'Russian Propaganda' Is The Latest Excuse To Expand Censorship

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'Russian Propaganda' Is The Latest Excuse To Expand Censorship

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

“I’m concerned about Russian disinformation spreading online, so today I wrote to the CEOs of major tech companies to ask them to restrict the spread of Russian propaganda,” US Senator Mark Warner tweeted on Friday.

Since then YouTube has announced that it has suppressed videos by Russian state media channels so that they’ll be seen by fewer people in accordance with its openly acknowledged policy of algorithmically censoring unauthorized content, as well as de-monetizing all such videos on the platform. Google and Facebook/Instagram parent company Meta both banned Russian state media from running ads and monetizing on their platforms in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Twitter announced a pause on ads in both Russia and Ukraine.

“Glad to see action from tech companies to reign in Russian propaganda and disinformation after my letter to their CEOs yesterday,” Warner tweeted on Saturday. “These are important first steps, but I’ll keep pushing for more.”

For years US lawmakers have been using threats of profit-destroying consequences to pressure Silicon Valley companies into limiting online speech in a way that aligns with the interests of Washington, effectively creating a system of government censorship by proxy. It would appear that we’re seeing a new expansion of this phenomenon today.

And the imperial media are pushing for more. Articles and news segments warning of the sinister threat posed by Russian propaganda to misinform and divide western populations using the internet are being churned out at a rate that’s only likely to increase as this latest narrative management campaign gets into full gear. The Associated Press has a new article out for example titled “War via TikTok: Russia’s new tool for propaganda machine”.

Glad to see action from tech companies to reign in Russian propaganda and disinformation after my letter to their CEOs yesterday. These are important first steps, but I’ll keep pushing for more.

— Mark Warner (@MarkWarner) February 26, 2022

“Armies of trolls and bots stir up anti-Ukrainian sentiment. State-controlled media outlets look to divide Western audiences. Clever TikTok videos serve up Russian nationalism with a side of humor,” AP warns.

“Analysts at several different research organizations contacted by The Associated Press said they are seeing a sharp increase in online activity by groups affiliated with the Russian state,” AP writes. “That’s in keeping with Russia’s strategy of using social media and state-run outlets to galvanize domestic support while seeking to destabilize the Western alliance.”

The “different research organizations” AP ends up citing include “Cyabra, an Israeli tech company that works to detect disinformation,” as well as the state-funded NATO narrative management firm The Atlantic Council.

As tends to happen whenever a consensus begins to form that a certain category of speech must be purged from the internet, imperial spinmeisters are already working to expand the definition of “Russian propaganda” which must be purged from the internet to include independent anti-imperialist commentators like myself.

Dopey Louise Mensch wannabe NatSec LARPer calling for me to be labeled "State Affiliated Media" and de-platformed across all western social media because RT is one of the many outlets who occasionally republish my blogs for free. https://t.co/54yZtQUsFz pic.twitter.com/XKzLnwvAPs

— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) February 26, 2022

Imperial narrative manager Robert Potter has a thread on Twitter currently calling for me and other anti-imperialist content creators to be labeled “State-Affiliated Media” on Twitter and ideally de-platformed across all western social media, in my case solely because RT is one of the many outlets who occasionally choose to republish some of my blog posts for free.

I am not as Potter claims “an OP Ed columnist for Russia Today.” I don’t work for RT, I don’t write for RT, I don’t submit articles to RT, and I’ve never been paid by RT or the Russian government. RT is just one of the outlets who sometimes avail themselves of my longstanding invitation for anyone who wants to to republish my work free of charge. That RT editors would find my daily rants against western imperialism agreeable is not scandalous or conspiratorial but normal and self-evident.

Yet for agents of imperial narrative control like Potter (who ironically works directly for the US State Department but thinks my posts should be labeled “State-Affiliated Media” by Twitter), even this is enough to justify complete silencing. I will not be in the slightest bit surprised to see a great deal more of these efforts as the new cold war continues to escalate.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate, an empire-loyal NGO ostensibly focused primarily on fighting racism and prejudice, has published a report accusing Facebook of failing to label Russian propaganda as such 91 percent of the times it occurs. The CCDH decried Mark Zuckerberg’s “failure to stop Facebook being weaponized by the Russian state”.

This sudden narrative management thrust has also seen RT taken off the air in nations like Australia, Germany and Poland, with pressures mounting in France and the UK to follow suit.

This despite the fact that all western powers would have to do to eliminate RT completely is simply start allowing leftist and anti-imperialist voices to be heard on mainstream media platforms. It would immediately suck up RT’s entire foreign audience as people who’d previously needed to look outside the mainstream for sane perspectives gravitate toward media made with much better funding and a higher level of talent.

But of course we all know that’s never going to happen. The imperial media aren’t going to subvert RT by platforming voices who dispute the empire’s narratives no matter how badly they hate it, because the exact reason they hate RT is because it disputes the empire’s narratives. They’re not worried about Russian propaganda operations, they’re worried about someone else running interference on their own propaganda operations.

Nazis in Ukraine? Russian propaganda.
US-backed coup in 2014? Russian propaganda.
Donbas provocations? Russian propaganda.
US/allies armed terrorists in Syria? Russian propaganda.
Mass media is propaganda? Russian propaganda.
The government's not your friend? Russian propaganda. https://t.co/OjtURhlht7

— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) February 26, 2022

RT’s audience makes up about 0.04% of TV viewing in the UK. This isn’t about RT, it’s about the the agenda to continually expand and normalize the censorship of unauthorized speech. That’s what it was about when they were pretending it was about the need to fight Covid misinformation before that, and when they were pretending it was about the need to fight domestic US extremism before that, and when they were pretending it was about the need to defend election security before that, and when they were pretending it was about the need to fight Russian propaganda the first time before that one cycled back around again.

Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. Humans are storytelling creatures, so whoever can control the stories the humans are telling themselves about what’s going on in the world has a great deal of control over the humans. Our mental chatter tends to dominate such a large percentage of our existence that if it can be controlled the controller can exert a tremendous amount of influence over the way we think, act, and vote.

The powerful understand this, while the general public mostly does not. That’s all we’ve been seeing in these attempts to regulate ideas and information as human communication becomes more and more rapid and networked. An entire oligarchic empire is built on the ability to prevent us from realizing at mass scale that that empire does not serve us and inflicts great evil upon our world. The question of whether our species can awaken to its highest potential or not boils down to whether our dominators will succeed in locking down our minds, or if we will find some way to break free.

*  *  *

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Tyler Durden Mon, 02/28/2022 - 23:00

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Doctors threatened with punishment for disagreeing with official COVID narrative

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(Image by Hilary Clark from Pixabay)

Merriam-Webster defines "lese-majeste" as a crime against a sovereign, or violating the dignity of a ruler.

It could be used to cover "any offense" including a "simple breach of etiquette."

While California lawmakers haven't adopted the term, they have adopted the idea, with a new plan to threaten doctors with punishment for disagreeing with the official government propaganda about COVID.

Just the News reports that Democratic Assemblyman Evan Low's AB 2098 would allow doctors' statements, private or public, on COVID be analyzed and treated as "unprofessional conduct."

Interestingly, though, the report documents that the bill "promotes long-outdated information about COVID deaths in unvaccinated vs. vaccinated, however, rather than updated Omicron variant figures."

The punishment would be imposed, under the proposal, for disagreeing with "contemporary scientific consensus" on COVID-19.

The report explained the bill was joined by five other California Assembly and Senate members and opens doctors' comments about COVID to review by the Medical Board of California and the Osteopathic Medical Board of California.

Sanctions could follow.

The legislature's summary states, "Existing law requires the applicable board to take action against any licensed physician and surgeon who is charged with unprofessional conduct."

And the bill would "designate the dissemination or promotion of misinformation or disinformation" about COVID as "unprofessional conduct,"

The state already has begun imposing its views on others. Gov. Gavin Newsom wants money for an office that would spread "accurate scientific information" and counter "false claims." The state also is broadcasting COVID commercials with its view.

The Just the News report explained other states are insisting that their official views of COVID, and only their views, be discussed by physicians.

"Perhaps most prominent is pathologist Ryan Cole, who practices in both Idaho and Washington state and has allegedly prescribed ivermectin. A leader in America's Frontline Doctors, which challenges COVID orthodoxy, Cole was targeted by the Idaho Medical Association after he was appointed to a regional health board, though only Washington state has confirmed an investigation," the report said.

Further, Maine suspended the license of internist Meryl Nass, and order a neuropsychological evaluation, regarding her comments about COVID, which, in fact, later have been repeated up by the CDC.

The state of California already has declared that "misinformation" is a "public health crisis."

The problem is that the medical establishment's comments about COVID, and especially the vaccinations and treatments, often have turned out to be wrong.

The South African doctor who discovered Omicron in November, Angelique Coetzee, said she faced physically debilitating international pressure to characterize the milder variant as more severe than the country's physicians were observing, the report said. And, "Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla admitted in January its two-dose vaccine had hit a brick wall with Omicron, with 'very limited protection if any,' while its booster only provided 'reasonable protection' against hospitalization and death."

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

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Backed by Big Pharma, NewsGuard Brings ‘Fact Checking’ to Tens of Millions of Kids in Schools

Miss a day, miss a lot. Subscribe to The Defender's Top News of the Day. It's free. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is partnering with NewsGuard — a for-profit “fact-checking” company with deep ties to Big Pharma — to help students in U.S.

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Our Financial System Is Optimized for Sociopaths and Exploitation

 http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2022/02/our-financial-system-is-optimized-for.html

Let's call this financial system what it really is: the MetaPerverse, a conjured world of self-serving cons.

We live in a peculiar juncture of history in which truth has been banished as a threat to the maximization of private gain, i.e. the hyper-pursuit of self-interest. Evidence that supports a causal chain has been replaced by cherry-picked data that supports a self-serving narrative: both the evidence and narrative are manufactured to serve the interests of the few at the expense of the many.

Trudeau Revokes Emergency Powers Act

 https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/trudeau-set-revoke-emergency-powers-report

And here, he says he's 'confident that existing laws and bylaws are now sufficient to keep people safe.'

BREAKING: Prime Minister Trudeau revokes Emergencies Act after 10 days, saying he is 'confident that existing laws and bylaws are now sufficient to keep people safe.'#cdnpoli #ottnews pic.twitter.com/Izm992SF1n

— Stephanie Ha (@stephanie_ha)

Two days after Canadian lawmakers voted to extend emergency powers allowing police to quell potential unrest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is now set to revoke them now that the Ottawa protest is over, according to the Canadian Press, citing two senior government sources.

DOJ to sit out whistleblower lawsuit accusing Pfizer of 'cutting corners' in COVID vaccine trial

 https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/us-passes-whistleblower-lawsuit-accusing-pfizer-cutting-corners-covid

The U.S. government is not getting directly involved in a whistleblower lawsuit alleging that Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials included fraud, though it might try to dismiss the lawsuit later.

The Justice Department, representing the FDA, filed a "notice of election to decline intervention" last month, more than a year after the suit was filed, but asked a federal judge to first get "written consent" from the feds if the parties want to dismiss or settle the case.

The government reserves the right to intervene at a later date in the False Claims Act lawsuit, which seeks to recover damages on its behalf and for the whistleblower, Brook Jackson.

Jackson accuses Pfizer and two contractors of "cutting corners in clinical trials" and falsifying clinical trial documents in their "race to secure billions in federal funding and become the first to market." The result, she claims, was millions of Americans receiving "a misbranded vaccination which is potentially not as effective as represented."

War Propaganda About Ukraine Becoming More Militaristic, Authoritarian, and Reckless

In the weeks leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, those warning of the possible dangers of U.S. involvement were assured that such concerns were baseless. The prevailing line insisted that nobody in Washington is even considering let alone advocating that the U.S.

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California weighs punishing doctors for challenging 'contemporary scientific consensus' on COVID

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Assembly bill promotes long-outdated information about COVID deaths in unvaccinated vs. vaccinated, however, rather than updated Omicron variant figures.

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Illinois State Police threaten legal consequences for convoy participants

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"Those who choose to participate in events that intentionally endanger the public and violate Illinois law will be subject" to legal action, officials say.

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Now that COVID's over, we're all getting blasted with fake news about Ukraine—and it's working

The videos I’ve shared today, about what’s happening in Ukraine, have drawn some heated comments from subscribers whose perception of the conflict, and idea of Putin’s purposes, are either based entirely on the US media’s depiction of what’s happening, or strongly colored by it.

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