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X Re-Joins Pro-Censorship Advertisers’ Alliance

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | July 2, 2024

Given how X has gone out of its way to reveal the depth and breadth of online censorship via the Twitter Files, this makes for an awkward reunion: the company has decided to rejoin the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM).

It’s a pro-censorship, World Economic Forum-affiliated advertisers’ group, that achieves its objectives through the “brand safety” route (i.e., the censorship “brand” here would be demonetization). And last summer, it was scrutinized by the US Congress.

GARM is one of those outfits whose roots are very entangled (comes in handy when somebody tries to probe your activities, though) – and the chronology is not insignificant either: formed in 2019 as a World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) initiative, partnered with the Association of National Advertisers (ANA).

Then came another “partnership” – that with WEF (World Economic Forum), specifically, its Shaping the Future of Media, Entertainment, and Sport project – a “flagship” one.

In May 2023, the US House Judiciary Committee wanted to know what exactly was happening here, and whether “brand safety” as a concept, as exercised by these entities, could be linked to censorship of online speech.

So the Committee subpoenaed the World Federation of Advertisers (and GARM), asking for records that might show whether these groups “coordinated efforts to demonetize and censor disfavored speech online.”

Committee Chairman Jim Jordan was at the time concerned that this conduct might have run afoul of US antitrust laws.

For X, despite the strides the platform has made toward protecting users’ speech since the Twitter takeover, the GARM relationship is most likely simply about (ad) money – and one of the several efforts to make the platform profitable at last.

Those who were hoping for a “free speech absolutism” on a platform like this might be disappointed, the Congress might investigate some more; but ultimately, the move represents a “realpolitik-style” compromise.

And so X is “excited” and “proud” to be back as a GARM member. The company’s “Safety” account posted something about “the safety of our global town square” apparently being relevant to this decision, but did not elaborate.

Now listed by GARM along with X are YouTube and Chanel – and, in between, some of the biggest pharma and telecoms out there.

Big Money, one might say.

July 4, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | 4 Comments

Iranian filmmaker Bashir Biazar released from French detention

Al Mayadeen | July 3, 2024

Iranian filmmaker and musician Bashir Biazar has been released from detention in France and is en route back to Iran, as confirmed by an official from Iran’s Presidential Office.

Bashir Biazar’s detention, which lasted over a month, sparked an international outcry and accusations of political motivations by French authorities.

He was arrested on charges that included “Iranian propaganda,” “anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism,” and alleged social media activities deemed detrimental to public order in France, according to documents obtained by Press TV.

The charges against Biazar were vehemently rejected by human rights activists, officials, and his supporters, who argued they were unfounded and driven by political agendas targeting Iran.

Rachid Lemoudaa, a French lawyer representing Biazar, told AFP that “There is nothing, in terms of law, that justifies this measure. Bashir Biazar expressed himself on his Instagram account, as anyone could do freely in a state governed by the rule of law,” adding that he believes the issue is “political, and politics has no place in law.”

July 3, 2024 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

European Council Makes Countering “Disinformation and Hate Speech” Part of Its Strategic Agenda

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | July 2, 2024

The EU Council has managed to nestle fighting “disinformation and hate speech” between such issues as the Middle East, Ukraine, and migration – not to mention while at the same time appointing a new set of “apparatchiks,” in the wake of the European Parliament elections.

This proceeds from the Council’s 2024-2029 strategic agenda, adopted on June 27. This document represents a “five-year plan” to guide the bloc’s policy and goals.

Under the heading, “A free and democratic Europe,” the document addresses different ways in which “European values” will be upheld going forward. The Council’s conclusions state that in order to strengthen the EU’s “democratic resilience,” what it decides is disinformation and hate speech will have to be countered.

These categories of speech are infamously arbitrarily defined, even in legislation, and habitually used as a tool of censorship – but the conclusions count combating them among the strategic goal of fending off foreign interference and destabilization.

In other words, those individuals or organizations that are found to be “guilty” of hate speech or disinformation might face the grim possibility of being treated as, essentially, a threat to the EU’s security.

Another promise the document makes in the same breath is that tech giants will be made to “take their responsibility for safeguarding democratic dialogue online.”

Does this mean there will be more or less censorship in the EU over the next five years? The Brussels bureaucrats are at this point so practiced at churning out platitudes that, theoretically, this statement could be interpreted either way.

However, in conjunction with the “misinformation” etc., talk, it is fairly clear which course the EU intends to keep when it comes to online freedom of expression.

AI is not explicitly mentioned as a threat (either to the EU or by the EU, as the technology that can be used to ramp up censorship, aka, “combat misinformation”).

However, you name it, the EU supposedly has it: under the part of the conclusions addressing competitiveness, increasing capacities related to AI sits right there with growing defense, space, quantum technologies, semiconductors, health, biotechnologies capabilities – not to mention “net-zero technologies, mobility, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and advanced materials.”

It’s a pretty comprehensive bridge the EU appears to be trying to sell to its member-states and their citizens.

July 3, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | 1 Comment

Journal Retracts Peer-Reviewed Study Linking COVID Vaccines to Cancer After Reuters ‘Fact Checks’ It

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | July 1, 2024

The journal Cureus last week retracted a Japanese study that found statistically significant increases in cancer mortality following COVID-19 vaccination, especially after the third COVID-19 shot.

The journal said on its website, “Upon post-publication review, it has been determined that the correlation between mortality rates and vaccination status cannot be proven with the data presented in this article.” This invalidated the results, prompting the retraction, the journal said.

Denis Rancourt, Ph.D., all-cause mortality researcher and former physics professor at the University of Ottawa in Canada, who also has published in Cureus, on X called the retraction “baseless.”

“Showing data in support of vaccine-induced cancer is not allowed: burn it,” he wrote.

Other scientists also expressed frustration with the retraction.

“Unfortunately, one more scientific study that challenges the established narrative gets retracted,” Panagis Polykretis, Ph.D., a researcher at Italy’s Institute of Applied Physics at the National Research Council said in an email shared with The Defender. “One more outrageous and unjustified example of censorship takes place!”

The study, published in April, analyzed official Japanese government statistics to compare age-adjusted cancer mortality rates during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022) with pre-pandemic rates.

The researchers found a 2.1% mortality increase in 2021 and a 9.6% increase In 2022.

They determined that age-adjusted death rates for leukemia, breast, pancreatic and lip/oral/pharyngeal cancers increased significantly in 2022 after a large portion of the Japanese population had received the third dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.

Overall, they found no significant cancer-related excess mortality in 2020, but a 1.1% increase in 2021 after the rollout of the first and second vaccine doses, and a 2.1% increase in 2022.

Mortality for some cancers increased by as much as 9.7%, according to the study.

The paper also discussed possible mechanisms by which multiple mRNA vaccines could influence cancer rates and called for further research into the issue.

The findings suggested the vaccines may be accelerating cancer deaths in patients with preexisting tumors, according to John Campbell, Ph.D., who discussed the study on his YouTube show.

The paper went through a “rigorous peer review process,” according to Polykretis, who detailed the retraction saga on his Substack, before Cureus accepted the paper on April 8.

Less than a month after the paper’s publication, Reuters issued a “fact check” of a social media post that cited the paper. Reuters called the analysis “flawed” and said the study “assumes without evidence that vaccines are the cause of the cancer death rates they observe.”

The “Fact Check” article also stated the paper offered no proof of “turbo cancers” — a claim the study authors don’t make.

On June 12, Graham Parker-Finger, director of publishing for the Cureus Journal of Medical Science, notified the authors about concerns with their paper, citing the Reuters Fact Check, Polykretis reported.

An “expression of concern” was posted that same day and about a month later the journal retracted the article.

The article has been viewed over 287,000 times.

Polykretis asked, since when does a scientific journal’s editorial board judge scientific studies “on the basis of poorly written, not backed by scientific data and not peer-reviewed fact-checking” articles?

M. Nathaniel Mead is co-author of the first peer-reviewed paper to provide an extensive analysis of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine trial data and post-injection injuries. Mead, whose article also was printed and then retracted by Cureus, told The Defender this latest retraction was “unfortunate but also quite revealing.”

He said:

“The Gibo et al. retraction makes it official: Even though Cureus has now published many counter-establishment narrative papers related to adverse events, it is clearly ‘unsafe’ for any authors presenting papers that expose the likely mortality risk of these gene-based prodrugs.

“As you will recall, our comprehensive ‘Lessons Learned’ review and analysis also was heavily focused on the mortality aspect. So that’s where Springer-Nature seems to be drawing the line — after they accept the paper.

“Scientists seeking to publish on mortality-related aspects of the Covid mod mRNA injections obviously need to be extra cautious when considering their publishing options. These weaponized, predatory retractions will likely continue for as long as these products remain on the market.”

Dr. John Adler at Stanford University and Dr. Alexander Muacevic at the University of Munich Hospitals co-founded Cureus in 2009 as a web-based, peer-reviewed, open-access general medical journal with low-cost barriers to publication.

The academic publishing giant Springer Nature bought Cureus in December 2022.

Springer Nature is a publishing conglomerate founded in 2015 through a merger of Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillian, Macmillan Education and Springer Science+Business Media.

The publisher generated 1.8 billion euros in 2022, showing continuous year-over-year growth since 2020.

The Defender asked the editors at Cureus and Springer Nature to comment on the retraction and the allegations of censorship.

Parker-Finger responded, “Concerns were raised following publication, so we undertook a post-publication review, in line with good publishing practice, which led us to conclude that retraction was warranted for the reasons outlined in the retraction note.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

July 1, 2024 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Blinken Bets Big on AI to Combat “Misinformation”

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | July 1, 2024

The current US secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, has revealed that his department is testing AI-based tools as a way to fight “misinformation.”

In conversation with the State Department’s chief data and AI officer Matthew Graviss, he cited a number of initiatives – such as the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and Washington’s Enterprise AI Strategy as the foundations for the ultimate goal – using AI to “advance our foreign policy.”

The second part of the push to equip the State Department with AI tools is to – “strengthen this institution.”

According to Blinken, his department is a leader within the government when it comes to testing and “harnessing” the technology. Some reports speak about this as combating whatever happens to be considered foreign disinformation.

And while on the subject of meddling, the Washington Times says AI tests are “part of an ambitious media monitoring and analysis project that spans the globe.”

As sinister as that may sound, packaging the message as the need to combat (only) “foreign disinformation” certainly makes the policy more palatable at home, where the department’s past activity features in congressional probes into government-orchestrated online censorship.

This scrutiny is presented as something hindering the Department of State’s “anti-disinformation” work – while the tools now in development are quite openly described as a possible different means “to pursue the same goals.”

Blinken’s remarks reveal how the technology is used seemingly innocuously as a (translation and summarization) tool “in multilateral organizations;” but then he praised the ability of AI-powered tools to make mass surveillance (“monitoring”) cover a much larger number of media, making its scope and scale “vast,” as the report put it.

And also – combat “disinformation” – which Blinken quite dramatically refers to as “one of the poisons in the international system today.”

“We have one program that we’re using that is able to basically ingest a million articles every day from around the world — to be able to do that in a couple hundred countries in over a hundred languages — and then immediately translate, synthesize and give you a clear picture of what’s happening in the information space immediately,” the secretary is quoted as saying.

But given the scale of the operation, and the shortcomings of the current limitations of AI – those in the know might wish Blinken good luck with the accuracy and reliability of getting that “immediate, clear picture.”

However, when the “AI weapon” is pointed at online platforms as a means of identifying and censoring “disfavored” speech, it is objectively more likely to be efficient.

And the State Department is no stranger to such – strange given its mission – activities: after all, it is the home of the investigated-by-Congress and highly controversial Global Engagement Center.

July 1, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | | 1 Comment

The Supreme Court Ruling Isn’t the End of the Online Free Speech Battle

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | June 30, 2024

The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) civil rights group is not giving up on the free speech fight it has been conducting on behalf of the respondents/plaintiffs in the Murthy v. Missouri case. The tactic is now to go for expanded discovery, aimed at demonstrating direct harm caused by government censorship.

A statement to this effect comes after the US Supreme Court voted 6-3 to lift a preliminary injunction that prevented the White House and several powerful agencies (CDC, FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Surgeon General’s Office) from interacting with social media companies by “encouraging” (or coercing) them to carry out censorship of lawful and protected speech.

The ruling is seen by critics and those who brought and supported the case aimed at ending this type of collusion as yet another blow to the First Amendment, and to make things worse, shortly ahead of another US presidential election.

NCLA said that the Supreme Court decision – which overturned the injunction previously ordered by a district court and upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit – leaves its clients “without redress.”

This is despite the fact their original lawsuit had to do with blacklisting, shadow-banning, deranking, account termination, and other forms of censorship, believed to have been done because of pressure coming from the government.

This was happening during the time of the previous campaign and in the wake of the election – concerning, among others, the issues that featured prominently in that campaign, namely those around Covid controversies.

But the NCLA said that despite the Supreme Court ruling which “practically erased the First Amendment and permitted government to co-opt private entities, like social media platforms, to accomplish its censorship aims” – the battle for free speech will continue in lower courts.

NCLA litigation counsel Jenin Younes has told the Federalist Radio Hour podcast that the rights group is not giving up and it has decided to pursue the case on the merits in the district court. “We want to get more discovery,” said Younes.

In the NCLA’s press release, Younes said that the Supreme Court has “green lighted the government’s unprecedented censorship regime, which resulted in the censorship of top scientists like our clients on the areas of their expertise,” adding:

“This decision is a travesty for the First Amendment, for Americans’ rights to free speech, and for the pursuit of scientific and other knowledge.”

One of the dissenting Supreme Court justices, Samuel Alito, expressed a similar sentiment as he warned that the government’s actions were “blatantly unconstitutional, and the country may come to regret the Court’s failure to say so.”

June 30, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Supreme Court Punts on Technicalities and the Censorship Leviathan Soldiers On

In a disappointing 6-3 ruling the court found that the states and individual plaintiffs lack standing to seek an injunction against the government

By Aaron Kheriaty, MD | Human Flourishing | June 26, 2024

The Supreme Court issued a very disappointing ruling today in our Murthy v. Missouri case. Note that this is not a final ruling, but only a ruling on the preliminary injunction. The case will continue. The key takeaway from the Court was this finding:

Neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs have established Article III standing to seek an injunction against any defendant.

The Supreme Court punted here, refusing to opine on the merits of the case. The standing finding rests on technicalities that I will do my best to explain. To clarify, this ruling that we lack standing on the preliminary injunction does not mean we lack standing to bring the case to the trial. The case will move to the trial phase at the District Court now, where we will seek additional discovery and continue to expose the government’s elaborate censorship machinery. I hope we can uncover sufficient evidence for the Supreme Court not to continue to look the other way when it comes to a final ruling.

Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett explains:

Here, the plaintiffs’ theories of standing depend on the platforms’ actions—yet the plaintiffs do not seek to enjoin the platforms from restricting any posts or accounts. Instead, they seek to enjoin the Government agencies and officials from pressuring or encouraging the platforms to suppress protected speech in the future.

But this is manifestly untrue: it was the platforms actions done at the behest of the government. The whole Constitutional problem is one of joint action, where the state forced third parties to censor. I don’t see how the Court could miss this obvious fact, given the evidence we presented. The ruling continues:

The plaintiffs must show a substantial risk that, in the near future, at least one platform will restrict the speech of at least one plaintiff in response to the actions of at least one Government defendant.

Apparently, the fact that we are still being censored on several platforms is insufficient to establish this? A related issue is one of traceability: the Court insists that we show that particular instances of censorship are directly linked to particular government actions. But this traceability standard presents an impossibly high burden for plaintiffs’—any plaintiffs—to meet. The government conducts its communications with social media companies in secrecy, and subpoenaed documents tell only a small part of the story—they can’t capture phone conversations or private meetings, for example.

On this standard, so long as the government does not name names of individuals in writing that it wants censored, then the government can exercise broad censorship powers and no one who is directly or indirectly harmed can have any recourse to legal redress. For example, the government could order Facebook and YouTube to censor anyone favorable towards the Great Barrington Declaration, a document critiquing our pandemic response written by my co-plaintiffs Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff. So long as those censored were not specifically named by the government, any person on the receiving end of this censorship would not be able to definitively establish in court that their censorship was government-driven.

The upshot is the government can continue to censor so long as the targets are ideas, topics, themes, and not specifically named individuals. In other words, it can do precisely what the First Amendment forbids: content-based censorship.

Try, if you can, to follow the byzantine logic of this judicial reasoning:

The plaintiffs suggest that the platforms continue to suppress their speech according to policies initially adopted under Government pressure. But the plaintiffs have a redressability problem. Without evidence of continued pressure from the defendants, the platforms remain free to enforce, or not to enforce, their policies—even those tainted by initial governmental coercion. And the available evidence indicates that the platforms have continued to enforce their policies against COVID–19 misinformation even as the Federal Government has wound down its own pandemic response measures. Enjoining the Government defendants, therefore, is unlikely to affect the platforms’ content-moderation decisions.

Translation: even if the government coerced platforms to censor you in the past, and platforms continue to censor you according to these same policies—and without any evidence (just taking the government’s word for it) that the government is not coercing platforms anymore—plaintiffs cannot prove that they will likely be harmed in the future, which is one of the necessary criteria for a preliminary injunction. Translation: they got away with it in the past, and we trust they won’t do it again in the future. Or if they do, you won’t be able to prove they were targeting you by name.

Let me try an analogy here: the government placed its boot on the platforms’ face, and the platforms tried to resist but eventually complied, however reluctantly, as the record in our case showed. Now the government claims it’s no longer stomping on the platforms’ face, which means the platform is free to go against the government’s directives now if they so choose. Forgive me if I think this strains all plausibility.

Finally, for purposes of the injunction at least, the Court rejected our argument, grounded in prior First Amendment cases, that free speech protects the rights of the listener and not just the speaker.

The plaintiffs next assert a “right to listen” theory of standing. The individual plaintiffs argue that the First Amendment protects their interest in reading and engaging with the content of other speakers on social media. This theory is startlingly broad, as it would grant all social-media users the right to sue over someone else’s censorship—at least so long as they claim an interest in that person’s speech. While the Court has recognized a “First Amendment right to receive information and ideas,” the Court has identified a cognizable injury only where the listener has a concrete, specific connection to the speaker. Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U. S. 753, 762. Attempting to satisfy this requirement, the plaintiffs emphasize that hearing unfettered speech on social media is critical to their work as scientists, pundits, and activists. But they do not point to any specific instance of content moderation that caused them identifiable harm. They have therefore failed to establish an injury that is sufficiently “concrete and particularized.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560. The state plaintiffs assert a sovereign interest in hearing from their citizens on social media, but they have not identified any specific speakers or topics that they have been unable to hear or follow.

Again, try to follow the logic here: plaintiffs “do not point to any specific instance of content moderation that caused them identifiable harm” and the two states “have not not identified any specific speakers or topics that they have been unable to hear or follow.” But wait a minute. Those instances are not available for us to find precisely because the information was censored, which means we cannot access it! That information went down the digital censorship memory hole incinerator—it was effectively destroyed by being removed—so how can we possibly present it to the court? The crime itself made the evidence disappear. Under this impossible burden of proof, how can any Americans possibly assert their First Amendment rights?

Justice Alito, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch, wrote a blistering dissent to this ruling. I’ll post more on that later. It is disappointing that we only have three justices of the Supreme Court who seem to understand what is at stake in this case.

In the meantime, rest assured that we will continue to fight the government’s censorship leviathan in court. As the case goes back to the District Court for trial we anticipate more discovery, which will allow us to continue to shine a light on the government’s unconstitutional behavior. Perhaps we will uncover communications that even meet the Supreme Court’s impossibly high traceability standard. Some individuals were specifically named and targeted in the government’s missives to social media companies, and at least one of them—Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—has filed an analogous case already. Maybe a Presidential candidate will fare better on the standing issue than we did.

This is not the end, my friends. Just one battle in what will prove to be a long war. Onwards!

June 27, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Free Speech Legislation Gains Attention Following Supreme Court Siding with Biden in Social Media Censorship Case

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | June 27, 2024

US House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has reacted to Wednesday’s ruling by the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in the Murthy v. Missouri case, to call for new legislation that would, going forward, reinforce the rules, already contained in the First Amendment, meant to protect citizens from government-orchestrated censorship.

Jordan, whose Committee is probing alleged government-Big Tech collusion in violation of the First Amendment through the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, noted that the US Constitution’s First Amendment is “first for a reason.”

According to the Republican congressman, free speech that this amendment protects (from government intervention) should extend to any government infringement – be it in Congress, or online.

Jordan said that while respectfully disagreeing with the SCOTUS ruling the Committee’s own oversight “has shown the need for legislative reforms.”

“While we respectfully disagree with the Court’s decision, our investigation has shown the need for legislative reforms, such as the Censorship Accountability Act, to better protect Americans harmed by the unconstitutional censorship-industrial complex,” Jordan wrote in a statement.

In other words, the increasingly pressing issue of how the government “interacts” with social platforms (because of their massive reach and therefore influence among the electorate) should be put into the hands of courts and their interpretations based on new and clear legislation to guide those decisions.

The Judiciary Committee chairman mentioned the Censorship Accountability Act – a bill that would let citizens launch legal action against federal employees suspected of colluding to suppress free speech.

Regardless of the SCOTUS decision, Jordan pledged that the Committee’s “important work will continue” – stating that the Subcommittee thus far has “uncovered how and the extent to which the Biden Administration engaged in a censorship campaign in violation of the First Amendment.”

Murthy v. Missouri – which sought to give the plaintiffs the right to pursue their legal case against the government, alleging it pressured social media to censor online user content, was thrown out by the Supreme Court in a 6-3 ruling as “lacking standing to sue.”

At the same time, the court canceled – at a particularly sensitive time, mere months before the upcoming US presidential election – an injunction that limited the way the government can “interact” with social platforms regarding a range of issues.

The collusion allegations for the most part refer to activities and communications between the government and Big Tech in the context of the previous vote that resulted in the installment of the current US administration.

June 27, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | 1 Comment

Autopsy Study Linking COVID Shots to Deaths Finally Published, After Lancet Removed It

‘Unprecedented Censorship’

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | June 25, 2024

A systematic review of autopsy-related literature following COVID-19 vaccination found that 73.9% of the 325 deaths were linked to the shots, suggesting “a high likelihood of a causal link” between the shots and death.

The review, published on June 21 in the peer-reviewed journal Forensic Science International, was first posted on July 5, 2023, on The Lancet preprint server, SSRN, an open access research platform.

However, Preprints with The Lancet removed the study from the server within 24 hours, “because the study’s conclusions are not supported by the study methodology,” according to a statement on the SSRN page, The Daily Sceptic reported.

The paper had been viewed over 100,000 times.

Authors submitting papers to Lancet journals for review post their work to the SSRN to make it publicly available while it undergoes peer review.

University of Michigan researcher Nicolas Hulscher authored the study, along with Dr. William Makis, Peter A. McCullough, M.D., MPH, and several of their colleagues at The Wellness Company.

The authors said autopsies should be performed on all deceased people who have received one or more COVID-19 vaccines and that vaccinated people should be clinically monitored for at least one year following vaccination. They called for further research into the issue.

McCullough told The Defender :

“Our study faced unprecedented censorship from the Lancet SSRN preprint server and was taken down after massive downloads by concerned physicians and scientists across the globe.

“Lancet did not want the world to know that among deaths that were autopsied after COVID-19 vaccination, independent adjudication found that the vaccine was the cause of death in 73.9% of cases.

“The most common fatal vaccine syndromes were myocarditis and blood clots. Investigative journalists should probe Lancet to uncover who was behind unethical suppression of critical clinical information to the public.”

Makis announced the publication of the “Lancet censored” paper on X last week.

McCullough also noted the project was approved through the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health and used a standard scientific methodology to evaluate the studies for inclusion in the review.

The authors subsequently posted on the Zenodo preprint server, while the review underwent peer review at Forensic Science International. It was downloaded over 125,000 times.

Preprint servers were established to address inefficiencies in academic publishing. The peer-review process typically takes months or more, delaying the real-time sharing of scientific findings with the public.

Also, many journals are proprietary and can only be accessed through expensive personal or institutional subscriptions.

Preprint servers offer a location for scientific reports and papers to be available to the public while the paper goes through peer review — making scientific findings available immediately and for free and opening them up to broader public debate.

There is no peer-review process for preprints, although there is a vetting process.

Preprint servers are intended to be neutral and to post all research conducted with a clearly explained and reproducible methodology, according to Vinay Prasad, M.D., MPH, who reported last year that his COVID-19-related work was subject to similar censorship.

Thirty-eight percent of Prasad’s own lab’s submissions to preprint servers were rejected or removed — even though those same articles eventually were published in journals and extensively downloaded.

Preprint servers have become “gatekeepers” for what science gets published, Prasad said.

When The Lancet took down the paper, The Daily Sceptic’s Will Jones wrote that given the credentials of the authors, “It is hard to imagine that the methodology of their review was really so poor that it warranted removal at initial screening rather than being subject to full critical appraisal. It smacks instead of raw censorship of a paper that failed to toe the official line.”

The Lancet Preprints did not respond to The Defender’s request for comment.

Findings have wide-ranging implications

The authors searched the published literature archived in PubMed and ScienceDirect for all autopsy and necropsy — another word for autopsy — reports related to COVID-19 vaccination, where the death occurred after vaccination.

They screened out 562 duplicate studies among the 678 studies initially identified in their search. Other papers were removed because, for example, they lacked information about vaccination status.

Ultimately 44 papers containing 325 autopsies and one necropsy case were evaluated. Three physicians independently reviewed each case and adjudicated whether or not the COVID-19 shot was the direct cause or contributed significantly to the death reported.

They found 240 of the deaths (73.9%) were found to be “directly due to or significantly contributed to by COVID-19 vaccination” and the mean age for death was 70.4 years old.

Primary causes of death included sudden cardiac death, which happened in 35% of cases, pulmonary embolism and myocardial infarction, which occurred in 12.5% and 12% of the cases respectively.

Other causes included vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, myocarditis, multisystem inflammatory syndrome and cerebral hemorrhage.

Most deaths occurred within a week of the last shot.

The authors concluded that because the deaths were highly consistent with the known mechanisms for COVID-19 vaccine injury, it was highly likely the deaths were causally linked to the vaccine.

They said the findings “amplify” existing concerns about the vaccines, including those related to vaccine-induced myocarditis and myocardial infarction and the effects of the spike protein more broadly.

They also said the studies have implications for unanticipated deaths among vaccinated people with no previous illness. “We can infer that in such cases, death may have been caused by COVID-19 vaccination,” they wrote.

The authors acknowledged some potential biases in the article.

First, they said, their conclusions from the autopsy findings are based on an evolving understanding of the vaccines, which are currently different from when the studies evaluated were published.

They also noted that systematic reviews have bias potential in general because of biases that may exist at the level of the individual papers and their acceptance into the peer-reviewed literature.

They said publication bias could have affected their results because the global push for mass vaccination has made investigators hesitant to report adverse events.

They also said their research did not account for confounding variables like concomitant illnesses, drug interactions and other factors that may have had a causal role in the reported deaths.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

June 26, 2024 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | | 1 Comment

Supreme Court Rules 6-3 That Biden Regime Pressuring Platforms To Censor Speech Doesn’t Violate First Amendment

By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | June 26, 2024 

The US Supreme Court has ruled in the hotly-awaited decision for the Murthy v. Missouri case, reinforcing the government’s ability to engage with social media companies concerning the removal of speech about COVID-19 and more. This decision, affirming that these actions do not infringe upon First Amendment rights, delineates the limits of free speech on the internet, dealing a massive blow to freedom of expression online and the interpretation that the First Amendment prevents the government from pressuring platforms to remove legal speech.

The verdict, decided by a 6-3 vote, found that the plaintiffs lacked the standing to sue the Biden administration. The dissenting opinions came from conservative justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch.

We obtained a copy of the ruling for you here.

John Vecchione, Senior Litigation Counsel at NCLA, responded to the ruling, telling Reclaim The Net, “The majority of the Supreme Court has declared open season on Americans’ free speech rights on the internet,” referring to the decision as an “ukase” that permits the federal government to influence third-party platforms to silence dissenting voices. Vecchione accused the Court of ignoring evidence and abdicating its responsibility to hold the government accountable for its actions that crush free speech.

Jenin Younes, another Litigation Counsel at NCLA, echoed Vecchione’s sentiments, labeling the decision a “travesty for the First Amendment” and a setback for the pursuit of scientific knowledge. “The Court has green-lighted the government’s unprecedented censorship regime,” Younes commented, reflecting concerns that the ruling might stifle expert voices on crucial public health and policy issues.

Further expressing the gravity of the situation, Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya, a client of NCLA and a professor at Stanford University, criticized the Biden Administration’s regulatory actions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Bhattacharya argued that these actions led to “irrational policies” and noted, “Free speech is essential to science, to public health, and to good health.” He called for congressional action and a public movement to restore and protect free speech rights in America.

This ruling comes as a setback to efforts supported by many who argue that the administration, together with federal agencies, is pushing social media platforms to suppress voices by labeling their content as misinformation.

Previously, a judge in Louisiana had criticized the federal agencies for acting like an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.” However, during the Supreme Court’s oral arguments, it was argued by the government that their requests for social media platforms to address “misinformation” more rigorously did not constitute threats or imply any legal repercussions – despite the looming threat of antitrust action against Big Tech.

Here are the key points and specific quotes from the decision:

Lack of Article III Standing: The Supreme Court held that neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs established the necessary standing to seek an injunction against government defendants. The decision emphasizes the fundamental requirement of a “case or controversy” under Article III, which necessitates that plaintiffs demonstrate an injury that is “concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent; fairly traceable to the challenged action; and redressable by a favorable ruling” (Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 568 U. S. 398, 409).

Inadequate Traceability and Future Harm: The plaintiffs failed to convincingly link past social media restrictions and government communications with the platforms. The decision critiques the Fifth Circuit’s approach, noting that the evidence did not conclusively show that government actions directly caused the platforms’ moderation decisions. The Court pointed out: “Because standing is not dispensed in gross, plaintiffs must demonstrate standing for each claim they press” against each defendant, “and for each form of relief they seek” (TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U. S. 413, 431).The complexity arises because the platforms had “independent incentives to moderate content and often exercised their own judgment.”

Absence of Direct Causation: The Court noted that the platforms began suppressing COVID-19 content before the defendants’ challenged communications began, indicating a lack of direct government coercion: “Complicating the plaintiffs’ effort to demonstrate that each platform acted due to Government coercion, rather than its own judgment, is the fact that the platforms began to suppress the plaintiffs’ COVID–19 content before the defendants’ challenged communications started.”

Redressability and Ongoing Harm: The plaintiffs argued they suffered from ongoing censorship, but the Court found this unpersuasive. The platforms continued their moderation practices even as government communication subsided, suggesting that future government actions were unlikely to alter these practices: “Without evidence of continued pressure from the defendants, the platforms remain free to enforce, or not to enforce, their policies—even those tainted by initial governmental coercion.”

“Right to Listen” Theory Rejected: The Court rejected the plaintiffs’ “right to listen” argument, stating that the First Amendment interest in receiving information does not automatically confer standing to challenge someone else’s censorship: “While the Court has recognized a ‘First Amendment right to receive information and ideas,’ the Court has identified a cognizable injury only where the listener has a concrete, specific connection to the speaker.”

The case revolved around allegations that the federal government, led by figures such as Dr. Vivek Murthy, the US Surgeon General, (though also lots more Biden administration officials) colluded with major technology companies to suppress speech on social media platforms. The plaintiffs argue that this collaboration targeted content labeled as “misinformation,” particularly concerning COVID-19 and political matters, effectively silencing dissenting voices.

The plaintiffs claim that this coordination represents a direct violation of their First Amendment rights. They argue that while private companies can set their own content policies, government pressure that leads to the suppression of lawful speech constitutes unconstitutional censorship by proxy.

The government’s campaign against what it called “misinformation,” particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic – regardless of whether online statements turned out to be true or not – has been extensive.

However, Murthy v. Missouri exposed a darker side to these initiatives—where government officials allegedly overstepped their bounds by coercing tech companies to silence specific narratives.

Communications presented in court, including emails and meeting records, suggest a troubling pattern: government officials not only requested but demanded that tech companies remove or restrict certain content. The tone and content of these communications often implied serious consequences for non-compliance, raising questions about the extent to which these actions were voluntary versus compelled.

Tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google have become the de facto public squares of the modern era, wielding immense power over what information is accessible to the public. Their content moderation policies, while designed to combat harmful content, have also been criticized for their lack of transparency and potential biases.

In this case, plaintiffs argued that these companies, under significant government pressure, went beyond their standard moderation practices. They allegedly engaged in the removal, suppression, and demotion of content that, although controversial, was not illegal. This raises a critical issue: the thin line between moderation and censorship, especially when influenced by government directives.

The Supreme Court ruling holds significant implications for the relationship between government actions and private social media platforms, as well as for the legal frameworks that govern free speech and content moderation.

Here are some of the broader impacts this ruling may have:

Clarification on Government Influence and Private Action: This decision clearly delineates the limits of government involvement in the content moderation practices of private social media platforms. It underscores that mere governmental encouragement or indirect pressure does not transform private content moderation into state action. This ruling could make it more challenging for future plaintiffs to claim that content moderation decisions, influenced indirectly by government suggestions or pressures, are tantamount to governmental censorship.

Stricter Standards for Proving Standing: The Supreme Court’s emphasis on the necessity of concrete and particularized injuries directly traceable to the challenged government action sets a high bar for future litigants. Plaintiffs must now provide clear evidence that directly links government actions to the moderation practices that allegedly infringe on their speech rights. This could lead to fewer successful challenges against perceived government-induced censorship on digital platforms.

Impact on Content Moderation Policies: Social media platforms may feel more secure in enforcing their content moderation policies without fear of being seen as conduits for state action, as long as their decisions can be justified as independent from direct government coercion. This could lead to more assertive actions by platforms in moderating content deemed harmful or misleading, especially in critical areas like public health and election integrity.

Influence on Public Discourse: By affirming the autonomy of social media platforms in content moderation, the ruling potentially influences the nature of public discourse on these platforms. While platforms may continue to engage with government entities on issues like misinformation, they might do so with greater caution and transparency to avoid allegations of government coercion.

Future Legal Challenges and Policy Discussions: The ruling could prompt legislative responses, as policymakers may seek to address perceived gaps between government interests in combating misinformation and the protection of free speech on digital platforms. This may lead to new laws or regulations that more explicitly define the boundaries of acceptable government interaction with private companies in managing online content.

Broader Implications for Digital Rights and Privacy: The decision might also influence how digital rights and privacy are perceived and protected, particularly regarding how data from social media platforms is used or shared with government entities. This could lead to heightened scrutiny and potentially stricter guidelines to protect user data from being used in ways that could impinge on personal freedoms.

Overall, the Murthy v. Missouri ruling will likely serve as a critical reference point in ongoing debates about the government’s ability to influence and shut down speech.

June 26, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Moldova Prepares Bill Allowing to Block Websites, Social Media Accounts – Opposition

Sputnik – 25.06.2024

Moldovan authorities are preparing a bill that will allow the blocking of websites, channels and accounts on social media, a spokesman for Moldovan opposition political bloc Podeda (Victory), Veaceslav Jukov, said on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, the country’s authorities annulled a broadcasting license held by Moldova’s Media Resurse company which owned two Russian language broadcasters, Orhei TV and TV6, Moldovan news outlet NewsMaker reported.

“The Moldovan government is considering a law which presupposes the suspension and even elimination of websites, as well as blocking channels and accounts on social media. The new legislation provides measures to control and manage the information space ,” Jukov wrote on Telegram.

In 2023, Moldovan authorities blocked access to 31 websites, including 21 managed from Russia, saying that they had been used in an “information war” against Kishinev. Apart from the Russian information sources, Kishinev has also banned websites of Moldovan broadcasters Orizont TV, Prime TV, Publika TV, Canal 2, and Canal 3, among others.

Earlier in 2023, Moldovan President Maia Sandu said that Moldova would create a national center for informational defense and combating propaganda symbolically named Patriot, which would protect Moldovan citizens from disinformation and manipulation at a national level. The new center will counter Russia’s alleged information attacks as well as deal with “traitors to the homeland” who are allegedly blocking Moldova’s attempts to integrate into the European Union, Sandu added.

June 26, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Russia retaliates against EU’s latest media ban

RT | June 25, 2024

Russia is restricting access to more than 80 EU media outlets on its territory that have been involved in spreading disinformation about the Ukraine conflict, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday.

According to a statement issued on the ministry’s website, the move comes in response to the EU’s latest crackdown on Russian media.

In May, the European Council banned four media outlets from reporting to audiences in the EU, including leading Russian news agency RIA Novosti, as well as newspapers Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta. The ban also applies to the relatively small Czech-based portal Voice of Europe, which the EU has described as a “Kremlin-linked propaganda network.” The restrictions on the media outlets came into force on June 25.

“The Russian side has repeatedly and at various levels warned that politically motivated harassment of its journalists and unfounded bans on Russian media in the EU will not go unnoticed,” the ministry said, noting that Brussels and other EU capitals had chosen to take the path of escalation with their latest illegal ban despite warnings, forcing Moscow to take mirror countermeasures.

“Responsibility for such a development of events lies solely with the leadership of the European Union and the countries of the bloc that supported such a decision,” according to the ministry.

The list of EU media outlets that “systematically disseminate false information” about the progress of Moscow’s special military operation includes 81 organizations from 25 member states. They include Germany’s Der Spiegel, Spain’s El Pais, Italy’s La Stampa and La Repubblica newspapers, the French Agence France-Presse, Le Monde, Liberation, as well as the pan-European Politico and EUobserver.

Moscow may reconsider its decision in relation to the media outlets if restrictions on Russian media are lifted, according to the statement.

Brussels had already barred several Russia-associated media from engaging with audiences in member states due to the Ukraine conflict. Even platforming content from the targeted organizations is illegal in the bloc. Those sanctions included RT and Sputnik, suspending their TV broadcasting licenses and blocking both websites for readers across the EU.

Moscow has accused Brussels of duplicity and attacking freedom of speech with its restrictions. The campaign to undermine the work of Russian news organizations long predates the Ukraine conflict and is aimed at preventing European citizens from hearing opinions that their governments deem undesirable, Russian officials have claimed.

June 25, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , | 1 Comment

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