... as EU agrees to expand online censorship with ‘Digital Services Act’

By The Exposé on April 29, 2022

Under pressure applied by both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the European Union is working to expand online censorship to an extreme Orwellian level, as well as strictly regulate speech during what authorities deem to be times of crisis (we always seem to be in the middle of a “crisis”), and remove online anonymity by forcing the public to have a digital identity.

But these plans aren’t unique to the EU. They are also currently being rolled out in the UK and Africa, proving Governments worldwide are working in lockstep to bring in a digital identity and social credit system right under your nose.

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Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both lobbied for the EU to back the censorship bill known as the ‘Digital Services Act‘ on Thursday, April 21st, 2022:

From France 24, “EU agrees on new legislation to tame internet ‘Wild West’ “:

The Digital Services Act (DSA) — the second part of a massive project to regulate tech companies — aims to ensure tougher consequences for platforms and websites that host a long list of banned content ranging from hate speech to disinformation and child sexual abuse images.

[…] Tech giants have been repeatedly called out for failing to police their platforms — a New Zealand terrorist attack that was live-streamed on Facebook in 2019 caused global outrage, and the chaotic insurrection in the US last year was promoted online.

The dark side of the internet also includes e-commerce platforms filled with counterfeit or defective products.

[…] The regulation will require platforms to swiftly remove illegal content as soon as they are aware of its existence. Social networks would have to suspend users who frequently breach the law.

The DSA will force e-commerce sites to verify the identity of suppliers before proposing their products.

[…] The European Commission will oversee yearly audits [of Big Tech firms] and be able to impose fines of up to six percent of their annual sales for repeated infringements.

Looking over the outline of the new agreement it’s striking how they seamlessly conflate child sexual abuse material with “illegal hate speech.”

Both are jumbled together as “illegal content.”

The law calls for plans to restrict free speech on the internet during times of “crisis.”

The DSA also pushes for a “public electronic identity (eID),” which Politico previously described as a “National ID card” on your phone that has its origins in vaccine passports and “Digital COVID Certificates.”

Though the eID is sold under the guise of protecting people’s privacy, “digital rights activists … worry the proposal could allow the private sector to better access people’s government-certified information, thereby actually strengthening the likes of Facebook and Google and the targeted advertising industry,” Politico reported.

Working in Lockstep

The UK government is also pushing ahead with its nationwide digital ID plans, despite half of the responses to its public consultation on digital identity opposing the idea.

On April 6, 2022, new digital identity document verification technology (IDVT) that enables data sharing between public bodies and businesses for the purpose of identity verification was introduced. It has been made available to UK employers, landlords, and letting agents who can use it to digitally carry out pre-employment criminal record checks, right to work checks, and right to rent checks.

Source

The introduction of this digital IDVT is part of the government’s far-reaching digital ID plans which were announced in March. The government has framed these digital ID plans as a way for UK citizens to “easily and quickly prove their identity using digital methods instead of having to rely on traditional physical documents.”

Before announcing these digital ID plans, the government sought views and feedback on its proposed approach to digital identity via a public consultation.

50% of the responses to this consultation were “against digital identity in principle” but the government didn’t include these responses in its statistical analysis of responses to the consultation because they “did not engage with the questions.” However, the government insisted that “outside the context of producing the statistical analysis, we have taken these responses into account as part of this consultation exercise.”

The government’s digital ID plans were announced in the same month that the UK government’s Online Safety Bill began its legislative journey. This bill mandates the implementation of identity and age verification technology on many large online platforms.

The UK Government and Bank of England have also been working on a new digital currency in the background to replace cash.