Labour Party politician Councillor Ricky Jones spoke to a "Peace Rally" on Wednesday and proceeded to call for the killing of "far-right rioters."
This man should be arrested. If not, we know there is two-tier policing. @metpoliceuk pic.twitter.com/PR50gGK2zJ
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) August 8, 2024
Mr. Jones was, indeed, suspended by the Labor Party, but other speakers at the "Peace Rally" who also called for violence against the right drew laughter and applause from the crowd.
It's unclear just how much of the rioting in Great Britain last week was carried out by the "right-wing" and how much was conducted by other parties, including Muslim mobs. By midweek, the authorities were predicting "hundreds of riots." Either they were misinformed or it was a hoax. Most of the "riots" turned out to be small groups of angry locals upset at the inaction of police. There were just as many angry Muslims confronting them, protesting against the disinformation that tied their community to the murders of children attending a dance class.
It will soon be illegal to express views against migration in Great Britain. There have already been several arrests of people who opposed migration online.
Anil Kanti “Neil” Basu, who served as the top counter-terror police officer said anti-migration riots should be treated as "terrorism."
“I think we have seen serious acts of violence designed to cause terror to a section of our community,” he told the BBC.
And Prime Minister Keir Starmer made an explicit threat that the age of free speech in England was coming to an end. The Guardian reports that he said “we’re going to have to look more broadly at social media after this disorder.” Starmer said there would be “sentencing for online behavior” in courts today, and also said “whether you’re directly involved or whether you’re remotely involved, you’re culpable, and you will be put before the court."
Critics say the government’s new slogan “think before your post” is a little too Orwellian for comfort, but some have already been caught up in that net. Cheshire Police boasted on Thursday evening they had arrested a woman “in connection with inaccurate social media post”, stating “a woman in relation to social media post containing inaccurate information about the identity of the attacker in the Southport murders.”
The leader of civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, Silkie Carlo, expressed alarm at this language from the Police, stating their press release was “so badly written” — generously overlooking the possibility it was meant to be deliberately vague. Offering her interpretation of the law, Carlo claimed that it is not, in fact, an offence to accidentally post inaccurate information on social media unless it was intentional stirring of racial hatred or knowingly publishing false information intending to cause non-trivial harm.
Reuters reports that YouGov "published a survey of more than 2,000 adults, which found two-thirds (66%) believe social media companies should be held responsible for posts inciting criminal behavior."
Also, "A further 70% of respondents said social media companies were not strongly regulated enough, and 71% said they did not do enough to counter misinformation while the riots were ongoing."
There's not going to be much of an outcry if the Brits' freedoms are taken away. That's because they're not going to miss what they never had. There is no "freedom of speech" per se in Great Britain. This is evidenced by the new online speech law that was supposed to go into effect until early next year.
The "Online Safety Act" frames freedom of speech as a "safety" issue. It's a poor disguise to control people's thoughts and speech.
The legislation, which was passed by parliament in September 2023 after years of political wrangling, puts duties on platforms that carry user-to-user communications (such as social media platforms, messaging apps etc.) to remove illegal content and protect their users from other harms like hate speech — with penalties of up to 10% of global annual turnover for non-compliance.
“In relation to online and social media, the first thing I’d say is this is not a law-free zone, and I think that’s clear from the prosecutions and sentencing,” said Starmer, emphasizing that those who whip up hate online are already facing consequences as the Crown Prosecution Service reports the first sentences associated with hate speech postings related to violent disorder being handed down.
But Starmer added: “I do agree that we’re going to have to look more broadly at social media after this disorder, but the focus at the moment has to be on dealing with the disorder and making sure that our communities are safe and secure.”
Just like in North Korea and Communist China. The sun set on the British Empire many years ago. Now, the light of freedom that lit the fires of revolution for freedom in the U.S. and elsewhere has been extinguished.
Say goodnight to all that.
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