Joe Rogan, the popular shock social media guy, complete with tats and four-letter words, and millions of followers, has like Elon Musk, waded into the great UK immigrationist controversy. His comments were to basically compare the government crackdowns to something right out of the USSR.
On this he is probably too generous, as the USSR did not talk about prosecuting overseas critics; murder dissents on the run, yes, but not US citizens. And Joe Rogan now becomes enemy number two, after Musk for the UK fascist regime. He had better keep out of the UK. We all should.
https://modernity.news/2024/08/09/joe-rogan-state-of-free-speech-in-the-uk-is-worse-than-russia/
"Responding to the recent authoritarian crackdown, Joe Rogan pointed out that more people get arrested in the UK for "thought crimes" on social media than they do in Russia.
"Terrible government overreach – you're seeing it now in England where people are getting arrested for tweets," said the podcast host.
"People talk about Soviet Russia, like how bad Russia is in terms of cracking down on thought police and cracking down on bad tweets and things like that," he added.
Rogan then compared how Russia polices free speech on social media compared to the UK.
In Russia, only around 400 people are arrested each year for 'hateful' tweets, while that number is around 3,300 in the UK.
"The fact that they're comfortable with finding people who've said something they disagree with and putting them in a f**king cage in England in 2024 is really wild," said Rogan.
He then drew attention to a recent statement by Stephen Parkinson, the Director of Public Prosecutions, who told Sky News that merely retweeting information about the UK riots could lead to criminal charges.
Rogan pointed out that the term "hateful" is completely subjective "and in our lifetime we've seen that get moved," before explaining how 'deadnaming' a transgender person by referring to them by their original name is now treated as "hateful".
As we highlighted yesterday, a woman in Cheshire was arrested for tweeting "inaccurate information" about the killer of three girls in Southport.
Meanwhile, one of the latest arrests in the UK in the aftermath of the riots is of a man who wrote "filthy b**tards" on Facebook alongside an emoji of an ethnic minority person and a gun.
He will now spend the next 12 weeks in prison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omSy9n7LrWg
"The government of the United Kingdom warned its citizens this week to be careful of posting material deemed offensive — threatening imprisonment for those who incite "hatred."
The Crown Prosecution Service posted a warning to social media platform X on Wednesday warning citizens to "Think before you post!" amid ongoing riots that have fractured the country's polity.
"Content that incites violence or hatred isn't just harmful - it can be illegal," the government agency wrote. "The CPS takes online violence seriously and will prosecute when the legal test is met. Remind those close to you to share responsibly or face the consequences."
The CPS added, "The British government is cracking down on people who share social media posts about the U.K. riots that it judges are 'likely to start racial hatred.'"
The post was then amplified by the GOV.UK website's official account.
Riots have broken out across the U.K. in recent days over a mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event that left three girls dead and others wounded.
The director of public prosecutions of England and Wales, Stephen Parkinson, previously warned against "publishing or distributing material which is insulting or abusive which is intended to or likely to start racial hatred. So, if you retweet that, then you're republishing that and then potentially you're committing that offense [incitement to racial hatred]."
He added further, "We do have dedicated police officers who are scouring social media. Their job is to look for this material, and then follow up with identification, arrests, and so forth."
"London's Metropolitan Police chief warned that officials will not only be cracking down on British citizens for commentary on the riots in the U.K., but on American citizens as well.
"We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you're in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you," Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley told Sky News.
Riots have broken out across the United Kingdom in recent days over false rumors spread online that an asylum seeker was responsible for a mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event that left three girls dead and others wounded. The murders, allegedly committed by a now 18-year-old British citizen born to Rwandan parents, sparked a series of violent protests that tapped into broader concerns about the scale of immigration in the U.K.
Footage of the violent clashes involving anti-immigration protesters and the groups of counter-protesters, some of whom have been seen waving Palestinian flags, has gone viral on social media, and the government is warning that sharing such content may have serious consequences.
One key aspect that makes this apparent crackdown on social media particularly shocking to critics is that the British government is threatening to extradite American citizens from the U.S. to be jailed in the U.K. for violating their rules about political speech online.
A Sky News reporter asked Commissioner Rowley to further explain his warning, arguing that high profile figures have been "whipping up the hatred," and that "the likes of Elon Musk" have been getting involved. She then asked what the police force's plan will be "when it comes to dealing with people who are whipping up this kind of behavior from behind the keyboard who may be in a different country?"
Rowley answered by telling the reporter, "Being a keyboard warrior does not make you safe from the law."
"You can be guilty of offenses of incitement, of stirring up racial hatred, there are numerous terrorist offenses regarding the publishing of material," he said. "All of those offenses are in play if people are provoking hatred and violence on the streets, and we will come after those individuals just as we will physically confront on the streets the thugs and the yobs who are taking — who are causing the problems for communities."
Elon Musk has made headlines for criticizing Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's response to the riots over the past week, suggesting the U.K. is headed toward "civil war."
He also responded to a video of someone allegedly arrested for offensive online comments with a question, "Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?"
Starmer's spokesperson said there was "no justification" for Musk's comments, adding that social media companies "can and should be doing" more to combat misinformation, the BBC reported. He added that such companies "have a responsibility" to stop the spread of criminal activity and limit misinformation.