Category Archives: Free Speech

The presidential election was still months away, but Gavin Weslee Perry apparently did not like what he saw from some Democrats in Congress, court records show.

The 29-year-old Wichita Falls man took his gripes to Facebook, typing out his frustrations in two posts that he would later claim to regret, including a threat against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to federal court records.

If youre a dem or a part of the establishment in the Democrats side, I view you as a criminal and a terrorist and I advise everyone to Go SOS [shoot on sight] and use live rounds, Perry allegedly wrote in March 2020 on Facebook. Shoot to kill. This is a revolution.

But when Perry was arrested, he told the FBI he didnt do anything wrong; he was just expressing his right to free speech.

Perry is headed to trial Monday in Wichita Falls on a single count of transmitting a threatening communication in interstate commerce. He joins several others in North Texas who were arrested on similar charges of threatening members of Congress in the months before and after the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C.

A recent New York federal trial that involved a similar case ended last week in a guilty verdict. In that case, Brendan Hunt, 37, posted in a video online in January in which he called for the slaughter of members of Congress prior to Joe Bidens inauguration. Hunt added that hed shoot and kill them himself if he could find a gun.

Hunts lawyers had argued that their client wasnt caught with weapons or any plans to actually commit violence and was just ranting online, according to published reports. But the Brooklyn jury on Wednesday found him guilty.

Like Hunt, Perry is accused of singling out the Democratic House speaker in his online remarks.

Nancy Pelosi is a part of a satanic cult and so are the people who work closely with her. Dems of the establishment will be removed at any cost necessary and yes that means by death, Perry allegedly wrote in another Facebook post.

Perry was indicted on April 7. As of Friday evening, his trial was still scheduled to begin Monday with jury selection.

Civil unrest, racial strife, culture wars and political turmoil leading up to the November presidential election have led to multiple arrests for the posting of threatening words on social media, which has prompted questions about the limits of free speech. Many of those arrested have claimed they were merely expressing political opinion. But legal experts say freedom of speech is not absolute.

Courts have ruled, for example, that fraud, obscenity, incitement to violence, perjury, libel and threats are not entitled to constitutional protection. The Hunt verdict is good news for officials in Bidens Justice Department who are trying to find ways to crack down on the rising threat of domestic terrorism from violent extremist groups.

Dan Guthrie, a former federal and state prosecutor who is now in private practice in Dallas, said verdicts will depend on the specific facts of each case.

A guy having a couple of beers with his buddies who says hes going to go to D.C. to kick a senators behind isnt going to be in danger of prosecution, he said. A guy who makes the same statement on Facebook and is a member of a group that is known to promote violence may not fare so well.

Its not just Donald Trump supporters who are facing charges.

Guy Zachary Klossner, 33, of Denton, was charged in October with several counts of making threats against two Congressmen, in phone calls and via Facebook message. Klossners Facebook posts indicate he is a supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont.

Klossner pleaded guilty on Thursday to one count of threatening a federal official and remains in custody. His LinkedIn account says he earned a biochemistry degree from the University of North Texas and worked there as a lab technician.

Klossner also worked at UNT as a graduate research assistant in the biology department from 2012 to the end of January 2020, a university spokeswoman said.

Attorneys for Perry and Klossner did not respond to requests for comment.

Proposed jury instructions in the Perry case say prosecutors must prove that the defendant sent the message intending to communicate an actual threat or with the knowledge that it would be viewed as a true threat. That means a real threat and not a joke, idle talk or a careless remark, the filing said.

Despite that interpretation, there is no real litmus test for a true threat, Guthrie said. He added that a defendant must have a guilty mind to be convicted under the federal law used in the Perry case.

Such threats would also have to cause a reasonable person to fear being injured, according to prosecutors. The government says it does not have to prove, however, that Perry intended to carry out the threats.

The Perry investigation began in March 2020 when a concerned citizen reported Perrys social media comments to police, which included threats against Congress and law enforcement, according to court records.

John Coyle, an FBI agent, testified during a hearing last month that he went to a home where Perry was staying to ask him about the posts. Perry acknowledged he wrote the posts in question and told the agent that it was his right to do so, Coyle said during his testimony.

He [Perry] looked at me in the eye and said, You are violating my First Amendment rights and the punishment for that violation is death, Coyle said.

Perry also told the agent the U.S. government was tyrannical and that he did not recognize its authority, according to an FBI complaint. And Perry said he wanted to leave the country and never return, the complaint said.

Coyle testified that he later listened to Perrys jail phone calls to his grandfather, who told his grandson that he had warned him not to say stupid stuff like this. Perry agreed and said he should have listened, the agent said.

At his first court appearance, Perry repeatedly interrupted the prosecutor and the judge and said he was ready to plead guilty, according to a transcript of the proceeding.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Hal Ray Jr. told Perry multiple times to stop talking and that he was going to appoint him an attorney.

You are holding me against my First Amendment right, Perry said, for saying that other people, people running this country, are terrorists to our constitution and to our freedom, to our (inaudible) values, to our quality of life. I said I think they are terrorists. And at which point when they do become terrorists of this country, we need to do something about it.

Mr. Perry, the judge said, banging his gavel, be quiet.

Later in the hearing, Perry told the judge several times he wanted to plead guilty right away because, I mean I clearly made the posts. Its clearly me, court records show.

Ray had to caution Perry not to make any incriminating statements. Following that court appearance, Perry was sent to a federal Fort Worth medical facility to be evaluated and treated so he could be deemed competent to stand trial, according to court records.

That process took a year due in part to the coronavirus pandemic, authorities said.

Perry appeared in court again on May 24 for a detention hearing. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Boudreau told the judge during the hearing that Perry should remain behind bars until his trial, and he noted that the defendant has a criminal history including felonies, according to court records.

Ray agreed and ordered Perry to remain in custody, saying that he has a history of criminal activity and violence. The judge also cited Perrys lack of stable employment and residence.

Perry, who has also lived in Fort Worth, was convicted in 2012 of misdemeanor assault of a family member involving bodily injury, according to Tarrant County records.

Erin Nealy Cox said in a statement about Perrys case last year when she was the U.S. attorney that while the First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech, it does not permit the making of death threats against politicians and others.

We will not allow them to threaten our officials physical safety, she said.

Klossner wrote on Facebook in May 2020 that the only good cop is a dead cop. The post also said the only true officer of the law is a corpse wearing a badge.

And in July and September of that year, he threatened to murder two Congressmen, according to his indictment. Klossner did so with the intent to impede, intimidate, interfere with, or retaliate against the Congressmen while engaged in the performance of their official duties, the indictment says.

In plea documents filed on Thursday, Klossner admitted to threatening U.S. Rep. Ted Yoho, a Republican from Florida, in an email sent in July 2020. Klossner used the name, Youre F. Dead, when he sent the threatening message, which said: I intend to kill your family. Youre [expletive] dead, Yoho, court records show.

Klossner sent the message from his work email in Denton, authorities said. He later admitted to sending the email because he was angry, court records show.

Another North Texas case involving threats has also resulted in a conviction.

Daniel Austin Dunn, 30, of Denton County pleaded guilty in December to making threats for encouraging violence against police in social media posts during the George Floyd protests in downtown Dallas last summer. He is currently awaiting sentencing.

Dunn, a former Marine from Bartonville, was a sympathizer of the antigovernment boogaloo boys or boogaloo bois extremist movement, according to prosecutors. Like some of those charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection, Dunn used violent rhetoric against law enforcement, saying in one post, They should all be lined up and shot, court records show.

Two alleged Capitol rioters from North Texas also have been charged with making threats.

Troy Anthony Smocks, 58, of Dallas, allegedly wrote on Parler that patriots like him should launch an armed hunt for Democrats, tech executives and other traitors at the Capitol.

And Garret Miller, 34, of Richardson, is accused of storming the Capitol building and making death threats against members of Congress and Capitol Police. Miller called for the assassination of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic representative from New York, and he threatened Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Instagram, saying we are coming for you, the FBI says.

Both men have pleaded not guilty and remain in custody awaiting trial.

Link:
Free speech or crime? North Texas man accused of threatening Nancy Pelosi heads to trial - The Dallas Morning News

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The state does not own the rights of its citizens. It's an inversion of the relationship between citizen and government to think so

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Freedom of speech is not the high holy ideal it once was. Freedom of expression, the wider concept, expression as thought, speech, art, performance and protest, is likewise no longer the clear and unchallengeable central core value of our democracies.

However imperfectly, the modern democracies were built around these concepts, their primal values. They have, alas, often been broken, but until very recent days, whenever they were violated, especially by state force, a genuine, near reflex response was outrage and condemnation. Their existence as ideals, to be relentlessly pursued and deeply cherished, supplied a guard against such violations, something close to a taboo. Those who attempted to degrade them, used power or status to walk around or through them, or sought to override the protections enshrined in the Charter, brought pariah status upon themselves.

As an ideal, free expression has been ever-present as a guiding star to the proper operations of any democracy. The freedom of the individual, and thereby his or her dignity as a human being and citizen depends emerges only when these rights are seen as belonging to the individual human being, owned by the individual, are not never to be diminished or circumscribed by the state, or the mob. And, more relevantly in the present moment, never through the actions and mood swings of the current and shallow ideologies of progressive politics.

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The state does not own the rights of its citizens. Its an inversion of the relationship between citizen and government to think so. Citizens give orders to governments. Citizens are the ultimate rulers, which any definition of the word democracy will affirm: demos people; cracy -rule.

Yet we have experienced a grave dilution of how these rights are presently understood, in parallel with a grave dilution of respect for them. The rot began and was sadly nursed in the very institutions by those which should most defend and explain them. Our decaying universities.

Was it not the universities who pioneered the idea of free speech zones on campus? This was the granting of some small and marked piece of campus territory where students, whom the university decreed might say something offensive or insensitive or perceived as discriminatory (unwoke is the current terms for all these categories) would be forced, under edict and threat of expulsion to go to these islands, and only there be allowed to speak their minds. All else was forbidden space. Allowed speech is the antithesis of free speech, and designated spaces wherein that allowed speech could be voiced, a surrender of intellectualism, and a woeful instance of the cowardice of elite institutions.

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It was the universities which played midwife to the new anti-intellectual doctrines such as speech is violence with its reverse twin dogma that violence is speech. They spread the intellectual acid of relativism. The most faithful guardians, so we thought, of unrestrained thinking became the efficient and sly agents of its curtailment.

Even just a few years ago almost everyone could reference the great negative power the great churches of the West once held, the power to excommunicate, set up heretic-hunting inquisitions, draw up lists of which books could be read, and carried to stake or dungeon those who would challenge its power and self-declared infallibility. How the churches have been scorned for treading on such freedoms.

There is no stake or dungeon today, merely cancel culture. However Twitter mobbing and cries of racism or homophobia, declamations for woke bishops are fine 21st century versions of the same.

The 20th century in particular supplied horrendous illustrations of what governments who suspend or absolutely deny the right to free speech, thought, or gathering. We have seen how very quickly descend into mass persecution and mass murder. The Gulag Archipelago is out there for all to read. Animal Farm and 1984 are still available.

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Or, to take a home a recent example, when the employees of a publishing house in Canada revolt over the printing of their most prized author, Jordan Peterson. They actually wept, they wept at the thought that a publishing house was going to publish a book. A book they had not read and could not have read, But still they knew that it would be traumatizing (that word is now pure lexical junk) and offensive and hurtful. Let us hope that none of these internet neurasthenics ever stubs a toe. What words will be left for him except to deplore the white supremacy of geologically stationary rocks and stones?

Throw away core concepts and all that is left is silliness and virtue-signalling.

To show how ludicrous and servile weve become, not that long ago Pepe le Pew, a poor misguided personable amorous French skunk, was sent to the cartoon Gulag. For pursuing a cat.

I skip hundreds of examples of woke Puritanisms descent into politically correct censorship. Only because the examples are legion, just too epidemical to report in the meagre spaces of a column. They require a modern Gibbon.

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Some or all of the foregoing should be top of mind as we see our own government moving into regulating the internet, and putting the posts and performances of any and every Canadian under its righteous regulatory eye. Theres much more to say on that.

For now, professor Michael Geist, a student of internet communications, in his many (currently permitted) observations, offers the strongest warnings of what this prospective legislation means. And for a stern and particular condemnation of the insolent initiative read Terence Corcorans detailed condemnation of it.

I trust colleague Corcoran realizes hes gnawing away at Canadas social cohesion. But he is such an independent fiend, he may not.

National Post

The big issues are far from settled.Sign up for the NP Comment newsletter, NP Platformed the cure for cancel culture.

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Rex Murphy: We care nothing for free speech Trudeau plan to regulate the internet is but a symptom - National Post

Damian Wilson

is a UK journalist, ex-Fleet Street editor, financial industry consultant and political communications special advisor in the UK and EU.

is a UK journalist, ex-Fleet Street editor, financial industry consultant and political communications special advisor in the UK and EU.

The UK is turning its broadcast regulator into the Hatefinder General, with a new law compelling social media companies to enforce an authoritarian crackdown on our behaviour thats unprecedented in any democracy.

As the British nanny state widens its scope with the governments new Online Safety Bill it is a sign that the German concept of wehrhafte Demokratie or militant democracy has arrived on our shores, dictating that some of our rights are sacrificed in the interests of order.

Once enshrined in law, the bill will ensure that true, online freedom of speech will follow the dial-up modem and those once omnipotent AOL subscription CDs into the dustbin of internet history. According to the authors of Youre on Mute, a briefing document from the Free Speech Union (FSU), the governments plans will restrict online free speech to a degree almost unprecedented in any democracy.

But I have to admit, Im a bit sceptical how this brand new plan is going to work. So far, it seems that Ofcom, the broadcaster regulator, will be asked to draw up a code of practice setting out the rules which social media companies will be legally obliged to follow. Ofcom will then enforce the rules with fines of up to 18 million or 10% of turnover levied on those who break them.

And what are the rules? Well, taking the guide to what constitutes hate speech as a starting point, it means not saying anything that might spread, incite, promote or justify hatred based on intolerance on the grounds of disability, ethnicity, social origin, sex, gender, gender reassignment, nationality, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, colour, genetic features, language, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth or age. Phew!

Under the new bill, however, alongside the no-go areas, it will also become an offence to deliberately create and disseminate false and/or manipulated information that is intended to deceive and mislead audiences, either for the purposes of causing harm, or for political, personal or financial gain.

As well, the yet-to-be-revealed code will also insist that legal but harmful activity be blocked. How harmful that might be is to be judged upon the psychological impact it might cause. So be careful of those clown pics youre posting on Facebook.

If someone told me these were the rules governing access to the internet in China, I would not bat an eyelid, so authoritarian and freedom-smothering they are even at first glance. But look at them a little closer and, well, theyre even scarier.

Ofcoms list of hate speech minefields now includes one of the gender gestapos favourite areas of victimhood gender reassignment, apparently putting a cordon around it so it may no longer be debated and also political, personal or financial gain.

So how is this ever going to work in the realm of political campaigns, where the whole point is to offer flip-side views diametrically opposed to each other? As the authors of the FSU briefing point out: No UK Government or Opposition should support proposals which give internet censors, whether this be a state regulator or fact-checkers employed by social media companies, the power to censor the sometimes-offensive free speech which is part of any democracy. Political parties should also note that this will inevitably result in the censorship of their own activists.

While Ofcom will act as Hatefinder General in policing its code of practice, the government is looking to tech giants like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to rise to the challenge and monitor their users for breaches of the new rules.

You may have noticed that these are the very same companies the UK continually fines and rails against over non-payment of taxes. Now theyre being asked to step up to a massive new role overseeing the way British people treat each other. Who dreamt up this model and thought it was a good idea?

Digging further, what exactly counts as disinformation or even misinformation under the new codes, which seem specifically drawn up with Covid-19 in mind and the various controversies of its origins, vaccine efficacy and countless hoaxes?

The internet is full of lies, we all know that. Not all are deliberate, but you could be caught out under the codes definition of misinformation inadvertently spreading false information by sharing something that is not factually correct.

That this is something the government feels it needs to legislate is extraordinary. The whole thing should have been binned once Theresa May who introduced the idea was waved out the door of Downing Street.

Because what we need to help us navigate to the truth online is not less but more information. Its the easy access to a diversity of views from one end of the scale to the other that is the whole point of the internet. It is not a problem that needs solving. Otherwise, we are stuck with a sanitised, government-approved version of truth that has ticked all the boxes and is now considered safe for human consumption even while some of what we are being asked to swallow is just too much.

And why are we asking tech companies to monitor this? Its mad. The FSU has thrown up an interesting insight it gleaned from the White Paper on the proposed bill as the government extolled the virtues of YouTubes censorship rules.

In its efforts to counter disinformation during the coronavirus pandemic, YouTube decided that any posts on its platform that offered a view that flew in the face of the opinions of the World Health Organisation would be taken offline in a bid to counter disinformation, including junk cures.

That made the worldview of the WHO the only version of the truth. And that is doubly weird because, in its efforts to suck up to China, the organisation now officially recognises traditional Chinese herbal medicine known everywhere else as quack cures alongside evidence-based medicine.

So we have the situation where YouTube is cracking down on junk cures expounded by users, while simultaneously promoting them through slavish adherence to the policy directives of the WHO. And now we want YouTube to take responsibility for the safety of their users across Britain? Im not so sure this state-sponsored, tech giant-monitored censorship is such a good idea.

It allows those with no moral authority to trample over our freedoms while attempting to convince us it is for the greater good, while at the same time it patronises us, wraps debate up in a cosy blanket and whispers night-night and rocks us to sleep protected from a world where, god forbid, we might be asked to think for ourselves.

Theres rubbish on the internet? So what? Lets talk about it.

As the FSU says, This is precisely why we have freedom of speech: to encourage debates about controversial issues, including the expression of unorthodox ideas that challenge what people currently believe to be true.

This discourse is how we progress and the government needs to pause and think about that. Because the Online Safety Bill, in terms of that precious freedom of speech, is a retrograde step.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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The end of free speech: Why is Britain handing huge new powers of censorship to tech giants to control what we write and say? - RT

To read Part 1 in this series, click here.

If the Ark of the Covenantthat is, our modern religious views of speechcommands morality in our speech and deference to religious authority and the sovereignty of God, the arc of western legal tradition defends our natural right to speak our mind as sovereign individuals.

Animportant early advocate for the right of publishers to print ideas without prepublication censorship was English poet and politician John Milton. In 1644, before he went blind and later wrote his most famous poems (e.g. Paradise Lost) Milton anonymously wrote a pamphlet entitledAreopagitica (a reference to the ancient Greek hill on which orators freely debated).

Milton asserted that the Roman Catholic Church should not have ecclesiastical veto over public discussion; that readers exposure to a variety of opinions (good and evil) would allow for our human consciences to develop moral virtue; that censorship of the printed word would not alone ensure public morality (as song, dance, and theatre also attracted interest); and that the flourishing of the human mind through reason and rational debate rather than acceptance of authorized ideas argued against state licensing of published thought. Milton promoted the notion that public debate among intelligent minds was best without a partial umpire enforcing consensus or political unity.

Thomas Paine, English-born author of Common Sense (1776), was a key figure in communicating widely to the American public the necessity for revolution to advance religious liberty and to enshrine in writing our human rights to freedom of thought and conscience.

In The Age of Reason Paine theorized inviting, not denying, opinions with which one disagrees. I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.

In The Age of Reason Paine theorized inviting, not denying, opinions with which one disagrees.

John Stuart Mill, born in greater London, was a leading politicalphilosopher, economist, and Member of Parliament. He was a powerful advocate for social liberty, believing the struggle against authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history. He believed in the absolute authority of anindividual as sovereign over his own person, and that government may interfere with his life only to protect society. This formed the basis for his famousharm principle, which approved restrictions on speech only to avoid harm to another.

In his essay On Liberty,Mill declared that free discourse is a necessary condition to social progress. Even false opinions are productive and may be corrected through an open exchange of ideas.If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

Mill assumed good faith and responsible intentions, claiming that unmeasured vituperation, employed on the side of prevailing opinion, really does deter people from expressing contrary opinions, and from listening to those who express them. Debate, not dogma, forces an examination of beliefs in the quest for truth.

Similarly, British writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall penned the oft-quoted principle of many free speech champions: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

The First Amendment was subjectto sincere debate among theConstitutional framers.The American Revolution aroused many to promote robust political expression as foundational to democratic values, though several state constitutions formally excluded abusive speech and suggested a duty of morality and civility as the basis for protectedpolitical speech.

The debate over ratification of the U.S. Constitutionwithin the 13 American states wasfierce, and unanimity was secured only upon the passing of the Bill of Rights, the first of whose Constitutional Amendments proclaims: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Nevertheless, malicious writings seen as threats to the Federal government wereprosecuted under the Alien & SeditionAct of 1789. The denial of Habeas Corpus in 1861 under President AbrahamLincoln during the Civil War also withstood constitutional challenge. During wartime, Americans tend to prioritize security even over cherished liberty.

With rare exceptions, however, the U.S. Supreme Court has moved over time to limit government prior restraint upon or control over the content of citizens speech.

In 1914, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis acknowledged dismaying speech but wrote that sunlight is the best disinfectant. He believed that transparent airing of bankrupt or error filled views should not be hidden but exposed. In 1927, he noted that the remedy to falsehood and fallacies.is more speech, not enforced silence.

In 1919, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. affirmed the governments prosecution of a socialist leafleteer who opposed the World War I draft, based on the standard of a clear and present danger to the recruitment and enlistment of troops. The Supreme Court much later narrowed this test to require proof of an imminent lawless action such as a public riot. However, in a famous dissent that same year, Holmes also opined that an anti-war anarchist must be allowed to compete in thefree trade in ideas.

In 1937,Justice Benjamin Cardozopronounced that free speech wasthe matrix, the indispensable condition for nearly every other form of freedom.

At the height of the Cold War, Judge Learned Hand affirmed the prosecution of communist speech as presenting a clear and present danger to the Republic. Today, this ruling is unpopular as too restrictive of political ideas, though the governments banning of online terroristvideos promoting the overthrow of the U.S. government would likely rely on this reasoning.

In an important 5-4 opinion in Cohen v. California (1971), the Court overturned the conviction of a man who wore a T-shirt which read F-the-Draft. The Court limited the fighting words doctrine, rejected the application of obscenity laws to profane speech, re-asserted the protection of offensive speech, and declined the governments argument that it could ban words it deemed unpopular. Justice Harlan summarized: One mans vulgarity is another mans lyric.

This is not to say allspeech isabsolutely protected. The American legal systemhas created numerous categories of speech that can be restricted by time, place and manner, or as conduct, or as lower level or non-speech.

Examples include restrictions on child pornography and obscenity; movie rating codes; defamatory libel and slander; incitement to imminent violence (i.e. taunting another toward suicide); true fighting words;threats to the President; criminal conspiracy; disruptions of courtroom, school, or library decorum; and the breach of neighborhood peace.

The Federal CommunicationsCommission regulates the public airways, the Federal Election Commission regulates election speech, and the Securities and Exchange Commission regulates capital markets salesmanship. Various other aspects of commercial speech are also regulated to demand truth in advertising, including in the sale of food and drugs.

Some defenders of political speech have become more attracted in recent years to a perspective broadly held in Europe, which prioritizes a listeners dignity when harmful speech injures or humiliates. The U.S. tort of intentionalinfliction of emotional distress is a legal path for those who have been psychologically damaged by the weaponization of words meant not to inform, educate, or even advocate, but merely to assault.

Two famous quotes by President George Washington reflect the dual concerns Americans share. First, he was very clear that If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

However, in his famous letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, our first President captured the promise ofAmerica to all of its citizens: Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid.

Here Washington seems to hint at the theory that a certain kind of hate speech against a fearful minority violates the democratic nature of our nation.

However, the Supreme Court has to date tended not to favor this legal reasoning and instead has repeatedly ruled across ideological lines in favor of the free speech rights of neo-Nazis upsettingHolocaust survivors in Skokie, Illinois; the Westboro Baptist Church chanters disrupting a private funeral with gay-bashing slogans; desecraters of the American flag; cross burners in front of African-Americans; robe and hood-wearing KKK marchers; and, one suspects soon, Antifa demonstrators wearing black masks.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me is not true for many citizens. Yes, some speech will hurt, intimidate and damage speech that is intended not to persuade but to attack.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me is not true for many citizens.

Content moderators are busy censoring disturbing videos from appearing on your Facebook feed, such as cruelty to animals. Those who would regulate or punishupsetting speech argue that First Amendment protections are meant to apply only todecent or civil speech that expresses legitimate ideas.

The tension building in politically correct circles between a robust commitment to freedom of expression and the rising tide of left-wing political advocacy is best seen in the debates within the American Civil Liberties Union. Long advocative of the freespeech rights of the unpopular, the ACLU began to wobble under pressure to prioritize instead a socialjustice agenda. In 2018, the ACLU formally announced new guidelines to prioritize progressive values in evaluating its commitment to advocate for the constitutional rights of speakers who do not meet the political litmus test of its Board and membership.

The debate is therefore joined between the European model, which champions a subjective defense of a listeners right not to be emotionally harmed against the characteristically American idea of protecting speakers expressive rights to independence and individuality.

After the Danish publication of cartoons of the prophet Mohammed and the resultingwide-scaleviolence by Islamists, European governments essentially caved to the sensibilities of their growing minorities and initiatedhate speech criminal prosecutions of newspapers, writers, bloggers, churches, business owners, pubic figures and averagecitizens in a way that continues to shock many Americans.

Compare this to the ability ofAmerican religionists to poke fun attheir own dogma and culture yet remain loyal to their tradition.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints earned deep admiration for its poise in responding to a decades-long mocking of their faith by putting advertisements in theBook of Mormon Broadway playbill. Youve seen the play, now come to one of our churches to see the difference!

Our American jurists have repeatedly sided with controversial speech, upsetting speech, and politically incorrect speech. In his famous address to the Authors Guild Council of New York in 1953, Justice William O. Douglas stated: 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.

As the Times Square ball drops each New Years eve, revelers follow up their midnight kiss,champagne toast, and signing of Auld Lang Syne (a Scottish poem meaning old times past) with a rousing rendition of My Waythe unofficial anthem of not only brash New Yorkers but also all Americans belting out hopes and determination to fulfill their dreams in the coming year

For what is a man, what has he got, if not himself, then he has not. To say the things he truly feels, and not the words of one who kneels. The record shows I took the blows and did it my way.

The English tradition and the American legal system have developed robust safeguards for individual expression. Political speech in particular is protected, even when it challenges cherished majoritarian ideas. While commercial speech and some other expressions can be regulated, theAmerican way has generally favored the speaker over the listener. In recent years, sensitivities have developed to the point that, at least on college campuses, some younger citizens are increasingly attracted to a European style protection againstharmful speech.

We must ponder whether Americans will continue to protect even deeply disturbing speech in the belief that while the cost can be very high, our freedom of expression is priceless.

Larry Greenfield is a Fellow of The Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship & Political Philosophy.

The Speech Projectis an initiative of the Jewish Journal that brings together some of the most compelling voices from across the political spectrum to address the topic of free speech. In a cultural moment where civil liberties often seem to be under siege, we encourage freedom of expression, independent thinking, and personal choice. The articles, podcasts, books, and other resources youll find here all challenge the growing illiberalism of our time in their pursuit of balance and authenticity.

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Comments on: Free Speech and the American Way - Jewish Journal

Apple said it has reached an agreement with the right-wing social app Parler that could lead to its reinstatement in the companys app store. Apple kicked out Parler in January over ties to the deadly Jan. 6 siege on the U.S. Capitol.

In a letter to two Republican lawmakers in Congress, Apple said it has been in substantial conversations with Parler over how the company plans to moderate content on its network. Before its removal from the app store, Parler was a hotbed of hate speech, Nazi imagery, calls for violence (including violence against specific people) and conspiracy theories.

Apple declined to comment beyond the letter, which didnt provide details on how Parler plans to moderate such content. In the letter, Apple said Parlors proposed changes would lead to approval of the app.

Parler said it has implemented several new safeguards designed to detect posts that would not fall within the protections of the First Amendment, but added that it did not make broad policy changes.

While the App Store version of Parler will prohibit some posts that Parler allows, those posts will still remain visible on the web-based and Android versions of Parler, the company said in a statement.

The First Amendment does not apply to private companies such as Parler it prohibits the government from making laws that impede free speech. But this has not stopped people from claiming that social media companies violate their free speech rights by moderating content, or from free speech apps such as Parler from popping up to fill a perceived void of censorship-free discussion sites.

As of midday Monday, Parler was not yet available in the app store and Apple did not give a timeline for when it will be reinstated. According to Apples letter, Parler proposed changes to its app and how it moderates content. Apple said the updated app incorporating those changes should be available as soon as Parler releases it.

Google also banned Parler from its Google Play store in January, but Parler remains available for Android phones through third-party app stores. Apples closed app system means apps are only available through Apples own app store. On Monday, Google reiterated its January statement that Parler is welcome back in the Play store once it submits an app that complies with our policies.

So far, this has not happened.

Parler remains banned from Amazons Web Services. Amazon said in January that Parler was unable to moderate a rise in violent content before, during and after the insurrection. Parler asked a federal judge in Seattle to force Amazon to reinstate it on the web. That effort failed, and the companies are still fighting in court.

Republican political donor Rebekah Mercer has confirmed she helped bankroll Parler and has emerged in recent months as the networks shadow executive after its founder John Matze was ousted as CEO in February.

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Apple signals return of right-wing 'free speech' app Parler - The Associated Press

By March 23, 2021, all defendants in former Georgia baseball player Adam Sassers lawsuit filed a second motion to dismiss his lawsuit.

Sasser initially filed the lawsuit against the University System of Georgia, UGA, the UGA Equal Opportunity Office, the UGA Athletic Association and other UGA institutions and officials on Sept. 29, 2020.

Defendants filed a motion to dismiss the complaint in January 2021. Sassers lawyer submitted an amended complaint on Feb. 18.

The litigation came nearly two years after Sasser attended the TennesseeGeorgia football game, during which he loudly and repeatedly referred to Georgias then backup quarterback Justin Fields as a racial slur historically used to oppress Black people, and faced punishment from the university and athletic association.

Sassers lawsuit alleges that by punishing him for his speech, UGA and others infringed on his constitutional rights, including the right to free speech.

Motions to dismiss Sasser's amended claim argued that Sassers suit contained many factual errors.

Additionally, the complaint alleges that Sassers speech is not entitled to First Amendment protections because the racial slur he used constitutes fighting words. Fighting words are defined by the Supreme Court as words that "inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.

Sassers amended complaint argues that his use of the slur was intended to be positive and in support of Fields.

Alex English, president of UGAs chapter of the NAACP, said Sassers words, regardless of their intended use, were an emboldening reminder to the white people around him that they are still the race in power.

Youre giving credence to white supremacy by using it [the racial slur], English said.

In Sassers case, the question emerges of whether the university can overcome First Amendment protections on racial slurs and other forms of hate speech, even if they dont rise to the level of fighting words.

Fighting words is a narrowly-defined category of speech that is not protected by the First Amendment, said Frank LoMonte, director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida and former executive director of the Student Press Law Center.

LoMonte said it's difficult to say that any word, even a racial epithet, is always a fighting word.

Sassers case will likely move forward in the coming year. According to a judicial order from Chief Judge Thomas Thrash, there will be no criminal or civil trials in the Northern District of Georgia until May 2.

Racist language at UGA didnt begin or end with Sasser, but at the close of his court case, the judiciary may decide if it can continue.

Its not even just about the N-word, its about this history of the institution and what the significance of saying it is, right here, English said.

Sassers lawyer, Dorothy Spinelli, declined The Red & Blacks two requests for comment. Sasser did not respond to The Red & Blacks two requests for comment.

Sassers lawsuit alleges that UGA, UGAAA and others punished him for exercising his right to speak freely and, in this instance, disagreeably. Per his complaint, UGAAA, which is a private and separate entity from UGA, removed Sasser from the baseball team in response to his actions.

UGAs EOO barred Sasser from attending his classes in person for the remainder of the semester for violating the Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy. Sasser was also prohibited from joining any other UGA athletic teams and attending any of Georgias home sporting events until January 2020.

The Red & Black filed an open records request for the EOOs original findings in Sassers case, but was denied access under an exemption for records covered by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

Sassers lawsuit asks for the court to grant him monetary reparations for a potential loss of income and future employment opportunities because he was ineligible to be drafted or employed by any major professional baseball league.

Sasser is currently an infielder with the Sussex County Miners, a baseball team in the Frontier League. He also played for several months with the Sioux City Explorers, a team in the American Association of Professional Baseball.

The lawsuit also requests monetary compensation for mental and physical suffering, emotional distress and damage to his reputation. Sasser also asked for compensation for being unable to complete his academic classes in person at UGA and subsequently being forced to enroll in another university, according to the lawsuit.

According to his Facebook page, Sasser graduated from UGA in 2020.

Sassers lawsuit also alleges that his EOO investigator, Eryn Janyce Dawkins, who is a Black woman, was biased against him. According to the lawsuit, Dawkins advised that she was personally offended by Sassers use of the racial slur.

The complaint alleges that Dawkins statement hindered her ability to act as an impartial fact finder and had a chilling effect on Sassers ability to present a case or defense.

Dawkins retired from her position in the EOO on Oct. 1, 2020 and did not respond to a request for comment.

UGA disputes the allegations in the lawsuit, said UGA spokesperson Greg Trevor.

No rights are more highly regarded at the University of Georgia than the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and expression, Trevor said in an email to The Red & Black. At the same time, the university does not tolerate racist behavior that is discriminatory, harassing, or creates a hostile environment within the campus community.

Student-athletes exist somewhere on the spectrum between students and employees, which creates an array of problems for courts attempting to decide their First Amendment protections, LoMonte said. He explained that students of a college enjoy more First Amendment protections for their speech than employees of a college.

LoMonte said its possible that UGAs athletic code of conduct will be cited to argue that Sassers status as a baseball player made him a representative of UGAAA at all times.

If he had been in his athletic garb and it had been a baseball game, maybe that argument might work, said Catherine Ross, a professor of constitutional law at the George Washington University Law School. But he wasnt. He was in the [football] stands as a regular person. He wasnt representing anyone but himself.

The speech rights of K-12 students not participating in school-sponsored expressive activities, such as newspapers or theatrical productions, are generally governed by one landmark Supreme Court case: Tinker v. Des Moines.

The Tinker decision allows schools to regulate expression that would materially and substantially interfere with their operation, but in order for school officials to use that power, they must demonstrate more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint and more than undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance.

The Supreme Court has not expressly stated whether the precedent set by the Tinker decision applies to college campuses.

Ben Holden, a professor of media law at the University of Illinois, said considering whether the standard applies to UGAs campus is the most important aspect of evaluating Sassers case.

Without considering the Tinker decision, You cant really have a substantive discussion about whether Sassers case has merit, he said.

In the absence of a Supreme Court precedent, federal trial courts, such as the one where Sasser filed his complaint, defer to decisions made by the U.S. Court of Appeals in their respective circuits. The 11th Circuit, which covers the states of Alabama, Georgia and Florida, has also yet to rule on whether the Tinker standard applies at the college level.

The argument for Sassers freedom of speech also reckons with the issue of forum. The Supreme Court has established that protections on the right to speak vary based on the speakers chosen forum. Sanford Stadium is government-owned, but not designated by UGA as a public forum and would likely be categorized as a nonpublic forum, said retired UGA Professor William Lee, who specialized in First Amendment law.

In a nonpublic forum, the government in this case UGA may restrict speech as long as the restriction is reasonable and does not discriminate based on viewpoints.

UGAs Freedom of Expression policy outlines that opportunities to speak freely and protest will be provided on an equal basis regardless of content or viewpoint. However, the policy does not govern areas of campus that are not publicly accessible, which includes Sanford Stadium.

Ticket holders at athletic events are required to abide by the facility and university policies, including the universitys Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy, Trevor said, referencing the same policy Sasser was punished for violating.

The anti-harassment portion of the policy follows the legal standard established by Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, in which harassment is defined as creating a hostile environment so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it deprives the victim of access to educational opportunities or benefits provided by the school.

Following Sassers display, UGA students expressed their views about the offensiveness and severity of Sassers speech. In an op-ed for The Red & Black, Obianuju Okeke said although a slur may seem like just a word, its effects are traumatizing and triggering for Black students.

However, to satisfy the legal standard for harassment, the speech must also be pervasive. Sassers case prompts the question of whether the use of a racial slur by one white student at one event will meet the court's requirements to be considered harassment.

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How Adam Sasser's lawsuit reckons with free speech rights at UGA - Red and Black

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The government has just proposed new measures to strengthen free speech at university on the basis that there have been recent attempts to censor speech and quell diverse or controversial opinions. This article explores that issue within the social work classroom.

Firstly, there may be some features of the current cohort of social work students that lend themselves to a potential difficulty with free academic enquiry and debate. For example, recent research has shown social work graduates to be significantly less skilled at critical thinking and significantly less assertive than a UK normative sample (Sheppard et al, 2018).

Several articles have also tried to address the problem of social work students being reluctant to speak up. Social work educators like myself might have noticed the reluctance of students to speak out in classroom, and have probably also noticed a marked difference from, say, 10 years ago.

This appears to go hand-in-hand with a comfort in following organisational rules and regulations rather than critically thinking about ideas and challenging them. My own, and others, research has investigated various aspects of those concerns (Fenton, 2016).

Recent research has also demonstrated that, in general, a minimum of only 30% of students would choose a free speech position on, for example, inviting controversial speakers to come to campus.

Furthermore, a minimum of 20% would choose no-platforming in the interests of the emotional safety of minority groups. There is, therefore, a significant malleable undecided group.

Students became 14% more pro-censorship or pro-free speech when they had been primed with a narrative about the need for emotional safety or in support of free speech, respectively.

This clearly speaks to the power of context and the potential influence of priming students for classroom expectations of engagement. There is also a gender disparity here, with women being particularly pro-emotional safety and therefore censorious important when the majority of social work students are women.

This censorious tendency appears to be based on an underpinning assumption that offending ideas cause actual harm, because the paragraph was explicitly about the importance of protecting disadvantaged race, gender and sexual minorities from harm.

This assumption is a contested idea rather than a fact and much has been written, for example, about the deleterious impact that protecting students from ideas they might find uncomfortable can have.

For example, we may be teaching students to think pathologically, by encouraging patterns of thought that are alarmingly similar to those that contribute to anxiety and depression (eg interpreting remarks in the least charitable fashion and assuming slights).

Also, we may be underpreparing students for employment and the real world where one must engage with people whose ideas we may find objectionable. This may be especially true for social workers, who deal with often distressed and angry people who might not be choosing their words carefully.

The notion of protecting marginalised groups from emotional harm may also be particularly acute in the social work classroom, given that social work is concerned with promoting diversity and inclusion. It might be that this context provides fertile ground for caring social work students to self-censor in the name of protecting people from notions of emotional harm.

The idea of microaggressions stemming from critical race theory is also important here. There is no defence against an accusation of committing a microaggression, because intention is unimportant, and impact and interpretation is everything.

As above, interpreting an interaction in the least charitable way (that is, to assume racism) is again, detrimental to good metal health as any CBT programme would demonstrate.

The recent report from Universities UK on racial harassment, for example, draws heavily on a paper by Rollock, who gives an example of a microaggression as saying: You are so articulate/well-spoken to a person of colour.

According to Rollock, this really means, It is unusual for someone of your race to be so intelligent/ educated/well-read. Although this is a very cynical, and perhaps wrong, reading of the situation, that does not matter, because if the listener thinks that is what is meant (ie it is a microaggression) then it simply and factually is.

The social work classroom is a place where oppression on the basis of protected characteristics is discussed more than in many other subject classrooms. So, once again, the problem of being reluctant to express opinions may be particularly acute in that environment.

But really, is it any wonder that students might self-censor? The fear of being in trouble for saying something wrong, or for causing offence is not unfounded there are numerous examples in the media of people losing jobs, being cancelled, being hated on Twitter and just being a persona-non-grata for voicing opinions that are not in keeping with current orthodoxies.

And, of course, there are many examples of people being abused on social media and elsewhere for promoting the rights of marginalised groups. Intolerant zealotry is not the prerogative of one side of the political cultural spectrum!

In the classroom, however, how brave would a young student have to be to question whether a person with a penis can actually be a woman, whether biology might contribute to the different choices made by men and women or whether differences in outcomes between different ethnic groups might be caused by an interplay of factors, for example poverty, English language proficiency, cultural issues, etc. and not only racism?

And to ask those questions at a time in their life when testing out their own ideas, making mistakes, learning to think critically and to debate civilly and intelligently is new, difficult and personally risky? They would have to be enormously brave indeed, and self-censorship must be extremely tempting.

According to Jonathan Rauch, the seminal liberal thinker who builds on the work of JS Mill, knowledge is produced in liberal democracies through a system of questioning anybody by everyone; a system that rejects the idea that an overall authority gets to decide what is knowledge (as in totalitarian regimes) and rejects the idea that all points or beliefs are of equal value.

On the latter point, theories are put forward into the public realm and are tested, the evidence is scrutinised, and theories are then either debunked or upheld (for the time being). It is through this system that we have a relatively settled body of knowledge with much frenzy and debate around the outskirts.

So, for example, we teach evolution, not creationism in schools and university. Evolution is considered knowledge. People are free to believe in creationism, but it wont be taught as knowledge in educational establishments.

Many examples of this settled knowledge can be traced back to debate in the public realm, dissent, civil action and eventual acceptance; for example, equality between the sexes and races. Attempts to forward theories of superiority have been well and truly debunked and so have no place in academic debate.

Understanding this delineates which ideas are acceptable for academic enquiry and debate and which, usually the more obnoxious ideas, have been debunked due to lack of evidence.

The recent debates on whether self-identifying as a woman should simply be declaratory, or whether this undermines the rights of biological women, for example, are very different from white supremacist debates because the former issue is still very much contested whilst the latter has been wholly discredited due to having no evidential basis.

Therefore, social work students should actually be encouraged to think, to debate and to disagree about gender identification ideas, in keeping with the universitys role in liberal knowledge production. Educators need to be comfortable with this and to encourage an environment where debate can flourish.

The main idea in JS Mills On Liberty (1859) is that the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling must be challenged in a liberal democracy. Society needs sceptics, critical thinkers and people who have the courage to challenge prevailing orthodoxies, once again making it important that educators encourage students to flex those intellectual muscles.

When I have discussed free expression with fellow academics, I am often reminded that hate speech is not allowed. Once again, I think that educators need to be clear and confident about the difference between abusive and harassing speech that is an expression of hatred towards a person or group and a genuinely held opinion or question about a contested idea.

Abuse and harassment are never acceptable, but voicing an opinion that some might find offensive is.

The Public Order Act (1986), for example, prohibits threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with or without the intention of causing harassment or distress. So, shouting abuse is never acceptable.

In Scotland, the newly passed Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill extends the stirring up of racial hatred offence to other protected characteristics. Neither piece of legislation prohibits properly expressed opinions which some people might find offensive. In fact, the Scottish justice minister Humza Yousef stated, during the Bills passage, that people should have the right to be offensive and controversial.

Clearly, however, misunderstanding abounds about this as the recent blunder by Merseyside police demonstrates. The police force erected a large billboard saying being offensive is an offence, which is simply not true. The police apologised later.

Given that even the police are confused, it is again little wonder that educators and students often feel on shaky ground. And, of course, when on shaky ground, it is very tempting to say nothing.

There is also the added complexity about professional social work duties as the case of Felix Ngole. Mr Ngole, a devout Christian, had posted on Facebook that homosexuality is a sin, and had been removed from his course. The case went through various stages to end up at the Court of Appeal.

Several factors in the judgment have the most relevance here:

Social work education is in the business of producing social workers who can think critically, engage ethically and understand complexity, uncertainty and competing perspectives and tensions.

According to Sheppard et al, mentioned earlier, we are not wholly successful in that endeavour. To be so, we need to encourage students to think and debate, to subject their opinions to scrutiny (demonstrating moral courage), to have their thinking challenged and even changed, and to be properly engaged in critical learning.

It is our duty as educators to create an environment conducive to this learning and the only way to do that is to equip students with the above free expression framework (comprised of legal, professional, ethical and knowledge parameters) to allow them to safely express themselves.

This is especially important for social work students, who will be intervening with families where frustrations and stresses abound and where many notions of correct orthodoxies may well seem irrelevant. Teaching students to be tolerant of diverse opinions is crucial in the classroom and in practice.

Jane Fenton is a reader and associate dean for learning and teaching at the University of Dundee and hasspent most of her social work career in statutory criminal justice social work (CJSW)in Dundee.

Sheppard, M., Charles, M., Rees, P., Wheeler, M. and Williams, R. (2018) Inter-personal and critical-thinking capabilities in those about to enter qualified social work: A six-centre study, British Journal of Social Work, 48, pp. 185573.doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bcx143

Fenton, J (2016), Organisational professionalism and moral courage: contradictory concepts in social work? Critical and radical social work 4(2) 199-215

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The case for promoting free speech, debate and enquiry in the social work classroom - Communitycare.co.uk

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) Activists are expressing concern after the governor signed HB 1643, an anti-doxing bill.

One attorney say the bills broad language could include filming police, and he says criminalizing that would be a violation of the First Amendment.

My concern with the bill is it could possibly infringe on individuals right to engage in core political speech, attorney Bob Jackson said.

He says posting things like addresses or financial information with intent to harm could be an issue but simply posting names or videos of officers on duty is protected by the First Amendment.

The right to free speech doesnt extend to harassing or annoying or threatening some same public officials so there is a difference there, Jackson said.

Activist group CAIR- Oklahoma says theyre not ruling out legal action. They say if this law was in effect in Minnesota, the outcome of the Derek Chauvin trial couldve been very different.

With this bill, that person who took the video, could be the one in jail today rather than Derek Chauvin, Lani Habrock, government affairs director for CAIR, said.

Here there could be a concern if public officials construe the posting of such videos as an effort to harass or annoy those same officers, Jackson said.

One of the bills authors, Rep. Justin Humphrey (R-Lane), says the intent of the bill is solely to protect law enforcement from having their personal information online.

With any bill, theres always consequences maybe you dont intend, so its definitely not the intention that we should not hold our police officers accountable, he said.

He says the wording can be revisited.

I think if legislators think there are some problems with any language, we may have to come back next year and see if theres something we need to work on, he said.

For now, activists are concerned.

I would say this bill is at best, tone deaf, and at worst, a violation of public safety, and free speech, Habrock said.

I dont see any of that. What were saying is you cannot with the intent to cause harm and do criminal behavior, put their address, their familys address, so its what your intentions are, Humphrey said.

Gov. Kevin Stitt released the following statement:

I am proud to support law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line every day to keep Oklahoma communities safe, and as governor I will do everything I can to protect them and their families from intentional, targeted threats and harassment.

The ACLU released the following statement in response to this bill and another one allowing drivers to run over protesters if they feel threatened.

The ACLU of Oklahoma has long fought to protect the First Amendment right to assemble and hold those in power accountable through protest. With the stroke of a pen, Governor Stitt has decided to stand on the wrong side of history and threaten one of the most fundamental rights of our democracy. Throughout the 58th Oklahoma Legislative Session, we have seen politicians at the Oklahoma Capitol push agendas that chill free speech and infringe on the rights of protesters. And we know this is just the beginning in a lengthy list of legislation aimed at communities who took to the streets to make their voices heard in the wake of George Floyds murder.Just this week at the legislature we witnessed an inequity in response, as white militants gathering were met with cordiality and protesters of color were met with near-physical confrontation and beefed-up law enforcement presence. People protesting police violence should not face more police violence. The ACLU of Oklahoma along with organizers on the ground are in a fight to end the systemic violence inflicted on our Black and Brown communities, and our governments escalating attacks on protests against racism and police brutality should concern everyone. We are in serious conversations with partners on our next steps to protect Oklahomans right to free speech. The power of protest belongs with the people, and we will not tolerate these attempts to silence Oklahomans.

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Some say anti-doxing bill could violate free speech, lawmaker says thats not the intent - KFOR Oklahoma City

As I wrote in a preceding essay, the First Amendment was written to limit the governments power. In the 18th century, only the state was conceived as possibly wielding the power to keep free people from speaking their minds. Thus, if maintaining a free people requires free speech, it followed that the government must be kept from controlling speech. For a long time, no more was necessary, but that would change.

As the United States grew in population and prosperity, there was very little agitation against business. There did not need to be. Most businesses were small affairs, owned by one man or one family, employing a handful of workers. Relations between labor and management were dealt with between individuals.

In 1854, Abraham Lincoln summarized this small-scale economy, speaking of a system in which a man may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and the next, work for himself afterward, and finally to hire men to work for him! That is the true system.

Yet as corporations grew in size and power, that true system changed. Instead of one apprentice negotiating with an owner, a company that employed thousands would tell workers what they would get: take it or leave it.

In response, workers began to join together in trade unions, leveling the playing field, although diminishing their own independence. The balance between workers and management was restored, but the growing power of corporations still overpowered that of individual consumers.

Antitrust and utility laws were the response, but none of this much affected the realm of free speech. There was no news monopoly newspapers were more plentiful than today and restrictions on the new technology of radio came from the government, not the station owners. The biggest threat to the practice of free speech remained the state.

Although the two streams of jurisprudence here anti-monopoly and free speech did not much overlap in the early twentieth century, some of the same great thinkers were doing work in both. Foremost among these was Louis Brandeis, who joined the Supreme Court in 1916.

Brandeis was a progressive who saw Big Government and Big Business as equally threatening to the average American. Although he focused more on the growth of corporate power in his days as a private lawyer, Brandeis saw the danger in the government becoming too powerful. His solution was to resist consolidation in both regards keep businesses small and local, and the government could stay small, too.

In regards to free speech, Brandeis also led the resistance to censorship, although often unsuccessfully. While American citizens were the freest in the world in their right to speak and publish, limits remained.

The so-called Red Scare that followed communist revolutions in Europe led governments to clamp down on peoples right to advocate socialist ideas in America. In Whitney v. California in 1924, the Supreme Court heard a challenge to one such law. Brandeis was in the minority, but Whitney soon became one of the rare cases more famous for the dissent than for the opinion of the court. Brandeis wrote:

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties; and that in its government the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.

Brandeiss words remain one of the great summaries of the custom and law of free speech in America and follows the line of thinking started by Milton and Locke. In 1969, the Supreme Court adopted Brandeiss ideas and overturned Whitney.

Since then, the governments attempts to restrict free speech have mostly been rebuffed. Some efforts, like the censorship at issue in the 2010 case of Citizens United v. FEC, nearly succeeded, but most failed and failed quickly. The struggle for free speech in law trends toward greater liberty.

Today, however, something novel is happening in America: private actors have become a greater threat to free speech than the government is. Part of that comes from a laudable achievement we have tamed free speechs historical foe, the state. But part also comes from the rise of new means of communication that not only displace the old but are uniquely susceptible to monopolization in a way the old media were not.

That means that for the first time, corporate power might be a greater threat to our rights especially our right to free speech than the power wielded by the state. This accounts in part for the recent resurgence in antitrust advocacy.

Not long ago, there was considerable diversity not only in the sources of news and entertainment but also in the distribution of such things. Not only have the sources of news been subject to consolidation, but they have become separated from the methods by which they reach us. This vertical dis-integration might be seen as an antitrust success, except that the distribution methods are even more consolidated than the news sources.

The distribution sources in question are the social media giants of Facebook and Twitter, along with less powerful players in the field like Reddit and LinkedIn. Instagram and WhatsApp are also cited as delivery methods for news, but it does little good to mention them since they are both owned by Facebook. Consolidation across Silicon Valley has narrowed the real players in Big Tech to about half a dozen: Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft among them.

As far as free speech is concerned, some of these players are more dangerous than others, but the interaction among them is also a problem. Six big technological competitors might look like a healthy industry, but it is an illusion. While they clash at times, these Big Six have divided up the tech world much as the 19th-century colonial powers divided up the globe. Spheres of influence are mutually respected and the political aims of each align with the others.

First, the social media giants established monopolies in their respective fields. As companies grow in power, they exert control over their marketplaces. They evaded detection in doing so because their monopolies are different from those of the past.

What they monopolize is not a commercial product like Standard Oils monopoly on kerosene. Their monopoly is on access to a thing they created and that, outside of their network, cannot exist.As I wrote in the Washington Examiner last year:

There is no place to tweet except Twitter; there is no way to create Facebook posts outside Facebook. If Facebook or Twitter delete your posts or restrict your account, that network is closed to you, and each is a network that increasingly dominates the exchange of ideas. Even beyond the market for news and commentary, access to social media for businesses (especially Facebook) can be a make-or-break proposition.

The monopoly is on each social media companys network, and the danger is in our increasing reliance on those networks to convey ideas. By 2019, a majority of Americans said they often or sometimes got their news over social media, and the number increases every year.

Unlike old-fashioned monopolies, social media companies use their power not only to exclude competitors but also to exclude customers with whom they disagree. AT&T wanted to control all telephony, but at least they only wanted your money. Facebook and Twitter also want to limit what you say, the equivalent of a telephone operator breaking in to shut down phone calls that their bosses find distasteful.

The Department of Justice shattered AT&Ts monopoly in the 1980s, breaking the company into several Baby Bells. The result was cheaper, better telephone service for everyone.

But that precise solution will not work for social media. No one is concerned about the price of a service that is given away for free, and the quality of the apps was never the problem. This network, and equal access to it, is the issue. Destroying that network would make service worse, not better. Moreover, it misses the point.

The intersection of monopoly power with free speech is something new. Even beyond the threat of exclusion from a social media companys network, the collusion among the networks further stifles free expression. Consider the treatment of a rival social network.

In reaction to Twitter shutting down accounts with whose content it disagreed, two entrepreneurs launched an alternative site, Gab, in 2016. It went public in 2017 and seemed to offer the traditional alternative for dissatisfaction with a business: taking your business elsewhere. If the dispute with Twitter had been a traditional one, such as price or quality, that would have solved the problem.

But the nature of Twitters monopoly worked against Gab. Twitter users who had not been banned were reluctant to leave the network, because as unhappy as they were with it, it still offered the best forum for reaching a mass audience. Some maintained accounts at both sites, but only the banned those who had no other option were active users at Gab. Google decided it was a hate forum and removed it from their Play Store. Apple had never allowed it in the first place.

Gab was then restricted only to people extremely motivated to seek it out, and it became a deeply unpleasant echo chamber. When it emerged that the perpetrator of the 2018 mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue was an active Gab user, the site was forever known as the home of murderous extremists. The providers that hosted them terminated their arrangements, forcing it further underground. The same process played out with Parler in 2020, and it will play out again for the next would-be Twitter competitor.

Mainstream opinion is unbothered. Few had heard of Gab or Parler, which they could not find in their phones app stores, and many who were aware of it associated it with Nazis. Shutting them down was good riddance to bad rubbish.

Those few who raised free speech concerns were told to read the law, as though that is all there is to our ancient liberty. Recent episodes of tech censorship have involved a larger combination of tech companies and taken in a larger swath of users including a former American president.

The drive to stifle speech is not limited to social media. Other tech monopolies have flexed their muscles. Amazon, which controls a majority of book sales in the United States, has started deciding which kinds of books it will allow. Anything that explores sexual orientation or gender dysphoria as mental illnesses is now forbidden. Tweets and Facebook posts on the subject are also likely to be censored if they voice the wrong opinions.

If free speech is necessary to enable individuals to discover virtue and choose their leaders, then monopoly censorship is just as harmful as government censorship. Even beyond the specific harm of stifling free expression, it does harm to the idea of free speech itself.

Legalistic denials from Big Tech supporters its not censorship if its not the government! miss the point. By allowing continued monopolies over segments of the public square and acquiescing in a restriction of free thought there, we erode the principle of free speech while piously upholding the laws that do nothing against this new threat.

As long as people believe in free speech, it will endure. According to a 2020 poll by Pew, a majority of Americans see the social media threat for what it is: censorship. That is good news. People are not distracted by the distinction of government and non-government; they see a powerful force trying to muzzle them and do not like it. The people understand that this right belongs to them and will resist anyone who tries to take it away.

The bad news is that such sentiments are declining. Americans, especially the young, increasingly are intolerant of speech that they hate. Instead of the liberty and courage that Brandeis extolled, they seek to decide public questions with private force. Milton and Locke would recognize the methods from their own times, although the actors and questions debated have changed.

That same 2020 Pew poll showed a majority of Democrats endorsing social media companies labeling of inaccurate tweets and posts. Polling by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) that same year finds that significant percentages of college students support suppressing unpopular speech through hecklers veto (27 percent) or blocking entry to an event (11 percent). Only 4 percent of those surveyed claimed that it was acceptable to use violence to suppress offensive speech, but that is still too many.

We all have reason to doubt the accuracy of polling after the failures of the last few years, but there can be no doubt that the principle of free expression is under renewed threat. Looking at that threat requires reacquainting ourselves with the history of free speech and monopolies. Our forefathers fought censorship and fought monopolistic abuses, but political battles are rarely won for all time. These two are back, joined up in novel fashion, but no different than what came before.

The lessons of Milton, Locke, Bastiat, Lincoln, and Brandeis must guide a new generation to protect our ancient freedoms. If we fail, those freedoms will fade from memory and their protection in law will fade with them. We may vote for legislators, but few of us will ever directly influence the words of a law.

In the custom that underpins the law, though, we all have a role to play. By resisting censorship from the government, corporations, or cancel mobs, we remind the world of the value of the freedoms won and cherished in centuries past, and further reinforce them for the challenges to yet come.

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Is Big Business Now A Greater Threat To Free Speech Than Government? - The Federalist

The leading research universities in the UK have urged the government to be proportionate in its planned legislation to promote free speech on campus, arguing that existing laws and regulations are sufficient to protect academic freedom.

In an intensification of ministers culture war agenda, the Queens speech to parliament on 11 May will contain measures on the campus free speech, potentially including the creation of a free speech champion for England, extending legal requirements on free speech to student unions, and allowing speakers who are no platformed to sue for compensation.

But the 24 members of the Russell Group are concerned that the measures will add an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy on top of existing freedom of expression legislation and requirements under the Prevent anti-radicalisation programme, as well as employment and contract laws protecting staff.

In a statement of principles, the group said its members were already working to uphold free speech and academic freedom as a responsibility our universities take extremely seriously.

Russell Group universities work closely with staff, students unions and other organisations to defend and maintain freedom of expression on campus. Speaker events addressing diverse views on complex issues go ahead every week at universities across the UK, the group said.

Tim Bradshaw, the Russell Groups chief executive, said: Our universities will always champion the importance of free speech, uphold the legal protections already in place and, if government feels it is necessary to enhance protections further, we will work with them to find proportionate solutions.

This statement underlines our determination to ensure campuses remain places where students and staff are exposed to a diversity of ideas and views. We hope the government recognise that and works with us so any new measures reflect the work already being done.

Despite a small number of high profile no platforming cases such as the former Conservative minister Amber Rudd being cancelled as a speaker by a student group in Oxford the number of such cases remains low. A survey last year found just six of more than 10,000 events planned at 61 students unions were cancelled, with four of the six cancellations being the result of administrative failures.

The statement follows City, University of Londons announcement on Wednesday that it is renaming its business school after the celebrated 18th century mathematician Thomas Bayes, as part of a drive to improve its record on diversity.

The business school had be named after John Cass, a prominent figure during the early years of the Atlantic slave trade, until the university ditched the reference to him last July following pressure from thousands of students and staff.

City, University of London also announced 10 full undergraduate scholarships with a 6,000 annual stipend for black students based in the UK, and funding for five doctorate scholarships for black British students.

Gavin Williamson, the education secretary for England, said he welcomed the Russell Groups statement of principles as a positive step in the right direction.

All universities and colleges should think hard about their own policies, and what they can do to further protect freedom of speech and academic freedom on campus, Williamson said.

Alison Scott-Baumann, a professor of society and belief at Soas, said the universities were right to say that they already encouraged debate on difficult and complex issues.

However the situation becomes muddled by frequent and unjustified moral panic attacks in the media and in government: there is a risk that the public debate on free speech will choke free speech, she added.

Universities must be much more assertive to ensure freedom of expression and should conduct open debate about this public moral panic.

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UK universities urge government to be proportionate in free speech legislation - The Guardian