I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me TOMORROW (Feb 14) in BOSTON for FREE at BOSKONE , and SATURDAY (Feb 15) for a virtual event with YANIS VAROUFAKIS. More tour dates here.
"Premature antifacist" was a sarcastic term used by leftists caught up in the Red Scare to describe themselves, as they came under ideological suspicion for having traveled to Spain to fight against Franco's fascists before the US entered WWII and declared war against the business-friendly, anticommunist fascist Axis powers of Italy, Spain, and, of course, Germany:
The joke was that opposing fascism made you an enemy of America – unless you did so after the rest of America had woken up to the existential threat of a global fascist takeover. What's more, if you were a "premature antifascist," you got no credit for fighting fascism early on. Quite the contrary: fighting fascism before the rest of the US caught up with you didn't make you prescient – it made you a pariah.
I've been thinking a lot about premature antifascism these days, as literal fascists use the internet to coordinate a global authoritarian takeover that represents an existential threat to a habitable planet and human thriving. In light of that, it's hard to argue that the internet is politically irrelevant, and that fights over the regulation, governance, and structure of the internet are somehow unserious.
And yet, it wasn't very long ago that tech policy was widely derided as a frivolous pursuit, and that tech organizing was dismissed as "slacktivism":
Elevating concerns about the internet's destiny to the level of human rights struggle was delusional, a glorified argument about the rules for forums where sad nerds argued about Star Trek. If you worried that Napster-era copyright battles would make it easy to remove online content by claiming that it infringed copyright, you were just carrying water for music pirates. If you thought that legalizing and universalizing encryption technology would safeguard human rights, you were a fool who had no idea that real human rights battles involved confronting Bull Connor in the streets, not suing the NSA in a federal courtroom.
And now here we are. Congress has failed to update consumer privacy law since 1988 (when they banned video store clerks from blabbing about your VHS rentals). Mass surveillance enables everything from ransomware, pig butchering and identity theft to state surveillance of "domestic enemies," from trans people to immigrants. What's more, the commercial and state surveillance apparatus are, in fact, as single institution: states protect corporations from privacy law so that corporations can create and maintain population-scale nonconsensual dossiers on all the intimate facts of our lives, which governments raid at will, treating them as an off-the-books surveillance dragnet:
Our speech forums have been captured by billionaires who censor anti-oligarchic political speech, and who spy on dissident users in order to aid in political repression. Bogus copyright claims are used to remove or suppress disfavorable news reports of elite rapists, thieves, war criminals and murderers:
You'd be hard pressed to find someone who'd describe the fights over tech governance in 2025 as frivolous or disconnected from "real politics"
This is where the premature antifascist stuff comes in. An emerging revisionist history of internet activism would have you believe that the first generation of tech liberation activists weren't fighting for a free, open internet – we were just shilling for tech companies. The P2P wars weren't about speech, privacy and decentralization – they were just a way to help the tech sector fight the entertainment industry. DRM fights weren't about preserving your right to repair, to privacy, and to accessibility – they were just about making it easy to upload movies to Kazaa. Fighting for universal access to encryption wasn't about defending everyday people from corporate and state surveillance – it was just a way to help terrorists and child abusers stay out of sight of cops.
Of course, now these fights are all about real things. Now we need to worry about centralization, interoperability, lock-in, surveillance, speech, and repair. But the people – like me – who've been fighting over this stuff for a quarter-century? We've gone from "unserious fools who mistook tech battles for human rights fights" to "useful idiots for tech companies" in an eyeblink.
"Premature Internet Activists," in other words.
This isn't merely ironic or frustrating – it's dangerous. Approaching tech activism without a historical foundation can lead people badly astray. For example, many modern tech critics think that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (which makes internet users liable for illegal speech acts, while immunizing entities that host that speech) is a "giveaway to Big Tech" and want to see it abolished.
Boy is this dangerous. CDA 230 is necessary for anyone who wants to offer a place for people to meet and discuss anything. Without CDA 230, no one could safely host a Mastodon server, or set up the long-elusive federated Bluesky servers. Hell, you couldn't even host a group-chat or message board:
Getting rid of CDA 230 won't get rid of Facebook or make it clean up its act. It will just make it impossible for anyone to offer an alternative to Facebook, permanently enshrining Zuck's dominance over our digital future. That's why Mark Zuckerberg wants to kill Section 230:
Defending policies that make it easier to host speech isn't the same thing as defending tech companies' profits, though these do sometimes overlap. When tech platforms have their users' back – even for self-serving reasons – they create legal precedents and strong norms that protect everyone. Like when Apple stood up to the FBI on refusing to break its encryption:
If Apple had caved on that one, it would be far harder for, say, Signal to stand up to demands that it weaken its privacy guarantees. I'm no fan of Apple, and I would never mistake Tim Cook – who owes his CEOhood to his role in moving Apple production to Chinese sweatshops that are so brutal they had to install suicide nets – for a human rights defender. But I cheered on Apple in its fight against the FBI, and I will cheer them again, if they stand up to the UK government's demand to break their encryption:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20g288yldko
This doesn't make me a shill for Apple. I don't care if Apple makes or loses another dime. I care about Apple's users and their privacy. That's why I criticize Apple when they compromise their users' privacy for profit:
The same goes for fights over scraping. I hate AI companies as much as anyone, but boy is it a mistake to support calls to ban scraping in the name of fighting AI:
It's such a huge mistake to assume that anything corporations want is bad for the internet. There are many times when commercial interests dovetail with online human rights. That's not a defense of capitalism, it's a critique of capitalism that acknowledges that profits do sometimes coincide with the public interest, an argument that Marx and Engels devote Chapter One of The Communist Manifesto to:
In the early 1990s, Al Gore led the "National Information Infrastructure" hearings, better known as the "Information Superhighway" hearings. Gore's objective was to transfer control over the internet from the military to civilian institutions. It's true that these institutions were largely (but not exclusively) commercial entities seeking to make a buck on the internet. It's also true that much of that transfer could have been to public institutions rather than private hands.
But I've lately – and repeatedly – heard this moment described (by my fellow leftists) as the "privatization" of the internet. This is strictly true, but it's even more true to say that it was the demilitarization of the internet. In other words, corporations didn't take over functions performed by, say, the FCC – they took over from the Pentagon. Leftists have no business pining for the days when the internet was controlled by the Department of Defense.
Caring about the technological dimension of human rights 30 years ago – or hell, 40 years ago – doesn't make you a corporate stooge who wanted to launch a thousand investment bubbles. It makes you someone who understood, from the start, that digital rights are human rights, that cyberspace would inevitably evert into meatspace, and that the rules, norms and infrastructure we built for the net would someday be as consequential as any other political decision.
I'm proud to be a Premature Internet Activist. I just celebrated my 23rd year with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and yesterday, we sued Elon Musk and DOGE:
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
The phrase “maybe the curtains were just blue” is genuinely so harmful to media literacy as a whole. Yes, things can just be the way they are, but almost everything exists with context. Do you exist or do you exist because of everything that has happened in the world? Your parents met, you didn’t die that one time when you were eight, you’re the person you are because of that awful haircut you had in seventh grade. You exist because of all of that.
So, nothing pisses me off more than when someone uses an incomplete quote. “A jack of all trades is a master of none” without the second half: “but oftentimes better than a master of one” (everyone say thank you Shakespeare) has an entirely different meaning. The first half by itself is utilized to shame people into ignoring things they love or are interested in; meanwhile the full quote praises people interested in a variety of things. Ignoring context literally erodes the meaning behind anything. Machiavelli said “it’s better to be feared than to be loved.” Wrong. Loud incorrect buzzer. Kind of. As Malcolm Gladwell writes, “it’s not wrong, exactly, it’s just incomplete.” (Or something like that anyways.) Yes, Machiavelli did write that. Congrats! But you forgot a kinda, semi, VERY FUCKING IMPORTANT component of that quote. “It is better to be feared than to be loved if one cannot have both.” It should be common sense right? I wish. Ask anyone about their opinion on the incomplete quote and see how many of them think they’re revolutionary when they say “oh I’d rather have both!” If the full quote doesn’t seem to make a difference in your mind, great! But there’s still more context that you need to know to actually understand it (let alone teach it (Mr. History teacher that is NOT a philosophy teacher and should not try to be one)). The quote is from The Prince, a writing in which Machiavelli talks about what makes a good leader. In his opinion, The Prince should know when to utilize love and fear to his advantage. Be loved by your people and feared by your enemies. Seem more trusting than you are so you can see who is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He says that one should prefer to be feared than to be loved in time sensitive situations, not sustainably. That when things need immediate change being feared makes a stronger and more effective leader (which is unequivocally correct and I’m tried of hearing otherwise). So again, without context: a random quote that no one agrees with or really understands at all, whatsoever vs. with context: the assertion that in times of need it is better to be respected and feared than it is to be loved. Or, a personal favorite “dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum.” I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am. Oh wow! So cool, he thinks therefore he is - being capable of thought means I exist, how neat! Not wrong, sure, but lacking context. What makes the philosophy so powerful is the fact that it’s a paradox. You doubt your existence, therefore you are capable of thought, therefore you exist. Because you doubt your existence, you prove that you exist. But if you are then confident you exist, do you no longer exist anymore? And now you doubt it again. Without context, it’s just words on a page, nothing notable or interesting. Without looking for the context it’s yet another thing people will complain about having to learn because “why does it even matter?”
It’s the same with characters. Armand is batshit fucking insane, yes, but he only is that way because of who he is. The tv show fails his character when they age him up, because even with some of his backstory, he is the way he is mainly because he’s eternally trapped in the body of a 17 year old. ____ is too trusting! Maybe in different circumstances, yes, but that character is the way they are because of the life experiences they’ve had. ____ is the right amount of trusting for the life they’ve lived.w
It’s the same for people too!!! Please find it within you to have basic human empathy! Someone is the way they are because of their life experiences. You can’t have something happen to you, good or bad, and not be affected by it. Someone can only change if their experiences change. No, it’s not your responsibility to change someone’s behavior or to tolerate it, but it is your responsibility to try to understand why someone is the way they are.
Empathy and media literacy are so clearly intertwined it’s would be comical if it wasn’t depressing. Read between the lines, try to understand things that you don’t get immediately. The curtains aren’t just blue. It doesn’t matter if it’s to represent sadness or just because it’s the author’s favorite color or even because the author was so indecisive they made someone else pick it, there’s still a reason. Anti-intellectualism is the curse that keeps on dooming us all.
Could you be persuaded to say something you knew not to be true?
By: Douglas Murray
Published: Sep 4, 2025
Could you be persuaded to say something you knew not to be true?
Most of us would probably say “Absolutely not. Never.” But the evidence is that even a small amount of social pressure can make grown adults say things they know to be untrue.
Take the case of Malcolm Gladwell. The Canadian-born author has had most of the good fortune that life can bring. His received opinions have gained him lucrative positions at liberal publications. His books have become international bestsellers. In fact, many authors might look in envy at the fact that some airport bookshops seem to have a whole Malcolm Gladwell section.
His schtick might be to say banal things in ways that appear spicy and new. But he has made a very good career of it and been lauded by his peers.
Yet this week, he admitted that he is a coward.
Appearing on a podcast called “The Real Science of Sport,” Gladwell referred to the vexing question of born males competing in women’s sports.
For most of us, this was always a no-brainer. It was obvious that someone who has been born a male, gone through male puberty and has all the physical advantages of being a man should be kept well clear of women’s sports. Otherwise women’s sports cease to be women’s sports, thousands of young female athletes would train hard for no reason and women’s sports would simply become a division of men’s sports for men who can’t succeed against their male peers.
Gladwell says he finds the arguments for men competing in women’s sports to be unconvincing.
But at a panel in 2022, he said that men should indeed be allowed to compete in women’s sports.
To his credit, he admits why he said what he said just three years ago. He says that he felt “cowed” at the time. Now he is “ashamed of my performance” on the panel in question. He also admitted that he approached the discussion “in a dishonest way.”
Having debated Gladwell in the past, about the same time as his now-recanted panel, I can say that I’m pleased to hear his admission. I’m also not remotely surprised that Gladwell would approach a debate with dishonesty. His performances are generally filled with group-think and laced with condescension toward anyone he finds disagreeing with him.
In fact, in all the decades I have debated my own views in public, I don’t think I’ve often come across someone so willing and indeed eager to debate in bad faith.
But his admission helps us to understand something about the incentive structures in our own society.
Parents across America who said what Gladwell now says were slandered for years for saying it. High school and college athletes a third of Gladwell’s age who dared to say what was true were hounded by mobs. They had their reputations and sometimes their careers wrecked.
And for what? For saying something that should have required no courage to say and which should never have been controversial.
Consider the price that other people paid for similar heresies.
This week, the comedy writer Graham Linehan returned to the UK after a visit to America. On arrival at Heathrow airport, the 57-year-old was met by five armed police officers. They promptly detained Linehan and took him in for questioning. He has been arrested and faces trial.
In recent years, Linehan has been one of the very few people in the entertainment industry to speak out against the gender ideology madness that flowed through Western societies. He refused to accept that a man can become a woman and stood up to the online and offline bullies who said otherwise.
For this he was dropped by all the mainstream figures who had once worked with him.
Despite producing masterpieces like the sitcom “Father Ted,” Linehan was treated like a pariah. He has struggled to find work. What writing he has done — including a book — has been carefully ignored by most of the media. You would be hard-pressed to find a “Graham Linehan section” in any airport bookshop.
And now on top of all this, Linehan has been arrested. By armed British police who don’t normally carry guns and rarely if ever bother to investigate actual crimes. Most people in the orbit of London will never have any follow-up from the police if their phone or bicycle is stolen. Many will struggle to get the police to visit their house if they have suffered a home burglary.
But those same police show up with guns to detain a comedy writer who has been guilty of “wrong-think” on a social issue?
When put together, the cases of Gladwell and Linehan should remind us of a deep and important truth about our culture.
If there is a punishment for telling the truth, then many people will tell lies. If telling lies is incentivized, then many people will tell lies. And if you allow mobs of people online or off to intimidate people and don’t stand up to them, then many people will be intimidated. And they will change what they say accordingly.
There has been a price for Graham Linehan for telling the truth. Whereas there were only ever rewards for Malcolm Gladwell for saying things that even he now admits to have known at the time to be untrue.
The debate on men in women’s sports is gradually reaching some kind of sensible place. But that isn’t because of the simple weight of truth. It is because a small number of famous people and a much larger number of people with no public profile refused to take part in a culture of lies.
A healthy society needs brave people. And a healthy society should celebrate those people. It should also express mockery and contempt for all those people in positions of power who now admit to putting their own personal comfort before any concern for truth.
==
When you can coerce people to lie for you out of fear, you're not "oppressed" or "marginalized," you're the totalitarian tyrants that need to be overthrown.
The author behind 'The Tipping Point' admonished his prior actions, saying he had felt “cowed” by the public.
Samantha Riedel at Them:
Author and essayist Malcolm Gladwell has claimed he was previously “cowed” into accepting transgender women in women’s sports, declaring on a podcast this week that trans women “have no place” competing against their cisgender peers.
Gladwell, a longtime New Yorker contributor best known for his 2000 book The Tipping Point, made the comments on an episode of the podcast “The Real Science of Sport” released Tuesday. The podcast’s hosts, scientist Ross Tucker and sports journalist Mike Finch, have denounced trans-inclusive sports on past episodes of the show, and Tucker himself was involved in World Rugby’s decision to ban trans women from competition several years ago.
Tucker was also a guest at a 2022 MIT athletic panel, hosted by Gladwell, regarding trans women’s participation in athletic competitions. Speaking to Tucker on the podcast this week, Gladwell said that he regretted not endorsing Tucker’s position during the panel, claiming — without evidence — that “90%” of the audience was “on [Tucker’s] side” but had been unwilling to admit it. (Gladwell had already endorsed Tucker’s views on trans athletes as “smart” in 2019.)
“If we did a replay of that exact panel at the Sloan conference this coming March [...] it would be, I suspect, near unanimity in the room that trans athletes have no place in the female category. I don’t think there’s any question,” Gladwell said, adding that he was “ashamed” and had felt too “cowed” to express his opinion on the subject. (A vast majority of U.S. residents supported trans-inclusive sports just four years ago, but polling has recently shifted after several years of Republican anti-trans propaganda.)
Gladwell went on to allege that during the 2022 panel, sports researcher Joanna Harper told Tucker that “you [cis people] have to let us win” — which Gladwell took as evidence that trans people were demanding to win competitions, and that “no one [...] question the considerable physical physiological advantage they bring to the sport.”
[...]
The fixation on trans athletes is a part of a larger anti-trans strategy from conservatives. Last week, former swimmer Riley Gaines told the New York Times that winning on sports was key. “The gender ideology movement is a house of cards,” she claimed, with athletic participation “the card that makes all of it crumble,” opening the door to convince the general public that trans women are not truly women. That refrain is one often repeated by the Trump administration, which has prevented trans athletes from obtaining travel visas and used inclusive sports policies to target some states’ federal funding.
Author Malcolm Gladwell has spoken out against trans inclusion in sports, reversing his previous stance that he said was “ashamed” to have supported.
See Also:
LGBTQ Nation: Iconic writer Malcolm Gladwell says he’s “100%” against trans women in sports: “This is nuts.”
The Advocate: Malcolm Gladwell turns on trans athletes, says he was 'cowed' into support
