It's not really, all those saying 'yet you get 2/3/4 years for sharing a meme or a Facebook post' are seriously downplaying the fact that what they were actually doing was inciting violence so extreme there was a real risk some would have been stuck inside a building whilst it was on fire, that's what those all so harmless people caused by sharing and encouraging locations of Mosques and Hotels, far more should have been punished but there isn't enough space in prisons so they had to make an example out of very few and it worked to stop the riots and discourage others who are thinking of doing the same in the future - those downplaying the gravity of those social media posts are the ones that are taking the piss.
Earlier today, I came across this exchange on X:
In the case of free speech, John Stuart Mill drew it at incitement. He famously contrasted a newspaper article in which the author claimed that corn dealers were starvers of the poor, with the same view spoken (or communicated via a placard) right outside a corn dealer’s house. The first is a controversial opinion that should be allowed to enter the public debate, even if the view is false or immoral; the second is, in those circumstances, an act of incitement to violence and unacceptable.
Mill's example is well-known in legal and philosophical circles and forms the basis for what became known as his Harm Principle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_principle#:~:text=John Stuart Mill articulated the,Declaration of the Rights of
I don't know Paul Goldsmith but I follow him on X. His tweets are - for the most part - models of balance and fair-mindedness.
No doubt he will have discussed the riot sentencing with his A level students, as I would with mine if I wasn't retired, as the classical Utilitarian philosophy of Bentham and Mill features on most A Level courses in Religious Studies and is also part of the AQA Philosophy syllabus.
The key issue here is whether Facebook posts or tweets on X are comparable to Mill's placard, given that we are living at a time when disinformation abounds on social media and spreads like wildfire, leaving ordinary media outlets playing catch-up, and there are also lots of credulous people out there who are distrustful of the MSM but willing to take any old conspiratorial bollocks and shit at face value.
