Tag: free speech

Free Speech Doesn’t Matter If Propagandists Determine What People Say

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

None are more hopelessly ignorant than those who falsely believe they’re informed.

None are more hopelessly propagandized than those who don’t know they are propagandized.

Living in a liberal western democracy means having the freedom to criticize the tyranny of your government, but instead spending your time criticizing the tyranny of foreign governments who your government doesn’t like.

Free speech in a liberal western democracy means you have the freedom to say whatever you want about the abuses of your government, and the press has the freedom to hammer you with propaganda to ensure that you never do.

In a liberal western democracy you are free to criticize your government, but instead you are propagandized into criticizing the impotent puppets who get rotated in and out of office while your government continues doing all the same evil things regardless of who gets elected.

In liberal western democracies you are free to call the president “Drumpf” or “Brandon”, but you are not free to know who’s actually calling the shots in your country underneath the official government.

In liberal western democracies people say, “I’m so glad I don’t live in a country like Russia or China where people are forbidden to criticize their government. I live in the west, where I’m free to criticize Russia and China all I want.”

It doesn’t matter if you have freedom of speech if those in power can control what you will say. And in liberal western democracies, this is exactly what happens.

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Purported Free Speech Champion Elon Musk Writes Article for Chinese Censorship Bureau Magazine

Tesla billionaire Elon Musk wrote an article for a magazine produced by the chief censorship bureau of Communist China, despite being a self-described “free speech absolutist.”

The world’s richest man penned an article in the July issue of China Cyberspace, a magazine produced by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the top internet regulator, responsible for enacting the strict censorship apparatus of the regime in Beijing.

So central to the power structure of the Communist Party, the director of the CAC, Zhuang Rongwen, is also the head of the Propaganda Department, and it is a subsidiary of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, of which Xi Jinping, himself, is the director of.

While the CAC is mostly involved in laying out the censorship agenda of the government, it also has the ability to purge material directly, notably being at the head of Operation Qinglang (cleansed and uncontaminated), launched in 2021 to crack down on non-state run media entities, such as social media users and citizen journalists from posting “harmful” material on the Chinese internet, which is itself already heavily censored.

The decision by Musk to choose to write an article for a magazine produced by the CAC comes in direct contrast to his self-described status as a “free speech absolutist” and his persistent criticism of censorship in the West, namely on social media sites like Twitter. However, it perhaps demonstrates the lengths to which the Tesla founder will go to maintain a cosy relationship with China, a key country for the future expansion of the electric car company. It also provides further proof for Donald Trump’s claim that Musk is a “bullshit artist.”

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GLAAD CEO calls for “government intervention” to stop “hate speech” online

Sarah Kate Ellis, the chief executive of the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization GLAAD, suggested that there is a need for government intervention in the prevention of online “hate speech” against the LGBTQ+ community.

In an appearance on “CBS Mornings,” Ellis was asked who and what should be cracking down on hate speech against LGBTQ+ people on online platforms.

“We do need government intervention here and we need the right policies,” Ellis responded.

“This has been going on for over a decade and congress has been really ineffective to say the best,” she added.

Ellis argued that online hate speech against the LGBTQ+ community is to blame for the increase in anti-LGBTQ legislation at the state level.

During the interview, Ellis cited a report by her organization that found that 84% of LGBTQ+ individuals aged 18 and above feel there are “not enough” protections in the online world against harassment and discrimination. The report singled out Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok as not having the essential protections needed to protect the LGBTQ+ community.

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UN is working with tech, media companies, and states to address “misinformation” and “hate speech”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is introducing a new element into the concept of the world organization’s peacekeeping activities: countering “misinformation” and “hate speech.”

And tech and media companies are being enlisted to help in weeding out information that the UN decides to consider as harmful.

Given that, like the saying goes, truth is typically the first casualty of any war – and this goes for any and all sides involved – it’s difficult to envisage how the UN might even start going about the task of “countering” misinformation and hate speech while maintaining its neutral and credible position in peacekeeping.

When he addressed a Security Council debate on peacekeeping operations, dedicated specifically to the “key role” of strategic communications, Guterres did not offer useful insight into that problem, but he did put strong emphasis on UN’s Global Communications Strategy, describing strategic communication variously as critical and central for successful peacekeeping.

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Canada’s Heritage Minister panel: unregulated speech “erodes the foundations of democracy”

According to the Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety appointed by Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, “misleading political communications” should be regulated because unregulated political disinformation and discussion “erodes the foundations of democracy.”

Rodriguez has insisted multiple times that censorship bill, Bill C-11, also known as the Online Streaming Act, would not regulate user-generated content.

“We made it very clear in the Online Streaming Act that this does not apply to what individual Canadians and creators post online,” said Rodriguez. “No users, no online creators will be regulated. Only the companies themselves will have new responsibilities.”

However, that claim has been contradicted by the Canada Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and the Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety that he appointed. Online platforms would have to regulate based on the speech of its users.

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How Much Did the US Government Pressure Twitter to Ban Alex Berenson?

Nearly a year ago, former New York Times Journalist Alex Berenson was permanently banned from Twitter for writing the following lines about the Covid shot: “It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. Don’t think of it as a vaccine. Think of it—at best—as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS. And we want to mandate it? Insanity.”

From the beginning of the Covid hysteria, we followed and cited Berenson many times on the Ron Paul Liberty Report. Berenson took government and mainstream media rhetoric about the pandemic the way journalists used to take it: with a heavy dose of skepticism. And not long after he was banned for saying so, even the CDC Director admitted what he wrote is true.

But at the time, he was a danger to the government narrative on Covid, and the “private” social media company Twitter silenced him. They did not only silence one reporter who was a thorn in their side, however. They preemptively silenced anyone else who might might question the narrative. The message was clear to all the would-be Alex Berensons out there: do you want to follow him to the digital gulag?

So not only was Berenson’s free speech under attack—free speech itself was under attack.

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New Japanese Law Makes ‘Online Insults’ a Jailable Offense

This week, a Japanese law went into effect making it a jailable offense to be a jerk on the Internet.

As reported by The Japan Times, the legislation, passed in June, strengthens the country’s punishment for “online insults.” According to CNN, “Under Japan’s penal code, insults are defined as publicly demeaning someone’s social standing without referring to specific facts about them or a specific action…The crime is different to defamation, defined as publicly demeaning someone while pointing to specific facts.”

Previously, the penalty for online offensiveness was either a fine of less than ¥10,000 (about $73 USD) or fewer than 30 days in prison. Under the new law, which went into effect Thursday, the penalties increased to as much as a year in prison and a fine of up to ¥300,000 (about $2,200 USD). It also extended the statute of limitations from one year to three.

A push for the law came in 2020, when Japanese wrestler and reality TV star Hana Kimura committed suicide after allegedly receiving abusive messages on social media. The bill briefly stalled over concerns that it would stifle legitimate criticism of politicians. Finally, the legislature reached a compromise, inserting a provision requiring that “a review will be conducted within three years…to determine if it unfairly restricts free speech,” per The Japan Times.

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Canadian Government Creates Pamphlet to Teach School Children that “Trump’s Wall” is Racist and “Free Speech” is Common Defense of “Hate Propaganda”

The free world is losing Canada.

Under the Trudeau regime Canadians continue to lose their rights to assemble, practice their religion, and speak freely.  Now the government is teaching children that ‘free speech’ is a common defense of hate propaganda and a border wall between countries is racist.

A new government-funded booklet made for Canadian school children describes President Trump’s border wall with Mexico and free speech as two examples of hate.

The tool for children is titled: “Confronting and preventing hate in Canadian Schools.”

From page 31 of the pamphlet — President Trump’s border wall is described as a good example of hate.

The government-funded group also describes the conservative party as a group whose members include bigots, groypers, and white nationalists.

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Japan passes bill making ‘online insults’ punishable by one year in jail

In an attempt to quell public concern about cyberbullying, Japan has passed legislation making “online insults” punishable by imprisonment.

The bill, passed by the Japanese government on Monday, has amended the country’s penal code and will take effect this summer.

According to the Japan Times, the amendment comes as a response to the death of professional wrestler and Netflix’s Terrance House reality star Hana Kimura.

Kimura, 22, died by suicide in 2020. News of her death was spread nationwide, with many Japanese citizens pointing to the ample online abuse and harassment Kimura received in the months before her death.

Offenders who post “online insults” can now be punished under the law with up to one year of jailtime, or fined ¥300,000 (approximately $2,870).

Prior to this legislation, insults were still illegal, though the punishment was lesser, with offenders earning fewer than 30 days detention and a fine of ¥10,000 (approximately $95).

According to CNN, under Japan’s penal code, insults “are defined as publicly demeaning someone’s social standing without referring to specific facts about them or a specific action.”

Insults differ from defamation in Japan, the distinguishing factor being that defamation must include specific facts when publicly demeaning another person. Defamation is also punishable under Japanese law.

The degree to which an insult will be punished under the new law has yet to be determined.

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