What has become of us

 I’m going to skip over the recent reports that the CDC, DHS and other federal agencies have been directing social media platforms on not just what but whom they would like to be censored. A clear first amendment violation....

Needless to say this obliterates the idea that these are simply private companies doing what they want. This is fascism, textbook.

In my view, we desperately need one major social media platform to embrace free speech and allow for open debate, this is the only pathway to make that a reality. While I don’t trust Elon Musk I am left with no choice but to pray his prior claim of being a “free speech absolutist” was sincere and he can somehow navigate this minefield to make my dream a reality. It may sound like hyperbole but I think the fate of humanity may rest on his shoulders; without open dialogue the chasm between our warring camps will widen and things will almost certainly turn violent. Let’s give peace one last shot. Words will never hurt you but civil wars most certainly can.

Read the whole thing. 

Asking genuinely: has one single Dem member of Congress raised concerns about this major story yesterday proving that DHS/FBI/CIA pressure Big Tech to censor for them? I haven't seen one.

Yes, it's been known for awhile but these docs are explosive:https://t.co/X9fyihCBsK

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 1, 2022

SUBSTACK: Last, Best Hope for Free Speech.

 Via Instapundit:

So the internet was a democratic revolution. For a while. Today, though, a huge proportion of ideas flows through just a few tightly controlled pipelines owned by the e-barons who rule Twitter, Facebook, Amazon and Google. The tech lords simply shrug at anyone who protests when they ban books, movies, newspapers, business bloggers, medical discussions and even a sitting president of the United States, which is what Donald Trump was when he was kicked off Facebook and Twitter. He continues to be banned from both platforms even as a private citizen, although the initial rationale was that he must be prevented from reaching an audience because he commanded the armed forces.

For those whose epistemology boils down to: Let everything be discussed, and may the best ideas win, it’s essential to build a safe haven for  free exchange of ideas. Just in the past few months, Substack has emerged as that platform. To call it a breath of fresh air would be an understatement; it’s more like a blast of pure oxygen after emerging from a coal mine. Legacy outlets such as New York magazine and the New York Times, and even sites built specifically to challenge existing narratives such as Vox and The Intercept, have driven out some of their most talented people, but they’re all having the last laugh on Substack, where they are finding large and receptive audiences — and in some cases are startled to suddenly find themselves among the highest-paid columnists in the United States.

There are Substack newsletters about running, Hollywood, basketball, art, food, wine, money, sex and lots of other subjects, but the platform’s greatest value is in publishing thinkers who challenge the intellectual ruling class. Bari Weiss, the New York Times writer and editor who quit last year in spectacular fashion after being bullied by her colleagues — ‘Twitter is not on the masthead of the New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor,” she said in her resignation letter — has quickly established a Substack op-ed page, Common Sense with Bari Weiss, that doggedly and vigorously challenges conventional wisdom and has become essential reading. The left-wing writer Glenn Greenwald, who was hounded out of The Intercept even though he was its principal founder, continues to strike an anti-imperialist, anti-war, class-based approach to politics on his Substack. That approach makes him deplorable to mainstream progressives, who are far more interested in race than in anything else and tend to parrot the Democratic party line on everything. Matt Yglesias, who co-founded Vox in 2014 but was increasingly marginalized by his own colleagues, started the wonkish newsletter Slow Boring to emphasize policy solutions over woke rants. Jesse Singal delves into social-science research and how it sometimes conflicts with progressive dogma on his newsletter. John McWhorter dares to wade into the turbulent waters of race and language. All of these newsletters offer some of their content for nothing but ask for a small fee, typically $5 a month, from subscribers who want to unlock everything they write.

Biden wants to end free speech

Rattling the Cage Doors

By Sarah Hoyt.

Totalitarian regimes create people who find a way to get around them....

IMHO part of the reason for the increasingly paranoid behavior of the left is that they know there is communication going on but they don’t understand it/know what we’re saying. ...

Look, yeah, the first amendment still protects our speech. And yes, I know the first amendment only protects our speech from the government. But in the year of our Lord 2019 we also know for sure that if you say the wrong thing you could find yourself fired, your reputation destroyed, your family threatened, your career a thing of the past. ...

Now, of course we know we’re not alone. We also know the limits to our speech. And we’re of course told things like “free speech doesn’t cover hate speech” which is what is technically known as bullshit, since no one ever needed a right to free speech to say that butterflies are pretty and ice cream tastes delicious. Or for that matter to echo the things the controllers of media and social media want you to say.

And of course, the left, knowing the game is up and we can see them, has dropped all the masks and has gone to naked aggression and force. Daft and naked aggression and force. I guess all out of touch would be elites, in their terminal state seem to get a little … odd....

There is an anger in the land I don’t think you’re even vaguely aware of. I’m not — not even close — the most hot tempered on our side. And I was a very reluctant Trump voter. But watching your sham- wow-impeachment (It’s Russia, it’s Ukraine, it’s taxes, it’s mean tweets against the squad, it’s the fact that orange man bad), your attempt to reverse elections you don’t like, and silence people who don’t agree with you, has me spitting mad, furious, not even sure what to do with all this anger. And I’m not alone. You have no idea of the anger stalking this land. (And if you say “you sound angry” guess what “Damn skippy. You have no idea how angry.” The only ones not angry aren’t paying attention.)

You really don't want to get normal people really angry.

Scientists horrified that Trump wants to require universities to honor free speech

This is not a Babylon Bee story. An article today in the science journal Nature actually expressed outrage and concern about President Trump’s executive order last week tying the grants a university gets to its willingness to protect the free speech of all its students and teachers.

What evil thing did Trump’s order require of these universities? To quote the Nature article itself,

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on 21 March that requires universities to certify that they protect free speech, or risk losing federal research funds.

Public institutions will have to certify that they are following free-speech protections laid out in the First Amendment of the US Constitution, and private institutions must promise to follow their stated policies on free speech, a White House official told reporters on 21 March.

The order applies to 12 research agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and NASA. It affects only money for research, not financial aid for students.

O the horror! The universities will have to show that they support free speech! What a travesty!

The Nature article then proceeded to find quotes from a number of scientists and organizations who oppose Trump’s action. One even claimed that Trump was not trying to protect free speech, “but the enhancement of conservative voices.”

In other words, to these scientists, there is plenty of free speech in academia. Liberals and leftists are all free to say whatever they want. However, any attempt to allow conservatives right to speak is clearly a biased threat to freedom and must be stopped at all costs. And to threaten their funding because of this? The nerve of that bad orange man!

The intellectual dishonesty exhibited here is mind-boggling. And for it to come from scientists, whose entire field is built on the need for brutal intellectual honesty at all times, is quite appalling.

What is free speech?

A recent Mark Steyn column notes that speech is not free if you can be fined or jailed for speaking freely.  Which is the case in Europe - and in many venues of American academia.

Calling Prophet Muhammad a Pedophile Does Not Fall Within Freedom of Speech: European Court

The subject of the comments was this:

Consider the case of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, a Viennese housewife who has lived in several Muslim countries. She was hauled into an Austrian court for calling Mohammed a pedophile on the grounds that he consummated his marriage when his bride, Aisha, was nine years old. Mrs. Sabbaditsch-Wolff was found guilty and fined 480 euros. The judge's reasoning was fascinating: 'Paedophilia is factually incorrect, since paedophilia is a sexual preference which solely or mainly is directed towards children. Nevertheless, it does not apply to Mohammad. He was still married to Aisha when she was 18.'

Ah, gotcha. So, under Austrian law, you're not a pedophile if you deflower the kid in fourth grade but keep her around till high school. There's a useful tip if you're planning a hiking holiday in the Alps this fall. Or is this another of those dispensations that is not of universal application? ...

The case concerned the applicant's conviction for disparaging religious doctrines; she had made statements suggesting that Muhammad had had paedophilic tendencies .

The Court found in particular that the domestic courts comprehensively assessed the wider context of the applicant's statements and carefully balanced her right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected...

Whoa, hold it right there. There was "no violation" of freedom of expression because the courts "carefully balanced" freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected - and came down on the side of protecting feelings rather than freedom of expression.

The late Jennifer Lynch, QC, then head of the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission, used to talk about "balancing" free speech with other rights - and, then as now, "balancing" is code for nullifying: If your right to free speech has to be balanced with people's "feelings", then as a practical matter there is no free speech....

So it's not that it's illegal to "suggest" that the Big Mo "had paedophilic tendencies", it's just illegal to suggest there's anything wrong with that.

It gets worse: read the whole thing.

MARK STEYN: Speakers Cornered

[F]ree speech is now so imperiled in much of the "free world" that simply scheduling a debate on a controversial subject will attract the attentions of the mob - and by "controversial subject" I don't mean Islam or abortion or gay marriage or climate change; a debate on the subject of free speech is now so provocative that, as I noted the other day, the "progressive" thugs will descend to break it up, throw smoke bombs, smash the windows of ancient listed buildings, and put the security guards in hospital.

As repulsive as these goons are, the reaction of officialdom is worse: They take the side of the mob, and thereby incentivize them. For example, Martin Sellner (of the Austrian wing of the European "hipster-right" movement Generation Identity) was originally scheduled to speak at a British free speech conference organized by UKIP's youth branch. However, this was canceled "due to security threats from the far left".

That's disgraceful: the heckler's veto turned pre-emptive and given official sanction.

So, instead, it was arranged for Herr Sellner to give a speech at Speakers' Corner at Hyde Park in London. Speakers' Corner has been a global symbol of free speech for a century and a half: Marx and Lenin both spoke there, and George Orwell and Marcus Garvey, and the first generation of African nationalist leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah. If I recall correctly, the only form of speech prohibited there was "insulting the Queen", but in a 1999 court decision Lord Justice Sedley removed even that genteel restraint.

Nevertheless, flying in from Vienna to give a speech on the very subject for which Speakers' Corner is famous - freedom of expression - Herr Sellner and his girlfriend Brittany Pettibone were detained upon the arrival of their flight on Friday. After twelve hours of separate detention at Luton Airport, the UK Border Force then moved them at 1am on Saturday to the main detention facility at Heathrow.

Austria is a member of the European Union, as is (almost two years after the Brexit vote) the United Kingdom. There is supposed to be freedom of movement between EU member states - Austrians, for example, have the right to work in the UK. Yet the same "Border Force" that breezily waves through the family of the Ariana Grande bomber, and the Parsons Green Tube terrorist, and the jihadist loon who killed a Japanese man in Dundalk will not even permit Mr Sellner and Miss Pettibone to set foot on UK soil to give a speech on free speech for fear that such an exercise of free speech might be too provocative to those who revile it.

So much for freedom of movement within the EU. What about freedom of movement within Her Majesty's Dominions? Lauren Southern, formerly of The Rebel and a Canadian subject of the Queen, has just been denied entry to the UK by Home Secretary Amber Rudd on the grounds that she represents "a threat to the fundamental interests of society and to the public policy of the United Kingdom".

Those are not legal concepts in a free society: they're all-purpose control mechanisms. A government that's entirely incompetent when it comes to keeping out people who want to bomb and stab and decapitate you is suddenly "the most competent Border Force in the world" when it comes to keeping out people who talk and interview and argue - people whose only weapons are words. This will not end well for English liberties.

NBC News Thinks Free Speech Should Be Regulated Because Nazis!

I think NBC should be shut down because it's a threat to the constitution. 

The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought

Because of their power to censor the way people communicate, these media monopolies must either be broken up.  The idea that individuals have the power to control how we communicate on the Internet, whether they are in government or private individuals smacks of fascism.

In a November speech, Ajit Pai, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, argued that “edge providers” like social-media websites and search engines “routinely block or discriminate against content they don’t like.” Mr. Pai cited YouTube’s decision to place age restrictions on and pull ads from videos by conservative commentator Dennis Prager’s Prager University, including a video by Alan Dershowitz on Israel’s founding.

He also pointed to Twitter’s suspension of a pro-life campaign ad from Rep. Marsha Blackburn, an action that would have been illegal if done by a TV or radio station. Twitter has refused sponsored tweets from immigration opponents, saying its hate-speech policy is triggered by messages such as “the fiscal cost created by illegal immigrants of $746.3b compares to total a cost of deportation of $124.1b.”

Google, Facebook and Twitter place stricter content policies on advertisers than general users. There are legitimate reasons for this. The tech companies are sensitive to accusations that they not only profit from controversial content but also fund it by giving its creator a slice of the ad revenue.

When virtually all online advertising goes through two companies, however, they have the power to harm websites arbitrarily. One political blog that posted an article trying to distinguish the “alt-right” from white nationalism received a warning email from Google’s AdSense team. An editor took the article down, explaining to readers that the blog “needs revenue from the Google ad platform in order to survive.” You needn’t agree with the editorial decision to publish the article to be troubled by Google’s vetoing it.

In his 2014 book “Zero to One,” Peter Thiel notes that because Google “doesn’t have to worry about competing with anyone, it has wider latitude to care about . . . its impact on the wider world.” If executives at a Silicon Valley monopoly believe that censoring certain content will push the world in a positive direction, market pressures cannot sufficiently restrain them.

Journalists also argue that tech companies are pushing media toward the lowest common denominator. Social media rewards clickbait—sensational headlines that confirm readers’ biases. Google and Facebook’s advertising duopoly bleeds traditional publishers of the revenue needed to produce high-quality news. At the same time, Google’s search engine is biased against subscription content, depleting another source of funding.

The bottom line is that Google’s and Facebook’s advertising policies and algorithms make it less profitable to produce high-quality journalism from any perspective. Their duopoly also gives tech executives the power to defund and block content they personally object to without taking a major hit to the bottom line.

Black Lives Matter Students Shut Down the ACLU's Campus Free Speech Event Because 'Liberalism Is White Supremacy'

Students affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement crashed an event at the College of William & Mary, rushed the stage, and prevented the invited guest—the American Civil Liberties Union's Claire Gastañaga, a W&M alum—from speaking.

Ironically, Gastañaga had intended to speak on the subject, "Students and the First Amendment."

The disruption was livestreamed on BLM at W&M's Facebook page. Students took to the stage just a few moments after Gastañaga began her remarks. At first, she attempted to spin the demonstration as a welcome example of the kind of thing she had come to campus to discuss, commenting "Good, I like this," as they lined up and raised their signs. "I'm going to talk to you about knowing your rights, and protests and demonstrations, which this illustrates very well. Then I'm going to respond to questions from the moderators, and then questions from the audience."

It was the last remark she was able to make before protesters drowned her out with cries of, "ACLU, you protect Hitler, too." They also chanted, "the oppressed are not impressed," "shame, shame, shame, shame," (an ode to the Faith Militant's treatment of Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones, though why anyone would want to be associated with the religious fanatics in that particular conflict is beyond me), "blood on your hands," "the revolution will not uphold the Constitution," and, uh, "liberalism is white supremacy."

W&M put out a meaningless statement that was the functional equivalent of "Tut, Tut."  There is no free speech at W&M.  But we knew that ahead of time.

Glenn Reynolds comments:

It’s almost like they’re commie agitators, rather than peaceful civil rights supporters. But any students involved in this sort of thing should be suspended or expelled.

Hugh Hefner’s Real Legacy

Let’s not kid ourselves, Hugh Hefner pioneered legal porn.  

That’s his legacy. 

The first issue of Playboy was wildly popular because it featured naughty pictures of Marilyn Monroe who was, at the time, the leading Hollywood sex symbol.  Like most moral corruption it begins with baby steps.  Those pictures of Monroe would not get a second glance today.  Pictures like those can now be found in almost every magazine, usually selling fashion - to women.

The heirs of Hefner have moved on.  Nothing that people have done to themselves or to others in the name of sex can now be found … instantly, in living vibrant color. 

Perhaps it was inevitable.  Perhaps the culture was ready for this in 1953.  Of course, the avant garde could not admit they liked porn.  Instead porn was peddled on constitutional grounds.  You remember learning about the rights of free speech and a free press being vital to a free republic, don't you?  

We were told that if we are prevented from instant access to porn the next thing we know we will have lost our right to speak freely about political issues. In other words, porn was the guardian of the First Amendment.  The watchman on the ramparts of freedom.  This formulation is now axiomatic.  It’s been internalized.  It’s no longer an issue for debate.

Yet, despite the omnipresence of the most graphic porn, there are large areas of this country where political speech is effectively banned.  Where exercising your right to speak freely about – say – support for Conservatism, to admit to being a Republican, and – worse yet – a supporter of Donald Trump will get you a beating.

People are beginning to wonder if porn is really the “canary in the coal mine” that protects my right to speak freely without fear of losing my job, or being investigated by the IRS, or getting ostracized in Academia, or being physically attacked by the AntiFa mob? 

It was all a lie, wasn’t it?  It really was all about wanting to see dirty pictures. 

How’s that turning out for you?

SUPREME COURT: THERE’S NO “HATE SPEECH” EXCEPTION TO 1ST AMENDMENT

Major blow to academia.

The Supreme Court ruled this morning that the government cannot deny full trademark protection to allegedly racially offensive trademarks. The opinions are here.

The case involved an Asian-American band called “The Slants.” It sought federal registration of that mark. The Patent and Trademark Office denied the application under a Lanham Act provision prohibiting trademarks that may “disparage. . .or bring. . .into contemp[t] or disrepute” any “persons, living or dead.”

The Court ruled in favor of The Slants. The vote was unanimous, though the Court split 4-4 on some of the finer points.

Les Déplorables The French right is discovering that there are more and more things you can't say

A country is heading for trouble when its most popular writers worry that their words will land them in jail. France is that way now. Two years ago, TV commentator and journalist Éric Zemmour published Le Suicide français, an erudite, embittered, and nostalgic essay about the unraveling, starting in the 1970s, of the political system set up under the leadership of World War II hero Charles de Gaulle. (See "French Curtains," The Weekly Standard, December 8, 2014.) The book sold 500,000 copies. Since then, it seems, Zemmour has spent half his time collecting prizes and the other half defending himself in court.

In September, he was let off by a French tribunal for a 2014 remark he made on the radio station RTL. "The Normans, the Huns, the Arabs, the great invasions that followed the fall of Rome," Zemmour had said, "have their modern equivalents in the gangs of Chechens, Roma, Kosovars, Africans, and North Africans who mug, rob, and rape." The French court decided his words were not so extremist that Zemmour needed to be punished, but France's media authority, the Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel, issued a warning to RTL. Over the summer, Zemmour was fined by a Belgian court for making similar statements.

Free speech is no longer possible ...

A Blizzard of Special Snowflakes

From my vantage point, this is not the behavior of people who’ve been oppressed; these are convenient and dictatorial temper tantrums from post-pubescent infants who have been spoiled beyond all reason. Maybe they aren’t fragile at all—perchance they’re tyrants hiding behind a facade of weakness in order to acquire power and bludgeon others with it. One is tempted to really give them something to cry about.

When they are disgorged like fetal cannonballs from the warm womb of modern college life, one would hope they quickly learn the meaning of real pain and suffering. I would like nothing more than to peer out my window one day and watch all these special snowflakes melt the moment they hit the ground.

Being critical of refugees can get you arrested, and getting "Shadowbanned" on Twitter if you're not a Liberal

Man Arrested in Scotland for Facebook Posts About Refugees

Police in Scotland said that a man had been held under the Communications Act, which bans “grossly offensive” and “menacing” posts on online platforms.

The Facebook posts in question, which were not released to the media, allegedly concerned comments about Syrian refugees from Rothersay, on the Scottish Island of Bute, where several refugee families have settled as part of the UK government’s settlement program.

A spokesman from the the Dunoon police station in Argyll said, “I hope that the arrest of this individual sends a clear message that Police Scotland will not tolerate any form of activity which could incite hatred and provoke offensive comments on social media.

Nazis did not become popular by promising to start world War 2, and lose.  He promised jobs and the restoration of pride.  The Communists didn't promise mass starvation, the Gulag and show trials. They promised food, land and the end of war.  Totalitarians always put a veneer of "goodness" over their demand for power.  This is the way the world works.  And to have this done in Europe is an ominous sign.

And in this country, Twitter is doing its best to swing the election for Democrats in 2016 with the tactic of "shadowbanning."

Rumours that Twitter has begun ‘shadowbanning’ politically inconvenient users have been confirmed by a source inside the company, who spoke exclusively to Breitbart Tech. His claim was corroborated by a senior editor at a major publisher.

According to the source, Twitter maintains a ‘whitelist’ of favoured Twitter accounts and a ‘blacklist’ of unfavoured accounts. Accounts on the whitelist are prioritised in search results, even if they’re not the most popular among users. Meanwhile, accounts on the blacklist have their posts hidden from both search results and other users’ timelines.

For weeks, users have been reporting that tweets from populist conservatives, members of the alternative right, cultural libertarians, and other anti-PC dissidents have disappeared from their timelines.

Yale fail: Ivy leaguers sign 'petition' to repeal First Amendment

Looking to understand just how controversial the debate over free speech on our college campuses really is, filmmaker and satirist Ami Horowitz recently traveled to Yale University, one of our nation’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning, to speak directly to students.

“I decided to take this campus free speech debate to its logical conclusion,” said Horowitz, who asked students if they’d sign a petition calling for an outright repeal of the First Amendment. “The result was this unbelievable display of total stupidity.”

In fact, Horowitz discovered a solid majority of the students asked willingly signed the petition, with several expressing their enthusiastic approval for his anti-First Amendment efforts.

Obama Appointee And Bundler Blocks More Video Releases By Group Behind Planned Parenthood Sting

Freedom of speech and the press was a good idea once upon a time.

Too bad it's no longer operative in Age of Obama.

A federal judge late Friday granted a temporary restraining order against the release of recordings made at an annual meeting of abortion providers. The injunction is against the Center for Medical Progress, the group that has unveiled Planned Parenthood’s participation in the sale of organs harvested from aborted children.

Judge William H. Orrick, III, granted the injunction just hours after the order was requested by the National Abortion Federation.

Orrick was nominated to his position by hardline abortion supporter President Barack Obama. He was also a major donor to and bundler for President Obama’s presidential campaign. He raised at least $200,000 for Obama and donated $30,800 to committees supporting him, according to Public Citizen.

Free to Shut Up

If you can't say something good about gays ... it's a crime.

This is a free speech zone except ....

1.  Instapundit.com retweeted

   Snark Enlightenment ‏@jokeocracy  Jun 4

   it's a free speech country except for at conferences and on twitter and when speaking at universities and if wanting to remain employed

   230 retweets242 favorites