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UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

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Re: UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

#241

Post by toyg »

vidarh wrote: post #220
toyg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Britain has always been very hypocritical about freedom of speech. Take for example "Speaker's Corner", an area of Hyde Park were police will tolerate any sort of speech - except that, if there are complaints and the speech is considered potentially unlawful, they will arrest the speaker right after he's done speaking.

Speaker's Corner has never been a place "were police will tolerate any sort of speech". It's a place where anyone can speak . You're still subjected to exactly the same legal restrictions on the speech itself as anywhere else in public, and that's nothing new.

It's not new, no - the position has been the same since at least the XIX century, when Britain gave asylum to European insurrectionalists. But it's always been fundamentally hypocritical: being "free" to complete a sentence before you go to prison is not meaningfully different from getting interrupted before you go to prison.

Re: UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

#242

Post by extraisland »

tekla wrote: post #117
doublerabbit wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are European, cool. Any successful UK protests? As that is the country we are talking about here.

Brexit

Brexit wasn't a protest. It was a campaign.

Re: UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

#243

Post by esskay »

liveoneggs wrote: post #200
esskay wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But in the UK you can be arrested and jailed for saying something online that offends someone else. It's hard to take this seriously, especially when if I ask for citations it'll likely be a couple of extremely obscure cases where the details are being conveniently glossed over.

30 arrests per day and increasing https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr...

Arrests != Jail. Read the original comment.

Re: UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

#244

Post by khalic »

extraisland wrote: post #234
khalic wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it insulting that you would send such clearly fake websites, that’s why I’m stopping the conversation. Have a good day

What is fake about them? I can find two of the agencies on Companies House: - Dreams Agency - https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c... - Envisage Promotions- https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c... The other one might be a trading name and I can't find anything that matches directly. Can I have an apology please?

One of them is closed and had a yearly of 5k, not exactly screaming legitimacy.

But the other one… yeah they seem real. So my apologies indeed

Re: UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

#245

Post by vidarh »

nrawe wrote: post #239
vidarh wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could walk to my local town centre with a placard for either saying: "Stop Genocide in Palestine" or "Down with Hamas" this weekend and not be arrested. You might "just" get threatened with arrest: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/17/armed-police-t... Or you might get arrested: https://www.petertatchellfoundation.org/peter-tatchell-arres... There are many similar ones, but they are now much harder to fi…

Right, supporting PA is illegal, opposing what's happening in Gaza is not. That's why I specifically didn't say having a placard with a message supporting PA, but "Stop Genocide in Palestine". That is the detail that matters.

You'll note the person threatened with arrest in the first one did not express support for PA, but the police claimed that saying "Free Gaza" and "Israel is committing genocide" was expressing support for a proscribed organisation.

This has been a common theme after the proscription: The police has repeatedly abused the proscription to go after people expressing opposition to Israels actions in Gaza, without mentioning PA.

The excuse for that is that the Terrorism Act is not limited to making direct, overt support illegal. Section 13 makes it illegal to wear an item or clothing or wear, carry or display an article in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation.

This has multiple times been interpreted by the police as justification for threatening arrest over expressing support for Palestine, and the government has done nothing to stop the police from drastically overreaching in this way.

Re: UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

#246

Post by DecoySalamander »

dgroshev wrote: post #104
mcjiggerlog wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There oddly seems to be a concerted effort online to paint the UK as some kind of failing police state recently. This narrative seems to have really taken off with some Americans, who now seem completely convinced that the UK government is some kind of totalitarian oppressor who are snatching people off the streets. Meanwhile, Brits just look on at this narrative wondering what the hell they're talking about. Look, I…

It's not even internally consistent, although propaganda rarely needs to be consistent. The UK government is somehow both entirely powerless (can't do anything about crime at all), and exceptionally powerful (tightly policing the speech and thoughts of 70 million people). Very little odd about this btw. Those efforts are intentional and blatant, e.g. [0]. In that case, you can even see that the accounts listed in the…

This isn't necessarily contradictory. A government can choose not to prosecute certain crimes, such as property crimes targeting lower classes or crimes committed by certain social groups, while cracking down on what it perceives as a threat to its power.

I'm not saying that this is happening in the UK now, but every piece of news I hear about it is less than great, to say the least.

Re: UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

#247

Post by esskay »

liveoneggs wrote: post #207
esskay wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But in the UK you can be arrested and jailed for saying something online that offends someone else. It's hard to take this seriously, especially when if I ask for citations it'll likely be a couple of extremely obscure cases where the details are being conveniently glossed over.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/10/retired-police-o...

And theres the "obscure cases where the details are being conveniently glossed over" part. How long has he been sentence to jail for again?

I'm not defending his arrest, and quite obviously something went very wrong there, but again, we're talking about jail here. Posting an obscure cockup as if its the norm is pretty disingenuous.

Re: UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

#248

Post by [deleted] »

doublerabbit wrote: post #159
khalic wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I was specifically talking about UKs lack of protest, see the issue here?

But the UK is not lacking in protest; we do protest. What I am saying is that protesting is a method of freedom & rebellion that is now flawed for today's modern world. It may work in a few odd countries but overall now achieves nothing. Protests do not work in these modern times. It may of worked in the in the 1800's because society was maybe of been more united, less corrupted in power however the power that folks…

[deleted]

Re: UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

#249

Post by amanaplanacanal »

desas wrote: post #193
khalic wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok I don’t know enough about this political system to contribute on that, there are some political systems built like that, like the US.

The same thing applies in the US doesn't it? There has essentially only been two political parties (three if you squint hard enough) for nearly the entire existence of the country?

The US problem is the lack of proportional representation. Getting support of 49% of the population gets you 0% role in government.

Re: UK government states that 'safety' act is about influence over public discourse

#250

Post by extraisland »

khalic wrote: post #244
extraisland wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is fake about them? I can find two of the agencies on Companies House: - Dreams Agency - https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c... - Envisage Promotions- https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c... The other one might be a trading name and I can't find anything that matches directly. Can I have an apology please?

One of them is closed and had a yearly of 5k, not exactly screaming legitimacy. But the other one… yeah they seem real. So my apologies indeed

> One of them is closed and had a yearly of 5k, not exactly screaming legitimacy.

I've closed businesses after they weren't successful. Doesn't mean it was illegitimate? No. It means they didn't make money.

Even if that one wasn't legit there are plenty of others that one can find easily e.g.

https://crowdsnow.com/

https://crowdsondemand.com/

It isn't very nice when people dismiss things like this when they can be found on duckduckgo.

Normally these businesses are used for media campaigns.

But there is nothing stopping them from being used by political groups, parties etc.

> But the other one… yeah they seem real. So my apologies indeed

Thank you.

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