Tag: extremism

New study further debunks “far-right” rabbit hole YouTube narrative

YouTube uses algorithms to suggest videos depending on what you watch. There have been many stories about how YouTube’s recommendation algorithms have “radicalized” people by populating their viewings with a specific subject, particularly when the subjects are “conspiracy theories.”

Yet, these accusations have been accused of being a “conspiracy theory” themselves as several studies have debunked such claims.

A new study published Monday further suggests that video recommendations on YouTube do not radicalize people.

The study focused on whether the alleged radicalization is anecdotal or represented an undeniable trend. The results of the study do not rule out the existence of radicalization through social media. However, it does strongly suggest that this radicalization is not at all common.

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United Nations Greenlights Big Tech Mega-Database To Censor Americans Deemed ‘Extremists’

A Big Tech-led group is using its influence and power to broaden its shared censorship database to curb “extremist content” and collect video and images deemed white supremacist, according to Reuters. The expansion comes after the group “took on renewed urgency” after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, which Democrats and tech giants continue to use as an excuse to justify suppression.

Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube, tech oligarchs trigger-happy to deplatform political dissidents, founded the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism in 2017 in what they labeled “a new collective effort to prevent the spread of terrorist and violent extremist content online.” Initially, the organization claimed to focus its efforts on rounding up content from terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State and the Taliban as designated by the United Nations, but now the monopolies running GIFCT are using their oligarch power to crack down on dissidents of their elitist agenda.

Just five years after its founding, GIFCT is expanding its database to include “white supremacist” content as determined by the United Nation’s Tech Against Terrorism project and intelligence groups such as Five Eyes. According to Reuters, the database will include “attacker manifestos — often shared by sympathizers after white supremacist violence” as well as links and material from Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and other “neo-Nazi” groups that are identified and then censored or removed by social media platforms.

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Police To Target Americans For Their Ideological Beliefs And Behaviors

Much has been written about President Joe Biden’s new Domestic Terror law, but nothing I have seen until now shows just how horrifying it is.

To say that the White House uses the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) like political puppets to push their own agenda would be an understatement. The New Yorker chronicled four DHS secretaries who were forced to resign by October 2019, and a fifth who resigned this January.

So when I heard about DHS counterterrorism chief John Cohen having a hard time containing his enthusiasm over Biden’s new domestic terrorism law in a GW Program on Extremism webinar I knew it couldn’t be good.

Ricardo Vazquez Garcia, from Homeland Security Today describes what happened.

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PayPal Working with ADL to Financially Blacklist and Spy on ‘Extremists’

PayPal took its first step towards suppressing dissent when it banned the account of Julian Assange in 2011. In recent years it has targeted the right, blacklisting the free speech video platform BitChute, Republican congressional candidate and activist Laura Loomer, and the conservative street artist Sabo.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a liberal digital rights organization, has opposed the rise of financial censorship for over a decade. In 2018, the organization warned that banks, payment processors, and credit card companies were becoming “de facto internet censors.”

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FBI Asks Americans To Spy On Own Families And Friends To Prevent ‘Extremism’

The FBI fired out a tweet Sunday afternoon urging Americans to check on their own family members and make sure they aren’t planning any ‘extremism’, prompting a wave of comparisons to authoritarian communist governments.

The wording of the tweet, which links to a Department of National Intelligence (DNI) “booklet” about “homegrown violent extremism” is clear.

The 2019 document contains images commonly associated with radical Islamic terrorism and lists “mobilization indicators” including “communicating directly with violent extremists online.”

Yet there is a distinct ‘Hey Americans, spy on your families for the government’ vibe in the FBI tweet, as numerous detractors noted.

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