Tag: wrongthink

Reginald D Hunter has summons for ‘antisemitic’ social media posts quashed as judge rules private prosecution was a bid to get comedian ‘cancelled’

A court summons issued against comedian Reginald D Hunter has been quashed by a court after a judge ruled it was an ‘abusive’ bid to get the comedian ‘cancelled’.

The American comic, who lives in the UK, was the subject of a private prosecution by Jewish group the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA).

It had alleged that he had sent offensive communications to antisemitism campaigner Heidi Bachram three times in 2024, on August 24, September 10 and September 11 on the social platform X, formerly Twitter.

But a summons issued to Mr Hunter, 56, by the CAA was quashed at Westminster Magistrates’ Court by Judge Michael Snow following an application by the defence.

Judge Snow ruled that the CAA had been motivated by a desire to ‘have [Hunter] cancelled’ and that the prosecution was ‘abusive’, adding that the group was seeking to use the criminal justice system for ‘improper reasons’.

He criticised the Jewish organisation for a ‘wholly inadequate’ summary of Ms Bachram’s tweeting in its summary of its application when it came to disclosing her social media posts towards him.

This, he said, ‘misled’ him into believing that the comedian’s tweets were targeting her faith rather than responding to attempts to have him ‘cancelled’.

The private prosecution against Mr Hunter – known for his appearances on panel shows as well as a career of live stand-up – was brought without the involvement of the police or the Crown Prosecution Service.

Keep reading

Victoria Moves to Force Online Platforms to ID Users and Expand State Powers to Curb “Hate Speech”

Victoria is preparing to introduce some of the most far-reaching online censorship and surveillance powers ever proposed in an Australian state, following the Bondi Beach terror attack.

Premier Jacinta Allan’s new five-point plan, presented as a response to antisemitism, includes measures that would compel social media platforms to identify users accused of “hate speech” and make companies legally liable if they cannot.

Presented as a defense against hate, the plan’s mechanisms cut directly into long-standing principles of privacy and freedom of expression. It positions anonymity online as a form of protection for “cowards,” creating a precedent for government-mandated identity disclosure that could chill lawful speech and dissent.

During her announcement, Premier Allan said:

“That’s why Victoria will spearhead new laws to hold social media companies and their anonymous users to account – and we’ll commission a respected jurist to unlock the legislative path forward.”

Under the proposal, if a user accused of “vilification” cannot be identified, the platform itself could be held responsible for damages. This effectively converts private platforms into instruments of state enforcement, obligating them to expose user data or face financial risk.

The Premier also announced plans to accelerate the introduction of the Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Act 2024, which had been due to take effect in mid-2026. It will now be brought forward to April 2026.

The law allows individuals to sue others for public conduct, including online speech, that a “reasonable person” might find “hateful, contemptuous, reviling or severely ridiculing” toward someone with a protected attribute. These protected categories include religion, race, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability, among others.

This framework gives the state and private citizens broad interpretive power to determine what speech is “hateful.” As many civil liberties experts note, such wording opens the door to legal action based on subjective offense rather than clear, objective harm.

Keep reading

Democratic Despotism: The American Left Moves From Censored To Compelled Speech

More than five years ago, I wrote in these pages of a growing trend on the left toward compelled speech – the forcing of citizens to repeat approved views and values. It is an all-too-familiar pattern. Once a faction assumes power, it will often first seek to censor opposing views and then compel the endorsement of approved views.

This week, some of those efforts faced setbacks and challenges in blue states like Washington and Illinois.

In Washington state, many have developed what seems a certain appetite for compelled speech. 

For example, Democrats recently pushed through legislation that would have compelled priests and other clerics to rat out congregants who confessed to certain criminal acts.

Despite objections from many of us that the law was flagrantly unconstitutional, the Democratic-controlled legislature and Democratic governor pushed it through.

The Catholic Church responded to the enactment by telling priests that any compliance would lead to their excommunication.

U.S. District Court Judge Iain D. Johnston enjoined the law, and the Trump Administration sued the state over its effort to turn priests into sacramental snitches. Only after losing in court did the state drop its efforts.

In the meantime, the University of Washington has been fighting to punish professors who refuse to conform to its own orthodox values. In 2022, Professor Stuart Reges triggered a firestorm when he refused to attach a prewritten “Indigenous land acknowledgement” statement to his course syllabi. Such statements are often accompanied by inclusive and tolerant language of fostering different viewpoints in an academic community. However, when Reges decided to write his own land acknowledgment, university administrators dropped any pretense of tolerance.

Reges was not willing to copy and paste onto his syllabus a statement in favor of the indigenous land claim of “the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip, and Muckleshoot nations.” Instead, he wrote, “I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property, the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington.”

His reference to the labor theory is a nod to John Locke, who believed in natural rights, including the right to property created through one’s labor.

Keep reading

PT Deputy Reimont, from the Workers’ Party, presents bill to criminalize dissemination of redpill, MGTOW, and incel in networks due to alleged link with femicides in Brazil

Federal Deputy Reimont, from the Workers’ Party (PT) for Rio de Janeiro and president of the Chamber’s Human Rights Commission, presented on December 15, 2025, Bill 6419/2025, informally known as the «Anti-Redpill PL».

This initiative seeks to classify as a crime the incitement, promotion, financing, organization, or dissemination of organized «misogynistic» discourses, with explicit mention of subcultures such as «redpill», «incel», and «MGTOW».

The text proposes penalties of imprisonment from 3 to 5 years and a fine for promoting or disclosing such discourses, with an increase by half if carried out via the internet or social networks.

It also provides for up to 6 years in prison for joining or supporting misogynistic groups, and aggravating factors for crimes such as threats or violence motivated by these ideologies.

Reimont justifies the measure by alleging a link between these digital communities and the increase in femicides in Brazil, citing cases such as school attacks and gender violence statistics.

This project represents a dangerous authoritarian advance by the PT toward ideological censorship.

Instead of addressing real problems such as impunity in the judicial system or tougher penalties for violent criminals, the leftist government chooses to criminalize opinions and online debates that question dominant feminist narratives.

There is no conclusive evidence establishing direct causality between «redpill» content and femicides; correlations do not imply causation, and criminalizing dissident thoughts violates basic principles of freedom of expression protected by the Brazilian Constitution.

This proposal fits into a leftist pattern of narrative control, similar to previous attempts to regulate discourses on social networks. Instead of combating real crime, it persecutes young people and men who express social frustrations, stigmatizing them as a threat.

The real problem of violence against women requires effective public security policies and good education, not vague laws that open the door to interpretive abuses by the State.

The PL is in the initial processing phase in the Chamber of Deputies, without significant advances so far.

Keep reading

Georgetown Professor Sprints Away, Tries to Assault OMG Cameraman After He’s Caught on Hidden Camera Calling Black Conservatives “Coons” 

A Georgetown professor was caught on hidden camera calling black conservatives “coons” and saying he “works with stupid white people.”

Jonathan Franklin, a Georgetown professor, went on an undercover date with James O’Keefe, and when he realized he was talking to O’Keefe, he flipped out.

O’Keefe’s disguise? A pair of glasses.

Franklin called black podcast host Candace Owens a “sellout” and conservative Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas “coons.”

“I work with stupid white people,” Franklin said.

Franklin actually trashed James O’Keefe while he was on the undercover date with O’Keefe.

“Well, the thing is, I actually am James O’Keefe,” James said as he removed his glasses.

After Franklin found out he was on a ‘date’ with James O’Keefe, he ran out of the restaurant.

When O’Keefe and his cameraman attempted to confront Franklin outside, he tried to assault the cameraman.

Keep reading

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.”

Keep reading

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. 

Keep reading

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.

Keep reading

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. 

Keep reading

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.

Keep reading