By Neenah Payne
The 2024 Global Elections Super Cycle explains that national elections are being held in 52 countries this year. The information voters get will help determine the results. Google’s Threat To Elections Worldwide explains how Google’s manipulation of information can determine election outcomes – and thus control the world. Since Google contributed massively to Democrats, it is not impartial.
Globalists Are Taking The Mask Off And That’s A Bad Sign… cites some of the recent attacks on The US Constitution – specifically on the First Amendment which protects freedom of the press and free speech. The article shows that John Kerry, Secretary of State in the Obama administration and a longtime participant in the World Economic Forum, argued in September that the 1st Amendment is a “roadblock” to proper governance and is preventing control of the public consensus.
Kerry is not alone. The New York Times article asked on 8/31/24 ‘The Constitution Is Sacred. Is It Also Dangerous?’ and the 9/23/24 New Yorker raised the question ‘Is It Time To Torch The Constitution?’. Hillary Clinton Calls for Stricter Online Censorship as Establishment Fears Losing "Total Control" and Bill Gates Laments First Amendment Strength on “Misinformation,” Advocates For Digital ID.
However, the attacks on free speech are far from limited the US. The Free Speech Recession Hits Home links to a 221-page report that provides-country-by-country analysis of the status of free speech and shows this problem is global. Will Free Speech Survive Now? explains that this global fight is about who controls the narrative – and thus the public mind. It likens the shift in power caused by the Internet to that of the Gutenberg printing press.
Julian Assange’s First Public Appearance Since Release From Prison shows that Julian Assange, Australian founder of WikiLeaks, explained that freedom of the press and freedom of speech is the generational challenge for the internet era just as Civil Rights were of the 1950s. America is the envy of the world because the First Amendment is unique to the US. Floyd Abrams, a noted lawyer and award-winning legal scholar specializing in First Amendment issues, explores this in The Soul of the First Amendment. Abrams is also the author of Speaking Freely: Trials of the First Amendment and Friend of the Court: On the Front Lines with the First Amendment.
THE UN’S 2030 AGENDA GOES UP IN SMOKE (video)
The UN has hit the reset button after their recent report concluded that the world isn’t catching on to their 2030 Agenda of globalist takeover and in their recent ‘Summit of the Future’ has now prioritized targeting young people. Is this the same playbook as Mao’s Cultural Revolution?
“Even open democracies have implemented restrictive measures,” finds a global report.
The Free Speech Recession Deepens Across the Democratic World
A recent report by the Future of Free Speech highlights the sustained and concerning trend against freedom of expression across democracies. Studying the speech-related actions of twenty-two democracies across the world from 2015 to 2022, the report found that 78 percent of the major actions taken were to restrict expression. Worryingly, the number of annual speech restrictions put into place is growing almost every year, from nine in 2015 to forty-five in 2022.
The study also looked at why and how these restrictions were put in place. Almost 20 percent of these restrictions were explicitly made based on national security or public safety, not including another nearly 6 percent due to COVID-19. Almost 18 percent of restrictions were to defeat hate speech, with another 10 percent to combat disinformation or defamation.
The Elites Who Want to Change The World | Victor Davis Hanson
Evidence Is Growing That Free Speech Is Declining 12/4/23
There’s a clear trend against freedom of expression in the world’s democracies.
The global landscape for freedom of expression has faced severe challenges in 2023. Even open democracies have imposed restrictive measures to combat a range of threats including hate speech, disinformation, extremism, and public disturbances.
The European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) exemplifies this trend. Following Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, the European Commission’s cyber sheriff Thierry Breton sent a flurry of not-so-subtle letters to tech companies such as Meta, Google, TikTok, and X (formerly known as Twitter), inquiring about responses to unspecified hate speech, “terrorist content,” and “disinformation,” threatening significant fines for noncompliance.
Breton’s aggressive policing has sparked accusations of overreach and violation of international human rights standards. Despite these developments, many democracies see the DSA as a global blueprint for online regulation and Chile, Costa Rica, and Taiwan are on course to adopt bills inspired by the European prototype.
Meanwhile, the right to protest has been severely curtailed in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. France and Germany have imposed broad bans on pro-Palestinian demonstrations, citing hate speech and public order concerns. Laws against hatred, offense, and insults have also been significantly expanded in many democracies.
In England, a woman was pursued and interviewed by police for holding a placard satirically depicting the British prime minister and home secretary as coconuts—a Black, liberal city councilor was previously convicted of racial harassment for using the term. In Ireland, a new hate speech bill is set to criminalize the “material that is likely to incite violence or hatred against a person or a group of persons on account of their protected characteristics… with a view to the material being communicated to the public or a section of the public, whether by himself or herself or another person”. This broad definition and application could criminalize memes or gifs downloaded on mobile phones or laptops”.
And the Danish government is reintroducing the crime of blasphemy, virtually unenforced since 1946, outlawing the “improper treatment” of religious texts. Artistic freedom is not immune either, as seen in South Korea, where the National Assembly’s secretariat canceled an exhibition in the parliament building lobby due to its unflattering portrayal of the country’s president.
As documented in a new report by the Future of Free Speech Project, these dramatic erosions of freedom of expression in democracies are not novel or isolated events. They are part of a broader and global free-speech recession that has afflicted open democracies.
The report analyzes free speech trends in 22 open democracies across the globe from 2015 to 2022, a period with pivotal global events including devastating terrorist attacks, the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and disinformation campaigns by authoritarian states such as Russia and China.
This is the most ‘dangerous’ anti-free speech period in history, attorney says 10/5/24
Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley reacts to Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz’ stance on free speech and censorship during an appearance on ‘Fox & Friends Weekend.’
The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage
A “timely and brilliant original” (Michael B. Mukasey, former US attorney general) look at freedom of speech—our most basic right and the one that protects all the others.
Free speech is a human right, and the free expression of thought is at the very essence of being human. The United States was founded on this premise, and the First Amendment remains the single greatest constitutional commitment to the right of free expression in history. Yet there is a systemic effort to bar opposing viewpoints on subjects ranging from racial discrimination to police abuse, from climate change to gender equity. These measures are reinforced by the public’s anger and rage; flash mobs appear today with the slightest provocation. We all lash out against anyone or anything that stands against our preferred certainty.
The Indispensable Right places the current attacks on free speech in their proper historical, legal, and political context. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were not only written for times like these, but in a time like this. This country was born in an age of rage and for 250 years we have periodically lost sight of the value of free expression. The history of the struggle for free speech is the story of extraordinary people—nonconformists who refuse to yield to abusive authority—and here is a mosaic of vivid characters and controversies.
Johnathan Turley “has written a learned and bracing book, rigorously detailed and unfailingly evenhanded” (The Wall Street Journal) showing us the unique dangers of our current moment. The alliance of academic, media, and corporate interests with the government’s traditional wish to control speech has put us on an almost irresistible path toward censorship. The Indispensable Right is a “magnum opus should be required reading for everyone who cares about free speech” (Nadine Strossen, former president of the American Civil Liberties Union) that reminds us that we remain a nation grappling with the implications of free expression and with the limits of our tolerance for the speech of others. For rather than a political crisis, this is a crisis of faith.
Neenah Payne writes for Activist Post
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