Censorship? Yup. More information coming out

 Docemet productions has a long post about how censorship slowly increased, from blocking jihadi plans to censoring doctors. 

How and why an agency created in the wake of September 11 to target foreign jihadists came more than 20 years later to (i) train its sights on everyday Americans’ Tweets and Facebook posts touching on mail-in ballots or COVID-19’s origins – treating them like something approaching domestic digital terrorist attacks; and (ii) serving the censorship system as something of a “nerve center” aimed at “neutralizing” such attacks, is as shocking a story as it is a critical one to understanding the perilous state of our republic.

a lot of information on how government entities essentially directed the press and social media sites like facebook and Twitter to censor information on various subject is available after Elon Musk got some old fashioned liberal reporters who still believe in free speech to check out what was going on. 

But when I googled about a summary of the numerous findings, all the news stories on my search engine seem to be from Dec 2022 or Jan 2023. 

The BBC calls this censorship the STOMP reflex.

 

As the coronavirus has spread, many governments around the world have sought to tackle the pandemic by broadening their powers and abilities, according to data collated from the Covid-19 Digital Rights Tracker and Civic Freedom Tracker. 

A total of 32 countries have used militaries or military ordances to enforce rules, which has not been without casualties. ... To monitor rule-breakers, 22 countries have used surveillance drones. Facial recognition programmes have been expanded, internet censorship has occurred in 28 countries, and internet shutdowns in 13. At least 120 contact-tracing apps are in use across 71 states, and 60 other digital contact-tracing measures have been used across 38 countries. 

 Many of these are examples of emergency powers: exceptional actions that states can invoke during a crisis to deviate away from existing laws....

My opinion is that the early reaction and lockdowns were okay, but when they continued for two years, destroying the economy, this was overreach. And with all the riots allowed unchecked (while shutting down schools and churches) it suggests that the public health authorities were making decisions based on politics.

and indeed, the BBC notes this slippery slope:

 If left unchecked, these emergency powers are prone to abuse, and what started as an exception can frequently become the norm. This is not an argument against swift, dramatic and often beneficial actions such as lockdowns and travel restrictions.

but did this need legal sanctions, or just teling people to be cautious? 

indeed one recent study shows that nearly 50% of the reductions in transmission came from behavioural change before government imposed lockdowns were introduced. Instead, there is an argument that by stomping down through greater surveillance, strenghtened security forces and expanded powers, governments risk making disasters worse.

And (right wing site Hot Air) discusses a recent court case about government pressuring certain social media sites to censor information.

One wonders: If it wasn't for Joe Rogan, would people even know about the covid censorship?

The story of government censorship is now breaking out of the box: the latest miniseries thriller RabbitHole is a confusing mess, but is mainly about big shots controlling the message to manipulate the public, echoing a common theme in films 

but my question to leaders of the medical establishment: Why did you allow censorship of those questioning these things? 

Because the result will be similar to the response of the Philippine people to learning there were major problems with the Dengue vaccine: a distrust of all vaccines.

and one of these days, I'll post about the exaggerated government pushing transgender stuff all over the world, pushing porography in schools that go against the religious beliefs of the kids' parents, and the marginalization of religious opinions for saying certain activities are wrong. Then I might go on to rant about climate change policies that are shutting down farms that produce methane, including the war on rice paddies and fertilizer, that will result in millions of unnecessary deaths.

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UPDATE