Comment by tonyedgecombe
Comment by tonyedgecombe 5 hours ago
> The UK is a police state.
No it isn’t.
Comment by tonyedgecombe 5 hours ago
> The UK is a police state.
No it isn’t.
It's a nanny state with the police arresting and jailing people for tweets. It's a police state, but "we" like to identify police states with Russians, Chinese, and Iranians, or whoever the state's enemy is at the moment.
When police show up to your door and ask you to apologize to people for causing distress, and to consider not speaking from now on, you live in a police state. When you have banned political parties and organizations that trigger the mass arrests of peaceful protestors, you live in a police state. People who are comfortable with what is being suppressed never think of their country as a police state. At least until something happens to them or someone they care about, when they suddenly become "activists."
> you live in a police state.
sigh You've not lived in a police state, or more accurately, you've been online too much to actually get context.
In the UK threatening to kill someone has been illegal since at least ~1880 something. Going online an publicly calling for the death of one or more person (which in the eyes of the law is pretty close to sending a good old paper death threat) is not only widely considered a dick move, its illegal.
Now, How do you enforce that? the police investigate, and if its deemed a credible threat, you are visited by the plod. Who most likley go "look mate, don't be a dick".
If you are really being a dick, you might be cautioned (taken to the police station and told "you're being a shit")
The next stage up is appearing in court.
And then you have to be convicted by a jury of your peers, and the burden of evidence is really quite high. ("oh but that mum, she was innocent." I advise you to read all that she wrote, you know the extra bits that the sun can't print)
Its not like you're bundled into the back of a van by masked goons who refuse to identify themselves. Taken to a mass detention centre and not seen for weeks, and then yeeted to an illegal jail.
But why are the police investigating social media?
Now thats a good question. And the answer is: Musk doesn't moderate. Stuff that gets you a visit from the plod is generally against the community standards of social media, even X.
Now to your point here: "When police show up to your door and ask you to apologize to people for causing distress"
I've had a visit from the police, why? because I was young and being an antisocial shit. The police were not actually there to arrest me, and I don't think they could actually if they wanted to. The point was, they were there to make the town liveable for all it's citizens. I was "fucking around", and the police were gently telling me that I'd really not like to "find out".
"OH BUT PERSONAL FREEDOM". Now, the thing is, I was perfectly free to carry on my bad ways. The problem was, those ways, had they descended further, would have resulted in jail time. The choice was mine.
I don't want to live in a country where its acceptable to bully whomever I like, in the guise of personal freedom. Sure, speak your mind, but don't be a dick about it.
> To claim otherwise is a lie, or a level of ignorance only afforded to small children.
And I have not claimed otherwise. during the troubles stuff went south very quickly. What you are doing are conflating political persecution with the censoring of 4chan, an organisation who's adherence to law is flexible at best.
It's a nanny state which is even worse