Thread by @T4Recovery

🧵Thread

🚨How @Ofcom - supposed to uphold free speech in UK - suppresses it on Covid

🚨How govt plans to use this faceless agency to "close down free speech online"

🚨UK taxpayer funds secretive new censorship tool for China-dominated @WHO to control debate online round world

@Ofcom, led by @dawes_melanie, is the UK broadcasting regulator.

Its statutory duty? To uphold freedom of speech and ensure responsible broadcasting.

We now see Ofcom betrayed the trust placed in it by the people of the UK, by stifling debate...
ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/wh…

...but worse, the UK Government is quietly planning to hand far more power to @Ofcom by asking it to regulate all digital and social media...

"...effectively closing down free speech on the internet it doesn’t like..." 👇

scotsman.com/news/opinion/o…

Instead of defending freedom of speech, @Ofcom has been pressurising broadcasters from March 2020 onwards to distort the facts and silence any expert with opinions or data that might suggest lockdowns and restrictions are too harsh, or unnecessary.

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/…

@Ofcom told broadcasters it will enforce ‘statutory sanctions’ against those which report data at odds with the official version of events...

...or give a platform to experts who, for example, argue that case numbers are overstated...

@Ofcom's ‘statutory sanctions’ include taking away a broadcasters licence - and shutting it down.

Ofcom has specifically told broadcasters that they cannot allow critics of official restrictions to go unchallenged - and made clear it wants them silenced.

As Brian Monteith @TheBluetrot puts it in @TheScotsman:

"(From Mar 2020) by law the ability of broadcasters' news and current affairs programmes to report competing views around what the coronavirus pandemic actually was and how it might develop became government controlled..."

"...once the co-ordinated response of government, most notably through COBRA meetings and ministers taking advice from advisers and committees such as SAGE was agreed, that particular narrative became gospel and its contradiction risked huge fines and ultimately imprisonment…"

"The need for facemasks; the need for and length required for social distancing; the veracity of Covid statistics that moved like jumpers for goalposts; the efficacy of tests, and many other aspects of what we were being told were simply not up for debate on our TV and radio…"

"The debates around the veracity of death rates and differences between death “with” or “from” Covid were also suppressed; “Death with” became the standard term of use, as the far lower figures of “from” might... shatter govt's C19 strategy of using its very own project fear..."

"As a result such topics were also marginalised in our newspapers – for newsprint often gives priority to the news agenda set by broadcasters – and commercial operations also had to take account of government emergency advertising support becoming a sword of Damocles..."

Ofcom’s labelling of scepticism of official statistics and statements as "misinformation" during the Covid crisis is appalling - and extraordinary, as The Sunday Telegraph noted.

But the plot thickens when you consider who Ofcom is relying on for so-called "fact-checking…"

Because @Ofcom "is relying on “fact-checking” organisation @FullFact to inform what it should suppress," report @LD_Sceptics.

"Full Fact is a notoriously biased organisation which has a history of partisan interventions in political debates…"

lockdownsceptics.org/2021/06/06/why…

"... Full Fact's major funders include Google, Facebook and George Soros – all known for their highly partisan political activism.

70% of its 2019 declared funding was from Big Tech companies..."

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7…

That's right, @FullFact - who @Ofcom relies on as arbiters of truth - is largely funded by those same big tech giants who have made untold billions out of lockdowns.

Facebook’s share price alone has increased 113% since UK lockdown #1.

Not bad in 15 months.

But it gets worse...

The UK hosted a special G7 summit last week to coordinate the shutting down of online dissent internationally...

The Govt’s press release says:

"The Summit will enable global partners to focus their efforts on… ...the role that insight and behavioural science can play in addressing the threat of health misinformation; and how global collaboration can deliver trustworthy communications."

We now know that new tools to control debate online around the world were unveiled at that G7 conference.

Funded by UK taxpayers, Google and others, these tools will be given to the World Health Organisation, which is known to be heavily under the influence of China...

Details have been kept secret, but we understand that the tool can be adjusted and calibrated to track, identify and remove any content that the WHO’s officials choose to target, and to identify and block individuals and organisations.

This is genuinely terrifying...

Here is what the Director-General of WHO @DrTedros said in his communique from the conference last week:

"Together with the Government of the UK and Google, WHO is developing a cloud-based platform to provide real-time insights on COVID-19 misinformation around the world…

"…our intention is to equip global decision-makers with a central resource to identify misinformation, and to offer relevant content to counteract falsehoods, before they are widely shared. We are grateful to the UK Govt for its generous financial support for this project."

The UK was once a beacon of free speech for the world.

We fought wars to defend our right to speak and think freely.

What a shameful turn-around this represents for our once-great country...

The rot has gone deep within Government and @Ofcom.

It must now be exposed and treated - because our own MPs and Parliament are largely ignorant that this has happened...

We’re only a small group of volunteers with few resources, but without us, this would all still be happening behind closed doors.

Freedom of speech is under unprecedented attack and we have to act fast.

So please do two things, now:
1. Complain to Ofcom
ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/co…

2. Alert your MP now - please RT this thread and @ mention your MP in the comments.

Write to them here: writetothem.com

Make sure they are fully aware of what is going on.

This is a battle we must win and your help is essential.

Thank you.