It was never going away
You didn’t really think the Covid Pass had disappeared did you? Knowing my readers, I’m guessing you didn’t.
Yesterday, it was announced that the World Health Organization (WHO) has entered into an agreement with the European Union (EU) to use their digital COVID-19 certification system. This will be in order to establish a global system to “help facilitate global mobility and protect citizens across the world from on-going and future health threats, including pandemics”.
Going by the last few years, “global mobility” most likely means restricting the mobility of the unvaccinated and “protecting citizens” means only allowing vaccinated passengers to travel together.
The WHO says this is just the first building block in their Global Digital Health Certification Network (GDHCN). WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wants to offer all WHO Member States access to this digital health tool, which is based on “the principles of equity, innovation, transparency and data protection and privacy”.
Equity is an immediate red flag word, whilst transparency probably means telling everyone whether you are vaccinated or not.
Since the EU Covid Pass was launched it has issued more than 2.3 billion certificates. The certificates don’t only cover vaccination but also include tests and recovery. The EU claim it facilitated safe travel for citizens and supported Europe’s hard-hit tourism industry. It says that the passes allowed the coordinated lifting of restrictions from the moment it was possible.
The EU Digital COVID Certificate Regulation was set to expire at the end of June but never one to let a good crisis go to waste, the WHO has jumped in and will takeover the system this month. It then aims to progressively develop the system in the coming months.
Some might think that this will only be used for more regular vaccines. Think again. One of the first things the WHO will do with the new system is to converge digital COVID-19 certificates. This will mean all certificates will meet EU standards, validating digital signatures to prevent fraud.
The WHO says it won’t have any access to underlying personal data but national governments will.
Commenting on the latest news, Christine Anderson MEP said “During COVID, we have all been made into “potential threats” whose individual freedoms and rights must be curtailed to “protect society”!
Rob Roos MEP said “The #Coronapas is a discriminatory instrument that has only created a false sense of safety.”
and George Orwell said “Bloody hell, guys. It’s worse than I thought”.
Dear World – Writers Write
This was never going away was it. The amount of money spent on it was one thing but the temptation to retain such a huge piece of bio-control over the population was another.
We wondered why the unvaccinated ICD-10 codes had been implemented. Another conspiracy theory come true.
June 6, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | European Union, Human rights, WHO |
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched an updated “Rumor Control” hub aimed at enlisting the public to help stop the spread of “misinformation.”
The updated webpage, first launched in August 2022, includes a new video that defines misinformation as information that is “false, inaccurate, or misleading … spreading intentionally and unintentionally.”
The agency said its Rumor Control hub provides the public with tools to identify and report on “misinformation.”
“Some individuals and organizations promote opinions online disguised as fact,” the FDA site says, adding that misinformation spreads “six times faster than facts.”
The video warns that people may be misled by headlines or out-of-context statements, particularly when they are shared by a trusted person.
But, according to the video, people can determine whether something is actually true by getting the information from three types of “authoritative” sources that can be trusted to provide real facts: medical journals, a nonprofit “fact checker” or a government website.
“The FDA is concerned ‘health misinformation’ is negatively impacting the public’s health,” the agency said. The FDA tweeted the video to promote the hub.
The Rumor Control site includes links for reporting misinformation on all major social media sites. By following the links, users can find instructions to mark posts as “false news,” “false information” or “inappropriate content,” depending on the website.
“Bernie’s Tweets” on Twitter called the website the FDA’s “‘snitch’ page.”
https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/status/1664917637455855617
“The federal government continues to try and fool the public into thinking misinformation is a dire problem and a crime,” Dr. Meryl Nass wrote on her Substack. “Misinformation is whatever the government does not want you to know.”
Nass added, “Clearly, the feds are getting nervous that their cons on the people are being recognized.”
The hub provides a poster that explains what misinformation is and how to address it “in language even a third grader can understand,” Nass wrote.
It explains that trusted authorities’ recommendations may change because science changes, but people should always “trust science.”
The site includes FDA-approved facts about COVID-19, sunscreen and supplements.
FDA’s project to ‘save lives’ by policing online content
Since FDA Commissioner Robert Califf began his second tenure as the agency’s head in February 2022, he has made combating “misinformation” one of his top priorities, arguing it is “a leading cause of preventable death in America now” — though “this cannot be proved,” he said.
In an Aug. 22, 2022, article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Califf wrote that “the global information environment has been contaminated by misinformation and disinformation.” He added:
“The FDA must be more proactive in preempting and countering misinformation [but there is a need for] collaboration across sectors to create an information environment in which decisions [by] consumers, patients, and clinicians are more likely to be informed by reliable information based on high-quality evidence from trustworthy sources.”
The Rumor Control initiative is one of several such initiatives launched during Califf’s tenure.
For example, the FDA also created a series of fact-checking YouTube videos — “Just a Minute” — that features Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, addressing COVID-19 “myths.”
The FDA also uses Twitter to tweet about misinformation, and Instagram to post memes encouraging vaccination.
Califf said that he believes “in the power of social media being used for good,” Fierce Pharma reported.
According to The Associated Press (AP), the FDA also can use a tactic known as “prebunking,” by which the agency defines something as “misinformation” before readers have an opportunity to encounter it elsewhere as possibly true.
The FDA has the ability to do this because Google “prioritizes credible websites” like the FDA’s in its searches.
Rumor Control works as a prebunking strategy that “debunks a long list of false claims about vaccines” and presents them first in people’s Google searches, according to the AP.
Califf previously worked at Verily, a life sciences company owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc.
Fact-checking the FDA
The most current version of the FDA’s fact check on COVID-19, linked from the Rumor Control hub, assures readers, for example, that vaccination does not make people more susceptible to the latest variants of COVID-19 and that the vaccine is safe for pregnant and breastfeeding women.
But just last week, the Cleveland Clinic published a peer-reviewed study that found the more doses of COVID-19 vaccines a person receives, the higher the risk of getting the virus.
A number of recent studies revealed striking risks to pregnant women who get the COVID-19 vaccine and identified serious flaws in the methods government agencies used to conclude they are safe.
Government health officials knew about several of those studies, including Pfizer’s own clinical trial studies, before they recommended the shots for pregnant women.
The FDA also came under fire for granting Emergency Use Authorization for the COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 12-15 despite having identified that “safety signals” existed for myocarditis in young males following COVID-19 jabs.
The FDA, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, withheld this information from the public.
In the last two years, the FDA also was widely criticized for granting approval to an unproven Alzheimer’s drug, for its delayed response to a contaminated baby formula plant and for approving the respiratory syncytial virus vaccine for pregnant women despite concerns about premature births identified in clinical trials, among many other issues.
Nass wrote that in 1992, Congress passed the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, which allowed the FDA to charge manufacturers to regulate their products, compromising its integrity to such an extent that the FDA has become “a rogue agency for hire.”
Most funding the FDA uses to evaluate whether drugs are safe and effective comes from industry, she wrote, and most drugs seeking approval get fast-tracked and evaluated in just six months.
Manufacturers of drugs that are dangerous can often avoid liability by working with the FDA to write the label in such a way that meets disclosure requirements.
“So if you are looking to avoid misinformation, the FDA is the last place you might go to for truth, honesty, ethics and consideration of the public’s welfare,” Nass wrote.
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
June 6, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, United States |
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The Ukrainian government imposes severe restrictions on Western reporters, forcing them to show only what the military wants them to see and stripping the credentials of those who tell uncomfortable truths, the news site Semafor reported on Monday.
Journalists from NBC News, the New York Times, CNN, and The New Yorker have all clashed with the Ukrainian government after they strayed outside the strict limits imposed on their work by Kiev, Semafor reported.
“The authorities only allow press tours with press officers, where they show off in front of the camera and are afraid to show the real situation,” Ukrainian photographer Maxim Dondyuk wrote on Instagram in May after Ukrainian authorities threatened to strip his press accreditation. Dondyuk had taken pictures of the dire conditions in Ukrainian trenches for a New Yorker article.
New York Times journalist Thomas Gibbons-Neff has had his credentials revoked on several occasions, including after he reported that Ukrainian forces were using banned cluster munitions. Magnum photographer Antoine d’Agata had his access denied after documenting the psychological suffering of Ukrainian soldiers in a mental health facility. An NBC News crew had their press passes revoked after they traveled to Crimea and interviewed locals who were happy to live in Russia and supported the Russian military.
Journalists working in Ukraine have to sign a document stating that they will follow rules set by the military, and can only interview approved officials and visit approved areas. Furthermore, three journalists working in Kiev told Semafor that reporters have been asked “to take lie detector tests to prove they aren’t Russian agents.”
Reporters have no choice but to comply, or be left out of work. One anonymous journalist said that Ukrainian authorities “might snatch my press credential” if they found out he complained about the situation to Semafor. Others have been more eager to accept the bargain, with Semafor noting that “most Western news outlets treat Ukrainian soldiers as, at some level, ‘our boys’.”
Some Ukrainian reporters, however, feel that the restrictions are counterproductive. Dondyuk said that they inevitably lead to “only stupid propaganda” making it out of Ukraine, while Nastya Stanko, a correspondent for Ukrainian news site Hromadske, said: “It’s more important to have journalists who can honestly show what happens on the front lines, and I’m not sure it’s clear to everyone in the army.”
Aside from losing accreditation, journalists who anger the Ukrainian government can face more serious consequences. After reporting from Crimea, NBC News correspondent Keir Simmons found his name published on the ‘Mirotvorets’ (Peacemaker) blacklist for “crimes” against the country. Linked to the Ukrainian state, Mirotvorets posts the names and personal details of Ukraine’s “enemies,” some of whom have been murdered after their inclusion in the database. When someone on the list is killed or dies in other circumstances, text reading “liquidated” is imposed over the individual’s photograph on the site.
June 6, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Ukraine |
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In another censorship move, YouTube has deleted several high-profile interviews with US Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Among the videos removed from the platform was an hour-and-a-half-long podcast featuring Kennedy in conversation with boxing legend Mike Tyson, as noticed by video journalist Matt Orfalea. This takedown occurred just ten days ago, following the disappearance of another RFK Jr. interview – this time with comedian Theo Von – from the video-sharing platform.
The two deleted interviews, both dating back to 2020, had garnered significant popularity among YouTube’s vast user base. The interview conducted by Von had received almost a quarter of a million views, while Tyson’s podcast with Kennedy had been viewed almost half a million times. This popularity underscores the wide reach these videos had and the potential impact of their removal.
YouTube’s justification for this sudden takedown remains unclear, particularly as Kennedy is currently running for President and the videos were safely on the platform for almost three years.
The only explanation provided to viewers was a vague notification stating, “This video has been removed for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.” However, this statement offers no concrete details about which specific guidelines were violated, leaving users to speculate about the exact reasons behind the removal.
Some observers are questioning whether the takedown could be related to YouTube’s policy on COVID-19 misinformation. However, if this was indeed the case, the timing of the removal raises additional questions. Both interviews were initially posted during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and remained online throughout the period, Orfalea reported. It’s only now, in the wake of Kennedy’s escalating 2024 Presidential campaign, that the videos have been removed.
The timing is curious and might suggest that the removal is politically motivated, though this is purely speculation. If the deletion was due to violations of YouTube’s COVID-19 misinformation policy, why would it take effect long after the pandemic peak and just as Kennedy’s presidential campaign is gaining momentum?
In the video, Kennedy also says he believes the CIA was involved in the assassination of his father, Robert F. Kennedy.
While we await further clarification from YouTube on its actions, these events underscore the ongoing debate around digital content censorship and the power held by tech giants. It raises questions about the transparency of their content regulation processes and the potential for the exertion of political influence.
June 5, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | CIA, United States |
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The European Union’s Internal Market Commissioner, Thierry Breton, was apparently miffed that Elon Musk withdrew Twitter from the EU’s “voluntary code of practice against disinformation.” He was sufficiently put out by Twitter’s withdrawal from the “voluntary code” that he felt the need to publicly reprimand Twitter for not gratefully submitting to the European Union’s expert guidance: “You can run but you can’t hide… Beyond voluntary commitments, fighting disinformation will be legal obligation under Digital Services Act as of August 25th.”
The declared aim of the new Digital Service Act is “to contribute to the proper functioning of the internal market for intermediary services by setting out harmonised rules for a safe, predictable and trusted online environment that facilitates innovation and in which fundamental rights enshrined in the Charter, including the principle of consumer protection, are effectively protected.”
Who can argue against a “safe, predictable and trusted online environment”? Who would argue against “consumer protection”? And who would argue against Mr Breton’s commitment to the fight against “disinformation”? I certainly would, because when a person or institution in a position of great power endorses values like “predictability,” rails against “disinformation,” and promises to keep us all “safe” on the internet, you can be sure that it will be “safety,” “predictability,” and “disinformation,” as viewed from their self-serving ideological and political perspective.
I am just as worried as Mr Breton about “disinformation,” but my chief concern is with disinformation coming from official sources, which can do an extraordinary amount of harm due to the extraordinary reach and prestige of official organisations. It is these same organisations that Mr Breton would like to put in charge of policing “disinformation”: organisations like national governments, that have been among the most frequent perpetrators of false and misleading information, on matters of no small moment, from the efficacy and safety of Covid vaccines, masks and lockdowns to the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the true standing of climate “science,” and the potential harms to the economy and food supply chain of aggressive climate interventions such as the expropriation of farmland.
The Digital Services Act is an endless maze of complicated regulations worthy of a team of lawyers. Seeing as I don’t have a budget to hire a team of lawyers, I decided to skim through the Act for myself. It does not make for pleasant bedtime reading, not only because it is a morass of complicated legalese, but also, because what hides behind this legalese is an attempt by EU politicians to get social media platforms under their thumb, through
- the obligation on the part of social media companies to periodically submit content moderation and “risk mitigation” reports to EU bureacrats
- EU supervision of social media platforms’ policing of “harmful” information, which could potentially include health misinformation as well as “illegal hate speech”
- the creation of new emergency powers in the European Commission to “require” social media platforms to take actions to “prevent, eliminate or limit” any use of their services that might “contribute” to a “threat” to public security or public health
… and all backed up by crippling fines of up to 6% of a company’s worldwide turnover for non-compliance. Yes, you heard that right: up to six percent of a company’s worldwide turnover.
At bottom, the Digital Services Act is an attempt to ramp up the level of control that EU bureacrats have over the flow of information on social media platforms. You would have to have a very short historical memory to think that broad powers of censorship will generally be used to advance the cause of truth and justice. Whether Mr Thierry Breton and his colleagues will be successful in forcing social media companies to do their bidding, this much is clear: the Digital Services Act creates a European legal environment that is increasingly hostile to free speech.
June 4, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | European Union, Human rights |
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More revelations about the secretive Counter Disinformation Unit
A clandestine UK Government unit dubbed the Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU) has been implicated in a troubling endeavor to curb and control online discussions about the controversial Covid-19 lockdown policies. The covert operation allegedly involved the collaboration of social media companies in a strategic bid to quell supposed domestic “threats.”
According to revelations from Freedom of Information requests and data protection requests from The Telegraph, posts critical of Covid-19 restrictions, including those questioning mass vaccination of children, were systematically removed.
Social media companies are now under scrutiny following allegations that their technologies were deployed to thwart the wide circulation or promotion of posts tagged as potentially problematic by the CDU or its Cabinet Office equivalent.
The files revealed the surreptitious monitoring of critics of the Government’s Covid plans. Artificial intelligence firms were reportedly enlisted by the government to search social media platforms, flagging any discussions opposing vaccine passports.
In a startling revelation, the BBC was implicated in clandestine government policy discussions regarding this alleged misinformation.
The CDU, hosted by the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS), operated a “trusted flagger” system with major social media companies. This mechanism expedited requests for content removal. The CDU, still operational, was formed in 2019, initially focusing on the European elections, later shifting its attention to the pandemic.
Critics, including MPs and freedom of speech campaigners, have labeled the revelations as “truly chilling” and a strategy tantamount to “censoring British citizens” — a tactic likened to those of the Chinese Communist Party.
“Any attempt by governments to shut down legitimate debate is hugely concerning, but to discover that DCMS actively sought to censor the views of those who were speaking up for children’s welfare is truly chilling,” said Miriam Cates, a Conservative MP to The Telegraph.
A government spokesman refuted the allegations, stating that the unit was designed to track narratives and trends using publicly available information to safeguard public health and national security. The spokesman insisted that the unit never monitored individuals and had a strict policy against referring journalists and MPs to social media platforms.
June 3, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, UK |
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The European Union will stress test Twitter and other platforms to see how well they comply with the upcoming censorship law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), whose enforcement will begin in August. In a similar style program to that created by the Chinese Communist Party, where government enforcers visit tech companies directly, a team of 10 digital specialists will visit the companies later this month, said Thierry Breton, the EU Commissioner for Internal Market.
The test will help companies learn how the DSA will be enforced. Breton, who will also visit the companies, said the team will review how platforms respond to what is problematic content under the law including content that has been flagged by the EU and content that has not been flagged.
The team will also review why some content is not flagged, citing an example of “fake news that caused disturbances but was promoted because it generated virality and advertising.”
“Did you have enough moderators beforehand? Was it promoted by the algorithm?” Breton said. “We want to do this for real, in the real world, so they see how it happens, and above all so they prepare,” Breton said.
Some of the findings from the test will be made public while some will only be communicated to the companies.
In an interview where he talked about the visits to the social media companies, Breton said: “I’m not threatening anyone. We are here to help companies comply with our new law.”
Last week, after Twitter withdrew from the voluntary Code of Conduct on Disinformation, Breton warned: “You can run but you can’t hide,” adding that “fighting disinformation will be legal obligation under #DSA as of August 25.”
June 3, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | European Union, Human rights |
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In the old Soviet Union, citizens were not required to be a member of the Communist Party. But if you were not, you could never expect to rise far professionally or socially. You would never be the head of a department in university, a factory manager, much less the General Secretary. They were always recruited out of the party.
Party membership was proof of loyalty. It was a demonstration that you were willing to put loyalty over morality. Rising high in the party also meant that others in the ruling class likely had something on you. No one gained power without other powerful people knowing of your grim deeds. That way there was mutual trust, or, to put it another way, mutual blackmail.
Honor among thieves only holds true for those who are guilty of thievery.
The system was the same in Nazi Germany. You didn’t have to join the party but if you refused, you could not rise in academia, military, or government. And everyone knew the rules. The party controlled the state, and members of the party controlled you. Only the members of the party were trusted with responsibility and rewarded with emoluments.
We are headed this way in the US today.
The party in question is the lockdown party. Far from having repudiated this brutal, rights-violating, and ineffective method of pandemic management, the ruling class is doubling down. Even more than that, those who participated in the fiasco are being rewarded. Indeed, participation is now seen as proof of loyalty and a demonstration that one can be trusted by the people who matter.
That’s my best read on why Mandy Cohen is being pulled away from her perch in North Carolina, where she led a catastrophic pandemic response, to be the replacement for Rochelle Walensky as head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She is a faithful member of the lockdown party and thus demonstrates her willingness to do it again should the occasion arise.
This is not going to help the CDC recover from its terrible reputation.
Going through her timeline is a strange blast from the past of heartbreaking fear-mongering, pseudo-science, and propaganda. She passed with flying colors all three tests of compliance: closures, masking, and vaccine mandates.
If you believed there was ever any science behind any of this, Mandy inadvertently revealed otherwise. They made decisions based on some weird club of lockdowners that gained a feeling of power and control simply by chit-chatting on the phone with each other. It was all arbitrary and completely disregarding of human rights.
She also took the lead in broadcasting bad information from the CDC that has since been repeatedly debunked.
Of course she was also nuts for masks despite no evidence that they achieved anything in mitigating virus spread. To show what a faithful party member she is, she even wore a mask with Fauci’s picture on it.
There is no mystery about why Biden tapped her. Politico spills the beans:
The CDC is also in the midst of a strategic overhaul launched by Walensky last year; a longer-term project that Cohen would be tasked with managing in an effort to better prepare the agency for the next public health emergency.
Biden officials involved in the search came away from discussions with Cohen impressed by her broad range of health experience at the federal and state levels, two of the people said, and convinced she had the ability to manage the nearly 11,000-person agency and the broader political dynamics of an administration gearing up for Biden’s re-election run.
The same is true for the National Institutes of Health. Biden has tapped Monica Bertagnolli, who has deep ties to Big Pharma and a public record of obsequious deference to her boss.
We are all hoping for a clean repudiation of these policies, and even a flip of the narrative such that participating in this disaster would be a mark against people in terms of career development. We are nowhere near that point yet.
It’s the opposite. The regime is still hiring and promoting out of the lockdown party for the future. They cannot admit error and are working to make sure they never have to do so.
And that’s how Khrushchev became Brezhnev who became Andropov who became Chernenko who became Gorbachev. Finally, it all fell apart. Let us hope we don’t have to wait 50 years this time.
Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute.
June 3, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | CDC, Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, United States |
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A UK government-funded artificial intelligence (AI) firm based in an unassuming industrial estate in Yorkshire, England, has been engaged in state surveillance, monitoring the social media posts of citizens, a recent revelation suggests.
Logically, the firm in question, has earned over £1.2 million (1.49 million USD) from government contracts to identify and analyze “disinformation” and “misinformation” spread across social media.
The AI company was started by Lyric Jain, a 27-year-old Cambridge engineering graduate, who launched the technology first during Indian elections. With one of the largest dedicated fact-checking teams globally, the company sifts through material from hundreds of thousands of media sources and all public posts on major social media platforms.
Logically has bagged lucrative deals, including a £1.2 million (1.49 million USD) contract with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and another worth up to £1.4 million (1.7 million uSD) with the Department of Health and Social Care to monitor threats to high-profile vaccine service individuals, The Telegraph reported. Its client list includes US federal agencies, the Indian electoral commission, TikTok, and Facebook.
While Logically asserts that it does not share evidence collected for the UK Government with Facebook, this partnership has ignited concerns among freedom of speech campaigners.
The company’s responsibilities grew over time, aiding in building a comprehensive picture of potentially harmful misinformation and disinformation. Documents revealed that it produced regular “Covid-19 Mis/Disinformation Platform Terms of Service Reports” for the Counter-disinformation Unit – a secretive operation within the DCMS.
A public document titled “Covid-19 Disinformation in the UK” disclosed Logically’s perspective, referring to “anti-lockdown” and “anti-Covid-19 vaccine sentiment”, along with hashtags “#sackvallance” and “#sackwhitty” as evidence of “a strong disdain for expert advice.”
Logically defended its actions, stating that it is possible for content not specifically mis- or disinformation to be included in a report if there is a potential for a narrative to be weaponized.
The firm denied limiting freedom of speech, stating: “We do not specifically monitor individuals and their behavior, nor do we make any recommendations that limit their right to free speech… We monitor content, including narratives and trends across public information environments online, to help tackle the proliferation of online harms, mis- and disinformation, and prevent real-world harms.”
The company’s practices have raised questions about freedom of speech and privacy rights. Critics argue that this case illuminates the ethical and regulatory challenges posed by the powerful convergence of artificial intelligence and big data.
June 3, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, UK |
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Yesterday, President Joe Biden announced a plan to use virtually every branch of the federal government, big business and civil society to ruthlessly suppress First Amendment protected criticism of Jewish political power and Zionism in the homeland.
The 60-page document, titled the “US National Strategy To Combat Anti-Semitism,” was created in part by Doug Emhoff, the Jewish husband of Vice President Kamala Harris. The goal of the project is to consolidate every power at Washington’s fingertips to engage in a political campaign to quell the American people’s rising awareness of the radically disproportionate influence Jewish people wield over the country.
On the law enforcement front, Washington appears to be de-emphasizing the FBI, which has suffered several reputational blows that have discredited its campaign against “white supremacy,” while continuing to expand the power of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — originally founded after 9/11 to combat Al Qaeda — in its place.
The DHS is being directed to to produce research equating concern with how Jews use political and financial power with acts of violence, host more regular workshops for all branches of law enforcement on using the law to persecute those engaging in “anti-Semitism,” increase security resources earmarked for Jewish institutions, give Jewish organizations more say over how intelligence and police resources are directed, and instruct private social media and internet companies to find and eliminate “anti-Semitic” content from their platforms.
The document, without qualification, is marbled with an egregious lack of respect for fundamental civil liberties. In one instance, there is an executive command to the Department of Treasury to convene a forum of Money Services Businesses (MSB) institutions, along with those outside of the network, to prevent online crowdfunding for what it labels “hate groups.” What constitutes a hate group — a term that is alien under traditional American jurisprudence — is not specifically defined. The project promises to reach all nations in the trans-national American sphere of influence.
The White House is also ushering in a myriad of new programs seeking to indoctrinate students on the Holocaust story and the numerous ways one could be practicing “anti-Semitism,” largely but not exclusively through the Department of Education. The Biden administration plan also expands the footprint of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM).
No agency will be immune to this politicization. The Department of Labor (DOL) will be pressuring labor unions to identify “anti-Semites” in their midst, while the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) will be expanding access to Jews engaging in the controversial practice of Kosher slaughter. USDA will also be approaching rural religious leaders and universities to impose Washington’s strategy in even the most remote small towns.
Under this plan, the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) is given the deadline of September 2023 to create political propaganda projects that “incorporate themes of countering antisemitism and other forms of hate in their artistic practice.”
The Department of the Interior (DOI), The Small Business Administration (SBA), and even the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) will all be given special tasks to train small business owners, park rangers, and guides in identifying and fighting “anti-Semitism.” Special attention is being given to rural libraries, which Washington will be transforming into outlets for promoting pro-Jewish narratives.
So far, only Representative Lauren Boebert has publicly come out against this runaway weaponization of the federal government. Jewish groups backing Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump have also criticized the move, but their concern is that it does not go far enough in targeting critics of the state of Israel.
The implementation of this plan coincides with the beginning of Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign. A massively lopsided percentage of the president’s major donors are Jewish, and his administration is one of the most heavily Jewish in US history.
June 3, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Supremacism, Social Darwinism | DHS, Human rights, United States, Zionism |
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The Israeli Knesset advanced two bills yesterday that stipulate increasing the security grip over Arab schools in Israel and easing restrictions on firing Arab teachers, local media reported.
According to Haaretz, if approved, the bills would see the Israeli authorities upping the Israeli secret service’s background checks on staff and making it easier to fire teachers who affiliate with or support anti-occupation Palestinian groups.
The bills refer to the anti-occupation groups as “terror organisations” and stipulate punishments for supporting them.
Critics of the bills say they pose serious threats to freedom of expression and would undermine the right of teachers to condemn the aggression of the Israeli occupation.
One of the bills proposes the reinstatement of a permanent Shin Bet representative to the education ministry – a position which was cancelled in 2005.
In a previous report, Yedioth Ahronoth revealed that Shin Bet has a say regarding the recruitment of new Arab teachers.
… The bill was submitted by Ami Halevy, a Likud lawmaker, in order to establish licensing of Palestinian schools dependent on their “accommodating the fundamental requirements of the Israeli school system.”
This announcement came a day after the Israel Justice Minister, Yariv Levin, told Knesset members that the supreme court must feature judges who “understand” why Jewish settlers are “not prepared” to live alongside Arabs, which ultimately underlines the cabinet members’ pro-apartheid rhetoric. … Full article
June 3, 2023
Posted by aletho |
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The World Health Organization (WHO) is proposing a set of recommendations for “social listening surveillance systems” designed to address what it describes as a “health threat” posed by online “misinformation.”
The WHO’s Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats (PRET) initiative claims “misinformation” has resulted in an “infodemic” that poses a threat — even in instances where the information is “accurate.”
PRET has raised eyebrows, at a time when the WHO’s member states are engaged in negotiations on two controversial instruments: the “pandemic treaty” and amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR).
The latest draft of the pandemic treaty contains language on how WHO member states would commit to “social listening.” Under article 18(b), WHO member states would commit to:
“Conduct regular community outreach, social listening, and periodic analysis and consultations with civil society organization and media outlets to identify the prevalence and profiles of misinformation, which contribute to design communications and messaging strategies for the public to counteract misinformation, disinformation and false news, thereby strengthening public trust and promoting adherence to public health and social measures.”
Remarking on PRET’s “social listening” proposals, Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., author of “Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom” and a former New York University liberal studies professor, told The Defender :
“The WHO’s PRET initiative is part of the UN’s attempt to institute global ‘medical’ tyranny using surveillance, ‘social listening’ and censorship. PRET is the technocratic arm of the WHO’s proposed pandemic treaty, which, if accepted by nation-states, would amount to the surrendering of national and individual sovereignty to this ‘global governance’ body.
“What better way to establish a one-world government than by using so-called global crises that must be addressed by nothing short of ‘global governance’? I remind readers that you cannot comply your way out of tyranny.”
WHO could use artificial intelligence to monitor social media conversations
A WHO document outlining the PRET initiative — “Module 1: Planning for respiratory pathogen pandemics, Version 1.0” — contains a definition of infodemic:
“Infodemic is the overabundance of information — accurate or not — which makes it difficult for individuals to adopt behaviors that will protect their health and the health of their families and communities.
“The infodemic can directly impact health, hamper the implementation of public health countermeasures and undermine trust and social cohesiveness.”
The document recommends that in response to the “infodemic,” countries should “incorporate the latest tools and approaches for shared learning and collective action established during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
According to the WHO document, this can be done if governments “establish and invest in resources for social listening surveillance systems and capacities to identify concerns as well as rumors and misinformation.”
Such resources include “new tools and approaches for social listening … using new technologies such as artificial intelligence to listen to population concerns on social media.”
According to the document:
“To build trust, it’s important to be responsive to needs and concerns, to relay timely information, and to train leaders and HCWs [healthcare workers] in risk communications principles and encourage their application.”
Risk communications “should be tailored to the community of interest, focusing on and prioritizing vulnerable groups,” the WHO said.
“Tailored” communication was a hallmark of public health efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For instance, in November 2021, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the Social Science Research Council launched the Mercury Project, which aimed “to increase uptake of COVID-19 vaccines and other recommended public health measures by countering mis- and disinformation” — in part by studying “differential impacts across socio-demographic groups.”
Similarly, PRET states that it will “incorporate the latest tools and approaches for shared learning and collective action established during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
These “tools and approaches” could be deployed during “acute respiratory events,” according to the document, which recommends that governments:
“Develop and implement communication and behavior change strategies based on infodemic insights, and test them during acute respiratory events including seasonal influenza.
“This includes implementing infodemic management across sectors, and having a coordinated approach with other actors, including academia, civil society, and international agencies.”
This is not the first time the WHO has addressed the so-called “infodemic.”
A WHO review published Sept. 1, 2022, titled “Infodemics and health misinformation: a systematic review of reviews,” found that “infodemics and misinformation … often negatively impact people’s mental health and increase vaccine hesitancy, and can delay the provision of health care.”
In the review, the WHO concluded that “infodemics” can be addressed by “developing legal policies, creating and promoting awareness campaigns, improving health-related content in mass media and increasing people’s digital and health literacy.”
And a separate, undated WHO document advises the public on how we can “flatten the infodemic curve.”
WHO, Google announce collaboration targeting ‘medical misinformation’
The WHO’s PRET proposals coincided with a new multi-year collaboration agreement with Google for the provision of “credible health-related information to help billions of people around the world respond to emerging and future public health issues.”
The agreement was announced on May 23 by Dr. Karen DeSalvo, Google’s chief health officer, on the company’s blog. She wrote:
“Information is a critical determinant of health. Getting the right information, at the right time can lead to better health outcomes for all. We saw this firsthand with the COVID-19 pandemic when it was difficult for people worldwide to find useful information online.
“We worked with the World Health Organization (WHO) on a range of efforts to help people make informed decisions about their health — from an SOS alert to surfacing locally relevant content about COVID-19 to YouTube policies on medical misinformation.”
One way Google will collaborate with the WHO is through the creation of more “knowledge panels” that will prominently appear in search results for health-related questions on the platform.
“Each day people come to Google Search looking for trustworthy information on various health conditions and symptoms,” DeSalvo wrote. “To help them access trustworthy information our Knowledge Panels cite content from reliable sources covering hundreds of conditions from the common cold to anxiety.”
“Working closely with WHO, we’ll soon expand to cover more conditions such as COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease], hypertension, type 2 diabetes, Mpox, Ebola, depressive disorder, malaria and more,” she added.
Google will make these Knowledge Panels available in several languages, including English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish.
DeSalvo’s May 23 post also addressed an ongoing collaboration between Google and the WHO, Open Health Stack (OHS), which “help[s] accelerate the digital transformation of health systems around the world” and “lower[s] the barrier to equitable healthcare.”
Google also awarded the WHO with more than $320 million “in donated Google Search advertising via ad grants” allowing the agency “to publish health topics beyond COVID-19, such as Mpox, mental health, flu, Ebola, and natural disasters.”
Google is slated to provide an additional $50 million in ad grants to the WHO this year.
According to Google, the ad grants to the WHO represent the company’s largest such donation to a single organization.
Separately, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tweeted on May 22 about the agency’s own efforts at combating purported “misinformation” and “disinformation.”
The tweet contains a 35-second video, which claims “misinformation” travels “six times faster than the facts,” while promoting the FDA’s “Rumor Control” initiative.
A top priority of FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf, “Rumor Control” was launched in August 2022 and joins other agency initiatives to fight “misinformation” and “disinformation.”
“The growing spread of rumors, misinformation and disinformation about science, medicine, and the FDA, is putting patients and consumers at risk,” according to the FDA’s Rumor Control webpage. “We’re here to provide the facts.”
The initiative asks the public to do “three easy things” to “stop rumors from spreading”: “don’t believe the rumors,” “don’t pass them along” and “get health information from trusted sources like the FDA and our government partners.”
“Rumor Control” appears to have been inspired by an initiative developed by the Virality Project, “a coalition of research entities” from six institutions “focused on supporting real-time information exchange between the research community, public health officials, government agencies, civil society organizations, and social media platforms.”
Documents released as part of the “Twitter files” in March revealed that the Virality Project, based out of the Stanford Internet Observatory, also called for the creation of a disinformation board just one day before Biden announced plans to launch his government-run Disinformation Governance Board.
Similar to PRET’s recommendations to target “accurate” information that nevertheless contradicts establishment public health narratives, the Virality Project worked with Twitter and other social media platforms, recommending they “take action even against ‘stories of true vaccine side effects’ and ‘true posts which could fuel hesitancy.’”
These censorship efforts included at least one tweet by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., chairman on leave of Children’s Health Defense.
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
June 2, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | FDA, Google, Human rights, Rockefeller Foundation, WHO |
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