Tag: censorship

Internews President to WEF: “Gendered disinformation” is “terrifying,” online platforms need to keep people safe

It’s entirely unsurprising that Brian Stelter, once of CNN, has gotten the gig of moderating a panel at this year’s World Economic Forum (WEF) Davos conference.

And it’s no shocker that stuff like the apparently extremely dangerous problem of “gendered disinformation” was what he got to discuss.

Stelter – a self-styled technology and “misinformation” expert, whose sometimes astonishing takes in support of censorship were given air on the cable channel during the worst days of the pandemic-and-elections-induced free speech crises of the past years – hosted a Davos event called, “Clear and Present Danger of Disinformation.”

Panelists included EU Commissioner Vera Jourova, New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger, US Democrat Congressman Seth Moulton, and Jeanne Bourgault, CEO of Internews.

And Stelter wanted to know how the discussion related to “everything else” that was happening in the world elites’ stomping ground of Davos.

In response, Sulzberger voiced a dramatic warning: whatever he defines as disinformation is “the most existential problem” in the world, the publisher said – it is “attacking trust” and causing societies to “fracture.”

Now, those who might think “Internews” is a news organization would be mistaken; it is a nonprofit with as many as 30 offices around the world, where it supports “independent media” in 100 countries.

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Why Has Google Scholar Removed the “Since 2020” Filter for Searching Peer-Reviewed Studies?

Google Scholar is every student’s mainstream means of getting sources to cite in their research papers. Teachers and professors across the nation have barred Wikipedia from ever being used as a source, so where do they turn to instead? Google Scholar.

Though you may detest everything Google, you can’t deny that they have some products and services that work absolutely fantastically. And, of course, Google Scholar is no exception. You’ll be hard pressed to find a source of peer-reviewed research that’s as easy and organized to sift through as this site. Those who are well-familiar with the search engine know that it’s a very easy-to-use means of finding some of the best, cutting-edge research that’s being done across the globe.

Whether you’re interested in epigenetics, what is happening in the world of artificial intelligence philosophy (yes, it’s a thing), or need to brush up on your Mayan archaeology news, Google Scholar has it. But it’s not just that the information is out there.

Nope, as we’ve pointed out above, all of this information has to be easily sifted through. And one of the reasons that students across the globe are thankful for this is because of one particular quirk of syllabi across the nation: teachers are picky with who they’ll regard as trustworthy.

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UK’s online censorship bill has amendment that targets non-citizens

The UK’s messy Online Safety Bill, that its authors say is designed to protect children from online harms, keeps causing controversies and rifts – but also continues to “grow” through amendments, some of which observers find difficult to decipher.

A recent one aims to prevent children from accessing content that would inform them about what might turn into dangerous ways to cross the channel between the UK and France.

Specifically, the amendment speaks about crossing the English channel “with the aim of entering the UK in a vessel unsuited or unsafe for those purposes,” and references a popular way in which illegal immigrants have taken to enter the country.

But now, the question is being asked, who do UK’s legislators think they are legislating for? The bill would impose legal requirements in the country, but the amendment suggests that it would somehow be used to restrict access to certain content to those outside it – and, it seems, mostly non-citizens.

This is far from the only example of contentious or just baffling provision in the proposal. This week, the draft caused a “rebellion” staged by members of parliament from the ruling Conservative party.

Namely, close to 50 Conservative MPs had an amendment of their own – one to add the possibility of imprisoning social media execs, in case their platforms are found not to be adhering to the bill’s provisions to protect children from content such as child abuse, suicide and self-harm.

If found guilty, under the future law, these high ranking representatives of tech companies would be put in jail for up to two years, the amendment said.

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Rep. Adam Schiff’s staffers repeatedly asked Twitter to censor memes

The latest batch of Twitter Files, released on Friday by independent journalist Matt Taibbi, showed that Rep. Adam Schiff’s office repeatedly contacted Twitter requesting the removal of posts critical of Joe Biden and staff at Schiff’s office.

“Staff of House Democrat @AdamSchiff wrote to Twitter quite often, asking that tweets be taken down,” Taibbi wrote. “This important use of taxpayer resources involved an ask about a ‘Peter Douche’ parody photo of Joe Biden. The DNC made the same request.”

Taibbi said that Schiff’s office pestered Twitter to remove the parody photo after former President Donald Trump retweeted it.

“To its credit, Twitter refused to remove it, with Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth saying it had obvious ‘humorous intent’ and ‘any reasonable observer’ – apparently, not a Schiff staffer – could see it was doctored,” Taibbi wrote. “Schiff staffer Jeff Lowenstein didn’t give up, claiming there was a ‘slippery slope concern here.’”

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Campaign funded by Pfizer and Moderna lobbyists sent Twitter weekly lists of tweets to censor

The Public Good Projects (PGP), a nonprofit that has developed several projects to fight so-called Covid “misinformation,” received $1,275,000 from the Pfizer and Moderna lobbying group, Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), to create a content moderation campaign that influenced Twitter’s Covid misinformation rules. As part of this campaign, PGP sent Twitter lobbyists and content moderators weekly emails containing lists of tweets to censor.

Journalist Lee Fang published one of the weekly emails that Twitter received from PGP as part of the latest release of the Twitter Files — collections of internal Twitter communications that have exposed the censorship relationships Twitter had with government agencies and other powerful groups before Elon Musk took over.

The email shows Todd O’Boyle, a senior manager on Twitter’s Public Policy team, sharing “this week’s misinfo report” from PGP. The February 24, 2022 email included a list of top trends the PGP had seen during the week and two attached lists. According to Fang, one of the lists contained tweets the PGP wanted Twitter to take down and the other list contained tweets that it wanted Twitter to verify.

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Adam Schiff continuously demanded Twitter ban, censor, suppress criticism of self, staff, Biden: Twitter Files

A brief batch of Twitter Files dropped on Friday by Matt Taibbi shows that staff of House Democrat Adam Schiff were in frequent communication with Twitter to demand the removal of content from the platform. Documents show that the DNC and Schiff made requests to remove a “Peter Douche” parody photo of Joe Biden after President Donald Trump retweeted the photo. 

Twitter refused to remove the photo, with Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth saying that it had obvious “humorous intent” and that “any reasonable observer” could tell that the photo was edited. 

Schiff’s staff did not lay off, however, claiming that there was a “slippery slope concern” to be had.

Taibbi wrote that even when Twitter did not suspend accounts, they would often act against accounts. “Schiff’s office repeatedly complained about “QAnon related activity” that were often tweeting about other matters, like the identity of the Ukraine “whistleblower” or the Steele dossier.

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Yes, Virginia, There IS a Deep State—and It Is Worse than You Think

Mention the term “deep state” in polite company and most likely no one will want to speak to you the rest of the evening. The deep state is what Wikipedia calls “discredited,” something reeking of conspiracies, false accusations, and the substitution of fantasy for the truth.

After the FBI raided Donald Trump’s home in Florida, Trump alluded to “deep state” actions, which brought predictable ridicule from the mainstream media. Trump was speaking conspiratorially, and if one follows the mainstream media these days, the only conspiracies are on the right. (You know, like the one in which the unarmed, ragtag January 6 rioters nearly overthrew the US government.)

After the recent revelations about how Twitter worked to hide the story of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop, Trump attributed the secrecy to a plot by the “deep state.” However, while the facts of the story really are outrageous, I don’t believe it was as much a secret conspiracy as a case of people being able to engage in certain actions with no political consequences.

Furthermore, journalist Matt Taibbi’s stunning revelations regarding FBI and CIA agents’ outright interference in the 2020 election via Twitter on the pretense that Russian operatives were spreading disinformation has further exposed both the involvement of federal law enforcement agents in partisan activities and the sad fact that those agents need not worry about being held accountable—especially if they are engaged in a “progressive” cause.

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The White House’s most brazen, entitled, social media censorship demands

The latest batch of revelations into the social media censorship directed by the Biden White House reveal a range of broad, often petty, censorship demands, some of which are purely requests to boost President Biden’s image and show him and his family in a better light.

The revelations came as part of the discovery in the ongoing lawsuit against the government for its alleged First Amendment violations, making clear requests to silence American citizens through online platforms.

The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), also a plaintiff in the lawsuit, shared some of the documents obtained during discovery.

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Biden admin asked Twitter to silence Robert F. Kennedy Jr

A recently published email has provided more evidence of President Joe Biden’s administration asking tech platforms to censor content that challenges the federal government’s Covid messaging.

The email shows the Biden White House’s Digital Director for the COVID-19 Response Team, Clarke Humphrey, requesting that Twitter remove a tweet from environmental health lawyer and author Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“Wanted to flag the below tweet and am wondering if we can get moving on the process for having it removed ASAP,” Humphrey wrote to Twitter in the January 2021 email. “And then if we can keep an eye out for tweets that fall in this same ~genre that would be great.”

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From the Twitter Files: Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb secretly pressed Twitter to hide posts challenging his company’s massively profitable Covid jabs

On August 27, 2021, Dr. Scott Gottlieb – a Pfizer director with over 550,000 Twitter followers – saw a tweet he didn’t like, a tweet that might hurt sales of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccines.

The tweet explained correctly that natural immunity after Covid infection was superior to vaccine protection. It called on the White House to “follow the science” and exempt people with natural immunity from upcoming vaccine mandates.

It came not from an “anti-vaxxer” like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but from Dr. Brett Giroir, a physician who had briefly followed Gottlieb as the head of the Food & Drug Administration. Further, the tweet actually encouraged people who did not have natural immunity to “Get vaccinated!”

No matter.

By suggesting some people might not need Covid vaccinations, the tweet could raise questions about the shots. Besides being former FDA commissioner, a CNBC contributor, and a prominent voice on Covid public policy, Gottlieb was a senior board member at Pfizer, which depended on mRNA jabs for almost half its $81 billion in sales in 2021. Pfizer paid Gottlieb $365,000 for his work that year.

Gottlieb stepped in, emailing Todd O’Boyle, a top lobbyist in Twitter’s Washington office who was also Twitter’s point of contact with the White House.

The post was “corrosive,” Gottlieb wrote. He worried it would “end up going viral and driving news coverage.”

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