In light of the violent protests and now counter-protests raging across the England and elsewhere in the United Kingdom (UK), the UK government reposted an announcement on X that those posting online content promoting “hatred” or “violence” could be criminally prosecuted. Here’s the post:

Not only can citizens face prosecution by posting inciteful content (although the video makes no mention about what that really is), but they can also get nabbed for simply reposting it from someone else. The pushback on X was swift, with critics calling the post a blatant instance of government overreach and comparing the measure to something we would expect in authoritarian countries like China and North Korea.

The debate over free speech in western countries continues to burn. Constitutionally in the United States, there is no clause outlawing any form of “hate speech.” The first amendment protects the right to freedom of speech and expression, even for those who choose to express what is traditionally or even morally repugnant. Things get especially dicey for the free speech regulators, though, when it comes down to who decides what counts as hateful. Definitions can get fuzzy really quick. When hate speech suddenly includes simply points of view I don’t like, then free speech becomes meaningless. My right to stay unoffended now supersedes your right to offend my perspective.

In addition, some point out that the best way to combat legitimate hate speech is not by outlawing it but by producing more speech. Democratic societies depend on the free exchange of ideas and the ability of the public to weigh and discern the best perspective. This is something some folks associated with The Free Press discussed live just yesterday on an X stream.

The UK’s repost also appears in light of the recent court decision ruling that Google acted illegally in seeking to dominate the online search engine market. As Richard Stevens writes in Mind Matters,

The judge’s 286-page Decision comprehensively describes how the multi-billion-dollar search engine industry works. Want to know the hows and whys of Google, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and Bing? Read pages 6–133 of the Decision.

-Richard Stevens, Google Decision Challenges Trillion-Dollar Internet Gatekeeper | Mind Matters

When the world’s largest tech companies seek to control the flow of information, what happens when governments hop in on the action, too? Elon Musk saw this happening at Twitter and sought to reclaim the site as a platform of free exchange. But plenty of people saw Musk’s Twitter takeover as a regressive step towards letting the worst, most oppressive voices having a microphone on the internet. Thankfully, there’s still the mute and block buttons. Censoring speech from the top down, though, eventually tells everyone that only certain views of the world are permissible. That’s the gateway for authoritarian takeover and groupthink.

According to studies and historical observation, both sides of the political spectrum can fall into this temptation to repress speech it doesn’t like. A 2021 study from Emory University, led by psychology PhD student Thomas Costello, found that members on the far left and far right share a lot of key psychological elements. Carol Clark reports:

Right-wing authoritarians tend to aggressively back the established hierarchy, while left-wing authoritarians tend to aggressively oppose it. They are almost like mirror images of one another that both share a common psychological core, the researchers conclude. 

“Authoritarians have a predisposition for liking sameness and opposing differences among people in their environment,” Costello says. “They are submissive to people they perceive as authority figures, they are dominant and aggressive towards people they disagree with, and they are careful to obey what they consider the norms for their respective groups.” 

At its core, authoritarianism is likely about power, Costello adds. 

“It’s a mistake to think of authoritarianism as a right-wing concept, as some researchers have in the past,” he says. “We found that ideology becomes secondary. Psychologically speaking, you’re an authoritarian first, and an ideologue only as it serves the power structure that you support.” 

-Carol Clark, Left-wing authoritarians share key psychological traits with far right, Emory study finds

Authoritarian-minded people tend to want to punish or eliminate “the other side,” and are concerned mainly about securing and maintaining power, or at least being aligned with those who are in power.

With the confluence of big tech and rising authoritarian mindsets in western societies, the debate over free speech and expression is sure to continue.