If the EU wants to ban “disinformation”, it will have to ban itself

Revealed: How EU Commission’s lies about COVID vaccines break the EU’s own censorship rules

Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2021

When Brexit Britain started leading the World, the EU Commission couldn’t stand it

On Tuesday last week Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the EU Commission unelected in any contested election, wrongly proclaimed that the Commission had hit its target of 70% of the adult EU population being vaccinated by 31 August 2021.

© EU Commission

“The full vaccination of 70% of adults in the EU already in August is a great achievement. The EU's strategy of moving forward together is paying off and putting Europe at the vanguard of the global fight against COVID-19. But the pandemic is not over. We need more. I call on everyone who can to get vaccinated.”

- Ursula von der Leyen, EU Commission President, Brussels, 31 Aug 2021

This is disinformation

Unfortunately, the figures from the EU’s own official EU medical agency, the ‘European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’ (ECDC) did not support Frau von dey Leyen’s claim.

On the day of the EU Commission’s announcement, the ECDC reported only 68.7% of adults fully vaccinated. As of 4am this morning (UK time, Sat 04 Sep 2021), the ECDC is showing 69.2% - still short of the EU Commission President’s claim early in the week.

© ECDC - screengrab taken 4am UK time, Sat 04 Sep 2021

Even allowing for delays in reporting, the Commission had no basis for reporting a ‘success’ when the figures continue to show that the Commission’s target has still not been met. The Commission does not have separate figures from those of the ECDC. It relies on the official figures from its own agency.

At current trends, the EU’s target will not be met until next week

Facts4EU.Org looked at the trend for the increase in the proportion of adults vaccinated, using the last three weeks of data. The result is shown in the chart below.

We have shown the figure for this week as a shaded bar, because technically the week does not end until tomorrow. However, we do not expect this figure to change.

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org - click to enlarge

Will the EU Commission now have to ban itself, under its new ‘Code of Practice on Disinformation’?

© EU Commission

The EU Commission has new codes of practice which are being enforced to prevent what the EU sees as ‘disinformation’ or ‘misinformation’. Here is how it defines these:-

“Disinformation is 'verifiably false or misleading information created, presented and disseminated for economic gain or to intentionally deceive the public'. Misinformation is verifiably false information that is spread without the intention to mislead, and often shared because the user believes it to be true.

“The spread of both disinformation and misinformation can have a range of consequences, such as threatening our democracies, polarising debates, and putting the health, security and environment of EU citizens at risk.”

EU Commission website, accessed 04 Sep 2021

The EU Commission has implemented an EU-wide Code of Practice on Disinformation. Major internet companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter have already signed up.

This started back in 2016 and by 2018 the Commission had released their 'action plan' (PDF). They start by saying that "The Commission is tackling the spread of online disinformation and misinformation to ensure the protection of European values and democratic systems."

Brexit Britain continues to lead the EU when it comes to the TOTAL population

The definitive source of information on COVID-19 worldwide is now ‘Our World in Data’ of Oxford University, using Covid data from Johns Hopkins University in the USA.

They look at the proportion of the total population of each country, not only adults. Below we show the latest position of the United Kingdom compared to the EU27.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

Percentage of total population vaccinated

  • United Kingdom fully vaccinated: 63.1%
  • EU27 fully vaccinated: 58.4%
  • United Kingdom partly vaccinated: 7.5%
  • EU27 partly vaccinated: 6.4%

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org - click to enlarge

Observations

Will the EU Commission turn itself in?

If Twitter and Facebook can ban a sitting President of the United States – which they did – then surely they must now ban the EU Commission President and all Commissioners and EU politicians who have posted about the 70% target of fully vaccinated adults having been reached on Tuesday last week. This is clearly disinformation, as the EU knew from its own official medical agency that this was not correct.

As Twitter and Facebook have both signed up to the EU’s Code of Practice on Disinformation, we are sure they will act, even if the Commission does not turn itself in voluntarily…..

The desperation of the EU in the face of the success of Brexit Britain

There is no doubt that the EU Commission was horrified when Brexit Britain became the first country in the World to launch a mass vaccination rollout against COVID-19. This turned into panic as the United Kingdom successfully started vaccinating large numbers of the public, whilst the Commission was still at planning stage.

Perhaps two obvious pieces of evidence back up our assertions.

1. At the end of January 2021 the Commission unilaterally invoked Article 16 of the Withdrawal Agreement in a botched attempt to prevent the non-export of vaccines from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland, thereby creating the hard border they had been so vocal about preventing for all the years of the Brexit negotiations. They did so without consulting the British government, the Irish Government, and the Northern Ireland community.

In the uproar that followed they were swiftly forced to withdraw their action.

2. In April 2021, the Commission launched legal action against the British based AstraZeneca, over an alleged failure to provide enough vaccines. They did this despite the fact that AstraZeneca is the only pharmaceutical company to have made its vaccines available at cost.

Yesterday, the Commission was forced to settle its legal action against AstraZeneca out of court.

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[ Sources: EU Commission | ECDC | OWID/Johns Hopkins University ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Sat 04 Sep 2021

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