Facebook was recently raked over the coals by a former employee for having policies that give preferential treatment and protect high profile users only, but now it seems this is not such a rare occurrence among social media giants.
Take Twitter, for example, which just got exposed for running a secret program designed to give priority to its most prominent users, and protect them from what is perceived as attacks by “trolls and bullies.”
Twitter is carrying out its decision, Bloomberg reported, to protect the political elites and celebrities via a program called Project Guardian, that pushes reports about abusive content posted against these users to the front of the moderation queue.
Apart from shielding who Twitter picks as the most important people on the platform (reports about the secretive program say that many who are protected by it are unaware of this), the company is also able to control what content gets viral and has wide reach, and quickly stem the spread of tweets it disapproves of.
All this means that “regular” users are treated as second class citizens on the platform when they encounter what by Twitter’s standards qualifies for trolling and bullying, and flag such posts.
Twitter has not denied the existence of the program, but insists it is not meant to protect only famous people – and that’s apparently because the list of privileged users keeps changing, as head of site integrity Yoel Roth has told the media.
According to Roth, the decision on who to include depends on what degree of exposure a user has at any given moment, and claims that the program is also used to protect those who find themselves at the center of attention inadvertently, “because of a controversial tweet.”
Another argument this Twitter representative made against reviewing all allegedly abusive tweets with the same sense of urgency is that – “It would mean there’s no point in having a list.”
And Twitter seemingly lacks capabilities to manage its own platform at scale, meaning that it “has to” prioritize high profile users.
As for how one gets on the list of “protected Twitter species” – employees can recommend a user, and the company will respond to requests by agents, managers, and media outlets.
December 9, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance, Supremacism, Social Darwinism, Timeless or most popular |
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Twitter purges another account that scrutinizes powerful figures
Twitter has booted @NancyTracker, a popular account that documented Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s stock trades and drew attention to the millions of dollars she and her husband have generated through trading.
The account had over 200,000 followers when it was banned. Some of its most popular tweets highlighted that Pelosi’s role as a government official gives her access to “insider information” and noted that Pelosi’s returns have significantly outpaced both the market and some of the world’s best investors.
@NancyTracker was created by The Free Press Report which also created the largest Ghislaine Maxwell trial tracker account, @TrackerTrial.
Twitter suspended both accounts earlier today and claimed that The Free Press Foundation had broken its rules against “platform manipulation and spam.” It also referenced rules that prohibit artificially amplifying or suppressing information.
However, The Free Press Foundation pushed back against Twitter by saying that all of the @TrackerTrial’s engagement was “organic” and that “there was not outside amplification.”
In October, less than two months before the accounts were suspended, @NancyTracker said it had received “a cease and desist order from a lawyer representing someone high up in the [Political] office.”
“I will not name names. And I will also not cease or desist,” @NancyTracker added at the time.
The Free Press Report is urging fans of the @NancyTracker account to follow it on free speech social network Gab and has already built an audience of tens of thousands of followers on the platform.
Filmmaker Daniel Bostic described the censorship of the @NancyTracker account as a “full on authoritarian crackdown just days after Dorsey leaves.”
Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey stepped down on November 29 and was replaced by Parag Agrawal. Since being appointed CEO, Agrawal has faced scrutiny for his past comments that Twitter’s role is “not to be bound by the First Amendment” and that he wished Twitter had censored some content sooner.
Investor and Bitcoin commentator Anthony Pompliano also suggested that the censorship was linked to Agrawal by highlighting that the accounts had been suspended and tweeting: “New Twitter CEO seems to be having a busy week.”
The censorship of these popular accounts is the latest in a wave of Twitter censorship that has occurred since Agrawal took the reigns. A link to the American Heart Association website was recently flagged as “unsafe” and numerous accounts have been suspended after Twitter announced new rules that ban the sharing of photos or videos of people without their permission.
December 9, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, Twitter, United States |
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COMPARED with Australia’s other police-run fiefdoms, South Australia has generally stayed under the Covid madness radar. No public police thuggery and rubber bullets in the back, no beating up grandmothers and pregnant women, no Daniel Andrews, no dictatorial legislation, no forced Covid camps, no rounding up of Aboriginal community members (so far). There has been Covid farce, however – a mind-boggling absence of perspective and proportionality reflective of the manic, embedded zero-Covid ideology experienced in other Australasian jurisdictions.
First, there was the pizza outbreak in November 2020. After a man with Covid-19 lied about his link to an Adelaide pizza parlour, the whole State entered a lockdown slated for six days which ended abruptly after three, due to lack of interest from the virus.
Then there was the ‘don’t touch the football’ affair, when Australian Rules fans were warned to duck if the ball came towards the crowd.
The latest is the case of a South Australian Senator, Alex Antic, a vigorous opponent of vaccine mandates and lockdowns, who was carted off to quarantine in a ‘medi-hotel’ after returning from Parliament in Canberra. (Antic is a conservative Liberal in a State run by so-called ‘moderates’ aka Leftists who should be in another party.)
This is in the State that has experienced four Covid deaths. Four. And 952 ‘cases’. South Australia has no crisis whatsoever, certainly none that can justify the establishment of a mini-police state. But the State is run not by a Premier but by an unelected police commissioner and an unelected chief health officer.
Which brings us to the persecution of Dr Bruce Paix, a doctor of 32 years in South Australia who is now unemployed due to ‘vaccine hesitancy’. Dr Paix has been issuing exemptions for mask/vaccines and is a staunch critic of the Covid vaccine and lockdowns. He contacted a member of Parliament, who happens to be South Australia’s acting attorney general, about matters Covid. This politician, one Josh Teague, or someone in his office, it would seem, notified the police. As a result Dr Paix was visited by officers and told that he should stop contacting the MP to voice concerns about Covid management policies.
He was advised to ‘tone down his emails’ and ‘be careful what he writes’, as his communications were ‘drawing attention to him’. Soft, friendly police power. In reality, an iron fist in a velvet glove.
Dr Paix is responsible for a string of Covid crimes – he is unvaxxed, he strays off message, he speaks out, and, worst of all, he is willing to grant exemptions from the jab. His offence in this case seems to have been his act of approaching his elected representative to seek a meeting to protest against a government policy, and his act of letter writing.
Seven officials raided the surgery of another such dissenting doctor, Mark Hobart, in Melbourne last month and seized confidential patient files, an appointment book, and other documents after he refused to hand them over. Inevitably, Hobart is described as ‘controversial’, such is the embedded state of Covid ideology across the legacy media.
Such doctors are quickly swooped on and threatened with being de-registered. The Victorian state government even changed the rules about exemptions to close off what it sees as ‘loopholes’. Patients were apparently ‘doctor shopping’ to find a practitioner who would give them a medical exemption from the vaccine.
A spokesman for the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency and the Medical Board of Australia has made their message clear: that vaccination is a non-negotiable part of the public health response to the Covid-19 pandemic and that advising against it ‘undermines the national immunisation campaign’.
They said the consequences for doctors of not complying would include having their registrations suspended.
The Australian Covid State has relied massively on third party collaboration for maintaining fear and hysteria and for enforcing Covid mandates. The corporate media and the churches are but two of the most egregious examples. Arguably the role of the medical establishment and behaviour of supine, self-regarding doctors is way more appalling than that of all the other ‘just-following-orders’ functionaries of Covid totalitarianism. They are guilty of
· Bullying patients to get the jab, whatever their medical circumstances;
· Collaborating with government in refusing exemptions to patients who palpably deserve them;
· Propagating lies about Covid and about those who question the official Covid narrative;
· Not speaking up and out against ‘medical tyranny’ in Australia;
· Getting into bed with Big Pharma;
· Making a mockery of the Hippocratic Oath, ‘first, do no harm’ by cheering on the vaccination of healthy youth, some of whom they know will die from the vaccines.
Dr Bruce Paix and Dr Mark Hobart have found themselves at the sharp end of the medical wars over Covid. They are enemies of the Covid State, hunted down like the Aborigines of the past – and under Covid Law are once again.
December 9, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | Australia, Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights |
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Millions of videos falsely flagged
YouTube has published its latest transparency report – this being the first detailing the way the giant deals with copyright claims.
The big takeaway is that the copyright claims system is abused on a mass scale, as many observers believe it to be – 2.2 million videos have been targeted with fraudulent, or “incorrect” as YouTube put it, claims in the first half of this year alone, the report reveals.
Still, this is only a small fraction – under 1 percent – of overall copyright claims filed from January to June 2021, which amounted to a whopping 729 million. And 99 percent of those came from the automated and controversial Content ID system.
When creators decided to contest these bogus claims, their appeals were accepted in 60 percent of cases, YouTube claims, interpreting this number to mean that its copyright enforcement and appeals system represents “real recourse” and brushing off the long-standing, serious shortcomings as “no system being perfect.”
But creators who lose income thanks to false copyright strikes – when their content is blocked, muted, or stripped of ad revenue – are unlikely to be appeased by YouTube admitting to its faults and providing a glimpse into the numbers with the first of its kind copyright transparency report.
Despite being a massive platform and a financial juggernaut, YouTube is still failing to meet the goal set by CEO Susan Wojcicki all the way back in 2019, when she said the Google company was “exploring” how it might find “the right balance” between creators and copyright holders.
In the report, YouTube says that they have worked hard to assist the latter with even better tools to protect what they claimed as copyrighted content, while creators are being given tools and resources to help them “manage” their content.
YouTube also explains that there are three avenues they provide to copyright owners: the webform, which can be used by anyone and rarely results in takedown requests; the Copyright Match Tool available to more than 2 million channels hunting down reposted content; and finally, what YouTube calls its “award-winning” Content ID, which is responsible for 99% of all takedown requests – 722 million in the first six months of this year.
Content ID is geared towards serving “the most complicated rights management environments, like movie studios and music labels,” said YouTube.
December 8, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | YouTube |
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@TrackerTrial, an account with over 525,000 followers that provided regular updates on the Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking trial, has been banned from Twitter, just 10 days after the trial began.
The high-profile trial of Maxwell, who is accused of facilitating the sexual exploitation of girls for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, isn’t being broadcast so people have turned to social media to get updates on the trial. Twitter’s focus on real-time updates and breaking news has resulted in it being the preferred platform for many independent accounts that are covering the trial.
Twitter claimed that the @TrackerTrial account had violated its rules against “platform manipulation and spam” and cited its rules around artificially amplifying or suppressing information when banning the account.
“This is the first censorship that the account has experienced,” The Free Press Report told Reclaim The Net. “No warnings or anything. I woke up this morning and my account was gone.”
However, the account’s creator, pushed back against Twitter’s claims and said: “The account got insane engagement, which by the way, was all organic. There was not outside amplification.”
“The people wanted to hear the truth about the Ghislaine Maxwell, and Jeffrey Epstein trial and the engagement numbers showed that,” The Free Press Report added. “There were hundreds of millions in impressions and an account that went from zero to over 525,000 followers in a couple of weeks. All we did was report information from the trial that the mainstream media was failing to do.”
The Free Press Report has appealed the suspension and has vowed to continue reporting on the trial via its Substack. It has also encouraged people to follow its Gab account for “a more informal route of communication.”
Additionally, The Free Press Report warned about the power of Big Tech and how it can use its stranglehold over news distribution to determine which news stories are promoted and which news stories are suppressed.
“Big tech has gotten too powerful, and they can silence us anytime they want,” The Free Press Report wrote. “Local blogs and websites are suppressed by big tech algorithms. If you write one thing out of line Google can institute a site-wide ban, making sure you never show up in search algorithms again. Facebook restricts what is posted on their website. Twitter suppresses any outside links, to keep users on their own site. The year is 2021 and big brother is watching.”
This isn’t the first time Big Tech has censored content related to Maxwell and Epstein with Facebook and YouTube censoring and “fact-checking” commentary and memes on Epstein’s 2019 suicide. A roast of Epstein and Maxwell was also removed from Facebook for violating the platform’s rules around “harassment and bullying.”
Twitter has been approached for comment.
December 8, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance | Twitter |
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In his skyscraper office high above New York’s Sixth Avenue, Roger Ailes, then boss of the Right-leaning Fox News, was justifying his channel’s slogan, ‘Fair and Balanced.’
It was a well-rehearsed line. The rest of the US media, he said, were the liberal Left. ‘So we balance it – and that’s fair.’
Later, an underling added that in America you chose the channel that best fuelled your own views. ‘It just depends on how you take your political medicine.’
On the flight home, I thought how fortunate we were in the UK, with a remit of impartiality in broadcasting; a duty to report fairly and evenly. Less than two decades later, I wonder what’s happened to those intrinsic values.
In all my years around newsrooms, decent journalists have seen it as their right and obligation to seek out the truth, to scrutinise and determine the facts. But on Covid-19, mainstream news outlets have seemingly kow-towed to the Government line, following the ‘official’ science.
Worse, opposing views have been ignored, blocked or summarily dismissed as ‘conspiracy theories’ or ‘misinformation.’ This is not honest journalism as I know it, especially at a time when the Government has extra powers of control over the population. I was taught early that the more someone pushed for or against a story, the more it needed investigating. So what changed?
It’s bad enough that Big Tech acts as the world’s censor, suspending or cancelling any accounts that carry unpalatable comments about the virus or the vaccines. But the UK’s communications regulator Ofcom has also muscled in.
The authority instructed broadcasters to be alert to ‘health claims related to the virus which may be harmful; medical advice which may be harmful; accuracy or material misleadingness in programmes in relation to the virus or public policy relating to it’.
When did it become the regulator’s job to determine debate on Government policy? In effect it discourages investigation of alternative views. And who decides what is accurate or misinformation anyway?
Some media outlets have their own ‘fact checkers,’ but I’m not overly encouraged that BBC News has a Specialist Disinformation Reporter (the title hardly suggests impartiality) or that Sky’s Digital and Forensics team compiled an article that begins: ‘Covid-19 conspiracy groups who have attempted to undermine efforts to bring the pandemic under control are increasingly sharing climate change misinformation.’
The terms prosecutor, judge and jury spring to mind – and try as I might, I couldn’t find any hard evidence that so-called ‘theories’ were bunkum. They weren’t proven either, but that’s not the point.
Maybe the root can be found in Event 201, a simulated global coronavirus pandemic exercise organised by the World Economic Forum, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security, in October 2019.
Advice to world governments included ‘flood the media with fast, accurate and consistent information’ (some would say propaganda), while media companies, for their part, ‘should commit to ensuring that authoritative messages are prioritised and that false messages are suppressed, including through the use of technology’.
We’ve certainly witnessed less-than-overt Government behaviour.
In her best-selling book A State of Fear, Laura Dodsworth charts how proven psychological techniques influenced the Government in frightening and intimidating the population, ‘nudging’ us to comply over Covid. And how mainstream media acted as cheerleaders in weaponising that fear.
It should make uncomfortable reading for any news executive.
Our Government is supposed to serve us, not use fear tactics to bring us to heel. As an industry, we should challenge the narrative much more rigorously, starting with the numbers. At least the BBC carries the small print, that deaths are from any cause within 28 days of positive test. However, these quickly become Covid deaths on many daily score charts. It’s inaccurate reporting. Or should I call it misinformation? Or again, propaganda?
Now the shame-and-blame game has shifted to the unvaccinated (I prefer vaccine-free), those ‘radical anti-vaxxers … spreading fake news’ according to Austria’s Chancellor as he introduced compulsory vaccination.
When did it become acceptable to persecute people who stand up for that most basic of human rights, that of their own body autonomy?
Why are we not outraged that our neighbours in the Netherlands, ordinary citizens, are shot by their own police? Or that Australians are beaten and shot by rubber bullets, or incarcerated in what has become a police state?
Are we ready to accept such a reaction on the streets of London, Birmingham or Sheffield? What angle would the MSM take, police violence or mob rule? Which way would the scales dip?
A recent protest, not widely reported, saw thousands of people marching through London; students, medics, teachers and ex-servicemen, of all ages and races, people with genuine concerns for their children and their democratic freedoms.
They seek the truth and nothing but the truth about the virus and, particularly, the safety of the vaccines. And they have deep convictions that the truth is not forthcoming from the Government or from broadcasters and newspapers.
And that’s the point. If the media continue to stifle alternative views that flourish on various social sites, and continue to follow the censorial state narrative instead of encouraging healthy open debate, they are fuelling the very ‘conspiracies’ they seek to dismiss.
December 7, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Book Review, Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Subjugation - Torture | COVID-19 Vaccine, UK |
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ITV breakfast television show ‘Good Morning Britain’ received backlash on social media after deleting a poll which showed a vast majority of respondents opposed mandatory Covid-19 vaccination.
The poll, which asked viewers whether it was “time to make vaccines mandatory” in response to the spread of the Covid-19 Omicron variant, was posted to Twitter on Tuesday and soon received more than 42,000 votes.
A whopping 89% of those who voted opposed any scheme to make vaccination mandatory, with just 11% in favour.
After the poll went viral, however, social media users noticed that it had been deleted by the Good Morning Britain Twitter account and critics accused the program of trying to cover up the public consensus.
“Why did you delete this poll, is it because you were asked? Or because it shows the people don’t support this sh*t, this tyrannical future your colleagues seem to want. We see you,” reacted one critic, while another suggested, “Guess that wasn’t the answer they were looking for.”
Good Morning Britain – which was hosted by controversial commentator Piers Morgan before his departure in March – did not explain why it removed the poll.
December 7, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, UK |
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New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has candidly revealed that “there’s not going to be an end point to this vaccination program.”
Yes, really.
“So long as there’s people who are eligible who haven’t been vaccinated, we’ve got work to do,” said Ardern.
“Do you know, I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied so long as there’s someone who is eligible and hasn’t been (vaccinated),” she added.
“There’s not going to be an end point to this vaccination program,” the Prime Minister revealed, while calling on people who got jabbed six months ago to come back for another shot.
Ardern delivered the message while adopting her familiar passive-aggressive smiley mannerism, as seen many times before when she casually revealed the next step in COVID authoritarianism.
People who fail to continually get vaccinated will face the same fate as those who have continued to resist compulsory shots, they’ll be out of work, face social ostracization and God only knows what else in the future.
Enjoy your lifetime booster shots and enjoy not being able to travel, visit a restaurant or eventually go in a shop if you miss out on just one.
Remember, if you don’t take the Pfizer jab for life, you’ll never be “fully vaccinated”.
It truly never ends.
December 7, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, New Zealand |
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By now, many have seen the recent segment with cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra which aired on GB News last week. Here he is again, this time speaking with Maajid Nawaz on LBC radio about the article in the American Heart Association’s prestigious journal ‘Circulation’. The findings in this study should disturb everyone.
What is stated in this prestigious peer reviewed medical journal ties in with the numerous reports in recent weeks of young healthy people – including many of top-flight athletes – all suddenly suffering from serious cardiac incidents, and in many cases, dying. How many of these casualties are a result of the experimental mRNA COVID-19 vaccines?
In this recent interview with Dr. Malhotra, the so-called “fact checkers” are exposed as mouthpieces of government agencies, the WHO, and a wildly corrupt corporate pharmaceutical cartel determined to promote their experimental mRNA gene therapy jabs at all costs. Who benefits? This informative segment offers some answers to these questions.
December 6, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | COVID-19 Vaccine |
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The bill would make social platforms liable for user “harm”
House Democrats called for the introduction of legislation that would allow users to sue platforms for “emotional injury.” Critics warned that such a law would result in more censorship.
On Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee discussed several pieces of legislation that would result in amendments to Section 230 (the law that protects online platforms from liability for content posted by users).
One of the proposals was the “Justice Against Malicious Algorithm Act.” The law would enable social media users to sue companies for causing “severe emotional injury.” However, the law does not define so-called emotional injury.
Rashad Robinson, the head of an advocacy group, was one of the people who testified in the hearing. He said free speech should be restricted to fight “misinformation.”
Robinson said that Congress should put legislative limits on the First Amendment rights, arguing that: “I understand that we have these conversations about the First Amendment, but there are limitations to what you can and cannot say.”
Democratic representatives agreed with the idea of limiting free speech to fight misinformation. Most of them said that online platforms should be forced to “deamplify” objectionable content.
One Democratic panelist said that free speech does not translate to “freedom of reach.” Another said that “lies are not free speech.”
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers warned that the “Justice Against Malicious Algorithm Act” was a “a thinly veiled attempt to pressure companies to censor more speech.”
She added that if “companies will have to decide between leaving up content that may offend someone and fight it in court, or censor content that reaches a user—which do you think they’ll choose?”
December 5, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, United States |
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Last year, the UK medical register suspended a consultant surgeon for 12 months pending an investigation by the General Medical Council (GMC) for posting on social media that Covid-19 was being used by elites to control the world.
Colleagues wrote to the organization arguing he should not have been suspended for his personal opinion.
Mohammad Iqbal Adil, a Pakistan-born British doctor, has worked in the NHS for almost three decades. An interim orders tribunal suspended him for a year because of videos he posted on social media.
The doctor expressed “his point of view on the Covid-19 pandemic and the far-reaching effects of the lockdown on the economy, public health and wellbeing,” his campaign page states.
A spokesperson for the GMC at the time said: “The interim orders tribunal imposed an interim suspension on Dr Adil’s registration, following our referral, to protect patients and public confidence. This interim suspension remains in place while we consider concerns about Dr Adil’s fitness to practice.”
Some of his colleagues launched a petition on Change.org calling on the GMC to reinstate Dr. Adil. The petition argues that the GMC should have given him a chance to reflect on the videos “when the entire world is confused about the novel virus.”
The petition also noted that he had a family to support, adding, “UK needs doctors to work. It would not be in the best interest of the public and health system to lose [an] experienced and highly qualified surgeon like him.
“We, the doctors community within [the] UK and across the world, feel that it’s injustice to suspend Mr Adil on his personal point of view on the covid-19 without giving him [a] chance to reflect upon his video before enforcing suspension.
“We request to the GMC to revoke his unfair 12 months suspension . . . and allow him fair chance to work in this country [for the benefit of] the health system, communities, and medical graduates.”
“Dr Adil has been making a stand for freedom of speech for all doctors and nurses to speak their truth without fear of recrimination or persecution,” his campaign page states.
December 4, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Covid-19, Human rights, UK |
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Courts around the country are striking down vaccine mandates and even Covid restrictions in general. Protests against both have erupted the world over. There is a trend in which major names and faces that imposed lockdowns on the country are resigning from their positions and otherwise dropping out of politics. The Biden administration in general has sunk in the polls. The resistance to the entire regime of command and control that seized the world in March 2020 is growing by the day.
But none of this seems to matter to the dominant Internal portals of Google and YouTube, which Google owns. They occupy the number one and number two spots for global traffic and reach. That’s some serious power over what the majority of people read, see, hear, and believe. It’s true that critically thinking people have already shifted to DuckDuckGo, Rumble, and many other platforms, and their market share is growing, to be sure. But nothing can compare to the 75% market share of YouTube, or the 86% share of search controlled by Google.
Often individual users can develop a distorted sense of that whole based on their own browsing habits. You like Brownstone.org, for example, and you get great information from this site. It is easy to forget that its 4 million users seem nearly invisible compared with the traffic enjoyed by the larger sites. Being on the admin side, it is much easier to observe how a myth spread, for example, by CNN can reach tens of millions of people whereas its refutation on a small site might only reach a few thousand. The myth stands.
For this reason, their Terms of Use seriously matter for culture, politics, intellectual life, and public opinion in general. And Google has just changed its terms as they apply to YouTube. It’s a fair presumption that Google’s search results will reflect these same terms. They pertain directly to the science behind Covid, mitigation policies, and mandates on the vaccines. These new terms go into effect on January 6, 2022 (why that date?). If they are truly enforced, freedom of speech and the ability of the scientific process to operate unimpeded will be severely curtailed.
Under the new rules, you cannot claim “that the pandemic is over.” Which is to say, the pandemic is now declared to last forever. You cannot make “claims that any group or individual has immunity to the virus or cannot transmit the virus,” which means that all the science on naturally acquired immunity can be deleted.
You cannot claim that ”vaccines do not reduce risk of contracting COVID-19,” which directly contradicts the FDA: “The scientific community does not yet know if the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine will reduce such transmission.” You cannot post “videos alleging that social distancing and self-isolation are not effective in reducing the spread of the virus” and you cannot claim that “wearing a mask causes oxygen levels to drop to dangerous levels.”
And there is this one: you cannot make claims that “achieving herd immunity through natural infection is safer than vaccinating the population,” even though endemicity is inevitable and the vaccines cannot make a substantial contribution to its achievement due to their inability to protect fully against infection and transmission.
As usual, the long list of Do Nots also includes statements that are patently false and otherwise ridiculous – so much so that it seems not dangerous to permit them! The full list is extremely long and includes many fully open questions that Google/YouTube wants to be declared closed. Some of the Do Nots also include statements that are contradicted by statements from Fauci and Biden, such as the rule that you cannot make “claims that any vaccine is a guaranteed prevention method for COVID-19.” The head of the CDC made exactly this claim!
If these rules are strenuously enforced, millions of videos, interviews, television shows, lectures, press conferences, and scientific presentations will disappear. Maybe tens of millions actually. And all in the name of protecting “science” against its corruption, as if YouTube should be the determinant of what constitutes good science.
Here is what Google says about the consequences of violating the rules:
We may allow content that violates the misinformation policies noted on this page if that content includes additional context in the video, audio, title, or description. This is not a free pass to promote misinformation. Additional context may include countervailing views from local health authorities or medical experts. We may also make exceptions if the purpose of the content is to condemn, dispute, or satirize misinformation that violates our policies. We may also make exceptions for content showing an open public forum, like a protest or public hearing, provided the content does not aim to promote misinformation that violates our policies.
If your content violates this policy, we’ll remove the content and send you an email to let you know. If this is your first time violating our Community Guidelines, you’ll likely get a warning with no penalty to your channel. If it’s not, we may issue a strike against your channel. If you get 3 strikes within 90 days, your channel will be terminated.
An intriguing question for any defender of private enterprise – I am certainly that – is why Google would so willingly turn over its platform to a branch of the state and its medical/policy priorities. It cannot be simply the desire to only say true things because there is plenty that is thoroughly disputable in these rules and much has already been challenged by vast quantities of peer-reviewed studies.
How does it come to be that such a huge business can become fully captured by government? I have friends who say it is the reverse actually, that Google has fully captured government, and is driving forward the agenda of politics. Regardless, it becomes a troubled world in which one can no longer distinguish business from the state, or either from big pharmaceutical companies. The state finds it more advantageous to enlist business in its rights violations than risk the court challenges that come with directly violating the First Amendment. The law restricts states in ways that do not apply to private companies, so the answer for the state seems obvious: use the private sector to achieve state policy priorities, particularly as it pertains to controlling the information to which the public has access.
Others might observe that Google has everything to gain from its investment in lockdown policies and mandates, all the better to keep people glued to their personal computers. Even granting that big tech benefited enormously from lockdowns, that’s an outlook on enterprise that is too cynical for me to believe at this stage. Or maybe I’m naive.
What seems clear is that these censorious moves could seriously erode market share and give rise to new platforms that will eventually compete more directly. But before we get too optimistic about this, the time between now and then is a very long time away, while the change in the scientific culture that this move will enact starts next month.
Here is the full text of Google Terms of Use as it pertains to the most critical issues affecting freedom, free speech, and science in the world today. For your research amusement, you can see via the WaybackMachine how this page has expanded over time from its initial page on May 2, 2020, to today.
COVID-19 medical misinformation policy
The safety of our creators, viewers, and partners is our highest priority. We look to each of you to help us protect this unique and vibrant community. It’s important you understand our Community Guidelines, and the role they play in our shared responsibility to keep YouTube safe. Take the time to carefully read the policy below. You can also check out this page for a full list of our guidelines.
YouTube doesn’t allow content about COVID-19 that poses a serious risk of egregious harm.
YouTube doesn’t allow content that spreads medical misinformation that contradicts local health authorities’ (LHA) or the World Health Organization’s (WHO) medical information about COVID-19. This is limited to content that contradicts WHO or local health authorities’ guidance on:
- Treatment
- Prevention
- Diagnosis
- Transmission
- Social distancing and self isolation guidelines
- The existence of COVID-19
Note: YouTube’s policies on COVID-19 are subject to change in response to changes to global or local health authorities’ guidance on the virus. There may be a delay between new LHA/WHO guidance and policy updates given the frequency with which this guidance changes, and our policies may not cover all LHA/WHO guidance related to COVID-19.
Our COVID-19 policies were first published on May 20, 2020.
What this policy means for you
If you’re posting content
Don’t post content on YouTube if it includes any of the following:
Treatment misinformation:
- Content that encourages the use of home remedies, prayer, or rituals in place of medical treatment such as consulting a doctor or going to the hospital
- Content that claims that there’s a guaranteed cure for COVID-19
- Content that recommends use of Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of COVID-19
- Claims that Hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for COVID-19
- Categorical claims that Ivermectin is an effective treatment for COVID-19
- Claims that Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine are safe to use in the treatment COVID-19
- Other content that discourages people from consulting a medical professional or seeking medical advice
Prevention misinformation: Content that promotes prevention methods that contradict local health authorities or WHO.
- Claims that there is a guaranteed prevention method for COVID-19
- Claims that any medication or vaccination is a guaranteed prevention method for COVID-19
- Content that recommends use of Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine for the prevention of COVID-19
- Claims that Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine are safe to use in the treatment COVID-19
- Claims that wearing a mask is dangerous or causes negative physical health effects
- Claims that masks do not play a role in preventing the contraction or transmission of COVID-19
- Claims about COVID-19 vaccinations that contradict expert consensus from local health authorities or WHO
- Claims that an approved COVID-19 vaccine will cause death, infertility, miscarriage, autism, or contraction of other infectious diseases
- Claims that an approved COVID-19 vaccine will contain substances that are not on the vaccine ingredient list, such as biological matter from fetuses (e.g. fetal tissue, fetal cell lines) or animal products
- Claims that an approved COVID-19 vaccine will contain substances or devices meant to track or identify those who’ve received it
- Claims that COVID-19 vaccines will make people who receive them magnetic
- Claims that an approved COVID-19 vaccine will alter a person’s genetic makeup
- Claims that COVID-19 vaccines do not reduce risk of contracting COVID-19
- Claims that any vaccine causes contraction of COVID-19
- Claims that a specific population will be required (by any entity except for a government) to take part in vaccine trials or receive the vaccine first
- Content that promotes the use of unapproved or homemade COVID-19 vaccines
- Instructions to counterfeit vaccine certificates, or offers of sale for such documents
Diagnostic misinformation: Content that promotes diagnostic methods that contradict local health authorities or WHO.
- Claims that approved COVID-19 tests are dangerous or cause negative physical health effects
- Claims that approved COVID-19 tests cannot diagnose COVID-19
Transmission misinformation: Content that promotes transmission information that contradicts local health authorities or WHO.
- Content that claims that COVID-19 is not caused by a viral infection
- Content that claims COVID-19 is not contagious
- Content that claims that COVID-19 cannot spread in certain climates or geographies
- Content that claims that any group or individual has immunity to the virus or cannot transmit the virus
Social distancing and self isolation misinformation: Content that disputes the efficacy of local health authorities’ or WHO’s guidance on physical distancing or self-isolation measures to reduce transmission of COVID-19.
Content that denies the existence of COVID-19:
- Denial that COVID-19 exists
- Claims that people have not died or gotten sick from COVID-19
- Claims that the virus no longer exists or that the pandemic is over
- Claims that the symptoms, death rates, or contagiousness of COVID-19 are less severe or equally as severe as the common cold or seasonal flu
- Claims that the symptoms of COVID-19 are never severe
This policy applies to videos, video descriptions, comments, live streams, and any other YouTube product or feature. Keep in mind that this isn’t a complete list. Please note these policies also apply to external links in your content. This can include clickable URLs, verbally directing users to other sites in video, as well as other forms.
Examples
Here are some examples of content that’s not allowed on YouTube:
- Denial that COVID-19 exists
- Claims that people have not died from COVID-19
- Claims that any vaccine is a guaranteed prevention method for COVID-19
- Claims that a specific treatment or medicine is a guaranteed cure for COVID-19
- Claims that hydroxychloroquine saves people from COVID-19
- Promotion of MMS (Miracle Mineral Solution) for the treatment of COVID-19
- Claims that certain people have immunity to COVID-19 due to their race or nationality
- Encouraging taking home remedies instead of getting medical treatment when sick
- Discouraging people from consulting a medical professional if they’re sick
- Content that claims that holding your breath can be used as a diagnostic test for COVID-19
- Videos alleging that if you avoid Asian food, you won’t get the coronavirus
- Videos alleging that setting off fireworks can clean the air of the virus and will prevent the spread of the virus
- Claims that COVID-19 is caused by radiation from 5G networks
- Videos alleging that the COVID-19 test is the cause of the virus
- Claims that countries with hot climates will not experience the spread of the virus
- Videos alleging that social distancing and self-isolation are not effective in reducing the spread of the virus
- Claims that wearing a mask causes oxygen levels to drop to dangerous levels
- Claims that masks cause lung cancer or brain damage
- Claims that wearing a mask gives you COVID-19
- Claims that the COVID-19 vaccine will kill people who receive it
- Claims that the COVID-19 vaccine will be used as a means of population reduction
- Videos claiming that the COVID-19 vaccine will contain fetal tissue
- Claims that the flu vaccine causes contraction of COVID-19
- Claims that COVID-19 vaccines are not effective in preventing the spread of COVID-19
- Claims that the COVID-19 vaccine causes contraction of other infectious diseases or makes people more vulnerable to contraction of other infectious diseases
- Claims that the COVID-19 vaccines contain a microchip or tracking device
- Claims that achieving herd immunity through natural infection is safer than vaccinating the population
- Claims that COVID-19 never causes serious symptoms or hospitalization
- Claims that the death rate from the seasonal flu is higher than the death rate of COVID-19
- Claims that people are immune to the virus based on their race
- Claims that children cannot or do not contract COVID-19
- Claims that there have not been cases or deaths in countries where cases or deaths have been confirmed by local health authorities or the WHO
Educational, documentary, scientific or artistic content
We may allow content that violates the misinformation policies noted on this page if that content includes additional context in the video, audio, title, or description. This is not a free pass to promote misinformation. Additional context may include countervailing views from local health authorities or medical experts. We may also make exceptions if the purpose of the content is to condemn, dispute, or satirize misinformation that violates our policies. We may also make exceptions for content showing an open public forum, like a protest or public hearing, provided the content does not aim to promote misinformation that violates our policies.
What happens if content violates this policy
If your content violates this policy, we’ll remove the content and send you an email to let you know. If this is your first time violating our Community Guidelines, you’ll likely get a warning with no penalty to your channel. If it’s not, we may issue a strike against your channel. If you get 3 strikes within 90 days, your channel will be terminated. You can learn more about our strikes system here.
We may terminate your channel or account for repeated violations of the Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. We may also terminate your channel or account after a single case of severe abuse, or when the channel is dedicated to a policy violation. You can learn more about channel or account terminations here.
Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press and ten books in 5 languages, most recently Liberty or Lockdown.
December 3, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | Google, YouTube |
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