The comparison is made with America's First Amendment, which is a valuable piece of legislation.
How does the law in the US treat incitement to violence, as shown by some of the cases described, e.g. Among them were people who said things like “blow the mosque up” and “set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards”. That probably would have been legal in America, says Gavin Phillipson of Bristol University, since it falls short of presenting a clear and imminent danger.
What would constitute "clear and imminent danger" in a online posting?
The person in question did not say the latter. You have, presumably deliberately, decontextualized it. She said roughly what you said followed by "for all I care", and she also deleted the post a few minutes after.
(What some people may not understand: UK police are running a dragnet online now, it is unclear when this started but was in full force after Covid, you can post and immediately delete, you can post with five followers...they will find it, and will attempt to prosecute. People on here go mad when police in the US pick up drug addicts, the UK has a China-style operation aimed at the public, they are making 200-300 arrests a week, it is complete insanity).
Now compare this to what else people are seeing. Some people in the UK (I cannot say which ones) are subject to rules: benefit fraud, tax evasion, public disturbances everywhere..."community policing" so these laws are not enforced. A well-known paedophile politician was recently convicted for attempted rape and sexual assault, they got a sentence shorter than the person you are referring to above...a convicted paedophile. Some parts of the UK have given prosecutors guidelines not to give a custodial sentence to paedophiles. During the riots, whilst people were being arrested for tweeting, there was a video online of a policeman asking attendees of a local mosque to put their weapons back in the mosque...no arrests made. For people in the UK, the problem is not the danger of things being said online, the danger is things going on in the physical world around them. I don't think a reasonable person can fail to connect these two things, there is a reason why the police go after the innocent online rather than criminals.
"At the time she had about 9,000 followers on X. Her message was reposted 940 times and viewed 310,000 times, before she deleted it three and a half hours later. " - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3nn60wyr6o
>you can post and immediately delete, you can post with five followers...they will find it, and will attempt to prosecute
It would not if there wasn't proof that there was actual planning. That said, you would most likely be monitored by local and state law enforcement.
A similar case happened in Central Illinois a couple years ago, where threats were posted but arrests were not made until the threats moved to actual action.
Not in the US's case. A direct link would be needed.
American jurisprudence on speech leans towards Free Speech Absolutism [0] due to jurisprudence from the 1970s-2000s, and the test for "clear and imminent danger" is extremely high.
Even though the US and the rest of the Anglophone speak English, America jurisprudence is extremely distinct from the rest of the Anglophone (and vice versa), and IMO it doesn't make sense to compare one with the other due to these significant differences.
For example, the UK dealt with the Troubles into the late 1990s, and the US never had a similar insurgency since the 1950s in Puerto Rico, so there is a hardening in NatSec laws in the UK compared to the US.
This is why the US often leverages allied states to help with this kind of monitoring to sidestep some of the legal implications domestically.
That said, I agree with your point to a certain extent, the issue is the US and other Anglophone countries have a different relation with speech and civil liberties. It doesn't make sense to compare the US with the UK or EU and vice versa.
How direct is direct enough? Connolley posted messages inciting racial violence, racial violence ensued.
Was Connolley a major instigator of these riots? No.
The judge's sentencing remarks are below, the key part being:
>6. When you published those words you were well aware of how volatile the situation was. As everyone is aware, that volatility led to serious disorder in a number of areas of the country where mindless violence was used to cause injury and damage to wholly innocent members of the public and to their properties.
Connolley's message was posted at 8.30pm on the 29th July. One day before crowds attacked Mosques in Southport. Related disturbances continued until August 5th.
How does the law in the US treat incitement to violence, as shown by some of the cases described, e.g. Among them were people who said things like “blow the mosque up” and “set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards”. That probably would have been legal in America, says Gavin Phillipson of Bristol University, since it falls short of presenting a clear and imminent danger.
What would constitute "clear and imminent danger" in a online posting?