News Round-Up: Argentina Pulls Out of the WHO, EU Steps Up Censorship Efforts, and Violent Crime Wave In Sweden
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:
Argentina pulls out of the WHO.
Censorship: EU disinformation code to become mandatory.
Sweden cannot control immigration related crime wave: daily bomb blasts again.
How Denmark has toughened immigration policies to signal immigrants are not welcome.
WEF panel on ‘smart cities’: facial recognition instead of digital ID
Argentina pulls out of the WHO
Argentina will pull out of the World Health Organization (WHO), president Javier Milei's office said Wednesday, France 24 reports. The president’s office said the decision was motivated by "profound differences" with the UN agency. With the decision the South American nation is following the US lead, which announced its exit from the UN agency last month with president Donald Trump assuming office.
Milei's decision was based on "deep differences regarding health management, especially during the (Covid-19) pandemic," spokesman Manuel Adorni told reporters, adding Argentina would not "allow an international body to interfere in our sovereignty."
The measure also gave Argentina "greater flexibility to implement policies adapted to the context" locally, while ensuring "greater availability of resources," he said.
US president Trump signed an executive order of to withdraw his country, the biggest donor of the WHO, from the WHO on his first day in office. The main reason given in the executive order was that the WHO failed to stand up to its task during the Covid crisis and other global health crises. At the same time, the contribution of US taxpayers to the WHO is too high, according to Trump. With the order, the US immediately paused the future transfer of any United States Government funds, support, or resources to the WHO. While the procedures to leave the organisation are under way, the US will also cease negotiations on the WHO Pandemic Agreement and the amendments to the International Health Regulations. In the case of both agreements, there are well-founded concerns that, if entering into force, the WHO member states will cede too much decision-making power on many health issues to the organisation.
Censorship: EU disinformation code to become mandatory
The EU’s voluntary disinformation code for big media platforms will become mandatory in July, Reclaim The Net writes. The new censorship law will become enforceable under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Just in time for Germany’s early elections, scheduled for the last week of February, large platforms – Google, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, TikTok, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and X – participated in a “stress test” of their readiness to investigate risks to “civic discourse and electoral process” related to that vote.
This is taken by some reports to mean that although the voluntary code will become obligatory in the summer, the integration before February 23th in Germany means that platforms with more than 45 million users in the EU will need to implement “disinformation” rules, acting as “voluntary” basis one last time – in a bid “to avoid future legal risks.”
The election campaign in Germany has been marred by contentious attempts by those still in power to discredit and even censor the rising opposition. This is happening both through domestic institutions and by “delegating” some of such efforts to the EU.
The “stress test” done in late January and the reports around code integration timeline fit well in the overall trend. It was conducted by the European Commission and Germany’s digital services coordinator.
The code’s main purpose is to get signatories to step up content “moderation”. EU, along with the DSA, explains this as a way to combat illegal content and “protect users.” Among the measures that will become enforceable when the code becomes mandatory is the requirement for tech companies to come up with “stronger measures to demonetize disinformation.”
Critics, however, regard such practices as censorship, and the experience of recent years has shown that this is justified – we have written extensively about such censorship by the authorities in the past under the guise of combating misinformation and disinformation (see e.g. here or here).
What Brussels refers to as “the strengthened” 2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation made its debut in 2018, covering platforms, advertisers, and trade associations. The one that deals with “disinformation” is one of many “voluntary codes” the EU has turned to, effectively imposing its policies on internet companies over these last years. Another one concerning “hate speech” has already been integrated into the DSA. Reports indicate that the EU may be trying to follow the entire censorship blueprint by adding a new code to the DSA – this one specifically for advertisers.
Sweden cannot control immigration related crime wave: daily bomb blasts again
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has admitted that the government has lost control of the wave of violence in the country. In the first month of the year, there have been bomb attacks almost every day, and they are no longer confined to specific areas, but can take place in any city or neighbourhood.
PM Kristersson acknowledged that crime is out of control and promised to speed up the adoption of new legislation, Euractiv reports. “Sweden is in the midst of a new wave of violence; it's primarily the bombings that are increasing, with one occurring almost every day,” Kristersson said. “It's abundantly clear that we do not have control over this wave of violence; otherwise, we wouldn't be here," he added. According to Kristersson, gang violence is now affecting entire communities, including residential areas.
We wrote about Sweden's huge gang crime problem a year ago, but sadly it seems that in a year not much has changed for the better in the country, quite the opposite. Already in the first month of the year, as of 27th of January, there have been 27 bomb attacks in Sweden. This raises fears that the number of bomb attacks by the end of this year will be a lot higher than in 2024, when the police reported 317. At the same time, some 62,000 people were identified as being active in or linked to criminal networks in 2024. And it is estimated that there are a further 600 people who orchestrate crime in Sweden from abroad, most of whom have dual nationality.
Such gang violence and organised crime in Sweden is directly linked to large-scale immigration as criminal gangs typically target younger people of immigrant background to join their gangs.
This is acknowledged by the police who say there is a growing number of minors and youngsters as members of criminal gangs: last year there were 1,700 of them, many of whom were already recruited at youth shelters. So the government has drafted legislation to give the police extra powers to detain children under the age of 15 in certain circumstances.
On top of violent crime waves in Sweden, these criminal gangs have have expanded their activities to Denmark, Norway and Finland.
Such gang violence and organised crime in Sweden is directly linked to large-scale immigration. To some extent, the government has also acknowledged this fact when it has moved to change its current ultraliberal immigration policy, by linking immigration and crime, and has discussed a plan to deprive people with dual nationality of their Swedish citizenship. We have further discussed the problems of uncontrolled immigration in Sweden in this analysis.
How Denmark has toughened immigration policies to signal immigrants are not welcome
Denmark used to have a reputation throughout the world as a liberal haven known for welcoming foreigners. However, this image has changed drastically in the past few years, as a series of new policies have made the Nordic nation rather unattractive for migrants and even for many refugees, Infomigrants writes.
Denmark’s coalition governments have issued increasingly harsh measures and laws to limit irregular migration and make the country unattractive for those seeking a better life. The current prime minister Mette Frederiksen remains widely popular, in particular for her so-called "zero vision" stance on immigration: a goal to reduce the number of asylum applicants in the country to zero.
The initial changes that were introduced to Denmark's immigration system under the current government since 2019 reflect policies that have also been observed elsewhere in Europe: family reunification rules were tightened, deportation practices were increased, and social benefit payments for asylum seekers were lowered.
However, many other immigration laws introduced in the country in due course are regarded as rather unprecedented: for example, guards along the country's fortified borders are allowed to confiscate all personal items of value from irregular migrants crossing the border to help fund the costs associated with asylum procedures as well as housing. Any item valued at more than 1,300 euros – including jewelry, watches and even wedding rings – can be taken away under this law.
Another major shift introduced by the government is an extensive downgrading of failed asylum seekers: if an asylum application is rejected, there are no more monetary benefits paid. Failed asylum seekers will only receive food but no money at all after this change in legislation. In cases where the deportation of failed asylum seekers is feasible and practicable, another new law now specifies that they are to be transferred into prison-like detention facilities; the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) said that upon examining these centers, it had encountered inhumane living conditions in at least some of those facilities. The government still sees room for improvement when it comes to the issue of deportations and is meanwhile working on new bills to carry out further returns: a total of 235 individuals were successfully deported from Denmark in the past three years – which is about a third of all those who were scheduled for deportation during that period.
Denmark furthermore made sure that people in countries of origin knew about how undesirable the place had become for migrants: according to the German weekly magazine Handelsblatt, the Danish government heavily invested in funding campaigns across Africa as well as in Arab nations, focusing in particular on social media, to communicate the image of an unwelcoming host country.
WEF panel on ‘smart cities’: facial recognition instead of digital ID
A panel at the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual conference on digital infrastructure confirmed that far from being new, digital infrastructure just feels new. But while security cameras are widely deployed in cities everywhere, the panellists painted a picture of even more digital cities, where everything is under constant surveillance. At Avathon, a company that produces artificial intelligence technology, including tracking technology, they are convinced that in five to ten years' time there won't even be a need for a digital ID, which is still in its infancy, because facial recognition "and other things" will already be embedded in the ‘smart city’, reports Reclaim The Net.
In a panel discussion dedicated to digital public infrastructure (DPI), a buzzword popular among digital ID advocates such as the UN, the European Union and the WEF, Pervinder Johar, CEO of Avathon, explained that the digital ID of the future will merge financial and identity components. This hints at a dystopian future world where the population is constantly monitored and everyone is identifiable at all times.
Johar's 'good news' did not stop there: according to the CEO, Avathon is already working on an 'industrial AI platform', a tracking system used by Round Rock High School in Texas. This is, of course, ‘for children’s safety’. The platform's AI uses the school's existing cameras to proactively detect everything from weapons to open doors, unauthorised entry and even fire.
Another panelist, Hoda Al Khzaimi, Associate Vice Provost for Research Translation and Entrepreneurship at New York University Abu Dhabi, also spoke about the link between public digital infrastructure and the 'smart city'. “Digital public infrastructures came into manifestation because governments want to make sure that they provide seamless services in the rise of smart cities,” Al Khzaimi said, while making it clear that "the optimal application of DPI" means putting pressure on citizens to adopt a digital ID.
Al Khzaimi also praised the public-private partnership on the DPI. And while acknowledging the potential for abuse (“you don’t want to subject the citizens to mass analytics if they don’t want to have this mass analytics infrastructure”) she quickly contradicted herself by saying there are cases when this should be done – such as to “analyze population data for health pandemic outbreaks.”
Kapital Co-Founder and CEO Rene Saul spoke about Mexico’s digital passport (which utilizes biometric ID verification at the borders – something Saul did not mention), which he is a holder of, as a positive example of a digital ID. After all, it saved him 35 minutes.