Tag: free speech

TikTok and the Freedom of Speech

“Congress shall make no law …abridging the freedom of speech or of the press…”
~ First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

During the oral argument before the Supreme Court in the famous Pentagon Papers case, a fascinating colloquy took place between Justice William O. Douglas and the lawyer for the government. The case was about whether the government could prevent The New York Times and The Washington Post from publishing secret documents that demonstrated that American generals had been misleading President Lyndon Johnson and he had been lying to the American public during the Vietnam War.

The documents had been stolen by Daniel Ellsberg, a civilian employee of the Department of Defense, in an act of great personal courage and constitutional fidelity, and then delivered to both newspapers. Two federal judges had enjoined the newspapers from publishing the documents, and the Supreme Court was hearing appeals by the newspapers.

When Justice Douglas asked the government lawyer if the phrase “no law” in the First Amendment literally means no law, he was unable to answer. The court found his mumbo jumbo reasoning so telling that it actually published the transcript of the Q and A in the court’s opinion itself – something it had not done before in modern times nor since.

The court ruled in that landmark case that freedom of speech and the right to know what the government is doing and the right to consult whatever source one chooses when forming an opinion each trump the government’s concerns for protection of state secrets. Thus, it matters not how the media obtains information; if it is material to the public interest, the media may publish it, without fear of civil or criminal liability.

The Pentagon Papers case was the high watermark for the freedom of speech: Freedom trumps safety. But the court studiously avoided answering Justice Douglas’ question about no law. If the Constitution means what it says, then no law literally means no law, and thus all sorts of legislation about speech – from defamation to treason to silencing TikTok – is unconstitutional. But if no law doesn’t really mean no law, then what does it mean?

Regrettably, today, no law means whatever the court says it means. That’s what happened last week when the court upheld congressional legislation silencing TikTok.

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Far Left UK Government Proposes BANNING “Controversial” Conversations

The leftist Labour government in Britain has proposed radical reforms to the rights of workers that could include classing ‘sensitive’ topics of conversation in the workplace such as religion, women’s rights, or transgenderism as ‘harassment’.

The proposed legislation would force employers to prevent workers from being subjected to such subjects by third parties, such as customers. 

If they are found to have failed to do so, they could face lawsuits under the legislation.

Watchdog The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has warned that if it comes into the force next year, the proposed law could significantly impact freedom of expression and even be applied to “overheard conversations” such as those between two or more people in a pub.

The EHRC has noted that applying the harassment law in cases involving a “philosophical belief” could lead to problems owing to the fact that many employers do not understand such topics are protected by equality law.

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Yes, Mark Zuckerberg, You Can Shout ‘Fire’ in a Crowded Theater

Mark Zuckerberg has joined a dubious list of prominent Americans—including judges, members of Congress, and even a vice presidential nominee—who believe that you can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater. In an interview with Joe Rogan last week, the Meta CEO attempted to justify the company’s pandemic-era censorship policies by arguing that “even people who are like the most ardent First Amendment defenders” know that there is a limit to free speech. 

“At the beginning, [COVID-19 was] a legitimate public health crisis,” Zuckerberg told Rogan. “The Supreme Court has this clear precedent: It’s like, all right, you can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. There are times when if there’s an emergency, your ability to speak can temporarily be curtailed in order to get an emergency under control. I was sympathetic to that at the beginning of COVID.”

The thing is, Zuckerberg is simply wrong when it comes to how the First Amendment works.

The common misconception that it’s illegal to shout “fire” in a crowded theater originates with a hypothetical used by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in the 1919 Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States.

In his opinion, Holmes wrote that “the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done,” adding that “the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.” Not only was this passage a pure hypothetical used to illustrate Holmes’ larger opinion that the First Amendment didn’t protect the dissemination of anti-draft pamphlets, but Schenck itself was overturned in 1969 by Brandenburg v. Ohio.

“To the contrary, if the theater is on fire, you not only may shout ‘FIRE,’ but indeed, you should do so! The constant misstatement of this famous line from a 1919 Supreme Court decision is significant, because it overlooks the critical, common-sense distinction between protected and unprotected speech,” former American Civil Liberties Union President Nadine Strossen said in 2021. “This old canard, a favorite reference of censorship apologists, needs to be retired. It’s repeatedly and inappropriately used to justify speech limitations. People have been using this cliché as if it had some legal meaning, while First Amendment lawyers roll their eyes”

Zuckerberg’s interview came in the wake of a January 7 announcement that Meta platforms would no longer use third-party fact-checkers to label and restrict content, as well as loosen restrictions on some subjects “that are part of mainstream discourse.” 

“After [Donald] Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy,” Zuckerberg said in a video announcing the change. “We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But the fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S.”

While this change is a welcome shift from Meta’s previous content-moderation regime, that Zuckerberg is still getting this basic element of the First Amendment wrong hardly bodes well for Meta’s future as a platform friendly to free expression.

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Biden Slams Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘Shameful’ Decision to Roll Back Meta’s Censorship Regime – ‘Contrary to Everything America is About’

Joe Biden is clearly unhappy with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s attempt to repair his relationship with Donald Trump.

The outgoing president said at a press conference on Friday that Zuckerberg’s decision to roll back his platforms’ censorship policies was “really shameful” and against American values.

“It’s just completely contrary to everything America is about,” he said.

“We want to tell the truth. We haven’t always done it as a nation. We want to tell the truth.”

“The idea that, you know, a billionaire can buy something and say, ‘By the way, we’re not gonna fact check anything,’ and you know, you have millions of people reading, going online, reading this stuff,” he continued.

“Anyway, I think it’s really shameful.”

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Facebook Claims it Will Allow More Free Speech Now

Admitting it has gone too far, Meta’s platforms of Facebook and Instagram are ending their ‘fact checking’ programs and restrictions on speech to allegedly restore free expression, according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a video posted Tuesday.

“We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Zuckerberg said. “More specifically, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the U.S.” 

The shift to an X-style model with community notes replacing the heavy hand of internet censorship will be rolled out over the next few months, according to Zuckerberg.

“This is a great opportunity for us to reset the balance in favor of free expression. As Mark says in that video, what we’re doing is we’re getting back to our roots and free expression,” Meta’s chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan said in an interview with Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” Tuesday.

The fact checking program was put in place following the Democrats loss of the 2016 election. Its purpose was to manage user’s content and censor what it deemed as ‘misinformation’. The move was initiated by political pressure, explained Zuckerberg.

“After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy. We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth,” Zuckerberg said. “But fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they created, especially in the U.S.”

Meta’s man went on to discuss specific topics that will no longer be taboo on his website.

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Civil Service Commission Rules Boston Mayor Wu’s Administration Lacked “Just Cause” for Wrongful Termination of Police Officer Over January 6 Tweets

In a major victory for free speech and a stinging defeat for political retribution, the Massachusetts Civil Service Commission overturned the termination of Joseph Abasciano, a former Boston Police Department (BPD) officer accused of misconduct related to tweets he posted on January 6, 2021, while attending the “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, D.C.

The unanimous decision allows Abasciano to retire medically, with his federal lawsuit against the city still pending.

Officer Abasciano, a former U.S. Marine with commendations for his service in Iraq and over a decade of distinguished work in Boston’s toughest neighborhoods, found himself under scrutiny not for his actions but for his conservative political views.

Abasciano’s case arose from a series of tweets on his anonymous account, @mailboxjoe, that neither identified him as a BPD officer, where he described attendees as “patriots” and referred to the Vice President as a “traitor.”

“I sent out some anonymous tweets while traveling home. Apparently, I was not so anonymous. It appears my conservative activism and attempts to expose (Democrat) union corruption exposed me and my anonymous Twitter account,” Abasciano told The Gateway Pundit.

He was terminated in 2023 following a second investigation into anonymous tweets he posted while returning home from the January 6 rally.

Notably, the Commission highlighted that Abasciano did not participate in any violent activities during the Capitol riot. Internal investigations initially cleared him of misconduct.

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The Return of Free Speech

Lying, exaggerating, or just being stupid is not new. These sins existed before the internet, and they will always exist. No one deemed them a national security threat until recently.

As a point of comparison, 9/11 was the deadliest attack in the history of our country, exceeding the death toll of Pearl Harbor. Nearly 3,000 innocent people lost their lives. The event led to a mobilization of military and government power that rivaled the Cold War buildup.

Public opinion largely supported a campaign of retaliation, but there were some disagreements and dissenters.

No One Censored the 9/11 Truthers

Among the critics, there was an enormous proliferation of “9/11 Truthers.” These were generally conspiracy theorists of middling intelligence who opined about structural engineering and other things they didn’t understand. They said it was an inside job or was known in advance, and some denied that commercial airliners were used in the attacks at all, even though there were millions of eyewitnesses and hours of footage showing exactly that.

Most people ignored the 9/11 Truthers because most of what they said was ridiculous. There was almost no effort to censor these people. No one said they should be “deplatformed” from the internet, removed from Google search results, or banished from college campuses. The idea that “platforming” meant tacit endorsement or that “deplatforming” was the right solution to bad thoughts had not been invented yet.

There was significant controversy when dyed-in-the-wool leftists like Ward Churchill said the victims deserved it, but even he was allowed to speak on campus.

Obama and the Public-Private Censorship Complex

The supposed scourge of misinformation appeared later, during the latter part of the Obama administration. It was made out to be a big national problem in order to justify hand-in-glove coordination between government agencies and private institutions in order to manipulate public opinion. Without acting directly to avoid violating the First Amendment, government officers persuaded and pressured tech monopolies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter to censor materials that officials did not want to be distributed.

They did all of this to advance a very narrow set of approved beliefs. The architects of this censorship regime labeled the system’s consensus Our Democracy™. Simultaneously, critics and skeptics of that consensus were defamed as election deniers, anti-vaxxers, bigots, terrorists, Nazis, Russian “assets,” and otherwise declared anathema.

This strategy did not come out of nowhere. We saw signs of coordinated messaging involving the mainstream media as early as 2008 when they did almost nothing to look into Barack Obama’s background as a radical, left-wing activist during his first presidential run.

Things then kicked into high gear in 2016. By that time, social media had eclipsed the importance of legacy media, the Brexit vote demonstrated a trend of populist rejection of elite opinion, and, in the United States, Donald Trump became the Republican nominee. These events worried the various players in the censorship game, and they correctly recognized Trump as a threat to business as usual.

Intelligence agencies and federal law enforcement worked closely with both legacy and social media companies to stop him. In the process, the media companies abandoned any pretense of neutrality, and this coordination continues through the present.

Fundamentally, all of this activity is premised on the idea that ordinary people need to be saved from themselves because they are too gullible, prejudiced, or prone to mass hysteria. The establishment believes it has the right to manipulate public opinion—through spying, censorship, criminal prosecutions, and lawfare—to counterbalance the populace’s self-destructive tendencies.

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US Report Reveals Push to Weaponize AI for Censorship

For a while now, emerging AI has been treated by the Biden-Harris administration, but also the EU, the UK, Canada, the UN, etc., as a scourge that powers dangerous forms of “disinformation” – and should be dealt with accordingly.

According to those governments/entities, the only “positive use” for AI as far as social media and online discourse go, would be to power more effective censorship (“moderation”).

A new report from the US House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government puts the emphasis on the push to use this technology for censorship as the explanation for the often disproportionate alarm over its role in “disinformation.”

We obtained a copy of the report for you here.

The interim report’s name spells out its authors’ views on this quite clearly: the document is called, “Censorship’s Next Frontier: The Federal Government’s Attempt to Control Artificial Intelligence to Suppress Free Speech.”

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UN General Assembly to Adopt Controversial Cybercrime Treaty, Ignoring Privacy and Free Speech Concerns

The United Nations General Assembly will this week adopt the UN Cybercrime Treaty, with the US expected to be among the countries that support the controversial document.

Opponents will then have to hope that various UN member-states would eventually opt not to sign and ratify the treaty, which has variously been described as “flawed” and all the way to being “a threat to free speech and privacy” and a tool for “transnational oppression.”

Among those opponents are human rights and media organizations, as well as tech companies, while doubts have been expressed even by the UN High Commissioner for human rights, among others.

Yet governments and law enforcement agencies are among the Cybercrime Treaty’s supporters since it opens up the possibility of more effective cross-border cooperation and evidence (including personal data) gathering and sharing.

But, the final text that is about to be adopted, in many parts falls short of what are considered international human rights standards, allowing UN members who sign the document to then choose whether to build a number of these standards into their own implementation.

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VICTORY: Dr William Bay wins doctors’ right to criticise covid gene-vaccines

Friday marked the biggest victory yet for doctors against political persecution after the Queensland Supreme Court issued a scorching judgement against Australia’s medical regulators on Friday.

Queensland GP William Anicha Bay celebrated outside court after successfully overturning a politically motivated medical ban put on him for protesting against the covid gene-vaccines on safety grounds.

The Court did not enter into any debate about the safety of the controversial products but ruled only on whether the regulators’ decision or conduct was free from error.

The Medical Board of Australia suspended Dr Bay’s registration on August 17, 2022, less than three weeks after he accosted the Australian Medical Association (AMA) National Conference and asked the delegates to stop forcing the jabs on people in response to an infection where “there is only a 0.27 percent fatality rate”.

Dr Bay apologised for interrupting proceedings before saying the covid “vaccines” were killing people.

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