WASHINGTON (TND) — Podcast host Joe Rogan on Thursday expressed his outrage over a United Kingdom law cracking down on social media content and compared it to Soviet-era communism.
In 2023, the UKpassed the Online Safety Act, which aims to protect children and regulate online content. New penalties created by the law include “encouraging or assisting serious self-harm,” “cyberflashing,” “sending false information intended to cause non-trivial harm” and “threatening communications.”
Speaking with YouTuber Bob Gymlan on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Rogan described the measure as a “terrible government overreach.”
“People talk about Soviet Russia, about how bad Russia is in terms of cracking down on thought police and cracking down on bad tweets,” he said. “There’s something like 4,000 people have been arrested in England for thought crimes where they’ve said things online that people find to be a hateful thing or a problematic thing.”
“The fact that they are comfortable with finding people who’ve said something that they disagree with and putting them in a f—-ing cage in England in 2024 is really wild,” Rogan added.
Rogan continued saying the definition of “hateful” content has changed throughout the years and is not an objective standard in the eyes of the law. He applied the example of deadnaming a hypothetical transgender individual whose previous name was Doug.
“If you call a regular guy an idiot, fine, no problem,” he said. “If you call Doug Doug, you will get banned for life. That’s the new hate speech.”
Reacting to the comments was X owner Elon Musk, who replied with the 100 emoji. He is currently facing a lawsuit from former CNN host Don Lemon over the cancellation of his unaired show which had been slated to run on X.
Follow Jackson Walker on X at @_jlwalker_ for the latest trending national news. Have a news tip? Send it to jacwalker@sbgtv.com.
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