In a clip shared by tech billionaire Elon Musk, US commentator Joe Rogan has waded in on the UK government’s response to recent riots, comparing the country to “Soviet Russia”, The Independent reports.
Speaking on his podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience, the commentator hit out at what he dubbed “terrible government overreach”.
Rogan claimed: “You’re seeing it in England now, with terrible government overreach. 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.
“There’s something like 4,000 people in England have been arrested for thought crimes where they’ve said things online that people find to be a hateful thing or a problematic thing. And I think it’s only 200 in Russia.”
“The fact that they’re comfortable with finding people who have said something that they disagree with and putting them in a f***ing cage in England in 2024 is really wild.”
Around 500 people have been arrested during recent riots which began following the killing of three young girls in Southport. A number of those relate to activity on social media. Nonetheless, other arrests relate to violent disorder, assault, punching police and burglary.
Speaking to The Independent, Labour MP Dawn Butler claimed that Rogan’s “blatant misinformation” risks emboldening the far right. Butler added that there is a “clear difference” between free speech and hate speech.
“It shows the danger of how easily fake news spreads across social media and I fear it will only embolden the far right, resulting in more hatred and abuse.
“We all value and want to protect free speech, but there is a clear difference between that and hate speech. Hate speech, including online, must always be taken seriously and prosecuted fully, as we cannot allow people to be targeted because of their race, religion or identity.”
She added: “I receive racism, abuse and threats regularly – as shown in my weekly Block of the Week feature on X – so I know the very real dangers. I have long called for tougher action and the Online Safety Act is welcome.
“Social media companies must do much more to take responsibility and clamp down on hateful content on their platforms – it’s time they were properly regulated to ensure they comply with our British laws.”
New regulation of social media platforms – the Online Safety Act – became law in the UK last year. However, it has not yet fully come into effect.
Once in place, it will require platforms to take “robust action” against illegal content, including around offences such as inciting violence.
The Government wants to make the UK “the safest place in the world to go online” but its plans will restrict online free speech to a degree almost unprecedented in any democracy. If the Government keeps to the plans laid out in its latest consultation response this will result in the censorship of legal speech.
Click here to find out why this bill is a threat to freedom of speech online and will need major amendments if the government is to avoid legitimising widespread online censorship in the United Kingdom.
Rogan’s comments follow reports that a shadowy state agency with no statutory footing previously used to monitor perfectly lawful yet dissenting speech during the Covid lockdowns has been deployed by the Labour Government to monitor social media amid ongoing civil unrest across the UK (Telegraph).
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