[Peace-discuss] Pandora Papers, Frances Haugen are suspicious establishment put-ups

[J.B. Nicholson]

I wrote:
> Haugen is not a whistleblower. You can tell by what she's saying (she wants 
> censorship of things she disagrees with; everyone on both sides of that panel 
> agree that censorship is fine but they might differ on precisely what to censor) 
> and you can tell by how she's treated (Julian Assange, Daniel Hale, and John 
> Kiriakou were imprisoned for telling us the truth but Haugen was given the red 
> carpet treatment).

Also see the just-released Glenn Greenwald essay on Pierre Omidyar, Haugen's funder 
-- https://greenwald.substack.com/p/pierre-omidyars-financing-of-the -- and this is 
particularly interesting coming from Greenwald who co-founded another Omidyar media 
venture called The Intercept which is now a government narrative repeater which 
Greenwald disavows thoroughly (even as TI fraudulently uses Greenwald's image to do 
fundraising; yes, a billionaire is asking the public to help foot the bill). 
Greenwald's linked essay begins:

> It is completely unsurprising to learn, as Politico reported[1] last Wednesday, 
> that the major financial supporter[2] of Facebook "whistleblower" Frances 
> Haugen's sprawling P.R. and legal network coordinating her public campaign is the 
> billionaire founder of EBay, Pierre Omidyar. The Haugen Show continues today as a 
> consortium of carefully cultivated news outlets (including those who have been 
> most devoted to agitating for online censorship[3]: the New York Times'
> "tech" unit and NBC News's "disinformation" team) began publishing the trove
> of archives[4] she took from Facebook under the self-important title "The
> Facebook Papers," while the star herself has traveled to London to testify today
> to British lawmakers[5] considering a bill to criminally punish[6] tech companies
> that allow "foul content" or "extremism" — whatever that means — to be
> published.

[1] 
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/20/tech-billionaire-aiding-facebook-whistleblower-516358
[2] 
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/20/tech-billionaire-aiding-facebook-whistleblower-516358
[3] https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-journalistic-tattletale-and-censorship
[4] https://apnews.com/hub/the-facebook-papers
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/25/business/frances-haugen-facebook.html
[6] 
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-social-media-facebook-google-tough-sentences-b961532.html

Greenwald's essay is well worth reading in its entirety. He goes into great detail 
explaining that Omidyar's TI funding wouldn't stop despite hiring journalists that 
disagree vehemently with Omidyar's own views. But:

> When it comes to billionaire funders of political and journalistic projects, 
> Omidyar — despite the long list of political views and activities of his that I 
> regard as misguided or even toxic — is, for the reasons I just outlined, as good 
> as it gets. And yet despite all that, it is simply unavoidable — inevitable —
> that the ideology, views and political agenda of a billionaire funder will end up 
> contaminating and dominating any project for which they are the exclusive or 
> primary funder. Omidyar is not some apolitical or neutral guardian of good 
> internet governance; he is a highly politicized and ideological actor with very 
> strong views on society's most debated questions.
> 
> And that is why it is so dangerous that the campaign to control and police the 
> internet — to launch pressure campaigns to further centralize the control over 
> what can and cannot be said online, and to further restrict the range of views 
> that is deemed permissible — is being funded almost entirely by a small handful
> of multi-billionaires like Omidyar. No matter how benevolent and well-intentioned 
> they may be, the power and control they will inevitably wield, even if they try 
> not to, will be limitless.
> 
> And when it comes to a free internet, few things are more dangerous than allowing 
> a tiny number of like-minded billionaires to use their vast wealth to control the 
> contours of permissible speech. Yet that is exactly what has been happening. And 
> the obviously orchestrated, well-planned and well-financed campaign centered 
> around this new high-tech Joan of Arc, ready to be martyred to save us all from
> an unsafe internet, is merely the latest example.