Daily Archives: May 4, 2020

On April 29, Cointelegraph participated in a fireside chat event organized by the Webit Foundation. The panel, with the title of Can blockchain be a solution for the upcoming economic crisis, featured Roger Ver from Bitcoin.com as the main speaker.

Like all events during the Coronavirus pandemic, the panel was held virtually, with its participants dialing in via video conference. The talk was hosted by Dr. Plamen Russev, executive chairman of Webit Foundation. The chat featured Roger Ver, Bitcoin.coms executive chairman, and Kristina Lucrezia Cornr, managing editor at Cointelegraph, as a Q&A moderator.

Vers answers at the panel can be summarized as a deep belief in freedom and libertarian economics. He believes these ideals to be the answers to the crisis at hand. He also focused on censorship an issue that has regained relevance amid the Coronavirus pandemic.

Ver was greatly disturbed by the harsh censorship policy enacted by Youtube in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He cited an example of two doctors who made statements going against the mainstream narrative behind the pandemic, and whose video was deleted a few days after it was published.

The policy is allegedly the culprit behind a new wave of bans to crypto content creators, which recently hit high-profile influencers like Tone Vays and Crypto Lark.

Ver explained his view against censorship:

I think the solution to people saying crazy or wrong things is other people being able to rebut those things, not massive censorship.

When discussing censorship, Ver also threw several jabs against the Bitcoin community, and said that his biggest regret throughout the years was not being even louder when speaking out against censorship in the cryptocurrency community.

This refers to 2015, when the moderators of the /r/Bitcoin Reddit forum began censoring any discussion relating to Bitcoin XT a proposal for larger blocks in Bitcoin (BTC) that can be considered as the ideological ancestor to Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

Ver holds a utilitarian view of the purpose of cryptocurrency, focusing heavily on its use as a censorship-resistant payment system. He emphasized that it is free trade that creates wealth in the world, while the lockdowns destroy the ability to trade freely and thus, the economy. He also considers the multi-trillion dollar stimulus package to be theft of a similar nature to counterfeiting money.

Cryptocurrency, as the freest form of money, would be the best tool to escape the governments excessive control, according to Ver. But he also believes that it can only happen when cryptocurrency is used for payments, which is something that Bitcoin is no longer useful for, he claimed:

The sad part about what everybody is calling Bitcoin today, it doesnt have those characteristics that made the early investors and adopters so excited about it early on. Most of those people are now working on things like Bitcoin Cash or Ethereum.

He claimed that most of its current supporters are either speculators betting on future speculation, or people who still didnt figure out that the project is no longer trying to be cash for the world.

You can check out the full panel by clicking on this link.

See the original post:
Bitcoin Is Not Cash For the World: Recap of Webit Fireside Chat with Roger Ver - Cointelegraph

Actor Pankaj Tripathi, who has tasted success on the big screen as well as the digital space, says that when it comes to the debate on web censorship, a dialogue is very important.

"Everything should have a debate because a dialogue is important. The storytellers get to tell their stories the way they want to, without the censors on the platform. They have freedom," opined Pankaj, who gained a major fan base as Guruji in Sacred Games and Kaleen bhaiya in Mirzapur.

However, not everything can be defended in the name of creative freedom, he feels.

"There are some people who just want to spread sansani (sensationalism). They too have some freedom because there are no censors. So, there are pros and cons of having censorship, and if there is a debate only then will people arrive at some conclusion," the actor pointed out.

On the acting front, Pankaj will next be seen in Kabir Khan's 83.

Read more from the original source:
Pankaj Tripathi on censorship in digital space: There are some people who just want to spread sansani - Cinema Express

Newspaper headline posters display the main headlines for the Zimbabwean daily newspapers. (Photo: EPA-EFE/AARON UFUMELI)

On 14 April ZBC News online, the official Twitter page of Zimbabwes only TV station, posted a video of President Emmerson Mnangagwa saying that he was aware of a false statement on social media saying he would be extending lockdown until 3 May. He said he would ask the Central Intelligence Office (CIO) to investigate it and that if the person responsible was caught they should get at least 20 years imprisonment for spreading falsehoods.

An example needs to be made, the President said.

The CIO operates under the Office of the President. Many of Zimbabwes abductions, extrajudicial murders and enforced disappearances are said to be committed by the CIO. The head (minister) of State Security which oversees the CIO, Owen Mudha Ncube, was recently added to the US sanctions list for Human Rights violations. Emmerson Mnangagwa himself was the minister responsible for the CIO during the Gukurahundi genocide that left 20,000 civilians dead in Matebeleland.

Hearing the president take the trouble to publicly threaten whoever wrote the statement with CIOs was unsettling. We all feared the worst not just for whoever the president was threatening but also for ourselves.

However, on Sunday 21 April, what was meant to be the last day of the lockdown, the president announced that he was extending it until 3 May 2020, just as the allegedly fake statement had said. This gave rise to several questions and suspicions. Had the statement truly been fake or was the president a victim of a leak from his office? Many wondered what the alleged falsehood mongerer would be charged with if found, now that the president had announced exactly what the statement had said he had decided.

Was this fake news after all and, will the fake news charge stick? people asked.

On 20 April the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) tweeted that they had arrested Lovemore Zvokusekwa for Publishing or communicating false statements prejudicial to the state as defined in section 31 (a) (i) of the Criminal law (Codification and reform) act Chapter 9:23.

As the president had stated in the video this crime attracts 20 years in jail and because the president had vowed to make an example of this case, there was an outcry from the public. Some questioned the word circulating in the charge.

Did Zvokusekwa produce the letter or had he just circulated it as hundreds of other Zimbabweans had when the letter fell into their inboxes and on their timelines?

Were they going to find and arrest everyone who had forwarded the letter?

Some argued that the law Zvokusekwa was being charged with had long since been ruled to be unconstitutional by the constitutional court in the case of Chimakure vs the Attorney General, rendering the arrest and charge an illegality and an abuse of Zvekusekwas rights. Some simply asked was it fake news that the lockdown had been extended when the president had in fact extended it?

All these questions did not stop the state from dragging Zvekusekwa before a magistrate on 20 April and remanding him in custody until 13 May a total of 23 days.

Something to be laughed at

The case of Zvokusekwa, whose surname in Shona ironically means something to be laughed at, illustrates a dangerous trend seen elsewhere. Covid-19 has provided an excuse to authoritarians to ramp up the stifling of dissent. The destination of choice has been attacks of freedom of expression and the media.

In Zimbabwe, starting with the case of the late Zororo Makamba, the first person to test positive in the country, the government has been accused of manipulating information on the true status of infections and its response to it. The digital or social media space has been the go-to alternative for a country hungry for information. It has also been a revolutionary space for government criticism, exposure of corruption and other excesses and demands for accountability. That, it seems, is the space the government has its eyes on.

But it faces a dilemma.

The government itself needs the digital media space for its own propaganda. The national broadcaster, ZBC, maintains a Twitter handle which it actively uses to churn out propaganda. On the page they post stories about everything the president does as well as stories highlighting the generosity and benevolence of the president and the first lady.

For years the Zimbabwean government has used twin devilish and draconian pieces of legislation to stifle political activity and dissent and public criticism: the Public Order and Security Act (Posa) and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA).

The former, in requiring police permission for public gatherings, has been used to stop opposition from holding its rallies, while the latter has been used to intimidate and prevent journalists from doing their work. When he tried to show potential Western investors that he and his government were different from the late former president Robert Mugabe, Mnangagwa promised to repeal the two laws. Replacement drafts have been tabled but are no different. Meanwhile, Posa was used in August 2019 to stop opposition protests.

Code for repression

It is now clear that while all attention has been focused on Posa and AIPPA, the real devil is in the Criminal Code used to arrest Zvokusekwa which is equally draconian but carries far more severe penalties.

The obvious glee by the president in announcing to a nervous nation his eagerness to set his dreaded CIO on a citizen and then send that citizen to jail for spreading falsehoods demonstrates the importance of this piece of legislation in the repression toolbox of the regime. The governments intention to use the Criminal Code to turn up its autocratic volume during the lockdown was exposed by the Permanent Secretary of Information hours before the publication of the regulations establishing the lockdown, when he threatened that people would soon see themselves in jail for spreading falsehoods.

The Covid-19 statutory instrument did not disappoint, importing verbatim the entire provisions of the code related to criminalising the publication of falsehoods. What seemed lost to the government, which does not seem to respect its own laws, let alone its own courts, is that this entire provision of the Criminal Code was struck down by the constitutional court in the Chimakure case six years ago. The Minister of Justice cited in the case at the time was none other than Emmerson Mnangagwa, now president. Nothing demonstrates the levels of lawlessness and lack of accountability more than this. This is clearly a government that does not consider itself bound by anything or accountable to anyone.

War on digital democracy

It is clear that digital or social media will continue to be a new battleground for repression in Zimbabwe.

In the wake of Covid-19, the disastrous policy failures in the governments response have been accompanied by allegations of shocking levels of procurement-related grand corruption and abuse of Covid-19 aid. Last week it was reported that a company run by (the presidents son) Collins Mnangagwas business partner, Delish Nguwaya, was awarded a $60-million contract to deliver pharmaceuticals related to Covid-19. The story was broken in digital media.

The Minister of Finance announced a programme to provide livelihood support via cash transfers to vulnerable households. The contract to disburse this money was awarded to a telecoms company closely linked to the political elite.

To make matters worse, the process to determine who is eligible for the government funding remains clouded in mystery. The only explanation the Minister of Finance gave was that they used a complex algorithm to select beneficiaries. With such opaque explanations and poor accountability, it is clear that even this money is likely to have been looted. In Covid-19 the government has found a new golden goose for its voraciously corrupt appetite.

In all this, the digital and social media space stands fast in ensuring that these scandals come to light, that the president is called to answer for his videos threatening citizens, the Minister of Health is asked to explain his policies and reports on Covid-19 and the Minister of Finance is asked to justify how government money is spent.

The power of digital and social media to counter state propaganda was also witnessed last week when the secretary of information posted this tweet:

We received 65 Zimbabweans from the UK. Available place of quarantine is Belvedere Teachers College. They are refusing this accommodation demanding hotels. Govt cant afford. Why come from a Covid-19 hotspot during a lockdown & demand posh facilities at stretched public cost?

The returnees managed to expose the government lying by posting videos from the college where they were quarantined showing that the reason why they were asking to be moved to a better place was that there was no running water and more than 20 people were sharing just two toilets. The plan to deceive the public about why the returnees were rejecting the quarantine facility backfired terribly. The videos, by default, also served to expose the dire conditions under which students at the teachers college have been living in for years.

With a crumbling and discredited state media enterprise, the government needs the digital space. It will continue to need it for its propaganda, for PR exercises for the president and first lady and for Covid-19. But, with its tendency to capture and monopolise everything, it has yet to find a formula to control the digital media space beyond unconstitutionally switching off the internet. It has also yet to find a legal way to stop Zimbabweans from sharing information that exposes its failures besides provisions of the Criminal Code struck down by the constitutional court but brazenly used to detain a civilian for almost one month.

In all this, it remains clear that if ever the falsehoods law was constitutional and anyone needed to be jailed, it would be the government and its litany of propagandists. It also highlights that in crying only for Posa and AIPPA to be repealed, citizens have ignored a greater danger the devil is in the Criminal Code.

It is unacceptable that the president of Zimbabwe, who himself has never spent a single day in custody for any of his crimes from genocide to looting minerals in the DRC and running down Zanu-PF companies as alleged by Mugabes administration before the coup can arrest and threaten a man with 20 years in prison for circulating fake news that turned out to be true. DM/MC

Thandekile Moyo is a writer and human rights defender from Zimbabwe. For the past four years, she has been using print, digital and social media (Twitter: @mamoxn) to expose human rights abuses, bad governance and corruption. Moyo holds an Honours degree in Geography and Environmental Studies from the Midlands State University in Zimbabwe.

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Censorship in Zimbabwe: When fake news is true and official news is fake - Daily Maverick

In the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, President Trump referred to the virus as the China virus and the Chinese virus. But in a press briefing on March 18, the president got pushback from the media. A reporter asked why he was calling it the "Chinese virus" when there were reports of bias against Chinese Americans.

Trumps immediate response (because it comes from China), as well as his references to Chinas conspiracy theory implicating the U.S. military, made everything clear. But in the days following, he changed his wording to COVID, COVID-19, the virus, and sometimes plague.

So what about Taiwan? I ask this question because the small, vibrant democracy is effectively independent of China yet mostly Chinese in ethnicity. Not surprisingly, Taiwanese people would also have a problem with the term Chinese virus. Instead, government officials have long been using Wuhan virus and Wuhan coronavirus interchangeably with more general names. They are also reminding the world where the virus started.

Dr. Alexander Chieh-cheng Huang is a professor and former deputy minister of the Taiwanese governments Mainland Affairs Council. He also served as a senior consultant at Taiwans representative office in Washington. When I asked his thoughts on the virus language, Huang noted its political nature.

I guess everyone knows well that using Wuhan matches the anti-China public sentiments stirred up since 2019, when Beijings image in Taiwan had drastically deteriorated due to Xi Jinpings one country, two systems statement and the anti-extradition movement in Hong Kong lingering even after Taiwans 2020 presidential campaign," he said.

As it becomes clearer that Chinas censorship and cover-ups exacerbated this crisis, officials in the United States could follow Taiwans example. Lets call it the "Wuhan virus" to memorialize the human tragedy that China's authoritarian government has created. Lets call it the "Wuhan virus" to remind us of continued vigilance against the lack of transparency in China.

Dr. Li Wenliang of Wuhan tried to send warnings through Weibo, Chinas Twitter, that there was a mysterious and deadly outbreak afflicting patients and medical providers. Wuhan police threatened criminal charges against Li, who later succumbed to the virus himself and died. There was an uncommon public uprising in China over the doctors treatment. People began calling for freedom of speech and an end to government censorship. Eventually, the central government ruled that Wuhan police acted unlawfully and inappropriately. While there is evidence that Beijing also engaged in a cover-up of sorts, it is clear that the crackdown on speech started in Wuhan.

Wuhan residents were trying to get the word out. They were trying to say that the true death toll in their city was far higher than reported. They pointed to thousands of urns being shipped to the city. Far worse has also been alleged. One famous Wuhan resident, writer and poet Fang Fang, was posting daily reflections and revelations during Wuhans lockdown. She openly criticizes the local government, even as censors and trolls harass her to this day. In response to Fang Fang and people like her, Beijing passed tougher legislation on March 1 to control online content. Finally, last month, Beijing acknowledged that the toll in Wuhan was underreported. But considering the government's track record, even those numbers may not be accurate.

Wuhan authorities have still not closed the wet markets, where many health officials believe the virus was first transmitted.

Although we will probably never know, intelligence officials reportedly believe that there is a high possibility that the virus may have come from a Wuhan research lab. Lax security and standards could have resulted in an infected official or animal before the virus got out later into the community.

Taiwans early detection of something wrong in Wuhan and its strong mitigation efforts have won the island praise. It got one more thing right the name.

Dr. Guy Redmer is an English professor and author currently teaching in Taipei, Taiwan.

See more here:
One more thing Taiwan got right about the virus: Its name - Washington Examiner

While the rest of the world might be struggling in the darkness of a global health saga, with livelihoods and even lives under threat this is turning into Big Techs moment to shine.

After years of media and political elites trying to whip these powerful tools of data collection and mass surveillance into just the right shape the coronavirus pandemic has given tech giants a guise under which to do their thing unchecked by anyone except some independent media outlets and blogs, and incredulous social media users.

One such incident involves Aytu BioScience, which on Aril 20 announced it had entered an exclusive worldwide partnership with Cedars-Sinai to develop the Healight Platform Technology.

Dr. Ruchi Mathur of Ceders-Sinai announced this in a tweet the same day, saying, Weve already shown that the Healight kills bacteria. Now we show that it can also kill coronavirus.

Double your web browsing speed with today's sponsor. Get Brave.

Mathur also provided a link to a Yahoo News article announcing the deal.

But as of this writing, Aytu BioSciences video on YouTube has been banned, while its Twitter account was also temporarily suspended.

As it turned out, all it took to deplatform a company that just partnered with a renowned medical and academic center like Ceders-Sinai in order to try bring potentially life-saving treatment to the world was a (politically) disgruntled New York Times reporter.

The reporter, Davey Alba, said on Twitter on April 25 that she reported a video promoting Heatlight to YouTube because it was proving to be very popular and shared on social networks by people asserting that it backs up Trumps idea throwing it out there that UV rays kill coronavirus. The research and video was posted before Trumps comments.

YouTube quickly obliged and removed the video, according to Albas tweet. It was in the meantime confirmed that the video has been deleted, with a shocking message replacing it saying the content violates YouTubes guidelines.

On April 26, Twitter user @ShoreProgress shared the news of this case in a tweet adding that Twitter had also decided to suspend Aytu BioSciences account, apparently for no other reason than to spite US President Donald Trump.

(The user backed the claim of the Twitter account suspension with a screenshot but it seems that the social giant has changed its mind and that the account is back online, at least for now.)

More here:
YouTube and Twitter censor medical research center's UV therapy after NY Times journalist probe - Reclaim The Net

Recently The Jewish Voice ran a story about 2 doctors in California, who disagree with the quarantines , who stated that EMS is over-counting COVID-19 deaths and in detail described their data and the science of immunity. The doctors videos on youtube went totally viral, with over 6 million people watching them

Youtube began to take down the videos , even the original interview and news clip which was done by KERO 23, an ABC affiliate. You tubers keep re-posting them and as of now, we linked to 3 compete videos of Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi.

These are medical doctors, who held a press conference, big tech, does not believe you deserve to hear their studies and experiences.

The censorship being perpetrated by You Tube is out of control. They no longer act like a platform, they are officially publishers, that decide what you can see and not see. YouTube should be forced to declare themselves PUBLISHERS, which would hold them accountable for everything they PUBLISH. You Tube wants it both ways, they want to claim they are a platform to avoid any legal responsibility from the user content and at the same time, want to select what you are allowed to see. You cant have it both ways.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson reported on this topic last night. and discusses censorship and the power of big tech. He does a wonderful job. Watch below:

Go here to see the original:
Tucker Carlson Reports on California Doctors, YouTube are Trying to Censor over COVID Views - The Jewish Voice