UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS POLICE GIVE PREACHER CITATION FOR OFFENDING STUDENTS

Daily Caller | Peter Hasson - FEBRUARY 12, 2016

The University of Texas at Austin police department issued a disorderly conduct citation to an outdoor preacher on Tuesday after students complained that his message had offended them.

The preacher, who was standing just off campus, recorded his interaction with several university police officers, who explained that it was illegal for him to offend the students.

The preacher was an intern with Campus Ministry USA, an evangelical ministry organization that travels around college campuses loudly preaching their message. The ministry is headed by one Brother Jed Smock, who told The Daily Caller that his intern Joshua “was speaking out against STDs, warning against anal sex.”

The university told TheDC that the officer was responding to students who claimed to be “verbally harassed” by the intern-preacher. The video shows the officer explaining that the intern’s use of “anal” and “penis” offended students, before issuing a citation for disorderly conduct. “After a lawyer representing Joshua called the chief of police, the chief called Joshua and apologized. The citation was withdrawn.” Brother Jed told TheDC.

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SAN DIEGO ATTEMPTS TO BAN TERM ‘FOUNDING FATHERS’ DUE TO ‘GENDER BIAS’

Adan Salazar | Infowars - FEBRUARY 10, 2016

A memo intended for San Diego city employees attempted to bar them from saying the words “Founding Fathers” because of the “gender bias” the term allegedly implies.

Entitled, “Visual and Correspondence Style Guidelines,” the memo sought to implement speech restrictions banning employees from uttering everyday terms like “manmade” and “mankind” on the basis that such terms exhibit “non-inclusive language.”

“Most alarmingly,” reads a press release from the Pacific Justice Institute, “is the guidelines directive, on page 76, that City employees should refrain from mentioning those to whom owe our most fundamental freedoms, the Founding Fathers.”

The legal organization has offered free help for any city employee that is reprimanded for referring to Thomas Jefferson, George Washington or any of the men that shaped the nation’s history.

“The manual’s inane attempt to recast the fathers as simply the ‘Founders’ reaches a level of political correctness, censorship and insensitivity towards time-honored American values that is indefensible,” the press release reads.

Evidently San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer was unaware of the manual’s “gender inclusive” efforts until recently.

In a tweet sent today, he stated he had already ordered the manual removed from city use, citing it as an example of how political correctness has gone wild.

“Suggesting that our Founding Fathers should be referred to as ‘Founders’ is political correctness run-amuck. We are proud of our nation’s history and there is nothing wrong with referring to the Founding Fathers,” Faulconer said.

“At my direction this was removed yesterday from the City’s correspondence manual. The manual will be reviewed for other misguided examples that defy common sense and changes will be made accordingly.”

Indeed, the case is illustrative of how political correctness can grow so out of proportion that it begins to directly infringe on civil liberties.

Cities such as Seattle have similarly moved to ban words like “citizen” and “brown bag” on the basis that such words are offensive. In Ontario, Canada,France and other places, the words “mother” and “father” have even been removed from government forms in the name of inclusiveness.

Twitter announces 'trust and safety' panel to police content

Washington Examiner | By RUDY TAKALA | 2/9/16 5:28 PM

Twitter on Tuesday announced the formation of a new “Trust and Safety Council,” which will work to develop policies censoring speech on the site. The group will be comprised of more than 40 organizations from 13 regions around the world.

“With hundreds of millions of tweets sent per day, the volume of content on Twitter is massive, which makes it extraordinarily complex to strike the right balance between fighting abuse and speaking truth to power,” Twitter said in a statement.

"It requires a multi-layered approach where each of our 320 million users has a part to play, as do the community of experts working for safety and free expression,” the statement added.

The announcement is the latest by Twitter in a string of moves aimed at improving its public image. Both the Obama administration and members of Congress have been calling on social media sites, and particularly Twitter, to do more to assist in the fight against terrorism. A California woman filed suit against Twitter in December, claiming that propaganda spread by the Islamic State on the site contributed to her husband’s shooting death in Jordan.

The latest move will contribute to combating violent speech on the site, but will likely expand Twitter’s effort to police content far beyond that as well. Groups involved with the council include the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Feminist Frequency, European Schoolnet, and the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism.

Twitter said it intended for the group to be comprised of “safety advocates, academics and researchers focused on minors, media literacy, digital citizenship, and efforts around greater compassion and empathy on the Internet,” and that it would provide input on the site’s “safety products, policies, and programs.”

“In developing the Council, we are taking a global and inclusive approach so that we can hear a diversity of voices,” Twitter explained. “As we develop products, policies, and programs, our Trust and Safety Council will help us tap into the expertise and input of organizations at the intersection of these issues more efficiently and quickly.”

Last week, the site also announced that it had silently removed as many as 125,000 accounts belonging to members of the Islamic State since the middle of 2015. And in December, Twitter amended its terms of service to more expressly prohibit abusive language.