A reportedly drunk & possibly insane man attacked a member of parliament in Australia with his car. And so, naturally, a few vile politicians are exploiting the tragedy to demand mass online censorship. Decades of scientific evidence & common sense demolish their lies. THREAD

And yes, if a politician really wanted to fight "real-world violence," he should propose banning cars!

Anyone advocating censorship as a way to stop real-world violence is in the grip of pseudoscience and is likely motivated by deeply authoritarian or totalitarian impulses. Think of how creepy a politician you'd need to be to respond to such a tragedy by wanting censorship.

And the reason those things are out there is that courts have repeatedly ruled that the evidence simply does not support censorship as a solution to reducing real-world violence. Full stop.

And this central logic doesn't just apply in the US or just to video games. Think about it: there's violent, hateful, bad media everywhere across the Western world. Streaming. Movies. Stand-up comedy. Podcasters. Social media.

What do the courts say about the scientific evidence? The most important ruling anywhere in the world on violent media was by the US Supreme Court in 2011, when it ruled 7-2 — a majority that included liberals and conservatives — against allowing California to ban violent video games. Why? Because the high court's review of psychological studies failed to prove any causal link between violent video games and real-world aggression.

Malevolent censorship advocates claim censorship would have stopped genocides. It's nonsense. "These genocidal regimes are not examples of countries where free speech got out of hand. Instead, they were societies that controlled speech, including counterspeech which may have helped combat their evil ideas."

John Morrison wrote this excellent review of the research into whether real-world violence can be blamed on media of various kinds. Aside from demolishing the censors, it's a fascinating look through history: environmentalprogress.org/bi…

Before even looking at the scientific evidence, think about what's being said. The claim by the censors is that what causes violence is ideas, words, pictures, etc. Think of what could be banned: religious texts, comic books, films, video games — and political speech

I am not going to name, yet, the politicians who have already said absolutely idiotic things about the need to censor social media platforms in response to this terrible tragedy. But seriously, WTF is wrong with politicians who see censorship as the solution to mental illness?

So naturally, the US banned all movies, yes? No? Just Scorsese's movies? Just Jodi Foster movies. I mean, seriously? So Australia should now, what — censor leftists on social media platforms so mentally ill people won't be inspired by their posts and try to murder people? How is that not itself totally insane?

In 1981, a mentally ill man named John Hinckley, Jr. shot President Ronald Reagan. Why? Because, Hinckley said, he wanted to impress the actress Jodie Foster, who he had become obsessed with after watching her play Iris in Scorsese's 1976 movie, "Taxi Driver."

The above information is all you need to know about why censorship is an absolutely ludicrous and depraved response to this real-world tragedy. Think about it: it was a drunk and possibly crazy leftist who ran over another leftist who was "better" from his point of view on climate and Israel than practically any other MP!

But it's all much crazier than that. The MP who Brendan Nugent, 43, allegedly ran over, Helen Haines, "consistently voted in favour of parliamentary motions calling for consideration of Gaza and voted in favour of action on climate change." news24.com.au/politics/austr…