Documents Show CISA Monitored and Influenced Domestic Speech on COVID-19 Through Private Sector Partners
Private entities were enlisted to flag content, even accurate information.
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | December 20, 2024
America First Legal (AFL) has revealed new information from a document it has been able to obtain through the lawsuit filed against the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
CISA is part of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has a “foreign disinformation” unit, the Countering Foreign Influence Task Force (CFITF).
However, as early as mid-February 2020, CISA (via CFITF) had already started to monitor domestic speech about Covid – nearly a month before the pandemic was officially declared by the UN’s WHO, and before orders started to be issued to shut down schools and businesses in the US.
Even though several layers deep, CFITF was still a government entity, and in order to circumvent constitutional issues related to censorship of online speech, the document indicates that the unit turned to what AFL brands “the censorship industrial complex” – specifically, its private sector component.
These were “fact checkers,” “bias raters” and similar that keep cropping up in revelations about the Covid-era censorship: Atlantic Council DFR Lab, Media Matters, Stanford Internet Observatory, Alliance for Securing Democracy, Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) (a UK-based group, which now passes as “British-American”), Global Disinformation Index (GDI), and even an openly foreign government project, EU’s “EU vs. Disinfo.”
Among the kinds of speech CFITF would monitor and/or flag was that of President Trump, his comments about Hydroxychloroquine going back to 2020. The document reveals that CFITF (via Atlantic Council, DFR Lab) knowingly chose to give itself the right to flag even accurate information, justifying a thing as serious as censorship by presenting hypothetical scenarios:
“Once-accurate information can become misinformation as it ages, leading to erroneous conclusions and misinterpretation of the current situation,” the document reads. This was put in the context of the rapidly changing “nature” of the pandemic.
However, it took years for the same awareness – that information related to Covid was constantly changing – to start reversing some censorship decisions (e.g., the Covid origin theory).
As for CISA/CFITF early pandemic activities affecting online speech, AFL believes that they may represent “a violation of what’s known as the Supreme Court’s ‘major questions’ doctrine, which holds that government agencies must not stray from the specific legal authorities given to them by Congress.”
UK’s Online “Safety” Act Enforced: Ofcom Pushes for Increased Platform Censorship and Encryption Backdoors
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | December 18, 2024
UK’s Online Safety Act has come into force and the Office of Communications (Ofcom) regulator has quickly set out to start enforcing it, with noncompliance resulting in high fines.
What those opposed to the legislation consider to be a censorship law and a sweeping one at that, is, according to Ofcom, a way to “protect” online users in the UK from illegal harms by legally requiring tech companies to “start taking action to tackle criminal activity on their platforms” as well as “make them safer by design.”
But what the law’s provisions in reality do, say critics, is bring in even more censorship, while at the same time providing for possibilities to undermine encryption via backdoors.
Then there are those who don’t think the Online Safety Act goes far enough, and are in particular upset by the gradual way it has been designed to boil this particular “frog.”
Right now, the deadline of March 15, 2025, has been given to tech companies to come up with risk assessments regarding the consequences that illegal content has on their users, and then starting two days later, they will have to begin putting measures in place to reduce those risks.
But going forward, Ofcom, which says the current requirements are “just the beginning,” plans to introduce more measures, including “crisis response protocols for emergency events (such as last summer’s riots).”
Here, the fear is that newsworthy content about various forms of protests could get censored as well.
Citing crimes like child abuse and terrorism as the reason, Ofcom also reserves the right to force tech firms to build and implement what are effectively encryption backdoors.
Ofcom says the Online Safety Act allows it to, “where we decide it is necessary and proportionate, make a provider use (or in some cases develop) a specific technology to tackle child sexual abuse or terrorism content on their sites and apps.”
Coupled with this, another provision – hash-matching – starts to gain sinister overtones, contrary to what the stated reason for it is, namely, preventing the sharing of “non-consensual intimate imagery and terrorist content.”
Ofcom is for now short on details regarding this, but the two requirements combined could easily be used for encryption backdoors.
Privacy is one victim of weakened encryption that immediately comes to mind, however, harm to online security, and the economy is often overlooked.
“Creating an encryption ‘backdoor’ for law enforcement would effectively be a blackmailer’s charter, allowing criminals and hostile foreign actors to exploit security flaws,” notes the Adam Smith Institute, and adds:
“Such measures would undermine the growth and competitiveness of the UK technology sector, potentially resulting in large companies withdrawing from the market entirely.”
European Parliament Approves “European Democracy Shield” Committee to Tackle Online “Disinformation”
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | December 20, 2024
The European Parliament has taken another step in its ongoing efforts to control the flow of information online, approving the creation of a new committee tasked with combating what it describes as foreign interference and disinformation.
Dubbed the European Democracy Shield, the initiative is framed as a safeguard for democratic processes but raises significant concerns about censorship and overreach. The committee’s establishment aligns with the European Commission’s policy agenda for 2024-2029 and is expected to begin operations next year.
At a plenary session in Strasbourg, the decision received strong support, with 441 members voting in favor, 178 opposing, and 34 abstaining.
While presented as a measure to protect democracy, critics have long questioned whether such sweeping powers risk stifling dissenting views under the guise of fighting disinformation.
The committee’s mandate extends to scrutinizing online platforms, AI-generated content, and so-called “hybrid” threats—broad categories that could potentially encompass legitimate political speech or alternative narratives.
Comprising 33 members, the Ad Hoc Committee on the European Democracy Shield will serve a 12-month term. Its composition, to be determined by political groups, will be announced in late January. The scope of its responsibilities includes reviewing existing laws for potential weaknesses that could be exploited and recommending reforms. However, skeptics may argue that this approach could lead to increased regulatory burdens on digital platforms, raising questions about freedom of expression and transparency in decision-making.
China urges US to shut Guantanamo prison, end ‘occupation’ of Cuba

Lin Jian, spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, attends a press conference on March 18, 2024 in Beijing, China. [VCG/VCG via Getty Images]
MEMO | December 20, 2024
Read also: Guantanamo’s cruelty is medieval. It’s a horror story. And it’s true.
US Report Reveals Push to Weaponize AI for Censorship
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | December 19, 2024
For a while now, emerging AI has been treated by the Biden-Harris administration, but also the EU, the UK, Canada, the UN, etc., as a scourge that powers dangerous forms of “disinformation” – and should be dealt with accordingly.
According to those governments/entities, the only “positive use” for AI as far as social media and online discourse go, would be to power more effective censorship (“moderation”).
A new report from the US House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government puts the emphasis on the push to use this technology for censorship as the explanation for the often disproportionate alarm over its role in “disinformation.”
We obtained a copy of the report for you here.
The interim report’s name spells out its authors’ views on this quite clearly: the document is called, “Censorship’s Next Frontier: The Federal Government’s Attempt to Control Artificial Intelligence to Suppress Free Speech.”
The report’s main premise is well-known – that AI is now being funded, developed, and used by the government and third parties to add speed and scale to their censorship, and that the outgoing administration has been putting pressure on AI developers to build censorship into their models.
What’s new are the proposed steps to remedy this situation and make sure that future federal governments are not using AI for censorship. To this end, the Committee wants to see new legislation passed in Congress, AI development that respects the First Amendment and is open, decentralized, and “pro-freedom.”
The report recommends legislation along four principles, focused on preserving American’s right to free speech. The first is that the government cannot be involved when decisions are made in private algorithms or datasets regarding “misinformation” or “bias.”
The government should also be prohibited from funding censorship-related research or collaboration with foreign entities on AI regulation that leads to censorship.
Lastly, “Avoid needless AI regulation that gives the government coercive leverage,” the document recommends.
The Committee notes the current state of affairs where the Biden-Harris administration made a number of direct moves to regulate the space to its political satisfaction via executive orders, but also by pushing its policy through by giving out grants via the National Science Foundation, once again, aimed at building AI tools that “combat misinformation.”
But – “If allowed to develop in a free and open manner, AI could dramatically expand Americans’ capacity to create knowledge and express themselves,” the report states.
UK’s Online Censorship Law Drives Small Websites to Shut Down
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | December 19, 2024
The UK’s sweeping online censorship law – the Online Safety Act – that will be enforced from March of next year is already claiming its first victims.
The new legislative landscape in the country is now not providing any kind of safety for hundreds of small websites, including non-profit forums, that will have to shut down, unable to comply with the act – specifically, faced with what reports refer to as “disproportionate personal liability.”
The fines go up to the equivalent of USD 25 million, while the law also introduces new criminal offenses.
Earlier in the week, the act’s enforcer, Ofcom, published dozens of measures that online services are supposed to implement by March 16, including naming a person responsible – and accountable – for making sure a site or platform complies.
The law is presented as a new way to efficiently tackle illegal content, and in particular, provide new ways to ensure the safety of children online, including by age verification (“age checking”).
Opponents, however, reject it as “a censor’s charter” designed to force companies to step up monitoring and censorship on their platforms, including by scanning private communications and undermining encryption.
But another way that concrete harm can be done to the online ecosystem, while declaratively seeking to prevent harm, is now emerging with the example of small and community sites, where those running them are unwilling to take on the massive risk related both to the fines, and criminal responsibility in case they fail to “moderate” according to the act’s provisions.
UK press reports about one of the first examples of this, as the non-profit free hosting service Microcosm and its 300 sites – among them community hubs and forums dedicated to topics like cycling and tech – will go down in March, unable to live up to the “disproportionately high personal liability.”
“It’s too vague and too broad and I don’t want to take that personal risk,” Microcosm’s Dee Kitchen is quoted.
Although the general impression has been that only large corporate services will be affected by the law, in reality requirements and penalties for them are higher, but Ofcom made it clear that “very small micro businesses” are also subject to the legislation.
Microcosm’s decision illustrates what that will look like in practice, as sites – big and small – consider finding hosting overseas, or even leaving the UK market.
Facebook restricting Palestinian news outlets post-October 7: BBC
Al Mayadeen | December 18, 2024
A study conducted by BBC found that Facebook has restricted Palestinian news media outlets, significantly reducing their audience reach throughout the Israeli war on Gaza.
After examining and analyzing Facebook data, BBC found that Palestinian newsrooms operating in Gaza and the West Bank saw drastic drops in online engagement since October 2023, when the war on the Gaza Strip was launched.
Leaks further showed that Instagram, also owned by Facebook’s parent company Meta, has increasingly moderated comments by Palestinian accounts during the same period.
Meta, responding to the allegations, claimed that implications that it intentionally restricted “particular voices” were “unequivocally false.”
Given that Israeli authorities prohibited the entry of foreign journalists, only allowing a very limited number accompanied by army escorts, social media transpired as a key medium for those seeking direct information from inside Gaza.
Facebook pages of news outlets like Palestine TV, Wafa News Agency, and Palestinian Al-Watan News—based in the West Bank—have played a key role in providing updates to people around the globe.
BBC News Arabic analyzed engagement data from the Facebook pages of 20 major Palestinian news organizations, comparing data from the year before and the year after the October 7 operation and the subsequent events.
Findings: Palestinian media saw 77% drop in engagement
BBC found that in light of the war on Gaza, audience engagement with the examined Palestinian outliers dropped by 77%.
For example, although Palestine TV has 5.8 million followers on Facebook, journalists from the newsroom shared data showing a 60% decline in the number of people seeing their posts. “Interaction was completely restricted, and our posts stopped reaching people,” said Tariq Ziad, a journalist at the channel.
Over the past year, Palestinian journalists have expressed concerns that their online content is being “shadow-banned” by Meta, meaning its visibility had been significantly reduced.
Comparative studies with Israeli, Arab media
A comparative study with 20 Israeli news outlets, including Yediot Ahronoth, Israel Hayom, and Channel 13, found that they experienced an increase in audience engagement by almost 37%.
Moreover, it is worth noting that Meta has faced accusations from Palestinians and human rights organizations of not moderating online content impartially. A 2021 independent report commissioned by the company claimed that these issues were not intentional but were due to a lack of Arabic-speaking moderators. As a result, some words and phrases were misinterpreted as offensive or violent.
For instance, the Arabic phrase “Alhamdulillah,” meaning “Praise be to God,” was sometimes auto-translated as “Praise be to God, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom.”
To determine if this could be related to the drop in engagement with Palestinian outlets, the BBC conducted a similar analysis on the Facebook pages of 30 major Arabic-language news sources based elsewhere, such as Sky News Arabia and Al Jazeera. These pages, however, experienced an average engagement increase of nearly 100%.
In response to the research, Meta acknowledged the “temporary product and policy measures” implemented in October 2023. The company explained that it faced challenges in balancing freedom of speech with its responsibility to enforce its policies, particularly given that Hamas is both US-sanctioned and classified as a “dangerous organization” under Meta’s guidelines.
Meta also noted that pages focusing solely on the war were more likely to experience a decline in engagement. “We acknowledge we make mistakes, but any implication that we deliberately suppress a particular voice is unequivocally false,” it noted.
Leaks: Meta imposes anti-Palestine algorithm
The BBC also spoke with five current and former Meta employees about the impact of the company’s policies on Palestinian users. One anonymous source shared internal documents revealing that Instagram’s algorithm was altered after the Hamas operation, making moderation stricter on Palestinian comments.
The employee stated that within a week of the operation, the code was changed to target Palestinians more aggressively. Internal communications showed concerns raised by an engineer about potential bias against Palestinian users.
Meta confirmed the algorithm change but argued it was necessary to address a “spike in hateful content” from the Palestinian territories. The company stated that the policy adjustments made at the start of the war have now been reversed, though it did not specify when this occurred.
“A lot of information can’t be published as it is too graphic – for example if the [Israeli] army commits a massacre and we film it, the video won’t spread,” Omar el-Qataa, one of the few photojournalists who stayed in northern Gaza, revealed, affirming his and his colleagues’ commitment to continue sharing news from the heart of Gaza.
Engineer fixes anti-Palestine bug, gets fired
Meta’s controversial conduct when it comes to spreading Palestinian voices has been a prominent topic of discussion for years, but more so since October 2023. In June 2024, the tech giant fired one of its engineers for fixing a bug causing the block of Instagram posts related to Palestine.
Palestinian-American engineer Ferras Hamad, who has been employed at Meta since 2021, filed a lawsuit in a California state court for discrimination and wrongful termination, accusing the company of bias against Palestinians. He said the company even deleted internal employee communications mentioning the deaths of their relatives in Gaza and conducted investigations into their use of the Palestinian flag emoji.
The lawsuit further states that no similar investigations have been launched before for employees posting Israeli or Ukrainian flag emojis in similar contexts.
Hamad notes that his dismissal was due to an incident in December regarding an emergency procedure to troubleshoot severe problems with the platforms, known within Meta as a SEV or “site event”.
According to the complaints in the lawsuit, Hamad noticed irregularities in the SEV policies related to restricting content posted by Palestinian Instagram accounts, such as posts being prevented from appearing in searches and feeds.
Read more: Al Mayadeen English unpublished by FB, asserting pro-‘Israel’ bias
Genocide in the name of security, according to Israeli settler narratives

Heavy machinery demolishes the house of Palestinian Bilal Abu Ayyash under the pretext of building without a permit in Area C, in West Bank on November 16, 2024
[MOSAB SHAWER/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images]
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | December 17, 2024
Syria’s de facto ruler says foreign extremists ‘deserve Syrian citizenship’

The Cradle | December 17, 2024
Abu Mohammad al-Julani, who now goes by his real name Ahmad al-Sharaa, the head of Hayat Tahir al-Sham (HTS) and Syria’s new de facto ruler, has stated that foreign fighters who helped his organization topple the Syrian government may be allowed to receive Syrian citizenship.
Julani, the former Al-Qaeda commander and UN-designated terrorist, was asked during a press briefing in Damascus on 17 December about the status of foreign fighters who took part in the so-called Syrian revolution and who have now been present in Syria for many years,
Julani stated that foreign fighters who entered Syria for HTS to fight against the Syrian government were “part of the movement that led to the downfall of Assad and should be celebrated.”
As part of the US-backed covert war on the Syrian government, Islamic State of Iraq (later ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi dispatched Julani and a group of extremist fighters from Iraq to Syria in August 2011 to establish the Nusra Front, the official Al-Qaeda branch in Syria.
Julani’s organization carried out suicide bombing attacks in Damascus in December 2011 and January 2012 before announcing the existence of the group.
Thousands of Salafist religious extremists from dozens of countries, including Britain, Belgium, France, China, Chechnya, Tunisia, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia came to fight with Julani against Syria.
Julani later broke from Baghdadi, after he declared a merger between Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq, and announced the establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Nusra and ISIS began competing for the new foreign fighters who continued to flood into Syria from Turkiye.
The Nusra Front imposed fundamentalist Islamic rule on large areas of Syria under its control and committed numerous sectarian massacres, including the killing of 190 Alawites in villages in Latakia in August 2013.
“Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the grave” became a common slogan among fighters from Nusra and other armed factions fighting in Damascus.
Nusra later changed names several times and is now known as HTS.
Julani stated that the fighters in HTS have been in Syria for many years, and it should not be beyond the realm of possibility that they could be integrated into Syrian society because they believe in the same ideology and values as the Syrians.
He claimed that the number of foreign fighters in Syria has been exaggerated because no one has a clear record of how many there are.
After the Nusra Front captured Idlib Governorate in 2015, Julani’s foreign fighters occupied the homes of the Christians and other minorities who the group expelled.
During Tuesday’s press conference, Julani also stated that Syria would no longer be used as a base to attack Israel or any other nation.
Regarding a new constitution for Syria, Julani stated it will reflect the values, culture, and beliefs of the Syrian people. It will not be a constitution that is alien to the Syrian people, he added.
Syria’s minority Christians, Alawites, and Druze fear that Julani will impose a fundamentalist Islamic government on Syria that restricts their rights similar to that imposed by Nusra in areas of Syria in the past.
Ukraine’s secret service urges neo-Nazis to target MP
RT | December 18, 2024
The spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence service (HUR), Andrey Yusov, has called on “radicals” to go after opposition MP Yury Boyko for criticizing Kiev’s crackdown on the Russian language and attempts to “de-communize” the country.
Over the weekend, Boyko, who had previously served as the co-chairman of the now-banned Opposition Platform – For Life party, published a video in which he spoke in defense of the Russian language and condemned Kiev’s demolition of monuments, renaming of cities, and the ban on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The politician currently heads the parliamentary group Platform for Life and Peace in the Ukrainian Rada.
Boyko’s video sparked a backlash from a number of top Ukrainian officials, including the head of the presidential office, Andrey Ermak, who called the criticisms “Russian narratives.”
Meanwhile, writing on Facebook, Yusov claimed that the fact that Boyko was still free was a call for action for radical groups in Ukraine and suggested that the “Derussification, decolonization and decommunization of Ukraine should move so fast that no bastard could even have the time to record a Тiktok.”
Evgeny Karas, a notorious far-right activist and leader of the neo-Nazi S14 group, whose members have a record of harassing minorities and have been accused of high-profile political murders, also called for violence against Boyko.
”Commissioned officers, civilians and demobilized for family reasons, join the squadron of the Holy Inquisition,” Karas wrote on Telegram, calling on them to “roll up their sleeves” and punish Boyko.
On Tuesday, Boyko was summoned for questioning by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), after which he posted another video in which he apologized for his previous comments.
“If any Ukrainians <…> were offended by my words, I want to apologize and say that we must all be united,” the politician said in a video published by the news outlet Strana.
Boyko’s Opposition Platform – For Life party, which was the second largest party in terms of seats in parliament, was banned along with other opposition parties following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. The authorities in Kiev claimed that the opposition had been involved in subversive activities and have prosecuted several MPs linked to the party.
House Strikes a Blow To Censorship in Landmark Defense Bill Vote
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | December 16, 2024
A new chapter in the fight against censorship unfolded as the US House of Representatives approved the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2025. While 124 Democrats opposed the bill, its passage marked a significant step in addressing concerns over biased media practices and government spending.
Among its provisions, the legislation includes a prohibition on contracts with firms like NewsGuard Technologies, an organization criticized and accused of targeting certain media outlets.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson praised the bill’s contents, highlighting its focus on accountability in government spending and ensuring a level playing field for media voices.
Founded in 2018, NewsGuard claims to serve as a nonpartisan fact-checking organization, rating the reliability of news websites. However, critics argue that its actions reveal a far different agenda. The group has been accused of systematically targeting certain outlets while shielding some publishers from scrutiny.
Its self-proclaimed mission to “promote truth” often directs readers to government-endorsed sources like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a practice that raises questions about impartiality – especially since it has received funding from government sources.
Breitbart, The Drudge Report, and The Daily Mail are among the prominent outlets that have been ranked poorly by NewsGuard.
Reports indicate that the organization allegedly advises advertisers to avoid these sites, effectively stripping them of revenue. Critics see this as financial censorship—a strategy to silence dissenting voices while funneling resources toward establishment-backed media.
In recent years, these concerns have deepened, particularly following revelations that the US Department of Defense (DOD) awarded NewsGuard $749,387 in taxpayer funds in September 2021.
