Neo: What truth?

Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind. [i]

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In defense of a preacher’s free speech rights in a 1999 court ruling, Lord Justice Sedley argued that free speech includes “the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and provocative”, and he also said that “Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having”[ii] This echoes a passage from the Marxist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, who writes in her pamphlet ‘The Russian Revolution’ that,

Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of “justice” but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when “freedom” becomes a special privilege.[iii]

Luxemburg often spoke of precisely why freedoms and their protections are so essential, not for those who parrot party lines or who spout ‘acceptable opinions’, but for those who dissent from the consensus. If we are only meant to say what we are supposed to say, or only ever express an ‘acceptable opinion’, then we cannot truly think of ourselves as free citizens. If the government can dictate speech, where the goal is to dictate thought, then we are not living in a free society, and that is not a relationship between a government and its citizens, which the founders argued should be the citizens having power over the government, that exists to serve them. If Western governments can control our thoughts and expression, that is the relationship between a master and a slave. Such understanding goes back thousands of years. As Euripides writes in his play, The Phoenician Women, “Who dares not speak his free thought is a slave”[iv]

In many countries, we have allowed the government to police our speech and thoughts. Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, Brazil, and myriad other states have imposed some form of hate speech laws, online censorship or blockade on social media platforms.[v] In Canada, in 2024, there was a proposed bill, C-63, the Online Harms Act, that sought to “keep Canadians safe”[vi] The bill focused on 7 types of online content. The first 4 are related to victimization and bullying of children, however, the final 3 are related to hate and incitement. It refers to content that “foments hatred, that incites violence and violent extremism or terrorism.”[vii] The claim that the bill is primarily designed to protect children, particularly from adult content, is a front for its true purpose, the surveillance and policing of speech on the internet. This is eerily like the UK’s Online Safety Act, which unlike bill C-63, was passed in 2023.[viii] In August this year the next phase of the act was implemented, where content that Ofcom deems as violent or harmful is locked and people must provide ID to prove their age.[ix] The stated goal may be to protect children from pornography or horrifically violent and grisly footage, but the outcome is a more censored internet for everyone, as those who refuse to comply with verification orders lose access to information, despite this being an invasion of privacy. As Matthew Lesh notes in an interview with Fraser Myers, the act also gives the government a tool to censor during emergencies. He said of the act that “There are ‘emergency powers’ built in, too. So if there is, say, another pandemic or a heavily contested election, the culture secretary can direct Ofcom to put pressure on tech companies to censor certain content.”[x] We already witnessed such censorship during the Covid pandemic, where posts discussing the lab leak theory and questioning the wisdom of lockdowns were taken down and users were suspended, and after the J6 riots, Donald Trump, who was still president at the time, was banned from almost all social media platforms. Even before this, in 2017, Alex Jones and his show Infowars was banished from podcast platforms in a coordinated ban by Apple, Youtube, and Facebook. Jones has since been reinstated, as has Trump and others who were banned during the Covid pandemic, like David Icke, but this proves that when given the power to silence voices and opinions, oligarchs at media companies will bow to the government’s censorship demands. Desperate to control the narrative, the illiberal liberal class is frantically trying to dominate the internet, and this ruthless control is wielded under the guise of safety and protection, in the cases of the UK Online Safety Act and the failed Bill C-63 in Canada, the protection of children from grotesque imagery and content.

People in Britain are routinely arrested for tweeting harmful statements or for engaging in non-crime hate incidents. This year, Lucy Connolly was sentenced to 31 months in prison for ‘inciting racial hatred’ after publishing a tweet in response to the stabbing of 3 girls in Southport that called for mass deportations and the arson of hotels housing asylum seekers.[xi] She had to admit that she had intended to ‘stir up racial hatred’, which is an incredibly Orwellian phrase.[xii] The notion that making certain statements can stir up hatred and that stirring up hatred is so egregious and absurd, an affront to liberty and freedom. Protections of free speech must include the right to express hateful opinions, otherwise, it is not free speech. It is easy to be in favor of speech we universally agree with, however, it is a Herculean task to defend the rights of the detestable and despicable to spew their insipid views. It is essential that every issue be open to debate and skepticism, otherwise, we can not be sure of its wisdom or truth. John Stuart Mill makes this point when he argues that there is a difference between presuming that a view is true, despite its contestation and it not yet being disproven, and presuming a view to be true to bar it from all debate and skepticism. Mill writes that “Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right.”[xiii] When you deny the right to express a view, you also deny the right to hear it. A phrase as lifeless and vague as ‘stirring up racial hatred’ is open to exploitative interpretation. Our self-proclaimed moral betters have given themselves the responsibility to protect us from hate speech, and they are not to be questioned. We have become so numb to, and our desires to be free have been so deadened, that we have forgotten how to defend free speech. The debate over whether Connolly is a political prisoner embodies this, as it is not the principle point in her case. The primary problem with her arrest and imprisonment is the UK’s assault on freedom of speech, as it is with the arrest of Graham Linehan at Heathrow Airport.[xiv] A glaring example of the disdain that the illiberal liberal class has for liberty is the comment from writer and activist Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, those who are advocating for Connolly’s freedom just want “the right to be racist,”[xv] Of course being racist and expressing racist opinions is horrible, but the expression of these opinions the right to express them are separate matters. What Mos-Shogbamimu is saying is technically true, those who advocate for free speech are saying that people have the right to be racist. This shows that she does not understand the principle of free speech, and she is not alone. Many who claim to be in favor of free speech will follow by declaring a long list of speech acts that are to be criminalized. These despots must be called what they are. We must stop pretending that they are tolerant and compassionate- they are the embodiment of friendly fascism. 

Across the West authorities crush free speech. A 60 Minutes segment released in February showed the crackdown on online speech in Germany, where someone’s home was raided and their electronic devices were seized by police, who claimed that they were used to commit a crime, which was posting a racist cartoon on the internet.[xvi] Sharyn Alfonsi of 60 Minutes sat down and spoke with three of the state prosecutors who enforce Germany’s hate speech laws, and they said that they have “about 3,500 cases per year.”[xvii] They also have investigators that surveil people’s internet activity and social media platforms, however, Alfonsi also spoke to Josephine Ballon, the CEO of HateAid, who said when asked to respond to criticisms that in carrying out these actions, Germany is reviving the police state of East Germany, that “There is no surveillance.”, and she went on to say that “Free speech needs boundaries…Without boundaries a very small group of people can rely on endless freedom to say anything they want, while everyone else is scared and intimidated.”[xviii] It is odd that her gripe with ‘endless freedom’ is that a minority will be able to spew whatever hatred they want, and as a result a majority will be scared into silence. It is odd because she is part of a class that seeks to intimidate and imprison people to silence them for views she views as ‘hateful’. Further, her claim that there is no surveillance is obviously false, as when Alfonsi is speaking with one of the state prosecutors, they are in an office crammed with files that document people’s ‘online hate’, and we see investigators monitoring people’s social media. The Stasi, the secret police in East Germany, kept stacks of records on citizens, relying on tips and extensive surveillance. Contrary to what Bellon said, what the German authorities are doing constitutes surveillance, and they are inevitably doing more than what they are saying publicly. The illiberal liberal class’s insistence that they have the power to police the internet exposes their disdain for democracy as well as a complete destruction of what the internet promised at its inception, a means of communication that is unbeholden to the prying eyes of government agencies. The illiberal liberal class celebrates this aspect of the internet when it suits them, like in the case of China or Iran, where citizens use VPNs to break through the firewalls of state censors, however, when it comes to Western citizens, such freedoms are dangerous.

The tyranny of friendly fascism is upon the entire West, and this is not to refer to any leader as a fascist. Friendly fascism and polite tyranny refer to an ideology taken on by the Western political class to hold onto power in an era of disillusionment manifesting in ways that threaten them, like in the election of Trump or the vote for Brexit. Following those events, the illiberal liberal class clamored to eradicate hate speech and mis and disinformation on the internet, which many of them blame for Trump and Brexit’s success. They claim to be defenders of democracy, which is as preposterous as the names for the four ministries in 1984. They preside over a Ministry of Truth, distorting the narrative of global politics to fit their worldview. This is the penultimate goal of current efforts to censor the internet.

The villainy of the polite tyrants in the illiberal liberal class knows no bounds. The instruments of power that the polite tyrants have installed to crush dissent from them are now wielded by Trump and his ilk around the world. Together with the rapid integration of AI into society, we will eventually be like Winston in 1984, we will be utterly incapable of articulating our oppression.[xix] We will be rendered unthinking and unquestionably obedient, answering only to our rulers. Winston describes an act, which in Newspeak is called crimestop. This is the act of ceasing any thinking that is dangerous or that contradicts or questions the Party. Through this action, people train themselves to avoid at all costs any thought that deviates from the Party line, and as he says, “Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity. But stupidity is not enough. On the contrary, orthodoxy in the full sense demands a control over one’s own mental processes as complete as that of a contortionist over his body.”[xx] While people must cloak themselves in ‘protective stupidity’, they must also master control over their thought processes. Thus, all mental capacity and competency is devoted to the recognition and instant cessation of incorrect thoughts, not imagination or creation. This exercise is referred to as doublethink, where two contradictory beliefs are accepted at once. As Winston notes, those who practice doublethink are aware that it is a form of “mental cheating”, through which reality and memory are altered to fit the narrative of the Party.[xxi] A reality is denied and, in its place, a new, imagined reality is placed, but despite this replacement, the reality being denied and supplanted is still known. Thus, those in the Party who most imbibe the Party’s narrative and who most rigorously practice doublethink, the elites in society, are the most deluded and alienated from truth. Winston notes this when he posits, “In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion: the more intelligent, the less sane.”[xxii] We see this delusion in those in the illiberal liberal class who, though incredibly knowledgeable and able to make a plethora of historical references to enrich their arguments, are stuck in a delusion. They are simultaneously the most aware of what is happening and the least aware of the reality of events. This stagnant, stunted mode of thinking is being imposed on all of us. This is the real goal of internet censorship. The advancement of AI will make this easier for the illiberal liberal class to attain the control they so desire, as a population so reliant on AI tools, especially generative AI, is a citizenry slowly eroding their ability to think critically and independently. By the time this is realized, it will be too late. Like Winston and those who practice doublethink, we will have so warped and trained our minds that we will be mere putty in the hands of the ruling class. This scenario is decades away, but it is coming. The various internet safety acts being proposed and passed in Western states is the beginning of the illiberal liberal class’s conquest of the digital town square. If we do not speak up now, we will be unable to even form a dissenting thought, let alone voice it. We will be nothing more than amoebas, our minds so atrophied that our bodies are mere shells.

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[i] The Matrix. Warner Bros., 1999.

[ii] Ezard, John. “Preacher Wins Freedom of Speech.” the Guardian. The Guardian, July 24, 1999. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/jul/24/johnezard.

[iii] Luxemburg, Rosa. “The Russian Revolution (1918).” http://www.marxists.org, 1940. https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/.

[iv] Euripides, Peter Burian, and Brian Swann. The Phoenician Women. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.

[v] A couple of examples are: eSafety Commissioner. “Learn about the Online Safety Act.” eSafety Commissioner, 2024. https://www.esafety.gov.au/newsroom/whats-on/online-safety-act. and New Zealand Ministry of Justice. “Harmful Digital Communications | New Zealand Ministry of Justice.” http://www.justice.govt.nz, 2025. https://www.justice.govt.nz/courts/civil/harmful-digital-communications/.

[vi] Government of Canada. “Proposed Bill to Address Online Harms.” http://www.canada.ca, February 26, 2024. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/online-harms.html.

[vii] Government of Canada. “Proposed Bill to Address Online Harms.”

[viii] Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. “Online Safety Act.” GOV.UK, July 24, 2025. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/online-safety-act.

[ix] Collings, Paige. “No, the UK’s Online Safety Act Doesn’t Make Children Safer Online.” Electronic Frontier Foundation, August 2025. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/08/no-uks-online-safety-act-doesnt-make-children-safer-online.

[x] Myers, Fraser, and Matthew Lesh. “Why the Online Safety Act Is Even Worse than You Think.” Spiked-online.com. spiked, August 12, 2025. https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/08/12/why-the-online-safety-act-is-even-worse-than-you-think/.

[xi] Connolly was just released from prison upon appeal. She already made an appearance at a Reform party conference with Nigel Farage. Vinter, Robyn. “Ex-Childminder Who Called for Arson on Asylum-Seeker Hotels Released from Jail.” the Guardian. The Guardian, August 21, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/aug/21/lucy-connolly-ex-childminder-who-called-for-arson-asylum-seeker-hotels-released-from-jail.

[xii] See the Public Order Act of 1986, established by the Thatcher regime: Legislation.gov.uk. “Public Order Act 1986.” Legislation.gov.uk, 2019. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/contents.

[xiii] Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. London: J. W. Parker and Son, 1859.

[xiv] Edwards, Christian. “A Comedy Writer’s Arrest Supercharges a Transatlantic Debate about Free Speech in Britain.” CNN, September 3, 2025. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/03/uk/uk-farage-free-speech-linehan-latam-intl.

[xv] Schofield, Ben. “How Lucy Connolly’s Racist Tweet Sparked a Free Speech Row.” BBC, May 25, 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3nn60wyr6o.

[xvi] Alfonsi, Sharyn, and Aliza Chasan. “Germany Is Prosecuting Online Trolls. Here’s How the Country Is Fighting Hate Speech on the Internet.” Cbsnews.com. CBS News, February 17, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/germany-online-hate-speech-prosecution-60-minutes/.

[xvii] Alfonsi and Chasan. “Germany Is Prosecuting Online Trolls. Here’s How the Country Is Fighting Hate Speech on the Internet.”

[xviii] Alfonsi and Chasan. “Germany Is Prosecuting Online Trolls. Here’s How the Country Is Fighting Hate Speech on the Internet.”

[xix] Orwell, George. 1984. London: Secker & Warburg, 1949.

[xx] Orwell. 1984

[xxi] Orwell. 1984

[xxii] Orwell. 1984

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Reference List

Alfonsi, Sharyn, and Aliza Chasan. “Germany Is Prosecuting Online Trolls. Here’s How the Country Is Fighting Hate Speech on the Internet.” Cbsnews.com. CBS News, February 17, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/germany-online-hate-speech-prosecution-60-minutes/.

Collings, Paige. “No, the UK’s Online Safety Act Doesn’t Make Children Safer Online.” Electronic Frontier Foundation, August 2025. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/08/no-uks-online-safety-act-doesnt-make-children-safer-online.

Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. “Online Safety Act.” GOV.UK, July 24, 2025. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/online-safety-act.

Edwards, Christian. “A Comedy Writer’s Arrest Supercharges a Transatlantic Debate about Free Speech in Britain.” CNN, September 3, 2025. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/03/uk/uk-farage-free-speech-linehan-latam-intl.

eSafety Commissioner. “Learn about the Online Safety Act.” eSafety Commissioner, 2024. https://www.esafety.gov.au/newsroom/whats-on/online-safety-act.

Euripides, Peter Burian, and Brian Swann. The Phoenician Women. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.

Ezard, John. “Preacher Wins Freedom of Speech.” the Guardian. The Guardian, July 24, 1999. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/jul/24/johnezard.

Government of Canada. “Proposed Bill to Address Online Harms.” http://www.canada.ca, February 26, 2024. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/online-harms.html.

Legislation.gov.uk. “Public Order Act 1986.” Legislation.gov.uk, 2019. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/contents.

Luxemburg, Rosa. “The Russian Revolution (1918).” http://www.marxists.org, 1940. https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/.

Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. London: J. W. Parker and Son, 1859.

Myers, Fraser, and Matthew Lesh. “Why the Online Safety Act Is Even Worse than You Think.” Spiked-online.com. spiked, August 12, 2025. https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/08/12/why-the-online-safety-act-is-even-worse-than-you-think/.

New Zealand Ministry of Justice. “Harmful Digital Communications | New Zealand Ministry of Justice.” http://www.justice.govt.nz, 2025. https://www.justice.govt.nz/courts/civil/harmful-digital-communications/.

Orwell, George. 1984. London: Secker & Warburg, 1949.

Schofield, Ben. “How Lucy Connolly’s Racist Tweet Sparked a Free Speech Row.” BBC, May 25, 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3nn60wyr6o.

The Matrix. Warner Bros., 1999.

Vinter, Robyn. “Ex-Childminder Who Called for Arson on Asylum-Seeker Hotels Released from Jail.” the Guardian. The Guardian, August 21, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/aug/21/lucy-connolly-ex-childminder-who-called-for-arson-asylum-seeker-hotels-released-from-jail.