Tag: social media

Elon Wins Again: Advertisers Who Boycotted X Have Returned

Remember when major companies including Disney pulled their advertising from X after Elon Musk took over, and then Elon told them to go fuck themselves?

Well, they’ve come crawling back.

Musk is suing Soros funded rabid leftist organisation Media Matters for suggesting that the ads were appearing next to “hate speech.”

In the meantime it appears that the huge companies involved have finally realised that shutting off their reach to half the planet on the world’s biggest platform isn’t the smartest of ideas.

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Professional Liar Jen Psaki Wants Social Media to be Regulated Because of ‘Disinformation’

Former Joe Biden spokeswoman Jen Psaki wants to see social media regulated because of disinformation.

This is the same woman who lied for years about Joe Biden’s mental condition, lied about Joe Biden checking his watch when the bodies of dead sevice members were returned to the United States (for which she was forced to apologize), and who pushed the lie about 51 former intelligence officials claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.

But now she wants to control social media because of disinformation?

The Hill reports:

Psaki: ‘Disinformation space’ on social media a ‘core’ issue behind Harris defeat

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki is blaming Vice President Harris’s loss to President-elect Trump in part on disinformation.

“One of the things that’s changed even since I got involved in politics is just the rise of the percentage of people who get their information off of platforms that have no fact checking mechanism and no accountability for having disinformation spread,” Psaki, who worked in the Obama administration and served as President Biden’s press secretary, told Katie Couric on an episode of her Next Question podcast.

She argued that local and national television outlets are held to a much higher standard for accountability than podcasts and social media platforms.

“Local TV is held to a higher standard of accountability than social media platforms in terms of accurate information on their platforms. That is crazy,” she added.

“Laws have to change. I don’t even know the entire answer to it but that seems to me to be a core issue.”

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Section 12 means British police are treating their own officers as terrorists now

A police officer has been arrested by counter-terrorism police in Gloucester over social media posts regarding Israel and Palestine. It’s no longer just journalists and social media users that police are targeting, it’s their own officers now.

The officer is suspected of “supporting Hamas” in breach of Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Police have explained they’re going through the officer’s devices for analysis and say we should not jump to conclusions.

This is fair enough, and given the details are sparse, I’m not going to discuss the ongoing investigation, or the officer’s potential guilt or innocence. I am, however, going to discuss how police have handled similar cases in which they appear to have overstepped the mark because there are concerns to be addressed. Those concerns involve whether the law is being followed in this and similar investigations.

Police recently visited the home of journalist Asa Winstanley and took his devices for analysis, even though he was not under arrest. It seems they wanted to look through his devices to find the excuse to arrest a journalist.

If police were correctly applying the law in this instance, this would tell us that our laws are authoritarian. If they were not correctly applying the law, this would tell us they are acting in an authoritarian manner. Either way, we would be witnessing a form of authoritarianism. It is therefore reasonable to ask in each case if police are correctly applying the law. We need clarity because we have the impression our rights are under attack. This is obviously unacceptable in a so-called free society.

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UK government begins to implement digital IDs and tackle “misinformation” just like the UN wants it to

The following are summaries of articles published by Reclaim the Net over the last ten days, from 23 October to 13 November.  You can read the full article by following the hyperlink in the section title.

Table of Contents

  1. Ex-Facebook VP Joins UK Media Regulator Ofcom Sparking Fresh Conflict of Interest Concerns, 6 November 2024
  2. Tracking Health or Tracking You? The UK’s Expanding Health Surveillance, 23 October 2024
  3. UK Government Makes Major Digital ID Push, 3 November 2024
  4. UK Government To Test Digital ID on Veterans by 2025, Amid Plans for Wider Use, 13 November 2024
  5. UK Government Demands Regulator Create Social Media Overhaul to Curb “Misinformation,” Plans New Censorship Committee by 2025, 24 October 2024
  6. UN Wants Digital IDs To Combat “Hate Speech,” “Misinformation”, 7 November 2024

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Missouri v. Biden UPDATE: Judge Orders ‘Jurisdictional Discovery’ to Settle Govt’s Bad Faith Arguments

Experts have said that the Missouri v. Biden case is “the most important free speech case in a generation.”

The case involves the federal government wholesale deleting and deplatforming millions of Americans from social media based entirely on their truthful political statements.

Just this past week, the trial court has issued a new order in the case, after an appeal to the Supreme Court was successful for the Biden administration, which sought to undo a preliminary injunction that would have stopped the censorship regime.

Now, the trial court is ordering the two sides to conduct “jurisdictional discovery” so that it can prove one issue critical to the case moving forward: whether the Plaintiffs on the side of free speech have enough legal ‘standing’ to move forward. What this means is that the parties are now going to fight about whether the specific Plaintiffs in the case can prove that they were specifically harmed.

You can read the court order here.

Whereas previously the parties could show the massive censorship regime and show that they were deplatformed, now the parties must show the connection and demonstrate that the specific Biden speech suppression complex deplatformed these specific Plaintiffs.

Thus the court is allowing both parties to issue ‘discovery’ to primarily third parties right now, meaning demand evidence, documents, and depositions from people, organizations, and companies, in order to build the record of evidence both parties need to make their arguments.

The claims in the case cannot rest on mere speculation, the parties need to be able to get tangible evidence to back up their claims. Lawyers involved in the case say the critical issue at this juncture is: proving that the federal government targeted a specific Plaintiff, and that the Plaintiff’s speech was harmed as a result.

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German Economics Minister renews calls for widespread internet censorship, claims that an “axis of autocrats” is using domestic “populists” to poison democratic discourse via social media algorithms

Our Green Minister of Economic Affairs, Robert Habeck, is increasingly a deranged and dangerous man, obsessed with unusual conspiracy theories. He believes that an “axis of autocrats” have instrumentalised TikTok and X to wage “hybrid warfare” on liberal European democracies. Specifically, he holds that these autocrats are directing domestic populists to poison public discourse with the help of Evil Algorithms. To beat back this nefarious influence, the European Union should comprehensively regulate – that is, censor – social media. Once again, we must much abridge central democratic freedoms, like the freedom of expression, to protect democracy from itself.

Habeck has been saying things like this for a while now, but his ominous Saturday speech in the Schinkel Church at Neuhardenberg Castle broke new ground in both detail and emphasis. Habeck’s remarks followed the twin political catastrophes of Trump’s election and the collapse of the traffic light coalition, and they came just as Habeck announced his intention to stand as Chancellor candidate for the Green Party. This was just not any speech, in other words, but rather a major policy statement by one of Germany’s most prominent politicians in advance of the approaching elections.

Habeck will never be Chancellor, but chances are high that the Greens will return to government when we vote again in February, and Habeck is a dominant voice in his party. Green policy statements also bear significance extending well beyond Green circles, reflecting as they do the general political outlook of the German elite. Demoralised by Trump’s election and their growing domestic unpopularity, our rulers are determined as never before to find some way of shutting up those inconvenient people who disagree with them. If only they can get us to stop sharing our unfiltered views on the internet, we can get back to the halcyon days of 2019 again, when the child saint Greta Thunberg was leading the children of the world on a glorious crusade against carbon dioxide and the Greens were polling stronger than ever before.

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Telegraph Journalist Gets “Hate Incident” Visit From Police Over Year Old Tweet

A journalist with the London Telegraph has been visited unannounced at her home by police in the UK who told her they are investigating a “non-crime hate incident” over a tweet she posted a year ago.

Yes, really.

Allison Pearson relates what happened on Sunday in an article, noting that police will not tell her which post is the subject of the investigation, nor will they tell her who her accuser is or what they feel offended about.

The only detail given was that it is some sort of accusation of “racial hatred”.

The police also made it clear that she should refer to her accuser as a “victim”.

The Telegraph notes that Essex Police said on Tuesday night that officers had opened an investigation under section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986 relating to material allegedly “likely or intended to cause racial hatred”.

A police spokesman said “We’re investigating a report passed to us by another force. The report relates to a social media post which was subsequently removed. An investigation is now being carried out under section 17 of the Public Order Act.”

Pearson charges that the visit is “living proof of a two tier justice system,” and describes the incident as “Kafkaesque.”

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A License to Censor? The Fierce Fight Over the GEC’s Renewal

What happens when an agency meant to protect Americans from foreign propaganda starts tiptoeing over the line into the realm of domestic censorship? Enter the Global Engagement Center (GEC), a charming creation of the US State Department that was originally tasked with combating foreign disinformation. It sounds like something out of a spy novel: shadowy entities sowing chaos through whisper campaigns and disinformation dumps. But now, the real drama lies in how this agency has extended its reach beyond foreign threats and into the murky waters of the internet’s free speech landscape.

Of course, the GEC would prefer to be seen as a benevolent referee, helping social media giants like Facebook and YouTube play the good guys in the battle against digital deception. In theory, this agency is all about countering Russian bots and Iranian trolls. But somehow, along the way, its mission stretched to a point where the average American scrolling through a feed can almost feel the government’s fingers tapping on their shoulder, cautioning them about what’s “trustworthy.” It’s no wonder people are starting to worry.

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US Lawmakers Investigate Biden White House-Affiliated UK Censorship Group’s Plot To “Kill” Elon Musk’s X

Among the investigations currently carried out by the US House Committee on the Judiciary and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is the one into a case involving UK-based “censorship group” – the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

In a letter dated November 7, Committee chairman Jim Jordan is asking CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed to, by November 21, comply with a subpoena issued on August 30, 2023.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

According to Jordan, it covers the group’s activities as well, including documents showing the Biden-Harris administration’s alleged collusion with Big Tech to censor Americans’ lawful online speech.

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UN Wants Digital IDs To Combat “Hate Speech,” “Misinformation”

A United Nations (UN) committee has adopted two resolutions, one of them aimed at the World Organization’s Department of Global Communications establishing and strengthening “partnerships with new and traditional media to address hate speech narratives.”

The Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) also adopted a resolution further promoting the UN’s “Our Common Agenda” plan, which, among other points, proposes bank account-linked digital ID – as well as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), UN Pact for the Future, and Global Digital Compact – also pushing for digital IDs, censorship, and surveillance, with major countries as the schemes’ key backers.

Ahead of the adoption of the documents, representatives of a number of countries spoke in favor of expanded censorship under the UN umbrella, with Italy’s delegate advocating for the use of AI in combating “misinformation and disinformation.”

UK’s representative reiterated the country’s commitment to the UN Pact for the Future and Global Digital Compact, highlighted the far-reaching censorship law, Online Safety Act, and noted that it forces companies “to remove illegal online content, including illegal mis and disinformation generated by AI.”

Another thing the UK remains committed to, the address revealed, is digging its heels in when it comes to characterizing “misinformation” as a major threat.

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