[yesco]

> That's at odds with legal systems all over the world, including the US

Not true. The US has a much higher bar for prosecuting speech than the UK.

Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) - 395 U.S. 444

- https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/107965/brandenburg-v-o...

- Speech must be "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action"

- AND "likely to incite or produce such action"

- General statements like "burn them all" typically fail both prongs

The "imminent" requirement is key. Connolly's Facebook post lacked:

- Specific targets or locations

- Timeframe for action

- Direct instructions to specific individuals

- Any indication people were prepared to act on her words immediately

Here are cases with far more explicit threats that were protected:

United States v. Bagdasarian (2009)

- https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/221261/united-states-v...

- Citation: 652 F.3d 1113 (9th Cir. 2011)

- Posted that Obama "will have a 50 cal in the head" with racial slurs

- Result: Conviction reversed as crude political statement, not true threat

United States v. Turner (2013)

- https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/904120/united-states-v...

- Citation: 720 F.3d 411 (2d Cir. 2013)

- Posted that three federal judges "deserve to die" with their photos and addresses

- Result: Conviction overturned as protected political hyperbole

Connolly's "set fire to all the hotels" would likely be viewed as angry hyperbole in the United States, not meeting Brandenburg's strict standard.

The distinction: The US prosecutes actual incitement (directing a mob to attack a building RIGHT NOW). The UK prosecutes offensive speech that merely might inspire someone, somewhere, someday. Your Brandenburg citation actually proves this difference rather than refutes it.

You want thousands of examples? Check Twitter during any US political crisis - they're not prosecuted precisely because Brandenburg protects them.

[tolien]

Point taken, but incitement is still an offence in other countries. That the US has specific, and particularly permissive, laws around what constitutes speech is neither here nor there.

> You want thousands of examples?

Of people people prosecuted for innocuous speech in the UK, the original claim in this thread. Brandenburg doesn't apply there.

[yesco]

I misunderstood what you were trying to imply but still think your premise is mistaken. My reply is merely directed at anyone implying the US's free speech-laws are somehow comparable to the authoritarian anti-free-speech laws the UK has.

[tolien]

Do expand on that point then.

Edit: If I remove the reference to Brandenburg, I'm not sure my point substantially changes:

Incitement is an offence in the UK and also in other countries. You can argue whether that should be the case or not but that's completely orthogonal.

Gathering a whole lot of offenses which happened to include online activity to produce a big number of people who you can claim were prosecuted for something that you can claim is as innocuous as "online posts" is dishonest.

[yesco]

You're playing a shell game with definitions to justify authoritarian speech laws.

> lumping together arrests for stalking, incitement to violence and other forms of harassment to produce a big scary number

But that's exactly the problem - the UK defines "incitement" and "harassment" so broadly that ordinary political speech becomes criminal:

UK "Harassment" includes:

- Misgendering someone online

- Posting offensive jokes

- Retweeting protest footage

- Criticizing immigration policy "grossly"

UK "Incitement" includes:

- Lucy Connolly's Facebook post (31 months)

- Jordan Parlour's "every man and their dog should smash [hotel] up" (20 months)

- Tyler Kay's "set fire to all the hotels" retweet (38 months)

NONE of these would meet Brandenburg's standard in the US. They lack:

- Directed at specific individuals

- Imminent timeframe

- Likelihood of producing immediate action

> if the stated number is true, there should be thousands of examples every year

There ARE thousands. In 2023:

- 3,537 arrested for online speech

- 1,991 convicted under Section 127 Communications Act

- Hundreds more under Public Order Act

You don't hear about most because "UK citizen arrested for offensive tweet" stopped being newsworthy years ago.

You're using the word "incitement" to equate UK thought policing with legitimate US restrictions on speech that creates immediate danger. That's like defending China's censorship because "every country bans fraud."

The definitions matter. The UK criminalizes hurt feelings. The US criminalizes immediate threats to public safety.

[tolien]

> There ARE thousands.

And here you're getting in on the dishonesty.

How many of those were examples of "hurt feelings" and not "put a whole lot of foreigners at risk of their lives" or any of the other classes of "online posts"? We don't know because in their rush to say "the UK's arresting 30 people a day for posting things online", the Economist didn't bother breaking that down.

> NONE of these would meet Brandenburg's standard in the US.

None of them happened in the US so that's irrelevant. My misunderstanding of the precedent around incitement isn't central to my point.

[yesco]

'We don't arrest people for speech, we arrest them for crimes we've defined as speech' is not the defense you think it is.

[immibis]

The US has about the most extremist speech laws on the planet. They are a significant outlier, and shouldn't be used as a benchmark.