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> Meta monitoring your social media posts to their platforms. Monitoring everything around you, all the time. And what you've heard about the UK police is lik

by Nursie 3mo ago

> Meta monitoring your social media posts to their platforms. Monitoring everything around you, all the time. And what you've heard about the UK police is likely to have been comically exaggerated by people with an agenda. There are problems, yes, they do not arrest thousands of people a year for being mean on twitter, no. (I'm rate limited and can't reply below - when people look into these figures what they tend to find is the majority are people getting arrested for using services like whatsapp or facebook messenger to stalk, harass and threaten others, often in a domestic-violence situation. These are categorised as social media-related but it's not what is often described or assumed by american commentators, that they said something politically sensitive in public, and OH MY GOSH just look at the state of free speech in Britain. It's often much more along the lines of abusers threatening to kill an ex that finally managed to leave them.)

charcircuit 3mo ago
>they do not arrest thousands of people a year for being mean on twitter, no They arrest thousands of people for posts they make online. The public data does not break down what site it the arrests were from.
- Nursie 3mo ago
  They arrest thousands of people under the communications act, which covers everything from the mail to Whatsapp. If I was your neighbour and I called you up on the phone and threatened to break your legs if your dog didn't stop barking, and you called the police on me, I'd likely be in those stats. It's clear they arrest some people for posts online, and that is bad. But the numbers aren't clear at all, and the one bandied around most in public at the moments is so not informative that its use is basically propaganda.
UberFly 3mo ago
"comically exaggerated". Tell that to the 10-12,000 people arrested per year for "inappropriate" speech. Please don't go out of your way to defend it. 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...
- Nursie 3mo ago
  That's exactly what I mean by comically exaggerated. I don't need to defend it, or go out of my way at all. Do you understand what that figure covers? It's everything from sending death threats in an email or SMS to your ex who finally got up the courage to leave your abusive ass, to sending unsolicited dick-pics on whatsapp, to bomb threats old-school paper-mailed to a school, to direct, public incitements to mass murder on twitter during a riot, hoax calls to emergency services and a ton of other stuff. But it gets thrown around as if it's all about people making 'edgy' social media posts. I believe at least some of these would be grounds for arrest in the bastion of free speech that is the USA too? Is there a problem with police in the UK overreaching on speech on social media? Yes I believe there is, and there are specific examples to show that. Is that figure you've got there in any way meaningful? On its own, no. Is it a delicious tidbit for people with scant regard for the truth and a specific agenda to push? You betcha.
brigandish 3mo ago
> they do not arrest thousands of people a year for being mean on twitter, no. It doesn't need to be thousands for it to be worrying. From [1]: > The Metropolitan Police has awarded Father Ted creator and Irish comedian Graham Linehan £25,000 and an unreserved apology after they arrested him last year as his plane touched down at Heathrow airport. > Last year, Graham Linehan — who now lives in Arizona, United States of America — was arrested by five armed police officers as he landed at Heathrow airport in one of the most shocking incidents we have seen in years. > What was Graham's supposed crime? Three gender-critical posts on X. This is despite the fact that gender-critical beliefs are protected under the Equality Act 2010 and were reaffirmed by last year's landmark Supreme Court ruling, which settled that "sex" is defined by biology, not gender identity. Armed police for 3 tweets on a political topic, seems like overkill in an unfortunately possible literal use of the word. It also seems that it is far more than one, too: > General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, Lord Young, said: "I'm beginning to lose count of the number of cases we've fought in which the police have arrested someone for a tweet, decided to take no further action and then had to pay them substantial compensation for wrongful arrest. [1] https://freespeechunion.org/news/met-police-apologises-and-pays-graham-linehan-25-000 https://freespeechunion.org/news/met-police-apologises-and-p...
- Nursie 3mo ago
  > It doesn't need to be thousands for it to be worrying. I very much agree, which is another reason I think facts are important. There are real issues and discussing them using real data is great, productive etc. But instead of rational debate what I see time and again is spurious figures like these thrown around by talking heads, repeated by posters like those above, trying to ... well I don't know, I don't fully understand why the US right wing thinks it's a smart move to demonise its allies at the moment, but here we are. > Armed police for 3 tweets on a political topic, seems like overkill in an unfortunately possible literal use of the word. Yeah, it's a gross abuse of police power. Linehan seems like he's a bit of a nob, but being a bit of a nob in public shouldn't attract anything like this sort of attention. The police need to be reined in seriously, and to have pointed questions put to them about what they think is their damn job and where the money is going. At least it looks like he won the day in court, and the policy has changed - https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jul/09/graham-linehan-25000-compensation-apology-metropolitan-police-arrest https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jul/09/graham-lineh... - but IMHO heads should be rolling over this.

by Nursie 3mo ago

charcircuit 3mo ago

>they do not arrest thousands of people a year for being mean on twitter, no They arrest thousands of people for posts they make online. The public data does not break down what site it the arrests were from.

Nursie 3mo ago
They arrest thousands of people under the communications act, which covers everything from the mail to Whatsapp. If I was your neighbour and I called you up on the phone and threatened to break your legs if your dog didn't stop barking, and you called the police on me, I'd likely be in those stats. It's clear they arrest some people for posts online, and that is bad. But the numbers aren't clear at all, and the one bandied around most in public at the moments is so not informative that its use is basically propaganda.

UberFly 3mo ago

"comically exaggerated". Tell that to the 10-12,000 people arrested per year for "inappropriate" speech. Please don't go out of your way to defend it. 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...

Nursie 3mo ago
That's exactly what I mean by comically exaggerated. I don't need to defend it, or go out of my way at all. Do you understand what that figure covers? It's everything from sending death threats in an email or SMS to your ex who finally got up the courage to leave your abusive ass, to sending unsolicited dick-pics on whatsapp, to bomb threats old-school paper-mailed to a school, to direct, public incitements to mass murder on twitter during a riot, hoax calls to emergency services and a ton of other stuff. But it gets thrown around as if it's all about people making 'edgy' social media posts. I believe at least some of these would be grounds for arrest in the bastion of free speech that is the USA too? Is there a problem with police in the UK overreaching on speech on social media? Yes I believe there is, and there are specific examples to show that. Is that figure you've got there in any way meaningful? On its own, no. Is it a delicious tidbit for people with scant regard for the truth and a specific agenda to push? You betcha.

brigandish 3mo ago

> they do not arrest thousands of people a year for being mean on twitter, no. It doesn't need to be thousands for it to be worrying. From [1]: > The Metropolitan Police has awarded Father Ted creator and Irish comedian Graham Linehan £25,000 and an unreserved apology after they arrested him last year as his plane touched down at Heathrow airport. > Last year, Graham Linehan — who now lives in Arizona, United States of America — was arrested by five armed police officers as he landed at Heathrow airport in one of the most shocking incidents we have seen in years. > What was Graham's supposed crime? Three gender-critical posts on X. This is despite the fact that gender-critical beliefs are protected under the Equality Act 2010 and were reaffirmed by last year's landmark Supreme Court ruling, which settled that "sex" is defined by biology, not gender identity. Armed police for 3 tweets on a political topic, seems like overkill in an unfortunately possible literal use of the word. It also seems that it is far more than one, too: > General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, Lord Young, said: "I'm beginning to lose count of the number of cases we've fought in which the police have arrested someone for a tweet, decided to take no further action and then had to pay them substantial compensation for wrongful arrest. [1] https://freespeechunion.org/news/met-police-apologises-and-pays-graham-linehan-25-000 https://freespeechunion.org/news/met-police-apologises-and-p...

Nursie 3mo ago
> It doesn't need to be thousands for it to be worrying. I very much agree, which is another reason I think facts are important. There are real issues and discussing them using real data is great, productive etc. But instead of rational debate what I see time and again is spurious figures like these thrown around by talking heads, repeated by posters like those above, trying to ... well I don't know, I don't fully understand why the US right wing thinks it's a smart move to demonise its allies at the moment, but here we are. > Armed police for 3 tweets on a political topic, seems like overkill in an unfortunately possible literal use of the word. Yeah, it's a gross abuse of police power. Linehan seems like he's a bit of a nob, but being a bit of a nob in public shouldn't attract anything like this sort of attention. The police need to be reined in seriously, and to have pointed questions put to them about what they think is their damn job and where the money is going. At least it looks like he won the day in court, and the policy has changed - https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jul/09/graham-linehan-25000-compensation-apology-metropolitan-police-arrest https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jul/09/graham-lineh... - but IMHO heads should be rolling over this.