Disruptive Protests? Protected. Online Complaints? Criminal.

Disruption Is Fine. Critical Posts, Not So Much.

There is a story out of the United Kingdom. Police must tolerate repeated, disruptive protests until strict thresholds are met. Meanwhile, individuals can be arrested for criticizing those same protests online, a double standard Americans would be foolish to ignore.

They claim this is about public order.
That is the lie.

Across the West, governments bend over backward to tolerate disruptive protests. Roads get blocked. Cities slow to a crawl. Police stand down. Officials negotiate. Courts urge restraint.

At the same time, ordinary citizens get arrested for words.
Not violence. Not threats. Words.

A frustrated post. A crude joke. Calling the person who assaulted you an offensive name. A complaint about the protests themselves.

Same society. Same laws. Yet, completely different standards.

That contradiction is not accidental.

The Myth of Neutral Enforcement

On paper, the rules sound balanced.
Police must weigh free expression against public safety. They must act proportionally. They must justify restrictions.

In reality, the thresholds are inverted.

Authorities take action only after protests cause sustained, cumulative, documented disruption. Even then, enforcement is cautious and slow. Warnings first. Negotiations next. Arrests as a last resort, if they happen at all.

Online speech gets no such benefit.

Police act immediately when they label a post offensive, alarming, or likely to cause distress. No accumulation required. No pattern needed. No threat leveled. No real harm demonstrated.

One marcher can block traffic for hours, with no real consequences.
One online critic can get a knock at the door.

That tells you everything you need to know.

Why Disruptive Protests Get a Pass

This is not about ideology. It is about control.

Street protests are visible. Predictable. Containable. Authorities can foster the illusion of control with barriers, routes, and press releases. Even disruptive protests fit inside existing systems.

Online speech does not.

Digital criticism spreads instantly. It scales. It challenges approved narratives rather than logistics. Authorities cannot cordon it off or redirect it down a side street.

Authoritarian governments tolerate what they can manage.
They suppress what they cannot.

The Real Standard

Listen carefully to how officials define “harm.”

Authorities frame blocked roads as an inconvenience.
They treat challenges to official narratives as a danger

That is the operative rule.

The state tolerates speech that disrupts systems and punishes speech that disrupts narratives.

This is not spelled out in any law. It does not have to be. Systems reveal priorities through behavior, not press conferences.

Cumulative Disruption Is a Smokescreen

Cumulative Disruption Is a Smokescreen

Officials now point to cumulative disruption rules as proof of balance.
They are not.

These rules normalize ongoing physical disruption while lowering tolerance for individual dissent elsewhere. They create cover. Not fairness.

The result is predictable.

Authorities tolerate disruptive group action.
They punish memes that criticize it.

This Is Not Free Speech

Free speech is not conditional on usefulness.
The state does not grade it by tone.
It does not suspend speech because someone feels distressed.

When governments decide which speech threatens harmony and which merely blocks traffic, free expression is no longer a right. It becomes a privilege, subject to the whims of whoever is in charge.

And privileges can always be revoked.

The Bottom Line

This is not about safety.
It is not about order.
It is about narrative control.

Protests are allowed because they can be managed.
Complaints are punished because they cannot.

Call it what it is.

Earl “Big E” Jackson is the host of The Mission Ready Men Briefing, a conservative commentary series where conviction meets culture.
Watch full episodes on Rumble and YouTube, and find daily updates on X (formerly Twitter).
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