Free speech

On Tuesday, I reported that Congresswoman Terri Sewell, a Democrat representing Alabama's 7th District, will not hold in-person meetings at her DC office with unvaccinated individuals. "PLEASE NOTE: Proof of COVID-19 vaccinations are required for every in-person or in-office meeting with the Congresswoman or with Staff,” read the signature on an email I got ahold of from one of her staffers. You can read that story here. Of course, I gave her office the chance to comment on the piece before it went to publication. I emailed her press secretary my questions with a two-hour deadline, and the piece was not posted until three hours later. The story was picked up by Fox News shortly thereafter. I did not hear from the congresswoman's office until around 9 p.m.

A new year, a new assault on free speech in America. New York Senator Brad Hoylman claims that legislation he's introduced into the state senate targets Big Tech algorithms to keep them from promoting “controversial and harmful content.” Yet the bill seeks to “protect” public health by making almost any social media comment going against Hoylman’s beliefs illegal. Hoylman passes himself off as a defender of the public good by vowing to take on Big Tech, which he accuses of profiting by deliberately stoking controversy. He specifically mentions anti-coronavirus vaccine posts “as a false statement of fact or fraudulent medical theory that is likely to endanger the safety or health of the public.

Almost three years ago, I spoke on the phone to a man called Harry Miller. A Lincolnshire businessman, he’d just been interviewed by the police because someone had complained about things he’d written, on Twitter, about sex and gender and transgenderism. He was angry, and rightly so. After all, he’d broken no law, and even the police force involved confirmed that. Instead, he was contacted and a record was made of his conduct under rules around ‘non-crime hate incidents’ (NCHIs). These were introduced after the 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence, with the intention of giving the police a means of tracking behaviour that, while not crossing the threshold of a crime, gave a fair indication that a person’s actions were likely to escalate to full-blown crime.

The British High Court ruled on Friday that Julian Assange can be extradited from the UK to the US. The US thus won its appeal against a January UK court ruling that he could not be extradited due to concerns over his mental health. This latest twist in the endless Assange saga is just the culmination of the long and slow well-orchestrated campaign of character assassination that reached the lowest level imaginable with unverified rumors that Ecuadorians in their London embassy wanted to get rid of him because of his bad smell and dirty clothes.

The long slog towards government regulation of social media is snaking its way towards reality. The House and Senate hold hearings this week on bills enacting rules on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube. Many of these proposals revolve around Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a rather innocuous 1996 law protecting online platforms from civil liability for hosting and moderating third-party content. Section 230 includes language praising “the vibrant and competitive free market” existing for the internet and tech companies, without state or federal government rules. It’s all about to change twenty-five years later, with both major parties seeking to get their pound of ideological flesh from Big Tech.

The hounding of Kathleen Stock – who left Sussex university following a concerted campaign against her by trans rights activists – was a disgraceful indictment of freedom of speech on campus. But one remedy for preventing a repeat – the so-called 'Stock amendment' to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, now passing through the Commons – isn't the answer. Impetuous legislation is normally bad legislation; unless we think very carefully, we may end up with something ineffective or even counter-productive. At first glance, a simple ban on students piling in to demand the sacking or departure of professors on account of their politics or teaching might look good.

“Let’s go Brandon” started in the most apropos way imaginable: NASCAR driver Brandon Brown was euphorically thanking Larry’s Lemonade and other sponsors for his win at the Talladega Superspeedway when the crowd erupted into a sing-songy “F*ck Joe Biden!” chant (because, why not?). The reporter — either purposefully or by mistake, we don’t know — did what the media does best and warped reality. “You can hear the chants from the crowd — ‘Let’s go Brandon,’” the reporter said. And so launched the meme that sank a thousand bipartisanships. “Let’s go Brandon” is now commonplace code for conservatives everywhere. It’s emblazoned on T-shirts, hats, banners, and billboards, and is plastered all over the internet.

When Eton master Will Knowland was sacked last year over anti-feminist views contained in a YouTube video which he refused to take down, alumni and others rightly called out Eton’s small-mindedness and intellectual conformism. If the best-endowed schools in the land can’t stomach unorthodox opinion, what hope for UK education generally? They were, of course, entirely right. But there is a further, more serious, side to the story. This week’s widely-welcomed victory by Knowland is not the end of the matter. Eton, as it was required to do when dismissing a teacher for gross misconduct, had reported the circumstances to the professional body for teachers, the Teaching Regulation Agency.

The divide between the rich and the poor is obvious in Britain today. Whether in terms of income, geography or political outlook, the cleavage between the haves and have-nots widens conspicuously. It has become a source of much snobbery and resentment. But there is another field in which this division can be witnessed, yet all too often goes ignored: free speech. Increasingly, the freedom to express your political opinions has become the privilege of the rich, while the poor – or even those on middle incomes – now fear to say what they like. This is especially the case when it comes to talking about gender, race and Brexit.

It came as no surprise to me to see activists ‘celebrating’ Canada Day by setting fire to churches and toppling statues of Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria, while chanting, ‘No pride in genocide.’ Canada has managed to cultivate a culture that is simultaneously self-hating and self-righteous. We have no pride in being Canadian. Yet we are confident we are better than everyone else. It is true that Canada has a shameful not-so-distant history. An estimated 751 unmarked graves were recently discovered at a former residential school site in Saskatchewan. This is not an imagined or non-serious issue. But calls to cancel Canada Day seem wholly misguided and typically Canadian, as did prime minister Justin Trudeau’s response to the protests.