“It’s Not OK Any More”: The United Kingdom Cracks Down on Free Speech

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.

Yeah, none of that is justified. Whether religion, opinion, or ideology, it's your duty to protect everyone's right to them, just as it's your duty to prevent people taking harmful action with them—like any other scenario. There's a big difference in two people yelling their opinions back and forth at each other, and someone planning or insighting crime onto the other because of it. That's why the street preacher can feel as safe as the guy walking past with 666 tattooed on their forehead. They're expressing themselves, not harming anyone, whether their opinion is popular or not.

As in the US "free speech" is a white supremacist code word for hate speech.