Tag: censorship

Biden Criticizes Online “Misinformation,” Compares The Internet To The Unregulated Printing Press

In an interview with ProPublica, released on Sunday, President Joe Biden touched upon the technological advancements and their pivotal role in shaping societal discourse and information sharing. While discussing Elon Musk’s influence over X and its policies, President Biden seemed to delve into concerns about “misinformation” and its prevalence on online platforms.

When asked by John Harwood about Elon Musk’s impact on X and its potential contribution to misinformation, President Biden responded by exploring the notion of technological evolution and what he sees as its consequences on society.

He said, “Yeah, it does. Look, one of the things that I said to you when I thought I wasn’t going to run, I was going to write a book about the changes taking place. And most of this directed over the years were these fundamental changes in society by changing technology, Gutenberg, printing and the printing press changed the way Europeans could talk to one another, all the way to today.”

Biden’s mention of the Gutenberg printing press highlights its revolutionary impact on communication among Europeans. Drawing parallels between the advent of the printing press and the current digital age, the President seemed to imply that just as the printing press had long-lasting effects on communication and information dissemination, the internet and online platforms have a similar transformative effect on contemporary society.

While the President (this time at least) stopped short of explicitly calling for censorship, his comments could be interpreted as subtly highlighting concerns around the unregulated nature of online information, potentially opening a gateway to discussions on tighter control and regulation of internet content.

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The White House’s ‘Misinformation’ Pressure Campaign Was Unconstitutional

I am one of five private plaintiffs in the landmark free speech case Missouri v. Biden. Earlier this month, the Fifth Circuit Court found that the government “engaged in a years-long pressure campaign designed to ensure that the censorship [on social media] aligned with the government’s preferred viewpoints” and that “the platforms, in capitulation to state-sponsored pressure, changed their moderation policies.” This resulted in the censoring of constitutionally protected speech of hundreds of thousands of Americans, tens of millions of times. Based on this finding, the Fifth Circuit in part upheld an injunction on certain public officials put in place by a district court.

Even when the government appealed the injunction to the Fifth Circuit, its lawyers hardly disputed a single factual finding from the court’s ruling. A unanimous three-judge panel upheld the core findings that “several officials—namely the White House, the Surgeon General, the CDC, and the FBI—likely coerced or significantly encouraged social-media platforms to moderate content, rendering those decisions state actions. In doing so, the officials likely violated the First Amendment.” The government again appealed the injunction to the Supreme Court, where we expect a ruling this week.

The government’s claim that the injunction limits public officials’ own speech is absurd misdirection. The government can say whatever it wants publicly; it just cannot stop other Americans from saying something else. Free speech matters not to ensure that every pariah can say whatever odious thing he or she chooses. Rather, free speech prevents the government from identifying every critic as a pariah whose speech must be shut down.

We are all harmed when our rulers silence criticism. Our government’s self-inflicted deafness prevented officials and their constituents from hearing viewpoints that should have had a meaningful impact on our policy decisions. Instead, government censorship resulted time and again in the silencing of scientifically informed criticisms of, for example, harmful COVID policies. This allowed misguided and divisive policies to persist far too long.

The scope of the current government censorship regime is historically unprecedented. “The present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,” the district court judge explained in his ruling. He went on, “The evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario… The United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’.” The Fifth Circuit panel concurred: “The Supreme Court has rarely been faced with a coordinated campaign of this magnitude orchestrated by federal officials that jeopardized a fundamental aspect of American life.”

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Why Is TED Scared of Color Blindness?

Like any young writer, I am well aware that an invitation to speak at TED can be a career-changing opportunity. So you can imagine how thrilled I was when I was invited to appear at this year’s annual conference. What I could not have imagined from an organization whose tagline is “ideas worth spreading” is that it would attempt to suppress my own. 

As an independent podcaster and author, I count myself among the lucky few who can make a living doing what they truly love to do. Nothing about my experience with TED could change that. The reason this story matters is not because I was treated poorly, but because it helps explain how organizations can be captured by an ideological minority that bends even the people at the very top to its will. In that, the story of TED is the story of so many crucial and once-trustworthy institutions in American life.

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Revealed: UK Intelligence Officials Are Behind The Censorship Of Russell Brand

Allegations of sexual impropriety and abuse by comedian and podcaster Russell Brand by the British media prompted YouTube to demonetize the star’s popular channel on September 20.

The Grayzone can now reveal that YouTube’s financial censorship of Brand is the result of an effort waged by a former British government minister who was responsible for London’s crackdown on dissent during the Covid-19 pandemic. Her husband has also participated in that campaign of state repression as deputy commander of 77th Brigade, the British Army’s psychological warfare division.

YouTube justified its demonetization of Brand on the grounds that he violated its “creator responsibility policy.” This marks the first time a content creator has been financially punished by the company for reasons other than the videos published on the site. A spokesperson has claimed, “if a creator’s off-platform behaviour harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action.”

The allegations against Brand date from betwee 2006 and ’13, and have yet to be proven in court. There is no indication the charges are being investigated by law enforcement in Britain or the US, where the offenses allegedly occurred. Brand has vehemently denied accusations of abuse and rape.

Brand’s videos analyzing political developments and topics such as the Covid-19 pandemic, corporate media propaganda and the Ukraine proxy war have earned him an audience of millions, making him one of the world’s most influential alternative media personalities. For this, he appears to have been marked as a threat to the narratives spun out by Washington and London.

New developments suggest YouTube’s censorship of Brand was driven by direct British government decree. On September 19, the social media companies TikTok and Rumble received a pair of almost identical letters dispatched from Caroline Dinenage, the head of the UK parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee. Dinenage informed the companies she was “concerned that [Brand] may be able to profit from his content” published on both platforms.

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There’s no ‘disinformation’ exception to the First Amendment

Misinformation and disinformation retain the basic characteristics of speech. Unless they fall into one of very few exceptions, they are protected from censorship under the First Amendment.

Consistent with those very limited exceptions, any effort by the government to prevent the dissemination of ideas or opinions, even if they are based on untruths, is unconstitutional.

A three-judge panel for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld an injunction that prohibits the government from pressuring social media platforms to de-escalate or remove speech that the government identifies as misinformation or disinformation.

On Thursday, Sept. 14, that injunction was put on pause by the Supreme Court until Sept. 22, to give the Court more time to consider the issue.

The injunction resulted from a lawsuit filed by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana and others accusing the federal government of strong-arming social media companies in order to amplify government-approved points of view and muffle or silence opposing views.

The federal government’s argument was that it did no more than partner with the companies and assist them in rooting out disinformation. Dismissing this argument, the Fifth Circuit held that the government implemented a coordinated campaign of such unrelenting pressure that the content moderation policies implemented by the platforms were no longer independent. Instead, the platforms were functioning as agents of the government, transforming the content moderation decisions into state action.

In other words, the appellate panel found that the social media platforms essentially acted as agents of the federal government when the platforms removed or de-amplified posts based on government-created criteria of truth or falsity. In doing so, the court found that the government unconstitutionally censored the speakers’ and listeners’ First Amendment rights.

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UK Quietly Passes “Online Safety Bill” Into Law

Buried behind the Brand-related headlines yesterday, the British House of Lords voted to pass the controversial “Online Safety Bill” into law. All that’s needed now is Royal assent, which Charles will obviously provide.

The bill’s (very catchy) long-form title is…

A Bill to make provision for and in connection with the regulation by OFCOM of certain internet services; for and in connection with communications offences; and for connected purposes.

…and that’s essentially it, it hands the duty of “regulating” certain online content to the UK’s Office of Communications (OfCom).

Ofcom Chief Executive Dame Melanie Dawes could barely contain her excitement in a statement to the press:

“Today is a major milestone in the mission to create a safer life online for children and adults in the UK. Everyone at Ofcom feels privileged to be entrusted with this important role, and we’re ready to start implementing these new laws.”

As always with these things, the bill’s text is a challenging and rather dull read, deliberately obscure in its language and difficult to navigate.

Of some note is the “information offenses” clause, which empowers OfCom to demand “information” from users, companies and employees, and makes it a crime to withhold it. The nature of this “information” is never specified, nor does it appear to be qualified. Meaning it could be anything, and will most likely be used to get private account information about users from social media platforms.

In one of the more worrying clauses, the Bill outlines what they call “communications offenses”. Section 10 details crimes of transmitting “Harmful, false and threatening communications”.

It should be noted that sending threats is already illegal in the UK, so the only new ground covered here is “harmful” and/or “false” information, and the fact they feel the need to differentiate between those two things should worry you.

After all, the truth can definitely be “harmful”…Especially to a power-hungry elite barely controlling an angry populace through dishonest propaganda.

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Biden’s 2024 Campaign Will Continue Flagging “Misinformation” To Big Tech

The Biden regime’s practice of flagging content for censorship and pressuring platforms to remove content that it deems to be “misinformation” is so pervasive that it’s the subject of a major censorship lawsuit where an appeals court recently ruled that the Biden admin violated the First Amendment when pushing for social media censorship.

Despite this ruling, Joe Biden’s 2024 presidential campaign plans to continue flagging so-called misinformation to social media platforms, “reaching out” to social media companies, and working with media outlets to “fact-check untruths.”

Additionally, it may target “deepfakes” in states with laws against the technology and use “applicable copyright laws.”

According to POLITICO, Biden’s campaign will hire hundreds of staffers and volunteers to monitor online platforms as part of this effort.

Not only is Biden’s campaign planning to continue engaging in actions similar to those that were flagged by an appeals court for violating the First Amendment, but one of the leaders of the Biden campaign’s effort will be Rob Flaherty, a former White House Digital Director who is a defendant in the First Amendment lawsuit that the appeals court ruled on.

Flaherty is currently a deputy campaign manager for Biden’s 2024 campaign.

Documents that were uncovered as part of the censorship lawsuit against the Biden admin revealed that Flaherty was one of the Biden White House’s most aggressive censorship proponents.

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UK Parliament sends letters to social media platforms demanding demonetization of Russell Brand

The UK Parliament has sent letters to TikTok and Rumble expressing concerns that comedian Russel Brand could be profiting off the platforms.

“I am writing concerning the serious allegations regarding Russell Brand, in the context as a user of TikTok with more than 2.2 million followers on the platform,” the letter to Theo Bertram, TikTok Director of Government Relations, Europe, began.

The following day after TikTok was sent the letter, Rumble received a similar letter from Dinenage, noting Brand’s 1.4 million followers on the platform, and asking whether Rumble “intends to join YouTube in suspending Mr. Brand’s ability to earn money on the platform.”

“The Culture, Media and Sport [Committee] is raising questions with the broadcasters who previously employed Mr. Brand or production companies who employed him, to examine both the culture of the industry in the past and whether that culture still prevails today,” Committee chair Dame Caroline Dinenage MP wrote.

Dinenage noted that while Brand no longer appears on television, he has amassed a following on various social media platforms, “including on TikTok where this weekend he republished his pre-emptive response to the accusations made against him by The Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches.”

“While we recognize that TikTok is not the creator of the content published by Mr. Brand, and his content may be within the Community Guidelines set out by the platform, we are concerned that he may be able to profit from his content on the platform.”

Dinenage requested that TikTok confirm whether Brand is able to monetize his content on the platform, and tell “what the platform is doing to ensure that creators are not able to use the platform to undermine the welfare of victims of inappropriate or potentially illegal behavior.”

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The UK passes massive online safety bill

The UK’s Online Safety Bill is ready to become law. The bill, which aims to make the UK “the safest place in the world to be online,” passed through the Houses of Parliament on Tuesday and imposes strict requirements on large social platforms to remove illegal content. It will be enforced by UK telecom regulatory agency Ofcom.

Additionally, the Online Safety Bill mandates new age-checking measures to prevent underage children from seeing harmful content. It also pushes large social media platforms to become more transparent about the dangers they pose to children, while also giving parents and kids the ability to report issues online. Potential penalties are also harsh: up to 10 percent of a company’s global annual revenue. The bill has been reworked several times in a multiyear journey through Parliament.

But not only does online age verification raise serious privacy concerns — the bill could also put encrypted messaging services, like WhatsApp, at risk. Under the terms of the bill, encrypted messaging apps would be obligated to check users’ messages for child sexual abuse material.

Depending on how the rule is enforced, this could essentially break apps’ end-to-end encryption promise, which prevents third parties — including the app itself — from viewing users’ messages. In March, WhatsApp refused to comply with the bill and threatened to leave the UK rather than change its encryption policies. It joined Signal and other encrypted messaging services in protesting the bill, leading UK regulators to attempt to assuage their concerns by promising to only require “technically feasible” measures.

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People injured or bereaved by Covid vaccines ‘speak in code online over censorship fears’

People left injured or bereaved from vaccines are being forced to speak in code online about their symptoms for fear of censorship, the Covid Inquiry has heard.

Baroness Hallett, the inquiry’s chair, was also told at a hearing on Wednesday that healthcare workers are afraid to speak out about side effects they have had from the jab, over fears they will be punished by their bosses.

It comes as campaign groups representing hundreds of people who suffered illness or lost loved ones after being vaccinated will be allowed to give evidence to the public inquiry.

Anne Morris KC, representing UK CV Family, Vaccine Injured Bereaved UK (VIBUK) and the Scottish Vaccine Injury Group, told the inquiry: “Censorship is a very real issue for the vaccine injured and bereaved.

“Their support groups have been shut down by social media platforms and their experiences censored by the mainstream media.

“They have to speak in code online for fear of having the only source of support taken away from them.”

She added: “They face stigma and abuse for sharing their symptoms in the context of the Covid vaccine, even being branded as anti-vax for sharing very real and medically proven vaccine injuries.”

The inquiry was told that those left genuinely injured or bereaved from vaccines are unable to express or record their experiences without being “misunderstood, misrepresented or used for somebody else’s agenda”.

A survey of UK CV Family members reported that 73 per cent have considered suicide, with a member of the group having taken his own life last August.

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