Tag: big tech

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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If It Feels Like You’re Being Manipulated, It’s Because You Are

If you’ve got a gut feeling that your rulers are working to control your perception of the war in Ukraine, it is safe to trust that feeling.

If you feel like there’s been a concerted effort from the most powerful government and media institutions in the western world to manipulate your understanding of what’s going on with this war, it’s because that’s exactly what has been happening.

If you can’t recall ever seeing such intense mass media spin about a war before, it’s because you haven’t.

If you get the distinct impression that this may be the most aggressively perception-managed and psyop-intensive war in human history, it’s because it is.

If it looks like Silicon Valley platforms are controlling the content that people see to give them a perspective on this war that is wildly biased in favor of the US narrative, it’s because that is indeed the case.

If it seems like a suspicious coincidence that Russiagate manufactured mainstream consent for all the same shady agendas we’re seeing ramped up now like cold war brinkmanship against Moscow, internet censorship, and being constantly lied to by the mass media for the greater good, it’s because it is a mighty suspicious coincidence.

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‘Something That’s Frightening’: Robert Epstein Warns Against Big Tech Manipulation

A senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, in California, Robert Epstein has been researching and looking at how the biggest tech companies influence human behavior, and conducting extensive monitoring projects of bias in these companies’ products, with a particular focus on Google.

Epstein called his findings “frightening” because of the tech companies’ ability to manipulate and change people’s behavior on a global scale.

“Now, put that all together, you’ve got something that’s frightening, because you have sources of influence, controlled by really a handful of executives who are not accountable to any public, not the American public, not any public anywhere. They’re only accountable to their shareholders,” Epstein told host of American Thought Leaders Jan Jekielek during a recent interview.

“And yet, they hold in their hands, the power to change thinking behavior on a massive scale, the power in close elections anyway, to pick the winner in the country after country after country.”

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Twitter Just Banned Ex-UN Weapons Inspector For Revealing Crimes Against Humanity Committed By Ukraine

On Wednesday, Twitter ‘permanently suspended’ retired US Marine Corps officer Scott Ritter.

By disputing Ukrainian authorities’ accusations that Russian soldiers massacred residents in Bucha near Kiev, Twitter accused the former UN weapons inspector of participating in prohibited behavior.

On his Telegram channel, Ritter shared a screenshot of the message he received.

“So apparently I’ve been suspended from Twitter for the crime of challenging the orthodox narrative of the so-called Bucha massacre”

He said hehad appealed the decision adding that “Freedom of speech in America today is an endangered concept.”

RT reports: According to the screenshot, Twitter’s censors had decided that Ritter violated their rules against “harassment and abuse” by saying the Ukrainian police had committed crimes against humanity in Bucha, and were trying to shift blame onto Russia with US help.

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Twitter IS “State-Affiliated Media”

British politician and broadcaster George Galloway has made headlines in the UK with his threat to press legal action against Twitter for designating his account “Russia state-affiliated media”, a label which will now show up under his name every time he posts anything on the platform.

“Dear @TwitterSupport I am not ‘Russian State Affiliated media’,” reads a viral tweet by Galloway. “I work for NO Russian media. I have 400,000 followers. I’m the leader of a British political party and spent nearly 30 years in the British parliament. If you do not remove this designation I will take legal action.”

Galloway argues that while his broadcasts have previously been aired by Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik, because those outlets have been shut down in the UK by Ofcom and by European Union sanctions he can no longer be platformed by them even if he wants to. If you accept this argument, then it looks like Twitter is essentially using the “state-affiliated media” designation as a marker of who Galloway is as a person, rather than as a marker of what he actually does.

Regardless of whether you agree with Galloway’s argument or not, this all overlooks the innate absurdity of a government-tied social media corporation like Twitter labeling other people “state-affiliated media”. Twitter is state-affiliated media. It has been working in steadily increasing intimacy with the United States government since the US empire began pressuring Silicon Valley platforms to regulate content in support of establishment power structures following the 2016 election.

In 2020 Twitter was one of the many Silicon Valley corporations who coordinated directly with US government agencies to determine what content should be censored in order to “secure” the presidential election. In 2021 Twitter announced that it was orchestrating mass purges of foreign accounts on the advice of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), which receives funding from many government institutions including the US State Department.

“ASPI is the propaganda arm of the CIA and the U.S. government,” veteran Australian diplomat Bruce Haigh told Mintpress News earlier this year. “It is a mouthpiece for the Americans. It is funded by the American government and American arms manufacturers. Why it is allowed to sit at the center of the Australian government when it has so much foreign funding, I don’t know. If it were funded by anybody else, it would not be where it is at.”

Twitter has also coordinated its mass purges of accounts with a cybersecurity firm called FireEye, which this 2019 Sputnik article by journalist Morgan Artyukhina explains was “founded in 2004 with money from the CIA’s venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel.”

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