Tag: big tech

Texas Republicans Give Massive Taxpayer Handouts to Big Tech, Effectively Financing Censorship of Their Voters

Texas Republicans have financed Big Tech companies like Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars using the Texas Enterprise Fund.

The report from the Texas-based Current Revolt exposes the Texas Enterprise Fund, showing how Republicans in the Texas Legislature have backed the diversion of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars directly into the pockets of the Big Tech companies that engage in the censorship of their very own constituents.

The aim of the TEF, as disclosed on the Texas government website, is to award “deal closing” grants to companies in order to persuade them into choosing Texas as the location for their new site, whatever that may be. “The fund serves as a financial incentive for those companies whose projects would contribute significant capital investment and new employment opportunities to the state’s economy,” the website states.

However, the TEF, supported by a large list of Texas Republicans, gives money to Big Tech corporations, who regularly engage in the censorship and attempted cancellation of conservatives.

Facebook, who regularly bans conservatives from their platform and recently permanently banned President Donald Trump, were awarded $1.4 million.

Apple, who recently kicked conservative social media platform Parler off their App Store, received $46 million.

Uber, whose employees gave 97% of their political donations to Democrats, and who permanently banned former Republican Congressional candidate Laura Loomer from their service, were awarded $24 million.

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Google Quietly Escalates Manual Search Censorship

Google has quietly escalated censorship of its market-dominating search engine, adding a range of new topics where human moderators are allowed to manually penalize websites, suppressing them in search results.

If a website is affected by one of these manual acts of censorship, “some or all of that site will not be shown in Google search results,” according to the tech giant.

The list, published in full on Google’s support website, includes the following:

  • Discover policy violation: Adult-themed content
  • News and Discover policy violation: Dangerous content
  • News and Discover policy violation: Harassing content
  • News and Discover policy violation: Hateful content
  • News and Discover policy violation: Manipulated media
  • News and Discover policy violation: Medical content
  • Discover policy violation: Misleading content
  • News and Discover policy violation: Sexually explicit content
  • News and Discover policy violation: Terrorist content
  • News policy violation: Transparency
  • News and Discover policy violation: Violence and gore content
  • News and Discover policy violation: Vulgar language and profanity

Publishers who have been hit with a manual action by Google will be able to appeal the decision by “fixing” whatever issue violated the policy and then submitting their website to Google for a review. Google states that it could take “several days or a week” for the tech giant to reach a final decision, leaving

Once upon a time, Google attempted to conceal its censorship of search. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai insisted, under oath before congress, that the company does not “manually intervene on any particular search result,” a statement that one of Google’s own former employees said was a lie.

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Facebook, the ADL and the Brewing Battle to Label Zionism as Hate Speech

Zionism is one word, in particular, that evokes intense and passionate debate as all ideologies do. But, now the term is coming under scrutiny after an “innocuous” email shed light on Facebook’s response to concerted action by a powerful Jewish rights group that led to new community guidelines curbing so-called “hate speech.”

The leaked email brought attention to a discussion ostensibly taking place inside the multi-billion-dollar company to design its censorship algorithms and moderator criteria according to the wishes of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL); posing the question of whether moderators should interpret the word as a slur against Jewish people, in general, or just Israelis.

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Tulsi Gabbard tells Steven Crowder: Big tech does not get to decide who has a voice and who doesn’t

Gabbard — who recently warned that “domestic enemies” in big tech and the national security community, such as Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and former CIA Director John Brennan, are plotting to create a “police state” in America — argued Monday that big tech’s threat to free speech is one of the most dangerous issues facing the country.

For years, giant tech companies such Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have been scrutinized for arbitrarily censoring speech without consequence. But in recent months, the debate over their power has intensified amid the decision by several companies to ban former President Donald Trump from the platforms.

“Fundamentally as Americans, we agree on our constitutional right to free speech, [but now we] have these big tech monopolies essentially deciding who has a voice and who doesn’t in these virtual public town squares that they’ve created,” Gabbard lamented, adding, “You also have people in great positions of power in our government, for partisan or political reasons, trying to decide who gets to be heard and who doesn’t, just further inflaming the divisiveness and really, truly undermining our constitutional rights.”

“When we look at big tech and their ability to essentially act with impunity to do whatever they want — and making billions of dollars in the process — it speaks to the very dangerous place we are as a country,” she continued.

Gabbard called Trump’s removal from social media platforms a major indicator of how “dangerously powerful these big tech monopolies have become.”

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Facebook’s new expert on ‘online disinformation’, Ben Nimmo, was a fantasy fiction writer. Has he really given that up?

The tech giant’s self-styled ‘troll-finder-general’ is touted as an authority on alleged Russian ‘information warfare’ – but any objective look at his background and track record raises troubling questions over his capabilities.

On February 5, Ben Nimmo announced he will with immediate effect be joining Facebook, to help the social media monopoly “lead global threat intelligence strategy against influence operations.”

It’s a shocking development, yet somehow an entirely unsurprising one. After all, despite having less than no discernible professional or educational background in social media, data analysis, information technology, or digital research, in recent years he’s enjoyed a stratospheric rise to mainstream prominence as an expert on online “disinformation,” and a series of well-remunerated posts at a number of state-backed and quasi-state organizations. 

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Facebook to BAN claims about ‘man-made’ Covid-19 & ‘unsafe’ vaccines as it launches election-like campaign to promote vaccination

Facebook is expanding the list of ‘false’ and ‘debunked’ claims about the coronavirus and vaccines that will be grounds for banning from the platform, while launching the largest ‘authoritative’ vaccination campaign worldwide.

Under the Community Standards policy, posts with “debunked claims” that Covid-19 is “man-made or manufactured,” or that vaccines are ineffective, unsafe, dangerous or cause autism will be removed starting Monday, VP of Integrity Guy Rosen announced on the Facebook blog.

The new policy was implemented following consultations with the World Health Organization (WHO) and others, and will help Facebook “continue to take aggressive action against misinformation” about Covid-19 and vaccines, Rosen added.

Even if they don’t violate any of the listed policies, posts about Covid-19 or vaccines will still be subject to review by “third-party fact-checkers” and labeled and “demoted” if rated false.

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NEVADA GOVERNOR WANTS TO ALLOW TECH COMPANIES TO CREATE THEIR OWN GOVERNMENTS

Imagine a place where private companies get to effectively separate from the surrounding area and create their own towns, raise their own taxes, and create their own laws – all while still using American dollars.

Such a place would bring a whole new meaning to the phrase “company town.”

Just imagine an Apple-ville, Google-town, or PornHubtopia, but instead of rising out of Silicon Valley, the companies may need to trek out to the Nevada desert.

Because Nevada is trying to make all this – and more – a reality with its latest economic development plan, which involves a decidedly innovative approach that differs starkly with the traditional tax abatements and incentives offered by states like New York (to megacorps like Amazon), and by other states, to other (also often already very large) companies. But Nevada isn’t just trying to lure in the big fish. It’s trying to convince people to come there and build.

According to a draft of the plan obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal (but not yet shared with the legislature), the law would effectively make Nevada an ideal place of business for the next generation of crypto-libertarian innovators. These corporation-run governments “would carry the same authority as a county, including the ability to impose taxes, form school districts and justice courts and provide government services, to name a few duties,” the Review-Journal added.

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Leftist Journalist Regrets Calling For Silicon Valley Censorship After It Happens to Him

A leftist journalist expressed regret about calling for Silicon Valley to censor content after it happened to him.

Progressive reporter Jordan Chariton had the change of heart after YouTube took down one of his videos.

Chariton’s original advocacy for censorship occurred when he called for Big Tech giants to target anyone who questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

“EVERY media outlet that pushed this INSANE election fraud conspiracy for clicks should be taken off the air. They’ve incited a Civil War,” Chariton tweeted on January 6, the date of the Capitol breach.

However, after YouTube pulled video from his own channel featuring footage of the January 6 riot for violating the platform’s policies against “spam and deceptive practices,” the Chariton reversed his position.

“With time to reflect, & seeing Silicon Valley’s censorship onslaught, I regret this tweet made in [the] heat of moment,” the progressive journalist wrote. “Whether certain cable/YouTube outlets mislead audiences w/ dishonest claims lacking real evidence, they shouldn’t be targeted.”

Chariton noted that with the precedent having been set for blanket censorship, progressive content was also now being unfairly targeted, while pointing out that big left-wing networks with friendly YouTube ties like the Young Turks were not calling it out.

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YouTube Financially Deplatforms Swath Of Indie Media Accounts

The Google-owned video sharing platform YouTube has demonetized numerous independent media accounts, a jarring escalation in the steadily intensifying campaign against alternative news outlets online.

Progressive commentators Graham Elwood, The Progressive Soapbox, The Convo Couch, Franc Analysis, Hannah Reloaded and Cyberdemon531 have all received notifications from YouTube that their videos are no longer permitted to earn money through the platform’s various monetization features, as has Ford Fischer, a respected freelancer who films US political demonstrations. No explanation has been offered for this decision beyond the vague claim that “your channel is not in line with our YouTube Partner Program policies” due to “harmful content”.

Like all large online platforms, YouTube’s appeals process is notoriously opaque and unaccountable. These accounts could remain demonetized for months, or forever, without any clear explanation at all. Ford Fischer, who has been in this situation before, said on Twitter that his account was left demonetized for seven months before YouTube reversed its decision.

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