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by FridayoLeary 256 days ago
The police are overreaching massively. They are making 30 arrests a day and "interview" many more.

We do not rely on the ECHR to protect our free speech. If we did the UK would no longer be a democracy. I'm offended by the suggestion that our democracy and society is so fragile that without them we would have no rights. Expect a police raid very soon.
1 comments
n4r9 256 days ago
The "30 arrests a day" or "12000 arrests a year" stat is wildly misleading. I've addressed it before here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41488099
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FridayoLeary 256 days ago
I think you're being disingenous. There is clearly an unprecedented and systemic effort to police social media. Even if the posts did actually violate the law doesn't change my point or address my concerns. This is not what the police should be doing.
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n4r9 256 days ago
I honestly don't know if that's true or not. But I haven't seen any compelling evidence to support it. The figures being lobbed around by the likes of Tommy Robinson are deeply harmful to the debate because they are both a) completely wrong and b) misleadingly quoted. You can lookt the actual stats here: https://www.met.police.uk/foi-ai/metropolitan-police/disclos...

We're talking on the order of a few hundred arrests per year for section 127 of the Communications Act and 1500 per year for the Malicious Communications Act, which includes stuff like racial harassment, domestic abuse, pedophilic grooming, and a whole host of things that I would hope you agree should be illegal.

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