International
Oversight committee investigates alleged Google censorship of Trump shooting

From The Center Square
By Casey Harper
U.S. House Oversight Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., launched an investigation Wednesday into allegations that Google and Meta, formerly known as Facebook, censored or misrepresented content about President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Comer sent letters to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai Wednesday over the alleged censorship, which grabbed national attention after the near-fatal assassination attempt against Trump in Butler County, Pennsylvania July 13.
How Google and Facebook handled questions and searches about the assassination attempt against Trump sparked criticism.
“Specifically, Meta’s AI assistant claimed, ‘the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump was a ‘fictional’ event,’ even as the chatbot ‘had plenty to say about Democratic rival Kamala Harris’ run for the White House,” Comer wrote, citing a New York Post article. “When asked if the assassination on President Trump was fictional, Meta’s bot responded that there ‘was no real assassination attempt on Donald Trump. I strive to provide accurate and reliable information, but sometimes mistakes can occur.’ The bot further added, ‘[t]o confirm, there has been no credible report or evidence of a successful or attempted assassination of Donald Trump.’”
Facebook’s team also admitted that it censored the photo of a bloody Trump holding his fist in the air just after the shooting, a photo that went viral online and became a rallying point for his campaign.
“This was an error,” Facebook Communications Director Dani Levi wrote on X about the photo. “This fact check was initially applied to a doctored photo showing the secret service agents smiling, and in some cases our systems incorrectly applied that fact check to the real photo. This has been fixed and we apologize for the mistake.”
“Google users report that autocompleted search prompts related to the assassination attempt of President Trump produced results for failed assassination attempts of former Presidents, including Harry Truman, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan—or even assassinations of historical figures such as Archduke Franz Ferdinand—but omitted from the list of automatically generated search suggestions the recent attempt on President Trump’s life,” Comer wrote.
Google told CBS MoneyWatch that the search issues were technical “anomalies” that were unintentional and could affect anyone.
Comer’s investigation is calling for documents and answers on how Google’s search and autocomplete works. Google staff briefed the committee earlier this month.
“In response to preliminary staff inquiries, Google contends that the Autocomplete results omitted the Trump assassination attempt due to a safety protocol concerning predicted assassination attempts of current political leaders, and Google had not yet updated the Autocomplete feature to reflect that an assassination attempt of President Trump had occurred,” Comer wrote.
In his letter to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, formerly known as Facebook, Comer pointed out that the executive branch regulates the tech companies that can have bias in determining who runs the executive branch.
“The Committee has long been concerned with how large technology companies leverage their businesses to influence public opinion—especially the design and use of content moderation policies within private sector social media companies—and how company policies are shaped and influenced by Executive Branch officials,” Comer wrote in his letter to Zuckerberg.
After the issues last month, Trump blasted both companies online, saying “here we go again” and calling it “rigging the election,” an apparent reference to how social media companies at the urging of the FBI censored news stories about the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation but the laptop later was found to be real.
Casey Harper
D.C. Bureau Reporter
International
Pope Francis Got Canadian History Wrong

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Pope Francis’s careless genocide comment gave activists the fuel they needed, and Parliament rushed to judgment without examining the facts
Many Catholics will grieve the death of Pope Francis. But not all.
That’s because Francis was arguably the most political Pope in recent memory. Depending on your definition, he was either a socialist or a communist. There wasn’t a leftist leader or cause he didn’t embrace, and few conservative ones he supported. He regularly weighed in on progressive issues like climate change and offered political opinions, even when he seemed to lack a full understanding of the topic.
One such issue was Canadian history.
In 2021, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced that ground-penetrating radar had detected anomalies near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, interpreted by some as possible unmarked graves of children. The claim made international headlines and sparked widespread outrage, although no remains have ever been unearthed.
During a late-night flight, the ailing octogenarian Pope, seemingly charmed by a young reporter, described Canada’s residential schools as “genocide,” a departure from his earlier, carefully prepared statement, which made no such accusation and echoed apologies offered by his predecessors. Those statements expressed regret for harm done but also acknowledged the good work of countless priests and nuns who dedicated their lives to educating Indigenous children.
In a moment of startling informality, Pope Francis appeared to accept the now-disputed Kamloops story as fact, effectively accusing thousands of priests, nuns, teachers and support workers—both Indigenous and non-Indigenous—of committing genocide. He appeared to accept at face value the now-disputed Kamloops story of secret burials and sinister deaths. In doing so, he didn’t just slander individuals—he changed Canadian history.
“Yes, it’s a technical word, genocide. I didn’t use it because it didn’t come to mind. But yes, I described it. Yes, it’s a genocide,” Francis said in July.
Indigenous activists wasted no time. They realized those words were exactly what they needed. Their initial genocide motion in Parliament—based on the Kamloops claim of 215 hidden graves—had failed. But with the Pope’s remarks, the political climate shifted.
NDP MP Leah Gazan led the charge. She had introduced a motion after the Kamloops claim first surfaced. She returned the following year with the same proposal, and this time, the Pope’s comments gave it new weight.
The motion declared Canada’s treatment of Indigenous children in residential schools as genocide—a declaration that, while not legally binding, carries moral and political weight. It passed quickly and without debate.
The irony? The very same activists who had earlier promoted deeply anti-Catholic conspiracy theories about atrocities committed by priests and nuns—stories that fuelled church burnings across Canada—were now treating every word from the Pope’s mouth as gospel. Non-believers appeared to be embracing some version of papal infallibility (a Catholic doctrine that, in specific cases, the Pope’s declarations are considered free from error)—if only when it suited them.
Meanwhile, Parliament failed to do its homework. Elected representatives never seriously investigated the many holes in the Kamloops story. Despite the global headlines, no excavations at the Kamloops site have confirmed the presence of remains. Multiple independent experts have raised concerns about the methodology and public interpretation of the findings.
Yet MPs allowed themselves to be swayed. Incredibly, they spent just 47 seconds debating and approving a motion that condemned their own country for genocide.
Much has been written about the lack of evidence behind the Kamloops claim. Suffice it to say, the “remains of 215 children” turned out to be an old sewage trench. Think about that—our nation was convicted of genocide based on a sewage trench.
Earlier popes took a more thoughtful approach. They acknowledged that wrongs were committed, that abuse occurred, and that some individuals within the system failed. But they also recognized that the goal of educating Indigenous children was legitimate, and that many students gained literacy and language skills that served them for life.
Those are the papal perspectives worth remembering.
Pope Francis did much good in his life, and many will reflect fondly on his legacy. But when it comes to Canada, his careless and misinformed comments on genocide did real harm. Let’s hope the next Pope is more careful with his late-night musings.
Brian Giesbrecht is a retired judge and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
Censorship Industrial Complex
Is free speech over in the UK? Government censorship reaches frightening new levels

From LifeSiteNews
By Frank Wright
Instead of changing policies which threaten the collapse of Western civilization, the liberal-global governments prefer to make public opposition to their politics a crime.
The UK’s crackdown on free speech continues, with two online platforms withdrawing over censorship concerns – whilst liberal-critical speakers are banned from entering Britain, and even arrested on arrival.
Following the introduction of laws which could see online platforms fined millions of pounds, free speech social media company Gab and video sharing platform Bitchute have withdrawn their services from UK users.
As Reclaim the Net, a UK-based online freedom campaign group, said on March 28:
“The British government has begun aggressively extending its censorship regime beyond its borders, invoking the sweeping powers granted by the Online Safety Act 2023 to demand compliance from foreign-based platforms.”
Bitchute withdrew its services from UK users “over online censorship laws,” as the Free Speech Union reported on April 10. Gab’s statement, published on its UK domain, said the company was acting to protect British users from being jailed for posting on its platform:
After receiving yet another demand from the UK’s speech police, Ofcom, Gab has made the decision to block the entire United Kingdom from accessing our website.
This latest email from Ofcom ordered us to disclose information about our users and operations. We know where this leads: compelled censorship and British citizens thrown in jail for ‘hate speech.’ We refuse to comply with this tyranny.
The UK government claims its laws support “online safety” – but as Reclaim the Net explains, “critics argue … the term … is being used as a smokescreen for state-sanctioned thought control.”
The future of information in Britain looks bleak, as one UK commentator said, promising a “TV version” of the internet – sterilized by UK government media watchdog Ofcom:
“Unless the White House really forces Britain to do it, Ofcom will not be abolished, because the mainstream parties approve of it and no party that doesn’t will be allowed anywhere near power.”
Millennial Woes concludes that there is likely a “hit list” of further online platforms to be taken down in order, beginning with video outlets Odysee and Rumble, the messenger service Telegram, then the free speech publisher Substack – and on to Elon Musk’s X.
Woes warns:
“If allowed to continue in its current mode, Ofcom will take down the platforms it wants to, then tame the others by hook or by crook. The Internet in Britain will be a homogenised, redacted farce – a pathetic ‘TV version’ of what people in more civilised countries have.”
Cambridge professor arrested
The charge of “state-sanctioned thought control” is reinforced by the arrest – on Good Friday –-of a Palestinian Christian and Cambridge University professor at London’s Heathrow Airport. The reason for Professor Makram Khoury-Machool’s detention was that he has spoken out against Israel’s war in Gaza, as reports from the UK said.
“Keir Starmer’s long and intensifying war on pro-Palestine, anti-genocide speech through the misuse of the Terrorism Act … has continued to escalate,” noted UK outlet Skwawkbox, which covers stories such as this – neglected by the mainstream press “because it doesn’t fit their agenda.”
Professor Khoury, whose speech was criminalized under anti-terror laws, had in the past co-founded an anti-extremism institute in 2016 at Cambridge University.
British left-populist George Galloway responded on X (formerly Twitter), saying the arrest of this “gentle, devout moderate academic father” suggests that the “government has declared war on its own citizens, that liberty is dead in this land, and that Britain is no longer a safe country.”
Galloway’s warning of “It can happen to you. And it will” came a day after reports that a French philosopher noted for his outspoken criticism of mass migration had been banned from entering the UK.
French anti-migration speaker banned
Renaud Camus is the author of The Great Replacement – coining a term now used to describe the liberal-global policy of the replacement of Western populations via mass immigration.
The “great replacement” is routinely “debunked” by the ruling elite as a “conspiracy theory.” As Camus once said to Britain’s Matt Goodwin, “How can it be debunked when it is evident in every street?”
He was due to speak at a “remigration conference” in England on April 26. Organized by the nationalist Homeland Party, it is dedicated to the discussion of policies similar to those now being enacted by the Trump administration.
According to the Daily Telegraph, Camus was denied entry to the UK by government order.
In an email seen by The Telegraph, the Home Office informed Mr Camus that he had been denied the electronic travel authorisation (ETA) needed to enter Britain.
‘Your presence in the UK is not considered to be conducive to the public good,’ the email read.
The Telegraph reports that Mr Camus, “who is gay and has advocated for non-violence,” supplied one convincing explanation for his treatment:
[He] told The Telegraph that ‘of all the European governments guilty’ of allowing unchecked migration, ‘the British government is one of the guiltiest’.
‘No wonder it does not want me to speak,’ Mr Camus added.
The fact the British government is banning speakers who promote policies now being enacted with widespread support in the United States has not only provoked criticism – it may derail UK/U.S. trade negotiations.
Days ago, Vice President JD Vance warned UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer that Britain will get no deal with the U.S. over tariffs if its “hate speech” laws remain in place.
“Sir Keir Starmer must embrace Donald Trump’s agenda by repealing hate speech laws in order to get a trade deal over the line, a Washington source has told The Independent.”
A “Washington source” told the UK-based Independent, “No free speech, no deal. It is as simple as that.”
Vance has been a stern critic of British and European moves towards increasing censorship and the suppression of freedom of opinion, describing it in his February Munich speech as a “threat” to democracy “from within” Western Europe – and one which is led by its liberal-globalist governments.
Vance is reportedly “obsessed by the fall of Western civilisation,” The Independent’s Washington source explained. It is clear that Vance believes that this fall is very much a threat created by the political decisions of governments like Starmer’s.
The use of “hate speech” and “anti-terrorism” laws in these cases shows how the UK state-sanctioned suppression of speech affects anyone – from the left, right, or from the Christian faith – who criticizes the policies of the government.
These are not fringe extremist views, but those held by increasing numbers of ordinary people in Britain and throughout the Western world. Instead of changing policies which threaten the collapse of Western civilization, the liberal-global governments prefer to make public opposition to their politics a crime.
In the case of the British state, its hardline stance to defend its idea of democracy from free speech is now threatening its economic future. The politics and laws celebrated as the guarantee of safety increasingly resemble a form of extremism which will not tolerate debate.
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