Scrutable

For this? https://twitter.com/daviddpaxton/status ... 78753?s=21

just... sigh.

nezumi wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 18, 2021 9:05 pm

just... sigh.

Oh dear https://twitter.com/pritipatel/status/1 ... 76004?s=21

Stranger Mouse wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 18, 2021 8:48 pm

For this? https://twitter.com/daviddpaxton/status ... 78753?s=21

Advocating burning down MP's offices. Not good.

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 18, 2021 10:34 pm

Stranger Mouse wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 18, 2021 8:48 pm

For this? https://twitter.com/daviddpaxton/status ... 78753?s=21

Advocating burning down MP's offices. Not good.

Especially when we’ve had two murdered in five years and others assaulted and harassed with people serving prison sentences for doing so

Seems like the answer is "yes": https://twitter.com/metpoliceuk/status/ ... 5704800257

He wasn't arrested for that. He was arrested for this.

https://twitter.com/RosieisaHolt/status ... iJguQ&s=19

lpm wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 19, 2021 10:14 am

He wasn't arrested for that. He was arrested for this.

https://twitter.com/RosieisaHolt/status ... iJguQ&s=19

A white man in his 70s trying an awful Jamaican accent. Maybe he made his arsonistic (word?) comments to distract from the embarrassment https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... urned-down

Arse something, definitely.

Stranger Mouse wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 18, 2021 8:48 pm

For this? https://twitter.com/daviddpaxton/status ... 78753?s=21

Well, that depends on whether you believe in free speech or not. Of course, the usual argument about this sort of situation is that free speech doesn;'t cover advocating violence likely to result in deaths, but it does. There are always people in society who will have the right to say such things. Free speech merely means everyone has the same right. For example, in our current society, Priti Patel has the power to advocate turning back migrants, even though that will surely result in deaths. Do we want to reserve the right to say such things to those in power?

Anyone can call for people to be deported, whether they have the power to do so or not. Your examples are not equivalent.

Indeed. Calling for people to not wear masks or get vaccinated would be a closer equivalent to calling for deportations, and Corbyn was not arrested for either of these.

Millennie Al wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 20, 2021 1:36 am

Stranger Mouse wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 18, 2021 8:48 pm

For this? https://twitter.com/daviddpaxton/status ... 78753?s=21

Well, that depends on whether you believe in unrestricted and potentially dangerous free speech or not. Of course, the usual argument about this sort of situation is that free speech doesn;'t cover advocating violence likely to result in deaths, but it does. There are always people in society who will have the right to say such things. Free speech merely means everyone has the same right. For example, in our current society, Priti Patel has the power to advocate turning back migrants, even though that will surely result in deaths. Do we want to reserve the right to say such things to those in power?

FIFY

It's the difference between shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre and encouraging people to set fire to a crowded theatre.

Little waster wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 20, 2021 1:33 pm

It's the difference between shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre and encouraging people to set fire to a crowded theatre.

Brilliant.
And correct.

I'm old enough to remember when they did that documentary about Piers Corbyn and how he claimed he was better at predicting the weather than the Met Office.

El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 20, 2021 2:51 pm

I'm old enough to remember when they did that documentary about Piers Corbyn and how he claimed he was better at predicting the weather than the Met Office.

In his next one he's seeing if he's better at predicting what's lawful than the Met Police.

He'll be ok, it's already happened and they don't investigate retrospective crimes any more apparently.

No one will miss him.

Herainestold wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 20, 2021 6:31 pm

No one will miss him.

Jezzer might.

It's always useful, when someone calls you mad, to able to say, "Yeah, but you should see my brother!"

I doubt if Corbyn’s comments would be acceptable under most legal frameworks - in the USA the appropriate test under the First Amendment would be the Brandenburg case and since there were actually clashes with the police outside Downing Street that day I guess “imminent action” is covered.

I’ll use the opportunity to recommend Popehat’s old Make No Law podcast for all this type of stuff

https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/make-no-law/

bjn wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 20, 2021 4:57 am

Anyone can call for people to be deported, whether they have the power to do so or not. Your examples are not equivalent.

I am not referring to deportations, but to intercepting boats and forcing them to return to France before they reach England. Such actions would eventually result in people dying and I would regard such deaths as manslaughter. It seems the Border Force also do as they are refusing to implement the policy:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... s-vow.html

Note that the Border Force reports to the Home Secretary, so Priti Patel has much greater influence in this than Piers Corbyn has over some random rabble.

Millennie Al wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 20, 2021 1:36 am

Well, that depends on whether you believe in free speech or not.

tom p wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 20, 2021 8:57 am

Millennie Al wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 20, 2021 1:36 am

Well, that depends on whether you believe in unrestricted and potentially dangerous free speech or not.

FIFY

It's either free or it isn't. Once it's not free it will inevitably become controlled by those already in power.

An example of extremely dangerous free speech is blasphemy and heresy which history has proved has been extremely damaging to Christianity to the extent that very many people today refuse to believe what they're told to.

Millennie Al wrote: ↑

Thu Dec 23, 2021 3:52 am

It's either free or it isn't. Once it's not free it will inevitably become controlled by those already in power.

Not at all. It is a very graduated and nuanced thing. It isn't just on or off. The distinctions of the freedom of speech environment are different in every country. We cannot say only a country where you can say anything you like has freedom of speech, because no such country exists and it is not desirable it should.

To what extent is freedom of speech freedom to cause damage through your speech? It's a bit like asking, as AP Herbert once did in one of his satirical books about the law, How much are you allowed to murder your burglar? Just as the state protects our property from damaging physical incursions, so it protects reputations, and privacy, and so forth, from damaging verbal incursions, to a degree. Just as with burglary, there is some kind of a balance to be struck between reasonable protection, and open season on suspected burglars.

The graduations on freedom of speech depend on how we define what is the damage you are not permitted to cause, what enforcement there is of that, and what restitution may apply.

For example, in terms of protecting reputations, the laws on libel vary by country. So what you can get away with saying in the USA, Britain and China is different. The USA is famously a liberal country on libel, whereas Britain is a favoured country for smelly people to sue those who mention their odour, because we are relatively illiberal on it despite an attempt to loosen up a few years ago. In China you cannot mention the misdeeds of the powerful without very serious consequences. In China, accuracy is not a defence, in the way that it would be even in Britain. Although some truths are in the realm of privacy, and that can be a reason the state might prevent you publishing them. And so privacy is often bound up with libel.

State secrets is another issue like that, where the laws are graduated from one country to another. On this one, the USA seems to be a bit illiberal. It is the USA that Assange fears going to, for revealing stuff that needed revealing.

And there are further things the state prevents you saying. These include obscenity, threats, incitement, and abuse of the vulnerable. And sometimes specific religious protections. Most of these things are regulated to some degree in most places, but the extent varies.

Authoritarian states can go too far in all of these kinds of protections to protect their ruling position. But a country in which there was no protection for any of these things? I think Britain would do well to lighten up on some of them, especially libel, but not to a point where you can say anything at all with no consequences.

A common misunderstanding about freedom of speech is to confuse it with right to a platform. It is one thing to be allowed to say things without suffering for it. It is another thing to demand that platforms give you access to say it on that platform. It is helpful if we distinguish these two things, and limit the understanding of freedom of speech to the right to say things without suffering for it. Of course, people who want to stir things up typically make this confusion deliberately.

Edited for clarity.

Millennie Al wrote: ↑

Thu Dec 23, 2021 3:48 am

bjn wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 20, 2021 4:57 am

Anyone can call for people to be deported, whether they have the power to do so or not. Your examples are not equivalent.

I am not referring to deportations, but to intercepting boats and forcing them to return to France before they reach England. Such actions would eventually result in people dying and I would regard such deaths as manslaughter. It seems the Border Force also do as they are refusing to implement the policy:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... s-vow.html

Note that the Border Force reports to the Home Secretary, so Priti Patel has much greater influence in this than Piers Corbyn has over some random rabble.

That's a completely different issue to with the state and it's near monopoly on violence, and only very tangentially related to freedom of speach.