When we hear the term “thought police,” we think of the book “1984,” or perhaps we think of the horrors of the old Soviet Union and its puppet states, where citizens feared ever speaking the truth.
Unfortunately, when I hear the term I think of England. I am a lifelong Anglophile, the product of watching countless British television and films, from ‘Monty Python’ to the bawdy and irreverent ‘Countdown’. I am descended from at least three parts of what used to be called the Empire, so its history has always had special meaning to me. But a two-week trip to England was less than cheerful with that threat looming over him.
England arrests 12,000 people every year for what they say online. As someone who expresses opinions on the internet, it’s a terrifying prospect. No, I didn’t expect to spend a long time in a British prison, but getting in trouble for things I said online isn’t limited to British residents either.
“Father Ted” co-creator Graham Linehan was arrested over reports of transgender men claiming to be women. (Getty Images)
Just ask comedian Graham Linehan. Five Metropolitan Police arrested him for his posts about transgender men claiming to be women. The arrest itself looked like something out of a Monty Python sketch mocking a fascist state, rather than a democracy that has become one. The police statement about the incident is frightening: “The man in his fifties has been arrested on suspicion of incitement to violence. This in relation to messages on X.” He’s not English, he’s Irish and the comments he made came when he was here in the United States.
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Arrested for things he said online… here, not there. The Met Police have since backed down, saying: “They will no longer investigate hate incidents that do not constitute a crime,” according to the Guardian. But does that mean people won’t get arrested? Of course not.
The British do not have the First Amendment. They have not laid down the right to freedom of expression anywhere. And they think it’s okay to lock people up for so-called hate speech. The Washington Post rationalized this in a recent piece, calling the American view “extremist,” under an article headlined: “In Europe, hate speech is not freedom of speech. Some in DC hate that.” Just assume that Americans like freedom, you know.
The New York Times quoted Wes Streeting, the British Health Secretary, as saying that things are changing and that “we want the police to focus on policing streets rather than tweets.” That sounds good, but one way they want to avoid that is by making tech companies police speech. And they’re trying to bully American companies into doing just that, with threats of fines and jail time.
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They have attacked several companies to force them to comply with the British Online Safety Act (OSA). (The totalitarian left likes the concept of “security” over freedom.) One of the targets is the meme-focused site 4Chan. Yes, 4Chan sometimes posts offensive things, but that’s an important part of freedom of speech that the British refuse to accept.
In the UK’s demand that 4Chan obey their rules, they wrote: “Failure to comply with an information notice requirement may also constitute a criminal offence.” Essentially they had to judge how well they were obeying British law, which is not their job because they are an American company. For that, they have fined 4Chan 20,000 pounds, or more than $26,000, and the fine will increase if they don’t comply.
That’s a British company trying to fine an American company because it doesn’t like its speech policy. And those fines are chicken feed compared to what they could be, up to about $24 million and possible jail time. Americans are lucky that 4Chan is fighting back, because the big tech companies aren’t. They have too many risks with operations in Britain and elsewhere. 4Chan can tell the UK government no and mean it.
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Preston Byrne, managing partner of Byrne & Storm, told me he doesn’t even want to travel to England because he fears he will be arrested. But the problem is not just England. The fight for freedom of expression is global and poses a “clear and present danger to the United States,” he said. The EU is a major opponent of freedom of expression. China is much worse, but the West is trying to catch up. Imagine a foreign government telling you or your company what it can say online. He wonders, “At what point will the United States get sick of it?”
That’s a tough question to ask in an era when Congress is already so divided that it can’t even end a deeply unpopular shutdown. “We need Congress’s involvement,” he told me. Again, a tough question, but that’s the solution.
Wikipedia, no friend of conservatives, could still join the fray, according to British publication PoliticsHome. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is talking about a “political confrontation” with the censorship he supported before coming into office. He said Wikipedia will not adhere to British rules limiting the age of content. The site “will not make Wikipedia age-sensitive under any circumstances.” Ultimately, he seems to think Wiki is in a good position: “What are they going to do politically? They could block Wikipedia. Good luck with that,” he said.
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Even in England, not everyone agrees with what that country has done with freedom of expression. One of my favorite comedians, Jimmy Carr, was recently performing in Minneapolis and an audience member brought up what happened to Linehan. Carr called Linehan “brave” and said, “You have the First Amendment. Cherish it.’
To do that, our government must tell Britain that its censorship does not apply to us.
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