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Comment by kraf | Hacker News Reader

I'm not familiar with what you're talking about. Can you share a real world example of a case like this? You're saying a social media comment about a crime is somehow punished harshly and much harsher than the crime itself?

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Here's an example of Westmidlands police bragging about arresting a 12 year old for racist posts.

There are 30 arrests a day for offensive online messages. It's not heavily reported for some reason but it's very real.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr...

https://x.com/WMPolice/status/1282627004018364416

If you walk through a town shouting racist stuff you'll get arrested too, and rightly so.

The kid is 12 years old. If he ran around shouting racist stuff in town, that should be addressed by his parents, not by an arrest.

In my Northern European small city, just yesterday, there was some non-native shouting "WHITE NIGGA" at children in the city center. Nothing happend to him.

Here's an overview of the situation: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62ln7mzd5ro

So people are getting arrested for tweeting they want to set fire to a hotel full of people?

Seems good to me

Are you sure that link's the one you meant to share?

> The former childminder from Northampton, who is married to a Conservative councillor, had posted an abhorrent message on X, calling for people to "set fire" to hotels housing asylum seekers following the murder of three young girls at a dance class in Southport in July 2024.

> Yet the fact both men were able to address a huge crowd in London is perhaps evidence that there is rather more leeway for free speech in this country than those likening the UK to a "tin pot dictatorship" suggest.

Seems fine?

> Are you sure that link's the one you meant to share?

Sorry, I'm confused by the question.

The link seems to make the opposite point you intended.

Criminal threats with appropriate punishment, and regular old hateful speech is ongoing.

The link is far broader than that, but even in this case: there was no threat. No more than a university lecturer tweeting that he wanted a white genocide.

I'm sorry, but if you think public calls to burn down occupied buildings during unrest (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_riots) aren't a threat, I'm not sure there's a discussion to be had here.

"ISIS never threatened anybody, they just called for bombs to be set off"

The right love to play-down the woman who called for terrorist attacks on British streets as "just a tweet".

Meanwhile there's been two arrests around two prominent right-wing politicians getting threats and celebration of death this week. And they're all silent again.

It's a common (and somewhat right-wing) trope, but it's not really true. Thousands of people aren't arrested for "mean comments" or similar. That isn't to say the UK has no problem with the balance of freedom of expression and regulation, but it is nothing like the impression you'd get from some sources. There are some high-profile cases which are commonly misrepresented to support these claims.

> Thousands of people aren't arrested for "mean comments" or similar

What are they arrested for, or are you disputing the number?

Lucy Connolly was arrested for threatening to kill a thousand people, for example.

I think generally the argument is that these usually aren’t credible threats, they’re hyperbole, and the police are overstepping by arresting people for saying they’ll do something when they have no evidence that that person would actually do that. A free society doesn’t arrest someone for saying “I’m going to burn down so-and-so’s house.” It waits until you actually go to so-and-so’s house with a can of petrol, and then arrests you.

Sending death threats has never been legal.

The statical lie with the UK numbers is the vast majority of cases are about the use of messaging services in domestic violence cases.

It’s the same problem as amber alerts - the stories you here about are the dramatic stranger danger ones, but the vast majority of the statistics are “boring” custody disputes.

> A free society doesn’t arrest someone for saying “I’m going to burn down so-and-so’s house.”

I feel like it's a significantly freer society when others can't threaten to murder me without consequences.

It's always weird that these "freeze peach absolutism" never seem to notice that death, is the ultimate censorship

The poster up thread said people were being arrested for "mean tweets" and now you've moved it to "but those death threats weren't serious!" No, the original claim was dishonest bullshit.

They were credible threats though, as the people were doing EXACTLY what she called for

It is definitely true. It's "right wing" because the soft power is with the left (or was until maybe very recently) and so only principled people of the left (e.g. Bill Maher) and all the people of the right (either principled on speech or saying things that are more likely to be censored) are going to be talking about it.

What on earth are you on about, we've had 20+ years of right-wing governments.

>and all the people of the right

Tell that to the Tory MP who had me arrested for upsetting them, or the UKIP goon's forcibly removed me from their "Free Speech Conference"

> What on earth are you on about, we've had 20+ years of right-wing governments.

The Tories were barely right-wing, and they were in power for 14 years, not 20+, and for the first 4 they were in a coalition with the lib dems.

Look at the immigration numbers in the UK to see how not right-wing they were. Insane to think that's actually right wing.

> or the UKIP goon's forcibly removed me from their "Free Speech Conference"

The UKIP conference removing you is not evidence of general soft power in the UK.

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