Last Thanksgiving Day In Central Dublin, Ireland, a woman and three children were stabbed near a school in the center of the city. The suspect was identified by the Irish Independent as an immigrant from Algeria. Riots ensued. Some of the rioters were against immigration. The response of Irish politicians is to pass hate crime legislation targeting not only individuals but also social media for any " offense of preparing or possessing material likely to incite violence or hatred against persons on account of their protected characteristics." Some of those characteristics are national or ethnic origin as well as "transgender and a gender other than those of male and female." In other words hate crimes
Arson, robbery, assault and crimes against property are already against the law. The victims of those crimes suffer the same whether the motivation of the criminal was hate or effective altruism or any other ideological motivation. Enhancing the penalty because of hate being a motivation does nothing to benefit the victim. The proposed laws would however significantly throttle freedom of speech and of the press.That's because one of the key features of the bill says social media companies can avoid being held in violation of the proposed law by agreeing to regulation of their content by the Irish government. In short, giving the government of Ireland censorship authority.
Of course, the social media companies are all global. So censorship by Ireland is de facto world-wide censorship. Is Ireland doing this on its own? Doubtful. The voluminous language of the Patriot Act in the U.S. was already written and sitting on the shelf, ready to be enacted in the case of a terrorist attack. 9/11 provided the excuse. Riots in Dublin, ostensibly linked to nationalistic Irish sentiments are providing the excuse. There is no direct evidence, but I would say it's a safe bet that anti-free speech idealogues in Europe and the U.S. are being very helpful to the Irish politicians pushing this Orwellian legislation.
In the years BI, before internet, news with any possibility of mass dissemination was limited to three Federal Communications Commission regulated and controlled TV and radio networks and a small handful of national newspapers which were de facto controlled as well. When the internet made it possible for anyone with a Facebook or Twitter account to become their own news outlet with the capability of reaching millions, real free speech had a brief period in which to blossom. Politicians didn't like it.I remember Hillary Clinton publicly lamenting the internet for lacking the oversight that the government has over legacy mass media.
They are desperately trying to get that control back. Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi and the other principals at Public are working hard to expose them and their government/censorship complex. We wish them well.