Tag: censorship

Psychology academic was suspended from Twitter after complaining about self-harm glorification on the platform

Pamela Paresky, visiting fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, was suspended from Twitter for saying that Twitter does not enforce its policy against self-harm.

“On October 3, I criticized Twitter for how it deals with self-harm—specifically that Twitter does not enforce its ‘gratuitous gore’ policy for self-harm images, nor does it enforce its policy of prohibiting tweets that ‘promote or encourage suicide or self-harm,’” she wrote in an article published by Wesley Yang’s newsletter Year Zero. “To illustrate how easy Twitter makes it to find posts with extremely graphic images and videos depicting severe self-harm (cutting), I tweeted some common self-harm codewords along with screenshots of a horrific self-harm post & accompanying comments.”

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PayPal is still threatening to fine users $2,500 for promoting “intolerance that is discriminatory”

While PayPal has walked back its threat to fine users $2,500 for “misinformation,” the payments company is still reserving the right to fine users the same amount for other alleged transgressions.

In its current “Acceptable Use Policy,” which has been active for a year, PayPal states that: “Violation of this Acceptable Use Policy constitutes a violation of the PayPal User Agreement and may subject you to damages, including liquidated damages of $2,500.00 U.S. dollars per violation which may be debited directly from your PayPal account(s).”

And PayPal’s list of “prohibited activities,” which can trigger this $2,500 fine, include any activities that relate to transactions involving “intolerance that is discriminatory,” “the promotion of hate,” and “items that are considered obscene.”

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Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner calls for government intervention for online speech

Joe Rogan had Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner on his Joe Rogan Experience podcast last Wednesday and, among other topics, the pair touched on the government regulating the internet and the media landscape today.

Wenner – a magazine magnate who, according to reports, was in the past a prominent donor to Democratic candidates and liberal groups – spoke in favor of regulating the internet like any other industry in the US – although for some reason prefacing his “yes, but” argument by saying that the internet is great and that he “loves” social media.

But – he continued, it has to be regulated, and when Rogan asked by whom, Wenner replied, “the government.”

The question then became whether the government can be trusted with a job of such nature and magnitude – particularly given its credibility issues.

But Wenner appeared unwavering in his support of the internet – that is today heavily influenced by the authorities- tomorrow also becoming more formally regulated by them. “Absolutely,” he replied, when asked whether he trusted the White House to do a good job.

Rogan, otherwise not known for mincing his words, recalled that the US was plunged into the Iraq War under false pretenses (of WDMs) made by the government (and, to be fair, heavily promoted by their media mouthpieces like the New York Times).

Trusting the class of people who did that did not seem to sit well with the host.

“Do you think that makes any sense,” he asked Wenner, who made a curious attempt at arguing that it was politicians specifically, rather than the government, who led the US into a war.

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TikTok blocks searches for “White Lives Matter” phrase

China-owned social network TikTok is blocking users from searching for the phrase “white lives matter,” following rapper Kanye West’s recent appearance wearing a “White Lives Matter” sweater to his nine-year-old daughter North’s basketball game last week, as well as the Yeezy show in Paris earlier in the week.

Users that search for the phrase, get a “no results found” message, with further details saying that the phrase “may be associated with hateful behavior.”

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Google Labels Conservative Sites ‘Dangerous and Derogatory’

Issues & Insights (I&I) is a terrific conservative website whose writers came from the editorial board of Investors Business Daily. I&I writes smart content that goes after the left, often mercilessly — and, hey, it features PJ Media on its list of recommended websites, so you can see how intelligent I&I is.

One of the key contributors to I&I is cartoonist Michael Ramirez. Even if you don’t know his name, chances are you’ve seen his cartoons. They’re perceptive, thought-provoking, gut-busting, and solidly conservative.

But Google is targeting I&I and Ramirez’s work. Here’s how I&I explains it:

Google’s AdSense network – which is used by some 3.5 million websites to generate revenue – defines “shocking content” as content that:

  • contains gruesome, graphic, or disgusting accounts or imagery.
  • depicts acts of violence.
  • contains a significant amount of or prominently features obscene or profane language.

We appealed this ruling with Google and were denied. No explanation was offered, of course. And there’s no possible way to know what would constitute a “fix” that would satisfy Google.

Referring specifically to Ramirez, I&I’s editors say that “Ramirez’s cartoons can be provocative. They can be hilarious. They can be deadly serious. But they are works of art.” And they’re right. That’s the nature of political cartoons in general, whether they’re from the left or right, but Google is specifically targeting Ramirez.

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PayPal Reverses Course, Says Company Will Not Seize Money From People for Promoting ‘Misinformation’

PayPal on Oct. 8 said it was not implementing a new policy that would have enabled the company to seize money from users who allegedly promote “misinformation” or “hate.”

“An AUP notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information. PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy,” a PayPal spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.

“Our teams are working to correct our policy pages. We’re sorry for the confusion this has caused,” the spokesperson added.

The company in September announced that it was amending its acceptable use policy, or AUP.

The policy, due to take effect in November, said that users may not use PayPal to for the “sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials that, in PayPal’s sole discretion, (a) are harmful, obscene, harassing, or objectionable, (b) depict or appear to depict nudity, sexual or other intimate activities, (c) depict or promote illegal drug use, (d) depict or promote violence, criminal activity, cruelty, or self-harm (e) depict, promote, or incite hatred or discrimination of protected groups or of individuals or groups based on protected characteristics (e.g. race, religion, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.) (f) present a risk to user safety or wellbeing, (g) are fraudulent, promote misinformation, or are unlawful, (h) infringe the privacy, intellectual property rights, or other proprietary rights of any party, or (i) are otherwise unfit for publication.”

For each violation, PayPal says users are subject to repercussions. Those include “liquated damages” of $2,500 per violation. The money will be taken directly from a person’s PayPal account.

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New PayPal Policy Lets Company Pull $2,500 From Users’ Accounts If They Promote ‘Misinformation’

A new policy update from PayPal will permit the firm to sanction users who advance purported “misinformation” or present risks to user “wellbeing.”

The financial services company, which has repeatedly deplatformed organizations and individual commentators for their political views, will expand its “existing list of prohibited activities” on November 3. Among the changes are prohibitions on “the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials” that “promote misinformation” or “present a risk to user safety or wellbeing.” Users are also barred from “the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory.”

The company’s current acceptable use policy does not mention such activities. The Daily Wire reached out to PayPal for definitions of the added terms, although no response was received in time for publication.

Deliberations will be made at the “sole discretion” of PayPal and may subject the user to “damages” — including the removal of $2,500 “debited directly from your PayPal account.” The company’s user agreement contains a provision in which account holders acknowledge that the figure is “presently a reasonable minimum estimate of PayPal’s actual damages” due to the administrative cost of tracking violations and damage to the company’s reputation.

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If Facebook, Twitter, And Google Hide Information For The World’s Rulers, Elections Are A Scam

In a September interview that went viral on social media Sunday, a United Nations operative admitted the U.S. government-funded organization “partnered with Google” to rig the results returned on the world’s dominant search engine for the phrase “climate change.”

This follows multiple casual disclosures that, yes, politics control the information on monopoly tech platforms. In fact, government officials all the way up to the White House routinely use Big Tech to control what citizens are allowed to say to each other online, as an ongoing lawsuit from several U.S. attorneys general recently divulged.

The Biden White House is fighting further disclosures about high-level federal officials’ involvement in this government-pressured censorship regime, including Anthony Fauci and the White House press secretary. The companies involved include Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, the court documents say.

Earlier this year, a clip of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg — who threw hundreds of millions of dollars obtained from his communications monopoly company into helping Democrat activists embed inside government election offices in 2020 — also went viral. It showed him telling podcaster Joe Rogan that the FBI also controls the information Facebook allows people to share. The FBI’s meddling affected the 2020 presidential election outcome.

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Scientific Censorship: Climate Fanatics Urge Removal of Study Questioning Evidence of a “Climate Crisis”

Claiming that four Italian scientists who published a peer-reviewed paper earlier this year finding that there is not yet evidence of any “climate crisis” wrote the study in “bad faith,” climate fanatic scientists are urging that the journal that published the study remove it from public view.

The study in question comes to the conclusion that the so-called “climate crisis” that the mainstream media say is already upon us is not evident — at least yet — and that it is counterproductive to claim that such a crisis exists.

The study, done by four Italian scientists — physicist Gianluca Alimonti, professor of agrometeorology Luigi Mariani, atmospheric physicist Franco Prodi, and physicist Renato Angelo Ricci — states that “the climate crisis that, according to many sources, we are experiencing today, is not evident yet.”

Further, the Italian study calls into question the wisdom of leaving such a “crisis” for our children without the necessary tools — fossil fuels, etc. — they will need to adapt to such a crisis should it ever come to bear.

“Leaving the baton to our children without burdening them with the anxiety of being in a climate emergency would allow them to face the various problems in place (energy, agricultural-food, health, etc.) with a more objective and constructive spirit, with the goal of arriving at a weighted assessment of the actions to be taken without wasting the limited resources at our disposal in costly and ineffective solutions,” the Italian study states.

The study was first published in January, and has been cited by mainstream media outlets such as Sky News Australia. Only now are other scientists, interviewed by French news service AFP, calling for the paper to be memory-holed.

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