Tag: censorship

UN is working with tech, media companies, and states to address “misinformation” and “hate speech”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is introducing a new element into the concept of the world organization’s peacekeeping activities: countering “misinformation” and “hate speech.”

And tech and media companies are being enlisted to help in weeding out information that the UN decides to consider as harmful.

Given that, like the saying goes, truth is typically the first casualty of any war – and this goes for any and all sides involved – it’s difficult to envisage how the UN might even start going about the task of “countering” misinformation and hate speech while maintaining its neutral and credible position in peacekeeping.

When he addressed a Security Council debate on peacekeeping operations, dedicated specifically to the “key role” of strategic communications, Guterres did not offer useful insight into that problem, but he did put strong emphasis on UN’s Global Communications Strategy, describing strategic communication variously as critical and central for successful peacekeeping.

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How Much Did the US Government Pressure Twitter to Ban Alex Berenson?

Nearly a year ago, former New York Times Journalist Alex Berenson was permanently banned from Twitter for writing the following lines about the Covid shot: “It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. Don’t think of it as a vaccine. Think of it—at best—as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS. And we want to mandate it? Insanity.”

From the beginning of the Covid hysteria, we followed and cited Berenson many times on the Ron Paul Liberty Report. Berenson took government and mainstream media rhetoric about the pandemic the way journalists used to take it: with a heavy dose of skepticism. And not long after he was banned for saying so, even the CDC Director admitted what he wrote is true.

But at the time, he was a danger to the government narrative on Covid, and the “private” social media company Twitter silenced him. They did not only silence one reporter who was a thorn in their side, however. They preemptively silenced anyone else who might might question the narrative. The message was clear to all the would-be Alex Berensons out there: do you want to follow him to the digital gulag?

So not only was Berenson’s free speech under attack—free speech itself was under attack.

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UK communications regulator tells tech platforms to prepare for online censorship bill before it’s even passed

The Office of Communications (Ofcom), UK’s broadcasting and telecommunications authority, has issued a roadmap for tech companies to start preparing to implement the Online Safety Bill.

That’s despite the fact that the bill is still in parliamentary procedure and is yet to pass.

In fact, Ofcom refers to this democratic procedure, the outcome of which should be unknown until MPs vote on the proposal, as a mere technicality: “A countdown to a safer life online.”

Ofcom announced the roadmap document on Twitter, saying that it has presented its plans for the first 100 days of acting as online safety regulator – for when it starts overseeing the implementation of a law that does not yet exist.

And many civil and digital rights advocates are adamant that it should not exist, referring sometimes to the bill as “a censor’s charter.”

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Woke National Teachers Union Agenda Includes Mandatory Masks, Vaccines and Banning the Words Mother and Father

The National Education Association’s (NEA) annual conference is underway in Chicago, and the group is calling for a national policy of mandatory masking, mandatory vaccinations, and rejecting the words “mother” and “father.”

The NEA is the largest labor group in the U.S., with more than three million members, including Jill Biden. Its president is Becky Pringle.

The Chicago conference is chock-full of woke agenda items called New Business Initiatives (NBI). They include progressive language involving issues that seem to have little to do with proper education. NBIs are proposals that delegates must vote on in order to pass. 

Terry Stoops, a conservative education expert in North Carolina, exposed this year’s NBIs in a lengthy post on Twitter.

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Twitter censors story of British mother who died after reaction to Covid vaccine

Three children in the UK were left without a mother after she died from a massive stroke determined to be caused by blood clots that formed after she received the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, but Twitter is labeling conversations about this information taking place on the platform as “misinformation.”

Previously healthy Lucy Taberer, whose youngest is a five-year-old boy, succumbed to the consequences of the Covid shot 22 days after she was vaccinated. At first, the 47-year-old experienced mild side-effects, described in reports as common, to then develop a bruise, skin rash, and pain that the doctors at first dismissed as being caused by kidney stones.

In the end, it turned out that the victim’s reaction to the vaccine had been to develop blood clots that proved to be fatal.

Her death certificate reads that Taberer died of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and vaccine-associated thrombosis with thrombocytopenia.

Local media, including Leicester Mercury, reported about it, and Taberer’s step daughter tweeted a link to the story, but was quickly shut down by Twitter, which labeled the post as “misleading.”

To add insult to injury, she was advised to click another link, provided by Twitter’s “fact-checkers,” that would “explain” why health officials think Covid vaccines are safe “for most people.”

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Twitter is locking accounts that share Highland Park shooter’s videos

Twitter is suspending users for sharing and reporting on videos posted by the Highland Park shooter Robert “Bobby” E. Crimo III who went on a shooting spree during a July 4th parade on Monday.

Crimo was arrested and accused of killing six people and wounding 38 others.

Twitter users who were reporting on early warning signs from the shooter’s old video content by posting and commenting on old clips began to find their posts deleted and find themselves being locked out of their Twitter account.

Several Twitter users contacted Reclaim The Net, sharing screenshots of their locked accounts. In some cases, no reason was given for the deletion and the space on the email about why the account was locked was blank.

When attempting to look at many of the tweets, Twitter simply states: “This tweet violated the Twitter rules.”

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US Funding Software For Russians To Access Banned Websites

The US is funding technology to allow Russian citizens to get past Russian government censors in efforts to circumvent an information crackdown related to the war in Ukraine.

The US-backed Open Technology Fund is paying out cash to a number of American companies who provide virtual private networks (VPNs). These are now seeking to allow Russians access free of charge, which aids in both accessing blocked websites and preventing Kremlin authorities from tracking IP addresses, thus better protecting online identity. 

“Our tool is primarily used by people trying to access independent media, so that funding by the OTF has been absolutely critical,” said a spokesman one of the involved companies, identified as Lantern.

An attorney with an information access rights group called Access Now said of the program, “It’s so very important for Russians to be connected to the whole world wide web, to keep resistance going.”

One firm cited in AFP receiving US government funds reported that on average 1.5 million Russians are using its tools daily, and further:

Tech firms Psiphon and nthLink have also been providing sophisticated anti-censorship applications to people in Russia, with OTF estimating that some four million users in Russia have received VPNs from the firms.

Psiphon saw a massive surge in Russian users, with the number soaring from about 48,000 a day prior to the February 24 invasion to more than a million a day by mid-March, said a company senior advisor Dirk Rodenburg.

This US program to fund companies providing VPNs to assist users living under “authoritarian regimes” has been ongoing for years, but greatly ramped up in the wake of the Ukraine invasion and short-lived attempts of Russian groups to mount protests in major cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg.

A spokesman for Lantern said that getting past Russian censors is fairly easy with the right tools, given  “They weren’t ready to block anything” – in reference to Kremlin authorities. “Over time, Russia learned how to block the easy stuff but Lantern and Psiphon are still up and running.”

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Big Tech banned claims vaccinated could spread Covid. Now the government admits it was “hope” not “science”

The problems with Big Tech platforms censoring for so-called “misinformation” was highlighted again in the last week when, while testifying before Congress, former White House COVID response coordinator Deborah Birx said that claims of Covid vaccines efficacy were based on “hope,” not actual science.

Yet it was this supposed “science” that Big Tech platforms used to censor claims about the vaccine.

For example, Facebook, in the early days of the Covid vaccine, banned claims that the Covid vaccine wouldn’t stop people from actually being infected with Covid, meaning claims that the vaccinated could still spread Covid became an offense on the platform.

Birx supported her claim by citing cases of re-infection by late 2020.

“There was evidence from the global pandemic that natural reinfection was occurring,” said Dr. Birx in her testimony.

“And since the vaccine was based on natural immunity, you cannot make the conclusion that the vaccine will do better than natural infection.”

Regardless of the evidence, public health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, continued promoting the idea that vaccines are 90% effective in preventing infections and transmissions, and contradicting this was banned on some social platforms.

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Facebook blocks links to website detailing how users can get class action settlement payout from Facebook

Facebook is blocking links to the official class action claims page for a lawsuit settlement for users affected by privacy concerns. The page helps users receive their payout from Facebook and Facebook is marketing the page as “spam” or “abusive,” which prevents people from learning about how to claim.

“If you are a person who, between April 22, 2010, and September 26, 2011, inclusive, were a Facebook User in the United States who visited non-Facebook websites that displayed the Facebook Like button, you may be eligible for a payment from a Class Action Settlement,” the website reads.

Reclaim The Net was alerted to the censorship by a reader and was able to confirm with David Strait, a partner at the DiCello Levitt Gutzler law firm, a party litigating the case, that fbinternettrackingsettlement.com is the official page for users to see if they’re eligible for a claim.

When users on Facebook Messenger try to share the link with someone, they’re greeted with a message saying, “(#368) The action attempted has been deemed abusive or is otherwise disallowed,” hindering the sharing of the claim information.

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Fact-checkers demand YouTube censor more content, boost “credible information”

Despite Big Tech censorship being at an all-time high, at GlobalFact 9, a fact-checking conference organized by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), YouTube was blasted for its failure to address “mis- and disinformation.”

IFCN had previously published an open letter to YouTube, asking the platform to do more to address the spread of misinformation.

“As an international network of fact-checking organizations, we monitor how lies spread online — and every day, we see that YouTube is one of the major conduits of online disinformation and misinformation worldwide. This is a significant concern among our global fact-checking community,” the IFCN wrote in the letter signed by over 100 fact-checking organizations.

During the fact-checking conference, several fact-checking organizations expressed similar sentiments.

“YouTube does not seem to raise accurate, credible information in its algorithms. We have had a lot of experience with YouTube making videos of fact-checking content. It doesn’t seem to do very well,” said Angie Drobnic Holan, editor-in-chief of PolitiFact. “I think most news organizations are extremely frustrated with your platform.”

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