If you want to know the logical conclusion of where all this hysteria about disinformation is leading, then just take a look at what’s happening in Brazil. Before we get to that, let’s just remind ourselves of what happened in America. Documents leaked by Senators Charles Grassley and Josh Hawley revealed the true nature of what the Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Board (the Ministry of Truth) was really intended to be.
After it was terminated, its ousted leader Scary Poppins Nina Jankowicz (a hyper-partisan spreader of left-wing disinformation) as well as the DHS itself claimed that the purpose of the unit was never about censorship or policing speech in any manner. It turns out, that was as well disinformation. The leaked documents show that the government had planned to work hand in hand with Twitter, and had already met with them to work towards operationalizing public private partnerships between DHS and Twitter [in order] to suppress and censor content related to "conspiracy theories".
Conspiracy theories of course being a catch-all euphemism for any information harmful to regime narratives. This went way beyond Twitter as a private company as hyper partisan as it is merely enforcing its own terms of service. This was the government working directly with Twitter to censor information it deemed harmful -- much like what happens in places like Communist China, and in total violation of the First Amendment. And the ultimate goal which is now unfolding in Brazil.
Brazil’s presidential legislative and regional elections are all set to take place in October. The head of Brazil’s superior electoral tribunal has now said openly that the court will nullify election winners that they deem to have shared disinformation online. When, as per its jurisdictional function, the court receives a complaint and it is demonstrated that a specific candidate engaged in deeds that he knew were false, he will be subject to the electoral code rule characterizing that conduct as a crime, and this can result in the loss of his office as punishment. Edson Fashion warned in other words if Jair Bolsonaro is democratically voted into office again by the Brazilian people, the election court can just claim that Bolsonaro shared disinformation about something during the campaign, and then arbitrarily strip him of the presidency. Fashion claimed "we are not in the corner of any candidate", and yet the only candidate under scrutiny is Bolsonaro for warning about the vulnerability to fraud of electronic voting systems. And let’s be honest, this whole disinformation trope is a one-way street -- it only ever impacts conservative right-wing populist candidates. What’s happening in Brazil obviously represents an assault on the very bedrock of democracy. It’s a literal coup, but it’s all being presented as reasonable under the guise of "stopping the spread of disinformation". And it all comes back to the same point time and time again -- who decides what’s disinformation the federal bureaucracy -- the deep state, the regime? Gee what could possibly go wrong
-- Paul Joseph Watson
Thanks.
Thanks. Very interesting … and disturbing. They’ve been after Bolsonaro from the very beginning.
IIRC, Bergoglio hates him too.