Can you offer an example of someone being jailed for "disagreeing with the extreme left on social media," or is this an alternative fact that you've acquired via osmosis?
I am aware of people being jailed in the UK for making terrorist threats on social media, and arguably those prosecutions were inappropriate, but that doesn't appear to be what you're claiming.
All you have to do is search for it yourself. It’s not just UK citizens that are affected. They’re threatening to have US citizens extradited to the UK to face charges [1] for online speech that’s protected by the first amendment.
Your own article notes that it is “it’s highly unlikely that British authorities will go after U.S.-based social media posters like Musk for violating British laws in an online space.”
Similarly, the links again show that you are whitewashing the events: those people jailed weren’t “disagreeing with the extreme left” (every leftist would be in jail since they disagree with each other constantly) but for things like saying they were going to a violent protest and advocating burning down hotels where refugees were living. Going to a highly plausible specific threat is quite far beyond disagreement.
I've been following the stories relatively closely, since I live here and have an interest in these things.
I'm not aware of any arrests for "disagreeing with the extreme left", which is what I'm specifically asking about. It's important not to distort facts to fit a narrative.
As you probably know, we don't have first amendment protection in the UK.
We're talking about US citizens -- who are protected by the first amendment -- who have never set foot on UK soil being threatened with extradition to the UK! This is not justifiable.
You're talking about that, but it's unclear why, because it's not an example of someone being jailed for "disagreeing with the extreme left on social media".
It's also a silly story. The dual criminality requirement, and various other considerations, make it virtually certain that no such extradition will occur. Those who fear that the UK is descending into a dystopian hell may be comforted to know that we have the world's stupidest police officers. Your news story can't even be bothered to track down the specific moron who made this statement (Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley), referring instead to a fictional 'head of police'.
This line of reasoning -- "don't worry about these authoritarian power grabs, they're spearheaded by incompetent bozos" -- is faulty. Look at what's happening in the US right now!
I'm not in either country but I'm pretty outraged at the amount of this crap going on all over the western world. I'm also an Apple customer but I'm pretty upset that I have to rely on a big corporation to defend my right to privacy from foreign snoopers.
I also think it's counterproductive to try to play the "your government is worse than mine" game. We should all be pointing the fingers at all of these governments (and their authoritarian big tech allies) all over the world.
I didn’t tell you not to worry about authoritarian power grabs. I was just pointing out that you’re going off on a tangent rather than responding to the question that was asked.
There are several examples, but connected, just this week, the British police not only arrested a men for burning the Koran, but they also doxed his full name and hometown.
This, right after Islamists killed people in Europe for burning the Koran.
