Tag: free speech

Tennessee man jailed for Charlie Kirk meme wins $835,000 settlement

Larry Bushart, a 61-year-old retired police officer, was arrested in September after sharing memes on Facebook about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Tennessee officials have now agreed to pay $835,000 to settle the lawsuit filed by Bushart against Perry County, its sheriff, and the investigator who obtained the arrest warrant.

Bushart’s case drew national attention because, while many people across the U.S. reportedly lost jobs over social media posts about Kirk’s death, his was a rare case where online speech led to criminal prosecution. Authorities later dropped the felony charge against him in October.

The post that prompted Bushart’s arrest featured President Donald Trump and the words “We have to get over it,” referencing a remark made in 2024 after a school shooting at Perry High School in Iowa. AP reported that the meme was posted with the caption: “This seems relevant today…”

Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems said last year that most of Bushart’s posts were lawful free speech, but claimed residents were alarmed by the school shooting reference because there is also a Perry County High School in Tennessee. However, Weems also said he knew the meme referred to the Iowa school shooting.

“Investigators believe Bushart was fully aware of the fear his post would cause and intentionally sought to create hysteria within the community,” Weems said in a statement to The Tennessean last year.

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X Agrees to Review Illegal “Hate” Within 48 Hours Under UK Online Safety Act

X has agreed to process the vast majority of content flagged as illegal “hate” under the UK’s Online Safety Act within 48 hours, giving Ofcom, Britain’s speech regulator, a significant new enforcement win.

The platform committed to “review and assess UK suspected illegal terrorist and “hate” content reported through its dedicated UK illegal content reporting tool on average within 24 hours of it being reported, to be calculated as a mean” and to “review and assess at least 85% of UK suspected illegal terrorist and hate content reported through its dedicated UK illegal content reporting tool within a maximum of 48 hours.”

The deal is a notable reversal for a platform that, less than a year ago, publicly accused Ofcom of taking a “heavy-handed approach” and warned that the Online Safety Act was “seriously infringing” on free expression.

X’s August 2025 statement, titled “What Happens When Oversight Becomes Overreach,” called out regulators by name and argued that the law amounted to a “conscientious decision to increase censorship in the name of ‘online safety.’” That language is gone now. What’s left is a compliance agreement with specific performance targets and a 12-month reporting obligation.

The commitments go beyond speed of review. X also agreed to block access to accounts in the UK if they are reported for “posting UK illegal terrorist content” and deemed to be “operated by or on behalf of a terrorist organisation proscribed in the UK.”

The platform will share quarterly performance data with Ofcom so the regulator can audit compliance. And following complaints from organizations that couldn’t tell whether X had received or acted on their reports, X agreed to “engage with experts regarding reporting systems for illegal hate and terror content.”

Who those experts are tells you something about the direction of travel. Ofcom’s own press release names the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) as one of the organizations it worked with to “gather evidence about suspected illegal terrorist content and illegal hate speech online.”

The CCDH is a pro-censorship campaign group co-founded in 2018 by Imran Ahmed and Morgan McSweeney, who went on to become UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.

McSweeney stepped down from CCDH’s board two days after Starmer became Labour leader. The organization maintains close ties to the current government and has stated that its goal was to “kill Musk’s Twitter,” according to leaked internal documents reported by Matt Taibbi and Paul Thacker.

Ahmed himself was sanctioned by the US State Department in December 2025 over concerns that his organization had led “organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints.” A federal court blocked his deportation with a temporary restraining order.

This is the organization Ofcom chose to help build the evidence base for pressuring X into compliance. Ahmed, for his part, welcomed the deal. Speaking to POLITICO, he said CCDH will be “watching closely to ensure this results in meaningful action, not just words.”

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Ofcom and the Fantasy of Global Speech Control

Ofcom appears to believe that a website is a kind of television channel. This would explain a lot about what happened on Wednesday, when Britain’s speech regulator fined an American mental health and suicide discussion forum £950,000 ($1.3 million) for hosting speech that is legal in America, on servers in America, operated by Americans.

The site had already blocked British visitors from accessing it, voluntarily, as a gesture of goodwill, despite having no legal obligation to do so and despite Ofcom having no jurisdiction to demand it. Ofcom fined it anyway. The fine is unenforceable.

The site owes Ofcom nothing under American law. And even if the site had never blocked a single British visitor, Ofcom’s case would still make no sense, because a British regulator cannot fine an American citizen for legal American speech on an American server any more than the French postal service can fine you for what you write in your own diary.

Ofcom is the Office of Communications, the British government’s speech regulator. Americans don’t really have an equivalent because most Americans would never stand for one. The closest thing is the FCC, except imagine the FCC could also decide what you’re allowed to say on the internet and fine you if it disapproves.

Under the notorious Online Safety Act, passed in 2023, Ofcom gained the power to decide what speech is permissible online and to fine platforms that host speech the UK government doesn’t like.

That includes speech that is perfectly legal everywhere else on earth. It is, when you think about it for more than four seconds, absolutely mad.

Ofcom launched on December 29, 2003, stitched together from five separate regulators: the Broadcasting Standards Commission, the Independent Television Commission, the Office of Telecommunications, the Radio Authority, and the Radiocommunications Agency.

They all dealt with broadcasting, telecoms, or spectrum. They regulated transmitters, phone lines, and radio frequencies, all of which used publicly owned spectrum and publicly funded infrastructure to push content into British living rooms.

The airwaves belonged to the public. The transmitters were built with public money. If you were using national resources to broadcast to a national audience, it made sense that a national regulator got to set some terms. None of these five organizations were designed to have opinions about what a foreigner writes on a computer in Virginia.

The confusion starts with Ofcom not understanding what a website actually is.

A website does not push anything. Content sits on a server. A visitor actively goes to it and requests it. The data crosses borders only because someone on the other end typed in the URL. Website users are called “visitors” and not “viewers” for exactly this reason. They go to the site. The site does not come to them.

This is not a complicated distinction. A reasonably bright nine-year-old could grasp it over breakfast. Ofcom, apparently, cannot.

The regulator is treating a website in Virginia as though it were a transmitter on a hill in Surrey and claiming jurisdiction over the server rather than the person visiting it. It’s like fining an American for not stopping British citizens from mailing letters to them.

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Elon Musk’s X Commits to Crackdown on ‘Hate Speech’ in UK Watchdog Agreement

Elon Musk’s social media platform X has reached an agreement with Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, to significantly accelerate the censorship of what England considers “hate speech” and antisemitic content from the platform.

The Telegraph reports that Elon Musk’s X has entered into a formal arrangement with Ofcom, the UK’s online safety regulator, pledging to take swifter action against illegal “hate speech” including racism and antisemitism. The agreement represents a notable shift for the platform, which has faced sustained criticism over its content moderation policies since Musk’s acquisition in 2022.

Under the terms of the commitment announced today, X will now aim to review posts containing hate speech and potential terrorist content within 24 hours of identification. The company has established a minimum performance target of checking and removing at least 85 percent of hateful and antisemitic posts within a 48-hour timeframe. Additionally, X has pledged to take more aggressive action in blocking accounts operated by organizations proscribed under British law.

Oliver Griffiths, Ofcom’s online safety director, characterized the agreement as progress while acknowledging significant work remains. “We have evidence that terrorist content and illegal hate speech is persisting on some of the largest social media sites,” Griffiths said. “We are challenging them to tackle the problem and expect them to take firm action.”

Griffiths emphasized the particular urgency of the agreement in light of recent hate-motivated crimes targeting the Jewish community in Britain.

The agreement comes after a period of tension between X and the regulatory authority. Musk’s company previously clashed with Ofcom over the Online Safety Act, Britain’s primary legislation governing technology companies’ responsibilities. Last summer, X accused the regulator of employing a “heavy-handed approach” and claimed Ofcom was “seriously infringing” on free speech protections.

Ofcom is also conducting a separate investigation into X concerning a wave of non-consensual deepfake images of women and children that spread across the platform in January.

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Ireland Convicts 78-Year-Old Preacher For Preaching Near Abortion Clinic

Ireland is finally safe.

Clive Johnston has been convicted and can no longer menace the public.

Johnson, 78, is a retired pastor who committed the heinous offense of preaching near the Causeway Hospital in Coleraine.

That was considered within the “safe access zone” under Northern Ireland’s Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act.

The Act prohibits “influencing,” “preventing or impeding access,” or “causing harassment, alarm or distress” to a protected person within 100 meters (about 328 feet) of facilities where abortions are performed.

So Johnson was found guilty of “influencing” inside the protected zone and fined 450 pounds (about $614).

Northern Ireland’s Public Prosecution Service told Fox News Digital, “The defendant was found guilty and convicted by the court of doing an act in a safe access zone with the intent of or being reckless as to whether it had the effect of influencing a protected person attending the premises; and failing to comply with a direction to leave a safe access zone.”

The language of the law is absurdly vague and abusively broad. What constitutes an “influence” is undefined and could include any religious, political, or social exchange. Would it include encouragements to have abortions?

It is equally perverse to treat praying or preaching the same as blocking or impeding access to a clinic. Finally, a hospital engages in a wide array of activities that raise religious or political issues that can be the subject of free speech.

We previously saw several cases in the United Kingdom where people were arrested for silently praying near abortion clinics.

For its part, Ireland has been a leader in censorship and the criminalization of speech. As the leader of the Irish Green Party proclaimed, “We are restricting freedom for the public good.”

By the way, his offense was reading John 3:16, including “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

What could perish in Ireland and the United Kingdom is free expression as speech regulators target bad influences under time, place, and manner laws.

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King’s Speech 2026: Britain’s Monarchy Reads a Doomed Agenda as Starmer Clings to Power

For many years, it was called the Queen’s Speech and delivered year after year by Queen Elizabeth II. Now it’s the King’s Speech — the traditional State Opening of Parliament where King Charles reads out the government’s planned laws. The Prime Minister’s team writes the whole thing, so it’s really their agenda, not the King’s personal views. Think of it like a presidential address to Congress, but with all the robes, crowns, and centuries of tradition.

This year’s speech, delivered on May 13, 2026, felt particularly awkward. Just six days earlier Labour had been hammered in the local elections — losing over 1,000 council seats while Nigel Farage’s Reform UK stormed ahead with more than 1,100 gains and took control of several councils. Keir Starmer is clearly fighting for his job. Dozens of Labour MPs are already calling for him to go, four ministers have resigned, and the party looks in open revolt. Yet there was the King in full ceremonial dress, reading out Starmer’s wishlist as if everything was business as usual.

The optics aren’t great. Critics are right to worry that the monarchy is getting dragged into Labour’s internal mess at a time when trust in institutions is already low. When the head of state appears to back the government’s plans just days after voters delivered a clear rejection, it raises serious questions about whether the Crown is staying truly neutral.

Conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic should pay close attention to the six main priorities. Far from listening to last week’s verdict at the ballot box, Starmer’s team looks completely tone-deaf to the issues that drove so many people toward Reform UK.

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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal in COVID ‘Misinformation’ Case, but Doctors Say They Still Won

The U.S. Supreme Court this week declined to hear a key medical free speech case involving basketball hall-of-famer John Stockton and several doctors who alleged that the Washington Medical Commission’s (WMC) COVID-19 “misinformation” policies violated their First Amendment free speech rights.

The court declined, without comment, to review Stockton v. Brown — but only after the WMC lifted the disciplinary charges it had filed against two of the doctors in the case.

Plaintiffs included Drs. Richard Eggleston and Thomas T. Siler, who were sanctioned by the WMC for their pandemic-related speech, and Dr. Daniel Moynihan, who alleged the WMC’s threats “chilled” his speech on pandemic-related topics.

Stockton, co-host of “The Ultimate Assist Podcast,” and Children’s Health Defense (CHD) were also plaintiffs. Washington Attorney General Nick Brown and WMC Executive Director Kyle S. Karinen, a lawyer, were the defendants.

In May 2024, a federal court dismissed the lawsuit, finding that the First Amendment doesn’t protect physicians’ public speech because it is part of medical conduct.

In November 2024 and again in January 2025, the Supreme Court rejected emergency requests for a stay.

In September 2025, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal but did not consider the First Amendment questions in the case. The plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court.

Attorney Rick Jaffe, who represented the plaintiffs, called the Supreme Court’s choice not to hear the case “outrageous.”

But Jaffe said the unreported part of the story is what happened the month before, when the WMC withdrew its statement of charges against Eggleston and Siler, which he called a victory.

“Withdrawal of those charges was the main practical goal of the state litigation concerning these doctors and this federal case … once the Commission rescinded the charges, that was the win,” Jaffe said.

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Zionists Are Gunning for Your Freedom of Speech

The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of the United States guarantees the right to free speech. This right has long differentiated the United States from other Western nations like the United Kingdom and Canada where laws against so-called “hate speech” laws exist and are enforced.

Thankfully, America is different. In our country, even alleged hate speech is protected speech to ensure democratic principles and debate.

In a 1929 dissenting opinion, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that the Constitution secured “freedom for the thought that we hate.” In 2011, Chief Justice John Roberts said in a ruling that the First Amendment serves “to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.”

This constitutional protection has been increasingly threatened recently, particularly by pro-Israeli forces that have tried to frame any criticism of that government as “anti-Semitism” and thus hate speech punishable by law. This has included everything from arrests, to squashing campus debate to buying TikTok to an attempt to cover up human rights absuses in Gaza. President Donald Trump has even issued executive orders that use vague definitions of what constitutes “anti-Semitism” that comes with criminal penalties.

Mark Levin is an American-born Zionist radio host who is an outspoken advocate for Israel’s government, regularly calling anyone who criticizes the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and conflict in Gaza “Nazis.”

Toward this agenda, Levin recently appeared to not agree with his own country’s free speech rights. On his latest Sunday Fox News program, unironically called Life, Liberty and Levin, the neoconservative pundit explained why free speech liberties in the U.S. have gone too far.

Seemingly worried that certain speech is protected in the United States, Levin said in the wake of the Secret Service taking down a shooter at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Friday, “First time things like this have happened, but it really is problematic because so much of it is protected.”

“And you hear people say, don’t you believe in the First Amendment?” Levin said. “They don’t even know what the First Amendment believes.”

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Canada House of Commons Tracks Online Posts About MPs

The House of Commons in Canada is keeping a database of what Canadians say about their elected representatives online and officials are sorting those comments by category, including the tone and identity-based content of social media posts about MPs.

That admission came from Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Mellon at a parliamentary committee, where he described the operation as a “very robust records management system.”

According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the system catalogues incidents involving MPs and allows staff to sort and analyze posts, including those deemed “misogynistic” or otherwise “abusive.”

Mellon told MPs the database tracks “every single incident” and can break complaints down by category, including gender-based harassment.

What the records contain, why they are kept, and who has access to them, none of that was explained. Mellon offered few details. A spokesperson for the Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms said files may include both criminal and non-criminal complaints, but declined to disclose specifics, citing security reasons.

So the Commons is logging non-criminal speech about politicians. Citizens posting opinions about their representatives are being filed away in a government system, sorted by category, and held for purposes the government will not describe. The line between a threat and a sharp comment is being drawn by people who answer to the institution being commented on.

The testimony came as MPs pushed for the system to track speech in more granular ways.

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The Comey Indictment & Free Speech

In 200-plus years of interpreting the free speech clause of the First Amendment, the courts have narrowed and expanded its scope. The Supreme Court employed a particularly narrow approach during much of the last century, through two world wars and then the Red Scare in the 1950s. 

Thankfully, in the 1960s, the Warren Court began a remarkable and thus far unimpeded march toward compelling the government to tolerate open, wide, caustic and even threatening speech.

When crafting the First Amendment with its iconic speech clause — “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech” — James Madison insisted that the word “the” precede the word “freedom” so as to make clear the understanding of the drafters and ratifiers that the freedom of speech existed before the government did. This presumption — that speech is pre-political — has a theoretical and a practical application.

Madison’s theoretical application, shared by Thomas Jefferson and articulated by him in the Declaration of Independence — that our rights are endowed within us by our Creator — is that free speech is inherent in our human nature. Hence, it is a natural right that all persons have irrespective of the place or time of their births — or the government’s wishes. 

The practical application is that free speech is vital to popular government. If people fear expressing opinions that might antagonize the government, they will hesitate to speak freely; and then debate over matters of public importance will be minimized rather than be a part of robust deliberative processes out of which many ideas are sifted and challenged.

When the government threatens to punish speech, the threat harms not only the person charged, but it also chills the expressive rights of others. It gives others pause before articulating an opinion that might offend those in power. In recent years, the federal courts have criticized chilling by the government, deferring instead to the open marketplace of ideas.

Speech should rise or fall — be influential or ignored — based on its ability to be accepted in the marketplace of ideas, not on whether it pleases the government.

Until now.

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