Police Question Miami Resident Over Facebook Post & UK Cancels Visa-Free Entry of Right-Wing Influencer | The Free Flow 1/22/26

Police questioned a Miami Beach resident over a Facebook comment, the UK cancelled a right-wing influencer's visa-free eligibility, protests erupted in Romania over anti-extremism law, and more.

This Week at a Glance 🔎

— 🇺🇲 Police Question Miami Resident Over Facebook Post

— 🇷🇴 Romanian Anti-Extremism Law Sparks Free Speech Concerns

— 🇬🇧 UK Cancels Visa-Free Entry of Right-Wing Influencer

— 🇮🇷 Deadly Crackdown on Protests in Iran Continues

— 🇲🇾 LGBTQ+ Event Cancelled After Pressure from Malaysian Government

First of All 🇺🇲

» Minnesota Officials Hit With Grand Jury Subpoenas for Statements ‘Impeding’ ICE

• Last week, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey were placed under investigation by the Justice Department for allegedly impeding federal immigration enforcement by publicly criticizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities in the state.

• On January 20, the pair, along with several other government officials in Minnesota, were issued grand jury subpoenas.

• Investigation:

  • An anonymous U.S. official told CBS News that “the investigation stems from statements that Walz and Frey have made about the thousands of [ICE] officers and Border Patrol agents deployed to the Minneapolis region in recent weeks.”

  • The investigation began during what the Department of Homeland Security has called its largest recent immigration enforcement operation, which resulted in more than 2,500 arrests in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

  • State and local officials have repeatedly told protesters to remain peaceful as tensions heightened after the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent.

  • Mayor Frey argued the investigation was an attempt to intimidate him for “standing up for Minneapolis, our local law enforcement, and our residents against the chaos and danger this Administration has brought to our streets.”

• Subpoenas:

  • Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her were also among the subpoenaed in connection with the allegations.

  • Minnesota AG Ellison said that the subpoena targets records and documents related to his office’s work regarding federal immigration enforcement, shortly after his office sued the Trump administration over ICE’s tactics in the state.

» Police Question Miami Beach Resident Over Facebook Post

• After posting Facebook comments critical of Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner, police visited the home of Raquel Pacheco to question her.

• What Happened:

  • Pacheco, a former candidate for the Miami Beach City Commission and the Florida Senate, had responded to a post from Mayor Meiner describing Miami Beach as a welcoming place.

  • Her comment criticized his positions and actions toward Palestinian and LGBTQ+ communities, and a reference to last March, when Meiner attempted to end a local cinema’s lease after it screened a movie from Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers he described as an “attack on the Jewish people.”

  • Pacheco recorded the interaction with police at her door, in which an officer told her they were looking for the commenter because the content posted could “probably incite somebody to do something bad.”

  • Officers were also heard saying, “We are just trying to prevent somebody else getting agitated or agreeing with the statement,” but that they were not judging whether her comment was true.

• Officials’ Response:

  • A day after visiting Pacheco, the police released a statement that the post was reviewed because it referenced an elected official and was made amid heightened concerns about antisemitism..

  • They insisted the assessment was made as a precaution against potential safety implications, and their visit was a “brief, consensual encounter.”

  • Mayor Meiner wrote, “[O]ur police department believed that inflammatory language that is false and without any factual basis was justification for follow-up to assess the level of threat and to protect the safety of all involved.”

Our Take: In a statement posted on X, we reiterated that the police’s claim that the comment could “probably incite somebody to do something bad” was not the standard for when speech falls outside the First Amendment. While Pacheco’s posts might be unkind or even untrue about the Mayor, they are all protected political speech, and certainly don’t merit a visit from the police.

The Digital Age 🤖

» Kentucky Senator Retreats from Defense of Section 230 After Claiming Defamation

• Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has published an op-ed in the New York Post claiming that YouTube, along with its parent company, Google, deserves to be sued over users’ defamatory content, despite his prior defense of internet liability protections enshrined in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

• The Op-Ed:

  • Paul claims to have believed that Section 230, the law that limits platforms liability over third party speech on the platform, was “necessary for the functioning of the internet.”

  • But after YouTube refused to take down a video falsely accusing him of taking money from Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, Paul says he has come to “rethink Congress’s blind allegiance to liability shields.”

  • Paul argues that the companies’ “inconsistent moderation of truthfulness,” “conscious refusal to remove illegal and defamatory content,” and “complete lack of decency” have led him to pursue legislation against liability shields.

Our Take: If Section 230 protections are rolled back, the consequences could be profound. Some platforms will over-moderate to avoid legal exposure, removing lawful but controversial content. Others will under moderate, allowing harmful content to spread unchecked since any moderation decision could open them up to liability. We cannot and should not dismantle the legal foundation of online speech because it failed to protect one powerful man. — Ashkhen Kazaryan

» Judge to Reverse OSU Student’s Expulsion Over TikTok Video

• A U.S. District Judge has ordered Ohio State University to immediately reverse the expulsion of Guy Christensen, a political activist with over 3 million followers on TikTok, from its records after he was kicked out of the university last May for two videos posted while off-campus.

• The Videos:

  • After the May 2025 killing of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington D.C., Christensen posted a video condemning the shooting but soon after posted a follow-up video taking back his condemnation, stating, “I do not condemn the elimination of those two Zionist officials.”

  • He also said that the attack was “being used to weaponize violence against the movement,” but that “we will meet it with our own greater resistance and escalation…”

  • In another video, Christensen denounced Congressman Ritchie Torres’ position that the conflict in Gaza did not amount to genocide, as well as his ties to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Israeli public figures, and the Zionist movement.

  • He argued Torres’ comments would “haunt [his] family for eternity as [he] will eventually, if [he’s] still alive, end up in a Nuremberg trials for all the elected officials in America who facilitated and protected this genocide.”

• The Case:

  • Christensen was notified of his expulsion on May 30, 2025, the same day it took effect, with no option for recourse.

  • The judge found that the same-day enforcement of the expulsion violated due process by leaving Christensen with no recourse to defend himself.

  • OSU officials argued that Christensen’s use of words such as “resistance” and “escalation” amounted to inciting violence.

  • The U.S. District Court found that his videos contained no specific call to action and that he had a history of advocating nonviolent protest.

  • The ruling emphasized that the First Amendment protects unpopular viewpoints and required the university to reverse Christensen’s disenrollment while the broader lawsuit proceeds.

The Brussels Effect: Europe and Beyond 🇪🇺

» Romanian Anti-Extremism Law Sparks Free Speech Concerns

• Protests have erupted in Bucharest as a response to Romania adopting a law that targets “extremism” and introduces criminal penalties for promoting antisemitism, xenophobia, radicalization, and hate speech offline and online.

• About the Law:

  • The law states that initiating, establishing, joining, or supporting a fascist, legionary, racist, or xenophobic organization is “punishable by imprisonment from 3 to 10 years and the prohibition of certain rights.”

  • It specifically targets denying, “contesting, approving, justifying, or obviously minimizing, by any means, in public, the Holocaust or its effect,” with prison terms of up to 3 years.

  • Under the law, distributing such material is “punishable by imprisonment from one to five years and the prohibition of certain rights,” and penalties will increase by half if the content is distributed through an IT system.

• Public Reaction:

  • Demonstrators call the legislation the “Vexler Law,” a reference to MP Silviu Vexler, who also serves as president of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania and proposed the law.

  • The bill was initially adopted in June 2025, before President Nicuşor Dan referred it to the Constitutional Court, claiming the definitions around fascist, legionary, racist, or xenophobic material were not precise enough, as included in a previous Free Flow.

  • The Court rejected Dan’s objections, and the law was readopted in December 2025, triggering renewed public debate.

Our Take: Natalie Alkiviadou previously wrote that the President’s referral of the law to Romania’s Constitutional Court was “one of the few gestures toward accountability in a continent where the legal consensus is tilting against speech.” In reference to a similar law proposed in Australia, Jacob Mchangama and Samantha Barbas recently argued, “Laws that promise safety by policing words may satisfy a public appetite for action, but they do not stop violence. What they do is corrode democratic culture and hand extremists the grievance they crave.”

» UK Cancels Visa-Free Entry of Dutch Right-Wing Influencer

• Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a Dutch anti-immigration influencer, appears to have had her authorization for visa-free travel to the UK revoked after authorities determined her “presence in the UK is not considered to be conducive to the public good.”

• Details:

  • On January 13, Vlaardingerbroek posted an image of what appears to be a British government notification cancelling her UK electronic travel authorization (ETA), which was later reposted by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

  • She claimed that the ETA termination came just days after she posted that UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was an “evil, despicable man” in reference to the UK’s plan to ban X.

  • Vlaadingerbroek now must apply for and obtain a UK visa before making any further attempts to travel, and may be denied entry.

  • The influencer has far-right ties, including addressing the 2024 Conservative Political Action conference in Hungary and speaking at Britain’s largest far-right protest in London with the words “Generation Remigration” across her t-shirt, an allusion to forced mass deportations.

Free Speech Recession 🌍

» Deadly Crackdown on Iranian Protests Continues, Authorities Air Coerced Confessions

• In last week’s Free Flow, we detailed the deadly crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran that have left the death toll climbing above 2,500.

• This week saw continued escalation, with a continued internet blackout, widespread detentions, random searches and seizures, increased military and police presence, and televised coerced confessions.

• Detentions and Violence: Since the protests erupted on December 28, over 20,000 people have been detained, and the death toll continues to surge.

• Coerced Confessions:

  • Residents of Tehran report armed forces stopping and searching cars randomly, and asking people to unlock their phones to check their social media and photo galleries for evidence of their presence at protests.

  • Iranian state media has aired at least 97 confessions from protesters, many expressing remorse for their actions and referencing Israel or America.

  • Iran alleges the confessions prove foreign plots behind the protests.

  • The Human Rights Activists News Agency claims that testimony from prior detainees reveal the confessions follow psychological or physical torture.

  • Coerced confessions have been used in the past during hearings for serious security-related offenses that carry the death penalty, which has resulted in executions carried out by hanging.

» ‘Glamping with Pride’ Event Canceled After Pressure from Malaysian Authorities

• On January 13, Jejaka, a Malaysian LGBTQ+ activist NGO, cancelled its two-day “Glamping with Pride” event under pressure, including investigations, threats, and public and official scrutiny.

• Investigations and Threats:

  • Police received at least five reports related to the program’s advertisement, which led to investigations under Section 504 of the Penal Code for intentional insult to provoke a breach of the peace, and under Section 223 of the Communications and Multimedia Act for improper use of network facilities.

  • Public comments from authorities and political leaders heightened scrutiny of the event and pressure to cancel it.

• Public Comments:

  • A joint statement from the state of Selangor’s Islamic Religious Council and the Mufti, or Muslim scholar, of Selangor said that the state Sultan, or ruler, “firmly rejects any LGBTQ-related activities organized” within the state.

  • It added that this includes festivals, parades, celebrations, or promotions of LGBTQ+ lifestyles, as well as the establishment of associations, clubs, organizations, or NGOs related to LGBTQ+ activities.

  • Senlangor Chief Minister Amirudin Shari added that while “glamping” activities are not prohibited, permits will not be issued to events involving “LGBTQ+ elements,” and urged authorities to take action if organizers persisted.

  • Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah himself ordered “firm action” against any activities linked to the retreat days before the event.

  • In the statement and on social media, the Selangor Royal Office suggested that such rhetoric could invite “wrath and curse” upon the state.

• Jejaka released a statement that it would cancel its event, citing the creation of an environment “in which reckless rhetoric, misinformation, and fear-mongering made it unsafe for people to gather.”

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Ashley Haek is a communications coordinator and research assistant at The Future of Free Speech.

Ashkhen Kazaryan is a Senior Legal Fellow at The Future of Free Speech, where she leads initiatives to protect free expression and shape policies that uphold the First Amendment in the digital age.