We've Been Quiet

ACTC hasn't been active for a few months, but it's not because the censorship beast has been vanquished. Our membership has been caught up in other things that life often demands. Meanwhile, society's interest in the topic of censorship seemed to have waned with the election of Donald Trump for his non-consecutive second term. The narrative on the Right has been that censorship's days have ended. "Everybody can go back to sleep, because all is well, now."

Lulled Into Complacency

While the Right and even many libertarians have been convinced that things made a turn for the better with the new administration, here at ACTC we are about one topic and one alone: Are dissident voices being silenced?

It's time for the Trump honeymoon to end, and for people to realize that censorship hasn't ended. Just like under the Biden administration, liberty is threatened by the actions of the US government and its "tech bro" minions. Only the colors of the ties, the branding, and the topics being censored have changed. This is what always occurs: The cronies align for the best benefit from those in power. So, the systems of control swing around to act in the regime's favor. With the Trump administration, we've seen a change to what topics and which people are being censored, but censorship has not been stopped. Instead, the updated alignment is being prepped for a lot more censorship.

Heated Rhetoric

Extremely concerning rhetoric has arisen on the part of the neocons in power and many of their talking heads. Especially with respect to anybody criticizing the government of Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians. One does not need to be a terrorist or a supporter of Hamas to believe that bombing of civilians and the intent to ethnically cleanse Gaza -- even as suggested by Trump at one point -- is wrong. The fact is that anybody who dares to criticize the government of Israel's actions is incorrectly labeled an "anti-semite."

Not only do we see such rhetoric coming from the likes of neocons like Ben Shapiro and Douglas Murray, but also from people who have been censored and fought it themselves, including Jordan Peterson. Peterson has accused people with views opposing his own on the topic of Israel as psychopaths, while attributing an array of other psychological pathologies to them. We would expect somebody like Peterson to respect the free speech of others, especially in matters of conscience, after he was threatened with re-education by authorities in Canada. However, the neocon approach is no different from the Left's. The only free speech that they want respected is their own. Attacks on the sanity of one's opposition have been habitually used by a number of authoritarian regimes, and should be regarded with caution. Where could this lead?

Certainly, like anybody else, these neocons have a right to their opinions, and ACTC is not interested in stopping them from being expressed. However, because they are aligned with the current regime, their rhetoric has teeth and is resulting in actions to silence the opposition.

• Universities are being threatened with the witholding of billions of dollars in US government funding if they don't adopt strong enough policies against "anti-semitism" -- which can easily mean restricting free speech when the Israeli government is being criticized. (Of course, I think that they shouldn't be recipients of taxpayer dollars to begin with, but that's another story.)
• Thousands of students on educational visas are being deported. Are they really involved in law-breaking actions, or are they being targeted for protests against the Israeli government's actions, causing them to be labled as anti-semitic Hamas supporters? We suspect that we know the answer, but time will tell. At the very least, there is a chilling effect on those who would otherwise speak out.
• House Bill 1007, the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2025, is nothing less than an attack on free speech. While we have cherished free speech in our country, especially in matters regarding our own government, members of Congress would like those who are critical of the Israeli government to simply shut up. It doesn't appear to have any momentum since its introduction in February, but we need to be ever-vigilant to ensure that such unconstitutional, un-American acts never become law.

Like any government overreach, we should expect that the current actions are trial balloons to see what powers they can exercise, test to see what kind of push-back they receive, and a continuous probing of what further unconstitutional powers they may be able to grab.

Even if you like what the current administration is doing with such "authority," you should ask what the opposition will do with such authority when the precedent has been set. Especially when you took no action to protect free speech in the present, because you were OK with seeing voices squashed when you didn't agree with them.

What Would be Better?

Here at ACTC, we support everybody's right to free speech. Unlike some who claim to be "free speech" advocates, we do not limit our advocacy of free speech to those whose views are popular or agree with our own. A healthy republic requires dissident voices, alongside a public possessing critical thinking skills and exercising strong discernment to determine for themselves what the truth is, rather than some BS "authorities" or "fact checkers" making those determinations for them.

As Samuel Adams put it in his 1 August 1776 speech to the State House in Philadelphia:

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”

The "animating contest of freedom" is exactly what we seek. We believe that the arguments that take place expose the flawed thinking of some while highlighting the excellent philosophies of others. The good, true, and beautiful win us over, in the end, but the conversation needs to take place and a marketplace of ideas needs to exist.

What Can We Do?

At ACTC, we have technologies that can protect dissident voices. The initial solutions do so by spreading content across multiple platforms to reduce the probability of cancellation using ContentSafe, while also posting that same content to the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) using CensorGuard, where the spread of information is not easily stopped. Especially when the built-in search capabilities of ARNIIE make the content discoverable and assist in its spread. These technologies are only the beginning, as there are many other potential technologies that can be exercised to protect our freedom of speech.

It's true that we've been quiet for a while, but don't confuse that with an idea that the censorship dragon has been slayed, or that we've been lulled into complacency by the results of the 2024 election. We are here. We still have a fire in our belly to fight censorship. We are looking for like-minded people who are willing to build coalitions, stand alongside us, exercising and enhancing relevant technologies to ensure that free voices remain free.

We wish to make liberty unstoppable!

Please consider joining us by signing up for our email list, and/or donating to the cause. If you are a content creator, especially one whose voice is threatened, please reach out to us via the contact page, so that we can build a relationship to assist you and others.

Thanks!