Tag: big tech

Congress, in a Five-Hour Hearing, Demands Tech CEOs Censor the Internet Even More Aggressively

Over the course of five-plus hours on Thursday, a House Committee along with two subcommittees badgered three tech CEOs, repeatedly demanding that they censor more political content from their platforms and vowing legislative retaliation if they fail to comply. The hearing — convened by the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Chair Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), and the two Chairs of its Subcommittees, Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) — was one of the most stunning displays of the growing authoritarian effort in Congress to commandeer the control which these companies wield over political discourse for their own political interests and purposes.

As I noted when I reported last month on the scheduling of this hearing, this was “the third time in less than five months that the U.S. Congress has summoned the CEOs of social media companies to appear before them with the explicit intent to pressure and coerce them to censor more content from their platforms.” The bulk of Thursday’s lengthy hearing consisted of one Democratic member after the next complaining that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google/Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey have failed in their duties to censor political voices and ideological content that these elected officials regard as adversarial or harmful, accompanied by threats that legislative punishment (including possible revocation of Section 230 immunity) is imminent in order to force compliance (Section 230 is the provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that shields internet companies from liability for content posted by their users).

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Google repeatedly hands over user data to law enforcement without a warrant

Google is turning over user data to US law enforcement, even when requests for that come without a warrant, in the form of requests that are not court-ordered.

That emerges from information shared with the LA Times by an anonymous Google user, who said they were notified about this in an email from the tech giant, who said the request came from the Department of Homeland Security, without including the request itself in the email.

When this Google user asked to see the document, it turned out to be an administrative subpoena issued by the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), while the data the agency was requesting from Google included the user’s name, home, email, and IP addresses, as well as sources of payment associated with the account.

And here, the term “account” covers any Google service and app, such as Gmail, Google Pay, YouTube, etc.

In the original email that arrived from the giant’s Legal Investigations Support, the user was advised that this data would indeed be handed to the agency as requested unless they obtained a federal court stamped motion to quash the subpoena within seven days.

For most people, Just Futures’ co-founder Paromita Shah suggested, this is a task they would be unlikely to accomplish, as it requires hiring a lawyer and going to federal court, and do it all in such a short period
of time.

According to available data from the company’s transparency report covering the first half of 2020, Google received 15,500 subpoenas and complied in turning over “some data” in 83% percent of cases.

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The New Normal “Reality” Police

The point is, apparently, the Corporatocracy feel sufficiently threatened by random people on Facebook that they are conducting these COINTELPRO-type ops. Seriously, think about that for a minute. I am not Stephen King or Margaret Atwood. I’m not even Glenn Greenwald or Matt Taibbi. I’m a midlist-level author of unusual literature, and a political satirist, and a blogger, basically, and yet Facebook, and their partners at the Atlantic Council, and AstraZeneca, and Pfizer, and Moderna, and who knows which other global corporations and transnational, non-governmental entities like the WEF and WHO, consider someone of my lowly status enough of a threat to their “New Normal” narrative to warrant the attention of the Reality Police.

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Twitter Won’t Say if Dehumanizing Language About Whiteness Violates Rules

Twitter failed to respond to repeated requests for comment about a tweet from the Root that compared whiteness to a disease, refusing to say if the tweet violates its policies against dehumanizing language.

The social media platform updated its policy on hate speech in December last year, with a specific focus on dehumanizing language.

“Our primary focus is on addressing the risks of offline harm, and research shows that dehumanizing language increases that risk,” said Twitter in a statement announcing the change.

Yet a tweet stating “whiteness is a pandemic,” from a verified account with over 600,000 remains on the platform.

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Twitter defends its child sex trafficking users, cites Section 230 immunity protection for pedophiles

A new lawsuit alleges that Twitter is aiding and abetting child sex traffickers and pedophiles by allowing them to buy and sell children, as well as spread child pornography, on its platform. Twitter, in its own defense, says the immunity protections outlined in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) do not require the social media service to act on behalf of innocent children who are being exploited.

If it was Donald Trump attempting to tweet about the fraudulent 2020 election from a separate account – Trump’s personal account was banned by Twitter several months ago – you can be sure Twitter would immediately flag and remove the “offending” tweet, as well as the account used. Since we are talking about children being raped and abused, however, Twitter is not at all concerned.

According to Jack Dorsey and Co., the lawsuit should be dismissed because Twitter bears no responsibility in removing child pornography and those who create and spread it from its platform. Section 230 of the CDA ensures this, which is why many are now calling for it to be rescinded.

“Given that Twitter’s alleged liability here rests on its failure to remove content from its platform, dismissal of the Complaint with prejudice is warranted on this ground alone,” the company insists.

According to reports, Twitter is not only supporting child sex trafficking and child pornography – it is also benefitting from it financially. Nearly every time an incident is reported, Twitter takes its sweet time responding, if it ever even responds at all.

“Twitter is not a passive, inactive, intermediary in the distribution of this harmful material; rather, Twitter has adopted an active role in the dissemination and knowing promotion and distribution of this harmful material,” the lawsuit states, further blaming “Twitter’s own policies, practices, business model, and technology architecture.”

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Instagram deletes post of President Biden falling up the stairs under its “violence and incitement” policy

Instagram has deleted a clip of President Joe Biden falling up the stairs of Air Force One three times, stating that it is “violence and incitement.”

The post was shared by Ashley StClair, a political commentator, along with the caption “Joe Biden vs his biggest opponent yet…stairs.”

“We removed your story because it goes against our Community Guidelines. We created these guidelines to support and protect our community on Instagram,” Instagram stated.

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Facebook puts new restrictions on groups and individuals to curb spread of ‘harmful content’

Facebook announced Wednesday that it will restrict the popularity of groups and users that accrue violations and, in some cases, remove them altogether in order to reduce harmful content and misinformation.

“We’ve taken action to curb the spread of harmful content, like hate speech and misinformation, and made it harder for certain groups to operate or be discovered, whether they’re Public or Private. When a group repeatedly breaks our rules, we take it down entirely,” Facebook announced in a press release Wednesday.

Building upon its decision to stop recommending political groups to U.S. users in January after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Facebook will now reduce the privileges and popularity of groups that violate its content moderation rules.

This means users will be less likely to discover groups that have had Facebook community violations in the past and will see warnings when they try to join them.

Groups with a large number of members who have broken Facebook rules will be required to get administrator and moderator approval before posts can be published.

Individual users who have repeatedly violated Facebook policies within a group will be blocked altogether from posting in groups or inviting others to groups and creating new groups themselves.

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Spotify censors art for “misinformation,” pulls Ian Brown’s anti-lockdown track

Spotify has removed an anti-lockdown song by Ian Brown, the former lead vocalist of English rock band The Stone Roses. The music streaming service claims the song violated its policies against COVID-19 misinformation.

Brown released the anti-lockdown song “Little Seed Big Tree” last September. “NO LOCKDOWN NO TESTS NO TRACKS NO MASKS NO VAX,” he tweeted while launching the song.

On March 12, Brown took to Twitter to announce that Spotify had removed his song.

“SPOTiFY stream the streams and censor artists like they have with my last song TOOK IT DOWN just put it down the memory hole! FREE EXPRESSiON AS REVOLUTION,” he wrote.

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