Hate Speech is (mostly) Free Speech

I was disturbed by Apple CEO Tim Cook's speech as he accepted an award from the ADL for his 'courage' against 'hate.' Here is an excerpt:
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Apple CEO Tim Cook this afternoon accepted the Anti-Defamation League's inaugural Courage Against Hate Award at the Never is Now Summit on Anti-Semitism and Hate, where he gave a keynote speech that had a strong message for those seeking to spread hate on Apple's platform.

"We only have one message for those who seek to push hate, division, and violence, Cook said. "You have no place on our platform. You have no home here."

Cook went on to say that this is a longtime view of Apple's, and he pointed out the company's removal of Infowars content earlier this year. Apple, he said, is not afraid to say that its values drive its curation decisions.

From the earliest days of iTunes to Apple Music today, we have always prohibited music with a message of white supremacy. Why? Because it's the right thing to do.

And as we showed this year, we won't give a platform to violent conspiracy theorists on the App Store. Why? Because it's the right thing to do.

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https://www.macrumors.com/2018/12/03/tim-cook-adl-keynote-speech/

Infowars never called for violence. I've personally met Alex Jones and I can assure everyone that he's neither racist nor a 'white supremacist.'

I'm not anti-Semitic and I have Jewish friends who are libertarians. They LIKE Alex Jones and are against the Federal Reserve. It's not anti-Semitic to call out a warning against the ADL who have set themselves up as the arbiter of what's 'free speech' and what's 'hate speech.' I'm on their list because I criticized the Rothschilds in one of my cartoons. WHAT? We're not allowed to criticize the corrupt central banking system without being assigned the 'hate speech' label, which leads to social media bans and maybe even getting banned from Patreon and PayPal? This is a dangerous and slippery slope, folks.

So now 'conspiracy theorists' are lumped in with 'white supremacists' and 'haters' and must be banned from all Silicon Valley platforms. This is how they're going to end up banning all conservatives in order to have a monopoly on what can be said and not said. The power-mad PC lefties will FORCE us to behave and accept their agenda, which includes the silencing of Christians, the forced acceptance of 'climate change' and a carbon tax, the forced relinquishment of our guns and Second Amendment while forcing us into a Chinese-style social credit system. This must be stopped. NOW. Who says the ADL has the exclusive right to determine what is and what is not hate speech? Tim Cook is leading Apple toward the very dystopian society that the first Apple commercial in 1984 warned us about.

I know what real hate speech is--trolls used my name and face and altered cartoons to call for the murder of blacks, gays and the far left. Hate speech was not free speech for me. It was very costly. It cost me my reputation and lost work from my commercial art business. It cost me peace of mind.

At one desperate point to make it stop I said "hate speech is not free speech.' Well, sometimes it isn't.  Hate speech in the form of death threats, defamation, libel, and slander is actionable in a court of law. Andrew Anglin is finding that out when he sent his troll army to target a jewish woman and her family. She slapped a lawsuit on him, and rightfully so.

I could not afford such lawsuits. There was nothing I could do about it except sit and take it. Hate speech to me still meant having my reputation and ability to make a living destroyed due to copyright infringement, slander and libel.  Now, however, 'hate speech' is whatever the ADL says it is. 

Suspicious about Sandy Hook and want to point out the weird anomalies that took place? SHUT UP!--that's HATE SPEECH! Question the veracity of the moon landings? SHUT UP!--that's HATE SPEECH! Question Al Gore's 'Global Warming?" SHUT UP--that's HATE SPEECH! To protect free speech we must tolerate hate speech up to a certain point, even though I still say libel, death threats, and defamation still cross the line. That's actionable. But mostly, we can counter hate speech with free speech. Banning hate speech will only cause it to fester.

And that's my tirade for today.--BG

The Demonization of Alex Jones

In a shameful article from the left-leaning CNBC, we read about the 'dark side of untrammeled discourse' (they want censorship and trammeling) as well as the dangerous 'conspiracy theorist' Alex Jones, whom they smear as a 'right-wing provocateur.'

What they're doing is excusing Silicon Valley for blatantly censoring the free speech of a patriot and journalist who informed of us real conspiracies--not conspiracy 'theories.' The Deep State, the Bilderbergs, and fluoride in our water are only a few examples of such 'theories.' They're now established facts.

The fact of the matter is the Deep State and the oligarchs that run things continue to lose control of the dialogue and people are dismissing their narrative of globalism. It's their game and they want to keep their private monopoly and control of minds.

Since they're LOSING the argument they're now resorting to gross censorship. Lefty media outlets such as CNN, "The Washington Post" and CNBC are applauding this assault on our First Amendment. The latter published piece that refers to Jones, which can be read here:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/10/the-associated-press-tech-giants-still-stumbling-in-the-social-world-they-created.html

Notice how they added insults into their story---as if to suggests conservatives are violent 'Nazis,' murderers and rapists. This is despicable and a disgusting example of editorial reporting.

That all got dicier once the election of President Donald Trump focused new attention on fake news and organized misinformation campaigns — not to mention the fact that some of the people grabbing these new social-media megaphones were wild conspiracy theories who falsely call mass shootings a hoax, white nationalists who organize violent rallies and men who threaten women with rape and murder.

Shame on all the censors from Silicon Valley and the legacy media who want to control what used to be free speech on social media.

--Ben Garrison

JOSHUA GOLDBERG: JUSTICE SERVED!

Joshua Ryne Goldberg was sentenced to 10 years in prison. I'm surprised--I thought he would escape justice by claiming some sort of mental illness 'disability.' Instead he's going to serve hard time in the slammer. I'm happy to hear this--I'm enjoying a bit of justice served. Even if indirectly.

Goldberg is a young man from Florida who harassed me for several years while using the handles "Moon Metropolis" and "European88." He was the troll who pasted my name and signature onto 'hate meme' boxes. Those boxes egregiously libeled me as a 'Nazi' and they were all over the Internet for a time. Some appeared nearly daily on 4chan and 8chan. As European88, he created a Ben Garrison board on Reddit were he published defaced cartoons (more libel) and claimed they were the 'originals.' All of his garbage was readily seen on the search engines and it hurt my commercial art business and reputation. In my book "Rogue Cartoonist" I list him as European88. A cyber detective was certain he was from Australia. For some reason Goldberg liked to pretend he was Australian and had a spate of Australian aliases. We guessed wrong about his location, but as it turned out the FBI was all over him after he incited the shooting in Texas--at the Garland 'Muhammad Draw-In" event.

Goldberg may have gotten away with his libel, but he crossed the line when incited murder and terrorism. The FBI snagged him in the act. In his case, hate speech was definitely not free speech.

Goldberg pretended to be a tough guy behind his keyboard. Now he can try to be tough in the very real and harsh world of prison. Have a good time, Joshua.

http://www.businessinsider.com/florida-terror-troll-australia-bomb-plot-2018-6

Info Graphic: A Trio of Trolls

It has been over five years since I began penning anti-Federal Reserve cartoons in my spare time. I started drawing them in 2009 and almost immediately I was attacked by Internet trolls. At first I was bewildered and perplexed. I knew nothing about trolling or why they would do such a thing. Many of my friends and family thought I should simply ignore them.

That works in some cases, but when trolling ramps up to libel and criminal harassment...well, that can be difficult to ignore. Just ask Kathy Sierra when she started dealing with trolls. The ringleader was a young man named 'Weev' who mercilessly hounded her so much that she decided to drop off the Internet completely. You can read her story in her own words here:

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/trolls-will-always-win/

Her story was very familiar to me and it DOES seem like the trolls always win. But then, one of them pushed things too far and he was arrested. I was able to obtain justice--even if indirectly. Joshua Goldberg began trolling at the age of 12 and he kept ramping up his activities until he crossed the line--he was promoting murder for laughs. For some reason the young man had a fascination with Australia and many of his aliases were Australian. This even threw off a cyber investigator who tried to help me by tracking down the identities of the trolls.

I can boil the trolling down to three main attackers. One of them is now in jail. It doesn't take a lot of trolls to ruin one's reputation and a few can wreak a lot of damage. My commercial art business has been hurt. I had to leave my art gallery because trolls began attacking the owner. Lawyers were not interested in my case due to the difficulty of prosecuting online libel. Just because justice can't be had, the trolls think what they're doing is 'right' and 'free.' Nope--it's still criminal to change my work into anti-Semitism and racism and then claim I drew them while spreading them around the Web. Copyrights do have meaning and my work is owned by me. It's satire, you say? Wrong. Satire would be to draw your OWN cartoons in my style to mock my work.

One of the lawyers suggested I should go on a PR campaign and tell my story. I've done that. I even wrote a book. I gave away more copies than I have sold. I have also been trying to stay afloat by selling originals of my cartoons. I've sold them all so far (with special thanks to one collector who loves them--you know who you are!)

Drawing political cartoons without editorial constraints is a good example of engaging in free speech. I drew cartoons that mainstream media cartoonists wouldn't draw. I had to be shut up. Whether or not the trolling was first instigated by government provocateurs or by chuckleheads doesn't matter. The only way to get out of this mess is to keep drawing them until my REAL cartoons begin to drown out the ones defaced by trolls. It would be great if I could draw them full time, but that requires some sort of support. It's why I signed up for Patreon. If only a few thousand supporters would pledge $1 a month, I could draw cartoons full time. That's a dream, but I had to try.

https://www.patreon.com/grrrgraphics

To my first three supporters, my hearty thanks and I will do my best to make it worthwhile.

Meanwhile, here is an info graphic that shows my three main tormentors and how they are all interconnected. When it comes to Internet trolls, it's a small world.

Racist and anti-Semtic cartoonist A. Wyatt Mann is Nick Bougas

http://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/the-surprisingly-mainstream-history-of-the-internets-favorit#.afP5l97XLR

See for yourselves. Oh--and he also has a Jewish girlfriend.

Unlike Bougas, I've never penned an anti-Semitic or racist cartoon and I never will. Case closed. 4chan trolls are free to choke on the facts. --Ben Garrison