Home » Posts tagged 'censorship'

Tag Archives: censorship

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

The Lancet Publishes CDC Studies on Misinformation, Hoping You Forgot The Lancet and CDC Spread Pandemic Misinformation

April 27, 2024

The Lancet Publishes CDC Studies on Misinformation, Hoping You Forgot The Lancet and CDC Spread Pandemic Misinformation

Censorship academic Claire Wardle helps guide the journal’s descent into authoritarian, censorship hell.

Medical authorities and like-minded charlatans address public failure with several strategies. One method is to deny error, feign outrage at critics pointing to the screwup, and shroud yourself in the holy mantle of science. When caught lying about the science on masks and the possibility he funded a lab accident in Wuhan, Anthony Fauci famously deployed this strategy by first denying what he had said, and then striking back at his critics, “Attacks on me quite frankly are attacks on science.”

The second strategy science academics and kindred con artists deploy is to ignore their blunder, blunder onward while feigning expertise, and hope the public has the mental capacity of goldfish who forget their entire world every 15 minutes. After being humiliated several times for publishing COVID misinformation, The Lancet has landed on this second tactic, inverting reality to assert authority on misinformation—the very same topic they fucked up in the recent past.

But a few were not fooled. The Lancet’s announcement that they were publishing two papers warning about medical misinformation set off howls of laughter and merry disbelief on social media.

“You guys may want to sit this one out,” quipped conservative commentator, Tracy Beanz.

“Misinformation you say?” tweeted another, linking to news deriding a bogus study by a company called Surgisphere that the Lancet was forced to retract.

“By publishing falsehoods like the surgisphere fraud and the Lancet commission whitewash of lockdown failure and harms, the @Lancet was among the worst contributors to public misinformation during the covid era,” tweeted Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Big Tech Sponsors Event With Canadian Pro-Censorship Justice Minister Advocating Online Censorship

April 27, 2024

Big Tech Sponsors Event With Canadian Pro-Censorship Justice Minister Advocating Online Censorship

Canada’s justice minister, Arif Virani, proposes speech-restrictive legislation at an event backed by corporate sponsorship from Meta and AWS.

Canada’s government, represented by “captain of censorship” Arif Virani – the country’s justice minister and attorney general, will use an upcoming event as the opportunity to once again push for more speech-restrictive legislation, allegedly solely in order to deal with online “harm and hate speech.”

No surprise there, but the list of the sponsors of the event – dubbed, “Where Online Harms Have Real World Consequences: The Case for Legislating Against Harm and Hate” – is interesting. It includes Meta, and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

There could be different interpretations of this, one being that the giants want online speech regulated “to entrench their positions and keep out dissenting views” – as Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski put it.

Or it could be that Canada’s relentless policies damaging these companies’ business interests in the process of restricting speech are motivating the likes of Meta and Amazon to try to stay on the authorities’ good side, including through sponsorships.

And, two wrong things get to be true at the same time, so we may be witnessing some combination thereof.

In any case, the Empire Club, where the gathering is to be held, announced it by saying participants will be able to learn about the government’s plans to “tame some of the worst excesses of life online, and protect the rights of all Canadians who wish to express themselves without fear.”

All Canadians, that is, except those Virani would like to be put under house arrest or cut off their internet access as a kind of dystopian “preventive measure” – namely, when there is “fear” they might commit whatever’s designated as hate propaganda or crime, at some point in the future.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Brazil Targets Twitter Files Author Who Revealed Censorship Orders

April 27, 2024

Brazil Targets Twitter Files Author Who Revealed Censorship Orders

Brazil’s Attorney General claims his Twitter Files coverage amounts to a “probable crime” against the state, a charge the journalist vehemently denies.

Twitter Files journalist Michael Shellenberger, who has recently been covering the public clash between X owner Elon Musk and the President of Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) and Supreme Federal Court (STF) justice Alexandre de Moraes, is now likely to himself be targeted by one of those courts, the STF.

If the court starts a criminal prosecution against Shellenberger, it will be at the request of Brazil’s Attorney General Jorge Messias, who claims that there is information proving that the US journalist has committed a “probable crime” against the rule of law and institutions, along with an “attempt to destabilize the democratic state.”

Messias further accuses Shellenberger of disclosing confidential information related to the events of January 8, 2023.

The memo sent to STF says that the journalist on April 3 published, as part of the Twitter Files that concern Brazil, a number of emails exchanged by the court and X employees, which are referred to as “confidential files.”

And, of course, Shellenberger is “guilty” of making accusations against Moraes, Messias wrote, remarking that the journalist – “attributes authoritarian and anti-democratic measures” to the STF justice.

Shellenberger has denied these claims made against him, in turn describing Messias’ move as an “abuse of power,” urging the country’s Congress to investigate and finally end such conduct, and noting that in a democracy, there is no law against “destabilizing the democratic state” through non-violent means.

That would pretty much be what politics is all about – given that in this case, the term “state” clearly refers to those currently in power.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Leading German politician calls for the state to issue “revocable social media licenses” for the privilege of commenting online

April 27, 2024

Leading German politician calls for the state to issue “revocable social media licenses” for the privilege of commenting online

If only speech were not a right but a privilege granted selectively by the state, our democratic freedoms would be that much more secure.

You may remember this man. His name is Mario Voigt, and he is the head of the centre-right CDU in Thüringen. He made national headlines a few weeks ago for grievously threatening German democracy by agreeing to debate his AfD counterpart Björn Höcke on national television. Because the AfD in general and Höcke in particular are antidemocratic fascists, allowing them anywhere near a microphone is very likely to destroy our entire system of government, that is what a weak and failed state we have here in Germany.

The duel between our leading Thuringian politicians was all but unwatchable, as indeed almost all political debates turn out to be. While Höcke could’ve acquitted himself better, Voigt’s performance was flat, uninspired and profoundly banal. Among other things, the man suffers from a peculiar rodentine aspect; he bites his way stiffly through bland preformulated arguments like a squirrel chewing a stale nut or a beaver gnawing through saplings. After the event, the CDU took to the press to declare victory, but polls showed that viewers found Höcke on balance more persuasive, which is of course the real reason that everybody told Voigt to avoid the confrontation. Voigt is intensely democratic and therefore extremely right about everything, but somehow – and this is very awkward to discuss – his being eminently righteous and correct in all things does not manifest in an ability to defeat the very wrong and evil arguments of his opponents. It’s very weird how that works, perhaps somebody should look into it.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Rumble Defies Global Censorship Trends, Takes Stand Against New Zealand’s Free Speech Crackdown

April 26, 2024

Rumble Defies Global Censorship Trends, Takes Stand Against New Zealand’s Free Speech Crackdown

Rumble rejects New Zealand’s censorship demand after whistleblower reveals alleged Covid vaccine-related deaths.

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.

…click the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ireland’s Hate Speech Bill Faces Backlash Amidst Authoritarian Fears

April 26, 2024

Ireland’s Hate Speech Bill Faces Backlash Amidst Authoritarian Fears

Ireland’s proposed hate speech legislation sparks fears of an authoritarian police state, with critics voicing concerns about blurred definitions and constitutional rights.

Ireland’s proposed hate speech legislation has sparked strong opposition amongst many of its citizens, with individuals complaining to their representatives about the potential risk of the country descending into an authoritarian police state, according to documents obtained by BreakingNews.ie through a Freedom of Information request.

Critics of the proposed bill, dubbed the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022, have expressed ambiguity around the definitions of hate and gender within the legislation.

The Taoiseach, Simon Harris, is resolute in modifying the Bill, which primarily seeks to revamp the 1989 incitement to hatred legislation, and pass it through successfully before the ensuing general elections.

Critics contend that the Bill’s primary aim to count “hate” as an aggravating element in certain offenses is fraught with a lack of clarity.

An alarming constituent email, forwarded to the Department of Justice by Fine Gael’s Michael Ring, a vocal opponent of the proposed law, emphasized that the Bill infringes on personal constitutional freedoms. The specific email highlighted the significant powers conferred on the police due to Section 15 of the Bill, arguing that such state control was reminiscent of a police state.

Moreover, Ring relayed a multitude of similar constituent concerns to the justice minister, seeking an urgent response from him. Meanwhile, Senator Michael McDowell raised the question of whether transgender is a gender in Irish law and requested clarity on the term’s legislative definition.

Numerous emails exposed further condemnation of the proposed laws and raised concerns about the potential implications they could have on freedom of speech.

Australian Senator Says Elon Musk Should Be in Jail and The “Key Be Thrown Away” Over Free Speech Clash

April 23, 2024

Australian Senator Says Elon Musk Should Be in Jail and The “Key Be Thrown Away” Over Free Speech Clash

Senator Jacqui Lambie calls for Elon Musk’s indefinite imprisonment after his refusal to comply with Australian censorship demands.

Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie has called for Australian politicians to abandon Elon Musk’s social media platform X and has said that Elon Musk should be jailed indefinitely.

Musk’s crime? Refusing to comply with the country’s chief censor’s demands for censorship, not only in Australia itself but around the world.

The recent injunction obtained by Commissioner Julie Inman Grant temporarily halted the distribution of posts containing footage from the terrorist attack.

The tech mogul has expressed much resistance to complying with the Australian eSafety Commissioner’s demands to remove content. This comes after Musk failed to remove footage and speech surrounding the recent attack, involving the stabbing of a Bishop in Sydney.

Video Player

During an interview with Sky News Australia, Senator Lambie criticized Musk for allegedly fostering hatred by allowing the content to remain on his platform. She announced her boycott of X, urging her colleagues to follow suit, saying, “When you want to lead by example, it has to happen from here, so start switching off X.”

Lambie called Musk a “social media knob” with “no social conscience” and suggested that he should be jailed indefinitely. “Someone like that should be in jail and the key be thrown away,” Lambie said.

Senator Lambie’s remarks gained traction amid an ongoing backlash against Musk’s disregard for global censorship orders from the eSafety Commissioner. Both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton expressed dissatisfaction with the billionaire’s free speech stance, with the Prime Minister calling for stronger government control over social media companies.

Prime Minister Albanese called Musk “arrogant” for refusing to carry out the government’s censorship demands, calling the censorship orders merely an enforcement of “common decency.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

U.S. Funds Ukraine Groups Censoring Critics, Smearing Pro-Peace Voices

April 14, 2024

U.S. Funds Ukraine Groups Censoring Critics, Smearing Pro-Peace Voices

American taxpayers are footing the bill for Ukrainian NGOs focused on smearing proponents of a diplomatic solution as “Russian disinformation” agents.

Ukraine’s American-backed fight against Russia is taking place not only in the blood-soaked trenches of the Donbas region but also on what military planners call the cognitive battlefield – to win hearts and minds.

A sprawling constellation of media outlets organized with substantial funding and direction from the U.S. government has not just sought to counter Russian propaganda but has supported strong censorship laws and shutdowns of dissident outlets, disseminated disinformation of its own, and sought to silence critics of the war, including many American citizens.

Economist Jeffrey Sachs, commentator Tucker Carlson, journalist Glenn Greenwald, and University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer are among the critics on both the left and the right who have been cast as part of a “network of Russian propaganda.”

But the figures targeted by the Ukrainian watchdog groups are hardly Kremlin agents. They simply have forcefully criticized dominant narratives around the war.

Sachs is a highly respected international development expert who has angered Ukrainian officials over his repeated calls for a diplomatic solution to the current military conflict. Last November, he gave a speech at the United Nations calling for a negotiated peace.

Mearsheimer has written extensively on international relations and is a skeptic of NATO expansion. He predicted that Western efforts to militarize Ukraine would lead to a Russian invasion.

Greenwald is a Pulitzer Prize-winning independent journalist who has criticized not just war coverage but media dynamics that suppress voices that run counter to U.S. narratives. “What they mean when they demand censorship of ‘pro-Russia propaganda’ is anything that questions the US/EU role in the Ukraine war or who dissents from their narratives,” Greenwald has observed.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Social Media Fact Checkers Claim Their Work Isn’t Censorship. Here’s Why It Is.

April 11, 2024

Social Media Fact Checkers Claim Their Work Isn’t Censorship. Here’s Why It Is.

“Fact-checking” isn’t just labeling. It tanks the visibility of posts.

There’s good news, and bad: first, the fact that “fact-checkers” masquerading as unbiased and accurate moderators of content – while actually unreliable and bias-prone tools of censorship – are now recognized widely enough as just that, to trigger a reaction from some prominent actors.

But then – these “fact-checkers” are reacting in order to double down on their role as something positive, and justified.

Because there are no facts to support this attitude, one of the key “fact-checkers” is hiding behind an opinion piece. But the claim is there: “Fact-checking is not censorship,” a post on Poynter wants you to believe.

This, despite the organization, which acts to “certify fact-checkers” via the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), having a project that has resulted in mass suppression of posts on Facebook.

According to Facebook (Meta) CEO Mark Zuckerberg, posts that get fact-checked experience a 95% drop in clicks. In other words, even if this content is not outright removed, it is made virtually invisible. That’s censorship by any other name.

So how in the world can Poynter claim that activities of those it certifies actually result in “adding to the public debate” rather than suppressing it?

It can, and does. Meanwhile, a report recently published by Meta paints a different picture: the EU that was no doubt happy to share that “fact-checking” reduces users’ attempts to share posts by 47 and 38 percent on Facebook and Instagram, respectively.

Of course, neither Meta nor the EU are offering this data as proof of negative and nefarious efforts resulting in censorship; instead they are treated simply as proof that Meta complies with EU’s “codes” and other rules, also in the end producing more censorship.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Scotland Implements Controversial Hate Legislation That Damages Free Speech

April 3, 2024

Scotland Implements Controversial Hate Legislation That Damages Free Speech

A major attack on free speech was introduced on April 1st.
Scotland’s contentious “hate crime” legislation, widely criticized as an affront to free speech, is now in effect. Critics have voiced concerns that these new measures, while designed to address the alleged harm inflicted by hatred and bias, may inadvertently act as a tool to suppress freedom of speech and be abused.

Implemented on 1 April under the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, the laws aim to bolster protections for individuals and communities vulnerable to hate crimes.

These laws offer a unifying structure that both consolidates current legislation and introduces new offenses. Now, any threatening or abusive conduct intended to inflame hate, rooted in prejudice towards various characteristics like age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, and transgender identity, constitutes wrongdoing.

The law, applicable even within the boundaries of private family homes, penalizes behavior devised to incite hatred, a provision previously only applicable to racial matters in Scotland.

Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s First Minister, stated emphatically that a “zero-tolerance approach” is needed to combat hate. He expressed his confidence in the police’s ability to handle investigations related to alleged hate.

The majority of the Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) approved the legislation in 2021. High-profile figures like J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk have publicly expressed their disapproval of the act, highlighting its threat to free speech.

A recent letter to Holyrood’s criminal justice committee from the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents (ASPS) raised concerns that an activist fringe might “weaponize” the law.Police Scotland has pledged to examine every hate crime reported.

The First Minister reaffirmed his “absolute faith” in the abilities of the police force to filter out frivolous complaints at the First Minister’s Questions session.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Irish Government Wants Pre-Election Pact With Tech Giants To Counter Online “Disinformation”

April 3, 2024

Irish Government Wants Pre-Election Pact With Tech Giants To Counter Online “Disinformation”

A move that raises accusations of manipulating Big Tech’s power.

Many governments around the world are no longer at least pretending they don’t see Big Tech as a major political asset, or that they will not try to use that asset to their advantage. Instead, this behavior is slowly being normalized – albeit always qualified as a democracy-preserving, rather than undermining policy.

In other words, something driven by the need to combat “disinformation” and not what critics suspect it is – the need to harness and control the massive reach, influence, and power of major social platforms.

Judging by reports out of Ireland, it is among those countries, with big words like “supercharged disinformation threats to democracy” flying around as the government looks to use what some might call “supercharged fearmongering” to secure no less than a “pre-election pact with tech giants.”

Some of this is yet to be enacted through the Electoral Reform Act, so in the meanwhile Big Tech representatives have been summoned to a meeting, via lobbyists representing them, Technology Ireland, to discuss the said “threats.”

The Electoral Reform Act is supposed to formalize new rules for both platforms and those buying ads, while during the meeting, set to take place in late April, tech companies will be expected to sign “the Irish Election Integrity Accord.”

A letter signed by Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien and Minister of State Malcolm Noonan explained that the Accord will be new, but based on the Electoral Reform Act from 2022, and always focusing on “disinformation,” and advertising. What the giants are expected to sign up to is “a set of principles for the sector and the state to work by to safeguard our democracy over these crucial next few months.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

More Details Have Come to Light About Feds’ Surveillance of Everyone That Watched Certain YouTube Videos

April 3, 2024

More Details Have Come to Light About Feds’ Surveillance of Everyone That Watched Certain YouTube Videos

More specifics on the wide-reaching demands.

Recently, it came to light that US courts are issuing orders to YouTube (Google) to hand over user information – a previously unreported form of dragnet investigation. And now additional details about the practice are emerging.

Forbes broke the story last month after seeing documents that showed a court order covering all YouTube users who watched certain videos over a period of time. Personal data required by law enforcement in these cases was very detailed.

Regarding Google users – that’s information from their Google accounts (name, address, phone number and records, online payments history, IP address, etc…), while everybody else visiting URLs listed in the order had their IP addresses surrendered.

A one-year gag order made sure Google could not make any of this publicly known, and now we’re hearing about it because that time period has expired.

However, the actual documents that the original article was based on were not published at that time; now, reports say they have been made available on the Bluesky platform.

The order covers the first 8 days of 2023, and three apparently obscure and in and of themselves harmless YouTube videos (the target of the investigation was a person suspected of illegal activity, while the video’s URLs were “exchanged” during communication between undercover investigators and their target).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

The Peacock Joins The Smear Campaign

March 30, 2024

The Peacock Joins The Smear Campaign

If “misinformation” reporter Brandy Zadrozny is the best hit artist NBC News has left on its roster, it might be time to shutter the network

NBC’s Brandy Zadrozny wrote:

After over a year, the House committee investigating researchers and their work on disinformation… has yet to produce tangible results. Public hearings have not yielded actionable evidence that the federal government has been weaponized… There have been no legal wins and no legislation has been passed.

Zadrozny in the same article said that “until recently,” people like Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Elon Musk and I have been “extraordinarily successful” in fighting what we call the “censorship machine,” adding, “in the past two years, government efforts to respond to disinformation have been shuttered.” Yet the same efforts, in the same time period, yielded “no tangible results.” This is NBC News. Who edits these people?

Regarding “no legal wins and no legislation”: as Jordan’s Committee noted Monday, the House passed “The Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act” last year, and the Censorship Accountability Act recently passed in Committee. If you want to argue a bill not yet signed into law doesn’t count as “passed” legislation, fine, but “no legal wins”? The Murthy v. Missouri censorship lawsuit before the Supreme Court is there because four federal judges already ruled government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are likely in violation of the First Amendment.

Does NBC mean “no legal wins,” except the ones that sent the issue to the Supreme Court?

Those cases came in addition to a long list of developments, like the NIH freezing a $150 million content-flagging program, the shutdown of “Singing Censor” Nina Jankowicz’s infamous Disinformation Governance Board idea, even cuts to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) budget, all of which are at the center of innumerable mawkish media freakouts over the recent slowing of state censorship programs…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Financial Flim-Flam Backs Imran Ahmed’s Center for Countering Digital Hate

March 28, 2024

Financial Flim-Flam Backs Imran Ahmed’s Center for Countering Digital Hate

Intelligence asset Imran Ahmed’s seedy money comes to light, although his lawyers won’t explain his false filings with the IRS.

The dark money that apparently birthed the censorship industry’s most critical “anti-disinformation” group, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), recently came to light in an investigation by The Telegraph, which uncovered £700,000 in undeclared donations to British Labour Party politico Morgan McSweeney. And who’s McSweeney? He helped found CCDH in the UK in 2018—the same timespan when millionaire venture capitalists and businessmen were sending McSweeney secret money, triggering an investigation by Britain’s Electoral Commission.

As I first reported last October, Imran Ahmed is a Labour Party political operative who maintains close ties to intelligence agencies and began running CCDH from D.C. in 2021, when he started working closely with the Biden administration. That first year in D.C., Ahmed took in 75% of his donations from a dark money pass through, although new Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents show Ahmed provided false information to the U.S. federal government to receive tax-exempt, nonprofit status.

“A finding that there is a materially incorrect statement on an application for tax exempt status should hopefully encourage the IRS to take a hard look,” said Dean Zerbe, a tax attorney with consulting firm Alliant, and a former Senate staffer who investigated corruption in the nonprofit industry.

While he was based in the U.K., Imran Ahmed ran both the CCDH and another Labour Party front group, Stop Funding Fake News (SFFN), to attack British leftists, to defund the Canary news site, and to remove Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party’s leftist leader. Both CCDH and SFFN wielded wide influence in British politics and posed as grassroots movements, until reporters at the Canary exposed the groups’ ties to Labour Party conservatives Imran Ahmed and Morgan McSweeney.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Post navigation

← Older posts

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress