Category Archives: Free Speech

We should not demonise those who disagree with us, writes Gavin Williamson in his latest free speech tirade in the Telegraph. The Education Secretary is out promoting the governments new Higher Education Bill, which would fine universities found to have stifled free speech and enable academics and speakers who feel they have been silenced to seek compensation.

A few months ago, I wrote on how the government was arguing with itself over whether its proposed legislation would protect legal but abhorrent speech such as Holocaust denial. But now I have a different question for Williamson, the free speech champion. Last week, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill passed its third reading, despite numerous proposed amendments and objections from human rights groups. This bill would enable police to shut down any demonstration if it could potentially cause serious annoyance or serious inconvenience, or if it is simply deemed too noisy. It is hard to imagine a protest that is quiet and polite enough not to annoy anyone making a stir is the point of protesting.

So what does Williamson think of the chilling threat to free speech from a law designed to curtail the right to peaceful protest? Or is he too busy playing at student politics to care?

Henry Dimbleby, the founder of the fast-food chain Leon and now on the board of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, thinks we should be eating insects. Hes drawn up a national food strategy for Britain, which includes prescribing free fruit and veg to deprived households and encouraging the nation to switch from meat to bugs and plant-based alternatives (algae, fermented meat substitutes) to save our health and the planet.

Conflating the environmental and health arguments for ethical vegetarianism has always struck me as unhelpful. For example, when land use and farming methods are taken into account, coffee and cheese rack up higher emissions than pork or poultry, while the asparagus, green beans and berries that fly to your plate have a much bigger carbon footprint than foods that arrive by boat. Calculations about the ethics of what we eat become even more thorny when considering lab-grown beef or highly processed meat alternatives. Are we trying to improve animal welfare, reduce emissions, make food cheaper, or become a healthier nation? All are admirable goals, but Im doubtful we could achieve them all at once.

At any rate, while Ive no objection to culinary adventurism (Ive eaten locusts), Im not sure that a pandemic which is thought to have begun in a market where bats are sold as food is the best time to convince people to experiment.

Snippets of positivity are hard to find mid-crisis, which makes the news that Oxford University has started trialling an HIV vaccine all the more uplifting. With the challenge unsolved after three decades of research, scientists are now embarking on a new strategy using techniques developed while working on the Covid-19 jab. The thought that lessons from this pandemic could yield a solution to another is a reminder that, however dire things may have felt at times, the past 16 months have been anything but wasted.

I was 17 when I was first accused of putting a male acquaintance in the friend-zone. By becoming friends with him I had, apparently, cruelly denied him the chance of pursuing a romantic relationship with me. This piece of Nineties internet slang, popularised by an episode of Friends, is so ubiquitous it made it into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013.

Except, it turns out its rubbish. Research from a new study finds that two-thirds of couples started out as friends, with the average friendship lasting 22 months before turning romantic. Rates of reverse friend-zoning were even higher among young people and LGBT couples.

So if your love life has been on hiatus during the pandemic, take heart. You dont necessarily need dating apps to find that connection the ideal partner for you may have been your friend all along.

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First Thoughts: The real threat to free speech, eating insects, and why you should ask a friend out to dinner - New Statesman

The Kurds

[W]hen we refer to all Kurdish fighters synonymously, we simply blur the fact that they have very different politics. . . right now, yes, the people are facing the Islamic State threat, so its very important to have a unified focus. But the truth is, ideologically and politically these are very, very different systems. Actually almost opposite to each other. Dilar Dirik, Rojava vs. the World, February 2015

The Kurds, who share ethnic and cultural similarities with Iranians and are mostly Muslim by religion (largely Sunni but with many minorities), have long struggled for self-determination. After World War I, their lands were divided up between Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. In Iran, though there have been small separatist movements, Kurds are mostly subjected to the same repressive treatment as everyone else (though they also face Persian and Shiite chauvinism, and a number of Kurdish political prisoners were recently executed). The situation is worse in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, where the Kurds are a minority people subjected to ethnically targeted violations of human rights.

Iraq: In 198689, Saddam Hussein conducted a genocidal campaign in which tens of thousands were murdered and thousands of Kurdish villages destroyed, including by bombing and chemical warfare. After the first Gulf War, the UN sought to establish a safe haven in parts of Kurdistan, and the United States and UK set up a no-fly zone. In 2003, the Kurdish peshmerga sided with the U.S.-led coalition against Saddam Hussein. In 2005, after a long struggle with Baghdad, the Iraqi Kurds won constitutional recognition of their autonomous region, and the Kurdistan Regional Government has since signed oil contracts with a number of Western oil companies as well as with Turkey. Iraqi Kurdistan has two main political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), both clan-based and patriarchal.

Turkey: For much of its modern history, Turkey has pursued a policy of forced assimilation towards its minority peoples; this policy is particularly stringent in the case of the Kurdsuntil recently referred to as the mountain Turkswho make up 20 percent of the total population. The policy has included forced population transfers; a ban on use of the Kurdish language, costume, music, festivals, and names; and extreme repression of any attempt at resistance. Large revolts were suppressed in 1925, 1930, and 1938, and the repression escalated with the formation of the PKK as a national liberation party, resulting in civil war in the Kurdish region from 1984 to 1999.

Syria: Kurds make up perhaps 15 percent of the population and live mostly in the northeastern part of Syria. In 1962, after Syria was declared an Arab republic, a large number of Kurds were stripped of their citizenship and declared aliens, which made it impossible for them to get an education, jobs, or any public benefits. Their land was given to Arabs. The PYD was founded in 2003 and immediately banned; its members were jailed and murdered, and a Kurdish uprising in Qamishli was met with severe military violence by the regime. When the uprising against Bashar al Assad began as part of the Arab Spring, Kurds participated, but after 2012, when they captured Kobani from the Syrian army, they withdrew most of their energy from the war against Assad in order to set up a liberated area. For this reason, some other parts of the Syrian resistance consider them Assads allies. The Kurds in turn cite examples of discrimination against them within the opposition.

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Arguments on the Left: Free Speech - Dissent

Opinion

Police allowed hate group Patriot Front to harass Philadelphians without much intervention. Compare that to their treatment of Black Lives Matter protesters, and the double standard is galling.

A white supremacist march was met with little police intervention over July 4th weekend. (Photo by Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto)

On the night before your July 4th cookout, nearly 200 masked white supremacists armed with shields, flags and banners flocked to Center City to throw smoke bombs and Reclaim America.

It was a scary scene as a handful of counter-protesters from the city fought against a mini-militia that roamed the streets for a while without much police intervention. After running from the counter-protesters, some members were briefly detained before being allowed to flee the city. Members of Patriot Front, a known white nationalist hate group with roots in the violent 2017 Unite the Right riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, didnt put in a request for a city permit they simply came to Philly to disrupt.

The contrast between the responses from the Mayors Office and the Philadelphia police department is rather telling.

Let me be very clear: Patriot Front is a group that openly advocates for White supremacy, Mayor Jim Kenney said in a statement to the press. White supremacy and racism are among the greatest scourges this country has faced since its founding. While we respect everyones right to exercise free speech, our administration stands against everything these groups represent. Im personally appalled and disgusted these groups chose Philadelphia as the place to demonstrate their open hatred. Racism, intolerance, and hate have no place in Philadelphia. Were monitoring the situation very closely, and the Police Department and other public safety agencies are coordinating to ensure a safe Fourth of July holiday in Philadelphia.

But clearly, his police department handled the situation with kid gloves.

As a law enforcement agency, the Philadelphia Police Department is charged with the duty to ensure the safety of individuals who are exercising their constitutional right to speak freely and peaceably assemble, a spokesperson for the police department told the press in a statement. After police became aware of escalating tensions between those marching and bystanders on the street, police ensured that the march remained peaceful. Once Patriot Front members concluded their protest and departed the area, officers resumed normal operations.

Thats it? Thats really how were going to assess this situation?

So a group of nearly 200 white supremacists without a permit got to roam free in Center City on a lively Saturday night while chanting Take America Back, clashing with residents, and throwing smoke bombs and the police want to talk about the importance of free speech and how they ensured that the march remained peaceful? Fuck outta here. Take a second to imagine how differently things would have gone if those same actions were taken by Black Lives Matter protesters.

Considering that the city is now looking at paying out thousands of dollars in settlements and continues to face lawsuitsafter thepolice wrongfully tear-gassed innocent Black Lives Matter protesters and civilians during last summers racial uprisings, seeing the police caught up in yet another controversy involving racism is infuriating, if predictable. In 2020, peaceful BLM protesters were arrested and tear-gassed, while in 2021, white supremacists who clashed with counter-protesters and threw smoke bombs were not.

Translation: Our police care more about protecting and serving out-of-town white supremacists who seek to intimidate than they do about the safety of innocent protesters combating such hatred.

This is another textbook example of why Black people like me will never trust the police.

As City Council once again increases police spending, Im reminded why my tax dollars that help fund our police department are wasted. Hundreds of millions of dollars every year (currently $727 million) are given to an institution that will tear-gas its own civilians for speaking out against white supremacy but will bend over backward to protect the free speech of a hate group known for racism and anti-Semitism. Theres no way you can make sense of this; its such a blatant double standard.

To call for the city to hold the police department accountable at this point is like asking a parent to punish a favorite child. Its become crystal clear that the department that gets the biggest chunk of the citys budget is allowed as much free rein as the white supremacists it just let off easily. White supremacy and policing are proving yet again to be in full alignment, and it continues to reflect badly on elected officials who cower behind a veil of neutrality rather than hit the police where it hurts financially.

Thanks to the soft handling of white supremacists by the police, I fear this wont be the last time Philly encounters the Patriot Front. And unless things change, history will continue to repeat itself.

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ICYMI, Philly Police Made Sure to Defend the Free Speech of White Supremacists - Philadelphia magazine

To the editor There is no freedom without freedom of speech. The right to express and exchange ideas is basic to a free and healthy society. However, today we see an intentional effort by the elites in our country to stifle this basic freedom by censoring views that do not fit into the accepted narrative. These people are dominant in the media, government and big tech.

History shows us that this methodology is used by totalitarian regimes to gain power and control the populace. It appears that we are coming dangerously close to this happening in America.

Some figures from the past warned us: George Washington said, If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. One of our own from Yakima, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, warned, Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.

We need to collectively wake up, speak up and act to protect this most precious freedom.

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Letter: We must protect our right to free speech - Yakima Herald-Republic

On June 23, the Canadian government tabled a bill that would expand existing hate speech policy to better address online hate speech.

Over the coming weeks, the government will consult with the public on devising a regulatory framework around how to make social media platforms more transparent and accountable with their content moderation practices. But the growing popularity of Rumble, a Canadian video-sharing platform championing online free speech, foreshadows a tumultuous road to implementation.

Rumble is a relatively small (compared to YouTube) video-sharing platform that gained over 30 million monthly users almost overnight. Chris Pavlovski, Rumbles CEO from Brampton, Ont., has credited much of the platforms success to a surge in interest among American conservatives frustrated by big techs crackdown on hate speech and misinformation.

Rumbles lenient approach towards harmful and fallacious speech has attracted the likes of Dan Bongino, the popular American right-wing political pundit known for spewing COVID-19 and 2020 presidential election conspiracy theories.

Another right-wing American political commentator, Dinesh D'Souza, has also acquired a large audience on the platform. D'Souzas political commentary includes racist and conspiracy-driven content, such as attributing the 9/11 attacks to the cultural left.

Rumble doesnt just accept harmful content, it amplifies it. Journalists reviewing the platforms recommendation system found that if a person were to search the term vaccine on Rumble, they would be three times more likely to be recommended videos containing COVID-19 misinformation than accurate information.

Rumble launched in 2013 with the goal of creating a video-sharing platform that could compete with YouTube. Pavlovskis goal was initially too risky for investors, but the growing animosity towards big tech sparked new interest in the alternative streaming service.

Pavlovski recently received investments from Silicon Valleys leading conservative billionaires, including author J.D. Vance, venture capitalist Peter Theil and former Trump adviser Darren Blanton.

Pavlovski said that he never intended for Rumble to become a conservative hotspot. Rather, Rumble was developed for dedicated content creators who are being stifled elsewhere.

Pavlovski has described Rumble as different from YouTube and Facebook because it uses far fewer algorithms for recommending and reviewing content. Its promoted as a streaming service where creators can gain exposure without fear of suppression or censorship.

On Rumble, videos are displayed in chronological order to users based on who they follow on the platform. Algorithms are not used to filter high risk video content; video content is subject to human review. Algorithms are mainly involved when trying to figure out which videos are viral and which videos we need to put humans on to look at to distribute Pavlovski explains.

Rumble also has a more lenient approach to content moderation. Users are prohibited from posting videos that include illegal activities such as pornography, child exploitation or harassment. However, videos claiming election fraud and coronavirus conspiracies remain permissible on the streaming platform.

Pavlovski has remarked that Rumble will never censor political discussion, opinion or act like the arbiters of truth.

Pavlovskis criticism of big techs reliance on AI to amplify certain content over others is not unfounded. National governments are increasingly concerned by how the discoverability of content impacts their local creators.

In addition, new research indicates that deplatforming malicious content creators can lead them to alternative platforms that are more difficult to control. However, Pavlovskis claims should be taken with a grain of salt.

Tarleton Gillespie, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research New England, argues that the notion of neutrality advocated by platforms is a mere distraction. The same can be said of Rumble.

My goal is to keep it as fair as possible. Were not interested in taking any position on any type of content, we just want to be a platform, and I believe thats why weve seen so much growth, Pavlovski said in an interview with FOX Business, adding that the company has stuck to our core policies we started with in 2013.

The streaming service may list its content in chronological order, but it is not a mere conduit for information. Rumble still tags, categorizes and sorts content; selects which content is trending or viral; and determines which content to license and distribute. These practices are integral to the services business model.

Marketing Rumble as a champion of free speech is strategic because it helps the video-sharing platform evade liability for the content appearing on its website. However, a platform that promotes content via algorithmic manipulation and/or receives notice of unlawful content, is arguably a publisher according to Canadian common law and, therefore, liable for harmful content appearing on its platform.

Read more: Parler: what you need to know about the 'free speech' Twitter alternative

To combat online misinformation, platforms like Rumble, YouTube and Facebook must be more transparent about how their algorithms organize and promote content. Disclosing substantial information about their content moderation practices is key to enabling accountability, public trust and democratic deliberation.

Whether the Liberals will be successful in implementing the new bill and enforcing transparency among platforms remains to be seen. In the meantime, free speech platforms like Rumble will continue to attract users frustrated by the content moderation practices of incumbent platforms.

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Meet Rumble, Canadas new 'free speech' platform and its impact on the fight against online misinformation - The Conversation CA

The Federal Trade Commission filed an antitrust complaint against Facebook on Dec. 9, 2020. The core of this complaint charged that Facebook used its market power to monopolize the social networking market and to charge excessively high rates to advertisers. On June 28, U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg dismissed the complaint. He gave the FTC 30 days to attempt to amend the complaint and refile it. A bipartisan group of Senators and Congresspersons has now urged the FTC to refile the suit. The FTC should ignore the politicians and refrain from refiling the suit.

If, somehow, the FTC were to refile and win the lawsuit it would be socially counterproductive. The most intense complaints about Facebook center on content management, not on market monopolization and high ad rates to advertisers. This matters a lot because the remedy that the FTC was seeking in the antitrust complaint divestiture of Instagram and WhatsApp would likely make the successor companies worse at dealing with the content management challenges, including former President TrumpDonald TrumpTexas family arrested for role in Capitol riot Poll: McAuliffe holds 2-point lead over Youngkin in Virginia governor's race On The Money: Inflation spike puts Biden on defensive | Senate Democrats hit spending speed bumps | Larry Summers huddles with WH team MOREs access.

Many people, left, center, and right, are angry with Facebook. This anger, often quite justified, stems from Facebooks sometimes bungled approach to content management over the past decade. These failures include Facebook being manipulated for bad ends. Facebooks failure to catch the Myanmar militarys use of fake accounts to hunt down and capture pro democracy dissidents, and to stoke demand for ethnic cleansing appalled many people. Facebooks failure to catch foreign governments use of fake accounts to spread lies and manipulate our politics and rend our social fabric also angers many. Philippine President Rodrigo Dutertes dreadful misuse of Facebook in the Philippines was a total failure of management. Others are livid over the Cambridge Analytica debacle. And, of course, both left and right are dreadfully unhappy with Facebooks approach to domestic political discussion. Everyone is unhappy.

Why will breaking up Facebook likely make things worse? In short, because content control can be done better by one large company than several smaller ones. Content management on a giant platform needs to be done partly by computer, using artificial intelligence and natural language processing to find problems. These techniques scale up beautifully. The more instances of questionable content that an AI algorithm gets to face and evaluate, the better its judgment will be in the future. Think of Google and its search algorithms; the principle is the same. In addition, because hate speech and manipulation are strongly rooted in local culture, finding the problems also requires real people who are fluent in language and culture. The management of such units also scales up.

At present, Facebook says that it uses a combination of employees and outside companies that provide the linguistic and cultural expertise needed to find troublesome content. This is extremely expensive, and Facebook will probably need to spend much more than it currently does. In addition, competitive pressures will likely reduce budgets for security for data. Further, a large company, with roots in many countries, will likely have the resources to resist political pressures engendered by an unhappy right-wing or left-wing part of the government and its supporters. For all these reasons, several small companies will likely do a worse job with content moderation than will one big one.

But doesnt one big company also have pressures to allow only conforming, middle-of-the-road posts and discussions? No. If the one, big company is advertiser-supported and has many channels, it has incentives to provide something for everyone. That is Facebook. They have incentives to provide opportunities for everyone, left, right and center, to participate on Facebook, regardless of Mark ZuckerbergMark Elliot ZuckerbergBeyond Trump's flimsy lawsuits, there's a proper path for regulating social media The FTC's plan to break up Facebook will only worsen free speech concerns The Hill's Morning Report: Afghanistan's future now up to Afghans, Biden says MOREs personal politics.

What should be done? Do the antitrust laws demand that the FTC refile this counterproductive complaint against Facebook? No. The circumstances of the original complaint a razor thin majority to file the complaint during the lame duck period of a presidential administration raise serious suspicions about the complaints quality. Reading the dismissed complaint confirms that it was, in fact, quite weak. In short, the FTC was seeking to redo the decisions it made years ago to allow Facebook to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp, based mainly on documents and theories that were available when they gave Facebook permission. That just will not do.

The FTC should drop this ill-considered antitrust complaint. Forcing Facebook to divest Instagram and WhatsApp will make content management worse, not better. It is time for the FTC to abandon its counterproductive strategy and refuse to refile the complaint. And we all need to continue to pressure Facebook to do a better job of content management.

Matthew L. Spitzer is Howard and Elizabeth Chapman Professor of Law and director of the Center for Law, Business, and Economics at Northwestern University.

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The FTC's plan to break up Facebook will only worsen free speech concerns | TheHill - The Hill

In today's fast-paced news environment, it can be hard to keep up. For your weekend reading, we've startedin-case-you-missed-it compilations of some of the week's topUSA TODAY Opinionpieces.As always, thanks for reading, andfor your feedback.

USA TODAY Opinion editors

By Joe Trippi

"As citizens, we must join each other in a pro-democracy coalition that confronts the authoritarian movement in our midst at every turn. President Biden and those trying to govern must find compromise and common ground wherever they can to get things done, and we all must give them the room to do so. But there is no compromising with those who continue to fuel the authoritarian movement with lies."

By Dr. Scott E. Hadland

"Many of us list of prohibited substances including me, an addiction doctor found ourselves scratching our heads at the World Anti-Doping Agencys seemingly antiquated rules on cannabis. The Agency classifies substances as prohibited if they meet two of three criteria that the substance is performance-enhancing, is a health risk to the athlete, or violates the spirit of sport.' I assert that cannabis does not meet this definition."

By Christopher F. Rufo

"Next, this framework teaches students to think that they bear responsibility for and are the beneficiaries of historical crimes committed by individuals who shared the same skin color; consequently, they must atone for their white privilege." Critical race theorists in practice sometimes refer to this as "internalized racial superiority" within white people."

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By Michael J. Stern

"Because an indictment triggers discovery obligations on the DAs part, Weisselberg will now have access to virtually all the evidence against him.I cannot count the number of times a defendant initially told me to shove my cooperation offer, yet ended up cooperating after seeing everything I was going to show to the jury that would decide his fate."

By Gretchen Carlson

"More than 60 million Americans are under the thumb of forced arbitration in their employment agreements, and over a third of American workers are bound by NDAs. They cannot tell their own truths; they cannot tell their own stories. Its time to remove the muzzles, not just to make people safer but to also create more productive, positive businesses. No one can be expected to do their best work in the presence of predators and their protectors."

By Paul Brandus

"Trump was astonishingly easy to grade. I gave him a 10 as in horrible in Moral Authority, Administrative Skills and International Relations. Others obviously had similar views. He finished rock bottom, the worst of the worst in the first two categories and 43rd (second-to-last) in International Relations.

By Suzette Hackney

"Leneal Lamont Frazier, 40, died Tuesday after his vehicle was struck by a squad car as police chased a robbery suspect, according to Minneapolis police spokesman John Elder. Police spotted a driver in a vehicle believed to have been stolen during a carjacking and linked to multiple robberies. The driver fled as officers attempted to make a traffic stop. As an officer pursued the suspect, he collided with Frazier's vehicle."

By The Editorial Board

"The Supreme Court could toss out qualified immunity but has repeatedly passed up that chance. In the past year, the court has taken a few baby steps to modify the doctrine, but it could take years for that to make a substantial difference. Fixing this travesty is a job for Congress, after lawmakers promised police reform in response to nationwide calls for change. The House passed a measure that among other changes would eliminate qualified immunity for law enforcement officers, but most Senate Republicans have sharply objected."

By Abigail Anthony

"A fundamental flaw in supporting speech limitations is the assumption that the arbiters who would impose restrictions share your precise evaluation of what should be limited. I challenge those willing to relinquish free speech to ask themselves whether they are comfortable with their political opponents legislating the regulations."

By Ben Crump

"Too often, Black life is treated as disposable, and those who threaten or end it face little or no consequence. How do we correct that? Changing hearts and minds is a lengthy, stubborn and often fruitless process. But the American justice system offers remedies criminal justice, which applies a punishment for taking a life, and civil justice, which attaches a monetary value for lost life. Of course, putting Chauvin behind bars for two decades doesnt equate to full justice. It doesnt give Floyd his life back. And no amount of money can make up for the loss of a human being. But both remedies are critical forms of accountability, and both can drive change."

By Connie Schultz

"Now that Joe Biden is president, a majority of U.S. Catholic bishops want to force a debate on whether he and other Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should be allowed to receive communion. The Vatican has warned against punishing support for a right, and Pope Francis recently preached that communion is not the reward of saints, but the bread of sinners.

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Lincoln Project, campus speech, critical race theory, Trump Org. charges and other top columns - USA TODAY

Hate speech regulation is hard to get right. As media law specialist Steven Price has pointed out, the challenge for a democratic society lies in targeting the harm hate speech is claimed to do while not capturing other legitimate forms of speech too broadly.

Its true, the scope, enforcement and effectiveness of hate speech law must be calibrated carefully. But these are practical and mechanical questions about how hate speech laws might operate, not assertions that the harm in hate speech is something the law cannot regulate.

While I accept these practical difficulties exist, in my view the harm done by hate speech is clearly something the law should be concerned with. But we also cant ignore persistent scepticism about the appropriateness of using the law to regulate this kind of speech.

When the Race Relations Commissioner floated the possibility of hate speech reforms in 2017, ACT Party leader David Seymour argued there were already adequate laws controlling defamation or inciting violence:

Those things are already illegal. Anything further is actually censorship and we should be just as worried about the state starting to decide what is acceptable to say as we should be about people saying nasty things.

The insistence on a link to inciting violence being a prerequisite for curbing free speech has been repeated several times since the government announced its intention to reform hate speech law after the Christchurch mosque attacks.

Opposition Leader Judith Collins has promised the National Party will reverse any attempts Jacinda Arderns government makes to criminalise speech beyond the threshold of inciting violence.

Read more: NZ's hate speech proposals need more detail and wider debate before they become law

Similarly, when a division of Auckland Council cancelled a venue booking for controversial Canadian speakers Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux in 2019, a spokesperson for the Free Speech Coalition said the organisation accepted genuine hate speech that incited violence or illegal activity should be blocked.

But curbing free debate under threat of disruption is neither desirable nor acceptable in a free and democratic society.

Not everyone who is sceptical about hate speech law reform takes this line. But it demands attention when the leaders of both major opposition parties and a significant lobby group insist a link to violence is required before hate speech regulation can be justified.

The problem with the argument, however, is that this isnt how we treat many other existing forms of speech regulation in New Zealand law.

Defamation, for example, addresses the harm to a persons reputation and the related effects this has on ones ability to interact with friends, family, colleagues and the wider world.

The harm to those social bonds caused by defamation is seen as sufficient justification in itself to allow for civil damages to be recovered. No link to violence at all is required.

Read more: The Christchurch commissions call to improve social cohesion is its hardest and most important recommendation

Similar protections exist under laws governing invasion of privacy. These allow people to be sued if they share private facts about another person in a highly offensive way.

The harm here is to the dignity and autonomy of the affected person. Again, no link to violence is required, even remotely.

One might argue these are civil wrongs and the proposed hate speech laws include criminal liability. But civil hate speech regulation is also proposed. Conversely, we already criminalise many kinds of speech with no link to physical violence.

Obtaining by deception and blackmail are two obvious examples. These focus on speech which, without threats of violence, causes a loss to the victim and/or a benefit to the offender.

No link to violence is required in fact, no financial loss is required. The core of the harm covered by these offences is to the autonomy of the victim, which has been compromised by blackmail or fraudulent statements.

More generally, a diffuse public interest is upheld by offences such as perjury, which deals with systemic harm to the administration of justice, and public order offences, which uphold our collective right to enjoy public spaces.

None of these requires a link to violence. Moreover, the interests being protected dignity, autonomy, collective public good are exactly the sorts of things influential legal theorists argue are protected by regulating hate speech.

Read more: Facebook's failure to pay attention to non-English languages is allowing hate speech to flourish

In my view, then, the argument that a link to violence is a precondition of hate speech regulation is wrong.

This is not to say there are no good arguments against the governments proposed reforms. This is hard to get right, and there are things that can and should be changed.

As Steven Price has also pointed out, the proposal is oddly equivocal about whether speech intended to cause hatred also has to cause (or be likely to cause) hatred in society.

As well, serious thought needs to be given to whether the the potential inclusion of every group protected from discrimination under section 21 of the Human Rights Act is overly broad in the context of hate speech regulation.

We should focus on those very real concerns public submissions on the proposed legislation close August 6 rather than insist on a threshold for speech regulation that our legal tradition simply does not require.

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Why inciting violence should not be the only threshold for defining hate speech in New Zealand - The Conversation AU

None of those topics were on the agenda, except for a resolution that would update the mask policy. But the concerns brought forth reflected national conversations about racial awareness and free speech in the educational system.

Before the main business of the meeting, Brenda Hiniker expressed concerns about critical race theory. She said it's another form of discrimination.

"Critical race theory is very misleading," she said. "It talks about equity instead of equality. Equality is defined and supported by the Declaration of Independence, defended in the Civil War, supported in the 14th and 15th amendments, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ... CRT creates reverse discrimination against the white population."

Hiniker also criticized the board for its April 27 decision regarding "government speech." At that time, the board passed a resolution designating several statements, such as "Black Lives Matter" and "Stop Asian Hate," as government-protected speech.

The resolution read, in part: "We believe in the importance of sharing a general message of acceptance and inclusion of historically underserved/marginalized individuals, which is consistent with the Districts legal obligation to provide a workplace and educational environment that is free from discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, and other legally protected classes."

Wes Lund came to the podium with a number of Dr. Seuss books, in an apparent reference to the decision by the business that preserves the author's legacy to stop publishing six titles because of racist and insensitive imagery.

Lund spoke past the allotted time about what he described as a hostile environment for anyone who doesn't subscribe to a particular set of beliefs.

"I look across our community, across this room, and I see a tremendous polarization," he said. "Students and teachers, parents and community members are afraid to voice their true opinions in our schools for fear of docked grades, threats to job security, and retaliation against their students and businesses. A singular social political narrative is being pushed, and anyone who dares to question it or speak against it is being attacked and demonized."

He also mocked the hiring of the district's interim superintendent, Kent Pekel.

"Does everyone in the room realize that we have some 'deep state' characters right here in the room?" Lund asked the crowd, referring to Pekel's work with the Central Intelligence Agency earlier in his career. "I don't think everyone's aware of that, because when you hired this guy, you did it over Zoom meeting. You should have had the public vet this character to find out who exactly he is."

Board Chairwoman Jean Marvin banged her gavel in protest against Julie Kisgen-Reed, who came forward after the public comment period was closed. Kisgen-Reed spoke passionately against mask usage, though much of her initial comments were hard to hear as the commotion in the room rose.

The crowd didn't stop there.

When Marvin introduced the meeting, someone in the crowd suggested the board start with the Pledge of Allegiance. The crowd of at least 50 then recited the pledge themselves, followed by a round of applause.

As the crowd began to leave the room at the end of the meeting, someone suggested they say the Lord's Prayer. Many of them did, some with their arms raised in the air.

Neither Pekel nor the board responded to audience members during the meeting, but they provided comments afterward.

Pekel and Marvin said many of the implications expressed were incorrect. For example, both clarified that Rochester Public Schools does not teach critical race theory.

"This kind of misinformation is really disheartening," Marvin said.

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Crowd protests 'government speech,' critical race theory at Rochester School Board meeting - Duluth News Tribune

Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right and a cornerstone of democracy, which cannot flourish unless citizens can articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship or sanction. So it should concern anyone who claims to be a democrat that there is growing evidence that women who have expressed a set of feminist beliefs that have come to be known as gender-critical have, in some cases, faced significant professional penalties as a result.

Gender-critical beliefs refer to the view that someones sex whether they are male or female is biological and immutable and cannot be conflated with someones gender identity, whether they identify as a man or a woman. The belief that the patriarchal oppression of women is grounded partly in their biological sex, not just the social expression of gender, and that women therefore have the right to certain single-sex spaces and to organise on the basis of biological sex if they so wish, represents a long-standing strand of feminist thinking. Other feminists disagree, believing that gender identity supersedes biological sex altogether.

Both are legitimate perspectives that deserve to be heard in a democratic society. Both can be expressed without resulting in the abuse, harassment and discrimination of trans people or women. Being able to talk about these alternative perspectives goes to the heart of resolving important questions about how we structure society. They include: whether it is right that the law permits the provision of single-sex spaces and services; whether official government data, such as the census, should record a persons biological sex as well as gender identity; whether women have the right to request that intimate medical examinations or searches are undertaken by someone who is female; what are the appropriate safeguards in the medical treatment of children with gender dysphoria; and whether it is legitimate to exclude those who have been through male puberty from competing in womens sport.

As a society, we need to resolve the question of how to protect the privacy, dignity and rights of trans women while also respecting the privacy, dignity and rights of those born female.

Yet there have been clear and significant attempts to interfere with womens freedom to express gender-critical beliefs. Maya Forstater lost paid work as a result of colleagues complaining about the gender-critical beliefs that she had expressed on social media. The academics Rosa Freedman and Jo Phoenix were disinvited from speaking at Essex University events because of their gender-critical beliefs and were subjected to violent threats from students, with serious wider professional consequences.

Two weeks ago, the Royal Academy announced in a social media post to half-a-million followers that it would no longer be stocking the artist Jess de Wahlss work because of her transphobic views, based on a gender-critical blogpost she wrote in 2019.

These are just a few examples but there have been many more of women being harassed, punished, censured and even physically assaulted for their gender-critical views. Meanwhile, the chief executive of Stonewall has likened gender-critical beliefs to antisemitism. The chilling result is the frightening of women into silence because they fear the consequences of expressing their feminist beliefs.

In recent weeks, there has been an overdue correction in the public realm, reinforcing the fact that both sets of beliefs gender-critical and sex-critical are legitimate perspectives that do not permit people to harass or abuse others or engage in hate speech and cannot be silenced. In the case of Forstater, an employment tribunal has found that her gender-critical beliefs are widely shared, do not seek to destroy the rights of trans persons and have the status of a protected belief under equalities law. The barrister Akua Reindorf undertook an independent review for Essex University and found its treatment of Phoenix and Freedman was unlawful and that the universitys policies misstated equalities law to the detriment of women. And the Royal Academy has issued an apology to de Wahls, conceding that it had betrayed its most important core value: the protection of free speech.

For centuries, patriarchal societies have tried to limit the free expression of women. For centuries, women have fought back against attempts to curb their fundamental human rights. It should not need stating that gender-critical feminists have the same free-speech rights as all other citizens. In a democracy, there is no debate to be had about womens freedom of speech.

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The Observer view on the right to free expression - The Guardian