The Babylon Bee and Rumble are suing California over two laws that censor political satire during election season, including some images like memes that mock political candidates.
A hearing in a Sacramento federal court was <a href="https://adfmedia.org/press-release/political-satire-commentary-sites-continue-challenge-against-californias-censorship-law/">held</a> Tuesday to determine whether the laws will be permanently blocked after a judge issued a temporary injunction. The final decision is expected in the coming weeks.
The Babylon Bee, which posts satirical content, and Rumble, a major video-hosting platform, <a href="https://adfmedia.org/press-release/babylon-bee-files-suit-against-humorless-california-censorship-laws/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">filed</a> their challenge in September along with California attorney and blogger Kelly Chang Rickert. California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom had signed the pair of laws just days earlier.
The two state laws, AB 2839 and AB 2655, <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB2839">prohibit</a> pictures and videos &#8220;likely to harm&#8221; a candidate&#8217;s &#8220;electoral prospects&#8221; during election season. California would punish anyone who distributes &#8220;materially deceptive content&#8221; about candidates or elected officials.
One of the laws forces people to include a disclaimer when posting satire, and the other law <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB2655">requires</a> large online platforms to label or remove posts with &#8220;materially deceptive content.&#8221;
The penalties include paying significant fines.
The plaintiffs&#8217; legal team at Alliance Defending Freedom argues that the laws are essentially a war on memes and use &#8220;vague standards&#8221; to violate their clients&#8217; constitutionally protected right to post political content online freely.
&#8220;That should be really scary,&#8221; Jonathan Scruggs, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Daily Wire.
&#8220;Anytime the government is saying that you can&#8217;t on your own social media account distribute things online or repost what other people put online because the government determines that is false, that should really strike fear and it&#8217;s really a road to censorship in the political sphere,&#8221; Scruggs said.
However, Scruggs said he is optimistic about a favorable outcome for The Babylon Bee and Rumble.
&#8220;We&#8217;re hopeful in light of [the judge&#8217;s] prior ruling, but we&#8217;re also hopeful in light of just basic common sense arguments,&#8221; the attorney said.
Another lawsuit is ongoing against a similar Hawaii law, where The Babylon Bee is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-babylon-bee-challenges-hawaii-law-targeting-political-satire">suing</a> along with Dawn O&#8217;Brien, a Honolulu voter who runs Instagram and Facebook accounts with thousands of followers where she posts political memes criticizing Democrats.
&#8220;It&#8217;s something that tracks what more authoritarian regimes are doing across the world,&#8221; Scruggs, the attorney, said. &#8220;What you see in this arena is the government using the label misinformation or disinformation to regulate what people can say online about politics. And that&#8217;s really an anathema to the First Amendment.&#8221;
&#8220;The best alternative is just counter-speech,&#8221; Scruggs added.

US-POLITICS-VOTE-REPUBLICAN-DEBATE

Babylon Bee, Rumble Push Back Against California’s Censorship of Satire

Babylon Bee, Rumble Challenging California Laws Targeting Political Satire

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)

Babylon Bee

California

Censorship

Courts

Gavin Newsom

Politics

Social Media Censorship

Among his many promises along the campaign trail, President Trump vowed to take down what he and others have described as the “censorship industrial complex,” a global network of ideologically aligned governmental, nonprofit, media, tech, finance, and academic institutions that are colluding to censor vast swaths of legally protected speech by weaponizing terms like “hate” and “disinformation.”
From early in his presidency, President Trump’s actions have consistently aligned with his campaign promises. From Day One — beginning with executive orders that led to the dismantling of the Global Engagement Center, to Vice President JD Vance’s public condemnation of widespread censorship across the U.K. and Europe — restoring free speech has clearly been a top priority for the administration.
As Trump has landed a massive trade deal with the E.U., he has also taken multiple steps to combat global censorship. That includes zeroing in on the censorship regime in Brazil via a 50% <a href="https://x.com/SecRubio/status/1946349695221043669">tariff</a> and an <a href="https://x.com/secrubio/status/1946349695221043669?s=46">order</a> to revoke visas for Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes and other members of the nation’s high court. In 2024, Moraes <a href="https://adfinternational.org/campaign/open-letter-x-brazil">ordered</a> X to block accounts of journalists and political figures under the pretext of “misinformation.” As Trump highlighted in his letter announcing the tariff, X still faces millions of dollars in fines and a permanent ban from the country.
Brazil’s disregard for free speech is paralleled in the E.U. by the “Digital Services Act.” Threatening what it designates as “Very Large Online Platforms” such as X, Meta, Amazon, and Google with crippling fines for noncompliance, the DSA weaponizes vague terms like “hate speech” and “disinformation” to purge the digital landscape of views they deem offensive, inconvenient, or a threat to their power. The DSA also formalizes the kind of public-private collusion exemplified by the censorship industrial complex, empowering private organizations as “trusted flaggers” whose censorship demands platforms are required to prioritize — or face penalties. 
Like Brazil’s Supreme Court, the DSA’s censorship directly impacts American citizens, whose accounts are subject to cancellation right along with our European cousins. We’ve already seen Americans censored under the DSA, as well as under the vague censorship policies that comprise it. These are the same policies at the heart of discriminatory debanking and financial surveillance that have targeted U.S.-based <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/banking/article-12417653/Debanking-row-breaks-Bank-America-shuts-account-ultra-conservative-Christian-charity-serves-impoverished-Ugandans.html">overseas missions</a> and <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/revealed-fed-govt-flagged-adf-domestic-terrorist-threat-target-surveillance-major/">conservative groups</a> like Alliance Defending Freedom, where I work.
They’re also the same policies that ruled the digital public square during Covid, when — often at the behest of the Biden administration and third party “flaggers” — major platforms censored and canceled users over views on public health, lab leak “theories” (since proven true), immigration, the Hunter Biden laptop <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/07/02/blowing-the-lid-off-the-coverup-of-hunter-bidens-cushy-plea-deal/">story</a>, gender ideology, and more. The DSA simply imposes this censorship regime on a global scale.
To the E.U. commissioners behind the DSA, the more governments work in lockstep to intimidate dissenting citizens into quiet compliance, the better. Just over a year ago, Canadian citizen “Billboard Chris” Elston <a href="https://adfinternational.org/news/free-speech-victory-in-australia-for-billboard-chris-as-x-post-censorship-overturned">posted</a> his objections to a controversial WHO appointee on X, linking to a UK Daily Mail article. The Australian government then demanded that X censor the post under its DSA-style “Online Safety Act,” using the law to classify Elston’s speech as “cyber abuse.”
With ADF International’s help, Billboard Chris took on the Australian government at the nation’s high court and won. But even that victory is unlikely to faze a technocratic cabal so committed to global censorship that it would enlist Australia to censor a Canadian speaking on an American platform and citing a British newspaper article.
Again, this multinational crackdown is a feature — not a bug — to those behind the DSA.
And that’s no surprise when you consider the actions and stated positions of DSA architects like Thierry Breton and Henna Virkkunen. It was Breton who, last summer, famously <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/eus-breton-says-musk-must-comply-with-eu-law-ahead-trump-interview-2024-08-12/">demanded</a> that Elon Musk censor then-candidate Donald J. Trump prior to the duo’s X live interview.
That incident apparently left Breton with enough egg on his face to <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/09/16/business/eu-official-thierry-breton-who-clashed-with-elon-musk-resigns/">resign</a> from his post as an E.U. Commissioner, but it wasn’t enough to change Virkkunen’s mind. Virkkunen recently <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-tech-tariffs-us-brussels-trade-commissioner-maros-sefovic/">defended</a> the DSA as “based on our European values” — a claim that evidently refers to the Brussels elites rather than the everyday Europeans who face <a href="https://www.deseret.com/u-s-world/2025/04/27/why-has-there-been-a-crack-down-on-free-speech-in-the-uk/">steep fines</a>, years-long <a href="https://adfinternational.org/cases/paivi">court proceedings</a>, and even <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/europe-crackdown-free-speech-26d021b1">jail time</a> for their online speech.
Fittingly enough, Virkkunen made those comments when she was asked if the DSA was on the negotiating table in ongoing trade talks with the U.S. With the DSA off the table, Virkkunen’s comrades in Brussels may have been negotiating with one hand tied behind their backs.
If that’s the case, it was a high price to pay for censoring peaceable citizens across the world, including in the U.S.
* * *
Jeremy Tedesco (@Jeremy_Tedesco) is senior counsel, senior vice president of corporate engagement at <a href="http://www.adflegal.org/?utm_source=wallstreetjournal&amp;utm_medium=oped">Alliance Defending Freedom</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/ADFLegal">@ADFLegal</a>).
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Supporters Mobilize Following Bolsonaro Case

How Trump’s Tariffs Can Strike A Major Blow To Global Censorship

Brazil

European Union

Jair Bolsonaro

Marco Rubio

President Trump

Twitter

Freedom of speech has won a decisive victory in Australia. On Tuesday, a Melbourne tribunal <a href="https://adfinternational.org/news/free-speech-victory-in-australia-for-billboard-chris-as-x-post-censorship-overturned">overturned</a> the Australian government’s censorship order against Canadian street advocate Chris “<a href="https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&amp;rls=en&amp;q=support+billboard+chris+adf+international&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;oe=UTF-8">Billboard Chris</a>” Elston for an X post critical of gender ideology.
Back in 2024, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner had ordered X to remove Chris’ post, claiming it constituted “adult cyber abuse” under the country’s Online Safety Act. The post linked to a Daily Mail <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13119521/Sex-secrets-trans-kinky-Australian-bondage-bestiality-nudism-drugs-sex-change.html">article</a> about a WHO appointee and referred to the individual using biologically accurate pronouns. No threats. No private information. Just public facts and an opinion the government didn’t like. X initially resisted, but eventually geo-blocked the post in the country while filing its own appeal.
Billboard Chris, who travels the world engaging in conversations exposing the truth about gender ideology prompted by his wearable signs, refused to bow down to the order. With legal support from ADF International and the Human Rights Law Alliance, he challenged the eSafety Commissioner, and won in a decisive victory not just for himself, but for everyone who values the right to speak freely.
The Administrative Review Tribunal found what should have been obvious from the beginning — the post wasn’t intended to cause harm, wasn’t likely to be seen by the complainant, and was consistent with Chris’s well-known public message — namely, that children are never born in the wrong body. It ruled clearly that this did not constitute a form of abuse and revoked the takedown order.
The Tribunal recognized what the eSafety Commissioner refused to acknowledge, which is that this isn’t about harassment of any kind. The protection of Chris’ expression is about upholding the basic right to participate in a public conversation, one that touches on some of the most urgent questions of our time. To silence that conversation under the guise of “cyber abuse” is both intellectually dishonest and dangerous.
The absurdity of the government’s case was exposed in the hearing itself. Chris had merely reposted a widely read article that included publicly available information about the transgender activist appointed to a WHO panel of “experts” — information the activist had willingly shared on social media. Instead of defending public transparency, the government claimed those details were irrelevant and demanded censorship.
<h3><a href="https://get.dailywire.com/freedom/">JULY 4 SALE: Get Six Months Of DW+ Free</a></h3>
The Tribunal’s written decision was clear: “The post, although phrased offensively, is consistent with views Mr Elston has expressed elsewhere in circumstances where the expression of the view had no malicious intent. For example, his statement placed on billboards that he is prepared to wear in public ‘children are never born in the wrong body’ expresses the same idea about the immutability of biology that he expresses, albeit much more provocatively, in the post”. Further, it held that, “an ordinary reasonable person would not conclude that that it is likely that the post was intended to have an effect of causing serious harm to Mr Cook”.
This case is about more than just one post or even one country’s speech laws. Not only will this decision likely shape future enforcement decisions, but also Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has just been <a href="https://x.com/k_mahlburg/status/1939872951895302531">named</a> in a U.S. congressional investigation for colluding with foreign governments and corporate cartels to suppress speech worldwide — including in the United States. The U.S. House Judiciary Committee <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/2025-06/Exporting%20Censorship%20Final.pdf">released</a> a 100-page report detailing how Grant worked with GARM — a World Economic Forum-linked advertising consortium — to push platforms like X into silencing disfavored views. She demanded global takedowns of lawful content. She participated in pressure campaigns against X after Musk’s takeover. And she allowed so-called “brand safety” coalitions to influence her regulatory decisions.
This is coordinated censorship. The report lays out how GARM and other WEF-affiliated coalitions, working with officials like Grant, sought to blacklist voices they disagreed with under the pretense of maintaining a “safe” internet. In reality, they were constructing a global censorship machine — one that’s ideologically aligned, politically unaccountable, and willing to cross borders to silence dissent. Billboard Chris&#8217; case is living proof of what this looks like.
If the Tribunal had sided with the Commissioner, it would have emboldened this aggressive censorship campaign and reinforced the idea that a government can suppress the speech of any person on any platform, even beyond traditional jurisdictional boundaries. And make no mistake — that’s exactly what the eSafety Commissioner and its allies are trying to do.
Fortunately, Billboard Chris’ free speech victory is a warning to the censors. He stood up to a system designed to silence him, and he won. But the same people trying to censor speech in Australia are working to do the same everywhere else. 
On the same day of Chris’ victory, the European Union took a significant step toward strengthening online censorship, beefing up its censorial Digital Services Act by enforcing the accompanying &#8220;Code of Conduct on Disinformation&#8221;. The DSA enables Brussels bureaucrats to control online speech at scale — both in Europe and globally — under the guise of “safety” and “protecting democracy”. Platforms that fail to remove content ambiguously deemed “illegal” face massive financial penalties and even suspension. Coupled with the framework’s approach to “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “hate speech,” the DSA could lead to the sweeping removal of online content.
Threats to free speech online are evidently immense and growing, but Billboard Chris’ successful challenge shows that this tide can be turned. Courageous individuals, armed with principle and the law, can stand up to the censorship industrial complex — and win. And their victories protect not just their own speech, but those too who would come after them. Others must be emboldened by the lead of this Canadian father and vigilantly defend against censorship if we are to see free speech prevail.
* * *
Robert Clarke is a barrister and director of advocacy for ADF International, which coordinated the legal defense of Billboard Chris in Australia. Follow him on X at <a href="https://x.com/Rob_ADFIntl?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Rob_ADFIntl</a>
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

MixCollage-07-Apr-2025-01-02-PM-8595

A Blow To Global Censorship: ‘Billboard Chris’ Wins In Australia

A Blow To Global Censorship: 'Billboard Chris' Wins In Australia

Australia

Free Speech

Gender

gender ideology

Puberty blockers

transgender surgery

The Babylon Bee on Wednesday filed a legal challenge against a new Hawaii law that criminalizes political satire, accusing the state of violating citizens&#8217; First Amendment rights.
The satirical outlet filed its challenge along with Dawn O’Brien, a Honolulu voter who runs Instagram and Facebook accounts with thousands of followers where she posts political memes criticizing Democrats. The plaintiffs are accusing Hawaii of using &#8220;vague and overbroad terms&#8221; that allow state officials &#8220;unbridled enforcement&#8221; discretion to crack down on things like political memes online.
Last summer, Hawaii passed a <a href="https://legiscan.com/HI/text/SB2687/id/3005181" target="_blank" rel="noopener">law</a> that threatens jail time, fines, lawsuits, damages, and a 10-year disqualification from holding public office for posting certain political satire images online deemed &#8220;materially deceptive.&#8221;
The Babylon Bee and O&#8217;Brien are demanding that the courts block enforcement of the law and declare it unconstitutional.
&#8220;We&#8217;re used to getting pulled over by the joke police, but comedy isn&#8217;t a crime,&#8221; Seth Dillon, owner and CEO of The Babylon Bee, told The Daily Wire. &#8220;The First Amendment protects our right to tell jokes, whether it&#8217;s election season or not. We&#8217;ll never stop fighting to defend that freedom.&#8221;
The law bans &#8220;materially deceptive media in reckless disregard of the risk of harming the reputation or electoral prospects of a candidate in an election or changing the voting behavior of voters in an election,&#8221; a vague description, according to the legal challenge.
&#8220;Materially deceptive media&#8221; is defined as anything that &#8220;would cause a reasonable viewer or listener to believe that the depicted individual engaged in the speech or conduct depicted,&#8221; another vague description, the plaintiffs argue.
The law requires satirical content to include a &#8220;disclaimer&#8221; informing people that the content has been &#8220;manipulated&#8221; and depicts things that &#8220;did not occur.&#8221;
The legal challenge argues that adding a disclaimer forces The Babylon Bee and O&#8217;Brien, the Honolulu voter, to &#8220;incorporate Hawaii&#8217;s desired messages&#8221; into their content and robs their content of its &#8220;rhetorical force.&#8221;
&#8220;Because of their effectiveness and appeal, satire and parody have been used throughout American history to express matters of current interest — especially matters of politics and politicians,&#8221; the legal filing reads.
&#8220;That&#8217;s censorship plain and simple,&#8221; Alliance Defending Freedom legal counsel Mathew Hoffmann, who is representing the plaintiffs, told The Daily Wire.
&#8220;The bottom line is that we as the people exist in a self-governing society and we shouldn&#8217;t trust the government to set the terms for appropriate political debates,&#8221; Hoffmann said.
The law mentions &#8220;deepfakes&#8221; made by artificial intelligence, but Hoffmann cautioned that the law would apply &#8220;much more broadly.&#8221;
&#8220;What the law says is, digital content that basically depicts something that didn&#8217;t happen and that just risks harming someone&#8217;s reputation or electoral prospects, whatever that means,&#8221; he said. &#8220;So it wouldn&#8217;t just be deepfakes as colloquially understood. It&#8217;s really any digital content, any sort of images that may have been altered or Photoshopped, like what the Babylon Bee posts routinely online would be considered under this law to be materially deceptive.&#8221;
Hoffmann noted that political cartoons have long been protected in the United States, and that today&#8217;s memes are the &#8220;modern day&#8221; version of those cartoons. In addition, he said that the law will likely have a chilling effect on Hawaiians who may avoid posting &#8220;even questionable&#8221; satirical content out of fear it will be prosecuted.
&#8220;This law is of immense concern to all people in Hawaii or even entities like the Babylon Bee who post articles and images and funny memes that are viewable in Hawaii because they can be subject to criminal penalties simply for exercising their First Amendment rights,&#8221; Hoffmann said.

eff4a178-9989-481f-88f1-843cb78f6796

EXCLUSIVE: Babylon Bee Challenges Hawaii Law Targeting Political Satire

Babylon Bee Files Legal Challenge Against Hawaii Law Targeting Political Satire

Hawaii

Facebook&#8217;s parent company Meta said that two posts that included &#8220;misgendering&#8221; were not a violation of its policies, in a case that appears to have involved content from The Daily Wire.
The social media giant&#8217;s Oversight Board ruled that two posts about trans-identifying males do not violate the company&#8217;s hate speech rules.
&#8220;Despite the intentionally provocative nature of the posts, which misgender identifiable trans people in ways many would find offensive, a majority of the Board found they related to matters of public concern and would not incite likely and imminent violence or discrimination,&#8221; the Oversight Board <a href="https://www.oversightboard.com/news/wide-ranging-decisions-protect-speech-and-address-harms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in a statement on the <a href="https://www.oversightboard.com/decision/bun-1ynnk264/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">decision</a>.
Back in September, Meta&#8217;s Oversight Board <a href="https://www.oversightboard.com/news/new-cases-to-consider-debate-around-gender-identity/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> it was looking into two posts from last year that involve videos of trans-identifying males.
One of the posts <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/04/23/meta-oversight-board-trans-content-moderation-hate-speech/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">appears</a> to be a video <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C7Mk01jo1P8/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> by Libs of TikTok on Instagram that shows an Oregon high school boy getting booed by the crowd when he finished first place in the girls’ 200-meter race.
&#8220;He&#8217;s a boy who thinks he&#8217;s a girl,&#8221; Libs of TikTok <a href="https://www.oversightboard.com/decision/bun-1ynnk264/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">captioned</a> the post.
Around the same time, The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C7PjzzrOEkE/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> the same video on Instagram, using male pronouns for the trans-identifying high schooler.
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The other post was a video posted to Facebook showing a girl confronting a trans-identifying male in the women&#8217;s bathroom and expressing her discomfort. That video was likely <a href="https://www.iwf.org/2024/09/05/meta-considering-monumental-policy-change-to-ban-speech-promoting-womens-sports-and-spaces/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">taken</a> by Payton McNabb, a female high school athlete who was seriously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/injured-high-school-volleyball-player-reacts-to-congresswoman-saying-trans-identifying-males-dont-hurt-anyone" target="_blank" rel="noopener">injured</a> in 2022 when a trans-identifying volleyball player spiked a ball at her head.
Both posts were reported for &#8220;Hate Speech and Bullying and Harassment&#8221; multiple times, but Meta left both posts up, deciding that neither violated Meta&#8217;s Community Standards. Users who reported the posts then appealed to the Oversight Board.
However, on Wednesday, the board ruled in favor of Meta&#8217;s original decision to leave both posts up. Rulings by the Oversight Board on specific posts are considered binding for the company.
&#8220;The Hate Speech policy does not include misgendering as a form of prohibited &#8216;attack,'&#8221; the Oversight Board noted when it announced it was looking into the videos.
The move is the latest victory for conservative users as Meta says it is working to dial back censorship, including on gender identity.
Earlier this year, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-pro-life-accounts-demand-meta-lift-suspensions-after-free-speech-promises" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> sweeping changes to his company’s content moderation policies, promising “more speech and fewer mistakes.”
“In recent years we’ve developed increasingly complex systems to manage content across our platforms, partly in response to societal and political pressure to moderate content. This approach has gone too far,” Meta said.
“We want to fix that and return to that fundamental commitment to free expression,” the company said.
The company also said it will be “getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration, gender identity and gender that are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate” and it will also recommend more political content if a user has indicated they are interested.
Meta has been fiercely criticized in recent years for <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/meta-doubles-down-after-zuckerberg-reveals-how-facebook-censored-hunter-biden-laptop-story" target="_blank" rel="noopener">censoring</a> political content such as the Hunter Biden laptop story, which broke just before the 2020 election.

Social Media And Company Logos

After Review, Facebook Says ‘Misgendering’ Doesn’t Violate Its Hate Speech Policy

Meta Rules Transgender Posts Do Not Violate Hate Speech Rules In Win For Conservatives, Daily Wire

Facebook

LGBT

LGBTQ

Social Media

Transgender

Meta&#8217;s Oversight Board expressed indignation at the social media giant for its January policy overhaul that axed fact-checking and eased restrictions on discussions about immigration and gender identity.
The independent oversight board railed against the company for implementing the changes &#8220;hastily&#8221; with supposedly no transparency about &#8220;what, if any, prior human rights due diligence&#8221; was performed.
Zuckerberg acknowledged that previous content moderation efforts had resulted in &#8220;too many mistakes and too much censorship.&#8221;
President Trump had frequently criticized Facebook during his first term, culminating in his platform suspension following the January 6, 2021, Capitol events — a ban eventually lifted as he launched his successful 2024 campaign.
Since President Trump’s election to a second term, the Meta CEO has been working to mend fences and roll back a decade of content policies that prohibited “hate speech” and supposed misinformation that conservatives have long criticized as biased.
As part of the January policy <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/metas-oversight-board-rebukes-company-over-policy-overhaul-2025-04-23/">overhaul</a>, Meta scrapped its U.S. fact-checking program, replacing third-party partnerships with a Community Notes tool similar to Elon Musk&#8217;s X, per Reuters.
In addition, Meta removed restrictions on “hate speech” towards LGBT individuals, and also announced it would stop proactively scanning platforms for &#8220;less severe policy violations,&#8221; instead focusing its automated systems only on serious content like terrorism and child exploitation.
Among its 17 recommendations, the board requested that Meta improve enforcement of its bullying policies while clarifying which hateful ideologies remain banned.
The board expressed concern about potential impacts in countries experiencing conflicts, urging Meta to &#8220;assess whether the changes could have uneven consequences globally.&#8221;
Despite the success of Community Notes on X, the Oversight Board still requested that Meta assess the new tool&#8217;s effectiveness and release reports every six months.
Meta said it would respond to the board&#8217;s 17 recommendations within 60 days.
The board did uphold Meta&#8217;s decisions to allow some controversial content, including posts discussing transgender people&#8217;s access to bathrooms, while requiring the removal of posts with racist slurs.
A Meta told Reuters the company welcomed decisions &#8220;that leave up or restore content in the interest of promoting free expression,&#8221; but did not address rulings calling for content removal.
Despite tensions, Meta has so far committed to funding the Oversight Board through 2027, allocating at least $35 million annually over the next three years, placed in an Irrevocable Trust designed to protect the board&#8217;s independence.
Oversight Board Co-Chair Paolo Carozza stated, &#8220;We have no reason to think that Meta is soured on the board or planning to make any large-scale structural changes in terms of its commitment with the board.&#8221;

US-POLITICS-IT-FACEBOOK-TRUMP

Meta Oversight Board Fumes As Facebook Ends Censorship Initiatives

Mark Zuckerberg

A <a href="https://adfinternational.org/campaign/support-billboard-chris" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Canadian father</a> recently sat before an Australian tribunal in Melbourne for five days because he shared an article from <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13119521/Sex-secrets-trans-kinky-Australian-bondage-bestiality-nudism-drugs-sex-change.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Daily Mail</a> in an X post last year.
Let that sink in.
Chris Elston, better known as &#8220;<a href="https://x.com/BillboardChris" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Billboard Chris</a>,&#8221; flew halfway around the world to defend not only his own free speech rights, but also those of all people. He is <a href="https://adfinternational.org/cases/billboard-chris-australia" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pushing back</a> against an order from Australia’s eSafety Commissioner. The order demanded X censor Chris’ February 2024 post criticizing the appointment of a transgender activist to a World Health Organization panel of experts, citing the Daily Mail <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13119521/Sex-secrets-trans-kinky-Australian-bondage-bestiality-nudism-drugs-sex-change.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">article</a> titled &#8220;Kinky secrets of UN trans expert REVEALED&#8221;
Linking to an article from one of the most-read news websites in the world, the post was <a href="https://x.com/Rob_ADFIntl/status/1906643539754205575" target="_blank" rel="noopener">deemed</a> by eSafety to be “cyber-abuse material targeted at an Australian adult.” X initially resisted pressure to censor the content in any way but later geo-blocked the post in Australia when hit with a formal takedown notice. Billboard Chris, with legal support from ADF International, is challenging that order, and X joined in a separate suit.
This isn’t about one post. It’s about whether governments should be able to censor lawful expression because they don’t like the content — in this case, the rejection of gender ideology. 
The hearing at the Melbourne Administrative Review Tribunal spanned five days and took in over 2,000 pages of documents. Meanwhile, the complainant, Teddy Cook, never even appeared before the tribunal.
<a href="https://x.com/Rob_ADFIntl/status/1906643539754205575" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Day one</a> revealed how thin the complaint truly was. eSafety’s lawyers claimed that part of the problem was that Chris had revealed Cook’s place of work and posted private images. Chris, however, simply reposted the Daily Mail’s piece, which named Cook’s workplace (a detail already publicly available online) and, as anyone who uses social media knows, the featured images were pulled from Daily Mail article, not supplied by Chris. It becomes more ridiculous still. The Daily Mail had obtained the photos from Cook’s own social media. The argument didn’t just collapse under scrutiny — it exposed the flimsy foundation apparently sufficient for this bureaucracy to suppress dissent.
By <a href="https://x.com/Rob_ADFIntl/status/1907084293513318811" target="_blank" rel="noopener">day two</a>, it was clear how detached from reality the process had become. There was no evidence of actual harm. Cook, just nine days after the post, had tweeted: “living my best life.” But here we were, with psychiatrists and professors flown in to dissect whether a single X post could legally be considered “likely … intended to have an effect of causing serious harm”.
Chris testified to the Tribunal about the issue at the core of his advocacy: “It’s damaging to teach children they are born in the wrong body &#8230; children are beautiful just as they are. No drugs or scalpels needed.” Asked whether he was trying to provoke outrage, he responded: “No. I want to provoke discussion.”
That matters. Under Australia’s Online Safety Act, takedown orders can only be issued if content is not only offensive, but also “likely …intended to have an effect of causing serious harm.&#8221; However, eSafety seemed to argue that intent is largely irrelevant. If someone feels offended, even by public information, that alone might justify censorship.
On <a href="https://x.com/Rob_ADFIntl/status/1907754476250792285" target="_blank" rel="noopener">days three and four</a>, several more expert witnesses took the stand. eSafety’s own expert — a digital communications professor — asserted that biologically accurate terms are “harmful,” and that children should be able to choose their gender around age 12. Note Australian taxpayers are footing the bill for this expertise — reportedly more than $10,000 for just this one.
The final day brought closing submissions and a stark contrast in worldviews. eSafety argued the Tribunal should view the post in isolation, ignoring the broader debate, and insisted that Teddy Cook — a WHO-appointed expert and activist — shouldn’t be considered a public figure. Chris’ legal team, along with X, pushed back: any fair assessment must consider the wider social and political context. This wasn’t targeted abuse — it was participation in a critical public conversation.
This case is a warning to all who value free expression. If a Canadian citizen can be silenced in Australia for sharing a news article on U.S.-based platform X, then clearly, censorship is no longer bound by borders. What’s to stop any other government — from Canada to the EU to China — from deciding your speech “harms” someone abroad and demanding it be taken down too?
This is exactly how global censorship metastasizes: bureaucracies leveraging international tech companies to enforce vague, ideological speech codes on people who never voted for them, under laws they never consented to. And the more they get away with it, the bolder they become.
Fortunately, X put up a robust legal defense, and Chris, with the legal backing of ADF International and the Human Rights Law Alliance, was unequivocal in his message: he will not be censored as he fights to put an end to the evils of gender ideology.
Most evidently, gender ideology needs censorship to survive, and that is why Chris has been targeted. He hasn’t gone before this tribunal to protect himself — he’s doing it to protect the right of every person to tell the truth.
This is a test case with global consequences. Billboard Chris’ censorship challenge shows us exactly where we’re headed if we don’t defend free speech: toward a world where bureaucrats silence opinions they don’t like, even from the other side of the globe. It’s a world where truth must be approved, and feelings outweigh facts. That’s not just anti-democratic — it’s dangerous. Because once a government crosses the line of international censorship, there’s no saying where it will stop.
* * *
Robert Clarke is a barrister and director of advocacy for ADF International, which is supporting the case of Billboard Chris in Australia. Follow him on X at <a href="https://x.com/Rob_ADFIntl?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rob_ADFIntl.</a>
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

He Shared A Link On X. Now He’s In An Australian Court.

Canada

Opinion

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced Friday that its fact-checking program in the United States would be &#8220;officially over&#8221; on Monday, when it will roll out the community notes feature across all platforms.
The news comes after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in January that the company would end fact-checking and move to restore free speech on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Starting Monday, fact-checkers will no longer be able to rate new content, and old fact-checks placed on content will no longer appear.
Instead of fact-checks, Meta will adopt an X-style community notes system where users can add context to posts, which are then rated by other users. Anyone will be able to sign up to be a contributor to community notes if they are over 18 and have had a verified account for over six months.
Joel Kaplan, Meta&#8217;s chief global affairs officer, announced the changes on Friday.
&#8220;By Monday afternoon, our fact-checking program in the US will be officially over. That means no new fact checks and no fact checkers. We announced in January we’d be winding down the program &amp; we haven’t applied penalties to fact-checked posts in the US since then. In place of fact checks, the first Community Notes will start appearing gradually across Facebook, Threads &amp; Instagram, with no penalties attached,&#8221; Kaplan posted on social media.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
By Monday afternoon, our fact-checking program in the US will be officially over. That means no new fact checks and no fact checkers. We announced in January we’d be winding down the program &amp; removing penalties. In place of fact checks, the first Community Notes will start…
&mdash; Joel Kaplan (@joel_kaplan) <a href="https://twitter.com/joel_kaplan/status/1908204701457236472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 4, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The changes come after Meta was placed under congressional scrutiny for targeting conservative views on topics like the 2020 election, the COVID vaccine, and the Hunter Biden laptop story. Zuckerberg has pinned much of the blame for the censorship on former President Joe Biden, saying Meta was pressured to target conservative content.
Meta started testing out its community notes feature last month, allowing some 200,000 potential contributors to sign up.
&#8220;Meta won’t decide what gets rated or written – contributors from our community will. And to safeguard against bias, notes won’t be published unless contributors with a range of viewpoints broadly agree on them,&#8221; the company said. &#8220;This isn’t majority rules. No matter how many contributors agree on a note, it won’t be published unless people who normally disagree decide that it provides helpful context.&#8221;
In January, Zuckerberg <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/zuckerberg-says-meta-restoring-free-speech-will-get-rid-of-fact-checkers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that the move was part of Meta&#8217;s goal of restoring free speech on its platforms.
“We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Zuckerberg said. “We’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the United States.”
Zuckerberg said restrictions on discussions on topics like immigration and gender were “out of touch with mainstream discourse.”
“What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas,” he said.
In that same announcement, Zuckerberg said that Meta would work with the incoming Trump administration to fight censorship abroad.
“We’re going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more,” he said. “The U.S. has the strongest constitutional protections for free expression in the world.”

US-TECHNOLOGY-INTERNET-CHILD-EXPLOITATION

Facebook To Shut Down Fact-Checking Program On Monday: ‘Officially Over’

Fact Check

In a recent piece, the great <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/03/21/democrats-10-part-strategy-to-stopping-trump-at-any-cost/?utm_source=TDS_Email&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=MorningBell&amp;mkt_tok=ODI0LU1IVC0zMDQAAAGZXFVF8EiGHTOyBnThyW4grIVUl7BZT15Afcq-EIHg2MlGbVXGiYW0vNjgf4M2VoXDCfdVx3aPXat1HzDwjX0OzlMzAiZsyuw1NrKva4F7ED5RIRjnxQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Victor Davis Hanson</a> apologized to his readers for previously contending that Democrats were both disorganized and without a plan. Upon reflection, he now sees a very clear and organized ten-point plan largely focused on continued demonization of President Trump and Elon Musk, the opposition to any federal budget cuts or the deportation of anyone, continued promotion of open borders, support of radical Palestinians, the Ukraine war, DEI initiatives, and chaos, and an amplification of hysteria in all of their communication. Their actions thus far would indicate that he is spot on.
It is a truly audacious plan — audacious because it involves, in many ways, simply doubling down on the messaging from the losing 2024 presidential campaign, and audacious because with each of these issues, the Democrats are on the opposite side of the fence with regard to public sentiment, in some cases dramatically so. Nonetheless, their aim is to change that public perception on at least enough of those issues to overcome their opponents in the midterms and ultimately regain power. What would make them think they could pull that off?
The answer is likely that the Democrats have grown accustomed to having a very finely tuned, powerful and successful network for public influence at their disposal.
In 2019, author and researcher Dr. Robert Epstein<a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Epstein%20Testimony.pdf"> testified before Congress</a> about the dangers posed by just one piece of that network — Google. He concluded that Google represents a dire threat to both democracy and human autonomy, and provided numerous examples from his extensive data collection going back to 2016, including this one: “In 2016, biased search results generated by Google’s search algorithm likely impacted undecided voters in a way that gave at least 2.6 million votes to Hillary Clinton (whom I supported). I know this because I preserved more than 13,000 election-related searches conducted by a diverse group of Americans on Google, Bing, and Yahoo in the weeks leading up to the election, and Google search results – which dominate search in the U.S. and worldwide – were significantly biased in favor of Secretary Clinton in all 10 positions on the first page of search results in both blue states and red states.”
However, the Tech players are only one part of the larger Democrat propaganda apparatus. The revelations from the <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2877184/twitter-files-have-exposed-the-unholy-alliance-between-democrats-the-fbi-big-tech-and-the-media/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Twitter/X Files</a>, from DOGE regarding <a href="https://www.newstarget.com/2025-02-08-usaid-funds-6000-journalists-1000-platforms-worldwide.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">USAID</a> and other governmental funding have laid bare the indisputable <a href="https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/08/governments_collusion_with_social_media_is_worse_than_you_realize.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unholy alliance</a> of the Democrat party, key governmental and non-governmental agencies, and factions of the mainstream and social media.
We now see that these entities have worked together to simultaneously push false narratives and censor truth — often demonizing and punishing those parties that interfered with this process in any way. Michael Shellenberger warned and testified to Congress about “<a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/shellenberger-testimony.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Censorship Industrial Complex</a>.” He observed: “The censorship industrial complex combines established methods of psychological manipulation, some developed by the U.S. Military during the Global War on Terror, with highly sophisticated tools from computer science, including artificial intelligence. The complex’s leaders are driven by the fear that the Internet and social media platforms empower populist, alternative, and fringe personalities and views, which they regard as destabilizing. Federal government officials, agencies, and contractors have gone from fighting ISIS recruiters and Russian bots to censoring and deplatforming ordinary Americans and disfavored public figures.”
Executive Director of Foundation for Freedom and former State Department official Mike Benz refers to the entities behind much of this clandestine activity as simply “<a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/09/24/mike_benz_the_history_of_the_intelligence_state.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Blob</a>.” In describing the blurring of the lines in our intelligence state he says: “This means that when the U.S. government provides funding or assistance, suddenly the churches they were working with are no longer simply churches — they are instruments of statecraft. The nonprofit charities are no longer simply charities; they become instruments of statecraft. The media is no longer independent; it becomes an instrument of statecraft. Hollywood becomes an instrument of statecraft, and organized criminal mafias do as well.” 
He describes the technological methodology of state narrative control in his presentation “<a href="https://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/MikeBenzCensorhip070924.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Whole-of-Society Censorship Framework”</a> saying, “This is why I refer to these AI super weapons as Weapons of Mass Deletion. They effectively did for internet censorship what weapons of mass destruction did for war. You didn’t need a standing army anymore of a million soldiers ready to go. You could have a few lines of code take out an entire political organization.”
In his piece <a href="https://www.realclearbooks.com/articles/2025/03/06/the_artificial_culture_1095413.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Artificial Culture</a>, Mathew Gasda refers to this political/governmental/media cabal as “the propaganda regime.” He asks and answers, “Why did newspapers, universities, publishing houses, record labels, and movie studios uniformly fall in line behind Trump Derangement Syndrome, Russiagate, cancel culture, COVID safetyism, dogmatic gender ideology, and other authoritarian ideological certainties? Because key figures in public and private institutions across the globe — literally — were being paid to propagate these narratives; this much we now know.”
Call the alliance what you will; the Democrat complex is an extraordinarily powerful, technologically sophisticated, and overwhelmingly partisan machine — not like a mere airplane to use a simile, but more like an F-47 Stealth Fighter.
This fighter jet has a storied track record of success in getting most or enough Americans to ignore the facts that surround various issues and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-2024-election-was-a-referendum-on-reality" target="_blank" rel="noopener">embrace a preferred alternative narrative</a> — at least for a while. From Obamacare, to Benghazi, to Russiagate, to Covid, to belief in multiple genders, to the activities of the <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-timeline/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Biden Crime Family</a>, to the authenticity of <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/10/19/its-been-two-years-since-51-intelligence-agents-interfered-with-an-election-they-still-wont-apologize/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hunter’s laptop</a>, to border security, to a host of specific individuals, the Democrats’ warplane inflicted massive damage on their enemies and got them through turbulence and countless battles with shockingly low casualties.
It is perhaps understandable that with this impressive history of success, party leadership would be hesitant to abandon this awesome weapon. They will look earnestly for alternative explanations for the 2024 election result. Perhaps the pilot, whoever that was, had the wrong flight or battle plan for the aircraft? Perhaps the pilot didn’t understand and adequately maximize the sophisticated evasion and engagement capabilities of the aircraft? In fact, perhaps the pilot didn’t even employ or fully engage the aircraft’s most powerful weapons, or focus them on the correct targets?
Sure, a jackbooted DOJ may no longer be part of the arsenal (although the judiciary certainly isn’t on the sidelines), Twitter/X has now fallen to the enemy, and it looks like the plug is being pulled on some of the funding for sycophant NGOs, so the Democrat warplane has taken a bit of flak and may be down to only five or so of the eight engines. But those are big engines, and five of them still garner a lot of power — maybe more than has yet been shown. So it will obviously require more than the results of a single election to convince them that their combat-tested warbird needs to be mothballed. They’re going with pilot error, not aircraft design.
* * *
Greg Salsbury, Ph.D. is former president of Western Colorado University and Board of Advisor member for <a href="https://starrs.us" target="_blank" rel="noopener">STARRS.US</a>. 
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Senators Meet For Policy Luncheons Ahead Of Government Funding Deadline

As Democrat Warplane Takes Flak, Audacity Remains Intact

Democrats

Donald Trump

Elections

Google

Leftists

Progressivism

U.S. Politics

Victor Davis Hanson

Elon Musk’s social media platform X is being hailed in Ireland for its defense of the free press after it declined to comply with a demand from Irish authorities for confidential user data from one of the nation’s only independent news outlets.
An Irish court order, issued on June 13, 2024, and obtained by The Daily Wire, sought not only private account details, but also a log of IP addresses and messages tied to the Gript Media’s coverage of the April protests against the forced housing of undocumented migrants by the Irish government.
The order, granted under Ireland’s Criminal Justice Act 1994 at the request of Garda Síochána, Ireland’s national police, directed X to produce extensive data linked to Gript Media’s official X account, @griptmedia. The court order specifically sought subscriber and registration details, including all logged IP addresses, private messages that would have exposed confidential informants, attachments, and posted videos from April 25-28, 2024.
In a February email to Gript, X notified Gript of Ireland’s June request and said it would not comply.
“X has not produced information related to your account in response to this legal process,” the email said, according to a copy obtained by The Daily Wire. “One of our core values is to defend and respect the user’s voice. Accordingly, it is our policy to notify users of requests for their account information as soon as the law allows us too, unless we’re generally prohibited from doing so.”
In April, <a href="https://gript.ie/in-newtownmountkennedy-the-state-has-crossed-the-rubicon/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gript</a> extensively covered protests in Newtownmountkennedy, where Irish citizens opposed the establishment of an &#8220;asylum seeker&#8221; accommodation center. The demonstrations escalated on April 25, with the Garda Public Order Unit using force, including pepper spray, against protesters. Gript’s journalist Fatima Gunning was caught in the clashes, an incident captured on video and widely circulated online.
According to court documents obtained by The Daily Wire, it was shortly after the publication of these videos that the Gardaí sought legal authority to access Gript’s X account, a move seen by journalists as an attempt to intimidate those seeking to expose state misconduct.
Gary Kavanagh, Gript’s deputy editor, condemned the order calling it a “direct attack on press freedom” designed to deter sources from speaking to journalists.
“The role of journalism is to hold power to account, but how can we do that when the state is using secret court orders to access our private communications?” Kavanagh said. “This is not just about Gript; this is about the future of a free press in Ireland.”
He also praised X for its “commitment to free speech.”
“If this had happened under the previous management of Twitter, we might never have even known about it,” Kavanagh said. “The fact that Musk’s team stood firm is a testament to their commitment to free speech and transparency.”
Gunning, the journalist, told The Daily Wire that if X complied with the order, she would have been “powerless” as a reporter.
“As a journalist, if I cannot establish trust of confidentiality with sources if needs be, I am in many ways rendered powerless to report on issues of concern to the Irish people,” Gunning said.
“I can put my hand on my heart and say that I believe my reporting on the situation in Newtownmountkennedy was fair to both the protestors and the Gardaí,” she said. “Anyone interested doesn’t need to take my word for this: they can simply watch the many videos I posted from the scene which did not give favorable coverage to either side.”
“Nothing was concealed from the public on my part, so to have our national police force use laws originally intended to tackle those funding terrorism against my colleagues and it feels like nothing more than a gross abuse of power and Irish law.”
Kavanagh says Gript has since instructed legal counsel to challenge the warrant’s legitimacy, suspecting it may have been improperly awarded. “If the Irish state can do this to Gript today, it can do it to any journalist tomorrow,” Kavanagh stated.
Reached for comment by The Daily Wire, a Garda Síochána spokesman &#8220;declined to comment on ongoing investigations,&#8221; but defended the use of court orders, stating that law enforcement has a duty to obtain all available evidence when investigating alleged criminal activity.
“We operate within the legal framework set out by the Irish courts and judicial oversight is always applied in such cases,” the spokesman said.
The force did not address concerns about press freedoms or the implications of using anti-crime legislation against journalists.
This is only the latest of a number of controversies amid growing concerns over state surveillance and media suppression in Ireland and the European Union. Critics argue that granting police unrestricted access to social media accounts could undermine free speech and chill the press, particularly in countries where major social media companies, including X, maintain European headquarters.
The incident also ties into a broader debate on Ireland’s housing crisis and immigration policies. Many protesters in Newtownmountkennedy argued that the government’s prioritization of undocumented “asylum seekers” for housing left native Irish citizens waiting years for accommodations. The government’s approach, coupled with its crackdown on journalists covering these protests, has only inflamed public distrust.
X’s refusal to comply with the court order, however, underscores the platform’s commitment to free speech.
As the Irish government faces mounting international criticism over its treatment of independent journalists, its handling of immigration protests, and the potential misuse of legal mechanisms to silence dissenting voices, Gript Media remains resolute—vowing to challenge the order in court.
Ireland&#8217;s prime minister Micheál Martin, known as the Taoiseach, will be in Washington, D.C., this week to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House.

Another St Patrick’s Day During The Coronavirus Pandemic

Irish Police Used Secret Court Order To Extract Info From Journalists. Elon’s X Shut It Down.

Ireland

Since Churchill’s time, America and Britain have spoken of their “special relationship” – even if the affection has been somewhat unilateral in recent years, as the US has recognised the UK’s increasing irrelevance on the world stage as it descends into economic decay, social disintegration, and democratic suppression.
You might think this an exaggeration – and I do not intend to imply that dissenting British voices receive the same treatment they might receive in China or Cuba. But that is not the right question. The question is whether dissenting voices in Britain are free.
We have all seen the evidence that they are not. The first act of Bridget Philipson, Keir Starmer’s Education Secretary, was to <a href="https://freespeechunion.org/phillipson-tried-to-pull-plug-on-new-free-speech-law-days-after-election/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">try and revoke</a> the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, even after it was passed by Parliament. That this is not merely a position, but even the top priority, of our new government is chilling. This, despite the fact that <a href="https://adfinternational.org/en-gb/news/uk-students-feel-censored-on-campus-poll-finds" target="_blank" rel="noopener">nearly half</a> of UK students are scared to express their views.
Whether people are <a href="https://www.gbnews.com/news/christian-lecturer-sacked-from-methodist-college" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fired from their jobs</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-derbyshire-64786856" target="_blank" rel="noopener">referred to terrorist watchlists</a>, secretly put on registers for “non-crime hate incidents” (<a href="https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/children-as-young-as-nine-investigated-by-police-for-hate-incidents/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">even as children</a>), or even <a href="https://www.thetimes.com/article/police-criticised-over-arrest-for-gay-swastika-post-0dj6j0007">arrested</a>, freedom of speech is increasingly a luxury commodity in Britain – and saying what you think is increasingly seen as criminal. “Hate speech” is increasingly seen as a legitimate constraint – with <a href="https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/bible-hate-speech-survey-rewrite" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1 in 4 young people</a> open to banning the Bible itself if they believed it included “hate speech”.
Yet free speech is not the only casualty of recent years. Multiple people have been <a href="https://adfinternational.org/en-gb/cases/isabel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">arrested or charged</a> merely for praying silently in their heads in the vicinity of an abortion clinic (which, in one case, was not even open), with an army veteran <a href="https://adfinternational.org/en-gb/news/guilty-army-vet-convicted-for-praying-silently-near-abortion-facility" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recently convicted</a> for silently praying for his unborn son. Thoughtcrime is no longer Orwellian fiction.
When asked if the UK should be included among other human rights abusing regimes, however, congressmen in the US ordinarily reply that “we are allies, we can’t do that”. The UK is enough of a friend to the US that it escapes any significant accountability.
But true friends do not let each other make serious mistakes without challenge: that is politeness, not friendship. So the question is: can the UK be enough of a friend to receive accountability?
We all know what tough love means: that if you really seek the best for someone, you confront them with reality, whose content or consequences may be acutely painful – but ultimately needed for our flourishing. And the reality in this case is clear: the British people desperately need a restoration of their civil liberties before we are too far down the slippery slope. If the US really cares for our country and its citizens, you must speak – and act – in favor of our freedom, whoever you offend in the process. Vance’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCOsgfINdKg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">speech in Munich</a> was a fantastic start – but now action is needed.
There are many ways to achieve this, but here is one idea: the freedom tariff. The UK is desperate for a trade deal with the US after Brexit. Trade is one of the few areas where nations can be genuinely held accountable beyond stern letters or phone calls – which are routinely ignored. Freedom tariffs would provide genuine leverage over the UK with a simple addition: include a clause stipulating that insofar as the UK restricts the most basic freedoms – speech, assembly, conscience, religion, and thought – it will pay for those restrictions with tariffs.
This is hardly coercive: why should America give us free trade when we won’t give our own people free speech? We either believe in freedom or we don’t. If we don’t, we can hardly expect its benefits from others. The deal is up to us to take or not.
America imposing “freedom” on other countries has understandably come under fire in recent decades. But rather than intervening militarily in intractable Middle Eastern political disputes, tariffs are entirely non-violent. And here’s the extra good news: this tough love need not be painful at all. All the UK would have to do is stop firing, blacklisting, and arresting people for thinking and saying the wrong things. Give free speech, get free trade. It is really that simple.
Of course, this problem is not unique to the UK. In France, a TV channel was <a href="https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/french-tv-channel-fined-for-calling-abortion-the-worlds-leading-cause-of-death" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fined 100,000 euro</a> for stating that abortion is the leading cause of death worldwide, while in Finland, a sitting parliamentarian has been on <a href="https://adfinternational.org/en-gb/campaign/free-speech-on-trial" target="_blank" rel="noopener">criminal trial</a> under the War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity sections of their penal code – launched by the attorney general – for years, simply for tweeting a Bible verse (a bishop has faced similar persecution).
The European Union’s deleterious approach to open discourse on social media has been widely publicized by Vance and Musk, among others. Perhaps freedom tariffs are benefits that can be extended beyond the Special Relationship.
* * *
Calum Miller is a research fellow at University of Oxford and a registered medical doctor.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-TRUMP

President Trump Should Impose ‘Freedom Tariffs’ On Europe

England

Europe

Great Britain

United Kingdom

In just a few days, Germans will vote in one of the most important elections in their country&#8217;s history. For the first time since the Second World War, a true nationalist party — one the media dubs &#8220;far-Right,&#8221; which is a term that&#8217;s never been defined, and will never be defined — stands to win a significant number of seats in parliament.
This party, called &#8220;Alternative for Germany,&#8221; promises to end unrestricted migration into the country. They&#8217;ll stop destroying Germany&#8217;s nuclear plants to appease climate cultists, and focus instead on energy independence. They&#8217;ll reject the fiction that people can change their gender whenever they want to. Above all, they&#8217;ll affirm that there&#8217;s nothing shameful or embarrassing about being German.
This is all very basic stuff. In this country, largely because of the political rise of Donald Trump, &#8220;America First&#8221; has been a rallying cry for tens of millions of voters for more than a decade. But in Europe, this kind of thinking isn&#8217;t just taboo. It&#8217;s basically heresy. That&#8217;s why the &#8220;Alternative for Germany&#8221; party is currently being investigated by several German intelligence agencies.
It&#8217;s also why JD Vance just gave what may be the single most consequential speech by a U.S. politician in Europe since Reagan was in office. Just before Germans head to the polls, Vance delivered a message at the Munich Security Conference that the media could not censor. He was speaking to European elites in the room, but his message was actually directed at voters — and particularly, voters in Germany. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="001 Vance in Munich" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cwRR8k-rC_8?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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After this speech, it&#8217;s not an overstatement to say that European elites lost their collective minds.
One European official told the Economist that the speech was a &#8220;direct assault on European democracy.&#8221; Meanwhile a senior diplomat stated, &#8220;It&#8217;s very clear now. Europe is alone.&#8221; He added that Europe now regards the U.S. as an &#8220;adversary.&#8221;
Perhaps the best reaction came from a guy named &#8220;Christoph Heusgen,&#8221; who&#8217;s the chair of the Munich Security Conference. Apparently he&#8217;s retiring, so he delivered a speech about how America&#8217;s values don&#8217;t align with Europe&#8217;s anymore. Then, at the end of the speech, he did something that no grown man should ever do in public: He broke down crying. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="002 crying" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ixs0UwDEVjU?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
In response to this footage, the Munich Security Conference put out a statement that — for my money — is the single most humiliating statement that a &#8220;security conference&#8221; can possibly put out. Keep in mind, this is supposedly a very serious conference about saving the world from Russian military aggression, keeping us out of nuclear war, making sure we&#8217;re not all speaking Chinese in five years, and so on. The Munich Security Conference is the real deal.
With that in mind, here&#8217;s the official statement from the Munich Security Conference, after that footage <a href="https://x.com/MunSecConf/status/1891393579144372627" target="_blank" rel="noopener">went viral</a> online: 
<blockquote>Our former Chair Christoph Heusgen did not shed a few tears out of &#8216;frustration&#8217;. It was his farewell speech as he was leaving the [Munich Security Conference] after this year&#8217;s conference. He was saying goodbye to the team at this very moment.</blockquote>
In other words, the Munich Security Conference is taking a break from keeping the world secure, in order to clarify that the footage you may have seen online was edited unfairly. They&#8217;re saying that their fearless leader wasn&#8217;t crying in public over anything JD Vance said. That would just be ridiculous. Instead, he was crying in public because he&#8217;s leaving his job.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1538-cbs-claims-that-free-speech-caused-the-holocaust-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
Of course, that explanation doesn&#8217;t change the fact that Christoph Heusgen is not a child under the age of 12. He is, in fact, a 69-year-old man. And by the way, he&#8217;s only held this particular job since 2022. So he&#8217;s breaking down in public because he&#8217;s leaving a job after a period of time that qualifies, at best, as a short stint. This is what broke him. He had to just walk off stage, head in his hands, because he&#8217;s really going to miss being the &#8220;chair of the Munich Security Conference&#8221; after three whole years.
At this point, they should probably just admit that JD Vance made him cry, honestly. That would actually be less embarrassing than whatever they came up with.
Not to rub it in, by the way, but this guy — Christoph Heusgen — is the same German diplomat who laughed at Donald Trump back at the United Nations in 2018, when he warned that Germany was dangerously dependent on Russian energy. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="003 laughing" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iJ4joU-O96M?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
We all know what happened next. When Russia invaded Ukraine and cut off a majority of Germany&#8217;s energy, the Germans had to re-open a bunch of coal plants and delay the shutdown of their nuclear plants. They also had to find natural gas elsewhere — including from the United States. So it&#8217;s fitting, I guess, that a few years later, this same guy isn&#8217;t laughing on camera anymore. Instead he&#8217;s crying, for one reason or another.
It&#8217;s obviously a flattering comparison for JD Vance. It&#8217;s almost like Europe&#8217;s leaders wanted to appear as weak as possible, in the wake of his speech — and right before this weekend&#8217;s elections in Germany.
But Europeans weren&#8217;t the only ones giving JD Vance a big assist this weekend. Over at CBS News, Margaret Brennan suggested that Vance was wrong to extol the virtues of free speech, because the Nazis used free speech, and that&#8217;s how you got the Holocaust. 
To be clear, yes, this is a real segment that actually aired on national television. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="004 CBS free speech" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WbKgv-6Z71I?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Keep in mind, the woman who asked this question moderated the VP debate, in which she cut off JD Vance&#8217;s microphone because he refuted one of her lies about immigration. Now here she is, claiming that the Nazis somehow &#8220;weaponized&#8221; speech to &#8220;conduct a genocide.&#8221;
On reflection, it&#8217;s actually impressive how little her question makes sense. First of all, it doesn&#8217;t actually mean anything to &#8220;weaponize free speech to conduct a genocide.&#8221; The words don&#8217;t come together in a way that makes any sense. It&#8217;s like saying the Nazis &#8220;weaponized air to conduct a genocide.&#8221; So therefore we need to ban air, I guess, since the Nazis used it.
But in this case, she&#8217;s just wrong on the basic facts. Before the Nazis rose to power, Weimar Germany had laws against so-called &#8220;hate speech,&#8221; including laws that prohibited hate speech against Jews. Prior to the rise of the Nazis, they shut down something like 100 newspapers in Prussia alone, over a two-year period. In 1925, Hitler was banned from speaking in some states because of his rhetoric. In the end, all of these speech restrictions actually emboldened Nazis. People assumed that, because these Nazis were being censored, maybe they were onto something. Censorship had the exact opposite of its intended effect. Then, of course, when the Nazis took over, they eliminated freedom of speech, as Rubio said. You couldn&#8217;t criticize Hitler in any way.
So there are about a million reasons why Margaret Brennan&#8217;s question is complete nonsense. I could go on and pick apart Brennan&#8217;s logic some more. But I really don&#8217;t need to, because her own network — CBS — did it for me. This weekend CBS just so happened to do a whole segment about how Germany cracks down on free speech. They conduct pre-dawn raids on people who post offensive content on the internet. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="005 Meme raid" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kpZXGbho09M?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Try to imagine how CBS would be covering raids like this if they came at the direction of Donald Trump. Let&#8217;s say Trump decides that he wants to ban hate speech, so he&#8217;ll conduct pre-dawn raids against anyone who posts hateful content about white people on the internet. How do you think &#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; would react to something like that? Imagine Joy Reid or Jemele Hill getting carted away by armed law enforcement officers in the middle of the night because they made their one millionth post about how white people are evil. How do we think CBS might respond?
I can tell you this. Margaret Brennan wouldn&#8217;t come out and declare that Trump was doing his part to prevent another Holocaust. That&#8217;s because the corporate press isn&#8217;t actually concerned about the rise of an authoritarian government. They just want to make sure they&#8217;re the ones running it. 
If you doubt that, watch how the CBS anchorwoman reacts as German officials explain their draconian laws to her:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="006 Germany explains limits" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ek8H0r0dzVc?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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In case you missed it, here&#8217;s a screen-grab of the glee on her face:
<div id="attachment_878939" style="width: 690px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-878939" class="size-full wp-image-878939" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GkA06_HWIAA0UdT.jpeg" alt="Screenshot: 60 Minutes/CBS" width="680" height="344" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GkA06_HWIAA0UdT.jpeg 680w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GkA06_HWIAA0UdT-300x152.jpeg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" />Screenshot: 60 Minutes/CBS</div>
She&#8217;s being told that people in Germany are shocked to realize that their electronic devices are being seized. And she&#8217;s smiling throughout the whole thing. If you watch this entire segment, you won&#8217;t find any pushback whatsoever from CBS. They didn&#8217;t bring on a guest to explain how, actually, this is a horrible idea. Instead the whole segment came across like a promotion for state censorship. As it continued, it became more and more bizarre. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="008 reposting crime, internet insults worse" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/t5vDG8OJLos?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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Conservatives are reacting with shock and horror to footage like this, which is understandable. We can&#8217;t forget, however, that something very similar has already happened here, in this country. And we would have gone full-Germany if Trump hadn&#8217;t won.
Everyone on the Left understands this. That&#8217;s why they&#8217;re lying to their viewers about what life is like in Germany at the moment. Here for example is MSNBC talking head Rick Wilson, explaining that Germany — despite the pre-dawn raids over memes — has a far better free-speech environment than America does. Watch:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Rick Wilson claims Germany has more free speech than us: &quot;HOW DARE JD LECTURE GERMANY!?&quot; <a href="https://t.co/UnjXkBWDOO">pic.twitter.com/UnjXkBWDOO</a>
&mdash; End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) <a href="https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1891495539981623526?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
He says that America is rated &#8220;55th in the world&#8221; for freedom of expression. I have no idea where he got that figure. My assumption was that some Left-wing group rated us 55th because some states ban drag queens from performing strip teases in front of children. But after looking into it, he could be referencing something called the &#8220;World Press Freedom index,&#8221; which basically surveys journalists and asks them if they feel threatened. Of course, all the journalists here say that Trump is going to put them in camps tomorrow, so we rate poorly as a result. Somehow this survey has Canada ranked 40 spots higher than the U.S., which is a pretty good indication that the survey is completely useless, given that Canada was arresting journalists who covered the trucker convoy just a couple of years ago.
Of course Rick Wilson is pointing to this useless survey because he knows that, by every actual metric, Americans have far more free-speech rights than Europeans. And people like Wilson want to change that. But there&#8217;s an even deeper issue here, which often gets lost as conservatives justifiably resist restrictions on speech: What makes the Left&#8217;s assault on free speech so insidious (whether in this country or in Germany or anywhere else in the Western world) is not just that they seek to ban open expression, but that they specifically want to ban the expression of true and morally right ideas. That&#8217;s the key element that will always separate Left-wing assaults on free speech from alleged Right-wing assaults on free speech.
Whenever someone claims that the Right is waging an assault on free speech, it always means that some conservatives are advocating for restrictions on pornography, or trying to ban adults from staging burlesque shows for children. On the other hand, when the Left bans free speech, they&#8217;re trying to stop us from saying that men can&#8217;t have babies, or they&#8217;re demanding that we show religious reverence to the pride flag. They&#8217;re arresting people for leaving tire marks on rainbow colored crosswalks, just as one example.
The alleged Right-wing restrictions on speech aren&#8217;t really restrictions on speech at all. But even if they were, it&#8217;s still a very different kind of speech. There is no equivalency here. This is the point that promoters of the &#8220;woke Right&#8221; narrative seem to consistently miss. The Atlantic, for example, just ran a big think piece entitled, &#8220;How the Woke Right Replaced the Woke Left.&#8221; They equate Republicans&#8217; dismissal of fake words like &#8220;Latinx&#8221; with Democrats&#8217; many, many attempts to dictate what words people can and cannot use, for example.
But the reality is that the &#8220;far-Left&#8221; and the &#8220;far-Right&#8221; are not, in fact, two sides of the same coin. They are not equally delusional and dangerous. One side denies and seeks to suppress the most basic and fundamental realities of human existence. One side manipulates language and denies statistical data in order to hide the truth. The other side does not. The people demanding that you use the word &#8220;Latinx&#8221; because they think Hispanic people can be non-binary superhumans or whatever are not, in fact, identical to the people who understand that the entire concept of &#8220;Latinx&#8221; is ridiculous and incoherent.
But the Left has to draw an equivalence because they have no other response. When JD Vance points out that so-called &#8220;asylum seekers&#8221; are constantly murdering innocent Americans and Europeans, they know it&#8217;s true. In fact, just hours before Vance spoke in Munich, a girl and her mother were mowed down by an Islamic terrorist in the city. Dozens were injured. Then, after Vance&#8217;s speech, a Syrian &#8220;asylum seeker&#8221; murdered a 14-year-old boy in Austria. He was grinning as the police arrived.
Again and again, reality intrudes on Left-wing narratives. That is the fundamental problem with their ideology. It&#8217;s why they&#8217;re so insistent on censorship. It&#8217;s why JD Vance&#8217;s speech has European elites in tears, whether they&#8217;ll admit it or not. And it&#8217;s why, in just a few days, Germans will send a message that in Europe — as in this country — tens of millions of regular people have had enough.

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