“It’s Not About Trump”: American CJ Hopkins, Charged Again in Germany, Describes Global Censorship Effort
Acquitted on German hate speech charges in January, American playwright CJ Hopkins is being charged again for the same offense.
By Matt Taibbi | Racket News | March 20, 2024
The German people are famous for putting everything in print, even things they shouldn’t, and in this instance at least, American playwright and author CJ Hopkins is glad. “The irony,” he says, laughing. “The Germans, always documenting everything.”
In a letter from the Berlin Prosecutor’s file on Hopkins, the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA, analogous to our FBI) acknowledges receipt of a document from a government office describing an effort to have tweets deleted. “The Hessen Gegen Hetze reporting office,” the highlighted portion reads, “has already initiated measures to delete the relevant post on the social network”:
Hopkins reached out to me after listening in disgust to the Murthy v. Missouri Supreme Court hearing Monday. Standing was a big issue: our government said plaintiffs like Drs. Jay Bhattacharya and Aaron Kheriaty lacked definite proof that the government was responsible for suppressing their speech. No such issue exists in CJ’s case, as you can see.
Hopkins also wanted Americans who might be up in arms about the specter of legalized censorship in their own country to see that the phenomenon has also spread to virtually every Western democracy, often in more extreme forms than we’ve seen so far in the United States.
CJ’s unique insight involves his ludicrous German case, which as you’ll read in the Q&A below has taken bizarre turns since we last checked and will now go to trial yet again. As an expat following the American situation from afar, he’s seen how the authoritarian tide is rising in similar or worse ways all around the globe.
Hopkins is facing the business end of the German version, among the worst. As detailed last June, he was charged with “disseminating propaganda, the contents of which are intended to further the aims of a former National Socialist organization.” The crime? Using a barely detectible Swastika in the cover image of his book, The Rise of the New Normal Reich. Far from “furthering the aims” of Nazism, he was criticizing them by comparing Nazi methods and laws to those of modern health authorities. The offending image:
Hopkins went to trial in January and delivered an impassioned plea to the court. “Every journalist that has covered my case, everyone in this courtroom, understands what this prosecution is actually about,” he said. “It has nothing to do with punishing people who actually disseminate pro-Nazi propaganda. It is about punishing dissent, and making an example of dissidents in order to intimidate others into silence.”
Though the judge was clearly not a fan of Hopkins — a courtroom account by Aya Velázquez, which I recommend reading, described how the judge said CJ’s statements were “ideological drivel,” just “not punishable by law” — he won on the law.
After acquittal, he was made aware that technically the case wasn’t over, because thanks to a quirk of German jurisprudence, the prosecutor had a week to file an appeal. Hopkins was unconcerned. “I doubt he will [re-file]. He made a total fool of himself in front of a large audience yesterday,” he wrote. “I can’t imagine that he will want to do that again.”
Bzzt! Wrong. The prosecutor re-filed charges. The prosecutorial theory in the Hopkins case was based on a bizarre interpretation of hate crime, essentially asserting that if you have to think about an image to realize it’s satire, it can’t be allowed. If that idea spreads, it would make comedy or even sharp commentary impossible. This is why his indictment, and the similar investigation of Roger Waters, are really serious moments. Not to be heavy-handed, but eliminating the loophole for satire or mockery is exactly what Waters meant by “Another Brick in the Wall.” Before you know it, it’ll be too high to see over:
MT: You got charged again?
CJ Hopkins: No… I got acquitted. I went to trial on the 23rd of January, and I wrote this up and I’ll send it to you so you can just look at the whole account. But at the trial I made a big aggressive statement that people republished all over the place. The judge acquitted me, and then called me all kinds of names and then put on her covid mask and stalked out of the courtroom. She called me a Schwurbler, which in German is kind of an idiot, I guess a babbler or someone.
Anyway, I read that statement, which pissed them all off, but she said, “Okay, you’re an idiot, but that’s not against the law, so you’re acquitted.” So I thought, “Great. This is over. I’m acquitted.” The prosecutor had no case whatsoever, and it was really embarrassing, and I figured it was all done, but my attorney reminded me: oh no, the prosecutor can appeal. Which he did. So now I’m facing another trial in appeals court. It’s not new charges, it’s the same charge, but the prosecutor’s appeal of my acquittal.
MT: The double jeopardy thing isn’t big in Germany, I take it?
CJ Hopkins: No.
MT: Are they going to make a different argument?
CJ Hopkins: I have no idea what they’re going to do. They have no argument… I mean, they put my tweets up on an overhead projector, like we were back in high school, and interrogated me about whether the Swastika was on top of the mask or behind the mask, that sort of thing. The prosecutor’s argument was basically, “We don’t believe that Mr. Hopkins is a Nazi, or pro-Nazi, we don’t believe he was trying to spread Nazi propaganda, but he nonetheless spread Nazi propaganda. because his tweet” – and this is a great part of their argument – “because if people saw his tweets, they would have to stop and think for a minute to figure out what they meant.”
MT: Essentially you can’t have satire, because that requires a person to have at least one thought.
CJ Hopkins: You can’t make people think. You’ve got to have beat-you-over-the-head messaging. I think the whole point of this… I’m sure it’s like the plea-bargain thing in the States. They figure if they hit you with a 3,600 Euro fine, you’re going to pay three times that much to fight it in court, so you’re just going to pay the fine and go away. I don’t think they ever expected to end up in court, and I have no idea what the prosecutor is doing with this appeal. The judge a few weeks later submitted a written verdict, which is strongly in my favor. She pretty much reiterated my attorney’s arguments and made it absolutely clear that what I did falls under the exceptions to the statute, and there’s nothing here to prosecute. Nonetheless, the prosecution’s going ahead.
MT: Did you have much Western news coverage?
CJ Hopkins: Right before the trial I had you, then Neue Zürcher Zeitung, which is the big paper of record in Switzerland, and James Kirchick at The Atlantic, who was a big help. I think it put a lot of pressure on the judge. My lawyer made her aware that Germany was being portrayed as a laughingstock in the international press. Aside from The Atlantic, it was all independent alternative media.
MT: In the Murthy Supreme Court case in the States Monday, there was an issue with what they call “traceability.” I see you don’t have a traceability issue, with this document from your case file?
CJ Hopkins: Exactly. That’s why I sent it to you. Unquestionably, this is a government office, directly involved with removing the tweets. The other thing that I was going to say, is that I’m looking at things like the Supreme Court case from a non-U.S. perspective. I’m outside of it. I’m watching the legislation that’s getting rolled out in Ireland and the UK and what’s happening to me here and what’s going on in the States, and it’s so obviously much broader than just a red-blue political story in the US. This is happening throughout the Western democratic countries.
I’m just desperate to get that across to people. I think it’s so easy for people to get locked into what’s going on in their own country and not see the bigger picture.
MT: What’s an example?
CJ Hopkins: There was just a piece in The Herald, in Scotland. The police were being trained there on how to crack down on abusive hate speech. According to this new legislation that’s rolling out and in the training manual, they were saying this could take place in comic performances or stage plays. People are being arrested in the UK for protest signs.
If I can just put one little bug in your head, Matt, to whatever degree you can tweak people and let them know: “Hey, it’s not just Trump and the Democrats and the liberals and the woke people and all that.” This is happening all over the West, in all these different countries. I think that’s one thing that my case does, it provides folks with an opportunity to remind them that this is happening all over. The old rules don’t apply.
MT: Good luck with your case.
CJ Hopkins: Take care.
Scottish Police Training Targets Blogs, Podcasts, and Social Media Under Authoritarian New Censorship Law
The new law will be introduced on April 1st
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | March 20, 2024
Police training in some countries these days goes well beyond what one would normally expect, to include targeting content – including artistic – deemed to be “threatening” or “abusive.”
It’s not about China – at least this time. It’s about Scotland. There, officers are learning how to put blogs, podcasts, social media posts, and even simply reposts into their proverbial crosshairs.
According to reports, actors and comedians are not exempt from this type of scrutiny if somebody feels offended, and reports them.
A story in the Scottish press, based on leaked material, details this practice, which is said to be happening thanks to the newly enacted “hate crime law” (Hate Crime and Public Order, Scotland) – even if, formally, such interpretations appear to run afoul of the actual legislation.
The implications of the law, however, are not flying under the radar, as local media says Conservatives in Scotland are questioning the lawfulness of assessing content created “through public performance of a play” for its potential as “threatening and abusive.”
And only about a year since he was appointed to oversee the law, Assistant Chief Constable David Duncan has now retired.
Police in Scotland previously said that every report identifying content as hateful toward “protected characteristics” (such as age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgenderism) will be investigated.
That sounds like officers there might end up with little time to do anything else, as a scheme positioned so broadly can easily be repeatedly abused. As for the response – once they go through “every hate crime complaint” – the promise is that law enforcement will exhibit “proportionate response.”
“An example of why it is so important to preserve freedom of speech,” X owner Elon Musk commented, linking to a post about these developments.
As for the way it affects performing arts, but also everybody else – the law in effect equates memes and just good old jokes with things like, for example, revenge porn. One of the provisions states that the subject of prosecution will be “displaying, publishing or distributing the material” in places like signs, sites, blogs, podcasts, social platforms.
And that applies to these actions done both directly, and indirectly, e.g., via a repost. This is referred to as “forwarding or repeating” content from a third party.
The TikTok Totalitarians
By Daniel McAdams | Ron Paul Institute | March 18, 2024
On Wednesday, March 13th, a bipartisan group of US Representatives voted to give the US president the power to remove any website, computer or mobile application, or even service provider that the president determines – without due process – is run by “a person subject to the direction of control of a foreign person or entity” as long as that foreign person or entity is declared an “adversary” of the US.
And who gets to decide who is an “adversary”? The US President.
Cut through the hollow propaganda about the Chinese using it to spy on and subvert Americans – another “Saddam’s got WMDs” lie – and it is the most dangerous and un-American piece of legislation since the PATRIOT Act.
In fact it may be arguably worse. While the PATRIOT Act was a fig leaf for the government to spy on Americans, this demon of a bill will actually allow the US Government to determine what Americans can read and thereby what they will think. Isn’t that just what supporters of this bill claim the Chinese government is doing?
Take all the massive evidence of US government collusion and censorship of Americans’ “wrongthink” exposed by the heroic Matt Taibbi and the rest of the “Twitter Files” investigators and multiply it by a million and you won’t even then begin to understand the damage this law will do once it’s passed in the Senate and signed by Biden.
Twitter/X and its owner Elon Musk are routinely claimed to be biased toward (or sometimes against) Russia. Obviously “foreign adversary controlled.” Shut it down.
The video hosting and streaming service Rumble minimizes restrictions on what can be uploaded. It rightly calls itself the free-speech platform. They even allow Russian media RT and Iran’s PressTV to give a perspective different than that given by the US government and mainstream media. Shut it down. “Foreign adversary controlled.”
How about the Ron Paul Liberty Report? We often take positions at odds with the policies of the US Administration and criticize, for example, sending hundreds of billions to fight a proxy war in Ukraine. Obviously “foreign adversary controlled.” Shut it down.
Every single independent conservative media outlet that is sympathetic to Donald Trump will be in the crosshairs of President Biden when this bill becomes law, as Biden and his crew consistently accuse Trump – even after all these years – of being in Putin’s back pocket. That is why right-winger Federalist CEO Sean Davis is horrified by the move, writing on Twitter/X:
“It’s not that the U.S. government wants to protect you from spying and data theft and manipulation. If only. No, the people behind the Russian collusion hoax, and the Kavanaugh hoax, and the natural origin COVID hoax, and the illegal warrantless spying, and the forced transing of your children—they want to be the ones spying on you and stealing your data and poisoning the minds of your children.”
Those on the Left should take heed: Be assured that if Donald Trump is elected president this fall, the bill will become the same political cudgel used by the Right to silence your alternative media outlets as well.
Libertarian-minded progressives like Glenn Greenwald see the danger – and the pattern – clearly, as he writes:
“The TikTok bill is how rights erosions always always always work: Pick a target to start with that everyone hates or fears, so that everyone unites in support, nobody wants to defend. Then the precedent is set, so when it expands inward, nobody can object any longer.”
See where this is going? It’s not about China. It’s about our freedom to consume whatever media we wish to consume. No one is forced to use TikTok. If an American exercising his or her First Amendment rights determines that any risk of using TikTok is one worth taking, that is his or her right.
Tucker Carlson – no friend of China – rightly deemed it, “the most far reaching act of censorship in the history of the United States.” He added, “it’s an attack on the right of American citizens to receive their information from any source they choose.”
After the ignominious House vote, Tucker had Sen. Rand Paul on his program to explain how the “we are protecting Americans from the Chinese Communists” explanation for attacking the US Constitution is nothing but a ruse. Watch that episode on Twitter/X here.
Sen. Paul himself pointed out the hypocrisy in the US government taking such an authoritarian approach to censorship, writing on Twitter/X, “Emulating Chinese communism is not the way to combat Chinese communism.”
There is a mafia element to the legislation as well. The bill demands that TikTok be sold to avoid being banned.
Remember when Michael Corleone told this then-girlfriend Kay Adams how his father, Don Vito Corleone, “encouraged” the bandleader that had Johnny Fontaine under contract to let him out of the contract when Johnny started to become a star:
- Michael Corleone: My father made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
- Kay Adams: What was that?
- Michael Corleone: Luca Brasi held a gun to his head, and my father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract. That’s a true story.
This is exactly what the US government is doing with this legislation. It’s hardly surprising that now that this US government threat against TikTok has likely seriously devalued the company, deep state denizens like former US Treasury Secretary Steven “Goldman Sachs” Mnuchin is sniffing around ready to pick up TikTok for a song.
Either TikTok’s signature or its brains will be on Mnuchin’s contract.
This is gangsterism and authoritarianism on steroids, yet the uniparty running Washington DC lapped it up like mother’s milk. Perhaps that is why they lapped it up so enthusiastically.
When this bill becomes law, a big part of America will have died. That’s not an exaggeration.
Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity and co-Producer/co-Host, Ron Paul Liberty Report. Daniel served as the foreign affairs, civil liberties, and defense/intel policy advisor to U.S. Congressman Ron Paul, MD (R-Texas) from 2001 until Dr. Paul’s retirement at the end of 2012. From 1993-1999 he worked as a journalist based in Budapest, Hungary, and traveled through the former communist bloc as a human rights monitor and election observer.
Gove’s Ministry of Truth Reporting for Duty
Health Advisory & Recovery Team | March 19, 2024
For those paying attention to the rising tide of totalitarianism here in the UK, the latest from The Ministry of Truth, AKA HM Government should really make your blood run cold. Michael Gove has now overseen the redefining of extremism.
It is not hard to see what is at play here. You sell the peasants an idea that they think they want. I mean, who wouldn’t like to stop extremism? Boo, we hate extremists. That’s a good thing right?
Well that rather depends on who is doing the defining of what constitutes extremism. In this case, Michael Gove. No it doesn’t leave us feeling reassured either.
In the latest egregious bout of trolling from HM Gov, it takes about 3 milliseconds of studying the new definition of extremism to realise that during the so-called ‘pandemic’, the government did precisely everything therein:
- negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others;
What, like denying them social contact, denying them the right to be with their dying relatives, forcing medical procedures on them in order to continue their job, denying them the right to earn a living, denying their rights of free movement, locking them in their homes and arresting them for sitting on a bench? That kind of thing?
- undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights;
What, you mean like introducing a brand new legal act (in spite of there already existing an appropriate instrument) that completely tramples parliamentary democracy, giving the sitting government the right to jackboot their way into people’s lives as outlined in point 1 above? Or like shutting down parliament entirely and cancelling elections? Or perhaps like Matt Hancock telling parliament that he had unilaterally decided to offer the pharmaceutical companies indemnity for their products.
- intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve the results in (1) or (2).
What, you mean by censoring and smearing any opposing views, demonising anyone who didn’t get with the programme and creating an environment of extremism via a media monopoly that would have been more fitting in Mao Zedong’s China.
This upside down clown world is really getting too much. The government is now brazenly behaving like a criminal mafia gang. You do as they say, as defined by them, otherwise you’re an extremist. And you will be punished.
The boiled frog analogy seems to be a good one. What will it take for the British public to realise that they live in a liberal democracy in name only? The architecture being rapidly put in place is the polar opposite of a liberal democracy and if we study our history books, this particular trend tends to end very badly for the non-ruling classes.
Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti beaten by guards
MEMO | March 19, 2024
Prominent Palestinian political prisoner Marwan Barghouti has been attacked with clubs by Israeli prison guards and suffered bleeding in his eye, Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed reported the Palestinian Commission for Detainees and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs and Barghouti’s family saying.
Barghouti, 64, who is a member of the Central Committee of Fatah, is being subjected to isolation, torture and humiliation, said his wife, Fadwa Barghouti.
Fadwa explained that her husband’s life and the lives of other prominent prisoners are in great danger, adding that the Israeli prison administration “deliberately brutalises them in order to break their morale.”
“Marwan was subjected to continuous attacks, which we learned of on 6 and 12 March [through lawyers], which caused bleeding in one of his eyes, while the prison’s repressive forces constantly threatened him,” she added, explaining that he had been relocated five times during the last three months, and each time he was assaulted and his prison conditions were tightened.
In four prisons he was put in solitary confinement, she said, warning of a “real war” being waged against Palestinians prisoners and their leaders, which hurts their morale.
For its part, the Free Marwan Barghouti and All Palestinian Political Prisoners campaign said in a statement that lawyers who had visited Megiddo Prison learned of the brutal attack on Barghouti and other prominent prisoners by the prison’s special repression units, adding that many of them had been placed in solitary confinement.
The campaign said it had contacted a number of international figures, including diplomats, parliamentarians and human rights institutions, as well as leaders of the Fatah movement and the National and Islamic Action factions, calling on them to provide protection to the Palestinian people including political prisoners in Israeli jails.
Barghouti was arrested in 2002 and later sentenced to five life terms on charges of “killing and injuring Israelis.”
In parallel with the onslaught on the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians, Israel has increased raids and arrests in the occupied West Bank, arresting more than 7,000 people, alongside a campaign of harassment against prisoners in Israeli jails, resulting in the deaths of at least 13 prisoners since 7 October 2023.
Children among dozens executed by Israeli troops following Al-Shifa raid
Photo credit: QNN
The Cradle | March 19, 2024
Israeli forces executed dozens of people and detained almost 200 during its latest assault on Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, the Government Media Office in the Gaza Strip announced on 19 March.
Among the dozens executed were children, the media office said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The Israeli occupation committed a bloody massacre, executing 50 citizens and arresting nearly 200 others in the Shifa Medical Complex and its surrounding in Gaza City,” the statement read.
“We also received field information about … a number of children among those executed, as well as civilians, the sick, and the displaced,” it added. Some of the facilities inside the hospital were also torched by the Israeli army, according to the statement.
According to the Gaza media office, at least 250 Palestinians have been killed so far in the current Israeli assault on Al-Shifa Hospital, which began during the early hours of Monday and remains ongoing.
The Israeli army said on Tuesday that it killed “dozens of terrorists” in Al-Shifa Hospital, adding that it will “continue large-scale operations in the hospital.”
Israeli forces launched a massive operation in and around the hospital at around 2:00 am on 18 March. Israeli bombardment of the hospital killed dozens of Palestinians in the first hours of the attack.
Medical teams were unable to treat the wounded, and Israeli forces fired at anyone who approached the windows of the hospital, medical sources told WAFA news agency.
Clashes between the army and several resistance factions raged around the vicinity of the hospital as the Israeli incursion was commencing.
The attack on Al-Shifa Hospital came hours after Hamas’ Qassam Brigades revealed the details of a sniping operation that targeted and killed an officer in the elite Israeli Shaldag Unit who was behind Israel’s November raid of the medical facility.
During the assault on 18 March, Israeli troops assassinated Brigadier General Fayeq al-Mabhouh, the director of police in the Gaza Strip – who was in charge of facilitating the entry of much-needed humanitarian aid into north Gaza.
Since the start of the war, Israel has alleged that Hamas operates a command center underneath Al-Shifa Hospital.
This is the second assault on Al-Shifa since November, when Israeli troops stormed the facility, arrested dozens, evacuated the hospital at gunpoint, and turned it into a detention center.
There’s no protection from genocide in the colonial framework of international law
Palestinian children wait to get water amid clean water and food crisis due to Israeli attacks and imposed blockade in Rafah, Gaza on March 16, 2024. [Yasser Qudaih – Anadolu Agency]
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | March 19, 2024
The entire Palestinian population in Gaza has been declared “acutely food insecure” by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. “The famine threshold for household acute food insecurity has already been far exceeded,” explained the IPC.
Very belatedly, the EU’s Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell has declared that Israel is provoking famine in Gaza, and that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war. What happens now that Borrell has spoken? Palestinians spoke out long before this catastrophe, remember, and — quite intentionally — not a single EU diplomat listened.
What’s more, the statistics seemed to have influenced US Secretary of State Antony Blinken enough to make a statement acknowledging the famine as having affected all Palestinians in Gaza. “This only underscores both the urgency, the imperative, of making this [humanitarian aid] the priority,” Blinken said during a press conference in Manila, the capital of the Philippines. “We need more, we need it to be sustained, and we need it to be a priority if we’re going to effectively address the needs of people.” Of the US halting its weapons exports to Israel, or joining forces to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza, not a single syllable, never mind word, was uttered.
Israel’s response, of course, was to weaponise starvation even further. As Al Jazeera reported yesterday, the settler-colonial state asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to refrain from issuing emergency orders as requested by South Africa, describing these as “an abuse of procedures”. South Africa’s legal recourse of 6 March, declared Israel’s lawyers, is “wholly unfounded in fact and law, morally repugnant, and represents an abuse both of the Genocide Convention and of the court itself.”
And there you have it in a nutshell: Israel’s twisted logic. The slightest measures to prevent genocide are “morally repugnant.” That tells you all you need to know about Israeli morality. It is probably only a matter of time before the apartheid state deems genocide to be in accordance with international law as long as it suits its own colonial interests.
Israel’s intention is for famine to work as a weapon of genocide.
It blocks and hinders the entry of humanitarian aid, and its illegal settlers block the border crossing to prevent aid trucks getting past. Israel does nothing to stop this. The meagre amount allowed through was weaponised as a death trap, as Israeli soldiers massacred Palestinians for merely attempting to take some food home. This morning, Israel killed Major Raed Al-Banna and his family in an air strike. Al-Banna was involved in taking humanitarian aid into northern Gaza.
On the sidelines of its massacres, Israel has told the ICJ that it “has real concern for the humanitarian situation and innocent lives, as demonstrated by the actions it has and is taking,” with reference to Gaza.
It beggars belief that Israel’s quest for normalising all of its actions has reached such a level of contempt for international laws and conventions that it is allowed to waste the court’s time by lying so blatantly. The international community’s complacency, as if its only power rests in waiting for statistical updates to include in their speeches, is equally horrendous.
The genocide in Gaza is exposing all that is wrong with the colonial concept of human rights and international law, both of which only exist as foundations to protect the violators and collaborators. There is clearly no protection from genocide for its victims in the colonial framework of international law.
Germany: Green Party demands TikTok ban of popular AfD party
By Denes Albert | Remix News | March 19, 2024
To keep people away from Alternative for Germany (AfD) content, the Green-affiliated campaign network Campact wants to ban the AfD from TikTok. With the AfD the second most popular party in the country, part of the party’s appeal may be tied to its popularity on TikTok, where it is more popular than all the other German parties and has twice as many followers as all other parties combined.
The ruling left-liberal government is desperate to stop the AfD, including using anti-democratic means. While the government works towards banning the party entirely, a part of this all-out effort against AfD means cutting it off from the marketplace of ideas, where the other parties are outright losing.
Campact is working to collect signatures in this effort, calling for the AfD to be banned from TikTok. They will deliver this petition to representatives of the company’s headquarters in Berlin.
The reason given is: “The right-wing extremist slogans reach children and young people in particular.” The Green-backed organization claims this is “dangerous.”
The campaign network is aiming to obtain 200,000 signatures before it delivers its petition to the Berlin branch of the short-form video platform. However, Campact has overshot this mark, earning around 250,000 signatures in what it describes as a campaign against “hatred and agitation.”
AfD’s popularity is a major problem for rival parties on the platform, where AfD features over 409,000 followers, while the Social Democrats (SPD), the Left Party, Free Democrats (FDP), the Christian Democrats (CDU), and the Greens only have a combined total of 220,000 followers. AfD videos are also wildly popular in comparison, earning twice the number of views of all other parties combined.
The former campaign manager of the Green Party and an influential political advisor, Johannes Hillje, is warning about the party’s success.
“The TikTok generation is threatening to become an AfD generation,” he said to Der Spiegel. He said that AfD’s strong showing in state elections is tied to younger people voting for the party, which is due in part to the AfD’s successful TikTok strategy.
Teens and young people are also openly backing the AfD on TikTok. Notably, this week, a freedom-of-speech scandal erupted after reports that a 16-year-old, Loretta B., posted comments on TikTok supportive of the AfD party. When three officers pulled her out of her school in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, it resulted in a major scandal and warnings of a repressive police state. The scandal has made international news, with billionaire Elon Musk even defending the girl on X.
Remix News’ TikTok channel faces a shadowban on TikTok after earning millions of views. The account featured numerous warnings for news content and multiple suspensions, showcasing TikTok’s willingness to ban or shadowban news platforms and opinions. However, AfD’s channel has so far avoided such censorship.
Supreme Court Appears Wary of Blocking Biden Admin-Big Tech Censorship Collusion
By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | March 18, 2024
During oral arguments in a major First Amendment case on Monday, the Supreme Court expressed reservations about restricting interactions between the Biden administration and social media platforms. This concern emerged during the Murthy v. Missouri (formerly Missouri v. Biden) case, which delves into the extent of governmental influence over online content.
Brian Fletcher, Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States, presented oral arguments for the petitioners in the case, Biden’s Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy and several other current and former members of the Biden administration.
The respondents in the case, the States of Missouri and Louisiana, and several other individuals who were subject to social media censorship, allege that the federal government had pressured platforms to block or downgrade posts on various topics, including some related to Covid and the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Several lower courts agreed with the respondents, with a district judge describing the Biden administration’s Big Tech-censorship collusion as “Orwellian” and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals finding that the Biden admin likely violated the First Amendment when pushing for social media censorship.
During the oral arguments today though, the justices displayed skepticism towards a broad prohibition on governmental communications with social media platforms. They raised concerns that such a ruling could unduly restrain the government’s ability to address pressing issues.
Fletcher defended the Biden admin’s actions and framed them as the government exercising its right to “speak for itself by informing, persuading, or criticizing private speakers.” He argued that the government is entitled to communicate with social media companies to influence their content moderation decisions, as long as these interactions do not veer into coercion. According to Fletcher, the litmus test for legality should be the presence or absence of threats from the government, asserting that using the bully pulpit for exhortations is a right protected under the First Amendment.
Fletcher also tried to argue for the significant power and autonomy of social media companies, noting their capability to resist governmental pressures.
The solicitor general of Louisiana, Benjamin Aguiñaga, representing one of the Republican-led states behind the lawsuit, argued that the government’s actions amounted to coercion, effectively leading to censorship by social media platforms. He highlighted a significant shift in the focus of government-led content moderation. Initially aimed at tackling foreign interference and misinformation, these efforts increasingly targeted speech by American citizens, particularly around the contentious topics of the 2020 election and the pandemic.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson challenged Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga’s viewpoint. “And so I guess some might say that the government actually has a duty to take steps to protect the citizens of this country. And you seem to be suggesting that that duty cannot manifest itself in the government encouraging or even pressuring platforms to take down harmful information. So, can you help me? Because I’m really worried about that.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett also voiced concerns, questioning whether the FBI could legally request social media platforms to remove content, such as posts revealing personal information about officials.
Aguiñaga’s argument was that such actions could potentially suppress constitutionally protected speech.
The oral arguments went off into the weeds and into the nuances of what constitutes “coercion” by the government in its interactions with social media platforms, rather than directly addressing the core text of the First Amendment. This focus on “coercion” rather than the First Amendment’s explicit wording – prohibiting the “abridging” of the freedom of speech, or of the press – played into the Biden administration’s hands.
Justices Kavanaugh and Kagan drew a comparison between the case and the interactions that often occur between administration officials and news media. They proposed that efforts by officials to shape media coverage should be seen as constructive dialogue, not necessarily an attempt at censorship, and suggested such actions don’t violate the First Amendment’s provisions.
Kagan challenged the lawyer from Louisiana to demonstrate that the removal of the contentious posts was the result of government intervention rather than actions taken by the social media companies themselves.
“What distinguishes this as an act of the government rather than a decision made by the platforms?” Kagan inquired.
The discussion among the justices also ventured into the standing of the plaintiffs – Missouri and Louisiana, accompanied by five individuals – to bring the lawsuit. They questioned whether these parties had experienced a direct injury that would justify their legal challenge. Furthermore, the justices expressed doubts about the appropriateness of a wide-ranging injunction that would bar various officials from contacting social media platforms as a remedy to the alleged issue.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor specifically addressed concerns regarding the approach taken by the plaintiffs in presenting their case. Directing her comments to Aguiñaga, Justice Sotomayor criticized the framing of their argument. She pointed out that the plaintiff’s brief seemed to leave out crucial information, thereby altering the context of certain claims, a point which she found particularly troubling.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. appeared to concur with the notion that the federal government’s diverse array of agencies, which often lack a unified stance, weakens the argument of coercion. During a dialogue with the attorney from Louisiana, he observed, “It’s not monolithic.” He then posed a question that implied this multiplicity of voices in the federal government could substantially diminish the idea of coercion: “That has to dilute the concept of coercion significantly. Doesn’t it?”
While the justices mostly appeared skeptical of prohibiting the federal government from pressuring social media platforms to censor speech, there were some moments where they questioned the Biden admin’s arguments.
Justice Sotomayor pressed Fletcher to give her specifics on how the injunction that prohibits officials from coercing or significantly encouraging a platform’s content-moderation decisions would harm the government.
Fletcher responded by claiming that the injunction would prevent the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from flagging foreign “disinformation” to platforms, prevent White House officials from criticizing the platform’s practices on “misinformation,” and prevent officials complaining about or flagging various other types of legal content on social media.
Justice Samuel Alito also noted that two lower courts have found or accepted that some examples of Big Tech censorship that were highlighted in this case were “traceable to the government’s actions.”
He added: “We don’t usually reverse findings of fact that had been endorsed by two lower courts.”
Additionally, Justice Alito expressed skepticism about the White House and other federal officials constant “pestering” of Facebook and other social media platforms.
“And I thought, wow, I cannot imagine federal officials taking that approach to the print media,” Justice Alito said. “I thought, you know, the only reason why this is taking place is because the federal government has got Section 230 and antitrust in its pocket, and it’s…to mix my metaphors, and it’s got these big clubs available to it. And so it’s treating Facebook and these other platforms like their subordinates.”
After the hearing, the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), one of the legal groups representing the respondents in this case, urged the justices to recognize that the Biden admin’s censorship pressure violated the First Amendment.
“Our clients, who include top doctors and scientists, were censored for social media posts that turned out to be factually accurate, depriving the public of valuable perspectives during a public health crisis,” Jenin Younes, Litigation Counsel at the NCLA said. “We’re optimistic that the majority will look at the record and recognize that this was a sprawling government censorship enterprise without precedent in this country, and that this cannot be permitted to continue if the First Amendment is to survive.”
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Mutually Assured Delusion (MAD)
By Judith Curry | Climate Etc. | November 5, 2013
Groupthink: A pattern of thought charaterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics.
Groupthink: Collective Delusions in Organizations and Markets, by Roland Benabou, published in the Review of Economic Studies. Benabou also has a talk (ppt slides) on this subject.
First, a definition of groupthink (from the ppt slides):
Janis (1972)’s eight symptoms [of groupthink]:
- illusion of invulnerability
- collective rationalization
- belief in inherent morality
- stereotyped views of out-groups
- direct pressure on dissenters
- self-censorship
- illusion of unanimity
- self-appointed mind guards
Sound like any groups that we know? … continue
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