End of Free Speech Online? Read this. https://www.globalresearch.ca/end-free-speech-online/5774673?pdf=5774673
Perhaps this could drive the multitude to the SAFE network.
Not being funny but it won’t be driving people to something that is not up and running, this feels like the last chance saloon.
As I read through this I note it targets mostly centralized corporate platforms and doesn’t say much about decentralized open source federated platforms like Diaspora, Friendica, Peertube or Mastadon. How can you fine a platform of a percentage of it’s revenue when it has no anual revenue income? How can you jail it’s corporate CEO when it has no corporate CEO? Even if you shut down a particular server the network goes on.
But yes I think SAFE will reinforce this decentralized model and the whole concept of free speech. Right now governments are using the prolification of centralized tech giants as a tool to censor the populace but once there is a viable decentralized anonymous and encrypted alternative I expect the population will start a great migration.
What’s interesting about this is the US is complaining about the censorship being way too heavy handed. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have contemplated crafting rules severely curtailing the Big Tech firm’s ability to censor. There’s some concern about how that would play with the Supreme Court over here, though, since government would be interfering with private business.
I know people always say the US isn’t the freest country in the world like we claim to be, and maybe that’s true overall, but we certainly value free speech more than any other country.
Well as long as its the right people speaking freely, of course.
We can’t have Russians, Syrians or Palestinians speaking freely, that wouldn’t do at all. THen we’d have North Koreans, Cubans and even Chinese wanting to put their point of view FFS.
But you can speak freely. Free speech doesn’t mean you are free from criticism for your opinion, just that you won’t get in trouble for saying it.
You mean unlike here?
Such touching naivity
Where is “here”?
And please show a modern example of someone getting in trouble for saying something. We have Congressman who are openly pro-Palestine. We have Congressman and whole political parties that have openly spoken out against our involvement in Libya and Syria and our treatment of Iran while being friends with the Saudis. We have Dennis Rodman who has openly spoken good things about Kim Jung Un.
Interesting that this site is hosted in the US, no? The UK has hate speech laws and definitely has open restrictions on free speech. As to your note on South Florida, as I said, there is a difference between getting in trouble for speech (government restriction/illegality) and criticism of speech (public shame, etc.). Also, plenty of people have pointed out the consolidation of media, so I’m not sure what you are talking about.
CNN Commentator Mark Lamont Hill was fired by CCN a few years ago for saying “free Palestine from the river to the sea” during a UN speech. Journalist Emily Wilder was fired by the Associated Press for a Tweet criticizing Sheldon Adelson last year. Many US states have enacted laws that equate criticism of Israel with hate speech, and people have lost their jobs for refusing to condemn the BDS movement. Look up Bahia Amawi for example.
Still not the same thing. I am talking about government suppression of speech. Private businesses can do whatever they want. If they said “Heil Hitler” and got fired, would you say that’s out of bounds for the company to fire them?
There are no hate speech laws in the US. Sorry. First, the law Bahia contested was overturned. Second, I actually disagree with that decision and don’t think it’s a violation of free speech to fire an educator for saying things the employer disagrees with. Once again, if an educator was teaching your kids that the Holocaust never happened and didn’t get fired, wouldn’t you be a little angry?
Depends on which version of “The Holocaust” you are talking about…
The “officially-approved” version of the Big Lie about 6m, mostly Jewish victims or the far more realistic version that the nazis killed around 2.5m victims, a large % of whom were Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, gypsies, handicapped or mentally ill, homosexuals, socialists, trade unionists, Serbs, French, Czech, Greeks and PoWs of all allied nations along with some Jews?
There is no case for debating whether the Holocaust happened. There is a big case for debating whether it happened according to the version that a certain powerful group demands we believe.
And ANY debate is immediately shut down on the basis that quibbling in any detail is “anti-semitic” .
Now just WHY would that be? Why would it be a Bad Thing to try to corroborate or otherwise one of the most shameful episodes in world history? Could it be that finding out what actually happened might cause a certain erosion of the guilt-trip that is visited on us all by a certain powerful group.
Dare we go against the accepted or rather prescribed group think?
In all of the recent Russophobic clamour , it may be informative to learn that the origin of the “six million” was a figure plucked out of the air by Soviet propaganda as they liberated the camps ofEastern Europe from the scourge of the nazis.
It should also be noted that the vast majority of Ukrainian and Polish victims were handed over to the Germans by the Ukrainian and Polish people themselves. The same is also true in the case of the collaborationist Baltic states. The Poles were so embarassed by this that it is now an offence in “freedom-loving” Poland to even hint that there was ANY responsibility for the victims of the camps on Polish soil. But post war Poland emerged as having the lowest % of surviving Jews of any combatant territory. Strange, eh?
Funny enough, you would get arrested for saying such things in the UK. You are free to say that in the US, even though I find it ridiculous.
That was just an example of what I mean, though. Obviously an educator shouldn’t be able to “teach” your kids absolutely anything with no repercussions or backlash. That’s insane. If they are saying stuff on their own time apart from their job, fine.
So its OK if you get “private contractors” to do the dirty work for you?
There’s a vast difference between getting arrested for speech and getting fired for speech. Sorry you can’t see that.
To act like there should be absolutely no repercussions in any part of your life because of what you say is a ridiculous position to take. An employer should have to employ people who make their company look bad? Makes no sense.
Define “look bad”
Dont you really mean “Deviating from the prescribed group think”?
And just who is doing the prescribing here?
If you want to carry the high moral ground and claim that your government is technically not doing any of this repression, then carry on dancing on the head of a pin and I hope you feel righteous doing it.
But we both know you are complicit in the Big Lie.
Should there be absolutely no repercussions for a person no matter what they say? Is that your definition of free speech? I was trying to think of something off the wall ridiculous, but given what you’ve told me, everything ridiculous is just right up your alley.
If an educator was teaching your kids the Illuminati is a bunch of lizard people that live underground controlling everything from behind the scenes and they need to wear tin foil hats to stave off the mind control, should they be allowed to “educate” your kids in that way with no repercussions? Is that someone you want educating your kids?
Private businesses shouldn’t have to employ people they think diminishes their image to the public at large. Especially if that person is doing it on company time or with the companies’ resources. To say otherwise is insane.
Now apply that to the transgender “debate” - another area where we dare not go against the prescribed group think and many folk are indeed losing their liveliiehoods for daring to state that you cant argue with biology, applied chemistry or indeed applied physics- not to mention common sense.
I’m no fan of “cancel culture”, to be sure, but businesses are welcome to do whatever they want. Turns out for the best for many of these people, as the pushback and support usually far surpasses what they lost. See the boycott of Chick-Fil-A for example, or the bakers that got sued for discrimination.
You still haven’t answered my question. Is your definition of free speech that there can be absolutely no repercussions no matter what is said? A business should not be able to distance themselves from an employee no matter what? Schools cannot reign in what teachers are teaching kids?