Free Republic

In a recent budget announcement, Freiland Bitch revealed a comprehensive set of measures signaling significant financial support for Canadian journalists. The Trudeau government is set to cover a substantial 55% of journalists’ salaries, albeit with a notable twist—this aid is exclusively directed towards newspapers and news organizations deemed “reliable.” Under the newly amended Bill C-18, the government has responded to News Media Canada’s calls for increased support by enhancing the Labour Journalism Tax Credit. Formerly covering 25% of journalist costs up to $55,000 per employee ($13,750), the fall economic statement outlines a more generous system. Qualified Canadian Journalism Organizations, encompassing...

Former President Barack Obama helped draft the new White House artificial intelligence policy that President Joe Biden rolled out earlier this week, according to aides familiar with the situation. … Ahead of its debut, Obama -- who has long had interest in AI -- assisted the Biden team with the plan, an Obama aide told ABC News. Obama held meetings with AI industry leaders, where he pressed them and made them aware of not just the national security concerns AI poses, but also other issues with AI such as bias and discrimination, the aide said. Obama also met with congressional...

About ten days ago, after the Hamas attacks in Israel, Drew Holden had a threat about the worst of the hack media takes. The "journalism" that followed Palestine's claims of Israel attacking a hospital in Gaza and killing hundreds of people might even put that to shame, which was a high bar to clear. Holden (@DrewHolden360) has another thread chock full of examples of media malpractice following reports that were more concerned with setting a narrative instead of publishing factual information: One of those threads I knew was coming, knew it’d be bad, and it’s still worse than I thought...

In a story that has virtually been ignored by the global media, UK police arrested an independent journalist for posting "malinformation" and misinformation about Ukraine.Under the new UK censorship law called the Online Safety Act, the government can order the arrest or detention of anyone said to be "hateful" or judged by fact checkers to be posting "misinformation."Warren Thornton was literally in the midst of streaming an edition of his podcast The Real Truth on Sept. 24 when Bristol police officers came to his front door and demanded he speak with them.The Liberal government of Canada is preparing its own...

Between the documentation obtained through a recent lawsuit against the White House and the Twitter files1 released by Elon Musk, we now know that every facet of the U.S. government, including its intelligence agencies, has been involved in illegal and unconstitutional censorship.In May 2022, the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, Eric Schmitt and Jeff Landry, along with the New Civil Liberties Alliance and a few individual plaintiffs, filed a lawsuit against President Joe Biden (Missouri v. Biden2), arguing the White House is engaged in illegal suppression of protected speech.Two months earlier, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had also filed a...

The European Union has been accused of creating Orwellian “ministries of truth” that will ensure wrong thoughts are not allowed in a bid to tackle disinformation online. The Mail has the story. It is expected that those in charge of the platforms that must comply with the regulation will prioritise advice given by EU-approved “trusted flaggers” and fact-checkers monitoring information posted online. Cristian Terhes, a Romanian MP and Member of the European Parliament, argued the bloc’s Digital Services Act provides it with enough power to rule on what content is true and false when it appears on the websites of...

Google has partnered with the United Nations, World Health Organisation and others in a new global censorship tool that was introduced last Monday, according to LaToya Drake, head of Google News Lab.Google News Lab is “a team within the Google News Initiative whose mission is to collaborate with journalists to fight misinformation” and other things. And, the Google News Initiative (“GNI”) “works with publishers and journalists to fight misinformation.” The GNI and its Lab seem to be one and the same thing with the Lab simply being a page on the GNI website.Below are the short descriptions from GNI’s ‘About’...

The State Department reportedly postponed its regularly scheduled meeting with Facebook representatives on Wednesday following a court decision on Tuesday that restricted talks between Biden administration officials and social media firms.

Eric Schmidt quotes the judicial order as follows:

Online platforms spreading misinformation could face millions of dollars in penalties under new proposed government legislation that bolsters the power of Australia's media watchdog. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) would be armed with the ability to require digital platforms to keep certain records about matters regarding misinformation and disinformation and turn them over when requested. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said this would "essentially mean that the regulator is able to look under the hood of what the platforms are doing and what measures they are taking to ensure compliance". The ACMA would also be able to request the...

he Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency outsourced its "censorship operation" to a nonprofit it funded following a First Amendment lawsuit by Louisiana and Missouri attorneys general, "implicitly admitting that its censorship activities are unconstitutional," according to an interim staff report by House Judiciary Committee Republicans shared with Just the News. CISA also wanted to use the Center for Internet Security, which operates the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) and Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC), as its "mouthpiece" to obfuscate its own role in censorship, the report says. It cites spring 2022...

It is a tight contest over which U.S. regulatory agency is most captured by industry. But leading the pack is surely the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Many of us in the past believed the main problem with the agency was the costs it imposed on industry. The situation turns out to be more complicated. Whatever its past, it’s become an industry-dominated vending machine for drug approvals enacted with a very expensive rubber stamp.The ordeal of the COVID vaccine proved it. So long as the check cleared, the FDA was ready with committee-based approvals for which no one in particular...

The Democrat-controlled Senate proposed a new bill to censor and police Americans’ First Amendment rights. Brought forth by Democrat Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO), the “Digital Platform Commission Act (DPCA)” would flag misinformation and hate speech on the internet. The bill creates a federal agency to do nothing but the mandate and enforce guardrails against people who spread so-called “misinformation,” giving out consequences for information Democrats deem wrong. The bill would violate the American Constitution. “It’s past time for a thoughtful and comprehensive approach to regulating digital platforms that have amassed extraordinary power over our economy, society, and democracy,” Bennet said....

The Biden administration is looking at expanding how it monitors social media sites and chatrooms after U.S. intelligence agencies failed to spot classified Pentagon documents circulating online for weeks, according to a senior administration official and a congressional official briefed on the matter. The possible change in the intelligence-gathering process is just one potential shift as officials scramble to determine not only how the documents leaked but also how to prevent another damaging incident. President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin were briefed about the disclosure last week, administration officials say, but the secret documents appeared online in early...

U.S. intelligence officials are watching for any influence campaigns from Russia or China that are aimed at amplifying existing political divisions or stoking unrest among Americans over the indictment of former President Donald Trump, according to two U.S. officials.Officials have been on alert since the indictment was confirmed last week and so far have not seen significant signs of Russian or Chinese interference in the country’s political discourse beyond the efforts that have become standard, the U.S. officials said.But after Trump’s arraignment Tuesday, one of the officials said the intelligence community is watching “very closely” for any signs of such...

About 500 hours of video gets uploaded to YouTube every minute. The online video-sharing platform houses more than 800 million videos and is the second most visited site in the world, with 2.5 billion active monthly users. Given the deluge of content flooding the site every day, one would surmise that YouTube must have an army of people guarding against the spread of misinformation — especially in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that was fueled by lies on social media. Well, not actually. Following recent cutbacks, just one person is in charge of misinformation policy worldwide, according...

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has made the sensational claim that the United States was behind the bombing of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline in September last year. Writing in his blog on Substack on Wednesday, Hersh said US Navy divers planted explosives at the pipelines in June last year, under the guise of BALTOPS 22 NATO exercise. The article says that the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline was the culmination of months-long planning and preparations by the US. President Joe Biden and all his top leadership team participated in a series of top secret discussions in...

SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – AB 2098, recently signed into law by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, qualifies spreading COVID-19 “misinformation” as unprofessional conduct and makes it punishable as such.Attorneys say AB 2098 is unconstitutional and a violation of 1st Amendment.The parameters for misinformation regarding the pandemic are widely debated, with studies continuing to contradict one another well into society’s recovery from the global crisis — especially in relation to vaccines. The bill states: “Misinformation’ means false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care.”KUSI’s Paul Rudy was joined by Board-Certified Physician Dr. Jeff Barke to...

How did harmful content and misinformation online get so bad — after so much time, money, and scores of people trying to limit the spread of inaccurate, violent, obscene, and harmful content? For starters, the problem is much bigger than it used to be, and human-driven efforts cannot keep up. Even with tens of thousands tackling the problem (Meta’s Trust & Safety team has swelled to an army of more than 40,000) the sheer amount of digital content is too overwhelming. Moderating this content by human review is not only time-consuming, ineffective, and error-prone, it also can endanger the mental...

...now control the eastern bank of the Oskil River in the Kharkiv region, while Moscow continues to launch attacks against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine following its military setbacks in the country’s east. Strategic Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces posted a video on social media on Sunday that appeared to show an armored vehicle crossing the river, along with the message, “Ukraine controls the left bank.” The claim suggests Ukraine’s push east is continuing after its forces seized about 3,500 square miles of territory in the northeastern Kharkiv region in a lightning offensive earlier this month that put Moscow on...