by Michael Shellenberger
It sounds like a "Black Mirror" episode: a small country announces a crackdown on hate speech to seize control over the entire Internet.
Except it's not a "Black Mirror" episode. It's real life. And it's happening right now in Ireland.
The so-called "Hate Speech" bill isn't what it seems. It's not a bill about protecting the Irish people from hate crimes. It's a Trojan Horse designed to control the world's Big Tech companies — X, Facebook, Google, and YouTube.
This is a free speech emergency. We thought the legislation was dead. But the Irish government is using recent riots as an excuse to ram the legislation through before Christmas.
THIS IS NOT A DRILL. THIS IS NOT ABOUT IRELAND. THIS IS A TOTALITARIAN EFFORT BY GLOBAL ELITES TO CENSOR ALL OF US.
It's right there in black and white: "One of the key features of the Bill," write two attorneys with a leading Irish law firm, "is the provision for offences by corporate bodies."
How can Big Tech companies avoid censorship?
You guessed it: by agreeing to regulation of their content by the Irish government.
The current iteration of the Bill provides a defence for the corporate body to show that it took all reasonable steps and exercised due diligence to avoid the commission of the particular offence. Therefore, to establish and maintain such a defence, companies will need to have the appropriate processes and procedures in place.
The Irish government is almost certainly not acting alone. As my colleagues and I have reported, the demand for censorship is coming directly from the militaries, intelligence agencies, and their front groups in the US, UK, and around the world.
The intelligence communities of the Five Eyes nations of the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand have been working together to censor ordinary citizens and politicians alike for disfavored speech for the last several years.
There's no time to mince words. What governments are doing is against the law. They are violating the constitutions of the nations that the people elected them to uphold.
Because of the high level of secrecy they are using, we can't say whether or not these are "rogue" elements within governments or whether these orders are coming from heads of state.
But we do know that demands for censorship have come both directly from the US military and from heads of state of Western nations around the world.
What's happening should terrify all freedom-loving people.
We must fight back.
We will fight back.
That starts with recognizing what's going on.
Please follow
@FreeSpeechIre
@Ben_Scallan
and other Irish free speech leaders.
Please share this post and tell friends and family what's going on.
Finally, please consider getting involved directly. We have created and personally contributed to an Emergency Free Speech Fund to get the word out.
This isn't about "hate speech." This is about out-of-control elites within the intelligence, military, and security agencies around the world who are grotesquely abusing their power in a mad bid to take control of the Internet.
If we don't stop them, this terrifying "Black Mirror" episode will become real life.
