US efforts to ban TikTok are pure projection by the world’s biggest spy power
By Timur Fomenko | RT | April 4, 2023
As the United States contemplates a possible ban on TikTok, it relentlessly accuses Beijing of using the popular Chinese-owned social media application as a means of espionage, claiming that the Communist Party has access to user data.
Ironically, Washington itself is known to be doing exactly what US politicians are accusing China of doing. Using the unique advantage of having jurisdiction over the world’s top internet companies, the US has given itself the right to look into the private communications of foreign citizens anywhere in the world. Combine that data-sharing between intelligence agencies of the US and its allies, and you get the most comprehensive espionage regime in the world.
While American politicians and media constantly talk about fears of Chinese espionage, the near-absence of coverage of Washington’s own spying efforts ought to be a reminder of where the true power lies. When it comes to the shady activities of the CIA and the NSA, the public tends to only learn what they did years later from declassified documents, or what they “have been doing all along” from rare whistleblowers like Edward Snowden. All discussion and speculation about what they “may be doing right now” tends to be dismissed as conspiracy theories. Conversely, allegations of Chinese spying activities are constantly explained as “we all know they’re doing it” in the public eye, despite the lack of solid proof.
These warning signs remind us that the most cryptic source of all spying in the world is not China, but the US. Since the Second World War, the US has, in conjunction with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, maintained a worldwide spying regime known as the ‘Five Eyes’ which, in the age of mass communications, has been designed so that each government can bypass its own privacy laws and judicial restraints in order to spy on each other’s citizens, while supplying information within the group. In doing so, they have created a number of communication interception and surveillance programs, as revealed by Snowden, such as PRISM, ECHELON, XKEYSCORE, etc.
Of course, the US nearly holds a monopoly over the means of information and data gathering – definitely more so than any other country. This is because it has the privilege of having the world’s most dominant internet companies located on its own soil, such as Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Meta. These organizations are required by law to share data with the US government and authorities should they request it. But the US has also gone even further, as revealed by the Washington Post in 2020, the CIA had secretly acquired a Swiss cryptography company and used it to rig those machines to be able to spy on all who used them.
In pursuing its comprehensive spying regime, the US has been keeping an eye on friend and foe alike. This has included wiretapping the chancellor of Germany, coordinating with the intelligence services of other countries to undermine their commercial interests, such as Denmark and the Eurofighter program, and the list goes on.
And yet, American lawmakers suggest that you should truly be scared of TikTok, even as they prepare to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows US intelligence agencies to spy on foreign citizens’ phones and online communications without a warrant. Legalized in 2008, Section 702 needs to be reauthorized every few years lest it lapses under a sunset clause. Congress extended it in 2012 and again in 2018 and there’s little reason to believe it will fail to do so again before the next deadline, set for December this year.
The real problem Washington has with TikTok is not the alleged spying for Beijing’s benefit – it’s the fact that TikTok is the first global-spanning social media network of its magnitude that isn’t under US control – and thus, cannot be weaponized by the US for its own espionage. As such, it weakens the global surveillance regime built up by the US, which is, perhaps, the principal motivation behind Washington’s obsession with keeping control of “the future of the internet” out of Beijing’s hands. It’s more than a matter of spy games – it’s a matter of hegemony, and as such, it’s pure projection on Washington’s part to sound the alarm over TikTok’s alleged breaches of privacy.
As it stands, the US has an unrivaled digital spying network and is the greatest single threat to individual privacy online. If major internet companies are not owned or controlled by Washington or its closest allies, then the privacy of individuals around the world is increased, not decreased. The US has never been apologetic or open about how it monitors the communications of billions of people. Even if one has their suspicions about China, how can Washington’s claims about TikTok, and the motives behind the mounting pressure on the social media platform, be taken at face value?
The Great ‘Disinformation’ Hoax
BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | APRIL 7, 2023
Writer Jacob Siegel has talked to UnHerd‘s Freddie Sayers about America’s new censorship complex. In a 13,000 word essay for Tablet, Siegel explains how ‘disinformation’ is an invention that has morphed into a tool of governance. He told Sayers:
Disinformation is a means by which the Government in cooperation with private tech companies and civil society, NGO groups, censors, uses extra-legal means to censor political discourse around issues like Covid vaccinations, lockdowns, the elections. And in the U.S., it’s a free-for-all. It’s a blank cheque to censor anything. So on one level, disinformation is ostensibly censorship in order to protect national security. In a larger sense, that machinery of censorship is not opportunistically looking to erase certain things from the public record that are unflattering to political elites. It’s actually rather more than that. It is a means of governance. It is a system of power. It is its own system of power, outside of the formal, official — in the U.S., constitutional — means by which the Government is supposed to operate.
How did this ‘tool of governance’ become so mainstream, asks Sayers? The U.S. Government, Siegel points out, has long engaged in promoting disinformation of its own, but the ‘war on disinformation’ was begun by Barack Obama. One of the last things the former President did while in office was sign into law the ‘Countering Foreign Disinformation Act’, which fully committed the U.S. to a counter-disinformation campaign, which according to Siegel “was really always in spirit, and very quickly in practice as well, an information war directed against the American people”.
Siegel continues:
There was originally this foreign dimension… But from the very beginning, ‘foreign’ is a kind of ruse that’s setting up what is actually a much larger, effectively omni-directional structure, because the internet is global, that can censor anywhere but which is, in practice, focused on the domestic political environment inside the U.S. and specifically on this populist surge, which is taken as an existential threat by the ruling party officials in the U.S. who see populism in truly apocalyptic terms.
Siegel argues that the consequences of this censorship for American society should not to be minimised:
The system of secrecy and the Government’s own promotion of conspiracies, like the idea that Donald Trump was an agent of Vladimir Putin or a Russian stooge, which the U.S. intelligence agencies promoted. It’s not simply that they are wrong or pernicious, or that this reflects corruption. They actually drive people crazy. They deranged the political system. They ruin the ability for people to engage sanely and transparently in their own politics.
Worth reading (and watching) in full.
DHS is sued for censorship records on meetings with Big Tech
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | April 6, 2023
Judicial Watch has decided to sue the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after the federal agency failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records related to meetings with Big Tech representatives where censorship was allegedly discussed.
The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks to force the DHS to disclose documents detailing how its Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) worked with companies behind social media platforms in order to censor speech.
We obtained a copy of the complaint for you here.
The initial FOIA request dates back to December of last year, and the advocacy group said that it wanted to gain access to records and communications of CISA Director Jen Easterly, a former CISA director, Christopher Krebs, former CISA Senior Cybersecurity Advisor Matt Masterson, and CISA Senior Cybersecurity Advisor Brian Scully.
These documents concern meetings that CISA either hosted or facilitated with Meta and Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia Foundation, Pinterest, and Microsoft’s LinkedIn on the topic of “election security.”
Furthermore, Judicial Watch wanted information about several other meetings, including those with DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis, FBI, US Secret Service, NSA, and the Office of the Director for National Intelligence employees, related to the previously mentioned meetings, and those with Election Infrastructure Subsector Government Coordinating Council.
The Judicial Watch press release refers to the Twitter Files where journalist Matt Taibbi on several occasions mentions CISA’s involvement in censorship activities, and cites these and the dates when the contacts or communication occurred.
The group also refers to Twitter Files revelations regarding the FBI’s role in censorship decisions, notably the pressure it exerted on the site to act in this way, and Taibbi’s testimony before Congress about the collusion between the Biden administration – including the Democratic National Committee and federal, state, and local law enforcement – and Big Tech, with the goal of suppressing legitimate information.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton described all this, and more that is mentioned in the statement, as “an unholy conspiracy in the Biden administration to censor Americans in collusion with Big Tech.”
As for the lawsuit, Fitton said it “shows the censorship abuse is furthered by unlawful secrecy and cover-ups.”
Zelensky’s Senior Advisor Brazenly Admitted To Kiev’s Genocidal Intentions
By Andrew Korybko | April 7, 2023
Senior Ukrainian presidential advisor Mikhail Podolyak brazenly admitted to Kiev’s genocidal intentions in the NATO-Russian proxy war that’s presently being fought in his former Soviet Republic during an interview with US Government-controlled “Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty” (RFERL). The relevant excerpt will now be shared in order to raise awareness of his words, which can be read in their original Ukrainian at that outlet’s website here for those skeptics who doubt that he truly said them:
“We have to completely close everything related to the Russian cultural space [in Crimea after its reconquest]. We have to eradicate everything Russian. There should be only Ukrainian cultural space or global cultural space. We should not have a dialogue about whether a person has the right to use the Russian language or not. At home, please use it, but it is not a tool of pressure, it is not a tool of protest, it is not a tool of blackmail.”
Podolyak admitted to precisely what Moscow has always accused Kiev of intending since the Western-backed fascist coup of early 2014 popularly known as “EuroMaidan”, namely the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Crimea’s indigenous Russian population. He therefore inadvertently justified its democratic reunification with Russia that was carried out for the purpose of defending its people’s UN-enshrined human rights, thus discrediting his side’s and its foreign patrons’ moral stance in this conflict.
Not only that, but the so-called “rules-based order” that’s aggressively being promoted by the US-led West’s Golden Billion was exposed as a hypocritical sham. That de facto New Cold War bloc isn’t waging their proxy war against Russia in order to defend “democracy” and “human rights” like its propagandists claim, but to advance Kiev’s publicly confirmed goals that stand in direct contradiction to those two concepts.
Any political force in the West that agitates for literally eradicating another culture and prohibiting its people from speaking their native language outside of their homes would rightly be condemned by society as fascist, yet there’s no chance that the US or EU will ever normalize describing Kiev in that way. These double standards speak to the ulterior motives connected to the previously mentioned “rules-based order”, which has always been about advancing American hegemony on any given pretext.
Returning to Podolyak’s candid admission, nobody can credibly claim that funding Kiev isn’t equivalent to funding fascism. There’s no other way to describe that side’s intention to eradicate Russian culture in its entirety and prohibit its people from speaking their native language in public. This bonafide fascism is being funded by the West in violation of its own self-proclaimed “values”, which reveals that everything it’s claimed about wanting to defend “democracy” and “human rights” across the world was simply a lie.
Ukrainization is Destroying American Politics
Sputnik – 06.04.2023
The persecution of former US President Donald Trump takes a page out of the Zelensky regime’s playbook, Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk wrote in a commentary for The Other Ukraine Telegram channel.
Judge for yourself: the US government declares that it is ready to finance the war in Eastern Europe forever and indefinitely.
Of course, the American people have questions about why the country needs this war, why it has no end, and where the voters’ taxes are actually going. The American voter is not interested in funding a war on the other side of the globe because they see serious problems at home. Against this backdrop, the politics of peace becomes attractive to the American voter and is destined for a quick victory.
And now watch the hands. The country’s justice system is politically violated, and a peacekeeper is declared a criminal without any serious evidence, based solely on political desires. All this has already happened in Ukraine. First of all, we accuse politicians who stand for peace of crimes that do not exist. But it is impossible to stop here, as the Ukrainian experience shows. Next, the “wrong” media and parties with a pro-peace agenda must be shut down, churches that preach peace must be persecuted, the “wrong” political movements must be banned, and active citizens who advocate peace must be thrown in jail. And call all this a victory for democracy. This is what the American disciples did in Ukraine. But as far as the US is concerned, all this can only lead to a large-scale war, which Trump warns of in every speech.
All this means one thing: the much-praised Ukrainian “democracy” imposed by the United States in Ukraine has crawled into America and will destroy the state institutions of this country, just as Ukrainian statehood was destroyed before.
This is what Trump warns of: “We are in many ways a third world country. We are a country whose economy is floundering, whose supply chains are broken, whose stores are not full, whose deliveries are not coming in, and whose education system is at the bottom of every list…” And recently, he said, “Our country is going to hell.”
And here it is impossible not to agree with him, because Ukraine is already in hell, and it is dragging the US with it. Ukrainian students have surpassed their American teachers and have become teachers of legal chaos themselves. It only remains to add that Ukraine was pushed into a hell of lawlessness and arbitrariness by American policies, and today it is reaping the fruits of its own actions. As the saying goes, “God will repay each one according to his deeds.”
Estonia cracks down on Russian media
RT | April 5, 2023
Estonia has blocked access to 53 websites that were used to watch banned Russian TV channels, the Baltic country’s Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority (TTJA) said on Wednesday.
The regulator added that the crackdown was conducted in accordance with the EU sanctions on Russian media.
TTJA Director General Kristi Talving cited a poll commissioned by the Estonian government, which found that the trust of Russian channels has fallen from 40% to 18%. “Based on these numbers, we can say that the work to protect the Estonian information space has been effective,” Talving said.
Nearly 40% of people living in Estonia speak Russian, according to the official census. The country has had a sizable Russian minority from the time that it was part of the Soviet Union.
The EU banned the broadcasting of content from multiple Russian news organizations, including RT, in response to Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, which was launched in February 2022. The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, accused the news outlets of spreading disinformation.
Estonia separately banned six Russian TV channels in February 2022. The next month, the TTJA blacklisted seven outlets, including Channel One and news agency TASS.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has described the ban on the country’s news organizations in the EU as an act of censorship aimed at “purging the information space of the presence of any media that is an alternative to Western [media].”
Political Prisoner? Corona Protest Movement Founder Michael Ballweg Released After 9 Months Detainment
By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | April 4, 2023
Dark times for political opponents, skeptics of dubious science.
Governments weaponizing the justice authorities to go after political opponents and protest movement leaders seems to have become vogue nowadays in the once democratic western hemisphere.
Victims of the tactic often face dubious charges, some even having to spend months in detention as authorities drag their feet carrying out the “legal” process.
Corona lockdown protest leader Michael Ballweg (left) released from the Stuttgart-Stammheim prison after detention on dubious charges. Image cropped from AUF 1 here.
For example, in Germany a number of physicians have been charged and even jailed for allegedly issuing “false mask exemptions” or “false vaccination exemption” certificates to patients who fear the experimental, shoddily launched COVID vaccine. Critics accuse the authorities of using these heavy handed tactics to intimidate legitimate political opponents into silence.
Ballweg released after 9 months of detention
One high profile example in Germany is Michael Ballweg, the founder of the Corona restrictions protest movement dubbed “Querdenken” (unorthodox thinking). Today we know that the “querdenkers” were right about a lot of things, and huge amounts of damage could have been avoided had their warnings been taken seriously.
But instead, the government and media got paranoid and scared of the Ballweg’s protest movement. The media characterized the movement as fringe right wingers who threatened “our democracy”. Last June, Ballweg was arrested and dragged to jail on dubious charges.
Today, after more than 9 months detention, he was finally allowed to leave Stuttgart-Stammheim prison. The Stuttgart Higher Regional Court on Tuesday lifted the arrest warrant in exchange for a condition.
Ballweg had been in pre-trial detention since June 2022 on suspicion of money laundering and fraud. Suspicion is all that’s needed nowadays to arrest unwanted voices.
AUF 1 reports:
Previously, several appeals against Ballweg’s pre-trial detention had come to nothing. As part of the nine-month trial, he can now leave prison. The reason for the revocation of the arrest warrant was proportionality. The expected punishment in case of a conviction was too small to justify a longer pre-trial detention.
Ballweg’s lawyer Dr. Alexander Christ commented on the decision: “I am happy for my client!”
Allegations reduced, allegations dropped
Last week, the allegations were significantly reduced: for example, parts of the money laundering allegations against Ballweg were dropped. Most recently, Ballweg had only been accused of attempted fraud. The prosecution worked with the daring legal construct of an “unsuccessful attempt”. Nobody had ever been harmed by Ballweg.
Lawyer Dr. Alexander Christ from Ballweg’s legal team appeared in an interview with Austria’s AUF1 last week and reported numerous inconsistencies in the 120-page indictment. For example, money laundering allegations that had already been dropped resurfaced in the indictment. “A tale,” summarized Dr. Christ.”
The release of Ballweg is certainly good news. But leading a protest and speaking up against the government still remains dangerously risky today.
Scott Ritter: US Complicit in Ukraine’s War on Journalists
By Scott Ritter – Sputnik – 03.04.2023
On Sunday, April 2, 2023, the well-known Russian journalist/blogger, Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed in what appears to have been a targeted assassination.
At the time of his murder, Tatarsky had over 560,000 followers on his Telegram channel, making him one of the most influential voices when it came to covering the ongoing Russian special military operation in Ukraine.
The Russian government has publicly condemned the attack, with Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova condemning the role played by the West, noting that the harassment of Russian journalists by the West constitutes a veritable “witch hunt” that represents an acquiescence, if not outright complicity, in the murder of persons like Tatarsky and Daria Dugina, the daughter of the noted Russian philosopher, Alexander Dugin, and a journalist in her own right.
“Not a single case of the violent death of a Russian journalist hailed as a ‘success’ by the Kiev regime and its thugs, has been investigated by Western countries, international organizations, or foreign professional communities, and not even basic human sympathy has been shown,” Zakharova noted.
The double standard of the collective West, and in particular the United States, which prides itself for its ostensible support of a free press, has been put on display for all the world to see. In 2012, Marie Colvin, a war correspondent for The Sunday Times, was killed while covering the conflict in Syria.
In February 2019, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, of the US District Court in Washington, DC, awarded Marie Colvin’s estate damages in the amount of $300 million, claiming that Colvin had been “specifically targeted” by the Syrian government “because of her profession.” Judge Jackson further stated that “The murder of journalists acting in their professional capacity could have a chilling effect on reporting such events worldwide,” adding that “a targeted murder of an American citizen whose courageous work was not only important, but vital to our understanding of war zones and of wars generally, is outrageous.” [Note: The Syrian government denies that Marie Colvin was specifically targeted. She died when a so-called “media center” in a rebel-held town that doubled as a command center was struck by Syrian artillery. Colvin was operating in Syria without the permission of the Syrian government, in an active war zone.]
The murder of Daria Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky clearly represents the deliberate targeting of journalists operating in their professional capacity. Both Dugina and Tatarsky provided reporting that was “vital to our understanding of war zones and war,” and yet, because this “understanding” came with a Russian slant, the US government remains silent.
The “chilling effect” which Judge Amy Jackson warned about is, it seems, to be embraced when those chilled speak Russian, or whose facts sustain a Russian narrative.
The compassion shown Marie Colvin by the US government, in the defense of a free press, is exposed as a lie when confronted by the silence that followed the deaths of Daria Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky. But this was to be expected — after all, the US is seeking the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange so he can be prosecuted for the crime of publishing so-called “secrets” that exposed war crimes and other official malfeasance on the part of the US government and military in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Putting a journalist in jail for 175 years (the maximum sentence Julian Assange would face if found guilty) is the same thing as a death sentence. Free speech, American-style, is not free — it comes with a heavy price, especially if one publishes material that runs against the US-backed official narrative.
Both Daria Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky were included on the notorious “Myrotvorets” “kill list,” purportedly promulgated by the Ukrainian Security Services, along with hundreds of others—many of them minor children—similarly marked for death for the crime of speaking out against the policies of the Ukrainian government.
I, too, am on that list, along with scores of other Americans and non-Ukrainians.
To date, the US government has yet to condemn the Ukrainian government for targeting US citizens to die for exercising their Constitutionally protected right of free speech.
If the US government won’t protect its own citizens, one cannot expect it to speak out in the defense of the lives of non-US citizens designated for speech-related assassination.
But this isn’t simply a case of remaining silent in the face of crimes being committed by others. The US government is an active participant in the Ukrainian government’s campaign to silence dissenting voices using whatever means possible, including targeted assassination. The US government funds, helps organize, and actively supports the work of the Center for Countering Disinformation, or CCD, a Ukrainian agency operating under the auspices of the Office of the President of Ukraine. The CCD publishes a so-called “black list” containing the names of persons designated by the Ukrainian government as facilitating “Russian propaganda,” and designates those whose names appear on this list as “information terrorists” and “war criminals” who must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Just to be clear, the US actively hunts down and kills persons designated as terrorists. To fund and support similar designations of its own citizens by a foreign government — Ukraine — known to arrest, torture, and murder dissenting voices means the US, implicitly, supports marking them for death.
This is the truth behind the US silence in the face of the murders of Russian journalists like Daria Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky. A nation founded on the principles of free speech cannot tolerate free speech when it is practiced by those who oppose the US-backed narrative. Rather than engaging these dissenting voices in fact-based debate, dialogue, and discussion, the US —cognizant of the fact that their side could not prevail in such a contest — opts to silence these voices forever. For Julian Assange, this means life in prison.
For Daria Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky, this meant death.
This is how you kill a free press. Hopefully the voices of dissent that remain will not be “chilled” by this result, but rather opt to double down on their commitment to pursue the truth, whatever the cost.
I know I will.
JOE BIDEN ‘LED THE CHARGE’ FOR TRANS ACTIVISM WITH AN ‘ABSURD STATEMENT’: NASHVILLE SHOOTING
Sky News Australia | April 2, 2023
US President Joe Biden “led the charge” in transgender activism following the Nashville school shooting by releasing an “absurd statement” about Transgender Americans shaping the “nation’s soul”, Sky News host Rita Panahi said.
“That is the state of the culture right now, celebrities, corporates and the overwhelming majority of the media relentlessly pushing the trans activist rhetoric,” Ms Panahi said.
Swiss Politician Calls On Making Climate Denial A “Criminal Offence”… Obstructs “Effective Measures”!
Saying “Climate change is mostly natural,” could be a criminal offence, if Swiss politician Valentine Python gets her way.
Image: Swiss Parliament site.
By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | April 2, 2023
Climate change for some has turned into a real doomsday cult, where a small group of people has excessive control over its members and require unwavering devotion. The climate cult members are in fact so brainwashed that they are convinced it’s the Gospel Truth and that disagreement is heresy of dangerous criminals. So it’s not surprising some climate cult members are calling for a Catholic Church model Climate Inquisition to root out and punish the heresy.
Marcel Odermatt of Switzerland’s online WELTWOCHE reports on how one Swiss Green politician wants to make “climate-sceptic statements”, i.e. free speech, a criminal offence.
Green National Councillor Valentine Python, 47, is calling for “climate denial” to be declared a crime.
Ms. Python believes statements casting doubt on man’s dominance over the global climate hinders efforts to educate children on the dangers of climate change, and so obstruct adopting “effective measures”.
28% of youth ignoring climate alarm
Germany’s Pleiteticker elaborates on why Ms. Python is all agitated about people having other opinions and cites a recent French study that found 28 percent of young people consider climate change to be a natural phenomenon against which no special measures are necessary.
Based on such results, Ms. Python claims there’s been a “decline in the scientific understanding of the world” and that the state needs to take action against “climate-skeptical statements”.
“She compares these [statements] to calls for anti-Semitism and racism. Such calls could lead to violence and would violate human rights. The National Councillor believes that the ‘unrestricted dissemination of climate-sceptic views’ could fall under the same law”, reports Pleiteticker. “Python seems to consider herself in possession of an immutable scientific truth. Apparently, Python is not interested in convincing dissenters, but in banning their thoughts and imposing penalties on them.”
Doublespeak: State Department warns about online censorship then threatens to “hold platforms accountable”
By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | April 1, 2023
In a startling display of doublespeak at the Summit for Democracy 2023, United States (US) Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned about more countries “using the internet to try to control speech” and claimed that the Biden administration is trying to promote an open internet before threatening to “hold platforms accountable” for so-called “harms.”
Blinken raised the alarm about the internet “growing more closed, more insecure, more siloed by the day.”
He continued by stating: “More countries are putting up firewalls and shutting down access, using the internet to try to control speech, quash dissent, spread misinformation and disinformation.”
The Secretary of State followed up by claiming that the Declaration for the Future of the Internet (a 60-country commitment to bolstering “resilience to disinformation and misinformation”) reaffirms the US’s commitment to an “open network of networks that respects democratic principles and human rights.”
After lambasting other countries for closing off the internet and positioning the Biden admin as a paragon of openness, Blinken pivoted and said, “We have to do better at addressing some of the risks that come with the open internet.”
He then proposed a “delicate balance” between “openness and security,” “protecting speech and preventing incitement,” and “fostering innovation and limiting the power of Big Tech.”
Not content with suggesting a balance between protecting speech and censoring speech that the Biden administration deems to be “incitement,” Blinken then threatened consequences for platforms that don’t fall in line.
“The President’s…made clear that we need to be able to hold platforms accountable when they fail to address the harms caused by their technology, from the content they spread to the algorithms that they use.”
Blinken’s comments come days after the introduction of the RESTRICT Act — a bill that would give the US federal government additional powers to crack down on free speech. The bill claims to target “foreign adversaries” and is widely thought to be aimed at China‘s TikTok. But the powers in the bill are so vast that it would give the federal government the authority to ban a wide range of apps and online services if they’re deemed to be “national security” threats.
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UK Researchers: Tax Food to Reduce Climate Change
I doubt these professors have anything to fear from a food tax
By Eric Worrall | Watts Up With That? | November 19, 2016
A group of researchers in Oxford University, England have suggested that imposing a massive tax on carbon intensive foods – specifically protein rich foods like meat and dairy – could help combat climate change. […]
This proposal, from a group of people who have probably never missed a meal in their lives, is totally obscene. High income countries often have a lot of poor people who would be hard hit by increases in the price of food.
Needlessly exacerbating the risk poor people don’t get enough to eat, especially children and pregnant mothers, who are especially vulnerable to adverse health impacts from lack of protein in their diet – if this ghastly proposal is ever implemented, future generations will look upon it as a crime against humanity. – Read full article
Blog Roll
Aletho News- The West’s Post-Soviet ‘Democracy’ Playbook
- UK suppressed intel on Sudan genocide to protect UAE ties: Report
- Starmer’s exit exposes dirty secret: UK can’t afford Ukraine War
- Putin Warns the West: Russia Is Ready
- BEN-GVIR: “ALL OF LEBANON MUST BURN” — w/ Mouin Rabbani
- There Are No Budget Constraints In New York City: “Coastal Resiliency” Edition
- The UN’s plan to levy taxes on global trade is a sinister power grab
- Is there a future for the U.S. strategy in the Arctic?
- UN inquiry finds Israel ‘intentionally’ targeting Palestinian children in Gaza, occupied West Bank
- Citizens Around the World Demand Israel’s Expulsion From the United Nations
- If Americans Knew
- ‘His only crime is that he is a Palestinian doctor’
- ‘Killed pursuing her dream’: Gaza girl on her way to school dies in Israeli drone strike
- Unbelievable pressure on Gaza from Israel, “Board of Peace” – Daily Update
- UN: Israel Continues to Commit Genocide and Other Atrocity Crimes by Deliberately Targeting Palestinian Children
- Bari Weiss, Free-Speech Fraud & Zionism Promoter, Would Rather Deport Than Debate
- ‘Doctor of the Poor’: Israeli Occupation Arrests Prominent Palestinian Physician
- Search for Your Church (and see if it has been targeted by the Israeli gov’t)
- Mark Levin Flying to Israel as Netanyahu Reportedly Seeks to ‘Leverage’ Levin to Trash Trump’s Iran Deal
- Watch: Zionist Brags about Israel’s Power to Get the World to Do What Israel Wants
- In Gaza, another senseless death on what should have been a joyous day – Daily Update
- No Tricks Zone
- 3 New Studies Find Increasing Trends In Solar Radiation Since The 1980s – Easily Explaining Warming
- THE TRANSCEIVER PARADOX: Why Organoid Intelligence (OI) Could Become Our Ultimate Alien Predator
- German Wind Turbines Face Regulatory Shutdown Due To Excessive Noise
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
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