Build a Majority for Palestine

By Norman Finkelstein

May 10, 2024

Source: Jacobin




Holocaust scholar and pro-Palestine activist Norman Finkelstein expresses his support for the student protests, insisting on the importance of free speech and uniting the majority of Americans around solidarity with Gaza.

On April 21, 2024, Holocaust scholar and prominent pro-Palestine activist Norman Finkelstein visited the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University. Finkelstein expressed his support and admiration for the student protesters, urging them to focus on bringing in the widest possible constituency into the Palestine solidarity movement and insisting on the vital importance of free speech and academic freedom for the Palestinian cause. We reprint his remarks here; the transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

I don’t want to claim any kind of expertise, and I have to always be careful of appearing to be condescending or patronizing, or [claiming to be] all-wise in these matters. I would simply say, based on my experience, the most important things are organization, leadership, and having clear objectives.

Clear objectives means basically two things. One is slogans that are going to unite and not divide. In my youth, when I was your age, I was what was called back in the day a “Maoist” — a follower of Chairman Mao in China. One of the slogans that was famously associated with him was “Unite the many to defeat the few.”

That means, at any juncture in the political struggle, you have to figure out how you can unite the many and isolate the few with a clear objective in mind. Obviously, you don’t want to unite the many with a goal or objective that is not your objective. You have to figure out, having your objective in mind, what is the slogan that will work the best to unite the many and defeat the few?

I was gratified that the movement as a whole, shortly after October 7, spontaneously and intuitively grasped, in my opinion, the right slogan: “Cease-fire now!” Some of you might think, in retrospect, what was so brilliant about that slogan? Wasn’t it obvious?

But in fact political slogans are never obvious. There are all sorts of routes and paths and byways that people can go down that are destructive to the movement. It wasn’t a leadership decision, I don’t think; it was a spontaneous, intuitive sense by the protesters that the right slogan at this moment is “Cease-fire now.”

I would also say, in my opinion, the slogans have to be as clear as possible, leaving no room for ambiguity or misinterpretation, which can be exploited to discredit a movement. If you take the history of struggle, there was the famous slogan going back to the late 1800s, “The eight-hour working day.” It was a clear slogan.

More recent, in your own living memory — for all the disappointments, in my opinion, of the Bernie Sanders presidential candidacy — one of the geniuses of his candidacy, because he had forty or fifty years of experience on the Left, [was the slogan] “Medicare for all.” You might think, what’s so smart about that slogan? He knew that he could reach 80 percent of Americans with that slogan. He knew that “Abolish student debt” and “Free college tuition” would resonate with a large part of his potential constituency.

He didn’t go beyond what was possible at that particular moment. I do think he reached what we might call “the political limit.” The limit at that point in his candidacy was probably jobs for all, public works programs, a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, abolish student debt, and free college tuition. Those were the right slogans. It may seem trivial, but it really is not. It takes a lot of hard work and sensitivity to the constituency that you’re trying to reach to figure out the right slogans.
Free Gaza, Free Speech

My own view is that some of the slogans of the current movement don’t work. The future belongs to you guys and not to me, and I’m a strong believer in democracy. You have to decide for yourselves. But in my view, you have to pick the slogans which are not ambiguous, leaving no wiggle room for misinterpretation, and which have the biggest likelihood at a given political moment of reaching the largest number of people. That’s my political experience.

I believe the “Cease-fire now” slogan is most important. On a college campus, that slogan should be twinned with the slogan of “Free speech.” If I were in your situation, I would say “Free Gaza, free speech” — that should be the slogan. Because I think, on a college campus, people have a real problem defending the repression of speech.

In recent years, because of the emergence of the identity-politics, cancel-culture ambiance on college campuses, the whole issue of free speech and academic freedom has become severely clouded. I have opposed any restrictions on free speech, and I oppose the identity-politics cancel culture on the grounds of preserving free speech.

I’ll say — not as a point of pride or egotism or to say “I told you so,” but just as a factual matter — in the last book I wrote, I explicitly said that if you use the standard of hurt feelings as a ground to stifle or repress speech, when Palestinians protest this, that, or the other, Israeli students are going to use the claim of hurt feelings, pained emotions, and that whole language and vocabulary, which is so easily turned against those who have been using it in the name of their own cause.

That was a disaster waiting to happen. I wrote about it because I knew what would happen, though obviously I could not have predicted the scale after October 7. But it was perfectly obvious what was going to happen.

In my opinion, the most powerful weapon you have is the weapon of truth and justice. You should never create a situation where you can be silenced on the grounds of feelings and emotions. If you listened to [Columbia president Minouche Shafik’s] remarks, it was all about hurt feelings, feeling afraid. That whole language has completely corrupted the notion of free speech and academic freedom.

You now have that experience, and hopefully going forward that language and those concepts will be jettisoned from a movement that describes itself as belonging to a leftist tradition. It’s a complete catastrophe when that language infiltrates leftist discourse, as you are seeing now.

I’m going to be candid with you, and I don’t make any claim to infallibility — I’m simply stating based on my own experience in politics: I don’t agree with the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” It’s very easy to amend and just say, “From the river to the sea, Palestinians will be free.” That simple, little amendment drastically reduces the possibility of your being manipulatively misunderstood.

But when I was hearing that this slogan causes pain, anguish, fear, I have to ask myself a simple question. What does the slogan “We support the IDF” convey? The Israel Defense Forces, right now, is a genocidal army. Why are you allowed to have public support at this moment for a genocidal state and a genocidal army?

The language doesn’t seem as provocative — “We support the IDF.” But the content is ten thousand times more offensive and more outrageous to any, so to speak, civilized mind and civilized heart than the “From the river to the sea” slogan. The only reason there is an argument about that slogan — even though, as I said, I disagree with it, but that’s a separate matter whether I agree or disagree — is because we have legitimized this notion that hurt feelings are grounds for stifling speech. That to me is totally unacceptable; it’s wholly alien to the notion of academic freedom.

Some of you might say, that’s a bourgeois notion, it’s socially constructed, and all that other crap. I don’t believe that at all. You read the most eloquent defenses of unhindered, untrammeled freedom of speech by people like Rosa Luxemburg, who was, by any reckoning, an extraordinary individual and an extraordinary revolutionary. But being both did not mean she would accept any curbs on the principle of free speech, for two reasons.

Number one, no radical movement can make any kind of progress unless it has clarity about its goals and clarity about what it might be doing that’s wrong. You’re always engaging in course corrections. Everybody makes mistakes. Unless you have free speech, you don’t know what you’re doing that’s wrong.

Number two, the truth is not an enemy to oppressed peoples, and it’s certainly not an enemy to the people of Gaza. So we should maximize our commitment to free speech so as to maximize the dissemination of what’s true about what’s happening in Gaza — and not allow any excuse for repressing that truth.
What Are We Trying to Accomplish?

You’re doing ten thousand things right, and it’s deeply moving what you’ve achieved and accomplished, and the fact that many of you are putting your futures on the line is very impressive. I remember during the anti–Vietnam War movement, there were young people who wanted to go to medical school — and if you got arrested, you weren’t going to medical school. Many people struggled with the choice between getting arrested for the cause. It wasn’t an abstract cause — by the end of the war, the estimate was that between two and three million Vietnamese had been killed. It was an unfolding horror show every day.

People struggled with whether they would risk their entire futures. Many of you come from backgrounds where it was a real struggle to get to where you are today, to Columbia University. So I deeply respect your courage, your conviction, and every opportunity I have I acknowledge the incredible conviction and tenacity of your generation, which in many ways is more impressive than my own, for the reason that, in my generation, you can’t deny that an aspect of the antiwar movement was the fact that the draft lay on a lot of people. You could get the student deferment for the four years that you’re in college, but once the deferment passed, there was a good chance you were going over there and you were coming back in a body bag.

So there was an element of self-concern. Whereas you young people, you’re doing it for a tiny, stateless people halfway around the world. That’s deeply moving, deeply impressive, and deeply inspiring.

With that as an introduction, to return to my initial remarks: I said any movement has to ask itself: What is its goal? What is its objective? What is it trying to achieve? A few years ago, “From the river to the sea” was a slogan of the movement. I remember in the 1970s, one of the slogans was, “Everyone should know, we support the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization]” — which was not an easy slogan to shout on Fifth Avenue in the 1970s. I vividly recall looking at the rooftops and waiting for a sniper to dispatch me to eternity at an early age.

However, there’s a very big difference when you’re essentially a political cult and you can shout any slogan that you like, because it has no public repercussions or reverberations. You’re essentially talking to yourself. You’re setting up a table on campus, giving out literature for Palestine; you might get five people who are interested. There’s a big difference between that situation and the situation you’re in today, where you have a very large constituency that you could potentially and realistically reach.

You have to adjust to the new political reality that there are large numbers of people, probably a majority, who are potentially receptive to your message. I understand that sometimes a slogan is one that gives spirit to those who are involved in the movement. Then you have to figure out the right balance between the spirit that you want to inspire in your movement and the audience or the constituency out there that’s not part of the movement that you want to reach.

I believe one has to exercise — not in a conservative sense, but a radical sense — in a moment like this, maximum responsibility to get out of one’s navel, to crawl out of one’s ego, and to always keep in mind the question: What are we trying to accomplish at this particular moment?

Norman Finkelstein received his PhD from the Princeton University Politics Department in 1987. He is the author of many books that have been translated into 60 foreign editions, including THE HOLOCAUST INDUSTRY: Reflections on the exploitation of Jewish suffering, GAZA: An inquest into its martyrdom, and most recently, I ACCUSE! Herewith a proof beyond reasonable doubt that ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda whitewashed Israel. He is currently writing a book tentatively titled, I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It: Politically Incorrect Thoughts on Cancel Culture and Academic Freedom In the year 2020, Norman Finkelstein was named the fifth most influential political scientist in the world.

Twitter takeover

Waqqas Ahmad Mir

Published April 30, 2022 

The writer is a lawyer in Pakistan.

TWITTER is, in Elon Musk’s words, the ‘de facto public town square’. Should we worry it is now owned by the world’s richest man? This takeover has important implications for how we think about free speech, our discourse and independence of publication platforms from powerful owners.

There is consensus that newspaper owners should not be able to control or stifle editorial independence. Twitter’s model presents a twist: there is no buffer of an editorial board and everyone has their say. With more than 80 million followers, Musk can exert significant influence. A lot of people seem to think Musk owning Twitter means he will likely not be censored. He can promote viewpoints or ridicule at will. This is a credibility issue and if Twitter’s policies are applied in shadowy ways, it will become harder to believe in Musk’s proclaimed ‘pathological’ obsession with the truth.

While Musk should continue to receive scrutiny, his ownership of Twitter need not lead to assumptions about misuse of position. Him picking on certain Twitter employees (including the woman who heads Twitter’s legal department) does little to assuage concerns about bad behaviour, yet hurting a platform’s credibility after buying it would not make business or strategic sense.

He does want to influence Twitter’s content regulation. He has no issues being called a ‘free speech absolutist’; no one has ever been able to give a coherent description of what the term means. And his approach to content issues (if in doubt, let the tweet stay) doesn’t take us very far.

Musk needs to be bold to protect the vulnerable.

Marginalised groups and citizens face severe abuse, harassment and threats on Twitter. Relaxing content control could risk alienating many. Musk recently said by ‘free speech’ he means speech allowed by the law. The law in that reference is the First Amendment, which determines restrictions on state action interfering with speech. A private corporation is free to consider different standards. For a marketplace of ideas to exist, he needs to ensure people want to come to the market. Content regulation is something where Musk may have to continue to defer to experts and inclusive processes.

Encouragingly, Musk has promised he will take on spam bots. This will aid free speech and his aim to authenticate all humans on Twitter will add to the platform’s credibility.

Musk reckons Twitter’s algorithms should be open source, so people can learn and suggest improvements. Different users may be able to rely on different algorithms. This will sound revolutionary to some — and will spark worry in others who may cite issues involving the lay user’s limitations about choices of algorithms, issues around intellectual property protection, implications for the revenue stream, etc. The issue nonetheless is compelling. Consider another position Musk has articulated: if Twitter promotes or demotes your tweet, you should be able to tell.

As opposed to bans, Musk reckons ‘time outs’ backed by transparency might work better. Everyone is allowed back in the room if they behave themselves — yes, even Donald Trump.

If Twitter aims to build more trust between governments and the people, Musk is saying that enhancing the public’s trust through transparency in Twitter itself is necessary.

While advocating free speech, Musk also said Twitter should obey laws of the countries it operates in. Is this a contradiction? Twitter’s value exists in being able to broadcast and amplify speech that challenges — sometimes violates — restrictive free speech laws in many countries where it operates. Following the laws of countries could mean voices of dissidents and human rights defenders are marginalised. This will be music to the ears of almost all governments. No doubt compliance is prudent business but when celebrating speech, Musk needs to be bold to protect the vulnerable.

None of this should obscure the fact that banks do not agree to lend billions for free speech. Twitter will undergo important changes. Musk might take it from an ad-based revenue model to a paid subscription leading to a ‘blue tick’. Then there is the ‘edit’ button he has mentioned — who doesn’t want that? He has spoken of end-to-end encryption on Twitter and enhancing it as a communication medium.

This takeover is a reminder of the power of corporations — indeed, even of one rich man — but there is something more at stake. Ultimately, if we care about free speech, we the people have to prioritise it in our politics and discourse. A corporation or those controlling it cannot always be held accountable like a government. But our collective and diverse voices can and do change how governments, and ultimately even corporations, act. Musk’s burning ambition has started off another conversation — we are all better off for it — but he need not be the one controlling the discourse. That is how politics works and this is an algorithm we figured out long before Twitter.


Twitter @wamwordoflaw
Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2022

Alex Jones and his media company have a net worth up to $270 million, forensic economist testifies, saying the conspiracy theorist has monetized 'hate speech'


Natalie Musumeci,Haven Orecchio-Egresitz
August 5, 2022·2

Alex Jones.Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call

Alex Jones and his media company Free Speech Systems have a net worth of up to $270 million, a forensic economist testified.

"He is a very successful man," forensic economist Bernard Pettingill said of Jones.

Sandy Hook parents who sued Jones over his false "hoax" claims about the massacre are seeking punitive damages from him.

Far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and the parent company that operates his Infowars website have a net worth of up to $270 million, a forensic economist testified in a Texas court on Friday.

The combined net worth of Jones and his media company Free Speech Systems — which filed for bankruptcy protection last week — is estimated between $135 million and $270 million, forensic economist Bernard Pettingill said during the Sandy Hook defamation trial against Jones.

"As much of a maverick that he is, as much of an outsider that he is, he is a very successful man," Pettingill said of Jones as he likened the broadcaster to 13th century Mongolian warrior Genghis Khan.

The forensic economist also estimated Jones' personal net worth between $70 million to $140 million.

"You cant separate Alex Jones from the company — he is the company," Pettingill told the court.

"He didn't ride a wave, he created the wave," Pettingill told the court, explaining that he believes Jones is a "revolutionary."

Pettingill testified that Jones "promulgated some hate speech and some misinformation, but he made a lot of money and he monetized that."

Jone was found liable for defamation by default by the Texas court and a court in Connecticut for falsely claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting was a "hoax."

Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis — the parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, who was one of the 26 killed in the Newtown, Connecticut, massacre — sued Jones, the founder of Infowars, and Free Speech Systems for defamation over his falsehoods about the mass shooting.

On Thursday, a jury awarded Heslin and Lewis more than $4 million in compensatory damages; now Jones faces additional punitive penalties for his repeated falsehoods.

Pettingill, who was hired by the plaintiffs to testify about Jones' net worth, told the court that he tracked Jones' funds and found that Jones raked in $165 million from September 2015 to December 2018.

"It averages to $53.2 million-a-year, but that is the starting point," Pettingill said as he pointed to previous testimony in the case from Jones who told the court that Infowars took in $70 million in revenue last year.

Pettingill testified that he found that Jones withdrew $61.9 million from Free Speech Systems in 2021 — the year the default judgements were issued against Jones.

"That number represents in my opinion, a value, a value of Alex Jones' net worth," said Pettingill.

Pettingill said that Jones withdrew another $18 million from Free Speech Systems over a three-year period from 2015 to 2018.

New head of Alex Jones' company faces questions from lawyers for Sandy Hook families

By Sonia Moghe, CNN

Thu August 4, 2022



(CNN Business)The accountant now in charge of overseeing right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' company Free Speech Systems through its bankruptcy was questioned Wednesday by attorneys for families of Sandy Hook shooting victims over $62 million in funds Jones has drawn from the company over the years.

Free Speech Systems, which runs Jones' conspiratorial outlet Infowars, filed for bankruptcy protection on Friday, amid proceedings in two states to determine how much Jones owes in damages to families of Sandy Hook victims over his false claims that the shooting was a hoax and they had not actually gone through the experience of losing a child in it.

Marc Schwartz testified he signed a contract to take over as Chief Restructuring Officer for the company in June and now controls all bank accounts, payroll and hiring decisions. Schwartz testified that Jones withdrew about $62 million dollars from the company over 14 years, and testified that $30 million of those withdrawals was paid to the IRS.

Schwartz also testified during the hearing, which ran for more than six hours, that Infowars received about $9 million in cryptocurrency donations and that "they went directly to Mr. Jones."



Alex Jones' company files for bankruptcy amid Texas trial to award damages to Sandy Hook families
Schwartz said during his testimony that Free Speech Systems should be allowed to use cash it has on hand to be able to pay vendors, saying otherwise it will have to shut down.

"If we can't pay the critical vendors then we will be shut down," Schwartz said. "The company's in a situation right now where there's not a whole lot of breathing room."

US Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez said Wednesday he would not permit more withdrawals moving forward and that he found some of Schwartz's testimony "troubling."

Court documents filed Friday as part of Free Speech Systems' bankruptcy showed the company has between $10 million and $50 million in estimated assets and between $50 million and $100 million in estimated liabilities. An attorney for Free Speech Systems said at the hearing Wednesday that the company has about $1.3 million cash on hand.

Schwartz stressed the importance of being able to pay vendors that allow the company to broadcast and sell products online, saying that when Jones is not on the air discussing products he sells, the company sees a 30% drop in sales.

"If we can't broadcast, we can't sell," Schwartz said.

Schwartz testified the management structure of Free Speech Systems was not set up the way a successful business should be managed.

"There is Alex and then there is everybody else," Schwartz testified.

Schwartz said accounting controls were, as far as he could tell after taking control of the company, "nonexistent," that the people responsible for maintaining the company's books did not have accounting degrees and that there had been no financial reports produced in at least 18 months when he took over.
Lawyers homed in on Jones' salary under the bankruptcy plan, saying documents showed Jones' salary before the bankruptcy was $625,000 a year, and under a restructuring plan, it would amount to about $1.3 million. Schwartz said Jones' salary could be considered reasonable because of his value to the company.


Sandy Hook family attorney exposes Alex Jones' dishonesty during brutal cross-examination
"Who is more valuable? Nobody," Schwartz said. Lopez authorized a lower salary for Jones to be paid, of about $20,000 every other week.

When asked how much the company had spent on legal expenses related to the Sandy Hook lawsuits, Schwartz said company records show at least $4.5 million have been spent between 2018 and 2021, but that he does not believe that number is accurate.

Schwartz also testified that Jones used a company-associated American Express card to pay for personal expenses, including housekeeping charges, regularly in the past 18 months. The card had $300,000 a month in charges, but Schwartz said accounting staff did not label what the charges were for.

"We can't tell you whether it's for electricity, entertainment or electronic supplies for the production studio," Schwartz said.

Lopez said he would not authorize the current American Express bill of about $172,000 to be paid.
Schwartz said he didn't know who Jones was before being hired, and that he doesn't agree with many of Jones' views but occasionally consults with him on matters involving the business.

Three smaller companies tied to Jones declared bankruptcy earlier this year, briefly pausing the suits against Jones. But the families suing him dropped those companies from their lawsuits so that the cases could move forward against only Jones and Free Speech Systems. Shortly after, the companies exited bankruptcy protection.

-- CNN's Oliver Darcy contributed reporting.

The Asian Voice

Twitterdom with a new king should worry us all: Daily Star contributor

The writer says the role of social media for free expression is crucial in general, but especially important in countries where democracy is weakening.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk at the E3 gaming convention in Los Angeles on June 13, 2019. 

PHOTO: REUTERS

Kamal Ahmed

DHAKA (THE DAILY STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - Elon Musk, a self-proclaimed free-speech absolutist and the world's richest man, is the new king of Twitterdom.

His takeover of Twitter may have provided the company a much-needed new direction of exploring uncharted adventures, as its founder Jack Dorsey says, "Solving for the problem of it being a company, however, Elon is the singular solution I trust." The reason for using "however" by Dorsey in his tweet was in his words, "In principle, I don't believe anyone should own or run Twitter. It wants to be a public good at a protocol level, not a company."

The way Musk, Twitter's top troll, bullied the management of the company and bought it indicates that the platform may not remain a space for public good as it becomes a private property. Here's a reminder about the acquisition of Twitter that he said, "this is not about economics, this is about power and influence."

With 86.1 million followers, Elon Musk is the top Twitterati, but he has also courted controversy by taunting others on the Twittersphere. Musk has been described as a troll by none other than a former insider of the company, Twitter's former head of news and currently the executive director of the Aspen Institute, Vivian Schiller.

And there's no dearth of examples. The New York Times reported that before his pivotal meeting with the Twitter's board, Mr Musk tweeted in which he made fun of Bill Gates for taking a short position on Tesla. His tweeting habit does not give much confidence in his post-takeover tweet that he hopes his "worst critics remain on Twitter."

The way the Tesla boss bought Twitter was also quite unconventional. He first wanted to know how much it would cost for buying by firing a tweet. Then he acquired more than nine percent of the shares, but discounted speculations of taking a seat on the board or interfering in running the business.

But within days, he made a new enticing offer through a tweet to buy the whole company, and the deal was done at an unprecedented speed. His critics, therefore, have every reason to argue that Musk is desperate to gain more power, and promotion of free speech is a mere facade.

Why does the Twitter takeover by Elon Musk matter for anyone in Bangladesh, when it has a tiny audience of about 750,000, whereas Facebook has a whopping 44.5 million users?

Social media platforms worldwide have been increasingly coming under scrutiny-mainly owing to its power of democratisation, but also for its toxicity. The role of social media for free expression is crucial in general, but especially important in countries where democracy is weakening or rulers are becoming autocrats.

Therefore, prospects of more freedom of expression or free speech should be a very welcoming development. If any one of the existing social media platforms becomes more democratic, then there's bound to be some positive impact on the rest.

And in terms of social influence, Twitter with more than 300 million users enjoys a certain edge over Facebook or Instagram, despite those having far larger subscriber numbers. It's due to the nature of the content, which is more news-oriented than personal and family affairs and networking.

But the scary prospect is its potential toxicity, where individuals could face an endless torrent of abuse based on their skin colour, faith, gender, political ideology, and so on.

Vivian Schiller told BBC's Radio 4 on Monday (April 25) that about two weeks ago, when asked how he would make the platform more free speech-friendly, Mr Musk could not give a clear answer. Musk's declaration, so far, is that he wants to see more "free speech" and less moderation. Many right-wing forces, like Trumpian Republicans in the US, who have long been complaining that Twitter's moderation policies favour the freedom of speech of left-leaning viewpoints, rejoiced.

According to Ms Schiller, this moderation is an art without which this public space is ungovernable. She also admitted that the Twitter management had not always had it right. The most glaring example in the US of Twitter being used to incite violence was the Jan 6 insurrection at Capitol Hill by Trump supporters, fuelled by conspiracy theories that led to the permanent ban of the outgoing president on Twitter. In India, presumably the largest democracy in the world, we have seen how religious hate preaching on Twitter has been spreading communal division and violence. It, therefore, makes Elon Musk's proposition of unbound free speech a serious cause for concern as it could amplify disinformation too.

There is no doubt that we all love freedom of expression and hate censorship, but not without restraints on the spread of hate and violence. Some of his memorable tweets include those against Covid-19 lock-down bolstering conspiracy theorists, extending support to Canadian truckers' disruptive sit-in protest, and violating Securities and Exchange Commission directives that led to wiping out of US$14 billion (S$19.4 billion) in a minute from the share market. Repeating such erratic behaviour now will no longer make him accountable to anyone, other than expensive private legal actions.

One thing that encourages most of us is that Elon Musk has promised to bring transparency in Twitter's algorithm, making the metrics of populism and support visible, and cracking down on bots. If it happens, then ghost followers of many popular but controversial figures will disappear.

In India, Twitter's third top market, political observers have begun speculating that the IT cells of major political parties will be folding as they are accused of maintaining bots and troll armies. However, Musk could have brought in such transparency without taking it out from the public control, as he had the opportunity to take up a seat on the company board with the single largest holding of its shares.

Many observers believe that the US$44 billion takeover will push politicians and regulators around the world to bring in new and stringent rules on social networks and force them to take more responsibility for the content they carry, issuing steep fines for non-compliance on material that incites violence, is abusive or classifies as hate speech, among other things.

In the US Congress, before Twitter's takeover, it was the Republicans who were pushing for taking on Big Tech companies, and now Democrats have started gearing up for a fight.

The writer is an independent journalist and writes from London. The Daily Star is a member of The Straits Times media partner Asia News Network, an alliance of 23 news media organisations

MORE ON THIS TOPIC
Elon Musk's deal for Twitter includes a $1.4 billion break-up fee

A look back at Elon Musk's tweets: Musings and missteps

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Musk's Twitter purchase puts moral champion in crosshairs

2022/4/27 
© Agence France-Presse

Elon Musk, the world's richest man, has vowed to be a free speech absolutist when he takes control of the global messaging platform

San Francisco (AFP) - The fate of Twitter's top attorney, deemed a moral champion of the platform, was in doubt Wednesday after Elon Musk tweeted displeasure with content moderation she had carried out.

Musk, the world's richest man, has vowed to be a free speech absolutist when he takes control of the global messaging platform as part of a $44 billion deal.

The lawyer, Vijaya Gadde, has led efforts to battle bullying and posts that could lead to real-world harm such as the attack on the US Capitol by supporters of former US president Donald Trump.

She was also involved in decisions such as removing political advertising from Twitter, and banning Trump from the platform for instigating the January 6 attack.

Musk on Tuesday criticized Gadde's role in taking down a New York Post story about the overseas business dealings of President Joe Biden's son Hunter ahead of the 2020 election.

The billionaire said that banning the story was "incredibly inappropriate" in a tweet responding to another user's post that included a Politico article detailing how Gadde had cried during a meeting about the Musk takeover.

Musk went on to retweet a meme featuring Gadde and accusing Twitter of having a "left-wing bias", prompting former Twitter chief Dick Costolo to fire off a reply asking what he was trying to accomplish.

"You're making an executive at the company you just bought the target of harassment and threats," Costolo said in the tweeted reply to Musk.

-Tweet clause -

The deal Musk signed to buy Twitter comes with a clause saying he can tweet about the merger as long as the posts "do not disparage the company or any of its representatives."

Women's rights group UltraViolet said Musk's tweets aimed at Gadde are "proof positive that his leadership of the company will open the floodgates of harassment and abuse."

"The fact that not even one day after the deal was announced, Musk was already breaking the terms of his agreement with Twitter to explicitly single out and encourage harassment against one of Twitter’s top employees, is all you need to know about his intentions," said the organization's spokesperson, Bridget Todd.

Twitter chief Parag Agrawal defended his team in tweets of his own on Wednesday, endorsing a post that praised its lawyers as among the most aggressive in going to court to protect free speech.

"I took this job to change Twitter for the better, course correct where we need to, and strengthen the service," Agrawal tweeted.

"Proud of our people who continue to do the work with focus and urgency despite the noise."

Users taking flight?

In a further sign Musk may do some housecleaning, he also responded to online criticism of another Twitter lawyer, stating that the individual had acted in a prior job at the FBI in a way that "sounds pretty bad."

Musk has said he wants to increase trust in Twitter, which he sees as a digital town square for free speech and debate.

Key figures on the American left, including former president Barack Obama, have shed thousands of followers since Musk's planned purchase of Twitter emerged, as users appeared to be following through on promises to leave the platform. Numbers have soared, meanwhile, for right-wing politicians.

Twitter co-founder and former chief executive Jack Dorsey has tweeted his support for Musk taking the company private, saying that his goal of creating a "maximally trusted and broadly inclusive" platform is the right one.

"In principle, I don't believe anyone should own or run Twitter," Dorsey said in a string of tweets.

"It wants to be a public good at a protocol level, not a company."

Musk’s ‘free speech’ push for Twitter: Repeating history?

By BARBARA ORTUTAY and AMANDA SEITZ

April 26, 2022

The Twitter page of Elon Musk is seen on the screen of a computer in Sausalito, Calif., on Monday, April 25, 2022. On Monday, Musk reached an agreement to buy Twitter for about $44 billion. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is spending $44 billion to acquire Twitter with the stated aim of turning it into a haven for “free speech.” There’s just one problem: The social platform has been down this road before, and it didn’t end well.

A decade ago, a Twitter executive dubbed the company “the free speech wing of the free speech party” to underscore its commitment to untrammeled freedom of expression. Subsequent events put that moniker to the test, as repressive regimes cracked down on Twitter users, particularly in the wake of the short-lived “Arab Spring” demonstrations. In the U.S., a visceral 2014 article by journalist Amanda Hess exposed the incessant, vile harassment many women faced just for posting on Twitter or other online forums.

Over the subsequent years, Twitter learned a few things about the consequences of running a largely unmoderated social platform — one of the most important being that companies generally don’t want their ads running against violent threats, hate speech that bleeds into incitement, and misinformation that aims to tip elections or undermine public health.

“With Musk, his posturing of free speech — just leave everything up — that would be bad in and of itself,” said Paul Barrett, the deputy director of the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University. “If you stop moderating with automated systems and human reviews, a site like Twitter, in the space of a short period of time, you would have a cesspool.”

Google, Barrett pointed out, quickly learned this lesson the hard way when major companies like Toyota and Anheuser-Busch yanked their ads after they ran ahead of YouTube videos produced by extremists in 2015.

Once it was clear just how unhealthy the conversation had gotten, Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey spent years trying to improve what he called the “health” of the conversation on the platform.

The company was an early adopter of the “report abuse” button after U.K. member of parliament Stella Creasy received a barrage of rape and death threats on the platform. The online abuse was the result of a seemingly positive tweet in support of feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez, who successfully advocated for novelist Jane Austen to appear on a British banknote. Creasy’s online harasser was sent to prison for 18 weeks.

Twitter has continued to craft rules and invested in staff and technology that detect violent threats, harassment and misinformation that violates its policies. After evidence emerged that Russia used their platforms to try to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, social media companies also stepped up their efforts against political misinformation.

The big question now is how far Musk, who describes himself as a “free-speech absolutist,” wants to ratchet back these systems — and whether users and advertisers will stick around if he does.

Even now, Americans say they’re more likely to be harassed on social media than any other online forum, with women, people of color and LGBTQ users reporting a disproportionate amount of that abuse. Roughly 80% of users believe the companies are still doing only a “fair or poor” job of handling that harassment, according to a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults last year.

Meanwhile, terms like “censorship” and “free speech” have turned into political rallying cries for conservatives, frustrated by seeing right-leaning commentators and high-profile Republican officials booted off Facebook and Twitter for violating their rules.

Musk appeared to criticize Twitter’s permanent ban of President Donald Trump last year for messages that the tech company said helped incite the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last year.

“A lot of people are going to be super unhappy with West Coast high tech as the de facto arbiter of free speech,” Musk tweeted days after Trump was banned from both Facebook and Twitter.

Trump’s allies, including his son Donald Trump Jr., have even pleaded for Musk to buy out the company.

“If Elon Musk can privately send people into space I’m sure he can design a social network that isn’t biased,” Trump Jr. said in the caption of a video posted to Instagram last April.

Kirsten Martin, a professor of technology ethics at the University of Notre Dame, said Twitter has consistently worked at being a “responsible” social media company through its moderation system, its hires in the area of machine learning ethics and in whom they allow to do research on the platform. The fact that Musk wants to change that, she added, suggests that he’s focused on “irresponsible social media.”

Twitter declined to comment for this story. A representative for Musk did not immediately respond to a message for comment.

New social media apps targeted at conservatives, including Trump’s Truth Social, haven’t come remotely close to matching the success of Facebook or Twitter. That’s partly because Republican politicians, politicians and causes already draw large audiences on existing, and much better established, platforms.

It’s also partly due to floods of inflammatory, false or violent posts. Last year, for example, right-wing social media site Parler was nearly wiped off the internet when it became evident that rioters had used the app to promote violent messages and organize the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol. Apple and Google barred its app from their online stores, while Amazon stopped providing web-hosting services for the site.

Musk himself regularly blocks social media users who have criticized him or his company and sometimes bullies reporters who have written critical articles about him or Tesla. He regularly tweets at reporters who write about his company, sometimes mischaracterizing their work as “false” or “misleading.”

His popular tweets typically send a swarm of his social media fans directly to the accounts of the reporters to harass them for hours or days.

“I only block people as a direct insult,” Musk tweeted in 2020, responding to a tweet from a reporter.

Evan Greer, a political activist with Fight for the Future, said Musk’s lack of experience in moderating an influential social media platform will be a problem if he successfully takes over the company.

“If we want to protect free speech online, then we can’t live in a world where the richest person on Earth can just purchase a platform that millions of people depend on and then change the rules to his liking,” Greer said.

TWITTER

EXPLAINER: What Twitter could do as privately held company

What Musk's past tweets reveal about Twitter's next owner

Musk ordered to abide by SEC settlement over 2018 tweets

Musk's Twitter ambitions to collide with Europe's tech rules

Elon Musk Is Waging War on Freedom of Speech on Twitter

BYLUKE SAVAGE
JACOBIN

04.13.2023

It was supposed to be a new day for free speech on Elon Musk’s Twitter. Instead, the petulant billionaire has actually clamped down on speech.

In the months surrounding Elon Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter, a consensus seemed to hold among supporters and critics alike that he embraced a kind of free speech absolutism. To some, this was a virtue; to others, a concern. But most disagreement had to do with whether or not you were optimistic about what a less moderated and more permissive Twitter would bring.

Thus, in the weeks following Musk’s initial purchase of the platform, conservatives and self-identified free speech warriors celebrated the restoration of banned and suspended accounts and the rolling back of existing moderation policies. Critics, meanwhile, warned that Twitter’s new ethos of free speech absolutism was making the site a haven for hate speech and reactionary extremism.

The moderation of an expansive and complicated social media platform like Twitter is bound to be a contentious issue on which reasonable people can disagree. Nonetheless, in the just over five months since Musk’s takeover, it’s become clear that both his supporters and critics were incorrect about what it would actually mean. Whatever else he may be, Elon Musk is certainly no “free speech absolutist,” nor someone particularly committed to freedom of speech at all. His brief tenure as Twitter CEO has in fact broken new ground in free speech suppression and seen him turn the platform into the very thing he pledged to destroy: namely, a place where the free expression of opinion is routinely constrained by heavy-handed and arbitrary fiat.

Left-wing accounts were among the first targeted last fall, with many of the bans following obtuse public exchanges between Musk and odious characters on the Right. Soon after, Musk banned an account posting publicly available information about the whereabouts of his personal private jet. In due course, prominent journalists from Vox, CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times all had their accounts taken away, either because they had reported on or criticized various Musk bans (those accounts were later restored following one of Musk’s now semi-regular Twitter polls asking users whether he should bring them back). Elsewhere, links related to Twitter competitor Mastodon have been targeted while various keywords — among them “bisexual,” “gay,” “lesbian,” “queer,” and “transgender” — have been subjected to soft censorship by Twitter’s algorithm. Despite Musk’s claims to the contrary, Twitter is now waging a similar campaign against publishing platform Substack as well.

Among the most sinister developments of the past few months has been Musk’s apparent willingness to do the bidding of India’s far-right government. In January, the Intercept revealed that Twitter censored a BBC documentary critical of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi in direct coordination with Indian state officials. More recently, amid a police crackdown in the northern state of Punjab, the company suspended more than a hundred accounts belonging to politicians, activists, and journalists, also blocking the official account of BBC News Punjabi. In an apparent first, some of Twitter’s bans in India seem to apply worldwide.

Whatever you might call all of this, it’s certainly not free speech absolutism — let alone anything even approaching a coherent moderation policy. Like so much else about Musk’s rule at Twitter, what is or isn’t allowed on the site at any given time ultimately seems to come down to some combination of the billionaire’s mood, his chaotic temperament, and his personal interests — commercial and otherwise.

The upshot is an environment where virtually anything can be suppressed or stifled at whim if one unfathomably wealthy man believes it should be. If Twitter is a “digital town square,” as Musk called it late last year, then it’s one now governed by a tyrannical and impulsive mayor.

If the past few months are any indication, Musk’s ownership of Twitter will probably be remembered most for the general aura of anarchy that has accompanied it — one characterized by mass layoffs, frequent breakdowns in the site’s basic operations, and the steady exodus of advertisers. In the final estimation, however, the billionaire’s most significant legacy may end up being the repressive approach he has brought to moderating a platform he pledged to make freer, more open, and more inclusive of diverse views. It should be a wake-up call to anyone who believes that moderation of a vital public platform like Twitter can be left to the whims of the market — let alone those of a fifty-one-year-old cringeposter with an inflated reputation and a fragile ego.

Luke Savage is a staff writer at Jacobin. He is the author of The Dead Center: Reflections on Liberalism and Democracy After the End of History.

UCP & TORYS IN CANADA

The right-wing attack on higher education is about the difference between free speech and academic freedom

Rod Graham
June 30, 2022

Teacher in a classroom (Shutterstock)

Rightwing Republicans have since at least the 1960s accused college campuses of indoctrinating students with leftist ideologies. They call for more free speech (read: rightwing speech) in order to combat such indoctrination. And, recently, the calls have been getting louder.

The most visible manifestation of this is Turning Point USA (TPUSA). TPUSA maintains a website called the Professor Watchlist. TPUSA’s list includes academics who are well-known, including Noam Chomsky and Angela Davis. Some are lesser-known. The list also includes lesser-known but vocal academics such as Dr. Anthea Butler, whose authorship of White Evangelical Racism and frequent contributions to MSNBC are tailor-made to catch TPUSA’s eye.

On the TPUSA’s ProfessorWatchlist “about” page, one sees this passage (I bolded key points):
TPUSA will continue to fight for free speech and the right of professors to say whatever they believe; however students, parents and alumni deserve to know the specific incidents and names of professors that advance a radical agenda in our lecture halls.”

READ MORE: Hardening' schools is conceding defeat to violence and death

This statement could have come from any rightwinger.

From my perspective, as an academic, it boils down to a choice.

Do we want our academics to continue teaching and researching according to professional standards? Or do we want academics to compromise those standards in the name of free speech (read: rightwing speech). This understanding hinges on the difference between freedom of speech and academic freedom.

On freedom of speech and academic freedom

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has some ideas. In a webinar earlier this year that can be found on YouTube, DePaul University professor Dr. Valerie Johnson describes the differences between academic freedom and freedom of speech. These ideas, often used interchangeably, are quite distinct.

Freedom of speech and civic engagement is based on the equality of ideas. It is an individual right regulated by law. All speech, at least theoretically, is given equal protection. At a civic meeting, the wealthy Ivy-league educated corporate executive and the working-class custodian have the equal right to express themselves.

By contrast, academic freedom and the classroom experience are based on an inequality of ideas. As Dr. Johnson explained, academic freedom protects activities “manifesting disciplinary competence.”

An academic’s discipline generates knowledge. This knowledge is taught in classrooms. Their discipline has standards for generating new knowledge. These standards apply when conducting research. Academics are protected when research falls within these standards.

When an academic’s activities “manifest disciplinary competence,” they are free to pursue those activities. They can choose their research paths and course content. Teaching certain courses is required, but they choose readings and teaching strategy.

So what conservatives see as indoctrination is simply academics relaying those elevated ideas as determined by their discipline to their students. Sure, the students should be able to have discussions and bring in their perspectives – left, right and center. But ultimately the professor must teach the conclusions from their discipline.

Therefore, threats to academic freedom take a specific form: any group or individual who does not have disciplinary expertise attempting to regulate what academics do violates their freedom.

With this understanding of the difference between free speech and academic freedom, we can look more closely at why this rightwing push for free speech in classrooms (read: rightwing speech) will ultimately force academics to choose competence or conservatism.

Competence or conservatism

While academics tend to be liberal politically, they are bound by professional standards. Third-party accreditation bodies periodically review their course offerings (my university is going through this right now). Moreover, the specific content of a course will always be couched within the consensus from their disciplinary area.

Suppose a professor is teaching Introduction to Sociology. Certain ideas and concepts must be taught for the course to be considered a proper Introduction to Sociology course. The professor’s politics will certainly color some classroom discussions, but ultimately the core content of that course is determined by the discipline.

TPUSA has Faryha Salim on their watchlist. Salim, an adjunct professor at Cypress College, was recorded in a zoom classroom session clashing with a student about police and policing.

The student described police as heroes. Salim countered by claiming that American policing grew out of slave patrols and that police have committed atrocious acts toward citizens and gotten away with it.

Salim also said she would not call the police if in danger because she does not trust them. Her life would be in more danger. The video of that exchange went viral. Salim was removed from the class.

I believe that Salim’s tone could have been better. Students should be able to articulate their viewpoints before the professor relays their discipline’s findings. I can see the concern in that direction.

But the claims that Salim makes are widely accepted within the discipline. The claim that US policing grew out of slave patrols is at this point well understood and a standard claim in criminology. She’s also right that police have done horrible things to citizens and gotten away with it. Finally, the notion that people of color are in more danger in the presence of police is a bit hyperbolic for my taste, but she’s hardly alone in that regard.

 It’s boilerplate in criminology.

Indeed, if a student today graduates with a degree in criminology and does not know the ideas Salim is relaying to her student, ideas that are not hers alone, that degree program has failed that student.

Or consider Dr. Betsey Stevenson, an economist from the University of Michigan. Dr. Stevenson conducted research showing that the vast majority of people found in economics textbooks were male and that this could explain why few women pursue the field of economics.

This is considered a “radical agenda” by TPUSA.

So Dr. Stevenson is on their watchlist.

In reality, Dr. Stevenson is a paragon of professional competence. According to a write-up by her university, she, along with her co-author, presented this work at the annual American Economic Association conference and published this study in a peer-reviewed journal. Her work was then summarized in The Economist.

So what does TPUSA want Dr. Stevenson to do?

She asked a research question acceptable within her field, used the proper methods to generate an answer, presented their findings for critique by peers and colleagues, and then co-published the work.

The examples of Salim and Stevenson point to a question TPUSA and conservatives generally must answer. Do they want professional competence or do they want academics to compromise their standards in order to add more content that conservatives will like?

Choose academic freedom, not free speech

I focused on TPUSA because of its visibility. But they are emblematic of a conservative push in state legislatures across the country.

According to a report by PEN America, 54 separate bills intended to restrict teaching and learning in educational institutions were introduced between January and September 2021. Indeed, on the day that I am finishing this piece, Virginia’s Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin signed our state budget. He pushed for a provision that “requires each public college to adopt an official policy on academic freedom and begin reporting on the state of free expression and diversity of thought on their campus.”

Conservatives are calling for more free speech in order to force professors to consider unsupported conservative ideas. Progressives need to push back on this and advocate for more academic freedom.

Choosing academic freedom is choosing competence.

Rod Graham is a sociologist. A professor at Virginia's Old Dominion University, he researches and teaches courses in the areas of cyber-crime and racial inequality. His work can be found at roderickgraham.com. Follow him @roderickgraham.

GOP Gov. Kristi Noem Demands Drag Show Ban While Touting 'Free Speech'

BY ANDREW STANTON 

NEWSWEEK

ON 5/27/23

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem called for a ban on drag performances at public universities in a memo that also touted efforts to protect "free speech" on college campuses.

Noem released a memo on Friday detailing new plans to improve higher education in South Dakota, which currently has a 6-year graduation rate below the national average. In the memo, Noem calls for a flurry of new policies aimed at making the state a model for "strong, conservative" higher education. Noem's plan, however, is also facing scrutiny for allegedly calling for restrictions on LGBTQ+ students' rights, including the removal of any mentions of "preferred pronouns" in school materials and a ban on drag shows.

Noem's higher education plans come amid an ongoing debate about how issues of sexual orientation and gender identity should be approached in a broad range of institutions, including colleges, which have long sought to strike a balance between safeguards for LGBTQ+ students and the free speech of those who oppose the expansion of rights for the LGBTQ+ community.

Republican-led states have emphasized efforts to protect those "free speech" rights while also rolling back protections for the LGBTQ+ community in schools, saying that educational institutions should not be engaged in "divisive" topics. Critics, meanwhile, have accused GOP lawmakers of targeting an already-marginalized group, calling for stronger protections against discrimination against LGBTQ+ students.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem speaks in Washington, D.C. on February 17. Noem released a new plan to improve higher education in her state on Friday that calls for a ban on drag performances on college campuses, despite also urging new protections for free speech.

ANNA MONEYMAKER/GETTY IMAGES

Noem, a social conservative who has been named as a potential future presidential candidate, expressed opposition to drag shows in her education plan while also calling on the removal of "any policies" that "prohibit" students from expressing their free speech rights.

"The Board of Regents should go further and remove any policies or procedures that prohibit students from exercising their right to free speech. Recently, Black Hills State University came under fire for one such policy that limited student speech – thankfully, the policy was removed. We must prepare our students to discuss and debate opposing ideas in a civil way," the memo reads.

In the next paragraph of the memo, however, Noem called for a ban on drag performances, saying that "divisive theories" surrounding sexual orientation and gender identity should not be "celebrated" using public funds.

"Next, the Board of Regents should prohibit drag shows from taking place on university campuses. Gender theories can and should be debated in college classrooms, but these divisive theories shouldn't be celebrated through public performances on taxpayer-owned property at taxpayer-funded schools," Noem wrote.

Ex-Trump official blasts anti-trans boycott

Newsweek reached out to Noem's office for comment via email.

While Republicans have pushed for protecting the free speech of conservatives who do not support LGBTQ+ rights, critics have accused them of disregarding the freedom of speech of drag performers through their support for banning these performances in public.

In March, a judge appointed by former President Donald Trump ruled against Tennessee's ban on drag performances, citing concerns that such a ban would violate the First Amendment rights of drag performers.

UCP prepares to roll out Ford-flavoured 
post-secondary changes in Alberta

EMMA GRANEY

Updated: May 6, 2019

The UCP government will require Alberta post-secondary institutions to adopt controversial free speech policies based on U.S. principles that allow speakers, no matter how “unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive,” say what they like on campuses.

They are called the Chicago principles.1

Hailed by Advanced Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides and others as the “gold standard,” they were developed by the University of Chicago in 2014 to demonstrate a commitment to free speech on U.S. college campuses.

But some worry they don’t allow universities to distinguish between groups or individuals who want to speak on campus, be it a flat-earth society, racists or a celebrity.

The UCP did not grant Postmedia an interview with Nicolaides.

However, in an emailed statement, he said applying the principles would ensure Alberta post-secondary institutions are competitive with those in the United States.

‘A crass political gesture’

The move echoes a recent edict by Doug Ford’s Ontario government.

Professor Sigal Ben-Porath, a University of Pennsylvania free speech scholar, helped Ontario institutions develop Ford-mandated policies.

Many ended up simply penning a policy saying they supported the Chicago principles, Ben-Porath said, despite the fact the policy cannot apply in Canada as it does in the States because of our hate speech laws.

Ben-Porath supports free speech, and thinks reasoned, adult conversations and guidelines are useful for campus administrators.

She doesn’t like speech codes, lists of acceptable words or academic censorship, and thinks navigating controversial ideas is — and should be — part of post-secondary civic education.

But she doesn’t think blunt instruments cut it.

“We are serving more and more diverse students…. (and) we need to be thoughtful in the ways in which we organize the environment in which they are learning,” she said.

“The Chicago principles have very little to do with any of that, because they don’t actually let you think as an institution what your values are, what your norms are, what is your history, what is the population that you’re serving.”

Gyllian Phillips, Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations president, watched the Ford policy roll out in her province. She called it an unnecessary, “crass political gesture.”

Like Alberta post-secondary institutions, Ontario universities are already governed by a host of regulations including hate speech laws, academic freedoms in collective agreements and student codes of conduct, Phillips said.

‘A very problematic precedent’

Then there are the funding implications.

Ford’s government decreed that any post-secondary institution failing to implement free speech policies could be fiscally punished.

Similarly, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March to bar post-secondary institutions from federal funds if they restrict free speech.

Trump’s action drew a swift rebuke from University of Chicago president Robert Zimmer, a fierce defender of the principles developed by his university.

The Trump order would interfere with the ability of universities to address free speech on their own, Zimmer wrote in a public message to his campus, and would set “a very problematic precedent.”

“It makes the government, with all its power and authority, a party to defining the very nature of discussion on campus,” he wrote.

Nicolaides wouldn’t say whether his government will financially penalize institutions that don’t adopt the principles, saying only the policies would give students and faculty “strong protection with respect to freedom of speech, which is essential to the academic experience.”

Tying funding to performance

The UCP has also promised to “measure labour market outcomes of post-secondary programs to identify the correlation between provincial subsidies and economic returns for taxpayers.”

A similar scheme under Ford tied 60 per cent of provincial funding to performance measures like graduate employment and pay, which Phillips worries will set in motion an “unprecedented” change.

“Instead of universities working together to build different regional or research based or education-based needs for the province, it creates winners and losers,” she said.

“The idea that we should turn universities into competitive entities absolutely ignores the reality that each university is autonomous, it’s different, it serves different populations, it has a different reason for existing.

“If they’re used to peg universities against one another, it’s not going to go well for the system as a whole.”

When asked via email if any post-secondary funding will be tied to labour market outcomes, Nicolaides didn’t answer.

“By working closely with our partners at universities and colleges, we will ensure that we meet the demands of the labour market in this province,” he wrote.

When Postmedia asked Jason Kenney during the election if the UCP would tie university funding to performance measures, he said “it’s not our intention to cut funds.”

Universities mum

The policy direction under the UCP is part of an increasing incursion into higher education by Alberta governments.

Take the NDP’s tuition freeze, which left universities scrambling to make up a funding shortfall; MacEwan University president David Atkinson likened it to “being stoned to death with popcorn.”

Jolene Armstrong, president of the Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations, worries that tying funding to labour market outcomes could damage education programs.

“I just don’t understand the sociological data that would be used to indicate that would be a good way to fund any program,” she said.

“I would guess that’s the intention, to try to reduce funding obligations on behalf of the government … but universities have already experienced a reduction in government funding.”

The presidents of Alberta’s two largest universities — David Turpin at the University of Alberta and Ed McCauley at the University of Calgary — both said it’s too early to comment on UCP post-secondary policy.

However, Turpin said the sector is “a key part of the economic engine of this province, providing the educated workforce and research needed for job creation, economic development and diversification.”

1.The So Called University Of Chicago Principles Are Based On The Fact That U Of C Is As Right Wing Economic And Political Departments As You Can Get 

Home To The Likes Of Leo Strauss And Former Nazi Judge Carl Schmidt, Fascist Romanian Mircea Eliade, And Of Course Who Can Forget The Chicago School Of Economists Hayek, Mises, Etc. 

In Alberta The Graduates Of The Chicago Poli Sci Department Program Created Their Own Program At The U Of Calgary Called The Calgary School

You Can Read About Them Here

It Led To The Creation Of The New Right In Canada, The Reform Party, The Alliance, Then The Conservative Party Of Stephen Harper. Academics Like Barry Cooper, Tom Flanagan, etc Were The Masterminds Behind The Rise Of The Right In Canada.

So You Can Imagine the Kind Of Principles These Will Be 

" … 'The government rolled this out with much less detail than you would expect given the magnitude of the change they're contemplating,' said Alex Usher, president of Higher Education Strategy Associates, a Toronto-based consulting firm.

Usher supports the principle of performance-based funding.

'It gives governments and taxpayers a sense that [universities and colleges] are spending money to a purpose,' he said in an interview.

'We've got $5 billion in public money going into the province's universities and colleges and I think people like to know that there are certain objectives that are being accomplished with that money.'

The issue, said Usher, is whether the metrics are well-designed.

'I don't think we know enough about the program yet to be able to say that with confidence one way or the other,' he said.

The ministry briefing document shows that starting in the 2020-21 academic year, 25 per cent of provincial grants to post-secondary institutions (about $1.27 billion) will be 'performance/outcomes-based funding.'

That will rise by 10 percentage points each year, until 2024-25, when it peaks at 60 per cent ($3.04 billion).

Currently, only 1.2 per cent of college funding and 1.4 per cent of university funding is tied to outcomes ...

Usher has seen details of the metrics and describes them as mixed. He said some are 'badly designed or just plain stupid' and puts the community/local impact metric in that category.

'If you really want to rig something so that Nipissing comes out well, just hand them the money, don't pretend it's a performance indicator.' NIpissing University is located in North Bay, the smallest Ontario city with a university.

One of the government's own agencies is advising it to choose the metrics carefully.

The Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) was created by the province to assess post-secondary institutions on a range of measures. In a paper published last week, HEQCO says the performance-based metrics must be 'meaningful and informative.'

'Meaningful performance measurement must focus on impact and outcomes,' write the authors, led by HEQCO's president and chief executive Harvey Weingarten.

'What or how much have students learned, and what is the economic and social impact of the institutions and a well-educated province?'

The report says the key outcomes to be measured should be based on the priority goals for higher education, as identified by government policy ...

The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) is raising concerns about the plan, calling it 'a drastic move towards tying funding to performance outcomes.'

The move will 'create inequities and slowly but certainly undermine the integrity of Ontario's postsecondary education system,' OCUFA says in a new post on its website.

'This is something that's being used a lot in a number of different states in the U.S. and nowhere is there any research to suggest that it improves education,' said the association's president, Gyllian Phillips, in an interview …"

CBC.CA

Here's how the Ford government will decide university and college funding | CBC News

CBC News has learned more details on how the Ford government will measure the performance of Ontario's colleges and universities to determine the total funding they receive.