Tag: social media

Instagram censors suggestions Kyle Rittenhouse acted in self-defense

Musician and podcaster Jordan Sarmo has announced that Instagram deleted his post about Kyle Rittenhouse, a teen who is on trial for first degree murder of two men – that he says he committed in self-defense, as he was being chased and feared for his life.

But the case has become just the latest in a flurry of highly divisive issues plaguing US society, and mainstream social media seem to have chosen to err on the side of censorship and stifle any voices supporting Rittenhouse, even though the trial is still in progress and he is therefore presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Sarmo’s post that Instagram censored showed Rittenhouse break down in tears while he was testifying about the events in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during the rioting in the summer of 2020.

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LinkedIn censors interview with British cardiologist who criticized Pfizer vaccine data coverup

LinkedIn has decided that a video about the efficacy of Covid vaccines, originally posted on YouTube and featuring Dr. Aseem Malhotra was violating its “professional community policies.”

Interviewer Maajid Nawaz posted a screenshot of the message he received from LinkedIn on Facebook, informing him of the removal and that only he can now see the post.

No other details for the censorship were given, other than a link presumably leading to LinkedIn’s policy page which requires users to be “safe, civil and respectful,” trustworthy by using their real identity and sharing “real and authentic” information, as well as make sure the content users posts is professionally relevant.

The video, which is still available on YouTube as of this writing, features Dr. Malhotra interviewed on the LBC talk radio station, posted under the headline, “Pfizer data scandal.”

Dr. Malhotra’s conversation with LBC’s Maajid Nawaz shown in the video focused on vaccine mandates, which he believes to be unethical, and the cardiologist’s belief that the healthcare crisis is the result of what he called “the corporate capture of public health.”

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Facebook Aggressively Censoring Any Searches for Kyle Rittenhouse Amid Trial

Big Tech platform Facebook is aggressively censoring any searches for information about the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, an Illinois youth falsely accused of homicide by Wisconsin prosecutors following a self-defense incident at an ANTIFA riot.

Reports of Facebook turning off any and all search results amid the trial began last week, with Facebook users sharing evidence of totally disabled searches for Rittenhouse.

The block of information comes as Rittenhouse defense attorneys increasingly reveal a corrupt charade of a prosecution, with Kenosha County prosecutors implicated in coercing false testimony from witnesses and hardened ANTIFA militants openly admitting to chasing Rittenhouse armed with weapons during the shootings in August 2020.

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Media outlets campaign to get Facebook to censor climate “misinformation”

A series of articles have been appearing lately in Big Media, piling pressure on Facebook to step up censorship of what’s considered to be “climate misinformation” on the giant platform.

These reports published by the BBC, The Guardian, and The Verge – all citing and giving a lot of space to a study into climate-related content on Facebook produced by several fairly obscure advocacy groups – came shortly after Big Tech declared “climate misinformation” and “climate denial” to be its next censorship target.

One of these groups, “The Real Facebook Oversight Board,” announced on Twitter that it is publishing a quarterly report that documents “Facebook’s harms on climate change.”

The outfit, which states to be a part of the the-citizens.com site (that for now has a landing page and is funded, among others, by Luminate – an offshoot of billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s organization), said it was working with “Stop Funding Heat” and “Sum of Us” to produce the report.

The Verge bases its article on the “study” published on the Stop Funding Heat website, which accuses Facebook of “fact-checking” less than 4 percent of posts for climate misinformation, that is said to have increased by as much as 77% since January, to garner between about 800,000 and 1.3 million views.

“Facebook has been told over and over, through public reports and in private meetings, that its platform is a breeding ground for climate misinformation. Either they don’t care or they don’t know how to fix it,” Stop Funding Heat’s Sean Buchan is cited as stating.

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It Started With Thirst Traps on TikTok. Now, She’s Accused of Running a Cult

When Chae first saw Angela Vandusen, aka @angelatheegoddess, on her TikTok For You page last year, she was instantly smitten. A 27-year-old based in Michigan, Vandusen was a home health care aide and an aspiring natural oils entrepreneur, but she had amassed many devoted adherents by posting thirst traps on the platform, most of which followed a specific template: she’d turn her steely blue gaze on the camera, usually while biting her lower lip and lip-synching provocative lyrics, or simulating strap-on sex while winking to the camera. She’d built a following of about 50,000 followers based on those videos, as well as videos documenting her dramatic weight loss journey.

A single stay-at-home mom of two children, Chae, who requested her last name be withheld to protect her privacy, wasn’t looking for a girlfriend at the time. But when Vandusen popped into her TikTok Live late last year, she was giddy with excitement. “She was my biggest TikTok crush at the time,” Chae says. It wasn’t just Vandusen’s looks — the penetrating stare, the chest tats, the razor-sharp cheekbones — that attracted Chae. It was also the fact that Vandusen frequently made videos about her love of BBWs (big beautiful women), coupled with those documenting her own weight loss journey. As a BBW herself, Chae was intrigued. “She understands what a bigger person goes through, the insecurities and stuff like that,” Chae says.

Chae and Vandusen exchanged numbers, and they began chatting every day, sometimes late into the night while Vandusen was still working her shifts. When Vandusen told Chae she was involved in the kink lifestyle and wanted Chae to be her submissive, Chae says, she didn’t bat an eyelash; though she’d never dabbled in kink before, the prospect intrigued her. Same went for the fact that Angela had a slew of online admirers, who’d go into her Lives every Saturday to lobby for her affection: Chae was also interested in the poly lifestyle, and says she didn’t initially feel jealousy in that regard.

Then, in the winter of 2021, another one of Angela’s subs started calling her “daddy.” Angela apparently liked it, and on one of her Lives, she requested that all of her followers refer to her as “Daddy,” and that they refer to themselves as “Daddy’s Girls.” “It mainly was like a sisterhood,” says Chae. “At least, that’s how it started.”

Now, Vandusen, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment, is alleged to be the leader of the Daddy’s Girls cult, a group of female devotees who identify themselves with a yellow heart in their bio (this was, Chae says, inspired by the fact that she once painted her nails yellow, and Angela liked the color). Many of the members of the so-called “Daddy’s Girls cult,” as TikTokers describe it, are Black women; their bizarre Lives, in which they pray to Vandusen like a god, have attracted the attention of black TikTok. The level of scrutiny around them was heightened last spring after Chae left the group and made several allegations against Angela publicly, such as that she forced her “Girls” to cut themselves and pull out their own hair if they displeased her. And while many of Vandusen’s so-called “girls” state that their relationships with her are consensual, and that they follow her of their own volition, cult experts disagree.

“What definitely is going on here is psychological manipulation,” says Diane Benscoter, a cult expert and former member of the Unification Church, who runs the group Antidote.ngo. “This person is taking advantage of TikTok and social media and it’s a business, almost, where the goal is total control over a specific group of people. It’s definitely got all of the components that one would call a cult.” In their Lives, Angela and other members of the group would also validate claims that the group was a “cult,” albeit in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. “They say it’s a cult,” Angela says in one Live, responding to another user’s comment and grinning. “Want to join?” 

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Big Tech announces climate change “misinformation” to be the next censorship target

After “tackling” – some say disastrously for online speech – the topics of US elections and Covid by promoting content that is considered “authoritative” and suppressing, to various degrees, everything else, Facebook, Twitter, and Google are further narrowing the space for their users’ free expression.

These enormous digital squares, the social platforms-turned-approved speech enforcers will now add climate change to the list of issues discussions about which are strictly controlled and censored, when information users post or share clashes with the giants’ idea of what’s true and what’s false.

Media like Axios already have something akin to a pejorative for those who happen not to be on board the current climate change narrative – their stance is described as “climate denialism.”

And as the elites are gathering in Glasgow, Scotland for the UN-sponsored COP26 summit, tech giants who operate some of the biggest social media platforms on the planet are using the opportunity to “finally” fall in line and contribute with the best (or the worst, depending on your point of view) they have to offer – censorship, and manipulation of content visibility and reach.

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The UK plans to make online “pile-ons” a crime, in chillingly broad attempt to suppress speech

The UK is preparing to criminalize what is perceived as internet trolling that causes “likely psychological harm,” thanks to the country’s upcoming Online Safety Bill that is introducing a new set of criminal offenses.

And while the punishment internet users in the UK could face under the new legislation is clear – up to two years in prison – the definitions of their “crimes” are a good deal murkier.

In addition to their posts “likely” causing psychological harm, users can also be accused of committing a crime if they post messages containing “threatening communication” – but not necessarily, as defined in the previous law dealing with online hate speech and abuse, because they are found to intend to follow through on the threat.

Instead, it would be enough to “prove” that the recipient of such posts and messages “feared” the threat was real.

Another offense has to do with spreading information that internet users “know” is false, again, in order to cause emotional or physical harm to their “likely audience.” The proposed bill is littered with equally vague and subjective definitions of future crimes that could be hard to prove in a court of law.

The Department for Culture, Media & Sport incorporated the “likely psychological harm” as a basis for the new legislation, as recommended by the Law Commission, and will include them in the bill once it is forwarded to the UK government, which should approve it before it hits parliament in November.

Another recommendation that has been accepted is to make online “pile-ons” a crime – i.e., several users sending trolling messages perceived by the recipient as harassing, while one example a government source gave to the media of what it means to “knowingly” spread false information would be if a vaccine skeptic or a vaccine hesitant person speaks about their conviction – that is apparently automatically considered untrue, while the author is held responsible for “knowing” it.

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People in UK Who Post “False Information” About Vaccines Could be Jailed For Two Years

People in the UK who post “false information” about vaccines online could face two years in prison under a new law.

Yes, really.

The Online Safety Bill, described as “the flagship legislation to combat abuse and hatred on the internet” has faced fierce criticism from civil liberties groups for its broad overreach.

The law would create a “knowingly false communication” offence which, according to the Times, “will criminalise those who send or post a message they know to be false with the intention to cause “emotional, psychological, or physical harm to the likely audience”. Government sources gave the example of antivaxers spreading false information that they know to be untrue.”

Given that authorities have deemed all kinds of information about the pandemic and vaccines “false” that later turned out to be true, this is a chilling prospect.

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