Meet The People Around The World On Trial For A Tweet 

“Think before you post!”

So reads the warning issued by the UK government, advertising a far-reaching crackdown on expression on Twitter amidst volatile unrest breaking out across England.

The Director of Public Prosecutions took to Sky News to caution the nation that he had police officers dedicated to “scouring social media” to “look for this material [incitement to racial hatred], and then follow up with identification, arrests, and so on and so forth.” Already, two perpetrators have been charged and sentenced for their tweets – both guilty of blatantly inciting violence, calling on rioters to burn down a hotel housing migrants.

Incitement to violence has long been illegal, and should be wholly rejected even by ardent free speech absolutists.

But the newfound zeal of the government for prosecuting online expression could soon slide into the restriction, or even criminalization, of peaceful speech.

Keir Starmer has indicated an intention to beef up the Online Safety Act, set to go into force in early 2025. The Act, introduced last year under a Conservative government, sets a new and unprecedentedly low standard for prosecuting speech, making it a crime to share information known to be false, with the perceived intent to cause “harm.” The original text of the bill was stripped back after public outcry that the law would require social media companies to remove “legal but harmful” speech from their platforms, in a clear violation of the right to freedom of expression. But Starmer is reportedly considering re-introducing the same requirement, setting the threshold for criminality based on words alone to the lowest in modern history.

Harm is in the eye of the beholder, and one can only imagine the manipulative misuse of the term to target and silence those with minority beliefs. Without clear parameters as to which speech falls within the bounds of the government’s definition of “harmful,” and a punishment awaiting companies who fail to comply, social media empires are likely to bend towards a cautious approach: deleting expressions which might, possibly, be offensive to somebody somewhere.

The cautious cull has already begun. Richard Dawkins said his Facebook account was deleted this week after he made an argument that males should not compete in women’s sports. Legal? Certainly. True? Absolutely. Harmful? Only according to the shrouded perceptions of an ideologically-biased Meta, who have obviously turned a blind eye to the actual physical and psychological harms inflicted upon women who are made to take punches from competitors with XX chromosomes in a boxing ring, and concede their medals in biologically-rigged races.

Of course, social media content can be horrid. Nobody likes mean tweets. But one need only look across the world to see the authoritarian horrors visited upon citizens when these vague, far-reaching bans on free speech are implemented.

Credit: Alliance Defending Freedom International

Take Finland. Parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen, a former government minister and grandmother, has been on trial for “hate speech” for a 2019 Bible-verse tweet which simply questioned her Church’s involvement with a Pride event. She was charged under the Finnish criminal code’s section on “War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity,” carrying a maximum sentence of 2 years imprisonment. With support from ADF International, she is awaiting the Finnish state’s appeal of her prior acquittal at the Supreme Court in Helsinki.

Credit: Alliance Defending Freedom International

Or look at Mexico. Former congressman Rodrigo Iván Cortés and sitting congressman Gabriel Quadri have been convicted of “gender-based political violence,” and placed on an offenders’ register, for Twitter posts. For expressing their views on biological sex, both have been ordered to publish a court-written apology on X every day for 30 days, 3 times a day, as a form of public humiliation. ADF International are supporting their appeal at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Meanwhile in Australia, Canadian activist “Billboard Chris” is soon to face trial for an “X” post he wrote, criticizing the appointment of a radical transgender activist to the WHO’s “panel of experts” set to advise on global transgender policy. Chris, a Canadian, wrote the tweet on the American-based platform, with no reference at all to Australia – yet unelected e-Safety bureaucrats in Canberra have taken it upon themselves to censor the tweet across their country. Both Chris (with ADF International’s backing), and “X”, are involved in a legal battle to restore free speech and unblock the post. Policy-makers who impact the treatment of vulnerable and confused children must surely be open to public critique.

JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images

The cases are mounting. Freedom of Tweet has already been squeezed across the world, yet governments are increasingly drawn to passing these authoritarian laws. In Scotland, police were overwhelmed with reports about JK Rowling’s tweeted beliefs when the hate speech law came into effect on 1st April, despite resources already having had to be cut away from dealing with theft and other petty crimes. In Ireland, the government are considering passing a “hate speech” law which could place people in prison for up to five years even for the memes they have on their phone. If implemented in England & Wales, a ban on “legal but harmful” posts on “X” or Facebook will inevitably slide into censorship of unapproved views, giving the state unlimited reach into controlling conversations amongst the public. “Blasphemy laws” in Middle Eastern nations are righteously condemned by European states. We must set a better example – not implement laws to punish heresy against our own dominant societal beliefs of today.

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Lois McLatchie Miller (@LoisMcLatch) is a Scottish commentator and Senior Legal Communications Officer for Alliance Defending Freedom UK.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.