Free Speech Union is Online

From the Free Speech Union

Helping to spread the word of this important organization.~cr

Free speech is the bedrock on which all our other freedoms rest, yet it is currently in greater peril than at any time since the Second World War. The Free Speech Union is a non-partisan, mass-membership organisation that stands up for the speech rights of its members. If you think there’s a risk you’ll be penalised for exercising your legal right to free speech, whether it’s in the workplace or the public square, you need the protection of the Free Speech Union. How might we protect you?

  • If you find yourself being targeted by a digital outrage mob on social media for having exercised your legal right to free speech, we will mobilise an army of supporters.
  • If a petition is launched calling for you to be fired, when you’ve done nothing other than exercise your legal right to free speech, we’ll organise a counter-petition.
  • If you’re no-platformed by a university—a feminist professor who challenges trans orthodoxy, for instance—we’ll encourage you to go to law and organise a crowdfunding campaign to pay your costs.
  • If newspaper columnists and broadcasting pundits start attacking you for dissenting from orthodox views and opinions, we could get our allies in the media to come to your defence.
  • If you’re punished by your employer because you’ve exercised your lawful right to free speech, we’ll do our best to provide you with legal assistance.

Join and donate. ~cr

HT/Ed Z

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February 22, 2020 2:51 am

We are in dark times if a free speech union is necessary.

Zig Zag Wanderer
Reply to  Krishna Gans
February 22, 2020 2:58 am

Absolutely.

And I for one think it is absolutely necessary.

R Smith
Reply to  Krishna Gans
February 24, 2020 3:10 am

We are definitely in dark times and have been for some time about free speech. Just an organisation as this shouldn’t be necessary but clearly it is and I hope the government will take note and take action.

Zig Zag Wanderer
February 22, 2020 3:00 am

Next: a free medium.

I can only dream.

saveenergy
February 22, 2020 3:07 am

There’s no link for us to join ???

Reply to  saveenergy
February 22, 2020 3:15 am

Look at the first line of that article…

nw sage
Reply to  Krishna Gans
February 22, 2020 5:47 pm

In the photo.

Hokey Schtick
February 22, 2020 3:36 am

This kind of thing should not be necessary. There is no problem with free speech in our society. People are perfectly free to express themselves with complete freedom on any public platform. Of course, that only applies as long as what they are saying is not racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or islamophobic. Or against climate change. Or for Donald Trump.

Absolutely anything else though is fine. Well, obviously not antivaxx. Or questioning the moon landing. Or…

Carl Friis-Hansen
February 22, 2020 3:40 am

Well spoken.
I hope the organization will work well and save a lot of people.
Most cases are sublime and difficult to counter attack. The employer will most commonly not tell you why he or she did not hire you and will not tell you the real reason why you were fired. It is therefore difficult to argue a case as such.

ozspeaksup
February 22, 2020 3:50 am

excellent idea and I will join
though i refuse to be a twit or faceache user
the cancelculture mobs antifa and the rest need to be fought against
this appears to be a way to do so effectively

February 22, 2020 4:09 am

Good to know there is such an organization. Thank you very much.

This sentence was disturbing. “If you find yourself being targeted by a digital outrage mob on social media for having exercised your legal right to free speech”. Are there examples of such events?

Curious to know how these attacks become apparent. How would I know for example If I were being targeted in the blogosphere?

Carl Friis-Hansen
Reply to  chaamjamal
February 22, 2020 4:17 am
Clyde Spencer
Reply to  chaamjamal
February 22, 2020 8:46 am

chaamjamal
There was a time when I was receiving criticism and insults regularly from a half-dozen individuals (who may have been one person with multiple aliases) when commenting on Yahoo climate ‘news’ articles. It got to where it appeared I was being pursued, because the same individuals would jump on me on topics other than climate, while ignoring others expressing similar opinions. It appeared that the purpose of the cyber bullying was an attempt to intimidate me and stop me from commenting. I got tired of the insults, so I ‘muted’ them. I don’t know what they are doing for entertainment now.

Smart Rock
Reply to  chaamjamal
February 22, 2020 9:32 am

Chaamjamal – if, like me, you don’t bother with Twitter or Facebook, you won’t be posting “offensive” things on Twitter or Facebook, and you won’t be targeted by the mob on Twitter or Facebook, and you won’t be “deplatformed” on Twitter or Facebook. In other words, just carry on living a healthy and productive life.

If anything important, newsworthy or interesting appears on Twitter, the digital mainstream media, or your favourite blog, will have enough screencaps of it for us to see and stay informed, without having to venture into the jungle ourselves.

That said, it could be worse than being targeted by mobs on Twitter. And it will become more so. In the UK, if you post something that someone doesn’t like, you may find yourself having a visit from the police, to “check your thinking”. The word “thoughtcrime” is no longer part of a fictional dystopian future.

commieBob
February 22, 2020 4:17 am

You’d think free speech is the core business of the ACLU but they seem to have been taken over by the SJWs. link

Hey folks, censorship destroys democracy and leads to tyranny. link

An organization whose only mission is free speech is needed now that the ACLU has eviscerated itself.

LdB
Reply to  commieBob
February 22, 2020 5:27 pm

Don’t forget they also want you banned from employment and arrested for crimes against humanity if you have the wrong views.

Greg Woods
February 22, 2020 4:29 am

Yes, Free Speech is necessary in a free society, but – but I think that the Second Amendment is just as important, if not more so…

BC
Reply to  Greg Woods
February 22, 2020 2:57 pm

Absolutely! And that is why the Left are intent on’nullifying’ 2nd Amendment rights.

nw sage
Reply to  Greg Woods
February 22, 2020 5:51 pm

The amendments are in order, but NOT in order of importance. What is important one day may not be most important the next day.

fretslider
February 22, 2020 4:30 am

At least you have a constitutional guarantee of sorts.

BBC2 is making a programme. It advertised for participants…

‘Do you identify as being white? Do you feel you can’t talk about it? Why?
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/02/20/why-is-the-bbc-promoting-white-identity-politics/

We know why, because we only have notional free speech…

Harry Miller has won his High Court freedom of speech battle against Humberside Police over his right to make jokes about transgenderism on social media.

Miller, himself an ex-copper, was incensed when Humberside Police sent a police officer round to his home in order to ‘check his thinking’ after some remarks he had made on Twitter were classified as a ‘non-crime hate incident.’
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/02/14/judge-rules-against-gestapo-police-over-transgender-jokes-crackdown/

We’re all thoughtcriminals now.

meiggs
February 22, 2020 4:34 am

You can’t talk about the real rulers so all the rest is engineered noise. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the FSU is just a clever way to get to get those that don’t think what they are told to self identify.

Scissor
Reply to  meiggs
February 22, 2020 6:17 am

It’s sad that you could be right. At first I though the FSU video was a parody.

Do we live in times darker than any other? Probably not, but certainly free speech is under attack everywhere and propaganda is weaponized like at no other time via social media, etc.

I would like to know who those are that define for Google and Facebook what is allowed and what is not.

commieBob
Reply to  meiggs
February 22, 2020 11:49 pm

That’s exactly what Mao did. link

First, Mao encouraged free expression.

The policy of letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend is designed to promote the flourishing of the arts and the progress of science.

Next, he imprisoned those who were foolish enough to express the wrong thoughts.

John
February 22, 2020 4:44 am
Ed Zuiderwijk
Reply to  John
February 22, 2020 5:53 am

A piece of botsed (or is it botched?) ‘research’.

Richard
February 22, 2020 8:18 am

Ironic, but sad, the comment that those opposed to free expression ‘hunt in packs’ forces the response that so should we. How much like those we oppose do we need to become in our efforts to remain who we are? I know good and decent police who have been changed, damaged, but their having to deal with the evils in society as they hold the line on our behalf.

Stephen Skinner
Reply to  Richard
February 22, 2020 9:25 am

“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle” – Edmunde Burke
“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing” – John Stuart Mill

beng135
February 22, 2020 8:28 am

Free speech is the bedrock on which all our other freedoms rest, yet it is currently in greater peril than at any time since the Second World War.

I don’t know where exactly where he’s talking about, but I’d say free speech at least in the US is in greater peril than at any time since its existence.

Jeff Alberts
February 22, 2020 9:12 am

“If you find yourself being targeted by a digital outrage mob on social media for having exercised your legal right to free speech, we will mobilise an army of supporters.”

You don’t have a legal right to free speech on social media, or any media that’s not owned by the government.

MarkW
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
February 22, 2020 9:48 am

He didn’t say anything about suing the owner of the social media. However the left has perfected the attack storm who’s sole goal has been the silencing of any voices they disagree with.

He seems to be talking about organizing a counter storm.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  MarkW
February 22, 2020 12:37 pm

The implication in the text I quoted is that the “victim” posted something on social media and is then attacked for it, or banned, etc.

I didn’t say anything about suing either. I merely pointed out that you have no right or gurantee of free speech on any privately-owned forum, including this one.

Stephen Skinner
February 22, 2020 9:20 am

It will get worse as the curricula at most Universities have only expanded into divisive and destructive subjects. What will happen when the value of University Degrees becomes valueless when normality returns? What will happen to those universities when many seek compensation for having wasted vast sums of money and the best years of their lives learning divisive and destructive ideas? As well as the mis-taught students, compensation will be sought from those whose careers were terminated unjustly and from companies that lost business because of following woke agendas.

Stephen Skinner
February 22, 2020 9:41 am

The speaker is Tobi Young who is also a writer for the ‘The Spectator’ a UK publication that was first published in 1828.

MarkW
February 22, 2020 9:42 am

Without the right to self defense, all other rights exist only at the whim of government.

Al Miller
February 22, 2020 11:08 am

Count me in. I couldn’t agree more- except to say free speech is under attack more than it has been since long before WWII.
I’m still constantly sickened by by the ilk of David Suzuki ( made rich and famous by our state brainwash corp. CBC) et. al suggestion that people who don’t agree with his narrow world view should be imprisoned.

otropogo
February 22, 2020 12:03 pm

I find this Free Speech Union pitch bitterly ironic. It presumes that you’ve been able to exercise your free speech, and have then had it curbed or been punished for it.

In my experience free speech is most often killed at the point of first submission, whether in a letter to the editor, a post on an online forum, a call into a live radio program, etc. .

I stopped writing letters to the editor years ago, when I learned that the editorial policy of most publications now required the writer to give unconditional power to the editor to modify the submission without any indication that it was not as received.

I’ve been villified by online forum moderators for simply reporting technical issues with software, notably Linux distros. I’ve been suspended and even banned from such fora without any opportunity to plead my case to the community.

Often the censorship is completely anonymous and unexplained, with no option to enquire why, let alone appeal. Google and Facebook have done this, until I was finally persuaded to stop wasting my time and energy posting there.

I’m often amazed at the number of otherwise intelligent adults who still don’t realize that our society is teeming with false helpers, whose real purpose is to reel in the discontented with promises of assitance and thus keeping them from finding real help. Ombudsmen, civil liberties associations, privacy commissions, better business bureaus – I’ve gone quite a few rounds with a selection of all of the above, and the most honest one I’ve encountered (the lone exception) was the one BBB that admitted it could do nothing to help me, no matter how compelling my case. The rest were all working for the other side (and themselves , of course)…

BC
February 22, 2020 3:08 pm

Here’s another item for their manifesto:
– where activists organize boycotts against businesses that advertise on media outlets that represent the views of the mainstream community, the union should organize boycotts against companies that withdraw their advertising and BUYcotts to support companies that hold out against activist thuggery and do not withdraw their advertising.

Leonard Shaw
February 23, 2020 2:06 pm

I agree that free speech is very important, but technically it is NOT the primary right.

That primary right is property rights. Free speech, of course, only exists if you can use the property of your body to SPEAK. And online, use your hands to WRITE. And so without being able maintain property rights, in these cases, in your vocal cord, body, and hands, you won’t be able to express yourself.

Ergo, property rights are more fundamental.

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