Tag: censorship

Wales Moves Forward With Plan To Punish Politicians For Telling Lies

Will Rogers once said that “if you ever injected truth into politics, you’d have no politics.” In Wales, it appears that the government is challenging that assessment. However, if the new legislation criminalizing political lies is successful, the Welsh are likely to find themselves with the same abundance of lies but little free speech.

A proposal in the Welsh parliament (or the Senedd) would make it the first country in the world to impose criminal sanctions for lying politicians. Adam Price, the former leader of the liberal Plaid Cymru Party is pushing for the criminalization, citing a “credibility gap” in UK politics.

Astonishingly, this uniquely bad idea has received support from a key committee. Once on track for adoption, this is the type of law that can become self-propelling through the legislature. Few politicians want to go on record voting against a law banning political lies. The free speech implications are easily lost in the coverage.

The new law would make it a criminal offense for a member of the Senedd, or a candidate for election to the Senedd, to wilfully, or with intent to mislead, make or publish a statement that is known to be false or deceptive. There is a six-month period for challenges to be brought.

The law allows a defense that a statement could be “reasonably inferred” to be a statement of opinion, or if it were retracted with an apology within 14 days. If guilty, the politician would be disqualified from being a Senedd member.

The defense is hardly helpful.

It creates an uncertainty as to which statements would be deemed an opinion and which would be treated as a statement of fact. It invites selective and biased prosecutions. After all, what does it mean to accuse a politician of trying to “mislead” the public?

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Biden Admin Asked Amazon To Hide Vaccine-Critical Books During Pandemic

The Biden Administration pressured Amazon to hide books for sale on its platform that were critical of vaccines during the pandemic, it has been revealed.

The findings were presented by the House Judiciary Committee and Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government in documents that show Amazon reduced the visibility of titles that the government deemed overly critical of big pharma shots.

The documents show that some books were simply generally critical of vaccines, with several written by medical professionals. Some were even just reviews of scientific studies.

The Federal government compiled a “Do Not Promote” list, to which more than 40 titles were added.

In a series of X posts, Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan explained how internal emails from Amazon contain employees revealed that “the impetus for this request is criticism from the Biden Administration.”

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World Economic Forum Pushes For AI Use and Collaboration in Fighting “Misinformation”

The dual approach of talking up the benefits of AI when it comes to using this still very much emerging tech to combat “disinformation,” while warning against the perils of AI in creating that same “disinformation” – continues.

The point at which these two approaches converge is censorship – “both disinformation warriors” who want to use AI in their fight, and AI doomsayers who claim deepfakes will destroy democracies, work towards “monitoring,” “labeling,” and ultimately, controlling content.

And sometimes they’re the same informal but powerful groups, or government agencies and legacy media.

In this “installment” of the AI story coming from the World Economic Forum (WEF), authored by heads of AI, Data, and Metaverse Cathy Li and Global Coalition for Digital Safety Project Lead Agustina Callegari, we learn that WEF would like policymakers, tech firms, researchers, and civil rights groups to all band together and push for deployment of advanced AI-driven systems combating “disinformation and misinformation.”

The technique they would like explored, developed, and used would rely on pattern, language, and context analysis “to aid content moderation.”

The two authors of the post published by WEF are optimists: they think (or say they do) that AI-driven content analysis is at a level where it is capable of “understanding” context almost perfectly – or as they put it, understanding “the nuances between misinformation (unintentional spread of falsehoods) and disinformation (deliberate spread).”

The article speaks favorably about authenticity and watermarking of content – such as is done by Adobe, Microsoft, et al., through their Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), throwing the obligatory bone in the direction of those worried about privacy and protecting journalists from persecution “in conflict zones” (but what about journalists in all the other zones?)

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Big Tech Coalition Partners With WEF, Pushes “Global Digital Safety” Standards

Big Tech coalition Digital Trust & Safety Partnership (DTSP), the UK’s regulator OFCOM, and the World Economic Forum (WEF) have come together to produce a report.

The three entities, each in their own way, are known for advocating for or carrying out speech restrictions and policies that can result in undermining privacy and security.

DTSP says it is there to “address harmful content” and makes sure online age verification (“age assurance”) is enforced, while OFCOM states its mission to be establishing “online safety.”

Now they have co-authored a WEF (WEF Global Coalition for Digital Safety) report – a white paper – that puts forward the idea of closer cooperation with law enforcement in order to more effectively “measure” what they consider to be online digital safety and reduce what they identify to be risks.

The importance of this is explained by the need to properly allocate funds and ensure compliance with regulations. Yet again, “balancing” this with privacy and transparency concerns is mentioned several times in the report almost as a throwaway platitude.

The report also proposes co-opting (even more) research institutions for the sake of monitoring data – as the document puts it, a “wide range of data sources.”

More proposals made in the paper would grant other entities access to this data, and there is a drive to develop and implement “targeted interventions.”

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Free Speech at Risk: UN Pushes for Global “Hate Speech” Eradication

In a statement issued on the occasion of the “International Day for Countering Hate Speech,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for the global eradication of so-called “hate speech,” which he described as inherently toxic and entirely intolerable.

The issue of censoring “hate speech” stirs significant controversy, primarily due to the nebulous and subjective nature of its definition. At the heart of the debate is a profound concern: whoever defines what constitutes hate speech essentially holds the power to determine the limits of free expression.

This power, wielded without stringent checks and balances, leads to excessive censorship and suppression of dissenting voices, which is antithetical to the principles of a democratic society.

Guterres highlighted the historic and ongoing damage caused by hate speech, citing devastating examples such as Nazi Germany, Rwanda, and Bosnia to suggest that speech leads to violence and even crimes against humanity.

“Hate speech is a marker of discrimination, abuse, violence, conflict, and even crimes against humanity. We have time and again seen this play out from Nazi Germany to Rwanda, Bosnia and beyond. There is no acceptable level of hate speech; we must all work to eradicate it completely,” Guterres said.

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House Probes NewsGuard’s ‘Fact-checking’ Operations, Citing Federal Funding

NewsGuard, a “fact-checking” firm that provides “journalist-produced ratings and ‘Nutrition Labels’ for thousands of news and information websites” to advertisers hoping to steer clear of sites that publish “misinformation,” is under congressional scrutiny for its practices.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability, last week launched an investigation into the fact-checking firm, a recipient of federal funding.

The probe will examine “the impact of NewsGuard on protected First Amendment speech and its potential to serve as a non-transparent agent of censorship campaigns,” the committee said.

In a letter to NewsGuard co-CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, Comer highlighted federal funding NewsGuard received “and possible actions being taken to suppress accurate information.”

The letter also questions the potential political bias of NewsGuard’s editorial team.

OD) in 2021 awarded a contract to NewsGuard. The contract raises questions about the involvement of federal agencies in potential censorship campaigns, according to Comer’s letter.

The $749,387 contract was directed to NewsGuard’s “Misinformation Fingerprints” database. According to NewsGuard, the database is “a catalogue of known hoaxes, falsehoods and misinformation narratives that are spreading online.”

The DOD funding led The Federalist, in a November 2023 article, to report that “NewsGuard is selling its government-funded censorship tool to private companies.”

Also in November 2023, Lee Fang, one of the journalists involved with the “Twitter Files” release called NewsGuard a “surrogate the Feds pay to keep watch on the Internet and be a judge of the truth.”

Although not mentioned in Comer’s letter, other federal agencies also provided support to NewsGuard.

For example, an August 2020 NewsGuard press release states the firm won a “Pentagon-State Department contest for detecting COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation.”

The contest, known as the Countering Disinformation Challenge, sought “to offer solutions to hoaxes related to the COVID-19 pandemic” by helping the U.S. Department of State and the DOD “evaluate disinformation narrative themes in near real time” and to flag “hoaxes, narratives, and sources of disinformation as they emerge.”

NewsGuard, which received $25,000 as part of the contest, worked with the State Department’s Global Engagement Center “to scope and develop a test in support of the DoD’s Cyber National Mission Force.’’

According to a March 2023 “Twitter Files” release, Twitter — now known as X — worked with the Global Engagement Center to brand numerous accounts that posted “legitimate and accurate COVID-19 updates” but which “attacked” U.S. and European politicians as “Russia-linked.”

In December 2023, the State of Texas, The Daily Wire, The Federalist and the New Civil Liberties Alliance sued the State Department, alleging it was using and promoting technology intended to “covertly suppress speech of a segment of the American press.”

In May, a federal judge rejected the State Department’s efforts to dismiss the case.

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The Censorship-Industrial Complex and How It has the Internet in its Grip

Since the 1960s, the military-industrial complex has influenced and driven American policy to profit cynically from conflict and war.  But in this decade, a new complex has arrived, one that is far more dangerous to American values.  It is the censorship-industrial complex (CIC), which has gained tremendous control over the internet.

When the internet-backed World Wide Web was created in 1989, it democratized information and connectedness.  Through rapid commercialization, it unleashed unlimited possibilities and economic growth.  Equally, it became a haven of free expression, debate, and creativity.  These ideals crystallized into the five principles of the 2012 Declaration of Internet Freedom: non-censorship; universal access; freedom to connect and create; the right to privacy and control of personal information; and protection for technology and innovation.

But governments and the elites that control them were quick to move in, sensing the threat to their authoritarian instinct.  At work since 2016, the pernicious CIC gained strength during the Covid-19 pandemic, amplifying government-approved narratives that favored the agenda of the elites.  Furthering the advance to the Great Reset, it now works to color content and discourse in the leftist hues that disguise the intent and operations of the global elites.

Mike Benz, a former State Department official who now heads the Foundation for Freedom Online and is a staunch campaigner against the CIC, reveals that the complex is controlled by the State Department, the Defense Department, the CIA, MI6, and Brussels.  The turning points, according to him, were the Brexit referendum, the election of Donald Trump, and elections in the Philippines, in all of which the internet played an important role.  Therefore, it was decided to end free speech on the internet and control the flow of information.  Since the American government was hamstrung by the First Amendment, NGOs and fronts were enlisted for “doing the dirty work.”

The Biden administration continues on that path.  In 2022, days after Elon Musk committed to a pro-free speech vision on acquiring Twitter, the White House issued the Declaration for the Future of the Internet, in direct contradiction with the 2012 Declaration of Internet Freedom.  The language, of course, answers to all the shibboleths of freedom.  But while criticizing the policies of “authoritarian” governments, the declaration calls for curbing “disinformation” and “harassment” in the pursuit of “reclaiming the promise of the internet.”  It expresses concern about online platforms that spread “illegal or harmful content,” threaten safety and foment violence, and undermine “respect for and protection of human rights and democratic institutions.”

The question, obviously, is who decides what amounts to disinformation, harassment, and illegal or harmful content. 

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With Stanford Out, UW Steps Up for 2024 Election “Disinformation” Research

If it looks like a duck… and in particular, quacks like a duck, it’s highly likely a duck. And so, even though the Stanford Internet Observatory is reportedly getting dissolved, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public (CIP) continues its activities. But that’s not all.

CIP headed the pro-censorship coalitions the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) and the Virality Project with the Stanford Internet Observatory, while the Stanford outfit was set up shortly before the 2020 vote with the goal of “researching misinformation.”

The groups led by both universities would publish their findings in real-time, no doubt, for maximum and immediate impact on voters. For some, what that impact may have been, or was meant to be, requires research and a study of its own. Many, on the other hand, are sure it targeted them.

So much so that the US House Judiciary Committee’s Weaponization Select Subcommittee established that EIP collaborated with federal officials and social platforms, in violation of free speech protections.

What has also been revealed is that CIP co-founder and leader is one Kate Starbird – who, as it turned out from ongoing censorship and speech-based legal cases, was once a secret adviser to Big Tech regarding “content moderation policies.”

Considering how that “moderation” was carried out, namely, how it morphed into unprecedented censorship, anyone involved should be considered discredited enough not to try the same this November.

However, even as SIO is shutting down, reports say those associated with its ideas intend to continue tackling what Starbird calls online rumors and disinformation. Moreover, she claims that this work has been ongoing “for over a decade” – apparently implying that these activities are not related to the two past, and one upcoming hotly contested elections.

And yet – “We are currently conducting and plan to continue our ‘rapid’ research — working to identify and rapidly communicate about emergent rumors — during the 2024 election,” Starbird is quoted as stating in an email.

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Fast-Tracked EU Vote Threatens Online Privacy with New “Chat Control” Law

Bad rules are only made better if they are also opt-in (that is, a user is not automatically included, but has to explicitly consent to them).

But the European Union (EU) looks like it’s “reinventing” the meaning and purpose of an opt-in: when it comes to its child sexual abuse regulation, CSAR, a vote is coming up that would block users who refuse to opt-in from sending photos, videos, and links.

According to a leak of minutes just published by the German site Netzpolitik, the vote on what opponents call “chat control” – and lambast as really a set of mass surveillance rules masquerading as a way to improve children’s safety online – is set to take place as soon as June 19.

That is apparently much sooner than those keeping a close eye on the process of adoption of the regulation would have expected.

Due to its nature, the EU is habitually a slow-moving, gargantuan bureaucracy, but it seems that when it comes to pushing censorship and mass surveillance, the bloc finds a way to expedite things.

Netzpolitik’s reporting suggests that the EU’s centralized Brussels institutions are succeeding in getting all their ducks in a row, i.e., breaking not only encryption (via “chat control”) – but also resistance from some member countries, like France.

The minutes from the meeting dedicated to the current version of the draft state that France is now “significantly more positive” where “chat-control is concerned.”

Others, like Poland, would still like to see the final regulation “limited to suspicious users only, and expressed concerns about the consent model,” says Netzpolitik.

But it seems the vote on a Belgian proposal, presented as a “compromise,” is now expected to happen much sooner than previously thought.

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‘Media Reporting’ Is Now Just More Censorship And Suppression Of Information

As the left-wing Media Matters for America buckles under the weight of a delightfully crushing defamation lawsuit brought by Elon Musk — hope he wins! — it’s probably a good time for that trash outlet’s deep-pocket donors to consider spending their money elsewhere; not just because MMFA is a satanic organization that employs a bunch of otherwise unskilled dopes, but because so much of what was formerly known as “media reporting” is now simply more censorship and suppression of right-wingers, which is exactly what MMFA does.

Politico on Friday ran a lengthy article about Tucker Carlson featuring this revealing quote by the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple: “I wrote about him when he was at Fox News for the simple reason that Tucker had bosses,” said Wemple. “And those bosses weren’t accountable. They weren’t really journalists, as we discovered in the Dominion suit. But they were sensitive to criticism, and my role as a media critic was to play all this stuff out and seek accountability from Fox and seek explanations from Fox.”

In other words, Wemple, a “media reporter” who has been around Washington forever and who was once Carlson’s most dedicated viewer, was only interested in writing about the show host so long as it was possible to get him fired. Now that Carlson is self-employed and featured on a platform that’s decidedly against information suppression and censorship (thanks, Elon), Wemple doesn’t see the point. It’s not that Carlson has less influence on the national discourse or has switched professions to something outside of Wemple’s purview — it’s that Wemple can no longer hope to pressure bosses at Fox to cave to his nagging.

Similarly, a media reporter at CNN dedicated an embarrassing amount of time this week reaching out to Ticketmaster and event venues for comment on their participation in a national tour Carlson is scheduled to begin in the coming days. The CNNer wrote that he got no response from anyone (that’s how important he is), but he let his freak flag fly anyway. “How can any decent person not only participate in enabling Carlson’s poisoning of the public discourse,” he wrote, “but also justify profiting off of his hateful rhetoric in the process?”

To recap, a prominent news personality watched by millions is doing a few live events and someone at CNN made it his mission to get them all canceled.

Yes, “media reporting” is now that retarded.

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