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Censorship Industrial Complex

Telegram founder Pavel Durov released from jail on $5 million bail, faces criminal charges

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From LifeSiteNews

By Andreas Wailzer

Durov’s lawyer David-Olivier Kaminski said, “The only statement I’d wish to make is that Telegram is in conformity with every aspect of European norms on digital matters. It is absurd to think that the head of a social network is being charged.”

Telegram co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov has been released from jail on bail but is forbidden from leaving France and must check in with the French police twice a week.

On Wednesday, August 28, Durov was released on 5 million euros (5,537,620 USD) bail. However, French authorities also indicted Durov on six charges related to allegedly illegal activity on the popular messaging app.

Politico quotes the Paris prosecutor’s office press release, stating that the charges include complicity in managing Telegram “in order to enable an illegal transaction in organized group.”

Durov was reportedly also charged with “complicity in the offenses of making available without legitimate reason a program or data designed for… organized gang distribution of images of minors presenting child pornography, drug trafficking.”

READ: Telegram founder tells Tucker Carlson that US intel agents tried to spy on user messages

Telegram “appears in multiple cases involving various offenses (child sexual abuse offenses, trafficking, online hate),” the prosecutor’s office stated, highlighting “Telegram’s almost total failure to respond to judicial requests.”

“When consulted, other French investigation departments and public prosecutors’ offices, as well as various Eurojust partners, notably Belgian, shared the same observation,” the French prosecutor added. “This led… to opening an investigation into the possible criminal responsibility of the managers of this messaging service.”

A French judge will now investigate these charges further.

The prosecutor also mentioned that a preliminary investigation into Telegram and its co-founder had already been opened in February. Politico reports that arrest warrants for both Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai were issued by French authorities in March.

READ: Arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov signals an increasing threat to digital freedom

Durov, who is a Russian, French, and UAE citizen, was arrested on August 24 after his private jet landed at Le Bourget airport. His arrest sparked outrage and concern among prominent free speech advocates such as Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson and has triggered diplomatic tensions between France, Russia, and the UAE, with the latter two offering support to Durov.

French President Emmanuel Macron denied the charges of Durov’s arrest being politically motivated.

“The arrest of the president of Telegram on French soil took place as part of an ongoing judicial investigation,” Macron wrote on X. “It is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to rule on the matter.”

However, if one of the main concerns of the prosecution is child sexual abuse and human trafficking allegedly facilitated through Telegram, as it has stated, other social media platforms would need to be charged as well. Reports in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal revealed that social media giant Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, knew about its platforms being used to facilitate child sexual exploitation but neglected to solve the issue. Yet, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has faced no legal consequences.

Censorship Industrial Complex

Australian woman fired, dragged before tribunal for saying only women can breastfeed

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From LifeSiteNews

By David James

Sussex argued that males who take drugs to lactate should not be experimenting on children, describing it is a “dangerous fetish.”

In yet another blow to free speech in Australia, Jasmine Sussex, a Victorian breastfeeding expert, is being taken to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal for saying that only females can breastfeed their babies.

Sussex argued that males who take drugs to lactate should not be experimenting on children, describing it is a “dangerous fetish.”

Her tweets about an Australian male breastfeeding his infant with a cocktail of lactose-inducing drugs was removed by X (formerly Twitter) for Australian users, although it remained visible to overseas users. The move came after requests from a “government entity or law enforcement agency”, according to Twitter. Sussex was told she had “broken the law” although it was not made clear what law that was.

Sussex was also sacked from the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) for refusing to use gender neutral language. She is one of seven counsellors to be formally investigated by the ABA leadership and one of five to be sacked.

The complaint against Sussex is being brought by Queenslander Jennifer Buckley in Queensland’s Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Buckley was born male and later identified as a woman and “transitioned.” Buckley acted after a transgender parent complained to the Queensland Human Rights Commission.

Buckley reportedly biologically fathered a baby through IVF and is raising the child with his wife. He posted on social media about taking hormones to grow breasts, explaining: “For the past six weeks I have been taking a drug called domperidone to increase prolactin in an attempt to be able to produce breast milk so that I can have the experience of breastfeeding.”

The case is not just about suppressing a person’s right to say what most would consider to be a statement of the obvious. It raises fundamental questions about how the law is to be crafted and applied.

A legal system depends on clear semantics, the definition of words. The potential confusion that can be created by not having a clear understanding of a person’s sex was exposed in the hearing for US Supreme Court applicant Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Asked to define what a “woman” is, Jackson replied: “I can’t,” adding that she was not a biologist.

This definitional problem has been cynically fudged by mixing up the words “gender” and “sex.” It is claimed that there are 72 genders, by implication turning the question of physical sex into a matter of identity and personal psychology. There are presumably only two sexes.

That is the kind of rhetorical move made by Buckley, who said Sussex’s comments were “hurtful” because he was looking to have “the experience of breastfeeding.” This is analogous to saying that gender differences should be reduced to matters of personal perception, not observable physical characteristics.

In that sense, Sussex and Buckley are talking past each other; the words they use do not have the same meaning. Sussex is saying that objectively only “women” can lactate naturally. It is true that with drug assistance it is possible for “men” to mimic breast feeding to a limited degree. But that is artificial. It is not natural breast feeding. Sussex, who is an experienced consultant on breast feeding, also warns there may be medical issues with “male” breastfeeding that need further examination.

Buckley is arguing that her/his personal experience (of breastfeeding) is what matters and that anyone who questions that is infringing on his rights. He wants to be understood as a “woman” who was a “man”, although he reportedly still possesses male characteristics, such as being able to father a child. This is possible because he feels that way, it is how he “identifies”. But the fact that he has to undergo drug treatment indicates that in a physical sense he is a “man”.

In law, there is always a preference for physical evidence over what people say they are thinking or feeling. The latter is often changeable and difficult to demonstrate; it is poor quality evidence. There should also be an insistence on having an unambiguous understanding of the meaning of words.

On that basis Sussex, who is being represented by the Human Rights Law Alliance, should be able to defend herself effectively. But there is little reason to have confidence in the Australian legal system. It has shown itself to be highly susceptible to politics. The bullying of people who say things once thought to be self-evident may yet continue.

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Censorship Industrial Complex

Elon Musk slams woke Los Angeles Times for questioning ‘morality’ of having children

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

‘Extinctionists want a holocaust for all of humanity,’ Elon Musk warned after the far-left Los Angeles Times questioned whether it is ‘right’ to have children.

Pro-free speech tech mogul Elon Musk slammed a woke news outlet for shaming parents for having children.

In a September 14 post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Elon Musk condemned the Los Angeles Times for degrading those who wish to bring children into the world over the claim that doing so may increase “climate change.”

“Extinctionists want a holocaust for all of humanity,” Musk declared.

The post was in response to a September 11 article by the Los Angeles Times titled “It’s almost shameful to want to have children.”

The article, written by a professor of “gender and sexuality studies,” questions the morality of having children, considering the current political and “climate” situation.

“American society feels more socially and politically polarized than ever. Is it right to bring another person into that?” it questioned, suggesting that it would be better not to exist than to live in a society with social tension.

READ: Nobel Prize winner denounces alarmist climate predictions: ‘I don’t believe there is a climate crisis’

The author interviewed seven young people, who the author claimed, “have more climate change knowledge than most people do.” Out of the seven, five did not want to have biological children, while the two who were unsure struggled “with whether it’s morally OK to have children.”

The article’s anti-life message is becoming increasingly commonplace among leftists and reflects the plans lain out by the World Economic Forum to radically reduce the world’s population.

While some climate activists have promoted the idea that the world’s population must be restrained in order to sustain its existing people, numerous studies debunk that claim as well as claims that the earth can only hold 8 billion people or fewer.

Musk has been a longtime advocate for higher birth rates, warning that a “collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces, by far.”

In 2022, Elon Musk, pointed out that America’s total fertility rate has been below replacement for approximately a half-century.

An August report found that the U.S. fertility rate reached a historic low in 2023, with fewer Americans are having children than ever before, a trend that experts have warned could lead to societal collapse.

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