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Comment by bargainbin | Hacker News Reader

No, people are being arrested for making malicious communications. They would have suffered the same punishment if they had used email, letter, graffiti on a billboard.

You cannot go around threatening to harm people without repercussions.

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"Malicious communications" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. This veteran was arrested for retweeting this meme (https://abuwjaawap.cloudimg.io/v7/_lgbtqnation-assets_/asset...).

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11066477/Veteran-ar...

He was offered to undergo "re-education." You might not like this meme. You might find it offensive. But should he be arrested by several officers for it? Of course not. This is just one example of many people being being arrested and imprisoned for offending people. It is against the law to offend people in the UK.

Oh yes, the bastion of truth that is the Daily Mail.

Sorry, my eyes just rolled out if my head.

The story is widely reported:

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/irishman-arrested-for-...

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/irishman-arrested...

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/08/03/memes-police-matter...

https://www.hrla.org.au/uk_man_arrested_for_social_media_mem...

Is this normally how you evade things which make you uncomfortable? Attacking the source?

Just Google it. It's been reported on various news sites. eg:

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/irishman-arrested-for-...

Maybe it's not on The Guardian or the BBC but it obviously doesn't fit their bias so you may have to accept other sources.

What this one?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-62352502

Haha, any comments on that? The police didn't even apologize or admit a mistake, they believed they were doing the right thing and just made a waffle statement about "reflects need in our local communities."

Police make mistakes, in some countries they arrest someone trying to incite an arrest and that's bad. In some countries they shoot someone for driving 5mph over the limit, that's worse. The police in the UK do far worse than wrongful arrests so while bad, it's not really on my "top ten problems" list.

They didn't admit it was a mistake. It was what they intended and will continue to do, based on the statements they made.

He was arrested for refusing to allow officers to enter his home on a pre-agreed return visit to discuss the complaints:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/arrest_of_mr_darren_b...

This is why the Daily Mail causes rolled eyes (along with Spiked and the rest of the right-wing agitprop).

Why on earth was he legally obligated to have that discussion in the first place?

Those complaints should have been laughed at and ignored.

The law might be a bad one (and probably is) but on balance better that police investigate suspected illegality than don’t. Overall I’d rather be somewhere where even a former royal can be arrested than somewhere the rule of law is optional.

Re-read what you just linked. In the response from the JIMU:

"A 51-year-old man from Aldershot was arrested on suspicion of sending by public communication network an offensive, indecent, obscene, menacing message or matter."

This is the legal basis for the arrest. Without the retweet, police would not have had authority to turn up to his place of residence - twice - and demand entry. No doubt they preferred Brady voluntarily submit himself for interview at the station, but he refused, which I hope we can all agree is the morally correct position. No one should have police turn up outside their house - TWICE - because of a parody retweet.

Nope. People are certainly being arrested for speech (e.g. opinions) that would be protected by the first amendment in the US.

Guising it under a scary sounding law doesn’t change the nature of it.

Examples please.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/feb/14/transgender-...

[2] https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Scottow-...

”Margaret Dodd of one offence of improper use of a public communications network, contrary to section 127(2)(c) of the Communications Act 2003. This provides that a person commits an offence if “for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another [she] … persistently makes use of a public electronic network”.”

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/dec/23/uk-police-le...

Regarding Graham Linehan who is by far the best example.

[1] is illegal

Not sure what [2] is about.

[3] doesn't appear relevant either.

“Is illegal”

Well yes, that’s my point. :)

2. Is a woman being arrested and charged with causing “anxiety” for a series of tweets.

3. Is the same; wrongthink guised as “threats” etc

If you just want to defend the censorship as is your right then just say so instead doing the usual:

“It’s not happening”

“Ok. It’s happening and that’s a good thing”

Rigmarole and wasting my time.

The people in Europe have a different view of freedom of speech and that’s fine. Not everything that’s a slightly different perspective on freedom of speech and what that entails and includes is tyranny.

I’m European and I do not. France and the UK especially come from the same liberal intellectual root as the USA. What we see today is a bastardisation of these principles in Europe. Only the US was smart enough to canonise it into law.

Yet the US has far worse attacks on free speech. And plenty of European countries also canonised it into law.

Democracy also includes sometimes things not happening the way you want to … happens to me all the time, too.

Obviously free (and not merely democratic societies) need strong protections of minorities and broad freedoms, but I don’t see free speech implementations in Europe broadly infringing on that.

So there is censorship, you just think that it is good. That's fine! But you should own the position and justify it on its own terms instead of pretending that it doesn't count as censorship.

Sure but filtering what you say is also a form of censorship. Swinging the term around like it's some form of morality is silly; anyone who isn't for a form of censorship is just a moron and an asshole. Or even worse: a liberal.

People are certainly being arrested *in the USA* for speech (e.g. opinions) that are theoretically protected by the first amendment.

Unfortunately, last I tried to look this up, I found that there simply do not exist useful and easy to find stats for "malicious communications" in the UK such that stalkers and people making death threats can be separated from mere political correctness.

And even with actual death threats, there's stuff like this, where I don't myself have a single sustained state of my own mind about how I would respond to such a tweet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_joke_trial

It’s bad now and not perfect for sure, but I doubt these instances would be upheld by the higher courts.

Kinda irrelevant, given that the go-to examples I see on Hacker News of this happening in the EU and UK are either actual death/violence threats etc. (which are also not protected speech in the USA) or also not upheld in higher European courts.

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

Incitement is only illegal when "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action".

And? I didn't say anything about "incitement", I said "actual death/violence threats", because I meant people making actual threats of violence up to and including death, are the actual things tweeted in the most commonly seen examples given on Hacker News (besides the aforementioned "also not upheld" that the commenter I was replying to tried to use to justify when Americans get arrested for tweets).

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