The arrest and detainment of a UK-based journalist last week is raising questions not just about freedom of speech, but about the definition of ‘terrorism’.
What’s scary is that this could happen to any of us in the future, if this abuse of or reframing of terms and language continues.
For example, documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) during the Bush era revealed that the Pentagon was conducting major surveillance on scores of entirely non-violent protesters as part of an ‘anti-terrorism database’.
In other words, peaceful protesters were being regarded the same as *terrorists*. And a similar direction seems to be occurring in the UK.
The newspaper clip shown above is from an article in The Guardian, reporting on how young protesters in the UK are literally being put into the same box as terrorists.
In this article from 2017 about the dangerous police state being created by the then Tory government, I wrote the following.
So what is a ‘terrorist’?
It is interesting how expansive the definition can be. Today we might think of a ‘terrorist’ as a bearded jihadi swearing allegiance to ‘ISIS’. But what about tomorrow?
A former head of the NSA (of which Britain’s GCHQ is, according to Ed Snowden, a subsidiary) and CIA even compared privacy advocates and anti-surveillance activists to terrorists.
Public Intelligence notes a flyer created by the FBI and Department of Justice to encourage reporting of suspicious activity, which highlighted that ‘espousing conspiracy theories or anti-US rhetoric should be considered a potential indicator of terrorist activity.’
Even some of the recent far right rioters in the UK being discussed in terms of anti terror laws seemed suspect to me: when it was more logical to simply prosecute them for public disorder, or arson, or violence or whatever the appropriate thing would’ve been in each case.
Why is the scope of ‘terrorism’ being expanded so much? We all know what a terrorist is, don’t we?
I fell bad about that video causing you problems as I had asked you to post it.
But I also told you that you could remove it if you chose that day as I managed to download it immediately so that makes me feel slightly less bad.
I am going to finally listen to it as I can’t imagine what anyone said that would offend them.
After your website was zapped by WordPress, you would never contemplate starting another site through WordPress but you have been having ridiculous problems with youtube for years so I am bemused as to why you persist with that platform when there are multiple alternative readily available?
There are numerous sites that host content 1000 times more inflammatory than anything you have ever posted without problem. Why not forget about google, after all it isn’t like you have a large channel that it will cost you to move on from?
Btichute, Odyssey, Rumble, 153 News, Brand New Tube are just some of the better known examples.
Anyway, I am sorry to hear about the problems with your channel but the answer couldn’t be more obvious from my point of view.
Should read “feel not “fell :at the start! Disgusting! My apologies.
Yeah, I guess I should. I think YouTube is just what has the broadest reach theoretically. Also I use YouTube so much as a user that it just felt like second nature to utilise the same platform.
‘Journalists are NOT terrorists.’ The placard sums it up perfectly. And, as you add, neither are racist rioters, however much we may despise them. So it’s a deeply worrying trend and an obvious method for suppressing political dissent that’s been coming down on us for years as you say.
I even come across something related in my workplace in the shape of the more innocuous sounding ‘safeguarding’. Of course, there is nothing wrong at all with protecting students and others from potential harm, however underlying an otherwise more responsible and caring approach to education is a creeping escalation of surveillance on both students and staff. The obligation to report on any signs of risk that now include evidence of dangerous patterns not just of behaviour but more fundamentally in someone’s thinking. Indeed at these training meetings, it can sometimes feel that we are being draughted as thought police.
Once again, terrorism is key and looking for signs of ‘terrorism’. The danger comes from what constitutes those warning signs: distrust of authority, perhaps a belief in dangerous ‘conspiracy theories’; in a word: thoughtcrime.
Going back to the main point, it appears that algorithmic suppression, shadow-banning and the rest of it just isn’t enough to keep the lid on. That’s the good news. That you personally have been repeatedly banned and blocked is a true measure of your success and a badge of honour. Likewise for Richard Medhurst, who let’s face it is targeted primarily because of his views on Israel. And I stand in solidarity with him as I do with you.
Thanks very much for the link by the way. Truly I appreciate it because algorithmically they have very nearly destroyed my site too. So it’s stuff like this that keeps me going, along with my few subscribers, and finally out of pure bloodymindedness. In the words of Norman Stanley Fletcher: “Don’t let the b*stards grind you down!” Another reason to wear your dissent proudly whether anyone much notices or not – it’s the least we can all do!
Thanks mate. Your site being algorithmically marginalised sucks, as I’ve always liked your work. But this is the Internet in 2024: it isn’t the exciting new frontier anymore, but already largely colonised and controlled.
Yep, the backlash following the Russiagate hoax and then the clampdown over covid ‘disinfo’ (and there was a great deal of disinfo from all quarters) has finally put pay to it. But as I wrote way back when, there was never going to be any final need for an internet kill switch (despite all the speculation about it), since a gradual lowering of the volume of genuine alternative voices would always suffice. In the end, of course, all they ever wanted from the internet was a vast commercial platform and a mass surveillance panopticon that even the Stasi couldn’t have dreamt of. An endpoint that is reaching fruition.
Thanks for the kind words. As you know I don’t attend to my site with the same dedication and enthusiasm as I once did, but it’s still very nice to be appreciated. And the respect and admiration is entirely mutual.