Free Speech in the UK

[Genghis Skahn]

I'm under the impression that you want to be able to threaten people with death or insult them in any manner and not to get even a fine.

And I'm under the impression that you don't understand what Free Speech really means if that's what you extrapolated from his post. By the way, the first amendment in the US covers threats, but the huge bulk of insults are not prosecuted in the US. It's my personal opinion, so long as it does not involve libel or some other offense, that no one should ever be prosecuted for an insult. Most of these "breaches of peace", or other silly charges, listed in the spoiler weren't even violent in nature, simply controversial. Free speech has NOTHING to do with speech we all agree upon, it exists solely to protect controversial/unpopular opinions or statements from the mob(popular/accepted speech is already protected by the mob without the law's intervention). As the saying goes: if you don't believe in freedom of speech for those you despise or disagree with, then you don't believe in it at all.

Quite frankly, many of the examples listed in the spoiler were flat out unjust. Being held for 15 hours by the police because you, as a preacher, said that the bible considers homosexuality a sin(without giving his own personal opinion on the subject)? Really? I don't care how wrong the bible is about homosexuality, or how wrong the preacher might have been, or what he actually believed, you just shouldn't be detained against your will because of that. It simply wouldn't happen in a country with true free speech: it was a controversial statement(well not really, considering that basically everyone knows the bible says homophobic IMO) and free expression laws should have protected him, rather than resulting in his detention.

I fixed that quote for you.

This is what it boils down to, the right's issues with free speech only occur when it stops them slagging off the brown people.

And that kids, is what I call a projection.

[Heathen Hammer]

Can we take the free speech discussion elsewhere please? It's off-topic.

You can't have democracy without free speech. But I get that liberal left views democracy as a threat to its grasp on power in Western countries, and by extension free speech as well, hence why we see walls of text apologetic to UK descending into authoritarianism in the name of preventing its pesky citizens from speaking their minds.

[Aexodus]

So you want to remove these laws?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inte...rm_or_distress
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crim...vated_offences

Yes, as their definitions are too broad and easily abused. What if I make a funny caricature of a religious figure? That’s sure gonna distress some people.

I'm under the impression that you want to be able to threaten people with death or insult them in any manner and not to get even a fine.

I’m amazed how you don’t see those as two completely different things. Of course you shouldn’t be able to threaten someone with death, but that’s not what these laws are about. Yes, I think I should be able to insult anyone about anything without the government’s permission, don’t you?

I fixed that quote for you.

This is what it boils down to, the right's issues with free speech only occur when it stops them slagging off the brown people.

How so?

An American on this forum seemed quite proud that 600 women where arrested in Washington for protesting without a permit while claiming Britian is a totalitarian police state.

They were illegally occupying a senate building.

Yet the right to protest is enshrined in UK law! You have to give the police 6 days notice if you plan a march, mostly so they can ensure there is no issues such as traffic and such.

And it’s pretty much the same in this US.

However just to turn up an protest is not only legal but can be done anywhere and (provided it's peaceful of course) the police will not interfere. We've seen protests outside parliment, military bases, research labs etc.

Provides you give 6 days notice of course.

Rioting and trying to climb the fence of a nuclear submarine base is a tad frowned upon. If those 600 women had protested in London nothing would of happened. Yet these colonials say we are not free.......

Well, Ammericans are measurably more free than most Europeans.

They even tried to ban religious insults in 2006, and we all know why.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/11205158/n...ughing-matter/

The bill was promoted as an enshrinement of fairness, but “what the government has done is kind of thrown a sop to Islam,” Melville said.

“This is a political issue, because Muslims are concentrated in the cities in Britain, the Labor heartland,” he said. “The Iraq war seriously threatened their support in Muslim communities. And so this was imagined, I think, as a palliative to that.”

In reality, he said, lawyers “nearly always say the laws are in place,” Melville said. “Threatening speech, calling for people to effect violence on other people or being really vile or nasty, there are laws which cover this already. It’s just a waste of time, and it really is P.R.”

Melville pointed to the conviction this week of Abu Hamza al-Masri, leader of a radical mosque in north London, for inciting murder in his statements and sermons. Prosecuted under current law, “Abu Hamza did go to prison,” Melville said.

The debate came to a head as British Muslims took to the streets to protest the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in European newspapers. Islam forbids any depiction of the image of Mohammed, favorable or not, as blasphemy.

No British newspaper has yet reproduced the cartoons. Protesters have demonstrated outside the Danish Embassy in London calling for the death of the cartoonists, extolling the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States and promising a repeat of the bombings that killed 52 people July 7 in London. As many as 50,000 people are expected at a protest Feb. 18 being organized by the Muslim Action Committee, it said after a meeting of 300 Muslim clerics Wednesday in Birmingham.

As the protests have continued, many British politicians and commentators have complained that the protesters have not been arrested for inciting religious hatred. Police said that they did not want to inflame the situation and that detectives were reviewing video evidence for possible prosecutions.

In the United States, where freedom of the press is guaranteed in the Constitution, a small number of newspapers have published the cartoons, most notably The Philadelphia Inquirer, meeting with scattered demonstrations.

More importantly, only

• Obscenity
• Fighting words
• Defamation (including libel and slander)
• Child pornography
• Perjury
• Blackmail
• Incitement to imminent lawless action
• True threats
• Solicitations to commit crimes

... should be prohibited speech, everything else should be protected, including offensive language and aggravation.

From the wiki

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free...United_Kingdom

However, there is a broad sweep of exceptions including threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior intending or likely to cause harassment, alarm or distressor cause a breach of the peace (which has been used to prohibit racist speech targeted at individuals),^{[148][149][150]} sending any article which is indecent or grossly offensive with an intent to cause distress or anxiety (which has been used to prohibit speech of a racist or anti-religious nature)

I would ideally have all this repealed. Something grossly offensive should not fall under the government’s jurisdiction.

[DaVinci]

I have to agree with the post above's first sentence in the sense that it should be a topic aspect in this thread (else his post is just another example of anti-liberal democracy propaganda), because just free speech is a very relevant aspect for this imo. broad topic 'Democracy's Retreat'.
It can very good serve as catalysator for what the political orientations stand, its posters, and also, it can enlighten us to a degree what we can expect from the countries where we detect a 'democracy's retreat' and/or perhaps what can be done about that development.

Kats, i think, if you wanna bring this thread on a determined track, then you need to explain exactly, what the thread shall discuss. Actually, i believe, the OP author has always the right to define the topic, in best case with the initial starting post, but ofc it should be possible for that person to quasi moderate the theme-aspects in-between, when he/she sees posts go offtopic along the forseen theme aspect(s). After all, if other posters like to adress points not covered or just not designated because the thread shall go around certain aspects only and thus indepth for the aspect(s) and avoiding distraction, they can create their own threads.

[Infidel144]

An American on this forum seemed quite proud that 600 women where arrested in Washington for protesting without a permit while claiming Britian is a totalitarian police state.

Which American?

However just to turn up an protest is not only legal but can be done anywhere and (provided it's peaceful of course) the police will not interfere. We've seen protests outside parliment, military bases, research labs etc.

"Provided it's peaceful...". Rather as with the Constitution: "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." So while a First Amendment issue, it is not a free speech issue.

Rioting and trying to climb the fence of a nuclear submarine base is a tad frowned upon. If those 600 women had protested in London nothing would of happened. Yet these colonials say we are not free.......

Really? If 600 women had entered Parliament and staged a protest, nothing would have happened to them?

[Bethrezen]

Yes, I think I should be able to insult anyone about anything without the government’s permission, don’t you?

Of course I don't. Why would I want the right to insult you, for example? What good would society gain from this?

So, long story short, you're militating, for example, for having the right to call a Muslim a shitskin and a sandn****r. Correct? A wonderful goal, you're a true Paladin! Good luck with it!

[95thrifleman]

More importantly, only

• Obscenity
• Fighting words
• Defamation (including libel and slander)
• Child pornography
• Perjury
• Blackmail
• Incitement to imminent lawless action
• True threats
• Solicitations to commit crimes

... should be prohibited speech, everything else should be protected, including offensive language and aggravation.

Who chooses the definition, you? Me?

If I call you a "" is that an obscenity or ofensive language? I don't care about the word myself but if I walk around the street wearing my Cradle of Filth "Jesus is a " T-shirt Id be arrested for offending public decency, which I agree with as the T-shirt is a grossly offensive T-shirt that offends christians (still a cool t-shirt).
But I can quite happily wear it to gigs and at home.

"fighting words" very Irish of you, thing is different people see different things as "fighting words". Call my sister a whore to my face and I'll punch your teeth out, call jesus a faggot or muhammed a kiddy fiddly and I don't care but to some that will induce violent rage. Who's at fault, the person being offended or the person who says it knowing it will solicit an action before hiding like a coward behind a shield of free speech?

The general theme of British free speech is that you are free to speak your mind but you are not free to be dick about it. I, personaly, do not have an issue with it, nor do the vast majority of people in the UK.

[Cope]

Who chooses the definition, you? Me?
If I call you a "" is that an obscenity or ofensive language? I don't care about the word myself but if I walk around the street wearing my Cradle of Filth "Jesus is a " T-shirt Id be arrested for offending public decency, which I agree with as the T-shirt is a grossly offensive T-shirt that offends christians (still a cool t-shirt).
But I can quite happily wear it to gigs and at home.

So you believe that infantile T-shirt designs should be met with arrest, yet you're more than happy to denounce Christianity as "vile" online?

"fighting words" very Irish of you, thing is different people see different things as "fighting words". Call my sister a whore to my face and I'll punch your teeth out, call jesus a faggot or muhammed a kiddy fiddly and I don't care but to some that will induce violent rage. Who's at fault, the person being offended or the person who says it knowing it will solicit an action before hiding like a coward behind a shield of free speech?

Arguing that GBH is a morally acceptable response to childish insults. Utterly incredible.

[Genghis Skahn]

Why would I want the right to insult you, for example? What good would society gain from this?

Wow, you really don't understand free speech then. Quite frankly, a free society can't exist if you don't have the right to insult someone. The important question here being: who decides what is or isn't insulting enough to be charged over? That's one of the big problems with "hate speech", just who defines what hate is? People shouldn't be charged for insults, unless it involves some other crime like libel(which involves telling an insulting lie, and thus unjustly defames the target). One thing is certainly true: a freer society is one that regulates speech less, not more. Policing speech(and therefore thought) is one of the most authoritarian measures you can implement. Therefore, a much freer and healthier society is one where people can insult one another freely without needless legal consequence. Not to mention, your courts will run more efficiently since they'll have more time to focus on actual crimes(like ones where someone gets physically injured) instead of focusing on trials involving one person or another's speech.

Who's at fault, the person being offended or the person who says it knowing it will solicit an action before hiding like a coward behind a shield of free speech?

There's nothing "cowardly" about it; the fact that you think that way just leads me to believe that you're an authoritarian who doesn't believe in, let alone understand the importance of, true free speech.

[95thrifleman]

So you believe that infantile T-shirt designs should be met with arrest, yet you're more than happy to denounce Christianity as "vile" online?



A 38 year old Englishman arguing that GBH is a morally acceptable response to childish insults. Utterly incredible.

I thought you'd rather appreciate someone being closer to your hero of freedom of speech, Tommy Robinson....

[Cope]

I thought you'd rather appreciate someone being closer to your hero of freedom of speech, Tommy Robinson....

Setting aside the flagrant lie that I believe Robinson to be a "hero of freedom of speech" (I have never made any such claim), what does this post even mean?

[DaVinci]

Guys, i didn't run through the 46 pages, but there is still obviously a basic misunderstanding. And i can't resist to say that this debate here is immature.

Basicly, the USA has 'Freedom Of Speech' anchored in the Bill of Rights.
Most other countries have constitutions with so-called 'Freedom Of Expression'.
This already is different. Altough the subject is handled usually under the umbrella "freedom of speech" in english language discussions, especially on TWC.

Little example, the US American Freedom Of Speech contains the freedom to lie publicly, one can afaik claim everything in the US media channels or just everywhere (which would under certain circumstances persecuted as crime in other countries, if certain rights are infringed).
We found recently confirmed, that even US government people very openly use/d 'Alternative Truth' without further ado in their understanding, and were obviously surprised that others have been confused by that behaviour.
It goes on, that incitement to hatred is protected in the US, even partially speech which attacks their constitution or is incitement to violence.

What does that mean? We have very differing cultures of public discourses alone in the West. The different cultural and political development is the reason for these differences.

A 1:1 comparison of here, the UK (freedom of expression) and US (freedom of speech), is imo. not possible.
To look at the UK's according rights, you have to limit your investigation on the UK's related history and rights-development. At least, that's my recommendation.
At the end then, you can make comparisons to other countries including the US.

What but also helps in this regard is, the EU related rights ('Charter of Fundamental Rights' ... which ofc is still in the making or rather an open field, because it does not qualify as constitution, is dependent on the memberstates and/or thus the makers of that kind of charta), as long the UK belongs into this union.
The UN Human Rights play as well a role, when the according nation has signed that.

Sources:

Common: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

Countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedo...ech_by_country

EU: http://fra.europa.eu/en/charterpedia...nd-information

UN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intern...litical_Rights

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meinungsfreiheit ... the German source (directly translated would mean: Freedom of Opinion), which indicates already in the first sentence the above mentioned difference.

[Aexodus]

Of course I don't. Why would I want the right to insult you, for example? What good would society gain from this?

So, long story short, you're militating, for example, for having the right to call a Muslim a shitskin and a sandn****r. Correct? A wonderful goal, you're a true Paladin! Good luck with it!

If you call me a cracker, where is the victim?

Who chooses the definition, you? Me?

If I call you a "" is that an obscenity or ofensive language? I don't care about the word myself but if I walk around the street wearing my Cradle of Filth "Jesus is a " T-shirt Id be arrested for offending public decency, which I agree with as the T-shirt is a grossly offensive T-shirt that offends christians (still a cool t-shirt).
But I can quite happily wear it to gigs and at home.

Being offended is a choice, there is no victim.

"fighting words" very Irish of you,

I’m not really sure what you mean by this.

thing is different people see different things as "fighting words". Call my sister a whore to my face and I'll punch your teeth out, call jesus a faggot or muhammed a kiddy fiddly and I don't care but to some that will induce violent rage. Who's at fault, the person being offended or the person who says it knowing it will solicit an action before hiding like a coward behind a shield of free speech?

Fighting words are words that are intended to incite violence from their target, but does not extend to causing offence.

Offensive language, ‘your sister is a whore’, ‘mohammed’s a pedo’, ‘allah is gay’, do not constitute fighting words. That’s why the government has enacted hate speech laws, so they can encompass this as well.

However, ‘you son of a , I’ll kill you’, ‘i’ll choke you to death’, or ‘if you touch me again I’ll cut you to pieces’ is very obviously fighting words, insults alone are not, why else would we ‘need’ hate speech laws if fighting words already included offensive language? It’s because it doesnt and never has.

They even tried to pass a racial and religious hatred act in 2006, such is their hunger for control.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/11205158/n...ughing-matter/

Free speech: In Britain, it’s no laughing matter


It would have made limited but crucial changes in a 1988 law that made it a crime to “stir up religious hatred” by use of “threatening, insulting and abusive” language.

No one had a problem with outlawing threatening language. But in a nation shaped by its split from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534, banning religious insults and abuse was going too far. A broad coalition of activists, writers and artists, ranging from Muslims to evangelical Christians to secular humanists, signed a letter urging the bill’s defeat.

The public face of the opposition was that of Rowan Atkinson, the comic actor (Mr. Bean, “Blackadder”), who once delivered mock sermons on the television comedy show “Not the Nine O’Clock News.” Through a spokeswoman, Atkinson declined a request for an interview, but he has been widely quoted as warning that the bill would have outlawed satire and jokes about religion

Many religious leaders saw it as an intolerable restriction on religious expression. By the time the House of Lords began its debate, in October, Christian Voice, an evangelical group, announced that if the bill were passed, it would seek charges against bookstores that sold the Koran, which it said incited religious hatred and would therefore be illegal.

Still think I shouldn’t be allowed to religiously insult someone?

The general theme of British free speech is that you are free to speak your mind but you are not free to be dick about it. I, personaly, do not have an issue with it, nor do the vast majority of people in the UK.

Do you believe that stating facts should be illegal? Because they are offensive?

Edit: Here’s a guardian article from 2012 detailing what I’ve been saying all along- that the public order act is basically a license for police to harasse private citizens for fairly harmless speech.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...nt-free-speech

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Britain needs more free speech. Change this law now

Earlier this week a man stood up in the centre of London and sang a song about a guy who murders his girlfriend in a jealous rage. The lyrics seemed to blame it mainly on the woman. Watching the singer from a nearby spectator stand were the prime minister, the Archbishop of Canterbury and much of the royal family. They rocked or even sang along with the refrain, "Why, why, why, Delilah?" Some of them also waved little Union Jack flags, to endorse this enjoyable little ballad of murder ("I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more"). One question this raises is: why did the police not immediately arrest them all – princes, prime minister and archbishop – under section 5 of the Public Order Act?

Don't be absurd, you say. But would it be any more absurd than a student being arrested under section 5 for saying to a mounted policeman: "Excuse me, do you realise your horse is gay?", or the 19-year-old Kyle Little, charged and convicted – though then cleared on appeal – for delivering what was described as a "daft little growl" and a woof at two labradors? Or a 15-year-old summonsed for holding up a sign outside the Church of Scientology's central London headquarters saying: "Scientology is not a religion. It is a dangerous cult"? (I repeat those exact words here, as my own. Officer, you know where to find me.)

Then there was the gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, arrested and charged for shouting slogans and displaying placards condemning the persecution of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual people by Islamic governments, during a protest at a Hizb ut-Tahrir rally. And an evangelical Christian preacher who was convicted and fined for holding up a home-made sign that, beside the motto "Jesus is Lord", proclaimed: "Stop immorality, stop homosexuality, stop lesbianism."


All these are real cases of British police abuse of a law so loosely worded that it invites such abuse. That is why a campaign to reform section 5 was recently launched by an unusual coalition of Christians, atheists, gay rights activists and politicians of all stripes. But if we want a transparent, secure platform for freedom of expression in Britain, we need to go further.

Section 5 of the 1986 Public Order Act says a person "is guilty of an offence if he (a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or (b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting, within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby".

There are two things wrong with this catch-all wording. First, unlike section 4 of the same act, and Britain's legislation on incitement to hatred on grounds of religion or sexual orientation, it does not require evidence of an intention to cause harassment, alarm or distress. The standard is just "likely to". Who decides what is "likely to" be caused harassment, alarm or distress? On the street, the police do.

Yes, the Crown Prosecution Service may then choose not to prosecute, or the court may throw the case out – this is not Ukraine – but the 15-year-old making an entirely reasonable point, or the student telling a bad joke, will in the meantime themselves have been subjected to unwarranted alarm and distress. A law that aspires to prevent harassment has become a licence for the harassment of ordinary citizens by the police.

Then there is the word "insulting". The government has opposed its removal partly on the grounds that the courts would have the invidious task of distinguishing between the merely insulting and the abusive or threatening.

In a legal opinion written last year, Lord (Ken) Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, comprehensively demolishes this objection. It is perfectly possible to distinguish between the meanings of words; that is what judges do all the time; and "insulting" is a word too far. In a free society, we should be free (though self-evidently not obliged) to insult, but not to threaten or abuse.

To make this country's free speech laws clear, liberal and consistent, we should not only remove the word "insulting" from section 5: we should repeal section 5 in its entirety. (Arguably, we should also remove the word "insulting" from section 4, although that quite rightly deals with real threats of violence.) We should also restore the requirement of proving bad intention (which was there until 1976) to the wording on incitement to racial hatred, making it consistent with the law on incitement to hatred on grounds of religion or sexual orientation. A mature, multicultural country must be capable of free speech laws that consistently require that, whatever the human difference at issue, the harassment, alarm or distress should be both intended and likely.

I was able to find a more recent article, that encouragingly, supported free speech as well. Not so far left then, The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...n-state-speech

Even those with the vilest of views have the right to be heard

Martin Sellner is a nasty piece of work. The Austrian is a leader of the Generation Identity white nationalist movement and of Defend Europe, an organisation that tries to stop NGO boats from saving migrants drowning in the Med. His partner, the American Brittany Pettibone, is a writer and vlogger who sees immigration as “white genocide”. Lauren Southern is a Canadian journalist who moves in far-right circles. Hitler, according to Southern, “was just an SJW [social justice warrior] who happened to get freaky amounts of power”.Over the past two weeks, all three have been barred from entering Britain. Their views, they were told, were unacceptable and their presence in Britain not “conducive to the public good”.

Sellner, Pettibone and Southern are all odious characters. I loathe their anti-immigrant rhetoric. I despair of their tirades against Muslims. But I also think that all three have the right to be as loathsome and obnoxious as they wish to be. Even scumbags should not be barred for thought crimes.

Anti-racists in particular should be wary of such bans. Censorious laws that some applaud when applied to the far right inevitably get turned on to the left and anti-racists. The 1965 Race Relations Act introduced Britain’s first legal ban on the incitement of racial hatred. Among the first people convicted under its provisions was the black power activist Michael X.

The 1936 Public Order Act, brought in to control Oswald Mosley’s fascists, became used after the war to target trade unionists – most notoriously during the miners’ strike of 1984-85 – and anti-fascist demonstrations in the 1970s and 1980s.

If we allow the state to define the limits of acceptable speech, it will not just be speech to which we object that gets curtailed.

^^^^Those bottom three paragraphs

If you want the far right to be censured, don’t hold your breath for when these authoritarian laws will be used against yourself.

Edit2: The Asher’s case encompasses it perfectly.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...ts-of-freedom/

In seeking to create a more open-minded society that accepts previously illicit predilections, we have merely replaced one set of intolerances with another. In particular, we have abandoned two of the fundamental principles that underpin our democracy and our liberties: freedom of expression and equality under the law.

...If they baked cakes for other people carrying messages, they could not then pick and choose which ones to provide based upon their own personal preferences. “Anyone who applies a religious aspect or a political aspect to the provision of services may be caught by equality legislation,” the court declared.

But is this really true? If I went to a Muslim bakery and asked for a cake depicting the Prophet Mohammed and the shop declined to provide it, or if I asked a gay printer to produce a poster denouncing homosexuals and he refused, would the businesses be prosecuted? Far more likely, given that I have no minority status, is that I would be charged under separate “hate crime” legislation of seeking to cause distress to others because of their religious or sexual orientation.

Moreover, the judges said putting a slogan on a cake did not amount to approbation of the message. A Hallowe’en cake with a witches design did not mean the bakers supported witchcraft. Really? Imagine, for instance, that they had iced a racist slogan or a swastika on the cake: would the courts let them off if they maintained they did not mean it? Would it really then have been the customer’s responsibility and not the baker’s?

It seems enforced equality and individual freedom are incompatible.

There is no issue surrounding the legality of witchcraft; but in Northern Ireland, gay marriage remains illegal, as it was in the rest of the UK until two years ago. People are entitled to have a view on whether it should be permissible without the law interfering, otherwise we are entering the Orwellian realms of Thoughtcrime.

People call me dramatic for calling things Orwellian, but there it ing is right there in The Telegraph.

[Aexodus]

Coercion is a form of expression, I would literally be expressing a demand. There are plenty of legal ways to coerce someone, to an extent. Speech is speech. It isn't an absolutely free thing, we accept practical limitations on it.

I think we’ve estabilished free speech isn’t absolute.

I think you are missing my point, which is that some speech is limited in a way which society considers good.

That is a very simplistic way of putting it, which misses the mark in my opinion.

That and you can't magically consider some expressions as "not speech" because of it's practical limitations, as if Speech is an absolute.

?

Is that an average sentencing? I am being serious, I am not as near as familiar with UK Law as US and don't know the wording of the law in reference. I am more responding to the claim that thousands of people in the UK are arrested over "offensive comments" which conjures up images of thousands of people sitting in prison because of comments they made online. That doesn't seem to be the case at all.

I’m not sure why you care so much about the sentencing, but here’s the exact law in question https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/12

Police detain and question 3,300 people in a year over online comments

Surely the fact that people are getting arrested at all for edgy jokes in the first place is worrying, right?

Except that we do have freedom of speech.

Point to me where we have freedom of speech as an enshrined right. The right that would have stopped hate speech laws, snoopers charter, the Leveson inquiry...

UK among worst in europe for press freedom

https://reason.com/archives/2015/04/...in-britain/amp

And generally, free speech has declined in the west, as mentioned in the Democracy Index report.
http://pages.eiu.com/rs/753-RIQ-438/...Index_2017.pdf

The state in many countries plays a prominent role in curtailing freedom of the media and of expression. Governments, in democratic as well as authoritarian countries, are deploying defamation laws, prevention of terrorism laws, blasphemy and “hate speech” laws to curb freedom of expression and stymie media freedom. Non-state actors, including militant Islamists, criminal gangs and vested interests also pose a growing threat to free speech, using intimidation, threats, violence and murder. Freedom of expression is also under threat from those who claim the right not to be o ended. This is leading to growing calls for “safe spaces”, “trigger warnings”, “hate speech” laws, no-platforming, tabloid newspaper bans and the policing of the internet to cleanse it of “o ensive” content...

...It is not just the usual suspects, however, who have been undermining media freedom. Western governments have introduced curbs on freedom of expression and restrictions on the electronic and print media, citing national security, the need to protect data privacy, the alleged preponderance of “fake news” and the spread of o ensive material on social media platforms. The UK and France have both paved the way for potential infringements of media freedom in the name of increased security. France criminalised “the defence of terrorism” in 2014 and has since enforced the law more stringently with every successive terrorist attack. In November 2017 France incorporated into law ( in the form of a new counter-terrorism bill) many state-of-emergency powers, including giving the state the power to shut down places of worship for up to six months if it detects ideas, theories, sermons or activities that encourage or cause violence or acts of terrorism in France or abroad. The law has been widely criticised for its potential to undermine civil liberties, including freedom of expression.
The UK’s anti-terror laws have also been widely criticised for curbing the exercise of freedom of expression in the name of protecting public order and national security. A vague and wide de nition of the term terrorism means that the law can be deployed to clamp down on a wide range of social and political protests. For example, recent legislation outlaws “indirect encouragement” or “other inducement” of terrorism. These imprecise and broad prohibitions have the potential to criminalise freedom of expression and could curb debate about issues of public interest.

An obsession with surveillance and a professed concern about violations of the right to the con dentiality of sources have also hobbled the media in several countries. The UK introduced a new data protection bill to parliament in December 2017 that will almost certainly undermine the ability of journalists to pursue investigative and public interest reporting. Clause 164 of the bill gives those being investigated the right to delay or stop journalistic reports before they are shown or published. At the same time the UK has passed one of the most draconian surveillance laws of any democracy, seriously undermining the rights of its citizens to privacy and freedom of expression.

[95thrifleman]

Point to me where we have freedom of speech as an enshrined right. The right that would have stopped hate speech laws, snoopers charter, the Leveson inquiry...

Magna Carta
Bill of Rights 1689 (still in effect)
Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998
Defamation Act 2013

We have free speech in the UK. Where some people get their knickers in a twist is we also have laws preventing hate speech and because they want the right to threaten, insult and march with swastikas as in the USA, they claim we don't have free speech.

You have the right to say islam advocates violence and point out the various koranic verses. You don't have the right to say all muslims are rapist sandn***ers.

[Aexodus]

Magna Carta
Bill of Rights 1689 (still in effect)
Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998
Defamation Act 2013

None of those documents guarantee free speech.

We have free speech in the UK.

No we don’t

Where some people get their knickers in a twist is we also have laws preventing hate speech

..because hate speech is free speech

and because they want the right to threaten

Who wants the right to threaten?

insult

Well banning harmless insults is rather puritan don’t you think? If someone called someone else a wee taig, should that be prisonable in your opinion?

read this http://www.nbcnews.com/id/11205158/n...ughing-matter/

and this
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...blic-order-act

and march with swastikas as in the USA, they claim we don't have free speech.

Well tell me why they shouldn’t be able to. Personally if there’s Nazis I’d like to know who they are. I’m sure you will agree the social consequences of such an act should suffice.

You have the right to say islam advocates violence and point out the various koranic verses.

No reason why not

You don't have the right to say all muslims are rapist sandn***ers.

What if it’s for a joke? Should I be prosecuted then?

Check out these selected cases, was it right they were prosecuted for being offensive?

[Infidel144]

You have the right to say islam advocates violence and point out the various koranic verses. You don't have the right to say all muslims are rapist sandn***ers.

Do you have the right to say "some muslims are rapist sandn***ers"?

[Genghis Skahn]

We have free speech in the UK. Where some people get their knickers in a twist is we also have laws preventing hate speech and because they want the right to threaten, insult and march with swastikas as in the USA, they claim we don't have free speech.

No you don't, and it's pretty clear if you think the UK has free speech that you don't understand what free speech really is. Quite frankly, you're being seriously intellectually dishonest about what free speech really is if you believe the crap which comes out of your keyboard. Just because the UK has enough free speech for you personally, does NOT in any way shape or form mean that the UK has good speech laws or true free speech. It simply means that you don't speak that often about controversial topics.

Post #913 alone provides more than enough evidence of absence of free speech in the UK(from non-right sources such as The Guardian even!). None of those issues which were written about would ever occur in a country which has true free speech. You would never get arrested for saying "Scientology is not a religion. It's a dangerous cult" or "Excuse me, do you realize that your horse is gay?" in a country with real free speech. Do you understand? A. Man. Called. A. Horse. Gay. And. Got. Arrested.(it doesn't matter if he wasn't charged--getting arrested can still have a negative impact on your life) That doesn't happen in countries with proper speech laws. It DOES happen in countries with idiotically authoritarian speech laws though. Well Mr. Royalist, you can keep believing that mommy UK has your best interests at heart, but when a man gets charged for calling a horse gay, alarm bells ring off in the heads of free-thinking people who actually give a damn about free speech. And especially when the police state:

"He made homophobic comments that were deemed offensive to people passing by."

Lol ok guys, calling a horse gay is offensive and homophobic. For all of Canada's lack of free speech and the online controversy surrounding several court decisions which have curtailed free speech in this country(Canada doesn't have real free speech, but I believe it has much more freedom of expression than the UK), I struggle to believe that any Canadian citizen would be arrested for calling a horse gay. But then again, our police officers also don't advocate that we turn over all our firearms to "make their job easier and safer" like the UK police do--so it's already been shown in the past that the Canadian police don't possess as strong an authoritarian streak as the UK police do(disregarding the sheer lack of surveillance cameras in this country when compared to Big Brother UK).

Well, it's a good thing the extremely informative documentary "Going Clear" was made in the US, because if it was made in the UK the creators might have been arrested/charged under the UK's retarded speech laws(the movie might not directly state that Scientology is a cult, but it heavily implies as such and is VERY harmful to Scientology's image) for insulting Scientologists. In fact, the Church of Scientology blocked the book's sale, upon which the documentary is based, in the UK and Ireland:

Sky Atlantic, a co-distributor of the film, along with HBO Documentary Films, originally planned to broadcast Going Clear in the UK and Ireland soon after its US TV première. However, this was stalled due to potential legal problems. Because Northern Ireland is not subject to the Defamation Act 2013, which reformed the libel laws in other parts of the UK, and because Sky cannot differentiate its signal between regions, the film may be subject to legal challenge in Northern Ireland. The Church of Scientology successfully blocked the publication or distribution of the original book Going Clear in the UK and Ireland and indicated a willingness to sue broadcasters, saying in a statement that it "will be entitled to seek the protection of both UK and Irish libel laws in the event that any false or defamatory content in this film is broadcast within these jurisdictions."^[28]

The film eventually received a low-key release in June 2015 in 18 theaters in England and Scotland.^[22] It was broadcast on Sky Atlantic in the UK and Ireland, including Northern Ireland, on September 21, 2015, and attracted 88,000 overnight viewers.^[29] By the start of October it had become Sky's most-watched documentary for three years, attracting a peak audience of 313,000 viewers and an average of 243,000 including catchup viewing.^[30]

At the same time the UK has passed one of the most draconian surveillance laws of any democracy, seriously undermining the rights of its citizens to privacy and freedom of expression.

Also, 9 people per day would not get detained over "online comments" in countries with real free speech protection(3,300 yearly). Talk about bloating your legal system with absolute nonsense.

About half of the investigations were dropped before prosecutions were brought, however, leading to criticism from civil liberties campaigners that the authorities are over-policing the internet and threatening free speech.

A man was charged and fined over making a video about his gf's "nazi dog" and somehow you still have free speech? Yeah, ok bud. Whatevvvvvver you say.

Where some people get their knickers in a twist is we also have laws preventing hate speech

Fundamental problem: who defines hate? That's the existential problem with hate speech laws and what's so ridiculous about them. It is NOT easy or simple in any way shape or form to correctly distinguish between free and hate speech; people(like yourself) need to stop pretending like hate speech is easy to define. It's not, and if you're not careful with these hate speech laws(clearly the UK hasn't been careful enough with it's own speech laws) LOTS of innocent people will be arrested and even perhaps charged over absolutely nothing worth writing home about.

From this thread US President Orders European Vassals To Pay For NATO



Again by thrifleman, responding to post #165:

Are you sue that's the UK? I keep being told my nation is some kind of fascist police state that doesn't have free speech.

Once again demonstrating your lack of understanding of what free speech really is, but nice try. Free speech laws exist to protect controversial and unpopular speech(this is basic knowledge for the free speech debate). There is nothing controversial about screaming "DRUMPF" and protesting against him. Since day one of his election, it's been a mainstream opinion and idea to be outraged and angry at Trump(especially true for most mainstream media outlets), even in the UK(just like how it's a mainstream opinion to be totally anti-Brexit--it's not controversial at all, as opposed to being a brexiteer). That sort of speech is protected by popular opinion, and thus doesn't really need the protection of the law. Moreover, it's abundantly clear that many in both the Press of the UK and the UK government, let alone Europe itself which is largely anti-Trump save for the populists, totally support the idea of rage against Trump, so yeah, definitely not particularly controversial for this protesting to be going on. Free speech laws exist to protect controversial and unpopular speech, since the mob will always protect popular speech(except in cases of extreme authoritarianism, essentially). This is why the law's intervention is necessary for controversial and unpopular speech, and why the 1st Amendment was put into place, so that unpopular/controversial opinions would not be censored, since the mob WILL try to censor them, while protecting it's own preferred opinions.

[joethepro36]

It's all so tiresome, it makes me want to emigrate to the USA where its constitutionally protected. If you want to understand those who think we have freedom of speech at the moment, all you need to do is query them on their political positions. If their positions are broadly liberal and permissive, in line with the core of establishment politics then you'll find they have no issues because nothing they say is controversial. Yet if your views are in the minority, unpopular or controversial, suddenly you're faced with the very real threat of job losses or even criminal charges. I know going into work every day that when discussing certain issues, I have to keep my mouth shut or I will lose my job. To go against the mantra of equality and diversity as two polemic buzzwords that represent so much, is to effectively commit economic suicide. The same people here who support hate crime legislation will likely tell me I deserve it, that somehow I shouldn't be permitted to speak on issues because I'm bigoted/uneducated/racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic etc. Note the use of shaming language and vague "you're causing harm" platitudes instead of evidence, factual information or a realistic sense of harm. An off colour remark can be treated like GBH to some thin skinned people. The very act of saying "I don't think male to female transgenders are women" or "Men and women have different biologies that lend to differences in job preference and activities" or "different ethnic groups have different average IQ scores", will get me fired at the least should it be known I hold such views. After all, while in our discourse here I have no consequences, in the workplace I'd fall a foul of the diversity and inclusion policies, now universal across almost all companies. Of course to say this is limited to the private sector is absurd, it's far more prevalent in the public sector.

You're effectively a political dissident when you'll engage with any kind of controversial views. Ministers look to legislate law that would criminalise the viewing of ISIS material of any kind. We've had cases where edgy jokes means a conviction for hate speech. If you have to water down everything you say because you say it you're not putting on a filter so you don't just blurt out crap, you're self censoring before you even speak. The most insidious kind of censorship, because the very thought alone is not permissible within your own mind. You have to catch yourself thinking something politically incorrect and then wonder "oh god should I even say it at all?". Meanwhile people will tell you that you've got freedom of speech. I remember a lecture by the late Johnathan Bowden and he told an anecdote on the subject of walking in a forest in the countryside with a friend and the friend stopped and looked over his shoulder before making a politically incorrect remark. Such is the nature of our "freedom of speech", we keep our eyes and ears poised to pick up where the metaphoric telescreens and microphones are. Of course if your opinions are fully mainstream and you don't question the liberal narrative you'll never notice it. I have to limit my professional life's exposure to even what I write here. One unkind remark and down you go, forever ostracised. I try to imagine what its like surrounding yourself with people who are like preying cats wanting to pounce on any out of line opinion you have and forever eject you from the group or lower your social standing. Can you dissent in such a group? Can you bring evidence that contradicts the narrative to light?

All we see is merely the start but what I would say that rings with a delicious feel of schadenfreude is that such law used to criminalise and marginalise opinion held at the moment will be used in the complete opposite political way later. You think just "criminalising hate" and the like will be all that will be from this age, well what comes later is someone who has different political ideas who start to do things like "protecting our youth from LGBT promotion/feminist agenda/marxism/open borders initatives" and it's all justified because the precedent of silencing people for inappropriate opinion has been set. Then when you find yourself a political dissident in such a situation, only then do you find the value of free speech and begin to really understand what it means.

[Papay]

No country in the world has absolute free speech. No one. If i start verbally insult people on the street i will get arrested. There should be a balance between promoting free speech for everyone and protecting the public from fake news and hate speech.