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Comment by teamonkey | Hacker News Reader

You cannot be arrested for sending “any message online that anyone could find insulting or offensive”. That’s not what the law says. You can be arrested for spreading hate speech, inciting violence, sending illegal media or harassment online.

All of the arrests mentioned in this thread in relation to these acts have been campaigns of intimidation, harassment and calls to violence, not simply saying something “insulting or offensive”.

In the UK political expression of free speech is protected by the ECHR, which overrides both those acts (look carefully who wishes to abolish the ECHR).

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> All of the arrests mentioned in this thread in relation to these acts have been campaigns of intimidation, harassment and calls to violence, not simply saying something “insulting or offensive”

This is false. But even if it weren’t, it would be unjust. Determinations like “hate speech” are subjective, and have no place in law concerning speech. Without free speech, there is no democracy.

There’s a big difference between being free to criticise the government and those who define and enforce laws, and being free to say anything to or about another citizen without repercussion, even if it may cause them harm.

The people mentioned here who were arrested due to violations of the communications acts are definitely the latter. The people arrested in peaceful protests for being associated with Palestine Action or Just Stop Oil are the former.

>In the UK political expression of free speech is protected by the ECHR, which overrides both those acts

This is categorically untrue. Not only is the ECHR worded specifically to allow individual countries to curtail free speech ("any law, deemed by the local democratically elected government as ; necessary in a democratic society, and for a legitimate aim"), but parliament always had sovereignty to pass into law exemptions to the ECHR, which we have done on multiple occasions.

Yes, this is why the government needed to label Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. It needed special measures because it did not in fact have the authority to arrest protestors, even though some people found what they were saying offensive.

The Terrorism Act 2000 was a knee-jerk reaction to the Good Friday agreement and used to make association a criminal offense.

The police are overreaching massively. They are making 30 arrests a day and "interview" many more.

We do not rely on the ECHR to protect our free speech. If we did the UK would no longer be a democracy. I'm offended by the suggestion that our democracy and society is so fragile that without them we would have no rights. Expect a police raid very soon.

The "30 arrests a day" or "12000 arrests a year" stat is wildly misleading. I've addressed it before here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41488099

I think you're being disingenous. There is clearly an unprecedented and systemic effort to police social media. Even if the posts did actually violate the law doesn't change my point or address my concerns. This is not what the police should be doing.

I honestly don't know if that's true or not. But I haven't seen any compelling evidence to support it. The figures being lobbed around by the likes of Tommy Robinson are deeply harmful to the debate because they are both a) completely wrong and b) misleadingly quoted. You can lookt the actual stats here: https://www.met.police.uk/foi-ai/metropolitan-police/disclos...

We're talking on the order of a few hundred arrests per year for section 127 of the Communications Act and 1500 per year for the Malicious Communications Act, which includes stuff like racial harassment, domestic abuse, pedophilic grooming, and a whole host of things that I would hope you agree should be illegal.

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