In Germany, the police will start a manhunt for a person who calls a politician "fat." Friedrich Merz, the German Chancellor, has filed somewhere between "hundreds" and thousands of complaints, with attached criminal penalties possible, over people insulting him online.
The European Union has an entire agency that polices speech on the internet, and social media companies can be held responsible not only for the speech of people within a country where the speech is deemed "illegal," but also for protected speech made here in the United States, since posts can be read online.
It's impossible to overstate the tyrannical nature of these laws and practices, and it's especially disgusting to see them applied in our fellow Anglosphere countries, where the concept of free speech was developed.
https://t.co/JuClp9mlor
— The Free Speech Union (@SpeechUnion) October 22, 2026
A 15-year-old boy was woken by four West Midlands Police officers banging on his door.
Fraser, a schoolboy and Reform UK activist, was arrested in front of his neighbours, bundled into a police car and held overnight in a cell. His mugshot and DNA were taken; even his shoes were confiscated. While he was in the cell, officers searched his bedroom at home.
His “crime”? Criticising a Conservative councillor for wearing shorts and a T-shirt to a council meeting, then joking on social media that the councillor “was not looking like a rent boy” when he wore a suit.
Fraser also posted an altered photograph of the councillor wearing bunny ears.
In what self-respecting democracy should a child be arrested for criticising an elected politician?
The Free Speech Union is supporting Fraser and has taken on his case. His lawyers received an email from West Midlands Police stating that “it is alleged that your client’s comments could be considered a hate crime offence”. Months later, Fraser is still waiting to learn whether he will be charged.
Speaking to the New York Post, FSU Director of Legislative Affairs Sam Armstrong said: “Broadly speaking, several thousand people a year are being arrested for… ‘offensive speech’ in the UK.”
Since 2020, the FSU has handled more than 7,000 cases involving people whose free speech has been infringed and who have been punished for exercising it. More than 60,000 people have also been arrested for communications offences in the UK.
The First Amendment protects US citizens’ right to free speech. As Sam told the New York Post, it is the “global gold standard”.
Australia, New Zealand, and the UK all disappoint me the most, likely because I have always been something of an Anglophile (not the monarchy, per se, but maybe the accents trigger something atavistic in me). When I see the police harassing or even jailing people for speech offenses, it riles me up.
And going after children, including autistic girls or 15-year-old boys, is about as low as you can go. And they are going there.
It’s easy to take free speech for granted when it’s all you’ve known as an American — but look no further than the United Kingdom for a reminder of why our First Amendment is so important.
That’s where a 15-year-old boy was awakened by four West Midlands police officers early one morning this August, because his Facebook posts allegedly offended a local politician.
The case is a stark reminder to all Americans of just how important our rights are — and how even nations in the supposedly “free” world can devolve into dystopian censorship regimes without those protections.
A teen from Walsall identified as Fraser is a precocious activist and Reform UK supporter who has immersed himself in local politics, showing up to meetings and even door-knocking for his favorite politicians.
But snide comments he made about a local Conservative councillor landed him in the middle of a police investigation for harassment, malicious communications and even a hate crime.
Fraser posted an altered photo of Conservative councillor Simon Bennett with bunny ears and captioned it, “Nibble… nibble… crunch… crunch Can you hear it? That’s the sound of a rabbit devouring the last remaining shreds of Wolverhampton Conservatives’ credibility.”
He also criticized Bennett for wearing shorts and a T-shirt to a council meeting, then joked when Bennett showed up in a suit one day that at least he “was not looking like a rent boy,” slang for a male prostitute.
In the UK, a teen can get arrested and thrown in jail for posting this on Facebook.
The photo may be a joke, but landing in jail after your house is raided and searched most certainly isn't.
The Free Speech Union (FSU), which has taken on Fraser’s case, received an email from the police saying it “is alleged that your client’s comments could be considered a hate crime offense.” The teen is back home but still is anxiously waiting to see if he will be charged by the Crown Prosecution Service with a crime.
“Perhaps the most depressing element [of his case] is just how familiar all of the facts are to people like us that are used to handling these cases,” FSU Legislative Affairs Director Sam Armstrong told The Post. “Broadly speaking, several thousand people a year are being arrested for, quote unquote, ‘offensive speech’ in the UK.”
Armstrong says that the FSU, which was only founded in 2020, has already handled 7,000 cases of censorship in the United Kingdom. And there have been more than 60,000 arrests for communications offenses in the UK from 2021 to 2025, according to civil liberties group Big Brother Watch.
It is difficult to imagine that things could get this bad here in the United States, where the Democrats and the media have been agitating for speech controls and have managed to dramatically restrict our ability to speak freely on most social media platforms. For now, attempts to control speech have focused on suppressing policy issue discussions, and I find it hard to believe that even the Democrats would prosecute people for an insult.
But then again, I never expected the Democrats to campaign with the likes of Hasan Piker, embrace candidates with ties to terrorists, or endorse and campaign for a guy with a Nazi tattoo.
It's depressing. And I think that most people who don't keep up with the day-to-day happenings would think you were a nutty conspiracy theorist if you told them about any of this. And why not? It is outside our ken that the West would be using China or North Korea as a template, right?
But here we are.
Everybody is obsessing about Bad Orange Man, and millions of Americans fear he is dragging us into authoritarianism, but the reality is that he is the one thing standing between us and having this sort of thing in our future.