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Ok many of you know I live in China, and that I'm a British citizen. I've had many an argument with Chinese here who insist, absurdly, that they enjoy more freedoms than the west, giving examples like police brutality in the USA and Donald Trump being President.

I often touted England proudly as an example of freedom and diversity; people can vote, people have equal opportunities, equal rights, freedom of speech, the list goes on.

But since leaving England back in 2010, I've heard little news stories passing by, sneaking through the cracks, things that mildly annoy people but generally just something to joke about at the pub.

These news stories that broke out were typically porn related such as how the UK banned sexual acts such as peeing on each other and face-sitting in porn.

So now it's illegal to produce porn related to whipping, spanking and female ejaculation, alongside a whole list of other things considered 'not nice sex'.

Ok so this was shoved under the rug, alongside numerous bizarre laws such as the recent porn law requiring your credit card details and a call asking for permission to use porn (Details are fuzzy and I can't be bothered looking it up but the general gist is accurate).

So what does this have to do with freedom of speech? Not much, other than how the legal system appears to be receding back to a more draconian time, ever so subtly, in ways that people only really joke about. I wonder if joking about these things will become illegal one day.

Ooops, they already are!

Count Dankula

As of about 2 hours ago, 'Count Dankula' was convicted of 'being grossly offensive' for an online joke, and is currently having his sentence heard. It could be up to a year in prison for his 'crime'.

For those who aren't aware, Count dankula, a YouTuber, trained his dog to do a Nazi salute whenever he said 'gas the jews', in a prank attempted to annoy his girlfriend, and he put it on YouTube.

Now, even though nobody out of the 3 million who watched it actually made an official complaint, this could be seen as massively offensive by people. Failing that, it could just simply be unfunny or tasteless. Or it could be hilarious.

Different people are going to see this in different ways.

But illegal?

Consider Ricky Gervais, who has just released his latest netflix stand up show. He makes jokes about kicking dead babies, transexuals, murdering children with food allergies and having dinner with Hitler. It wasn't his best work in my opinion but I got a few chuckles out of it here and there.

Why isn't he going to prison? Gervais has made jokes far more offensive than those above. In fact, his goal in comedy is to offend people. So, do we pick and choose who to imprison based on whimsy?

What about Richard Dawkins and Stephen Fry who openly denounce religion and call it out as child abuse and a despicable act of malicious hatred, or @tjkirk who tweeted that Lara Croft's breasts in the new movie should have been bigger, causing outrage internationally. Are they going to go to prison or get banned when visiting the UK?

I was wondering at which point it become written in law that it is illegal to make jokes. The court apparently took into account Freedom of Speech in this case and simply said it doesn't count here because it was an offensive joke - that was their argument, though it's too early right now to know the details.

So I had a brief look into the hate speech laws, and it's quite alarming how many parts written can be manipulated to make almost anything we say illegal.

Hate speech

It may sound like the slippery slope fallacy I'm doing here, but there's real reason to believe that the UK is heading in the same direction as China's dictatorial control of human thought and freedom.

Hate speech laws in the UK are statutes that differ slightly around each nation, but generally forbid:

'Expressions of hatred toward someone on account of that person's colour, race, disability, nationality (including citizenship), ethnic or national origin, religion, or sexual orientation'.

Grey area 1

Although I believe everyone has the right to speak whatever they please, be it racism, sexism or otherwise - because you know, it's a 'right', not a 'privilege' - there's one from that list that sticks out; religion.

Religion, to be clear, is an ideology. This means it's an idea, a belief that one chooses to be a part of. It is not a race, a gender, nor a nationality, and it should be criticized. It should be denounced and argued against and insulted, in the same way that it should be argued for if you agree with it. That's why debate exists.

But when referring to Jews, one could point out that they are both a people and a belief system. So is it automatically hate speech and thus illegal if one makes a joke about a horrific time in Jewish history, based on the premise that it's a race-based joke?

Grey area 2

The statue continues with:

'Any communication which is threatening or abusive, and is intended to harass, alarm, or distress someone is forbidden.

A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if—

(a) he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or
(b) having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby.

''Intended to alarm or distress... ANY communication.*

'Racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby'

To me, this sounds like YOU can go to prison if you say something that might make racists more actively racist than they already are, but you can also go to prison if you hurt somebody's feelings directly. Correct me if I'm wrong here.

So what happens when I take offence to Sharia Law? Do I get to send some Muslims to prison?

What about political voices that are against opening the borders to millions of immigrants? Are they to be suppressed and censored on their way to a year of hard labour?

To be clear these aren't particularly my views, just examples. I'm typically fairly politically left myself.

But what if I wasn't? Could I get arrested, can somebody be banned from the UK for wanting to open a dialogue about these right-leaning issues?

As it turns out, YES!

Laura Southern

So I don't know this girl much but she's apparently some political activist I think from Canada with some possibly far-right political views. I don't know and don't particularly care.

But the UK does. Despite having no criminal record or violent history - but strong opinions - Southern was taken aside from entry into the UK, detained for over 6 hours and during that time, threatened and interrogated with scare tactics such as demanding to get into her phone lest they lock her up for a week until they can break in manually.

Eventually she was freed, but banned from the UK before she even entered. What was her crime? She planned to meet up and talk about 'far right' issues with somebody.

At first glance this could simply be her twisting a story to suit her agena, this could have been a deliberate tactic to raise awareness of her political goals. But what came out of the reports was an interesting response:

Border Force has the power to refuse entry to an individual if it is considered that his or her presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good

Put another way, the Border Force have legal power to ban people from the UK for having opinions that don't match the current political views of the majority of people. This is not a one-off.

Another person, a far right anti-islam group founder was also deported and banned from the UK.

You might think 'well they're extreme far right bigots so I say good riddance'. But you must see a problem with this.

Sure, it might suit you personally right now, because you may personally despise these people. But being a 'Far right bigot' is a political position nonetheless, and there are legitimate yet small political parties fighting for these positions in the UK - they do have support.

In contrast, being 'far left' is also a political position, in which you start seeing proponents of anarchy, socialism and communism.

Do these peoples' opinions have less equality than yours? Are they to be suppressed by the legal system, by the current government in power so to highlight the current narrative that suits them?

What would happen if a cultural movement happened over the next few years where the British start adopting far-right views? We've already seen a big shift to the right in Europe and the world in general with the fear of mass-immigration and the spread of Islamic terrorism. If the UK, 15 years from now votes for such a party, would it then be illegal to promote far-left views?

At which point does hate speech switch over to the other end of the spectrum? At which point does an opinion currently illegal become acceptable? When will it become illegal for a speaker to enter the UK with intentions to talk to far-left political individuals about socialism and anarchy? Who decides this?

Going back to Dankula's case, will I be able to send people to court for verbally insulting me for my personal beliefs that cats go to heaven but human's don't? That's an ideology, after all, a belief. Just like Islam.

These are questions I legitimately want to be discussed here on STEEM, because I wonder if I were to gain any public traction on the matter on Facebook or Twitter, I could get censored and arrested.

It seems the UK is approaching an age in its life where thought can be criminalised and jokes can be arbitrarily given a years' sentence in prison.

Conclusion

I don't really know what the conclusion is. With a crackdown on hate speech showing individuals arrested or heavily fined for 'being mean on the internet', individuals banned and interrogated for having a political view that might concern some people, and even evangelical Christians being arrested for their anti-gay views, how many of us are actually breaking the law, yet to be caught by the police?

What if they find out about your particularly kinky sex tape that you sold to a friend?

Most of the details under 'hate crime' seem somewhat justified; murder, sexual assult, theft, criminal damage.

But there's just one outlier that is leading the UK in my opinion the wrong direction: 'causing alarm or distress'.

Without proper defined boundaries as to what consistutes as an actual, legitimate crime that provably psychologically damages an individual, we're left with the conclusion that literally anything that upsets any single individual is considered a felony, religion can not be criticized, and political dialogue is suppressed.

This isn't a slippery slope fallacy, it's evidently happening.

What do you think? I know there are other sides to the story, but I can't personally see how a harmless joke, or a peaceful political activist can justifiably go through this legal shambles.

Steem is more important than ever.

I read a very disagreeable news story about Dtube and Steemit the other day from polygon that described Dtube as a haven for YouTubers who are extreme right bigots and white supremacists.

What is actually is, is a place where white supremacists, anarchists, feminists and Muslims can all be heard on equal footing. If white supremacists are drowned out with flags and made to give up their attempt at a career there, the people have spoken. NOT the legal system, NOT the company.

This is why I think in the coming years, Steem - or platforms like it - are going to be a critical and pivotal point in the evolution of social media.