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Musk Neuters Twitter ‘Ministry of Truth’ Ahead of Midterms
Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation may recall the episode where extra-dimensional dickhead “Q” is stripped of his powers for spreading chaos throughout the universe.
Well, Elon Musk just did that to Twitter‘s content moderation thought police with just weeks to go before midterms — cutting the number of employees who can access censorship tools from hundreds to around 15 people last week, and reducing their ability to influence discussion on the platform.
According to Bloomberg, Musk and his “war cabinet” have frozen some employee access to internal tools used for content moderation and the enforcement of other policies, neutering staff’s abilities to “alter or penalize accounts that break rules around misleading information, offensive posts and hate speech.”
They also won’t be able to banish highly credentialed doctors and researchers posting divergent COVID-19 narratives.
Feds Keep Facebook Censorship Portal Despite DHS Disinformation Board Demise
Government and law enforcement officials are able to request censorship of Facebook and Instagram posts using a special portal — despite the Biden administration’s failed attempt to establish a Disinformation Governance Board, according to a new report.
The previously unknown portal allows officials with .gov or law enforcement email addresses to request censorship in the name of fighting “disinformation,” The Intercept reported. Facebook reportedly created the portal for the Department of Homeland Security and other entities to squelch content.
The link remains live despite the public furor over the proposed board to police domestic political speech, which was scrapped earlier this year due to backlash and questions about its legality.
The social media giant did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment on the portal.
Not a Chance: Atlantic Writer Begs for ‘Pandemic Amnesty,’ Forgiveness for COVID Tyranny
Are you ready to forgive and forget the COVID nuts who wanted to lock down the whole country, mentally stunted an entire generation of students, practically killed small businesses and accused you of premeditated murder because you wouldn’t do things like wear a mask while raking leaves by yourself? Probably not, but a writer for The Atlantic is requesting that the entire nation just move on from that insanity anyway.
Emily Oster, a professor at Brown University, published a story titled “Let’s Declare A Pandemic Amnesty.” Oster wrote: “We need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID.”
Of course, as one Twitter user pointed out, the only reason Americans were kept in the “dark” was that the medical establishment, legacy media and the Left worked hand-in-hand to demonize anybody who offered different viewpoints about COVID, its origins or appropriate policies to handle the pandemic.
Those who lost their minds over COVID had no interest in seeing the light. Instead, their desire for power and a providential solution to the virus handed down from government bureaucrats blotted out any rational thinking.
Supreme Court Allows TSA to Issue Mask Mandates
On Monday the Supreme Court left in place a ruling that allows the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to issue mask mandates on planes, trains and other forms of transport, as it had for more than a year during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Supreme Court denied a California attorney’s request to overturn a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in the DC Circuit from December, which found no merit in his claim and affirmed that the TSA does have the authority to maintain security and safety within the transportation system, including imposing the masking requirement.
The TSA stopped enforcing the mask mandate in April, hours after a federal judge struck down the federal mask mandate for public transportation, which had been due to expire weeks later.
Global Elites: ‘No Money, No Problems’
Today’s totalitarians don’t want you to have anything. They are globalist elites, and they’re frank about their aims. Back in 2016, perhaps their most prized club, the World Economic Forum (WEF), largely known for its flashy annual meeting in the Alpine resort town of Davos, offered eight predictions for the world in 2030. The number one prediction, at the time, was literally: “You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy.”
The rapper Notorious B.I.G. famously observed, “Mo money, mo problems.” Global elites, however, desire that you subscribe to an utterly different dictum: “No money, no problems.” Indeed, this isn’t merely their “prediction” — it’s their explicit plan. And don’t be fooled. They won’t be satiated by seizing all your material property. They want to own you.
To do this, they will infiltrate, corrupt and control every component of our humanity. This is the near-term future global elites seek, and one they’re within striking distance of achieving given their extraordinary influence over the major institutions of high society. They were just awaiting the right moment to pounce.
Enter the COVID-19 pandemic. Since, according to the Left, no good crisis should go to waste, the WEF openly asserted in 2020 that “the COVID-19 crisis” was an inimitable moment that needed to be exploited to “improve the state of the world.”
COVID Rules in NYC Change: What to Know as Vaccine Mandate Ends
New York City’s strictest-in-the-nation COVID vaccine mandate covering the private sector is officially over as of Tuesday, following last week’s health board vote to drop the nearly year-old program amid ongoing pandemic progress.
The decision to end the order implemented by former Mayor Bill de Blasio in the waning days of his administration was unanimous, as was health leaders’ vote to rescind COVID mandates for high-risk extracurricular activities.
Private employers now have the option to keep the mandate, though it is no longer required by city health ordinance. The COVID mandate for the city’s hundreds of thousands of public workers, though, remains in effect.
Shanghai Disney Shuts Over COVID, Visitors Unable to Leave
Shanghai’s Disney Resort abruptly suspended operations on Monday to comply with COVID-19 prevention measures, with all visitors at the time of the announcement directed to stay in the park until they return a negative test for the virus.
The Shanghai government said on its official WeChat account the park was barring people from entering or exiting and that all visitors inside the site would need to await the results of their tests before they could leave.
Anyone who had visited the park since Oct. 27 would need to test for COVID-19 three times in three days, it said.
Italy Delays EU-Required Justice Reform, Scraps Vaccine Mandate for Medics
Italy’s new government on Monday delayed the application of a justice reform required to obtain European post-pandemic funds and scrapped a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health workers. Both moves mark discontinuity from the previous administration of Mario Draghi, who imposed tough COVID curbs and pushed through the contested justice reform aimed at speeding up Italy’s slow judicial proceedings.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s cabinet ruled that doctors and nurses would no longer have to be vaccinated against the disease and said those suspended from work until Dec. 31 because they had refused the shot would be immediately reinstated.
“The previous governments took a host of measures that had no scientific evidence,” said Meloni, who was sworn in this month at the head of a right-wing coalition.
Success of Meta’s Metaverse Plan Could Mean a Whole New Set of Privacy Concerns
Lately, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been offering a rosy picture of the future success of his company’s big bet on transforming human communication through immersive virtual worlds known as the metaverse.
In response to dismal financial results last quarter, Zuckerberg told investors that the company’s new $1,500 virtual reality-powered headset, Quest Pro, would help employees get their work done better than they ever could through ordinary computers.
What Zuckerberg didn’t say was that policy watchers and industry representatives are already grappling with thorny ethical and regulatory issues that would arise if services such as Quest Pro do take off in popularity.
Among the trickiest questions facing Meta and other companies is what they do with the intimate information they collect about users and their interactions in these immersive virtual spaces. The Quest Pro improved upon earlier iterations of VR headsets by tracking the wearer’s eyeballs and facial muscles to help them express emotion through a virtual avatar.
