Re: [OT] Anatomy of a "non crime hate incident"

On 12/5/2024 5:38 PM, Rhino wrote:

On 2024-12-05 5:20 PM, moviePig wrote:

On 12/5/2024 4:57 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

On Dec 5, 2024 at 1:26:49 PM PST, "Rhino" <no_offline_contact@example.com>
wrote:
>

I recently posted about the existence of "non-crime hate incidents" as a
new class of offence in Britain and got some fairly perplexed reactions,
especially when I mentioned that such offences could make you eligible
for significant jail time.
>
I just noticed this video which does a deep dive into one such
"non-crime hate incident", this one being a journalist's tweet. It has
made the headlines in Britain and brought the police into even greater
disrepute than they already had.
>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jiTv1duFKo [1 hour, 15 minutes]
>
Along the way, the journalist shares how these offences first came into
existence and how even the new Labour government, which clearly supports
this sort of thinking, is distancing itself from the idea as the
reaction to this incident circulates.

>
Not only does the UK have non-criminal crimes, but they also have specific
category of speech that can be censored even though it's legal under British
law. It's called "legal but harmful content" (also sometimes referred to as
"lawful but awful") where the government basically admits the speech in
question is legal under British law but nevertheless thinks it causes some
amorphous undefined 'harm' and so may be legally censored.
>
Being a lawyer in the the UK must be like Alice finding herself in Wonderland
where everything's a contradiction.

>
Can't you conceive of speech as harmful as a brickbat?
>
>

That's not the issue here. Whatever hypothetical you can come up with that MIGHT be deserving of this sort of treatment is NOT what why the police came to her door.
 Watch the video and tell me that she did something deserving of a police response that could have had lasting impact on her life.

I'm not investing an hour-and-quarter in a video that I'm confident would indeed arouse my sympathies for its victim.  However, I did Google "legal but harmful content", and saw the likes of this:
      "Criminalize encouragement to commit self-harm, nonconsensual “deepfake” pornography and “downblousing.”
Suffice to say that, in my view, protections of 'free speech' should address primarily our open access to *ideas*, rather than give cover to harmful hostilities disingenuously masquerading as mere communication.