by Alex Klaushofer at Modernity
The consensus about free speech and the kindred rights of freedom of expression, thought and protest has broken down
Almost every week brings a new, absurd example of the authorities breaching the free speech values and traditions for which Britain has long been known.
A policeman visits a cancer patient to tell her to apologise for a Facebook post the officer can’t even specify. The comedy writer Graham Linehan is met by five armed policemen at Heathrow and arrested for several tweets posted months earlier. It’s “Carry On 1984” as Free Speech Union founder Toby Young put it.
These high-profile cases are the tip of a growing censorship iceberg. Information gathered by citizen journalist the Stark Naked Brief and the Times reveals that the Thames Valley Police – the force which sent an officer to the cancer patient’s house – made 1,068 speech-related arrests in a year (about three a day) under the Communications Act, Malicious Communications Act and Online Safety Act. Nationally, the police now arrest about 30 people daily for online content deemed offensive…
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