Hacker News Reader

Comment by pjfin123 | Hacker News Reader

My guestimate.

The whole above thread is litigating the number of people in the U.K. arrested for speech crimes. It's hard to put an exact number on it but it seems like low single digit thousands (1k-5k).

The numbers from Russia are even more murky but it appears they're arresting a few hundred people a year for speech crimes (150-600). - https://apnews.com/general-news-0274242811894097a9d79f789002... - https://www.hrw.org/video-photos/interactive/2022/08/22/what...

Russia has about double the population of the U.K. so per capita numbers are even more stark.

View on HN

So you're wildly exaggerating, then.

Both by equating the number "imprisoned" (which suggests an actual conviction and jail term) with the number simply "arrested". The distinction is important, because when I did check a source, it suggested that the vast majority of convictions under existing statutes resulted in fines rather than jail sentences.

And then by conflating the UK's legislation (which, whatever you make of it, is essential non-political, and covers forms of communication that most people would agree are basically "harmful" even though they would be opposed to a ban on them) with the restrictions in Russia, which are of course highly political (as indicated by the article you linked to), and not related to protecting anyone from harm in any meaningful sense.

That is: the UK's idea of harmful speech is that which promotes "terror, hate, fraud, child sexual abuse and assisting or encouraging suicide". Whereas in Russia, per one of your articles, it's stuff like this:

    Anastasia Bubeyeva shows a screenshot on her computer of a picture of a toothpaste tube with the words: “Squeeze Russia out of yourself!” For sharing this picture on a social media site with his 12 friends, her husband was sentenced this month to more than two years in prison.

Do you not see a major, categorical distinction here?

The point is that Russia is supposed to be a "totalitarian state". The UK is supposed to be a modern Western democracy with "freedom of expression" (which isn't freedom of speech). The whole point is that there really shouldn't be any speech related offences at all. These arrests should not happen in the first place. Many of these arrests do end up with prosecutions as well.

> And then by conflating the UK's legislation (which, whatever you make of it, is essential non-political, and covers forms of communication that most people would agree are basically "harmful" even though they would be opposed to a ban on them) with the restrictions in Russia, which are of course highly political (as indicated by the article you linked to), and not related to protecting anyone from harm in any meaningful sense.

They specifically say that certain forms of speech are prohibited, that includes political speech that you and I might find detestable. That speech you may find offence but it is still political speech. Some of it includes opposition against Israel's military campaigns in Palestine.

What most people agree is "harmful" isn't objective measure.

> That is: the UK's idea of harmful speech is that which promotes "terror, hate, fraud, child sexual abuse and assisting or encouraging suicide"

Terror and hate are nebulous terms that are entirely subjective. Pretending that they are somehow objective is what everyone does when they side with the UK government on this issue and they use the same nebulous terminology as the UK government such as "harmful". Speech cannot be harmful in itself. The vast majority of adults outside of mentally disabled have their own agency. People choose how to react to speech.

Also notice you also groped speech related offences with things that should be banned like CSAM material and things that are already illegal (fraud).

> Anastasia Bubeyeva shows a screenshot on her computer of a picture of a toothpaste tube with the words: “Squeeze Russia out of yourself!” For sharing this picture on a social media site with his 12 friends, her husband was sentenced this month to more than two years in prison.

That isn't actually fundamentally different to what happens in the UK. So no I don't see the difference. It so funny that you think it is a gotcha and it really isn't.

Some of it includes opposition against Israel's military campaigns in Palestine.

First off, this is in regard to an entirely different piece of legislation (the Terrorism Act of 2000). But more importantly, you are making a very significant distortion here.

No, people do not get arrested under this Act for holding up signs saying "IDF bad". Or otherwise for "opposing Israel's military campaigns" like you are describing.

Instead they get arrested for things like making statements which seem to indicate support for groups like Hamas, or for "Palestinian resistance" generally. Per the actual language of the act, "expressing a belief in support of a proscribed organistion."

You can be opposed to the Terrorism Act if you want to, and I would happen to agree with you - it is a horrible piece of legislation.

But the bigger point (for now) is -- the actual situation, in terms of what the Act prohibits, is very different from what you're describing.

I'm not saying you're lying. More likely you've ingested some news articles which either intentionally omitted (or never bothered to investigate) key aspects of these cases. It actually takes some digging to find the various people arrested under this Act (folks like Sarah Wilkinson and Richard Medhurst) were actually charged for.

But invariably (at least in the cases I've looked at) it turns out that, lo and behold, these people actually did make statements online that were clearly "in support of proscribed organisations". In the Medhurst's case, for example:

   ”Hamas are fighting the same war of national liberation against an occupying power. It is their moral and legal right.”

Which is rather different from simply indicating "opposition against Israel's military campaigns in Palestine".

Your response is chock full of weird distortions like this -- way too many to unpack and patiently analyze.

Point being: if this is how the truth gets mangled and distorted inside your own head; or you simply choose not to vet and fact-check your sources, at least once in a while -- then that's a situation which you've created for yourself. Not the doing of some totalitarian government, or any other kind of external bully.

> Your response is chock full of weird distortions like this -- way too many to unpack and patiently analyze.

No it isn't. If you can't explain what the issue is with my logic then what you are saying is utterly unconvincing. I was largely correct about everything I have claimed. I will grant you I may get minutia wrong, but that doesn't take away from the general point that I am making.

> Point being: if this is how the truth gets mangled and distorted inside your own head; or you simply choose not to vet and fact-check your sources, at least once in a while -- then that's a situation which you've created for yourself. Not the doing of some totalitarian government, or any other kind of external bully.

No what you are doing is known as gas-lighting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

What you are essentially trying to convince me that I am crazy. I am quite familiar with this form argumentation and I don't appreciate it.

I will redirect you back to the point that was being discussed, because you made several accusations towards me that just aren't true and I am not going bother to address them after you tried gas-lighting me. All I am going to tell you is that I actively avoid news sites these days as I agree they omit information to suit a narrative.

The point being discussed was whether people an alarming number of people were being imprisoned for speech in the UK. Some people have compared Russia and the UK. Russia is ran essentially by a dictator, the UK is a constitution Monarchy and is considered to be modern democracy. The UK is supposed to be better in regards to Russia in a vast number of things, one of those being human rights.

There are three simple facts:

* People in the UK can be and have been punished for speech.

* People in Russia can be and have been punished for speech.

* There is evidence that there are less people per capita being arrested and prosecuted in the Russia for speech than the UK. This has been reported on by a number of news sources which looks like it has come from official numbers.

It does not matter to me what rationale is used for justify that punishment is, I don't believe people should be punished for speech outside of very specific criteria e.g. direct calls for violence (that quote your provided from Richard Medhurst wouldn't fall under that btw) or defamation.

What exact bullshit legislation people have been charged under is something I don't care about. I don't make the distinction. I believe it is to create a chilling effect, and allow the two major parties to prosecute their political rivals.

e.g. There was even talk of prosecuting Nigel Farage (one of the eternal boogiemen) shortly after this year election as the media were trying to pretend he was somehow the cause of the riots earlier this year. I don't like him, but he didn't cause the riots.

What exact bullshit legislation people have been charged under is something I don't care about.

Then that's an irreconcilable difference between us. I happen to think that factual details matter and are very important. Moral narratives, not so much.

What you are essentially trying to convince me that I am crazy.

No, I'm just pointing out some very basic logical gaps in some of the stuff you were saying. Which would suggest that you are, at worst, perhaps a bit underinformed about certain things. Or otherwise not taking as critical an eye to the various media sources you ingest as you perhaps could be.

That's all that need be said. I recommend we give this topic a rest, and move onto other threads.

> Then that's an irreconcilable difference between us. I happen to think that factual details matter and are very important. Moral narratives, not so much.

1) The point I was making is that there shouldn't be any prosecutions of this kind, so what act they are prosecuted under is irrelevant.

2) You then pretending I am arguing a moral narrative when it isn't. I am arguing on principle. That are not the same thing.

BTW I didn't form this opinion from news articles online. I came to this opinion by reading books around the subject, where half of each page is often citations.

> No, I'm just pointing out some very basic logical gaps in some of the stuff you were saying.

No you didn't. You asserted it was so and then told me I imagined half of it. That is literally gas-lighting.

> Which would suggest that you are, at worst, perhaps a bit underinformed about certain things.

You haven't shown that at all. What you did was ignore the point I was trying to make and get into minutia about what act who was being prosecuted under.

This is disingenuous.

> Or otherwise not taking as critical an eye to the various media sources you ingest as you perhaps could be.

I do. You are making the assertion (without evidence) I don't and I don't appreciate it. When the Epstein court documents were released, I read a fair deal of it (it is well over 1000 pages). When Activision was taken to court for sexual discrimination I read the actual complaint submitted to the Californian court. You know why I read the original court documents? I realised I had been lied to before by some media sources (some of those people believe to be credible as well).

So I actually do go to the original source video, document wherever possible.

So your assertions made without evidence are disingenuous.

> That's all that need be said. I recommend we give this topic a rest, and move onto other threads.

Not at all. You tried to gaslight me. You didn't actually engage with anything I said. That is disingenuous.

You know why I read the original court documents? I realised I had been lied to before by some media sources (some of those people believe to be credible as well).

And that's great. So right now I'll formally backpedal for you:

"It seems you are underinformed or not checking your sources, in this particular context."

Otherwise, let's give it a rest please.

No it isn't good enough. I don't appreciate people trying to gaslight me by telling me that I have imagined everything. I said further up in this thread that I am quite fed up of people like yourself pretending the stuff we are talking about isn't happening when it quite clearly is, so you shouldn't be surprised when you get this push back.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com