We have a global war on free speech as the battlefield of ideas is where freedom and authoritarianism will be fought.
September 2, 2024
By: Bobby Casey, Managing Director GWP
Both physical and moral wars are promoted by governments because they and their cronies get immediate benefits from it financially or politically.
What happens, though, when people call that out? When people question the narratives and the prescribed path forward? What happens when people merely speak about it and share information they’ve found or when they simply disagree?
We certainly know what happens in Third World countries and known oppressive nations. In fact, people tend to associate suppression of speech and ideas with authoritarian regimes.
Around the world we are seeing a new civil war break out in developed or developing nations between governments and the people, and this might be the most consequential of all the conflicts in the world: The War on Free Speech.
What does the War on Free Speech look like in the UK?
In the UK, the war on free speech is coming to people’s homes, arresting them, and either fining or sentencing them to time in jail. This has been happening for a while now under the “Communications Act”.
First we have Mark Meechan, also known as Count Dankula on YouTube, who was arrested for teaching his girlfriend’s pug to do the Bellamy salute and sharing it on his channel. He was found guilty, but avoided jail time. He was, however, fined 800 pounds.
Second, we have Darren Brady, who, in 2018 was arrested for posting an image of the latest LGBTQ flag in the form of a swastika. Given his veteran status and the tremendous backlash, as the arrest itself was posted on Facebook, he was released without further questioning after spending a few hours in a cell.
“I am concerned about both the proportionality and necessity of the police’s response to this incident,” she said. “When incidents on social media receive . . . two visits from police officers but burglaries and non-domestic break-ins don’t always get a police response, something is wrong.
This third one is even more ominous: UK authorities have arrested a 55-year-old woman in connection with a social media post deemed to contain “inaccurate information” and allegedly intended to “stir up racial hatred.”
This article doesn’t say who she is or what she posted or how it was wrong. It says the age and sex of the offender. The only comment made public is from the police:
“This is in relation to a post which has been fueled by malicious and inaccurate communications online,” a police spokesperson said. The spokesperson emphasized the seriousness of the charges, noting that the arrest serves as “a stark reminder of the dangers of posting information on social media platforms without checking the accuracy.”
The terms of the war on free speech is ill-defined, as you have a state coming for its citizens for sharing their ideas and feelings on a particular subject, and they don’t know when they’ve crossed the line. So much like how the IRS in the US treats taxes, the citizens are meant to guess correctly or face the consequences:
Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson stated, “We do have dedicated police officers who are scouring social media, their job is to look for this material, and then follow up with identification, arrests, and so forth,” adding that although people may not think they are doing anything wrong, “they are and the consequences will be visited upon them.”
Mark Zuckerberg is speaking out on how the three-lettered agencies came for him
While this isn’t the same barn-burner as the Twitter Files, it’s still something.
- Biden administration allegedly asked to censor COVID-19 satire
- Meta demoted Biden family article over Russian disinformation fears
It’s not inaccurate to call government interference with a free and fair election by suppressing feeds and censoring information “rigging”. Rigging isn’t just tampering with the machines or counting mail-in ballots from dead people. It’s about tipping the scales, which clearly happened in the last election.
Mark Zuckerberg is demonstrating some contrition over this:
“We sent that story to fact-checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while waiting for a reply,” Zuckerberg said. “It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story.”
Meta has updated its policies and procedures, including no longer temporarily demoting posts in the U.S. while waiting for fact-checkers, he added.
The war on free speech recruited Meta, and captured him for a few years. Zuckerberg might just be realizing that it’s not prudent to continue that practice with such a stark contrast in Elon Musk’s approach to X, but nonetheless, he’s shared that the government used him as an instrument to quell free speech.
France comes for Pavel Durov for not responding to government requests for information
Pavel Durov, the CEO and cofounder of Telegram was arrested upon his arrival in France August 24,2024. There are currently twelve charges against him. Unlike Mark Zuckerberg, Durov is not so quick to cede information to government officials. Telegram has some features that are end-to-end encrypted to where he cannot access the information at all.
The overarching accusation and issue is the level of privacy the platform offers. Here, again, is the war on free speech. If I can’t trust the privacy of a platform or a feature of it, and I need to presume anything I say can be used against me in a court of law anywhere at any time, the trust in technology will dissolve.
You’ll have people meeting in person, using cash, and eventually you’ll have a technology where a message pops for a minute and is permanently deleted after 30 seconds with no record of it. Scaring everyone out of a space to pursue a government agenda is reckless, just like all the abstract wars. The Machiavellian approach is what makes government intervention and prohibition so difficult to defend.
Much like they did with Ross Ulbricht, you’ll start to see the worst elements who used his platform, and how he’s accountable for them. Holding platforms accountable for how others use them is still no different than holding car manufacturers accountable for drunk drivers.
The government is shaking down platforms to get to the real criminals, but criminalizing the platforms in the process. That’s not how any of this is meant to work. I get that it makes policing harder. But criminals were apprehended before social and tech platforms, too.
Social platforms are not government slaves. Nor should they be. They are private property. As such, if you want something you can submit a warrant and see what you can get. I know this is France so the rights of the accused are not as well-defined, perhaps.
Twitter/X leaves Brazil indefinitely to avoid prosecution
Europe’s Digital Commissioner Thierry Breton warned Elon Musk in an open letter saying: “any negative effect of illegal content” could lead the EU to take further action against X, using “our full toolbox, including by adopting interim measures.
He said this ahead of Musk’s interview with Donald Trump. But no doubt the threat stands even after that interview.
While that threat swirls in the EU, another more pressing and immanent threat exists in Brazil:
The country has ramped up efforts to fight misinformation online as an ongoing fued between Musk and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes drags on for months.
Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter, was blocked in Brazil early Saturday after the social media platform missed a high court deadline to appoint a legal representative in the country.
The platform won’t block users that the government officials want silenced, nor will they send a lamb to the slaughter. De Moraes doesn’t just want to talk. X claimed:
“When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts.”
So in the mean time, not only is X shut down, but:
- The justice said the platform will stay suspended until it complies with his orders, and also set a daily fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) for people or companies using VPNs to access it.
- The dispute also led to the freezing this week of the bank accounts in Brazil of Musk’s satellite internet provider Starlink.
The war on free speech lies in wait for any X representative to turn up in Brazil. It came for WhatsApp a few years ago as well. All to silence political opponents and dissidents.
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