STANFORD UNIVERSITY, BARACK OBAMA AND A PROXY-CENSORSHIP MODEL

In spring 2022, former President Barack Obama delivered a keynote speech at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center, outlining a broad plan for government oversight of social media via the proposed Platform Accountability and Transparency Act. Just six days later, the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security unveiled its “Disinformation Governance Board,” intended to monitor and shape online information in (frankly) a manner that can be likened to an authoritarian truth ministry.

Central to Obama’s framework was a provision empowering the National Science Foundation to finance ostensibly independent nonprofits tasked with moderating online content. This proxy-censorship model—pioneered by DHS in collaboration with Stanford’s Internet Observatory—had actually already been deployed in 2020 to flag election-related posts and in 2021 to target vaccine-skeptic narratives, sidestepping First Amendment constraints.

Now, president Donald Trump’s 2024 victory markedly curtailed these initiatives; and this is considering that his administration stripped funding from key elements of the Censorship Industrial Complex. In addition, the Platform Accountability Act (which sought to hold the owners of social media platforms accountable for content posted on their platforms) stalled in Congress. And at Twitter (now X), Elon Musk dismissed the bulk of its content-moderation team, broadening permissible speech. Meanwhile, even prior to the election, Stanford donor Frank McCourt withdrew support from the Internet Observatory after investigative reporting by research and free speech advocacy platform Public and Racket News, alongside probes led by House Weaponization Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan, revealed its pivotal role in the DHS proxy scheme.

But now, foreign governments, including Europe, the UK, Brazil, Australia, and others are demanding censorship, including of the American people. The risk is that US tech companies will find it significantly less expensive to have a single global censorship regime and just go along with foreign censorship requests. We saw this, for instance, when Facebook complied with the Biden-Harris administration’s demands to censor speech because Facebook needed Biden’s help in dealing with European censorship officials. Similarly, the Brazilian government tried to force Elon Musk to censor the Brazilian people after it froze Starlink’s assets. And so, this is the fundamental issue with this proxy-censorship model—pioneered by the DHS in collaboration with Stanford’s Internet Observatory.

Now, an investigation has revealed that the Stanford Cyber Policy Center—directed by Michael McFaul, the former U.S. Ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration—is central to a secretive and potentially unlawful censorship program that surpasses in scope the one Obama floated in 2022. In particular, on September 24th, the Center convened a closed-door dinner involving its leadership and senior censorship regulators from Europe, the UK, Brazil, California, and Australia. Dubbed “Compliance and Enforcement in a Rapidly Evolving Landscape,” the event was funded by Frank McCourt—the founder of the Stanford Internet Observatory—via his Project Liberty Institute (or PLI), to which he has committed $500 million to apparently “bolster democracy” and promote “ethical technology.”

Well, the research and free speech advocacy platform Public contacted all 21 attendees and organisers of the closed door dinner dubbed “Compliance and Enforcement in a Rapidly Evolving Landscape” by email but received responses from only four: being the PLI, the Australian government, the UK government, and the European Union. The EU declined to comment, citing insufficient time (despite a 24-hour window), with a spokesperson stating, (quote) “We would need several days.”

The UK government also responded to state that (quote): “The legal framework gives Ofcom power to enforce the duties in the Act which are related to securing protections for people in the UK; it does not give Ofcom powers to enforce under any other legal regimes…. Ofcom has always engaged with various international forums and networks across all of the sectors we regulate, including online safety, spectrum, telecommunications, post, and broadcast and media. Regulators around the world regularly exchange insights, experience, and best practice.”

I’d like for us to then discuss why Regulators like Ofcom do NOT meet regularly to share what can be thought to be plausible insights, experience, and best practice. In fact, when you look at the Online Safety Act in the UK, you get to understand that these gatherings among regulators are about devising their respective roles in a proxy-censorship model.

THE ONLINE SAFETY ACT IS A TOOL OF A PROXY-CENSORSHIP MODEL

As you’d be aware, the Online Safety Act is legislation in the UK that gives the relevant Secretary of State the power to designate and suppress or record a wide range of online content that is “illegal” or “deemed harmful to children”.

The Act creates a new duty of care for online platforms, requiring them to take action against illegal content, or legal content that could be “harmful” to children where children are likely to access it. Platforms failing this duty would be liable to fines of up to £18 million or 10% of their annual turnover, whichever is higher. It also empowers Ofcom to block access to particular websites. Ideally, the act is also supposed to oblige large social media platforms NOT to remove, and to preserve access to, journalistic or “democratically important” content such as user comments on political parties and issues.

Then, the Act also requires platforms, including end-to-end encrypted messengers, to scan for child pornography, despite warnings from experts that it is not possible to implement such a scanning mechanism without undermining users’ privacy. To which the UK government has claimed that it does not intend to enforce this provision of the Act until it becomes “technically feasible” to do so. And then lastly, the Act also obliges technology platforms to introduce systems that will allow users to better filter out the “harmful” content they do not want to see… So this is a more idealistic presentation of what the Online Safety Act seeks to accomplish, and it is presented this way by the Labour-led UK government, so that anyone who opposes it can be dismissed as a child predator sympathiser and an enemy of progress. BUT, here’s what the Act fundamentally contributes, as far as trying to shift the jurisprudence in the UK is concerned.

The Online Safety Act hands sweeping and incredibly dangerous powers to the relevant secretary of state, allowing them to interfere directly with Ofcom’s operations including the authority to dictate the content of its so-called “codes of practice”. This thus represents a dangerous centralisation of power that compromises Ofcom’s supposed independence and opens the door to government control over online speech. And these powers, which can be exercised with minimal oversight and under vague emergency justifications, indicate a government with aspirations that are ultimately authoritarian and dystopian in nature.

Now, in light of this act and its part in the proxy-censorship complex, I’d like to rehash a crucial point about the UK in particular. The point is this: Beyond the authoritarian and dystopian nature of the Online Safety Act, how the Labour-led government is going about with it, further exposes its big government inclinations. And the difference here is how the labour-led government is responding to the dissent resulting from the Act. More specifically, governments receive their operational mandate from the governed (at least that is how it should be). This means we measure a government’s political legitimacy and efficacy based on how well it enacts what the people demanded, as opposed to imposing its dictates on the people. This is why for instance, the UK government has an explicit obligation to implement Brexit because the majority of the country voted for it through the referendum, irrespective of what an incumbent government may think of Brexit.

HOWEVER, when the people of the UK signed a petition that has received over four hundred thousand signatures (as we speak) to repeal the “Online Safety Act”, the government’s response, in a nutshell, was “We hear you and know you’re upset, but think of the children” (which we’ll get to in a moment). But, this number of petition signatures is important because, in the UK, Parliament considers all petitions that get more than 100,000 signatures for a debate – and so clearly, many people want to see repeals of the Online Safety Act.

More broadly, this petition was created by Alex Baynham, and the aim of the petition is stated as being based on the belief that the scope of the Online Safety act is far broader and restrictive than is necessary in a free society. And that those signing it think that Parliament should repeal the act and work towards producing proportionate legislation rather than risking clamping down on civil society.

 Well, on the 28th of July, the UK government responded – and they gave a categorically big government response. The government stated that (quote): “It is right that the regulatory regime for in-scope online services takes a proportionate approach, balancing the protection of users from online harm with the ability for low-risk services to operate effectively and provide benefits to users.” (end quote). In other words, the government concedes to the correctness of the mandate that citizens are demanding it fulfil in light of proportionality, and not infringing on freedoms in a free society.

BUT, then immediately after the government states in its response that (quote): “The Government has no plans to repeal the Online Safety Act, and is working closely with Ofcom to implement the Act as quickly and effectively as possible to enable UK users to benefit from its protections.” It continues to say “Proportionality is a core principle of the Act and is in-built into its duties. As regulator for the online safety regime, Ofcom must consider the size and risk level of different types and kinds of services when recommending steps providers can take to comply with requirements. Duties in the Communications Act 2003 require Ofcom to act with proportionality and target action only where it is needed.” In other words, the government concedes that proportionality is important not to infringe on rights in a free society, but insists that the expanded oversight powers through the Online Safety Act are necessary to protect this free society from itself. 

But, this is nothing short of an aggravating and patronising response! If there is no enjoyment of free speech, then there is no free society period! Free speech is quite literally the yardstick, because it is the difference between constructive and open debate on matters of importance, and fearing to speak up. And if society is governed by a fear to speak up, then what they say is likely not a reflection of what they stand for but of what they think is acceptable to the incumbent government. Therefore, it can never be acceptable for a government to claim to protect a society by expanding its powers to govern speech – proportionately or disproportionately. Free speech is an inalienable freedom, that no government has the power to limit or take away because it is God-given… Well, Zia Yusuf says Reform UK (the party led by Nigel Farage) will repeal the Online Safety Act.

MILITARY AND INTELLIGENCE ORGANISATIONS CREATED THE CENSORSHIP INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

But, information has also come to the fore regarding the historical and intensive involvement of military and intelligence organisations in the war on free speech! More specifically, a whistleblower last year provided us with a trove of documents proving that US and UK military & Intelligence employees and contractors adapted counter-terrorism tactics developed abroad, including censorship, debanking, and cross-platform bans – really rivalling or exceeding the Twitter Files and Facebook Files in scale and importance. Now, they describe the activities of an “anti-disinformation” group called the Cyber Threat Intelligence League, or CTIL, that officially began as the volunteer project of data scientists and defence and intelligence veterans but whose tactics over time appear to have been absorbed into multiple official projects, including those of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The CTI League documents offer the missing link answers to key questions not addressed in the Twitter Files and Facebook Files. Combined, they offer a comprehensive picture of the birth of the “anti-disinformation” sector, or what we have called the Censorship Industrial Complex. Now, the whistleblower’s documents describe everything from the genesis of modern digital censorship programs to the role of the military and intelligence agencies, partnerships with civil society organisations and commercial media, and the use of sock puppet accounts and other offensive techniques.

But, here’s where it gets even more interesting: the CTIL files reveal that US and UK military contractors developed and used advanced tactics — including demanding that social media platforms change their Terms of Service — to shape public opinion about Covid-19, and that getting content removed was just one strategy used by the Censorship Industrial Complex. The CTI League, which partnered with the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), THEN aimed to implement something called “AMITT,” which stood for “Adversarial Misinformation and Influence Tactics and Techniques.” Kindly have a listen to Michael Shellenberger as he exposes a key figure involved in this operation, and her name is Renee Teresita and even the “partnerships” that were formed to create this censorship industrial complex.

THE CENSORSHIP INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX’S WAR ON X AND ELON MUSK

Well, so the Department of Homeland Security’s AMITT project was ultimately, therefore, a disinformation framework that included many offensive actions, including discrediting alternative media, using bots and sock puppets, pre-bunking, and pushing counter-messaging AND working to influence government policy. This emphatically tells us that politicians are (once again) not the primary actors behind the war on free speech!

In any case, the specific counters to so-called “disinformation” in AMITT and what became its successor framework, called DISARM, include many tactics that we have observed, such as: “name and shame people who disagree with the narrative of the government of the diabolical conglomerates behind certain agendas, like the vaccine holocaust”; simulating misinformation and disinformation campaigns, AND “using banking to cut off access”, which is something Europe is considering against Elon Musk! In addition, the DISARM framework has included creating policy that makes social media police disinformation”. This especially became notable with the opposition towards X – which has exposed that the war on X and Elon Musk itself has a broader history involving diabolical non-state actors – in particular the UN.

Kindly have a listen as Paul Coleman explains how the global war on X, free speech, and Elon Musk was actually years in the making and includes a UN effort to impose Islamic blasphemy laws on the West.

Paul Coleman points out a terrible irony there towards the end, which is that these diabolical tactics aimed at censorship are coming from the people who pretentiously parade themselves as being in the front seat of defending free speech. Which is why I always tend to emphasise that it is a mistake to assume that the state is not an absolute moral actor or a yardstick to measure ethical conduct, especially when we consider that atrocious policies like slavery, the holocaust and apartheid were all legal!

And true to form, in the status quo entities like the EU are weaponising laws against Musk and the X platform in order to fabricate justification for aggressive actions towards Musk. For instance, you’d recall that the European Union sent a letter to Elon Musk, demanding him to censor Donald Trump during their interview in early August 2024, ahead of the US presidential election in November. The EU proceeded to threaten Musk with legal consequences if he does not prevent the spread of what they label as “disinformation.” But, even that threat followed a pattern of autocratic figures looking to have more censorship on the X platform, in light of what they say is a problem consistent with the ills of what they have defined as mis and dis information. And so, what we are seeing now is that in addition to the EU feeling comfortable demanding censorship in a US election to comply with the Digital Services Act, the UK is continuing on a similar trajectory.

Written By Lindokuhle Mabaso

The Truth on the Current Situation in Gaza

Two years after Hamas’s barbaric October 7, 2023, attack that claimed 1,139 Israeli lives and triggered the war, Gaza stands at a crossroads. The Gaza Ministry of Health reports over 67,000 Palestinian deaths and 170,000 injuries since then, figures that underscore the war’s toll. Yet, as of October 14, 2025, the ceasefire has ushered in cautious optimism: humanitarian teams are accessing previously isolated areas, and aid distributions are scaling up rapidly. Economically, Gaza’s pre-ceasefire GDP per capita had plummeted amid widespread poverty and unemployment rates exceeding 50%, a direct fallout from Hamas’s prioritization of rockets over reconstruction. Infrastructure—hospitals, schools, and water systems—lies in ruins. While the ceasefire halts active hostilities, the real challenge remains governance: without dismantling Hamas’s stranglehold, Gaza risks perpetual stagnation.

Unmasking the Propaganda: How Myths Sustain a Terrorist Regime

Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., EU, and others, thrives on a web of disinformation that vilifies Israel while concealing its own abuses against Palestinians. This propaganda isn’t organic; it’s a calculated campaign amplified by social media and biased outlets, peddling myths that equate self-defense with aggression and whitewash Hamas’s atrocities. Take the enduring falsehood that Israel deliberately starves Gaza: In reality, restrictions stem from security checks to prevent weapons smuggling, yet Israel has consistently allowed aid far exceeding UN minimums—debunking claims of a “genocide” engineered through blockade. Another trope: Hamas doesn’t target civilians. Fact-checkers have exposed how the group embedded fighters in population centers, using schools and hospitals as shields, resulting in tragic but avoidable casualties. Viral videos falsely depicting “caged Israeli children” as hostages? Fabricated to inflame global outrage. Worse, this narrative ignores Hamas’s internal failures: Billions in Qatari and Iranian funds diverted to tunnels and missiles, leaving Gaza’s economy in tatters with 80% youth unemployment and crumbling services. Propaganda portrays Hamas as “resistance,” but it’s a regime that executes dissenters and hoards aid, perpetuating poverty to fuel endless conflict. Supporting such lies doesn’t liberate Palestinians—it entrenches their suffering under a terrorist yoke.

Exposing Hamas’s Propaganda Machine – A Terrorist Group Betraying Its Own

Hamas, enshrined on the U.S. State Department’s terrorist list since 1997, has weaponized misinformation to shield its military agenda at the expense of Gazan civilians. The group’s propaganda apparatus, including figures like the eliminated spokesman Abu Obeida, has fabricated crises to vilify Israel, from staging hospital “bombings” to exploiting images of ill children for viral outrage.

On the second anniversary of the October 7, 2023, atrocities, U.S.-based activists echoed Hamas’s blame-shifting, ignoring how the group’s tunnel network—spanning over 500 kilometers—diverts cement and fuel from civilian infrastructure. This isn’t mere rhetoric; it’s a pattern of self-sabotage. Hamas’s governance has siphoned aid for rocket production and elite enrichment, leaving Gazans to bear the brunt. Senator Tom Cotton aptly summarized in July 2025: “Hamas wants the world to believe that Israel has undertaken a campaign of deliberate starvation,” when evidence shows the opposite—Hamas hoarding supplies amid its own failures. This internal predation stifles growth: Gaza’s unemployment hovers at 45%, not due to external pressures, but because Hamas prioritizes jihad over jobs. The ceasefire’s hostage releases—over 100 Palestinians freed from Israeli custody—further reveal Hamas’s duplicity, as reunited families report abuse not from Israel, but from their captors.

Gaza: The Current Humanitarian Landscape – Challenges from Within

There is food in Gaza. Its just not being distributed by the UN

Contrary to alarmist headlines, Gaza is not in the throes of deliberate starvation orchestrated by Israel. As of mid-October 2025, following the ceasefire, humanitarian aid has surged into the territory, with the United Nations reporting preparations to deliver over 170,000 metric tons of food, medicine, and supplies—enough to sustain 2.1 million residents for the initial phase. Israel’s coordination has facilitated this influx, including the safe return of displaced Palestinians to their homes and the dismantling of temporary aid sites like those operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), now obsolete due to normalized deliveries. Claims of a “famine” or Israeli-imposed starvation policy are not only unsubstantiated but represent a calculated distortion. An Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) investigation in August 2025 categorically rejected assertions of widespread malnutrition deaths attributable to policy, noting that isolated cases were exacerbated by Hamas’s diversion of resources rather than any blockade.

Independent analyses, including those from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, have labelled these narratives a “fraud,” pointing to inflated data from Hamas-controlled health authorities that the UN has uncritically amplified. Cam Higby was in Gaza and like many other exposed the lie. All food would pass every level of IDF inspection and cross the Karem Shalom border. It would now be the responsibility of the U.N. to distribute it, they didn’t.

According to the U.N. Only 7% of its distribution trucks inside of the strip have reached the population. More often than not, they’re raided by armed marauders or Hamas. The U.N. Has cited safety concerns as a reason for not distributing effectively but has also turned down offers to have IDF escorts. In economic terms, this propaganda has real costs: it deters investment and prolongs instability, keeping Gaza’s GDP per capita stagnant at around $1,000—levels that could double with secure aid channels and demilitarization.

The UN’s Complicity in Perpetuating the Crisis

While Israel facilitates aid, the United Nations—particularly The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East —has deliberately exacerbated Gaza’s woes through biased reporting and operational inefficiencies. UN-backed famine assessments in August 2025, which claimed over 500,000 in “catastrophic hunger,” relied on unverifiable Hamas data, later debunked as “fabricated” by watchdogs like UN Watch. The Institute for National Security Studies highlighted how these reports ignore Hamas’s aid looting, instead framing Israel as the sole villain—a narrative that delays real solutions. Financially, this dysfunction is glaring: UNRWA’s $1.6 billion annual budget yields fragmented relief, with audits revealing up to 10% lost to corruption—funds that could fund Gaza’s desalination upgrades. By amplifying propaganda, the UN discourages donor confidence, trapping aid in bureaucratic silos.

Israel’s Enduring Support in Palestinian Stability and Growth

Contrary to the one-sided portrayals, Israel has been a steadfast partner in Palestinian welfare, channelling billions in aid and infrastructure that foster long-term economic resilience. Since the war’s outset, Israel has facilitated the delivery of over 1.3 million tons of humanitarian supplies—food, medicine, fuel, and shelter materials—into Gaza, often in coordination with international allies. The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) meticulously tracks these efforts, ensuring safe passage through crossings like Kerem Shalom and Erez, even under the duress of ongoing threats. Beyond immediate relief, Israel’s contributions extend to foundational services that underpin prosperity. For decades, Israel has supplied Gaza with 80-90% of its electricity, desalinated over 20 million cubic meters of water annually (meeting 10-15% of needs), and enabled tens of thousands of Palestinians to work in Israel, injecting $500 million yearly into Gaza’s economy pre-war. Medical evacuations are another hallmark: since 2000, Israel has treated over 200,000 Palestinians in its hospitals, including complex cases from Gaza, free of charge. In 2024-2025 alone, amid the conflict, Israel approved aid convoys carrying 500,000 tons of flour and 300,000 tons of rice, countering famine risks despite Hamas’s diversion of supplies for military use.

Israel’s Enduring Positive Contributions to Palestinian Prosperity

Israel’s track record of goodwill toward Palestinians is a testament to its democratic ethos and strategic foresight—actions that foster long-term economic interdependence. Even amid conflict, Israel has enabled over 20,000 Gazans to access medical treatment in Israeli hospitals annually, a lifeline that saved thousands of lives pre-2023 escalation. Post-ceasefire, Israel has greenlit reconstruction phases under the Arab League’s March 2025 plan, committing to six months of unfettered aid and infrastructure rebuilding in Gaza City and Khan Yunis. Economically, Israel’s innovations have indirectly benefited Gaza: desalination plants supply 20% of the Strip’s water, while joint agricultural tech transfers have boosted Palestinian yields by 30% in the West Bank—initiatives ripe for Gaza replication. The January 2025 ceasefire phase allowed “sufficient” humanitarian flows, paving the way for private sector revival, including tech hubs that could employ 50,000 youth. These aren’t concessions; they’re investments in stability, aligning with values of self-reliance and mutual benefit. As President Trump’s involvement in the October deal demonstrates, strong U.S.-Israel ties yield dividends for all parties.

Written By tatenda Belle Panashe

]]> https://ln24international.com/2025/10/15/navigating-the-gaza-narrative-facts-aid-and-the-cost-of-misinformation/feed/ 0 https://ln24international.com/2025/09/10/the-house-judiciary-committees-hearing-with-uk-mp-nigel-farage/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-house-judiciary-committees-hearing-with-uk-mp-nigel-farage https://ln24international.com/2025/09/10/the-house-judiciary-committees-hearing-with-uk-mp-nigel-farage/#respond Wed, 10 Sep 2025 08:48:54 +0000 https://ln24international.com/?p=27304 REFUTING THE RATIONALE BEHIND LIMITATIONS ON FREE SPEECH

So, when you observe discussions on limitations of free speech, you would have noted that what is often contentious is the allowance of speech that is deemed to be mis or dis information or even hateful. And so, those in support of placing limitations on free speech, often argue that the danger from these categories of speech (being misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech) is so great that it becomes justifiable to place limitations on or even completely censor persons that curate such speech – be it by word or writing.

Let’s start with mis and disinformation. In socio-political discourse, the word “misinformation” is a dangerous word because it cannot be objectively defined; meaning that it means different things to different people. For instance, governments often label speech as mis or disinformation when that particular speech communicates a message that is contrary to official messaging. But, the government is not immune to error: governments or official organisations get things wrong or lack knowledge to communicate accurate facts quite often – an example being the WHO’s directives during COVID, which were parroted by some governments and the mainstream media.

Secondly, in addition to mis and disinformation lacking an objective definition, this vague quality of these words thus allows governments to assume the role of being the arbiter of truth; which – as empirical evidence from the last 4 and half years would show – tends to embolden governments to assume a monopoly on truth, and punish those who become dissenters. And they actually capitalise on the vagueness of the definition of mis and disinformation to accomplish this. For instance, Dr Mike Ryan, who is the Executive Director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, said something quite striking a few years back. He stated that misinformation is when grossly incorrect information gets out while being promoted as correct, or purposely designed to be incorrect… and also used as a weapon to manipulate how people make conclusions. And he said this in trying to clarify that the WHO is fighting misinformation and not overall dialogue and the asking of questions.

First, this is a lie. When governments and organisations like the WHO (and even the WEF) assume a monopoly on truth, they expect (in fact DEMAND) compliance, and therefore punish those who dissent. This is literally why the censorship industrial complex exists, and why laws like the EU’s Digital Services Act exist. Secondly, because of the (often) legislated demand for compliance, people have a hard time having genuine discourse or asking pertinent questions, when they know that could land them in trouble – and so, the compliance laws systematically nudge society towards self censorship. Therefore, this all details the fundamental flaw in the rationale behind limiting free speech that is considered mis or disinformation: and the fundamental flaw lies with the fact that there is no objective definition of these terms, and where they are defined, they are often heavily politicised to mean what a respective government or organisation demands, and also these politicised definitions enable the curation of censorship-promoting compliance laws.

WHAT (ACTUALLY) IS HATE SPEECH?

Which then brings us to hate speech, and why the rationale behind limiting speech that is deemed hateful is also flawed. And the first consideration is that (as alluded to earlier) the definition for what is deemed hate speech is not as clear as people assume it is. For instance, let’s consider these three definitions from a relatively quick search. The first is from the Oxford dictionary, and it states that hate speech is (quote): “abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice on the basis of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or similar grounds.”

Then the second definition is from the UN. It states that hate speech is from (quote): “hate speech is “discriminatory” (in parenthesis) (biased, bigoted or intolerant) or “pejorative” (in parenthesis) (prejudiced, contemptuous or demeaning) of an individual or group. Then finally, we have the definition from the South African Human Rights Commission, and it states that (quote): “Hate speech may be defined as expression which goes beyond mere insults or offensive language, and which may infringe the dignity of certain persons or groups”. Now these all sound like fairly reasonable definitions, with discernable common denominators – being: discrimination, contempt or an infringement of dignity, and perhaps abuse – or simply, offence.

But, I do not think that all these different organisations considered that the application of these definitions is relative to each unique context where allegations of hate speech might arise.

For instance, the word “kaffir” (which is an Arabic word) is said to originate from the Quran and refers to a “disbeliever” or someone who rejects faith in Islam and its core tenets. In the colonial context, this word was used by the Boer in South Africa as a derogatory way to refer to black South Africans during apartheid. Today, this word is sometimes casually used by black South Africans in references that are informed by the apartheid and colonial context, but that aren’t deemed hateful. For instance, instead of referring to one’s hair as an afro or natural hair, one would say “my kaffir haar” – and no one will bat an eyelid.

Similarly, the “b” word that means a female dog is deemed derogatory and vulgar when used by men in reference to women, but it frequents informal and amicable conversations among both men and women, rap music and other forms of popular culture. The same can be said about the word Nigger in the American or African context. Now, I mention this to demonstrate that offence (which is what hate speech is hinged on) is very subjective; in fact, even how words receive compounded meanings beyond what they originally mean is often a product of the subjective intentions of one group, seeing that (for example) the original meaning of the word Nigger had nothing to do with the discriminatory connotations that were later added to it. And so, what is deemed to be hate speech will often differ not just for each group in society but for each individual within a certain group! And all of this is because offense is a highly subjective metric, which then makes it very problematic to use it to inform the law – because it would mean that the government is creating a law that is intended for general application, on the basis of the offence of a select few individuals or possibly even one person. Well, this came up at the hearing, including from Representative Mark Harris.

THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE BODY TO DEFINE WHAT IS HATE SPEECH

The second argument I’d like to put forward is that – in addition to the lack of objective definition of hate speech – the government should also not be the body to define hate speech. And the reason fundamentally lies with two considerations: first, because slavery, the holocaust and apartheid were all legal systems, it means the state should never be used as a metric for ethics. In other words, history testifies to the fact that the government does not have an unequivocal grasp on good morality, because governments are made up of people who are not immune to error and who can be influenced towards evil deeds.

The second consideration is the fact that government definitions are (again) heavily politicised. And so, if we allow a government to define free speech and enforce that definition, it will likely amount to a means of restricting speech that the government in question does not like or agree with. But, that speech in-of-in itself may not actually amount to hate, in a manner that would be objective enough to warrant general application. And this actually presents considerable problems for the state because implementing subjective definitions of hate speech is hard work!

For example, in 2021, a former police officer in the UK won a court of appeal challenge over police guidance on hate incidents after claiming it unlawfully interferes with the right to freedom of expression. Ex-officer Harry Miller, who describes himself as “gender critical”, was visited at work by an officer from Humberside police in January 2019 after a single member of the public complained about his allegedly transphobic tweets. The force recorded the complaint as a non-crime hate incident (which we’ll discuss shortly), and this non-crime hate incident is defined by the College of Policing’s guidance as “any non-crime incident which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice”.

Well, ex-officer Harry Miller, from Lincolnshire, challenged both Humberside police’s actions and the College of Policing’s guidance at the high court and, in February 2020, a judge ruled the force’s actions were a “disproportionate interference” with his right to freedom of expression. But his challenge to the College of Police’s guidance was dismissed, with the judge finding that it “serves legitimate purposes and is not disproportionate”. However, in a ruling in 2020, the court of appeal then found that the College of Policing’s guidance also breached his freedom of expression rights.

So, this proves that a law that tried to allow the state to enforce one person’s subjective feeling of offence as a law of general application did not stand successfully against the inalienable freedom to speak freely. And so, even from a state perspective, this is a ridiculous approach to try to enforce.

HATE SPEECH IS (AND SHOULD TREATED AS) PROTECTED SPEECH

Then, finally, even if it was easy and non-subjective to define hate speech, hate speech should not only be regarded as protected speech, but the protection of hate speech is a part of the litmus test for whether a society truly values free speech. And the litmus test is: do you support the protection of fundamental freedoms for everyone, including for people you disagree with? If you do NOT, you are NOT someone who should be trusted with legislating on matters pertaining to free speech, because you have a segregationist mindset that sees society and politics as zero-sum.

But, secondly, it means you fail to grasp the inalienable nature of the freedom of speech. But, the truth is that inalienable rights have a high regard in society and jurisprudence because these are  God-given rights and freedoms, and thus not subject to statutory limitations or conditional application by governments, which is to say that even governments are bound by those rights. Therefore, because free speech is an inalienable right, even speech that is deemed subjectively hateful should be regarded as protected speech. As such, is there arises a personal injury or defamation issue, let it be addressed as such, where people make their case in court, as opposed to the government opting to censor people in defence of the claimed offence of another.

And finally, can we consider for a moment that the world is filled with people who have a reason to be offensive to others. Therefore, if you allow people to have power over how you see yourself, or even over your emotions, by allowing them the ability to offend you, then you might be part of the problem (seeing that offence is – afterall – subjective); and this is because you essentially delegated the power to offend you to those people. Whose speech you found offensive. They are responsible for what they say, and you are responsible for how you respond. I mean the Lord Jesus was told he performed miracles through the enablement of the devil, accused of blaspheming God, and more – and yet, He did not take offence from the persecution he suffered, and still died for all (including those who killed Him) to receive salvation.  Therefore, offense is a problem that primarily originates and lies with the person who is offended.

WHY DOES THE UK HAVE A FREE SPEECH PROBLEM?

So, now that we’ve undressed the flaw behind the rationale behind restrictions on free speech, let’s deal with the question behind Nigel Farage’s hearing in the US, which is: Why does the UK have a free speech problem. If we are being fundamentalist in our approach, I would argue that the origins of this problem can be articulated in considering the fact that the US has something the UK doesn’t have, namely a First Amendment. Of course, we know that there are those who wish the US didn’t have it either, including the likes of Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, because they see the First Amendment (and in particular, its extensive protections of free speech) as obstructive to his plans. BUT, not only does the UK not have a First Amendment, it doesn’t have a constitution either, and that makes for a significant concern, especially at a time when free speech has little currency with Gen Z and even less with the new UK Labour government – so much so that many are saying the UK has become a police state.

Furthermore, in the United Kingdom censorship has been applied to various forms of expression such as the media, cinema, entertainment venues, literature, theatre and criticism of the monarchy. And while there is no general right to free speech in the UK, British citizens have a negative right to freedom of expression under the common law, and since 1998, freedom of expression is guaranteed according to Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as applied in British law through the Human Rights Act.

Then, current law also allows for restrictions on threatening or abusive words or behaviour intending or likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress or cause a breach of the peace, sending another any article which is indecent or grossly offensive with an intent to cause distress or anxiety, incitement, incitement to racial hatred, incitement to religious hatred, incitement to terrorism including encouragement of terrorism and dissemination of terrorist publications; and more. And so, there is a more clearly defined and long list of speech that is probematised in the UK, than there is comprehensive law that protects the freedom to speak freely.

This is a problem for two reasons: first, free speech is an inalienable right, which not only means that it is absolute and not in the purview of any government to limit or take away, but also means that it should be well protected in legislation. Secondly, this attitude of focusing more on speech that the government problematises ignores crucial historical context, which is that atrocities were often committed by governments who undermined or took away essential freedoms like the freedom to speak freely, and not people who had too much freedom. Therefore, the jurisprudence of any nation with an accurate understanding of history should highlight free speech as a protectionist right, that serves to prevent against government abuses of power and citizens. But, here’s more on the UK not having a written constitution, and not having explicit legal protections for free speech.

What Austen Morgan is essentially advocating for is that the UK considers becoming a constitutional republic; and for clarity, a nation is considered a constitutional republic if: (1) It has a constitution that limits the government’s power; and (2) the citizens choose their own heads of state and other governmental officials. If you’ve followed one of our programmes here on LN24 International, called ‘Starting Point’, you’d recall a discussion we had on Constitutional Republicanism, even going on to distinguish it from democracy. And the essence is that constitutional republicanism, establishes a law of the land in the constitution that is meant to establish the rights of citizens and the powers of the government, in a manner aimed at preventing against abuses of power from government branches, and also preventing against the tyranny of the majority – which is what democracy tends to produce.

And Austen Morgan is certainly right – what an explicitly written constitution would accomplish is giving Britons constitutionally enshrined rights (which would encourage more protections of those rights, when people know their scope), while also providing a means of curbing the wrong interpretations of activist judges, whose own interpretations of the law become part of the problem. But, here is more on the difference between a democracy and a constitutional republic, in the context of the US, which is where this discussion has been prevalent.

NON-CRIME HATE INCIDENTS AND THE CASE OF ALISON PEARSON

Let’s proceed to discuss non crime hate incidents (as flag earlier), along with the case of Alison Pearson, who had the police knocking on her door this Remembrance Sunday. They had come to warn her they were investigating a tweet she had posted a whole year ago which someone had complained about. They were investigating whether it constituted a Non-Crime Hate Incident or NCHI. And yes, police are sanctioned to respond to a ‘non-crime’ hate incident, which is nothing short of intimidation and coercion towards silence; because if it is decidedly not a crime, despite potentially being hateful, then why are POLICE addressing it?

Secondly, even the definition of hateful speech is incredibly subjective and highly influenced by context. For instance, the “N” word is generally regarded as a hateful and derogatory term, however, some African Americans claim to have appropriated it and use it among themselves in a lighter meaning that is meant to invoke some comradery. However, there are also those who would argue that appropriation of a derogatory word does not erase its original meaning, and that, therefore, its use by those it was meant to oppress only serves as a continuation of its racist or colonial intention, except that those it was meant to oppress choose to think it does not carry the derogatory meaning. And I tend to agree with this latter view, because words carry definite meaning; and just because you appropriate the word to mean something else, does not change its intended meaning. I make the same argument about words like “man” or “woman”, with respect to the trans agenda.

But, I say all of this to say that despite my perceptions of the use of the “N” word, some people do not deem it hateful, and others do. Similarly, years ago, it was not potentially hateful to call a biological man a man, but today it’s a non-crime hate offence in the UK and other countries. And this is where it becomes obvious that the UK has become a police state: the government allows itself to define what is hateful, and further allows itself to allocate offence to certain speech – enough to then unleash police on citizens who say what the government does not want them to say – this is nothing short of autocracy!

ALISON PEARSON’S CASE AND THE PROBLEMS WITH ‘NON-CRIME HATE INCIDENTS’

What is worse is that this means that, in the UK, you can get a police record for something you posted on X that someone else didn’t like – when you haven’t even committed a crime! NCHIs are essentially a way they have of getting around the law in the same way John Kerry would like to get around the First Amendment, except it’s already being done in the UK!

But, Alison Pearson’s case further exposes the Problems with the Non-Crime Hate Incidents, and we ought to look at her case further. For some context, Alison Pearson is a reporter for the Daily Telegraph, but that certainly does not mean she can write what she likes – especially as a reporter, who should have journalistic integrity and credibility – and so she tried to ascertain what the problem tweet was. But, when she asked the police what the tweet that led to them investigating her was, she was told they couldn’t tell her that. When she asked who the complainant was, they said they couldn’t tell her that either. They added that she shouldn’t call them a complainant, they were officially the victim (which is just wild: it is the equivalent of saying an accused is guilty before a trial). BUT.. that’s what due process is like when you don’t have a First Amendment or a constitution! Victims of NCHI in the UK are decided without a trial or a defence.

Now, of course, there has been a public ruckus over this particular case, but the police are unapologetic and have doubled down. Stung into action by unwanted publicity, they are now saying they have raised the matter from an NCHI to an actual crime investigation. Which means they think she can be arrested and put in prison for expressing her opinion on X. And of course they are right. In the UK that’s where we are right now. Pearson tried to point out the irony of two police officers turning up on her door to complain about her free speech on Remembrance Day of all days, when we recall the thousands who died to keep this a free country, but irony is lost on those who have no memory of what totalitarianism means.

EVEN MORE CONCERNING is that these police are sanctioned or enabled by a government that should be protecting its people! However, instead, in a woke culture with explicitly (and sometimes perpetually) defined victims, governments will tip toe around people committing crimes, in the name of not offending the political minority – especially considering that a lot of these developments in the UK are tied to the Southport case, which involves an immigrant teenager accused of killing three girls and attempting to murder 10 others in a knife attack at a dance class.

Written By Lindokuhle Mabaso