Hacker News Reader

Comment by kolektiv | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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.

> 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.

> 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

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.

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

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com