> I seriously doubt it the people who got jailed for certain tweets walked up to a policeman in the street and made the same comment they would get the same pun

> I seriously doubt it the people who got jailed for certain tweets walked up to a policeman in the street and made the same comment they would get the same punishment. That's true, but there's a difference between being offensive to the government and being offensive to people. The government is supposed to be able to take that kind of punishment (which is, after all, why these related rights are enshrined in the very first Amendment of the U.S. Bill of Rights). So I'd caution about focusing attention on offensive speech only on how it applies when that speech is directed against government and its agents, or society as a whole, since the possible kinds of damage would be different if directed against individuals.