Irish authorities are pushing forward a bill that will make it a crime to disseminate and possess content deemed to be hateful—a development Elon Musk warns is a threat to free speech in the country.

The bill empowers Irish authorities to convict people criminally for alleged hate crimes. According to the bill, a person can be deemed guilty of an offense if the individual “(i) communicates material to the public or a section of the public, or (ii) behaves in a public place in a manner, that is likely to incite violence or hatred against a person or a group of persons on account of their protected characteristics or any of those characteristics.”

“Massive attack on freedom of speech,” Musk said in an April 30 tweet responding to an organization called Free Speech Ireland, which criticized the Irish government for voting against “human rights and quite literally for thought crime legislation.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ireland-governments-hate-speech-bill-promotes-thought-crime-legislation