Latest News Posts
Veteran Australian broadcaster Alan Jones loses weekly column following anti-lockdown stance
Reclaim the Net
Jones has been a big a big challenger of Australia’s more extreme approach to COVID measures and often goes viral online.
Sydney-based outlet The Daily Telegraph will no longer publish columns by popular media personality Alan Jones, who is accused of criticizing lockdowns and COVID measures.
The news outlet says the column was pulled because it was not resonating with users, not because of the controversial commentary on vaccines and COVID-19 measures.
Jones, a veteran broadcaster, who last week went viral around the world for his criticism of President Joe Biden in a CNN Town Hall, was informed that his column would no longer be published by The Daily Telegraph’s editor Ben English.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE > https://reclaimthenet.org/alan-jones-loses-weekly-column/
Google’s Jigsaw proposes real-time, cross-platform monitoring of “hate clusters” to “disrupt their reach”
Reclaim the Net
Google’s researchers aren’t happy that users are migrating to platforms that don’t censor “misinformation.”
As Big Tech platforms have increased their censorship of so-called “hate speech” and “COVID-19 misinformation,” platforms such as free speech social network Gab and the messaging app Telegram have seen a surge in new users.
Now, a new post from Google’s Jigsaw unit, which “explores threats to open societies and builds technology that inspires scalable solutions”, is recommending that users of these platforms should be surveilled across platforms in real-time, so that they can be more easily be blocked from sharing links to “harmful content.”
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE > https://reclaimthenet.org/google-jigsaw-hate-cluster-monitoring/
Northern Ireland admits vaccine passport data leak
Reclaim the Net
Another reason why vaccine passports are a bad idea.
Northern Ireland’s online vaccine passport system (COVIDCert NI) has been temporarily suspended following a data leak. The incident underscores people’s concerns about privacy with digital vaccine certification systems.
Northern Ireland’s Department of Health (DoH) announced the data leak and the suspension of the COVIDCert NI service. The department said some users of the service were shown data of other users, in some circumstances. At the time of writing, both the web portal and mobile app of the system were not working.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE > https://reclaimthenet.org/northern-ireland-admits-vaccine-passport-data-leak/
Twitter forced Dave Rubin to delete a tweet criticizing federal vaccine mandates
Reclaim the Net
Forced to erase a tweet that echoed points that have been reported by multiple mainstream media outlets.
Twitter locked talkshow host and author Dave Rubin out of his account and forced him to delete a tweet where he called out federal vaccine mandates and noted that people with the vaccine are getting and transmitting COVID.
“They want a federal vaccine mandate for vaccines that are clearly not working as promised just a few weeks ago,” Rubin said in the now-deleted tweet. “People are getting and transmitting COVID despite vax. Plus now they’re prepping us for booster shots. A sane society would take a pause. We do not live in a sane society.”
Twitter flagged the tweet for allegedly “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19” and ordered him to delete the tweet to regain access to his account.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE > https://reclaimthenet.org/twitter-dave-rubin-delete-tweet-federal-vaccine-mandates/
Canada’s next proposal to censor the internet
Reclaim the Net
Unfortunately, the government hasn’t given up.
Canada’s ruling Liberals are continuing their efforts to bring radical forms of internet censorship to the country’s online space.
The latest proposal, described as a vast and wide-ranging system in Canadian press reports, sets the goal of preventing illegal content from being posted on Facebook, Pornhub, YouTube, and other major platforms. Child pornography and “hate speech” – two very different types of content – are singled out in these reports as examples of what would qualify as illegal under the new law.
The draft was made public on Thursday and Canadians will have until the end of September to comment on it. The plan is to have large fines – up to $70,000 – imposed on those found in violation of these rules, and put pressure on platforms to comply with takedown requests regarding content flagged by users within 24 hours.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE > https://reclaimthenet.org/canadas-next-proposal-to-censor-the-internet/
German court says Facebook’s “hate speech” ban rules violate speech rights
Reclaim the Net
Is Germany protecting some online speech rights more than the US?
A 2018 decision to temporarily ban two users in Germany because of their comments about migrants posted on the platform has come back to bite Facebook, since the country’s Federal Supreme Court has now ruled that this case of censorship violated the users’ right to free speech.
Facebook at the time found the comments to be derogatory and treated them as hate speech, cutting the two users off without giving them a chance to respond and appeal. The court focused on this point to find it unacceptable under the law of the land in force at the time, slamming also Facebook’s censorship rules and the way they are enforced.
Facebook is not alone in its notorious and arrogant system of removing content and blocking users without notifying them about it first – and without explaining the reasons later – but the German Supreme Court said this would have to change going forward.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE > https://reclaimthenet.org/german-court-says-facebooks-hate-speech-rules-violate-speech-rights/
If Private Platforms Use Government Guidelines to Police Content, is that State Censorship?
TK News
YouTube’s decision to demonetize podcaster Bret Weinstein raises serious questions, both about the First Amendment and regulatory capture
Just under three years ago, Infowars anchor Alex Jones was tossed off Facebook, Apple, YouTube, and Spotify, marking the unofficial launch of the “content moderation” era. The censorship envelope has since widened dramatically via a series of high-profile incidents: Facebook and Twitter suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, Donald Trump’s social media suspension, Apple and Amazon’s kneecapping of Parler, the removal of real raw footage from the January 6th riots, and others.
This week’s decision by YouTube to demonetize podcaster Bret Weinstein belongs on that list, and has a case to be put at or near the top, representing a different and perhaps more unnerving speech conundrum than those other episodes.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE > https://taibbi.substack.com/p/a-case-of-intellectual-capture-on
Amazon hit with record EU data privacy fine
Amazon.com Inc. has been hit with a record $886.6 million (746 million euros) European Union fine for processing personal data in violation of the bloc’s GDPR rules, as privacy regulators take a more aggressive position on enforcement.
The Luxembourg National Commission for Data Protection imposed the fine on Amazon in a July 16 decision, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing on Friday.
Will New Yorkers need to download another vaccine passport app?
City & State New York
New York City will launch its own vaccine passport app next month on top of the state-run Excelsior Pass.
As the COVID-19 delta variant continues to contribute to rising cases across the state, both New York City and the state are taking new steps to promote vaccination and other means of protection from the spread of the virus. On Thursday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that state employees would have to show proof of vaccination or submit to weekly tests. That came on the heels of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s announcement earlier in the week that all city workers would be required to do the same. At the same time, de Blasio encouraged private businesses to institute similar vaccination and testing mandates.
These mandates don’t necessarily mean people will be whipping out their paper CDC vaccination cards at every turn, however. De Blasio said that the city is set to roll out its own version of a vaccine passport app – a digital mobile tool for proving that a person has received a vaccine or a recent negative test for the virus.
If this sounds familiar, that’s because New York state has already launched such an app. The Excelsior Pass, developed by IBM, was released to the public this spring. Like the app announced by the city, Excelsior Pass accepts proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID-19 test for entry into any business using the passport app.Any business requiring proof of vaccination or a negative test is also required to accept other forms of proof, including paper documents, so no one is required to use Excelsior Pass. But despite privacy and equity concerns that have been raised about the app, the state and business groups have said that Excelsior Pass would be a key part of New York’s economic recovery.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE > https://www.cityandstateny.com/policy/2021/07/will-new-yorkers-need-download-another-vaccine-passport-app/184146/
Democrats drag Nextdoor into ‘Big Tech’ disinfo debate
Politico
— Bad neighbors: Nextdoor, which doesn’t find itself tangled in the congressional crosshairs nearly as much as larger social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube, now stands accused of not doing enough to police vaccine disinformation in non-English languages.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE > https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-tech/2021/07/30/democrats-drag-nextdoor-into-big-tech-disinfo-debate-796835
Capitol Police Asked to Arrest the Maskless
The Hill
Congressional aides and visitors to the House side of the Capitol will face arrest if they’re not wearing masks, the head of the U.S. Capitol Police announced this week.
In a Wednesday letter to his officer corps, Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger ordered that they enforce the new mask guidelines across the Capitol complex. Those new rules, installed by the Capitol physician earlier in the week, include a mask mandate on the House side of the Capitol and all House office buildings.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE > https://thehill.com/homenews/house/565450-capitol-police-asked-to-arrest-the-maskless
White House won’t rule out future lockdowns, school closures if CDC says so
FOX News
White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says: ‘We listen to the CDC’
White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that the Biden administration will continue to “listen to the scientists” when it comes to potential future lockdowns and school closures.
During the daily White House press briefing, Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked Jean-Pierre why Americans should “trust” what the administration says when the official line has changed so much over the course of the coronavirus pandemic.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE > https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-future-lockdowns-school-closures-cdc
Broadway Will Require Proof of Vaccination, Masks to Attend Performances
The Broadway League has announced Friday that in order to enjoy a Broadway production, all attending audience members will need to be fully vaccinated, show proof of vaccination and wear masks during the shows.
The announcement read: “Under the policy, guests will need to be fully vaccinated with an FDA or WHO authorized vaccine in order to attend a show and must show proof of vaccination at their time of entry into the theatre with their valid ticket.”
The announcement specified that being fully vaccinated means “the performance date must be at least 14 days after the second dose of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine, or at least 14 days after a single-dose COVID-19 vaccine.”
Republican senators raise questions after receiving unredacted Fauci email about Wuhan lab
Washington Examiner
Five Republican senators are questioning why the Department of Health and Human Services redacted a portion of an email between Dr. Anthony Fauci and Peter Daszak, the president of a research organization that worked with the Wuhan Institute of Virology on coronavirus studies before the pandemic.
Their inquiry is the latest attempt from the group to get public health agencies to turn over documents related to the way pandemic policies have been set behind the scenes.
The email in question gained widespread attention last month because Daszak, a key figure in research linked to the hypothesis that COVID-19 may have escaped from the Wuhan lab, thanked Fauci for downplaying the likelihood of a lab leak. It also gained attention after being released to media outlets under the Freedom of Information Act because the administration redacted a portion of the email using an exemption reserved for information related to “pending law enforcement proceedings.”
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE > https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/republicans-question-fauci-wuhan-lab-redacted
Dr. Stella Immanuel, Hydroxychloroquine Advocate, Sues CNN, Anderson Cooper for $100M
The Texas doctor who became famous in 2020 for promoting the use of Hydroxychloroquine [HQC], an anti-malarial drug, as “a cure” for COVID-19 has filed a defamation lawsuit against CNN and CNN anchor, Anderson Cooper in the amount of $100 million.
Dr. Stella Immanuel filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday claiming that, “in an effort to vilify, demonize and embarrass President [Donald] Trump, Cooper and CNN published a series of statements of fact about Dr. Immanuel that injured her reputation and exposed her to public hatred, contempt, ridicule, and financial injury.”
In the suit, Immanuel says Cooper and CNN “effectively caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands whose lives would have been spared if they had been treated early with HCQ.”
‘This Virus Is A Very Powerful Thing’: Fully Vaccinated Cambridge Man Gets COVID-19 Breakthrough Infection
CBSN Boston
CAMBRIDGE (CBS) – Jeff Davis says his kids were exposed to COVID-19 at summer camp. Then days later, he tested positive, even though he’s fully vaccinated.
“It’s a challenging time. It’s frustrating, it’s disappointing,” Davis told WBZ-TV Friday.
He is currently in quarantine with a breakthrough case of COVID-19. His two boys, who are too young to be vaccinated, tested positive. Then, on Monday, he tested positive too.
“My fever spiked, my temperature was spiking, all the signs were hitting me. Congestion, sore throat, muscle aches, I was extremely, extremely tired,” he said.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE > https://boston.cbslocal.com/2021/07/30/covid-19-breakthrough-case-delta-variant-cambridge-man-kids-test-positive/