Daily Archives: June 5, 2022

Student protesters on the campus of the University of Virginia in August 2018. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)

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The nearly 650 comments on the Young Americas Foundations April 6 tweet are laced with venom. The post is a video of Lukas Tucker, a first-year student at the University of North CarolinaGreensboro (UNCG) who filmed a peacekeeping message to the university community ahead of Ben Shapiros visit to campus.

This is an illness.

Another fatherless child.

Freak.

Shapiro was invited by UNCGs chapter of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), an affiliate of the Young Americas Foundation, after the group faced backlash for posting a transphobic Shapiro quote on their social media. In his video, Tucker, who is transgender, warns that engaging with YAF could do more harm than goodIt creates an us vs. them narrative that puts the Young Americans for Freedom against transgender people, he explains. It also validates their opinions and gives them a platform in which they can spread transphobic nonsense.

While Tucker brushes off the comments as hilariousmost attempt to insult him while using his pronouns, and one points to his receding hairline as evidencesome from his current and former classmates cut deep. I read all of them, he says, with a hint of solemnity.

Many of the comments blame Tuckers identity on his education, reflecting the national microscope on inclusive and historically accurate education in public schools. They are sick for teaching this to children, one commenter wrote. Another: What the hell is going on in our schools. And in a blanket condemnation, This is why not only should you NOT send your kids to public schools, but you should NOT allow your children to go to these private colleges! Current Issue

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Despite his call for civility, Tucker faces unrelenting online harassment for his identityand hes not alone. Across the country, students from marginalized backgrounds describe the impact of unfettered hate speech, misinformation, and unrecognized privilege in education on their mental health and physical safety. To these students, the national conversation about free speech on campus requires serious reframing.

In March 2022, University of Virginia senior Emma Camps viral New York Times op-ed put a spotlight on the dialogue surrounding free speech on college campuses. Camp, who is white and identifies as liberal, argued that she often felt that her classmates held back from expressing their political and moral views out of fear of cancellation.

Camp describes situations in which she and her classmates faced social backlash for speaking their minds about topics ranging from the newest Marvel movie to abandoned cultural practices. She argues that there is a difference between criticism and public shaming and the culture at American colleges and universities is shifting towards the latter.

Ria Sardesai, a fellow senior at UVA who penned an op-ed in The Cavalier Daily responding to Camps article, countered that students like herself and Camp are having different conversations when it comes to free speech on their campus.

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In [Camps] piece, all of the students involved were very outspoken, but their opinions were dissented [from] by their peersisnt that the very nature of debate? Sardesai wrote. Free speech is that youre allowed tovoice your opinion, and you wont get legally punished for ityoure not free from consequence, she adds.

She articulates a key difference between her experience and that of her white peers: there is a pattern of disrespect and endangerment of students from marginalized backgrounds that speak out at UVA that extends beyond the classroom. This mirrors a national trenda 2020 study by Gallup and the Knight Foundation found that an overwhelming majority of students prioritize free speech on campus, but women and minorities were less likely to feel like the First Amendment protects people like themselves, and more likely to say comments they have heard made them feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

Alexia Hernandez knows firsthand how conversations around free speech can escalate into online harassment and censorshipshuttering significant avenues of student expression. Hernandez is a community organizer and senior at Texas A&M University, the largest university in the United States by enrollment and number three on the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)s list of best colleges for free speech. In the summer of 2020, an anonymous individual intensely stalked Hernandez online and compiled her information on the universitys public sports forum TexAgs. The stalker posted screenshots of her social media profiles and photos of Hernandez with her former employershe also began to receive harassing messages on Twitter.Since then, shes had to lock down her online presence and understand that all student activists that engage with [accountability for discrimination or hatred] are being watched.

After only a few months on campus, Ritwik Tati had his first taste of right-wing cancellation. The first-year student at Stanford University was the subject of a Twitter thread by the Stanford College Republicans (SCR) that criticized his role in protesting Vice President Mike Pences visit to the university and posted a photo of his profile. Tati says this wasnt an isolated incidentSCR frequently targets students online who disagree with themand he connected with a Stanford administrator whom he describes as Executive Director, Threat Assessment, aiding students that face personal attacks. Despite this institutional support, Tati feels as though Stanford doesnt draw a clear line between free speech and harassment or hate speech.

Youre not supposed to be able to [allow a platform for] hate speech, because hate speech is dangerous to people on campus, Tati says, in reference to Pences visit to campus and SCRs public backlash against the counterprotesters. It [normalizes] violence against those marginalized groups in the future.

Dr. Sigal Ben-Porath, a professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, says this is a uniquely American phenomenon. The biggest difference between the US and other democratic countries is that hate speech is protected in the United States, Ben-Porath says. The fact that hate speech is permissible and protected here really creates a different type of legally permissible dialogue.

In 2017, Ben-Porath published the book Free Speech on Campus, which analyzes modern debates surrounding expression on college campuses and provides recommendations for nurturing an open exchange of ideas while guaranteeing the safety of minority students.

We have to pay some attention to the concerns being raised by marginalized communities as we are thinking about the practices that can support a culture of open expression, she remarks.

On her Twitter profile, Hernandezs name is followed by a simple call to action: #SavetheBatt. She says the hashtag references the moment when she realized that administrators and alumni were intent on stifling open dialogue on her campus.

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In February 2022, new Texas A&M President Katherine Banks had administrators inform student leaders at The Battalion, a student-run campus news source, that they must immediately cease printing physical copies of the publication and transition from their status as a student organization to a program under the Department of Journalism, or risk losing their office space and faculty adviser. The decision, which Hernandez says sent a shock wave through the community, came with no warning or discussion with anyone involved with the publication. She adds that the student newspaper has been known to publish pieces that have been critical of university administrators, or unsavory to donors.

A few weeks after the abrupt decision to move The Battalion online, the newspaper published an investigative deep-dive into the Rudder Association, a nonprofit created by conservative Texas A&M alumni to exert influence on administrative decisions. Meeting minutes reveal that members of the organization met with the universitys president and members of the A&M systems Board of Regents to discuss a number of goals, including get[ting] conservative speakers signed up for as many speaker slots as possible in order to minimize slots for liberal speakers on campus.

Hernandez explains that the oversized presence of alumni on Texas A&Ms campus is nothing new, but its frustrating that [alumni] take advantage of the political climate and the culture of Texas A&M toharm the interests of current students.

Sardesai knows this story well. She explains that alumni influence plays a large role in shaping administrative influence on UVA and the greater Charlottesville community. In recent years, Sardesai says, many alumni advocated against renaming Alderman Library, which is dedicated to a former UVA president who was a notorious eugenicist. Reflecting on the power dynamic between willing donors and students strapped for cash, Sardesai says, They hold way more power, because they are providing a lot of money in terms of donationswe are required to pay tuition.

James Wilson, in his first year at GSU, says coverage of the conversation about free speech is lopsided, favoring white, conservative views. He predicts that the movement against critical race theory, diversity, equity, and inclusion is really going to put an importance on people going to college because their high school and middle school education will be censoreduniversities will be the first time many students have a serious conversation about race in the classroom.

As K-12 public education shies away from teaching nuanced history from multiple perspectives, Wilson thinks universities need to react accordingly: Colleges are going to want to become a place of refuge for students of color. [Theyre] going to become the place where we can finally come and speak our truths freely.

Dr. Ben-Porath explains that speech is already legally restricted in primary and secondary schoolK-12 students can face punishment for their words, jokes, or writing in educational environments. In the current system, high school students are unprepared to engage with a truly open environment in college, which often leads to offense, discomfort, or extremism. You have not been properly prepared for the kind of open expression environment that we are hoping to support and encourage on college campuses, Ben-Porath remarks.

Community organizer Jordan Madden is working to get to the root of this problem. Madden, a first-year student at Georgia State University, spends his time between classes at the Georgia capitol building, advocating for historically accurate and diverse public education. He says that the lack of a curriculum on social issues and race in public K-12 schools fails to equip students with the skills they need to have complex conversations in college.

Its creating a pipeline system that is allowing students from the time theyre very young to the time theyre well into their careers not to challenge what society has been their whole lives, Madden says between cycles of the laundry machine in his GSU dorm. This is the only time he is available to speakhe was at the Capitol until 1 am the night before, on the last day of Georgias legislative session.

When students turned alumni and administrators arent given a diverse, holistic education, shifts in university demographics and national attitudes around racial equality can be uncomfortable. However, Madden adds, the discomfort experienced by people of color is different from the [discomfort experienced by] people who are leading these bills.

For Sabirah Mahmud, in her first year at the University of Pennsylvania, this is a familiar sentiment. As a brown, low-income student from West Philadelphia, she understands that racial and socioeconomic privilege allows her classmates to believe they can speak on issues about which they are unfamiliar or uninformed. Theres going to be discomfort when people from a repressed perspective feel like they can finally speak up, and people who have had decades and lifetimes of speaking cant speak, Mahmud says.

Tucker leans back in his seat, contemplating the reason he chose to attend UNCG. As an in-state, public university with a reputation for being queer-friendly, it felt like the safest place for him at the time. Despite the online harassment he faced, it may still be an improvement from his violently transphobic upbringing. Hernandez is more sardonicshe chose Texas A&M because it was the most affordable option, and she was excited about the universitys involved culturethe same close-knit environment that stifles her classmates ability to express themselves.

These students dont hate their universitiesthey recognize the pressing need for a cultural shift in the free speech conversation that will prioritize the voices of minority students, targeting hate speech, harassment, and misinformation in all levels of education. A few months ago, I would have said that we have some of the best free speech in the nation, Hernandez said. But now it seems like speech is only protected when it follows a certain narrative.

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The Silenced Students in the Free Speech Debate - The Nation

Everyone favors free speech, but many believe it should be curbed with regulation.

Free speech is a core freedom taken for granted in Western democracies. With the rise of social media platforms and new forms of discussion, free speech has been hotly debated recently. Some complain they want more of it, while others want to regulate it, and some want both. Beyond culture wars, the real issue will be regulation to intervene beyond defamation, fraud and incitement to crime. Recent initiatives have gradually shaped the possible fates of free speech in Western democracies.

Free speech is an essential part of democratic culture and institutions, and broadly understood progress. From a cognitive point of view, the free exchange of ideas enables the development of knowledge personal and scientific. As the philosophers John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) and Karl Popper (1902-1994) have argued, the competitive, open process of criticism of ideas is the best way to discard error and falsehoods in hard and human sciences. That does not mean that all bad ideas are always discarded, but the growth of correct ideas is enabled. Some people still believe the Earth is flat, but we have been flying planes for more than a century, and this is what truly matters.

From a political point of view, free speech and property rights act as a bulwark against tyranny. When information about government deeds is shared freely thanks to free speech it gives informed citizens an incentive to ask for accountability. Free speech goes hand in hand with tolerance (although it enables the intolerant to speak) and mutual understanding another aspect of progress against tyranny and its arbitrariness.

However, there is a problem with this bulwark very aptly described by Winston Churchill in 1943: Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some peoples idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.

From some on the political right, the complaint lately has been that ideas and people are being canceled and censored by major social media like Facebook or Twitter because of the conservative criticism of woke culture.

Conservative groups and personalities, including former United States President Donald Trump and U.S. senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, want the government to protect their speech by enforcing more free speech and neutrality on these platforms. They argue that protecting their constitutional right to free speech should be accomplished by curbing the platforms moderation of right-wing content and countering their canceling practices.

To many observers, the conservative argument here is a form of moral panic. Free speech is not a right to a public platform, and censorship comes from the government, not from private publishers or platforms. In the U.S., the First Amendment is a protection from the government. Property rights thus trump the right to free speech. Publishers of magazines or newspapers have the right to refuse opinion texts (op-eds) submitted to them. Social media can moderate content and suspend, or even kick out, participants if they do not respect their terms of service.

These so divergent groups want free speech within boundaries beyond mere defamation and incitement.

Canceling in that context is unproblematic. Everyone has the right to go and speak elsewhere. For example, on February 21, 2022, Mr. Trump launched his own social media platform, Truth Social, to stand up to the tyranny of big tech. That was his response to being banned from Twitter and suspended from Facebook in early 2021. (The project has not been successful.) Acquisition of a successful platform to change it is also possible: billionaire Elon Musk launched an attempt to buy Twitter, claiming that it was stifling free speech. And this is how so-called censorship issues are solved in a free market democracy.

At the same time, though, conservative groups do not mind speech limitations regarding sexual content, anti-religious ideas or racial history. In the U.S., several Republican-governed states have introduced a form of regulation for school curricula. In this regard, they are, conceptually, on the same page with those on the left who want governments to regulate free speech to avoid offensive or dangerous ideas only about different matters: LGBT phobia, racist and sexist speech.

These so divergent groups want free speech within boundaries beyond mere defamation and incitement. Cancel culture, in that case, goes a step further and resorts to either physical violence (activist students on some campuses in the West) or regulation by lobbying the authorities to censor the ideas they find offensive. Regulators in democratic institutions have long responded favorably to demands of greater government regulation in the realm of ideas through hate speech or anti-revisionist laws.

The context of the Russian war in Ukraine and the onslaught of Kremlin-produced propaganda probably increased this concern in democracies. In April 2022, former U.S. President Barack Obama delivered a high-profile lecture at Californias Stanford University in which he called for protecting but regulating free speech. And not even a week after the agreement over the European Digital Service Act (see box 2), a Declaration of the future of the internet was circulated. It aims to increase regulation over speech. A day earlier, a short-lived Disinformation Governance Board was launched in the U.S., under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security, with the goal of countering foreign mis/disinformation.

The argument is that democracy is threatened by hate speech, disinformation and conspiracy theories. In theory, platforms offer a broad space for exchanging various ideas, the users actually join groups dedicated to formulating, sharing and discussing particular matters. However, participants select the groups not on an open rationality basis but rather on a confirmation bias. Some people thus effectively shut themselves off to other opinions and facts, and network effects make bad ideas snowball very quickly. Clearly, this represents a negative externality a typical justification for government intervention.

The optimistic scenario is that new regulations will indeed strengthen democracy. But things could get more complicated and scenarios more pessimistic.

In all these recent instances, democratic authorities distance themselves from censorship- and surveillance-based regimes like in Russia or China. However, the quest for a free and safe internet opens the door, by very definition, to more regulation. As Mill warned us, there is a clear danger of censorship behind the guise of regulation even in democracies.

John Stuart Mill defended free speech on the following basis:

A silenced opinion can be based on truth; to think that this could not be the case is to assume ones infallibility.

Even if a minority opinion is wrong, it could be partly correct. As any opinion rarely reflects the entire truth, it is better to let the final formulation emerge from the confrontation of various views.

Even if the prevailing general opinion describes the whole truth, we must ensure the free expression of divergent views so that the dominant view can be contested and thus not be taken as prejudice and understood on the rational ground.

Silencing a minority opinion would weaken the meaning of the doctrine itself. Challenging the majority enables it to retain its vital effect, grounding its conviction in reason and personal experience and thus preventing it from becoming a dogma.

Finally, accepting free speech and dissenting opinions but only within certain boundaries raises the issue of which boundaries, how to define them and who is to do so. Mill warned of an instrumentalization of acceptable boundaries by the partisans of the mainstream opinion to silence opponents by labeling their views as dangerous, extreme, or lacking restraint.

Increased self-censorship from platforms (to follow regulations and avoid fines) will be based on algorithms. Some fear that this effectively brings these endeavors closer to the position of authoritarian regimes.

Good intentions in legislation sometimes lead to unintended effects. As Benjamin Constant remarked two centuries ago, speech regulation gives governments the right to determine the consequences of opinions. Then, governments acquire the right to determine what is true and false, especially when the incriminated concepts (offense) are subjective and not precisely defined. This situation introduces a fair dose of arbitrariness as two questions arise. Do they have the necessary knowledge to determine this? And do they have the right incentives? The future of free speech lies in the answers.

One issue here is the we are a democracy; we cannot be wrong assumption. The inquisition was irrational, and democracy is rational. This is the essence of Mills criticism of assuming infallibility of the majority opinion. Democracy is imperfect, and it is precisely free speech and criticism including conspiracy theories that help prevent its metastasizing into authoritarianism.

If democracy were perfect, we would not even talk about corruption. Will corruption suspicions now be labeled as conspiracy theory? An illustrative case: the Hunter Biden computer story (of a laptop containing thousands of authentic emails delivered in 2019 at a Delaware repair shop and never collected) was first dubbed as conspiracy theory and disinformation by the progressive media and the political establishment. Eventually, it proved worthy of investigating. A law against disinformation would have thus probably prevented the investigation and the eventual emergence of the truth.

Saying that we are a democracy does not suffice to protect society from the danger of knowledge errors at the top and effective censorship. Creating independent bodies to investigate the matter can help. Again, though, the bold assumption here is that experts always have the knowledge, and that governments possess the wisdom of choosing the right experts with the relevant expertise. In such a context, regulating free speech beyond direct crime incitement, fraud and defamation is a profound democratic challenge, and it can easily undermine the truth.

The conspiracy label can be instrumentalized, sometimes to protect power. Interestingly, between the two extremes of conspiracy theory and care-bears views of the world lies the complex reality: there sometimes are some vested interests that seek power and money with and within democratic governments. Incentives matter then, and this again raises the question of who will watch the watchers? and has justified constitutional guarantees such as the First Amendment in the U.S.

The stories of whistleblowers Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning show that democratic powers can also practice severe censorship.

After all, more than 60 years back, a U.S. president, himself a general, solemnly warned his fellow citizens of the risks posed to the American democracy by an unchecked military-industrial complex. The stories of whistleblowers Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning show that democratic powers can also practice severe censorship and hide uncomfortable truths regardless of the security label put on the justification. Public choice theory, which stresses the role of individual incentives within democratic policy-making processes to criticize the naive assumption of benevolence in politics and bureaucracy, even won economist James Buchanan a Nobel Prize.

The future will thus be partly determined by the new incentives given by those laws and the ability of lobbies to impose their truth by mere regulation capture. Industrial lobbyists with direct access to higher authorities could have criticisms of their product censored under the pretext of conspiracy theory. Governments could do the same with some of their policies disliked by conspiracy believers. Regulation will always lead to bureaucracy, always bent on expanding its power, clientele and regulatory power. Beyond democratic challenges, it also has a fiscal cost.

An increasing number of social groups will be incentivized to play the victim game effectively weakening democratic dialogue, communitarianism and sowing frustration. Governments will have the final say in selecting the deserving victims and discarding the less worthy ones. In France, the anti-revisionist Gayssot Act of 1990 criminalized the denial of the holocaust sanctioned by the Nuremberg trials, but not of communist genocides in Ukraine, or such places as China or Cambodia. Parliament member Jean-Claude Gayssot happens to be a communist.

A deciding parameter in possible scenarios for the global spread of DSA will be the U.S.-EU power ratio. The regulation was first submitted together with Digital Markets Act (it aims to foster competition in the digital world) by the European Commission to the European Parliament in December 2020. If passed on by national parliaments of the EU member states, the DSA will go beyond banning illegal content, addressing disinformation, and imposing huge fines of up to 6 percent of Big Tech platforms global revenues if they fail to moderate incriminated content. It is uncertain whether the U.S. would let the EU mete out fines to American Big Tech firms. The U.S. constitutional protection of free speech by the First Amendment most likely will block the way to European regulatory centralism. The U.S.s own Disinformation Governance Board was, after all, paused by the Homeland Security Department amid a barrage of criticism after only three weeks.

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New threats to freedom and free speech - Geopolitical Intelligence Services AG

(June 1, 2022 / JNS) Silicon Valley oligarchs, along with their political allies and beneficiaries of their financial contributions in Congress and the Jewish community, breathed a sigh of relief on Tuesday. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in their favor when it blocked enforcement of a Texas law that would have stopped social-media companies from removing posts and banning users because of the content of their posts. The decision wont be the final word on the matter, though; what was at stake was an effort by Texas to have the law remain in place while a federal appeals court considers the case.

The ruling, in which the majority didnt issue a written opinion, was the result of an odd coalition. The majority was made up of the courts conservatives (Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett) and two of the liberals (Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer) while the minority was composed of three other conservatives (Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch) and one liberal (Justice Elena Kagan). This unusual split illustrates just how difficult a challenge this issue poses to the law. When the case eventually comes before the high court to be decided on the merits rather than on more technical questions about whether it can remain in place until that happens, the decision may go the other way.

Like the dispute over a similar law passed by Florida that is also being challenged, a fundamental question facing 21st-century life will be at stake in the outcome. Since its unlikely that Congress will legislate an answer to the problem, it is the Supreme Court that will have to decide which is more important: the right of free speech in a democracy or the need to prevent the spread of hatred on the Internet.

As far as some of the leading voices of the American Jewish community are concerned, the answer is a slam dunk. Speaking on behalf of most liberals, the Anti-Defamation League believes that worries about the way the Internet and social-media facilitate and strengthen hatemongers, including racists and anti-Semites, means that more of what they euphemistically call moderation is necessary.

The ADL has been among the loudest cheerleaders for efforts to increase censorship on Facebook and Twitter. Egged on by people like actor Sacha Baron Cohen, the ADL has helped to pressure the social-media giants to crack down on expressions of hate and partnered with PayPal in an effort to demonetize publications that it labeled, rightly or wrongly, as extremist.

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Cohen successfully shamed Mark Zuckerberg into reluctantly embracing censorship by comparing him to a restaurant owner that hosted Nazis when he had the right and the duty to refuse them service. But if the only people that Facebook, Twitter or YouTube booted off its sites were neo-Nazis or members of the Ku Klux Klan, then Texas and Florida would never have passed these laws. Instead, these companies have made no secret of their political inclinations by shutting down reporting of a story that might have hindered the election of President Joe Biden. Since then, they have repeatedly targeted conservatives for moderation, which is to say they are engaged in the censorship of views the owners of these companies and their largely woke staffs dont like.

The most famous of their targets is former President Donald Trump. He was silenced on social media because of his insistence on disputing the integrity of the 2020 presidential election after his defeat and for being blamed for the resulting Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, though the same companies were perfectly happy to allow those who had fomented the more deadly and destructive Black Lives Matter riots to remain on their platforms. But hes far from the only one that has felt the heavy hand of Big Tech censorship. These companies have intermittently silenced a variety of figures on the right for enunciating stands on controversial issues, including shutting down the accounts of the Babylon Bee, a satire site and LibsofTikTok, which ironically publicized the views of left-wing extremists because they think exposing to a broader public will discredit their side on a host of culture-war issues.

To those who decry their censorship, the companies and their liberal defenders respond by citing their property rights as private companies and the constitutional principle that guarantees publishers the right to accept or decline material as they see fit.

Were these sites normal publications, whether online or traditional print, theyd be within their rights to publish what they like as Americas founders intended when they wrote the First Amendment. But they are nothing of the sort.

These Internet giants are not liable, as any other publisher is, for what they post or to be held accountable if they are responsible for spreading libelous material. To the contrary, Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act of 1996 holds them exempt from action because Congress deemed any such interactive computer service to be the moral equivalent of a bulletin board rather than a newspaper, magazine or broadcast outlet.

Even more important, they are, as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has argued, the 21st-century descendants of telegraph and telephone companies: that is, traditional common carriers. That means, as is the case with a variety of businesses that fall into that category, they are obligated to take on all customers, except in very limited circumstances.

Speaking for the three conservative dissenters, Justice Alito agreed. He was also on point when he noted that it is not at all obvious how our existing precedents, which predate the age of the Internet, should apply to large social-media companies.

The publishers of the past (or the present) do not compare to the reach and the power of these sites. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube arent merely venues for expression. In our contemporary world, they are the virtual public square and have more power than governments or the press as we once envisioned it. Even if we were to assume their intentions are apolitical, which they clearly are not, or whether supposedly high-minded groups like the ADL are advising them, they cant be given the right to effectively determine what kind of speech, whether good or bad, can be heard. Thats something that not even the most powerful media barons of the past could ever dream of doing.

The Texas law only applies to social-media platforms with more than 50 million active monthly users. It also exempts sites whose content centers on news, sports and entertainment not primarily provided by users. It also provides some exceptions to the prohibition on moderation that include sexual exploitation of children, incitement of criminal activity and some threats of violence. If eventually upheld by the courts, the law would therefore uphold the right of free speech in a way that is meaningful in our current environment and without which we would all be at the mercy of a few powerful multi-billionaire Big Tech moguls in order to express our opinions.

This would also mean that a lot of terrible speech would be allowed on social media. Thats not a consideration that can be easily dismissed in an era in which a rising tide of anti-Semitism is spreading across the globe. Still, it should be noted that a great deal of hate, especially from the anti-Semitic far-left or totalitarian states like Iran, is already deemed not to be a problem by these companies.

Its shocking to think how many who bandy about the word democracy, especially groups like the ADL that have abandoned nonpartisanship in favor of open partisanship for the Democratic Party, have no problem with a few people in Silicon Valley having the ability to shut down any speech that they deem harmful or merely inconvenient to the parties or groups they support.

It is not enough to say, as the ADL does, that online extremism is dangerous and therefore must be silenced. In a free country, words or advocacy of even the worst causes is not violence. While many may have cheered Cohens point about throwing Nazis out of public establishments, the security of minorities like Jews is better protected by preserving the right of free expression and an open public square than by relying on the likes of the ADL or their Big Tech donors to tell us what we can or cannot say. It can only be hoped that the courts are wise enough to understand this distinction.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.

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Can free speech be protected without helping the haters? - JNS.org

The Biden administrations increasingly aggressive efforts to combat so-called misinformation, along with the prospective acquisition of Twitter by free speech advocate Elon Musk, have sparked a national debate about what role, if any, the government should play in censoring social media.

While some have applauded the administrations campaign to police online misinformation about COVID-19 and other subjects, including through its recent creation of a Disinformation Governance Board within the Department of Homeland Security, others have harshly criticized the notion that the government should be the arbiter of truth.

As these critics have observed, many views derided as COVID-19 misinformation in 2020 or 2021for instance, that the virus originated in a lab and that community masking appears to be relatively ineffectiveare now gaining traction in mainstream circles.

Likewise, government officials, including President Joe Biden and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky, have made claims that later turned out to be untrue, such as that the vaccines reliably stop transmission and that masks are 80% effective at preventing infection.

These revelations have prompted many discerning Americans to question the notion that anyonewhether the government or tech companiesshould be allowed to control information shared on social media. Indeed, the understanding that no one has a monopoly on the truth, and that governments are themselves prone to bias and disseminating falsehoods, is a primary reason the Framers included the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights.

Yet in the same week, four separate lawsuits brought on behalf of suspended Twitter users challenging such censorship on First Amendment grounds were dismissed in federal courts, including one brought by former President Donald Trump.

(The author is the lead attorney on one of these cases, Changizi, et al v. Department of Health and Human Services, et al. One of the four, brought by former New York Times journalist and well-known lockdown skeptic Alex Berenson, was permitted to proceed on breach of contract theoriesthe First Amendment claim was dismissed, as it was in the other lawsuits).

Three of the four lawsuitsall except Trumpswere premised on versions of the theory that social media censorship is effectively state action, due to pressure exerted on companies by the federal government to quell the spread of misinformation.

Plaintiffs pointed to myriad statements by Biden administration officials and congressional Democrats, beginning as early as December 2020, threatening to hold social media platforms accountable or liable if they do not censor users who spread virus misinformation.

Further, former White House press secretary Jennifer Psaki and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have stated in no uncertain terms that the administration has ordered social media companies to remove certain problematic posts.

As evidence the government is unlawfully coercing tech companies, some plaintiffs referenced Surgeon General Vivek Murthys March 2022 request for information. It demands that tech companiesfrom social media platforms to e-commerce websites to search enginesturn over (among other things) the identity of purveyors of COVID-19 misinformation.

Many have viewed the benignly named request as a threat to impose regulation absent compliance from tech companies, particularly in conjunction with the warnings described above.

Social media platforms like Twitter face pressure to curry favor with the government to avoid adverse consequences, plaintiffs argue, so censoring users for voicing views the government disfavors on COVID-19 violates the First Amendment.

So far, courts have rejected this argument. They have reasoned that officials threats of regulatory action or liability for spreading misinformation do not establish that any plaintiff was censored because of the government. Twitter, courts surmise, may well have chosen to censor plaintiffs regardless of what Biden, Murthy, and Mayorkas say, vitiating any First Amendment claim.

This reasoning is misguided. First, evidence indicates censorship of plaintiffs accounts resulted from government intervention. Only after the administration began its public campaign, in the first months of 2021, was my client, Mark Changizi, suspended for tweeting that masks do not work, the flu is more deadly to children than COVID-19, and asymptomatic individuals rarely spread the virus, despite posting near-identical content throughout 2020.

Michael Senger and Daniel Kotzin, two other clients, were suspended immediately after the surgeon generals March 3 request for information. None of the three was ever suspended prior to the Biden administrations threat to punish noncompliant technology companies.

Twitter users noticed a significant uptick in permanent suspensions among those who questioned the governments approach to COVID-19 beginning about a year ago, as several plaintiffs attested in declarations appended to their lawsuits.

Of course, a jury might find this proof of causation insufficient. But courts are wrong to require stronger factual evidence at the pleading stage. To survive a motion to dismiss, a plaintiff need only establish a plausible inference that the facts, construed in the light most favorable to him, support a claim that would entitle him to the relief requested.

Given threatening statements made by various government actors, admissions that they have orchestrated removal of disfavored posts from social media, establishment of a Disinformation Governance Board, and demands that social media companies turn over information about purveyors of misinformation, there is a plausible inference that the plaintiffs accounts were censored by state action.

Furthermore, information obtained via discovery could substantiate the inference that social media companies are doing the governments bidding, and not acting (solely) of their own volition. Indeed, as noted in a letter a congressional subcommittee sent to Biden in December 2020, this degree of censorship runs counter to social media platforms financial incentives.

Granting a motion to dismiss means a case cannot proceed to discovery and puts lawyers bringing these cases in a Catch-22: Courts will not allow them to obtain the very discovery the courts deem necessary to establish causation.

Notably, a Freedom of Information Act request made by attorneys in one of these cases has been answered with a perfunctory disclaimer that a backlog of thousands of cases means that it may take two years for the request to be fulfilled (Changizi v. HHS).

Finally, assuming for the sake of argument that the government is not responsible for these specific instances of censorship, the administrations acts nonetheless chill speech. Knowing that Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are under significant pressure from the government to silence them, these plaintiffs have attested they self-censor in order to avoid losing their accounts. That alone suffices to establish injury in the First Amendment context.

The courts dismissal of these lawsuits is unfair not only to the individual plaintiffs, but to the American people, who deserve government transparency.

The Biden administration has, at every juncture and in every manner possible, blocked efforts to shed light on its actions, and district court rulings are enabling the blackout. If the courts of appeals do not see things differently, the First Amendment may very well be dead on arrival in the digital age.

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and well consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular We Hear You feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

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Government Censorship of Social Media Will Prove Fatal to Free Speech - Daily Signal

MINOT, N.D. There is much ado in North Dakota politics this year about political spending, and much of the ado is coming from people who are people complete hypocrites about it.

Last week, before the holiday, a group of Bastiat Caucus lawmakers gathered in the state capitol building in Bismarck, in the hall just outside Gov. Doug Burgum's office, and threw a hissy fit about political spending Burgum is doing on legislative races across the state.

Burgum has been pouring big money into a political action committee that, in turn, is spending that money to support Burgum's preferred candidates in legislative primaries.

For this, Rep. Rick Becker called Burgum a "mafia boss."

Rep. Jeff Magrum called him a "tyrant."

(As an aside, and as I noted last week, Burgum's messaging has been positive so far . Another group, the Brighter Future Alliance, has been running negative messaging, but that group isn't affiliated with Burgum, a point seemingly lost on Rep. Magrum, as you can see in the picture above.)

Back in 2015, when Democrats were pushing a resolution, HCR 3030 , in the state Legislature seeking an amendment to the U.S. Constitution overturning U.S. Supreme Court rulings finding that political spending is protected free speech, Becker voted against it.

As did every other Republican member of the state House .

Screenshot

Magrum and two other Republican lawmakers who were at last week's news conference, Rep. Jeff Hoverson and Rep. Sebastian Ertelt, weren't in the Legislature in 2015 when this vote happened.

But Becker was. He's the founder of the Bastiat Caucus, a dissident group of North Dakota Republicans who pride themselves on supposedly being "ultra-conservative."

Becker voted in 2015 to protect political spending as free speech, which was the correct vote from the pro-liberty point of view, which makes Becker's opposition to that sort of thing today, in 2022, all the more ironic.

His hatred for Burgum has grown so deep, his principles now take a back seat to political expediency.

The irony doesn't stop there.

Anyone who watched Becker's unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign earlier this year is familiar with his obsession with his ranking from the American Conservative Union . That organization tracks how lawmakers vote on key pieces of legislation, then ranks them from most conservative to least.

Becker routinely came out on top of that ranking, and he's very vain about it. I'm not sure he delivered a political speech during his Senate campaign without mentioning it.

Well, the ACU scored the 2015 vote on HCR 3030 .

It was a part of Becker's ranking.

But his position today seems to be the Democratic position, which is that political spending isn't protected free speech.

What Becker and his cronies sell the public is this idea of themselves as these perfect paragons of conservative principles. They're loyal to their ideology, they tell us endlessly, which makes them distinct from all the other politicians who are in the thrall of special interests, yada, yada, yada.

The truth is, they're not that different. Like so many others in the political class, they'll abandon whatever principles are in the way of pandering to the audience in front of them at the moment.

A principled person would recognize that, whatever you think of his arguments and motivations, Gov. Doug Burgum didn't lose his First Amendment rights when elected to office.

If only Becker and his crew had that kind of principle.

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Port: Remember when North Dakota's 'ultra-conservatives' were actually in favor of protecting free speech? - INFORUM

May 31, 2022 by Oskar Rey Category: Governance , Court Decisions and AGO Opinions

The First Amendment provides broad protection of freedom of speech and places stringent limits on the ability of government to regulate private expression, especially when the regulation discriminates against speakers based on their viewpoint. On the other hand, the U.S. Supreme Court (Supreme Court) uses a different analysis for government speech, which applies when government speaks instead of regulates. Government entities need to be able to communicate, so it makes sense that government speech is analyzed differently than government regulation of the speech of othersbut it is not always easy to tell which is which.

In this blog I will review recent government speech case law, including the Shurtleff v. City of Boston flag raising case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month, and then I will provide thoughts on how to determine when government is speaking versus when it is regulating speech, and what factors make a difference.

The seminal government speech case is City of Pleasant Grove v. Summum, a 2009 decision which involved sculpture and monument displays in a city park. A religious organization requested permission to erect a stone monument containing the Seven Aphorisms of Summum that would be similar in size to an existing Ten Commandments monument in the park. A lower court, noting that parks are public forums and many of the monuments in the park were donated by private entities, held that the monuments were not government speech. It ruled that under the First Amendment, the city was required to allow installation of the Summum monument.

The Supreme Court reversed. It noted that while parks themselves are public forums, the display of monuments in parks is likely to be associated with the city. Even when a monument is donated, municipalities typically exercise control over what is displayed through submission requirements, policies, and legislative approval of specific proposals. The City of Pleasant Grove applied a detailed submission policy with respect to proposals for new park monuments. The permanent nature of monuments, coupled with the citys oversight over the selection process, led the Supreme Court to conclude that the monuments were government speech, and therefore, the government could decide which monuments to display.

In 2015, the Supreme Court considered whether the State of Texas could deny a proposal by the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) for a specialty license plate that depicted the Confederate battle flag in Walker v. Texas Div., Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc.

Texas law provides that the state has sole control over the design, color, and typeface of all license plates. There is a specific process by which the state reviews submittals of proposed specialty license plates designed by private entities, and the state had actively exercised its authority by denying at least a dozen requests in the past. With respect to the SCV plate design, the state denied it because many members of the public would find it offensive.

The Supreme Court ruled that Texas role in approving specialty license plate designs was government speech and not regulation of the speech of others. In so doing, the Supreme Court noted the longstanding use of state slogans and emblems on license plates. Under the majoritys analysis, license plates are a form of government-issued identification and do not constitute a traditional public forum (like streets or parks) or a limited public forum for the purpose of expression. As a result, the Free Speech Clause did not impact Texas regulation of specialty license plates.

There are three flagpoles in a plaza in front of Boston City Hall. The first two display flags from the United States and the State of Massachusetts and the third generally displays the flag of the City of Boston. However, the City of Boston had a practice of allowing outside groups to raise their flags on the third flagpole while holding events in the plaza below.

A religious organization sought to hold a flag raising ceremony in the plaza involving what it described as a Christian flag. The city denied the request due to concerns that raising a religious flag on a city flagpole would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. (As an aside, this concern was in error making public facilities available to religious organizations on the same terms and conditions as secular organizations does not constitute government establishment of religion.)

The religious organization sued, claiming that the denial was impermissible viewpoint discrimination and a violation of its free speech rights. In response, the City of Boston argued the decision of what flags will fly over city hall is government speech.

All the justices agreed that the denial of the flag raising request was a violation of the religious organizations free speech rights and that the flag raising, under the facts of the case, was not government speech. To understand why the result of Shurtleff was different from Summum and Walker, it is important to consider the following:

The Supreme Court emphasized the importance of clear and meaningful policies when it comes to government speech:

[T]he city's lack of meaningful involvement in the selection of flags or the crafting of their messages leads us to classify the flag raisings as private, not government, speech though nothing prevents Boston from changing its policies going forward.

In other words, the Supreme Court found the denial of the flag raising request was regulation of speech, and not speech by a government entity. For more on flag display in particular, including policy examples from Washington State local governments, see our Flag Display Requirements and Protocol webpage.

At MRSC, we often emphasize the importance of written policies, and the Shurtleff case is a prime example of how clear and detailed policies can make a difference. It is not just a question of having written policies, they need to be followed and adhered to. This is particularly true in government speech situations.

When a court reviews a claim of government speech, there are generally two options: either the government speech doctrine applies, which means that the issue will not be reviewed as a restriction on speech under the Free Speech Clause; or government speech does not apply, in which case the issue will be subject to Free Speech Clause scrutiny. The dramatic difference between these two options is illustrated by Shurtleff. Once the Supreme Court found that the government speech doctrine did not apply, it needed a single paragraph to conclude that Bostons denial of the flag raising request was impermissible viewpoint discrimination under the Free Speech Clause.

A fundamental characteristic of the government speech doctrine is the extent to which its application depends on the policies and actions of government. Government speech can apply in a wide variety of contexts park monuments, specialty license plates, and flag raising are just a few examples but it only applies when government takes steps to control the message. Change the level of government involvement in the speech selection process, and the results of all three cases discussed above could have been different.

MRSC is a private nonprofit organization serving local governments in Washington State. Eligible government agencies in Washington State may use our free, one-on-one Ask MRSC service to get answers to legal, policy, or financial questions.

VIEW ALL POSTS BY Oskar Rey

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Speaking Versus Regulating The Government Speech Doctrine - MRSC

Something is terribly wrong with America when an 18-year-old can buy an assault-style rifle, then uses it in an elementary school to kill 19 children and two teachers. Salvador Ramos legally bought an AR-15 rifle a day after he turned 18. Three days later he bought another one. He bought enough ammunition to go to war.

As an 18-year-old he is not allowed to legally buy alcohol or tobacco but allowed to buy an AR-15 rifle which, like the military version, can load multiple bullets to quickly kill people. It makes no sense that a high school teenager cannot legally drink alcohol or smoke but can legally buy guns.

The May 24 school massacre in the small town of Uvalde, Texas was just the latest in a long list of tragic shootings that have taken so many innocent lives. Just ten days earlier another 18-year-old white supremacist legally bought a rifle to shoot dead 10 African Americans in a New York supermarket. I am not African American but it still frightened me because I am now living temporarily in New York.

I was living in Seattle in April 1999 when I saw the horrifying TV news of two teenagers who shot to death 12 students and one teacher at the Columbine High School in Colorado and then killed themselves. One of the worst school shootings was in 2012 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut when a 20-year-old shot dead 20 children and six adult staff members. He then shot himself in the head and died.

There are more guns in America today than its population of 350 million. The US is the worlds only country that allows its people to freely buy guns. That freedom is enshrined in the Second Amendment of US Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights. It states the people have the right to bear arms, which means to carry weapons.

The First Amendment gives people the right to free speech, peaceful protests, and to choose their religion. These freedoms are Americas core values which I agree with. Many in Hong Kong believe their rights to free speech and peaceful protests have eroded, especially after Beijings imposition of the national security law.

Whenever there is criticism that Hong Kong is losing its free speech rights, government officials deny it with the retort that free speech is not absolute. But they never clarify where the free speech red lines are.

In the US, the right to free speech, peaceful assemblies, and to bear arms is, to a very large extent, clear and absolute. It is apples and oranges to compare free speech rights in the US and HK. Free speech limits in the US apply only to areas such as libel, child pornography, fraud, criminal acts, and violation of intellectual property laws but not political opinion.

In Hong Kong even political opinion could violate free speech rights. Lighting a candle in Victoria Park on June 4 to commemorate those who died in the June 4 1989 Tiananmen crackdown on democracy could land you in jail. In the US only convicted criminals, people under 18, people with mental disorders, people convicted of domestic violence, and illegal drug users have no right to bear arms.

The free speech right in the First Amendment is so protected that even people who claim they have been defamed must prove the libel was deliberate. A US court made this clear earlier this year when the former Republican Alaska Governor Sarah Palin sued the New York Times for defaming her by falsely accusing her of supporting gun violence.

The New York Times had wrongly claimed in a 2017 editorial that a political campaign advertisement by Palins supporters in 2011 had indirectly caused a mass shooting in Arizona which killed 16 people and injured a Democrat Party congresswoman. Palin accused the New York Times of ruining her reputation but the judge ruled she had failed to prove the New York Times deliberately ruined her reputation.

That shows how far the First Amendment protects US free speech. In the US those who say free speech violated their rights must prove in court the violations were deliberate as defined by the First Amendment. The New York Times won by arguing its erroneous editorial was not deliberate.

US President Joe Biden said after the Texas school massacre the freedom to own guns as defined by the Second Amendment is not absolute. I always oppose people who say freedom is not absolute, including the US President. But there is a difference between the freedom to say what you want and the freedom to kill who you want.

The freedom to say what you want doesnt kill people. The freedom to buy guns does kill people, including children in schools as multiple school massacres have shown. As an American I am proud the US values freedom, which I believe everyone who has it wants to protect it and those who dont have it want it.

But as an American I am also ashamed that so many elected politicians, particularly from the Republican Party, refuse to pass simple laws which do not oppose the right to bear arms but just ensure background checks prevent criminals and mentally ill people from buying guns. These politicians ignore their conscience to make it harder to buy guns because they need campaign money from the gun lobby to get re-elected.

-- Contact us at [emailprotected]

A Hong Kong-born American citizen who has worked for many years as a journalist in Hong Kong, the USA and London.

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Free speech and the freedom to kill EJINSIGHT - EJ Insight

CHICAGO-The Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF), a non-profit legal and educational organization affiliated with the American Library Association dedicated to protecting and defending each persons First Amendment right to read, concluded its annual election on May 1, 2022. FTRF members elected four new members to its Board of Trustees and re-elected one incumbent board member for two-year terms that begin on June 23, 2022. Since 1969 FTRF trustees, staff, and members have worked to protect First Amendment rights through education, litigation, and advocacy.

As Americans, we cannot take our First Amendment rights for granted. Our right to free speech and our right to read are being challenged daily in all parts of the United States. We welcome the strong leaders who have been elected to the FTRF Board and join with them to support, defend, and advocate for our First Amendment rights and assure intellectual freedom, equitable access, and the freedom to read for all members of our communities, said current FTRF President Barbara Stripling.

Newly elected trustees include:

Jarrett Dapier is new to the Freedom to Read Foundation Board but has volunteered as a speaker for their graduate course collaboration for a number of years. I am interested in being a part of theFTRFboard because of the vital, crucial work this body does to protect the right of all Americans to read. This right is currently under widespread assault from a variety of groups all working in concert to control schools, teachers, and librarians - all professionals who are trained to provide students with accurate information about our world, its history, and its art. I am a tireless advocate for free expression and the right to read and I don't let things go easily, especially when youth rights are violated, said Dapier. Dapier has worked at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of IL on the First Amendment Rights Project, and since 2009 in public libraries where he adapted and directed stories about censorship to the stage with teen performers. He is also the author of the picture book Mr. Watson's Chickens, which is currently being challenged for removal at a public library in Spanish Fort, Alabama.

Jennifer Griswold is the Director of the Pflugerville Public Library in Pflugerville, Texas. She ran for a seat on the Board of Trustees to challenge censorship both locally, and on the national level. She has worked at Pflugerville since 2006 as the Reference Librarian, Assistant Director, and for the past six years as Library Director. Her background is also in news research and academic librarianship. In 2018 Griswold was awarded the honor of being Texas Librarian of the Year, and she is a current member of the Texas Library Association Queers and Allies Roundtable; the Ethnic and Multicultural Exchange Roundtable, the ALA Intellectual Freedom Roundtable, and the staff liaison for the Pflugerville Equity Commission.

Libraries in Texas are on the frontlines of the censorship battle. Area directors meet to discuss the issue, those who are experiencing challenges, and those who are policing themselves out of fear. I believe I can offer a unique perspective not only from myself, but also my colleagues who are involved in active challenges, said Griswold.

Pat Scales is a retired middle and high school librarian and a returning FTRF trustee.

Book censorship is at epidemic levels, and Americas youth are the target. FTRF promotes and defends students right to read, but now, more than ever, the young need to be guided and taught to advocate for themselves. Proactively involving youth in defending their First Amendment rights assures a new generation of free speech advocates and could inoculate them against falling victim to a virus called censorship, said Scales.

She is a free-speech advocate and is the author of Teaching Banned Books: 32 Guides for Children and Teens, Protecting Intellectual Freedom in Your School Library and Books Under Fire: A Hit List of Banned and Challenged Childrens Books. She writes a bi-monthly column, Scales on Censorship, for School Library Journal, and is a regular contributor to Book Links magazine. She has also served as a member and chair of the ALAs Intellectual Freedom Committee.

Professor Sophia Sotilleo is an Associate Professor and the Interim Library Director at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania for the Langston Hughes Memorial Library. In this capacity, she has the privilege to teach Information Literacy across all subject areas and works with the Library Team to support and ensure that the Library is a part of the Lincoln University curriculum and co-curriculum strategic plans for student success. Her current area of research and interest is in Embedded Librarianship, with a focus on access, advocacy, and leadership in the field of Librarianship.

I am interested in serving on the Freedom to Read Board to support the work of an organization that defends and promotes the rights of libraries to ensure access to books and information. Working as a librarian at a Historically Black College and University (HBCU), serving first generation college students, I see daily the importance of having access to various types of books that not only educate, but also empower and encourage our next generation of leaders. The freedom to read foundation continues to do an amazing job at defending and supporting access to information and I look forward to serving with the organization in this inspiring and important work.

Re-elected for a second term:

Loida Garcia-Febo is a Past President of the American Library Association, a current member of the FTRF Executive Committee, and is looking forward to continuing the work she started by Co-Chairing the FTRF Social Justice and Intellectual Freedom Task Force which resulted in the development of various lines of action and a forthcoming two-day FTRF symposium about the topic. Garcia-Febo has served as Chair of the American Library Associations (ALA) Intellectual Freedom Round Table, long-time active REFORMA (the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking) liaison to the FTRF, and an Officer of International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions Advisory Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (IFLA's FAIFE). She is committed to serve diverse communities and to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion achieving joint historical signatory commitment from US library associations to EDI on which they are building new strategies to serve libraries and library workers. I am eager to continue serving and working together with the FTRF Trustees to continue protecting and defending the First Amendment to the Constitution, said Garcia-Febo.

For photos of the newly elected members, please visithttps://bit.ly/3a7Cq23

The Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF) is led by a board of fifteen trustees. The term for an elected trustee is two years, and board members may serve two consecutive terms. Trustees meet at least twice a year in conjunction with the ALA conferences or professional development events and hold virtual committee meetings throughout the year. If you are interested in working with the Freedom to Read Foundation visit us at http://www.ftrf.org or email jmcintosh@ala.org for information on how to become involved.

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Freedom to Read Foundation 2022 Election Results | News and Press Center - ala.org

Editors note: Veteran Raleigh-based tech attorneyJim Verdonik,founder ofFire Pit Cell which is dedicated to exploring freedom issues, and co-founder of Innovate Capital Law, Verdonik has been actively involved over several decades in advising technology start-up businesses on capital raising and other legal issues.

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RALEIGH Some people view history as a straight line that goes in one direction. Personally, I think history is more like a pendulum. The farther to one side the pendulum swings the greater the force of the pushback in the opposite direction.

Freedom suppressors come from variety of backgroundsfrom mega billionaires, to Chinese dictators, to Wall Street money managers to international bureaucrats. They all march under the common banner of Environmental, Social and Governance is the banner raised by freedom suppressors.

This was a big ESG week at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Among what happened:

Wow. All is lost, right?

Love, hate & distrust: For Big Tech the stakes, risks are getting even bigger

Not so fast. Some people view history as a straight line that goes in one direction. Personally, I think history is more like a pendulum. The farther to one side the pendulum swings, the greater the force of the pushback in the opposite direction.

We are seeing the first signs of that pushback using the same weapons ESG supporters use. Alliance Defending Freedom recently launched the ViewpointDiversityScore.org website and annual Business Index. ADF describes its efforts as follows: the Business Index focuses on industries that have the greatest potential to impact free speech and religious freedom.

These include industries that provide essential banking, payment processing, and cloud services, or that serve as platforms for third-party expression in the digital space. Many of the companies are household names, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Bank of America.

Along with scoring companies, Viewpoint Diversity Score will provide companies with workable solutions through model polices, research, toolkits, polling, and constructive dialogue.

We can expect that other countermeasures will follow, just like states are pushing back against Disney for is supporting political causes.

Like ADF, they will use the same tools ESG forces are using now.

What do you think?

Free speech is at stake: Twitter, Big Tech, big media vs. Elon Musk and you

I like a good fight as much as the next guy. Buy me a drink and Ill tell you about it. And free speech is one of my most basic values. So, one might expect me to be a big ADF supporter.

Software amplifies power. So, software that rates in favor of free speech must be good, right?

But I ask this basic question. Where is all these software ratings that will be used by both sides leading businesses?

I guess Im old fashioned. I think business should focus on creating and selling product and services that their customers want. If customers dont want it, they wont buy it. Then, businesses must change or die. Anything that diverts from that focus is bad for business.

What happens to an economy where too much attention is being paid to ideological software ratings and not enough attention to delivering what people want to buy?

Weve seen many economies that were driven by ideology:

Not very good examples of thriving economies, are they?

What is ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investing? Kenan Institute says

Software concentrates power. When it is harnessed to serve an ideology, it amplifies both the good and bad effects of that ideology.

So, although Im ready to do battle to support free speech and other values, I do wish both sides would disarm and let businesses fulfill their primary missionselling products and services customers want.

Another question: Why would you want your business caught in an ideological war?

When you see half the country fighting the other half, maybe you might not want your business to be in the middle.

Heres how you can avoid that fate:

Or jump into the middle of the war and suffer the consequences.

Tweet this: Elon Musk won Twitter battle with lightning speed

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Seal your social rating software in vault - then drop it to the ocean floor - WRAL TechWire