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Elon Musk is no free speech messiah

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A few days ago, Elon Musk asked his 81 million followers, “<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512785529712123906">Is Twitter dying?</a>”
Musk calls himself a <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1499976967105433600">“free speech absolutist</a>” — opposed to any restrictions on what someone can say online — and he has indicated he thinks the social media platform is heading in the wrong direction on the matter. Musk, as the CEO of two major public companies, has faced backlash and even legal repercussions for his impulsive tweets that have misled investors and caused his companies’ stock prices to fluctuate.
Now, he’s Twitter’s largest shareholder after buying a 9.2 percent stake in the company. The move has prompted whirlwind speculation around why Musk has bought such a large stake and what the future holds for Twitter. After Musk walked back plans to <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/5/23011256/elon-musk-twitter-board-of-directors-ownership">join the company’s board of directors</a> over the weekend, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said in a <a href="https://twitter.com/paraga/status/1513354622466867201">note to the company</a> that the decision was “for the best,” and urged employees to “tune out the noise” surrounding recent changes.
But it’s difficult to tune out Elon Musk, which underscores the reach he has as a famed tech entrepreneur and wealthiest man in the world. If his recent tweets are anything to go by, Musk is suggesting that he’ll try to use his stake in Twitter to turn it into the ultimate bastion of unhindered speech. On March 25, before the news of his investment had come out, he <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1507259709224632344">created a Twitter poll</a> asking if the platform “rigorously adhered” to the principle of free speech. Overwhelmingly, his audience voted no. The next day he <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1507777261654605828">tweeted</a>, “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy. What should be done?”
The big reveal he was ramping up to, it seems, was that he had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/technology/elon-musk-twitter.html">spent about $3 billion buying up shares</a> to influence how the site should be run. Musk flexed his newfound power after his stake became public last week, asking in <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1511143607385874434">another poll</a>, “Do you want an edit button?”
<h3>The power Musk isn’t talking about</h3>
Musk has seemed to portray his mission as a noble one — not undertaken for narrow, self-interested aims, but for the people. He would make the social media platform less restricted by rules, and give its users the features they’ve long wanted. Yet at the core of this saga is the fact that he has his own complaints about what he views as restrictions on his speech. And unlike most people on earth, Musk can demand Twitter’s attention by spending a tiny fraction of his <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/elon-r-musk/?sref=qYiz2hd0">$250 billion wealth</a>; billionaires like him have a shortcut to becoming the loudest voice in any room. Even before becoming Twitter’s top shareholder, he commanded an enormous presence on the platform as one of the most followed accounts, and enjoyed almost a mythical status as a genius Silicon Valley innovator. So it’s hard to see the Twitter buy as adhering to any democratic principles.
“[Twitter] is a global platform,” said David Kaye, a UC Irvine law professor and former UN special rapporteur for free speech. “So for somebody with a lot of money to just come in and say, ‘Look, I’m going to buy a part of this company, and therefore my voice as to how your rules are adopted and enforced is going to have more power than anybody else’s’ — I think that’s regressive after years of [Twitter] trying to make sensible rules.”
What makes Musk’s status even more exceptional is that Twitter’s other top shareholders are <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-is-suddenly-twitters-largest-shareholder-heres-a-list-of-the-top-10-holders-11649100390">fund managers like Vanguard Group and BlackRock</a>, not individuals. And now that Musk no longer plans to join the Twitter board, he’s also not restricted from buying a controlling stake in the company. At the very least, he can threaten to do so. That’s the kind of unspoken power Musk can purchase.
So what exactly does Musk take issue with when it comes to Twitter’s policies on speech? In recent years, amid a <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/11/21254889/twitter-coronavirus-covid-misinformation-warnings-labels">pandemic that highlighted the life-and-death stakes of misinformation</a>, as well as the political chaos and violence fueled by election disinformation, Twitter has taken a more proactive approach to content moderation, flagging misleading tweets and even removing them in some cases. “Twitter has stepped away from this idea of it being the free speech wing of the free speech party, and being a more realistic custodian of speech on the platform,” said Kaye.
The most high-profile example of the shift is the suspension of former President Donald Trump, after he made a series of tweets supporting violence and disinformation around the 2020 presidential election. But Musk has not spoken publicly about Trump’s ban. To date, Twitter itself has not interfered with any of Musk’s tweets.
Musk’s actual free speech agonies relate to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, in a battle over what he, as the public face of a major public company like Tesla, can or can’t say in view of investors. In 2018, the SEC filed a complaint against Musk after he tweeted that he had <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1026872652290379776">secured funding to take Tesla private</a> — which is why <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/securities-law/musks-claim-2018-tweet-was-truthful-gets-hard-look-from-judge">investors are currently suing him, saying the claim wasn’t true</a> and that they lost money as a result of Tesla stock prices fluctuating after he tweeted. Musk reached a settlement with the SEC, paying a $20 million penalty, and was barred from being Tesla’s chairman for three years. Crucially, the settlement also required Musk’s tweets to be internally reviewed when they concerned company information.
But while Musk is chairman again, and even a $20 million fine is inconsequential for someone so wealthy, it’s clear he’s still bothered by the SEC’s restraints on tweeting. In early March, Musk submitted a court filing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/08/musk-sec-agreement/">asking to end the SEC agreement</a>, saying he’d been forced to consent to it. A letter his lawyer wrote to the judge who presided over the settlement claimed that the SEC’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/mar/08/elon-musk-seeks-end-us-restrictions-tweets">“harassment” of Musk</a> was “calculated to chill his exercise of First Amendment rights.”
Free speech advocates don’t exactly agree. “He’s got unlimited access to the media; he has unlimited access to any platform he could possibly want,” said Kaye. “He is not a victim in any way, shape, or form. He is a public voice that’s practically unimaginable in its lack of restriction compared to almost any other person on the planet.”
Musk could also face renewed SEC scrutiny for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/06/musk-twitter-sec/">delaying disclosure of his near-10 percent Twitter stake</a>; records show that he has been regularly <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/05/elon-musk-spent-2point64-billion-on-twitter-shares-so-far-this-year-new-filing-shows.html">buying Twitter stock since late January</a>. Musk was supposed to file a disclosure within 10 days of crossing the 5 percent stake threshold, but he disclosed <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/06/musk-twitter-sec/">11 days after his deadline</a>. “The point here is not just the late filing,” said John C. Coffee, a law professor at Columbia University, who described the delay itself as akin to a misdemeanor like jaywalking, “but that he misled shareholders who might have bought and certainly could have sold at a higher price if this information had been disclosed. Those who sold can sue in a securities class action for their lost profits.”
Being accountable for what you say when you hold a position of power, one that comes with responsibilities and obligations and has the ability to harm others, is not the same thing as having your speech censored. “He should have recognized that his statements about his plans for Twitter needed to be approved or at least disclosed to management,” said Coffee, noting that Musk had a pattern of making “reckless statements that have not been reviewed.”
In other words, the problem seems to be that Musk can’t or won’t recognize how much freedom and power to speak he actually has. Anyone with internet access can tweet, but what sets billionaires like Musk apart is that they can use their money to have a greater say in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/technology/republican-trump-peter-thiel.html">who wins elections</a>, what kinds of <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-21/tech-spent-millions-lobbying-amid-antitrust-assault-ceo-hearing?sref=qYiz2hd0">laws are passed</a>, or even <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/7/21203179/coronavirus-billionaires-philanthropy-bill-gates-larry-ellison-mark-zuckerberg-jack-dorsey">how we should deal with a pandemic</a>. And when you’re a public figure with millions of Twitter followers, even a simple reply to a critic can send <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-its-like-when-elon-musks-twitter-mob-comes-after-you">a torrent of harassment their way</a>.
<h3>The real dangers to free speech</h3>
Maybe Musk’s current free speech crusade is only semi-serious. Maybe it’s just a way to taunt the SEC. But whatever his real motivations, his insistence on being the billionaire champion of online speech has a genuine impact — which undermines his complaints about his First Amendment rights being chilled.
“This is a huge distraction,” said Evan Greer, director of <a href="https://www.fightforthefuture.org/">Fight for the Future</a>, a nonprofit that advocates for digital rights. “It’s unfortunate, frankly, that people like Elon Musk, who are largely trolling about [the free speech] issue, have confused it so much, because I think it’s actually led to really harmful perceptions.” Some progressives have come to treat “free speech” as a dirty topic associated with people who want to spout hate speech, or with privileged people merely crying wolf about their voices being suppressed, she said.
“The reality is that free speech is in danger. There are laws going on the books across the country right now criminalizing teachers for teaching, banning books, criminalizing parents for providing their children with health care,” Greer said.
“If we have to worry about what Elon Musk thinks about content moderation, we already have a problem,” Greer continued. “There are too few companies that have too much power over what can be seen and heard and done online, and the fact that the richest man on Earth can just essentially buy the ability to influence our online discourse shows that we have a fundamental structural problem with the way that social media is currently organized.”
With a single move, Musk has purchased influence over an important, shared online space — what he called a “de facto public town square” — which means that as long as you keep using Twitter, you’ll have to listen to him in some measure. What will Musk do as Twitter’s most important shareholder? Will he commit to any standards of public transparency about how he’ll influence the platform? We simply don’t know yet. But the danger is that Musk doesn’t have to reveal much.
Musk’s Twitter stake highlights how the ultra-rich seem to view influence: that you can buy it, and there’s no shame in doing so, even if the outsize volume of your speech risks drowning out others.
In a recent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/04/08/musk-twitter-equity-discrimination-speech/">op-ed in the Washington Post</a>, former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao argued that Musk’s purchasing of influence over Twitter was unfair to its hundreds of millions of users who don’t have that kind of access. “We need regulation of social media platforms to prevent rich people from controlling our channels of communication,” she wrote.
Kaye believes that Twitter has been attempting to make space for a diversity of voices by taking a firmer stance against speech that harms and intimidates people — and the kind of absolute, unrestricted speech Musk appears to be calling for is a fantasy that would only chase people off the platform.
“Nobody who is acting in good faith really wants Twitter to be a cesspool,” Kaye said. “It’s just absurd. Frankly, it would kill Twitter.”
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23022438/elon-musk-free-speech-twitter-stake-top-shareholder">https://www.vox.com/recode/23022438/elon-musk-free-speech-twitter-stake-top-shareholder</a>

vox Elon Musk is no free speech messiah

A few days ago, Elon Musk asked his 81 million followers, “ Is Twitter dying? ” Musk calls himself a “free speech absolutist ” — opposed t...

Biden Claims 2nd Amendment “Didn’t Say You Can Own Any Gun You Want”

Former Obama Homeland Security head Jeh Johnson warned Sunday that unmanageable numbers of illegal immigrants will pour across the southern border if the Biden Administration lifts the Title 42 public health authority.
The measure, which Biden <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/04/01/cdc-phase-out-border-restrictions-increase-crossings-expected/">intends to scrap in May</a>, has effectively served as border control, allowing federal immigration officials to swiftly return around two million illegal immigrants to their home countries over the past two years.
Without it, it is conservatively estimated that numbers of migrants reaching the border will increase three fold to 18,000 per day.
Appearing on CBS News, Johnson warned that “Numbers at these levels are difficult to handle on the southern border,” adding “Communities on the southern border, catholic charities, the volunteers, difficult to absorb these types of numbers under almost any scenario.”
“It’s challenging for the Border Patrol, for ICE to properly process and track these individuals. And, obviously, the Biden administration is paying a political cost for these,” Johnson added.
Johnson declared that he “would have argued that we should keep it in place just a little while longer, until perhaps July, when these numbers do tend to slow down in the hotter weather,” adding that “March, April, May tend to be the peak seasons for migration on our southern border.”
“DHS will have a challenge. And I heard the current secretary the other day say at present they have something like 7,000 a day,” Johnson urged, adding “That’s a high number.”
Johnson asserted that “we have to address the underlying causes in Central America for these types of surges.”
Watch:
<figure>[embedded content]</figure>
Arizona GOP Rep. Andy Biggs warned that numbers will be even higher than estimated, suggesting that 20,000 to 30,000 could surge the border every day.
“Right now, the [Department of Homeland Security] number is about 8,000 people a day, illegally entering our country,” Biggs said during a podcast, adding “DHS’s number, they say it’s going to be 18,000 a day … I personally think it’s going to be 20,000 to 30,000 a day.”
He explained, “Cartels are already advertising to put together caravans to come across … our communities are going to be overrun … last year, 800,000 people illegally snuck into the country, they were not apprehended, they were the got-aways, we don’t know who they are, where they are from, what their intentions are.”
Regarding lifting Title 42, Biggs said “I think the rationale here is, they’re trying to get this open and bring in as many people as they can before they lose the majority … [in] the House and Senate.”
“I think this is a political ploy, it’s meant to happen. They campaigned on an open border,” Biggs continued, warning“If you think it’s bad now, the tsunami that’s coming is going to be overwhelming.”
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source <a href="https://summit.news/2022/04/12/biden-claims-2nd-amendment-didnt-say-you-can-own-any-gun-you-want/">https://summit.news/2022/04/12/biden-claims-2nd-amendment-didnt-say-you-can-own-any-gun-you-want/</a>

revolution summit Biden Claims 2nd Amendment “Didn’t Say You Can Own Any Gun You Want”

Former Obama Homeland Security head Jeh Johnson warned Sunday that unmanageable numbers of illegal immigrants will pour across the southern ...

When Russian troops arrived, their relatives disappeared

Update, April 12, 2022: Viktor Maruniak was released as of Tuesday, according to his relatives, and is recovering in the hospital.
On March 21, Natali called her father to wish him a happy birthday. It was Viktor Maruniak’s 60th, but, on the phone, he sounded sad and nervous. Maruniak is the starosta, or elected head, of Stara Zbur’ivka, a village more than an hour outside of Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine. Russian forces now occupied it, Maruniak told Natali. He would call her back later. “And I told him, ‘Okay, I will wait for you, please call me back,’” she said.
Natali’s father never did.
She learned later, through relatives, that Russian soldiers took Maruniak from the home he shared with his wife. On the morning of March 23, Russian forces returned, with Maruniak in handcuffs.
The Russian soldiers searched the house, relatives told Natali, though what the soldiers were looking for remains unclear. They ripped the flowers out of their pots. They found the money, even the bills they’d hidden carefully, and they took that along with other valuables, and the candy and the nuts. They destroyed the furniture. The soldiers examined a hole in the yard dug by the dog, suspicious of the loose soil.
“Woman, calm down,” soldiers told Maruniak’s wife, according to Natali. “Maybe it’s the last time you see your husband.”
She saw her husband one more time, on March 24. He returned again with soldiers, though this time, they covered their faces. “Feed him, change his socks, and give him his medicine,” they ordered Maruniak’s wife. As she did, she noticed his legs were bruised blue. There was another bruise on his right temple, another on his arm. Maruniak said nothing, only that it was cold where he was being held.
That was the last Maruniak’s family saw or heard anything about him.
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<figcaption>A photograph of Viktor Maruniak, an elected official of a village in southern Ukraine. According to his daughter, Natali, he was taken by Russian soldiers and has been missing since March 24.</figcaption>
<cite>Courtesy of Natali</cite></figure>
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/olexandra.matviychuk/posts/10158563572067304">Maruniak is among dozens of local officials</a> or community leaders who have been abducted or arbitrarily arrested by Russian forces as they seized territory in Ukraine, especially in the east and the south. These disappearances are both an attempt to coerce cooperation and a targeted effort to silence and intimidate Ukrainians who may oppose or organize against a Russian occupation.
The disappearances, said Tetiana Pechonchyk, the head of Human Rights Centre ZMINA, a Ukraine-based organization, are intended to “stop the resilience of local population and to incline the local mayors, active members of local communities, who have authority in this community, to press them to collaborate with the occupiers.”
The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has documented about 109 cases of suspected detention or enforced disappearances among civilians since February 24, including 48 local officials. The UN and other human rights groups have confirmed disappearances among other members of civil society: volunteers, activists, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/02/world/europe/ukraine-photojournalist-maks-levin-dead.html">journalists</a>, religious leaders, protesters, and former military veterans. (Vox reached out to the Russian Embassy for comment, but did not receive a response.)
Anastasiia Moskvychova, who has been tracking disappearances for ZMINA, says they have confirmed more than 100 arbitrary detentions since February 24; about 50 people are still missing.
But Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Kyiv-based activist and head of the Center for Civil Liberties, said these numbers are only the “top of the iceberg.” Her group is tracking dozens more suspected cases of enforced disappearances, but they are still trying to corroborate evidence, a task that’s all the more difficult in Russian-occupied areas. Other times, family and friends of the suspected victims fear making that information public.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Amidst the falling shells in Ukraine, another chilling phenomenon is occurring. People are disappearing off the street—abducted by Russian forces in a campaign of intimidation. Over the next few days I'll be shining a spotlight on these faces—to call for the release of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TheTaken?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TheTaken</a>. <a href="https://t.co/EcI006vyqg">pic.twitter.com/EcI006vyqg</a>
— Samantha Power (@PowerUSAID) <a href="https://twitter.com/PowerUSAID/status/1509961280752390146?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 1, 2022</a></blockquote>
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Fear is why disappearances happen. It is a particularly insidious human rights violation and a technique utilized by <a href="https://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/usa/us1004/4.htm">US-backed dictators in Latin America in the 20th century, Nazi Germany, and other regimes around the world</a>. Individuals are arbitrarily arrested or detained by a government — or affiliated groups like security services, local militias, and criminal gangs — and because disappearances happen outside the bounds of the law, there’s often little recourse. “State denial is an essential part of a disappearance,” said Freek van der Vet, a researcher at the University of Helsinki’s institute of international law and human rights. “Somebody would disappear, and now authorities, or occupying forces, would deny they are responsible for the disappearance.”
These tactics did not begin with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24; they are a continuation of a strategy used before, including <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/chechen-shaikhayev-disappearance-kadyrov-human-rights/30236674.html#:~:text=Forced%20disappearances%20are%20part%20of,at%20between%203%2C000%20and%205%2C000.">during Russia’s military campaigns in Chechnya</a> and in Ukraine. After Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and invaded the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine in support of a separatist movement, activists and journalists and officials were <a href="https://ukraine.un.org/en/123652-enforced-disappearances-autonomous-republic-crimea-and-city-sevastopol-ukraine-temporarily#:~:text=Since%20the%20beginning%20of%20the,3.">abducted and detained in these regions</a>.
“It’s the repetition of the Russian playbook,” said Mattia Nelles, a political analyst specializing in Russia and Ukraine. “It’s definitely a concerted effort of intimidation that we see in the now-occupied areas in the south and east, but also in the north.”
All of this foreshadows how Russia might try to consolidate control in Ukrainian areas it captures by force. The Russian occupation is still being met with defiance; <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-kherson-protestors-fired/31763601.html">people are protesting</a>, those <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/31/1090067116/ukraine-mayor-says-russian-soldiers-who-kidnapped-him-knew-nothing-about-his-cou">who have been kidnapped and released are speaking out</a>. But human rights advocates and experts worry that, as the war continues, Russian forces may ratchet up this repression, and carry out more enforced disappearances, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-zelenskyy-biden-business-1b84b61ca7b7bf3c31bb856845269efd">along with other possible war crimes</a>. The United States <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-u-s-letter-to-the-u-n-alleging-russia-is-planning-human-rights-abuses-in-ukraine/93a8d6a1-5b44-4ae8-89e5-cd5d328dd150/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4">raised this possibility to the United Nations ahead of Russia’s invasion</a>.
“What we see now,” Nelles said, “foreshadows how the Russians will govern.”
<h3>What’s happening in Ukraine has happened before</h3>
In late March, Svetlana Zalizetskaya, <a href="https://ria-m.tv/author/3">a journalist who ran a news outlet in Melitopol</a>, a city in southeastern Ukraine currently <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/12/ukraine-melitopol-mayor-fedorov-abducted-zelensky/">under Russian control</a>, got a call from the men who detained her father. She asked what they wanted. “We want you to be here,” came the reply.
Zalizetskaya, who had already left Melitopol, told them she would not return. Instead, referencing a viral clip of Ukrainians on Snake Island talking to a Russian warship, she told the men they could go where that warship went — that is, to “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKSFewA9rdQ">go fuck yourself</a>.”
On March 25, she got another call from a man who she referred to as Sergei. She demanded he let her father go. “When you stop writing bad stuff,” he told her. In another call, Sergei accused Zalizetskaya of causing the deaths of Russian soldiers with her writing. “Why me? You came to our land and you’re killing us,” Zalizetskaya shot back. “I’m not guilty in the death of your soldiers.”
Zalizetskaya, though, understood this back-and-forth would not go anywhere. Her 75-year-old father had recently had a stroke, and he needed his blood pressure medication. So she made a deal: on her Facebook page, she would post that she no longer owned the Melitopol news outlet, in exchange for her father’s “evacuation” — the words his captors used, she emphasized.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
In Melitopol aged father of journalist Svetlana Zalizetska was taken hostage by probably FSB people. They say they will release him only if Svetlana gives herself up. She is not in Melitopol anymore. <a href="https://t.co/9MDLdKTial">pic.twitter.com/9MDLdKTial</a>
— Andrei Kurkov (@AKurkov) <a href="https://twitter.com/AKurkov/status/1506620167853416451?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 23, 2022</a></blockquote>
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Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-29-22/h_a35aaffc56bcf888261b7212ae4ecd19">told CNN</a> in March that he was not aware of any disappearances among journalists or civil society activists, despite well-documented reports from human rights groups. And these organizations have seen what happened to Zalizetskaya’s family happen before in Russian-occupied territories.
“We can clearly state that it is a deliberate policy,” Matviichuk said. “This is like a method of conducting warfare.”
Extrajudicial arrests happen within Russia, but they are documented more frequently in Russia’s other territories, including <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2007-06-15-voa62-66778767/564908.html">Dagestan</a> and <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-european-rights-court-relatives-missing-people-chechnya/31320684.html">Chechnya</a>, where enforced disappearances became what Human Rights Watch described as an <a href="https://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/eca/chechnya0305/1.htm">“enduring feature”</a> of the conflict.
In Crimea, ethnic Tatars, who tended to oppose Russia’s annexation in 2014, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/07/crimea-enforced-disappearances">were targeted</a>, including one local activist and leader <a href="https://khpg.org/en/1608809101">who was allegedly kidnapped by men in Russian traffic police uniforms</a> in 2016. In the Donbas, <a href="https://khpg.org/en/1503486891">militias kidnapped, tortured, and killed a local city council member</a> who tried to take down a flag of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic. “They hunted after the activists, after the persons who supported the Ukrainian army, Ukrainian volunteers,” said Oleksandr Pavlichenko, executive director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union.
“Now we see the same scheme,” Pavlichenko added, “and it’s only the beginning of this scheme.”
Disappearances are one element of the scheme; the other is what happens after that. Advocates say they have credible evidence — <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/violence-and-hope-in-ukraine-stanislav-aseyevs-the-torture-camp-on-paradise-street/">including from those who have been released since 2014</a> — that those being held are interrogated, and sometimes tortured, physically and mentally, and <a href="https://khpg.org/en/1579909440">sometimes killed</a>. Zalizetskaya said that her father was never beaten, but interrogated nightly: “They just repeated the same question: ‘Why are you arrested?’ And he was answering, ‘because of my last name.’”
Natali noted that what little information her relatives had about her father’s disappearance, they knew he was cold. “They hold people in conditions which can be torture itself,” Matviichuk said. The longer people stay disappeared, the more likely they are to be killed, though confirmation of that is often difficult to obtain.
Human rights watchers and experts say it is often difficult to say who is carrying out disappearances, or subsequent mistreatment — including in Ukraine right now. “The state actors are not interested in accountability for those kinds of abuses, so it creates this environment of impunity,” said Saskia Brechenmacher, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has researched Russian civil society.
That can make it hard to know exactly how organized these actions are, or whether they are directed top-down from Moscow, the work of local units or security services, or militias affiliated with Moscow.
Eugenia Andreyuk, a human rights adviser at the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), said that some of those detained in Ukraine are arrested just days after Russia takes a city, and Russian forces often come directly to activists’ houses. That speed has led researchers to suspect Russia knew who they were targeting. Russian authorities, Andreyuk said, were “equipped for this.” Her colleague, Maryia Kvitsinskaya, regional consultant for the OMCT, said they are seeing military veterans being targeted in the smallest of villages. “For me, it’s a question of how they got the list of these people,” she said.
Ahead of the invasion, the United States told the United Nations it had credible information that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/02/20/ukraine-russia-human-rights/">Moscow was compiling lists</a> of Ukrainians to be “killed or sent to camps.” Advocates do not have confirmation of such lists, or who may have compiled them if they do exist, but emphasized that this campaign of disappearances is not random.
“It’s not happening as some chaotic or spontaneous thing,” Andreyuk said. “This is very targeted detentions — and it’s a very targeted policy to get more control over society.”
<h3>A foreshadowing of how Russia will occupy these zones</h3>
Natali said there still is no information about her father. Her family has heard some rumors, including that a woman was taken to a pretrial detention center in Kherson, and might have seen Maruniak. If it was her father, he was skin and bones. Natali and her relatives still do not know what the Russian soldiers were looking at his home. She heard they might have been looking for weapons or guns, but her dad was not connected to military servicemen.
Again, this not knowing is the point. “[People] never know if somebody has died, or is still alive, or if they would ever return, and I think that creates the fear in society in general. Could this happen to me?” Van der Vet, of the University of Helsinki, said.
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<figcaption>Viktor Maruniak’s family says Russian soldiers took him from the family home. “Everyone is afraid to talk in the village,” his daughter said.</figcaption>
<cite>Courtesy of Natali</cite></figure>
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Disappearances terrorize the local population, but Russia’s ultimate goal is to consolidate power, either through direct control or pro-Russian proxies. This is why civil society activists — those who can organize a peaceful resistance to occupation — are often the first targeted.
The detention of local authorities is also an effort to win legitimacy. “If you can get mayors, or elected officials, to say that ‘okay, they support the new order,’ I think that’s very important,” said Oxana Shevel, associate professor of political science at Tufts University.
If they cannot win that cooperation, the abduction of a local leader gives the Russian military the opportunity to install a more pliant figure, as Russian personnel attempted to do in <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/russia-installs-new-mayor-ukrainian-city-says-adjust-new-reality-1687542">Melitopol</a>. (In that case, surveillance video showed the capture of the elected mayor, Ivan Fedorov, with a bag over his head; he has since been freed, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/31/1090067116/ukraine-mayor-says-russian-soldiers-who-kidnapped-him-knew-nothing-about-his-cou?utm_term=nprnews&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr">and has continued to speak about his capture</a>.)
Added together, these disappearances help create a “Stalin-like” police state, a rule through terror and mistrust, and where nobody knows what — or who — might make them a target of disappearance. “If you just keep silent, it is also suspicious,” Pavlichenko said.
Those who have tracked disappearances in Ukraine since 2014 point out that, as brutal as that campaign was, this latest chapter is different. The Ukrainian population in places like <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-60827106">Kherson</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60719123">Melitopol</a> have continued to protest and resist the invasion — even after evidence of kidnappings. “We’re really afraid that we will have more and more cases [of enforced disappearances],” Kvitsinskaya said. “Because what we see — it’s really the way how Russia’s military responds when civilians don’t want to cooperate with them.”
After her father’s kidnapping, Natali says that few people will come to her father’s house anymore. “Everyone is afraid to talk in the village,” she said. Her father’s wife is afraid too, but of leaving the house. “What if they will bring her husband home when she wouldn’t be there?” she said. “So she’s just waiting for him.”
Additional reporting and translation by Olena Lysenko, a journalist and producer based in Ukraine.
Update, April 8, 2022, 11 am ET: This story has been updated with new data on disappearances from the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/23012456/ukraine-russia-war-disappearances-kidnappings">https://www.vox.com/23012456/ukraine-russia-war-disappearances-kidnappings</a>

vox When Russian troops arrived, their relatives disappeared

Update, April 12, 2022 : Viktor Maruniak was released as of Tuesday, according to his relatives, and is recovering in the hospital. On Marc...

The growing, lightly controversial industry teaching kids crypto

For some kids, school breaks mean family vacations, part-time jobs, sports and hobbies, or soaking in the general bliss of not having to do homework. For others, it means learning about NFTs.
This summer in Los Angeles, dozens of children ages 5 to 17 will attend the third-ever session of Crypto Kids Camp, where they’ll learn about everything from artificial intelligence to virtual reality using hands-on games and activities. (The camp was scheduled to take place this week during the April public school break, but due to a construction issue in their space, it’s been rescheduled for summer.) It’s part of a burgeoning cottage industry made up of camps, startups, and video content devoted to educating the next generation about Web3, sometimes even before they can read.
According to founder Najah Roberts, the camp is a way to lessen the wealth gap between privileged kids and underserved communities. “It’s important to catch our kids when they’re young to help them open their minds to what the possibilities are,” she says. “You can tell them that there are jobs in tech, but when they actually know that they can create those jobs, those platforms, those games, you see their minds open.”
The weeklong camp, which costs $500, divides kids into four age groups and has them spend a set amount of time on different tech modules that follow the acronym Beastmode (that’s blockchain, evolution of money, artificial intelligence, security/cyber, technology/virtual reality, mining and machine learning, online gaming, drones, and engineering). Some parents pay for it, but kids from poorer backgrounds may be eligible to receive a scholarship. Attending kids receive a laptop, a drone, a robot, a VR headset, and a phone with a crypto wallet, all of which they get to keep. “It’s like Christmas,” says Roberts of the day when the campers receive their wallets. “They’re stoked.” She has big plans: By this summer, Crypto Kids Camp plans to operate in six states, and by fall, there are expected to be 41 locations nationwide.
It isn’t the only kids’ camp devoted to the subject; similar programs exist at the <a href="https://www.lavnercampsandprograms.com/digital-art-nfts-and-ethereum-camp-philadelphia-pa-mainline-pa-lower-gwynedd-pa/#Locations">University of Pennsylvania</a> and other colleges across the country; in <a href="https://learn01.io/cryptocamp">Miami</a>; and, naturally, <a href="https://www.supercryptokids.com/summer-camp">online</a>. Children’s media has also capitalized on Web3: Zigazoo, a TikTok-like platform for ages 3 to 12, is <a href="https://www.zigazoo.com/nft-guide">releasing NFT collaborations</a> with recognizable YouTube sensations Cocomelon, Blippi, and Serena Williams’ Qai Qai universe. “We’re trying to teach kids about digital and financial literacy and empower them to create their own art and go build the future of the web,” says Zigazoo founder Zak Ringelstein. Also part of this brave new world: crypto-only <a href="https://www.finh.cc/pigzbe-app">virtual piggy banks</a> for kids, books and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEB&search_query=kids+blockchain">YouTube explainers</a> with titles like <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B096WLTZH5/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=7jHEr&pf_rd_p=9aa30bae-d685-4626-879d-c38f81e830a3&pf_rd_r=VPY335MGFVVVPA2QFEMQ&pd_rd_r=4b5532b2-6eda-417e-9fa0-9023af001ab9&pd_rd_wg=lyD1K&ref_=bd_tags_dp_rec" has-subtag="true" data-cdata='{"rewritten_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/B096WLTZH5/?ascsubtag=[]vx[p]22785012[m]m-placeholder[s]s-placeholder[t]w[c]c-placeholder[r]r-placeholder[d]d-placeholder\u0026_encoding=UTF8\u0026pd_rd_w=7jHEr\u0026pf_rd_p=9aa30bae-d685-4626-879d-c38f81e830a3\u0026pf_rd_r=VPY335MGFVVVPA2QFEMQ\u0026pd_rd_r=4b5532b2-6eda-417e-9fa0-9023af001ab9\u0026pd_rd_wg=lyD1K\u0026ref_=bd_tags_dp_rec","subtag_max_length":99,"subtag_delim_length":2,"subtag_key":"ascsubtag","subtag_data":{"ascsubtag":"[]vx[p]22785012[m]m-placeholder[s]s-placeholder[t]w[c]c-placeholder[r]r-placeholder[d]d-placeholder","_encoding":"UTF8","pd_rd_w":"7jHEr","pf_rd_p":"9aa30bae-d685-4626-879d-c38f81e830a3","pf_rd_r":"VPY335MGFVVVPA2QFEMQ","pd_rd_r":"4b5532b2-6eda-417e-9fa0-9023af001ab9","pd_rd_wg":"lyD1K","ref_":"bd_tags_dp_rec"},"encode_subtag":false}'>“C Is for Cryptocurrency,”</a> and an <a href="https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/559611329/cactus-world-to-launch-first-nft-kids-tv-show">NFT-based kids’ TV show</a> starring tiny plush cactuses.
Crypto-for-kids initiatives often tout themselves as being on the forefront of education and preparing future workers for lucrative jobs in tech. Part of the draw of these programs for parents, to be sure, is to compensate for the largely absent personal finance education offered at most public schools in the US. But undergirding this still relatively new industry is the question of whether cryptocurrency and blockchain actually is the future people should be preparing their children for. There are <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22907072/web3-crypto-nft-bitcoin-metaverse">plenty of valid reasons</a> to believe that Web3 in general rests on shaky technology and promises that sound great on paper but don’t work in practice, not to mention that the risk of getting <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/24/22995107/us-arrest-charges-crypto-nft-rug-pull-frosties-ethan-nguyen-andre-llacuna">rug-pulled by an NFT project</a> or <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/business/squid-meme-coin-collapses-after-230-000-gain-promoters-flee-with-3-38m-in-sales-101635833390473.html">scammed by a meme coin creator</a> is much higher than investments in traditional financial products. Perhaps, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/6ff0f503-f20b-45d5-b2d3-7f93da184e8c">some have argued</a>, that what kids need is better education about more stable methods of investing.
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“I find it actually a little frightening to hear that there’s this industry out there socializing very young children about very risky products,” says Joyce Serido, a professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota who studies financial behaviors within families. She’s an advocate for teaching children about money as early as possible, but worries that cryptocurrency is still too volatile and untested to be understood by kids. “You can explain that for every one person that [hits the jackpot] there are 1,000 who lose it all, but that doesn’t resonate with a 15- or an 18-year-old,” she says. “They’re thinking ‘I’m going to be the one who makes it.’” Her advice: “Give them $5 to invest in crypto or have them play a stock market simulation game to limit the losses. And when they lose, it’ll be a very good lesson.”
Serido’s first recommendation for teaching kids about money, however, aligns with Crypto Kids Camp’s: Start with something tangible, like physical currency that can help show that money is a finite resource. But, she says, “the second lesson, which is probably the most important, is that what you’re really trying to help your children learn is self-regulation” — basically, they need impulse control. Another crucial aspect is to ensure they learn from reliable sources; it’s harder to vet information coming from YouTube, anonymous message boards, or their peers.
Teachers say they are noticing their students spending more time on platforms like Robinhood, where people can buy and trade crypto. Though technically it’s only available to adults 18 or over, some teenagers use an account a parent has set up for them, and many crypto wallets have <a href="https://parentzone.org.uk/article/everything-you-need-know-about-cryptocurrency">no age limits at all</a>. Nate, a teacher in Virginia who asked not to include his last name for concerns over future employment, says that over the last two years, he’s watched his high school students develop major interest in crypto, stock trading, and sports gambling. During study hall, he’d glance at their screens — all of them boys — and see the temperamental fluctuations of the Robinhood line graph or the FanDuel home page. He’s heard one story from a fellow teacher about a ninth grader at another school who made a bet on a college football game and won $500,000, then had to pretend that his father had actually made the bet.
<figure class="e-image"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1649795174_7561_74863" data-cdata='{"asset_id":23382845,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/v1ij4UNi3gdbi9INcObjjVtAJxQ=/0x0:2870x1228/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3Ic3yYI3SR-Ta8R9kfH0Mq4R9dE=/0x0:2870x1228/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6SWHlfzreGpeZi2LkMjBj4oX7AQ=/0x0:2870x1228/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/pGUuapNBsvfpwKwc8mrCJ1vutvU=/0x0:2870x1228/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/flbTONAR9IgcDXlZlQHpU5vgxcU=/0x0:2870x1228/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wxk4YtCRCB4Qk1k_bBn_JcF7ibs=/0x0:2870x1228/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WItsGKVytBW3WNsCdyD0ucCUxU4=/0x0:2870x1228/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zuTpdjTUxjHyetoVjvwzsMCMuJs=/0x0:2870x1228/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/GvZYWhIMVeWkxLU5RBEwg2SJKkE=/0x0:2870x1228/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="2870" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gUOlhDDwTTxGjnHzRkt7R9Jyf4o=/0x0:2870x1228/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FPHrROkj-gLEvMY8v9zSzyhXsv4=/0x0:2870x1228/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/EPl-tOxTnnT4_zeBfDIPGO1cQJY=/0x0:2870x1228/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/eexLR_ey7zoyQLwi0Z98VeX77Nk=/0x0:2870x1228/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/SPSrtxGJhdNrzG2j1r1XG91i4v0=/0x0:2870x1228/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bQfAgj8lEIF2oCFk8IFURyeh8oM=/0x0:2870x1228/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Ope-1nhTdH-nsJGy2CR-9UgdLfk=/0x0:2870x1228/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ziGNI3IQyfok3EPPab8FJyr6DV8=/0x0:2870x1228/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/C9tgRCJLrtlp-UWLbYYSr8TTY6I=/0x0:2870x1228/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hAzmXBT47SeM_N1Xozb95eUGYQk=/0x0:2870x1228/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2870x1228):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23382845/Screen_Shot_2022_04_06_at_1.36.08_PM.png 1920w" /></picture>
<figcaption>Zigazoo’s first NFT collection is with 13-year-old NFT creator Nyla Hayes.</figcaption>
<cite>Zigazoo</cite></figure>
Nate says he can usually tell when a kid might be getting into some potentially risky financial habits: “Once they start fanboying Elon Musk, you’ve probably got a kid who’s interested in these things,” he says. He’s also noticing that middle school students are responding to the fervor around NFTs without understanding what they are; during one project in a class on technology that involved AI-generated art, “there were a number of sixth grade boys that were elated to see that you could turn the art into an NFT and sell it,” he says. “They knew it was cool and trendy and their ears perked up.”
It makes sense, considering the media frenzies over kids like <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/25/12-year-old-coder-made-6-figures-selling-weird-whales-nfts.html">British 12-year-old Benyamin Ahmed</a>, who made more than $400,000 in two months selling NFTs of pixelated whales, or the pair of 14- and 9-year-old siblings who make <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/31/kid-siblings-earn-thousands-per-month-mining-crypto-like-bitcoin-eth.html">$30,000 per month</a> mining bitcoin. This is the world that Gen Z and Gen Alpha have been raised in: a world where entrepreneurs are lauded as heroes, where a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-very-unnerving-existence-of-teen-boss-a-magazine-for-girls">magazine called Teen Bo$$</a> exists, and where <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22922511/crypto-nfts-sports-betting-money-hobby">making money is a hobby</a>. “I am fascinated by how advanced these young children are about these emerging technologies,” says Serido. But, she adds, “our mission is to help them navigate the world they will inherit, a world we don’t understand and we’re not going to be here to see.”
It’s too soon to tell if Web3 is the answer. But Najah Roberts and other educators are betting it will be, and they want kids to be prepared. “We started off educating adults,” she says, “and then we started realizing our kids really need this. STEM and STEAM are missing it big time. Everybody wants to talk about coding, which is great, but then what? We want to make sure that our children are getting the same education as the adults are getting, but even at a more rapid pace. Because they are the future.”
This column was first published in The Goods newsletter. <a href="https://www.vox.com/pages/newsletters">Sign up here</a> so you don’t miss the next one, plus get newsletter exclusives.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23020971/crypto-kids-nfts-web3-education-summer-camp">https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23020971/crypto-kids-nfts-web3-education-summer-camp</a>

vox The growing, lightly controversial industry teaching kids crypto

For some kids, school breaks mean family vacations, part-time jobs, sports and hobbies, or soaking in the general bliss of not having to do ...

Washington Post Writer: Solve Inflation With MORE Immigration

Former French intelligence chief Pierre Brochand warns that unless Europe and France radically change their policies on mass immigration, civil war could break out, asserting, “all multicultural societies are doomed.”
Brochand, who served as director of the French DGSE from 2002 to 2008, made the comments during an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro.
“All ‘multicultural’ societies are doomed to more or less deep rifts,” warned Brochand, adding, “In such a situation, it happens that minorities are violent winners, and majorities placid losers.”
The negative impact of mass immigration on France can no longer be dismissed because it is “increasingly difficult to prevent the French from seeing what they see,” and also because “a breakthrough personality has suddenly appeared in the formulaic world of politics that has encouraged them to open their eyes,” said Brochand.
The ex-intel chief predicts that if Emmanuel Macron wins the presidential election and fails to massively alter his approach to immigration, civil war could ensue.
“This gradual upheaval of the French population, if not the only challenge we face, is the only one that directly threatens civil peace on our territory,” said Brochand, warning that Muslim migrants and others from outside of Europe have developed a “spirit of post-colonial revenge.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true" readability="10.440433212996">
France’s former intelligence chief warns against possible civil war due to mass immigration
"France and Europe must abandon mass immigration and radically change their immigration policies, warned Pierre Brochand…" <a href="https://t.co/xLGAmOELeJ">https://t.co/xLGAmOELeJ</a>
— Ann (@BannedAnn) <a href="https://twitter.com/BannedAnn/status/1511090098418470915?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 4, 2022</a>
</blockquote>
He also warned that the migrant population’s significantly higher birth rate and the fact that younger generations born of immigrants are “even less integrated with French society than their parents,” threatens the fabric of French society.
Brochand says the only solution is that proposed by French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, namely “remigration,” incentivizing or otherwise mandating that millions of migrants return to their home countries.
Asked if it was too late, Brochand responded, “In any case, it is very late. Let us face it: We are no longer dealing with dispersed individuals, that is to say, so many ‘special cases,’ each in search of a better future, but with diasporas.”
“A diaspora is an entity, formed by immigrants and their descendants — including, crucially, French nationals — who are grouped together and whose numbers reach a critical mass sufficient for social pressure to encourage the perpetuation of the beliefs and ways of life of the countries of origin, with which relations remain tense,” explained Brochand. “This way, more or less closed foreign enclaves are spontaneously formed that turn their backs on the host country and its customs.”
Brochand’s conclusion is bother sobering and somber.
“All my accumulated experiences make me foresee a dark, and even very dark, future for our children and grandchildren. At best, they are heading toward an unsuspected collapse of their quality of life (an implosion); at worst, we are leading them to terrible confrontations (an explosion). Most likely, there will be a combination of the two amid growing confusion.”
[embedded content]
As <a href="https://rmx.news/france/frances-former-intelligence-chief-warns-against-possible-civil-war-due-to-mass-immigration/">RemixNews</a> reports, Brochand made the remarks amidst yet another wave of migrant riots afflicting metropolitan areas of France.
“Since last week, the cities of Sevran and Aulnay-sous-Bois in the suburbs of Paris have been the scenes of true urban guerrilla warfare, and similar scenes have been seen in Villeurbanne and Vénissieux, in the suburbs of Lyon. Each time, it is incidents between police officers trying to enforce the law and violent multi-recidivist criminals that were the initial cause of riots, shootings, and multiple fires, with ambushes set up against the police squads called in as reinforcements.”
A recent poll released last year by Harris revealed that the majority of French people are concerned about “European, white and Christian populations being threatened with extinction” as a result of “Muslim immigration.”
Despite this, Emmanuel Macron is expected to be successful in securing a second presidential term later this month.
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source <a href="https://summit.news/2022/04/12/washington-post-writer-solve-inflation-with-more-immigration/">https://summit.news/2022/04/12/washington-post-writer-solve-inflation-with-more-immigration/</a>

revolution summit Washington Post Writer: Solve Inflation With MORE Immigration

Former French intelligence chief Pierre Brochand warns that unless Europe and France radically change their policies on mass immigration, ci...

Multiple People Shot in Brooklyn Subway Station – Report

A man opened fired during rush hour traffic at a Brooklyn train station, injuring multiple people, according to reports.
The media is reporting that the suspect was dressed in a gas mask with an orange construction vest.
The suspect has not been apprehended at the time of this writing.
Reports also claim there were undetonated devices found.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" readability="4.2461538461538">
Multiple people shot in the 36th street station in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Brooklyn?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Brooklyn</a>. Multiple undetonated devices are also found. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NewYork?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NewYork</a> <a href="https://t.co/MouEEQKDrb">pic.twitter.com/MouEEQKDrb</a>
— Abhishek Gautam (@GautamPolitical) <a href="https://twitter.com/GautamPolitical/status/1513875539576365068?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 12, 2022</a></blockquote>
“Fire personnel responding to reports of smoke at the 36th Street station in the Sunset Park neighborhood found multiple people shot and undetonated devices, a New York City Fire Department spokesperson said,” AP <a href="https://1079ishot.com/multiple-shot-unexploded-devices-found-at-nyc-train-station/">stated</a>.
“According to a law enforcement source briefed on the investigation, preliminary information indicated a suspect was dressed in construction attire.”
Politically, the timing of this shooting is advantageous to Joe Biden, who a day before pushed for more gun control.
<div class="1lS1fH8q"><a href="https://www.infowarsstore.com/specials-clearance/top-selling-products-sale?ims=bymyj&utm_campaign=blowoutsalehero&utm_source=Infowars+Hero&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=blowoutsalehero" target="_blank"><img src="https://api.directus.libertycdn.com/uploads/_/originals/2Days-InfowarsEmergency-hero-385.png" /></a></div>
 
 
source <a href="https://www.infowars.com/posts/multiple-people-shot-in-brooklyn-subway-station-report">https://www.infowars.com/posts/multiple-people-shot-in-brooklyn-subway-station-report</a>

news Multiple People Shot in Brooklyn Subway Station – Report

A man opened fired during rush hour traffic at a Brooklyn train station, injuring multiple people, according to reports. The media is repor...