Tag: censorship

Twitter Announces New Policies Promising Censorship of ‘Misleading’ Posts Relating to Russia and Ukraine

Twitter has announced policies promising the censorship of “misleading” posts relating to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

As all conservatives already know, “misleading” tends to mean anything that the establishment disagrees with when it comes to Big Tech policies.

“We’re actively monitoring for risks associated with the conflict in Ukraine, including identifying and disrupting attempts to amplify false and misleading information,” Twitter announced in a lengthy tweet thread about steps they are taking. “We’re proactively reviewing Tweets to detect platform manipulation (or other inauthentic behavior) and taking enforcement action against synthetic and manipulated media that presents a false or misleading depiction of what’s happening.”

Once again, the big tech giant admitted that they are a publisher with an editorial slant instead of a platform.

“We’re continuing to provide as much context around content relating to the crisis as possible, including through Moments and Events on Twitter,” Twitter Safety tweeted.

Twitter also said they are monitoring high-profile accounts to “mitigate any attempts at a targeted takeover or manipulation.”

“We’re actively monitoring vulnerable high-profile accounts, including journalists, activists, and government officials and agencies to mitigate any attempts at a targeted takeover or manipulation,” the thread continued.

The company continued to announce that for “people using Twitter in Ukraine and Russia, we also paused some Tweet recommendations from people you don’t follow on Home Timeline to reduce the spread of abusive content.”

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FACEBOOK ALLOWS PRAISE OF NEO-NAZI UKRAINIAN BATTALION IF IT FIGHTS RUSSIAN INVASION

FACEBOOK WILL TEMPORARILY allow its billions of users to praise the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian neo-Nazi military unit previously banned from being freely discussed under the company’s Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy, The Intercept has learned.

The policy shift, made this week, is pegged to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and preceding military escalations. The Azov Battalion, which functions as an armed wing of the broader Ukrainian white nationalist Azov movement, began as a volunteer anti-Russia militia before formally joining the Ukrainian National Guard in 2014; the regiment is known for its hardcore right-wing ultranationalism and the neo-Nazi ideology pervasive among its members. Though it has in recent years downplayed its neo-Nazi sympathies, the group’s affinities are not subtle: Azov soldiers march and train wearing uniforms bearing icons of the Third Reich; its leadership has reportedly courted American alt-right and neo-Nazi elements; and in 2010, the battalion’s first commander and a former Ukrainian parliamentarian, Andriy Biletsky, stated that Ukraine’s national purpose was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans].” With Russian forces reportedly moving rapidly against targets throughout Ukraine, Facebook’s blunt, list-based approach to moderation puts the company in a bind: What happens when a group you’ve deemed too dangerous to freely discuss is defending its country against a full-scale assault?

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Doctors Warn Against Illegal ‘Covid Censorship’ Bill In California That Would Shut Them Down For ‘COVID-19 Misinformation’

Some doctors in California have vowed to fight a possible new law that would threaten their medical licenses if they were caught spreading “COVID-19 misinformation”

The medical professionals are calling the effort “unconstitutional” and “illegal.”

California Assemblyman Evan Low introduced Assembly Bill (AB) 2098 on Feb. 15, which would prevent licensed physicians and surgeons from spreading so called “covid misinformation”

The Epcoh Times reports: if passed, the law would inject disciplinary actions by the Medical Board of California or the Osteopathic Medical Board of California to care providers promoting alleged misinformation.

“The idea that they’re going to come after physicians that spread misinformation, without defining what misinformation is, [is] frightening,” Physician Dr. Jeff Barke told The Epoch Times.

Amid the pandemic, Barke was among the minority of health care professionals unafraid of challenging the science behind masks and vaccinations pushed by the California Department of Public Health and Center for Disease Control and Prevention—urging for individual freedom of choice.

Barke, a private practice physician in Newport Beach, has continuously fought against COVID-19 mandates and has urged for California schools to reopen—saying children are statistically unlikely to die due to the virus.

While Barke is against the mandates—especially lingering COVID-19 vaccine mandates for kids—he reassures that he is not anti-vaccine.

As the threat of censorship lingers among some health professionals, Barke said he fears scientific studies are at risk—as those who have challenged vaccines and masks will be potentially forced into compliance.

“Science is not about consensus. It’s not about agreement. It’s about sharing and debating ideas,” Barke said. “That sharing and debating ideas has not been allowed during the COVID crisis.”

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Chinese State Media Accidentally Releases Censorship Rules On Russia–Ukraine Coverage

A quickly-deleted social media post – released to the public apparently by accident – provides a rare glimpse of how the CCP’s messaging on the escalating Ukraine–Russia tension is channeled to the masses.

Horizon News, a video news network under state-run Beijing News, on Feb. 22 instructed staff to avoid posting any Ukraine-related content on China’s Twitter-like Weibo that may come across as unfavorable to Russia or pro-Western.

“Let me review your draft before you first put it out,” stated the Weibo post, which has since been removed. Commentaries, it added, must be “carefully selected and controlled,” while topic selections should follow the lead of People’s Daily, Xinhua, and CCTV—three of the country’s foremost Party mouthpieces.

“Whoever publishes them will be held responsible,” the post stated, noting that each post should be monitored for at least two days.

Although China is well-known for its tight restrictions on press freedom, the post provides a rare, if small, revelation into the workings of Chinese media machinery and the inner anxieties of the regime as politically fraught international developments unfold.

While deepening ties with Moscow, Beijing is also cautious to avoid blowback by being seen as directly supporting a unilateral move to seize sovereignty of another nation—given the regime’s own designs in absorbing self-ruled Taiwan.

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YouTube to censor “new misinformation” preemptively

YouTube, the world’s dominant video sharing platform, has already removed over one million videos for violating its strict and controversial “misinformation” rules. But in a new announcement, the tech giant has revealed that it’s going to be getting even stricter and suppressing “new misinformation” preemptively before it has the chance to gain traction.

YouTube’s Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan described how the video-sharing platform will start “catching new misinformation before it goes viral” in a blog post. The process will involve continuously training YouTube’s machine learning systems with “an even more targeted mix of classifiers, keywords in additional languages, and information from regional analysts” to identify “narratives” that YouTube’s main classifier doesn’t catch.

Mohan added: “Over time, this will make us faster and more accurate at catching these viral misinfo narratives.”

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The Mind Control Police: The Government’s War on Thought Crimes and Truth-Tellers

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”— George Orwell  

The U.S. government, which speaks in a language of force, is afraid of its citizenry.

What we are dealing with is a government so power-hungry, paranoid and afraid of losing its stranglehold on power that it is conspiring to wage war on anyone who dares to challenge its authority.

All of us are in danger.

In recent years, the government has used the phrase “domestic terrorist” interchangeably with “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” to describe anyone who might fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum of viewpoints that could be considered “dangerous.” The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.

In the government’s latest assault on those who criticize the government—whether that criticism manifests itself in word, deed or thought—the Biden Administration has likened those who share “false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information” to terrorists.

The next part is the kicker.

According to the Department of Homeland Security’s latest terrorism bulletin, “These threat actors seek to exacerbate societal friction to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence.”

You see, the government doesn’t care if what you’re sharing is fact or fiction or something in between. What it cares about is whether what you’re sharing has the potential to make people think for themselves and, in the process, question the government’s propaganda.

Get ready for the next phase of the government’s war on thought crimes and truth-tellers.

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YouTube CEO wants governments pass laws to “have more control over online speech”

Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube, has acknowledged that the platform’s policy of censoring legal content that it deems to be “harmful” is controversial and urged governments to step in and pass stronger speech laws.

Wojcicki made the comments in an interview with the Hamburg-based independent broadcaster TIDETVhamburg where she was asked about how the platform navigates the “minefield” or complying with national laws while also keeping advertisers happy and users interested.

“We work around the globe, and you’re right, certainly there are many different laws and many different jurisdictions, and we…enforce the laws of the various jurisdictions around speech or what’s considered safe or not safe,” Wojcicki said.

She added that there’s been little controversy when YouTube enforces these laws. Instead, the controversy arises when YouTube decides to censor speech that it deems to be “harmful” but “not illegal,” particularly in relation to COVID.

“What has been the controversial part is when there is content that would be deemed as harmful but yet is not illegal,” Wojcicki said. “An example of that, for example, would be COVID. I’m not aware of there being laws by governments saying around COVID in terms of not being able to debate the efficacy of masks or where the virus came from or the right treatment or proposal but yet there was a lot of pressure and concern about us distributing misinformation that went against what was the standard and accepted medical knowledge. And so this category of harmful but…legal has been, I think, where most of the discussion has been.”

Despite admitting that the way YouTube censors legal content is controversial, Wojcicki pushed for stronger speech laws that would accommodate this censorship.

“Our recommendation, if governments want to have more control over online speech is to pass laws to have that be very cleanly and clearly defined so that we can implement it,” Wojcicki said.

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Canada’s online censorship bill is back

The Liberal Canadian government is resurrecting its online censorship bill that many were pleased died last year.

The new Bill – now called Bill C-11 – is aimed at regulating online platforms.

The purpose of Bill C-11 is to update the Broadcasting Act which was passed in 1991 before the internet was mainstream.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

If the bill passes, platforms that host content such as Netflix and Spotify, will be required to follow the content rules that traditional broadcasters follow as well as be forced to show a specified amount of local content and contributing cultural funds.

The Liberals claim that Bill C-11 addresses the free speech concerns that were raised about Bill C-10. In the new bill, user-generated content will be exempted from regulation by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

Professor Michael Geist, from the University of Ottawa has disputed that the new proposals protect free speech.

“Indeed, for all the talk that user generated content is out, the truth is that everything from podcasts to TikTok videos fit neatly into the new exception that gives the CRTC the power to regulate such content as a ‘program,’” Geist wrote in a blog post.

Basically, the bill means the Canadian Radio and television and Telecommunications Commission will be granted permission to regulate a lot of social media content created by Canadians.

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Here Are All The Times The Biden Administration Has Called For Tech Censorship

The Biden administration has frequently urged social media and technology companies to censor users, stressing the perceived dangers of “misinformation.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki drew criticism after she said Tuesday that Spotify and other social media companies need to be “doing more” to stop the spread of “mis- and disinformation” on their platforms, echoing calls made in July for Facebook to remove posts containing vaccine misinformation. Psaki’s comments were in response to a question regarding backlash toward podcast host Joe Rogan, with whom Spotify has an exclusive contract, for hosting two guests who were skeptical of the COVID-19 vaccine’s safety and efficacy.

“Our hope is that all major tech platforms and all major news sources for that matter be responsible and be vigilant,” Psaki said.

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