Considering the staggering number of arrest for online/offensive communications in England & Wales, we should add Britain to the list of Russia and Iran 2017: ~5,500 arrests 2019: ~7,734 arrests 2023: ~12,183 arrests
Why has Europe gone nutso ? They were the ones who kept lecturing us (Global South) about "freedom of speech and media is critical to democracy", yadda-yadda at every global conference. Now many of their laws are even worse than much of the third world and people are getting arrested for saying banal stuff online. Why did this happen ? What changed ?
Staying ahead of censors in 2025
221–230 of 349 posts
Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apparently it isn't very hard to define as you just did so quite accurately. It's just whatever those who control the definition don't want to hear.
Murder is just the killing of people who are liked by those who control the definition of murder. But everyone still agrees murder should be illegal.
Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was also surprised the post focusses on Rus/Iran when Australia, UK, and many more countries (Malaysia, Thailand) have/are introducing laws to prevent large swaths of free speech (banning mediums by age, banning conversation by topic, or by making speaking one's mind online too risky, as almost anything now can be interpreted as 'offensive' or 'hate speech').
"as almost anything now can be interpreted as 'offensive' or 'hate speech'" Are you serious here? In russia you get problems for calling a war a war and worse problems if you say it is a bad war. In UK you certainly can call a war a war and you can critize the government or other people all day long. What you cannot do is calling for violence against them. Or do you have counterexamples?
Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure I'd say I'm being "charitable" when I guess that the vast majority of left-wing activists are not in fact cannibals.
It's a quote that justifies homicide of the wealthy class, popularised during the French revolution: "When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich"
I guess the French Revolution was a good example of murdering the rich tbf.
Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025
#225Considering the staggering number of arrest for online/offensive communications in England & Wales, we should add Britain to the list of Russia and Iran 2017: ~5,500 arrests 2019: ~7,734 arrests 2023: ~12,183 arrests
I was also surprised the post focusses on Rus/Iran when Australia, UK, and many more countries (Malaysia, Thailand) have/are introducing laws to prevent large swaths of free speech (banning mediums by age, banning conversation by topic, or by making speaking one's mind online too risky, as almost anything now can be interpreted as 'offensive' or 'hate speech').
Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hate speech has not been tolerated in the U.K. for many years. Other subversive speech hasn’t been tolerated in many counties, from nazi worship to glorifying terror, from obscenity to copyright. America bans Harry Potter, in the past The U.K. banned Lady Chatterly, Germany bans nazi worship but America is quite happy with it. Just because an american view on what is and isn’t acceptable exists doesn’t mean others ha…
Too much to address here and I don't have the time. But you are jumping around a lot and conflating culture war nonsense with legal enforcement. While also implying huge swaths of people are right wing nazis.... Harry potter has never EVER been banned in the USA and to say that with a straight face means we are in completely different universes and further engagement is pointless. Many groups may have lobbied a retai…
American view is that private companies banning something or spying on someone is fine as long as it’s not the government doing it.
It comes down to the accountability. Europeans tend to believe in the ability to hold large organisation to account via the ballot box, Americans prefer the free market.
What we see in the U.K. is a view shared by most people that incitement to violence, glorifying terror etc is illegal. Americans are happy to have Musk or Zuck do the censorship instead, with them being able to use their wallets to hold them accountable.
Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this source trustable? (I have no idea, I'm not german) https://www.welt.de/vermischtes/kriminalitaet/article2521783...
The source is somewhat trustable mainstream but not really good, as already the headline is wrong. The other person was not jailed for insults against the rapists, but threats of violence. And that is a attack on the state monopol of violence itself, hence the harsh sentence. But indeed, the rulings against the rapists don't seem allright and very much out of balance with the other sentence.
Regarding the case of 'Maja R.', here's a summary [2] (e.g. she didn't show up for the first two hearings [3] - that would certainly raise the anger of the righteous if somebody not in their favor did that).
I'm in doubt whether this one case is sufficient to prove the downward spiral that some people claim to perceive (it was also brought up in context of migration here on HN recently, and from the sources which I could find I‘m not sure it fully qualifies there either).
[1]: https://www.mopo.de/hamburg/details-aus-dem-prozess-darum-ka... [2]: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/57113 [3]: https://www.mopo.de/hamburg/ehrloses-vergewaltigerschwein-20...
Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the UK the arrests are mostly about "grossly offensive" speech. That's more of a grey area than the clearly defined hate speech. Often there are arrests and investigations but convictions on these are less. Convictions of hate speech also occur but are not news worthy and no one objects. The two different offenses are being confused and so it becomes news. In the US they don't have the grossly offensive category.…
Yeaaaah, the Communications Act 2003 is not fit for purpose in the modern information age where [seemingly] the vast majority of conversation is taking place in digital spaces. Sidenote, I do think it's amusing how, prior to the Online Safety Act 2023, it was an offence to Cunningham's Law someone (posting a knowingly-false statement online to annoy someone into correcting you). That said, I'm more or less ambivalent…
This is an incredibly stupid take, and I would vote for a legislation to penalise incredibly stupid ones before gratuitously abhorrent, and more harshly so. It would be gloriously wonderful, too.
Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, no.
At this point, assertions such as these are a form of ad hominem fallacy against half of society. You are discrediting the multitude of sources who have covered this story because of the nature of the speaker while no hardline liberal outlets have covered this story at all and presented a counterargument. If you want to have an alternative narrative, you need to link a major outlet showing her to be a liar. The case…
It's not ad-hominem it's ad-practices. For all you know every single one of those articles is based on the same half-baked rumor.
Re: Staying ahead of censors in 2025
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
At this point, assertions such as these are a form of ad hominem fallacy against half of society. You are discrediting the multitude of sources who have covered this story because of the nature of the speaker while no hardline liberal outlets have covered this story at all and presented a counterargument. If you want to have an alternative narrative, you need to link a major outlet showing her to be a liar. The case…
You can explain it away all you want. Those sources are garbage. They pay for stories, don't confirm sources, or do anything else required of journalism. I get you may be GenZ and have been fed garbage soup your whole life about how "all news bad", but fyi there are still some publications with journalistic standards. You might as well add the National Enquirer from the US. Your sources are such sensationalist rags t…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Business_Times
All the sources you claim have standards repeated corporate-state lies during COVID (I know this because they all did). They have zero integrity, they are just mouthpieces for a government that would cover up its lies and never have accountability. I am not GenZ and your assertion that this is a generational issue is another form of ad hominem attack, showing your own personal willingness to dismiss speakers on the basis of perceived identity, as well as fraudulently attribute their speech to groups that you perceive as intellectually lesser. Regardless, it is her word and the case records against the UK government. The latter has been caught lying countless times and is immune from prosecution for doing so, while she and the publications in question can be held accountable for any false claims. Ergo, they have skin in the game, they are taking the risk, and the government is not, and you should assume that she is telling the truth as the incentives are aligned with her to do so.