I think most Europeans are actually completely ignorant about their track record for arrests for social media posts, probably because their press is captive and the data is almost always heavily censored / not released. But here are the facts:
- UK: >10k arrests per year for "offensive communications", basically mean tweets. in 2022 alone, 77k "public order offences" investigated by police. by far the worst offender.
- Germany: hides and obscures the data. but 4,486 cases of Volksverhetzung (incitement to hatred) in 2018. most of these are online posts. this means we're talking a few thousand arrests for online speech per year
- France: hides the data. about 3000 cases a year for racist offenses that are purely speech-related and carry no actual physical harm (“injures, diffamations, provocation à la haine”)
In the US, posts for merely offensive speech are not criminal. Yes, you can still be arrested for making specific threats, stalking, etc. But you won't get arrested for calling a politician fat, as happens in Europe.
These are plain facts.
- UK: >10k arrests per year for "offensive communications", basically mean tweets. in 2022 alone, 77k "public order offences" investigated by police. by far the worst offender.
- Germany: hides and obscures the data. but 4,486 cases of Volksverhetzung (incitement to hatred) in 2018. most of these are online posts. this means we're talking a few thousand arrests for online speech per year
- France: hides the data. about 3000 cases a year for racist offenses that are purely speech-related and carry no actual physical harm (“injures, diffamations, provocation à la haine”)
In the US, posts for merely offensive speech are not criminal. Yes, you can still be arrested for making specific threats, stalking, etc. But you won't get arrested for calling a politician fat, as happens in Europe.
These are plain facts.
https://x.com/nic_carter/status/1997761221328834653
the EU is welcome to be fundamentally more restrictive about speech if they want to, but don't try to pretend otherwise with some fake metric by an astroturfed nonprofit funded by the EU.
Objectively, America has the freest speech and press on the planet, and it's not even close.
Objectively, America has the freest speech and press on the planet, and it's not even close.
i know this is a successful form of euro ragebait and probably not a sincere post, but it's worth reminding people because the truth about europe today is just so absurd.
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