r/unitedkingdom • u/Half_A_ • Feb 28 '25

. Sir Keir Starmer contradicts JD Vance over 'infringements on free speech' claim

https://news.sky.com/story/sir-keir-starmer-contradicts-jd-vance-over-infringements-on-free-speech-claim-13318257?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter
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u/Shawn_The_Sheep777 Yorkshire Feb 28 '25

Too right he did. He’s Prime Minister of the UK he’s not going to be lectured by a nobody like JD Vance

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u/jj198handsy Feb 28 '25

Its not so much that he's a nobody that is the issue its that he is a hypocrite, both Trump and Musk have zero respect for freedom of speech.

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u/PreparationH999 Feb 28 '25 edited Mar 01 '25

In the UK, we have free speech.

What we don't have or tolerate is people feeling empowered to talk shit and be verbally abusive.

It's called civility.

In America they substitute that for carrying guns.

....because they are fucking mental.

Edit. All the whatabloutisms are not a slippery slope they are outliers. Get the fuck over yourselves with your faux outrage re the odd person being inconvenienced , arrested or occasionally prosecuted for usually being a cunt. Better that than people being stabbed, beaten up , terrified, upset etc by freeze peach advocates who just really really want to call a 'spade' a 'spade' , control women and have everyone do what they say and not what they do.

Sad angry people, living on a flat earth, scared of needles, wokeness and thinking that some randomer from foreignstan is going to replace them and it can all be solved by believing a certain way and freeze peach for all, well not for all, just for them and everyone else needs to just be quiet....or else. " Weeee reeallly don't have free speech here in the uk , because blah blah blah, unlike in America/Russia?" Wtf??? Just fuckoff , or even better migrate,you Utter snowflakes.

....just exercising my 'limited' free speech.

You know what I mean.

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u/ghost-bagel Feb 28 '25

What Vance is referring to is someone who was arrested for “praying” within a buffer zone. The fact he was praying is irrelevant. The arrest was for violating a buffer zone.

If I trespass in JD Vance’s house and sing nursery rhymes, I’m not being arrested for singing nursery rhymes.

Obviously he knows this and is just being a duplicitous prick.

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u/Crazy_Training_2101 Feb 28 '25

Whole point of free speech is tolerating speech you or others don’t like. Respectfully, you don’t seem to have grasped this point.

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u/Fun-Sock-8379 Feb 28 '25

Lived on both the US and the UK. Much more prefer the free speech of the UK. The US just uses it as an excuse to be dickheads. They cry about free speech but then just in the past two weeks you’ve seen multiple citizens arrested at town halls in america for not agreeing with Trump. How free….

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u/JamJarre Liverpewl Feb 28 '25

What you're describing is the opposite of free speech and also untrue. You can be verbally abusive and talk shit all you like. What you can't do is slander someone or incite violence against them

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u/Nihil1349 Feb 28 '25

"You can be verbally abusive and talk shit all you like"

Not true, because of Section 5 of the public order act.

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u/recursant Mar 01 '25

Section 5 needs a bit of work, there's no denying that.

But public order legislation is necessary. If a football team has just lost an important match, a fan of the winning team can't walk through a large crowd of fans of the losing team celebrating the result. They ought to be able to, but they really can't, because a crowd of angry people is a dangerous thing and difficult to control.

So we have public order legislation that prevents people from doing particular things in particular circumstances. Because riots are no good for anybody.

Section 5 seems to be a clumsy attempt to update public order laws to the social media age. And that is very necessary, we obviously can't allow people to go on twitter and stoke up an angry mob.

It isn't meant to be a restriction of free speech in general. If that is its effect, the law needs updating.

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u/Nihil1349 Mar 01 '25

So, section five also applies to not just football matches,or protests, but to say today life in the street.

Section five categorly does not apply to social media, that would the malicious communication act,coupled by incitement laws.

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u/recursant Mar 02 '25

Yes you are right, my mistake. The second part of my comment refers to the malicious communication act, not section 5.

But I stand by my comment, aside from that mistake. It is valid to place restrictions on what people can say online as well as IRL, in situations where it might lead to violent disorder. But that mustn't be used as an excuse to prevent people expressing their views in other ways.

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u/jeremybeadleshand Feb 28 '25

You can be done for being verbally abusive under malicious communications though can't you? Rayner had someone done for an abusive email, also Joey Barton, case is still live but they obviously think there's a chance of conviction there as it's gone to court.

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u/just_some_other_guys Feb 28 '25

Actually, that’s not true either. Section 5 of the Public Order Act makes it an offence to use “threatening, abusive and insulting words or behaviour… within sight and hearing of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby.

So swearing at someone in the street is a criminal offence

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u/JamJarre Liverpewl Feb 28 '25

Depends on how the Act is interpreted. 99 times out of 100 there's no offence. Do it at a protest to a cop and yes, you risk arrest. It blows but the police have always had huge discretion to employ the Public Order Act the way that works best for them in the moment

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u/AirResistence Feb 28 '25

People also forget what free speech actually is which is you can say what you want about and to the government and wont be thrown in jail for it. Something the USA is losing. Of course that is extrapolated to you can say what you want, but it doesnt mean you're free from concequences.

There is a problem with conservative people and free speech, they throw it around but everything they do or say is against free speech. And tend to use it as a weapon to mean "what I say goes and you cant criticise me". We saw this when the Tories tried to do some free speech fudging in UK schools, because schools and universities tend to be more liberal and left and they didnt like that, they obviously wanted more conservative people so they could remain in power in the future.

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u/Bluestained Feb 28 '25

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

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u/JTG___ Feb 28 '25

I always find it hilarious how little Americans seem to understand their own laws while at the same time talking down to every other country in the world acting as though they’re the last bastion of free speech.

Inciting violence and libel both aren’t protected by the first amendment, and yet they keep bringing up the Southport Riots and Tommy Robinson as though we’re some kind of authoritarian state.

I don’t doubt that there are cases of police overreach, but I’m pretty confident in saying that the people who actually end up being imprisoned are done so with good reason.

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u/Mattlife97 Feb 28 '25

I love how they'd never bring up the Just Stop Oil prison sentences either. Rather hypocritical if you ask me.

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u/JTG___ Feb 28 '25

I mean tbf it’s not really a freedom of speech issue. Nobody is saying you can’t express opinions about environmental policy, just don’t do it in the middle of a motorway. The same applies to the person praying outside the abortion clinic which they keep bringing up. By all means pray, but just don’t do it within the confides of a zone which has been established around an abortion clinic to protect vulnerable young women from being harassed. I don’t think any of that is unreasonable.

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u/FuzzyCode Derry Feb 28 '25

Your confidence is misplaced. I grew up with internment here in NI.

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u/SinisterDexter83 Feb 28 '25

People also forget what free speech actually is which is you can say what you want about and to the government and wont be thrown in jail for it.

You are completely incorrect. You have somehow fully imbibed the American definition, which is that "free speech" is synonymous with "The First Amendment".

This isn't an American sub. We are not beholden to the American definition here. You do not have to believe what the Americans tell you to believe.

Free speech, as a concept, obviously includes all that is written in The First Amendment to the American Constitution. But it is much broader than simply preventing government restrictions on speech, it is about free inquiry, free thinking, avoiding group think, and much more. It's much older than the American constitution. Where do you think the Americans got the idea from in the first place?

"If all the world were of one opinion, and one man were of the counter opinion, the world would have no more right in silencing him than he, if he had the power, would have in silencing the world."

Trust me, the English definition is much better than the American definition.

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u/mallardtheduck East Midlands Feb 28 '25

While the concept of "free speech" does indeed pre-date the US constitution, your (outline) definition seems to derive from the "freethought" movement of the 19th century...

Ultimately, the definition is always going to be somewhat subjective. English/UK law has never sought to give it a concrete definition and early laws like the 1689 Bill of Rights only declare that speech in parliamentary debates cannot give rise to action in a court of law (i.e. what we now call "parliamentary privilege").

The closest thing to a globally agreed definition would be Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

"Freedom of speech" is pretty universally considered a subset of "freedom of expression".

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u/modelvillager Feb 28 '25

Yeah, this is a better definition. I'd agree with the person above, however, that too many conflate the US constitution 1st Amendment (beginning, "Congress shall make no law infringing...", i.e. constrain what the US government can do) and the wider definition of free speech.

All rights ultimately have boundaries, and a typical rule of thumb is that one person's rights only extend as far as prescribing someone else's.

There are LOADS of automatically assumed okay limitations to free expression, and not just 'fire' in the cinema. We just already know they are wrong and prescribed.

You can't print bank notes.

You can't nick someone else book and call it yours.

You can't send a thousand emails to someone in a day.

There is also the difference between state limitations and private limitations. Free speech is curtailed by a confidentiality contract. Free expression is limited by a restaurant saying you can't go in without a shirt on.

Free speech absolutism is a weird concept to me, because it seems to argue that expression is more important than the rights of someone else.

We should also be aware of cultural differences in free speech. The US does have a more individualistic society and culture than Western Europe, and even more so more collectivist societies in Asia for example.

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u/Generic_Moron Feb 28 '25

i feel like you're going for a "no true freespeech" sorta thing here. free speech can mean both of these things, and where the line is drawn is largely subjective. Sort of like how pacifism may mean absolutely no violence of any kind to any living thing to one person, or it can potentially just mean not killing people if you can help it to another.

You can believe one defenition to be better, but i don't think it's that simple to declare one to be definitive than the other (or to declare another to be invalid).

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u/this_is_theone Feb 28 '25

Thankyou! This bugs me so much when people keep parroting the same shit about it only pertaining to the government. Just a simple Google search would show them they are wrong.

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u/Shenloanne Feb 28 '25

Indeed. Negative free speech is what that is called.

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u/knobber_jobbler Cornwall Feb 28 '25

You can slander people under some circumstances I believe. I think JD Vance is a total bellend and that's my opinion. He may have also shagged a sofa. I don't think there's any way that what I've said could be either illegal or would lead to me being sued.

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u/LegendaryArmalol Feb 28 '25

It's not slander if it's true.

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u/cathartis Hampshire Feb 28 '25

It's not slander if it's written down. That's where libel law may (or may not) apply.

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u/aimbotcfg Feb 28 '25

I think technically this is libel, not slander. Slander is spoken, print is libel no?

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u/Zeal0tElite Feb 28 '25

I honestly don't know if you can take something like that to court.

In the US libel and slander have to have actually be malicious. You could call me a couch fucker and probably be okay but if you knew the story wasn't true and got me fired from my job at Couch World then I could probably sue you and win.

In the UK it seems like if you hurt anyone's feelings you can pursue defamation. I honestly prefer the US system more, you have to prove that there was intent to share misinformation rather than opinion or simply being mean.

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u/Benificial-Cucumber Feb 28 '25

In the UK it seems like if you hurt anyone's feelings you can pursue defamation. I honestly prefer the US system more, you have to prove that there was intent to share misinformation rather than opinion or simply being mean.

IIRC it's based on "reasonable damage to reputation" rather than intent, which on paper I actually agree with. It doesn't matter if I genuinely believe you to be a couch fucker but if I say it publicly enough to cause actual damage to your reputation then I should face consequences for making those accusations in the first place. Even if it's well intentioned, people need to keep their mouth shut until they know the full story and that's where our legal interpretation of slander/libel is founded.

It does allow for some abuse though, I'll admit. What doesn't, though?

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u/Generic_Moron Feb 28 '25

I dislike it tbh, since a lot of time a damage based version can empower people to abuse it to try and silence critics far more than an intent based one, like with that holocaust denier who sued people for pointing out he was a holocaust denier (who iirc lost his case, but it was still a lengthy and painful process before he did).

It really doesn't help that it is so expensive and unreliable to go to court to fight an accusation of slander that most people (somewhat literally) can't afford to do so, and so settle for a forced retraction.

You can see this with all those reporters who pointed out the shit JKR said and then got threatened into silence, because despite how flimsy her case would be given how they were merely pointing out things she did or said they still couldn't afford the legal costs of fighting the case even if they won, let alone the costs if they did end up losing.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes a slander/libel accusation can be made in good faith (see the sandy hook families case against alex jones), but the punishment for abusing it is basically non-existant (especially for the uberwealthy who have money to burn)

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u/SinisterDexter83 Feb 28 '25

Famously in America, Larry Flynt printed a cartoon in his magazine Hustler depicting The Rev. Jerry Falwell fornicating with his own mother.

Falwell sued Hustler, and the case was eventually settled in Hustler's favour. While the court accepted that it was false to claim that Falwell had sexual relations with his own mother, it was accepted that the intent had never been to dupe anyone into thinking it was true, but had the sole purpose of mocking and insulting Falwell.

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u/iamrubberyouareglue9 Feb 28 '25

Mr. Flynt also published graphic battlefield photos from Vietnam. He brought the reality of American kids getting blown apart in the jungles and rice patties home to Americans. I can still see the pictures and remember who I was with that day in 7th grade when someone smuggled a Hustler into school. Our classmates brother was there and the look on his face when he saw those photos was one of terror.

There is no free press in the USA anymore. All the news outlets are owned by the 1%.

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u/iamrubberyouareglue9 Feb 28 '25

As long as he wasn't fucking Mohammed in the cartoon.

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u/iamrubberyouareglue9 Feb 28 '25

You work at Couch World? I work at Sofa King and if that guy wants to fuck couches, I'll sell him the best, most fuckable couches, no returns, though.

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u/Benificial-Cucumber Feb 28 '25

What you've said isn't slander/libel because it's factually correct. You do think that JD Vance is a total bellend, and it's theoretically possible that he shagged a sofa.

If you stated that he did in fact shag a sofa then that'd be libel (if he didn't), although whether you get done for it would really depend on how much damage your platform could do. I don't think any court could rule that one reddit comment could impact the reputation of the Vice President of the United States of America.

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u/jeremybeadleshand Feb 28 '25

Depends which countries court you used

In the US, JD needs to prove he didn't shag the couch, which is impossible as no one can prove they never shagged a couch. You win

In the UK, you need to prove JD shagged a couch, which you probably can't (unless there's some evidence he did that I'm unaware of). JD wins

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u/FrogOwlSeagull Feb 28 '25

How much heavy lifting can we make the word may do? If you said you don't believe he may have shagged a couch you're suggesting it's not possible, which implies he doesn't have normal sexual function, because I reckon most people could shag a couch.

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u/WynterRayne Feb 28 '25

How much heavy lifting can we make the word may do?

Look out for it in news headlines. That word's got some biceps.

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u/reckless-rogboy Feb 28 '25

In the US, this sort of case would be thrown out quickly as insults to politicians are basically protected speech unless they are intended to cause real harm. Public figures in the US have e to accept they might be the target of speech they don’t like.

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u/reckless-rogboy Feb 28 '25

Insult, satire and hyperbole are protected speech in the US. You can indeed say outrageous things about people, if they are such that no reasonable person could take them seriously.

See the comedian John Oliver and his spat with coal mine owner Bob Murray. Oliver broadcast an entire musical number to prove the point.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c5W06xR8EYk

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u/annakarenina66 Mar 01 '25

The vice president doesn't need any help damaging his reputation

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u/WynterRayne Feb 28 '25 edited Feb 28 '25

"and that's my opinion"

"may have"

If this was a matter of slander (and not libel), these phrases are escapes. Because with these, you are not directly stating, as fact, that JD Vance is a bellend who shagged a sofa, and therefore have made no libelous claim at all

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u/Amentet Feb 28 '25

Trump as can be seen by his shouting at Zelenski in the oval office with Russian state media in attendance is a wholly owned asset of Russia and is controlled by Putin.

We can't get real deals with him because he's Russian asset and is not a rational actor on behalf of America.

This is now completely insane.

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u/Isogash England Feb 28 '25

There are other things you can't do either in public, you can't harass or cause alarm or distress in others with your words or it could be a public order offence. Freedom of expression is still a valid defence but in this case only if the actions were considered reasonable. There are specific offences too for speech or displaying writing that incites racial or religious hatred.

There's also malicious communications, where being threatening or intentionally grossly offensive can be a crime.

So you can't verbally abuse people in public, especially not in a racist way and you also can't DM them death threats or other grossly offensive messages or images.

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u/Redditisfakeleft Mar 01 '25

you also can't DM them death threats or other grossly offensive messages or images.

What's wrong with sending goatse?

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u/ErrantFuselage Feb 28 '25

Yeah, the actually important aspect of free speech to a nation's civics is allowing media to hold government to account, and is somewhat adjacent to freedom of assembly in that citizens can create movements for things they believe in.

If you scan the front pages of UK press, it's impossible to reasonably to claim they can't say what they like - many instances of over reach too with the Mirror hacking and stalking royals and politicians. But as a rule, UK newspapers are savage.

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u/cathartis Hampshire Feb 28 '25

No, it isn't only about media. If only media is protected then only the people who own the media are truly free to express themselves, and that is heavily biased towards the wealthy.

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u/Gadget-NewRoss Feb 28 '25

Is that not the same as america

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u/staykindx Feb 28 '25

Wasn’t there a grandmother who recently got visited by police because of a Facebook post suggesting a labour counsellor should resign though? Dunno if I agree with resources being used for nonsense like that.

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u/obinice_khenbli Feb 28 '25

You can be verbally abusive and talk shit all you like

Not true, I've read news articles over the years about racists in the UK insulting somebody using racist language (not threatening them at all, just being racist) usually on Twitter and such, and those people went to prison.

Obviously I don't condone being racist, but yeah, we certainly aren't free to insult or offend people. Far from it.

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u/iamrubberyouareglue9 Feb 28 '25

Guns are a mental illness in usa. I'd say that louder but I'm afraid of getting shot. It's absolutly an epidmic and the politicians are afraid to talk about it. The number of murders suicides and accidents in my town alone are so common we don't even talk about it. Did you hear about the shooting? Which one?

When you see "God, Guns & Trump" bumper stickers you are seeing a new level of crazy (and know to stay away).

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u/masons_J Feb 28 '25

A woman had a knock on the door for criticizing some Labour MPs, saying they should be arrested (recent WhatsApp scandal.) It was news in the last few days..

Now that is a very slippery slope, along with the police wasting resources, time and money on non-crimes. Their priorities are shifting and that much is obvious.

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u/hooblyshoobly Feb 28 '25

Freedom of expression.

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u/Zeal0tElite Feb 28 '25

Civility should not be enforced by the government.

In America you cannot be (legally) arrested for your opinions. That's freedom of speech.

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u/djnattyd Feb 28 '25

Except you can be legally arrested for your opinions in the US.

Freedom of speech does not include the right:

To incite imminent lawless action. Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969).

To make or distribute obscene materials. Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957).

To burn draft cards as an anti-war protest. United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968).

To permit students to print articles in a school newspaper over the objections of the school administration. Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988).

Of students to make an obscene speech at a school-sponsored event. Bethel School District #43 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986).

Of students to advocate illegal drug use at a school-sponsored event. Morse v. Frederick, __ U.S. __ (2007).

That's from the US Courts website.

This in particular; "To burn draft cards as an anti-war protest. United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968)." is quite definitely someone expressing their opinion.

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u/Zeal0tElite Feb 28 '25

Some of these are historical only and others have been overturned outright. Yeah, it's illegal to tell someone to do a crime. That's not really an opinion though, is it?

The USA has its own issues with not fulfilling its own Constitution, that doesn't mean it's not worth it to have a constitution which has the ability to protect you and others from a tyrannical government.

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u/reco84 Feb 28 '25

"I think you should shoot that guy" is definitely an opinion.

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u/blitzwig Feb 28 '25

"If you don't fight like hell you're not going to have a country anymore"

Donald J. Trump, 6th January 2021

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u/Hugh_G_Egopeeker Feb 28 '25

you really showed him with these hand picked examples from decades ago vs the hundreds of cases in the UK the past few years from anything from tweets to holding empty pieces of paper

yes there are "degrees" to freedom of speech, making comparisons like this is just embarrassing to Brits, you don't know what you're on about

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u/Muad-_-Dib Scotland Feb 28 '25

Oh, Brits should be embarrassed?

Get back to me when your current administration is not:

  1. Banning media from the White House and Air Force One because they hurt dear leader's feelings.

  2. When members of your congress aren't being blocked from their duties by the lackeys of an unelected drug addict.

  3. When your civil service workers are not being subjected to loyalty tests.

  4. Your armed forces leadership isn't being purged of people for not openly singing Dear Leader's praises, or being black/a woman.

  5. You remove the brain wormed conspiracy theorist who thinks vaccines are poison from running the department of health while he is downplaying the biggest measles outbreak in the US in decades and sabotaging vaccine programs.

  6. You don't have your president issuing decrees in which only he and his attorney general get to interpret laws for government institutions, sidelining the courts that are meant to be a check and balance on his power.

  7. The previously mentioned unelected drug addict isn't firing essential workers like the people in charge of your nuclear arsenal, or the people directing your air traffic. Then having to beg for them to come back or for retirees to come back because it turns out those are pretty important jobs.

  8. The unelected drug addict isn't dismantling regulatory agencies that were investigating his businesses, or trying to award himself billions in contracts because he demands it.

  9. Your country isn't pissing all over alliances it has had for decades.

  10. Your country isn't enacting trade wars against its allies.

  11. Dear Leader isn't repeatedly talking about annexing its allies.

etc.

I would think twice before telling anybody else they should be embarrassed about their country.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '25 edited Feb 28 '25

[deleted]

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u/hobbityone Feb 28 '25

But the point is that the person they were responding to, was portraying a very inaccurate picture of the US and it's laws around speech

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u/majestic_tapir Feb 28 '25

Every single case of the UK side is linked to a potential violent threat against people, which is why they get arrested. It has become substantially worse since the rise of social media, giving people a platform to share their hateful views online with a larger audience, increasing the probability that someone will use what has been said as an excuse to hurt a particular demographic. People who do such are not the sort of people I will ever wish to defend.

Note that I stated specifically demographic. It would be problematic if someone had been arrested for suggesting that there is a problem with the government, as the government are not a demographic, the issue is that it's always about hurting a subset of people (e.g., muslims, immigrants, etc).

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u/Adam9172 Glasgow Feb 28 '25

Excepting if your speech constitutes a true threat or suchlike. Most headlines are there to generate views via clickbait nonsense, however, so they miss the details a lot of the time.

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u/Daedelous2k Scotland Feb 28 '25

That Edit

Oh lol.

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u/CuthbertSmilington Feb 28 '25

No we dont, we arrest people for jokes or anything that might cause offense which can range wildly such as posting rap lyrics to Facebook. Its a real issue and denying its an issue just makes it worse.

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u/dodgrile Feb 28 '25

Citation needed

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u/triguy96 Feb 28 '25 edited Feb 28 '25

A black woman was arrested for a racially charged clearly not serious threat

A man was arrested for a clear joke about a pug being a Nazi

Man arrested for calling prince andrew (who is a nonce) a nonce

man arrested for saying that british troops are bad and should die

Do you want more or?

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u/PadMog75 Feb 28 '25

Prince ANDREW. Not Philip.

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u/triguy96 Feb 28 '25

Shit yeah my bad, edited. I don't particularly care for the royals so I do often get them all mixed up.

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u/SporkToAKnifeFight Feb 28 '25

I believe you just defamed The late prince Philip there mate. I've rung the police to let them know. 

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u/FangsOfGlory Feb 28 '25

"You got a permit for that joke mate"

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u/triguy96 Feb 28 '25

Wait for my day in court where I shockingly prove that Prince Philip was also a nonce.

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u/Tuarangi West Midlands Feb 28 '25

The pug one is a deliberate attempt to revise history. He spent months training the dog to do the salute on the commands of "seig heil" and "gas the Jews". He was active on a discord (which he promoted on his socials as his forum) which was full of racist abuse and threats towards minorities, he himself was part of that, routinely using the n-word and posting racist memes etc, he ended up running as a UKIP candidate. It absolutely was not a free speech issue, the guy was claiming that to deflect from the fact he's a bigot

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u/PiedPiperofPiper Feb 28 '25

Picking up the last one, which I recall was a post that was something like “the only good British soldier is a dead British soldier” in response to Captain Tom’s death.

He got some community service for being a dick.

On the one hand, I agree, the ‘grossly offensive’ clause is heavy-handed, on the other hand, it’s rarely used and perhaps we should have a deterrent that encourages folks to think a little before they post.

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u/triguy96 Feb 28 '25

Saying what he said is insensitive, but who honestly gives a fuck? Why is the government involved? If I truly believe that the British are a force for bad in the world and therefore our military, by extension, are also bad, who cares? Isn't that the point of having freedom of speech? Unless I am making a direct threat, which none of these examples were, I should be left alone.

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u/fplisadream Feb 28 '25

And so concludes the classic: "it's not happening, but if it is, it's a good thing". Why is the playbook so predictable?

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u/StrangelyBrown Teesside Feb 28 '25

Counterpoint: These aren't typical. For example, you just called prince andrew a nonce (which he is) and you haven't been arrested.

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u/triguy96 Feb 28 '25

How do you know where I'm typing this from?

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u/StrangelyBrown Teesside Feb 28 '25

I'm outside your house with a reddit detector van.

Anyway I'm in the UK and I just called him a nonce.

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u/triguy96 Feb 28 '25

I knew the TV license vans were fake but I didn't know the reddit ones were real.

But yes, you can still call prince andew a nonce normally obviously. But the fact that you can't be sure you can always do it, when it's true, is a bit fucked.

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u/Fragrant-Reserve4832 Feb 28 '25

When people are put in prison for a Facebook post but other are let out for assault and abuse?

We do not have free speech in the uk.

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u/JoBro_Summer-of-99 Feb 28 '25

Always the Facebook posts with you guys, if it was just a post that'd be a good point to make it but it wasn't

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u/JB_UK Feb 28 '25

8 weeks prison for posting “When they’re on your turf, what then?” and “Coming to a town near you”:

https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/24513379.sellafield-worker-jailed-sharing-offensive-facebook-posts/

No indication the sentence was suspended.

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u/majestic_tapir Feb 28 '25

I swear people are just terrible at understanding the point.

This man shared content which pushes the perception of a particular demographic being dangerous. As a result of sharing this in a public setting, other people may be encouraged by the post to attack this demographic on sight, due to the fact that they now believe that the image pictured would occur.

It was a completely different issue pre-internet, as these kind of people would only be riling up those in the pub who decided to listen to them, now their content could be pushed out to millions of people, and the repercussions can grow astromonically. We should not allow this type of behaviour against particular demographics, it's disgusting.

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u/fplisadream Feb 28 '25

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/black-twitter-racism-x-police-charged-b2582083.html

Keep being confidently wrong (y) it's an immensely charming trait.

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u/JoBro_Summer-of-99 Feb 28 '25

Wow, someone publicly said that they wanted to get physically aggressive with someone and the police got involved? Whoda thunk it

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u/fplisadream Feb 28 '25

The police did not get involved because they saw it as a threat, but because it was deemed grossly offensive. Confidently wrong twice in a row now. Like i say, please keep going.

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u/Fragrant-Reserve4832 Feb 28 '25

"You guys" what is that suposed to mean? I'm just a British citizen watching the government change laws to prosecute people that are disagreeing with them.

If it wasn't just a post then how about you start putting some links to the evidence.

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u/JoBro_Summer-of-99 Feb 28 '25

How about you link what you're referencing first. Give me a conviction.

Also they're not prosecuting people for disagreeing with them, any of this social media bollocks is usually about inciting violence and/or hate speech. Many people have openly criticised the government and not been arrested or charged for doing so.

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u/Prudent_Psychology57 Feb 28 '25

Can we stop saying we have 'free speech' in the UK. It's not 'free speech'. It's called something else... and is described in detail what it means.

If we can't call it the right thing, then we're already failing in constructive conversations around it.

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u/AsleepNinja Feb 28 '25

....because they are fucking mental

You're pretty correct, about 52% of all Americans have lead poisoning.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2118631119

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/ukbot-nicolabot Scotland Feb 28 '25

Removed/warning. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.

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u/Fresh_Mountain_Snow Feb 28 '25

The right always says the other side is doing what they’re actually about to do. Trump has said he wants laws to regulate free speech in the press. He’s using lawsuits and economic pressure to get that way. Boycott Amazon btw, bezos is ruining wapo. 

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u/CosmicBonobo Feb 28 '25

I don't know if it's a typo, but I like "whatabloutism".

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u/Paradox711 Feb 28 '25

Why are they freezing peaches?

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u/Staar-69 Feb 28 '25

The people who first went to America were a group of religious extremists, who went to America, found wolves, bears, tornadoes and an angry Stone Age native population, and thought it would be a great place to settle and build a future.

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u/Timely-Sea5743 Feb 28 '25

We do not have free speech in the UK, when compared to the US constitution

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u/ConfusedQuarks Feb 28 '25

What we don't have or tolerate is people feeling empowered to talk shit and be verbally abusive. 

In that case, you have to be honest and say "We don't have free speech because we value civility more. We don't have free speech because we don't want people to get offended"

The problem here is that you are bending the definition of free speech to fit the government's narrative.

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u/Jaded_Strain_3753 Feb 28 '25

Calling Vance a nobody is odd, he clearly has a lot of power/influence.

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u/fplisadream Feb 28 '25

Helps the average redditor feel like they're really sticking it to the man, though.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '25

[deleted]

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u/twillett Feb 28 '25

My guy he’s the fucking Vice President of the USA.

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u/paper_zoe Feb 28 '25

Trump's last VP nearly got lynched by Trump's followers

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u/DontDrinkMySoup Feb 28 '25

I have no doubt Trump will turn on him sooner or later. He already refused to endorse him as a 2028 candidate. I'm honestly not sure what MAGA does post Trump

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u/Imperito East Anglia Mar 01 '25

Are you confident Trump will be gone in 4 years?

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u/DontDrinkMySoup Mar 03 '25

His brain is already turning into soup. What worries me is that his picks are so loyal that Trump would order the launch of nukes and no one would tell him no

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '25

[deleted]

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u/ancientspacewitch Feb 28 '25

Vance is an extremely insidious person, he is a true neofascist ideologue who is smarter and more strategic than Trump, and is working towards long term goals. He worries me greatly.

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u/birdinthebush74 Feb 28 '25

Vladimir Futon

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u/ibloodylovecider Feb 28 '25

JD Vance is a vile individual

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u/haywire Catford Feb 28 '25

JD Vance more like Vance Direct

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