The thing that boggles my mind most is the UK libel laws where stating a true, verifiable fact can be illegal if it makes the subject look bad. Someone tell me I’ve got that wrong.
https://reason.com/2024/10/17/british-man-convicted-of-crimi...
> 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.
If his message to the council said he’d be standing there reading the newspaper, would the arrest and conviction have been made?
The PSPO specifically prohibited activity in favour or against abortion services, including protests, harassment and vigils. He was blatantly holding a vigil and even then, I expect he could have just moved on when asked and faced no charges. Reading a newspaper would be fine, obviously, unless he specifically concocted his own newspaper with slogans on it which would then surely be a protest of some kind.
It's not a difficult concept to understand and nothing to do with trying to police people's thought, but merely stopping the harassment that would otherwise take place. This particular incident would not have happened if the individual was praying somewhere else or not making a particular point about praying exactly where it would harass people using the clinic.
It's fine to have religious beliefs, but it's not fine to go around imposing those beliefs on others - that's how a lot of wars get started.
Truth is a _defence_ against libel.
Do go have a quick conversation with your favorite AI about this. Ask if anyone in the UK has ever been punished for saying a true thing, and whether the cost on the defendant to prove innocence is not so exorbitant as to allow libel to be weaponized by the wealthy against their critics.