BC man ordered to pay $760K for online posts

Former Chilliwack, British Columbia, school trustee Barry Neufeld, one of the loudest online critics of the provincial government's sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) guidelines, has been ordered by the BC Human rights Tribunal to pay $750,000 in damages to the school board's 2SLGBTQ+ teachers, plus $10,000 in punitive damages.

Former B.C. school trustee ordered to pay $750K for hate speech, discrimination: human rights tribunal | CBC News | Lauren Vanderdeen: · 

February 20, 2026 - "The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has ordered former Chilliwack school trustee Barry Neufeld to pay $750,000 for violating the Human Rights Code by publishing hate speech and discriminatory content against 2SLGBTQ+ people.... Neufeld was one of the 'loudest critics' against the B.C. government's move in 2017 directing school boards to update codes of conduct to address bullying based on "SOGI,' or sexual orientation and gender identity, according to the tribunal’s decision.... Neufeld did not respond to CBC News's request for comment by publication deadline....

"Neufeld's publications included Facebook posts, a speech at a gathering, a widely-circulated email, and comments at a school board meeting and in the media. The tribunal found six of his publications were likely to expose trans, gay and lesbian people to hatred or contempt based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.... More than 20 of Neufeld's publications indicated discrimination or an intention to discriminate against 2SLGBTQ+ people in the Chilliwack School District....

"The BCTF and Chilliwack Teachers' Association sought an award of $750,000 in compensation to teachers' association members who identify as LGBTQ between October 2017 through 2022 for injury to their dignity, feelings and self-respect. The tribunal agreed with the award, saying Neufeld 'poisoned' the workplace with anti-2SLGBTQ+ discrimination. The tribunal said the $750,000 will result in individual awards between around $4,600 to $16,667 per class member, according to the decision. It noted the purpose of the award is to compensate for the harms of discrimination rather than be punitive....

"A second decision from the tribunal, also released Wednesday, ordered Neufeld to pay $10,000 in punitive costs for improper conduct during the complaint. The tribunal said Neufeld 'repeatedly and flagrantly demonstrated his disregard for the Human Rights Tribunal and its process' and deliberately violated the tribunal's rules and orders. The tribunal said he 'surreptitiously' recorded a pre-hearing conference call and posted the recording on YouTube and published privileged information about settlement discussions."

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/barry-neufeld-former-chilliwack-bc-trustee-pay-hate-speech-tribunal-2slgbtq-9.7098536

Man FINED $750K for Saying There are 2 Genders SPEAKS OUT | Barry Neufeld  | The Bridgehead | February 24, 2026:

 

Lisa Bildy: Human rights rules on gender ideology are just blasphemy laws | National Post | Lisa Bildy:

Feb 26, 2026 - "Oppressively enforced beliefs are back. But those beliefs don’t emanate from pulpits. It’s no longer Christianity demanding adherence to beliefs, but the secular religion of social justice. Neufeld learned the hard way that gender identity is now an unquestionable tenet of this new faith. Human rights tribunals are its enforcers under the guise of punishing 'discrimination.' The curriculum he criticized, introduced in 2016, roughly coincided with 'gender identity' becoming a protected class under human rights codes across Canada.

"In 2006, publisher Ezra Levant faced a discrimination complaint for reprinting the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. He and Mark Steyn, who faced similar complaints for commentary on Islam published in Maclean’s magazine, drew attention to tribunal overreach, leading to the repeal of section 13 of the Canada Human Rights Act, which had empowered the tribunal to punish 'hate speech'.... 

"[T]he federal Online Harms Bill, introduced by the previous Liberal government and floated again by the current government ... proposes to restore those hate speech enforcement powers to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal....  But that’s obviously already happening, at least in British Columbia. In an interim decision in Neufeld’s case, B.C.’s Human Rights Tribunal decided that, although previous decisions of the tribunal had found otherwise, it actually does have the power to regulate online posts under its existing legislation....

"This case expands limits on freedom of expression in two significant ways. 

• First, disparaging gender ideology — even when targeting ideas, not people — was found to be discriminatory. B.C.’s human rights commissioner argued that’s the way it should be.... Mark Steyn avoided punishment for his commentary on Islam, also litigated in B.C., because it was considered political commentary within the bounds of free expression. Today’s human rights functionaries won’t abide such limits on their power. 
• Second, the expanded interpretation was applied to an elected trustee, whose role is to challenge policies and raise concerns about educational changes. Bureaucrats now dictate what elected officials can say on public policy matters....

"The $750,000 fine against Neufeld is unprecedented in the human rights context. While framed as compensation for “harm” to LGBTQ teachers, it was clearly intended to financially ruin him for his speech and refusal to embrace gender identity. It also serves as a warning to anyone considering criticism of the new faith. Blasphemy laws are back.

"Public outrage is growing, and politicians are being pressured to act. Reining in these star chambers is no longer good enough. Legislatures must abolish them, along with the human rights codes that they enforce. That requires political backbone, so don’t hold your breath. Instead, call, write, or sign a petition like ours at the Free Speech Union to let your political leaders know how many Canadians oppose financial ruin for expressing opinions on issues affecting themselves and their children."

Lisa Bildy is a lawyer and executive director of the Free Speech Union of Canada. She can be found on X at @LDBildy. 

Read more: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/lisa-bildy-human-rights-rules-on-gender-ideology-are-just-blasphemy-laws

Free speech alive on the internet - for now

Media Freedom…if We Can Keep it! | Ron Paul Institute | Ron Paul:

February 16, 2026 - "Last week I had the pleasure to again appear on Tucker Carlson’s popular broadcast. Although the program appears on several different platforms, on X alone the episode has been seen by more than two and a half million people. That does not include the various clips and shorts that people made and posted themselves. It is incredible how the reach and influence of the independent media has grown over the past decade or so.

"As I have often said, while there are many evil things out there on the Internet, at the same time we have the tools to communicate the unfiltered message of freedom like never before.

"Even though Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News was enormously popular – number one in the nation – the network still yanked the show from underneath him because they didn’t like some of the things he was saying. Now, Tucker and other independent media figures answer not to studio executives with their own agendas, but rather they answer directly to the American people in the marketplace of ideas. Carlson’s reach as an independent is arguably greater than when he was on Fox.

"And there are many more like him with large – and not so large – audiences who are appealing directly to the 'consumer,' without the middleman to tell them what they can and cannot say. Admittedly, sometimes what people say is ugly, but we do not have free speech to only talk about the weather.

"Big media and big government are in bed together and they hate the fact that we can communicate with each other without their filters and influence. They long for the days when they could shovel down our throats just what they wanted us to hear and believe.

"While we may be winning this battle for free expression, we must not fool ourselves into thinking that we have won the war. We must remember just a few years ago during COVID that all it took to have your platform wiped off the face of the earth was to dare question the “wisdom” of Anthony Fauci. Even today there are forces seeking to use the power of the state to silence opinions they disagree with.

"In Europe, free speech is under attack by totalitarian measures like the Digital Services Act, which creates a police state in the name of 'protecting' citizens from 'disinformation.' Of course, 'disinformation' is simply information that governments or elites don’t want to get out. You can go to jail for an X post in Europe, while violent criminals are set free.

"Make no mistake – many in the US would love to have such a system in place to protect speech they like and punish speech they don’t like. We have already seen attempts to intimidate – or even deport – people who have protested the recent mass killings in Gaza, for example. And the US government forced sale of TikTok was not a victory for free speech.

"The truth is, 'cancel culture' exists in both the left and the right and everywhere in-between. If we want to maintain and expand our ability to communicate freely and grow our voice in the independent media sphere we cannot let our guard down. 'Free speech for me but not for thee' – using government force to shut down unwanted voices – will result in free speech for no one. And once it is gone, it will not be easy to get back."

Copyright © 2026 The Ron Paul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
ronpaulinstitute.org/media-freedomif-we-can-keep-it/

Ron Paul’s Warnings Have Come True. His Next Prediction Is Terrifying. | Tucker Carlson  and RonPaulLibertyReport | February 11, 2026:

Alberta bill to limit power of regulatory bodies

The Alberta government has introduced Bill 13 to limit the power of professional regulatory bodies fto control their members' speech outside the workplace. 

Alberta’s Bill 13 — the end of woke professional regulators? | Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms | John Carpay:

November 24, 2025 - "Premier Danielle Smith and her government should be applauded for introducing Bill 13, the Regulated Professions Neutrality Act, the first of its kind in Canada. This proposed new law seeks to protect free speech for lawyers, teachers, doctors, and other professionals who, if they wish to earn a living, depend on a licence from their regulatory body. For many years, regulatory bodies across Canada have been abusing their authority by imposing woke ideology on nurses, psychologists, and other professionals. 

"Dr. Jordan Peterson was subjected to disciplinary proceedings by the College of Psychologists of Ontario over his political commentary on Twitter (now X). Nurse Amy Hamm was found guilty of professional misconduct by the BC College of Nurses and Midwives for having stated publicly that there are only two sexes. In Saskatchewan, nurse Leah McInnes faced disciplinary proceedings over exercising her Charter freedom to express her opinions about mandatory vaccination policies. BC teacher Jim McMurtry was fired for questioning the popular narrative — thus far not supported by any evidence — that 215 children are buried at or near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. 

"It's high time for new laws in every province to rein in the ideologues who abuse their regulatory authority by censoring opinions they disagree with. New laws are needed to protect the freedom of professionals to express their opinions publicly, including their freedom to identify themselves as a doctor, lawyer, teacher, nurse, etc., when speaking publicly.

"Free speech is not the only issue. Of even greater importance, Bill 13 (the Regulated Professions Neutrality Act) amends existing provincial legislation to clarify that a regulatory body exists solely to enforce standards of competence and ethics. Professional Codes of Conduct and the teaching of professional competence should never be used as vehicles for promoting neo-Marxist ideals like 'equity, diversity, inclusion' and so-called 'anti-racism' and “cultural competence” indoctrination. Bill 13 is an important step towards addressing these problems and restoring public trust.... In a move that strikes a dagger into the heart of woke ideology, Bill 13’s preamble goes on to declare 'that all persons are equal in dignity and should not be arbitrarily assigned value or blame based on their personal identity characteristics or beliefs.' 

"The Regulated Professions Neutrality Act will apply to over 40 regulatory bodies in Alberta. They will be required to apply and practice the principle that a person’s value should never be determined on the basis of that person’s race, colour, ancestry, national, or ethnic origin, religious belief, political belief, sex, etc. Nor should anyone be considered biased, oppressive, advantaged, or morally inferior because of a personal characteristic, according to Bill 13. Nor should anyone bear responsibility for actions committed by other people belonging to the same ethnic or religious group. Alberta’s Law Society and College of Physicians and Surgeons, for example, will no longer be able to apply notions of collective guilt and inter-generational guilt to lawyers and doctors. Regulatory bodies will no longer be able to use 'equity, diversity and inclusion” as the pretext for giving people adverse or preferential treatment because of a personal characteristic like skin colour or sexual orientation.

"Under Bill 13, the education and training required by a regulatory body for its members must relate only to professional competence and ethical standards. Education and training may no longer seek to dictate — expressly or by implication — the range of acceptable or unacceptable opinions or beliefs on any political, historical, social, or cultural issue, or on a matter of conscience. For good measure, the Bill mandates that professional education and training can no longer address “cultural competency,” “unconscious bias,” or “diversity, equity, or inclusion.” Bill 13 appears to be a direct response to the Alberta Court of King’s Bench judgment in Song v. Law Society of Alberta, in which Justice Kachur ruled that the Alberta Law Society had the right, under the Legal Profession Act, to mandate 'cultural competency' training (para. 111).

"Last but not least, the Regulated Professions Neutrality Act requires courts to interpret this new law on a standard of correctness, not a standard of reasonableness. Essentially, this means that regulatory bodies must apply the new legislation narrowly and properly to achieve the goal of protecting free expression, and the goal that education and training be focused on ethics and professionalism (to the exclusion of ideology). Professional bodies will not be able to skirt the law by claiming in court that their own “reasonable” efforts are somehow good enough."

Read more: jccf.ca/western-standard-albertas-bill-13-the-end-of-woke-professional-regulators/

Professional regulators threaten free speech

Some professional regulatory bodies in Canada have begun the chilling practice of regulating the online and public speech of their members,  

Professional bodies have become a major threat to free speech | Free Speech Union of Canada | Lisa Bildy:

August 25, 2025 - "Fresh off his byelection win in Alberta, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre came out of the gates with a bold and definitive statement on social media: a professional body using its powers to regulate its members’ speech is 'authoritarian censorship.' As a lawyer who focuses on defending free speech cases, I couldn’t agree more. In recent weeks, developments in two of my cases demonstrated this problem and prompted Poilievre’s statement. 

"Nurse Amy Hamm in British Columbia received her penalty decision from the B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives’ disciplinary panel, which had found her guilty of unprofessional conduct in March for her gender-critical advocacy for the rights of women and children.  

"In the lengthy written decision of the panel, she was told that ... statements prioritizing biology over gender 'are discriminatory towards transgender people as (they exclude) them from the possibility of being women and girls.' In other words: it is not possible to advocate for sex-based rights — respectfully or not — because males self-identifying as women must always be included in the category of women, whether in prisons, rape shelters or sporting competitions.

"In another case, Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill, a specialist physician in Ontario, received a 'caution-in-person' by a committee of her regulator, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), for some of her online comments during the summer of 2020, when she criticized what she viewed as harmful, unethical and unscientific government-imposed responses to COVID, including lockdowns. The CPSO had issued an edict to all Ontario physicians, first published in April 2020, that they should not express views that did not 'align with information coming from public health or government' But physicians are also subject to other 'edicts,' such as their oath to 'first, do no harm,' which dictates that they speak out against harmful government policies.... Despite slow and grudging recognition over the last five years that lockdowns were indeed a panic and control-driven blunt instrument that caused irreparable harm and had little value, the caution proceeded.

"Many important discoveries and insights throughout history have come from dissident voices who were often censored or vilified for going against the perceived consensus. We are in such a time again, in which dissenting opinions are suppressed to protect preferred narratives that are often so steeped in misinformation and dogma that allowing a bit of evidence or common sense through the cracks would cause the whole edifice to fall.... [A]ll it can take is a complaint from a disgruntled member of the public to jump-start the process to 'correct' those opinions. In the cases of both Gill and Hamm, the complainants were not patients — they were strangers on the internet who saw an opportunity to weaponize the regulatory complaints process.....

"In Hamm’s case, she lost a job she held for 13 years at a Vancouver hospital after a group of her co-workers, most of whom express radical left-wing views, often while representing themselves as employees of the hospital, ganged up online and called for her termination. She endured a year-long workplace investigation, including aggressive questioning by the investigator, and was ultimately fired without severance. Nothing appears to have happened to her accusers, who were also regulated professionals. This double standard is not lost on the public, who can see it plain as day.

"Regulators have the power to punish professionals to such an oppressive degree that many simply sign undertakings not to speak on certain issues, make their social media accounts private or attend educational courses on 'professionalism.' The alternative — defending yourself against an accusation of unprofessional conduct — can mean paying exorbitant costs for your own prosecution. In Hamm’s case, she was ordered to pay over $93,600 to the college for its legal costs. Somehow, our society has decided that all of this is just fine.... And the courts defer to the 'expertise' of this managerial class, rendering it nearly impossible to successfully judicially review such decisions. In Gill’s case, she tried to appeal the cautions all the way to the Supreme Court, but was denied leave....

"I reject the premise that regulators, or any government or administrative body, should get to control anyone’s speech. For one thing, the people working in these institutions are fallible and have their biases like anyone else. Many are activists who are intent on forcing their views on anyone they can. Too much is left to the managerial class to decide when speech crosses some imaginary and entirely subjective line of ‘harm,' or is 'against the public interest.'

"Professionals, like everyone, should be allowed to speak freely. There will be concerns about this — we won’t always like what we hear — but we should get to hear them if we choose. In rare instances where speech rises to the level of criminality, police can deal with that. We must demand that our governments remove the powers of these bodies to regulate speech and opinions — they simply cannot be trusted with the job."

Lisa Bildy is a lawyer at Libertas Law and executive director of the Free Speech Union of Canada.

Read more: https://fsucanada.ca/lisa-bildy-professional-bodies-have-become-a-major-threat-to-free-speech/

Ron Paul: Free speech is worth fighting for

Free Speech is Worth Fighting For | Ron Paul Institute | Ron Paul:

March 31, 2025 - "Our Founders, particularly James Madison who drafted the Bill of Rights, understood that our rights are not privileges granted to us by government. No, it was understood at the founding that these basic natural rights outlined by Madison were granted by our Creator and thus no mere mortal could take them away. And first among these is the First Amendment which recognizes that most basic of our natural rights: the right to express ourselves in any way we wish.

Ron Paul in 2012. Photo: David Carlyon.

CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

"Unfortunately the US government has not always been in accord with this sentiment and has many times in our history been at war with our freedom of speech. From the alien and sedition acts at the beginning of our republic to Abraham Lincoln’s war on speech to the jailing of antiwar activists during both World Wars to Kent State, the political class is all for free speech unless it is threatening to the political class.

"Recently a new front has been opened in the war on free speech ... one that Americans must take seriously. On university campuses across the country students – both American and foreign guests – have taken to protesting US support for Israel’s actions in Gaza, where tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed. The political class in the United States is determined to defend Israel from its critics and has responded to these protests by threatening and blackmailing the universities if they do not crack down on speech the powers-that-be do not like. 

"Both Presidents Biden and Trump have used the power of US government funding to demand a crackdown on speech they don’t like, with President Trump recently pulling 400 million dollars in federal funding for Columbia University if they don’t silence the protesters. The real scandal is that nearly every US university – both public and “private” – is government funded in the first place. But for politicians to use the power of the purse to deny students the right to express themselves – as long as peaceful – just adds insult to injury.

"Last week a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University was arrested on the street by plainclothes government agents for reportedly simply writing an editorial in her university newspaper expressing her views on the Israel/Palestine conflict. She faces deportation from the country. And she is not alone. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has openly bragged about sending hundreds of students home because they express a political position he disagrees with. Others – including American citizens – have been expelled from their schools and have even had their degrees rescinded. For peacefully expressing a political position that powerful people in Washington disagree with.

"You may also [disagree] with the political position of these students. But to cheer their punishment by the US government is to turn your back on the founding principles of this country. Freedom of speech is a natural right not reserved for American citizens but for all of humanity. And it has been a natural right worth defending for nearly 250 years.

"First they came for foreign students expressing controversial positions and many Americans cheered because they were not foreign and did not like the opinions. But make no mistake: this war on speech will not end with only foreigners being punished. It never does."

Copyright © 2025 The Ron Paul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.

Read more: https://ronpaulinstitute.org/free-speech-is-worth-fighting-for/ 

Pathological socialism

Since I've been too busy to find something new for the blog today, here's a blast from the past; an article that I wrote in the fall of 2020, but mislaid, on the push to silence lockdown sceptics.

The New Statesman wants lockdown sceptics silenced

by George J. Dance

As the coronavirus continues to rage through Europe, lockdowns are failing to control it in one country after another, including the United Kingdom (UK). In the UK, lockdown lovers may be getting desperate, which explains the newest craze among the left, seeking to have "lockdown sceptics" (or, as I would call them, "Covid libertarians") 'deplatformed' or silenced (or at least marginalized). To do that, they have to malign and misrepresent the movement. 

The New Statesman (NS) magazine, a flagship magazine for the British left (similar to the New Republic in the U.S.), has been doing its fair share of maligning and misrepresenting. Last week I dealt with one such NS article, by lockdown cheerleader and Conservative MP Neil O'Brien, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. 

Throughoug the pandemic, NS has been attacking Covid libertarians with the strawman of "Covid denial"; here is a representative sample from a June article: "Most governments now reject Covid-19 denialism. Nonetheless, it has inspired far-right groups, and sparked protests against lockdowns, from Michigan to Melbourne."  The magazine repeated that strawman as late as January 6, when a "writer, broadcaster and activist," Paul Mason, was still  equating "Covid ... denialism and lockdown scepticism". Mason appears to understand neither lockdown scepticism nor the reasoning behind it: 

Their arguments often rest on scientific arguments and viewpoints that have now been discredited, such as that of the physician Karol Sikora, who in June predicted there would be “no second wave”, and modelling published last March claiming that as much as 50 per cent of the UK population had already been infected. 

Well, no. Maybe someone's arguments rest on that, but not Dr. Sikora's: his argument has always been that (as he titled an October Spectator article), "Covid-19 kills – but so does lockdown"  (a non-"denialist" claim that Mason does not address, but merely dismisses as "adopting ignorance in defence of [one's] own material interest" - as lf Sikora's only concern about his cancer patients missing hospital treatment is his lack of fees from same). Nor do those claims have anything to do with my argument, which I may as well give here:  

1. Lockdowns violate human rights; it is a matter of fact that people have been deprived of liberty, property, and even life against their will as a result of them. 
2. Governments, like everyone else, must respect human rights wherever possible. 
3. Governments violated human rights through lockdowns by pleading an emergency: that if they did not violate those rights, "millions of people would die." 
4. Granted that saving the lives of "millions of people" would excuse violating some rights: no governments have ever proved that their lockdowns have saved the lives of millions of people (or, for that matter, of any people). 

I have seen only two arguments for the cheerleaders' claim that lockdowns saved lives. One, ironically, was "modelling published last March" that claimed the UK would suffer 220,000 deaths without a lockdown, but just 20,000 with one. (Three lockdowns later, the death toll for the UK is pushing 100,000.) The other is the fact that Covid cases and deaths declined in the spring, which may have been due to (a) the voluntary social distancing that began everywhere before lockdowns (two weeks before, in the UK's case); and (b) the hypothesis that the virus is seasonal (which implies both that it would decline in the spring anyway, and that there would be a "second wave" in the fall).

Three lockdowns later, the UK is left with 100,000 deaths and counting (higher than any non-lockdown nation in Europe); but Mason is sure those deaths were all the lockdown sceptics' fault. Thanks to them, the first lockdown in March worked "too slowly;" the second one, in November, was "far too late"; and the third, after Christmas, came only after "disastrous delay and dither". No wonder he wants to shut the skeptics up: if their opinions are what is causing all these lockdowns to fail, then they must be silenced before any UK lockdowns can actually start saving all those lives. 

Which leads into Mason's own evidence. According to him: "The statistics are clear: the first lockdown worked, despite its late imposition, because schools and colleges were closed" (and not because a seasonal virus like a flu or a coronavirus declines in the spring). "The second lockdown in November, during which schools and colleges remained open, managed only to stabilise the death rate" (and not because a seasonal virus like a flu or a coronavirus does not decline in November). While the "outcome of the third lockdown depends on compliance, which the lockdown sceptics are helping to undermine." See how that works? Shut up the skeptics, close the schools again, and the lockdown may work by next spring.  

Which brings us to the real objects of Mason's spleen: the "prominent lockdown sceptics such as Toby Young, Allison Pearson, Laurence Fox, Julia Hartley-Brewer and Peter Hitchens: celebrity right-wing opinion formers with no scientific credentials." (Mason's own scientific credentials are "New Statesman contributing writer, author and film-maker.") That Gang of Five are not only wrong, but de facto traitors; they are not merely "denying reality," but "are spreading the equivalent of enemy propaganda in wartime." This alleged treason happens because, like "millions of die-hard conservative-minded people," they "still believe they live in a world of individuals and that society has no right to mandate their behaviour in an extreme crisis."

That last conjunct makes little sense. It is not British "society" mandating its citizens' behavior, but the UK government. "Society" cannot mandate anything, because it is not a person or even a god. Society is the human-constructed part of the environment (of which the 'economy' or the 'market' is an iportant part). Environments do not mandate; organisms adapt to their environment or die, but that is not because environments go around punishing organisms for their "noncompliance." 

To a socialist, though, government is "society" - or, at least the members of it who get to mandate how "society" functions. For the past century socialists have tried to 'plan' and 'manage' their national economies to eliminate poverty and scarcity, blaming every failure on 'traitors' of their own. And the result has been so great (it has never worked, but would have every time except for the 'traitors'), that they are now emboldened to try planning the rest of society: if they plan all the minutiae of everyone's lives, from seeing friends to simple outdoor exercise, they will be able to eliminate disease and death itself just as successfully. (One could call this "pathological socialism.")  

Mason candidly admits that "we’ve been here before with climate change". Since the failure of communism, socialists have been trying to build a new case for a new socialism around the climate change threat arguing, as Mason does, that "Mitigating climate change means ... the state taking control of the market." The lockdown debate, as he says, "is rooted in the same ideological soil. If Covid is real, free-market capitalism of the kind the elite sold to British people for 40 years cannot work." Denying those conclusions - that either climate change or the coronavirus prove the case for socialism - is what, for him, actually makes non-socialists and lockdown skeptics "deniers." Even questioning the ability of the state to perform such miracles (if only capitalism were destroyed and all its defenders silenced) is, for someone like him, equivalent to "denying reality." 

Look where pathological socialism has brought us already. As Mason tells it: "We are paying people not to work" thanks to the economic shutdowns that came with the lockdowns taking away their jobs. "We are lending money to bankrupt companies" thanks to those shutdowns driving companies into bankruptcy. "We are forbidding landlords to evict people" thanks to making it impossible for people and businesses to meet their rents. "We are scrapping the exams that divide children into winners and losers at an early age" by working to create a whole generation with no winners. "We are printing money so that the government can borrow it" because, having taken a chainsaw to so much of their societies, western governments have no other way to pay for all of this.  

To secure all these gains, the traitors must be silenced. "I was glad to see YouTube temporarily pull the plug on TalkRadio. I would be even gladder to see Ofcom review the station’s licence to broadcast and Twitter and Facebook label the claims of columnists as questionable or false where appropriate." 

"But above all," Mason concludes, "I want to see politicians and public figures proactively and strongly refute Covid denialism." Here may be another point of agreement. If by "refute" he means try to intellectually engage with (as opposed to misrepresenting, slandering, deplatforming, or outlawing), I would welcome that as well. Unfortunately, I am losing the hope of ever seeing it happen. Unfortunately, I am afraid that by "refute" he means "silence". He wants his opponents silenced. 

Free speech a top concern of U.S. voters

Free speech is a top concern of U.S. voters in 2024. But a majority of both Republicans and Democrats lack confidence in the other party to protect their free speech, while a majority of independents lack confidence in both those parties. 

POLL: Free speech a top concern for Americans in 2024, more important than crime, immigration, and health care | Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE):

October 24, 2024 - "A new poll from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression finds that free speech is a critical issue for most Americans in the 2024 presidential election, topping other hot button issues like health care, immigration, crime, and guns.

"FIRE’s poll, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago, asked 1,022 Americans how important a host of issues were in the context of the upcoming election. The top answer was inflation, with 68% saying increasing costs was 'very important' and 91% calling it at least 'somewhat important.' But the next top answer was free speech, with 63% calling it 'very important' and 90% saying it was at least 'somewhat important'....

"Americans from both parties view free speech as a significant issue, with 91% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats agreeing it’s at least 'somewhat important'.... Republicans were more likely to rate it 'very important” (70% vs. 60%), and they were more likely to respond that they were somewhat concerned about their ability to speak freely in the U.S. today (63% vs. 42%). Republicans were also more likely o respond that they speak less freely today than four years ago (46% vs. 21%).

"Assessments of the two major political parties’ free speech bonafides were mixed, but slightly positive. A majority of Americans also expressed confidence that Republicans (51%) and Democrats (56%) will protect their free speech rights in office. A little under half (45%) said Democrats support free speech either a 'great deal' or 'quite a lot' while 28% answered 'very little' or 'not at all,' compared to 42% and 31% respectively for Republicans. 

"But Americans’ assessment of the two major parties were sharply polarized by their political affiliation: 77% of Democrats say they believe the Democrats support free speech 'a great deal' or 'quite a lot,' and 91% are at least 'somewhat' confident they would protect their free speech rights. 75% of Republicans say they believe the Republicans support free speech 'a great deal' or 'quite a lot,' and 85% express high confidence they would protect their free speech rights. 

"But 53% of Republicans think Democrats support free speech 'very little,' or 'not at all,' and 50% of Democrats say the same of Republicans. 77% of Republicans and 72% of Democrats also reported they are either “not too” or “not at all” confident the opposing party will protect their free speech.

"Self-described Independents gave low marks to both parties in roughly equal measure. A supermajority reported low or no confidence that Democrats (62%) and Republicans (61%) would protect their free speech. Only 23% said Democrats support free speech 'a great deal' or 'quite a lot,' and only 28% said the same of Republicans....

"The FIRE/NORC survey was conducted October 11-14, 2024, using NORC’s AmeriSpeak® probability-based panel, and sampled 1,022 Americans. The overall margin of error for the survey is +/- 4.18%.

"The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them."

Read more: https://www.thefire.org/news/poll-free-speech-top-concern-americans-2024-more-important-crime-immigration-and-health-care

A perfect storm against free speech

Would-be censors are not even pretending to be in favor of free speech anymore. 

Cut the Truth Out of Our Heads | Brownstone Institute | Jeffrey A. Tucker:

October 13, 2024 - "The censors are losing patience. They have gone from regretting the existence of free speech and gaming the system as best they can to fantasizing about ending it through criminal penalties. You can observe this change in temperament – from frustration to fury to calling for violent solutions – over the last several weeks. And it serves as a reminder: censorship was never the end point. It was always about controlling society’s 'cognitive infrastructure,' which is how we think.... 

"This week, Fox reporter Peter Doocy was sparring with the White House spokesperson over whether FEMA is funding migrants even as it cannot help American storm survivors. She immediately shot back and called this 'disinformation.' Peter wanted to know what part of his question qualified. Jean-Pierre said it was the whole context of the question and otherwise never said. It was clear to anyone who was watching that the term 'disinformation' means to her nothing other than a premise or fact that is unwelcome and needs to be shut down. This messaging has been further reinforced by a Harris/Walz ad blaming unnamed 'misinformation' from Trump for exacerbating hurricane suffering following Hurricane Helene. 

"This exchange came only days after Hillary Clinton suggested criminal penalties for disinformation, else 'they will lose total control.' It’s an odd plural pronoun because, presumably, she is not in control ... unless she regards herself as a proxy for an entire class of rulers. 

"Meanwhile, former presidential candidate John Kerry said the existence of free speech is making government impossible. Kamala Harris herself has sworn to 'hold social media accountable' for the 'hate infiltrating their platforms.' And well-connected physician Peter Hotez is calling for Homeland Security and NATO to put an end to debates over vaccines

"You can detect the fury in all their voices, almost as if every post on X or video on Rumble is causing them to lose their minds, to the point that they are just saying it out loud: 'Make them stop.' 

"Hurricane Milton seems to have caused the censors to flip out in a violent rage, as people wondered whether and to what extent the government might have something to do with manipulating the weather for political reasons. A writer in the Atlantic explodes: 'I’m running out of ways to explain how bad this is. What’s happening in America today is something darker than a misinformation crisis,' while decrying 'outright conspiracy theorizing and utter nonsense racking up millions of views across the internet.' Catch that? It’s the viewing itself that is the problem, as if people do not have the capacity to think for themselves. 

"The old meme of the man staying up late typing because 'someone is wrong on the Internet' applies now to an entire swath of the ruling class. They want freedom out and the stakeholders in control, somehow forcing the whole of the digital age into a version of 1970s television with three channels and 1-800 numbers. The Biden administration even refounded the Internet, replacing the Declaration of Freedom with a new Declaration of the Future....

"So far we’ve only experienced a relatively low-grade version of this compared with what they really want. YouTube accounts have been demonetized and deleted. Facebook posts have been throttled and banned. LinkedIn’s algorithms punish posts that take issue with regime narratives. This has not slowed down in light of litigation but rather continued and intensified. 

"The goal is to close up the Internet. They would have done it by now if it were not for the First Amendment, which stands in their way. For now, they will continue to work through university cutouts, third-party providers, phony baloney fact-checkers, pressure on tech firms that provide government services at a price, and other mechanisms to achieve indirectly what they cannot do directly just yet. 

"Among the strategies is the political persecution of dissenters. Alex Jones is a bellwether here and his company is being bankrupted. Steve Bannon, the philosopher king of MAGA, has been in jail for the entire election season for having defied a Congressional subpoena on the advice of counsel. The protestors on January 6 have been in prison not for damages caused or trespassing but for landing on the wrong side of the regime. 

"Most of us had an intuition that the Covid vaccine mandates themselves were not entirely about health but rather a tactic of exclusion of those who were not fully trusting of authority. This was rather obvious when it came to the military and the medical profession but less apparent within academia where noncompliant students and professors were effectively purged for their refusal to risk their lives for pharma. 

"There was an element of malice, too, in the mask mandates. Even though there was zero scientific evidence that a Chinese-made synthetic cloth worn on the face can change epidemiological dynamics, they did serve well as a visible sign to separate believers from unbelievers, and also as a sadistic means of reminding individualists of who is really running the show. 

"The final means of censorship is violence against person and property, while the end is to control what you think in service of one-party rule. Major tech companies and major media are wholly complicit in bringing this about. Only a handful of services are stopping this and they are all being targeted by the regime through myriad forms of lawfare.... 

"[I]t’s the liar more than anyone who has reason to fear free speech."

Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
For reprints, please set the canonical link back to the original Brownstone Institute Article and Author.

Read more: https://brownstone.org/articles/cut-the-truth-out-of-our-heads/

Tim Walz gets First Amendment wrong

During last Tuesday's VPOTUS debate, Tim Walz fumbled a key moment by misunderstanding the First Amendment.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz giving the State of the State 2024. Office of Gov. Tim Walz / Wikimedia Commons.

Yes, Tim Walz, You Can Shout 'Fire' In A Crowded Theatre | Reason | Emma Camp:

October 2, 2024 - "It would be nice if everyone on a presidential ticket understood how the First Amendment works, but unfortunately, that seems to be too much to ask of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. During an exchange about censorship and threats to Democracy — springing, inexplicably, from Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio) dodging a question about whether former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election — Walz made two major free speech fumbles. He claimed there is no First Amendment right to 'hate speech' and repeated the myth that you can't shout 'fire' in a crowded theatre.

"When Vance pivoted to correctly pointing out that Walz had previously 'said there's no First Amendment right to misinformation,' Walz interjected, adding 'or threatening, or hate speech.' But Walz is wrong. While threats aren't protected by the First Amendment, 'hate speech' most certainly is. Speech that is merely offensive — and not part of an unprotected category like true threats or harassment — has full First Amendment protection.... 'The Supreme Court of the United States has repeatedly rejected government attempts to prohibit or punish hate speech,' reads a rundown on hate speech from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a First Amendment group.... 

"But that wasn't Walz's only error. A few seconds later, he said 'You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater. That's the test. That's the Supreme Court test.' Again, this is incorrect. It's a common misconception that shouting 'fire' in a crowded theatre isn't protected by the First Amendment — a myth that originates from a hypothetical used in Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' 1919 Supreme Court opinion in Schenk v. United States. 

"Holmes wrote that 'the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.' Not only was this a purely hypothetical example used to explain Holmes' opinion, but the ruling itself was largely overturned 50 years later in Brandenburg v. Ohio.

"'The real problem with the 'fire in a crowded theater' discourse is that it too often is used as a placeholder justification for regulating any speech that someone believes is harmful or objectionable,' Naval Academy professor Jeff Kosseff wrote for Reason last year. 'In reality, the Supreme Court has defined narrow categories of speech that are exempt from First Amendment protections and set an extraordinarily high bar for imposing liability for other types of speech.'

"The worst part about all this for Walz is that his sloppy, revealing answers on free speech derailed what had been one of his strongest moments in the debate. The subject only came up in the first place because Vance, in an attempt to sidestep a question about Trump's election loss and the possibility of challenging future results, argued that big-tech censorship and government jawboning pose a bigger threat to democracy than Trump's election denial.... Walz was making a good point and asking an important question. That is, until he revealed what he really thinks about the First Amendment." 

Read more: https://reason.com/2024/10/02/yes-tim-walz-you-can-shout-fire-in-a-crowded-theatre/ 

Starmer government stalls freedom of speech act

The UK's new Labour government has put the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act (passed in the last Parliament) on hold, and is considering repealing it.  

Government delays university free-speech fines | BBC | Vanessa Clarke & Branwen Jeffreys:

July 25, 2024 - "Controversial new powers for universities and student unions to be fined for failing to uphold freedom of speech have been put on hold by the government. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said that would allow time to consider whether the law, which was due to come into force next week, would be repealed....

"The Higher Education Freedom of Speech Act, which was passed last year, said universities had a duty to 'secure' and 'promote the importance of' freedom of speech and academic expression. It would have allowed the OfS to fine or give sanctions to higher education providers and student unions in England from next week. It also included a new complaints scheme for students, staff and visiting speakers, who could seek compensation if they suffer from a breach of a university's free-speech obligations. But a government source told the BBC the legislation would have opened the way for Holocaust deniers to be allowed on campus, and was an 'anti-semite charter'."
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cv2gj1x11nmo

The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 became law but its implementation has been stopped | Octopus TV | August 25, 2024:

Hundreds of Academics Accuse Labour of Free Speech Betrayal | Guido Fawkes: 

577 academics have now signed an open letter to Bridget Phillipson calling on the education secretary to restore the Tories’ Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023. The act strengthened impositions on universities to support free speech on their premises and would introduce a complaints scheme to resolve issues.Richard Dawkins, Niall Ferguson, Kathleen Stock and others have signed. 

"The letter spells out that the act won’t be “burdensome” as Labour claims because government analysis has compliance cost at a tiny £4.7 million and that the complaints scheme would keep cases out of court.... Labour’s response is indignant: 'We make no apology for pausing the Tories’ hate speech charter, which would have allowed antisemites and holocaust deniers free rein on campuses'.... 

"Academics can sign here …

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc9GcINYCmoeyuiOLPNmmfJ_cUYNfbbf_m09xMCl7S2RQYASA/viewform

"Read the full letter below:

https://order-order.com/2024/08/23/hundreds-of-academics-accuse-labour-of-free-speech-betrayal/

Online Harms bureaucracy to cost >$200 Million

Canada's Parliamentary Budget Office estimates that staffing the bureaucracy needed to enforce the Trudeau government's Online Harms Act will cost $200 Million over 5 years, a number that can be expected to increase. 

PBO says Liberals’ 'online harms’ act to cost $200 million; Poilievre vows to kill it | Western Standard | Shaun Polczer: 

July 4, 2024 - "An 'opportunity cost.' That’s how Calgary Nose Hill MP Michelle Rempel Garner is describing the Trudeau government’s “Online Harms Act” — otherwise known as Bill C-63 — to regulate social media platforms. According to the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) it will cost upwards of $200 million to impose what Rempel Garner is calling a 'censorship bureaucracy' to hire 330 people to enforce “yet-to-be defined” regulations regarding the use and management of social media platforms. 

"The bill would establish three separate entities: 

1. the Digital Safety Commission, which is mandated to enforce the act and has the power to issue monetary penalties and fines; 
2. the Digital Safety Ombudsperson; 
3. and the Digital Safety Office, which would manage the day-to-day operations of all three.

"Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre on Thursday vowed to kill all three on arrival.

"The bill was ostensibly passed to prevent online harassment, persecution and stalking of vulnerable people in society. But Rempel Garner worries it’s morphed into a law focussed on 'banning opinions that contradict Justin Trudeau’s radical ideology'.... Canadian author Margaret Atwood called the bill 'Orwellian.' Noted American progressive news outlet The Atlantic called it 'Canada’s Extremist Attack on Free Speech.'

In her substack page, Rempel Garner noted 'the mind-blowing cost of the bill could grow.' That’s because C-63 doesn’t directly set out any structure that would allow for the recoupment of administrative expenses.... Worse still, the figures included in the PBO report would be in addition to a still-to-be-costed increase to the workload of the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC), which, under the scope of bill, would be tasked with policing a flood of extra-judicial 'prosecutions' over individual user social media posts.... 

“'It's unconscionable that the Liberal government would consider dumping $200M and over 300 new staff into an ill-defined new bureaucracy that does little to materially protect Canadians from online harassment when Canada's existing law enforcement officials are begging for support to deal with the crime waves sweeping across our nation,' Rempel Garner said....

"The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is [also] criticizing the bill. 'Today’s PBO report shows the online harms bill will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions and further balloon an already bloated bureaucracy,' said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director.... For the cost of the online harms bill, the government could instead pay the salary of about 375 new police officers, according to the RCMP’s website. Instead of hiring hundreds of bureaucrats to snoop around social media, the government could hire hundreds of police officers to actually go after criminals,” Terrazzano said."

Read more: https://www.westernstandard.news/canadian/pbo-says-liberals-online-harms-act-to-cost-200-million/55784 

Liberals to spend $200 million on online censorship office | True North | July 4, 2024:
(Story begins at 6:40)

Trudeau regime's extremist attack on free speech

Canada's Online Harms Bill C-63 would impose draconian criminal penalties on hate speech and curtail people’s liberty in order to stop crimes they haven’t yet committed.

Canada’s Extremist Attack on Free Speech | The Atlantic | Conor Friedersdorf:

June 6, 2024 - "In 1984, George Orwell coined the term thoughtcrime. In the short story 'The Minority Report,' the science-fiction author Philip K. Dick gave us the concept of 'precrime,' describing a society where would-be criminals were arrested before they could act. Now Canada is combining the concepts in a work of dystopian nonfiction: A bill making its way through Parliament would impose draconian criminal penalties on hate speech and curtail people’s liberty in order to stop future crimes they haven’t yet committed.

"The Online Harms Act [Bill C-63] states that any person who advocates for or promotes genocide is 'liable to imprisonment for life.' It defines lesser 'hate crimes' as including online speech that is 'likely to foment detestation or vilification' on the basis of race, religion, gender, or other protected categories.  And if someone 'fears' they may become a victim of a hate crime, they can go before a judge, who may summon the preemptively accused for a sort of precrime trial. If the judge finds 'reasonable grounds' for the fear, the ... judge may put the defendant under house arrest or electronic surveillance and order them to abstain from alcohol and drugs. Refusal to 'enter the recognizance' for one year results in 12 months in prison. This is madness.

"The proposed law ... does many other things too. One section concerns the obligations of online platforms to police content. Another bears on the worthy goal of protecting children from viewing pornography and stopping the distribution of child-sexual-abuse material, raising the odds that the bill will pass with too little attention to its worst provisions. (In February, it passed its first reading in the House of Commons. Becoming law would require a second and third reading in that body, where amendments can be proposed; passage in the national Senate; and approval by the governor general.)... 

"Arif Virani, Canada’s minister of justice and attorney general, is championing it. 'We need the ability to stop an anticipated hate crime from occurring,' he declared last week. 'The Conservatives need to get on board. Now.' According to The New York Times, some version of the bill is likely to pass, because 'Trudeau’s Liberal Party has an agreement with an opposition party to support government legislation.'

"Just countries do not punish mere speech with imprisonment, let alone life imprisonment. Just countries do not order people who have not committed and are not even accused of a crime to be confined to their home or tracked with an ankle bracelet. I have reasonable grounds to fear that the Trudeau government is going to trample on the civil rights of Canadians. That is hardly sufficient to secure the house arrest of its officials.

"Earlier this year, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association urged substantial amendments to the legislation. 'The broad criminal prohibitions on speech in the bill risk stifling public discourse and criminalizing political activism,' it warned. 'The bill imposes draconian penalties for certain types of expression, including life imprisonment for a very broad and vaguely defined offence of "incitement to genocide," and 5 years of jail time for other broadly defined speech acts. This not only chills free speech but also undermines the principles of proportionality and fairness in our legal system.'

"But amendments would not go far enough. No one who favors allowing the state to imprison people for mere speech, or severely constraining a person’s liberty in anticipation of alleged hate speech they have yet to utter, is fit for leadership in a liberal democracy. Every elected official who has supported the unamended bill should be ousted at the next opportunity by voters who grasp the fraught, authoritarian folly of this extremist proposal."

Read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/06/canada-online-harms-act/678605/

Trudeau's new online censorship law - Problems with Bill C-63 / the Online Harms Law | Canadian Constitution Foundation | March 4, 2024:

Ontario doctor ordered to take "ethics" retraining

The Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons, the provincial regulatory body, has ordered Ottawa doctor Miklos Matyas to take remedial training in "ethics and boundaries" for saying things to patients that were "contrary to the information and directives provided by the public health agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic." 

Ottawa surgeon not 'free' to share controversial COVID-19 views with patients: college | National Post | Andrew Duffy: 

March 14, 2024 - "An Ottawa surgeon has been ordered to take a remedial course on ethics and boundaries after sharing with several patients his controversial opinions about the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. Dr. Miklos Matyas, a head and neck surgeon, recently lost his appeal of the order issued by the complaints committee of the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons. Matyas argued the case cut to the heart of free speech rights for doctors with dissenting medical views.

College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, 2009.

Photo by Nephron. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

"The complaints panel heard evidence Matyas cast doubt on the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, promoted the use of ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug, and suggested that surgical masks were ineffective at preventing the disease’s transmission. The committee ordered Matyas to appear before the panel for a verbal caution about his communication with patients and colleagues. A date for that appearance has yet to be set.

“'The committee was concerned about the potential impact of the respondent’s (Matyas’) conduct on patient safety and the public interest,' the panel said in its February 2023 decision. 'In the committee’s view, his statements were contrary to the information and directives provided by the public health agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic.'

"Matyas appealed that decision to the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board, arguing the college had no authority to investigate and punish him for expressing scientific opinions that challenged the 'official narrative' on COVID-19.

“'Protection of the public is made possible by protecting physicians’ autonomy and free expression of their honest professional opinions and interpretations of scientific data,' Matyas argued, adding: 'Promoting censorship of dissenting expert clinicians in a rapidly evolving public health crisis is not in the public’s interest.' Any suggestion he offered inappropriate COVID-19 information, Matyas told the review board, rested on the belief that public health officials were always right....

"Matyas’ arguments, however, were rejected earlier this month by the review board, which said the college was legally required to investigate patient complaints and to act when a physician’s conduct was unprofessional. In its decision, the review board said that, while physicians had a Charter-protected right to free speech, it was reasonably circumscribed because they held a unique position of public trust.... 

"'The board finds the committee’s conclusion to be reasonable on the inappropriateness of the applicant’s comments about COVID-19 vaccines and treatment,' the review panel wrote. 'The committee’s conclusion is grounded on public health information in the record, including from the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.' The board upheld the committee’s order that Matyas enroll in a remedial ethics course and appear before the panel to be cautioned."

Read more: https://nationalpost.com/news/local-news/complaints-case-addresses-free-speech-of-ottawa-surgeon-with-dissenting-covid-19-views/wcm/6d3c6973-f089-4faf-9161-4f62f54165b6

Andrew Duffy is a National Newspaper Award-winning reporter and long-form feature writer based in Ottawa. To support his work, including exclusive content for subscribers only, sign up here: ottawacitizen.com/subscribe

BC dad fights gag order re child's gender transition

A British Columbia father who was fined and imprisoned for breaking a court order against talking about his minor child's gender transition (which he had opposed) is going to court to have the order lifted.  

BC father who tried to stop child's gender transition fights to make his name public | Western Standard | Lee Harding: 

January 5, 2024 - "The BC father who went to court to try to stop his child’s gender transition is returning to the courts to allow his name to be made public. CD, as he was known in court documents, was sentenced to six months in prison and a $30,000 fine for breaking the court order preventing public dissemination of information about the case [see video]. The fine was lifted upon appeal and time served was deemed sufficient. 

"A publication ban remains in effect in Canada, preventing anyone from calling CD by his real name. The doctors involved in the female-to-male transition of his child had their names concealed, allegedly to protect them from reprisals.

"In an email blast, former MP and Conservative Party leadership candidate Derek Sloan called CD’s legal journey 'a travesty of justice.' He launched a fundraising campaign to help CD go public once again.... 'Now he wants to go after the gag order forcing him to live an anonymous life,' ... Sloan wrote in an email blast. 'He deserves the right to talk about his experience, he deserves the right to have a real existence, unencumbered by draconian rules that could place him back in jail if he slips up on an interview or speaks out publicly about his experience'....

"James Kitchen, who was involved in the case early on as a lawyer for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, is taking on CD’s cause once again. 'It's really a travesty that we can't even mention his name. It just goes to show how far the laws have come in Canada in the last half a decade. But what we need to do is take legal action,' said Kitchen in an online interview with Sloan. Because the child involved in the case is now an adult, Kitchen believes little reason remains to keep CD anonymous....

"'It's one thing to be censored so that you can't speak, but then to not even be able to … [use] your name and show your face is a whole other level. It really, really concerns me and disgusts me, and it should everybody, if you care at all, about what it means to live in a society worth living in,' Kitchen said. 'I don't care who the person is, I don't care what the situation is'....However, Kitchen also sympathized with CD’s personal cause to end the gender transitions of minors.... 

"Sloan said donations could be given by e-transfer to fundingthefight@proton.me with the password “freedom” and “CD” in the memo."

Read more: https://www.westernstandard.news/bc/bc-father-who-tried-to-stop-childs-gender-transition-fights-to-make-his-name-public/51431

Canadian Father Jailed for Speaking Out Against Biological Daughter’s Gender Transition | CBN News | March 22, 2021:

Locked up for tweets in 2015, NL man still seeking a hearing

Andrew Abbass, who was wrongfully detained by the Newfoundland police in 2015 due to his social media posts, and confined to a psychiatric unit against his will, is still seeking a public hearing eight years later.  

He was detained by police after sending a tweet. 8 years later, he's fighting for a public hearing | CBC News | Ariana Kelland:

October 16 -"A man who was illegally detained by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary and housed for six days at a psychiatric unit against his will in 2015 is determined to bring his case to a public hearing. But the police officers at the centre of the complaints have gone to court to stop that from happening.

"Andrew Abbass filed public complaints against the now-retired Staff Sgt. Tim Buckle and Const. Joe Smyth in 2017, when new information surfaced during an unrelated police shooting inquiry. After numerous years, reports and appeals, the acting commissioner with the RNC police complaints commission has sent the matter to a public hearing. However, even that is in limbo, as both officers have applied to the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador for judicial review.

"'At the end of the day, no one has been found to be fully accountable in any meaningful way,' said Abbass, 42, in a recent interview at his home in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. It's been eight years since the alleged misconduct happened. Both Abbass and an expert in police discipline say the process against the two officers has dragged on far too long and speaks to the need for deep reform on police complaints procedures....

"Abbass first came to the RNC's attention in Corner Brook in 2014, when he attempted to charge then prime minister Stephen Harper and his foreign affairs minister for 'inciting genocide by the state of Israel against the Palestinian people.' Abbass had applied to the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador to hear his argument. The federal government issued a response, but a judge ultimately declined to hear the case in 2017....

"Then, on April 5, 2015 — Easter Sunday —  Smyth, a member of the premier's security detail, shot and killed Don Dunphy in his home in Mitchell's Brook, about 45 minutes outside St. John's. Dunphy was an injured worker who often strongly criticized the province's workers' compensation system online. Smyth, investigating a tweet sent by Dunphy that was interpreted as a threat, said Dunphy pointed a firearm at him. Abbass saw the two incidents as interconnected examples of government overreach, and made his feelings known on social media the following day.... 

"Abbass said he heard an interview with the premier on CBC Radio, in which he said there would be a cracking down of social media monitoring in the wake of Dunphy's shooting. He saw that as Davis doubling down, and considered it an affront to free speech. Abbass tweeted: 'How about this, premier of N.L.: I'm going to bring down Confederation and have politicians executed. Ready to have me shot, coward?' The tweet, he admits, was meant to antagonize.... 'I figured they would arrest me.'

"Four RNC officers came to Abbass's home in Corner Brook where he was living with his pregnant girlfriend and detained him under the Mental Health Care and Treatment Act. Despite spending the next six days in the psychiatric ward of the Western Memorial Regional Hospital in Corner Brook, Abbass was never charged with a crime. Nor was he certified as suffering from any psychiatric condition.... 

"In the wake of Abbass's arrest, the RCMP got a warrant to search his home over a tweet they viewed as potentially threatening against Stephen Harper. The tweet was sent before the Dunphy shooting, but the Mounties moved in only after he was detained by the RNC. He was charged with uttering threats but it was dropped soon after, at his first court appearance. However, once inside his home, they discovered marijuana and charged Abbass and his pregnant partner with cultivation. Abbass said he used it for medical reasons but didn't have a licence at the time. A judge gave him an absolute discharge."

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/andrew-abbass-rnc-complaints-1.6967702

 What happened to Andrew Abbass? An 8-year police complaints odyssey, explained | CBC NL - Newfoundland and Labrador | October 19, 2023:

California law regulating doctors' speech repealed

A California law which empowered the state medical board to take away the licenses of doctors who challenged 'contemporary scientific consensus' on Covid-19, passed with much fanfare a year ago, was quietly repealed on the weekend.  

California repeals COVID misinformation law, bowing to legal pressure | Washington Times | Sean Salai:

October 2, 2023 - "California has repealed a misinformation law that restricted the advice doctors could give patients about COVID-19, bowing to mounting legal pressure. The legislation was signed into law in September 2022 and took effect in January. It tried to define COVID disinformation as 'unprofessional conduct' and empower the Medical Board of California to revoke the licenses of physicians who diverged from 'contemporary scientific consensus.' A federal judge halted the law in January pending court challenges.... 

"California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed a state Senate bill repealing the section of the state’s Business and Professions Code containing the law, according to a Saturday post on the governor’s website that offered no comment on the action. The nullification should take effect in January, one year after the law took effect.

"Attorneys from the Liberty Justice Center, a Chicago nonprofit legal firm that argued against the legislation in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on July 17, announced its repeal Monday. 'We’re glad California repealed this bill before it could spread to other states, and we’re proud to have defended our clients’ First Amendment rights,' said Jacob Huebert, president of the Liberty Justice Center....

"In a signing statement appended to the law on Sept. 30, 2022, Mr. Newsom acknowledged it could have a 'chilling effect' on free speech. But he said lawmakers had carefully drafted it to deal with abuses and entrusted its interpretation to the Medical Board of California.... Several California physicians disagreed and challenged the board’s right to define treatment. They filed three separate lawsuits against state officials to overturn the legislation in October, November and December 2022. 

"Drs. Tracy Hoeg, Ram Duriseti, Aaron Kheriaty, Pete Mazolewski and Azadeh Khatibi argued in a November 2022 suit that the law interfered with their ability to give patients timely advice as new COVID variants emerged. The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a public interest law firm, represented them in the Eastern District of California. U.S. District Senior Judge William B. Shubb, a President George H.W. Bush appointee, granted them a preliminary injunction against the law in a Jan. 25 ruling....

"Liberty Justice Center filed the first suit against the legislation on Oct. 4, 2022 — a few days after Ms. Newsom signed it into law — in California’s Central District. Drs. Mark McDonald, a Los Angeles psychiatrist, and Jeff Barke, an Orange County primary care physician, argued in that complaint that the law violated their constitutional right to free speech and the spirit of scientific inquiry. 

"In statements on Monday, the two doctors expressed mixed feelings about their legal victory. 'What a shame that it required the precious resources of time, money and stress to preserve our constitutional rights of free speech and medical freedom,' Dr. Barke said. 'We need real accountability, or this will happen again,' added Dr. McDonald.

Read more: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/oct/2/california-repeals-covid-19-misinformation-law-bow/

California's Medical Misinformation Bill | A Doctor Explains | September 14, 2022:

Appeals court upholds Missouri v. Biden injunction

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a limited injunction against the federal government censoring social media. 

The Government Censored Me and Other Scientists. We Fought Back—and Won | The Free Press | Jay Bhattacharya:

September 11, 2023 - "When I was 19, I became an American citizen. It was one of the happiest days of my young life. The immigration officer gave me a civics test, including a question about the First Amendment. It was an easy test because I knew it in my heart. The American civic religion has the right to free speech as the core of its liturgy.... My parents had taught me that people here could criticize the government, even over matters of life and death, without worry that the government would censor or suppress us. But over the past three years, I have been robbed of that conviction. American government officials, working in concert with big tech companies, have attacked and suppressed my speech and that of my colleagues for criticizing official pandemic policies—criticism that has been proven prescient. 

"On Friday, at long last, the Fifth Circuit Court ruled that ... that the Biden administration did indeed strong-arm social media companies into doing its bidding. The court found that the Biden White House, the CDC, the U.S. Surgeon General’s office, and the FBI 'engaged in a years-long pressure campaign [on social media outlets] designed to ensure that the censorship aligned with the government’s preferred viewpoints'.... According to the judges, 'the officials’ campaign succeeded. The platforms, in capitulation to state-sponsored pressure, changed their moderation policies'....

"The trouble began on October 4, 2020, when my colleagues and I — Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a professor of medicine at Harvard University, and Dr. Sunetra Gupta, an epidemiologist at the University of Oxford — published the Great Barrington Declaration. The Declaration called for an end to economic lockdowns, school shutdowns, and similar restrictive policies on the grounds that they disproportionately harm the young and economically disadvantaged while conferring limited benefits to society as a whole. The Declaration endorsed a “focused protection” approach that called for strong measures to protect high-risk populations while allowing lower-risk individuals to return to normal life with reasonable precautions. Tens of thousands of doctors and public health scientists signed our statement....

"Four days after the Declaration’s publication, then-director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, emailed Fauci to organize a 'devastating takedown' of it. Almost immediately, social media companies such as Google/YouTube, Reddit, and Facebook censored mentions of the Declaration.... [I]n 2021 Twitter blacklisted me for posting a link to the Great Barrington Declaration. YouTube censored a video of a public policy roundtable of me with Florida governor Ron DeSantis.... I am not a political person; I am not registered with either party.... Yet at the height of the pandemic, I found myself smeared for my supposed political views, and my views about Covid policy and epidemiology were removed from the public square on all manner of social networks....

"In August 2022, my colleagues and I finally had a chance to fight back. The Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general asked me to join as a plaintiff in their case, represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, against the Biden administration. The aim of the suit was to end the government's role in this censorship—and restore the free speech rights of all Americans in the digital town square.... The case revealed that a dozen federal agencies — including the CDC, the Office of the Surgeon General, and the Biden White House — pressured social media companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter to censor and suppress even true speech contradicting federal pandemic priorities. For instance, in 2021, the White House threatened social media companies with damaging regulatory action unless it censored scientists who shared the demonstrable fact that the Covid vaccines do not prevent people from getting Covid.... 

"On Independence Day this year, federal Judge Terry Doughty issued a preliminary injunction in the case, ordering the federal government to immediately stop coercing social media companies to censor protected free speech.... The government appealed, convinced it should have the power to censor scientific speech. An administrative stay followed and lasted much of the summer. But on Friday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit unanimously restored a modified version of the preliminary injunction, telling the government to stop using social media companies to do its censorship dirty work: 

Defendants, and their employees and agents, shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech. That includes, but is not limited to, compelling the platforms to act, such as by intimating that some form of punishment will follow a failure to comply with any request, or supervising, directing, or otherwise meaningfully controlling the social media companies’ decision-making processes....

"The decision isn’t perfect. Some entities at the heart of the government’s censorship enterprise can still organize to suppress speech..... But ... the federal government can no longer threaten social media companies with destruction if they don’t censor on behalf of the government. The Biden administration, which has proven itself to be an enemy of free speech, will surely appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. But I am hopeful that we will win there, just as we have at every venue in this litigation. I am grateful for the resilience of the U.S. Constitution, which has withstood this challenge."

Read more: https://www.thefp.com/p/i-fought-government-censorship-and-won

Was Biden's social media meddling illegal? | ReasonTV | August 18, 2023: