Following the news that Elon Musk is considering taking legal action against the ADL over its outsize role in the advertising boycotts of social media firms, Alex Gutentag and Michael Shellenberger have a new article in Public underlining the links between censorious NGOs like ADL and state intelligence and security agencies. Here’s an excerpt.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) are nongovernmental organisations, their leaders say. When they demand more censorship of online hate speech, as they are currently doing of X, formerly Twitter, those NGOs are doing it as free citizens and not, say, as Government agents.
But the fact of the matter is that the U.S. and other Western Governments fund ISD, the U.K. Government indirectly funds CCDH, and, for at least 40 years, ADL spied on its enemies and shared intelligence with the U.S., Israel and other Governments. The reason all of this matters is that ADL’s advertiser boycott against X may be an effort by governments to regain the ability to censor users on X that they had under Twitter before Musk’s takeover last November.
Internal Twitter and Facebook messages show that representatives of the U.S. Government, including the White House, FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as well as the U.K. government, successfully demanded Facebook and Twitter censorship of their users over the last several years.
ADL is waging a very similar campaign against X/Twitter that it successfully waged against Facebook in 2020. In just three days, 800 companies, including $129 billion consumer products giant Unilever, withdrew tens of millions of dollars in ad revenue from Facebook until it agreed to ADL’s censorship demands. “The Facebook caved to far-Left pressure groups and now allows them to silently dictate policy in exchange for ad money,” said Musk yesterday. “That is the relationship they’ve had with X/Twitter for many years. Presumably, they have that with all Western search or social media orgs.”
The Facebook caved to far left pressure groups and now allows them to silently dictate policy in exchange for ad moneyhttps://t.co/9ZeygfO2SQ
It’s possible that there has been an increase in hate on X since Elon Musk bought the company. With greater free speech policies comes the possibility of more offensive speech, including racist or antisemitic speech. Bigotry does exist, and it should be challenged.
But there is no good evidence of that. Public has debunked claims by ISD and CCDH of an increase. And researchers have repeatedly debunked ADL’s claims of rising antisemitism for years. In 2009, an Israeli filmmaker found that ADL could not support its claims of an antisemitism crisis. Wrote NPR in a review of the film, “When he presses ADL staffers for evidence to back up their claims of a sharp spike in North American antisemitism in 2007, they can offer only wan transgressions…”
Eleven years later, Liel Leibovitz noted in Tablet that ADL had, for a report, “counted hundreds of threatening calls to Jewish community centers made by a mentally troubled Israeli teenager. You had to read the report’s fine print to learn that the number of violent attacks against Jews that year had actually decreased by 47%”.
ADL, ISD, and CCDH have not presented any good evidence that offensive speech online directly causes “hate-motivated violence”, nor that censorship prevents it. Moreover, last week Public reviewed evidence suggesting that the best way to combat hate speech is through open and public debate, which allows people to change their minds, not censorship.
ADL’s main goal is supposed to be stopping “the defamation of the Jewish people”, but the organisation is using the legacy of antisemitism and the Holocaust to justify unrelated censorial advocacy work. This is exploitative, and it is defamatory to say that Jews, in general, need and favour censorship. Many Jews on both the Left and the Right have argued that ADL does not represent their interests. By claiming to speak for all Jewish people while demanding highly unpopular policies, the ADL may be inadvertently driving antisemitism.
As troubling as these highly partisan ideological biases are, what’s most dangerous are the past and present ties between ADL, ISD, CCDH, and governments, particularly security and intelligence organisations, which we detail below. Neither ADL, ISD nor CCDH have responded to multiple requests for more information or an interview.
While we have yet to uncover documented proof of a conspiracy by the intelligence and security agencies of the U.S. and British Governments to censor citizens, there is sufficient evidence to merit an investigation by members of Congress and the British Parliament.
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“It’s possible that there has been an increase in hate on X since Elon Musk bought the company. With greater free speech policies comes the possibility of more offensive speech, including racist or antisemitic speech. Bigotry does exist, and it should be challenged.”
What is hate? Who defines it? What better way for someone to “challenge” what they see as “bigotry” by having the freedom to respond to it in the public square?
To my mind censorship is a form of imposed bigotry, courses for enlightenment are brainwashing by another name. The actions of an oppressive dictatorship.
You are right in this matter, historically we as a people grew up to understand what was deemed to be the best way to speak, or talk about various topics within the circles of our respective environs, by societal evolution. We had debates and disagreements all a necessary part of any civilised culture, it is an active facet of the development of that culture. What I find most disturbing about today’s environ, is the lack of the propensity to be able to debate and disagree in a civilised manor, where the seed of a premise is not admissible publicly, and potentially in private.
They used to control information on the TV to control our minds. We just didn’t really realise how much they did it. It was done very well. They regulated the level of dissent and debate and steered things in the direction they wanted which is principally keeping the plebs pacified and allowing the people they wanted to get into the positions of power.
With the Internet, they started to lose that control and it accelerated with social media. They are now trying to put the genie back in the bottle, and slowly but surely succeeding with regulations and laws. And obviously, less openly deploying the “intelligence” and secret security services.
The game is clear and totally in the open for anyone who cares to look.
But they’re going to get away with it. The total passivity of the vast majority of the population is entirely in their favour. It’s what allowed them to set up their power bureaucracies and what will allow them to reassert the full control they previously had.
Don’t do so called ‘social media ‘ so totally uninterested , I like to socialise for real and don’t hear any of this apparent hate speech at all! If you don’t like it get the f#@k off it!
I don’t use it either but I can’t deny it’s importance to free speech.
It is for example the means by which articles in the Daily Sceptic can reach a wider audience and influence the opinions of more people, not just those who already agree with most of its sceptical takes.
The reason the establishment want to control social media is precisely because it is such a powerful artefact for creating dissent in the population.
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“It’s possible that there has been an increase in hate on X since Elon Musk bought the company. With greater free speech policies comes the possibility of more offensive speech, including racist or antisemitic speech. Bigotry does exist, and it should be challenged.”
What is hate? Who defines it? What better way for someone to “challenge” what they see as “bigotry” by having the freedom to respond to it in the public square?
To my mind censorship is a form of imposed bigotry, courses for enlightenment are brainwashing by another name. The actions of an oppressive dictatorship.
I think you have to start from a position of free speech absolutism and be incredibly careful about exceptions.
You are right in this matter, historically we as a people grew up to understand what was deemed to be the best way to speak, or talk about various topics within the circles of our respective environs, by societal evolution. We had debates and disagreements all a necessary part of any civilised culture, it is an active facet of the development of that culture. What I find most disturbing about today’s environ, is the lack of the propensity to be able to debate and disagree in a civilised manor, where the seed of a premise is not admissible publicly, and potentially in private.
I think it’s also fine to disagree in an uncivilised manner as long as that doesn’t end in violence
Yes
They used to control information on the TV to control our minds. We just didn’t really realise how much they did it. It was done very well. They regulated the level of dissent and debate and steered things in the direction they wanted which is principally keeping the plebs pacified and allowing the people they wanted to get into the positions of power.
With the Internet, they started to lose that control and it accelerated with social media. They are now trying to put the genie back in the bottle, and slowly but surely succeeding with regulations and laws. And obviously, less openly deploying the “intelligence” and secret security services.
The game is clear and totally in the open for anyone who cares to look.
But they’re going to get away with it. The total passivity of the vast majority of the population is entirely in their favour. It’s what allowed them to set up their power bureaucracies and what will allow them to reassert the full control they previously had.
Don’t do so called ‘social media ‘ so totally uninterested , I like to socialise for real and don’t hear any of this apparent hate speech at all! If you don’t like it get the f#@k off it!
Precisely.
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/09/01/eu-accused-of-taking-a-page-out-of-orwells-1984-with-the-creation-of-ministries-of-truth-that-will-ensure-wrong-thoughts-are-not-allowed/#comment-899738
I don’t use it either but I can’t deny it’s importance to free speech.
It is for example the means by which articles in the Daily Sceptic can reach a wider audience and influence the opinions of more people, not just those who already agree with most of its sceptical takes.
The reason the establishment want to control social media is precisely because it is such a powerful artefact for creating dissent in the population.
‘Concern trolling.’ Essentially claiming to want to protect people when you actually want to take down someone with whom you disagree.
The British Parliament won’t investigate anything. It encourages and facilitates censorship through the laws it passes.