Tag: censorship

Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance is banned from LinkedIn

The networking and social platform LinkedIn is once again accused of involvement in suppression of free speech – and this time it isn’t to comply with Chinese censorship.

The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care (FLCCC) Alliance non-profit has revealed on Twitter that their LinkedIn account was disabled for violating the Microsoft company’s “misinformation” policy.

A screenshot of a short, generic notice doesn’t reveal any specifics, inviting instead this freshly deplatformed user to read up on LinkedIn’s policy, or ask them to “take a second look” – i.e., appeal.

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YouTube caught auto-censoring some comments that criticize China’s propaganda pushers (again)

Last year, YouTube was caught auto-censoring several phrases that criticized “wumao” (五毛) – a phrase describing the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) internet propaganda division the “50 Cent Army” which is a reference to members of this propaganda division reportedly being paid 50 cents per post.

YouTube responded by claiming “this was an error in our enforcement systems and we are working to fix it as quickly as possible.”

Now, just over a year later, Oculus and Anduril founder Palmer Luckey has reported that YouTube was again censoring a phrase that criticized wumao for influencing YouTube censorship operations.

Reclaim The Net tested this phrase in the YouTube comments section and it was briefly auto-censored within seconds of being posted.

However, after YouTube was questioned about the practice and after Luckey retweeted a post from another Twitter user who tagged Congressman Jim Banks and shared their experience of the word “Wumao” being censored in the YouTube comments section, YouTube appeared to reverse the censorship.

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Facebook is banning anyone charged (not convicted) with participating in January 6 US Capitol riot

Facebook has revealed that it will ban anyone who’s charged in connection with the riot at the US Capitol on January 6 and may start “fact-checking” claims that the riot was staged.

In an article detailing how Alan Hostetter, a man who has been charged with obstructing official government proceedings and breaching restricted government property, was banned from Facebook and Instagram within hours of posting a video describing the January 6 riot as a “false flag” and a “fakesurrection” because he believed infiltrators were in the crowd, The Washington Post notes that:

“Facebook says that it does not allow people charged in the insurrection on the platform and that it may fact-check claims that the riot was staged.”

In the case of Hostetter, the prosecutors do not allege that he was violent or entered the Capitol building but claim that he “pushed through the area that the law enforcement officers had been blocking, moved up the stairs onto a structure erected for the Inauguration, and continued moving on to the Upper West Terrace.”

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Why Saving Comedy Is So Crucial To Saving America

Conan O’Brien did his final late night show last week, after 28 years on air. He’s stepping away at the right time. Whether you liked his comedic style or not, he really was trying to make people laugh.

When was the last time you watched “The Late Show” in order to laugh? That’s a trick question — nobody who watches Stephen Colbert is laughing. Laughter is entirely beside the point; Colbert’s show is political catechism in nightly hour-long installments.

One of Colbert’s masterworks in June was a song “parody” titled “500 Vials,” which didn’t even have a joke — it was just telling everyone to get the vaccine. It may be the least funny video ever created, and after the female-empowerment version of “Ghostbusters,” that can’t be said lightly (but remember: Anyone who didn’t laugh is sexist).

Increasingly, though, Colbert is the norm for late-night shows. For four years, limited big-tent political comedy got replaced by an aggressive churn of anti-Donald Trump “Resistance” theater barely papered over by jokes.

Some have just about given up the ghost entirely: John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” is pretty much nothing but lectures on what a liberal is supposed to be mad about this week.

And remember “The Daily Show”? While certainly steeped in sarcastic vitriol, it’s impossible to say it’s been relevant since Trevor Noah took the reins nearly six years ago.

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A Case of “Intellectual Capture?” On YouTube’s Demonetization Of Bret Weinstein

Just under three years ago, Infowars anchor Alex Jones was tossed off Facebook, Apple, YouTube, and Spotify, marking the unofficial launch of the “content moderation” era. The censorship envelope has since widened dramatically via a series of high-profile incidents: Facebook and Twitter suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, Donald Trump’s social media suspension, Apple and Amazon’s kneecapping of Parler, the removal of real raw footage from the January 6th riots, and others.

This week’s decision by YouTube to demonetize podcaster Bret Weinstein belongs on that list, and has a case to be to be put at or near the top, representing a different and perhaps more unnerving speech conundrum than those other episodes.

Profiled in this space two weeks ago, Weinstein and his wife Heather Heying — both biologists — host the podcast DarkHorse, which by any measure is among the more successful independent media operations in the country. They have two YouTube channels, a main channel featuring whole episodes and livestreams, and a “clips” channel featuring excerpts from those shows.

Between the two channels, they’ve been flagged 11 times in the last month or so. Specifically, YouTube has honed in on two areas of discussion it believes promote “medical misinformation.” The first is the potential efficacy of the repurposed drug ivermectin as a Covid-19 treatment. The second is the third rail of third rails, i.e. the possible shortcomings of the mRNA vaccines produced by companies like Moderna and Pfizer.

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YouTube removes videos exposing China’s abuse of Uyghurs, citing policy violation

A human rights group that gained popularity on YouTube largely because of its videos exposing China’s human rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslims had several of its videos removed from the platform, with YouTube citing unrelated policy violations, according to a report. 

Reuters reported that the YouTube channel Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights, which is based in Kazakhstan, also had its channel temporarily blocked by YouTube. The activist who runs the channel, Serikzhan Bilash, has been called a “well-known rights activist” by the group Human Rights Watch.

According to Reuters, 12 of Bilash’s videos were removed this year by YouTube amid an apparent campaign by groups who deny China is committing genocide to mass-report the Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights videos. The channel was completely blocked this month and only restored after inquiries from Reuters.

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