Hundreds of Porsche cars immobilized in Russia
By Deng Xiaoci | Global Times | December 7, 2025
Hundreds of Porsche owners in Russia have reported that their cars had failed to start due to a widespread malfunction since November 28 with Russia’s largest Porsche dealer suggesting the possibility that the situation could be caused deliberately, while some German media outlets claimed that the issue emerged after the factory-installed alarm system was accidentally blocked via its satellite module.
Citing a statement by Porsche, Berliner Zeitung reported on December 6 that the malfunction was not caused by a design defect in the vehicles. Rather, the problems appear to be caused by the cars’ factory-installed security system. “In recent days, we have recorded an increase in customer inquiries. We assume that the cause does not lie in the design of the vehicles,” the company stated, the Berlin-based media reported.
Russia’s TASS News Agency reported on December 1 that the widespread starting failures were caused by a false activation of the factory-installed alarm system via the satellite module, Yulia Trushkova, Service Director at Russia’s largest automotive dealer group Rolf, told TASS.
The report said that the satellite connection as down across all models and engine types, meaning any vehicle can be immobilized.
“Similar situations also occur with Mercedes-Benz owners, but these are isolated cases — the cars do not turn into ‘bricks.’ Is the reason for such blockages known? Specialists are currently investigating this issue, and there is a possibility that it was done deliberately,” she concluded.
According to Daily Mail, the nationwide malfunction in Russia hit Porsche models, including prized Cayennes and Panameras, built since 2013, which are all equipped with the brand’s factory VTS satellite-security unit. The issue appeared to stem from the Vehicle Tracking System, or VTS, which is an onboard security module, it said.
Porsche VTS, a factory-installed option available on Porsche models, relies on satellites to track its location. It can send the owner alerts if there is any unauthorized movement. However, a system failure related to it may be shutting down the cars equipped with this technology, according to British Road & Track website.
Poland-based news site TVP World reported that some experts said the failures appear to be tied to the “blocking of the standard satellite alarm system”, which prevents engines from starting. It remains unclear whether the disruption stems from electronic-warfare interference or an issue with signals sent to the system, it added.
Porsche halted deliveries to Russia since 2022, but thousands of vehicles remain on the roads, per the report.
Ongoing geopolitical tensions between Germany and Russia have further fueled speculation surrounding the incident, Berlin-based WorkVision Media pointed out.
Cybersecurity Insiders, an online community for information security professionals, stated that the situation has raised serious concerns among the automotive community and cybersecurity experts, as hackers increasingly target critical infrastructure in new ways. By compromising vehicle immobilizers – systems linked to both tracking and security alarms – attackers can cause severe disruptions.
While the immediate impact appears limited to immobilizing or disabling of cars, the broader implications could involve the potential for safety hazards, including accidents caused by unauthorized control or remote manipulation of vehicles, the website warned.
Xiang Ligang, a veteran Chinese technology analyst, told the Global Times on Sunday that the situation clearly shows that a security loophole in Porsche’s design allowed this to happen, and it raised alarm for the whole automobile industry.
According to Xiang, intelligent-vehicle systems inevitably rely on data management and remote-control functions — technical challenges that all carmakers must confront. The situation unfolding in Russia, however, is a stark reminder of how vulnerable these systems can be.
He added that escalating geopolitical tensions and in fact de-coupling between the Russia and Germany make it increasingly difficult to meet security requirements in areas such as operating-system authentication, data verification, and cross-border data management. Under such conditions, even partners that are meant to cooperate on security matters must prioritize localized and compliant management of data and servers, he said.
Ukrainians mob vehicle to free men captured by draft officers
RT | December 7, 2025
Ordinary Ukrainians came to rescue people from conscription officers trying to force young males into a minibus in the middle of the day, a video that began circulating on social media on Saturday shows.
Reportedly filmed in the city of Odessa, the footage shows a crowd surrounding a vehicle belonging to military conscription officers and throwing tires at it, smashing its windows with a metal bar. In the clip, passersby can be heard saying, “The people have had enough!” and appears to show young men being pulled out through the shattered windows.
In response to a conscription officer’s objections, people shouted back that he should go to the front himself.
The video is the latest in a series of clips that have emerged online showing Ukrainian males being violently snatched from the streets by draft officers as Kiev experiences military setbacks and manpower shortages at the front. The term ‘busification’ has become widespread in the country, in reference to the minibuses used to transport involuntary recruits.
There have also been reports of injuries, torture, and deaths among those subject to forced mobilization, fueling public outrage and sparking protests. In October, the Ukrainian authorities urged people not to film or share videos of press gangs forcibly detaining men.
The exodus from Kiev’s armed forces is mounting. More than 21,000 soldiers deserted without leave in September alone – the highest monthly total since the start of the Ukraine conflict. According to a report by BBC Ukraine in October, this marked the largest single-month spike, based on the most recent data from the Prosecutor General’s Office.
In July, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Michael O’Flaherty, sounded the alarm over “systematic and widespread” abuse by Ukrainian draft enforcers, urging the authorities in Kiev to properly investigate the incidents and prevent further human rights violations.
Patrik Baab: War Propaganda Destroyed Media & Freedom of Speech
Glenn Diesen | December 6, 2025
Patrik Baab is a German journalist and best-selling author who reported on both sides of the frontline in Ukraine. Baab argues that war propaganda has destroyed the credibility of the media and freedom of speech.
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WHO – Gates Blueprint for Global Digital ID, AI-Driven Surveillance, and Life-Long Vaccine Tracking for All
Automated, cradle-to-grave traceability for “identifying and targeting the unreached”
By Jon Fleetwood | December 2, 2025
In a document published in the October Bulletin of the World Health Organization and funded by the Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization (WHO) is proposing a globally interoperable digital-identity infrastructure that permanently tracks every individual’s vaccination status from birth.
The dystopian proposal raises far more than privacy and autonomy concerns: it establishes the architecture for government overreach, cross-domain profiling, AI-driven behavioral targeting, conditional access to services, and a globally interoperable surveillance grid tracking individuals.
It also creates unprecedented risks in data security, accountability, and mission creep, enabling a digital control system that reaches into every sector of life.
The proposed system:
- integrates personally identifiable information with socioeconomic data such as “household income, ethnicity and religion,”
- deploys artificial intelligence for “identifying and targeting the unreached” and “combating misinformation,”
- and enables governments to use vaccination records as prerequisites for education, travel, and other services.
What the WHO Document Admits, in Their Own Words
To establish the framework, the authors define the program as nothing less than a restructuring of how governments govern:
“Digital transformation is the intentional, systematic implementation of integrated digital applications that change how governments plan, execute, measure and monitor programmes.”
They openly state the purpose:
“This transformation can accelerate progress towards the Immunization agenda 2030, which aims to ensure that everyone, everywhere, at every age, fully benefits from vaccines.”
This is the context for every policy recommendation that follows: a global vaccination compliance system, digitally enforced.
1. Birth-Registered Digital Identity & Life-Long Tracking
The document describes a system in which a newborn is automatically added to a national digital vaccine-tracking registry the moment their birth is recorded.
“When birth notification triggers the set-up of a personal digital immunization record, health workers know who to vaccinate before the child’s first contact with services.”
They specify that this digital identity contains personal identifiers:
“A newborn whose electronic immunization record is populated with personally identifiable information benefits because health workers can retrieve their records through unique identifiers or demographic details, generate lists of unvaccinated children and remind parents to bring them for vaccination.”
This is automated, cradle-to-grave traceability.
The system also enables surveillance across all locations:
“[W]ith a national electronic immunization record, a child can be followed up anywhere within the country and referred electronically from one health facility to another.”
This is mobility tracking tied to medical compliance.
2. Linking Vaccine Records to Income, Ethnicity, Religion, & Social Programs
The document explicitly endorses merging vaccine status with socioeconomic data.
“Registers that record household asset data for social protection programmes enable monitoring of vaccination coverage by socioeconomic status such as household income, ethnicity and religion.”
This is demographic stratification attached to a compliance database.
3. Conditioning Access to Schooling, Travel, & Services on Digital Vaccine Proof
The WHO acknowledges and encourages systems that require vaccine passes for core civil functions:
“Some countries require proof of vaccination for children to access daycare and education, and evidence of other vaccinations is often required for international travel.”
They then underline why digital formats are preferred:
“Digital records and certificates are traceable and shareable.”
Digital traceability means enforceability.
4. Using Digital Systems to Prevent ‘Wasting Vaccine on Already Immune Children’
The authors describe a key rationale:
“Children’s vaccination status is not checked during campaigns, a practice that wastes vaccine on already immune children and exposes them to the risk of adverse events.”
Their solution is automated verification to maximize vaccination throughput.
The digital system is positioned as both a logistical enhancer and a compliance enforcer:
“National electronic immunization records could transform how measles campaigns and supplementary immunization activities are conducted by enabling on-site confirmation of vaccination status.”
5. AI Systems to Target Individuals, Identify ‘Unreached,’ & Combat ‘Misinformation’
The WHO document openly promotes artificial intelligence to shape public behavior:
“AI… demonstrate[s] its utility in identifying and targeting the unreached, identifying critical service bottlenecks, combating misinformation and optimizing task management.”
They explain additional planned uses:
“Additional strategic applications include analysing population-level data, predicting service needs and spread of disease, identifying barriers to immunization, and enhancing nutrition and health status assessments via mobile technology.”
This is predictive analytics paired with influence operations.
6. Global Interoperability Standards for International Data Exchange
The authors call for a unified international data standard:
“Recognize fast healthcare interoperability resources… as the global standard for exchange of health data.”
Translated: vaccine-linked personal identity data must be globally shareable.
They describe the need for “digital public infrastructure”:
“Digital public infrastructure is a foundation and catalyst for the digital transformation of primary health care.”
This is the architecture of a global vaccination-compliance network.
7. Surveillance Expansion Into Everyday Interactions
The WHO outlines a surveillance model that activates whenever a child interacts with any health or community service:
“CHWs who identify children during home visits and other community activities can refer them for vaccination through an electronic immunization registry or electronic child health record.”
This means non-clinical community actors participating in vaccination-compliance identification.
The authors also describe cross-service integration:
“Under-vaccinated children can be reached when CHWs and facility-based providers providing other services collaborate and communicate around individual children in the same electronic child health records.”
Every point of contact becomes a checkpoint.
8. Behavior-Shaping Through Alerts, Reminders, & Social Monitoring
The WHO endorses using digital messaging to overcome “intention–action gaps”:
“Direct communication with parents in the form of alerts, reminders and information helps overcome the intention–action gap.”
They also prescribe digital surveillance of public sentiment:
“Active detection and response to misinformation in social media build trust and demand.”
This is official justification for monitoring and countering speech.
9. Acknowledgment of Global Donor Control—Including Gates Foundation
At the very end of the article, the financial architect is stated plainly:
“This work was supported by the Gates Foundation [INV-016137].”
This confirms the alignment with Gates-backed global ID and vaccine-registry initiatives operating through Gavi, the World Bank, UNICEF, and WHO.
Bottom Line
In the WHO’s own words:
“Digital transformation is a unique opportunity to address many longstanding challenges in immunization… now is the time for bold, new approaches.”
And:
“Stakeholders… should embrace digital transformation as an enabler for achieving the ambitious Immunization agenda 2030 goals.”
This is a comprehensive proposal for a global digital-identity system, permanently linked to vaccine status, integrated with demographic and socioeconomic data, enforced through AI-driven surveillance, and designed for international interoperability.
It is not speculative, but written in plain language, funded by the Gates Foundation, and published in the World Health Organization’s own journal.
EU targets platforms that refuse to censor free speech – Telegram founder
RT | December 6, 2025
The EU is unfairly targeting social media platforms that allow dissenting or critical speech, Telegram founder Pavel Durov has said.
He was responding to a 2024 post by Elon Musk, the owner of X, who claimed that the European Commission had offered the platform a secret deal to avoid fines in return for censoring certain statements. The EU fined X €120 million ($140 million) the day before.
According to Durov, the EU imposes strict and unrealistic rules on tech companies as a way to punish those that do not comply with quiet censorship demands.
“The EU imposes impossible rules so it can punish tech firms that refuse to silently censor free speech,” Durov wrote on X on Saturday.
He also referred to his detention in France last year, which he called politically motivated. He claimed that during that time, the head of France’s DGSE asked him to “ban conservative voices in Romania” ahead of an election, an allegation French officials denied. He also said intelligence agents offered help with his case if Telegram quietly removed channels tied to Moldova’s election.
Durov repeated both claims in his recent post, describing the case as “a baseless criminal investigation” followed by pressure to censor speech in Romania and Moldova.
Later on Saturday, Durov wrote: “The EU exclusively targets platforms that host inconvenient or dissenting speech (Telegram, X, TikTok…). Platforms that algorithmically silence people are left largely untouched, despite far more serious illegal content issues.”
Last year Elon Musk said the European Commission offered X “an illegal secret deal” to quietly censor content. “If we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us. The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not,” he wrote.
On Friday, European Commission spokesperson Tom Rainier said the EU fined X €120 million for violating the Digital Services Act. He claimed the fine was unrelated to censorship and was the first enforcement under the law. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio criticized the move on X, calling it “an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments.”
Durov and Musk have both faced pressure from EU regulators under the Digital Services Act (DSA), which came into force in 2023. The law requires platforms to remove illegal content quickly, though critics say it can be used to suppress lawful expression.
New law lets Berlin police install spyware in private homes
Critics warn the new rules could be misused, enabling overreach and deep intrusion into personal privacy
FILE PHOTO. © Getty Images
RT | December 6, 2025
Berlin officers will be allowed to secretly enter private homes to install spyware, after the German House of Representatives approved a sweeping change to the city’s police law.
Backed by the governing CDU-SPD coalition and opposition AfD, the law gives police broad new powers over both physical and digital surveillance.
The new law allows authorities to secretly enter a suspect’s home to install spyware if remote access isn’t possible. This marks the first time Berlin’s law enforcement can legally carry out such physical break-ins for digital surveillance. The updated rules also permit hacking phones and computers to monitor communication. Police can now turn on bodycams inside private homes if they believe someone is in serious danger.
Passed on Thursday, the law also expands surveillance in public areas. Authorities can now collect phone data from everyone in a location, scan license plates, and counter drones. They may use facial and voice recognition to identify people from surveillance images. Real police data can also be used to train AI. Critics say this risks misuse and intrudes on private life.
Interior Senator Iris Spranger (SPD) has defended the move. “With the biggest reform of the Berlin Police Law in decades, we are creating a significant plus for the protection of Berliners,” she said. “We are giving law enforcement better tools to fight terrorism and organized crime,” she added.
Berlin has seen a rise in crime. In 2024, police recorded over 539,000 offences — more than the year before. Violent crimes like assault and domestic violence also increased. Officials say there is a growing problem with crimes involving young people and migrants, especially in large cities. More than half of all crimes still go unsolved.
Opposition to the law has grown since its passage. During the debate, Green Party MP Vasili Franco said the law felt like a wish list for a state with excessive control over its citizens. Civil rights groups called the expanded use of AI and facial recognition “a massive attack on civil liberties.”
The campaign alliance NoASOG also strongly criticized the reform, stating, “What is being sold as security policy is in reality the establishment of an authoritarian surveillance state.”
Australia’s Top Censor Warns of Surveillance While Hypocritically Expanding It
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | December 3, 2025
At a press conference that could have been a comedy sketch idea, Australia’s “eSafety” Commissioner Julie Inman Grant and Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek stood before the cameras and solemnly warned the nation about the perils of surveillance. Not from government programs or sweeping digital mandates, but from smart cars and connected devices.
The irony was not lost on anyone paying attention.
Both Grant and Plibersek are enthusiastic backers of the country’s new online age verification law, the so-called Social Media Minimum Age Bill 2024, a law that has done more to expand digital surveillance than any gadget in a Toyota.
The legislation bans under-16s from social media and requires users to prove their age through “assurance” systems that often involve facial scans, ID uploads, and data analysis so invasive it would make a marketing executive blush.
But on the same day she cautioned the public about the dangers of “connected” cars sharing sensitive information with third parties, Grant’s agency was publishing rules that literally require social media platforms to share sensitive data with third parties.
During the press conference, Grant complained that “it’s disappointing” YouTube and other platforms hadn’t yet released their guidance on how they’ll implement verification.
She announced that eSafety will begin issuing “gathering information notices” on December 10, demanding details from companies about how they plan to comply once her expanded powers take effect.
She also warned that some of the smaller apps users are migrating to may soon “become age-restricted social media platforms.”
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) explains that compliance under this law can involve “age estimation” using facial analysis, “age inference” through data modeling of user activity, or “age verification” with government ID.
All three options amount to building a surveillance apparatus around everyday users. Facial recognition, voice modeling, behavioral tracking; pick your poison.
Most platforms outsource this work to private firms, which means that the same sensitive data the law claims to protect is immediately handed to a commercial intermediary.
Meta, for example, relies on Yoti, a third-party ID verification company. Others use firms like Au10tix, which famously left troves of ID scans exposed online for over a year.
The law includes what politicians like to call “strong privacy safeguards.” Platforms must only collect the data necessary for verification, must destroy it once it’s used, and must never reuse it for other purposes.
It’s the same promise every company makes before it gets hacked or “inadvertently” leaks user data.
Even small dating apps that claimed to delete verification selfies “immediately after completion” managed to leak those same selfies. In every case, the breach followed the same pattern: grand assurances, then exposure.
Julie Inman Grant calls it protecting the public. Tanya Plibersek calls it social responsibility. The rest of us might call it what it actually is: institutionalized data collection, dressed in the language of child safety.
US warns Europe of ‘civilizational erasure’
RT | December 5, 2025
Europe is facing potential “civilizational erasure” as the continent’s policymakers encourage censorship, crack down on political opponents, and turn a blind eye to mass immigration, the new National Security Strategy released by the administration of US President Donald Trump warns.
The landmark and strongly worded document released on Friday says that while the EU is showing worrying signs of economic decline, its cultural and political unraveling poses an even greater threat.
The strategy cites EU-backed immigration policies, suppression of political opposition, curbs on speech, collapsing birthrates, and “loss of national identities and self-confidence,” warning that Europe could become “unrecognizable in 20 years or less.”
The document argues that many European governments are “doubling down on their present path,” while the US wants Europe “to remain European” and abandon “regulatory suffocation” – an apparent reference to America’s stand-off with the EU over its strict digital market guidelines, which Washington claims discriminate against US-based tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, and Meta.
One of Washington’s key goals is “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations,” the paper adds.
Trump’s strategy notes that the rise of “patriotic European parties” offers “cause for great optimism,” in a reference to growing bloc-wide support for right-wing Euroskeptic parties calling for strict immigration limits.
The document proclaims that “the era of mass migration is over.” It argues that large inflows have strained resources, increased violence, and weakened social cohesion, adding that Washington is seeking a world in which sovereign states “work together to stop rather than manage” migration flows.
The strategy also comes amid Trump’s push to convince European NATO members to spend more on defense. At one point, he threatened not to defend “delinquent” countries in an attack if they fail to meet his demands. At a summit earlier this year, the bloc endorsed a new plan to move toward combined defense-related spending of up to 5% of GDP, far above NATO’s longstanding 2% benchmark.
EU Fines X $140 Million Amid Free Speech Clash
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | December 5, 2025
The European Union pulled the trigger on Elon Musk’s social media platform X. On Friday, Brussels fined X a massive $140 million for what it described as “transparency failures” under its censorship law, the Digital Services Act. In plain terms, the EU is angry that X is not policing speech the way it wants.
Of course, officials insist the penalty is not about censorship. It is about “accountability.” Yet every part of the fine print points to the same thing: a government demanding more control over what people say and see online.
The European Commission called X’s blue check system “deceptive” because Musk turned what used to be a verification badge into a paid feature anyone can buy. In the eyes of Brussels, that is chaos, a marketplace where speech is treated like a right, not a licensed activity.
Henna Virkkunen, the Commission’s executive vice president for tech sovereignty, summed up the mood. “Deceiving users with blue check marks, obscuring information on ads, and shutting out researchers have no place online in the E.U.,” she said. “We are holding X responsible for undermining users’ rights and evading accountability.”
European regulators also accuse X of not sharing advertising data and refusing to give researchers access to its user information. The law says platforms must open up to “independent research.” In reality, that means academics and NGOs, often with pro-censorship political affiliations, getting privileged access to social data, exactly the kind of surveillance the DSA claims to prevent.
Officials call this “transparency.” It is a transparency that flows one way, upward, toward the state. Musk’s decision not to hand over user data now counts as a punishable offense.
When asked to explain how they calculated the €120 million penalty, the Commission offered a masterpiece of vagueness about “proportionality” and “the nature of the infringements.” The only clear metric seems to be how defiant a company is about following orders.
From Washington, the outrage came fast. “The EU should be supporting free speech, not attacking American companies over garbage,” said Vice President JD Vance. Musk responded with his usual brevity: “Much appreciated.”
In the same breath that Brussels punished X, it closed an investigation into TikTok without a fine. TikTok, after all, promised to “cooperate” and adjust its design. “If you comply with our rules, you don’t get a fine,” Virkkunen told reporters.
That sentence could serve as the EU’s motto. Compliance equals peace. Free speech costs money.
The European Union has moved beyond suggesting rules for online speech and is now issuing orders. American social media platforms are facing a steady increase in censorship demands from Brussels, framed as “transparency” and “safety” obligations.
Each new regulation adds another layer of political oversight, turning what used to be private platforms into instruments of European policy.
The DSA sits at the center of this system. The law forces companies like Meta, Google, and X to remove “harmful” content, grant access to internal data, and submit regular reports on how they handle information deemed risky by regulators.
None of these terms have clear definitions, which gives officials the freedom to decide what speech is acceptable after the fact. In effect, the EU has built a structure that allows censorship by procedure rather than decree.
US companies are learning that “transparency” now means constant surveillance from European regulators and activist groups. The enforcement process rewards compliance, not innovation. Platforms that fail to align with the EU’s preferred moderation standards face public scolding and multi-million-dollar fines. Those who comply end up filtering speech to avoid further punishment.
This has turned into a quiet export of European political culture. The EU’s rhetoric about “accountability” and “responsibility” conceals a growing ambition to shape global online discourse.
Macron’s Proposed Seal of Truth Meets a Wall of Criticism
Macron’s seal of reliability may prove less about journalism and more about obedience
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | December 4, 2025
Emmanuel Macron thinks the Republic needs a quality seal for reality. The French president recently proposed creating an official “reliability label” for news outlets, modeled on Reporters Without Borders’ Journalism Trust Initiative. He insists it is not censorship. It is a “democratic duty.”
“It is about making our young people understand, encouraging them, motivating them to turn toward press outlets, whether in physical, printed form or digital,” Macron said, as though the French youth were a flock that had wandered into the dangerous fields of the internet and needed shepherding back to Le Monde.
The proposal, presented during a discussion with readers of the Ebra press group, called for a label for outlets that follow ethical standards, validated by “peers and third-party experts.”
The government, he said, would not decide who qualifies. It would only “encourage” such standards. But in France, the words “encourage” and “government” often mean something closer to “mandatory, eventually.”
The model is RSF’s Journalism Trust Initiative, which already certifies media that meet certain requirements. Certified outlets supposedly even get algorithmic advantages on platforms like Bing.
Macron wants a French version, claiming it would bring “international recognition of the professionalism of our journalists and the rigour of our editorial teams.”
Translated from technocrat to plain French: good media will rise to the top, bad media will sink to the digital basement.
This, Macron says, will help fight “disinformation.” The country has heard that promise before. Each new attempt to fight misinformation seems to end up tightening control over information itself.
The idea landed with the subtlety of a brick through a newsroom window.
On BFMTV, Parliamentary Party Leader of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen called it “unworthy,” said the proposal was “extremely dangerous,” accusing Macron of wanting “to master information.”
Bruno Retailleau, leader of Les Républicains, said “no government has the right to filter the media or dictate the truth.”
The Mayor of Cannes, David Lisnard, said the president had “crossed a fundamental line.” Even some journalists balked at being graded by a system endorsed by the state.
Macron denied everything. “There is not going to be a state label, and even less a ‘ministry of truth,’” said government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon after the cabinet meeting.
Macron repeated that “it is not the state that should verify” the truth, since “otherwise it becomes a dictatorship.”
So far, the reassurance has not worked. The term “Ministry of Truth” is now glued to the project in every headline, thanks in part to a viral editorial by Pascal Praud on CNews, who accused the president of “wanting to impose a single narrative.”
In a remarkable act of irony, the Élysée responded to critics on X by posting a video labeled “warning, false information.”
The president’s communications team, while denying the existence of a Ministry of Truth, had just produced something that looked exactly like one.
The post set off another round of outrage.
Jordan Bardella, President of the National Rally, said Macron’s proposal was “the reflex of a man who has lost power and seeks to maintain it by controlling information.”
The label plan is part of Macron’s wider campaign against disinformation. He has floated legal changes to allow “false information” to be blocked online more quickly and has repeatedly called for tighter regulation of social media, describing the current state of the internet as “the Wild West.”
It is not hard to see why the issue obsesses him. Macron and his wife have been the targets of online rumors for years.
For a president who sees himself as a technocratic reformer, the swamp of digital conspiracy has become both a personal irritant and a political threat.
Macron insists that only a system of certified journalism can protect the public from manipulation. The trouble is, the public does not want the government or anyone tied to it certifying which journalists to trust.
Reporters Without Borders may be an NGO, but any system announced by the president and promoted as a matter of “democratic duty” will carry the scent of state authority.
Once the government endorses a “trust” label, those without it become, by definition, untrustworthy.
Pro-Israel Forces Intensify Effort To Control American Discourse
Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | December 4, 2025
Across the American political spectrum, support for the State of Israel is steadily eroding. With the long-running, staggeringly expensive redistribution of American wealth and weapons to one of the world’s most prosperous countries under unprecedented threat, Israel’s advocates inside the United States are growing increasingly desperate to suppress the facts, opinions, questions and imagery that are causing this sea change.
Pro-Israel forces have long worked to limit and shape US discourse to Israel’s advantage. However, the intensity and novelty of what’s taking place in 2025 — from the government-coerced transfer of a social media platform to pro-Israel billionaires, to the jailing and attempted deportation of a student for writing an opinion piece, and more — deserves the attention of every American who values free expression, an enlightened electorate, and independence from foreign influence.
Many Americans know that Congress and President Biden teamed up in 2024 to force the Chinese company ByteDance to divest its US operation of the popular video-sharing app TikTok, yet few realize this unusual intervention was motivated in large part by a desire to serve the interests of Israel.
Though politicians pointed to the supposed Chinese menace lurking inside the app — while revealing their lack of sincerity by continuing to use it themselves — the catalyst for the extraordinary legislation’s passage was a sea of viral content illuminating Israel’s rampage in Gaza, casting Palestinians in empathetic light, and questioning the legitimacy of the political philosophy that is Zionism.
The idea that passage of the ban was largely about Israel is no conspiracy theory. American politicians who supported the compelled divestiture of TikTok have candidly said so themselves. Sharing a stage with Biden Secretary of State Antony Blinken in 2024, then-Senator Mitt Romney said:
“Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down, potentially, TikTok or other entities of that nature. You look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites — it’s overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts, so I’d note that’s of real interest to the president, who will get the chance to take action in that regard.”
Similarly, Rep. Mike Lawler of New York told a webinar that pro-Palestinian student protests were “exactly why we included the TikTok bill… because you’re seeing how these kids are being manipulated by certain groups or entities or countries to foment hate on their behalf and really create a hostile environment here in the US.”
Of course, mere divestiture wouldn’t guarantee that TikTok would start suppressing anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian content in the United States. To have the desired effect, the buyer — who required White House approval — would have to be an ardent supporter of Israel. That’s just how things played out. In September, President Trump approved the sale of TikTok’s US operations to a joint venture led by Larry Ellison, the founder of tech-titan Oracle and the fourth-richest man in the world.
Ellison has expressed his “deep emotional connection to the State of Israel” and has been a major benefactor of the Israeli Defense Forces, via donations to IDF-supporting organizations. He spent at least $3 million on Marco Rubio’s failed 2016 presidential campaign, after being assured by Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations that Rubio would “be a great friend to Israel.” There are other Israel-favoring billionaires in the consortium now controlling TikTok’s American presence, among them NewsCorp head Rupert Murdoch and investment trader Jeff Yass.
Americans were propagandized into fearing Chinese control of TikTok users’ data. Now that data will be controlled by Oracle, a firm whose founder has described Israel as his own nation, said “there is no greater honor” than supporting the IDF, and invited Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take a seat on the board. It’s also a firm with strong business ties to the Israel government, and a firm whose Israel-born executive vice chair and former CEO last year declared, “For [Oracle] employees, it’s clear: If you’re not for America or Israel, don’t work here.”
A few months before the TikTok divestiture was finalized, the company installed former IDF soldier and self-described “passionate” Zionist Erica Mindel as TikTok’s hate speech manager in July. Weeks later, and just days before the transfer of TikTok’s US operation was approved, the platform posted new guidelines on Sept 13 about what’s allowed on the platform.
Soon after the change, users and content creators began sharing examples of content being deleted by TikTok, with the platform exploiting its vague new rules about “conspiracy theories” and “protected groups” to reject negative content about Israel — wielding the threat of demonetization of repeat offenders. In a recent appearance on the Breaking Points podcast, Guy Christensen, who has 3.4 million TikTok followers, shared his experience:
“What all these videos have in common that have been removed since Sept 13 are that I am talking about Israel, I’m talking about AIPAC’s influence, I’m talking about Larry Ellison and the attempt to put TikTok under Zionist control — I’m criticizing Israel in some way. It’s the same thing I’ve heard from my audience, my friends who are creators. Ever since Sept 13, they’ve had the same exact experience. Videos that are more informational and critical of Israel get removed.”
In a late-September meeting with pro-Israel social media “influencers,” Netanyahu hailed the transfer of TikTok’s US ownership. “We have to fight with the weapons that apply to the battlefield with which we’re engaged, and the most important ones are in social media. And the most important purchase that is going on right now is TikTok. Number one.” Expressing hope that, by “talking” with Elon Musk, his X platform could be reshaped to be more Israel-protective too, Netanyahu added, “If we can get those two things, we can get a lot.”
Ellison’s TikTok takeover is troubling enough, but that wasn’t his only media move this year. He also financed his son David’s takeover of Paramount Skydance, the media company that controls many movie and television properties, including CBS. David Ellison quickly installed as head of CBS News Bari Weiss — a self-described “Zionist fanatic” who took a gap year before college to live on an Israeli kibbutz.
Weiss’s history of wrangling over the bounds of acceptable speech vis-a-vis Israel goes back to her sophomore year at Columbia University, when she was part of a group of students who claimed they were subjected to intimidation by Middle East Studies professors over the students’ Zionist views. A university panel found only one of the supposed incidents represented unacceptable conduct.
Both outside observers and network insiders are braced for Weiss to nudge the outlet’s reporting to Israel’s benefit, and there are early indications validating worries about her bias. Citing executive sources inside CBS, the Wall Street Journal reported that foreign correspondent Chris Livesay, who was set to be laid off as part of a downsizing move that preceded Weiss’s arrival, sent Weiss an email expressing his affinity for Israel and claiming he was “bullied” for his beliefs. Weiss intervened and saved Livesay from the layoff. Other correspondents told the Journal that Livesay’s claim about bullying was bogus.
Compounding the expectations that CBS News is about to become a de facto Israel PR outlet, the network’s new ombudsman — the arbiter of editorial concerns — also has strong Zionist credentials. The New York Times describes Kenneth Weinstein as a “firm and vocal champion of Israel.” On X, Grayzone editor-in-chief Max Blumenthal noted that, “during a 2021… event with Mike Pence, Weinstein touted his Israel lobbyist creds, describing how he’d been groomed by the Tikvah Fund, the Likudnik training network which will award Bari Weiss its Herzl Award this November.” (The Likud Party is the Israeli party led by Netanyahu.)
Summing up the TikTok and CBS moves, Glenn Greenwald wrote, “The minute the American public starts turning against Israel and the US financing of that country, the world’s richest and most fanatical pro-Israel billionaires start buying up large media outlets and TikTok, then install Bari Weiss and an ex-IDF soldier to control content.”
The transfer of TikTok into Israel-friendly hands isn’t the only example of intensified US government intervention in America’s public square on behalf of the tiny Middle Eastern country.
Much of the Trump administration’s war against anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian speech has focused on college campuses. In the most alarming such move in 2025, the Trump administration has arrested, jailed and attempted to deport foreign students for merely voicing their support for Palestinians or opposition to the Israeli government.
The most atrocious example — which Stark Realities examined in depth earlier this year — centers on a 30-year-old, Turkish Tufts University PhD candidate who was arrested on a Boston street and whisked away to a dismal Louisiana prison, just for co-authoring a calmly-written Tufts Daily op-ed urging the university to formally characterize Israel’s conduct in Gaza as genocide, and to sell the school’s Israel-associated investments.
This cruelly despotic tactic is the brainchild of the Heritage Foundation. In a policy paper, the think tank urged pro-Israel groups and the US government to characterize pro-Palestinian activists as “effectively members of a terrorist support network,” and then use that characterization to target activists for deportations, expulsions from colleges, lawsuits, terminations by employers, and exclusion from “open society.”
Supporters of Israel have long attempted to stifle critics of the Israeli government by smearing them as antisemites. In 2016, that kind of mislabelling was codified in a definition of antisemitism that’s now being embraced by governments, universities and other institutions in the United States and around the world: the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s “working definition of antisemitism.”
Some elements of the IHRA definition are reasonable, but others irrationally conflate criticism of the State of Israel with hatred of all Jews. For example, the IHRA definition says it’s antisemitic to “claim that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” or to merely “draw comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”
Other, vague elements of the definition are open to creative interpretations, facilitating bogus accusations of bigotry against Israel’s critics. For example, the IHRA says it’s antisemitic to “apply double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.” The IHRA also says it’s antisemitic to make statements about the “power of Jews as [a] collective,” which can put someone who talks about the enormous influence of the pro-Israel lobby squarely in the crosshairs.
Similarly, the IHRA says it’s antisemitic to “deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination,” a definition that could ensnare people who — right or wrong — advocate for the State of Israel to be replaced by a new governing arrangement for the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, those who want speech to be policed on Israel’s behalf frequently point to the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as inherently antisemitic.
As I wrote in another Stark Realities essay, “No Country Has a Right To Exist”:
Those who support the State of Israel are free to present a case that it’s a just arrangement for the 7.5 million Jews and 7.5 million Palestinians “between the river and the sea.” However, painting those who demand a new arrangement as inherently immoral, genocidal or antisemitic is ignorant at best and maliciously misleading at worst.
Doing its part to vilify Israel’s critics and mislead the public and policymakers, the Anti-Defamation League has employed expansive definitions in its numerical tracking of antisemitic incidents — statistics that are unquestioningly quoted by journalists and cited by pro-Israel politicians.
For example, in early 2024, the ADL claimed that, in the first three months after the Oct. 7 Hamas invasion of Israel and the IDF’s brutal assault on Gaza, antisemitic incidents skyrocketed 360%. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said Jews faced a threat “unprecedented in modern history.” However, the ADL admitted that it was counting as antisemitic incidents all protests that included “anti-Zionist chants and slogans”
Of course, exaggerating the scale of antisemitism does more than facilitate efforts to suppress criticism of Israel: It also helps the ADL justify its existence and boost its fundraising. The ADL’s over-counting is nothing new. In 2017, the ADL claimed antisemitic incidents in the United States had soared by 86% in the first quarter of the year, and major media outlets ran with the story. However, much of the increase springs from the ADL’s decision to include a huge number of bomb threats phoned into US synagogues and schools by a Jew living in Israel.
The IHRA definition is at the forefront of a broad campaign to suppress candid discourse about Israel and Palestine on college campuses, with multiple state governments ordering public schools to use it to determine what can and can’t be said.
Bard College’s Kenneth Stern, a lead drafter of a 2004 antisemitism definition that was subsequently adopted by the IHRA, has spoken out against the weaponization of the definition to stifle discourse at universities. “The history of the abuse of the IHRA definition demonstrates the desire is largely political—it is not so much a desire to identify antisemitism, but rather to label certain speech about Israel as antisemitic,” Stern wrote at the Knight First Amendment Institute.
Even at schools that haven’t adopted the IHRA definition, activists and scholars who are critical of Israel and empathetic to the Palestinians are being subjected to countless false accusations of antisemitism, and universities are being sued by pro-Israel students who claim the schools tolerate antisemitism.
A Stark Realities analysis of an 84-page complaint filed against the University of Pennsylvania found nearly every alleged “antisemitic incident” was merely an instance in which Penn students, professors and guest speakers engaged in political expression that proponents of the State of Israel strongly disagree with. Eighteen months later, a federal judge agreed. “At worst, Plaintiffs accuse Penn of tolerating and permitting the expression of viewpoints which differ from their own,” Judge Mitchell Goldberg wrote as he dismissed the case.
Courtroom victories, however, can only do so much to counter the chilling effect of campaigns that vilify students, professors and institutions as antisemitic. That’s especially true when university cash flows are threatened.
Major pro-Israel donors have withdrawn or threatened to suspend donations to various schools, and those threats have been credited with forcing out university presidents like Penn’s Liz Magill. Donor pressure has also led schools to adopt the problematic IHRA antisemitism definition, shut down chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine, and strip Israel-critical professors of chair positions.
The greatest financial pressure being exerted on universities, however, is coming from the Trump administration, which has not only suspended billions of dollars in funding from various universities that are supposed hives of antisemitism, but has also filed lawsuits and hammered schools with fines. Many of them are surrendering, paying the government large sums and making policy and staffing changes. Last week, Northwestern agreed to pay $75 million to the federal government for its alleged failure to fight “antisemitism.” Earlier, Columbia agreed to a $200 million fine payable over three years, and Brown will surrender $50 million.
There are other avenues by which government force is being tapped to squelch criticism of Israel and advocacy for Palestinians. Dozens of states have passed legislation that bar individuals and businesses from contracting with the state if they boycott or divest from Israel. That led to a bizarre spectacle in which hurricane-battered Texans applying for emergency benefits were asked to verify that they do not and will not boycott Israel. Comparable federal measures have been introduced, but not yet enacted.
Another proposed federal bill is the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would require the Department of Education to use the IHRA definition when evaluating accusations that colleges tolerate antisemitism — essentially codifying a Trump executive order. It sailed through the House in 2024 by a 320-91 vote, but stalled in the Senate this year amid bipartisan concerns about the definition. Seven amendments had been attached in committee, including one clarifying that criticism of the Israeli government isn’t antisemitism.
Tellingly, champions of the bill said amendments like that were poison pills that would render it un-passable.
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On Herd Mentality
By Jeb Smith | April 14, 2026
I no longer trust “we the people,” because of the powers influencing them. Media and government schooling form their general ideas on reality and governance. Therefore, it’s not a case of the voter choosing the politicians. Instead, the system is conditioning and conforming the voter to the authorities’ desires.
In democracies, the people are kept occupied working and paying taxes, too busy to acquire information outside the approved sources. You will find they know and care far more about the next iPhone than political philosophy. Of those who hold some interest, 95% just toe the party line, holding the same opinion as the primary media source they listen to. They lack both the desire and time to expand their horizons.
Media’s purpose is to conform people’s thought to a preferred goal, which is why Republican and Democratic voters both firmly hold their parties’ general stances, reciting the same talking points. The people do not originate ideas; their thoughts are fed to them by the media so they can consume, digest, and parrot back whatever they are served. When it comes to politics, we rarely think for ourselves. We are told what to think.
Watch PBS, MSNBC and read your local newspaper for six months, and you will receive a particular view and understanding of the world. Then listen to The Mike Church Show, The Blaze, and The Daily Wire, and you will get not just another perspective but a whole different world of facts and events. The world people believe they live in can be entirely different depending on their news sources.
We enjoy seeing the enemy humiliated, which describes why those engulfed in politics love their preferred media sources; they keep returning for more like a drug addict. Networks ensure their “experts” align with the worldview they and their audience desire. The people who watch PBS, BBC, and so forth expect a specific perspective to be presented. Fox News watchers demand the same. In doing this, we both encourage and assure we are misled.
In their book Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government, professors Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels argue, based on substantial research, that voters do not decide the party platform and agenda. Instead, the parties control the “ideologies” of the voters. When the party the voter identifies with changes its position, the individuals also change theirs. They discovered the individual would quickly adopt the views of their group; they will ignore or change their own opinions over time to fit in with the collective they identify with. Achen and Bartels wrote “group memberships largely drove policy views, not vice versa.” … continue
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