Tag: censorship

Switzerland: The End of Free Speech

Most people in the world view Switzerland as a safe, sensible, fair and free nation. The reality is that behind its pristine veneer, it is as corrupt – if not more – than any other nation, and is becoming increasingly repressive at an alarming rate.

As many of you know, I am Swiss (from my mother’s side) and live in my home country. This has given me a certain vantage point to report on globalism, with Switzerland having been selected to host these dark institutions on our soil back in the 19th century.

Today, I wanted to draw your attention to more local news and the bleak state of free speech here.

While all eyes are on the U.K. at the moment due to their Orwellian crack down on freedom of expression — to the point of jailing people for memes and stickers — and on France as we await more information on Pavel Durov’s arrest, free speech is under unprecedented attack in Switzerland as well.

A friend of mine, who goes by the pseudonym “Barbouille” on X, has just been fined the hefty amount of CHF 4’800, approx $ 5’700 — for a tweet.

His crime? Calling out the indoctrination of children being taught what LGBTQI… stands for in a classroom, under a video posted by another account on March 24, 2023.

Keep reading

German Court Forces Podcasters To Delete Episode Where They Referred To Balding Trans-Identified Male As “He/Him”

A podcast episode of Hoss and Hopf had to be deleted by court order because the moderators called a trans-identified man “a man” and used male pronouns to refer to him. The podcasters may be facing potential prison time or a fine of up to €250,000.

In the controversial podcast episode, the hosts discussed the case of Laura Holstein, formerly known as Nicolas. Holstein, a balding male who now identifies as a “woman,” has made multiple headlines over the past few months related to him demanding access to female spaces. Most recently, Holstein, with the support of the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency, has been pursuing legal action against a female-only gym in Bavaria.

But the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court has now stopped in to order the censorship of the Hoss and Hopf episode related to Holstein. The hosts, Kiarash Hossainpour and Philip Hopf, have also been prohibited from referring to Holstein as a man and using male pronouns for him. 

Keep reading

“Censorship Is a Certainty If Dems Win”: Musk Speaks Out as Twitter Banned in Brazil

Elon Musk warned Americans that “censorship is a certainty if Dems win,” as the billionaire Twitter owner deals with the fallout of the judicial decision to ban Twitter/X in Brazil.

Musk was responding to a popular Twitter user, DogeDesigner, who said “I wouldn’t be surprised to see X suspended in the US if the Democrats come into power again.”

On Friday, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexander de Moraes suspended Twitter in the country and set a hefty daily fine of nearly $9,000 for anybody who uses a VPN to access the site. Twitter will remain suspended until the company complies with the Judge’s orders.

In his decision, Judge Moraes said that “Elon Musk showed his total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary, setting himself up as a true supranational entity and immune to the laws of each country.”

On Thursday night, in anticipation of the ban, Twitter/X’s Global Affairs account issued a statement in English and Portuguese.

Keep reading

Lula’s Leftist Party, PT Brasil, Continues to Post on X Despite Ban of Ordinary Citizens Using the Platform in the Country

The hypocrisy of these leftists never ceases to amaze… but wow, Lula’s government may have just taken the cake.

In one of the most brazen examples of “rules for thee, but not for me,” Brazilian President Lula’s ‘Workers Party’ continues to post repeatedly on X, despite yesterday’s implementation of Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes’ nationwide ban against the social media platform.

Hundreds of millions of citizens are now blocked from accessing their accounts after Lula’s feud with Elon Musk reached a tipping point on Friday when the socialist tyrant implemented the ban. Supposedly, the only way around this firewall is by using a VPN, however, if anyone is caught accessing the platform, they face heavy fines.

The ruling specifically mentioned Proton VPN, Express VPN, NordVPN, Surfshark, TOTALVPN, Atlas VPN, and Bitdefender VPN. De Moraes imposed fines of up to $8,874 a day for any user found using VPNs in Brazil.

Repeat offenders would likely face even worse repercussions. As has been demonstrated thoroughly, Brazil’s current government has proven it will go that extra mile to silence dissent.

This, however, is of no concern to the tyrants within the Lula regime. Since going into effect, ‘PT Brasil‘, the X account representing the ruling socialist party, has not skipped a beat in delivering its regularly scheduled lineup of propaganda.

Keep reading

Copyright Is Not a Tool to Silence Critics of Religious Education

Copyright law is not a tool to punish or silence critics. This is a principle so fundamental that it is the ur-example of fair use, which typically allows copying another’s creative work when necessary for criticism. But sometimes, unscrupulous rightsholders misuse copyright law to bully critics into silence by filing meritless lawsuits, threatening potentially enormous personal liability unless they cease speaking out. That’s why EFF is defending Zachary Parrish, a parent in Indiana, against a copyright infringement suit by LifeWise, Inc.

LifeWise produces controversial “released time” religious education programs for public elementary school students during school hours. After encountering the program at his daughter’s public school, Mr. Parrish co-founded “Parents Against LifeWise,” a group that strives to educate and warn others about the harms they believe LifeWise’s programs cause. To help other parents make fully informed decisions about signing their children up for a LifeWise program, Mr. Parrish obtained a copy of LifeWise’s elementary school curriculum—which the organization kept secret from everyone except instructors and enrolled students—and posted it to the Parents Against LifeWise website. LifeWise sent a copyright takedown to the website’s hosting provider to get the curriculum taken down, and followed up with an infringement lawsuit against Mr. Parrish.

EFF filed a motion to dismiss LifeWise’s baseless attempt to silence Mr. Parrish. As we explained to the court, Mr. Parrish’s posting of the curriculum was a paradigmatic example of fair use, an important doctrine that allows critics like Mr. Parrish to comment on, criticize, and educate others on the contents of a copyrighted work. LifeWise’s own legal complaint shows why Mr. Parrish’s use was fair: “his goal was to gather information and internal documents with the hope of publishing information online which might harm LifeWise’s reputation and galvanize parents to oppose local LifeWise Academy chapters in their communities.” This is a mission of public advocacy and education that copyright law protects. In addition, Mr. Parrish’s purpose was noncommercial: far from seeking to replace or compete with LifeWise, he posted the curriculum to encourage others to think carefully before signing their children up for the program. And posting the curriculum doesn’t harm LifeWise—at least not in any way that copyright law was meant to address. Just like copyright doesn’t stop a film critic from using scenes from a movie as part of a devastating review, it doesn’t stop a concerned parent from educating other parents about a controversial religious school program by showing them the actual content of that program.

Keep reading

Zuckerberg says Biden officials ‘pressured’ Meta to ‘censor’ content: What to know

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote a letter to the House Judiciary Committee saying he regrets not being more outspoken about “government pressure” from the Biden administration to “censor” content on its platforms.

“Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction,” he wrote in the letter.

Here’s what to know about the claims.

Keep reading

Elon Musk Fires Off Warning to Americans After Brazil Bans X

Elon Musk fired off a warning to Americans after radical Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes blocked X in Brazil.

The Brazilian Supreme Court Justice claimed he is banning X from Brazil because Elon Musk refused to name a legal representative to the country.

X’s Global Affairs disputed this Thursday evening.

“Soon, we expect Judge Alexandre de Moraes will order X to be shut down in Brazil – simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents. These enemies include a duly elected Senator and a 16-year-old girl, among others,” X’s Global Affairs said.

“When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts. Our challenges against his manifestly illegal actions were either dismissed or ignored. Judge de Moraes’ colleagues on the Supreme Court are either unwilling or unable to stand up to him,” Global Affairs said.

Keep reading

Here’s Why Democrats Want To Censor Grok’s AI Images

As we highlighted earlier this week, Democrats in the House are attempting to have the FEC issue rules to enable censorship of images created specifically by the Grok, the AI developed by Elon Musk’s X.

In other words, they want to eradicate memes they don’t like.

Why?

Because of threads such as the one below exposing how presenting actual policies and ways of fixing serious problems gets in the way of “joy.”

It doesn’t matter how bad things are, as long as you can inanely cackle and talk about choosing to be joyful.

Keep reading

Freedom of speech is dying in the UK, Norwegian author warns

Bjorn Andreas Bull-Hansen, a Norwegian novelist and YouTuber, posted a short video on Sunday about UK authorities arresting people for social media posts. Bull-Hansen has been to England and Scotland many times.  “I love England and Scotland,” he said. “And it saddens to me to see what’s been going on there, especially in England.”

“I honestly don’t know what it takes, I honestly don’t know what is allowed to say over there anymore. It’s a mess and we’re going to talk a little bit about it and the problems in the UK here in this video,” he said.

“I believe in free speech,” he said. “I believe that without free speech there can be no freedom, there can be no democracy.  And free speech is, you know, it’s kind of the trademark of a good and civilised society. We must be allowed to disagree.  We must be allowed to criticise the authorities.  We must be allowed to criticise ideologies, religions and so on.”

“England, I would say, has been destroyed by immigration.  I think that’s very obvious. And we need to be able to say that,” he added.

Keep reading

Report: US State Department Funded the Censorship Ecosystem in Brazil to Subvert Bolsonaro Administration – As the Biden Regime Sent CIA, Defense Department, US Military Officials to Brazil to Interfere with Election

In January 2023, as The Gateway Pundit reported at the time, the Biden regime began deporting Brazilian opposition leaders back to Brazil following the surprise election victory by socialist criminal Lula da Silva.

In July 2024, Brazil’s Federal Police indicted popular former President Jair Bolsonaro for ‘money laundering and criminal association.’ The charges were reportedly related to ‘undeclared diamonds’ received from Saudi Arabia during his time in office.

This was nothing new. The Lula regime has been targeting and persecuting Bolsonaro and his supporters since they took office in 2023. Lula, the communist, was taking lessons from the Biden regime and their brazen and nonstop political persecution of President Donald Trump, parents, devout Catholics, pro-Life activists, and Trump supporters since taking office in 2021.

So it should come as no surprise that the Biden regime has been openly supporting Lula da Silva, the socialist tyrant in Brazil, prior to the presidential elections. And now we know that the US State Department was funding the censorship ecosystem in Brazil with tens of millions of dollars.

Foreign Policy reported prior to the 2022 presidential elections on how Joe Biden and the CIA were working to ensure a Lula win in Brazil.

“How Team Biden Tried to Coup-Proof Brazil’s Elections,” read the headline.

According to reports, top Biden officials from the White House, Defense Department, State Department, and CIA all participated in threatening the Bolsonaro administration in rare, escalating diplomatic meetings.

Joe Biden’s CIA director, William Burns, and National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, both traveled to Brazil to meet with senior Brazilian officials and warn them that Bolsonaro should stop casting doubt on his country’s electoral process. It was the opening gambit in a quiet campaign by Washington to replace Bolsonaro, the popular people’s candidate, with the socialist tool Lula da Silva.

Keep reading