Google complains about Brazil’s “fake news” bill, says it ignores “negative and unintended consequences”
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | March 17, 2022
Despite, in many cases, making itself the arbiter of what is and isn’t true, Big Tech giant Google is now concerned that Brazil’s proposed anti-fake news bill will do more harm than good.
The bill has previously been criticized by other online platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, as well as free speech groups.
In an open letter, Google Brazil’s president Fábio Coelho, criticized the proposed legislation, whose purpose is to handle “misinformation” and disinformation on platforms with more than 2 million users.
“We recognize the importance of debating solutions to this problem, but we are concerned that Congress is doing so without considering the negative and unintended consequences the bill could bring,” Coelho argued.
According to Coelho, the bill, which is yet to be voted by Congress, would make it easier to spread fake news.
The bill includes rules that would require platforms like Google to reveal how their algorithms work. These rules make Google’s services less secure, according to Coelho, and would have a negative impact on how small companies market their products.
He said that the rules Google would need to comply with could “significantly impair Google’s ability to combat abuse and spam and protect our users from scams.” He also argued that complying with the rules could “make search engines less secure for everyone and more susceptible to abuse and fraud.”
Coelho also warned that by exposing how its systems work, Google would provide malicious actors instructions on how to bypass its protections and harm the quality of search results.
He explained: “With this, they could manipulate this information to obtain a better position in our search ranking, harming in the process those who produce reliable and relevant content.”
In a joint letter published in February, Facebook, Twitter, and Mercado Libre, an online marketplace, also criticized the proposed legislation.
They said the bill had the potential to,”restrict people’s access to diverse and plural sources of information; discourage platforms from taking steps to maintain a healthy online environment; and negatively impact millions of small and medium businesses looking to connect with their consumers through advertising and digital services.”
Ofcom Revokes Licence Of News Channel RT
By Richie Allen | March 18, 2022
Ofcom has revoked the licence of Russian state News channel RT, saying that the channel was not “fit and proper to hold a UK broadcast licence.”
According to The BBC:
RT’s coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been under investigation by Ofcom, and the channel had already disappeared from UK screens.
RT called Ofcom “a tool of the government”.
The channel became unavailable on all UK broadcast platforms earlier this month as a result of a ban imposed by the European Union.
Although the UK is no longer in the EU, the bloc applied sanctions to satellite companies in Luxembourg and France, which provided the RT feed to Sky, Freesat and Freeview in the UK.
UK Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, who has described the channel as “Putin’s polluting propaganda machine”, said at the time she hoped it would not return to UK screens.
In recent weeks, Ofcom has launched 29 investigations into the “due impartiality of RT’s news and current affairs coverage” of the invasion of Ukraine.
RT deputy editor-in-chief Anna Belkina said Ofcom had “robbed the UK public of access to information”.
“What we have witnessed over the last few days, be it comments from the President of the EU Commission or from PM Boris Johnson, is that none of them had pointed to a single grain of evidence that what RT has reported over these days, and continues to report, is not true.
“Instead, what they have said is that what RT brings to its audience is not allowed in their supposedly free media environment. When it comes to the Russian voice, or just a different perspective from theirs, it is simply not allowed to exist.”
I’ve been watching RT closely since Russia invaded Ukraine. Over the course of the last few weeks, the TV channel and its website has published claims made against the Russian government by NATO countries, right alongside the Kremlin narrative.
In fact, I’ve been astonished at how balanced the content has been. The same cannot be said for the BBC or SKY News.
It’s a sickening blow for free speech, but it’s only the beginning.
Issues and Insights criticize Google censorship
Demonetized
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | March 17, 2022
Market analysis website Issues & Insights has criticized Google for flagging one of its articles. The site suggested that the article was censored for violating the policy on election integrity.
In a blog post reporting the censorship, I&I said that the article that was censored was a poll, where respondents were asked about the 2024 presidential election.
“This new article wasn’t about climate change. It wasn’t about COVID. It also wasn’t about election fraud. It wasn’t about the Jan. 6 riots. It wasn’t about anything controversial,” I&I reported. “It was an article about the results of our own monthly I&I/TIPP poll, which asked registered voters ‘who do you want to see run for president in 2024.’”
I&I claims it received an email from Google’s AdSense that one of its articles was in violation of terms of service. The email warned that there would be no ads on the article until I&I fixed the violation. The email claimed that the article was flagged for “unreliable and harmful information.”
In the blog post, I&I insisted that it had not violated any of Google’s policies and, considering its appeal was rejected, the censorship was not a mistake.
The website theorized that the article was flagged for violating the policy against content that “could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process.”
I&I concluded that “Google is now attacking content for no other reason than that it doesn’t like the facts being reported.”
“You’ve just taken another step towards acting like a totalitarian dictator. Remind us again of what that motto was you used to parade around. Be evil? Be like Stalin? Help us out here,” I&I wrote.
483 More Deaths After COVID Vaccines Reported to VAERS, as Pfizer and Moderna Push for More Boosters
By Megan Redshaw | The Defender | March 18, 2022
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today released new data showing a total of 1,183,495 reports of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccines were submitted between Dec. 14, 2020, and March 11, 2022, to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). VAERS is the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S.
The data included a total of 25,641 reports of deaths — an increase of 483 over the previous week — and 208,209 reports of serious injuries, including deaths, during the same time period — up 4,321 compared with the previous week.
Excluding “foreign reports” to VAERS, 788,624 adverse events, including 11,728 deaths and 76,231 serious injuries, were reported in the U.S. between Dec. 14, 2020, and March 11, 2022.
Foreign reports are reports foreign subsidiaries send to U.S. vaccine manufacturers. Under U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, if a manufacturer is notified of a foreign case report that describes an event that is both serious and does not appear on the product’s labeling, the manufacturer is required to submit the report to VAERS.
Of the 11,728 U.S. deaths reported as of March 11, 17% occurred within 24 hours of vaccination, 22% occurred within 48 hours of vaccination and 60% occurred in people who experienced an onset of symptoms within 48 hours of being vaccinated.
In the U.S., 556 million COVID vaccine doses had been administered as of March 11, including 328 million doses of Pfizer, 209 million doses of Moderna and 19 million doses of Johnson & Johnson (J&J).
Every Friday, VAERS publishes vaccine injury reports received as of a specified date. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a causal relationship can be confirmed.
Historically, VAERS has been shown to report only 1% of actual vaccine adverse events.
U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to March 11, 2022, for 5- to 11-year-olds show:
- 9,161 adverse events, including 217 rated as serious and 5 reported deaths.
The most recent death involves a 7-year-old boy (VAERS I.D. 2152560) from Washington who died 13 days after receiving his first dose of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine when he went into shock and suffered cardiac arrest. He was unable to be resuscitated and died in the emergency department.
- 17 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis (heart inflammation).
The CDC uses a narrowed case definition of “myocarditis,” which excludes cases of cardiac arrest, ischemic strokes and deaths due to heart problems that occur before one has the chance to go to the emergency department.
- 34 reports of blood clotting disorders.
U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to March 11, 2022, for 12- to 17-year-olds show:
- 30,295 adverse events, including 1,744 rated as serious and 42 reported deaths.
The most recent deaths involve a 17-year-old boy (VAERS I.D. 2171083) from Illinois with Duchenne muscular dystrophy who died from cardiac arrest after receiving his second dose of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine, and 14-year-old boy from Guam (VAERS I.D. 2157944) who died one week after his first dose of Pfizer when he suddenly committed suicide.
The boy’s VAERS report states:
“Sudden suicide one week after the vaccine. Patient was a perfectly happy child. After the vaccine, he became much more tired and achy and lost interest in doing his sports. One week later, without any warning, he hung himself.”
- 68 reports of anaphylaxis among 12- to 17-year-olds where the reaction was life-threatening, required treatment or resulted in death — with 96% of cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
- 646 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis, with 634 cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
- 162 reports of blood clotting disorders, with all cases attributed to Pfizer.
U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to March 11, 2022, for all age groups combined, show:
- 20% of deaths were related to cardiac disorders.
- 54% of those who died were male, 41% were female and the remaining death reports did not include the gender of the deceased.
- The average age of death was 72.7.
- As of March 11, 5,250 pregnant women reported adverse events related to COVID vaccines, including 1,668 reports of miscarriage or premature birth.
- Of the 3,613 cases of Bell’s Palsy reported, 51% were attributed to Pfizer vaccinations, 40% to Moderna and 8% to J&J.
- 863 reports of Guillain-Barré syndrome, with 41% of cases attributed to Pfizer, 30% to Moderna and 28% to J&J.
- 2,363 reports of anaphylaxis where the reaction was life-threatening, required treatment or resulted in death.
- 1,683 reports of myocardial infarction.
- 13,512 reports of blood-clotting disorders in the U.S. Of those, 6,034 reports were attributed to Pfizer, 4,818 reports to Moderna and 2,617 reports to J&J.
- 4,045 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis with 2,483 cases attributed to Pfizer, 1,377 cases to Moderna and 175 cases to J&J’s COVID vaccine.
Moderna asks FDA to authorize 4th dose for adults 18 and up
Moderna on Thursday asked the FDA to amend Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of its COVID vaccine to include a fourth dose for adults 18 and older.
According to The Associated Press, the request is broader than Pfizer’s. Pfizer earlier this week asked the agency to authorize a fourth dose of its COVID vaccine for adults 65 and older.
In a press release, Moderna said the request to include adults over 18 was made “to provide flexibility for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and healthcare providers to determine the appropriate use of an additional booster dose of mRNA-1273, including for those at higher risk of COVID-19 due to age or comorbidities.”
Moderna said its decision to seek FDA approval was based on studies from the U.S. and Israel about the Omicron variant, but didn’t provide further information. Booster doses of Moderna are half the dose of the first and second doses.
Pfizer and BioNTech ask FDA to authorize fourth vaccine dose for older adults
Pfizer and BioNTech on Tuesday said they submitted a request to the FDA for EUA of an additional booster dose of their COVID vaccine for adults 65 and older.
The companies’ request was not based on robust, peer-reviewed U.S. data, but on two recent studies from Israel — both published on preprint servers without peer review.
The first study was done in conjunction with Israel’s Ministry of Health and involved a review of 1.1 million health records. The study concluded rates of COVID in those who received a fourth dose of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine were lower compared to those who received only three doses.
According to the preprint published on medRxiv, since Jan. 2 Israel has been administering a fourth dose of the Pfizer vaccine only to people over 60 and at-risk populations.
In the second study of Israeli healthcare workers, results showed a fourth dose of either Pfizer’s or Moderna’s vaccine boosted antibody levels, but neither was effective at preventing infections.
CDC deletes thousands of reported COVID-19 deaths in children
The CDC removed tens of thousands of deaths linked to COVID, including nearly a quarter of deaths it had attributed to those younger than 18, The Epoch Times reported. The change was made on March 15 on its COVID data tracker website.
“Data on deaths were adjusted after resolving a coding logic error. This resulted in decreased death counts across all demographic categories,” the CDC said on the website. The agency also acknowledged COVID death data is not complete.
Before the change, the CDC listed 1,755 deaths in children from COVID, along with 851,000 others, according to Kelley Krohnert, a Georgia resident who tracks the CDC’s updates.
The CDC removed 416 deaths among children and more than 71,000 other reported deaths — arriving at a total of about 780,000.
The CDC’s statistics are frequently cited by physicians and experts when pushing for children to receive COVID vaccines. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director, referred to the tracker’s death total on November 2021 while pushing for an expert panel to advise her agency to recommend vaccination for all children 5 to 11 years old.
Vaccine researcher develops tinnitus 90 minutes after COVID shot, calls for more research
A vaccinologist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota said he developed tinnitus after receiving his second dose of an mRNA COVID vaccine.
Dr. Gregory Poland’s symptoms began 90 minutes after receiving the vaccine. He described the condition as “fairly severe” and “extraordinarily bothersome, interfering with sleep and the ability to concentrate.”
According to the National Institutes of Health, tinnitus is a sign that something is wrong with the auditory system. It is commonly described as a ringing in the ears, but it also can sound like roaring, clicking, hissing, or buzzing that accompanies soft, loud or high pitches.
According to the most recent VAERS data released on March 11, 19,851 people have reported developing tinnitus after a COVID vaccine, with 12,027 cases attributed to Pfizer’s COVID vaccine.
CEO of German health insurer fired after releasing data on underreported COVID vaccine injuries
The CEO of one of Germany’s largest health insurance companies was abruptly fired last month after he released data suggesting German health authorities are significantly underreporting COVID-19 vaccine injuries.
The data, released by Andreas Schofbeck of BKK/ProVita, have since been scrubbed from the company’s website.
Schofbeck, who noticed an unexpected jump in vaccine-related health insurance claims, in February notified the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI) — the German equivalent of the CDC — that BKK billing data indicated the PEI was underreporting adverse events to COVID vaccines.
In his letter to the PEI, Schofbeck wrote:
I’m “If these figures are extrapolated to the whole year and to the population in Germany, probably 2.5-3 million people in Germany have received medical treatment for vaccination side effects after Corona vaccination.”
Dr. Dirk Heinrich, chairman of NAV-Virchow Bund, an association of private medical practitioners in Germany, said PEI and BKK would be working closely to examine the billing code data. Heinrich also stated that the conclusions from Schofbeck’s letter are “complete nonsense.”
Children’s Health Defense asks anyone who has experienced an adverse reaction, to any vaccine, to file a report following these three steps.
Megan Redshaw is a freelance reporter for The Defender. She has a background in political science, a law degree and extensive training in natural health.
© 2022 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
Hospital restrictions remain absurd and cruel
Health Advisory & Recovery Team | March 18, 2022
Following our recent article highlighting isolation and neglect in care homes, we are appalled to report that the situation is only slowly improving. What is more, many NHS sites are still imposing draconian and vindictive policies. Children are being separated from parents and dying relatives are being abandoned to a lonely end.
It is beyond comprehension that this situation persists. Three weeks to flatten the curve? More like 24 months to bulldoze the social contract. Here is one quote from a UK hospital this week:
“We know that continuing to extend restrictions on visiting will be disappointing and it is not a decision we have taken lightly. We understand how important the support of family and friends can be for patients in their recovery while they are in hospital, however, our number one priority is to keep everyone safe”.
These silken, virtue-signalling words – keeping “everyone safe” – are not only utterly simplistic, they disguise blanket policies that encourage multiple Milgram-esque acts of cruel depravity. We are hearing horrific stories of desperate children being denied access to their dying parents.
“Everyone” is not safe when a nonagenarian, now in declining health, has to spend their remaining weeks – or even days – in soulless incarceration. These individuals spent their entire working lives rebuilding this country after WW2 and then brought up a subsequent generation of taxpayers. Surely we owe these bastions of society the dignity of choice in their final days.
If this situation was not depressing enough, HART has also been made aware of the most cruel of indignities: patients in their final days of life are being denied palliative care if they refuse a covid injection. It is hard to comprehend the wickedness of foisting this particular medical intervention – with all the known short-term adverse effects – on someone with a severely weakened immune system who is already in their final days. It is hard to see this as anything other than battery.
There is no doubt that the overwhelming majority of people involved in the healthcare services want the best for their patients, so how can these things still be happening? Two years into this depressing saga, perhaps it is too late for those who promote these injustices to take responsibility for the harm caused. However, those that have been ‘going with the flow’, perhaps hoping for an easy life, might want to reconsider whether their consciences can bear any more of this, and whether they want to align themselves with faceless and sadistic despotism.
After all, you cannot comply your way out of tyranny.
In Germany, Corona Limps On
The Bundestag passes a new Infection Protection Act
eugyppius | March 18, 2022
As I wrote a few weeks ago, the legal basis for our current regime of unnecessary restrictions and interference in the everyday lives of German citizens expires after tomorrow, but Corona cannot be allowed to end in Germany. The past few weeks have seen fraught negotiations within the coalition government to draft a new Infection Protection Act and continue the circus.
Today, after acrimonious debate, the Bundestag voted in the new legislation. It provides two tiers of ongoing Corona regulation:
1) Automatically and at all times, “basic protection” measures will be available to the federal states. These allow the state governments to impose mask mandates upon local transit and healthcare facilities, and to impose testing requirements on healthcare facilities and schools. Of course, they will all do so. Mask mandates will also continue in long-distance trains and in aeroplanes.
2) State governments will be allowed to impose additional restrictions, including vaccination and testing requirements for restaurants and public events, in the case of so-called “hotspots.” Anytime you encounter English vocabulary in German law, it is a sign of bad things. A vote of the state parliament is necessary to declare a hotspot and these additional restrictions.
The federal states are allowed a transitional period to continue current rules, but this ends on 2 April.
The press is starting to fill with vile articles about the “freedoms” that will be returning to us. The thing is, that these are not freedoms anymore. They have become temporary, seasonal privileges, which can be removed anytime political pressure builds on the state parliaments. A softening of the rules makes things more comfortable in the shorter term, but it extends the political half-life of the Corona regime substantially.
Despite all the crazy discussion in the press and from individual politicians, vaccine mandates appear to be dead in Germany; only about a third of the Bundestag support a universal mandate for adults.
That’s not as good as it sounds: A lot of other members of parliament want mandate-adjacent requirements that are also bad. Andrew Ullmann, from the FDP, has gained some support for his scheme of mandatory vaccine information sessions rather than mandatory vaccination. I agree that forced lectures from ignorant low-level bureaucrats are preferable to forced medical procedures, but the whole scheme also makes me find Andrew Ullmann even more loathsome than I did before.
In case you thought Ullmann was just trying to reach a compromise to ward off the vaccinators, he’s also open to mandates for the 50+ crowd, so he’s not your friend.
Meanwhile, the CDU (and CSU), who are not in government, propose setting up a creepy “vaccination register” so the vaccinators know who to pressure. They want vaccine mandates maybe possibly for certain at-risk groups and for certain professions.
Of 736 Bundestag members, a mere 50 support a resolution against mandatory vaccination, primarily from the FDP and the AfD.
Lawyer For Mother Of Hunter Biden’s Daughter Says He Expects President’s Son To Be Indicted
By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | March 18, 2022
The past few weeks have been tough for Hunter Biden and, by extension, the rest of the Biden family. On March 1, news broke that Hunter Biden’s longtime business partner and friend Devon Archer was sentenced to a year in federal prison for defrauding a Native American tribe. Then just yesterday, the New York Times published an investigation revealing that although the younger Biden had paid his outstanding tax liability – which was reportedly greater than $1 million, and which required him to take out a loan to pay it off – a federal investigation into his failure to pay taxes on his earnings from overseas has continued.
Much lower in the NYT story, America’s “paper of record” mentioned the laptop belonging to Hunter Biden that was reportedly abandoned at a computer repair shop, and subsequently became the heart of a NY Post story published shortly before the 2020 election (which was subsequently ignored by the MSM because of unfounded rumors that the materials had been stolen by Russian hackers, or that the laptop itself was some kind of plant). It didn’t only mention the laptop, but also confirmed that it was authentic. We previously reported on how the NYT sued to obtain copies of emails mentioning Biden and his exploits allegedly gleaned from Romanian embassy officials.
And in the latest blow to the reputation of the president’s perennially troubled son, a lawyer for the mother of Hunter Biden’s 3-year-old daughter (who was born out of wedlock to a woman who allegedly slept with the younger Biden while working as an exotic dancer) said during an interview with CNBC that he expects the younger Biden “to be indicted” for tax fraud.
Attorney Clint Lancaster told CNBC that his client, Lunden Roberts, had recently testified in Delaware before a federal grand jury in the criminal investigation into the 52-year-old presidential scion. The lawyer based his commentary on “what I saw” in Biden’s financial records.
Lancaster said he and Roberts were interviewed by an assistant U.S. attorney, an FBI agent and an IRS agent — “one that carries a badge and gun” — more than a year ago about Biden in Little Rock, Ark., where Lancaster practices law.
“I expect him to be indicted,” the lawyer said about Biden. “Just based on what I saw in his financial records, I would be surprised if he’s not indicted.”
Lancaster later added that neither he nor his client want Hunter Biden to go to jail.
“It’s not my goal, much to the unhappiness of many people in the Republican Party,” said Lancaster, a supporter of former President Donald Trump who in late 2020 worked on a legal challenge to results that showed Biden had won the state of Wisconsin that year.
He also confirmed that the younger Biden hadn’t visited his 3-year-old daughter with Roberts, “which is sad because the baby looks like him, with blonde hair.” He also explained that he had come into possession of a vast trove of the younger Biden’s financial records as part of his work on Roberts’ child-support suit. When asked about the number of records, Lancaster said it was around “10 gigs of data”.
“Oh, hell, it was a bunch,” said Lancaster when asked how many records there were related to Hunter Biden’s finances. The documents were part of the case file for an Arkansas court child-support lawsuit that Roberts filed against Biden in 2019 in connection with their daughter.
“They’re all in electronic form,” Lancaster said. “I would estimate it was anywhere from 10 gigs of data.”
“I saw a lot of information” that is “problematic” for Biden, he said.
Finally, Lancaster told CNBC that his client hadn’t received immunity before testifying because she hadn’t committed any crimes. The NYT on Thursday reported that Roberts had been questioned about the provenance of the child support payments she had received from Biden. Prosecutors were apparently investigating whether the same corporate entity from which she received the payments was also used by Biden to receive payments from Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company from which he received a salary of $50K per month just for sitting on its board.
Given all the information on the investigation that’s just come to light, we wouldn’t be surprised if the grand jury hearing the evidence is soon asked to vote on whether federal charges should be brought against the younger Biden. His father, the president, has already recused himself from the case as his DoJ has continued with the investigation. If charges are brought and Hunter Biden is convicted (or pleads guilty), his father would then have the option of pardoning him. From this vantage point, it’s not too difficult to imagine a scenario where Biden pardons his son after deciding not to seek another term in office.