The Highwire with Del Bigtree - MAJOR TECH COMPANIES SET EYES ON DIGITAL ID

Episode Date: October 5, 2024

Curtailing free speech by labeling any dissenting views ‘misinformation’ or ‘hate speech’ has been a major game play for governmental and media organizations recently, but now big tech is using algorithms and personal devices through digital IDs for what can be seen as social media censorship. While tech billionaires are calling for vast AI surveillance on citizens, small wins are happening globally to protect free speech.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

Let's talk about what just happened over this past weekend in New York City. This was the summit of the future, this United Nations. We reported on that last week. And what came out of that was what was called the Global Digital Compact. So this was not a legally binding agreement, but this is kind of a framework and member states and countries can sign on to this and say, hey, this looks like a pretty good idea. So let's go into this. It's kind of long, but there's a whole section on information integrity. And it says this, we recognize that digital and emerging technologies can facilitate the manipulative, and interference with information in ways that are harmful to societies and individuals

and negatively affect the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms as well as the attainment of the sustainable development goals. So what are they saying there is basically saying, look, we need to curtail your speech because some people may find that it's harmful. It may come between the enjoyment of their human rights. And oh, by the way, these sustainable development goals we're trying to change society, it may stop those. So what they're basically saying right there is you have to toll the line of what we call climate change, of what we call misinformation, of what we call a pandemic and on and on, because those are all in those sustainable development goals. And if you don't do that, we recognize that that is misinformation and that needs to be

curtailed. But it goes on to say this. We will strengthen international cooperation to address the challenge of misinformation and disinformation and hate speech. Here we go online and mitigate the risk of information manipulation. So they're telling you front facing the UN is now this. This This is equally as important as this climate change scare. It's going to end the world we've been telling you about. And so you're seeing a lot of big governmental organizations, global organizations. They're all focusing on this digital online conversation and how to whittle that down to words that they like and conversations they like. But there are some bright spots.

In Ireland, they had a hate speech law. This law, remember, was subjective. If someone felt they were being hated on for lack of a better term, There was literally prison terms, there was fines, totally subjective. This, according to Reuters, Ireland drops plan for hate speech law minister says. Fantastic. We have been showing videos of this insanity out there and people, you know, getting the doors knocked on by police. So this is a great step forward.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting because throughout the voting process, it was getting unanimous decision. Like almost everybody was voting for it to push it through their parliament. It was only a handful of activists and politicians and journalists that kept this this drumbeat alive to say, this is not right. So the fact that this minister is saying this will be dropped, this is very good, and that they're following through with this is also good. But now we're seeing something different. We're seeing at the device level censorship starting to be kind of baked into the cake. So the latest is Google Chrome.

So what is that? That's a browsing kind of dashboard that a lot of people probably are watching this show, right now through a Google Chrome browser. It's the most used browser in the world. And this is the article here. Google meets digital ideas. Chrome pushes controversial tech. What are they talking about?

Well, we go right to Google Chrome's actual website, and they're talking to the developers here, talking about the application program interface API. And these are digital credentials. And they say this, real world digital identity is becoming a reality with many public and private entities starting to issue device-bound digital credentials. Remember that.

For example, mobile drivers licenses and IDs in select U.S. states such as Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, and Maryland can now be provisioned to digital wallet apps such as Google wallet on mobile devices. Regulations concerning the acceptance of digital credentials for certain online verifications are also emerging. And so there's a video. We can show you what that may look like now because this is starting to get onboarded onto Google Chrome. So you see here, you go in there asking for these credentials. you want to share those and then authorizing with your thumbprint, basically, right there. So you have biometrics. I was just going to say, when you look at this, like, I mean, I just think of these technologies now merging.

If you can go to Whole Foods and they have the ability for me to scan my palm, my palm is then, you know, is connected to my banking or my credit card. Then I'm asking you this, Jeffrey, how long before you get pulled over by a police officer, then they say, hold your hand out, please. And all they do is scan your hand. your driver's license, right? It's attached to your palm. You know this biometrics. All this is where these companies, they already have the technology. I mean, I don't know. Is that a bad thing? It's a bad thing that, you know, you know who I am, wherever I go. People are like, what are you running from Dell? Well, nothing yet, except maybe a stupid vaccine law that's trying to force

simply inject me with something I know is dangerous. I mean, just some things like that. Right. And it's not that we have something to hide. It's the people pushing this technology have shown time and time again not to be trustworthy, to be the last people to trust with this type of technology. And California is where a lot of this is really starting. We're seeing it. This was one of the laws that was passed there. Digital IDs are coming to social media in California's crackdown. Governor Newsom just signed into law a bill that it was going to, it starts in 2027, just to note that. But it's to save kids from social media platforms. So the harms that are being caused, mental health and so on, social media platforms. And one of the ways they're going to do that, among others, is to have

digital ID verification before you sign on to any type of social media. There's also a federal bill at that level called the Kids Online Safety Act, and that's parked in Congress right now, but very similar language in there. And so with California, you're seeing the digital space, you're seeing the internet and that cyberspace, if you will, swallowing reality, swallowing the nuts and bolts of what make reality. So what am I mean by that? Well, California is rolling out a pilot program. It already has for a digital driver's license.

So it may not sound too crazy, but that means you'll no longer have a paper driver's license or a plastic card in your wallet. This is all going to be on your phone. And what's interesting about this is just recently, you had Apple sign on to this and say, hey, this looks like a good idea. We're going to throw a full weight behind this.

You can put this in Apple wallet. So this California driver's license and state IDs are now now uploadable into the Apple Wallet. And that's where they'll live. So now you don't have to pull out your driver's license anymore. In fact, you don't even have to know you're being IDed. You could be walking and they could be scanning those things. And what would that look like? Are people really talking about doing this?

Well, let's look at billionaire Larry Ellison. Yeah. Larry Ellison, the creator, founder of Oracle. This is the headline coming out. billionaire Larry Ellison says a vast AI fuel surveillance system can ensure citizens will be on their best behavior. What was he talking about? He said Ellison made the comments as he spoke to investors early this week during an Oracle financial analyst meeting, you know, kind of a big deal, where he shared his thoughts on the future of AI-powered surveillance tools. Ellison said AI would be used in

the future to constantly watch analyze vast surveillance systems like security cameras, police body cameras, doorbell cameras, and vehicle dashboard cameras. He said, we're going to have, we're going to have supervision ellison said every police officer is going to be supervised at all times and if there's a problem i will report that problem or report it to the appropriate person citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on no no problem with that uh what could possibly go wrong wow yeah governments will never abuse this and you know a lot people are out there are saying well we have we still have platforms we can communicate freely on we have x we have telegram well remember just uh

a couple weeks ago, X removed its entire service from Brazil because of court orders that were asking them to remove, basically remove accounts. They were asking them to remove these far right accounts, and they fired their representative, their legal representative in Brazil. Well, apparently, Elon Musk has now backed down on that piece to regain access to the Brazilian market, which is, you know, estimated about 40 million people there are using that service. So Elon Musk, X, breaks down in Brazil. So that's interesting there. But also now, remember Telegram that just a couple weeks ago, France arrested the CEO of Telegram, Pavl Duroff, and it almost kind of ambushed him when he got off his plane. And then basically leveled a series of charges at him for not what he did,

but what people did on his platform. So this is a whole separate legal theory now that's being tried out on these platform CEOs. all of a sudden he's been released and this is what the headlines are looking like. Telegram CEO Duroff says app to provide more data to governments. So they're going to apply now. And this is a big deal because this app's been around for over a decade. And unlike Twitter and X and Facebook, the telegram app actually the entire backbone was on secure messaging, encryption, end-to-end encryption.

So for that to happen now, for that to be open to governments with legal requests, that's a really big deal. And none of us can say what we would do. in those situations they're literally threatening prison time for these people if they step foot in certain countries and so but what we should take away from this is the links that government is going to try to get at your speech control your speech sent to your speech this is where we're at right now and these these governments are rabid trying to trying to control the online conversation and debate so this is why we really need to listen to the trusted voices listen to them directly

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