So serious question for the Brits: If your spouse started tweeting at you with "persistent" messages that caused you "annoyance, inconvenience, or needless anxiety" couldn't they also be arrested and charged? Doubt there's anything in UK law that would prevent that, eh? hmmmmm. https://twitter.com/thehomoarchy/status/1168392636073267200 …
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Replying to @4th_WaveNow
Serious answer: in UK, as well as USA, there are badly thought out or irrelevant laws & regulations which get broken all the time. The trangressions are generally ignored as they rarely cause actual harm. They are not ignored when it suits the powers-that-be to pursue someone.
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Replying to @PrideinScience
Ok. But the First Amendment protects us from absurdities like being led away in handcuffs for something you said on Twitter that "annoyed" someone.
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Replying to @4th_WaveNow
"Harassment, under the laws of the United States, is defined as any repeated or continuing uninvited contact that serves no useful purpose beyond creating alarm, annoyance, or emotional distress" https://definitions.uslegal.com/h/harassment/
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Replying to @PrideinScience
Right--but can you name a single case of someone being arrested in the US for the sorts of Twitter "transgressions" we see quite often in the UK? Our free speech protections are broad and the bar is higher.
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Replying to @4th_WaveNow
It doesn't matter whether I can name a case - it is written into your law: "annoyance", same as ours. The 1st doesn't nullify that, but I don't even think that is the real difference. It is that in the UK, people as a whole are not as lawyered up and litigious as you lot 1/2
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Replying to @PrideinScience
You seriously underestimate how much the First Amendment protects us. You should read up on that. If we didn't have it, you're right--our jails would be overflowing with wrongthinkers because of how litigious we are. But on free speech, we're way better off here.
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Replying to @4th_WaveNow @PrideinScience
It's also why libel and slander cases are far, far harder to win in the US--this is another well known fact. "Truth" is not a sufficient defense in the UK, whereas it is here.
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If you phoned police in any US city & reported someone was persistently "annoying" you on Twitter (unless they were actually threatening physical harm), they'd just laugh. Anyone can file a lawsuit of course, but it would be a fool's errand. The UK has actual Thought Police.
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Replying to @4th_WaveNow
We have freedom of conscience and expression under various laws, and equality rights under law, but the police will ignore that we have these rights as they will try and get away with pursuit of their target regardless and it is rare for them to get any legal pushback.
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