The English Premier League is investigating the social media posts of fans as part of an effort to remove “racism” from the game. To that end, the league compiled an 11-page dossier on a woman that included personal information as well as social media posts that made her a “target,” according to the league investigation,
Linzi Smith, a lesbian activist, claimed she was the subject of a “stasi” investigation that ended with her being banned from Newcastle United games until 2026 and her membership in the fan club being revoked.
The investigation contained information about where she lives, works, and “even where she walked her dog,” according to the Daily Mail.
“That just had me sick to my stomach. They’d basically referred to me as a target, they had tried to find my identify,” she told the Free Speech Union. “It’s quite frightening, I don’t feel safe walking around where I live anymore.”
What in the Sam Hill is going on? Smith was right to peg these bullies as “stasi,” the old East German domestic intelligence organization whose name struck fear in the hearts of ordinary people. But what gives them the right to target and spy on a citizen for expressing views that are in the mainstream?
“I’m struggling to believe this has happened to me. It’s mind-blowing that they have gone to such lengths because I have expressed views to which I am entitled on my personal Twitter account.”
“They have behaved like the Stasi – it was being done so covertly that I didn’t even know what was happening.”
Toby Young, the general secretary of the Free Speech Union, said: “This is the most egregious example of corporate interference with free speech I’ve ever come across. In effect, the social media accounts of football fans are being monitored by the ‘Stadium Stasi. It’s like something out of 1984.”
The organisation is helping Ms Smith to fight her ban.
The original complainant had included screenshots taken from her social media account in which she suggested that transgender people were suffering from mental illness.
Adding that they would feel ‘unsafe’ if they had to ‘share a space’ with someone who was so ‘openly transphobic’ and stated that many of Ms Smith’s posts were mocking the trans movement.
It got worse for Smith. She learned in October that Northumbria Police were investigating her for a possible hate crime. They came out for a 25-minute interview about her tweets only to call a couple of hours later telling her they weren’t pursuing the case.
It’s difficult to confront out-and-out fascism like this. It unnerves us — something it’s supposed to do. What’s even more frightening to me is that there are people both in England and here who see nothing wrong with these tactics. These are the same sorts of people we see in the old newsreels throwing their arms up in a slavish salute to Hitler with their faces contorted in joy as they hoarsely scream, “Heil Hitler!”
The report compiled by the Premier League is almost militaristic in its vocabulary.
In one section of the report titled, ‘vulnerabilities’, it detailed how Ms Smith had repeatedly been a victim of online abuse, including her face having been superimposed onto an image of someone being hanged.
Now, Ms Smith, who runs a tea shop with her mother, is afraid to go out and doesn’t feel safe at home, as she doesn’t know who has seen this information.
“It is really quite frightening because i don’t know whose seen it now. I don’t know who knows where I live or knows where I walk around.”
Do you think Linzi Smith is going to be posting about transgenderism online for a while? Mission accomplished.