[Rushy]

“We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you,” Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley told Sky News.

https://nypost.com/2024/08/10/media/uk-police-commissioner-threatens-to-extradite-jail-us-citizens-over-online-posts-well-come-after-you/

There are powerful people in the UK that are so far gone they think they can jail people who are in other countries for saying mean things online. A bit odd, innit? For those wondering, the "crimes" this commissioner refers to are, yes, tweets. This man is busy trying to prosecute people for saying "hate speech" online, both in the UK and abroad. What a world!

[honk]

I don't think that's right. I think "committing crimes further afield online" is opposed to "committing crimes on the street," not "in this country committing crimes on the streets." The "in this country" part is meant to qualify the whole of what he's saying, not simply the part about the streets. Britain has a lot of silly laws, and I don't agree with criminalizing hate speech at all, but I really don't think this guy is so delusional that he thinks he can extradite and prosecute other countries' citizens for doing something that's illegal in Britain but legal in their countries.

[Rushy]

I don't think that's right. I think "committing crimes further afield online" is opposed to "committing crimes on the street," not "in this country committing crimes on the streets." The "in this country" part is meant to qualify the whole of what he's saying, not simply the part about the streets. Britain has a lot of silly laws, and I don't agree with criminalizing hate speech at all, but I really don't think this guy is so delusional that he thinks he can extradite and prosecute other countries' citizens for doing something that's illegal in Britain but legal in their countries.

Did you even read the article? He goes on to further clarify:

"Rowley answered by telling the reporter, “Being a keyboard warrior does not make you safe from the law.”"

“You can be guilty of offenses of incitement, of stirring up racial hatred, there are numerous terrorist offenses regarding the publishing of material,” he said.

He is blatantly referring to speech offenses online. This is not about physical crimes, as he further emphasizes:

“All of those offenses are in play if people are provoking hatred and violence on the streets, and we will come after those individuals just as we will physically confront on the streets the thugs and the yobs who are taking — who are causing the problems for communities.”

He is delineating between being at the riots physically and supporting them online. This entire exchange happened in response to Musk tweeting about civil war. So, in reality, the commissioner would like to see Musk extradited and prosecuted. This isn't something that happened in a vacuum, so saying he's only referring to people inside the UK is nonsense.

[honk]

Did you even read the article? He goes on to further clarify:

"Rowley answered by telling the reporter, “Being a keyboard warrior does not make you safe from the law.”"

“You can be guilty of offenses of incitement, of stirring up racial hatred, there are numerous terrorist offenses regarding the publishing of material,” he said.

He is blatantly referring to speech offenses online. This is not about physical crimes, as he further emphasizes:

“All of those offenses are in play if people are provoking hatred and violence on the streets, and we will come after those individuals just as we will physically confront on the streets the thugs and the yobs who are taking — who are causing the problems for communities.”

He is delineating between being at the riots physically and supporting them online.

This has nothing to do with what I said.

This entire exchange happened in response to Musk tweeting about civil war. So, in reality, the commissioner would like to see Musk extradited and prosecuted.

No, this entire exchange did not happen because of what Musk said. Even the British police have better things to do than give the media interviews revolving around Elon Musk. He was simply mentioned as an example of a high-profile figure stirring shit up. As disingenuous as it is, the article does make this clear.

This isn't something that happened in a vacuum, so saying he's only referring to people inside the UK is nonsense.

By that logic, anyone who ever promises to crack down on any type of online crime is therefore threatening to extradite and prosecute citizens of other countries, because no illicit online activity happens in a vacuum. It's generally understood that when people talk about prosecuting online crimes, they're only talking about prosecuting people within their borders whom it's within their jurisdiction to prosecute. I don't think the commissioner needed to explicitly point out the obvious fact that British laws only apply in Britain for a reasonable person to intuit that he's not planning on extraditing and prosecuting citizens of other countries for breaking British laws.

[Rushy]

No, this entire exchange did not happen because of what Musk said.

Yes, it did. The rest of what you said is irrelevant, because it incorrectly veers from the context of the article.

[Crudblud]

I had to look up the Sky News video of Rowley since the article linked does not show it. From the way Rowley said it, I can only conclude that he did mean people outside the UK, although to extrapolate 'US citizens' from that is a bit of a stretch. He's more than likely referring to UK citizens who are currently outside the UK, like Tommy Robinson, who is alleged* to have played a major role in instigating the riots.

Rowley is asked about Elon Musk but he doesn't say anything about Musk specifically, nor does he say anything specifically about foreign nationals, US based or otherwise, only that 'keyboard warriors' are not protected from incitement laws.

NY Post is full of shit as usual, but Saddam's interpretation is also lacking imo.

*if you want a better example of how fucked UK speech laws are, I can't even say something obvious without qualifying it as an allegation that I heard somewhere else because libel suits are so easy to file and win

[Tom Bishop]

Britain and the UK has never had freedom of speech. At this point it would be like complaining that water makes things wet. It is one of the reasons America seceded and why freedom of speech is the very first amendment.

[honk]

No, this entire exchange did not happen because of what Musk said.

Yes, it did. The rest of what you said is irrelevant, because it incorrectly veers from the context of the article.

No, it didn't. Read again:

Riots have broken out across the United Kingdom in recent days over false rumors spread online that an asylum seeker was responsible for a mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event that left three girls dead and others wounded.

The murders, allegedly committed by a now 18-year-old British citizen born to Rwandan parents, sparked a series of violent protests that tapped into broader concerns about the scale of immigration in the U.K.

Footage of the violent clashes involving anti-immigration protesters and the groups of counter-protesters, some of whom have been seen waving Palestinian flags, has gone viral on social media, and the government is warning that sharing such content may have serious consequences.

They're clearly talking about widespread social media activity, not simply Elon Musk alone posting something. There's more than enough wiggle room for Rowley to be threatening legal consequences without assuming that he's specifically threatening Musk. If we look up the relevant part of this interview, which I could unfortunately only find on Facebook, we can see a bit more context. The interviewer asks, after first mentioning Musk specifically, "What are you considering when it comes to dealing with people who are whipping up this kind of behavior from behind a keyboard, maybe in a different country?" That's a two-part question, or at least it could be reasonably interpreted as one, even if the interviewer didn't mean it to be. The first part asks what the police are planning to do about people inciting chaos online, and the second part asks what the police are planning to do about people inciting chaos online who are in another country. I believe that Rowley deliberately sidestepped the second part of the question and focused on answering the first, probably because he figured that stopping to clarify that there's nothing he can do about citizens of other countries would have sucked the energy out of the interview. He certainly said nothing about Musk or extraditing anyone. Maybe Crudblud is right that he was talking about British citizens who are out of the country, but if that had been the case, I feel like he would have been clear about it and specifically made a point of calling out British citizens who think they can get away with inciting chaos if it's done in another country.

Besides, let's use some common sense. Do you really, really think that the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police thinks that British laws apply to citizens of other countries, and that they have the right to extradite and prosecute them for that? Is that really what you think is going on here, and not simply that there's a bit of ambiguity in his wording that could mean something nonsensical like that if interpreted a certain way? Why assume that this guy is saying something ridiculous when you could just as easily assume that he's not saying something ridiculous?

[AATW]

Britain and the UK has never had freedom of speech.

Care to elaborate on that, chief?

[Tom Bishop]

Britain and the UK has never had freedom of speech.

Care to elaborate on that, chief?

The British Empire were totalitarians who were wielding maniacal uncompromising rule over speech, culture, taxes, and so on. As such, almost all of its once-expansive colonies and colonial lands have broken away, leaving it as a pathetic little island.

See what happened in India, for instance. Mahatma Gandhi himself was the leading opposition against the unreasonable rule of the British Empire.

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/04/pernicious-messaging

In fact, historically the British state was far more comfortable as an agent of censorship than as an enabler of speech. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the Empire. The history of British politics is unavoidably the history of British imperialism: the Empire overseas and the British at home were co-constitutive. Empire was the space in which the British state’s urges to discipline and control went most unchecked.

There is an enduring idea that imperialism was somehow motivated by a desire to spread democracy and other freedoms, but British rule in India, for example, was marked by constant censorship of the press. The Gagging Act, passed during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, regulated printing presses and the ‘tone’ of published material; the Vernacular Press Act of 1878 controlled any writing considered ‘seditious’ written in a ‘vernacular language’ (i.e. any language other than English); the Press Act of 1910 sought to control rising support for Indian nationalism by forcing publications to deposit large financial securities with the government, which could be confiscated if anything was published that was critical of the British Empire, army, or ruling class, or that incited violence or contempt of government. During the Second World War, and particularly after the Quit India campaign, press freedom was even more tightly curtailed, with any coverage of political parties forbidden.

Today they are still at it with the people is has left and who are too weak to resist, censoring internet memes and political speech.

[Rushy]

Besides, let's use some common sense. Do you really, really think that the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police thinks that British laws apply to citizens of other countries, and that they have the right to extradite and prosecute them for that?

The same one who thinks people should go to jail for a tweet? Yes. You keep acting like I should expect this to be a sane man and not a delusional moron.

[honk]

No, he's not personally deciding that people should go to jail for tweets. As Tom pointed out, Britain does not have the same freedom of speech that America does, and people are regularly prosecuted there for saying things that would be protected here. And just to head off what I'm sure you're about to say next, no, I don't think that means his arresting people for tweets is okay or morally justifiable. That's not what we're talking about. He's not delusional for talking about doing something that's regularly done in Britain, regardless of how objectionable you and I find it. It would, however, be utterly delusional for him to think that British laws somehow apply to citizens of other countries, and there's no evidence to believe that he does think that outside of some ambiguity in his wording which could mean that if interpreted a certain way, but could also just as easily mean that he doesn't think anything so ridiculous if interpreted a different way.

[Rushy]

No, he's not personally deciding that people should go to jail for tweets.

Yes, he is.

As Tom pointed out, Britain does not have the same freedom of speech that America does, and people are regularly prosecuted there for saying things that would be protected here. And just to head off what I'm sure you're about to say next, no, I don't think that means his arresting people for tweets is okay or morally justifiable. That's not what we're talking about. He's not delusional for talking about doing something that's regularly done in Britain, regardless of how objectionable you and I find it. It would, however, be utterly delusional for him to think that British laws somehow apply to citizens of other countries, and there's no evidence to believe that he does think that outside of some ambiguity in his wording which could mean that if interpreted a certain way, but could also just as easily mean that he doesn't think anything so ridiculous if interpreted a different way.

I didn't realize he was a robot that the government uploads the latest laws into and then he enforces them rabidly with no will of his own. I think you're missing the pattern of obvious power-hungry psychopathic behavior by sending people to jail for tweets, then failing to see how a man who does such a thing is obviously delusional enough to think he can oppress people across the planet as well. Don't underestimate the egotistical delusions of a random British man working for one of the most ego-driven governments on the planet.

You're asking me to assume the best-case-scenario for a man who already espouses insane beliefs. "No, you don't understand, it's normal for him to be insane in Britain!" is not a very good argument, honk.

[honk]

He's not a psychopath for enforcing laws that you don't agree with, let alone laws that are pretty much standard fare in every first-world country that isn't America, and even if he were, that wouldn't make the case that he was insane. Being a bad person who enforces unjust laws and being crazy enough to think that your own country's laws somehow apply to the citizens of other countries are two completely different things.

[AATW]

As Tom pointed out, Britain does not have the same freedom of speech that America does, and people are regularly prosecuted there for saying things that would be protected here.

You’re making it sound like we can’t say what we like over here. People aren’t routinely rounded up and sent to the gulag for saying Starmer is a poo-poo head or whatever.

There are limits to free speech, but I think there should be. In the wake of the incident in Southport, which seems to have died down now, one bloke was jailed for tweets which encouraged people to burn down a hotel which had asylum seekers in. He was actively encouraging people to burn down a building which had families and children in. Fuck that guy, he should be in prison.

Freedom is not absolute in any society, otherwise it would be anarchy.

[Rushy]

You’re making it sound like we can’t say what we like over here.

That is, in fact, the case. You can't say what you like over there. You even go on to say, in the very same post, that some people shouldn't be able to say certain things! Once again, a foreigner gets upset that Americans say he has no freedom of speech, then he goes on to specify his complete lack of understanding what freedom of speech even is...

He's not a psychopath for enforcing laws that you don't agree with

Honk, do you really think the classic "I'm just following orders" justification is relevant here?

let alone laws that are pretty much standard fare in every first-world country that isn't America

I keep forgetting that you believe normalized injustice is acceptable (you'll claim you don't, then bring this exact point of argument up in some other unrelated thread).

Being a bad person who enforces unjust laws and being crazy enough to think that your own country's laws somehow apply to the citizens of other countries are two completely different things.

They're not completely different and they are fundamentally related. Power hungry enforcement of insanely authoritarian laws all have the same foundation. His thinking that he can use his wacky powers to extradite people from across the world is not remarkably different from the idea that he can punish people for mean tweets in the first place.

[Rushy]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/12/elon-musk-should-face-arrest-if-he-incited-uk-rioters-says-ex-twitter-chief

“In the short term, Musk and fellow executives should be reminded of their criminal liability for their actions under existing laws. Britain’s Online Safety Act 2023 should be beefed up with immediate effect.”

Is the UK okay?

[Crudblud]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/12/elon-musk-should-face-arrest-if-he-incited-uk-rioters-says-ex-twitter-chief

“In the short term, Musk and fellow executives should be reminded of their criminal liability for their actions under existing laws. Britain’s Online Safety Act 2023 should be beefed up with immediate effect.”

Is the UK okay?

What does some random guy who worked for Twitter have to do with UK policy re: Elon shitposts?

[Rushy]

What does some random guy who worked for Twitter have to do with UK policy re: Elon shitposts?

He's a rich executive that lives and works in the UK, him calling for the UK to prosecute foreigners is relevant to the discussion.

[Pete Svarrior]

Britain and the UK has never had freedom of speech.

Coincidentally, neither does the US - it does much worse than most of Europe on that front, including the UK. After all, incitement to riot is illegal under US federal law, and "incitement to imminent lawless action" (lmao nice specificity, good job guys) is also exempt from first-amendment protections. This is fairly sensible (if asininely phrased, but we're not expecting competence here, are we?). Discussing this would be as pointless as pointing out that water makes your skin dry.

But that's not the only reason the US lacks free speech. Unlike civilised countries, "obscenity" is considered an acceptable excuse to crack down on speech, and neither is "commercial speech". I'm glossing over the meme that is your defamation laws, because... y'know, low-hanging fruit. Oh, and not to mention the US's poor standing in press freedom benchmarks. Gosh, you guys really can't speak very freely, can you?

For what it's worth, it's been great following the UK police's effective response to the riots and terrorist attacks. The US has been left in the dust, despite their police departments being so much bigger and better-equipped. Someone should look into that, y'all are being scammed out of your tax dollars.

What does some random guy who worked for Twitter have to do with UK policy re: Elon shitposts?

He's a rich executive that lives and works in the UK, him calling for the UK to prosecute foreigners is relevant to the discussion.

I agree. I think we should do something to stop him from publishing opinion articles in the press. That'll do the trick.