The withdrawal of Twitter’s signature from the Code is a highly theatrical, but essentially empty gesture, which will undoubtedly serve to shore up Musk’s free speech bad-boy bona fides, but has virtually no practical consequences.
Complying, Not Defying: Twitter and the EU Censorship Code Read More
Biden even accused Facebook of “killing people” and the next day threatened Section 230 action on social media companies that didn’t comply with their demands.
The Struggle for Free Speech: More Reporting on Missouri v. Biden from Tracy Beanz Read More
The Australian stereotype of mocking self-important authorities was tepid at best during the crisis, and what questioning of authority did take place appears to have been quickly memory-holed by the spell-checkers-turned-fact-checkers at the Department of Home Affairs “Extremsim” team. With each passing day, Idiocracy is looking more and more like prophecy.
The Covid Censorship Requests of Australia’s Department of Home Affairs Read More
Who is to say something is misinformation, who is the arbiter of that? Well, there you have it. In the case of Twitter and all the platforms cooperating with the EU, the European Commission is the arbiter of that, since it is the Commission that will decide if Twitter and the other platforms are doing enough to combat it.
What about the Permanent Task-Force on Disinformation? A Question for Elon Musk Read More
For many, living in a state of constant surveillance seems only natural – especially for younger generations that have lived their lives online and have had their every movement since childhood tracked by their parents through their phones to ensure their safety. News of government doing the same, although sometimes with fancier tools like automatic license plate readers and facial recognition, no longer even causes a stir.
The mRNA gene therapy technology was a remarkable advancement with untold potential benefit for humanity. The interests of power have leveraged it into something inhumane and destructive.
There is a lesson in this as far as the ineluctable need for action is concerned when rational argument with would-be oppressors gets one nowhere. This is especially the case when it becomes obvious that these oppressors are not remotely interested in a reasonable exchange of ideas, but summarily resort to the current unreasonable incarnation of technical rationality, namely AI-controlled mass surveillance, with the purpose of subjugating entire populations.
All the key stakeholders “bought in.” Even if some people eventually realized some of the narratives may have been dubious or false, they’d already risked their reputations and careers by zealously pushing or endorsing these narratives … so they weren’t going to suddenly admit they might have been wrong. In retrospect, how “they” made all the madness happen was surprisingly easy.
The word “smart” is really just a synonym for surveillance. These ultra-modern, tech-saturated monstrosities use hundreds of thousands of sensors to vacuum up copious amounts of personal data. FMC policies are currently being rolled out in cities such as Barcelona, Bogotá, Melbourne, Paris, and the dystopian wasteland known as Portland. What do these cities have in common? Surveillance technology.
The collapse of support for free speech among Western pseudo-elites is the foundation of so many other problems, from medicine to war. Misinformation is the natural state of the world. Open science and vigorous debate are the tools we deploy to become less wrong over time. Individual and collective decision-making depend on them.
Signatories also agree to support the official narrative in a pandemic. Specifically, they will “conduct regular social listening and analysis to identify the prevalence and profiles of misinformation” and “design communications and messaging strategies for the public to counteract misinformation, disinformation and false news, thereby strengthening public trust.”
U.S. Government Negotiates Deal to Give WHO Authority Over U.S. Pandemic Policies Read More
So long as it wants to remain on the EU market, Twitter cannot say no to the demands of the European Commission. The enforcement mechanism that renders the Code of Practice obligatory is the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). The DSA gives the European Commission power to impose fines of up to 6% percent of global turnover on platforms that it finds to be in violation of the Code: n.b. global turnover, not just turnover on the EU market!
The EU Files: What Elon Musk Is Not Telling You About Twitter Censorship Read More
