Mick Clifford: The USA is adopting a totalitarian attitude to free speech

Irish Examiner

5 hours ago

Donald Trump's toxic orbit is now reaching directly into Ireland. Most recently, there were two specific areas in which this has come to pass.
Last week, it emerged that officials in Coimisiún na Meán, the media regulator, could face potential restrictions on entry to the USA if the American administration deems that they are interfering with 'free speech' by regulating social media.
This is an unprecedented move. Ordinarily, such visa restrictions might apply to corrupt officials in a dictatorship or rogue state. Now, in Trump's America, officials in a friendly European country could be banned from entry for simply doing their job.
'Free speech' is a movable feast for Trump and his followers. For instance, soon after assuming office in January, Trump declared that the Gulf of Mexico should heretofore be known as the Gulf of America.
The PA news agency refused to do so, referring instead to its long-standing style book that determined it was still the Gulf of Mexico irrespective of what Trump might wish it to be.
The king was not pleased. PA reporters were banned from the White House and from accompanying him on Air Force One. There have been similar instances where Trump and the gang he surrounds himself with have had issues with free speech.
Elsewhere, Jess Casey reported this week in the Irish Examiner that new US visa screening protocols require international students travelling on a J1 visa to adjust privacy settings on all their social media profiles to public.
The US state department announced it would now 'conduct a comprehensive and thorough vetting, including online presence, of all student and exchange visitor applicants' under the new guidance.
This will allow immigration officials to check the social media of students in case there is anything incriminating on their devices.
And what could be incriminating in Trump's America? Anything that is deemed to conform to the kind of broad policies that the current authoritarian administration is pursuing.
So, if, for instance, a young student has something on their phone that might show support for Palestinians who are being massacred, that can be deemed contrary to US interests, and the student told to turn around and go home.
Similarly, entry might be denied if the student is displaying anything that is supportive of the rights of minorities, such as the transgender community.
As of now it is unclear if a student has, for instance, a screenshot or meme portraying Donald Trump as a buffoon whether this would be incriminating enough to warrant exclusion.
One way or the other, the restrictions suggest that the USA is adopting a totalitarian attitude to any kind of speech that might be contrary to Trump's precious, and sometimes, venal, interests. So much for free speech.
As with all totalitarian regimes, there is a different attitude to any kind of free speech that might fit neatly into the category of propaganda. Thus, Trump is a believer in social media companies having a free rein over what appears on their platforms.
What could be incriminating in Trump's America? Anything that is deemed to conform to the kind of broad policies that the current authoritarian administration is pursuing. Picture: David Dermer/AP
In the first instance, it suits him and his politics. He is an expert manipulator of the medium, where he is free to retail lies, distortions, and abuse at will. His current level of power in the USA implies he will brook no attempts to curtail that ability.
So it was that Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook announced soon after Trump's inauguration that it was no longer deploying fact-checking on the site. So social media is destined in the USA to remain a fact-free environment.
Beyond that, the 'free speech' that Trump believes in extends to far less protection of minors on social media. This leaves boys and girls exposed to material relating to sex and violence with practically no restrictions.
The reasoning behind such a free-for-all is that any restrictions depress traffic on the sites, which in turn hits the profits for the social media companies. And right now, all the owners, the tech bros, are happy to play supplicant to Trump in order to ensure they remain in his favour.
Now word is being conveyed across the Atlantic that regulators in Europe, and particularly Ireland where so many of these companies have offices, would be well-minded to follow the lead of the Americans or they will, in terms of visa restrictions, be treated like corrupt officials from a foreign rouge state. You could not make it up.
This week, it was also reported that 25% of US companies that had previously supported Dublin Pride have now pulled out. The move is directly due to the hostility Trump has towards anything resembling diversity or inclusion.
Whether or not that has anything to do with his own opinion is irrelevant. Politically, he views it as a seam to mine, and that's all that matters to him. So to be seen to be supporting minorities is, in the eyes of Trump and his acolytes, a sign of disloyalty to the king.
Dublin Pride, and all the Pride festivities are important annual events. They celebrate the LGBT+ communities but also act as a reminder of how these, and other, minorities were treated at a darker time.
Three years ago, however, the Pride festival showed a degree of intolerance that was not in keeping with the sentiment it espouses.
Following a series of programmes on RTÉ Radio 1's Lifeline on the subject of gender dysphoria, Pride announced that it was dropping the broadcaster as a media partner.
The programmes had been balanced, which required including voices from a small group opposed to the philosophical position adopted by most in the LGBT community towards gender dysphoria. Such diversity of opinion was unacceptable to the organisers of Dublin Pride, so RTÉ was dropped.
Today, the level of intolerance increasingly displayed in the USA towards minority communities is of a far greater order, and is being accepted by elements of society out of nothing more than fear of reprisals from Trump and his acolytes.
That such an atmosphere is now washing up on these shores through US companies running away in fear from Dublin Pride should be an issue of concern for everybody.
We have problems in this country, mainly concerned with inequality, particularly in relation to housing. Those are nothing like the issues that have pertained in the USA for decades, and which led to an atmosphere where an individual like Trump could actually be elected to office, not once, but twice.
Vigilance is required to ensure we don't succumb to the toxic waves from Trump's America that can wash up on these shores in various forms.
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