is there any reliable source for that "going to jail in europe for posting memes"? I keep seeing this argument in online arguments, but can not find a credible source
https://reason.com/2024/10/17/british-man-convicted-of-crimi...
(An example of something that might be perceived by some as a judicial over-reaction based on perceived offensiveness to others.)
Seems similar to the German law that makes it illegal to wear politcal symbols or talk politics outside of polling places. There is an undefined "buffer zone" outside of the voting location where, if you display political symbols, you will be arrested. This is a limitation of freedom of expression, but IMHO it makes total sense.
"On the day, he was asked to leave the area by a community officer who spoke to him for an hour and 40 minutes - but he refused."
The US has much stronger free speech protections than Europe. (At least for now.)
- The Crown Prosecution Service
https://www.cps.gov.uk/north-west/news/man-jailed-offensive-...
- Benjamin Franklin
This is why we fought a war to be separate from your "wretched" country. You're justifying jail time for racist speech!
Ironic coming from a future slave owner. He did become an abolitionist, after travelling to France and England and being exposed to some, for Americans, pretty radical ideas.
For inciting further civil unrest during civil unrest.
Kinda weird to just cherry pick some things from my post.
As a liberal, your attitude is exactly what got US democrats steamrolled in the latest election.
The issue is the harassment. Most of these cases are baseless and get dropped once presented to the public prosecutor. But it puts unwarranted stress on people who just opened their mouth, regardless if I disagree with what they had said.
If these cases were moved forward, they could end up in front of the European Court of Human Rights, where Germany and Austria are among the worst offenders[1] when it comes to the article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights[2], which grantees free speech in the EU.
Usually these individual cases are used by neo-conservatives to criticize Europe and describe it as (their words) "a socialist hellhole."
While this argument (= "there is no free speech in Europe") might be based on some truth, and while I agree that the free speech situation in most of Europe could be improved, I think it is grossly exaggerated.
[1] https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/#{%22languageisocode%22:[%22ENG%2...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_R...
"Meechan was sentenced to a fine of £800, with no prison sentence." i mean his video probably made more money than that...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/count-dankula-na...
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/judge-right-to-award-lying-...
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43478925
https://www.cheshire.police.uk/news/cheshire/news/articles/2...
These things seem abhorrent to Americans who have nearly unlimited free speech protection.
About those second 2 guys, what's that phrase that americans like so much? Fuck around and find out. I think the US, even in their nearly unlimited free speech, has similar laws in regards to inciting violence. Defamation, slander, fighting words, are also not protected by free speech. So really, the only difference between the US and UK is that the UK does not allow hate speech.
Germany has some more regulations, but the real significant difference seems to be about not being allowed to display nazi symbols or denying the holocaust.
- Nazi pug man got a fine of £800; no jail.
- Cheshire people; in the context of rioting and the consequences of rioting.
For the record I think (personal view only) that the Nazi pug man should never have been prosecuted, I personally find it grossly offensive but I think that the harm of stopping people saying these things is greater than the harm of the idiot saying them.
The Cheshire thing I find much more serious, it seemed to me that this was about people calling for other people to get hurt and killed. Is it really the case that it's ok to threaten people or to call for violence against a community in the USA?
Also, what about folks like Snowdon and Assange? I mean if freedom of speech is absolute in the USA why can't they just tell the CCP about USA nuclear control?
Why do people constantly and intentionally misconstrue arguments? It's so obnoxious and intellectually dishonest. I didn't say it was absolute. It's like people can't even have a conversation anymore without dealing with this.
>I think that the harm of stopping people saying these things is greater than the harm of the idiot saying them.
Oh, so you're a Nazi sympathizer? See how annoying that is when people intentionally misconstrue arguments?
I know it's a habit these days with the news and I don't mean to jump on your shit, it's quite common; but it's bleeding into person to person conversation and you just can't have any meaningful conversation this way.
> Also, what about folks like Snowdon and Assange? I mean if freedom of speech is absolute in the USA why can't they just tell the CCP about USA nuclear control?
I said it was near unlimited protection and he claimed I said it was absolute so he could make a counter argument. He intentionally misconstrued my argument to make a counter argument. What am I supposed to do, defend and argument I didn't make? It kills any conversation or sharing of ideas. It's annoying.
The news does this all the time.
In cases like that, courts in the US make the determination as to whether the speech is protected based on whether it may cause “imminent lawless action”—hard to say in the Cheshire case without seeing what they were actually posting, but encouraging people to start violent riots would not be protected in the US either. There are plenty of cases of people getting arrested in the US for Facebook posts inciting violence.
US woman arrested for allegedly threatening health firm: ‘Delay, deny, depose’
is this equivalent of EU meme jailing?
https://web.archive.org/web/20070315091415/http://news.com.c...
"Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person...who receives the communications...shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."
Drawn up in 2005, passed by Bush in 2006.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/social-media-influencer...
This “arrested for a meme” meme is so dumb. What’s important is the content of the meme, not the fact that it’s a meme.
From what I hear from acquaintances and social media, the UK is even worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bMzFDpfDwc
Still, the author of the original article has some pretty polarising and crude views, and I think it's valuable to keep that context in mind. The key is not to be lazy and just dismiss everything that doesn't come from the smoothest PR media personality.
For me, it felt like reading a frustrated author arguing against over-reliance on the service sector as an economy, given the dependencies it creates. There is certainly nationalism, realism/geopolitical views and a somewhat raw criticism of the current monetary system in the mix. The author sprinkles a lot of cultural references all over it and concludes with a tongue-in-cheek hint at an accelerationist strategy.
.. based on that random blogpost I probably still wouldn't buy any gold just yet.
(Trump also just tweeted that activists will be imprisoned)
Seems like this was not just about posting memes.
Notice also that the poster was only accused, not found liable or convicted. That means almost nothing - you can accuse anyone of anything.
Notice also the guilt by association, where the possibility of the poster committing violence (which isn't impossible) is used to try to invalidate their right to speech.
Yours is the only reply (yet) that talks about Palestine, that I find much more interesting in this context. It should be noted that pro palestinian protesters have been arrested in the US too, so I don't know if it's really a good point when comparing "freedom of speech" between the US and Germany.
Unless what you meant was "freedom of speech" is an illusions and Americans are deluded into thinking they have more of it.
Context and content is important. There are limits to allowable speech (yes, even in the USA) and if you transgress that you can be breaking the law.
No, she was not fined for posting crime statistics [0].
> Kaiser published a tile on her social media accounts with the text "Afghanistan refugees; Hamburg SPD mayor for 'unbureaucratic' admission; Welcome culture for gang rapes?"
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_Kaiser...
She was found guilty of reinforcing negative stereotypes and by doing so she "violated the human dignity of a distinct group of Afghan refugees".
Where is the line between having anti-immigration politics and harming refugees? If free speech means anything it should at least protect political opinions, and that includes politics many of us find distasteful or racist.
Dragging somebody through the courts and fining them heavily for a simple social media post is pretty extreme. If her post was deserving of a €6000 fine what kind of commentary will get you fined €1000? Which opinions will get you a visit from the cops and a stern talking to? Who decides where the line is between acceptable political opinion and unacceptable hate speech? How are regular people supposed to tell the difference? Or are regular people just expected not talk about controversial subjects at all if they can't afford to pay a €6000 fine?
Simple cute social media post where she equates afghan refugees to gang rapists.
> Which opinions will get you a visit from the cops and a stern talking to?
Racist ones that leads to violence. Argument started from "going to jail in europe for posting memes" to "posting statistics" to blatant racist xenophobic stereotyping punished via financial penalty. Free speech crusade came all the way to this goal post.
It's no coincidence that the laws used to punish people for speech are exceptionally vague. There is no clearly defined benchmark of harm. In fact harm does not need to be demonstrated at all. Simply asserting without evidence that a blog "leads to violence" is sufficient for those who don't believe in free speech.
I also think that such laws almost have to be kind of vague by necessity, because the agitators will just try and be clever for plausible deniability. The idea is that a judge will rule on it, and the accused gets legal representation to defend their case. Of course you can always find some case where you may think the ruling was too harsh (or too lenient), but overall, the system seems to work pretty well. You really have to dig deep to find one or two iffy cases.
- Wikipedia
You're ok with that?!
I strongly believe that inciting hate and violence against others should have consequences. And I'm glad to live in a place where society decided that there is no place for such things. We're not talking about political opinions here, but hate speech with clear intention to cause harm.
People have been jailed for racist rioting and planning racist riots, but not many people in the UK see that as a bad thing.
The climate change prisoners are getting a lot more support.
The US imprisons countless black people every year for the flimsiest reasons with questionable due process, in for-profit prisons, some of which have been caught operating with kickbacks for judges.
Also, Aaron Swartz.
And multiple arrests of journalists.
https://pressfreedomtracker.us/blog/journalists-arrested-in-...
The idea that the US is some kind of utopian beacon of free speech while the rest of the world is authoritarian and repressive is utter nonsense.
This is a factually false. The recent UK riots were largely about protesting violence (stabbings, killings, rape (which increased by a factor of 4.3 over 13 years, closely correlated to migration) and unchecked immigration (which is unpopular and opposed by a large fraction of the population, from someone who lived there).
These are, factually, not issues of racism - they are humans rights (in the case of the violence) and extremely reasonable political positions (in the case of cutting down immigration), and it's intentionally and maliciously deceptive to claim that they're "racism".
Yes, it's likely that some number of people at the riots were there because they were racist. No, the majority of the protestors were not there for that reason, and claiming that that small fraction makes the riots "racist" (not that that's even a coherent statement to make in the first place) is a lie.
Additionally, it's also a lie to claim that only people participating in or planning the riots were jailed - "A judge has warned that anybody present at a riot will be remanded in custody, even if they were only a “curious observer”"[1], which was actually implemented, with documented video evidence of people getting arrested for merely filming the protests and police, with no participation[2].
It's deeply evil to defend the UK government's behavior here.
> The idea that the US
This is the tu quoque fallacy, in addition to being irrelevant - the topic is the UK and EU on free speech, not the UK.
This whole comment is just a tangle of lies, fallacies, and emotional manipulation.
[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/09/judge-refuses-ba...