Freedom we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight
This way to the Panopticon, Mr. Bentham is waiting
The Building circular – an iron cage, glazed – a glass lantern about the size of Ranelagh – The Prisoners in their Cells, occupying the Circumference – The Officers, the Centre. By Blinds, and other contrivances, the Inspectors concealed from the observation of the Prisoners: hence the sentiment of a sort of invisible omnipresence. Jeremy Bentham (1791). Panopticon, or The Inspection House.
Lord Justice Sedley, in Redmond-Bate v Director of Public Prosecutions (1999), described Speakers' Corner (Hyde Park) as demonstrating "the tolerance which is both extended by the law to opinion of every kind and expected by the law in the conduct of those who disagree, even strongly, with what they hear." The ruling famously established in English case law that freedom of speech could not be limited to the inoffensive but extended also to "the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome, and the provocative, as long as such speech did not tend to provoke violence", and that the right to free speech accorded by Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights also accorded the right to be offensive. Prior to the ruling, prohibited speech at Speakers' Corner included obscenity, blasphemy, insulting the Monarch, or inciting a breach of the peace.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/freedom-of-speech-country-comparison/. Now in 2016 UK had Free Speech. True it was wore than Argentina, or South Africa, but better than France and Italy.
In 2024 not so much. https://futurefreespeech.org/the-free-speech-recession-hits-home/
The global landscape for freedom of expression has faced severe challenges in 2023. Even open democracies have implemented restrictive measures. The European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) exemplifies this trend, the European Commission’s aggressive enforcement of which has raised concerns among rights groups. The Commission demands the removal of content classified as “hate speech,” “terrorist content,” or “disinformation” from major social media platforms, threatening significant fines for non-compliance. This approach has sparked accusations of overreach and violation of international human rights standards. Similarly, the UK’s Online Safety Act made law in October 2023, has raised alarms about potential censorship. The Act’s stringent regulations and substantial financial penalties for not removing illegal content could inadvertently lead to the suppression of lawful speech. In the realm of journalism, criminal defamation laws pose a significant threat. Cases like Italian reporter Roberto Saviano, penalized for criticizing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and Chilean editor Felipe Soto, reprimanded for an article criticizing a public official, highlight the risks for journalists and critics in democratic states. Denmark’s reintroduction of a blasphemy ban, unenforced since 1946 and abolished in 2017, is another stark reminder that citizens of open democracies cannot take well-established speech protections for granted.
The global landscape for freedom of expression has faced severe challenges in 2023. Even open democracies have imposed restrictive measures to combat a range of threats including hate speech, disinformation, extremism, and public disturbances.
The European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) exemplifies this trend. Following Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, the European Commission’s cyber sheriff Thierry Breton sent a flurry of not-so-subtle letters to tech companies such as Meta, Google, TikTok, and X (formerly known as Twitter), inquiring about responses to unspecified hate speech, “terrorist content,” and “disinformation,” threatening significant fines for noncompliance. Breton’s aggressive policing has sparked accusations of overreach and violation of international human rights standards. Despite these developments, many democracies see the DSA as a global blueprint for online regulation and Chile, Costa Rica, and Taiwan are on course to adopt bills inspired by the European prototype.
Meanwhile, the right to protest has been severely curtailed in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. France and Germany have imposed broad bans on pro-Palestinian demonstrations, citing hate speech and public order concerns. Laws against hatred, offense, and insults have also been significantly expanded in many democracies. In England, a woman was pursued and interviewed by police for holding a placard satirically depicting the British prime minister and home secretary as coconuts—a Black, liberal city councilor was previously convicted of racial harassment for using the term. In Ireland, a new hate speech bill is set to criminalize the “material that is likely to incite violence or hatred against a person or a group of persons on account of their protected characteristics… with a view to the material being communicated to the public or a section of the public, whether by himself or herself or another person”. This broad definition and application could criminalize memes or gifs downloaded on mobile phones or laptops”. And the Danish government is reintroducing the crime of blasphemy, virtually unenforced since 1946, outlawing the “improper treatment” of religious texts. Artistic freedom is not immune either, as seen in South Korea, where the National Assembly’s secretariat canceled an exhibition in the parliament building lobby due to its unflattering portrayal of the country’s president. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/12/04/evidence-is-growing-that-free-speech-is-declining/
Now to return to Airstrip 1—-https://www.zerohedge.com/political/its-not-ok-any-more-uk-free-speech-crack-down-targets-extremist-ideologies
The crackdown includes those accused of misogynist views.
Jonathon Turley writes in my book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss how difficult it is to get a free people to give up freedoms. They have to be afraid, very afraid.
For that reason, governments tend to attack free speech during periods of public anger or fear.
That pattern is playing out, yet again, in the United Kingdom.
The recent anti-immigration riots have given officials a renewed opportunity to use anti-free speech laws to target those with opposing views.
For years, I have been writing about the decline of free speech in the United Kingdom and the steady stream of arrests.
A man was convicted for sending a tweet while drunk referring to dead soldiers.
Another was arrested for an anti-police t-shirt.
Another was arrested for calling the Irish boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend a “leprechaun.”
Yet another was arrested for singing “Kung Fu Fighting.”
A teenager was arrested for protesting outside of a Scientology center with a sign calling the religion a “cult.”
Last year, Nicholas Brock, 52, was convicted of a thought crime in Maidenhead, Berkshire.
The neo-Nazi was given a four-year sentence for what the court called his “toxic ideology” based on the contents of the home he shared with his mother in Maidenhead, Berkshire.
While most of us find Brock’s views repellent and hateful, they were confined to his head and his room.
Yet, Judge Peter Lodder QC dismissed free speech or free thought concerns with a truly Orwellian statement:
“I do not sentence you for your political views, but the extremity of those views informs the assessment of dangerousness.”
Lodder lambasted Brock for holding Nazi and other hateful values:
“[i]t is clear that you are a right-wing extremist, your enthusiasm for this repulsive and toxic ideology is demonstrated by the graphic and racist iconography which you have studied and appeared to share with others…”
Even though Lodder agreed that the defendant was older, had limited mobility, and “there was no evidence of disseminating to others,” he still sent him to prison for holding extremist views.
After the sentencing Detective Chief Superintendent Kath Barnes, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE), warned others that he was going to prison because he “showed a clear right-wing ideology with the evidence seized from his possessions during the investigation….We are committed to tackling all forms of toxic ideology which has the potential to threaten public safety and security.”
Concerns about free speech have rapidly escalated in the aftermath of these riots, with warnings from the Crown Prosecution Service against inciting hatred and “online violence” and a follow-up from the U.K. government’s X account telling internet users, “Think before you post.”
Arrests over online posts are underway, with “dedicated police officers who are scouring social media,” searching for users posting or resharing material about the riots.
But as with many censorship controversies these days, the effects aren’t necessarily limited to the originating country’s borders. In an Aug. 7 interview, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley suggested police are also looking at online speech outside of the U.K.
“We will throw the full force of the law at people,” Rowley said. “And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you.”