Fuck around and find out

As ever, we need consistent definitions that have majority agreement. One man's 'fucking around' is another woman's 'fighting for freedom'. And who gets to decide?

On Sunday 4th December 2022 my Twitter account was suspended for 7 days because I had violated the Twitter terms of service against ‘hateful conduct’ by posting a satirical twist on a Mariah Carey song, calling for the ‘heads’ of the Mermaids trustees. This was in response to the very welcome news that the Charity Commission was about to embark on a full inquiry into Mermaids’ activities - something many of us have been calling for over a number of years.

I have appealed to Twitter against the suspension but at the time of writing have heard nothing further. I will keep you posted.

This did not of course mean I was inciting the actual decapitation of Mermaids’ trustees or indeed anyone. In no lucid mind can it possibly mean I want ‘trans people and their allies’ to be killed. Let’s be very clear: I do not want anyone killed. I would however very much like all those adults responsible for grotesque medical experimentation on children to be in prison.

‘Heads will roll’, ‘heads on a plate’ etc are commonly used metaphors to describe someone who is in serious trouble. I assume that ‘ heads will roll’ comes from execution by guillotine, where the head would ‘roll’ into a basket after being severed from its neck. That does not mean anyone using that expression is busily constructing a guillotine in their basement right now or expecting anyone else to do so.

Pink News reported on my ‘chilling’ tweet as a criminal threat to do harm (without actually publishing the actual words). If this outlet was genuinely of the view that my tweet was an incitement to murder, perhaps rather than indulging in more of its infamous dishonest click baitery, it should have reported me to the police - or even considered the words of its own founder and CEO Ben Cohen.

If my tweet was an actual incitement to murder by decapitation, or could reasonably have thought to be so, then I ought to have been permanently suspended from Twitter AND arrested. Neither appears to have happened. I do not believe that anyone thought this was a genuine threat or incitement to kill. But it suited their purposes to claim so.

Dennis Kavanaugh wrote at length in his letter to Twitter on the importance of freedom of speech, the use of metaphor and the dishonest mass reporting by those who simply wish to find any reason to silence views which challenge them. If you are interested in these issues, I recommend you read it.

Journalist James Marriot also wrote compellingly about how a decision to force a closure of a museum exhibit demonstrates the tyranny of the minority. If while eating out, we are forced to compromise on our menu choices and settle only for ‘bland, universally palatable pap’ because someone in our party doesn’t like spicey food, that’s one thing. However, ‘when the same dynamic is at work in intellectual life, catastrophe looms’. As Marriot says

Convinced of its moral superiority and certain that the urgent righteousness of the ends justifies the means, an intolerant minority is able to magnify its power with underhand tactics (public denunciation, hyperbolic accusations of racism on social media).

James Marriott @j_amesmarriott

I wrote this about the closure of the Wellcome exhibit and the extraordinary power of small groups of intolerant people with unpopular views to make things worse for everyone else

thetimes.co.ukIntolerance leads to McDonald’s of the mindI was perturbed to learn that the Wellcome Collection is “racist, sexist and ableist” (its own words) as I’d been vaguely meaning to go at some point. Evidently

I have of course, been here before. In January 2021 my Twitter account was ‘permanently’ suspended for saying ‘I know who he is’. That ‘permanent’ suspension was abruptly lifted the next month, with no explanation, after my solicitors wrote to Twitter to ask exactly what part of their terms and conditions I had breached. Of course, at the time, many took to Twitter to excitedly claim I had been banned for anti Semitism and Holocaust denial. I had to give serious consideration to taking legal action in defamation against the two worst offenders, David Paisely and SNP politician Kirsty Blackman, who did not restrain themselves to social media but offered comment to various Scottish newspapers.

None of this was, of course, really about me. It was seized upon as an opportunity to do harm to Joanna Cherry KC who had donated to my crowdfunder to bring action against the College of Policing for their unlawful hate crimes guidance. If I was a hateful anti-Semite, then her oblique association with me, could be used to harm her. The impact of this on me was either irrelevant, or seen as a positive additional bonus. I am quite sure that if I had committed suicide or otherwise self harmed following such intense efforts at public shaming, some would have seen this as a victory and claimed and boasted about it as such.

Sadly for my opponents, my mental health and resilience remain robust. I have many years left in me for this fight.

I have clearly ‘fucked around’ according to the code of those who seek to oppress freedom of speech and thought. But what have I ‘found out’? That there remains a group of people who will exaggerate and lie in order to achieve their end goal - that any challenge to or criticism of their belief systems must be silenced as ‘hate’?

This is nothing new. I have known this for many years now. I consider such people and their authoritarian tendencies to be the most dangerous and serious threat to our democracy and the rule of law that I have ever seen. So rest assured, I fully intend to keep ‘fucking around’. And so should you, if you value freedom in any way at all.