Arizona State University Caught in Free Speech Tug-of-War Over Gov-Funded “Disinformation” Battle
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | October 9, 2024
Arizona State University (ASU) is a public school and therefore undisputed subject to the US Constitution’s free speech rules. Yet a new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) demonstrates that it was prominently involved in working with, and on behalf of the US government. To affect free speech.
That would be a blatant example of what Congress is investigating and what the critics are calling Big Tech-(Big) Government collusion, given that the target of the “collaboration” the university was involved in was online “disinformation.”
The thing to remember when talking about this collusion is that the current White House had enough wits about it to never make a “beeline” reaching the end result of censorship. From what is known from the congressional probe and the Twitter Files alone, this was always instead a meandering effort that included many seemingly intermediary and/or legitimate actors.
According to James Rushmore for Racket News, in this case, ASU was the recipient of grants (and, in line with the overall “process” – the purpose of the one given in January 2024 and reported by the Washington Examiner is not clearly stated). The grant though did come from the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC).
In and of itself, not ring many alarm bells – until the reason behind it, and the activities of GEC are taken into account. Those activities, in the case of ASU’s involvement, meant working with government agencies to flag what was decided to be disinformation, but also something referred to as “falsified media.”
The obsession with “Russian disinformation” featured here as well, a hallmark of “arguments” of the political party that came to power in 2020 in the US. But also a hallmark that had been introduced into public discourse with the party’s defeat four years earlier. The claims have since, but it seems to no avail, been thoroughly debunked.
ASU’s role was to contribute by developing “or refining” automated tools and techniques to pinpoint the specter of “fake news,” “disinformation,” and, “(foreign) propaganda.”
The public university’s involvement didn’t stop there, since another project saw it become a US Department of Defense DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) subcontractor.
“Falsified media” was once again supposed to be the target, with ASU teaming up with Kitware software company based in New York to give spies a system capable of detecting how media, branded as such, work, and what algorithms they use.
Imam to Be Expelled From Italy for Sermons Supporting Hamas – Reports
Sputnik – 09.10.2024
The Italian Interior Ministry intends to expel Bologna imam Zulfiqar Khan from Italy for reasons of national security in connection with his support for Palestinian movement Hamas, the Adnkronos news agency reported, citing Khan’s lawyer.
The imam has repeatedly expressed support for Hamas in the context of the war in the Gaza Strip and praised the militants’ actions during the clashes with Israeli troops, the report said on Tuesday.
The imam was taken to the Bologna police department, Italian media reported. The Interior Ministry’s decision can be appealed in the regional administrative court. His lawyer reportedly called the authorities’ actions a return to a police state and the persecution of opinions.
Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression.”
Khan has lived in Italy since 1995 and held a residency permit that was revoked by the Interior Ministry’s order.
Khan is not the first imam to be expelled from Italy due to his speech. In 2008, Tuirin imam Mohamed Kohaila was deported to his native Morocco for what authorities claimed was inciting “violently anti-Western behavior” after his sermons were secretly recorded. And in 2005, imam Bouriki Bouchta, also from Morocco, was expelled from Italy after he gained notoriety for saying that Osama bin Laden did not commit the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Danielle Smith celebrates two years as Alberta Premier – my letter to Premier Smith about her failures
By Dr. William Makis MD | COVID Intel | October 6, 2024

Alberta Health Services & the Colleges have murdered 10,000s of vulnerable Albertans and not one person has been held accountable by your govt.
AHS murdered over 2500 Cancer patients in Edmonton at Cross Cancer Institute and continues to do so daily, like 41 year old Steven Wong who was murdered by AHS on July 19, 2024 and was denied Cancer Care (and so many others whom I can name to the Police).
AHS murdered over 5818 COVID-19 patients, almost all of which were preventable deaths, AHS is still using Remdesivir (which was recalled in the US) and lethal hospital protocols & continues to kill vulnerable Albertans in the hospitals. Doctors who killed COVID patients like Edmonton ICU doctor Dr.Darren Markland, continue to do so with impunity and with no accountability.
No one in the AHS COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Group, led by AHS bureaucrats Lynora Saxinger, Braden Manns and your Public Health Chief Mark Joffe, which blocked all early treatments including Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquine, Vitamin D, etc, that lead to 5818 COVID-19 deaths, was held accountable. Not one person was arrested or even criminally investigated. Not one person was fired. Dr.Saxinger continues to push mRNA jabs.
NDP MLA Dr.Luanne Metz murdered over 1600 COVID-19 patients by blocking Alberta’s largest Hydroxychloroquine Trial (on the basis of the Lancetgate fraudulent HCQ paper) and not only was she not held accountable, she laughs about it at the Alberta Legislature while calling for doctors who raise concerns about mRNA jabs to be CENSORED.
AHS & the Colleges have murdered over 10,000 Albertans who died as “excess deaths”, most of them being COVID-19 Vaccine Deaths. There are 4000-6000 unexplained deaths each year.
AHS continues to illegally block proper autopsies from being done (with staining for COVID-19 vaccine spike protein). Proper autopsies would have solved the mystery of the #1 cause of death in Alberta (COVID-19 Vaccines) which is killing 4000-6000 Albertans each year since 2021. You have taken no steps to address either the deaths or AHS’ cover up of these deaths.
AHS continues to push DNA contaminated COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines on children and pregnant women, despite the fact that you were informed 100s of children died from the mRNA injections and the jabs were never approved for use in pregnancy (we don’t know how many pregnant Alberta women have died after taking mRNA jabs, but AHS certainly does).
You had a chance to protect Alberta’s children from harms of contaminated mRNA injections after the “An Injection of Truth” Event on June 17, 2024 and chose to stay silent instead and not protect children.
In fact, the Alberta Minister of Health AdrianaLaGrange publicly lied about the event and came out in defense of pedophiles and child sex abusers (AHS Executives & College Presidents like Dr.Albert De Villiers & Dr.Fred Janke) who had been arrested by RCMP for sexually assaulting and trafficking children as young as 5 years old but were given their medical licenses back by the College during the pandemic. You didn’t fire Adriana LaGrange for this and she didn’t fire anyone on her staff for supporting sex crimes against children.
You haven’t restored a single doctor who was persecuted by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta during the pandemic. Doctors like Dr.Roger Hodgkinson, Dr.Daniel Nagase, Dr.Gary Davidson and myself continue to be illegally persecuted by College leaders Dr.Scott McLeod and Dr.Michael Caffaro whom Adriana Lagrange does photo-ops with.
You haven’t restored a single nurse who was persecuted by AHS and the College of Nurses, 100s of whom reached out to me with horror stories of persecution that should land AHS CEOs Verna Yiu, Mauro Chies and Athana Mentzelopoulos in prison for life.
You haven’t restored a single healthcare worker, 1000s of whom had to leave the medical profession after being bullied & abused by their AHS Managers.
You haven’t restored INFORMED CONSENT which was illegally destroyed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta who threatened 11,000 Alberta doctors into not informing Albertans about the risks of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines. You also didn’t hold College leaders Scott McLeod & Michael Caffaro responsible for this act of destruction of all medical ethics in Alberta. They continue to threaten doctors with impunity.
You haven’t dissolved the thoroughly corrupt and private Corporation that is the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, even though you had run on the promise to do so. In fact, now you say at Town Halls we need to have a corrupt College to continue persecuting good doctors, because who else will police them? This is unforgivable.
You haven’t dissolved the top 2-3 layers of corrupt Alberta Health Services Leadership that is run by NDP millionaire bureaucrats including Dr.Jennifer Bestard, Dr.Sid Viner, Sean Chilton, Dr.Peter Jamieson, Karen Horon, Michael Lam, Ronda White, Andrea Beckwith-Ferraton, Kerry Bales, all of whom are AHS Executives hired by Rachel Notley’s Government during 2015-2019 and who became millionaires pushing paper and mismanaging $26 billion AHS yearly budget.
You installed a corrupt NDP/Notley AHS Executive – Dr.Mark Joffe – as the Public Health Chief of Alberta. This is the AHS Executive who said “don’t walk, run to get your booster shot” in Dec.2021, when AHS & Deena Hinshaw were aware that 1000s of Albertas were dying or had damaged immune systems after their first 2 COVID-19 Vaccines and Deena Hinshaw deleted crucial government data showing mRNA Vaccine injury.
You allowed AHS to bury 1000s of reports of COVID-19 Vaccine injuries that were reported by Alberta doctors but rejected & covered up by AHS bureaucrats. You have not pushed for those reports to be made public or for any transparency in vaccine injury reporting at AHS.
You installed former Alberta Liberal Party leader Raj Sherman as Chair of the Health Quality Council of Alberta, who had fully expressed support for COVID-19 Vaccines and AHS’ corrupt leadership.
You allowed Tyler Shandro to be installed on the Board of Covenant Health, even though he was Health Minister who stayed silent when AHS CEO Verna Yiu implemented an illegal COVID-19 Vaccine mandate on Alberta’s 105,000 healthcare workers
You didn’t investigate AHS CEO Verna Yiu DrYiu_Verna who signed a deal with the World Economic Forum in 2020 and implemented an illegal vaccine mandate on Alberta’s 105,000 healthcare workers in Aug-Oct.2021 while violating medical privacy of AHS employees as AHS spied on their medical records to see if they were vaccinated. She was paid $700,000 at AHS, is now Vice President at UAlberta and was never investigated for her crimes.
There are now criminal charges pending against AHS CEO Athana Mentzelopoulous, AHS Board Chair Lyle Oberg, AHS CEO Mauro Chies and AHS CEO Verna Yiu for threats & extortion being inflicted on my family.
Criminal charges are also pending against College leaders Scott McLeod, Michael Caffaro and their lawyer Craig Boyer who have been repeatedly threatening me and my family at our home.
There are many more reasons than the above why you should not be proud of your last 2 years as Alberta Premier and I will continue to expose this and much more to millions of Albertans, Canadians and those around the world who are watching very closely.
The 10,000s of Alberta victims will not be silenced and everyone has to be held accountable for the crimes committed against Alberta’s most vulnerable citizens.
You have much work to do, Premier Smith, and time is running out.
I can only look at your last 2 years as an abysmal failure to do the right things, on the level of failures of former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.
Fearful of the Public, Western Leaders Turn to Censorship
By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 07.10.2024
On Saturday, former US First Lady Hillary Clinton called for increased federal regulation of the internet and repealing Section 230. “If the platforms… don’t moderate and monitor the content, we lose total control,” she said, raising the question of who “we” represents in that statement.
From the recent purge of YouTube accounts, including those from Mark Sleboda, Rachel Blevins, Glenn Diesen, DD Geopolitics, Fiorella Isabel, Larry Johnson, and Eva K. Bartlett, it is clear that the Western leaders are scared of their populations finding out the truth about their policies and actions.
“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people,” Former US President John F. Kennedy.
“That’s what they’re afraid of,” Sleboda, an expert in geopolitical relations and a frequent guest on Sputnik Radio, told The Final Countdown. “They don’t trust you to hear an alternate view from the official US government narrative and come to what they consider the right political conclusions.”
Many Americans were taught that freedom was proof-positive that Western-style democracies were superior to other systems.
In separate interviews, Sleboda and Blevins both said that their channels were taken down without warning or strikes. Both were accused of violating YouTube’s policies on hate speech and said their appeals were denied within minutes.
“Just anyone who is critical of a US foreign policy, of hegemony, has had their YouTube channels deleted,” Sleboda contended.
While the censorship technically came from Alphabet, the mega-monolith tech company that owns both Google and YouTube, a comprehensive program between the US government and large social media companies has slowly been revealed over the past couple of years making the line one without distinction.
“My lawyer called that First Amendment censorship via proxy, or government censorship via proxy,” Political cartoonist and The Final Countdown co-host Ted Rall explained. “The US government has reached out to big tech companies, talked to people like [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg and so on, and said, ‘we want you to control and squish what we call misinformation and disinformation.’”
With the internet practically ubiquitous in modern society, an expansion of the First Amendment to public and private sectors of the internet is needed to protect our speech rights.
“What does the First Amendment actually mean in today’s age when just about everyone is on social media or on the internet in some way, and it has become sort of the new public square?” asked Blevins, an independent journalist, and host of The Backstory on Radio Sputnik. “What are we okay with when it comes to the ongoing censorship? Because I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon.”
Even if the government were removed from the equation, and censorship came exclusively from the tech companies themselves they have become so powerful that acts of self-censorship would be indistinguishable from government-ordered censorship, especially during wartime.
In post-9/11 America, large media companies kept dissenting voices off the air, limiting the reach of those who, for example, opposed the war in Iraq.
“And you get that corporate mentality of what will the advertisers think?” legendary Gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson argued in an August 2002 interview with Media Report.
“A kind of we’re all in this together thinking.” The consolidation of the internet from disparate groups of message boards and newsgroups into a handful of omnipresent tech companies raises that specter again.
“As we saw this weekend, YouTube can come in and just delete your channel and take your life’s work away from you,” decried Blevin, noting that her channel was backed up on the free speech platform Rumble.
The majority of the deleted accounts offered views that opposed the NATO-led proxy war in Ukraine and/or Western support of Israel. As the war drums beat ever louder in Europe, the Middle East, and the South Pacific, not to mention the US Presidential election next month, the crackdown is likely to increase.
“They haven’t really thrown out the term election interference just yet, but I have a feeling that’s coming in some way,” warned Blevins.
“We’ll tell our grandchildren about the golden age of a global internet,” before censorship took it over, predicted Sleboda. “I think we’re going to see our internet fractured into either individual states’ internets or geopolitical block’s internets. And I think the process has already begun,” he warned.
Fact-Checking or Fact-Shielding? Twitter Files Journalist Slams PolitiFact’s Defense of Government Pressure on Big Tech
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | October 7, 2024
Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact, a Meta fact-checking partner, has decided that the Biden-Harris administration is not engaged in censorship at an industrial scale.
This claim made by vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance is false, PolitiFact has asserted, because the Biden-Harris White House “contacting” (according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, they were contacted to be pressured) social media companies to flag content for removal “didn’t cross the line into coercion.”
Not only that but pressuring these companies (yet allegedly never coercing) to censor online speech is not a threat to democracy, PolitiFact was told by a Colombia professor – if the censors decide that speech is disinformation about Covid or election results.
The scale and nature of the way the US government leaned on tech companies to stifle speech that did not suit its political agenda is, to date, best revealed in the Twitter Files.
One of the journalists who worked on publishing the internal documents, Michael Shellenberger, now examined this PolitiFact “verdict” and the arguments the organization used. He rejects the notion that suppressing voters’ free speech is somehow “not a threat to democracy.”
Shellenberger was equally unimpressed by PolitiFact trying to explain its opinion regarding Vance’s claim by referring to the Supreme Court, which they said ruled it was not unconstitutional for the government to exert the kind of pressure it did.
“But the Court did not consider the US government’s pressure of Meta or many other cases of government demands for censorship,” Shellenberger writes and notes that the ruling (in the Murthy v Missouri case) was based on the judges deciding there were no legal grounds to bring the case.
To the question – as old as the rise of the fact-checking industry – why did a fact-checker (in this case, PolitiFact) get things wrong, the journalist suggests it’s more a case of “playing on the same team”.
PolitiFact, he writes, is “part and parcel of the Censorship Industrial Complex.”
Shellenberger goes into the many instances of those, either while they were in power, such as Hillary Clinton, or with a lot of power, like Bill Gates, openly advocating for censorship.
As for how the US government, despite the country’s constitution, became prone to stifling speech and manipulating public opinion at home, the answer could be the “lesson learned” from decades of doing the same abroad.
Namely, it works.
66-yr-old Palestinian beaten, killed by Israeli occupation forces

MEMO | October 7, 2024
Sixty-six-year-old Palestinian activist, Ziad Abu Ehlayyel, was killed after being brutally beaten by Israeli occupation forces during a raid on his home in the occupied West Bank town of Dura, south-west of Hebron.
According to security sources, Israeli forces stormed Abu Ehlayyel’s home this morning and violently assaulted him until he lost consciousness. Despite being rushed to Dura Hospital, medical staff were unable to save him and he was pronounced dead due to the extent of his injuries.
Abu Ehlayyel was a respected community figure who had been subjected to multiple assaults by Israeli occupation forces during past raids into the town.
Quds News Network shared an archival video showing Abu Ehlayyel confronting Israeli soldiers, pleading with them to stop firing at Palestinian children. In the footage, he can be heard saying: “We don’t want you to shoot anyone, we don’t want you to kill anyone; this is a nonviolent procession, why do you keep shooting at them? Why don’t you stop your settlers from attacking us?”
Tensions have been running high across the occupied West Bank amid a brutal Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 41,900 Palestinians, mostly women and children, since 7 October last year.
Today marks one year since the Israeli offensive began, leaving over 97,300 wounded and more than 10,000 people still missing, presumed dead under the rubble.
In the occupied West Bank, the violence has also escalated. Since 7 October 2023, at least 742 Palestinians have been killed, more than 6,200 injured and over 11,100 others detained in the occupied territory, according to Palestinian figures.
The Israeli escalation follows a landmark opinion by the International Court of Justice last July that declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land unlawful and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The Misinformation Bill will harm Australians and protect bad governments
JoNova | September 30, 2024
The Misinformation Bill is not just wholly unnecessary, it’s an abject travesty. How did such a preposterous overbearing, undemocratic, anti-science and dangerous piece of legislation get past the first focus group? It wouldn’t survive a high-school debate, and yet, here it is?
Misinformation is easy to correct when you own a billion dollar news agency, most academics, institutions, expert committees and 25% of the economy. The really hard thing, even with all that power and money is to defend an absurd lie and stop people pointing it out, which is surely the main purpose of the Misinformation Bill amendments. The government can already correct any misinformation that really matters, so these amendments curtail our freedom of speech for no benefit at all.
Guilty until proven innocent?
The amendments turn free speech on its head — instead of having the implicit right to criticize the government, everyone now needs to prove to some judge that their views are “reasonably” satire, or reasonable dissemination for an “academic, scientific or religious” purpose, and that their “motive” is honest and their behaviour is “authentic”.
When it comes to reasonableness in a democracy the highest court should be the court of public opinion, but how can the people decide if they are not allowed to hear it?
How is it even a democracy still if the government is allowed to take our money to force feed us the government’s view on the ABC and in every captured university (dependent on government funds), but the people cannot even reply through sheer unfunded creative wit?
This legislation puts a very unfree cloud over all groups, forums, blogs, and social media.
The fines (and all legal fees today) are so obscenely, disproportionately harmful to Australians that few will risk going to court, instead the platforms will be preemptively second guessing what a judge might say is reasonable, and people with serious social media accounts will be second guessing the second-guesses of their platform controllers in fear that they might be thrown off, and lose years of work if they guess wrongly.
Worse, the big platforms, supposedly so “independent” will become unaccountable but de facto arms of the government. The platforms will know if they don’t perform as expected and favorably to the incumbent masters, that the rules will get more onerous, the fines bigger. And thus and verily the unholy alliance of Big-Tech and Big-Government will become Big-Brother in your conversations, and Big Bankrupter in your nightmares.
The government claim they are not censoring anyone, but it’s just done at arms length with “implausible” deniability. Obviously the laws will censor all of us who are not already controlled by ACMA or the government through a public salary, a grant, or a Code of Practice written into the the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act.
Who silences the government misinformation, then?
We were there when the government experts told us margarine with hydrogenated fake vegetable fat would be great for our hearts. We heard them when they told us an ice age was coming, and antibiotics were useless against stomach ulcers. We noticed they told us to hold off on the peanut butter for babies to prevent allergies, only to find out that all these things were misinformation.
What happens when the experts are wrong, but the people who are unconvinced can’t speak up because they might “harm… the efficacy of a preventative health measure”? These health measures may take a … lifetime… to even measure the efficacy. Does the government get a free pass for 40 years?
It was estimated dietary trans fats (found in margarine) were killing 82,000 people a year in the US. (Danaei et al 2009). Should we have fined all the people who talked about this, and perhaps delayed things, and killed a half a million more? Someone speaking against hydrogenated margarine could have been deemed to be spreading “misinformation causing harm to public health in Australia”. So 20 years later, they turn out to be right — will the government compensate the families of the dead who might have chosen a different sandwich spread had they heard another opinion and been able to make up their own mind?
Will Facebook and Twitter need to block the accounts of experts who were wrong? Or, are there two kinds of citizens in Australia — one sort that work for the government, who can give their opinions and get things wrong without losing their right to speak, and the Untermenschen, who cannot speak, even if they are right?
Confidence has to be earned, not ordered
Apparently the citizens of Australia are not allowed to say anything that might harm the confidence in the banking system or the financial markets. But if our banking system is so fragile, or our currency so fake, that it needs a law to force people to “feel confident” then we are in a trouble already.
Nothing damages confidence like making a law to silence critics.
As adults, we filter misinformation our whole lives, it’s our job
We are all adults in this room, and we have lived our whole lives filtering out advertising spin, ignoring political lies, and reading books telling us we can stop storms if we just ride a bike. Since the stone-age we’ve spent our lives climbing from one misinformation-swamp to another, but as adults, it’s our job to figure it out. Free will and all. How dare you treat us like children.
And even the children about to enter the room have to learn how to deal with misinformation. How exactly can we teach them, if the government serves up one permitted line to protect us from accidentally hearing something “wrong”?
It’s not just that this misinformation bill is egregiously wrong, it’s that we shouldn’t have one at all in the first place.
REFERENCES
Danaei et al (2009) The preventable causes of death in the United States: comparative risk assessment of dietary, lifestyle, and metabolic risk factors, PLoS Med, . 2009 Apr 28;6(4):e1000058. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000058. Epub 2009 Apr 28.
Melania Trump Reveals She Was Debanked and Banned From Her Business Email Provider
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | October 6, 2024
In a Sunday interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, former First Lady Melania Trump revealed the challenges she faced post-White House, highlighting how her political affiliations led to punitive measures from various service providers, including her bank and an email service provider. This issue casts a light on the increasing trend of “debanking” and “deplatforming”—a form of censorship that has seen individuals and entities cut off from essential financial and communication services for non-criminal reasons.
“You know, this pushback from so many areas of your life that you never saw before, but suddenly the powers that be wanted to cancel you,” stated Bartiromo, probing into the unexpected hurdles encountered by Trump.
Melania Trump detailed several instances of this cancellation, noting, “the bank suddenly informed me they will not be able to do business with me anymore.” Moreover, she described how an “email distribution service provider just rapidly terminated my agreement.” These cancellations, according to Trump, were due to her political beliefs and affiliations, revealing a troubling trend of service denial as a political weapon.
This has not only affected Trump but also extended its impact to philanthropic efforts. She recounted an incident involving a university that initially accepted her donations for foster students’ scholarships but later reneged upon realizing her involvement. “They didn’t want to do business with me because of political affiliation, my political beliefs,” Trump said, pointing out the real victims of this decision—”children from the foster community.”
The phenomenon of debanking is increasingly recognized as a tool of exclusion and censorship, impacting individuals and organizations worldwide. While traditionally associated with financial crimes or risk management, it is now frequently weaponized against those a provider believes have controversial or unpopular political views. This growing form of censorship raises significant concerns about the neutrality of service providers and the broader implications for free speech and political engagement in a highly polarized era.
Despite facing significant setbacks, Trump remains optimistic about changing attitudes towards this suppressive trend. “I think some people got the courage and they said, like, they see it, what’s going on. They are not afraid to speak, but it’s still going on,” she acknowledged, showing a mix of resistance and ongoing challenges.
EU Uses Digital Services Act to Probe YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat Algorithms for Censorship Compliance
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | October 6, 2024
“Illegal drugs” is a very well-defined category in the EU. “Hate speech,” on the other hand, is not. Yet, the bloc is lumping these together as it builds another case for putting even more pressure on major social platforms and demands more data from them.
The EU is doing this via the censorship law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), and is this time targeting YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok. In the tone and nature of the demands, the EU puts them in two groups here: two companies from the US, and one from China.
Previously, the EU launched DSA non-compliance proceedings against TikTok, AliExpress, but also Meta’s Instagram and Facebook.
The EU Commission this week announced that the “request for information” pertains to these tech platforms’ (algorithmic)recommendations, specifically, their design and functioning.
These companies are reminded that the DSA obligates them to “adequately mitigate risks stemming from their recommender systems” – and here we go into the usual list, starting with how recommendations might influence users’ mental health, risks to the electoral process, endanger minors, all the way to what the EU says is illegal content – “such as promoting illegal drugs and hate speech.”
Here, the demand is also to explain what is being done to “mitigate” the harm, as the EU chooses to understand it.
This last demand is addressed to YouTube and Snapchat, which must give the EU “detailed” information regarding algorithmic parameters that decide what is recommended to users.
The emphasis of the pressure being put on TikTok is a little different. Brussels wants to know what the video platform is doing to stop manipulation of elections, media, etc. – again, in terms of the recommendations system.
An EU Commission press release said the deadline to provide this information is November 15, and warns the three companies they might – depending on how the EU likes the answers – become subject to proceedings under the DSA.
The Commission wasted no opportunity to remind YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok that one of the DSA articles means possible fines if they respond to a request for information (RFI) in a manner that is “incorrect, incomplete, or misleading.”
Cheerleaders of EU policies on these matters hope that something of the sort will take root in the US as well, despite the fact that “hate speech,” for example, is not criminalized there.
Gaza: Israeli army kills another journalist, raising the toll to 175 martyrs

Palestinian Information Center – October 6, 2024
GAZA – Another Palestinian journalist was killed in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza, bringing the death toll of martyred media workers since last October 7, 2023 to 175, Gaza’s Government Media Office (GMO) said on Sunday.
In a statement, GMO identified the new slain journalist as Hasan Hamad, who works for Media Town, saying he was martyred following an Israeli airstrike on his house in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.
GMO strongly denounced the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation forces, calling on the international community and its organizations to “deter the occupation and prosecute it at international courts for its ongoing crimes.”
Germany’s Green Minister Targets Algorithms: Baerbock’s Latest Bid to Suppress Populist Rise
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | October 4, 2024
Even in the world of the EU’s often perplexing politics, Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (of the Greens) stands out. And while she may “excel” at political gaffes – a passion for protecting free speech doesn’t seem to be among her strong suits.
Instead, with a seemingly straight face, Baerbock is now joining the legion of politicians urging for even more social media censorship, as a distinctly counter-intuitive way to “protect” democracy.
Baerbock wants the EU to do the heavy lifting on behalf of Germany’s current authorities this time as well, and one of the arguments the minister uses is that what she considers to be “disinformation” is allowing what she calls populist parties to grow in – popularity.
It should be a basic democratic principle that no party or political grouping can stay in power forever, so this kind of underlying “argument” smacks of authoritarian, rather than democratic traditions.
When one strips away Baerbock’s latest rant about fake news, disinformation, and attacks that are “disintegrating our democratic reality” (whatever that may mean) – what is left is the “problem” of the success of the opposition AfD party, and the German authorities’ inability to counter it with meaningful policies, therefore resorting to anything from name-calling, to open censorship.
On Monday, Baerbock turned to the European Commission to ask for “new rules” around what she and her political comrades consider to be disinformation. At this point, even the Commission – the enforcer of the infamous censorship law, the DSA, might have been thinking – “but what more can we do?”
If that was the case, it didn’t last long. As soon as on Wednesday, the EC “summoned” three major social media companies and demanded information about their algorithmic recommendations.
It might just be a coincidence, but algorithms were on Baerbock’s brain the day before, too. Reports say she suggested that Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution team up with the EC, against “algorithms that work against democracy.”

