News Round-Up: UK To Introduce Compulsory Digi-ID-s, YouTube Admits Censorship, and Trump Calls out Carbon Footprint Hoax
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:
UK to introduce a mandatory digital ID to be able to work.
YouTube finally admitted to censorship.
Trump calls carbon footprint a hoax.
Germany’s Bosch plans major layoffs.
UK still puts men in women’s prisons.
UK to introduce a mandatory digital ID to be able to work
British citizens and permanent residents will have to produce a mandatory digital identification card in order to get work, PM Keir Sarmer announced Friday, AP reports.
The government says the plan will help reduce unauthorized immigration by making it harder for people to work in the underground economy. It says it will also make it simpler for people to access health care, welfare, child care, and other public services. “You will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have digital ID. It’s as simple as that,” Starmer told an international meeting of center-left politicians in London. He said the new ID system would be in place before the next election, due by 2029.
The plan has met with a huge wave of criticism already, with critics saying Britain will join the illustrious ranks of North Korea, China, and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan by declaring the ID called the “BritCard” compulsory for every citizen.
YouTube finally admitted to censorship
Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google and YouTube, admitted that it censored the free speech of thousands of people during Joe Biden’s presidency. According to the company, senior government officials pressured it to remove content that they considered “misinformation,” particularly content related to the Covid crisis and the 2020 US presidential election. Now the company is allowing closed accounts to be reopened, and those who were ostracized can return to YouTube.
Google’s statement followed years of investigation by the House Judiciary Committee, led by committee chairman Jim Jordan, who issued a subpoena to the company. The proceedings revealed the extent of government influence on Google and YouTube’s content moderation decisions.
We have previously discussed the fact that YouTube has removed more than a million videos from its platform for containing “misinformation,” i.e. videos that challenged the official narrative during the Covid crisis, regardless of how factual or well-documented they were. We have previously described how the US federal government has also collaborated with social media to censor content on platforms, including on YouTube, that questioned or contradicted the government’s Covid-19 policy. All other social media platforms, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, the former Twitter, etc., acted similarly.
While Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg admitted to censorship some time ago, Google and YouTube’s parent company Alphabet is only now acknowledging the fact. According to Alphabet, the company gave in to pressure from the Biden White House to remove content. Mostly, they censored political content related to Covid-19 and the elections, just like on other platforms: topics where government officials wanted to control the narrative.
According to an Alphabet representative, the company was under pressure from the federal government, with senior government officials contacting the company numerous times about content published on its platforms, even when the content in question did not violate any rules. The company’s letter states: “Senior Biden Administration officials, including White House officials, conducted repeated and sustained outreach to Alphabet and pressed the company regarding certain user-generated content related to the COVID-19 pandemic that did not violate its policies.” According to the company, the authorities had created a political environment that made it difficult for platforms to operate independently, and the government put significant pressure on platforms, including YouTube, to deal with content that the authorities considered “harmful.”
The company now believes that such pressure from the authorities was and remains unacceptable and wrong. YouTube says it is committed to freedom of expression and aims to give everyone the opportunity to express their opinions, develop their businesses, or share their creations. The company claims that YouTube had never any rules prohibiting discussion on the origins of Covid-19. The letter also states that “as publicly announced in 2023, YouTube ended several COVID-19 content policies.”
In December 2024, YouTube retired the few remaining Covid policies and allowed for a discussion of Covid-19 treatment options. The company also explained that health agency requirements changed over time, which is why Alphabet changed its own rules.
In the letter, the company also explained YouTube’s content moderation principles, rejecting the use of so-called third-party fact-checkers. “YouTube has not operated a fact-checking program that identifies and compensates fact-checking partners to produce content to support moderation. YouTube has not and will not empower fact-checkers to take action on or label content across the company’s services,” the company said. Instead, there is an extensive commenting feature, and since last summer, a user flagging system has been tested in the US.
Alphabet believes that governments should not pressure private companies to take action against lawful speech. The company now promises to take the opposite approach and begin taking steps to reverse previous censorship decisions. All content creators whose accounts were closed for repeatedly posting content deemed inappropriate during the Covid crisis and 2020 elections can rejoin the YouTube platform.
Finally, Alphabet also addressed European Union legislation, notably the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which the company says restricts access to information. These regulations place a disproportionate burden on US companies, with Alphabet drawing attention to the threat to freedom of expression that the DSA poses both in the EU and elsewhere in the world. The DSA allows the rules to be interpreted in a way that will oblige Alphabet and other platforms to remove legal content, and platforms cannot develop and implement a consistent freedom of expression policy worldwide.
Trump calls carbon footprint a hoax
US President Trump denounced the EU’s Green Deal and decarbonising efforts, calling climate change the ‘greatest con job ever perpetrated’, in his United Nations speech this week, Climate Change Dispatch reports.
Trump dismissed green policies and the risks of climate change during his speech, describing the concept of a carbon footprint as a “hoax.”
During his first in-person appearance at the U.N. General Assembly since 2019, Trump criticized initiatives to mitigate the effects of climate change, saying that countries that prioritize climate-related policies will fail and go bankrupt. “All green is all bankrupt,” Trump said on Tuesday in New York City.
Trump said he is worried about Europe being devastated by energy failures and excess immigration, as many member states of the European Union have continued to phase out fossil fuels and accelerate the implementation of renewable energy alternatives.
“[Europe] must take control strongly and immediately of the unmitigated immigration disaster and the fake energy catastrophe before it’s too late,” he said.
“The carbon footprint is a hoax made up by people with evil intentions, and they’re headed down a path of total destruction.”
Germany’s Bosch plans major layoffs
Bosch, the world’s largest automotive parts supplier, is planning further significant staff reductions and expanding its efficiency program due to difficult market conditions, Remix News reports.
Bosch is preparing to cut another “five-figure number” of jobs, but it is unclear which countries will be hit the hardest in terms of Bosch’s global network of producers. Swiss news outlet Bluewin.ch noted these jobs losses would head into the “tens of thousands.” This announcement comes after the company already cut 10,000 jobs. Earlier this year, Poland also saw dozens of jobs lost at a Bosch brake factory.
Bosch Labour Director Stefan Grosch told Stuttgarter Zeitung in a recent interview that the business is aiming to reduce the mobility division’s costs by €2.5 billion per year. He noted that the cost gap will be closed by 2030 only if the right measures are implemented.
The CEO of Bosch, Stefan Hartung, said earlier this month that Bosch will continue to fight for every cent with competitors, with competition fierce due to limited demand. At the same time, Bosch is staring down the issue of rising trade barriers.
German firms have been struggling in recent years as the EU pursues its climate goals. This is particularly challenging for the automotive industry, and many key figures in the sector have called for a change of direction.
UK still puts men in women’s prisons
Men who call themselves women are still being held in a women’s prison in the UK despite the Supreme Court ruling that sexes must be segregated, The Telegraph writes.
Ministers have admitted that five men who now say they are women are being held in the E Wing of HMP Downview in Surrey, despite concerns they could pose a risk to female prisoners.
Labour activists have now urged David Lammy, the new Justice Secretary, to close the wing for male prisoners, which they say is not effectively separated from the women in the rest of the building, and move them to the male estate.
They have also said the presence of male prisoners violates the Supreme Court ruling from April that segregation of men and women should be on the basis of biological sex rather than the gender they identify with.
A spokesman for Labour Women’s Declaration, which campaigns for sex-based rights, said: “Vulnerable female prisoners must be prioritised. Housing male offenders, regardless of how they identify, in the female estate violates the rights and safety of women prisoners and breaches the Supreme Court ruling. It has now been five months since it was clarified that sex in the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex.”