He's back!

More than two years after Donald Trump was banned from social media after Big Tech colluded to make the unprecedented decision to deny a sitting president a voice, the last domino has fallen.

Trump’s YouTube page, which boasts 2.65 million followers, was back under his control Friday after it was permanently disabled in January of 2021.

YouTube, which is owned by struggling Google, confirmed the news to The New York Post.

YouTube public policy vice president Leslie Miller said Trump’s channel “is no longer restricted and the ability to upload new content is restored.”

Miller added, “We carefully evaluated the continued risk of real-world violence, balancing that with the importance of preserving the opportunity for voters to hear equally from major national candidates in the run-up to an election.”

She said Trump’s channel “will continue to be subject to our policies, just like any other channel on YouTube.”

He was banned from YouTube after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incursion as Big Tech worked in tandem to silence the then-president.

Oddly, Meta and Google made decisions to bring back Trump during a time when both struggling with revenue and after making the decision to lay off thousands.

https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/donald-trump-reinstated-big-tech-platform-company-forced-make-thousands-layoffs

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Oxfam's new 92-page inclusivity guide calls English 'the language of a colonising nation' and tells staff to avoid the words 'mother' 'headquarters' - and even 'youth'

Oxfam is a major British charity.  This latest nonsense shows them up for what they are: Applause-seekers

Oxfam came under fire last night for issuing a bizarre 'inclusive' language guide to staff.  The 92-page report warns against 'colonial' phrases such as 'headquarters', suggests 'local' may be offensive and says 'people' could be patriarchal.

Workers were told 'parent' is often preferable to 'mother' or 'father', terms such as 'feminine hygiene' should be dropped, and 'people who become pregnant' should be used instead of 'expectant mothers'.

The guide even suggests that 'youth', 'the elderly' and 'seniors' should be avoided – to afford respect and dignity.

Tory former minister Robert Buckland said: 'Most people will find this particular use of valuable time and resources by Oxfam totally bizarre. It would do them well to remember the old adage that actions speak louder than words.'

The introduction apologises for being written in and about the English language, saying: 'We recognise that this guide has its origin in English, the language of a colonising nation. We acknowledge the Anglo-supremacy of the sector as part of its coloniality.

'This guide aims to support people who have to work and communicate in the English language as part of this colonial legacy. However, we recognise that the dominance of English is one of the key issues that must be addressed in order to decolonise our ways of working and shift power.'

The official advice from the charity – founded in Oxford in 1942 to relieve famine worldwide – attempts to revolutionise its staff's language across a wide range of fields.

It looks to outlaw 'headquarters' as it 'implies a colonial power dynamic'; 'aid sector', which 'cements ideology where an agent with resources gives support on a charitable basis'; and 'field trip' because it can 'reinforce colonial attitudes'.

Oxfam said in a statement yesterday: 'This guide is not prescriptive but helps authors communicate in a way that is respectful to the diverse range of people with which we work. We are proud of using inclusive language; we won't succeed in tackling poverty by excluding marginalised groups.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11869961/Oxfams-new-92-page-inclusivity-guide-calls-English-language-colonising-nation.html

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Censorship addicts: Democrats seek to squelch speech on banks

Concerned about your money after recent bank failures? You might want to keep those thoughts to yourself.

While some rushed to get their money after the collapses, at least one leading Democrat is pushing for censorship of those who do not have faith in the banking industry.

The Democratic Party for more than a decade has alienated many of us in the party with its embrace of censorship and speech controls.

Democratic leaders actively promote censorship on social media and vehemently defend government efforts to target citizens or groups.

Some have even adopted McCarthyite labels like “Russian lovers” to paint free-speech advocates as disloyal or dangerous in opposing censorship efforts.

Subjects from climate change to gender identity to COVID to elections have been gradually added to the list of prohibited thoughts.

Now Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) has put bank solvency on the list.

It is only the latest example of censorship’s slippery slope.

Kelly shows how censorship is addictive; it not only builds an increasing tolerance for speech limits but a decreasing tolerance for opposing views.

The immediate inclination becomes to silence those who challenge you or refuse to accept your “truth” on any given subject.

In a Zoom call this week with a couple hundred participants, Kelly asked representatives from the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation about censoring social media to remove those raising doubts over bank solvency in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank crises.

As in past censorship calls, Kelly reportedly cited the danger of “foreign actors” using social media — to undermine banks. It’s those pesky Russians again.

The list of subjects justifying censorship keeps getting longer.

In a critical November 2020 hearing, tech CEOs appeared before the Senate. Twitter’s then-CEO Jack Dorsey apologized for censoring The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story but pledged to censor more people in defense of “electoral integrity.”

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), however, was not happy. He was upset not by the promised censorship but that it wasn’t broad enough.

He noted it’s hard to define the problem of “misleading information,” but tech companies had to impose a sweeping system to combat the “harm” of misinformation.

“The pandemic and misinformation about COVID-19, manipulated media also cause harm,” Coons said. “But I’d urge you to reconsider” putting in place a “standalone climate change misinformation policy” because “helping to disseminate climate denialism, in my view, further facilitates and accelerates one of the greatest existential threats to our world.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) also warned he and his colleagues would not tolerate any “backsliding or retrenching” by firms “failing to take action against dangerous disinformation.”

He demanded companies keep using “the same kind of robust content modification” — the new Orwellian term for censorship — they did in the 2020 election.

History has shown censorship becomes an insatiable appetite. Once you silence opposing views in one area, opposing views in other areas become increasingly intolerable.

Rather than convince citizens that their deposits are safe, it is easier to just silence anyone who disagrees with you.

With Democrats’ vocal support, Twitter’s former censors recently revealed the standard they used to censor citizens.  Ex-Twitter executive Anika Collier Navaroli explained at a House hearing last month that Twitter tried not to just “balance free speech and safety.”

Rather, it asked “free expression for whom and public safety for whom. So whose free expression are we protecting at the expense of whose safety, and whose safety are we willing to allow to go the wind so that people can speak freely?”

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) responded: “Exactly right.”

So now “the expense” of free speech is too high if it might undermine faith in our banks’ stability. It is that easy.

Parag Agrawal explained it years ago. After taking over as Twitter CEO, Agrawal said the company would “focus less on thinking about free speech” because “speech is easy on the Internet. Most people can speak. Where our role is particularly emphasized is who can be heard.”

The great civil libertarian Justice Louis Brandeis once warned, “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

Sen. Kelly is now that man in seeking censorship to protect banks’ assets while leaving free speech insolvent.

https://nypost.com/2023/03/14/censorship-addicts-democrats-seek-to-squelch-speech-on-banks/

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Don't use the phrases 'pig out', 'eating like a horse' or 'wolfing down your dinner' because it makes obese people feel like ANIMALS, woke dietitians say

Using the phrase 'pig out' is no longer acceptable as it makes obese people feel like animals, according to new guidelines.

Talking about a 'war on obesity' makes overweight people feel like the enemy, and they should be referred to as 'individuals with higher weight', the British Dietetic Association (BDA) said.

In the latest attempt to address 'stigmatising' language, dietitians have taken aim at 'dehumanising' words for overeating.

They caution against the use of phrases like 'pig out', 'eating like a horse' or 'wolfing down dinner' which, they claim, may make people feel like animals.

Dr Adrian Brown, from the Centre of Obesity Research at University College London, who helped to draw up the guidelines, has even expressed concerns about terms like 'chubby' and 'morbidly obese'.

Tam Fry, chair of the National Obesity Forum, said: 'In producing "balanced guidelines" for their in-house communications, the authors have taken medical correctness to a slightly ridiculous level.

Dr Duane Mellor, a member of the BDA from Aston University, said: 'Living with a higher body weight is too often judged by others, and deemed to be less good or less able, which is simply wrong. 'We focus on weight and looks and not health and function.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11845031/Dont-use-phrases-pig-makes-obese-people-feel-like-ANIMALS-dietitians-say.html

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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US Navy renames 2 ships in bid to sink Confederate ties

The US Navy is renaming two of its vessels as part of ongoing efforts to cut ties with Confederate history.

The former USNS Maury, an oceanographic survey ship, has been re-named in honor of Marie Tharp, an oceanographer who first mapped the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

It was previously named after former Navy Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury — the founder of modern oceanography who was nicknamed the “Pathfinder of the Seas.”

Maury refused to fight against his home state of Virginia and resigned during the Civil War to join the Confederate Army.

The Navy also renamed a warship formerly known as USS Chancellorsville to the USS Robert Smalls, honoring an enslaved sailor for the Confederates during the Civil War who later went on to serve South Carolina as a US congressman.

It was originally named after The Battle of Chancellorsville on April 30-May 6, 1863, Gen. Robert E. Lee’s greatest victory during the Civil War.

“The renaming of these assets is not about rewriting history, but to remove the focus on the parts of our history that don’t align with the tenets of this country,” Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said in a statement.

The new titles were given by a naming commission created by Congress in response to outcry nationwide over existing Confederate memorials following the 2020 slaying of George Floyd.

https://nypost.com/2023/03/11/us-navy-renames-2-ships-in-bid-to-sink-confederate-ties/

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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‘Shut up’ is out: sensitivity editors come for Blyton's Famous Five

The phrases “Shut up”, “Don’t be an ass”, and “Don’t be an idiot” have been quietly cut from Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, in the latest example of children’s literature being rewritten to suit modern sensibilities.

The move comes less than a month after UK publisher Puffin was forced into a backdown after attempting to remove words such as “fat” and “ugly” from Roald Dahl classics including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

An audiobook of one of the ­Famous Five’s adventures, The Famous Five Short Story Collection, has been edited in recent months to delete the phrases, ­uttered by the child characters ­beloved by generations of readers.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/shut-up-is-out-now-the-famous-five-are-being-censored/news-story/be87c2c08957e29d5707d94141410988

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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British football personalities step up to defend free speech

The BBC’s sports coverage this weekend is in meltdown as sports star presenters and journalists boycotted shows plunging the corporation into a scheduling crisis.

Football Focus and Final Score were axed on Saturday as the row over impartiality and Gary Lineker’s controversial tweets intensified.

Saturday’s Match Of The Day (MOTD) was set to go ahead without a presenter or pundits after Lineker, the BBC’s highest paid presenter, was told to step back from hosting the show after he criticised the Government’s handling of the asylum crisis.

The BBC said it had “decided” Lineker would take a break from presenting the highlights programme until an “agreed and clear position” on his use of social media had been reached.

The move prompted both Ian Wright and Alan Shearer to announce on Friday that they too would boycott the show in solidarity with Lineker.

But, any hope the BBC had of limiting the fallout were scuppered when a flurry of presenters joined what was fast becoming a mass walkout.

At 10.25am on Saturday, the former England player Alex Scott announced that she will not be presenting Football Focus on Saturday.

Glenn Murray, a key pundit on the BBC sports team, then ruled himself out of appearing on both Football Focus and Final Score.

The former Brighton striker tweeted: “Was meant to be up in Media City today but reflecting last night I felt it was the right thing to do to step away from Focus & Score today.

Even the Professional Footballers’ Association waded in to offer players support if they wanted to refuse BBC interviews following weekend matches.

“We have been informed that players involved in today’s games will not be asked to participate in interviews with Match Of The Day,” a spokesman said.

“The PFA have been speaking to members who wanted to take a collective position and to be able to show their support for those who have chosen not to be part of tonight’s programme.

“During those conversations we made clear that, as their union, we would support all members who might face consequences for choosing not to complete their broadcast commitments.

“This is a common-sense decision that ensures players won’t now be put in that position.”

Meanwhile, an online petition calling for Gary Lineker to be reinstated in his post on Match Of The Day reached its target of 100,000 signatures in just 10 hours.

MOTD was effectively being hit for the first time in its 59-year history by strike action by its presenters.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/11/gary-lineker-alex-scott-bbc-football-focus-final-score-cancel/

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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House Committee Hears of ‘Censorship-Industrial Complex’ From New Bombshell ‘Twitter Files’

A new idiom entered the lexicon of the tussle between Republicans in Congress and the social media platforms they believe suppress conservative voices: the “censorship-industrial complex.”

First used by journalist Matt Taibbi and author Michael Shellenberger Thursday morning in another chapter of what has come to be known as the “Twitter files,” the phrase describes the growing practice of government actors collaborating with think tanks, non-governmental organizations, and media watchdogs to pressure social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook to tamp down content labeled as “misinformation” — even if the information is factually accurate — and divert advertising dollars away from conservative-leaning news sites.

The practice was laid bare during the second hearing of the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee’s new select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government, at which Messrs. Taibbi and Shellenberger testified Thursday. The censorship documented by the two men began as an attempt ostensibly aimed at combating online extremism by terrorists or Russians meddling in American elections, but has evolved into a fight against what its players describe as “domestic misinformation,” Mr. Shellenberger said.

“It’s not a slippery slope,” he told the committee. “It’s an immediate leap into a terrifying mechanism that we only see in totalitarian societies.”

Mr. Taibbi went a step further, describing the links between government agencies and their private-sector proxies — and the censorship they encouraged — as a form of “digital McCarthyism.”

“We learned Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other companies developed a formal system for taking in moderation ‘requests’ from every corner of government,” Mr. Taibbi said. “For every government agency scanning Twitter, there were perhaps 20 quasi-private entities doing the same, including Stanford’s Election Integrity Project, Newsguard, the Global Disinformation Index, and others, many taxpayer-funded.

“A focus of this fast-growing network is making lists of people whose opinions, beliefs, associations, or sympathies are deemed ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ or ‘malinformation,’” he added. “The latter term is just a euphemism for ‘true but inconvenient.’”

Representative Mike Johnson, a Louisiana congressman on the committee, said the details unearthed in the Twitter files to date suggest that “Twitter was basically an FBI subsidiary before Elon Musk took over.

“The Twitter files should be a matter of bipartisan concern for every member of Congress and every American citizen, because it is a bedrock principle of our system that the government does not get to decide what speech is acceptable or true,” Mr. Johnson said.

Democrats on the committee expressed skepticism about what they said were “right-wing conspiracy theories” and suggested that, if the shoe were on the other foot, Republicans would be raising cain.

“I’m pretty sure that if the Democrats held a hearing today to force Fox News to post certain content, my Republican colleagues would be up at arms,” Representative John Garamendi, a California Democrat, said. “This is particularly ironic because we know for a fact that Fox News does spread disinformation, and does so while knowing that the material is false.

“No private company has an obligation to amplify anything, and especially not messages that strike at the heart of our democracy,” Mr. Garamendi said.

The latest installment in the Twitter files shows that content moderators at Twitter regularly exchanged spreadsheets with the names or accounts of thousands of users whose posts or comments were deemed problematic. Many were indeed malicious actors spreading false or misleading information about elections or propaganda on behalf of malign foreign players such as Iran or Russia. Many others, though, were not. Among those caught up in these nets were a reporter for the Chicago Sun Times and an Iraqi war veteran who blogged about the war, according to the report.

Among the information flagged for removal or censorship were  “anti-Ukraine narratives” and posts that were technically true but that promoted “vaccine hesitancy,” according to the report. Moderators should watch closely for “viral posts of individuals expressing vaccine hesitancy, or stories of true vaccine side effects,” the censors were informed.

“This content is clearly not mis or disinformation, but it may be malinformation (exaggerated or misleading),” one watchdog reported. “Also included in this bucket are often true posts which could fuel vaccine hesitancy, such as individual countries banning certain vaccines.”

Twitter’s reliance on a network of private actors in the disinformation policing space was even greater than its cooperation with government agencies, Mr. Taibbi and his colleague reported. Non-governmental players with lofty names like the Alliance Securing Democracy, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the Aspen Institute played pivotal roles in the campaign to suppress speech, the report said.

The Aspen Institute, which receives millions of dollars in funding annually from the American taxpayers and is described as the “Woodstock of the Censorship-Industrial Complex” by Mr. Taibbi, released a report in August 2021 stating that governments should have complete access to data held by social media platforms in order to better police online speech and restrict disinformation, “even if it means losing some freedom.” Among its other recommendations were that governments should empower agencies like the Federal Trade Commission to police social media platforms “in the public interest.”

The role of the FTC became a major flashpoint during Thursday’s hearing because the committee reported earlier that within weeks of the first of the Twitter files coming online, the agency began demanding information from Twitter about the changes Mr. Musk was making to the platform after he purchased it in October 2022. Twitter has been under a consent decree with the agency for improperly safeguarding user data long before Mr. Musk bought the company.

Among the information requested by the agency were the names of those who had written about the Twitter files, including Messrs. Taibbi and Shellenberger. Mr. Taibbi said the FTC’s demands should send shivers down the spines of journalists everywhere.

“I think it’s none of the government’s business which journalists a private company talks to and why,” Mr. Taibbi said. “I think every journalist should be concerned about that, and the absence of interest in that issue by my fellow colleagues in the mainstream media is an indication of how low the business has sunk.”

The Democrats on the committee attempted to discredit the writers, both of whom described their politics as liberal-leaning — Mr. Shellenberger said he voted for President Biden — as being “hand-picked” by Mr. Musk and using “cherry-picked” data to support their narrative about an assault on free speech and the First Amendment.

 https://www.nysun.com/article/house-committee-hears-of-new-censorship-industrial-complex-funded-in-part-by-u-s-taxpayers

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Students Defend Freedom

Ignorant young people are especially eager to ban things like "offensive" speech and "excess" profit. Some would happily ban capitalism.

Fortunately, some students buck the trend.

"It's very easy to lose freedom," says Northwood University's Kristin Tokarev in my new video. "It's very easy for politicians to legislate freedom away. But it's incredibly hard to get back."

Tokarev is one of the winners of my video contest. My nonprofit, Stossel in the Classroom, provides videos to teachers who want teaching aids that help explain economics. Every year, we give out $25,000 in prizes to college, high school and middle school students who write the best essays or make the best videos.

This year's competition is underway. If you know teachers, please let them know about it. The deadline for entries is March 31.

Tokarev watched my videos in school. She found them "more engaging" than listening to a professor lecture.

Unfortunately, most students don't watch our videos.  Instead, teachers tell them that capitalism is a problem.

If they don't hear that in school, they hear it from media. "If capitalism works ... why does it seem to give such a raw deal?" complains MSNBC's Ari Melber. His guest, Michael Moore, eagerly agrees.

"I can't say I'm pro-capitalist without friends, or people on the internet telling me, 'How could you?" says Tokarev. "Everything on social media is, 'eat the rich,' 'kill capitalism.' It's synonymous with greed."

I push back. "That's fair. Capitalists want more money for themselves."

"But with more money, I can create something," she answers. "Then you get new products and innovation."

High school student Kaden Morgan made a video that points out how everyone now "is living a better life than even the richest men of the 1800s" because of capitalism's innovation.

"We got air conditioning, cell phones, microwaves, we got stinking toilets!" he cheerfully exclaims.

Of course, the media are right to point out that because of capitalism, income inequality has increased.

I say to Tokarev, "Some people are really filthy rich. Others don't have enough."

"Under capitalism," she replies, "there's going to be people who are wealthier and some who are poorer. But you have the opportunity to become wealthier! Under socialism, sure, everybody is equal, but they're all equally poor!"

I wish more Americans understood that.

Jaboukie Young-White of "The Daily Show" asked young people what they thought of socialism. "Socialism is on point!" said one. Then she admits, "I don't really know what socialism means."

Tokarev knows. She learned not just from our videos, but from her dad, who grew up under socialism in Bulgaria. Not only were people poor, but modern music was even banned.   "He couldn't listen to rock music without fear of persecution," she says.

The only way he could hear what Americans heard was to smuggle in tapes. "The quality was awful, but he would play them all day."

"What does music have to do with socialism versus capitalism?" I ask.  "Everything!" she responds. "In one system, you're allowed to enjoy it freely. In another system, you're being controlled."

Many of this year's video and essay contestants focused on freedom versus control.

"Individual liberty is crucial for people and communities to flourish," says Ian Hunter, the Concordia University student who won first place in the college division.

"Freedom is essential not only to prosper, to make money," adds Tokarev, "but it's essential to be yourself."

I wish our politicians would listen to these kids.

https://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2023/03/08/students-defend-freedom-n2620322

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Children's horror author R.L. Stine accuses Scholastic of censoring his books to change references to mental health, weight and ethnicity WITHOUT his permission

One of the world's most successful children's book authors has accused his publisher of censoring his work without his permission.

R.L. Stine, whose Goosebumps series has sold more than 300 million copies and is the second biggest selling book series after Harry Potter, said on Monday the books had been sanitized without his knowledge.

Publisher Scholastic has made more than 100 amendments, changing words such as 'plump' to 'cheerful', and replacing 'crazy' with 'silly'.

Scholastic insisted the changes were necessary to protect young people's mental health, but Stine said he was not consulted.

'The stories aren't true,' the Ohio-born author tweeted, in response to a reader complaining about the modifications. 'I've never changed a word in Goosebumps. Any changes were never shown to me.'

The move came after it emerged Roald Dahl's books had been rewritten - sparking uproar among his fans.

Publishers Penguin were then forced to issue a 'classic' edition of the books, which were unchanged.

Goosebumps became a major hit among teenagers in the 1990s and sold around four million copies a month at the peak of their success.  Stine, 79, wrote 62 books from the series and has previously described how he can write a book in six days.

The franchise spawned a movie in 2015 starring Jack Black, which brought in $158 million at the box office.

Scholastic's changes, first reported by The Times, included removing a reference to fat people with 'at least six chins' who were abducted by aliens. The revised version now says the people are 'at least six feet six.'

In a reissue of the 1998 title Bride of the Living Dummy, the ventriloquist dummy Slappy knocks out a girl unconscious with a 'love tap' but the villain now uses a magic spell.

In the 1996 book Attack of the Jack-O'-Lanterns, a character is described as 'tall and good-looking, with dark brown eyes and a great, warm smile. Lee is African-American, and he sort of struts when he walks and acts real cool, like the rappers on MTV videos.'

The revised version now calls the character 'tall and good-looking, with brown skin, dark brown eyes and a great, warm smile. He sort of struts when he walks and acts real cool.'

In The Curse of Camp Cold Lake, from 1997, the boys of summer camp 'whistled loudly', instead of having given 'a loud wolf-whistle'.

Another book, I Live In Your Basement, originally features the main character asking: 'Did he really expect me to be his slave – forever?'  The protagonist now asks: 'Did he really expect me to do this – forever?'

Scholastic defended the changes, saying they were to protect mental health. 'For more than 30 years, the Goosebumps series has brought millions of kids to reading through humor with just the right amount of scary,' read the statement.

'Scholastic takes its responsibility seriously to continue bringing this classic adolescent brand to each new generation.

'When re-issuing titles several years ago, Scholastic reviewed the text to keep the language current and avoid imagery that could negatively impact a young person's view of themselves today, with a particular focus on mental health.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11832703/Childrens-horror-author-R-L-Stine-accuses-Scholastic-censoring-books.html

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Free speech rights must be enforced

The screed below by Professor Stonebook must be the most manic text I have ever read but he makes good points. Only his allusion to turtles escaped me

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)-driven leftist-lamasery Stanford never seems to miss an opportunity to undermine free speech.

Recently I wrote about the Cardinals' little red DEI-to-English dictionary. Stanford's now-removed remedial reader harvested such wisdom pearls as don't say "black box" or "white paper," because they're somehow racializing--actual evidence, had it even been sought, demonstrating the contrary.

Now, the latest news discloses Stanford's Gestapo-inspired bias- reporting system, wherein students turn in classmates for such hateful acts as reading (not out loud) offensive books.

The Wall Street Journal details that controversy erupted at the West Coast crimson collective when a student was anonymously reported through the school's "Protected Identity Harm" system (seriously?) for reading "Mein Kampf," Adolf Hitler's maniacal manifesto. The whole story reads like a sequel to Mel Brooks' "The Producers."

Life can be disturbing. But ostriching won't change reality. And free-speech rights are only meaningful if enforced. Otherwise, they're merely pablum for the masses being subjugated by kleptocratic overlords.

Free-speech rights solely for nursery rhymes, politburo-preferred parlance, or other over-boiled under-salted farina of individual expression are gossamer veneers of psuedo-protection camouflaging a chimera of bygone guarantees that Americans nobly died for.

We must restore the primacy of these rights by rejecting institutional censorship and Stalinist snitching. Irrespective of whether one chooses to read verboten texts like "Mein Kampf" for legitimate or illegitimate reasons, both must remain protected--or neither will be.

My father, a Jew who lived under Nazi occupation and Soviet control during WWII, became an autodidactic expert on the Nazis--likely to better understand the Lord of the Flies savagery that engulfed the then-world. He read "Mein Kampf."

Offended by a book title you spied across the quadrangle? Here's your panacea: Grow up!

Don't feel better? Here's your next cure-all: Grow up!

It's turtles all the way down.

But, alas, someone also might read racist propaganda because he is, in fact, a bigot. So be it.

The alternative of a society of self-appointed sensitivity Stasi is far worse. Does it really matter whether crackpots create themselves their pseudo-confirmation sources or find those elsewhere?

Carroll O'Connor, who starred as iconic racist Archie Bunker in "All in the Family," said he suspected a minority of his viewers didn't see the irony of his character. So be it.

Could you imagine living in a world deprived of laughing at the Smithsonian-celebrated crank, created by a Jew (Norman Lear) who fought the Nazis, simply to satisfy the sensibilities of Stanford students?

Sadly, the answer is yes. That's our world.

And our academic institutions are the grand marshals goose-stepping in this parade of despotic-progressive expurgation--all while proclaiming the pretext of happy feelings, unicorns, and rainbows. As The Wall Street Journal reported: "The [Protected Identity Harm] system is designed to help students get along with one another, said ... a Stanford spokeswoman."

Be afraid of that crypto-martinet--or just take the blue pill for some soma-induced somnolence. Nurse Ratchet is happy to give you that choice.

It wasn't long ago when Arkansas State University maintained unconstitutional "free-speech zones" and used its police to bum-rush Ashlyn Hoggard away from her outdoor card table advertising Charlie Kirk's conservative group Turning Point USA.

I saw Hoggard at a free-speech forum at the Bowen Law School recently. She recounts that ASU never apologized for its unconstitutional behavior. Its spokesman recently claimed that ASU "prevailed" in the litigation Hoggard brought, notwithstanding that the court found ASU's actions unconstitutional and unlawful, because she wasn't paid damages due to qualified immunity. Bill and Hillary must be so proud of their lexical legacy.

The pathology is pervasive. Another panelist at the free-speech forum described the terror conservative University of Arkansas at Fayetteville students felt when sharing their opinions inside or outside of class. In one class, the professor declared this student's views "wrong" and denied her participation credit for her heterodoxy.

As long as the education-industrial complex is given unchecked reign to cement its unfree-speech environment, the contemporary-information monopoly of leftist indoctrination defining higher education will harden.

Conservative stalwarts Dan Sullivan and Rick Beck seek to arrest this dive into DEI darkness through their bill SB125, which modestly maps existing outdoor free-speech guarantees onto indoor common areas on campuses. SB125 explicitly grants universities control over the time, place, and manner of indoor speech and prohibits unlawful disruptions.

How could higher education object (he says naively)? With an onslaught of Chicken Little pretexts designed to disguise higher education's desperate desire to decree everything students hear and say inside the buildings you pay for, that's how. Watch as myriad university mouthpieces--handsomely paid with your precious tax dollars--advocate against your interests. Pure hubris.

For this intellectual carnage to end, higher-education's self-entitled culture must be compelled to change. In Arkansas, let's start with ASU apologizing (in public) to Hoggard for its unlawful (and unkind) actions towards her.

Don't settle for the sad socialist standard of free speech stopping at the thresholds of higher education's castles of conformity. Call your legislators. Demand they pass SB125 to protect free speech indoors on our campuses.

This is your right to know.

https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2023/mar/05/free-speech-rights-must-be-enforced/

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Google Tries to Discredit Study Showing Google News’ Left-Wing Bias

Google News heavily skewed in favor of left-leaning media outlets—both in the news articles featured on its homepage and in the search results for specific topics—in five of the days leading up to the 2022 midterm elections, according to an AllSides study Google criticized as “deeply flawed” in comments to The Daily Signal.

“Imbalanced or heavily biased news search results can have a negative impact on our democracy and elections,” Julie Mastrine, director of marketing and media bias ratings at AllSides, told The Daily Signal in a statement Tuesday. “When people cannot access the full range of views on political and societal issues, they are subject to partisan manipulation and cannot truly decide for themselves.”

“The AllSides balanced newsfeed solves the problem of biased online news aggregation by curating articles from the left, center, and right, so people can get diverse perspectives and think for themselves,” she added.

For its part, Google claimed the study “cherry-picked a few topics” for a “brief period of time,” presenting a “misleading picture of Google News.”

AllSides, a media company dedicated to presenting balanced news and diverse perspectives, analyzed the Google News homepage and search results from Oct. 31 to Nov. 4, 2022, checking them alongside AllSides’ media bias chart.

The study found that 61% of media outlets on Google News’ homepage skewed to the Left—17% Left and 44% lean Left—while 25% hewed to the center, and only 3% had a conservative bias—3% Right, 0% lean Right.

The homepage heavily featured CNN, which AllSides rates as “Left,” at 15%. “Lean Left” outlets included The New York Times (7%), Politico (5%), NBC News (5%), The Guardian (5%), The Washington Post (5%), and CBS News (4%). “Center” outlets included BBC News (7%), Reuters (6%), and CNBC (5%).

AllSides also analyzed Google News search results on six specific search terms: “Trump” (88% Left or Lean Left), “Election” (96% Left or lean Left), “Biden” (68% Left or lean Left), “Abortion” (88% Left or lean Left), “Crime” (36% Left or lean Left), and “Economy” (48% Left or lean Left). Google News rarely featured conservative-leaning outlets, with a mere 8% of results featuring Right outlets on crime, the largest showing.

AllSides used various methods to obtain objective results, including accessing the Google News homepage in a private browser, blocking cookies, and incorporating “spot checks” to ensure that the same content appeared for different AllSides team members accessing Google News from different locations in the U.S. The analysts did not customize their Google News settings, to avoid personal impacts on the results.

AllSides uses blind bias surveys of Americans across the political spectrum and expert panel reviews from a multipartisan group in order to prevent one individual or group from having a disproportionate impact on the ratings.

AllSides analyzed only the outlets Google News featured, not the specific articles. The report emphasizes that it does not include any determinations on whether Google News’ political leanings or biases are intentional. “Whether Google should provide a broader or more balanced diversity of perspectives, and whether that would support or hinder a healthier democratic society, is a philosophical or ethical question beyond the bounds of this analysis,” the report states.

A Google spokesperson panned the report in comments to The Daily Signal.

“Our systems do not take political ideology into account, and we go to extraordinary lengths to build our products for everyone,” the spokesperson said. “This study’s methodology is deeply flawed. It cherry-picked a few topics and ran for a very brief period of time, presenting a misleading picture of Google News.”

Google also pointed to information on its news publisher help center, noting that its algorithms focus on features such as relevance, authoritativeness, and freshness, rather than political ideology. The company also highlighted a 2019 study from The Economist, which found that “Google rewards reputable reporting more than left-wing politics. Our statistical study revealed no evidence of ideological bias in the search engine’s news tab.”

John Gable, CEO of AllSides, told The Daily Signal that Google News‘ biased results could be “an accident” of Google’s algorithms or a byproduct of a slant in overall internet news content.

“It is possible that an informal policy or the preferences of Google News leadership or employees intentionally support delivering a certain political bias in its news aggregation,” Gable said. “It is also possible that the biased results could be an accident of the algorithms and systems Google uses, or it could reflect the bias of internet news content overall.

“It might also suggest that one political side has been more effective at online communication and marketing than another. Finally, it could just be profit motive, either intentional or accidental, in which news from one political side leads to more views, clicks, and ad revenue than others,” he added.

“Even if not intentional, Google appears to have decided that the problem of political bias is not a sufficiently important problem to address, or has so far been unable to address it effectively,” Gable said. “Regardless of the cause or intent, if Google News intends to support a free and independent democratic society and provide its readers with the ability to consume a variety of perspectives and decide for themselves the best course, it is failing in that objective.”

Google did not respond to follow-up questions about the possibility that its results might be unintentionally biased or that the outlets it features—while generally reliable—may present biased news, especially after serious hits to the legacy media narratives on Hunter Biden’s laptop and the theory that COVID-19 leaked from a lab.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/03/02/lean-left-most-google-news-results-skewed-one-direction-2022-election-study-claims

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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'We do not have blasphemy laws in Britain'

The Home Secretary has waded into the blasphemy controversy surrounding a West Yorkshire school, saying: 'Nobody can demand respect for their belief system, even if it is a religion.'

Kettlethorpe High School in Wakefield found itself in the spotlight after a 14-year-old boy with autism accidentally dropped a copy of the Quran, causing scuffmarks.

The incident was investigated by West Yorkshire Police as a potential hate crime, while four boys involved in the incident were suspended.

Suella Braverman KC has stated that the UK does not have blasphemy laws and everyone should respect its 'absolute' freedom of speech and pluralism, The Times reports.

She wrote: 'The education sector and police have a duty to prioritise the physical safety of children over the hurt feelings of adults. Schools answer to pupils and parents. They do no have to answer to self-appointed community activists.'

Ms Braverman described a community meeting filmed in the aftermath of the incident as looking 'more like a sharia law trial'.

She added: 'There is no apostasy law in this country, The act of accusing someone of apostasy or blasphemy is effectively inciting violence upon that person.

'Everyone who lives here has to accept this country's pluralism and freedom of speech and belief... This freedom is absolute.'

False rumours the book had been burnt prompted concern among parents and local leaders, who discussed the incident with police during a meeting at the local mosque.

Officers found there had been only 'minor damage' to the Quran during the prank and that no crime had been committed.

However, it was recorded as a 'non-crime hate incident', a designation the police use to record those not meeting the criminal threshold.   

Headmaster Tudor Griffiths said there had been 'no malicious intent' but the pupils' actions were 'unacceptable' because they 'did not treat the Quran with the respect it should have'.

A source close to Ms Braverman told The Times: 'These are very concerning reports. 'The home secretary is clear that the police response should always be proportionate and consider the welfare of young children as a priority over any perceived insults.'

Humanists UK called the decision to suspend the boys 'horrendous' and said the school had allowed itself to be 'pressured into excessive disciplinary action by a religious group'.

West Yorkshire Police said: 'We are aware of local and national concerns following an incident at Kettlethorpe High School in Wakefield last week.

'Police were made aware on the evening of Thursday, 23 February, of an incident that had occurred at the school earlier that day. 'Initial enquiries confirmed that minor damage was caused to a religious text.

'We have recorded a hate incident, but from our enquiries are satisfied that no criminal offences were committed.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11819099/Suella-Braverman-wades-row-pupils-suspended-slight-damage-copy-Quran.html

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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There's Something Interesting About How Google Flagged Townhall's Coverage of the COVID Lab Leak

When the Biden administration — specifically the Department of Energy — updated its conclusion on the origins of COVID-19, Townhall reported the news, just like we've done with every revelation and hypothesis about the virus that sent the world spiraling some three years ago.

And, as is often the case these days, Google tried to punish us for going against the left's preferred narrative. In the same manner that Google deemed a Townhall column Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) wrote about the hazards of gain-of-function research to be "unreliable and harmful," our report on the Energy Department's conclusion that COVID "most likely" came from a lab leak was flagged, and our ability to monetize the article was stripped away.

Never mind that Townhall's report quoted the Biden administration — it was deemed "unreliable and harmful" anyway.

As Townhall reported when Google flagged Senator Paul's column, the Big Tech company claimed the op-ed was labeled as unreliable and harmful "in error." Google also said that publishers like Townhall "always have the option to appeal" flags we feel were wrongly placed on our articles.

Once an appeal is filed, Google is supposed to have a real person review the content to determine whether the flag was applied in error or if the flag was justified.

Well, Townhall appealed the flag on our story about the Department of Energy's updated conclusion on the origins of COVID-19…and Google "rejected" the appeal. That is, Google's judgment that Townhall's straightforward reporting on what the Biden administration said is "unreliable and harmful" was reaffirmed by the Big Tech company.

https://townhall.com/columnists/spencerbrown/2023/03/02/googles-disparate-treatment-of-our-coverage-of-lab-leak-conclusions-n2620122

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Free speech means freedom to disagree

An unfathomable number of “free-thinking” liberal universities keep free speech on campus under lock and key. Most recently, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s “free speech” policies were exposed. Turns out that MIT’s faculty are self-censoring. Not as in, refraining from blurting out every thought — self-censoring as in actually restricting controversial speech.

This should be disturbing to the average American because MIT is a cutting-edge research institution where it’s presumed that broad exploration and unfettered discussion of scientific possibilities help make our country and the world better off.

Sadly, the infection of MIT’s speech policy is not isolated; it represents a contagion. A Fifth Circuit judge went so far as to put a moratorium on hiring Yale Law School graduates because they willingly chose to attend an institution that utilizes the heckler’s veto to push out unwanted speakers. Top-tier schools have developed well-deserved reputations for censorship.

Multiply these by many other examples occurring across academia, workplaces, and even the halls of Congress, and there’s a picture of an attempt to create a one-sided view of the world by strangling free speech. Accusing opponents of engaging in ill-defined hate speech, providing “safe spaces” from controversial ideas, and promoting bills that force us to violate our conscience are far more sinister than we once realized.

That’s because conflict is a prerequisite to success. The feats of mankind are awe-inspiring — each one is proof we were made to be extraordinary and use hardship as a catalyst to reach great heights. The first man to ever successfully summit Mt. Everest said, “Challenge is what makes men. It will be the end when men stop looking for new challenges.”  

This timeless principle of iron sharpening iron also applies to ideas. A society needs to hear, understand, and grapple with opposing viewpoints and spar with discomfort. In the words of Frederick Douglass, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”  

If some speech is condemned based on subjective notions of hatefulness, advocacy has no place in our society — how can one defend a position with no opposition? This would create a lackluster and monochromatic world. Suppression creates uniform thought.  

Individuals of all political stripes ought to recognize the disservice in shielding oneself from our brethren on the other side. Even one of former President Barack Obama’s former advisers had words for the modern-day college student: “You are creating a kind of liberalism that the minute it crosses the street into the real world is not just useless but obnoxious and dangerous. I want you to be offended every single day on this campus. I want you to be deeply aggrieved and offended and upset and then to learn how to speak back.”

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2023/03/01/schiraldi-free-speech-means-freedom-to-disagree/69954102007/

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Law Professor and Truth Social Score Constitutional Win

The decision by a federal judge to enjoin New York’s Hateful Conduct Law — passed in the wake of a massacre of Black Americans at a supermarket at Buffalo — brings into focus the conflict between efforts to clamp down on vitriol online and the First Amendment of the Constitution.

The decision was a courtroom victory for an unlikely set of plaintiffs: an online video platform that hosts President Trump’s Truth Social website, Rumble, and a law professor, Eugene Volokh, who runs a legal blog, the Volokh Conspiracy.    

The law, passed in 2021, came after that killing spree was recorded on Twitch and then reposted on 4chan and Reddit. New York’s attorney general found that “online platforms should be held accountable for allowing hateful and dangerous content to spread on their platforms.”

That finding in hand, Governor Hochul signed the Hateful Conduct Law, which creates a mechanism for users to file complaints about “hateful conduct,” defined as the “use of a social media network to vilify, humiliate, or incite violence against a group or a class of persons” on the basis of various categories. Those mechanisms must then be disclosed to the public.

 Judge Stephen Carter ruled the Hateful Conduct Law  unconstitutional because its disclosure policy “requires that social media networks devise and implement a written policy,” a form of coerced speech. Failures to implement or disclose these policies would expose platforms to prosecution by the attorney general and a suite of civil penalties.

Judge Carter held that the Hateful Conduct Law “forces Plaintiffs to publish a message with which they disagree,” meaning the definition of “hateful conduct” or policies to combat it. The jurist held that these requirements were not “commercial speech” like  “caloric information or mercury content,” which is subjected to lighter judicial scrutiny.

Instead, because the “Hateful Conduct Law regulates speech based on its content, the appropriate level of review is strict scrutiny,” as the speech in question is protected by the Constitution. Strict scrutiny is a demanding standard of judicial review under which few laws pass muster.

While the government argued that the law is essential for combating mass shootings, Judge Carter was unconvinced, arguing that it is “unclear what, if any, effect a mechanism that allows users to report hateful conduct on social media networks would have on reducing mass shootings.”

For Judge Carter, “it is hard to see how the law really changes the status quo,” and thus its infringements on the First Amendment are not owed constitutional deference. By regulating platforms, it “fundamentally implicates the speech of the networks’ users.”

Mr. Volokh, who teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles, told the Sun that he saw this as a “straightforward case,” noting that the Supreme Court has “long said that viewpoint-based laws are almost never constitutional.” He sees Governor Hochul’s law as emblematic of a “broader political movement” that seeks to restrict speech.   

The First Amendment, Judge Carter explains, protects “individuals’ right to engage in hate speech, and the state cannot try to inhibit that right, no matter how unseemly or offensive that speech may be to the general public or the state.” Efforts in that direction “could have a profound chilling effect on social media users and their protected freedom of expression.”

Judge Carter did reject the argument by Mr. Volokh and Rumble that the Hateful Conduct Law is preempted and protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which offers broad liability protections to websites that are unavailable to traditional publishers.

A case involving that provision, Gonzalez v. Google, was argued before the Supreme Court on Tuesday.  

https://www.nysun.com/article/law-professor-and-truth-social-score-constitutional-win?

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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First Willy Wonka, Now James Bond: The Language Police Are Going After Ian Fleming's Classic Novels

There are many, many, many things to despise about the “woke” far left. But most of those faults pale in comparison to one big thing the far left just loves to do: mutilate the English language.

Now that mutilation can take on many different forms, from the utterly nonsensical “pronoun” hysteria, to claiming that your literal spoken words aren’t what you said, all the way to whatever in the world “misgendering” is.

Within this odoriferous assault on the English language, however, has emerged an alarming new trend. Namely, leftists are now no longer content with just butchering contemporary language — they want to apply those same doctrines to the most iconic writings of yesteryear.

Case in point, according to U.K. outlet The Telegraph, Ian Fleming’s iconic James Bond novels have been re-written to better fit with modern non-sensibilities.

Ian Fleming Publications Ltd. actually commissioned a review of the class spy thrillers by “sensitivity readers,” which is about as dystopian of a phrase as there is.

So what has been changed? Terms such as the n-word were removed from Fleming’s classics, which were published between 1951 and 1966, and replaced with the phrase “black person” or “black man.”

On top of the edits, each new Bond novel will also carry the following disclaimer: “This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace. A number of updates have been made in this edition, while keeping as close as possible to the original text and the period in which it is set.”

Interestingly, these edits largely focus on the depiction of black people.

In Fleming’s 1954 “Live and Let Die” novel, Bond describes the black men working in gold and diamond trades as “pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought, except when they’ve drunk too much.” That bit of monologue now will read, “pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought.”

Also in “Live and Let Die,” Bond visits a Harlem nightclub and is described as such; “Bond could hear the audience panting and grunting like pigs at at the trough. He felt his own hands gripping the tablecloth. His mouth was dry.” That descriptive bit of noir-esque prose has been replaced with the much more generic, “Bond could sense the electric tension in the room.”

Even a reference to an accent (“straight Harlem-Deep South with a lot of New York thrown in”) has been removed.

https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/first-willy-wonka-now-james-bond-language-police-going-ian-flemings-classic-novels-report

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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UK: Put word WOMAN back into health advice, NHS told

NHS bosses were today urged to start using 'women' and 'woman' again on health pages online. Gender-specific terms have been quietly scrubbed on official advice sites under a woke inclusivity drive.

Pages on ovarian, womb and cervical cancer as well as the menopause, which can only biological women can suffer, were affected by the changes.

Ministers, including ex-Health Secretary Sajid Javid, had pledged to crackdown on the practice -- but action has yet to be taken.

The NHS has quietly omitted the terms 'women' and 'woman' from its webpage on menopause. But a newer version omits women from the overview entirely. Experts have warned women could be disadvantaged by de-gendered medical advice confusing health messaging

Now a 1,400-strong group of campaigners have demanded immediate action, in an open letter started by the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender (CAN-SG). Doctors, nurses and healthcare practitioners are among the signatories.

The letter is addressed to NHS chief executives, ministers and chief nursing officers from across the UK.  CAN-SG said the changes have 'occurred by stealth over the past couple of years'.

Campaigners claimed that the scrubbing was discriminatory, given that conditions specific to men haven't been affected as prominently. They also claimed patients felt the updated language 'dehumanising', making it less clear about who is the 'intended audience' of such advice.

Experts have long warned that de-gendering medical advice could be dangerous for women by over-complicating vital health messaging.

The group said the NHS website is a 'specific, significant source of health information for everyone' but there has been a 'gradual eradication' of the word 'woman'.

It accuses the health service of 'reducing' the word 'woman' to phrases such as 'anyone with a cervix' and failing to explain that ovaries are female reproductive organs.

The changes were made without conducting an equality impact assessment, consulting the public, considering how women would feel or analysing how it could impact women's health.

The health service also failed to seek legal advice on whether its actions are discriminatory.

Dr Louse Irvine, spokesperson for CAN-SG, said: 'The incredible response to this letter -- over 1,400 signatures in 24 hours --  shows how strongly women patients and clinicians feel about this issue.  'The NHS should heed these views: accurate sex-based language is important to ensure life saving health communication is understood by those for whom it is intended, and to convey respect for women, their bodies and health issues.

'For example women's awareness and uptake of cervical screening is on the wane. 'Many women do not know they have a cervix - or that cervical screening is life saving -- so a phrase like 'anyone with a cervix' is meaningless to them.   'That is why we need simple clear language when talking about women's health.

'Many women find it disrespectful that communication about their health issues erases the word "woman", and this undermines trust and confidence in that communication.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11790047/Put-word-WOMAN-health-advice-NHS-told.html

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Newspaper comic strip Dilbert gets canceled after its creator is branded racist

Newspapers are dropping the 'Dilbert' comic strip after creator Scott Adams launched into a racist tirade advising his followers to 'get the f**k' away from black people.

Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the US, said it would stop publishing the comic immediately following the remarks made by its creator on his online show 'Real Coffee with Scott Adams.'

It comes after Dilbert was already canned by 77 newspapers in September due to its increasingly controversial plotlines including one about a black character who identifies as white.

The comic has been in circulation since 1989 and frequently pokes fun at office culture.

Adams, who is believed to have amassed more than $70 million from the Dilbert series, said in the livestreamed talk on Wednesday: 'The best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people.

He added: 'There’s no fixing this. This can’t be fixed... You just have to escape. So that’s what I did, I went to a neighborhood where I have a very low black population.'

The 65-year-old went on to label black people a 'hate group,' citing a poll that found nearly half of black people are not ok with white people.

The hour-long YouTube video was posted to Adams' channel which has 118,000 subscribers. As of Saturday it had 142,000 views.

On Saturday Gannett, which owns over 100 newspapers, confirmed it was dropping Dilbert over the controversy.

'Recent discriminatory comments by the creator, Scott Adams, have influenced our decision to discontinue publishing his comic,' the organization said in a statement Saturday to The New York Post.

Adams appeared to double down on the remarks on Twitter at the weekend. 'A lot of people are angry at me today but I haven't yet heard anyone disagree,' he told his 867,000 followers.

'I make two main points: 1. Treat everyone as an individual (no discrimination).

'2. Avoid any group that doesn't respect you. Does anyone think that is bad advice?'

Adams' satirical strips feature in newspapers across 57 countries, and in 19 languages - and there are over 20 million Dilbert books and calendars in print.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11793295/Newspaper-comic-strip-Dilbert-canceled-creators-racist-tirade.html

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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State Department Parts Ways With Liberal ‘Disinformation’ Watchdog

The Department of State is cutting its funding of the Global Disinformation Index after reports surfaced in recent days that the London-based media watchdog group made concerted efforts to steer advertisers away from conservative-leaning websites in favor of more liberal ones.

The Global Disinformation Index labeled a number of right-leaning American media outlets as “risky” and encouraged advertisers to take their business elsewhere. The websites included the American Spectator, the Federalist, the Daily Wire, RealClearPolitics, Reason magazine, the New York Post, and the Washington Examiner, which broke the story of the GDI’s partisan leanings.

The GDI deemed a number of liberal outlets “least risky,” including ProPublica, National Public Radio, HuffPost, Buzzfeed News, and the Washington Post.

The GDI had received more than $300,000 in grants through two state department offices, one of them the National Endowment for Democracy.

The department said its initial impetus to fund the Global Disinformation Index came from its work abroad — including in Communist China — where it sought to fight propaganda from authoritarian regimes.

“We recognize the important work GDI has done with NED support in other countries to help preserve the integrity of the information space and counter authoritarian influence,” the endowment said in a statement, according to the Washington Times.

The NED told the Washington Times that it had “recently” become aware of the project centered on American media and did not fund it.

The foundation said that given its “commitment to avoid the perception that NED is engaged in any work domestically, directly or indirectly, we will no longer provide financial support to GDI.”  

It added: “We have strict policies and practices in place so that NED and the work we fund remains internationally focused, ensuring the Endowment does not become involved in domestic politics.”

https://www.nysun.com/article/state-department-parts-ways-with-liberal-disinformation-watchdog?

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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