[gib444]

Got a link for those UK stats? Last time I went looking, even a Parliamentary report expressed that the stats are difficult to find, because the crime is eg malicious communications which covers a lot of acts.

Your links in another comment do not contain nearly enough detail to support the argument you're attempting to make. The 2 laws mentioned therein are broad and could cover many acts.

It's like a newspaper looking at the statistics for murder and creating a story that murder by asphyxiation with a pillow is on the rise.

n.b. I am not disagreeing that the police are policing social media. It's obviously an easy target. But we should be careful of newspapers pushing narratives, by asking for precise data

[aliasxneo]

Well, that presents a problem when the news organizations that did investigate are just outright dismissed. The Times did a FOI request and are the ones who published the 12,183 figure which ultimately demonstrated the massive increase year over year.

The fact that there were signed petitions, two reports from supposably untrustworthy news organizations (that I could fine, there's probably more), and that it's been discussed at the national level multiple times, will either convince someone that it's 100% fabricated if they lean one way politically or that it's true if they lean the other way.

More and more I've found that it has nothing to do with data anymore. People will just ignore whatever isn't suitable to their beliefs.

[gib444]

You don't have the data on arrests specifically over social media posts, because they don't exist, so you chose to dismiss my reply and attempt an ad hominem.

I am not leaning one way or the other 100%, as indicated in my earlier reply. You are just reading what you want to read

I agree when there is not precise data available, inferences can be made from other data, but you must not state things like "statistically less likely to get arrested for a social media post in the US than the UK" when you don't have the actual, relevant statistics.

If you wish to argue with statistics, you must present them. And they will be cross examined, as is right and proper.

[aliasxneo]

It was an observation, based on my own experiences, of how more and more people are dismissive based on their existing preferences. A refrain if you might. I have no idea what you believe or what your motivations are and I wasn't trying to guess.

But I digress. I'm the only one who has even attempted to provide any sort of data in this thread - which is typical of HN. Cast doubt and force the other party to continue to provide information until some unstated goal is satiated (and I often find the goal tends to move as well). It's a brilliant tactic, basically no effort and you can continue to feel confident in your assumptions. I miss when conversations were reciprocal.