The CEO of Rumble, a free-speech YouTube competitor, says that global censorship levels are on the rise, but that what’s particularly noticeable are censorship demands coming from Australia and New Zealand – who seem to be following in the controversial, to say the least, footsteps of France and Brazil.
On the one hand, this is surprising, given these countries’ formal democratic provenance.
On the other hand, their actions over the last years, including site blocking at ISP level, constant demands for more stringent regulation to facilitate social media content removal, and even the draconian Covid – and post-Covid era measures, tell a different story.
Chris Pavlovski told Mat Kim that the FreeNZMedia channel has now become a deplatforming target in New Zealand, for reporting about leaked data from the National Vaccination Database, that a whistleblower, former Health New Zealand IT employee Barry Young, made available.
And the data Young gave to reporters and activists concerns Covid vaccine-related deaths and claims that these facts are being covered up.
For referring to Young, and referring to the data he provided to the public, a letter has been sent to Rumble to remove FreeNZMedia. It came from the National Health Authority.
However, Pavlovski said that the company has decided to refuse to do that, or to withdraw from the country, and will instead “challenge it and see what happens.”
Pavlovski went on to refer to this particular New Zealand case as “absurd” and “disgusting” – in that it bears resemblance to the Pentagon Papers. At that time, journalist Daniel Ellsberg emerged as a hero of free speech that was protected by the courts in the US.
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