Let's start simple: you think death threats should be illegal, right?

I don’t think anything should be illegal, especially not speech.

I don’t think anything should be illegal — NOS4A2

Do you have anything in this world you care about? Anything at all? Would you care much if you died right now? If not, that's a perfectly understandable viewpoint. But that's not how the world works or how normal people are or think. Certainly you recognize that.

I definitely see where you're coming from, but it's not cleanly divested from violent rhetoric enough for me to say "oh the uk jails anybody for saying anything non-woke". — flannel jesus

fwiw, I don't claim this. It is getting dangerously close, but that only works with my internal nuanced use of 'woke' which hasn't fit with any uses i've seen around here.

People have been temporarily jailed for tweets completely devoid of suggestions of violence, but never fully sentenced and imprisoned. Jailed is, of course, already too far, and I consider that a trampling of free speech in its own right, but of course not quite bad as sentencing and imprisoning. — flannel jesus

Definitely not as bad, but the slippery slope is almost at completion at this stage. The idea that we shouldn't be worried about it strikes me as sanguine to a fault. Most comments tend be specifically about 'illegal migrants'. A group which is not protected.

Do you have anything in this world you care about? Anything at all? Would you care much if you died right now? If not, that's a perfectly understandable viewpoint. But that's not how the world works or how normal people are or think. Certainly you recognize that.

I care about a lot of things. The impositions of state jurists isn’t one of them.

Do you require law to know how to act around others?

I frequently hear, "You can go to prison for a politically incorrect tweet these days!"

Now if that's true, this is definitely an issue worth being concerned about. — flannel jesus

Great. Problem solved. It is true, I'm a Canadian, and I have no idea how you can spend so much time living in the UK and not know this to be true?

Crimes, some with prison sentences, are the extreme end of the sanctions, numbered in the thousands, but non-crime hate incidents are a better indicator of free speech under siege in the UK.

I know this to be true from sources like Greg Lukianoff noting that there have been 250,000 non-crime hate incidents investigated since 2016. Lukianoff and his org, FIRE, are American, but likely the most powerful free speech voice on the planet, happy to defend the fire left and far right both.

Just google Lukianoff and UK non-crime hate incidents.

"I think women are stupid" or "I think asians aren't very good at driving", there shouldn't be any legal action at all for something like that. — flannel jesus

What about that guy sentenced to years in jail for telling his mom something racist in their own home?

So I did some looking yesterday, googled around, and almost all cases of someone going to prison for a tweet, it wasn't things as harmless as that — flannel jesus

The only ones you found seem to be on the extreme end. I think of the parents who spent the night in jail for critiquing their kids school. Try conservative sources. If you live in a progressive bubble, you won't hear this stuff. And the moment you step outside the bubble, you see the problem.

The bubble is the problem. And of course, this applies to the right too. The JD Vances of the world are transparent hypocrites on free speech.

Lucy Connolly seems to be the example people are referring to in their 'incitement' argument. Please make the case for her 31 month jail sentence being justifiable.

I am not going to source this, given you have obviously not researched, but please, do this five minutes of googling and I will engage with you in good faith, with all the sources you might request.

if we take a sober (and not idealistic) look at today's world, we can conclude that freedom of speech will be further restricted. — Astorre

You seem not to find this terrifying?

The laws pertain to everyone in a given jurisdiction, including those who do not reach for pitchforks upon hearing words. As such, millions and millions lose their rights to speak and to hear whatever speech they want because some who live among us fear words.