Tag: censorship

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First Amendment rights Internet controversy social media

Whose Brains Fell Out?

Elon Musk, Turkey, democracy, censorship, freedom, ethics

Just before the Turkish presidential election, the Turkish government ordered Twitter to block content that its strongman incumbent apparently found inconvenient. (The election isn’t over; a runoff is scheduled for May 28.)

We don’t know what Twitter was told to censor. All we know is that, although now guided by the somewhat pro-​free-​speech policies of Elon Musk, Twitter complied, saying it did so “to ensure Twitter remains available to the people of Turkey.…”

Journalist Matthew Yglesias tweeted that Twitter’s compliance “should generate some interesting Twitter Files reporting.” This is an allusion to internal Twitter communications released by Musk showing how readily and frequently pre-​Musk Twitter censored dissenting speech at the behest of U.S. government officials.

The jibe got under Musk’s skin. “Did your brain fall out of your head, Yglesias?” Musk counter-​tweeted. “The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety [in Turkey] or limit access to some tweets.”

But Twitter doesn’t control Turkish policies. It only controls its own policies.

Had Twitter refused and then, in turn, been throttled in Turkey, every Twitter user there would have known about the censorship by their government. Some might have protested. But only a few people in Turkey will know about the Twitter-​abetted censorship.

Musk has in effect announced that Twitter will censor anything governments want if only a government willing to block Twitter does the asking. And what tyrants do is up to them. 

Whether we cooperate with their tyranny when we have the means to resist? 

That is up to us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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international affairs

Here-​at-​Home Problem

China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, censorship, propaganda

The China problem is “not just a distant ‘over there’ problem,” Rep. Mike Gallagher (R‑Wisc.) recently argued. “As the spy balloon incident as well as the illegal CCP police stations on American soil illustrate, it’s a ‘right here at home’ problem.”

It’s also a just-​north-​of-​us problem. Canada is currently expelling a Chinese diplomat and dealing with the fallout over China’s interventions in Canadian politics, along with big financial gifts to a foundation for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s father.

An article in The Globe and Mail nonchalantly explained the reasons China is engaged in trying to control the speech of every one of the planet’s inhabitants. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has many international goals:

  • “build acceptance abroad for its claims on Taiwan, a self-​ruled island that it … reserves the right to annex by force.”
  • “play down its conduct in Xinjiang, where the office of former UN Human Rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet last year said China has committed ‘serious human-​rights violations.’”
  • “generate support for a draconian 2020 national-​security law to silence opposition and dissent in Hong Kong.”
  • “quell foreign support for Tibet, a region China invaded and annexed more than 70 years ago, and to discourage opposition to Beijing’s militarization of the South China Sea and sweeping maritime claims in the region.”

Having committed a long list of crimes against humanity, the CCP understandably demands that everyone keep their mouths shut. 

Rep. Gallagher believes the U.S. should improve “our deterrent posture across the Taiwan Strait” and communicate “in clear terms that we will not stand idly by while the CCP continues to increase its aggression internationally” — while President Biden has repeatedly pledged U.S. military support for Taiwan.

But for some reason, Biden has never discussed the prospect with the American public. 

As if it weren’t our concern, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling First Amendment rights general freedom

Freedom vs. Force at Harvard

Harvard, censorship, cancel culture, freedom of thought

Things haven’t been going well for freedom of expression on campus.

Institutions of higher learning where foes of free speech flourish include purported bastions of intellectual discourse like Harvard University. In 2022, Harvard ranked 170th out of 203 schools with respect to free speech on campus in an assessment by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).

According to a 2023 College Pulse survey, 26 percent of Harvard students say it’s sometimes okay to use violence to stop speech on campus. Only 27 percent say it’s always wrong to shout down a speaker.

“Many, many people are being threatened with — and actually put through —  disciplinary processes for their exercise of free speech and academic freedom,” says Janet Halley, of Harvard Law School. “Many people think that they’re entitled not to be offended.”

Jeffrey Flier, medical school professor, says free speech has been in decline at Harvard at least since 2007.

Halley, Flier, and more than 100 other Harvard faculty members have newly formed the Council on Academic Freedom.

Flier says it’s been too hard for professors to simply “[put] their head above the parapet [and say] ‘I think this is wrong.’ There hasn’t been any network of people from across the spectrum that could be able to do this. But that’s what we now have in the council.”

The Council seems to be off to a good start. Now let us see how many of the rest of the school’s 2,400 or so faculty members join up.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Censored Under Pressure

censorship, Twitter, Covid, free speech, freedom of the press

Journalist Alex Berenson is suing members of the Biden administration — and others, inluding Pfizer officers — for pressuring Twitter to ban him for what he wrote about the COVID-​19 vaccines.

The best-​known of his heretical tweets says, “It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. And we want to mandate it? Insanity.”

In the months since August 2021, when Twitter expelled him “for repeated violations of our COVID-​19 misinformation rules,” such hardly intemperate observations have become less controversial. Vaccine proponents have retreated, typically claiming, at most, that the putative vaccines reduce the risk of severe illness and death.

Berenson first sued Twitter to challenge its ban. The suit succeeded; eleven months after Twitter banned him, it reinstated his account.

But Twitter had not been acting independently; it had succumbed to a lengthy campaign by the Biden administration to censor Berenson. Any such actions by government officials are, of course, unconstitutional.

The defendants in Berenson’s new lawsuit include President Biden, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Director of Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty, and former White House official Andrew Slavitt (“at the center of the conspiracy”). Two Pfizer officers are also named: board member Scott Gottlieb and CEO Albert Bourla.

Berenson’s detailed complaint alleges that “after months of public and secret pressure, Defendants succeeded” in getting Twitter to ban him.

The private pressure is attested by internal documents released by Twitter and government documents produced during the course of Missouri and Louisiana’s lawsuit against censorship by the Biden administration.

In defending his rights, Alex Berenson is helping us all retrieve freedoms we lost in the pandemic panic.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment education and schooling First Amendment rights

Trans-​Violent

Riley Gaines, protestors, trans, censorship, free speech

“I applaud the students, staff and faculty who rallied quickly to host alternative inclusive events, protest peacefully and provide one another with support at a difficult moment,” declared San Francisco State University President Lynn Mahoney on Monday.

The “difficult moment” she refers to? A talk on campus by All-​American swimmer Riley Gaines, sponsored by Turning Point USA. Gaines was speaking out against “transgender women” (biological men) competing in women’s sports.

President Mahoney did finally acknowledge that the event was followed by “a disturbance,” which “unfortunately” “delayed the speaker’s departure.”

In fact, Gaines wasn’t able to leave for hours, until nearly midnight … when, as CNN reported, “the San Francisco Police Department sent officers to disperse the crowd.” Gaines says she was “physically assaulted,” “struck twice,” with video confirming a very threatening situation.

“We are reviewing the incident,” Mahoney assured, “and, as always, will learn from the experience.”

No arrests have been made. They should be. That’s the teachable moment we need. 

SFSU’s president did acknowledge that what occurred last week was “deeply traumatic.” But she meant the event itself, which she claimed “advocated for the exclusion of trans people in athletics.” 

That isn’t true. Gaines and many (if not most) folks involved in the controversy simply want collegiate sports separated by biological sex and not by gender identity.

Let’s realize that these Antifa-​esque “trans activists,” the ones who threaten to beat up women, do not speak for all transgendered people — certainly not those I know and love. Their goal is clearly not harmony but the very opposite. 

The solution is simple: Love for trans folks, common sense public policies, and jail for the thug attackers of free speech.

I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights national politics & policies social media

A Package Deal

Tik Tok, app, China, censorship

Suppose suggested legislation outlaws both murder and walking. How could you oppose it? Are you, a dedicated perambulator-​peripatetic, also a murder-supporter?

Obviously, this would be an attempt to foist a package deal consisting of unrelated or mutually contradictory elements.

Consider a more true-​to-​life example.

In the Wall Street Journal, Philip Hamburger argues that a congressional bill targeting TikTok would do much more than counter Chinazi spying on Americans (“The TikTok Bill Is a Sneak Attack on Free Speech”).

If curbing or even outlawing TikTok were the sole focus, one could argue the merits of the legislation given what is known about the company’s collecting of data and its relationship with the Chinese government. There’s no free-​speech protection of foreign espionage.

However, as Hamburger points out, the bill gives the federal government “sweeping power over communications” and could be used to stifle speech protected by the Constitution.

The proposed statute would allow the Department of Commerce to undertake open-​ended mitigation of “undue or unacceptable” risk regarded as arising from use of communications technology in which any entity subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign adversary “has any interest.”

This is very vague and very all-​encompassing. The legislation thus confers power over domestic communication companies “that could be used to extort their cooperation in censorship.”

Attempts to resist such “mitigation” or censorship would risk administrative fines of $250,000, criminal penalties of $1 million, two decades in prison. For supporting freedom of speech?

Please walk away from this, Congress.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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