The US ultra-right should leave the UK alone!!!

[StandFirm]

I was going to use a rude expletive in the thread title to truly reflect my thoughts on this. I've known about this insidious creeping influence for a little while but reading the article in the link below has made me livid. We are not going to be censored by foreign actors who understand nothing about our culture. I have often observed a false sense of familiarity among Brits regarding American culture but it goes both ways, and this attempt at dragging us along into the dark pit of ignorance should stay the fuck away from here:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/apr/14/librarians-in-uk-increasingly-asked-to-remove-books-as-influence-of-us-pressure-groups-spreads

My thoughts are that it's OK for Americans to have an opinion on world affairs and politics in other countries and vice versa. What is not ok is to use money and influence to interfere with foreign countries and push an opaque agenda. If I were a billionaire (let's dream for a sec!) and I used my money to fund pressure groups to interfere with American society for my own benefit, I would be an utter c*. I have always disagreed with foreign meddling of any kind. I know it happens and I find it disgusting. However, private individuals are welcome to voice their sincerely held opinions.

This is nonsense. Banning Twitter wouldn’t be an attack on free speech at all, and anyone believing so has fallen for the far right’s lies.

If we banned Twitter, we’d be banning the megaphone, not the speech. People would still be able to say whatever they liked.

I don't think it's that simple. In Hong Kong, pro-democracy bookshops and media outlets have been shut down, raided, or successfully pressured to close. Is that an attack on free speech? They are the mediums not the speech.

For that matter, if the government puts you in a prison cell for your speech, is that an attack on free speech? It's limiting your reach, sure, but you are still free to speak.

What's the consistent test you are applying here?

The graphic novel you mention is actually very good and aimed at the older end of the youth market anyway. I wouldn’t expect to see it in the children’s section no. But then it isn’t in the children’s section in book shops either.
I’d be more concerned about parents who think it’s ok for their Year 7 children to read IT and Game of Thrones even when you’ve checked they’re aware of certain elements of those books.

Trans isn’t a ‘new phenomenon’ by any stretch of the imagination.

I don't think that book is appropriate for anyone, least of all vulnerable girls and young women. Glorifying self harm is dangerous for any age group.

And this is where I struggle with this topic, because I'd like to say in principle that I don't agree with banning books. But I also think that some books are evil.

The test is:

• Reach (speed and amplification)
• Level of regulation.

Twitter is highly unregulated, with enormous and very quick reach. Social media is a uniquely massive and dangerous megaphone in that regard.

Of course it is.

I'm not trawling posts nor am I lying.

You come on to loads of threads calling women who want to return to single sex or to protect single sex spaces 'Trumpist' or right wing and the like.

If you don't *favour the wishes of males who identify as transwomen' why do you spend so much time berating women who are trying to ensure women have single sex spaces? That's quite an odd thing to do if you agree with those women than women's single sex spaces are more important than the wishes of males who identify as trans.

Would you support the revocation of the GRC (given that it's primary purpose is now irrelevant) and/ or support clarifications to the Equality Act to return to single sex (excluding legal sex) in respect of women's single sex spaces including changing rooms, sport and public toilets? If not why not?

It celebrates body mutilation.

Graphic in every sense.

In no way is it 'good' unless you support the notion that some people are born wrong and should change their bodies to match their personality and gender stereotypes.

Are you saying that something is an attack on free speech if it significantly reduces reach, and involve a high level of regulation?

In that case, wouldn't banning X meet the test? X has huge reach, and banning is at the strong end of regulation.

Would the government shutting the HK bookshops count? That was often done by leaning on landlords not to lease to them. A bookshop has a small reach, and inviting landlords to think about their commercial best interest must count at the lighter end of regulation. So, no problem free-speech wise?

I have no doubt that there is some truth in this, the trouble is that this open goal was left by the actions of the Democrats.

Women were pissed off. Rightly so.

The first day of his presidency Biden destroyed women's sport by dismantling title IX.

Perhaps if the Democrats had listened to women the outcome would have been different.

I’m saying the opposite. Shutting down Twitter wouodn’t be an unacceptable breach of free speech, because of its unique reach and lack of regulation. That’s why we should do it.

Perhaps if the Democrats had listened to women the outcome would have been different.

But even if you were right, surely now that the MAGA Christian right agenda is clear no self-respecting woman can support it?

Ah yes. I think if you are arguing whether it's an acceptable or unacceptable limitation on free speech that's the right framing (I'd be strongly against a ban, but that's a different issue).

I don't think you can say that banning X would not impinge free speech though.

A definition of free speech that only includes the freedom to say positive things in well-regulated fora is not a very useful definition, and not a very useful right.

So then people prioritise.

They put their families first.

I watched The Rest Is Politics Live on election night. Dominic Sandbrook, who is a modern historian absolutely nailed it. If you are interested perhaps take a listen to it.

I'm not saying I think those women/ voters were right in voting for Trump, I just appreciate a set of circumstances occurred that led them to believe it was the right thing to do.

It doesn’t celebrate it!
Should we stop teaching Romeo and Juliet because it ‘celebrates’ teen suicide?
Books don’t make people do things. Although some use them as an excuse. If people were influenced by what they read the UK would be a very different place given how many students are taught An Inspector Calls!

They were misled then. Trump and the republicans were quite clear about what they were going to do and what women were going to lose as a result.

I watch/listen to The Rest Is Politics. I remember that point being made - which in fact makes me feel even more livid when I think of voters who opted for Trump in good faith only to end up in a much bigger hole.

Appalling. The US Right should FO and take its fans over here with them. Yes, Kemi, Suella, Priti, Nigel and all the other Fans of Fascism, I do mean you. All of you. Off you go and live in the Land of the Free. You all deserve it.

Absolutely this. Publishing houses dropping women and blacklisting them for the crime of saying men can’t become women.
What happened to Rachel Rooney was particularly abhorrent.
I am left wing, I always have been. But I’ve been left politically homeless as a direct result of the hard lefts relentless pursuit of censorship and shutting down anyone who has a dissenting opinion on gender ideology.

I agree re the usefulness of such a limited freedom. But who is arguing for such limits?

Twitter should be banned IMO because of its unique lack of regulation combined with its unique reach. That’s it. Perhaps we can debate whether such a ban would constitute ‘no attack on free speech’ or merely ‘an acceptable attack on free speech’ but either way it wouldn’t leave us with the freedom only to say ‘positive’ (whatever that means) things in well regulated fora. We managed to have freedom of speech before Twitter was invented.

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy… if you think it’s a “celebration” of teen suicide then you haven’t understood it.

But can't you see how ridiculous the left was over this?

Women/ fathers were saying we want our daughters to have fair sport or we want our daughters to go to school and be able to use changing rooms where no males will be and they were being called bigots and effectively told to shut up by the Democrats.

Those women had the right to choose the alternative under those circumstances.

I will not forgive the left for the part they have played in this.

Women's rights in so far as single sex spaces and sports are not transphobia. How dare they brush those things under the carpet by just saying the alternative is worse. It's pathetic really. They should have had the strength to stand up to the trans lobby.

'The blacks'? I absolutely hate being described like that, and I'm not the only 'black' who hates it. Say 'black people.
And on behalf of my gay brother (who has big issues with the trans movement) and myself as a black/mixed race woman, don't lump me in with trans please, the issues are NOT the same.