[EpicQuest_246]

When I said “alarming number of” I was specifically referring to journalists being harassed by the UK state. I am aware of at least 3 or 4 this year.

Non-speech related offences I don’t care about in relation to this topic. I believe the 3000 a year number was banded about for speech offences. I do think it is likely that this number is roughly correct as it matches up with what I previously heard.

I btw believe one person being prosecuted for speech related offences is too many. IMO it shouldn’t happen at all.

Moreover I am quite tired of people telling me it isn’t happening after I can distinctly remember a large number of cases over the years where this does happen.

[defrost]

I'm not telling you it isn't happening - I linked to the current UK summaries of all the cases referred by police to the CPS for prosocution.

The 7 cases a day to which you referred to above will be in there and quite likly flagged as Hate Crime related.

> I believe the 3000 a year number was banded about for speech offences.

( Bandied ? ) Sure, I dare say it was, the real question was that a reliable bit of infomation or something spread about?

If you're interested in pursuing the matter then I dare say you can contact the civil servents that maintain the UK CPS stats pages and ask them for speech prosecution numbers.

My stance on such things is that almost all figures "bandied about" with respect to contraversial subjects ( crime, immigration, free speech, climate, et al ) are forms of iterative improv by vested parties. *

I'm genuinely interested in actual figures from authorative sources for all manner of things in the world.

* https://theconversation.com/how-right-wing-media-is-like-imp...

[EpicQuest_246]

I appreciate you wasn’t but a lot of the discussion about these issues follows the same pattern of people pretending there isn’t an issue, then pretending that it isn’t as bad and then arguing over the minutia.

This convo thread the same route of someone disputing the fact the journalists were having their homes raided, I couldn’t remember the name of the journalist or the exact time, so when someone does find it, we then have a discussion on the exact language and numbers. Ignoring the fact that what I said was largely correct.

The number seems reasonable considering the data we have. TBH, It doesn’t matter if it is 1000 or 3000. It is too much either way IMO.

This isn’t a right or left "team sports" issue either. I deliberately avoid talking in those terms yet people seem to assign a team to you.

[pjfin123]

You were vindicated in this thread. It's insane that the U.K. is throwing thousands in people a year in jail for speech "crimes". I remember ten years ago when free speech was a sacred value in the West; as soon as non-institutionally-connected people got a platform with social media elites changed their mind though.

They're estimates but I've seen some numbers that suggest the U.K. is imprisoning more people (per capita and absolute) for speech crimes than Russia.

[EpicQuest_246]

Thanks. People downplay what is happening in the UK.

Every-time this conversation comes up we have people downplaying what is happening. It is so tiresome.

[aguaviva]

They're estimates but I've seen some numbers

May we ask where?

[pjfin123]

My guestimate.

The whole above thread is litigating the number of people in the U.K. arrested for speech crimes. It's hard to put an exact number on it but it seems like low single digit thousands (1k-5k).

The numbers from Russia are even more murky but it appears they're arresting a few hundred people a year for speech crimes (150-600). - https://apnews.com/general-news-0274242811894097a9d79f789002... - https://www.hrw.org/video-photos/interactive/2022/08/22/what...

Russia has about double the population of the U.K. so per capita numbers are even more stark.

[aguaviva]

So you're wildly exaggerating, then.

Both by equating the number "imprisoned" (which suggests an actual conviction and jail term) with the number simply "arrested". The distinction is important, because when I did check a source, it suggested that the vast majority of convictions under existing statutes resulted in fines rather than jail sentences.

And then by conflating the UK's legislation (which, whatever you make of it, is essential non-political, and covers forms of communication that most people would agree are basically "harmful" even though they would be opposed to a ban on them) with the restrictions in Russia, which are of course highly political (as indicated by the article you linked to), and not related to protecting anyone from harm in any meaningful sense.

That is: the UK's idea of harmful speech is that which promotes "terror, hate, fraud, child sexual abuse and assisting or encouraging suicide". Whereas in Russia, per one of your articles, it's stuff like this:

    Anastasia Bubeyeva shows a screenshot on her computer of a picture of a toothpaste tube with the words: “Squeeze Russia out of yourself!” For sharing this picture on a social media site with his 12 friends, her husband was sentenced this month to more than two years in prison.

Do you not see a major, categorical distinction here?