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The public government campaign to pressure Big Tech platforms such as Twitter to crack down on supposed misinformation violates the U.S. Constitution, according to a new lawsuit.
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has repeatedly pressed Twitter and other platforms to suppress COVID-19 misinformation, while White House press secretary Jen Psaki has said President Joe Biden thinks it’s the responsibility of social media companies to “stop amplifying untrustworthy content, disinformation, and misinformation, especially related to COVID-19, vaccinations, and elections.”
Those and similar statements made clear the government was demanding action and was contemplating penalties against platforms that did not ramp up censorship, the 65-page suit asserts.
Murthy, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and other Biden administration officials “are not simply colluding with, but instrumentalizing Twitter and other technology companies to effectuate their goal of silencing opinions that diverge from the White House’s messaging on COVID-19,” it says, adding, “That commandeering transforms the Surgeon General’s initiative into government action.”
Alleging the government effort led directly to their suspension from Twitter, three critics of lockdowns and other harsh policies imposed in response to COVID-19 sued HHS, Murthy, and HHS Director Xavier Becerra.
Scientist Mark Changizi, attorney Michael Senger, and stay-at-home father Daniel Kotzin want a federal court in Ohio to declare that the effort violated the First Amendment of the Constitution...
Professor Carl Heneghan, who heads the University of Oxford’s Center for Evidence-Based Medicine, got locked out of his Twitter account that has over 100K followers last weekend for sharing a link to a Mail on Sunday story about an Oxford study into the Covid death toll in the UK.
The study found that the 164,000 number may be exaggerated, thanks to errors in the way fatal outcomes were recorded in hospitals and nursing homes.
American Commissars
Social media platforms are aggressively censoring all who challenge the dominant narrative on Ukraine, the ruling Democratic Party, the wars in the Middle East and the the corporate state.
Chris Hedges
The ruling class, made up of the traditional elites that run the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, is employing draconian forms of censorship on its right-wing and left-wing critics in a desperate effort to cling to power. The traditional elites were discredited for pushing through a series of corporate assaults on workers, from deindustrialization to trade deals. They were unable to stem rising inflation, the looming economic crisis and the ecological emergency. They were incapable of carrying out significant social and political reform to ameliorate widespread suffering and refused to accept responsibility for two decades of military fiascos in the Middle East. And now they have launched a new and sophisticated McCarthyism. Character assassination. Algorithms. Shadow banning. De-platforming.
Censorship is the last resort of desperate and unpopular regimes. It magically appears to make a crisis go away. It comforts the powerful with the narrative they want to hear, one fed back to them by courtiers in the media, government agencies, think tanks and academia. The problem of Donald Trump is solved by censoring Donald Trump. The problem of left-wing critics, such as myself, is solved by censoring us. The result is a world of make-believe.
They were unable to stem rising inflation, the looming economic crisis and the ecological emergency. They were incapable of carrying out significant social and political reform to ameliorate widespread suffering
the ecological emergency
They were incapable of carrying out significant social and political reform to ameliorate widespread suffering and refused to accept responsibility for two decades of military fiascos in the Middle East. And now they have launched a new and sophisticated McCarthyism. Character assassination. Algorithms. Shadow banning. De-platforming.
Patrick saysThey were incapable of carrying out significant social and political reform to ameliorate widespread suffering and refused to accept responsibility for two decades of military fiascos in the Middle East. And now they have launched a new and sophisticated McCarthyism. Character assassination. Algorithms. Shadow banning. De-platforming.
This is my irritation with Chris Hedges. He's kind of fucking stupid honestly, or he's very dishonest and pretends that our power structure is trying to solve any problems at all.
The Biden family is a criminal family. Just like the Clintons are, just like the Bushes are. They are criminals, they are a criminal syndicate, they work together. They do not work on behalf of the public. They start wars because it's profitable for them. They are complete, total, criminals.
Hedges ignores this. I don't think he's much worth listening to b...
just personal observation. foreigners knew their government was corrupt. many americans are still living under illusion of Democracy.
This is my irritation with Chris Hedges. He's kind of fucking stupid honestly, or he's very dishonest and pretends that our power structure is trying to solve any problems at all.
Former Intelligence Officials, Citing Russia, Say Big Tech Monopoly Power is Vital to National Security
When the U.S. security state announces that Big Tech's centralized censorship power must be preserved, we should ask what this reveals about whom this regime serves.
A group of former intelligence and national security officials on Monday issued a jointly signed letter warning that pending legislative attempts to restrict or break up the power of Big Tech monopolies — Facebook, Google, and Amazon — would jeopardize national security because, they argue, their centralized censorship power is crucial to advancing U.S. foreign policy. The majority of this letter is devoted to repeatedly invoking the grave threat allegedly posed to the U.S. by Russia as illustrated by the invasion of Ukraine, and it repeatedly points to the dangers of Putin and the Kremlin to justify the need to preserve Big Tech's power in its maximalist form. Any attempts to restrict Big Tech's monopolistic power would therefore undermine the U.S. fight against Moscow.
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/former-intelligence-officials-citing?s=r&source=patrick.net
It should go without saying that these life-long security state operatives do not care in the slightest about the dangers of "disinformation.” Indeed — as evidenced by the fact that most of them generated one Russiagate fraud after the next during
When George W. Bush said "they h8 us 4 R Freedumb" he wasn't talking about Islamic terrorist groups, he was talking about the oligarchs that run the United States.
Enormous efforts were spent to silence “misinformation”. Why? Because Solomon Asch found out that any expression of disagreement — lack of consensus — immediately kills compliance...
the disinformation governance board would be the american "ministry of truth"
and that cannot be countenanced. make orwell fiction again
wow. the US federal government is A LOT more worried about losing control of the informational narrative than i realized.
this is some desperate, scary stuff.
the department of homeland security is creating a new division and, i kid you not, it’s called the “disinformation governance board.”
“boy did i call it or what?”
-george orwell
this terrifying new foray into fascist informational suppression claims a narrow mandate, but are any truly fool enough to fall for such an implausible tale, especially right in front of the american mid-terms and right after jen psaki got done telling us about how we need the federal government to be more active in suppressing medical misinformation and russia narratives?
...
the cure for bad speech is more speech
the best way to marginalize hateful people is to let them reveal themselves
and censorship is always the greater evil.
Brian Roemmele
@BrianRoemmele
18 Oct 2021
It was 1946 and this lost educational film on despotism was required curriculum at every high school in America.
The associated test, 11 pages quizzed students on the concepts.
By 1967, this film was removed from all libraries.
The term despotism has since become unfashionable
It was 1946 and this lost educational film on despotism was required curriculum at every high school in America.
The associated test, 11 pages quizzed students on the concepts.
By 1967, this film was removed from all libraries.
The term despotism has since become unfashionable
"Death by a thousand cuts" is a mechanism to destabilize, the opposite of myth.
Constant and endless criticism any time an institution failed or a wild mob did something foolish, for which the entire culture gets the blame.
May 2, 2022
PayPal purges independent media outlets that documented Ukraine war censorship
Many accounts shut down.
By Cindy Harper
May 5, 2022
Judge rules cops who arrested man over parody Facebook page have qualified immunity
Can't be sued for violating free speech.
Free speech and what’s known as “qualified immunity,” as well as “overcriminalization” – expansion of the criminal code in the US to address even minor problems in society – is at the heart of a case that started in 2016 with a short-lived parody page Anthony Novak had set up on Facebook.
Novak was subsequently arrested and spent several days in jail – much longer than the lifespan of his page critical of the police in Parma, Ohio – a page that was up only 12 hours.
In addition, the police confiscated his phone and computer. His “crime” was the humor he was using to express his opinions about the local law enforcement: posts like one “advertising” free abortions performed in a police van, and an “event” under the motto, “Pedophile Reform.”
Some Facebook users complained – about ten of them according to court records – but that was enough for the police to go to the trouble of getting three warrants: to arrest Novak, search his apartment, and deal with Facebook. The charge was “using a computer to hinder police duties,” an accusation based on little-known (and in this case, a court eventually found, invoked incorrectly) state law.
Novak eventually had a jury trial that resulted in his acquittal. But he then went on to sue the officers who arrested him for violating his constitutional rights. However, the US Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit did not support his claims.
Judge Amul Thapar found that while what Novak posted on Facebook was protected speech, the way he went about setting up his parody page did not qualify as that – because he used the same profile picture as the local police department and removed a comment saying this was not an official page. And “when the Department tried to clarify that Novak’s page was imitating its own, he copied the official page’s clarification post word for word,” said Thapar.
Nevertheless, the judge found that the officers did qualify for something called “qualified immunity” – a status stemming from lack of legal precedent that protects government officials who are accused of violating constitutional rights.
This last part of the ruling means that Novak was unable to have another jury trial and argue his case regarding the violation of free speech rights allegation.
April 29, 2022
This Scary Experiment Explains Two Years of COVID Hell
By Vic Hughes
In case you were wondering why all views contrary to the Official Narrative have been canceled, it's because of the Asch Conformity Experiment.
We have just gone through a nationwide, and actually a worldwide, Asch Conformity Experiment. As implied, the goal of the experiment was not to get to the truth. It was to get conformity. Only conformity is allowed.
Asch showed that people will actually believe things that they know to be false if they think everybody else believes those things. That is the point of the COVID nightmare experiment we just lived though. You must believe:
COVID is hugely riskier than it actually was, so any actions are justified.
Vaccines are your only hope, even though the technology has never worked.
Vaccines are safe and effective, although they were tested for only a few months.
The unvaxxed are subhuman murderers, to be shunned and even left to die.
Not wearing a known-to-be-useless mask is a sign of relentless selfishness.
Children, who are at almost no risk, must be vaxxed, or they will kill Granny.
None of these makes sense. However, no dissent can be allowed because the Asch Conformity Experiment showed that if one person stands up to the narrative, it is easier for the second one to dissent. Then another and another stand up, and then control is lost.
That is why every dissenting voice must be silenced. If one person cries, "The Emperor has no clothes," people will see the naked truth. And that can't be allowed.
What is the Asch Experiment? ...
May 5, 2022
UK train worker sues after being fired for Zoom hot mic where he disputed idea of “white privilege”
Another example of people being fired for their opinions.
By Cindy Harper
Posted 6:51 pm
The West Midlands Trains in the UK is getting sued by a former employee who was dismissed for questioning white privilege after a virtual diversity training session. 60-year-old Simon Isherwood, who worked as a rail conductor, was fired for gross misconduct.
After the diversity training held in March 2021, Isherwood forgot his microphone was still on and, speaking to his wife, some colleagues heard him questioning white privilege. He was then reported by colleagues who were “angered” by the comments.
“I couldn’t be arsed because I thought, ‘you know what, I’ll just get fucking angry,’” Isherwood said, as reported by The Telegraph.
“You know what I really wanted to ask?… and I wish I had, do they have black privilege in other countries? So, if you’re in Ghana?…” Isherwood was heard telling his wife.
He argued that the comments were private and he was not aware his microphone was still on when telling his wife he felt the diversity trainers were “indoctrinating their views” that “implied all white people are racist – but I’m not.”
Isherwood was suspended pending an internal probe. He was later dismissed after the internal probe found that he had “caused offense, brought the company into disrepute and breached our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy and the Code of Conduct.”
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It's coming, and it will encapsulate the Social Justice Revolution as part of American Canon, so to criticize it will be subject to censorship.