Here is our submission to the three-day OHCHR seminar on ac…

“To a very large extent, our freedom of expression is controlled by corporate enterprises such as Google, Twitter, Facebook, Medium, and WordPress. These companies decide which information and ideas are permissible and which must be banished.”

Although the RationalWiki page on #LGBAlliance is no longer, as the submission states, the first item to appear when googling LGB Alliance, this page is still prominent and it is not possible to edit the page to correct the disinformation on it.

“Twitter, Medium and WordPress regularly remove texts and accounts from their site on the basis of their rules. It can easily be demonstrated that these rules have been devised to suppress views highlighting women’s concerns about the loss of their sex-based rights.”

“By suppressing views that highlight the reality of biological sex, ... along with views that are widely regarded as obnoxious, these companies create the suggestion that emphasizing the reality of biological sex belongs in the same category as these objectionable ideas.”

“A discussion can be made impossible by changing the terms in which it is discussed. If every reference to the rights of Jews were called ‘Islamophobic’, it would suddenly become impossible, even in academic publications, to discuss antisemitism.”

“This is what has happened to the issue of women’s rights, and it has profoundly undermined the freedom of expression in academia and in society at large.”

“Activists have labelled all references to the rights of women & girls, who experience discrimination and abuse worldwide on the basis of biological factors, as ‘transphobic’. They use hate laws.. intended to prevent violence & abuse of minorities, to silence these discussions.”

“In addition,activists have sown linguistic confusion by coining new words & redefining existing ones. Because the subject of sex and gender is complex,and [to many] awkward & even embarrassing, many people prefer to assume that organisations active in this area are the experts.”

“Most bodies, organisations, companies, even governments defer to these organisations. They do so from the best of intentions, assuming that the aim is to protect the human rights of a vulnerable group.”

Here is our submission to the three-day OHCHR seminar on academic freedom we attended earlier this year. It highlights the key role of social media companies, rather than governments, in controlling online discourse, which impacts on academic freedom.

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