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by dbdr 185 days ago
> The UK arrests 12k people per year for social media posts, using vague laws to undermine free speech.

A spokesperson for Leicestershire police clarified that offences under section 127 and section 1 can include any form of communication and may also be “serious domestic abuse-related crimes”. [1]

It seems misleading to count arrests related to domestic abuse as "anti-free speech".

[1]: https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/select-communications-off...
1 comments
josteink 185 days ago
It seems very politically convenient to be able to hide that one number behind the other. To obfuscate something highly controversial by making it artificially conflated with something everyone would agree on with.

This is what governments do when they want to avoid public scrutiny. This is not the win you are looking for.

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dbdr 185 days ago
It would indeed be better to have the separate counts. It's also wrong to attribute to only one case what is a actually a larger category, unless there is actual evidence that it's the overwhelming majority anyways. Both can be true at the same time.

I'm not trying to win anything, and I do support privacy. I just think any argument, especially those citing specific numbers, should be based on an accurate description of reality.

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