A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Peter James: Why is a chatbot deciding what books our children read?

Revolutionary as it may be, AI still leaves a lot to be desired. ChatGPT and its sibling large language models routinely hallucinate quotes and misreport basic facts, so why would we trust them to ban books from school libraries? That reasonable question comes from Peter James writing at The Spectator:

A school in Greater Manchester has stripped 193 books from its library because they are ‘inappropriate’, liable to upset pupils and thus a safeguarding risk. Among the dangerously destabilising material: Michelle Obama’s memoir and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Who was entrusted with identifying these literary IEDs? An over-zealous head? A prurient librarian? A demented child psychologist? Nope. A humble AI bot.

While writing my latest novel, The Hawk Is Dead, much of which is set in Buckingham Palace, I asked ChatGPT to produce a simple floor plan. Not a tough assignment – much less taxing than diagnosing nearly 200 books as existential threats to adolescent wellbeing. It got the Palace’s orientation wrong. For more than 200 years, the East Wing has faced the Mall. According to ChatGPT, it now faces north.

And yet this is the oracle now consulted on what children may or may not read. Still, there is a certain grim logic to it. If you want to keep young minds safe from dangerous ideas, why not put a system in charge that struggles to grasp reality in the first place?

Read it all.

Angel Eduardo: Jimmy Kimmel proves the White House can’t take a joke

Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel has developed a habit of offending powerful politicians. While many Americans may not like his sense of humor, his rhetoric is not “hateful” (whatever that term means) and it’s fully protected by the Constitution. So argues Angel Eduardo at UnHerd:

Déjà vu has never been less fun.

Last week, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel made a joke during his show’s opening monologue that upset people in the White House, which led to demands that ABC “take a stand” against his “hateful and violent rhetoric.”

There’s a reason this story feels familiar. Last year, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel made a joke during his show’s opening monologue that upset people in the White House, which led to demands that ABC “take action on Kimmel” for his “intentional effort to mislead the American people”.

Back then, the one leading the charge was FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. Now, it’s First Lady Melania Trump. In both cases, the reactions to Kimmel’s comments occurred in the wake of violence. Last year, it was in response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination at Utah Valley University. This week, it’s about the gunman who opened fire at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

The trouble is, Kimmel’s so-called “hateful and violent” remarks — that Melania possesses “a glow like an expectant widow” — were made during his April 23 monologue, two full days before the WHCA. In that context, it’s clear that Kimmel’s quip was a “Trump is really old” joke, and not a “Trump is going to be the subject of an assassination attempt this Saturday” joke. Arguing otherwise would require Kimmel to possess a time machine.

More importantly, however, the government has no authority to police the speech of television networks or their late-night hosts, nor can it flex its institutional power to pressure them to do so. The former is a clear violation of our First Amendment, while the latter is a sneakier manifestation of jawboning, where the government tries to do indirectly what it cannot do directly. Either way, it’s unconstitutional.

Read the rest.

Stephen Presser: The Godfather of American Law

Few Americans have ever heard of William Blackstone. That’s a real shame, because this legal scholar and intellectual giant profoundly influenced the drafting of the US Constitution. At Chronicles, Stephen Presser examines some of Blackstone’s most important contributions to American law—including the belief that restrictions on government protect individual liberty:

Sir William Blackstone is the godfather of American law. His greatest contribution is the Commentaries on the Laws of England, a four-volume, comprehensive treatise on English common law—a body of judicial decisions based on customs, statutes, and reason stretching back centuries, and, according to Blackstone, based on a divinely inspired law of nature. Written between 1765 and 1769, the Commentaries were originally delivered as lectures and intended to serve as guides for his aristocratic students at England’s Oxford University in their role as justices of the peace and presiders over the courts.

The books were an instant hit in England, but, remarkably, they had an even greater influence in the United States. The best description of the American Revolution, as far as paleoconservatives are concerned, is that it was Englishmen fighting Englishmen over the rights of Englishmen. And it was to Blackstone that American Whig lawyers turned for definitions and elaboration of the protections to person and property they claimed against King George III.

…

While Blackstone’s views were essentially conservative, he also set forth in the Commentaries a number of constitutional principles that reflect classical liberal notions of the Enlightenment. These were quite consistent with the Lockean thoughts that Jefferson would borrow for our Declaration of Independence, and those notions would shimmer through our Constitution of 1789 and the Federalist Papers. Among these ideas were the veneration of trial by jury, the preservation of the writ of habeas corpus, and the belief that government exists to secure the God-given rights and the private property of individuals. Blackstone clearly articulates the concept of government limited by law. If there was not yet a fully formed articulation of modern judicial review in the Commentaries, there was still the idea that the judiciary ought to be independent from the executive and the legislature.

Read the whole thing.

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Political commentator Mark Levin makes the case for separating free speech from harmful rhetoric that shouldn’t be protected by the Constitution. We’ll let you decide if he succeeded.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) amplifies an important free-speech victory at the Supreme Court. The decision means state governments cannot force religious nonprofits to hand over confidential donor information.

There’s something ironic, and very concerning, about a law school that doesn’t understand how the First Amendment works.

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Joe Lancaster: 62-Year-Old Protester Acquitted on All Charges for Wearing Penis Costume

There’s only one thing we can say about this first item: even strange people have the right to free expression. Joe Lancaster at Reason explains why this category includes elderly women who register their opposition to politicians by dressing up as penises:

This week, a 62-year-old Alabama woman faced a criminal trial for wearing an inflatable penis costume during a protest.

After three hours of testimony, a judge acquitted her of all charges—a welcome result for her free speech rights.

In October 2025, Jeana Renea Gamble wore the offending phallus—holding a “No Dick-Tator” sign—at a “No Kings” protest. Responding to the scene, Cpl. Andrew Babb of the Fairhope Police Department threw Gamble to the ground and arrested her for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

Prosecutors later added charges of disturbing the peace and giving a false name to law enforcement—the latter because when she was asked her name, Gamble replied “Aunt Tifa,” a play on antifa, the shorthand used by antifascist activists.

The case was flawed from the start: Babb’s body camera footage shows his tone was aggressive as soon as he arrived, and he threw her to the ground less than a minute after arriving, even though she was walking away from him at the time.

Besides, wearing an offensive costume is fully protected by the First Amendment.

Read the whole thing.

Fatima Gunning: Free Speech Ireland sounds alarm on “Digital Wallet”

Officials in Ireland are lobbying for a “digital wallet,” a convenient app individuals can use to store their ID documents electronically. They claim it will improve access to public services and help protect children from online harms. Free speech advocates are a little more skeptical of the wallet’s benefits:

A government spokesperson said the measure intends to make it so that people can have digital versions of their birth cert, driving license, European health card, and other official documents “stored safely and securely in a digital wallet on their mobile. This will make it much easier to access public services and verify identity both online and in person.”

At the launch of the initiative, Minister Chambers said the Digital Wallet is “designed so that all personal data is fully protected, and the user stays in control of what information they put in the Wallet and choose to share. Only the details needed for a service will be shared, and nothing more.”

However, FSI warned that the move poses a significant risk to privacy, emphasising that this is “a constitutionally protected right”.

“Speaking truth to power means protecting anonymity,” O’Reilly said, adding, “A free society, and a free press, are dependent on functions such as whistleblowing and anonymous sources.”

Read the rest.

Noel Yaxley: When Democrats Engaged in ‘Mortal Kombat’

At Chronicles Magazine, Noel Yaxley recounts the scandal surrounding Mortal Kombat, the legendary arcade fighting game released in the early 90s. Although players never morphed into violent criminals, as certain politicians predicted, their censorship campaign against the game launched a moral panic that continues to this day:

With a new installment in the Mortal Kombat movie series set for nationwide release in early May, now is an ideal time to revisit the franchise’s origins and the role it played in one of America’s early culture wars. What began in 1992 as an arcade fighting game quickly became a cultural flashpoint, igniting fierce debates about violence, censorship, and the influence of video games on youth. The game’s graphic fatalities and unapologetic gore sparked the first major salvo in the culture war over video game content, most notably by pitting Democrats like the late Senator Joe Lieberman against the burgeoning gaming industry in congressional hearings.

…

On Dec. 9, 1993, Democratic Senators Joe Lieberman, Herbert Kohl, and Byron Dorgan held a congressional hearing on video game violence. Lieberman’s main goal was to establish a universal ratings system meant to keep violent games out of the hands of minors. In a display of collective Boomer indignation, Lieberman et al inveighed against Mortal Kombat’s brutality.

The senator from Connecticut claimed the game taught children “to enjoy torture,” describing the action of the game in this way: “the game narrator instructs the player to finish—and I quote, ‘finish’—his opponent. The player may then choose a method of murder, ranging from ripping the heart out to pulling off the head of the opponent with spinal cord attached.” Kohl argued these games tell kids that to win you must kill, a message he said “pollutes our society.” Bill White, Sega America’s Vice President, was grilled by Dorgan about why kids weren’t protected from this “trash.” The industry was issued an ultimatum: self-regulate or face federal intervention.

Read it all.

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The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine is an invaluable tool for preserving and accessing content. If major media corporations get their way, the site will disappear.

The federal government tried to prevent Apple and Facebook from carrying apps that report the activity of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) filed suit on the platforms’ behalf—and won.

Recent survey data shows that overall tolerance for opposing political views is low among both male and female college students. But men generally display greater tolerance for their political rivals than women do for their political allies.

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

John Rosenthal: Welcome to Online Censorship 2.0

At The American Mind, John Rosenthal argues that modern censorship isn’t outright restrictions on speech, but more subtle limitations on reach—how many people see your content. We saw this during the pandemic as platforms like Facebook and Twitter throttled content deemed “misinformation,” but now the practice is being codified into hate speech regulations around the world:

Much of the ostensible “hate speech” prosecuted under German law consists not, say, of speech considered to be racist, sexist, or homophobic, but merely of personal insults. Hence, much of the speech that German sources reported to online platforms under the Digital Services Act (DSA), the E.U.’s flagship online censorship law, undoubtedly consists of such insults as well. The activities of the German organization HateAid, which enjoys the status of an officially certified “trusted flagger” of illegal content under the DSA, make this clear.

Under the DSA, European sources may flag any online content in any language posted anywhere in the world. A German organization like HateAid may not only flag German content for removal—it can also target Americans.

…

The ruling is highly significant for the application of the DSA, which requires online platforms to remove illegal speech, at least in the jurisdiction where it is illegal. (Given the complexities and costs involved in tailoring content moderation to different markets, this requirement can often result in global takedowns.) But the law also explicitly permits platforms to meet their DSA obligations not by removing content outright, but by restricting its visibility and hence reach.

This idea was popularized by Elon Musk in November 2022 when, shortly after completing his acquisition of Twitter, he announced a new policy of “freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.” But long before Musk adopted it, European Commission officials were already using the freedom-of-speech-is-not-freedom-of-reach mantra to try to reconcile the obvious censorship the DSA requires with the freedom of expression that is, after all, guaranteed by the E.U.’s own Charter of Fundamental Rights. (See Věra Jourová’s December 2021 remarks to Politico, where the E.C.’s then-vice-president for values and transparency uses the same expression.)

Read the rest.

Mark Judge: Classic ‘Rolling Stone’ and the Cowardice of Today’s Media

Rolling Stone may be a shell of its former self today, but the magazine was once enormously influential. What made it so great? Free speech. Co-founder Jann Wenner wasn’t afraid to hire journalists who would challenge authority—whether it be politicians, rock stars or even Rolling Stone’s leadership. Mark Judge explains at Chronicles:

Jann Wenner who, along with Ralph J. Gleason, co-founded Rolling Stone in 1967, may have been an egomaniac, control freak, and a bit of a jerk. But, as author Charles L. Ponce de Leon shows, Wenner was also ambitious and wise in his stewardship of the magazine. His vision and even humility allowed him to hire the best people and let them flourish, even if they disagreed with him.

This produced a magazine of surpassing excellence that was always engaging. Hiring people who were allowed to criticize its founder, willing to take on sacred cows (even if they were rock stars), and demanding high standards while taking on challenging subjects in new ways—these are all things that today’s version of the magazine has lost the courage to do.

…

Rolling Stone succeeded because Wenner had the courage to hire people with real talent—even when those people would criticize Wenner himself.

…

Then there was Greil Marcus, who was hired to be the editor of the record review section. Marcus took the job on the condition that Wenner not interfere with his decisions. Wenner agreed.

…

Marcus said he “felt debate and conflict within the section was good—that it was a version of how people actually argued about albums.” He made it clear to writers that they could be critical. “I said to people over and over again, ‘Be as mean, as tough, as angry as you want to be. If something insults your intelligence or is a betrayal of somebody’s talent, say so. Don’t hold back.’”

Read the rest.

Robert Corn-Revere: An Open Letter to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr

Former FCC Chief Counsel Robert Corn-Revere has some advice for the agency’s current chairman, Brendan Carr: stop threatening news outlets for airing coverage the FCC doesn’t like. It’s illegal, and it will not accomplish Carr’s “transparent political objectives”:

Dear Chairman Carr,

…

You have recently threatened to revoke the licenses of broadcasters who air what you call “fake news,” which apparently includes any skeptical reporting about the war in Iran—something you know you cannot do legally.

…

As you may recall, shortly after you were named to head the Federal Communications Commission, I offered you some unsolicited advice in the form of an open letter entitled “A Plea for Institutional Modesty.” I suggested you should be circumspect in your assertions of power over broadcasters because “you don’t have as much power as you may think,” and flexing your regulatory muscles would conflict with both the Communications Act and the Constitution.

But as was clear from your initial acts as chairman and statements you made while campaigning for the job, your quest for political advancement overrode any previous commitment to First Amendment values.

Gone were the days when, as a commissioner, you said things like “a newsroom’s decision about what stories to cover and how to frame them should be beyond the reach of any government official, not targeted by them,” or that “inject[ing] partisan politics into our licensing process” is “a deeply troubling transgression of free speech and the FCC’s status as an independent agency.”

…

Unlike some of the comically unqualified appointees in this Administration, you know better. You have been an FCC commissioner for nearly a decade, and once upon a time you practiced communications law. So, you know your Bizarro World social media post gets what “the law is clear” about exactly backwards.

The law is clear that the First Amendment bars the government from dictating news coverage or punishing editors or publishers for reports the president thinks are “false.” And it also is clear that broadcast licensees who operate under the public interest standard are shielded from this kind of government interference as well.

You have repeatedly referred to the Communications Act’s public interest standard as if it vests the FCC with authority to act as a super editor for the nation, but this is the very same law you used to say does not empower the Commission to be the broadcast speech police. And you never mention Section 326 of the Act, which prohibits the FCC from engaging in “censorship” or “interfer[ing] with the right of free speech.”

Read the whole thing.

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Google recently removed Doki Doki Literature Club (DDLC) from its app store. The “visual novel,” so we’re told, contains depictions of suicide and other disturbing imagery—violating Google’s terms of service. Some X users fear the game’s removal is only the first step in a broader censorship campaign.

Free speech: still the most important right we posses. Lest you’re tempted to forget, here’s a reminder from the legendary poet John Milton:

Turning Point USA reporter Savanah Hernandez says she’s afraid to do her job after being pushed to the ground by 250-pound man during a recent anti-immigration protest. Suffice it to say, having the "wrong" politics shouldn't put anybody in danger.

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Margot Cleveland: Government-Funded Censor Told State Dept. Its Testing Wouldn’t Focus On U.S. Audiences — It Then Targeted The Blaze

Three State Department-funded groups, charged with monitoring foreign disinformation campaigns, targeted a US-based conservative news outlet—after promising they wouldn’t focus on domestic media. Margot Cleveland at The Federalist outlines a lawsuit against the US government that brought the scandal to light:

Staff with the Global Engagement Center (“GEC”) told a State Department official that its testbed platform “will NOT focus on US audiences,” but then proceeded to fund a trial targeting The Blaze — a Texas-based media outlet. The Federalist uncovered this detail during discovery in its lawsuit against the State Department and the GEC, which the plaintiffs settled last week after the Defendants agreed to detailed prophylactic measures to prevent similar violations of Americans’ First Amendment rights.

The Federalist, along with The Daily Wire, sued the State Department and GEC in December of 2023, after learning that the defendants had funded the testing, development, and promotion of censorship technologies that demonetized, denigrated, and limited the reach of the media plaintiffs’ speech. The complaint alleged both a First Amendment claim and a claim that the defendants exceeded their statutory authority, which was limited to managing foreign affairs.

Discovery evidence confirmed those allegations and revealed that in the waning days of the first Trump Administration, the State Department’s GEC funded a test of three so-called “Countering Propaganda and Disinformation” technology groups, PeakMetrics, NewsGuard, and Omelas. According to a PeakMetrics’ report produced by the State Department, the three companies “collaborated to create a mockup of a joint dashboard incorporating all three companies’ capabilities.” The test ran from December 14, 2020 – January 7, 2021, with PeakMetrics stating it “performed a preliminary analysis on Omelas’ ‘Unrest and Violence in America’ narrative, which has risen exponentially this week, as expected.” PeakMetrics added that it then integrated its “technology enrichment for sources,” noting that an “[a]nalysis of this metadata can provide unique insights into networks of disinformation propagators.”

But who were these supposed “disinformation propagators?”

PeakMetrics’ report offered two examples: Sputnik News and The Blaze.

The Blaze is a Texas-based media outlet, making GEC’s targeting of that domestic media outlet well beyond its mandate to manage foreign affairs — a limitation GEC clearly understood — not to mention an abridgement of The Blaze’s First Amendment rights.

Read it all.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown: OneTaste Founder Nicole Daedone Gets 9-Year Prison Sentence

Nicole Daedone, owner of the wellness company OneTaste, is headed to prison for nearly a decade. OneTaste promoted a variety of eccentric practices, most notably “organismic meditation.” The federal government successfully prosecuted Daedone and her partner Rachel Cherwitz for sex trafficking. But as Elizabeth Nolan Brown reports, there were some seemingly serious flaws in the prosecution’s case:

The alleged victims in this case could come and go as they pleased. They were adult women. They had college degrees, outside professional opportunities, and sometimes even independent wealth. They testified in court that they remained affiliated with OneTaste—some as employees, some as volunteers, some simply as people who took classes from the company or lived in group houses that it maintained—because they believed in its mission, believed in Daedone and Cherwitz, or wanted to maintain social status within the OneTaste community.

The government’s assertions about how Daedone and Cherwitz employed “coercion” in this case are a huge affront to freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. Prosecutors suggested that the ideas Daedone and Cherwitz spread served as a form of brainwashing. These supposedly dangerous ideas include such things as being open to new sexual experiences and the notion that engaging in daily O.M.—a 15-minute, partnered, clitoral stroking session—could focus the mind and help empower practitioners, especially women. Daedone and Cherwitz appear to sincerely believe these ideas, which they saw as rooted in both Buddhism and feminism.

The government’s case was also a huge affront to the idea that women are fully agentic people capable of consent, sexual and otherwise. Prosecutors suggested that anxiety about being shunned by the OneTaste community was a harm so powerful that grown women were effectively “trafficked” by it. They argued that these women’s consent—to O.M., to participate in sexual fantasy scenes, to enter into and out of relationships, to engage in sex acts with OneTaste members or donors, or to pay for OneTaste classes—was rendered null by the force of fear of social exclusion and/or fear that stopping O.M. and other OneTaste practices would have a negative impact on their lives.

Ultimately, the case portends a dangerous new standard for what counts as forced labor and what counts as harm under federal trafficking statutes.

Read the rest.

Emma Taggert: Rayner’s workers’ rights police get power to force their way into offices

In the UK, a newly created police-like bureaucracy has been empowered to forcefully enter private property, seize evidence and even arrest suspects as it enforces labor regulations. Critics are reasonably worried the euphemistically titled “Fair Work Agency” will abuse its expansive power:

The Fair Work Agency, championed by the former deputy prime minister, began to oversee the enforcement of the Employment Rights Act on Tuesday, with the power to carry out “unannounced” inspections and use force “where reasonable and necessary”.

Documents published by the Government show that enforcement officers will be able to obtain a warrant to search a property under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, granting them powers akin to police.

Agency officials will be able to search people, seize evidence and “arrest persons suspected of labour market offences”.

The Fair Work Agency, which has been dubbed Labour’s “jobs police”, is charged with enforcing various employment rights including minimum wage, modern slavery regulations, holiday pay and sick pay.

Ministers have empowered the agency to come up with new rules and regulations to enforce, urging it to “identifying where legislative, operational or strategic changes may be required” and explore “future remit expansion”.

The agency’s sweeping new powers were greeted with alarm by business leaders.

Read the whole thing.

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The most startling statistics you’ll see this week:

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) defends a student newspaper at the University of North Carolina that was condemned by the school for posting satire—on April Fool’s Day.

The US Supreme Court has struck down Colorado’s ban on so-called “conversion therapy,” calling it viewpoint discrimination and thus illegal under the First Amendment. Good riddance.

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Greg Lukianoff & Adam Goldstein: Trump’s War on Lawyers Is a Threat to Everyone

The public intuitively understands why government speech restrictions applied to individuals, universities and private companies are dangerous. But Americans seem much less sympathetic to the First Amendment Rights of lawyers. At The Dispatch, Greg Lukianoff and Adam Goldstein argue that such a double standard puts everybody’s right to speak at risk:

Everybody understands, at least instinctively, why it matters when a president threatens the press. People also more or less understand why it matters when he menaces universities, museums, or other cultural institutions. Those are visible targets, and they read as political in an obvious way.

Attacks on law firms land differently. Part of that is because many major firms are hardly natural objects of public sympathy. Most everyday Americans won’t shed many tears for institutions associated with enormous hourly rates, corporate power, and a profession that people tend to joke about until they need a lawyer. Large white-shoe firms can also seem culturally and politically entangled in establishment Washington in ways that prompt some to assume they are just another faction in a power struggle.

But that perception is exactly why this threat is so easy to underestimate. The point is not whether one feels a spontaneous rush of affection for Big Law. The point is that when a government starts punishing lawyers for taking cases it dislikes, it is not merely lashing out at one privileged profession—it chomps down on the basic mechanism by which Americans challenge unlawful government action in the first place.

And here, the retaliatory nature of what Trump did was not especially subtle. In total, six law firms were the targets of presidential orders or memoranda; 20 (including two also targeted by orders) were included in an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission probe of hiring practices. Nine firms signed agreements with the administration, promising a total of $1 billion in legal services. Of those nine that signed deals? Two, Willkie Farr and Cadwalader, weren’t targeted at all. They just saw which way the wind was blowing.

Read it all.

Päivi Räsänen: My Criminal Conviction Is a Terrible Blow to Free Speech in Europe

Finnish politician and physician Päivi Räsänen was recently convicted of hate speech by her country’s supreme court—under a law written after her supposedly hateful speech occurred. At National Review, Räsänen explains the fallout from her six-year legal battle:

Ask yourself: What have you written over the years? A blog post, a comment, a paper for school, a pamphlet for your community? Under a standard like this, any peaceful expression could become the subject of a criminal investigation.

This case has never been only about me. It has been about whether Finland — and Europe broadly — will remain places where people are free to speak, write, and live according to their conscience without fear of prosecution.

It is also not about whether you agree with my views. In a free society, disagreement is not just tolerated; it is essential to the society’s proper functioning. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to debate, to dissent, and yes, sometimes to offend. Without that freedom, democracy cannot survive.

Read the rest.

Washington Post editorial board: Ohio’s drag on free speech

Ohio’s state legislature is contemplating a bill that would further restrict drag shows. Whatever you think of men in dresses and wigs, you have to oppose this unjustified assault on free speech, argues the Washington Post editorial board:

Ohio Republicans are racing to protect the public from a sinister threat: men in wigs and sequined dresses. In reality, it’s a heavy-handed attempt to chill constitutionally protected expression.

The state House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday to criminalize drag shows that take place outside specified venues. The legislation’s sponsor, state Rep. Angela King (R), argued that the purpose of the legislation is to protect children from “premature sexualization” and “the erosion of their innocence.”

The conversations animating the Editorial Board, delivered to your inbox every Tuesday

Ohio law already prohibits the dissemination of obscene materials or performances to minors. The bill would expand those restrictions to performances outside an “adult cabaret,” such as a nightclub or sex shop, that features “performers or entertainers who exhibit a gender identity that is different from the performer’s or entertainer’s biological sex using clothing, makeup, prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts, or other physical markers.”

Violations could result in a felony charge and up to 18 months in prison.

Read the whole thing.

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Paul Sherman with a very important insight: Everybody is a ferocious defender of free speech—until that speech has consequences. At that point, our noble principles “must” yield to practical realities.

Taylor Lorenz laments Gen Z’s apathy about free speech, and offers some suggestions for effectively teaching our youngsters why the First Amendment is so important (click for video).

Nico Perrino says the UK needs to embrace free speech and abandon its affinity for censorship.

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Samantha Swenson: Professor appeals case alleging anti-white discrimination at Penn State

Former Penn State English professor Zack De Piero claims the school retaliated against him after he objected to mandatory diversity training, violating his First Amendment rights. A district court dismissed De Piero’s case in 2024, an “erroneous” decision his lawyer anticipates an appeals court will reverse. The College Fix reports:

Provost wanted ‘white faculty to “feel the pain” that George Floyd endured,’ lawsuit alleges

Oral arguments are scheduled for Thursday in Zack De Piero’s lawsuit against Pennsylvania State University, alleging the public institution subjected him to a racially hostile work environment and retaliated against him after he objected to diversity trainings.

De Piero, a former English professor at the public university’s Abington campus, filed the lawsuit in 2023. Mountain States Legal Foundation Senior Attorney James Kerwin, who is representing De Piero, told The College Fix the case is scheduled to be argued at the Third Circuit Court of Appeals this Thursday.

“We are confident the court of appeals will reverse the lower court’s erroneous decision and reinstate Professor De Piero’s lawsuit,” Kerwin said in a recent email.

A district court dismissed the professor’s case last year, ruling that De Piero did not present “sufficient evidence” to support his First Amendment claims. However, he and his attorneys appealed.

The appeal argues that the lower court erred by failing to properly recognize that Penn State’s alleged actions could constitute unlawful discrimination, retaliation, and violations of De Piero’s constitutional rights.

“Penn State created an environment rife with discrimination, and it violated the law,” Kerwin told The Fix.

Read the whole thing.

Joseph Burgo: Why Traditional Psychotherapy Is Failing Today’s Gender-Confused Teens

We tend to think of speech restrictions as threats imposed on individuals by governments, but they have much broader consequences. In medicine, for instance, ideological constraints can prevent psychotherapists from speaking plainly, and thus treating their patients appropriately. Clinical psychologist Joseph Burgo lays out the details at Reality’s Last Stand:

Thanks in large part to Dr. Anna Hutchinson speaking and writing extensively about her experience at the Tavistock’s GIDS, we know how difficult if not impossible it can be to maintain and pursue an open-minded, questioning approach to trans-identified clients within an institute devoted to gender ideology. One remedy, she notes, is for psychologists to move into private practice to escape institutional environments that discourage traditional psychotherapeutic approaches.

Such a move might offer relief from institutes captured by gender ideology, but psychotherapists can’t escape a society saturated in the same belief system. Even solo practitioners today find it challenging to practice as we might once have done because the world around us disputes our authority as experts, undermines family structures that have traditionally supported our work, and replaces long-held understandings of human nature with newly minted and unevidenced theories presented as unassailable truth.

In other words, it’s difficult to practice traditional psychotherapy in a milieu so different from the social and scientific environment which gave birth to our ideas about human psychology and the drivers of psychopathology.

Read it all.

Autumn Billings: Prairieland Verdict: Texas Man Found Guilty of Transporting Constitutionally Protected Pamphlets

At Reason, Autumn Billings outlines the inherent risk in the government using anti-terrorism statutes to suppress rioting and related crimes. While acknowledging that violence isn’t protected speech, Billings says overzealous prosecutors sometimes abuse their authority and punish people whose only crime was speaking their minds:

A federal jury in Fort Worth, Texas, convicted eight protestors on charges ranging from rioting to attempted murder after a noise demonstration turned violent outside Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Prairieland Detention Center last summer. Federal prosecutors claim the group was part of an “Antifa Cell” and provided “material support to terrorists.” First Amendment legal scholars have raised serious concerns about the chilling effect these prosecutions and convictions will have on future political dissent.

One man’s conviction emphasized just how far that chilling effect could go. Daniel Rolando Sanchez-Estrada, the husband of one of the convicted protestors, wasn’t present at the time of the July 4 demonstration. After receiving a call from his wife, Maricela Rueda, from the Johnston County Jail, in which she told him to do “whatever you need to do” and “move whatever you need to move at the house,” officers began watching Sanchez-Estrada, according to the criminal complaint filed against him.

Shortly after, officers observed Sanchez-Estrada load and move a box from his home to another residence. Sanchez-Estrada was then arrested on state traffic offenses, and officers obtained a search warrant to locate and search the box. Inside, they found “numerous Antifa materials, such as insurrection planning, anti-law enforcement, anti-government, and anti-immigration enforcement documents,” according to a November indictment. Sanchez-Estrada was subsequently charged federally with corruptly concealing a document and conspiracy to conceal documents.

Sanchez-Estrada was convicted on both counts on March 13 and now faces up to 40 years in federal prison. But despite ICE proclaiming in a post on X that the contents of Sanchez-Estrada’s box contained “literal insurrectionist propaganda,” these controversial materials fall squarely under constitutionally protected speech.

Read the rest.

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Rapper-turned-free-speech activist Afroman made headlines last week for beating defamation charges brought by Ohio sheriff’s deputies. Law enforcement executed a search warrant on his home in 2022, suspecting drug possession, drug trafficking and kidnapping.

Never charged with a crime, Afroman used footage from the raid for two music videos, which the deputies claimed contained false statements about them. The jury didn’t buy it: Afroman’s freedom of speech trumped any alleged defamation, they concluded:

Reminder: The government always promises it has your best interest at heart as it further encroaches on your liberty. As Nico Perrino notes, that’s usually not the case.

Censorship isn’t always enforced directly by government officials, but by proxies who benefit from public support. The textbook example? Academics whose research is funded by federal agencies. So says Cato Institute science policy expert Terence Kealey.

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Simon Olech: Bangor U. debate society refuses to debate conservative Reform UK, prompting backlash

UK-based Bangor University’s debating society refused to allow two conservative speakers to host a Q&A, claiming the event would constitute hate speech. The controversy has sparked calls for the school’s public funding to be eliminated. The College Fix reports:

The Debating and Political Society at Bangor University, located in Wales, recently refused to allow two prominent right-wing speakers from conducting a live Q&A session with students, stating to do so would allow “hate” on campus.

Reform UK, a successor of the Brexit party, touts immigration controls, tax cuts, and deregulation.

The proposed event included a Q&A session from Sarah Pochin, a Reform UK member of Parliament, as well as Jack Anderton, a political campaigner focused on issues including housing and immigration, as part of Anderton’s A New Dawn Tour.

However, the Bangor Debating and Political Society refused their request in mid-February.

“Bangor receives £30 million in state funding a year, much of which comes from Reform-voting taxpayers,” Zia Yusuf, the party’s home affairs spokesman, posted on X. “I am sure they won’t mind losing every penny of that state funding under a Reform government.”

Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK, posted on X: “Simple. In line with our values, if Bangor Uni does not believe in free speech, then British taxpayers should not have to fund them. Perhaps remove all government funding and no student loans for Bangor students.”

Anderton issued a response alongside MP Pochin on X, describing the irony of a debating society that refuses to debate, adding “free speech is under attack” and calling out the universities that “are really not doing their duty in protecting free speech for students and the wider public.”

Read the rest.

Andrew Gilligan: This ‘anti-Muslim hostility’ definition is truly sinister

It’s already illegal in the UK to discriminate against individuals based on their religious beliefs. As a result, Andrew Gilligan at The Spectator wants to know why Britain needs a law that carves out special protections for Muslims. Not only will the proposal strengthen divisive extremists on all sides, Gilligan argues, it will give the government another excuse to justify its already bulging restrictions on speech:

The government’s new official definition of ‘anti-Muslim hostility’ is 144 words long. But in a sign that even ministers now realize what a mess they have made, it is followed by a further tortuously pleading 1,400 words which ‘must be read together’ with it.

You will be relieved to hear, according to this ‘accompanying text,’ that the definition is no threat at all to ‘the fundamental right of every person in the UK to exercise freedom of speech,’ or to ‘academic and political discussion,’ or to ‘criticisms of religion or belief,’ or to ‘debates in the public interest.’

To which I reply: qui s’excuse, s’accuse (he who excuses himself, accuses himself). If this were not a threat to free speech, the government would not need to say so. And to which I also reply: for the state to publish a list of examples of permitted speech sets a deeply sinister precedent, and on subjects far wider than Muslims.

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Yet here is an obvious and open act of two-tier policy. Hatred and discrimination against Muslims are emphatically wrong – but are already illegal. The only purpose of an additional definition must be to create special protections for one faith which do not apply to those of other faiths or none.

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Institute for Free Speech: Broad Coalition of Free Speech Organizations and Scholars Urges Supreme Court to Hear Case of Professor Silenced by University’s Threats

An all-star lineup of free-speech advocates is urging the Supreme Court to hear the case of Richard Lowery, a University of Texas (UT) professor who was threatened with punishment for criticizing UT’s DEI policies. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Lowery’s suit because the school didn’t act on its threats.

The coalition of free speech groups says that’s precisely why the Court must settle the matter: the Fifth Circuit ruling “provides a roadmap for would-be censors to silence public employees without legal consequence”:

A compelling and ideologically diverse coalition of free speech organizations and First Amendment scholars have filed amicus (friend of the court) briefs urging the Supreme Court to hear the Institute for Free Speech case Lowery v. Mills, which challenges a ruling that leaves public employees without legal recourse when government employers silence them through threats rather than formal discipline.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, Institute for Justice, Manhattan Institute, Protect the First Foundation, Cato Institute, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, National Coalition Against Censorship, and a group of more than two dozen leading First Amendment scholars all filed or joined briefs in support of granting the Institute’s petition for the Court to take the case.

The case involves University of Texas (UT) Professor Richard Lowery, who was pressured by university officials to stop publicly criticizing UT’s administration, DEI programs, and funding decisions—or face reduced pay, loss of a lucrative research post, and other consequences. Rather than risk those outcomes, Professor Lowery self-censored. Both the trial court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit acknowledged that UT’s threats would deter “a person of ordinary firmness” from speaking, yet dismissed his First Amendment claim because the university never carried out its threats.

That ruling leaves the Fifth Circuit, which covers Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, at odds with ten other federal appeals courts. While the overwhelming majority of courts ask whether an employer’s conduct would deter a reasonable employee from speaking on matters of public concern, the Fifth Circuit, along with the Southeast’s Eleventh Circuit, require a completed adverse action—a firing, demotion, or formal reprimand—before an employee can sue. These outlier decisions mean that nearly 80 million people—about 23% of the U.S. population—live in states where public employees currently lack meaningful First Amendment protection against employer threats.

The new filings make clear that this gap in constitutional protection deeply troubles advocates across the ideological spectrum.

Read the whole thing.

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Good news out of the 9th Circuit this week: children do indeed have First Amendment rights; their youth is no excuse to silence their speech.

A lesson America’s intellectuals have learned the hard way in recent years: Censorship destroys the public’s trust in experts.

Steve McGuire highlights a concerning poll from the University of Wisconsin. If the results are any indication, dissent from the political orthodoxy on campus is still discouraged.

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Nigel Biggar: Nine Intellectual Virtues

When we consider the virtues of liberalism, our minds immediately land on concepts like tolerance and individual liberty. But there’s another that shouldn’t be ignored: humility. Dialoguing with our political opponents—rather than silencing them with force—encourages us to listen and consider that we might not be as smart as we first thought. At Quillette, Oxford ethicist Nigel Biggar says this is one of nine intellectual virtues universities ought to cultivate:

Unless we intend to mistake ourselves for gods, we will be aware of our cognitive limits and moral flaws. So, when we first encounter someone else’s speech or writing, we should do so with a sixth virtue, humility. We should face an opponent as an equal, subjecting ourselves to the common rules of evidence and reason. We may have higher professional status and we may be much celebrated, but we should not take ourselves too seriously. We should acknowledge that authorities will sometimes be wrong, especially if they are arrogant, and that amateurs will sometimes be right, especially if they are temperate, careful, patient, and charitable. It is not uncommon for truth to speak from an unlikely quarter.

Humility implies the seventh virtue of docility or teachableness. Aware of our cognitive limits and moral flaws, we should be open to the possibility that we have things to learn and that we might be mistaken in what we think we know. We should therefore always be “docile”—not in the sense of being blindly submissive, but in the original sense of being open to instruction and correction.

If we exercise the virtues of temperance, carefulness, respect, patience, charity, humility, and docility, we will also exercise an eighth virtue: that of thoughtfulness. We will allow the difference between what we have assumed and what another says to provoke the kind of reflection that allows us to think and rethink.

Finally, we should exercise the virtue of courage. To be temperate, respectful, careful, patient, charitable, humble, docile, and thoughtful also makes us vulnerable. That is because, by allowing another person to express their disagreement clearly, we may find some of our most cherished convictions are challenged, threatened, or even overturned. And bound up with those convictions may be a career’s worth of reputation, rewards, and accumulated social status. It is brave, indeed, to give another person the freedom to speak clearly.

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Katy Doniger: ACLU claims Ball State’s campus rules violate first amendment rights

Last November, Ball State University implemented two rules restricting campus protests, and apparently issued a semester-long suspension to one student accused of violating the new policies. This week, the ACLU of Indiana said, “not so fast,” filing suit against the school claiming it violated the student’s First Amendment right to free speech:

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed two federal lawsuits against Ball State University over a rule that prohibits protests and demonstrations within fifty feet of most campus buildings.

The lawsuits also call into question the use of campus rules to punish students who entered the administration building during normal business hours to leave notes for Ball State’s president. The notes were an effort for the students to express concern about Ball State’s financial ties to Israel.

Read the rest.

Sarah McLaughlin Netflix and…chilled? New UK rules target ‘harmful or offensive’ streaming content

Censorship generally follows a predictable trend: the restrictions begin narrowly, limiting access to only select varieties of “harmful” content. But inevitably, the net widens and regulators start to expand their control. Sarah McLaughlin gives a textbook example from the UK, where officials are trying to crack down on Netflix using a law designed to protect children from illegal internet content:

The United Kingdom isn’t just focused on age-gating and regulating what its citizens can see and do on the internet through its Online Safety Act. Now, officials are setting their sights on what people can stream, expanding their regulatory focus beyond local television channels and into the workings of non-UK companies like Netflix.

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This week, communications regulator Ofcom announced “enhanced” regulation for video-on-demand services with more than 500,000 UK-based users. Some of the requirements will address accessibility features such as subtitles, but there will also be a significant focus on the aired material itself: specifically “harmful or offensive material.” Platforms with user bases of this size will be subject to a forthcoming video-on-demand code modeled on rules already in place against stations like the BBC.

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The risk of fines for ambiguously defined harmful content — and fines will no doubt be a penalty for breaches of the not-yet-written code — could very well pressure streamers like Amazon Prime and Netflix to make editorial decisions not to greenlight content that might be perceived as offensive by UK regulators, including shows and projects intended for a global audience. Companies might decide it isn’t worth the risk of either fines in the UK or the production cost of creating content that will be inaccessible to its UK-based audience.

Read the whole thing.

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An appropriate analogy: speech restrictions are like poison gas—they harm everyone.

It appears our universities have a long way to go when it comes to free speech. Career consequences still keep many academics from speaking their minds, says veteran researcher Jason Locasale.

A school board trustee in Canada was recently fined $750,000 for declaring there are only two genders. This week, one of his colleagues has resigned, anticipating he could face a similarly exorbitant penalty and wouldn’t be able to pay it.

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Jack Nicastro: Anthropic CEO Refuses Pentagon Demands To Remove Safeguards on Military AI

Anthropic—maker of the latest, greatest large language model, Claude—is refusing the Pentagon’s demand to remove privacy protections from its AI. Company CEO Dario Amodei says his refusal is about protecting Constitutional rights. Jack Nicastro reports for Reason:

A battle is brewing inside the Pentagon that could determine the future of American military strategy.

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pledged to cut ties with Anthropic—one of the two AI providers authorized by the Pentagon for classified use—unless the company removed all safeguards from Claude by Friday. This comes after a January memo, in which Hegseth directed the department to only “utilize [AI] models free from usage policy constraints that may limit lawful military applications.” On Thursday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei refused Hegseth’s ultimatum.

In a statement published Thursday night, Amodei said Anthropic would not accommodate the Department of Defense’s request to remove the safeguards on its AI model because, “in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values.”

In his letter, Amodei grants that “the Department of War, not private companies, makes military decisions.” However, Amodei refused to capitulate to Hegseth’s demands, saying that “frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons,” and “mass domestic surveillance is incompatible with democratic values.”

Read it all.

Robyn Urback: According to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, offensive posts can cost you $750,000

An elected public school trustee in Canada has been ordered to pay three-quarters of a million dollars for some offensive statements he made on social media. At The Globe and Mail, Robyn Urback makes the case that the incendiary nature of his comments is really beside the point: the man’s statements were perfectly legal:

This case started back in 2017, when the B.C. government introduced resources to be used in schools that foster inclusivity based on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). In October of that year, Mr. Neufeld, who was an elected school trustee, made a Facebook post calling SOGI resources a “weapon of propaganda” and that “allowing little children to choose to change gender is nothing short of child abuse.”

Mr. Neufeld continued posting: including some unhinged claims, such as that he has been “thrown into the role of a prophet” forced to speak out as “society slouches toward Gomorrah;” offensive claims, including that “the trans agenda is eugenics” and that “snakes are everywhere;” and defensible arguments, including that “children should be gently encouraged to be comfortable with their own bodies, to accept their own biology.”

In early 2018, the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) and the Chilliwack Teachers’ Association (CTA) filed a joint complaint to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.

The tribunal assessed 30 of Mr. Neufeld’s posts and publications, and determined that the majority were in violation of Section 13 of the B.C. Human Rights Code, which prohibits discrimination in employment based on a protected identity, and that other posts violated sections 7(1)(a) and 7(1)(b), which respectively prohibit the publication of a statement that “indicates discrimination or an intention to discriminate against a person or a group or class of persons” and “is likely to expose a person or a group or class of persons to hatred or contempt.”

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It is true that Mr. Neufeld is uncouth in much of his writing. Indeed, there is a clear difference between soberly expressing concern about the unintended effects of certain SOGI materials in schools, and doing what Mr. Neufeld did, which was rant about the “insidious new teaching” being thrust on children by a “powerful lobby group” of gay and trans people. In one particularly deranged post, he suggested the government will take children and put them in homes where they are “encouraged to explore homosexuality and gender fluidity.” But being deranged is not against the law; nor is being uncouth, or offensive, or even bigoted.

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David Inserra: The Future of Online Expression and Innovation Depends on Robust Section 230 Protections

The internet just wouldn’t be the same without robust protections for online speech. At the Cato Institute, David Inserra argues that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides exactly the sort of safeguards the digital world requires:

The US has the world’s most vibrant online speech industry. This industry has arisen from the incredible innovation of new products and platforms and resulted in a drastic increase in the ability of users to create content, express themselves, and access information. The explosion in innovation and expression are the result of the US’s pro-innovation policies.

Perhaps the most important and oft-discussed policy is Section 230 of the Communications Act, as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Section 230 provides liability protection for online platforms by holding those who post content online responsible for any harms associated with online speech, rather than the platforms themselves. In the 30 years since the passage of Section 230, countless websites, tools, and platforms have emerged and prospered as a result.

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Rather than adopting censorious or economically damaging new regulations, Section 230 should remain central to the American approach to intermediary liability that has made the United States a global leader in online expression. While narrow clarifications may improve its application, lawmakers must avoid reforms that undermine its protections.

More importantly, policymakers should consider how Section 230—or a similar framework—can support and encourage AI innovation. With such protections in place, online speech enabled by new technologies can continue to sustain a free, dynamic, and prosperous society.

Read the whole thing.

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A well-deserved honor for the man who said, “Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist.”

A periodic reminder that free speech and mutual respect remain our best weapons in a highly polarized public square.

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Joseph A. Wulfsohn: CBS denies it blocked Colbert from broadcasting Talarico interview after host claimed network lawyers halted

Late-night host Stephen Colbert has alleged that CBS prohibited him from airing his viral interview with Texas state representative James Talarico. CBS pushed back on the censorship allegation, claiming it was only complying with FCC broadcast regulations. Joseph Wulfsohn reports for Fox News:

CBS is denying Stephen Colbert‘s claim that it blocked his interview with Texas Democrat James Talarico from airing.

“THE LATE SHOW was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting the interview with Rep. James Talarico,” the network told Fox News Digital in a statement Tuesday.

The statement continued, “The show was provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled. THE LATE SHOW decided to present the interview through its YouTube channel with on-air promotion on the broadcast rather than potentially providing the equal-time options.”

A representative for “The Late Show” did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

On Monday night, Colbert asserted that network lawyers had halted him from airing his Talarico sit-down.

“He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast,” Colbert told viewers.

Colbert’s interview with Talarico was shared on the show’s YouTube page, which has gotten more than 2.2 million views.

Read the rest.

Hamit Coskun: I burnt a Quran. Now I may have to flee Britain

After burning a Quran in front of the Turkish consulate in London, Hamit Coskun was attacked by a man with a knife. In response, the UK government charged Coskun for committing a “religiously aggravated public order offense.” The conviction was overturned, but the Crown Prosecution Service is appealing the acquittal. Coskun defends his incendiary conduct at The Spectator, and outlines the broader free speech consequences of his case:

My name is Hamit Coskun and last year I was convicted in a British court of religiously aggravated public order offense. My “crime”? Burning a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London. Moments later, I was attacked in full view of the street by a man. I was hospitalized. Then I was arrested and convicted in Westminster Magistrates Court.

I managed to get that conviction overturned, with the help of the Free Speech Union and the National Secular Society, but now the Crown Prosecution Service is appealing my acquittal, with the case being heard tomorrow in the High Court. Now I am in discussions with the White House about claiming asylum in America in case the decision goes against me.

Some may say that book-burning is a poor substitute for reasoned debate. I would counter that it was a symbolic, non-violent form of expression intended to draw attention to the ongoing move from the secularism of my country of birth to a regime that embraces hardline Islam.

As I told Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London, what I did constituted political protest and the law, as I understood it, was on my side. Crown Prosecution Service guidance makes clear that legitimate protest can be offensive and at times must be, if it is to be effective. In that spirit, Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects not just polite speech but speech that offends, shocks or disturbs. Political expression, above all, is meant to enjoy the strongest protection.

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Jacob Sullum: A Federal Judge Explains Why Trump Can’t Jail Legislators for Producing a Video That Offended Him

Encouraging soldiers to defy unlawful orders is constitutionally protected speech, a district judge recently declared. The ruling temporarily blocks Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from penalizing Senator Mark Kelly (D–Ariz.), a retired Navy Captain, for appearing in a now-viral video aimed at the US military. Jacob Sullum reports for Reason:

When Sen. Mark Kelly (D–Ariz.) reminded U.S. military personnel that they “can refuse illegal orders,” a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled on Thursday, his speech was “unquestionably protected” by the First Amendment. U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, granted Kelly’s request for a preliminary injunction that temporarily bars Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from pursuing penalties against the senator, a retired Navy captain, based on public comments that Hegseth deemed “prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces.”

Leon concluded that Kelly, who in November joined five other Democratic members of Congress in producing a video about the duty to disobey unlawful military orders, was likely to prevail in his claim that Hegseth had retaliated against him for his constitutionally protected speech. The video irked President Donald Trump, who said the six legislators “should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL.” Although the Justice Department has tried to deliver on that threat, a federal grand jury this week rejected a proposed indictment. Leon’s opinion explains why any such prosecution would be blatantly unconstitutional.

All of the lawmakers whom Hegseth dubbed “the Seditious Six” had served in the armed forces or intelligence agencies. But Kelly was the only one who had retired with a pension, making him potentially subject to discipline under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. On January 5, Hegseth issued a letter of censure against Kelly, saying he had “engaged in a sustained pattern of public statements that characterized lawful military operations as illegal and counseled members of the Armed Forces to refuse orders related to those operations.”

Kelly’s statements, Hegseth said, constituted “conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and conduct unbecoming an officer.” The evidence, he said, was sufficient to “reopen the determination of your retired grade,” a process that could reduce Kelly’s rank and pension. Hegseth warned Kelly that “you may subject yourself to criminal prosecution or further administrative action” if “you continue to engage in conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline.”

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Jonathan Turley doesn’t buy Colbert’s censorship accusation against his employer, CBS.

But not all free-speech advocates agree, including Nico Perrino of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). The FCC rules CBS enforced may not be new, but their application in this case is, he claims.

Greg Lukianoff ups the ante, arguing we should just abolish the FCC. If there’s no agency, there’s no squabbling over this or that specific regulation.

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Sarah McLaughlin: The Trump administration is using secretive orders to crack down on dissent

Allegations have surfaced that the federal government is abusing administrative subpoenas—which lack the typical court oversight required of traditional subpoenas—to silence critics of current immigration policies. Sarah McLaughlin makes the case against this particularly insidious method of speech restriction at MS Now:

Imagine finding out that the government is issuing secretive orders to unearth your personal information and then sending federal agents to question you — all because you sent an email criticizing the life-or-death decisions the government makes.

That sounds like something out of China, Russia or the increasingly dystopian United Kingdom, right? Well this time, it’s happening here.

The Trump administration is reportedly abusing oversight-free administrative subpoenas to chill protected speech. Recent targets include a man who sent an email criticizing efforts to deport an Afghan man on humanitarian parole seeking asylum.

While subpoenas have been used to chill speech across numerous presidencies, the way this administration is using them, and the broader repressive pattern they are part of, should disturb all Americans. As The Washington Post reported this week, a Philadelphia-area retiree wrote an email to a federal prosecutor last year asking him to “[a]pply principles of common sense and decency” to the deportation case of an Afghan man, who feared death at the hands of the Taliban. Only the retiree’s first name, Jon, is given, as he fears for his safety.

Only hours later, to Jon’s shock, he received a notice from Google that the company had received a subpoena compelling the release of identifying information, including older account activity and his physical address. The Department of Homeland Security issued an administrative subpoena, which doesn’t require the oversight of a judge or grand jury, to get Jon’s information. DHS attempted a similar stunt to target internet commenters who posted about Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Read the whole thing.

Jacob Sullum: An Immigration Judge Finds No Legal Basis To Deport a Student Arrested for an Op-Ed

The federal government can’t deport Tufts University graduate student and foreign national Rumeysa Ozturk, thanks to a recent decision by an immigration judge. Critics allege she had expressed support for the terrorist group Hamas after the outbreak of the war in Gaza. But that version of events didn't hold up in court. Jacob Sullum reports:

Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was targeted for deportation nearly a year ago because she had co-authored an anti-Israel op-ed piece that appeared in a student newspaper, can remain in the United States thanks to a recent decision by an immigration judge. In that ruling, which came to light this week after Ozturk’s lawyers mentioned it in federal court, Judge Roopal Patel, who works for the Justice Department, concluded that there was no legal basis to deport Ozturk.

The Trump administration can ask the Board of Immigration Appeals, an administrative body within the Justice Department, to review that decision. But Ozturk is safe for now. “Today, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that despite the justice system’s flaws, my case may give hope to those who have also been wronged by the U.S. government,” she said in a written statement. “Though the pain that I and thousands of other women wrongfully imprisoned by ICE have faced cannot be undone, it is heartening to know that some justice can prevail after all.”

Ozturk, a Turkish citizen, was one of several international students targeted by the speech-based deportation campaign that President Donald Trump began promising on the campaign trail and repeatedly trumpeted after taking office. She was arrested by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents outside her apartment building in Somerville, Massachusetts, on March 25. Her lawyers filed a habeas corpus petition in Massachusetts, but it was transferred to Vermont after she was sent there. She was later sent to an ICE detention center in Louisiana, where she remained until William K. Sessions, a federal judge in Vermont, ordered her release on May 9.

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Finn Andreen: The European Union Now Resembles the Soviet Union

Free-speech advocates have chastised the European Union (EU) in recent years for its increasingly totalitarian tendencies, most notably its expanding restrictions on expression. Some have even suggested that the EU’s behavior bears uncanny similarity to the Soviet Union’s. At the Mises Institute, France-based political commentator Finn Andreen spells out the parallels:

Considering the recent development of the European Union, it seems appropriate to look at a meme that has been going around for some time, namely, “EUSSR.” The implication is, of course, that the EU is starting to resemble the Soviet Union. Though this might sound like a bad joke on the face of it, there are in fact many common points between the European Union and the Soviet Union, and the EU planned direction …

In early 2025, US Vice President J.D. Vance warned Europeans of “old, entrenched interests” hiding behind ugly, Soviet-era words like “misinformation” and “disinformation.” Though this is clearly a case of the pot calling the kettle black, there is undoubtedly some truth to this, as the EU has been turning the screws ever tighter on freedom of speech (e.g., via the Digital Services Act and most recently with the probable ban of social networks for children).

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The examples above show that in many ways the EU is moving towards the Soviet model, closer to what was planned had the USSR not collapsed. This is part of a general trend across the Western world that has been on-going for several years, to increase statist technocratic control of society in all areas; public opinion (restrictions on freedom of speech), private property (CBDC for public financing of government debt and control dissent), and even physical movement (digital health pass, carbon restrictions). Ironically, this is part of the globalist plan of the Western financial oligarchy.

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The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) announces a lawsuit against the federal government for its alleged attempt to strong-arm Facebook and Apple into censoring its users.

Your periodic reminder that civilization can’t advance without freedom of speech, as Elon Musk beautifully outlines below: “Are people you don’t like allowed to say things you don’t like? If not, it’s not free.”

Fact-checking nonprofit NewsGuard is suing the Federal Trade Commission, alleging the agency is abusing its regulatory power to censor the website’s journalism. The Wall Street Journal editorial board argues they have a compelling case.

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Jacob Sullum: Don Lemon May Be a Hack, but That Does Not Make Him a Felon

Don Lemon’s antics while covering the anti-ICE protest at a Minnesota church last month may have been in poor taste. They may even qualify as trespassing under state law. But do they constitute criminal activity under federal law? Jacob Sullum at Reason argues that they don’t:

Lemon indisputably was covering the protest for his YouTube show. The indictment against him concedes as much, repeatedly mentioning his “livestreaming” and noting his interviews with congregants and Jonathan Parnell, the pastor who was leading the service. But Lemon was unabashedly sympathetic to the protesters, their cause, and their illegal tactics. Lemon’s own footage suggests he himself may have been guilty of trespassing. The indictment’s allegations nevertheless fall short of making the case that his conduct met the elements of the two federal charges he faces.

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The Washington Post, which reviewed video of the protest, reports that “the footage does not show [Lemon] participating in the chants that disrupted the service.” But toward the end of Lemon’s brief interview with Parnell, the pastor told him, “I have to take care of my church and my family, so I ask that you actually would also leave this building, unless you’re here to worship.” Lemon’s response was cagey. “I always worship,” he said. “I am a Christian.”

After that exchange, according to the Post, Lemon remained in the church for another seven minutes. Since Parnell’s request can plausibly be interpreted as a “demand” that Lemon “depart from the premises,” notwithstanding the “unless you are here to worship” proviso, Lemon arguably was trespassing at that point. But that apparent misdemeanor is not enough to establish that Lemon violated 18 USC 248 and 18 USC 241, the two federal statutes cited in the indictment.

Section 248, which authorizes a sentence up to a year for a first offense, applies to someone who, “by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates, or interferes with” a person exercising his religious freedom at a place of worship. “It does not appear that Don Lemon did any of those things directly,” notes First Amendment attorney Marc Randazza, although he was “part of a group that did.”

As evidence that Lemon violated Section 248, the indictment cites Lemon’s interview with Parnell, saying he and two other defendants—protester Jerome Richardson and Georgia Fort, a local reporter—”approached the pastor and largely surrounded him (to his front and both sides), stood in close proximity to the pastor in an attempt to oppress and intimidate him, and physically obstructed his freedom of movement while [Lemon] peppered him with questions to promote the operation’s message.”

If you watch the video of that encounter, you can see that Parnell voluntarily engaged with Lemon, expressing his understandable outrage at the people disrupting the service. Parnell may have been “largely surrounded” in the sense that three people were near him, but that would not have prevented him from simply walking away if that is what he wanted to do.

“The pastor seems to have voluntarily given that 49-second interview,” Randazza notes. “His participation in it ratified Lemon’s presence, whether he intended to or not.”

While the indictment asserts that Lemon was trying to “oppress and intimidate” Parnell, that intent is by no means apparent in the video. And although the indictment says Lemon “physically obstructed” Parnell, that characterization is not consistent with the statute’s definition of “physical obstruction,” which entails “rendering impassable ingress to or egress from” a “place of religious worship.”

Read the rest.

James Samuel: UCLA museum removes hundreds of Native American artifacts, photos at tribe’s request

UCLA’s Fowler Museum is repatriating items with Native American cultural affiliation in accordance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The 1990 law requires public institutions to return Native American human remains to their descendants. Although the act was passed with good intentions, one anthropologist fears it may lead to literal book burning. The College Fix reports:

In the case of UCLA, the Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation, a Native American tribe in San Bernardino County, requested a total of “766 lots of cultural items” for repatriation from the university’s Fowler Museum, according to the notice.

The mission of the Fowler Museum is to “[explore] global arts and cultures with an emphasis on Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Indigenous Americas—past and present,” according to its website.

The cultural items slated for return to the tribe include “groundstone,” “ceramic sherds,” “faunal bone,” and “historic materials” such as “glass, metal, ceramics,” and “leather.”

The museum also is giving “photographic negatives of petroglyphs” in Black Canyon, San Bernardino County, to the tribe.

The notice indicated that all of the items had been “identified as culturally affiliated” with the Serrano and Taatavim peoples in consultation with the Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation, and that the repatriation will occur “on or after February 6.”

A representative from the Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation declined to comment when The College Fix asked over email why items such as photo negatives were requested for repatriation. The spokesperson said “it was decided not to participate in this story.”

Meanwhile, a professor emeritus of anthropology at San José State University said that the federal repatriation law “was never meant for the repatriation of data, such as photos or negatives.”

“It won’t be long until books containing images of petroglyphs are burned. To save archaeology and the knowledge of our past, NAGPRA needs to be repealed!” Professor Elizabeth Weiss posted on X in response to the UCLA notice.

Weiss told The College Fix in a recent email that the photo negatives likely will “be destroyed.”

“If the negatives, which contain images of petroglyphs from the Black Canyon site in San Bernardino County, are ‘repatriated,’ they will be destroyed — most likely burned,” she said.

Weiss posed the hypothetical question of whether tribes would continue to request repatriations for other photographs, saying, “Will the tribe next seek out copies of the 1973 book Prehistoric Rock Art of California that contains images of these petroglyphs, and destroy those too?”

“The repatriation of these negatives may seem trivial, but it opens the door to similar repatriations – and, ultimately, to book burning,” Weiss told The Fix.

Read it all.

Boston Globe: Trump can’t be allowed to punish campus free speech

The Boston Globe editorial board revisits the case of Rümeysa Öztürk, a foreign national and Tufts University student who was arrested last March by the Department of Homeland Security. Critics allege she had expressed support for the terrorist group Hamas. The editorial board says the accusation is spurious and sets an alarming precedent for free speech on college campuses:

Tufts University PhD student Rümeysa Öztürk had her student visa revoked and was snatched off the streets of Somerville by immigration agents last March because of speech.

If there were any lingering questions about whether Öztürk committed any wrongdoing, they were put to rest by documents unsealed last week in US District Court in Boston.

Her sole offense, the documents reveal, was to commit free speech — in a country with a constitutional right to free speech enshrined in the First Amendment. It’s the latest travesty by a Trump administration that’s shown blatant disregard for the rights of Americans and non-Americans.

If, because of the experiences of Öztürk and others like her, international students fear to speak their minds and contradict the government — or simply choose not to study here at all — our campuses will be poorer for it.

As Conor Fitzpatrick, supervising senior attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told the editorial board, colleges should be a marketplace of ideas. “It’s the place where not only scientific theories but social science theories and political theories get put to the test. No idea is sacred, everything is fair game for disagreement and study,” Fitzpatrick said. “Inviting someone to attend a US university on a visa but saying you’re not allowed to express these ideas or write a paper expressing this opinion, that’s not what an American education is about.”

Read the whole thing.

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It’s nonsensical to defend academic freedom while mandating or prohibiting certain kinds of expression, argues law professor Steve Bainbridge.

Europe continues its encroachment on digital free speech. Of course, it’s for your own good…

If we can say anything about the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), we can say they are consistent defenders of free speech.

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

FIRE: The Alex Pretti shooting and the growing strain on the First Amendment

The recent anti-ICE protests in Minnesota have reignited debate about the legality of filming law enforcement. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) reminds everyone that Americans absolutely can—and arguably should—record the police to prevent and document abuses of authority:

Every federal appeals court to address the issue has recognized a First Amendment right to record government officials like police officers engaged in their duties in public spaces through filming, photographing, and audio recording, subject only to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. That is, if you are lawfully present in a public space, the police cannot interfere with your recording solely because you are recording. Rather, there must be a legitimate law enforcement need to do so, like maintaining public and/or officer safety or protecting the integrity of an investigation. Any way in which police interfere with you recording them must actually address that need and leave open reasonable alternatives for documenting the events.

For instance, under the First Amendment, an officer cannot order you to stop livestreaming the arrest of a protester in a public park, but can order you to move to a different location if you are in the way of the officer(s) making the arrest. Similarly, an officer cannot stop you from filming a traffic stop, but can stop you from doing so in the middle of a busy street. In contrast, an officer can likely order you to stop recording a conversation with a confidential informant where that could compromise an ongoing investigation and/or put a life at stake.

In addition to First Amendment protection, some states, like Colorado, Hawai’i, Illinois, and New York, independently protect the right to record public police activity in their state constitutions or statutes.

Although an officer cannot lawfully arrest you for merely recording them or failing to comply with an unjustified order to stop recording them, not all officers follow the law. You may need to weigh the personal risks of being unlawfully arrested (and, potentially, having to defend charges) against the value of continuing to record.

Read it all.

Autumn Billings: Leaked ICE Memo Claims Agents Can Enter Homes Without Judicial Warrants

Apparently, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) believes its officers can enter someone’s home without consent. Autumn Billings reports for reason, outlining why the agency’s policy is flatly unconstitutional:

Whistleblowers have shared an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) memo with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D–Conn.). The document claims that ICE officers may enter homes without consent while conducting certain immigration arrests without a judicial warrant. This sweeping power would be an alarming violation of Americans’ well-founded constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Signed by acting ICE Director Todd Lyons in May of last year, the memo states that agents may rely on a certain administrative warrant issued alongside a final order of removal to use “a necessary and reasonable” amount of force to the named individual’s residence if officers are denied entry.

The memo concedes that “historically,” these administrative warrants alone have not been used to arrest immigrants in their homes without first obtaining consent to enter. But the Office of General Counsel at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has apparently decided that such action is permissible when a Form I-205, a kind of administrative warrant of removal/deportation, is “supported by a final order of removal issued by an immigration judge…because that order establishes probable cause.”

The whistleblowers say that physical copies of the guidance weren’t circulated widely. But its contents, they report, were used to train recruits amid ICE’s push to hire 10,000 agents last year. Although written 2025 training materials clearly state “a warrant of removal/deportation does NOT alone authorize a 4th amendment search of any kind,” the whistleblowers say that instructors at the DHS Federal Law Enforcement Training Center “are directed to verbally train all new ICE agents to follow this policy while disregarding written course material instructing the opposite.”

Read the rest.

Martin Evans: Police federation boss wrongly sacked after speaking to Telegraph, court finds

Last year, two UK law enforcement officers were suspended after publicly discussing racial tensions and policing. The country’s High Court just ruled that both suspensions were unlawful, violating the officials’ freedom of expression. The Telegraph has the story:

The former head of the Metropolitan Police Federation, who was sacked after giving an interview to The Telegraph, was unlawfully treated, the High Court has ruled.

Rick Prior was suspended in October 2024 after warning that his members were increasingly nervous about challenging people from some ethnic minorities for fear of being labelled racist.

He was then sacked for comments he made in The Telegraph in which he complained about his treatment.

Richard Cooke was suspended from the West Midlands Police Federation after posting a comment online disputing suggestions that his force was “institutionally racist”.

The High Court has now ruled that the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) – the statutory association for police staff – acted unfairly in its treatment of both officers.

The court found that both suspensions were unlawful and a breach of their Article 10 right to freedom of expression.

The judge stressed that as an elected representative, Mr Prior had the right to comment on matters of public interest such as race relations, policing standards and officer confidence.

Mr Prior was suspended after he gave a television interview warning that his members were increasingly worried about using force for fear of becoming the subject of a vexatious racism complaint.

Read the whole thing.

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Michael Munger with a helpful warning about the dangers of politicizing universities.

As it turns out, community-led fact checking beats top-down censorship. Color us shocked!

Contrary to what you may have heard, Americans can exercise their First and Second Amendment rights simultaneously, says Nico Perrino.

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Elizabeth Nolan Brown: This 1996 Law Protects Free Speech Online. Does It Apply to AI Too?

The rise of AI-powered chatbots like Grok has provoked an intriguing question: do these applications have the same online free-speech protections as Americans? It’s a surprisingly difficult issue to resolve, but Elizabeth Nolan Brown takes a stab at it for Reason:

We can thank Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act for much of our freedom to communicate online. It enabled the rise of search engines, social media, and countless platforms that make our modern internet a thriving marketplace of all sorts of speech.

Its first 26 words have been vital, if controversial, for protecting online platforms from liability for users’ posts: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” If I defame someone on Facebook, I’m responsible—not Meta. If a neo-Nazi group posts threats on its website, it’s the Nazis, not the domain registrar or hosting service, who could wind up in court.

How Section 230 should apply to generative AI, however, remains a hotly debated issue.

With AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, the “information content provider” is the chatbot. It’s the speaker. So the AI—and the company behind it—would not be protected by Section 230, right?

Section 230 co-author former Rep. Chris Cox (R–Calif.) agrees. “To be entitled to immunity, a provider of an interactive computer service must not have contributed to the creation or development of the content at issue,” Cox told The Washington Post in 2023. “So when ChatGPT creates content that is later challenged as illegal, Section 230 will not be a defense.”

But even if AI apps create their own content, does that make their developers responsible for that content? Alphabet trained its AI assistant Gemini and put certain boundaries in place, but it can’t predict Gemini’s every response to individual user prompts. Could a chatbot itself count as a separate “information content provider”—its own speaker under the law?

That could leave a liability void. Granting Section 230 immunity to AI for libelous output would “completely cut off any recourse for the libeled person, against anyone,” noted law professor Eugene Volokh in the paper “Large Libel Models? Liability for AI Output,“ published in 2023 in the Journal of Free Speech Law.

Treating chatbots as independent “thinkers” is wrong too, argues University of Akron law professor Jess Miers. Chatbots “aren’t autonomous actors—they’re tightly controlled, expressive systems reflecting the intentions of their developers,” she says. “These systems don’t merely ‘remix’ third-party content; they generate speech that expresses the developers’ own editorial framing. In that sense, providers are at least partial ‘creators’ of the resulting content—placing them outside 230’s protection.”

Read the whole thing.

Charles Hymas: ‘Minority Report policing’ to catch criminals before they strike

Speaking of AI, the UK sees another potential (and thoroughly horrifying) use for the technology: targeting criminals before they strike—that’s a euphemistic way of saying “innocent people”:

Criminals could be stopped before they strike under Minority Report-style policing plans.

Police chiefs are evaluating around 100 projects in which officers are trialling the use of AI to help combat crime.

The expanded use of AI and technology by police – with the aim of putting the “eyes of the state” on criminals “at all times” – is expected to be part of police reforms by Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, in a white paper next week.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Sir Andy Marsh, the head of the College of Policing, said one of three key uses was “predictive analytics” to target criminals before they strike.

He is proposing to use the technology to identify and target the 1,000 most dangerous predatory men who pose the highest risk to women and girls in England and Wales.

“We know the data and case histories tell us that, unfortunately, it’s far from uncommon for these individuals to move from one female victim to another, and we understand all of the difficulties of bringing successful cases to bear in court,” he said.

“So what we want to do is use these predictive tools to take the battle to those individuals, so that they are the ones who are frightened because the police are coming after them and we’re going to lock them up.”

Read it all.

Andrew Left: I’m Being Prosecuted for the Opposite of Insider Trading

At the Wall Street Journal, Andrew Left summarizes the curious charges he faces in federal court. After he tweeted to his massive audience about potential stock purchases, the Justice Department charged Left with securities fraud. The case has implications for online speech that go well beyond the legal technicalities of investing, he warns:

Think about what this means in practice. During the GameStop frenzy in 2021, I shared a negative thesis and held a short position. The stock surged against me. What was I supposed to do? Never cover? Absorb infinite losses? Hold until bankruptcy because I’d expressed an opinion on Twitter?

I have since asked the Justice Department a simple question: When can I trade after tweeting? Their response: “We won’t provide you with legal advice.”

Their framework locks any speaker into any position. Stock moves your way? Can’t take profits without risking a felony. Moves against you? Can’t cut losses without risking a felony. There’s no compliant path, no form to file, no safe harbor. Only prosecutorial discretion about which speakers to target. That should worry anyone who posts opinions online.

Every day, people on X say Bitcoin is going to $100,000. Most of them own Bitcoin. Under the government’s theory, selling before it hits that target is fraud. The same logic reaches the amateur stock picker on Reddit, the crypto analyst on YouTube, the financial adviser with a newsletter. All potential defendants.

The First Amendment doesn’t specify a follower count at which its protections expire. We live in an influencer economy. Millions of Americans build audiences and share honest opinions about stocks, crypto, products, politics—while trading their own portfolios. The Justice Department’s position is that a large following strips you of rights everyone else enjoys.

That isn’t the law, and it shouldn’t be. It punishes speech for being effective. It inverts the First Amendment’s core purpose: protecting speech that persuades, speech that matters, speech people actually hear.

I’m not asking for the freedom to lie. People who fabricate research or deceive the public deserve scrutiny. I’m asking for the freedom to express honestly held beliefs—or at least for clarity about where the line is between the First Amendment and a criminal indictment.

Read the rest.

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Colin Rugg has no patience for Don Lemon’s antics: interrupting a worship service and then complaining that nobody will talk to him—as he interviews the pastor.

A perplexing video, to say the least, amplified by The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Lawful political speech, by definition, is not illegal.

All we can say is, “No, thanks, Mrs. Home Secretary.”

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Jack Nicastro: Why Insulting Brigitte Macron Online Can Mean Prison Time in France

Americans are (mostly) free to mock our elected leaders as we please. Things are rather different in France, where insulting the first lady could actually land you in jail. Jack Nicastro reports for Reason:

In the United States, poking fun at politicians online is a birthright. In France, it could land you in jail.On Monday, a French court found 10 people guilty of cyberbullying France’s first lady, Brigitte Macron. The defendants’ “crime” was falsely claiming on X that the first lady was born male and characterizing her relationship with French President Emmanuel Macron as pedophilic. (The French president met his wife when he was about 16 years old and she was a 39-year-old drama teacher at his high school.)

Defendants denied the charges against them by “saying their posts were either meant in jest or constituted legitimate debate,” reports The New York Times. Unfortunately for them, this argument rang hollow for the court, which handed out a variety of punishments. These included compulsory cyberbullying awareness training, eight suspended prison sentences, one six-month sentence to be served from home, and a six-month social media ban for five of the defendants. The defendants were also fined 600 euros (roughly $700) each and were ordered “to contribute to a total of 10,000 euros—about $12,000—in compensation” to the first lady, reports the Times.

While the thought of someone facing fines and jail time for a social media post may seem strange to Americans (although it does sometimes happen), French constitutional law is much more permissive of speech restrictions than its American counterpart.

The French Constitution holds that “any citizen may therefore speak, write and publish freely.” However, unlike the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, it immediately caveats this right by excluding “what is tantamount to the abuse of this liberty in the cases determined by Law.”

This carveout has allowed the French government to outlaw speech acts like bullying, which it defines as “the act of bullying a person through repeated comments or behavior whose purpose or effect is to degrade their quality of life, leading to an alteration in their physical or mental well-being.” Cyberbullying is defined as bullying through an electronic medium. Both are punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of 30,000 euros (nearly $35,000).

Read the rest.

Hugo C. Chiasson, Elise A. Spenner: Garber Faults Faculty Activism for Chilling Campus Debate and Free Speech

The first step is admitting you have a problem, and at least one college administrator—Harvard President Alan Garber—has acknowledged his school’s efforts to chill student speech. Even better, he’s taking steps to make things right:

Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 said the University “went wrong” by allowing professors to inject their personal views into the classroom, arguing that faculty activism had chilled free speech and debate on campus.

In rare and unusually candid remarks on a podcast released on Tuesday, Garber appeared to tie many of higher education’s oft-cited ills — namely, a dearth of tolerance and free debate — to a culture that permits, and at times encourages, professors to foreground their identity and perspectives in teaching.

“How many students would actually be willing to go toe-to-toe against a professor who’s expressed a firm view about a controversial issue?” he said.

The remarks mark Garber’s most explicit public acknowledgement that faculty practices have contributed to a breakdown in open discourse on campus — and that he is committed to backtracking toward neutrality in the classroom.

…

In response, Garber has launched a flurry of initiatives aimed at restoring what he has described as a culture of debate. Shortly after he assumed the presidency, Harvard adopted an institutional voice policy that commits the University and its top administrators to refrain from taking official positions on policy issues.

Read it all.

Washington Post editorial board: Jack Smith would have blown a hole in the First Amendment

Last month, former Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith, who prosecuted Donald Trump for his alleged role in the January 6 Capitol riot, defended his restrictive view of free speech to the House Judiciary Committee. Though sympathetic to Smith’s case, the Washington Post editorial board says his “exception” to the First Amendment would all but eliminate it:

Smith’s August 2023 Trump indictment focused on Trump’s repeated claims that the 2020 election was stolen in the run-up to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Put simply, the indictment accused Trump of lying so pervasively about the election that he committed criminal fraud.

The committee’s Republican majority, led by Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), pressed Smith on whether that theory of the case was constitutional: Wouldn’t Trump’s statements be protected by the First Amendment?

Smith replied: “Absolutely not. If they are made to target a lawful government function and they are made with knowing falsity, no, they are not. That was my point about fraud not being protected by the First Amendment.”

That’s a bold claim by the prosecutor. Political speech — including speech about elections, no matter how odious — is strongly protected by the First Amendment. It’s not unusual for politicians to take factual liberties. The main check on such misdirection is public scrutiny, not criminal prosecution.

Of course fraud is a crime. But that almost always involves dissembling for money, not political advantage. Smith’s attempt to distinguish speech that targets “a lawful government function” doesn’t work. Most political speech is aimed at influencing government functions.

Smith might think his First Amendment exception applies only to brazen and destructive falsehoods like the ones Trump told after losing the 2020 election. But once an exception is created to the First Amendment, it will inevitably be exploited by prosecutors with different priorities. Imagine what kind of oppositional speech the Trump Justice Department would claim belongs in Smith’s unprotected category.

Read the whole thing.

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Doing the Lord’s work, Pope Leo XIV slams the West for replacing free speech with an ideological substitute that punishes heterodox perspectives.

The Foundations for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) goes to bat for a a Texas A&M professor who’s been pressured to remove Plato from his intro to philosophy course.

The UK threatened to ban X. The British public was less than thrilled by their government’s proposal, as Elon Musk was happy to point out.

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Andrea Picciotti-Bayer: What the Founders Understood About Faith and Freedom

At National Review, civil rights attorney Andrea Picciotti-Bayer says the Supreme Court is starting to reverse unconstitutional restrictions on religious liberty imposed by federal courts over the last 50 years. These are encouraging developments, she notes, though the real question is: will the Court fully restore First Amendment protections for religious Americans?

Each December, my children and I hang lights on our house and set up a big Nativity scene in our front yard. Like many Americans, we feel comfortable expressing our faith in public. The Founders recognized this reality as well. They understood that freedom of religion should not just be permitted, but that it was essential to a flourishing society and provided a moral foundation for self-governance.

Yet for decades, courts have treated public expressions of faith with suspicion, even hostility, as if the Constitution demands that religion be hidden away. Thankfully, the U.S. Supreme Court has begun correcting this error, restoring an understanding of religious freedom more faithful to the First Amendment’s design.

As a civil rights lawyer focused on religious liberty, I am watching closely two cases moving through the courts that will test whether this course correction endures — whether the robust protection of religious freedom secured by the Constitution’s religion clauses will be consistently applied.

…

Beginning with the Supreme Court’s Lemon v. Kurtzman decision in 1971, courts applied a three-pronged “Lemon test” to evaluate whether government action constituted an unlawful establishment of religion. In practice, this test created a presumption of hostility toward religious expression in public settings, and it departed dramatically from our nation’s founding principles.

In 2022, the Supreme Court changed direction. In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Court threw out the Lemon test and its progeny when it vindicated a high school football coach who was fired for his brief, personal prayers on the field. The message was clear: The Constitution doesn’t require hostility toward religion. It forbids the government from establishing an official church or coercing religious observance. It doesn’t ban every religious expression from public view.

Now comes the test of whether courts will apply this principle consistently.

Read it all.

Aaron Terr: City Club of Cleveland rejects illiberal calls to disinvite speaker

The City Club of Cleveland, a legendary venue known for hosting presidents, baseball legends and civil rights leaders, recently caught flak for inviting Aaron Baer, president of the Center for Christian Virtue, to participate in a panel discussion.

Baer’s organization has been labeled a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which prompted calls for the event’s cancellation. To their credit, the City Club flatly refused to cancel or modify the planned discussion. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) reports:

In November, the City Club announced it will host a conversation with Aaron Baer, president of the Center for Christian Virtue. City Club CEO Dan Moulthrop is set to moderate the event, which includes an unscreened audience question-and-answer period.

The announcement triggered immediate calls to cancel the event from critics of CCV’s views and advocacy on LGBT issues. The City Club’s Facebook page was flooded with complaints. “We don’t support those who give hate groups platforms,” read one. “Promoting hate speech should never be the goal. Do better,” read another.

Central to the backlash is the Southern Poverty Law Center’s designation of CCV as an “anti-LGBTQ+ hate group.” The label appears to stem in part from the organization’s role in advancing an Ohio law banning medical treatments intended to assist minors with gender transition and excluding transgender girls and women from women’s K-12 and college sports.

…

Moulthrop’s response to the pushback was unequivocal:

“We’re not canceling, and we have never had any intention of canceling this. We’re gonna continue to do what we always do, and have done for 113 years, which is convene conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive and do that with the leadership of relevant organizations who are shaping our communities.”

That’s exactly the right response from an institution dedicated to free speech and civic dialogue.

Moulthrop told me the City Club’s mission “necessarily means making the platform available to diverse points of view and people with political influence — people who, if they’re not shaping policy, they have the ear of people who are.” So it made sense to book Baer for the Friday Forum, a “luncheon program devoted to significant national and regional concerns.” The event description notes that under Baer’s leadership, CCV “has emerged as one of the most influential nonprofit advocacy organizations in the state of Ohio, notching legislative victories on school choice and building coalitions with state government leaders.”

The City Club is not endorsing Baer’s views any more than it has endorsed the views of other speakers it has hosted. It is allowing attendees to engage with ideas that, for better or worse, have gained purchase in society. Notably, the executive director of the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland, who criticized the event by arguing that free speech “should never be used to legitimize rhetoric that undermines the safety, dignity, and well-being” of LGBT people, was herself a City Club speaker just two months ago.

Read the whole thing.

John Aziz: The New Information Wars

When it comes to protecting children from the darker corners of social media, the censorious cure could be worse than the disease. So argues John Aziz at Quillette. Aggressive restrictions on information access are infamously imprecise, he claims. Even worse, they tend to turn kids into passive subjects when they need to become discerning citizens:

Astonishing recent advances in generative AI mean that in a matter of seconds, with a prompt and a few clicks, anyone can generate a fabricated news story, a convincing deepfake video, or an audio recording of a politician saying something they never actually said. What once needed a coordinated effort by teams of skilled propagandists can now be achieved by a mischievous teenager with a laptop, or indeed any non-technical person with an axe to grind.

But the response to this new wave of disinformation may itself pose an iatrogenic danger. Across the democratic world, governments are racing to pre-empt the chaos of a supposedly post-truth media landscape, not only by requiring that platforms flag or remove falsehoods, but by engineering systems that filter, shape, and curate what citizens see online. Under the banner of “information integrity,” we are drifting toward a regime of censorship.

Australia offers one of the clearest illustrations of this paternalistic instinct. In November 2024, the government passed a world-first law banning all Australians under the age of sixteen from having social media accounts, which will come into effect on 10 December. The stated aim was child safety. Tech platforms were ordered to prevent under-16s from creating or running accounts, or face fines of up to fifty million Australian dollars.

…

But excluding a whole demographic from the digital public square is clumsy. Minors are being banished not only from the toxic corners of the internet, but from the primary channels through which teenagers today express themselves and participate in culture. Instead of trying to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy patterns of engagement, or to support parental supervision, the law is a blanket prohibition, criminalising all sorts of normal and healthy behaviours.

YouTube, in a submission to lawmakers, warned that the ban might backfire by forcing teens to browse logged-out, thus enabling them to evade the safety filters, parental controls, and moderation tools designed for signed-in youth accounts. The company also argued that it should be exempt from the law due to its educational content and restricted mode, and warned creators that the legislation could disrupt their audiences. Many tech-savvy teens will likely skirt the ban altogether by browsing from behind a foreign VPN.

But the deeper issue is that the Australian ban treats young people not as developing citizens capable of learning how to navigate the internet and avoid its dangers, but as passive subjects to be shielded from it. Like so many recent digital safety proposals, it reflects a growing impulse to replace discernment and parental responsibility with blanket restriction.

Read the rest.

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Senator Eric Schmitt calls out the EU, UK, Australia and other governments for trying to censor the speech of American citizens through the backdoor.

UK-based physician Calum Miller asks a question we’ve posed many times.

Ever the gentleman, Adam Carolla has a related question about Australia.

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

CBS News: Federal court blocks Michigan ban on conversion therapy on free speech grounds

A federal court has ruled that Michigan’s 2023 ban on conversion therapy for minors infringes on the free speech rights of therapists. CBS News reports:

In a 2-1 opinion, the court said the law illegally restricts speech that reflects the moral beliefs of therapists. It set aside a lower court’s ruling and granted a preliminary injunction sought by Catholic Charities of Jackson, Lenawee and Hillsdale Counties.

“The Michigan law discriminates based on viewpoint — meaning the law permits speech on a particular topic only if the speech expresses a viewpoint that the government itself approves,” Judge Raymond Kethledge wrote, joined by Judge Joan Larsen.

They noted that the law permits counseling that helps someone undergoing a gender transition.

The court’s decision comes more than two months after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a Colorado case that could resolve the issue nationwide.

Read the rest.

Damon Root: Yes, the First Amendment Applies to Non-Citizens Present in the United States

If you think the First Amendment applies only to US citizens, think again, argues Damon Root. Both history and legal precedent refute that assumption:

The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.” But one prominent conservative judge, whose name has been mentioned as a possible U.S. Supreme Court nominee by President Donald Trump, thinks that protection against government censorship may not apply to non-citizens who are present in the United States.

Is the judge right?

Writing for himself in the recent case of United States v. Escobar-Temal, Judge Amul Thapar of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit asserted that “neither history nor precedent indicates that the First Amendment definitively applies to aliens.”

Yet in Bridges v. Wilson (1945), the Supreme Court unambiguously stated that “freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country.” That case centered on an Australian immigrant and labor union activist named Harry Bridges. He faced deportation because of his alleged “affiliation” with the Communist Party. “It is clear that Congress desired to have the country rid of those aliens who embraced the political faith of force and violence,” the Court said. But “the literature published by” Bridges and “the utterances made by him,” the ruling noted, revealed only “a militant advocacy of the cause of trade-unionism” and “did not teach or advocate or advise the subversive conduct condemned by the statute.” The otherwise lawful speech of this non-citizen was thus “entitled to that [First Amendment] protection.”

Thapar’s appeal to history is also suspect. “The application of the Alien and Sedition Acts to resident foreigners,” Thapar claimed, “suggests that the founders did not understand the First Amendment to extend to aliens.”

The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 are not normally cited favorably when freedom of speech is being discussed. And with good reason. The Sedition Act notoriously made it a crime, punishable “by imprisonment not exceeding two years,” to write, print, utter, or publish “false, scandalous and malicious” statements with the intention of bringing the federal government, members of Congress, or the president, “into contempt or disrepute.” This censorial statute applied equally to citizen and non-citizen.

The Federalist administration of President John Adams promptly used the Alien and Sedition Acts to punish its political enemies, including by securing the imprisonment of several journalists. A number of American citizens were thus locked behind bars for the supposed crime of criticizing their own government.

James Madison detailed the many constitutional defects of the Alien and Sedition Acts in his “Report of 1800.” As Madison pointed out, “the power over the press exercised by the sedition act, is positively forbidden by one of the amendments to the constitution.” Madison was of course referring to the First Amendment.

Read it all.

Ryan McMaken: How Religious Freedom in America Was Founded on Privatization and Decentralization

Many people today believe that religious freedom was enshrined in the Constitution and handed down to us by the founders. But that popular understanding is wrong, argues Ryan McMaken at the Mises Institute. The campaign for religious freedom actually predates the Bill of Rights and was run at the state level to create a kind of free market for religious liberty:

Much of this myth is premised on the idea that the spread of religious freedom in America was a top-down process. In this narrative, the process was guided by non-Christian secularists like Thomas Jefferson who were especially influenced by the ideology of the French Enlightenment.

This historical narrative is wrong in nearly every way. For example, it is not at all the case that the First Amendment was central to the process of disestablishment—the process of abolishing the “official” churches who held favored positions within most state governments. Rather, this process was carried out overwhelmingly in the state legislatures—and some of this was done before the First Amendment was even written

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After all, there never was any established national Church in America at all. Consequently, there is no process of disestablishment at the federal level to describe. Rather, the First Amendment was largely the product of anti-federalists and other decentralists who wanted guarantees that the federal government would not intervene at all in state laws related to religion. This is why the First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It is only the national legislature, Congress, that is limited by this text. This established that policy related to the churches was to be exercised outside the purview of the federal government.

Read the whole thing.

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The hit series “Portlandia” poked fun at Portland, Oregon’s, sillier progressive tendencies: the city’s self-consciousness about being the “whitest big city in America,” for example. The show is proof the left once knew how to laugh at itself—an ability it appears to have lost in recent years (click for video).

Words aren’t violence, but that fact hasn’t prevented the vast majority of college students from believing they are. Reason magazine says that’s a worrisome development for the future of free speech.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) recounts the story of a Tennessee man who was arrested for posting an offensive meme in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. The charges were ultimately dropped, though the case is a stark reminder that we must constantly protect our free speech rights (click for video).

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Frederick Hess: Anti-Racist Education Was Neither

Revisiting his insightful 2020 essay “Anti-Racist Education Is Neither,” Frederick Hess reminds us that liberalism is the true cure for the DEI-fueled “racial essentialism” that has infected America’s universities. If we want people to treat each other as individuals, we must teach them to treat each other as individuals:

“Five years ago this month, Grant Addison and I published “Anti-Racist Education Is Neither.” It’s been on my mind as I reviewed Adam Szetela’s tale of identity-driven, anti-racist cosplay in That Book Is Dangerous!, and as Nick Fuentes and his fellow Groypers have drawn mainstream notice for their raw, unapologetic racism.

Half a decade on, we’ve yet to put the identity-based caricatures of 2020 behind us. At Indiana University, social work students are still taught that “colorblindness” and the “celebration of Columbus Day” are hallmarks of “covert white supremacy.” The University of Minnesota still boasts a website tagged “Whiteness Pandemic” (flagging “White families” as “one of the most powerful” forces behind “systemic racism”), supported by a fellowship funded by the National Institute on Mental Health.

The NEA still offers training to combat “white-dominated, white-identified, and white-centered” norms and insists that bargaining campaigns “must dismantle white supremacy.” Education Minnesota, the North Star State’s largest teachers union, still provides professional development on “Interrupting Whiteness.”

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This isn’t complicated. If you want people to treat each other as individuals and not caricatures, you teach them to see individuals and not caricatures. If you’d like people to value character rather than pigmentation, you teach them to value character rather than pigmentation. Each time some ranting Orwellian anti-racist rejects such truisms as unsophisticated, they drag us further into the darkness. Oh, and they embolden wannabe Nazis and other maladjusted, attention-seeking losers to rise in defense of “whiteness.” Good job, gang.

If you wanted to custom design a movement to help a motley crew of identity-fueled bigots rise to prominence on the populist right, you couldn’t have come up with a more effective foil than anti-racist education. Five years on, I feel safe predicting that the toxic, self-serving reign of the anti-racists will be remembered as one of the most self-destructive episodes in the long history of American schooling.”

Read the rest.

Daniel Nuccio: ‘Extraordinary intrusion’: Calif. professors demand halt to cybersecurity surveillance software

University of California faculty are ferociously resisting a digital security protocol that will allow school officials to remotely monitor their web history, delete files, and shutdown their devices. The College Fix outlines the latest insanity from the left coast:

An ongoing battle is being waged between University of California professors and system IT leaders over a cybersecurity surveillance software program that faculty argue is far too intrusive and “brings the risk of warrantless surveillance.”

Professors across the state are being told to install a software program called Trellix that monitors scholars’ computers for threats, but also provides potential access to UC information technology officers on what professors are up to on their devices.

An October memo from UC faculty union leaders called for a halt to the program’s rollout, arguing it enables “the distinct risk of warrantless governmental access to sensitive academic materials.”

“Once installed, Trellix EDR software grants unrestricted administrative or root-level access to faculty computers, enabling unchecked, comprehensive, and invasive monitoring, extraction, alteration, and even deletion of files without user consent or notification,” the memo states.

“This is an extraordinary intrusion into the privacy, right to freedom of expression, and intellectual security of faculty, which constitute core principles of the university’s educational and research missions.”

Chris Hoofnagle, faculty director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, told The College Fix that computer security “is often a contest between different values and risks.”

Read it all.

Noel Yaxley: Americans Should Reject the British Precedent on Free Speech

The UK set an alarming censorship precedent in 2023, empowering regulators to effectively control access to online information across the country—and sometimes abroad. Naturally, this was done under the guise of protecting children. Whatever Britain’s motivation, Noel Yaxley says Americans would be foolish to react to this approach with anything but hostility:

It would be wise for Americans to approach this legislation and anything modeling itself after it with hostility rather than mere suspicion, however. Contrary to Starmer’s suggestions to the contrary, Britain does not have a proud tradition of free speech, particularly in the realm of online speech regulation. The potent combination of the Malicious Communications Act of 1988 and the Communications Act of 2003 has resulted in an average of 30 arrests per day in the UK for online speech deemed “grossly offensive.” The OSA is a censor’s charter—and when the state attempts to legislate on matters said to give offense, the consequences often extend beyond and even work against what was originally intended (i.e., the protection of children).

The OSA is a cynical attempt by lawmakers to appease social conservatives, who have always opposed pornography for moral and religious reasons. Arguments that appeal to emotion, such as the phrase “think of the children,” often serve as Trojan horses. It has been used by generations of the meddling and well-connected to stifle free speech. Tipper Gore’s war against hip hop and Mary Whitehouse’s campaign against horror movies come to mind. Sadly, Boomers are once again being forced to acquiesce to censorship.

It’s already affecting journalism. Due to the subjective interpretation of these restrictions, legitimate political discussion has been suppressed. When British Conservative MP Katie Lam spoke in Parliament about the sexual crimes of grooming gangs, the ensuing video on X was age-gated. The recent video allegedly showing IDF soldiers sexually assaulting Palestinian prisoners may be suppressed, thereby limiting the ability to expose war crimes.

Unfortunately, when it comes to online regulation, Britain appears to have set a precedent. Nineteen U.S states have passed verification laws said to be designed to protect children from harmful content. At the federal level, the Kids Online Safety Act, introduced in Congress in 2022 with bipartisan support, seeks to impose a duty of care on tech companies to block material that may harm minors, such as online bullying. The legislation was reintroduced earlier this year.

Read the whole thing.

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In case you weren’t convinced of Britain’s insensibility on speech, a UK court just handed down a six-month suspended prison sentence to a man for posting social media comments intended “to cause distress or anxiety.”

Free speech isn’t faring any better across the English channel in Europe. German police are confiscating the computers of private citizens accused of posting “hate speech” on social media. We won’t make the obvious historical comparison this scenario calls for. But we will say the lack of self-awareness in Deutschland is tragically hilarious.

Some constructive criticism for the EU: you’re doing it wrong when the internet compares you to a Ugandan military dictator.

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Elizabeth Nolan Brown: People Like Having Too Much Content, Says Swiss Study on Information Abundance

Calls for tighter internet regulation are often motivated by the same rhetorical question: “what about the children?” Kids have access to too much information, the argument goes, which is overloading their brains and fueling mental health crises. But at Reason, Elizabeth Nolan Brown highlights a new study that complicates this pro-censorship narrative:Texas A&M’s student newspaper is actively suppressing conservative student voices on campus, according to one young man who surveyed the paper’s opinion section after his op-ed was rejected. The College Fix reports, and publishes the student’s essay:

Information abundance “is characterized by a vast, readily accessible supply of information available through various sources (e.g., apps, channels) and devices (e.g., smartphones, radios),” per the paper. Sometimes people do not perceive an abundance of information. When they do, it may spur feelings of overload—”a state in which the amount of available information exceeds human information processing capacities”—but also of appreciation, “where an individual values the availability of abundant information” and perceives it “as helpful, stimulating, or exciting.”

Schulz’s team developed something called the Information Overload and Information Appreciation Scale and used it to assess people’s responses to information abundance across digital news, entertainment, and personal communication options.

Interestingly, some people—especially younger people—reported high levels of both overload and appreciation, highlighting how these aren’t mutually exclusive responses.

Both responses remind me a bit of a book I read earlier this year, Ysabel Gerrard’s The Kids Are Online: Confronting the Myths and Realities of Young Digital Life, in which Gerrard talked to a lot of young people about their digital experiences and found our common narrative about them all being distressed and negatively affected by social media was too simplistic. They were distressed by social media, at times, but they also perceived a lot of benefits from it.

Read the rest.

The College Fix: Read the conservative op-ed the Texas A&M student paper refused to publish

Texas A&M’s student newspaper is actively suppressing conservative student voices on campus, according to one young man who surveyed the paper’s opinion section after his op-ed was rejected. The College Fix reports, and publishes the student’s essay:

The Battalion student newspaper at Texas A&M university does not seem to be a fan of conservative student thought. An analysis of the 60 opinion pieces focused on politics published since November 2024 found that nearly all of them — 50 — leaned liberal (35), left-leaning (5), far-left (5), and liberal satire (5).

Only 7 of the opinion political pieces were moderate or neutral, and a total of three were conservative, or a ratio of almost 17 to 1 liberal to conservative.

The research was conducted by student Justino Russell, who was inspired to dig into the analysis after the student newspaper refused to run his op-ed submission. Russell sought to respond to a Sept. 23 op-ed authored by an anonymous tenured Texas A&M professor addressed as “a letter to the Students.”

The professor’s 1,000-plus word op-ed defends woke faculty and DEI-related issues, and urges students to organize against conservative political interference allegedly undermining academic freedom.

Russell penned a rebuttal, but it was rejected, because the staff does “not believe the point-by-point polemical style of this piece aligns with the opinion desk’s current editorial priorities. For this reason, we must unfortunately reject your submission.”

Read the whole thing.

Daniel Burnett: He spent 37 days in jail for a Facebook post — now FIRE has his back

Post a meme, go to jail—for more than a month. That’s Larry Bushart’s story in one horrifying sentence. The Tennessee man was finally freed last month, but now he’s backed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), who’s preparing to sue the county who unjustly incarcerated Mr. Bushart:

A 61-year-old Tennessee man is finally free after spending a shocking 37 days in jail — all for posting a meme.

Retired police officer Larry Bushart told a local radio station he’s “very happy to be going home” after his nightmarish ordeal.

But for Larry and FIRE, the fight isn’t over.

In September, after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Larry shared a meme on a Facebook thread about a vigil in Perry County, Tennessee. The meme quoted President Donald Trump saying, “We have to get over it” following a January 2024 school shooting at Perry High School in Iowa. The meme included the commentary, “This seems relevant today …”

Just after 11 p.m. on Sept. 21, four officers came to Larry’s home, handcuffed him, and took him to jail. He was locked up for “threatening mass violence at a school.” His bond — an astronomical $2 million!

Read it all.

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A good question for European politicians. Why haven’t you instituted something like America’s First Amendment?

Friendly reminder: government institutions can’t silence speech, but they can’t compel it either. It’s a protection enshrined in the Constitution, and the courts agree.

If it needs to be said, FIRE is happy to say it. The president shouldn’t be telling a news network to fire one of its anchors—no matter what he says on the air.

A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Christopher Rufo: The Rise of American Schizo-Politics

The open exchange of ideas is the antidote to political violence. But we’re increasingly unwilling to engage people we disagree with because the online political landscape caters to our worst partisan impulses. Chris Rufo calls this phenomenon “digitally driven schizo-politics” over at City Journal:

We seem to be entering a period of digitally driven “schizo-politics,” in which both sides’ fringes have developed a web of political narratives, conspiracies, and counter-conspiracies. On one side, we have the left-wing terror memeplex, optimized toward radicalization and random acts of violence. On the other side, we have a paranoid right-wing variant, which refuses to accept reality—“maybe we didn’t really land on the moon”—and directs a growing segment of the population down rabbit holes.

The rise of American schizo-politics is a sociological problem, but it’s also a technological one. The nature of the Internet changes how narratives move through society and tap into the population’s psychological weaknesses and temptations. On the left, this phenomenon creates real physical danger, motivating the most disturbed nodes in the network to commit acts of violence.

On the right, conspiracy theorists offer a sense of control, certainty, and meaning to those who lack it, stitching together seemingly random and chaotic events into a coherent narrative, but ultimately separating their audience from reality and undermining the Right’s ability to maintain political discipline—something Charlie Kirk once managed effectively.

Read it all.

Scott Greer: You Can’t Purge Tucker

In decades past, losing your newspaper column or cable talk show—being “canceled,” as we now call it—was the end of your career. Things are different today thanks to social media. The internet has enabled political commentators to reach their audiences whether the powers that be like it or not. Scott Greer cites Tucker Carlson as the textbook example:

These [social media] platforms are not as censorious as they once were, which allows “canceled” figures to thrive. Voices that would’ve been marginalized in the past can now do their own thing free of the oversight of the old guard.

Tucker Carlson has done this. He became the most important conservative commentator thanks to his primetime Fox News show. His influence stemmed from this institutional base. When Fox cast him out in 2023, some thought he would become irrelevant. That’s what happened to Bill O’Reilly when he was fired by the network in 2017. Carlson, unlike O’Reilly, was able to overcome this setback. The new media environment provided him with plenty of platforms to retain and even grow his large audience and maintain his influence on the right. His talent and insight didn’t disappear after his ouster from Fox News. Thus, he was able to remain a prominent voice on the right.

His podcast is the second-most popular on Spotify. His videos regularly get over a million views on YouTube. (His Fuentes interview currently has over five million views.) He gets far more viewers on these platforms than his nemesis, Ben Shapiro. Reporters and commentators regularly follow Carlson’s podcast and care about what he says. The president and vice president of the United States are often asked about Carlson’s views, demonstrating his large influence.

As long as Carlson remains on Spotify, YouTube, and X, the conservative movement can’t cast him aside. He still has his millions of listeners, and those fans don’t seem swayed by Mark Levin’s hysterical attacks. The only way to purge Carlson is to pressure these platforms to cancel him. A few years ago, this was a likely scenario. The tech giants were happy to censor anyone accused of wrongthink. But it’s a new era.

These platforms, especially X, are eager to prove their free speech bona fides. Even YouTube, which was a horrific censor during peak woke, now wants to look like it supports free expression. Big Tech still leaves a lot to be desired in this area, but it operates much better than it did at the height of the Biden administration. Spotify is not going to kick off its second-most popular show just because Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro are upset.

Read the rest.

Abhishek Saha: A Heretic Reprieved

Last month, the University of Cambridge dismissed 58 student complaints against philosopher Nathan Cofnas, marking the first major test of its new Code of Practice on Freedom of Speech and the UK’s Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. Cofnas sparked outrage with a blog post about genetic influence on racial differences in IQ.

Despite a petition with over 1,000 signatures demanding his dismissal, the university (ultimately, with a little prodding) upheld his right to express controversial views. As Abhishek Saha writes at Quillette, Cambridge’s decision to retain Cofnas reaffirms that academic freedom is most vital when speech is offensive or unpopular:

Cambridge’s promise to protect lawful speech has now been tested. Earlier this month, it was reported that the university had dismissed all 58 student complaints alleging that philosopher Nathan Cofnas’s views amounted to discrimination or harassment. The decision is the first substantive application of Cambridge’s new Code of Practice on Freedom of Speech and an early measure of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act’s reach.

Cofnas has drawn controversy for years. In 2020, he published a defence of free inquiry on taboo topics in a respected philosophy journal and a number of philosophers promptly mounted a campaign against him. When he arrived at Cambridge in 2022 as a Leverhulme Fellow in the faculty of philosophy, cancellation attempts followed almost immediately. But his latest troubles began in February 2024, when he published an essay titled “A Guide for the Hereditarian Revolution” on his personal blog. Students launched a petition calling for Cofnas to be dismissed, which swiftly gathered over 1,000—mostly anonymous—signatures.

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Under pressure from students and some staff, both the university and the college effectively reversed their commitments to free speech made only weeks earlier. Vira told a faculty meeting with students that there had been “failures” in the process of appointing Cofnas. Homerton principal Lord Simon Woolley urged that Cofnas be dismissed for gross misconduct, telling a hastily convened town hall at Emmanuel College: “I see it for what it is. Abhorrent racism, masquerading as pseudo-intellect.” Following formal complaints by students, investigations were opened by both the university and Emmanuel College.

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While the Cambridge drama unfolded, a hero was advancing on the regulatory frontier. The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, passed in May 2023, was due to come into force on 1 August 2024.

The Act required universities and constituent colleges to take all “reasonably practicable” steps to secure lawful free speech and academic freedom, maintain and follow a Code of Practice for Free Speech, and actively promote the importance of free speech and academic freedom. It also established a director for freedom of speech and academic freedom on the board of the Office for Students (OfS)—England’s higher-education regulator—empowered to run a cost-free complaints scheme and recommend sanctions for breaches of free-speech duties. Soon after the bill’s passage, the Government appointed Arif Ahmed, a Cambridge philosophy professor and prominent defender of academic freedom, as the first director.

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Nevertheless, the dismissal of student complaints against Cofnas now stands as a precedent at a leading UK university: frank discussion of this topic—including advocacy of the hereditarian hypothesis and exploration of its moral and political implications—is protected by its code of practice on free speech.

Read the whole thing.

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John Carney highlights the absurdity of describing an international bestseller turned hit streaming series as a “banned” book.

The Sixth Circuit stands up for student free speech.

Jack Posobiec with a helpful reminder: protests are legally protected speech; violence masquerading as protest is a crime.