Censorship Industrial Complex
‘Silicon Curtain’ Is Protecting Government Censorship
From Heartland Daily News
By AnneMarie Schieber
Citing Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” metaphor describing the Cold War division of Europe, health care policy expert Dr. Jay Bhattacharya told an audience, “We are now in the middle of a Silicon Curtain of censorship descending across the previously free West.”
In a keynote address at The Heartland Institute’s Benefit Dinner in Chicago on September 13, Bhattacharya said public health is the new “fig leaf” for justifying government censorship.
“Free speech is in dire danger in the U.S.,” said Bhattacharya. “The government will use its power to suppress criticism [of] its own misinformation.”
Bhattacharya is a plaintiff in Murthy v. Missouri, in which the Supreme Court lifted a preliminary injunction directing the Biden administration not to “coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to suppress protected speech” and remanded the case to a lower court.
“This gives a way to the government to censor at will,” said Bhattacharya. “All they have to do is send emails and algorithms to social media companies without naming a single person—just name ideas not allowed to be said online.
“The First Amendment, in effect, is an unenforceable dead letter,” said Bhattacharya.
Under Fire for Opinions
Bhattacharya, a medical doctor and professor of medicine, economics, and health care research policy at Stanford University, rose to prominence when he published The Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) on October 4, 2020, with epidemiologists Martin Kulldorff and Sunetra Gupta. The declaration criticized COVID lockdowns and urged authorities to focus on keeping children in school and protecting the elderly instead of imposing broad-based restrictions.
Although the writers were highly recognized for their work and associated with Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford Universities, respectively, powerful government figures denounced them. Francis Collins, then director of the National Institutes of Health, and Anthony Fauci, then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, called the trio “fringe epidemiologists” in emails that were made public later.
Ostracized and Blacklisted
Bhattacharya was ostracized by other professors at Stanford and was blacklisted on Twitter. When Elon Musk purchased the social media giant, he discovered the list and shared it with Bhattacharya.
Google “de-boosted” the GBD, which was posted online and signed by more than 940,000 doctors, researchers, and concerned citizens. Facebook banned posting of it altogether.
Using internal government emails they obtained, the plaintiffs showed the government was controlling social media companies by threatening to regulate them out of business if they didn’t abide by the Biden administration’s censorship demands.
The White House also used universities to help with the censorship work, which the government is prohibited from doing directly. Bhattacharya brought up the case of the Stanford Internet Observatory, which received government grants to develop algorithms to target a particular idea. The government shared that information with social media platforms.
Rising Worldwide
Europe, Canada, the U.K., and Australia have led the way on legislation to control speech, Bhattacharya told the audience. The bills and laws ostensibly outlaw violence, pornography, and hate on the internet, carry Orwellian names, and establish authorities to do the enforcement.
These include the Digital Services Act in the E.U., the Online Harms Act in Canada, and the Online Safety Act of 2023 in the U.K. A bill in France establishes a digital “safety” commission for the same purpose.
“It is dangerous to let governments have control over the definition of hate,” said Bhattacharya. “It’s even more dangerous to allow government to determine what is misinformation because science and medicine depend on free speech to operate properly.”
Censoring Political Opponents
Scott Jensen, a medical doctor and Minnesota state senator who ran against Tim Walz for governor in 2022, says his respect for Bhattacharya is immense. Jensen was a prominent critic of COVID-19 policies, and Facebook censored his election page. Jensen lost the race, and Walz went on to implement some of the most draconian COVID-19 restrictions and is Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate in this year’s election for president.
“Dr. Bhattacharya’s willingness to present and stand by a contrarian narrative—which ultimately proved to be profoundly wise—will go down in history as an act of immense courage in the face of smothering government censorship fueled by behemoth, profit-driven technological companies,” said Jensen.
“American’s First Amendment rights are under attack by a political elite, but Dr. Jay Bhattacharya continues to stand in the breach and do whatever is necessary to protect and defend free speech,” said Jensen.
AnneMarie Schieber ([email protected]) is the managing editor of Health Care News.
Censorship Industrial Complex
Top constitutional lawyer warns against Liberal bills that could turn Canada into ‘police state’
From LifeSiteNews
‘Freedom in Canada is dying slowly and gradually, not by a single fell swoop, but by a thousand cuts,’ wrote John Carpay of the JCCF.
One of Canada’s top constitutional legal experts has warned that freedom in the nation is “dying slowly” because of a host of laws both passed and now proposed by the Liberal federal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney, saying it is “up to citizens” to urge lawmakers to reverse course.
In an opinion piece that was published in the Epoch Times on December 15, John Carpay, who heads the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), gave a bleak outlook on no less than six Liberal laws, which he warned will turn Canada into a “police state.”
“Freedom in Canada is dying slowly and gradually, not by a single fell swoop, but by a thousand cuts,” he wrote.
Carpay gave the example of laws passed in the United Kingdom dealing with freedom of online speech, noting how in Canada “too few Canadians have spoken out against the federal government gradually taking over the internet through a series of bills with innocuous and even laudable titles.”
“How did the United Kingdom end up arresting thousands of its citizens (more than 30 per day) over their Facebook, X, and other social media posts? This Orwellian nightmare was achieved one small step at a time. No single step was deemed worthy of fierce and effective opposition by British citizens,” he warned.
Carpay noted how UK citizens essentially let it happen that their rights were taken away from them via mass “state surveillance.”
He said that in Canada Bill C-11, also known as the Online Streaming Act, passed in 2023, “undermines net neutrality.” Bill C-11 mandates that Big Tech companies pay to publish Canadian content on their platforms. As a result, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, blocked all access to news content in Canada.
“The Online Streaming Act undermines net neutrality (all online content being treated equally) and amounts to an aggressive expansion of government control over the internet and media companies. The CRTC now has broad power over what Canadians watch, hear, and access online, deciding what is discoverable, permissible, or even visible,” noted Carpay.
Carpay also warned about two recent bills before the House of Commons: Bill C-2, the Strong Borders Act, Bill C-8, and Bill C-9, as well as the Combating Hate Act.
He cautioned that Bill C-2, as it reads, “authorizes warrantless demands for subscriber data and metadata from online providers.”
“Bill C-2 should be called the Strong Surveillance Act, as it gives sweeping powers to a host of non-police government officials to conduct warrantless searches,” warned Carpay.
He observed how Bill C-2 would grant law enforcement “unprecedented powers to monitor Canadians’ digital activity,” without any “judicial oversight.”
“Any online service provider—including social media and cloud platforms, email domain hosts and even smaller service providers—would be compelled to disclose subscriber information and metadata,” he warned.
When it comes to Bill C-8, or The Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act, Carpay warned that if passed it would “allow government to kick Canadians off the internet.”
“The government’s pretext for the Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act is to ‘modernize’ Canada’s cybersecurity framework and protect it against any threats of ‘interference, manipulation, disruption or degradation,’” wrote Carpay.
“Sadly, it remains entirely unclear whether ‘disinformation’ (as defined by government) would constitute ‘interference, manipulation, disruption or degradation’.”
Lawyer warns new laws ‘grant government unprecedented control’
Bill C-9, the Combating Hate Act, has been blasted by constitutional experts as allowing empowered police and the government to go after those it deems have violated a person’s “feelings” in a “hateful” way.
Carpay, who has warned about this bill and others, noted that when it comes to Bill C-9, it affects Canadians’ right to religious freedom, as it “removes needed protection from religious leaders (and others) who wish to proclaim what their sacred scriptures teach about human sexuality.”
“Marc Miller, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, has stated publicly that he views certain Bible and Koran passages as hateful. Bill C-9 would chill free speech, especially on the internet where expression is recorded indefinitely, and particularly for activists, journalists, and other people expressing opinions contrary to government-approved narratives,” he wrote.
“This law also vastly increases the maximum sentences that could be imposed if a judge feels that the offence was ‘motivated by hatred,’ and creates new offences. It prohibits merely displaying certain symbols linked to hate or terrorism in public, and extends criminal liability to peaceful protest activity.”
Carpay said that both C-8 and C-9 together “collectively grant government unprecedented control over online speech, news, streaming services, and digital infrastructure.”
He said that the Liberal federal government is “transforming Canada’s centuries-old traditions of free speech and privacy rights into something revocable at the pleasure of the CRTC, politicians, and bureaucrats,” adding that Canadians need to wake up.
“Laziness and naivete are not valid reasons for failing to rise up (peacefully!) and revolt against all of these bills, which are slowly but surely turning Canada into a police state,” he wrote.
Carpay said that Canadians need to contact their MPs and “demand the immediate repeal of the Online Streaming Act and the Online News Act,” and “reject” the other bills before the House.
When it comes to Bill C-9, as reported by LifeSiteNews, the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) launched a petition demanding that a Liberal government bill that would criminalize parts of the Bible dealing with homosexuality under Canada’s new “hate speech” laws be fully rescinded.
The amendments to Bill C-9 have been condemned by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, who penned an open letter to the Carney Liberals, blasting the proposed amendment and calling for its removal.
Censorship Industrial Complex
How Wikipedia Got Captured: Leftist Editors & Foreign Influence On Internet’s Biggest Source of Info
Fr0m Stossel TV
I once reported how great Wikipedia is. But now, it’s manipulated by leftists. That’s a big problem because its bad information corrupts AI and search results. Even c0-founder Larry Sanger agrees.
But that’s just the beginning of the problem because “Wikipedia’s information spreads into everything online,” says @ashleyrindsbergmedia of @NPOVmedia .
That means when your ask ChatGPT, Google, or your phone a question, it’ll likely to take leftist spin straight from Wikipedia. Wikipedia bans most right-wing news sources and suggests Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist (but they don’t even call Fidel Castro’s successor authoritarian).
They’ve turned my Wikipedia page into a smear against me.
I explain in this video.
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https://www.johnstossel.com/#subscrib…
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