2018-12-13 Dem Lieu Would 'love to regulate' Speech & Bemoans the Constitution
2019-04-11 Assange Arrested & Facing US Charges
2019-10-04 NY Times Prints Anti-Free Speech Piece
2022-12-03 Trump Posts About "the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution"
2023-08-21 NY Times prints 'Elections are Bad for Democracy'
2024-07-02 NY Times Says 'The 1st Amendment is Out of Control'
2024-07-29 Gov of CA Gavin Newson Announces a Bill to Make Free Speech Illegal
2024-08-02 Man Arrested for Speech in the UK
2024-08-09 Men Jailed for Speech in the UK
2024-08-15 "Non-Violent Man Jailed for 18 Months After Chanting ‘Who the F*** Is Allah’"
2024-08-27 Australian Politician Says Elon Musk “should be jailed”
2024-08-31 NY Times Questions the US Constitution
2024-12-28 UK to Bolster "Hate Speech" Laws?
2024-09-16 Hillary Clinton Suggests Jailing Americans for 'misinformation'
2024-09-16 FBI Harasses American for Exercising Free Speech
2024-09-17 VP Candidate Waltz Against Free Speech
2024-09-17 CA Gov Newsom Signs Bill Against Free Speech
2024-09-18 Pres Candidate Kamala Threatens to Violate American's Right to Be Free of Unreasonable Search & Seizure
2024-09-19 CA Gov Newsom Threatens Legal Action Against Musk Over Free Speech
2024-09-22 Cortez Against Free Speech
2024-09-23 The New Yorker vs the US Constitution
2024-09-27 Lebowits vs Supreme Court
2024-09-27 Rogan Says Harris & Waltz are a Threat to Freedom
2024-09-28 Kerry Wants a Ministry of Truth
2024-09-30 Gates Wants AI to End Free Speech
2024-09-30 Newsom vs Voting
2024-10-01 Waltz Against Free Speech
2024-10-02 US Dept of Transportation Thinks it Owns the Air
2024-10-03 Judge Blocks Newsom's Traitorous Bill
2024-10-08 Morning Joe Opposes Liberty
2024-10-09 Harris Against Free Speech
2024-10-09 Bitecofer vs Free Speech
2024-10-10 Atlantic vs Free Speech
2024-10-11 Bitecofer vs Free Speech
2024-10-13 Waltz vs Free Speech
2024-10-23 Plot Against X
2024-10-24 Keith Olberman Against Free Speech
2024-10-25 Rogan Calls Out Harris on Free Speech
2024-10 28 NY AG Letitia James Against Free Speech
2024-11-13 UK Police Harass Person for Free Speech
2024-11-14 Psaki vs Free Speech
2024-11-14 UK Boy Harassed for Free Speech
2024-11-14 German Man Violated by Police for Free Speech
2024-11-15 UK Man Violated by Police for Free Speech
2024-11-15 UK Woman Violated by Police for Free Speech
2024-11-16 Trump Against Free Speech
2024-11-17 UK Police Against Free Speech
2024-11-18 UK Woman Gets 20 Months in Prison for Free Speech
2024-11-18 UK Man Jailed for Free Speech
2024-11-30 UK Police Harass Man for Free Speech
2024-12-07 UK Police Against Free Speech
2024-12-07 UK Police Against Free Speech
2024-12-07 UK Police Against Free Speech
2024-12-09 The UK Police Against Free Speech are Inferior People
This section of the Culture War Encyclopedia is concerned with cases of people and agencies opposing basic human rights and inalienable liberties.
This includes public figures such as celebrities and professional liars (politicians), other government agents and agencies, “news” (propaganda) agencies.
Some may ask how it could be possible for opposing sides to both be against freedom. On both the right and the left, there are many who see their own side as being for freedom and the other side as being against it. Such confusion seems to come from the view that fails to recognize that it is not merely left vs right but also authoritarian left/right vs libertarian left/right. See the political compass below.
What I have here is only a small fraction of what I will have in the future if I can manage it so please consider donating and/or subscribing and/or sharing.
California Democrat Ted Lieu bemoaned on Wednesday that though he would “love to be able to regulate the content of speech,” including that on Fox News, he can’t do it because of the U.S. Constitution.
Lieu made the comments during an interview about the testimony of Google CEO Sundar Pichai at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, where he dismissed the allegations that the tech giant amplifies negative stories about Republican lawmakers, saying “if you want positive search results, do positive things."
This article also quotes Lieu as saying that he
“would love to be able to regulate the content of speech. The First Amendment prevents me from doing so, and that's simply a function of the First Amendment, but I think over the long run, it's better the government does not regulate the content of speech,” he continued.
Lieu added that private companies should self-regulate their platforms and said the government shouldn’t interfere.
There’s more context and discussion given in the article. You can see the entire article without adds here.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrives in a police vehicle at Westminster Magistrates court on Thursday in London. He was arrested by Scotland Yard Police Officers inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in Central London. Jack Taylor/Getty Images
Updated at 10:15 a.m. ET
The Justice Department announced charges against Julian Assange on Thursday, setting the stage for an historic legal showdown with the controversial founder of WikiLeaks.
The unsealing of an indictment dated more than a year ago followed a whirlwind reversal of fortune for Assange, who was ejected from the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he confined himself for years and then hauled into custody by officers of the Metropolitan Police.
British authorities have received a request to extradite Assange, they said. He is expected to face a hearing in early May.
Justice Department investigators have described the key role they say that Assange and WikiLeaks played in the Russian attack on the 2016 election, but the charges announced on Thursday allude to an earlier chapter in his long-running drama.
The indictment unsealed on Thursday alleged:
in March 2010, Assange engaged in a conspiracy with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army, to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on U.S. Department of Defense computers connected to ... a U.S. government network used for classified documents and communications.
Manning was tried and convicted for the role she played in releasing U.S. government secrets to WikiLeaks; she served more than six years in prison before her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama.
More recently, Manning was ordered into custody again after a judge found her in contempt of court. Manning reportedly refused to give evidence to a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia in a case also connected to Assange.
It wasn't clear whether the revelations about the existence of that grand jury proceeding could mean there is another indictment in store for Assange. The one the Justice Department unsealed against him on Thursday was dated March 6, 2018.
The Ecuadorian
Assange had been holed up at the embassy in London since 2012, after Ecuador granted him asylum to avoid extradition to Sweden in connection with sexual misconduct allegations.
One of the Swedish cases against Assange expired but another may still pose a legal threat to him.
Elisabeth Massi Fritz, the lawyer representing the unnamed woman who accused Assange of rape, told NPR by email that she and her client would do everything they can to get the Swedish police to re-open the investigation.
That case — and fear by Assange that Stockholm might extradite him to the United States if he went to Sweden to address it — prompted him to confine himself in the Ecuadorian embassy.
British authorities respected the international customs associated with the privileges each nation affords to another's diplomatic facilities and did not venture inside to arrest him.
That changed on Thursday when Ecuador's ambassador said that Quito had revoked its asylum for Assange and the Metropolitan Police officers could come in to serve their warrant.
Protest, support, criticism, controversy
Last week, people gathered outside the embassy after WikiLeaks announced that Assange may be "expelled" from the building within "hours to days."
On the day of his arrest, WikiLeaks pleaded for his protection, tweeting, "Powerful actors, including CIA, are engaged in a sophisticated effort to dehumanise, delegitimize and imprison him."
Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno described the government's decision to withdraw his asylum, describing his "aggressive behavior."
Moreno accused Assange of installing prohibited electronic and distortion equipment, blocking security cameras, mistreating guards, accessing embassy files and threatening the Ecuadorian government.
He also said Assange had intervened in international affairs by working with WikiLeaks to publish leaked Vatican documents.
Meanwhile, in Moscow Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed hopes that "all his rights will be respected."
Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU, gave Assange data it stole in cyberattacks in 2016 so that he could release it as part of Russia's interference in the presidential election, prosecutors say.
The war logs and the State cables
But WikiLeaks first gained notoriety in 2010 when it began to release troves of U.S. government secrets about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the conduct of diplomacy around the world.
The files also revealed the identities of people who had worked in Iraq and Afghanistan, prompting officials to say their lives had been put in danger.
Assange and his supporters have long maintained that he is a journalist and that WikiLeaks is a news organization like those protected by the 1st Amendment and other free-press laws around the world.
Assange's revelations about the conduct of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the internal discussions within the State Department and other such matters amount to journalism and accordingly he has never committed any crime.
What prosecutors allege in the indictment unsealed on Thursday, however, is that Assange helped Manning with the practical hacking of the of the U.S. government systems from which that material was taken.
That suggests the Justice Department's legal case against Assange may depend less on questions about journalism or reportage and more on the alleged conspiracy and cyberattacks.
Any criminal case against Assange may answer many other questions about the other chapters in his story, however.
For example, in January 2019 the Justice Department announced charges against GOP political consultant Roger Stone connected with what authorities called his work as an alleged intermediary between WikiLeaks and Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
Stone's case and Assange's eventual case may answer some questions about the nature of the contacts they and others carried on in 2016.
All the same, Attorney General Bill Barr has said that special counsel Robert Mueller has not established there was a conspiracy between Trump's campaign and the Russians who interfered in the election.
Washington and the world are waiting on a redacted copy of Mueller's full report, which is expected next week.
NPR reporter James Doubek contributed to this report.
Noxious language online is causing real-world violence. What can we do about it?
There has never been a bright line between word and deed. Yet for years, the founders of Facebook and Twitter and 4chan and Reddit — along with the consumers obsessed with these products, and the investors who stood to profit from them — tried to pretend that the noxious speech prevalent on those platforms wouldn’t metastasize into physical violence. In the early years of this decade, back when people associated social media with Barack Obama or the Arab Spring, Twitter executives referred to their company as “the free-speech wing of the free-speech party.” Sticks and stones and assault rifles could hurt us, but the internet was surely only a force for progress.
Further on, this New York Times piece reads,
Noxious speech is causing tangible harm. Yet this fact implies a question so uncomfortable that many of us go to great lengths to avoid asking it. Namely, what should we — the government, private companies or individual citizens — be doing about it?
Nothing. Or at least that’s the answer one often hears from liberals and conservatives alike. Some speech might be bad, this line of thinking goes, but censorship is always worse. The First Amendment is first for a reason.
After one of the 8chan-inspired massacres — I can’t even remember which one, if I’m being honest — I struck up a conversation with a stranger at a coffee shop. We talked about how bewildering it was to be alive at a time when viral ideas can slide so precipitously into terror. Then I wondered what steps should be taken. Immediately, our conversation ran aground. “No steps,” he said. “What exactly do you have in mind? Thought police?” He told me that he was a leftist, but he considered his opinion about free speech to be a matter of settled bipartisan consensus.
I imagined the same conversation, remixed slightly. What if, instead of talking about memes, we’d been talking about guns? What if I’d invoked the ubiquity of combat weapons in civilian life and the absence of background checks, and he’d responded with a shrug? Nothing to be done. Ever heard of the Second Amendment?
Using “free speech” as a cop-out is just as intellectually dishonest and just as morally bankrupt. -For one thing, the First Amendment doesn’t apply to private companies.
The author of this New York Times piece goes on to argue that because American people, not private companies have constitutional rights, American people do not have the right to free speech on privately owned social media platforms.
The author then writes that Powell equates the right to not have someone invade your property and burn wood on your property to the right to burn wood on your own property.
“Racists should have rights,” he explained. “I also know, being black and having black relatives, what it means to have a cross burned on your lawn. It makes no sense for the law to be concerned about one and ignore the other.”
This New York Times piece then claims that this indicates that Powell “is a free-speech advocate”. Also,
“We need to protect the rights of speakers,” John A. Powell, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told me, “but what about protecting everyone else?”
The author also writes,
In one of our conversations, Mr. Powell compared harmful speech to carbon pollution: People are allowed to drive cars. But the government can regulate greenhouse emissions, the private sector can transition to renewable energy sources, civic groups can promote public transportation and cities can build sea walls to prepare for rising ocean levels. We could choose to reduce all of that to a simple dictate: Everyone should be allowed to drive a car, and that’s that. But doing so wouldn’t stop the waters from rising around us.
On December 3, 2022, Donald Trump posted the following [archive] on Truth Social…
As I write this on September 19, 2024, Trump’s post has been archived 394 times (see here) but is not to be found currently [archive].
It seems clear that Trump realized how wrong he was and that he wants to cover that up.
if we want public office to have integrity, we might be better off eliminating elections altogether.
If you think that sounds anti-democratic, think again. The ancient Greeks invented democracy, and in Athens many government officials were selected through sortition — a random lottery from a pool of candidates. In the United States, we already use a version of a lottery to select jurors. What if we did the same with mayors, governors, legislators, justices and even presidents?
Sure, let’s let random idiots who have been lied to hold office. Sure, let’s let people who are mostly wrong about most things most of the time hold power over other people because, as Grant argues, “that’s a risk I’m willing to take”.
I am sure we can just trust that Grant is a ethical and wise person! It’s not as if these people lie, right? We should all be stupid enough to not laugh at Grant or mock him in public for the rest of his vile life. I am sure Grant’s claims are valid. For example, when he writes that unelected people are more democratic leaders1 than elected people, we should fail to notice the contradiction in that statement which amounts to claiming that non-X is more X than X, we should agree just as readily as we should agree that 2 + 2 = 5.
solution is like trying to solve DeflateGate by burning down every football stadium.
Oh, but the professional liar Grant who wrote the opinion piece for the New York Times pretends that his position is supported by science. Well, we all know we can trust what professional liars in the mainstream media claim about “the” science. We should disregard that no matter what he claims a soft-science study supports, nothing can change the fact that not-X can not be more X than X. We should just drool on ourselves and agree. After all, he claims that elections do not
give a fair shot to people who aren’t tall enough or male enough to win
so elections are racist, transphobic and heightist. His point that people who want political power can be characterized by
what psychologists call the dark triad of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy
is valid. His solution (to get rid of elections and to trust the most corrupt (politicians) to decide who will be installed into office) is not.
He argues that only the rich can run for office. Rather than arguing, as I have, that we should get rid of all campaign finance and make it so that candidates who run for office have no need to raise huge amounts of money to promote themselves, he argues for getting rid of voting itself.
Notice, also, that he did not argue that those who run for office could be screened for narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy and that test results could be released tot he public. I am not suggesting that the government could be trusted to create such a filter. But such a suggestion would be more reasonable than his argument against elections.
Besides, he argues, the disputes regarding gerrymandering and the Electoral College and vote counting can be happily avoided by getting rid of voting itself! Smart man. Ethical, too. In response to this New York Times piece, Joshua Arnold wrote for Washing Stand,
The New York Times did not publish Grant’s essay in a vacuum. The Left regularly attacks the Electoral College, state control of elections and districts, and the security of the elections themselves. In fact, the direct frontal assault on elections themselves — always in the name of democracy — did not originate here. The Guardian, a left-wing British paper, published a nearly identical title seven years ago, “Why Elections Are Bad for Democracy.” Grant’s article also notes that a group styling itself “Democracy in Practice” “works with schools [in Bolivia] to replace student council elections with lotteries” — which is anything but democracy in practice.
Meanwhile, a CBS News/NORC survey has recorded that a not-insignificant numbers of Americans believe that the use of force is justified to either restore Trump to the presidency (6.9%) or prevent Trump from being president (11.6%). That’s a sixth of the population. On live television, CBS News portrayed a graphic extrapolating that number out across the entire U.S. adult population to 18 million and 30 million Americans, respectively.
When did so many people turn their backs on peaceful, legitimate means to transfer power according to the will of the people? It started when Washington — particularly the executive branch — acquired too much power. And it accelerated as elites promoted the idea.
Does the New York Times care if democracy survives?
I ask this question sincerely, because the Times’ political coverage sometimes makes me wonder.
On most subjects, the Times’ values are transparent. When it publishes a recipe, I know it wants the dish to taste good. But when it’s writing about the MAGA assault on democracy, the Times’ values are not nearly as clear.
The Times seems to make the defense of democracy a lower priority than appearing “balanced” on Democrats vs. Republicans. And it apparently thinks it’s savvy to be cynical. That’s why it depicts right-wing misbehavior as crafty maneuvering, such as describing Ron DeSantis’ attacks on education as “building his brand” and Nikki Haley’s shiftiness on the issues as ”an ability to massage her message to the moment.”
A Supreme Court ruling had the New York Times saying “the quiet part out loud” with an attack targeting “*your* freedom of speech.”
Leftist bureaucracy has readily been summed up as rules for thee but not for me, and Tuesday The Gray Lady grew a shade more drab with an op-ed bemoaning the pinnacle of the Bill of Rights. Penned by Columbia University law professor Tim Wu, who previously served as a special assistant to President Joe Biden on the National Economic Council, the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to remand the two NetChoice cases gave cause for the headline, “The First Amendment Is Out of Control.”
. . .
In response to the op-ed, self-described “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk took to his own social media platform X and surmised, “The New York Times is attacking *your* freedom of speech!”
Tacking on to the tech entrepreneur’s assertion that the newspaper wanted to be treated differently than the rest of society, Utah Sen. Mike Lee (R) added, “Surely The New York Times doesn’t want the First Amendment repealed or narrowed–unless it’s granted special privileges others don’t have. I suspect that’s the point.”
Here’s more from the piece…
On July 29, 2024, Gavin Newson, Democrat Governor of California posted this [archive]…
A man who operated two websites that spread far-right propaganda and encouraged terrorism has been jailed.
Colin McNeil, 46, ran the online sites which featured racist documents, images and videos glorifying Hitler, the Nazis and prominent Neo-Nazis.
The websites also honoured men who committed racist mass killings, including Brenton Tarrant, who murdered 51 people in and around two mosques in Christchurch New Zealand in 2019.
McNeil, from Leeds, did not create the material but provided a platform for it to reach its audience
McNeil pleaded guilty to four offences of disseminating a terrorist publication at Sheffield Crown Court on April 11, 2024.
At the same court today, he was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment.
The prosecution followed an investigation by Counter Terrorism Police North East.
Bethan David, Head of the CPS Counter Terrorism Division, said: “Colin McNeil allowed his websites to operate as propaganda platforms for far-right terrorist material.
“He profited from the sites in the form of donations from users, and it is clear that others were inspired by the hateful and racist material they were able to access online – including those from overseas.
“McNeil’s actions were quite deliberate; he knew full well that there was a risk that terrorism would be encouraged and yet he permitted access to such material anyway.
“The CPS will always seek to prosecute those who encourage terrorism when our legal test is met.”
Image from the Guardian, captioned: Jordan Parlour (left) and Tyler Kay are the first people charged for posting criminal messages online linked to the recent unrest. Composite: West Yorkshire Police/Northamptonshire Police/PA
Two men have been sent to prison for stirring up hatred and violence online after the Southport attack, in the first cases of their kind linked to the recent riots seen across the country.
Jordan Parlour, 28, was jailed for 20 months after pleading guilty to inciting racial hatred with Facebook posts in which he advocated an attack on a hotel in Leeds as part of the violent public disorder that swept England last week.
In Northampton, Tyler Kay, 26, was given three years and two months in prison for posts on X that called for mass deportation and for people to set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers.
They are the first people to be charged for posting criminal messages online linked to the recent far-right violence.
Parlour’s post said: “Every man and their dog should be smashing [the] fuck out [of] Britannia hotel.” More than 200 refugees and asylum seekers lived at the hotel. The initial post received six likes, but could be forwarded more widely owing to Parlour’s privacy settings.
Passing sentence on Friday, the judge, Guy Kearl KC, accepted Parlour took no part in the violence but said: “There can be no doubt you were inciting others to do so.
“You went on to say that you did not want your money going to immigrants who ‘rape our kids and get priority’,” Kearl said. “You were encouraging others to attack a hotel which you knew was occupied by refugees and asylum seekers.”
A 61-year-old English man has been jailed for 18 months in relation to an anti-migration protest-turned-riot in London in which he was filmed shouting, “Who the f*** is Allah?”
Despite not being accused of engaging in any actual violent actions himself, David Spring, of Longfellow Road in Sutton, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for comments he made during a Downing Street anti-mass migration protest that descended into a riot in the wake of the Southport mass stabbing that left three young girls dead.
Spring, a 61-year-old former train driver, pleaded guilty to “violent disorder” after the court was shown footage of him making “threatening gestures” towards police and chanting, “Who the f*** is Allah?”
The local Sutton & Croydon Guardian newspaper reports that upon his arrest on August 8th, Spring told officers: “I didn’t go up to London to riot. I went to complain about people put up in hotels.”
Defending Spring, Piers Kiss-Wilson told the court that his client wished to express that he was embarrassed by his behaviour and that he was sorry to his ill wife and his family, “who don’t deserve this.”
Even though Spring did not commit any violent acts, Judge Benedict Kelleher said that an 18 month sentence was justified as his chants “could and it seems did encourage others to engage in disorder.” Kelleher also argued that prison time for Spring was appropriate as it would serve to deter others from engaging in similar acts.
The decision has sparked widespread debate in the UK, with many on social media claiming that Spring’s sentence demonstrated that there are backdoor “blasphemy laws” against Islam in Britain.
Former Brexit Party MEP Martin Daubney described the decision to jail Spring as “jackboot justice,” lamenting: “We’ve gone from #TwoTierJustice to de facto blasphemy laws in less than a week!”
“18 months prison for an offensive chant? Except if it’s ‘Nazi scum, off our streets!’ to war veterans or “From the river to sea” to Jews,” Daubney noted.
Spring’s imprisonment for a speech crime comes as Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces calls of hypocrisy over his government’s hardline approach to the riots, with over 1,000 arrests, some of whom were not even involved in actual rioting but were nonetheless arrested over posts on social media.
This week, resurfaced comments from Starmer’s time as the Director of Public Prosecutions in 2013 showed that he had previously argued against launching too many criminal investigations over social media posts, warning that it would have a “chilling effect” on freedom of speech.
The jailing of Spring also came as another man was sentenced to prison over the anti-mass migration riots, despite the court finding that he did not actually engage in violence.
Army veteran Gary Harkness, 51, was sentenced this week to a year in prison by the Plymouth Crown Court for being present and “making a nuisance of himself” during disorder in Plymouth’s city centre, the Daily Mailreports.
Harkness, who suffers from PTSD from his time in the Army, was reportedly drunk during the riot, however, Judge Robert Linford admitted: “You are the person that provides me with the most difficulty because it cannot be levelled that you hit anyone, neither have you thrown anything, neither is it said that you spat at anybody.”
The veteran told the court that he was “not a racist” and claimed to have no political affiliation. Yet, the judge ultimately determined that “anybody party to this disorder has to receive a custodial sentence.”
Meanwhile, a double standard exists because the following is apparently tolerated [archive here]…
On August 27, 2024, Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPsycho) posted this [archive]…
The move would be a reversal of changes to the laws brought in last year by the Tories
Yvette Cooper is considering strengthening hate crime laws to tackle antisemitic and Islamophobic abuse, despite fears growing about the possible curtailing of free speech.
The Home Secretary is understood to be considering a new “zero-tolerance” approach, which would see police officers encouraged to record more non-criminal hate incidents.
Yvette Cooper is considering strengthening hate crime laws to tackle antisemitic and Islamophobic abuse, despite fears growing about the possible curtailing of free speech.
The Home Secretary is understood to be considering a new “zero-tolerance” approach, which would see police officers encouraged to record more non-criminal hate incidents.
The move would be a reversal of changes to the laws brought in last year by the Tories, who issued new guidance that ordered the force to stop recording incidents just because someone was offended.
Coming into effect in June 2023, officers are currently restricted to only recording incidents motivated by “intentional hostility” and “where there is a “real risk of escalation causing significant harm or a criminal offence”.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is considering strengthening hate crime laws to tackle antisemitic and Islamophobic abuse PA
The changes were implemented in a bid to preserve free speech after concernswere raised it was being curtailed.
One “trivial” case included a man accusing his neighbour of racial hatred after he whistled the Bob the Builder theme tune at him, whilst a student who was added to police files after scuffing a copy of the Quran caused Suella Braverman to act and implement the changes.
However, Labour believes the current guidance stops police officers from monitoring tensions and threats towards Jewish and Muslim communities.
Home Office sources have insisted that incidents would only be recorded where “proportionate and necessary” and that free speech would be protected.
Since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel last year, there has been a sharp increase in antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents in the UK REUTERS
A source from the Government department said: “The Home Office has committed to reverse the decision of the previous Government to downgrade the monitoring of anti-semitic and Islamophobic hate, at a time when rates of those incidents have increased.
“It is vital that the police can capture data relating to non-crime hate incidents when it is proportionate and necessary to do so in order to help prevent serious crimes which may later occur.
“We are carefully considering how best to protect individuals and communities from hate whilst also balancing the need to protect the fundamental right to free speech.”
Since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel last year, there has been a sharp increase in antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents in the UK.
Suella Braverman introduced the changes last year PA
Antisemitic episodes hit a record of 4,103 last year, which was double the previous year’s high, while Islamophobic incidents tripled to 2,010.
Before the July 4 election, Cooper spoke about the “disturbing rise” in abuse following October 7.
“There is no place for hatred or prejudice on Britain’s streets,” she said.
“There must be zero tolerance for anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and for the hateful vitriol that devastates lives and corrodes communities here in the UK.
“That’s why Labour is calling for stronger action to tackle and monitor hate to ensure that events unfolding internationally do not increase tensions or sow the seeds of hatred here in our communities.”
On August 31, 2024, New York Times published “The Constitution Is Sacred. Is It Also Dangerous?” by Jennifer Szalai [archive] in which she considers the arguments such as that the Constitution is “essentially antidemocratic”, that it is “one of the biggest threats to America’s politics” or even the argument (put forth by Chemerinsky, reportedly the dean of Berkeley’s law school) that the Constitution
has put the country “in grave danger,”
She writes also,
The argument that what ails the country’s politics isn’t simply the president, or Congress, or the Supreme Court, but the founding document that presides over all three, has been gaining traction, especially among liberals.
You now sense the tone. However, I recommend that you read the whole piece.
On September 16, 2024, @EndWokeness posted this [archive]…
California now has the nation’s most aggressive law in place on AI-generated content before the November election.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the country’s toughest law banning digitally altered political “deepfakes” on Tuesday, following through on a vow to act after rebuking Elon Musk for sharing a doctored video of Vice President Kamala Harris.
The new California law — which will take effect before the November election —channels rising alarm about artificial intelligence’s capacity to disrupt elections by sowing misinformation, with voters increasingly confronted with deepfake images and audio impersonating candidates. Musk, who owns X, stoked that debate when he shared the AI-altered video of Harris in July, drawing Newsom’s public promise to prohibit similar practices.
“I could care less if it was Harris or Trump,” Newsom told Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff during a conversation on Tuesday. “It was just wrong on every level.”
Newsom also signed a companion bill on Tuesday that targets deepfakes by compelling platforms to pull down such content when users flag them, although that bill will not take effect until next year. He signed a third measurerequiring disclaimers on political ads that use AI.
Further on, he writes,
Newsom signed the measures on the same day Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the front-runner to become California’s next senator, helped introduce a similar bill to ban fraudulent AI campaign ads. Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco highlighted AI threats, including those emanating from foreign adversaries, during POLITICO’s AI and Tech summit on Tuesday.
An other important portion of the article reads,
The California ban on campaign deepfakes will allow courts to issue injunctions blocking people from distributing intentionally deceptive political content during election season, and it exposes people who share deepfakes to civil penalties.
The bill was intentionally written to take effect before the November election.
Also on September 17, 2024, this was posted [archive]…
Billionaire businessman Elon Musk has torn into California's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom for outlawing deceptive political AI videos or deepfakes, saying "The Joker is in charge."
Musk, a Donald Trump-supporter, and frequent critic of Newsom, the Democratic Party, and left-wing policy in California, made a series of posts on his social media platform X, Wednesday and Thursday, claiming that Newsom's law is an infringement on free speech.
Newsom signed the law on Tuesday which bans digitally altered political videos. He promised to sign such a law in late July after Musk reposted a deepfake video of Vice President Kamala Harris where she appears to expose herself as an incompetent presidential candidate.
This year marks the first U.S. presidential election where AI-deepfake videos of politicians have been prominently shared on social media. Whether they are substantially defamatory, which is not protected by the First Amendment, or if they are satire, which is protected, or something else entirely, has not been conclusively settled in U.S. law.
In reply to a post condemning Newsom's law, which taunts "memes are illegal", Musk writes: "The Joker is in charge," and he also reposts a picture of Newsom alongside the Batman villain.
He also reposted the initial deepfake video which provoked Newsom into passing the law, writing "You're not gonna believe this, but @GavinNewsom just announced that he signed a LAW to make parody illegal, based on this video."
Replying to a post which said "and some people still wonder why X moved out of California," Musk wrote: "hard to be a free speech platform in a state that wants to ban free speech."
You can read the rest of the article for free here.
Also on September 18, 2024, an account called Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) posted this [archive]…
Clown candidate Tim Walz wants to ban free speech in America.
Democrats want you silenced!
. . .
Minnesota nutcase Tim Walz also wants to ban speech in America.
Tim Walz: I think we need to push back on this. There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.
Someone needs to send Tim Walz a copy of the US Constitution.
Elon Musk weighed on on Walz’s tyrannical desires.
Elon makes it simple, “He wants to take away your right to free speech in America.”
Gavin Newsom continued his feud with Elon Musk Thursday, threatening to sue the Tesla CEO over his use of memes and deepfakes that he claims 'hurt democracy'.
Musk accused Newsom of 'making parody illegal' after the governor signed three bills to crack down on the use of AI to create fake images in videos and political ads.
Newsom denied the idea that he was stopping parodies but attempted to lay down the law with the CEO of X, whom he referred to as a 'conservative blogger'.
This begs the question; should a person so ignorant that they refer to Musk as a 'conservative blogger' be in charge of much more than a mop and bucket? Later in the piece, Governor Newsom is quoted as saying,
'The law asserts that many can seek injunction relief. I just signed the law and I haven't had a chance to review [any] specific lawsuit involving a conservative blogger', an apparent reference to Musk.
Video of Newsom declaring the possibility of legal action against Musk made its way to the SpaceX chief, who simply responded on social media: 'Amazing'.
They included the following post…
The governor signed the bills to loud applause during a conversation with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff at an event hosted the major software company during its annual conference in San Francisco.
The new laws reaffirm California's position as a leader in regulating AI in the US, especially in combating election deepfakes.
The state was the first in the US to ban manipulated videos and pictures related to elections in 2019.
Measures in technology and AI proposed by California lawmakers have been used as blueprints for legislators across the country, industry experts said.
With AI supercharging the threat of election disinformation worldwide, lawmakers across the country have raced to address the issue over concerns the manipulated materials could erode the public's trust in what they see and hear.
'With fewer than 50 days until the general election, there is an urgent need to protect against misleading, digitally-altered content that can interfere with the election,' Assembly member Gail Pellerin, author of the law banning election deepfakes, said in a statement.
'California is taking a stand against the manipulative use of deepfake technology to deceive voters.'
The new California laws come the same day as members of Congress unveiled federal legislation aiming to stop election deepfakes.
The bill would give the Federal Election Commission the power to regulate the use of AI in elections in the same way it has regulated other political misrepresentation for decades.
The FEC has started to consider such regulations after outlawing AI-generated robocalls aimed to discourage voters in February.
Further on, the author writes,
He also signed two other bills Tuesday to protect Hollywood performers from unauthorized AI use without their consent.
This article concludes.
'X and Musk are raising the temperature of politics dangerously and irresponsibly at a critical moment,' said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.
On September 23, 2024, TheNew Yorker published, “Is It Time to Torch the Constitution?” byLouis Menand (“a staff writer at TheNew Yorker”) in which he discusses Erwin Chemerinsky, the (“highly respected” according to the author) dean of the law school at the University of California at Berkeley, a scholar of constitutional law and a “a political progressive” and his latest book titled, No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States in which, the author of this New Yorker article states,
Chemerinsky doesn’t just want to amend the Constitution, either. He wants us to throw it out and come up with a new one.
Also,
Chemerinsky also thinks that the Internet, and especially social media, must be policed. “Future elections will be decided because of false speech circulated over social media,” he predicts, although, as something of a First Amendment absolutist himself, he has trouble coming up with concrete suggestions for prohibiting the circulation of misinformation.
Speaking of misinformation, according to what the author writes about Chemerinsky’s views, the author’s characterization of Chemerinsky as “something of a First Amendment absolutist” in not an accurate. We cite the (free speech) absolutists section of the First Amendment Encyclopedia of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University by Timothy J. O'Neill. To characterize what, in my view, is an extremist view on speech as being “something of a First Amendment absolutist” view is, in my opinion, explainable only as deliberate disinformation in attempt to normalize an anti-free-speech view.
At any rate, being that this is a New Yorker piece written by a New Yorker staff writer, it is very long and, well, “I can’t structure this” because it’s “that sprawling New Yorker shit” as Charlie Kaufman says in the film Adaptation.
The point is that this New Yorker staff writer seems to be trying to pass off Chemerinsky, who “thinks that the Internet, and especially social media, must be policed” as “something of a First Amendment absolutist”.
In my personal opinion, this seems like weighty propaganda piece hurled headlong at the Overton Window at top speed to nudge it towards the authoritarian left corner of the political compass.
Image from the political compass section of the Culture War Encyclopedia.
On September 27, 2024, Fran Lebowitz said this [archive]…
Joe Rogan says he's worried about whether Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are committed to the First Amendment:
JOE ROGAN: The more we have platforms where that stuff is just free -- where you can just say whatever you want, say whatever you think about anything -- which really X and Rumble are the only places that I know of that you could really do that right now. ... All they would have to do is just put images of you and images of me and then have our audio and upload that as a video and then maybe they would start coming after audio. ... I don't think it turns around if Kamala Harris gets into office, I think they clamp down more.
I think the same stuff that they were trying to do with Twitter, they'll try to do with something else and with other things -- they've already openly discussed it. You know, she's openly discussed that the same rules have to apply to Facebook, they have to apply to Twitter, and that Elon Musk could lose his privileges.
There are so many wild things that they're saying. Tim Walz said that the First Amendment doesn't apply to misinformation or hate speech.
OK, well, it certainly does. It does, you know, sometimes people say things wrong. The goal of the First Amendment is you say something wrong and then this guy who was an expert says the right thing, you know, and then you correct them.
Misinformation, it's all opinion, right? So much of it turns out to be true.
How about masks don't work? You would get screamed at for saying masks don't work well, guess what? They don't work. They don't work.
Fauci said masks don't work. Remember that interview before the pandemic, before they knew how big it was gonna be? He was like, you don't have to wear a mask. Then it was wear two, then it was put two face diapers on. It's bananas how easily people fell in line. That scared me the most.
On September 28, 2024, End Wokeness posted this [archive here]…
John Kerry claims that there is such a thing as a “right to govern” that can be “won” with enough votes so that the (Democrat) government can then be “free to be able to implement” what amounts to blatant violation of the First Amendment. Free speech? He wants to, “just, you know, hammer it out of existence.”
He complains that, “our First Amendment stands as a major block” to just, like, you know, getting rid of that inconvenient freedom of speech law thing or whatever. Therefore, Kerry says,
what we need is to win the ground, win the right to govern, by hopefully winning enough votes that you're free to be able to implement change.
That is, to pass and enforce unconstitutional “laws” against freedom of speech.
JOHN KERRY: The dislike of and anguish over social media is just growing and growing. It is part of our problem, particularly in democracies, in terms of building consensus around any issue. It's really hard to govern today. You can't -- the referees we used to have to determine what is a fact and what isn't a fact have kind of been eviscerated, to a certain degree. And people go and self select where they go for their news, for their information. And then you get into a vicious cycle.
So it is really hard, much harder to build consensus today than at any time in the 40-50 years I've been involved in this.
You know there's a lot of discussion now about how you curb those entities in order to guarantee that you're going to have some accountability on facts, etc.
But look, if people only go to one source, and the source they go to is sick, and, you know, has an agenda and they're putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence.
So what we need is to win the ground, win the right to govern, by hopefully winning enough votes that you're free to be able to implement change.
Obviously, there are some people in our country who are prepared to implement change in a whole other way, but --
...
I think democracies are very challenged right now and have not proven they can move fast enough of big enough to deal with the challenges they are facing, and to me, that is part of what this election is all about. Will we break the fever in the United States?
Also on September 30, 2024, this was posted [archive]. Note that this, um, intellectual (*snicker*) says that daily, on the internet, “you have billions of activity” so free speech must be banned by AI.
On this same day, Gunther Eagleman posted this [archive]…
A California law signed by Governor Gavin Newsom late last month that was in direct reaction to his disgust at AI parodies of his friend Vice President Kamala Harris has been struck down after US District Judge John A. Mendez ruled that it was in violation of the First Amendment. The Plaintiff in the case has been granted a preliminary injunction, stopping the law from going into effect while the case goes forward.
"Most of AB 2839 acts as a hammer instead of a scalpel, serving as a blunt tool that hinders humorous expression and unconstitutionally stifles the free and unfettered exchange of ideas which is so vital to American democratic debate," he wrote. The bill blocked the posting or distribution of AI or deepfakes that is "materially deceptive" concerning elections during the periods leading up to and following elections.
Further on, Emmons writes,
Journalist Michael Shellenberger shared details of the ruling on X. "Brilliant and bravo," he wrote, quoting the ruling, "In New York Times v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court held that even deliberate lies (said with 'actual malice') about the government are constitutionally protected. These same principles safeguarding the people's right to criticize government and government officials apply even in the new technological age when media may be digitally altered: civil penalties for criticisms on the government like those sanctioned by AB 2839 have no place in our system of governance."
In the ruling, Mendez wrote, "AB 2839 does not pass constitutional scrutiny because the law does not use the least restrictive means available for advancing the State's interest here. As Plaintiffs persuasively argue, counter speech is a less restrictive alternative to prohibiting videos such as those posted by Plaintiff, no matter how offensive or inappropriate someone may find them."
In my view, the term ‘least restrictive means’ is important to understand. In “Least Restrictive Means” by Scott Johnson, published by the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University January 1, 2017 and updated July 2, 2024 [archive], we read,
The least restrictive means test provides extensive protection for freedom of expression.
Least restrictive means test applies when weighing government and First Amendment rights.
This test is part of the “strict scrutiny” applied by the courts to a law that restricts First Amendment or other constitutionally guaranteed rights, when government interest must be weighed against constitutional rights. To pass the test, a law must use the least speech-restrictive means possible to achieve a compelling state interest.
For example, in United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group (2000) the Court struck down a federal law requiring cable operators to fully scramble sexually explicit programming or relegate it to late-night hours.
The Court ruled that this content-based law failed to meet strict scrutiny requirements because there was a less restrictive means of ensuring that minors did not access sexually explicit programming. The less restrictive alternative was another provision of the federal telecommunications law that cable operators must block individual channels if a parent-subscriber makes such a request.
Returning to Libby Emmons’ Post Millennial article,
Mendez' ruling is in favor of the axiom that the cure for bad speech is simply more speech, not restrictions on speech. He continued, saying that especially where political speech is concerned, "Counter speech is the tried and true buffer and elixir, not speech restriction."
"AB 2839," Mendez ruled, "is unconstitutional because it lacks the narrow tailoring and least restrictive alternative that a content based law requires under strict scrutiny." He also went on to address the Harris fake that Newsom had objected to, saying that the video portrayed Harris as saying she is "the ultimate diversity hire," noting that after Musk shared it, it got over 100 million views on X alone.
After Newsom signed the bill into law, Musk shared the video again, saying, "The governor of California just made this parody video illegal in violation of the Constitution of the United States. Would be a shame if it went viral."
The ruling stated that "at face value, AB 2839 does much more than punish potential defamatory statements since the statute does not require actual harm and sanctions any digitally manipulated content that is 'reasonably likely' to 'harm' the amorphous 'electoral prospects' of a candidate or elected official."
Further, it stated that "all 'deepfakes' or any content that 'falsely appear[s] to a reasonable person to be an authentic record of the content depicted in the media' are automatically subject to civil liability because they are categorically encapsulated in the definition of 'materially deception content' used throughout the statute." In other words, the law as written preemptively punishes content that does not even create harm, simply based on the perception that it could.
Musk's sharing of the joke ad at Harris' expense became a controversy on social media platform X simply because everyone could weigh in on the joke that launched the censorship law and the two men going head-to-head over it. Musk, a free speech absolutist, posted, "California’s unconstitutional law infringing on your freedom of speech has been blocked by the court. Yay!"
"Stop using the Internet as an excuse for censorship," Shellenberger said, again quoting the ruling: "'whatever the challenges of applying the Constitution to ever-advancing technology, the basic principles' of the First Amendment 'do not vary' and Courts must ensure that speech, especially political or electoral speech, is not censored."
"Dear Gavin Newsom, You lost. This is America. We don't want your totalitarianism here. Don't bother appealing."
On October 8, 2024, Morning Joe more-or-less announced their opposition to American liberty with this [archive]…
Also on October 9, 2024, a blue check marked “political strategist, national political analyst” Rachel Bitecofer posted this [archived here]…
On October 10, 2024 updated October 11, 2024, Atlantic published “I’m Running Out of Ways to Explain How Bad This Is” by Charlie Warzel (“staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of its newsletter Galaxy Brain”). Spit take warning: do not have food or drink in your mouth while reading the following. In this piece, Warzel writes that journalists and election workers
attend to and describe the world as it is.
In this piece, he makes claims about people believing in weather control conspiracy theories and about people believing reports about how FEMA is handing this hurricane season and so on. In fact, he goes on and on. Basically, his message is, “People don’t trust professional liars as much as they used to, so, I mean, like, something has to be done. Death threats are bad, right? Well, so is misinformation. I won’t say it out loud, but, you know, like, what we call disinfo is dangerous speech, so, you know…”
He actually writes,
What’s happening in America today is something darker than a misinformation crisis.
…and…
this is more than just a misinformation crisis. To watch as real information is overwhelmed by crank theories and public servants battle death threats is to confront two alarming facts: first, that a durable ecosystem exists to ensconce citizens in an alternate reality, and second, that the people consuming and amplifying those lies are not helpless dupes but willing participants.
After many paragraphs, he writes that the FEMA Administrator said that “misinformation” makes FEMA staff feel unsafe and unwilling to do their job out in the field. Interesting. One might think that the FEMA director might not want to advertise the fragility, unwillingness to help and the, well, overall lack of professionalism of FEMA workers. But I suppose one would be projecting their own common sense onto what is, we might do well to recall, a federal government figure.
In Pensacola, North Carolina, Assistant Fire Chief Bradley Boone vented his frustrations on Facebook: “I’m trying to rescue my community,” he said in a livestream. “I ain’t got time. I ain’t got time to chase down every Facebook rumor … We’ve been through enough.”
…one might wonder why he has the leisure time to complain about anything on social media and whether someone who should be professional should even admit to having such a lack of professionalism so as to be browsing on social media and getting upset over words. If one is upset over social media comments, does this not suggest that one is not dealing with the real life and death horror that one’s duty is to face?
It is difficult to capture the nihilism of the current moment.
Indeed, if you mean the nihilism of ignoring the real suffering and loss of life while addressing mean comments on the internet.
The author makes it clear that they believe in human-caused climate change and does nothing to support that view but he does say that what he says are false claims about these hurricanes of this hurricane season are getting in the way of claims that humans cause these hurricanes.
Claims that humans caused these hurricanes via weather altering technology is dangerous misinformation that causes FEMA to not do their job but claims that humans caused these hurricanes via driving cars and eating meat is just true and needs no evidentiary support. For example, he writes,
Rather than deal with the realities of a warming planet hurling once-in-a-generation storms at them every few weeks, they’d rather malign and threaten meteorologists, who, in their minds, are “nothing but a trained subversive liar programmed to spew stupid shit to support the global warming bullshit,” as one X user put it.
The author does not actually make a clear statement in against free speech. He writes things such as,
What is clear is that a new framework is needed to describe this fracturing. Misinformation is too technical, too freighted, and, after almost a decade of Trump, too political. Nor does it explain what is really happening, which is nothing less than a cultural assault on any person or institution that operates in reality.
What he didn't say is that the Harris-Walz Regime will get to decide what misinformation is, and if the Regime finds that you've engaged in wrongthink and spreading ideas they disagree with, the First Amendment won't apply to you.
The following transcript of the relevant portion of the interview was provided.
Bream: Who gets to decide on the issue of what misinformation is?
Walz: Look the First Amendment is foundational. It's something I spent my whole life, the Vice President, and I think most Americans are clear on this. The point being on this, we're seeing censorship coming in the form of book bannings in different places. We're seeing it, attempts in schools. The issue on this was, is the hate speech and the protected hate speech, speech that's aimed at creating violence, speech that's aimed at threats to individuals, and that's what we're talking about in this. And the decision on that, society decides on a lot of this, the idea of someone going on and threatening someone's life or a child's life online, I don't think any of your viewers think that that is something that should be acceptable.
Bream: But that's not misinformation. I mean, there's a distinction, you would say, though, between something like a threat and misinformation.
Walz: Certainly, certainly, and that's what we're talking about. And I think the idea of making sure that folks understand are good consumers of that. Those are the decisions they make. But I've always defended your First Amendment rights, defend your right to disagree on every case. That robust discussion has to happen. And that's why I'm so opposed to book banning. That's why in Minnesota, we ban the practice of book banning. You make the decision of what you're going to read, whether you find it objectionable or not. The difference is, is threats, that type of speech.
Elon Musk has responded to a bombshell report by journalists Paul Thacker and Matt Taibbi which reveals that a the UK's Center for Countering Digital Hate - which is advising the Kamala Harris campaign, aims to "kill Musk's Twitter".
The British are coming, to meddle in our elections!
In an explosive leak with ramifications for the upcoming U.S. presidential election, internal documents from the Center for Countering Digital Hate—whose founder is British political operative Morgan McSweeney, now advising the Kamala Harris campaign—show the group plans in writing to “kill Musk’s Twitter” while strengthening ties with the Biden/Harris administration and Democrats like Senator Amy Klobuchar, who has introducedmultiple bills to regulate online “misinformation.”
Senator Klobuchar’s office did not respond to request for comment.
The documents obtained by The DisInformation Chronicle and Racket show CCDH’s hyperfocus on Musk — “Kill Musk’s Twitter” is the first item in the template of its monthly agenda notes dating back to the early months of this year.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate is the anti-disinformation activist ally of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, and a messaging vehicle for Labour’s neoliberal think tank, Labour Together. Both the CCDH and Labour Together were founded by Morgan McSweeney, a Svengali credited with piloting Starmer’s rise to Downing Street, much as Karl Rove is credited with guiding George W. Bush to the White House.
The CCDH documents carry particular importance because McSweeney’s Labour Together political operatives have been teaching election strategy to Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, leading Politico to call Labour and the Democrats “sister parties.” CCDH’s focus on “Kill Musk’s Twitter” also adds to legal questions about the nonprofit’s tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) organization.
Both The DisInformation Chronicle and Racket have sent multiple, extensive questions to CCDH’s current CEO Imran Ahmed, another British political operative tied to McSweeney’s Labour Together. Despite repeated requests for comment, Ahmed has refused to respond.
The report goes on in some depth about the relationship and later writes,
an invitation-only conference held this past summer in Washington underscores the group’s priorities. Attendees at CCDH’s private event included a slew of liberal groups now organizing against Musk including a senior advisor at the White House, a Democratic Party staffer in the office of Congressman Adam Schiff, Biden/Harris State Department officials, Canadian MP Peter Julian (recently tweeted “Boycott all advertisers on Twitter”) and Media Matters for America (a Democratic party-aligned watchdog now locked in a lawsuit with Musk).
The second annual CCDH priority on the document reads, “Advertising focus.” This likely references the group’s apparent strategy of publishing reports that claim Musk allowed hate to proliferate on X, followed by efforts to drive away the company’s advertisers.
In his soon to be released book “THE FRAUD: Keir Starmer, Labour Together, and the Crisis of British Democracy,” investigative reporter Paul Holden spends multiple chapters documenting Ahmed’s work during his time in the UK and says CCDH’s activity was appalling. “Ahmed abused the concept of disinformation to attack political opponents, based largely on unfounded claims,” he says.
Skipping over a lot of in-depth reporting that we certainly recommend but which is too much to include here, we read,
Although CCDH does not disclose donors, $1.1 million of that money came from one anonymous donor, meaning almost 75% of CCDH’s funding in their first year. A whistleblower says that CCDH’s management told staff that this initial bolus of funding came from Aleen Keshishian, a Hollywood agent for actor Mark Ruffalo, who promotes Imran Ahmed on X. Keshishian sits on CCDH’s board, and CCDH employees are reminded to treat her nicely.
Another Keshishian client, the singer and actress Selena Gomez, has also apparently provided secret funding to CCDH, although that donation has not been disclosed publicly until now.
Durden continues and we recommend the entire report.
As the 2024 presidential election draws closer, it seems some high profile leftists are become more desperate and more open about their desire to control people and to take away human rights. On October 24, 2024, Keith Olberman posted this [archive here]
A journalist has become the victim of a “Kafkaesque” police investigation after they allegedly riled up hatred in a social media post last year.
Allison Pearson, 64, said that two police officers turned up at her door on Remembrance Sunday to tell her that she was under investigation for a tweet she made in 2023.
The officers told her that they could not disclose what the specific post was referring to, however, she was posting regularly about the October 7 attacks on Israel around this time.
She told The Telegraph: “I was accused of a non-crime hate incident. It was to do with something I had posted on X a year ago. A YEAR ago? Yes. Stirring up racial hatred apparently.”
cA police investigation has been launched into a post Allison Pearson made over a year ago .GETTY
When she asked who accused her of such behaviour, the officer corrected her: “It’s not the accuser, they’re called the victim.”
She branded the situation as “Kafkaesque”, and said it appeared that the two officers themselves were confused.
“I was definitely shocked. Astonished. That too. Upset. How could I not be?” she said.
“It’s never nice having the police at the door if you’re a law-abiding person, because police at the door can mean only one of two things: tragedy or trouble. But to have them here on the saddest, most solemn date in the calendar with this kind of malevolent nonsense. It was surreal.”
She said they had no idea what they referring to, though said “that a year ago, I was consumed with the aftermath of the October 7 attacks by Hamas and the anti-Semitic slogans being brandished and chanted at pro-Palestine marches”.
Last night, Essex Police said officers had opened an investigation under section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986 relating to material allegedly “likely or intended to cause racial hatred”.
A police spokesman said: “We're investigating a report passed to us by another force. The report relates to a social media post which was subsequently removed. An investigation is now being carried out under section 17 of the Public Order Act.
“As part of that investigation, officers attended an address on Sunday November 10 to invite a woman to attend a voluntary interview on the matter.”
Yvette Cooper wants to change the requirement for police officers to record non-criminal hate incidents.
The move would be a reversal of changes to the laws brought in last year by the Tories, who issued new guidance that ordered the force to stop recording incidents just because someone was offended.
It follows concerns that the new guidance is stopping officers from monitoring and identifying threats to Jewish and Muslim communities that could result in violence.
Coming into effect in June 2023, officers are currently restricted to only recording incidents motivated by “intentional hostility” and “where there is a “real risk of escalation causing significant harm or a criminal offence”.
On November 14, 2024, this was posted [archive here]…
‘It’s utter tosh!’ Barrister says ‘get rid’ of non-crime hate incidents as backlash grows
GB News
Two secondary school girls are also being looked into after they said another student smelled 'like fish'
Children as young as nine-years old are among the people being probed by police over non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs).
The nine-year-old in question called a fellow primary school pupil a “r**ard”, whilst in another instance, two secondary school girls are being looked into after they said another student smelled “like fish”.
These students are just some of the young people being investigated for NHCIs, according to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request submitted by The Times.
Government guidance says that NCHIs are only supposed to be recorded by police when they are “clearly motivated by intentional hostility” and could result in further escalation.
Incidents that take place in the classroom should not be recorded, police have previously said.
From June 2023 to June 2024, over 13,200 NCHIs were recorded across the UK.
There is widespread confusion across police forces about which incidents qualify, the publication reported.
Downing Street has said that the Home Office would reassess its guidance to protect “the fundamental right to free speech”, after journalist Allison Pearson became subject to an police investigation regarding a social media post she made a year ago.
Allison Pearson was visited on Remembrance Sunday by officers from Essex Police. GETTY
Earlier this week, the 64-year-old Telegraph journalist said that two police officers turned up at her door on Remembrance Sunday to tell her that she was under investigation for a tweet she made in 2023.
The officers told her that they could not disclose what the specific post was referring to, however, she was posting regularly about the October 7 attacks on Israel around this time.
Essex Police said officers had opened an investigation under section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986 relating to material allegedly “likely or intended to cause racial hatred”.
Yvette Cooper wants to change the requirement for police officers to record non-criminal hate incidents.
Yvette Cooper wants to change the requirement for police officers to record non-criminal hate incidents
The move would be a reversal of changes to the laws brought in last year by the Tories, who issued new guidance that ordered the force to stop recording incidents just because someone was offended.
It follows concerns that the new guidance is stopping officers from monitoring and identifying threats to Jewish and Muslim communities that could result in violence.
Coming into effect in June 2023, officers are currently restricted to only recording incidents motivated by “intentional hostility” and “where there is a “real risk of escalation causing significant harm or a criminal offence”.
After a 64-year-old pensioner retweeted a meme of Green Economy Minister Robert Habeck, in which Habeck was described as an “idiot,” Bavarian police raided the man’s house and arrested him. The crime has even been recorded as a “politically motivated right-wing crime.”
The man is accused of distributing a photo of Habeck via retweet, where Habeck is described as an “idiot.” The Bamberg prosecutor’s office indicates that this constitutes a federal criminal offense of “hatred.”
“At a time that cannot currently be specified in more detail in the days or weeks before June 20, 2024, the accused published an image file using the account that shows a portrait of Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck with the title ‘Schwachkopf PROFESSIONAL’, based on the advertising campaign of the Schwarzkopf company, in order to generally defame Robert Habeck and to make it more difficult for him to work as a member of the federal government,” read the prosecutor’s statement.
Schwachkopf generally means “idiot,” in German.
The rival Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has reposted the meme on X, writing in a statement:
“While Habeck presents himself as a ‘people-friendly’ candidate for chancellor, his critics are being relentlessly pursued. They do not shy away from conducting house searches on sleeping families just because the father of the family shared this Schwachkopf graphic. This is what would happen to Germany under a Chancellor Habeck: the complete restriction of freedom of expression by a children’s book author who displayed maximum incompetence for three and a half years, but still feels called to greater things,” wrote the AfD.
The person who was arrested told the NIUS news outlet that he could never have imagined “that it would come to this.” This has “definitely GDR flavor,” he said, referring to communist East Germany and its Stasi police force.
Nius also reports that “criminal police officers were deployed across Germany on Tuesday for the day of action against hate postings, warning social media users their homes would be searched and electronic devices confiscated. In over 90 investigations, more than 50 homes were searched, and there were 127 police actions in total.”
“When the police are at the door, every perpetrator realizes that hate crimes have consequences,” Interior Minister Faeser wrote on X.
Those who criticize the Green party in Bavaria have faced prosecution before. A businessman, Michael Much, put up posters mocking members of the federal government, including Habeck and then Green party leader Ricarda Lang. He also had his house searched and the posters confiscated. The prosecutor was defeated in court, which determined the posters were a legitimate form of freedom of expression.
Notably, last week, X owner Elon Musk called German Chancellor Olaf Scholz a “fool,” on his platform. In response, the federal government reacted that “on X, you have Narrenfreiheit.” The term refers to freedom to mock the king, typically reserved for a jester.
Scholz himself responded that it was “not very friendly,” saying that web companies are “not organs of state, so I did not even pay it any attention.”
Apparently, for those lower on the food chain, such insults result in a massive police raid. The man’s phones were seized and all his rooms were searched.
Users have been acting with incredulity on social media, with one writing: “First election campaign posters leaked,” which showed police breaking down a door.
The shocking police doorstepping of Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson last week has rightly sparked grave concern about the parlous state of freedom of speech in Britain. For a tweet she posted last year, Pearson is under investigation for “stirring up racial hatred” under the Public Order Act 1986, which regular readers will know can carry penalties of years behind bars. In a period when pro-Gaza marches were flooding the capital every Saturday, Pearson reposted a video showing two south Asian-looking men holding a green and red flag on a British street next to a group of police officers. “How dare they,” she wrote. “Invited to pose for a photo with lovely peaceful British Friends of Israel on Saturday police refused. Look at this lot smiling with the Jew haters.”
It has struck me that many of the free speech advocates to criticise the authoritarian investigation into Pearson this week have done so on what one might call empirically minded lines. Where is the evidence, for instance, that any disorder did actually result from Pearson’s post? One prominent human rights lawyer, arguing in the Telegraph that Pearson did not deserve a visit from the police, has said that an investigation should only have proceeded “if damage has demonstrably been done during the time [the tweet] was up”. Assessing whether or not the tweet ought to have merited such a heavy-handed response, Pearson and her lawyers have looked carefully at the wording and concluded that it does not meet the “threshold” for criminality.
There’s more to the article but it is behind a paywall.
On November 18, 2024, this was posted [archive here]…
A former solider who made Facebook posts referring to “civil war” in the aftermath of the Southport attacks has been jailed for two years.
Daffron Williams, 40, who served on tours of Afghanistan and Iraq, previously pleaded guilty to a charge of publishing material likely to stir up racial hatred relating to public posts made between July 19 and August 11.
Cardiff Crown Court heard the posts, made before and after three girls were fatally stabbed at a dance class on July 29, included Williams describing Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, as a “f***ing hero”.
In one post, the day after the incident in Southport, Williams wrote: “Civil war is here. The only thing that’s missing is bullets. That’s the next step.”
The court heard Williams, of Tonypandy, south Wales, has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) relating to his time in the army, during which he served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Tracey Lloyd-Clarke, the Recorder of Cardiff, told Williams that there had been “serious public disorder” following the Southport attacks.
She said: “It was on July 31 this year that South Wales Police received complaints about your Facebook account.
“Your Facebook profile was an open profile, which means any member of the public, anywhere in the country and the world, could view your profile and see your comments.”
The judge said Williams had posted a number of “racist comments” before the Southport incident and the disorder that followed.
Significant comments included Williams posting “Let’s just do something FFS” and “Civil war is here, the only thing that’s missing is bullets, that’s the next step”, she said.
Williams was arrested on August 11 and apologised when shown the Facebook posts, which he told police he regretted, the court heard.
Considering evidence about Williams’ PTSD, the judge said it was a mitigating factor for sentence, but added: “You knew exactly what you were doing, your posts were intentional.”
References submitted to the court on Williams’ behalf made clear he served his community as well as his country and had organised charity events, the judge told him.
Judge Lloyd-Clarke added: “I accept you have strong personal mitigation but given your encouragement to others to act – your references to civil war and to bullets – I am satisfied this offending is so serious that only custody is sufficient.”
Prosecuting, Alex Orndal said Williams had pleaded guilty to the charge against him when he appeared before Cardiff Magistrates’ Court in August and had been in custody since then.
In one Facebook comment, Williams said: “I am racist as f***, only to those who sap the life out of society and disrespect culture. Our future as British is so uncertain it is unreal.”
On July 24, he wrote: “Come on guys, it is time to stand up. Everything our ancestors, grandparents and parents fought for is ruined. Let’s do something.”
Four days later, Williams posted images from a Tommy Robinson rally in London, which he attended on July 27.
He wrote: “If that level of support continues, we will win our freedom back. That was too big to be called a racist protest.”
Williams added: “I have seen today they are trying to put Tommy Robinson in jail. God bless Tommy Robinson, f***ing hero.”
Mr Orndal told the court how Williams also posted two AI generated images following the Southport incident.
“The defendant is a man who has supported his country in the most difficult and trying of circumstances which has left him suffering with a mental disorder”
John Allchurch, defence
Representing Williams, John Allchurch said his client had been diagnosed with PTSD from serving as a soldier in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“The defendant experienced multiple traumatic events while in the army between 2004 and 2011,” Mr Allchurch said.
“He witnessed close comrades being brutally killed, as well as the defendant himself having to take action against enemy combatants.”
Mr Allchurch said Williams had experienced a recent deterioration in his mental health, linked to “combat training and traumatic experiences when a serving soldier and exposure to far right material on the internet”.
“The defendant is a man who has supported his country in the most difficult and trying of circumstances which has left him suffering with a mental disorder,” he added.
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