I believe the next big push that will happen in the near future will be an attempt to implement speech codes in America. America is the last haven for free speech in the so-called free world. In this short-form article I will present the reasons why I believe this is immanent, showing first the current context, evidence that powerful people are signalling for this, and the state of attempts to implement such policies.
The Current Context
In recent years government has placed a heavier hand in controlling the flow of information on social media. We learned from Musk’s Twitter data dump and more recently Mark Zuckerberg’s confession before Congress that there was government pressure to censor social media content. This played a role in both the 2020 election and various controversies that emerged at that time, including various controversies concerning the appropriate response to COVID-19. In the United States, citizens were able to successfully push back against restriction on liberties imposed by lock-downs and vaccine mandates that was not possible in other nations in the so-called free world, which include Canada, Western Europe, and Australia. One early example was Pastor Chuck Salvo’s successful lawsuit against mandated closures of his church (while they allowed strip clubs, BLM, and smoke shoppes to stay open) which was the first lawsuit by a church pushing back against the weaponization of lock-downs.
A key factor in these battles is the more robust protections for free speech that exist in the United States that made censorship moire difficult. Americans who punished back on social media suffered de-platforming and socioeconomic reprisals at worst, while their European counter parts faced fines, confiscation of their property, and jail time. The more robust free speech protections allowed for more intensive and better organized social pressure against the government’s agenda than is possible where freedom of speech is highly regulated. Many of these battles would have been lost without free speech.
This observation has not escaped the notice of powerful corporate and governmental; players in Western Europe and elsewhere. They realize that the battle to bring America into their globalist vision of the world has been hindered. They realize that it is not only hindered in America, but that it hinders their own agenda to impose despotism and authoritarianism on their own citizens. Citizens in Western Europe and other so-called free but not really free countries can upload content to Web servers in America, use American Social; media, and use American VPN’s to evade their speech codes. As a result of these limitations, there is now a push to extend speech codes globally. These always begin with signalling an absurd proposition, followed by planning its im0plemntation while the groundwork is laid for its implementation.
Signalling.
First, you have foreign governments threatening American citizens for free speech activities that are legally done on American soil – and arresting them the moment they land in their country. A police commissioner in the United Kingdom is threatening to arrest American citizens for Constitutionally protected free speech made on on American soil. This is absurd as it gets, but these guys are dead serious. Brazil has blocked X, and Musk has indicated that he will limit his travels to countries where his risk of arrest over speech codes is low. Now Robert Reich is advocating, by insinuation, for Elon Musk’s arrest. Then, Vice-Presidential nominee Tim Walz shilled for European style speech codes, saying the First Amendment does not protect hate speech and disinformation. The CEO of Telegram was recently arrested in France for failure to censor Telegram posts.
All of this is signalling for the next BIG political debate: Whether America will have European style speech codes.
My response to Mr Fourth Reich is that I not only oppose speech codes but plan on defying them to my last breath. The Founding Fathers included hate speech and disinformation under the protection of the First Amendment not because they supported such speech, but because they knew government could not be trusted to regulate only bad speech. Once government becomes the arbiter of love and truth, then those terms will simply be redefined to fit the government narrative. For example, Islamic cleric in Europe can issue fatwas calling on the murder of infidels with impunity but those who point this out as a violation of the speech codes are summarily prosecuted for hate speech. WE have seen that government has an abysmal track record of both lying to its own people and escalating all manner of hatred and prejudice. Why would any sane person trust them to be the arbiter of love and truth.
State of current attempts to implement Speech Codes.
China has built what is called The Great Firewall. This is hardware firewall maintained directly by the Chinese government. Blocked are numerous foreign Websites, only a pre-approved list of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are not blocked, and import restriction make it difficult to obtain hardware to bypass the Firewall.
European countries also operate national firewall, but commercial ISPs do the physical work in concert with national regulators. VPN’s and imports are more lightly regulated, so it is easier for someone to use a VPN to bypass the Firewall. As long as a VPN is not blocked, a user can create an encrypted connection to a blocked site and encapsulate so that it appears to be a connection to an unblocked IP address. It is also easier to gain access to hardware that allows access to satellites not controlled by the Firewall, such as Starlink.
Other nations, such as Brazil, are joining the Internet Censorship Club. According to Freedom House, Internet freedom has declined for 13 years in a row. Internet freedom and censorship via speech codes is nothing new, but it is growing – and coming to America.
America First Legal has “released new documents exclusively obtained in its litigation against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). AFL obtained the slide deck used in a presentation by the United Kingdom’s “Counter Disinformation Unit,” to the Biden-Harris National Security Council (NSC) Interagency Policy Committee (IPC) on August 10, 2021. This release comes on the heels of calls from House Cybersecurity Subcommittee Chairwoman, Nancy Mace, to ensure that the 2024 election is protected from the deep state censorship that was prevalent in the 2020 election. ” It seems our government is colluding with other governments to destroy freedom of speech. Specifically, the White House hosted the counter0disinformation unit from the UK Government
As a part of the NSC’s regular interagency meetings on censoring COVID-related speech in the United States, the White House hosted the Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU) from the U.K. government in 2021 to learn about their most effective censorship techniques. Some of the UK’s recommendations to the Biden-Harris Administration included:
The key points of United Kingdom’s “Counter Disinformation Unit’s” presentation are in bullet points, with my brief commentary:
Establishing a dedicated unit to lead government-wide censorship efforts;
This would amount to the creation of a regulatory agency or regulatory hub of agencies. This would not be a minimalist regulatory scheme that provides remedies after the fact. This would only be needed if there is a comprehensive plan to control the flow of information.
Enacting legislation for the government to regulate the misinformation and disinformation policies of tech companies, and punish them if they refuse to comply with government censorship demands;
This would put police power of the state firmly behind censorship. Musk has stated he will not cooperate with censorship, and Zuckerberg has stated he has no desire to assist the state in election interference. In 2020 there was only “government pressure,” a thing that IMHO is sufficient to create an actionable First Amendment issue. Once the state has police power to compel the removal of content, Musk and Zuckerberg will be forced to choose between compliance or risking sanctions that include fines, imprisonment, or losing control of their platforms. Kamala has already announced as part of her platform that she intends to use the police power of the Federal Government to FORCE Social media companies to censor content, saying “We’ll put the Department of Justice of the United States back in the business of justice. We will doublethe Civil rights Division, and direct law enforcement to counter this extremism. We will hold social media platforms accountable for the hate infiltrating their platforms, because they have a responsibility to help fight against this threat to our democracy. If you profit off of hate, if you act as a megaphone for misinformation or cyber warfare, if you don’t police your platforms, we are going to hold you accountable, as a community.“
Kamala’s plan involves doubling the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice to counter extremism, hate, and misinformation. in a plan that involves nothing less than the threat of government coercion. Keep in mind all three of these are constitutionally protected. Also keep in mind that none of these terms will be defined i a natural way but will be defined to mean whatever the government wants them to mean to crush any speech they do not like. in the United Kingdom, it has meant that Islamist could publish fatwas calling for people to to murdered with impunity while those who reported them to law enforcement would be prosecuted for hate crimes. Given that Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice will be doubled, it would be naive to think that such an increase of armed officers is happening just to censor posts; they plan on litigating and prosecuting people who post things the government does not like.
Create and maintain partnerships with companies to “flag” disfavored content;
This is referring to these “Independent Fact Checkers,” none of whom are even remotely independent but rather a cartel. Currently, all of them must be certified by the Poynter Group. They will become even more of a cartel once government can centrally manage them using its police power. None of this will provide any assurance of getting closer to the truth, as governments notoriously lie, lie, lie. Once you make government the arbiter of the truth, the truth becomes whatever the government wants it to be. For Christians, it should be noted that the official story of the government of Judea in the first century was that the apostles stole the body of Christ and made up tales of His resurrection. Had all the early Jewish believers followed their religious government, Christianity would have died in the womb. They did not not because they knew the apostles were actual eye-witnesses to the resurrection of Christ, and therefore had the true authority to speak for God concerning His Son.
Use the foreign policy apparatus to coordinate this shared agenda between aligned governments and multilateral institutions;
This is what has the UK police commisi0ner I’ve dubbed “Sheriff of Nottingham” is getting giddy over. His mouth is watering at the prospect that American government or law enforce will deliver Americans to UK tribunals for engaging in Constitutionally protected free speech om American soil. This would require “doing away with the First Amendment and double criminality.” Double Criminality means Americans can only be extradited to other nations to answer for actions that are criminal in both the United States AND the nation seeking extradition. Foreign help could be used to jurisdiction shop or in sharing data and resources.
Leverage its control over social media to “counter disinformation” and promote leftist dogma.
If government can compel tech companies to take down content it disfavors, it can also compel them to post content it wants promoted, or at least engage in gate-keeping and framing to ensure that the official meta-narrative of the government wins any culture war that may be going on. If any other narrative poses a threat, then censorship and prosecution is deployed to destroy its power. All of this has a specific agenda that aligns with the Radical Left.