Last week from January 15th to 19th, the world’s private-jet-setting elites held their annual champagne and caviar fuelled knees-up in Davos. One of the key speeches at the event was made by the fragrant, always immaculately-coiffed EU supremo Ursula Von Der Leyen. Here’s the opening paragraph of Ursula’s speech:
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Klaus. Your annual Global Risk Report makes for a stunning and sobering read. For the global business community, the top concern for the next two years is not conflict or climate. It is disinformation and misinformation, followed closely by polarisation within our societies. These risks are serious because they limit our ability to tackle the big global challenges we are facing: changes in our climate – and our geopolitical climate; shifts in our demography and in our technology; spiralling regional conflicts and intensified geopolitical competition and their impacts on supply chains.
The sobering reality is that we are once again competing more intensely across countries than we have in several decades. And this makes the theme of this year’s Davos meeting even more relevant. ‘Rebuilding trust’ – this is not a time for conflicts or polarisation. This is the time to build trust. This is the time to drive global collaboration more than ever before. This requires immediate and structural responses to match the size of the global challenges. I believe it can be done. And I believe that Europe can and must take the lead in shaping that global response.
So, in spite of the Russia/Ukraine war, the growing conflict in the Middle East and the Chinese military threats to Taiwan, Ursula believes the most important issue facing the world is “disinformation and misinformation” – basically what we plebs are allowed to see and hear. And she believes a key role for the elites is rebuild trust in the plans the elites have for us by protecting us against being fed information which she and other leaders consider to be potentially harmful or polarising.
It seems that the attack on free speech is happening on at least three levels. First there is what we might call hidden censorship, by which a small group of people decide what information we are permitted. That’s why websites such as the Daily Sceptic are so important – they bring us stories and viewpoints which our rulers would rather we didn’t know about. I experienced this hidden censorship with my book There is No Climate Crisis. When I first mentioned writing a book debunking the whole man-made global warming nonsense – before I had a title and before I had written a single word – my literary agent told me I was wasting my time as no U.K. publisher would dare publish the book and no U.K. bookshop would dare stock it for fear of attack by the cyber-pitchfork-wielding social-media mob. So I had to self-publish through Amazon. And even though over 4,000 copies have been sold largely through word of mouth and even though I have presented the book to buyers at the main book chains, not a single copy has ever appeared in a U.K. bookshop.
The second level of the assault on free speech seems to be a coordinated effort by much of the mainstream media and the major technology mega-corporations to allow just one approved narrative on key issues like the origin of COVID-19, the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines, the finances of the Biden family and, of course, the global boiling scare. In a previous article for the Daily Sceptic I wrote about the BBC’s Trusted News Initiative. This includes many of the world’s leading news media – the BBC, CBC, ABC (Australia) and the European Broadcasting Union; the main press agencies such as AP and Reuters; and the Big Tech mega-corporations such as Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp), Microsoft and Twitter.
The Trusted News Initiative claims its aims are to “work together to build audience trust and to find solutions to tackle challenges of disinformation. By including media organisations and social media platforms, it is the only forum in the world of its kind designed to take on disinformation in real time.” It would seem that the main media members decide the correct narrative for each story, the press agencies help spread that narrative and the technology giants shutdown, de-platform and ban anyone daring to question the Trusted News Initiative’s version of events.
The third method of expunging freedom of expression from our lives seems to be through legal restrictions. Many countries are busy passing toughened hate crime legislation and ‘online safety’ laws. One of the most draconian may be in the Republic of Ireland. Critics have claimed the new Irish laws will “have a chilling effect on the freedom of speech”, the CEO of X (formerly Twitter) Elon Musk has threatened to take the Irish State to court over the legislation and Donald Trump Jr. has described the bill as “insane”. But both the EU and many other countries around the world are also introducing similar laws restricting what we are allowed to say, write, see and hear. The Foreign Policy website reported last month: “The global landscape for freedom of expression has faced severe challenges in 2023. Even open democracies have imposed restrictive measures to combat a range of threats including hate speech, disinformation, extremism and public disturbances.” And one certainty in life is that when politicians start introducing new laws, they always find good reasons to keep giving themselves greater powers by adding to the laws they have made.
At Davos, Ursula made it very clear that our access to reliable news and opinions is to be increasingly restricted to avoid polarisation and rebuild trust in those who govern us. Let’s hope we all are suitably grateful to Klaus, Ursula and the Davos elites for their willingness to protect us from misinformation and disinformation which might confuse and worry us.
David Craig is the author of There is No Climate Crisis, available as an e-book or paperback from Amazon.
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But seriously, does one really need to be a self-affirmed sceptic to see what’s occurring under our very noses? It seems plain as day to me, but perhaps I hang out in sceptical recesses of the internet, frequented by far-right conspiracy theorists a little too often;
”During a grief counseling session for professional censors and propagandists, The Wall Street Journal’s editor-in-chief complained to the World Economic Forum’s aspiring tyrants: “If you go back really not that long ago … we owned the news. We were the gatekeepers, and we very much owned the facts, as well. If it was said in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, then that was a fact.” To the great consternation of those who believe it is their noble prerogative to manipulate the public by controlling the narrative, ordinary people are now “much more questioning” about what is reported as truth. The public’s rising discernment troubles the “ruling class.” Perhaps that is why government schools refrain from sharpening students’ critical thinking skills these days. Authoritarianism thrives amid hive-mind ignorance.
So sorry, Davos dictators, we commoners are rapidly waking up to the bitter reality that corporate news spin-doctors are just as culpable for today’s civilizational chaos as the malicious central bank money-printers, out-of-control spy agencies, and multinational corporate behemoths that have long worked together to manipulate global events. We have opened our eyes and see you for the monsters that you really are.
Question: Faced with rising public backlash in the United States and throughout the West, is it not in the “ruling class’s” best interests to temper its obsession with forcibly constructing a “new world order” in the same old, destructive molds of Hitler, Lenin, and Mao? We may never know for sure because the World Economic Forum’s collection of Marie Antoinettes seem committed to silencing their opponents while mandating their latest version of technocratic tyranny. What we do know for sure — because history is violently clear — is that a great many tyrants rise to power only to later lose their heads.”
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/01/the_world_economic_forums_marie_antoinettes.html
Absolutely. I don’t hang out in far-right recesses of the internet (other than here :)) and it’s obvious to me that anyone who talks about “dis” and “mis” information is going to try and harm me and my family, and is therefore my enemy.
Dear Ursula,
Thanks for the offer, but I’m quite happy to figure out what is true and not true by myself. I don’t need your help. Regards to Klaus.
stewart
P.S. Remind me again, who put you in charge of anything?
After a disastrous stunt as German secretary of defense¹, Flinten-Uschi was complimented into the usual future career of a German party politician who’s completely useless but has too much clout in the party to be ignored: Be promoted to some EU position where she can talk as much as she wants but doesn’t really have much to say².
¹ Higlights included introducing an innovative (that is, partically made of plastic) type of combat boot whose soles would often fall off on their own due to shoddy quality, overseeing the scandal about the assault rifle designed such that it wouldn’t shoot straight (G36) and the story of the self-propelled howitzer designed to fall apart (figuratively spoken) when being used to fire more than 100 shots per day.
² JFTR: Prospective members of the EU commission are proposed by the European Council composed of the heads of the governments of the member states. They’re elected (or not) by simple majority vote of the European parliament.
I reckon if you asked a selection of British people, a lot of them would say that German politicians are “better” than the British versions.
Oh my …
The grass is always greener…
Have you seen how many migrants and turbines there are in Germany?
Oh it sounds pretty terrible there
I have managed to upset most of my German friends and relatives
Not that things are much better anywhere else
Turbinepest has indeed taken over large swathes of the countryside. But compared to the situation in England, even German towns still look very much like Geman towns, ie, towns populated predominantly by Germans. The Greens are obviously hell-bent to change this, not the least because they think it’s too boring (must be the best reason ever to import loads of foreign criminals) but they didn’t really accomplish much so far.
The Green Councils here in UK are just as bad. Taxi Driver told to remove Union Jack from his cab. “having flags can cause conflict etc” This is the UK, this is our flag FFS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pKi_zy1-NY
It’s your flag. But not their’s.
Handwringing Islamophiles everywhere.
“too boring”???? That is funny. There is nothing boring about beautiful German towns like Heidelberg, Bad Kissingen, Trier and lovely places like Bavaria. This is one of the most civilised places on earth. ———Try reading “While Europe Slept” by Bruce Bawer to see why we are all in danger from leftist ideology that wants to trample on the civilisation and fill the place up with the barbarian hordes.
If you asked a lot of British people they would say the covid injections are safe and effective, Lockdown was great as they got paid to not work, masks are life savers and that a bloke who puts on a frock is a woman.
I agree except for that last bit
I don’t think many people believe that- they just say they do because they don’t want to appear horrid
That is true, a mate of mine goes further than me on the last bit and would not call someone a man’s name who is female. I am a bit more polite and will call them what they want providing they are respectful and don’t shove their ideology down my throat, or anything else!
I’ve not been faced with that particular issue, yet. I think I would try to avoid having any contact with such people, as far as possible.
And as long as they stay out of your daughters toilet
Also what happened to those TXTs to Albert Bourla?
If the Laien-Ursel meant to say anything at all, it must have been in the other parts of this speech. I’m not convinced of that, though.
Apologies for the slight change of topic from the article, but it has reminded me how interested I am for an update on this.
Toby is still very normie and I do understand why he finds James hard to deal with. James has become his own worse enemy. It’s OK to be passionate. It’s OK to be out there. It’s OK to get annoyed and frustrated (but not too annoyed) when there are facts the person you are talking to won’t look at, or look for, but then that person still insists on directing criticism at you. But it’s not OK to get annoyed with people when they don’t see the “patterns” you see or agree with you on adamant statements you make about the intent of others, because we can never be adamant about the intent of others unless we have very intimate knowledge of them. Statements about the intent of others should always IMO offer some qualification (such as IMO). James too often crossed over these last two lines and getting annoyed with Toby for not agreeing with him or seeing the same patterns.
But having said that, Toby is now tweeting out articles such as this, and tweeting out many articles giving forensic breakdown of vaccine harms. I would be very interested to hear an update as to where he is at in his thinking on James’s assertions. It seems to me Toby has now crossed over quite a few of the lines he used to criticise James for, the most notable being the vaccines. But also now the malign intent of the WEF.
While an apology isn’t required, because James too often got over emotional and abrasive, and while his relationship with James is his own business, I would nevertheless be very interested in an update from Toby on the topics he used to argue with James about and to get some sense for if he now acknowledges James was essentially correct on a lot of what Toby would push back against. I’m not asking this to pry, but because I’m greatly interested in these topics and the extent to which attitudes are changing (much of it thanks to Daily Skeptic contributors and latterly, the shift in narrative, having been given booster rockets by Elon Musk taking over Twitter).
So how obout it Toby? If you read this message, how about a state of your thinking on each of these topics:
I should probably re-post this when there is an article actually written by Toby. But this article in particular has reminded me of the great extent to which the Overton window has been shifting!
If anyone else has any “What does Toby now think” questions/topics maybe add them as replies to this message and maybe we can get him to give a “Toby’s Brain State of the Union” update.
You covered many topics there, I suppose you could also throw in there the attack on farmers under the fertiliser and C02 con.
Who knows. However what I would say is that within certain limits DS has for a long time published views that TY probably doesn’t agree with 100%.
The idea that it’s even possible to correct ‘mis or disinformation’ in real time is patently absurd, these people clearly have no idea how complicated the world actually is.
I think they know very well how complicated the world is. They also know it’s simple – there is information they wish to see aired, and information that is inconvenient to them. I think it’s possible to remove information you don’t like in near real time – the social media platforms do it all the time. The tricky bit is doing it without it seeming too obvious because over-reach may trip them up. Sadly if you read some pronouncements regarding the “wrong people” getting elected, they are making it pretty obvious yet people still don’t wake up.
Moving on from mis and disinformation and coming up next is… “synthetic content.”
https://www.globalresearch.ca/wef-davos-2024-concluding-words-south-america-pertinent-point-devastating-wef/5847086
Depopulation.
I’m increasingly of the view that the release of the clearly man-made virus was unauthorised. That is, the vote was to wait until they’d got full control of the internet but the losing side thought “Fuck that, the plebs are sufficiently gullible that we can get away with it now” and released it.
That would explain why everything changed in mid-March 2020 and governments and owned scientists reversed what they had been saying: they realised that they’d been outplayed by the minority.
Well we have Disease X just in time for the WHO treaty & IHR regs. Apparently they are developing a vaccine foe a disease that doesn’t yet exist, how does that work again?
I have a better idea. We put the head of Ursula and the rest of the self-appointed Davos elites on spikes. We fix those spikes to every main government building in the West, so that the world can see and be reminded of what happens to traitors. Revolution anyone?
“It is disinformation and misinformation, followed closely by polarisation within our societies”. Yes and these elite Davos attending @$$#0£€$ with their total lack of self awareness are blind to the fact that they are the cause of it.
And that goes for the demographic changes too….They are playing a game of, name all the things you are responsible for and offer solutions that only benefit yourselves.
There is a fourth way of controlling the narrative which is passive rather than active – and that is simply to ignore contrarian views and hope, or expect, their proponents to give up in frustration. I have not so far been the victim of any active disagreement but my (mostly correct) suggestions simply disappeared into a vacuum. So while I have gone away, blog wise, I am currently referencing the compilation into a book, and still hope someone will take it on…
Mr Craig. —–I did read your book a while back and purchased it via Amazon as I do with most books. I had no idea books such as yours were not available in book shops and that writers of such books would likely have to “self publish”. ——This is ofcourse preposterous and is typical of the political and their bought and paid for media’s desire to control what all of polite society should see and hear, and to censor and omit anything that might run contrary to current orthodoxy because that may put at risk support for government policies. If eg there is no “climate crisis” then there would be no excuse for hugely expensive policies like NET ZERO that impoverish people under false pretences. The extent of this determination to subject us all in the western world to this eco socialism could be seen at the UK Parliament where the Net Zero Amendment was simply waved through in 2019 with no questions asked. No questions were asked because we are not supposed to know anything other than what government funded “official science” is telling us, and no alternative view can be aired. —-So we have “The Trusted News Initiative”—-But trusted by who? Certainly not by you or I. —-You see once you start using terms like “climate crisis” you are in the realm of “Politics” not “Science”, and if it is politics then we all must have our say. There is currently a war going on between Tyranny (government control of thoughts and words) and Freedom. It is to be hoped that sites such as this continue doing its bit and books such as yours continue to be written, for good men should never remain silent and allow evil to prevail.
Excellent post
I am humbled
Von der Layen is like the rest of them in her chosen “prefession” is a parasite, she lives off literally the money made by others who actually do work for which they pay extortionate taxes, Ms Der Layen does not pay tax, she is waited on, she is chauffered around, when she finishes this particular parasitic role, she will no doubt move onto another one in the WHO, U.N. The WEF, all of which are protected by Governments, the former two again employees pay no taxes. When she finishes she will receive a pension billions will dream of again paid for by those same billions. Ms Von der Layen was born into a family of Parasites her father also being in the same line of business, her husband once a lowly manager of a clinic in Europe, strangely enough after Ms Vonder Layen had sealed the deal with Pfizer, he was transported to America to work with a Pfizer releated company on millions per annum. She is just one example of the Parasitic class, who produce nothing, who contribute nothing, but who believe they are better positioned to tell us what to think, what to do, what to eat, what medical procedures should be forced on and into our and our childrens bodies. On what evidence, what super human powers or qualifications do they have that makes them any superior to the rest of us?, nothing, actually they are inferiors who don’t know how to work, how to produce something or grow things, they could not exist without the hosts they feed off, they know they are weak, they know that their status is built on an illusion passed down to them from their forefathers, hence they are frightened of us, because their time is coming to an end, the world is waking up, they overreached with Covid, so now they are like any other Tyrant stamping down on anything they view as a threat, and to them that threat is us. The stupidity of the Parasite class is evidenced in that they like any other Parasite cannot survive without its host.
Nailed it.
The term ‘parasite class’ is perfectly apposite in these times and deserves widespread usage.
That term was used in ‘Pseudo Pandemic’….New Normal Technocracy by Iain Davis.
Somewhat off-topic, but I have just ordered a copy of There is No Climate Crisis. The reviews on Amazon are overwhelmingly positive, but there are eight one star reviews – of which only one is marked “Verified Purchase”. Given that the book is only available on Amazon that strongly suggests that the other seven “reviewers” have not bought the book – and very probably haven’t read it.
See the date of this article and forecast reg. the impact of hate speech laws: https://vdare.com/articles/record-shows-hate-crimes-prevention-bill-will-suppress-speech
BBC this morning saying how vaccination for Measles is at an all time low, some Tory MP was blaming the internet & TIK TOK for spreading lies etc. Nobody once asked why there is so little trust in the medical establishment and some in Parliament talked of fining parents who don’t get their kid jabbed. I am not familiar with the Measles jab ( I had the real thing as a kid, was in bed for a few days as far as I remember) but the coercion from 2021 is familiar. I recall the first “Anti-Vax movement was in the 1800s — because they started noticing places where the Small Pax vaccine was rolled out, people were sicker.
Maybe, as their name implies, they really are meeting to discuss the World Economy. And maybe, as it is a forum in lavish surroundings that big corporations pay a fortune attend whilst government officials and politicians are invited for free, the nature of those discussions might not be entirely honest or legal. Given that the world’s fiat-based money systems have been on the brink of collapse since 2019, revealing all manner of fraud and corruption, it is quite understandable that Davos attendees would wish to suppress narratives that they find distasteful.
As mis/dis-information, I have a radical solution.
Let the information become public and let us all have a free open discussion and debate about the information and let us ourselves decide what is truthful or not.
Something like free speech.
Sorry if I have offended anyone by this radical idea.