Category Archives: Free Speech

At the eve of a new year, its traditional to make a resolution or two. I have no such list for myself or others, but I do have a wish. For 2022 and beyond, I wish that all of us who still cherish liberal values will band together to oppose the worrisome rise of authoritarianism around the world.

For decades, those inclined toward free markets have focused on authoritarianism coming from the political left. We have spared no energy denouncing and opposing it. Weve rightfully been concerned about the push to centralize more power in the hands of federal governments and to increase the scope and size of all government. We have warned that these policies, pursued consistently, pave what the great F.A. Hayek called the road to serfdom.

This fight should continue. However, its time to be equally harsh toward those on the Right who want to use state power to control individuals choices and destroy those with whom they disagree. In America, this illiberalism was visible in many of the policies pushed by former President Donald Trump, including industrial policies riddled with favoritism and hostility to foreign workers and immigrants. It peaked during the last months of his presidency with claims of stolen elections and other conspiracy theories.

Sadly, this right-wing illiberalism has continued with Trump allies pressuring election officials to reverse the result of the 2020 election, and its found plenty of advocates in Congress. With some exceptions, the Republican Party has turned away from free-market ideas and embraced what can best be described as central planning: more government handouts; a continued affection for crony privileges including protective tariffs bestowed on its favorite industries; and a newfound opposition to free speech and enthusiasm for hyperactive antitrust campaigns against industries it doesnt like.

Illiberalism has also taken root among many conservative intellectuals. While there have always been different strains of thinking among neoconservatives, populists and other thought leaders on the Right, these groups increasingly define themselves by their opposition to the Left while endorsing policies that are just as terrible.

Certain thinkers would even like to see the government impose a kind of religious order. As Kevin Vallier explained at The UnPopulist Substack, a few have begun embracing the doctrine of Catholic integralism, which includes ideas that all political and legal authority comes from God and that the Church can call on the state to help advance its mission by directing the state to impose civil punishments for violating church law, such as punishing heretics, among other things.

While this development is alarming on its own, it carries an additional danger. As Shikha Dalmia and Arthur Melzer argued, if the Right uses the illiberalism of the Left to justify its own as happened in post-World War I Weimar Germany America would risk falling into authoritarianism.

Unfortunately, the rise of right-wing authoritarianism isnt unique to America. Its taking root in many countries, including Sweden, Hungary, France and India.

Swedens Democrats a nativist, right-wing party had so many racists and xenophobes within its ranks that even it had to implement a zero-tolerance policy against such rhetoric. Yet, the country has still turned against immigrants, who are blamed for problems caused by its progressive welfare state.

In Hungary, President Viktor Orban has implemented massively generous welfare payments like a $35,000 child tax credit for parents with over three children but also made his ultimate mission to crack down viciously against any left-wing opposition. This has made him a role model for some American ideologues.

In my native France, rising star and presidential candidate Eric Zemmour has been open about his desire to return to a time when the country was run exclusively by and for French folks and immigrants who truly embraced French culture preferably Christian and gave their children names such as Jacques, Pierre and Marie.

So, as I wish you a happy New Year, I also ask you to join me in opposing illiberalism in all its forms. It means opposing the draconian regulation and unsustainable government welfare advanced by the Left. It also means opposing rising right-wing illiberalism that is hostile to LGBTQ and immigrant cultures, itches to ban books and generally wants to use government power to achieve its cramped vision of an American society.

Veronique de Rugy is the George Gibbs Chair in Political Economy and a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

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A call to everyone to fight rising authoritarianism, in 2022 and beyond - Alpena News

Shamira Ibrahim Shamira Ibrahim is a Brooklyn-based writer by way of Harlem, The anti-intellectual that advocates for free speech and dismisses the root purpose of terms like woke and cancel culture, has become more prominent this year. And certain high-profile members of the Black bourgeoisie have become some of its biggest supporters.

The insurrection of January 6, 2021 was a shocking international affair, a jarring display of the violent nature of Americas foundational values of entitlement and white supremacy. For many who had been following the post-2016 trajectory of Trumpian conservative acolytes and their adherence to the various conspiratorial cabals littered among the vast corners of the internet from the Proud Boys and QAnon supporters to the organizing, strategy, and recruitment taking place on now-banned apps such as Parler and in private rooms of social audio apps like Clubhouse it was a tragic culmination of years of warning coming to fruition, long-ignored and minimized as fringe and unimpactful. As investigations have proceeded, it has continued to be revealed that there has been active awareness from political leadership, making the reality of the events of the day even more grim.

What even fewer expected, however, is the involvement of powerful Black public figures in these fiascos. Namely, Kanye West, agitator extraordinaire and once-2020 presidential candidate, who has been revealed to have sent delegates to harass Ruby Freeman who was accused of rigging votes to deny Donald Trumps reelection and also masked his own campaign connections to GOP operatives, which could go against FEC laws. This should come as little surprise from someone who once donned an MAGA hat. However, a sense of whiplash remains, particularly since the information was revealed on the heels of a joint benefit concert held by Kanye and Drake under the pretense of working to free Larry Hoover, co-founder of the Chicago gang Gangster Disciples (an undisclosed portion of the proceeds will be going toward community organizations around prison reform and community reintegration organizations).

While Kanyes actions might be the most salient, he is not nearly as much of an outlier as it may seem. The year 2021 is peppered with high-profile members of the Black bourgeoisie working to figure out the best way to craft a path forward as the bottom falls out of the cratering present, tepidly acknowledging that the establishment has failed to serve their populace to the best of their abilities. The problem remains, however, that anti-establishment positions, when left unstructured and absent from any real political framing or consistency, just devolve into anti-intellectualism and contrarianism that can be easily co-opted by conservative and far right actors. Even more dangerously, left unchallenged, their largest fan bases accept these unfounded presumptions as self-evident truths.

As one of the largest pop stars in the world, Wests long track record of success in music and fashion has led to him being heralded as a creative genius. For those who place him on a pedestal (whether fans, critics, or colleagues), however, there is a subconscious transitive property applied, deeming that his artistic prodigiousness extends to all domains that pique his interests. Marilyn Manson a man who has been accused by over a dozen women of psychological and sexual abuse, ranging from confinement in a soundproof cell to being raped, electrocuted, and chased with an ax has found refuge in the uninhibited acceptance that is part and parcel of Wests fan base, making a return to the public eye in the blinding spotlight of the Donda show at Atlantas Mercedes-Benz stadium in August. Nestled to the left of West in the porch of a replicate model of his childhood home (refashioned into a church), Manson looms over West as an ominous devil over his shoulder before debuting the collaboration Jail Pt. 2, a macabre and disjointed retort to the various misinterpretations of cancel culture set to melody, with an added verse from DaBaby making for a hat trick of artistic reprobates masquerading as iconoclasts.

When inquired as to the motivation for inviting Manson to work on the song during his impromptu appearance on the Drink Champs podcast, West dismissed the pushback as mob mentality.

Theyll hit you with the accusations or somebody who you was with 10 years ago theres women whove been through very serious things, pulled in alleys against they will thats different than a hug, but its classified as the same thing, he said. Its power and politics. You know, power-hungry maniacs and just, control. This is Nineteen Eighty-Four mind control that we in.

Its a shame that West genuinely seems to believe that feminism operates in absolutes, and that no one until 2021 had written fundamental literature around white supremacist patriarchy and the ways we can work to intentionally define harm and violations of consent in a caring, anti-carceral manner (perhaps he can start with the recently departed bell hooks The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love). Regardless, the irony in his statement lies in his implication that Manson is being demonized for the outsized offenses of torture and assault. Out of the 10 million views to date on YouTube, how many people will fact check his statement and hold him accountable? Fellow collaborator DaBaby has adopted similar tactics, misleadingly claiming that the LGBTQIA+ community absolved him of his accountability to the violent statements he made about the queer community and HIV earlier in the year a recent report also revealed that the financial commitments he was supposed to make to the organizations that took the time to educate him havent received any donations at all furthering a false narrative to his fan base that there is a shadowy cartel of white queer power brokers that negotiate fealty and penance to anyone who seeks to succeed in entertainment, and emasculate cisheterosexual Black men. Despite DaBabys failure to genuflect to said amorphous entities, he has resumed booking shows, returning to the Rolling Loud stage that triggered his public relations freefall earlier in the year, Hot97 Summer Jam, and announcing a tour sponsored by Rolling Loud.

Similarly, Dave Chappelle has been playing a game of intellectual dishonesty between his fans and the media. A longtime sharp thinker on race in his comedy, his more recent years have been punctuated by diversions in the space of gender and sexuality that reveal harmful gaps in his understanding which is to say, not at all largely shaped by the universe that he interacts in. The ensuing critique, however, prompted a wave of support not just from his fans and close friends in the comedy community including Joe Rogan but also prominent media conservatives on FOX News, all decrying attempts to cancel Chappelle who, ironically enough, resented his earlier work on the Chappelles show and standup special. The credits for his most recent special, The Closer, include a slideshow peppered with a whos who of free thinkers: Kevin Hart, Talib Kweli, Joe Rogan, and yes, Kanye West and DaBaby all while Gloria Gaynors I Will Survive streams defiantly in the background.

When critics attempt to point out the logical inconsistencies in these matters, they are lambasted as woke police or part of a cancel culture brigade, incapable of accepting a world of free speech and embracing free thinkers. Knowledge-seeking is an admirable venture; its part of any writers remit and something that everyone should aspire to continually engage in throughout their lifetime. Left unchallenged and unformed, however, anti-establishment ideals can easily be contorted into profiteering by those who you were looking to disrupt in the first place. Black entertainers the world over have expressed frustration after ascending in class position, only to be continuously confronted with roadblocks to creative empowerment and autonomy. The compulsion to recoil from many long-held neoliberal beliefs of economic and political freedom are understandable. Where the fracture begins is when an interrogation of that foundation has a prerequisite of preserving not only your wealth status, but the same celebrity that props up the same vultures that shook your foundation in the first place. That rejection of mainstream ideals rarely goes further left, which would require concessions that youve already eschewed, instead dissolving into a vacuous tantrum that can easily be molded at will on nightly airings of Tucker Carlson or Ben Shapiro YouTube videos, slowly being duped into the premise that these bad-faith platforms are the few people willing to embrace your plight. You are no longer in solidarity with the people; you are demanding that the working class rise up in solidarity with your fight under the misguided notion that these templates are a facsimile of their own interpersonal power dynamics with white supremacy in their daily lives.

In a time of complete disarray, its normal to look for exceptional answers to exceptionally troubling times. It helps many of us try to reconcile what seems incomprehensible and intangible about the ever-shifting present. But left unattended, many are susceptible to being co-opted by bad faith actors and other methods of co-optation, shaping still unformed thoughts into fully articulated arguments. As bell hooks articulated in her excellent essay Eating the Other, White racism, imperialism, and sexist domination prevail by courageous consumption. It is by eating the other that one asserts power and privilege. No matter what class position Black people reside in, we will always exist a product to be commodified in a white supremacist system, and any spiral into conservative, free-thinking anti-establishment is a danger thats actually more frighteningly average than uniquely exceptional. Reframing the enemy as a nameless, powerless voice, these entertainers believe theyre doing something for the greater good and extending that to their fan bases when, in reality, theyre only adding to the problem.

Banner Photo Credit: David Livingston/Getty Images

Shamira Ibrahim is a Brooklyn-based writer by way of Harlem, Canada,and East Africa who comments on culture, identity, and politics. Her work has beenfeatured in Teen Vogue, NYMag, and The Root. You can follow her comings and goings on Twitter at@_Shamgod.

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2021 Was The Year Of The Anti-Intellectual - Okayplayer

An Associated Press article recently published in the Press Herald (Pentagon issues rules aimed at stopping rise of extremism, Dec. 21, Page A3) states that the Biden administration using the justification that a few Jan. 6 Washington rioters had military connections is now directing military commanders to review the online social media accounts of their service members. If it is brought to officials attention that a service member may have reposted or even liked a posting from what officials have determined is an extremist group, the service member could face expulsion.

The most disturbing part is that there is no precise determination about what constitutes an extremist group, so even religious groups could be included. As a retired Navy veteran with three children currently serving in the military, Im deeply concerned at the Biden administrations directive for the military to purge so-called extremists from the military.

Weve seen how internet trolls have destroyed peoples reputations and livelihoods by digging up their present or past online activity. Now military careers could be destroyed if a service member does not adhere to the new woke ideology the Biden administration is trying to impose.

Ted SiroisSaco

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Letter to the editor: Service members' free speech rights unfairly restricted - pressherald.com

Logan Paul hasn't posted a new YouTube video in over six months. His last two uploads were titled "I'm Fighting Floyd Mayweather This Week" and "My Last Words To Floyd Mayweather." Then, silence. If you didn't know better, you'd think he died in the ring.

What else but a fatal boxing incident, after all, could have led one of the most famous YouTubers in the world a controversial but charismatic web presence who helped shape the template for modern e-celebrity to leave his 23.2 million subscribers on radio silence for half a year and counting?

"Demonetization; being blacklisted; being shadow-banned," says Paul, 26, rattling off the different ways YouTube and other mainstream social networks have alienated him. "It's really demotivating when you are yourself, and the platform that you're on because of the advertisers, because of public sentiment, whatever it is no longer wants to support you."

In search of a corner of the internet where he can be his full, unfiltered self, Paul has traded in YouTube for Subify, the company that runs the back-end tech for his boutique fan network the Maverick Club. Part of Subify's pitch is that there are almost no restrictions on what Paul can post in the Maverick Club, or what other celebrities can post through their own Subify-enabled channels.

"It really feels like free speech is dead in America right now, because a platform can literally shut you down and take away your microphone," co-founder Zak Folkman said. "At Subify, we will literally never do that to a creator unless they are promoting terrorist acts or child pornography."

In an era when social media censorship is a top-of-mind concern for everyone including content creators and members of Congress, it's a vision with appeal to some. But it's also one that raises a lot of messy, ethically fraught questions as a recent discussion between Paul, Folkman and Subify co-founder Chase Hero showed.

"If we had a Nazi on the platform that just wanted to talk about their beliefs," Folkman said at one point during the Zoom call, "I personally would have a very hard time telling them 'You're not allowed to do that,' unless they're inciting violence."

This, apparently, was news to Paul.

"Look, I love your sentiment," he said. "But as another creator on the platform, you'd be hearing from me."

"The real answer is, I think that we just take everything as it comes," Hero said. "All these people are gonna have different beliefs and giving them a platform to communicate with their people is really all we care about. Right? And obviously, I'm kind of with [Paul]; I'd be really hard-pressed about someone who's a Nazi."

"Obviously we don't support ," Folkman said, before Paul cut him off, saying it was a terrible example.

Folkman continued: "We'll take it on a case-by-case basis. But I really can't see too many creators that we wouldn't feel comfortable with supporting their right to freedom of speech."

Paul didn't seem convinced. "I will f--- up a Nazi," he said.

"Bad example," Folkman said. "Bad example."

After the call, the company told The Times that Folkman had misspoken. "We absolutely do not allow hate speech of any kind for example no Nazis or anything of that nature," an email statement attributed to Folkman read. "We take pride in giving a platform to creators of all kinds. We believe that everyone is entitled to have their voice and opinions heard."

If Subify's leaders are conflicted about what running a haven for free speech actually entails, they're not alone. The internet has long been seen as a refuge for untrammeled expression, but as large social media platforms have come to dominate the web, that ideal has run up against concerns about extremism, misinformation and user safety. What moderation steps tech platforms do take have become controversial and highly politicized.

Subify isn't the first tech company to build a brand around the promise of near-absolute free speech, but it does differ from many such apps in its focus on influencers' creative freedom rather than Trump-era culture wars.

"The simple fact is that no company in its right mind would ever throw its hands up and cede control of its product solely to the users of that product," said Sarah T. Roberts, an associate professor at UCLA and co-founder of its Center for Critical Internet Inquiry.

Because social media companies in America enjoy wide legal immunity to moderate what their users post, Roberts added, "this therefore becomes a question of tolerance from a business perspective. That's why I consider content moderation to be primarily a tool of brand management for firms; the firms themselves have to assess what risk they're willing to take by having distasteful, abhorrent material on their site."

For Paul, these aren't abstract questions. Back when he was primarily known as a YouTuber, that platform demonetized him or took away his ability to make money from his videos after he posted a series of controversial clips in which he tasered dead rats, endorsed the "Tide Pod challenge," and, most notoriously, filmed a suicide victim in Japan's Aokigahara forest.

Other scandals have found Paul saying he would "go gay" for a month; using women as a "human bicycle;" and, in one video, appearing to lasso unsuspecting women.

These days, Paul hasn't entirely abandoned YouTube his podcast Impaulsive has its own channel, with 3.53 million followers, that still updates regularly but he has moved much of his creative output, including his signature autobiographical vlogs, over to Subify.

"You're creating it for an ecosystem of people who really like you," Paul said of the Maverick Club. "It's not for the masses to judge or make assessments or make mean comments. As someone who in the past has been polarizing, there's people who don't like me; there's people who do like me. I really love the idea of leaning into people who do like me."

An "Oops! All Logan Pauls" social network might sound hellish to those who find Paul's patent mix of stunts and self-documentation obnoxious. But super-fans are willing to pay $19.95 a month for access, and Paul is happy to oblige them.

Behind the safety of a paywall, on a platform all his own, Paul said he's able to post "a bit more explicit content; a bit more risque content."

"It's that 10% of me," he said, "that whether for legal reasons, whether for public sentiment, whatever, I'm unwilling to show the world."

Subify declined to say how it would've handled the "suicide forest" and rat-tasering videos, instead pointing to "adult related content, conservative and other alternative viewpoints" and "hunting and firearms content" as areas where it's more permissive than YouTube.

As Paul was growing disenchanted with mainstream social media, Subify offered him an out. Folkman and Hero, who have a background in e-commerce, had initially built a proto-Subify for personal use: "It was so that we could power our own brands," Hero said.

But while hanging out with Paul one day Hero and Paul's manager are longtime friends the YouTuber suggested they open it up more widely.

"He's like, 'Man, I think this would be really good for a person. What do ya think?'" Hero recalled. "I was like, 'If you're willing to be that person, we'd give it a shot.'"

The result was the Maverick Club, Subify's first entry into celebrity fan platforms; it's now been up and running for about a year and a half, Paul said. (Paul is one of Subify's top creators, but according to a spokesperson, he has no other financial stake in the company.)

In the meantime, Subify expanded its suite of features and began finding new celebrities to work with: rapper Flo Rida, Jackass stuntman Steve-O, NASCAR driver Hailie Deegan. Hero said that "tens and tens of thousands of creators" have applied to join, and that he and Folkman are "constantly vetting, asking questions, and then doing our due diligence" to filter out poor fits.

Despite Subify's promise of near-absolute free speech, not everyone makes the cut.

"There's a guy who wanted to come in and revive the old bum fights, if you remember that make homeless people fight," Hero said. "We're like, 'Yeah, that's just not gonna work here. I love you to death, but that's just not something that we really condone.'"

The company's laissez-faire attitude also doesn't extend to its nonfamous subscriber base. Celebrities may get wide latitude to post things they couldn't put up elsewhere, but in the interest of building an environment that the co-founders describe as a "safe space" and an "echo chamber" for content creators, their fans are subject to more rigorous scrutiny.

"We have moderators so if we see anybody who's being actively negative or anything like that, it's actually a violation of the terms and conditions," Folkman said. "We'll usually send a warning if it's pretty mild, and then from there, if they violate it again, they'll be banned and blacklisted."

Entry into that walled garden isn't free. In exchange for building each client a stand-alone platform with support for multimedia posts, livestreaming, tipping, direct messaging, mobile apps and push notifications, the company which a spokesperson said has been valued by third parties at approximately $100 million takes a cut of everyone's earnings. The specific percentage "depends on the individual platform size and functionality," the spokesperson said.

As the internet becomes more and more paywalled, it's an increasingly popular business model. Startups such as Patreon, Substack, Cameo and Bandcamp now help influencers, artists and other online entrepreneurs mint a buck off of content they might otherwise put out for free. The company Fanfix offers monetization tools similar to Subify's but according to co-founder Simon Pompan adheres to more traditional moderation policies, including not allowing nudity.

OnlyFans is another such competitor. Although it's best known for selling amateur and independent pornography, the platform has feinted at ambitions of becoming a more generic content-monetization platform; this summer it briefly moved to ban sexual content, only to reverse course days later.

While Subify allows pornography too, its co-founders hope to avoid being pigeonholed as an overtly sexual platform.

"I've been recruited to OnlyFans," Paul said. "The business model is great. But the platform has this stigma I have no interest in being a part of."

Subify has proved to be a suitable alternative. By combining OnlyFans' monetization features, YouTube's more flexible branding and a free-speech ethos all its own, the company has helped Paul build his own little internet oasis, free from the censors, haters and trolls who soured him on the open web.

"Subify has kidnapped me from YouTube!" he exclaimed at one point during the Zoom call.

"It's been a great abduction," Hero responded.

2021 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Logan Paul and the elusive quest to build a free-speech platform that's not a cesspool - The Bakersfield Californian

Understanding the constitutional and legal definitions as well as restrictions of free speech

In the wake of the war cry targeting minorities at a religious congregation in Haridwar, its high time India recognised hate speech as the vilest affront and the greatest dishonour to the freedom of speech as conceived and cherished by the Indian Constitution. Hate Speech as defined by the 267th report of the Law Commission of India is an incitement to hatred primarily against a group of persons defined in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief and the like. Any attempt to casually pass off such demagogic claptrap under the political tapestry of free speech in an election-bound State (Uttarakhand) amounts to the denial of all that the Constitution of India represents.

THE GIST

As the Constituent Assembly deliberated on Article 13 of the draft Constitution, which would later become Article 19 in the enacted Constitution, intense apprehensions were expressed on the proposed proviso to Article 13 listing restrictions to the freedom of speech and expression. These restrictions finally became Article 19(2). The exceptions under the same clause fell under four broad categories: libel , slander, defamation, contempt of court, offends against decency or morality and undermines the security of or tends to overthrow the state. The proposed restrictions were resisted on the ground that these sought to rein in free speech and are not seen in the American Constitution, which had tremendously inspired members of the Constituent Assembly. Dr. Ambedkar sought to douse the fire of concern by declaring, It is wrong to say that fundamental rights in America are absolute. The difference between the position under the American Constitution and the Draft Constitution is one of form and not of substance. That the fundamental rights in America are not absolute rights is beyond dispute. In support of every exception to the fundamental rights set out in the Draft Constitution one can refer to at least one judgment of the United States Supreme Court. It would be sufficient to quote one such judgment of the Supreme Court in justification of the limitation on the right of free speech contained in Article 13 of the Draft Constitution.

As the original text of Article 19(2) did not contain the term public order, the pre-publication ban on newspapers/weeklies in Delhi and Madras under the state laws were invalidated by the Supreme Court on the ground that the amplitude of the restriction under Article 19(2) did not cover public order. This prompted Parliament to amend Article 19(2) by way of The Constitution( First Amendment) Act, 1951, to include public order among other additional grounds, but with a general rider that such a law shall impose (only) reasonable restrictions.

Jawaharlal Nehru, the protagonist of the proposal, defended the First Amendment. In his address to Parliament, he said, It has become a matter of the deepest distress to me to see from day to day some of these news-sheets which are full of vulgarity and indecency and falsehood, day after day, not injuring me or this House much, but poisoning the minds of the younger generation, degrading their mental integrity and moral standards. It is not for me a political problem but a moral problem. How are we to save our younger generation from this progressive degradation and the progressive poisoning of the mind and spirit? The laws enacted under the public order restriction included Section 153A , Section 153B, Section 295A and Section 502(2) of the Indian Penal code. However, the mesh of law was perforated by weak as well as selective enforcement.

In Pravasi Bhalai Sangathan vs Union of India & Ors.(2014) the Supreme Court said: Hate speech is an effort to marginalise individuals based on their membership in a group. Using expression that exposes the group to hatred, hate speech seeks to delegitimise group members in the eyes of the majority, reducing their social standing and acceptance within society. Hate speech, therefore, rises beyond causing distress to individual group members. It can have a societal impact. Hate speech lays the groundwork for later, broad attacks on [the] vulnerable that can range from discrimination, to ostracism, segregation, deportation, violence and, in the most extreme cases, to genocide. Hate speech also impacts a protected groups ability to respond to the substantive ideas under debate, thereby placing a serious barrier to their full participation in our democracy.

On the proliferation of hate speech, the Supreme Court pointed out that the root of the problem is not the absence of laws but rather a lack of their effective execution. Therefore, the executive as well as civil society has to perform its role in enforcing the already existing legal regime. Effective regulation of hate speeches at all levels is required as the authors of such speeches can be booked under the existing penal law and all the law enforcing agencies must ensure that the existing law is not rendered a dead letter.

Further, the Supreme Court requested the Law Commission of India to examine the issue. The 267th report of the Law Commission was of the clear opinion that new provisions in IPC were required to address the issue.

It suggested the insertion of new Sections 153C (prohibiting incitement to hatred) and section 505A (causing fear, alarm, or provocation of violence in certain cases) to curb the menace of hate speech.

Despite a draft Bill being annexed to the report, none has been presented to Parliament so far.

Neither has the law been strengthened, nor the existing law strongly enforced. This sums up the citizens predicament

Abhilash M.R is lawyer practising in the Supreme Court.

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Is the freedom of speech absolute? - The Hindu

When anyones civil rights are violated, everyones civil rights are in jeopardy.

Like a warm quilt, our constitutional rights protect us against government actions that directly or indirectly chill our exercise of free speech, peaceable assembly, and other basic liberties. Extending the analogy, whenever the fabric is torn there is a risk of the tear widening, threatening the integrity of the whole, unless it is promptly mendedthe proverbial stitch in time.

We have recently seen how damage to civil rights can affect communities far from the source. On Nov. 19, a riot broke out in Portland, Ore., protesting Kyle Rittenhouses acquittal on charges based on his shooting of three men in Kenosha, Wis., 2,100 miles away. The physical damage was small, mostly broken windows.

Most protests are peaceable. The Washington Post reported on Oct. 16, 2020, that its four-year study of 7,305 political crowd events found fewer than four percent of them resulted in property damage or vandalism. Injuries to people, including protestors and peace officers, occurred in fewer than three percent of the events.

Thats not always the case. In the aftermath of George Floyds cruel, senseless murder on May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis, protest demonstrations were held in over 140 U.S. cities by June 13, 2020, according to the New York Times.

Most were nonviolent, though small, violent factions caused massive insured property damages, estimated by the World Economic Forum to have exceeded $2 billion by February 2021.

Abridgments of civil liberties can lead to violence, often on the side obstructing those liberties, and opportunists on the other side who exploit peaceful, fervent demonstrations to wreak mayhem. The losses in such instances are, in this writers view, more devastating that the monetary losses. Though such people do not speak for the vast majority of peaceful demonstrators or peace officers, they speak the loudest, fueling the prejudices that gave rise to, and still motivate, the opposing sides worst natures.

Imagine the emotional costs that fear, anger, and distrust impose on a person, or a society, especially amid a global pandemic. Many readers will not have to imagine.

On the macro scale, and over decades, movements to defend precious liberties push society forward, in fits and starts. Think of the 19th Amendment, enfranchising 50% of the population; the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and continuing to today, which goaded Congress to enact the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. The MeToo movement doesnt change the law, but empowers victims of abuse to stand up to and expose their abusers.

On the micro scale, we have another remedy: lawsuits that challenge and chip away at governmental encroachments on civil rights. These cases can achieve economic justice, a.k.a. damage awards. Without getting too deeply into lawspeak, the Civil Rights Act encourages such lawsuits by allowing federal trial courts to award to prevailing plaintiffs their attorneys fees and costs.

More rarely, civil rights cases can confirm the rights of others, as well as the plaintiffs. Some such cases have moved from the law books to our vocabulary. Such cases define the proper role of government with respect to individual and associational rights of privacy, advocacy, assembly, and equal protection of the law.

On July 1, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a civil rights case I had tried, won, and lost on appeal. The high court issued 64 decisions in its 2020-2021 term. Mine was the 64th to be decided. We filed it to defend one nonprofit organizations right to keep its donors confidential from a state regulatoranonymous advocacy being at the heart of the Founders case against King George IIIthough we also sought to hold the regulation unconstitutional on its face, and thus applicable generally to nonprofits.

As the case wended its way to the Supreme Court it became clear the facial challenge was the right one to pursue. With the leadership of experienced Supreme Court advocates as co-counsel, we presented the case and, on July 1, won it as a facial challenge.

The case spanned six years from filing to decision. It was certainly worth the effort for the client and similarly situated 501(c)(3) nonprofits, and will be the highlight of my career.

As a lawyer of 41 years tenure and an adjunct professor of law, youd think I would be all for civil rights lawsuits. I am, but wish they werent necessary, just as I wish that protest marches werent needed to advance societal decency, one notch at a time. An ounce of preventionrecognizing and respecting established civil rightsis worth $2 billion of cure, or six years in the courtroom.

Civil unrest is not a natural disaster. We make it. We could end it, though it would take a long time. After all, it took nearly four centuries to get us where we are.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. or its owners.

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Louie Castoria is a partner in Kaufman Dolowich & Voluck LLP and teaches litigation classes at Golden Gate Universitys School of Law in San Francisco. He urges measures to strengthen the security of our most cherished freedomsstill very much works in progress.

The opinions expressed are the authors, and not necessarily those of his law school, law firm, or its clients.

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When Will Civil Rights Lawsuits No Longer Be Necessary? - Bloomberg Law

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Free Speech Nation: Battle of Ideas | Tuesday 28th December - Oakland News Now

Dr. Anthony Fauci is calling for Fox News host Jesse Watters to be fired over recent comments Watters made at the right-wing America Fest event in Phoenix, Arizona. Watters suggested that people confront Fauci and tell him that he funded research at the Wuhan lab and then boom, he is dead, he is dead, hes done. You do that, thirty seconds, its all you need.

Watters also used the terms ambush and kill shot when making his suggestions. Of course, Watters can just hide behind these being rhetorical devices and claim he doesnt want anyone to literally kill Anthony Fauci. But given the vitriol against the nations top infectious disease doctor from the right, and given that Fauci has received a multitude of death threats, Watters should have known better.

Fauci responded this week to the Fox hosts comments and said that he should be fired on the spot. Fauci told CNNs John Berman, what kind of craziness is there in society these days? Thats awful that he said that. And hes going to go, very likely, unaccountable. I mean whatever network hes on is not going to do anything for him. Unfortunately, Faucis prediction here is most likely going to be correct and hopefully his life is not put in even more danger over Watters comments.

--

The David Pakman Show is a news and political talk program, known for its controversial interviews with political and religious extremists, liberal and conservative politicians, and other guests.

Missed an episode? Check out David Pakman on our Youtube Channel anytime or visit the show page for the latest clips.

#FreeSpeechTV is one of the last standing national, independent news networks committed to advancing progressive social change.

#FSTV is available on Dish, DirectTV, AppleTV, Roku, Sling and online at freespeech.org

Anthony Fauci Arizona CNN David Pakman Fox News Jesse Waters John Berman Phoenix Right-Wing America Fest The David Pakman Show

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Fauci Wants Fox Host Fired Over "Kill Shot" Comment - Free Speech TV

Today were reflecting on what The Atlantic covered in 2021. Below youll find stories that are both cautionary and hopefuland that cover both the natural world and our digital one.

To get a single Atlantic story curated and sent to your inbox each day, sign up for our One Story to Read Today newsletter.

What Bobby McIlvaine Left Behind

McIlvaine was 26 years old when he died in the September 11 attacks. Two decades later, his loved ones are still grappling with the loss. In our September cover story, Jennifer Senior examines grief, conspiracy, and one familys search for meaning.

Why Health-Care Workers Are Quitting in Droves

About one in five health-care workers has left their job since the start of the pandemic, Ed Yong reported this fall, and a bigger exodus may be coming.

Trumps Next Coup Has Already Begun

Millions of Americans still believe the 2020 election was rigged in favor of Joe Biden. For our latest cover story, Barton Gellman spoke with Big Lie supporters to understand their convictions. They are, he reports, the primary source of Donald Trumps power to corrupt the next election.

Not Enough Has Changed Since Sanford and Son

For decades, Black writers and producers have had to tell stories that fit what white executives deemed authentic. In our October cover story, Hannah Giorgis maps the slow, cyclical, and uneven progress of Black representation on television.

History Will Not Judge Us Kindly

In October, leaked internal documents revealed that Facebook has a highly sophisticated understanding of how it could make the platform safer from extremism and misinformation. The company wants people to believe that the public must choose between Facebook as it is, on the one hand, and free speech, on the other, Adrienne LaFrance wrote. This is a false choice.

The Roe Baby

Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, never had the abortion she sought. Today, the baby at the center of the case is an adult. After decades of keeping her identity a secret, Jane Roes child chose to talk with the journalist Joshua Prager about her life.

Why Confederate Lies Live On

Before the pandemic, Clint Smith set out to answer a question: Why does the myth of the Lost Cause persist? For some Americans, he wrote in our June cover story, Confederate history isnt the story of what actually happened; it is just the story they want to believe.

Return the National Parks to the Tribes

For Native Americans, there can be no better remedy for the theft of land than land, David Treuer writes in our May cover story. And for us, no lands are as spiritually significant as the national parks.

The Terrifying Warning Lurking in the Earths Ancient Rock Record

Many of the current climate models are missing something big, Peter Brannen writes. For our March issue, Brannen sifted through Earths deep past to understand just what kind of ill-tempered planet were dealing with.

One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps

In 2017, the poet Tahir Hamut Izgil and his family escaped the Uyghur genocide in China. In an unprecedented, five-part series, he shares a rare firsthand account of the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

Thanks for reading. This email was written by Mara Wilson, whose favorite story this year was about Happy, the elephant at the center of the most important animal-rights case of the 21st century.

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10 Atlantic Stories From 2021 That You Cant Miss - The Atlantic

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen created an international media blitz earlier this year when she leaked tens of thousands of damning internal company documents to the Wall Street Journal and US government. Her disclosures so far have prompted public outrage and government investigations and theyve directed a spotlight at an increasingly powerful movement of tech workers who have been organizing to hold their companies accountable over ethical concerns ranging from workplace issues to questionable business practices.

These employees a mix of public whistleblowers and internal activists often risk their careers and reputations to alert the public to problematic behavior at the companies they worked for. Some of them are blue-collar workers who take even greater risks to speak out because they have less financial and professional security than corporate employees. But they keep coming forward, as more disillusioned tech workers become convinced they have the unique insights that will force powerful tech giants to face public accountability for their missteps.

To understand why these workers spoke up and how that impacted their own lives and the world since they did Recode interviewed almost a dozen recent whistleblowers and employee activists in tech, from Frances Haugen to Chris Smalls, a former Amazon warehouse manager who is now helping lead a movement to unionize the companys blue-collar workers.

A few years ago, it was very rare to read about somebody inside a big tech firm speaking up publicly, both at the top and at the bottom. The tide has turned, said William Fitzgerald, a partner at communications firm The Worker Agency, which specializes in representing workers and whistleblowers in the tech industry.

As tech companies have grown from startups to empires, theres a growing concern that these giants need to be checked, better regulated, or at the very least, more closely scrutinized. And tech employees are uniquely positioned to do that. They are part of a limited group of people who have a behind-the-scenes understanding of the complicated algorithms and internal company policies that underpin so many of the apps and services most of us use every day.

Even many political regulators, whose job it is to oversee these companies, admit they lack the technical expertise to do so showing how much these whistleblowers and activists testimony matters. In a world where some of the most powerful tools of communication and commerce are controlled by a handful of corporate executives, these employees who speak up are providing an unexpected and meaningful balance to Big Techs power.

The everyday person needs to understand the extent of the harms that these companies could perpetuate, said Timnit Gebru, who used to co-lead Googles ethical AI department and recently started a research institution to study the effects of AI on marginalized groups. She says she was fired in 2020 (Google says she resigned) over a conflict related to one of her research papers. And so its the whistleblowers who do us a huge service, because then we could have regulations that address some of these issues.

The whistleblowers and activists who spoke to Recode are an important part of techs ongoing reckoning. These workers are speaking up at the possible expense of their jobs, financial stability, and even their mental health. And despite their companies efforts to crack down on this movement, whistleblowers are still coming out at major tech companies and startups alike in greater numbers than before.

Speaking out against a powerful company like Google, Facebook, or Apple isnt an easy choice.

No one wants to be a whistleblower, Haugen told Recode. It is a horrible experience from the perspective of wrestling with what to do. Having to realize that you could do something its scary.

Thats how it felt for Sophie Zhang, a former data scientist at Facebook, who spoke out and shared evidence that revealed Facebook has repeatedly failed to stop widespread political misuse of its platform.

Zhang, whose job at Facebook was to identify spammy activity on the platform, gradually became aware of a deeper issue after she started working at the company in 2017: Authoritarian governments in places like Azerbaijan and Honduras were systematically using fake Facebook pages and profiles to influence politics in those countries.

She found that a torrent of politically motivated fake accounts was slipping through the cracks and avoiding detection at Facebook. So she said she took her issue up the management chain and asked to hand over the work to a dedicated team, but says she found limited success.

I should not have been single-handedly making decisions that impacted national presidents and made international news, Zhang told Recode. After a certain point, I started losing sleep at night because of the responsibility.

In a statement to Recode in response to whistleblower claims by Zhang, Haugen, and others, Meta (formerly known as Facebook) spokesperson Kadia Koroma wrote, in part:

We value constructive feedback and expect to be held accountable, but we also think its important to set the record straight when the work of thousands of people at Meta is mischaracterized. Claims being made about our company misrepresent how much we care about these issues, how much progress weve made on them, and how much we invest to improve even further.

In response to Zhangs claims in particular, Facebook said that it has taken some action against coordinated fake accounts in Honduras and Azerbaijan.

Zhang said her managers ultimately told her to stop finding fake political accounts and focus on her main job responsibilities. After Zhang was fired around eight months later for what Facebook said was poor performance, she posted an internal memo on Facebooks employee communication platform, Workplace, detailing the problems she identified at the company. In her memo, which BuzzFeed News obtained and published excerpts of in September 2020, Zhang wrote about how conflicted she felt and why she was hesitant to blow the whistle on Facebook publicly: I consider myself to have been put in an impossible spot caught between my loyalties to the company and my loyalties to the world as a whole.

Several months after parts of her memo were published, Zhang went public with her story in the Guardian. Since then, shes found a new audience to share her story with: international lawmakers. Zhang has been invited to speak before the UK Parliament, lawmakers in India, and other governmental bodies about regulation to limit the harm of social media platforms like Facebook. Eventually, shes thinking about finding another job in tech, but for now is able to support herself with savings while she advocates for tech reform.

For Zhang, the hardest part of whistleblowing was the moral burden leading up to it.

For other whistleblowers, the hardest part of the process is what comes after they speak out.

Former Google engineer Rebecca Rivers protested the companys work with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), arguing that it wasnt in line with Googles ethical principles because of the human rights abuses associated with the immigration agency. Rivers said that her life turned upside down after she spoke out, even though she only did so internally at the time.

Google fired Rivers in 2019, saying that she made clear and repeated violations of its data-security policies. Rivers was one of five employees involved in internal organizing that Google terminated at the same time, dubbed The Fired Five.

I think that part of what caused Google to want to take this kind of action is that they were seeing larger organized groups of [workers] again and again on issues, said Laurence Berland, another member of the Five. And I think that that kind of organization, that kind of exercise of power, is what these tech companies like Google are most afraid of.

Berland, Rivers, and the other members of the Fired Five are involved in litigation against Google with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that the company retaliated against them for legally protected worker organizing activity. The case could be a precedent-setting one for expanding workers rights to free speech while on the job. But its been slowed down by procedural delays that Googles lawyers initiated around releasing certain documents, which could take months or longer a process Rivers called mentally exhausting.

There is a common criticism that people who blow the whistle in tech are doing it for attention or fame. But the former employees Recode spoke with scoffed at the notion, relaying their own experiences of personal suffering and the relatively comfortable lives they led before they spoke out.

Its frankly not good for you as an individual to be a whistleblower, Berland told Recode. If youre lucky, the worst youll go through is some stress and some expense, but you can end up really burned out. You can end up blackballed.

Rivers said in the months following her termination from Google, she struggled with her mental health. She had recently come out as trans and had to dip into her 401(k) savings to make ends meet as she struggled to find a new job. The pressure was so great that, at times, she was suicidal.

Every application I sent would be an immediate rejection. Not even a phone call from HR, said Rivers.

Eventually, Rivers found a fit: In August of last year, she was hired at an internet-focused research group, the NYU Ad Observatory, where another member of the Fired Five, Paul Duke, is also working.

Since Rivers and her colleagues were fired, there has been an uptick in whistleblowing and activism at other tech companies like Facebook, Apple, and Amazon. At some of these firms particularly within the notoriously secretive, heads-down work culture at Apple that level of organizing was previously unthinkable.

Rivers said thats why, even with all the hell that shes been through, she would speak out at Google again if given the chance.

I see the impact that Ive had, not only at Google but in the tech industry as a whole and in the labor movement as a whole, she said.

Even a few years ago, it was a lonelier world for would-be tech whistleblowers.

But as more whistleblowers and activists have come forward, theyve begun building a community that can offer support to conflicted employees.

Ifeoma Ozoma, a former Pinterest public policy manager who accused the company of racial discrimination in 2020, said that, once she went public with her claims, she felt alienated from some of the colleagues who had been privately sympathetic to her case.

They were afraid that they would be next if they said anything, Ozoma told Recode. Theres a lot of isolation that takes place.

When Ozoma was considering how to speak out about Pinterest, she said she researched the work of tech activists before her, like Meredith Whittaker and Claire Stapleton, who were two of a handful of organizers of the Google Walkout, a historic protest against the companys handling of sexual harassment.

Now, Ozoma is a key leader for a growing community of tech employees.

In October, she released an online resource called the Tech Worker Handbook, which provides advice for would-be tech whistleblowers and activists. In recent months, shes been supporting Apple employees by helping file a shareholder proposal asking the company to reassess using nondisclosure agreements to prevent employees from speaking out about harassment and discrimination at work.

Other activists are focusing on relief funds for employees who risk their financial stability to speak out.

Liz Fong-Jones, a former Google engineer and tech activist, set up the Coworker Solidarity Fund in partnership with the nonprofit Coworker.org for tech worker whistleblowers and organizers. Fong-Jones put $100,000 of her personal finances from her stock in Google toward seeding the project. She said so far, the fund has distributed $180,000 in grants to 64 people, including those who suddenly need[ed] to scramble to have COBRA [health insurance] or suddenly need to cover their rent especially people who were working lower-wage jobs.

Googles Gebru said that when she spoke out, she was heartened by how many tech workers supported her on social media.

There was an infrastructure built to organize. It was good to see how that played out in my situation, she told Recode. That groundwork galvanized a lot of people.

Even at Apple, a notoriously secretive company where internal issues are rarely discussed publicly, some of its workers have started speaking out about alleged discrimination, harassment, and workplace issues. Former Apple engineer and tech activist Cher Scarlett is one of the creators of an employee activist group called #AppleToo, which changed its name to Apple Together earlier this month. On the groups public Medium page, employees have published anonymous stories about mistreatment in the workplace.

In a statement to Recode, a spokesperson for Apple responded to growing concerns by employees such as Scarlett:

We are and have always been deeply committed to creating and maintaining a positive and inclusive workplace. We take all concerns seriously and we thoroughly investigate whenever a concern is raised and, out of respect for the privacy of the individuals involved, we do not discuss specific employee matters.

Although Scarlett no longer works at Apple, and will be starting a new job at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, her former colleagues continue to be in touch with her about organizing in the Apple Together group.

I think that as humans, we copy each other; were inspired by each other, Scarlett told Recode. As more people in tech feel comfortable to organize or stand up for themselves in terms of ethics or workplace issues more people will feel safe and empowered to do so.

So while most would-be tech whistleblowers may have to take big risks, they now have examples to follow and networks to tap into. Many of these grassroots support systems didnt exist even a few years ago.

All this activism and whistleblowing has inarguably shined a glaring light on the problems in the tech industry.

Haugen not only gave the Senate evidence about Facebooks missteps, but she also offered a blueprint on how to regulate the company. And when Congress released its historic report accusing companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon of engaging in anti-competitive behavior, it relied in part on confidential whistleblower testimony.

But whether or not these disclosures actually lead to meaningful change depends on what the public does with that information. After Haugens revelations, Facebook executives have faced several fiery hearings before Congress, and new legislation to regulate social media has been proposed. But so far, none has passed or is even close to passing. Google has dropped controversial projects in the face of employee whistleblowing like its plans to work with the Pentagon on military AI and to develop a censored version of its product in China but in 2021, it tried to restart work again with the military.

Whistleblowers are really important. But whistleblowing itself is not all of the work. Its not the full work, said Ozoma. Theres the speaking up and then theres following it up [and] doing the work after.

Ozoma led a successful effort to pass a bill in California called the Silenced No More Act, which legally protects workers across industries who speak out about discrimination at their place of employment. But it wasnt easy. Ozoma said she spent months sitting on Zoom with legislators to explain to them why the law needed to change, in addition to fundraising for a professional lobbyist to help pass the legislation.

Other whistleblowers are putting their efforts toward forming unions, which they see as a more sustainable approach to giving workers a voice within powerful corporations.

Chris Smalls is a former Amazon warehouse manager who was fired in March 2020 after criticizing the company for how it was treating its workers during the start of the pandemic. Amazon says Smalls was terminated for allegedly violating social distancing guidelines and returning to work after a Covid-19 exposure (Smalls previously said he never went inside the building, only in the parking lot). Today, Smalls says he spends his days outside Amazons Staten Island warehouses trying to get his former colleagues to unionize.

We realize now that were not going to get taken care of by billionaires, were not going to get taken care of by CEOs, [and] to some degree, were not going to be taken care of by politicians, Smalls told Recode. So its up to the workers. Its up to the activists to continue to organize.

In the meantime, companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple have all cracked down on their internal communication tools in different ways, limiting the ability of workers to organize across different divisions and on politically loaded subjects. These tech companies also regularly investigate the communications of employees who are suspected of leaking information to the press. And while there are some legal protections in the US for whistleblowers who disclose their findings directly to government agencies like the SEC, or employees who speak publicly about workplace issues and union organizing, those protections are limited.

In this country and in democratic nations around the world, we need much more robust and comprehensive whistleblower protections if we actually want to give our oversight authorities the ability to do their jobs, said Libby Liu, the CEO of the nonprofit Whistleblower Aid, which helps workers across industries who go public with company information, including Frances Haugen.

But despite all the legal risk, public firings, social ostracism, and the financial instability of a pandemic, tech workers are continuing to blow the whistle with more frequency than before.

Nearly every activist and whistleblower Recode interviewed said they were talking to several others in the industry who are considering speaking out about issues like workplace harassment and discrimination, or the harms of the products their companies are building.

When Chanin Kelly-Rae, a former global manager of diversity for a division of Amazon Web Services, first spoke to Recode about racial bias issues she identified inside the company, she was the only employee to speak on the record. Now, several others have come forward publicly, and Kelly-Rae says she is in touch with more who are considering speaking out.

People saw that I could be named and that the world would not fall apart, Kelly-Rae told Recode. I could have kept quiet and made a lot of money. I could have checked some boxes that werent real. But that didnt serve my purpose.

Ultimately, despite the often negative personal consequences, tech whistleblowers keep speaking out.

I dont think you can ever stop this sort of stuff, said Berland. Short of [having] everything done by robots.

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Facebook, Google, Apple, and others face a growing whistleblower movement - Vox.com