Tag: social media

Twitter blocked links to Daily Mail article that questioned Covid death stats

Twitter has put a warning on an article from the UK’s Daily Mail, one of the biggest news outlets in the country, that describes the article as potentially being “unsafe.”

The article is written by the newspaper’s deputy health editor, Eve Simmons, and discusses how official government figures vastly overstated the COVID-19 death rate due to bad reporting.

“Warning: this link may be unsafe,” Twitter displays when users  go to click the link to the article.

“The link you are trying to access has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially spammy or unsafe, in accordance with Twitter’s URL Policy,” it says at the time of writing.

It’s unclear who these “partners” are that have called for the censorship of the article.

“Health chiefs admitted, embarrassingly, that the numbers they’d been feeding the Government were only an approximation – provoking fury from Ministers,” the article reads.

“More recently it was revealed that a quarter of Omicron deaths included in the daily figures did not, in fact, list Covid as a primary cause.

“More than two years since Covid-19 emerged, many feel they want a simple answer: how many were killed by this virus?

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UK Online Safety Bill, that will censor some “legal but harmful” content, presented to Parliament

The Online Safety Bill, the most far-reaching online censorship law to ever be proposed in the UK, has been presented to Parliament.

UK Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) Secretary of State Nadine Dorries, said her aim with the bill was to “make the internet, in the UK, the safest place in the world for children and vulnerable young people to go online.”

However, as with many bills that are positioned as a way to keep children safe, this Online Safety Bill contains sweeping speech restrictions that will affect all UK internet users.

The bill requires Big Tech companies to take action against “priority legal but harmful” content which will be decided by the government. The DCMS Secretary of State has the power to add more categories of priority legal but harmful content via secondary legislation in the future.

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YouTube Flags Tulsi Gabbard’s Criticism of “War Machine” as “Offensive” Content

YouTube flagged a Fox News interview in which former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard said war in Ukraine was good for the military industrial complex as “offensive” content.

Yes, really.

Apparently, upsetting war profiteering defense contractors is now grounds for censorship.

During the interview, host Laura Ingraham asked Gabbard why people were still demanding no fly zones, something that would likely cause World War III, when President Zelensky was “stepping back from his earlier NATO wishes and even demands?”

Gabbard responded by pointing out that Zelensky has said he’s willing to negotiate with Putin and “set this NATO membership thing aside.”

According to YouTube, such advocacy for peace is borderline content and needs to be hidden behind a warning screen. The video is also age-restricted.

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Vimeo bans “fake news” that creates “a serious risk of material harm”

Video sharing platform Vimeo has updated its terms of service to ban “fake news, deepfakes, propaganda, or unproven or debunked conspiracy theories” that create “a serious risk of material harm to a person, group, or the general public.”

Vimeo’s previous terms banned “conspiracy-related content where the underlying conspiracy theory makes claims that…a real-world tragedy did not occur” but didn’t reference fake news, deepfakes, propaganda, or unproven or debunked conspiracy theories.

These new terms also ban “false claims that a violent crime or catastrophe has occurred.”

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Meme Police: DHS Scanning Employees’ Social Media for ‘Conspiracy Theories,’ ‘Extremism’

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a report recommending an increased focus on scanning the social media accounts of its employees in order to detect “extremism.”

Among the examples of “extremism” cited by DHS are: a belief that fraud occurred in the 2020 election, and objections to current coronavirus policies.

From the DHS report, obtained by Reclaim The Net:

A March 2021 unclassified threat assessment prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Department of Justice, and DHS, noted that domestic violent extremists “who are motivated by a range of ideologies and galvanized by recent political and societal events in the United States pose an elevated threat to the Homeland in 2021.” The assessment pointed to newer “sociopolitical developments such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence” that “will almost certainly spur some [domestic violent extremists] [sic] to try to engage in violence this year.”

The report shows increased DHS concern with rooting out “extremists” within its own ranks, including through monitoring the social media accounts of employees.

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DHS increases efforts to identify “misinformation” and “conspiracy theories” on social media

Last Spring, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas ordered an internal review to identify how to best detect, prevent, and respond to threats related to domestic violent extremism within the department.

A component of this was based on online activity. “DVE [domestic violent extremist] attackers often radicalize independently by consuming violent extremist material online and mobilize without direction from a violent extremist organization, making detection and disruption difficult,” the unclassified initial report stated.

The report (obtained here) said that extremists, “exploit a variety of popular social media platforms, smaller websites with targeted audiences, and encrypted chat applications to recruit new adherents, plan and rally support for in-person actions, and disseminate materials that contribute to radicalization and mobilization to violence.”

One of the recommendations is to increase “efforts to better identify and evaluate mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) with a homeland security nexus, including false or misleading conspiracy theories spread on social media and other online platforms that endorse violence.”

While not directly stated, it was inferred that the DHS was in some way monitoring online activity. Obviously, some privacy and free speech concerns were raised.

And now, this month, the DHS has released a report with the findings of the review.

We obtained a copy of the report for you here.

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YouTube bans “denying, minimizing or trivializing well-documented violent events” about Russia-Ukraine war

YouTube has started removing content about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that violates its rules around “denying, minimizing or trivializing well-documented violent events.”

As part of this expanded enforcement of these rules, which were first introduced in February 2019, YouTube said it’s also “blocking access to YouTube channels associated with Russian state-funded media globally.”

Additionally, YouTube reported that it has censored over 1,000 channels and over 15,000 videos since March 1 for violating policies such as its “hate speech,” “misinformation,” and “graphic content” policies.

Not only has YouTube censored more than 15,000 videos in less than two weeks but it has also boosted “trusted sources” and its “breaking news and top news shelves” on its homepage have received more than 17 million views in Ukraine.

“Our teams continue to closely monitor the situation, and are ready to take further action,” YouTube tweeted. “We will continue to share updates as they become available.”

The ban follows YouTube blocking two Russian state-controlled media outlets, RT (Russia Today) and Sputnik, in Europe earlier this month after an order from the European Union (EU).

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French digital minister tells Big Tech platforms to scale up “fact-checking capabilities”

Telecom ministers from European countries have asked the major online platforms to ensure they have the adequate capacity to handle “misinformation” in Central and Eastern Europe, which they say are the major targets of Russian propaganda.

On March 8, officials from EU governments and representatives from the major online platforms met in France to discuss how to fight disinformation being spread by the Russian government. Initially, the agenda of the informal meeting was the Metaverse, how to bring more women to the technology sector, and environment. The agenda was changed in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In a joint statement, the ministers said: “The battles initiated by Russia in the current conflict are raging not only on the ground but also on the internet.”

France’s digital minister Cédric O said that online platforms had made some efforts to fight Russian propaganda, adding that the accounts of Russian state-controlled media outlets Sputnik and RT have been removed on the major platforms. However, O said it was important to put “pressure on the platforms to do even more.”

During the meeting, the ministers made two requests, according to a report by EURACTIV. They asked the platforms to respond to take down requests from governments more quickly. And, they asked them to increase their content moderation teams in the languages spoken in Central and Eastern Europe.

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Big Tech eagerly blocks virtually all content from Russia while completely refusing to address Chinese propaganda

Many of the major tech giants, including Google, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter and even Netflix, are cutting off Russian content entirely in response to the Ukraine invasion.

China, meanwhile, is still allowed to spread as much propaganda as it wants via social media, despite the fact that it contributed to the creation of the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19).

Big Tech is basically colluding to censor all things Russia from their various platforms, and only allow a pro-Ukraine narrative.

The Russian news networks RT and Sputnik, for instance, can no longer share any content on the aforementioned platforms after European Union officials pressured the Silicon Valley giants into obeying and supporting the narrative.

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