[pcrh]

The comparison is made with America's First Amendment, which is a valuable piece of legislation.

How does the law in the US treat incitement to violence, as shown by some of the cases described, e.g. Among them were people who said things like “blow the mosque up” and “set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards”. That probably would have been legal in America, says Gavin Phillipson of Bristol University, since it falls short of presenting a clear and imminent danger.

What would constitute "clear and imminent danger" in a online posting?

[TheOtherHobbes]

Context helps.

The tweets appeared during an attempt to set off race riots in the UK, which was partly being organised on Twitter.

And some people had indeed tried to set fire to hotels.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/dec/12/rotherham-ri...

So this wasn't random online muttering. It was a clear statement of encouragement and intent.

Compare with the much larger number of people who have been jailed for discussing peaceful protests against fossil fuels.

And the number of people - zero - who have been jailed for high profile disruptive protests against... changes to inheritance tax.

[skippyboxedhero]

The person in question did not say the latter. You have, presumably deliberately, decontextualized it. She said roughly what you said followed by "for all I care", and she also deleted the post a few minutes after.

(What some people may not understand: UK police are running a dragnet online now, it is unclear when this started but was in full force after Covid, you can post and immediately delete, you can post with five followers...they will find it, and will attempt to prosecute. People on here go mad when police in the US pick up drug addicts, the UK has a China-style operation aimed at the public, they are making 200-300 arrests a week, it is complete insanity).

Now compare this to what else people are seeing. Some people in the UK (I cannot say which ones) are subject to rules: benefit fraud, tax evasion, public disturbances everywhere..."community policing" so these laws are not enforced. A well-known paedophile politician was recently convicted for attempted rape and sexual assault, they got a sentence shorter than the person you are referring to above...a convicted paedophile. Some parts of the UK have given prosecutors guidelines not to give a custodial sentence to paedophiles. During the riots, whilst people were being arrested for tweeting, there was a video online of a policeman asking attendees of a local mosque to put their weapons back in the mosque...no arrests made. For people in the UK, the problem is not the danger of things being said online, the danger is things going on in the physical world around them. I don't think a reasonable person can fail to connect these two things, there is a reason why the police go after the innocent online rather than criminals.

[crtasm]

>she also deleted the post a few minutes after.

This is incorrect.

"At the time she had about 9,000 followers on X. Her message was reposted 940 times and viewed 310,000 times, before she deleted it three and a half hours later. " - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3nn60wyr6o

>you can post and immediately delete, you can post with five followers...they will find it, and will attempt to prosecute

Examples of this happening please?

[pcrh]

My question was more specific. I copied the quote from the Economist, a reliable publication.

So, assuming the posting was as written, would it fall under the "clear and imminent" criteria apparently used in the US?

[alephnerd]

It would not if there wasn't proof that there was actual planning. That said, you would most likely be monitored by local and state law enforcement.

A similar case happened in Central Illinois a couple years ago, where threats were posted but arrests were not made until the threats moved to actual action.

[pcrh]

In this case, the threats did move to action....

[alephnerd]

The person making the threat needs to be linked to the one taking the action (either via direct or indirect participation).

[pcrh]

In this case, she was found guilty of "sending a communication threatening death or serious harm".

>Sweeney wrote: "It’s absolutely ridiculous. Don’t protect the mosque. Blow the mosque up with the adults in it."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz6x105wgz5o