Mark Rowley has said they will extradite and arrest US citizens over their social media posts if they violate their rules about political speech online.
Yeah, that’s not happening. The idea that the U.S. would let a foreign government extradite its citizens over social media posts is absurd. The First Amendment protects free speech far more broadly than UK laws, and any attempt to arrest or extradite Americans for online speech would be a non-starter legally and diplomatically.
Even if the UK tried, the U.S. judicial system would shut it down instantly. Extradition treaties require that the alleged offense be a crime in both countries, and the kind of speech restrictions the UK has (like laws against “offensive” speech or “hate speech”) wouldn’t hold up under U.S. law.
This just sounds like tough talk from Rowley, but practically, it’s meaningless.
