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June 2, 2024 Update: What Is Happening With Alex Jones & InfoWars?
43:02
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Alex Jones Asks For Help: InfoWars May Be Shut Down In 48 Hours!
12:24
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Viva Frei Explains What Is Happening With Alex Jones & InfoWars
18:39
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We Will Not Be Silenced (The Movie YouTube Doesn't Want You To See)
1:25:24
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Marjorie Taylor Greene: I Rise In Support Of The Anti-Surveillance State Act To BAN CBDCs!
1:44
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Representative Thomas Massie: 'Redacted. Redacted. Redacted. It's Not Incompetence. It's Insolence!'
6:13
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Former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield Admits Covid-19 Vaccines Cause 'Significant Side Effects'
1:36
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Tucker Carlson Interviews Aaron Rodgers: 'I'm Dangerous To Them Because I Speak My Mind!'
3:04
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Six Australian Doctors Suspended For Defending Their Patients & Profession During COVID-19
5:40
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Michael Gray Griffith: The Truth Is Coming Out Like A Cleansing Tsunami!
2:53
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Russia Bans Rumble! (Chris Pavlovski, CEO Of Rumble)
3:00
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Hearing On The Weaponization Of The Federal Government (May 1, 2024 • Full, Unedited Hearing)
2:59:54
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Rumble Refuses New Zealand Demand To Take Down Channel Reporting On Whistleblower Barry Young
25:17
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Small Town Canadian Doctor Needs Help Fighting Canadian Authorities Seeking To Ruin Him
1:10:52
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The Stabbing Of Bishop Emmanuel (While Aussie Officials Go Bonkers, The Bishop Is Calm & Collected)
18:53
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New Mexico Sheriff Deputized A Whole Church To Keep Doors Open During COVID (NewAmerican)
12:20
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Message To Elon: Please, I Urge You, Fight It Out! There Is Something Severely Wrong In Australia!
3:08
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European MP Christine Anderson: Scandal In The EU Parliament!
2:52
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Julie Inman Grant, The @eSafetyOffice, Has Made A Laughing Stock Of Australia...
5:55
20
Brazilian Judge Seeks To Weaponize Federal Police Against Defenders Of Free Speech
5:35
Inside The 'Disinformation' Industry (Freddie Sayers, UnHerd)
20:38
22
Take Down Barry Young Content, Or Go To Jail, Face Huge Fines, Lose Your Equipment...
23:32
23
RFK Jr. Says He Will Always Love Elon Musk Because Elon Gave The World The Twitter Files...
2:54
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Shellenberger: Brazil Should Terrify You (We Are Starting Our Own Free-Speech NGOs Around The World)
5:18
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Why X Refused To Bow To The Demands Of Brazil's Federal Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes
0:50
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Michael Shellenberger: Elon Musk Is All That Stands In The Way Of Totalitarianism
5:23
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Elon Musk Defies Tyrannical Authorities & Opens The Floodgates Of Freedom In Brazil!
10:22
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Wireless Networks: Tools For Surveillance & Control (Children's Health Defense)
3:55
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The Vibe Shift: People Are Starting To Notice The Lies, Wake Up & Find Kindred Spirits
15:36
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Seth Dillon Of The Babylon Bee: Freedom Of Speech Matters More Than Money
7:29
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FBI Hassles People 'Every Day, All Day Long' Over Facebook Posts
5:33
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We're Witnessing An Active Coverup, A Colossal Consumer Product Safety Debacle!
4:28
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Kim Iversen: CDC Redacts EVERY SINGLE PAGE Of Myocarditis Study!
8:07
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McCullough & Leake: War On Multiple Fronts (Two Victories, Supreme Court, Kate Middleton)
55:37
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Dr. Simone Gold: How, Exactly, The U.S. Government Uses Censorship To Silence Critics
13:27
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Elite Canadian Athletes: How Governments Are "The Biggest Perpetrators Of Trauma!"
15:55
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Bret Weinstein - Federal Health Agencies & The COVID Cartel: What Are They Hiding?
8:24
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Mattias Desmet - Federal Health Agencies & The COVID Cartel: What Are They Hiding?
8:49
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Journalist Rodney Palmer - Federal Health Agencies & The COVID Cartel: What Are They Hiding?
11:35
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Journalist Lara Logan - Federal Health Agencies & The COVID Cartel: What Are They Hiding?
12:51
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Senator Ron Johnson Roundtable: Federal Health Agencies & The COVID Cartel: What Are They Hiding?
3:57:04
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Tucker Carlson Interviews Mike Benz: The U.S. Government's Orwellian Mass Censorship Campaign
1:05:08
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Elon Musk: A World Government Could Lead To The Collapse Of Human Civilization
1:56
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Elon Musk Risks Everything To Restore Free Speech
13:54
45
Matt Le Tissier: In 17 Years Of Soccer, I've Never Seen So Many Players Collapsing On The Field!
12:36
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Tucker Carlson Interviews Russell Brand
46:17
47
The Complete, Unedited Congressional Hearing On The Weaponization Of The Federal Government
2:56:31
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Opening Statement - Hearing On The Weaponization Of The Federal Government
18:37
49
Elon Musk Asks: “Have You Heard Dis Information?”
1:50
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The Canadian National Citizens Inquiry Unveils Their Final COVID-19 Report
2:17:17
51
Former CBC Journalist Marianne Klowak Describes The Astonishing Decline Of Journalism In Canada
1:29:07
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Former Canadian Broadcast Corporation Journalist Exposes Massive Lies & Propaganda At The CBC
2:01:47
53
The Trusted News Initiative (The Machine Behind COVID-19 Censorship)
2:20
54
Elon Musk Throws Monkey Wrench Into The Intelligence Community's "Censorship Death Star"
8:57
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Elon Musk: Who Funds These Organizations That Want To Control Your Access To Information?
14:38
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Jack Posobiec: Elon Didn't Just Purchase A Company; He Purchased Evidence In Criminal Cases
8:07
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Naomi Wolf: "F You, Ofcom! You're On The Wrong Side Of History."
2:21
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Joe Rogan: They Were Stifling Debate From Real Scientists!
1:43
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Joe Rogan: "If It Wasn't For Independent Journalists, We Would Be F*cked!"
1:04
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Joe Rogan: The First Amendment Is Kept Alive By The Second Amendment!
3:48
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Joe Rogan Comments On "Captured" People & COVID Vaccines
7:36
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Joe Rogan & Matt Taibbi: Twitter, Free Speech & The Public Smear Campaign Against Elon Musk
3:55
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Vaccine-Pushing Peter Hotez Reveals Flagrant Incompetence In This Joe Rogan Grilling
4:21
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Russell Brand: Can We REALLY Trust Vaccine Fact-Checkers??!
10:18
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A Letter To Andrew Hill: “Help Expose The Corruption Of Science”
18:53
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Joe Rogan On Censorship, Discourse & Propoganda
2:18
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Jordan Peterson Announces Peterson Academy: "Up Yours Woke Moralists, We'll See Who Cancels Who!"
2:59
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Jordan Peterson & The College Of Psychologists Of Ontario Efforts To Re-Educate Him
38:03
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Jordan Peterson On Being Banned From Twitter
14:52
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JP Sears Reacts To Jordan Peterson's Twitter Ban
29:27
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Jordan Peterson: A Message To Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal
27:14
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Jordan Peterson: What Happens If A Totalitarian Social Credit System Becomes A Reality
3:29
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Russell Brand Discusses Online Censorship & Encourages Everyone To Follow Him On Free Speech Rumble
3:18
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Dr. Naomi Wolf Confronts Yale For Crimes Against Students (12/02/22 Speech)
19:55
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UK Government Goes After Mark Steyn Because Of Naomi Wolf Interview
9:52
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Naomi Wolf: The Vaccine Bioweapon & Suppression Of Harm To Women (Includes Edward Dowd's Stats)
22:21
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Trying To Protect Women (& Everyone Else) Naomi Wolf Is Censored AGAIN, This Time By PressWire...
9:01
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Joe Rogan Calls Trudeau, Ardern & Newsom “Demons”
1:34
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Joe Rogan Interviews Aaron Rodgers About COVID-19 Vaccines (Excerpt)
14:44
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Joe Rogan Interviews Alex Berenson About All Things COVID (Full 3-Hour Interview)
3:01:05
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Alex Berenson On Joe Rogan: Twitter Ban Came From The White House
6:39
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Jordan Peterson & Tucker Carlson: How Do They Feel About The Canadian Trucker's Freedom Convoy?
3:00
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Naomi Wolf: Joe Biden Demonized Almost Half Of The American Nation With Speech Meant For Unity
9:25
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Jordan Peterson Goes Nuclear Against Trudeau's Censorship Regime (Natali Morris, Clayton Morris)
17:53
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Jordan Peterson Interviews Helen Joyce (The Video YouTube Banned & Peterson Republished On Twitter)
1:21:42
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Steve Kirsch: "I Am One Of The Top Misinformation Spreaders In The World!"
7:14
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Rand Paul Introduces Bill To Outlaw Government Censorship Of Constitutionally-Protected Speech
1:56
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Ireland’s Media Minister Says Government Will Decide What Is True & What Isn't
2:47
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MUST WATCH: $11 Million Given OB-GYNs To Lie To Moms About Safety Of mRNA-Vaccines
41:50
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Pandemic Preparedness Is The New Forever War
2:16
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Steve Kirsch Interview With Nurse Gail Macrae Is The Single Most Important Interview He's Done
1:27:41
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COVID Nurse: Dangerous Hospital Protocols, Vaccine Injuries & Health Workers Who Refused To Speak Up
25:26
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COVID Nurse Gail McCrae: Medicine Failed Us (Big Picture)
47:42
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The Global Health Project
8:34
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Congressional Hearing: Injuries Caused By COVID-19 Vaccines: Part 2 (Full, Unedited Hearing)
2:33:00
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Congressional Hearing: Injuries Caused By COVID-19 Vaccines: Part 2 (Opening Statements)
19:35
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McCullough: Why Aren't More Medical Professionals Acknowledging The Harm Caused By mRNA Vaccines?
3:05
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Senator Rand Paul Grills DHS Sec. Mayorkas & FBI Director Wray About Censoring Americans
12:31
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U.S. Senator Rand Paul Speaks Against COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates For Senate Pages
13:40
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Rand Paul Applauds Elon Musk & Defends Free Speech
3:15
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1st Live Discussion On Mainstream Social Media About Fraud, Inefficacy & Dangers Of Covid Vaccines!
2:17:43
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Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene Holds Hearing On Covid-19 Vaccine Injuries (11/13/23)
2:40:02
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Marjorie Taylor Greene Tries To Stop COVID Vaccine From Being Added To Childhood Vaccine Schedule
3:45
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White Coat Summit: An American Awakening Of Doctors Joined By Lawmakers
37:39
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Select Subcommittee On Coronavirus Pandemic: The Constitution Is Not Suspended In Times Of Crisis
2:28:35
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Missouri Attorney General: The "Censorship Enterprise" The U.S. Gov. Deployed Against Americans
5:09
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Louisiana Solicitor General: How COVID Policies Grievously Violated Constitutional Authority
5:20
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Congressman Kevin Kiley Roasts Miguel Cardona & Xavier Becerra Over School Children Mask Mandates
7:51
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CDC Director Rochelle Walensky Refuses To Answer Questions About COVID Censorship
5:53
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Michigan State GOP Leader Kristina Karamo: Defenseless People Are Easy Targets For Tyrants
10:20
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House Weaponization Of The Federal Government Hearing On Twitter Files (Full Meeting - 03/09/23)
2:32:49
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24 Minutes Of Standout Comments From The House Judiciary Committee's Hearing On The Twitter Files
24:02
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Michael Shellenberger's Opening Statement - The Judiciary Committee's Hearing On The Twitter Files
5:38
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Matt Taibbi's Opening Statement - The Judiciary Committee's Hearing On The Twitter Files
5:55
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Disagreements Should Be Settled Through Open Debate, Not Censorship & Name Calling
3:56
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Rep. Jim Jordan: There Are 9 Million Reasons Two Scientists Changed Their Stance On Wuhan Lab Leak
3:29
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Former CDC Director: Three Suspicious Events Took Place At The Wuhan Lab In September 2019
0:48
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Select Subcommittee Roundtable: Examining COVID Policy Decisions (Full, Unedited Meeting - 02/28/23)
1:51:46
119
Brutal Opening Statements From Dr. Marty Makary & Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
11:25
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Senator Ron Johnson - COVID-19 Vaccines: What They Are, How They Work, Possible Causes Of Injuries
2:56:17
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How COVID Spokespeople Misled, Then Refused To Discuss & Debate Vaccine Disaster
6:37
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The Real Money Is Not In Vaccines, It's In Selling Drugs To Treat Vaccine Side Effects (07/28/20)
1:57
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How & Why Hydroxychloroquine Was Attacked & Censored All Over The World (July 28, 2020)
11:29
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Dr. Melissa McCann: A Summary Of The Australian COVID Vaccine Injuries Class Action Lawsuit
27:11
125
Class Action Alert: Dr. Melissa McCann's COVID Vaccine Lawsuit Revelation
16:04
126
Media Matters Tries To Silence Elon Musk, Elon Musk Launches "Thermonuclear Lawsuit"
3:07
127
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Announces Lawsuit Against The "Trusted News Initiative"
4:13
128
The Truth Is Coming Out! (Involved In Over 50 Lawsuits, Children's Health Defense Seeks Support)
2:56
129
Unprecedented Lawsuit Challenges Department Of Defense With Willful Misconduct
54:17
130
Japanese Researchers Sue The Government For Hiding Inconvenient Truths About COVID-19 Vaccines
2:19
131
Dr. Mary Bowden Sues COVID-Vaccine-Pushing Hospital For $25 Million
19:21
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Dr. Peter McCullough: Persecuted Doctors Are Suing The FDA For Defrauding America About Ivermectin
1:02
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MUST WATCH: Remdesivir Deaths Press Conference - Fresno, California (09/07/22)
1:45:09
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Hospitals Being Sued Over Remdesivir & Lack Of Informed Consent
14:32
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Landmark Ruling: Federal Judge Protects Free Speech By Blocking Gov. Communication With Big Tech
18:10
136
Vaccine-Injured Mother Files $10.5 Million Lawsuit Against Canadian Government & CBC
43:35
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"Vaccine" Injured Mum SUES for $10.5M: Was Lied to By Canadian Gov & CBC (misinfo & negligence)
43:35
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Mother Sues LAUSD Claiming Son Was Bribed To Take Covid Shot With Pizza
0:53
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Attorney Encourages 13 Attorney Generals To Sue CDC For Reckless Endangerment
6:44
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Dr. Peterson Pierre: Legal Grounds For COVID-19 Vaccination Lawsuits
1:58
141
Peter McCullough, MD - COVID-19 Is Treatable. Why Haven't We Focused On That Instead Of Vaccines?
19:32
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Vaccine Safety Research Foundation: The Tragedy Of Remdesivir & COVID Hospital Protocols
2:00:42
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Dr. Bryan Ardis: Remdesivir, Which Was Aggressively Promoted By Fauci, Has Killed Thousands
15:19
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Why Have Cheap, Safe, And Effective Drugs Been Ignored Which Could Have Saved 500,000 Lives?
8:49
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Dr. Pierre Kory: Criminal Big Pharma Is "Literally Destroying Society"
48:46
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U.S. Senator Ron Johnson: The Whole Covid Debacle Was "All Pre-Planned By An Elite Group Of People"
4:44
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The War On Ivermectin (Bret Weinstein Interviews Dr. Pierre Kory)
2:56:38
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Dr. Pierre Kory: The COVID Propaganda & Censorship Of Effective Generic Drugs & Physicians
43:44
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A Coordinated Disinformation Campaign To Discredit Ivermectin
2:17
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MAINSTREAM MEDIA CAUGHT SPREADING FAKE IVERMECTIN OVERDOSE STORY
18:16
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Some Of The Many Times CNN Accused Joe Rogan Of Taking Horse Dewormer (Ivermectin)
2:17
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Joe Rogan Grills Dr. Sanjay Gupta For CNN Calling His COVID Treatment "Horse Dewormer"
2:20
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Joe Rogan: “Do I Have To Sue CNN . . . They’re Making Shit Up!”
14:45
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Dr. Paul Marik: You Can't Trust The Major Medical Journals — They're ALL Paid Off!
2:20
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The War On World-Renowned Critical Care Specialist Dr. Paul Marik
1:22:37
156
Wolf, Kory, Marik: Post-Vaccine Fertility, Political Homelessness, Censorship
1:07:18
157
How COVID-19 Early Treatments Are Being Suppressed -- And What To Do About It
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FLCCC Discusses "Defeat The Mandates" & "COVID-19: A Second Opinion"
1:28:53
159
Must Watch! Tucker Carlson Interviews Bret Weinstein About All Things COVID!
59:50
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Why Is Tucker Carlson Optimistic About The Future Of Media?
1:52
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Tucker Carlson: "You are not free if you don't have free information"
5:20
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Tucker Carlson Interviews Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski (January 2023)
1:01:06
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@TuckerCarlson: "We’re back." (On Twitter)
2:58
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Tucker Carlson Interviews Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
5:14
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Fox News Fires Tucker Carlson! Here's The Fiery Monologue That May Be Responsible...
10:46
166
Tucker Carlson Interviews Elon Musk: Part 1 & 2 (The Complete, Unedited Interview)
1:01:41
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Tucker Carlson Interviews Elon Musk: Part 1
41:06
168
Tucker Carlson Expresses Shame & Regret For Being Mouthpiece Of Big Brother Media
1:57
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Tucker Carlson: "I Have A Right To All The Information I Need To Make An Informed Decision!"
0:15
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Tucker Carlson Weighs In On Woody Harrelson's Saturday Night Live "Drug Cartels" Monologue
3:41
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Michael Oxford @SCMountainGoat #NoFaceMaskMan Appears On Tucker Carlson!
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Tucker Carlson: Twitter Documents Show "Systemic Violation Of The First Amendment"
7:46
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Tucker Carlson: This Is "The Single Most Successful Human Rights Protest In A Generation"
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Tucker Carlson: "Justin Trudeau Has Ended Democracy In Canada"
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Tucker Carlson: Canadian Truckers Are Being Treated Like A Terror Group
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Tucker Carlson: Trudeau Has Declared Canada A Dictatorship
4:44
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Mike Adams Interviews Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. About Kennedy's Vision For HEALING A Fractured America
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RFK Jr. On COVID Vaccines, Restoring Constitutional Rights, The Politicalization Of U.S. Agencies
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. On How We Make People Proud To Be Americans Again
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RFKjr: We're Going To Do A Mass Experiment & See What Happens When You Tell People The Truth
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Dr. Peter McCullough & MP Andrew Bridgen, Trust & Freedom Gathering, European Parliament
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Argentina's Javier Milei Attends Davos & Tells The WEF To Celebrate Freedom, Abandon Collectivism!
24:33
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Patrick Bet-David: Live Podcast Town Hall Meetings Disrupting / Replacing Mainstream Media
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Vivek Ramaswamy Invites Disruptive Protester To Come Inside Town Hall & Share His Concerns
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Vivek Ramaswamy Comments On Being Censored, Live, During GOP Debate For Challenging Big Pharma
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Ramaswamy & DeSantis Tackle Warp Speed, COVID Vaccine Injuries, Vaccine Liability Laws, Free Speech
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Aaron Siri & Del Bigtree Announce Big Court Win: CDC Forced To Release Hidden V-Safe Data!
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Attorney Aaron Siri: How Vaccine Companies Received Immunity From Liability
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ICAN Attorney Aaron Siri Describes Alarming V-Safe Data During Washington D.C. Roundtable
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ICAN Attorney Aaron Siri Breaks Down CDC's V-Safe Data (The Highwire)
1:23:03
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After Forcing The CDC To Release V-SAFE Data, Excessive COVID Vaccine Injuries Are Made Public!
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How Will RFK Jr. Restore Trust In Government? Stop The Lying & Propaganda, Actually Trust The People
1:58

Inside The 'Disinformation' Industry (Freddie Sayers, UnHerd)

1 month ago
7.72K

Inside The Disinformation Industry
A Government-Sponsored Agency Is Censoring Journalism
By Freddie Sayers
UnHerd
April 17, 2024

https://unherd.com/2024/04/inside-the-disinformation-industry/

"Our team re-reviewed the domain, the rating will not change as it continues to have anti-LGBTQI+ narratives… The site authors have been called out for being anti-trans. Kathleen Stock is acknowledged as a 'prominent gender-critical' feminist."

This was part of an email sent to UnHerd at the start of January from an organisation called the Global Disinformation Index. It was their justification, handed down after a series of requests, for placing UnHerd on a so-called "dynamic exclusion list" of publications that supposedly promote "disinformation" and should therefore be boycotted by all advertisers.

They provided examples of the offending content: Kathleen Stock, whose columns are up for a National Press Award this week, Julie Bindel, a lifelong campaigner against violence against women, and Debbie Hayton, who is transgender. Apparently the GDI equates "gender-critical" beliefs, or maintaining that biological sex differences exist, with "disinformation" -- despite the fact that those beliefs are specifically protected in British law and held by the majority of the population.

The verdicts of "ratings agencies" such as the GDI, within the complex machinery that serves online ads, are a little-understood mechanism for controlling the media conversation. In UnHerd's case, the GDI verdict means that we only received between 2% and 6% of the ad revenue normally expected for an audience of our size. Meanwhile, neatly demonstrating the arbitrariness and subjectivity of these judgements, Newsguard, a rival ratings agency, gives UnHerd a 92.5% trust rating, just ahead of the New York Times at 87.5%.

So, what are these "ratings agencies" that could be the difference between life and death for a media company? How does their influence work? And who funds them? The answers are concerning and raise serious questions about the freedom of the press and the viability of a functioning democracy in the internet age.

Disinformation only really became a discussion point in response to the Trump victory in 2016, and was then supercharged during the Covid era: Google Trends data shows that worldwide searches for the term quadrupled between June and December 2016, and had increased by more than 30 times by 2022. In response to the supposed crisis, corporations, technology companies and governments all had to show they were taking some form of action. This created a marketplace for enterprising start-ups and not-for-profits to claim a specialism in detecting disinformation. Today, there are hundreds of organisations who make this claim, providing all sorts of "fact-checking" services, including powerful ratings agencies such as GDI and Newsguard. These companies act as invisible gatekeepers within the vast machinery of online advertising.

How this works is relatively straightforward: in UnHerd's case, we contract with an advertising agency, which relies on a popular tech platform called "Grapeshot", founded in the UK and since acquired by Larry Ellison's Oracle, to automatically select appropriate websites for particular campaigns. Grapeshot in turn automatically uses the "Global Disinformation Index" to provide a feed of data about "brand safety" -- and if GDI gives a website a poor score, very few ads will be served.

The Global Disinformation Index was founded in the UK in 2018, with the stated objective of disrupting the business model of online disinformation by starving offending publications of funding. Alongside George Soros's Open Society Foundation, the GDI receives money from the UK government (via the FCDO), the European Union, the German Foreign Office and a body called Disinfo Cloud, which was created and funded by the US State Department.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, its two founders emerged from the upper echelons of "respectable" society. First, there is Clare Melford, whose biography published by the World Economic Forum states that she had previously "led the transition of the European Council on Foreign Relations from being part of George Soros's Open Society Foundation to independent status". She set up the GDI with Daniel Rogers, who worked "in the US intelligence community", before founding a company called "Terbium Labs" that used AI and machine learning to scour the internet for illicit use of sensitive data and then sold it handsomely to Deloitte.

Together, they have spearheaded a carefully intellectualised definitional creep as to what counts as "disinformation". Back when it was first set up in 2018, they defined the term on their website as "deliberately false content, designed to deceive". Within these strict parameters, you can see how it might have appeared useful to have dedicated fact-checkers identifying the most egregious offenders and calling them out. But they have since broadened the definition to encompass anything that deploys an "adversarial narrative" — stories that may be factually true, but pit people against each other by attacking an individual, an institution or "the science".

GDI founder Clare Melford explained in an interview at the LSE in 2021 how this expanded definition was more "useful", as it allowed them to go beyond fact-checking to targeting anything on the internet that they deem "harmful" or "divisive":

"A lot of disinformation is not just whether something is true or false -- it escapes from the limits of fact-checking. Something can be factually accurate but still extremely harmful… [GDI] leads you to a more useful definition of disinformation… It's not saying something is or is not disinformation, but it is saying that content on this site or this particular article is content that is anti-immigrant, content that is anti-women, content that is antisemitic…"

Larger traffic websites are rated using humans, she explains, but most are rated using automated AI. "We actually instantiate our definition of disinformation -- the adversarial narrative topics -- within the technology," explains Melford. "Each adversarial narrative is given its own machine-learning classifier, which then allows us to search for content that matches that narrative at scale… misogyny, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-black content, climate change denial, etc."

Melford's team and algorithm are essentially trained to identify and defund any content she finds offensive, not disinformation. Her personal bugbears are somewhat predictable: content supporting the January 6 "insurrections", the pernicious influence of "white men in Silicon Valley", and anything that might undermine the global response to the "existential challenge of climate change".

The difficulty, however, is that most of these issues are highly contentious and require robust, uncensored discussion to find solutions. Challenges to scientific orthodoxy are particularly important, as the multiple failures of the official response to Covid-19 amply demonstrated. Indeed, one of the examples of GDI's work that Melford highlighted in her LSE talk was an article about the Delta variant of Covid-19. "This is a Spanish language site talking about how a third of deaths in the United Kingdom from the Delta variant are amongst those people who are vaccinated, which is clearly untrue," says Melford. "It is Chipotle that has been caught next to this ad unwittingly, and unfortunately for them have funded this highly dangerous disinformation about vaccines."

The statistic being reported comes from a June 2021 Public Health England report into Covid variants that sets out the 42 known deaths from the Delta variant from January to June: 23 were unvaccinated, 7 vaccinated with one shot and 12 fully vaccinated. In other words, 29% were fully vaccinated -- around a third -- and 17% partially vaccinated, making a total of 45% vaccinated. To further complicate the question, Melford misread the Spanish headline, and it actually referenced two thirds, or 66%, which is wrong again.

Examples like this are far from rare. The GDI still hosts an uncorrected 2020 blog about the "evolution of the Wuhan lab conspiracy theory" surrounding Covid-19's origins, which concludes that "cutting off ads to these fringe sites and their outer networks is the first action needed". This is despite the fact that Facebook and other tech companies long ago corrected similar policies and conceded that it was a legitimate hypothesis that should never have been censored.

In the US, a number of media organisations have started to take action against GDI's partisan activism, prompted by a GDI report in 2022 that listed the 10 most dangerous sites in America. To many, it looked simply like a list of the country's most-read conservative websites. It even included RealClearPolitics, a well-respected news aggregator whose polling numbers are among the most quoted in the country. The "least risk of disinformation" list was, predictably enough, populated by sites with a liberal inclination.

In recent months, a number of American websites have launched legal challenges against GDI's labelling system, which they claim infringes upon their First Amendment rights. In December, The Daily Wire and The Federalist teamed up with the attorney general of Texas to sue the state department for funding GDI and Newsguard. A separate initiative to prevent the Defense Department from using any advertiser that uses Newsguard, GDI or similar entities has been successful, and is now part of federal law.

But GDI is a British company and, on this side of the Atlantic, the Conservative Government continues to fund it. A written question from MP Philip Davies last year revealed that £2.6 million was given in the period up to last year, and that there is still "frequent contact" between the GDI and the FCDO "Counter Disinformation and Media Development" unit.

Yesterday, I was invited to give evidence to the House of Lords Communication and Digital Committee during which I outlined the extent of the threat to the free media of self-appointed ratings agencies such as the Global Disinformation Index. The reality, as I told Parliament, is that GDI is merely the tip of the iceberg. At a time when the news media is so distrusted and faces a near-broken business model, the role of government should be to prevent, not encourage, and most certainly not fund, consolidations of monopoly power around certain ideological viewpoints.

But this isn't simply a matter for the media. Both companies and those in the advertising sector also need to act: it cannot be good marketing for brands to target only half the population. Last year, Oracle announced it was cutting ties with GDI on free speech grounds, but as we discovered, it seems they are still collaborating via the Grapeshot plaform: is Larry Ellison aware of this?

At its heart, the disinformation panic is becoming a textbook example of how a "solution" can do more harm than the problem it is designed to address. Educated campaigners such as Clare Melford may think they are doing the world a service, but in fact they are acting as intensifying agents, lending legitimacy to a conspiratorial world view in which governments and corporations are in cahoots to censor political expression. Unless something is done to stop them, they will continue to sow paranoia and distrust -- and hasten us towards an increasingly radicalised and divided society.

Original YouTube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILEMV0xKGh4

See also:

Free Speech, Censorship, Informed Consent
https://rumble.com/playlists/cZ0hNmhMAOg

Dubious Data, Lies, Corruption, Propaganda, Brainwashing
https://rumble.com/playlists/byFwM-ICr5A

COVID-19 Was Planned In Advance
https://rumble.com/playlists/F_RU5N2kT58

Mass Formation Psychosis
https://rumble.com/playlists/IW1ikH70xTw

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