A report in the German newspaper Die Welt suggests that the government there is considering taking action to shut down messaging app Telegram because people opposed to COVID restrictions and lockdowns are using it to organise protests and share information.

The report contains an interview with German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser who stated “We cannot rule this out,” when asked if the platform will be targeted for censorship.

“A shutdown would be grave and clearly a last resort. All other options must be exhausted first,” Faeser clarified.

The minister also told the newspaper that while it is currently unclear what legal action would be needed to shut down the platform, the German government is in consultation with the European Union regarding potential regulation of it.

The Epoch Times notes that in Germany, which has implemented some of the most severe pandemic restrictions, “Telegram has been used as a hub of communication for the protest movement against the measures established to fight the CCP virus, including lockdowns, intermittent mask mandates, and restrictions for the unvaccinated.”

Telegram has been shut down or blocked in other countries including Iran, China, Pakistan, India, Thailand, and Russia.

The platform saw a huge surge in users last year after Facebook owned Watts App introduced a controversial privacy update which led to concerns that the app would hand over user data to its parent company. It also came at the same time as President Trump’s purge from big tech social media platforms.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov warned that people are “being held hostage by tech monopolies.”

In addition to being independent from big tech, Telegram promises robust end-to-end encryption, ensuring messages remain private.

This has made Telegram a target for authoritarians and big tech monopolists.

In the U.S. lobbyist group The Coalition for a Safer Web even filed a lawsuit against Apple in an effort to get Telegram removed from the app store, claiming that it allows ‘extremists’ to spread ‘hate speech’.

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Online banking giant Paypal has reportedly banned a conservative journalist from having an account, and he claims it is for political reasons.

Ian Miles Cheong who reports for The Post Millenial, made the claims on Twitter, noting “PayPal just informed me that they have permanently banned my account.”

“The supervisor was extremely rude and implied that it had everything to do with my politics,” Cheong added.

PayPal just informed me that they have permanently banned my account. Without giving an explicit reason why, the supervisor was extremely rude and implied that it had everything to do with my politics.

— Ian Miles Cheong @ stillgray.substack.com (@stillgray) January 5, 2022

The journalist further stated that Paypal “wouldn’t let me know which rule I broke or how, gave me a lecture instead on how journalists don’t reveal sources.”

He continued, “When I pressed them on whether it was my politics they seemed to imply that it was—the guy was really rude—and commented that ‘on issues regarding politics, PayPal remains neutral.'”

Cheong says Paypal also will not release his funds for 6 months.

Yep. They said it’ll take 180 days to withdraw it—assuming they decide to send it at all. No guarantees apparently.

— Ian Miles Cheong @ stillgray.substack.com (@stillgray) January 5, 2022

Well, at least there’s Bitcoin—and all the more reason crypto is taking off. Beats the 5% cut they take out of everything.

— Ian Miles Cheong @ stillgray.substack.com (@stillgray) January 5, 2022

As we reported last year, PayPal co-founder David Sacks, no longer with the company, warned that the financial giant is creating a de facto ‘no buy list’ by banning people for their opinions, describing it as a move that will actually increase extremism in the long term.

 “PayPal is turning its back on its original mission. It is now leading the charge to restrict participation by those it deems unworthy,” Sacks noted.

The entrepreneur also argued that by partnering with the likes of the ADL and the SPLC, PayPal has allowed itself to be used as a tool by far-left activist outfits to censor ideological opposition.

“I have no desire to defend genuinely hateful or extremist groups,” writes Sacks, adding “Indeed, when I was COO at PayPal, we regularly worked with law enforcement to restrict illegal activity on our platform. But we are talking about something very different here: shutting down people and organizations that express views that are entirely lawful, even if they are unpopular in Silicon Valley.”

The @ADL is highly politicized group: completely liberal and aligned with the DNC, just a tad more pro-Israel in their focus but otherwise no differences. This is yet another union between establishment liberalism and Big Tech to control and censor the internet. https://t.co/UI5OrBYB1e

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 26, 2021

Why don’t you just call it the social credit score and start punishing people for wrong think like they do in China @PayPal

— Luke Rudkowski (@Lukewearechange) July 26, 2021

This is far from unprecedented and has been going on for some time. Outlets like Infowars had their Paypal accounts suspended a long time ago.

Now it’s time for everyone else to become the target.

Paypal and other online banking systems are also now subject to Joe Biden’s IRS crack down on small businesses, which will now have to report all transactions greater than $600 through the third party platforms.

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2022 will be the year that people in their millions jump the sinking ship of big tech and move to newer independent, and uncensored platforms. Among plenty of others, that’s the prediction of Senator Rand Paul, who is leading the charge by voluntarily quitting YouTube in favour of Rumble.

“About half of the public leans right. If we all took our messaging to outlets of free exchange, we could cripple Big Tech in a heartbeat,” Paul announced in an op ed.

“So, today I take my first step toward denying my content to Big Tech. Hopefully, other liberty lovers will follow,” the Senator added.

He continued, “As a libertarian leaning Senator, I think private companies have the right to ban me if they want to, however, those of us who believe that truth comes from disputation and that the marketplace of ideas is a prerequisite for innovation should shun the close-minded censors and take our ideas elsewhere, which is exactly what I’m doing.”

Paul called his “dysfunctional” interaction with Google a “toxic relationship” where his every word is scrutinised by politicised “fact checkers.”

“Sure, I can get millions of views. But why should I allow anonymous ‘fact-checkers’ to censor my fully sourced, fact-based content?” Paul asked, adding “They don’t want to challenge or debate me with opposing views, they just want my silence.”

The Senator described the unholy partnership of corporate media and big tech as a “Medieval church” decreeing that opinions deviating from the established narrative are too “dangerous” for people to be subjected to.

“An entire generation of young people, who use these platforms exclusively for their news, will never read or hear of opinions or ideas that challenge the Big Government / Big Tech orthodoxy,” the Senator urged.

“When I gave a speech on the Senate floor asking whether Eric Ciaramella, the Vindman brothers, and Adam Schiff’s legal team conspired while working at the White House to impeach the president, YouTube chose to censor and delete the video,” Paul further notes.

Paul also addressed the wholly unscientific mantra of ‘follow the science’, noting that “A hallmark of the scientific method is to challenge and disprove a hypothesis. Yet we have abandoned science and rational debate for an almost religious adherence to the edicts of government bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci. To challenge the data is to be ‘denier’ or ‘conspiracist’ who must be silenced.”

Paul’s move comes amid yet more rampant censorship efforts on behalf of Google, which is scrambling to take down Joe Rogan’s interviews with illustrious medical experts Dr Peter McCullough and Dr Robert Malone, merely because they have questioned the viability and logic of mass inoculation. They have also been charged with altering search results to suppress the content.

Twitter has also banned Malone, and last week banned sitting Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene for “repeated violations” of its Covid misinformation policy.

The move prompted podcast giant Rogan to set up a GETTR account in anticipation of censorship becoming “dumber” at Twitter.

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