[stephen_g]

Ah, the good old "I never thought leopards would eat my face" after voting for the 'leopards eating people's faces party'...

Somehow I have zero hope the bill she is proposing as a replacement could be any better than the absolute horror that the OSA is though...

[Defletter]

Ditto, but also the so-called "Free Speech Bill" advocated by the publisher which explicitly attempts to import America-style free speech into the country as law. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be something Parliament is entertaining, at least not yet.

[streetfighter64]

What's wrong with america-style free speech? In my opinion that's one of the few things they got more right than many european countries.

[latexr]

> What's wrong with america-style free speech?

The biggest issue might be the false belief that it’s superior to others or that the USA is somehow “more free” than other democracies. That’s propaganda, and has precipitated the erosion of freedoms in the USA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_Unite...

As just one example of the failures of “america-style free speech”: Defending that corporations making large donations to political candidates is free speech. Talk about an incentive to corruption.

[GJim]

> As just one example of the failures of “america-style free speech”

Here are some more. Frankly, the USA isn't doing very well on free speech lately.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index

[Defletter]

Have you not noticed what it's done to their country?

[streetfighter64]

Done? I'm having a hard time seeing how not jailing people for objectionable tweets led to the election of Trump (which I'm assuming you're referring to). USA has many deep problems in their politics and if you haven't noticed, have been waging unjust wars for almost their entire history. The recent events are nothing more than a continuation of how it's always been going. If you want to attribute that to free speech, sure, but I'm not seeing the causation honestly.

[Defletter]

This is where the propaganda surrounding American-style free speech clashes with reality. Many people assume it protects all speech unless it's incitement to imminent lawless action, "fighting words", etc. But that is simply not the case. This is in large part due to how American law doesn't do what it says. Read their First Amendment, actually read it: it's a limitation on Congress. It's become much, much more than that because their Supreme Court is a de facto legislative body.

This is how you get the Red Scare; that money is speech (Buckley v. Valeo); that legal entities are people with free speech and thus campaign donations cannot be restricted (Citizens United v. FEC); that retaliatory arrests for speech are fine so long as there's probable cause for something else (Nieves v. Bartlett); that therapists have a right to convert their underage gay clients (Chiles v. Salazar); etc. Did you not hear about Mahmoud Khalil? Or Alex Pretti? Ect?

The whole "objectionable tweets" thing is so overplayed too. British pundits like to wax poetic about the apparent persecution of people for political speech, and the "political speech" is, for example, Lucy Connolly calling for the burning down of a hotel building housing asylum seekers.

The biggest sufferers under UK speech restrictions are not tweeters, it's protesters, and yet the examples are always tweeters. Isn't that interesting?

[streetfighter64]

> Many people assume

Oh, did I do that? Where?

> This is how you get ...

Not really, you're just naming a shopping list of examples of what I mentioned earlier: "USA has many deep problems in their politics", with a very tenuous connection to the laws on speech.

> Did you not hear about Mahmoud Khalil? Or Alex Pretti? Ect?

I did hear about that, why are you assuming I didn't? Can you explain the connection to the issue at hand though, because I'm not seeing it.

I chose the tweets example because it's one of the more ridiculous examples, but I could just as well have named Palestine Action or numerous other examples from other european countries. What's "interesting" about it?

Isn't it "interesting" how you're trying very hard to paint a certain picture of the discussion?

[lewispollard]

But the US does jail people for posting objectionable content, the FBI surveil people posting extreme and objectionable stuff on social platforms and it's led to jail time in at least some cases, one that comes to mind is Lucas Nevcherlian

[api]

Are those things because of speech? Or would they be worse if America did not have free speech?

Imagine if Trump could outright ban criticism of him or his policies, or if protests against unjust wars could be banned, or if we had UK style libel laws how would the Epstein thing have come out? Everyone who talked about it would have been shut down by lawsuits.

[Defletter]

The reason why it would be worse is not because American-style free speech is good actually, but because you fundamentally lack the tools to hold your politicians accountable. Not only do US federal districts contain ~10x more people than UK constituencies (thus your voice is 10x smaller), but the US is suffering extreme jerrymandering, which the Supreme Court has conveniently made unconstitutional to prevent. It's also extraordinarily difficult to remove Presidents.

As for the Epstein point, I cannot say I'm aware of the full saga given that it's been a multiple-decade scandal at this point. But the files were released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Translate this to the UK and Parliament passing a law mandating their release would be unquestionable. No lawsuit would survive the briefest scrutiny once Parliament willed it. I also think it's worth mentioning that Prince Andrew, our most prominent associate with Epstein, began facing repercussions for that association in 2019, years before the files were released.

[GJim]

> Imagine if Trump could outright ban criticism of him or his policies

Ummmmmm. He is.

That is to say, anybody _in power_ or any in any position of authority is significantly curtailing their criticism of Trump. If you haven't noticed this by now, then I despair. Frankly it's unimportant what the little guy says about Trump. The little guys speech is 'free', but the moment the little guy is in a position of power, watch the US administration silence him.

EDIT: For the uninitiated, being 'silenced' doesn't mean being carted off to prison. It means the Trump taking away your authority, reputation, career and/or livelihood. That is all that is required.