There has never been a time in history where the people who were censoring free speech turned out to be the good guys.
“I suspect all this is just the start of a much bigger plan to shut down debate about issues the elite class does not want to discuss, or issues on which it holds very different views to those that are held by much of the country,” Matt Goodwin writes.
One of the most dangerous trends of our times”, said American writer Thomas Sowell, “is making the truth socially unacceptable, or even illegal, with ‘hate speech’ laws.” And this is exactly what is taking place in Britain.
Ever since the riots and protests erupted on Britain’s streets, I’ve argued consistently, much like Labour and liberals argued during the Black Lives Matter protests, in 2020, that we need to address the root cause.
But this is not what Keir Starmer and the Labour government are saying. Instead, much like we saw when a radical Islamist murdered Sir David Amess, when what should have been a national debate about how to squash radical Islamism turned into an utterly bizarre debate about “online safety,” Labour and the elite class are using the unrest to launch a further crackdown on free speech and, ultimately, democracy.
Instead of acknowledging what this is really all about, like the fact British people no longer feel safe in their own country, Starmer’s Labour, who have long mistrusted free speech, clearly see this is an opportunity to launch further restrictions, to crackdown on all those awkward people who do not support the elite consensus on the extreme policy of mass immigration, broken borders and a failing policy of multiculturalism.
Just look at what we’ve been told and seen in recent days.
Tech firms may be forced to ban “fake news” from their platform. Social media laws will be reviewed to “prevent further disorder.” Police scouring what people are saying online to see if they can be arrested, with some already imprisoned. Police knocking on doors because of what somebody posted on Facebook. And the Director of Public Prosecutions, Stephen Parkinson, remarkably, even considering extraditing people from overseas who write the wrong thing online.
Labour ministers, meanwhile, have made it clear they will look at introducing a new duty on social media firms to restrict what they call, ominously, “legal but harmful content.” They will do this by announcing and reshaping the Online Safety Act. What this means, in plain English, is that social media firms may soon be legally required to remove or suppress posts that are thought to be spreading “fake news,” particularly about topics like immigration, even if the posts do not meet the threshold for illegality.
This is, put simply, bananas.
Aside from sounding as though it’s come straight out of the Soviet playbook, the very concept of “legal but harmful” directly conflicts with the principle of English Common Law, namely that unless something is prohibited then it is permitted....<<<Read More>>>...
