Stay Calm and Censor On: Elon Musk Summoned to UK Parliament to Answer for His Pledge to Restore Free Speech
By Jonathan Turley: I previously wrote about Hillary Clinton’s call on European countries to pass censorship laws to force social media companies like Twitter to regulate speech even after Elon Musk’s pledge to restore free speech to Twitter. Now the Parliament has called on Musk to testify and to explain his alarming pledge to restore free speech.
The Biden Administration’s Disinformation Governance Board head, Nina Jankowisz, previously called upon Great Britain to impose state censorship rules. That call has grown since Musk’s purchase. Until now, a unified front of corporate censors was able to maintain an extensive system of censorship with the encouragement of politicians and pundits, including Joe Biden and Democratic members.
The head of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee in the House of Commons, Conservative MP Julian Knight has assured her countrymen that they can stay calm and censor on. She issued a letter for Musk to appear before the committee to answer for his terrifying suggestion of free speech:
“At a time when social media companies face the prospect of tighter regulations around the world, we’re keen to learn more about how Mr Musk will balance his clear commitment to free speech with new obligations to protect Twitter’s users from online harms.”
We've invited @ElonMusk to discuss the future of @Twitter in Parliament.
— Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (@CommonsDCMS) May 4, 2022
Chair @JulianKnight15: "Appearing before the Committee will give Mr Musk an ideal opportunity to set out his proposals in more depth and we would look forward to welcoming him.”
🔎: https://t.co/HpYduMAcZY pic.twitter.com/UTU2wu1jnV
Like the EU’s censorship plans under the Digital Services Act, the proposed Online Safety Bill would introduce state censorship through the purview of Ofcom (The Office of Communications), the broadcasting regulator in Britain. It would allow the company to fine firms up to ten percentof their global revenue should they violate ill-defined “harm” standards.
If passed, Clinton and others hope that the Europeans can replace corporate censorship with good old-fashioned state censorship. This includes confiscatory fines for anything deemed “grossly offensive.“ The bill would allow countries like Great Britain to impose censorship on the rest of the world.
The decline of free speech in the United Kingdom has long been a concern for free speech advocates (here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). Once you start as a government to criminalize speech, you end up on a slippery slope of censorship. What constitutes hate speech or “malicious communications” remains a highly subjective matter and we have seen a steady expansion of prohibited terms and words and gestures. Even having “toxic ideologies” is now a crime.
Great Britain would now make censorship one of its greatest exports. To do so, they first have to stomp out advocates for free speech like Musk by threatening to bankrupt his company if it tries to restore free speech to the Internet.
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Biden Administration Creates ‘Ministry of Truth’
The Democrats Have Institutionalized 1984 in the Department of Homeland Security
The New Orwellian slogan is: Truth is Disinformation
By Dr. Joseph Mercola: By now, you’ve probably heard that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has created a Disinformation Governance Board to oversee what information is and isn’t “truthful.”1 This includes information relating to elections.2 It’s so incredibly Orwellian, you’d think it was pure fiction, yet here we are. It’s real.
This “Ministry of Truth” will reportedly operate under and receive funding from the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3), created by President Biden to “curb radicalization in the U.S.”3 It appears those in the Biden administration must have thought “1984” was an instruction manual rather than a warning.
Known Disinformation Spreader Made Head of Truth Ministry
Heading up this new “Ministry of Truth” is Nina Jankowicz,4 a “Russian disinformation expert” who in her spare time makes a fool of herself singing made-up show tunes about disinformation and erotic Harry Potter songs5 on TikTok.
As noted by both Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson and Jimmy Dore of “The Jimmy Dore Show” in the videos above, Jankowicz is qualified to do absolutely nothing. Independent journalist Glen Greenwald also highlighted Jankowicz’s obvious lack of real credentials in a May 4, 2022, Substack article:6
“The concept of ‘anti-disinformation expert’ is itself completely fraudulent. This is not a real expertise but rather a concocted title bestowed on propagandists to make them appear more scholarly and apolitical than they are …
There is no conceivable circumstance in which a domestic law enforcement agency like DHS should be claiming the power to decree truth and falsity … The purpose of Homeland Security agents is to propagandize and deceive, not enlighten and inform.
The level of historical ignorance and stupidity required to believe that U.S. Security State operatives are earnestly devoted to exposing and decreeing truth is off the charts … That nobody should want the U.S. Government let alone Homeland Security arrogating unto itself the power to declare truth and falsity seems self-evident.”
Surprisingly enough, even mainstream news outlets have pointed out Jankowicz’s role in the spreading of disinformation and outright lies. For example, as reported by the British Daily Mail:7
“The Russia disinformation expert previously called the laptop of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter a ‘Trump campaign product.’ This is causing questions over Jankowicz’s ability to accurately judge disinformation now that several sources have come out confirming the validity of Hunter’s laptop …
When stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop started emerging, several outlets, social media sites and left-leaning disinformation experts claimed that it was just misinformation coming from Trump and others on the right.
In an October 2020 report, Jankowicz shared her skepticism of the contents of the laptop and the claims it belonged to Hunter. ‘We should view it as a Trump campaign product,’ she told the New York Daily News at the time. Twitter repeatedly took down the Hunter Biden laptop story and prevented it from being spread on the platform.”
In one October 2020 tweet, she referred to the Hunter Biden laptop story as a “fairytale.”8 Jankowicz was also among those who insisted Trump had colluded with Russia to win the presidency in 2016, a claim we now know is patently false. In reality, it was Hillary Clinton and allies who colluded to fabricate this false narrative and derail Trump’s presidency.9
Over the past couple years, we’ve repeatedly seen how information censored on the grounds that it was “misinformation” turned out to be factual and true. In early 2020, YouTube betrayed its founding principles and started censoring and banning anything that contradicted the World Health Organization’s stance on COVID-19.
Yet, time and again, the WHO turned out to be wrong.10 No organization is infallible, and the WHO has a long history of corruption that makes its ability to discern what’s best for public health all the more suspect. Twitter followed suit, axing health experts, scientists and respected journalists like Tess Lawrie, Martin Kulldorf, Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Robert Malone, Steve Kirsch, Alex Berenson and many more.11
Jankowicz’s Hostile Stand Against First Amendment Rights
Jankowicz has also publicly opposed the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, saying free speech is bad for “marginalized communities.” Shortly after Elon Musk announced his takeover of Twitter, she told NPR:12
“I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms, what that would look like for the marginalized communities …
We need the platforms to do more, and we frankly need law enforcement and our legislatures to do more as well … the U.K. has an online safety bill that’s being considered right now where they’re trying to make illegal this currently, quote, ‘awful but lawful content’ that exists online where people are being harassed.”
Lack of censorship on social media will make abuse against marginalized groups worse, she claims. At the same time, she insists that “a HUGE focus” of the new disinformation board will be “protecting free speech, privacy, civil rights and civil liberties.”13
This is clearly Orwellian doublespeak, where what’s being said is the complete opposite of reality. How can you have a board dedicated to dictating “truth,” which means censoring “untruth,” while simultaneously protecting free speech? Either all viewpoints are allowed, or only one viewpoint is permitted, and if only one viewpoint is tolerated, then there’s clearly no free speech.
In her book, “How to Lose the Information War,” she also criticized Poland’s efforts to eliminate rampant online censorship of conservatives on social networks by forming a Ministry of Digital Affairs.
In other words, she wants conservative views to be censored, not just in the U.S., but everywhere. In that book, she also called on the U.S. government to regulate and conduct oversight of people who disagree with the Democratic party on Twitter. As noted by Carlson, that’s likely why she was selected in the first place.
The future head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Ministry of Truth claims in this video that revolutions are an appropriate response to rigged elections. “Believe it or not, sometimes people get fed up with having their voices silenced for decades,” she explains. https://t.co/fJo2zxd0qQ
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) April 27, 2022
Not surprisingly, then, Jankowicz has expressed “dismay” at Musk’s decision to no longer censor posts discussing potential fraud in the 2020 election.14 Interestingly, in a September 2020 tweet, she defined the term “color revolution” and “why the U.S. isn’t a candidate for one.”15
In it, she noted that “Believe it or not, sometimes people get fed up with having their voices silenced for decades,” but she then insisted that a color revolution isn’t possible in the U.S. because “we are not an autocracy,” and color revolutions only occur in oppressive autocracy regimes.
Given an Inch, They’ll Take a Mile
Others disagree with that assessment. As noted by former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (video above), every dictatorship and autocracy has had a ministry of truth, a department of propaganda. And Biden just joined them.
Gabbard also accurately points out that the government has been working with media and Big Tech to censor for some time already. We’ve become increasingly aware of this covert backdoor influence over the past two years. Now, however, they’re formalizing that influence, which is, by the way, completely unconstitutional.
Moreover, the scary truth here is that the terms “misinformation” and “disinformation” could cover absolutely anything. As noted by Carlson in the featured video, the DHS has not actually defined or given any clues as to what mis- or disinformation actually is.
“Would you declare war on a country you couldn’t name?” Carlson asks. “Would you sentence someone to death for a crime you couldn’t describe? Of course you wouldn’t, not if you were a sane and decent person. Because you can’t have justice without precise definitions …
But they’re not defining the core concept, the heart of what is effectively a new law enforcement agency. Maybe that is because [U.S. secretary of homeland security, Alejandro] Mayorkas doesn’t want justice, and neither does the president he serves. They want power. And to get power, they plan to control what you think.”
Carlson points out that the DHS has now publicly admitted they intend to punish people for merely thinking “the wrong way,” even if they’ve committed no actual crime worthy of judicial intervention. In short, anyone who disagrees with the Biden administration is now an enemy of the state. As noted by Carlson:
“You can’t make any of this up. It’s too grotesque. Would you believe a novel with this plot? No, you wouldn’t, but it’s happening, and that’s the bad news. The good news is, everyone involved in Joe Biden’s Ministry of Information is a buffoon. They may be evil, but they’re also ridiculous.”
He then airs one of Jankowicz’s undignified TikTok videos, where she’s singing about disinformation. “This is now one of our top law enforcement officials,” he dryly notes. Jankowicz has also, ironically, accused Republicans of dealing in “highly emotional rhetoric,” which proves nothing except the fact that she’s read George Orwell’s “1984” more than once.
In fact, Democrats accuse their opponents of doing exactly what they themselves are doing so regularly, you can be near-assured that any accusation is a veiled admission at this point. And, in his report, Carlson reviews how Jankowicz is guilty of this exact behavior. Carlson also points out that her falsehoods have by no means been inconsequential.
Her disinformation helped presidential candidate Biden to lie about an incredibly important story — Hunter’s laptop — that could have altered the outcome of the presidential election, had it been up for public discussion. Jankowicz has never apologized for dismissing what was in fact truthful, and neither has anyone else who insisted the laptop was “Russian disinformation.”
An International Coordination Effort to Censor Free Speech
Now, some have pointed out that this Disinformation Governance Board didn’t come into existence until Musk bought Twitter, promising to turn it into a free speech platform.16,17 However, other evidence strongly indicates there’s international coordination taking place.
In mid-April 2022, the European Union approved new rules aimed at policing Big Tech platforms. As reported by the Financial Times:18
“The EU will force Big Tech companies to police content online more aggressively after approving a major piece of legislation that sets the rules for the first time on how companies should keep users safe on the internet …
Leading tech groups will be forced to disclose to EU regulators how they are tackling disinformation and war propaganda in order to curb the spread of fake information — an effort that has gained fresh momentum since the Russian invasion of Ukraine … Countries such as the U.S., Canada and Singapore are expected to follow with similar rules in the coming months.”
Some of the language used to describe this EU legislation sounds good — for example, it will ban the targeting of internet users based on personal information such as gender, religion and sexual preferences, and terms and conditions must be clearly understandable even to children.
However, there are also many reasons to suspect that these regulations will end up serving as a springboard for government-directed censorship. Among them is the fact that the EU is supporting the proposal to make the WHO into a global health authority, and the WHO, in turn, is setting up its own censorship network.
A key player in that network is NewsGuard,19 which entered into a partnership with the WHO in August 2020.20 As reported by Carlson, NewsGuard has also received funding from the U.S. Pentagon to blacklist any site that publishes “misinformation” about the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Time to Draw a Line in the Sand
Clearly, the shocking censorship we experienced during the COVID pandemic was only the beginning. It’s going to include all kinds of information. The creation of a DHS Disinformation Governance Board is truly a watershed moment in history, and we cannot allow it to stand. As noted by Carlson in the featured video at the top of this article:
“Just to be clear, this is a nightmare unfolding in slow motion. But this is the point where we’re just going to have to draw the line. No, Joe Biden, you cannot have a federally funded ministry of truth. And no, Nina Jankowicz can’t run it. Period. It’s not your country … and you don’t get to do this to a free people. Period. This can’t happen.”
Let’s get it done! ~ ~ House GOP Rep.@laurenboebert introduces bill to terminate Biden's 'Disinformation Governance Board’. pic.twitter.com/hI0oXSxtrO
— SgtPepper1964 (@SPepper1964) May 1, 2022
May 1, 2022, GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert introduced a bill to immediately defund and terminate the Disinformation Governance Board. In an interview with Fox News, Boebert said:21
“This kind of stuff is terrifying. We in Congress have the power of the purse. It is our duty to shut down this department immediately. I’m calling on leadership in the Republican Party — Leader McCarthy, Whip Scalise, and others — to join me in calling for this department to be shut down and defunded.
No tax dollars should go to where Biden can use the power of the federal government to silence truthful stories like Big Tech did with the Hunter Biden story. Democrats took [Orwell’s book ‘1984’] not as a warning, but as a guide.
This is really a department of propaganda. To say that the federal department has a say in what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s truth and what’s not — this is a very dangerous place that we’ve come to.”
Sources and References
- 1 The Postmillenial April 27, 2022
- 2 The Federalist April 28, 2022
- 3, 7 Daily Mail April 27, 2022, Updated April 28, 2022
- 4, 13 Newsweek April 28, 2022
- 5, 8, 14 The Post Millennial April 27, 2022
- 6 Glen Greenwald Substack May 4, 2022
- 9 Conservative Treehouse April 23, 2022
- 10 FEE April 23, 2022
- 11 Twitter Phil Harper April 26, 2022
- 12 NPR April 16, 2022
- 15 Twitter Cernovich April 27, 2022
- 16 MSN April 28, 2022
- 17 Maajid Nawaz Substack April 28, 2022
- 18 Financial Times April 23, 2022
- 19 HealthGuard WHO partnership
- 20 NewsGuard August 24, 2020
- 21 American Faith May 2, 2022
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