{"id":275446,"date":"2023-11-08T08:02:21","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T08:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=275446"},"modified":"2023-11-09T07:44:32","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T07:44:32","slug":"think-things-cant-get-worse-in-america-a-british-guy-just-got-convicted-for-making-a-joke-in-a-private-groupchat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=275446","title":{"rendered":"Think Things Can\u2019t Get Worse In America? A British Guy Just Got Convicted For Making A Joke In A Private Groupchat"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Kay Smythe \u2013 The Daily Caller Nov 7, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>A former Metropolitan police officer was convicted Monday of expressing his thoughts, humor, and opinions in a private WhatsApp group message.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Chadwell, 62, was convicted on Monday of sending a \u201cgrossly offensive racist message\u201d in a group chat that included five other former police officers, <a href=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/2023\/11\/06\/ex-cop-convicted-of-sending-grossly-offensive-racist-parrot-message-19781137\/\">according<\/a> to Metro UK. It was a private WhatsApp group chat, where the men sent each other whatever they wanted because it was private and they weren\u2019t planning any terrorist activities against others. In fact, Chadwell served in the Met\u2019s Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command and Counter Terrorism Command.<\/p>\n<p>But apparently sending a joke about parrots was enough for Chadwell to be convicted based on a relative construct. An image sent by Chadwell, along with an image of multicolored parrots, read: \u201c\u2018Why do we cherish the variety of colour in every species\u2026 but our own?\u2019 \u2013 underneath which a comment in response said \u2018because I have never had a bike stolen out of my front yard by a parrot\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A former Met officer has been found guilty of sending an offensive racist message following a BBC Newsnight investigation.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/6e0X7msQzW\">https:\/\/t.co\/6e0X7msQzW<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; BBC London (@BBCLondonNews) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BBCLondonNews\/status\/1721640869629960396?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 6, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Is the joke funny? No. Is it racist? It definitely is given the context. But does it warrant potentially five men\u2019s lives being ruined? Absolutely not. And definitely not under any type of free speech concept Britain pretends to still have.<\/p>\n<p>Chadwell unfortunately tried to defend the joke as not \u201cracist,\u201d when he probably should have focused on the fact he sent a private message via a Meta-owned company and exercised his right to free speech.<\/p>\n<p>He should have focused on not allowing the City of London\u2019s Magistrate\u2019s Court to eradicate any sense of safety we can now feel when communicating with our families. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever said anything worthy of arrest to my family via WhatsApp. But now I\u2019m terrified some faceless monster in a position of unelected authority is going to destroy the lives of everyone I love because we communicate openly with each other.<\/p>\n<p>Why isn\u2019t Britain losing their freaking minds over the precedent set here? Yes, Chadwell is arguably wrong to be racist, and his mindset is disgusting \u2026 but he\u2019s not a criminal and he didn\u2019t commit a crime.<\/p>\n<p>If you think this same level of abject insanity and tyranny isn\u2019t coming to America soon, I hope you\u2019re right. But if history has taught us anything, it\u2019s that those we give our power to will eventually use it against us. People have been murdered, imprisoned, and their lives ripped from their hands for far, far less before \u2026 and I can\u2019t see any reason why the same won\u2019t happen again.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2023\/11\/07\/michael-chadwell-free-speech-dead-britain-racist-group-chat-message-whatsapp\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The fact that someone is convicted for making a joke in a private conversation &#8220;following a BBC investigation&#8221; should tell you all you need to know about the BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Surveillance"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=275446"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275452,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275446\/revisions\/275452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=275446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=275446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=275446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}