Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit

Post by kypro » Wed, May 20, 2026, 6:26 PM UTC

graemep wrote: post #262

kypro wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not UK but in Germany you can face criminal prosecution for insulting the chancellor, https://x.com/Pirat_Nation/status/2056692341399081235 While here in the UK you can be arrested and charged for saying mean things about the royal family on private whatsapp groups, https://www.itv.com/news/london/2023-09-07/five-former-met-p...

The second one was for specifically racist messages - i.e. breaching hate speech laws - not just being mean. I am opposed to criminalising hate speech, BUT I think its important to be clear its not just "saying mean things".

Post by ljf » Wed, May 20, 2026, 6:28 PM UTC

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #168

okeuro49 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK 30 people are arrested a day for social media posts online. Only about 10 percent resulting in convictions. Police don't face criminal charges for this. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr...

Those 30 aren’t arrested for just for writing “social media posts” but for possibly “harmful communication including incitement to terrorism and violence, online threats and abuse, and unwanted communication via email and other means” Of the 90% many will accept their fault and receive a caution or warning Edit: and none of those cases would involve pretrial remand/jail

Post by wat10000 » Wed, May 20, 2026, 6:30 PM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #88

contubernio wrote: post #28

The sheriff that arrested him should face criminal charges for misuse of authority. That he doesn't reflects a structural weakness in US law. In most European legal systems a law enforcement officer overstepping his legal authority would face criminal charges for it.

The Sheriff absolutely should face some consequences, at least to his career. The money paid to Bushart ultimately is no skin off the government's back. It's taxpayer money, they will just underfund a good thing, raise taxes, or print debt to pay it if there's a shortfall. It'd be an interesting thing to see garnishing of wages, deductions from pension funds, or loss of some kind of bonus system to help balance the s…

Post by ikeboy » Wed, May 20, 2026, 6:36 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #280

ikeboy wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Magistrates are supposed to verify that the warrant contains probable cause and reject ones that don't. You could make the system more adversarial at that point, although I think enforcing bail hearings where a public defender can argue would help in this and many other cases.

Shooting from the hip, I'd think a properly adversarial/just process would be something like a public defender (or other attorney of the person's choosing) who is paid out of government funds. Then there should probably be different classes of warrants, with the lowest class being something like the person is notified and able to choose their representation to challenge the warrant before it's even issued (presumably…

Post by fortran77 » Wed, May 20, 2026, 6:38 PM UTC

jerrac wrote: post #120

bko wrote: post #51

Reminds me of Douglass Mackey, who was convicted for sharing deceptive memes before the 2016 election that falsely told Clinton supporters they could vote by text message. He was sentenced to 7 months in federal prison in 2023.

I wondered if anyone else noticed that. I upvoted. Hopefully more people will as well to balance out the bias. To those of you downvoting, please articulate why you think something deserves a downvote. As it is, I can only assume rather hypocritical double standards. Someone saying something anti-Trump is ok, but someone saying something anti-Leftist (or Clinton) is not? (For the record, I 100% am on the side of the…