Attempt by the EU Commission task force to censor news across Europe:
Dutch Media Take EU Disinfo Watchdog to Court | March 2018 |
The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, wants to get rid of the European Commission's task force against spreading fake news, the so-called EUvsDisinfo. This follows the task force naming a number of Dutch news services as spreaders of fake news, Het Parool reports.
The Dutch news services involved are NPO Radio 1, the Gelderlander, GeenStijl and The Post Online. According to the task force, pro-Russian propaganda gained the upper hand in a few reports from these organizations.
The fourteen identifying characteristics of fascism
Some scholarly articles ...
Disinformation as a context-bound phenomenon: toward a conceptual clarification integrating actors, intentions and techniques of creation and dissemination | Communication Theory by Michael Hameleers - Oct. 12, 2022 UvA |
In a more contextual definition of a "disinformation order," Bennett and Livingston (2018) emphasize that the socio-political embeddings and regional contexts of disinformation are crucial to consider. Disinformation--across various contexts--can be seen as a disruptive form of communication that has to be understood in the setting of the media and political landscape it is created and consumed in. Hence, disinformation may thrive in contexts where distrust, populism and corruption are more central, and when the alternative and deceptive narratives forwarded in disinformation offer a credible interpretation of the socio-political world (also see Humprecht et al., 2020 for a discussion on regional resonance). When focusing on the political context of disinformation, it is important to note that although most research has focused on radical right-wing (populist) settings (e.g., Egelhofer & Lecheler, 2019; Marwick & Lewis, 2017), disinformation can also cling on to (radical) left-wing ideologies (e.g., Nikolov et al., 2021) or other issue positions. What matters is that disinformation may strategically exploit socio-political cleavages to create confusion, amplify conflicts and further divide societies.
Beyond contexts of deception, another element considered in disinformation literature is the extent to which deceptive information deviates from objective facts, empirical knowledge, and verified information (e.g., Lewandowsky, 2021; Tandoc et al., 2018; Van der Linden et al., 2021). Deception is arguably more credible when it uses some elements of the truth, and disinformation agents may capitalize on the truth bias by offering concrete linkages to real facts to frame deception. People generally have a hard time detecting deception (Allcott & Gentzkov, 2017; Edgerly et al., 2020; Oh & Park, 2021), and, unless suspicion is triggered, people are intrinsically wired to accept the honesty and accuracy of information, which is explicated in the Truth-Default Theory (TDT) (Levine, 2014). Based on this, disinformation agents may use techniques of deception and dissemination that make inauthentic content seem real (i.e., through deepfake techniques and astroturfing), which avoids the activation of suspected deception among recipients who do not have the resources to systematically scrutinize all arguments. Thus, although the TDT is a reception theory, it may help to explain how targeted disinformation is processed by recipients, and how malign actors may exploit a truth bias in an overloaded information setting by manipulating public opinion.
Rutte and freedom of expression | UvA - 2009 |
The proposal of the VVD fraction in parliament follows the American doctrine in which a distinction is made between 'public speech' and 'private speech'. 'Public speech' then takes a 'preferred position' in relation to other interests and fundamental rights because of the importance of the public debate. This doctrine is based on Meiklejohn's theory and has found its way into the jurisprudence of the US Supreme Court. In addition, the clear and present danger test plays an important role in American jurisprudence.
Constitutional Law--Immigration: Meiklejohn Theory of the First Amendment Applied in the Immigration Context--Mandel v. Mitchell, 325 F. Supp. 620 (E.D.N.Y.), appeal docketed 40 U.S.L.W. 3035 (U.S. July 13, 1971)
The Right to Communications Confidentiality in Europe: Protecting Privacy, Freedom of Expression, and Trust
We show that at its core the right to communications confidentiality protects three individual and collective values: privacy, freedom of expression, and trust in communication services. The right aims to ensure that individuals and organizations can safely entrust communication to service providers. Initially, the right protected only postal letters, but it has gradually developed into a strong safeguard for the protection of confidentiality of communications, regardless of the technology used.
Hence, the right does not merely serve individual privacy interests, but also other more collective interests that are crucial for the functioning of our information society. We conclude that separate EU rules to protect communications confidentiality, next to the GDPR, are justified and necessary.
...
This Article discusses the protection of the right to confidentiality of communications in Europe. In 2017, the European Commission published a proposal for an ePrivacy Regulation, which includes rules to protect the confidentiality of electronic communications. Some have argued that there is no need for an ePrivacy Regulation, because the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), is sufficient to protect privacy.
Why people would (not) change their media use in response to perceived corporate surveillance
This study employed a combination of a thought-listing exercise conducted in the Netherlands (N = 300) and a cross-sectional survey in the United States (N = 148) and the Netherlands (N = 156) in which respondents were presented with a scenario regarding corporate surveillance and asked about their motivations (not) to change their media use. The studies showed that privacy was a more important motivation for the intent to change media use in the United States, while in the Netherlands people were less motivated to change due to seeing less potential harm of corporate surveillance. The results could be explained by cultural differences or differences in legal pro- tection. Finally, older people saw less threats and were less able to protect themselves, while younger individuals were not motivated to make changes to their media use because of mobile device dependency. This indicates that while more is needed to help people make informed de- cisions, empowerment measures should be adjusted to different generations and locations.
Europe's new data privacy and security law US big tech iCloud servers ...
In the shadow of GDPR, US authorities have introduced CLOUD Act, a US federal law that has met quite a lot of criticism. CLOUD Act, among other things, enables U.S. authorities get access to data of US cloud providers - including data stored abroad. Many have expressed concern about what the law may entail in practice.
Reaction to posts in another thread ..
Lessons learned by the neocon cabal and John Bolton. Joe Biden is standing next to John McCain, Joe Lieberman, HRC and Lindsey Graham.
Regime Change Cascades: What We Have Learned from the 1848 Revolutions to the 2011 Arab Uprisings
Works on the 1848 revolutions, 1989 collapse of European communism, 1998-2005 postcommunist color revolutions, and 2011 Arab uprisings frequently cross-reference each other, implying what is called here the concept of a "regime change cascade." Research on these "Big Four" events shows that cascading can occur in protest calling for regime change as well as revolution in the name of regime change, but these rarely lead to actual regime change. Regime change cascades can occur through demonstration effects and active mediation, although common external causes and contemporaneous domestic triggers can cause events outwardly resembling them. Regime change cascades tend to occur where (a) there exists a common frame of political reference, (b) unpopular leaderships are becoming lame ducks; (c) elites lack other focal points for coordinated defection, and (d) structural conditions supporting a new regime type are in place. Cascading to hybrid regimes or autocracy may be more likely than cascading to democracy.
Some countries are quite busy with revisionism of history, majority rule, minorities are harassed, censored or outright banned as political group. The banner is "democratic" vote.
Many diaries have passed about the design of colour revolutions initiated by the West in "hostile" territory with authoritarian leaders. UN Charter, sovereignty and respect for borders. 🇺🇸 🤣
Georgia: oil, neocons, cold war and our credibility by Jerome a Paris Sun Aug 10th, 2008 |
This is another diary critical of the West's position on Georgia. (Update: See also my new story: The warmongers lose another war
....
But if you think I am just a "lefty European apologist of Soviet atrocities", feel free to move on and ignore this diary.
As an additional preamble, when I say that the West has no more credibility than Russia on this conflict, it does not mean that Russia has any credibility, or that I love Putin, it means that the West has no credibility whatsoever; when I mock the West's claims about human rights and democracy, it does not mean that I think Russia is a defender of human rights and democracy, just that we have no credibility eitheron the topic.
Always insightful writings by Jerome ... I agreed with his views then, and still do today. A truth seeker. Nearly 15 years later here @EuroTrib similar accusations and rhetoric. Just shrug my shoulders and going about my business, 😄
Fact or fiction, in politics it is about perception ...
The Council of Ministers released a no-holds-barred book about its efforts to root out a purported foreign-backed "colour revolution" in Cambodia, lashing out at superpowers like the United States for supposedly trying to cause "immeasurable catastrophe" in the country.
Government unit publishes 132-page treatise on threat of `colour revolution' | Phnom Penh Post |
[Update-1]
A truly nice inside story with views from the West … a bit of disinformation somewhat, but nevertheless a recommended read.
Kilimnik didn’t say much, only that he needed to talk, in person, as soon as possible. Exactly what he wanted to talk about was apparently too sensitive even for the tradecraft the men so fastidiously deployed — encrypted apps, the drafts folder of a shared email account and, when necessary, dedicated “bat phones.” But he had made coded reference — “caviar” — to an important former client, the deposed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who had fled to Russia in 2014 after presiding over the massacre of scores of pro-democracy protesters. [A crucial and big lie … the massacre was most likely led by revolting groups trained by UK and/or US special forces. Pyatt and Nuland plus the U.S. stooges in Kyiv know the truth]
….
Regardless, with financing from Deripaska’s oligarch allies in Ukraine, Manafort began to put the plan into action. He brought in international elections consultants and American strategists from both sides of the partisan aisle. For local knowledge, Manafort brought in Kilimnik, who even then was trailed by suspicions that he was a Russian mole. Five feet tall with a disarmingly boyish mien, Kilimnik had last worked at the International Republican Institute (IRI), a democracy-promotion outfit affiliated with Senator John McCain of Arizona, who was a client of Manafort’s longtime partner, Rick Davis. Kilimnik had studied at a Soviet military language academy known for minting future intelligence officers and had served as a Russian Army translator. His colleagues at I.R.I. came to suspect he was passing secrets to Russian intelligence, and he was fired when the institute learned he was working for Yanukovych’s backers.
Using tools at the disposal of Western communications and election guru’s … nothing wrong with such an initiative … compare the ugliness with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her favorite Lanny Davis overturning a Democratic election in Honduras. Simple hypocrisy or just as evil by the American empire, oligarchs, lobbyists, and big corporations.
A Labyrinth of Deception: Secretary Clinton and the Honduran Coup | Council on Hemispheric Affairs - April 12, 2017 |
Engineering an revolution …
Related a more recent diary …
Honduras: First woman president? | Nov 28th, 2021 |
The EU should support the Social Democrat candidate Ms Xiomara Castro de Zelaya should she be elected.
Venezuela? Two decades of interference and election meddling which became clear with US electronic voting machines under first term George Bush cabal and regime.
In 2014 I wrote a diary with the same headline as this article … today I still back the analysis put forth.
Meet the Americans Who Put Together the Coup in Kiev
By Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News - 25 March 2014
If the US State Department's Victoria Nuland had not said "Fuck the EU," few outsiders at the time would have heard of Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, the man on the other end of her famously bugged telephone call. But now Washington's man in Kiev is gaining fame as the face of the CIA-style "destabilization campaign" that brought down Ukraine's monumentally corrupt but legitimately elected President Viktor Yanukovych.
"Geoffrey Pyatt is one of these State Department high officials who does what he’s told and fancies himself as a kind of a CIA operator," laughs Ray McGovern, who worked for 27 years as an intelligence analyst for the agency. "It used to be the CIA doing these things," he tells Democracy Now. "I know that for a fact." Now it's the State Department, with its coat-and-tie diplomats, twitter and facebook accounts, and a trick bag of goodies to build support for American policy.
A retired apparatchik, the now repentant McGovern was debating Yale historian Timothy Snyder, a self-described left-winger and the author of two recent essays in The New York Review of Books – “https://www.nybooks.com/online/2014/03/01/ukraine-haze-propaganda/“>The Haze of Propaganda” and “Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine.” Both men speak Russian, but they come from different planets.
On Planet McGovern – or my personal take on it – realpolitik rules. The State Department controls the prime funding sources for non-military intervention, including the controversial National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which Washington created to fund covert and clandestine action after Ramparts magazine and others exposed how the CIA channeled money through private foundations, including the Ford Foundation. State also controls the far-better-funded Agency for International Development (USAID), along with a growing network of front groups, cut-outs, and private contractors. State coordinates with like-minded governments and their parallel institutions, mostly in Canada and Western Europe. State's "democracy bureaucracy" oversees nominally private but largely government funded groups like Freedom House. And through Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, State had Geoff Pyatt coordinate the coup in Kiev.
The CIA, NSA, and Pentagon likely provided their specialized services, while some of the private contractors exhibited shadowy skill sets. But if McGovern knows the score, as he should, diplomats ran the campaign to destabilize Ukraine and did the hands-on dirty work.
Geoffrey Pyatt later moved to Greece and Ambassador Ford of Syrian revolt refused by Egypt.
Egypt rages against likely US ambassador on Twitter | France24 - June 8, 2013 |
US media reports that Robert Ford, former top US envoy to Syria, will be Washington’s next ambassador to Egypt has sparked a vitriolic Twitter campaign over a Canadian conspiracy [false] website's claims that he once ran “death squads” in Iraq.
Robert S. Ford’s was appointed Minister Counselor for Political Affairs at the US Embassy under the helm of Ambassador John Negroponte. He was not only part of the inner team, he was Negroponte’s partner in setting up the Salvador Option. Some of the groundwork had been established in Najaf prior to Ford’s transfer to Baghdad.
John Negroponte and Robert Stephen Ford were put in charge of recruiting the Iraqi death squads. While Negroponte coordinated the operation from his office at the US Embassy, Robert S. Ford, who was fluent in both Arabic and Turkish, was entrusted with the task of establishing strategic contacts with Shiite and Kurdish militia groups outside the « Green Zone ».
Robert Ford was refused accreditation by Egypt and retired in February 2014.
Revisited: Engineering ‘People’s Revolutions’ – A Color? | Mar 5, 2014 |
With link to this article …
How Ukraine Might Blow Its Historic Opportunity | Center for Geopolitical Analysis - Feb. 2013 |
END OF UPDATE
