I don’t normally post press releases but when I do, its because I am gravely concerned. What follows is a February 22, 2021 press release posted on Microsoft’s website. I will embolden the bits that worry me and should worry you as well. Hat Tip to Dan Bongino who rang the alarm bell on this one.
Technology and media entities join forces to create standards group aimed at building trust in online content
Adobe, Arm, BBC, Intel, Microsoft and Truepic form coalition to develop end-to-end, open standard for tracing the origin and evolution of digital content
SAN JOSE, Calif., and REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 22, 2021 — A group of influential technology and media companies has partnered to form the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), a Joint Development Foundation project established to address the prevalence of disinformation, misinformation and online content fraud through developing technical standards for certifying the source and history or provenance of media content. Founding members Adobe, Arm, BBC, Intel, Microsoft and Truepic seek to establish a standardized provenance solution with the goal of combating misleading content.
C2PA member organizations will work together to develop content provenance specifications for common asset types and formats to enable publishers, creators and consumers to trace the origin and evolution of a piece of media, including images, videos, audio and documents. These technical specifications will include defining what information is associated with each type of asset, how that information is presented and stored, and how evidence of tampering can be identified.
The C2PA’s open standard will give platforms a method to preserve and read provenance-based digital content. Because an open standard can be adopted by any online platform, it is critical to scaling trust across the internet. In addition to the inclusion of varied media types at scale, C2PA is driving an end-to-end provenance experience from the capturing device to the information consumer. Collaboration with chipmakers, news organizations, and software and platform companies is critical to facilitate a comprehensive provenance standard and drive broad adoption across the content ecosystem.
The formation of the C2PA brings together founding members of the Adobe-led Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) and the Microsoft- and BBC-led Project Origin, unifying technical specifications under a single entity. The CAI is building a system to provide provenance and history for digital media, giving creators a tool to claim authorship and empowering consumers to evaluate whether what they are seeing is trustworthy. Project Origin has its roots in the production and distribution of news. The effort has focused on tackling disinformation in the digital news ecosystem by attaching signals to a piece of content to demonstrate its integrity and making this information available to those using it. With the foundation of the C2PA, technical standards will be unified while these two entities continue to pursue adoption, prototyping and education within their respective communities.
Today’s C2PA announcement builds on several recent advances in content provenance, including Project Origin’s efforts to develop a pipeline for signaling, certification and tracking the history of news content; the CAI’s first-ever end-to-end demonstration of provenance for captured media online; and Truepic’s development of the first native integration of hardware-secured photo capture smartphone technology.
Designing standards and technologies that can certify the source and provenance of online content is an important step forward in addressing rising concerns with the manipulation and manufacture of news and information. Companies interested in joining the C2PA can apply through [email protected].
### END PRESS RELEASE ###
So, what’s so scary about that?
Allum Bokhari did a GREAT analysis of what C2PA stands for over at BreitBart. Here is rather long quote but, please do read the original article here.
Put simply, the purpose of this organization is to devise a system whereby all content on the internet can be traced back to its author. The press release states that it will develop these specifications for “common asset types and formats,” meaning videos, documents, audio, and images. Whether it’s a meme, an audio remix, or a written article, the goal is to ensure that when content reaches the internet, it will come attached with a set of signals allowing its provenance — meaning authorship — can be detected.
Consider the companies that have signed on to this initiative. Leading the pack is Microsoft, which operates Word, Paint, Notepad, Edge, and the Office Suite. If you create a .doc or a .jpg, a Microsoft service is probably involved in some capacity. Then there’s Adobe, the company behind Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, and Premiere Pro, as well as several other market-leading applications for publishing photos, videos, and documents. There’s also Truepic, a company that has developed technology to track the provenance of photos from the very moment they are captured on a smartphone.
Finally, there’s Intel, which dominates the market in laptop and desktop central processing units (CPUs). The CPU is responsible for processing virtually all information on computers. Whether you’re typing a sentence or taking a screenshot, it’s the CPU that is processing that data. Accessing the CPU is the ultimate form of digital surveillance. Even if you’re disconnected from the internet, the CPU still sees what your computer is doing.
The combination of these forces creates the potential to track and de-anonymize information from the moment it is created on a computer. Signals could be attached to information to ensure it is censored and suppressed wherever it travels online. Even if someone else is sharing the information, it could be suppressed simply because of its point of origin. And, of course, the signals could be used to identify the creators of dissident content.
Okay, let me give you a few scenarios on what I think could happen:
- CNN posts a story on President Biden that is highly favorable. You happen to know what CNN reported was not entirely true. You make a funny video debunking the story and share it with a few friends who share it with more friends and it goes viral. Someone in President Biden’s cabinet discovers it, gets offended and traces the origin of the video to you. As a result, you are punished in some way. Maybe placed on a no-fly list. Maybe worse.
- Newsmax posts a story on President Biden that is factual but does not present him in a favorable light. Along with the news story is a photo that gets shared and posted online. Or at least, it was intended to be. The C2PA technology designates it as “hate speech” and whenever you try to post that image, it simply does not work on your website or could be seen in your browser.
- FOX News shares a podcast on its website that is downloaded by several thousand listeners before its declared misinformation by the C2PA. As such, when people try to play that podcast on their home computer it does not work. Maybe in its place is a calm message that says, “This info has been designated misinformation. Please consider getting your news from C2PA approved sources.”
- One America News Network produces a series on Trump’s 2024 election campaign and concludes that his polling numbers are at record highs. For whatever reason, the C2PA calls it fake news and with their technology, deletes it off all computers that have that specific information and any other data related to it.
- Trump supporters are labeled “domestic terrorists” by the national security services and anything connected to their activities is monitored; meaning anything digital (video, audio, photos, documents) can be tracked, traced to the original author or deleted outright. (Presumably without warning or permission because its being done to safeguard Americans from misleading information.) And since they can trace the IP addresses of CPUs, who’s to say that said “domestic terrorists” would not get a friendly visit from federal agents?
In other words, this is a BIG deal. A very big deal. So, what should you do about it? I have a few ideas.
- Look for alternative software that competes with the big tech giants. For example, there are 78 alternatives to Microsoft Word, 215 alternatives to Adobe Photoshop and 195 alternatives to Google Chrome. You can find them all on this website – AlternativeTo.
- I would also call into radio talk shows and make your favorite talk radio and/or podcast personality know about this. Share with them this blog post and/or others that might be discussing it and ask them their thoughts on the matter.
- Finally, reach out to politicians and ask them if they feel its right for a few tech companies to have so much power. Ask them multiple times and continuously, all the way to the 2022 US House of Representatives and (if need be) the 2024 Presidential Election and every other election in between.
Take action now!
It is far better to stop a tech tyranny nightmare before it starts than to challenge an entrenched monster later.
…
Wow! That was a long rant. I hope it makes a difference. Your actions will tell the tale. In the interim, here is more interesting reading in case I didn’t give you enough.
- Democrats Ask Cable, Tech Giants About “Disinformation” On Conservative TV Channels
- McMorris Rodgers: Effort to block disinformation really tries to silence conservatives
- A Study Touted As A Blow To Conservatives’ Complaints About Big Tech Censorship Was Funded By A Major Biden Donor
- New York Times columnist blasted for claiming accurate stories are ‘right-wing misinformation’
‘The Purge’ by Big Tech targets conservatives, including us
Just when we thought the Covid-19 lockdowns were ending and our ability to stay afloat was improving, censorship reared its ugly head.
For the last few months, NOQ Report has appealed to our readers for assistance in staying afloat through Covid-19 lockdowns. The downturn in the economy has limited our ability to generate proper ad revenue just as our traffic was skyrocketing. We had our first sustained stretch of three months with over a million visitors in November, December, and January, but February saw a dip.
It wasn’t just the shortened month. We expected that. We also expected the continuation of dropping traffic from “woke” Big Tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, but it has actually been much worse than anticipated. Our Twitter account was banned. One of our YouTube accounts was banned and another has been suspended. Facebook “fact-checks” everything we post. Spotify canceled us. Why? Because we believe in the truth prevailing, and that means we will continue to discuss “taboo” topics.
The 2020 presidential election was stolen. You can’t say that on Big Tech platforms without risking cancelation, but we’d rather get cancelled for telling the truth rather than staying around to repeat mainstream media’s lies. They have been covering it up since before the election and they’ve convinced the vast majority of conservative news outlets that they will be harmed if they continue to discuss voter fraud. We refuse to back down. The truth is the truth.
The lies associated with Covid-19 are only slightly more prevalent than the suppression of valid scientific information that runs counter to the prescribed narrative. We should be allowed to ask questions about the vaccines, for example, as there is ample evidence for concern. One does not have to be an “anti-vaxxer” in order to want answers about vaccines that are still considered experimental and that have a track record in a short period of time of having side-effects. These questions are not allowed on Big Tech which is just another reason we are getting cancelled.
There are more topics that they refuse to allow. In turn, we refuse to stop discussing them. This is why we desperately need your help. The best way NOQ Report readers can help is to donate. Our Giving Fuel page makes it easy to donate one-time or monthly. Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal as well. We are on track to be short by about $5300 per month in order to maintain operations.
The second way to help is to become a partner. We’ve strongly considered seeking angel investors in the past but because we were paying the bills, it didn’t seem necessary. Now, we’re struggling to pay the bills. We had 5,657,724 sessions on our website from November, 2020, through February, 2021. Our intention is to elevate that to higher levels this year by focusing on a strategy that relies on free speech rather than being beholden to progressive Big Tech companies.
During that four-month stretch, Twitter and Facebook accounted for about 20% of our traffic. We are actively working on operating as if that traffic is zero, replacing it with platforms that operate more freely such as Gab, Parler, and others. While we were never as dependent on Big Tech as most conservative sites, we’d like to be completely free from them. That doesn’t mean we will block them, but we refuse to be beholden to companies that absolutely despise us simply because of our political ideology.
We’re heading in the right direction and we believe we’re ready talk to patriotic investors who want to not only “get in on the action” but more importantly who want to help America hear the truth. Interested investors should contact me directly with the contact button above.
As the world spirals towards radical progressivism, the need for truthful journalism has never been greater. But in these times, we need as many conservative media voices as possible. Please help keep NOQ Report going.
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