Freedom of Speech Is Dead

[GURPS]

85 Percent of Liberal College Students Support 'Reporting' Their Professors for 'Offensive' Comments​

Would George Orwell, author of the iconic dystopian novel “1984,” be proud? Oh hell, no. He’d admonish us with a stern “I warned you.” Yup, “Big Brother” is alive and well in today’s America, and that reality is nowhere more apparent than on college campuses–on Twitter and Facebook, as well, but we’ll get there.

According to the 2022 American College Student Freedom, Progress, and Flourishing Survey, 56 percent of undergrads support “reporting” professors who “say something offensive.” Worse, but totally predictably, 70 percent of independent students also support the idea, while 85 percent of liberal students agree.

 

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So if your professor refers to a biological man with female pronouns and insists students do the same, he'd be reported?

How about if he says that white people are inherently racist?

 

[Hijinx]

So if your professor refers to a biological man with female pronouns and insists students do the same, he'd be reported?

How about if he says that white people are inherently racist?

Sounds like it would put biology professors out of business.

 

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Young Journalist Gets Chilling Call from South Wales Police for Using Term 'Illegal' and 'Alien'​

How insane is that and what are you supposed to call illegal aliens? That’s a legal term. Just using the term “illegal” or “alien” is now “bad” in the U.K. This is, of course, chilling speech — making people conform to what the government wants you to say and speak so they wouldn’t say the “bad things” because they’ll be too afraid to.

Can we get more Orwellian than this?

It’s seriously nightmarish to see that the U.K. has gotten to this point. And the funny thing about it is that the police officer who called may even think that he’s doing Harvey a favor by telling him this, to help him avoid arrest. But imagine that they’re focused on nutty things like this than what they’re supposed to be focused on — real crime. So not only are they stepping on people’s rights, they’re not dealing with the real problems.


Harvey then notes that folks are trying to attack him calling him a Nazi, but police don’t seem to be interested that he’s offended by that. Harvey says he’s not going to remove the video because he’s a journalist and that’s his job.

 

[herb749]

There will be a new definition for illegal alien soon.

 

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It’s not quite that bad in the US…yet. But the Left is working very very hard to get there. President Biden has already mused that the US government has F-15s ready to go should they be needed to suppress the MAGA crowd. They have even invented a term for people who think and talk like you and me: stochastic terrorists.

A quick search on Google for the term “stochastic terrorism” (the neologism being used to describe the violence of unapproved speech) shows a disturbing growth in the use of the term. (Stochastic terrorism: “The use of mass public communication, usually against a particular individual or group, which incites or inspires acts of terrorism which are statistically probable but happen seemingly at random.”)

Fear not, readers. The Brookings Institution is here to root out stochastic terrorism and aid in its suppression. And since we live in the Internet age, it may yet be possible to avoid the use of using Hellfire missiles and drones and resort to less kinetic tactics, such as deplatforming the offenders. After all, hunting down and killing these dangerous free thinkers should only be a last resort. They are now rating podcasts in a manner that is reminiscent of the Chinese Social Credit score.





Here’s the scary introduction used to reveal their new tool to score podcasts:

In early February 2021, Sen. Ted Cruz and his co-host Michael Knowles were recording a live episode of the podcast Verdict with Ted Cruz when the Texas Republican coined a colorful metaphor to describe Beto O’Rourke’s base. In Cruz’s telling, the Texas Democrat’s core support is made up of “reporters” acting like “groupies at a Rolling Stones concert throwing their underwear” at him. “I mean if they wore underwear,” Cruz added. With a wry expression, he paused. “Too edgy?” he asked. Knowles laughed, dismissing the concern outright: “It’s a podcast—you can say whatever you want.”

Knowles’ assessment of the podcast ecosystem as a space where “you can say whatever you want” is—for the most part—accurate, both with respect to government regulation and platform guidelines. Even as tech companies raced to limit the spread of election-related misinformation across social media platforms in late 2020, prominent political podcasters played a central role in disseminating election fraud narratives in the lead up to January 6, as we have documented. Podcasts also offered a prime avenue for the spread of pandemic-related misinformation, particularly regarding unproven treatments and vaccines. Despite the real-world harms caused by this type of misinformation and the medium’s growing reach and influence, to-date little research has explored the role of podcasting in shaping political conversations due to a myriad of technical and other challenges.

Saying whatever you want!? Gee whiz, we can’t have that! We need to find a way to root out and destroy any venue where the wrong people can dissent from the approved narrative.™

How to stop it? Well, first you need to identify the enemy and fix his location before you destroy him, and that is where Brookings is here to help. They have developed a “dashboard” that identifies and rates trends in podcast discussions.

To help policymakers, researchers, and the tech community better understand podcasting’s role in the information ecosystem, we have developed a dashboard that aggregates political podcast episode data into a single, easy-to-use format and provides an overarching look at the medium in near real time. This data set represents the first publicly available, centralized collection of podcast episode data describing the political podcasting industry in a ready-to-use, downloadable format. We focus on political podcasters, due to both their prominence in the broader media environment and their ability to rapidly shape public opinion and the contours of political debate. We hope that the release of this dashboard and data set will facilitate better monitoring of a medium that has until recently flown under the radar, despite its growing popularity and influence in political conversations.

Until Brookings came out with this tool, prospective censors were left on their own to discover offending content. That is far too random a process, catching only the most prominent offenders to attack viciously and deplatform.

Shut up, they explained

hotair.com

 

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Using The Wrong Pronouns Deemed ‘Abuse’ At Harvard: Report​

Harvard University undergraduates were subjected to a mandatory Title IX training session which claimed that “using the wrong pronouns” constitutes “abuse,” according to training videos reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

The training, according to slides obtained by the Free Beacon, included a “Power and Control Wheel,” which helps students identify “harmful” behaviors. On the outside of the wheel are phrases and words that allegedly “contribute to an environment that perpetuates violence” at the school. Examples include “sizeism and fatphobia,” “cisheterosexim,” “racism,” “transphobia,” “ageism,” and “ableism.” Inside the wheel are what the school deems abusive, including using the wrong pronouns.

The training also included a scenario wherein “Andre” is consistently “messing up Logan’s pronouns” and commenting on his “outfits, hair, and nail polish. The scenario reportedly claims that “Logan” feels “drained and frustrated with again being in a situation to educate his peers on gender identity.”

According to the training, “Andre’s” remarks “contribute to a climate of disrespect and may also violate Harvard’s policies. It may be helpful to reassure [Logan] he is not being oversensitive and the impact he is experiencing is valid.”

 

[GURPS]

Federal Court Deals Major Blow To Big Tech And Sets Up SCOTUS To Restore Free Speech​

Government Interference May Backfire​

To understand Friday’s opinion and, more importantly, the broader implications of anti-censorship laws, it is necessary to gain a basic familiarity with the Miami Herald decision and the other cases the Fifth Circuit analyzed in NetChoice v. Paxton.

In Miami Herald, the Supreme Court held that a Florida statute that required newspapers to grant political candidates the right to equal space to reply to criticism violated the First Amendment rights of the publisher. In reaching this conclusion, the Supreme Court stressed that the newspapers’ decisions concerning the size, content, and treatment of public issues and public officials involved editorial control and judgment protected from state interference by the First Amendment.

Conversely, in PruneYard Shopping Ctr. v. Robins, the Supreme Court held that the state could require privately owned shopping centers to allow individuals to distribute political literature without violating the mall owners’ First Amendment rights. In upholding California’s mandate, the high court reasoned that PruneYard did not involve the concerns present in Miami Herald, namely forced speech through the state telling a newspaper what to print.

Next up was Pacific Gas & Electric Company v. Public Utilities Commission of California. In that case, a plurality of the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional California’s mandate that the utility company let third-party groups include newsletters in the billing statements Pacific Gas sent to customers. In Pacific Gas, the Supreme Court distinguished PruneYard, by stressing that allowing the third-parties’ speech did not affect the shopping center owners’ exercise of their own right to speech, while mandating the inclusion of a third-party’s newsletter affected Pacific Gas’s ability to showcase its own speech, relative to the voice of its opponents.

The fourth case the Fifth Circuit found relevant was Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston. In Hurley, a Massachusetts state court held that the St. Patrick’s Day parade organized by the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council qualified as a public accommodation under state law, and thus the private organization could not exclude an organization of Irish-American gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals from marching in the parade. The parade organizers challenged the state decision, arguing it violated the federal constitutional right to free speech.

 

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So who gets to be offended, just the progbots? Because I'm offended by them all the time and I get told tough chit and that I'm a white supremacist hatemonger.

Hispanics have told progs repeatedly that they don't like being referred to as Latinx, and still the bots persist. Isn't that hate speech? And why isn't it banned?

 

[Hijinx]

Just being white today mean you are a white supremacist, domestic terrorist, semi-fascist , deplorable who is a misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, and a shameless gun worshipping hater.

Now do i find that Offensive? Not in the least because it comes from a pack of cultist liberal morons.

 

[GURPS]

Ardern said that “a lie online or from a podium” might not kill people like previous weapons but eventually it could be as dangerous.

“But what if that lie, told repeatedly, and across many platforms, prompts, inspires, or motivates others to take up arms. To threaten the security of others. To turn a blind eye to atrocities, or worse, to become complicit in them. What then?” she asked.

Watch the video here.

“This is no longer a hypothetical. The weapons of war have changed, they are upon us and require the same level of action and activity that we put into the weapons of old.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, this is one of the most dangerous leaders globally, she is INSANE, she caused the deaths of her people, suffered them, listen to her LUNACY here

She killed her own people with her COVID lockdown lunacy, and now she is calling for our free speech to be regarded as weapons of war. The lies and mistruths came from her, she should be investigated

palexander.substack.com

 

[GURPS]

New Zealand’s prime minister calls freedom of speech on the internet a ‘weapon of war’ at the UN​

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is one of the best examples of authoritarianism in action. This is the country that implemented a nationwide lockdown over ONE case of COVID-19. Ardern was just following the science; as she told the country in 2020, “We will continue to be your single source of truth…. Unless you hear it from us it is not the truth.”

Ardern is very concerned about misinformation. As she told the United Nations, how can you fight climate change if people don’t believe it exists? These climate change deniers as using social media as a “weapon of war.”

 

[GURPS]

Brandon Morse of our sister-site RedState writes:

This is the left admitting where a large portion of their threat to them lies. Your ability to discuss ideas, research, and weigh the evidence for yourself makes pushing narratives far more difficult. They want to cripple the critical thinking skills you develop through the natural process of communication.
There’s a reason the founders made free speech the first God-given right on the list. There is no freedom if there is no free speech. This doesn’t just mean in the physical public square. This also means any .com or social media platform that exists must be able to allow the distribution of information without interference from the government.
Your freedom rests on your ability to communicate your ideas and in today’s world, that’s primarily done on the internet.
Allowing these authoritarians to limit or take that away is a huge stride towards assisting their domination, but the bottom line here is that they have no business being leaders of anything or anyone. As you’ve seen over the past years, these people range from incompetent to malicious, and they should be rejected at every turn.

 

[Kyle]

What a stupid twit.

 

[GURPS]

 

[LightRoasted]

For your consideration ...

She, a "notable", is bought and paid for by Klaus Schwab and the WEF. She, after being taught/trained, is telling UN members what is coming and how to, themselves, spread this message, and take similar actions, within their own countries, or, to face an uncertain wrath. The funny, and most likely true thing of it is, is that these people, at the top, elected politicians, and so forth, that are members, over 1400 in over 120 countries, are most likely members out of fear. They are puppets. Puppets have strings. And can be made to do things they otherwise would not do. Even the psychopaths that are in "leadership" positions understand and feel the fear, and that they have to go along, else, loose their position of power, or life.

Notice that on the WEF website, "The Forum of Young Global Leaders was founded in 2005 by Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, to help shape future leaders who are equipped to both take responsibility for creating a more sustainable and inclusive world, and to address its increasingly complex and interrelated challenges. Today, there are over 1,400 members and alumni from more than 120 countries. Notable members include prime ministers Jacinda Ardern and Sanna Marin, President Carlos Alvarado Quesada of Costa Rica, entrepreneurs Iyinoluwa Aboyeji and Rhea Mazumdar Singhal, peace activist Victor Ochen, and economist Esther Duflo."

Now you know from where she, and others, get their marching orders from. Over 1200 people have sold their souls, (actually paid handsomely for a membership which starts at $500,000, for these "partners"), to the devil for some temporary temporal fame.

From Entrepreneurs to Scientists: Meet the 2022 Class of Young Global Leaders > Press releases | World Economic Forum

 

[GURPS]

Congressman to introduce legislation banning federal agencies from pressing Big Tech to censor​

"It prevents the federal government from partnering with other entities, with these third party groups, with these social media companies, because that is a violation of of our Constitution," he explained. "This bill would prevent the federal government from labeling anything through a proxy entity such as a social media company as disinformation."

According to the Georgia congressman, he has secured several cosponsors but doesn't expect the legislation to pass until Republicans take control of Congress.

"It would also give an opportunity for those people who have been harmed by it to take legal action," Clyde added. "So I think it's a great bill. I've got a number of Republican co-sponsors on it already."

Just the News reported Friday that some private groups worked with two federal agencies to target information involving more than 22 million social posts during the 2020 election.

"This should not be happening — this particular type of censorship, where the government knows that they cannot do it by themselves because of the First Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits it," Clyde said. "And then they decide to partner with another entity, a private entity, a social media platform or university."

 

[GURPS]

There should be absolutely zero expectation that your policy positions will be implemented without any debate. In truly free nations, “tackling” climate change is a policy decision that is sorted out in the democratic process. Or not. What level of climate change rhetoric will Ardern require us to believe? Some of us don’t believe the moral and economic tradeoffs of tackling climate change are worth it. Some of us don’t believe there’s any “climate crisis” at all. I’m not sure there are enough internet speech regulations that will convince many of us otherwise. When that reality sets in, “light touch” regulation will evolve into something a little firmer, no doubt.

And, speaking of misinformation, what will the UN’s Ministry of Truth do about the alarmist predictions of Malthusians, who have been unwaveringly wrong about nearly everything for the past 50 years? Nothing, of course.

As we’ve learned during the coronavirus pandemic, and long before, state officials are themselves quite adept at conveying misinformation. The government has no moral authority in dictating the veracity of speech. In this nation, it has a duty not to. And yet the Biden administration had regularly involved itself in what we talk about, using the same rationalizations as Arden. Take, for instance, the pressuring of rent-seeking Big Tech companies, which oversee huge swaths of our daily digital interactions. Not that long ago, the White House admitted it was “flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.” Under what constitutional authority these actions were justified, it did not share. It has been argued that social media companies “should be held accountable” for the ideas people exchange on platforms. Joe Biden previously accused Facebook of “killing people.” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas even tried creating a “Disinformation Governance Board” to combat “misinformation” — run by the right kind of conspiracy theorist. I assume this is what New Zealand’s prime minister, a hero of the international left, had in mind.

“How do you ensure the human rights of others are upheld if they are subjected to hateful and dangerous rhetoric and ideology?” she asks. Easy. You treat all inalienable liberal “values” — including free expression — as neutral rights.

Sometimes, it’s difficult to believe we have to debate these issues again. Rationalizing state censorship as a means of protecting people from dangerous “misinformation” has been the rationale of every tin-pot authoritarian regime in history. If you still think it’s a good idea, you’re one of the bad guys.

New Zealand's PM Calls For Global Censorship Regime

If you only value speech when it comports with your worldview and beliefs, you do not value it at all.

thefederalist.com

 

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