The conundrum for free and open societies has always been the same: How to protect human rights and democracy from hate speech and disinformation without destroying human rights and democracy in the process. The answer embodied in the recent coordinated enactment of global censorship laws is not encouraging for the future of free and open societies.
Internet Censorship, Everywhere All at Once Continue Reading
The possibility of reforming the science writing profession seems very unlikely, as science writers remain locked inside their own community—constrained by partisanship, class, education, and cozy ties to their sources. Any criticism pointing this out is often either ignored or deemed to be proof that the critic is politically conservative, lacks education, or does not have the contacts in science to understand the complexities of research.
The Future of Alternative Media Is Unknown, But Critical Continue Reading
Those who have grounded themselves in politics rather than principles have created a great unmooring that has left us vulnerable to the latest political huckster and led us down a dark, dark, path. Is the speed and force of this shift enough to convince those who had abandoned free speech to renormalise it as a principle? The shoe is now on the other foot.
The Post-Cold War Origins of the Surveillance State Continue Reading
Propaganda is a form of public opinion manipulation involving creation of a specific narrative that aligns with a political agenda. It uses techniques like nudging, repetition, emotional appeals, selective information, and hypnotic language patterns to influence the subconscious mind, thereby bypassing critical thinking and shaping beliefs and values.
Propaganda and the US Government Continue Reading
Unfortunately, many of these examples are not becoming outdated. Mask mandates have returned in some places, including schools, despite no high-quality supporting evidence. Same for COVID vaccine booster recommendations for healthy people under 65. Many European countries, including Denmark, have altered their recommendations based on careful risk/benefit analyses. Once again, although it would seem obvious that U.S. leaders should have followed suit, that didn’t happen.
Ten Examples Where Experts Were Wrong Continue Reading
For more than three years, there have been burning questions about Trump’s role and precisely why this hell was visited upon us. It will undoubtedly be studied for years. More frustrating still has been the general unwillingness even to ask questions of the great/evil man who Republicans cheer and Democrats loathe.
Megyn Kelly Asks Trump a Few Hard Questions Continue Reading
As a journalist, I cannot say much more than the best available facts suggest, but as has been clear for far too long, the mRNA vaccines were not beneficial and safe on a population-level for young, healthy men — yet the CDC and FDA didn’t care. Hopefully, “pro-vaccine publication[s]” may recognize the harm they helped perpetuate.
The only hope is that this ugly, complicated and regressive piece of legislation ends up before a judge who understands that freedom of expression means nothing if held hostage to the views of the European Commission on pandemic-preparedness, the Russia-Ukraine war, or what counts as “offensive” or “hateful” speech.
You Should Be Very Worried About the Digital Services Act Continue Reading
For “fact-checking” to have any legitimacy whatsoever, it needs to ditch rating the crazies. It also should start each week with releasing a list of 20 items, check each of those, and then write about all of them, true or false. At the very least, the public would know the fact-checkers aren’t hiding facts they don’t like.
How “Fact Checking” Obliterates Truth Continue Reading
The lesson of the muted response to COVID from the so-called right is that clearly things have not gotten bad enough. The sad and terrifying thing is that whatever they must throw at us to elicit a righteous and unified policy response will now have to be so devastating that we will likely never have the political ability to fight it even if we wanted to. Meanwhile, the vanity and political circus will continue unabated.
Why Are They Talking about UFOs Instead of Covid Fascism? Continue Reading
It’s a very strange time in American political history, no doubt. We have one line of thinking sweeping through the population – which is based on mass incredulity and fury – and then another which is a veneer of normalcy that is slathered on top of our anger by all official institutions, which work hard to keep all these topics out of respectable conversations. Meanwhile, the whole of academic, mainstream social media, major mainstream media, and all of government seems to agree that all these obvious topics are too incendiary to be raised in polite company.
The Great Game of Let’s Pretend Continue Reading
To compound this any expert or publication that dared raise a challenge would be investigated by fact-checkers and predictably labeled as misinformation and subsequently censored. Everyday citizens, on the receiving end of this distorted information machine, were left without any previously respected outlet for any well-founded skepticism. A few spoke out and were virtually ostracized from mainstream society. Many others saw the writing on the wall and, wishing to maintain their relationships and avoid uncomfortable situations, kept their opinions to themselves.
The Dangers of Self Censorship During the Covid Pandemic Continue Reading
