Below is my column in the Hill on the new American emigres: “disinformation experts” who are finding themselves unemployed with the restoration of free speech protections.
Here is the column:
President Trump’s election has brought about mass layoffs among federal employees and contractors, including some who have sued and others who have protested.
But one group — that of America’s would-be censors — is taking its cause worldwide.
During the Biden administration, a massive industry took root, sweeping up billions in taxpayer funds to research, target and combat those accused of misinformation, disinformation and “malinformation.”
Although the exact number is uncertain, many trained censors are now facing unemployment. These self-described “disinformation experts” have become the modern equivalent of rōnin, the Japanese samurai who found themselves without a master and wandered the land looking for a new use of their skill set. They are finding precisely that calling in academia, not-for-profit groups and, most importantly, Europe.
A speech-regulation industry that was booming under Biden has gone bust under Trump. Over the last four years, massive amounts of money were poured into universities, non-governmental organizations and other groups in an unprecedented alliance of government, academia and corporations.
The media lionized many in the industry as “saving democracy” by controlling, targeting and suppressing others’ political speech. Not only did federal agencies fund these efforts, but they also coordinated censorship of groups and individuals with opposing views, even objecting to jokes on the internet.
Universities cashed in on this largesse as well. It was popular with most liberal administrators and lucrative for academics.
The sudden shutoff of the federal spigot comes as a blow, but it does not mean the speech warriors will simply convert their censor-shields into plowshares. Many will follow in the footsteps of Nina Jankowicz, briefly the head of a now-defunct disinformation governance board. After the outcry over the board, Jankowicz quickly found her skills were in demand in Europe.
Free speech has been in free-fall in Europe for decades. Germany has long enforced a robust system of speech criminalization that began with Nazi symbolism but steadily expanded to include inciteful speech, insults and merely “disinformative” statements. The United Kingdom and France showed the same insatiable appetite for the inexorable expansion of censorship and prosecutions.
The European Union has also been ground zero for the anti-free speech movement’s aggressive use of the Digital Services Act, which bars speech that is viewed as “disinformation” or “incitement.”
When it passed over the objections of free speech advocates, European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager was perfectly ecstatic, declaring it is “not a slogan anymore, that what is illegal offline should also be seen and dealt with as illegal online. Now, it is a real thing. Democracy’s back.”
That is why Vice President J.D. Vance’s recent speech in Munich was so historic. For the free speech community, Vance went into the belly of the beast and denounced the anti-free-speech movement in the heart of Europe.
The response to the Vance speech has been nothing short of panic in the anti-free-speech community. Many are assembling in conferences in Europe, including the upcoming World Forum in Berlin. Bill and Hillary Clinton will be in attendance. (I will also be speaking at the conference.)
It was Hillary Clinton who, after Elon Musk purchased Twitter with the pledge to dismantle the censorship system, called upon the EU to force him and others to censor her fellow U.S. citizens. She embraced the infamous Digital Services Act, which seeks to impose a global system of speech control. She has also suggested the arrest of those spreading disinformation.
Immediately after the speech, familiar European and American voices denounced Vance and doubled down on the need for Europe to hold the line against dangerous free speech.
For the free speech community, there could not be a better place for this debate to unfold. Germany has demonstrated the false claims of the anti-free-speech community over the years. Indeed, you might call their arguments “disinformation.”
Vance and others who have challenged the European censorship systems have been attacked as Nazi enablers or sympathizers. Many of those who have fostered this attack are part of the regulator ronin. Others simply repeated the narrative without thought or support.
Take CBS anchor Margaret Brennan, who confronted Secretary of State Marco Rubio over the outrageous fact that Vance was supporting free speech while “standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide.” The claim is stupefyingly uninformed. The first thing that the Nazis did in coming to power was to crack down and criminalize free speech — just as many on the left have done in European countries.
A few have insisted that the Nazis were brought to power by the lack of government controls over what views could be expressed. But this is not true either. The crushing irony is that Article 118 of the Weimar Constitution guaranteed free speech only “within the limits of the general laws.” It did not protect statements deemed by the government as factually untrue, and speech was actively regulated.
Adolf Hitler, for example, was barred from speaking publicly. The Nazis did not use free speech because they did not have it. They did, however, use the denial of free speech to claim that the government was afraid to have certain views aired in public.
Germany has replicated the old system that failed to stop (and perhaps even helped) the Nazis, doubling down on speech controls and criminalization. As I discuss in my book, there has never been a successful censorship system in the history of the world — not one. Germany is again a chilling example of the true record of such systems.
Past polling of German citizens found that only 18 percent felt free to express their opinions in public. Only 17 percent felt free to express themselves on the internet. So the neo-Nazi movement is flourishing, even as average German citizens feel chilled in their own speech.
Despite this history, the regulatory ronin are hard at work to scare the public back into empowering and especially into funding their efforts.
The outgoing chairman of the Munich Security Conference spoke through tears as he expressed his “fear” that Vance’s call for free speech could take hold in Europe. He tellingly added, “It is clear that our rules-based international order is under pressure. It is my strong belief … that this multipolar world needs to be based on a single set of norms and principles.”
This “international order” has striven to impose a single set of norms on speech, particularly through vehicles like the Digital Services Act. The effort stands at odds with the very essence of the American constitutional system and values.
The only thing both sides agree on is that this is an existential fight. For those in the free speech community, it will determine the future of what Justice Louis Brandeis called “the indispensable right.” For the other side, it is the future of a European model of free speech, limiting the right to deter those with extreme or inciteful views.
The recent successes in the U.S. at X and more recently at Meta are real. However, the displaced speech regulators are not just going to retool and learn to code or train to work in the hospitality industry.
As Vance’s speech showed, we are more isolated than ever. Even Americans like Clinton have joined with the Europeans to fight for censorship. It is time to take a side and fight for freedom of speech.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Silencing not only those, “limiting the right to deter those with extreme or inciteful views. Silencing those the elites don’t want heard.
When ‘Globalization’ by the Powers engaged, the “disinformation experts” were deployed deployed around the globe,
These Units are employ an array of “disinformation”; diversions tactics, chaos, deception, and influence techniques, inside Governments and outside Governments to exert force expressed through ‘Controlled-Narrartive’ Programs to contain the Populace and maintain the ruling order.
The past 4 years has been as massive diversion program to bilk TRILLIONS from the Fiat Money pot, of which has no tangible bottom other than the War for survival.
Zelensky would defend your free speech more than Putin would.
After he robbed you and slit your throat.
That sounds more like the kind of thing that Putin would do.
Demonizers like you are a dime a dozen, and you never have the light of truth on your side.
Then why did Zelensky jail journalists, shut down all media except his state approved media and has canceled elections?
The things that Putin does are objectively worse, by an order of magnitude of a million billion trillion
The bad things that you could be saying about Putin are low hanging fruit.
There are lots of documented examples of the evils that Putin has committed against people.
Yet you never attack Putin, the tyrant.
Instead, you attack Zelensky, the freedom fighter.
That makes no sense.
If you really believed in freedom, you would side with Zelensky, not Putin.
Putin is not a staunch defender of freedom.
It should go without saying.
You live an a delusional land of backwardsness.
Nothing you type has any credibility as far as I’m concerned.
Opposition to free speech in the USA rose from a tidal wave to a tsunami during the Biden years, fueled by DEI, Woke, and the revival of J. Edgar Hoover’s 50’s-style Russo-phobia. It spread faster than covid, with all the passion of a travelling salvation show. And it turned the Congress into an inquisition led by ayatollahs.
The Legislative Branch surrendered its power of the purse when it began openly allowing government to fund and create government agencies and NGO’s dedicated to the unconstitutional abridgement of freedom of speech.
“Opposition to free speech in the USA rose from a tidal …” Got any proof of that, besides Fox News?
Think you’ve got even the tiniest shred of credibility when the high mark of your life’s achievement is your work at CNN spending years pushing the illegal Clinton/Obama/Biden/DNC “Trump-Russia Dossier”?
OT, the Boston police department is releasing illegal-immigrant child rapists onto the street even though they have ICE detainers. The police commissioner says that is Boston’s official policy because it’s a “sanctuary city.” Tom Homan recently criticized Boston for these actions, and then it became something of a brouhaha because a Boston city council member said that Tom Homan has spent his entire career as a police officer in a very small town, so he must not know anything about policing (in fact Homan was an officer in a small town briefly in the 1980s, but his career has been spent moving up through the ranks in ICE).
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/boston-councilwoman-backs-ridiculing-tom-homans-employment-history-fiery-post-i-understand
Does anyone know if an ICE detainer trumps local law, like maybe under the Supremacy Clause?
What, you’re asking these clowns for legal advice. And then you would believe them?
“On day one we’re going to bring those prices down, way down. And it’s going to be so easy.” — Donald Trump on the campaign trail, 2024
Oh, my, I’m gonna vote democrat in the next election!
Thank you, comrade.
So comrade, who is sucking up to comrade Putin?
Yes, shortly as the new trading partner from the 3rd world switches from China to India.
I’m convinced, I’m now anti-Trump.
Me, too.
Trump should not pal around with Putin, like Roosevelt did not pal around with Hitler.
FDR had bo qualms about being “pals” with Stalin.
And Stalin and Hitler were allies at the start of WWIi.
Wake up MAGA, One of these days they will come for you…
Police in Washington D.C. reportedly tried to arrest a Republican member of Congress for an alleged act of domestic violence, but U.S. Attorney Ed Martin is apparently not signing the arrest warrant.
Oh, my, I’m awake and I’m gonna vote democrat in the next election!
Thank you, comrade.
Can’t arrest someone without a warrant… tried? Got the facts in the wrong order… first warrant, then arrest. Another libtard folks.
Jonathan: Finally in other news DJT is playing the “American Ronin” here at home. He has told his supporters that he is seriously thinking of staying on for at least another term, maybe even longer. Of course, that flies in the face of the Constitution that limits a President to only two terms. To amend the Constitution would require acts of both chambers of Congress and approval by 3/4ths of the states. That would be messy and might take years. And time is not on DJT’s side. So DJT is considering the idea if invoking the Insurrection Act, declaring martial law and cancelling elections in 2028. Problem solved!
DJT mostly lives in the past these days. At the CPAC confab this past week DJT said his favorite period in American history was from 1870 to 1913–what historians refer to as the “Gilded Age”–a term coined by Mark Twain. Twain called that period the “Gilded Age” rather than the “Golden Age” because it was marked by political corruption and vast disparities in wealth. The titans of industry, like Andrew Carnegie, JP Morgan and John D. Rockefeller amassed fortunes while immigrants and other workers lived in abject poverty. But that period appeals to DJT. He is, after all, the master of corruption. And he worships billionaires like himself.
So for the next 4 years DJT will hammer home the theme that only he can “Save America”–from itself, from the “criminal” immigrants, from “woke” ideology and DEI programs, and from the “lunatic left”. That’s just a distraction. Because DJT’s real goal is to create an oligarchy of billionaires that run the government for themselves–it will be just another “Gilded Age”–but on steroids! But that’s what you MAGA supporters on this blog voted for. Right?
CIVILITY RULE VIOLATION HERE
BY EGREGIOUS IMPERTINENT IMPUDENCE AND SHEER VOLUME!
BAN DUMBA– MCINLIAR FOR LIFE!
“The titans of industry, like Andrew Carnegie, JP Morgan and John D. Rockefeller amassed fortunes while immigrants and other workers lived in abject poverty.”
As with some religionists, Leftists rewrite the past, to control the future.
The fact is that those wealth creators raised the standard of living and increased the productivity of all Americans.
POTUS trolls wonderfully. A mention of a third term gets you Lefty loons all spun up, arguing why it isn’t possible, whining about dictatorship. Don’t you think Trump knows that?
Besides if this cleanup on aisle 5 is a dictatorship, I’ll take it any day over the potatoship of Chi Bai Den, minion of Emperor Ping.
Jonathan: There is another “American Ronin” wandering “the land looking for a new use of their skill set”, as you put it. Not content with intervening in the internal affairs of Germany DJT has now set his sights on the land of Bossa Nova–Brazil. What’s this about?
You may recall from some of my past columns Elon Musk had a long running feud with a certain SC Justice in Brazil. Musk chaffed at any regulation of his social platform in the largest country in South America. He refused to take down accounts deemed offensive or disinformation by Brazilian authorities. And he called Justice Moraes a “dictator” for upholding those restrictions. Musk even refused to appoint a legal rep for the country as required of all other companies doing business in Brazil. Musk finally had to cave if he wanted to do business in that country. That’s the backdrop of the present controversy.
DJT sided with Musk in his fight with Justice Moraes. DJT also sided with former President Jair Bolsonaro who lost the 2022 presidential election to Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva. DJT encouraged Bolsanaro to stage a coup–“Jan. 6 light”. Bolsonaro organized his supporters to attack the Capitol at Brazilia. They trashed the Capitol buildings but that attempted coup also failed. Bolsonaro had to flee to Florida where DJT tried to give solace to the disgraced former president. With DJT’s encouragement Bolsanaro returned to Brazil and has been under criminal investigation ever since. This past week the “Jack Smith” of federal prosecutors in Brazil went to Justice Moraes and submitted his evidence and a request that Bolsanrao be indicted. Moraes is now considering that request.
Not so coincidentally this past Wednesday Trump’s Media & Technology Group, along with Rumble, Inc., a right-wing backed video platform that had backed Bolsanaro and had some of its accounts suspended in Brazil, sued Justice Moraes personally in a Brazilian court. It’s a veiled attempt to intimidate Moraes from approving the indictment of Bolsanaro. The gist of the complaint accuses Moraes of having “violated the free speech protections of the First amendment when he ordered the suspension of the US–based accounts of a specific well-known, politically outspoken user [i.e., Bolsanaro]”.
The fundamental legal issue is whether DJT has any standing to sue Moraes in Brazil? He is not the aggrieved party. It is Rumble. Then there is the bizarre claim that Moraes has violated the First Amendment of the US constitution. The First Amendment has no extraterritorial application in Brazil. The Brazilian constitution does have Article 5 that protects free speech but the DJT/Rumble complaint doesn’t even cite that Article.
In the DJT/Rumble complaint their is a reference to DJT’s EO 14203, issued on 2/6/2025, that “underscores the US Government’s unequivocal commitment to protecting its citizens, entities and allies from illegitimate foreign judicial actions”. But, again, does DJT and Rumble expect Brazilian courts to enforce the extra-judicial orders of a the US government? When you sue a SC Justice in Brazil to prevent him from carrying out his duties that’s not only overreach but a perversion of the legal system! Too bad you have decided to not weigh in on this important case.
#74. Pardon, aren’t universal laws in place , based on reason, regardless of inclinations and circumstances?
Jon here’s another person whose right to be free speech is being impinged upon. Look forward to your article on this one!
https://news.yahoo.com/news/idaho-woman-forcibly-dragged-local-204809157.html
The best part of that story is where it happened: Kootenai County. I guess the meeting itself was a “kootenanny” 😂
Leftists imagine that ‘free speech’ means that only they can speak and that they are free to disrupt any event or speech they don’t like. See Ilya Shapiro’s book ‘LAWLESS’.
Kootenai County is where Patriot Front members likely incited or organized by the feds planned to march into the park but were arrested by Coeur d’Alene police before they even got out of their truck. The police had been told of the ‘demonstration’ but I think they overreacted and embarrassed everyone. The Patriot Front has done the same stunt in several jurisdictions without being arrested. They look stupid but don’t act like barbarian BLM or university students or professors in that they are generally peaceful. The Coeur d’Alene cases were allowed to drag on and on and on while ‘law enforcement’ tried to figure out what to do with them as the event slowly faded from the news. Often when Patriot Front dudes march the crowds are yelling, “FEDS! FEDS!” at them. I imagine they are correct. The country has a limited supply of ‘Nazis’ so it seems the feds are trying to fill the gap for publicity.
Oh, my! A town hall, nay, a city overflowing with Americans!
The American Founders are smiling down on that!
Bravo, Professor Turley; Bravo!
We are told it is bad form and simply untrue to refer to a judge as an Obama/Biden judge. They are simply impartial jurists and there is no difference between them and regular judges.
But look who activists, Communists and Democrats go to when they want another ridiculous TRO to throw sand into the Trump administration–almost entirely Obama/Biden judges.
There is a difference and to see it displayed so brazenly is destroying respect for the judiciary.
Speaking of destroying respect for the judiciary…
How about Justice (I use the term loosely) Matt Kacsmaryk allowing Trump’s rediculous lawsuit against CBS to proceed. I doubt this one will get by even the 5th circuiut who are notoriously partisan in their similarly rediculous rulings.
And, while we’re on the subject…
Jon Turley, you think Trump’s lawsuit challenging the indispensable right is constitutional?
And, either way, if it succeeds there are going to be a lot of right wing outlets in serious trouble.
Anyway Jon, target rich environment for some articles. Chance for you to show a little balance. For once…
It’s not so ridiculous when you consider the level of news distortion committed by CBS to try and sway an imminent presidential election. Anyway both sides want it to go to mediation.
P.S. Professor Turley is the balance.
So, if this suit gains traction then the right isn’t worried about getting sued for Haitian immigrants stealing and eating pets in Springfield Ohio? Just one of many distortions, maybe the most ludicrous one, issued by the right and amplified by the right wing media.
So, if this suit gains traction then the right isn’t worried about getting sued for Haitian immigrants stealing and eating pets in Springfield Ohio?
Let’s add a little context and nuance while you fearmonger to the right in bug-eyed rage:
Did any of you commie party apparatchiks from the Soviet Democrats worry about getting sued for pimping the illegal Clinton/Obama/Biden/DNC “Trump Russia Dossier” for YEARS?
Is that now classified as a felony, the lie of the century – or just a distortion issued by Obama the Chief Police State Fascist and amplified by the Soviet Democrat-Marxist Mainstream Media Propaganda Complex?
I subscribe to DW on YouTube and regularly see these has been talking heads being touted as authorities worth hearing. Maybe now that their elections are over they’ll turn to more conservative voices…or not
James Carville thinks the Trump administration will collapse in 30 days. He’s delusional.
Dem party approval at all time low of 36%. Approval for DOGE is twice that, at 72%.
https://harvardharrispoll.com/press-release-february-2025/
BBC forced to pull pro-Hamas propaganda “documentary” after the narrator revealed as son of a Hamas minister
Woke leftists in Germany lose big
Apple will invest $500 billion in US manufacturing.
No, President Trump, I’m not tired of winning.
OldManFromKS,
Did Carville give a reason for his belief? Seems Trump knew this time what to expect, selected smart, capable people who have hit the ground running. The Apple news I think is telling they believe Trump will put tariffs on their products and are bringing that manufacturing back to America and American workers. And if he does, how will the Democrats spin that one?
Upstate, not really, he just predicted it. He also said Trump’s approval is at lower than any other president in history at this point in his administration, which seems opposite to what the polls have been saying. He seems not to be living on this planet.
One other headline I meant to mention:
Democrat member of the Virginia legislature says the laying off of some government workers is just like the Holocaust
OldManFromKS,
Ah, yet another Democrat in a panic, spreading more lies and gaslighting other low IQ Democrats.
How marvelous!
Lay offs of unproductive workers is like the mass killing of Jews? That is a leap in logic or the lack there of. How is it these people are just that dumb? Or is it that they are so desperate that they have to attempt and fail to link anything and everything Trump is doing to WWII Nazis? Do they realize how dumb they are? How only those with TDS will blindly buy into that?
“Democrat member of the Virginia legislature says the laying off of some government workers is just like the Holocaust”
Right, the Holocaust, where millions were starved, tortured, and murdered. Just like a government employee updating their LinkedIn. I assume next he will compare budget cuts to Kristallnacht and a missed coffee break to a death march. Truly, history has never seen a suffering so great ! Imagine having to apply for another cushy taxpayer-funded job.
Democrats are disgusting and lack any useful purpose.
They are also not very intelligent if they keep falling back on the mentally lazy trope of saying everything the Republicans do is the same as Hitler.
On the radio today Clay & Buck played a montage of Joy Reid blasting a hundred different policy decisions by Republican elected officials by saying every single one was no different than Nazi Germany. No wonder she had an audience of around 19 viewers nationwide by the time she got s**tcanned.
If he had inside knowledge of the ‘Faith Office’, Carville could be right, and I hate saying it. The midterms could be toast. It is not going to sit well with many who voted for Trump, myself included (though no power on this earth will make me vote dem ever again).
It strikes me that in the long term we should be confident that the free exchange of ideas is beneficial to society. Other nations can restrict free speech at their own peril. However, in the short term, we need to be ever vigilant to foster the free exchange of ideas.
“For those in the free speech community…”
I am curious to see whether we will hear anything from Professor Turley on Florida’s ridiculous lawsuit against Target, which aims to ban it from selling LGBTQ-friendly merchandise. Apparently Florida wants to ban books about gender identity.
FIRE has called it “asinine, performative buffoonery and an attack on the First Amendment.” Will Turley follow?
It’s a shareholder suit:
The Florida agency overseeing public employee retirement funds alleged last Thursday in a class-action lawsuit that Target and its board of directors deceived shareholders about the true risk of its 2023 Pride Month campaign, causing investors to lose billions of dollars.
Now perhaps you think that is merely a pretext for suppressing speech. And maybe you would have a solid argument. But if so, you should explain why. The way you framed your comment leaves all of that out, which makes it look like you’re purposely misleading whoever reads it. IOW you would rather throw a flame than make an honest statement.
OldManFromKS,
Thank you for pointing out the actual legality of the situation and not just some sensational claim as our leftist friends have to resort to.
I had not heard about the lawsuit. However, it was completely obvious to me that there was exactly a 0% chance Florida was suing Target to ban it from selling LGBGQ friendly merchandise, whatever that is.
They lie about EVERYTHING.
Speaking of FIRE, child porn in schools demanded by the Alphabet Sex Pride Tribe, you, and buffoonery:
I am curious as to why you thought that as a lying Democrat pimping for the Alphabet Sex Pride Tribe, you thought that you could transform a lawsuit whose subject was a corporation deceiving its shareholders which resulted in those shareholders losing billions of dollars, magically into a lawsuit supposedly about banning tranny child pornography.
When you get back to the parrot cage, tell your bosses that the audience here wants them to at least attempt to send more entertaining liars when they choose your replacement. You’re more a turkey than a parrot.
#74 —> 47
Joy Behar, Joy Reid, Lester Holt etc.
When outmatched withdraw and live to fight another day.
Meh
In a very few days the War in Europe will have ended 80 years ago, known as V-E-Day May 8, 1945, with all or mostly total destruction of Germany. We the United States of America have stood as a deterrent to Westerly aggressors since August 1949 and supported Europe in their rebuilding efforts. Now: these fools are drifting towards an adoption of Communism as their standard bearer of ideal governmental structure, STATE CONTROL OF ALL NATURAL RIGHTS. The United States must not follow the lemmings over the cliff!
There are no Communist parties running any country in Europe.
There is one running China, however. And Trump’s appeasement of Putin has been a great benefit to Xi’s desire to invade Taiwan.
Ergo, Trump has done more for actual Communist parties in one month than his predecessor did in a whole term.
That’s like saying America isn’t communist. Where to start? Affirmative action, forced busing, financial assistance, DEI, quotas, SNAP, WIC, “Fair-Housing” and “Non-Discrimination” laws nullifying private property rights of Americans, social services, rent control, minimum wage, public housing, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum.
Obama gives Putin a major portion of our strategic uranium reserves.
Obama gives Putin A Big Red Reset Button.
Obama gives Putin a military presence in the Middle East
Obama gives Putin “space” to invade Ukraine.
Biden relaxes sanctions on Putin.
Biden accepts bribes from Putin.
Biden allows Putin to invade Ukraine. For the SECOND time.
Breaking Democrat news: Trump is appeasing Putin!!!!!
“[We gave you] a [restricted-vote] republic, if you can keep it.”
– Ben Franklin
_________________
You couldn’t.
________________
“We the People of the United States…secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity….
– The Preamble
__________________
You didn’t.