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Momotchi reveals the gradual disappearance of access to online information
Momotchi reveals the gradual disappearance of access to online informationMomotchi - Feb 12, 2024
The Internet as we know it is shrinking without us realizing it.
Have you ever tried to explain a controversial topic to a friend, only to have them respond simply, "I already Googled it and couldn't find anything?" It seems that this experience is becoming more and more common. Momotchi raises a worrying trend: the Internet as we know it is shrinking, slowly but surely, without us realizing it.
Momotchi incisively reveals how our search engines, notably Google, seem to restrict access to information. Through a careful demonstration, she shows how a simple search on subjects like climate change or the COVID-19 vaccine systematically refers to the same official sources, thus limiting the diversity of points of view.
This subtle manipulation of information can have profound consequences on our perception of the world. By restricting our access to a plurality of perspectives, search engines trap us in an information bubble, giving us the illusion of choice when the reality is very different.
The impact of this reduction in information space is alarming. Not only does it limit our ability to access a diversity of opinions, but it also poses fundamental questions about the very nature of democracy and freedom of expression in the digital age.
Momotchi thus warns us against this worrying development of the Internet, calling on everyone to question the reliability of our sources of information and to remain vigilant in the face of this apparent progressive “disappearance” of the Internet as we know it.
by Yoann - Le Media-en-4-4-2
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Why no one is afraid of new variants of Covid-19
Why no one is afraid of new variants of Covid-19RT France - Oct 04, 2023
However benevolent their goals, Western governments have undermined public confidence through their attempts to control the pandemic narrative.
Last week, the media increased warnings about the latest Covid-19 variant, the latest in a long list. It seems like no one is listening anymore. For a large part of the population, the pandemic is long over and a thing of the past. No one wants to fall back into a downward spiral of restrictions, lockdowns, masks and vaccinations, after recent years have seriously undermined the credibility of governments and public confidence in their ability to make the right decisions. Western governments no longer have the political will or interest to dare to make unpopular decisions, even if some are sounding the alarm.
In many ways, the pandemic marked a turning point in relations between governments and populations in Western countries, precisely because it was the first epidemic of such magnitude to occur in the era of mass social media culture, where people, more interconnected than ever, have the unlimited ability to express their own opinions, hear those of others and, thus, express their disagreement with governments and their policies. The age of social media has already posed many challenges to state structures, as Western governments strive to regain the “control of the narrative” since lost over their populations. Social media freedom is a key factor that has contributed to, and even caused, outcomes that have shocked elites, including the election of Donald Trump in the United States and Brexit in the United Kingdom. Therefore, the ruling classes of Western countries have increased censorship and control of speech on social media, labeling unwanted views as “disinformation” or even malicious propaganda spread by foreign countries, such as China or China. Russia...
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The Global War on Thoughtcrime
The Global War on ThoughtcrimeThe Media in 4-4-2 - Sep 07, 2023
What implications for freedom of expression?
Many laws aimed at combating disinformation and misinformation are being passed in Western countries, with the partial exception of the United States, where the First Amendment is in effect. This situation has led to the implementation of more discreet censorship methods.
An unexpected response to these restrictive laws may come from literary criticism. The terms used, such as the prefixes added to the word “information”, are misleading. Information, whether contained in a book, article or otherwise, remains a passive artefact. It cannot act by itself, and therefore, it cannot break any law. The Nazis may have burned books, but they didn't arrest or imprison them. Thus, when lawmakers seek to prohibit “disinformation,” they cannot target information as such, but rather the creation of meaning.
Authorities use variations of the term “information” to imply that these are objective truths, but that is not the crux of the matter. Do these laws, for example, apply to the forecasts of economists or financial analysts, who regularly make erroneous predictions? Of course not. However, credible economic or financial forecasts could have a significant impact on populations.
These laws are designed more to target the intent of the authors, aiming to create meanings that do not conform to the official position of the government. “Disinformation” is generally defined in dictionaries as intentionally misleading and harmful information. In contrast, “misinformation” involves the dissemination of truthful facts, but with malicious intent. Determining the author's intent is often crucial in these cases.
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The Fatal Mistake of the Sheep
The Fatal Mistake of the SheepNew World - Jul 04, 2023
The sheep's fatal mistake is not realizing that those they call "conspiracy theorists" and "science deniers" aren't a small fringe group of weirdos and hicks like they might be. imagine.
The point is, there are many of us, and we include a lot of brilliant minds and great members in our individual areas of expertise. This is not a bunch of misfits.
While I have no doubt that we are on the GOOD side of things, I will say that for the people who have to deal with us, that fact doesn't really matter (being right seems to have an effect on them ). It seems like the sheep like to ignore us and pretend we don't exist, even though we're right. They don't bother with us, we're just a nuisance to them. This attitude will one day bite them very hard in the you know where.
Many sheep have asked me, "How can you be sure that you are right and we are wrong?" ". I have often asked myself the same question. There are many answers, my favorite being simply to say "we're right because we're right" — which, of course, is rather flippant. This answer, however, seems more cautious: shrews are curious and seek answers.
Even if the prevailing consensus seems correct, it seems that we always want more. We want to understand why things are the way they are. We may not do this with everything we encounter; we certainly do when we're faced with big claims and when the powers that be tell us we all have to 'do' this or that, like take a vaccine that no one has really studied against a virus that no one knows big about -thing. In general, we say to ourselves “huh? ".
We then dive into the subject. We sink down all the rabbit holes we can find. Many of these holes lead to dead ends, but we discover those dead ends for ourselves. We don't let anyone shut us down and say, "You don't want to go in there." We say, “Why not? ". When we start to think that our usual sources of information, usually what's called the "mainstream media", aren't giving us the whole story, we quickly head into uncharted territory and start digging into it. Yes, more dead ends, but we are getting used to “dead ends” being part of the course of truly uninhibited discovery.
We draw conclusions, hypotheses, speculations from all the information we have gathered and we start to get something on which we can make a defensible statement of truth. But it takes a lot of work. And it's usually never definitive, never infallible. We don't seem to like things that "seem" final.
This is not the case with sheep.
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Stop the fraud
Stop the fraudFrance Evening - June 09, 2023
No, it is not a question of talking here about "tax fraud", "social fraud", or "digital fraud". But many government fraud in communication and misinformation. Information polluted by successive arrangements with the facts.
The time is no longer for information but for communication and "spinning" (the angle or interpretation of facts chosen) is a constant practice. The importance of the chosen angle creates a bias that traps the reader or listener in a number of biases that lead to "true truths and false lies".
And besides, for the first proof of the confinement of the mind, let's see the increasingly growing use of Artificial Intelligence which, like virtual reality, locks the reader into a situational bias.
As much, at the cinema, we pay a ticket to go see a story and it doesn't matter if the person in the car who is driving really has his hair in the wind or if he is in a locked studio in Bobigny, the spectator knows what's going on. hold.
But in the media, it is becoming more and more critical to disentangle the true from the false, to depollute the information. However, our rulers should know that lying to hide their actions is a dead end. Albert Camus knew it: "The truth will spring from apparent injustice". Truth cannot be confined forever.
And this week again we have some superb examples of this communication fraud.
By way of appetizer, a first example is that of Gabriel Attal, Minister of Action and Public Accounts, who has been speaking for several days on fraud linked to the Vitale card and the number of cards in circulation.
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Durham Report Condemns FBI's Russia Investigation...
Durham Report Condemns FBI's Russia Investigation...Digital Dawn - May 20, 2023
Turley: Durham Report Condemns FBI's Russia Investigation... But Don't Expect It To Make A Difference
In the 305-page report released Monday, Special Counsel John Durham concluded that the Trump-Russia investigation was launched without the required minimum standard of proof and that it upset a whole host of departmental standards. Be the judge: The Department of Justice – along with the media that covered it – effectively terminated a duly elected presidency, based on what turned out to be a fabricated hoax by politicians.
This should make anyone angry. Really angry. An anger worthy of Trump.
The fact is, in this case, Donald Trump was right when he said he was the target of a political stunt funded by the Clinton campaign and fueled by virtually every media outlet. There's a word for that: misinformation.
Democrats such as former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (California) have pushed for censorship by saying misinformation poses a threat to democracy.
Well, it's about that threat – the real one. In fact, it left an administration mired in a bogus scandal for years, with high-ranking officials parading before grand juries and their guilt then proclaimed nightly on cable news shows.
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An informed guide to fighting real misinformation
France Evening - Apr 29, 2023
Professors, members of NGOs, and of course journalists, instead of fulfilling their traditional social role as mere information mediators or whistleblowers, maintain relations with government administrations, intelligence agencies, but also with the army.
Instead of carrying out the investigation without conflicts of interest and in a distanced way, in the service of public affairs, many of these actors have recycled themselves in what Lowenthal calls the “fight against disinformation”.
A pattern that is well known to readers of France-Soir with the report of the Twitter Files, the episodes of which have been published in our columns since December 2022. These internal documents of the blue bird were unveiled by Elon Musk. They have enabled investigative journalists to uncover several major scandals. These show the extent to which both free information and freedom of expression are threatened, due to the growing influence of political power: it is indeed on the pretext of this fight against disinformation that the latter exercises censorship.
This mechanism is not only at work across the Atlantic. Changes in the European regulation of digital platforms (the Digital Services Act) raise the same fundamental questions: to what extent can politics interfere with the sphere of information? Ultimately, can we then speak of a sort of “industrial mechanism of censorship” with a view to controlling the latter?
A new episode of the Twitter Files produced by Lowenthal himself addresses this subject and will soon be mentioned by France-Soir.
In the meantime, here is an exceptional text by the essayist which reports on his aforementioned observations and which exposes a new form of manipulation of information. This is essentially based on this mix of genres as surprising as it is serious between actors who should never collaborate together because of obvious questions of ethics: academics, members of NGOs, journalists with politicians, industrialists and soldiers.
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Israel exports its disinformation technologies
Israel exports its disinformation technologiesInternational Network - Apr 02, 2023
An international network of investigative journalists, Forbidden Stories, is currently conducting a global investigation into "mercenaries of disinformation".
Israel, the leading exporter of services in smear campaigns, fake news and election rigging, reaps juicy profits, but the legal responsibility for these crimes against democracy risks being placed on it in the longer term.
In February 2023, investigative journalists from Forbidden Stories published a new chapter of their “Story Killers”1 project, revealing a network of Israeli companies that provide disinformation services to the highest bidders. These services, which take cyber warfare to another level, include smear campaigns, spreading fake news, and rigging elections and referendums.
Awareness of how social media, surveillance and data mining can influence elections came after the Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light in 20182. Cambridge Analytica has influenced over 200 elections in the world, and one of its main technology providers was Archimedes Group, an Israeli company. When one of her senior executives Brittany Kaiser appeared before the British Parliament to denounce these crimes, she claimed that she did not remember the names of the Israeli employees of Archimedes Group with whom she had worked.
Cyberwarfare in general and disinformation in particular are very dangerous weapons. They undermine the democratic process when used to influence elections by spreading rumors and misinformation, and they can also be deadly. Thus, the Indian journalist Gauri Lankesh was murdered in September 2017, a few days before publishing an article on disinformation and its dangers. She herself was the target of a campaign of slander. After her murder, it was discovered that the people who attacked her on social media never existed. Their accounts were later deleted, obscuring the tracks of those who had orchestrated the campaign.
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Thierry Meyssan: The West renounces freedom of expression
Thierry Meyssan: The West renounces freedom of expressionVoltairenet - Nov 11, 2022
This is a debate that we thought was closed: Westerners had affirmed that freedom of expression is an essential prerequisite for democracy and that they would never violate it again.
However, the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, Italy and Germany have already embarked on the path of censorship. Now there are things not to say.
In France, the Secretary of State responsible for citizenship, Sonia Backès, tries to discredit nonconforming opinions. She likens them to sectarian aberrations. The State, she announced, will organize "assizes of sectarian aberrations and conspiracy" (sic). In the Soviet Union, opponents were placed in psychiatric hospitals.
Freedom of expression had been a feature of the West since the XNUMXth century. This was the basis on which the political regime supported by the middle classes was built: democracy. The principle according to which the general will would emerge from the confrontation of various opinions was no longer contested. Any attack on this freedom was seen as a blow to the peaceful resolution of conflicts.
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Geostrategy: change of approach
Geostrategy: change of approachStrategika – August 14, 2022
Faced with the instantaneousness of the events of a destructured world, any attempt at analysis or hindsight is not enough to identify from a wide angle the current game for world hegemony.
Any objective and above all relevant analysis will be systematically denied or treated as a conspiratorial thesis by watchdogs prebend by an ideological dogma more closed than was that of the inquisitors who condemned Galileo to the stake in the 16th century. The labels distributed free of charge by each other matter little. What matters now is to have diverging lines, out-of-frame opinions, lines of thought outside the very narrow straitjacket of dominant thought.
Well-meaning is the beginning of a form of tyranny evolving first within the self and then little by little into a kind of system of indirect coercion but which leaves no other choice to individuals than to submit. The most recent illustration of this situation is that of the so-called anti-C19 vaccination. No law made it compulsory and yet everything was done so that the greatest number of individuals felt compelled to be vaccinated exactly like laboratory mice stuck in a maze in front of the only possible exit. And in this, all the States of the planet seem to have played the game as they had done for the theme of terrorism.
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Vaccinolatres and ukrainolatres, the same technique of totalitarian disinformation
France Evening - 12 August 2022
The “vaccine” like Ukraine are presented as the only solution, no medical alternative in the first case, no diplomatic alternative in the second.
Misinformation has been at the center of the propaganda for the Pfizer “vaccination”. The facts will remain very stubborn, but the report submitted to the FDA dated September 17, 2021 alone demonstrated that this product had a protection period limited to a few weeks. At the same time, the situation in Israel provided unmistakable evidence that protection was ephemeral. However, many have been manipulated by disinformation that has operated according to two very simple principles: affirm without proof, but always affirm, and insult all the authors of concrete information exposing facts contrary to the doxa.
The Disinformation Scenario: The Good, the Bad, and the Solution
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Ukraine: the disinformation of the “information system”
Voltairenet - June 18, 2022
The Italian intelligence services (Department of Information for Security) monitor all pro-Russian influencers in their country. This is not a Roman whim, but a coordinated practice in all NATO member states.
However, as in the case of the stay-behind networks, it was in Italy that for the first time a document came out. It allows us to understand who intervened with the left-wing daily Il Manifesto to censor our colleague Manlio Dinucci or with the access provider Orange to censor our website, Voltairenet.org in Poland.
