Twitter Says It’ll Censor Deepfakes And Basically Anything Else It Wants To Ahead Of 2020 Election
By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 02/05/2020
Just days after banning Zero Hedge, Twitter has announced it’ll also be implementing new rules to address deepfakes and “other forms of synthetic and manipulated media” as we head closer to the 2020 election.
Because we can’t have a repeat of 2016, right?
The company said it is going to not allow users to “deceptively share synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm,” according to CNBC. The rules go into effect after March 5 this year, where the company will now label some Tweets containing synthetic or manipulated media.
Social media can, and will, have a profound effect on the state of the election heading into November this year. Altered media often shows up, with candidates words sometimes parroted or mocked in certain ads that seek to undermine them. Lawmakers have been trying to figure out a way to hold social media companies accountable for the spread of misinformation.
According to CNBC, last month the “House Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce held a hearing where experts shared warnings of both deepfakes and potential over-regulation of tech platforms that host them.”
Twitter is now going to test media in three different ways to see if it meets parameters that violate its policy.
- Is the media synthetic or manipulated?
- Was it shared in a deceptive manner?
- Is it likely the content will cause serious harm?
The article notes that if all three of these come back “yes”, that Twitter said it would be likely to remove the content.
But we’re willing to bet – and we know from experience – that Twitter is just going to remove the content it wants to, regardless.
In fact, the new policy is broad enough that it’ll allow the company to even take action against “cheapfakes”, which are low-tech edits meant to deceive other users. And what example is immediately brought up in CNBC’s article? One video where a Twitter user simply slowed down a video of Nancy Pelosi:
The doctored video of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that circulated on social media last year, for example, would be an example of such amateur editing, since the video was simply slowed down to give the effect that her speech was slow and slurred. More sophisticated deepfakes can involve transposing a person’s face on a video of another person, for example, which could give false impressions of a person’s words or actions.
So we guess we won’t be seeing any videos of her tearing up the State of the Union Speech in slow motion.
Twitter also said that some world leaders would be exempt from some of its policy standards. They company said it’s because “it’s important for users to see and be able to debate their messages.” But we know it’s likely because Twitter doesn’t want to lose the traffic they drive and popularity they bring to the site.
Again it seems like a case of Twitter enabling itself for purely arbitrary and discretionary bans of whomever it wants, whenever it wants.
Hope for an End to Intimidation, Harassment and Bullying
By Gilad Atzmon | February 2, 2020
On Thursday night, the Jewish charity, Campaign Against Antisemitsm (CAA) declared that it would “be selecting a number of future dates on which to picket the 606 [jazz] club over its decision” to present a jazz performance by yours truly. With this threat, CAA crossed the line. This time it wasn’t just going after me or my band, this time its threat encompassed an entire community of musicians and music lovers for whom the 606 club is a preeminent venue, and none of whom have anything to do with me or my ideas.
Such threats are anathema to the values of British and western culture: the way to counter ideas with which they don’t agree is to present their own position. The tactic of gross intimidation, of menacing an entire community over the legal speech of one member are more characteristic of organised crime than of a British charity.
Yesterday I reported the CAA’s actions to the police. They took my complaint very seriously and I was interviewed for two hours. I had the strong impression that the matter was already known to the police.
During the time the police interviewed me, I received a message that the CAA is under investigation by the Charities Commission.
I was advised that every musician, music venue, promoter or audience member who is or has been subject to any intimidation or harassment by the CAA should contact the police immediately.
No one should be harassed, especially by a charity, and I want to believe that the threats to British politicians, artists, intellectuals, journalists, venues and ordinary people are about to come to an end. Such a development will make life safer and more comfortable for Jews and Gentiles alike.
‘It’s Going to P**s Off a Lot of People’: Mark Zuckerberg Defends Facebook’s ‘New Approach’
Sputnik – February 2, 2020
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently received criticism from some of America’s most outspoken figures, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and billionaire activist George Soros, who accused the tech billionaire of indirectly assisting Donald Trump get re-elected as a result of the platform’s policies.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and chief executive, defended the platform’s principle of free expression at the Silicon Slopes Tech Summit in Utah, arguing that the company is now set to change its previous approach of not doing anything deemed “too offensive” amid increased censorship calls, CNN reported.
“Increasingly we’re getting called to censor a lot of different kinds of content that makes me really uncomfortable”, the platform’s CEO was quoted as saying.
“This is the new approach, and I think it’s going to p**s off a lot of people. But frankly, the old approach was p**sing off a lot of people too, so let’s try something different”, Zuckerberg insisted.
Despite the proposed change of direction, Facebook’s founder insisted that the company still has a responsibility to remove content related to child exploitation, violence, or terrorism from its platform.
“We’re going to take down the content that’s really harmful, but the line needs to be held at some point”, Zuckerberg reportedly stated. He also defended the use of encryption in Facebook messaging services that potentially prevents third parties from accessing communications sent between users.
Facebook’s leadership has come under increased scrutiny over the past year following its refusal to remove political ads that may contain misinformation, citing its policy of free speech and the right of users to make up their own minds about the agendas of politicians. Zuckerberg’s new approach prompted strong backlash from former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who called his stance “authoritarian” and aimed at helping her 2016 presidential rival Donald Trump get re-elected by refusing to tackle alleged misinformation and propaganda.
This criticism was recently echoed by Hungarian-American hedge fund manager and activist George Soros, who urged for Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg to be removed from the company’s leadership due to the platform’s “informal” alliance with Donald Trump, which is allegedly helping him win the 2020 presidential election.
The accusations have not been directly addressed by Zuckerberg, but he recently insisted that his company’s goal for the next decade is not “to be liked, but to be understood.”
(Referals from Facebook to Aletho News, though still a fraction of one time numbers, have just recently more than doubled )
ZeroHedge banned from Twitter after BuzzFeed accuses it of coronavirus conspiracy and ‘doxxing’ Chinese scientists
RT | February 1, 2020
The popular news blog ZeroHedge has been suspended from Twitter. While no reason was given, their last tweet referred to speculation the coronavirus could be a bioweapon and BuzzFeed had just accused them of doxxing.
The site’s last tweet before the suspension referenced a paper by Indian scientists pointing to uncanny similarities between the 2019-nCoV virus and HIV, which internet researcher Christopher Torres Lugo described as “conspiracy theories claiming that 2019-nCoV is a bioweapon.”
Twitter does not comment on reasons for suspending or banning any particular account, leaving ZeroHedge’s 673,000 or so followers in the dark on Friday afternoon, until the site itself said it received noticed it had engaged in “abuse or harassment.”
About two hours before the suspension published a story accusing ZeroHedge – which it refers to as “a popular pro-Trump website” – of revealing personal information of a scientist from Wuhan, China and “falsely accusing them of creating the coronavirus as a bioweapon.”
Release of personal information, or doxxing, would be a violation of Twitter rules. However, the BuzzFeed story purports to identify by name the proprietor of ZeroHedge, who writes under the pseudonym Tyler Durden.
BuzzFeed was outraged by the “rumors and lies” allegedly pushed by ZeroHedge about the origins and characteristics of the coronavirus, which causes a respiratory infection that has so far sickened almost 10,000 people across the world, and killed over 200 – mainly in China.
The first patient was reported in the city of Wuhan, in Hebei province, just a month ago. The WHO has declared a global health emergency due to the rapid spread of the virus.
ZeroHedge’s most recent article included the tweets of several scientists who were alarmed by a pre-publication paper authored by a team of Indian virologists, noticing the “uncanny similarity” between the 2019-nCoV and HIV-1 and finding it “unlikely to be fortuitous.”
Commenting on the suspension, ZeroHedge wondered, “Are we then to understand that we have now reached a point the mere gathering of information, which our colleagues in the media may want to eventually do as thousands of people are afflicted daily by the Coronavirus, is now synonymous with ‘abuse and harassment’? According to Twitter, and certainly our competitors in the media, the answer is yes.”
BuzzFeed notoriously published the so-called ‘Steele Dossier’ in January 2017, claiming that Russian intelligence services had compromising material on president-elect Donald Trump including video of him cavorting with urinating prostitutes at a Moscow hotel. None of the claims from the dossier, compiled by a freelancing British spy on commission from the Democratic National Committee, were ever corroborated.
See also:
Zerohedge Suspended On Twitter
Coronavirus Contains “HIV Insertions”, Stoking Fears Over Artificially Created Bioweapon
GoFundMe Closes down US-based Palestinian Group’s Account
Palestine Chronicle | January 31, 2020
The popular online fundraising platform GoFundMe has closed down the account of Palestinian advocacy organization Al-Awda without providing any reason.
Based in the US, Al-Awda is a non-profit organization of activists and students who are dedicated to the education of the public on the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in Palestine.
The account was closed this month, according to the head of Al-Awda, Abbas Hamideh.
“We are an American non-profit (501c3) organization advocating for Palestinian refugees,” Hamideh wrote.
“They refuse requests to disclose reasons why they shut down a legitimate fundraiser after using them successfully for the past four years. Why did they shut us down? Could it be because we are advocates of the BDS movement and one of its founders?”
GoFundMe is a California-based crowdfunding platform that permits people to raise money for celebrations and causes and claims to be the world’s largest crowdfunding site by money raised.
Zionist Terror in London
Why I have withdrawn from my commitment to play at the Great 606 Jazz Club this Saturday night
By Gilad Atzmon | January 31, 2020
They destroyed the Labour Party, now they have launched a campaign against the British arts scene. Will they successfully abuse the moniker of anti-Semitism to destroy any place, person or organization where they sense opposition?
The 606 Jazz Club and its owner, Steve Rubie, have been subjected to a constant barrage of pressure and threats for hosting my concert. In a familiar first act, a Jewish “member of the public” asked the 606 to explain why the club gives a [music] platform to me, whom he duplicitously calls ‘an anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier.’ The UK Jewish press avidly repeated the lies about me. Ludicrous accusations were made. The club was told that I advocate the ‘burning of synagogues.’ I was accused of suggesting that “Hitler was right after all.” The accusations are false and, of course, unsourced as they cannot be found anywhere in my work. If I were a Hitler supporter who urged burning synagogues, certainly these campaigners would have used Britain’s strict hate speech laws to have me spend some time behind bars.
I have played in the 606 club for many years and Steve and I have spent many hours discussing Israel and its politics. Steve has no doubts that the accusations against me are unfounded. Yesterday he wrote a moving statement explaining why I am invited to play at his club on a regular basis despite the constant pressure he endures. Amazingly, Steve had to point out that The 606 is “a music venue first and foremost. We are here to promote the best in UK music and Gilad falls in that category…” This is without regard to Steve’s disagreement with most of my political views.
Steve’s explained the basic core western value that political disagreement is no reason to stop the music. Are we to live in a land where Tories and Labour block each other’s arts events? Ridiculous. But apparently kosher in the case of supporters of Israel and its critics. The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) were not persuaded by the simple truth of Steve’s letter. Last night, the CAA launched its new strategy, to threaten and then harass the Jazz community, the club, that artists and the jazz audience whenever it so decides. A few hours ago the CAA posted the this Tweet:
“Campaign Against Antisemitism will be selecting a number of future dates on which to picket the @606Club over its decision to provide notorious antisemite Gilad Atzmon with a platform.”
This should horrify every Brit, Jew and Gentile, as it horrifies me. In 2017 a similar CAA campaign ended in a vicious attack on an audience member who suffered a serious eye injury.
This morning I decided that in the light of the CAA’s threats, I am withdrawing from the gig. I do not want to see the art scene obliterated by an insane Zionist pressure group. I certainly don’t want British artists and audiences subjected to violence. I did this despite my concerns about the consequences of bowing to anti-cultural bullies and my obligation to the British artists who have played with me for decades and whose livelihoods depends on such gigs.
Of far larger concern is that a pressure group that tweets its call for volunteers to destroy our art scene enjoys such impunity in Britain. How is it that British tax benefits granted charitable status to the benefit of the CAA that openly threatens to harass the Jazz community, its audience, venues and artists?
I deeply believe that Britain must reinstate its liberal and universal values of tolerance and diversity, and as a first step, I intend to file a complaint against the CAA with the Charity Commission. I ask you to examine their rules and decide if you want to do the same.
Liz Warren’s Chronicle of Self-Awareness
By Steve Sailer • Unz Review • January 30, 2020
From CNBC:
Elizabeth Warren proposes criminal penalties for spreading voting disinformation online
PUBLISHED WED, JAN 29 2020
Sunny KimDemocratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday released a plan to fight disinformation and to hold tech companies accountable for their actions in light of the 2016 election.
“Disinformation and online foreign interference erode our democracy, and Donald Trump has invited both,” Warren said in a Tweet Wednesday. …
Warren proposed to combat disinformation by holding big tech companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google responsible for spreading misinformation designed to suppress voters from turning out.
She added she will also open up data for research so that academics and organizations can provide the public with knowledge on disinformation.
With her superb grasp of symbolism and self-awareness, Warren chose to announce her plan to fight online disinformation on the one-year anniversary of her helping spread Jussie Smollett’s hate hoax disinformation online.
Also this week, Liz endorsed Chicago prosecutor Kim Foxx, who let Jussie walk last year.
Democrat Congressional Committee Demands Google Bury “Climate Misinformation”
By Eric Worrall | Watts Up With That? | January 29, 2020
The U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on the Climate Crisis has demanded Google demonetize climate skeptics, and provide education to millions of people who have been exposed to “dangerous misinformation”.
If the letter is not readable on your device, the original link is available here.
The key actions demanded:
- Stop promoting climate denial and climate disinformation videos by removing them immediately from the platform’s recommendation algorithm.
- Add ‘climate misinformation’ to the platform’s list of borderline content
- Stop monetising videos that promote harmful misinformation and falsehoods about the causes and effects of the climate crisis.
- Take steps to correct the record for millions of users who have been exposed to the climate misinformation on YouTube.
The people who wrote that letter seem to believe ordinary people are too stupid to figure things out for themselves; they think voters have to be guided into making acceptable choices, by experts like the Democrat majority members of The U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.
Here’s Who Pressured the Medical Journal
Do we want to live in a world in which medical journals are afraid to publish certain conclusions?
By Donna Laframboise | Big Picture News | January 29, 2020
I recently described an organized campaign against a medical journal that published research over the objections of anti-meat activists. After the Annals of Internal Medicine refused to halt publication, the US Federal Trade Commission was urged to intervene. So was the Philadelphia district attorney’s office.
Do we really want to live in a world in which medical journals are afraid to publish certain conclusions because activists will sic the authorities on them? Does it really need to be said that, once government officials and the courts start second-guessing medical journals, free speech and honest scholarship are as good as dead?
So who, precisely, tried to get this research retracted before it saw the light of day? Who arrogantly wanted to extinguish the public’s right to hear that the evidence linking meat consumption and poor health is quite weak?
A lot of people who should know better. People associated with prestigious institutions.
Let’s start with David L. Katz, of Yale University. In a bizarre newspaper column Katz implies the journal is guilty of “information terrorism.” In his universe, this isn’t a matter of different researchers examining the same evidence and coming to different conclusions. It’s a matter of anyone-who-disagrees-with-me-has-nefarious-motives. It’s how-dare-you-challenge-the-prevailing-consensus!
Katz is the founder/director of the True Health Initiative. That organization describes itself as a “voice of reason and consensus.” It claims to be “fighting fake facts” and “combating false doubts” via an “evidence-based” approach. Shutting down competing perspectives is not the voice of reason. It’s the voice of authoritarianism.
Neal Barnard, of George Washington University’s School of Medicine, heads the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. It was his organization that appealed to the Trade Commission and then to the district attorney.
Other signatories to the letter urging the journal to halt publication include Frank Hu, JoAnn E. Manson, Eric Rimm, Meir Stampfer, and Walter Willett. All of these people are associated with Harvard’s School of Public Health. That entity has a party line where meat is concerned. It’s difficult to imagine a researcher with an alternative perspective surviving there long. I wrote about Willett’s vegetarian climate change activism last year.
These are the other individuals who took the highly unusual step of trying to influence the editorial decisions of a respected medical journal:
Dariush Mozaffarian – a Dean at Tufts University
Richard Carmona of the University of Arizona
Christopher Gardner of Stanford University
David J.A. Jenkins and John Sievenpiper of the University of Toronto
Dean Ornish of the University of California
Kim A. Williams of Rush University
NewsGuard Can Save You From Putin!
By Fred Gardner | CounterPunch | January 27, 2020
The New York Times headline was an attention grabber worthy of Sen. Joe McCarthy: “How Amazon, Geico and Walmart Fund Propaganda.” A subhed explained: “Algorithms are sending ads by American brands onto Russian disinformation sites.” The op-ed by L. Gordon Crovitz, a former publisher of the Wall St. Journal, culminated in a sales pitch for his latest venture, NewsGuard. The company’s business plan is to do for internet news sites what Red Channels did for Hollywood movies: maintain a blacklist. Patriotism for personal profit —perfect plan.
Crovitz’s first paragraph invoked Lenin and Putin:
Lenin is sometimes said to have predicted that capitalists would sell Russia the rope with which they would be hanged.* Yet not even Lenin could have imagined Vladimir Putin’s success in getting some of the largest Western companies to subsidize his disinformation efforts by advertising on his government-run “news” websites.
The top programmatic advertiser on Mr. Putin’s Sputnik News site? The Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, through ads bought on behalf of Berkshire Hathaway’s Geico insurance. Sputnik News peddles Kremlin propaganda on topics such as Syria and straightfacedly reports Mr. Putin’s denials of interfering in other countries’ elections.
Isn’t a “news site” supposed to report the news straightfacedly? Did Crovitz expect Sputnik to scowlingly report Putin’s denials? Or mockingly? Is that how they would handle the story at the Wall St. Journal? (Of course not. The WSJ would simply ignore Putin’s denials.) As for poor Syria, millions of Americans got a look at Bashar Al-Assad in a 60 Minutes segment that aired in 2015. He’s an ophthalmologist, his wife is a banker, they met in London, they are not religious zealots. The interviewer was hapless Charley Rose, an unlikely Kremlin agent.
Crovitz can only estimate how much US companies spent advertising on Sputnik and RT (Russia Today), but he can name names and try to shame:
Geico is hardly alone in financing propaganda through what’s called “programmatic advertising,” ads that are placed automatically by algorithms, without judgment based on the content or journalistic standards of the websites. Mr. Putin’s leading disinformation arm, RT.com, attracted programmatic advertising from 477 companies and brands over a recent six-month period… Among RT.com’s top 20 programmatic advertisers: Amazon, PayPal, Walmart and Kroger. For Sputnik, its 196 programmatic advertisers in addition to Geico included Best Buy, ETrade and Progressive Insurance.
These all-American brands don’t intend to subsidize the Kremlin. The problem is that with programmatic advertising brands can target the kinds of audiences they want to reach online, rather than specifying, as they once did, on which websites their ads should appear. As a result, these ads inadvertently end up on all kinds of inappropriate sites…
Whatever the amount, companies are supporting websites that are the very definition of corporate social irresponsibility. RT describes its role as encouraging people in other countries to “question more” — that is, promoting divisiveness in the United States and Europe.
To accuse RT of “promoting divisiveness” in the US and Europe is really ludicrous. As if African-Americans would accept the murder of their children by police if it weren’t for outside agitators —the essential White Supremacist line. John Stewart, Amy Goodman, Michael Moore, John Oliver, Samantha Bea and others reported and commented on the same events covered by RT, and their tone was every bit as biting towards racist cops, the ascendant arms industry, greed-driven bankers, mine owners, for-profit healthcare…
“Question more” was the signature sign-off line of Larry King, who conducted interviews on RT that seemed no different than the ones he conducted for 25 years on CNN. Then his show was called “Larry King Live;” on RT it was “Larry King Now.” I forget who King was talking to in the spring of 2016 when he mentioned that Donald Trump had phoned him to discuss the pros and cons of running for President. “Donald Trump is no buffoon,” King cautioned his guest. “It’s a big mistake to write him off as a buffoon.” King has interviewed the Donald more than 100 times over the years. He has been talking to people on-air since the late 1950s. After gaining popularity with radio shows based in Miami and New York, he reached a nationwide audience in 1985 with an all-night show on which a 90-minute interview was followed by call-ins from listeners. Larry King is as American as baseball. (Watching LA Dodger games on TV in recent years, you’d see him sitting behind home plate and seriously observing the field.)
Rosie used to watch RT on the small Panasonic atop the refrigerator. The hour-long news show, produced in New York, was informative. Most of the on-air talent seemed to be American 30-somethings, politically “progressive.” The women were all smart, urbane and way more appealing than the harpies at Fox News. I didn’t think the male comedians were funny, but they thought they were. There was a very clear explainer of financial news named Ed Harrison but RT dropped him before we in the East Bay suddenly stopped getting it about a year ago.
RT.com is but one example, Crovitz writes, cyberspace is full of sites that no reputable company should support with ad buys. He points to three he considers totally loony:
Among the top 20 advertisers on the site Healthy Holistic Living, which has promoted milk thistle as a cancer treatment, are Amazon, Citibank, Hertz and Hilton —as well as the Navy Federal Credit Union. A site called Healthy Food House, which ran an article that said, “Our aim today is to persuade you that there is no such a disease as cancer, as it is only a B-17 deficiency,” carried advertising from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Its top two advertisers were Amazon and Google. A website perhaps appropriately called The Mind Unleashed, which blamed Israel for the Sept. 11 attacks and claimed that certain foods are better than radiation or chemotherapy for cancer treatment, ran advertising from Procter & Gamble, CBS and Best Buy.
To avoid getting sidetracked by milk thistle, let’s stipulate to Crovitz’s basic point: the current programmatic advertising model results in reputable companies buying space on websites their executives and shareholders would disdain for one reason or another. Crovitz has the solution, but before pitching it, he points out the inadequacy of alternative approaches:
Some advertisers have tried to keep their ads off inappropriate sites. Procter & Gamble stopped advertising on YouTube in 2017 for a year because its ads kept appearing alongside videos promoting pedophilia and white supremacy. The broader problem, however, remains.
Some advertisers are trying a cure worse than the disease. Instead of deciding which websites to support with advertising and which to shun, advertisers use a black list* (sic) of words like “Trump,” “taxes” and “antitrust,” keeping their ads off web pages that mention such topics. This amounts to a boycott of serious news.
Other advertisers such as JPMorgan Chase have had their staff try to decide which news sites are safe for their brands. However, the lists they compile can quickly become outdated because there are so many new purveyors of misinformation.
This is Crovitz’s message to prospective clients: Avoiding guilt by association with unsavory websites is too important to leave up to “staff” or algorithms, only dedicated specialists can protect you, hiring experts is a PR imperative! And BTW:
“The company I work for, NewsGuard, provides this service for a fee.”
The Times IDs Crovitz as “co-founder and co-chief executive officer of NewsGuard, which rates news publishers based on their reliability.” Wikipedia tells us that he co-founded a company called Journalism Online that was sold two years later for $45 million. Crovitz has become one of the one percent and deploying his internet acumen against the arch-villain. “If this approach catches on,” he wrote in conclusion to his op-ed, “Mr. Putin will just have to spend more of his government’s own money to promote its disinformation.”
NewsGuard is a good name for a company whose purpose is to guard against the American people receiving certain kinds of news. Whichever company becomes the go-to arbiter of news publishers’ “reliability” will in effect be a very powerful censor.
* The link is to a Wall St. Journal story by Suzanne Vranica that ran August 15, 2019 headlined “Advertisers Blacklist News Stories Online.” At least the WSJ editors know that blacklist is one word, not two, but the usage is jarring. News stories don’t get blacklisted, people do —and not just labor organizers and dissident writers. Vranica and Crovitz point to different words that could trigger a “don’t advertise” warning for clients. She wrote:
“Like many advertisers, Fidelity Investments wants to avoid advertising online near controversial content. The Boston-based financial-services company has a lengthy blacklist of words it considers off-limits. If one of those words is in an article’s headline, Fidelity won’t place an ad there. Its list earlier this year, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, contained more than 400 words, including ‘bomb,’ ‘immigration,’ and ‘racism.’ Also off-limits: ‘Trump.’”
Fred Gardner is the managing editor of O’Shaughnessy’s. He can be reached at fred@plebesite.com
Cancel Culture Hits Medical Journals
By Donna Laframboise | Big Picture News | January 27, 2020
Much scientific research is now conducted by tribes. Some tribes think certain foods are good for us. Eggs, fat, coffee, dairy, whatever. Other tribes insist their own research shows the opposite.
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has just published a shocking account of how the ‘eat red meat sparingly’ tribe tried to make research by a rival tribe disappear.
Last fall, a collection of systematic reviews were published by a prominent journal, the Annals of Internal Medicine (see here, here, here, here, and here). Online publication happened on October 1st, prior to the material appearing in the printed journal in mid-November.
After carefully reviewing scientific evidence concerning meat consumption, the PhDs and medical doctors involved formulated a clinical guideline, aka a nutritional recommendation, which was published at the same time. This was intended to help practicing doctors provide appropriate advice to their patients.
The short version is that most of these researchers (11 votes to 3), believe no reliable evidence justifies telling adults to eat less red meat and less processed meat. As this commentary explains, nutritional research is typically “shaky.” Studies that identify a link between meat consumption and a particular disease usually show tiny increases in risk.
The Annals had taken into account the feedback of peer reviewers both pro and con, and had made its call. To quote editor-in-chief Christine Laine, “the public should know we don’t have great information on diet.”
The JAMA article tells us that, as the Annals was preparing to publish this material online, the anti-meat tribe began mobilizing. An estimated 2,000 vitriolic e-mails flooded into Laine’s inbox during a half-hour period.
Members of an organization called the True Health Initiative contacted her at least twice. They complained about the wording of a press release the journal was circulating about the upcoming research. They also urged her to “preemptively retract publication of these papers” for “the sake of public understanding and public health” (read their letter here).
How did these people react when their outrageous attempts to suppress scientific results failed? Did they start behaving like grownups? Hardly. Instead, they complained to an agency of the US government, the Federal Trade Commission. You can read about that here in their own words.
The anti-meat tribe thinks a government body tasked with ensuring marketplace competition and fair business practices should be second-guessing medical journals. Arguing that the journal’s press release amounted to misleading advertising, their petition asked the Trade Commission to:
permanently prohibit [the Annals of Internal Medicine] from disseminating, or causing the dissemination of the advertisement at issue and require [the journal] to issue a public retraction and corrective statement regarding the advertisement. [bold added]
When that went nowhere, did these people finally start behaving in a civilized manner? I’m afraid not. Their next stop was the Philadelphia district attorney’s office. You know, the prosecutors and detectives tasked with keeping citizens safe from criminals. (The Annals offices are in Philadelphia.)
In their own press release, the anti-meat tribe said the Annals should be investigated for “potential reckless endangerment.” The journal, they insisted, had distributed “dangerous and misleading information.”
The entity that turned first to the Trade Commission and then to the criminal justice system calls itself the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. It’s unofficial motto is: if you can’t persuade people to do what you want, find a third party who’ll compel them to do so. Just kidding. It actually sees itself as leading a “revolution” – based on the idea that plant-based diets “can prevent and even reverse diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure.”
This is a lobby group, an activist organization. According to its own website, only 12,000 of its 175,000 members (7%) are actually physicians.
Welcome to the polarized world of medical publishing. This is how the scientific community now behaves.
To be continued…
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From the Archives
Infertility: A Diabolical Agenda
Dr. Joseph Mercola | July 9, 2022
“Infertility: A Diabolical Agenda,” is the fourth vaccine-related documentary by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. It tells the story of an intentional infertility vaccine program conducted on African women, without their knowledge or consent.
While it’s been brushed off as a loony conspiracy theory for years, there’s compelling evidence showing it did, in fact, happen, and there’s nothing to prevent it from happening again. … continue
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