u_sama

You're conflating legitimate criticism with incitement. The police record suggest the opposite.

Take the example *Bernadette Spofforth, 55*, she shared false information that the attacker was an asylum seeker, adding "If this is true, all hell will break loose." (not false btw) Deleted it, apologized. She still got arrested, held 36 hours, and then *released without charge because of insufficient evidence*.

No call for violence, "misinformation", which she retracted when corrected. Yet she still was arrested during the crackdown. The state used riot prosecutions to sweep up misinformation, political speech and "hatred" on one swoop not just incitement. Spofforth's arrest (and quiet release) shows they criminalized *any speech near the riots*, then kinda sorted legality later.

You're using the retarded Lucy Connolly to justify arresting people like Spofforth (which has opinion closer to the average). That's the poisoning-the-well: conflate extremists with moderates sharing concerns, arrest both, then claim all arrested speech was violent incitement.

You also seem to not take into account that *the UK has built the legal apparatus to enable this overreach:*

- *Public Order Act 1986*: Criminalizes speech where "hatred" is "likely" to be stirred up. You're criminal based on how others react.

- *Online Safety Act 2023*: Forces platforms to remove "harmful" content or face £18 million fines.

- *Non-Crime Hate Incidents*: Since 2014, police record speech "perceived" as hateful, even when no crime occurred. 133,000+ recorded. No evidence, no appeals, appears on background checks. Court ruled this unlawful for "chilling effect" in 2021 yet police continue anyway.

In total it ends up with 12,000+ annual arrests for speech (30/day), fourfold increase since 2016. 666,000 police hours on non-crimes. Broad laws + complaint-driven policing = arrest first, determine legality never.

Free speech protects conditional statements about policy during crises or when the people has something to say to its elites. The 36-hour detention without charges proves the suppression.

Please tell me how did the recent wave of Gen-Z protests start, hw did the Arab spring start?

Tweets (and other censored social media) for better or for worse have been at the center of impactful political movements and protests

Someday we need to kill this myth, the wave of fascisms that appeared in Europe (Italy, Germany, Spain, Romania) are more of a cultural and economic reaction to the destruction of the Great War and not due to "unlimited free speech".

Free speech does not amplify or cultivate hate, it lets it fester in dark areas until it explodes when a crisis happens (which is what is happening currently).

Free speech and open discourse serves as a pressure valve release and self-correcting mechanism where by impopular or "untolerable" but common opinions have to be dealt with i.e the migration backlash in Europe

Wait are you baazaa9, I love your writings and specially your analysis of bureaucracy

The house of lords is a stamping system at this point, and maybe a stopgap to authoritarianism. All power resides in the House of Commons which is elected

The true issue lies in the fact that the Westminster style of government is de facto an elective tyranny, with no real checks and balances other than the misused ECHR

There is a big elephant behind this article. There is no way for the EU to actually enact any meaningful change because:

- American big tech is too entrentched in all bureaucracies of Europe, and the few that try to change face a mountain of obstacles (Linux lol)

- because of the Ukraine war, idiotic energy policy in Germany (anti-nuclear + pro-LNG), political lock in France and the EU Comission blind Russophobia (Kaja Kallas comes to mind), we have come to be increasingly reliant in fossil products coming from the US (or other eager US allies like Qatar and the gulf states) which teamed up with the ideological turn of the current US administration means that any semblance of a trial to try to appear "sovereign" will end up in retaliatory consequences and another humiliating treaty where the EU has to acquiesce silently

- the gerontocratic and ossified EU bureaucracy (same adjectives apply to the UK) knows nothing other than to regulate, not to build and thus there is no way to meaningfully build infrastructures to counter both the US and the Chinese

And of you complain, or in any way come against the government then they are justified in silencing you, in the name of human rights and democracy of course not like China or Russia

Sorry my bad, I will try to change the title

A bad week for Zig migrating to Codeberg

No it's kinda expected from the EU, Chat Control and other free speech restricting matters have been passed/trying to pass under the guise of protection.

I think he is mentioning my comment and another one mainly, I personally decry all kinds of censorship, not only the Russian one. Its just one just cannot be taken seriously when defending "hate speech laws" is ok when they protect things I agree with (lgbt rights), but then decry the same thing done with things I dont agree with (lgbt rghts). The main counterargument is the kind of claiming hate speech defend "human rights" as some kind of universal moral good and "protecting vulnerable groups" but these laws dont seem to do any of those, they cynically cloak themselve in such purposes but eventually are used for nefarious purposes and to increase state overreach (see the infamous PATRIOT act).

The issue lies with the fact the word "hate" is too vague. If a minority calls someone from the majority "a dirty white pig" it is not considered hate in France, if someone from the majority calls "a dirty brown pig" there is more grounds. This creates an assymetry where depending on your position in society the same action can be considered hate or not. A trans person can be hateful towards hetero-normative people and get away with it, not the other way around according to the law. Both are the same action, same spirit, same "hate" only 1 is truly protected. In this case victims are not being protected by the law and the same hate-speech laws creates an inverted hierarchy dynamic. Another funny fact is due to the anti-hate speech spirit of people like you they keep increasing in scope and purpose, and that feature (not a bug) makes it so eventually ideas you agree with will become forbidden under the banner of 'protection' and only countries who have extreme protections like the US can keep true freedom of speech.

Ok you have to defend your claim, not only fatal "far right" attacks have decreased in Europe since 2008 but the count is inflated by new laws that count hate speech and online offenses as "far right". Another issue is countries like Germany treat all "anti-semitism" attacks as far right, independent of the origin of the perpetrator. Thus a a Muslim spitting on a Jewish person is treated as far right when an Islamist attack is not counted as such.

You are missing that the intent is to censor the scope of acceptable discourse, the justification given can have different paths (protect, kids, protect migrants, protect trans people) but the intent itself is the same. The laws are effective and their objective is to censor speech and behaviour, the fact you agree with the censored speech doesnt take that the state deems some speech deserving to be censored. The issue is that democracies go in a oscillatory manner and the speech you deem bad will some day became part of the institutions, and then they will have the same power to censor what before was allowed.

Idk, they are sadly using the same tools Western democracies have been using recently. One cannot throw a stone from a crystal palace.

You claim EU hate speech laws protect vulnerable groups. But 96% of Jewish respondents in Europe experienced antisemitism in 2024 despite decades of anti-negationism and hate speech laws . Antisemitic content online increased thirteen-fold in German during the pandemic, the laws don't work and the censorship of the information just makes it more attractive. Yet these laws remain, which means they're not actually about protection but as control.

Look at how they're actually used. France criminalized calling for BDS, claiming to protect Jews. Lithuania banned advocating for same-sex partnerships under a law claiming to "protect minors". Patriot act was about "protecting". Same protective language. Different targets. The "vulnerable people" you claim to protect become the prosecuted.

Germany proves it even more, a 74-year-old woman was fined thousands of euros for criticizing Germany's immigration policies on Facebook. Germany's authorities prosecute individuals for online speech, with 17,007 hate crimes recorded in 2023, a significant increase from 8,585 in 2019, and most of them are about political disagreements not true hate. There is a whole NGO-state industry whose work is just to stop "misinformation" which just means non-state approved information. The government claims the NetzDG law protects vulnerable immigrants. Instead, it criminalized criticism of immigration policy. Once you grant the state power to define "harm," it becomes a tool against disfavored politics, not protection. And these same tools will be used by the opposite side another day, just like Trump is doing to protect the Jewish Zionists but instead it is to censor universities and immigrants.

A videogame had content removed because it doesn't respect a country's laws or mores. The principle is identical everywhere, only the ideological target changes. As an example Germany banned Command & Conquer: Generals in the early 2000s for depicting Iraq warfare during a politically sensitive moment. The EU bans "hate speech" games. China bans games "smearing China's image." Russia bans "extremism". It's the same state backed censorship mechanism, it is only when it is politically beneficial or when it becomes expedient (such as other nations who we treat as the enemy) it is deemed unacceptable.

The rubber law problem is the issue in all these cases: hate speech, extremism or whatever has no fixed definition. It expands when politically convenient, contracts when pressure shifts. Germany 2003: realistic warfare = too political, banned. Germany 2025: same content = acceptable. Russia's "extremism" law stretches to cover LGBTQ+ content, then anti-war speech, then opposition. The principle doesnt change. This article is not a libertarian "lets defend free speech" as much as a Western-centric activist publication.

You cannot logically claim "Russia's censorship is authoritarian oppression" while defending EU (or funnier, the UK authoritarian) hate speech laws as "democratic protection". Both are state-backed content suppression justified through protective rhetoric. The mechanism is identical. If censorship is legitimate when your preferred values are protected, you've simply chosen your censor, you haven't defended free speech.

The minimum wage doesnt mean much in general, many European countries either dont have it or recently instated it (Germany). What matters is the Median and quintile salaries in which, the US fares much better anyways

Many other countries have official minimum wages and a big % of people working black, unreported because the minimum wage is to high relative to the average (Spain, Greece, Italy)

The real minimum wage is also stuck in many parts of Europe relative to 2008. For example in Spain the average salary didnt increase adusted to inflation.

The blackrock thing seems like a myth, but private entities are also buying housing en masse in Spain for exammple

Yeah but EU regulation makes other things expensive and inefficient (like the labour market, housing, building new companies because incumbents protect their interests trhough regulation).

The fact is that with insulin the regulation issues comes from the patchwork system of healthcare the US developped through political concesssionns and lobbying from private firms, which makes the developpment and the subsequent commercialization expensive relative to Europe where centralized national bodies negotiate with the pharma companies.

Regulation can be good or bad, in our era it is ineffective because politicians are boomers disconnected from the issues or in the EU a pseudo-technocratic (not really listening to technocrats recommendations) body far from reality

This series of posts is a nice forray into managerialism (the source of many regulation issues) https://baazaa.github.io/2024/10/16/managers_p1.html

This is indeed the railways of our time...

I have heard this opinion echoed by Indians, the combination of both the outside not being their problem, and thinking someone else (lower caste) will take care of it.

Why, their Twitter seems reasonable and combative towards companies who want to exploit their results without contribution ?

Linux??? KDE was German

UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy all have laws curtailing speech with egregious application.

- A 64-year-old pensioner man faced charges for antisemitic posts and for calling a politician a "professional idiot."

- Interior Minister Nancy Faeser reported multiple citizens to police for criticisms made on social media. In one case, a journalist published a satirical meme digitally altering a photograph of Faeser holding a sign reading "I hate freedom of speech" — and was prosecuted and given a seven-month suspended sentence.

- In 2017, 19-year-old Chelsea Russell quoted a line from Snap Dogg's song "I'm Trippin'" on Instagram: "Kill a snitch nigga, rob a rich nigga." She was charged with sending a "grossly offensive message." Despite being Black and posting in tribute to a deceased 13-year-old friend, she was convicted, fined £585, and subjected to a curfew and ankle monitoring.

- Lucy Connolly was convicted and sentenced to two years and seven months in prison for posting during anti-immigration riots that she hoped someone burned down a hotel containing asylum seekers. She later deleted the post.

- France has applied existing discrimination laws to criminalize BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) activists, treating anti-Israel speech as incitement to religious discrimination. The Court of Cassation ruled BDS boycott calls violated French law.

- Senator Miguel Castells wrote an article claiming the government was failing to investigate murders. He was convicted of insulting the government and sentenced to a year in prison. The European Court of Human Rights ruled his right to free speech had been violated, after which Spain's Constitutional Court developed case law providing greater protection to free speech.

- The satirical magazine El Jueves published a comic strip featuring images of the current King and Queen of Spain, which the public prosecutor's office held to be defamatory. A judge agreed to seizure of the publication.

All western countries btw, Norway falls in the North European country

I dont know what western Europe you live in, but ours is a decadent one where not a single country is meaningfully growing, not a single one has recovered from 2008 in any meaningful way, everything gets more expensive, industry is destroyed and boomer NIMBY keep voting for policies that advantage them because of their demographic dividend vis-a-vis the younger generations.

In France pensioners earn more on average than a 25 yo, there is a crony capitalism based on hyper-regulation where the incumbents keep their place by bribing polticians into adopting policies that benefit large corporations.

Rent and house prices boom, all the while average natality is going lower and lower, and there is an increasing brain drain towards America.

Fuly agree, LVT seems to be a good incentive. As well as de-regulating, easing or digitilazing all the bureaucratic processus related to building so that the time between wanting to build and actually built nears 0. Also introduce anti-democratic laws that push the will of the group over the individual house owners who are motivated to block new contructions to see their number go up.

There was one until 2007, many countries had wealth taxes. Also in 2005 inheritance tax was repealed.

In France wealth tax was repealed in 2017 I think but will be soon reintroduced under a new form.

Yes it is, and I because economics is political, I would appreciate putting an adjective describing the politics of the specific economists who are cited. If I cited a Hayek, as an "economist" it would be incredibly dishonest as his works are deeply libertarian and considered right wing. Mainstream neoliberal politics is right wing but not libertarian, very interventionist. But Piketty is left-wing, and it is dishonest leaving that part unsaid when citing him.

I agree, there is a difference between the technical and political parts. Sorry if I seemed dishonest, but I cited both the 2014 critique as well as a more general 2024 PSZ critique (from right wing POVs) including other economists who usually post on the same subject of income inequality. I will edit my original comment to include Piketty's rebuttals.

I completely agree, thus no article should say "economists" but libertarian economist, social-democratic economist etc

Because the politics precede the findings