The thing that boggles my mind most is the UK libel laws where stating a true, verifiable fact can be illegal if it makes the subject look bad. Someone tell me I’ve got that wrong.
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Britain's police are restricting speech in worrying ways
81–90 of 192 posts
Re: Britain's police are restricting speech in worrying ways
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article addresses that.
Then the title is misleading and clickbaity then. "Government is restricting speech in worrying ways" is the actual story. Or old laws not fit for purpose in modern contexts. But during the police in the title means more clicks because everyone hates the police.
West Yorkshire Police tried to arrest an autistic child for saying a female police officer looked like her lesbian nana on private property.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-66462895
No muddling of the law here, just pure police overreach.
Re: Britain's police are restricting speech in worrying ways
#83[flagged]
Goodbad?
Re: Britain's police are restricting speech in worrying ways
#84Whatsapp messages? It's pretty crucial to find out how these ended up with the police. Did these people send Whatsapp messages to someone who didn't like the messages and this person then went to the police? In that case, it's back to the article and lack of definition within these laws. If, however, the police got the whatsapp messages via some kind of mass-surveillance programme, then we have a big problem...
All of the cases that I have seen have been group chats. The Act in question is - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Act_2003#Malici... - and there is also a 2001 Act that I believe is used when the prosecutors want a custodial sentence. The application of this law to WhatsApp has been controversial.
It is also worth understanding that in the UK, the security services use specific events to push politicians (with the help of the media) into passing these laws. The Online Safety Act is a recent example, the media campaign was orchestrated by the media/police/security services, and there was a similar campaign behind the 2003 Act...every time. To imply that the laws are there to do anything other than reduce freedom is the wrong starting point.
Re: Britain's police are restricting speech in worrying ways
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but it's markedly less bad than the "hate speech" laws those laws require due process. the american immigration "charges" are not tested by courts. They are executive actions, that might be challenged if you are rich enough. The UK does not have "hate speech" laws. It never had, anyone who tells you otherwise is pulling your leg. What can happen is you can ask for a more harsh sentence if there is "hate" involved.…
In 2014, Police Scotland posted on its Twitter, "Please be aware that we will continue to monitor comments on social media & any offensive comments will be investigated." Met Police have taken similar actions in pursuit of chilling effects on social media. The Communications Act prohibits what are at best vaguely-defined "offensive communications" and created Ofcom. Because of this ridiculous violation of inalienable…
The number today is 30 arrests per day.
Re: Britain's police are restricting speech in worrying ways
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
No-one voted for this. The police in the UK are using a combination of existing powers (for example, intimidating people by using their powers to question people), non-statutory instruments that politicians have told them repeatedly to stop using, and laws that are being applied to the online world in an expansive way (the current PM is the former head of government prosecutions so is basically the worst person possi…
> elected officials have limited powers to direct civil servants and cannot remove all but a handful of civil servants. On the other hand politicians frequently blame the civil servants as well. In reality, parliament is sovereign, if they really wanted to reform the civil service they could do it via changing the laws.
Okay...and you are presumably aware that every government since the 60s has tried to reform the Civil Service? And how has that gone?
Parliament is not sovereign because this is an administrative issue. As I explained, elected officials have limited direct control over ministries. And an even bigger issue is that the Civil Service is unionized, so if you were actually looking to reform it wholesale then you would have to shut down government for months with irreparable damage done in the media by civil servants briefing daily against you...so I am not aware of a way to do this. You can't reform ministries, you can't reform the whole thing...so what is the solution?
The reason why politicians blame the civil servants is because they are bad. No-one thinks otherwise. The past three heads of the civil service have acknowledged there are massive issues with competence at every level, this is not new. But it isn't possible to reform.
I am not sure how anyone can think Parliament is sovereign in this matter either. It makes no sense based on the evidence of repeated issues with competence and multiple governments being unable to fix that.
Re: Britain's police are restricting speech in worrying ways
#87Britain has a problem. But so does America. Quite a few people (non citizens so far), have been arrested for criticising the actions of the current Israeli government.
I think we need to be more specific: not criticizing Israel per se, only criminal actions of the current government.
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Re: Britain's police are restricting speech in worrying ways
#88Policing social media and citizens that are not a threat is easy. Policing actual crimes like sexual abuse rings, violent crime, vandalism, corporate crime, transit crime, gang ilegal proceedings, etc is harder so it generally won't happen.
The government will always be more interested in suppression of media and speech because that allows them to protect themselves.
Re: Britain's police are restricting speech in worrying ways
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but it's markedly less bad than the "hate speech" laws those laws require due process. the american immigration "charges" are not tested by courts. They are executive actions, that might be challenged if you are rich enough. The UK does not have "hate speech" laws. It never had, anyone who tells you otherwise is pulling your leg. What can happen is you can ask for a more harsh sentence if there is "hate" involved.…
In 2014, Police Scotland posted on its Twitter, "Please be aware that we will continue to monitor comments on social media & any offensive comments will be investigated." Met Police have taken similar actions in pursuit of chilling effects on social media. The Communications Act prohibits what are at best vaguely-defined "offensive communications" and created Ofcom. Because of this ridiculous violation of inalienable…
> inalienable rights
The UK doesn't follow the American declaration of independence...
In UK law such "inalienable rights" are found within the Human Rights Act, 1998 [0], itself based largely on the European Convention on Human Rights [1]. Both are famously disparaged by the political right.
Re: Britain's police are restricting speech in worrying ways
#90It's strange that all four examples in the article are people with commonly objectionable right-wing views when the UK has sent arresting officers to people on the basis of online comments across the political spectrum in the last couple years. It isn't merely a partisan issue where a group that are easily written off as racists receive heavy-handed justice, the police have intermittently targeted every view away fro…
No. But way to try and sidetrack it.
They also used it against people opposing draconian covid policies or protesting for Assange and neither of those are partisan views, no matter how much some might want to pretend they are.