Tag: censorship

JPMorgan Chase Is Up To Its Old Tricks…

At about the same time, it appears, Chase debanked, without warning, Drs. Syed Haider and Joseph Mercola. Wait, no. Not just them, but also Dr. Mercola’s employees – and his and their families. All without explanation.

These debankings don’t come without context.

You may recall that last fall Chase debanked Senator, Ambassador and Governor (so, you know, pretty well respected) Brownback’s religious liberty organization, after having debanked General Flynn and a series of other conservatives. Chase got called on the Brownback debanking and first stonewalled and then lied, a half dozen times, about the reasons for the debanking, and then went back to stonewalling.

That’s relevant again because, whaddya know, the debanked doctors turn out to be conservatives, too – or at least they’re sufficiently opposed to the woke big government/big business monolith that they were willing to question the efficacy of the lockdown regime. In fact, the New York Times wrote a story about him in the summer of 2021 calling him “The Most Influential Spreader of Coronavirus Information Online.”

Why? Because he’d dared to “publish[] over 600 articles on Facebook that cast doubt on Covid-19 vaccines since the pandemic began, reaching a far larger audience than other vaccine skeptics, an analysis by The New York Times found.” He also published “posts often ask[ing] pointed questions about [the vaccines’] safety and discuss[ing] studies that other doctors have refuted.”

Oh, the horror. Disagreement about scientific questions? Can not have. Especially if the right scientists have refuted some underlying positions.

You know, the way the right scientists refuted the lab-leak theory.

Mercola also helped to publicize a study that claimed that the “covid vaccines were ‘a medical fraud’ and said the injections did not prevent infections, provide immunity or stop transmission of the disease.”

Wait. That all turned out to be right, didn’t it? Wasn’t he right? Haven’t the Times and Mercola’s detractors been refuted about those claims of misinformation? Weren’t they the misinformants?

Haider similarly questioned the efficacy of the vaccines, and documented the slow admissions that he and other skeptics had been correct in their claims.

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Disinformation And Censorship, 1984–2023

Orwell, again. 1984 seems written for the Biden era. Underlying it all is the concept of disinformation, the root of propaganda and mind control. So it is in 2023. Just ask FBI Director Chris Wray. Or Facebook.

George Orwell’s novel explores the concept of disinformation and its role in controlling and manipulating society. Orwell presents a dystopian future where a totalitarian regime, led by the Party and its figurehead Big Brother, exerts complete control over its citizens’ lives, including their thinking. The Party employs a variety of techniques to disseminate disinformation and maintain its power. One of the most prominent examples is the concept of “Newspeak,” a language designed to restrict and manipulate thought by reducing the range of expressible ideas. Newspeak aims to replace words and concepts that could challenge or criticize the Party’s ideology, effectively controlling the way people think and communicate (in our own time and place, think of “unhoused,” “misspoke,” LGBTQIAXYZ+, “nationalist,” “terrorist”).

Orwell also introduces the concept of doublethink, which refers to the ability to hold two contradictory beliefs simultaneously and to accept them both as true. This psychological manipulation technique allows the Party to control the minds of its citizens and make them believe in false information or embrace contradictory ideas without questioning (think mandating masks that do not prevent disease transmission). The Party in 1984 alters historical records and disseminates false information through the Ministry of Truth. This manipulation of historical events and facts aims to control the collective memory of the society in a post-truth era, ensuring that the Party’s version of reality remains unquestioned (think war in Ukraine, Iraq, El Salvador, Vietnam, all to protect our freedom at home.)

Through these portrayals, Orwell highlights the dangers of disinformation and its potential to distort truth, manipulate public opinion, and maintain oppressive systems of power. The novel serves as a warning about the importance of critical thinking, independent thought, and the preservation of objective truth in the face of disinformation and propaganda.

Disinformation is bad. But replacing disinformation with censorship or replacement with other disinformation is worse. 

1984 closed down the marketplace of ideas. So for 2023.

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Democrat State Attorneys General File Brief In Support of Biden Censorship Power

In a move that underscores the unceasing tension between free speech and the control of information online, 20 Democratic state attorneys general have made appeals through federal court to restore their power in urging social media entities to censor user content.

Headlined by New York Attorney General Letitia James, the collective is adamant that federal court decisions are hindering their capability to prevent the circulation of misleading information.

July 4 saw US District Judge Terry Doughty issue a directive that greatly restrains government officials’ influence over social media moderation, after there was enough evidence already presented to show possible First Amendment violations.

Stemming from a lawsuit filed in May 2022 by Republican attorneys in Louisiana and Missouri, the verdict argued that both the presiding Biden administration had unjustly pressured social media platforms into suppressing posts perceived as potential triggers for vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 crisis or destabilizers for electoral processes.

This pursuit for moderation by government officials, the suit asserted, unjustly infringed upon the First Amendment right to free speech. In particular, these assertions were aimed at tech conglomerates like Meta’s Facebook and Google’s YouTube, accused of commencing the limitation of information dissemination allegedly deemed misleading circa 2019.

Currently held in suspension due to an appeal by the Biden administration, the order, should it be reactivated by the 5th Circuit, will prevent government departments, including the likes of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, from communication with social media companies for the removal or suppression of content considered as protected free speech under the First Amendment.

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Senators Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Regulate Online Speech

Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have introduced a bill to create a new federal government commission overseeing online communication. The legislation is presented as consumer protection but grants new government authorities to police speech on the internet. 

“For too long, giant tech companies have exploited consumers’ data, invaded Americans’ privacy, threatened our national security, and stomped out competition in our economy,” said Warren. “This bipartisan bill would create a new tech regulator and makes clear that reining in Big Tech platforms is a top priority on both sides of the aisle.”

“For years, I have been trying to find ways to empower consumers against Big Tech,” Graham claimed. “I have heard too many stories from families who feel helpless in the face of Big Tech. … The creation of a regulatory commission to oversee Big Tech is the first step in a long journey to protect American consumers from the massive power these companies currently wield.”

The bill will establish a Digital Consumer Protection Commission that will designate some websites as “dominant platforms.” It appears those sites will be in the crosshairs of the new commission as the legislation instructs the new agency “to intentionally avoid having the platform meet the qualifications for designation as a dominant platform.”

The “dominant platforms will be required to inform the government of their content moderation policies. The bill will require designated companies to “make publicly available, through clear and conspicuous disclosure, the dominant platform’s terms of service, which shall include the criteria the operator employs in content moderation practices.”

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Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in lecture

Joy Alonzo, a respected opioid expert, was in a panic.

The Texas A&M University professor had just returned home from giving a routine lecture on the opioid crisis at the University of Texas Medical Branch in March when she learned a student had accused her of disparaging Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick during the talk.

In the few hours it took to drive from Galveston, the complaint had made its way to her supervisors, and Alonzo’s job was suddenly at risk.

“I am in a ton of trouble. Please call me!” she wrote to Chandler Self, the UTMB professor who invited her to speak.

Alonzo was right to be afraid. Not only were her supervisors involved, but so was Chancellor John Sharp, a former state comptroller who now holds the highest-ranking position in the Texas A&M University System, which includes 11 public universities and 153,000 students. And Sharp was communicating directly with the lieutenant governor’s office about the incident, promising swift action.

Less than two hours after the lecture ended, Patrick’s chief of staff had sent Sharp a link to Alonzo’s professional bio.

Shortly after, Sharp sent a text directly to the lieutenant governor: “Joy Alonzo has been placed on administrative leave pending investigation re firing her. shud [sic] be finished by end of week.”

The text message was signed “jsharp.”

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New Files Show Biden Admin Forced Facebook To Censor “True Information” On Vaccine Side Effects

Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan released a second batch of files Friday showing that the Biden administration was forcing Facebook to censor content relating to COVID vaccines, including what employees there described as “true information”.

Jordan noted that Facebook knew it was removing “humorous or satirical content that suggests the vaccine isn’t safe,” as well as “true information about the side effects.” 

Jordan also noted that Facebook employees were annoyed at being made to take down content they knew was accurate, describing the administration’s definition of misinformation as “completely unclear” and noting that the White House was using “untested assumptions” to demand censorship.

“It also just seems like when the vaccination campaign isn’t going as hoped, it’s convenient for them to blame us,” one employee noted.

Another agreed, responding “This seems like a political battle that’s not fully grounded in facts, and it’s frustrating.”

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The Citizen’s Starter Kit to the top 50 Organisations in the Global Censorship Cartel

“The Top 50 List” is intended as a resource for reporters and researchers beginning their journey toward learning the scale and ambition of the “Censorship-Industrial Complex (“CIC”).” Written like a magazine feature, it tries to answer a few basic questions about funding, organisation type, history, and especially, methodology. Many anti-disinformation groups adhere to the same formulaic approach to research, often using the same “hate-mapping,” guilt-by-association-type analysis to identify wrong-thinkers and suppressive persons.

A democratic society requires the nourishment of free debate, disagreement, and intellectual tension, but the groups below seek instead a “shared vocabulary” to deploy on the hybrid battlefield. They propose to serve as the guardians of that “vocabulary.”

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Facebook Felt “Pressure” From “Outraged” Biden White House To Remove Posts

Calling somebody a member of the “Disinformation Dozen” – there’s a nasty piece of propaganda work, trying to discredit political opponents in a time of crisis.

Worse still, it wasn’t happening out in the open, on actual social networks, but behind the curtains of government/Big Tech collusion.

And now – with the new US election looming large already – it’s probably prudent, if your party/political affiliation was on “the wrong” end of the stick the last time, to try to fight against this repeating “early, and often.”

The term “Disinformation Dozen” refers to a (conspiracy, to all effects) theory that there were only 12 people in the world (… right?) who were behind Covid vaccine criticism back in 2021.

And what a difference, strictly scientifically speaking, two years make…

But now, it’s time to face the “political piper,” as it were. Documents have emerged to show that Facebook at the time played along with the “Disinformation Dozen” game related not only to original posts – but also memes – and went to the significant no doubt trouble of changing its entire policy to suit the narrative rendered under pressure from Biden’s Surgeon General.

But as always, eventually, what does a Big Tech giant do? Appease the “permanent power center” supported or not by some current White House.

And so, we are now learning that Meta wasn’t thrilled about it – but “felt” it had to play along and acquiesce to government pressure.

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House Democrat Argues The Government Should Define ‘Truth,’ Americans Need to Be Censored

Democratic Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett, a non-voting delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands, said the quiet part out loud while appearing on MSNBC’s ‘The Inside Interview’ with former White House mouthpiece Jen Psaki on Sunday.

The U.S. government should define for America what the “truth” is and censor those Americans who don’t agree.

“Well, you know, first of all, they wanna talk about censorship,” Plaskett said. “That anytime you point out untruths, you’re censoring, you’re stopping people from speaking. It’s not that we’re not stopping people from speaking [sic], people can speak, but we’re also going to give the American people the truth so that they can have science and facts and history against wild, outlandish claims that the Republicans are trying to get. That’s not only going to keep them from going to the polls or suppressing vote or telling untruths, but is also really very detrimental to the American people.”

In other words, the U.S. government is going to stop people from speaking what Stacey Plaskett and her Democrat colleagues call “the truth.” Numerous times in the past ten years, the Democratic Party and the media have misled the American people on the truth. Whether it was false claims about Covid vaccines to the Russia hoax or racially incendiary police shootings, the American people have been pushed to believe in a damaging political agenda.

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Investigating The Pro-Censorship UK Group Expanding Across The US

America First Legal (AFL) have announced its investigation into a UK-based group known as the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

AFL, a non-profit often described as “an alternative to ACLU,” is starting the probe into CCDH – which it refers to as a pro-censorship group that is a party to anti-free speech collusion with the government – by filing several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

We obtained an example of one of the FOIAs for you here.

They are addressed to the US Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of State, and the goal is to obtain any communications they may have had with CCDH, headed by Imran Ahmed.

The basis for looking into the group’s activities in the US is that although based in the UK, it has expanded its “censorship encouraging,” as AFL put it, work to the US as a 501(c) non-profit.

As far as CCDH is concerned, the group is a non-profit and an NGO (non-governmental organization) with nothing but noble intentions – fighting online hate and disinformation.

Ahmed’s professional profile gives a good idea of what exactly CCDH means by that. As per the organization itself, Ahmed is an “authority on social and psychological malignancies on social media, such as identity-based hate, extremism, disinformation, and conspiracy theories.”

As is often the case with those that like to add a layer of opaqueness to their work, “the organization of the organization” here is rather complicated: there are ties with top Labour Party officials, the Black Lives Matter movement, there has been a “merger” with another online disinformation crusader called Stop Funding Fake News (SFFN).

Naturally, Covid lockdown opponents were a prominent target, but when it comes specifically to the US, CCDH put not only those critics based in that country, but also Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in its crosshairs, as deplatforming targets.

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