(Congressional Agenda) – At the Davos conference that was held last week, for a total of five days, there were a number of speakers and panelists attending the World Economic Forum who took opportunity after opportunity to preach about the need for slapping proverbial tape across the mouths of folks who share “misinformation and disinformation,” promoting an egregious form of freedom of speech censorship. Keep in mind, freedom of speech is the foundation of any free society. Without the ability to exchange ideas openly and challenge the policies of governing authorities, a culture will ultimately stagnate and progress will come to a halt.
Which is ironic, given the biggest proponents of censorship are progressives. In actuality, they aren’t in support of making progress, but are all about regression.
According to the Daily Caller, “Top representatives from government, universities and nonprofits set their sights on this purportedly menacing threat in speeches and discussions throughout the summit. Many pressed for worldwide cooperation on combatting so-called misinformation, and advocated for the enforcement of specific censorship measures to stifle the dissemination of objectionable content online, particularly in the lead-up to the 2024 elections.”
One example is European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who started her speech last Tuesday by chatting about the threat “disinformation and misinformation” poses to world order.
Breaking: WEF24 Davos is underway, and the speakers are already having a therapy session over @X and @elonmusk. Naomi Oreskes from Harverd Univeristy and Luciana Vaccaro from SwissUniversities lament on their experience on the "toxic" X platform and it's "problematic" owner,… pic.twitter.com/2hfmc38ATX
— Rukshan Fernando (@therealrukshan) January 15, 2024
“For the global business community, the top concern for the next two years is not conflict or climate, it is disinformation and misinformation, followed closely by polarization within our societies,” von der Leyen stated as she kicked off her address.
“The EC president was citing the WEF’s recent Global Risks 2024 report, which surveyed more than ‘1,400 global risks experts, policy-makers and industry leaders’ in September 2023 to determine what they perceive to be the most significant global risks in the near future. ‘Misinformation and disinformation’ topped the list, with ‘societal polarization’ ranking third; the report specifically flagged the risks in relation to the 2024 elections taking place,” the article divulged.
“These risks are serious because they limit our ability to tackle the big global challenges we are facing,” von der Leyen proclaimed. “We are once again competing more intensely across countries than we have in several decades. And this makes the theme of this year’s Davos meeting even more relevant. Rebuilding trust … This is a time to drive global collaboration more than ever before.”
Vera Jourova, the EC Vice-President for Values and Transparency, commented that the EU is working to make sure people are getting factual information by mandating censorship, an admission made during a panel on the topic of “Defending Truth.”
“Disinformation is a very powerful tool,” Jourová claimed. “[The EU is] focusing on improving of the system where the people will get the facts right. We don’t speak about opinions. We are not correcting anyone’s opinions or language. Yeah? This is about the facts.”
“Jourová noted the EU’s 2022 ‘2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation’ that compels numerous Big Tech signatories like Google and Meta to counter “disinformation” through measures like ‘fact-checking’ and demonetization. The EC also referred the Daily Caller News Foundation to its European External Action Service’s Strategic Communication Taskforce, which identifies and exposes ‘disinformation,’” the Daily Caller reported.
A chief for an international nonprofit organization that focuses its work on providing “support” to various news organizations then provided some insights concerning a strategy that demonetizes “bad” sources of information during the same panel. Of course, the main question that needs to be asked is who gets to determine the criteria used to determine if a source is “bad” or not? I guarantee you it’s not a person who is fair and balanced. It’s going to be a hardcore left-winger who is towing the line and pushing the agenda.
“Disinformation makes money and we need to follow that money and we need to work with, in particular, the global advertising industry,” Internews President and CEO Jeanne Bourgault went on to say at the event. “A lot of those dollars go to pretty bad content. So you can work really hard on exclusion lists or inclusion lists just to really try to … focus their ad dollars toward the good news and information. The accurate and relevant news and information.”
Alexandra Reeve Givens, the CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology, called on the giants in Big Tech to increase censorship for the election season during a panel called “Protecting Democracy against Bots and Plots.”
“We’re in this bizarre environment where right as the threats are ticking up, the investments in actually doing the day-to-day work of online trust and safety for our information environment is being scaled back and is under attack,” Givens went on to say. “We have to have the social media companies keep up the work.”
“Is there a way to force them to do that?” Foreign Policy magazine Editor-in-Chief Ravi Agrawal went on to ask Givens during the panel. “Push them to do that.”
“You get them to places like Davos, and you have them talk about the work,” Givens replied with a chuckle. “The staffing and decisions of companies, making sure they’re putting in those investments, making sure that they’re sharing information, that they’re doing it not just for the U.S. election but for the other elections … That has to stay a key focus. Even if there is political pressure.”
“Furthermore, Harvard Professor of the History of Science Naomi Oreskes and President of SwissUniversities Luciana Vaccaro disclosed their mutual dislike for billionaire Elon Musk’s X during a Monday forum on ‘Liberating Science,'” the piece revealed.
“For a long time I was on Twitter and now it’s become such a toxic place that I’ve concluded it’s not a worthwhile place to spend time,” Oreskes remarked. “I have given up on X. What a scary name that even is, right?”
“It’s [a] very toxic environment and … I have no solution on that,” Vaccaro said. “I think there will be a societal reflection on how information is brought there. Of course on X now there is also the policy of the owner that is problematic but I think this is a problem of the society of the future.”
Thanks to the leadership of Musk, X has managed to cut its total worldwide trust and safety staff by a whopping 30 percent. The number of workers went from 4,062 to 2,849. A reporter who works for Rebel News then asked Oreskes about her comments concerning X, saying, “What’s wrong with X?”
“Where do I start?” she snickered. “So much disinformation on that channel.”
When the reporter pressed Oreskes on whether or not X should have more censorship, she declared she would not answer that question. The silence speaks volumes.
Copyright 2024. CongressionalAgenda.com
F them
The way the talk coming out of the global elites at their meeting is that they feel like they should make the rules for all countries, with them in charge of course. f that doesn’t scare the **ll out of you, then there’s something wrong with your thinking. If anyone in our government would sign off on that line of action then they need to be tried for treason. That’s one sure way to start that second war for independence that’s been talked about for several years now.