News Round-Up: Children's Trans Surgeries Booming, X Reinstated In Brazil and Hillary Clinton Wants Censorship For Total Control

Every week, the editorial team of Freedom Research compiles a round-up of news that caught our eye, or what felt like under-reported aspects of news deserving more attention.

Over the past week, the following topics attracted our attention:

• Children's trans surgeries booming in the US.

• Hillary Clinton does not want to lose 'total control', urges social media censorship.

• X reinstated in Brazil.

• Covid lockdowns damaged children’s eyesight.

• Sweden: many residents of Stockholm feel unsafe at home.

Children's trans surgeries booming in the US

At least 5,747 children underwent gender transition surgeries in the US from 2019 to 2023, according to insurance data obtained by the medical watchdog group Do No Harm, reports UnHerd. The data relies on insurance claims and therefore excludes surgeries paid for out-of-pocket and those performed at institutions that don’t report claims, meaning it significantly underestimates the prevalence of these surgeries. Nonetheless, it reveals an enormous industry and undermines activists' claims that such surgeries for minors are exceedingly rare.

Covered surgeries include mastectomies, breast construction, facial surgeries, and genital surgeries. Only two states, Alaska and Wyoming, had zero insurance claims filed for paediatric gender surgeries from 2019 to 2023, and even these states had patients receiving puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones under the age of 18, as did every other US state.

At least 5,747 children underwent gender transition surgeries in the US from 2019 to 2023. Photo: AI-generated image of a ‘surgery’.

Some states served as hot spots, including California, which had at least 1,359 surgeries. Meanwhile, New York had 616; and Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Massachusetts all had more than 300 paediatric gender surgeries during the five year period. Several red states served as the location for surprisingly high numbers of surgeries, such as Texas where there were more than 200, and Florida where there were more than 100.

Hillary Clinton urges for censorship, does not want to lose 'total control'

Hillary Clinton, the former US Secretary of State and still influential Democratic Party politician who lost the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump, expects the government to take steps to effectively moderate content on social media.

"If they (social media platforms - HS) don’t moderate and monitor the content, we lose total control," Hillary Clinton said a week ago via CNN. In other words, Clinton is calling for strong state intervention in social media and the curbing of free speech. According to Clinton, the US should amend the Communications Act and make platforms responsible for the content posted on their service. Under the current wording of the law, platforms are not liable for third-party content. Clinton cited the example of some Democrat-led states, such as New York and California, which are already doing so, but says the issue needs to be addressed by the US Congress. “Sadly, our Congress has been dysfunctional when it comes to addressing these threats to our children,” she added.

While Clinton is talking about protecting children, it should constantly be pointed out that, in recent years, government interference in social media has been far apart from that goal. Rather, the aim has been to shape and control public opinion by calling the posts not to the liking of the powers that be 'misinformation' or 'disinformation'. And what governments have referred to as such is not information that is genuinely false, but often facts that, for whatever reason, the authorities consider inappropriate and feel they should be deleted. Under pressure from governments, social media platforms were particularly keen to obstruct the dissemination of information and the exercise of freedom of expression during the Covid crisis, e.g. in relation to criticism of coercive state measures. Nor could factual information questioning the safety and efficacy of Covid vaccines be posted. Politically motivated censorship has also been an issue – for example, an article based on material found on the computer of Hunter Biden, son of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden, which cast a corrupt shadow on the Biden family, was blocked before the 2020 US election. We have repeatedly covered this large-scale censorship under the guise of fighting 'misinformation' or 'disinformation' – see for example here, here, here, or here.

Former presidential candidate, Secretary of State, and former President Bill Clinton's first lady Hillary is by no means the only top politician to publicly call for social media control, or censorship, in recent weeks and months. Last week, we wrote about how another former Secretary of State, and former US Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry, would like to amend the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which protects freedom of expression, to fight more effectively against information that he says to be 'misinformation'. “It is part of our problem, particularly in democracies, in terms of building consensus around any issue,” Kerry said. As a former US climate envoy, he is particularly concerned about the highlighting of facts that interfere with the declaration of a climate crisis. “It's really hard to govern today,” Kerry acknowledged.

Alongside Kerry and Clinton, there are in fact a number of other top figures in the Western political world who would like to clamp down on free speech on social media. Calls for social media to be taken under control have now become more than just an unsavoury pattern. We recently wrote about the growing pressure from the authorities to control Elon Musk's X and suppress freedom of expression on it, using the example of statements by several top US and European politicians. For example, Robert Reich, a professor at the University of California in the US, former Secretary of Labor in the Bill Clinton administration, and still an influential member of the Democratic Party, recently published an opinion piece in The Guardian suggesting that to control Musk and X, countries should threaten to arrest Musk. Those calling for strong control of social media are plentiful also on the European side. Among others, Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons of the British Parliament, told the BBC in early September that threats and intimidation, as well as misinformation, should not be allowed on social media. "Misinformation is dangerous," he said. "The government will have to think long and hard about what they’re going to do with social media," Hoyle said.

There are several politicians also in the EU who have said that X could be closed in Europe if the demands by the governments or the European Commission are not met by the platform.

X reinstated in Brazil

Brazilian Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes authorised the restoration of the services of social media platform X in the country on Tuesday. X had been banned in Brazil since the end of August for resisting state demands for censorship but has now decided to comply and pay heavy fines ahead of the service's restoration.

“The resumption of (X)’s activities on national territory was conditioned, solely, on full compliance with Brazilian laws and absolute observance of the Judiciary’s decisions, out of respect for national sovereignty,” de Moraes wrote in the court document reauthorizing X to operate in the country.

X, owned by entrepreneur Elon Musk, was banned in the country at the end of August, with the company seeing the demands to censor X users in Brazil by the same judge de Moraes being unlawful. In particular, the Brazilian authorities wanted X to censor pro-opposition users on the grounds of fighting misinformation. These demands were initially refused by the platform. In response de Moraes imposed heavy fines on X and threatened the company's official representatives with prison. X closed its Brazilian office in August, leaving no employees to be threatened. However, some time later, at the end of August, de Moraes banned X from Brazil altogether and seized the Brazilian assets of Musk's other companies, such as SpaceX, which provides satellite-based internet service Starlink. The state also threatened any users who still wanted to access the platform through the VPN service with a hefty fine.

While Brazil and judge Alexandre de Moraes have been criticised for censorship, it is worth pointing out that this is not such a unanimous view - quite a few believe that this is the way countries should interfere in social media. Here's a caricature to justify such a view. Photo: Carlos Latuff/Wikimedia Commons.

Brazil is one of the largest markets for X, with an estimated 40 million users. So, in the second half of September, X started looking for a solution. The solution was that the platform agreed to censor users and remove accounts referred to by the Brazilian authorities, as well as pay the fines – a total of €4.6 million.

The company now comments that it will return to Brazil with pride and still wants to protect freedom of expression. “X is proud to return to Brazil. Giving tens of millions of Brazilians access to our indispensable platform was paramount throughout this entire process. We will continue to defend freedom of speech, within the boundaries of the law, everywhere we operate,” the company announced.

Covid lockdowns damaged children’s eyesight

Covid lockdowns damaged children’s eyesight with one in three children now shortsighted, according to a recent global study, Independent writes. Myopia tripled between 1990 and 2023 – and a “notable” uptick following the Covid crisis. Between 1990 and 2019, the study estimated that the global prevalence of myopia increased by 5.34 per cent. From 2020, when the Covid crisis started, to 2023, researchers found an increase of 6.15 per cent. With outdoor activity reduced and screen time increased, many have raised concerns on how lockdowns affected eye health.

By 2050, 40% of children and adolescents will be short-sighted, making myopia one of the world's most significant health problems. Photo: AI generated image of ‘myopia among children’.

“Recent concerns have been raised about the potential negative impact of prolonged lockdowns on eye health, specifically myopia,” the study, published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, said. “This is due to the decrease in outdoor activities and increase in screen time that may result from extended periods of staying indoors.”

Myopia is expected to become significantly more prevalent by 2050, the study reveals.

The rate is expected to rise from an estimated 36 per cent to 40 per cent of children and adolescents worldwide, totalling 740 million young people, including more than half of teenagers.

Sweden: many residents of Stockholm feel unsafe at home

Four out of ten residents of the Swedish capital Stockholm do not always feel safe at home, and a quarter are worried about shootings or explosions, according to the Swedish Housing Association Report, The Nordic Times writes.

The report surveyed 757 people living in a housing association in Stockholm. Almost 40% of them said they did not always feel safe at home, with the main concerns being unauthorised access to the stairwell and burglary. 25% are worried about shootings near their home, 22% are worried about explosions, and 24% are worried about someone entering their home illegally. 21% said they were not worried at all.

As we have written before, in Sweden, armed violence, including street shootings, has become a major problem. In 2022, a total of 391 shooting incidents were recorded in Sweden, resulting in 62 deaths. In 2021, there were 45 shooting deaths. Last year, however, a total of 363 firearm-related crimes were committed, killing 53 people.

A large proportion of these incidents are linked to power struggles between different criminal gangs. Firearms are accompanied by the use of explosive devices, which also pose a serious threat to bystanders. At the beginning of February, for example, bombs exploded on a daily basis in Swedish cities.

Gang violence and organised crime in Sweden, in general, is directly linked to large-scale immigration. In other words, the leaders of these violent gangs, which make their livelihoods primarily from the drug trade, are themselves immigrants and typically involve young people with an immigrant background.

The problems of uncontrolled immigration in Sweden and the labelling of citizens who draw attention to these problems as spreaders of misinformation, etc., were also discussed in a recent analysis we published.