[yadaeno]

In 2023, the number of people arrested for online comments: UK (12,183), Belarus (6,205), Germany (3,500), China (1,500).

How do people in the UK defend this? I consider myself a liberal and to defend this government is a level of hypocrisy so beyond the pale.

Am I being reactionary here? Are things actually not that bad in the UK?

[belorn]

As with all statistics, one has to first define where the data source is from.

In this case there is an news article for that (https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tommy-robinson-uk-speech-cla...).

To summarize the article, the data is highly unreliable and aren't comparable, nor is it normalized to the population. A person in UK can be charged under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 if they voice a death threat over the phone, while the Belarus case can be a person criticizing the government on twitter. It can also be a person in the UK who sent a unsolicited sexual image. As a legal analyze of Section 127 frames it, most thing it makes illegal is already illegal under other laws which makes it difficult to analyze the scope. A person who sends a death threat is breaking the law both by sending a death threat, but also by using (abusing) a telecom service for the purpose of sending a death threat. It is a bit of an catch all clause.

In the US it is currently very likely that every crime that involves money also involve wire fraud, unless people only use physical cash and never transfer them. They usually also involve tax fraud since illegal money is rarely declared. That makes statistics involving tax and wire fraud in the US a bit difficult to parse into meaningful data.

[EasyMark]

I don't believe for one second that only 1500 people in China were arrested for online comments any more than I would believe the same statistic from Russia

[inglor_cz]

Hmm. Ironically, the party most likely to abolish such laws is probably Reform.

Tories have done approximately nothing, Labour is an old mother lode of speech policing and the Greens with all their postmodern sensitivities plus deference to Islam don't look particularly promising as well.

Once upon a time, Lib Dems were strong on civic freedoms... but I can't remember them doing anything in this regard during the Cameron coalition government.

[ben_w]

> but I can't remember them doing anything in this regard during the Cameron coalition government.

Does anyone remember them doing anything other than apologising for going against their election pledge about tuition fees and losing the electoral reform referendum?

[Maken]

Given the election forecasts, people in the UK doesn't support at all the current government nor its policies. And the answer seems to be to suppress any criticism while waiting for the next election cycle.

[jansper39]

Given that we have shows on the state broadcaster which criticise the government, there truly isn't a shadowy force supressing it amongst the population.

[ben_w]

My actually-a-Communist former partner will take great exception to any description of the current UK politicians as "Marxist".

Well, except perhaps Jeremy Corbyn.