Tag: censorship

London Calling: Police Chief Threatens To Arrest People Around The World For Online Speech

In its hit song London Calling the Clash warns:

“London calling to the faraway towns

Now that war is declared and battle come down

London calling to the underworld

Come out of the cupboard, all you boys and girls”

According to a new report, the British punk rock band may have been prophetic in 1979 in a way never foreseen in its apocalyptic lyrics.  This week, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said that the police will not necessarily confine its arrests for speech crimes to London or even the United Kingdom. Rowley suggests that Americans and other citizens could be extradited and brought to London for online postings.

London has been hit with days of violent protests over immigration policies, including attacks and arson directed at immigration centers. This violence has been fueled by false reports spread online about the person responsible for an attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event that left three girls dead and others wounded. Despite false claims about his being an asylum seeker, the culprit was an 18-year-old British citizen born to Rwandan parents.

News outlets and pundits have condemned the false reports and the violent protests. However, the police are moving to arrest those who are repeating false claims or engaging in inflammatory speech. Rowley is warning that they will not stop at the city limit or even the country’s borders.

He warned “We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you.”

Rowley was asked by a reporter about the criticism by Elon Musk and others over the response of the government. Musk noted a video of someone allegedly arrested for offensive online comments with a question, “Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?”

Pundits and politicians in the United Kingdom have called for an investigation or the arrest of Musk for merely speaking publicly on the controversy.

The reporter said that high profile figures have been “whipping up the hatred,” and that “the likes of Elon Musk” are involved in the online speech. She then asked what the London police are prepared to do “when it comes to dealing with people who are whipping up this kind of behavior from behind the keyboard who may be in a different country?”

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Free Speech is Under Siege in Starmer’s UK

The UK is currently experiencing a massive attack on free speech, spearheaded by new Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is encouraging police to use the full force of controversial British laws to crack down on social media posts.

The push for more online censorship has spanned many years, and different governments in the UK have gained new momentum with the recent protests and riots.

Emboldened by the crisis, officials seem to be using it to step up the already existing, multi-year effort to get social media companies to “cooperate” with the authorities.

It has now emerged that the government in London has started flagging content it deems to be “misinformation” – but also something referred to as “concerning content.”

X is among those who have been asked to remove posts which British officials consider to threaten the country’s national security; and while reports say Google, Meta, and TikTok are complying with these demands, X is said to be resisting them.

The accusations that social sites are “providing a platform for hate” while allegedly unaccountable for that is coming from cabinet members and MPs alike.

Science, Innovation, and Technology Secretary Peter Kyle has revealed that he and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper are working to get content they consider “harmful” removed from the internet.

Recent actions in the UK regarding the apprehension of individuals for disseminating “incorrect information” highlight a concerning trend that threatens the very core of free speech—a foundational pillar of Western democracies.

These developments suggest an alarming escalation in government and law enforcement involvement in regulating online speech, which traditionally enjoys broad protections under democratic norms.

The use of existing laws, such as the Public Order Act 1986, to arrest individuals for their online speech is deeply troubling to civil liberties groups.

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The GARMs Race: The House Moves Forward With its Investigation of Blacklisting Company

We have been discussing media rating systems being used to target advertisers and revenue sources for certain cites and companies. NewsGuard and the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) have been criticized as the most sophisticated components of a modern blacklisting system targeting conservative or dissenting voices. I recently had a series of exchanges with NewsGuard after a critical column.  Now, the House Judiciary Committee under Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is moving forward in demanding documents and records from leading companies utilizing the GARM system, a company that I have previously criticized. It is a welcomed effort for anyone who is concerned over the use of these blacklisting systems to curtail free speech. However, time is of the essence.

The demand to preserve evidence went to various companies, including Adidas, American Express, Bayer, BP, Carhartt, Chanel, CVS and General Motors.

In my new book, I discuss the rating systems as a new and insidious form of blacklisting. Notably, Elon Musk has now filed a lawsuit against GARM and may be able to get more evidence out in discovery on the operations of this outfit.

It is an effort to strangle the financial life out of sites by targeting their donors and advertisers.  This is where the left has excelled beyond anything that has come before in speech crackdowns.

Years ago, I wrote about the Biden administration supporting efforts like the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) to discourage advertisers from supporting certain sites. All of the 10 riskiest sites targeted by the index were popular with conservatives, libertarians and independents. That included Reason.org and a group of libertarian and conservative law professors who simply write about cases and legal controversies. GDI warned advertisers against “financially supporting disinformation online.” At the same time, HuffPost, a far-left media outlet, was included among the 10 sites at lowest risk of spreading disinformation.

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Are we being watched?

Ashadowy state agency with no statutory footing, previously used to monitor perfectly lawful yet dissenting speech during the Covid lockdowns, has been deployed by the Labour Government to monitor social media amid ongoing civil unrest across the UK.

The Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU), now rebranded as the National Security Online Information Team (NSOIT), has been given the task just months after the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee questioned “the lack of transparency and accountability of [NSOIT] and the appropriateness of its reach”, and recommended that the Government commission an independent review of “the activities and strategy” of the unit to report back within 12 months.

Peter Kyle, Labour’s Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology has tasked NSOIT with monitoring online activity following the outbreak of widespread public disorder in the wake of the murder of three schoolgirls in Southport on 29th July.

David Davis, the Conservative MP who previously called for the CDU to be shut down, told the Telegraph he had no real objection to the unit being used to monitor social media during the riots because “it’s perfectly legitimate for the state to monitor things that might incite violence”. 

That’s true, of course – but the question is whether in doing so NSOIT will also be monitoring and flagging for removal online posts that fall well within the law.

Last year, a report by Big Brother Watch unmasked the scale of the digital surveillance system established during the Covid lockdowns, with the government now able to call upon at least three domestic surveillance units, all of which have previously been tasked with monitoring social media posts in the UK, flagging “misleading” content to their Whitehall paymasters who then urge tech platforms to remove them.

These units are the NSOIT in DCMS, the Intelligence and Communications Unit in the Home Office, the Cabinet Office’s Rapid Response Unit (since disbanded, according to the government) and the 77th Brigade, a combined Regular and Army reserve unit within the Ministry of Defence.

NSOIT was originally established to fight what the government calls “disinformation”. 

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World Federation of Advertisers shuts down GARM project after Elon Musk, Rumble sue over ad boycott

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media has decided to “discontinue activities” after a lawsuit filed against them by Elon Musk’s X and the Rumble platform. The group was under fire for antitrust violations after they had orchestrated ad boycotts of both platforms using their monopoly. 

The House Judiciary said this was a “Big win for the First Amendment” and a “Big win for oversight.” The House Committee brought questions about GARM, their monopoly on advertisers, and their use of that monopoly to influence online speech to a hearing. 

Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski simply wanted to know “what are they hiding?” He has been forthcoming in discussing the ad boycott of his platform.

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Dunkin’ Donuts and Diageo Booze Company Threaten to Remove Ads from Rumble if the Platform Does Not Remove Videos by Conservative Personalities

On Tuesday, Elon Musk’s X filed an antitrust lawsuit, which was filed in Texas federal court, seeking trebled compensatory damages and injunctive relief, against a left-leaning advertising cartel and several member companies.

The suit alleges X was targeted with an illegal ad boycott.

The lawsuit was filed against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, its parent firm, World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), and GARM members CVS Health, Mars, Orsted, and Unilever, who reportedly controls a staggering 90% of marketing efforts worldwide.

Soon after Elon Musk’s announcement, Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski announced he was joining the lawsuit with Elon Musk against the GARM cartel.

Rumble CEO Pavlovski explains how organizations like GARM and the World Federation of Advertisers have monopolized control over the major advertising budgets.

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Google’s App “Quality” Crackdown Raises Censorship Concerns

AppCensorship, a project that monitors and reports about censorship on major app stores, is warning that Google’s decision to start removing what it considers low-quality apps could lead to consequences other than “improving quality and user experience.”

An article on the project’s site notes that while some users see Google’s move as a positive and justified step, others see the potential for censorship “baked in” the decision.

The second point of view is all the more important given the amount of apps that Google removes from the Play Store over a year. The giant’s newest transparency report cites the number as 2.28 million – 59% more compared to the 1.43 million in the previous period.

But AppCensorship writes that the transparency report itself – and large media outlets reporting about it – all focus on the numbers without engaging in what the project calls a complete picture that would include discussion around (removal) policy, analysis, and critical examination.

Otherwise, the article warns, we may be looking at the media “lending them (app removal statistics) a degree of credibility disconnected from substantive scrutiny.”

As far as Google is concerned, the activity around the Play Store is proof that it is improving security, but also the app review process, and incorporating “advanced machine learning.”

On the flip side are fears that, as the article put it, Google may be using “its influence and high market share to dictate the global app environment.”

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‘Display of Cowardice’- Meta Reinstates Malaysian PM’s Posts on Haniyeh’s Assassination

Meta has apologized for removing posts by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim regarding the assassination of Hamas politburo leader Ismail Haniyeh.

The social media posts have been reinstated with the note: “This post goes against our Community Guidelines but has been left on Instagram for public awareness.”

Ibrahim’s posts included a video of him on a phone call with Hamas official, Dr Bassim Naim, expressing his condolences on Haniyeh’s killing in the Iranian capital last week.

In the caption, the premier called his death “a murder of the most heinous kind, plainly designed to derail ongoing talks aimed at ending the carnage in Gaza that has claimed over 40,000 lives.”

Malaysian government officials had reportedly met with Meta representatives on Monday to seek an explanation.

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Crazed Authoritarians Demand X Be Shut Down in UK

Mimicking a policy that the west once condemned Communist China for pursuing, authoritarians are now calling for X to be shut down completely in the UK to stop civil unrest.

After the country was rocked by a series of riots over the past week in response to a 17-year-old son of Rwandan immigrants killing three little girls in Southport, the media and the political class blamed the anger on “misinformation” shared on X.

In reality, the UK has been a boiling pot of resentment and rage over mass migration for years, with huge numbers continuing to arrive, putting massive strain on the country and making some parts of major towns and cities unrecognizable, despite nobody having ever voted for it.

However, the disorder is being exploited to grease the skids for mass censorship.

Cambridge professor Sander van der Linden said the government could “geo-restrict access to a platform if the situation got so bad” and Twitter could also be “banned from the app store for violating policies.”

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Court Slaps Down NIH for Unconstitutional Censorship

The D.C. Circuit Court has declared that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) violated the Constitution by using keyword filters to censor comments on its social media platforms. The court’s decision stems from a dispute involving People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which argued that their comments were unfairly targeted by NIH’s filtering system on Facebook and Instagram. This case highlights ongoing tensions between government control and free speech on digital platforms.

We obtained a copy of the order for you here.

The crux of the court’s decision hinged on three critical findings regarding the nature of the forums in question. First, the NIH’s social media accounts were determined to be limited public forums, a classification that allows for certain restrictions but not indiscriminate censorship. Second, while the NIH has the authority to curtail off-topic discussions, the court found that the agency’s keyword filters overstepped this boundary by blocking on-topic and potentially valuable contributions, particularly those from PETA on posts related to animal testing.

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