NEW: A journalist last won a Nobel prize in 1935 & he couldn’t pick it up because he was in a Nazi camp.

We’re again at “a sliding doors moment” says @mariaressa.

My interview with both her & Dmitry Muratov for @ObserverUK & their warning for the world.
theguardian.com/world/2021/dec…
It’s a hair-on-the-back-of your neck moment. Listen to @mariaressa & Dmitry Muratov. They are the canaries in the coal mine.

If freedom of the press is in trouble, democracy is in trouble, we are all in trouble.

And that’s exactly what this Nobel is signalling.
And if you want to look at the specific historic parallels, then this is even more chilling. Carl Von Ossietzky won the prize in 1935 for exposing Germany’s secret re-armament.

And as Muratov points out here Russia’s aggressive military & expansionist plans are in plain sight
Here’s @cdeloire, president of @RSF_inter, acknowledging what @mariaressa calls “an assault on the truth”.

This Fri, the Nobel will draw attention to a profound existential problem: facts no longer work.

We’re in a tech-induced dystopia. That is accelerating authoritarianism.
It’s Ressa who understands Silicon Valley’s role in this. And it’s Muratov who’s living in what increasingly looks like a dictatorship.

There’s another sickening irony in play. The Russian org set up by another Nobel prize winner - Andrei Sakharov - is fighting for its life
Read this by @guardian’s Moscow correspondent @Andrew__Roth to understand how devastating the Kremlin’s assault on Memorial - & therefore on fundamental human rights - is.

This isn’t ‘authoritarianism’. It’s far darker than that.
theguardian.com/world/2021/nov…
What I didn’t manage to say is that Muratov, Ressa & us are points on a continuum.

In UK & US, social media undermined our elections’ integrity. In the Philippines, an authoritarian wants to jail journalists. And in Russia, a dictator has murdered them.

theguardian.com/world/2021/oct…
Finally. This is highly recommended. Muratov was in New York to support this new doc about journalists at Russia’s pioneering @tvrain & their struggle to survive Kremlin’s attempts to crush them. Called ‘Fuck This Job’, it’s by @krichevskaya & coming to @bbcstoryville in new year

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More from @carolecadwalla

14 Nov
It’s the apathy & blindness of what is happening in Britain that’s truly terrifying.

The set of bills the government is currently seeking to get through parliament is a full-scale attack on our democracy.

1/
theguardian.com/politics/2021/…
But the Elections Bill perhaps most egregious of all.

This is Michael Gove. He was the co-convener of Vote Leave - found by the Electoral Commission found to have committed massive election fraud.

Michael Gove is now seeking to tear up the Electoral Commission

2/
This is not accidental. It was the Electoral Commission’s investigation into Vote Leave that has prompted this.

We have to see this for what it is. It is an act of authoritarianism.

The sleaze is one thing. But this is structural. Permanent.

3/
Read 6 tweets
13 Nov
Steve Bannon has *finally*been indicted.

BIG news in America. But let’s not forget Big Steve’s interference in our own democracy. (And how Facebook has facilitated him at every turn.)

1/

Exhibit 1.

Here’s @nigel_farage on the day article 50 was triggered:

‘Well done Bannon, well done Breitbart. You helped with this hugely’

2/

Exhibit 2: Remember this? Just a casual offer to illegally fund @nigel_farage’s new Brexit party

‘If you’re interested, what I’d like to do is set up something & I’ll fund it somehow. And I think you’re the perfect guy’

3/

Read 9 tweets
31 Oct
We are in deep, deep unchartered waters but I think we may look back & see this as Facebook's Week Zero.

This week's presentation & rebranding needs to be seen for what it is: a scorched earth policy.

The past does not exist. There is only future
1/
What Facebook has done this week is to defy reality. To defeat it.

The present does not exist. The multiple front page stories from multiple news orgs based on 20k internal docs never happened.

It doesn’t care. Because its plan is to colonise, own & control the future
2/
Facebook’s ambition is imperial.

And we are at the point in the movie where they need a new planet to colonise. It’s not ‘the metaverse’. It’s our AI future.

And this is who is building it. A handful of white tech bros & their dutiful lackeys
3/

Read 10 tweets
28 Oct
I wish I could tell you this is ironic. But earlier today, irony passed away after a massive cardiac event from which it did not recover

The whole presentation is worth watching in full for the complete mindfuck experience.

But @nickclegg is always a highlight. Here he is allaying fears that the metaverse might destroy democracy or launch nuclear missiles from your toaster which of course it can’t
‘So basically what you’re saying is that you’re going to be able to send a text message just by thinking about moving your fingers.’

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG
Read 4 tweets
25 Oct
Facebook is a malignant global empire destroying democracy.

Given I’m still paying a very very high personal cost for this talk (2+ years of the head-fuck & time-sink that is litigation), I hope you’ll forgive me for posting this again today of all days
Huge kudos to @FrancesHaugen & amazing work by dozens of journalists at 17 news orgs to report out these docs.

And today remember also the many many victims of Facebook, one of which is us, the British people. We still have *no idea* of what happened on its platform in EUref
Facebook is a black hole. It swallows the past. It’s a crime scene. And it refuses time & again to hand over the evidence.

What happened in Myanmar was an abomination. Yet *even last week* it was fighting legal attempts to uncover the truth

forbes.com/sites/ewelinao…
Read 4 tweets
25 Oct
Today @FrancesHaugen will testify to parliament. Here’s why it matters.

From a @nytimes report yesterday:

According to secret internal Facebook docs, it spends 87% of misinformation budget fighting on US content.

And 13% on the *rest of the world*

We do not matter to Facebook
There’s a lot going on today. This is a different committee to the one that called Zuckerberg to testify. But it’s the same chair: @DamianCollins.

Zuck’s refusal to come to UK or give evidence to grand international committee is the backdrop to today

theguardian.com/technology/201…
And the dam has burst. The embargo has lifted & 17 news organisations are dropping their Facebook scoops into news cycle already flooded with Facebook scoops.

Here for starters is @cnn

cnn.com/business/live-…
Read 4 tweets

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