What joy, so we’ve censorship in the British newspapers then

No it’s not censorship (yet). It’s that the law says there are things you are not allowed to say and if you say them you therefore shouldn’t be too surprised if plod wants a word with you.

As Brendan O’Neill wrote in spiked the other day it’s far worse to say some in-PC things about migrants than you know detain preople, deport people, get security services to physically keep people out of the country no matter the consequences etc.

You know these days words are more important than actions

In South Africa in the days of Apartheid there was no censorship, just lots of laws covering vast areas prohibiting what you couldn’t say. If you said something that was prohibited you could hardly be surprised if the friendly boys from John Vorster Square came knocking at 2am.

My name is Anjem

Peace be upon the blessed fighters of Islamic State. A most favoured place near to Allah is waiting for the blessed martyrs of Islamic State.

I am not personally urging any reader of this blog to join Islamic State. But if you do join your past sins are wiped away and you will find the greatest favour with Allah (and the hot girl on your estate)

Discuss

Katie Hopkins . . . . you would, wouldn’t you? But you wouldn’t want anyone to know you had afterwards.

Congrats to BiG – a succinct expression of the soft fascism that oppresses us in almost every aspect of our lives these days.

Just the right tone of self-righteousness and thinly-disguised threats. Become a spokesman for Greenpeace or FoE, why don’t you?.

Andrew K-

Okay, I admit it. Yes, I would.

If you didn’t know that – we have censorship of the newspapers in the UK – you haven’t been paying much attention to events around you. You cannot quote Winston Churchill these days, ask Paul Weston.

In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

George Orwell

I remember a labour prospective parliamentary candidate inciting murder on her Twitter feed a while back, some young bird in Scouseland. Does anyone know if she had her collar felt?

Pellinor-

One of the two currently accepted races- White and BAME. White refers to any western European of local ancestry who is not a Celt, because Celts are BAME. Slavs are BAME. Jews are BAME unless they are Zionists, in which case they are White, not BAME. Anyone not White is BAME.

Ironman isn’t BAME, but he’d like to be.

@Fecks et al,

It ain’t censorship because no censor came and censored it. You no longer have to get your plays past the Royal Privy Chancellor Whatnot (but you do have to get films past the local authority).

I’ve no idea if the British incitement laws are proportionate or are being proportionately applied in this or any other case. Yes they do mean you don’t have absolute freedom of speech. Likewise I do not have absolute freedom of speech to, for example, call for the beheading of Mr Fecks. The fact is that almost everywhere does have laws against incitement and does use them. If you don’t like it you can vote for a party that will repeal them. Alternatively, I am given to understand there is an increasing amount of vacant housing in Somalia which is not known for its enforcement of incitement laws.

“I wonder if Fecks would extend free speech to publishing opinions on the guilt of people currently before the courts? A yes/no answer will do.”

Doing so would be referring to specific individuals or groups of individuals. If not related to court matters, publication could result in libel actions. Wouldn’t think any court or judge would take exception to an opinion that “all bankers are fraudsters”, for instance. Or “all bankers” would succeed in a libel action.
So bollocks as an alternative to y/n

I always assume that, if someone resorts to “recommending Somalia if you want freedom”, they basically just lost!

Though, in fairness, it’s normally more some leftie trying to justify the Curajus State in the fight against liberty, rather than “water muddying” over something like Incitement.

In that I would suggest most people who are passionate about freedom of speech are happy with the balance with regard to Incitement laws?

Actually BinG’s y/n question is a good question. Do we believe in free speech in the case of a pending criminal trial?

Do we, as BinG is suggesting, recognise that free speech is not entirely unfettered and have an adult conversation about what those fetters should be? Or do we just rant away because Katie Hopkins is as mad as we are?

BiG,

“It ain’t censorship because no censor came and censored it”
Semantics as a few minutes with Google will inform you

And I think you may have it wrong about censoring in South Africa. There, as everywhere else, it was done after publication.

And an interesting snippet:- plus ça change etc etc
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/africas-worst-new-internet-censorship-law-could-be-coming-south-africa

“incitement to hatred” is an eristic trick which is useful when there is no evidence of incitement to violence (and no evidence of hate either, in many cases).
Hatred per se is of course morally indifferent. Shld we not hate injustice?
This goes on all the time. If there is a small and decreasing number of a crime x, the issue is avoided by talking of an x “culture”.
This is an example of what Hoffer pointed out:the test of a successful ideology is its capacity to isolate the believer from reality.
Do not be surprised if the police lend themselves to this. it is on more opportunity to augment their fearsomeness and their role as controllers rather than protectors.

Indeed, one enters a semantic labyrinth of vocabulary, which creates another (unreal) universe. The visceral drive is real tho’ and very nasty.

Bloke in Germany: wibbling about censorship de jure and de facto (i.e. the heckler’s veto given official sanction) is a distinction that makes no difference. From an operational standpoint they have the same effect: there are things you cannot say.