The World Economic Forum (WEF) rings in the New Year with its annual meeting, held in Davos, Switzerland, each January. The meeting “will convene leaders from government, business and civil society to address the state of the world and discuss priorities for the year ahead,” according to WEF.1
In 2023, the theme is “cooperation in a fragmented world,” with WEF noting, “The world today is at a critical inflection point. The sheer number of ongoing crises calls for bold collective action.”2 What will this bold collective action entail? A key theme being discussed at one of its sessions is countering “misinformation,”3 also known as silencing and censoring any and all opposition.
WEF is an unelected global organization with self-appointed leaders. How it intends to define the misinformation it’s targeting as one of its key 2023 initiatives is unknown, but it’s dubbed the “cumulative ‘threats’ black swan events.” In a description for its Countering Threats in the Age of Black Swans session, it’s noted:4
“As black swan events proliferate, threats that were once considered outliers are becoming commonplace. This is compounded by a wide range of actors with access to sophisticated technology and weaponry, as well as an ever-increasing capacity to spread misinformation. How can we begin to predict the unpredictable in mitigating and countering security threats from black swan events?”
In December 2022, WEF already started damage control for its Davos meeting, stating in a separate post that it has “weathered criticism as a gathering of elites and in recent years the Forum has been targeted by disinformation campaigns.”5 As Reclaim the Net noted, this suggests the “group deems criticism of the WEF and challenging mainstream Covid-19 narratives to be misinformation.”6
