Britain Hates Free Speech

http://www.investmentwatchblog.com/british-police-arrest-at-least-3395-people-for-offensive-online-comments-in-2016/


Here in the UK we don’t regard “freedom of speech” as an inviolable right, more as “the ability to incriminate yourself via social media”.

In this case some guy wrote about how he committed a possible crime, (harassing someone in the street because she was a muslim). The police saw this and thought, maybe we should investigate this. He was arrested so that he could be interviewed under caution. I really doubt he’ll be charged, but don’t you agree it’s a good idea that we can investigate idiots based on what they say publicly?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/18/facebook-comments-arrest-prosecution
Peralta, a 35-year-old activist and musician, didn’t think twice about the 23 January Facebook thread until two months later, when he learned that police had issued a warrant for his arrest – accusing him of threatening to kill law enforcement.

“Why waste all of the county’s money on this?” said Peralta, who turned himself in and was booked into jail, despite having no criminal record. “You’re going to take me to jail … for Facebook?”

Peralta’s felony criminal case is part of what civil rights campaigners say is a disturbing trend of police and prosecutors targeting activists for social media posts, arresting users over innocuous political messages that constitute free speech.