Social media ‘hate speech’ police: Today the UK, tomorrow America.
In a move designed to allow the government to determine what can and cannot be said on social media, the United Kingdom (UK) has formed police teams charged with the responsibility of identifying and prosecuting so-called “hate speech.” And thanks to a recent Supreme Court ruling, along with a Kamala Harris or Donald Trump presidency, we are likely to see similar social media police teams formed in America in the very near future.
In response to recent rioting in the country, authorities in the UK have intensified scrutiny of “hate influencers,” sparking concerns over expanded police surveillance and the definition of “online violence” (via Reclaim The Net):
Special police teams are now going through social sites in order to identify those said to have “incited” the riots, and there’s a special name for them – “hate influencers.”
The said teams consist of what reports refer to as “specialized” officers, those investigating serious crimes (i.e., murder and the like) and terrorism, as well as local units whose job is normally to investigate organized crime.
“Other” national-level teams are also mentioned as taking part in scouring the internet, and what they might be doing is suggested by the goal of this exercise being gaining “a clear intelligence picture,” as one article put it, citing the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC). (Emphasis mine)
While it’s tempting to dismiss these developments since they are happening “across the pond,” recent developments in America indicate that we could be seeing the same thing in America.
With help from two of Donald Trump’s SCOTUS appointments, Justices Bret Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, the Court used a technicality in a 6-3 ruling that gave Joe Biden future presidents control over social media companies and their content in the name of preventing so-called “misinformation.”
The Supreme Court rejected challenges to Biden administration officials’ communications with social media companies aimed at combating misinformation online and ignored the First Amendment implications by ruling against the two Republican attorneys general and private parties for not having legal standing to bring the case.
However, in his dissenting opinion, Justice Samuel Alito — joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch — scolded his fellow justices for failing to decide the case based on its First Amendment implications:
“The Court, however, shirks that duty and thus permits the successful campaign of coercion in this case to stand as an attractive model for future officials who want to control what the people say, hear, and think. That is regrettable.” (Emphasis mine)
Joe Biden and his Department of Homeland Security (DHS) first established his defacto Ministry of Truth — he called it a Misinformation and Disinformation Governance Board (MDGB) — in April 2022. After taking heat for the obvious threat to liberty created by the MDGB, Biden and his DHS secretary pretended to cancel it while launching it in secret a few months later.
At the November 2022 G20 summit held in Bali, Indonesia, global elitist leaders signed a declaration calling for the censorship of misinformation and disinformation, a measure fully endorsed by Joe Biden. Though the declaration focused mainly on climate change and Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs), leaders linked SDGs to the importance of the need for online censorship.
In October 2023, Biden announced a new emphasis on his crack down on social media “misinformation” to be headed up by Rob Flaherty, the former White House director of digital strategy whose combative emails to social media firms were a part of the case heard by the Supreme Court.
Flaherty got the gig because he had established himself to be a major proponent of censorship as a way to crack down on social media “misinformation.” Flaherty targeted so-called misinformation on subjects like COVID vaccines, the upcoming election, and Biden’s past record for censorship.
Now, you might be thinking that since Joe Biden isn’t running for reelection, we don’t have to worry about a social media police force being created, but you’d be wrong because not only has Kamala Harris adopted most of Joe Biden’s platform as her own, but she has also hired Rob Flaherty away from Joe Biden to work as her Deputy Campaign Manager in charge of digital outreach.
The war on free speech and so-called misinformation received big headlines during Biden’s reign, but Donald Trump and the Republican Party put things in motion for him when they passed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act in 2018 to form a new wing of Department of Homeland Security. The bill made DHS “responsible for protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure from physical and cyber threats.”
Additionally, Trump signed the Internet of Things Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2020 into law on Dec. 4, 2020. Trump and his Trumpist Republican buddies said the new law would only apply to federal government agencies, but legal observers warned how the downstream consequences would likely reach much further, impacting devices procured by the federal government and — are you ready? — consumer devices.
In his book, 1984, George Orwell refers to all-powerful government as “the Party” and Americans have elected — literally and figuratively — the modern-day Republican/Democrat version of this entity; surrendering the power of the people to private organizations who have no interest in protecting and defending the Constitution.
This is how Republicans and Democrats rose to dominate the political landscape. This is how Republicans and Democrats were able to create a Ministry of Truth. This is how Republicans and Democrats continue to get away with using political doublespeak to redefine free speech as misinformation or disinformation and criminalizing it.
Donald Trump calls free speech “Fake News” and Joe Biden calls it misinformation. Either way, the social media hate speech police is a reality in the UK and will soon be a reality in America courtesy of Republicans and Democrats — along with a little help from the Supreme Court — who are all too willing to subjugate liberty and the Constitution to tyranny and the will of the Party.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties. He the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty.
Follow the Strident Conservative on Twitter and Facebook.
Subscribe to receive podcasts of his daily radio feature: iTunes | Pandora | Tune In | iHeart | RSS
For media inquiries or to have David speak to your group, use the Contact Us form.
