Tag: censorship

Members of Congress threaten to hold Big Tech “accountable” if they don’t censor “misinformation”

During a Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce of the Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing titled “Holding Big Tech Accountable: Legislation to Protect Online Users,” several members of Congress pushed Big Tech companies to do more to purge content that they deem to be “disinformation.”

The purpose of the hearing was to consider five bills: the “Banning Surveillance Advertising Act of 2022,” the “Algorithmic Accountability Act of 2022,” the “Cooperation Among Police, Tech, and Users to Resist Exploitation Act,” the “Increasing Consumers’ Education on Law Enforcement Resources Act,” and the “Digital Services Oversight and Safety Act of 2022.”

None of the bills contain the phrase “misinformation” or disinformation but these phrases were used multiple times during the hearing to complain about online misinformation and warn tech companies that they would be held accountable if they didn’t remove more disinformation.

Keep reading

South Africa enforces sweeping internet censorship law to tackle “hate speech”

The South African government has enforced a controversial internet censorship law that was passed in 2019. Legal experts have raised concerns about the law being abused.

On March 3, South Africa’s Film and Publications Board (FPB) announced that the law had come into effect on March 1. Internet users violate the law if they post prohibited content, which is defined as content that could be deemed incitement of violence, war propaganda, child pornography, and hate speech.

The law has raised concerns among legal experts as it could be used to restrict free speech and was became law surprisingly quickly.

From My Broadband:

“However, media and civil society only learned that this had happened on the day the law came into effect because the Film and Publications Board (FPB) invited the press to attend a media briefing about it on 3 March.

This is because the Government Printing Works has not published gazettes to its website since mid-January, effectively cutting citizens off from essential information about what their government is doing.”

Dominic Cull, the founder of legal consultancy firm Ellipsis Regulatory Solutions, said: “One of my big objections is that if I upload something which someone else finds objectionable, and they think it hate speech, they will be able to complain to the FPB.”

“If the FPB thinks the complaint is valid, they can then lodge a takedown notice to have this material removed.”

Cull also pointed out that the FPB does not have elected officials; it is composed of government appointees, people who should have no authority to make decisions on constitutional and free speech issues.

Keep reading

Spotify Purges Dissident Voices In Latest Censorship Escalation

Multiple American podcasters who speak critically of the political status quo in their country are reporting that their channels have been shut down as the censorship campaign against Russia-backed media continues to escalate. These include Moment of Clarity with Lee Camp, The Politics of Survival with Tara Reade, and By Any Means Necessary on Radio Sputnik.

“My podcast ‘Moment of Clarity’ has been removed from Spotify,” Camp tweeted Wednesday. “Let it be known – you can do anti-women, anti-trans or racist content on Spotify but you can’t be anti-war. That’s not allowed.”

“Without explanation or notice, Spotify has removed By Any Means Necessary from their platform, but we’re not going anywhere!” said the program’s Twitter account. “There’s a clear effort in motion to suppress anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist voices, join us in the fight by spreading the word!”

“You can still find my podcast on other platforms even though Spotify inexplicably removed it,” tweeted Reade.

This comes as Spotify closes its office in Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

Keep reading

Facebook Announces ‘Narrow Exception’ for Previously Censored Neo-Nazi ‘Azov Battalion’.

Facebook is reversing a ban on users praising Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, previously included in the platform’s Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy, amidst Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Internal memos from the social media platform, which has routinely censored mainstream conservative content, reveal it will “allow praise of the Azov Battalion when explicitly and exclusively praising their role in defending Ukraine OR their role as part of the Ukraine’s National Guard.”

“Internally published examples of speech that Facebook now deems acceptable include “Azov movement volunteers are real heroes, they are a much needed support to our national guard”; “We are under attack. Azov has been courageously defending our town for the last 6 hours”; and “I think Azov is playing a patriotic role during this crisis,” added The Intercept, which first obtained the company memos.

“For the time being, we are making a narrow exception for praise of the Azov Regiment strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine National Guard,” clarified a spokesperson from Facebook’s parent company Meta.

“But we are continuing to ban all hate speech, hate symbolism, praise of violence, generic praise,  support, or representation of the Azov Regiment, and any other content that violates our community standards,” they added in a statement to Business Insider.

Keep reading

Defending Freedom And Democracy Sure Requires An Awful Lot Of Censorship

Kremlin-backed media outlets have been banned throughout the European Union, both on television and on apps and online platforms. RT has lost its Sky TV slot in the UK, where the outlet is also blocked on YouTube. Australian TV providers SBS and Foxtel have dropped RT, and the federal government is putting pressure on social media platforms to block Russian media in Australia.

In the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Latvia, speaking in support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine will get you years in prison.

Twitter, historically the last of the major online platforms to jump on any new internet censorship escalation, is now actively minimizing the number of people who see Russian media content, saying that it is “reducing the content’s visibility” and “taking steps to significantly reduce the circulation of this content on Twitter”. This censorship-by-algorithm tactic is exactly what I speculated might emerge after former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey resigned back in November, due to previous comments supportive of that practice by his successor Parag Agrawal.

Twitter is also placing warnings labels on all Russia-backed media and delivering a pop-up message informing you that you are committing wrongthink if you try to share or even ‘like’ a post linking to such outlets on the platform. It has also placed the label “Russia state-affiliated media” on every tweet made by the personal accounts of employees of those platforms, baselessly giving the impression that the dissident opinions tweeted by those accounts are paid Kremlin content and not simply their own legitimate perspectives. Some are complaining that this new label has led to online harassment amid the post-9/11-like anti-Russia hysteria that’s currently turning western brains into clam chowder.

Keep reading

State Revokes Man’s License Plate Over 6 Letters That Seemingly Insult Joe Biden

The Alabama Department of Revenue threatened to revoke an Oneonta man’s vehicle registration if he does not relinquish a custom license plate containing an apparent insult to President Joe Biden.

According to the Trussville Tribune, Nathan Kirk ordered the license plate in question when he bought a new Ford truck in October. The design of the license plate contains the words “Don’t Tread on Me” along with the distinctive snake from the Gadsden flag.

For the personalized portion of the license plate, Kirk chose the letters “LGBF JB.” Many people deduced these letters were meant to stand for the anti-Biden phrases “Let’s go, Brandon” and “F*** Joe Biden,” a conclusion seemingly supported by the “Let’s Go Brandon” license plate frame Kirk put around it.

Personalized license plates in Alabama are supposed to take two to six weeks to arrive, the Tribune reported. However, this period passed and Kirk’s temporary paper license expired before he was issued the new plate. Kirk said the state blamed the delay on an aluminum shortage.

In December, he reordered the custom license plate, and he finally received it in January.

Throughout the process, Kirk said, no one raised an issue with the content of the personalized plate.

But this month, the state Department of Revenue sent a letter to Kirk’s wife, Courtney, AL.com reported. The truck with the license plate on it was registered in her name.

“The Alabama Department of Revenue, Motor Vehicle Division, has determined the above referenced license plate contains objectionable language which is considered by the Department to be offensive to the peace and dignity of the State of Alabama,” the letter said, according to the report.

Keep reading

Google suppresses America’s Frontline Doctors in search results

More evidence is emerging of Google manipulating algorithms powering its mammoth and highly influential search service to give certain results (much) more visibility than others.

And now, reports say, Google is not even trying to hide that this is the case, as America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) has been informed its reach on the internet is being artificially limited.

This organization says it is dedicated to improving doctor-patient relationships that are jeopardized by what it calls politicized science and biased information. The AFLDS would also like to provide patients with access to “independent, evidence-based information” that will inform people’s decisions regarding their healthcare choices.

Well, meeting that goal might prove to be quite difficult since Google Search, on which a huge majority of US-based users rely for their internet queries, says it is deliberately deranking information coming from the AFLDS.

Keep reading

Facebook, Twitter, Google, Netflix ALL BLOCK Russian News Broadcasts, Content At Direct Behest Of The European Union

Big tech has moved in lockstep to censor Russian news networks Sputnik and RT, further ensuring that westerners only receive one narrative when it comes to coverage of the conflict in Ukraine.

Facebook is restricting access to content from RT and Sputnik on both its main social media platform and Instagram following “requests from a number of governments,” according to he company’s vice president Nick Clegg.

The move comes just hours after the EU announced it will ban RT and Sputnik broadcasts across the bloc, with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen declaring that the networks are spreading “harmful disinformation,” and that the EU is further “developing tools to ban toxic and harmful disinformation in Europe.”

Following pressure from EU officials on Google and its subsidiary YouTube to crackdown on content from the Russian news networks, the tech giant also announced that it will block YouTube channels “connected to RT and Sputnik across Europe, effective immediately”.

Keep reading

‘Russian Propaganda’ Is The Latest Excuse To Expand Censorship

“I’m concerned about Russian disinformation spreading online, so today I wrote to the CEOs of major tech companies to ask them to restrict the spread of Russian propaganda,” US Senator Mark Warner tweeted on Friday.

Since then YouTube has announced that it has suppressed videos by Russian state media channels so that they’ll be seen by fewer people in accordance with its openly acknowledged policy of algorithmically censoring unauthorized content, as well as de-monetizing all such videos on the platform. Google and Facebook/Instagram parent company Meta both banned Russian state media from running ads and monetizing on their platforms in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Twitter announced a pause on ads in both Russia and Ukraine.

“Glad to see action from tech companies to reign in Russian propaganda and disinformation after my letter to their CEOs yesterday,” Warner tweeted on Saturday. “These are important first steps, but I’ll keep pushing for more.”

For years US lawmakers have been using threats of profit-destroying consequences to pressure Silicon Valley companies into limiting online speech in a way that aligns with the interests of Washington, effectively creating a system of government censorship by proxy. It would appear that we’re seeing a new expansion of this phenomenon today.

Keep reading

‘Russian Propaganda’ Is The Latest Excuse To Expand Censorship

“I’m concerned about Russian disinformation spreading online, so today I wrote to the CEOs of major tech companies to ask them to restrict the spread of Russian propaganda,” US Senator Mark Warner tweeted on Friday.

Since then YouTube has announced that it has suppressed videos by Russian state media channels so that they’ll be seen by fewer people in accordance with its openly acknowledged policy of algorithmically censoring unauthorized content, as well as de-monetizing all such videos on the platform. Google and Facebook/Instagram parent company Meta both banned Russian state media from running ads and monetizing on their platforms in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Twitter announced a pause on ads in both Russia and Ukraine.

“Glad to see action from tech companies to reign in Russian propaganda and disinformation after my letter to their CEOs yesterday,” Warner tweeted on Saturday. “These are important first steps, but I’ll keep pushing for more.”

For years US lawmakers have been using threats of profit-destroying consequences to pressure Silicon Valley companies into limiting online speech in a way that aligns with the interests of Washington, effectively creating a system of government censorship by proxy. It would appear that we’re seeing a new expansion of this phenomenon today.

Keep reading