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Censorship Industrial Complex

WEF Davos 2025: Attendees at annual meeting wrestling for control of information

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World Economic Forum’s Prioritizes “Disinformation” Over Economic and Global Stability Threats

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is gearing up for its Davos meeting, set to take place January 20-24, and the group has now released the Global Risks Report 2025.

The report is based on “insights” from the Global Risks Perception Survey that take into account the opinions of 900 “global leaders” across business, government, academia and civil society, the WEF said.

The report reflects the unrelenting drive still present in many corners of the world and among political elites to push what they consider “disinformation” to the top of this agenda.

And so the WEF paper talks about “armed conflict, environment, and disinformation” as “top threats” this year. And that, as the authors note, from their point of view leaves economic risks as having “less immediate prominence.”

Meanwhile, “mis/disinformation” is ranked higher as a threat and that has happened two years in a row. This reads like another instance of taking an alarmist approach to “disinformation” (which then comes in handy when pushing all sorts of controversial policies, affecting online speech, security, and technology development).

The WEF report elevates “disinformation” to a “persistent threat to societal cohesion and governance by eroding trust” – and even “exacerbating divisions within and between nations” and “complicating” ways to cooperate on ending international crises.

And, when AI is thrown into the mix in its “adverse” form – “disinformation” underpins rising geopolitical tensions.

The way the report frames the issue of disinformation, that seems to be the only thing standing in the way of world peace.

While creating high drama around “disinformation” is one piece of the puzzle, the WEF also looks at long-term threats, such as to the environment. This, according to the document, will be dominant over the next decade, and this is the language the group uses: “(…) led by extreme weather events, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse.”

With the threats presented like this, the “solutions” are also very much in line with the WEF mission: promote more and more globalization, even as many countries might be looking to what the group disapprovingly calls, “turning inward.”

Instead, the WEF wants them to essentially double down on globalization, allegedly as the only way to “prevent a downward spiral of instability.”

One of the goals the WEF promotes – and is also one of the five overall topics of this year’s Davos meeting – is “rebuilding trust.”

Now, if only this group would focus more on explaining how that trust was lost.

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Trump signs executive order banning government censorship

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From The Center Square

By Dan McCaleb

President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order banning the federal government from taking any action to restrict Americans free speech rights.

The order ensures “that no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.”

It also ensures “that no taxpayer resources are used to engage in or facilitate any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen” and “identify and take appropriate action to correct past misconduct by the Federal Government related to censorship of protected speech.”

Meta earlier this month ended its practice of censoring posts on Facebook, Instagram and Threads after CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that the Biden administration pressured the company to remove posts related to COVID-19, the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections – including suppressing the New York Post’s explosive story on Hunter Biden’s laptop – and other matters.

“We started building social media to give people a voice,” Zuckerberg said in announcing the decision. “What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far.”

Twitter, now X, also removed posts under pressure from the Biden administration before Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk bought the social media platform in 2022.

Trump’s executive order also instructs the U.S. Attorney General to investigate past cases of government censorship.

“The Attorney General, in consultation with the heads of executive departments and agencies, shall investigate the activities of the Federal Government over the last 4 years that are inconsistent with the purposes and policies of this order and prepare a report to be submitted to the President, through the Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, with recommendations for appropriate remedial actions to be taken based on the findings of the report,” the order states.

​Dan McCaleb is the executive editor of The Center Square. He welcomes your comments. Contact Dan at [email protected].

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UK lawmaker threatens to use Online Safety Act to censor social media platforms

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From LifeSiteNews

By Didi Rankovic

Labour MP Lola McEvoy defended the Online Safety Act’s censorious measures, including bans and fines for social media platforms which ‘don’t comply’ with the strict age verification law.

Politicians from the U.K.’s ruling Labour party are starting to openly “out” the country’s Online Safety Act for the sweeping censorship law that its opponents have all along been warning it is.

The extreme case of using the law to completely ban social media platforms in the U.K. is now being promoted as a possibility by Labour MP Lola McEvoy.

“If these big platforms that have huge users don’t comply with the Online Safety Act, then they have no right to be accessed in this country,” the MP said while appearing on a podcast, adding, “So I think that’s what the law’s about.”

The masks are coming off, prompted by the latest clash between the government and Prime Minister Keir Starmer in particular and X owner Elon Musk – who criticized their role in a historical child sex exploitation scandal in the U.K.

In addition to saying that failure to comply with the law could result in the platforms getting banned, McEvoy suggested that “unelected citizens from other countries” should not be allowed to criticize U.K.’s government – she justified this by saying the criticism of Minister for Safeguarding Jess Phillips created “a very dangerous situation,” equating it to “bullying and harassment.”

McEvoy even made a point of public figures needing to be even more aggressively protected through censorship – effectively from whatever the government backing those figures decides to pack into the vague categories such as “bullying” and “harassment,” and in that way deal with critical, including legitimate, speech.

And where would any controversial call to step up online censorship be without getting served to the public as a way to above all – protect children?

McEvoy spoke about regulator Ofcom’s powers, which she described as “really significant” in enforcing the fines under the law that is being gradually implemented.

And as that is happening, this MP wants the Online Safety Act to be “strengthened” where it concerns the focus on things it treats as harmful to children, such as access to illegal content or pornography.

Reprinted with permission from Reclaim The Net.

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