Tag: Censorship

censorship

EU Commission wants centralised censorship

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The EU Commission is considering ways it can control the flow of information all across Europe, expanding on the tech censorship mechanisms which already exist.

By Stefano Gennarini, J.D. at C-Fam

The all-powerful EU Commission has requested a feasibility study on ways to give it direct control over the flow of information and the development of software across all technology platforms in Europe. The study, published last week, found that censoring all content simultaneously across all technology companies in Europe is feasible.

EU laws and regulations already require technology companies to censor their users, mainly through the Digital Services Act and the AI Act. Under these laws, all technology platforms are required to censor their users to combat misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech. This indirect censorship regime is no longer good enough for the EU Commission.

The current EU censorship regime is indirect. It relies on tech companies to do the dirty work of silencing and banning users in the same way that the Obama and Biden administrations weaponised federal agencies to censor U.S. citizens. The EU Commission issues content standards that tech companies must follow. Then, third-party platforms endorsed by the EU Commission and EU bureaucrats flag content for technology companies, who censor it themselves out of fear of being punished with EU fines and other penalties.

Now, the EU Commission wants the power to directly control what people can say online without having to rely on tech companies. The feasibility study was prepared by German tech consultants and concludes that giving the EU commission or its surrogates the power to instantly and simultaneously censor all content across all technology companies in Europe is both possible and desirable.

The censorship software described in the EU report would be built into all technologies used in Europe, but will have repercussions far beyond Europe, including on the speech of Americans.

The publication of the study comes on the heels of an already controversial week for the EU Commission when it comes to censorship.

EU Vice-President Henna Virkkunen revealed that the EU Commission’s plans for online child safety may include limiting and perhaps eliminating anonymity for all internet users. Virkkunen suggested that child protection online may require banning secure private browsing tools that prevent websites from detecting the user, like VPNs (virtual private network).

She said the digital passport would be the first step to protecting children, and that “an important part of the next steps” would be to ensure it “wouldn’t be circumvented.”

Eliminating anonymity is something high-level politicians in Europe have repeatedly called for, including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

“I want to see real names on the internet. I want to know who is allowed to speak up,” he said in viral remarks earlier this year in which he complained about critics who demand transparency of politicians like him from behind anonymous online accounts. Merz is known to prosecute his critics under a law banning online “insults.” According to reports, he has 300 open cases against such insults.

The information from the EU Commission on online privacy has been contradictory. The EU Commission website says the digital passport app to protect children does indeed protect privacy online and that it would be up to governments to require a digital passport to access the internet and digital services. Virkkunen’s remarks last week suggest that the EU Commission’s ambitions may go beyond merely preserving privacy. They certainly go beyond EU borders.

The EU Commission has openly promoted censorship internationally, including at the United Nations. When the digital passport app was first announced, it was billed as a tool that the EU Commission would make available to all countries as part of EU foreign assistance and would promote internationally.

By Stefano Gennarini, J.D. The Centre for Family & Human Rights was founded in the summer of 1997 in order to monitor and affect the social policy debate at the United Nations and other international institutions. C-Fam is a non-partisan, non-profit research institute dedicated to reestablishing a proper understanding of international law, protecting national sovereignty and the dignity of the human person.

pro-life speech

UN agencies call to censor pro-life speech

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Digital platforms should be held accountable for allowing misinformation on abortion. These agencies working in tandem say pro-life speech is tantamount to “misinformation” and should be stopped.

By Rebecca Oas, Ph.D. at C-Fam

The UN’s human reproduction program (HRP), housed in the World Health Organization (WHO), recently published the first of a series of papers examining the impact of abortion “misinformation” as it relates to human rights.  Their analysis requires their own idiosyncratic understanding of both misinformation and human rights.

For instance, they accept without caveat that abortion access is a right as part of “sexual and reproductive health and rights”, a term never defined or adopted in any international negotiated outcome.

The paper also cites independent experts and committees as sources of human rights standards. Such experts and committees offer recommendations and opinions on human rights treaties, though they have no authority to create new human rights apart from the plain language of the various human rights treaties.

At the same time, the article makes no mention of the consensus position of the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994) that the legal status of abortion is solely for individual governments to determine.

The authors define misinformation as “false, inaccurate, or misleading information shared without intent to deceive,” while disinformation is spread with knowledge and intent to deceive, and “a particularly harmful form of misinformation, with the potential to deliberately erode human rights protections and restrict access to evidence-based care.”

As an example, the authors cite an article claiming that “inaccurate beliefs about fetal pain were linked with antiabortion views, shaping attitudes toward access and policy.” However, the article they cite bases its view of when unborn children can first feel pain on a “current medical consensus” that simply does not exist, while labeling survey participants who support abortion restrictions based on fetal pain as “anti-choice,” a clearly partisan—and derogatory—label.

The article also expressly calls out the U.S.-based Project 2025 project for containing “strategies to embed misinformation into federal governance by altering agency mandates and rewording policies to stigmatize and delegitimize [sexual and reproductive health.]”  Here, the citation is to an article in the feminist and pro-abortion Ms. Magazine.

Another example of misinformation offered by the HRP article is the fact that a Canadian Catholic hospital blocked access to the websites of abortion clinics.  The article is broadly critical of traditional cultural and religious views; it expresses alarm that a “a rising anti-rights movement in Ethiopia, aligned with the US Christian Right, is working to dismantle the right to safe and legal abortion.”  It takes for granted that the nonbinding opinions of UN human rights experts take precedence over religious beliefs. “Human rights standards related to equality and nondiscrimination are routinely impacted” by misinformation, they write, “particularly when gender stereotypes, religious ideologies, or cultural beliefs are used to delegitimize SRHR.”  In other words, anything that casts abortion in a negative light is misinformation.

The article does offer some examples of what would commonly be understood as misinformation and disinformation, such as scammers purveying “miracle drugs” and clearly unqualified people offering spurious medical advice on TikTok.  However, the HRP authors’ credibility is undermined by their own ideological biases and overreliance on citing others who share them.  Ultimately, whatever policy and legal solutions they recommend will have the effect of stifling pro-life voices and censoring conservative viewpoints if they are implemented.

By Rebecca Oas. C-FAM: The Centre for Family & Human Rights was founded in the summer of 1997 in order to monitor and affect the social policy debate at the United Nations and other international institutions. C-Fam is a non-partisan, non-profit research institute dedicated to reestablishing a proper understanding of international law, protecting national sovereignty and the dignity of the human person.