New Zealand’s “Disinformation Project” Shuts Down Amid Accusations of Silencing Opposition
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | October 18, 2024
The Disinformation Project, launched in early 2020 in New Zealand as a “disinformation research” group, but slammed by critics as seeking to usher in ideological censorship, is no more.
The project is the product of the Covid era, initially focused on what was at the time considered “disinformation” but then branching out to things like vaccine skepticism in general, climate change – and, apparently, even local politics.
The group, which coordinated with the New Zealand government, described its activities as research and analyses of all manner of “extreme conspiratorial beliefs” as well as their compatriots’ “descent” into those.
Critics, however, point out that silencing the opposition, including by supporting “hate speech” laws, was among the activities of the now-shut-down endeavor that was led by Kate Hannah.
These critics accuse the Disinformation Project of moving from being a handy tool for the New Zealand government to spread its narratives promoting COVID-19 measures (some of the most restrictive in the world), to becoming a political weapon promoting a certain agenda.
Back in April, some commentators were concerned about where the Disinformation Project’s shift from the “abandoned pandemic” to political influencing might lead.
We now know that it has led to the group’s demise – but it is only one of the many similar efforts that appeared during the Covid era around the world.
A specific accusation against this one comes from New Zealand-based journalist Chris Lynch, who claims that Hannah, along with Sanjana Hattotuwa, attempted to effectively manipulate the 2023 election in the country by influencing the media via “secretive briefings.”
This didn’t succeed in this instance because they got “called out” – but over the past four years, the Disinformation Project has been accused of getting increasingly desperate to stay relevant, and finding ways to do that, with the policies it pushed accepted without critical examination by the legacy media.
Lynch is optimistic that the demise of this project and the rise of some that challenge the established media-political narratives means that New Zealand has turned the corner when it comes to censorship disguised as concern for democracy and the fight against “disinformation.”
However, it’s equally possible that where one such outfit exits the scene, another, under a different name and leadership but with the same purpose, might take its place.
Pentagon Plans to Use AI to Create Deepfakes – Reports
Sputnik – 18.10.2024
The US Special Operations Command is allegedly looking for contractors to create deepfake internet users that neither humans nor computers could detect, media reported.
In particular, the command is interested in solving the problem of verifying users on social networks, so it is looking for technology that can create selfies and official documentation to bypass these checks, the report read. Special operations troops “will use this capability to gather information from public online forums,” the media reported on Thursday, citing the command’s plan.
“Special Operations Forces (SOF) are interested in technologies that can generate convincing online personas for use on social media platforms, social networking sites, and other online content … [users must] appear to be a unique individual that is recognizable as human but does not exist in the real world,” the report added.
However, these plans ran counter to the official position of the US government, since the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the National Security Agency have previously called deepfakes a threat.
Police escalate the British state’s war on independent journalism
By Jonathan Cook | October 18, 2024
The UK government and police – the British state – made clear today they are waging a war of intimidation against the country’s independent journalists in a desperate attempt to silence them.
Ten Metropolitan police officers made a dawn raid on the home of investigative journalist Asa Winstanley and seized his electronic devices under the UK’s draconian Terrorism Act. A letter from the Met indicates that the associate editor of the Electronic Intifada is being investigated by the force for “encouraging terrorism”.
The raid isn’t about terrorism – except the UK government’s. It’s about scaring us into staying silent on Britain’s collusion in Israel’s genocide.
Winstanley is the latest – and most high profile – independent journalist to be targeted by counter-terrorism police in recent weeks. Earlier, Richard Medhurst was arrested at Heathrow airport on returning to the UK from a trip abroad. Then Sarah Wilkinson was arrested and her home ransacked.
Winstanley has repeatedly embarrassed the British establishment by exposing its covert and deep ties to Israel and its collusion with the Israeli lobby.
In his book Weaponising Anti-Semitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn, Winstanley exposed in shocking detail how antisemitism was weaponised against the former Labour leader.
The book would have made uncomfortable reading for his successor, Sir Keir Starmer, now Britain’s prime minister, because it documents his role in the smear campaign.
While in opposition, Starmer’s Labour party threatened to expel Winstanley as a member – he resigned in protest instead – and have made legal threats against him.
As the Electronic Intifada website notes: “Now that Labour is the UK’s ruling party, it has the potential to use the apparatus of the state against those it views as its own – or Israel’s – political enemies.”
There is precisely no reason for police to raid Winstanley’s home or seize his electronic devices. The preposterous accusation of “encouraging terrorism” clearly relates to his online work, which is fully in the public domain.
The British state wants to insinuate through the dawn raid and confiscation of his devices that he is somehow harbouring secret or classified information, or in illicit contact with terror groups, and that incriminating evidence will be forthcoming from searches of those devices.
It won’t. If there were any real suspicion that Winstanley had such information, the police would have arrested him rather than making a public show of a 6am raid and search they knew beforehand would turn up nothing.
This isn’t about terrorism at all. It is about frightening those opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and the West’s collusion in it, into silence. If the British state is going after someone like Winstanley, you are supposed to conclude, they will surely soon come for me too.
Even the name of the “counter-terrorism” raid is performative: “Operation Incessantness”. The message the state wants to send is that it will not rest till it has us all behind bars.
Don’t believe this nonsense. The police have nothing on Winstanley. Exposing information about Israel and its genocide, and the British government’s culpability, is not a crime. At least not yet.
They want you to think it is, of course. They want you scared and mute. Because every time you go out and protest, you remind the world that the British government, and their bully-boys in blue, are the real criminals – for enabling genocide.
Church raid in Ukraine linked to Zelensky ‘victory plan’ – Russian diplomat
RT | October 17, 2024
An armed raid on St. Michael’s Cathedral in the Ukrainian city of Cherkasy on Thursday directly stems from the policies adopted by Kiev, which is selling out its people to the West, senior Russian diplomat Rodion Miroshnik has stated, condemning the raid.
The church, which was built two decades ago and is the largest temple in modern Ukraine, was in the process of being seized from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). The initial raid was launched during a night service by armed men in military-style clothes. In the morning, many of the faithful who answered the diocese’s call to defend the cathedral managed to oust the raiders but, hours later, a second attack succeeded.
A military chaplain with the Kiev-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), a rival of the UOC, has declared that the cathedral is now a military church. In the future it will host a center for “national patriotic education, a Sunday school and a school for chaplains,” Vladimir Pedko said on Facebook. Ukrainian officials have claimed that Thursday’s events were part of a lawful transfer of the church to the OCU.
Miroshnik, who leads a special mission in the Russian Foreign Ministry to record and expose Ukrainian crimes, denounced the seizure as “blunt and grim lawlessness covered up by the gang of [Vladimir] Zelensky.”
In a series of posts online, Miroshnik linked the raid with Zelensky’s speech in parliament the day before the raid, in which the Ukrainian leader presented to the public his ‘victory plan’ against Russia. Among other things, he offered the services of battle-hardened Ukrainian troops to Western donors, claiming that eventually they could replace American soldiers stationed in Europe.
“Zelensky almost directly said that Ukraine is essentially a nation-sized private military company (PMC),” Miroshnik argued.
“A PMC nation’s ideology has no place for a thousand-year-old Orthodox linchpin, which has its traditions, rules and principles,” he added. “For the Kiev regime, people are a resource, livestock. Livestock are not allowed to have stable canons of reverence for the faith of their ancestors.”
Earlier this year, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law that established the legal grounds for a likely ban on the UOC. Kiev has accused the church of doing the bidding of Russia.
Many of the UOC clerics are being prosecuted for alleged crimes, including Metropolitan Theodosius, the bishop heading the diocese headquartered at St. Michael’s Cathedral. The church was reportedly partially looted and ransacked by unknown persons, who broke into it overnight.
There has also been a legal battle between the UOC and secular authorities for the parcel of land surrounding the cathedral.
Palestinian academic wins significant victory against UK university over leaked confidential details
MEMO | October 16, 2024
Prominent Palestinian academic, activist and artist Shahd Abusalama has won a significant victory and reached a settlement agreement with Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) for an undisclosed sum, including payment of 100 per cent of her legal costs. This brings an end to Dr Abusalama’s long-running legal battle in which she alleged that the university shared confidential and derogatory information about her with third parties, including politicians and the Jewish Chronicle, a community newspaper which is in crisis following the publication of fabricated stories justifying Israel’s war against the Palestinians in Gaza.
Abusalama was born and raised in Jabalia Refugee Camp in the besieged Gaza Strip. In January 2022, she was appointed as a lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University and, almost immediately, she faced a campaign of defamation and silencing from pro-Israel, right-wing organisations protesting against her employment. SHU subjected Dr Abusalama to multiple investigations but she was cleared of all wrongdoing in an independent report by Akua Reindorf KC. Nevertheless, the parties agreed to part ways in October 2022 in a confidential agreement.
However, according to court documents submitted on Abusalama’s behalf, between August and November 2022 SHU was preparing briefings against her to various third parties, including Members of Parliament, government ministers and the media. This information led to a damaging article published by the Jewish Chronicle on 8 November 2022, which included comments from the University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Richard Calvert, in a breach of the confidential agreement. However, the university withheld the fact that Dr Abusalama had already been exonerated by Ms Reindorf’s independent report. The Jewish Chronicle article claimed, and the university denied, that senior SHU officials had reached out to the outlet specifically to discuss Dr Abusalama’s case.
The leaked details, which included information about Dr Abusalama’s departure from SHU, were revealed in the piece alongside details of the university’s new campus in the £8 billion Brent Cross development in London.
“This case is fundamentally about the right to challenge Israel’s longstanding domination of the Palestinian people without fear of reprisal from those in positions of power,” explained Shahd Abusalama. “At a time when I thought I was agreeing to part ways with Sheffield Hallam University amicably, I now know that it was suppressing the report which exonerated me, and smearing me to disreputable outlets that legitimate Israel’s genocide of my people.”
The end of this case, she added, represents one less injustice to endure during a Western-backed Israeli genocide which has led to the displacement of her family, the burning of the family home and the killing, maiming and starvation of the Palestinian people.
“This victory is not just personal. It is a victory against attempts to silence advocates for justice in Palestine, including through the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, a tool designed to protect Israel rather than combat anti-Jewish bigotry. Although the University has failed to admit its wrongdoing verbally, its latest actions speak louder than its lack of words, in particular its agreement to pay my legal costs, usually only payable by an unsuccessful party. My case highlights the multifaceted racisms and structural vulnerability that Palestinians are subjected to in Britain on a daily basis. But it also highlights that if we organise collectively and fight back, we can win.”
Dr Abusalama was represented by Liana Wood at Leigh Day who instructed Michael Sprack. She was also supported by the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC). Her victory follows [release of] a court judgement this week that anti-Zionist comments are protected by equality law in the case of Professor David Miller, who was sacked from the University of Bristol after being accused of making anti-Semitic comments when, in fact, he is a staunch critic of the Zionist state of Israel, not the Jewish people.
Sacked Bristol professor case: UK judge says anti-Zionist views ‘worthy of respect’
Press TV – October 16, 2024
An employment tribunal in the UK has concluded that holding the belief that Israel’s actions against Palestinians amount to apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide are “worthy of respect in a democratic society.”
In February, a UK judge ruled in a landmark decision that David Miller, the producer of Press TV’s ‘Palestine Declassified’ show, who was fired from the University of Bristol in 2021 for anti-Zionist views, was unfairly dismissed and subjected to discrimination.
This week, the tribunal published its 120-page judgement, which sets out why Miller’s views were protected under anti-discrimination laws.
“Although many would vehemently and cogently disagree with [Miller]’s analysis of politics and history, others have the same or similar beliefs,” Judge Rohan Pirani said in the judgement.
“We find that he has established that [the criteria] have been met and that his belief amounted to a philosophical belief.”
Miller was dismissed in 2021 after accusing Israel of wanting to “impose [its] will all over the world.”
Following his dismissal, he launched employment tribunal proceedings claiming unfair dismissal, breach of contract and discrimination or victimization on grounds of religion or belief.
At his hearing, he made clear that anti-Zionism was not the same as anti-Semitism, and was not a “racist set of ideas.” He also described Gaza as an “open air prison.”
He said that Zionism was “ideologically bound to lead to the practices of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide in pursuit of territorial control and expansion.”
Zillur Rahman, who represented Miller, called it a “landmark case” which “marks a pivotal moment in the history of our country for those who believe in upholding the rights of Palestinians.”
The judgement noted that Miller had expertise on the subject of Zionism.
On the academic’s anti-Zionism beliefs, Pirani said, “We conclude that they have played a significant role in his life for many years. We are satisfied that they are genuinely held.”
“He is and was a committed anti-Zionist and his views on this topic have played a significant role in his life for many years.”
The panel said his beliefs were “worthy of respect in a democratic society, [are] not incompatible with human dignity and [do] not conflict with the fundamental rights of others.”
“[Miller]’s opposition to Zionism is not opposition to the idea of Jewish self-determination … but rather, as he defines it, to the exclusive realization of Jewish rights to self-determination within a land that is home to a very substantial non-Jewish population,” Pirani added.
The judgement was criticized in February by the London-based Union of Jewish Students (UJS), a body representing university Jewish societies and Jewish students.
“UJS believes this may set a dangerous precedent about what can be lawfully said on campus about Jewish students and the societies at the center of their social life. This will ultimately make Jewish students less safe,” it said.
Tim Walz Ducks Free Speech Debate in Evasive Interview Over Misinformation Crackdown
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | October 14, 2024
In an interview with Fox News Sunday’s Shannon Bream, Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee Tim Walz found himself in the hot seat over his stance on free speech, particularly regarding so-called “misinformation” and “hate speech.” Walz, who has previously expressed a desire to limit certain forms of expression, gave an evasive and meandering response when asked to clarify his position.
Walz’s comments have been the subject of concern, especially following his assertion that “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech” if he and Kamala Harris win the upcoming election.
When Bream pressed him on who would ultimately have the power to define “misinformation,” Walz sidestepped the question. Instead, he launched into a lengthy discussion about book bans and violent threats, avoiding the central issue of free speech restrictions.
Bream’s attempt to distinguish between threats and misinformation resulted in yet another detour from Walz, who again brought up book banning without offering any substantive answer on misinformation. His unwillingness to engage directly on the topic of free speech raised further concerns that under a Harris-Walz administration, the government itself could become the arbiter of what constitutes “misinformation.”
The implications of Walz’s remarks are troubling for advocates of free speech. In his convoluted responses, Walz seemed to blur the lines between genuine threats and dissenting opinions, a tactic that has left many questioning the true intent behind his push to regulate speech. By conflating hate speech with misinformation, Walz opens the door to potential government overreach that could infringe on the First Amendment rights of Americans.
While Walz insists that he supports the First Amendment, his reluctance to differentiate between dangerous threats and controversial speech raises red flags about the future of open discourse in America.
Related: Walz’s War on Words: A Blatant Distortion of the First Amendment
Democrat Congresswomen Tell Social Media Platforms to “Quickly and Decisively” Censor Hurricane “Misinformation”
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | October 11, 2024
Despite recent pushback for politicians encouraging social media platforms to increase censorship online, in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, a cadre of Democratic House representatives from the affected regions have appealed to major social media platforms to intensify their efforts to censor alleged “misinformation” related to the storms.
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
“We write to your platforms with an urgent request on behalf of states affected by the devastation of Hurricane Helene and those currently being impacted by Hurricane Milton,” the letter states. “In the aftermath of Helene, we have witnessed a troubling surge in misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and scams that are hindering recovery efforts and exploiting vulnerable individuals and families.”
The representatives say that they are concerned about the proliferation of false claims and blame these reportedly false claims for the hindering of recovery efforts. The congresswomen also say that social media posts are undermining public confidence in institutions.
The call for a crackdown on misinformation was articulated in a letter addressed to seven major social media entities, including Meta, X, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, Snap, and Instagram. Authored by Representatives Deborah Ross (D-N.C.), Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), Nikema Williams (D-Ga.), and Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.), the letter alleges that misinformation is having a dire impact.
The letter doesn’t directly demand censorship of alleged misinformation, but it does put pressure on platforms to police speech, saying that they have the “power and the responsibility” to “improve the digital spaces.”
The congresswomen say that they “strongly encourage” platforms to act “quickly and decisively.”
In a press conference today, President Biden dismissed some of the criticism of the response to the hurricane as “lies” and said, “Those who have been spreading these lies to try to undermine the opposition, they are going to pay a price for it.”
The political pressure on social media platforms to step in regarding a major event echoes what happened during the Covid pandemic.
During the pandemic, the call for online censorship by politicians and health authorities under the guise of combating misinformation became a contentious issue. This initiative, aimed at preventing the spread of allegedly harmful or misleading information about the virus, its transmission, and treatments, led to a wide array of interventions by social media platforms and tech companies.
As part of these efforts, platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube introduced policies to flag, remove, or demote content that contradicted the evolving understanding of health authorities such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The intent was supposedly to protect public health; however, the execution of these policies often resulted in the suppression of legitimate discourse and the removal of content that later proved to be accurate.
Adversarial Process or Oppo Research? Judge Agrees To Release More Trump Material Before the Election
By Jonathan Turley | October 11, 2024
It appears that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan and Special Counsel Jack Smith are not done yet in releasing material in advance of the election. In a previous column, I criticized the release of Smith’s 180-page brief before the election as procedurally irregular and politically biased, a criticism shared by CNN’s senior legal analyst and other law professors. Nevertheless, on Thursday, Judge Chutkan agreed to a request from Smith to unseal exhibits and evidence in advance of the election.
The brief clearly contains damning allegations, including witness accounts, for Trump. The objection to the release of the brief was not a defense of any actions taken on January 6th by the former president or others, but rather an objection to what even the court admitted was an “irregular” process.
As discussed earlier, Smith has been unrelenting in his demands for a trial before the election. He has even demanded that Donald Trump be barred from standard appellate options in order to expedite his trial.
Smith never fully explained the necessity of holding a trial before the election beyond suggesting that voters should see the trial and the results — assaulting the very premise of the Justice Department’s rule against such actions just before elections.
To avoid allegations of political manipulation of cases, the Justice Department has long followed a policy against making potentially influential filings within 60 or 90 days of an election. One section of the Justice Department manual states “Federal prosecutors… may never select the timing of any action, including investigative steps, criminal charges, or statements, for the purpose of affecting any election.”
Even if one argues that this provision is not directly controlling or purely discretionary, the spirit of the policy is to avoid precisely the appearance in this case: the effort to manipulate or influence an election through court filings.
With no trial date for 2025, there is no reason why Smith or Chutkan would adopt such an irregular process. The court could have slightly delayed these filings until after the approaching election or it could have sealed the filings.
If there is one time where a court should err on the side of avoiding an “irregular” process, it is before a national election. What may look like simply an adversarial process to some looks like oppo research to others. Delaying the release would have avoided any appearance of such bias.
For Smith, the election has long been the focus of his filings and demands for an expedited process. Smith knows that this election is developing into the largest jury verdict in history. Many citizens, even those who do not like Trump, want to see an end to the weaponization of the legal system, including Smith’s D.C. prosecution. Trump has to lose the election for Smith to be guaranteed a trial in the case.
Chutkan has given the Trump team just seven days to oppose her order. That would still allow the material to make it into the public (and be immediately employed by the media and Harris campaign) just days before the election. The move will only increase criticism that this looks like a docket in the pocket of the DNC.
It is telling that, once again, the timing just works out to the way that is most politically impactful. Many are left with a Ned Flanders moment of “well, if that don’t put the “dink” in co-inky-dink.”
Arizona State University Caught in Free Speech Tug-of-War Over Gov-Funded “Disinformation” Battle
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | October 9, 2024
Arizona State University (ASU) is a public school and therefore undisputed subject to the US Constitution’s free speech rules. Yet a new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) demonstrates that it was prominently involved in working with, and on behalf of the US government. To affect free speech.
That would be a blatant example of what Congress is investigating and what the critics are calling Big Tech-(Big) Government collusion, given that the target of the “collaboration” the university was involved in was online “disinformation.”
The thing to remember when talking about this collusion is that the current White House had enough wits about it to never make a “beeline” reaching the end result of censorship. From what is known from the congressional probe and the Twitter Files alone, this was always instead a meandering effort that included many seemingly intermediary and/or legitimate actors.
According to James Rushmore for Racket News, in this case, ASU was the recipient of grants (and, in line with the overall “process” – the purpose of the one given in January 2024 and reported by the Washington Examiner is not clearly stated). The grant though did come from the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC).
In and of itself, not ring many alarm bells – until the reason behind it, and the activities of GEC are taken into account. Those activities, in the case of ASU’s involvement, meant working with government agencies to flag what was decided to be disinformation, but also something referred to as “falsified media.”
The obsession with “Russian disinformation” featured here as well, a hallmark of “arguments” of the political party that came to power in 2020 in the US. But also a hallmark that had been introduced into public discourse with the party’s defeat four years earlier. The claims have since, but it seems to no avail, been thoroughly debunked.
ASU’s role was to contribute by developing “or refining” automated tools and techniques to pinpoint the specter of “fake news,” “disinformation,” and, “(foreign) propaganda.”
The public university’s involvement didn’t stop there, since another project saw it become a US Department of Defense DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) subcontractor.
“Falsified media” was once again supposed to be the target, with ASU teaming up with Kitware software company based in New York to give spies a system capable of detecting how media, branded as such, work, and what algorithms they use.
Fearful of the Public, Western Leaders Turn to Censorship
By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 07.10.2024
On Saturday, former US First Lady Hillary Clinton called for increased federal regulation of the internet and repealing Section 230. “If the platforms… don’t moderate and monitor the content, we lose total control,” she said, raising the question of who “we” represents in that statement.
From the recent purge of YouTube accounts, including those from Mark Sleboda, Rachel Blevins, Glenn Diesen, DD Geopolitics, Fiorella Isabel, Larry Johnson, and Eva K. Bartlett, it is clear that the Western leaders are scared of their populations finding out the truth about their policies and actions.
“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people,” Former US President John F. Kennedy.
“That’s what they’re afraid of,” Sleboda, an expert in geopolitical relations and a frequent guest on Sputnik Radio, told The Final Countdown. “They don’t trust you to hear an alternate view from the official US government narrative and come to what they consider the right political conclusions.”
Many Americans were taught that freedom was proof-positive that Western-style democracies were superior to other systems.
In separate interviews, Sleboda and Blevins both said that their channels were taken down without warning or strikes. Both were accused of violating YouTube’s policies on hate speech and said their appeals were denied within minutes.
“Just anyone who is critical of a US foreign policy, of hegemony, has had their YouTube channels deleted,” Sleboda contended.
While the censorship technically came from Alphabet, the mega-monolith tech company that owns both Google and YouTube, a comprehensive program between the US government and large social media companies has slowly been revealed over the past couple of years making the line one without distinction.
“My lawyer called that First Amendment censorship via proxy, or government censorship via proxy,” Political cartoonist and The Final Countdown co-host Ted Rall explained. “The US government has reached out to big tech companies, talked to people like [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg and so on, and said, ‘we want you to control and squish what we call misinformation and disinformation.’”
With the internet practically ubiquitous in modern society, an expansion of the First Amendment to public and private sectors of the internet is needed to protect our speech rights.
“What does the First Amendment actually mean in today’s age when just about everyone is on social media or on the internet in some way, and it has become sort of the new public square?” asked Blevins, an independent journalist, and host of The Backstory on Radio Sputnik. “What are we okay with when it comes to the ongoing censorship? Because I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon.”
Even if the government were removed from the equation, and censorship came exclusively from the tech companies themselves they have become so powerful that acts of self-censorship would be indistinguishable from government-ordered censorship, especially during wartime.
In post-9/11 America, large media companies kept dissenting voices off the air, limiting the reach of those who, for example, opposed the war in Iraq.
“And you get that corporate mentality of what will the advertisers think?” legendary Gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson argued in an August 2002 interview with Media Report.
“A kind of we’re all in this together thinking.” The consolidation of the internet from disparate groups of message boards and newsgroups into a handful of omnipresent tech companies raises that specter again.
“As we saw this weekend, YouTube can come in and just delete your channel and take your life’s work away from you,” decried Blevin, noting that her channel was backed up on the free speech platform Rumble.
The majority of the deleted accounts offered views that opposed the NATO-led proxy war in Ukraine and/or Western support of Israel. As the war drums beat ever louder in Europe, the Middle East, and the South Pacific, not to mention the US Presidential election next month, the crackdown is likely to increase.
“They haven’t really thrown out the term election interference just yet, but I have a feeling that’s coming in some way,” warned Blevins.
“We’ll tell our grandchildren about the golden age of a global internet,” before censorship took it over, predicted Sleboda. “I think we’re going to see our internet fractured into either individual states’ internets or geopolitical block’s internets. And I think the process has already begun,” he warned.
Fact-Checking or Fact-Shielding? Twitter Files Journalist Slams PolitiFact’s Defense of Government Pressure on Big Tech
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | October 7, 2024
Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact, a Meta fact-checking partner, has decided that the Biden-Harris administration is not engaged in censorship at an industrial scale.
This claim made by vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance is false, PolitiFact has asserted, because the Biden-Harris White House “contacting” (according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, they were contacted to be pressured) social media companies to flag content for removal “didn’t cross the line into coercion.”
Not only that but pressuring these companies (yet allegedly never coercing) to censor online speech is not a threat to democracy, PolitiFact was told by a Colombia professor – if the censors decide that speech is disinformation about Covid or election results.
The scale and nature of the way the US government leaned on tech companies to stifle speech that did not suit its political agenda is, to date, best revealed in the Twitter Files.
One of the journalists who worked on publishing the internal documents, Michael Shellenberger, now examined this PolitiFact “verdict” and the arguments the organization used. He rejects the notion that suppressing voters’ free speech is somehow “not a threat to democracy.”
Shellenberger was equally unimpressed by PolitiFact trying to explain its opinion regarding Vance’s claim by referring to the Supreme Court, which they said ruled it was not unconstitutional for the government to exert the kind of pressure it did.
“But the Court did not consider the US government’s pressure of Meta or many other cases of government demands for censorship,” Shellenberger writes and notes that the ruling (in the Murthy v Missouri case) was based on the judges deciding there were no legal grounds to bring the case.
To the question – as old as the rise of the fact-checking industry – why did a fact-checker (in this case, PolitiFact) get things wrong, the journalist suggests it’s more a case of “playing on the same team”.
PolitiFact, he writes, is “part and parcel of the Censorship Industrial Complex.”
Shellenberger goes into the many instances of those, either while they were in power, such as Hillary Clinton, or with a lot of power, like Bill Gates, openly advocating for censorship.
As for how the US government, despite the country’s constitution, became prone to stifling speech and manipulating public opinion at home, the answer could be the “lesson learned” from decades of doing the same abroad.
Namely, it works.
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The Great Recycling Scam
By Dr. Vernon Coleman – 21st Century Wire – September 2, 2022
Recycling was introduced, worldwide, as a tool to teach citizens to become compliant.
Forcing citizens to sort their rubbish into up to nine separate bags or boxes every week had absolutely nothing to do with ‘saving the planet’ and everything to do with teaching citizens (through a mixture of fines and shame) to behave ‘responsibly’ i.e. to do as they were told without looking too closely at the rationale of what they were being told to do.
The recycling never had anything to do with protecting the planet, of course. Most of the rubbish sorted, washed and collected in the UK was taken abroad, by lorry or ship or train, and burnt or dumped. It was, quite simply, impractical and not cost effective to recycle the material that had been collected. And, of course, collecting the sorted rubbish involved massive costs in terms of cash and pollution.
Today, the recycling business has reached an apogee of lunacy. Councils introduce ever more complex rules and fees. They refuse to take away much of the waste that is collected. And those wanting to take their rubbish to a ‘recycling’ centre will probably have to make an appointment and answer a host of questions.
It is no surprise that fly-tipping has become a major problem. The biggest causes of plastic in the sea are dumped fishing gear and plastic waste (much of it officially designated as recycled) which has been dumped by ships.
The good news, however, is that in Britain, recycling rates are falling. More and more people have become aware that the whole recycling movement was just another piece of manipulative trickery.
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Weaponized Journalism: 2021 Sayer Ji Interview with NPR
- Beyond Netanyahu: what Israel’s election means for Palestinians
- Lithuania plans universal conscription
- Lies, Damn Lies, and Ukraine News
- Financial Times rejects Nordic demands to correct Putin call story – media
- The Case for Less Unity in Europe
- Ukraine expands minority rights under EU pressure – but Russians remain excluded
- Albania takes anti-riot crackdown cue from France
- The interest of the House of Rothschild in Ukraine
- Pentagon fires top military planner
- If Americans Knew
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- No Tricks Zone
- Germany’s Green Energy Transition Becoming Increasingly Expensive…Another 6 Trillion Euros!
- Sudden Stratospheric Warming, Powerful El Niño Combination May Lead To Extreme Europe Cold, Energy Crisis!
- Two New Studies Find Thwaites Glacier Melt Cannot Be Driven By Human Activity Or A Warming Ocean
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
