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German Government Demands Big Tech Crack Down On Telegram, Other Free Speech Apps

Tells Apple and Google that Telegram is “a form of accelerator for right-wing extremism and conspiracy theories”

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Following threats to shut down the pro free speech encrypted messaging platform Telegram, the German government has stepped up its efforts by putting pressure on Apple and Google to take a more hands on approach to limiting the content people are sharing on the app.

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser claimed that the app is contributing to an acceleration of “right-wing extremism” and “conspiracy theories,” in the country.

The minister tweeted “We remind #Apple and #Google of their social responsibility. As long as they offer apps like #Telegram in their stores, they are also a form of accelerator for #right-wing extremism and #conspiracy theories. No place for #hate and #calls for murder!”

In another tweet, Faeser asserted “Everyone has the #right to peaceful assembly. We draw the line when it comes to #hate and #baiting. #Right-wing extremists are increasingly abusing the #Corona demos for their ideology against the #state. We will crack down there with consistent #law enforcement.”

A further statement statement from Germany’s regional interior ministers specifically noted that those organising against the government’s COVID restrictions are using Telegram.

“The social network Telegram and comparable providers serve people in Germany as a networking [platform for Covid protest movements], corona deniers and right-wing radicals,” the statement read.

Last week, Faeser told the German media “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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    “Something Very Dramatic Has Changed”: Matt Taibbi Says Democrats Ditched Free Speech

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    Independent journalist Matt Taibbi – of recent “Twitter Files” fame – has exposed the fact that civil liberties are no longer popular among Democrats. Taibbi appeared on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo” to reiterate his perspective that the modern Democratic Party no longer represents the values of the everyday American. 

    “About all of this — Matt, how do you feel about all of this? I know before you started discovering this bad behavior, you identified as a Democrat, and now you’ve got all of your friends, quote-unquote, in the media attacking you for exposing this,” Bartiromo asked.

    “Yeah, it’s funny, I mean, I was raised in a traditional ACLU liberal, I believed in free speech all my life. That was one of the things, frankly, that attracted me to the Democratic Party when I was a kid, the idea that we were the party that believed in letting everybody have a say, and we’ll just make a better argument, and that’s how the system works,” Taibbi said.

    He continued, “Apparently, something very dramatic has changed in politics in America, and there’s been a shift. There’s no question about it anymore, that now the parties have had a complete reversal on how they read these issues.”

    Taibbi leads a team of journalists, including Michael Shellenberger, who have been given access to Twitter Files, revealing a startling network of government agencies, think tanks, and Twitter personnel coordinating efforts to attack the First Amendment. 

    What we’ve learned from the Twitter Files is the ever-expanding coalition of groups working with the government and social media to target and censor Americans, including government-funded organizations.

    Twitter files are chilling in the details and show how Democrats have weaponized government and colluded with corporations to wage war on the First Amendment. 

    The modern Democratic Party is not the same one that your parents or grandparents were members of in the past.It’s obsessed with starting World War 3 in Ukraine, eroding the First Amendment, dismantling the Second Amendment, and normalizing ‘woke’ culture.

    What caused such a significant shift in the party in just a few short years?

    And what kind of blowback will Taibbi get for telling these truths?

    This post was originally published at Zero Hedge

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    White House Tried to Censor Private WhatsApp Messages About Vaccine Skepticism

    Alarming leaked emails reveal attempted level of intrusion beyond public forums.

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    Leaked emails show that the White House was intent on pressuring messaging platform WhatsApp to censor private conversations about ‘vaccine skepticism’.

    The revelation is perhaps even more alarming than the Biden administration’s efforts to shut down dissent on public social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter, because the lobbying pertained to information exchanged between as a few as two people.

    The leaked emails were featured in a Substack article written by journalist and author David Zweig.

    From March 2021 onwards, Rob Flaherty, the Biden White House’s Director of Digital Strategy, demanded WhatsApp owner Meta explain the actions it was taking to intervene in private conversations about the COVID vaccine between WhatsApp users.

    “If you can’t see the message, I’m genuinely curious—how do you know what kinds of messages you’ve cut down on?” Flaherty asked.

    null

    Flaherty and Andrew Slavitt, then the White House Senior Advisor on the Covid Response, wanted to set up phone calls with a Meta executive a “couple of times per week” if necessary to oversee the censorship.

    “I care mostly about what actions and changes you’re making to ensure you’re not making our country’s vaccine hesitancy problem worse,” Flaherty wrote on April 9, 2021.

    “I still don’t have a good, empirical answer on how effective you’ve been at reducing the spread of vaccine-skeptical content and misinformation to vaccine fence sitters,” he added.

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    The White House wanted non-public messages about vaccine skepticism to be brought “under control,” a chilling interference in private encrypted conversations.

    “What, exactly, was he hoping to get Meta to do?” asks Zweig.

    “It was obvious from the start that WhatsApp’s interface didn’t allow for the granular control Flaherty appeared to desire. And his smiley face response suggests he well understood this. Yet he kept badgering the Meta executives anyway.”

    Meta was seemingly unable to satisfy the Biden administration’s demands, perhaps wary that directly censoring people’s ability to communicate with their own friends and family would have represented a massive public relations disaster.

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    Sam Harris: Conservatives “Should Not Have Opinions” On Ukraine, Vaccines, Climate Change

    “You’ve got people who are moving the opinions of millions of others, who should not have an opinion on these topics”

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    Steve Watson

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    Leftist ‘thinker’ Sam Harris declared last week that conservatives should not be allowed to voice their opinions on issues such as the war in Ukraine, climate change, or vaccine safety.

    Making the remarks on a podcast, Harris’ argument is that conservative commentators are making a living out of “not caring” and thus should not be allowed to influence anyone else’s opinion.

    “We’re swimming in a sea of misinformation, where you’ve got people who are moving the opinions of millions of others, who should not have an opinion on these topics,” Harris proclaimed.

    He continued, “There is no scenario in which you should be getting your opinion about vaccine safety or climate change, or the war in Ukraine, or anything else that we might want to talk about from Candace Owens, right?”

    She’s not a relevant expert on any of those topics. And what’s more, she doesn’t seem to care, right?” Harris continued, adding And she’s living in a culture that has amplified that not caring into a business model, an effective business model, right? That is something very Trumpian about all that.”

    Watch:

    This is all very rich coming from someone who previously admitted he supported the suppression of reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop immediately prior to the election, if it would prevent Donald Trump from being reelected.

    Indeed, Harris went as far as saying “Hunter Biden could have had the corpses of children in his basement. I would not have cared.”

    Harris later pathetically claimed that the New York Post’s reporting on the story was accurate only “by accident.”

    After he received backlash for the remarks, Harris rage quit Twitter and is still absent from the platform, refusing to even entertain debate or opinions antithetical to his own:

    Given that she was used as an example by Harris, Candace Owens responded:

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