Internet
Canada’s Censorship Crusade Targets Tech Giants in a Push for “Disinformation” Control
A flurry of controversial bills in Canada, some of which became law, serve to cement this impression.
Now, as President Trump prepares to start his second term in office in the US, Canada’s “orphaned” ruling class continues with the “disinformation” narrative – either as a sign of long-term commitment or looking for new “disinformation partners” elsewhere in the world – or simply as a sign of inertia.
Time will tell, and it will be interesting to see, but for the moment, news out of Canada speaks about a report compiled by the House of Commons Heritage Committee, titled, “Tech Giants’ Intimidation and Subversion Tactics to Evade Regulation in Canada and Globally.”
How about the tactics deployed in Canada – and globally – using all manner of intimidation and subversion to evade citizens’ right to free speech?
Maybe another day, by another ruling coalition.
Right now, the Liberals, the New Democratic Party, and Bloc Québécois stand behind statements such as this one, found in the cumbersomely-named report:
“The Government of Canada notes some individuals and groups create disinformation to promote political ideologies including extremist views and conspiracy theories or simply to make money.”
This looks like a call to combine (yet more) censorship with (yet more) deplatforming. And the ones to “fix” things for Canada’s current government are companies behind major social platforms, like Meta and Google.
But the group of Canada’s MPs behind the report believes so.
They want mechanisms put in place “to detect undesirable or questionable content that may be the product of disinformation or foreign interference and that these platforms be required to promptly identify such content and report it to users.”
Does Canadian parliament’s pressure on US tech companies not count as “foreign interference”? Unclear. Another thing that’s unclear – as in, undefined in the report – is what its authors have in mind when they mention “disinformation” and, “conspiracy theories.”
It’s as if these terms have become “art for art’s sake.”
Whatever that may be, Canada’s ruling parliamentarians want specific actions against these undefined phenomena to be enforced by tech companies.
“Failure to do so should result in penalties,” reads the document.
Censorship Industrial Complex
UNESCO launches course aimed at ‘training’ social media influencers to ‘report hate speech’
From LifeSiteNews
UNESCO’s bills its new ‘training’ initiative as empowering participants to be more credible and resilient while simply turning independent content creators into talking heads for the establishment.
UNESCO and the Knight Center for Journalism launch training courses, e-books, and surveys on disinformation and hate speech for influencers and content creators, big and small.
Last month, UNESCO published the results of a survey called “Behind the Screens: Insights from Digital Content Creators” that concluded that among 500 content creators in 45 countries that had a minimum of 1,000 followers, 62 percent said they did “not carry out rigorous and systematic fact-checking of information prior to sharing it,” while 73 percent expressed “the wish to be trained to do so.”
And lo and behold! UNESCO and the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas have launched a re-education course to brainwash independent creators into thinking like unelected globalists and the legacy media, whose credibility are at an all-time low:
The journalism industry is on high alert as news audiences continue to migrate away from legacy media to social media, and many young people place more trust in TikTokers than journalists working at storied news outlets
“Respondents to the survey expressed interest in taking UNESCO’s free online course designed to equip participants with media and information literacy skills and knowledge,” the report states.
To get an idea of the make-up of those 500 content creators that were surveyed in the UNESCO study:
- 68 percent were nano-influencers – those with 1,000 to 10,000 followers
- 25 percent were micro-influencers – those with 10,000 to 100,000 followers
- 4 percent were macro-influencers – those with 100,000 to 1,000,000 followers
- 6 percent were mega-influencers – those with over 1,000,000 followers
Only 12.2 percent of the 500 people surveyed produced content under the category of “current affairs/politics and economy” while the majority covered “fashion/lifestyle” (39.3 percent), “beauty” (34 percent), “travel and food” (30 percent), and “gaming” (29 percent).
Equip yourself to combat online misinformation, disinformation, hate speech, and harmful AI content. Collaborate with fellow journalists and content creators to promote transparency and accountability on digital platforms, empowering your audience with the media and information literacy skills they need to navigate today’s information landscape.
In addition to the survey and the online course called “Digital Content Creators and Journalists: How to Be a Trusted Voice Online,” UNESCO and the Knight Center also published an e-book in October called “Content Creators and Journalists: Redefining News and Credibility in the Digital Age.”
This pyramid of propaganda is billed as empowering influencers to be more credible and resilient, but these efforts are also aimed at turning independent content creators into talking heads for the establishment.
Despite their expanding outreach, many digital content creators who work independently face significant challenges including the lack of institutional support, guidance, and recognition. — UNESCO, Behind the Screens: Insights from Digital Content Creators, November 2024
How can an independent content creator remain independent if he or she needs institutional support, guidance, and recognition?
This is an attempt by the United Nations to take independence away from the equation, so that its messaging becomes indistinguishable from mainstream, establishment narratives.
And between the survey and the e-book, there is not one, single, solitary example of disinformation or hate speech – save perhaps the claim that denying official climate change narratives is considered disinformation, but that’s highly debatable.
Threats to collective climate action are often perpetuated not only by individual creators but by industries, like fossil fuels, that actively shape public discourse to their advantage.
Speaking of climate change, the e-book contains a lengthy chapter called “Content Creators and Climate Change” that is entirely dedicated to pushing climate activism while claiming climate change disinformation is often perpetuated by coordinated campaigns from fossil fuel industries.
The UNESCO documents place heavy emphasis on disclosing who’s funding content creators while ignoring its partner, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP), and its alleged influence over UNESCO:
The Chinese Communist Party uses UNESCO to “rewrite history” and to “legitimize the party’s rule over regions with large ethnic minorities.”
When held to a mirror, UNESCO comes off as little more than hypocritical with massive conflicts of interests of its own:
One of the biggest ethical questions is knowing from where content creators derive their income.
At the same time, UNESCO points readers towards organizations like factcheck.org, which itself is funded by the likes of the U.S. State Department and the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, the latter of which holds approximately $2 billion of stock in COVID vaccine manufacturer J&J, according to U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie.
In January 2021, UNESCO, the WHO, UNDP, EU, and the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas ran a similar type of propaganda campaign for so-called COVID vaccine disinformation training for journalists as they are now doing for so-called climate change disinformation for content creators.
Another goal of UNESCO and the Knight Center is to create an environment where content creators snitch on one another under the guise of “hate speech”:
Among those targeted by hate speech, most chose to ignore it (31.5%). Only one-fifth (20.4%) reported it to social media platforms. This indicates an area where UNESCO and its partners could provide valuable training for digital content creators on how to effectively address and report hate speech.
In other words, the U.N. is partnering with journalists to teach influencers how to become victims that need protection.
Hey! Content creators. Were you aware that any criticism against the propaganda that we’ve planted within you means that you were a victim of hate speech? No? Well, climb on board and let’s “effectively address and report hate speech!”
Reprinted with permission from The Sociable.
Internet
Jordan Peterson moves to US, says Trudeau’s Canada may soon become ‘totalitarian hell hole’
From LifeSiteNews
Popular Canadian psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson has moved to the United States, citing new censorship laws in the works from the Trudeau government, which he said would make living in Canada akin to being in a ‘totalitarian hell hole.’
Popular Canadian psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson has moved to the United States, citing as one reason new censorship laws in the works from the Trudeau government, which he said would make living in Canada akin to being in a “totalitarian hell hole.”
Peterson made the announcement in a recent podcast with his daughter, Mikhaila Peterson Fuller. The father and daughter talked about a host of different things, but Mikhaila at one point said, “Welcome to moving to America formally.”
“I guess that’s what happened, isn’t it?” said Peterson. “Is this the big announcement?”
Thanks to the authoritarian Liberal thugs in our government, Canada has lost a national treasure.
Jordan Peterson has announced that he is officially moving to the States.
This made me sad. pic.twitter.com/wlHFAjiZ82
— 🅾️ Kat Kanada (@KatKanada_TM) December 12, 2024
When it comes to the Trudeau government, he took direct aim at its Bill C-63, or the Online Harms Act. Put forth under the guise of protecting children from exploitation online, the bill seeks to expand the scope of “hate speech” prosecutions, and even desires to target such speech retroactively.
The law also calls for the creation of a Digital Safety Commission, a digital safety ombudsperson, and the Digital Safety Office, all tasked with policing internet content.
“[With] the new legislation that the Liberals are attempting to push through Bill C-63, I’d be living in a totalitarian hell hole if that legislation passes, and it could well pass,” he said.
“The tax situation is out of hand. The government in Canada at the federal level is incompetent beyond belief and it’s become uncomfortable for me in my neighborhood in Toronto,” he added.
He went on to note how living in the United States, where his daughter Mikhaila resides, comes with “decided advantages.”
Peterson observed that another reason for ditching his hometown of Toronto for sunny Florida was his ongoing battle with the College of Psychologists and Behavioural Analysts of Ontario.
“The issue with the College of Psychologists is very annoying, to say the least,” he said.
He has been embattled with the CPO after it mandated he undergo social media “training” to keep his license after he made posts on X, formerly Twitter, criticizing Trudeau and LGBT activists. He recently noted how the CPO offered him a deal to “be bought” in which the legal fees owed to them after losing his court challenge could be waived, but only if he agreed to quit his job as a psychologist.
Peterson recently demanded an apology from Trudeau after the Canadian prime minister accused him of being funded by Russian state media.
For his part, he has been critical of Trudeau and his Liberal government for years.
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