Tag: big tech

Facebook Caves, Bans Accounts Identified by White House

Facebook has taken action against the so-called “disinformation dozen,” a set of accounts publicly identified by the Biden White House as responsible for the majority of alleged coronavirus “disinformation” on the platform.

The Biden administration identified the accounts last month and publicly urged Facebook to take action against them. It appears Facebook has now succumbed to that pressure.

In a statement to CNN, a White House spokesperson said the administration would continue to push for more censorship from social media platforms, and continued to criticize Facebook.

“In the middle of a pandemic, being honest and transparent about the work that needs to be done to protect public health is absolutely vital, but Facebook still refuses to be straightforward about how much misinformation is circulating — and being actively promoted — on their platform,” said the spokesperson.

“It’s on everyone to get this right so we can make sure the American people are getting accurate information to protect the health of themselves and their loved ones — which is why the Administration will continue to push leaders, media outlets, and leading sources of information like Facebook to meet those basic expectations.”

Despite criticizing Facebook, the White House admitted last month that it is in regular contact with the platform to identify and remove posts.

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Instagram blocks critical comments of Biden through it’s “disrespectful” content filter

Instagram introduced a selection of new tools this year, intended at assisting users in protecting their accounts against “harassment.”

However, the tool appears to be working to protect the Biden administration from some unwanted criticism. In response to President Biden’s handling of the Afghan evacuation, Instagram invoked a comment-censoring effort to protect him from “disrespectful” words.

Author and filmmaker Mike Cernovich was first to notice the censorship.

“We’re flagging comments that may be considered inappropriate or disrespectful,” Instagram told some users who tried to comment on President Biden’s posts.

During periods of increased attention, such as when something goes viral, Instagram developed capabilities for screening “abusive” direct message (DM) requests, as well as a mechanism for users to limit other individuals from publishing comments or sending DMs.

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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Reveals: ‘Taliban Can Stay On Platform, As Long As They Don’t Get Too Violent’

On Tuesday, Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey said in a statement that the Taliban will be allowed to stay on its social media platform, as long as they don’t get too violent.

The company explains it will “proactively enforce our rules” however stopped short of saying it would blacklist the Taliban.

After receiving inquiries about whether Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid will be banned from Twitter in the wake of the terrorist group seizing control of Kabul last weekend, the company revealed that the Taliban will remain on the platform while Twitter “proactively” enforces its rules.

“We will continue to proactively enforce our rules and review content that may violate Twitter rules, specifically policies against glorification of violence, platform manipulation, and spam,” the statement reads.

“The situation in Afghanistan is rapidly evolving. We’re also witnessing people in the country using Twitter to seek help and assistance. Twitter’s top priority is keeping people safe, and we remain vigilant,” according to the statement.

Social media users quickly took to Twitter to point out that the company appears to have a much harsher protocol for U.S. presidents than it does for the Taliban, as President Trump was banned earlier this year after holding a rally at the White House.

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Apple’s Plan to “Think Different” About Encryption Opens a Backdoor to Your Private Life

Apple has announced impending changes to its operating systems that include new “protections for children” features in iCloud and iMessage. If you’ve spent any time following the Crypto Wars, you know what this means: Apple is planning to build a backdoor into its data storage system and its messaging system.

Child exploitation is a serious problem, and Apple isn’t the first tech company to bend its privacy-protective stance in an attempt to combat it. But that choice will come at a high price for overall user privacy. Apple can explain at length how its technical implementation will preserve privacy and security in its proposed backdoor, but at the end of the day, even a thoroughly documented, carefully thought-out, and narrowly-scoped backdoor is still a backdoor.

To say that we are disappointed by Apple’s plans is an understatement. Apple has historically been a champion of end-to-end encryption, for all of the same reasons that EFF has articulated time and time again. Apple’s compromise on end-to-end encryption may appease government agencies in the U.S. and abroad, but it is a shocking about-face for users who have relied on the company’s leadership in privacy and security.

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Twitter Announces ‘Collaboration’ With AP, Reuters To ‘Identify And Elevate Credible Information,’ Despite Ties To US Intelligence

On August 2, Twitter announced a new “collaboration” with Associated Press and Reuters to “identify and elevate credible information,” despite Reuters’ connections to the US Intelligence Community.

Twitter has announced that they will be collaborating with AP and Reuters to “identify and elevate credible information,” according to a post on August 2. “We are committed to making sure that when people come to Twitter to see what’s happening, they are able to easily find reliable information. Twitter will be able to expand the scale and increase the speed of our efforts to provide timely, authoritative context across the wide range of global topics and conversations that happen on Twitter every day,” the statement reads.

“When large or rapidly growing conversations happen on Twitter that may be noteworthy, controversial, sensitive, or may contain potentially misleading information, Twitter’s Curation team sources and elevates relevant context from reliable sources,” the statement continues. In response to the announcement, one Twitter user pointed out that the Senior Director of Reuters, Dawn Scalici, who served 33 years in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), is tasked with “advancing Thomson Reuters’ ability to meet the disparate needs of the U.S. Government.”

Prior to joining Thomson Reuters, Ms. Scalici served 33 years with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In her last federal assignment, she served as the National Intelligence Manager for the Western Hemisphere within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). In this role, she was responsible for overseeing national intelligence for an area of responsibility spanning from the Arctic to the tip of South America, including the US Homeland.

“Twitter is becoming the propaganda arm of the of US State Dept,” tweeted one user.

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Coming soon: America’s own social credit system

The new domestic “War on Terror,” kicked off by the riot on Jan. 6, has prompted several web giants to unveil predecessors to what effectively could become a soft social credit system by the end of this decade. Relying on an indirect hand from D.C., our social betters in corporate America will attempt to force the most profound changes our society has seen during the internet era.

China’s social credit system is a combination of government and business surveillance that gives citizens a “score” that can restrict the ability of individuals to take actions — such as purchasing plane tickets, acquiring property or taking loans — because of behaviors. Given the position of several major American companies, a similar system may be coming here sooner than you think. 

Last week, PayPal announced a partnership with the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center to “investigate” the role of “white supremacists” and propagators of “anti-government” rhetoric, subjective labels that potentially could impact a large number of groups or people using their service. PayPal says the collected information will be shared with other financial firms and politicians. Facebook is taking similar measures, recently introducing messages that ask users to snitch on their potentially “extremist” friends, which considering the platform’s bias seems mainly to target the political right. At the same time, Facebook and Microsoft are working with several other web giants and the United Nations on a database to block potential extremist content.

The actions of these major companies may seem logical in an internet riddled with scams and crime. After all, nobody will defend far-right militias or white supremacist groups using these platforms for their odious goals. However, the same issue with government censorship exists with corporate censorship: If there is a line, who draws it? Will the distinction between mundane politics and extremism be a “I’ll know it when I see it” scenario, as former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart described obscenity? If so, will there be individuals able to unilaterally remove people’s effective ability to use the internet? Could a Facebook employee equate Ben Shapiro with David Duke, and remove his account?

The implications of these crackdown efforts will be significantly more broad than just prohibiting Donald Trump from tweeting at 3 a.m. Young people cannot effectively function in society if blocked from using Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Uber, Amazon, PayPal, Venmo and other financial transaction systems. Some banking platforms already have announced a ban on certain legal purchases, such as firearms. The growth of such restrictions, which will only accelerate with support from (usually) left-wing politicians, could create a system in which individuals who do not hold certain political views could be blocked from polite society and left unable to make a living.  

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‘Who could devise these tortuous packages?’ Shaken Massachusetts couple speak for first time about how eBay staff tormented them with pig fetus, funeral wreath and porn for criticizing web giant on their e-commerce news site

A couple have details of a ‘depraved’ campaign of harassment they endured at the hands of eBay staff after criticizing the web giant on their e-commerce news site.   

David and Ina Steiner received live cockroaches, a book on surviving the loss of a spouse, a bereavement wreath and a mask from the movie Saw that the killer wears before kidnapping, torturing and killing his victims.

David also recalled the moment he received a disturbing call from a shop in Arizona telling them they couldn’t deliver the ‘wet specimen’ they ordered. 

‘Not having any idea what a wet specimen was, I asked her. It was an embalmed pig fetus’, the shaken stalking victim told Good Morning America. 

The neighbors even received pornography addressed to David in a bid to cause the couple maximum embarrassment. 

‘Who could devise these tortuous packages? And the depravity – the messages , if you read the language – I never in a million years would have thought it was a company,’ Ina said.

The harassment started in June 2019 when a neighbor walking his dog pointed out that the Steiners’ fence had been graffitied.

It soon spiraled from the vandalism and unwanted, ‘really disturbing’ email subscriptions to eBay employees trying to place a tracking device on the car.

Prosecutors suspected the campaign was to stop the Steiners from continuing EcommerceBytes, a site dedicated to e-commerce news David and Ina have been running from their home for the past 22 years.

The site had been critical of eBay and its policies over the course of its reporting, which the Steiners say was honest and fair. 

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United Nations Greenlights Big Tech Mega-Database To Censor Americans Deemed ‘Extremists’

A Big Tech-led group is using its influence and power to broaden its shared censorship database to curb “extremist content” and collect video and images deemed white supremacist, according to Reuters. The expansion comes after the group “took on renewed urgency” after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, which Democrats and tech giants continue to use as an excuse to justify suppression.

Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube, tech oligarchs trigger-happy to deplatform political dissidents, founded the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism in 2017 in what they labeled “a new collective effort to prevent the spread of terrorist and violent extremist content online.” Initially, the organization claimed to focus its efforts on rounding up content from terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State and the Taliban as designated by the United Nations, but now the monopolies running GIFCT are using their oligarch power to crack down on dissidents of their elitist agenda.

Just five years after its founding, GIFCT is expanding its database to include “white supremacist” content as determined by the United Nation’s Tech Against Terrorism project and intelligence groups such as Five Eyes. According to Reuters, the database will include “attacker manifestos — often shared by sympathizers after white supremacist violence” as well as links and material from Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and other “neo-Nazi” groups that are identified and then censored or removed by social media platforms.

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Dr. Shiva Discovers Existence of the Secretive Long Fuse Report — Exposes Twitter-Government Collusion — As Momentous Discovery as Pentagon Papers

Previously we reported on Dr. Shiva Ayyarurai was able to uncover Twitter’s “partner support portal.”

Dr. Shiva discovered that Twitter built a special portal offered to certain governmental entities so that government officials can flag and delete content they dislike for any reason, as part of what they call their “Twitter Partner Status.”

Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, the man who invented email, ran for US Senate in Massachusetts as a Republican and made allegations of voter fraud on Twitter. These tweets were then deleted by the far-left tech giant.  Later it was discovered that they were deleted at the direction of government employees of the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office. 

Discovering this, Dr. Ayyadurai filed a federal lawsuit by himself, alleging that his federal civil rights were violated when the government silenced his political speech in order to affect an election.

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YouTube suspends Sky News Australia in brazen and “disturbing” censorship

Sky News Australia, one of Australia’s most popular broadcasters, has been suspended from posting new content to YouTube for a week due to a supposed violation of YouTube’s guidelines on the spread of COVID-19 “misinformation.”

YouTube does not allow any video that conflicts with local health authorities or the World Health Organization’s (WHO) medical advice, although it does appear to be depending on who the “offender” is as to whether YouTube censors a video or channel.

Violations on YouTube are subject to a “three strikes” policy, with the first resulting in a one-week suspension, a second strike within 90 days leading to a two-week ban, and a third strike resulting in permanent removal from the site.

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