Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf is a vocal proponent of his nation&#8217;s new hate crime law — which has placed &#8220;Harry Potter&#8221; author <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/jk-rowling" target="_blank" rel="noopener">J.K. Rowling</a> in the crosshairs — but that didn&#8217;t stop citizens from using its provisions to report him for hate speech.
According to the BBC, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-68721208" target="_blank" rel="noopener">thousands of complaints</a> had been made under the new law&#8217;s provisions — namely one aimed to stop people from &#8220;stirring up hatred&#8221; based on certain protected classes — within hours of it taking effect. The news outlet also reported that a large number of the complaints were against Yousaf himself, mostly relating to a 2020 speech he gave while serving as Justice Secretary.
In that speech, Yousaf complained about the number of white leaders across the nation of Scotland and advocated for more diversity in leadership roles — but he did so in a fashion that was widely criticized as &#8220;racist&#8221; and &#8220;anti-white.&#8221;
WATCH:
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Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf described <a href="https://twitter.com/jk_rowling?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jk_rowling</a>’s tweets as “offensive and upsetting.”
Scotland passed a “hate speech” bill and on the first day received over 4,000 complaints. 
The majority of them were reportedly about Humza’s anti-white racist comments.
Is this… <a href="https://t.co/86my178ffT">pic.twitter.com/86my178ffT</a>
&mdash; Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) <a href="https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1775888412798517472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 4, 2024</a></blockquote>
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Scottish police responded to the large number of complaints, telling the BBC that they had already looked into Yousaf&#8217;s comments back in 2020 and had determined that there was nothing criminal about what he said. They also confirmed that the new law would not be implemented retroactively.
Community Safety Siobhian Brown weighed in on the complaints that overwhelmed police in the early hours of the law&#8217;s implementation, worrying that a good portion of them could be classified as &#8220;fake and vexatious.&#8221;
Brown blamed &#8220;misinformation&#8221; for the influx, but said that police were equipped to deal with the situation. She went on to reassure the public that there would be a high standard set for what would actually be considered criminal: &#8220;We&#8217;ve been very clear within the act this is not about restricting freedom of expression, it is to protect.&#8221;
<a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-9096" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://onelink.to/dwapp&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1700760801843000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2PQrVSrJfhxNb4LcARqniG">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP</a>
According to Brown, the statement must &#8220;be threatening or abusive with the intent to a stir up hatred towards an individual&#8221; to the point that it causes the person to fear for his or her safety.
A number of complaints were also directed at Rowling, who openly criticized the law and said that she would not comply if told she must refer to trans-identifying men as &#8220;women.&#8221;
She doubled down on April 1, even as the law went into effect, and laid out a series of posts labeling trans-identifying men as men — prompting a public complaint from Yousaf calling her words &#8220;offensive and upsetting.&#8221;
Rowling fired right back via X, saying, &#8220;Most of Scotland is upset and offended by Yousaf&#8217;s bumbling incompetence and illiberal authoritarianism, but we aren&#8217;t lobbying to have him locked up for it.&#8221;
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Most of Scotland is upset and offended by Yousaf’s bumbling incompetence and illiberal authoritarianism, but we aren’t lobbying to have him locked up for it. <a href="https://t.co/dTXKXORlGp">https://t.co/dTXKXORlGp</a>
&mdash; J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) <a href="https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1775886785849045478?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 4, 2024</a></blockquote>
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Scottish Daily Politics 2024

Scottish First Minister Defends Hate Crime Law. Citizens Use It To Report Him.

Harry Potter

Hate Crime

Hate Speech

JK Rowling

Racism

Scotland

Social Issues

Transgender

World

Bad ideas that start in Europe eventually end up in the United States. The most recent bad idea in Europe is that hate speech should be criminalized.
The European Union has pushed this, and now, Scotland is pushing it. Scotland has a brand new hate crime law which has come into force.
The BBC <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c51j64lk2l8o" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> on this, saying:
<blockquote>The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 creates a new crime of &#8220;stirring up hatred&#8221; relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex. &#8230; The maximum penalty under the new act in Scotland is a jail sentence of seven years. A person commits an offence if they communicate material, or behave in a manner, &#8220;that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive,&#8221; with the intention of stirring up hatred based on protected characteristics.</blockquote>
The claim of the Scottish government is that this does not infringe on free speech because Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects ideas that offend, shock, or disturb.
Proponents of the law <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-68703684" target="_blank" rel="noopener">say</a>, “You have to be really threatening and really abusive, and there has to be a reasonable assumption from others that that is the case.”
The problem is that when it comes to things like gender identity, the entire case advocates make for transgender nonsense is that simply saying “a man is not a woman” is not only harassment, but deadly harassment. It is a threat, a form of abuse, because that transgender person is going to kill themselves if that person is called by their original sex or their original name.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1938-why-cultural-christianity-isn-t-enough-member-exclusive">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h4>
This is obviously incredibly dangerous. The fact that Scotland has gone forth in this manner is astonishing.
The oversensitivity and desire for victimhood is so strong these days that, obviously, anybody could use this law and file a police report.
And that is the problem: All of this becomes discretionary when a law or the terms of a law are so broadly defined that they are basically at the discretion of the government. You have no protections in terms of rights at all.
Why should we be worried about this coming across the border to the United States? After all, we have a First Amendment, don&#8217;t we?
The answer is that if there were a Left-wing majority on the Supreme Court, there is very little doubt that “anti-discrimination” law, which applies in a wide variety of jurisdictions across the United States, would be applied to crack down on free speech.
It would not be considered free speech to engage in “discrimination” in a place of business. And by “discrimination,” that might mean you said a man was a man. That would be verboten under anti-discrimination law in places like New York and California.
The Supreme Court currently has a majority of conservatives. But if there were an activist Supreme Court Left-wing majority, they would undoubtedly curb the First Amendment so as to mirror the law in places not only like Scotland, but also in places like Canada. The entire West has decided the First Amendment and free speech principles not only are in play, but absolutely should also be thrown out in favor of the sensitivities of “victimized groups.”
All of this is the wages of a new paganism, of a new pagan ideology, that has decided basic Western values — like free speech, freedom of religion, property rights, all things the West has been characterized by for centuries — are inherently bad and discriminatory, and that pagan ideology has gained root.
Why? Because free speech and freedom of religion are rooted originally in Judeo-Christian values. The idea of freedom of religion is rooted in the Peace of Westphalia, which arose from conflict between Protestants and Roman Catholics during the Thirty Years’ War. The idea of freedom of speech is an Enlightenment concept that relies on the idea of freedom of mind, which is reliant on a notion that as human beings, we have a core obligation to seek a higher truth.
That core obligation to seek a higher truth requires us to have discussions with one another, to investigate and to pursue. That is a religious concept, and all of these things are outgrowths of Judeo-Christianity.
The problem is that the West has cut itself off from the roots of its own ideology. A philosopher named Will Herberg wrote about Judaism (and his words also apply to Christianity) in a book titled, “Judaism and Modern Man.” This is what <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/690247-the-attempt-made-in-recent-decades-by-secularist-thinkers-to">he wrote</a>:
<blockquote>The attempt made in recent decades by secularist thinkers to disengage the moral principles of Western civilization from their scripturally based religious context, in the assurance that they could live a life of their own as &#8220;humanistic&#8221; ethics, has resulted in our &#8220;cut flower culture.&#8221; Cut flowers retain their original beauty and fragrance, but only so long as they retain the vitality that they have drawn from their now-severed roots; after that is exhausted, they wither and die.
So with freedom, brotherhood, justice, and personal dignity — the values that form the moral foundation of our civilization. Without the life-giving power of the faith out of which they have sprung, they possess neither meaning nor vitality.</blockquote>
This is exactly right. We live in a cut-flower culture. We live in a culture that is living off of the exhaust of the fumes that are left in the tank from millennia of Christian civilization, and before that, Judaic civilization.
As we have cut ourselves off from those roots, we are flowers that are still in the vase, but the flowers are withering.
And they are withering quite quickly.

Demonstrators Rally Outside Holyrood Against SNP’s Hate Crime Bill

The West Is Becoming A Cut-Flower Culture As Its Principles Wither Away

Ben Shapiro

Christianity

Judaism

Opinion

Readers Pass

If you were running the government of Scotland right now, you&#8217;d have no shortage of serious, potentially civilization-ending social problems to contend with. Chief among them would be that, before long, there might not be very many Scottish people left.
Since 2011, Scotland&#8217;s <a href="https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/2022-results/scotland-s-census-2022-rounded-population-estimates/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">birth rate</a> has been well below replacement level, meaning far more people are dying than being born. There were more than 630,000 deaths, and only 580,000 or so births. And yet, despite those numbers, Scotland <a href="https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/2022-results/scotland-s-census-2022-rounded-population-estimates/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recorded</a> its largest population in history as recently as 2022.
How could that be? You can probably guess. 
Like many other nations all over the world, including the United States, Scotland is importing boatloads of poor foreigners to make up the difference. The result has been exactly what you&#8217;d expect. Scotland&#8217;s economy is now in a death spiral, with more than one million of its five-and-a-half million residents <a href="https://www.jrf.org.uk/poverty-in-scotland-2023" target="_blank" rel="noopener">living</a> in poverty and no clear solution to the problem. The number of people aged 65 and over is projected to grow by nearly 30% by 2045, while the number of children is projected to drop by roughly 20%. Unless something changes very soon, Scotland may be completely unrecognizable by the time its next census rolls around.
In political terms, this is what&#8217;s commonly called an &#8220;existential threat.&#8221; A serious country would enact policies to reverse this trend immediately, starting with turning away the so-called refugees and migrants that Scotland can&#8217;t tolerate, much less accommodate. But Scotland has decided on a very different course of action. Instead of, say, encouraging more Scottish citizens to have families, the government of Scotland has decided to suspend the right of freedom of speech. And they&#8217;ve suspended the freedom of speech with the express purpose of endorsing and protecting transgenderism — an ideology that&#8217;s antithetical to reproduction, and which openly calls for the sterilization and castration of children.
This is precisely the sort of thing that self-loathing societies do when they decide they don&#8217;t want to exist anymore. It&#8217;s the path Scotland is on and, as I&#8217;ll explain in a second, it&#8217;s exactly the same plan our leaders are following in this country.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1338-the-matt-walsh-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h4>
The specific law I&#8217;m talking about is called the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/section/1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hate Crime and Public Order Act</a>, and Scotland formally enacted it on Monday. It <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/section/4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">criminalizes</a> the act of , &#8220;behav[ing] in a manner that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive,&#8221; if in doing so, &#8220;the person intends to stir up hatred against a group of persons&#8221; based on one of the following characteristics: &#8220;age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity, or variations in sex characteristics.&#8221;
Anyone found guilty under this law can be sentenced to prison for up to seven years. Let me restate that: If you say something that a &#8220;reasonable person&#8221; in Scotland considers abusive, then the government can throw you in prison for seven years.
There are sites springing up all over Scotland where you can report wrong-think if you notice it, including, for some reason, sex shops in Glasgow. Watch:
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Of course it&#8217;s a woman with big glasses defending this transgender &#8220;hate crimes&#8221; legislation. She reassures us that &#8220;freedom of expression&#8221; is &#8220;really important,&#8221; except when it&#8217;s &#8220;abusive.&#8221; But who defines what&#8217;s abusive? The bill doesn&#8217;t say. I checked. The only limiting principle is that this legislation says it doesn&#8217;t outlaw &#8220;discussion or criticism,&#8221; whatever that means. But once discussion or criticism becomes &#8220;abusive,&#8221; according to &#8220;reasonable people,&#8221; then it&#8217;s a serious crime and you&#8217;ll spend the better part of a decade in prison.
The problem is that, by the bill&#8217;s own terms, the people determining what&#8217;s &#8220;reasonable&#8221; and what&#8217;s &#8220;hateful&#8221; are people who believe that biology isn&#8217;t real.
The whole bill is established with the express understanding that it&#8217;s &#8220;reasonable,&#8221; by default, to believe that anyone can change their gender in an instant. That is what the bill is saying is the reasonable position. It literally says that &#8220;transgender identity&#8221; is something the law needs to recognize and protect. And as we&#8217;ve seen, trans activists are willing to cry about &#8220;genocide&#8221; if you use a pronoun they don&#8217;t like. These are the “reasonable” people who get to set the boundaries of what&#8217;s &#8220;abusive&#8221; and what&#8217;s not.
In effect, what this means is that the truth has just been outlawed in Scotland.
Tell the truth about transgenderism, and you can go to prison for longer than a serial rapist. That&#8217;s not an exaggeration, by the way. Late last year, a man who <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/rapist-given-lighter-sentence-due-to-immaturity-at-time-of-assaults-13012994#:~:text=A%20teenage%20rapist%20has%20been,15%2Dyear%2Dold%20girl." target="_blank" rel="noopener">raped</a> three schoolgirls — ages 14 and 15 — in the Scottish town of Falkirk received a sentence of just six years in prison. If he had &#8220;misgendered&#8221; them instead, he&#8217;d have gotten a tougher sentence.
To be clear, this isn&#8217;t insanity, although that&#8217;s certainly what it looks like. It is, instead, a declaration of war by the government of Scotland against its own people. At every turn, they are working towards the destruction of future generations. And now they&#8217;re making it illegal to talk about it.
As a result, there is now a non-zero chance that bestselling children&#8217;s author J.K. Rowling could soon be arrested. When this law took effect, Rowling posted a lengthy <a href="https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1774747068944265615?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">thread</a> on social media, listing various men who identify as women in the UK — including men who have raped small children.
&#8220;Obviously, the people mentioned in the above tweets aren&#8217;t women at all, but men, every last one of them,&#8221; Rowling <a href="https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1774749954629652873?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote.</a> She continued: &#8220;In passing the Scottish Hate Crime Act, Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls. &#8230; It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women’s and girls’ rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man. Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal. I&#8217;m currently out of the country, but if what I&#8217;ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.&#8221;
Already, as you&#8217;ve probably guessed, many people in the UK are calling for Rowling&#8217;s arrest. A lawyer named Rajan Barot, for example, <a href="https://x.com/RajanBarot24/status/1774846191764652523?s=20">wrote</a> that Rowling had engaged in a &#8220;deliberate act of defiance,&#8221; and that the police &#8220;must mount a full investigation.&#8221; And by the letter of the law that was just enacted in Scotland, the police are obligated to do that. For offending the cult of transgenderism, J.K. Rowling could soon be imprisoned for up to seven years.
This is the new definition of blasphemy in the UK. Transgenderism is the new state religion. And just to underscore that point even further, this same law — this same Hate Crimes bill that bans anyone from criticizing transgenderism — also repeals the <a href="https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/factsheet/2020/04/hate-crime-bill-what-it-will-do/documents/hate-crime-bill-information-note-blasphemy/hate-crime-bill-information-note-blasphemy/govscot%3Adocument/Hate%2BCrime%2BBill%2B-%2BInformation%2BNote%2BPdf%2B-%2BBlasphemy%2B-%2BRevised%2BAugust%2B2020.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">existing blasphemy law</a> on the books in Scotland. That had been in effect since the common law was created, but it&#8217;s gone now. Again, I&#8217;m not exaggerating for effect here.
This is literally a line from the same bill: &#8220;The common law offence of blasphemy is abolished.&#8221; And really, it makes sense. After all, you have to destroy the old religion to enact the new one. The Scottish government understands that as well as Mao did. They understand it as well as Joe Biden&#8217;s administration did on Easter Sunday.
But this is not a story about the internal affairs of Scotland. What&#8217;s happening in Scotland is not some kind of aberrant, overly extremist application of Leftist doctrine, rather, it&#8217;s the logical end result. When you value feelings over truth, and define untruth as truth, what follows next is inevitable.
Anyone who really believes that men can become women, and that affirming biological reality is tantamount to genocide, is eventually going to throw you in prison. That&#8217;s why they use terms like &#8220;genocide.&#8221; It&#8217;s not to accurately describe what you&#8217;re doing, it&#8217;s to justify destroying your life by force, through any means necessary.
You might be thinking to yourself — “Well, that can&#8217;t happen here, at least not to the extent it&#8217;s happening in a place like Scotland. After all, we have a much more robust Constitution here, and our First Amendment protects the freedom of speech from government interference. And surely, if the government explicitly said it was going to target people for their speech in this country, and then ruined them, then there&#8217;d be a major outcry over it.” If you thought that, however, you&#8217;d be wrong.
The attorney general of New York, Letitia James, is of course best known for her campaign to seize all of the assets of the leading presidential candidate. What she&#8217;s not so well known for is her campaign to target the website VDARE, explicitly because of its inconvenient and unpopular beliefs. This is a story that&#8217;s gotten very little attention in conservative media, but it&#8217;s every bit as scandalous as what Letitia James is doing to Donald Trump.
Shortly after she took office, as <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2023/05/24/experts-vdares-real-estate-deals-may-cost-group-nonprofit-status" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> by the fringe Left-wing activist group Southern Poverty Law Center, Letitia James promised to target conservative and Right-wing organizations based on their speech: &#8220;In 2020, James said her office would take tougher legal action on organizations that engage in real-life discriminatory actions and online hate speech against protected classes.&#8221;
It&#8217;s an astonishing statement because there is no such thing as &#8220;online hate speech&#8221; in this country. We&#8217;re not Scotland, at least not yet. That&#8217;s the point of the First Amendment. But Letitia James just admitted, out in the open, that she was going to ignore the First Amendment, and go after people saying things online that she didn&#8217;t like. And that&#8217;s exactly what she&#8217;s done.
Over the weekend, VDARE <a href="https://vdare.com/articles/it-is-finished-nyag-letitia-james-crucifies-vdare-com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">explained</a> that the New York attorney general&#8217;s office has ruined them financially with a subpoena that requires them to, &#8220;review 40 gigabytes of emails, an enormous amount. .. And of course these [emails] could in fact reveal the names of those pseudonymous writers, as well as our donors, privileged communications with lawyers, etc.&#8221; In all, VDARE says the subpoena could cost more than $150,000 to comply with, and as a result, the website may not be around for very much longer.
All of this is happening without VDARE being accused of any criminal activity whatsoever. There&#8217;s apparently just a suspicion of a possible violation of New York&#8217;s nonprofit rules, relating to their purchase of a castle as a conference venue several years ago. (Which they needed to purchase, because hotels wouldn&#8217;t let them host conferences there). But the New York AG&#8217;s office isn&#8217;t being very specific about what the problem is, so we&#8217;re really speculating about the specifics.
And as VDARE&#8217;s Lydia Brimelow said in a recent interview, New York really doesn&#8217;t have anything to do with VDARE, so their whole fixation with the organization is a little strange. In fact, VDARE has been trying to leave the state behind for a while now. The castle property that&#8217;s at issue is in West Virginia. Watch:
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So VDARE is being chased around by a vindictive attorney general for an out-of-state property they bought. I&#8217;m no expert on the facts of the case, but at a glance, what VDARE is apparently being investigated for is somewhat similar to what BLM has admitted to doing.
We know BLM spent a lot of money buying multiple lavish mansions — not just one conference venue. But BLM was never subjected to any kind of investigation. They never had the New York attorney general, or any other attorney general, bombard them with subpoenas. And we know why that is. It&#8217;s because BLM is on Letitia James&#8217; side. VDARE isn&#8217;t. VDARE likes to talk about things like crime statistics, and what happens in cities like Baltimore. So therefore, like Donald Trump, they need to be crushed. Every real-estate transaction they&#8217;ve ever engaged in needs to be carefully scrutinized until they&#8217;re broke.
Suddenly Scotland&#8217;s decision to suspend freedom of speech doesn&#8217;t seem so unthinkable here. If Letitia James can get away with targeting a Right-wing media outlet like this, while admitting it, then we&#8217;re basically there already.
If anything, we could learn from what&#8217;s happening in Scotland. At least they have someone like J.K. Rowling who is willing to go to jail over what Scotland&#8217;s government is doing. Is there anyone in this country who&#8217;s even suggested sacrificing anything for a site like VDARE? Of course not. They have unfashionable views. So they won&#8217;t be around much longer. Inevitably, that means the people who decide what&#8217;s &#8220;unfashionable&#8221; will be coming for you, too.

Scotland Makes It Illegal To Hurt A Trans Person’s Feelings

Scotland Makes It Illegal To Hurt A Trans Person's Feelings

J.K. Rowling

Letitia James

Matt Walsh

New York

Parliament

Prison

Women who are critical of gender ideology are slamming Scotland&#8217;s new hate speech law, saying it restricts them from voicing their views on biological sex.
The new <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ssi/2024/82/contents/made" target="_blank" rel="noopener">law</a>, the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021, went into effect on Monday. The measure criminalizes &#8220;stirring up hatred&#8221; relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity, or being intersex.
The maximum penalty for violations is seven years in jail.
Critics quickly spoke out against the law, saying it risks jailing people for voicing their sincerely held opinions, particularly those critical of gender ideology.
Under the law, a person may not communicate material or behave in a way that &#8220;a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive&#8221; with the intention of stirring up hatred based on the newly protected characteristics.
Racially-based hatred was already outlawed in Scotland, but the new law adds more protected categories.
Many voiced their opposition to the law on social media, posting under the hashtags #FactIsNotHate and #WomenWontWheesht — &#8220;wheesht&#8221; meaning &#8220;hush&#8221; in Scotland.
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Women have been out and about in Scotland with our Hate Crime posters. Women&#39;s Rights Are Not A Hate Crime. Here&#39;s some fabulous women <a href="https://twitter.com/ff_scotland?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ff_scotland</a> Alloa Festival. We will not be silenced!<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FactIsNotHate?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FactIsNotHate</a> <a href="https://t.co/pIsWO2pesD">pic.twitter.com/pIsWO2pesD</a>
&mdash; WRN Scotland (@WRNScotland) <a href="https://twitter.com/WRNScotland/status/1774696700923256964?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 1, 2024</a></blockquote>
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I will not lie. I will not betray women. Our rights matter. We are defiant. We will not be silent. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FactIsNotHate?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FactIsNotHate</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TruthIsNotACrime?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TruthIsNotACrime</a><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FactIsNotACrime?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FactIsNotACrime</a> <a href="https://t.co/KsjUCDDrEZ">pic.twitter.com/KsjUCDDrEZ</a>
&mdash; Cathy Larkman 💚🤍 💜🦢🏃‍♀️ (@JackMerched) <a href="https://twitter.com/JackMerched/status/1774581852562423931?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 31, 2024</a></blockquote>
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We’ll be continuing to go about our lives speaking the truth. We won’t be silenced by the Hate Crime Bill ✊✊✊<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TruthIsNotACrime?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TruthIsNotACrime</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FactIsNotHate?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FactIsNotHate</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FactIsNotACrime?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FactIsNotACrime</a> <a href="https://t.co/kRNMHwHDKE">pic.twitter.com/kRNMHwHDKE</a>
&mdash; GTF Glasgow Tactical Feminists (@GTFGla) <a href="https://twitter.com/GTFGla/status/1774689482798694786?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 1, 2024</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;
&#8220;I will not lie. I will not betray women. Our rights matter. We are defiant. We will not be silent,&#8221; wrote one social media user on X.
&#8220;A Woman is an Adult Human Female,&#8221; another <a href="https://twitter.com/Your_mums_aTerf/status/1774578740023939220" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a>. &#8220;The law can not protect what it can not define. My son claims he&#8217;s a woman, he is not. It is my protected belief humans can not change sex.&#8221;
&#8220;Men are not women. Will this statement now result in arrest in Scotland? Indefinite seizure of devices? Hate crime incidents secretly recorded? A dystopian nightmare, brought about in the name of &#8216;inclusion&#8217;. Shame on you #Scotland,&#8221; another user <a href="https://twitter.com/brandubh4/status/1774585540752318872" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a>.
Some X users tagged the Scottish police in their posts.
Author J.K. Rowling <a href="https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1774747068944265615">challenged</a> police to arrest her over her posts criticizing gender ideology.
&#8220;Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal,&#8221; Rowling posted Monday on X, adding that, &#8220;if what I&#8217;ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested.&#8221;
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Rowling added that Scottish lawmakers &#8220;seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls.&#8221;
She said the new legislation is &#8220;wide open to abuse by activists who wish to silence&#8221; women who criticize gender ideology.
&nbsp;
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🎉🌼🌸April Fools! 🌸🌼🎉
Only kidding. Obviously, the people mentioned in the above tweets aren&#39;t women at all, but men, every last one of them.
In passing the Scottish Hate Crime Act, Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their…
&mdash; J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) <a href="https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1774749954629652873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 1, 2024</a></blockquote>
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Elon Musk criticized the law as well.
&#8220;An example of why it is so important to preserve freedom of speech,&#8221; Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1770032208662663278" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> earlier this month on X in response to another post discussing the law.

People holding transgender flags

Women Gender Ideology Critics Protest Scotland’s Hate Crime Act

Women Gender Ideology Critics Protest Scotland's Hate Crime Act

Free Speech

Gender

In 16th century Scotland, it was easy to deal with problematic women.
Nearly 2,500 people were tried and mostly executed for “witchcraft.” Their crime? Largely, they were mouthy, opinionated, a bit odd, or disliked.
If “witch!” didn’t stick, “heretic!” would do the trick, under Scotland’s then pervasive anti-blasphemy laws.
“Othering” those of minority beliefs made them easy to hang.
With the spread of liberal democracy, Scotland’s witch trials went defunct. We thought we had learned tolerance. But on April 1 of this year, a new “blasphemy” law will come into effect – set to punish modern “heretics” who blaspheme against today’s dominant societal beliefs.
The “<a href="https://www.parliament.scot/bills-and-laws/bills/hate-crime-and-public-order-scotland-bill" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hate Speech and Public Order Act</a>” introduces a new offense of “stirring up hatred” on the basis of, inter alia, transgender identity.
Nobody likes to feel hated. But the government has failed to adequately define which speech is actually banned, leaving citizens open to prosecution for saying anything the state deems unacceptable — or that any given individual decides is offensive.
There are no private places beyond the state’s listening ears — the law applies even to dinner table discussions in the family home, and can be enforced if your children decide to report you for voicing your (un)orthodox beliefs.
The cost of “free speech” is at an all-time high.
Up to seven years behind bars await our new heretics.
And the mob already has their eyes set on a target, pitchforks sharpened. A wise and wizardly woman with decidedly problematic, public views about pronouns: J.K. Rowling.
In anticipation of the law’s launch on April 1, activists are in frenzied <a href="https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1769412494353678400?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">anticipation</a> of bringing our most successful author down.
Having commentated on social media about the need to protect single-sexed prison cells, rape shelters and changing rooms, the world-renowned Scot put a target on her back to be hunted by the puritans of the Church of Woke.
Threats abound to report her to the police unless she succumbs to pressure to change her pronoun usage on “X.” The witch hunt has begun.
Of course, crying “witch” has gone out of fashion. In fact, in 2022, Scotland’s leader issued an official state <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/08/nicola-sturgeon-issues-apology-for-historical-injustice-of-witch-hunts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">apology</a> for the ‘historical injustice’ of witch hunts. But name-calling the enemy is too successful a technique to stop.
And so the Scottish authorities have slapped a new name on an old story, and this week launched an infantilizing <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13198995/Police-face-ridicule-ludicrous-Hate-Monster-campaign.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">campaign</a> to support their new law. Beware: “The hate monster”!
The campaign, backed with public money, warns us against “the feeling some people get when they are frustrated and angry and take it out on others, because they feel like they need to show they are better than them’ — ‘in other words, they ­commit a hate crime.”
Young, white, working-class men are the most likely to succumb to “the hate monster,” we’re told, in a prejudicial jibe at a disadvantaged demographic. Holding alternative beliefs to those of the wealthy elite doth not make man “monster.”
Expressing anger is not, in itself, a crime. Rowling hasn’t even expressed anger. She’s merely spoken truthfully about biological reality. She may not be a working-class male. But she has reason to worry nonetheless.
Where hate speech laws have been enforced around the world, citizens have been prosecuted for tweets of a similarly cordial tone. In Finland, a parliamentarian and grandmother underwent a <a href="https://adfinternational.org/en-gb/portfolio/free-speech-on-trial" target="_blank" rel="noopener">criminal trial</a> for a Bible verse tweet that questioned her Church’s sponsorship of a pride event.
In Mexico, <a href="https://adfinternational.org/news/mexican-civil-society-leader-found-guilty-of-gender-based-political-violence-for-tweets" target="_blank" rel="noopener">two</a> <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/human-rights-group-demands-response-mexican-government-lawmaker-charged-political-violence" target="_blank" rel="noopener">politicians</a> from differing parties have both been convicted of “gender based political violence” and placed on an offenders’ register, simply for upholding their beliefs about gender and pronouns on Musk’s platform.
There’s nothing to stop Scotland’s hate crime law from doing the same thing — either to J.K. Rowling; or to another citizen with less money and influence to withstand the pressure.
The author of the wizarding world could be at the center of her own next witchy tale.
The Scottish government should take heed. Jailing citizens for having the “wrong” opinions — whether a working-class male or billionaire female — has never fallen on the right side of history.
* * *
Lois McLatchie Miller is Senior Legal Communications Officer for Alliance Defending Freedom UK. Follow her: @LoisMcLatch
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Scotland’s New Blasphemy Law Could Put J.K. Rowling In Jail

Scotland's New Blasphemy Law Could Put J.K. Rowling In Jail

Europe

Great Britain

The New York Post Editorial Board published a piece Thursday laying into a recently-introduced bill that they argued would turn <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/canada" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Canada</a> into an Orwellian nightmare.
The bill in question (Bill C-63), referred to as the Online Harms Act, was first introduced by Justice Minister Arif Virani in February — and would <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/03/14/world-news/canadian-law-endorsed-by-trudeau-could-imprison-people-for-speech-crimes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">empower the government</a> to place citizens on house arrest if social media posts provide &#8220;reasonable grounds&#8221; for officials to believe that someone &#8220;will commit&#8221; a crime.
&#8220;No, Canada!&#8221; the Post&#8217;s Editorial Board wrote in response. &#8220;The country that brought you debanking protesters and government-assisted suicide for the poor now wants to criminalize speech to lock up people for life and to put wrongthinkers under house arrest if the state sees a chance they will commit a crime. Doesn’t get more Orwellian than that.&#8221;
Minister Virani claimed that the bill was all about safety on the internet, something that he said hit close to home because he had children himself — and suggested that it would be no different than forcing toy manufacturers to abide by certain product safety regulations.
Another provision in the bill addresses &#8220;advocating for genocide&#8221; and increases the penalty for that particular infraction from five years to life in prison — and the Post noted an inherent risk in that provision as well.
&#8220;We’re sure a law that criminalizes &#8216;advocating for genocide&#8217; could never be twisted to criminalize support for Israel,&#8221; they wrote. &#8220;The pro-Hamas left will have a field day.&#8221;
The penalties for social media companies would be steep as well if they dared to refuse cooperation if the bill becomes law: fines could be upwards of a staggering 6% of global revenue.
&#8220;Handmaid&#8217;s Tale&#8221; author Margaret Atwood pointed out the dystopian future the bill was likely to help facilitate, saying via X, &#8220;If this account of the bill is true, it’s Lettres de Cachet all over again. The possibilities for revenge false accusations + thoughtcrime stuff are sooo inviting! Trudeau’s Orwellian online harms bill.&#8221;
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If this account of the bill is true, it’s Lettres de Cachet all over again. The possibilities for revenge false accusations + thoughtcrime stuff are sooo inviting! Trudeau’s Orwellian online harms bill <a href="https://t.co/GziivgfNGt">https://t.co/GziivgfNGt</a>
&mdash; Margaret E Atwood (@MargaretAtwood) <a href="https://twitter.com/MargaretAtwood/status/1766323300853297262?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 9, 2024</a></blockquote>
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Kamloops

NYPost Slams Canadian ‘Thought Crime’ Bill That Goes Full ‘Minority Report’

NYPost Slams Canadian 'Thought Crime' Bill That Goes Full 'Minority Report'

Canada

Crime

New York Post

A Finnish politician who was on trial over her Christian beliefs on marriage and sexuality was found not guilty after the “hate crime” charges she faced were dismissed on Tuesday. 
Parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen faced state charges related to her sharing a 2019 tweet that included pictures of Bible verses,  a radio debate she had in 2019, and a pamphlet she wrote on marriage back in 2004. The Helsinki Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed the charges and those faced by Bishop Juhana Pohjola, who published Räsänen&#8217;s 2004 pamphlet called “Male and Female He Created Them.”
“I am deeply relieved. The court has fully endorsed and upheld the decision of the district court, which recognized everyone’s right to free speech,” Räsänen <a href="https://adfinternational.org/breaking-finnish-parliamentarian-found-not-guilty-of-hate-speech-for-bible-tweet-and-other-expressions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> after the court ruling was announced. 
Räsänen, a member of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/finland" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Finnish</a> parliament, was supported in her defense by the Alliance Defending Freedom International. The prosecution must cover Räsänen’s legal bills according to the appeals court. 
“It isn’t a crime to tweet a Bible verse, or to engage in public discourse with a Christian perspective. The attempts made to prosecute me for expressing my beliefs have resulted in an immensely trying four years, but my hope is that the result will stand as a key precedent to protect the human right to free speech. I sincerely hope other innocent people will be spared the same ordeal for simply voicing their convictions,” Räsänen added. 
While Räsänen was unanimously acquitted by the District Court of Helsinki for the same charges back in March 2022, state prosecutors sought to appeal the lower court’s ruling earlier this year. 
The appeals court said that it had “no reason, on the basis of the evidence received at the main hearing, to assess the case in any respect differently from the District Court. There is therefore no reason to alter the final result of the District Court’s judgment.”  
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During the case, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/finnish-politician-back-in-court-for-criminal-interpretation-of-bible-verses" target="_blank" rel="noopener">prosecutors argued</a> that they “can limit freedom of expression in the outward expression of religion.” They also said that the 2019 tweet was criminal because of Räsänen’s interpretation of the verse. “You can cite the Bible, but it is Räsänen’s interpretation and opinion about the Bible verses that are criminal,” one prosecutor said.  
Paul Coleman, the executive director of ADF International, celebrated the ruling but added that hate speech laws were dangerous for societies. 
“While we celebrate this monumental victory, we also remember that it comes after four years of police investigations, criminal indictments, prosecutions, and court hearings. We applaud the Helsinki Court of Appeal’s ruling in this case, and we work towards the bigger victory when such ludicrous cases are no longer brought,” he said.

Screen Shot 2023-11-14 at 7.01.23 AM

Finnish Court Dismisses Hate Crime Charges Against Politician On Trial Over Christian Beliefs

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)

Finland

Marriage

Sexuality

President Biden Delivers Remarks On His Administration’s Efforts To Safeguard The Development Of Artificial Intelligence

The White House’s War On ‘Hate’ Is Really A War On Free Speech

The White House's War On 'Hate' Is Really A War On Free Speech

Islam

Kamala Harris

Republican lawmakers slammed the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/in-global-freedom-of-speech-win-court-clears-finnish-official-of-hate-speech-for-sharing-faith-based-views-on-marriage-sexuality" target="_blank" rel="noopener">prosecution of a Finnish politician</a> who is facing punishment for expressing her <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/christianity" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Christian</a> views on marriage and sexuality, saying that the prosecution was indicative of an “open war on Christianity.”
The representatives sent a <a href="https://adfinternational.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Signed_Finland_Letter_August_2023.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> to Douglas Hickey, America’s ambassador to Finland, and Rashad Hussain, the ambassador for the U.S. Office of Religious Freedom, in defense of Parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen. Räsänen is <a href="https://adfinternational.org/paivi-us-legislator-support-letter/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">facing a trial</a> before a Finish appeals court after she was previously acquitted by a lower court of charges including “agitation against a minority group” related to her faith-based views on marriage and sexuality, including a 2019 tweet that called homosexuality a “sin.”
“Finnish Christians once again stand trial for simply being Christians. For more than four years, a rogue Finnish prosecutor has unjustly targeted Member of Finnish Parliament Päivi Räsänen and Bishop Juhana Pohjola for tweeting a Bible verse critical of her own church and publishing a twenty-year old booklet on marriage,” a letter from 16 House Republicans read.
Signers included Reps. Chip Roy (Texas), Michael Cloud (Texas), Mike Johnson (Louisiana), Andrew Clyde (Georgia), Jim Banks (Indiana), Jeff Duncan (South Carolina), Mary Miller (Illinois), Doug Lamborn (Colorado), Debbie Lesko (Arizona), Michael Guest (Mississippi), Andy Ogles (Tennessee), Ralph Norman (South Carolina), Anna Paulina Luna (Florida), Randy Weber (Texas), Keith Self (Texas) and Alex X. Mooney (West Virginia).
“This case will have worldwide ramifications. For years, we and many others have raised the alarm that the West was experiencing a hostile takeover by radical secularists — guided by open hostility and rancid antagonism toward Christianity — and that one-day people of faith would face trial for merely living out their beliefs,” the letter continued.
Räsänen&#8217;s legal defense is being supported by the Global Religious Freedom at Alliance Defending Freedom International. Her second trial will be before the Finnish Court of Appeal after she was unanimously acquitted by the District Court of Helsinki in March 2022.
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&#8220;The state is attempting to criminalize the peaceful expression of my Christian faith. By continuing its campaign to censor these beliefs, the prosecution is setting a dangerous precedent of intolerance. I hope for another acquittal at the Court of Appeal. The state of free speech in Finland hangs in the balance,” Räsänen said in a statement.
Multiple Republican senators, including Marco Rubio of Florida and Josh Hawley of Missouri, have previously expressed their support for Räsänen’s right to express her faith.

Paivi-reporters-2

Republican Lawmakers Slam Prosecution Of Finnish Politician Over Religious Beliefs

House Republicans

Religion

Religious Liberty

X Corp. accused a non-profit organization and its backers in a <a href="https://www.pacermonitor.com/view/NV3GMHQ/X_Corp_a_Nevada_Corporation_v_Center_for_Countering_Digital__candce-23-03836__0001.0.pdf?mcid=tGE3TEOA" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lawsuit</a> filed Monday of unlawfully accessing private data and choosing specific posts to show a rise in hate speech on the social media platform under Elon Musk&#8217;s ownership.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the social media company formerly known as Twitter claims the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) — a British non-profit that researches so-called online hate and disinformation — orchestrated a &#8220;scare campaign to drive away advertisers from the X platform&#8221; by publishing so-called hate speech reports.
&#8220;CCDH has done this by engaging in a series of unlawful acts designed to improperly gain access to protected X Corp. data, needed by CCDH so that it could cherry-pick from the hundreds of millions of posts made each day on X and falsely claim it had statistical support showing the platform is overwhelmed with harmful content,&#8221; the lawsuit reads.
The complaint comes just hours after a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/x-lawyer-threatens-legal-action-against-non-profit-targeting-hate-speech-on-platform" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> from X attorney Alex Spiro threatening legal action against the non-profit organization last month made recent headlines.
Spiro reportedly wrote in the July 20 letter that the center made &#8220;a series of troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally, and its digital advertising business specifically,&#8221; citing eight examples that X reportedly called &#8220;false, misleading or both&#8221; from improper research methods.
Last month, the center <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2023/a-new-era-of-transparency-for-twitter1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claimed</a> X — before taking on its new brand — failed to act on 99% of &#8220;toxic&#8221; tweets involving &#8220;racist, homophobic, neo-Nazi, antisemitic, or conspiracy content&#8221; posted by Twitter Blue subscribers.
CEO Linda Yaccarino and X officials have labeled the report &#8220;false,&#8221; according to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/musks-x-sues-nonprofit-that-fights-hate-speech-2023-08-01/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reuters</a>, adding that it was based on &#8220;a collection of incorrect, misleading, and outdated metrics, mostly from the period shortly after Twitter&#8217;s acquisition.&#8221;
Months after purchasing the platform for $44 billion last year, Musk said the company saw a decrease in &#8220;hate speech impressions,&#8221; paired with a graph seemingly derived from internal data showing the downward trend dropped by roughly 30%.
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Hate speech impressions down by 1/3 from pre-spike levels. Congrats to Twitter team! <a href="https://t.co/5BWaQoIlip">pic.twitter.com/5BWaQoIlip</a>
&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1595630109116989440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 24, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The social media platform also accused the CCDH of using unlawfully accessed data to &#8220;falsely claim it had statistical support showing the platform is overwhelmed with harmful content.&#8221;
According to the lawsuit, X is seeking a jury trial and unspecified monetary damages and wants to block the non-profit and any of its backers or employees from accessing data provided by X to the social media listening platform Brandwatch.
&#8220;Recently Brandwatch made X aware that the CCDH gained access to X&#8217;s data without Brandwatch&#8217;s authorization, and that the purported CCDH &#8216;research&#8217; cited in a Bloomberg article &#8216;contained metrics used out of context to make unsubstantiated assertions about X (formerly Twitter),'&#8221; the company wrote in a <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2023/a-new-era-of-transparency-for-twitter1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blog post</a>. &#8220;Additionally, the CCDH has recently scraped X&#8217;s platform, which is a violation of our terms of service.&#8221;
CCDH founder and chief executive Imran Ahmed told <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musks-x-corp-sues-nonprofit-group-tracks-hate-speech-rcna97511" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NBC</a> News in a statement the &#8220;latest legal threat is straight out of the authoritarian playbook — he is now showing he will stop at nothing to silence anyone who criticizes him for his own decisions and actions.&#8221;
&#8220;The Center for Countering Digital Hate&#8217;s research shows that hate and disinformation is spreading like wildfire on the platform under Musk&#8217;s ownership and this lawsuit is a direct attempt to silence those efforts,&#8221; Ahmed added. &#8220;Musk is trying to &#8216;shoot the messenger&#8217; who highlights the toxic content on his platform rather than deal with the toxic environment he&#8217;s created.&#8221;
Musk previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/read-it-elon-musk-explains-why-he-bought-twitter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> he bought the company to combat content &#8220;fueled and catered&#8221; by legacy media outlets.
Musk previously said, &#8220;it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence.&#8221;
&#8220;There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society,&#8221; he added.

Twitter X Photo Illustrations

X Corp. Sues Non-Profit Over ‘Scare Campaign’ Designed To Drive Advertisers Away From Social Media Platform: Report

X Corp. Sues Non-Profit Over 'Scare Campaign' Designed To Drive Advertisers Away From Social Media Platform

Big Tech

Elon Musk

Twitter

U.S.

Do you ever ask yourself, &#8220;Is this still the United States of America?&#8221;
If not, that might be your response after the latest story out of Michigan, where Republicans are warning that a new hate speech bill could place individuals in jail for &#8220;misgendering&#8221; and hurting the &#8220;feelings&#8221; of others.
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/michigan-hate-speech-bill-would-make-it-a-felony-to-make-someone-feel-threatened" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Daily Wire previously reported</a>, the bill would make it a hate crime to cause someone to “feel terrorized, frightened, or threatened.” If this bill becomes law, then &#8220;sexual orientation” and “gender identity or expression” would be included as protected classes, and violators would be guilty of a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $10,000.
&#8220;It&#8217;s a bill that intends to bring prosecution for hurt feelings,&#8221; state Representative Brad Paquette (R-MI) <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/michigan-hate-speech-law-prosecute-misgendering" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> The Washington Examiner over the weekend.
&#8220;The bill is founded in pure narcissism and victim mentality that&#8217;s built upon gender theory. It&#8217;s one that seeks to force others who adamantly disagree with gender theory to live in another&#8217;s delusion,&#8221; he added.
Paquette took it a step further, saying that this was part of a larger assault on America as we know it.
&#8220;I think gender theory is one of the biggest threats to our nation,&#8221; Paquette said to The Examiner.
The bill has already passed Michigan&#8217;s House and now sits with the Democrat-controlled state senate.
Folks like the Wolverine State&#8217;s Attorney General Dana Nessel say that the law is needed because the current ones are &#8220;woefully inadequate to address the rise and escalation of crimes that we’re seeing today.&#8221;
Other Republicans, such as state Representative Steve Carras, argue that the law is too broad and would run roughshod over freedom of speech.
&#8220;This legislation opens the door to severe penalties for words,&#8221; Carra told The Examiner. &#8220;Despite some speech being completely reprehensible, one of the wonderful things about our country is that you have the right to say it without fear of government retaliation or oppression.&#8221;
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It is expected that Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will sign the bill if it lands on her desk. Last week, she outlawed conversion therapy for minors.
As this author <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rapid-reaction-major-dem-donor-let-off-the-hook-for-alleged-campaign-finance-fraud" target="_blank" rel="noopener">discussed last week</a>, consider how insane this moment in American history is: A sizable chunk of the Democratic Party believes that not only can men and women change their sex and gender through bodily mutilation but that minors should also be allowed to do so. The Democrats are so adamant in this belief that states are pushing for laws that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/california-state-senator-warns-parents-to-flee-state-after-gender-affirmation-bill-advances" target="_blank" rel="noopener">strip parental authority away</a>. Congress has to host hearings on the matter in hopes of exposing how barbaric this practice really is.
Now, Michigan Democrats want to punish those who fail to comply with their leftist ideology. Totalitarians are all the same, and their new issue to expand power is transgenderism.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Gretchen Whitmer

‘Pure Narcissism’: GOP Reps Sound Alarm Over Michigan’s New Hate Crime Bill

'Pure Narcissism': GOP Reps Sound Alarm Over Michigan's New Hate Crime Bill

LGBTQ

Michigan

Politics

Republicans

X, the social-media giant formerly known as Twitter, threatened legal action against a non-profit organization earlier this month for spreading claims that hate speech has increased on the platform after Elon Musk acquired the company last year.
X attorney Alex Spiro wrote in a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23891593-twitter-letter-to-ccdh" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> dated July 20 and addressed to the Center for Countering Digital Hate — a British non-profit that researches so-called online hate and disinformation — that the organization has published content intended to harm Musk’s business “by driving advertisers away from the platform with incendiary claims.”
Spiro reportedly wrote the center made “a series of troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally, and its digital advertising business specifically,” citing eight examples that X reportedly called “false, misleading or both” from improper research methods.
Last month, the center <a href="https://counterhate.com/research/twitter-fails-to-act-on-twitter-blue-accounts-tweeting-hate/#about" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claimed</a> X — before taking on its new brand — failed to act on 99% of “toxic” tweets involving &#8220;racist, homophobic, neo-Nazi, antisemitic, or conspiracy content&#8221; posted by Twitter Blue subscribers.
Spiro specifically named the report in the letter while accusing the center of receiving funds from other social media platforms, including TikTok and Facebook. The center has previously published its own set of research targeting online conduct from X’s rival platforms.
X Corp is considering whether the organization may be liable under the Lanham Act, which covers trademark law.
“Please be advised that Twitter will employ any and all legal tools at its disposal to prevent false or misleading claims from harming its users, platform, or business,” the letter added.
Center for Countering Digital Hate CEO Imran Ahmed said in a statement that Musk’s actions “represent a brazen attempt to silence honest criticism and independent research, in the desperate hope that he can stem the tide of negative stories and rebuild his relationship with advertisers.”
Ahmed said the letter created an “unprecedented escalation” between the social media company and independent researchers.
“Musk has just declared open war,” Ahmed told <a href="https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-lawsuit-cchd-twitter-x-hate-speech-extremism-434a80631f9e76833ee30387c04dd290?taid=64c7efa355e1c3000167312d&amp;utm_campaign=TrueAnthem&amp;utm_medium=AP&amp;utm_source=Twitter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Associated Press.</a> “If Musk succeeds in silencing us, other researchers will be next in line.”
“This should be the last time anyone dares to claim Musk is a ‘free speech absolutist’ – he is in fact, a bully who uses attack dogs to terrorize his opponents into silence,” Ahmed added.
Attorney Roberta Kaplan with the non-profit said in a <a href="https://counterhate.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Letter-to-A.-Spiro-from-R.-Kaplan-re-CCDH.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">response letter</a> to Spiro that despite X&#8217;s freedom to pursue litigation, the company could face risks of &#8220;bringing frivolous claims to intimidate thoughtful critics and stifle legitimate commentary on issues of clear public interest.&#8221;
In separate posts on his X account, Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1686031686230786048" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in response to the news that the center “should save their words for the jury.”
“Let’s pull the mask off this organization and see who is really behind it,” he said in another post.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Let’s pull the mask off this organization and see who is really behind it
&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1686031894599565312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 31, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
According to X News Daily, the non-profit allegedly had some content moderation influence on the platform before Musk purchased Twitter last October. Two days before Spiro sent the letter to the organization, Elon questioned who funds the center.
&#8220;They spread disinformation and push censorship, while claiming the opposite,&#8221; he <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1681279195253551104" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. &#8220;Truly evil.&#8221;

Twitter/X

X Lawyer Threatens Legal Action Against Non-Profit Targeting ‘Hate Speech’ On Platform

X Lawyer Threatens Legal Action Against Non-Profit Targeting 'Hate Speech' On Platform

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