Whilst social media promises us unrestricted access to an individual’s innermost thoughts and whims, the culture in which it operates is diametrically opposed to freedom of expression. Despite rare victories, such as the Elon Musk exposé of Twitter censorship (“Elon Musk reveals motivation for Twitter Files, says ‘almost every conspiracy theory’ about the social network is true”), the range of ‘acceptable speech’ is only moving in one direction: less.
Free speech is in a dark place right now—with the punishment for those foolish enough to believe in such an antiquated concept becoming quite extreme. Try being Tonje Gjevjon, threatened with a three-year jail term for the crime of saying ‘Men cannot be lesbians.’ How about Darren Brady, an army veteran arrested for ‘sharing an anti-woke meme’? Or my personal favourite: the UK Constabulary, which allows male rapists to record their gender as female, and then threatens female inmates with should they ‘misgender’ their unwelcome cellmates.
To avoid us becoming seduced by such intolerant thoughts in the first place, industry upon industry is simply caving to ‘Implicit bias training’—the admission of guilt without crime or evidence. Teachers are now routinely instructing children on their‘ and ‘inherent racial guilt’; MPs are undergoing similar ‘training’—as are nurses, except those who refuse, resulting in a prompt dismissal.
The response to COVID-19 is a perfect example of how accustomed we have become, not just to self-censorship and self-policing our opinions, but even to the adoption of nonsensical and dangerous policies merely to avoid censure. The authorities instructed us to wear masks which are known not to work, and we did so while they removed theirs the moment the cameras stopped rolling. We were instructed repeatedly to inject our bodies with vaccines which not only do not work, but also kill people. Two years on, anyone who ‘questions the science’ is still widely-considered an ‘anti-vaxxer’ and a ‘conspiracy theorist.’
Cometh the hour, cometh the man however, and that man—the last stand for free speech in many people’s eyes, is Dr. Jordan Peterson. In fact, Peterson is almost uniquely positioned in the free speech wars: having had the guts to object to Canada’s C-16 bill on the grounds that gender pronouns would become ‘compelled speech’ when he was relatively little-known, and now being such a global icon with over 15 million followers across social media, that short of assassination, he will be impossible to cancel.
So, it’s no surprise that Peterson’s enemies would try to have him silenced anyway, and it looks like the latest attempt comes from the Ontario College of Psychologists, who have ordered him to undergo social media ‘re-education,’ or risk the suspension of his licence to practice as a clinical psychologist:
BREAKING: the Ontario College of Psychologists @CPOntario has demanded that I submit myself to mandatory social-media communication retraining with their experts for, among other crimes, retweeting @PierrePoilievre and criticizing @JustinTrudeau and his political allies.
According to Peterson, the demand stems from roughly a dozen complaints made over the past four years, from people all over the world who objected to his public statements on Twitter and his conversation with Joe Rogan. A summary of the comments in question has been posted by Peterson, but the main points of contention appear to be as follows:
In response to COVID-19 government restrictions:
Enough already. Time to stop. Stop the masks. Stop the lockdowns. Stop the petty power-mad hysteria. Leave people alone and let them get on with their lives @benshapiro
Ben Shapiro
@benshapiro
Replying to @benshapiro
1. Cloth masks are ineffective against omicron (Leanna Wen, CNN);
2. The vaccinated can spread and get covid;
3. The death rate is comparable to the flu (Chris Hayes);
4. Many people are entering hospitals with covid, not from covid (Fauci);
Retweeting Canadian opposition party leader, Pierre Poilievre (again on COVID restrictions), Peterson tweeted:
Enough. Enough COVID mandates. Drop the damn masks and the idiot rules and get on with life. Today.
Pierre Poilievre
@PierrePoilievre
COVID has become a never-ending excuse for power-hungry authorities to replace our freedom with their control.
Enough.
Reopen our businesses, let our truckers drive & restore freedom for all.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/np-view-the-ongoing-and-unnecessary-erosion-of-canadians-civil-liberties…
In response to a New York Post obese swimsuit model:
Sorry. Not beautiful. And no amount of authoritarian tolerance is going to change that.
New York Post
@nypost
Yumi Nu ‘shaking’ over SI Swimsuit cover reveal https://trib.al/H9q8II1
And in response to the removal of Freedom Convoy protestors’ children:
“children removed” how, exactly? Why, exactly? By whom, exactly? Sent to where, exactly? And for how long, exactly? Think this through, Canadians. This is a bad decision.
The Post Millennial
@TPostMillennial
Interim Ottawa Police Chief says he is working with social services and Freedom Convoy protestors to “have children removed from the area prior to any sort of police action.”
In truth, this is small beer for Twitter—the world’s prime destination for bickering, after all. When you consider Peterson’s 15 million followers, and how dearly the Left would love to have him silenced, the fact that only a dozen or so complaints have been made is astonishing. Yet more astonishing, is the fact that the Ontario College of Psychologists are taking such minutiae seriously. How much more likely is it that these demands are being made disingenuously?
Canada certainly has form in this department. As recently as 2021, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario threatened to suspend the licences of any doctors questioning the COVID narrative:
The College is aware and concerned about the increase of misinformation circulating on social media and other platforms regarding physicians who are publicly contradicting public health orders and recommendations. Physicians hold a unique position of trust with the public and have a professional responsibility to not communicate anti-vaccine, anti-masking, anti-distancing and anti-lockdown statements and/or promoting unsupported, unproven treatments for COVID-19. Physicians must not make comments or provide advice that encourages the public to act contrary to public health orders and recommendations. Physicians who put the public at risk may face an investigation by the CPSO and disciplinary action, when warranted. When offering opinions, physicians must be guided by the law, regulatory standards, and the code of ethics and professional conduct. The information shared must not be misleading or deceptive and must be supported by available evidence and science.
In other words, doctors’ principled adherence to the Hippocratic Oath (“first do no harm”) must be surrendered blindly to appease the state. Besides which, what precisely would ‘social media re-education’ look like? Tolerance only resides on one side of the political spectrum: conservatives must accept liberal views. Nowhere is this bias for liberal values more visible than social media. While Twitter HQ banned Donald Trump from Twitter while the Ayatollah Khamenei, ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban were told to tone it down a bit.
Peterson’s characteristically robust response to the Ontario College of Psychologists’ demands is that he will not attend any ‘re-education,’ and that he would like to make all communication 100 percent public. So far so good, though I cannot help doubting that such a witch-hunt will not be conducted above board. And if they are prepared to fight dirty, the question is: how dirty would the Left get to rid themselves of Peterson once and for all?
This piece first appeared in The European Conservative, and is reproduced by kind permission.
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