King of Jordan approves a bill to criminalize online speech. Human rights groups call it draconian

alphacyberranger@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 290 points –
King of Jordan approves a bill to criminalize online speech. Human rights groups call it draconian
apnews.com
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The King of Jordan approved a bill Saturday to punish online speech deemed harmful to national unity, according to the Jordanian state news agency, legislation that has drawn accusations from human rights groups of a crackdown on free expression in a country where censorship is on the rise.

Okay, so it's not all online speech, just those statements that the government deems harmful without any clarity on what specifically that would entail. Just some good old-fashioned fascism right here.

The King of Jordan

fascism

I’m not sure that this is surprising coming from Jordan, but he’s a monarchist not a fascist.

And it surprises me that he passed this law. As far as I remember he was trying to reform the country into a more democratic one

Nothing screams democracy like silencing free speech.

Ok, so the article says that he's silencing islamists that started popping up as soon as he liberalised the country

Doesn’t sound very democratic to me. The dude is a thug pretending to be a good guy by spreading lies.

Its always a bit funny to see people conflate the two, by simply applying the "bad = bad" rubric.

Fascists, for all their faults, do tend to have a certain degree of popular appeal. Meanwhile, modern day robber barons mostly just have a bunch of armed minions ready to terrorize anyone that crosses them in the midst of their local looting and pillaging.