UK government issues warning: ‘Think before you post’

It’s been an ugly week in the U.K., as riots have led to illegal acts including looting, arson, violence, and threats. But like so many governments facing crises, officials are reaching the wrong conclusions about how to address the unrest.

The rioting traces back to July 29, when three children were tragically murdered in a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed party in Southport, England. Ten others were injured. 

That same day, a 55-year-old woman from Chester posted a claim on social media that the suspect “was an asylum seeker who came to the UK by boat last year and was on an MI6 watch list.” 

“If this is true,” she wrote, “then all hell is about to break loose.” 

It was not true. The 17-year-old suspect was “born in Wales to Rwandan parents” and is not an asylum seeker, but claims to the contrary spread rapidly over social media, shared in part by Russian state-affiliated media. 

The woman from Chester has since been arrested for “publishing written material to stir up racial hatred” and “false communication.”

In the following days, riots sprouted in cities across England and Northern Ireland. In those riots, individuals allegedly engaged in looting, vandalism, barricades of buildings housing asylum seekers, and both threats and acts of violence. Police arrested hundreds. 

Counterprotest is always a more effective remedy than silence. Let peaceful protesters exercising their rights lead the way.

Police absolutely must act against those who threaten violence, commit acts of violence, or engage in vandalism and arson. But officials should resist the urge to treat censorship as a solution to problems it cannot solve. Unfortunately, the U.K. government did the opposite, issuing a warning on X to “Think before you post,” while quoting a post from the Crown Prosecution Service about inciting hatred and “online violence.” 

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This does not inspire confidence that officials will capably protect free speech while cracking down on illegal conduct. While an exhortation to think before speaking may seem like innocuous advice, the vagueness of the government’s warning, as well as the ominous threat of prosecution along with it, may instead chill citizens’ legal expression about events happening in the country.

And as I’ve covered in recent editions of FIRE’s Free Speech Dispatch, the U.K.’s track record on speech even before these riots has trended downhill. 

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In June, for example, U.K. police seized coconuts and placards and detained protesters outside a courthouse where former teacher Marieha Hussain appeared in response to a “racially aggravated public order offence” charge. Hussain was arrested last year after holding a sign at a pro-Palestinian protest that depicted high-ranking U.K. politicians Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman as coconuts, an insult implying the target is “brown on the outside but white on the inside.”

If government officials in the U.K. are interested in alternatives to censorship, they can simply look to the solution employed by their own citizens: more speech. Days after the riots began, in cities where more riots were feared or expected, “large anti-immigration protests had not materialized.” Instead, “thousands of antiracism protesters gathered in cities across the country, including Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool and London.” Indeed, these riots have proven deeply unpopular, with polling showing “concern about right-wing extremists” skyrocketing among Britons, now “at almost the same level as that towards Islamic extremists.”

U.K. officials should keep this in mind as calls for censorship increase. Counterprotest is always a more effective remedy than silence. Let peaceful protesters exercising their rights lead the way.