Irish minister drops plans for hate speech laws

The Republic of Ireland's Minister for Justice has confirmed she has dropped plans to introduce new hate speech laws.

Helen McEntee said she would still include the hate crime element in new proposed legislation.

She will introduce committee stage amendments to the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022.

The bill is currently at its third stage before Seanad Éireann, (upper house of the Irish parliament), when it is examined section by section and amendments can be made.

McEntee told Irish broadcaster RTÉ that "in order to bring forward new hate speech legislation we need a consensus".

"We don't have that at the moment," she said.

However she said she was "adamant" that hate crime legislation will be enacted.

'Tougher, harsher sentence'

She said the message would be sent that "if you attack a person, commit a crime against a person or a group of people, simply because of who they are, the colour of their skin, where they have come from that there will be a tougher sentence, a harsher sentence at the end of the day".

There has been a huge amount of debate over the bill.

It was criticised by social media platform X owner Elon Musk.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce8vy235yxjo

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All my main blogs below:

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Censorship at Stanford

"In seeking to impose egalitarianism, they made themselves an elite. In seeking to eliminate what they perceived as oppression, they acted far more tyrannically." — Peter Thiel and David Sacks, "The Diversity Myth"

When Peter Thiel and David Sacks wrote “The Diversity Myth” in 1995, they detailed what they experienced during their time as Stanford undergraduates: an increasingly hostile left-wing political ideology that villainized Western culture, idolized victimhood, and worshipped diversity. Thirty years later, their description of Stanford’s culture is an eerily similar description of our country’s trajectory and leadership today.

In my few years at Stanford, I witnessed pro-Hamas students camp out at White Plaza and raid the president’s office. I watched Stanford Law School’s Associate Dean of DEI fuel student protestors shouting down a federal judge. I saw a bloated administration with more than 10,000 bureaucrats and 177 DEI officials crack down on student-led fun, and I reported on Stanford’s integral role in censorship efforts during the Covid pandemic, upon much more.

But amazingly, Thiel and Sacks, the co-founder and one of the early editors of the Review, described Stanford just as ideologically troublesome—if not worse—during their time.

In one stunning story, they recall the Stanford speech code that banned “fighting words” on campus until it was ruled unconstitutional in 1995. When one student decided to push the boundaries of the speech code, proving that the speech code was not as compelling as the multiculturalists hoped, Stanford punished him through every measure of pressure, intimidation, and condemnation they could find to discredit him.

Thiel and Sacks paint a vivid picture of how Stanford fell to the ideology they called “multiculturalism,” what we now call “wokeism.” The main difference today is just how pervasive the ideology has become. The direct results of this ideology are often ludicrous and negligible, like when Stanford bans words like “American” and “brave.” But if the Covid pandemic revealed anything about this campus culture: It’s not funny anymore.

When the pandemic hit, Stanford ceded to the same ideology Thiel and Sacks identified in 1995. The University’s elitism and tyranny was on full display when it pressured and censored its faculty members who held a valid scientific belief that fell outside of their preferred narrative. When Stanford Dr. Jay Bhattacharya called for “Focused Protection” and Dr. Scott Atlas pushed against the widespread pandemic mandates, Stanford tried to silence them. They created a pressure campaign to prohibit them from speaking to the media, discredit their research, and publicly censure Dr. Atlas in the Stanford Faculty Senate. As Stanford has done for decades now, it used its power to uphold its own narrative.

This time, however, it is different. It is no longer a matter of mere “fighting words” or microaggressions; it is a matter of life and death. It turns out, many of the views and findings that Stanford censored were not only valid, but carried the potential to change the outcomes of countless human lives through a different approach to lockdowns, school closures, and protective measures. This censorious ideology has helped create a far more dangerous world than the safety it purports to champion.

It’s time that Stanford turn away from this ideology and instead focus on a different set of fundamental principles: those of individual and academic freedom that sustain our country and allowed Stanford to succeed in the first place. To all of those who have supported us in the Review for almost four decades: We will continue to stand as a remnant of hope for our broken universities.

https://stanfordreview.org/editors-note-the-fight-against-stanfords-censorship/

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http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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Speak up for Free Speech

In many Western countries, governments are enacting draconian speech laws. Politicians argue that these measures are necessary to combat misinformation and hate speech spread through social media. Nowadays, even mild insults are often labeled as hate speech. Illiberal politicians, government officials, and special interest groups frequently use this term to silence anyone who criticizes them. Those who dare to question their politics risk destroying their reputation and being “canceled.”

In theory, hate speech laws are there to protect people who face discrimination. In practice, anyone can be arrested for anything said about a protected group. In Ireland, arrests can be made for memes and other digital images that are considered offensive. In Germany, social media companies with more than two million users have 24 hours after receiving a complaint to block or delete what is illegal content or face fines.

According to the New York Times, more than 1,000 Germans faced charges for online hate since 2018, and people have experienced early morning police raids where the police enter a home and confiscate computers and personal devices. More troubling is that German hate speech laws are used against citizens who have criticized the government.

In France, Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram, a social media platform with a billion users, was arrested for violations that include “complicity in selling child pornography, drug trafficking, fraud, abetting organized transactions, and refusing to share information with investigators when required by law.” In 2018, Russia pressured Telegram to remove online communities of Russian opposition activists. Pavel Durov refused and left the country. Governments are attempting to use social media platforms as a database of information to access at any time without legal justification.

Britain was once a global power and the envy of the world. Today, its government is so out of touch with working people’s problems that it blames free speech for its inability to provide competent government. Through the Communications Act, some of the harshest censorship in the world has been handed out against its citizens. The Times conducted an investigation and discovered that nine people a day were being arrested for posting offensive messages online; in 2016, three thousand three hundred people were jailed.

British speech is so controlled that celebrities like Rowan Atkinson have lambasted the government: “Free speech is my passionate belief that the second most precious thing in life is the right to express yourself freely and the most precious thing in life is food in your mouth,” he stated.

Atkinson is speaking out not only for himself but for ordinary people who don’t have the resources to defend themselves. He spoke of an Oxford man arrested for calling a “police horse gay, a teenager arrested for calling the Church of Scientology a cult, and a cafe owner arrested for displaying passages from the Bible on a TV screen.” He thinks the government may be well-intentioned in its ambition to control troublemakers. Still, the result is an “authoritarian, intolerant society.”

After nine years in power, the Trudeau Liberals have created a kangaroo speech court in Canada. The passage of the Online Harms Act muzzles Canadians with punishments and forces collective self-censorship on its citizens. The Act empowers the Human Rights Commission to haul citizens in for a pre-trial hearing before any crime has been committed based on a complaint where a person feels a hate crime may be directed against them. The judge can put the person under house arrest or electronic surveillance without due process. As well, anyone who advocates for or promotes genocide is “liable to life imprisonment.” The Trudeau government is more restrictive on free speech than on handling serial killers. The latter are often moved from maximum to medium security, and repeat offenders are released within 24 hours to continue their criminal activities.

The country’s activist Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from author Dr. Jordan Peterson against an order for him to undergo social media training by the College of Psychologists of Ontario as punishment for some controversial media posts. The College threatened to revoke Peterson’s license unless he went in for social media training. The result is that 25% of Canadians who are members of professional and trade-regulated vocations have been effectively silenced and warned not to express their opinions publicly. “It is an invitation to extortion and to levying personal vendettas by threatening people with loss of their professional licenses if a complaint is made against them that something they said or wrote might offend the sensibilities of their regulatory bodies” stated Peterson’s lawyer Howard Levitt.

Americans are proud of their First Amendment rights, but two-thirds of Americans are afraid to state their true beliefs about politics for fear of losing their jobs. This fear is four times what it was during the height of McCarthyism during the 1950s. The Biden administration tried to create its own Ministry of Truth. In a landmark decision, a Louisiana federal court upheld First Amendment rights to speak without being censored by the government. Judge Terry Doughty said (Missouri v. Biden) “arguably involved the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.” The Biden-Harris administration is appealing.

The message conveyed by Pastor Martin Niemöller was that the German people were complicit and never exercised their chance to speak up about the Nazi imprisonment and murder of millions of people. In contemporary times, citizens of the Western world are similarly complicit in passively accepting their governments’ actions, which curtails their freedom to express dissenting views on contentious issues that challenge the established narrative. As a result, the government has stepped in to become the arbiter of truth, using the state’s coercive power to silence its citizens and tell people what they should think. “Whatever the Party holds to be the truth is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party, wrote George Orwell in 1984.

The right to free speech, once cherished in the West, is now considered a major offense. Citizens are being jailed for protesting against war and expressing their opinions on illegal immigration. Moreover, private conversations are now targeted by those seeking to control thoughts and opinions. If people do not take a stand for their freedoms, democracy could become totalitarian, and its citizens will be oppressed—just as Orwell predicted in 1984.

https://blog.independent.org/2024/09/19/speak-up-for-free-speech/

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All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

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http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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Fury as free speech group 'kicked out' of Brighton pub over a discussion about gender ideology in schools

Angry free speech campaigners hit out last night after allegedly being ousted from a pub meeting over a discussion about gender ideology in schools.

According to members of the Free Speech Union, private security guards ejected them from the Brighton pub because the landlord disapproved of their belief in biological sex.

They also claimed security staff stopped them entering another pub in an 'authoritarian' attack on freedom of speech.

Toby Young, director of the Free Speech Union (FSU), said it was 'no different to kicking someone out because they're black or gay' and threatened the pub with legal action.

About 50 members of Free Speech Brighton, a splinter group of the Free Speech Union, had gathered in the pub on Tuesday night.

The first talk was given by a retired teacher who said 'gender ideology' should not be taught to schoolchildren.

But as the woman in her 50s took questions, five security guards allegedly asked the group to leave.

Footage shows one telling the activists there had been a complaint 'from the management'.

Those attending the meeting said they had pre-booked a private portion of the Southern Belle pub in Brighton and were being 'quiet and well-behaved'.

One attendee was journalist Julie Burchill.

She said that they were kicked out 'because we talked about gender reality'.

Last night, Mr Young said the landlord couldn't evict customers 'just because he disapproves of their perfectly lawful beliefs'.

'It's no different to kicking someone out because they're black or gay', he said.

'It's unlawful discrimination.'

The Southern Belle declined to comment, while the private security firm did not respond to a request for comment.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13866127/free-speech-group-kicked-Brighton-pu-gender-ideology-schools.html?ito=video_player_click

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All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

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http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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Concerning the censorhip of "EDUCATION WATCH"

Google have now wiped out a number of my blogs and each time I have had to decide what to do about that. Most of what I was putting up on "EDUCATION WATCH" could equally well have gone up on "POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH" so I have decided to do that. I will not try to resurrect "EDUCATION WATCH" but will from now on post most of what it was saying on "POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH"

I have no real idea of what inflamed Google about "EDUCATION WATCH" but I will try to avoid posts of a more controversial kind.

"POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH" has itself been shut down by Google but contnues to exist as "Skeptical Notes" and can be found at https://westpsychol.blogspot.com or http://jonjayray.com/pcsep24.html

A response to censorship

I had a variety of ideas about the cancellation of "POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH" by Google. One idea that I thought I would try out was to repurpose one of my dormant blogspost blogs as a replacment of the "lost" blog. So I have done that

https://westpsychol.blogspot.com is the address of the "new" blog.

I have called it Skeptical Notes and will try to avoid posts on it that might inflame Google

Another blog down

Since Google started to use AI to evaluate my blogs, what I write has come under heavy attack. Two of my blogs no longer exist. That is a bit demoralizing.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH has now joined the legion of the lost. Google has wiped it. It is however still going up on my backup sites. For today's postings see:

http://jonjayray.com/pcsep24.html

Coconut placards and the truth about free speech in Britain

When you describe what happened, you realise how ridiculous it was. A woman was dragged to court for holding up a placard that featured a drawing of a palm tree with coconuts falling from it. Superimposed on two of the coconuts were the faces of Suella Braverman and Rishi Sunak, who was Prime Minister at the time. And that was it. Hauled before magistrates for carrying a daft illustration through the streets. Anyone who doubted that our liberty to speak is in peril has surely been shaken awake now.

So, yes, I believe it is hateful. But should it be illegal? No

This is the case of Marieha Hussain, a 37-year-old Londoner and secondary-school teacher. Well, until she held aloft the infamous placard, which caused her to lose her job. Last November, Hussain, with around 300,000 others, attended a ‘pro-Palestine’ demo in the capital. She was keen to have a dig at Braverman and Sunak, so she depicted them as coconuts. Hussain said this was a form of political critique against what she said were ‘politicians in high office who perpetuate and push racist policies’. The prosecution said it was something uglier. But, even so, should it be a matter for the courts? Of course not.

Yet that’s how it was treated. Hussain was arrested on suspicion of committing a racially aggravated public order offence. She was subjected to a two-day trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. She was found not guilty on Friday. Oh, and she’s heavily pregnant. What kind of society forces a pregnant woman out of her teaching job and gives her a grilling in a court of law all because she expressed a sharp view in public? A cruel one, I’d say.

There are so many twisted things in this case. There’s the craziness of it. I find it terrifying that the Crown Prosecution Service thought it a good idea to prosecute a teacher for holding up an image of a palm tree and two politicians in the midst of a vast crowd. Clearly they caved to the mob: when a photo of Hussain’s placard was posted online, some right-wingers went nuts, morphing into a cancel-culture rabble and demanding she be punished. Yet surely the CPS should think coolly about what is in the public interest, not let itself be swept along by vengeful hotheads online.

Then there’s the hypocrisy. Leftists noisily stood up for Hussain and her birthright of free speech. Some protested outside her court hearings, holding placards similar to the one that landed her in trouble. Even the Guardian came out swinging for her right to be offensive. These people are far from friends of free speech. They’ve turned a blind eye, or indeed lent a foaming mouth, to many of the heartless cancellation campaigns of recent years. And now they want to pose as John Milton reincarnate?

Where were they when feminists who don’t believe people with penises are women were being hounded off campuses? Or when a man was arrested for denigrating the Pride flag? Or when cops warned various individuals to watch their words, and even to reorder their thoughts, on the issue of transgenderism? Or, indeed, when people have been arrested and jailed for making racist comments? If you’re so committed to liberty you will defend a person’s right to depict brown folk as ‘coconuts’, surely you will defend other people’s right to cause offence?

That’s the thing. Hussain’s lefty cheerleaders are not fighting for free speech but for me speech: the right to express ideas they approve of, and those ideas alone. This is not the ‘liberty to utter’ that so many of our forebears fought tooth and nail for – it’s a licence to utter, granted only to those who have taken the knee to chattering-class consensus. In this case the pretty vile consensus that politicians like Braverman and Sunak are racial quislings.

To my mind, ‘coconut’ is a racist insult. I believe that is the case because it is exclusively used against people of colour. It’s a barb built on racial stereotypes. It implicitly proposes that there is only one, ‘right’ way to be a person of colour: you must be leftish, rebellious, not too studious. Deviate from any of these decrees, dare to be a black person who’s reserved, conservative and not down with either mass immigration or ‘Palestinian resistance’, and you will be damned as a coconut, a racial failure.

So, yes, I believe it is hateful. But should it be illegal? No. We need to get serious about freedom of speech. Of course a line must be drawn where people are inciting violence. But if they are only expressing a belief, even a belief many will find offensive, their liberty must remain intact. We must always remember that the very freedom that allows people to say things we hate also allows us to push back against hatefulness.

It isn’t only the left whose hypocrisy has been exposed by the Hussain case. Many on the right had a Damascene conversion to the cause of cancel culture the minute they clapped eyes on her placard. Listen, we all know there are double standards on the ‘hate speech’ question. But the solution is not to call for a single standard of censorship to be applied without fear or favour to everyone who makes a distasteful utterance. It is to insist on a single standard of liberty, on freedom of speech for all.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/09/coconut-placards-and-the-truth-about-free-speech-in-britain/

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All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

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http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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Congress pushes bill to break the internet and censor websites—again

On Sept. 18, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is marking up 16 pieces of legislation including the so-called Kids Online Safety Act and Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), both of which would dramatically erode liability protections that websites and applications currently enjoy under existing law including Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

For example, in Section 110 of the Kids Online Safety Act, civil actions may be brought by states against “public-facing website, online service, online application, or mobile application that predominantly provides a community forum for user-generated content” including perceived “harms” allegedly inflicted upon users including minors.

Actions by every single state in the country against websites and other applications would bring a new level of regulation to the internet never seen before: “In any case in which the attorney general of a State has reason to believe that a covered platform has violated or is violating section 103, 104, or 105, the State, as parens patriae, may bring a civil action on behalf of the residents of the State in a district court of the United States or a State court of appropriate jurisdiction…”

The bill also authorizes guidances and other regulations by the Federal Trade Commission against all websites and applications subject to the bill that would require content filtration on behalf of minors and other highly expensive mechanisms that could harm small businesses from functioning on the internet at all and otherwise would raise serious First Amendment concerns because it would fundamentally alter the content being published on these websites and applications.

All of these provisions would directly undermine core protections of websites and other applications that were enacted by Congress in 1996, including Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

47 U.S.C. Section 230(c)(1) forms part the internet’s liability shield, stating, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

Subsections (c)(2)(a) and (c­)(2)(b) form the other part of that protection, stating, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described…”

These simultaneously grant a broad liability exemption for websites and other interactive computer services from whatever users happen to post on their websites, and grants the companies power to remove items at their discretion they find objectionable. The delicate balance this creates shields websites and other applications from lawsuits, allows for user networks to exist and otherwise protects the First Amendment rights of those websites by giving them the final say over what goes on their platforms.

Removing the liability protections, as the Kids Online Safety Act and COPPA envision by creating clear exceptions to section 230, would subject almost every website and interactive computer service to liability from the millions of users on these websites — on purpose.

The intent behind eroding these protections was made clear at a hearing on May 22 entitled, “Legislative Proposal to Sunset Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act” to discuss proposed draft legislation by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.), the “Section 230 Sunset Act,” which would end Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protections on Dec. 31, 2025 in order to force Big Tech companies to negotiate directly with Congress.

In a May 12 oped in the Wall Street Journal House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) outlined the blackmail provision, stating, “It would require Big Tech and others to work with Congress over 18 months to evaluate and enact a new legal framework that will allow for free speech and innovation while also encouraging these companies to be good stewards of their platforms. Our bill gives Big Tech a choice: Work with Congress to ensure the internet is a safe, healthy place for good, or lose Section 230 protections entirely.”

And the goal is censorship. Chairing the May 22 subcommittee hearing was U.S. Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) who promised in his opening statement that Congress is going to “reform [Section 230] in a way that will protect innovation and promote free speech and allow Big Tech to moderate indecent and illegal content on its platforms and be accountable to the American people.”

The subcommittee’s ranking member, U.S. Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) who blasted Section 230, saying Congress needed to address “disinformation” allowed on websites: “The broad shield [Section 230] offers can serve as a haven for harmful content, disinformation and online harassment.” She included so-called “election disinformation” in that category.

So, right off the bat, the goal of sunsetting Section 230—the legislation thankfully went nowhere—was to force a discussion about other legislation that would regulate “indecent” content or “disinformation”.

The Kids Online Safety Act and COPPA are that other anticipated legislation. And it’s already passed the Senate overwhelmingly, 91 to 3, making the House the last stopgap to protect the free and open internet. Despite massive efforts to conduct oversight on the executive branch whose actions resulted in censorship, Congress is pushing yet new measures to expand the scope of censorship to include the Federal Trade Commission and all 50 states to boot.

It would break the internet — on purpose — since the only platforms that could afford to assume the risk of hosting somebody else’s material that the government might deem “harmful” will be those with teams of lawyers and hundreds of billions of dollars of market cap that will get to define the regulations to exclude smaller and emerging market actors that will not be able to afford to filter content. That will limit the creation of new platforms, raising the question, does Congress even want a free and open internet?

https://dailytorch.com/2024/09/congress-pushes-bill-to-break-the-internet-and-censor-websites-again/

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All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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Australia: Labor is about to create two classes of free speech, but the Coalition can stop them

Here’s the good news: The Coalition appears, just possibly, ready to take the fight to Labor over its misinformation bill.

On Sunday, shadow communications minister David Coleman told my Sky News colleague Andrew Clennell, “we in the Coalition will always stand up for free speech.”

That’s great so far as it goes, but now for the bad news.

As vital to a functioning democracy as free speech may be, if the Coalition tries to turn the misinformation bill into a battle over freedom of expression they will almost surely lose.

The reason is depressingly simple.

In Australia, if you set something up as a battle between safety and freedom, safety wins the day nine times out of 10.

Just think about how things played out when then-attorney general George Brandis defended the classically liberal view that people have a “right to be bigots”, or the way premiers saw their popularity rise during the pandemic with every new restriction.

Those who drafted the legislation must have had this in mind: The word “harm” appears no less than 26 times in the proposed law.

So rather than a culture war, allow this column to suggest a better way to knock this thing on the head.

While Australians may not be free speech absolutists, they do have a strong allergy to class systems, tech companies, politicians, and powerful people having a lend.

If the Coalition really wants to defeat this bill – which is sadly is in keeping with efforts to limit what the great unwashed can read, say, or think in Western democracies around the globe – this is the way forward.

Point out that if the misinformation bill gets up, members of certain “elite” professions will have more rights than others, while at the same time the messy business of deciding what is and is not allowable speech will be pushed into the laps of Big Tech.

Because, under the terms of the legislation, Australians will have different rights to say what they think depending on what they do for a living.

Down in paragraph 16 of the bill parody and satire, “professional news content”, as well as academic, artistic, scientific, and religious content, are given a pass.

If this column were to question one of the things the bill seeks to protect, namely “the efficacy of public health measures in Australia”, by criticizing vape bans or punishingly high alcohol taxes there wouldn’t be a problem.

Yet others might find their posts blocked or taken down by their social media providers, who the legislation puts in the frame for stopping the spread of anything that doesn’t accord with the government’s official narrative (aka “misinformation”).

Likewise, Treasurer Jim Chalmers can go out and pick a fight with the RBA and accuse it of smashing up the Australian economy.

But ordinary Australians taking the same view might find themselves censored by social media companies not wanting to risk crippling fines from government communications bureaucrats.

These are just two examples, but the legislation is shockingly broad.

In the explanatory memorandum for the law, not only bald-faced lies but “opinions, claims, commentary, and invective” that causes “serious harm” are captured.

That same explanatory memorandum hints around how charges of “misinformation” might be used to shape the narrative, or stigmatise uncomfortable conversations, around issues like immigration and culture.

It even admits that tech platforms could be incentivized by the bill’s provisions to “take an overly cautious approach to the regulation … or in other words, they could have a ‘chilling effect.’”

But this it waves away these concerns, “because they pursue a legitimate aim.”

See the problem?

The bill creates a two-tier system. The government, being effectively exempt, can spread any sort of misinformation in service of its agenda.

Meanwhile, those who think differently could be censored, not directly by the state but by social media platforms – those always trustworthy outfits to whom censorship will be effectively outsourced.

This is already happening in some policy areas, like nuclear energy.

Recently the ALP set up a website for Australians to report misinformation which led to young nuclear activist Will Shackel reporting Labor for its own inaccurate and misleading scare campaigns around atomic energy.

Yet at the same time the government was pushing its three eyed fish anti-nuclear propaganda, users of Facebook, owned by Meta, found the service shutting down their ability to share content from Shackel’s group Nuclear for Australia.

If you think the Big Tech companies are politicized now, just wait until they have the cover of government legislation.

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/labor-is-about-to-create-two-classes-of-free-speech-but-the-coalition-can-stop-them/news-story/49d545920d9a65fd7d9c39dc58229068

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All my main blogs below:

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http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

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Online content moderation is currently at the forefront of free speech and censorship debates.

Online content moderation is currently at the forefront of free speech and censorship debates. Typically, government entities rely on administrative lawsuits and fines to ensure that social media companies enforce their own standards of speech—from prohibiting child pornography to removing terrorist groups.

Two weeks ago, however, France took these efforts one step further and arrested Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov—Russian-born and a dual citizen of France and the United Arab Emirates—for his alleged failure to mitigate criminal activity on Telegram. Authorities released Durov on bail, but free speech advocates and social media platforms are on alert as the European Union pursues more aggressive forms of censorship.

Telegram, which boasts nearly 1 billion users worldwide, is the most secure social media and online messaging platform available. Established in 2013 to counter growing concern over government censorship and digital privacy, Telegram’s website boasts that it has “disclosed 0 bytes of user data to third parties, including governments.” With end-to-end encryption, even Telegram cannot access certain private messages between users. The platform ensures the least restrictive form of content moderation and employs an average of only 30 full-time engineers.

The importance of platforms like Telegram cannot be understated. In August alone, the United Kingdom arrested citizens for alleged “hate speech” online. Irish authorities arrested citizens for opposing higher rates of immigration and one teacher for his refusal to use a student’s “preferred pronouns.” Ahead of X hosting an interview with Donald Trump, the European Union sent a letter to Elon Musk threatening that he and his platform may be held liable for improper speech. And in the United States, Mark Zuckerberg confessed that Meta complied with pressure from the Biden-Harris administration to censor online content about COVID-19 and the 2020 presidential election.

These are clear violations of free speech, especially in the United States. No entity or person has the right to limit speech for political gain. But not all concerns about online content are this straightforward.

Indeed, the basis of Durov’s arrest, according to French authorities, is the ongoing criminal activity on the platform. The European Union implemented the Digital Services Act in 2022, which “regulates online intermediaries and platforms such as marketplaces, social networks, content-sharing platforms.” French authorities claim and Telegram denies that the platform has not complied with requests to crack down on illegal activity.

For example, ISIS used Telegram to coordinate the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. Similarly, Hamas used Telegram to spread footage of its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, including content of Israelis its members maimed, murdered, and kidnapped. Broadly, Telegram hosts high rates of drug trafficking, fraudulent transactions, and material depicting child sexual abuse.

While Telegram has banned some channels in the past, the structure of the platform makes it very difficult to moderate criminal or morally abhorrent activity. For Telegram, the cost of hosting secure conversations may be the risk that some, or many, will use the platform for illicit purposes. As Durov said in a CNN interview in 2016, “You cannot make it safe against criminals and open for governments. [Telegram is] either secure or not secure.” The ongoing question is who should be held accountable.

Durov’s arrest and the ongoing investigation into Telegram matters internationally as nations such as the United States continue to debate free speech, censorship, and online regulation.

For starters, Telegram, like most social media companies, is an international platform. Legal challenges, especially related to content, are not merely restricted to one country. How French authorities handle their investigation into Telegram through Durov will have massive implications for free speech around the world. For example, if the European Union can penalize X via Elon Musk—a U.S. citizen—over free speech, then what does this mean for the content that U.S. citizens post, especially when traveling abroad?

Second, as the United States explores online content regulation, lawmakers must decide who to hold accountable and how. From proposals to reform Section 230 to the Kids Online Safety Act, lawmakers broadly agree that platforms should be held accountable for knowingly allowing or encouraging harmful content including child pornography, self-harm, or terrorism.

But what about cases, as with Telegram, where it is effectively one massive messaging platform? For many, such as Musk and U.S. intelligence documents-leaker Edward Snowden, the decision to arrest Durov amounts to a censorship and intimation campaign and a step in the wrong direction for online regulation. For others, the rampant dissemination of child pornography and harmful content makes the partial loss of unmonitored speech a worthwhile trade-off.

Pavel Durov will continue to meet with French authorities twice a week as the investigation into Telegram continues. If Durov, and Telegram by extension, is found guilty, he could face up to 10 years in prison. As governments engage in free speech and online censorship, it is essential for lawmakers and citizens alike to protect their own rights and ensure that wrongdoers—not merely those who do not parrot the official party opinion—are held in check.

https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/free-speech-accountability

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http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

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http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

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Censoring kids

I am concerned about the rise of misogyny among young boys due to the disturbing reach of Andrew Tate-like figures. I am equally concerned about body image, for both boys and girls, and I worry about cyberbullying and the impact on mental health. All real and well-publicised risks with social media. And yes, as the PM said, there is no map to direct us through the minefield.

That said, implementing an arbitrary age ban for social media, based on an assumption that all kids reach the same level of maturity once a particular birthday ticks over, is not the answer. I’ve no doubt a ban would help parents set rules, but the focus should be on educating us and our kids on how to use social media safely.

Albanese jumped on an age ban after his South Australian counterpart, Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas, last weekend said his government would force social media giants to block children under the age of 14 from their platforms or face hefty penalties. The prime minister had no choice but to take the lead. The states, including NSW, were yapping at his heels, and the Coalition had already announced a similar policy earlier in the year.

Albanese says Australia will move before the next election to a national system to force tech platforms to enforce age verification. No final age has yet been settled but is likely to be within the 13- to 16-year-old range. The announcement was vague, but was designed to show that Albanese was being decisive.

How would a social media ban actually work?

Malinauskas told ABC Sydney on Wednesday that “social media addiction among children is doing them harm. It is happening, it is real.” Joining him on air was NSW Premier Chris Minns, who described social media as a “global unregulated experiment on young people”. The pair, who formed a strong bond as opposition leaders, will host a combined two-day social media summit next month, with one day in Sydney followed by another in Adelaide.

Malinauskas has already shown his hand. Based on a report by former High Court justice Robert French, which concluded that social media giants should take “systemic responsibility”, Malinauskas has promised an age ban. Minns, too, has enthusiastically backed South Australia’s proposal, as well as Albanese’s announcement.

I want to keep my kids safe, happy and healthy. I want them to hold on to their childhoods for as long as possible. But I also accept that the digital age in which they were born is vastly different from the world I entered. Social media is not going to disappear, so rather than take the very Australian approach of slapping a ban on a problem, we should be working to educate.

Writing in The Conversation, Dr Joanne Orlando, a digital literacy researcher at Western Sydney University, said: “banning children from social media isn’t going to fix the problem of online harms faced by young people – it’s only going to put the problem on pause.” Orlando argues the best way to help young people safely navigate the digital world is by improving their social media literacy.

But that digital literacy, she says, is serious lacking, and Orlando likens it to how young people were once taught about sex. “But that has started to change,” Orlando wrote, “and now there is more of a focus on teaching young people how to have sex safely and with consent.” The same should be done with social media, she argued. Not annual cyber safety talks, which highlight the dangers of the online world, but specific classes within school.

Albanese said what parents want to hear. “The safety and mental and physical health of our young people is paramount,” was his message. “Parents want their kids off their phones and on the footy field. So do I”.

And so do I, prime minister, but I also accept that we cannot return to the golden days when social media did not exist. The yo-yo is as good as a dodo. So instead we need to accept its ubiquity and ensure kids, and parents, know how to navigate a digital world which is here to stay.

https://www.smh.com.au/technology/the-pm-is-sigma-but-his-social-media-ban-belongs-in-the-skibidi-toilet-20240910-p5k9gp.html

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http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

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Why King Charles won't be doing 'walkabouts' during his Australian tour

King Charles has scrapped the traditional 'walkabout' ahead of his upcoming royal visit to Australia to avoid offending Indigenous Australians.

Charles III, 75, and Queen Camilla, 77, will visit Sydney and Canberra from October 18 to 22 before the couple end their tour in Samoa on the 26th.

The 'walkabout' was first coined by the late Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip during her majesty's royal visit to Australia and New Zealand in 1970.

It refers to an informal way for members of the royal family to meet with the public.

The phrase in Indigenous culture describes a time period symbolic of change, meditation and grief when a person travels to the bush on foot.

The official itinerary indicates that the 'royal walkabout' will instead be replaced with 'an opportunity to meet the public'.

The King and the Duchess of Cornwall are still expected to interact with hundreds of well-wishers in both Australia and Samoa during their short visit.

The tour will mark the first visit by His Majesty since his ascension to the throne.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13840519/Prince-Charles-Australia-tour-walkabouts.html

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Australia: Labor’s promised hate speech bill will not deal with ‘hate speech’

Labor has scrubbed criminal penalties for seriously vilifying minority groups from its upcoming hate crimes bill, watering down its proposed laws just months after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese vowed to introduce stronger measures to protect people from hate speech.

Sources familiar with Labor’s promised hate speech bill said it had been significantly weakened in the final stages of drafting and was now starkly different from Albanese’s original pledge, which he made earlier this year following months of concern about inflamed antisemitism.

A minority of demonstrators at a rally at the Opera House in October 2023 chanted anti-Semitic slogans.
A minority of demonstrators at a rally at the Opera House in October 2023 chanted anti-Semitic slogans.Credit:Lisa Maree Williams

Sources, who spoke anonymously as they were bound to confidentiality in order to be briefed, said it will not use the words “hate speech” nor introduce a serious anti-vilification law, which was a key aim of the bill. Instead, it will focus on acts and threats of violence.

Albanese promised to strengthen hate speech laws and criminalise “doxxing” in February as community tensions ran high over the war in Gaza and anti-Zionist activists published the names and details of almost 600 Jewish writers, artists and academics.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the anti-doxxing laws, which he will also introduce on Thursday, impose a maximum six-year prison sentence for maliciously using personal data, which will increase to seven years if a person or group is targeted because of their race, religion, sexuality, gender, nationality or disability.

But his office refused to provide any detail about the hate crimes bill before it was tabled in parliament. The softened legislation will disappoint those who had demanded strong action on hate speech, such as LGBTQ advocates and Jewish representatives, but should satisfy stakeholders more concerned about freedom of religion and speech, such as Christian groups.

This masthead revealed in May that Dreyfus was drafting a hate speech bill that would impose criminal penalties for serious instances of vilification based on a person’s race, sexuality, gender, disability or religion.

Walking away from that creates another political dispute for Albanese, who will be forced to clarify how he plans to get tougher on hate speech if the bill does not allay community concerns, particularly around antisemitism.

The hate speech laws were intended as a compromise to faith groups, who were dismayed after Labor ditched its election promise to introduce a civil anti-vilification law through a now-abandoned religious discrimination act. The government also spent the last fortnight tied in knots over its commitment to LGBTQ questions in the census as it tried to avoid a divisive debate.

Jewish groups have been seeking assurance from the government that new laws would address concerns about the antisemitic phrases chanted by protesters near the Sydney Opera House following Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack on Israel.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion welcomed the Albanese government’s commitment back in February, saying: “We have called for an end to the impunity and we are grateful that the government has listened”.

LGBTQ groups have also been pushing for stronger protections, particularly since the government walked away from its election promise to remove a controversial part of the sex discrimination act that allows religious schools to discriminate against staff and students.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/labor-s-promised-hate-speech-bill-will-not-deal-with-hate-speech-20240910-p5k9dp.html

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http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

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https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

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Attempts To Limit Bad Speech May Endanger Good Speech

It’s too soon to untangle the arrest of Pavel Durov, CEO of the encrypted-messaging service Telegram, which he co-founded. The French government has indicted him on charges of complicity in the distribution of child sex abuse images, aiding organized crime and refusing lawful orders to give information to law enforcement. There are still many questions about the extent of Durov’s role other than operating what the Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel called the “platform of choice for many activists, crypto scammers, drug dealers, terrorists, extremists, banned influencers, and conspiracy theorists.”

But it’s not too soon to talk about the implications for free speech, because we’ve already been wrestling with the problems posed by services like Telegram for many years — and will do so for many to come.

When I started writing on the internet, more than 20 years ago, my fellow bloggers and I assumed it was a free and open place where anything could happen. “The internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it,” we used to tell each other, a little giddy. Well into the social media era, Twitter executives proudly proclaimed that their company belonged to “the free speech wing of the free speech party.”

But as the World Wide Web entered its third decade, the internet’s scale and reach empowered some very bad actors, from trolls to white nationalists to child pornographers and drug cartels. A clamor arose to crack down on all this dangerous chatter — which brings us to Pavel Durov.

The Associated Press reports that French authorities are saying his company has “refused to share information or documents with investigators when required by law.” The possibility that loose moderation and encrypted messaging are empowering heinous crimes is a real challenge for the free-speech wing of the free-speech party: Platforms where speech is unfettered are also platforms that make it easier to say, and do, antisocial things. This has always been a problem with free speech, of course, but the internet has given the bad guys opportunities we could never before have imagined.

And so there has been a concerted push for institutions to censor, to hand over user data, to fiddle with algorithms to tilt conversations in a more prosocial direction. Defending the freedom to say dark things — in private or public — inevitably raises the question “Why would you want to help such people?” Services such as Telegram, where conversations can tip from bad speech to bad deeds, make this particularly awkward to answer.

But there is an answer, which is that this is the wrong question. We should not be asking whether anyone wants to help criminals (no!) but whether it’s worth sacrificing our own liberties to make it easier for the government to stop them. The Bill of Rights answered this with a resounding no, and that’s still the correct answer after more than 200 years.

If you allow people to say anything, you’ll see a lot of hateful filth, but you will also see robust discussions that make our democracy stronger. If you allow bloggers to speculate about anything that crosses their minds, you will find they generate a lot of nonsense — and also provide a useful check on institutions that aren’t doing their jobs properly. If you maintain spaces where people can talk away from the prying eyes of the authorities, you will make it harder for democratic governments to catch criminals and also make it harder for despotic governments to crack down on political activists.

It’s tempting to say that we’ll let only the good governments have those powers, for good purposes. That we aren’t really sacrificing an important freedom, only the kinds of freedom that no one should have. That we’re simply sanding off the wilder edges of the internet, while leaving plenty of spaces for all the right kinds of speech to flourish.

But while it might not be one short step from a Telegram crackdown to a full-blown Chinese-style surveillance state, there is an inevitable trade-off: When such powers are used, they can be abused, as even democratic governments have done when they’ve decided that some emergency — communism, terrorism, the pandemic — required us to give up some of our liberties in the name of hunting the bad people.

Inevitably, we regret those concessions. Coincidentally, shortly after Durov was arrested, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a letter in response to a U.S. House committee inquiry, regretfully admitting that the Biden White House had pressured Meta to censor disinformation during the pandemic, and that Meta had done so in some cases, though Zuckerberg takes full responsibility for those decisions. Undoubtedly, those officials thought they were helping people, but ultimately Facebook, owned by Meta, ended up also throttling reasonable speculation about the origins of the virus, along with an absolutely true story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, right ahead of an election.

Small cost, I’m sure many of my readers will say, especially if they voted for Joe Biden. But then consider how Donald Trump might use such powers — and then consider what even worse governments might do with expansive powers over Telegram’s user base. Which is why we keep deciding anew to tie officials’ hands: not because we’re afraid of what they’ll do to the criminals but because we’re afraid of what might eventually be done to us.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/29/telegram-pavel-durov-free-speech/

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Another blog down

Google have deleted my "Education Watch" blog.  No idea why.  It was all pretty mainstream conservative stuff.

It was most likely Google's AI that deleted it so  I have requested a review of the decision and that might get the blog back up

To read the sort of posts on it see my backups of it e.g. here:

http://jonjayray.com/edaug24.html

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All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

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http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

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https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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UN agency staff told not to say 'Englishman' or 'man's best friend' in latest crackdown on gendered language

A United Nations agency has been branded 'Orwellian' after it told staff not to use the term 'Englishman' in the latest crackdown on 'gendered' language.

The Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organisation – which protects trademarks and patents globally – has also vetoed masculine terms including 'forefathers' and 'brother­hood of man'.

Even 'man's best friend' has been blacklisted – with 'a faithful dog' to be used instead. And 'birth attendant' is suggested as an alternative to 'midwife'.

The move comes after the British Red Cross was accused of having been 'hijacked by political extremists' after clamping down on phrases such as 'ladies and gentlemen' and 'maiden name'.

According to the 'Guidelines on inclusive language' published by the UN agency – known as WIPO – using 'masculine-specific' terms risks giving the impression that 'women are not represented in certain groups or do not possess certain skills'.

Among the terms staff should not use are Englishman – with 'English person' or 'English national' given as alternatives.

'Man in the street' should be replaced by 'ordinary citizen' or 'typical person', while the word 'sportsmanlike' is to be avoided in favour of 'fair' or 'sporting'.

Caveman or cavewoman are both frowned upon, with the guide suggesting 'cave dweller' or 'prehistoric people', while 'humanity' is preferred to 'the brotherhood of man'.

A separate list of gender-neutral terms for occupations advises replacing 'lumberjack' with 'wood chopper' or 'logger' and waiter/waitress with 'wait staff' or, 'server'.

Another on the list is 'midwife', with the suggested alternative given as 'birth attendant' – although the guide does concede that midwife 'may still be the preferable term, depending on the context'.

Last night Toby Young, founder of the Free Speech Union, said: 'This is precisely what George Orwell warned us about.

'Banning certain words and phrases to advance a dogmatic political ideology is a hallmark of totalitarianism.'

Last month the Daily Mail revealed how staff at the British Red Cross were being told that 'people who are not women' can get pregnant and have periods.

Meanwhile NHS trusts have instructed employees to use gender-neutral language, with midwives told to refer to 'mothers or birthing parents', and 'chestmilk' as an alternative to breastmilk.

Signed off by WIPO director general Daren Tang, the guidelines are 'not prescriptive and common sense and clarity of text should always prevail'.

WIPO said the document was 'designed to be a straightforward awareness-raising exercise for our colleagues on how to use

language that resonates with the widest possible audience, which may include avoiding terms that are linked to one specific gender when other neutral, more-inclusive words are available.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13824739/un-agency-staff-englishman-gendered-language.html

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Conservative YouTube Accounts Terminated Over Fear of Russian Influence

YouTube terminated the accounts of a conservative influencer and her media company Thursday evening, one day after the Justice Department indicated the company was tied to a Russian scheme to influence the 2024 election.

The accounts for Tenet Media and Lauren Chen were removed one day after Attorney General Merrick Garland held a press conference announcing an indictment of two Russians in an alleged scheme to influence the 2024 election. A note on Tenet Media’s channel states that it “violated our Community Guidelines” and Chen’s personal account on the Google-owned video site was listed as “not available” Friday morning.

The Justice Department claimed that individuals tied to Russian media outlet RT provided $10 million to promote accounts at a U.S.-based media outlet that had only 16 million views across 2,000 videos. The Justice Department did not name Tenet, but multiple news outlets have confirmed it was the company named in the indictment.

Tenet Media’s talent includes podcasters Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin, and Lauren Southern, according to its website. The personal YouTube pages for Rubin, Johnson, Pool, and Southern were still available Friday.

The DOJ’s assertions in the indictment have been viewed skeptically by some conservatives, who noted the claims that Russia colluded with former President Donald Trump during his successful 2016 campaign for the White House. The Steele Dossier, which was used to further allegations of collusion, was later discredited.

YouTube confirmed its action in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Following an indictment from the US Department of Justice and after careful review, we are terminating the Tenet Media channel and four channels operated by its owner Lauren Chen as part of our ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations,” a spokesperson for YouTube told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Chen and Tenet Media did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/09/06/youtube-takes-down-conservative-podcast-network-tied-to-doj-russia-indictment/

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http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

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In this free speech fight, Musk’s X has marked the right position

When it comes to free expression, Elon Musk tends to talk the talk more ably than he walks the walk. In his latest public tussle on the subject, however, he’s managing to do both. The billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX is correct when he says a Brazilian jurist’s move to unilaterally prohibit X, which he owns, from operating in the country is an assault on internet speech around the world.

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes has been on a quest to clean up online disinformation for years, having ordered platforms to remove reams of posts that he has declared threatening to democracy. The effort garnered praise from left of center commentators during the latter stages of right-wing populist Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s term, as the then-incumbent and his supporters threatened not to accept the results if they lost the 2022 election. And, indeed, yanking down lies with the potential to distort the vote or inspire violence may be the responsible thing for platforms such as X to do in certain limited circumstances. But it is beyond irresponsible for the government to make such calls. The story in Brazil has shown why.

Mr. Moraes’s takedown campaign might have been effective in combating right-wing conspiracy theories, but at a substantial cost to free expression — with mandates for removals and even arrest warrants often issued under seal and with scant reasoning to support them. The recent move against X is both more of the same and just plain more: After X ignored the court’s orders to block more than 140 accounts, the justice warned he would arrest its legal representative in Brazil. That prompted Mr. Musk to remove X’s team from the country. That lack of a physical presence, in turn, led Mr. Moraes to instruct that X be blocked for all 220 million Brazilians — who, he said, could face fines of almost $9,000 a day if they tried to circumvent the restriction.

If this sounds authoritarian, it is. Whatever the threat to democracy that the accounts Mr. Moraes wanted gone might have posed, the threat from one government official limiting the speech of 220 million people is greater. Taken together with Mr. Moraes’s choice to freeze the assets of internet-provider Starlink, a separate company of Mr. Musk’s, this move aligns Brazil not with the free world but with the likes of China and Russia.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/09/04/elon-musk-x-brazil-judge-speech/

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http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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I'm American - this is the common phrase Australians use that's 'highly offensive' to us

An expat living in Australia has revealed the one common phrase that Aussies should never use when speaking to an American: 'oldies'.

Ellie Drabik said that the everyday, 'innocent' phrase used by many Aussies would cause extreme offense in the US.

'My Americans, brace yourself for this, because this would never fly in America,' she said in a video.

'People literally call elderly people "oldies"... they talk about them and say those are the oldies or that's where the oldies go.'

Ellie added that the popular term, which would 'send you to jail for bad manners in America', didn't seem to be offensive among Aussies.

'In America saying you're old or an oldie would send people through the roof, like it would absolutely not fly, it would be completely not okay,' she added.

Ellie admitted that despite how insulting the expression would be in her home country, it was still her favourite local abbreviation.

Aussies reacting to the video defended the popular term and insisted that it was the best way to refer to older Australians and was meant to be a sign of affection.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13779411/Im-American-common-phrase-Australians-use-thats-highly-offensive-us.html

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All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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Author Stephen King stunned to learn Florida's banned 23 of his books

It sounds like the law was over-interpreted

Horror master Stephen King was shocked to learn that 23 of his books have been banned in Florida - as his publisher joins a massive lawsuit against the state.

'What the f**k?' the famous author posted on X in response to learning the news.

Hundreds of books have been removed from schools as a result of the Florida law known as the 'Don't Say Gay' bill.

Some of King's novels that have reportedly been taken off the shelves include Carrie, It, The Gunslinger, The Running Man and The Long Walk.

King's publisher, Simon & Schuster, along with five other major publishers launched a lawsuit challenging the Florida law last week.

The other publishers to sign on are Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, and Sourcebooks.

Others who have joined the suit include bestselling authors Julia Alvarez, Laurie Halse Anderson, John Green, Jodi Picoult, and Angie Thomas, as well as the Authors Guild, two students and two parents.

The list of banned books includes classics such as Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, according to the publishers.

'As publishers dedicated to protecting freedom of expression and the right to read, the rise in book bans across the country continues to demand our collective action,' the group said in a joint statement.

'Fighting unconstitutional legislation in Florida and across the country is an urgent priority.

'We are unwavering in our support for educators, librarians, students, authors, readers - everyone deserves access to books and stories that show different perspectives and viewpoints.'

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the 'Don't Say Gay' bill in 2022, limiting access to materials containing 'sexual conduct' in classrooms.

Florida's legislature passed an expanded version of the law in May 2023, restricting in-classroom instruction of gender identity and sexual orientation for all public school grad -levels.

Additionally, the law also makes it easier for parents to remove books that they feel are inappropriate from school bookshelves.

Any person can challenge a book for any reason within their county. Once a challenge is levied, the book in question must be pulled from the shelves during the review process, which could take weeks or months.

PEN America tracked 3,135 bans across 11 school districts in Florida from July 1, 2021 to December 23, 2023.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13805523/stephen-king-author-florida-banned-books.html

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All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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Awkward moment footy commentator uses extremely 'politically incorrect' language to describe a white female player

Footy fans are torn over a seemingly casual comment made during an AFLW match, with some calling it the ultimate compliment and others calling for the commentator to be sacked.

The incident occured during the opening round of the AFLW with Essendon taking on Fremantle on Saturday.

The commentary team, including veteran caller Kelli Underwood and former AFLW champion Kirby Bentley, turned their conversation to Fremantle veteran Ashleigh Brazill early in the third quarter.

That was when Bentley stunned viewers by saying she thought the Fremantle star was 'black' the first time they met as teenagers - because she was so athletic.

Bentley has known Brazill for almost two decades and played a key role in luring her over to Aussie Rules from netball.

Bentley is a proud Indigenous woman who founded charity carnival the Kirby Bentley Cup aimed at improving inclusion and opportunity for Aboriginal girls.

Brazill claimed gold medals at the Netball World Cup and Commonwealth Games and has juggled both sports since she was drafted into the AFLW in 2017.

Underwood began the exchange by talking up the athleticism of Brazill.

'Thirty four years of age, Ash Brazill, this is her 33rd career AFLW game and of course she was All Australian back in 2019 - and she's still got that speed,' she said.

That was when Bentley revealed that she had deep ties with Brazill.

'I've known Braz since she was 16, she was a rookie when I was playing national netball with her,' she said.

'It's insane, it's great to see her out here still with the amount of intensity that we put our bodies under.'

Underwood then asked: 'As a 16-year-old, did you pick it? Or has she been a sort of late bloomer and developer to both sports?

'She was a freak athlete,' Bentley confirmed.

'Her vertical leap was second to none, I thought she was black.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/afl/article-13800625/Shocking-moment-footy-commentator-uses-extremely-politically-incorrect-language-white-female-player.html

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All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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Google censorship

In what I say below, I may not be criticizing any live person at Google. What I talk about may be the work of their AI alone.

There is however some hope. After a couple of requests from me for a review of the ban on my "Australian Politics" blog, the ban has been lifted. So I now am postng to it again at its old blogspot site:

https://australian-politics.blogspot.com

Hooray!


Leftist dominance of political thought is nothing new. I wrote a book about it in 1974:

http://jonjayray.com/chapters.html

But recent years have seen a great upsurge in active attempts to suppress the publication of conservative thinking. Google is part of that tendency. They are no longer just a search engine. They now actively censor thought that they disapprove of, calling it "misinformation".

And they are very sensitive to negative comments about C*v*d v*cc*n*s. In their view, the v*cc*n*s save lives so any commentary that discourages uptake of them costs lives. I am not allowed to differ in any way from that opinion in what I write

So they delete such negative commentary from my blogs where it appears and have also wiped out one of my blogs completely: "The Psychologist". It published occasional negative commentary and now no longer exists on Blogspot.

I was not too perturbed by the disappearance of "The Psychologist". It was simply a collection of posts that had appeared elsehere in my blogs so no thought or information was lost by its demolition.

For anyone curious about what appeared there, all its recent content can accessed from the Wayback Machine. Use the search term:

http://awesternheart.blogspot.com

The clue to using The Wayback Machine is that you have to delete the asterisk in the search results

For illustrative purposes, I have grabbed a random couple of months of it from the Wayback Machine and posted it here:

http://jonjayray.com/awe.html

It is a large file so may take a minute to load

I have also started a new blog to replace it called "Select Thought". It is beyond the control of Google so all they can do about it is to refuse all mention of it in search results. It does not mention anything to do with C*v*d, however so they may give it a pass. The link to it is:

http://jonjayray.com/select.html

I have not however stopped putting up all skeptical thought about the v*cc*n*s. I have simply confined such commentary to a new blog especially devoted to that purpose. It is here:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html

There are some wild conspiracy theories about C*v*d, particularly on Substack, but I do not reference those. I confine my attention to statistically-based studies

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All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/ozarc.html (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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