Whether he went on with the diary ... made no difference. The Thought Police would get him just the same. He had committed ... the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. — Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Better watch what you say online about Great Britain and its government because London's police chief has warned that, if you say anything determined to be hate speech, the British are coming ... for you.
British novelist George Orwell's "Nineteen Eight-Four" is having a non fiction real-time update: Twenty Twenty-Four.
The thought crime unit of the London Metropolitan Police have already been arresting people in London and elsewhere in the United Kingdom for online postings considered to be hate speech.
But Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley vowed that his troops would not confine their investigations to the UK and said Americans and other citizens could be extradited and brought to London for online postings.
Rowley vowed: “We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you.”
Urgent: Support Free Press Foundation
Rowley was asked by a reporter about the criticism by Elon Musk and others over the response of the government to online postings, especially in the wake of the murder of three girls at a UK Taylor Swift dance party by a teen whose parents emigrated from Rwanda. Musk noted a video of someone allegedly arrested for offensive online comments with a question, “Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?”
The so-called "reporter" alleged that high profile figures have been “whipping up the hatred,” and that “the likes of Elon Musk” are involved in the online speech. She then asked what the London police are prepared to do “when it comes to dealing with people who are whipping up this kind of behavior from behind the keyboard who may be in a different country?”
Rowley responded: “Being a keyboard warrior does not make you safe from the law. You can be guilty of offenses of incitement, of stirring up racial hatred, there are numerous terrorist offenses regarding the publishing of material. All of those offenses are in play if people are provoking hatred and violence on the streets, and we will come after those individuals just as we will physically confront on the streets the thugs and the yobs who are taking — who are causing the problems for communities.”
U.S.-based law professor Jonathan Turley, author of "The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage", noted that "the message is chilling because free speech has been in a free fall in the United Kingdom as well as other Western countries."
"The decline of free speech in the United Kingdom has long been a concern for free speech advocates," Turley wrote.
He cites several examples in his book:
A man was convicted for sending a tweet while drunk referring to dead soldiers. Another was arrested for an anti-police t-shirt. Another was arrested for calling the Irish boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend a “leprechaun.” Yet another was arrested for singing “Kung Fu Fighting.” A teenager was arrested for protesting outside of a Scientology center with a sign calling the religion a “cult.”
Turley also pointed to the arrest of a woman who was praying to herself near an abortion clinic. English courts have seen criminalized “toxic ideologies” as part of this crack down on free speech.
"The London police are now deputized to stop or arrest those engaged in speech deemed inciteful or inflammatory," Turley wrote. "Last year, the police stopped a man from walking in the street because there were pro-Palestinian protesters and his presence would be inciteful because he was 'quite openly Jewish.' ”
Turley continued: "The United Kingdom has a myriad of laws criminalizing speech with vague terms allowing for arbitrary enforcement. For example, Public Order Act 1986 prohibits any expressions of racial hatred, defined as hatred against a group of persons by reason of the group’s color, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins.
"Section 18 of the Act specifically includes any speech that is 'threatening, abusive, or insulting.' An arrest does not have to be based on a showing of intent to 'stir up racial hatred,' but can merely be based on a charge that 'having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby.'
Great Britain has also targeted social media companies to force them to censor users for speech deemed threatening, abusive or insulting by the government.
They blocked the entire North American continent apparently, try the link. https://t.co/6ZykYzmJp4
— TimOnPoint (@TimOnPoint) August 8, 2024
People in the UK and across Europe have had enough.
Who can blame them? Yesterday, three MORE children were brutally slaughtered - this time during a Taylor Swift dance class. I'm shocked that this hasn't happened sooner, given the years of imported Islamic (mainly… pic.twitter.com/n0RysewI4n — Amy Mek (@AmyMek) July 30, 2024
Why aren’t all communities protected in Britain? @Keir_Starmer https://t.co/gldyguysNe
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2024
“Weak Men Create Hard Times”
Also Britains New Prime Minister 👇 pic.twitter.com/fTcDhlMfvZ — Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) August 5, 2024
