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Originally posted here:
Letter: Conversion therapy is not a free speech issue - ECM Publishers

It was while he was writing his latest Edinburgh show that Frank Skinner noticed a problem with his brain. He was hoping to perform a cleaner, cleverer kind of act, one that would let him look out at the crowd and perhaps for the first time in his life not see anybody squirming in their seat in discomfort.

It was a struggle, the 65-year-old says with a grin, because I realised that I seem to think in knob jokes. And I have done since I was about 13. In the West Midlands, that was how people communicated!

30 Years of Dirt is not, then, a compendium of Skinners best sex gags of which there have been plenty over the years. Rather, its a comedic journey through his attempt to de-smutify his brain for the modern audience, a kind of personal challenge: can he even be funny without talking about penises? Its only a loose, lighthearted theme, but it still feels refreshing in a world where many comics seem to think their sole purpose is to say the most offensive thing possible.

I do wonder what all the fuss is about, he says, dismissing the idea that modern comedians have their free speech stifled. I dont think theres ever been a time when you could just say anything. He recalls an early comedy show this must have been in the late 80s where the host apologised to the crowd after Skinner had performed some risque sexual material. He said Id never play at the venue again and then he launched into a load of racist material and brought the house down. Everyones got their own standards and restraints. But I think its been good for me to keep questioning what I say. Its made me think more.

Skinner meets me in a coffee shop near his north London home. On the way here he says he was spotted by a fan, who stopped to ask how he was doing. As the fan left, Skinner heard him say to his mate: He used to be in Doctor Who.

Im guessing he means Capaldi? Skinner ponders, looking at me for confirmation. Then his expression changes. I hope its not William Hartnell! The actor who played the First Doctor, after all, would be 114 by now.

Skinner has been funny for as long as he can remember. As a teenager he used to bring props to the pub, or to the factory where he worked, to make people laugh: clingfilm dipped in beer might look like dangling snot after a fake sneeze; a Vicks inhaler up one nostril might work for a gag about ivory hunters. That was my outlet then, doing a sort of improvised standup in the pub. I didnt know I was practising.

Growing up in Smethwick, an industrial town west of Birmingham, he had never thought of comedy as a viable career. Known to his friends and family as Christopher Collins (he stole his stage name from a member of his dads dominoes team), he drank away most of his 20s, wondering what he was good at and where his life was heading. It was only as he turned 30 and started telling jokes on stage that he realised all those wasted years were full of authentically grim material that was perfect for comedy.

His early shows were disastrous. But within a couple of years he had won Edinburghs prestigious Perrier prize. Soon he was hosting his own long-running TV chatshow, and becoming a key figure in 90s new lad culture thanks to Fantasy Football League, the television show in which he and comedy partner David Baddiel sat around in a living-room set taking the piss out of footballers. How does Skinner look back on that era?

I dont sit and watch my own things, but occasionally Ive seen bits, and most of it, I can honestly say, Id still do, he says. But some stuff, no. On the chatshow, I did a weekly song as Bob Dylan and there were some complaints that [one of the songs] was homophobic. It went to Ofcom and they found it not to be homophobic. And I watched that back recently and I thought, no, no, that was homophobic they got that wrong. But then other things we did get fined for I look at now and think it was unfair. So its endlessly debatable.

He readily admits that he has made some terrible mistakes in more than 30 years as a comic. Take Skinner and Baddiels treatment of Jason Lee, the black Nottingham Forest player whose lack of form on the pitch led to merciless mocking on Fantasy Football League and the popularising of a terrace chant about his haircut (Hes got a pineapple on his head). One day, Baddiel even blacked up as Lee for a sketch, complete with a pineapple to represent his hair.

It was bad, yeah, says Skinner. I spoke to Dave about it recently, from a how-the-fuck-did-that-ever-happen point of view. I still dont know how it happened. I know why we took the piss out of him, because Id watched him on Match of the Day missing several goals, so a sketch about him being unable to put a piece of paper into a bin worked. But when Dave walked out from makeup [in blackface] that night, I still dont know why one or both of us . or someone there didnt say what the fuck is happening?

This racial aspect isnt the entire story, either, he admits. I cant look back on it now without seeing it as bullying. There was a big response to it. People started to send in loads of pictures of pineapples, and so it ran and ran and ran. Looking back, it was a bullying campaign. And its awful. And yeah, Im ashamed of it. And weve said that to each other without any Guardian journalist to impress. It wouldnt be too much to say were both deeply ashamed.

In his 2001 autobiography, Skinner acknowledges the incident but glosses over it, even defends it from accusations of racism. Since then, he seems to have done some serious soul searching. This year, he told an audience at the Hay festival about growing up in Smethwick: I used racist language, I was sexist, I was homophobic. That, he says today, was just how it was back in the 1970s.

But when I talk about growing up in the West Midlands, there wasnt an alternative voice for me to either respond to or ignore. The Jason Lee incident, he accepts, was a different situation. By then wed come through the alternative comedy circuit, where non-racist, non-sexist was the banner handle. So its not like we didnt know. Because me and Dave knew.

Ive never heard either of them talk like this in public. Weve never done the big public apology, says Skinner, who is still best mates with Baddiel. Something doesnt sit well with me. They look a bit like union card apologies: I just need to keep working; Ill apologise for anything, just let me keep working. I didnt want to be part of that.

He adds: There is no excuse involved, though, because there is no excuse. Because Im blaming us. But something I never hear mentioned in any of this is that we had a representative from the BBC in the audience every week. The BBC watched the show before it went out and OKed it. They were supposed to be a guiding hand, not letting us fuck up. But thats a side issue. It was a vendetta. An unintentional vendetta but still a vendetta.

In reality, Skinner was never anything quite so simple as a new lad. Parts of his background he has a masters in English literature; he is a practising Roman catholic never fitted that description and so, he says, the press ignored it. These days, perhaps because of his age, he is allowed more space to talk about his cerebral passions. Poetry is one he has written a short book on the subject (How to Enjoy Poetry) that deep-dives into Stevie Smiths nine-line work Pad, Pad, and he also presents an engaging and accessible podcast on the subject, Frank Skinners Poetry Podcast. Was this part of a career plan to position himself as a more enlightened male?

He laughs at the idea. I probably should have those big career thoughts, shouldnt I? It actually came about by accident, but its ended up being the biggest labour of love job Ive done.

Skinner once had a chat with Eddie Izzard about what they could share about their lives on stage. The conclusion was that it was fine for Izzard to discuss wearing womens clothes, but as for Skinners own religious beliefs? God, no. Yet recently even that position has shifted a little. Last year he published A Comedians Prayer Book, which features him talking to the supreme being in his typically down-to-earth way (I always liked that Jesus hung out with sinners. It made me feel potentially understood). Does he feel more comfortable talking about God on stage now?

I think its more acceptable, he says, not entirely convincingly. I do still feel a slight tension sometimes when I bring it up. I can feel it in the air.

Still, he thinks its important that people get out there and talk about religion in the way they talk about other aspects of life. One of the things religion has suffered from is being spoken of in grave terms constantly. I take it seriously, obviously, but I dont take it seriously, if you know what I mean.

Another thing that always fitted awkwardly with Skinners new lad tag: hes been a teetoaller since the 90s. As a teenager, he had swiftly become a problem drinker, and during his 20s he would regularly wake up to a glass of sherry (or, later on, when things got really bad, a glass of Pernod). He says his life wasnt miserable, its just that he had nothing in it for which to stay sober. His health was in a sorry state. Then his comedy career started and he knew he couldnt risk messing it up. Still, the temptation to drink must have been everywhere, and Skinner has admitted that he has never found anything to recreate the buzz of getting drunk.

I used to dream about it probably three nights a week, he says today. But funnily enough, since Ive had a kid, those dreams have faded away.

Skinner spent his heyday sleeping around, often turning the encounters into gags in his act. But he has been with his current partner, Cath Mason, for about two decades now and they have a 10-year-old son, Buzz. I ask about the relationship, and he rather poetically describes falling in love as an out-of-body experience. David Foster Wallace once said OK, hes not the bloke youd necessarily go to for happiness [the writer killed himself in 2008], but he talked about rising above a given situation, until you realise youre not the main character there, but just an extra in a bigger scene. So with Cath, I met someone who I started to care about to the level where I felt them slightly foregrounded in my consciousness, and me slightly behind them. And if youve been through the celebrity process, its so unusual to not be the star of every scene in the film of your life. And of course then, when I had a child, I was twice removed from my ego.

Skinner became a father at 55, by which point he had assumed the opportunity had passed. Not just because of age but because he and Cath argued like mad. I thought: we cant bring a kid into this. Because apparently youre not supposed to argue in front of them. Although my argument, speaking of arguments, is that its quite good for a kid to see you screaming at each other and then afterwards saying: Weve talked this through and were hugging again.

Skinner adored his own parents, who died a year apart from each other just before he had found proper fame. But his father was a drinker, a gambler and a fighter. It was rare that he became the target of his fathers rage, but it did happen occasionally.

Hitting kids thats another of those things that have changed, he says. The idea of hitting my own child is as ridiculous to me as the idea of me flying home from here unaided. But I didnt think that when I was on the other end of it. It seemed normal. I dont remember anyone ever airing the view that we shouldnt hit our kids until I think the 1980s? It didnt reach the West Midlands, that bit.

I love my dad, he continues. But there would be a moment around 10.40pm where there was a tension about what mood he would bring back from the pub. I wouldnt want my kid to be remembering that.

Evolution is what Skinner is all about people can change and they can grow. When he made his comments about racism and homophobia at Hay, he says, there was a slight backlash from some on the left. Some people were apparently saying: Well, you never really grow out of that. But to pretend that I am still the person I was then would be ludicrous.

And his jokes have evolved with him. The week before we speak, Skinner has been road-testing some of his new material. Debuting new stuff can be tricky, even more so when youve banned knob jokes. But a night or two ago he says he hit one of those magic moments where it all came together. I couldnt get the material out quick enough, he says, before reaching for one last poetic metaphor. When that happens, you can feel like an aeolian harp. Its as if the comedy universe is playing you.

Frank Skinners 30 Years of Dirt is at the Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh, from 4 to 28 August. For more information and tickets go to frankskinnerlive.com

See original here:
Theres never been a time when you could just say anything: Frank Skinner on free speech, his bullying shame and knob jokes - The Guardian

Using a social media soapbox to express partisan views won't make you a more attractive employee prospect. Photo / Getty Images

OPINION:

Apparently, more than two million New Zealanders use LinkedIn, the social media site which aims to "facilitate professional networking".

In my previous life as a business owner, I found it very useful for researching potential employees or clients in order to get an idea of their past career and accomplishments.

This gives LinkedIn a fairly limited function and means it's not really the place to look for love, sell your car, or post pictures of your dog looking cute (not that I let that stop me).

I don't spend much time there these days but when I do, I'm bemused by the growing number of people who use it as a digital soapbox to share their political views. Although there's no law against this (yet) I really doubt that this is helpful to anyone's career. The issue is not the quality, or otherwise, of these opinions, but the appropriateness. You don't use LinkedIn to post about sport, holidays, or your grandmother's amazing lasagne recipe, so why post about politics?

Rarely in business did I ever witness a partisan political discussion, and I generally had little idea of the political views of those that I worked with. This is because it's not relevant to our day jobs.

You wouldn't put your political affiliations on your CV, and if a recruiter asks you how you vote, it's probably not somewhere you want to work. Employers don't react to a political take on LinkedIn by saying: "Great, Nigel has some bats*** crazy views, doesn't care who knows it, and picks an argument with everyone! Let's get him in! He'd be perfect on the executive team." Unless, of course, the job is to work in a troll farm, in which case Nigel's in his element.

I've seen others politely pointing out that perhaps LinkedIn isn't really the place to share political views, only for them to be told "you use social media how you want; I'll use it how I want". That's true, you can do whatever you like. You can go to a job interview dressed as a Backstreet Boy riding a camel if you want, but outside of a 90s-themed circus it's unlikely to help you get a job. You may think that's rather judgemental of me, but then judging people is the whole point of the hiring process.

LinkedIn is a professional social media website for people looking for jobs, for people looking to hire other people, or for those wishing to promote their business.

Yes, that means it's crammed full of people talking about how clever they are, how proud and humble they are to win Waikato Area Salesman of the Year, or trying to sell you outsourced printing at the "super best" price, but as dull as you may find this, that's the point of the bloody thing. You may think it needs livening up a bit, but there are plenty of other places to go to be livened up online, not all of which are regularly scrutinised by prospective employers.

"Why should I worry, everybody agrees with my political views?"

This is unlikely seeing as only around a third of the population supports any party in particular. A passing sycophant may well applaud, but the multitude who disagree will make a mental note to avoid and quietly move on. I mentioned to a couple of senior people that I was writing about this subject and the overwhelming reaction was "about bloody time". (Although there was one who thought political posting was useful as an easy way to identify people never to hire.)

Employers are looking for somebody who they can pay to do their job well, not spend their days online demonstrating their lack of political nuance and debating totalitarianism with someone who doesn't understand it either.

Of course, there are those who say whatever they like on social media without any filter, Elon Musk for example. But I doubt that when he was first scratching around for people to fund his projects Musk was in the habit of referring to opponents as "pedo guy [sic]". These days as the richest man in the world he believes he can pretty much say whatever he likes. Still, not even Musk is bulletproof as his tweets insulting the Twitter Board are contributing to his pending court appearance where he stands to lose US$20 billion.

So, before you write that angry post about whatever it was somebody on the radio told you to be upset about, just remember that the majority of employers look at LinkedIn activity when reviewing applicants for a position. If you wouldn't say it to your in-laws on a first meeting, then it's probably best not to post it on LinkedIn.

As Abraham Lincoln said, "better to remain silent and to be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt". It's your career, look after it.

Link:
Paul Catmur: Free speech? The cost of talking politics on LinkedIn - New Zealand Herald

AUSTIN, Texas -- Jury selection is set for Monday in a trial that will determine for the first time how much Infowars host Alex Jones must pay Sandy Hook Elementary School parents for falsely telling his audience that the deadliest classroom shooting in U.S. history was a hoax.

The trial in Austin, Texas where the conspiracy theorist lives and broadcasts his show follows months of delays. Jones has racked up fines for ignoring court orders and he put Infowars into bankruptcy protection just before the trial was originally set to start in April.

At stake for Jones is another potentially major financial blow that could put his constellation of conspiracy peddling businesses into deeper jeopardy. He has already been banned from YouTube, Facebook and Spotify over violating hate-speech policies.

The trial involving the parents of two Sandy Hook families is only the start for Jones; damages have yet to be awarded in separate defamation cases for other families of the 2012 massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

The lawsuits do not ask jurors to award a specific dollar amount against Jones.

Courts in Texas and Connecticut have already found Jones liable for defamation for his portrayal of the Sandy Hook massacre as a hoax involving actors aimed at increasing gun control. In both states, judges have issued default judgements against Jones without trials because he failed to respond to court orders and turn over documents.

The 2012 shooting killed 20 first graders and six educators. Families of eight of the victims and an FBI agent who responded to the school are suing Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems.

Jones has since acknowledged that the shooting took place. During a deposition in April, Jones insisted he wasnt responsible for the suffering that Sandy Hook parents say they have endured because of the hoax conspiracy, including death threats and harassment by Jones followers.

No, I dont (accept) responsibility because I wasnt trying to cause pain and suffering, Jones said, according to the transcripts made public this month. He continued: They are being used and their children who cant be brought back (are) being used to destroy the First Amendment.

Jones claimed in court records last year that he had a negative net worth of $20 million, but attorneys for Sandy Hook families have painted a different financial picture.

Court records show that Jones Infowars store, which sells nutritional supplements and survival gear, made more than $165 million between 2015 and 2018. Jones has also urged listeners on his Infowars program to donate money.

Associated Press reporter Paul J. Weber contributed to this report.

Continued here:
Alex Jones' defamation trial finally set to begin in Texas - ABC News

The organization is called Hands of Peace, but in its annual summer program it is young people's voices that do the work.

Dialogue is central to Hands of Peace founder Gretchen Grad's 20-year-old mission to unite Israeli and Palestinian high school participants and their American counterparts to become agents of change.

"What kind of surprised me was how little people knew about the other side," said Ilenia Willmert, a rising senior from Napa, California.

The friendly Jewish girl was among 36 student participants -- "Hands," they're called, ages 15 to 17 years old -- representing American, Israeli, Palestinian and Palestinian Citizens of Israel delegations gathered for Hands of Peace's three-week summer residency at Glenview Community Church before they return each night to host families throughout metropolitan Chicago.

After the COVID-19 pandemic forced a two-year break, the Hands of Peace summer program returned to Chicago and to its San Diego site. The award-winning, nonprofit, interfaith organization also has full-time staff in Israel and Palestine.

"I don't think there are many programs that exist like this in the world that bring together people from two sides of such opposing ideas to have healthy conversation about it, to really understand each other and listen to their stories and gain some sort of compassion that they wouldn't have had the opportunity to come across in normal life," Willmert said.

The event concluded Sunday. And throughout, participants enjoyed a variety of activities.

"Almost immediately, they made friends," said development officer Lisa Notter, who assists Chicago site director Emily Kenward. A 2015 and 2016 participant, Kenward initially wanted to be a biologist, but now specializes in feminist foreign policy, influenced by the program.

The students tackled a high ropes course in Olympia Fields and attended Muslim, Jewish and Christian religious services. On Tuesday they were preparing food and skits for "Culture Night" at Glenview Community Church, giving back to their host families.

They did arts workshops, leadership workshops, storytelling, and on Thursday visited downtown Chicago, followed by a rooftop luncheon.

But the crux of the summer program -- which Grad, her staff and more than 700 Hands of Peace alumni hope will one day help create peace in the Middle East -- is the dialogue led by professional facilitators who get the kids talking.

For the overseas visitors, this rarely happens at home.

"Sometimes you live across the street but you can't speak with each other. You need to cross the ocean to have the environment that allows such interactions to happen," said Hamze Awawde, the Palestinian delegation regional manager from Ramallah, the West Bank seat of Palestinian government.

That inability to communicate is a product of fear, trauma and regulation, he said.

In Glenview?

"It's eye-opening," Awawde said.

"The difference is here at Hands of Peace, you can say whatever you want in a respectful way, how do you feel about everything going on," said Palestinian delegate Adam Abu Sneineh, who lives in Jerusalem, but has a "travel document" -- not a passport -- that claims he is neither Israeli nor Palestinian, but Jordanian.

"You have the space and the room to express your feelings freely," Abu Sneineh said. "Back home it's really hard to express your feelings about what's going on, the situation. Even between Palestinians, there's not really much room that you can express yourself. But here you can express yourself however you want and be confident that people will accept you."

On the ropes course, Adam said he felt confident, but also "a little bit scared." That feeling vanished when surrounded by his international peers.

"I felt the confidence from the people around me," he said. "I felt strong doing it."

Wearing a "Scooby-Doo" T-shirt, Layan Jubran, a fresh high school graduate from Haifa, Israel, and one of the program's Palestinian Citizens of Israel, resembled any young woman anticipating a gap-year adventure.

If Willmert didn't know how "the other side" felt about Israeli-Palestinian relations, Jubran went beyond that.

"During the dialogues I heard both sides. I go to an Arab school, so I've been living with Arabs and Jews my whole life. But I think now, hearing what they actually believe and their actual point of view, going back now to live in Israel I think I will be more open-minded and understanding of their points of view," Jubran said.

"I think this program is very important for us Palestinians, because I think the media doesn't share our stories enough. So I think we have a really big role coming here to share our stories and actually be heard."

Awawde would say the media shares what will "sell." Peace, he's seen, does not sell.

"Just to say an Israeli and Palestinian met and had a nice day doesn't sell in the region," he said. "But if you say they killed each other, it will get a lot of attention."

That brings the counterpoint of Eliya Kfir Schurr, a Jewish high school senior from Jerusalem. When she was younger she thought peace was imminent. Now she has doubt.

"I hope so, but I don't know," she said.

"Now it seems to be much more difficult, because there's two sides and each side wants to achieve its goals and to tell its narrative. It's a different narrative, and so different goals. Before I came I was so positive and so hopeful, and I hope that when we finish here I can feel it again."

Eliya also wondered: "maybe if their story is so different from your story, maybe your story isn't right."

That's a concept familiar to the American delegation. Lisa Notter said much dialogue in this year's program focused on American divisiveness and its similarities to the Middle East.

Despite the freedom of thought at Glenview Community Church and around host family dinner tables, Hands for Peace does not seek results in 19 days. It is a movement for the long haul.

"The real effect of this program happens once they go back (home)," Notter said.

"You ... just keep doing the work, and the hope is that no matter what they do it'll change the world through the circles of all the people that they know. We have 700 alumni who've been through this program now, so that's the hope. And then at some point the conflict in the Middle East will change, just like everything eventually does."

See more here:
Hands of Peace participants in Glenview find free speech enables understanding of other views - Daily Herald

Lucy Flawless reads storybooks to a packed audience at the Jones public library in Toronto in 2017.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail

Gillian OReilly is a writer and editor.

Libraries across Canada have recently come under attack for offering family-friendly story hours featuring drag queens or kings reading childrens books about inclusion (a practice many had been doing for years). They have been targets of abuse from right-wing groups who falsely claim that such events encourage pedophilia.

The challenged libraries have refused to cancel any events. The chief executive officer of the Orillia Public Library, Bessie Sullivan, told the CBC last month that the callers who threatened to get her fired pissed me off, and that as the situation escalated, the library doubled down adding a second story time.

Backlash toward public-library events is not new. In 2019, the Toronto Public Library came under attack for renting a room to Radical Feminists Unite, a group self-described as explicitly anti-capitalist and anti-racist, because RFUs panel discussion included Meghan Murphy who is controversial for opposing transgender rights that she claims undermine womens rights.

The city librarian of the Toronto Public Library, Vickery Bowles, steadfastly maintained the librarys position in the face of people who wanted her fired. She told the CBC that the most important time to stand up for free speech is when one is in a very uncomfortable position where youre defending perspectives and ideas and viewpoints that many in the community, or a few in the community, whatever, find offensive.

While different in their targets, these attacks both came from people who disliked or feared the proposed events. The protesters challenged the role of public libraries and their staff in allowing these events to occur. The events ultimately took place anyway because of the libraries commitment to the principle of freedom of expression. (One of these protests included a tweet that libraries should represent the will of the majority. It is slightly creepy that it would be hard to guess which protest.)

Thinking about freedom of expression, especially in public libraries, is uncomfortable. It always has been. Libraries have worked hard to develop policies that allow the maximum freedom of expression within the bounds of Canadian law (hate speech as defined by the Criminal Code is not allowed) to allow their patrons access to the broadest possible range of materials and the freest possible discussion of ideas. And that commitment can make many of us uneasy, myself included.

In the late 1980s, as part of my job, I represented booksellers on the Freedom of Expression Committee of the industry-wide Book and Periodical Council. The FOE Committee maintains: As writers, editors, publishers, book manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and librarians, we abhor arbitrary interpretations of the law and other attempts to limit freedom of expression. Censorship does not protect society; it smothers creativity and precludes open debate of controversial issues.

As it continues to do today, that committee spoke out for the rights of those whom others wanted to silence: schools that offered Margaret Laurences The Diviners to their students; Vancouvers Little Sister and Torontos Glad Day Bookshop, harassed constantly by Canada Customs for importing gay- and lesbian-themed books and magazines; and the distributors who handled Penthouse magazine, to name a few.

A wishy-washy moderate, I privately had a hard time with some of the materials. As a woman and feminist, I prayed that I would never have to publicly defend an issue of Penthouse held up by Customs. (Our committee did get some amusement trying to figure out which of the two centrefold pages was the single one that Customs deemed obscene the naked top half of the model wearing a parachute harness or the naked bottom half surrounded by folds of parachute material.)

Against my ambivalence stood the adamant defenders of freedom of expression our stalwart executive director Nancy Fleming, writer June Callwood and civil-rights lawyer Alan Borovoy, among others. Without it, they said, the majority could override the rights of minorities and the marginalized. Political motivations could lead to violations of human rights. Unpopular speech could be silenced by those who felt threatened by it. And I came to realize that, uncomfortable as this made me feel, they were correct.

Some Canadians may have felt it is horrific to silence Ms. Murphy, but fine to stop drag storytellers. Others may feel that drag events are delightful and Ms. Murphys views are repugnant. The hard truth is that freedom of expression in public libraries must apply to both, because otherwise, they will apply to neither.

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Opinion: Freedom of expression in public libraries must apply to all - The Globe and Mail

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) Jury selection is set for Monday in a trial that will determine for the first time how much Infowars host Alex Jones must pay Sandy Hook Elementary School parents for falsely telling his audience that the deadliest classroom shooting in U.S. history was a hoax.

The trial in Austin, Texas where the conspiracy theorist lives and broadcasts his show follows months of delays. Jones has racked up fines for ignoring court orders and he put Infowars into bankruptcy protection just before the trial was originally set to start in April.

At stake for Jones is another potentially major financial blow that could put his constellation of conspiracy peddling businesses into deeper jeopardy. He has already been banned from YouTube, Facebook and Spotify over violating hate-speech policies.

The trial involving the parents of two Sandy Hook families is only the start for Jones; damages have yet to be awarded in separate defamation cases for other families of the 2012 massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

The lawsuits do not ask jurors to award a specific dollar amount against Jones.

Courts in Texas and Connecticut have already found Jones liable for defamation for his portrayal of the Sandy Hook massacre as a hoax involving actors aimed at increasing gun control. In both states, judges have issued default judgements against Jones without trials because he failed to respond to court orders and turn over documents.

The 2012 shooting killed 20 first graders and six educators. Families of eight of the victims and an FBI agent who responded to the school are suing Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems.

Jones has since acknowledged that the shooting took place. During a deposition in April, Jones insisted he wasnt responsible for the suffering that Sandy Hook parents say they have endured because of the hoax conspiracy, including death threats and harassment by Jones followers.

No, I dont (accept) responsibility because I wasnt trying to cause pain and suffering, Jones said, according to the transcripts made public this month. He continued: They are being used and their children who cant be brought back (are) being used to destroy the First Amendment.

Jones claimed in court records last year that he had a negative net worth of $20 million, but attorneys for Sandy Hook families have painted a different financial picture.

Court records show that Jones Infowars store, which sells nutritional supplements and survival gear, made more than $165 million between 2015 and 2018. Jones has also urged listeners on his Infowars program to donate money.

___

Associated Press reporter Paul J. Weber contributed to this report.

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Alex Jones' defamation trial finally set to begin in Texas - Middletown Press

EFF joined the Association of Progressive Communications (APC) and other digital rights organizations from around the world, urging the Indian government to withdraw its new amendment to Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code (2021 IT Rules).

EFF has already expressed its concerns about IT Rules chilling effect on Internet users freedom of expression and privacy. The 2021 IT Rules compel significant social media intermediaries (those with registered users in India above a 5 million user threshold) to deploy technology measures to proactively monitor certain types of content that have previously been found in violation of the 2021 IT Rules. This includes child sexual abuse material and content that has previously been removed for violating rules. Proactive monitoring will force companies to provide automated tools which require monitoring what users post and share online, and inevitably rely on error-prone filters that undermine lawful online expression.

Online intermediaries face harsh penalties for failure to comply with the 2021 IT Rules, including a jail term of up to seven years.

The online intermediaries are also forced to comply with strict removal timeframes, e.g., they have 36 hours to remove restricted content, and 72 hours to respond to government orders and requests for datanot allowing providers enough time to assess the legality, necessity and proportionality of the request.

The latest amendments to the 2021 IT Rules include three major developments which put these human rights at risk. They add new burdensome due diligence obligations, introduce new powers for the position of Grievance Officer, and envision the establishment of a new government-led Grievance Appellate Committee.

In the new due diligence obligations, online intermediaries must ensure compliance with the IT Rules. The intermediaries are required to both inform the users of the rules and make sure the users do not host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share any of the restricted types of contents. This actively pushes the online intermediaries towards more proactive monitoring of online content, deepening the adverse impact on freedom of expression.

The 2021 IT Rules oblige the intermediaries to appoint resident Grievance Officers to respond to user complaints and government and court orders. The new amendments further expand the Grievance Officers powers: the Officers can now address issues related touser account suspension, removal or blocking, or any user complaint on some types of restricted content. The Rules set a short deadline to resolve user complaints, stripping the users who were complained about of the opportunity to obtain any meaningful redress.

Additionally, the amendments also envisage the establishment of a government-led Grievance Appellate Committee to hear appeals against the Grievance Officers decisions. The Committee would effectively have the power to overturn platform content moderation decisions, regardless of judicial assessmentwhich goes against our Manila Principlesthat advocate for content removal based on only judicial decisions.

Proactive monitoring restricts user privacy and leads to removal of legitimate speech. It also increases government involvement in content moderation, instead of direct judicial oversight.

These overbroad, restrictive, and intrusive amendments further tighten the rules for intermediary liability, which further exacerbates the disproportionate intrusion of free speech in India. Proactive monitoring restricts user privacy and leads to removal of legitimate speech. It also increases government involvement in content moderation, instead of direct judicial oversight. And it is happening in a context where companies, such as Twitter, are being depicted as having lost intermediary status for their failure to comply with the IT Rules.

EFF and partners call on the Indian government to suspend the implementation of the 2021 IT Rules, withdraw the new amendments, and hold inclusive public consultations.

To learn more about the legal trends affecting online intermediaries around the world, check out our recently published four-part series on the topic, which begins here.

The full text ofEFF's submission to the Indian government, and list of signatories, is below:

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New Amendments to Intermediary Rules threaten Free Speech in India - EFF

from the not-to-be-dogmatic... dept

Antonio Garca Martnez recently invited me on his podcast, The Pull Request. I was thrilled. Antonio is witty, charming, and intimidatingly brilliant (he was a PhD student in physics at Berkeley, and it shows). We did the episode, and we had a great time. But we never got to an important topicAntonios take on free speech and the Internet.

In April, Antonio released a piece on his Substack, Freeze peach and the Internet, in which he asserts the existence of a content moderation regime that is utterly re-defining speech in liberal societies. That regime wants, Antonio contends, to arbitrate truth and regulate online behavior for the sake of some supposed greater good. It is opposed by those who still support freedom of speech. Antonio believes that the regime and its opponents are locked in an epic battle, and that we all must pick a side.

Im not sure what to make of some of Antonios claims. Were told, for instance, that freedom of reach is freedom of speechwhich sounds like a nod to the New Lefts call, in the 1960s and 70s, to seize the means of communication. But then were told that Twitter isnt obligated to give you reach if user interest in your speech is low. So Antonio is not demanding reach equality. Its simply not the case, he says, that freedom of speech is some legal binary switched between an abstract allow/not-allow state. Maybe, then, the point is that we must think about the effects of algorithmic amplification. Who is ignoring or attacking that point, I do not know.

At any rate, a general critique of Antonios article this post is not.

In 1951 Willard Van Orman Quine, one of the great analytic philosophers of the twentieth century, wrote a short paper called Two Dogmas of Empiricism. Quine put to the torch two key assumptions made by the logical positivists, a philosophical school popular in the first half of the century. Antonio, in his piece, promotes two key assumptions commonly made by those who fear Big Tech censorship. If Mike Masnick can riff on Arrows impossibility theorem to explain why content moderation is so difficult, I figure I can riff on Quines dogmas paper to explore two ways in which the fears of online censorship by private platforms are overblown. As were about to see, in fact, Quines work can teach us something valuable about content moderation.

Antonios first dogma is the belief that either youre for free speech, or youre notyoure for the censors and the would-be arbiters of truth. His second is the belief that Twitter is the public square, and that the state of the restrictions there is the proper gauge of the state of free speech in our nation as a whole. With apologies to H.L. Mencken, these dogmas are clear, simple, and wrong.

Dogma #1: Free Speech: With Us or Against Us

AGM insists that the debate about content moderation boils down to a single overriding divide. The real issue, he saysthe issue the consensus pro-censorship crowd will never directly addressis this:

Do you think freedom of speech includes the right to say and believe obnoxious stupid shit thats almost certainly false, or do you feel platforms have the responsibility to arbitrate truth and regulate online behavior for the sake of some supposed greater good?

Thats it. If you think that dumb and even offensive speech is protected speech, youre on the Elon [Musk] side of this debate. Otherwise, you think that platforms should be putting their fingers on the scales, and youre therefore on the anti-Elon side. As if to add an exclamation point, Antonio declares: Some countries have real free speech, and some countries have monarchs on their coins. (Ive seen it said, in a similar vein, that all anyone really cares about is political censorship, and that thats the key issue the consensus pro-censorship crowd wont grapple with.)

Antonio presents a nice, neat dividing line. Theres the stuff no one likesAntonio points to dick pics, beheading videos, child sexual abuse material, and hate speech that incites violenceand then theres peoples opinions. All the talk of content moderation is just obfuscationan elaborate effort to hide this clear line. Quibbling over the precise content policy in the pro-content moderation view, Antonio warns, is just haggling over implementation details, and essentially ceding the field to that side of the debate.

The logical positivists, too, wanted some nice, neat lines. Bear with me.

Like most philosophers, the LPs wanted to know what we can know. One reason arguments often go in circles, or bog down in confusion, is that humans make a lot of statements that arent so much wrong as simply meaningless. Many sentences dont connect to anything in the real world over which a productive argument can be had. (Extreme example: the Absolute enters into, but is itself incapable of, evolution and progress.) The LPs wanted to separate the wheat (statements of knowledge) from the chaff (metaphysical gobbledygook, empty emotive utterances, tribal call signs, etc.). To that end, they came up with something called the verification principle.

In 1936 a brash young thinker named A.J. Ayerthe AGM of early twentieth century philosophypublished a crisp and majestic but (as Ayer himself later admitted) often mistaken book, Language, Truth & Logic, in which he set forth the verification principle in its most succinct form. Can observation of the world convince us of the likely truth or falsity of a statement? If so, the statement can be verified. And a sentence, Ayer argued, says nothing unless it is empirically verifiable. Thats it.

Problem: mathematics and formal logic seem to reveal usefulindeed, surprisingthings about the world, but without adhering to the verification principle. In the LPs view, though, this was just a wrinkle. They postulated a distinction between good, juicy synthetic statements that can be verified, and drab old analytic statements that, according to (young) Ayer, are just games we play with definitions. (A being whose intellect was infinitely powerful would take no interest in logic and mathematics. For he would be able to see at a glance everything that his definitions implied[.])

So the LPs had two dogmas: that a sentence either does or does not refer to immediate experience, and that a sentence can be analytic or synthetic. But as Quine explained in his paper, these pat categories are rubbish. He addressed the latter dogma first, raising a number of problems with it that arent worth getting into here. (For one thing, definitions are set by human convention; their correct use is open to empirical debate.) He then took aim at the verification principleor, as he put it, the dogma of reductionismitself.

The logical positivists went wrong, Quine observed, in supposing that each statement, taken in isolation from its fellows, can admit of confirmation or infirmation. Its misleading to speak of the empirical content of an individual statement, he explained, because statements face the tribunal of sense experience not individually but only as a corporate body. There arent two piles of statementsthose that can be verified and those that cant. Rather, the totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even pure mathematics and logic, is a continuous man-made fabric. As we learn new things, truth values have to be redistributed over some of our statements. Re-evaluation of some statements entails re-evaluation of others. Our knowledge is not a barrel of apples that we go through, apple-by-apple, keeping the ripe ones and tossing the rotten. It is, in the words of philosopher Simon Blackburn, a jelly of belief, the whole of which quiver[s] in reaction to recalcitrant or surprising experience.

See how this ties into content moderation? Steve Bannon was booted from Twitter because he said: Id put [Anthony Faucis and Christopher Wrays] heads on pikes. Right. Id put them at the two corners of the White House. As a warning to federal bureaucrats: Either get with the program or youre gone. Is this just an outlandish opinionsome obnoxious stupid shit thats almost certainly falseor is it an incitement to violence? Why is this statement different from, say, Id put Gentles and Funshines heads on pikes . . . as a warning to the other Care Bears?

When Donald Trump told the January 6 rioters, We love you. Youre very special, was that political speech? Or was it sedition? As with heads on pikes, the statement itself wont answer that question for you. The same problem arises when Senate candidate Eric Greitens invites you to go RINO hunting, or when a rightwing pundit announces that the Consitution is null and void. And who says we must look at each piece of content in isolation? Say the Oath Keepers are prevalent on your platform. Theyre not planning an insurrection right now; theyre just riling each other up and getting their message out and recruiting. Is this just (dumb) political speech? Or is it more like a slowly developing beheading video? (If a platform says, Dont care where you go, guys, but you cant stay here, is it time to put monarchs on our coins?)

Similar issues arise with harassment. Doxxing, deadnaming, coordinated pile-ons, racist code words, Pepe memesall present line-drawing issues that cant be resolved with appeals to a simple divide between bad opinions and bad behavior. In each instance, we have no choice but to quibbl[e] over the precise content policy. Disagreement will reign, moreover, because each of us will enter the debate with a distinct set of political, cultural, contextual, and experiential priors. To some people, Jordan Peterson deadnaming Elliot Page is obviously harassment. To others (including, I confess, myself), his doing so pretty clearly falls within the rough-and-tumble of public debate. But that disagreement is not, at bottom, about that individual piece of content; its about the entire panoply of clashing priors.

Its great that we have acerbic polemicists like Antonio. Im glad that hes out there pushing his conception of freedom and decrying safety-ism. (Hes on his strongest footing, I suppose, when he complains about the labeling, fact-checking, and blocking of Covid claims.) I hope that he and his swashbuckling ilk never stop defending our American birthright of constant and cantankerous rebellion against the status quo. But its just not true that theres a free speech crowd and a pro-censorship crowd and nothing in between. Content moderation is complicated and difficult, and peoples views about it sit on a continuum.

Dogma #2: The Public Square, Website-by-Website

Antonios other dogma is the viewheld by manythat Twitter is in some meaningful sense the public square. Antonio has some pointed criticisms for those who believe that Twitter isnt the public forum, and as such shouldnt be treated with the sacrosanct respect we typically imbue anything First Amendment-related.

As the second part of that sentence suggests, AGM gets to his destination by an idiosyncratic route. He seems to think that, in other peoples minds, the public square is where solemn and civilized discussion of public issues occurs. But as Antonio points out, theres never been such a place. Were Americans; weve always hashed things out by shouting at each other. Today, one of the places where we shout at each other is on Twitter. Ergo, in Antonios mind, Twitter is the public square.

I dont get it. Everyone invoking some fusty idea of debate or even a healthy marketplace of ideas, Antonio writes, is citing bygone utopias that never were, and never will be. Who is this everyone? Anyway, just because theres a place where debate occurs does not mean that that place is the public square. In 2019 Antonio was saying that we should break up Facebook because it has a stranglehold on attention. So why isnt it the public square? Perhaps its both Twitter and Facebook? But then what about Substackwhere AGM published his piece? What about the many podcast platforms that carry his conversations? What about Rumble and TikTok? Heck, what about Techdirt? The public squareif we really must go about trying to precisely define such a thingis not Twitter but the Internet.

Antonio appeals to the conditions our democracy was born in. The vicious, ribald, scabrous, offensive, and often violent tumult of the Founders era, he notes, makes modern Twitter look like a Mormon picnic by comparison. This begs the question. Look at what Americans are saying on the Internet as a whole; its as vicious, ribald, scabrous, offensive, and violent as you please. If what matters is that our discourse resemble that of the founding era, we can rest easy. Ben Franklins brother used his publication, The New-England Courant, to rail against smallpox inoculation; modern anti-vaxxers use Gab to similar effect. James Callender used newspapers and pamphlets to viciously (but often accurately) attack Adams, Hamilton, and Jefferson; Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald use newsletters and podcasts to viciously (but at times accurately) attack Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. In his Porcupines Gazette, William Cobbett cried, Professions of impartiality I shall make none; the website American Greatness boasts about being called a hotbed of far-right Trumpist nationalism. Plus a change . . .

Antonio says that we need unfettered debate in a public square that we shar[e] with our despised political enemies. Surveying the Internet, Id say we have exactly that.

Now, I dont deny that theres a swarm of activists, researchers, academics, columnists, politicians, and government officialsnot to mention the tech companies themselvesthat make up what journalist Joe Bernstein calls Big Disinfo. Not surprisingly, the old gatekeepers of information, along with those who once benefited from greater information gatekeeping, are upset that social media allows information to bypass gates. That the most prestigious liberal institutions of the pre-digital age are the most invested in fighting disinformation, Bernstein submits, reveals a lot about what they stand to lose, or hope to regain. Indeed.

But so what? Theres a certain irony here. The people most convinced that our elite institutions are inept and crumbling are also the ones most concerned that those institutions will take over the Internet, throttle speech, and (toughest of all) reshape opinionall, presumably, without violating the First Amendment. Are the forces of Big Disinfo really that competent? Please.

Antonio and I are both fans of Martin Gurri, whose 2014 book The Revolt of the Public is basically a long meditation on why Antonios content-moderation regime cant succeed. A curious thing happens to sources of information under conditions of scarcity, Gurri proposes. They become authoritative. Thanks to the Internet, however, we are living through an unprecedented information explosion. When theres information abundance, no claim is authoritative. Many claims must compete with each other. All claims (but especially elite claims) are questioned, challenged, and ridiculed. (In this telling, our current tumult is more vicious, ribald, etc., than that of the founding era.) Unable to shut down competing claims, elites cant speak with authority. Unable to speak with authority, they cant shut down competing claims.

Short of an asteroid strike, World War III, the rise of a thoroughgoing despotism, or some kind of Butlerian jihad, the flow of information cant be stopped.

Filed Under: antonio garcia martinez, content moderation, free reach, free speech, public square

Originally posted here:
Two Dogmas Of The Free Speech Panic - Techdirt

A jury just awarded a flight attendant $5.3 million in a controversial case involving free speech rights.

Charlene Carter had been a Southwest Airlines flight attendant for more than 20 years when she was fired in March 2017 for violating the companys policies on social media use. Carter disagreed with the pro-choice stance of her union, the Transportation Workers Union of America Local 556, when associated flight attendants attended a pro-choice march in Washington. Carter didnt like the fact that her union dues were being used to support her colleagues' attendance, and she voiced her complaints to the union president via social media.

"This is what you supported during your paid leave with others at the Womens March in D.C.," she wrote in one Facebook message to Stone, according to the Dallas Morning News. "You truly are despicable in so many ways."

Stone reported Carter to Southwest Airlines, and they terminated her employment. Southwest said her Facebook posts were "highly offensive" and that her private messages were harassing. Carter obviously believed she had a right to speak her mind without facing unemployment. Carter filed suit and has been battling Southwest Airlines and the union in court for the past five years. She had actually left the union in 2013, but she was still required by the airline to pay union dues.

A federal jury in Texas sided with Carter, believing that she was unlawfully discriminated against for her sincerely held religious beliefs. The jury found that the union did not fairly represent her and retaliated against her for expressing her views. Although both the union and Southwest will likely appeal, if Carter prevails, she will be awarded $4.15 million from Southwest Airlines and $1.15 million from the union.

"Today is a victory for freedom of speech and religious beliefs. Flight attendants should have a voice and nobody should be able to retaliate against a flight attendant for engaging in protected speech against her union," Carter said in a statement. "I am so humbled and thankful for todays decision and for everyone whos supported me these past five years, including the National Right to Work Foundation."

Carters case is unique in that it combines multiple hot-button issues: union representation and political advocacy versus personal beliefs, and the precarious line between free speech and company policies.

Still, Im actually surprised a jury found in Carters favor given company policies on harassment. While Carter certainly had the right to express her disappointment in what her union dues represented, its hard to believe the right to harass an employer publicly or privately would fall into that category. That said, its also difficult to make the case that Southwest had a right to fire Carter over her beliefs on abortion, which were rooted in religion, even if she expressed them in a vivid way.

While this may be a boon for free speech rights overall, a far more pro-life stance might have been to advocate for pro-life marches too, or to petition her employer to release her from union due obligations, since she vehemently disagreed with them. To be fair, perhaps Carter did those things too.

Regardless, this is a win for freedom.

Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She is an opinion columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

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Southwest Airlines and union defeated in win for free speech - Washington Examiner