Perception of Pandemic in Italy at Early 2022: An Analysis using Traditional and Social Media

Introduction

The spread of false news has always existed; in human history we find a lot of examples of disinformation, but the term “fake news” has been introduced more recently to indicate stories invented to harm people or institutions.

The advent of the Internet and social networks has changed the way the world communicates, radically changing the mode human beings socialize and interact; digital communities have given rise to new socio-cultural scenarios compared to the past, also favoring a new way for providing information, previously in the hands of a few people and today potentially in the hands of anyone. Communication has become much faster and able to reach an ever wider audience; however, in proportion to the development of the world of communication, persuasive power has also increased.

The correct basic idea would be “information accessible to everyone”, reachable in any place in the world in a very short time, searchable with the action of search engines, and a “participatory culture” as result of a free system such as that of the web, with the increasingly significant influence of social networks and search engines. In this setting, a new flu, of the family of coronaviruses, appeared at end of 2019, contagious and at beginning rather lethal compared to its family, but which has nothing to do with the great plagues and pandemics of the past. It was faced with forced isolation, the almost total cancellation of fundamental freedoms established in the Italian Constitution (Article 32 first of all: “Nobody can be forced to a specific health treatment if not by law. The law cannot under any circumstances violate the limits imposed by the respect for the human person”), methods of extremely dubious health efficacy and scientific rationality, relying on the fear of the population.

Citizens have been asked to adapt to the truth promulgated by this new totalitarian and reactionary voice of so called “experts”, always present in TV and capable of making a large impact on the population. Through mainstream communication (main TV channels and main newspapers) based on strong and painful images, the average individual has found her/himself living with the thought and imminent image of death, usually avoided through professional and social hyperactivism.

The collective imagination has been targeted every day at every hour with testimonies from the hospital wards of dying patients, heartbroken family members, repeating the same things over and over, dissuading the population from rebellion through the presumed authority of a scientism mistaken for science, a kind of scientist religion. However, the dissemination of information from bottom provided for an active audience, which no longer passively suffers the contents imposed from the top, which evaluates and shares them using the most used social networks such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Telegram. About 67% of the world population uses mobile phones, 60% has access to the Internet and 53% uses social networks [1].

The epidemic has seen a surge in disinformation campaigns and fake news, with constant attempts to pollute the public debate through disinformation activities that have led to a difficult information surplus to be discerned for the community. In this work It would be to use the word “epidemic” and not “pandemic”, since the number of deaths from COVID-19 in Italy (overestimated, because here there is passive pharmacovigilance) add up to 158,000, that is 0.13% on average every year in the last two years (2020-2021); worldwide the number is 6,090,000, that is 0.038% every year (data as of 2022-03-22) [2, 3, 4]. These percentages are absolutely not comparable with those of real pandemics of the past.

Actions have been carried out aimed at exploiting the emotional wave caused by the health crisis, in an attempt to transform the epidemic into a long-term strategic advantage, through a scenario of disorder, fear, healthy social and economic uncertainty, unfortunately still strongly in place in Italy. In this context, traditional media have shown and are showing very little transparency, and the same applies to the censorship actions of some social media. Only Telegram appears to be the most censorship-free social media and with the greatest possibility of finding non-mainstream news

The Persuasive Power between Psychology and Sociology

Regarding the dynamics relating to the persuasive power over the masses, many people result homologated to certain group behaviors for two main reasons: a) they do not develop their own idea and completely trust the group; b) they can develop their own idea but do not share it and conform to the group’s idea in order not to be excluded from it. The persuasive power of a group increases when certain factors are present [5]: c) the importance for the subject of belonging to that group; d) the importance for the subject of the discussion topic within the group; e) the members number of the group, how many people support a specific thesis; f) the lack of opponents. A person can therefore be very influenced even if she/he is with people she/he does not know and with whom has not shared previous experiences, and especially if she/he is pressured by fear.

The Fake News Phenomenon

The term “fake news” was coined in the nineteenth century in the political sphere to indicate the dirty work of denigrating opponents with false and defamatory stories [6]. It is a phenomenon of a subtle nature, which uses persuasive techniques and takes advantage of the men frailties.

Fake news has been around for a long time, since from the first communities; history is full of events that have been determined by false news in favor of those who spread them. Over time, the means of transmitting false information have changed, but not the intentions of those who make disinformation.

During years, some countries began to develop a real area of research in this field, the objective of which was the creation of a new form of unconventional warfare that mixes the theories of the communication sciences with the psychological ones for manipulating people.

Fake news is not really a synonym for “hoax”; hoaxes are completely false news, while fake news are plausible news, they always have a fund of truth from which to start to make bad information. Disinformation occurs when a distorted and manipulated truth is voluntarily spread to influence the opinion of others for own gain. They are news with partial data and facts, which only underline some information and leave out others.

There are also news with false connections, articles that affirm something in the title that is not confirmed in the body of the text, sometimes even denied; it is a technique used to attract attention with indignation and amazement. Scientific content or studies are manipulated to affirm and testify something which is not true.

In the world of communication, words have a great power; they can help but also deceive and negatively persuade, they have the power to create but also to destroy. Fake news exploit mechanisms working on human emotion, intervening on decision-making processes by exploiting personal or group persuasion techniques.

Each person perceives and interprets the world around her/him in a different way, has her/his own vision of the world, lives with prejudices that influence her/his decisions. Prejudices lead to the creation of “cognitive biases”, that is constructs based on erroneous, deformed perceptions and ideologies. They act in everyday life, on decisions, behaviors, thought processes [7].

There are many types of cognitive biases, including: - “confirmation bias”: they give relevance only to what confirms own prejudices, to believe only in those who confirm and share their thoughts;

- “group bias”: the abilities and value of one’s group are overestimated;

- “negativity bias”: for survival instinct, we tend to remember the bad things more than the good ones, more attention is given to the riskiest situations, in order to be prepared in case of danger.

Social/Traditional Media and their Action Policies

Multinationals such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft are currently among the largest economic powers in the world because they are exploiting the great potential of the network and digitization, sectors concerning social networks, electronic commerce, information, advertising, entertainment, software and hardware development [8].

The concentration of IT technological power in the hands of a few groups means that the distribution of information no longer freely occurs on the network, but is regulated by the laws imposed by these large multinationals.

Social networks organize and make available the contents of social networks that users have created through interaction with other profiles; everyone should therefore theoretically be able to benefit from the richness of the network and its contents through intermediaries such as Google, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram.

To date, there are 4.2 billion active users on social media, with a global penetration of 53.6%. Among the most used social networks in 2021 in Italy, we find YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter [9]. Telegram is not mentioned.

In the last two years there has been the circulation of an excessive amount of information on the epidemic, which has made problematic to orientate due to the difficulty of identifying reliable sources, with a high rate of disinformation and with the circulation of false and unreliable news. This research focused in particular on YouTube, Facebook and Telegram about social media, and considered the information coming from the most followed TV channels in Italy (Rai, Mediaset, La7) and from some of the most read newspapers in Italy (Corriere della Sera, Il Messaggero, la Repubblica, TGCOM24) among the traditional media.

- Facebook, social media and US social network, does not only use the elimination of content to combat the phenomenon of fake news, given the speed with which news circulates; it argues that the solution is an approach based on removal, reduction and information [10].

It removes illegal content and not respecting the community rules; about content falling within community standards but judged to be false by private fact-checking agencies, Facebook prefers to reduce the visibility by 80% and inform people that the spread news is considered false by an independent fact-checker. Since 2020, millions of posts have received the label of false information, based on thousands of analytical articles made by fact-checkers (Figure 1).

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There is the “COVID-19: Information Center” section, relating to the epidemic situation, the vaccination phase and all the latest news on ascertained cases, being referred to the official profiles of the WHO or Ministry of Health (Figure 2).

- Google, US company that offers online services, with headquarters in Mountain View in California, in 2019 published a document in which it explains all its actions to combat disinformation [11]. Specifically, it explains that on its platforms (Google Search, Google News, YouTube) intends to reduce the presence of fake news by implementing three strategies: giving more importance to quality, fighting the ill- intentioned ones, providing more context to users.

Google explains that it uses ranking algorithms to place greater emphasis on authoritative, high-quality information, and that it does more quality checks for searches where users expect particular attention. It also aims to provide users with tools to access the diversity of points of view necessary to create their own opinion (Figure 3).

- Twitter, news service and micro-blogging based in San Francisco (US), against disinformation acts by deleting misleading tweets and blocking accounts that continue to publish fake news. As in the case of Facebook, it allows users to report malicious content and indicate its category. In addition, the social network uses labels to report tweets containing deceptive or harmful content, and to warn people before sharing something that does not respect the rules of the community.

It redirects to the Ministry of Health’s Internet page users who carry out a research relating to the coronavirus (only by writing the word “covid”) and blocks all posts deceptive according to them, i.e. everything that deviates from their mainstream.

The problem concerns “who decides what is meant by fake news”, with the consequence that we arrive at “censorship”. In the specific case of vaccines, Twitter has tightened measures against those who repeatedly publish fake news on the vaccination campaign; the disinformer receives up to a maximum of 5 warnings and when this limit is exceeded, her/his account is blocked or permanently suspended.

In the last year, it has closed and censored millions of profiles with their tweets considered to be deceptive. Tweets that have at least one of the keywords in the text are subject to capture and also those who link to an article [12] (Figure 4).

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- Telegram, instant messaging and broadcasting service provided by the Telegram LLC company, based in Dubai, founded by the Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov, is not listed among the most used social networks in 2021 in Italy. It has been widely used in this research and proves to be the channel where it is possible to get the largest number of censored news elsewhere, although it is not completely free from censorship.

- Traditional journalism: it is losing credibility and reliability, very often falling into the traps of fake news and making disinformation. From 2020 in particular, the treatment of topics such as the epidemic is done by analyzing only what confirms a specific thesis supported by the target, while what refutes that thesis is devalued and not deepened.

- Main TV channels: from 2020 to date we have witnessed a constant forcing to convey people to certain choices, such as to get vaccination (the vaccination campaign started in Italy between the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021), broadcasting continuous spots against disinformation to call viewers to be wary of fake news and to rely on information professionals and responsible publishers, in close connection with the Italian Ministry of Health [13].

We have also witnessed the constant presence on TV of people, (self)-defined virology experts, who present themselves to public opinion as defenders of the common good; they have tried and are trying to deny with not strictly scientific methods the truth, that however is increasingly clearly appearing in the scientific journals. They have shown lack of a specific knowledge and over time have repeatedly denied their theses, proclaimed with great conviction [14].

Information on the three Pillars of the Epidemic Narrative: Vaccines, Green Pass, Masks

As previously mentioned, the non-mainstream information in this paper has been almost entirely found through the social channel Telegram (also several scientific papers). The narrative on traditional media does not correspond to what is highlighted here. Facebook and YouTube systematically block non-mainstream news (as reported in TV and newspapers) and block the profiles of people who spread anti-mainstream news.

It is called “fact-checking”, but actually is a form of censorship. The most followed social networks, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, continue to systematically censor, under the pretext of fact-checking, uncomfortable news against the dominant narrative on Covid; the same can be said for YouTube [15].

Vaccination: since the start of the vaccination campaign in Italy, traditional media (with a few/rare exceptions) have pushed for the greatest number of people to get vaccination. There are very few people who can speak on TV by providing data and showing documents against such a unified narrative.

Many doctors and real virology experts around the world are pointing out how this forced mass vaccination is useless, ineffective, harmful; furthermore, the vaccination obligation, unfortunately in force in Italy for certain categories of workers and from a certain age group upwards, has no scientific and legal basis.

In Italy, data on deaths and adverse effects from vaccines are not spread; but for Europe they can be found in detailed databases, divided by type of vaccine and by type of caused pathology. One of these is EudraVigilance, the database of the European Drugs Agency, working since December 2001, to collect reports of suspected adverse drug reactions [16].

In the EudraVigilance database (February 8, 2022) there are 38,983 deaths and 3,530,362 adverse events temporally coincident with COVID vaccinations; these numbers are constantly increasing and could be much higher based on the rate of adverse reported reactions [17, 18].

Vaccines registered in EU are not vaccines in the common used sense of the term (i.e. antigens or whole inactivated of live atenued pathogens), but genetic drugs based on a technology never used outside of clinical trials until now. There are very sophisticicated products of nanotechnology, where some of their properties as susceptibility on electromagnetic radiation (5G) need to be deeply investigated, also for the possible presence of graphene. This mass vaccination can be considered a global unprecedented experiment in the history of humanity [19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28].

This anomalous vaccination campaign is producing definitive upheavals in people’s immune systems; this is a fact now confirmed by the majority of the scientific community independent by the mainstream; this fact will become more and more evident in the coming months, with a big growth of malignant tumors, immunological neurological disorders, cardiovascular diseases [29].

Various risks related to COVID-19 mRNA vaccines have been identified, for which there is sufficient evidence of an association with the use of these pharmaceutics; there is still very little information on its safety. Risks identified are anaphylaxis, myocarditis, pericarditis; potential risks are potentiated vaccine-associated disease (VAED/VAERD). Missing information: use in pregnancy and feeding time, use in immuno-compromised patients, use in frail patients with comorbidities, use in patients with autoimmune diseases or inflammatory disorders, interaction with other vaccines, long-term safety data [30, 31, 32]. Alternative treatments to prevent the progression of COVID-19 have also been neglected and opposed [33].

Data analysis is showing that children are more likely to die after a covid vaccine than unvaccinated children in same conditions. Data show that the risk increases rapidly for younger children and for second doses [34].

From the Official Bulletin published on February 26,

2022 by the Italian Higher Institute of Health (table 4C, page 29) it emerged that from 2021/12/31 to 2022/01/30 there were 9,295 Covid deaths of which 3,470 people were not vaccinated (37.34%) and 5,825 people vaccinated (62.66%) [35, 36]. Almost 2/3 of the total occurred deaths are therefore represented by vaccinated people.

The mainstream media (with a few exceptions) are basically in agreement that vaccines are not experimental. The Pfizer website reads that Pfizer is responsible for ensuring that study registration and results data published publicly in other databases are consistent with information published in the ClinicalTrials.gov database.

By accessing the database it is possible to access the trials of the various vaccines. For example (NCT04368728), about the Covid Pfizer vaccine in healthy adults, the study is currently recruiting participants and the estimated date for completion of the study is February 8, 2024. Access is available to the complete trial for each type (Pfizer in pregnancy, Pfizer in pediatric age, Moderna in healthy adults, Moderna pregnant, Astrazeneca), with all the updates [37, 38, 39, 40].

Pfizer announces that the data of these studies will be made available 18 months after the study completion date, therefore we will get the first data 18 months after the above written date.

There is a high increase in stroke cases following COVID-19 vaccines [41, 42]. Pfizer-BioNTech can be inversely transcribed into DNA in the Huh7 liver cell line, and this may give rise to concern whether Pfizer-derived DNA could be integrated into the host genome and affect genomic DNA integrity; no genotoxicity or carcinogenicity studies were provided [43, 44, 45].

Green pass (briefly GP): it is an efficient means of sowing confusion and separation, of transforming rights into concessions, of laying the foundations for a system of social credits destined to irreversibly disrupt the life of the Western world. It is isolating a considerable part of honest Italian citizens who legally act, guilty of not having bent over an unconstitutional compulsory medical treatment against their will. It forces people to continually recall vaccinations, under penalty of its revocation.

The GP is undermining the principle of legality and restructuring society through rigid behavioral rules by reshaping habits; it is creating new economic paradigms through the progressive destruction of small and medium- sized enterprises, and punishes in an unjust and unjustified way those who do not comply with this new rule [46]. It has not only health significance, but it may serves to actively monitor the population [47].

Vaccine passports cannot provide an individual risk assessment, they cannot guarantee security; however, they introduce deep risks into society [48].

In Italy the super GP (or enhanced GP) came into force on December 06, 2021 to access a further series of social activities, such as bars and restaurants, getting on buses and trains, working, all activities closed to holders of the basic GP only. It was introduced by the decree of November 26, 2021 approved by the Italian government. The new green certificate is valid only for those who are totally vaccinated (3 doses) or cured from Covid, it is not valid for those in possession of a negative swab, be it antigenic or molecular. The efficiency of both GPs is sure questionable (Figures 5 & 6).

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Even from the official page of the Ministry of Health’s website (with the last updated date 2022/02/02) we read that it is “false” to say: “If I have had the vaccine against Sars

Cov-2 and also the booster with the third dose, I cannot get sick of Covid-19 and I cannot transmit the infection to others”. It is therefore not true that the GP serves to guarantee citizens to be among people who are not contagious [49].

The rules on the obligation to vaccinate by job category and by age group, as well as the extension of the obligation of super green certification, are unmotivated from a medical and a scientific point of view. It has been established that vaccines do not hinder the spread of the virus and that consequently the super green certification does not guarantee that those in possession are not contagious. The super green certifications, associated with vaccination, are useless tools for the purpose of containing infection and instead effective vehicles for guaranteeing viral circulation. The Italian state prohibited to work for healthy citizens over 50 old who have not accepted to undergo a de facto mandatory vaccination, and this has been applied also for remote working.

The GP is conceived as a prerequisite for mass control by means of a digital identity, a personal identifier with which to access any service; if we add electronic money instead of cash, the control will be complete. The basic idea is to transform citizens into “digital identities”, with all that this entails in terms of tracking and fiscal control.

- Masks and PCR tests: in Italy there is a sort of “Covid psychosis” which is affecting the population; a very high percentage of people in fact still wear the mask outdoors and this is not a sign of responsibility, but of worrying collective psychosis, daughter of ignorance, disinformation and irrationality. On the contrary, the fundamental thing would be to restart immediately, for not irreparably destroying the society; people have to go back to really live, being able to realize their own projects [50].

Various studies are showing how masks and face shields cause fear in children. Particular attention should be paid to their breathing; it represents a critical and vulnerable physiological variable due to a greater oxygen demand, greater susceptibility to hypoxia, lower respiratory reserve [51, 52, 53].

The masks block the basics of communication, the exchange of emotions and hinder learning, depriving children of the positive effects of smiling, laughter and emotional mimicry. The efficacy of masks in children as viral protection is controversial and evidence for their wide use is lacking. Carcinogens, synthetic microfibers and nano-substances have been found in the masks [54, 55, 56].

Nasal swabs are used to sequence the genomes of people and not necessarily to test for covid. Many of the cotton swabs processed with a PCR test are later used to conduct research on the genetic profiles of people [57]. The John Hopkins University has also confirmed that it is possible to be vaccinated with a nasal vaccine using similar procedure as the PCR test without knowing it [58, 59, 60, 61].

On the “New World Order” Hypothesis

The COVID epidemic is full of dark sides, starting with China which at the end of 2019 intentionally allowed its spread by declaring that there was no evidence of human-to- human transmission.

During the epidemic, most EU member states made far-reaching decisions, often blind to the health, physical and mental well-being of children, young people and adults. The European Union is today considering the possibility of continuing to centralize these measures imposed by the state of emergency, which have failed and caused much damage. These obligations and restrictions do not offer a sustainable and humane future for society.

In 2019, Dr. Anthony Fauci, health and human services officials, and other health experts, including Dr. Rick Bright, former director of the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), alluded to a pandemic as an ideal situation for moving from conventional vaccines to an experimental mRNA-based technology, which otherwise would have taken decades for being introduced into the market [62].

Doctors and scientists, in ever increasing numbers, have warned and are warning that these gene therapy-based inoculations could cause countless side effects and even death. The idea of fabricating an epidemic for geopolitical purposes, carefully fed by a dishonest press that refused to ask the most obvious questions, is therefore a hypothesis worthy of due respect.

The lawyer Reiner Fuellmich said: “They are trying to distract our attention from what they have done through a highly criminal financial system, which is a financial mafia. We will destroy all these corrupt societies. These are not collateral effects, it is all done on purpose. And then we will also have to talk about the issue of the genocide in progress” [63, 64].

Fuellmich and his team have collected thousands of scientific evidence demonstrating the complete unreliability of PCR tests and the fraud behind them. They claim that the so-called vaccines are part of genetic experiments. This would aim at the total control over the human being; uncooperative people are threatened and all kinds of psychological techniques are used to manipulate people. Mainstream media are telling a false reality and claiming that most people are in favor of measures and vaccines, which is not true, according to them [65].

The World Economic Forum said the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a greater focus on the power of medical data, especially the so-called vaccine passports. These passports serve as a form of digital identity. The new WEF report, published in February 2022, calls for a multi-stakeholder approach to move towards a trusted digital agency for a safer and more inclusive online world [66].

In the opinion of a lot of people, as can be verified on the web, the real objectives of the 2030 Agenda can instead be summarized as follows: control of all finances, digital world currency in a cashless society, use of GMOs, mass vaccinations, population control, forced austerity, environmental restrictions. The system they would like to introduce is called “Security State”; to make it work, it needs a continuous emergency [67].

The expression “Great Reset” is now in the public domain and enters many analyzes and discussions. The idea is to implement the program contained in the book “Covid-19. The Great Reset” written by Klaus Schwab with Thierry Malleret [68].

“Resetting the Future” deals, as time frame, with the decade 2021-2030. The Great Reset also provides for a credit scheme, under which a personal debt can be forgiven upon delivery of all personal assets to an administrative body or agency [69, 70].

Conclusion

The Internet and social networks have changed the way people socialize and communicate; the network has eliminated all boundaries, putting in contact people who otherwise would never have known each others, has changed the way people understand the world. Those who have enough digital skills to surf the net can benefit from this enormous amount of information, while those who don’t have, risk to become victims of persuasion techniques, clickbaiting, phishing, to become social-addicted.

On the other hand we have traditional media, which have shown in this time all their limits and constraints to convey people to certain social attitudes, to induce them to make certain choices, to avoid democratic confrontation.

Social aggregations have become stronger and more present in the last two years, so much so that they have influenced public opinion with their own initiatives, and therefore also a danger for traditional media, which can no longer impose their ideas in a strong way. News within the network travels quickly everywhere, offering information that, at least for some social networks, traditional media does not provide.

Traditional media have contributed to the circulation of news and protocols on public health not scientifically supported in the last two years, and which are increasingly denied by facts and scientific research independent by the drug lobbies.

The effectiveness of their technique was based on the ability to appear plausible, relying on prejudices within the social fabric, exploiting strong emotions such as anxiety, anger, frustration, fear, through a manipulative and invasive use.

Openness to a true and healthy confrontation should be the right way to improve the quality of communication and ensure that different but free opinions arise, not the result of persuasion and closure.

Guaranteeing the free circulation of ideas is a right of citizens in any regime that defines itself as democratic, so as having correct information, not being subjected to deceptive and persuasive contents; true democracies are such only if people are free to choose on the basis of true contents, which do not alter the perception of reality. In the past two years, humanity has been undergoing an unprecedented attack from a desire to impose a new social model and from disinformation; through vulnerability and fear they are trying to deceive people into believing that certain choices are good while in reality they are bad.

To get out of this dark period, it is necessary to pay the right attention to what we assimilate through the media, in particular the traditional ones, to inform ourselves well about what is happening around us, to evaluate in a scientifically critical way what the so- called recognized and certified authorities tell us for two years, to develop forms of collaboration, mutual aid and dialogue in full respect of the diversity of ideas.

Without correct circulation of opinions and information, with freedom of expression as the founding right of a democratic society, we arrive at censorship, the evil of any free circulation of ideas and opinions, of healthy confrontation and openness to diversity, what is unfortunately happening in Italy.

It seems beyond doubt that what has happened from 2020 to date has been a real live experiment of social engineering; its success seems unfortunately indisputable. This situation is creating devastating psychological damage to populations making people hypochondriac and discharged.

Billions of people have been vaccinated with a new type of pharmaceutics, even against their will, devastating the new generations, making great strides on digitalisation and reshaping the economy of several countries.

The only thing that should be done right now is to suspend all vaccinations and initiate a thorough uncensored review of everything that has been done over the past two years. It is possible to identify serious gaps and omissions, far beyond the confines of possible scientific fraud in the clinical studies presented to obtain the emergency approval.

The decrees issued in these two years in Italy are administrative acts; in terms of the law, they are secondary sources, therefore they must respect primary sources, that is fundamental laws such as the Italian Constitution, EU regulations, International Treaties (Nice Charter, Oviedo Convention, Nuremberg Code, to name but a few) and by violating them they would have had to expire automatically if confirmed.