Freedom of speech UK threat

[Rational man]

Is anyone else concerned about the UK governments threats to crackdown on freedom's of speech?.Though I agree that hate online has no place, im concerned that this maybe a cover for possibly greater clampdowns on what we can discuss online and the potential ambiguity as such. For example, could I be jailed for discussing death issues if the labour government decided that the sanctity of life is the ruling diktat of the day?!. Im thinking we may end up on a pathway like North Korea, here in Britain, where any dissent could be brutally dealt with!. Just saying really and I may be wrong, but i am really disturbed by whats going on!.

 

[pain6batch9]

I do worry. The weird thing is, there is a growing movement here for an assisted dying bill. I think the Tory government couldn't pass it, but later this year we might find a white paper published. The worst thing is using the riots recently to cover for the cracking down on 'hate speech', the problem being is that what is hateful to some may not be to others. These types of laws are really subjective. First it starts with jailing people for being 'anti-migration' then for jailing those that speak up against the government... I'm still shocked that they jailed a guy for five years for organizing the Just Stop Oil protests. Because speaking out against the economic model is the worst thing you can ever do.

 

[Rational man]

I do worry. The weird thing is, there is a growing movement here for an assisted dying bill. I think the Tory government couldn't pass it, but later this year we might find a white paper published. The worst thing is using the riots recently to cover for the cracking down on 'hate speech', the problem being is that what is hateful to some may not be to others. These types of laws are really subjective. First it starts with jailing people for being 'anti-migration' then for jailing those that speak up against the government... I'm still shocked that they jailed a guy for five years for organizing the Just Stop Oil protests. Because speaking out against the economic model is the worst thing you can ever do.

Yes I agree too and yet some existing prisoners are being released early for ' rioters' as jails are full . Sounds like political punishments to send a message to all of us. I hope the assisted dying white paper is published and passed but im fearing that Starmer may back track. Thank 'god' for my plan B.

 

[opheliaoveragain]

Just popping in bc while I may not be in the UK, I think this is worth paying attention to, given esp the recent bullshit that just happened. Thanks for making this OP. If the AD paper gets dropped, I'm sure we'll see it here.

 

[DipAndChips]

Is anyone else concerned about the UK governments threats to crackdown on freedom's of speech?.Though I agree that hate online has no place, im concerned that this maybe a cover for possibly greater clampdowns on what we can discuss online and the potential ambiguity as such. For example, could I be jailed for discussing death issues if the labour government decided that the sanctity of life is the ruling diktat of the day?!. Im thinking we may end up on a pathway like North Korea, here in Britain, where any dissent could be brutally dealt with!. Just saying really and I may be wrong, but i am really disturbed by whats going on!.

UK has no freedom of speech.
At least not for the past 5 years.

Say the wrong thing and they will come and arrest you even if you say it online.

Sorry to say but their is a reason why USA was made by English people who left the country.

And USA is also slowly stripping away freedom of speech as well....

 

[MyTimeIsUp]

Wtf I've not heard of this, since when?!?! I'm in the UK and this is the first I've ever heard of it. I have the BBC news app on my phone, watch the news regularly and yeah, never heard of this in my life...

Different if you're hating on someone based on what they look like, sex, disablities, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. There's a line you do not cross, ever, or well, you're just a piece of shit and should be locked up and punished.

 

[Terry A. Davis]

Wtf I've not heard of this, since when?!?! I'm in the UK and this is the first I've ever heard of it. I have the BBC news app on my phone, watch the news regularly and yeah, never heard of this in my life...

Different if you're hating on someone based on what they look like, sex, disablities, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. There's a line you do not cross, ever, or well, you're just a piece of shit and should be locked up and punished.

I think people should be allowed to be as racist, sexist whatever else as possible when speaking or typing. As long as they don't physically harm people. People shouldn't be locked in a zoo cage for making manmade noises with their mouths or writing manmade letters on a screen.

100 years ago people said misegination was a 'line you do not cross' and that they should be locked up and punished for doing it. You are the same person they were but you care about one issue whereas they cared about another. At the end of the day, you're calling for the imprisonment of someone you dislike. Thats the meat and potatoes of what you're wanting.

You're no better than the people you hate.

 

[Rational man]

Wtf I've not heard of this, since when?!?! I'm in the UK and this is the first I've ever heard of it. I have the BBC news app on my phone, watch the news regularly and yeah, never heard of this in my life...

Different if you're hating on someone based on what they look like, sex, disablities, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. There's a line you do not cross, ever, or well, you're just a piece of shit and should be locked up and punished.

ARTICLE 19 signed a joint letter led by Amnesty International, addressed to UK PM about freedoms of expression surrounding protests, but is it possible we are seeing the start of a process by successive governments that could expand into other modes of expression, especially so in the light of the riots in UK?. Does the BBC report on this ?, I dont know but then BBC is not a channel I tune into?.

 

[Tesha]

Free speech does not mean without consequences.

You can say, or type, whatever you want. But when that goes against local laws then it's absolutely correct you should be 'held to account'.

The difficulty lies in how well the line of acceptability has been defined - which inevitably shifts over time as cultures and attitudes change.

 

[Rational man]

Free speech does not mean without consequences.

You can say, or type, whatever you want. But when that goes against local laws then it's absolutely correct you should be 'held to account'.

The difficulty lies in how well the line of acceptability has been defined - which inevitably shifts over time as cultures and attitudes change.

Good point, yes and we all have responsibility. Personally, I think hate is something that deters me from participation in many SM groups. I also wanted to say that the law must be applied equally, because no-one is above it, at least I would have thought!.

 

[landslide2]

I think people should be allowed to be as racist, sexist whatever else as possible when speaking or typing. As long as they don't physically harm people. People shouldn't be locked in a zoo cage for making manmade noises with their mouths or writing manmade letters on a screen.

100 years ago people said misegination was a 'line you do not cross' and that they should be locked up and punished for doing it. You are the same person they were but you care about one issue whereas they cared about another. At the end of the day, you're calling for the imprisonment of someone you dislike. Thats the meat and potatoes of what you're wanting.

You're no better than the people you hate.

This sounds like someone putting their finger right next to your eye but then playing the, see but i'm not touching you, see i'm not touching game.

We live in a connected world and hate speech and hate groups can lead to real consequences. It's disingenuous to say it's okay so long as they don't physically harm people. It's as if it never will happen and it's all just harmless and the victims of the hate speech should just deal.

In the US the high court deemed it was ok for anti-gay protesters to protest at funerals. So you are burying a loved one meanwhile within earshot horrible signs and yelling of how gay people are going to hell. This has happened.

There is no absolute right to free speech just as you would not be allowed to yell fire! in a crowded theater as a joke. That limit can be applied to protect from hate speech as well. It should be clear and it should be agreed upon.

 

[CozyTime]

Wasn't someone charged with a crime just for posting lyrics with the n word in it years ago already? the UK has been lost for a while.

 

[sugarb]

Is anyone else concerned about the UK governments threats to crackdown on freedom's of speech?.Though I agree that hate online has no place, im concerned that this maybe a cover for possibly greater clampdowns on what we can discuss online and the potential ambiguity as such. For example, could I be jailed for discussing death issues if the labour government decided that the sanctity of life is the ruling diktat of the day?!. Im thinking we may end up on a pathway like North Korea, here in Britain, where any dissent could be brutally dealt with!. Just saying really and I may be wrong, but i am really disturbed by whats going on!.

I vaguely remember reading something about the UK government threatening to extradite foreign nationals who break their censorship laws

ie they might try to jail me for saying they're shitters lmao

I have no idea how much of that is true but it'd be funny if it was

Wtf I've not heard of this, since when?!?! I'm in the UK and this is the first I've ever heard of it. I have the BBC news app on my phone, watch the news regularly and yeah, never heard of this in my life...

Different if you're hating on someone based on what they look like, sex, disablities, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. There's a line you do not cross, ever, or well, you're just a piece of shit and should be locked up and punished.

The issue is that the window of what is considered illegal hate speech may shift.

This has happened many times historically; in the aftermath of 9/11, for example, what was considered acceptable government surveillance shifted and then the PATRIOT Act was passed.

I would argue that unless the hate speech (a term that can be misused) is actually harming people via harassment/doxxing/etc there is zero reason to prosecute and jail them. Block buttons exist. Having unpleasant opinions and nonviolently sharing them should not be a crime.

 

[iamanavalanche]

we dont have free speech and we havent had it. mainly because its to protect minority groups probably

 

[thickly_settled]

UK has no freedom of speech.
At least not for the past 5 years.

Say the wrong thing and they will come and arrest you even if you say it online.

Sorry to say but their is a reason why USA was made by English people who left the country.

And USA is also slowly stripping away freedom of speech as well....

Lemme guess, "cancel culture" is a common subject of conversation for you?

 

[Ash]

An individual's freedom to live their life safe from harassment and threats comes above another person's "freedom" to harass and threaten another person or group of people.



Thought for the day.

 

[SVEN]

I suspect an even bigger threat is the 1984 scenario where the very meaning of words are so changed that it becomes impossible to verbalise concepts or philosophies adequately.

 

[locked*n*loaded]

the problem being is that what is hateful to some may not be to others. These types of laws are really subjective.

Exactly this^. I'm in the US and we have this same nonsense going on here, too. Exactly who is the "decider" of what constitutes hate speech? This is quite dangerous policy.

 

[Terry A. Davis]

This sounds like someone putting their finger right next to your eye but then playing the, see but i'm not touching you, see i'm not touching game.

We live in a connected world and hate speech and hate groups can lead to real consequences. It's disingenuous to say it's okay so long as they don't physically harm people. It's as if it never will happen and it's all just harmless and the victims of the hate speech should just deal.

In the US the high court deemed it was ok for anti-gay protesters to protest at funerals. So you are burying a loved one meanwhile within earshot horrible signs and yelling of how gay people are going to hell. This has happened.

There is no absolute right to free speech just as you would not be allowed to yell fire! in a crowded theater as a joke. That limit can be applied to protect from hate speech as well. It should be clear and it should be agreed upon.

Maybe we should roll back the hyper connectivity of the world then? If it means people will be more free?

Why is there such an insistance on having a world be hyper connected where everyone and anyone can go anywhere and the native populations must cowtow to the demands of a new arrival? Did we not learn from the plight of the native americans? Where their way of life was gradually made illegal under the guise of christianity labelling their customs as demonic or whatever else.

Whats the difference between the genocide and replacement of the native americans by an immigrant group and the genocide and replacement of westerners by immigrant groups? Legality? The american government viewed their policies as legal because the native americans had no concept of a state, only nations (tribal groups) of people.


I think it's hateful to force a population to bow down to their replacements and not have any methods available to them to speak out against it. It will be labelled as hate speech because it's acceptable for an immigrant to feel entitled to living in another persons country and unacceptable for the native population to be against it.

 

[MyTimeIsUp]

I think people should be allowed to be as racist, sexist whatever else as possible when speaking or typing. As long as they don't physically harm people. People shouldn't be locked in a zoo cage for making manmade noises with their mouths or writing manmade letters on a screen.

100 years ago people said misegination was a 'line you do not cross' and that they should be locked up and punished for doing it. You are the same person they were but you care about one issue whereas they cared about another. At the end of the day, you're calling for the imprisonment of someone you dislike. Thats the meat and potatoes of what you're wanting.

You're no better than the people you hate.

What is wrong with you? No one should be allowed to be any of those things. Evidently you are racist, homophobic, discriminate those with disabilities, sexist and all the rest of it, because there is NO way on this earth that anyone in their right mind would stick up for such people, or say it is acceptable to be that way.

I do not hate anyone, evidently you said that to get some weird reaction from me. So now you're assuming what *I* care about, when you have absolutely no idea?

What an assumption you've made there, just because you can't stand the fact someone cannot stand people that hate on someone that is different to them. If that isn't vile behaviour, I don't know what is. You're pretty disgusting.

I hope no one you love is different in the tiniest way, because having you as someone close by would be horrific for them. Little do your loved ones know who you really are.

I'm not going to continue this disgusting conversation you started. I do not have time for people like you. Now kindly fuck off.

 

[sugarb]

Exactly this^. I'm in the US and we have this same nonsense going on here, too. Exactly who is the "decider" of what constitutes hate speech? This is quite dangerous policy.

Yeah exactly

Tolerance requires a certain degree of intolerance towards the intolerant, yes, but the scales can tip too far very quickly. There's a phrase for that but I don't remember what it is

Anyway

As much as I disagree with racism, I don't think it's right to jail people for being racist on the internet so long as they aren't directly hurting anyone via harassment and such. It's reasonable to keep tabs on obvious extremists in the event they appear to be planning a domestic terrorist attack and to censor explicitly violent rhetoric but to outright jail people who are not inflicting physical harm / harassing people and just say/think offensive things is a very slippery slope

 

[locked*n*loaded]

Yeah exactly

Tolerance requires a certain degree of intolerance towards the intolerant, yes, but the scales can tip too far very quickly. There's a phrase for that but I don't remember what it is

Anyway

As much as I disagree with racism, I don't think it's right to jail people for being racist on the internet so long as they aren't directly hurting anyone via harassment and such. It's reasonable to keep tabs on obvious extremists in the event they appear to be planning a domestic terrorist attack and to censor explicitly violent rhetoric but to outright jail people who are not inflicting physical harm / harassing people and just say/think offensive things is a very slippery slope

Right. There's a huge difference between words and actions. It's not the same as yelling fire in a crowded movie theater where someone's words can/will lead to actions (running and potentially getting stampeded) of others. People who are exposed to hateful words have the ability to just ignore those words and leave the situation.