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"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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Thousands of people are being detained and questioned for sending messages that cause “annoyance”, “inconvenience” or “anxiety” to others via the internet, telephone or mail.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr...

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That doesn't sound like mere "speaking your mind." They appear to be targeting harassment.
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Nope; they aren't. They arrested a grandmother for praying silently outside an abortion clinic. They arrested a high schooler for saying a cop looked a bit like a lesbian. There are no shortage of stupid examples of their tyranny; even Keir Starmer was squirming a bit when Vance called him out on it.
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What happened after the arrests?

Regarding the abortion clinic case, those aren't content restrictions. Even time/place/manner restrictions that apply to speech are routinely upheld in the U.S.

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This man didn't even have to speak to be arrested. Wrongthink and an appearance of praying was enough: https://reason.com/2024/10/17/british-man-convicted-of-crimi...
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That's quite a sensationalist piece. You're allowed to object to abortions and protest against them, the point of that law is just that you can't do it around an extant abortion clinic, distressing and putting people off using it, since they are currently legal.
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Yeah, that looks like a time/place/manner restriction, not a content-based restriction. In the U.S., at least, the latter is heavily scrutinized as a potential First Amendment violation, while the former tend to be treated with greater deference to the state.
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So you are allowed to object to abortions and protest then in any designated free speech zone with a proper free speech license. Simple as!

Can I tell someone not to drink outside of a bar?

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In certain public spaces? Yeah! Probably a hell of a lot fewer of them in the UK than many countries though, including your land of the free.
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Most bars have signs saying not to leave with an alcoholic drink.
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Especially in the USA, where alcohol laws are much more stringent than in the UK.
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This is just an argument ad absurdum. Please be real.
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"a couple were arrested over complaints they made about their daughter's primary school, which included comments on WhatsApp.

Maxie Allen and his partner Rosalind Levine, from Borehamwood, told The Times they were held for 11 hours on suspicion of harassment, malicious communications, and causing a nuisance on school property."

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9dj1zlvxglo

Got any evidence to support why you disregard what people say? If you need a place where everyone agrees with you, there are plenty of echo chambers for you.

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This story doesn't support the claim that "speaking your mind is illegal in the UK." The couple in question were investigated, not charged. There's nothing wrong with investigating a possible crime (harassment in this case), finding there's no evidence, and dropping it.

> Got any evidence to support why you disregard what people say?

Uh, what? Supporting the things you claim is the burden of the claimant. It's not the other's burden to dispute an unsupported claim. These are the ordinary ground rules of debate that you should have learned in school.

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From [1]:

> Data from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), obtained by The Telegraph under a Freedom of Information request, reveals that 292 people have been charged with communications offences under the new regime.

This includes 23 prosecutions for sending a “false communication”…

> The offence replaces a lesser-known provision in the Communications Act 2003, Section 127(2), which criminalised “false messages” that caused “needless anxiety”. Unlike its predecessor, however, the new offence carries a potential prison sentence of up to 51 weeks, a fine, or both – a significant increase on the previous six-month maximum sentence.…

> In one high-profile case, Dimitrie Stoica was jailed for three months for falsely claiming in a TikTok livestream that he was “running for his life” from rioters in Derby. Stoica, who had 700 followers, later admitted his claim was a joke, but was convicted under the Act and fined £154.

[1] https://freespeechunion.org/hundreds-charged-with-online-spe...

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Knowingly and intentionally sending false information or harassing people doesn't seem like the same thing as merely "speaking your mind."
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Is your name Otterley? Tsk, tsk, knowingly misleading people on HN, we should criminalise that, don't you think?
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I'm not holding it out as my real name.
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That’s a good point that unfortunately does nothing to change the point, should we criminalise those who do hold their fake names to be real names, simply because it’s misleading?

There’s no relying on further harms, we have other crimes and civil torts to deal with those already, in this case the harm is deemed inherent in the lie itself.

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Oi, you got a loicense for that speaking there mate
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