Free speech

The why and what of our Free Speech and the Left virtual conference

By Plebity | Mar 20, 2023

Conference

Momentum is building for our Free Speech and the Left virtual conference scheduled for June, 2023.

The conference participants include some of today’s most interesting voices, coming together to discuss the most divisive issues of the day.

We’re in active collaboration with the New Zealand site Redline, India & the Global Left and acTVism Munich.

What is the left?

Panelists will consider whether leftist thought offers relevant and useful ways of thinking about capitalism and exploitation, empire and forever wars, cancel culture and identity politics, environmental destruction and degrowth, social justice and universalism, animal rights and morality, and of course free speech.

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New Dawn – destabilising social cohesion?

By Don Franks | Jan 8, 2023

REDLINE article

Stuff reports today: “Nationwide bookstore Whitcoulls is selling a magazine peddling a number of anti-vax conspiracies and insinuating the Christchurch mosque terror attack was a “false flag” operation.

The Lambton Quay store in Wellington had copies of two issues of New Dawn magazine for sale this week. It was also spotted in another Wellington store, Johnsonville, and at New Lynn in West Auckland.”

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How to counter Holocaust denial–a particular type of hate speech

By Mark White | Nov 22, 2022

Article

Treblinka train station sign

What does it mean, to ‘counter hate speech with more speech’?

Hint: it doesn’t mean 5 minutes for the Jews and 5 minutes for Hitler.

In 1971, over the course of several months, historian Gitta Sereny trudged regularly into a prison in Dusseldorf, Germany to sit across a small table from Franz Stangl, former commandant of the extermination camp Treblinka. Between April and June of that year, Sereny collected over 70 hours of interviews with Stangl who died on June 28–within hours of her last visit. For the following 18 months Sereny continued researching details of the stories Stangl had told her and to speak to people who had known him when he was in charge of killing operations at Treblinka.

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Rumors, Mob Justice and Free Speech – this time the Roma community is the target

By Mark White | Oct 23, 2022

Article

A little over a week ago, on October 11, a young woman in France sat down in front of her video camera and earnestly recounted the story of her narrow escape from a sex trafficking and possible organ trafficking gang operating from the train station in the city of Marseille. Against the backdrop of ominous music she tells her story...

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Daphna Whitmore and Mark White Discuss Why the Left has Abandoned Free Speech

By Plebity | Oct 10, 2022

Free Speech Union Podcast

Mark and Daphna discuss how the Left of the past was at the forefront of defending free speech, why that is no longer the case and why the Left shouldn't bet their money on tech billionaires like Elon Musk to be their free speech savior.

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Using the ‘Harm’ Argument to Censor Online Speech

By Rozali Telbis | Oct 4, 2022

Article

What constitutes harm?

This is the question currently debated by Canadian lawmakers surrounding the Online Harms Bill — a controversial bill currently under development that seeks to protect vulnerable people online and curb the dissemination of ‘harmful’ content.

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Redline, a voice in the wilderness for leftists who believe in free speech

By Plebity | Sep 17, 2022

In these times, leftists who espouse free speech are like wanderers in the wilderness. The political sands may be swirling so intensely that they are unable to see clearly, but the desert is actually filled with like-minded wanderers, each mistakenly thinking they are alone.

That is why it is all the more important to discover and support a site like Redline. Redline is a blog collective in New Zealand that combines original content with a carefully chosen selection of re-posted articles.

The content on Redline reinforces a consistent editorial line centered on class, worker rights and feminism, grounded in the materialism of the traditional left and on the principle of free speech.

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Who decides what we are allowed to say?

By Mark White | Sep 6, 2022

Article

Free speech decisions on social networks are guided by an unknown mesh of personal predilections of tech company CEOs and their boards. They are driven by profit motive and the competition of rivals. The algorithms that enforce their censorship are based on rules that we know nothing about; we haven’t participated in their design or voted on their adoption.

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Why the left needs free speech

By Mark White | Aug 17, 2022

ARTICLE

The Stepford Wives was a movie that came out in 1972 and might not be very well remembered today but which nonetheless contributed a useful metaphor for describing certain aspects of our society. Briefly, the Stepford Wives were the possessed and submissive versions of their original human selves, surreptitiously transformed one by one and reappearing as empty husks of what they had once been.

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Blasphemy – a notion that crystallizes so many of the issues around free speech

By Mark White | Aug 12, 2022

ARTICLE

In the west, we often think that the right to question religious authority is a battle that was won long ago. Most people think it’s at best an anachronism in today’s world. But it wasn’t so long ago that questioning church canon could lead to arrest, torture and a painful, fiery death.

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Here are the articles on Free speech

What does it mean, to ‘counter hate speech with more speech’?