Tag: free speech

Facebook Censorship Board Member: Free Speech Is Not A Human Right

Free speech is not a human right, according to prominent Facebook censorship board member Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

“What we’re trying to find, of course, I think many of us engaging in this conversation, is that middle road. How do you moderate content and how do you find that balance between human rights and free speech, which is a human right, but also other human rights because free speech is not an absolute human right,” the Facebook Oversight Board co-chair said during a live stream of Politico’s Tech 28 spotlight.

“It has to be balanced with all the human rights and that is what the oversight is there to do,” she added.

Keep reading

Adviser to Pentagon Counter-Extremism Group Warns of Protected Speech Crackdown

An adviser to the Pentagon’s Counter-Extremism Working Group (CEWG) is warning the Biden administration’s efforts to purge the military of “extremists” could violate individual First Amendment rights.

Mike Berry, general counsel for First Liberty Institute and Marine Corps reservist, first sounded the alarm in a recent op-ed that said the CEWG is looking to formulate a new definition of extremism that could include constitutionally protected speech. He wrote in the Washington Examiner on June 19:

Instead of monitoring external threats, the Pentagon is on a mission to identify and remove whomever it labels as extremists from America’s armed forces. Ironically, the CEWG has yet to define what it means by ‘extremism.’ Extremism is usually defined as the threat or use of violence to achieve an ideological agenda. But the Pentagon is now poised to expand upon that definition to include constitutionally protected speech. In other words, sticks and stones may break our bones, but words are the biggest threat.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin set up the Counter-Extremism Working Group (CEWG) in April after vowing to root out extremists and ordering the entire military force to spend a day discussing “extremism.” Since there is no Pentagon definition for “extremism,” Austin tasked the CEWG, led by Bishop Garrison, to come up with a definition and to define activities that would be considered “extremist.”

Keep reading

Canada: Liberals Propose ‘Hate Speech’ Bill with $50,000 Fine, 1 Year Jail

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government proposed legislation on Wednesday, Bill C-36, that is aimed at combating “hate speech” and “hate propaganda.”

Bill C-36 will “better protect Canadians from hate speech and online harms,” according to a news release from the federal government. The statement includes 33 mentions of the word “hate.”

The bill’s summary includes a proposed legal definition of “hatred” to be included in Canada’s Criminal Code. It defines “hatred” as “the emotion that involves detestation or vilification and that is stronger than dislike or disdain … For greater certainty, the communication of a statement does not incite or promote hatred, for the purposes of this section, solely because it discredits, humiliates, hurts or offends.”

The bill’s text does not specify if or how non-verbal messages such as images or videos would be regulated to control “hate.”

Under a section titled “Fear of hate propaganda offence of hate crime,” Bill C-36 would allow provincial court judges to impose restrictions on those accused by an “informant” of a likely future commission of an offence “on reasonable grounds.” In other words, a judge would be able to issue restrictions against accused parties if the judge believes the accused is likely to commit an offense related to “hate.”

Keep reading

New Video Shows University Of Oklahoma Faculty Teaching How To Silence And Punish ‘Problematic’ Conservatives

According to newly released video footage, University of Oklahoma instructors want to punish students who defy campus orthodoxy. Their plan is to “avoid ‘a rhetoric of dysfunctional silence’ that closes ears to marginalized voices,” by — you guessed it — silencing marginalized voices. 

On Tuesday, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a nonprofit focused on protecting campus free speech, publicized video footage of an April 14 workshop on “Anti-Racist Rhetoric & Pedagogies” at the University of Oklahoma (OU). The workshop’s leaders presented slides about “systemic racism,” “white privilege,” and “subverting white institutional defensiveness.” In an attempt to teach so-called antiracism, the workshop’s leaders also promoted censorship and indoctrination.

The event was “one of nine professional development workshops for instructors and grad students” at OU. During the workshop, three faculty members taught their colleagues “how to foster an anti-racist environment in their classrooms,” brainstorming tactics for dissuading, censoring, and penalizing “problematic” speech. 

Keep reading

Democrats now demand all “hate speech” be banned from the internet… but THEY get to define hate speech, of course

Former Congressman Denver Riggleman and American Jewish Congress president Jack Rosen both want online free speech to come to an end, all in the name of stopping “hate.”

In a recent op-ed they co-wrote for Newsweek, Riggleman and Rosen condemned the social media platform Gab for allowing conservative voices like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to post “questionable” content.

Because Greene compared forced mask-wearing to the yellow stars that Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany, she has quickly become the scapegoat for trying to shut down all digital platforms that are not left-wing echo chambers.

According to Riggleman and Rosen, saying things that deviate from the official script is “hateful” and should not be allowed. Further, any platform where “hate” might have occurred, such as Gab, must be immediately shut down to promote “love.”

“There are two options for dealing with online platforms that promote hate – and potential violence – in our political system,” the op-ed reads.

“The first is to ban them. There are precedents in law where exceptions to the First Amendment regarding hate speech exist. These standards could be applied to political campaigns as well, making it clear that hate speech in support of political candidates will not be tolerated and that, by extension, funds raised by politicians on hate-based platforms like Gab will not be permitted.”

Keep reading

Ivory Hecker Says Fox Corp Censored Bitcoin, Hydroxychloroquine, and Free Speech Stories

“There’s a narrative. Yes, it is unspoken. But if you accidentally step outside the narrative, if you don’t sense what that narrative is and go with it, there will be grave consequences for you… Fox came at my throat for standing up against censorship.” Hecker claimed in the bombshell interview. 

Other revelations in the video include audio of Fox 26’s Vice President and News Director, Susan Schiller, telling Hecker to “cease and desist posting about Hydroxychloroquine” on social media, and that she “failed as a reporter” for reporting about the drug. Schiller then mentioned a study from the New England Journal of Medicine to justify why she was not allowing Hecker to report on Hydroxychloroquine. 

The video also included an audio clip of a Fox official saying “it’s not just about the viewers, It’s about what our CEO reads.” 

Keep reading

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.

Keep reading

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.

Keep reading