In my opinion there is an unwritten agenda now which forbids freedom of speech, or at least will crucify any speech and speaker which contravenes the status quo.

Until recently, I thought that this was only happening in internet forums such as this, but if you watch the news these days beyond the regular channels, you'll surely have noticed that only a specific type of news/message was allowable from the onset. For instance, if you'd watched nothing but the BBC news since the start of this year, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Covid-19 was going to be as damaging to the UK populace as WW1 or even WW2. And what a lot of bollocks that turned out to be.

If you're a regular visitor of youtube, looking for 'alternative news', you'll have noticed that such channels are currently eradicating all 'free thinkers'. David Icke, for instance, was shown the door just a few months ago after about a decade of being there.

The bottom-line is that the 'real world' is starting to mirror the bollocks here in this forum, whereby unless you tow the line and parrot the current agenda, you'll be treated like a dick.

I'm not here to moan about this forum. I'm here to express my fears that the world is becoming like it, which is obviously more of a concern.

So, for those few of you who haven't crapped upon the notion of free speech here, which really is a FEW, how do you yourselves view this?

For the rest of you, the most of you, are you happy that freedom of speech is being killed 'out there' such that our governments are able to force you to do whatever they say, to the extent that the economy is ruined and you all do whatever they say without question? Or are you a bit sheepish on the matter?

I am of the opinion that if somebody like me was able to simultaneously contact 90% of the world's population, that the bollocks we've ALL been living through, throughout history, would instantly end.

EVERYBODY is tired of the bollocks. Trumps bollocks. YOUR bollocks. Everyone's bollocks.

I'm not here to say that the bollocks here is as bad as Trump's. But it's certainly as divisive as Trump's. That's why you hate me, for instance.

However, none of this is relevant to the point of the thread. Wake the fuck up, PLEASE.

James, you are conflating freedom of speech, which is a matter of law, with decisions made by commercial enterprises. The latter have belatedly decided to not let conspiracy nuts like David Icke and the Qanon mob use their facilities as an outlet for their crap. In these cases their freedom of speech is not constrained by law. Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and others have merely made a commercially motivated change of editorial policy, saying in effect: "Not in our house. Spout your rubbish elsewhere."

Would you regard it as an infringement of Richard Dawkins's freedom of speech if the Catholic Weekly refused to publish his opinion pieces?

Hermit wrote:James, you are conflating freedom of speech, which is a matter of law, with decisions made by commercial enterprises. The latter have belatedly decided to not let conspiracy nuts like David Icke and the Qanon mob use their facilities as an outlet for their crap. In these cases their freedom of speech is not constrained by law. Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and others have merely made a commercially motivated change of editorial policy, saying in effect: "Not in our house. Spout your rubbish elsewhere."

Would you regard it as an infringement of Richard Dawkins's freedom of speech if the Catholic Weekly refused to publish his opinion pieces?

Squire, even the BBC, not least ALL of our politicians, have done nothing but promote the bullshit that covid-19 is akin to our WW3.
It's the biggest load of bollocks I've ever heard!!!!

Freedom of speech is a concept which allows for all reasonable views in all reasonable arenas. There is NOTHING unreasonable in questioning the notion that covid-19 is our WW3 to the point that the global economy is on the brink of becoming destroyed due to lockdown, which would surely kill more people than the virus itself? Yet, even the fucking BBC, reportedly the Jesus of all news networks, parrots out the same old crap every day.

According to the news today, less than 10 people died of covid-19 in the UK. And probably 9 of them were over 70. And as far as I know, they don't even know how to differentiate covid-19 from any other virus any more than they can differentiate one shade of red from another. Is this WW3? I don't fucking think so.

jamest wrote:Freedom of speech is a concept which allows for all reasonable views in all reasonable arenas.

No, it is not. Freedom of speech is, as the Merriam Webster dictionary put it, "the legal right to express one's opinions freely". Which arenas allow you to say whatever you want to say on their site is a matter of their editorial policy. Look at this arena we are posting in, for example. There is no law against discussing personal sexual issues, but this forum's User Agreement explicitly forbids it. Rationalia's User Agreement does not. Stop conflating the legal right to freedom of speech with editorial policy.

James, you observe that:

jamest wrote:EVERYBODY is tired of the bollocks.

And yet, when people want to clear the bollocks off their patch, you melt like a snowflake.

You're unlikely to get many who will patiently explain the internal contradictions of your position because:

jamest wrote:EVERYBODY is tired of the bollocks.

Britain never had freedom of speech in the first place. Ask Gerry Adams.

You can’t say that!

The important thing is jamest correctly put 'free thinkers' into scare quotes.

Animavore wrote:Britain never had freedom of speech in the first place. Ask Gerry Adams.

or Dan O'Connell, Theobald Wolfetone or some more I should end up remembering...

Animavore wrote:Britain never had freedom of speech in the first place. Ask Gerry Adams.

Wasn't he speaking freely to MI5 back in the day?

campermon wrote:

Animavore wrote:Britain never had freedom of speech in the first place. Ask Gerry Adams.

Wasn't he speaking freely to MI5 back in the day?

Dunno. So some guy claims.

I'm just referring to when the British banned him speaking on TV. I remember the British media got around it by dubbing over him with an actor saying his lines.

In Britain free speech is more of a civic right that is assumed, but it can be taken away for any reason. It's not written in stone like in the US.

Thing is, in england, nothing is written in stone, what they call their "constitution" is in fact a set of unwritten principles that can shift at any time and for any number of reasons.

Svartalf wrote:Thing is, in england, nothing is written in stone, what they call their "constitution" is in fact a set of unwritten principles that can shift at any time and for any number of reasons.

No constitution was ever originally written in stone, but I know what you mean: British (or English, as you call it) constitutional history and practice rests on precedent that evolves into convention/tradition rather than a document.

Two caveats:

1. What is commonly regarded as the first English Constitution was in fact written down at the time it was formulated. Somewhere between 13 and 40 times, in fact. Four of the original documents survive to this day.

Of course, amounting an agreement between the English King and his robber barons (nobody else mattered in terms of the body politic in 1025 CE), there was no need to mention freedom of speech. Freedom of speech was implied, and limited to the King and the barons.

2. Even constitutions generally regarded as written in stone do change. The USA's constitution was formally changed 27 times, and two of those changes annulled previous changes.



Be it as it may, JamesT's meaning of his assertion underlying his rhetorical question, "Is there ANY freedom of speech any more?" can be dismissed on the grounds that the right of publishers to deny access to their sites to people who promulgate opinions deemed unsuitable on commercial grounds has no bearing on people's rights to freedom of speech.

Yeah. The point was moot. Just ribbing really.

YouTube, as a private business, can expel anyone for any reason, especially if it's harmful to their business or their clientele.

David Icke still has his freedom of speech. He can set up his own website and publish his own videos using HTML5 and no one can stop him. Probably all ready has but not Googling him to find out as I don't want a search for him messing up my algorithm and getting targeted ads for bullshit.

jamest wrote:In my opinion there is an unwritten agenda now which forbids freedom of speech, or at least will crucify any speech and speaker which contravenes the status quo.

Well that must be incredibly convenient for you that you get to cry victim whenever you say something that contravenes the rules that you agreed to! Should I pat your head and say "there there"?

Until recently, I thought that this was only happening in internet forums such as this, but if you watch the news these days beyond the regular channels, you'll surely have noticed that only a specific type of news/message was allowable from the onset. For instance, if you'd watched nothing but the BBC news since the start of this year, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Covid-19 was going to be as damaging to the UK populace as WW1 or even WW2. And what a lot of bollocks that turned out to be.

Except, of course, that it hasn't. But it certainly flies in the face of your freedom of speech claims that here you are declaring such obvious nonsense, isn't it?

If you're a regular visitor of youtube, looking for 'alternative news', you'll have noticed that such channels are currently eradicating all 'free thinkers'. David Icke, for instance, was shown the door just a few months ago after about a decade of being there.

The rules were stated clearly, he contravened them repeatedly, so he's gone. I'm seeing a pattern here. Maybe you guys should hang out somewhere that fosters the sort of fucknuttery you enjoy? Do you think that Youtube shouldn't be allowed to have the freedom to moderate it's own content? What an ironic conundrum for you!

The bottom-line is that the 'real world' is starting to mirror the bollocks here in this forum, whereby unless you tow the line and parrot the current agenda, you'll be treated like a dick.

Or maybe it's just that if you act like a dick, you'll get treated like one. As you can plainly see, you've got the freedom here to feebly re-frame your breaking of the rules that you agreed to until you're blue in the face, doesn't change the facts of the situation though.

I'm not here to moan about this forum.

Well you've failed then

I'm here to express my fears that the world is becoming like it, which is obviously more of a concern.

Well I'm glad you've got the freedom to wail and gnash your teeth about it. You don't seem to notice, though.

So, for those few of you who haven't crapped upon the notion of free speech here, which really is a FEW, how do you yourselves view this?

As I've never run into any issues with freedom of speech here or on Youtube, I'm inclined to say you're full of shit. You'll of course say that anyone who doesn't agree with you must be a lemming or something, and completely miss how convenient that is for you in not having to even consider the possibility that you're wrong.

For the rest of you, the most of you, are you happy that freedom of speech is being killed 'out there' such that our governments are able to force you to do whatever they say, to the extent that the economy is ruined and you all do whatever they say without question? Or are you a bit sheepish on the matter?

Your tinfoil hat is showing.

The Leftists are more than happy with Twitter censorship, Facebook censorship, YouTube censorship, Google censorship, etc -- because, as Project Veritas has repeatedly demonstrated, the censorship is mostly at the expense of conservatives.
One can be quite certain that if it were mostly the Left being defunded, deplatformed, canceled, shadow-banned and pushed down in search listings, that the tune would change very quickly. They'd be tearing out their green hair and slutwalking all the way to Washington in outrage.

Mike_L wrote:The Leftists are more than happy with Twitter censorship, Facebook censorship, YouTube censorship, Google censorship, etc -- because, as Project Veritas has repeatedly demonstrated, the censorship is mostly at the expense of conservatives.
One can be quite certain that if it were mostly the Left being defunded, deplatformed, canceled, shadow-banned and pushed down in search listings, that the tune would change very quickly. They'd be tearing out their green hair and slutwalking all the way to Washington in outrage.

“Investigative journalist“ lol

Oh look, more tinfoil

From PV's wiki page:

During the 2016 campaign, the organization falsely claimed to have shown that the Hillary Clinton campaign accepted illegal donations from foreign sources.[14] O'Keefe was sued for defamation by a man he wrongfully depicted as a "willing participant in an underage sex-trafficking scheme"; the suit led to a settlement in 2013, in which O'Keefe issued an apology and paid $100,000.[15][16][17]

In 2017, Project Veritas was caught in a failed attempt to trick The Washington Post into posting a fabricated story about Roy Moore.[2][3][18][19] Rather than uncritically publish a story that accused Republican candidate Moore of impregnating a teenager, The Washington Post critically examined the story that they were presented with, checked the source, assessed her credibility and ultimately found that there was no merit to her claims, and that instead Project Veritas were trying to dupe The Washington Post.[11]

O'Keefe has been barred from fundraising for Project Veritas in Florida and other states because of his federal criminal record for entering a federal building under fraudulent pretenses.