Category Archives: Free Speech

In their coverage of Thursdays Faculty Senate debate around the presence of Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Mercer on the Hoover Institutions Board of Overseers, The Stanford Daily and the Stanford Report offered a number of quotations from President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Hoover Director Condoleezza Rice that form the basis of this essay.

Murdoch had been criticized for facilitating the spread of dangerous misinformation about the 2020 Presidential election. He had admitted as much under sworn deposition during the defamation lawsuit brought against Murdochs Fox News by Dominion Voting Machines.Mercer was criticized because her own media empire has promoted the dangerous Great Replacement Theory, a virulently antisemitic, white supremacist doctrine that holds that white people are being replaced by Jewish people and other racial groups. This theory has been evoked by various mass murderers in the manifestos. A resolution was presented that the association of Rebekah Mercer and Rupert Murdoch in all positions of responsibility or honor at Stanford University be terminated due to their promulgation of dangerous, racist, and antisemitic disinformation.

Although I have strong objections to Mercer, I have chosen to focus on Murdoch because his case allows us to adjudicate whether Stanford does or does not condone misinformation.Based on the test case presented yesterday, apparently it does, via this sleight of hand misinformation is welcomed at Stanford if it is framed as simply one viewpoint amongst many and protected as free speech. The repetition of exact phrases and terms leads one to believe that Tessier-Lavigne and Rice are reading from the same script:

President Marc Tessier-Lavigne urged the senate to vote against the resolution, calling it chilling and an imposition of institutional orthodoxy during the Faculty Senate meeting. (Daily)

The Senate just reaffirmed its commitment to [academic freedom], Tessier-Lavigne said, referencing apreviousfaculty senate meeting. For the senate to adopt this resolution would be to set itself up as a thought police. (Daily)

Tessier-Lavigne spoke against the motion, which he said in effect calls for the Senate to act as an institutional body to censor two overseers. Free expression of ideas is the lifeblood of the University and its essential to our research and teaching missions, he said. (SR)

The senates foundational statement of academic freedom holds that expression of the widest range of viewpoints should be encouraged free from institutional orthodoxy and from internal and or external coercion, [Hoover Director Condoleezza] Rice said. (Daily)

The University has been very clear that we are going to uphold not just academic freedom, but standards of freedom of speech, Rice added. And I would say that freedom of the press goes along with that. (SR)

The problem is, even if we frame this as a free speech issue, we find that free speech is not completely free. In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the Supreme Court established that speech advocating illegal conduct is protected under the First Amendment unless the speech is likely to incite imminent lawless action. Foxs repeated assertions that the election was stolen did in fact incite people to besiege the Capitol, violently attack those attempting to protect members of Congress and call for the murder of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the lynching of Vice President Mike Pence.

Ben Smith, writing in The New York Times, reminds us of how Foxs campaign of misinformation did in fact incite imminent lawless action High profile Fox voices, with occasional exceptions, not onlyfedthe baseless belief that the election had been stolen, but theyhelped frameJan. 6 as a decisive day of reckoning, when their audiences dreams of overturning the election could be realized.

It is remarkable to me how quickly, easily and absolutely Tessier-Lavigne and Rice erase the fact that the speech they are so passionately attached to protecting is speech that incited an attack against the democratic process and an assault on the peaceful transfer of power, one of the signal points of pride our country celebrates. Foxs lies were relentlessly blasted out before, during and after the Insurrection, but as the comments quoted above indicate, for Tessier-Lavigne and Rice, Murdochs case is simply one of a point of view that has to be protected like any other one. When law professor Deborah Hensler expressed concern that Tessier-Lavignes statement seemed to indicate that seemingly anyone, no matter their views, should rightfully be considered a candidate for a university institutional leadership appointment, in the interest of assuring freedom of expression, Director Rice told her, You have been a problem this entire time.

Now what sort of speech is so precious that Tessier-Lavigne and Rice wish to protect Murdochs free speech right to broadcast them? Here are some examples of the kind of speech that Murdoch admitted he could have stopped, but did not:

[Lou] Dobbs: How important do you believe are the concerns being expressed in a number of states about the ability of these [Dominion Voting Systems] machines not to be hacked?

[Rudy] Giuliani: The machines can be hacked. Theres no question about that. Their machines can be hacked. But its far worse than that, Lou. Dominion is a company that is owned by another company called Smartmatic It was formed really by three Venezuelans who were very close to the dictator Chavez of Venezuela and it was formed in order to fix elections.

[Sidney] Powell: The money creating [Dominion] came out of Venezuela and Cuba It is one huge, huge criminal conspiracy that should be investigated by military intelligence.

[Jeanine] Pirro: Yes, and hopefully the Department of Justice, but who knows anymore.

As NPR points out, the Dominion lawsuit disclosed texts from each of these news anchors showing that they knew what they were saying were lies.

Astonishingly, in their rush to protect Murdoch, why do Tessier-Lavigne and Rice not pause to consider the protection due to the victims of the violence Fox helped incite through its reckless and self-serving spreading of misinformation? Here is part of the testimony of US Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell:

My fellow officers and I were punched, pushed, kicked, shoved, sprayed with chemical irritants and even blinded with eye-damaging lasers by a violent mob who apparently saw us law enforcement officers, dedicated to ironically protecting them as U.S. citizens, as an impediment in their attempted insurrection, Gonell said.

In his opening statement, Gonell said that he could hear officers screaming in agony as the mob crushed them and that he heard specific threats on the lives of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then-Vice President Mike Pence, who was presiding over the event to certify the presidential election in Bidens favor.

For the first time, I was more afraid to work at the Capitol than during my entire Army deployment to Iraq, he said. In Iraq, we expected armed violence, because we were in a war zone. But nothing in my experience in the Army, or as a law enforcement officer, prepared me for what we confronted on Jan. 6.

The Guardian reported that members of security details were so terrorized that many said goodbye to their loved ones:

The official said: The members of the VP detail at this time were starting to fear for their own lives. There was a lot of yelling. There were a lot of very personal calls over the radio, so it was disturbing. I dont like talking about it.

There were calls to say goodbye to family members, so on and so forth for whatever reason it was on the ground, the VP detail thought this was about to get very ugly.

Such terrified and panicked messages were relayed from the Capitol around the time Trump tweeted to his supporters a now infamous 2:24 p.m. message in which he did nothing to calm the riot.

It is beyond belief that anyone, much less the president of a university, would claim that what Rupert Murdoch did in facilitating Foxs attack on the truth should not only be condoned, but even protected by, of all things, his academic freedom. Yes, Tessier-Lavigne called critics of such reckless and dangerous misinformation, members of his own faculty, thought police because we are supposedly infringing upon Murdochs academic freedom, and Rice repeated the same charge.

I have made clear my feeling that academic freedom has been devastatingly cheapened and instrumentalized at Stanford, and this is exactly what Tessier-Lavigne and Rice are doing. As far as I know, Rupert Murdoch is not (yet) a member of our faculty. Protecting the dissemination of misinformation under the umbrella of academic freedom is a tremendously dangerous move to make if this were to be established as legitimate, it would exonerate anyone accused of any kind of research misconduct. Yet when faculty object to these violations of ethics we are accused of imposing an orthodoxy. Such an accusation is an affront to every decent person at Stanford University.

Why are we so anxious to maintain our relationship with Rupert Murdoch, whose actions stand in direct opposition to Stanfords supposed commitment to truthful information and to producing knowledge for the public good? Why should the public ever trust us if we harbor and protect Rupert Murdoch? What does this say about Stanford University?

Since neither the University president nor the provost nor the director of the Hoover Institution, all addressees of our faculty letter, have answered the question we posed why is Rupert Murdoch affiliated with Stanford? we are free to draw our own conclusions. Two reasons stand out money and connections. Put in that light, let there be no mistake, Stanford University and the Hoover Institution are accepting money derived from corporations that have made that money by, among other things, fueling the Insurrection with misinformation and pushing antisemitic hate.

That the president of our University and the director of an institution premised on, among other things, the protection of democracy from authoritarianism, should collaborate, using such shabby pretenses and threadbare evasions, to protect the worlds largest purveyor of misinformation as he uses his vast media network to pollute public discourse and threaten the democracy of the United States, is an insult to intelligence and morally appalling. This episode may well go down in not only the history of US higher education, but even in the history of our country, as a dark stain. Tessier-Lavignes and Rices cynical, instrumental and illogical use of concepts and values we hold dear free speech and academic freedom points to a cancer deep in our leadership that seems to be metastasizing daily.

And last but not least, their high-handed bullying of the faculty and personal vendettas against those who dare call out each and every one of these transgressions shows their utter contempt for those who use their free speech in ways that displease them.

I was chastised by Director Rice for mentioning the Jeffrey Epstein case at Harvard. I did so because I wanted to remind us of what a university president can be. Here is how I ended my comments at the Faculty Senate meeting:

On Sept. 13, 2019, Harvard President Lawrence Bacow issued a statement dissociating Harvard from Jeffrey Epstein. Even though the Epstein case is not perfectly similar to that of Rupert Murdoch and the Sacklers, one thing Bacow said strikes me as relevant today:

Jeffrey Epsteins crimes were repulsive and reprehensible. I profoundly regret Harvards past association with him. Conduct such as his has no place in our society. We act today in recognition of that fact Harvard is not perfect, but you have my commitment as president that we will always strive to be better.

At stake here is the question as to whether or not Stanford has the courage to, regardless of how some may characterize the action, declare that someone who knowingly allowed the spread of misinformation which presents massive public harm has no place in our society.

On behalf of over one hundred members of the faculty of Stanford University, I ask again, what value does Rupert Murdoch bring to Stanford that overrides the damage he has brought to our country?

Continued here:
From the Community | When misinformation is free speech - The Stanford Daily

The video-sharing platform Rumble is expanding into podcasting with a deal to buy Callin, the San Francisco-based podcasting and live streaming platform. We believe the addition of Callins user-friendly app and post-production tools coupled with Rumbles substantial creator and user communities will create beneficial synergies, improving the experience of Rumbles creators and their fans, Rumble said in the announcement. It says the Callin team will continue to develop live streaming capabilities as a part of Rumble.

The addition of Callins talented team and the capabilities of its product signifies a major step in our journey to deliver greater value and tools to our creators, which will further enhance our user engagement, Rumbles Chairman and CEO Chris Pavlovski said in the joint announcement.

How much it is paying for Callin remains a work in progress, however, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Rumble told shareholders that it is an all-stock deal yet the company is still in the process of evaluating and determining the fair value of Callin.

Launched in 2021 by technology entrepreneur and investor David Sacks and Axel Ericsson, Callin bills itself as a social podcasting platform that is a mashup of live audio and podcasting. Callin offers listeners a live-stream audio listening experience to call in and ask questions similar to what they have done for decades on talk radio. Once the show is over, it becomes an on-demand podcast.

I am excited to expand Callins capabilities by joining forces with Rumble, a platform with significant size, influence, and reach. As an avid proponent of the creator economy and the free flow of ideas, said Sacks. It was my own experience with the All-In Podcast that gave me the idea for Callin: I discovered how much work goes into producing a show and wanted to radically simplify the experience. I teamed up with Axel to launch the first social podcasting platform, where users can easily stream, take questions, record, edit, publish, and share content with their audience.

Sacks is a former COO at PayPal and is also a co-founder and partner at Craft Ventures, which was one of the early investors in Callin alongside Sequoia Capital and Goldcrest Capital. Under the terms of the deal, Sacks is slated to join Rumbles board of directors in the second half of June.

We remain in the position to empower and welcome independent creators offering a world class experience and the best economic toolkit on the internet, Pavlovski said in a statement. This commitment is exemplified by the acquisition of Callin where an opportunity presented itself to greatly accelerate our product roadmap and enable us to build a world class live streaming experience.

Rumble has grown popular with conservative content producers, including Dan Bongino, during the past several years for its light touch approach to content moderation. Its expansion into audio comes as the number of conservative-targeted podcasts continues to grow.

Rumble had $17.6 million in revenue during the first quarter, a 336% increase compared to a year ago which it says was driven by more ad dollars and the addition of new content. Rumble says it had an estimated 10.8 billion minutes of video watched per month during the first quarter, and its hours of uploaded video on a year over year basis increased 82% to 11,181.

We continue to capture market share from traditional streaming service providers, and most importantly Rumble is becoming home for not only our creators, but also our audiences, best evident by the increase in consumption, Pavlovski said.

The rest is here:
Free Speech Video Platform Rumble Makes Its Move Into Audio With ... - Inside Radio

There they were, back again last weekend, a small crew of masked bigots who use a Highway 101 overpass in the small San Luis Obispo County town of Templeton as a stage to proselytize for white pride.

This time, there were four men instead of two, and their hateful messaging was even uglier. The Embrace White Pride banner first displayed on April 23 had some additions three Nordic runes described as hate symbols by the Anti-Defamation League.

Two of the men wore T-shirts emblazoned with The White Race in large lettering with Save European Identity in smaller print underneath, next to what looked like The North Face corporate logo. (Does The North Face know their brand has been co-opted by racists?)

One member of the group even gave the Nazi sieg heil salute to passing motorists, according to one of the observers who showed up on the bridge to counteract the message of hate.

Several men with masks hold up an Embrace white pride flag on the Vineyard Drive Highway 101 overpass on Saturday, May 13, 2023.

So what now?

How do we let these racists know they are not welcome?

A well-attended Rally Against Hate held on the Templeton overpass on May 10 obviously didnt faze them. Neither did the condemnations posted online and in the media.

Will calling them out, once again, only serve to give the attention they crave and provide more fodder for them to post on social media?

Or would ignoring them from here on out give the impression that were giving up and moving on?

At Tuesdays meeting of the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors, Board Chairman John Peschong who attended the May 10 counter-protest said hes been working with Caltrans on a solution. He didnt elaborate because the item was not listed on the agenda, and a prolonged discussion risked violating the Brown Act, Californias open meeting law.

During the public comment portion of the meeting, however, several speakers pleaded with the board to do something to prevent the overpass from being used as a soapbox for hate.

I cried when I saw that sign, said North County resident Yvonne Baughman, in reference to the white pride banner. I cried for all the people and all the children this was really going to affect.

Story continues

Her husband, Tom Baughman, suggested enforcing a no loitering policy on the overpass which would essentially prohibit all gatherings there, including the MAGA displays that regularly take place there.

Yet banning displays on one overpass in Templeton if that were legally possible would most likely drive the haters to another overpass.

Then what?

Ban them from all overpasses in the county ... or the state?

While it is illegal in California to affix signs to an overpass, it is not a violation to hold signs, flags or banners, as the white supremacists were doing.

As terrible as the message is, the Constitution does allow them to stand there, Supervisor Peschong said during a break in the meeting.

Since Caltrans not the county controls the bridge, any change in policy would have to originate with the state.

And yes, it may have to apply to all overpasses in California not just to the ones where demonstrators congregate.

Thats a major undertaking, but Peschong said he isnt giving up. If state legislation is required, hell take that up with local lawmakers.

These vile messages really do hurt people, he said. You dont want people feeling that they (arent) safe in their own community.

Demonstrators walk to the Vineyard Drive Highway 101 overpass in Templeton for a rally on May 10, 2023, in response to a social media post showing two people holding an Embrace white pride banner there last week.

Could government argue that a ban on loitering on this particular overpass is needed to protect public safety?

It could try.

Theres no question that motorists take note of whats happening and many of them respond in a variety of ways honking, yelling, giving protesters the finger.

Yet theres no hard evidence of a threat to public safety. Political demonstrations on the overpass have never been reported as a contributing factor to a crash, according to CHP Public Information Officer Patrick Seebart.

There is a potential for violent interactions, however. Indeed, progressive activists were pepper-sprayed in September during a pro-democracy rally on the bridge, resulting in the arrest of an Arroyo Grande man.

That points to a need for monitoring by the Sheriffs Office, but not necessarily to a blanket ban on free speech.

So, again, how should we react?

There have been calls to out these masked cowards so they can be held accountable for fouling our county with their bile.

That could be one powerful deterrent, as cockroaches tend to scurry when you shine a light on them. Men like these deserve no safe harbor in decent society.

Another approach could be to put up a stand-against-hate billboard near the overpass as a show of support for those targeted by their hate campaign.

Meanwhile, the group that organized the Rally Against Hate is planning future events, and the Democratic Party is putting together a list of people willing to converge on the Templeton overpass to counter-protest whenever white supremacists show up.

We know this is likely not ending anytime soon, and we plan to continue countering their efforts, the group said. If youd like to be part of an email or text alert when these individuals are on the bridge, please let us know.

Thats a giant step, but heres another idea: Maybe the local Republican Party which has been noticeably silent about the sudden appearance of neo-Nazis could join in driving these Ku Klux Klan 2.0 wannabes from our midst. Same goes for the independents and the apolitical.

Because this isnt about politics.

This is about standing up for our community and telling racist haters that while they may have the right to wave their Nazi banners and salute like Brownshirts to passing motorists, they have no home here.

Their brand of hate has no place in San Luis Obispo County, and no place in California or our nation, either, because its downright un-American.

If we cant prevent them from putting their small-minded ignorance on public display, lets drown it in rainbow-colored messages of inclusivity and love.

We dont have to silence them to stop their hate.

See the original post here:
Neo-Nazis have arrived. Is it time to ban free speech on this California overpass? | Opinion - Yahoo News

Chico State speech pathology students gather for a photo at the annual Speech & Hearing Fair. Photo taken May 6th by Kaitlin Moore.

On May 6th, the Chico State Clinic for Communication Disorders hosted its annual Speech & Hearing Fair, where members of the public got the opportunity to receive free speech, hearing and language screenings. The event served people of all ages, and included food, games, and prizes as well.

For this event, we look at testing peoples speech and hearing. We also test cognition and language using screeners, so its really been an all-hitting event. We really want the community to come in if they have any sort of concerns, as this is a good place to do it, Chantel Bebee, a graduate student in the Speech Language Pathology, or SLP, program said.

The event has been hosted annually for over 20 years at Chico States Clinic for Communication Disorders, and is organized entirely by first year Masters students in the SLP program, who use this as an opportunity to give back to the community, raise awareness on speech and hearing health and also to grow in their own clinical experience.

It gives them an important experience, as theyre going to be practicing clinicians someday, Anita Anderson, one of the clinical supervisors for the SLP program at Chico State, and an alumni of the program, said. Here is a great place for these students to take what theyre learning and put it into practice.

The fair is hosted in May to help promote Better Hearing and Speech Month and bring greater awareness to speech and hearing care. Ivy Gomes, a final year graduate student in the SLP program, offered some helpful advice on maintaining good hearing and voice health.

With hearing, its important to watch the volume levels on what youre listening to, since you dont want anything at too high of a decibel level, she said. For your voice, watch for good vocal hygiene. Drink a lot of water and avoid coughing and clearing your throat as much as you can.

If you would like to learn more about what the Clinic for Communication Disorders offers to the community, please visit their website at http://www.csuchico.edu/cmsd/clinic.shtml or call 530-898-5871.

Kaitlin Moore can be reached at [emailprotected]

View original post here:
Chico State's Speech Therapy Clinic hosts annual free Speech ... - The Orion

You would not be exercising your right to free speech by protesting in such a way. It is not your speech which disrupts my enjoyment of the snooker or my ability to watch the film. It is your actions that would stop me, not your speech.

Regular readers of this column will know thatI am a passionate advocate for and defender of free speech. But the right to freedom of speech is meaningful only if we can distinguish speech from action. There is no right freely to act howsoever you wish, just because you have a message you want folk to notice.

You might claim, in the alternative, that you are exercising your right to protest in such a case. Again, you would be mistaken. European human rights law knows no such thing as a right to protest. Instead, there is a right to freedom of peaceful assemblyits in Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This is a much more restricted right than the right to free speech. The latter is not qualified, for example, by the need to show that speech is peaceful.

Read more:Why history should be a complusory school subject

That the right to assemble is restricted to peaceful assembly means, rather obviously, that there is no right to riot. Violent public disorder is never accommodated within the right to freedom of assembly rioting is now, as it always has been, unlawful. Riot is a crime with a long history, stretching back centuries. But to what extent does the right to freedom of peaceful assembly extend to and protect public protest which, whilst not violent as such, is nonetheless deliberately designed to disrupt the lawful activities of others?

Sitting on a snooker table with a pot of orange powder is not violent, but it is clearly disruptive and is wilfully designed to be disruptive. Likewise, blockading the entrances to a theatre to prevent members of the public from getting in to watch a film. Such a sit-in is not violent, but it is manifestly disruptive. It is a forceful use of human, physical presence to coerce others.

The European Convention on Human Rights (which forms the basis of our human rights laws in Britain) is clear that the rights and freedoms it enshrines may not be used to prevent or obstruct the exercise of other peoples rights and freedoms. This is what prohibits racist speech, for example. I cannot use my right to freedom of speech to deny your humanity or your dignity on the basis (for example) of your race racist speech is hate speech and, as such, it is not protected by the law. There is no right to be racist.

The same holds for those who wish to act in such a way as to disrupt the lawful activities of others (there is nothing illegal about playing snooker). And, again, the same holds too for those who wish to prevent others from watching a film. There is no right to be intolerant.

These are easy cases. Or, at least, they ought to be. But what if we change the facts slightly? What if a small group wishes to protest (peacefully) in the near vicinity of a large crowd who might be very annoyed at that protest. Can the police intervene on the protesters to ensure there is no public disorder?

This is close to what happened in Westminster on the day of the Kings Coronation. A small group of republicans wanted to protest against the monarchy at a time and in a place where tens of thousands of people were gathered to watch and to take part in the coronation celebrations. The police prevented the protest, by arresting the would-be protesters and detaining them in police custody. Where they right to do so?

Read more:Appearances are everything in politics - Yousafs optics are horrible

The police had every right to act as they did if they intervened to prevent a breach of the peace. No crime needs to be committed before the police may exercise preventive powers to avoid a breach of the peace. But two conditions must be met for such police action to be lawful. First, officers must believe there will be an imminent breach of the peace and, secondly, this belief must be reasonable. If the police act too soon, or exercise their preventive powers disproportionately, they will be acting unlawfully.

The facts of what happened at the Coronation would appear to indicate that the police suspected a number of the protesters were seeking to act disruptively by, for example, locking themselves on to obstructions which could have interfered with the Coronation procession. Even if the police turn out to be wrong about that, arrests would still be lawful as long as the officers at the scene reasonably suspected an offence may be about to be committed. The police do not have to wait for an offence actually to be committed before making an arrest. Far better to prevent crime than to wait for the harm to be done and only then to act in response.

Given the range of disruptive activity protesters of various stripes have engaged in of late in Britain, it is understandable that the police would be nervous and hyper-vigilant that such tactics should under no circumstances be permitted to disrupt a spectacle as important as the coronation. There are, no doubt, lessons for the police to learn but so, too, are there lessons for protesters. There is no right to seek to disrupt the lawful activities of others. If public protest were carried out in compliance with this basic principle, and not in violation of it, we would all be a great deal better off, police and protesters alike.

Adam Tomkins is the John Millar Professor of Public Law at the University of Glasgow School of Law. He was a Conservative MSP for the Glasgow region from 2016 to 2021.

Read more:
Adam Tomkins: You have the right to free speech, but not to disrupt ... - HeraldScotland

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) Lawyers in a First Amendment lawsuit that pits a New Hampshire bakery owner against a town zoning ordinance over a large painting of doughnuts and other pastries are hoping that a judge can resolve the matter after voters didnt.

Unfortunately the saga isnt over yet, bakery owner Sean Young said.

Both sides agree that they will have to litigate this controversy, according to a joint statement filed late Wednesday in federal court.

Last year, high school art students covered the big blank wall above Leavitts Country Bakery in Conway with a painting of the sun shining over a mountain range made of sprinkle-covered chocolate and strawberry doughnuts, a blueberry muffin, a cinnamon roll and other pastries.

But the town zoning board decided that the painting was not so much art as advertising, and so could not remain as is because of its size. At about 90 square feet (8.6 square meters), its four times bigger than the local sign code allows.

Faced with modifying or removing the mural, or possibly dealing with fines and criminal charges, Young sued in January, saying the town is violating his freedom of speech rights.

The painting could stay right where it is if it showed actual mountains, instead of pastries suggesting mountains, or if the building wasnt a bakery.

Both sides agreed in February to pause court proceedings and any potential fines or charges pending a vote on a revised sign code definition that would allow the painting to stay. But that failed to pass in town elections in April. The local newspaper suggested the residents generally liked the painting, but that the proposed definition changes would only further complicate enforcement.

Lawyers met last week.

The town articulated that it continued to view the painted panels affixed to a portion of the Leavitts facade as a sign prohibited by the sign code. As such, there remains a live controversy between the parties that requires this courts attention, Wednesdays statement said.

The town will have until July 21 to formally respond to Youngs lawsuit and then both sides will meet by Aug. 4 to submit a report to the judge, according to the joint statement. Both sides continue to believe there will likely be few if any contested issues of material fact, it said.

Young, who is being represented by the Virginia-based Institute for Justice, asked for $1 in damages.

Continued here:
Doughnut painting dispute between bakery, town in free speech ... - The Associated Press

Jim Tucker is a journalist and writer based in New Plymouth.

OPINION: Am I breaking the law by writing this column, which is about the Dr Peter Canaday case?

If you've been following its journey through the courts, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Canaday is accused of breaching medical standards by raising doubts about Covid-19 vaccination at a time in mid-2021 when government efforts to protect the nation were at wavering heights.

A US-trained doctor who moved here in 2007 and became a radiologist, he was invited by prominent anti-government group Voices for Freedom to speak at its public forums.

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Late last year, the NZ Medical Council reacted to complaints about Canaday by banning him from medical practice while it investigated. He faced up to three years prevented from making a living from medicine.

Over February and March, Canaday appealed his suspension at court hearings in Wellington and won. The main case against him has just been heard in New Plymouth before the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal (decision reserved).

Naturally, my main interest lies in the impact all that will have on freedom of expression, a law that affects my right to make a living as a journalist.

Partly, it exists within the country's nearest thing to a constitution, the NZ Bill of Rights Act 1990, whose Section 14 says: "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form."

LISA BURD/Stuff

Columnist Jim Tucker says laws around freedom of expression affect his right to make a living as a journalist.

Looks firm enough, doesn't it. But as with most things legal, it's not that simple.

After then-Minister of Justice Sir Geoffrey Palmer steered the Act through Parliament back in the late 80s, he accepted it would take time before becoming what lawyers called "supreme law".

If that happened, relevant court cases would need to consider its power alongside any other law. As the years and cases have unfolded over the past 33 years, the Bill of Rights Act has undoubtedly grown in significance.

What we are about to see with Canaday is whether it has reached a similar status as that enjoyed by the US Constitution, which partially inspired Palmer when he worked there.

If it has, Canaday has a good chance of winning his case. The prosecution's arguments - about him, a medical practitioner, spouting ill-conceived ideas that might sway the undecided about vaccination - would be trumped.

But I doubt that will happen in the way every journalist would like and establish absolute press freedom.

It never can for the good reason freedom of expression is like defamation: it depends on the currency of what's being said.

If you read our defamation law you'll see it sticks to outlining processes to be followed when someone alleges someone else has said damaging things about them. It doesn't have a list of supposedly damaging words.

No such thing could function for long because the meanings of words evolve at a faster rate than any legislative process can match.

Take the word "gay".

In the so-called "roaring 20s" of last century it described people who went out a lot or had an outgoing manner. Later that century, it was adopted by the homosexual law reform community as a label of defiance. Now, it's a casual personal description that (mostly) carries no offence.

While some currently defamatory words have long sustained their clear intent to abuse, there is no guarantee that victims won't form a movement to normalise them.

Those involved in the Canaday case have encountered something similar the rapidly evolving body of knowledge and meanings that sprang up around Covid-19.

The entire scientific and medical world applied itself to finding protection and cure in an unprecedentedly short time. Vaccines had never before been adopted for public use without much longer trialling.

The vaccination effort has been commendably effective, but nobody can guarantee absolute safety. Over time, cases of bad reactions, even death, have emerged.

Most of us are all too keen to take a punt on the vaccines because we trust the majority medical opinion. That's the fundamental nature of modern life.

Does that mean people like Dr Canaday should not be allowed to express a contrary view, though?

Not in my book. Much of my work has been predicated on analysing minority opinions. Which doesn't mean I share them, by the way.

British philosopher Sir Karl Popper argued a scientific theory's validity lasts only until another disproves it. That lends gravitas to some attempts to disprove. The challenge is deciding which ones.

Jim Tucker is a journalist and writer based in New Plymouth.

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A test for the strength of New Zealand's free speech laws - Stuff

Stanford Law School was under extraordinary pressure.

For nearly two weeks, there had been mounting anger over the treatment of a conservative federal judge, whose talk had been disrupted by student hecklers. A video of the fiasco went viral.

An apology to the judge from university officials had not helped quell the anger.

Finally, on March 22, the dean, Jenny S. Martinez, released a lawyerly 10-page memo that rebuked the activists.

Some students might feel that some points should not be up for argument and therefore that they should not bear the responsibility of arguing them, she wrote. But, she continued, that is incompatible with the training that must be delivered in a law school.

She added, I believe that the commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion actually means that we must protect free expression of all views.

Free speech groups hailed Dean Martinez for what they said was a stirring defense of free expression.

We need Dean Martinezes at every school where this is an issue right now, Alex Morey, an official with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free-speech group, said in an email.

The Stanford memo echoed a similar declaration by the University of Chicago in 2014, saying that it was committed to free speech and that students may not obstruct or otherwise interfere withspeakers because of their views.

Since then, dozens of universities have signed onto what is now known as the Chicago statement. And yet, every year seems to bring new free-speech clashes, on the left and the right.

Last year, law students at Yale and the University of California Hastings College of the Law disrupted conservative speakers. In 2021, M.I.T. invited the geophysicist Dorian Abbot to give a prestigious lecture and then disinvited him after some faculty members and students argued that he had created harm by speaking out against aspects of affirmative action.

That same year, members of Stanfords chapter of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal organization, filed a complaint against a law student who had mocked the group with a satirical flier. The university briefly put the students graduation on hold but eventually said the flier was protected speech.

The question for Stanford and other institutions is whether the memo can ease tensions in this fraught and seemingly intractable political climate. In an era of high-pitched politics, living up to lofty free-speech principles can get messy on the ground.

Some free-speech advocates describe a delicate balancing act for any university, which must allow polarizing speakers a place at the podium while also allowing protesters to raise their voices in disagreement.

If things get out of hand, it can be hard to figure out when to draw the line and whom to blame.

In the middle of a media firestorm, enforcement can become even trickier. As criticism mounts, the actual events can become distorted, leaving out important details about the people and the buildup to events.

All of these things came into play at Stanford.

The furor started on March 9, when Stuart Kyle Duncan, a conservative judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, spoke to a roomful of students at the invitation of the student chapter of the Federalist Society.

Before becoming a judge, he had defended Louisianas gay-marriage ban in a Supreme Court hearing. And he had defended a North Carolina law restricting transgender people from using their preferred bathrooms.

Students were particularly upset that, in 2020, as a judge, he had denied the request of a transgender woman who asked the court to refer to her with female pronouns. It was an especially sensitive subject, as many in the law school were still grieving the death of a transgender student last year.

At the event, Judge Duncan was relentlessly heckled and traded barbs with students. He tried to power through his prepared remarks but was unable to speak more than a few words without interruption. He called for the help of an administrator to restore order.

Tirien Steinbach, the associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion, stepped to the podium and began six minutes of remarks that would be recorded on video.

She said that, to many people in the room, Judge Duncans work had caused harm. She asked him, Is the juice worth the squeeze? That is, was the decision by Judge Duncan to speak worth the division it was causing students?

Her remarks became a signature moment online, condemned for giving tacit approval to the hecklers veto. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said that Ms. Steinbach had said the quiet part out loud, to chilling effect.

Every day around the country, administrators are putting issues of equity before students expressive rights, Ms. Morey, of the foundation, said. Those things do not have to be in tension.

Ms. Steinbachs remarks were condemned on Fox News and other conservative outlets. Tucker Carlson called her barely literate. Many called for her prompt firing.

Two days after the event, Dean Martinez and the president of the university apologized to Judge Duncan and, without naming Ms. Steinbach, said that staff members who should have enforced university policies failed to do so, and instead intervened in inappropriate ways that are not aligned with the universitys commitment to free speech.

In her memo, 11 days later, Dean Martinez again criticized Ms. Steinbach, stating that an administrator should not insert themselves into the debate with their own criticism of the speakers views. Asking speakers to reconsider the worth of what they plan to say, she wrote, constitutes an improper imposition of institutional orthodoxy and coercion.

The memo also announced that Ms. Steinbach was on leave.

That bare-bones narrative missed a more complicated situation, illustrating the perils of rushing to judgment based on a viral video.

To begin with, Ms. Steinbach had a cordial, productive relationship with the leader of the student-run Federalist Society, Tim Rosenberger Jr.

Ms. Steinbach, who started at Stanford in 2021, said she wanted to expand the role of D.E.I. to include groups like veterans, older students and conservatives. She viewed herself as a bridge builder.

Mr. Rosenberger, for his part, said he wanted a Federalist Society chapter that was better integrated into the university and had found that she was willing to engage in ways that many students, professors and administrators, to Mr. Rosenbergers disappointment, would not.

In January, when Mr. Rosenberger could not find a co-sponsor for an event with Nadine Strossen, a former head of the American Civil Liberties Union and a champion of free speech, he found a partner in Ms. Steinbach, who moderated the event.

That took some courage, he said.

Ms. Strossen said she had spoken to many Federalist Society chapters in recent years and had noticed that, especially since the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the group had become effectively blacklisted at many law schools.

This backdrop, Ms. Strossen said, made Ms. Steinbachs enthusiastic participation in the event extraordinary.

On the morning of Judge Duncans talk, Ms. Steinbach sent an email to the entire law school, approved by Dean Martinez. She summarized the concerns that students had with Judge Duncan but said that students who tried to stop speech would only amplify it, and she linked to the free-speech policy.

Ms. Steinbachs connection to students might have made her confident that she could be the broker between the two sides. But during a free-speech conflagration, who should play the role of enforcer? And how should that message be delivered?

The university had made other preparations. Law school administrators had warned university officials that students could run afoul of the universitys speaker policy that day, according to an email obtained by The Times. The university sent an official to join others representing the law school.

But when the judge asked for an administrator, it was Ms. Steinbach who stepped up to the podium.

While the judge was insulted by some of her remarks, Ms. Steinbach also defended free speech. We believe that the way to address speech that feels abhorrent that feels harmful, that literally denies the humanity of people that one way to do that is with more speech, and not less, she said.

She invited students to leave if they felt uncomfortable but said that those who remained should listen to Judge Duncan. Many students left.

In an interview, Ms. Steinbach said she had not been there to enforce the universitys speech policy.

My role was to de-escalate, Ms. Steinbach said. She wanted to placate students who said they were upset with Judge Duncan and to, I hoped, give the judge space to speak his prepared remarks.

In hindsight, she said, she did not get the balance right. She noted, however, that she had been speaking to students in the room, and did not realize that her words would be blasted out to the world.

Mr. Rosenberger said that he had been upset by Ms. Steinbachs remarks in the lecture hall but that she had been something of a scapegoat for the universitys broader failure to protect speech.

He said that he wished an official had stepped to the podium and warned students that further disruption would be in violation of the universitys free-speech policy but that Ms. Steinbach, as D.E.I. dean, was not that messenger.

If she was the administrator whose job was to enforce the no-disruption policy, then yeah, she totally failed, but thats not her job description, Mr. Rosenberger said. People have called her stupid and incompetent. Shes a smart and good person who was just put in a really bad spot.

Dean Martinez, in an email to The Times, said that one of the problems that day was a lack of clear communication among administrators in the room. But she laid at least part of the blame with Ms. Steinbach.

Regardless of what should have happened up to that point, she wrote, when Judge Duncan asked for an administrator to help restore order, it was Ms. Steinbach who responded, introduced herself as an administrator, and then delivered remarks.

To some students, the dean, by not presenting a fuller defense of Ms. Steinbach in her memo, capitulated to an intense right-wing attack.

A leader takes responsibility for her actions as well as those of her subordinates, Denni Arnold, a protest leader, wrote to Dean Martinez. A leader presents a united front to the world, no matter what conversations need to happen behind closed doors.

Julian Davis Mortenson, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Michigan and a Stanford alumnus, suggested that there had been a broader failure.

Law schools need to have plans and protocols in place for controversies like this, which are going to happen with increasing frequency, he said. Stanford was not adequately prepared.

Barring context he is unaware of, he said, he was disappointed that Ms. Steinbach had not received more support.

An administrator on the ground, in a room literally full of shouting people, got them to stop shouting and also insisted that they should listen to the speech, Professor Mortenson said.

Some of the confusion may lie in Stanfords free-speech policy, which bars preventing or disrupting the effective carrying out of a university event, like a lecture. Precisely when that policy is violated is ambiguous meaning that it can be hard to know when or how to intervene.

Holding vulgar signs or asking pointed questions or even making gagging noises as many students did when Judge Duncan was introduced does not necessarily violate the universitys policy.

In her memo, Dean Martinez said she would not take action against individual students, citing the difficulty of distinguishing between protected speech and unprotected speech.

Are 10 minutes of shouting out of an hour-and-a-half-long event too much? said Ms. Strossen, the free-speech crusader. That is a matter of judgment and degree.

If you get the balance wrong, Ms. Strossen said, then you risk chilling speech on the other side.

The week after she spoke at Stanford, Ms. Strossen said, she appeared at Yale, on a panel with a conservative speaker whose visit last year was disrupted during another student firestorm.

Ms. Strossen said she was struck that this time, during her panel, there were no protesters of any kind.

I worry that maybe the reason that there werent even nondisruptive protests, she said, is students were too afraid that they would be subject to discipline or doxxing.

Link:
Stanford Law Schools Dean Takes a Stand for Free Speech. Will It Work ...

For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.

This social silencing, this depluralizing of America, has been evident for years, but dealing with it stirs yet more fear. It feels like a third rail, dangerous. For a strong nation and open society, that is dangerous.

How has this happened? In large part, its because the political left and the right are caught in a destructive loop of condemnation and recrimination around cancel culture. Many on the left refuse to acknowledge that cancel culture exists at all, believing that those who complain about it are offering cover for bigots to peddle hate speech. Many on the right, for all their braying about cancel culture, have embraced an even more extreme version of censoriousness as a bulwark against a rapidly changing society, with laws that would ban books, stifle teachers and discourage open discussion in classrooms.

Many Americans are understandably confused, then, about what they can say and where they can say it. People should be able to put forward viewpoints, ask questions and make mistakes and take unpopular but good-faith positions on issues that society is still working through all without fearing cancellation.

However you define cancel culture, Americans know it exists and feel its burden. In a new national poll commissioned by Times Opinion and Siena College, only 34 percent of Americans said they believed that all Americans enjoyed freedom of speech completely. The poll found that 84 percent of adults said it is a very serious or somewhat serious problem that some Americans do not speak freely in everyday situations because of fear of retaliation or harsh criticism.

This poll and other recent surveys from the Pew Research Center and the Knight Foundation reveal a crisis of confidence around one of Americas most basic values. Freedom of speech and expression is vital to human beings search for truth and knowledge about our world. A society that values freedom of speech can benefit from the full diversity of its people and their ideas. At the individual level, human beings cannot flourish without the confidence to take risks, pursue ideas and express thoughts that others might reject.

Most important, freedom of speech is the bedrock of democratic self-government. If people feel free to express their views in their communities, the democratic process can respond to and resolve competing ideas. Ideas that go unchallenged by opposing views risk becoming weak and brittle rather than being strengthened by tough scrutiny. When speech is stifled or when dissenters are shut out of public discourse, a society also loses its ability to resolve conflict, and it faces the risk of political violence.

Weve excerpted a few of the polls other questions below. Choose your answers to see how your opinions compare to Americans.

The Times Opinion/Siena College poll found that 46 percent of respondents said they felt less free to talk about politics compared to a decade ago. Thirty percent said they felt the same. Only 21 percent of people reported feeling freer, even though in the past decade there was a vast expansion of voices in the public square through social media.

Theres a crisis around the freedom of speech now because many people dont understand it, they werent taught what it means and why it matters, said Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive of PEN America, a free speech organization. Safeguards for free speech have been essential to almost all social progress in the country, from the civil rights movement to womens suffrage to the current fights over racial justice and the police.

Times Opinion commissioned the poll to provide more data and insight that can inform a debate mired in extremes. This editorial board plans to identify a wide range of threats to freedom of speech in the coming months and to offer possible solutions. Freedom of speech requires not just a commitment to openness and tolerance in the abstract. It demands conscientiousness about both the power of speech and its potential harms. We believe it isnt enough for Americans to just believe in the rights of others to speak freely; they should also find ways to actively support and protect those rights.

We are under no illusion that this is easy. Our era, especially, is not made for this; social media is awash in speech of the point-scoring, picking-apart, piling-on, put-down variety. A deluge of misinformation and disinformation online has heightened this tension. Making the internet a more gracious place does not seem high on anyones agenda, and certainly not for most of the tech companies that control it.

But the old lesson of think before you speak has given way to the new lesson of speak at your peril. You cant consider yourself a supporter of free speech and be policing and punishing speech more than protecting it. Free speech demands a greater willingness to engage with ideas we dislike and greater self-restraint in the face of words that challenge and even unsettle us.

It is worth noting here the important distinction between what the First Amendment protects (freedom from government restrictions on expression) and the popular conception of free speech (the affirmative right to speak your mind in public, on which the law is silent). The world is witnessing, in Vladimir Putins Russia, the strangling of free speech through government censorship and imprisonment. That is not the kind of threat to freedom of expression that Americans face. Yet something has been lost; the poll clearly shows a dissatisfaction with free speech as it is experienced and understood by Americans today.

Consider this finding from our poll: Fifty-five percent of respondents said that they had held their tongue over the past year because they were concerned about retaliation or harsh criticism. Women were more likely to report doing so 61 percent, compared to 49 percent of men. Older respondents were less likely to have done so than other age groups. Republicans (58 percent) were slightly more likely to have held their tongues than Democrats (52 percent) or independents (56 percent).

At the same time, 22 percent of adults reported that they had retaliated against or were harshly critical of someone over something he or she said. Adults 18 to 34 years old were far more likely to have done so than older Americans; liberals were more likely to have done so than moderates or conservatives.

Elijah Afere, a 25-year-old I.T. technician from Union, N.J., said that he worried about the larger implications of chilled speech for democracy. You cant give people the benefit of the doubt to just hold a conversation anymore. Youve got to worry about feeling judged, he said. Political views can even affect your family ties, how you relate to your uncle or the other side. Its really not good.

Roy Block, 76, from San Antonio, described himself as conservative and said he has been alarmed by scenes of parents being silenced at school board meetings over the past year. I think its mostly conservatives that are being silenced, he said. But regardless, I think it should be a two-way street. Everybody should have an opportunity to speak and especially in open gathering and open forum.

Pollsters asked how free people felt today to discuss six topics including religion, politics, gender identity and race relations compared to 10 years ago: more free, less free or the same. Those who felt freest were Black respondents: At least 30 percent of them said they felt more free to speak on every topic, including 42 percent on race relations, the highest share of any racial or ethnic group. Still, that sentiment of more freedom among Black respondents reached only 46 percent, not a majority (the 46 percent being on the issue of gender identity).

At the same time, a full 84 percent of Black people polled shared the concern of this editorial that it was a very serious or somewhat serious problem that some Americans do not exercise their freedom of speech out of fear of retaliation or harsh criticism. And 45 percent of Black people and nearly 60 percent of Latinos and white people polled reported that theyd held their tongues in the past year out of fear of retaliation or harsh criticism.

While the level of national anxiety around free speech is apparent, the solutions are much less clear. In the poll, 66 percent of respondents agreed with the following: Our democracy is built upon the free, open and safe exchange of ideas, no matter how different they are. We should encourage all speech so long as it is done in a way that doesnt threaten others. Yet a full 30 percent agreed that while I support free speech, sometimes you have shut down speech that is antidemocratic, bigoted or simply untrue. Those who identified themselves as Democrats and liberals showed a higher level of support for sometimes shutting down such speech.

The full-throated defense of free speech was once a liberal ideal. Many of the legal victories that expanded the realm of permissible speech in the United States came in defense of liberal speakers against the power of the government a ruling that students couldnt be forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, a ruling protecting the rights of students to demonstrate against the Vietnam War, a ruling allowing the burning of the American flag.

And yet many progressives appear to have lost faith in that principle. This was a source of great frustration for one of those who responded to our poll, Emily Leonard, a 93-year-old from Hartford, Conn., who described herself as a liberal. She said she was alarmed about reports of speakers getting shouted down on college campuses. We need to hear what people think, even though we disagree with them. It is the basis of our democracy. And its absolutely essential to a continuing democracy, she said. Liberal as I am a little to the left of Lenin I think these kids and this whole cancel culture and so-called woke is doing us so much harm. Theyre undermining the Constitution. Thats what it comes down to.

The progressive movement in America has been a force for good in many ways: for social and racial justice, for pay equity, for a fairer system and society and for calling out hate and hate speech. In the course of their fight for tolerance, many progressives have become intolerant of those who disagree with them or express other opinions and taken on a kind of self-righteousness and censoriousness that the right long displayed and the left long abhorred. It has made people uncertain about the contours of speech: Many know they shouldnt utter racist things, but they dont understand what they can say about race or can say to a person of a different race from theirs. Attacking people in the workplace, on campus, on social media and elsewhere who express unpopular views from a place of good faith is the practice of a closed society.

The Times does not allow hate speech in our pages, even though it is broadly protected by the Constitution, and we support that principle. But there is a difference between hate speech and speech that challenges us in ways that we might find difficult or even offensive.

At the same time, all Americans should be deeply concerned about an avalanche of legislation passed by Republican-controlled legislatures around the country that gags discussion of certain topics and clearly violates the spirit of the First Amendment, if not the letter of the law.

It goes far beyond conservative states yanking books about race and sex from public school libraries. Since 2021 in 40 state legislatures, 175 bills have been introduced or prefiled that target what teachers can say and what students can learn, often with severe penalties. Of those, 13 have become law in 11 states, and 106 are still under consideration. All told, 99 bills currently target K-12 public schools, 44 target higher education, and 59 include punishment for violators, according to a running tally kept by PEN America. In some instances, the proposed bills failed to become law. In other cases, the courts should declare them unconstitutional.

These bills include Floridas Dont Say Gay bill, which would restrict what teachers and students can talk about and allows for parents to file lawsuits. If the law goes into force, watch for lawsuits against schools that restrict the free speech rights of students to discuss things like sexuality, established by earlier Supreme Court rulings.

The new gag laws coincide with a similar barrage of bills that ostensibly target critical race theory, an idea that has percolated down from law schools to the broader public in recent years as a way to understand the pervasiveness of racism. The moral panic around critical race theory has morphed into a vast effort to restrict discussions of race, sex, American history and other topics that conservatives say are divisive. Several states have now passed these gag laws restricting what can be said in public schools, colleges and universities, and state agencies and institutions.

In passing laws that restrict speech, conservatives have adopted the language of harm that some liberals used in the past to restrict speech the idea that speech itself can cause an unacceptable harm, which has led to a proliferation of campus speech codes and the use of trigger warnings in college classrooms.

Now conservatives have used the idea of harmful speech to their own ends: An anti-critical-race-theory law in Tennessee passed last year, for instance, prohibits promoting the concept that an individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or another form of psychological distress solely because of the individuals race or sex a measure aimed at avoiding the distress that students might feel when learning about racist or misogynist elements of American history. (Unmentioned, of course, is the potential discomfort felt by students who are fed a whitewashed version of American history.)

Liberals and anyone concerned with protecting free speech are right to fight against these pernicious laws. But legal limits are not the only constraints on Americans freedom of speech. On college campuses and in many workplaces, speech that others find harmful or offensive can result not only in online shaming but also in the loss of livelihood. Some progressives believe this has provided a necessary, and even welcome, check on those in power. But when social norms around acceptable speech are constantly shifting and when there is no clear definition of harm, these constraints on speech can turn into arbitrary rules with disproportionate consequences.

Free speech is predicated on mutual respect that of people for one another and of a government for the people it serves. Every day, in communities across the country, Americans must speak to one another freely to refine and improve the elements of our social contract: What do we owe the most vulnerable in our neighborhoods? What conduct should we expect from public servants? What ideas are so essential to understanding American democracy that they should be taught in schools? When public discourse in America is narrowed, it becomes harder to answer these and the many other urgent questions we face as a society.

Read the original:
Opinion | America Has a Free Speech Problem - The New York Times

from the the-twitter-files-on-this-will-be-rich dept

A few weeks ago we wrote about how Elon Musks Twitter was now blocking tweets in India at the request of the government. As we noted, theres a lot of important history here. India had demanded such blocking in early 2021 and the old regime at Twitter had pushed back strongly on it. After fighting about it, Twitter agreed to geoblock some tweets, but said it would not agree to do that for tweets from journalists, activists, or politicians.

The company also filed a lawsuit claiming that the content removal demands were an abuse of power by the Modi government. This lawsuit is still ongoing.

Of course, in the interim, Elon Musk became the owner of Twitter, and while he has kept the lawsuit going (for now), he had complained about Twitters lawsuit when it first happened.

When we wrote that story a few weeks ago about Elons Twitter agreeing to block accounts of journalists, politicians, and activists, some of Musks staunchest defenders in our comments insisted that the article was unfair, because Musk was doing the same thing that Twitter had done. Except thats false. The old Twitter explicitly refused to apply the geoblocks to journalists, activists, or politicians.

Either way, Musks Twitter has now taken it up a notch. Not only is it geoblocking such accounts, in some cases, it has now instituted a global block. That is, Musks Twitter is willing to allow the Modi government to censor his critics globally, rather than just in India. The first known victim of this is Saurav Das, an investigative journalist in India.

As free speech activist, and occasional Techdirt contributor, Sarah McLaughlin notes, allowing India to dictate global speech rules is a worst case scenario for free speech and content moderation.

Its also the kind of thing that again calls into question the (always silly) claims from people that Elon Musks focus with Twitter has anything to do with a principled stance on free speech. Thats never been true, but this only serves to emphasize that fact.

Meanwhile, Das is trying to find out why hes been blocked, and has filed a Right to Information application with the government to find out why his tweets were blocked, and why they were blocked globally, but doesnt seem hopeful that hell find out.

A Twitter that actually believed in free speech and not Elons Musks encapsulation of free speech as that which matches the law might want to step in and help Das. Somehow I doubt thats going to happen.

Filed Under: censorship, elon musk, free speech, geoblocking, global block, india, narendra modi, saurav dasCompanies: twitter

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Free Speech Twitter Is Now Globally Blocking Posts Critical Of The ...