Tag: censorship

FLASHBACK: Weaponized Narrative Is the New Battlespace

Conventional military dominance is still critical to the superpower status of the United States. But even in a military sense, it is no longer enough: if an American election can be controlled by an adversarial power, then stealth aircraft and special forces are not the answer. With lawmakers poised to authorize $160 million to counter Russian “fake news” and disinformation, and the CIA and the Congress examining meddling in the U.S. election and democracies around the world, it’s time to see weaponized narrative for what it is: a deep threat to national security.

Weaponized narrative seeks to undermine an opponent’s civilization, identity, and will by generating complexity, confusion, and political and social schisms. It can be used tactically, as part of explicit military or geopolitical conflict; or strategically, as a way to reduce, neutralize, and defeat a civilization, state, or organization. Done well, it limits or even eliminates the need for armed force to achieve political and military aims.

The efforts to muscle into the affairs of the American presidency, Brexit, the Ukraine, the Baltics, and NATO reflect a shift to a “post-factual” political and cultural environment that is vulnerable to weaponized narrative. This begs three deeper questions:

  • How global is this phenomenon?
  • Are the underlying drivers temporary or systemic?
  • What are the implications for an American military used to technological dominance?

Far from being simply a U.S. or U.K. phenomenon, shifts to “post-factualism” can be seen in Poland, Hungary, Turkey, France, and the Philippines, among other democracies. Russia, whose own political culture is deeply post-factual and indeed post-modern, is now ably constructing ironic, highly cynical, weaponized narratives that were effective in the Ukrainian invasion, and are now destabilizing the Baltic states and the U.S. election process.

Such a large and varied shift to weaponized narrative implies that the enablers are indeed systemic. One fundamental underpinning – often overlooked – is the accelerating volume and velocity of information. Cultures, institutions, and individuals are, among many other things, information-processing mechanisms. As they become overwhelmed with information complexity, the tendency to retreat into simpler narratives becomes stronger.

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Harvard Study Finds ‘Fact Checkers’ Overwhelmingly Hold Left-Wing Views

A new Harvard study that will shock the world has found that misinformation ‘fact checkers’ overwhelmingly hold left-wing political views.

Who could have seen this one coming?

Data from Harvard Misinformation Review shows that out of 150 “misinformation experts,” only 5 per cent lean “slightly right” in their political opinions.

10 per cent are centrists and the other 85 per cent lean slightly left, left-wing, or far-left.

The study also explains the blindingly obvious fact that individuals with left-wing beliefs won’t be able to spot left-wing misinformation because they’ll either ignore it or actively like it.

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Progressives Are Ditching Free Speech To Fight ‘Disinformation’

In my column last week, I detailed how GOP lawmakers in several Western states have jettisoned their usual concerns about free speech and have passed laws that require cellphone users to disable government-mandated filters before having open access to apps. It’s a foolhardy endeavor done in the name of protecting The Children from obscenity, but at least these measures are narrow in scope (and mostly about posturing).

Meanwhile, progressives are hatching attacks on “disinformation” that threaten the foundations of the Constitution. Republicans share some responsibility, as they’ve backed various proposals targeting Big Tech out of pique about the censorship of conservative views. These ideas included limits on liability protections for posted content and plans to treat social media sites as public utilities.

Conservatives have already shown a willingness to insert government into speech considerations, so they are left flat-footed as leftists hatch plots to rejigger open debate. Whenever the Right plays footsie with big government, the Left then ups the ante—and conservatives end up wondering what happened. What is happening now is an effort to use legitimate concerns about internet distortions to squelch what we read and say.

Traditionally, Americans of all political stripes have accepted that—except for a few strictly limited circumstances—people can say whatever they choose. The nation’s libel laws impose civil penalties on those who have engaged in defamatory speech, but those laws are narrowly tailored so the threat of lawsuits doesn’t halt legitimate speech. This emanates from the First Amendment, which said Congress shall make “no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

Such protections were applied to all governments, of course. The courts wrestle with gray areas (commercial and corporate speech, pornography, political advertising), but our nation thankfully has tilted heavily in the direction of upholding the broadest speech rights. This legal framework has been bolstered by a broad consensus among the citizenry that speech rights are sacrosanct. There always have been those people who want to police speech, but they have largely been outliers.

The internet and the information free for all that’s followed have challenged that consensus. When I first got into the journalism business, Americans had limited access to information. We could read the daily newspaper, which didn’t cover many issues and where editors served as gatekeepers. We could watch the network news at 6 p. or subscribe to magazines. There was no internet or cable news. Talk radio was in its infancy. Now anyone can post anything online and traditional news sources are struggling.

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Government Funds AI Tools For Whole-Of-Internet Surveillance And Censorship

Ifeel scared. Very scared.

Internet-wide surveillance and censorship, enabled by the unimaginably vast computational power of artificial intelligence (AI), is here.

This is not a futuristic dystopia. It’s happening now.

Government agencies are working with universities and nonprofits to use AI tools to surveil and censor content on the Internet.

This is not political or partisan. This is not about any particular opinion or idea.

What’s happening is that a tool powerful enough to surveil everything that’s said and done on the Internet (or large portions of it) is becoming available to the government to monitor all of us, all the time. And, based on that monitoring, the government – and any organization or company the government partners with – can then use the same tool to suppress, silence, and shut down whatever speech it doesn’t like.

But that’s not all. Using the same tool, the government and its public-private, “non-governmental” partners (think, for example: the World Health Organization, or Monsanto) can also shut down any activity that is linked to the Internet. Banking, buying, selling, teaching, learning, entertaining, connecting to each other – if the government-controlled AI does not like what you (or your kids!) say in a tweet or an email, it can shut down all of that for you.

Yes, we’ve seen this on a very local and politicized scale with, for example, the Canadian truckers.

But if we thought this type of activity could not, or would not, happen on a national (or even scarier – global) scale, we need to wake up right now and realize it’s happening, and it might not be stoppable.

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AI and the new kind of propaganda

Do you remember how the unconstitutional, pastel-authoritarian and totally batshit insane “Disinformation Governance Board” – with its Mary Poppins-cosplaying, Monty Python level of unintentional self-satirizing department head – was rolled out two years ago like a half-joke, half-beta-test of a version of the 1984 Ministry of Truth?

Well, kids, I wouldn’t really call this 4D chess or anything, but of course this was just bait. This parody and its rapid withdrawal reassures us that nothing of the sort could conceivably take place, while also seeding a visible, red-herring template for how we should expect heavy-handed, overt propaganda efforts to look in this day and age.

Meanwhile, there are currently massive efforts in the background and below the surface, all across the playing field, towards implementing big data and AI technology for not only the purposes of classical, increasingly obsolete propaganda or simple surveillance. No, this time, we’re exploring entirely novel methods of behavioural modification and narrative control intended to GET OUT AHEAD of the crystallization of discourses and even the formation of identities and worldviews.

They want to control the formation and reproduction of “social imaginaries”.

So the idea is to use massive data collection and AI pattern recognition to preemptively disrupt the formation of behaviourally significant narratives, discourses or patterns of information.

With these tools of “early diagnosis” of information that potentially could disrupt the power structure and its objectives, it then becomes possible to nip it in the bud incredibly early on, way before such information has even coalesced into something like coherent narratives or meaningful models for explanation or further (precarious) conclusions.

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Congressionally Chartered National Conference on Citizenship Recruits Volunteers To Monitor and Flag “Misinformation”

You probably couldn’t pay a lawsuit a bigger compliment than a bunch of activists and their umbrella organization involved in censorship complaining that it has had “a chilling effect” on their work.

But that’s what a recent panel, hosted by the National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC), heard regarding Missouri v. Biden (now Murthy v. Missouri). The lawsuit is “infamous” in those circles for putting some brakes on the government pressuring tech companies to do its censorship bidding.

And, those gathered went into how they recruit what one report calls volunteer censors whose task is to monitor social media and flag content as “misinformation.” (When working to set the tone and steer the narrative on platforms, they call themselves, “trusted messengers.”)

The National Conference on Citizenship, however, is a congressionally chartered organization, and yet it is part of a network that is looking for “misinformation” in private messages.

Back during the highly contested 2020 US elections, online censorship was essentially government business, with its public “face” being the Election Integrity Partnership, that originated with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Having in the meantime received various levels of pushback from not only citizens but also lawmakers and even tech firms, “the censorship industry” is looking for ways to reinvent itself.

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Government Funds AI Tools for Whole-of-Internet Surveillance and Censorship

Ifeel scared. Very scared.

Internet-wide surveillance and censorship, enabled by the unimaginably vast computational power of artificial intelligence (AI), is here.

This is not a futuristic dystopia. It’s happening now.

Government agencies are working with universities and nonprofits to use AI tools to surveil and censor content on the Internet.

This is not political or partisan. This is not about any particular opinion or idea. 

 What’s happening is that a tool powerful enough to surveil everything that’s said and done on the Internet (or large portions of it) is becoming available to the government to monitor all of us, all the time. And, based on that monitoring, the government – and any organization or company the government partners with – can then use the same tool to suppress, silence, and shut down whatever speech it doesn’t like. 

But that’s not all. Using the same tool, the government and its public-private, “non-governmental” partners (think, for example: the World Health Organization, or Monsanto) can also shut down any activity that is linked to the Internet. Banking, buying, selling, teaching, learning, entertaining, connecting to each other – if the government-controlled AI does not like what you (or your kids!) say in a tweet or an email, it can shut down all of that for you. 

Yes, we’ve seen this on a very local and politicized scale with, for example, the Canadian truckers. 

But if we thought this type of activity could not, or would not, happen on a national (or even scarier – global) scale, we need to wake up right now and realize it’s happening, and it might not be stoppable.

Keep reading

EU Officials Start Crafting Censorship Guidelines for Big Tech Companies Ahead of 2024 Elections

The European Union has announced that it has started putting together what it calls “guidelines for election integrity” – but what critics will describe in plain language as censorship guidelines that Big Tech is supposed to follow.

The process of drafting these instructions, a part of the Digital Services Act (DSA), was initiated with a public consultation that will last until March 7, and the EU said these will be the first guidelines under the DSA.

Social media and services covered by it are referred to as Very Large Online Platforms and Search Engines, and they are the ones who will be expected to implement what the EU thinks are “best practices and possible measures to mitigate systemic risks” related to elections.

The concept of free and fair elections is long-standing, but the EU has managed to work the term “resilient elections” in there as well, as the ultimate goal of the new guidelines.

The draft also gives examples of what the bloc considers to be good ways to censor unwanted content – where censorship is referred to as “mitigating measures.” Particular attention is paid to generative AI, i.e, deepfakes.

The platforms are supposed to stick to the guidelines before, as well as after the voting, and for once, “billions of people all around the world going to the polls this year” are not mentioned as the justification for the “measures.”

At least the EU does not do it while announcing the drafting of the guidelines, although legacy media do, while reporting about it. Executive Vice-President for a Europe Fit for the Digital Age Margrethe Vestager is quoted as saying that the concern here are elections at various levels in EU nation-states, as well as those for the European Parliament.

According to Vestager, voters must discuss issues online “in a safe way.”

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New Report Measures Attempts to Impose, and Evade, Internet Repression

This week, government officials in both Pakistan and Senegal cut public access to the internet in moves clearly meant to crack down on political debate. Pakistan severed connections to limit information coinciding with a general election of questionable credibility while Senegal’s action occurred after the government postponed a presidential vote to the end of the year. The restrictions come amidst global concern about increasing online censorship and surveillance.

“Global internet freedom declined for the 13th consecutive year,” Allie Funk, Adrian Shahbaz, and Kian Vesteinsson of Freedom House noted in last year’s Freedom on the Net 2023 report. “Ahead of and during electoral periods, many incumbent leaders criminalized broad categories of speech, blocked access to independent news sites, and imposed other controls over the flow of information to sway balloting in their favor,” they added.

Controlling access to information regarding electoral politics is precisely what happened in both the recent incidents in countries where authorities are barely going through the motions of democracy.

“Polls have closed in Pakistan after the authorities suspended mobile calls and data while millions voted for a new government in a controversial election,” report Yvette Tan, Caroline Davies, and Simon Fraser for the BBC. They noted that the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, seeks approval for another term in office while the party of his predecessor, Imran Khan, who was jailed last year for corruption, called the internet cut a “cowardly act.”

Meanwhile, “Senegal’s internet service was restored Wednesday, days after the government suspended it following the postponement of this month’s presidential election” and subsequent unrest, according to Deutsche Welle.

“The government’s abrupt shutdown of internet access via mobile data and Walf TV’s broadcasting, along with the revocation of its license, constitutes a blatant assault on the right to freedom of expression and press rights,” commented Samira Daoud of Amnesty International.

Senegal, notably, appears on a list compiled by Techopedia of places where internet searches on virtual private networks (VPNs), which mask users’ identities and provide a measure of anonymity, are soaring.

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Biden Cried ‘Book Ban,’ Then Pressured Amazon To Ban His Opponents From World’s Biggest Bookstore

Democrats and their accomplices in the media have expended an awful lot of ink, breath, and energy trying to convince voters that people on the right want to “ban books.”

The leftist firestorm attacks concerned parents working to eradicate pornography and other age-inappropriate books from taxpayer-funded schools and libraries. These works include titles such as All Boys Aren’t Blue, which contains descriptions of rape, incest, and pedophilia, and Gender Queer, which shows graphic depictions of oral sex, masturbation, and homosexual acts.

Democrat activists have come out in full-throated defense of explicit sexual content for children and likened conservatives who oppose it to Nazis who want to burn books. Last month, MSNBC host Joy Reid grilled the co-founder of Moms for Liberty about why parents should have any say in how their tax dollars are used and argued that kids who identify as LGBT “feel seen” by stories about child rape.

One Democrat governor ironically argued that Republican efforts to shield children from age-inappropriate content are “castrating them.” President Joe Biden has also smeared Republicans for “banning books,” and even announced during “pride month” that he would appoint a “book ban coordinator” to make sure schools weren’t removing filth from their shelves.

That’s why it was so ridiculous to learn this week that all while Democrats were shrieking about pornography “book bans,” the Biden White House was actively “pressuring” Amazon, the world’s largest bookseller, to nuke books that raised concerns about experimental Covid-19 shots. It’s a pretty good bet that’s not the only topic the White House pressured Amazon to ban, either.

According to internal documents and emails subpoenaed by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, senior Biden official Andy Slavitt, who pressured Facebook to censor speech, was pushing Amazon to ban books disagreeing with Democrat policies.

Because Slavitt didn’t like the “concerning” results that turned up when he searched Amazon books for “vaccines,” he emailed the corporation on March 2, 2021, to ask to whom Biden officials could speak about “the high levels of propaganda and misinformation and disinformation of [sic] Amazon.” The vaccine debate was, and is still, ongoing. But the White House was mad that Amazon didn’t slap a warning from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention onto books that stepped out of line from the government’s Covid claims.

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