From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Ireland Owens

Google soundly rejected the European Union’s push for the platform to censor content Thursday, declaring that it would not implement so-called “fact-checks.”

The tech giant told the EU that it would not incorporate fact checks into its search results and YouTube videos, Axios first reported. Google’s President of Global Affairs Kent Walker wrote a letter to Renate Nikolay, deputy director-general for Communications Networks, Content and Technology at the European Commission, stating the fact-checking required by the law “simply isn’t appropriate or effective for our services.”

The European Commission’s Code of Practice on Disinformation, which was introduced in 2022, would require Google to incorporate fact-check results alongside its search results and YouTube videos and would also require it to incorporate fact-checking into its ranking systems and algorithms, Axios reported.

Axios’ report comes after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Jan. 7 that his company was ending its third-party fact-checking program in favor of implementing community notes. Meta’s announcement states that Meta’s platforms are “built to be places where people can express themselves freely.” Zuckerberg said that his company’s approach to content moderation often resulted in “censorship,” NPR reported.

Zuckerberg recently criticized the European Union’s data laws as “censoring” social media. The EU has rejected his claims as “misleading.”

Some people have criticized some major tech companies, claiming that they have censored conservative speech. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced in October the launch of an investigation into Google for allegedly censoring conservatives.

Zuckerberg criticized Biden officials for pushing Meta to remove content that the Biden-Harris administration alleged to be disinformation during a recent appearance on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast.

President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to combat social media censorship.

In December, Trump announced that he was nominating Andrew Ferguson to lead the Federal Trade Commission, stating that Ferguson “has a proven record of standing up to Big Tech censorship, and protecting Freedom of Speech in our Great Country.”

Minnesota Republican Rep. Tom Emmer said in a post on X that Google’s decision was a “step in the right direction,” adding “Kudos to @Google.”

A source with knowledge of the matter confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation that the content of Google’s letter as reported by Axios was accurate.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Thomas English

The German Cabinet proposed an amendment Wednesday that would allow its armed forces to shoot down mysterious drones flying over military installations and critical infrastructure, while U.S. authorities took no such actions when faced with a similar threat over its bases in 2024.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandros Mayorkas dismissed calls to shoot down unidentified aircraft over northeastern military installations as “dangerous” in December. In contrast, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser proposed an amendment to the country’s armed forces to “engage” the drones, especially when they threaten lives or endanger critical infrastructure.

“It’s not as though anyone can just take down a drone in the sky — that in and of itself would be dangerous,” Mayorkas told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in December. “Our authorities are very limited … we can’t just shoot a drone out of the sky.”

Faeser, on the other hand, announced an amendment to Germany’s existing Aviation Security Act after authorities spotted drones over Ramstein Air Base, where Ukrainian forces are trained to use Abrams tanks, according to SWR, a German public broadcaster. They suspect Russian forces are using drones to spy on Ukrainian military developments. Authorities also reported drones over various chemical and technology manufacturing plants.

“Since Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine, we have seen an increasing deployment of drones that present growing challenges for the police and their current technology,” Faeser, translated from German, said in a statement Wednesday. Therefore, it is essential to create an authority within the Aviation Security Act allowing the Bundeswehr to intervene in severe threats, including the use of force to shoot down illegally operating drones as a last resort … It also sends a clear message: We will not be intimidated and will decisively confront current threats.”

The Department of Defense’s (DOD) Joint Staff released a statement on the drone sightings in December, writing that they too had observed drones flying over military installations. Authorities said they spotted unidentified aircraft over Picatinny Arsenal and Naval Weapons Station Earle, both in New Jersey.

“This is not a new issue for us. We’ve had to deal with drone incursions over our bases for quite a time now. It’s something that we routinely respond to in each and every case when reporting is cited,” a Joint Staff spokesperson said. “To date, we have no intelligence or observations that would indicate that they were aligned with a foreign actor or that they had malicious intent. But … we don’t know. We have not been able to locate or identify the operators or the points of origin.”

NEWS: @thejointstaff Addresses Drones Over New Jersey Military Installationshttps://t.co/o0aOdQKtc7

— Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) December 14, 2024

DJI, a Chinese drone manufacturer and the most popular drone brand in the U.S., announced Monday it removed software prohibiting users from flying over restricted airspace, such as airport runways, nuclear power plants and the White House. The update reclassifies what were previously “restricted zones” to “enhanced warning zones,” which DJI says will “plac[e] control back in the hands of the drone operators” who “bear final responsibility.”

The amendment to the German law, which has not yet passed the country’s federal parliament, would allow the military to fire on the drones if deemed a threat to lives or critical infrastructure. Under the current version of the law, German authorities are prohibited from shooting down the aircraft.