Modern day book burnings…
Tag: big tech
Google-sponsored report recommends subverting online “conspiracy” groups from within
Google-owned YouTube already purges large amounts of content for containing what it deems to be “harmful conspiracy theories” and boosts what it says are “authoritative” mainstream media outlets to push what it deems to be the “right information.”
Now, a report that was sponsored by Google’s Jigsaw unit (a unit that “explores threats to open societies, and builds technology that inspires scalable solutions”) has recommended a new approach – infiltrating and subverting online conspiracy groups from within by targeting “moderate members” of these groups in the hope that they “exert influence on the broader community.”
The report was published by the research organization RAND which “develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure.”
RAND receives funding from Google and several US government departments including the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Department of State, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
This specific report, “Detecting Conspiracy Theories on Social Media: Improving Machine Learning to Detect and Understand Online Conspiracy Theories,” was sponsored by Google’s Jigsaw unit and was conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy (ISDP) Center of the RAND National Security Research Division (NSRD) which conducts research and analysis for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the US Intelligence Community, US State Department, allied foreign governments, and foundations.
The COVID Censorship Consensus
“In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made,” Facebook conceded, after the theory of a Chinese lab leak gained fresh currency.
It was not the first time that an idea suppressed by the Silicon Curtain had been revived despite the best efforts of the Big Tech monopoly to suppress it.
But Facebook warned that it will go on censoring to “keep pace with the evolving nature of the pandemic and regularly update our policies as new facts and trends emerge,”
Wherever these new facts and trends emerge from, it won’t be from its platforms.
The social media monopoly isn’t admitting that it was wrong. What it’s actually saying is that it’s up to high level authorities to decide what is true and what people can be allowed to say.
New Findings on COVID-19 Origins Prove Big Tech Censorship is a Danger to Seeking Truth
In 2020, anyone who shared information on social media about anything related to COVID-19 and the lab in Wuhan, China or that mentioned the possibility that COVID-19 was man-made, saw their post removed and may have even been banned. Facebook, Twitter, Google, the establishment media, and many in the government made it their primary mission to “dispel misinformation” over the origins of the COVID-19 virus.
The arbiters of truth in Big Tech claimed and vehemently pushed the idea — based only on theories — that the COVID-19 virus originated in nature, and anyone who challenged or questioned this view was a dangerous conspiracy theorist.
Twitter even took to completely removing the account of a Chinese virologist who came forward with these claims. Dr Li-Meng Yan, who was reportedly a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Hong Kong School of Public Health, had her Twitter account suspended after she claimed the coronavirus was created in a lab and put forth a trove of data to back up her claims.
Just one year ago, CNN put out a hit piece claiming that “Anthony Fauci just crushed Donald Trump’s theory on the origins of the coronavirus.” Anyone who claimed otherwise was fact-checked into oblivion, their profiles banned, and if they had pages, their reach was diminished to nothing, if not entirely removed.
It was established. The fact checkers were correct and anyone who challenged them was a danger to society. But the fact checkers who dismissed this information did not do so with “facts” at all. Instead, they simply promoted one theory over another. And now, they are eating their words.
Last May, Washington Post’s Fact Checker team reported that the “balance of the scientific evidence strongly supports the conclusion that the new coronavirus emerged from nature,” and their article was used to warn readers on Facebook who may have shared information which challenged this theory.
However, as the Washington Post just reported, last week, a group of 18 preeminent scientists published a letter in the journal Science saying a new investigation is needed, because “theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable.”
Now, Dr. Fauci has changed his stance on the matter, stating that these claims of lab origination somehow hold water a year later — despite “crushing” them last year.
Bombs away!
Are children ‘dying like dogs’ in effort to build better batteries?
“Our children are dying like dogs.”
That is the sorrowful statement of one Congolese mother whose son and cousin died while working the cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
She and other parents like her are part of a class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. federal court in Washington, D.C., in 2019 seeking to hold Apple, Alphabet (the parent company of Google), Dell Technologies, Microsoft and Tesla accountable for what they allege is profiting off the misery of child labor in their quest for cobalt.
“Cobalt is a key component of every rechargeable lithium-ion battery in all of the gadgets made by defendants and all other tech and electric car companies in the world that has brought on the latest wave of cruel exploitation fueled by greed, corruption and indifference to a population of powerless, starving Congolese people,” the suit reads.
Facebook to “fact-check” and suppress individual users
Personal Facebook accounts that are flagged by Facebook’s fact-checkers for repeatedly sharing “misinformation” will now have all their posts suppressed in the news feed as part of the tech giant’s latest crackdown on content that challenges the narratives of its fact-checking partners.
Facebook also announced that it will start dissuading its users from liking pages that are flagged by its fact-checkers via a pop-up that forces users to complete an additional step before they can like the page. When users attempt to like flagged pages, this pop up appears, tells users that the page has “repeatedly shared false information,” and asks them to choose whether to “Go Back” or “Follow Page Anyway.”
Facebook no longer treating ‘man-made’ Covid as a crackpot idea
Facebook will no longer take down posts claiming that Covid-19 was man-made or manufactured, a company spokesperson told POLITICO on Wednesday, a move that acknowledges the renewed debate about the virus’ origins.
A narrative in flux: Facebook’s policy tweak arrives as support surges in Washington for a fuller investigation into the origins of Covid-19 after the Wall Street Journal reported that three scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized in late 2019 with symptoms consistent with the virus. The findings have reinvigorated the debate about the so-called Wuhan lab-leak theory, once dismissed as a fringe conspiracy theory.
Facebook Whistleblowers Reveal Campaign To Censor Vaccine Hesitancy
Whistleblower organization Project Veritas has obtained internal documents from Facebook insiders detailing the company’s efforts to censor concerns over the COVID-19 vaccine.
Leaked company documents provided by two whistleblowers detail Facebook’s plan to combat “vaccine hesitancy” (VH) worldwide via “comment demotion”.
“They’re trying to control this content before it even makes it onto your page before you even see it,” one insider told Project Veritas. “If I lose my job, it’s like, what do I do? But that’s less of a concern to me.”
The social media giant’s goal is to “reduce user exposure” to those with VH, while also reducing the ability to engage with said posts.
Doctor’s message about low pediatric deaths from COVID blocked by Facebook
Facebook removed a comment by a doctor on the number of COVID-19 pediatric deaths. Facebook claimed the comment violated it “Community Standards on Spam.”
A Facebook user asked about the number of COVID-19 pediatric deaths in the month of April. Dr. Tracy Høeg, a sports, spine, and regenerative medicine doctor, responded with factual information from the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and even included a graph.
“Part of the reason I have (for the most part) left Facebook is they delete my post/responses that are factual, which I triple check,” Dr. Tracy Høeg wrote in a May 20 Facebook post. “I was responding to a question about what the number of pediatric deaths were due to COVID in April. I don’t feel like directly citing numbers from CDC and AAP should be deleted as spam, but maybe that is just me. I have moved to Twitter FYI.”
Hellbound and Down 
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