Anyone surprised by the letter Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski received from the United Kingdom’s Chair of the Culture, Media, and Sport Committee needs to watch more soccer.
Several days after The Times and Channel 4 revealed the rape and sexual assault allegations against Russell Brand, Dame Caroline Dinenage wrote to Pavlovski of her “[concern] that [Brand] may be able to profit from his content on the platform. We would be grateful if you could confirm whether Mr. Brand is able to monetise his content, including his videos relating to the serious accusations against him. If so, we would like to know whether Rumble intends to join YouTube in suspending Mr. Brand’s ability to earn money on the platform.”
Going through culture and media through Russell Brand and Rumble, respectively, to threaten speech complements how the U.K. leverages sports to criminalize an expanding swath of speech.
Each year, the Britain’s Home Office releases the “Football-related arrests and banning orders, England and Wales” report for the preceding professional season. The most recent report covers the 2021-22 season, during which there were 2,198 “football-related arrests,” of which just over a third were for “public disorder.” Public disorder includes “[using] threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or [displaying] any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting” with the intention to “stir up racial hatred” or when — in a quintessentially English use of ambiguity paired with the passive voice — “having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby.” (READ MORE from George M.J. Perry: The Non-Binary Athletic Category Hurts Female Athletes)
Public disorder arrests, including those for “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior,” are distinct from those for “racist and indecent chanting,” for which 18 individuals were arrested during the 2021-22 season. That’s about the average for the last eight seasons.
The report does not include the disposition of these arrests, but we know the police put in the work to identify and gather evidence against the accused.
If any player, pundit, team owner, or league executive opposes the U.K.’s existing … anti-speech laws, he or she is staying quiet about it.
After a player from Chelsea Football Club reported hearing racial slurs from the fans of Tottenham Hotspur, Tottenham “engaged lip readers to study CCTV footage.”
In 2019, a video on social media showed West Ham United fans on public transportation singing an anti-Semitic song about Tottenham Hotspur. West Ham’s official statement said, “We are taking immediate action to try to identify the offenders, whose details we will be handing over to the police” to which the police spokesperson responded, “[W]e will endeavour to work closely with them to identify those in the video and I would also ask anyone with any footage of the incident or information they think can help us in our enquires to please contact us immediately and pass this on.”
This and many other incidents leverage social media to identify the offenders. However, social media posts are now grounds for arrest under the same laws. Announcing the expansion of Football Banning Orders to online speech, the U.K. government said they would ban “online abusers … for up to 10 years, in the same way violent thugs are barred from grounds.” (READ MORE: Social Media’s Hypocrisy on Free Speech Must Stop)
In May 2021, eight men in England and Wales were arrested “under suspicion of using words or behavior or displaying written material with intent to stir up racial hatred” for their tweets during a game between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur (no, I’m not cherry picking these incidents because I’m a Chelsea fan). Manchester United’s online reporting tool flagged the tweets and sent them to police in London and Manchester to investigate. The Metropolitan police clapped themselves on their backs, saying “This action makes it abundantly clear that police will not stand for racist thuggery, even if it is committed online. The posts, all of which were on Twitter, were vulgar and were utterly unacceptable.”
Last year’s football-related arrests and banning order report noted 52 “recorded incidents of online hate crime connected to football” from January – July 2022.
The next frontier for speech crimes in English soccer is “tragedy chanting.”
Fans of Liverpool Football Club were involved in two of the most significant stadium mass casualty events. In 1985, 39 fans from four countries died in a stampede at a match between Liverpool and Juventus (Italy) in Brussels. Four years later, at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England, 97 Liverpool fans died due to a “crush” caused by overcrowding, poor crowd control, structural collapse, and an inability of emergency personnel to respond and evacuate the injured.
The word “Hillsborough” is weighted, to outdo the English in understatement, throughout English sport, media and political circles. The investigations, lawsuits, and criminal trials continued through 2019 — for an event that occurred in 1989. A fan who was injured at Hillsborough died in 2021, at which point the coroner ruled him the 97th fatality of the disaster.
While most fans of all clubs are respectful of the incidents and the victims, Liverpool demands near reverence around the word “Hillsborough.” You’ll find more right-leaning Americans sharing a snarky 9/11 meme than Liverpool fans who tolerate Hillsborough banter. This has the predictable result of spurring on those fans who were already inclined to “take the piss” — in that classic colloquialism — to sing songs that poke at Hillsborough and its legacy. (READ MORE: Misinformation Is a Word We Use To Shut You Up)
CNN quotes a professor at Manchester University who laments that the chants “aren’t by their content unlawful,” making it “quite challenging” for the police to get involved.
Every individual and entity in English soccer that has spoken about these laws has done so with enthusiastic support.
An online petition to criminalize tragedy chanting has almost 18,000 signatures. The Home Office responded in April — “The [Crown Prosecution Service] takes a robust approach to the prosecution of individuals who have used threatening or abusive language at football matches that meets the threshold for arrest and prosecution. Relevant sections of the [Public Order Act] have been used in such prosecutions. Accordingly, we believe that no further changes to the law are necessary.”
However, recent guidance from the Crown Prosecution Service affirms that tragedy related speech can fall under the existing public disorder code. This includes chanting, trolling, gesturing or shirt wearing.
Shirt wearing? Yes. In June, a fan was spotted, photographed, identified, and arrested at Wembley Stadium for wearing a Manchester United jersey with the words “Not enough” where the player name would normally be, over the number 97.
If any player, pundit, team owner, or league executive opposes the U.K.’s existing and metastasizing anti-speech laws, he or she is staying quiet about it. Maybe they fear that opposing anti-speech laws violates said anti-speech laws. Or they fear getting the Daryl Morey treatment from their bosses, peers and players. Every individual and entity in English soccer that has spoken about these laws has done so with enthusiastic support. The only aspects they are ever less than enthusiastic about are the remaining limitations on the prosecution of speech.
English football doesn’t have a Daryl Morey, and they definitely don’t have a Chris Pavlovski. Before long, they won’t have any residual unapproved speech. Not in culture, not in media, not in sport.