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Censorship Industrial Complex

Chinese firms show off latest police-state surveillance tech at security expo

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From LifeSiteNews

By Angeline Tan

45 Chinese firms have showcased their latest police-state products and technologies, with one expert warning that the communist nation is doing so to normalize their method of surveillance and have it adopted abroad.

45 Chinese firms have showcased their latest police-state products and technologies, including state-of-the-art CCTV, precise DNA-testing technology and intrusive facial tracking software, at the inaugural Public Security Tech Expo in Lianyungang, located in China’s Jiangsu province.

Hosted by China’s First Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security, the 6-day tech expo which began on September 7 showed off advanced technologies in the domains of “criminal technology, police protective equipment, traffic management equipment, anti-terrorism rescue, and command and communication,” according to the forum’s website.

The website’s official description says “the main purpose of holding the Public Security Tech Expo (Lianyungang) under the framework of the Forum is to deepen technical exchanges and international cooperation in the field of public security science and technology equipment, share useful experience in the application of science and technology equipment to public security practice, and jointly improve the ability and level of maintaining public security.”

One firm participating in the expo, Caltta Technologies, featured a project aimed at “helping” the southern African nation of Mozambique establish an “Incident Response Platform,” extolling its abilities to harness data in “rapid target location.”

Tech giant Huawei was also at the expo, boasting that its “Public Safety Solution” is currently used in more than 100 countries and regions, from Kenya to Saudi Arabia. The United States sanctioned Huawei in 2019, castigating the firm as “an arm” of the Chinese surveillance state.

The expo also saw China’s Ministry of Public Security’s Institute of Forensic Science show off its new high-tech DNA testing technologies. In 2020, Washington banned the institute from accessing some U.S. technology after a number of Chinese firms decried the institute as being “complicit in human rights violations and abuses.”

In 2018, the U.S. Treasury stated that residents of Xinjiang “were required to download a desktop version” of the app “so authorities could monitor for illicit activity.”

Communist China has been slammed for jailing over one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang – claims Beijing vehemently denies. Nonetheless, critics have pointed out how China’s surveillance technologies have been used to draconically suppress dissidents in the Xinjiang province.

During the expo’s opening ceremony, China’s police minister praised Beijing for training thousands of overseas police officers this past year – and pledged to aid in the training of thousands more over the coming year.

According to UCA News, “China is one of the most surveilled societies on Earth, with millions of CCTV cameras scattered across cities and facial recognition technology widely used in everything from day-to-day law enforcement to political repression.”

The same UCA News article added:

Its police serve a dual purpose: keeping the peace and cracking down on petty crime while also ensuring challenges to the ruling Communist Party are swiftly stamped out.

Notably, various foreign police officers said they hoped to use Chinese surveillance technology to police their own countries.

“We can learn from China,” said Sydney Gabela, a major general in the South African police service, according to UCA News.

“We wanted to check out the new technologies that are coming out so that we can deploy them in South Africa,” Gabela said.

China’s notoriety for being a highly-surveilled state goes back a long way. In 2023, The Economist ran an article detailing how the prevalence of CCTV cameras in Communist China, many bedecked with facial-recognition technology, “leave criminals with nowhere to hide.” A September 2019 report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) also disclosed  that “the Chinese government has increasingly employed advanced technology to amplify its repression of religious and faith communities.”

The executive summary of the same USCIRF report stated:

Authorities have installed surveillance cameras both outside and inside houses of worship to monitor and identify attendees. The government has deployed facial recognition systems that are purportedly able to distinguish Uighurs and Tibetans from other ethnic groups. Chinese authorities have also collected biometric information—including blood samples, voice recordings, and fingerprints—from religious and faith communities, often without their consent. The government uses advanced computing platforms and artificial intelligence to collate and recognize patterns in the data on religious and faith communities. Chinese technology companies have aided the government’s crackdown on religion and belief by supplying advanced hardware and computing systems to government agencies.

Censorship Industrial Complex

Global media alliance colluded with foreign nations to crush free speech in America: House report

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From LifeSiteNews

By Dan Frieth

The now-defunct ad coalition GARM shared insider data and urged boycotts of Twitter to punish non-compliance with its ‘harmful content’ standards, a US House Judiciary report shows.

A new report from the U.S. House Judiciary Committee has shed light on what it describes as an alarming collaboration between powerful corporations and foreign governments aimed at suppressing lawful American speech.

The investigation focuses on the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), an initiative founded in 2019 by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), which the committee accuses of acting as a censorship cartel.

According to the report, GARM, whose members control about 90 percent of global advertising spending, exploited its market dominance to pressure platforms like Twitter (now X) into compliance with its restrictive content policies.

A copy of the report can be found HERE.

The committee highlighted how GARM sought to “effectively reduce the availability and monetization” of content it deemed harmful, regardless of public demand for free expression.

Documents obtained by the committee reveal direct coordination between GARM and foreign regulators, including the European Commission and Australia’s eSafety commissioner.

In one exchange, a European bureaucrat encouraged advertisers to leverage their influence to “push Twitter to deliver on GARM asks.”

Similarly, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant praised GARM’s “significant collective power in helping to hold the platforms to account” and sought updates to “take into account in our engagement and regulatory decisions.”

Partial email from Julie Inman Grant to Rob Rakowitz dated November 9, 2022, expressing interest in GARM's collective power to hold platforms accountable and emphasizing the importance of brand and platform safety, with email addresses partially redacted.

Robert Rakowitz, GARM’s co-founder and initiative lead, expressed a chilling goal in private correspondence, stating that silencing President Donald Trump was his “main thing” and likening the president’s speech to a “contagion” he aimed to contain “to protect infection overall.”

Email from Rob Rakowitz dated Tuesday, November 1, 2022, discussing plans approved by the Steer Team to influence Twitter and Elon Musk regarding advertising standards, mentioning collaboration with WPP and outlining transparency and remediation plans for advertisers; includes blacked-out and redacted email addresses and ends with his title as Initiative Lead at the Global Alliance for Responsible Media and mentions WFA locations in Brussels, London, New York, and Singapore.

The report outlines how GARM distributed previously unavailable non-public information about Twitter’s adherence to its standards, fully aware this would prompt advertisers to boycott the platform if it failed to conform. According to the House report, Rakowitz admitted that this information sharing was designed to encourage members not to advertise on Twitter.

He went as far as to draft statements urging GARM members to halt advertising on the platform, telling colleagues he had gone “as close as possible” to saying Twitter “is unsafe, cease and desist.”

Despite the widespread impact of GARM’s actions, including what the committee describes as coerced “concessions” from platforms, internal polling circulated within GARM showed that “66 percent of American consumers valued free expression over protection from harmful content.”

Still, GARM pressed ahead with efforts to “eliminate all categories of harmful content in the fastest possible timing,” ignoring consumer preferences.

Even after GARM dissolved in 2024 amid legal challenges, similar efforts persisted.

A new coalition led by Dentsu and The 614 Group briefly attempted to revive GARM’s mission before disbanding under scrutiny. Gerry D’Angelo, a former GARM leader, reflected on the initiative’s overreach, stating, “Did we go too far in those first rounds of exclusionary restrictions? I would say yes.”

The Judiciary Committee warns that despite GARM’s downfall, the threat of collusion to stifle free expression remains.

It pledged to continue oversight to defend “the fundamental principles” of the Constitution and ensure that markets, not coordinated censorship efforts, shape the flow of information in the digital age.

Reprinted with permission from Reclaim The Net.

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Censorship Industrial Complex

Jordan Peterson reveals DEI ‘expert’ serving as his ‘re-education coach’ for opposing LGBT agenda

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

The Ontario College of Psychologists has selected Jordan Peterson’s “re-education coach” for having publicly opposed the LGBT agenda.

In a June 16 op-ed published by the National Post, Canadian psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson revealed that U.K. citizen Harry Cayton will guide him through the mandatory training.

“In the last week … the College has re-established contact, after months of unnecessary delay, which occurred in violation of their own order and guidelines. They have made me an entirely new offer, all the while insisting that this was their intent all along, which it most clearly was not,” Peterson said.

“All they really want, it turns out, is one two-hour session, which will not involve any ‘social media’ training,” he further explained. “This will be conducted by a man — one Harry Cayton — a citizen of the U.K., who is neither social media expert, according to the College and is definitely not a psychologist.”

Harry Cayton, a supposed expert on “professional regulation and governance,” is known professionally for promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

In 2021, he was appointed to conduct an independent review of the British Columbia Law Society’s governance structure, specifically examining how it supports DEI goals.

Additionally, in 2022, while appearing on Ascend Radio’s podcast, Cayton argued there should be more DEI regulations in professional associations.

Peterson has promised to make the details of his “re-education” public, questioning why the College wishes to hide what Cayton plans to discuss with him.

Peterson also explained that he will publicize the training “so that people who are interested can decide for themselves what is going on.”

In January 2024, Peterson lost his appeal of the board’s decision to compel him to undergo mandatory re-education, meaning that he must attend the training or risk losing his license to practice psychology in Ontario.

Peterson also revealed that his “legal options have” now “been exhausted” after Ontario’s highest court rejected his appeal of the College’s 2022 ruling that his public political statements ran afoul of the administrative board’s rules and that he must therefore submit to, and personally pay for, a “coaching program” on professionalism.

Peterson is a widely-known critic of Canada’s increasingly totalitarian government. He has also spoken frequently on the need for young men to accept and take on personal responsibility. While he has seemingly inspired others to explore Christianity, he has not yet espoused a personal belief in any religion, though he affirmed his wife Tammy in her decision to convert to Catholicism in 2024.

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