's true there is a lot of coordinated censorship even without state interference. But this tends to resolve itself as there is a market opportunity to create a better product. This coordination and censorship campaign has led to the acquisition of Twitter, which lifted its restrictions and other companies more or less followed suit because an open platform is obviously better for most people. And you had offshoots like Bluesky that had the old centralized censorious pre twitter acquisition policies, and things work out in the long run https://substack.com/@mleverything/p-41310456 https://substack.com/@mleverything/p-41310456
- inigyou 3mo ago
  If it tends to resolve itself then why has it got worse not better? reality seems to contradict your position.
  - bko 3mo ago
    How has it gotten worse? You have a lot more freedom on all social media platforms than you did 4 years ago. What's gotten worse in some countries is the government censorship which I'm against.

Hikikomori 3mo ago

Regulate the algorithmic feeds and similar non opinionated regulations rather than content itself.

ClumsyPilot 3mo ago

We imprisoned kids for making an offensive video of a burning cardboard xopy of grenfell tower But we gave legal immunity to the corporate executives that forged fire testing certificates and caused the actual fire that killed over 100 people And when I say we have Russia-style corruption no one believes me

marysol5 3mo ago
>We imprisoned kids for making an offensive video of a burning cardboard xopy of grenfell tower 40 years are not kids bro. and wasn't jailed >The 49-year-old was given a 10-week suspended jail sentence.
- ClumsyPilot 3mo ago
  > They were arrested on suspicion of a public order offence and taken into custody He was arrested, jailed, tried and convicted. He was not imprisoned, which I did not say he was. The only thing I misremembered is the age. The actual criminals that caused death of a hundred people have not been charged with any crime. Amazing how pointing out obvious corruption is unpopular here. Or do people honestly believe that making video about a crime should be punished more than the crime itself?

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

Nursie 3mo ago

> UK arrests thousands every year for what essentially amounts to mean tweets. Somebody is peddling lies in your direction. These claims don’t hold up to any sort of cursory examination.