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It was your article, dude.the United Kingdom, without one, does not suffer significantly less rights of free speech than the United States.I'm glad we cleared that up.
That was 1989.
This is todayAnd what's he talking about here? What's the context and how does that feed in to this conversation about freedoms?
the United Kingdom, without one, does not suffer significantly less rights of free speech than the United States.I'm glad we cleared that up.
Honestly, I'm not sure. My feeling is in general no-one would bother prosecuting even if it is technically illegal. But the context is important here - people's lives actually were being put in danger and the online disinformation and inflammatory Tweets were contributing to that.Do you regard that as a good thing?
Alright, as an example, let's say instead of immigrants, I say "the homes of fascists should be burned down." Is that illegal to say in the UK? Would I go to jail for tweeting it?
Do you have any evidence that tweeting a general call for violence actually results in violence? Are violent actions some kind of thought-virus that only occur if you read about them on popular social media platforms?Again, I think in general it probably doesn't result in violence and in general I don't think anyone would bother prosecuting someone for those sorts of Tweets. But the context of the unrest is key here. I do think the nature of social media changes the nature of free speech - when anyone has the ability to broadcast bile across the internet to a large audience I think there needs to be some thought about what people can use that for.
It would be entirely legal for me to call for hotels housing immigrants to be burned down in America.Do you regard that as a good thing? I'm don't think I do - and particularly not in the recent context where some stabbings led to disinformation about it being "one of them immigrants" who did it which led to hotels hosting families of asylum seekers to be set on fire, endangering the people inside. People Tweeting stuff encouraging that sort of action directly contributes to people's lives being put in danger.
Biden had a younger woman of color as his VP.He had a younger Indian woman as his VP. She only became black recently, remember?
Those people are authorities in their field.I didn’t think you liked listening to authorities?
Well fair enough then. I would agree we have historically been fairly oppressive to other countries which we ruled - as we've established many have had to go to war or rebel to get rid of us. But in general the government has let us get on with our lives without undue interference. I'm always interested that people with a mindset say "you can't say anything these days..." while basically saying what they like.I don't think how we behaved as a nation a century ago is that relevant to how we behave today.I'm not arguing that it is. This is a response to your claim that:Neither the US or UK has ever had a particularly oppressive government
You are also talking about events of a century ago. Scotland didn't have to go to war to get independence, they just had a vote - turns out the majority of them didn't want it anyway. I don't think how we behaved as a nation a century ago is that relevant to how we behave today.I don’t think that’s quite the same issue as the day to day freedoms British citizens enjoy though.We are literally talking about literal British citizens living in the literal UK who started a literal war to escape. I'm not sure how much clearer I can make it.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Exactly what is considered a country is not well defined. I raised an eyebrow at Hong Kong having a separate Olympic team, that definitely isn’t a country. Scotland had a referendum on independence relatively recently, they are not truly independent of England but they are a separate country.Right. Not entirely sure how that’s connected to what I’m saying. We have behaved poorly historically towards other countries, no dispute there.Ireland was not another country until after the Irish War of Independence. That's what "Independence" in "War of Independence" means.
His charges were dismissed because the police didn't want to fight a first amendment suit.Do you know what “in exchange” means?
Right. Not entirely sure how that’s connected to what I’m saying. We have behaved poorly historically towards other countries, no dispute there. But in general our government hasn’t been overly authoritarian - certainly not in modern times. They don’t in general interfere with people’s day to day lives. The claim that in the US you can say and do what you like and the UK is an oppressive dystopia just isn’t the reality.Which war are you referring to?The Irish War of Independence.
Which war are you referring to?Neither the US or UK has ever had a particularly oppressive governmentAre you aware that a large part of the UK fought a war of independence against their oppressors barely a century ago?
What I especially object to about speech restrictions in Britain is that expressing certain opinions is punishedNo it isn't.
which is a thing that never happens in AmericaDid you miss
This guy is being punished for expressing his opinion.Bullshit. It's not just a shitty opinion, it's dangerous incitement in the context of stabbings in which a 17 year old stabbed a bunch of kids, killing 2, following which a load of disinformation was spread online that the 17 year old was a refugee and/or a Muslim. Neither are true. That sparked a load of riots in which hotels housing refugees were sent on fire and people's lives were endangered. I have no issue with people involved in that either directly or indirectly being punished. To characterise those tweets as "just expressing an opinion" is a massive stretch.
But what happens in the future if your opinion is the one the government says isn't permissible? What happens if many years in the future, corrupt elements in the government are cracking down on political and social opposition to their policies by declaring those opinions impermissible?That could potentially happen in any society. Neither the US or UK has ever had a particularly oppressive government and I don't expect them ever to have. The issue I have in this thread is some people trying to paint the US as a shining beacon of liberty and freedom and the UK as as cesspit of oppression and control. Obvious bullshit. The truth is both are fairly free societies and we both have freedom of expression which has certain caveats in both countries as it should.
. To get back to the topic: the UK is not okay.If that is true then it’s certainly also true of the US, no matter how loudly they pretend otherwise.
I already explained what freedom of speech is.No you haven't. You went on some weird ramble on page 2 where you tried to define it in terms of itself.
Pete didn't reference laws in the UK at all.He said "The European Convention on Human Rights clearly defines both the right to freedom of expression and its limitations"
This just in: Freedom index produced by horrid authoritariansWho are the "horrid authoritarians"? Are you just doing what you did when I showed you that US Citizens have been jailed for Tweets and just going "well that doesn't fit very well with my argument so it doesn't count. So there!"
A legal system is defined by its exceptions, not its rules.Those certainly are all words. I'm not sure they make any sense in that order.
We are, actually. We literally invented freedom.Maybe if you wave that little Stars and Stripes hard enough and shout U-S-A loudly enough then that will become true. Back in the real world, nah. If you did invent freedom then you're doing it wrong:
So, am I to assume you've given up on debating about freedom of speech and you've moved on to... whatever this is?...Freedom of speech is just one aspect of living in a free society. Your argument seems to be that we don’t have freedom of speech in the UK because people can be jailed for things they say online. Which is both true and rare. And when I provided an example of that exact same thing in the US your response was along the lines of “well that doesn’t count”. So…
The laws in the UK that restrict what you can say and what you can do are far more vague, far more oppressive, and far more, dare I say, silly than the ones in the US.Far more vague is incorrect - Pete has gone in to some detail about how they are defined.
There are so many laws that grant freedoms that it felt silly listing a few.Your continued inability to list one is noted.
So many that you couldn’t name one.Laws pretty much by definition restrict your freedom. They dictate what you must or must not do.
No, many laws grant freedoms