[cortic]

It is a criminal offense in the UK to use insulting words in public, or to send any message online that anyone could find insulting or offensive (whether any one does or not is irreverent).

The Online Safety Act and Hate Crime Provision have extended these somewhat into the realms of 1984. But the police do tend to use them sparingly.

[teamonkey]

> It is a criminal offense in the UK to use insulting words in public, or to send any message online that anyone could find insulting or offensive (whether any one does or not is irreverent).

This is categorically untrue.

[cortic]

Public Order Act 1986

"insulting words or behavior that cause distress to others"

Malicious Communications Act 1988 (Section 1):

"Outlaws sending messages, electronic or otherwise, with the intent to cause distress, or anxiety"

Communications Act 2003, Online Safety Act 2023, hate speech, terrorist legislation all made these many orders of magnitude worse in many ways.

[oncallthrow]

The latter part at least is true. Sending "grossly offensive" messages is illegal under the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and the Communications Act 2003, specifically Section 127:

> a person is guilty of an offence if he—

> (a)sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or

> (b)causes any such message or matter to be so sent.

I suspect the former is also true, but am not well-read in that area

[owisd]

There's no value in making insults for the sake of being insulting protected speech, but in the UK if you're making ECHR Article 10 protected speech that someone happens to find insulting or offensive then that's not a crime. It's unhelpful to permit insults as free speech to prevent some hypothetical future abuse, since all modern dictatorships pay lip service to free speech and instead lock up their political opponents for embezzlement or mortgage fraud or whatever.

[cortic]

*irrelevant, not irreverent. ffs. (meaning people can be charged with a crime and only a fictional 'reasonable' person suffering offense or insult)