Tag: censorship

Al Gore Says People Having Access to Non-Mainstream Information ‘Threatens Democracy’

Al Gore says that people having access to information outside of mainstream media sources is a threat to “democracy” and that social media algorithms “ought to be banned.”

Yes, really.

Gore made the comments during an appearance at the Cop28 climate change hysteria conference in Dubai.

Gore whined that social media had “disrupted the balances that used to exist that made representative democracy work much better.”

The former Vice President said that functioning democracy relied on a “shared base of knowledge that serves as a basis for reasoning together collectively” but that “social media that is dominated by algorithms” upsets this balance.

According to Gore, people are being pulled down “rabbit holes” by algorithms that are “the digital equivalent of AR-15s – they ought to be banned, they really ought to be banned!”

Gore claimed, “It’s an abuse of the public forum” and that people were being sucked into echo chambers.

“If you spend too much time in the echo chamber, what’s weaponized is another form of AI, not artificial intelligence, artificial insanity! I’m serious!” he added.

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NYC couple checks out 5 pro-Palestinian children’s books indefinitely to prevent ‘indoctrination

A Roosevelt Island couple have taken a novel approach to what they say is anti-Israel propaganda in their local library — they’ve checked out five pro-Palestinian children’s books and will keep them indefinitely to prevent them from being used for “indoctrination.”

The books — for children as young as 3 — were prominently on display at the New York Public Library branch during “Read Palestine Week,” with several titles about Palestinians arranged in a “indigenous people’s” display with books about Native Americans.

“It’s pretty easy to understand what they’re doing. They are trying to connect between these two identities, and make Israel and Jews look as if we are colonizers and not indigenous to our land,” said Asaf Eyal, whose wife checked out the books on Dec. 3.

“Placing these books next to the Native American books is a very obvious move. The library manager created this display very purposely,” Eyal, 47, added.

Among the showcased books were “We’re in This Together,” a title by anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour — which offered her view of the situation.

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Democrats Demand Social Media Platforms Censor Abortion “Misinformation” With Direct Letters to Musk and Zuckerberg

House Democrats have issued a strong call to Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, urging them to address what they call the widespread issue of abortion “misinformation” on their social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and X.

These concerns were expressed in two letters from the House Oversight Committee.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

The letters, spearheaded by Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the committee’s Ranking Member, request that Musk’s and Zuckerberg’s platforms urgently tackle the spread of false abortion information and provide Congress with briefings on this matter by December 14.

“Your company’s decision to keep these posts visible seems at odds with your Terms of Service that allow you to remove unlawful conduct on your platform,” the letter states. “Even more concerning is your company’s apparent double-standard when it comes to removing posts that you label ‘abortion advocacy’ or posts that offer legitimate medical and logistical advice for someone considering abortion, while allowing crisis pregnancy centers and anti-abortion advocates to spread false and misleading information regarding abortion.”

The committee, in its letters, highlights the nature of the allegedly misleading medical information and false content about abortion that is proliferating, especially on the platforms managed by Musk and Zuckerberg. This alleged misinformation, according to the committee, can lead to people doubting their healthcare providers and even their own judgment, posing significant health and safety risks.

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The West Is Taking Draconian Measures to Silence Free Speech

Western culture has valued free speech as a necessary check on overreaching centralized power for centuries.  Yet we’re watching the ability to speak freely disappear before our eyes.

Imagine going to federal prison for a meme.

Douglass Mackey, also known by his Twitter name Ricky Vaughn, is going to jail for memes mocking Hillary Clinton back in 2016.  He made fake memes telling people to vote from home via text messages. Mackey insisted in court that he was just sh*tposting. He didn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to actually fall for it.

But never underestimate the power of stupid!  At least 4900 people did call the prank number to vote for Hillary. The federal government did not find it funny and sentenced Mackey to seven months in prison.

What’s happening in Ireland is even worse.

This is bad, but it’s mild compared to what Ireland has planned.  In November 2022, the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence and Hatred or Hate Offences) Bill 2022 was initiated in Ireland’s legislature.

Section 10 (1) (a) states that a person will be found guilty of an offense if he “prepares or possesses material that is likely to incite violence or hatred against a person or a group of persons on account of their protected characteristics or any of those characteristics with a view to the material being communicated to the public or a section of the public, whether by himself or herself or another person.”

These incredibly vague and potentially broad offenses can land individuals jail time and hefty fines. The police will have the authority to search homes and confiscate devices under the new law.  They could search citizens’ devices for offensive memes.  Possessing movies with offensive jokes will be punishable.  Will everyone in Ireland have to destroy their copies of Hot Shots Part Deux and Tropic Thunder?

As ridiculous as it sounds, this law is most of the way through the Irish legislature already.  It had been facing some resistance from the public. Irish senators have been hearing a lot about it from their constituents. There had been some hope that the law would be heavily amended or retracted, but that was before the Dublin riots.

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Report: Insider Blows the Whistle on ‘Cyber Threat Intelligence League’ Domestic Censorship Program

A whistleblower has reportedly brought to light startling revelations about the Pentagon’s involvement in a domestic censorship program, as detailed in newly disclosed files from the Cyber Threat Intelligence League (CTIL).

Public reports that according to a whistleblower’s files, the Cyber Threat Intelligence League (CTIL), previously thought to be an independent entity, was heavily influenced by government and military personnel. This involvement is far more extensive than previously known, as evidenced by Slack messages and other internal communications.

The CTIL Slack channels, specifically those tagged for “disinformation” and “law enforcement escalation,” reportedly included current and former FBI employees, Michigan Cyber Command Center personnel, members of the US Defense Digital Service (DDS), and representatives from at least one European government. The DDS, headquartered at the Pentagon and established in 2015, has been particularly highlighted for its role in these operations.

According to Public, the latest whistleblower files from CTIL reveal that the organization worked with both governments and social media companies to censor Americans:

The new whistleblower’s files provide insight into the group’s inner workings, which Terp described as a “parallel effort.” Neither we nor the whistleblower know what the “parallel effort” refers to.

In these new files, Eric Brogdon, a cybersecurity director for a private firm, and others appear to have attempted to interfere with physical gatherings, with Brogdon implying that he had the ability to get social media users suspended. When one member shared news about a call for anti-lockdown protests, Brogdon responded, “Let me see if I can get the Facebook user suspended.”

This is the second report on CTIL published by Public. As Breitbart News previously reported:

The CTIL documents fill gaps left by previous disclosures, painting a detailed portrait of the so-called “Censorship Industrial Complex.” This network, comprising over 100 government agencies and NGOs, has been instrumental in pushing for censorship on social media platforms and spreading targeted propaganda. The documents include detailed accounts of digital censorship programs, military and intelligence community involvement, partnerships with civil society organizations and media, and the deployment of covert techniques like sock puppet accounts.

The whistleblower’s revelations highlight the pivotal role of CTIL in the creation and expansion of the Censorship Industrial Complex. Spearheaded by Sara-Jayne “SJ” Terp, a former UK defense researcher, and others, CTIL developed a comprehensive censorship framework in 2019. This framework was later adopted by various governmental and non-governmental organizations, including DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

The Department of Defense, in a public statement, mentioned the merging of DDS with other agencies into the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) in 2022. They claimed CDAO currently has no involvement with CTIL activities, nor awareness of past projects that predate the merger.

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Global Censorship Strategy: US And UK Military Contractors Conspiracy

Newly leaked documents have revealed a secretive initiative by U.S. and UK military contractors to establish a global censorship framework in 2018, according to a new report by journalists behind the Twitter Files.

ublic has published a report by Michael Shellenberger, Alex Gutentag, and Matt Taibbi claiming that a whistleblower has surfaced with documents suggesting that U.S. and UK military contractors, including prominent defense researchers and cybersecurity experts, orchestrated a comprehensive plan for global censorship. These documents, rivaling the significance of the Twitter Files and Facebook Files, which both Taibbi and Shellenberger contributed to, depict the formation of an “anti-disinformation” group named the Cyber Threat Intelligence League (CTIL). Allegedly a “volunteer project” by data scientists and defense veterans at its outset, CTIL’s tactics were seemingly integrated into projects of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The CTIL documents fill gaps left by previous disclosures, painting a detailed portrait of the so-called “Censorship Industrial Complex.” This network, comprising over 100 government agencies and NGOs, has been instrumental in pushing for censorship on social media platforms and spreading targeted propaganda. The documents include detailed accounts of digital censorship programs, military and intelligence community involvement, partnerships with civil society organizations and media, and the deployment of covert techniques like sock puppet accounts.

The whistleblower’s revelations highlight the pivotal role of CTIL in the creation and expansion of the Censorship Industrial Complex. Spearheaded by Sara-Jayne “SJ” Terp, a former UK defense researcher, and others, CTIL developed a comprehensive censorship framework in 2019. This framework was later adopted by various governmental and non-governmental organizations, including DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

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US House of Representatives Blocks Prominent News Website, The Gateway Pundit

Last Thursday afternoon, The Gateway Pundit, a prominent conservative news platform, discovered that its website was covertly being blocked on the network within the US House of Representatives. Through reliable insiders present in the halls of Capitol Hill, this unsettling news reached the team at The Gateway Pundit.

It began with an email from a staffer working for Congressman Paul Gosar. Addressing the news platform directly in his email, he drew attention to his prolonged inability, continuing for two weeks, to access The Gateway Pundit on the House network. This electronic missive was bolstered with a snapshot of the aforementioned restriction as seen on the staffer’s computer while attempting to visit the site.

Jordan Conradson, a Washington DC-based reporter for The Gateway Pundit, established contact with Anthony Foti, Communications Director for Congressman Gosar. After confirming that a similar error manifested on various government-distributed computers utilized by the Congressman’s staff, Foti went on to explain a startling reality. According to his information, obstruction of this nature transpired whenever these computers, controlled by a House Admin Office-sanctioned firewall, identified any website as “unofficial.”

Bringing further light to this matter of censorship, Representative Matt Gaetz acknowledged on Friday that his own office experienced the unseen blockade of The Gateway Pundit website. During an insight-laden podcast, he expressed his intent to probe deeper into this unexpected techno-political anomaly.

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Democrats Blasted for Claiming “No Evidence” of Big Tech-Government Censorship Collusion

Republicans called out Democrats for continuing to deny that the Biden administration colluded with tech platforms to censor speech during a hearing today, despite lawsuits, subpoenas, and other releases uncovering huge troves of evidence documenting the Biden administration’s relentless censorship demands.

Democrats claimed there’s “no evidence” of censorship collusion, branded the notion that social media companies are colluding with the government to censor conservative voices as “unfounded,” and called it a “conspiracy” theory during a House Judiciary Committee Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

But Republicans shot back and called them out for ignoring the huge banks of evidence that showcase Biden admin officials leaning on Big Tech to censor speech they disapprove of.

Three of the witnesses, journalist Matt Taibbi, journalist Michael Shellenberger, and journalist Rupa Subramanya, also challenged Democrat attempts to dismiss evidence of Biden admin-Big Tech censorship collusion during the hearing.

Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) claimed there’s “no evidence” of tech companies colluding with the government to censor conservatives.

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Washington State Republican Party Files Formal Ethics Complaint Against WA Secretary of State Hobbs for Using Public Funds to Surveil and Censor Political Opposition

Today the Washington State Republican Party (WSRP) filed a formal ethics complaint with the Washington State Ethics Board against Secretary of State Steve Hobbs. A big thank you to WSRP Chairman Jim Walsh for initiating the complaint and attorney K. Garl Long, Long Law office, for writing and filing the complaint.

After the complaint was filed the WSRP issued a press release here.

Full Complaint, Exhibits, and Footnotes here:

Summary of Complaint: Secretary of State Hobbs (“Secretary Hobbs”) is using public funds to pay an offshore artificial intelligence company to surveil voters. Speech objectionable to Secretary Hobbs is “fact-checked,” reported as a “threat,” and suppressed. It is unethical and illegal to use public funds to aid Secretary Hobbs and/or his political party in suppressing opposition views. Such government censorship is a spreading cancer in our society.1

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