I think anyone running a website should avoid visiting the UK from now on.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2025/09/09/people-a...
Looking through that article, one of the examples is "The wife of a conservative politician was sentenced to 31 months in prison for what police said was an unacceptable post."
But if you dig into what happened - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3wkzgpjxvo
"The wife of a Conservative councillor has been jailed for 31 months after calling for hotels housing asylum seekers to be set on fire."
This is pretty clear incitement to violence.
The UK has problems, but it's not very useful to throw all of these cases together to make a big number, it really rather undermines the point.
(edit - looking at the video posted in a sibling comment is enlightening. The number actually convicted of anything is around ~400 and this includes a lot of direct incitement to violence, stalking and all sorts. Which are similarly illegal in the US. The US right-wing talking points are as usual a load of crap.
None of which is to say I think the UK has things right, and that number of arrests is clearly a problem in itself, but as usual the "OH MY GOD look at what's happening over there! Muh free speech!" from the US commenters is hypocritical and myopic)
Well I guess sudden cardiac arrest is even worse than silly internet rules.
This is a mis-truth which has been spread by Joe Rogan and his ilk. Political speech is very much protected in UK law. You won't get in "trouble" if you make posts against immigration or trans people. J.K. Rowling and Ricky Gervais certainly haven't been locked up.
Yes, there have been cases, such as the infamous Cowley Hill School case where Hertfordshire police arrested a couple over their posts in a school WhatsApp group. However, such arrests are illegal and in that case the police had to apologise and pay compensation.
What will get you in trouble in the UK is threatening violence against people or posting hate speech that encourages others to do so. But this is also true in the USA and in most countries.
With "protected political speech" being defined as which flavour of the established, incompetent elite you prefer this year.
People have been arrested in the UK for holding blank signs within vicinity of Palestine marches. People have been arrested over protesting Charles' coronation. To say nothing of thousands of people arrested every year over tweets.
Political speech is basically criminalised in the UK at this point. This is not an establishment worth any of our respect.
Got a source on this one?
Supporting Palestine in the UK has never been illegal. Supporting the specific group "Palestine Action" has been as they were for a while a proscribed terrorist organisation due to what was (IMHO) some property crimes committed against defense contractors by some of their members. Totally wrong, and has now been struck down in the courts, but saying "you can't support palestine" is also wrong.
> Thousands of people arrested every year over tweets.
The source I saw on this one had clear examples of violent threats and calls to set buildings full of people on fire, so I'm not sure this is clear either.
The group itself offered training courses on Ho to sabotage the U.K. military
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/palestine-ac...
I wonder what would happen in the US with such a group
More concerningly, prescribing Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation had a suppressive effect on lawful protest against the Israel-Gaza war, since any supporter of Palestine might be considered a member of Palestine Action and therefore, legally, a terrorist suspect.
> Got a source on this one?
Not quite arrested but the closest I can find is someone threatened with arrest if they wrote certain things on the blank sign:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/anti-monarch...
The UK Police seem to have switched to a policy of knowingly arresting people erroneously and then releasing them and apologising afterwards.
(At least it is just arresting people and releasing them rather than shooting them and then apologising afterwards whilst also exonerating the officers involved.)
The article does link to an incident in Russia where a protester was dragged away for holding up a blank sign.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/no-freedom-of-s...
Ref: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn5lxg2l0lqo
97% of trials in the UK don't have juries anyway.
The changes would mean instead of 3% having juries it would be down to 2.25%.
This would also be reviewed once the existing backlog has been seen to. "This means that currently a suspect being charged with an offence today may not reach trial until 2030."
The line is quite thin and ambiguous though. If they want to get someone they will and find that various remarks “encourage violence”.
Almost any opinion that isn't nice can be argued to encourage violence.
Not to say anyone would actually get in trouble for just some opinion posts, but I don't know why you went with "against" here, I think "for" is the more likely one to make the current UK (or US) government upset.
Not sure how often that happens coming to the UK, yet.
Again, please check your sources before posting obvious disinformation.
Of course AFAIK this can happen pretty much everywhere at this point so your only hope is being a citizen of a country that doesn't allow it for locals (such as the US) and then not traveling. Or wipe your devices prior to traveling.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/maga-traveler-dragged-o...
But given the increasingly dystopian state of many countries worldwide, you may also encounter difficulties related to administrative burden and systems with not enough human oversight and override for exceptional situations.
Of course, "touch grass" works just as well.