Tag: social media

Australian cop who said there are only two genders faces investigation

An Australian policeman, a 62-year-old policeman, Sergeant Bruno Stafiieri, is being investigated after an online comment telling another officer that there are only two genders.

“So you are doing tertiary education studying genders,” Staffieri wrote, “I’ll make it easy for you to pass … there are 2.”

As reported by The Age, the ongoing investigation into Staffieri “shapes as a test case for freedom of speech and the force’s recently revised social-media policy, particularly for officers expressing religious or political opinions online.”

It was not the first time Staffieri has landed in trouble for commenting on LGB and Trans stories.

He was under investigation for criticizing the government’s decision to cancel Anzac Day and Australia Day but allowed Gay Pride March.

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Twitter To Ramp Up Censorship Of ‘Misinformation’ About The Ukraine War

Twitter has published what it calls a “crisis misinformation policy” announcing that it will be actively reducing the visibility of content found to be false which pertains to “situations of armed conflict, public health emergencies, and large-scale natural disasters.”

If you’ve been paying attention to the dramatic escalations in online censorship we’ve been seeing in 2022, it will not surprise you to learn that the Ukraine war is the first crisis to which this new censorship policy will be applied.

Twitter says that it “won’t amplify or recommend content” found to violate its new policy, and will also attach warning labels to individual tweets and even hide offending content behind a warning label and disable the retweet function on particularly naughty posts.

The problem here is of course the question of how to impartially establish whether something is objectively false without it turning into at best a flawed system guided by fallible human biases and perceptual filters and at worst a powerful institution shutting down unauthorized speech. Twitter says it formed its new policy with input from unnamed “global experts and human rights organizations,” and will be enforcing it with the help of “conflict monitoring groups, humanitarian organizations, open-source investigators, journalists, and more.” This will come as no comfort to anyone who’s familiar with the history of propaganda peddling that can be found in every single one of those respective categories.

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‘They’re Going To Get Their Ministry Of Truth One Way Or The Other’: Twitter Announces ‘Crisis Misinformation Policy’

Just one day after the White House confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board had been put on hold — and that board chief Nina Jankowicz had resigned — Twitter announced plans to implement a new “crisis misinformation policy.”

The plan, according to a tweet from @TwitterSafety, would be implemented to ensure that Twitter as a platform did not amplify or contribute to the spread of misinformation.

“People turn to Twitter during crisis times to share news, find support, and stay connected. Today, we’re launching a crisis misinformation policy so Twitter doesn’t recommend or amplify viral, false content that can further harm already vulnerable groups,” the tweet read.

“We’ve been refining our approach to crisis misinformation, drawing on input from global experts and human rights organizations. As part of this new framework, we’ll start adding warning notices on high visibility misleading Tweets related to the war in Ukraine,” the thread continued.

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Half of Joe Biden’s Twitter Followers Are Fake, Audit Reveals

Almost half of President Joe Biden‘s current 22.2 million followers on Twitter are fake accounts, according to an audit tool provided by software company SparkToro.

SparkToro’s tool found that 49.3 percent of accounts following the official @POTUS Twitter account are “fake followers” based on analysis of a number of factors, including location issues, default profile images and new users.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is currently trying to buy Twitter, has expressed concerns about the number of fake accounts and a potential crack down could see users such as Biden lose a huge number of followers.

Musk said early on Tuesday that his $44-billion deal to purchase the social media company could not go ahead until issues with fake accounts were resolved and he appeared to criticize Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal.

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CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA REBORN? PRIVATE SPY AGENCY WEAPONIZES FACEBOOK AGAIN

On April 4, plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit brought against Facebook over its data-sharing practices following the eruption of the Cambridge Analytica scandal filed a fresh motion, charging that the social media giant deliberately obstructed discovery of information revealing the scale of its malfeasance.

It’s the latest development in a wide-ranging controversy that began in the first months of 2017 and shows little sign of abating. In brief, Cambridge Analytica exploited a Facebook loophole to harvest the personal data of up to 50 million Americans, in order to manipulate voters on behalf of a number of right-wing candidates — potentially including Donald Trump — and political campaigns in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Since then, the company and its parent, SCL Group, have folded, with official investigations into their activities conducted in several countries, while Facebook has been fined a record $5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission for egregious breaches of user confidentiality. The entire dispute raised serious public concerns about online privacy and the malign influence of behavioral advertising and microtargeting, which endure to this day.

In September 2020, Cambridge Analytica’s former CEO, Alexander Nix, was disqualified from serving as a U.K. company director for seven years for offering unethical services, including “bribery or honey-trap stings, voter disengagement campaigns, obtaining information to discredit political opponents and spreading information anonymously in political campaigns.”

By contrast, one senior SCL staffer seemingly pivotal to many of those unethical practices – although they deny it — has been unaffected by the scandal’s fallout. In fact, they have profited and prospered immensely in its wake.

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Days After Biden Unveils New Dystopian “Disinformation Governance Board” Newly Released Documents Confirm CDC Catalogues and Tracks Social Media Posts by Elected Officials That are Vaccine Related

Newly released internal documents from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reveal the agency has been tracking and cataloging the social media posts of elected US officials.

The records were obtained earlier this week through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and were posted online by investigative journalist Sheryl Attkisson.

According to the documents, the social media posts, which are all CDC or vaccine-related, are logged into a database and broken down by party affiliation. The logs include information like the text of the post, the date it was sent, a link, and even notes about what was said.

Creepy.

It is unclear what the data is currently being used for, but, one thing’s clear, the so-called health ‘experts’ are awfully concerned with what’s being said about them online.

It doesn’t really seem to matter too much whether the posts include criticism or praise, as both Democrats and Republicans, like Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), can be found on the list.

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Bill Gates wants to create a 3,000 person social media unit to quash “vaccine misinformation”

Billionaire Bill Gates has announced that he plans to create a new unit, hiring 3,000 people to take to social media, put out messaging, and “help propagate accurate vaccine information in the future,” CNBC reported. 

Gates wants social media to be a place with “good messages” from “people of trust in the community, such as political and ethnic leaders.”

Gates made the statements when being asked about Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and the future of free speech on the platform.

During the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Summit, the Microsoft founder said Elon Musk could make Twitter worse. While the Tesla CEO is a free speech absolutist, Gates has called for more censorship.

Gates acknowledged that Musk has done a great job with his other companies, SpaceX and Tesla. But he is not confident Musk will do the same with Twitter.

“I kind of doubt that will happen this time, but we should have an open mind and never underestimate Elon,” he said.

One of the reasons Gates feels Musk could make Twitter worse is the SpaceX CEO’s stand on free speech.

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Judge rules cops who arrested man over parody Facebook page have qualified immunity

Free speech and what’s known as “qualified immunity,” as well as “overcriminalization” – expansion of the criminal code in the US to address even minor problems in society – is at the heart of a case that started in 2016 with a short-lived parody page Anthony Novak had set up on Facebook.

Novak was subsequently arrested and spent several days in jail – much longer than the lifespan of his page critical of the police in Parma, Ohio – a page that was up only 12 hours.

In addition, the police confiscated his phone and computer. His “crime” was the humor he was using to express his opinions about the local law enforcement: posts like one “advertising” free abortions performed in a police van, and an “event” under the motto, “Pedophile Reform.”

Some Facebook users complained – about ten of them according to court records – but that was enough for the police to go to the trouble of getting three warrants: to arrest Novak, search his apartment, and deal with Facebook. The charge was “using a computer to hinder police duties,” an accusation based on little-known (and in this case, a court eventually found, invoked incorrectly) state law.

Novak eventually had a jury trial that resulted in his acquittal. But he then went on to sue the officers who arrested him for violating his constitutional rights. However, the US Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit did not support his claims.

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As America Implodes Over Roe V. Wade, Latest Pfizer Dump Reveals 100s of Pages of Severe Vaccine Reactions

If you have turned on your television, opened a web browser, or scrolled social media on your mobile device, you have likely seen the news about the leaked draft report from the Supreme Court about potentially overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

Despite the leaked opinion being a draft — meaning it is not a decision yet — Politico ran with the headline, “EXCLUSIVE: Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights.” In the last 48 hours, this report has set off a tailspin of uproar, protests, political rage, and even riots, yet inside the article, Politico admits that this decision is not final:

Deliberations on controversial cases have in the past been fluid. Justices can and sometimes do change their votes as draft opinions circulate and major decisions can be subject to multiple drafts and vote-trading, sometimes until just days before a decision is unveiled. The court’s holding will not be final until it is published, likely in the next two months.

Nevertheless, America’s outrage has shifted from Ukraine and Elon Musk…. to abortion. The fact that abortion is an issue of the state at all, no matter which ‘side you are on,’ is Orwellian. Government has no more business paying for or advocating for abortions than they do stopping them.

Unfortunately, many people allow emotion to rule their logic and end up holding beliefs which are entirely contradictory. For example, since the covid vaccine has been approved by the FDA, many of the same folks who support a woman’s right to choose were completely resolute with taking away that right to choose when it came to taking the jab. The cognitive dissonance is rife.

Unfortunately, abortion is a reality, and society is slowly figuring out how to deal with it. But, the more the state attempts to interject their bias into this reality, the more skewed the situation becomes. Case in point: asking your rapist for permission to not have his baby or people singing about and celebrating the fact that they have had multiple abortions.

The fact of the matter is a society that treats the potential for life as disposable is a society in a crisis of conscience, and in need of self-reflection. However, the state’s involvement in the matter has only served to complicate the issue, prolong suffering, and, as the following example illustrates, serve as a massive distraction by keeping the masses fighting amongst each other.

While the left and the right devolve into hate-filled calls for death over their stance on abortion, the powers that be are likely laughing all the way to the bank, especially Pfizer.

As many may recall, Pfizer originally asked that the trial data for their coivd vaccine not be released for 75 years. Thankfully, sounder minds prevailed, and in January, after the FDA and Pfizer received massive backlash for delaying the release of that data, U.S. District Judge Mark T. Pittman ordered the agency to turn over 55,000 pages of vaccine trial data every month. On March 1, that first release came and not a single mainstream outlet reported on it.

We did.

Since then, there have been two more dumps, the most recent of which came out on the same day as the leaked SCOTUS documents. Coincidence?

This latest release can be found via the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency Documents database here or at the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) site here.

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Bill Gates says “real invention” is needed to stop online election and medical “misinformation”

In an appearance on NBC’s Today show, Bill Gates was asked about online “misinformation” and what he thought about Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter in relation to that.

The discussion about misinformation started with host Savannah Guthrie saying: “When you look at how the US and the world responded to COVID-19, whether it’s masks or vaccines or shutdowns, closures, it’s become so political…It’s been so politicized.”

Gates responded: “Yeah, it’s unfortunate that we didn’t get trusted voices in both parties talking about the benefit of masks and vaccines so that it wasn’t a political issue.”

Guthrie then asked about misinformation, noting that it has “been a hallmark” of the pandemic.

“President Biden rather famously said last July that misinformation on social media is killing people. Do you agree?” she asked.
Gates said: “Absolutely…It’s terrible.”

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