I'm betting that this is just a London magistrate shooting his mouth off; but it does leave me wondering about just what it would entail. I'm trying to think about this from a strictly legal perspective - which leaves me at a disadvantage because I spent my career in science and engineering rather than law. It strikes me that for the Brits to prosecute non-Brits in this fashion:
- The non-Brits would have to be posting from British soil to a webpage that was visible to people on British soil. When in Rome, you ought to be doing as the Romans" do. If someone violate local laws, it's easy to prosecute them because the Brits can lay their hands on them.
- or - The non-Brits, if posting from non-British soil, would have to be posting to a webpage that was behind some type of British boundary (inside of which exists a virtual internet space that the British government claims governance over). In other words, if you were posting comments to the website of the London Times, they might have a case to make ... but if you were posting comments to the Denver Post, then not so much. I'm fairly certain that the only way the non-Brit could be prosecuted would be for that non-Brit to travel to British soil, after which the Brits would nab him.
