President Donald J. Trump announced a new policy initiative aimed to dismantle the censorship cartel and restore free speech. TRANSCRIPT: President Donald J. Trump — Free Speech Policy Initiative
If we don’t have FREE SPEECH, then we just don’t have a FREE COUNTRY. It’s as simple as that. If this most fundamental right is allowed to perish, then the rest of our rights and liberties will topple just like dominos one by one. They’ll go down.
That’s why today, I am announcing my plan to shatter the left-wing censorship regime, and to reclaim the right to Free Speech for all Americans. And reclaim is a very important word in this case because they’ve taken it away.
In recent weeks, bombshell reports have confirmed that a sinister group of Deep State bureaucrats, Silicon Valley tyrants, left-wing activists, and depraved corporate news media have been conspiring to manipulate and silence the American People. They have collaborated to suppress vital information on everything from elections to public health.
The censorship cartel must be dismantled and destroyed — and it must happen immediately. And here is my plan:
FIRST, within hours of my inauguration, I will sign an executive order banning any federal department or agency from colluding with any organization, business, or person, to censor, limit, categorize, or impede the lawful speech of American citizens. I will then ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as “mis-” or “dis-information”. And I will begin the process of identifying and firing every federal bureaucrat who has engaged in domestic censorship—directly or indirectly—whether they are the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI, the DOJ, no matter who they are.
SECOND, I will order the Department of Justice to investigate all parties involved in the new online censorship regime, which is absolutely destructive and terrible, and to aggressively prosecute any and all crimes identified. These include possible violations of federal civil rights law, campaign finance laws, federal election law, securities law, and anti-trust laws, the Hatch Act and a host of other potential criminal, civil, regulatory, and constitutional offenses. To assist in these efforts, I am urging House Republicans to immediately send preservation letters — and we have to do this right now — to the Biden administration, the Biden campaign, and every Silicon Valley tech giant, ordering them not to destroy evidence of censorship.
THIRD, upon my inauguration as president, I will ask Congress to send a bill to my desk revising Section 230 to get big online platforms out of censorship business. From now on, digital platforms should only qualify for immunity protection under Section 230 if they meet high standards of neutrality, transparency, fairness, and non-discrimination. We should require these platforms to INCREASE their efforts to take down UNLAWFUL content, such as child exploitation and promoting terrorism, while dramatically curtailing their power to arbitrarily restrict lawful speech.
FOURTH, we need to break up the entire toxic censorship industry that has arisen under the false guise of tackling so-called “mis-” and “dis-information.” The federal government should immediately stop funding all non-profits and academic programs that support this authoritarian project. If any U.S. university is discovered to have engaged in censorship activities or election interferences in the past—such as flagging social media content for removal [and] blacklisting—those universities should lose federal research dollars and federal student loan support for a period of five years, and maybe more. We should also enact new laws laying out clear criminal penalties for federal bureaucrats who partner with private entities to do an end-run around the Constitution and deprive Americans of their First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights. In other words, deprive them of their vote. And once you lose those elections and once you lose your borders like we have, you no longer have a country. Furthermore, to confront the problems of major platforms being infiltrated by legions of former Deep Staters and intelligence officials, there should be a 7-year cooling-off period before any employee of the FBI, CIA, NSA, DNI, DHS, or DOD is allowed to take a job at a company possessing vast quantities of U.S. user data.
FIFTH, the time has finally come for Congress to pass a digital Bill of Rights. This should include a right to digital due process—in other words, government officials should need a COURT ORDER to take down online content, not send information requests such as the FBI was sending to Twitter.
Furthermore, when users of big online platforms have their content or accounts removed, throttled, shadow-banned, or otherwise restricted no matter what name they use, they should have the right to be informed that it’s happening, the right to a specific explanation of the reason why, and the right to a timely appeal. In addition, all users over the age of 18 should have the right to opt-out of content moderation and curation entirely, and receive an unmanipulated stream of information if they so choose.
The fight for Free Speech is a matter of victory or death for America—and for the survival of Western Civilization itself. When I am President, this whole rotten system of censorship and information control will be ripped out of the system at large. There won’t be anything left.
By restoring free speech, we will begin to reclaim our democracy, and save our nation. Thank you, and God Bless America.
The fight is on! Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party just tabled their latest censorship law, Bill C-63. It’s a shocking piece of legislation that claims to target “hate speech” and “hate propaganda,” but in reality, it’s just another attempt by Trudeau to seize control of the Internet and silence his critics. While Jagmeet Singh and the NDP continue to prop up the Liberals, there’s a good chance this bill will become law — and that could be the end of Rebel News and independent journalism in Canada.Click here for the latest and help us fight back!
What exactly is “harm” and “hate speech” according to Trudeau? They’re not real crimes — they’re thought crimes — a way to shut down and punish anyone who questions the official government narrative. And there’s nothing Trudeau hates more than prickly journalists willing to ask him tough questions. We all know about his admiration for Communist China’s “basic” dictatorship. And as we saw during the Freedom Convoy, he won’t hesitate to act like a tyrant when given the opportunity. (Imagine what would have happened to the Freedom Convoy if Rebel News wasn’t there to tell the other side of the story.) We’re prepared to fight this in court all the way. In fact, we’re already working behind the scenes with our lawyers to prepare for what could be one of our biggest fights yet. That’s why we need your help. This is a matter of survival — we’re up against the full resources of the state. So if you can spare $5, $50, or $500, we promise to put everything we have into winning this fight. If you can donate towards our legal fees, please do. Simply click here or go to StopTheCensorship.ca. Yours truly, Ezra Levant Rebel News
Large Southern Ontario Rally & Convoy Commemorate Truckers’ Freedom Convoy
About 300 people gathered on the bridge on Centennial Road over the Queen Elizabeth Way and in a surrounding parking lot to commemorate the day in 2022 that the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy reached Ottawa to protest the COVID mandates and other attacks on freedom. The enthusiasm and friendliness of the freedom fighters was amazing. The battle against the ongoing assault on freedoms — threats to free speech on the Internet, more loss of gun rights, and the threatened theft of the right to earn a living in agriculture, mining and oil and natural gas industries — is not over. There was a sea of “Fuck Trudeau” flags and banners.
This group was joined by a convoy of at least 100 vehicles from the Niagara Peninsula. The two groups merged and headed off to a Vaughan Mills north of Toronto.
Hamilton is generally known as a leftist stronghold. Yet, this past week Hamilton has seen several and loud and spirited protests outside the downtown hotel where the Trudeau cabinet was meeting. Cabinet ministers, surrounded by a phalanx of police, looked shaken as they passed through a vocal crowd of freedom fighters Tuesday night.
Students at the Israeli military’s Computing and Cyber Defense Academy. Israel is also “scouring Jewish communities abroad for young computer prodigies willing to join its ranks.”
Numerous well funded, organized projects by and for Israel work to flood social media with pro-Israel propaganda, while blocking facts Israel dislikes. The projects utilize Israeli soldiers, students, American teens and others, and range from infiltrating Wikipedia to influencing YouTube. Some operate out of Jewish Community Centers in the U.S.
By Alison Weir
Recently, YouTube suddenly shut down the If Americans Knew YouTube channel. This contained 70 videos providing facts-based information about Israel-Palestine.
People going to the channel saw a message telling them that the site had been terminated for “violating YouTube guidelines”—implying to the public that we were guilty of wrongdoing. And ensuring they didn’t learn about the information we were trying to disseminate.
When we tried to access our channel, we found a message saying our account had been “permanently disabled.” We had received no warning and got no explanation.
After five days, we received a generic message saying YouTube had reviewed our content and determined it didn’t violate any guidelines. Our channel became live once more.
So why was it shut down in the first place? What happened and why?
As it turns out, Israel and Israeli institutions employ armies of Internet warriors—from Israeli soldiers to students—to spread propaganda online and try to get content banned that Israel doesn’t want seen.
Perhaps like our videos of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces.
What happened
A few days before the termination of our channel, we received a form email from YouTube, telling us we had gotten “one strike” for a short video about a Palestinian man killed by Israeli soldiers. The video was part of our series of videos to make Palestinian victims, usually ignored by US media, visible to Americans.
It takes three minutes to view the video and see that it contains nothing objectionable, unless revealing cruelty and oppression is objectionable:
about:blank
YouTube’s email claimed we had somehow violated their long list of guidelines but did not tell us which one, or how. It simply stated:
“Your video ‘Ahmad Nasser Jarrar’ was flagged for review. Upon review, we’ve determined that it violates our guidelines. We’ve removed it from YouTube and assigned a Community Guidelines strike, or temporary penalty, to your account.”
Such a penalty is not public and does not terminate the channel.
Three days later, before we’d even had a chance to appeal this strike, YouTube suddenly took down our entire channel. This was done with no additional warnings or explanation.
This violated YouTube’s published policies.
YouTube policies say there is a “three-strike” system by which it warns people of alleged violations three times before terminating a channel. If a channel is eventually terminated, the policies state that YouTube will send an email “detailing the reason for the suspension.”
None of this happened in our case.
We submitted appeals on YouTube’s online form, but received no response. Attempts to find a phone number for YouTube and/or email addresses by which we could communicate with a human being were futile.
YouTube’s power to shut down content without explanation whenever it chooses was acutely apparent. While there are other excellent video hosting sites, YouTube is the largest one, with nearly ten times more views than its closest competitors. It is therefore enormously powerful in shaping which information is available to the public–and which is not.
We spent days working to upload our videos elsewhere, update links to the videos, etc. Finally, having received no response or even acknowledgment of our appeal from YouTube, we decided to write an article about the situation. We emailed YouTube’s press department a list of questions about its process. We have yet to receive any answers.
Finally that evening we received an email with good news:
“After a review of your account, we have confirmed that your YouTube account is not in violation of our Terms of Service. As such, we have unsuspended your account. This means your account is once again active and operational.”
Our channel was visible once more. And YouTube had now officially confirmed that our content doesn’t violate its guidelines.
Ultimately, the YouTube system seems to have worked, in our case. Inappropriate censorship was overruled, perhaps by saner or less biased heads. In fact, we felt that there might at least be one positive result of the situation—additional YouTube employees had viewed our videos and perhaps learned much about Israel-Palestine they had not previously known.
But the whole experience was a wakeup call that YouTube can censor information critical of powerful parties at any time, with no explanation or accountability.
Israeli soldiers paid to “Tweet, Share, Like and more”
about:blank
Israel and partisans of Israel have long had a significant presence on the Internet, working to promote the Israel narrative and block facts about Palestine, the Israel lobby, and other subject matter they wish covered up.
Opinionated proponents of Israel post comments, flag content, accuse critics of “antisemitism,” and disseminate misinformation about Palestine and Palestine solidarity activists. Many of these actions are by individuals acting alone who work independently, voluntarily, and relentlessly.
In addition to these, however, a number of orchestrated, often well-funded projects sponsored by the Israeli government and others have come to light. These projects work to place pro-Israel content throughout the Internet, and to remove information Israel doesn’t wish people to know.
One such Israeli project targeting the Internet came to light when it was lauded in an article by Arutz Sheva, an Israeli news organization headquartered in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
The report described a new project by Israel’s “New Media desk” that focused on YouTube and other social media sites. The article reported that Israeli soldiers were being employed to “Tweet, Share, Like and more.”
The article noted, “It is well known nowadays that what happens on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has great influence on events as they occur on the ground. The Internet, too, is a battleground.” It was “comforting,” the article stated, to learn that the IDF was employing soldiers whose job was specifically to do battle on it.
Israeli students paid to promote Israel on social media
Screen shot from a video about student program to spread pro-Israel content on the Internet and social media.
Another project to do battle on the Internet was initiated in 2011 by the 300,000-strong National Union of Israeli Students (NUIS). The goal was “to deepen and expand hasbara [state propaganda] activities of students in the State of Israel.”
Under this program, Israeli students are paid $2,000 to work five hours per week to “lead the battle against hostile websites.”
An announcement for the program (translated here into English) noted that “many students in Israel master the Internet and are proficient at using the Internet and social networking and various sites and are required to write and express themselves in English.” Students can work from the comfort of their own homes, points out the announcement.
“Students work in four teams: Content, Wikipedia, Monitoring and New Media,” according to the program description. It details the responsibilities for each team:
The content team is responsible for creating original content in a news format.
The monitoring team is responsible for “monitoring efforts while reporting and removing anti-Semitic [sic] content from social networks in a variety of languages.” (The program conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism; see below.)
The New Media team is responsible for social media channels, “including Facebook accounts in English, French and Portuguese, Twitter, YouTube channels, and so on.”
The Wikipedia team is “responsible for writing new entries and translating them into languages that operate in the program, updating the values of current and relevant information, tracking and preventing bias in the program’s areas of activity.”
This program sometimes claims it is working against antisemitism, but it conflates antisemitism with criticism of the state of Israel. This is in line with an Israel-backed initiative to legally define “antisemitism” to include discussing negative facts about Israel and its treatment of Palestinians.
Campaign to infiltrate Wikipedia
The pro-Israel organization CAMERA infiltrated Wikipedia for a time. (Illustration by Electronic Intifada.)
Several years ago, another project came to light that targeted Wikipedia. While manipulating Wikipedia entries doesn’t directly impact YouTube, it provides a window into some of these efforts to manipulate online content.
A 2008 exposé in the Electronic Intifada revealed: “A pro-Israel pressure group is orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia.”
While it is common and appropriate for individuals to edit Wikipedia entries to add factual information and remove inaccurate statements, this project was the antithesis of such editing. As EI, reported, its purpose was “to rewrite Palestinian history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged.”
Author Ali Abunimah reported that a source had provided EI with a series of emails from members and associates of the pro-Israel group CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) that showed the group “was engaged in what one activist termed a ‘war’ on Wikipedia.”
CAMERA Senior Research Analyst Gilead Ini organized a project to infiltrate Wikipedia.
CAMERA called for volunteers to secretly work on editing Wikipedia entries. It emphasized the importance of keeping the project secret. Volunteers were schooled in ways to elude detection. After they signed up as editors, they were to “avoid editing Israel-related articles for a short period of time.”
They were also told to “avoid, for obvious reasons, picking a username that marks you as pro-Israel, or that lets people know your real name.”
CAMERA also warned them: “Don’t forget to always log in… If you make changes while not logged in, Wikipedia will record your computer’s IP address.”
A Wikipedia editor known as Zeq helped in the effort, telling volunteers: “Edit articles at random, make friends not enemies—we will need them later on. This is a marathon not a sprint.” He emphasized the importance of secrecy: “You don’t want to be precived [sic] as a ‘CAMERA’ defender’ on wikipedia that is for sure.”
Zeq recommended that they work with and learn from an independent, pro-Israel Wikipedia editor known as Jayjg, but directed them to keep the project secret even from him.
When this all came to light, Wikipedia took measures against such manipulation of its system and the CAMERA program may have ended.
If it did, others stepped into the breach. In 2010 two Israeli groups began offering a course in “Zionist editing” of Wikipedia entries. The aim was “to make sure that information in the online encyclopedia reflects the worldview of Zionist groups.” A course organizer explained that the use of the word “occupied” in Wikipedia entries “was just the kind of problem she hoped a new team of editors could help fix.”
Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper reported: “The organizers’ aim was twofold: to affect Israeli public opinion by having people who share their ideological viewpoint take part in writing and editing for the Hebrew version, and to write in English so Israel’s image can be bolstered abroad.”
There was to be a prize for the “Best Zionist Editor”—the person who over the next four years incorporated the most “Zionist” changes in the encyclopedia. The winner would receive a trip in a hot-air balloon over Israel.
High tech millionaire Naftali Bennett, a right-wing minister close to the settler movement, describes the program:
about:blank
The UK Guardian reports: “One Jerusalem-based Wikipedia editor, who doesn’t want to be named, said that publicising the initiative might not be such a good idea. ‘Going public in the past has had a bad effect,’ she says. ‘There is a war going on and unfortunately the way to fight it has to be underground.’”
Again in 2013, there was evidence of pro-Israel tampering with Wikipedia. Israel’s Ha’aretz reported that a social-media employee of NGO Monitor edited articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in an allegedly biased manner. “Draiman concealed the facts that he was an employee of NGO Monitor, often described as a right-wing group, and that he was using a second username, which is forbidden under Wikipedia’s rules,” according to the paper.
Such actions have had an impact. A website critical of Wikipedia said in 2014 that there were “almost ten times as many articles about murdered Israeli children as there are articles about murdered Palestinian children,” even though at least 10 times more Palestinian children had been killed.
The website also pointed out: “While editors like Zeq (T–C–L) and CltFn (T–C–L) may get banned in the end, the articles theystarted remain.”
If YouTube reviewers and others use Wikipedia in their determination about whether content should be removed or not, these efforts to censor Wikipedia could adversely affect their decisions.
Social Media Missions for Israel
Title image from Forward article about the Act.IL campaign.
In 2017 yet another project to target Internet platforms was launched. Known as Act.il, the project uses a software application that “leverages the power of communities to support Israel through organized online activity.”
The software is a joint venture of three groups: Israel’s IDC University; the Israeli American Council, which works to “organize and activate” the half million Israeli-Americans who live in the U.S.; and another American group called the Maccabee Task Force, created to combat the international boycott of Israel, which it terms “an anti-Semitic movement.” Maccabee says it is “laser focused on one core mission—to ensure that those who seek to delegitimize Israel and demonize the Jewish people are confronted, combatted and defeated.”
In addition, the project is supported by Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry and Israel’s intelligence community. Its CEO is an eight-year veteran of Israeli army intelligence.
Israel’s Jerusalem Post reports that Act.IL is “a wide-ranging grassroots campaign app that lets individuals combat BDS in the palm of their hand” or, as we will see, from public computers in the US.
“Act.IL is more than just an app,” the Post article explains. “It is a campaign that taps into the collective knowledge of IDC students who together speak 35 languages, hail from 86 countries and have connections to the pro-Israel community all over the world.”
The article claims: “A platform like Act.IL offers world Jewry an opportunity to fight for one thing the majority can rally behind: Israel.” (This ignores the fact that there are many Jewish individuals who oppose Israeli policies.)
Israel partisans around the world download the app, and then “in this virtual situation room of experts, they detect instances where Israel is being assailed online and they program the app to find missions that can be carried out with a push of a button.”
An organizer notes: “When you work together, with the same goals and values, you can be incredibly powerful in the social media landscape.”
about:blank
Some missions ask users to report videos. Israeli government officials say that the Act.il app “is more effective than official government requests at getting those videos removed from online platforms.”
The project is led by former Israeli intelligence officers and has close ties to American casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Another funder is the Paul R. Singer Foundation, funded by the Republican hedge fund billionaire.
The Forward calls Act.IL a new entry into the “online propaganda war” that “has thousands of mostly U.S.-based volunteers who can be directed from Israel into a social media swarm.”
According to the Forward, “Its work so far offers a startling glimpse of how it could shape the online conversations about Israel without ever showing its hand.”
The Forward reports: “Act.il says that its app has 12,000 sign-ups so far, and 6,000 regular users. The users are located all over the world, though the majority of them appear to be in the United States. Users get ‘points’ for completed missions; top-ranked users complete five or six missions a day. Top users win prizes: a congratulatory letter from a government minister, or a doll of David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding prime minister.”
Photo of group that participated in Act.IL training
Act.IL’s CEO, a veteran Israeli army intelligence officer, said the Israeli military and its domestic intelligence service “‘request’ Act.il’s help in getting services like Facebook to remove specific videos that call for violence against Jews or Israelis.” This according to the Forward report.
The officer later tried to walk back his statement, “saying that the Shin Bet [intelligence service] and the army don’t request help on specific videos but are in regular informal contact with Act.il. He said that Act.il’s staff is largely made up of former Israeli intelligence officers.”
Teens in American JCCs carry out missions assigned from Israel
New Jersey “Media Room,” a project of IAC New Jersey in partnership with Act.IL.
The project recruits Jewish teens and adults and sometimes operates out of local Jewish community centers, the Forward says. The paper describes one example:
“The dozen or so Israelis sitting around a conference table at a Jewish community center in Tenafly, New Jersey, on a recent Wednesday night didn’t look like the leading edge of a new Israeli government-linked crowdsourced online propaganda campaign.
“Tapping on laptops, the group of high school students and adult mentors completed social media ‘missions’ assigned out of a headquarters in Herzliya, Israel.”
In addition to the Tenafly “media room” another operates in Boston in cooperation with the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston. There are also regular Act.il advocacy-training sessions at The Frisch School, a Jewish day school in Paramas, New Jersey. Other media rooms are reportedly in the works, with one in Manhattan, hosted by The Paul R. Singer Foundation, scheduled to open soon.
The Forward reports: “In November, the Boston media room created a mission for the app that asked users to email a Boston-area church to complain about a screening there of a documentary that is critical of Israel. The proposed text of the email likens the screening of the film to the white supremacist riot in Charlottesville, Virginia, and calls the film’s narrator, Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, a ‘well-known anti-Semite.’”
Photo of Boston Media Room published by Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, which states: “Media Room Ambassadors are students and adult mentors who are trained with the knowledge, skills, and tools to positively influence public discourse by developing pro-Israel social media campaigns.”
According to the Forward, Act.il also produces “pro-Israel web content that carries no logo. It distributes that content to other pro-Israel groups, including the Adelson-funded Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi and The Israel Project, which push them out on their own social media feeds.”
The Forward predicts: “Initiatives in cyberspace seem likely to increase.”
Screenshot from video promoting the project, posted on the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston website.
Israeli media report that the Israeli military “has begun scouring Jewish communities abroad for young computer prodigies” to recruit for its ranks.
An Israeli official described the process: “Our first order of business is to search Jewish communities abroad for teens who could qualify, Our representatives will then travel to the communities and begin the screening process there.”
Israeli Government Ministry backs secret online campaigns
General Sima Vaknin-Gil told Israeli tech developers to “flood the Internet” with pro-Israel propaganda. As Israel’s Chief Censor, she said: ” “We censor information that is critical to our enemies, who have no capabilities like us, do not have a Jewish brain, and therefore our enemy relies to a large extent on open information…”
Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry, which is behind this and similar projects, has mobilized substantial resources for online activities.
Israel’s Ynet news reports that the Ministry’s director “sees it as a war for all intents and purposes. ‘The delegitimization against the State of Israel can be curbed and contained through public diplomacy and soft tools,’ she says. ‘In order to win, however, we must use tricks and craftiness.’”
The director, General Sima Vaknin-Gil, told a forum of Israeli tech developers at a forum: “I want to create a community of fighters.” The objective is to “curb the activities of anti-Israel activists,” and “flood the Internet” with pro-Israel content.
An Israeli report in December stated that the ministry has acquired a budget of roughly $70 million to “stand at the forefront of the battle against delegitimization, adopting methods from the fields of intelligence and technology. There is a reason why ministry officials define it as ‘a war on consciousness terrorism.’” [‘Delegitimization’ is a common Israeli term for criticism of Israel. See here for a discussion of the term.]
A Ha’aretz article reports: “The Strategic Affairs Ministry’s leaders see themselves as the heads of a commando unit, gathering and disseminating information about ‘supporters of the delegitimization of Israel’—and they prefer their actions be kept secret.”
The article reports that the Ministry includes a job role entitled “Senior official—new-media realm,” responsible for surveillance and activities “in the digital realm.”
This individual head is responsible for analyzing social media and formulating a social media campaign against sites and activists who are deemed a threat to Israel.
Among the job’s responsibilities are:
“Analysis of the world of social media, in terms of content, technology and network structure, emphasizing centers of gravity and focuses of influence, methods, messages, organizations, sites and key activists, studying their characteristics, areas, realms and key patterns of activities of the rival campaign and formulating a strategy for an awareness campaign against them in this realm and managing crises on social media. That is, surveilling of activities mainly in the digital arena.”
Officials at the ministry are charged with “construction and promotion of creative and suitable programs for new media.”
The unit works to keep its activities secret from the public. For example, a program to train young Israelis for activities on social media was exempted from publishing a public bid for funding. Similarly, the ministry’s special unit against delegitimization, “Hama’aracha” (The Battle), is excluded from Israel’s Freedom of Information Law.
The 29th floor of Tel Aviv’s Champion Tower is the nerve center of a 24-7 ‘war’ in which Israeli agents working behind the scenes advance U.S. legislation, torpedo events, organize counter-protests, & close bank accounts.. The Director says: ‘In order to win we must use tricks and craftiness.’
Its activities reportedly include a “24/7 operations room monitoring all the delegitimization activities against Israel: Protests, conferences, publications calling for an anti-Israel boycott and international bodies’ boycott initiatives. The operations room will transfer the information to the relevant people to provide a proper response to these activities, whether through a counter-protest or through moves to thwart the initiative behind the scenes.”
Other programs include a 22-million-shekel project to work among labor unions and professional associations abroad “to root out the ability of BDS entities to influence the unions,” and a 16-million-shekel program focused on student activities throughout the world.
Israel’s UNIT 8200
Photo from article about Unit 8200 on Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre website.
Another Israeli entity that plays a role in covert Internet activity is the Israeli military’s legendary high-tech spy branch, Unit 8200. This unit is composed of thousands of “cyber warriors” primarily 18 to 21 years of age; some even younger. A number of its graduates have gone on to top positions at tech companies operating in the U.S., such as Check Point Software (where the spouse of the Jewish Voice for Peace head is employed as a solutions architect).
In 2015 Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced plans “to establish a special command to combat anti-Israel incitement on social media.” The command would operate under the foreign ministry’s hasbara [propaganda] department and would especially recruit from graduates of Unit 8200.
An article in the Jewish Press about the new command reports that Unit 8200 “has developed a great reputation for effectiveness in intelligence gathering, including operating a massive global spy network. Several alumni of 8200 have gone on to establish leading Israeli IT companies, including Check Point, ICQ, Palo Alto Networks, NICE, AudioCodes, Gilat, Leadspace, EZchip, Onavo, Singular and CyberArk.”
Check Point Software headquarters in Tel Aviv. Founded by a former Unit 8200 member, it also has offices throughout the U.S. Israeli tech companies sometimes assist in online spying efforts.
Numerous Israeli tech companies, many of them headed by former military intelligence officers, assist in these online spying efforts, sometimes receiving Israeli government funding “for digital initiatives aimed at gathering intelligence on activist groups and countering their efforts.”
According to the ministry’s statement, among the Command’s activities is “finding videos with inflammatory content and issuing complaints to the relevant websites.”
To be clear, this is an occupying military working covertly to achieve censorship of reporting on its atrocities.
YouTube & Google officials meet with Israeli Minister
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki speaking to the Israel Collaboration Network’s Israeli Women in Tech Group on August 25, 2016.
Major Internet companies have reportedly been cooperating in this effort.
In 2015 Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely announced that she had visited Silicon Valley and met with YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and Google’s Director of Public Policy (it is unclear whether this was was Jennifer Oztzistzki or Juniper Downs; Hotovely’s announcement referred to “Jennifer Downs”).
“At the end of the meeting,” Israeli media reported, “it was agreed that Google would strengthen bilateral relations with the Foreign Ministry and build a collaborative work apparatus.”
Another Israeli news report about the meeting states: “…it was agreed that the companies would strengthen ties with the Foreign Ministry and build a regular mechanism of control to prevent the distribution of those incendiary materials on the network.”
Google, which owns YouTube, denied the Foreign Ministry’s report. The Ministry accordingly “clarified” its statement somewhat, but continued to say that Israeli officials would be in “regular contact with Google’s employees in Israel who deal with the problematic materials.”
Such officials often have close ties to Israel. For example, Facebook’s Head of Policy in Israel, Jordana Cutler, had previously been employed for many years by the Israeli government. (More about Facebook can be found here.)
The Linkedin page for Facebook’s Jordana Cutler
The meetings seem to have had a significant effect.
In 2016 Fortune magazine reported: “Facebook, Google, and YouTube are complying with up to 95% of Israeli requests to delete content that the government says incites Palestinian violence, Israel’s Justice Minister said on Monday.”
More recently, the Israeli Ministry of Justice said that its cyber unit handled 2,241 cases of online content and succeeded in getting 70 percent of it removed.
According to a 2017 report, Google, in its capacity as the operator of Youtube, announced that it was updating the steps it was already taking on this score.
Among other things, Google said it would increase the number of members of the “Trusted Flagger program,” which enables certain organizations and government agencies to report content. It also said it would “increase support for NGOs and organizations working to present a ‘corrective voice.’”
Given the record of infiltration and orchestrated activities described above—many financed by a combination of certain influential billionaires and the Israeli government itself—it’s hard to imagine that Israeli organizations and partisans are not thoroughly embedded in this program. In fact, one of the NGOs already working with YouTube as a “trusted flagger” is the Anti-Defamation League, whose mission includes ‘standing up for Israel.’
Anti-Defamation League celebrates Israel at 2017 New York City parade.
A leaked secret January 2017 ADL strategy paper detailed how to counter the pro-Palestine movement. Among its many strategies were some focused on the importance of efforts in cyber space.
The paper was produced in collaboration with the Reut Institute, an Israeli think tank, and included an endorsement by Sima Vaknin-Gil, who stated that “the correlation between the Ministry’s mode of operation and what comes out of this document is very high, and has already proven effective… ”
Strategy paper about how to counter the Palestine solidarity movement. (Full document posted here.)
The document’s executive summary noted: “Cyberspace, broadly defined, stands out as a crucially important arena (for monitoring and counter and pro-active strategies) which requires more resources and attention due to its current influence, rapid growth and growing complexity.”
The paper called for “a mix of policy advocacy and industry engagement with corporations such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter in a manner consistent with the ADL Center for Technology and Society and its Anti-Cyberhate Working Group.”
An illustration in the ADL-Reut working paper on improving Israel advocacy. It noted: “While the pro-Israel network increasingly is active in this domain, much more can be done.”
The paper also recommended: “‘Bottom-up efforts’ of crowd-sourcing to enhance the adaptive capacity of the pro-Israel network.”
At the same time, it urged:
“Strengthening pro-Israel organizations that mobilize and coordinate a network of ‘nodes’ e.g. Jewish Community Public Affairs (JCPA) and its network of Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRCs) in the USA; Hillel, which is present in nearly five hundred locations in the U.S. and globally; the Israel Action Network (IAN) that reaches nearly 160 federations in the U.S.; or the Jewish Congress (WJC) that represents dozens of Jewish communities around the world.”
The detailed, 32-page document reported that in recent years “a massive investment of resources and talent” had been directed against the pro-Palestine movement. One of the results, the paper said, was to create a “world-wide pro-Israel network.” It was this network that the report wished to mobilize. One of the paper’s concerns was that since Israel’s 2014 attack on Gaza “a growing number of Jews have become more critical of Israel.”
The document recommended a degree of stealth, noting: “high-visibility response by the pro-Israel side can be counterproductive.”
What this means
Nevertheless, despite all these forces arrayed against information about Palestine reaching the American public, our channel is back up on YouTube. In fact, we’ve just uploaded a new video:
about:blank
This one is about the death of a nine-year-old boy. [Perhaps the Israeli government would consider this incitement to Palestinians to rebel against occupation; we see it as incitement to the world in general, and Americans in particular, to care.]
In other words, Israel’s efforts at censorship don’t always succeed.
But sometimes they do, and other YouTube users have not always been so fortunate. For example, YouTube has terminated several Palestinian news organizations.
One was the al-Quds network, which, according to a report in Middle East Eye, “relies on young reporters and volunteers using phones and other digital devices to cover local news across the Palestinian territories.” They would often report Israeli soldiers committing various human rights violations.
Its YouTube channel was terminated in 2011, and its editor says they had to “to create a new channel from scratch.” By 2017 its new channel had gained almost 10 million views before it was suddenly suspended without warning again last October. It now, however, appears to have a YouTube channel in operation.
According to the MEE report, YouTube also suspended the Filisten al-Youm TV channel last August, and in 2013, apparently following complaints by the Anti-Defamation League, YouTube closed down Iran’s PressTV channel. (A Press TV YouTube channel now also appears to be available again.)
about:blank
Palestinian social media users risk even greater consequences.
The Israeli government has arrested Palestinians for videos, poems, and other posts it dislikes. A 2016 report estimated that “more than 150 arrests took place between October and February 2016 based on Facebook posts expressing opinions on the uprising. A recent video posted on social media led to the imprisonment of a 16 year old girl, her mother and cousin.
In addition, Palestinian access to social media is somewhat controlled by Israel. As a Huffington Post article reports, ”Palestinians’ digital rights and access to the Internet are compromised in very basic ways, because Israel controls the infrastructure and services of Palestinian telecommunication companies in the West Bank.”
While the situation has greatly improved in recent years – the Israeli government finally announced in 2016 that it would allow Palestinians in the West Bank to access 3G wireless networks, making this one of the last regions in the world with such access after years of Israeli restrictions – it is important to remember the enormous power Israel wields over this largely captive population.
While Israel is able to organize entire campaigns to filter and flood social media, its immense control over Palestinians impedes their access to the same media.
Given these facts, it is extremely important for people to search out information for themselves, go directly to our websites and others, subscribe to diverse email lists, and not rely on social media for information. [Please subscribe to our news posts here.]
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and others are private companies. In the end, they have the power to censor information, and they periodically do so. For a few days, we felt acutely what that was like. If Facebook had joined the ban, as has happened with others, we would have been even more cut off from what is essentially today’s “public square.”
The Internet and social media give us far more access to information and tools for communication and activism than ever before, but they, too, can be controlled—and they are.
* The section on the ADL was expanded on March 9. The ADL-Reut is posted here.
* After publishing this article, we produced a video with the information and posted it on YouTube. YouTube then removed it. However, the video can still be viewed on Vimeo.
The Internet Censors Chortle at Their Success With the EU
We did it!!!!
Hours ago, the EU Parliament overwhelmingly voted in favor of the most ambitious regulation ever drafted to end the era of toxic social media.
We’re still in shock.
We were up against some of the most powerful corporations in the world. But we were louder.
Donating in the thousands, flooding key decision-makers with messages, delivering powerful solutions in meetings, and publishing groundbreaking investigations showing the harms caused by Big Tech: the Avaaz community has helped shape history this week, together with other awesome groups out there fighting alongside us and brave lawmakers who decided to listen.
We’re not done yet, but if EU lawmakers stand strong in further negotiations, this could be the first wave of a cascade of new laws all over the world that finally put people before platforms and their profits: whenever Facebook, Youtube or TikTok would harm our societies at scale – from making dangerous disinformation go viral to spreading harmful content to kids or misusing our personal data — our democracies would be able to ensure they take responsibility.
Join the celebration by retweeting the Avaaz tweet here or posting on Facebook here
Social media has brought powerful innovation to our societies. But for too long they have been able to evolve with literally just one goal: maximizing their profit, even if that meant radicalizing our societies, delegitimizing science or a rise in teen depression.
Now, thanks to this regulation which some have called a new constitution for the Internet, we can demand a future where technologies are shaped around common values, and protect our fundamental human rights, instead of exploiting our weaknesses.
Also, with so much disillusionment around politics, this regulation has shown Europe at its best. With almost all the demands from citizens, experts and civic society organizations landing in some way in the text just voted including: Detoxify the algorithm— make the platforms take responsibility for the harms they cause to our societies, like the viral spread of dangerous disinformation; Big sanctions — Face fines up to 6% of their global income, yes we’re talking billions of dollars here, if they don’t fix their systems;Open the black box — Allow independent auditors, researchers and civic society to scrutinize their actions and uncover their wrongdoings;Stop surveillance ads — Ban the exploitation of children’s data, and our political beliefs or gender choices, to target us with ads.
Join the celebration by retweeting the Avaaz tweet here or posting on Facebook here
For over four years Avaaz has been on the forefront of the public push to force social media platforms to tackle the harms they create. From the EU, to the US, or Brazil, we have reported on disinformation and its scale, commissioning polls on its harmful effects, evaluating platforms’ efforts to tackle them, and identifying their failures. None of this would have been possible without the Avaaz membership. It was a huge shared effort. But it paid off. And now we’re making history.
With deep excitement and determination,
Luca, Sarah, Christoph, Joana, Nadia, Andy, Rosie, Luana, Camille, Barbara, Sam and the rest of the Avaaz team
The Canadian government plans to introduce “comprehensive” regulations that target “hate speech” on social media platforms.
The regulations will reportedly be tabled in 2021 and are being introduced “to promote a safer and more inclusive online environment.”
A briefing note on the new regulations from Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s department stated:
“We are working to introduce regulations to reduce the spread of illegal content, including hate speech, in order to promote a safer and more inclusive online environment. We want to protect Canadians online.”
The briefing added that: “Social media platforms can also be used to threaten, intimidate, bully and harass people, or used to promote racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, misogynist and homophobic views that target communities, put people’s safety and risk and undermine Canada’s social cohesion or democracy.”
Before winning reelection in 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party made tackling online hate speech a major priority and proposed giving social media platforms a 24-hour deadline to remove hate speech or face “significant financial penalties.”
Last September, the Canadian government doubled down on its threat to regulate online hate speech with Canada’s Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, Catherine McKenna, warning: “We don’t have to regulate everything but if you can’t regulate yourselves, governments will.” One day later, the Canadian government promised to “redouble its effort by taking action on online hate.”
Trudeau has also expressed conflicting views on free speech. In October, he compared drawing Muhammed cartoons to “yelling fire in a crowded movie theatre” and said there are “limits” to free speech after a terrorist attack in France where a teacher was beheaded after showing Charlie Hebdo cartoons that depict the Prophet Mohammed.
After facing heavy criticism, Trudeau then backtracked on these anti-free speech comments and stated: “I think it is more important to continue to defend freedom of expression and freedom of speech. Our artists help us to reflect and challenge our views, and they contribute to our society.”
Critics have warned that online hate speech laws pose a threat to free speech because they risk criminalizing and jailing people for expressing controversial views.
But these warnings have largely fallen on deaf ears with Canada being just one of several countries to propose or introduce hate speech laws and regulations over the last few months.
For example, Scotland’s controversial “hate crime” bill, which would sanction the possession of “inflammatory media” and “problematic” social media posts, is looking increasingly likely to pass. And Norway recently passed a new law under which people can be jailed for hate speech in private conversations.If you’re tired of cancel culture and censorship subscribe to Reclaim The Net.
This email is to give you an update on the Ontario Civil Liberties Association (OCLA)’s work in the surreal year of 2020. We hope to stay connected with you and work together to resist and reverse the rapid degradation of civil rights currently occurring in Canada. OCLA report “Criticism of Government Response to COVID-19 in Canada” In April, we published a research report authored by OCLA researcher Dr. Denis Rancourt, criticizing the government’s actions during the spring lockdown. The Abstract of the report reads as follows:
We review the scientific literature about general-population lockdown and social-distancing measures, which is relevant to mitigation policy in Canada. Federal and provincial Canadian government responses to and communications about COVID-19 have been irresponsible. The latest research implies that the government interventions to “flatten the curve” risk causing significant additional cumulative COVID-19 deaths, due to seasonal driving of transmissibility and delayed societal immunity.
Denis has written several research and review articles on COVID-19, including:
OCLA continues to oppose the arbitrary and draconian imposition of face masks on the general population. Our interventions in 2020 are documented at the following links:
OCLA’s submission on new online hate speech law In July 2020, civil liberties associations were invited by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to participate in consultations to “inform the development of legal remedies for victims of online hate”. OCLA has previously argued that the “hate speech” provisions of Canada’s Criminal Code are unconstitutional and in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and we reiterated this argument in our submission for the July 2020 consultations, as well as critiquing the Minister’s specific proposed additions to Canada’s hate speech laws.
Defending free speech of Ontario medical doctor Dr. Kulvinder Gill In August, OCLA asked Dr. Brenda Copps, President of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), to dismiss the CPSO’s investigations of tweets made by Ontario medical doctor Dr. Kulvinder Gill that are critical of COVID-19 policy and practices. The letter can be read here: https://ocla.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2020-08-11-OCLA-letter-to-CPSO-President.pdf
Internet censorship “Blocking YouTube channels and banning books on Amazon are akin to requiring government authorisation to operate a printing press or to buy a photocopier or pen and paper. Only the technology and the administrative covering structures have changed. Establishment censorship is establishment censorship.”
The above quote is from OCLA’s statement opposing Amazon’s deplatforming of Ezra Levant’s book China Virus: How Justin Trudeau’s Pro-Communist Ideology is Putting Canadians in danger.
We, like many other organizations and individuals, have also been affected by social media censorship. In July, our Facebook group was disappeared and then reappeared 24 hours later. Many posts in the group are now being arbitrarily removed by Facebook. As a backup in the event that Facebook deletes our group, OCLA maintains an alternative group at MeWe. However, our email list remains the best and most secure way to stay connected with us. Media coverage
OCLA is an independent, volunteer-run organization. Donations help cover operating costs such as booking rooms for public events, printing promotional material for campaigns and events, and paying for court filing fees and court document production costs (copies and binding) for court and tribunal interventions on civil liberties issues.
As we are an entirely volunteer-run organization with a very small budget, we do depend on donations to continue our work, and appreciate any contribution you can make. Donations can be made in three ways: 1) Through PayPal, by clicking the “Donate” button in the top-right corner of https://ocla.ca; 2) With cryptocurrency (Bitcoin and other options) at the link here; or
3) By sending a cheque to “Ontario Civil Liberties Association” to our mailing address:
Ontario Civil Liberties Association 170 Laurier Avenue West, Suite 603 Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1P 5V5OCLA is not affiliated with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) or the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA). All three associations are separate and distinct. Thank you for your support!
Our pro-life reporting is being attacked. So is the truth. We can’t back down in the fight against abortion!View this email in your browser Photo Credit: Getty ImagesJames,The outrageous erasing of the White Coat Summit from the internet is only the latest in a long series of brazen acts of censorship against conservatives and all those who support legitimate free speech.
You may agree or disagree with the efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine against the coronavirus, but everyone should agree on this point:
No Big Tech company should have the power to erase from the internet the medical opinions of licensed practicing doctors simply because they do not like what they have to say about the coronavirus or their experience treating it. Americans and other free peoples do not need leftist computer programmers deciding what the best course of medical treatment is for them.SIGN PETITION
Google/YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and their Big Tech friends want to control what you see, what you read, what you think, and ultimately, how you vote. Not only do they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying congress and buttering up big Washington DC think tanks, but now they brazenly and directly censor any content they don’t want you to see.
This must stop, but it won’t unless we demand it as forcefully as legally possible. We believe that we have reached the point were Big Tech must be broken up if legitimate free speech is going to survive and continue to thrive on the internet.
In an era where almost everything is polarized, there is an overwhelming support for breaking up the Big Tech monopolies. A recent Pew poll found that 75% of Americans believe that Big Tech companies have too much influence.
It is time to bring serious accountability to Big Tech for their attempts to use their monopolies to kill free speech.It is time to break up Big Tech.
CAFE CALLS ON MINISTER OF JUSTICE NOT TO REINTRODUCE SEC 13 — INTERNET CENSORSHIP
Canadian Association for Free Expression
Box 332,
Rexdale, Ontario, M9W 5L3
Ph: 905-289-674-4455; FAX: 289-674-4820;
Website http://cafe.nfshost.com
Paul Fromm, B.Ed, M.A. Director
June 21, 2019
Hon. David Lametti,
Minister of Justice,
House of Commons,
Ottawa, ON.,
K1A 0A6
Dear Minister Lametti:
RE: Please Don’t Reintroduce Sec. 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Code
I read in the National Post (June 20, 2019) that you are considering “very carefully” a recommendation by the Commons Justice Committee to reintroduce the discredited Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act which was repealed by Parliament in 2013. Please don’t do it.
Sec. 13 made it a discriminatory practice to repeatedly communicate over the Internet material that is “likely to expose to hatred or contempt” a long list of privileged groups.
I represented a number of the victims of this section at Tribunals. Our organization the Canadian Association for Free Expression participated in a number of other Tribunals including the very complex Warman v Lemire.
In practice, Sec. 13 meant certain groups were virtually immune from criticism. While hatred is a very strong emotion, contempt is merely the result of negative commentary. To take a neutral example, were I to say smokers had bad breath, discoloured teeth, stained fingers, smelled and ran added risks of cancer or strokes, I would not be exposing smokers to hatred. I wouldn’t be asking anyone to hate smokers but I would certainly be creating an unfavourable impression of them, and, thus, exposing them to contempt. Thus, were smokers a privileged groups, I’d risk a conviction under Sec. 13.
As time went on, Tribunal rulings held that it was not necessary to prove that anyone actually felt or expressed hatred or contempt as a result of the impugned posting. In the Lemire case, logs showed that only five people had ever even read one impugned post. Surely a case of de minimis! It also emerged that truth was not a defence, sincerely held religious belief was not a defence nor was opinion or commentary.
Indeed, there actually were no defences, except, perhaps, that the accused person had not posted the controversial material in question. Thus, until the Lemire case, Sec. 13 had a one hundred per cent conviction rate. This would rival the vile legal system of North Korea!
After 2001, when Sec. 13 was amended to specifically include material on the Internet, one individual, Richard Warman, a driven “anti-Nazi” campaigner and sometime employee of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, made the bulk of the complaints, turning it into an industry and, at times a profitable one too for, should the victim post criticisms of Mr. Warman after he filed a complaint, he would then allege retaliation, which exposed the victim to a punitive fine.
Sec. 13 was only used against people seen to be on the “right” of the political spectrum. No person expressing strident opinions against Christians or Europeans was ever prosecuted.
Much is made of so-called “hate speech” on the Internet. The Internet is not a free for all. Postings expressing extreme hatred can and have been prosecuted under Sec. 319 of the Criminal Code. Those who denounce “hate speech” are using a loaded term to demonize views they don’t like. The accusation of “hate speech” tells you little about the content of the impugned material but does tell you that it is material the accuser hates!
The Internet allows a much greater range of views and commentary and a more free wheeling debate, especially on such volatile issues as immigration, than usually appears in Canada’s fairly controlled press that tends to limit the range of acceptable opinions. Such freedom and the divergent voices being heard are upsetting to people who would like a much more controlled public discourse.
I have seen lives ruined by Sec. 13 — huge fines and life-long “cease and desist orders” that have the force of a Federal Court order. I have seen individuals jailed for nothing more than the non-violent expression of their political views.
I urge you to choose freedom. Reject calls for the reintroduction of Sec. 13. Yes, there is some extreme, foolish and insulting material on the Internet. Open discussion and debate tend to isolate and expose such postings. Canada needs more speech and debate not less. Do not bring back Sec. 13.
