Hmm…

• UK (2023): 12,183 arrests under communications laws. Recorded annually. Enforcement is continuous and year-round.

• China: Approximately 1,500 arrests from a specific government crackdown on online rumours, running from December 2023 to April 2024 — a time-limited campaign, not an annual figure.

• Russia: Approximately 400 cases cited from a 2017 report. A more recent 2023 report documented 882 criminal prosecutions for online posts, following new censorship laws introduced after the invasion of Ukraine.

So the number from China is from a single campaign specifically targeting “online rumors”, and the number is publicly (voluntarily) reported by the body which made the arrests, which is suspect. This figure does not represent all arrests made related to online speech, only this one campaign. Even if you could find such information from China, anything published by the PRC would probably not be trustworthy.

The Russian number… similarly, the figures reported by the government are suspect. Also, Russia has been making significant efforts to restrict access to online services nationwide in recent years, so… it’s hard to get arrested for posting something if you can’t get online at all. Also, this is prosecutions, not arrests, and Russia has a habit of leaving political dissenters in prison for a long time before they get a court date, if ever.

The UK figure is a continuous annual total recorded under laws that have been in operation for decades. The China figure covers a four-month campaign. The Russia figure reflects a specific legislative period following wartime emergency laws. The UK does not publish this data centrally — the 12,183 figure was compiled from Freedom of Information requests to individual forces, covering 35 of England and Wales’s 43 territorial forces. The full national total is not publicly available.

This is not serious journalism. The author wants to push a narrative. We can give them credit for at least informing us that the figures don’t really correlate, but knowing that means that the headline of this article is at best tabloid journalism, if not outright propaganda. Either way, this news source should be treated as highly irresponsible.

reminder that Substack is still a Nazi bar

Well, there is free speech and “free speech”. In my opinion American free speech is too free. There should be laws against hate speech advocating violence against people groups, especially minor groups, like most civilized countries have. This protects oppressed groups from violence of majority.

Difference is that no one is put to jail about speech against the nation, like in Russia and China. That definitely is wrong, and I would not mix the two.

Does UK make it bit too far, yes, but world isn’t so black and white.

This is why I don’t use my real name when posting spicy memes… Fucking hell that actually sounds really shit that I have to do that. Literally having to hide memes from law enforcement.