Tag: big tech

YouTube: Users will have to commit to WHO-approved practices to be labeled as “reliable” in algorithm

In an attempt to limit “health misinformation,” YouTube announced it will certify medical professionals as “reliable” and “authoritative” sources of information.

In a blog post on the platform’s website, its global head of YouTube Health Dr. Garth Graham said: “YouTube Health has been working on additional ways to help doctors, nurses, mental health professionals and healthcare information providers to bring high quality health information into the spaces that people visit throughout their day – like their favorite video-sharing app.”

To apply to be labeled as reliable, users have to submit their license and adhere to the “best practices” for sharing health information set by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS), and the National Academy of Medicine (NAM).

YouTube gives “authoritative” sources a boost in the algorithm and non-authoritative sources are suppressed.

Keep reading

CNBC Journalist Duped By Pranksters Pulling ‘Internet Hoax’ Outside Of Twitter’s HQ

A CNBC journalist was duped by two pranksters outside of Twitter’s headquarters on Friday who were posing as data engineers who had just been fired.

The story comes after Elon Musk took over the company Thursday evening following his $44 billion acquisition being finalized.

Musk reportedly directed engineers from his electric car company Tesla, where he also serves as CEO, to take control of the social media company’s code away from Twitter’s engineers to evaluate potential changes to the system.

Musk also immediately fired leftist CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety, The Washington Post reported. The report said Musk also fired the company’s general counsel, Sean Edgett, who was escorted out of the building.

CNBC journalist Deirdre Bosa showed up to the offices Friday where she took a photograph of two men who were carrying boxes, claiming that they had just been fired.

“It’s happening,” Bosa tweeted. “Entire team of data engineers let go. These are two of them.”

“They are visibly shaken. Daniel tells us he owns a Tesla and doesn’t know how he’s going to make payments,” she claimed. “(To be clear – I don’t think the Tesla was top of mind, I think @elonmusk was).”

Keep reading

Schiff, Durbin ‘Demand’ That Google and YouTube Censor ‘Dangerous’ Incel Content

Congressman Adam Schiff and Senator Dick Durbin are “demanding” that the CEOs of Google’s parent company Alphabet and YouTube censor “extreme and harmful” incel content on their platforms.

Incel is a term used to describe someone who is involuntarily celibate.

The Democrat politicians cited a report from the far-left “Center for Countering Digital Hate” in their censorship demand.

The report claims that incel channels on YoutTube have accumulated more than 24 million views.

“The CCDH report makes clear that misogynist communities have created male-supremacist online spaces to promote their hateful and violent ideology, blaming women and minority groups for their problems. While incels have been described as loners or socially isolated, they in fact are embedded in highly active, densely-interconnected online communities that encourage and celebrate their horrific beliefs and acts,” the members wrote in a letter to the CEOs of Alphabet and YouTube, according to a press release.

According to the press release, Schiff and Durbin “specifically urge Alphabet and YouTube to remove content and channels that drive users toward harmful incel communities, and request additional information on what safety measures the platforms are implementing to protect users – particularly young users – and prevent violent content from proliferating.”

“We find all of this to be unacceptable and dangerous. Major social media platforms and search engines that claim to value safety should follow through with action,” the letter continued.

The letter was co-signed by Senators Bob Menendez and Mazie Hirono, and Representatives Hank Johnson, André Carson, Jackie Speier, Ed Case, Darren Soto, Lori Trahan, and Mondaire Jones — all of whom are Democrats.

Keep reading

Google is Manipulating Search Results to Suppress Republican Turnout in Midterm Elections

A report from the Media Research Center (MRC) has revealed that Google is manipulating search results in an attempt to suppress the Republican vote during this year’s crucial midterm elections.

The MRC is accusing Google of perpetrating a “war on democracy” over this news. They are demanding that Google “provide algorithmic transparency” to prove that they are not manipulating elections.

The MRC found that campaign websites for 10 Republicans in the 12 tightest national races according to Real Clear Politics were far lower on the Google search results pages than their opponents. Seven Republican candidate websites were blacklisted from the first page of Google search results completely.

“Google’s bias is undeniable when shown in comparison to other search engines. Bing and DuckDuckGo both show, with on exception, all 12 Democrat and Republican senate candidate’s websites within the top five organic search results,” the MRC said.

Keep reading

The US Government Sees Silicon Valley As Part Of Its Propaganda Machine

The Biden administration is reportedly considering opening a national security review of Elon Musk’s business ventures which could see the plutocrat’s purchase of Twitter blocked by the White House, in part because Musk is perceived as having an “increasingly Russia-friendly stance.”

Bloomberg reports:

Biden administration officials are discussing whether the US should subject some of Elon Musk’s ventures to national security reviews, including the deal for Twitter Inc. and SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network, according to people familiar with the matter.

US officials have grown uncomfortable over Musk’s recent threat to stop supplying the Starlink satellite service to Ukraine — he said it had cost him $80 million so far — and what they see as his increasingly Russia-friendly stance following a series of tweets that outlined peace proposals favorable to President Vladimir Putin. They are also concerned by his plans to buy Twitter with a group of foreign investors.

The “group of foreign investors” the Biden administration is reportedly worried about oddly includes Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, who has already been a massive Twitter shareholder for years. The White House certainly never had a problem with foreign investors there before.

Keep reading

Psychology academic was suspended from Twitter after complaining about self-harm glorification on the platform

Pamela Paresky, visiting fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, was suspended from Twitter for saying that Twitter does not enforce its policy against self-harm.

“On October 3, I criticized Twitter for how it deals with self-harm—specifically that Twitter does not enforce its ‘gratuitous gore’ policy for self-harm images, nor does it enforce its policy of prohibiting tweets that ‘promote or encourage suicide or self-harm,’” she wrote in an article published by Wesley Yang’s newsletter Year Zero. “To illustrate how easy Twitter makes it to find posts with extremely graphic images and videos depicting severe self-harm (cutting), I tweeted some common self-harm codewords along with screenshots of a horrific self-harm post & accompanying comments.”

Keep reading

Google Employees Are Laughing at You for Thinking ‘Incognito Mode’ Is Private

According to a series of internal communications discovered in court, Google employees joked about Chrome’s “Incognito mode” and criticized the company for failing to meet users’ expectations of privacy.

Google is currently the target of a class action lawsuit in California over its misleading claims of privacy.

Court documents obtained by Bloomberg reveal that a Google engineer suggested in 2018 that the Incognito mode icon be changed to “Guy Incognito,” a Simpsons character who looks exactly like Homer Simpson except for his mustache. According to the Google employee, the character “accurately conveys the level of privacy [Incognito mode] provides” compared to Chrome’s standard browsing mode.

In a 2021 email, Google marketing chief Lorraine Twohill urged the implementation of a more secure Incognito mode as a means of gaining users’ trust.

“Make Incognito Mode truly private,” Twohill wrote. “We are limited in how strongly we can market Incognito because it’s not truly private, thus requiring really fuzzy, hedging language that is almost more damaging.”

Studies have shown that the language used by Google contributes to the misconception that “Incognito mode” is truly private.

“We found that browsers’ disclosures fail to correct the majority of the misconceptions we tested,” researchers at the University of Chicago and Leibniz University Hannover wrote in 2019. “These misconceptions included beliefs that private browsing mode would prevent geolocation, advertisements, viruses, and tracking by both the websites visited and the network provider.”

Keep reading

PayPal is still threatening to fine users $2,500 for promoting “intolerance that is discriminatory”

While PayPal has walked back its threat to fine users $2,500 for “misinformation,” the payments company is still reserving the right to fine users the same amount for other alleged transgressions.

In its current “Acceptable Use Policy,” which has been active for a year, PayPal states that: “Violation of this Acceptable Use Policy constitutes a violation of the PayPal User Agreement and may subject you to damages, including liquidated damages of $2,500.00 U.S. dollars per violation which may be debited directly from your PayPal account(s).”

And PayPal’s list of “prohibited activities,” which can trigger this $2,500 fine, include any activities that relate to transactions involving “intolerance that is discriminatory,” “the promotion of hate,” and “items that are considered obscene.”

Keep reading

Google Labels Conservative Sites ‘Dangerous and Derogatory’

Issues & Insights (I&I) is a terrific conservative website whose writers came from the editorial board of Investors Business Daily. I&I writes smart content that goes after the left, often mercilessly — and, hey, it features PJ Media on its list of recommended websites, so you can see how intelligent I&I is.

One of the key contributors to I&I is cartoonist Michael Ramirez. Even if you don’t know his name, chances are you’ve seen his cartoons. They’re perceptive, thought-provoking, gut-busting, and solidly conservative.

But Google is targeting I&I and Ramirez’s work. Here’s how I&I explains it:

Google’s AdSense network – which is used by some 3.5 million websites to generate revenue – defines “shocking content” as content that:

  • contains gruesome, graphic, or disgusting accounts or imagery.
  • depicts acts of violence.
  • contains a significant amount of or prominently features obscene or profane language.

We appealed this ruling with Google and were denied. No explanation was offered, of course. And there’s no possible way to know what would constitute a “fix” that would satisfy Google.

Referring specifically to Ramirez, I&I’s editors say that “Ramirez’s cartoons can be provocative. They can be hilarious. They can be deadly serious. But they are works of art.” And they’re right. That’s the nature of political cartoons in general, whether they’re from the left or right, but Google is specifically targeting Ramirez.

Keep reading

PayPal Reverses Course, Says Company Will Not Seize Money From People for Promoting ‘Misinformation’

PayPal on Oct. 8 said it was not implementing a new policy that would have enabled the company to seize money from users who allegedly promote “misinformation” or “hate.”

“An AUP notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information. PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy,” a PayPal spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.

“Our teams are working to correct our policy pages. We’re sorry for the confusion this has caused,” the spokesperson added.

The company in September announced that it was amending its acceptable use policy, or AUP.

The policy, due to take effect in November, said that users may not use PayPal to for the “sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials that, in PayPal’s sole discretion, (a) are harmful, obscene, harassing, or objectionable, (b) depict or appear to depict nudity, sexual or other intimate activities, (c) depict or promote illegal drug use, (d) depict or promote violence, criminal activity, cruelty, or self-harm (e) depict, promote, or incite hatred or discrimination of protected groups or of individuals or groups based on protected characteristics (e.g. race, religion, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.) (f) present a risk to user safety or wellbeing, (g) are fraudulent, promote misinformation, or are unlawful, (h) infringe the privacy, intellectual property rights, or other proprietary rights of any party, or (i) are otherwise unfit for publication.”

For each violation, PayPal says users are subject to repercussions. Those include “liquated damages” of $2,500 per violation. The money will be taken directly from a person’s PayPal account.

Keep reading