The international wing of the influential conservative legal advocacy group, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), has praised Elon Musk for being a “global champion of free speech,” and urged him to launch challenges to state-backed censorship of online free speech around the world.
In an open letter signed by prominent academics, journalists, and campaigners, ADF International highlighted several examples from around the world where state governments have censored online speech in the name of combating “disinformation,” and urged Musk to challenge the behavior.
Via Alliance Defending Freedom International:
As the world’s meeting place—where ideas are challenged by ideas—the support of X in standing against state censorship is essential. Consider the following active attacks on free speech:
- In Finland, parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen, a former government minister and grandmother, currently is awaiting a verdict, having been criminally tried for “hate speech” for a 2019 Bible-verse tweet. She was charged under the Finnish criminal code’s section on “War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity,” carrying a maximum sentence of 2 years imprisonment.
- In Mexico, former congressman Rodrigo Iván Cortés and sitting congressman Gabriel Quadri have been convicted of “gender-based political violence,” and placed on an offenders’ register, for Twitter posts. For expressing their views on biological sex, both have been ordered to publish a court-written apology on X every day for 30 days, 3 times a day, as a form of public humiliation.
- At the international level, the European Commission is advancing efforts to make “hate speech” an EU crime, on the same legal level as trafficking and terrorism. Initiatives such as the EU Code of Practice on Disinformation could have significant implications for how governments police speech, especially as European Commission VP Věra Jourová singled out X for “the largest ratio of mis/disinformation posts” in her September 26, 2023, statement.
In response, ADF International urged Musk and X/Twitter to designate funds for legal challenges to state-sponsored censorship of viewpoints on the platform, create an intake process for X users to receive this support, and for Musk to bring more attention to the problem by hosting X spaces about the issue.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.