No need to speculate that the UK government "might" one day become the bad guys: they already arrest over 30 people a day for speech that offends the prevailing political orthodoxy.
> they already arrest over 30 people a day for speech that offends the prevailing political orthodoxy.
This is completely false and comes from a commonly misrepresented statistic; '30 arrests a day' is plainly the arrests made under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 which includes things like online stalking and harassment. I hope you're just mistaken and not willfully implying that those issues are merely offensive to the prevailing political orthodoxy.
You can't argue with data that doesn't exist, either. The arrests are not broken down, so nobody really knows. Both sides can argue their opinion
You can argue it's highly improbable that all arrests are over 'hurty words online', definitely – but anyone claiming zero arrests seems improbable too.
I do also feel it's quite convenient that the lack of breakdown allows people to clap back with accusations of encouraging stalking and harassment.
Well, the breakdowns are according to the offences the arrests come under. The police can't really release official figures for "arrests that would seen unjustifiable to libertarian-leaning HN readers", or "arrests for things that would not be a crime in the US".
failbuffer · · focus · HN ↗
[1] <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2025/09/09/people-are-being-thrown-in-uk-prisons-over-what-theyve-said-online-can-free-speech-be-saved/" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2025/09/09/people-a...
fragilerock · · focus · HN ↗
This is completely false and comes from a commonly misrepresented statistic; '30 arrests a day' is plainly the arrests made under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 which includes things like online stalking and harassment. I hope you're just mistaken and not willfully implying that those issues are merely offensive to the prevailing political orthodoxy.
gib444 · · focus · HN ↗
You can argue it's highly improbable that all arrests are over 'hurty words online', definitely – but anyone claiming zero arrests seems improbable too.
I do also feel it's quite convenient that the lack of breakdown allows people to clap back with accusations of encouraging stalking and harassment.
foldr · · focus · HN ↗