Tag: big tech

FBI launches open attack on ‘foreign’ alternative media outlets challenging US foreign policy

The FBI has publicly justified its suppression of dissenting online views about US foreign policy if a media outlet can be somehow linked to one of its adversaries. The Bureau’s justification followed a series of instances in which Silicon Valley social media platforms banned accounts following consultations with the FBI.

In a particularly notable case in 2018, the FBI encouraged Facebook, Instagram and Google to remove or restrict ads on the American Herald Tribune (AHT), an online journal that published critical opinion articles on US policy toward Iran and the Middle East. The bureau has never offered a clear rationale, however, despite its private discussions with Facebook on the ban.

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Report: Half of Trump’s Twitter and Facebook Posts Since Election Day Flagged as Misinformation

A recent report states that half of President Donald Trump’s posts since election day have been flagged as misinformation by Facebook and Twitter and censored on each platform.

Forbes reports that half of President Trump’s social media posts on Facebook and Twitter since election day have been labeled as false or questionable by the social media giants.

Of President Trump’s 22 posts on Facebook and Twitter, 11 have been labeled by the Silicon Valley tech firms. The posts include the President’s claims to victory and assertions of election fraud taking place. Twitter hid some posts on the President’s timeline and warned users that “some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process,” and restricted users’ ability to like or retweet the tweets.

Underneath some of President Trump’s Facebook posts, the social media company warned users that “final votes may different from the initial vote counts” or “elections officials follow strict rules when it comes to ballot counting, handling and reporting,” but users were still able to reply to and share the posts.

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San Francisco Tech CEO Emails 10 Million Customers Urging Them To Vote For Biden

Offering yet another reminder of just how far-removed the hysterical hyper-liberalism of San Francisco and the Bay Area is from the normal American political baseline, the CEO of Expensify, one of the world’s largest providers of expense account software, recently emailed all 10 million users of the firms’ software pleading with them to vote for Vice President Joe Biden.

According to Bloomberg, the idea elicited “strong debate” within the company, which is based in San Francisco, with some employees disagreeing with the gesture. But CEO David Barrett, the driving force behind the message, said he decided to press ahead and hit ‘send’.

“We needed to stand true for what we believe in and hope that most people agree with us,” Barrett said in an interview. “It’s not like we did this with a lot of enthusiasm. We did this out of a perceived necessity.”

At one point in the email, Barrett wrote that “anything less than a vote for Biden is a vote against democracy,” and that if President Trump were reelected, Barrett wrote, it would “damage our democracy to such an extent, I’m obligated on behalf of shareholders to take any action I can to avoid it.”

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MIT Tech Review: Tech Censorship Nearly Doubled Attention for NY Post Biden Bombshell

The attempt by the social media Masters of the Universe to stop the spread of the New York Post bombshell article about Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s alleged dealings with Burisma, has nearly doubled the level of attention the story gained.

What is known as the “Streisand Effect” — a social phenomenon that occurs when an attempt to censor information has the unintended consequence of further publicizing it instead — went into overdrive after social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter attempted to suppress a NY Post article about Hunter Biden, according to data published in the MIT Technology Review.

Social media companies reduced the distribution of a New York Post story containing bombshell information indicating that — contrary to his previous denials— Joe Biden allegedly did meet with an adviser to the board of Burisma while he was vice president, arranged by his son Hunter, who was then working as a lobbyist for the company.

Data provided by the media intelligence firm Zignal Labs shows that shares of the bombshell NY Post article have actually “nearly doubled” following Twitter’s attempt at suppressing the story.

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SPOTIFY DELETES ALEX JONES EPISODES FROM JOE ROGAN’S ARCHIVES

Joe Rogan debuted Monday night on Spotify. For two reasons, the licensing deal has dominated the media discussion: 1) it is worth $100 million; and 2) his wide-ranging listeners feared the deal would change the show.

Yesterday, the second fear proved well-founded. Spotify uploaded Rogan’s archive with past episodes but noticeably left off some of the most newsworthy: the appearances from Alex Jones.

Jones is wild, dangerously unpredictable, and the poster child of tech de-platforming. Which is why he’s so important to Rogan’s legacy. Personalities like Jones are what made Rogan’s podcast distinctive.

The Joe Rogan Experience welcomed everyone. And allowed them to think and say anything. From comedians to fighters, from pundits to entrepreneurs, from independent thinkers to conspiracy theorists. If JRE has an identity, it is that all conversations are permitted. — no holds barred.

Today, Rogan’s listeners are disappointed and vindicated. Just search “Rogan, Alex Jones” on Twitter.

The Feb. 27, 2019 episode with Jones has over 22 million YouTube views.

Jones wasn’t the only guest Spotify deleted. Newsweek pointed out the list is rather large. Milo Yiannopoulos, CensoredTV’s Gavin McInnes, Chris D’Elia, Jordan Peterson’s daughter, Mikhaila Peterson, Louis Theroux, Owen Benjamin, and Joey Diaz were also left out.

It’s unknown if Rogan signed off on this. Rogan, more than anyone else, has fought back against cancel culture and suppression of free speech. Rogan has yet to comment on the missing episodes.

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Facebook’s purge of left-wing radicals

One of the strangest claims made today about free speech is that it is a ‘right-wing’ talking point. It’s an excuse to spout racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia – you pick the prejudice. Some even claim that there is no crisis of free speech, and anyone who professes their support for this most liberal of values is essentially a useful idiot for the far right.

But Facebook’s latest crackdown makes clear that it is not only the right whose free speech is under threat. Earlier this month, Facebook announced an extension of its ‘Dangerous Individuals and Organisations’ policy. This was the policy it used to ban right-wing controversialists like Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos and Paul Joseph Watson – alongside anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan – who were all accused of promoting ‘violence and hate’.

Now, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests-cum-riots, Facebook has decided to cast its net of censorship wider. ‘We have seen growing movements that, while not directly organising violence, have celebrated violent acts, shown that they have weapons and suggest they will use them, or have individual followers with patterns of violent behaviour’, Facebook said in a recent statement.

This has led to Facebook removing 790 groups, 100 pages and 1,500 ads tied to the crankish, right-wing QAnon conspiracy theory. But it has also led to a purge of so-called ‘Antifa’ groups and other far-left organisations. ‘For militia organisations and those encouraging riots… we have initially removed over 980 groups, 520 pages and 160 ads from Facebook. We have also restricted over 1,400 hashtags related to these groups and organisations on Instagram’, the statement continues.

This is not the first time Antifa groups have been censored by Big Tech. Back in 2018, PayPal started refusing to process payments which were connected to a number of prominent Antifa organisations at the same time as it banned Tommy Robinson, Alex Jones and the Proud Boys.

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