Tag: free speech

Nancy Pelosi says there needs to be a “balance” to free speech

In the wake of a mass shooting in Buffalo, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went on ABC to advocate for “balance between free speech and safety.” She did not specify how this balance might be achieved, or who would have the last word in defining it.

Seemingly suggesting that suppressing free speech to some (unspecified) extent would be the way to go in dealing with cases of extreme violence, this US official made it clear that it was once again social media that politicians would like to see moderate and censor even more than they do now.

Speaking on Sunday, the Democrat also complained that it is impossible for her party to carry out its gun control proposals in the Senate, and urged “vigilance” among the population, encouraging people to report others to the authorities in case somebody is suspected of being “on a path” to committing acts of violence.

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Get Ready to Be Muzzled: The Coming War on So-Called Hate Speech

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech.”—Benjamin Franklin

Beware of those who want to monitor, muzzle, catalogue and censor speech.

Especially be on your guard when the reasons given for limiting your freedoms end up expanding the government’s powers.

In the wake of a mass shooting in Buffalo, NY, carried out by an 18-year-old gunman in military gear allegedly motivated by fears that the white race is in danger of being replaced, there have been renewed calls for social media monitoring, censorship of flagged content that could be construed as dangerous or hateful, and limitations on free speech activities, particularly online.

As expected, those who want safety at all costs will clamor for more gun control measures (if not at an outright ban on weapons for non-military, non-police personnel), widespread mental health screening of the general population and greater scrutiny of military veterans, more threat assessments and behavioral sensing warnings, more surveillance cameras with facial recognition capabilities, more “See Something, Say Something” programs aimed at turning Americans into snitches and spies, more metal detectors and whole-body imaging devices at soft targets, more roaming squads of militarized police empowered to do random bag searches, more fusion centers to centralize and disseminate information to law enforcement agencies, and more surveillance of what Americans say and do, where they go, what they buy and how they spend their time.

All of these measures play into the government’s hands.

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The intolerance of free speech in higher education

Emory Law School’s Student Bar Association recently refused to recognize a free speech debate group because open discussions may spark “harm” and potentially “give rise to a precarious environment.”

As an alumnus of Emory Law, the decision was especially disappointing — but not surprising — and thankfully, overturned.

But a similar instance of an Emory University group retaliating against protected free speech came in October 2020, during the first year of my attending Emory Law’s Juris Master program.

The Emory University College Republicans hosted Heather Mac Donald, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of “The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture.”

A “safe space” was established by Black and Latino groups at the university, seeking to “express their reaction to what McDonald had to say,” according to a post by the Emory NAACP.

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Panicked CNN Guest Wonders “How We’re Going To Control The Channels Of Communications In This Country”

A CNN talking head declared Sunday that if Elon Musk is allowed to buy Twitter, the platform will have to be government regulated to prevent ‘discourse’ being open and free, and not subject to establishment controlled censorship.

While discussing the Musk take-over on CNN’s potato time with Brain Stelter, “media analyst” David Zurawik proclaimed that Musk is “dangerous” and shouldn’t be allowed to restore free speech on the platform.

Zurawik suggested that the U.S. look to Europe, which has recently brought in new laws to limit social media, and even threatened to ban Twitter if Musk doesn’t play ball.

“There’s a bigger problem here about how we’re going to control the channels of communications in this country,” Zurawik frothed, panicking at the notion of the likes of CNN not being able to dictate what Americans think.

“This is dangerous! We can’t think anymore in this country!” Zurawik whined, adding “I’m serious! We don’t have people in Congress who can make regulations, that can make it work.”

“I think we can look to the Western countries in Europe for how they are trying to limit it. But you need controls on this,” the talking slap head continued.

“You need regulation. You cannot let these guys control discourse in this country or we are headed to hell,” Zurawik further suggested.

“We are there,” he added, further claiming that “Trump opened the gates of hell and now they’re chasing us down.”

“We gave over what amounts to our airwaves or our internet waves to Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, and we are in so much trouble because those guys believe in making money,” he said.

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Time writer knocks free speech as an ‘obsession of the mostly white, male members of the tech elite’ like Musk

In a Friday piece for Time magazine, the outlet’s national correspondent Charlotte Alter dismissed Elon Musk’s quest for free speech on Twitter as a white male “obsession,” and merely an entrepreneurial way to acquire influence and power in the world.

She also claimed that Musk’s idea of free speech is about the right to spread “disinformation” and has nothing to do with the Founding Fathers’ original intent.

Alter began her piece by insinuating that Musk should have put his $44 billion into something more worthwhile than what he sees as “free speech,” a phrase she put in scare quotes throughout the piece.

She wrote, “They say that something is worth what someone will pay for it. If that’s true, then protecting ‘free speech,’ which Elon Musk has cited as a central reason he agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion this week, may be worth twice as much as solving America’s homelessness problem, and seven times as much as solving world hunger.”

She added, “It’s worth more (to him, at least) than educating every child in nearly 50 countries, more than the GDP of Serbia, Jordan, or Paraguay.”

The author then proceeded to wonder why a rich techie like Musk would even care about freedom of speech and how it “had become paramount concern of the techno-moral universe.”

She asked, “Why does Musk care so much about this? Why would a guy who has pushed the boundaries of electric-vehicle manufacturing and plumbed the limits of commercial space flight care about who can say what on Twitter?”

She then cited professor of communication at Stanford University Fred Turner for the answer, who agreed, “It does seem to be a dominant obsession with the most elite.” He stated, “[F]ree speech seems to be much more of an obsession among men,” and part of “the entrepreneurial push: I did it in business, I did it in space, and now I’m going to do it in the world.“

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DHS Disinformation’ Unit Headed by Woman Who Said Hunter Biden Laptop Story Was Disinformation

The Department of Homeland Security’s new ‘disinformation’ unit will be headed by a woman who says free speech makes her ‘shudder’ and who falsely labeled the Hunter Biden laptop story disinformation.

Oh dear.

Just two days after it was revealed that Elon Musk had reached an agreement to buy Twitter, DHS chief Alejandro Mayorkas announced the creation of a “disinformation governance board.”

The new board will focus primarily on “misinformation related to homeland security, focused specifically on irregular migration and Russia.”

The board will be headed by Nina Jankowicz, a former advisor to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry who oversaw related issued at the National Democratic Institute lobby group.

“Cat’s out of the bag,” Jankowicz tweeted. “Here’s what I’ve been up to the past two months, and why I’ve been a bit quiet on here.”

Jankowicz’s view of free speech is particularly odious. Free speech apparently makes her physically shudder.

“I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms, what that would look like for the marginalized communities, which are already shouldering disproportionate amounts of this abuse,” she tweeted in response to Musk’s Twitter takeover.

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‘Censorship is free speech’ is the establishment’s Orwellian line on Elon Musk’s Twitter crusade

“Democracy Dies in Darkness” is the motto of the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post. It may sound like a warning, but more and more it seems like a summary of the left’s aspirations to control debate and shut down any opposition.

A recent example of those aspirations appeared in a column by former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich on Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s big buy of Twitter stock. The original headline — changed after widespread mockery — was this: “Elon Musk’s vision for the Internet is dangerous nonsense: Musk has long advocated a libertarian vision of an ‘uncontrolled’ internet. That’s also the dream of every dictator, strongman and demagogue.”

The mockery was understandable. “Libertarian visions” of “uncontrolled” speech haven’t actually been the stock-in-trade of dictators, strongmen and demagogues. Typically, those authoritarian figures want to silence their opponents and ensure that their own voices, and those of their satraps and sycophants, are the only ones heard.

Reich’s defenders, to the extent he has any, might claim the headline is a poor summary of his real argument, which is this: “In Musk’s vision of Twitter and the internet, he’d be the wizard behind the curtain — projecting on the world’s screen a fake image of a brave new world empowering everyone. In reality, that world would be dominated by the richest and most powerful people in the world, who wouldn’t be accountable to anyone for facts, truth, science or the common good.”

The thing is, what Reich describes is what we have now: a world in which unaccountable oligarchs like Amazon’s Bezos and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg — people who are in fact “the richest and most powerful people in the world” — use opaque algorithms to mute criticism and disagreement.

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Twitter sabotages itself in attempt to stop Elon Musk takeover

In a bid to thwart Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s attempted takeover of Twitter to make free speech changes, the company’s board has announced that existing shareholders will be able to purchase additional shares at a discount if a person or group builds a stake of more than 15% in the company without board approval.

The move, which is known as a “poison pill,” makes it harder for a person or group to take control of the company because their stake can be diluted whenever they own more than 15% of the company. However, it could also hurt existing shareholders because their stock would be diluted too and this dilution would lower the share price.

The poison pill will be in place for the next year.

Twitter’s poison bill defense follows Musk announcing a 9.2% stake in the company earlier this month and then offering to take the company private to make free speech changes yesterday. Musk had offered to pay $54.20 per share in cash and the stock last traded at a price of $46.66 – 13.9% below Musk’s offer price.

After offering to buy Twitter, Musk continued to defend free speech in an appearance at TED 2022.

“A good sign as to whether there’s free speech is, is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like? If that is the case then we have free speech,” the billionaire said.

“And it’s damn annoying, when someone you don’t like says something you don’t like. That is a sign of a healthy, functioning, free speech situation.”

During the interview, Musk said that his reasons for buying Twitter were not for profit.

“My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization,” said Musk.

“I don’t care about the economics at all.”

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Canada’s Heritage Minister says online censorship bill will help free speech

To advise the Heritage Minister on regulating Canada’s internet, a panel of experts, most of them academics, has been appointed. One of the government’s internet regulation plans, alongside the online censorship bill, is to create a federal internet censorship agency.

When announcing the panel of experts, Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said, “We are open to all ideas. The only thing we want is to do the right thing, is to make it right, is to make it happen.”

The minister was asked if it was a priority for the internet censorship bill not to infringe Canadians’ rights. He said that freedom of expression is a fundamental right and is “at the core” of the bill.

“But I’ll tell you something else,” Rodriguez said. “Actually there are a lot of people who don’t want to share what they think anymore, who are afraid of going online to speak freely because of the negative and violent reaction they may get. I think in some ways this will really help freedom of speech.”

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