What
happens when so-called "independent" journalism depends on the US
government’s checkbook? For decades, Washington has quietly bankrolled
media outlets worldwide under the guise of promoting press freedom.
But
a sudden freeze on foreign aid has exposed an uncomfortable reality:
without American funding, many of these organizations are struggling to
survive. If true independence means being free from political influence,
what does it say when an entire media ecosystem collapses the moment US
dollars stop flowing?
We explore this today.
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During
a US Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing
titled "Investigating the Real Impacts of Debanking in America,"
senators and witnesses laid out how Joe Biden's administration,
regulators, overbearing rules, big banks, and more had resulted in
millions of Americans being blacklisted from the banking industry.
The Biden Administration's Role in Debanking
Throughout
the hearing, witnesses and senators noted that Biden regime pressure
was a major contributor to this debanking wave, particularly through
Operation Choke Point 2.0, a Biden-era push that primarily focused on
pressuring banks to refuse to service cryptocurrency companies.
These claims were bolstered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's (FDIC's) release of 175 pages of documents before the hearing,
which, according to FDIC Acting Chairman Travis Hill, show that banks
that sought to offer crypto-related products or services were "almost
universally met with resistance" from the FDIC, with some of this
resistance coming in the form of "directives from supervisors to pause,
suspend, or refrain from expanding all crypto- or blockchain-related
activity."
"Under
the Biden administration, we've seen the rise of what many are calling
Operation Choke Point 2.0, where federal regulators exploited their
power, pressuring banks to cut off services to individuals and
businesses with conservative dispositions, or folks aligned with
industries they just didn't like, like the color of one's skin in my
family's history," Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC)
said. "I wholeheartedly believe that debanking someone over their
political ideology is un-American and goes against the core values that
our nation was founded upon."
Scott
added that the newly released FDIC documents "further proved that Choke
Point 2.0 was real" and "paint a disgusting and disheartening picture
of abuse."
Senator
Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) also showcased a quote from a confidential
Federal Reserve implementation handbook on account actions that she
described as "hard proof of Operation Choke Point." The quote in
question requires Federal Reserve staff to "consider the conduct of the
institution and its leadership and whether association with the
institution poses reputational risk to the Reserve Bank."
One
of the witnesses, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP Partner Stephen Gannon, was
shocked by the quote, saying he'd "never seen anything like that
before" and that "it's really quite unusual."
"Who's
to say what is controversial and what is not controversial?" Gannon
added. "It's chilling to me that it's possible that access to the
Federal Reserve payment system might be dependent on whether the
applicant was engaged in some sort of controversial commentary...or
activities...We don't want to be in a place where free speech is chilled
because there's a concern that I might not get access to banking
services."
Senator
Pete Ricketts (R-NE) also slammed the Biden administration for the way
it "weaponized government at all different levels" and targeted the
crypto industry.
And
when Ricketts questioned Gannon on Operation Choke Point 1.0 (a 2013
Obama-era debanking effort that targeted gun dealers, payday lenders,
and other companies considered to be "high risk") and Operation Choke
Point 2.0, Gannon said these efforts had resulted in "many small,
perfectly legal businesses" ceasing operations.
Other Debanking Pressure Valves
While
the Biden administration and its actions during Operation Choke Point
2.0 were identified as major contributors to debanking, participants
also shone a light on the confluence of other factors that led to
businesses and people losing access to financial services.
Big
banks denying access to customers was one such factor. Senator John
Kennedy (R-LA) asked Mike Ring, the President, CEO, and Co-Founder of the freedom-focused bank, Old Glory Bank,
to name the American banks that "have been discriminating, debanking
customers because of their religious beliefs, because they support the
Second Amendment, or because they hate fossil fuels." Ring responded by
saying Bank of America has "certainly picked and choose [sic] winners"
and also named Chase Bank, Citibank, and KeyBank.
Overburdensome
regulations that lack transparency were also pointed to as a reason
customers are excluded from the financial system.
Ring
said that the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), an anti-money laundering (AML)
law that requires banks to file Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs) for
transactions involving more than $10,000 in cash and Suspicious Activity
Reports (SARs) for transactions they deem suspicious, is "the Trojan
horse for banks to do whatever they want."
Aaron
Klein, a Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings
Institution, said that the AML rules have created an exclusionary system
that results in banks excluding low profit customers:
"I
think one of the problems that we have in our anti-money laundering
system is we've created an economic structure where the costs are very
high. And the banks respond by saying, 'If you're a low-profit customer,
we don't want you because of the AML cost, but if you're a high-profit
customer, we'll just pay the AML fine.'"
And
Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) shone a light on the "excessive amount of
reporting" banks have to file and the lack of transparency around SARs,
which are usually filed without customers having any awareness of them
or having the ability to appeal.
Senator
Bill Hagerty (R-AL) summed up the overall sentiment and explained how a
"constellation of problems exists at multiple levels" and that these
problems are created by "partisan ideologues that actually operate
within banks, public affairs divisions, or their so-called reputational
risk committees that are exerting their influence to choke off
disfavored industries," external pressure from political activist
groups, proxy advisory firms, and "activist regulators that have abused
their supervisory authority."
Hagerty
added that this has ultimately created a "de facto debanking" system
where "unelected individuals that are dictating what kind of companies
can exist and thrive in our nation, and with no directive at all from
the American people or from their elected representatives..."
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Germany's
snap election is just around the corner, and the elites from parties
making up the caretaker government (but not only) continue to exhibit a
high degree of contentious behavior, with X and Elon Musk being a
favorite target.
Now we have two NGOs - Society for Civil Rights (GFF) and Democracy Reporting International (DRI) - suing X for allegedly refusing to disclose its data, that would have helped them "track election disinformation."
The
two groups are citing the EU's (online censorship law) DSA, saying that
X is violating it by withholding the data they are demanding to have
access to. GFF and DRI
have at least one thing in common - according to their websites, George
Soros' Open Society Foundations are among their donors (in DRI's case,
this is through membership in the European Partnership for Democracy
(EPD) network.
But DRI's by far main funding source is the European Commission, with €5.7 million in 2023 alone.
When
it comes to GFF - the group describes its activities as keeping an eye
on elections around the world, as well as "monitoring" social media
regarding "election disinformation" - with offices in Berlin, Lebanon,
Libya, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, and, Ukraine.
Other
than getting money from the Soros' outfit, GFF has also been funded,
among many others, by the European Artificial Intelligence Fund
(specifically for "the work on the DSA") - but also, interestingly, the
Mozilla Foundation - and this grant goes to the heart of the lawsuit
that's been announced now. The Mozilla Foundation felt
generous with its money (a huge majority of which came from Google, via
a search engine deal) in order to "support (GFF) for the enforcement of
research data access based on the DSA."
If you thought that was thought-provoking - how about this: DuckDuckGo is also listed as a donor on GFF's official site.
And now, onto the lawsuit.
"Other
platforms have granted us access to systematically track public debates
on their platforms, but X has refused to do so," said Michael
Meyer-Resende (DRI).
Meanwhile,
Simone Rug of GFF shared with the media the belief that the lawsuit is
"important" - and then "reinvented the wheel" that has been turning for
the last eight years at least: "Platforms are increasingly being
weaponized against democratic elections."
Ruf was doing so well, but then so revealingly for this era, added, "We must defend ourselves." |
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US
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has written to the EU
Commission's Executive VP for Technological Sovereignty, Security and
Democracy Henna Virkkunen regarding the bloc's censorship law, the Digital Services Act.
Jordan
wants the EU to, by February 13, inform the committee of how it plans
to enforce the law when it comes to US tech companies, and also about
investigations that are at this time underway, against Meta and X.
Jordan,
as usual, doesn't mince words and has no problem with referring to the
DSA as legislation that has "censorship provisions" - to express what he
said was the committee's serious concern over how those might affect
free speech in the US.
Here,
he was referring to the nature of social platforms that are global, and
how they typically use the same set of policies regarding speech -
meaning that if those policies were aligned with the EU's restrictive
legislation, the result could be the setting of "de facto global
censorship standards."
Even
though for a long time criticized by speech and privacy advocates, the
DSA was flying under the radar of the previous White House, now it is
emerging as a significant point, as the two sides clash on a number of
issues.
Under
the DSA, which the EU and the law's supporters treat as a set of
"moderation" rules for the good of the internet - companies can be
forced to pay up to six percent of global turnover or even get blocked.
Elon
Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and President Trump have been among those who
previously publicly criticized the DSA. Previously, Virkkunen denied
that the DSA enabled censorship and even claimed that free speech is "respected and protected" by the law.
Jordan
and the commission he heads have been involved in multi-year efforts to
expose online censorship practices in the US, but this is not the first
time that these investigations have also turned toward the EU.
Last
summer, during the presidential campaign in the US, he wrote to then
Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton because of this EU
official's scandalous warning issued to Musk regarding a live stream of
an interview with then-candidate Trump.
The letter to Virkkunen was reported by Politico, but the EU Commission is yet to publicly comment on its contents. |
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The government in London is laboring to
get US tech entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk designated a "malign
actor" - a label previously reserved for nation-states the UK considers
to be hostile.
Foreign
Secretary David Lammy is reported to be holding "crisis talks" with
British parliament members (MPs) around this issue, with "disinformation
threats" cited as the reason behind these developments.
An
inquiry into this was organized in January by the Foreign Affairs
Committee, whose chair Emily Thornberry, an MP from the ranks of the
ruling Labour, asserted this type of threat against the country and its
interests is now being "weaponized" by both state and non-state actors.
Thornberry
at the same time "named and shamed" Musk as one of the latter, who, in
his role as X owner, allegedly "exploits the platform to spread
disinformation that disrupts and destabilizes."
But,
the more even-keeled members of the government apparatus - namely, its
diplomats - have reportedly advised Lammy against equating influential
individuals with state-backed disinformation campaigns.
The
inquiry is expected to be a topic of conversation as Lammy and
Thornberry meet this week. This particular attack on Musk is linked with
the decision to reinstate the previously banned account of Tommy
Robinson on X, and Musk's support for him was expressed last month.
Robinson
is branded in some reports as a "far-right activist" while his
supporters consider him a "political prisoner" (he has been jailed on
contempt of court charges, while the case against him is essentially
based on "hate speech" accusations).
But
the UK's government troubles with Musk run deeper, including dramatic
reactions to the X owner's criticism regarding the authorities' handling
of last summer's widespread riots, and more recently, of the grooming
gangs scandal.
Thornberry's
arguments - after years of all major platforms "tweaking" their
algorithms and moderation policies to firmly toe government(s) line on a
number of key issues - is that social media (aka, X) "algorithms" have
broken rank, to now allow "more controversial and incendiary content,
furthering disinformation's reach."
Thornberry is also worried about the trend of dropping third-party "fact-checkers."
One
of the inquiry's stated goals is to examine how the UK government can
"coordinate its counter-disinformation work across departments and best
work with private organizations." |
The
browser ecosystem, specifically on the mobile side, just got even
smaller and less competitive with the announcement of the imminent
shutting down of the open-source Kiwi browser.
It's
a story as old as the open source developing community: a small number
of people, sometimes a single person, create and develop projects that
later down the line become popular (Kiwi had a million downloads a
month) - but over time prove too overwhelming to update and maintain
(and often, impossible to monetize.)
But
another part of that story is also a constant - since the code is open,
it can be "reused." In this case, the differentiating factor for Kiwi,
and the original reason Arnaud Granal started developing it, is the
extension support. |
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Google's
Chrome, which resolutely dominates the browser market both on the
desktop and on devices, does not support extensions in mobile versions.
However, Kiwi allowed users to include Chrome's (desktop) extensions,
making it popular among those in need of this functionality.
Given
the open-source nature of the project, where Kiwi's extensions code has
ended up integrated seems a little surprising, from the "ideological"
standpoint: it's Microsoft's Edge Canary.
But
both these browsers are Chromium-based. And, for those who want
extensions in their phone browsers but also want nothing to do with
Microsoft, there are other options - like Firefox, Brave, Vivaldi,
Samsung Internet, etc.
Kiwi,
meanwhile, can still be sideloaded (it has been removed from the Play
Store), but since maintenance is discontinued it will receive no updates
past this January, meaning that it will at some point become unusable
through incompatibility with Android's own updates. The Kiwi code (and
the APK) is available on GitHub.
Those
migrating to Edge Canary will find that user experience has suffered,
as activating Kiwi's extensions is somewhat involved. They will need to
go into developer options (which is accomplished by tapping on the
browser's build number repeatedly) and then enable extensions by pasting
their ID into the appropriate box.
A post on Reddit's Android sub details the steps to achieve this. | | |
https://tirarelacqua.blogspot.com/2024/07/google-inculata-sangue-dal-piu-piccolo.html
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