Victorian protective service officers walk past a sign urging people to stay home during Melbourne’s lockdown. Victoria is forcing every person seeking to enter the Australian state to obtain a new permit, including people who live there. Those who flout the new Covid-19 rules risk being slapped with an AU$5,000 ($3,856) fine.
Premier Daniel Andrews announced the new regulation while detailing a relaxation of his state’s hard border with New South Wales.
The changes mean that Victoria residents stuck in regional parts of the neighboring state – which have been designated as an ‘orange zone’ – can prepare to return to their homes. However, the city of Sydney remains designated as a ‘red zone’ and is not included in the relaxed measures.
The new rules apply to every arrival in the state, even those from Covid-safe states and territories that have not experienced virus outbreaks in months.
As well as obtaining the permit, travellers from an ‘orange zone’ are required to get tested within 72 hours of arriving and must quarantine until they receive a negative test result.
Andrews has faced criticism from civil liberties campaigners and political opponents for his tough measures throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
The latest move was blasted by opposition Leader Michael O’Brien, who accused the government of overreach for policing people who travel through green zones.
“Doesn’t matter if you’ve been to a green zone that’s never had a case of coronavirus in its history, you now need the Government’s permission before you can come back to Victoria,” O’Brien said.
This is a huge step, it puts the Government in control of every single Victorian’s life.
Reports in Australian news outlets suggest the traffic light system could remain in place for much of 2021.
Every Saturday and Sunday, protesters gather on the square outside Calgary City Hall to voice their angst and disapproval with the ongoing coronavirus restrictions handed down by the province.
Churches and retail space are limited to 15 per cent of capacity. Restaurants are closed except for takeout. Personal care businesses, gyms, hair and nail salons, barbers and recreation facilities are shut too.
The government has been advising against non-essential travel for months, however, you wouldn’t know it if you paid attention to the actions of our lawmakers themselves. Several United Conservative Party MLAs and staffers travelled outside of the country during the Christmas break. Municipal Affairs Minister Tracy Allard was fired by Premier Jason Kenney for her holiday trip to Hawaii.
Allard wasn’t the only one spending time in the Aloha State. Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s chief of staff also enjoyed some fun in the sun over the holiday season. It’s ironic, since Nenshi has been one of the loudest voices calling for increased lockdowns, and a heavier crackdown on the protesters who gather outside of his office every weekend.
I caught up with the protesters on Saturday to see if they had a message to send to their hypocritical leaders at City Hall.
During a press conference Monday afternoon, Ontario’s Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Barbara Yaffe said the majority of the virus spread in the province is coming from long-term care, retirement homes, workplaces, and social gatherings — adding that roughly one third of Ontario’s population is still socializing.
But what happens when you can actually hear a party taking place or see multiple families, unmasked, entering one household with your own eyes? What happens when the people dangerously flouting lockdown restrictions are your neighbours?
“The short answer is the best thing to do is call 311 to report,” a city spokesperson told blogTO by email Monday.
According to a statement from the city’s Municipal Licensing & Standards division, enforcement officers are on patrol across Toronto monitoring compliance with provincial orders and municipal bylaws, and they also respond to complaints made through 311 on a daily basis.
But just because you call 311 doesn’t mean your neighbour will necessarily face real consequences, because enforcing bylaws is a complex process that requires investigation, gathering facts, and applying legal processes.
If a gathering disperses before officers can confirm it took place, for example, there’s no real way to for the city to take enforcement action.
“On a case-by-case basis, the enforcement team works to achieve compliance through education and/or enforcement action,” reads the city’s statement.
“Should an investigation find that a gathering is defiance of Provincial orders, appropriate enforcement action will be taken against organizers and/or attendees.”
Under the Reopening Ontario Act (ROA), any individual caught defying the shutdown rules by hosting an illegal gathering could face a fine between $10,000 and $100,000, plus a potential term of imprisonment of not more than one year.
An individual caught attending a gathering could meanwhile receive a fine ranging from $750 to $100,000, including up to one year in jail.
A director or officer of a corporation, on the other hand, could face a fine of not more than $500,000 and a term of imprisonment of not more than one year, and a corporation could be fined up to $10,000,000.
“The City of Toronto recognizes that the public have been asked to significantly adjust their behaviours as requirements and orders have changed throughout the COVID-19 response,” reads the statement.
“Compliance with requirements, including Province of Ontario emergency orders and City bylaws restricting gathering size and requiring mandatory masks or face coverings and physical distancing, remains crucial to stopping the spread of COVID-19 in our city.”
Social media company Parler sued Amazon on Monday, alleging that its suspension from Amazon’s hosting service violated antitrust law and breached the companies’ contractual arrangement.
In its lawsuit, Parler, which is especially popular among conservatives, asked a federal judge to order that the platform be reinstated online.
The 18-page complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, where Amazon is headquartered, accuses Amazon Web Services (AWS) of applying a politically motivated double standard to Parler in contrast to its treatment of the more mainstream social media giant Twitter.
“AWS’s decision to effectively terminate Parler’s account is apparently motivated by political animus,” the lawsuit reads. “It is also apparently designed to reduce competition in the microblogging services market to the benefit of Twitter.”
Multiple legal experts told The Hill that Parler’s antitrust claim was unlikely to succeed. The lawsuit does not establish that Parler’s suspension was part of an agreement between Amazon and Twitter, the rival social media company that Parler identified as the beneficiary of its shutdown.
“On the antitrust side, it’s pretty weak,” said Erik Hovenkamp, a law professor at the University of Southern California. “The biggest flaw in the complaint by far is really just that it doesn’t allege facts that would indicate a conspiracy between Amazon and Twitter.”
The lawsuit comes a day after Amazon suspended Parler, citing concerns it could not adequately screen out potentially incendiary content, including material that incites violence. It also follows Wednesday’s deadly, Trump-inspired insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that left five people dead.
The app saw a massive surge in users between the mob attack at the Capitol and when it was pulled down from Amazon Web Services.
Parler saw approximately 825,000 installs from the Apple and Google stores between Wednesday and Sunday, a more than 1,000 percent increase from the same period a week earlier, according to data from SensorTower shared with The Hill.
Parler told the court that its newfound popularity explained part of the urgency behind its emergency request to have its suspension reversed.
“It will kill Parler’s business — at the very time it is set to skyrocket,” the filing states.
In addition to its antitrust claim, Parler also alleged that Amazon breached their contract by not giving 30 days notice before terminating Parler’s account.
However, Amazon told The Hill that it notified Parler over the past several weeks that numerous posts on its site had promoted violence, in violation of their agreed-upon terms. According to a letter obtained by BuzzFeed, Amazon informed Parler of 98 examples of content “that clearly encourage and incite violence” over that timeframe.
“We made our concerns known to Parler over a number of weeks and during that time we saw a significant increase in this type of dangerous content, not a decrease, which led to our suspension of their services Sunday evening,” an AWS spokesperson told The Hill.
However, Amazon reportedly notified Parler over the past several weeks that numerous posts on its site had promoted violence, in violation of their agreed-upon terms. According to a letter obtained by BuzzFeed, Amazon informed Parler of 98 examples of content “that clearly encourage and incite violence” over that timeframe.
David Hoffman, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said it would severely undercut Parler’s breach of contract claim if in fact Amazon had warned the company repeatedly that it was playing host to offensive material.
“It’s not simply that there’s one day of bad posts,” Hoffman said, referring to Amazon’s letter. “There have been repeated warnings over time about Parler’s failure to comply with Amazon’s terms of use. Given those repeated warnings over time, it’s sort of rich to say, ‘You didn’t give us enough time.’”
Hoffman also noted that Amazon’s standard policy is to resolve web-hosting disputes through an arbitration process rather than in the courts, presenting another potential legal pitfall for Parler.
Amazon’s suspension of Parler came after the Apple and Google app stores — essentially the only places for Americans to download mobile apps — decided over the weekend to stop carrying Parler.
The furor over the app stems from its role in facilitating last week’s violent riot at the Capitol. Trump supporters and right-wing extremists used the app, which has billed itself as a haven for free speech, to coordinate and incite the demonstrations ostensibly opposing the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
Without access to Amazon Web Services, the app has been dark on Monday.
TO > those who care about good government in British Columbia
When my old man was at the Dominion War College in 1942, he was taught “sometimes getting shot at is the best intel. you can get”. That was demonstrated on Saturday Jan 09 2021 as we protested outside the head office Ministry of Health in Victoria BC.
The corner of Blanshard and Pandora streets is a good spot for high-vis. advertising — hundreds of cars per hour going by. Many of them stop at the traffic light. So, they do read our signs. Response from motorists was 2 to 1 in sympathy with us. But that spot has dis-advantages, too. A couple of weeks ago, I was hit on the chest by a plastic water bottle, hurled from a passing car. Startled, came to mind Mick Jagger singing: “I went down to the demonstration, to get my fair share of abuse”. Not even a flesh wound though … didn’t need to let it bleed
A dangerous exception to the generally-polite response we get, was, the guy who came up bellowing “I told you last week to get the **** off this corner”. Sensing trouble I took a photo of him — > large, slovenly, drunk, belligerent, could be 50 to 60 years old, one of the street people holed-up at the govt.-funded slum a few blocks away. Sure, you can make excuse for his kind … adrift in the big city, in deep personal pain. But the moment you find yourself the target upon which they’re unloading their problems, is the moment when sympathy is ditched.
When he noticed me taking his picture, he charged at me. I fled. He chased for about 20 yards before giving up. Demons still yowling out of him … he headed across the street towards the group of protesters, raging that he was “going to punch them”. By then, someone had called 9-1-1. About 20 minutes later, a cop did show up. I told him what had gone on. Of course, such altercation is pretty minor compared with the grief police deal with, daily. The charming little old, very British town of good mannered White people which I knew half a century ago, has gone to the dogs.
But the good news, is : standing 40 feet away from the group, conversing with VPD constable #498, was an opportunity for me to get info. re their attitude to what we are doing. I asked him if he had his ticket book with him. He said he did not. I don’t believe that for a second. I pointed out that the GATHERING of us regulars at this place … which our critics call a “superspreader” ! …contravenes the Public Health Act Order. He agreed, saying “you’re all ticketable right now”. So, of course, I said: “Well then, give me a ticket.”
He declined, saying: ‘You’re carrying on a lawful protest’. Yet, I did sense that if I’d pushed the envelope, I would’ve talked myself into one. So I backed off. I said “I don’t need one. I had an incident on the ferries this week which is a good set of facts for challenging the govt. policy about masks” Nodding towards the Law courts building, visible just down the way, I said “I’ll be in court with it. I know police officers aren’t interested in hearing about the law”.
To his credit, he replied “I am interested in the law”….. so I reeled-off section 103 of the Public Health Act. Explaining right there is the defence to the strict liability offence created by Bonnie Henry’s Order re EVENTS AND GATHERINGS. He did not say anything more, yet I got the impression that he was thinking for himself.
I’ve been at the big anti-lockdown Events in BC, plus several small ones. There has been no major blowback. An occasional cat-call that we are “fools”, but that’s all. My sense, is, the zombies going by with their fashion-statement muzzles on tight, are confounded by public presence of so many ordinary folks, organized, boldly contradicting official propaganda. At this stage of this authentic populist movement, provoking an individual to reconsider the Central Party Line is what we’re about. Human beings go in-sane in herds. They come to their senses one at a time.
In Kelowna and Nanaimo, the RCMP have handed out notices alleging violations of the Public Health Act Order to people gathered to protest govt. policy. Sgt. Roberts was the officer in charge on-site at the first big rally in Vancouver last September. When I asked him if they were going to hand out Violation Notices, he said : “we decided not to issue tickets today because the Charter is above the Public Health Act” direct quote
To a certain extent, we have The Man with the Gun on our side. The Victoria and Vancouver Police do not charge us because they have received legal counsel, advising them that our GATHERINGS are Charter-protected political activity
The human mind has a miraculous innate logic programme. The contrast between thousands of peaceful people, marching through the downtowns of major cities in BC, cops escorting our marches rather than bothering us, versus nonsense purveyed on the lamestream media — images of thugs in uniform bullying individuals who are just going about daily life — works away at the consciences of ordinary citizens. Something’s gotta give.
As for the argument out of section 103, it’s important to realize that under the previous Health Act, there had to be evidence to support an Order. But the new statute changed it so that onus is now on the Accused, to prove his innocence. One more detail telling that British Columbia now suffers under communist tyranny. The way it’s going, I expect to be making this argument before a Judge. I sincerely do believe that the entire SARS-2-Covid19 extravaganza is medical malpractice ‘of the first water’ : a HOAX.
At such a trial, I will be submitting hundreds of articles grabbed from the Internet, written by world-class experts, undoing the very premise for the Order of that Head Witch, namely Bonnie Henry. Any half-way intelligent person, with integrity to honestly examine such items, must conclude that there is mass psychosis upon the land. Wrong is put in place of right : Right is called Wrong. And the man who calleth for Justice, maketh himself a prey
Section 103 of the Public Health Act Revised Statutes of British Columbia
Defences
103 A person must not be convicted of an offence under this Act if the person proves that he or she
(a) exercised due diligence by taking all reasonable steps to avoid committing the offence,
(b) reasonably believed in the existence of facts that, if true, would establish that the person did not contravene this Act or a regulation made under it,
(c) relied on information or an instruction provided to the person by a health officer who was exercising a power or performing a duty under this Act, if the person had no reason to believe that the information may have been false or the instruction may have been unauthorized, or
(d) acted under the order of a health officer who was exercising a power or performing a duty under this Act, if the person had no reason to believe that the order may have been unauthorized under this Act or any other enactment. — Gordon Watson
Nunes: Parler Ban a Violation of Antitrust, Civil Rights, the RICO Statute — ‘There Should Be a Racketeering Investigation’
26,850 https://www.youtube.com/embed/PDM3AQOUqgMJeff Poor10 Jan 20212,883 2:08
During this week’s broadcast of FNC’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, called on the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into tech companies’ efforts to remove Parler as a platform from the internet.
The California Republican cited violations of antitrust laws, civil rights and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
“Well, Maria, when I wrote that book, I was hoping to warn Americans so that they would vote right and that maybe this wouldn’t happen and this could be prevented,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s far worse than what I could even imagine. The effect of this is that there is no longer a free and open social media company or site for any American to get on any longer, because these big companies, Apple, Amazon, Google, they have just destroyed a — what was likely — Parler is likely a billion-dollar company. Poof, it’s gone. But it’s more than just the financial aspect to that. Republicans have no way to communicate. If — and it doesn’t even matter if you’re a Republican or conservative.”
“If you don’t want to be regulated by left-wingers that are at Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, where you get shadowbanned, nobody gets to see you — nobody gets to see you, they get to decide what’s violent or not violent, it’s preposterous,” Nunes continued. “So, I don’t know where the hell the Department of Justice is at right now or the FBI. This is clearly a violation of antitrust, civil rights, the RICO statute. There should be a racketeering investigation on all the people that coordinated this attack on not only a company but on all of those like us, like me, like you, Maria. I have 3 million followers on Parler. Tonight, I will no longer be able to communicate with those people. And they’re Americans.”
A lot’s been happening really fast. It’s a white noise saturation day and it’s impossible to keep track of everything going on, so I’m just going to post my thoughts on a few of the things that have happened.
❖
Biden has announced plans to roll out new domestic terrorism laws in the wake of the Capitol Hill riot.
“Mr. Biden has said he plans to make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism, and he has been urged to create a White House post overseeing the fight against ideologically inspired violent extremists and increasing funding to combat them,” Wall Street Journal reports.
Did you know that Biden has often boasted about being the original author of the US Patriot Act?
The first draft of the civil rights-eroding USA PATRIOT Act was magically introduced one week after the 9/11 attacks. Legislators later admitted that they hadn’t even had time to read through the hundreds of pages of the history-shaping bill before passing it the next month, yet somehow its authors were able to gather all the necessary information and write the whole entire thing in a week.
This was because most of the work had already been done. CNET reported the following back in 2008:
“Months before the Oklahoma City bombing took place, [then-Senator Joe] Biden introduced another bill called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995. It previewed the 2001 Patriot Act by allowing secret evidence to be used in prosecutions, expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and wiretap laws, creating a new federal crime of ‘terrorism’ that could be invoked based on political beliefs, permitting the U.S. military to be used in civilian law enforcement, and allowing permanent detention of non-U.S. citizens without judicial review. The Center for National Security Studies said the bill would erode ‘constitutional and statutory due process protections’ and would ‘authorize the Justice Department to pick and choose crimes to investigate and prosecute based on political beliefs and associations.’
Biden’s bill was never put to a vote, but after 9/11 then-Attorney General John Ashcroft reportedly credited his bill with the foundations of the USA PATRIOT Act.
“Civil libertarians were opposed to it,” Biden said in 2002 of his bill. “Right after 1994, and you can ask the attorney general this, because I got a call when he introduced the Patriot Act. He said, ‘Joe, I’m introducing the act basically as you wrote it in 1994.’”
The post 9/11 era is over. The single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism. The polarization that threatens our democracy. If we don’t reconnect our two Americas, the threats will not have to come from the outside. pic.twitter.com/ADgGcf7qEo
A recent Morning Joe appearance by CIA analyst-turned House Representative Elissa Slotkin eagerly informed us that the real battle against terrorism is now inside America’s borders.
“The post 9/11 era is over,” Slotkin tweeted while sharing a clip of her appearance. “The single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism. The polarization that threatens our democracy. If we don’t reconnect our two Americas, the threats will not have to come from the outside.”
“Before Congress, Elissa worked for the CIA and the Pentagon and helped destabilize the Middle East during the Bush and Obama admins,” tweeted journalist Whitney Webb in response. “What she says here is essentially an open announcement that the US has moved from the ‘War on [foreign] terror’ to the ‘War on domestic terror’.”
❖
In response to pressures from all directions including its own staff, Twitter has followed Facebook’s lead and removed Donald Trump’s account.
And it wasn’t just Trump. Accounts are vanishing quickly, including some popular Trump supporter accounts. I myself have lost hundreds of followers on Twitter in the last few hours, and I’ve seen people saying they lost a lot more.
It also wasn’t just Trump supporters; leftist accounts are getting suspended too. The online left is hopefully learning that cheering for Twitter “banning fascists” irrationally assumes that (A) their purges are only banning fascists and (B) they are limiting their bans to your personal definition of fascists. There is no basis whatsoever for either of these assumptions.
Wow! These people hold rallies protesting the unjust evictions of poor people during the Covid. We have been telling you. They will come for the Progressives as well. That is why we must protect our freedom of speech and our civil liberties. pic.twitter.com/IXVW86HjL6
Google has ratcheted things up even further by removing Parler from its app store, and Apple will likely soon follow. This push to marginalize even the already fringey social media sites is making the libertarian/shitlib argument of “If you don’t like censorship just go to another platform” look pretty ridiculous.
This is all happening just in time for the Biden administration, about which critics had already been voicing grave concerns regarding the future of internet censorship.
The censorship of a political faction at the hands of a few liberal Silicon Valley billionaires will do the exact opposite of eliminating right-wing paranoia and conspiracy theories, and everyone knows it. You’re not trying to make things better, you’re trying to make them worse. You’re not trying to restore peace and order, you’re trying to force a confrontation so your political enemies can be crushed. You’re accelerationist.
A Venn diagram of people who support the latest social media purges and people who secretly hope Trumpers freak out and attempt a violent uprising would look like the Japanese flag.
"Domestic terrorists"; "coup"; "attacks on our democracy"; welcome to the latest iteration of the War on Terror.
The Boutique Left, in the blink of an eye, discards all talk of healthcare & stimulus checks to help lay the groundwork and usher in a new age of authoritarianism. pic.twitter.com/qwMwe8WtjZ
The correct response to a huge section of the citizenry doubting an electoral system we’ve known for years is garbage would have been more transparency, not shoving the process through and silencing people who voice doubts and making that entire faction more paranoid and crazy.
❖
Supporting the censorship of online speech is to support the authority of monopolistic tech oligarchs to exert more and more global control over human communication. Regardless of your attitude toward whoever happens to be getting deplatformed today, supporting this is suicidal.
Mexican President Defends Trump and Calls Out Big Tech for Violating Free Speech He’s defending Trump better than most Republicans.
In a strange turn of events, Mexican president Andres Manuel López Obrador recently came to President Donald Trump’s defense after social media platforms blocked his account.
Facebook and Twitter’s decision to ban President Trump elicited strong words from the Mexican president, who described the actions as a “bad omen.”
The concept of private companies deciding who can be censored and muzzled violates the freedom of speech, according to a statement AMLO made during a press conference on January 8.
“It’s like a censorship court is being created, like the Holy Inquisition, for the management of public opinion,” he declared. take our poll – story continues below
VOTE NOW: Did Kyle Rittenhouse act in self defense when he shot three BLM rioters?
AMLO said that he found Zuckerberg’s behavior to be “arrogant.”
“He’s talking about his norms, but what about freedom and the right to information? What’s the role of legal and legitimately constituted authorities?” the president said. “We can’t allow one corporation that is the owner of Facebook, or of Twitter, decide who it can and who it can’t grant the possibility to communicate.”
AMLO and President Trump have been able to forge a solid working relationship, as evidenced by Trump’s success with the Remain in Mexico policy that has largely prevented asylum seekers from Central America from clogging up America’s immigration system by having them stay in Mexico as their asylum requests are processed.
Although Mexico has all the trappings of a failed state — out of control crime, cartels effectively exercising sovereignty over pieces of land, and an inability to keep cartels in check —, President Trump has found proactive ways to cooperate with AMLO and lay the foundations for a strong relationship between two neighboring countries.
The Mexican president can sympathize with Trump because of the former’s experience with voter fraud in some of his previous attempts to run for the Mexican presidency.
Good on AMLO’s part for defending Trump and calling out Big Tech overreach. He’s actually defended Trump more effectively than most GOP leaders.
John Minchillo / APSupporters loyal to President Donald Trump clash with authorities before successfully breaching the Capitol building during a riot on the grounds Wednesday. (John Minchillo / AP) By Kipp Jones Published January 9, 2021 at 1:36pm Share on Facebook Tweet Share Email Print
Mozilla, the foundation and developer of the popular free web browser Firefox, published a blog post on Friday arguing that silencing and de-platforming President Donald Trump is not enough and that the entire internet needs to be re-tooled to stifle political dissent.
“There is no question that social media played a role in the siege and take-over of the US Capitol on January 6,” Mozilla said in a blog post. “Since then there has been significant focus on the deplatforming of President Donald Trump. By all means the question of when to deplatform a head of state is a critical one, among many that must be addressed. When should platforms make these decisions? Is that decision-making power theirs alone?”
“But as reprehensible as the actions of Donald Trump are, the rampant use of the internet to foment violence and hate, and reinforce white supremacy is about more than any one personality,” the company said. “Donald Trump is certainly not the first politician to exploit the architecture of the internet in this way, and he won’t be the last. We need solutions that don’t start after untold damage has been done.”
Mozilla essentially called everyone who didn’t vote for Democrats in the last election racist. Then, it advocated for more censorship and more voter disenfranchisement for conservatives who already face so much discrimination in their daily lives.
The company said it is time to unmask “who is paying for advertisements, how much they are paying and who is being targeted,” which sounds an awful lot like an advocation for doxing people. Surely, that won’t be misused and unevenly applied.
“Commit to meaningful transparency of platform algorithms so we know how and what content is being amplified, to whom, and the associated impact. Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation,” Mozilla added.
Finally, the Mozilla said the tech must “Work with independent researchers to facilitate in-depth studies of the platforms’ impact on people and our societies, and what we can do to improve things.”
Advertisement – story continues below
“These are actions the platforms can and should commit to today. The answer is not to do away with the internet, but to build a better one that can withstand and gird against these types of challenges. This is how we can begin to do that,” concluded Mozilla.
Mozilla also took to Twitter to share its message: https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=WestJournalism&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1347633954497548289&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernjournal.com%2Ftop-tech-foundation-deplatforming-not-enough-entire-internet-needs-change-capitol-incursion%2F&siteScreenName=WestJournalism&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
Top Tech Foundation: Deplatforming Not Enough, Entire Internet Needs to Change After Capitol Incursion
John Minchillo / APSupporters loyal to President Donald Trump clash with authorities before successfully breaching the Capitol building during a riot on the grounds Wednesday. (John Minchillo / AP) By Kipp Jones Published January 9, 2021 at 1:36pm Share on Facebook Tweet Share Email Print
Mozilla, the foundation and developer of the popular free web browser Firefox, published a blog post on Friday arguing that silencing and de-platforming President Donald Trump is not enough and that the entire internet needs to be re-tooled to stifle political dissent.
“There is no question that social media played a role in the siege and take-over of the US Capitol on January 6,” Mozilla said in a blog post. “Since then there has been significant focus on the deplatforming of President Donald Trump. By all means the question of when to deplatform a head of state is a critical one, among many that must be addressed. When should platforms make these decisions? Is that decision-making power theirs alone?”
“But as reprehensible as the actions of Donald Trump are, the rampant use of the internet to foment violence and hate, and reinforce white supremacy is about more than any one personality,” the company said. “Donald Trump is certainly not the first politician to exploit the architecture of the internet in this way, and he won’t be the last. We need solutions that don’t start after untold damage has been done.”
Advertisement – story continues below
Mozilla essentially called everyone who didn’t vote for Democrats in the last election racist. Then, it advocated for more censorship and more voter disenfranchisement for conservatives who already face so much discrimination in their daily lives.
The company said it is time to unmask “who is paying for advertisements, how much they are paying and who is being targeted,” which sounds an awful lot like an advocation for doxing people. Surely, that won’t be misused and unevenly applied.
“Commit to meaningful transparency of platform algorithms so we know how and what content is being amplified, to whom, and the associated impact. Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation,” Mozilla added.
Finally, the Mozilla said the tech must “Work with independent researchers to facilitate in-depth studies of the platforms’ impact on people and our societies, and what we can do to improve things.”
Advertisement – story continues below
“These are actions the platforms can and should commit to today. The answer is not to do away with the internet, but to build a better one that can withstand and gird against these types of challenges. This is how we can begin to do that,” concluded Mozilla.
Mozilla also took to Twitter to share its message: https://platform.twitter.com/embed/
John Minchillo / APSupporters loyal to President Donald Trump clash with authorities before successfully breaching the Capitol building during a riot on the grounds Wednesday. (John Minchillo / AP) By