Tag: internet

Censorship Advocates Seek To Use Bots And Anonymous “Sock Puppet” Accounts For Themselves While Denying Them To Others

Political leaders across the West have said for a decade that governments must end online anonymity to shut down fake accounts known as bots, particularly those from Russia. “I want to see real names on the internet,” said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in February. “In a democracy, citizens have the right to privacy,” said Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez at Davos in January 2025, and “not to anonymity or impunity,” proposing to tie every social media account to a European digital identity wallet. Greece’s digital governance minister proposed in April 2026 to link every profile to a verified identity because “The major problem behind anonymity is toxicity.” French President Emmanuel Macron declared that his priority was “to demand the disappearance of fake accounts” and “these famous bots, these troll farms.”

But now the advocates of government censorship of legal speech are demanding the legal power to wage information warfare through anonymous accounts and an explicit “sock puppet” strategy. Buried in the Australian government’s new censorship bill is a definition: “A sock puppet identity is a false or fictitious identity assumed by a person in the course of using, or carrying out any activity in relation to, an online service.” The legislation goes on not to warn of bad actors using sock puppets but rather to authorize the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, to create and use sock puppets to “disseminate” information.

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Try Not to Laugh as Kamala Harris Explains Artificial Intelligence and Algorithms 

During a recent podcast appearance, former Vice President Kamala Harris tried to explain artificial intelligence and algorithms. You can probably guess how well things went.

It is amazing to remember that when Joe Biden was president, he actually put her in charge of AI. She was his AI czar.

When you see this clip, you will fully realize what a disastrous decision that really was.

From Breitbart News:

Harris, the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential nominee told the “Big Boy’s Neighborhood” podcast this week it’s time to “psyche it out a bit,” contending that algorithms are basically trying to diminish social media user’s curiosity.

“They’re trying to dumb people down with the assumption that people don’t have any interest beyond what they have already seen,” she said. “Think about that.”

The host nodded: “Oh yeah, the algorithm.”

Then Harris took a deep dive into the subject, launching into a flower metaphor to make her point.

“But the algorithm suggesting I have no more interest because I’m looking at this yellow flower,” she said. “I’m only interested in yellow flowers… as though my brain can’t handle the fact that there may be a pink flower, right, right, that I might be interested in looking at, right?”

It wasn’t immediately clear what the point was, but the Washington Times interpreted the words as “algorithms are manipulating people.”

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UK’s Burnham Moves Toward Authoritarian Rule, and That Means Trouble for the U.S.

Here we go again: leftists have shown us again and again that they hate dissent and debate, which are the foundations of any free society. Now the U.K. is heading decisively toward authoritarianism as its crazy-left prime minister, Andy Burnham, has just announced that he plans to establish a “National Centre for Information Defence” in order to fight — you guessed it — “disinformation.”

The “National Centre for Information Defence“ is a canny name. It beats Old Joe Biden’s abortive “Disinformation Governance Board” in couching the whole totalitarian move as “defense” (as we spell it in the land of the free and the home of the brave) rather than “governance.” This is intended to give Burnham’s hapless citizenry the impression that what’s being done to them is not more control from the ruling elites, but protection from the evil machinations of deceivers.

Yeah, Andy, the Mafia offered protection, too. Anyway, GB News reported Wednesday that Burnham, “the Prime Minister, addressing the United Nations, announced the centre to improve ‘community cohesion’ and prevent a ‘distorted and untrue narrative about Britain.’” As a result, Burnham “ordered security chiefs to set up the quango, which will detect, attribute and disrupt ‘hostile information attacks’ and ‘deepfakes’ which hurt British interests.”

A “quango” is an organization that receives government financing but is ostensibly an independent group. And we all know that the far-left British government will stay fastidiously out of the affairs of an organization that is charged with stamping out “hostile information attacks” that supposedly “hurt British interests,” now, don’t we?

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Dem Senator Wants To Regulate The Internet To Prevent Another Trump From Happening

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called for government regulation of the internet as part of a broader effort to reduce loneliness and powerlessness among Americans, two conditions he argues push voters toward leaders like President Donald Trump. Murphy made the remarks on September 21 during an appearance on the I’ve Had It podcast, where he discussed his book, Crisis of the Common Good.

Murphy told the podcast hosts that isolation and helplessness define the country right now. “Those are the two things I think Americans are going through right now… They don’t feel powerful at all, and they feel lonely,” he said.

His remedy for loneliness coincidentally becomes an excuse to grow the government even further.

“And so, government should build a set of rules in which people feel more powerful – that’s why the minimum wage is so important – and people feel so more connected,” Murphy said.

He added, “That’s why, you know, rebuilding healthy institutions in your town should be a project that government is involved in.”

Then he got to the internet and revealed his true objective. “Regulating the internet so that you’re spending less time alone on Instagram should be an important government project,” Murphy said. And if Americans feel more powerful and less alone, Murphy argued, “they are going to be less likely to fall for a bullshit demagogue like Donald Trump.”

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SHOW ME YOUR ID: Carney doubles down on sweeping internet regulation bill

Prime Minister Carney says his government will push ahead this fall with sweeping social media regulations that would create a new federal Digital Safety Commission and impose new rules on online platforms.

“We are fighting for Canada to lead the world in building the smart, safe digital tools of the next decade,” Carney told Liberal MPs ahead of Parliament’s return.

“This fall we will press ahead with the Act to protect Canadians online,” he said.

Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act, was introduced by Canadian Identity and Culture Minister Marc Miller in June.

The legislation would create a Digital Safety Commission with regulatory and enforcement powers over the online platforms covered.

It would require regulated platforms to address seven categories of “harmful content,” including child sexual exploitation, any content that ‘foments hatred’, incites violence or promotes terrorism or violent extremism.

The legislation also targets content that “undermines, weakens or destroys fundamental institutions or political, economic or social stability in Canada” when it could cause a serious risk to the health or safety of the public.

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Friedrich Merz Again Calls For An End To Online Anonymity

German Chancellor and CDU leader Friedrich Merz is once again advocating for an end to online anonymity.

Merz spoke at the Chancellery in Berlin on Tuesday, where he received the winners of the 61st federal “Jugend forscht” youth research competition, and took their questions. The event was streamed live by the government.

One of the participants asked Merz about introducing a real-name requirement on the internet, and how it could be reconciled with the work of informants, investigative journalism, and the need to sometimes be able to communicate anonymously.

Merz’s answer did not address the question of journalism at all. Instead, he spoke about the difficulties in establishing who is behind an online message, and who to hold responsible, as well as the proliferation of messages generated by bots.

“Please, nobody come to me with free speech. This has nothing more to do with free speech,” Merz said. Free speech, he continued, is “at best” a libertarian understanding of politics out of parts of the United States, “that I personally do not share.”

A liberal society, he went on, must be able to protect its citizens “from false information, from personal denigration, from discrimination.”

Merz, who “grew up in the analog world” said he often wonders if the digital world should be allowed to have “completely different rules.”

In the old world, he said, if a newspaper published false information, one could take action against it, and this, he said, created a certain “hygiene.”

In the digital world, Merz is unhappy that people can use pseudonyms, abbreviations, or made-up names, “and we have enormous difficulty establishing at all who is responsible for it. Is it the platforms or is it the authors themselves? And if so, who actually are the authors?”

He mentioned the “coarsening of manners” and the role of bots in generating messages. According to Merz, his party’s (CDU) competitor, AfD, had benefited in Saxony-Anhalt from messages generated by bots.

It is essential to protect personality rights and “our democracy,” Merz said.

He did allow that there are good reasons to allow for anonymous expression, but did not go into any of them.

It’s also important to note that Merz was not announcing any new policy, bill, or law, and was answering a question from a teenager.

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Australia Wants to Remake the Internet in the Name of “Safety”

The Australian government has published its proposed Digital Duty of Care legislation, a plan that it says will give people more control over their social media feeds, but which opponents fear is a way to introduce more online censorship.

The exposure draft of the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 was published on September 8 for consultation, and it is not yet law. The deadline for submissions is noon on September 22, and Communications Minister Anika Wells said the plan is to formally introduce the bill to Parliament in October.

We obtained a copy of the draft for you here.

In the words of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, “This is not about giving government control, it is about giving people control.”

And while the proposal is often referred to as My Feed, My Way, it is not about banning algorithms, but giving new and existing users a choice between feeds based on recommendations, and one that shows posts from accounts they follow.

But beneath this choice, there is a broader change to the Online Safety Act 2021 that would be introduced by the Digital Duty of Care bill, and that is to impose a duty on those behind online services to ensure a safe online environment as far as reasonably practicable.

This duty would apply to a wide range of services, including social media, messaging, games, hosting, search, app stores, internet providers, AI services enabling generated material to be shared through covered services, as well as certain equipment providers.

The minister in charge would be able to exempt services that are low-risk or minimally used. The proposal is designed to protect adults from what is described as seriously harmful material and conduct, while under-18s would have additional protection against harmful content and design features.

The list of harmful content and conduct that the draft seeks to protect adults from includes child sexual abuse, threats of violence, encouragement of self-harm, and support for listed terrorist organizations.

For children, the list includes pornography, encouragement of disordered eating, hostile attitudes towards women or gender equality, glorification of crime, dangerous stunts, abuse and bullying.

However, the minister would have the power to add more categories of harmful material or conduct by issuing a legislative instrument.

Wells must first seek and consider advice from eSafety, and the instrument can be disallowed by Parliament.

The draft bill also targets features that the government considers to have negative behavioral impacts, such as recommendation systems, endless feeds, and engagement-feedback tools, as well as time-limited content. Social media services would be required to stop these features for children under 16.

The proposal also includes a system of risk assessment that online services would have to conduct at least once a year, and keep for six years. These assessments would have to be provided to the eSafety commissioner on request.

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, who has a history of censorship demands, would be in charge of enforcing the scheme, which would bring maximum company penalties of A$109.2 million.

The draft bill does contain some safeguards, such as the definition of reasonably practicable, which takes into account the risk, available measures, cost, and the potential for a measure to have a disproportionate effect on privacy.

The duty of care does not extend to lawful communications occurring in private solely between consenting adults, the draft bill states.

Opposition leader Angus Taylor on September 6 said he feared the proposal was “an attempt by the government to censor social media,” while One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said that Australia should be moving away from government censorship, not “building the Orwellian machinery for it.”

The Greens, on the other hand, have supported the idea of making sure users have a choice when it comes to feeds, but they want to make sure that users have to opt in to have their feeds curated by algorithms.

White House spokesman Kush Desai reacted by saying that President Trump “has unequivocally warned trading partners against imposing digital services taxes, fines, and other forms of extortion on America’s leading technology sector.”

Desai added that “the administration remains committed to raising these issues with our trading partners.”

Communications Minister Anika Wells sought to downplay the significance of the White House statement, telling News24 that the US was responding to broader questions that also included Australia’s tax arrangements, and not only the Digital Duty of Care proposal.

“We’re a sovereign nation, we have the right to defend Australian parents and kids and we’ll do that,” Wells said.

The government’s proposal has been portrayed as giving users a choice between personalized recommendation feeds and those that show posts from accounts they follow.

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Gavin Newsom Says He Would Continue His Podcast if He Became President – Wonders What He Would Wear

Gavin Newsom recently did a puff interview with PBS and was asked if he would continue his podcast if he became president. His body language changed and he became positively giddy at the thought.

He then wondered aloud what he would wear for the broadcast.

How is anyone taking this man seriously as a governor, let alone as a presidential candidate?

If Newsom runs for president, he is going to have to answer a lot of questions about California.

Even the Associated Press knows it:

California made Gavin Newsom famous. Will it drag down his 2028 presidential ambitions?

Gavin Newsom’s secret is no secret here in South Carolina.

They were selling “Gavin 2028” buttons outside his events this past week as he trekked across the state that will hold Democrats’ first presidential primary. His allies, the state party chair, college presidents and pro-Newsom activists all openly hinted at his national aspirations. And people close to him privately referred to a White House campaign as “the next thing.”

Still, California’s Democratic governor has barely begun to address what may be his biggest political liability as he stakes a claim as an early front-runner in the Democratic Party’s 2028 shadow primary. That liability, South Carolina voters acknowledged this past week, is something he cannot change — his home state, California, is a symbol of modern-day liberalism that people across the political spectrum love to hate.

Vera DeVito, a 78-year-old Democrat who packed into one of Newsom’s eight public events across South Carolina, said she didn’t know much about him or his policies — except that he’s from the Golden State. On that basis alone, she suggested that supporting Newsom could be “risky.”

“It’s going to be hard for him to appeal to the whole country,” she said in the town of Summerville. “Everybody thinks California is different — especially in the South. They’re not crazy about California.”

People aren’t crazy about California because California is crazy for putting up with Gavin Newsom.

The state has lost population for the first time in history on his watch.

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OUTRAGE: Texas Student’s School Laptop BLOCKS Search for President Trump — But Allows Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Jeffrey Epstein

A Richardson Independent School District parent says her son’s school-issued laptop blocked him from searching for the sitting President of the United States, while searches for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein went through without a hitch.

The district has so far refused to explain why.

According to an exclusive report from The Dallas Express, an anonymous Richardson ISD parent provided video of her son attempting to research President Donald Trump for a school assignment. When he searched “Trump,” the device displayed a blunt message: “WEBSITE BLOCKED BY RICHARDSON ISD.”

The same block did not appear for Biden, Harris, or Epstein.

“My child was researching our current president for a school assignment and discovered that the district’s web content filter had blocked ‘Trump’ from search results,” the parent told The Dallas Express.

“This means students can’t access legitimate educational and news content, including current-events research, government and civics coursework, and basic search results about the sitting U.S. President. This is very concerning, as it amounts to censorship of information about a current public official.”

She then had her son test other names.

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