Tag: free speech

Mozilla suggests regulators issue laws that curb recommendations of “conspiracy theory videos”

The Mozilla Foundation used to do one thing, and do it well: lead the development of the free and open source Firefox browser. Sadly, that browser, once with a huge chunk of the market and representing a revolutionary step up from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, is falling by the wayside as Google’s Chrome has taken over.

Chrome and the giant behind it are riddled with (un)answered questions and concerns about privacy and safety; while Mozilla has always touted itself as the opposite, an organization that is all about promoting those values.

Why then, when Mozilla these days feels the need to “take on” a Google property, is the story not about all the drawbacks of using Chrome and promoting the use of Firefox? Why is Mozilla instead virtue signaling by joining the “war on misinformation” and calling out Google’s YouTube?

And of all the things YouTube can be criticized for, Mozilla chooses the way videos that it feels fall into the conspiracy theory category are recommended on the platform.

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50-Year-Old Mother Charged With ‘Transphobic Hate Crime’ For Tweeting a Photo of a Suffragette Ribbon

A 50-year-old mother in Scotland has been charged with a ‘transphobic hate crime’ and faces up to two years in prison after she retweeted an image of a suffragette ribbon.

Yes, really.

Unhinged transgender activists targeted Marion Millar after ludicrously claiming that the ribbon represented a noose. The Scottish feminist drew their ire after campaigning to protect biological women’s spaces and right to express themselves.

“The messages investigated by officers are understood to include a retweeted photograph of a bow of ribbons in the green, white and purple colours of the Suffragettes, tied around a tree outside the Glasgow studio where a BBC soap opera is shot,” reports the Times.

Millar was forced to attend a 2 hour police interview and was subsequently charged under the Malicious Communications Act.

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The “Bonkers” Interview Of Bonny Prince Harry: Why The Attack On The First Amendment Should Concern All Americans

The media went into a frenzy this weekend when the bonny Prince Harry gave a huge Hurrumpf to the First Amendment. On a show appropriately called “the Armchair Expert,” Harry declared the First Amendment “bonkers” and expressed frustration of how it protects the media in its “feeding frenzy” over his life. Harry’s criticism of the First Amendment can be dismissed as the unfamiliarity of a royal refugee. However, it is actually far more serious than that. Harry and his American wife Meghan Markle have attacked media rights in England and succeeded under the laws of the United Kingdom. They are now joining a growing anti-free speech and free press movement in the United States.

It was not a surprise for many to hear Harry lash out at the First Amendment. After all, Harry and Meghan are so woke, they are virtual insomniacs.

However, that is the point. The First Amendment no longer holds the inviolate position it once did with the left.

Indeed, the First Amendment is now often treated as a danger than a guarantee to a fair and just society. Experts have explained how to evade its limitations to silence others. They have found precisely what Harry discussed in the interview when he noted “you can find a loophole in anything.”

Democratic leaders now openly call for corporate censorship and banning of books and authors. Academics now join in the cancelling of colleagues who express dissenting views of subjects ranging from climate change to gender identification to racial justice. Thus, it is not as risky for the Harry to declare “I’ve got so much I want to say about the First Amendment as I sort of understand it, but it is bonkers.” Rather, millions are likely to wait in rapt anticipation to hear more of what Prince Harry will say about correcting our Constitution.

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Biden Secretary of Defense adviser pick once said online misinformation is a digital “plague”

In an op-ed from 2018, Biden’s pick for senior adviser to the Secretary of Defense, Bishop Garrison, described free speech as a “digital black plague.”

In the 2018 op-ed, resurfaced by Revolver News, Garrison described alleged disinformation, which to others is free speech, as a “digital black plague,” which if allowed to “spread further,” soon “the shining city on the hill will undoubtedly find itself alone in the darkness for years to come.”

Garrison also said that technology was responsible for the spread of disinformation, which to some, is any information they don’t like.

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At Vatican conference, Chelsea Clinton calls for global crackdown on anti-vaccine social media posts

Chelsea Clinton has spoken out against freedom of vaccine-critical speech at a Vatican conference dedicated to dialogue.

Speaking during a pre-recorded online meeting, Clinton, 41, responded to a question about so-called “vaccine hesitancy” regarding COVID-19 vaccines by saying that there must be a global effort to crack down on vaccine-critical social media posts.

“I personally very strongly believe there has to be more intensive and intentional and coordinated global regulation of the content on social media platforms,” she said.

“We know that the most popular video across all of Latin America for the last few weeks that now has tens of millions of views is just an anti-vax, anti-science screed that YouTube has just refused to take down.”

Clinton added that anti-vaccine content created in the United States “flourishes” across the world by way of social media platforms. Her attempts to convince the managers of these sites to remove the material has not worked, she said.

“We know that — because I have tried — that appealing to the leadership of these companies to do the right thing has just not worked, and so we need regulation.”

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Court orders woman to remove rock with Confederate flag – or lose child

An intermediate appellate court in New York state has ordered a woman to get rid of a rock in her garden because it has a Confederate flag painted on it – or possibly lose her child.

The extreme order came from Judges Stan Pritzker, John Egan Jr., Sharon Aarons, Molly Reynolds Fitzgerald and John Colangelo and was in a custody ruling.

The parents are unmarried and have a daughter born in 2014 that is of mixed race. The ruling was an update in the custody arrangements, which provide for joint legal and physical custody.

Both parents had asked for primary custody, but the judges made only a minor adjustment, that the mother’s home shall be considered the child’s resident for purposes of schooling.

But then they addressed that image that has been targeted by social agenda warriors across the nation already, having been eliminated from college campuses, social media and more.

“Although not addressed by family court or the attorney for the child, the mother’s testimony at the hearing, as well as an exhibit admitted into evidence, reveal that she has a small confederate flag painted on a rock near her driveway,” the judges noted.

“Given that the child is of mixed race, it would seem apparent that the presence of the flag is not in the child’s best interests, as the mother must encourage and teach the child to embrace her mixed race identity, rather than thrust her into a world that only makes sense through the tortured lens of cognitive dissonance,” they said.

“Further, and viewed pragmatically, the presence of the confederate flag is a symbol inflaming the already strained relationship between the parties. As such, while recognizing that the First Amendment protects the mother’s right to display the flag, if it is not removed by June 1, 2021, its continued presence shall constitute a change in circumstances and family court shall factor this into any future best interests analysis.”

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