When is the tipping point?
Federal agents track down woman, demand she remove Instagram post about ICE
91–99 of 99 posts
Re: Federal agents track down woman, demand she remove Instagram post about ICE
#92[flagged]
"reasonable" is for a jury to decide.
in the context of being charged with a crime, his name should be released. just like everyone elses.
Re: Federal agents track down woman, demand she remove Instagram post about ICE
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought detainment was a lighter kind of arrest. Seems that I’m wrong and they are distinct concepts (I’m not too familiar with the English terminology here, my bad)
When someone is detained, they're just a person of interest wanted for questioning. When they're arrested, it's because they've actually been charged for something.
Its more complex than that. Arrest is fairly straightforward, but you can be arrested and released without charge (e.g. Peter Mandelson was).
Detaining is not something I really understanding, but from what I have read it is using restraint of some sort without arrest and not really something police seem to have any special powers to do (whereas their powers of arrest are greater than those of other people).
Re: Federal agents track down woman, demand she remove Instagram post about ICE
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which of the 12K arrests do you not agree with? Or are you saying people should be free to write whatever they want on social media with no repercussions?
Most countries in the West have higher threshold to arrest someone over social media posts. Some actually much, much higher. 12K is just a ridiculous number and indicates that the UK indeed has a free speech problem. I don't think that in my country there were more like ~ 20 actual arrests over the same problem during the same period. Even if you agree with prosecuting people for speech, why exactly would you arrest…
The 12K figure is the total figure for arrests for Malicious Communications offenses. It's not a figure for social media posts specifically. The vast majority of these arrests have nothing to do with people making edgy social media posts. They're arrests for personal threats, harassment, stalking, etc. etc.
I think a lot of people assume by default that other European countries have fewer (or less egregious) arrests for social media posts just because the American right isn't boosting the relevant stories. But if you Google, you'll find some pretty wild instances of arrests for social media posts in lots of other European countries. Here are some examples.
In Spain you can be arrested for insulting the King: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Has%C3%A9l [No, he didn't just insult the King, but that is one of the crimes he was charged with.]
In Germany you can be arrested for being rude about civil servants: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/german-police-raid-home-of-s...
In France, you can be convicted (not just arrested) for posting a non-doctored photo that makes some policemen look bad: https://www.amnesty.ie/france-criminal-conviction-for-a-twee...
In the Czech Republic, you can be convicted for making rude posts about Ukranians: https://www.newsendip.com/in-czech-republic-two-men-guilty-o... And if you're a communist, that's too bad, because it's illegal to express support for communist ideology (on social media or anywhere else).
In Italy, you can be fined for mocking the President's height: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italian-journalist-orde...
All of these (with the exception of some of the non-King-related charges in the Spanish case) are pretty clearly instances where someone would not be arrested – and would certainly not be convicted – in the UK. But you won't find out about these cases from Elon Musk's X feed. And of course, people do get arrested and jailed for social media posts even in the land of the free, from time to time:
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/17/politics/retired-cop-jail...
See also this article for some more context on the '12K' claim: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tommy-robinson-uk-speech-cla...
Re: Federal agents track down woman, demand she remove Instagram post about ICE
#95What happened to freedom of speech? Before you know it we won't have any freedom at all. They had no right to track her down. We can't let this continue, something has to be done.
Re: Federal agents track down woman, demand she remove Instagram post about ICE
#96This kind of intimidation sucks and I'd like to see individual officers who indulge in it lose their qualified immunity and be prosecuted for it. But I'm at least grateful to live under a regime that needs to break its own laws to do this, and so such charges can be dismissed by courts that follow the law, even if they don't apply consequences to the offending officials. Compare that to the UK where more than 12k peo…
Given the costs of defending a federal case start at the five figs and the typical naughty tweets style offense nets community service at worst, I’m not so sure.
"Typical" doesn't fit with "at worst".
The former may well be as you say, though when I tried to find real stats I was unable to tell what the breakdown of offence was let alone punishments (if someone has an official link, not opinion piece, I'd be interested).
All I do know is that one of the more famous cases is that kind of scale, total penalty being £985 including costs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_joke_trial
Re: Federal agents track down woman, demand she remove Instagram post about ICE
#97This kind of intimidation sucks and I'd like to see individual officers who indulge in it lose their qualified immunity and be prosecuted for it. But I'm at least grateful to live under a regime that needs to break its own laws to do this, and so such charges can be dismissed by courts that follow the law, even if they don't apply consequences to the offending officials. Compare that to the UK where more than 12k peo…
> But I'm at least grateful to live under a regime that needs to break its own laws to do this
Actions speak louder than words.
He's a (translated) quote from a constitution; the country it is from has no qualms about breaking it. I am confident you, as a lover of freedom, would not wish to live there:
Article 67. Citizens are guaranteed freedom of speech, the press, assembly, demonstration and association.
The State shall guarantee the conditions for the free activities of democratic political parties and social organizations.
Re: Federal agents track down woman, demand she remove Instagram post about ICE
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which of the 12K arrests do you not agree with? Or are you saying people should be free to write whatever they want on social media with no repercussions?
Saying what you want about the government without fear of reprecussion or intimidation or consequence from the government is literally in the constitution. Very specifically for this situation. This isn't a "freespeach" argument, this is the actual text of the actual constitution. This is the actual literal reason that line is included in the bill of rights. It is explicit constitutional law that the government canno…
Who's talking about criticising the government? If someone put my name and address on the internet and then falsely claimed I'd committed some henious crime against children (and maybe added a fake AI image) I'd certainly want the police to do something.
Re: Federal agents track down woman, demand she remove Instagram post about ICE
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which of the 12K arrests do you not agree with? Or are you saying people should be free to write whatever they want on social media with no repercussions?
>Or are you saying people should be free to write whatever they want on social media with no repercussions? no repercussions from the government , yes, people should be free to write whatever they want
If someone put my name and address on the internet and then falsely claimed I'd committed some henious crime against children (and maybe added a fake AI image) I'd certainly want the police to do something.