Tag: big tech

Big Tech, Pharma, Finance Urge SCOTUS to Uphold Race-Based Discrimination in College Admissions

A large cross-section of corporate America filed briefs with the Supreme Court on Aug. 1 urging the court to allow colleges to continue using race as a factor in student admissions.

The court is poised to hear challenges to these racially discriminatory policies in its new term that begins in October. The challengers say so-called affirmative action not only hurts white applicants, but works out to be an “anti-Asian penalty” as well. Asian American applicants generally have higher academic scores and higher extracurricular scores, they say.

Some legal observers speculate that the nine-member court—whose six-member conservative majority broke new ground in June by curbing environmental regulatory powers, declaring that the court was wrong to recognize a constitutional right to abortion 49 years ago, and declaring that there is a constitutional right to carry firearms in public for self-defense—wouldn’t have agreed to hear challenges to race-based college admissions unless it intended to curb them.

The use of race-based criteria by institutions of higher learning in the admissions process isn’t popular in the United States.

Surveys from both Pew Research Center and Gallup have indicated that nearly 75 percent of Americans of all races “do not believe race or ethnicity should be a factor in college admissions.”

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Bipartisan bill aimed at protecting kids online would require Big Tech to spy on them

A US Senate panel is debating two online safety bills that pertain to children, COPPA 2.0, and the Kids Online Safety Act, the latter of which has been described by observers as a scheme that will force online platforms to spy on children.

The original Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) aims to restrict the tracking and targeting of children under 13, while its update would expand to include those under 16.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) was introduced by Senators Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn, who said that it seeks to provide the solution to problems related to teenage mental health.

The way the senators envisaged this can be done is to improve children’s well-being online by requiring that social platforms provide kids and parents with “tools to help prevent the destructive impact of social media.”

The content that social sites would be tasked with preventing includes promotion of suicide, self-harm, substance abuse, eating disorders, etc., and non-compliance would make these companies legally liable.

They would also have to turn data over to researchers, introduce an age verification system, and set parental controls to the highest settings, to enable filtering or blocking.

But critics say that forcing social media companies to censor content and allowing parents to “spy” on children online is the wrong approach that doesn’t address the core problem of why children seek certain information on the web, while at the same time eroding their privacy.

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WHO calls for Big Tech to work with it to censor monkeypox “misinformation”

The World Health Organization (WHO), an unelected health agency that was given sweeping censorship powers during the COVID-19 pandemic, has called for all social media platforms to work with it to “prevent and counter” monkeypox “misinformation” and “disinformation.”

During a COVID-19 press briefing, WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, claimed that “stigma and discrimination can be as dangerous as any virus, and can fuel the outbreak.”

He continued by invoking so-called COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation and urged “all social media platforms, tech companies, and news organizations to work with us to prevent and counter harmful information.”

While Dr. Tedros didn’t specify which statements he wanted Big Tech to suppress under his proposed monkeypox misinformation censorship plan, numerous media outlets have complained that those who call monkeypox a “gay disease” or frame monkeypox as “exclusively affecting men who have sex with men” are spreading misinformation.

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Biden administration officials are subpoenaed over Big Tech censorship collusion

The suspected collusion between Big Tech and Big Government is nothing new, but now the issue is playing out in court: in May, a lawsuit filed at the US District Court for the Western District Court of Louisiana seeks to prove that such inappropriate ties in fact exist.

The plaintiffs are the states of Missouri and Louisiana while President Biden and senior figures from his White House – including Dr. Anthony Fauci – are named as defendants. The allegation is that the collusion to suppress speech happened specifically around topics like Covid and election security, and that this was done with the pretense of fighting “misinformation.”

The legal process is now in the discovery phase and those who must respond to discovery requests and present documents and information relevant to the case are Fauci and the institution he heads, the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and its head, Jen Easterly, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

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The Semiconductor Industry Is Coming for Your Wallet — As Usual, Congress Is Complicit

Of all the problems in the world right now, the chip shortage probably isn’t the chief concern for most people, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a serious issue. The auto and tech sectors have faced unprecedented delays and rising prices in recent months. Some used cars are even selling for more than their new counterparts because of the delays, a sure sign that production has slowed dramatically.

To address this, Congress is contemplating bipartisan legislation known as the Chips Act, which would provide $52 billion in grants and $24 billion in tax credits to the US semiconductor industry. Thanks to a last-minute bipartisan amendment, the bill will also put tens of billions of dollars toward various federal agencies, bringing the total price tag to $250 billion.

Because why not…

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UN is working with tech, media companies, and states to address “misinformation” and “hate speech”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is introducing a new element into the concept of the world organization’s peacekeeping activities: countering “misinformation” and “hate speech.”

And tech and media companies are being enlisted to help in weeding out information that the UN decides to consider as harmful.

Given that, like the saying goes, truth is typically the first casualty of any war – and this goes for any and all sides involved – it’s difficult to envisage how the UN might even start going about the task of “countering” misinformation and hate speech while maintaining its neutral and credible position in peacekeeping.

When he addressed a Security Council debate on peacekeeping operations, dedicated specifically to the “key role” of strategic communications, Guterres did not offer useful insight into that problem, but he did put strong emphasis on UN’s Global Communications Strategy, describing strategic communication variously as critical and central for successful peacekeeping.

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MEET THE EX-CIA AGENTS DECIDING FACEBOOK’S CONTENT POLICY

It is an uncomfortable job for anyone trying to draw the line between “harmful content and protecting freedom of speech. It’s a balance”, Aaron says. In this official Facebook video, Aaron identifies himself as the manager of “the team that writes the rules for Facebook”, determining “what is acceptable and what is not.” Thus, he and his team effectively decide what content the platform’s 2.9 billion active users see and what they don’t see.

Aaron is being interviewed in a bright warehouse-turned-studio. He is wearing a purple sweater and blue jeans. He comes across as a very likable, smiley person. It is not an easy job, of course, but someone has to make those calls. “Transparency is incredibly important in the work that I do,” he says.

Aaron is CIA. Or at least he was until July 2019, when he left his job as a senior analytic manager at the agency to become senior product policy manager for misinformation at Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. In his 15-year career, Aaron Berman rose to become a highly influential part of the CIA. For years, he prepared and edited the president of the United States’ daily brief, “wr[iting] and overs[eeing] intelligence analysis to enable the President and senior U.S. officials to make decisions on the most critical national security issues,” especially on “the impact of influence operations on social movements, security, and democracy,” his LinkedIn profile reads. None of this is mentioned in the Facebook video.

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UK communications regulator tells tech platforms to prepare for online censorship bill before it’s even passed

The Office of Communications (Ofcom), UK’s broadcasting and telecommunications authority, has issued a roadmap for tech companies to start preparing to implement the Online Safety Bill.

That’s despite the fact that the bill is still in parliamentary procedure and is yet to pass.

In fact, Ofcom refers to this democratic procedure, the outcome of which should be unknown until MPs vote on the proposal, as a mere technicality: “A countdown to a safer life online.”

Ofcom announced the roadmap document on Twitter, saying that it has presented its plans for the first 100 days of acting as online safety regulator – for when it starts overseeing the implementation of a law that does not yet exist.

And many civil and digital rights advocates are adamant that it should not exist, referring sometimes to the bill as “a censor’s charter.”

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Facebook shared deleted user data with cops, fired worker who raised alarms: lawsuit

Facebook employees were able to access deleted user data and share details with law enforcement agencies, according to allegations included in an explosive lawsuit filed by an ex-employee who said he was ousted for raising concerns about the practice.

Brennan Lawson, a former member of Facebook’s global escalations team, said he became concerned after learning in 2018 about a new tool that allowed content screeners to view data from the social media firm’s Messenger app — even if the user had deleted it.

The lawsuit alleges that the protocol allowed workers “to circumvent Facebook’s normal privacy protocols” in a way that the platform’s users were not aware was possible. The tool was reportedly employed to assist law enforcement officials during investigations into social media activity.

“Law enforcement would ask questions about the suspect’s use of the platform, such as who the suspect was messaging, when messages were sent, and even what those messages contained,” Lawson claims in the suit, according to Bloomberg.

“To keep Facebook in the good graces of the government, the Escalations Team would utilize the back-end protocol to provide answers for the law enforcement agency and then determine how much to share,” Lawson adds.

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Twitter censors story of British mother who died after reaction to Covid vaccine

Three children in the UK were left without a mother after she died from a massive stroke determined to be caused by blood clots that formed after she received the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, but Twitter is labeling conversations about this information taking place on the platform as “misinformation.”

Previously healthy Lucy Taberer, whose youngest is a five-year-old boy, succumbed to the consequences of the Covid shot 22 days after she was vaccinated. At first, the 47-year-old experienced mild side-effects, described in reports as common, to then develop a bruise, skin rash, and pain that the doctors at first dismissed as being caused by kidney stones.

In the end, it turned out that the victim’s reaction to the vaccine had been to develop blood clots that proved to be fatal.

Her death certificate reads that Taberer died of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and vaccine-associated thrombosis with thrombocytopenia.

Local media, including Leicester Mercury, reported about it, and Taberer’s step daughter tweeted a link to the story, but was quickly shut down by Twitter, which labeled the post as “misleading.”

To add insult to injury, she was advised to click another link, provided by Twitter’s “fact-checkers,” that would “explain” why health officials think Covid vaccines are safe “for most people.”

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