The reality is that the UK's "Communications Act" [0] does allow prosecutions for electronic communications (email, forums, and social media). The number of arrests under this Act are in the thousands, but it covers a wide range of issues like grooming, stalking, and racially aggravated hate crimes.
Earlier this year there were a number of violent & destructive riots across the UK which happened in response to a stabbing of 3 kids in Southport [1]. The riots were whipped up by a number of far-right entities on social media - personalities such as Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, Andrew Tate, and Katie Hopkins - as well as more nebulous entities such as Europe Invasion. A crucial aspect of the far-right narrative was a false claim that the perpetrator was a Muslim asylum seeker. Arrests were made for directly inciting violence [2] as well as for generating misinformation about the perpetrator [3].
The discussion around this is in the sensitive area of free speech vs hate speech. In the UK we are a little more nuanced about the absolute requirement for freedom of speech. While I do appreciate the argument that policing of speech can become dangerous depending on who does the policing, I think the case of the riots is a good example of where we may need to evolve our ideas about what it means to incite violence. This episode demonstrates social media's potency and the horrific potential of the deliberate spreading of misinformation.
[0] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_riots
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/09/two...
[3] https://metro.co.uk/2024/08/08/woman-first-shared-fake-south...
> After the recent riots, people were given prison sentences for posting words and images on social media. In some cases, the illegal incitement to violence was obvious [... But] Lee Dunn, fifty-one, on the other hand, got eight weeks for sharing three images of Asian-looking men with captions such as “Coming to a town near you”
Note that Lee Dunn pled guilty to the charges.
This did not strengthen your comment. You know many innocent people plead guilty all the time.
> This fuels the narrative of Asian/muslim asylum seekers being a violent threat to British society
Narrative? That almost seems to imply it is wholly false [0]
"Moroccan asylum seeker Ahmed Alid, 45, roamed the streets in Hartlepool looking for a victim to attack in "revenge" for the Israel-Hamas conflict in October" [0]
(You need not point out that the overwhelming of terrorist incidents are by British-born people. I am addressing what you meant to imply by "narrative")
It is worth noting that the leader of a left wing organisation, "Hope Not Hate" also spread an unfounded rumour on X that a fascist protestor had thrown acid on a muslim woman. This attempt to stir up counter protests was not prosecuted.
There are many examples of two tier policing and prosecution like this in the UK.
Won't deny it, but note that I thoroughly cited my post.
> It is worth noting that the leader of a left wing organisation, "Hope Not Hate" also spread an unfounded rumour on X that a fascist protestor had thrown acid on a muslim woman.
Won't deny this. Hard to argue that such a post stirs up racial hatred.
> two tier policing
This is laughable. The rioters threw petrol bombs at mosques, set fire to hotels and cars, attacked and injured police personnel, looted shops, and beat up bystanders. Counter-protests were generally peaceful with the exception of a couple of isolated incidents (which I hope are brought to justice).
You could also look at other examples - protestors against Israel's actions in Gaza doing nazi salutes, for instance, or singing anti-semitic songs.
The other canonnical example is during lockdown, the treatment given to women protesting the murder of Sarah Everard vs BLM protestors.
The lies around this issue are really noticeable now. I used to believe that Yaxley-Lennon -- "Tommy Robinson" -- was a bigot, until I watched his Oxford union speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YQ94jFg_4A
All violence should be condemned and prosecuted. However when looking for the causes, what happened regarding the riots wasn't "whipped up" by online agitators. It was the result of failure of government policy.
Successive governments have lost control of the border, and there have been insane policies, such as putting a hotel of unvetted migrant men into a hotel in Rotherham, where immigration notoriously resulted in mass rape by grooming gangs. The authorities turned a blind eye to grooming gangs, worried about being accused of racism. [1]
"The report found: "Several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought as racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so".
Furthermore, the rioting occurred after the government suggested that rioting works. In Harehills, Leeds, government social workers returned children after riots. [2]
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-289390... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Harehills_riot
- Spreading false claims that a stabbing in Stirling was carried out by a muslim
- Spreading false claims that a far-right protester in Stoke was stabbed by muslims
- Spreading the false rumour that the Southport attacker was muslim
- Claiming that the police were lying about the Southport attacker's identity
- Calling the Southport riots "justified"
- Describing Islam as a "mental health issue"
He's spent years crafting a narrative in which the once-glorious UK is being overrun by dirty foreigners who are changing its way of life and raping and pillaging its people. It's the quintessential archetype of far-right propaganda, so analogous to the kind of things Hitler said in the 1920s that I have to pinch myself. My belief is that he enjoys the idea of having an army of followers hanging off every word.
I've skipped through the Oxford union address. It looks like the same tired story he peddles about how he saw some bad things growing up in Luton while the al-Muhajiroun were active. I will concede that he is a good speaker, he caters to his audience, and is mostly smart about sticking to dogwhistles and cherry-picked datapoints, stopping short of directly inciting violence.
So in a riot of vastly smaller scale, there 27 arrests and 4 charged.
> protestors against Israel's actions in Gaza doing nazi salutes, for instance
In a protest that was overwhelmingly peaceful, there were 4 arrests, including of someone who did a nazi salute: https://www.mylondon.news/news/three-arrested-after-nazi-sal... . And if we compare it to the delightful things we're seeing in far-right protests:
- https://x.com/AntiRacismDay/status/1819790189369143691
- https://x.com/StanCollymore/status/1819451687566004237
The responses look proportionate to the behaviour.
He explained the riots within the context.
Not once did he say violence was justified.
In comparison, Nick Lowles, leader of a far-left organisation, claimed falsely that Muslims had been attacked with acid to inflame tensions.
I would encourage anyone to watch the Oxford union address. That you haven't seen it means that you are uninformed.
I would recommend anyone else watch it: