The UK might extradite us Americans and put us in jail for what we post online. Judge rules that Christian schools that accept choice money can’t discriminate against LGBTQs. And what happens when you try to do without Google.
The UK Might Extradite Us Americans and Put Us in Jail for What We Post Online
Great Britain has been torn by riots sparked by the murder of three little girls–aged 6, 7, and 9–in a Taylor Swift-themed dance class. The perpetrator was a 17-year-old whose parents came from Rwanda. Despite the rumors that whipped up the crowds, he himself was not an immigrant nor a Muslim. But the killings fed into long-simmering resentments in the British working class, which exploded into violent anti-immigration protests, which in turn sparked violent counter-protests from Muslims.
The new Labour government blamed the protests on “right wingers” and addressed the problem by resolving to prosecute people for their social media posts. A 55-year-old woman posted a rumor that the murderer was an asylum seeker and was arrested “on suspicion of publishing written material to stir up racial hatred” and “false communications.” Not just posting but re-posting will get in you trouble in the UK, according to the Director of Public Prosecutions in England and Wales, who said that even retweeting a post “which is insulting or abusive, which is intended to or likely to start racial hatred” makes one liable for arrest.
But London’s Metropolitan Police chief took the crackdown to another level when he threatened to extradite foreigners–specifically Americans–if they violate the UK’s restrictions on speech. “We will throw the full force of the law at people,” he said. “And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you.” When a reporter asked him to explain, he said, “the likes of Elon Musk” are “whipping up the hatred.”
“Being a keyboard warrior,” he said, “does not make you safe from the law.”
“You can be guilty of offenses of incitement, of stirring up racial hatred, there are numerous terrorist offenses regarding the publishing of material. . . .All of those offenses are in play if people are provoking hatred and violence on the streets, and we will come after those individuals just as we will physically confront on the streets the thugs and the yobs who are taking — who are causing the problems for communities.”
Before his interview with Donald Trump, Musk was also warned by the European Union’s Digital Commissioner Thierry Breton about “amplification of harmful content.”
I don’t think the United States would extradite anyone for violating British laws against free speech. This is a reminder to Americans of the wisdom of codifying our laws and our rights in a written Constitution, as opposed to the “unwritten Constitution” that our former masters across the pond keep insisting is just as good. The fact is, the freedom of speech, despite recent assaults on that right, has far more robust protections in the United States, as compared to just about any other country, including the ostensibly “free countries” of Europe.
I would add that Great Britain’s attempt to apply its oppressive laws to Americans was one of the reasons for the War of 1812. Just saying.
Judge Rules that Christian Schools that Accept Choice Money Can’t Discriminate against LGBTQs
If a Christian school accepts government money, does that mean that it must abide by the government’s laws against discrimination against LGBTQ teachers or students, even if that violates its religious convictions?
Yes, ruled a federal judge in Maine. A state law specifically requires that schools participating in a taxpayer-funded tuition assistance program must comply with the Maine Human Rights Act, which forbids discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland and St. Dominic’s Academy in Auburn, Maine, filed suit, but lost their case.
U.S. District Judge John Woodcock, Jr., ruled that “The plaintiffs are free to practice their religion, including the teaching of their religion as they see fit, but cannot require the state to subsidize their religious teachings if they conflict with state antidiscrimination law.” The ruling is being appealed.
This would not be a broadly-applicable ruling, since it involves not federal law, but a specific state statute. Still, it raises the warning that taking government funding may entangle an institution in government conditions.
What Happens When You Try to Do Without Google
How much of a monopoly is Google? In last week’s Miscellany, we blogged about a court ruling that Google was an illegal monopoly for its actions in making itself the default search engine on virtually all browsers. But Google’s reach goes far beyond its ubiquitous search engine.
Stephen Green, discussing the case and the prospect of Google maybe getting broken up, brought up an experiment from five years ago. Gizmodo’s Kashmir Hill took the up the challenge of doing without Google completely, to the point of installing technology that would prevent her from using any Google-owned or Google-related services or software.
Jason Evangelho of Forbes Magazine tells the tale in his article Here’s The Shocking Reality Of Completely Blocking Google From Your Life:
- When trying to get across town for a meeting, Hill discovered that her Uber and Lyft apps were essentially useless. That’s because they rely on Google Maps.
- Hill was unable to stream her favorite on songs on Spotify. Yep. Spotify hosts all its music on the Google Cloud.
- Attempting to simply browse the web created flashbacks of the internet in the 90’s. “On Airbnb, photos won’t load,” Hill says. “New York Times articles won’t appear until the site has tried (and failed) to load Google Analytics, Google Pay, Google News, Google ads, and a Doubleclick tracker.” Many of the sites she visited were also dependent on Google Fonts. . .
- When trying to share video journals to her colleagues at Gizmodo, Dropbox refused to let her log in because the service uses an invisible CAPTCHA — hosted by Google — to verify that real humans are trying to access it.
“Hill discovered that after only a few hours into her experiment, her various devices had tried to ping Google servers more than 15,000 times,” reports Evangelho. “After one week, that number had ballooned to more than 100,000.”
But Google is not the only ubiquitous presence on the web. She tried something similar with a “block Amazon challenge,” in which her devices tried to ping Amazon servers 293,000 times in a week.
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