August 22, 2024
In the space of
just one week there has been a massive, almost Orwellian crackdown on free
speech, with a number of arrests made. Not in North Korea or China but in the
USA and UK. Barely days after former UN weapons inspector and social media tsar
Scott Ritter had his house raided by FBI officers looking for evidence that he
was actually working for America’s enemies we witnessed the arrest and
detention of a young British journalist called Richard Medhurst who, when
arriving at Heathrow airport from overseas, was escorted off a plane and held
on terrorism charges. And then remarkably, Elon Musk, a billionaire who owns X
and claims to be a champion of free speech shuts down the account of Egyptian
comedian Bassem Youssef – which is followed by rumours on social media that the
next polemic commentator to get the chop will be the YouTube talk show hosted
by Judge Andrew Napolitano.