{"id":5701,"date":"2023-11-24T09:15:44","date_gmt":"2023-11-24T16:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=5701"},"modified":"2023-11-24T09:22:21","modified_gmt":"2023-11-24T16:22:21","slug":"microsofts-democracy-forward-initiative-aims-to-manipulate-our-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2023\/11\/24\/microsofts-democracy-forward-initiative-aims-to-manipulate-our-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft&#8217;s &#8216;Democracy Forward&#8217; Initiative Aims to Manipulate Our Society"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Igor has a nice write up on things Microsoft is up to as one of the OCGFC&#8217;s megacorps, and they are part of many of the WEF and Rockefeller efforts in bringing about a &#8220;sustainable&#8221; global world government. But of interest is their push into electronic elections which is just a bad idea, but it could be an interesting angle to get people to accept their digital ID, social credit, vaccine passport, CBDC wallet&#8230; system they&#8217;re desperate to implement, as Microsoft was involved in <a href=\"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2022\/04\/26\/should-conservatives-cheer-elon-musk-taking-over-twitter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ID2020<\/a> that has yet to be implemented and behind schedule. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.igor-chudov.com\/p\/microsofts-democracy-forward-initiative?publication_id=441185&amp;post_id=139120128&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;r=1rignw&amp;utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email\">https:\/\/www.igor-chudov.com\/p\/microsofts-democracy-forward-initiative?publication_id=441185&amp;post_id=139120128&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;r=1rignw&amp;utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-ub-divider ub_divider ub-divider-orientation-horizontal\" id=\"ub_divider_05cc3a17-515f-4d2b-8524-ed968aab7e6d\"><div class=\"ub_divider_wrapper\" style=\"position: relative; margin-bottom: 2px; width: 100%; height: 2px; \" data-divider-alignment=\"center\"><div class=\"ub_divider_line\" style=\"border-top: 2px solid #ccc; margin-top: 2px; \"><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Plans to To &#8216;Shape Information Ecosystem&#8217;, &#8216;Integrate Into Election Software&#8217;, &#8216;Provide Election Security&#8217;, and much more<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>By Igor Chudov<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Microsoft, founded in 1975 by Bill Gates, is a software firm that developed and owns monopoly rights to the famous Windows operating system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My readers might be surprised to learn that <strong>Microsoft\u2019s interests go far beyond the computer software market and involve inserting itself into every aspect of many civil societies\u2019 decision-making<\/strong>. Its plans affect the most essential parts of our collective, democratic decision-making in ways that raise multiple questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Take a look at its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/corporate-responsibility\/democracy-forward?activetab=pivot1:primaryr6\">\u201cDemocracy Forward\u201d initiative<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa8cc8e04-83c1-45d4-8d6c-afe349a39f06_1393x716.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa8cc8e04-83c1-45d4-8d6c-afe349a39f06_1393x716.jpeg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/corporate-responsibility\/democracy-forward?activetab=pivot1:primaryr5\">https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/corporate-responsibility\/democracy-forward?activetab=pivot1:primaryr5<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Microsoft is actively doing the following (direct quotes below):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Deeply <em>involves itself with elections<\/em> in various countries, emphasizing what it calls \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.microsoft.com\/on-the-issues\/2023\/11\/07\/microsoft-elections-2024-ai-voting-mtac\/\">election integrity<\/a>\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Provides software called <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.microsoft.com\/on-the-issues\/2023\/07\/28\/council-of-state-governments-election-technology-initiative-electionguard\/\">ElectionGuard<\/a> to be <em>integrated with all election software systems<\/em> to be used along with <em>vote counting.<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Preserves and supports journalism<\/em> (that aligns with Microsoft\u2019s goals) and helps with <em>pre-publication review (!).<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Helps local publications create business models for <em>sustainable journalism,<\/em> thus sponsoring journalism.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Partners with <em>NewsGuard<\/em>, a \u201ctrust\u201d service ranking news sources based on highly biased fact-checks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>All of the above efforts are highly partisan and quite peculiar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Microsoft aims to <em>control discourse<\/em> and <em>elections<\/em> in many ways, allowing it to steer our decision-making process to benefit Microsoft or its leadership. Let\u2019s consider their activities a bit more closely:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Journalism<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Microsoft aims to \u201csupport trustworthy news sources,\u201d leaving the selection of outfits to be supported mainly to itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Working directly in five communities across the country, Microsoft, in partnership with community foundations and other organizations, is providing new tools, technology, and capacity to explore hybrid business models for <em>sustainable journalism<\/em> to journalists and newsrooms.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>I am sure that newsrooms and journalists, generously supported by Microsoft, will gladly provide Microsoft-friendly <em>sustainable journalism<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Microsoft also wants to vet <em>content provenance <\/em>to <em>filter the content<\/em> journalists would report. As it proudly <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.microsoft.com\/on-the-issues\/2020\/09\/01\/disinformation-deepfakes-newsguard-video-authenticator\/\">explains further<\/a>, it works on filtering all content, using AI to decide what is or is not trustworthy and, therefore, should not be reported on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Some 93% of these campaigns included the creation of original content, 86% amplified pre-existing content and <strong>74% distorted objectively verifiable facts<\/strong>. Recent reports also show that <strong>disinformation has been distributed about the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/07\/28\/us\/politics\/russia-disinformation-coronavirus.html\">COVID-19 pandemic<\/a><\/strong>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-53755067\">leading to<\/a> deaths and hospitalizations of people seeking supposed cures that are actually dangerous.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Our readers are very familiar with <em>Covid-19 fact-checking<\/em> and news-vetting, which never allowed even a bit of criticism of Covid vaccines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Elections<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Microsoft is intent on embedding itself into the election process.<\/strong> Many webpages linked by the \u201cDemocracy Forward\u201d initiative describe multi-pronged efforts to \u201chelp manage elections\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First of all, Microsoft wants to be in the vote-counting and vote-ascertainment business:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.microsoft.com\/on-the-issues\/2023\/07\/28\/council-of-state-governments-election-technology-initiative-electionguard\/\">ElectionGuard<\/a> is a free open-source software developer toolkit (SDK) that, when integrated into a voting system, provides voters and the public with reassurance that votes were counted accurately.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Microsoft hopes that ElectionGuard will be part of every electronic voting system. It wants to <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/microsoft-hart-electionguard-vote-tracking-software-partnership\/\">track votes<\/a><\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/microsoft-hart-electionguard-vote-tracking-software-partnership\/\">:<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6926bcfd-73cc-4a4b-87d1-477702ad4a67_1639x520.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6926bcfd-73cc-4a4b-87d1-477702ad4a67_1639x520.jpeg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Microsoft\u2019s plans for election involvement are massive. It also wants to manage cyber security of every election:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F667da503-d7bc-4453-9bb7-abb53e5f00f7_838x257.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F667da503-d7bc-4453-9bb7-abb53e5f00f7_838x257.jpeg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Today, we are announcing several steps our Defending Democracy program is taking to help our democratic processes become more resilient in light of all these threats. First, starting today, we\u2019re expanding our Defending Democracy Program to include a new service, <strong>Election Security Advisors, which will give political campaigns and election officials hands-on help securing their systems<\/strong> and recovering from cyberattacks.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Microsoft also wants to host election officials, giving it unprecedented access to the daily activities of elections offices:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Second, we are expanding our AccountGuard threat notification service to <strong>cover the offices of U.S. election officials<\/strong> <strong>and the U.S. Congress<\/strong> as many are working remotely.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Microsoft also wants to host all campaigns, like the Kennedy for President campaign. (I hope RFK sees through this and hosts elsewhere)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Third, <strong>we are extending Microsoft 365 for Campaigns to state-level campaigns and parties<\/strong>. And, finally, we are publishing our public policy recommendations for securing elections, including ways to secure them while confronting the COVID-19 public health crisis.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>It is very nice how Microsoft wants to manage both <em>cyber security<\/em> as well as <em>vote counting<\/em>. Is that a safe idea, though? Shouldn\u2019t these functions be separated?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">NewsGuard<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Microsoft sponsors and supports NewsGuard:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0694d3a4-a948-4d1e-9c97-1f797479cadb_422x578.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0694d3a4-a948-4d1e-9c97-1f797479cadb_422x578.jpeg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsguardtech.com\/\">NewsGuard<\/a>, an expansive initiative to vet news sources and dismiss \u201cuntrustworthy\u201d news media, claims to be non-partisan but, in reality, is anything but. As <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsguardtech.com\/\">this article explains<\/a>, it bases its decisions on fact-checks by <em>highly partisan fact-checkers<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F87bb2c98-8ec3-4aa9-8540-dc3b2ce7577b_1078x1343.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F87bb2c98-8ec3-4aa9-8540-dc3b2ce7577b_1078x1343.jpeg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>NewsGuard, not surprisingly, has always been deferential to all interests of Microsoft\u2019s founder, Bill Gates, such as <em>climate change<\/em>, <em>vaccines<\/em>, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">This is Dangerous!<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>We have a commercial, public company (Microsoft) that is in the business of selling software and business cloud services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For some reason, that firm is showing <em>strange interest<\/em> in inserting itself into the <em>most intimate parts of the democratic process.<\/em> It seeks to subvert decision-making procedures that our democracies rely on, such as the <em>selection of news outlets<\/em> to be trusted, <em>vetting of news stories<\/em>, and <em>sponsorships of journalists<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Microsoft wants to both <em>manage election security<\/em> as well as be <em>involved in vote counting<\/em>. This creates unique risks and concerns that we need to understand better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>I do not believe that in a good democratic system, we can allow one big company to be so deeply embedded in the fabric of our social process, essentially allowing it to control our news sources, our thinking, security of elections, and vote counting.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One company controlling the societal discourse, voting security, and having involvement in vote counting could happen in a <em>banana republic<\/em> but would be inappropriate for a mature democratic society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Are you concerned about the efforts of Bill Gates and Microsoft? Are my worries unjustified? Is there a major power grab going on? Are we a banana republic, and do we deserve this, or do we deserve better?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Igor has a nice write up on things Microsoft is up to as one of the OCGFC&#8217;s megacorps, and they are part of many of the WEF and Rockefeller efforts in bringing about a &#8220;sustainable&#8221; global world government. But of interest is their push into electronic elections which is just a bad idea, but it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5701"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5704,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5701\/revisions\/5704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}