UK Citizens Warned That They Could Be Arrested For Retweets

The UK Voted For Change And, Oh Boy, Things Are Changing In A Dystopian Way

Yesterday, I wrote about the protests occurring in the UK and how new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, was creating a “Standing Army” to deal with individuals involved. In the article I discussed how people were getting arrested for posting on Facebook, when, in my opinion, the police’s focus should be on stopping physical violence and hooligans walking about with weapons.

But today, the new government’s authoritarian streak started to further reveal itself. The Director of Public Prosecutions of England and Wales, Stephen Parkinson, warned that sharing online material could be considered a criminal offence if it is likely to start racial hated. Parkinson went on to clarify that even retweets could be considered an offence.

For a moment I thought I was reading 1984 or had time travelled to East Germany when Parkinson confirmed that they have “dedicated police officers, who are scouring social media,” searching for incriminating material to then follow up with identification and arrests.

Sky News then reported that even if you share something online “to warn friends” this could be considered an offence because it would be amplifying the message. The news correspondent informed us that these aren’t “idle threats” because the Crown Prosecution Service charged somebody this morning for “distributing a recording” that “intended to stir up racial hated”.

By all means, go after people who directly say they are going to hurt or kill an individual or members of a group but retweeting a tweet that is “likely to start racial hated” is very ambiguous wording.

And did you think the government spying on you would just disappear after Covid? Of course not. The Telegraph reports that “a secretive government agency used to “spy on” anti-lockdown campaigners during the Covid pandemic has been deployed to monitor social media amid the riots”. “The Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU), now rebranded as the National Security Online Information Team (NSOIT), has been given the task just months after MPs called for an independent review of its activities”.

There are serious questions as to whether NSOIT is fit for this task, given its chilling track record of monitoring the lawful and accurate speech of journalists, scientists, parliamentarians, human rights advocates and members of the public during the pandemic when they rightly questioned the government’s pandemic management.

It’s worrying to see NSOIT brought into action shortly after its controversial activities were exposed, and before it has been subject to the important independent review the culture committee called for.

Silkie Carlo, Director of Big Brother Watch

Also today, Ofcom, the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for broadcasting and telecommunications, sent an open letter to UK online service providers.

It told providers that it expects their “systems and processes” to be “effective in anticipating and responding to the potential spread of harmful video material”.

Some of the most widely-used online sites and apps will in due course need to go even further – by consistently applying their terms of service, which often include banning things like hate speech, inciting violence, and harmful disinformation.

Of course, to the uninformed these things will sound reasonable. Why wouldn’t you want to stop things that incite violence, they will ask. But during Covid we have become all too aware as to how things that don’t fit the narrative, can easily be labelled as disinformation. And how easily free speech can disappear, all in the name of safety and the greater good.

This is all becoming very disturbing and authoritarian and authoritarians love to scare people into compliance. Hopefully, these are just threats to try and quell any violence but I am not optimistic.

Hopefully most of you will know by now that I don’t like or tolerate any mention of violence in comments anyway. But considering the information above, be even more considerate with your comments. I want debate and discussion, maybe even a little hello to our friends at NSOIT, but nothing that will get anybody arrested.

Oh, and you should probably subscribe before I get arrested for linking to articles in my Must-Reads!