No, 500 Children were NOT admitted to hospital with Covid this week
OffGuardian | December 30, 2021
Two days ago Sky News reported that, in the week from December 20th to Boxing Day (December 26th, for our non-UK readers), over 500 British children had been admitted to hospital with Covid19.
The story has been picked up by other outlets too, with the Metro headlining:
More than 500 children admitted to hospital with Covid in Christmas week
The Mirror went with:
More than 500 children admitted to hospital with Covid in week leading up to Boxing Day
Going on to say [our emphasis]:
A record number of new Covid infections were reported today with the easily transmissible Omicron strain being named as the driving force for the surge – now the variant is having an unprecedented impact on Britain’s younger population
Other publications cited “concerning data” that 50 babies had been admitted to hospital with Covid on Christmas day alone.
But is any of this true?
In short, no. It is a meaningless number created by deliberately misleading statistical definitions.
This is actually the easiest fact-check we’ve ever done, because Sky literally fact-checked themselves in their own subheading:
Let’s repeat that with some added emphasis:
The definition used to identify a hospital admission with coronavirus is that someone either tested positive for the virus in the 14 days before their admission, or during their stay in hospital. It could mean someone goes into hospital for a non-COVID reason and later tests positive.
So no, 512 children were not admitted to hospital for Covid infection, 512 children were admitted to hospital for potentially “non-COVID reasons”, and either tested positive while they were in hospital or had tested positive sometime in the previous two weeks.
We’ve gone over this many times before.
The official definition of a “Covid death” is death by any cause, in someone who tested positive in the month preceding their death.
The official definition of a “covid hospitalisation” is anyone who is admitted to hospital for any reason after testing positive, or tests positive while they are already in hospital for something else.
We don’t need to explain, yet again, how meaningless the resultant statistics will be if you use these definitions.
But if they keep lying about the figures, we will keep correcting them.
Biggest pandemic lie: PCR tests accurately detect cases and deaths
By Joel S Hirschhorn | December 28, 2021
As of this Friday, December 31 the ubiquitous and infamous PCR test used universally by the public health and medical establishments is gone, according to a CDC declaration issued last July.
To all of the propaganda victims of the pandemic collusion mafia, now is the time (belatedly) to face facts. A huge fraction of all the fear-producing data in COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths are sheer crap. From the very beginning in early 2020 there were experts who said that the PCR test should not have been so used universally as a way to detect and document COVID infection and disease.
You may have noticed that there has been no coverage of this rather important act by CDC in the leftist mainstream media. Why not? Because now they have to admit that massive false positive results from PCR tests have produced totally unreliable data. These PCR tests had the capability of calling the common flu or cold COVID. And so much of the time they were run at very high cycles to create false positives.
FDA has other approved tests for COVID that will be used.
The larger point after two pandemic years is that the public should better appreciate just how easy it has been for public health, medical and public policy establishments to totally lie about virtually all aspects of the pandemic.
It started with PCR testing and continues to this day with COVID vaccines. If you were stupid enough to trust testing, then you probably remain stupid enough to trust everything said about vaccines and boosters as ways to curb the pandemic. And add on masking, lockdowns and school closings to the BIG LIES endlessly promoted by Big Media, Big Government and Big Pharma.
And now keep believing, if you remain gullible, that omicron is a huge health threat.
Starting with my book Pandemic Blunder I have worked endlessly to be a truth-teller. But it is not easy to combat the disinformation and lies from all the powerful forces determined to instill fear so that governments can coerce and control the public.
Though I prefer to focus on COVID deaths, there are reasons why these data are also problematic. So many have died with COVID but not from COVID.
Hospitals have utterly failed to effectively prevent COVID related deaths, now over 830,000 and that will surely reach 1 million by the end of March. Why? Because severely ill, late-stage COVID patients in ICUs are not being saved by current hospital protocols. Those patients got to that point because the government prevented wide use of generic medicines for early home treatment and even now for late-stage COVID.
Everywhere I look I see widespread dishonesty, incompetence and corruption. These have produced widespread suffering in all aspects of lives. Time for the revolution. If you have enough critical thinking capability to see all the many lies from the powerful, especially the evil Fauci.
State Climatologist Falsely Claims Climate Change Causing More Severe Weather
By H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. | ClimateRealism | December 21, 2021
Near the top of the results of Google new search of the phrase climate change today is a post from KPTM Fox 42 in Omaha, Nebraska claiming climate change is contributing to an increase in extreme weather events. This is false. Real-world data and the most recent report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicate the incidences of extreme weather events are not increasing, nor are the duration or severity of such events worsening.
For the article, titled “State Climatologist says climate change is contributing to severe weather,” KPTM Omaha interviews Martha Shulski, Nebraska’s state climatologist concerning recent severe weather events which hit the state.
Shulski linked these events to climate change.
“‘Climate change is something that it is real and here now,’” Shulski told KPTM, continuing, “‘It really impacts everything, the question is not did climate change cause it, the question is more how much worse was it made with climate change. There is a climate change signature on all of these events we experience, its really just a matter of how strong of a signature.’”
Nobody disputes climate change is occurring. Climate has changed on local, regional, continental, and global scales across the course of history. However, available data does not show ongoing climate change is making instances of extreme weather more common or more severe.
The KPTM article discusses a recent spate of tornadoes which struck Iowa and Nebraska in mid-December. Concerning tornadoes, the IPCC states, “There is low confidence in observed trends in small spatial-scale phenomena such as tornadoes.”
As discussed in Climate at a Glance: Tornadoes, data conclusively shows the number of tornadoes has been declining for the past 50 years, and, as shown in the figure below, the number of strong tornadoes, F3 or higher, has been dramatically declining for the past 50 years.
From 2017 through 2018, the U.S. set a record for the longest period in history without a tornado death. Also in 2017 and 2018, the U.S. set a record for the longest period in history without an F3 or stronger tornado. The two record-low years for number of tornadoes both occurred this past decade, in 2014 and 2018, a decade which climate alarmists have regularly described as the warmest on record. Even counting the recent December tornadoes, the number of tornados recorded in 2021 has been below average.
Concerning flooding, another extreme weather event Shulski links to climate change in the KPTM story, there has been no increase flooding frequency or severity as the climate modestly warms. The IPCC admits having “low confidence” in any climate change impact regarding the frequency or severity of floods. Although the IPCC states in its recent 6th Assessment Report, “the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation have likely increased at the global scale over a majority of land regions with good observational coverage,” it explicitly states “heavier rainfall does not always lead to greater flooding.”
In addition, the IPCC writes, “Confidence about peak flow trends over past decades on the global scale is low, … [and] there is low confidence in the human influence on the changes in high river flows on the global scale.”
The best available evidence shows extreme weather is neither more frequent, nor more severe than it has been historically. Shulski was wrong to say otherwise, and KPTM was wrong to report her claims without checking the facts.
Shameless BBC hosts Big Pharma’s drive to get Africa hooked on Covid vaccine
By Rusere Shoniwa | TCW Defending Freedom | December 23, 2021
AT the end of November, a piece of BBC agitprop to stoke up fervour for vaccinating Africa went viral. As a British citizen of African descent living in London, I was disgusted by it.
I am concerned that people in Africa may ‘get it’ even less than the average Westerner and I really want to try to reach a few Africans who might be wondering what Covid could mean for them.
So let’s start by imagining if Big Pharma were to run a modestly honest advertisement to recruit dealers for pushing Covid ‘vaccines’ in Africa.
It might read something like this: ‘International drug cartel requires Western-educated Black face to front our public campaign to push experimental and unnecessary Covid vaccines on the impoverished African continent.
‘This is a tough market, highly suspicious of the product and not without good reason. Smile and dial merchants need not apply, as you must bypass the consumer to target the decision-maker.
‘Successful applicants must display the ability to rail melodramatically at the “racist vaccine-hoarding” injustices perpetrated by the West against Africa, appealing to the woke sensibilities of those in positions of power within key Western institutions. African leaders will then be expected to do as they’re told.’
I must confess that I reverse-engineered that ad after watching the successful applicant going through the motions like a performing seal on a BBC World News slot set aside for just such agitprop.
Following the latest Covid variant hype, the co-chair of the African Union’s Vaccine Delivery Alliance, Dr Ayoade Alakija, announced on the UK’s flagship propaganda organ: ‘What is going on right now (the emergence of the Omicron Variant) is inevitable.
‘It’s a result of the world’s failure to vaccinate in an equitable, urgent and speedy manner. It is a result of hoarding by high-income countries of the world and quite frankly it is unacceptable. These travel bans are based in politics and not science. It is wrong.’
Abandoning any pretence at journalism, the BBC presenter, Philippa Thomas, played the role of therapist by responding: ‘I hear your anger about the immediate reaction and the lack of action beforehand.’
The stage direction becomes even more obvious and cringeworthy as Thomas then pauses, providing a cue for the good doctor to glance at her script and resume the televised amateur dramatics: ‘So this is hopefully a dress rehearsal because until everyone is vaccinated no-one is safe … why are the Africans unvaccinated? It’s an outrage because we knew we were going to get here.
‘We knew this is where the hoarding, the lack of IP (intellectual property rights) waivers, the lack of co-operation on sharing tech and sharing know-how, we knew this was the crossroads it was going to bring us to. To a more dangerous variant.’
The only valid question she raises concerns the swift travel bans placed on Southern African countries: ‘Why are we locking away Africa when this virus is already on three continents? Nobody is locking away Belgium, nobody is locking away Israel.’
This is an emotional ploy to gain the trust of the small handful of privileged Africans watching this drivel. She is saying to them: ‘I am right-on, woke, one of you.’ She quickly jumps back on board the Covid cult train with a policy ‘nudge’ that must have African leaders reaching for their sickbags.
‘Something needs to be done to everywhere. My recommendation is to have a co-ordinated global shutdown of travel, for the next month if you want, but don’t single out Africa.’
And then back to the greedy, vaccine-hoarding West: ‘The Botswana government ordered 500,000 doses of vaccines at 29 dollars per dose, much higher than the rest of the world paid. They did not get those vaccines because other people jumped ahead in the queue. Moderna supplied to other countries … and so now we have a variant.’
Not a single grain of this guerrilla marketing campaign was challenged by the BBC journalist.
The obvious starting point for a presenter with half an ounce of journalistic integrity would be to explore whether the ‘vaccines’ are working and whether they would indeed have prevented a variant. After all, the fact that they do not halt transmission and infection is no longer controversial.
No sales pitch involving an illness would be complete without recourse to fear-based marketing tactics. Enter the Omicron narrative.
Despite Dr Alakija’s claim that we now have ‘a more dangerous variant’, there was no evidence that this variant would make any difference to disease severity at the time she was invited by the BBC to make her vaccine sales pitch for Africa. (Nor is there proof that vaccination prevents variants from arising in the first place).
Since then, the evidence emerging is that Omicron is less severe than previous variants and more contagious – the ideal combination for hastening herd immunity with minimal population health impact.
Telling medium-sized lies and half-truths with a straight face has always been the minimum qualification for political office, but Covid has raised the bar to a new height – the ability to swim in a pool of one’s own metaphorical vomit without flinching.
The BBC ‘discussion’ might have turned to safety, to tease out how much personal risk Africans will be expected to bear in submitting to a vaccine that doesn’t perform the primary function of a vaccine.
The word ‘safety’, however, was not permitted to impinge in any way on the protestations of the injustice of depriving Africans of the wondrous medical treatments emanating from the hallowed laboratories of Western science.
The reticence about safety is understandable from a marketing perspective since, by any objective measure, these ‘vaccines’ are the most dangerous mass medications rolled out in modern history.
Perhaps Dr Alakija should have been quizzed about how Africans might react to the drug manufacturers’ lack of confidence in the safety of their own products in light of their refusal to distribute it to countries who refuse to provide blanket immunity from liability for injury.
Not a single word of safety information was explored, even in the vaguest terms, in the BBC report. Nothing. Juxtapose studies highlighting the risk of dangerous heart inflammation for young males following Covid vaccination against Africa’s far younger population, with a median age of around 20.
You’d think this safety risk might get a passing mention. Yet neither of the two stooges saw fit to broach the prospect that many young Africans – whose risk of dying from Covid is so small that it is hard to measure – may die following vaccination.
The callousness of this omission is standard operating procedure in Western liberal discourse, a key function of which is to drape a ‘humanitarian’ cloak over policies that enrich corporate interests in the West while harming and exploiting the poor.
Unveiling the farce of the BBC plug for Africa’s vaccination allows us to consider a game in which we imagine what other doctors might say if the BBC were to air credible dissenting voices – a practice that was once regarded as the bread and butter of journalism, but which would now be a radical act of rebellion.
It’s not a difficult game to play. In fact, no imagination is required, because the actual statements of credible dissenting doctors are available on other independent media news channels, as reported in TCW Defending Freedom on December 8.
A new channel based in Austria, AUF1, gives a platform to those medical professionals who refuse to go along with the official narrative.
Typical is Dr Heiko Schöning, who says: ‘The corona panic is a stage-managed production. It’s a confidence trick. It is now urgent that we understand we are now in the grip of a worldwide Mafioso-style criminal enterprise. We can see we are dealing here with organised crime. So what do we do? We don’t play along any longer. Here and now we have to draw the red line.’
Had Dr Schöning just finished watching the two stooges on BBC World News when he described ‘the corona panic’ as ‘a stage-managed production’?
Whether these doctors are right or wrong is irrelevant to the journalistic duty to present credible dissenting voices to the public. The failure to do so goes a long way to meeting the criteria for propaganda.
The question in relation to Dr Alakija’s BBC guerrilla marketing campaign is: Do enough Africans know that there are alternative credible narratives to challenge the mainstream BBC vaccine narrative and how would they respond if these competing narratives were presented?
Does Africa, or anywhere else for that matter, need mass vaccination? Almost two years into this global nightmare, with evidence showing that up to 80% of South Africans (how similar for other African nations?) may have already been exposed to the virus, less than 6% of Africa vaccinated, and a death toll a fraction of that in the ageing populations of the West (Africa’s Covid deaths are 3% of the global total), it is clear that Africa has already learnt to live with the virus.
Had Africans succeeded in applying the same level of rigorous lockdown stupidity that was achieved in the West, it would not have made the slightest difference, as real science is conclusively demonstrating not just the futility of lockdowns but their positive destructiveness.
Despite looser lockdowns (perhaps partly because of this) Africa fared much better than the illiberal West in health outcomes.
No doubt there are other variables at play, but cheap, effective early treatments in some parts of Africa were used to good effect and should continue to be the focus of attention.
Africa and the entire planet would get far more bang for their buck from policies addressing human health holistically rather than with expensive experimental ‘vaccines’ which will continue for as long as human beings are prepared to, or more likely forced to, surrender their bodies to Big Pharma and authoritarian governments.
It must be patently obvious to African leaders that the Covid crisis is a manufactured one, but that does not make it any less of a crisis.
Western liberal democracy is being dismantled at breakneck speed under the cover of Covid containment policies.
The criminality, coercion, censorship, propaganda and blatant negligence all signal the logical conclusion to a brutal colonial mindset – the attempted colonisation of the entire globe to serve the interests of a global elite which has successfully captured Western governments and supranational organisations.
The psychopaths whose aim is to introduce a technocratic global system of human control understand only too well that shutting off travel for economies that rely on tourism is a far bigger killer of economies, and therefore lives, than this virus has ever been.
The message being sent by the sadistic controllers to Africa’s leaders is a simple one: Get serious about imposing vaccines and the technocratic population control measures for which which vaccines are the delivery system … or else.
Covid containment policies represent a desperate authoritarian response to permanent decline. This cannot end well for the West and if the West is a sinking ship, then Africa must not blindly tether itself to this Titanic disaster.
The Associated Press put out a hit piece on RFK Jr. in retaliation for the success of “The Real Anthony Fauci”
The mainstream media are incapable of facing the truth about Pharma, it would reveal their own complicity in crimes against humanity
By Toby Rogers | December 18, 2021
The blue check bourgeoisie are very sad right now. They want to be in control, they want to be looked up to, and they are watching in horror as their entire worldview and standing in society slips from their grasp and goes down the drain. In their shame and humiliation the object of their ire becomes Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
RFK Jr. is everything they are not. He is smarter and more successful than they are. But more than that, RFK Jr. has moral character, something that is in vanishingly short supply in mainstream newsrooms these days. He has also more reach. COVID-19 information on RFK Jr.’s website (The Defender) is shared more often on social media than the corporate nonsense coming from CNN, NPR, the NY Times, the Washington Post, and the CDC (no surprise there really).
As RFK Jr.’s new book, The Real Anthony Fauci rose to the top of the bestseller list in recent weeks, the blue check bourgeoisie started to panic because his work reveals, amongst other things, that they are charlatans. So the Associated Press assigned six “reporters” to put out a 4,000-word hit piece on RFK Jr. This appears to be part of a wave of paid retribution stemming from RFK Jr.’s extraordinary record of successfully challenging the dishonest Pharma narrative.
The AP hit piece reveals nothing new about RFK Jr. but it tells us heaps about the worldview and mindset of the corrupt white collar class that makes their bread defending the Pharma cartel.
Whether you like him or not, RFK Jr. is a serious scholar. The Real Anthony Fauci is 480 pages and involved a team of over 20 world-class research scholars working for over a year. It is perhaps the most damning indictment of a political figure in American history. It deserves a serious reading.
What’s fascinating about the AP hit piece is that they are terrified to engage with the actual argument itself. Their sole interaction with the book consists of a quick keyword search for the words “ivermectin” and “hydroxychloroquine”.
The AP writes,
“Kennedy uses the book to push unproven COVID-19 treatments such as ivermectin, which is meant to treat parasites…”
Imagine thinking that this was some sort of gotcha!? We are left with one of two unpleasant possibilities — either the AP writers are just plain dumb or they are lying. I’m not sure which is worse.
The AP seems unaware that William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2015 for the discovery and development of ivermectin (back in the 1970s).
The AP seems unaware that the World Health Organization has ivermectin on its list of essential medicines.
The AP seems unaware that there are 136 studies on the safety and effectiveness of ivermectin in connection with SARS-CoV-2 and they are all available (here).
The AP seems unaware that 3.7 billion doses of ivermectin have been used safely worldwide since 1987.
The AP seems unaware that ivermectin is a broad-spectrum anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-parasite, anti-inflammatory that also appears to have anti-cancer properties and it’s more gentle than aspirin.
Remember, the AP had six reporters working on this, and not a single one of them could locate any of these available facts???
The blue check bourgeoisie are obsessed with trying to defend vaccines and discredit ivermectin even as they refuse to read any of the underlying scientific literature because to understand the truth of this situation would reveal that everything that they believe is a lie.
Later in the article, the AP is breathless and freaked out that RFK Jr. is pretty good at raising money (according to the AP, RFK Jr.’s non-profit Children’s Health Defense brought in $6.8 million in 2020). Okay, but Autism Speaks brought in $94.7 million in 2020 and accomplished absolutely nothing so $6.8 million for fighting global Pharma totalitarianism seems like a bargain by comparison.
The corrupt mainstream are fixated on this notion (surely invented by one of the big Pharma PR firms) that opposing vaccine mandates is somehow profitable. It shows that these people have no ability to mentally position-switch (the foundation of empathy) and put oneself in the shoes of another. Everyone in the movement for medical freedom who battles in the trenches every day knows that challenging the Pharma cartel results in endless bigotry from former friends, family, and colleagues; routine death threats; and a massive, lifelong decline in income. No one would ever endure this level of abuse for the money.
This angle of attack is also strange and illogical because these reporters never question the hundreds of billions of dollars that Pharma makes from vaccines and the prescription drugs used to treat vaccine injury (EpiPens, asthma inhalers, diabetes treatments, Risperdal, etc.). If, as the AP alleges, the lure of a modest non-profit salary is somehow corrupting then how corrupting are the trillions of dollars that Pharma is making from the pandemic!? It’s weird that these self-appointed guardians of the “Truth(TM)” never stop to think through where their logic is taking them.
The article is a sad time-capsule that perfectly symbolizes the intellectual and moral collapse of the mainstream news industry in the face of the pandemic. Reporters never challenge power anymore. They do not do any investigative research. Their jobs are not well paid and being a reporter is no longer a viable career path. Instead, these “reporters”, many just out of college, are auditioning for a future job with a Pharma PR firm and it shows.
As some point though these stenographers for the cartel have to realize that everyone is laughing at them. Indeed in just the last few days one can see The Atlantic, the NY Times, and the Washington Post all starting to get nervous and hedging their bets with articles (usually just Opinion pieces for now) that undermine some aspect of the Pharma narrative. The public already realizes that the emperor has no clothes and the corrupt bougie media class is rightly worried that they have lost whatever credibility they once had by associating themselves with the criminal Pharma regime.
(Nope, not gonna link to the article, fascists do not deserve clicks.)
I rate the AP hit piece 12 clowns (out of 10) for its total inability/unwillingness to engage in good faith scientific discussion.
Sen. Johnson Requests Records From Top Medical Journals on Retracted Studies, Including Flawed HCQ Study
The Defender | December 21, 2021
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has written to The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine seeking records on two retracted studies from mid-2020. Johnson particularly called out The Lancet study, which suggested hydroxychloroquine could boost the risk of death in COVID patients.
“Although this fraudulent study was ultimately retracted, it is concerning and shameful that, in the midst of a pandemic, The Lancet published such a misleading paper on a potential early treatment for COVID-19,” said Johnson, the ranking member on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in a letter dated Dec. 14.
Johnson seeks all records of the journals’ communication on the two studies, including communication with the papers’ authors; U.S. government employees; individuals who encouraged the studies’ publication; and the supplier of the two studies’ datasets, Surgisphere, a healthcare analytics company.
Despite The Lancet paper’s retraction, its initial publication halted trials on hydroxychloroquine’s use and sullied its reputation more broadly. The Washington Post and other major media headlined the increased risk of death, and health authorities took action globally within days of the paper’s publication.
The World Health Organization and the UK’s drug regulator halted trials of the drug in COVID settings. France reversed an earlier decision to allow hydroxychloroquine’s use in COVID patients.
Readers of The Lancet quickly noted the study cited implausibly high numbers of COVID cases in 2020, and journalists failed to find any hospitals that had contributed data, despite the study’s claim that more than 96,000 hospital patients participated.
The Lancet retracted the study two weeks after publication.
Sen. Johnson also requested information from The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on another study retracted in June 2020.
Johnson explained in his letter, the NEJM paper reportedly found that “taking certain blood pressure drugs, including angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, didn’t appear to increase the risk of death among COVID-19 patients, as some researchers had suggested.”
However, the study’s authors wrote to the NEJM a few weeks after the study was published, acknowledging they could not validate the primary data supporting the study and apologized “to the editors and to readers of the Journal for the difficulties that this has caused.”
Johnson has requested all records by Jan. 4, 2022.
© 2021 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
Complaint to Ofcom

Source: BIT
By Laura Dodsworth | 21st December 2021
Dear Melanie Dawes,
We are writing to alert you to a broadcast license complaint we have made about Sky UK. Our complaint concerns a partnership between Sky and Behavioural Insights U.K., Known as the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), a limited company partly owned by the Government. We believe this partnership – and, in particular, Sky’s adoption of BIT’s recommendations about how to help the Conservative Government successfully implement one of its most political contentious policy, namely, Net Zero – contravenes the Broadcasting Code.
The partnership we’re referring to resulted in the publication of ‘The Power of TV: Nudging Viewers to Decarbonise their Lifestyles’ and the launch of Sky’s ‘Sky Zero’ campaign, which recommended that broadcasters make use of “behavioural science principles”, including subliminal messaging (“nudging” in the parlance of BIT, which is colloquially known as the Nudge Unit), to encourage viewers to endorse and comply with Conservative Government policy. Alarmingly, the report recommends broadcasters utilize sophisticated psychological techniques to change the behaviour of children “because of the important influence they have on the attitude and behaviours of their parents”.
Summary
We are concerned that this partnership and Sky’s adoption of BIT’s recommendations:
- Will affect the political impartiality of news and wider programming on Sky’s channels;
- Reveals an inappropriate relationship between a company which, when the report was published, was part owned by the U.K. Government, and a licensed U.K. broadcaster. Sky referred to BIT as “independent” in its video to promote this partnership, yet Sky will be aware that BIT was at the time part owned by the U.K. Cabinet Office. Until the Cabinet Office’s share was bought by NESTA earlier this month, the company was commonly referred to as “the Government’s Nudge Unit” and advised the Government on how to influence the public using sophisticated psychological techniques, particularly when it comes to getting people to comply with Government policies;
- Is an attempt to affect viewers’ attitudes and behaviour, including those of children, through the use of indirect, subliminal messaging (“nudging”) with a view to securing their support and compliance with one of the most politically contentious policy of the Conservative Government, namely, Net Zero.
- Reveals a historic relationship between behavioural scientists employed by the U.K. Government and broadcasters to promote Government policies: “behaviour change via broadcasting and traditional media has historically been aimed at improving public health, boosting gender equality, and reducing violence. Imagine the potential for emissions reductions if the same methods were used to encourage sustainable behaviours!” This historic relationship warrants further investigation since it may include historic breaches of the Broadcasting Code by Sky and other broadcasters.
The Complaint
Below are the specific contraventions of Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code that we are concerned about:
2.11 Broadcasters must not use techniques which exploit the possibility of conveying a message to viewers or listeners, or of otherwise influencing their minds without their being aware, or fully aware, of what has occurred. [Section two: Harm and Offence, The Broadcasting Code.]
The jointly-published report by BIT and Sky reveals their intention to subtly influence viewers’ attitudes and behaviour in indirect, subliminal ways by using sophisticated psychological techniques based on behavioural science. The aim is to change viewers minds, including the minds of children, about a politically contentious issue by using these techniques so viewers aren’t fully aware that an attempt is being made to change their minds. The underlying assumption is that this subtle, indirect messaging is a more effective way of changing people’s attitudes and behaviour than more overt messaging since the messages will be absorbed semi-consciously – catching viewers off guard, as it were, and bypassing their critical faculties. The use of this “nudging” would be less objectionable if these techniques were being recommended to promote an apolitical, uncontentious agenda. But the recommendation of the joint report is that these sophisticated psychological techniques be used to persuade viewers to endorse one of the Conservative Government most politically contentious policies, namely, Net Zero.
The foreword to the report, authored by David Halpern, the CEO of BIT, says:
Societal-level behaviour change is needed to tackle climate change… From changing what we buy and what we eat, to changing the technologies we use to heat our homes and travel, reaching Net Zero is conditional on large numbers of people taking up green behaviours and products.
Broadcast organisations and content creators therefore have a unique opportunity to make a difference for the planet. Through the programs that they produce, the characters that they create, the plot-lines that they develop, and the adverts that they broadcast, content creators have the potential to have a far-reaching impact on the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of citizens, and to spark conversations in boardrooms and political arenas alike. They are also pivotally placed to help people sift through the maze of choices and claims, to adopt behaviours – and products – that can get us to a greener future.
The BIT report goes on to recommend a variety of subtle psychological techniques that broadcasters can use to promote this agenda, including using celebrities, on-screen presenters and dramatic characters as “role models”, e.g. advocates for the Net Zero policy, plot-lines, product placement, and editorially endorsing the Net Zero policy in news and current affairs programmes, as well as in drama programmes, travel programmes, DIY programmes and cookery programmes. Indeed, no area of Sky’s output across its various channels is to be left unaffected by this agenda.
Dana Strong, Group Chief Executive, Sky, agrees with this aim. She says in her foreword:
As Europe’s largest media and entertainment organisation, we also want to accelerate our industry’s efforts to drive global progress towards net zero.
However, it is now widely accepted that we must shift the behaviour of millions of people to deliver on our collective net zero goals…
We know that what we broadcast has the power to change how we as consumers feel and act. What we see on our screens can shock us, inspire us, educate us, and entertain us. [Our emphasis.]
5.1: News, in whatever form, must be reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality. [Section five: Due impartiality and due accuracy, The Broadcasting Code.]
The report suggests that, “Audiences’ knowledge on what to do and how can be improved by documentaries; DIY, travel, and cookery shows; and news coverage.”
This is an explicit call for broadcasters to encourage viewers to comply (“what to do and how”) with a controversial Conservative Government policy in news programmes, which is a breach of the Broadcasting Code’s “due impartiality” requirement.
In addition, the Climate Content Pledge (undertaken by 12 major U.K. media companies, including Sky) promises:
We will incorporate climate change considerations into all our editorial processes, informed by science and behavioural insight.
It is a breach of the “due impartiality” requirement for “climate change considerations”, e.g. promotion of the Government’s Net Zero policy, to be woven into all editorial processes, which include those in news and current affairs.
5.5: Due impartiality on matters of political or industrial controversy and matters relating to current public policy must be preserved on the part of any person providing a service (listed above). This may be achieved within a programme or over a series of programmes taken as a whole. [Section five: Due impartiality and due accuracy, The Broadcasting Code.]
As well as news and current affairs, other programming – such as DIY, travel and cookery programmes – must maintain “due impartiality on matters of political and industrial controversy and matters relating to current policy”. Yet the joint report by BIT and Sky encourages broadcasters to persuade viewers to comply with a controversial political (and industrial) policy, namely, Net Zero, which is a breach of this requirement. No balance of views and opinions or debate about this controversial Government policy is proposed, only suggestions as to how best to get viewers to change their attitudes and “behaviours” to align with the policy.
5.12: In dealing with matters of major political and industrial controversy and major matters relating to current public policy an appropriately wide range of significant views must be included and given due weight in each programme or in clearly linked and timely programmes. Views and facts must not be misrepresented. [Section five: Due impartiality and due accuracy, The Broadcasting Code.]
A commitment to promoting the Conservative Government’s goal of Net Zero will necessitate the exclusion of a wide range of alternative views, including those of numerous members of Parliament, other elected representatives, as well as distinguished climate scientists, experts on energy policy and environment correspondents. Excluding or marginalizing people who dissent from the Net Zero policy is surely a breach of this requirement. Broadcasters have an obligation to ensure viewers are exposed to a wide range of different viewpoints about this politically contentious policy.
9.1: Broadcasters must maintain independent editorial control over programming. [Section nine: Commercial references on TV, The Broadcasting Code.]
The report’s suggestion – that U.K. broadcasters incorporate the recommendations of a company partly owned by the U.K. Government, as it was at the time – implicitly undermines independent editorial integrity.
Product placement
The report recommends product placement to encourage people to support the Net Zero policy. Below are two examples:
Product placement directly impacts behaviour, it can influence key outcomes such as brand attention, knowledge, interest, recall, recognition, and purchase intent, which is encouraging for the potential impact that background green content could have on viewers. This can be explained by the “mere exposure effect”, where people often develop preferences for things simply because they are familiar with them.
Use green product placement and model green actions in the background to improve familiarity, create positive attitudes and norms.
This contravenes Ofcom’s rules which state that “product placement must not impair broadcasters’ editorial independence and must always be editorially justified. This means that programmes cannot be created or distorted so that they become vehicles for the purposes of featuring product placement.”
Conclusion
We find the collaboration between a major U.K. broadcaster and a company that was part-owned by the Cabinet Office until earlier this month to promote one of the most politically contentious policies of the current Conservative Government deeply alarming. The report jointly published by BIT and Sky seems to be unaware of the obligations imposed on broadcasters by the Broadcasting Code to maintain “due impartiality” across all their output, particularly news and current affairs, and the need to expose viewers to a wide range of views when it comes to “matters of major political and industrial controversy and major matters relating to current public policy”. On the contrary, Sky recommends that all U.K. broadcasters adopt a hard editorial bias when it comes to the promotion of the Government’s controversial Net Zero policy, and proudly boasts that it is adopting these recommendations itself.
We are particularly concerned about Sky’s enthusiastic embrace of subtle and sophisticated psychological techniques, rooted in behavioural science, to promote endorsement of and compliance with the Net Zero policy, as well as its evangelism in trying to get other broadcasters to use these techniques. To take just one example, the use of product placement to try and influence viewers’ attitudes and behaviour towards this controversial policy is a flagrant breach of Section Two of the Broadcasting Code, which explicitly prohibits the use of “techniques which exploit the possibility of conveying a message to viewers or listeners, or of otherwise influencing their minds without their being aware, or fully aware, of what has occurred”. Far from being concerned that the use of product placement may persuade viewers to endorse a politically controversial policy without their being fully aware of it, BIT and Sky appear to be recommending its use for precisely that reason. The recommendation in the report that such techniques are deployed to change the behaviour of children – and the implication that Sky is currently doing precisely that across all its channels – is unconscionable.
We hope you will investigate our complaint with the urgency we believe it merits.
Yours sincerely,
Laura Dodsworth
Toby Young
CC: The RT Hon Nadine Dorries MP, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport; Lucy Powell MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
Fear mongering and stupidity from The New York Times
By Joel S Hirschhorn | December 21, 2021
This was said today:
“But Omicron may cause such a large increase in cases that it will nonetheless overwhelm hospitals, many of which are already near capacity.”
Every part of this statement is an intentional lie designed to instill fear and make the public accepting of increasing authoritarian, intrusive government actions that have no basis in medical science. It is all about controlling lives, not saving lives.
Here are my critical views:
1. Every bit of real-world evidence shows that omicron variant does NOT pose a serious health threat. Some of the smartest pandemic experts correctly see omicron more as a sign of the end of the pandemic than a worsening of it.
2. Looking at case data is sheer stupidity. The fear mongering already has compelled more people to get tested even though they have no symptoms of concern. Then they get PCR testing, most of which is run at too high a number of cycles and, therefore, produces false positives.
3. There are no good data showing hospitals being overwhelmed; they should not be because omicron does not produce really serious health impacts requiring hospitalization. That is another scare tactic.
4. Meanwhile, the government has totally failed to get large and free supplies of fast, home antigen test kits out to the public. This is the best way to quell fears and control need to go to hospitals because they will show that the vast majority of people have enough innate or natural immunity to keep them infection free.
5. Of course the government still does not tell the public about early home treatments that could quickly fix infection, and also that can be used as a prophylactic to prevent infection. Latest research showed that ivermectin is very effective.
6. Most importantly, all available, enormous information from all over the planet shows that COVID vaccines do not stop people from getting infected, even after booster shots. [Have you noticed all the top politicians fully vaccinated and with booster shots getting breakthrough infections?] So, real world evidence shows vaccine ineffectiveness, but the government keeps pushing vaccine shots and ignoring the great many harmful health vaccine impacts, including deaths. Even worse, governments increasingly PUNISH those who intelligently chose not to get vaccine shots or boosters. Treat them as second-class citizens, ignore the two-thirds of the population with natural immunity from prior infection; do not credit them with better immunity than vaccine immunity. What a corrupt, stupid government and public health system we have!
I now see President Biden as the new near-dead and utterly stupid captain of the Titantic circling around the toilet water, working successfully to flush our society down into the sewer system operated by an army of incompetent and corrupt idiots.
I am still waiting for the much-needed revolution. For that we need more people with working critical thinking skills.
























