The ‘Re-education’ of Jordan Peterson
3rd February 2023
Whilst social media promises us unrestricted access to an individual’s innermost thoughts and whims, the culture in which it operates is diametrically opposed to freedom of expression. Despite rare victories, such as the Elon Musk exposé of Twitter censorship (“Elon Musk reveals motivation for Twitter Files, says ‘almost every conspiracy theory’ about the social network is true”), the range of ‘acceptable speech’ is only moving in one direction: less.
Free speech is in a dark place right now—with the punishment for those foolish enough to believe in such an antiquated concept becoming quite extreme. Try being Tonje Gjevjon, threatened with a three-year jail term for the crime of saying ‘Men cannot be lesbians.’ How about Darren Brady, an army veteran arrested for ‘sharing an anti-woke meme’? Or my personal favourite: the UK Constabulary, which allows male rapists to record their gender as female, and then threatens female inmates with should they ‘misgender’ their unwelcome cellmates.