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“The government doesn’t plan to close borders or stop mass gatherings during any Pandemic” – Why did Britain throw away its pandemic plan?

By Will Jones | The Daily Sceptic | May 14, 2022

Of the many myths that have taken hold during the pandemic, perhaps none is more central than that the Government was caught out by Covid with no idea about how it ought to respond. Thus the extreme and unprecedented response of lockdown appears to many to be justified by this notion that ministers had little choice but to ‘play it safe’, and the subsequent experiments in social restrictions as we awaited and delivered a rushed vaccine and beyond are imagined as a heroic voyage into the unknown of how a government ought to respond to an ‘unprecedented’ disease.

In fact, though, the Government had a plan for what it should do, the U.K. Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy 2011, and COVID-19 was well within the bounds of what the plan anticipated. As Dr. Noah Carl has noted, this was the plan the Government was following until mid-March 2020, with SAGE re-affirming at a meeting on February 4th 2020 that officials “should continue to plan using current influenza pandemic assumptions”.

While the strategy was focused on influenza, it expressly anticipated the possibility of a new SARS virus:

A pandemic is most likely to be caused by a new subtype of the Influenza A virus but the plans could be adapted and deployed for scenarios such as an outbreak of another infectious disease, e.g. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in health care settings, with an altogether different pattern of infectivity.

The Covid death toll has also been well within what was anticipated, the 193,000 deaths over more than two years being below what the plan suggested should be anticipated as a minimum within four months:

When planning for excess deaths, local planners should prepare to extend capacity on a precautionary but reasonably practicable basis, and aim to cope with up to 210,000 – 315,000 additional deaths across the U.K. over a 15 week period (or a higher level where possible).

Even Neil Ferguson’s infamous prediction of 500,000 deaths is not a long way above this level, and that was always an absurdly high number to anticipate for Covid, as many pointed out at the time.

The pandemic plan could not be clearer that no attempt should be made to prevent the virus spreading. In a way this was the fundamental error from which all else flowed. Why was the Government even listening to advisers modelling the impact of restrictions on spread when its plan was clear that it should not attempt to ‘control’ the virus in this way? In no fewer than three places the plan states that it will not be possible to prevent the virus spreading and no attempt should be made to do so, as this would be a huge waste of resources.

It will not be possible to halt the spread of a new pandemic influenza virus, and it would be a waste of public health resources and capacity to attempt to do so.

It almost certainly will not be possible to contain or eradicate a new virus in its country of origin or on arrival in the U.K. The expectation must be that the virus will inevitably spread and that any local measures taken to disrupt or reduce the spread are likely to have very limited or partial success at a national level and cannot be relied on as a way to ‘buy time’.

It will not be possible to stop the spread of, or to eradicate, the pandemic influenza virus, either in the country of origin or in the U.K., as it will spread too rapidly and too widely.

Instead, the strategy states, the aim should be to minimise the impact on wider society, by ensuring the sick can be treated and not closing down society. Normality should be maintained as far as possible and restored as quickly as possible.

Minimise the potential health impact of a future influenza pandemic by… Ensuring the health and social care systems are ready to provide treatment and support for the large numbers likely to suffer from influenza or its complications whilst maintaining other essential care.

Minimise the potential impact of a pandemic on society and the economy by… Promoting a return to normality and the restoration of disrupted services at the earliest opportunity.

Whole of society response: Business as usual. During a pandemic, the Government will encourage those who are well to carry on with their normal daily lives for as long and as far as that is possible, whilst taking basic precautions to protect themselves from infection and lessen the risk of spreading influenza to others. The U.K. Government does not plan to close borders, stop mass gatherings or impose controls on public transport during any pandemic.

Given this was the pre-prepared strategy, based on sound science and wide experience, it should be the standard against which Government policy during the pandemic is assessed, as in, for example, the independent public inquiry. Anything else is to let ministers off the hook, and to buy into the lie that Covid was something that we were not and could not have been prepared for. In fact, we had planned for exactly the kind of outbreak that occurred, so ministers had no excuse at all for winging it, copying China, or thinking we should try out something radically authoritarian. The legacy of 2020 must not be the dawn of a new era of extreme, ineffective and destructive public health policy, but a clear-eyed resolve that it will never happen again.

May 14, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

An invitation to visit New Zealand

By Guy Hatchard | TCW Defending Freedom | May 14, 2022

AFTER two years of being closed for business, New Zealand has re-opened its borders. The outcome: unprecedented numbers are leaving rather than arriving. The question is, are you willing to take their place?

For those of you in the UK who are worried that there is one law for the government and another for the people, spare a thought for the people of New Zealand where the government is actually following its own advice.

At least in the UK you can look at your leaders partying and think ‘If they can do that, so can I’. We have to listen to the voices of our leaders filtered through a mask, and then follow them.

Last week I visited Wellington, seat of government and dull party central of the civil service. It was an extraordinary experience. Conformity to the fore. Masking was as near 100 per cent as makes no difference.

This has happened despite there being almost no evidence that masking reduces the spread of infection, and a great deal of evidence that it harms our health.

Medical mask exemptions will soon have to prominently display your name. Fines and jail sentences related to masking non-compliance are slated to be introduced.

Students still have to be fully vaxxed to enrol in universities. Many, if not most, apprenticeship schemes require Covid vaccination.

The government has allowed businesses to continue to enforce vaccination mandates, and many have. In some industries, even employees working from home are being required to show proof of Covid vaccination – to no one.

Just imagine if you are watching The Chase on TV and between every contestant you are subjected to a 60-second government Covid vaccine ad advising you to ‘keep your family safe’with an ineffective mRNA vaccine known to be dangerous. Not only do you know that it is borrowed money paying for this saturation government messaging, but you and your children are going to have to repay it for decades. You are not told that government statistics show that boosted individuals are more likely to end up in hospital with Covid than the unvaccinated – too embarrassing to warrant a media mention.

Can you imagine the level of despair if the leader of the opposition is also a vaccination freak? Ours is on record before the pandemic saying that single mothers should lose benefits if their children are unvaccinated.

Third party leader David Seymour (ACT Party) told people who have lost their jobs due to coercive mandates that it was their choice. So no joy there either.

The Green Party is more pro-mandate than the government and additionally would have us all back on bicycles. Their deputy leader struggled to hospital riding a bicycle to give birth while already in labour, presumably just to show us retirees how it is done.

Undercover surveillance is on the increase. Anti-mandate bloggers have had visits from the police.

Last week a 78-year-old farmer was fined $30,000 (£15,300) for selling a pail of raw milk to a government undercover agent who, along with his back-up team, had taken weeks to worm his way into the veteran farmer’s confidence. In contrast, France has made an international business success out of selling cheese made from raw milk. NZ, dairy capital of the world, has opted out of opportunity.

The government is ready and willing to encourage habits that damage health. Jacinda has famously said that NZ is on track to stamp out smoking within a decade but she forgot to mention that the government has encouraged the switch to vaping. A survey completed in November found an unprecedented and alarming 26 per cent of NZ school students vaped during the previous week. Another good markup for commercial pharma.

There is no end to our nanny state. This week it was suggested that the government would enter the supermarket business. We may soon be collecting our meagre processed rations from them.

So if it’s still on your bucket list and you will be visiting us, well done. Put on a brave face. You will need to test prior to departure and three more after landing. You may not know if anyone you meet is smiling or not, but you can always imagine that you are part of a fan club for the Mask of Zorro.

Oh, and by the way, our Labour tourism minister says NZ now wants to give preference to wealthy tourist. You may think that is a bit rich, or just a sign of an antisocial illness.

May 14, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

The Accusation of Exposure

It’s still happening, and it needs to stop

By E. Woodhouse | May 12, 2022

Imagine you’re back in pre-school.

You’re sitting on the rug, listening to the teacher read a storybook. Suddenly, the nurse calls into the classroom. “Mrs. Jones? Can you send Bobby to the health office right away?”

You’re not sick, and you don’t take any medicines at school like your friend Michael does. Why do you have to go to the nurse?

When you arrive, the nurse tells you that someone else in your class has come down with a sickness called RSV. She can’t say who, but she knows you sit next to him at lunch. So he might have given you RSV, even if you don’t feel yucky yet.

She puts you in a separate room, with a mask on, until your mom can come and you can’t come back to school for 5 days, because if you get sick, you might get other kids sick.

Fast forward to your high school days…

You’re in your 5th period math class, seated in the last row. The nurse comes in just as the teacher says to take out last night’s homework. She leans over and whispers, “I need you to come with me. You were in close contact yesterday during school with someone who tested positive for flu. You didn’t get a flu shot, so you’ll need to go home.”

You have no idea who she’s talking about – and she won’t tell you how someone has decided you were in contact with this person, or why it matters. You’re not sick and you shouldn’t have to leave.

“I want to stay in class,” you whisper.

“No, you have to come with me,” she insists.

“There’s a test tomorrow. I need to stay,” you counter.

The nurse leaves. Five minutes later, two security guards and a Dean come in. Now it’s three versus one; you have no choice. They escort you out, call your parents, and you can’t return until next week on the condition that you present a negative flu test.

I wish these scenarios were fiction, but they’re not. Each is the real story of a child and a teen, respectively, in Chicagoland, from this school year. As you can guess, the illness each student was “guilty” of being exposed to was the eminently-survivable Covid-19.

I also wish these were the only students to which this happened over the past two years. Sadly, millions of children across the country have been individually forced to quarantine in the same manner – some repeatedly for upwards of 40 days or more total. They did nothing wrong; they committed no crime. In most cases, they’ve been denied due-process and equal-protection rights, simply for being in the same airspace as a peer who tested positive for and/or became sick with what is a low-risk respiratory virus for nearly all children.

The law and communicable disease code in my state (Illlinois) does not give schools the independent authority to “figure out” close contacts, or tell not-sick kids to stay home. Only local health departments can issue such orders to a person, who can object to the order and go before a judge.

Unfortunately, months of illegal executive orders, agency workarounds, fearful school boards, and dishonest legal advice have misled parents and the general public about the limits of the government’s ability to limit freedom of movement – including during a pandemic. In most places (Illinois included), we not only need appointed & elected officials to follow existing laws, we need new laws passed that ensure that children can’t be denied an in-person education because they might develop symptoms of an illness.

The truth is, contact-tracing and exposure quarantines are for highly localized outbreaks involving actually-sick people and pathogens that aren’t airborne, seasonal, and endemic. To my knowledge, there’s no evidence that either strategy has been critical to keeping kids in schools during this pandemic. Data recently published by the CDC estimates that over 75% of American children and teens had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 as of December 2021. (Marty Makary rightly notes the current figure is closer to 90%.)

Any school or health department still pretending that Covid is deadly for healthy children – or that it’s possible to prevent the spread of a cold – is either self-interested or deeply deluded.

Evidence of the devastating impacts of keeping kids out of school – either via whole-building closures or individual exclusions – will continue to mount. I predict that class-action lawsuits will be filed eventually, but for now, parents must demand their schools stop accusing children of exposure.

May 13, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

After subscribers quit, Netflix tells activist employees it’s time to support free speech

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | May 13, 2022

After Netflix has announced it’s bleeding subscribers, the company has started to make some changes. Netflix has issued a warning to employees in its new “Culture Memo.” It warned employees offended by “harmful” content on the platform to find work somewhere else.

The memo, obtained by Variety, which signals a change in Netflix’s culture, appears to have been triggered by backlash over a special by comedian Dave Chappelle and more. Activist Netflix employees staged a walkout over the company hosting the special that they deemed transphobic.

The new Culture Memo has a section titled “Artistic Expression,” which says that the platform will not censor some artists and voices even if their content is deemed “harmful.”

“If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you,” the memo says. It adds that employees may have to work on the content they deem harmful and if they are not comfortable accepting such tasks they should find work somewhere else.

“Entertaining the world is an amazing opportunity and also a challenge because viewers have very different tastes and points of view. So we offer a wide variety of TV shows and movies, some of which can be provocative,” the memo states. It continues to say “we support the artistic expression of the creators we choose to work with” and that it is upon the viewers to “decide what’s appropriate for them, versus having Netflix censor specific artists or voices.”

The employee who organized the walkout last October after the release of Chappelle’s “transphobic” special titled “The Closer,” was fired.

May 13, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

Internal CDC docs on the agency’s false Covid vaccine claims

CDC catalogs lawmakers’ tweets about vaccines, documents reveal

BY SHARYL ATTKISSON | MAY 9, 2022

Internal documents at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) show that Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) ignited quite the firestorm when he contacted the agency to point out serious Covid vaccine disinformation that their top officials and vaccine scientists had signed off on.

I reported on the story last year after Massie produced audio recordings of CDC officials and scientists admitting the error to him, yet continued to publicly make the false claim: that original studies proved Covid vaccines helped people who’d already had Covid. They didn’t.

Watch the story and listen to the CDC audio recordings here.

Recently, emails obtained through a Freedom of Information request show more than a thousand pages of emails mentioning Massie and his concerns swirled around at CDC.

What did they say? Well, much of the time we don’t know because that’s hidden behind big, blue redactions.

Public info redacted by CDC regarding the agency’s Covid vaccine disinformation

We do see that before admitting the claim was wrong, CDC scientists tried to defend their false information.

CDC scientists and officials first attempt to defend the false info they were publicizing about Covid-19 vaccines

CDC scientists and officials try to defend the false info they were publicizing about Covid-19 vaccines

CDC also apparently tracks and logs CDC-related tweets by members of Congress, broken down by party affiliation.

CDC tracking tweets by members of Congress

CDC tracking tweets by members of Congress

It’s unclear why conversations between CDC officials and scientists on matters of great public health importance would be kept hidden from public view.

Nobody was held publicly accountable for the serious and potentially dangerous false information the CDC officials and scientists signed off on and publicized.

May 13, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Is a Social Credit System Coming for Us?

By Tessa Lena | May 13, 2022

A Social Credit Score System Is Piloted in Bologna, Italy

The city administration of Bologna, Italy, is piloting a program that brings the beast of the Fourth Industrial Revolution straight to the citizens. It’s an early reiteration of Klaus’ Schwab’s Fourth Industrial Revolution, the honey moon, so to speak — so it comes to the citizens wrapped in gift paper, with balloons, prizes, and party language. But make no mistake: underneath, there is cruel man-eating machine that wants to mine your data and control your behavior!

So, what exactly is happening in Bologna? The administration is “digitizing” their relationship with the citizens. For starters, they are launching an app — with a catch — that will provide an interface to get access to various local services. Without saying it, the they are implementing the “digital governance” aspect of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Quoting the Italian source:

“We will give citizens services based on their needs – says the Mayor – and this will allow us to personalize their experience. People will be able to find everything the administration will do on their mobile phones or computers. The physical branches, however, will not disappear.

“We will maintain a ‘physical’ support for all people who do not use the web, especially the older ones,” assures Lepore [Mayor of Bologna]. But the goal is computer literacy that leaves no one behind.”

If we read this announcement with innocent eyes, it sounds like yet another initiative that the bureaucrats are launching, perhaps benevolently, to keep up with the times and with the buzzwords. And in an ideal world — a world filled with flowers, butterflies, rainbows, and harmless, caring bureaucrats — there would be nothing wrong with adding on a little extra convenience via technology.

Technology can be very helpful if done right, and if it comes to us without Trojan horses. But alas, at the moment, we don’t live in such a world!

We live in a world where Klaus Schwab and his buddies and masters are fighting with each other over who gets to eat the most peasants! We live in a world where those who already have great power are seeking even more power — and that world is quickly going back to the feudal-time psychological standards (while, ironically, keeping the modern standards for the levels of industrial poisons in everything around us.)

As far as Trojan horses, the Bologna municipal app actually comes with a social credit system! The “virtuous citizens,” doing nice things, such as using public transport, keeping their energy use low, etc., get “perks,” like points in gaming. For those points, they may be able to get discounts or prizes or access to additional services. Nice Trojan horse, right?

“Among the most innovative interventions is the smart citizen wallet [emphasis mine]. ‘The wallet of the virtuous citizen,’ explains Bugani, who had worked on the project with the Raggi [Virginia Raggi, Mayor of Rome from 2016 to 2021] administration (in Rome today the platform is active in an experimental phase). The idea is similar to the mechanism of ‘a supermarket points collection,’ as the councilor himself points out.

‘Citizens will be recognized if they separate waste, if they use public transport, if they manage energy well, if they do not incur sanctions from the municipal authority, if they are active with the Culture Card.’ Virtuous behaviors that will correspond to a score that the Bolognese will then be able to ‘spend’ on prizes, such as discounts, cultural activities and so on.”

In other words, it’s the “nice” face of digital control. Nice, for now. But we need to be clear: we are looking at the digital control of everything we do in the end of that journey!

Integrated Citizen Relationship Management in Rome

The Italian news source mentions that this approach is already in experimental use in Rome, Italy. In March 2022, Salesforce published the following announcement:

“Salesforce, the global leader in CRM, today announced that the Municipality of Rome has chosen Salesforce to create an Integrated Citizen Relationship Management platform …

Leveraging Salesforce Service Cloud and Marketing Cloud will deliver omni-channel self-service capabilities, seamless collaboration between local government departments, and empower citizens to receive the information they need faster through AI-powered chatbots.

The launch of the MyRhome platform is another step on the Municipality’s path to creating a ‘smart city’ [emphasis mine] — an ecosystem of public and private stakeholders serving citizens wherever they are”.

Of course! We can’t expect any less from Salesforce, given that Marc Benioff is on WEF Board of Trustees!

Also, remember the famous “lockstep scenario” document released by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Global Business Network? The document that the Rockefeller Foundation says today has been misinterpreted by the conspiracy theorists — because the good and virtuous Rockefeller Foundation totally didn’t mean to predict what actually happened in 2020 (and also probably had nothing to do with eugenics)?

Well, keeping in mind that “lockstep scenario” document, here is Peter Schwartz, the Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning at Salesforce and “an internationally renowned futurist and business strategist, specializing in scenario planning and working with corporations, governments, and institutions to create alternative perspectives of the future … Prior to joining Salesforce, Peter was co-founder and chairman of Global Business Network [emphasis mine].” In the words of George Carlin, “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it! You and I are not in the big club!”

Their Motive for the “Digital Governance” Model? It’s the Data, Stupid!

At first, it’s the data (to train our future boss, the robot) — and then, increasingly, it’s mainly about control!

Let’s look at a very “interesting” 2017 write-up on digitizing governments on the World Economic Forum’s website. It talks about the importance of collecting data to build and train their beloved AI. It also complains about the fact that a lot of the data kept by governments just sits there in paper format and, dammit, is not making itself useful to the sacred goal of training the AI! Not good, they say, what a waste!

Therefore, to “open” that data to the AI beast, they want the governments to digitize their services — sorry that was the quiet part — what they actually say is that the citizens are craving those digital government systems because, who doesn’t know that the elimination of privacy is … good for us?

The World Economic Forum also suggests that the governments should develop new legal frameworks and data management systems to make data available for free. What a great idea! In 2017, the World Economic Forum mouthpieces were more upfront that today, so it is useful to read exactly what they said back then:

“Need for data is quickly becoming a central theme that applies to all aspects of our evolving digital society. A case in point is the field of artificial intelligence, which promises to revolutionize society (governments included). Companies such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft are using AI-related techniques to train computers to recognize objects in photos and understand human language.

It is possible to train computers to perform these difficult feats because we have the enormous quantities of data that is required. The same applies to all forms of machine learning, smart manufacturing and every other tech-driven trend shaping the future. They are all reliant on data, and are only as good as the data they crunch. In this context, data has been described as the new oil.'”

“Today, a large majority of the world’s data is in the hands of the private sector … The remainder of the global data sits in government hands, mostly stored in paper format, or legacy systems. To maximize the societal benefits of the data age, a new movement started promoting open data.

While government data is all data or information that government entities produce or collect, making it open refers to publishing and sharing data that can be readily and easily consulted and re-used by anyone with access to internet with no fees or technological barriers.

Most of this data currently remains locked up and proprietary (private property of companies, governments and other organizations). This severely limits its public value.

Data is now a new social good and governments will need to think of some form of data responsibility legislation that guides the private sector and other data owners on their duties in the data age: the duty to collect, manage and share in a timely manner [emphasis mine], as well as the duty to protect.

This legislation is needed over and above a government’s own open and big data management systems, and will need to cover all data stakeholders (irrespective of ownership or other governing rules).”

“Once a clear legal framework is in place, governments need to develop, and quickly master, a new core capability: data curation … Most governments around the world still struggle with legacy databases that are incompatible with each other, and work against any kind of data-sharing or data-driven design. Laws and regulations are still in their infancy and struggling to cope with the pace of change …”

“Governments must review a vast number of laws and regulations [emphasis mine]. From harmonizing and enforcing privacy regulations and protecting against data-breaches, to regulations that ensure net neutrality and data flows. Today’s debates over the future of big data are based on the assumption that the internet will remain a series of open networks through which data easily flows.

Some countries have begun to harden their internet systems, and the concept of net neutrality is uncertain. If the internet becomes a network of closed networks, the full potential of big data may not be realized.”

“Governments must also improve their capabilities when it comes to citizen engagement to effectively and actively engage with both providers and users of data. This requires governments to create a culture of open data [emphasis mine] – something governments are starting to do with various degrees of success.

The level of citizen engagement is not the typical government communication function, but a more open, horizontal, and fast-paced G2C platform.”

Must, must, must. So I am guessing, national sovereignty is a sore thumb in the way of our aspiring Davos masters because in their minds, they have already decided that they want our data (but not theirs) to be openly available, and that they don’t want any questions from the peasants.

A tangential comment: As a musician, I am remembering with some bitterness how Big Tech was pushing for “open data” and “open access” back in the day, selling it as “free expression” and “democracy,” and as a result — since buying music became unfashionable — musicians lost much of their income … and nobody cared!

I am glad that now at least, a lot more people are realizing what liars whose Big Tech companies are, and what liars they have always been all along, when they were talking about “free expression”! Look at them now, with their “free expression”! They are quite happy to censor! So it’s only our data that they want to be open — not our opinions!

And Here Is Another Curiosity From the World Economic Forum

They published this article in 2018:

Could robots do better than our current leaders

“The Fourth Industrial Revolution is expected to wreak havoc on labour markets, with AI and robots replacing various white-collar jobs. One job category largely excluded from scientific reports is that of government leaders, despite being one of the most critiqued, scrutinized and ridiculed jobs of all.”

“However, commentators from countries as diverse as India, the UK, New Zealand and Japan have started to suggest that robots as government leaders could drastically improve decision-making, by being much less irrational and erratic than their inherently flawed human counterparts.”

After freaking us out, the World Economic Forum writers chuckle and let us continue being governed by human politicians, at least for now:

“For the time being, it seems neither possible nor optimal for robots to replace government leaders, despite the clear imperfections displayed by the latter group … Ultimately, a more realistic and desirable scenario is one in which AI and automation are neither competitors nor substitutes to humans, but tools that government leaders can engage effectively and sometimes defer to, in order to make better, fairer and more inclusive decisions.”

Phew, it’s almost like … you know, when a street robber first tells us to give him all of your money but then agrees to take only half! Such a kindly, generous robber! We are so lucky!

World Economic Forum’s “Agile Nations”

The 2017 WEB write-up about digital governance reads like a “wish list” and a blueprint for the governments to act upon. (I guess, given the bribing and coercive power of the people who’ve composed the wish list, their wish list had a strong chance of becoming the bureaucrats’ blueprint the moment it was written.) So in 2020, seven nations got together and signed an agreement to essentially implement it. A quote from “Agile Canada“:

“In November 2020, seven countries signed on to the Agile Nations Charter, establishing Agile Nations as a forum for countries to collaborate on creating a global regulatory environment in which innovation can thrive.

Member countries include: Canada, Denmark, Italy, Japan, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) also participate as observers.”

“Priority areas for cooperation are: data and communications, transportation, medical diagnosis and treatment, clean technology, legal and professional services, pro-innovation regulatory approaches.”

And here’s from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development:

“The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought economic and social disruption worldwide. As people and businesses focus on recovery, governments must ensure that innovation, which will power economic growth and solve the world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges, is not held back by outdated regulations [emphasis mine].”

Translation from Orwellian to English: “We want your data, including your medical and biometric data — and we want it now. Look at how lovely our AI is … my precious! (Sorry couldn’t help it!) The so called national laws and regulations interfere with the speed at which we can get a hold of your data.

Like we said, we want it now, and so we would very much like it if so called national laws and regulation got replaced with a digital framework that we write and that we can update any time we like! Sounds like a good idea or what? Who wants some funding? You know what you need to do to get that funding, don’t you?” The quote continues:

“As part of the development of the OECD principles on Effective and Innovation Friendly Rule-Making in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) have been co-operating to look deeper into the interlinkages between regulation and emerging technologies …

Ministers from Canada, Denmark, Italy, Japan, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom announced their plan to lead the world in fostering responsible innovation and entrepreneurship.”

“In addition, in support of the mission of the Agile Nations, representatives of Facebook also offered to launch a call for research – overseen by an independent steering committee of experts in the field of law, regulation and entrepreneurship – into what approaches to rulemaking (e.g. regulatory sandboxes, policy prototyping) were the most effective for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

As this initiative continues to develop, other businesses will be encouraged and invited to co-sponsor this initiative, and to venture their own ideas to support the work of the Agile Nations.”

“In sum, the Agile Nations Charter sets out each country’s commitment to creating a regulatory environment in which new ideas can thrive. The agreement paves the way for these nations to cooperate in helping innovators navigate each country’s rules, test new ideas with regulators and scale them across the seven markets.

Priority areas for cooperation include the green economy, mobility, data, financial and professional services, and medical diagnosis and treatment.”

“Scientific Management”

The World Economic Forum’s agenda is a strange mix of religious fundamentalism and “scientific management.” As I wrote earlier in an article about the mind of a technocrat, scientific management is a “method of industrial optimization developed by Taylor in the late 19th and early 20th century. The essence of his method was extreme fragmentation and compartmentalization of the production process.”

It required taking a complex process, breaking it down into very simple tasks, timing each task, optimizing it to the maximum using the stopwatch, and then assigning each of those simple tasks to different workers, while insisting that the workers should only use the pre-optimized motor patterns and work as efficiently as possible. Under scientific management, there was no room for workers’ creativity.

And while Taylor and Ford intended the scientific management method for the purpose of streamlining industrial production, the Davos charlatans aim to manage our entire lives, and justify it with some bogus “public good” and “community values”!

Whose “Community Values” Are Those, Anyway?

Here is the elephant in the room: It’s the Davos charlatans — and I want to repeat the word “charlatans” because that’s who they are underneath their bank accounts and their important speeches — who are writing our so called “community values”! They are trying to latch onto our natural social instincts and weaponize our good instincts against us!

They want us to be unassuming, guilty “good citizens” who put a limit on our carbon footprint and on the number of children we have — while they, the self-appointed “guardians” of the world, fly private jets to climate change conferences and have as many kids as they damn like!

And here’s the thing. There is nothing wrong with real community values! We are social creatures, and it benefits us to live together well. However, community values are only as good as the people who propose them — and community values turn into a pumpkin the moment someone like Schwab touches them!

As Good as the People

Let’s even forget about Schwab for a second and think how community values work in principle. Let’s imagine a small village. If the people living in that village are mostly healed and grounded, they will raise their children to seek wisdom and live well with others — from the heart, not from the letter.

However, if the people in the village have been abused, and abused, and abused again — and never healed — then even the authentic community values in that village could end up being anxious, rigid, and detrimental to freedom.

Hurt people tend to teach their children that life is meant to be joyless. They tend to slap their children’s wrists for wanting to be free, saying it’s a selfish folly. Hurt people hurt people! And at one point, the rigid rules might have been an invention of a cunning predator — but after prolonged abuse, people might have internalized them and passed them on to their children! (And look at how many people in the West sincerely adopted the religion of the Mask … they have internalized it!)

Another example: in my birth homeland of Russia, there are many small communities where the people carry so much hurt and sadness that the gloom is almost palpable in the air. I am saying this from personal experience, and with much pain and love for my people. I ran away from that gloom and immigrated to America because the “community values” felt too joyless!

So when it comes to Klaus Schwab and friends, they are only as powerful as we let them. I believe that that healing ourselves and our relationships is at the top of our priorities list in the battle against transhumanism — because anything we do from a place of love has more power than anything we do from the place of fear!

Why Will Transhumanism Fail?

This system, the entire man-eating beast, will eventually fail, I have no doubt — but we don’t know when, and we need to stay humble, brave, and very patient. The cruel beast may fail very soon, or it may take a while to fail. I think it depends on how quickly we remember to relate to each other in spirit, with love and happy humility — instead of labeling and judging each other based on ancestry, politics, or differences in opinion.

I think it depends on how quickly we realize that the freedom taken away from the people everywhere, throughout history, has been as existentially precious as the freedom that is being taken away from us right now — because there is no fundamental difference between us and other people, and never has been.

We, here and now, are dealing with the same dilemma that many in the past have dealt with, and some have died from. Spirit is spirit, and freedom is freedom! And I think that when we remember to stand together and honor each other and each other’s love and each other’s courage, we’ll be undefeatable. No Klaus Schwab can do anything to us if we refuse to betray our fellow human beings for any reason.

And sooner or later, spiritual clarity will prevail, and this transhumanist beast, the culmination of abuse, will fail. The reason why it will fail is simple. We are not machines, and when we are managed like machines — increasingly so over the centuries — our souls bleed badly. When we are managed like slaves, we suffer unbearably — and suffering, while it’s not a preferred way of obtaining clarity, still mysteriously leads to spiritual clarity. Life puts no suffering to waste!

And when the pain gets unbearable, and there is nowhere to go but toward our heart of hearts, our souls scream to the skies, and we pray for answers with no arrogance and no talking points, and then something magical happens. When our fear and pain become too much but we keep pushing, we grow our souls to where solutions show up out of nowhere.

And then we cry, laugh, and pray more for healing, and more solutions show up, and we look back and we suddenly know why we had to suffer, and why the sweetness was worth it. And then we start living well because, after all this suffering, we finally remember that everything in the world, everything-everything, has always been about love — and that living well with each other is not just pleasant but also very practical.

May 13, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Twitter bans Ontario Party leader Derek Sloan over Covid tweet

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | May 12, 2022

Derek Sloan, a former member of Canada’s parliament and now the leader of the Ontario Party, was permanently suspended from Twitter over alleged violations of the platform’s policies.

The permanent ban came after he criticized comments made by the Canadian Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam about long Covid symptoms.

On Sunday, Rebel News board member Efron Monsanto posted a clip of Tam claiming that about half of the people getting Covid have long Covid symptoms, which refers to displaying symptoms of Covid for months.

“We probably anticipate that the impacts of long COVID is going to be quite substantial,” said Tam, adding that the solution is booster shots.

Replying to the tweet, Sloan wrote: “Their next move will be to rebrand the symptoms of COVID vaccine injury as ‘long COVID.’

The cure for ‘long COVID’ will be more vaccine boosters, which will create more ‘long COVID.’ Public health isn’t on your side.”

Following the comments, Sloan’s account was immediately suspended.

“This account will not be restored. This case will now be closed and replies will not be monitored,” Twitter told Sloan.

Speaking to LifeSiteNews, Sloan said he hopes Elon Musk will reinstate his account once he takes over in the next few months.

Meanwhile Sloan is campaigning for the provincial elections to be held on June 2. He said the campaign is going “very well.”

“People are really resonating to our main messages, no World Economic Forum, Digital ID, no foreign buying of real estate or farmlands, medical privacy, no censorship, and free votes,” Sloan told LifeSiteNews.

“Education not indoctrination,” he added.

May 13, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Driverless cars record everything, making them moving surveillance machines

Police are increasingly tapping into the data

By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | May 12, 2022

Driverless cars have video cameras that record everything around them. Companies use the cameras and footage to improve the safety and operability of these vehicles.

However, these companies, including General Motors’ Cruise and Alphabet’s Waymo, promote the potential of these vehicles and conceal the fact that the footage these vehicles capture can be accessed by the police.

A memo obtained by Motherboard, through a freedom of information request, reveals that the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) has previously used footage from autonomous vehicles for investigations.

“Autonomous vehicles are recording their surroundings continuously and have the potential to help with investigative leads,” the memo on autonomous vehicles reads.

“Investigations has already done this several times,” it adds.

SFPD’s use of AV footage is similar to how Amazon’s home security and doorbell company Ring partners with law enforcement agencies across the country, making a network of surveillance cameras in American neighborhoods accessible to the police.

The memo mentions Waymo and Cruise, although there are other companies testing AVs in California. A Cruise spokesperson told Motherboard that: “We work closely with law enforcement on our common goal of making our roads safer. We share footage and other information when we are served with a valid warrant or subpoena, and we may voluntarily share information if public safety is at risk. Cruise has always worked closely with the communities we serve to make transportation safer, cleaner, and more accessible and will continue to do so.”

Waymo said it “requires law enforcement agencies who seek information and data from Waymo to follow valid legal processes in making such requests (e.g. secure and present a valid warrant, etc.). Our policy is to challenge, limit or reject requests that do not have a valid legal basis or are overly broad.”

Police using footage from AVs is concerning to privacy advocates.

Speaking to Motherboard, Adam Schwartz of the Electronic Frontier Foundation noted that normal cars already store a load of personal data. AVs will collect even more data, including video of their surroundings.

“So when we see any police department identify AVs as a new source of evidence, that’s very concerning,” he said.

May 13, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

The vaccine cajolers, Part 3: Recruiting trusted sales staff

By Paula Jardine | TCW Defending Freedom | May 13, 2022

This is the third instalment of Paula Jardine’s five-part investigation into the planning behind ensuring vaccine acceptance and countering vaccine ‘hesitancy’. You can read Part 1, published on Wednesday, here, and Part 2, published yesterday, here.

IN 2018 the Wellcome Trust reported that vaccine scepticism is highest in high income industrialised countries where over 80 per cent of all global vaccine sales occur. Months before Covid-19 was declared a Public Health Emergency, the World Health Organisation had listed vaccine hesitancy as one of ten threats to global health, threatening to reverse progress made in tackling vaccine-preventable diseases: ‘Given that the majority of parents accept vaccines, pro-vaccine messages may be needed to reinforce and support positive sentiment and help prevent emerging hesitancy from expanding.’

In fact they had been working for years trying to shore up positive sentiments, in 2003 establishing the WHO endorsed global network of websites called the Vaccine Safety Net to provide ‘trustworthy’ information to ‘counterbalance websites that provide unbalanced, misleading and alarming information on vaccine safety’.

A decade later, in 2013, this counterbalancing programme had not proved enough for some. David Ropeik, who taught risk communication at Harvard School of Public Health, chillingly said, ‘What’s dangerous about widely broadcast vaccine debates, in a sense, is the debate itself: by putting out misleading information to people with little fundamental understanding of the performance and value of vaccines, the anti-vaccine movement and its social media echo chambers create doubt when, in fact, there is not a true scientific debate.’

So certain was Ropeik of the absence of a debate that he called for punitive measures, including restricting the ability of the unvaccinated to participate fully in community activities, to be used as a means of achieving full vaccination, long before Covid saw countries introduce such restrictions by way of vaccine passes.

Dr Emily Brunson, an anthropologist who like Dr Heidi Larson, referred to yesterday, studies vaccine confidence issues, was less absolutist than Ropeik. ‘I think we need to avoid the trap of thinking that information or knowledge is enough, because for a lot of the people, and when you look at hesitancy and parental vaccine hesitancy in the US, the group who is most likely to purposefully choose to not vaccinate are highly educated . . . these are people who have read the primary literature themselves, and they’re correctly interpreting it, so it’s not a misunderstanding. They have other concerns that go beyond the traditional public health message of “This is what you should be doing”.’

Communications strategies that are ‘vaccine positive’ and developed with input from the vaccine confidence teams are disseminated around the world today. Larson and Brunson were both members of the expert panel convened by the US National Institute of Health (NIH) to develop communications guidance as the Covid-19 vaccines rollout under emergency use authorisations began. They both contributed to a Vaccine Communications Principles guide published by the Centre for Public Interest Communications which describes its mission as ‘building communications strategies for the common good’.

Larson was also a member of the WHO Scientific Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) working group on vaccines that developed a model to address hesitancy based on what it calls the three Cs: confidence, complacency and convenience. The key to confidence, they observed, lies with health workers, who are trusted by the public and able to influence vaccination decisions.

Over recent years, seasonal and pandemic influenza vaccine uptake has become the bellwether for vaccine confidence amongst health care workers. One lesson learned from the 2009 swine flu pandemic was that many of these workers began to exhibit less than universal enthusiasm for vaccines. In the United States fewer than half accepted the swine flu vaccine. Of course, if they were not taking the vaccines themselves, they couldn’t be relied upon as recruiting sergeants for the War on Microbes. Some needed more than education, they needed pressganging. So health departments and employers began mandating vaccines as a pre-condition of employment. Others stopped short of mandates, requiring instead that unvaccinated staff wear masks so that they could be more easily identified.

In England, where annual flu vaccine uptake by NHS staff hovers around 64 per cent overall with a wide variation in uptake between trusts, a different ‘inducement’ approach was introduced. In 2016, NHS England began offering financial incentives to the trusts linked to the number of staff inoculated. Behavioural modification tactics courtesy of the behavioural psychologists were deployed including ‘social norming’, that is creating peer pressure to make people think ‘if everyone else is doing it, I should too’. As NHS England explains, ‘Even something as simple as a sticker to show they have had their jab can be worn as a sign of pride and signal to others that they should have the flu vaccination.’

Whether volunteers or conscripts for the War on Microbes, the job of these trusted voices is to sell to the public products that are meant to be a long-term investment in their own health or their children’s health. The 2019 Global Vaccination Summit said more could be done to support them to provide ‘trusted, credible information on vaccines’ by giving more prominence to vaccination and communication skills in medical curricula and by increasing continuing professional training on vaccination issues.

The question is, what exactly are they being taught?

May 13, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Google introduces new wallet with support for digital IDs and vaccine cards

Digital ID cards are being normalized by Big Tech

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | May 11, 2022

Google will be integrating digital ID cards and proof of vaccination cards into a new Google Wallet app that’s set to be released in a few weeks.

Google revealed the new digital wallet app at its Google I/O ‘22 keynote. Sameer Samat, Google’s Vice President of Product Management, said the tech giant is working with US states and governments around the world to bring digital IDs to Google Wallet and that driver’s licenses will be the first type of ID to be digitized in the app.

Samat noted that items with highly personal information, such as vaccine cards, are stored on device and “not shared with anyone, not even Google.”

Google’s embrace of digital IDs and vaccine cards follows Apple introducing the tech last year when it partnered with several US states and the Transport Security Administration (TSA) to digitize driver’s licenses and then stuck taxpayers with part of the bill for the rollout.

When it started digitizing driver’s licenses, Apple insisted that users could present their ID without needing to unlock, show, or hand over their device. Samat made similar claims at Google I/O ‘22 and said users can share information from driver’s licenses that are stored in Google Wallet without having to give the phone to another person by either using near-field communication (NFC) or a quick response (QR code).

Digital vaccine cards have also started to be normalized by two of the world’s biggest phone manufacturers – Apple and Samsung.

As these powerful tech companies embrace digital IDs and vaccine cards, national governments and influential international organizations are also pushing for greater adoption of this tech.

Related: 🛡 The EU has big plans to normalize Digital IDs

May 11, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Nina Jankowicz, Disinfo Board chief, voiced support for UK government setting standards for acceptable speech

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | May 11, 2022

The head of the Department of Homeland Security’s new controversial Disinformation Governance Board recommended the idea of the government setting speech standards during testimony in the UK Parliament last year.

When asked by a lawmaker if the government should set minimum speech standards, like banning misogyny on the internet, Nina Jankowicz agreed.

Read the transcript here.

She went on to suggest that the communications watchdog should set the standards and fine tech platforms for non-compliance.

“For Ofcom [the UK’s communications regulator] to be able to establish the minimum standards that would be applied to all platforms and incur fines would be a useful starting point,” Jankowicz said. “That could be based, again, on the preexisting terms of service.”

Jankowicz said that alternative platforms, which are pro-free speech would be a problem, and blasted them for supporting “freedom of expression and fairy dust.”

Another idea she sold to UK lawmakers was social media companies being forced to hand over data to the government for censorship purposes.

“The social media platforms can do that if they are compelled to,” she said. She added that “you or Ofcom would need to determine exactly what measures you would like to see and compel the social media platforms to hand over that data.”

Jankowicz also promoted the idea of content demotion and shadow banning saying it, “… is not only about taking down content. It can be about demoting content to and saying ‘You can shout in the black void, but you do not get a huge audience to do that,’” she said. She continued to explain that demoting content would “allow us to get around some of the free speech concerns.”

May 11, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

EU, UK join US in launching online ‘disinformation’ policies, ‘one-world governance’ of social media

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | May 11, 2022

The European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and the U.K.’s proposed Online Safety Bill are among the latest government policies designed to hold social media companies responsible for hate speech and “disinformation” posted by users.

Experts interviewed by The Defender expressed concerns about the potential slippery slope of regulations — in the U.S. and overseas — which, under the guise of “combating disinformation,” stifle the spread of information deemed inconvenient for governments and other powerful actors.

As reported by The Defender, in the U.S., these proposals include a government “disinformation board” and a bill pending before Congress, the Digital Services Oversight and Safety Act.

The EU’s new regulations, experts said, may have far-reaching impacts beyond Europe.

Michael Rectenwald, author of “Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom,” said he can foresee a future in which such regulations might affect all speech — not just speech on social media platforms.

Rectenwald told The Defender :

“[T]he EU’s DSA represents a major step toward one-world governance of social media and Internet search and one step closer to global government.

“Since the distinction between ‘on-line’ and ‘off-line’ activity will lose all meaning as the Internet includes the Internet of Things and Bodies, the DSA may become the law of the land.”

Is EU’s Digital Services Act on collision course with Musk’s Twitter plans?

In timing that coincided with Elon Musk’s intent to purchase Twitter, the EU announced April 23 the passage of the Digital Services Act (DSA).

The DSA seeks to tackle the spread of “misinformation and illegal content” and will apply “to all online intermediaries providing services in the EU,” in proportion to “the nature of the services concerned” and the number of users of each platform.

According to the DSA, “very large online platforms” (VLOPs) and “very large online search engines” (VLOSEs) — those with more than 45 million monthly active users in the EU — will be subject to the most stringent of the DSA’s requirements.

Big Tech companies will be obliged to perform annual risk assessments to ascertain the extent to which their platforms “contribute to the spread of divisive material that can affect issues like health,” and independent audits to determine the steps the companies are taking to prevent their platforms from being “abused.”

These steps come as part of a broader crackdown on the “spread of disinformation” called for by the Act, requiring platforms to “flag hate speech, eliminate any kind of terrorist propaganda” and implement “frameworks to quickly take down illicit content.”

Regarding alleged “disinformation,” these platforms will be mandated to create a “crisis response mechanism” to combat the spread of such content, with the Act specifically citing the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the “manipulation” of online content that has ensued.

The DSA also will ban certain types of advertising on digital platforms, including targeted ads tailored to children or to people of specific ethnicities or sexual orientations.

Tech companies also will be required to increase transparency in the form of providing regulators and researchers “access to data on how their systems recommend content to users.”

This latter point appears similar to Musk’s plans to make Twitter’s algorithms “open source to increase trust.”

Companies violating the provisions of the DSA would risk fines of up to 6% of their total global annual revenue, while repeat offenses may result in the platforms being banned from the EU — despite the “open internet” principle professed by the principle of “net neutrality” enshrined in EU law.

According to Techcrunch, the DSA will not fully come into effect until early 2024. However, rules for VLOPs have a shorter implementation period and may be enforced by early 2023.

A spokesperson for the European Commission — the EU’s executive branch — said the new regulations will ensure Big Tech’s “power over public debate is subject to democratically validated rules, in particular on transparency and accountability.”

Margrethe Vestager, the vice president of the European Commission, added, “With today’s agreement we ensure that platforms are held accountable for the risks their services can pose to society and citizens,” and, “With the DSA we help create a safe and accountable online environment.”

Directly addressing Musk, the European Commission’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, tweeted, “Be it cars or social media, any company operating in Europe needs to comply with our rules — regardless of their shareholding. Mr. Musk knows this well,” adding, “[Musk] is familiar with European rules on automotive [referring to Musk’s ownership of Tesla Motors], and will quickly adapt to the Digital Services Act.”

Separately, Breton stated, “We welcome everyone. We are open but on our conditions. At least we know what to tell him: ‘Elon, there are rules. You are welcome but these are our rules. It’s not your rules which will apply here.’”

Breton’s warning to Musk bears a striking resemblance to the statements of then-German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who in 2015 warned the newly elected left-wing Greek government not to entertain thoughts about renegotiating the austerity measures imposed on the country by the EU and International Monetary Fund, stating, “Elections change nothing. There are rules.”

Voice of America, a media outlet reflective of official U.S. government policy, reported “the job of reining in a Musk-led Twitter could fall to Europe,” referring to the DSA.

According to Gizmodo, the EU’s new legislation “could have global reverberations,” adding, “Lawmakers are also hoping it could serve as a model for other countries like India and Japan.”

However, Gizmodo warns the success of the DSA in accomplishing its objectives is far from guaranteed, referring to the example of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): “Some predicted [the GDPR] would fundamentally shift online privacy protection worldwide, and instead [it] basically just gave us those insufferable cookie permission pop-ups.”

While the DSA would apply to all 27 EU member states, some of these countries have already enacted similar domestic legislation. For instance, Germany has regulations in place that require digital platforms to remove hate speech within 24 hours or face fines of up to €50 million ($56 million).

Techcrunch, in reporting on the passage of the DSA, referred to legislation in countries not frequently noted for their democratic traditions or respect for free speech, such as China, Turkey, India and Nigeria.

As Techcrunch stated, platforms in these countries found to be “non-compliant” with domestic mandates may face fines, police raids, shutdowns and prison sentences for their executives.

Similar regulations pending in U.K.

Legislation similar to the DSA, the Online Safety Bill, is pending in the U.K. It would require Big Tech platforms to moderate “illegal” and “harmful” content in order to be allowed to operate in the U.K.

The bill would require digital platforms to protect users from such “harmful” content, with the threat of fines of up to 10% of global turnover for companies found in violation, as well as potential prison time for senior managers of these companies in cases of non-compliance.

A spokesperson for the U.K. government said:

“Twitter and all social media platforms must protect their users from harm on their sites.

“We are introducing new online safety laws to safeguard children, prevent abusive behaviour and protect free speech.

“All tech firms with users in the U.K. will need to comply with the new laws or face hefty fines and having their sites blocked.”

Max Blain, a spokesperson for U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson, said, “Regardless of ownership, all social media platforms must be responsible” for “protecting” users.

As The Defender recently reported, Damian Collins, a member of the British parliament with the British Labour Party who led a parliamentary committee that developed the Online Safety Bill, is a board member of the Center for Combating Digital Hate, which partners with prominent “fact-checking” firm NewsGuard.

As previously reported by The Defender, NewsGuard, in turn, closely collaborates with the World Health Organization (WHO), which also recently expressed concerns about Musk’s purchase of Twitter.

As U.S., EU  sign commitment to ‘democratic values’ on the internet as they prepare policies to regulate online speech

Overshadowed by the news of Musk’s Twitter purchase and developments such as the DSA and the Biden administration’s “disinformation board,” several dozen countries quietly signed the “Declaration for the Future of the Internet” April 28.

Fifty-six countries and entities, including the U.S. and the EU, signed this declaration, described as “a political commitment to push rules for the internet that are underpinned by democratic values” and a response to Russia “wielding internet disruptions as a part of its escalating attacks on Ukraine.”

U.S. News reports that the declaration — which is not legally binding — is the first of its kind globally, and “protects human rights, promotes free flow of information, protects the privacy of users, and sets rules for a growing global digital economy among steps to counter what two Biden administration officials called a ‘dangerous new model’ of internet policy from countries such as Russia and China.”

According to the U.S. State Department, the declaration’s principles include:

  • Protect human rights and fundamental freedoms of all people.
  • Promote a global Internet that advances the free flow of information.
  • Advance inclusive and affordable connectivity so that all people can benefit from the digital economy.
  • Promote trust in the global digital ecosystem, including through protection of privacy.
  • Protect and strengthen the multi-stakeholder approach to governance that keeps the Internet running for the benefit of all.

In turn, the declaration was described by the EU as being “in line with the rights and principles strongly anchored in the EU.”

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, known for her strong support of digital “vaccine passports” throughout the EU, stated:

“Today, for the first time, like-minded countries from all over the world are setting out a shared vision for the future of the Internet, to make sure that the values we hold true offline are also protected online, to make the Internet a safe place and trusted space for everyone, and to ensure that the Internet serves our individual freedom.

“Because the future of the Internet is also the future of democracy, of humankind.”

Thierry Breton remarked:

“This Declaration will ensure that the Internet and the use of digital technologies reinforce, not weaken, democracy and respect for human rights.”

According to the State Department, “[t]he Declaration remains open to all governments or relevant authorities willing to commit and implement its vision and principles.”

What does all this mean for Musk, Twitter and the future of free speech online?

Social media analysts and experts expressed varying opinions and predictions as to what regulations such as the DSA may mean for the global operations of digital platforms such as Twitter — especially if Musk attempts to make good on his pledges to “restore free speech.”

Vasilis Vasilopoulos, data protection officer with Greek public broadcaster ERT and a Ph.D. candidate in journalism and mass media studies at Greece’s Aristotle University, told The Defender there are some positive elements to the DSA.

However, the boundaries of what is considered free speech should also be expanded, albeit within certain limits, he said.

Vasilopoulos added:

“The DSA is not the only means through which the problem of unethical [social media] algorithms with deceptive motives, or the unethical use of social media platforms, can be solved.

“[I]t is obvious that these platforms have surpassed the limits to democracy that we believed existed, and therefore, it is important that instead of imposing restrictions, we expand these boundaries, in favor of humanity and not capital or power.”

Matthew Spitzer, professor at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, said the EU’s proposals in particular may clash with Musk’s stated goals for Twitter, telling The Defender :

“[The DSA] may interfere with one of Elon Musk’s stated goals for buying Twitter. He seems to want less content moderation. But this regulation requires a lot of it.

“Second, this regulation dovetails with Musk’s stated desire for increased transparency. He had promised more transparency.”

Spitzer added his view that the DSA will likely increase the cost of operation for all social media companies, especially if they must also conform to domestic laws passed by various EU member states.

He added that U.S. tech companies may represent an easy target for European regulators, telling The Defender :

“[T]here will be conflicts between the USA and Europe … all of the target companies started in the USA. They are easy political targets in Europe.”

Referring specifically to Elon Musk and Twitter, Rectenwald said:

“If Musk is to have his way, the platform would no longer discriminate against content based on ‘wokeness,’ political beliefs, or the adherence to official state narratives and dictates.

“This could include the restoration of banned accounts on request by users and dramatic changes to Twitter’s discriminatory, leftist algorithms.”

According to Rectenwald, the EU’s regulations may “hamstring” Musk’s vision for Twitter and lead to a one-size-fits-all approach to content moderation, resulting in a “slippery slope” wherein “any information and opinion that differs from WHO-established official narratives regarding pandemics or other health-related crises” would be restricted.

Rectenwald said:

“Most likely, in order to meet the EU’s regulatory requirements and to streamline their efforts, VLOPs and VLOSEs will simply apply one set of rules to all online content.”

He also added that further pressures on platforms like Twitter may come not from EU regulators, but from the tech industry itself:

“[P]ressure to conform to ‘woke’ dictates will come from the Big Tech ‘woke’ cartel, including threats to remove the Twitter app from the Apple Store for failure to censor ‘hate speech,’ and the flight of ‘woke’ advertisers.

“Most likely, Musk’s purchase of Twitter will make no difference as free speech is further curtailed.”

Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., is an independent journalist and researcher based in Athens, Greece.

May 11, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

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