Watch what jokes you crack in public: Your neighbor might just report you to the government if something you say hurts his feelings. At least, that’s the bleak reality facing Oregon residents and people in other blue jurisdictions, according to an alarming new report.

Since 2020, the state of Oregon has operated a “Bias Response Hotline” run by “trauma-informed operators” where residents can report each other for noncriminal speech they find upsetting, according to a new exposé from the Washington Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium. 

This service allows residents to snitch on each other for “offensive jokes,” and the state government tracks data on these “offenses.” Self-proclaimed victims are even reportedly entitled to free taxpayer-funded counseling and rent assistance! Yes, seriously. 

There’s no real verification process for any of this, either. When the Free Beacon called to report a fake scenario where the reporter claimed his neighbor put up an Israeli flag and that this was an attack on the complaining reporter’s (imaginary) Muslim identity, the operator accepted this as gospel, despite the clear fact no actual “hate incident” had occurred. 

“We go with whatever the victim is experiencing,” the operator said. Basically, if you “identify” as a victim, you are one, entitled to taxpayer-funded benefits, and “your truth” is dutifully recorded as a “bias incident” by the government. 

That’s insane. But it isn’t just happening in one wacky blue state. According to the Free Beacon, eight blue states, including Connecticut and Vermont, have similar snitch lines. All told, Sibarium reports, “By the end of 2025, nearly 100 million Americans will live in a state where they can be reported for protected speech.”

This is a serious problem.

For one, it shows just how deep the rot is, how ingrained extreme, toxic progressivism is in the various levels of our government. And this kind of thing also corrodes social trust, turning neighbors against each other while accomplishing nothing positive. (If anything, it’s in some sense offensively paternalistic to minorities, acting as if they’re so fragile that they need the government to protect them from jokes.) 

But more crucially, these kinds of bias reporting systems seriously threaten civil liberties and free speech. How?

Well, the very idea that your neighbors can report you to the government and potentially get you put into databases or onto lists for something you say will certainly have a chilling effect on people’s willingness and ability to express themselves. And, in some of these places, “offenders” who get reported are actually contacted by government officials and, in some cases, law enforcement. 

“There’s a very strong argument that would be considered a violation of the First Amendment,” former ACLU president Nadine Strossen told the Free Beacon. “If I received a call like that, it would feel very targeted and intrusive.”

Who wouldn’t feel targeted if the government called them up and scolded them for an off-color joke? 

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This is more than just chilling government overreach. It’s yet more proof that the center of gravity inside the Democratic Party is completely disconnected from the support for free speech that once defined American liberalism. 

That’s not just bad news for Americans who live in deep-blue states and have to deal with being reported to the speech police. It’s a poor omen for the future of civil liberties in our country. 

Brad Polumbo is an independent journalist and host of the Brad vs Everyone podcast.