Watch Live (Online, May 5): Campus to Culture: A Pandemic of Free Speech Repression
Prof. William Jacobson will explore how those repressive mechanisms have been employed in support of the government response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Are y’all ready for our second ever live event?
Tuesday, May 5 at 8:30 PM ET join Professor Jacobson and me right here, on the blog as Professor Jacobson discusses the burgeoning issue of free speech repression. This discussion is entitled: Campus to Culture: A Pandemic of Free Speech Repression.
Campus “call out” and “cancel” cultures moved to social media tech giants and the political world years ago. In this online live event, Prof. William Jacobson will explore how those repressive mechanisms have been employed in support of the government response to the coronavirus pandemic.
We want to answer your questions!
Have questions for Professor Jacobson? As them on THIS post in the comment section. We’ll answer as many as we can. We will also answer questions asked on the live streams.
How to watch?
We’ll post a live stream right here at Legal Insurrection. The discussion will also be broadcast on Facebook Live and YouTube Live.
We look forward to taking your questions!
Miss our first event? Watch it here:
VIDEO: Constitutional Rights in the Age of Government Overreach
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Comments
My question involves the use of vocabulary to shape a narrative. Right now, they tell us we’re unemployed… when the more appropriate term would be DIS-employed. The economy is said to be weak… when in fact the economy has been closed. The use of this terminology is shaping the public impression of reality, and herding us, mentally and emotionally, into a submissive mass, willing to accept actions that are mortifying, at least to me.
When did using these vocabulary skills become a consciously used weapon against the citizenry?
Mr.Michael, IIRC, as far back as I can remember, terminology has been used to shape public opinion. Some examples from my youth: red menace, McCarthyism, sexual revolution, affirmative action, feminism, the domino affect, etc., etc.. As long as there have been news outlets, governments, politicians, probably.
When I use the term “Wuhan virus” I’m sometimes called racist by total strangers who couldn’t possibly know me. When I calmly point out that diseases have historically been named after the places they first showed up (Hong Kong flu, Spanish flu, Ebola, Zika, Lyme disease, etc) it almost always puts the accusations to bed.
Does the professor have any other suggestions on how to handle this?
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This is in the same category as referring to someone from the Orient as Oriental. That is now a colossal insult. It is still safe to call someone from Canada Canadian?
Please, for this presentation make sure you give your readers, in advance, the correct and complete URL for the talk. Also, please make sure there are clear and complete instructions for what to do after arriving at the URL.
In the course of your presentation, you may want to mention the reasons for Oberlin Alumni and students setting up the following Facebook Group:
Uncensored Unofficial Oberlin Alumni Discussion Group
Private group · 2K members
The reason this group exists is that the censored official Oberlin Alumni discussion group goose steps to the tune of the moment as played by the BOT and Administration. Pravda style, any dissenting ideas are blocked.
This is sickening to all of us who know what Oberlin was and still has the potential to be. This knowledge is what has caused me to launch https://oberlinchaos.com – at my own expense.
/s/ JD Nobody, OC ’61.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss these issues.
Since Facebook is well past the traditional market share of what constitutes a monopoly I have two questions:
1. Why are we unwilling to designate it as such?
2. If designation as a monopoly is not possible then why not designation and regulation as a utility?
3. The argument that I don’t have to use Facebook is false in that businesses and governments use that platform as their portal online. To say that I have a choice not to use a platform that has been selected for use by various companies, governments and, ironically this webcast seems absurd.
LI and all the others you mention have to go where the customers are, whether they want to or not. The customers are similarly trapped. At some level, this must rankle the good Prof. Jacobson, at least a little.
I quit using FB 5 years ago but have been forced to relent because FB has a monopoly on too much information from its captive users.
You have forgotten the biggest issue of all: Facebook finances itself by marketing all the personal attributes about you that it can infer from your FB use, which collectively is worth billions. A billion or more FB users don’t realize or care that this is how their ability to post cute pictures of their kitty cats is paid for.
Yes, most FB users are stupid. Moreover, virtually all FB friends are fair-weather friends at best.
J. D.,
Which is why they should be either divided up like ma bell into competing entities and then regulated as a utility or simply regulated as a utility.
Personally, I am happy for everyone to voluntarily grant their data to FB, Google, Youtube. As long as it is a voluntarily grant and not one that is required because the platform is the chosen internet portal of another corporation or worse government entity.
We shouldn’t be placed with the choice of either not interacting with a government entity or another company simply because we won’t agree to FB, Google, Youtube terms of service. This is the real choice we have arrived at either surrender data or be some sort of left behind analog Amish in the digital age.
I find it ironic that the event is the day after the 50th anniversary of the Kent St. protests.