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ALBANY, New York (LifeSiteNews) — New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul expressed intentions Monday to have the state government monitor social media activity for “hate speech” in the name of catching “incitement to violence.”
“It’s painful to me as the governor of this great state – that has been known for its diversity, and how we celebrate different cultures, different religions, different viewpoints – it’s painful to see the cruelty with which New Yorkers are treating each other,” Hochul said after a meeting with Jewish leaders and law enforcement about rising anti-Semitism in the wake of Hamas’s October terror attack on Israel and Israel’s response, the Daily Caller reported. “Everywhere from college campuses to our streets to schools to playgrounds; even as they’re entering their houses of worship.”
Kathy Hochul announced that New York is "collecting data" from "surveillance efforts" on social media
Hochul says the social media analysis unit will contact people who commit "hate speech"
This is to "ensure safety" Even though they got rid of Guiliani's Stop and Frisk which… pic.twitter.com/QjlPiXfRpz
— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) November 13, 2023
“I also announced a significant increase in funding for our efforts: $75 million overall, $50 million for local law enforcement to beef up their efforts as well as $25 million in security grants,” she said.
But the most concerning portion of her remarks came when Hochul said that “we’re very focused on the data we’re collecting from surveillance efforts – what’s being said on social media platforms. And we have launched an effort to be able to counter some of the negativity and reach out to people when we see hate speech being spoken about on online platforms.”
Policing social media activity is primarily justified as a supposed attempt to identify truly dangerous extremists before their words can inspire or progress to offline violence. But critics have long argued that such excuses are just pretexts for legally and/or culturally suppressing truthful, non-hateful facts and information with which they disagree, on everything from COVID-19 and environmentalism to abortion and transgenderism.
Hochul’s New York has been characterized by a marked hostility to civil liberties, further underscoring concerns. Her administration was fighting to uphold the state’s COVID quarantine procedures as late as March 2023, long after most blue states had abandoned pandemic lockdowns.
In February, a federal judge blocked New York’s so-called Hateful Conduct Law, which concerns “the use of a social media network to vilify, humiliate, or incite violence against a group or a class of persons on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnicity, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression”; and requires social media platforms to “maintain mechanisms for reporting” such material. That law is currently pending before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
Send an urgent message to Canadian legislators urging them to stop more online censorship laws