Europe considers regulating Spotify
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | February 13, 2022
National media regulators are hoping the upcoming speech laws will give them power to censor “misinformation” on Spotify.
Spotify has been attacked heavily in recent months, mostly for hosting the Joe Rogan Experience, which doesn’t always go along with the mainstream narrative.
“We should hold them accountable not as a publisher but just like any other online platform in the Digital Services Act,” Frédéric Bokobza, deputy director general of France’s media regulator, Arcom, told POLITICO.
The EU is finalizing the Digital Services Act (DSA), a law focused on content moderation on online platforms. The bill might also empower national media regulators to regulate a broader list of tech platforms, including Telegram and Spotify.
“As of now, we do not have regulatory tools in the French law which would enable us to oversee audio streaming companies, on top of the fact [Spotify] is not based on our territory,” said Roch-Olivier Maistre, president of France’s audiovisual regulator.
For long, Spotify escaped public scrutiny as it mostly hosted music. But in recent years it has become a popular podcast platform, with more than 400 million users globally and a new avenue for ideas that the establishment wants censored.
Despite the backlash, Spotify has refused to cut ties with Joe Rogan, whose show is the most popular podcast on the platform.
RIP Freedom of Speech
In lockstep in multiple countries
The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | February 12, 2022
As with so many things that are happening at the moment, the attack on free speech is happening in multiple countries at the same time.
Firstly in the UK.
A draft Online Safety Bill was first presented to Parliament in May 2021 but has been strengthened in the last few weeks. Originally the draft Bill focussed on large web companies but the government has recently announced that more changes would be made and new criminal offences added.
One of these new offences would be spreading Covid-19 disinformation under a crime of sending a false communication. This offence would be committed if a person sends a communication they know to be false with the intention to cause non-trivial emotional, psychological or physical harm. The maximum sentence is 51 weeks.
The average person might think it is reasonable to imprison somebody for communicating something they know to be false with the intention to cause harm. However, what is “false” and what is “harm”? The last few years have shown us that these are now very subjective topics. Information that was true in 2019 became false in 2020 and is starting to be true again in 2022. A truth that is communicated to somebody who believes it to be false may cause them emotional or psychological harm. Intention is necessary for the crime to take place but if something is deemed to be false and deemed to cause harm then it could be argued that if the person who communicated the information, knew the information was on the “harmful list” then intention was there.
And who is deciding what information is false? The government? That almost sounds like a punchline to a joke. We’ll just end up with news articles such as the one below – Sponsored by the UK Government (see the text in blue).
The Bill was already censorial enough, making online companies remove content which was deemed to be harmful but not illegal. As we have seen in recent times, corporations’ misinformation policies have been arbitrary enough, which will only worsen with governments deciding what is true and what is false. Now, in a step one-removed from pre-crime, these companies will be made to proactively “prevent people being exposed in the first place”.
The government press release on the strengthening of this bill says that “to proactively tackle the priority offences, firms will need to make sure the features, functionalities and algorithms of their services are designed to prevent their users encountering them and minimise the length of time this content is available. This could be achieved by automated or human content moderation, banning illegal search terms, spotting suspicious users and having effective systems in place to prevent banned users opening new accounts”.
In almost Orwellian double-speak the press release says the Bill “will better protect people’s right to free expression online”. What this means is, it will better protect people’s free expression of government approved material. It continues by saying “it will have to be proven in court that a defendant sent a communication without any reasonable excuse and did so intending to cause serious distress or worse, with exemptions for communication which contributes to a matter of public interest”. So the government says something is a matter of public interest (e.g. vaccines) and suddenly intention doesn’t have to be proven.
Please sign this online petition to remove requirements that specifically target lawful speech from the Bill.
Next to the US.
At almost the same time, the US sent out a bulletin “Summary of Terrorism Threat to the U.S. Homeland”.
This states that “the United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors. These threat actors seek to exacerbate societal friction to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence”.
According to the bulletin, “the proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions” has “increased the volatility, unpredictability, and complexity of the threat environment”.
Key factors contributing to the current heightened threat environment include “widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19”.
Furthermore, “as COVID-19 restrictions continue to decrease nationwide, increased access to commercial and government facilities and the rising number of mass gatherings could provide increased opportunities for individuals looking to commit acts of violence to do so, often with little or no warning. Meanwhile, COVID-19 mitigation measures—particularly COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates—have been used by domestic violent extremists to justify violence since 2020 and could continue to inspire these extremists to target government, healthcare, and academic institutions that they associate with those measures”.
So in a step up from the UK’s response, the US is labelling individuals who produce any MDM as terrorists. Obviously, any language that incites violence is unacceptable but to confuse people encouraging unrest with those discussing whether Ivermectin could help save lives is completely unacceptable.
And finally in Canada.
Again, as if in lockstep, Justin Trudeau is trying to revive his controversial Internet legislation bill. Once known as Bill C-10, to fool those unintelligent Covid deniers, it has been changed to Bill C-11.
There are concerns that the legislation could be used to censor social media. The government have denied this but experts hold the opposite view. Who to believe, hmmm? The Toronto Sun reports that Trudeau is using the current national tensions as a smokescreen to let them slip in unpopular pieces of legislation. Never let a good crisis go to waste!
When we remove freedom of speech and censorship of controversial topics becomes common place, we turn into a dangerous society. Not only can authors be imprisoned for airing their views but, just as importantly, debate becomes restricted resulting in truths being hidden and novel and radical ideas supressed.
But if they can’t censor you, maybe they’ll just give you a morality pill so you don’t produce the stuff in the first place!
Try as They Might, Facebook ‘Fact-Checkers’ Cannot Refute the Dire Scottish Vaccine Data
By Thorsteinn Siglaugsson | The Daily Sceptic | February 10, 2022
Ever since I realised the devastating effects lockdowns would have all over the world, I have actively fought them. My first task, in October 2020, was hosting an interview with world-renowned epidemologist Martin Kulldorff, one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which argues for focused protection instead of blanket lockdowns.
Incidentally, Kulldorff was involved also in my first really memorable encounter with the so-called fact-checkers. Last summer the Icelandic Chief Epidemiologist said in an interview he believed herd immunity would never be reached by vaccination, only through infections. I posted a link to the interview on LinkedIn. Kulldorff shared my post, and the next thing he knew his reshare had been removed. Clearly a fact-checker hadn‘t liked what our Chief Epidemiologist said, and decided the public shouldn‘t know.
Part of my activities as an active lockdown sceptic has been managing a large and fast-growing local Facebook group, dedicated to providing a broad view of the Covid situation, including negative effects of lockdowns, and later on, growing concerns with the effectiveness and safety of mass-vaccination. This is a difficult task as we must always be very careful not to accept posts that for some reason contain material that doesn‘t comply with the worldview of the fact-checkers. We get a few strange conspiracy theories of course, but mostly the material we have to reject is simply inconvenient facts or well-argued opinions, even by respected scientists, that just happen to go against the official narrative.
Fact-checking is nothing new, and until recently it was just that, checking for facts. But since very early in the pandemic, fact-checkers have become less concerned with facts, but more, and in some cases exclusively, with censoring anything that goes against their own opinions. Every day, hundreds of such articles are published and then used to justify censorship. The following example is a typical one.
Recently, official Scottish data has shown COVID-19 infections, hospitalisations and deaths are becoming more frequent among the double-vaccinated than the unvaccinated. The latest report shows the infection rate among the double-jabbed is now double the rate for the unjabbed, and 50% higher for the triple-jabbed. Hospitalisations are higher among the double-jabbed than the unjabbed and the death rate is double. This is a concerning development and has garnered some attention from those who follow such statistics. I wrote a short Facebook post on this the other day, quoting an article discussing this development. A few days later the familiar warning of ‘false information’ had been slapped on my post.
I decided to follow up on the ‘fact check’ referred to in the warning, an article by Mr. Dean Miller, managing editor at Lead Stories, one of the agencies that frequently publish articles used to justify censorship. Mr. Miller holds an undergraduate degree in English and seems to have no science training whatsoever.
Mr. Miller begins by claiming there is a consensus among health statisticians “working independently” that vaccination reduces the probability of hospitalisation and death, and that as the vaccinated tend to be older than the unvaccinated, “amateur statisticians” often reach false conclusions based on official data. Mr. Miller then quotes an epidemiologist who suggests various factors that “may” affect the numbers. First, that the vaccinated are more likely to get tested, quoting test and trace data but providing no reference. Second, that the vaccinated tend to be older than the unvaccinated and therefore more vulnerable in general. Third, that the vaccinated may behave differently from the unvaccinated when it comes to social interactions. Fourth, that the unvaccinated are more likely to have been previously infected by the virus.
None of this is necessarily untrue. But the article provides no references showing that vaccinated people behave differently from unvaccinated people, which would make them more likely to come into contact with infected persons. We also have no way of determining if the opposite is true. In other words, this is pure speculation, for which no evidence is provided. Whether vaccinated people are more likely to get tested is speculative also and there is no data provided to back up this claim. The same goes for the claim that the unvaccinated are more likely to have been previously infected. In fact, as numerous studies have already demonstrated that infection provides strong and lasting protection, this suggestion seems highly unlikely.
So, three of Mr. Miller‘s arguments are pure speculation, unquantified and not supported by any evidence. But what about the last argument, that the vaccinated tend to be older and therefore more likely to be hospitalised or to die? This certainly looks like a valid point, since we know it is primarily the elderly who become seriously ill with COVID-19. But how valid, or relevant is this really?
To start with, being vulnerable to serious illness or death if infected has nothing to do with the probability of infection. Rather than increasing it, it might rather decrease it, as a vulnerable person might be more likely to avoid situations where they are likely to get infected. As for hospitalisation and death, the data presented in the Public Health Scotland reports is in fact age-standardised. This means the age-related probability of death is already accounted for in the statistics. Mr. Miller‘s key argument, and the only one that isn‘t purely speculative, is therefore simply invalid. It seems he either failed to familiarise himself with the methodology used, or did not understand what it entails.
The weakness of Mr. Miller‘s argumentation does not however stop him from categorically denying that comparison of infection rates is a valid indicator of vaccine effectiveness. And of course it does not prevent the media and social media using his claim, based on speculation and lack of basic understanding of the data, to censor the discussion of a disturbing development that most certainly calls for thorough investigation.
When I showed the data to a Scottish friend recently, he suggested it was of no relevance for other nations, as the Scots were genetically different from other people due to a long-standing diet of nothing but chips, Marlboros and Irn-Bru. I can only say his explanation makes just as much sense as Mr. Miller‘s do.
But Scotland is not the only country experiencing this disturbing trend. A couple of weeks ago I published an article in the Daily Sceptic discussing a similar trend in Iceland: early January data showed the double-vaccinated to be twice as likely to get infected as the unvaccinated. This undermines the aforementioned dietary explanation, as in Iceland we boil our potatoes, smoke Camels rather than Marlboros and Irn-Bru has never been available. No ‘fact check’ has yet been published trying to invalidate this data. However the already published infection rate for the unvaccinated suddenly rose by 20%, without explanation, soon after this development was pointed out.
Unfortunately Mr. Miller‘s article is not the only example of a ‘fact check’ that ignores or distorts the facts, or counters hard data with pure speculation. This sloppy kind of reporting seems to be the fact-checkers’ standard way of working when it comes to the pandemic. Some have even admitted their fact-check labels are nothing but opinion. And the general press is no exception. For example, the Scottish Herald recently published an article on this subject, also failing to acknowledge the fact that the data is age-standardised.
It is a noble endeavour to try to make sure facts rather than fiction influence public opinion. But unfortunately, it looks as if the champions of ‘fact-checking’ have little respect for facts. Most of the material they produce consists of low quality, highly opinionated articles, lacking not only references, but more importantly the clarity of thinking that must be required of anyone who takes upon themselves the important and difficult task of deciding what is true and what isn‘t.
Thorsteinn Siglaugsson is an economist who lives in Iceland. Find him on his blog.
The UK wants to criminalize “misinformation” online as its own health service gets caught posting falsehoods
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | February 11, 2022
Less than a week after the UK proposed criminalizing the posting of some types of “knowingly false” information online, England’s National Health Service has taken down a social media video over inaccurate information.
Last week, NHS England posted a video on its Twitter account with more than half-a-million followers to promote vaccination in kids.
The video claimed that 1% of children will be hospitalized because of Covid, 136 kids in the UK had died because of Covid, and 117,000 children have “long Covid.”
The video went viral attracting comments and retweets from some of the most popular influencers in the health category.
But some, including Dr. Robert Hughes, a clinical research fellow at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, questioned the accuracy of the data.
“As both a parent and scientist who has been involved in research on symptom duration and severity of covid in children, the cited statistics didn’t make sense to me,” Hughes wrote in an article in UnHerd. “The idea that 1% of children with Covid are hospitalized for it didn’t pass the ‘sniff test.’”
The video also shared the story of a kid aged 11 that was suffering from long Covid. According to Hughes, the story contradicted the vaccination guidance in the UK, as it does not even recommend vaccination for that age group.
Additionally, there is not yet any substantial evidence to support that the vaccine prevents long Covid.
Hughes also notes that NHS England was silent when he and others questioned the accuracy of the data.
“Several people agreed with me, sharing their working for why these numbers are at best long outdated, may be orders of magnitude out, and risk undermining confidence in vaccine communications and uptake.
“But others seemed to dig in, praising both the content and tone of the messaging when challenged, and directing the discussion into an important, but different, one about the merits of extending Covid vaccination to children rather than the need for accurate and honest communication about vaccination,” Dr. Hughes wrote for UnHerd.
Hughes contacted the Office of the Statistics Regulator about the numbers. The Statistics Regulator agreed that it was important that the NHS provides accurate figures.
“It is important that figures provided by NHSE&I are accurate and reliable,” the Office of the Statistics Regulator said. “In this case the claim made in the video fell short of these expectations – we contacted NHSE&I and it acknowledged that the data were historic and had methodological shortcomings. We are therefore glad that the content has now been removed from Twitter.”
Before its removal, the video had already been widely shared.
Why the Freedom Convoy is provoking unprecedented hysteria
By Rachel Marsden | RT | February 10, 2022
In the two weeks since the Freedom Convoy of Canadian truckers and their supporters began rallying in Ottawa to demand an end to all pandemic-related mandates and restrictions nationwide, it has become clear that this movement isn’t like other protest movements. And that’s a scary proposition for those in charge who thought that they’d manage and exploit this crisis on their own sweet time and schedule regardless of the actual science and reality on the ground.
There has long been an agenda to corral as many humans as possible unwittingly into a global dragnet through technological adoption. That’s what the revelations of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden were about back in 2013. A technological panopticon provides those in charge with the ability to monitor and ultimately control or sanction dissidents or outliers as the state pursues the self-serving agenda of a select few. Algorithms that exploit this massive online presence enable the state to accurately craft propaganda to be deployed to vilify them in the eyes of the general population, while portraying the state as the great protector — all while selling citizens out to the interests of a select few elites. Essentially, people are manipulated into arguing against their own good.
For those citizens who aren’t seduced by the mere convenience of technology or the narcissistic allure of social media, the fear of terrorism or of Covid-19 more actively encouraged onboarding to these dragnets. And that was before it was flat-out mandated with government-issued QR code health and vaccine passes that linked directly to your identity.
But then a bunch of truckers noticed that the threat of authoritarianism in Canada and elsewhere was closer than it may appear in their mirrors. And these essential workers decided to park their essential tools until officials stopped treating essential freedoms like they were negotiable.
Because Canadian mainstream media is so severely lacking in truly contradictory debate and diversity of thought, the protests risked sparking an unprecedented new awareness for those who had been force-fed government talking points while they may have already been starting to wonder why their entourage was triple-jabbed and still catching the virus. They were probably beginning to question the real value of the sacrifices that they were forced by government into making over the past two years under the illusion of safety.
Into this mix comes a group of people who aren’t paid activists or troublemakers, but rather everyday people with real jobs — and ‘essential’ ones at that, as previously hailed by the governments themselves. This makes the truckers a different breed of dissenters from Black Lives Matters, Antifa, or French Yellow Vest protesters. And that explains why the rhetorical big guns are now being deployed against them. The truckers, by demanding that life go back to exactly the way it was before governments started instrumentalizing the pandemic, could undermine any agenda to exploit the crisis for globalist advancement. This would especially be the case if the Freedom Convoy movement spread around the world, as it’s beginning to do. Here in France, for example, convoys departing from various cities are reportedly scheduled to arrive in Paris beginning on February 11.
Former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, a dual citizen of Ottawa and Globalistan, wrote in a recent Globe and Mail newspaper opinion piece: “[B)y now anyone sending money to the convoy should be in no doubt: You are funding sedition. Foreign funders of an insurrection interfered in our domestic affairs from the start. Canadian authorities should take every step within the law to identify and thoroughly punish them. The involvement of foreign governments and any officials connected to them should be identified, exposed and addressed.”
Unlike previous environmental protests that have raged in Canada to the detriment of the country’s future energy independence, and been backed by US-based think-tanks funded by American business interests close to Washington elites — all of which have apparently escaped Carney’s attention or interest — truckers don’t actually require ‘foreign funding’. They have actual jobs that pay quite well.
You’d think he’d know that, given his illustrious background as an expert in money. But good luck trying to exploit the ‘foreign bogeyman’ trope and attempting to find the scapegoat that you’re looking for. Carney is concerned about the ‘occupation’ by protesters, who are merely fighting against the government blockade of citizens’ lives for the past two years. And a bonus L-O-L for his effort to portray protests to regain basic freedoms as some kind of attempt to overthrow the government of Canada. Perhaps someone could provide him with a paper bag before he passes out?
Here’s your ground truth in Ottawa: “More than 100 Highway Traffic Act and other ‘Provincial Offence Notices’ were issued for offenses including excessive honking, driving the wrong way, defective muffler, no seat belt, alcohol readily available and having the improper class of driving license,” according to a Fox News report.
Well, you know what they say. Every hardcore coup d’état starts with a seat belt offense, right?
Meanwhile, US Homeland Security, already apparently attempting to ward off any potential future pushback against its own unpopular agenda, issued an advisory on February 7 conflating terrorism with “the proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions.” Would that include dissent against any government-approved narrative around the pandemic and related liberticidal measures?
Restrictions, mandates, and ‘vaccine passports’ in two Canadian provinces — Alberta and Saskatchewan — are now ending, premiers of both jurisdictions announced on February 7.
The rest of the world now runs the risk of these trucker movements gaining momentum, before the restrictions and mandates can allow for the full implementation of a lasting solution of tracking and surveillance capable of monitoring populist blowback to government insanity.
The rally race between truckers and globalists is on! And with nothing less than democracy and freedom at stake.
Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist and host of an independently produced French-language program that airs on Sputnik France.
DHS Issues Terrorism Bulletin Over “Conspiracy Theories” and “Misleading Narratives”
By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | February 9, 2022
The Department of Homeland Security has issued a new terrorism bulletin in response to concerns over “conspiracy theories” and “misleading narratives.”
Yes, really.
“The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors,” the DHS bulletin stated.
The advisory goes on to assert that the US is in a “heightened threat landscape” due to “the proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions.”
Apparently, lack of trust in the Biden administration and the legacy media represents a terrorist threat.
Under DHS chief Alejandro Mayorkas, who thinks “white extremists” are the biggest terror threat to America, five separate bulletins striking a similar tone have now been issued.
One of the bulletins even suggested that Americans who are angry at COVID lockdown rules or who express concerns about election integrity are potential extremist threats.
“It’s clear as day these bulletins are pure political propaganda to demonize all white people as “domestic terrorists” ready to carry out terrorist attacks at any moment and justify using terrorism laws against them as part of the new Domestic War on Terror,” writes Chris Menahan.
Since Biden took office, his administration has intensified efforts to demonize its political adversaries, tens of millions of ordinary Americans, as domestic extremists.
Following the January 6 Capitol riot, Democrats ludicrously compared the events to September 11 in an attempt to justify using federal resources that would normally be focused on actual terrorists against American conservatives.
Last month, the Justice Department created a new “specialized unit focused on domestic terrorism” in response to an “elevated” threat from violent extremists in the United States.
As we also reported in January, the US Army conducted a “guerrilla warfare exercise” in North Carolina where troops engaged in mock battle against “freedom fighters.”
In September last year, the National Association of School Boards (NASB) sent a letter to the Biden administration claiming parents were engaging in domestic terrorism by fighting against CRT and mask mandates.
Attorney General Merrick Garland subsequently announced the DOJ and FBI would establish a task force aimed at probing a “disturbing spike” in threats against school officials.
J&J tried to block publication of story about its secret plan to limit baby powder lawsuit payouts
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | February 6, 2022
Johnson & Johnson has been accused of trying to suppress speech by asking a judge to block the Reuters news agency from publishing a story about the pharmaceutical giant’s legal strategy to counter lawsuits claiming that its Baby Powder is a cause of cancer.
“The First Amendment is not a license to knowingly violate the law,” J&J said in a court filing in New Jersey this week.
The filing was made at the US Bankruptcy Court where the Big Pharma giant is trying to get protections from “bankruptcy” from 38,000 lawsuits alleging the company’s baby powder product was advertised as safe but had long-term cancer risks.
This week, Reuters reported that J&J had a secret plan to shift the liability from the lawsuits to a new subsidiary which would then declare bankruptcy to limit having to pay up over the cancer lawsuits.
J&J attempted to stop Reuters from publishing the story by requesting the judge intervene and issue a restraining order.
See the court filing here.
J&J accused Reuters of obtaining documents that were protected from public disclosure, demanding that Reuters return the documents and not publish any information.
The request asks for an order:
“(1) precluding the Reuters news agency from using or relying upon any documents designated as “Confidential” in this proceeding;
(2) requiring the return of any such documents; and
(3) ordering each attorney who has made an appearance in the above-captioned proceeding to submit to the Court a declaration under penalty of perjury stating whether he or she disclosed any materials designated as “Confidential” in this proceeding to Reuters (the “Motion”).”
Lawyers for Reuters, in a court filing, said that Johnson and Johnson’s request to stop the publication was “among the most extraordinary remedies a litigant can request under the law” and that the request was a “prior restraint of speech on a matter of public interest.”
After Reuters published its story, J&J withdrew their request for an immediate hearing but was “not prepared to agree” that the request about the documents was moot.
How the Biomedical State Maintains the ‘All the Experts Agree’ False Consensus
The Daily Bell | February 4, 2022
We’ve previously explored the mind-numbing “experts say” mantra that the corporate media parrots non-stop. Talking heads incessantly implore the peasant class to “respect the science.”
The purpose is to create a mirage of consensus in order to discourage real journalists or normal people from looking into matters themselves. This tactic is pervasive, but nowhere has it been more widely employed than in the COVID era.
Because, if three key facts were permitted to infect the public consciousness, they would inevitably result in mass upheaval of the ruling class that perches on top of society, feeding on it like vultures:
- A.) the original virus almost certainly escaped from a Wuhan lab (if it wasn’t purposely released; let’s not underestimate the hubris of the biomedical state). Worse, that leaky Chinese lab relied on funding from the United States National Institutes of Health (funneled through a “non-profit” called EcoHealth Alliance) to perform dangerous gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.
- B.) The vaccines (which are actually mRNA gene therapies) do not work to prevent infection as promised and cause extensive side effects that were covered up in the original trials.
- C.) The “social distancing” lockdown measures – which plunged untold billions worldwide into poverty, death, and despair – were totally ineffective at preventing the spread of the virus: “Shelter-in-place orders had no detectable health benefits.” Imagine the criminality of all the suffering for no good reason.
At every turn, the “experts” got it wrong.
So how does the biomedical establishment maintain the façade of legitimacy?
The biomedical state uses multiple mechanisms to discourage scientists from dissenting from the approved narrative
You’ve heard the talking point ad nauseam: “99% of scientists agree the vaccines are safe and effective.”
First of all, that figure is not vindicated by any actual polling; it’s just an offhand catchphrase.
Second, what happens to scientists who deviate from the “safe and effective” slogan?
- Their message will get censored or distorted (or both)
- Might lose their professional license
- Ostracized by their peers
- If they’re a researcher, they’ll risk wrecking their career and losing critical funding from NIH and pharma corps.
JFK Jr. explains:
“As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Anthony Fauci dispenses $6.1 billion in annual taxpayer-provided funding for scientific research, allowing him to dictate the subject, content, and outcome of scientific health research across the globe. Fauci uses the financial clout at his disposal to wield extraordinary influence over hospitals, universities, journals, and thousands of influential doctors and scientists—whose careers and institutions he has the power to ruin, advance, or reward.”
- You’ll get smeared in the corporate media
Exhibit A:
Epidemiologists at Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford – three of the most highly-regarded mainstream institutes of higher learning in the world – authored the Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020.
The gist of the document (which you can read here) is that a COVID Zero policy (the elimination of the SARS-CoV-2) virus in the population is a pipe dream. The social distancing and lockdown orders had devastating effects on public physical and mental health. Those at risk of severe illness or death from infectious disease should be protected while the non-vulnerable (the vast majority of the population) should resume normal life.
Those rational, science-based propositions should have been aired publicly in a healthy national debate.
But, predictably, open debate is not how Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins, NIH Director, do things. Instead of debating the merits of the Barrington Declaration, Collins sent an email to Fauci on Oct 8 (later leaked) that read:
“This proposal from three fringe epidemiologists… seems to be getting a lot of attention – and even a co-signature from Nobel Prize winner Mike Leavitt and Stanford. There needs to be a quick and devastating published takedown of its premises. I don’t think like that on line yet – is it underway?”
Does that sound like the language of a public health servant doing God’s work to protect the people from a deadly virus – or that of a cynical political operative?
Is coordinating a media hitjob on ideological opponents part of the NIH Director’s job description?
More importantly, though, if they can orchestrate a smear campaign against three “fringe” epidemiologists from Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford, what signal does that send to a run-of-the-mill MD in Wisconsin who might be inclined to ask critical questions?
The message is obvious: “shut your mouth or we’ll come for you.”
They don’t even have to go after everyone. All they need is to bag a few high-profile scalps to set the example.
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Alarmist climate science as a textbook example of groupthink
By Paul MacRae | May 1, 2012
… Groupthink was extensively studied by Yale psychologist Irving L. Janis and described in his 1982 book Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes.
Janis was curious about how teams of highly intelligent and motivated people—the “best and the brightest” as David Halberstam called them in his 1972 book of the same name—could have come up with political policy disasters like the Vietnam War, Watergate, Pearl Harbor and the Bay of Pigs. Similarly, in 2008 and 2009, we saw the best and brightest in the world’s financial sphere crash thanks to some incredibly stupid decisions, such as allowing sub-prime mortgages to people on the verge of bankruptcy.
In other words, Janis studied why and how groups of highly intelligent professional bureaucrats and, yes, even scientists, screw up, sometimes disastrously and almost always unnecessarily. The reason, Janis believed, was “groupthink.” He quotes Nietzsche’s observation that “madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups,” and notes that groupthink occurs when “subtle constraints … prevent a [group] member from fully exercising his critical powers and from openly expressing doubts when most others in the group appear to have reached a consensus.”[2]
Janis found that even if the group leader expresses an openness to new ideas, group members value consensus more than critical thinking; groups are thus led astray by excessive “concurrence-seeking behavior.”[3] Therefore, Janis wrote, groupthink is “a model of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.”[4]
The groupthink syndrome
The result is what Janis calls “the groupthink syndrome.” This consists of three main categories of symptoms:
1. Overestimate of the group’s power and morality, including “an unquestioned belief in the group’s inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their actions.” [emphasis added]
2. Closed-mindedness, including a refusal to consider alternative explanations and stereotyped negative views of those who aren’t part of the group’s consensus. The group takes on a “win-lose fighting stance” toward alternative views.[5]
3. Pressure toward uniformity, including “a shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view”; “direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group’s stereotypes”; and “the emergence of self-appointed mind-guards … who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.”[6]
It’s obvious that alarmist climate science—as explicitly and extensively revealed in the Climatic Research Unit’s “Climategate” emails—shares all of these defects of groupthink, including a huge emphasis on maintaining consensus, a sense that because they are saving the world, alarmist climate scientists are beyond the normal moral constraints of scientific honesty (“overestimation of the group’s power and morality”), and vilification of those (“deniers”) who don’t share the consensus. … Read full article
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Geopolitics and Geoeconomics of the Strait of Hormuz
- Mali: a new front in the Western war on multipolarism
- CHD Scientist: CDC, FDA COVID Vaccine Safety Monitoring ‘Insulting, and Many People Are Injured’
- COVID Conniving Receives First Federal Indictment
- Iran Blockade Complications /Lt Col Daniel Davis & Nima Alkhorshid
- Pirates of Mediterranean: Israel does as it pleases in the Sea of Three Continents
- Minab children massacre not ‘unfortunate situation’ but ‘heinous war crime’: Tehran
- OPCW Forced To Pay Damages To Whistleblower Who Found Evidence Of False Flag In Syria
- Iran can thrive under blockade, the US and its allies cannot
- Iran slams US leadership, debunking fabrications, false war costs
- If Americans Knew
- US set to sell $1B “Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System” to Israel – Daily Update
- Israeli Strikes Kill at Least 32 Across S Lebanon, Including Children – Amid “Ceasefire”
- Israel to pour $730m into propaganda arm amid reputational crisis
- Real Cost of Iran War Likely Double the $25 Billion Figure the Pentagon Gave to Congress
- Israel conducts farthest-ever strike in long history of attacks on Gaza humanitarian aid flotillas
- In Gaza, Israel commits 10+ ceasefire violations a day – Daily Update
- US ships 6,500 tons of munitions, equipment to Israel in 24 hours
- A New Library in Gaza Rises From the Ashes of Destruction
- Israel’s top Jewish religious body ‘refuses to condemn’ smashing of Jesus statue
- Nun assaulted in Jerusalem amid ‘pattern’ of anti-Christian attacks by Israelis
- No Tricks Zone
- Oversupply Of Volatile Solar Energy Leads To Record NEGATIVE Prices!
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
- European Institute For Climate And Energy: “Climate Debate is Seldom About Science”
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
Aletho News 