Online censorship in the UK has led to far more arrests than the first Red Scare

Online censorship in the UK has led to far more arrests than the first Red Scare - GREG LUKIANOFF AND ADAM GOLDSTEIN

• Cancel Culture is happening on a historic scale, Part 4

Part 1 of this exploration of Cancel Culture used the response to speech after 9/11 to predict the campus climate after the October 7 attacks on Israel. 

Part 2 explored the Sedition Act of 1798 to illustrate that the number of victims isn’t enough to gauge the severity of a censorship crisis. 

Part 3 delved into the American Victorian era and why it’s the best analogue to modern Cancel Culture.

Today, we’ll examine the first Red Scare and the Palmer Raids which took place following World War I. Then, we’ll hop across the pond to the United Kingdom to compare the level of arrests in the U.K. for offensive speech on the internet to the arrests during first Red Scare 

(Spoiler: the numbers are worse than the two years of the first Red Scare)...