What do you use instead? I feel a #BoycottPayPal campaign coming on!
ItsLateHumpty - that is shocking! I hope Americans are going to stop smugly parroting "Ah! But we have got Free Speech written into our constitution so we are protected!" and wake up to the fact that their Constitution is not going to protect them from their authoritarian fellow-citizens and corporations.
Moon warned about the Payment Network issue but that news takes it to an even more horrifying level.
Section 230 isn't the problem, Payment Networks are
Joshua Moon - Apr 7, 2021
madattheinternet.substack.com/p/section-230-isnt-the-problem-payment
In the KF threads people kept demanding examples of Banks etc. shutting down accounts of UK citizens - as if banks and payment networks are not global and give a stuff about where someone lives.
(2nd thread if anyone is interested in following that salted earth cancellation:
Antipodean fruit growers 2 - Canary in the internet coal mine
www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4632616-antipodean-fruit-growers-2-canary-in-the-internet-coal-mine )
Note that one of the key players in the horrifyingly successful campaign to close down KF and deprive Moon, a US citizen, of access to funding, a snail mail address, email, telephone, text and legal representation is based not in the USA but the UK.
It is no accident that in the UK they have gone after the Free Speech Union and Toby Young personally. Very strategic.
I just hope that he has enough clout in the corridors of power to shake the Government into action. If they succeed with the FSU on payment processing it is not going to stop there, either with the FSU or with others on their hit list in the UK.
We are used to people telling lies to get individuals and organisations cancelled. What worries me most about this development is that it should be easy enough for an organisation like PayPal to take a peek at the FSU website and determine what it actually does.
It is obvious that it operates within UK law, helping citizens to take advantage of their legal protections and rights. What leverage has been applied by whom to PayPal to persuade them to ignore this? Or did they take one look at this and decide, "We can't be having that! Pull the plug on them!"
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 public interest body that stands up for the speech rights of its members – and we recently opened a Scottish office. 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 may 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 may help you 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 fight back and members of our advisory councils may be able to tell you what remedies are available to you.
If you’re a student being investigated by your university for breaching a speech code, we may take up your case with the university
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 assistance or refer you to specialists who can help.
If you’d like to learn more about our organisation and the ways that we support our members, please visit:
freespeechunion.org/
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Monthly Newsletter - 5th September 2022
What does the FSU want from the next Prime Minister?
It’s encouraging to see that both candidates have addressed the FSU’s concerns regarding the Equality Act 2010 and the Orwellian ‘thought policing’ tool that is the non-crime hate incident report. What we need from the next Prime Minister are similarly robust commitments to engage with the other issues raised in our Free Speech Manifesto.
On workers’ rights, for instance, we want to see new workplace speech rights introduced and existing legal protections strengthened to ensure employees cannot be disciplined or sacked for refusing to attend diversity training courses or declare their gender pronouns.
On education, we want to see an end to the political indoctrination of children in schools.
On the legislative front, we want to see the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill progress on to the statute books so that free speech and academic freedom are better protected on campus, and we want to see freedom of expression given a preeminent place in the new Bill of Rights Bill so that artists, novelists, dancers, poets, playwrights and comedians can speak truth to power without fear of being cancelled.
Finally, on the “censor’s charter” that is the Online Safety Bill, we want to see the next Prime Minster do more to protect free speech online. It’s great that both candidates have committed to looking again at clause 13 of the Bill, but there are other aspects of the Bill that also pose a threat to free speech.
At present, for instance, it requires providers like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to remove in every part of the United Kingdom content that’s illegal in any part of the United Kingdom. So if something is illegal to say in Scotland, but not in the rest of the UK, the big social media companies would have to remove it in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Do we really want to empower Nicola Sturgeon to dictate what the entire British population is allowed to see and say online? That seems insane, particularly as Scotland has just passed the Hate Crime and Public Order Act – a piece of legislation that will make it illegal to say a large number of things that are currently lawful to say in the rest of the UK. (FSU Scottish Advisory Council member Jamie Gillies describes the Act as an “authoritarian mess”.)
With the Online Safety Bill set to return to Parliament, it’s going to be more important than ever to keep up the pressure on legislators over the coming months. Now that the leadership contest is over, one very effective way for members to do so will be to use our website’s template email generator to write to their MP and ask that he or she look again at the Bill (the campaigning tool is here).
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The FSU publishes its new briefing paper on the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill
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Our next online event – Teaching tolerance: Understanding free speech issues in schools
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Upcoming members-only events include a live, in-person launch of Andrew Doyle’s brilliant new book The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World. The comedian, author, and presenter of GB News’s Free Speech Nation will join me on-stage in London on 27th September to discuss how we can push back against cancel culture and start reinstating liberal democratic values
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I’m also delighted to announce that on 12th October I’ll be joined in conversation at an exclusive Online Speakeasy by stand-up comedian, actor, writer and presenter Jack Dee.
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Members will also be offered discount tickets to the Battle of Ideas Festival 2022 (15th and 16th October). During that event, I’ll be speaking on a panel the FSU is sponsoring on the Online Safety Bill. The Free Speech Champions will also be partnering on a session about how young people can be persuaded to join the defence of freedom of speech.
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Much of the FSU’s casework takes place beyond the higher education sector, and this month we’ve been assisting members drawn from all walks of life, including NHS clinicians, cleaners, police officers, parents, and countless employees of private businesses in a huge variety of sectors.
We get an average of 50 requests for help a week and at any one time we’ll have around 100 cases on the go. These are cases where people have been punished, sacked, bullied, harassed, investigated, or disciplined for speaking their mind – or because a colleague prowled through their personal social media profiles in an effort to find ‘offensive’ material. In a typical week the case team will be kept busy drafting letters to employers to shut down sham investigations, advising members about the rules and procedures governing internal investigations, and counselling people through what are always extremely stressful situations.
Because of the privacy concerns at stake we can’t always publicise our successes, but this month, armed with our handy FAQs, members have succeeded in challenging the pronoun policies creeping into work places, reminding bosses that employees have the right to their own opinions. Each small battle like this is part of a broader fightback for free speech, and case by case we’re working to end the stifling culture that’s engulfed many workplaces.
Full text:
freespeechunion.org/monthly-newsletter-3/