UK Government Minister Shuns Concerns About “Anti-Disinformation Unit”

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Critics of the contentious, and some would say at times unlawful, work of UK’s Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU) are expectedly unimpressed by it getting a “rebrand” – that is, a new name. It remains to be seen if the National Security Online Information Team (NSOIT – née CDU), will continue with activities of the kind that highly likely got the image of the CDU so tarnished that it needed a “rebrand.” But government officials continue at the same time to deny there was any wrongdoing on the part of CDU to begin with – or that there will be any done by NSOIT. The controversy over CDU goes back to the “heyday” of the pandemic and censorship of Covid-related content. The accusation – that continues to be rejected by the government – is that individuals, including senior figures from across the UK’s political spectrum, were targeted. And, their online activity was first surveilled by CDU, which would then flag some posts for removal merely for criticizing the government, rather than “spreading disinformation.” But, responding to questions about all this in the British Parliament’s House of Lords earlier in the week, an official from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology – NSOIT’s parent agency, said there was no merit to such claims, or fears, going forward. “I can confirm not only that it is not the role of NSOIT or the CDU to go…UK Government Minister Shuns Concerns About “Anti-Disinformation Unit”