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Cashless Society: WEF Boasts That 98% of Central Banks Are Adopting CBDCs
Whatever happened to the WEF? One minute they were everywhere in the media and now they have all but disappeared from public discourse. After the pandemic agenda was defeated and the plan to exploit public fear to create a perpetual medical autocracy was exposed, Klaus Schwab and his merry band of globalists slithered back into the woodwork. To be sure, we’ll be seeing them again one day, but for now, the WEF has relegated itself away from the spotlight and into the dark recesses of the Davos echo chamber.
Much of their discussions now focus on issues like climate change or DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion), but one vital subject continues to pop up in the white papers of global think tanks and it’s a program that was introduced very publicly during COVID. Every person who cares about economic freedom should be wary of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) as perhaps the biggest threat to human liberty since the attempted introduction of vaccine passports.
A cashless society would be the end game for economic anonymity and freedom in trade. Unless alternative physical currencies are widely adopted in protest, CBDCs would make all transactions traceable and easily interrupted by governments and banks. Imagine a world in which all trade is monitored, all revenues are monitored and transactions can be blocked if they are found to offend the mandates of the system. Yes, these things do happen today, but with physical cash they can be circumvented.
Imagine a world where your ability to spend money can be limited to certain retailers, certain services, certain products and chosen regions based on your politics, your social credit score and your background. The control that comes with CBDCs is immense and allows for complete micromanagement of the population. The fact that 98% of central banks are already adopting this technology should be one of the biggest news stories of the decade, yet, it goes almost completely ignored.
The AI Camera Stripping Away Privacy in the Blink of an Eye
It’s natural to be leery regarding the ways in which people may use artificial intelligence to cause problems for society in the near future. On a personal level, you may be concerned about a future where artificial intelligence takes your job or creates a Terminator that comes back in time to try to eliminate a younger you. (We admittedly might be overthinking that one.)
One fear regarding AI on a personal level that you should know about, because it’s very much in the present, is the creation of deepfake photos, including those that strip you of the most basic of privacy rights: the right to protect images of your body.
Two German artists recently created a camera called NUCA that uses AI to create deepfake photos of subjects by stripping away their clothing. The automated removal of the photo subject’s clothing occurs in close to real-time, speeding up the creepy factor exponentially.
The two German artists, Mathias Vef and Benedikt Groß, decided to create the camera to show the implications of AI’s rapid advancements. The pair were trying to think of the worst possible uses of AI to affect someone’s privacy, and they realized that the technology needed to create a camera like NUCA was already possible.
Fauci to Testify Before Congress for the First Time Since Stepping Down
Anthony Fauci, former chief medical adviser to President Biden, will testify before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on June 3, making it the first time he will appear before a congressional panel since leaving government work at the end of 2022.
Subcommittee Chair Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) announced the hearing Wednesday. Fauci had committed to testify late last year along with agreeing to two days of interviews, which took place in January.
The closed-door interviews focused on gain-of-function research, alleged federal records violations, conflicts of interest and confusions around pandemic guidance. Fauci was joined by two attorneys during the entire course of the interviews.
“During Dr. Fauci’s closed-door interview in January, he testified to serious systemic failures in our public health system that deserve further investigation, including his testimony that the ‘6 feet apart’ social distancing guidance — which was used to shut down small businesses and schools across America — ‘sort of just appeared,’” Wenstrup said in a statement.
Wenstrup said a transcript of the meeting would be released prior to the June hearing.
Inside Google’s Plans to Combat Misinformation Ahead of the E.U. Elections
“We are all at risk of manipulation online right now.” So begins a short animated video about a practice known as decontextualization and how it can be used to misinform people online. The video identifies signs to watch out for, including surprising or out of the ordinary content, seemingly unreliable sources, or video or audio that appear to have been manipulated or repurposed.
Though it may not look like it, this 50-second video is actually an election ad — one of three that Google will be rolling out across five European countries next month in advance of the European Union’s June parliamentary elections. But unlike traditional election ads that are designed to persuade people how to vote, these are seeking to educate voters about how they could be misled. It’s an initiative that Google describes as preventative debunking — or, more simply, “prebunking.”
“It works like a vaccine,” Beth Goldberg, the head of research at Google’s internal Jigsaw unit, which was founded in 2010 with a remit to address threats to open societies, tells TIME. By enabling prospective voters to recognize common manipulation techniques that could be used to mislead them — such as scapegoating or polarization — Goldberg says that prebunking “helps people to gain mental defenses proactively.”
Concerns about AI-generated disinformation and the impact it stands to have on contests around the world continues to dominate this year’s election megacycle. This is particularly true in the E.U., which recently passed a new law compelling tech firms to increase their efforts to clamp down on disinformation amid concerns that an uptick in Russian propaganda could distort the results.
Congress’ First Tech Crackdown in Years Is a Gift to Big Tech
The prospect of a TikTok ban has loomed for years, but it’s closer to reality than ever. The Senate on Tuesday night passed a bill intended to force a sale or ban of the app as part of a broader foreign aid package. President Biden is expected to sign it into law today, after which TikTok will probably challenge it in court.
If the law holds up, a sale is possible, though China has indicated it would block such a move. The alternative is a ban that would curtail TikTok’s presence in the United States.
While the bill’s stated aim is to protect Americans from Chinese spying and influence via the popular social media app, there’s another group that stands to benefit: the U.S. tech companies that have been struggling to compete with TikTok. Those include Meta, Google and, to a lesser extent, Snap and Amazon.
For Meta in particular, the bill could accomplish what Mark Zuckerberg and his company have been unable to do: neutralize the biggest and most stubborn competitor they’ve ever faced.
Republican Demands Investigation Into ‘Dangerous Dollars’ Sent to China
Republican Senator Joni Ernst has called for the expansion of an audit of the Department of Defense (DoD) into the extent of funding sent to Chinese research laboratories, including into work on advanced artificial intelligence that was exposed by Newsweek.
The audit by the Office of the Inspector General was spurred by a January 25 letter written by the Iowa lawmaker and former Wisconsin Representative Mike Gallagher. They requested information from the DoD on any funding provided to the People’s Republic of China or its affiliates for research activities relevant to the reporting requirement of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). That included funding for COVID-19 research.
In January, lawmakers also called for answers from the DoD after a Newsweek investigation showed that a top Chinese AI scientist had received more than $30 million in U.S. grants, including from the Pentagon.
According to the IG’s response to the lawmakers, the audit “will determine the extent to which the DoD awarded federal funds directly or indirectly through grants, contracts, subgrants, subcontracts, or any other type of agreement or collaboration, during the 10-year period from 2014 through 2023, to Chinese research labs or to fund research or experiments in China or other foreign countries designed to enhance pathogens of pandemic potential.”
Ernst has investigated multiple U.S. government agencies in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, including requesting the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) look closer into EcoHealth Alliance — a New York nonprofit found to have received grant funding to partner with the WIV to study bat coronaviruses, green-lighted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), then led by Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Poland’s Prosecutor General Says Previous Government Used Spyware Against Hundreds of People
Poland’s prosecutor general told the parliament on Wednesday that powerful Pegasus spyware was used against hundreds of people during the former government in Poland, among them elected officials.
Adam Bodnar told lawmakers that he found the scale of the surveillance ”shocking and depressing.” Bodnar, who is also the justice minister, didn’t specify who exactly was subject to surveillance by the spyware. His office said the information was confidential.
Bodnar was presenting information that the prosecutor general’s office sent last week to the Sejm and Senate. The data showed that Pegasus was used in the cases of 578 people from 2017 to 2022, and that it was used by three separate government agencies: the Central Anticorruption Bureau, the Military Counterintelligence Service and the Internal Security Agency.
Bodnar said that the software generated ”enormous knowledge” about the ”private and professional lives” of those put under surveillance. He also stressed that the Polish state doesn’t have full control over the data that is gathered because the system operates on the basis of a license that was granted by an Israeli company. He said ”the use of this type of method must raise serious doubts from the point of view of the protection of constitutional rights.”
Why Were Germany’s COVID Files Redacted?
There are two kinds of long COVID. One is a medical syndrome, the other manifests as a healthy obsession — an urge to shed light on what happened during the pandemic crisis.
Too many questions remain unanswered: why did Sweden come out of the pandemic better than other countries without having endured a lockdown? Why were masks imposed when scientific studies repeatedly demonstrated that they were unnecessary? Why was discrimination introduced between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated when it was clear that vaccines were incapable of blocking the transmission of the infection? And why, since the lockdowns, has there been such a high excess death rate in Europe?
Such questions have motivated Multi-polar, a small German online magazine, to fight for the disclosure of Robert Koch Institute (RKI) documents. RKI is the prestigious German equivalent of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This institute is meant to provide the scientific basis for the public health (and lockdown) decisions of the German government. It also has extensive influence on smaller neighboring countries, such as Austria, where RKI’s suggestions are regarded as the gold standard for health policy.
Multipolar has sought to investigate on which scientific grounds fundamental liberties were curtailed, schools closed, lockdowns established and vaccines imposed. It is especially surprising that this legitimate curiosity has until recently not been shared by the wider German media. As a result of an ongoing legal battle, Multipolar finally succeeded (at least partially) in its aims.
In the spring of last year it received the 2,500 pages of the RKI’s COVID protocols, from early in 2020 to April 2021. But the files were heavily redacted — as if they contained state secrets concerning high diplomacy or military matters. So Multipolar has filed a second legal action to enforce disclosure of the redacted parts, which amount to about one-third of the files. This court hearing will take place next month.
Pupils in England ‘Facing Worst Exam Results in Decades’ After COVID Closures
Children in England could face the worst exam results in decades and a lifetime of lower earnings, according to research that blames failures to tackle the academic and social legacies of school closures during COVID. The study funded by the Nuffield Foundation predicts that national GCSE results in key subjects will steadily worsen until 2030 when it expects fewer than 40% of pupils to get good grades in maths and English.
Lee Elliot Major, a professor of social mobility at Exeter University and one of the report’s co-authors, said: “Without a raft of equalizing policies, the damaging legacy from COVID school closures will be felt by generations of pupils well into the next decade.”
Pepe Di’Iasio, a former headteacher and the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the research was “a devastating warning” of the risk of educational decline.
“The current government failed to rise to the challenge during and after the pandemic because its investment in education recovery fell woefully short of what was needed. The same mistake must not be made again, and ministers both now and in the future must invest in schools, colleges and teachers,” Di’Iasio said.
A Senate Committee Has Called for a Royal Commission Into Australia’s COVID Response. Here’s Why It’s Not Happening
A Senate committee has recommended a royal commission to examine Australia’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on the community, including of lockdown and quarantine measures. It recommended the scope also include contact tracing, the procurement of vaccines and medical supplies, and the capacity of a range of systems to respond — including health, aged care, housing and domestic violence services.
Late last year, the federal government announced a 12-month inquiry into the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The inquiry can still call witnesses and examine the response of governments during the pandemic, but it does not have the same powers as a royal commission.
The scope of the inquiry will cover COVID-19 responses since the pandemic began in January 2020, including governance and key health response measures, as well as advice for dealing with future pandemics.
However, decisions made solely by state and territory governments in response to the pandemic — including lockdowns and border closures — are not in the scope of the inquiry.
What Is the Meta AI Tool? Can You Turn It off?
Meta unveiled its artificial intelligence tool, Meta AI, last week in more than a dozen countries across its various platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The tool created by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, can be used to “get things done, learn, create and connect with the things that matter to you,” according to an April 18 release from the company. Meta AI is free, and can be used in feeds, chats, search and more without having to leave the app you’re using. It also has an image generation tool that can quickly produce AI images and GIFs.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp rolled out the new, free AI feature available on those platforms to more than a dozen countries in English, including in the U.S.
There is currently no option to disable the feature, Meta AI confirmed in a chat, but people can continue to search as they normally would to “engage with a variety of results.”
