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Comment by rich_sasha | Hacker News Reader

I’d say it is a very low quality article. There is very little detail about what the offending speech actually includes. For example:

> The wife of a conservative politician was sentenced to 31 months in prison for what police said was an unacceptable post.

What did she say? The article does not elucidate.

Inciting violence for example is not legal. I believe spaces around abortion clinics are also to be free from demonstrations. US free speech absolutists seem to vehemently disagree until you say something unkind about Charlie Kirk or ICE.

The low point might be quoting Elon Musk. This is true in any context, but in particular here. The scandal is real, but none of it is about people being arrested for non-politically-correct speech.

There’s plenty of otherwise real stuff to poke the UK about.

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I don't have time to dig up her post - but she was calling on people to set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers - she had around 10,000 followers, and her post was read 300,000 times: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yl7p4l11po

I am disappointed in most reporting on this case. I wish they would include what she actually said. Here is the full tweet:

> Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care, while you’re at it take the treacherous government and politicians with them. I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist so be it

[0] https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Connolly...

31 months for that is ridiculously low, especially with the rising prevalence of stochastic terrorism.

To add to this, she only served 40% of her sentence before being released.

"Stochastic terrorism" accusations and charges only seem to flow in one direction.

> “Kill those motherfuckers. Let the streets soak in their red, capitalist blood, dude.” - Hasan Piker on landlords

That Hasan guy is American right? Unsurprisingly British laws need not apply.

I don't think that statement would go down too well here, but even then context is very important for incitement to violence. Considering people were and did set fire to hotels I think it was worthwhile investigating.

> context

A guy Hasan didn't like got shot in the neck during a public debate. A pair of Jewish embassy workers were gunned down while walking to a museum. A health insurance company CEO was shot outside of a hotel. I could go on.

In the UK there was an attempted murder when someone attacked a protestor burning a Koran, but luckily the UK authorities convicted the victim of the attack with "asking for it"[1] so justice was served.

[1] https://www.gbnews.com/news/london-muslim-man-spared-jail-tu...

GB news is slop, you get to decide if you're misinformed or malicious.

The victims fine was overturned and the attacker was convincted, justice system working as intended: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9v7wlj3pr2o

Hasan is still not British.

31 months is extremely high given that the same country let off a guy who sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl and a 13-year-old girl with zero prison time for the two offenses combined.

oh and in court she rested her entire defence on the tragic death of one of her children a decade prior. However her device had been confiscated and her WhatsApp messages to a friend included "if I end up in court I'll play the mental health card".

> What did she say?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2910vrrygo

She advocated to burn refugees alive.

Interesting isn’t it, because one might say of a convicted murderer “I think they should hang” and while it’s clearly contentious and morally questionable it’s also broadly seen as acceptable speech.

When the context is altered it suddenly becomes worthy of prosecution? I don’t think that’s fair, by holding or stating an opinion you do not induce its outcome.

UK abortion clinic laws go a lot further than banning demonstrations.

1. Holding up a sign offering help to any women being coerced into an abortion is illegal. 2. Standing silently on the road near one can be illegal. 3. parking a car with a bumper sticker near one can be illegal.

The whole paragraph about Musk and rape gangs is nonsense, of course. The biggest rape gang ever convicted in the UK was entirely white. Musk and his ilk only care about rape when the rapists are not white. On average immigrants are slightly less likely to commit sexual assaults (obviously averaging across many different groups).

> What did she say? The article does not elucidate.

She called for hotels housing asylum seekers to be burned. I think she is a nasty racist but I also think the sentence was excessive and I am not convinced it was a serious incitement to violence (and that was not what she was convicted of).

> US free speech absolutists seem to vehemently disagree until you say something unkind about Charlie Kirk or ICE.

Not American, and I entirely support the right of anyone to make unkind comments about anyone else. You are right that many people apply different standards to their own side, but right wing Americans are are from alone in that.

>>The whole paragraph about Musk and rape gangs is nonsense, of course. The biggest rape gang ever convicted in the UK was entirely white. Musk and his ilk only care about rape when the rapists are not white.

They only care when the rapists are coming from outside the UK, and being protected by the authorities.

>>On average immigrants are slightly less likely to commit sexual assaults (obviously averaging across many different groups).

I think that is called picking your sample carefully. No-one is worried about EG the Chinese or the French.

Musk and his ilk care about dog whistle topics that can be used to trigger people into supporting them.

The emphasis on 'rape gangs', 'immigrants' and 'asylum seekers' isn't just objectively untrue, it's cynically manipulative. It's fundamentally a toxic and calculated form of marketing and branding.

And also a cynical distraction from - for example - the Epstein story and Musk's appearances in it.

There was a lot of this around Brexit. Many supporters voted to 'stop them coming over here'.

The government then ramped up immigration - a lot. For some reason the press failed to report this.

I would have thought immigration was mainly a factor of the immigrants, not the government. Do people not support free movement? In China you're assigned to a city or rural zone and you can't leave that area.

> In China you're assigned to a city or rural zone and you can't leave that area.

The last time it worked like that was in the 1970s. You can travel and move anywhere you want but you can't legally work, rent a state owned apartment, get social benefits or send you kids to public school unless you get a stamp from the local authorities. It's the same as migrant workers anywhere else.

Of course it's corrupt and unfair and they should stop doing it but "can't leave your area" is a big exaggeration.

Brexit was about stopping unskilled EU immigration. The leaders of both the official leave campaigns said they wanted more skilled immigration. Farage said Indian doctors in the NHS in the 70s as an example of the sort of immigration he wanted.

I also think it was excessive but the judges sentencing remarks[0] add some context. The primary issue is that the categorisation of the offence was high, but she could have done a better job of showing remorse. She didn't clock that they'd be able to read her WhatsApp messages.

[0] https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/R-v-Lucy...

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