By Michael Shellenberger e Alex Gutentag*(Opinion) Governments against freedom of expression will become an international phenomenon that will harm us all.The Twitter Filesgave us insight into how government agencies, civil society, and tech companies work together to censor social media users.A series of internal Twitter files served as the basis for reports showing how the social network censored truthful information in recent years before its purchase by Elon Musk.Now, major countries are trying to codify this coordination into law explicitly.Around the world, politicians have just passed or are about to pass sweeping new laws allowing governments to censor ordinary citizens on social media and other Internet platforms.Under the guise of preventing harm and holding large technology companies accountable, several countries are establishing a vast and interconnected censorship apparatus, a new investigation by Public reveals.Politicians, NGOs, and their enablers in the media claim that their goal is only to protect the public from misinformation.(Elon Musk: Its bizarre that weve come to this point where free speech used to be a liberal value.
And yet we see from the left a desire to censor)However, vague definitions and loopholes in the new laws will create avenues for broad enforcement, excesses, and abuses.In Ireland, for example, the government may soon be able to arrest citizens simply for possessing material that officials deem hateful.Under the Restrict Act in the United States , the government may soon have the authority to monitor the Internet activity of any American if it deems it a security risk.Governments aim for total control.In Canada, a state agency can filter and manipulate what Canadians see online.
In Australia, a single government official can force social media companies to remove posts.Governments and allied NGOs aim to force technology companies to comply with their rules.Lawmakers in the UK have threatened to jail social network administrators who fail to censor sufficient content.And Brazil is expected to introduce severe penalties for platforms that do not remove fake news.The main area of action is the European Union.
It seeks sweeping new powers to regulate social media companies.And, if it acts, it could change how social media operates worldwide, given the EUs economic strength and global influence.Under the EUs Digital Services Act, large tech companies must share their data with accredited researchers from non-profits and academia, which would cede content moderation to NGOs and their state sponsors.The US Restriction Act, spearheaded by Senator Mark Warner (Democrat from Virginia), threatens 20 years in prison or a US$250,000 fine for accessing blacklisted sites through virtual private networks, or VPNs, which are ways of creating a private connection between a computer or phone and the Internet.There has never been a moment like this in the nearly 30 years of widespread public Internet use in Western societies.Government agents introduced these policies mostly at night, with little publicity or protest.
There has been virtually a blackout about what is happening in mainstream news outlets, with many apparently supporting the new laws.As revealed in the Twitter Files, the Censorship Industrial Complex intends both to discredit accurate facts, truthful narratives, and content creators who threaten its power and to boost those who reassert it.We are therefore witnessing the emergence of a government apparatus with the power to control the information environment in ways that determine what people believe to be true or false.As such, it is no exaggeration to say that the West is on the verge of a form of totalitarianism far more powerful than communism or fascism, which were limited in their reach by geography.If we want to defeat it, we need to understand it.Why are governments seeking to suppress free speech from New Zealand to the Netherlands and Brazil to Canada? Why now? And why are they succeeding?INSIDE THE PLOT TO CENSOR THE PLANETThe timing of the global crackdown on free speech does not seem to be a coincidence.Last year the Biden administration tried to create a Disinformation Governance Board in the Department of Homeland Security that provoked a strong enough public reaction to shut it down.The censorship board was the brainchild of Renee DiResta, a former CIA member who works at the Stanford Internet Observatory, and her allies, including Senator Warner, the Atlantic Council (an international policy think tank), the University of Washington, and Graphika (a social network analysis company).What is happening now seems to represent the regrouping of the censorship advocacy after that defeat.With some notable exceptions, the demand for censorship is driven by centre-left parties, with NGOs playing a subordinate role.Politicians are invoking a woke (woke means something like lacerating or identity) defence of damage prevention, very different from the older pretext for censorship and national security.The pressure is based on race, immigration (e.g., Ireland), trans issues (e.g., Ireland and Australia), and safety or health (e.g., EU).However, research shows that people in Western societies have become more tolerant for decades.For example, the percentage of Americans who approve of black-white marriages has increased from 4% in 1958 to 87% in 2013 and 94% in 2021.Meanwhile, there is no evidence of an increase in the murder of trans people or even that trans people are killed at a higher-than-average rate.In fact, no minority group in history has gone from stigmatized to celebrated faster than trans people.In Ireland, lawmakers have moved forward with legislation that criminalizes the possession and preparation of material with the potential to cause violence or hatred.Under this law, even if individuals do not communicate or distribute the material on their devices, they will be considered guilty until proven otherwise.They could face up to five years in prison.None of the politicians who advocate censorship seems to be intellectual heavyweights, much less leaders.Instead, they all appear to be tools for powerful government and financial interests, including military and intelligence leaders, hiding in the shadows.Brazils Bill 2630 proposes censorship to protect institutions from violence and institutional delegitimization after this years attack in the Praa dos Trs Poderes on January 8 in Brasilia, eerily similar to January 6, 2021, a security breach in Washington, D.C.In Canada, politicians defend censorship in the name of promoting Canadian culture and content.Still, some critics of the bill speculate that it was drafted in response to the Freedom Convoy of truckers in 2021.The convoy was celebrated on YouTube and social media and incorrectly vilified as racist in the mainstream Canadian press.Elsewhere, politicians seek censorship in the name of protecting children.
In the US, politicians have inserted comprehensive surveillance measures into legislation to ban TikTok and thus expand spying to prevent Chinese spying on children.The UK also focuses on expanding the states censorship powers to protect children.Speak your truth, and do not let the government criminalize free speech.
(Photo internet reproduction)But the worst actions come from Europe, where the EU seeks sweeping powers to censor unwanted opinions and hand content moderation decisions to private NGOs, which could effectively regulate social media companies.The law would give collective right of action to NGOs, a leading European lobbyist for the bill said at an event at the Stanford Internet Observatory, which is led, intellectually if not officially, by DiResta.Why do politicians seek to crack down on free speech? Because they feel threatened by the public uprising made possible by the Internet and have worked for years to orchestrate this repression.Why now? The election of Biden, the failure of the Department of Homeland Securitys Disinformation Governance Council, and the release of the Twitter Files seem to have forced the censorship advocacy to move from the United States to other nations, particularly Europe, to censor Americans and the rest of the world through the back door.HOW CAN WE STOP THEM?The most shocking aspect of this story is that the totalitarians are getting away with it.
They have already passed their European legislation and set off to implement it.The legislation has passed in Canada, in Irelands lower house, and may soon be passed in Brazil.It is possible that as Enlightenment liberalism is overtaken by woke totalitarianism, the increasing levels of freedom and free speech enjoyed by people in Western societies, particularly in the United States, for hundreds of years are ending.But we and many others will not give up our freedoms without a fight.
With this article, we are pleased to announce the global expansion of our investigation and fight against the Censorship Industrial Complex.In mid-June, we will hold a public event in London with Rackets Matt Taibbi to build the global movement to resist totalitarianism.
And we seek allies in every nation where free speech is under attack.Resistance is growing on the left and the right.In Ireland, ecosocialist MP Paul Murphy argued that Section 10 of the bill is the creation of a thought crime.Murphy proposed defeated amendments, while conservative MP Peadar Tibn argued, This bill is a threat to the long-term democratic function of our society.In many ways, the bill is out of step with peoples views.
And the group Free Speech Ireland, started by students at Cork University, has set up a petition against the bill.
The petition has not yet reached its signature goal.In Canada, famed novelist Margaret Atwood (author of The Handmaids Tale) criticized the wave of censorship, telling the Globe and Mail, Bureaucrats shouldnt tell creators what to write.And a Conservative MP warned, Bill C-11 is dangerous in its own right, but it is also a precedent for a government that wants to extend this technocratic control to areas other than online content.It sets the foundation and testing ground for artificial intelligence and algorithms to control the masses.Resistance is growing everywhere.In New Zealand, documents show direct coordination between the Disinformation Project, a think tank, the media, and the prime ministers office.And in Australia, the free speech think tank Institute of Public Affairs is vigorously fighting a proposed constitutional referendum to create a race-based body separate from the executive and legislative branches.In Brazil, Folha de S.
Paulo gave Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and pioneer against censorship, Glenn Greenwald a column to speak out against repression.
ANDGazeta do Povo started the campaign Freedom strengthens the truth this month in defence of freedom of expression.The goal is to raise public awareness about the risks of attacks on freedom of expression for democracy and Brazilians.Public pressure can still influence policy and safeguard freedom of expression.
An earlier draft of Brazils Fake News bill had a provision that would allow authorities to send a person to prison for five years for sharing content that threatened social peace and economic order.After a huge public outcry, this provision appears to have been removed.We believe that the elites have gone too far.
If they felt secure in their censorship agenda, they would not be hiding and rushing this through legislatures around the world or trying to introduce censorship in the US through the European Union.Brazils Lula wants to forbid citizens from speaking ill of the government.
(Photo internet reproduction)Part of the reason for so little censorship in the US is the countrys unique culture of free speech.But another reason is the growing public outcry, including the reaction to the censorship board to the Biden-DiResta disinformation, the censorship of Covid information, and other scandals revealed in the Twitter and Facebook archives.And now, new lawsuits are being filed.On Tuesday (May 2), a lawsuit was filed against DiResta and Alex Stamos of the Stanford Internet Observatory and the US Department of Homeland Security for their censorship activities in 2020 and 2021.It seems that citizens worldwide must take action to defend free speech from totalitarians trying to take over power around the world, just as they did 75 years ago.The global totalitarian demand for censorship is waking us up to the precious nature of our freedom.And now, we are finding each other and fighting back.* Michael Shellenberger is an American environmentalist, author, and founder of Environmental Progress, a non-profit organization that promotes clean energy technologies and environmental solutions based on scientific evidence.
He is known for his books Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Harms Everyone and Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility.Alex Gutentag is a columnist at Tablet Magazine and contributing editor at Compact MagazineWith information from Gazeta do PovoMusk.mp4?#