Alleged Discovery of Izyum Mass Graves a ‘Monstrous Provocation’, Russian Envoy to Canada Says
Samizdat – 17.09.2022
The reports of mass graves being discovered in Izyum, Ukraine is another “monstrous provocation” by Kiev which is trying to stage a fresh version of Bucha and mobilize public opinion in the West as the United Nations General Assembly prepares to meet next week, Russia’s Ambassador to Canada Oleg Stepanov told Sputnik.
“The Kiev regime supplies the media with lies about crimes against humanity allegedly committed by Russian troops in Izyum,” Stepanov told Sputnik on Friday.
“We are talking about another monstrous provocation, about an attempt to stage ‘Bucha’ in a new way. All this is being done on the eve of the opening of the High-Level Week of the UN General Assembly to try to manipulate a certain part of the western public on the subject of Ukraine.”
That western media and officials immediately pick up “fabrications of Kiev” about the alleged crimes against humanity in Izyum without double-checking is simply an indicator of how aggressive the information war against Russia is, Stepanov added.
He also said that he is optimistic that the truth about Izyum will come out, just as it did with the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria.
On Friday, Ukrainian authorities alleged that mass burial sites were found in Izyum after Russian troops withdrew from the Kharkov region in early September, and that more than 400 bodies had been found so far.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has warned several times that the Kiev regime supported by the collective West has been preparing Bucha-style provocations to accuse Russia of war crimes.
On 24 February, Russia began a military operation in Ukraine, responding to calls for help from the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. Moscow has said that the aim of its operation is the “demilitarization and de-Nazification” of Ukraine.
Western countries have responded by imposing comprehensive sanctions against Russia, while accusing Moscow of crimes against humanity, including alleged atrocities in the city of Bucha. The Kremlin has denied the allegations, and has accused Kiev of employing typical terrorist methods, such as hiding behind civilians and deploying weapons in civilian areas.
WEF publishes ideas on a carbon allowance system where surveillance tech is used to track personal emissions
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | September 15, 2022
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is publishing ideas about yet another reason, or excuse, to deploy more surveillance technology: this time it’s climate change, and specifically, monitoring carbon emissions – at the individual level.
This is generally referred to as “My Carbon initiatives” and according to a post on the group’s website, penned by the director of India’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs Smart Cities Mission, it’s all about “inclusivity of citizens” in reducing carbon emissions in urban areas.
However, “My Carbon” and what’s dubbed as “personal allowance programs” have apparently not been a success, although the push has been there for years; but now, with tracking and surveillance technology continuing to, technically speaking, improve and become more and more ubiquitous, the idea is to start bringing those into the climate change story.
And since the share of emissions attributed to individuals in cities is 40%, the proposal is to tackle those things that are now identified by WEF and its cohorts as standing in the way of personal allowance programs taking root: social and political resistance, a lack of awareness, and, of “fair mechanisms” to track individual emissions.
The post, which says the views are “those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum,” sees “an improved” world not only when it comes to technology, but also society, and mentions the catastrophic pandemic restrictions in a positive tone, as proof that billions of people can effectively be trained to show “individual social responsibility.”
Good old Covid was a test for that. “A huge number of unimaginable restrictions for public health were adopted by billions of citizens across the world,” the WEF blog piece says approvingly.
The implication is that billions are also now more likely to accept restrictions regarding their lifestyle in other contexts. Then there’s the technology, “AI,” blockchain, digitization, “smart home” devices – all useful in advancing this specific dystopian agenda.
And the plan is to use surveillance tech to track in detail personal carbon emissions, along with giving “individual advisories on lower carbon and ethical choices for consumption of product and services.”
Further, costs for “carbon-intensive” activities and goods should be increased, while offering economic incentives to reduce demand – another way of saying, “low carbon emissions social credit system.”
And then, creating new social norms is also recommended. These would impose a new definition of what “a fair share” of personal emissions is, and set “acceptable levels” of personal emissions.
As African Countries Kick Off Local Energy Projects, West Rolls Out Climate Agenda-Based Opposition
Samizdat – September 17, 2022
While many countries in Africa are experiencing energy poverty, suffering from electricity cuts, and are working on regional energy projects, the West appears to be skeptical of African nations’ strive for self-sufficiency in this area.
The Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline (NMGP) project, an initiative of Nigeria and Morocco that was initially proposed in December 2016, officially kicked off with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Nigeria, Morocco, and the Economic Community of West African States on Thursday in Rabat.
“Once completed, the project will supply about three billion standard cubic feet of gas per day along the West African Coast from Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Gambia, Senegal and Mauritania to Morocco,” a statement by the National Nigerian Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) reads.
The 5,600-kilometer pipeline, running across 13 African countries, will originate from Brass Island (Nigeria) and deliver gas to northern Morocco, where it will be connected to the existing Maghreb European Pipeline (MEP), through which the gas will subsequently go to Spain.
Nigeria possesses Africa’s biggest proven gas reserves, constituting around 5.8 trillion cubic meters, according to OPEC. The creation of a new pipeline allows to monetize Nigeria’s lavish natural gas resources, generate additional income for the country, and diversify Nigeria’s gas export routes. The project is also expected to improve the living standards of the sub-Saharan region’s population and provide opportunities for other countries along the pipeline route to develop and export their gas, as reported by The Nation.
“Some of the benefits include the creation of wealth and improvement in the standard of living, integration of the economies within the region, mitigation against desertification and other benefits that will accrue as a result of the reduction in carbon emission,” NNPC CEO Mele Kyari stated, speaking at the signing ceremony.
Central Africa Pipeline Project
The NMGP follows another African initiative that was launched on September 8 at the Central Africa Business Energy Forum, hosted by Cameroon, where Central African countries signed an ambitious deal to create a regional oil and gas pipeline network by 2030, including the construction of three multinational oil and gas pipeline systems, at least three refineries, and gas-fired power plants linking 11 countries, according to project documents cited by Reuters.
Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Gabon, Chad, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Republic Congo – members of the ECCAS which signed the pipeline agreement – are all oil producers who possess vast oil and gas reserves. However, lack of refining capacity and funding to modernize the plants has left them dependent on imported refined products.
This has become increasingly difficult due to the raging global energy crisis with its skyrocketing energy costs, global supply disruptions, and geopolitical circumstances, such as Western sanctions against Russia over its military operation in Ukraine.
Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber N.J. Ayuk argues that the project will require foreign assistance, and Russian technical know-how might be of help.
“Russians are the best when it comes to pipelines. African ministers plan to be in Russian Energy Week and discuss this. They are also inviting Russian energy players to African Energy Week to have bilateral talks on how to use Russian or Chinese expertise to make this work,” Ayuk told Sputnik.
Speaking of Russia’s potential participation in African initiatives, and in the above mentioned NMGP in particular, the Russian United Metallurgical Company noted that it might supply metal products to meet the needs of the construction of the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline.
According to a statement published by the Russian Ministry of Energy following a meeting of First Deputy Minister of Energy Pavel Sorokin and Chairman of the African Energy Chamber N.J. Ayuk, Russia is ready to develop joint projects with African countries in order to increase energy supplies to African markets.
“Providing African countries with high-quality energy resources, creating conditions for the development and growth of cooperation in energy, increasing trade between Russia and African countries is an important task of our interaction. We are ready to continue to develop joint projects, thanks to which it is possible to significantly increase the supply of resources to local markets, to help generally strengthen the economic security of our friendly countries,” Sorokin said.
At the same time, N.J. Ayuk in a recent interview with Sputnik warned of potential resistance from various Western environmental groups who, under the guise of a climate protection agenda, have repeatedly thrown a spanner in the works on energy projects on the continent.
West Opposes African Energy Projects Due to ‘Environmental Risks’
As African countries continue to develop much-needed domestic energy projects, on September 15, the EU Parliament passed a resolution claiming that the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project, which is being developed by Uganda and Tanzania, could lead to “human rights violations” and pose “the social and environmental risks.”
EACOP stretches 1,443km from Lake Albert in western Uganda to the Tanzanian port of Tanga on the Indian Ocean and could become of a great importance for Africa, where more than 600 million people, or 43 percent of the continent’s population, lack access to electricity, as per the International Energy Agency.
The EU Parliament has advised its member states not to support Uganda’s oil and gas projects either diplomatically or financially.
“Calls for the EU and the international community to exert maximum pressure on Ugandan and Tanzanian authorities, as well as the project promoters and stakeholders, to protect the environment and to put an end to the extractive activities in protected and sensitive ecosystems,” the resolution reads.
Uganda’s Deputy Speaker of Parliament Thomas Tayebwa, hitting back at the EU, pointed out that the resolution represents the “highest level of neocolonialism and imperialism” against the sovereignty of Uganda and Tanzania.
Tanzania’s Energy Minister January Makamba reaffirmed the country’s intention to implement the EACOP project, criticizing the resolution and describing it as based on misinformation and deliberate misrepresentation of key facts on environment and human rights protection.
“We care more about our country than other people do. We will continue to make sure this project protects local communities, protects the environment, and meets our international standards so that we will continue, but we commit to do,” Tanzania’s energy minister said.
The verbal spat over EACOP comes on the heels of the recent statements made by US climate envoy John Kerry, who in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of an African environment ministers’ conference in Dakar, Senegal also warned against investing in long-term gas projects in Africa.
Kerry claimed that the long-term viability of gas projects could become an issue beyond 2030, the target date many developed nations have set for their transition to mostly renewable energy sources and curbing demand for gas. The US climate envoy also said developed nations must step up their efforts and help other countries overcome the initial difficulties in developing renewable energy systems.
Court upholds Texas’ anti-censorship social media law
The case will likely go to The Supreme Court
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | September 17, 2022
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a law that was passed in Texas that prohibits large social media platforms from censoring users based on political viewpoints.
The law was passed in September 2021. It was challenged by industry trade group NetChoice and was blocked by a federal district court in December 2021.
We obtained a copy of the ruling for you here.
Critics of the law argued that it violates the First Amendment rights of social media companies by forcing private companies to publish content they don’t want to. The First Amendment protects both people and companies from censorship by the government intervention in speech.
The state of Texas appealed the decision by the district court in the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Writing the ruling on behalf of a three-judge panel, Judge Andrew Oldham said the court “rejects the idea that corporations have a freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say.”
“The Platforms are not newspapers,” he continued. “Their censorship is not speech.”
The ruling argues that the Texas social media law doesn’t violate the First Amendment because “Section 7 does not regulate the Platforms’ speech at all; it protects other people’s speech and regulates the Platforms’ conduct.”
The order adds, “Our decision is reinforced by 47 U.S.C. § 230, which reflects Congress’s judgment that the Platforms are not ‘speaking’ when they host other people’s speech. Our decision is still further reinforced by the common carrier doctrine, which vests the Texas Legislature with the power to prevent the Platforms from discriminating against Texas users.”
NetChoice expressed disappointment with the ruling and plans to appeal in the Supreme Court.
“We are disappointed that the Fifth Circuit’s split decision undermines First Amendment protections and creates a circuit split with the unanimous decision of the Eleventh Circuit,” said Carl Szabo, NetChoice vice president and general counsel.
The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit blocked a similar law passed in the state of Florida.
“We remain convinced that when the U.S. Supreme Court hears one of our cases, it will uphold the First Amendment rights of websites, platforms, and apps,” Szabo added.
The Supreme Court will now likely hear the case and, based on precedent, will likely overturn the ruling.
Biden doubles down on demanding Big Tech censor “hate”
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | September 16, 2022
Some of the world’s biggest tech companies and their social media platforms are ramping up censorship policies, once again under – this time public – pressure from the White House, as President Biden urged them to show accountability for what he said was spreading of hate and fueling of violence.
Biden addressed Big Tech in this way on Thursday, during a White House-hosted event – “United We Stand“- dubbed to be a summit dedicated to combating “hate-based violence,” particularly that targeting minorities or religious groups.
Addressing an audience made up of members of his administration, activists, and lawmakers, the president – who observers say is himself under political pressure to live up to the campaign promises regarding the handling of social media – also made a reference to Section 230, when he said that he believes special immunity for social media needs to be “gotten rid of” by Congress.
“And I’m calling on Congress to get rid of special immunity for social media companies and impose much stronger transparency requirements on all of them,” said Biden.
Reports say that both the remark about “holding social media accountable” and getting rid (of Section 230) were supported enthusiastically at the summit, with cheers and standing ovations.
The speech came shortly after the White House announced that Microsoft, Facebook (Meta), YouTube, and Amazon’s Twitch were all “updating” their rules in order to counter “hateful rhetoric” which is treated as violent extremism online.
The page set up for the summit detailed new actions to help prevent “hate-fueled violence” to be undertaken by various actors, including the federal government, and non-federal public and private institutions – among whom the Biden administration listed “commitments from the technology sector.”
YouTube said that it will add videos identified as extremist – for glorifying acts of violence in order to “inspire others or fundraise or recruit” – to its long list of content slated for censorship, and start removing these videos. And this will be happening regardless of whether content is linked to designated terrorist groups.
YouTube also committed to launch its educational media literacy campaign targeted at young users, that is supposed to help them recognize misinformation and manipulation by identifying “emotional language” and “cherry picking information.” This campaign will start in the US but according to the announcement, other countries will not be spared either.
Twitch is preparing to release a new tool that should counter “hate and harassment” by allowing streamers and communities to “further individualize the safety experience of their channels.” Twitch is also getting in the “educational” game with initiatives that are supposed to help communities identify misinformation, and “deter hateful violence.”
Microsoft said it will bake in what it calls online safety education into Minecraft via an “Education Edition” of the game, but more notably also deploy violence detection and prevention “AI” and machine learning (ML)- something eerily reminiscent of the concept of “pre-crime.” The White House announcement said there would be “appropriate” privacy protections.
And Microsoft also intends to sell “a basic, more affordable” version of these tools to schools and other organizations – cynics would say, should they show interest in detecting “pre-crime.”
Meanwhile, Meta is coming up with a research partnership with the Middlebury Institute of International Studies’ Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism.
The purpose would be to analyze violent extremism trends, but also tools that “help communities combat it.” Another partnership is in Meta’s future – with Search For Common Ground (a US-based NGO established by a former US Department of State diplomat). Here, Meta’s “community-based partners” will be provided with training and skill building in order to counter “hate-fueled violence.”
Whether or not any of these new announced rules and initiatives go beyond the declarative and may merely be produced to appease the Biden administration will become clear in time, if and when their effects are revealed in transparency reports.
What is of greater interest now is the stance of the White House toward Section 230, and the angle from which it is gunning for this decades-old legislation giving internet platforms, specifically social media, free rein in deciding which content to allow, while at the same time shielding them from legal liability given that this is user generated content.
Democrats have consistently claimed that Section 230, essentially, stands in the way of putting more pressure on Big Tech to censor content they don’t like.
Republicans, on the other hand, believe Section 230 gives Silicon Valley a “get out of jail free card” to censor conservative voices at will.
Facebook reported ‘anti-authority’ users to FBI
Samizdat – September 16, 2022
Facebook has been reporting users to the FBI’s domestic terrorism unit for nothing more than anti-authority sentiment, the New York Post reported on Wednesday, citing Justice Department (DOJ) sources.
“Facebook provides the FBI with private conversations which are protected by the First Amendment without any subpoena,” the sources claimed, explaining this is done “outside the legal process and without probable cause.”
Merely expressing concern about the legitimacy of the 2020 US election results was enough to get users flagged, they said.
Excerpts from those messages, often highlighting the “most egregious-sounding comments out of context,” were offered to nearby FBI field offices as “leads.”
Upon receiving them, the local offices could request subpoenas from their partner US attorney’s office in order to legally obtain the private messages they had already been shown by Facebook outside the legal process, the Post’s sources claimed.
None of the subsequent FBI investigations turned up any criminal or violent activity, the sources said.
“It was a waste of our time,” one source complained, describing a “frenzy” of subpoena requests and other activity over the last 19 months aimed at backing up the claims made by the administration of President Joe Biden about the threat posed by domestic terrorism in the aftermath of the January 6 Capitol riot.
The users targeted by Facebook for this kind of surveillance were all “gun-toting, red-blooded Americans who were angry after the election and shooting off their mouths and talking about staging protests,” the source said, adding there was “nothing criminal, nothing about violence or massacring or assassinating anyone.”
Facebook initially called the DOJ sources’ claims “false” before releasing a second statement to the Post an hour later characterizing them as “wrong,” insisting the company’s relationship with the FBI was “designed to protect people from harm” rather than to “proactively supply” law enforcement with the names of users expressing anti-government sentiment.
“We carefully scrutinize all government requests for user information to make sure they’re legally valid and narrowly tailored and we often push back,” Erica Sackin, a spokesperson for parent company Meta, said in the statement.
The FBI admitted it receives information “with investigative value” from social media providers and that it “maintains an ongoing dialogue to enable a quick exchange of threat information,” but would neither confirm nor deny the specific allegations made by the DOJ whistleblowers.
Senators use hearing to criticize Big Tech for not censoring enough “disinformation”
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | September 16, 2022
The Senate Homeland Security Committee questioned executives from social media companies about allowing “disinformation” to go viral.
Watch the hearing here.
Former executives from these companies appeared during the hearings and accused their former employers of allowing misinformation to spread because it has more user engagement.
Committee chair Senator Gary Peters (a Democrat from Michigan) told Twitter, Meta, YouTube, and TikTok that by pushing “the most engaging posts to more users, they end up amplifying extremist, dangerous, and radicalizing content. This includes QAnon, Stop the Steal, and other conspiracy theories, as well as white supremacist and anti-Semitic rhetoric.”
Last September, a former Facebook employee, turned 🛡“whistleblower,” claimed that the company allows “disinformation” to spread to boost growth and called for more censorship.
During the hearing, former head engineer at Twitter, Alex Roetter, said that social media companies do not want to rein in disinformation because it is profitable.
“Regulators must understand these companies’ incentives, culture, and internal processes to fully appreciate how resistant they will be to changing the status quo that has been so lucrative for them,” he said.
Roetter went on to say that Twitter uses an experimental system to test how to get the most engagement from users.
“This system logs a slew of data for every live experiment,” he said. “Teams use this data to show per-experiment effects on various user and revenue metrics. Noticeably absent were any values tracking impacts on trust and safety metrics.”
Former vice president for product engineering, marketing, strategic operations, and analytics at Facebook, Brian Boland, testified about his former employer prioritizing user engagement. He said that Facebook acquired CrowdTangle, a company that provided “industry-leading transparency” into the platform’s newsfeed content. The company showed that Facebook was amplifying political and racial divisions in 2020. According to Boland, Meta “attempted to delegitimize the CrowdTangle-generated data.”
“What finally convinced me that it was time to leave was that despite growing evidence that the newsfeed may be causing harm globally, the focus on and investments in safety remained small and siloed,” Boland said. “Rather than address the serious issues raised by its own research, Meta leadership chooses growing the company over keeping more people safe.”
Boland also noted that Facebook disbanded its Responsible Innovation team last week. He added that social media companies should be regulated because their algorithms will only get better at targeting vulnerable users.
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From the Archives
Delicensing Doctors for ‘Harmful Misinformation’
By Jane M. Orient, M.D. | Assosiation of American Physicians and Surgeons | December 17, 2021
In addition to being subjected to various forms of censorship, for the first time in living memory American doctors are getting threat letters from licensure boards warning them against distributing “harmful misinformation.” Medical boards in 12 states have disciplined doctors because of this allegation. While it is claimed that there’s an epidemic of misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, the warnings don’t spell out what that means.
We don’t have an epidemic of patients dying because doctors told them to refuse treatment or to drink Clorox or aquarium cleaner.
In fact, no patients need to have suffered any harm at all for the medical board to investigate a doctor’s no-longer-free speech. All it takes is an anonymous complaint.
Pharmacists who were converted into the overseers of physicians’ prescribing practices will complain that a doctor had prescribed ivermectin for COVID-19.
Or an employer might complain that a doctor supported a worker’s request for a medical exemption that wasn’t on the CDC’s list of acceptable reasons.
Or the doctor might have spoken at a political meeting at which mask mandates were being challenged. … continue
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