Love him or hate him, he does make a principled point.
Furthermore, in one call of duty a real event was narrated - although if in a fictional scenario - as if it was made by Russians [2], while in real life it was a us led attack on civilians, prisoners, and non fighting combatants. Google highway of death
Another article that has a broader view on the history of how defense and entertainment sector have ties [3]
[1] https://gamerant.com/call-duty-modern-warfare-recruitment-to... [2] https://www.newsweek.com/call-duty-modern-warfare-highway-de... [3] https://www.thenation.com/article/society/call-of-duty-penta...
That game has no self-awareness at all. US good, Russians bad, must kill bearded brown people.
What COD did to this scene was reprehensible, but it's also important to understand the context for the real attack. The Highway of Death that happened in real life was a targeted strike on Saddam Hussein's retreating forces, most of whom were legitimate targets of war. At the time, Iraq sponsored the 4th largest military in the world, was being bombed in Baghdad, and most of their allies were starting to turn on them over outstanding debts. This pressure pushed Saddam to invade Kuwait, and Saddam's actions pushed the US to destroy as much Iraqi materiel as they could possibly damage.
The attack did happen on a civilian road, but only after the locals became aware that the highway was being used by Saddam's forces. The controversy mostly stems from attacks on a retreating force and the scale of the destruction, both of which are still up for debate on their effectiveness.
I mean I pretty much made my mind up about that one already. It didn’t take a lot of effort.
The developer of the game is complaining about a double standard. Given the fact that we have shooter games glorifying some abhorrent us activities, and we are okay with that, we do have a double standard. We could discuss for ages whether it's wrong or right, but we can't hide behind "oh no it's a terrible thing" because we have been representing terrible things since decades, but this time apparently it's bad because it's not our faction doing the funny (it's not so funny anymore, isn't it?)
Also worth noting that the content of this is considered distasteful among the Muslim community here as well. It makes them look bad too.
Stuff like this sows the seeds of division between the communities.
It’s a wide spectrum. Any extreme of censorship and a complete lack of censorship and control will quickly lead to the decline of society. Nuance is where everything is. No absolutes.
“How can West call itself freedom of speech if I can’t even spew nazi crap, dress as a terrorist or offend women and minorities?!”
The UK had a particular problem with preacher Anjem Choudary [1] indoctrinating followers to be militant islamists. He is reckoned to the be linked to up to 40% of terrorist incidents in the UK (including the 7/7 attacks in London).
Following this period the anti-terror laws were made stronger and "inviting support for a proscribed organisation" became illegal. Presumably that means recruiting either directly or indirectly through speeches.
So, I can understand how this happened. But your summary really only belies your bias I'm afraid, this: "arrested a jewish son of holocaust survivors for hate speech after he denounced Israel as behaving in a genocidal manner" isn't true. Even the article you link states that he was arrested for inviting support for a proscribed organisation. He wasn't arrested for denouncing Israel as behaving in a genocidal manner.
The issue is very emotive and charged. I am not taking sides. But it's often the case that whenever anyone falls foul of laws, that have been designed to protect the people of the UK, either directly from abuse because of who they are, or indirectly via terror, then those affected complain about a lack of freedom of expression.
It seems they didn't charge him, so maybe the police overreached in this instance. I haven't seen the speech, so I can't comment, and certainly I wouldn't defend the UK police as they could certainly do with some reform. But, it's also possible that this was quite a difficult tightrope for the police to walk in terms of the law.
Some of these laws may seem draconian, but the people of this country who are not racially abusing people, or targeting people because of their sexual orientation, or gender, or inviting support for a proscribed terrorist organisation (which is 99.999% of us), will never fall foul of this legislation.
I know Google is hard but you can just look for yourself.
Think about what makes this case different, why it was treated as such, and what the motivations were (Hint: Not related to counter-terrorism).
She lied to suit her own divisive narrative.
Free speech absolutionists are whipping up fervour with divisive rhetoric. It’s as simple as that. In the UK we have free speech rights but also responsibilities. That’s how it should be. Unfettered free speech without a thought to the public and social consequences is reckless imho.
For those that care for facts rather than the divisive rhetoric of twitter: this is a decent overview of the freedom of expression rights and responsibilities in the UK [2]
"In contrast, freedom of speech does not protect statements that discriminate against or harass, or incite hatred or violence against, other persons and groups, particularly by reference to their race, religious belief, gender or sexual orientation. In the UK, this includes laws specifically designed to protect people from suffering abuse on account of who they are."
"My Lords, so-called non-crime hate incidents may have been introduced for perfectly good reasons after the Macpherson inquiry, but last year the police recorded more than 13,000, including some against schoolchildren and others for utterly absurd reasons—I myself was investigated for calling Hamas Islamists" [0]
Essex police foi response demonstrating resources spent on hate incidents https://www.essex.police.uk/foi-ai/essex-police/other-inform...
Ditto met police https://www.met.police.uk/foi-ai/metropolitan-police/disclos...
[0] https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2024-11-19/debates/0DE7E...
It's clear they would have had to use children and not soldiers, had they made this about an Israeli soldier and not a Palestinian one (/s)