The UK government is accused of presenting bold-faced lies and startling examples of “doublespeak” to the public while trying to disentangle itself from an emerging scandal involving surveillance and censorship that its Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU) is responsible for. Multiple news reports and responses to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests have in recent days shed light on the activities of CDU and another outfit, known as Rapid Response Unit (RRU). The contested claims made by the government are contained in what they called a fact sheet that was supposed to explain what CDU and RRU do – notably, to deny they “monitor” individuals online. The “fact sheet” was issued shortly after media reports revealed that CDU was in the business of flagging content on social media critical of pandemic policies, including lockdowns, and that this was achieved thanks to this “Covid police” being in no less that allegedly “hourly contact” with tech companies behind the sites. British outlets reported this citing up until recently unidentified head of CDU, who turned out to be one Sarah Connolly – and her disclosures about the unit’s operations to members of parliament, who learned that CDU’s contact on a “daily, sometimes hourly” basis was taking place with “almost all” social networks. The “cell” – this is how Connolly referred to CDU – was successful in this collusion with tech companies, because apparently 90 percent of flagged posts got removed, or were crippled by algorithms that effectively hid them from users. And the “cell,”…UK Government Responds To Covid Dissent Surveillance Allegations, Says It Didn’t Monitor Journalists (It Did) And Says It Supports Free Speech (lol)
The Blog Experiment | Technology Nonsense and Internet Tripe
Hey you read it. We didn't make you read it.