On Friday the US Navy announced that the USS Milwaukee warship was forced to remain in port after a COVID outbreak hit its 100% vaccinated crew.

The infected sailors are being isolated on the ship at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay.

New York State Moves to Criminalize COVID information They don’t like

The state of New York is moving to criminalize – and make Civilly Actionable by ANYBODY —  speech they don’t like, especially when it comes to COVID-19.  Under a new Bill, anyone can be civilly sued by anyone and everyone,  for publishing anything that “Advocates for self-harm, is directed to inciting or producing imminent self-harm, and is likely to incite or produce such action; or Includes a false statement of fact or fraudulent medical theory that is likely to endanger the safety or health of the public.”

New York State Senator Brad Hoylman (oy vey) has introduced a Bill which he describes this way:

In the week before the anniversary of the notorious January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and as vaccine hesitancy continues to fuel the Omicron variant, Senator Brad Hoylman (D/WFP-Manhattan) announced new legislation (S.7568) to hold social media platforms accountable for knowingly promoting disinformation, violent hate speech, and other unlawful content that could harm others. While Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects social media platforms from being treated as publishers or speakers of content shared by users on their apps and websites, this legislation instead focuses on the active choices these companies make when implementing algorithms designed to promote the most controversial and harmful content, which creates a general threat to public health and safety.

Senator Hoylman said: “Social media algorithms are specially programmed to spread disinformation and hate speech at the expense of the public good. The prioritization of this type of content has real life costs to public health and safety.  So when social media push anti-vaccine falsehoods and help domestic terrorists plan a riot at the U.S.  Capitol, they must be held accountable. Our new legislation will force social media companies to be held accountable for the dangers they promote.”

For years, social companies have claimed protection from any legal consequences of their actions relating to content on their websites by hiding behind Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Social media websites are no longer simply a host for their users’ content, however. Many social media companies employ complex algorithms designed to put the most controversial and provocative content in front of users as much as possible. These algorithms drive engagement with their platform, keep users hooked, and increase profits. Social media companies employing these algorithms are not an impassive forum for the exchange of ideas; they are active participants in the conversation. 

In October 2021, Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, provided shocking testimony to United State Senators alleging that the company knew of research proving that its product was harmful to teenagers but purposefully hid that research from the public. She also provided testimony that the company was willing to use hateful content to retain users on the social media website.  

Social media amplification has been linked to many societal ills, including vaccine disinformation, encouragement of self-harm, bullying, and body-image issues among youth, and extremist radicalization leading to terrorist attacks like the January 6^th insurrection against the U.S. Capitol. 

When a website knowingly or recklessly promotes hateful or violent content, they create a threat to public health and safety. The conscious decision to elevate certain content is a separate, affirmative act from the mere hosting of information and therefore not contemplated by the protections of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. 

This bill will provide a tool for the Attorney General, city corporation counsels, and private citizens to hold social media companies and others accountable when they promote content they know or reasonably should know the content: 

1. Advocates for the use of force, is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action, and is likely to produce such action; 

2. Advocates for self-harm, is directed to inciting or producing imminent self-harm, and is likely to incite or produce such action; or 

3. Includes a false statement of fact or fraudulent medical theory that is likely to endanger the safety or health of the public.  

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So, if, for instance, you or I say “Masks only filter particles down to four microns but the coronavirus in 100 times smaller at 0.04 microns, so masks don’t work, don’t wear them” then we are “advocating self harm” (not wearing a mask) and may also be guilty of a “false medical theory.”

OR

If you or I say these new COVID-19 “vaccines” aren’t actually vaccines, they’re experimental Gene therapy and you shouldn’t take these experimental genetic therapies because 16,000+ Americans have already died from them, and over 600,000 have already been seriously injured by them”, then we may also be guilty of “fraudulent medical theory that is likely to endanger the public . . . .”

Other aspects of the Bill include merely publishing violent speech.   So, for instance, if I go on the air and remind the public about Alexander Hamilton, a former US President and one of America’s Founding Fathers, who wrote, in Federalist 28, Paragraph 6 “If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, . . . The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair. . . .”  

Then that is violent speech punishable under this Bill.

Put simply, New York State now wants to allow you and I to be sued out of existence if you and I even SPEAK about things that disagree with them concerning COVID, or for even daring to speak about things like what our own Founding Fathers talked about, if we then try to apply Founding Fathers logic to our present day situation. 

It seems the New York State Legislature has decided that we must, therefore, speak only as THEY speak, and espouse only the views THEY approve of, or face prison or be wrecked by Civil Litigation brought by whoever wants to, and go Bankrupt defending against such litigation.

Hal Turner Remark: It is not lost on me that the specific legislative District of the Senator sponsoring this Bill, happens to be the precise District wherein my radio show originated. 

The source who contacted me from inside the New York State Legislature today, and told me “This Bill WILL pass and YOU are the target” says that the New York State Legislature is running into all sorts of pushback from the public on the COVID thing and they are (rightly or wrongly) blaming me for that pushback.  They want me gone.

Now, I know that I don’t come off as anyone worthy enough for this kind of attention by a legislative body, but the last time I published the names, home addresses, and unlisted phone numbers of a bunch of US Senators, they made what I did explicitly illegal under 18 USC 119 euphemistically referred-to as the “Get Hal Turner Law” enacted after I blew out the Grand Bargain Immigration Reform Act.  So maybe New York figures if I was worthy enough for Congress to act against, I must be worthy enough for them to do so as well.

Here is a link to the State Senator’s web page on the subject:  https://www.nysenate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/brad-hoylman/anniversary-january-6-insurrection-approaches-senator-bra