Below is my column in Fox.com on the arrest of a well-known comedian in Great Britain. While the three social media posts in question were political commentary rather than jokes, the arrest of Graham Linehan is only the latest arrest of a comedian as part of the global crackdown on free speech. The postings would be considered protected speech in the United States and should be protected anywhere. The rising censorship is literally no joke in various Western countries.
Here is the column:
In the anti-free speech community, the most intolerable form of speech often seems to be humor. For thousands of years, satire and parody have proven to be the most penetrating —and at times, irritating —forms of political speech. Even with absolute rulers, court jesters were often the few figures who could challenge a king. As Shakespeare wrote in King Lear, “jesters do oft prove prophets.”
In the case of comedian Graham Linehan, he has unwittingly become a prophet for the death of not just free speech, but humor, in the United Kingdom. The co-creator of the U.K. sitcom “Father Ted” was arrested at London Heathrow Airport, allegedly over several social media posts criticizing transgender activists. The posts were not jokes, but political commentary.
Linehan ended up in the hospital after he said that he was met with five armed officers, who told him he was being arrested over three posts on X. In his posting, he felt the need as a comedic writer to emphasize “no, I promise you, I am not making this up.”
He said that officers interrogated him over a post in which he wrote, “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act.” He added that people would be compelled to make a scene, call the police, or even “punch” the offender.
London’s Metropolitan Police admits that it did indeed arrest a man “in relation to posts on X.” Linehan said that he was told that there would be only one bail condition “I am not to go on Twitter. That’s it. No threats, no speeches about the seriousness of my crimes – just a legal gag order designed to shut me up while I’m in the U.K..”
For those who live in Great Britain or other European countries, this is hardly surprising. The government has steadily increased its criminalization and regulation of speech, including religious and political speech, under such laws as the Communications Act of 2003 and the Online Safety Act of 2023.
British citizens are not alone. For years, free speech has been no laughing matter in Europe and other parts of the world. Comedians have been charged in countries ranging from France to Germany to Brazil to Turkey to Canada for insulting jokes.
In my book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss how free speech is in free fall in Europe, where the European Union is pushing for global censorship of social media, including American companies. The most triggering sound for many today is the sound of laughter from those who hold opposing views.
In Scotland, comedians opposed a draconian law that threatened to criminalize a wide swath of jokes. It would allow the arrest of anyone deemed guilty of “stirring up hatred” against a group of persons and even allowed for arrests for possessing inflammatory material with a view to communicating the material.
The pathological lack of humor is shared by many in this country. In Hawaii, comedians and others opposed a law that criminalizes “recklessly” distributing “materially deceptive media.” At universities, the dominant anti-free speech culture is raising not just a generation of speech phobics but humorless speech phobics.
Past polls showed that as many as six out of ten students viewed “offensive jokes” to be ‘hate speech.” Comedians have been routinely canceled on campuses and many will no longer perform at colleges and universities due to the intolerance.
The public itself still values edgy comedy. That is shown by the ratings of shows like Gutfeld! which has long dominated network evening comedy shows. It turns out that the public does not want humor that runs only from the left to the far left. “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” was reportedly gushing not just viewers but $50 million a year with its left-only humor shtick.
Ironically, a country that brought us Monty Python is now mainstreaming George Orwell. In Great Britain, the range of acceptable humor is left to the government to decide. It is a standard that seems to follow the dubious lead of Potter Stewart on recognizing pornography in Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964): “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it.”
Comedians like Linehan are left with permissible humor dictated by the anemic comedic stylings of the far left or that of the Metropolitan Police.
Empowered by such censorship laws, activists often seem to spend more time trying to silence others in Europe than speaking for themselves. Individuals and groups will often file criminal complaints against those with opposing views. That has included an unrelenting campaign against author J.K. Rowling and others who have opposed transgender policies as destroying feminist gains in sports and other fields.
Of course, censorship itself is now a form of release for the humor-challenged and viewpoint-intolerant. While most sensible people look at Linehan’s arrest with horror, it was a thrill, even fun, for those who use these laws. There is little fear that these laws could be used against themselves. After all, Will Rogers explained “everything is funny, as long as it’s happening to somebody else.”
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of the best-selling “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”