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The Mozilla Foundation, the non-profit behind the Firefox browser, is one of the most prominent examples of an alt-tech startup successfully challenging Big Tech by embracing a free and open internet.
Yet despite finding early success by embracing a free and open internet, Mozilla is now a shadow of its former self with Firefox’s share of the browser market declining by more than 88% since its peak, the Mozilla Foundation relying heavily on the tech giant Google for its revenue, and the company increasingly voicing its support of censorship.
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The World Economic Forum (WEF) has been inserting itself into a number of core issues for humanity with ever-increasing vigor over the past couple of years, that coincided with the pandemic: publishing information about the future of artificial intelligence to the future of education, technology tracking humans, and so on and on.
One would think that when an unelected and unaccountable group like this decides to not merely offer its two cents on a topic but position itself as a de facto policymaker that wants to steer regulation and "ethics" standards - it would also be open to criticism.
But in thinking that, one would be wrong. It looks like the WEF can dish it out - but can't really take it. The main message conveyed recently by WEF Managing Director Adrian Monck is basically - don't talk about us.
And critics, including politicians in various countries, are being branded as "conspiracy theorists" and "disinformation" peddlers for talking about them.
Even though the WEF regularly wants to tackle the biggest issues there are - including by pushing for "the Great Reset"- when people try to scrutinize its own activities, Monck told Canada's CBC there are "bigger issues."
"Canada should be talking about a lot of things right now. It shouldn't really be talking about the World Economic Forum based here in Geneva," Monck is quoted as saying, oddly putting the emphasis on the geographical location of a group known as fiercely globalist, and thus aiming to influence the lives of everyone on the planet.
WEF certainly wasn't talking about local residents of Geneva when it in 2016 published what would turn out to be the origins of the "Great Reset" proposition, that fully "blossomed" in 2020 and was promoted by WEF chairman and founder Klaus Schwab himself. Or the 2016 article started with the words, "Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better."
Can you really come out with this kind of stuff, keep doubling down on it, and yet expect no fair criticism and opposition, as well as theories - legitimate and otherwise, to be developing as a consequence? Monck seems to think, yes.
And those who dare show skepticism towards WEF are advised to "have a very hard look at themselves and a very hard look in the mirror."
But this instance of "pearl-clutching" is highly unlikely to stop people from asking questions. If anything, it might invite more curiosity: why are you so defensive, WEF?
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, freezing the bank accounts of freedom protesters in Canada is hindering due process as the civil liberties protesters are unable to pay their legal bills.
The organizers of the “Freedom Convoy” protest have asked a court to unfreeze $450,000 in donations so that they can pay for legal fees in the upcoming case challenging the legality of the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
To end the protests against COVID-19 measures, Trudeau’s government invoked, for the first time in history, the Emergencies Act. It allowed the government to order the police to use force against protesters. It also gave the government the authority to order financial institutions and crowdfunding sites to freeze the accounts of protesters, without the need for a warrant.
The invocation of the Emergencies Act is being challenged in an upcoming public inquiry. Organizers of the protest, including Tamara Lich, have asked the Ontario Superior Court to unfreeze funds held in escrow on crowdfunding platforms GiveSendGo and GoFundMe so that they can pay for legal fees in the public inquiry.
The motion, filed Friday, also revealed that Lich has two other bank accounts with over $1.3 million received as donations to the protest that were frozen under the Emergencies Act.
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Codogno, a town in Italy's north, is introducing a social credit style app, local authorities have announced. It will be happening via the EcoAttivi app, to be used "to certify virtuous behavior" via geo-localization and QR codes.
The social credit system that most people are aware of these days was pioneered by China, essentially as yet another way to exert control over the population by conditioning its responses to various rules with awards and punishment.
Although not invented by China, it took strong root there and has been present for over a decade, both at government and private sector levels, and is thought to be very compatible with the country's overall political system and social climate.
Not so much though with Western democracies; it was taken for granted until recently. In fact, the intrusiveness of the schemes into personal life used to be considered completely incompatible with those societies.
But for some years now we have seen efforts across the West to introduce some form of social credit system, at various levels and for various purposes.
This one is relatively minor, since it concerns a community of under 20,000 people, and it isn't the first in Italy - but it could be useful to politicians elsewhere to test the waters and see not only the uptake, but also the reaction to this particular way of monitoring people's behavior by "grading it."
The app's users will be given "points" if they behave a certain, proscribed way in their environmental, cultural, and social activities, and in exchange, the "virtuous behavior" will get rewarded by discount coupons. Business entities will be giving these discounts - and then the municipality will refund the money to those companies.
So what's the net gain here? The idea is to "train" people to adopt certain habits they otherwise may have no interest in or are incompatible with their lifestyles, and thus in the long run allow the authorities to benefit from the system.
At least for now, that "virtuous behavior" appears to mostly have to do with the economic crisis that's getting worse every day; those announcing the app in Codogno seem particularly keen to get people to bike, instead of drive to work, for example.
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A PR firm cut ties with country music star Jason Aldean amid controversy over Instagram comments made by his wife, Brittany Aldean, condemning gender transformation surgery in children.
“Advocating for the genital mutilation of children under the disguise of love and calling it ‘gender affirming care’ is one of the worst evils,” she wrote in an Instagram Stories post.
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In another post, she said she was happy that her parents did not “change her gender” when she was going through a tomboy phase.
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Amid the controversy, on Friday, The GreenRoom, a Nashville-based PR firm representing many of the top country musicians, announced that it had cut ties with Jason.
However, it did not say that it cut ties with the artist because of his wife’s media controversy.
“Music has always been and remains The GreenRoom’s core focus, so we had to make the difficult decision after 17 years to step away from representing Jason,” company co-founder Tyne Parrish said in a statement to Billboard.
“We aren’t the best people for the gig anymore but will always be big fans of his music — he is one of the greatest live entertainers in country music.”
In an appearance on Fox News on Thursday, Brittany explained: “I’m advocating for children. I think that children should not be allowed to make these life-changing decisions at such a young age. They are not mature enough. They should have parents that love them and advocate for them regardless. We have ages on everything, right? We have it for cigarettes, we have it for driving, we have it for military, voting...Yet for some reason, people think that we can let a child choose their gender so young? It’s very baffling to me.
“I think when you’re older, if you choose to make those decisions, by all means. But children are too young, not mature enough to make those decisions.”
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The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) confirmed that it accidentally exposed the confidential data of about 120,000 individuals on its website. The information has since been removed.
The data exposed was from Form 990-T, filed by individuals with individual retirement accounts (IRAs) who earn some type of business income, aside from securities, from their retirement plans.
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Individual tax filings are supposed to be private. However, charities with unrelated business income also file Form 990-T and their filings are usually made public.
The Treasury Department and IRS said a human coding error was responsible for the confidential data exposure. The error resulted in both confidential and public data being posted on the IRS’s website. It was available for searching and downloading, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In a letter to Congress on Friday, the Treasury Department said that the data that was exposed was names, contacts, and financial data related to the income earned through the IRAs. Full individual income, Social Security numbers, and other information that could harm a taxpayer’s credit was not exposed.
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Following a notice from groups representing rights holders, Google has removed several YouTube rippers from search results in the UK. The notice stated that last year, a High Court order required ISPs to block the sites.
Last year, the British Recorded Music Industry Ltd (BPI) and Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) won a case that saw the High Court order ISPs to block several popular YouTube rippers, including 2Conv and Flvto.
The purpose of the order was to make these YouTube rippers harder to find.
However, there are still ways to access these sites and rights holders have been complaining about Google allowing these domains in search results.
BPI and PPL sent Google the High Court Order and requested the removal of the domains. Google voluntarily complied with the notice, although it was not legally obligated to do so.
The removal of the domains from search results is not a long-lasting solution because these sites can simply change their URLs. Additionally, there are many more YouTube rippers that were not included in the court order.
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Google has been complying with third-party court orders despite previously arguing that removing domain from search results would not work.
“Whole site removal would simply drive piracy to new domains, legitimate sites, and social networks,” the company said at the time.
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Reviewed by Diogenes
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September 05, 2022
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