Missouri v. Biden might be most important legal case in U.S. history
From what I’ve read, proof our federal government wants to kill free speech is overwhelming.
BY BILL RICE, JR. | JUNE 7, 2023
Until yesterday, I’d not read any documents in the lawsuit brought by the states of Missouri, Louisiana et al vs. President Biden. Because of this, I didn’t fully grasp the stunning claims made by the plaintiffs, nor realize how overwhelming the evidence is that supports this case.
Yesterday, I read the first 54 pages of a 354-page legal document that was filed with a federal district court in Louisiana on March 3, 2023.
I now better understand why some people believe this might be the most important legal case in U.S. history.
In a nutshell, attorneys for the plaintiffs are compiling and presenting a mountain of evidence that shows actors for the U.S. government have conspired to nullify the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
This Amendment was first for an important reason.
It states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The core issue at stake is should American citizens be allowed to have genuine “freedom of speech.”
In my view, the evidence already presented in this legal case proves beyond a reasonable doubt that a cadre of officials in government (and organizations working “in partnership” with government agencies) despise, fear and want to end “free speech.” In fact, they’ve already effectively blocked the free speech of millions of Americans.
In a democracy, free speech is vitally important as it makes dissent from prevailing narratives possible and thus protects the “natural rights” of citizens who may hold minority views. That is, without “free speech,” only the views of those who embrace “authorized” opinions would be allowed to participate in any meaningful way in democratic debates.
One can parse this lengthy document a thousand ways, but the bottom-line conclusion is that the U.S. government believes only its views should be allowed to be widely disseminated.
Even more terrifying, virtually all the important institutions in contemporary society defend and seemingly support the efforts of the federal government to censor any speech labeled “mis-“ or “disinformation.”
A few of my main take-aways from my (partial) reading of this must-read legal document:
All Hope is Not Lost
The fact that attorneys general from at least two U.S. states have filed such a lawsuit provides hope that the entire country has not yet become disciples and enforcers of Big Brother.
It is also significant that the push-back to mass censorship comes from the state level of our “republic” and not from the federal government itself. That is, the Attorney General of the United States should have brought this case. Instead, representatives of the U.S. government are vigorously defending mass censorship, and the effort to “abridge the freedom of speech.”
The Legal System Can Work
This document is 354 pages because it’s replete with transcripts from legal depositions and exhibits that the public would have not seen absent the commencement of this legal proceeding.
The document also proves the power of legal “discovery” wherein defendants have to turn over all relevant evidence such as emails, meeting records, etc. (although plaintiffs argue that the defendants have still not turned over every piece of “discovery” requested).
A healthy democracy hinges on “fact-finding” and a “search for the truth.” This lawsuit has made it possible for the people who are following this case (not enough people) to learn more about the activities of the most powerful individuals who work for the most powerful government on the planet.
A quick aside ….
In reading this summary of evidence, I was struck by how easy it was for plaintiffs’ attorneys to build their case.
The attorneys, investigators and staffers bringing this case are clearly intelligent professionals who’ve been very thorough in developing their evidence and trying to prove their case. That is, if they get a fair hearing (which I’m not sure they will), they should win this case with ease.
However, this example made me think of all the lawsuits and “fact-finding” exercises that have NOT occurred with any of the litany of crimes and scandals of our Covid times (and even before Covid).
One strongly suspects that if other teams of competent litigators and investigators had employed the same tools of discovery and depositions, every scandal of our times would also be just-as-easily exposed.
Just like I think about all of the mainstream news articles that are off limits to alleged “watchdog” journalists, I also think about all the lawsuits and prosecutions that are apparently off limits to the people and organizations who could bring such cases.
What’s the core issue in this case?
The first paragraph of the “motion for the injunction” describes what the plaintiffs are trying to prove (and have already proven as far as I am concerned).
- “Federal officials, including Defendants, have made a long series of public statements since at least 2018 demanding that social-media platforms increase their censorship of speech and speakers disfavored by these officials, and threatening adverse consequences – such as repeal or reform of Section 230 immunity under the Communications Decency Act (CDA), antitrust scrutiny or enforcement, increased regulation, and other measures – if the platforms do not increase censorship …. “ (emphasis added).”
Note: For more excerpts from the document, see Reader Comments (under “most recent.”)
Comments:
Laymen and legal scholars alike agree that the First Amendment does not compel any publisher to print any and all speech. For example, a private company like The New York Times can publish, or not publish, whatever speech it wants for whatever reason it wants.
The issue in this case is whether citizens living in the “town square” can use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. to share their opinions or facts.
Or, more specifically, can the government use its immense power to compel private companies to censor speech the government doesn’t like (speech labeled by the government as dangerous, extremist, false or basically “misinformation” or “disinformation” as the government defines these terms).
Plaintiffs argue that the federal government is using its power to abridge free speech. The federal government is doing this by threatening to effectively shut down social media companies who don’t comply with the government’s wishes.
The federal government could harpoon these companies by “reforming” or “amending” Section 230 of the CDA. This section grants legal immunity to such companies, meaning social media companies can’t be sued or criminally tried because of the speech of citizens who make posts on their platforms.
Paragraph 3 of the document explains the power of this “threat.”
“3. The threat of antitrust scrutiny or enforcement is also a major motivator to social-media platforms. For example, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has stated that the threat of antitrust enforcement is “an ‘existential’ threat” to his platform.”
The evidence – presented on scores of pages – clearly reveals this “threat” was made explicitly, implicitly, publicly and privately over and over and over by myriad employees of the U.S. government, including the President of the United States.
This makes one (almost) feel empathy for these social media companies, which have had a symbolic bazooka pointed at their heads by the U.S. government dating to the day “Joe Biden” allegedly won the presidential election over Donald Trump.
I write that I “almost” feel empathy for these companies because if anyone skims this document, he will quickly see that virtually every employee and key executive of these companies was eager and happy to accede to the demands of their pro-censorship rulers.
Those who read this document will see never-ending examples of government officials brow-beating and intimidating social media companies for NOT censoring MORE.
To me, these companies appear almost masochistic – as in they seemingly enjoyed their incessant scoldings. For example, social media employees often thanked their government minders for pointing out their transgressions, which they seem overly-eager to correct. (Here, the Stockholm Syndrome comes to mind).
The “stick” of repealing Section 230 is not the only motivation social media companies have for complying with Big Brother.
Numerous “carrots” also exist as almost every one of these companies also profits from big contracts with the federal government and/or receives large sums of money (such as vaccine advertising spends) for supporting the authorized narratives (or, more precisely, silencing the non-authorized narratives).
The Virality Project
The document makes many references to the Virality Project, an influential project commissioned by academics at Stanford University.
As I’ve written previously, the most important goal of the world’s real rulers in Covid times was/is the effort to fight “vaccine hesitancy.”
If people were hesitant about getting their Covid vaccines, the mRNA project would be a bust. Big Pharma and all the many entities that receives massive amounts of money from Big Pharma would not be pleased.
One thing that might make half the world skeptical of the “safe and effective” non-vaccines would be if the views of vaccine skeptics actually “went viral.”
This, very possibly, could have happened … absent mass censorship.
In my last article, I discussed several of the key “chess moves” our rulers have made to make sure they win this “game.”
Arguably, the most important move was making sure dissenting views did NOT go viral, a result which didn’t happen by chance … but by a coordinated effort to censor hundreds of millions of potential skeptics and critics.
Since the government doesn’t own Facebook (where two billion people share speech), the government had to “persuade” Facebook (Meta) to do their censoring for them.
This was a conspiracy, a massive one …
In reading this document, I was also stunned when I thought about all the employees and organizations that were involved in the effort to defeat the threat of “vaccine hesitancy” (and protect all the other many untrue Covid narratives).
I stopped reading after 54 pages, but this was enough to see that the actors in this conspiracy (a cover-up of the truth) included the President of the United States, all his key White House employees, the CDC, the Census Bureau, The Surgeon General and his staff, officials in the NIH (such as Anthony Fauci), many of the key members of Congress, all the new “fact checkers” and probably the White House chef.
Time and again, plaintiff’s attorneys present examples where government officials cite articles written by “journalists” at The New York Times or Washington Post that were used as a weapon to demand even more censorship among social media companies.
Surreally, this means our “free press” has been one of government’s key allies in suppressing free speech.
Government contractors, non-profits and think tanks were also brought in to help with the vital censorship chess moves.
Another hallmark of a conspiracy would be any evidence proving a coordinated initiative. The plaintiff’s attorneys have done an excellent job proving this happened. For example, the authors of the legal brief repeatedly show how the words “accountable” and “transparency,” were used ad nauseam by all the censorship conspirators.
When government actors told social media companies they would be “held accountable,” this was a not-too-subtle threat that they better do as told … Which, sadly and not surprisingly, they did.
The conspirators also incessantly demand “transparency” from social media companies.
The government didn’t just ask social media companies to do a little more censorship for the good of the country, they demanded access to all the algorithms, data bases, search queries, content-moderation policies, etc. that would prove companies were censoring the content the government said must be censored.
Amazingly, companies like Meta complied …. so, apparently, officials at the CDC and The Census Bureau (which for some reason took a lead role in enforcing censorship) and key White House staffers were looking at the same tools Meta used to see what Covid topics were trending on their platform.
The government would then tell the companies to ban such speech on their platforms.
Not only did government actors hold a gun to the social media companies’ heads, they wanted to see (and even use) the very tools that allow these companies to know what their users were posting.
As we’ve learned from the “Twitter files,” government officials also repeatedly zeroed in on key “disinformation super-spreaders” and made sure they were banned and punished.
Victims/targets of these censorship efforts include high-profile Covid skeptic like Alex Berenson, Steve Kirsch and Robert Kennedy, Jr., but they might as well have included Bill Rice, Jr, whose Facebook account has also been suspended (for no known or stated reason) multiple times.
Per the copious evidence in this legal brief, every time Meta banned someone or said some topic was now taboo, government officials were rarely placated, and demanded even more censorship. And, again, government officials kept demanding “transparency” to see that thy’s will was being done.
The irony of course is that the U.S. government is the least transparent entity on the face of the earth.
To be clear and to state what should be perfectly obvious by now, the multi-faceted censorship and “disinformation” programs (which pre-date Covid) were created and enforced to make sure no real government “transparency” is/was possible.
For our government officials, transparency is like sunlight or a silver crucifix to a vampire.
What will be the result of this lawsuit?
I actually don’t know what the plaintiffs are demanding except for the government to cease and desist with its efforts to compel censorship.
Speaking for myself, I’ve already seen enough evidence where this U.S. citizen won’t be mollified unless we have criminal prosecutions, the impeachment of President Biden and the censure of all the members of Congress who bullied these social media executives.
Also, the companies that went along with this need to be boycotted by every citizen that still cares about the First Amendment.
I’d also note that while Twitter has (largely) turned over a new leaf under the ownership of Elon Musk, the rest of the social media companies are censoring left and right just like they’ve been doing since “Joe Biden” was sworn into office. (This tells me these companies are betting on “Biden” prevailing in this lawsuit).
It’s not just Covid issues subject to mass censorship ….
For those who think the censorship regime only deals with Covid topics, I say you better think again … as this document also proves.
Plenty of sections of this document provide evidence showing that “disinformation” about Climate Change, election fraud and woke issues like “gender identification” will also continue to be subject to the whims of the government’s arbiters of truth.
For my part, I’m now convinced that what shouldn’t happen … will probably happen. This means, “Joe Biden” will probably win re-election and this case will probably be thrown out or the Supreme Court led by (captured?) John Roberts will ultimately side with the defendants.
If this happens, perhaps more Americans will belatedly understand the new legal precedent that has been set.
In the future, any speech that’s deemed “misinformation” by unelected bureaucrats (at say the CDC or EPA) can indeed be censored and banned.
It will be perfectly fine for presidents, Congressmen and surgeon generals to demand that social media companies censor unauthorized or “dangerous” speech. Furthermore, the government will be granted that “transparency” that tells them Meta or Google are following their orders.
Strangely, Substack wasn’t mentioned …
In reading this document, I was struck by the fact Substack (as far as we know) has yet to be targeted by the Censorship Czars.
My guess is that if this case is decided in favor of the defendants, this will no longer be the case. The “dangerous misinformation” I’ve been posting (and my readers in the Reader Comments) will suddenly be fair game for censorship as well.
Substack is replete with writers challenging the false Covid narratives, but this speech platform is also full of skeptics of Climate Change, writers who might not support the Ukraine War or central bank digital currencies … authors who think election fraud is real and correspondents who don’t like the “woke” transgender and pronoun malarky.
For the past 240 years, Americans thought the First Amendment gave them the “freedom” to share their views on controversial topics. If Biden and the U.S. government win this case, I suspect we’ll soon learn otherwise.
China’s criticism of America’s ‘piecemeal crisis management’ in Palestine is based on international law
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 6, 2023
Remarks on 24 May by China’s Ambassador to the UN on the situation in Occupied Palestine were impeccable in terms of their consistency with international law. Compared with the position of the US, which perceives the UN and the Security Council in particular as a vehicle to defend Israeli interests, the Chinese political discourse reflects a legal stance based on a deep understanding of the realities on the ground.
Articulating Beijing’s thinking during a Security Council “Briefing on the Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestine Question”, Ambassador Geng Shuang did not mince his words. He spoke forcefully about the “irreplaceable” need for a “comprehensive and just solution” that is based on ending Israel’s “provocations” in Jerusalem and respect for the right of “Muslim worshippers” as well as the “custodianship of Jordan” in the occupied city’s holy sites.
Widening the context of the reasons behind the latest violence in Palestine, and the 9 May Israeli attack on Gaza, Geng went on to state a position that both Tel Aviv and Washington find totally objectionable. He condemned unapologetically the “illegal expansion of [Israeli Jewish] settlements” in Occupied Palestine and Israel’s “unilateral action”, urging Tel Aviv to “immediately halt” all of its illegal activities. The Chinese ambassador then proceeded to discuss issues that have been relatively ignored, including “the plight of the Palestinian refugees”.
In doing so, Geng has enunciated his country’s political vision regarding a just solution in Palestine, one that is predicated on ending the Israeli occupation, halting Tel Aviv’s expansionist policies, and respecting the rights of the Palestinian people.
Is this a new position, though?
While it is true that China’s policies on Palestine and Israel have historically been consistent with international law, in recent years it has attempted to tailor a more “balanced” position, one that does not impede growing trade with Israel, particularly in the area of advanced microchip technology.
However, Chinese-Israeli affinity was motivated by more than trade. Since its official launch, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has served as the cornerstone of Beijing’s global outlook. The massive project involves nearly 150 countries and aims to connect Asia with Europe and Africa via land and maritime networks. Due to its location on the Mediterranean Sea, Israel’s strategic importance to China which, for years, has been keen on gaining access to Israeli ports, has thus doubled. Predictably, such ambitions have been of great concern to Washington, whose naval vessels often dock in the port city of Haifa.
Washington has repeatedly cautioned Tel Aviv against its growing close relationship with Beijing. The then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went as far as warning Israel in March 2019 that, until Tel Aviv re-evaluates its cooperation with China, America could reduce “intelligence sharing and co-location of security facilities.”
Appreciating fully China’s current and potential global power, Israel has laboured to find a balance that would allow it to maintain its “special relationship” with the US, while financially and strategically benefiting from its closeness to Beijing. Israel’s balancing act has encouraged China to translate its growing economic relationship with the Middle East into a political and diplomatic investment as well.
For example, in 2017, China put into motion a peace plan — formulated initially in 2013 — called the Four-Point Proposal. The plan offered Chinese mediation as a substitute for US bias and, ultimately, the failed “peace process”. The Palestinian leadership welcomed China’s involvement, while Israel refused to engage, causing embarrassment to a government that insists on respect and recognition of its rising importance in every arena.
If balancing acts in geopolitics were possible back then, the Russia-Ukraine war has brought it all to a sudden end. The new geopolitical reality can be expressed in the words of former Italian diplomat Stefano Stefanini. The former ambassador to NATO wrote in an article in La Stampa that the “international balancing act is over” and “there are no safety nets.” Ironically, Stefanini made this point in reference to Italy’s need to choose between the West and China. The same logic can also be applied to Israel and China.
Soon after China succeeded in brokering a landmark deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran on 6 April, it again floated the idea of mediating between Palestine and Israel. China’s new Foreign Minister, Qin Gang, reportedly consulted with both sides on “steps to resume peace talks”. Yet again, the Palestinians accepted while Israel ignored the subject.
This partly explains China’s frustration with Israel, and also with the US. As China’s former ambassador to Washington (2021-23), Qin must be familiar with the inherent US bias towards Israel. This was expressed succinctly by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying during the latest Israeli war on Gaza: “The United States should realise that the lives of Palestinian Muslims are equally precious,” he said on 14 May.
A simple analysis of China’s language regarding the situation in Palestine clarifies that Beijing sees a direct link between the US and the continued conflict; or at the very least the failure to find a just solution. This assertion can also be gleaned from Ambassador Geng’s most recent Security Council remarks, where he criticised “piecemeal crisis management”, a direct reference to US diplomacy in the Middle East, while offering a Chinese alternative based on a “comprehensive and just solution”.
Equally important is that the Chinese position seems to be linked intrinsically to that of Arab countries. The more that Palestine takes centre stage in Arab political discourse, the greater emphasis the issue receives in China’s foreign policy agenda.
In the recent Arab Summit held in Jeddah, Arab governments agreed to prioritise Palestine as the central Arab cause. Allies with great and growing economic interests in the region, such as China, took notice immediately.
All of this must not suggest that China will be severing its ties with Israel. However, it certainly indicates that Beijing remains committed to its principled stance on Palestine, as it has been over the decades.
The relationship between China and Israel will soon face the litmus test of US pressure and ultimatums. Considering Washington’s unparalleled importance to Israel on the one hand, and the Arab-Muslim world’s significance to China on the other, the future is easy to foresee. Nevertheless, judging by China’s political discourse on Palestine — situated solidly within international and humanitarian law — it seems that Beijing has already decided what to do.
Choked to death by hospital guards, for wearing a Covid mask too low
By Paul Stevens | TCW Defending Freedom | June 6, 2023
May 27, 2023 marked three years since the death of Stephanie Warriner. A coroner’s report records that this was the result of brain injuries consistent with ‘restraint asphyxia following struggle and exertion’, suffered more than two weeks earlier whilst a patient at Toronto General Hospital (TGH), Ontario. Stephanie’s alleged crime was failing to wear a Covid face mask properly. I recommend pausing to take that in.
Stephanie, 43, was a slight figure, 5ft 5in and 120lb. Having experienced long-term mental illness, including bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the mother of five was admitted to TGH on May 10 with what a civil suit filed by her family describes as a ‘productive cough’. A Covid test had been negative. Having gone in search of a sandwich in the early hours of May 11, she was confronted aggressively by five personnel, four of them security guards, about her improper use of a face mask, which they said was worn too low.
As recorded in the civil suit document, after being ‘berated’ and ‘demeaned’ by guards, Stephanie was forced towards a wall, thrown to the ground and restrained, with weight applied to her back. During this time she was forced into handcuffs. Once the guards removed their weight from her back, she was seen to be ‘limp and lifeless’ but they did not attempt resuscitation or call for help. Instead, they placed her in a wheelchair and removed her from the view of security cameras and witnesses.
About ten minutes later the guards, moving her body into an elevator bay, attempted to resuscitate her but, as the coroner’s report noted, because of the ‘downtime’ between the damage being incurred and measures being taken, she developed a brain injury from which she never recovered.
The majority of the incident was captured on CCTV and may be viewed here. (You will notice that during recording, the CCTV camera appears to be moved. More about this later.) As a result of the restraint, Stephanie went into cardiac arrest, but did not die immediately. In fact, she lived for another 16 days, being first intubated and placed in intensive care and then transferred to Toronto Western Hospital on May 15. No attempt was made to contact her family until May 22, a full 11 days after the incident.
In July, two of the guards were dismissed and two were the subject of unspecified ‘internal disciplinary action’. According to a media report, at this time Toronto police said investigators were ‘awaiting the results of a full autopsy and that the case was in its early stages’. Five months later Stephanie’s sister, Denise, was still awaiting information from the police. Finally, in early December 2020, two guards were each charged with two counts of criminal negligence causing death and one count of manslaughter.
In November, 2022, two and a half years after Stephanie’s death, an Ontario judge quashed the case against the two guards, due to come before a jury last month, saying there was ‘a lack of admissible evidence to support the findings necessary for making a placement order on both counts’. Subsequently, the Federal government declined to pursue further criminal action. This despite the coroner’s report and other evidence, such as the CCTV video and court documents submitted by the Crown for an earlier preliminary hearing which contain evidence that one of the guards lied in his deposition, having initially claimed that Stephanie had ‘delivered several overhand and underhand punches to [Guard A’s] face and was kicking her feet’, but then ‘later on, [Guard B] began sobbing and admitted he had not been truthful in the report, saying: “I’m sorry. I would have never said the things I said in there if I knew there was a video”.’
Speaking of the CCTV footage, over two minutes of it has never been seen – and never will be. During Stephanie’s interrogation and restraint the camera was intentionally moved to point elsewhere. The guard monitoring the CCTV from the security office claimed that he ‘suffers from anxiety’ and moved the camera because he was ‘anxious and concerned about the altercation and use of force between [Guard A] and Stephanie’. In their civil suit, her family make it clear that they believe the camera was moved to ‘shield the other defendant guards from any potential criminal liability’.
This tragedy was the direct result of the febrile atmosphere and enforcement of unevidenced, irrational and petty Covid mask rules. Contrast Stephanie’s case with that of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody that same month in Minneapolis. Protests were everywhere across the US and the entire world. Movements such as Black Lives Matter (BLM) sprang up. People were ‘taking the knee’ and filling their social media profiles with BLM images. There were calls for police forces to be defunded. Floyd himself achieved something close to beatification, with statues and wall paintings appearing widely. His police attackers received hefty prison sentences.
Stephanie Warriner? Nothing. Not a squeak. Because of a police and judicial embargo, it was barely a month ago that the public could even see the video and read about her death. Those who were implicated have walked free. And the health network which owns Toronto General and Toronto Western hospitals still tells us on its website that ‘in 2019, Toronto General was named among the world’s Top 10 Hospitals by Newsweek magazine’. It insists that its priorities include being ‘compassionate and caring’ with a focus on ‘quality and safety’.
Stephanie Warriner died, at the age of 43, for wearing a Covid face mask improperly. This in the very same city of Toronto where nurses unions’ had twice – in 2015 and 2018 – won cases against hospitals seeking to mask them at work over influenza, with the evidence in favour of masking ruled ‘insufficient, inadequate and completely unpersuasive’. As with so much harm which has been done to so many people in the name of ‘safety’ these past three years, it appears no one in authority questions this, much less cares.
The COVID-19 Pass is Dead, Long Live the Global Digital Health Certification Network
It was never going away
NAKED EMPEROR | JUNE 6, 2023
You didn’t really think the Covid Pass had disappeared did you? Knowing my readers, I’m guessing you didn’t.
Yesterday, it was announced that the World Health Organization (WHO) has entered into an agreement with the European Union (EU) to use their digital COVID-19 certification system. This will be in order to establish a global system to “help facilitate global mobility and protect citizens across the world from on-going and future health threats, including pandemics”.
Going by the last few years, “global mobility” most likely means restricting the mobility of the unvaccinated and “protecting citizens” means only allowing vaccinated passengers to travel together.
The WHO says this is just the first building block in their Global Digital Health Certification Network (GDHCN). WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wants to offer all WHO Member States access to this digital health tool, which is based on “the principles of equity, innovation, transparency and data protection and privacy”.
Equity is an immediate red flag word, whilst transparency probably means telling everyone whether you are vaccinated or not.
Since the EU Covid Pass was launched it has issued more than 2.3 billion certificates. The certificates don’t only cover vaccination but also include tests and recovery. The EU claim it facilitated safe travel for citizens and supported Europe’s hard-hit tourism industry. It says that the passes allowed the coordinated lifting of restrictions from the moment it was possible.
The EU Digital COVID Certificate Regulation was set to expire at the end of June but never one to let a good crisis go to waste, the WHO has jumped in and will takeover the system this month. It then aims to progressively develop the system in the coming months.
Some might think that this will only be used for more regular vaccines. Think again. One of the first things the WHO will do with the new system is to converge digital COVID-19 certificates. This will mean all certificates will meet EU standards, validating digital signatures to prevent fraud.
The WHO says it won’t have any access to underlying personal data but national governments will.
Commenting on the latest news, Christine Anderson MEP said “During COVID, we have all been made into “potential threats” whose individual freedoms and rights must be curtailed to “protect society”!
Rob Roos MEP said “The #Coronapas is a discriminatory instrument that has only created a false sense of safety.”
and George Orwell said “Bloody hell, guys. It’s worse than I thought”.
Dear World – Writers Write
This was never going away was it. The amount of money spent on it was one thing but the temptation to retain such a huge piece of bio-control over the population was another.
We wondered why the unvaccinated ICD-10 codes had been implemented. Another conspiracy theory come true.
FDA’s ‘Rumor Control’ Hub Encourages Public to ‘Snitch’ on ‘Misinformation Spreaders’
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | June 6, 2023
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched an updated “Rumor Control” hub aimed at enlisting the public to help stop the spread of “misinformation.”
The updated webpage, first launched in August 2022, includes a new video that defines misinformation as information that is “false, inaccurate, or misleading … spreading intentionally and unintentionally.”
The agency said its Rumor Control hub provides the public with tools to identify and report on “misinformation.”
“Some individuals and organizations promote opinions online disguised as fact,” the FDA site says, adding that misinformation spreads “six times faster than facts.”
The video warns that people may be misled by headlines or out-of-context statements, particularly when they are shared by a trusted person.
But, according to the video, people can determine whether something is actually true by getting the information from three types of “authoritative” sources that can be trusted to provide real facts: medical journals, a nonprofit “fact checker” or a government website.
“The FDA is concerned ‘health misinformation’ is negatively impacting the public’s health,” the agency said. The FDA tweeted the video to promote the hub.
The Rumor Control site includes links for reporting misinformation on all major social media sites. By following the links, users can find instructions to mark posts as “false news,” “false information” or “inappropriate content,” depending on the website.
“Bernie’s Tweets” on Twitter called the website the FDA’s “‘snitch’ page.”
https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/status/1664917637455855617
“The federal government continues to try and fool the public into thinking misinformation is a dire problem and a crime,” Dr. Meryl Nass wrote on her Substack. “Misinformation is whatever the government does not want you to know.”
Nass added, “Clearly, the feds are getting nervous that their cons on the people are being recognized.”
The hub provides a poster that explains what misinformation is and how to address it “in language even a third grader can understand,” Nass wrote.
It explains that trusted authorities’ recommendations may change because science changes, but people should always “trust science.”
The site includes FDA-approved facts about COVID-19, sunscreen and supplements.
FDA’s project to ‘save lives’ by policing online content
Since FDA Commissioner Robert Califf began his second tenure as the agency’s head in February 2022, he has made combating “misinformation” one of his top priorities, arguing it is “a leading cause of preventable death in America now” — though “this cannot be proved,” he said.
In an Aug. 22, 2022, article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Califf wrote that “the global information environment has been contaminated by misinformation and disinformation.” He added:
“The FDA must be more proactive in preempting and countering misinformation [but there is a need for] collaboration across sectors to create an information environment in which decisions [by] consumers, patients, and clinicians are more likely to be informed by reliable information based on high-quality evidence from trustworthy sources.”
The Rumor Control initiative is one of several such initiatives launched during Califf’s tenure.
For example, the FDA also created a series of fact-checking YouTube videos — “Just a Minute” — that features Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, addressing COVID-19 “myths.”
The FDA also uses Twitter to tweet about misinformation, and Instagram to post memes encouraging vaccination.
Califf said that he believes “in the power of social media being used for good,” Fierce Pharma reported.
According to The Associated Press (AP), the FDA also can use a tactic known as “prebunking,” by which the agency defines something as “misinformation” before readers have an opportunity to encounter it elsewhere as possibly true.
The FDA has the ability to do this because Google “prioritizes credible websites” like the FDA’s in its searches.
Rumor Control works as a prebunking strategy that “debunks a long list of false claims about vaccines” and presents them first in people’s Google searches, according to the AP.
Califf previously worked at Verily, a life sciences company owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc.
Fact-checking the FDA
The most current version of the FDA’s fact check on COVID-19, linked from the Rumor Control hub, assures readers, for example, that vaccination does not make people more susceptible to the latest variants of COVID-19 and that the vaccine is safe for pregnant and breastfeeding women.
But just last week, the Cleveland Clinic published a peer-reviewed study that found the more doses of COVID-19 vaccines a person receives, the higher the risk of getting the virus.
A number of recent studies revealed striking risks to pregnant women who get the COVID-19 vaccine and identified serious flaws in the methods government agencies used to conclude they are safe.
Government health officials knew about several of those studies, including Pfizer’s own clinical trial studies, before they recommended the shots for pregnant women.
The FDA also came under fire for granting Emergency Use Authorization for the COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 12-15 despite having identified that “safety signals” existed for myocarditis in young males following COVID-19 jabs.
The FDA, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, withheld this information from the public.
In the last two years, the FDA also was widely criticized for granting approval to an unproven Alzheimer’s drug, for its delayed response to a contaminated baby formula plant and for approving the respiratory syncytial virus vaccine for pregnant women despite concerns about premature births identified in clinical trials, among many other issues.
Nass wrote that in 1992, Congress passed the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, which allowed the FDA to charge manufacturers to regulate their products, compromising its integrity to such an extent that the FDA has become “a rogue agency for hire.”
Most funding the FDA uses to evaluate whether drugs are safe and effective comes from industry, she wrote, and most drugs seeking approval get fast-tracked and evaluated in just six months.
Manufacturers of drugs that are dangerous can often avoid liability by working with the FDA to write the label in such a way that meets disclosure requirements.
“So if you are looking to avoid misinformation, the FDA is the last place you might go to for truth, honesty, ethics and consideration of the public’s welfare,” Nass wrote.
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.
Rule by Decree: The Emergency State’s Plot to Override the Constitution
By John & Nisha Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute | June 6, 2023
We have become a nation in a permanent state of emergency.
Power-hungry and lawless, the government has weaponized one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers and justify all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security.
COVID-19, for example, served as the driving force behind what Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch characterized as “the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country.”
In a statement attached to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Arizona v. Mayorkas, a case that challenged whether the government could continue to use it pandemic powers even after declaring the public health emergency over, Gorsuch provided a catalog of the many ways in which the government used COVID-19 to massively overreach its authority and suppress civil liberties.
Yet while the government’s (federal and state) handling of the COVID-19 pandemic delivered a knockout blow to our civil liberties, empowering the police state to flex its powers by way of a bevy of lockdowns, mandates, restrictions, contact tracing programs, heightened surveillance, censorship, overcriminalization, etc., it was merely one crisis in a long series of crises that the government has shamelessly exploited in order to justify its power grabs and acclimate the citizenry to a state of martial law disguised as emergency powers.
These attempts to use various crises to override the Constitution are still happening.
It doesn’t even matter what the nature of the crisis might be: civil unrest, the national emergencies, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters.”
They have all become fair game to a government that continues to quietly assemble, test and deploy emergency powers a long laundry list of terrifying powers that override the Constitution and can be activated at a moment’s notice.
We’re talking about lockdown powers (at both the federal and state level): the ability to suspend the Constitution, indefinitely detain American citizens, bypass the courts, quarantine whole communities or segments of the population, override the First Amendment by outlawing religious gatherings and assemblies of more than a few people, shut down entire industries and manipulate the economy, muzzle dissidents, “stop and seize any plane, train or automobile to stymie the spread of contagious disease,” reshape financial markets, create a digital currency (and thus further restrict the use of cash), determine who should live or die.
While these are powers the police state has been working to make permanent, they barely scratch the surface of the far-reaching powers the government has unilaterally claimed for itself without any pretense of being reined in or restricted in its power grabs by Congress, the courts or the citizenry.
As David C. Unger, observes in The Emergency State: America’s Pursuit of Absolute Security at All Costs, “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have given way to permanent crisis management.”
The seeds of this ongoing madness were sown several decades ago when George W. Bush stealthily issued two presidential directives that granted the president the power to unilaterally declare a national emergency, which is loosely defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.“
Comprising the country’s Continuity of Government (COG) plan, these directives (National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20), which do not need congressional approval, provide a skeletal outline of the actions the president will take in the event of a “national emergency.”
Just what sort of actions the president will take once he declares a national emergency can barely be discerned from the barebones directives. However, one thing is clear: in the event of a national emergency, the COG directives give unchecked executive, legislative and judicial power to the president.
The country would then be subjected to martial law by default, and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would be suspended.
Essentially, the president would become a dictator for life.
It has happened already.
As we have witnessed in recent years, that national emergency can take any form, can be manipulated for any purpose and can be used to justify any end goal—all on the say so of the president.
The emergency powers that we know about which presidents might claim during such states of emergency are vast, ranging from imposing martial law and suspending habeas corpus to shutting down all forms of communications, including implementing an internet kill switch, and restricting travel.
Yet according to documents obtained by the Brennan Center, there may be many more secret powers that presidents may institute in times of so-called crisis without oversight from Congress, the courts, or the public.
Remember, these powers do not expire at the end of a president’s term. They remain on the books, just waiting to be used or abused by the next political demagogue.
So, too, every action taken by the current occupant of the White House and his predecessors to weaken the system of checks and balances, sidestep the rule of law, and expand the power of the executive branch of government makes us that much more vulnerable to those who would abuse those powers in the future.
These presidential powers—acquired through the use of executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements and which can be activated by any sitting president—enable past, president and future presidents to operate above the law and beyond the reach of the Constitution.
This is what you might call a stealthy, creeping, silent, slow-motion coup d’état.
If we continue down this road, there can be no surprise about what awaits us at the end.
We must recalibrate the balance of power.
For starters, Congress should put an end to the use of presidential executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements as a means of getting around Congress and the courts.
At a minimum, as The Washington Post suggests, “all emergency declarations [s]hould expire automatically after three or six months, whereupon Congress would need to vote upon any proposed extension.”
We’ve got to start making both the president and the police state play by the rules of the Constitution.
As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, it must start with “we the people.”
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org.
Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute.
Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
Jacinda Ardern awarded “Damehood” for handling of the pandemic, as excess deaths mount amid media crackdown
2023 deaths are 25% above normal – but are hidden from the public
BY IGOR CHUDOV | JUNE 5, 2023
New Zealand’s government awarded “damehood” – the second-highest honor in the country – to its former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
The award was given for “leading the country through the Covid pandemic.”
Who gave Jacinda this highest honor? Her new Prime Minister, Chris Hipkins. Mr. Hipkins was Jacinda’s Health Minister during the pandemic, so by giving her the highest honor for handling the pandemic, he also implicitly “honored” himself.
Jacinda did some very unusual things during the pandemic. Her government forbade New Zealand citizens from returning to their own country. She also supported a “two-tier society,” basically robbing unvaccinated New Zealanders of their constitutional rights and laughing about it:
How is New Zealand doing? Take a look at the Short-Term Mortality database. In 2023, New Zealanders are dying at excess rates of around 25% of normal.
https://mpidr.shinyapps.io/stmortality/
A successful pandemic policy would not result in roughly 25% excess mortality in the fourth year of the pandemic. The officials insist that Covid is not responsible for most of these deaths, leaving the actual cause an unspoken mystery.
Most New Zealanders are unaware that their chances of dying increased by a quarter because their country’s press is silent on excess deaths. The silence and lack of public awareness are not accidental: the government is intensifying its crackdown on social networks and the media.
This June, the NZ government revealed its initiative for “Safer Online Services and Media Platforms.”
The government is proposing to create “A new industry regulator” armed with powers to punish “media platforms”:
The new regulator would make sure social media platforms follow codes to keep people safe. Media services like TV and radio broadcasters would also need to follow new codes tailored to their industry. The regulator would have the power to check information from platforms to make sure they follow the codes and could issue penalties for serious failures of compliance. This would ensure everyone is playing by the same rules and that consumer safety is prioritised.
While the proposal gives lip service to “protecting children,” it quickly advances to “hate speech,” the right of the government to remove and block content, and more:
Continuing to remove and block access to the most harmful content – government interventions to censor content and criminalise associated behaviour would remain at the extreme high end of harm. The new framework would continue criminal sanctions for dealing with ‘objectionable’ (illegal) material, including powers to issue takedown notices for this type of content.
There would still be a place for a censorship role, with powers to determine whether the most harmful content should be classified as illegal to create, possess, or share.
Failure to comply with the requirements could lead to authors, creators, and publishers being suspended, removed, or prevented from accessing the platforms’ services. They may also be blacklisted if they show repeated harmful behaviour.
Regulated Platforms would need to implement approved codes of practice that meet legislated core safety objectives and minimum expectations
NZ plans to use Artificial Intelligence to do censorship:
safeguards and barriers to deter the upload and creation of risky content – for example, time-lags or verification requirements for specific types of content
methods to identify harmful content and prevent how it is shared and amplified. This would include ways to remove this content, such as:
• through human and Artificial Intelligence (AI) moderation practices
• downgrading content visibility
• removing recidivist individuals and entities – such as identifying bots and troll accounts that routinely post unsafe content • using authenticity markers.
Anyway, I am not a citizen of New Zealand, so I cannot tell that country how to govern itself.
What I can say, however, is that I am very sorry for the fine citizens of that remote land, who lost their constitutional protections, are dying at excessive rates, are largely unaware of the danger they are in, and have a government more interested in hiding the truth from the population and awarding highest honors to its members.
Does Jacinda deserve her “damehood”? Or does she deserve something else?
“Your Speech is Violence”: How the Mob is Using a New Mantra to Justify Campus Violence
By Jonathan Turley | The Hill | June 4, 2023
“Silence is violence.” When those words became a popular mantra years ago on college campuses, I wrote that the anti-free speech movement was moving toward compelled speech while declaring dissenting views to be harmful.
Today, it isn’t just silence that is considered violence on college campuses. It is also speech, as both faculty and students are actively shutting down opposing views on subjects ranging from abortion to climate change to transgender issues.
Recently, many people were shocked by a videotape of Hunter College professor Shellyne Rodríguez trashing a pro-life student display in New York. Most were focused on her profanity and vandalism, but there were familiar phrases that appeared in her diatribe to the clearly shocked students.
Before trashing the table, she told the students, “You’re not educating s–t […] This is f–king propaganda. What are you going to do, like, anti-trans next? This is bulls–t. This is violent. You’re triggering my students.”
The videotape revealed one other thing. At Hunter College, and at other colleges, it seems that trashing a pro-life student display and abusing pro-life students is not considered a firing offense. Hunter College refused to fire Rodríguez.
The PSC Graduate Center, the labor organization of graduate and professional schools at the City University of New York, supported that decision and said Rodríguez was “justified” in trashing the display, which the organization described as “dangerously false propaganda” and “disinformation.”
Rodríguez later put a machete to the neck of a reporter, threatened to chop him up and then chased a news crew down a street with the machete in hand. Somewhere between the machete to the neck and chasing the reporters down the street, Hunter College finally decided that Rodríguez had to go.
Rodríguez denounced the school for having “capitulated” to “racists, white nationalists, and misogynists.” She explained that her firing was just a continuation of “attacks on women, trans people, black people, Latinx people, migrants, and beyond.”
The redefinition of opposing views as “violence” is a favorite excuse for violent groups like antifa, which continue to physically assault speakers with pro-life and other disfavored views. As explained by Rutgers Professor Mark Bray in his “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” the group believes that “‘free speech’ as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.”
As one antifa member explained, free speech is a “nonargument… you have the right to speak but you also have the right to be shut up.”
When people criticized antifa for its violent philosophy, MSNBC’s Joy Reid responded to the critics that “you might be the fascist.”
Faculty members have followed this sense of license to silence others. Former CUNY law dean Mary Lu Bilek even insisted that disrupting a speech on free speech was free speech. (Hunter is part of the CUNY system.)
The same week as the Rodríguez attack at the State University of New York at Albany, sociology professor Renee Overdyke shut down a pro-life display and then allegedly resisted arrest.
Just last week, the Pride Office website at the University of Colorado (Boulder) declared that misgendering people can be considered an “act of violence.”
This week, University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers declared that some of those boycotting the store Target over its line of Pride Month clothing were engaging in “literal terrorism.” (He insists that he was referring to those confronting Target employees.)
Faculty have also justified attacks on pro-life figures. At the University of California, Santa Barbara, feminist studies associate professor Mireille Miller-Young physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display.
She pleaded guilty to criminal assault, but the university refused to fire her. Instead, some faculty and students defended her, including claiming that pro-life displays constitute terrorism. The University of Oregon later honored Miller-Young as a model for women advocates.
Likewise, at Fresno State University, public health professor Dr. Gregory Thatcher recruited students to destroy pro-life messages.
Other faculty have called for or countenanced violence against Republicans and conservatives. Professors have shouted down speakers, destroyed property, participated in riots and verbally attacked students.
University of Rhode Island professor Erik Loomis defended the murder of a conservative protester and said he saw “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence. He was later elevated to the position of director of graduate studies of history.
As faculty commit or support violence, students are assured that others are the violent ones. Recently, at the University of Texas at Austin, Professor Kirsten Bradbury tested her students on psychology by asking them “which sociodemographic group is most likely to repeatedly violate the rights of others in a pattern of behavior that includes violence, deceit, irresponsibility, and a lack of remorse?” Of course, the answer was wealthy white men.
The lesson took with students. A recent poll shows that 41 percent of college students now believe violence is justified to fight hate speech. At Cornell, a conservative speaker was shouted down, met with the common mantra that “your words are violence.” At Case Western, the student newspaper editorialized against university recognition of a pro-life group because its pro-life views are “inherently violent” and “a danger to the student body.” At Wellesley, student editors declared that it was time to shut down conservative speakers and that “hostility may be warranted.” They added, “The spirit of free speech is to protect the suppressed, not to protect a free-for-all where anything is acceptable, no matter how hateful and damaging.”
Those views did not spontaneously appear in the minds of these students. At one time, tolerance for free speech was the very touchstone of higher education and a common article of faith for students. These students are the product of years of being told that free speech is dangerous and harmful if left unregulated. From elementary school to college, they were taught that they did not have to be “triggered” by the speech of others.
We are still (thankfully) drawing the line at machete attacks. But it is the underlying views of Rodríguez that are the true threat, and they are being replicated throughout the country. We are raising a generation of censors and speech-phobics.
If we want to stop or reverse this trend, Congress must act. I have proposed legislation that would deny federal funding to schools that do not protect core free speech principles. We are funding schools that are taking a machete to the defining right of our democracy.
It is akin to the recent resolution of the case of an antifa member who took an axe to Sen. John Hoeven’s (R-N.D.) office in Fargo. Thomas “Tas” Alexander Starks, 31, was given probation… and his axe back.
We may not be able to deter people from speaking through machetes and axes, but we can at least stop subsidizing the hardware.
Europe’s Digital Services Act Puts Free Speech at the Mercy of Eurocrats
BY DAVID THUNDER | THE FREEDOM BLOG | JUNE 3, 2023
The European Union’s Internal Market Commissioner, Thierry Breton, was apparently miffed that Elon Musk withdrew Twitter from the EU’s “voluntary code of practice against disinformation.” He was sufficiently put out by Twitter’s withdrawal from the “voluntary code” that he felt the need to publicly reprimand Twitter for not gratefully submitting to the European Union’s expert guidance: “You can run but you can’t hide… Beyond voluntary commitments, fighting disinformation will be legal obligation under Digital Services Act as of August 25th.”
The declared aim of the new Digital Service Act is “to contribute to the proper functioning of the internal market for intermediary services by setting out harmonised rules for a safe, predictable and trusted online environment that facilitates innovation and in which fundamental rights enshrined in the Charter, including the principle of consumer protection, are effectively protected.”
Who can argue against a “safe, predictable and trusted online environment”? Who would argue against “consumer protection”? And who would argue against Mr Breton’s commitment to the fight against “disinformation”? I certainly would, because when a person or institution in a position of great power endorses values like “predictability,” rails against “disinformation,” and promises to keep us all “safe” on the internet, you can be sure that it will be “safety,” “predictability,” and “disinformation,” as viewed from their self-serving ideological and political perspective.
I am just as worried as Mr Breton about “disinformation,” but my chief concern is with disinformation coming from official sources, which can do an extraordinary amount of harm due to the extraordinary reach and prestige of official organisations. It is these same organisations that Mr Breton would like to put in charge of policing “disinformation”: organisations like national governments, that have been among the most frequent perpetrators of false and misleading information, on matters of no small moment, from the efficacy and safety of Covid vaccines, masks and lockdowns to the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the true standing of climate “science,” and the potential harms to the economy and food supply chain of aggressive climate interventions such as the expropriation of farmland.
The Digital Services Act is an endless maze of complicated regulations worthy of a team of lawyers. Seeing as I don’t have a budget to hire a team of lawyers, I decided to skim through the Act for myself. It does not make for pleasant bedtime reading, not only because it is a morass of complicated legalese, but also, because what hides behind this legalese is an attempt by EU politicians to get social media platforms under their thumb, through
- the obligation on the part of social media companies to periodically submit content moderation and “risk mitigation” reports to EU bureacrats
- EU supervision of social media platforms’ policing of “harmful” information, which could potentially include health misinformation as well as “illegal hate speech”
- the creation of new emergency powers in the European Commission to “require” social media platforms to take actions to “prevent, eliminate or limit” any use of their services that might “contribute” to a “threat” to public security or public health
… and all backed up by crippling fines of up to 6% of a company’s worldwide turnover for non-compliance. Yes, you heard that right: up to six percent of a company’s worldwide turnover.
At bottom, the Digital Services Act is an attempt to ramp up the level of control that EU bureacrats have over the flow of information on social media platforms. You would have to have a very short historical memory to think that broad powers of censorship will generally be used to advance the cause of truth and justice. Whether Mr Thierry Breton and his colleagues will be successful in forcing social media companies to do their bidding, this much is clear: the Digital Services Act creates a European legal environment that is increasingly hostile to free speech.
The UK’s “Chilling” Secret Unit That Monitored Lockdown Dissent
More revelations about the secretive Counter Disinformation Unit
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | June 3, 2023
A clandestine UK Government unit dubbed the Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU) has been implicated in a troubling endeavor to curb and control online discussions about the controversial Covid-19 lockdown policies. The covert operation allegedly involved the collaboration of social media companies in a strategic bid to quell supposed domestic “threats.”
According to revelations from Freedom of Information requests and data protection requests from The Telegraph, posts critical of Covid-19 restrictions, including those questioning mass vaccination of children, were systematically removed.
Social media companies are now under scrutiny following allegations that their technologies were deployed to thwart the wide circulation or promotion of posts tagged as potentially problematic by the CDU or its Cabinet Office equivalent.
The files revealed the surreptitious monitoring of critics of the Government’s Covid plans. Artificial intelligence firms were reportedly enlisted by the government to search social media platforms, flagging any discussions opposing vaccine passports.
In a startling revelation, the BBC was implicated in clandestine government policy discussions regarding this alleged misinformation.
The CDU, hosted by the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS), operated a “trusted flagger” system with major social media companies. This mechanism expedited requests for content removal. The CDU, still operational, was formed in 2019, initially focusing on the European elections, later shifting its attention to the pandemic.
Critics, including MPs and freedom of speech campaigners, have labeled the revelations as “truly chilling” and a strategy tantamount to “censoring British citizens” — a tactic likened to those of the Chinese Communist Party.
“Any attempt by governments to shut down legitimate debate is hugely concerning, but to discover that DCMS actively sought to censor the views of those who were speaking up for children’s welfare is truly chilling,” said Miriam Cates, a Conservative MP to The Telegraph.
A government spokesman refuted the allegations, stating that the unit was designed to track narratives and trends using publicly available information to safeguard public health and national security. The spokesman insisted that the unit never monitored individuals and had a strict policy against referring journalists and MPs to social media platforms.
The EU Plans To Test Twitter To See How Fast It Responds To Censorship Demands
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | June 3, 2023
The European Union will stress test Twitter and other platforms to see how well they comply with the upcoming censorship law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), whose enforcement will begin in August. In a similar style program to that created by the Chinese Communist Party, where government enforcers visit tech companies directly, a team of 10 digital specialists will visit the companies later this month, said Thierry Breton, the EU Commissioner for Internal Market.
The test will help companies learn how the DSA will be enforced. Breton, who will also visit the companies, said the team will review how platforms respond to what is problematic content under the law including content that has been flagged by the EU and content that has not been flagged.
The team will also review why some content is not flagged, citing an example of “fake news that caused disturbances but was promoted because it generated virality and advertising.”
“Did you have enough moderators beforehand? Was it promoted by the algorithm?” Breton said. “We want to do this for real, in the real world, so they see how it happens, and above all so they prepare,” Breton said.
Some of the findings from the test will be made public while some will only be communicated to the companies.
In an interview where he talked about the visits to the social media companies, Breton said: “I’m not threatening anyone. We are here to help companies comply with our new law.”
Last week, after Twitter withdrew from the voluntary Code of Conduct on Disinformation, Breton warned: “You can run but you can’t hide,” adding that “fighting disinformation will be legal obligation under #DSA as of August 25.”
Featured Video
Fat Fiction
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Anti-science
The infinite list
The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | October 12, 2022
Almost three years ago science entered a new dark age.
Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, seems to agree. He has been compiling a list of the examples of anti-science we have unfortunately become used to.
I have listed his thoughts so far but the list is continually expanding... continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Israel threatens Gaza flotilla activists with death after abduction
- Met refuses to probe British nationals accused of war crimes in Gaza
- Hezbollah denies activity in Syria amid persistent and false claims
- Melkite bishops concerned over Israeli demolitions in South Lebanon
- Israel’s Obliteration Ecocide from Gaza to Lebanon and Beyond
- UAE deports tens of thousands of Pakistanis, seizes their savings amid war on Iran: Report
- Wheels Down in Tbilisi: Was a Routine U.S. Military Stopover a Deliberate Signal to Iran?
- Trump’s second strike on Iran would be suicidal. But that’s not the reason why he won’t go ahead with it
- Palantir touts record expansion and ‘battlefield’ AI value
- Israeli telecom networks used for mass surveillance across countries
- If Americans Knew
- An All-American Retort to Israel’s Invasion of Lebanon
- How Dr. Adam Hamawy’s experience as a surgeon in Gaza inspired him to run for Congress
- Under Trump, Green Card Seekers Face New Scrutiny for Views on Israel
- With World Distracted by War, Extremist Settlers Intensify Attacks in West Bank
- Israel’s brutality toward Gaza flotilla activists – 3 articles
- “Spitting and humiliation are daily. People are afraid to walk in Jerusalem with Christian symbols.”
- How the US-Israel Relationship Weakens America and Harms the World
- 1 in 5 amputees in Gaza is a child, UN warns amid prosthetic care crisis
- 6,000 Gazans lack prosthetic and/or rehabilitation care – Daily Update
- As in Gaza, Israel is targeting rescue workers in South Lebanon, killing more than 100 since March
- No Tricks Zone
- 46 IPCC Scientists Break Rank, Publicly Challenge Long-Standing Dogmatic Climate Claims
- Another Study Links Warming To Cloud Forcing, Shortwave Radiation, Natural Atmospheric Circulation
- Wind Energy Is Toxic, Hazardous To Human Health, Scientific Review Shows
- Oversupply Of Volatile Solar Energy Leads To Record NEGATIVE Prices!
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
- European Institute For Climate And Energy: “Climate Debate is Seldom About Science”
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
Aletho News 