[poszlem]

This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the state arrests someone for a joke, and that person, feeling persecuted, joins an anti-establishment or far-right group, the state cannot then say, "See? We were right to arrest him because he's now a member of that group."

You are using Meechan’s political actions in 2018 and 2019 to justify a legal conviction for a video made in 2016 (which you said happened "soon after").

[esperent]

This one person did appear to get radicalized, yes. Although I'm willing to bet the radicalizers found fertile ground.

But we'd need to see statistical analysis across the whole population of arrests to see whether it's generally a deterrent or not.