Tag: big tech

Twitch is accused of sexism for banning phrase “I hate women” but not “I hate men”

Twitch is accused of double standards for allowing hateful language against men. Users discovered that the platform allows “i hate men” but blocks “i hate women.”

Earlier this week, Twitch streamer “shirahiko” posted two screenshots on Twitter to expose Twitch’s sexism against men. Per the screenshots, attempting to publish a stream with the title “I hate women,” Twitch blocks it for violating its “moderation policy.”

The same does not happen when users attempt to type the title “I hate men.”

Shirahiko said they wanted to type the title “I hate women” to “mock the fact that people are blowing things out of proportion again by saying ‘all men are bad’ in the Vtuber community.”

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Data Shows Big Tech Censored Biden Criticism 600+ Times Over 2-Year Cycle

The Media Research Center, a media watchdog group, has identified more than 600 occasions in which Big Tech companies censored criticism of President Joe Biden, dating back to March 2020.

The collected data ran through the MRC’s CensorTrack database, which monitors censorship of prominent political voices by leading Silicon Valley platforms, and covered the 24-month period of March 2020 to March 2022. 

The findings revealed that prominent social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter concealed Biden critiques 646 times over the two-year cycle.

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Spotify reserves the right to limit reach of “misinformation”

Spotify is highlighting its rules around censorship, taking a leaf out of the book of other tech giants who like to find a way to limit speech that their rules don’t actually “outlaw.”

According to Spotify, the content the reach of which it can now decide to restrict is that which “touches” on what are described as sensitive topics – even though this content “does not cross the threshold which would require removal under our Platform Rules.”

Reports supportive of this new policy say that it came in response to the reaction, outside and inside Spotify, to Joe Rogan’s podcast, specifically an episode that looked into the safety and usefulness of Covid vaccines.

The episode produced outrage, amplified by the “friendly” media, branding Rogan as a peddler of misinformation, and agitating musician Neil Young so much that he presented Spotify with an ultimatum: either have him or Rogan on the platform. (Spotify chose Rogan).

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Former Intelligence Officials, Citing Russia, Say Big Tech Monopoly Power is Vital to National Security

A group of former intelligence and national security officials on Monday issued a jointly signed letter warning that pending legislative attempts to restrict or break up the power of Big Tech monopolies — Facebook, Google, and Amazon — would jeopardize national security because, they argue, their centralized censorship power is crucial to advancing U.S. foreign policy. The majority of this letter is devoted to repeatedly invoking the grave threat allegedly posed to the U.S. by Russia as illustrated by the invasion of Ukraine, and it repeatedly points to the dangers of Putin and the Kremlin to justify the need to preserve Big Tech’s power in its maximalist form. Any attempts to restrict Big Tech’s monopolistic power would therefore undermine the U.S. fight against Moscow.

While one of their central claims is that Big Tech monopoly power is necessary to combat (i.e., censor) “foreign disinformation,” several of these officials are themselves leading disinformation agents: many were the same former intelligence officials who signed the now-infamous-and-debunked pre-election letter fraudulently claiming that the authentic Hunter Biden emails had the “hallmarks” of Russia disinformation (former Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Obama CIA Director Michael Morrell, former Obama CIA/Pentagon chief Leon Panetta). Others who signed this new letter have strong financial ties to the Big Tech corporations whose power they are defending in the name of national security (Morrell, Panetta, former Bush National Security Adviser Fran Townsend).

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Democrats are “working with” Big Tech on new censorship calls

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has officially pushed for more online censorship. The DNC’s stand could compromise bipartisan Big Tech bills, according to critics.

The DNC has published a document titled “Recommendations for Combating Online Misinformation.” Notably, the document contains a plan that calls for more censorship on online platforms.

Among other things, the DNC recommended that tech companies should “enforce rules on hate speech consistently and comprehensively,” “promote authoritative news over highly engaging news in content algorithms, and “enforce a comprehensive political misinformation policy.”

Perhaps the most alarming recommendation was for companies to “establish a policy against the distribution of hacked materials.” In the weeks leading up to 2020 presidential election, Big Tech platforms like Twitter suppressed a story involving Joe Biden’s son Hunter, which, according to some, could have swayed the election. At the time, Twitter claimed the story was based on “hacked” material.

In the document, the DNC admits that it partnered with tech companies.

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Twitter sabotages itself in attempt to stop Elon Musk takeover

In a bid to thwart Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s attempted takeover of Twitter to make free speech changes, the company’s board has announced that existing shareholders will be able to purchase additional shares at a discount if a person or group builds a stake of more than 15% in the company without board approval.

The move, which is known as a “poison pill,” makes it harder for a person or group to take control of the company because their stake can be diluted whenever they own more than 15% of the company. However, it could also hurt existing shareholders because their stock would be diluted too and this dilution would lower the share price.

The poison pill will be in place for the next year.

Twitter’s poison bill defense follows Musk announcing a 9.2% stake in the company earlier this month and then offering to take the company private to make free speech changes yesterday. Musk had offered to pay $54.20 per share in cash and the stock last traded at a price of $46.66 – 13.9% below Musk’s offer price.

After offering to buy Twitter, Musk continued to defend free speech in an appearance at TED 2022.

“A good sign as to whether there’s free speech is, is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like? If that is the case then we have free speech,” the billionaire said.

“And it’s damn annoying, when someone you don’t like says something you don’t like. That is a sign of a healthy, functioning, free speech situation.”

During the interview, Musk said that his reasons for buying Twitter were not for profit.

“My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization,” said Musk.

“I don’t care about the economics at all.”

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Biden’s Justice Dept. spied on journalists’ Apple and Google accounts: Project Veritas

The journalistic whistleblower organization, Project Veritas, announced Wednesday that Apple and Google have come forward to provide documents showing that President Biden’s Justice Department issued nine secret subpoenas to the companies to access multiple Project Veritas journalists’ private information.

The subpoenas and warrants were reportedly even extended to the journalist’s security detail.

In a video, published by Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe, the documents purport to show that the Justice Department “compelled Apple and Google not to disclose that they were providing the individual’s private data to the government,” according to Project Veritas.

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Muting your mic doesn’t stop big tech from recording your audio

Anytime you use a video teleconferencing app, you’re sending your audio data to the company hosting the services. And, according to a new study, that means all of your audio data. This includes voice and background noise whether you’re broadcasting or muted.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison investigated “many popular apps” to determine the extent that video conferencing apps capture data while users employ the in-software ‘mute’ button.

According to a university press release, their findings were substantial:

They used runtime binary analysis tools to trace raw audio in popular video conferencing applications as the audio traveled from the app to the computer audio driver and then to the network while the app was muted.

They found that all of the apps they tested occasionally gather raw audio data while mute is activated, with one popular app gathering information and delivering data to its server at the same rate regardless of whether the microphone is muted or not.

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Western Dissent from US/NATO Policy on Ukraine is Small, Yet the Censorship Campaign is Extreme

If one wishes to be exposed to news, information or perspective that contravenes the prevailing US/NATO view on the war in Ukraine, a rigorous search is required. And there is no guarantee that search will succeed. That is because the state/corporate censorship regime that has been imposed in the West with regard to this war is stunningly aggressive, rapid and comprehensive.

On a virtually daily basis, any off-key news agency, independent platform or individual citizen is liable to be banished from the internet. In early March, barely a week after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the twenty-seven nation European Union — citing “disinformation” and “public order and security” — officially banned the Russian state-news outlets RT and Sputnik from being heard anywhere in Europe. In what Reuters called “an unprecedented move,” all television and online platforms were barred by force of law from airing content from those two outlets. Even prior to that censorship order from the state, Facebook and Google were already banning those outlets, and Twitter immediately announced they would as well, in compliance with the new EU law.

But what was “unprecedented” just six weeks ago has now become commonplace, even normalized. Any platform devoted to offering inconvenient-to-NATO news or alternative perspectives is guaranteed a very short lifespan. Less than two weeks after the EU’s decree, Google announced that it was voluntarily banning all Russian-affiliated media worldwide, meaning Americans and all other non-Europeans were now blocked from viewing those channels on YouTube if they wished to. As so often happens with Big Tech censorship, much of the pressure on Google to more aggressively censor content about the war in Ukraine came from its own workforce: “Workers across Google had been urging YouTube to take additional punitive measures against Russian channels.”

So prolific and fast-moving is this censorship regime that it is virtually impossible to count how many platforms, agencies and individuals have been banished for the crime of expressing views deemed “pro-Russian.” On Tuesday, Twitter, with no explanation as usual, suddenly banned one of the most informative, reliable and careful dissident accounts, named “Russians With Attitude.” Created in late 2020 by two English-speaking Russians, the account exploded in popularity since the start of the war, from roughly 20,000 followers before the invasion to more than 125,000 followers at the time Twitter banned it. An accompanying podcast with the same name also exploded in popularity and, at least as of now, can still be heard on Patreon.

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White House, IRS, CDC, and many other US government websites sending data to Big Tech via Google tracking code

Most of the major US federal government websites and numerous state and local government websites are sending real-time surveillance data back to Google as users browse their websites. Even websites where users are submitting sensitive or personal information, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) tips page and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website, contain tracking code that sends real-time visitor data back to Google.

Most of these government websites contain tracking code from the web traffic analytics tool Google Analytics. This code collects detailed user data which is sent to Google’s servers, analyzed, and presented to website owners via an online dashboard.

Google Analytics automatically collects data on the pages visited, the time and duration of each visit, and other visitor data (such as the device, browser, operating system, and screen resolution of visitors). It can also be configured to collect data on more specific actions such as when users click or tap specific links, download content, or fill out forms.

Some government websites also have code from other Google services (such as DoubleClick, Google Adsense, Google Maps, Google Play, and YouTube) and other tech giants (such as Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter) embedded on some of their pages.

The US government openly admits to using Google Analytics tracking code on 400 executive branch domains and 5,700 total websites. It even displays this surveillance data publicly via a real-time online dashboard which also tracks visitors with Google Analytics.

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