While I think SF (and most of the West) has us beat in terms of clickbait headlines, it still exists. I found these two today while scrolling through our main tabloid site.
I don't understand how you can compare someone being lit on fire to someone being fined for not returning a tray or someone carrying a knife in public.
Your first link is about someone just making a threatening video. Your second link is about a new fine for not returning plates, silverware, etc. to restaurants. Neither one of those are even remotely similar to someone intentionally lighting another person on fire.
There is a law, it was broken and the person was sentenced. I'd rather live in a place that enforces laws rather than one where people run loose, but to each their own I suppose.
Yes I do not live there currently (as you have noticed by my previous comments) but that is where I consider myself "from".
In NYC we call that art. I just went to a museum exhibit in Boston about graffiti art on public transit in the 80's. Point being, something so benign being that strongly and violently punished does indeed sound crazy to me.