This article was originally published in Danish on June 1, 2020.

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The sun is blindingly bright after 30 days in Zuckerbergs dark Jewish prison cell. My “offense” was to state a fact. You’re not allowed to do that on Facebook – only false information. The worst thing is that I suspect a Facebook friend, who otherwise has very healthy views, but whose toes I stepped on, of reporting me to the Facebook police. I don’t think we should turn each other in to the enemy – it doesn’t benefit the discussion. I’m happy to take it in stride. If you just want to be left alone in your own echo chamber, you can simply delete me from your friends list. I don’t delete anyone because I disagree with them about this or that. If we all agreed on everything, there would be no need to discuss anything.

However, 30 days show how dependent you have become on the crap. I haven’t been able to reply to messenger messages, for example. That’s annoying. I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate everyone who has had a birthday and wish a speedy recovery to everyone who is or has been ill. I haven’t been able to vent my frustrations either. That’s also annoying.

On the other hand, it’s probably a good thing to realize that you can actually live without FB, and you even save a hell of a lot of time that you can use for something better. Zuckerberg & Co. should remember that – because at the end of the day, he makes his living from us using his service! If we get tired of it, he loses income, and believe me: Zuckerberg is well aware of that. However, he probably considers us an insignificant group that he can easily do without.

Of course, I have been advised to have a backup profile, but you rarely come across the same people anyway. I have created a profile on MeWe, but suddenly I can’t log in – and honestly, I’m not that interested in MeWe – Facebook is what people use. Facebook has a de facto monopoly. This gives me cause for some fundamental reflection:

I often read posts from former FB prisoners who are temporarily free, saying that their freedom of expression is being violated, even that the Constitution is being violated. Unfortunately, this is not entirely true. We have the right to express ourselves as we wish, as long as we stay within the bounds of the criminal law! But Facebook and all other media are private companies that decide for themselves what they want to publish. Anyone who tries to get so-called controversial letters to the editor or opinion pieces published in newspapers knows from experience that there is no space for them, or that the text is changed so that it loses its impact. Freedom of speech means nothing more than that we can stand on a soapbox in a remote corner of a park and shout to the four corners of the earth. If we do so in a busy place, it will be a violation of the police regulations or a disturbance of public order. In the past, there were more newspapers, often four in each provincial town, as well as a number of national newspapers, from Land og Folk (the communists) to Berlingske Tidende (the bourgeoisie). It was therefore easier to find a place to express one’s opinions. Today, there are only a few newspapers, and their raison d’être is not to support specific political views or to stimulate debate, but solely to make money for often international corporations which, strangely enough, have no interest in promoting alternative views. They are controlled by the same forces that control the politicians. Finally, all newspapers are heavily subsidized by the state through VAT exemptions and cash contributions. The state only supports the system’s cheerleaders. Television is a closed shop if you’re not a red, and then there’s the internet, which we once naively believed to be the great democratic medium where everyone had a chance. As we have seen, this is obviously not the case. Governments are fighting to regulate it, and the rest is taken care of by de facto monopolies such as Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, etc.

It would be difficult from a legal standpoint to require private companies to publish everything they receive. No one can do that in practice. So editing has to take place, and it is done by the newspapers. They decide what people are allowed to read. The situation is obviously different with Facebook. There, posts are not edited, but instead there are some very vaguely worded and politically correct “community rules.” However, the enforcement of these rules is extremely one-sided. Communists, feminists, and Islamists can write pretty much whatever they want, and be as racist and sexist as they like—as long as it is directed at white men. For nationalists, completely different rules apply. As mentioned, there are several competitors to Facebook, but their “community rules” are largely the same as Facebook’s, and while they may not be enforced as strictly, this is solely because these competitors are keen to attract as many users as possible for the sake of advertising revenue.

We must maintain that Facebook is a de facto monopoly and that there is no serious competition in this area. It is in this situation that legislation is necessary, especially when it comes to free debate, as this is claimed to be the lifeblood of democracy. It must therefore be safeguarded. More clearly defined diversity requirements must be established for these “community rules,” and mechanisms must be put in place to ensure uniform enforcement and to which one can appeal the computer’s decisions — a kind of court mechanism — and violations of this uniform enforcement must be punished with fines so substantial that even Zuckerberg will feel the pinch. This is the only way to try to ensure free debate. It should be emphasized that Facebook’s new 40-member panel to monitor the handling of controversial statements does not provide such an appeal option and is therefore pretty much worthless, even though it will cost over $8 million a year! As far as I can see, it consists of 40 people selected from among the elite and the specially protected species – it will at best serve as an alibi and ultimately only exacerbate the situation because it will legitimize it.

However, there is another form of restriction of freedom of expression that is even more dangerous: it is the one that takes place in the labor market and throughout the public sector, which will naturally always claim that this restriction does not exist. This form of restriction is based on the fact that certain views are considered morally reprehensible by the left wing and feminists. People who hold such views cannot be “trusted” and cannot be “cooperated” with. No rational justification is given for this – it is not necessary. I can cooperate with anyone, regardless of whether they believe the earth is flat. That is none of my business. But others do not play the game that way.

If such an attitude were to affect people who praise communism and its executioners, with around 200 million victims on their conscience, it would of course be reprehensible and undemocratic – not to mention if it affected climate fanatics, coronavirus fanatics, gender-confused lunatics, or feminists. You would read about it in Information and Politiken for days on end. But when it affects nationalists, “Nazis,” “fascists,” or people who simply love their country and want it back, then it is perfectly acceptable to bring these mechanisms into play.

I know many people who have found jobs in the private sector, but who have also been told that the company cannot support them if they end up on the front pages of the newspapers. It is a very effective restriction of freedom of expression. I also remember my good friend, who was so excluded from “good society” that he ended up getting a job at a lumberyard in Svenstrup J, where he was all alone and just had to load the trucks that came for goods and unload the goods that were brought by other trucks. It wasn’t a high-profile job, and we thought it was a very apolitical job. But one day he was fired on the spot. A driver had called his union and said that he “wouldn’t be served by a Nazi pig like that.” The union passed the message on to the company, and Nielsen was out of work and had to move to another part of the country. That’s how you do it in a democracy.

However, it goes even further than that. I myself have been thrown out by Knudsen the butcher in Aabybro, who wouldn’t sell me anything unless I changed my mind, by Sørwi in Aalborg, who was happy to sell meat wholesale to everyone except me, by the barber on Vejgaard Torv, and by a now defunct packaging company in Aalborg. Calamus in Aulum refused to deliver a chair I had bought at a trade fair – and when I finally got my way, I received a defective one. Dissidents simply must not be allowed to exist!

After Aarhus University stated that it did not “have confidence in my researchintentions” (whatever that may mean) and hired an incompetent woman with language challenges who was unable to conduct any research whatsoever, even though she was paid to do so, I had to seek lower positions in the system and actually managed to stay in one workplace for 23 years despite inquiries in the Danish Parliament, complaints to ministers, massive pressure from trade unions, and a press smear campaign of monstrous proportions. This was only possible because I was lucky enough to have a boss who took democracy and freedom quite literally. It cost him dearly, including a seat in Parliament, where he could have done a great job! The details will be revealed in the second volume of my memoirs, which is currently only in the planning stage, but I can guarantee that there will be plenty of juicy details! My use of freedom of expression naturally also caused problems internally at work, but that route led nowhere either. External partners terminated agreements. After all, no one could have any confidence—neither in me nor in the workplace where I worked. They wanted to make it difficult for me to keep my job. Talk about bullying! But I’m the thick-skinned type, so their efforts to get rid of me were only successful when the county sent in its own people to the administration, where, with the help of the language department’s derailment, they bypassed the headmaster. Suddenly, there weren’t enough hours – but there were enough hours to use tricks to keep an incompetent woman who had just failed her teaching qualification due to a lack of language skills. In my time, incompetence has never been an obstacle to employment in the education sector – as long as you had the right opinions, and the right opinions were always a little to the left of the Social Democrats.

That left only the self-employed. I lost my only Danish client after testifying in favor of Søren Espersen when a notorious gossipmonger accused him of having been a member of the “Nazi party.” However, I do not regret my testimony! I certainly do not always agree with Søren Espersen, but that has nothing to do with right and reason! Justice should be done to everyone, including Søren Espersen, who has always been a competent and honorable journalist in his dealings with me—something you don’t come across every day! But even a dishonest journalist is entitled to justice!

Some of these things could, of course, be countered by applying the law on discrimination in the labor market, which specifically mentions discrimination on the basis of political opinion. A severe punishment might help, but alas – unlike Section 266b of the Criminal Code, there is no public prosecution, no possibility of appealing to a board or bringing a case before the courts… Who has the time and inclination to bring 50 complaints before such a board? Without public prosecution, the law is worthless.

The guidelines for the law are thick. All other protections are carefully tailored to benefit foreigners and Muslims. Regarding political views, the 78-page guideline states only:

4.3 Political views

Like the criteria of race and skin color, the criterion of political views was included in the original Discrimination Act of 1996 (99). The criterion implies protection of a political opinion, even where this is not necessarily manifested through membership of a political party.

An employer may not, in any employment context, attach importance to the political views of an applicant or employee. However, the limits of this concept have not (yet) been challenged in case law.

No, why would they? Everyone else has interest groups that ensure that cases are brought before the courts. Politically persecuted people do not, and very few have the energy to do so. If they have been fired and have a family to support, they have enough to worry about. The provision is ineffective. And the employer against whom these provisions are directed could simply point out that the other employees would go on strike if he did not fire the person in question.

What would really help would be a change in attitude among the population, a genuine democratization, where the right to hold and express any opinion is emphasized at every opportunity in the press, on television, and in education, and where it is those who do not accept this right who are excluded from the labor market. Then we could perhaps talk about democracy and freedom of expression, which is precisely (as George Orwell puts it) the right to say what others do not like to hear. This would require a break with the self-satisfied, complacent, and self-righteous pharisaism whose proponents believe they have the moral right to shame and exclude people who have a slightly different view of things than they do, indeed, to consider them inferior human beings. This is absolutism in democratic guise – indeed, democracy at its worst, which even Hal Koch would reject. In this context, I need only recall the case of the self-appointed Danish Academy, where several members have resigned in protest against academy member Marianne Stidsen’s views on the #metoo movement. The Danish Academy was supposed to be a place where all cultural issues could be discussed – but no, not when opinions dare to go against the prevailing opinion! Then you just have to shut up or leave the building!

Unfortunately, however, the fact is that society as such is not interested in any free debate. There is no desire for real democracy. The concept is only intended for use in speeches on solemn occasions. They are interested in stifling any expression that does not support the elite’s efforts to destroy Europe’s nation states, create a multicultural hell, and establish the unrestricted rule of big capital. There will therefore be no free debate. On the contrary, we must expect further restrictions on our freedom of expression – and thus on the population’s freedom of information, i.e. its ability to seek information. This is a dangerous path! Where debate ends, violence begins – for there is no other way to change the course of society towards the abyss! We have long since passed that point!

Povl H. Riis-Knudsen

Translated with the help of AI