Vigilant News

Eternal Vigilance is the price of liberty.

Ryan Delarme

WSJ Editor to Davos: “We No Longer Own the News”
Information and discourse are no longer monopolized by traditional media entities. Decentralized media is the future and the present.

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During a WEF discussion at Davos titled “Defending Truth,” Wall Street Journal EIC Emma Tucker lamented this loss of control over “the facts.”

“I think there’s a very specific challenge for the legacy brands, like the New York Times and like the Wall Street Journal,” Tucker said, adding “If you go back really not that long ago, as I say, we owned the news. We were the gatekeepers, and we very much owned the facts as well.”

“If it said it in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, then that was a fact,” she continued, adding “Nowadays, people can go to all sorts of different sources for the news and they’re much more questioning about what we’re saying.”

Vice President Věra Jourová of the European Commission also participated in the discourse, characterizing the proliferation of “disinformation” as a “security menace” and stating,  “It was part of the Russian military doctrine that they will start information war, and we are in it now.”

“Disinformation is a very powerful tool,” Jourová continued, adding that “In the EU we are focusing on improving of the system where the people will get the facts right. We don’t speak about opinions. We are not correcting anyone’s opinions or language. This is about the facts.”

Additional commentary:

We are the news now.

Thousands of Companies Are Monitoring Every Facebook User, According to a Study

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A comprehensive investigation, conducted in partnership between Consumer Reports and The Markup, has exposed the vast extent of data surveillance that is directed at users of Facebook. Some study participants were monitored by as many as 7,000 businesses.

709 volunteers were asked to contribute archives of their Facebook user data. Consumer Reports was astounded to learn that 186,892 distinct organizations had transmitted information about these users to Facebook.

Data from each participant was, on average, disseminated by 2,230 companies; however, certain users’ data was shared by more than 7,000 companies.

This examination brought attention to a less prevalent type of monitoring referred to as server-to-server tracking, in which personal information is transmitted directly from the servers of a company to the servers of Meta. This method occurs in addition to the more obvious approach that employs Meta tracking pixels on company websites.

Emil Vazquez, a spokesperson for Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, defended the company’s data practices, stating: “We offer a number of transparency tools to help people understand the information that businesses choose to share with us, and manage how it’s used.”

Consumer Reports, on the other hand, identified problems with these tools, such as ambiguous data provider identities and advertising service providers frequently disregarding user opt-out requests.

An unexpected discovery was the widespread occurrence of LiveRamp, a data broker, which was detected in the data of 96% of the participants in the study. In addition to obscure data aggregators, the roster of organizations that provide Facebook with data comprises prominent retailers such as Home Depot, Macy’s, Walmart, as well as Experian and TransUnion’s Neustar, Amazon, Etsy, and PayPal. LiveRamp’s lack of response to a request for comment regarding this subject is noteworthy.

There were two primary collection categories from which the study obtained its data: “events” and “custom audiences.” The latter entails advertisers transferring customer profiles, which comprise mobile advertising IDs and email addresses, to Meta in order to target advertisements on Meta’s platforms. “Events” refer to tangible transactions that occur in the physical world, such as visits to websites or purchases from stores, and are enabled through the utilization of Meta’s software in applications, monitoring pixels on websites, and server-to-server tracking.

The deputy director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Caitriona Fitzgerald, conveyed apprehension regarding the scope of monitoring in an interview with The Markup: “This type of tracking which occurs entirely outside of the user’s view is just so far outside of what people expect when they use the internet.” Additionally, she stated, “they [consumers] don’t expect Meta to know what stores they walk into or what news articles they’re reading or every site they visit online.”

Senior NATO Official Drools Over Potential Hot War with Russia
An esteemed NATO official has advised Europeans to brace themselves for the possibility of a full-scale conflict with Russia within the following two decades.

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Following a meeting of NATO defense chiefs in Brussels, Admiral Rob Bauer, chairman of the Military Committee, told reporters that governments must immediately begin preparations and that significant numbers of civilians will need to be mobilized.

“We have to realise it’s not a given that we are in peace. And that’s why we [Nato forces] are preparing for a conflict with Russia,”Baur declared.

“But the discussion is much wider. It is also the industrial base and also the people that have to understand they play a role.” he continued.

“It starts there, The realisation that not everything is planable and not everything is going to be hunky dory in the next 20 years.”

According to The Telegraph, Baur additionally lauded Sweden for advising its citizens to prepare for battle.

“We need to be readier across the whole spectrum,” Bauer proclaimed. “You have to have a system in place to find more people if it comes to war, whether it does or not. Then you talk mobilization, reservists or conscription.”

“You need to be able to fall back on an industrial base that is able to produce weapons and ammunition fast enough to be able to continue a conflict if you are in it.”

The 90,000-strong NATO military exercise Steadfast Defender 2024 is slated to commence the following week, constituting the most extensive endeavor since the conclusion of the Cold War.

 

Republican Legislators Introduce Bill Defunding the World Economic Forum

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House Republicans have introduced legislation that would suspend financial support for the World Economic Forum.

“No funds available to the Department of State, the United States Agency for International Development, or any other department or agency may be used to provide funding for the World Economic Forum,” the bill reads.

Representatives Scott Perry (R-Pennsylvania), Tom Tiffany (R-Wisconsin), and Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) were among those who introduced the legislation.

“The World Economic Forum doesn’t deserve one cent of American funding, and it’s past time we defund Davos,” Perry said in a press release.

Speakers at the annual conference of the WEF, held in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this week, expressed concern regarding “misinformation generated by artificial intelligence.”

Professor of Internet law at George Mason University Carl Szabo stated on Thursday that forum leaders are concerned that artificial intelligence may aid the reelection campaign of former President Donald Trump.

“The Defund Davos Act would ensure that U.S. tax dollars are not funding the World Economic Forum and their reset on our way of life. I thank Congressman Perry for leading this important effort,” Tiffany said.

Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, was invited to participate in a panel discussion on the prospects of a potential Republican presidency. He utilized the occasion to offer a critique of the WEF’s endorsement of socialism and globalism, asserting that the incoming conservative presidential administration ought to unequivocally reject every idea put forth at the organization.

The United States Launches an Additional Barrage of Missiles at Houthi Strongholds

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Wednesday, additional waves of ship and submarine-launched missile strikes against Houthi-controlled areas were carried out by the U.S. military, according to U.S. Central Command. This marks the fourth consecutive day that the United States has directly targeted the group in Yemen, as the violence that erupted following the Israel-Hamas war continues to spread throughout the Middle East.

From the Red Sea, the strikes intercepted fourteen missiles regarded by the command to be a “imminent threat.”

Concerns regarding further escalation are falling on deaf ears.

The assaults occurred subsequent to a formal declaration made by the United States on Wednesday, which re-designated the Houthis as a globally designated terrorist organization. The formal designation entails sanctions intended to cut off the financial ties that bind violent extremist organizations.

“Forces conducted strikes on 14 Iran-backed Houthi missiles that were loaded to be fired in Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen,” Central Command said in a statement posted on X late Wednesday. “These missiles on launch rails presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and U.S. Navy ships in the region and could have been fired at any time, prompting U.S. forces to exercise their inherent right and obligation to defend themselves.”

Notwithstanding the imposition of sanctions and military engagements—including a substantial operation executed on Friday by warships and aircraft of the United States and the United Kingdom that targeted over sixty locations throughout Yemen—the Houthis persist in their campaign of harassing commercial and military vessels.

On Wednesday, a one-way attack drone launched from a Houthi-controlled area in Yemen collided with the M/V Genco Picardy, which is owned and operated by the United States and flagged for the Marshall Islands, in the Gulf of Aden.

Additionally, the United States has issued a dire warning to Iran to cut off its arms supply to the Houthis. A U.S. operation on a dhow on Thursday seized components of ballistic missiles that the United States claimed Iran was transporting to Yemen.

All very convenient for the Military Industrial Complex, who analysts believe has long hungered for a full scale war with Iran.

Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, a spokesman for the Pentagon, stated on Wednesday that the United States would continue to employ military force to avert additional attacks.

“They are exploiting this situation to conduct attacks against the ships and vessels from more than 50 countries … around the world. And so we’re going to continue to work with our partners in the region to prevent those attacks or deter those attacks in the future,” Ryder said.

Multiple incidents have transpired since the joint operations on Friday. The Houthis fired an anti-ship cruise missile toward a U.S. Navy destroyer over the weekend, but was shot down.

Tuesday, in response, the U.S. struck four anti-ship ballistic missiles that were ostensibly prepared to launch and presented an imminent threat to merchant and U.S. Navy ships in the region.