{"id":604683,"date":"2026-05-20T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=604683"},"modified":"2026-05-20T10:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T10:30:00","slug":"uk-covid-inquirys-endorsement-of-censorship-sets-chilling-precedent-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=604683","title":{"rendered":"UK COVID Inquiry’s Endorsement Of Censorship Sets Chilling Precedent"},"content":{"rendered":"

UK COVID Inquiry’s Endorsement Of Censorship Sets Chilling Precedent<\/span><\/p>\n

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Authored by Molly Kingsley via DailySceptic.org,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

According to the UK\u2019s Covid Inquiry, whose fourth report was published in April, there was \u201cin principle, nothing unlawful or inappropriate in the government monitoring publicly available social media to identify potential trends in disinformation or misinformation\u201d during the pandemic period.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The same report, in declining to criticise the censorious activities of the UK Government during the pandemic, noted that the UK government\u2019s Counter Disinformation Unit was required to ensure that its actions were \u201clawful, necessary and proportionate\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On a careful reading of this language, the inquiry stops (just) short of expressly endorsing the full scope and extent of the government\u2019s censorship operation.\u00a0 However, the relevant sections of the inquiry\u2019s report create the distinct, and we can assume deliberate, impression that the CDU\u2019s censorship operation was conducted in accordance with constitutional and democratic principles, and was not only justified but was necessary and proportionate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As someone who was on the receiving end of that censorship operation, with the receipts to evidence the very broad scope of commentary that was judged by the CDU to be wrongful or dangerous, this came as a serious disappointment, albeit not a great surprise.<\/p>\n

Some would argue that in a national emergency scenario, some degree of information monitoring and intervention might be justified<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The trouble with that argument is that one very quickly then has to grapple with the fact that \u2013 as we saw during the pandemic period \u2013 it\u2019s precisely in moments of national crisis \u2013 moments where critical decisions must be made in complex situations \u2013 that contrasting views are most valuable and essential.<\/p>\n

As Jay Bhattacharya, Acting Director of the US Centres for Disease Control, has put it: \u201cDissent is the very essence of science.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In my own case, the offending posts and articles caught by the CDU were typically either opinion pieces or comments quoted in mainstream news articles. They included such outlandish and outrageous statements as, \u201cIt would be unforgivable to close schools\u201d, \u201cLet children use playgrounds\u201d and \u201cIt is indefensible that children\u2019s lives are still not back to normal when the rest of society is\u201d. Clearly, many would now agree with these viewpoints. However, even if some, or indeed many might not have agreed with those points of view at the time, the fact that they were valid, lawfully-expressed opinions cannot be disputed.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the CDU\u2019s hypersensitivity would not have mattered so much if, as according to the Covid Inquiry\u2019s account, all that was happening during that period was \u201cmonitoring\u201d of public sentiment by the government. <\/strong>The inquiry\u2019s report notes that the CDU had \u2018trusted flagger\u2019 status with all of the major social media platforms, the effect of which was that CDU flags received special attention; but the same report is at pains to record that decisions about removing or suppressing content \u201cremained exclusively a decision for each social media platform\u201d.<\/p>\n

Yet a subsequent investigation by the\u00a0Telegraph<\/em>\u00a0revealed that 90% of the posts referred to social media companies by the CDU were taken down<\/strong>. Indeed, evidence given to the inquiry by the former head of the CDU confirmed that when information was flagged by the CDU it \u201cimmediately goes to the top of the pile. Whoever it is in whatever company then acts on it. It is the same system they have across government for things like terrorist content.\u201d<\/p>\n

What makes this even worse is that the remit of the CDU went beyond anything that could reasonably be termed mis- or disinformation. In particular, we know in relation to Covid vaccine-related commentary \u2013 because a CDU official\u00a0told a Parliamentary Select Committee in December 2020<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 that each of the following categories of content was considered for flagging and removal as \u2018anti-vaccine misinformation\u2019:<\/p>\n