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Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
@shellenberger
Sep 27, 2025 • 18 tweets • 8 min read • Read on X
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And after the government combines your personal, banking, and voting data under a single digital ID, it will add social media and vaccine information. Same with Real ID in the US. The Censorship Industrial Complex was dress rehearsal for digital ID.
Stop your creepy totalitarianism @sundarpichai @Google Image
@sundarpichai @Google UK opposition vs support of digital IDs is 45 to 42.

Opponents should be able to drive that opposition number up significantly.

It is absolutely essential that the UK kill two-tier @Keir_Starmer plan for digital IDs before they metastasize across the West. Image
@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer If you are UK citizen please sign the petition. They are closing to getting 2 million signatures 🔥🔥🔥

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/7301…
@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer Who is pulling the strings of Tony Blair and WEF?

@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer That politicians are willing to torch their careers and reputations for digital IDs is telling

@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer Who is behind Tony Blair

@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer Tony Blair Institute did a survey supposedly finding high support for digital IDs. How? By priming people to think about how inconvenienced they've felt without a digital ID. This is the first question. Totally manipulative and grosss

yonderconsulting.com/wp-content/upl…Image
@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer Second question: "Some are suggesting the government should introduce a new app, allowing instant access to a range of public services."

A new app!!! Wow. So they already knew the words "digital ID" were contaminated. Amazing Image
@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer Third question: " Do you think there is digital technology that could help tackle these issues... Processing asylum seekers and managing the UK's borders"

They knew migration was the key since it scrambles Left and Right. So clever! Image
Fourth question: "Advocates of a Digital ID argue it would enable you to prove your identity, store key facts about yourself in a way that is convenient and secure, and help you more easily access a broad range of public and private digital services."

Good lord. It was basically a push poll:Image
@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer Well, this is all very good news for digital ID opponents. The public already hates the words "digital ID." More people oppose it than support it. And the more the public hears about it the less they will like about it. This could help bring down @Keir_Starmer government.
Oracle's Larry Ellison is funding Tony Blair Institute. Oracle is in the business of digital IDs. This is bad.

"Ellison invested $130 million in the TBI between 2021 and 2023, with a further $218 million pledged since then. The scale of funding took the TBI from a headcount of 200 to approaching 1,000. Blair himself takes no salary from TBI but over this time the institute has been able to recruit from bluechip firms like McKinsey and Silicon Valley giants Meta. In 2018 before the Oracle founder’s funding surge, TBI’s best-paid director earned $400,000. In 2023, the last year where accounts are available, the top earner took home $1.26 million."Image
@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer I interviewed a British researcher about digital IDs and the person literally told me he thought that Tony Blair was genuinely just interested in making government more efficient 😂
This is truly bonkers:

"Less than two months after Starmer’s win, the TBI health policy director Charlotte Refsum was invited into the Department of Health to meet its digital policy chief, Felix Greaves, documents obtained under FoI show. Greaves asked for her help in designing a giant public consultation on GP data and digital health ID. He was briefed to tell Refsum his department needed to “learn lessons” from previous health data scandals which had hardened public opinion against data-sharing with private firms."

"The investigative newsrooms Lighthouse Reports and Democracy for Sale interviewed 29 current and former TBI staff, most on condition of anonymity. Supported by public documents and those obtained under freedom of information (FoI) laws, the testimony describes an organisation unusually close to the British government, able to lobby ministers directly, and which holds joint retreats with Oracle and is willing to engage in “tech sales” with governments in the rest of the world. While there is no suggestion of illegality, there are growing concerns about the extent to which the interests of a US tech billionaire are being represented by the former prime minister.

“When it comes to tech policy,” said one former senior adviser at TBI, “Oracle and TBI are inseparable.”

"The TBI, however, was welcomed by Keir Starmer’s Downing Street operation, which includes many figures with close connections to the former prime minister. Peter Kyle, an adviser in Blair’s second term, was appointed technology secretary and called on governments to show “a sense of humility” towards Big Tech companies."

"TBI had been laying the groundwork before Labour won power. Institute staff advised the party in opposition. In May 2024, TBI wrote a report that called for “two radical actions” to fix Britain’s “data-access problem”: create a “single front door” providing “seamless access” to NHS data; and host all of this data outside the NHS, while retaining government control of the programme."

"In a later paper, TBI recommended linking up data from the NHS, the Department for Work and Pensions, and HMRC. All three bodies are Oracle clients."

"Elsewhere, TBI staff were brought directly into government, while still on the institute’s payroll. Tom Westgarth was part of the Department for Science, Technology and Innovation, joining the small team working on the government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan. His salary was paid by TBI."

"Oracle and TBI’s connections are not just rhetorical. By 2023, they were holding joint retreats. At the institute’s headquarters at One Bartholomew Close in central London, the teams would convene with executives from Oracle, Blair’s key adviser Macon-Cooney and Awo Ablo – who came to sit on the board of both TBI and Oracle – sometimes present. Senior TBI employees have been hosted at Oracle’s headquarters in Austin, Texas, coordinated by a TBI employee whose role is “scaling and managing” the partnership with Oracle. Former staff recall that there were other earlier “hush-hush” joint retreats at Ellison properties in the US."

newstatesman.com/politics/2025/…
@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer This is disinformation. TBI never asked about digital IDs! They asked about an "app" LOL Image
@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer Larry Ellison is not only the person behind digital IDs in the UK, which his company Oracle would manage, he is also the owner of CBS News, Paramount, CNN, and likely TikTok. That's way, way too much power.

@realDonaldTrump @SecScottBessent @AGPamBondi
@sundarpichai @Google @Keir_Starmer @realDonaldTrump @SecScottBessent @AGPamBondi This is insane:

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More from @shellenberger

Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Jan 31
Calling anti-ICE riots an "insurrection" or "insurgency... poses dangers," says @nytimes. It "legitimizes the use of violence," says a CSIS expert.

Funny, then, how The Times labeled January 6 an "insurrection" and the same CSIS expert called J6 a "terrorist incident."Image
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The Times uses the word "insurgency" rather than "insurrection" for its headline, even though not a single one of the people the article criticizes uses that word. Three use the word "insurrection" and one uses the word "revolution."

Perhaps that's because the Times knows that it led the charge to label January 6 as an "insurrection," and that it is now engaging in flagrant hypocrisy.

nytimes.com/2026/01/31/us/…
Even more disturbing is that the article quotes Seth G. Jones @SethGJones saying, “When you start using the language of warfare and treating someone that has an opposing view as a terrorist or as an insurgent, that legitimizes the use of violence against them."

Well, that's precisely what Jones and his coauthors did in a 2022 @CSIS report, "Pushed to Extremes: Domestic Terrorism amid Polarization and Protest," which labeled January 6 as "the most prominent instance" of a domestic "terrorist incident."

csis.org/analysis/pushe…Image
Read 7 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Jan 29
It was already clear that Alex Pretti was interfering in a law enforcement operation. Now, new @BBC video shows Pretti kicking out the taillight of an ICE SUV and wrestling with ICE agents. His gun is sticking out of his waistband. He screams & spits. He is deranged & dangerous.
In this clip, you can clearly see Pretti refusing to go to ground — just as he refused to do so when he was shot.

Congrats to @thenewsmovement and @BBCNews for their big scoop.
The news media irresponsibly downplayed or didn't properly report on how Pretti was deliberately interfering in a law enforcement operation on the day he was killed.

At a minimum he recklessly waved through traffic on the street and physically confronted ICE, as the image below clearly shows.
I shouldn't have to say this but some people need to hear it: I'm not defending the shooting. It was obviously a mistake. There should be a full investigation and people should be held accountable.

But it is also the case that Democrats, influencers, and the media are getting leftists killed by encouraging them to interfere with law enforcement operations and telling them that they are fighting Nazis.

Pretti showed exceedingly bad judgement in openly wearing a gun as he attacked an ICE vehicle. He showed similarly bad judgement interfering in the ICE operation on Saturday.

Pretti in the new video appears to be in the grip of that very familiar form of derangement.

Here is a link to the full @thenewsmovement video.

I saw some people have been trying to put Community Notes on this video. If you watch it, you will see that it is definitely Pretti, there is no evidence of AI manipulation, and the provenance of the video is known.

youtube.com/watch?v=CRWR13…Image
Read 8 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Jan 25
Most of the debate since yesterday has focused, understandably, on whether the ICE agent acted in what he perceived to be self-defense. Whatever the case, it’s clear that, by encouraging people to interfere in law enforcement operations, the Left is getting people killed. Image
A Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minnesota shot a second person dead yesterday. Most of the debate since then has focused, understandably, on whether the ICE agent acted in what he perceived to be self-defense.

Whatever the case, it’s clear that, by encouraging people to interfere in law enforcement operations, the Left is getting people killed. Videos show both victims, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, impeding law enforcement operations, which progressive nonprofits, Democrats, and liberal influencers have been encouraging for months.

Good drove her vehicle perpendicular to block traffic while her partner taunted ICE officers. Pretti intervened at least twice, first by waving traffic through on the street and again as an ICE officer sought to subdue another person interfering in the operation, triggering the agent to use pepper spray against him.

In saying this, I am not defending the decisions and behaviors of the ICE officers or anyone else. The killings are a tragedy. And there is a worthwhile debate underway over ICE tactics, separate from the specific behaviors of Good and Pretti.

We don’t know what was in the minds of Good and Pretti specifically, but Democrats, progressives, and anti-ICE activists have for years called ICE and the Trump administration fascist and compared them to the Nazis. On January 19, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called ICE “Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo.” Last year, in California, Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation to block ICE from hiding its identities. The Los Angeles mayor called them a “reign of terror.” And a few days ago, the Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota urged citizens to “put your body on the line” to block ICE protests.

Walz and other Democrats have blocked state and local law enforcement from working with ICE, which has contributed to increasingly risky behavior by anti-ICE activists like Good and Pretti, and thus growing danger to everyone involved. There were no Minneapolis police visible in the videos of the Good and Pretti deaths.

And many of America’s largest progressive cities and states are all openly defiant of federal law, declaring themselves “sanctuaries” that protect illegal migrants from the federal government.

California, New York, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and others are “sanctuary states”. At the same time, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, San Diego, Sacramento, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Madison, Milwaukee, Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Newark, Jersey City, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Chapel Hill, Durham, Asheville, Tucson, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Reno, are “sanctuary cities.”

The underlying problem is that for decades, schools, Hollywood, and the media have made clear that we should risk and even sacrifice our own lives to stop fascism and Nazism. And yet neither ICE raids nor Trump are fascist, and it is offensive to compare them to the Nazis.

The Nazis rounded up Jewish citizens and shipped them to death camps. ICE, by contrast, is detaining foreigners who the government believes committed criminal offenses beyond coming to the US illegally. No nation in the world has allowed more people to enter illegally. Nor has any treated them with greater due process than the US is doing.

The American people elected Trump president, like it or not, and the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause in Article VI establishes that federal law prevails over conflicting state or local laws. It ensures the Constitution, federal statutes, and treaties are the “supreme Law of the Land,” binding state courts and governments. The ICE raids may be bad politics, but there is no question that they are constitutional.

While some Democrats and progressives know their language is hyperbolic, half of the individuals surveyed told pollsters last year that Trump is a fascist. Such radical beliefs appear to have partly motivated two assassination attempts against Trump and the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

While the radical Left has for decades called its political opponents fascists, these views were until recently marginal views, even within the Democratic Party. Moreover, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton all spoke out against illegal migration until 2016. So what changed? Why did so many Americans come to view a democratically elected president and law enforcement operations as equivalent to fascism? What radicalized the Left?

Part of the answer is bad information. Many progressives believe ICE is simply sweeping up hard-working and law-abiding immigrants, and do not know that 64 percent of immigrants detained since Trump took office in January 2025 had criminal convictions or pending charges, in addition to having broken the law by entering and working in the country without a visa.

For some, labeling Trump as a fascist was simply a political tactic and not something they believed. But many others believe it, as the polling data shows.

Many people, both liberals and conservatives, believe progressives like Good and Pretti are acting out of empathy and sympathy for migrants. But if they are, it is purely ideologically driven, not from any real-world understanding of migrant communities. Few of the white progressives protesting ICE have ever spoken more than a few words to much less gotten to know illegal immigrants, even those who work for them as cleaners, cooks, and gardeners, much less come to understand their lives...

x.com/shellenberger/…

Please subscribe now to support Public's award-winning investigative journalism, watch the full video, and read the whole article!

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🎯
Read 18 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Dec 23, 2025
So “60 Minutes” straight up lied. Plus, they could have gone to a White House press briefing or asked Trump after a cabinet meeting or on Air Force One. They chose not to. Totally unethical & irresponsible behavior. @bariweiss was right to hold the piece.
Image
Almost like there’s a pattern here
Read 4 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Dec 22, 2025
It was "corporate censorship" for CBS @bariweiss to delay her story, says "60 Minutes" reporter Sharyn Alfonsi. But Alfonsi presented no evidence to support her allegation. And Alfonsi has a history of biased reporting that even liberal "fact-checkers" denounced as inaccurate. Image
In April of 2021, CBS’s “60 Minutes” falsely claimed that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis exclusively chose Publix, a major Florida supermarket chain, to distribute Covid vaccines because it had donated to his political campaign.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Democrat who helped oversee the state’s vaccine distribution at the time, repeatedly debunked the accusation. He did so first in response to a March 2, 2021, Miami Herald piece.

“This idea why @Publix was picked has been utter nonsense,” Moskowitz wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “We reached out to all pharmacies and they were the only one who at the time could execute on the mission.”

On April 4, the day the “60 Minutes” segment aired, Moskowitz tweeted, “@60Minutes I said this before and I’ll say it again. @Publix was recommended by @FLSERT and @HealthyFla as the other pharmacies were not ready to start. Period! Full Stop! No one from the Governor’s office suggested Publix. It’s just absolute malarkey.”

Now, the same reporter who did the flawed DeSantis piece, Sharyn Alfonsi, has accused her employer of censoring her story about deportees El Salvador’s prison. “The public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship,” Alfonsi wrote in an email to her colleagues that has been viewed four million times on X.

However, Alfonsi offered no evidence to support her allegation of “corporate censorship,” implying that people to whom Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss reports caused her to delay the piece.

Neither Weiss nor Alfonsi responded to a request for comment. If either does, we will update this story immediately. Moreover, we will report any evidence that we or others find that shows that corporate executives above Weiss directed her to kill the story. So far, there is none.

And an editorial decision is not the same as censorship, particularly since Weiss said she is delaying, not killing, the segment.

Alfonsi, in her leaked email, said she tried to get a response from the Trump administration but couldn’t, which was one of the reasons Weiss cited in her email to CBS staff for holding back the piece.

An experienced television news journalist, who has been in the business for three decades, said CBS could have done what it has often done in the past, which is to ask a Trump official at one of the many press availabilities.

“They could have sent a CBS reporter to the White House press briefing,” the person said, or had a reporter ask President Trump directly during one of his frequent press conferences at the White House and on Air Force One. The CBS website shows that it has at least six full-time reporters at the White House.

“The episode shows Sharyn’s poor investigative skills,” the person added. “She should have doorstepped the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security or sent someone to the White House.”

To “doorstop” a person is when a journalist confronts someone, such as a senior government official, often when they are coming or going into their workplace.

“Sharyn could have gone to the briefing herself, or CBS could have gone in and said ‘CBS has finished an investigation. Here are the allegations. How do you respond?’”

Alfonsi falsely claimed in her segment that DeSantis gave an “exclusive” to Publix. Floridians could get the Covid vaccine from many different sources, including county health departments, other major pharmacy chains including CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart, and mass vaccination drive-thru sites with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Three major liberal or left-wing fact-checking organizations and the liberal Boston public TV station WGBH all criticized the piece. “60 Minutes’ misses the mark in its story about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and COVID-19 vaccines,” wrote Poynter. “A sloppy moment on Sunday’s show is raising serious concerns.”

Wrote Politifact, “While “60 Minutes” focused on his emphatic denial, it left out the background that he offered about how the state had been working with other retail pharmacies to distribute coronavirus vaccines at long-term care facilities in December and his own interactions with Publix customers.”

Said the progressive Media Nation, “It’s a rare day when we encounter as blatant an example of liberal media bias as in the “60 Minutes” report last Sunday on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis…Unfortunately, the botched story on DeSantis, a Republican, will be cited by conservatives for a long time as evidence that you just can’t trust the media.”

And a Boston CBS News reporter said, “If you’re going to smear someone by guilt-by-association, or pay-to-play, which is about the most serious offense a public official can engage in, you better have the facts in a row. If you don’t, you’d best leave it out.”

There are other signs of “60 Minutes” bias....

x.com/shellenberger/…

Please subscribe now to support Public's award-winning investigative journalism, read the rest of the article, and watch the full video!

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Here is the liberal Boston PBS member station segment on Sharyn Alfonsi's biased and inaccurate story. Every single person in it criticizes Alfonsi's piece about Ron DeSantis' vaccine roll-out.

Nobody who looks at this walks away thinking that Alfonsi did anything other than an irresponsible hit piece.
Read 4 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Dec 10, 2025
Days before last year’s election, the media claimed Trump wanted to kill Liz Cheney, which we debunked at the time. @BBC has now admitted it was a lie. @CNN should do the same. Notably, BBC & CNN have, for years, promoted censorship of their competitors for “misinformation.” Image
The media around the world demand government censorship on the basis of the disinformation it produces on Trump, covid, climate, gender, Ukraine, etc. The EU is currently paying European media to act as “trusted flaggers” — censors — of social media.
It’s digital totalitarianism.
A Norwegian newspaper spread misinformation about the demolition of the Nord Stream pipeline and Facebook censored on the basis of that censorship

x.com/shellenberger/… x.com/shellenberger/…
Read 6 tweets

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