Miss a day, miss a lot. Subscribe to The Defender's Top News of the Day. It's free.

Vaccine Mandates Are More Popular Than Vaccine Passports

Axios reported:

By the numbers: 62% of respondents said they somewhat or strongly support local, state or federal governments requiring everyone to get a vaccine.

  • Even higher percentages supported vaccine mandates for getting on an airplane or going back to university.
  • On the other hand, much fewer said they support vaccine “passports.” The survey asked different versions of the question, but the results didn’t change much based on wording, whether the question explicitly mentioned the term “vaccine passport” or not.

On average, only 27.5% of respondents said they support businesses using vaccine passports. Slightly more people support voluntary — versus required — use of passports by businesses.

Tyranny: Big Tech and How It Addicted Us to the Internet

Money Web reported:

Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Google holding company Alphabet and Facebook account for a combined market capitalisation of $5.3 trillion (close to R75 trillion).

U.S. Senator Josh Hawley has been banging on this monopolistic drum for years, and recently compiled the case against Big Tech into a new book, The Tyranny of Big Tech.

As if to underscore the problem he identified in the book, the original publisher Simon & Schuster cancelled its publication, citing Hawley’s apparent support of protestors storming the U.S. Capitol in January in support of former U.S. President Donald Trump.

Hawley, a divisive figure in U.S. politics, promptly found another publisher.

UK Vaccine Angst: Millions Secretly Surveilled After Taking Shot

Technocracy reported:

The British government has been reported to have secretly surveilled the movements of millions of citizens to track changes in behaviour following the administration of coronavirus vaccines.

A report from the SPI-B committee of government scientists has revealed that the government tracked up to 10% of the British public’s phones in February, all without permission or notification to the public.

The report, which was seen by the Sunday Telegraph, said that researchers at Oxford University for the SPI-B — a subgroup of the British government’s SAGE quango — monitored the behavioural changes of vaccinated Britons through “CDR [call data records] with corresponding location observations.”

TikTok Takes Down Hundreds of Australian Videos in Misinformation Crackdown

The Guardian reported:

False claims about COVID vaccines — including that the Australian prime minister faked getting his jab – were among some of the hundreds of Australian videos TikTok removed from its platform as part of a misinformation crackdown.

In February, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, Redbubble, Apple, Adobe and TikTok signed on to a new voluntary industry code aimed at combating misinformation and disinformation online.

Facebook Removes 110,000 Pieces of COVID Misinformation Posted by Australian Users

The Guardian reported:

Facebook has removed more than 110,000 pieces of COVID-related misinformation generated by Australian accounts in the first year of the pandemic, the company has revealed.

In February, Facebook, along with Twitter, Google, Microsoft, Redbubble and TikTok, signed on to a new voluntary industry code aimed at combating misinformation and disinformation online.