Britain arrests >1000 per month for social media posts

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

The second should be loudly drowned out in dissent, but still allowed.

What if I go up to a group of schoolchildren, let's say aged 9 or 10 years old, and I loudly say "gay men are fucking abominations and should have their dicks cut off with a rusty knife and force fed to them in front of their families, and if any of your mummies or daddies are fucking queers I hope they die!"

If a police officer is nearby and sees and hears me saying this, should they threaten to arrest me if I don't shut up? Or, should they just say "now now, children, this guy is entitled to say these things, but you shouldn't listen" ?

I assume you'd advocate for the latter, because, you know, free speech?

Tell me, when you were in primary school, if a man came up to you and said this, would that really make you want to follow his every command or would it make you view him as a raving lunatic and become skeptical of his cause?

I was no genius at 9 years old, but it definitely would not have been the former for me.

If I was the policeman, I'd inform the fellow that if he continues in that manner he may be arrested for harassment, because that's what he's doing. Doesn't have so much to do with his speech as with his action. I'd probably also ask him a few questions about himself, but if there were no grounds for arrest then so be it.

The thing is that when someone is willing to put their words into action (in this case, the action of harassing random schoolchildren on the street), then that action is what is problematic. Online, people say a lot of things, but it is very easy to say something and quite another thing to act on that. Should you, as the government, be more wary of someone who posts obviously hateful things on the internet? Yes. But until they put that into action, they should be able to say what they wish. That action may be conspiring to attack a group of people or harassing children on the street, but until their philosophy is shown by action to be evil, it should be up for discussion.

If Jamie took to the streets and conveyed his honest view about Zionists while a group of Israeli-British children walked by, should he be arrested? To Fritz' point, I think Jamie should be entitled to tell kids their parents are evil if they're Zionists and that this only becomes a problem if, in doing so, he undertakes the action of harassment. To Jamie's point, the volume and violent nature of his speech may indeed be relevant to an assessment of whether it is harassment. I'm hard pressed to see how this applies to speech in a Facebook post or private Whasapp thread, unless maybe Jamie were finding children to message.

We probably all agree an anti-gay bigot offends our sensibilities more than a pro-Palestinian protestor, but should this really hinge on something like the likeability of the speaker? There's a pretty compelling case for state neutrality here. To my earlier point, anyone who is happy with the current system should really consider what might happen if public opinion and politics change.

[CaptainFritz28]

Bert raises here what I think is the most important problem with speech restrictions, or restrictions on rights in general. Let's take it another way...

I'm a Christian. I believe that everyone should follow the teachings of Christ and the Word of God, the Bible. However, as much as I would love for everyone in the world to be a Christian, I don't think that that should be forced by the government, for the same reason that I don't want the government to legislate mandated Atheism or Islam. Do I believe that there are some beliefs associated with Atheism and Islam which can be societally dangerous? Yes. However, I know that if today's government is given the authority to mandate Christianity, tomorrow's government may very well turn around and ban it.

The only way to secure the right of the people to speak, think, and believe what is true is to allow them to speak, think, and believe what is false, and allow reason to run its proper course. Otherwise the state turns oligarchical and tyranny becomes an eventuality.

[Jamiet99uk]

Even without such details it seems pretty clear to me the existing laws were not made with the internet era in mind. The fact that they have been applied to trivial cases and *private* conversations should give everyone cause for pause.

If maintaining these laws is important, there are practical changes that could limit their misuse by police and improve public trust in such prohibitions. The easiest fix would be for the police to seek a warrant for arrest before making speech-related arrests (except in cases of imminent danger), such that a court will at least apply some minimum standard that the arrest is in fact in line with the democratically-decided law (something that is evidently not the case today given very low conviction rates).

I agree with this.

Some kind of review, possibly by a Parliamentary committee, is probably merited.

[Jamiet99uk]

It did occur to me that a partial answer to the question of "why has there been such an increase in arrests?" may be down to Elon Musk.

A lot of these arrests, I understand, relate to abusive or racist posts on X, formerly Twitter. Since Elon Musk bought the company he has deliberately removed almost all moderation and created a platform where abuse, racism, lies, violence etc are openly tolerated. Many hateful and problemstic posts which would quickly have been taken down in previous years are now welcome. So to some degree can it be said that Elon has made it easier to fill social media with hate and lies which might attract the attention of the police?

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

There's been an expansion in arrests without a commensurate expansion in convictions, so if this is true (which it definitely could be) it means that Twitter's new moderation approach leads to more false positives but no actual increase in genuinely harrassing/illegal speech.

[Jamiet99uk]

There's been an expansion in arrests without a commensurate expansion in convictions, so if this is true (which it definitely could be) it means that Twitter's new moderation approach leads to more false positives but no actual increase in genuinely harrassing/illegal speech.

Is the conviction rate the same?

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

To paraphrase from a The Times article:

"In 2023, UK police made over 12,000 arrests—approximately 33 per day—for online messages deemed offensive or distressing under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988. This marks a 58% increase from 2019.

Despite the high number of arrests, convictions have decreased significantly. In 2023, there were 1,119 convictions for these offences, down from 1,995 in 2015. Many cases are dropped due to evidential difficulties or lack of victim support."

So convictions (in absolute terms) are down despite the increase in arrests (i.e., a fall in the conviction rate).

[Octavious]

It always worries me when randomly changing benchmarks are brought out to make a point. We're comparing 2023 to 2019 for increases in arrests but to 2015 for decreases in convictions? This carries more than a faint whiff of cherry picking about it, which is disappointing for the Economist but I guess a sign of the times.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

It always worries me when randomly changing benchmarks are brought out to make a point. We're comparing 2023 to 2019 for increases in arrests but to 2015 for decreases in convictions? This carries more than a faint whiff of cherry picking about it, which is disappointing for the Economist but I guess a sign of the times.

It's somewhat annoying that in place of a substantive critique of a clear trend we're defaulting to quibbling about a timeline which is garbled, in part, because it's from two different sources (The Economist and The Times). It makes engaging in these conversations much more work than it ought to be.

With some extensive googling I can make a more robust comparison that, unsurprisingly, reinforces what was already obvious from the previously cited numbers. In fact, it makes clear the trend is actually much worse than the previously cited figures made it out to be:

In 2015, UK police made 6,329 arrests under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988. Of these, around 4,259 individuals were charged, and 2,070 received cautions.

By 2023, the number of arrests for offences under these laws had risen to 12,183, marking a significant increase. However, convictions during the same year totaled 1,119, indicating a decrease from previous years.

So again, arrests are up, convictions are down, and so the conviction rate has fallen, as reported everywhere by credible sources—with the trend being even more apparent if you consider 2015 v. 2023.

If your contention is this is untrue perhaps you could cite alternative evidence? Otherwise maybe it's worth engaging with the idea that the conviction rate is low and falling ...

[Jamiet99uk]

In 2015, UK police made 6,329 arrests under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988. Of these, around 4,259 individuals were charged, and 2,070 received cautions.

By 2023, the number of arrests for offences under these laws had risen to 12,183, marking a significant increase. However, convictions during the same year totaled 1,119, indicating a decrease from previous years.

Give me some time and I will see if I can do some quick research on this. The above is still a rather confused picture. A caution is not the only possible conviction for a breach of s.127, the maximum penalty is six months in prison, so the number of cautions =/= the number of convictions.

Also, and Octavious already pointed to this, either of those years could be an outlier. What we really need to see is the trend over several consecutive years.

I will have a look.

[Jamiet99uk]

Hm.

It appears the data is only available on a police force by police force basis and is often published by individual police forces in PDF format.

It would take me several hours of work to produce a meaningful picture of the trend in both arrests and convictions over a period of several years.

Apologies, but although I am interested, I do not have that time.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Are we so reluctant to engage with the idea that the conviction rate for these crimes is low that we won't engage unless someone does their own bespoke legal analysis? We're getting unnecessarily hung up on the timeline. We could just talk about the 2023 data if we wanted.

That your government doesn't produce regular statistics on this, such that it is left to intermittent reporting by NGOs, underscores my critique of the law and its application.

[CaptainFritz28]

I've got to say that I agree with Bert here. I can't help but wonder if the Brits in this thread, despite their occasional critique of their own country's government and squabbles about such matters, are suddenly struck with a certain patriotic spirit when a foreigner like the Canadian Bertissimmo does that critiquing for them.

(Just in case someone misunderstands, since tone can't be very well communicated over digital lettering, this is meant to be a friendly jab, and no more than a jest.)

[Octavious]

It always worries me when randomly changing benchmarks are brought out to make a point. We're comparing 2023 to 2019 for increases in arrests but to 2015 for decreases in convictions? This carries more than a faint whiff of cherry picking about it, which is disappointing for the Economist but I guess a sign of the times.

It's somewhat annoying that in place of a substantive critique of a clear trend we're defaulting to quibbling about a timeline which is garbled, in part, because it's from two different sources (The Economist and The Times). It makes engaging in these conversations much more work than it ought to be.

With some extensive googling I can make a more robust comparison that, unsurprisingly, reinforces what was already obvious from the previously cited numbers. In fact, it makes clear the trend is actually much worse than the previously cited figures made it out to be:

In 2015, UK police made 6,329 arrests under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988. Of these, around 4,259 individuals were charged, and 2,070 received cautions.

By 2023, the number of arrests for offences under these laws had risen to 12,183, marking a significant increase. However, convictions during the same year totaled 1,119, indicating a decrease from previous years.

So again, arrests are up, convictions are down, and so the conviction rate has fallen, as reported everywhere by credible sources—with the trend being even more apparent if you consider 2015 v. 2023.

If your contention is this is untrue perhaps you could cite alternative evidence? Otherwise maybe it's worth engaging with the idea that the conviction rate is low and falling ...

Seriously, are you doing this on purpose? We'll talk about charges and cautions in 2015 and compare them to convictions in 2023? Is it not possible to just compare like with like for once? Are we going to compare them to the numbers interviewed under caution in 2011 next, or number of crimes reported in 2024?

What's probably happened is that some pro-active social justice warrior group has decided to motivate its members into reporting everything they find to the police, and the poor sods in the police have a duty to investigate. This inevitably leads to far more cases at the less serious end of the spectrum, which brings about a lower conviction rate. It'd be like a local neighborhood watch group turning militant and sending out patrols armed with cameras who report every single traffic violation.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Arrests are way up, convictions are not, and the latest known conviction rate is very low. The UK is arresting more people for online speech than ever before, even as the courts find few such arrests merit conviction. The government does not transparently track the data, such that the impression of arrests and convictions may in fact be outsized — something that would worsen the chilling effect on speech caused by maintaining a system wherein the police can come arrest you for speech crimes that, according to the courts, aren't actually criminal 9/10 times.

[CaptainFritz28]

Seriously, are you doing this on purpose? We'll talk about charges and cautions in 2015 and compare them to convictions in 2023? Is it not possible to just compare like with like for once? Are we going to compare them to the numbers interviewed under caution in 2011 next, or number of crimes reported in 2024?

Do you propose a better system for comparison, or would you like to look at a different time period?

What's probably happened is that some pro-active social justice warrior group has decided to motivate its members into reporting everything they find to the police, and the poor sods in the police have a duty to investigate. This inevitably leads to far more cases at the less serious end of the spectrum, which brings about a lower conviction rate. It'd be like a local neighborhood watch group turning militant and sending out patrols armed with cameras who report every single traffic violation.

Alright, at least we've got a theory postulated.
1) What basis is there for this?
2) What does it matter if it is true?

If the answer to no. 1 is that there isn't anything except your own intuition... then I think it can pretty well be discarded as pure speculation. If you're correct, there will be some evidence of it, at least on social media (and it likely would've been reported on by at least local papers).

But then we get to no. 2, where I claim that whoever it is that's causing the increase in arrests is irrelevant. The system may be being abused, whether by activists, individuals, local or federal police, or anyone else, but who it is that's abusing it doesn't matter. The problem is that it is open to that abuse and therefore it needs to be looked at more to sort out what is causing the discrepancy between arrests and convictions, and how that discrepancy can be mitigated.

[Jamiet99uk]

If it was a "police state", wouldn't nearly all of these people be going to jail irrespective of their actual guilt?

In an authoritarian regime you don't normally see large numbers of people, being allegedly oppressed by the state, being found innocent and going free.

[Jamiet99uk]

You want to talk about a police state go and look at what Trump is doing in Los Angeles today.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

You want to talk about a police state go and look at what Trump is doing in Los Angeles today.

Being harassed by the police for non-crimes is bad. That shouldn't be hard for a progressive or liberal to understand.

So because UK speech laws that you agree are flawed aren't the worst thing happening in any liberal democracy we should ignore them?

Of course what's going on in LA is worse and more important. It would be a good topic for another thread if I weren't already certain on what everyone's views will be on it.

[Jamiet99uk]

So because UK speech laws that you agree are flawed aren't the worst thing happening in any liberal democracy we should ignore them?

Although I think that you are over-stating the importance of this issue, I would remind you that I did not say that the situation should be ignored. I suggested that it should be investigated by a Parliamentary committee.