Tag: wrongthink

Australian PM vows hate speech crackdown after Bondi Beach attack

PM Albanese announces strict measures against hate, extremism, and antisemitism after mass shooting at Bondi Beach Jewish festival

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised a sweeping crackdown on hate, division and radicalisation on Thursday after a mass shooting killed 15 people at a Jewish festival on Bondi Beach.

“Australians are shocked and angry. I am angry. It is clear we need to do more to combat this evil scourge, much more,” Albanese told a news conference.

The prime minister outlined a suite of measures to target extremist preachers, impose stiffer punishments, and refuse or cancel visas for people who spread “hate and division”.

As he spoke, mourners gathered for the funeral of a 10-year-old girl among those gunned down while celebrating Hanukkah on Sunday at Sydney’s iconic beach.

Critics in the Jewish Australian community and beyond have assailed the prime minister for not doing more to protect them from rising antisemitism.

New “aggravated hate speech” laws will punish preachers and leaders stoking hatred and violence, Albanese said.

He vowed harsher penalties, too.

Australia would develop a regime for listing organisations with leaders who engage in hate speech, he said.

“Serious vilification” based on race or advocating racial supremacy is to become a federal offence.

The government will also boost the home affairs minister’s powers to cancel or reject visas for people who spread “hate and division”, he said.

Albanese said a task force is being set up with a 12-month mission to ensure the education system “properly responds” to antisemitism.

“Every Jewish Australian has the right to be proud of who they are and what they believe,” he said.

“And every Jewish Australian has the right to feel safe, valued and respected for the contribution that they make to our great nation.”

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How new social media checks would change travel to US

The US is seeking to significantly expand its 

vetting of social media accounts for people who want to enter the country.

In 2019, during President Donald Trump’s first term, the US imposed a requirement that visa applicants disclose their social media accounts. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) now aims to apply a similar requirement to another group: travellers from countries such as the UK, Japan and Australia whose citizens can enter the US without a visa.

The Trump administration argues that the rule change is necessary to ensure travellers entering the country “do not bear hostile attitudes” to the US and its citizens. Civil-liberties groups warn that the approach marks a sweeping expansion of federal surveillance over routine travel. Here’s what to know.

What exactly is the US proposing?

The US is proposing that foreign visitors from countries whose citizens can travel to the US without a visa, but must still apply online for advance authorisation, provide their social media history from the last five years. 

DHS did not respond to a query about what information applicants from visa-waiver countries would need to supply for the social media screening. (Visa applicants are required to list all social media identifiers they have used in the past five years.)

Applicants would also be required to supply, when “feasible,” a broad set of additional personal information: telephone numbers used in the last five years; e-mail addresses used in the last ten years; IP addresses and metadata from electronically submitted photos; family members’ names, residences, places and dates of birth, and phone numbers used in the last five years; and personal biometrics – fingerprints, DNA samples, iris scans, and facial images. The proposal does not clarify how biometric information would be collected. 

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Twitter user is jailed for 18 months for two anti-immigration tweets made after Christmas market car attack that were viewed just 33 times

A Twitter user who posted two anti-immigration tweets that were viewed just 33 times has been jailed for stirring up racial hatred.

Luke Yarwood, 36, received an 18-month sentence after tweeting in the wake of the Christmas market car attack in Magdeburg, Germany, in December 2024.

His posts were reported to the police by Yarwood’s own brother-in-law who he did not get on with.

The case has drawn comparisons with Lucy Connolly, the 42-year-old wife of a Tory councillor from Northampton, who was jailed after she called for people to ‘set fire’ to asylum hotels in the wake of the Southport attack in July 2024.

Siobhan Linsley, prosecuting, said Yarwood’s ‘extremely unpleasant posts’ had the potential to trigger disorder at one of three high-profile migrant hotels in Bournemouth, Dorset, near to where he lives.

His barrister argued the posts had 33 views between them and were the ‘impotent rantings of a socially isolated man’ that had no ‘real-world’ consequences.

But Judge Jonathan Fuller said Yarwood’s ‘odious’ tweets were designed to stir up racial hatred and incite violence, and jailed him.

Bournemouth Crown Court heard Yarwood from Burton, near Christchurch, Dorset, made a series of anti-Muslim and anti-immigration posts from December 21, 2024 to January 29, 2025.

It started the day after the car attack in Germany in which six people were killed. At the time misinformation on social media suggested the person responsible was an Islamic extremist.

Yarwood responded to a post that stated thousands of Germans were taking to the streets and they wanted their country back.

Yarwood replied: ‘Head for the hotels housing them and burn them to the ground.’

While further posts by him displayed a ‘rabid dislike’ for foreigners, particularly Islam, these did not stir up racial hatred or incite violence.

For example, Yarwood wrote about the amount of foreign people in Bournemouth, stating: ‘Walking for ages and not hearing a word of English.’

He also wrote of his disgust at seeing ‘asylum seekers outside the hotel staring at young college girls’.

The second illegal tweet was made in response to a post by GB News.

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Has Orwell’s 1984 Become Reality?

To some readers it may seem like a rhetorical question to ask whether the narrative of George Orwell’s dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four (or 1984), first published in Britain in 1949, has somehow left its pages and settled, like an ominous miasma, over the contours of social reality. Yet, closer inspection – which means avoiding compromised mainstream news outlets – discloses a disquieting state of affairs. 

Everywhere we look in Western countries, from the United Kingdom, through Europe to America (and even India, whose ‘Orwellian digital ID system’ was lavishly praised by British prime minister Keir Starmer recently), what meets the eye is a set of social conditions exhibiting varying stages of precisely the no-longer-fictional totalitarian state depicted by Orwell in 1984. Needless to stress, this constitutes a warning against totalitarianism with its unapologetic manipulation of information and mass surveillance. 

I am by no means the first person to perceive the ominous contours of Orwell’s nightmarish vision taking shape before our very eyes. Back in 2023 Jack Watson did, too, when he wrote (among other things):

Thoughtcrime is another of Orwell’s conjectures that has come true. When I first read 1984, I would never have thought that this made up word would be taken seriously; nobody should have the right to ask what you are thinking. Obviously, nobody can read your mind and surely you could not be arrested simply for thinking? However, I was dead wrong. A woman was arrested recently for silently praying in her head and, extraordinarily, prosecutors were asked to provide evidence of her ‘thoughtcrime.’ Needless to say, they did not have any. But knowing that we can now be accused of, essentially, thinking the wrong thoughts is a worrying development. Freedom of speech is already under threat, but this goes beyond free speech. This is about free thought. Everybody should have a right to think what they want, and they should not feel obliged or forced to express certain beliefs or only think certain thoughts. 

Most people would know that totalitarianism is not a desirable social or political set of circumstances. Even the word sounds ominous, but that is probably only to those who already know what it denotes. I have written on it before, in different contexts, but it is now more relevant than ever. We should remind ourselves what Orwell wrote in that uncannily premonitory novel. 

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Anti-Turning Point USA professor used class time to plot disruption: report

A professor who disrupted a Turning Point USA meeting allegedly used class time to organize her protest, The College Fix has learned.

The viral video shows a professor, identified by witnesses as Nicole Rousseau, entering the mid-November kickoff meeting of a new TPUSA club at Purdue University Northwest. She begins to complain about “fascism” and says the center-right group wants to control what people are allowed to say.

“You have a situation here where you want to go into classrooms and you want to tell faculty that they’re not allowed to speak the truth about the history of this country,” Rousseau said.

However, this was no spontaneous protest by a single professor.

“She was strategizing on how to interrupt our group…in her class time,” Vice President Hailey Vanderhye told The Fix during an in-person interview. The group learned of this via a student in Rousseau’s class. The sociology professor also brought a group of students with her to protest the organizational meeting.

The professor also reportedly called Turning Point USA a terrorist group. She wanted to “take down Turning Point and remove us from campus,” President Abby Najacht told The Fix during an on-campus interview Dec. 10.

Rousseau initially ignored the group’s advisor who tried to deescalate the situation when she first entered. Only after the advisor brought in an administrator did she leave.

The sociology professor did not respond to two emails and a voicemail in the past week that asked for comment on the situation. The Fix also asked her to address allegations she used class time to disrupt the meeting. 

Her background is in critical race theory, “historical womanist theory,” and “feminist theory,” according to her curriculum vitae.

She has a history of using her faculty position to try to shut down the free speech rights of other groups. “Served as faculty advisor of student-led protest,” the professor lists on her curriculum vitae. “George Mason University student sit-in protesting anti-gay rhetoric in campus newspaper.”

She has also previously lectured to the board of directors for Planned Parenthood in Northeast Ohio. 

Listed media rep Kale Wilk did not respond to an emailed request for comment Friday on what the school has done to address the situation, if the university encourages or discourages professors from using class time to organize disruptions of student organizations, and for any additional context. The Fix followed up with an email and voicemail on Monday, but Wilk has yet to respond.

The school previously criticized the disruption.

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UK To Introduce ‘Anti-Muslim Hate’ Definition

Ministers in the UK are steeling themselves for a storm of criticism as Communities Secretary Steve Reed prepares to unveil a new official definition of “anti-Muslim hate” this week. 

Critics, led by the Free Speech Union, warn that the expansive terminology risks creating a de facto blasphemy law, stifling legitimate debate on issues like grooming gangs and Islamist terrorism.

The shift away from the term “Islamophobia” aims to provide guidance for public bodies, councils, and businesses in combating prejudice against Muslims. Yet, according to leaked drafts, it could label prejudicial stereotyping or “racialisation designed to incite hate” as hateful acts, potentially encompassing discussions that highlight patterns in crimes predominantly involving Muslim perpetrators.

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Oxford University student, 20, is charged with stirring up racial hatred after allegedly promoting an antisemitic chant at pro-Palestine demonstration

An Oxford University student caught on camera allegedly making antisemitic chants at a pro-Palestine demonstration has been charged with a public order offence.

The Metropolitan Police said Samuel Williams, 20, was charged with stirring up racial hatred at a Palestine Coalition demo in Whitehall, central London, on Saturday, October 11.

He was charged today and will appear before Westminster Magistrates’ Court in the new year.

Williams was identified by the Daily Mail after footage emerged of a man allegedly chanting an antisemitic chant at the pro-Palestine protest.

Williams was arrested at a property in Oxfordshire on suspicion of inciting racial hatred following an investigation launched by Scotland Yard detectives.

The philosophy, politics and economics student at Balliol College was also suspended by Oxford University.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said there had been an ‘unacceptable increase in anti-Semitism’ at universities and added that many Jewish students did not feel safe on campus.

She called on universities to strengthen protections for Jewish students and said the Government was funding training to help staff and students ‘tackle this poison of antisemitism’.

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Sick Leftist Podcast Host Jennifer Welch Claims Charlie Kirk ‘Justified’ His Own Assassination

Leftist podcast host Jennifer Welch has accused Charlie Kirk of “justifying” his own assassination through his pro-Second Amendment stance.

Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was fatally shot during a September speaking event at a college campus in Utah.

Tyler Robinson, 22, a leftist with a transgender furry boyfriend, has been charged with the murder.

During a recent episode of her podcast I’ve Had It, featuring disgraced former CNN anchor Don Lemon, Welch played a clip from CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss interviewing Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk.

In the clip, Weiss asked Erika how she responds to those who “justified” her husband’s death.

Erika replied, “You’re sick. He’s a human being. You think he deserved that? Tell that to my three-year-old daughter.”

Welch, responding to the clip, insisted that Kirk himself provided the justification.

Referencing Kirk’s past comments on gun rights, she said, “The person that I heard that justified his death was him. He’s the one that said on tape that if school kids die, but it means he gets to have a Second Amendment, then that’s-, that’s what it’s gonna be. He’s the one that justified it.”

“And I believe at the time of shooting, he was talking about gun violence at the time,” Welch continued.

Welch was alluding to Kirk’s statements, where he argued that some “gun deaths every single year” are an unfortunate but necessary cost to preserve the Second Amendment and protect other God-given rights.

As noted by Mediaite, Kirk had also advocated for armed guards in schools, rhetorically asking, “If our money and our sporting events and our airplanes have armed guards, why don’t our children?”

Lemon wildly claimed he didn’t “know anyone who justified his death.”

His ridiculous claim ignores the reality of mass celebrations of Kirk’s murder. Celebratory comments were so widespread among leftists that dozens of teachers, professors, coaches, and others were fired for their remarks on social media.

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Minnesota High School Threatens to Suspend Students Who Talk Positively About ICE

A Minnesota high school has threatneed to suspend students who talk positively about Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) agents.

Paul Paetzel, the principal at Edina High School in Minnesota, has warned that making reference to the work of ICE agents and President Trump’s policy of mass deportations goes against the “culture” that his school is trying to foster.

He wrote in a letter parents:

I want to speak directly and proactively about the culture we are committed to creating at Edina High School.

As we continue to grow as a community, it is essential that we are clear about the expectations we hold for language and behavior that honor the dignity of every student.

Making light of immigration threats or referencing ICE in ways that cause fear or humiliation is a serious offense and not representative of our core values.

Behavior of this nature fundamentally violates our commitment to providing a safe and equitable learning environment free from harassment.

Such language and behaviors directly contradict Edina Public Schools’ vision and mission, and what we expect of our students.

If this type of behavior occurs, we will honor the discipline policy and move forward with consequences up to and including suspension.

Our responsibility is to protect every student’s right to feel safe, respected, and valued at school.

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OCC Says 9 Big Banks Took Part In ‘Inappropriate’ Debanking Practices

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has released a report saying that the nine largest lenders in the U.S. made “inappropriate distinctions” that it used to restrict services among certain customers.

Following the signing of an executive order by President Donald Trump in August of this year, the OCC began reviewing all banks for any current or past practices that effectively barred customers on the basis of political or religious belief.

Wednesday, the OCC released its report, saying that it had found conclusive proof that nine large banks had policies that either refused services to some industries or required higher levels of scrutiny that exceeded the actual financial risks between 2020 and 2023.

According to Bloomberg, the banks involved are accused of restricting access to firms in numerous sectors, including oil and gas exploration, coal mining, firearms, private prisons, payday lending, tobacco and e-cigarette manufacturers, adult entertainment, political action committees and digital assets.

The OCC said that many of the banks had publicly disclosed their policies, which were often tied to environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals.

Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould said in a statement:

“It is unfortunate that the nation’s largest banks thought these harmful debanking policies were an appropriate use of their government-granted charter and market power. While many of these policies were undertaken in plain sight and even announced publicly, certain banks have continued to insist that they did not engage in debanking.”

The Bank Policy Institute, which advocates for many of the lenders named in the OCC report, issued a statement saying, “It’s in banks’ best interest to take deposits, lend to and support as many consumers and businesses as possible to drive economic growth. The industry supports fair access to banking and is already working together with Congress and the administration to ensure banks are able to serve law-abiding customers.”

Earlier in the week, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon was dismissive of concerns about debanking, telling Fox News that the issue was mostly made up and that the people concerned about it needed to “grow up”

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