Democrat Congressional Committee Demands Google Bury “Climate Misinformation”

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

The U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on the Climate Crisis has demanded Google demonetize climate skeptics, and provide education to millions of people who have been exposed to “dangerous misinformation”.

Letter from Congress

If the letter is not readable on your device, the original link is available here.

The key actions demanded:

  • Stop promoting climate denial and climate disinformation videos by removing them immediately from the platform’s recommendation algorithm.
  • Add ‘climate misinformation’ to the platform’s list of borderline content
  • Stop monetising videos that promote harmful misinformation and falsehoods about the causes and effects of the climate crisis.
  • Take steps to correct the record for millions of users who have been exposed to the climate misinformation on YouTube.

The people who wrote that letter seem to believe ordinary people are too stupid to figure things out for themselves; they think voters have to be guided into making acceptable choices, by experts like the Democrat majority members of The U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.

Update(EW): Elizabeth Warren has just announced criminal penalties for tech companies which spread “disinformation”, if the purpose of that alleged disinformation is judged to voter suppression.

0 0 votes
Article Rating

Discover more from Watts Up With That?

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

174 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Van Doren
January 29, 2020 12:08 pm
Tom Abbott
January 29, 2020 12:08 pm

This Democrat-controlled committee wants to censor views they don’t agree with. It’s what Democrats/Authoritarians do.

If the Democrats/CAGW promoters had a good argument, they wouldn’t need to censor others. The truth of the argument would silence most skeptics and turn them into believers.

But they don’t have a good argument so they want to shut the other side up when it is pointed out.

Doc Chuck
Reply to  Tom Abbott
January 29, 2020 9:34 pm

Is this the same congress that has impeached a president absent any specified crime pertinent to the very serious matter of negating the will of the electorate, having previously mounted a 2 year/$25million special prosecutorial effort that found zip in his campaign’s alleged collusion with Russians interests to win his office, while never in the least probing the documented simultaneous activity of his opponent’s campaign to do the very same thing? All righty then, they certainly seem content to parade themselves as the sort of ‘democrats’ they truly are.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Doc Chuck
January 30, 2020 5:21 am

The radical Democrats, including the Obama administration and Hillary have been on a three-year attack against the U.S. Constitution. They are doing everything in their power, short of murder, to undermine the foundations of the United States.

The possible Saving Grace seems to be that this tactic is backfiring on the Democrats. They have shown their true ugly, selfish, power-hungry face to the world, and are alienating people as a result.

Rudolf Huber
January 29, 2020 12:18 pm

Every cult, every sect, every totalitarian regime, and enlightened grouping first reduces access to information for their members. That’s as true for Soviet Communists, Chinese corporatists, and the Nazis as it is to religious cults and extremist sects. People who have access to all information will read, think and make decisions and some of that won’t be fooled by the carefully crafted messages that we are all supposed to absorb without question. A healthy society thrives on a diversity of opinions. When opinions get filtered, societies become brittle and start to fail.

Curious George
Reply to  Rudolf Huber
January 29, 2020 2:19 pm

You seem to have never experienced a totalitarian regime. They first deny access to information for their opponents. Only an official propaganda is allowed, for everybody.

matt
January 29, 2020 12:20 pm

Is there a name for this sort of mental illness? Is it just the madness of crowds? A mass delusion?
A complete disconnection from reason, logic,common sense, or balance.
What can cause such effects? Chemicals in food and drink? Political fervour or mania. Recreational drug use from the age of eight? Subliminal brainwashing from the television? Brain damage from fear.
And it seems to me to be getting worse.

Earthling2
Reply to  matt
January 29, 2020 2:50 pm

It is probably (literally) the oldest story in the book, starting with the great Flood that ‘wiped’ out humanity (the 400+ foot increase in sea level over 7000 years at the end of the ice age that flooded a lot of habitat and ancestral homelands to a multitude of tribes which then became oral myth). And then the mythical Garden of Eden idea when things were warmer in the Holocene Optimum, and agriculture was invented, hence the idea of the Garden. I know the two are mixed up in chronological order in the good Book, but then so are a few other small items. But there is certainly some truth to these old myths that have worked their way into myth and religions.

Anyways, every good Brit loves to talk about the weather and the climate, as does most everyone else. I think a lot of this is wrapped up in our genetic collective memory, as well as historical circumstances when some major externality let loose (think Santorini and the collapse of the bronze age) and climate changed either by direct short term external forcing enough to collapse a civilization, or by other more long term natural variation. Which is also probably subject to Murphy’s Law, in that these natural disasters probably happen at an extremely vulnerable time in their civilization timeline, otherwise they probably would not have collapsed.

The only thing we know for absolute 100% certainty is that the climate has always been changing, and always will be changing in the future. We either adapt, or we get out of the way. IMHO, for the foreseeable future, humans won’t be able to affect the global climate by much, except for things like local UHI and land use change. Which is also probably just what we have been measuring for the small amount of beneficial warming that is still less than 1 degree C in 150 years since the end of the Little Ice Age. We should be very thankful and grateful for this warming, since it is our only insurance policy on a sudden cooling event, for whatever reason.

Paul Kolk
January 29, 2020 12:31 pm

It seems to me that a good dose of castor oil might do the trick…….

Richard Bell
January 29, 2020 12:36 pm

Next will come the BURNING OF BOOKS ………. !!!

January 29, 2020 12:38 pm

May I suggest reeducation camps for the hardcore sceptics.

Donald Boughton
Reply to  goldminor
January 29, 2020 1:02 pm

I suggest a compulsory summer school for all politicians. The syllabus to consist of a heady mix of Physics including design of experiments, Mathematics, Statistics and a dash of IT. Failure to attend, or to pass the final exam with be tantamount to declaring the intention of standing down at the next election.
This syllabus will give said politicians the tools to disinfect the Global Alarmists climate change bullshit.
In the UK Diane Abbot will probably need remedial arithmetic lessons before attending said summer school as will AOC in the USA.

Al
January 29, 2020 12:39 pm

If true, WUWT would also be affected.
Perhaps this is my impression, but those who are called “skeptics” do not seem to me as busy as the “revisionists” of the GW.
So why keep running sites like this?

Herbert
Reply to  Al
January 29, 2020 4:10 pm

AI,
Precisely my thought when I read this. Google and Wikipedia among others already have a stranglehold on what citizens read as sources of information.
WUWT would be a prime target of the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.
In this week’s “Climate Notes” in Spectator Australia, John Ruddick has a fascinating column on ‘The Great Global Warming Symposium’.
It should be pursued by WUWT.
He reminds us that the last time the Western world was so divided over science was in the mid 19th century when Darwin published ‘The Origin of the Species’.
The public uproar was enormous.
Seven months after publication in 1859 a historic debate was held at Oxford University. More than1000 packed the Hall with hundreds turned away.
It is remembered as the 1860 Oxford Evolution debate or the ‘Huxley Wilberforce debate.’
Thomas Huxley,32, was a confidante of Darwin who was ill and was self educated with little formal education and a poor public speaker.
Samuel Wilberforce,55, was the third son of the revered liberator and a polished debater and orator.
The Chair was anti-Darwin and not impartial.
Wilberforce’s principal argument was appeal to authority.Huxley spoke plainly and appealed to the curiosity of the audience.
He won.
2020 is the 160th Anniversary of that great debate which shifted scientific and public opinion.
The columnist argues for a similar historic debate on the most contentious scientific question of today – Climate Change.
A ten day event on five broad topics- temperature, CO2, the Sun, geological record, extreme weather events etc. A dozen or so of the world’s leading scientists (half orthodox, half sceptic).
The Chair : an Oxford Graduate, Boris Johnson!
An idea whose time has come.

January 29, 2020 12:41 pm

Congresswoman Castor and her staff are morons. They demonstrate their collective stupidity vividly by using the term “climate denial”.

Just what the F is “climate denial”?

Is her thimble brain thinking of:
Climate Change denial – natural causes?
Climate Change – anthropogenic causes?
That “climate changes”?

Furthermore, they keeping on yapping like little poodles about a “climate crisis”.
Just where is the climate crisis in the world today? Please anyone?
Is it a crisis in historically average rainfalls? Decreasing length of heatwaves? Historically average floods? Decreasing world-wide death tolls since the 19th Century from floods and storms? Is it the average amount of sea ice in the Arctic this year?
How about continuing bountiful grains and vegetables and increasing crop yields around the world leading to depressed agricultural products prices?Is that a crisis?

The Australian bushfires are not unprecedented going back over 100+ years. They are indeed severe and devastating for modern times (last 40 years) yes, but not in the entirety of the historical record, so is that “climate change?” One year of severe drought in Australia, which is now likely to be followed by several years on above average rainfall?
What has changed is the human development encroachment into fire prone areas both in Australia and California, along with modern fire suppression leading to fuels build-up.

Congresswoman Castor is not just any moron. She went Full Moron.

Quilter52
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
January 29, 2020 1:49 pm

Joel. We here in Oz have had several years of severe drought, not just one year and the fires are severe and devastating but its les than 15 years since we had a fire “Black Friday” which killed Nearly 300 people . WE have lost too many in these fires but it is less than 10 people. Sadly they have mainly been firefighters.

Politicians and our national parks people seem to be using the adjective “unprecedented“ to cover for the fact that they have not undertaken hazard reduction burns, not kept fire trails cleared and listened to greenie inner city idiot theories on bush (forest) management who would not recognise our bush if they saw it because it is too far from A coffee shop.

Even more embarrassing, the closest fire to me now was accidentally started by our military from a hot landing light on a helicopter that was doing forward planning For support operations in case of a bushfire. So far it has burned about 15000 hectares. Oops!

Our Parliament is almost entirely made up of lawyers now. Commonsense is removed from them – in the extremely unlikely event they ever demonstrated any sense – as part of their training. i fear for both our countries.

Donald Boughton
January 29, 2020 12:48 pm

Yet more evidence as if we needed any that the party of JFK and LBJ has morphed from the Democrats into the Dumbocrats. All that wasted effort trying to impeach President Trump would have been better spent choosing a group of potential presidential candidates who could win the 2020 presidential election against president Trump. But no this is too logical our UK Labour party is in much the same state as the Dumbocrats totally riven with Trump Derangement Syndrome and Climate Change Derangement Syndrome. They are both listening to a uneducated 17 year old Asperger suffering Swedish glove puppet who keeps skipping school with the connivance of the Swedish authorities and her parents.

RobH
Reply to  Donald Boughton
January 29, 2020 2:31 pm

17 year old Asperger suffering Swedish glove puppet who keeps skipping school with the connivance of the Swedish authorities and her parents

Compulsory schooling ends in Sweden at age 15, so she’s not truanting, but neither of course is she on school strike.

Donald Boughton
Reply to  RobH
January 29, 2020 5:01 pm

Strange, in the UK the end of compulsory schooling in my life time, I am 70, has been raised from 15 years to 16 years to 18 years. My late mother left school at 14 in the 1920’s. We start schooling at 5 years. Why is Sweden lagging behind? Does the Swedish government not want educated Swedes
asking awkward questions?

ozspeaksup
Reply to  RobH
January 30, 2020 5:25 am

I heard today gretas patented her name and the words climate schhol strike or somesuch
and protests planned for vic this week might be interesting as poice are planning “sting” the media says
as well as temps at around 40c with severe storms mid arvo expected
oh and transport strikes underway as well
lol

January 29, 2020 12:51 pm

Google’s “mission” is “promoting climate action”?

I thought they were a search engine.

How dumb am I? 😉

Andrew

January 29, 2020 12:56 pm

The Soviets and the Brown Shirts were very keen on this sort of idea too. Democrats have a lot in common with them. They think that the ordinary folk are all quite stupid and unable to think for themselves. They believe that the masses must be guided for their own good in making correct choices by their own bought-up experts and fellow thinkers. The internet must be shaped in their own interest to prevent the spread of the Truth which is so inimitable to their thesis.

January 29, 2020 1:00 pm

Does this ‘Climate disinformation’ include all the many failed alarmist predictions?

ResourceGuy
January 29, 2020 1:22 pm

Does this include online information about land subsidence in major cities like Miami where this Rep. is from and Jakarta, Houston, etc.?

January 29, 2020 1:37 pm

Rep. Kathy Castor is one of the many useful idiots who have been duped into believing that the planet is warming catastrophically and that humans are the primary cause by the pervasive climate misinformation disseminated by the gullible and unquestioning media for the past couple decades. The data shows no such thing is happening. We call the acolytes of climate alarmism “data deniers”.

RonPE
January 29, 2020 1:42 pm

Why stop at Climate Info regulation?

Liz W goes much further:
https://www.citizenfreepress.com/breaking/elizabeth-warren-meets-george-orwell/

retiredinky
January 29, 2020 1:53 pm

This is just one more reason why we need to assure that the Republicans assume the majority position in the House of Representatives.

MLCross
January 29, 2020 1:57 pm

“The people who wrote that letter seem to believe ordinary people are too stupid to figure things out for themselves; …”

I think they have legitimate reason to believe that. Look at how many people voted for them.

January 29, 2020 1:58 pm

It’s the predictable end result of modern western education. 12 to 16 + years of being taught what to believe, told WHAT to think, rather than HOW to think can only breed morons. Only solution is to get government totally out of schooling.

John Bell
January 29, 2020 2:04 pm

“…progress on climate action” must mean Democrats in control of the world.

Climate Heretic
January 29, 2020 2:07 pm

Well in the United States of America you have the 1st Amendment to take down these fascists. In New Zealand not so much.

Indoctrination of New Zealand school children is under way. https://stovouno.org/2020/01/27/the-nz-climate-change-curriculum-is-cult-indoctrination-and-child-abuse/

They will need to sue in courts if able to show what is really going on.

Regards
Climate Heretic

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Climate Heretic
January 30, 2020 5:51 am

“Well in the United States of America you have the 1st Amendment to take down these fascists.”

That’s right. And take them down, we will. Democrat censorship is not compatible with the American Way. When Democrats actually try to censor citizens, they will find that out. Americans value their freedoms.

Al
January 29, 2020 2:08 pm

In this regard there is also this:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/478563-soros-climate-change-youtube-censorship/
And this:

https://climatechangedispatch.com/greenpeace-co-opt-biased-bbc/

It is clear that the press was purchased.
Philanthropists are clearly funding non-governmental organizations and green cells.
They are infiltrating journalism and politics, it is now evident in all respects.
A gigantic level of unprecedented corruption involving journalism and the main American and European political bodies.

Robert Keon
January 29, 2020 2:09 pm

From the beginning it has always been pseudoscience. Science manipulated to support a political agenda.
So now the scumbag Democrats highlight that so so clearly. How could they possibly make it more obvious.
And how could they be more un”democrat”ic with this witch hunt.
People are waking up to it as they should and about time.

ResourceGuy
January 29, 2020 2:09 pm

What political Party was Sen. McCarthy from again?

Tom Abbott
Reply to  ResourceGuy
January 30, 2020 5:55 am

“What political Party was Sen. McCarthy from again?”

What’s your point? Did Senator McCarthy try to stifle free speech?

On another subject, were there communist spies embedded in the American government during Senator McCarthy’s term in office?

Sara
January 29, 2020 2:11 pm

Looks to me like that self-important bimbo wants to deprive YouTube of cash. YuTube gets a chunk of change from every add that’s run, so if all those people who have an opposing point of view are booted off the YouTuber scene, the portion that goes to YT will be gone, too.

Being a corporate entity, YT has to consider how much revenue it will lose, if it knuckles under to this demand. The bottom line is always the cash in the cash drawer, you know, so before you all go howling “1984”!!!! and “book burnings!’, remember that a huge number of people don’t buy paper print books these days and revenue lost to a specious demand can’t be recouped.

In addition. as “misinformation” is not defined in that letter, it appears that that bimp of a Congress critter is making a personal demand to close off people she just doesn’t like because they don’t agree with her. 1st Amedment says “Tough bananas, dingaling”.

Thanks for the warning, Mods, I will take that elsewhere.