Thoughtcrime

Thoughtcrime  (crime)
In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, certain ideas are illegal. This idea seems to be manifesting in the 21st century.

Thoughtcrime, crimethink and wrongthink are synonyms coined by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four to describe the criminalisation of thinking.

21st Century trends

"War on Terror"

Full article: “War on Terror”

Under the "War on Terror" project, the old notion of habeus corpus is being eased out of the legal process, to the point at which thought is being criminalised. Important elements of this include the claim that exposure to "radicalising" information lead people to "extremism", and that "hate speech" should be made illegal.

US

In 2019 a leaked FBI document referred to “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists", and citing a number of examples of people who committed violent crimes and believed what it termed "conspiracy theories" went on to discuss what it referred to as "the threat from conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists".

UK

In December 2022 in Kings Norton, Birmingham, UK police arrested Isabel Vaughan-Spruce for carrying out a silent prayer near an abortion. Her thought of faith was charged as a violation of a Public Space Protection Order, an offense under the Anti-Social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act of 2014. In March 2023, she was arrested again.

Cultural references

• Minority Report

 

Examples

Page name	Description
"Hate group"	An enemy image which appears to be part of the effort to support the ongoing project to criminalize free speech.
"Social Justice Warrior"	An enemy image which appears to be part of the effort to support the ongoing project to criminalize free speech.

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