At what point does a person who is bullied relentlessly become responsible for the situation if they keep encouraging it? That's the question we are trying to fathom when looking at the case of German YouTuber Rainer Winkler aka. Drachenlord.
Examining the contemporary forces arrayed against those speaking what they perceive of as the truth, be it Julian Assange or that random dude on Facebook.
When Whitfield Diffie, Ronald Rivest, Steven M. Bellovin, Peter Neumann, Matt Blaze and Bruce Schneier come together to publish a paper on the security and privacy implications of client-side scanning, we should listen up.
What's more in your interest? Stopping Facebook from leeching off the private data of your life to further its monopoly or forcing it to censor your speech? And now take a guess which of the two politicians want to do and journalists are ecstatic about?
Again and again, so-called journalists in big media outlets exaggerate or even outright invent stories to scare or outrage the public. The audience just buys it wholesale and never notices when, a day or two later, it all turns out to be complete bullshit. Today's example: Ivermectin.
What happens when our media consumption is so fear-inducing that we let companies regulate our social connections? A culture of digital snitching develops that gives companies knowledge that previously only authoritarian governments possessed.
The German constitution states that censorship does not take place and yet, Germany is one of the most censorship-happy countries when it comes to Western democracies and therefore at the forefront of the brewing culture wars. How can that be?
YouTube blocked one of my episodes, insulting my professional reputation and claiming that I was spreading misinformation about SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. They later admitted they were wrong, but refuse to tell me how such an egregious mistake can happen. Let's examine what behaviour like this means for freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
The EU copyright reform is now in effect in all member countries and with it comes the horrible idea of upload filters. Let's discuss why this is bad for journalism, already very much on its last legs, and free speech in general.
If we start to outlaw fake news, wo will decide what is fake and what is the truth? Do we trust the state? Should journalists do it? And what are we actually afraid of here?
