[naasking]

> which made it an offence to stir up or incite racial hatred.

If you point out that one racial demographic is responsible for more crimes than another, would that run afoul of the statute?

If not, what if you additionally point out that the reason these crimes were committed is likely because that behaviour is normalized in their culture? This seems like it would definitely run afoul of the statute, and if this logical deduction were valid, then this sort of criticism would be suppressed despite being legitimate, and could be weaponized against people.

I'm frankly not so convinced that it's possible to define hate speech in a way that does not allow for these failure modes.

[Defletter]

Do you have any examples of people being prosecuted for hate speech by stating nothing but dry facts?

[naasking]

Does the law explicitly specify that dry facts would be excluded? Or is it sufficiently broad that dry facts could be included if some over-zealous bureaucrats get it in their head that some speech or people are problematic?

I am interested in the letter of the law, because that's what matters, not how it's being applied while the winds are blowing in a particular direction.

[Defletter]

Okay, so just to be clear, you don't have even a single example of someone being prosecuted under hate speech laws for stating facts in the 40-odd years since its passage? Why is this not just concern trolling?

As to the general question, no, a statement being true does not immunise it from an accusation of it being used to stir up or incite hatred, or at the very least such a defence is not defined within the Public Order Act 1986. We do have the Human Rights Act which protects Freedom of Expression, but whether you could use it or other defences is pure speculation on my part: I would need to see some actual caselaw.

I've attempted my own searches but have only encountered the usual suspects: holocaust deniers and their ilk. Please let me know if you find such a case because I genuinely think that would be interesting to debate, but debating over pure speculation and innuendo is very boring.

[naasking]

> Okay, so just to be clear, you don't have even a single example of someone being prosecuted

To be clear, I haven't even looked, but being a recent topic of debate, it seems important to clearly establish the letter of the law.

> Why is this not just concern trolling?

Because the law-as-written is what matters, like I said, not the law-as-it-has-been-exercised-so-far. Unless you think people inclined to abuse the law will never be elected.

> I've attempted my own searches but have only encountered the usual suspects: holocaust deniers and their ilk

Depending on the specifics, that already seems problematic. There are also chilling effects that are not clearly visible until after the fact. How long have some people wanted to discuss the over representation of some ethnicities in sexual assault clusters, but couldn't because of these laws?

[Defletter]

> How long have some people wanted to discuss the over representation of some ethnicities in sexual assault clusters, but couldn't because of these laws?

I don't know, perhaps you should give some examples of this actually happening rather than relying solely on implication.

[naasking]

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/child-rape-scandal-dominati...

[seattle_spring]

It's pretty apparent that the arrests are happening to people who explicitly call for violence, eg the woman who called for burning down all hotels housing immigrants. Musk, Rogan, etc are patient zero of the ones amplifying the false idea that you can get in legal trouble "for posting an opinion."

[naasking]

> It's pretty apparent that the arrests are happening to people who explicitly call for violence

Unless the statute specifically makes that distinction, then that's not very compelling. There are already laws against inciting violence. Hate speech laws are specifically understood to be about outlawing speech that contain or incite "hate", whose definition is typically broad.