Michael Shellenberger on how governments around the world are using the moniker "Hate Speech" as an excuse to jail and destroy their opponents (and usher in a world takeover)

It is critical to beat this, or we will be toast. Possibly behind a paywall, so I'm providing the full article, for which Shellenberger also made a video.

Governments Are Creating A Fake Hate Panic To Censor, Interfere In Elections, And Imprison Their Political Enemies

Governments Are Creating A Fake Hate Panic To Censor, Interfere In Elections, And Imprison Their Political Enemies

Watch what's happening in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland, Brazil, and the EU

Michael Shellenberger

Mar 22, 2024

Transcript

A few weeks after the October 7th Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel, the director of the FBI said, Our most immediate concern is that violent extremists, individuals or small groups, will draw inspiration from the events in the Middle East to carry out attacks against Americans going about their daily lives.

That includes not just homegrown violent extremists inspired by a foreign terrorist organization,

but also domestic violent extremists targeting Jewish or Muslim communities.

And indeed, in the three months after October 7th, the Anti-Defamation League recorded 3,291 anti-Jewish incidents, which was a 361% increase compared to the same period one year prior.

But the terrorist attacks the FBI director warned about never arrived.

And all but 56 of those 3,000 incidents were nonviolent, consisting of hate speech, vandalism, and rallies.

And many have rightly criticized ADL for inflating the recorded number of nonviolent incidents by counting certain political speech as hate speech.

Of course, we should condemn those 56 violent incidents and all forms of hateful rhetoric and genuine expressions of support for terrorism.

And we must remain vigilant against terrorist attacks

like the one committed on September 11th and the one on 2019 on two Muslim mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

But fighting terrorism is different from hyping it.

What led to the 9-11 terrorist attack was the failure of the US intelligence agencies to communicate with each other, not any downplaying of terrorism.

The fact of the matter is that terrorism is incredibly rare and on the decline.

Most of it's in the Middle East, South Asia, with tiny amounts in North America and countries like New Zealand.

In truth, most forms of violence have been declining in Western nations for centuries, even millennia.

To the extent to which governments and NGOs are recording more so-called hate speech, it's because people today are far more likely to label speech hateful than were people just a few decades ago.

By almost every measure, our tolerance of racial, sexual, and religious minorities is at an all-time high.

We should be very wary of governments hyping terrorism since it leads to abuses of power.

After 9-11, the hyping of terrorism fears allowed the US to invade a country we never should have invaded, occupy a country we should never have occupied, and use kidnapping and torture as standard operating procedures.

Now it appears that the US government and other governments around the world are hyping hate in order to weaponize

the government against their political enemies.

Ever since the 2019 shooting in New Zealand, governments have been using so-called hate speech, fake news and misinformation as justifications for censorship.

In Ireland, the government is pushing hate speech legislation that would allow police to invade homes, seize phones and computers.

In Canada, Justin Trudeau is pushing legislation that would even allow the government to sentence individuals to life in prison for things they said.

And now we have learned that the Biden White House worked with one of the leading groups that hype hate, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, to demand that Facebook and other social media platforms not only censor content they didn't like,

but also to remove people they didn't like, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from their platforms altogether.

On June 15, 2021, Biden's National Security Council published its National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism.

It claimed that social media platforms were making Americans, quote, vulnerable to domestic terrorist recruitment and other harmful content.

In the same document, the Biden administration endorsed the Christchurch call to action to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online, which had been created by governments in 2019.

This focus on so-called hatred, harmful content, and extremist content is extremely dangerous.

What one person thinks is extreme, another person may view as common sense.

For the government to decide what is extreme is a way of labeling someone as a potential terrorist threat.

We saw this clearly with the Trudeau government's outrageous suppression of the Canadian trucker protests in Ottawa, in which people's bank accounts were frozen simply for supporting the anti-vaccine mandate protest movement.

The same could happen in the United States.

There is no reliable connection between people's beliefs and violence.

Attempting to stop violence by censoring speech is totalitarian and Orwellian.

It effectively criminalizes speech and creates a whole new category of pre-crime like that depicted in the dystopian film Minority Report.

So why are governments doing this?

Part of the reason is simply to maintain and increase budgets of security agencies.

The FBI, for example, wants money for a new headquarters in Washington.

Another part of the reason is politics.

The Biden administration is trying to portray Trump supporters as violent extremists.

But another reason is that governments in general and the intelligence community in particular have, since 2017, been attempting to exercise ever greater control over social media platforms.

We had hoped that the US Supreme Court would rule against this in the Missouri v. Biden case, which it heard on Monday.

But after the hearing,

I'm pessimistic that they will do anything.

Many of the justices did not appear to understand the difference between conventional media like newspapers and social media platforms like Facebook and X. Even more disturbingly, other justices didn't appear to fully appreciate the meaning and purpose of the First Amendment.

So my biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways.

As such, we must continue to expose efforts by governments and their NGO allies to hype hate and demand censorship.

We must remain alive to the growing threat of totalitarianism across the West.

Governments right now are hyping artificial intelligence and deep fakes, for example, for reasons that are not entirely obvious.

If we don't win in the courts, we must win in the court of public opinion.

We believe it is turning in our direction.

The recent media attacks on Twitter Files journalists, including myself, revealed that we are having an impact in the US and around the world.

And just yesterday, the Prime Minister of Ireland resigned.

Our allies in Ireland now believe that our chances of defeating his hate speech censorship legislation are better than ever.

The awful attacks of October 7th

are a reminder that many people in the world still face a too high threat of violence and that governments routinely abuse understandable public fears in order to take away our fundamental rights, including our ability to criticize the very people who are seeking to censor us.

A few weeks after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel, the Director of the FBI said, “Our most immediate concern is that violent extremists—individuals or small groups—will draw inspiration from the events in the Middle East to carry out attacks against Americans going about their daily lives. That includes not just homegrown violent extremists inspired by a foreign terrorist organization but also domestic violent extremists targeting Jewish or Muslim communities.”

And indeed, in the three months after October 7, the Anti-Defamation League recorded 3,291 anti-Jewish incidents, which was a 361-percent increase compared to the same period one year prior.

But the terrorist attacks the FBI Director warned about never arrived, and all but 56 of those 3,291 incidents were nonviolent, consisting of hate speech, vandalism, and rallies. And ADL has inflated its recorded number of nonviolent incidents by counting certain political speech as hate speech.

We should, of course, condemn those 56 violent incidents, all forms of hateful rhetoric, and all genuine expressions of support for terrorism. And we must remain vigilant against terrorist attacks like the kind committed on September 11 and in the 2019 terrorist attacks on two Muslim mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

But fighting terrorism is different from hyping it. What led to the 9/11 terrorist attack was the failure of the US intelligence agencies to communicate with each other, not any downplaying of terrorism, according to the bipartisan 9/11 Commission.

The fact of the matter is that terrorism is incredibly rare and on the decline. Most of it is in the Middle East and South Asia, with tiny amounts in North America and countries like New Zealand.

In truth, most forms of violence have been declining in Western nations for centuries, even millennia.

To the extent governments and NGOs are recording more so-called “hate speech,” it’s because people today are far more likely to label speech “hateful” than were people just a few decades ago. By almost every measure, our tolerance of racial, sexual, and religious minorities is at an all-time high.

And we should also be very wary of governments hyping terrorism since it leads to abuses of power. After 9/11, the hyping of terrorism fears allowed the US to invade a country we never should have invaded, occupy a country we shouldn’t have occupied, use kidnapping and torture as standard operating procedures, and violate fundamental civil liberties.

Now, it appears that the US and other governments around the world are hyping hate in order to weaponize the government against their political enemies. 

Ever since the 2019 shooting in New Zealand, governments have been using so-called hate speech, fake news, and misinformation as justifications for censorship. In Ireland, the government is pushing hate speech legislation that would allow police to invade homes and seize phones and computers. In Canada, Justin Trudeau is pushing legislation that would allow the government to sentence individuals to life in prison for things they said.

And it was recently revealed that the Biden White House worked with one of the leading groups that hype hate, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, to demand Facebook and other social media platforms not only censor content they didn’t like but also to remove people they didn’t like, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from their platforms altogether.

On June 15, 2021, Biden’s National Security Council published its National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism. It claimed that social media platforms were making Americans “vulnerab[le] to domestic terrorist recruitment and other harmful content.”

In the same document, the Biden administration endorsed the Christchurch Call to Action to Eliminate Terrorist and Violent Extremist Content Online, which governments created in 2019 as a justification for censorship.

The focus on so-called “hatred,” “harmful content,” and “extremist content” is dangerous. What one person thinks is extreme, another person may view as common sense.

For the government to decide what is “extreme” is a way of labeling someone as a potential terrorist threat. We saw this clearly with the Trudeau government’s outrageous suppression of the Canadian trucker protesters in Ottawa, in which people’s bank accounts were frozen simply for supporting the anti-vaccine mandate protest movement. The same could happen in the United States.

There is no reliable connection between people’s beliefs and violence. Attempting to stop violence by censoring speech is totalitarian and Orwellian. It effectively criminalizes speech and creates a new category of “pre-crime,” as depicted in the dystopian film Minority Report.

Why are governments doing this? Part of the reason is simply to maintain and increase their budgets. The FBI, for example, wants money for a new headquarters in Washington. Part of the reason is politics. The Biden administration is trying to portray Trump supporters as violent extremists.

But another reason is that governments, in general, and the intelligence community, in particular, have, since 2017, been attempting to exercise ever-greater control over social media platforms.

We had hoped the US Supreme Court would rule against this in the Missouri v Biden case, which it heard on Monday. But after the hearing, I am pessimistic that they will do anything. Many of the justices did not appear to understand the difference between conventional media, like newspapers, and social media platforms like Facebook and X. Even more disturbingly, other justices didn’t appear to fully appreciate the meaning and purpose of the First Amendment.

As such, we must continue to expose efforts by governments and their NGO allies to hype hate and demand censorship. We must remain alive to the growing threat of totalitarianism across the West. For example, governments are hyping artificial intelligence and deep fakes for reasons that are not entirely obvious.

If we don’t win in the courts, we must win in the court of public opinion. We believe it is turning in our direction. The recent media attacks on the Twitter Files journalists revealed that we are having an impact in the US and around the world. Yesterday, the Prime Minister of Ireland resigned, and our allies in Ireland believe that our chances of defeating his hate speech censorship legislation are better than ever.

The awful attacks of October 7 are a reminder that many people in the world still face a too-high threat of violence and that governments routinely abuse understandable public fears in order to take away our fundamental rights, including our ability to criticize the very people who are seeking to censor us.