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Congressman Thomas Massie has announced HR 8519, legislation aimed at ending the practice of spending taxpayer money to fund various censorship and “disinformation” research programs.

A press release said that Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, and the subsequent publishing of the Twitter Files – a batch of internal documents showing how the government and this social platform colluded in the previous period – played a pivotal role in opening the public’s eyes to the realities of the situation.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

Ever since the 2016 elections and after those in 2020, speaking about what the Twitter Files revealed about online censorship, its methods, and levels, would have been discredited as “misinformation” or a “conspiracy theory.”

And one of the things revealed is that the US federal government had informally enlisted not only tech companies but also universities to do this, many say, unlawful work.

Unless it came as a result of pressure, like any work, it had to be paid for, and Massie now wants to make sure that kind of funding is banned going forward.

In this effort, the Republican senator had the backing of only his party colleagues, with over a dozen of them originally co-sponsoring HR 8519. Since it is blatantly unconstitutional for the money to change hands in any direct way, the bill aims to stop “the workaround”: the government using taxpayer money to further its political goals via various “disinformation” research grants.

Those would typically go to groups or networks made up of “select” universities and researchers. Moreover, HR 8519 seeks to prevent the government from bankrolling “specific programs within the National Science Foundation” which have been identified by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which Massie is a member of.

…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…

Whistleblower Docs Expose Key Tactics of the Censorship Industrial Complex: Matt Taibbi

December 30, 2023

Whistleblower Docs Expose Key Tactics of the Censorship Industrial Complex: Matt Taibbi

The structures built to counter online activity of groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS were turned inward against the domestic population.

Documents recently provided by a whistleblower reveal offensive tactics used by government and outside organizations to counter and preempt the spreading of undesirable information, said independent journalist Matt Taibbi.

Mr. Taibbi and journalists Michael Shellenberger and Alex Gutentag recently exposed a new set of documents from the Cyber Threat Intelligence League (CTIL), an “anti-disinformation” group that waged an aggressive information operation on the public.

The new documents, dubbed the “CTI files,” analyzed tactics used against foreign terrorist groups, such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS, that can now be applied domestically to prevent unwanted information from being published, Mr. Taibbi said in an interview for EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program.

The CTI files referred to these tactics with the military term “left of boom action” and justified their usage by the danger posed by somebody like former President Donald Trump, the journalist said.

Mr. Taibbi previously investigated and disclosed some of the “Twitter Files” after tech billionaire Elon Musk acquired Twitter in October 2022 and allowed Mr. Taibbi and other designated journalists to query the company’s internal files.

The Twitter Files show how Twitter, a major social media platform for political speech, had been intertwined with the censorship industrial complex to suppress or remove under government pressure content on various subjects, including irregularities in the 2020 elections, mail-in voting issues, and various aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The government censorship apparatus partnering with academia, nongovernmental organizations, and private research institutions is often called the “censorship industrial complex.”Preemptive Tactics

CTIL was supposed to be a volunteer organization with a goal to identify misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr. Taibbi said, but “in reality, you got under the hood—they were interested in basically any topic.”

…click on the above link to read the rest…

“UK Files” Reports Show: Both Left and Right Can Be Targets of Censors

November 15, 2023

“UK Files” Reports Show: Both Left and Right Can Be Targets of Censors

American audiences may struggle with the particulars, but leaked Labour Party documents detail how “anti-disinformation” can be weaponized in all directions

*Britain’s Jeremy Corbyn was undone, among other things, by accusations of antisemitism*

Just as some denizens of George Orwell’s Animal Farm were more equal than others, Britain’s Center for Countering Digital Hate stands out among the fast-growing list of organizations dedicated to the global elimination of wrongthink, commonly described using terms like disinformation, hate, and lies.

Recently the target of a lawsuit by X, the CCDH was and is a conspicuous recurring character in the Twitter Files, where among other things it organized a relentless campaign against Robert Kennedy, Jr. and others deemed purveyors of vaccine disinformation. Recently, they also appeared in articles bemoaning a judicial decision enjoining the government from engaging with platforms on digital censorship.

CCDH reports and correspondence are distinguished by a unique tone of fevered indignation, as if members were consumed with rage at a world that hadn’t yet deleted disfavored accounts. Their methods, issuing bullhorn demands for total social defenestration through a vast and cleverly courted network of mainstream press allies, represent a perfected template for the modern “anti-disinformation” organization: moral absolutists unafraid to use accusations of bigotry as a political weapon.

When British investigative journalist Paul Holden approached Racket with a story based on leaked documents showing the secret history of the CCDH, I was intrigued, but it wasn’t until I saw the first drafts that I realized the story’s importance. Holden is in possession of a wealth of internal correspondence about Britain’s Labour Party, in character and politics a near-exact analog to our Democratic Party…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

The Pain of Listening To Twitter Censorship Testimony

February 13, 2023

The Pain of Listening To Twitter Censorship Testimony

Nasty, Ill-Dressed Technocrats, I Want My Life Back

As I type, I am undergoing the excruciating experience of listening to C-SPAN, which is airing “Twitter’s Response to Hunter Biden Laptop Story.” The larger issue is: who censored Twitter, and why, and whether there was illegal collusion (there was) between Twitter and the US government.

So I finally am seeing them — up close, in real life, in person. I am finally able to look at the faces of the heretofore faceless technocrats who took it upon themselves to try to destroy my life and ruin my name.

I am witnessing, as I see them seated primly in rows in a Congressional hearing room, the very faces — the somber, ill-cut but costly blue suits, the bad wire-rimmed glasses, the judgmental expressions — of those who were personally responsible for the misery, trauma, reputational damage, shattered dreams, and loss of income, in my one life, over the course of last two and a half years.

Here at last are the very people who took it upon themselves, or who oversaw their colleagues, to single me out, to collude with the White House, and with Carol Crawford of CDC, and with DHS perhaps, to suspend me — following an accurate tweet of mine that warned women of menstrual harms following mRNA injection.

The positions of these people, the views of them — their self-regarding, self-satisfied, smug certainty that their rightness is the only rightness that could ever be — do not remind me of the testimony or views of actual Americans. They remind me rather of the affect of functionaries in a Stalinist show trial, or of the nameless bureaucrats in Kafka’s The Trial.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Highly-Cited ‘Hamilton 68’ Russiagate Tracker Is Total Hoax: Taibbi

January 27, 2023

Highly-Cited ‘Hamilton 68’ Russiagate Tracker Is Total Hoax: Taibbi

Out of the caterwaul of cries proclaiming that Russian collusion, and Russian influence operations, were the only reason Donald Trump won the 2016 US election (a hoax funded and promoted by his opponent, Hillary Clinton), a website which claimed to track said Kremlin efforts sprung forth, and was used to justify baseless allegations;

Hamilton 68: a widely-cited, (indirectly) state-sponsored propaganda tool.

The website claims to monitor a secret list of Twitter accounts which they accused of Kremlin control, however it’s impossible to verify their claims as the group has never disclosed their methodology.

*Former FBI counterintelligence agent and “disinformation” expert Clint Watts, the spokesman for Hamilton*

As Matt Taibbi notes via Racket:

Hamilton 68 was and is a computerized “dashboard” designed to be used by reporters and academics to measure “Russian disinformation”. It was the brainchild of former FBI agent (and current MSNBC “disinformation expert”) Clint Watts, and backed by the German Marshall Fund and the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan think-tank. The latter’s advisory panel includes former acting CIA chief Michael Morell, former Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, former Hillary for America chair John Podesta, and onetime Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol. –Racket

And now, Taibbi has torn Hamilton 68’s ‘black box’ asunder after reviewing the latest batch of “Twitter Files.”

As Taibbi notes via Racket:

Ambitious media frauds Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair crippled the reputations of the New Republic and New York Times, respectively, by slipping years of invented news stories into their pages. Thanks to the Twitter Files, we can welcome a new member to their infamous club: Hamilton 68.

If one goes by volume alone, this oft-cited neoliberal think-tank that spawned hundreds of fraudulent headlines and TV news segments may go down as the single greatest case of media fabulism in American history…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

2023: Fourth Turning Meets Mass Formation Psychosis

January 24, 2023

2023: FOURTH TURNING MEETS MASS FORMATION PSYCHOSIS

“Four things need to exist or need to be in place if you want a large-scale mass phenomenon to emerge. The first thing is that there needs to be a lot of socially isolated people, people who experience a lack of social bonds. The second one is that there needs to be a lot of people who experience a lack of sense-making in life. And the third and the fourth conditions are that there needs to be a lot of free-floating anxiety and a lot of free-floating psychological discontent. So: meaning, anxiety, and discontent that is not connected to a specific representation.

So, it needs to be in the mind without the people being able to connect it to something. If you have these four things—lack of social bonds, lack of sense-making, free-floating anxiety, and free-floating psychological discontent—then society is highly at risk for the emergence of mass phenomenon.” – Mattias Desmet – The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“Try to unlearn the obsessive fear of death (and the anxious quest for death avoidance) that pervades linear thinking in nearly every modern society. The ancients knew that, without periodic decay and death, nature cannot complete its full round of biological and social change. Without plant death, weeds would strangle the forest. Without human death, memories would never die, and unbroken habits and customs would strangle civilization. Social institutions require no less. Just as floods replenish soil and fires rejuvenate forests, a Fourth Turning clears out society’s exhausted elements and creates an opportunity.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

I recently finished reading Mattias Desmet’s fascinating and illuminating book The Psychology of Totalitarianism, where he examines the mass formation psychosis which swept over the world during the time frame of early 2020 until present day…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Twitter Files Prove America Headed For “Totalitarian State Territory”, Expert Warns

January 22, 2023

Twitter Files Prove America Headed For “Totalitarian State Territory”, Expert Warns

Thanks to the revelations in the Twitter Files, there’s evidence that the FBI and other agencies worked to suppress “lawful speech,” and if this type of action is allowed to continue, the United States is headed for “totalitarian state territory,” Matthew Peterson, the cofounder of New Founding, said in an interview with Epoch Times–NTD collaborative program “Newsmakers.”

New Founding helps people and organizations position themselves to avoid threats from Big Tech and “woke capital,” and Peterson has two decades of experience in digital media and political consulting.

When asked what will happen if the country’s current trajectory continues for three to five years, Peterson said, “We’ll be in totalitarian state territory, there’s no question about it.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray (C) on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Nov. 15, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“I mean, remember, this went so far as the government saying, ‘You need to find evidence that there are Russians influencing the election on Twitter.’ And Twitter saying, ‘No, that’s not happening.’

“And then [Twitter had] to be quiet about it and not even defend themselves when they knew that there wasn’t Russian interference that they could find,” he added.

Peterson further explained that the U.S. government drove a narrative that it knew wasn’t true and was the “antithesis” of America’s founding principles.

“[The government’s actions are] the antithesis of America. The American founding is basically contradicted by what’s happening here, over and over again. And if we don’t do something about that, we will not have free speech in this country,” Peterson warned.

FBI and Fake News

Peterson pointed out that one of the biggest revelations in the Twitter Files—a collection of internal emails and communications made public by the company’s CEO, Elon Musk—was that the intelligence community’s influence on Twitter was more significant than anyone imagined.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

How Can We Trust Institutions That Lied?

January 15, 2023

How Can We Trust Institutions That Lied?

Trust the Authorities, trust the Experts, and trust the Science, we were told. Public health messaging during the Covid-19 pandemic was only credible if it originated from government health authorities, the World Health Organization, and pharmaceutical companies, as well as scientists who parroted their lines with little critical thinking.

In the name of ‘protecting’ the public, the authorities have gone to great lengths, as described in the recently released Twitter Files (1,2,3,4,5,6,7) that document collusion between the FBI and social media platforms, to create an illusion of consensus about the appropriate response to Covid-19.

They suppressed ‘the truth,’ even when emanating from highly credible scientists, undermining scientific debate and preventing the correction of scientific errors. In fact, an entire bureaucracy of censorship has been created, ostensibly to deal with so-called MDM— misinformation (false information resulting from human error with no intention of harm); disinformation (information intended to mislead and manipulate); malinformation (accurate information intended to harm).

From fact-checkers like NewsGuard, to the European Commission’s Digital Services Act, the UK Online Safety Bill and the BBC Trusted News Initiative, as well as Big Tech and social media, all eyes are on the public to curtail their ‘mis-/dis-information.’

“Whether it’s a threat to our health or a threat to our democracy, there is a human cost to disinformation.” — Tim Davie, Director-General of the BBC

But is it possible that ‘trusted’ institutions could pose a far bigger threat to society by disseminating false information?

Although the problem of spreading false information is usually conceived of as emanating from the public, during the Covid-19 pandemic, governments, corporations, supranational organisations and even scientific journals and academic institutions have contributed to a false narrative.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Twitter Files Expose How Dems/Media Defied Twitter ‘Facts’ To Spread ‘Russian Bot’ Hoax

January 14, 2023

Twitter Files Expose How Dems/Media Defied Twitter ‘Facts’ To Spread ‘Russian Bot’ Hoax

What’s this? Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and staff repeatedly pushed Twitter to remove perfectly legal content that they found offensive, according to Friday’s installment of “The Twitter Files.”

When Twitter pushed back, Schiff staffer Jeff Lowenstein pulled out the ‘slippery slope’ argument.

Twitter also refused requests to ban content about Schiff and his staff, telling the congressman’s office that this would not be “conceivable.”

Hilariously though, Schiff’s office was concerned that if tweets were “deamplified” that law enforcement may have a harder time tracking the offending users.

But there’s much, much more…

As Mimi Nguyen Ly and Tom Ozimek noted earlier via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The latest Twitter Files release shows how prominent Democrats knowingly pushed a false Russiagate-related narrative about “Russian bots” promoting a key House Intelligence Committee memo that detailed efforts to spy on the Trump campaign, despite the lawmakers being told by Twitter executives that it wasn’t true.

*Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) delivers remarks during a hearing in Washington, on Oct. 13, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)*

The 14th instalment of the Twitter Files was released on Jan. 12 by journalist Matt Taibbi, who explained in a series of posts that, at a key moment in the Trump-Russia investigation, Democrats alleged that “Russian bots” were spreading an explosive report from then-Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).

“At a crucial moment in a years-long furor,” Taibbi explained in one of the posts, “Democrats denounced a report about flaws in the Trump-Russia investigation, saying it was boosted by Russian ‘bots’ and ‘trolls.’”

“Twitter officials were aghast, finding no evidence of Russian influence,” Taibbi continued.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Capsule Summaries of all Twitter Files Threads to Date, With Links and a Glossary

January 4, 2023

Capsule Summaries of all Twitter Files Threads to Date, With Links and a Glossary

For those who haven’t been following, a compilation of one-paragraph summaries of all the Twitter Files threads by every reporter. With links and notes on key revelations

It’s January 4th, 2023, which means Twitter Files stories have been coming out for over a month. Because these are weedsy tales, and may be hard to follow if you haven’t from the beginning, I’ve written up capsule summaries of each of the threads by all of the Twitter Files reporters, and added links to the threads and accounts of each. At the end, in response to some readers (especially foreign ones) who’ve found some of the alphabet-soup government agency names confusing, I’ve included a brief glossary of terms to help as well.

In order, the Twitter Files threads:

Twitter Files Part 1: December 2, 2022, by @mtaibbi
TWITTER AND THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY

Recounting the internal drama at Twitter surrounding the decision to block access to a New York Post exposé on Hunter Biden in October, 2020.

Key revelations: Twitter blocked the story on the basis of its “hacked materials” policy, but executives internally knew the decision was problematic. “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” is how comms official Brandon Borrman put it. Also: when a Twitter contractor polls members of Congress about the decision, they hear Democratic members want more moderation, not less, and “the First Amendment isn’t absolute.”

1a. Twitter Files Supplemental, December 6, 2022, by @mtaibbi

THE “EXITING” OF TWITTER DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL JIM BAKER

A second round of Twitter Files releases was delayed, as new addition Bari Weiss discovers former FBI General Counsel and Twitter Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker was reviewing the first batches of Twitter Files documents, whose delivery to reporters had slowed.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Elon Musk Calls Out ‘Corporate Journalism’ Over Coverage of His ‘Twitter Files’

January 1, 2023

Tesla CEO Elon Musk smiles as he addresses guests at the Offshore Northern Seas 2022 (ONS) meeting in Stavanger, Norway, on Aug. 29, 2022. (Carina Johansen/NTB/AFP via Getty Images)

Elon Musk Calls Out ‘Corporate Journalism’ Over Coverage of His ‘Twitter Files’

Elon Musk has criticized mainstream media outlets over their coverage of the so-called “Twitter Files.”

“Why is corporate journalism rushing to defend the state instead of the people?” Musk wrote on Twitter on Dec. 27, in response to a tweet from journalist and documentary filmmaker Leighton Woodhouse. The latter was sharing his new Substack post about how corporate media rushed to defend the FBI and the state instead of exposing them.

“The Hunter Biden laptop story shows the extent to which the corporate media has become the propaganda arm of the state,” Woodhouse wrote in his Substack, pointing to the recent release of the seventh installment of Twitter’s internal documents.

Independent author Michael Shellenberger published the seventh installment on Dec. 19, revealing how there was an “organized effort” by federal law enforcement agents to discredit the 2020 Hunter Biden laptop report, by targeting social media and news companies.

Other installments of Twitter’s internal communications have shown how the media giant placed certain individuals on “secret blacklists,” debates over how to handle former President Donald Trump’s account before it was suspended in January 2021, and how the FBI allegedly flagged accounts and tweets for Twitter to take action against.

The FBI has dismissed the “Twitter Files,” alleging that “conspiracy theorists” are attempting to discredit the bureau.

A Twitter user responded to Musk’s question by writing, “Simple… it’s Corporate Journalism… Not Journalism.”

To which Musk replied: “Exactly. Why would anyone trust corpo journalism?”

Substack

In the same thread, Musk also said that he was “open to the idea” of buying the Substack platform, while responding to a tweet from Wall Street Silver.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

It’s Not a Lie If You Believe It

December 30, 2022

IT’S NOT A LIE IF YOU BELIEVE IT

“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.” – George Orwell, 1984

“Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.” ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

I wish I could go through a day without having to reference Orwell and Huxley when observing how the ruling class is able to manipulate, subjugate, and propagandize the willfully ignorant masses through lies, deceptions, disinformation, and fear. But here we are, living through a dystopian nightmare blending the worst aspects of Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World.

It’s as if O’Brien and Mustapha Mond are running the show, using behavioral conditioning, restricting freedom of speech, adhering to a strict caste system, surveilling everything we say or do, using our fears to control us, utilizing propaganda to produce false narratives, and ultimately threatening to stomp a boot on our faces forever if we do not obey and conform. Virtually everything we are told by politicians, government bureaucrats, military brass, “esteemed” journalists, medical “experts”, bankers, and corporate executives is lies. They do not believe their lies, but they know it benefits themselves financially to lie, and as long as they work together, they know the ignorant masses will believe them.

George tells Jerry “It’s not a lie if you believe it” as he is going to take a lie detector test. I wonder how Fauci, Biden, Hillary, Obama, Comey, Wray, Pelosi, and the slew of other Deep State coup conspirators would fare on a lie detector test about Russiagate, Covidgate, J6 Insurrectiongate, and Vaccinegate. Based on the titanic volume of lies they have spewed over the last several years, I’m sure the machine would overheat and explode if hooked up to any of this traitorous vile scum.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

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Elon Musk Calls Out ‘Corporate Journalism’ Over Coverage of His ‘Twitter Files’

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