Whole days sometimes pass when I feel the wind at our backs in our fight for free speech. The European Commission sacked its top censor after he expressed concerns about Elon Musk interviewing Donald Trump. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of São Paulo to protest censorship. And Senators in Ireland appeared to have defeated hateful hate speech censorship legislation.
Then, the wind abruptly shifts. Brazil freezes the assets of Starlink, forcing Musk and X to make a Hobson’s choice on censorship. California’s Coastal Commission blocks additional Starlink launches because its members hate Musk. Word arrives that the Irish government will try to sneak through censorship legislation as early as this week. And we hear from our friends that the Australian government is trying to ram through legislation that would give the government the power to decide what’s true and false and bankrupt social media companies that disagree.
