Well, they are both on the minds of certain human rights activists and they are both sentinels of soviet-style denunciation because of anonymous bias-reporting systems in academia. These systems sprang from US universities (e.g. Virginia, Oregon State and Ohio State) and are spreading elsewhere. They are supposed to expose and punish people who make use of their free speech in a way the PC crowd regards as offensive and wants to be verboten. Their latest target is the well-known conservative publicist Mark Steyn.
The Canadian Islamic Congress has filed a "human rights complaint” against the prominent Canadian news magazine MacLean’s, because it published an excerpt of Steyn's book America Alone, considered by the plaintiff as "flagrantly Islamophobic". And at least two Human Rights Commissions are willing to hear those complaints. This is despite the fact that the book, which is published in the US, has already been best selling in Canada. Another way of looking at this attack on free speech is the worldwide rapidly growing list of Muslim Libel Cases.
In the meantime, many regard it as unfortunate that the erstwhile home country of individual liberty has become the "libel capital of the West" because in today's England the defendant in a libel case bears the burden of proof. The most notorious beneficiary of this is the Saudi Sheik K. S. bin Mahfouz, who has already filed 30 libel cases in the UK alone that usually result in banning books critical of Islam.
Steyn responds in the Weekly Standard:
The "progressive" left has grown accustomed to the regulation of speech, thinking it just a useful way of sticking it to Christian fundamentalist, rightwing columnists, and other despised groups. They don't know they're riding a tiger that in the end will devour them, too.
