A parade of pathetic paid lefty influencers were invited to the White House Tuesday for a Christmas gathering featuring the grinch that some say helped steal the 2020 election, none other than freshly pardoned reformed drug addict turned part time artist Hunter Biden.
This line up of losers all launched themselves at Hunter for pictures to share with their Facebook friends, fangirling out about what a “great guy” he is.
Social media influencers who post their children online often face their share of criticism. But now, if their audience disapproves of their parenting decisions, they could also find themselves being investigated by child protective services (CPS).
The latest parent to face a CPS investigation for showing innocuous footage of her children is Hannah Hiatt, an influencer who has built an audience of half a million followers for videos detailing her life as a nurse with two young children. Last month, Hiatt posted a video in which her toddler-aged son appeared to flinch slightly as his father walked toward him to hand him a box of ice cream mochi. While most wouldn’t think much of the clip, many viewers seized on the moment, arguing that it was proof that Hiatt and her husband were abusing their children.
The now-deleted video went viral, with many users making videos of their own debating the meaning of the clip. Angry internet users also found another video of Hiatt, in which her husband flicked her son’s hand away from some french fries, again claiming that this too was evidence of physical abuse.
“The flinch breaks my heart,” one TikTok user commented.
“Why are people like this allowed to procreate,” posted another.
An Ogden, Utah Police Department spokesperson told People that an investigation had been opened against Hiatt and her family following “numerous reports through Child Protective Service and police.”
While the investigation is ongoing, and it remains unclear whether Hiatt will be found guilty of any wrongdoing, she is far from the first person to face a CPS investigation after upsetting an internet mob. In April, influencers J.D. and Britney Lott faced a child welfare investigation after Reddit users became convinced that the newborn was being medically neglected—though a medical examination confirmed that the child was healthy. And in 2021, a father who tweeted jokes about his daughter’s struggles to use a can opener ended up getting a visit from CPS after an enraged internet mob reported him for alleged child abuse.
In Canada, TikTok is attempting to get the authorities to reverse the decision to shut down its business operations by going to court – but also by recommending itself as a proven and reliable ally in combating “harmful content” and “misinformation.”
Canada last month moved to shut down TikTok’s operations, without banning the app itself. All this is happening ahead of federal elections amid the government’s efforts to control social media narratives, always citing fears of “misinformation” and “foreign interference” as the reasons.
TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, was accused of – via its parent company – representing “specific national security risks” when the decision regarding its corporate presence was made in November; no details have been made public regarding those alleged risks, however.
Now the TikTok Canada director of public policy and government affairs, Steve de Eyre, is telling the local press that the newly created circumstances are making it difficult for the company to work with election regulators and “civil society” to ensure election integrity – something Eyre said was previously successfully done.
In 2021, he noted, TikTok initiated collaboration with Elections Canada (the agency that organizes elections and has the power to flag social media content) which included TikTok adding links to all election-related videos that directed users toward “verified information.”
And the following year, TikTok was invested in monitoring its platform for “potentially violent” content, during the Freedom Convoy protests against Covid mandates.
More recently, TikTok was also on its toes for “foreign interference and hateful content” related to Brampton clashes between Sikhs and Hindus.
Like law enforcement in some repressive virtual regimes, Meta is introducing the concept of re-education of “citizens” (users), as an alternative to eventually sending them to “jail” (imposing account restrictions).
But this only applies to “first-time offenders,” that is, those who have violated Meta’s community standards for the first time, and if that violation is not considered to be “most severe.”
The community standards now apply across Meta’s platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads – while the new rule means that instead of collecting a strike for a first policy violation, users who go through “an educational program” can have it deleted.
There’s also “probation” – those who receive no strike for a year after that will again be eligible to participate in the “remove your warning” course. This applies to Facebook profiles, pages, and Instagram profiles.
Meta first introduced the option for creators last summer and is now expanding it to everyone. In announcing the change of the policy, the tech giant refers to “research” that showed most of those violating its rules for the first time “may not be aware they are doing so.”
This is where the “short educational program” comes in, as a way to reduce the risk of receiving that first strike, and Meta says the program is designed to help “better explain” its policies.
When the EU doesn’t like the outcome of an election or a government in a member country, it alarmingly tends to look for explanations in almost every place, except the one that makes sense – the free, democratic will of the voters.
It’s Romania’s turn. Namely, ahead of the second round of presidential elections in that country, the European Parliament (EP) appears to be going the roundabout way in an attempt to delegitimize the first-round victory of independent candidate Calin Georgescu.
And the roundabout way is what looks like a frontal rhetorical assault on TikTok, which some EP members (MEPs) are accusing of failing to live up to the Digital Services Act (DSA) – EU’s censorship law. Specifically now, where it now concerns the Romanian vote and spread of “disinformation” on an alleged scale capable of influencing the result.
A hearing was organized on Tuesday to put pressure on the social platform’s executives, with corporate media describing the MEP’s behavior as “hostile” and “furious” – while Georgescu is casually referred to as an “ultranationalist.”
The Internal Market Committee hearing came after TikTok was blamed by the European Commission for running algorithms that supposedly “disproportionally” promoted content favorable to Georgescu.
TikTok’s representatives told the panel that they are in fact working hard to censor, aka, moderate content in Romania in particular, a market which is said to have the largest number of moderators.
And, in the run-up to elections, a number of “influence campaigns” had been removed from the platform, they told the MEPs. But that’s not what the MEPs wanted to hear.
A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the federal government can tell a foreign-owned website that it must either sell itself to an American owner or be banned.
TikTok is one of the most popular social media sites on the planet, with more than a billion monthly active users worldwide and 170 million in the United States. Both Democrats and Republicans have long complained that the app—owned by ByteDance, a company based in China—is a potential vector for Chinese propaganda.
Much of the controversy stems from the level of control that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) demands over the private companies operating within its borders. The theory goes that Beijing could force ByteDance to turn over TikTok user data, or manipulate user algorithms to promote content favorable to the Chinese Communist Party.
Given China’s well-earned reputation as a repressive state, those could conceivably happen—though the key word there is conceivably. While many lawmakers have insisted that TikTok is an active national security threat, they have presented no evidence for this, at most claiming to have seen classified information that affirms their warnings.
During his first term, President Donald Trump threatened to ban TikTok outright unless it were purchased and operated by an American company. (Trump has reversed course since leaving office, now promising to “save” the app.) And this year President Joe Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. Singling out TikTok and ByteDance by name, the law made it functionally illegal for “a foreign adversary controlled application” to operate within the United States, or for any other entity to provide “internet hosting services to enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating” of the app.
The law defined the term “controlled by a foreign adversary” to include not only companies owned wholly by Chinese entities but also one in which a citizen of an adversarial nation “directly or indirectly own[s] at least a 20 percent stake.” In other words, even if the overwhelming majority of a company’s shares were owned by Americans, it could be banned or forced to divest so long as the remaining shares were held by Chinese, Russian, or Iranian citizens.
In order to continue operating within the United States, the only recourse would be to sell TikTok to an American company by January 19, 2025—Joe Biden’s last full day in office.
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is now incorporating teaching influencers how to “fact check” into its activities.
UNESCO claims that influencers have become “primary sources of news and cultural information” around the world – which prompted it to carry out a survey into how these online personalities verify the “news” they present.
Citizens in UN member-countries may or may not be happy that this is how their taxpayer money funding the world organization is being spent these days. But UNESCO is not only conducting surveys; it is also developing a training course for said influencers (which are also interchangeably referred to as content creators in press releases).
It’s meant to teach them not only to “report misinformation, disinformation and hate speech” but also to collaborate with legacy media and these outlets’ journalists, in order to “amplify fact-based information.”
The survey, “Behind the screens,” was done together with researchers from the US Bowling Green State University. 500 influencers from 45 countries took part, and the key findings, UNESCO said, are that 63 percent of them “lack rigorous and systematic fact-checking protocols” – but also, that 73% said they “want to be trained.”
This UN agency also frames the results as showing that respondents are “struggling” with disinformation and hate speech and are “calling for more training.”
A new UN-driven censorship declaration has been signed by a number of world leaders during an event in Portugal – the Cascais Declaration at the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) Global Forum.
We obtained a copy of the final declaration for you here.
The gathering was addressed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who once again reiterated his commitment to censoring online speech, bringing up the usual set of “arguments” in favor of moving in this direction.
During the address, Guterres spoke about “unchecked digital platforms and AI” and accused them of allowing “hate speech to proliferate like never before” – and did not miss the opportunity to mention “misinformation and deepfakes” in the same context.
Guterres wants Big Tech, advertisers, and media – that is, along with some governments and organizations like the UN, among the most egregious offenders when it comes to online censorship – to double down.
“Taking responsibility for their role” in spreading hate speech, deepfakes, etc., was how he phrased it.
Guterres also again pushed a UN initiative that critics say introduces algorithmic censorship and demonetization under the stated “anti-misinformation and hate speech” scope – the UN’s Global Principles for Information Integrity.
According to Guterres, these recommendations allow for “a more humane information ecosystem.”
Video streaming site Rumble has filed a lawsuit against the state of California in response to legislation forcing social media platforms to censor political speech.
Rumble is being represented by The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which filed suit against AB 2655, aka the “Defending Democracy from Deepfake Deception Act of 2024,” in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, Sacramento Division.
The legislation is Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom’s response to a deepfake satire video of Kamala Harris that was shared on X by Elon Musk among others.
ADF stated in a press release that the law “deputizes” Rumble to restrict its user’s free speech, while another law, AB 2839, “Protecting Democracy Against Election Disinformation and Deepfakes,” uses vague standards to punish individuals posting political content about elections.
“California’s war against political speech is censorship, plain and simple. We can’t trust the government to decide what is true in our online political debates,” said ADF Senior Counsel Phil Sechler.
“Rumble is one of the few online voices stepping up against this trend of censorship while other platforms and sites cave to totalitarian regimes censoring Americans,” Sechler further urged.
He added that “Rumble is standing for free speech even when it is hard. Other online platforms and media companies must see these laws for what they are — a threat to their existence.”
Chris Pavlovski, Chairman and CEO of Rumble, further urged that “The very thought of the government judging the content of political speech, and then deciding whether it should be permitted, censored, or eliminated altogether is about the most chilling thing you could imagine.”
“Rumble will always celebrate freedom and support creative independence, so we’re delighted to work with ADF to help protect lawful online expression,” Pavlovski asserted.
The Democratic Party is pushing hard to enact laws that force censorship.
The old mainstream media is dying, and has been for years.
This has only become more apparent in the weeks since Donald Trump was re-(s)elected. News that CNN is firing half their workforce, that MSNBC’s ratings continue to slump and is probably being sold, or that The Guardian is leaving X and in financial trouble are greeted with celebratory memes.
Newspaper readership has been dropping for decades, and television news channels struggle to drum up the audience of a moderately popular YouTube channel featuring cute cat videos set to quirky music.
And you know what? Great. That’s all good stuff.
CNN, MSNBC, The Guardian – all of them – they deserve to go under. Digital communication has allowed people to undermine and overthrow decades-old propaganda outlets.
But does that mean it’s over? Is Elon Musk actually correct when he reassuringly declares on X that “YOU are the media now”.
Well the answer to that depends on whether or not you think the same forces that spent untold resources constructing this system of information control are just going to give up and go home when it starts to fail.
I mean – does anyone seriously think they would?
You don’t think it ‘s rather more likely they’ll just regroup, re-calculate, and go again?
Remember – newspapers and TV channels are functionaries of the establishment, not the establishment itself.
For several centuries they have been crucial to the selling of ideas and agendas, but they are a voice not a brain. They’re just a tool of control. And tools can easily be swapped out.
One way or another, the internet has replaced television as the media now, just as television replaced radio and radio replaced print.
This is the Darwinian selection process that flows with the development of technology. And while each step of that path has in some ways led to the democratization of the media landscape, each step also saw those in power adjust their methods to the freer flow of information.
The “free internet” is just as vulnerable to money and influence of the “elite” as the “free press” was before it, only the tactics change.
In short, the mainstream media isn’t so much dying as evolving.
Today, if you want to a sell a story to the whole world you don’t need blaring red “Breaking News” banners on the ten o-clock news – you can fund an “independent podcaster” to interview a “whistleblower” on a set decorated to look impromptu and stripped down.
You pay YouTube to boost the video, or make a few short clips go viral.
When it’s popular enough, other youtubers and podcasters will start repeating it or posting “reaction videos”. It doesn’t even matter if they agree or disagree, either way you’ve set the parameters of the discussion.
Instead of full pages ads in the New York Times, NGOs, think-tanks and corporations can spend the same amount of money on a few thousand social media influencers.
Hellbound and Down 
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