Tag: social media

WitchTok: the rise of the occult on social media has eerie parallels with the 16th century

It’s 1.30am in the morning, and I’m about to watch a duel between magicians. One is a “demonolater”, a word I have never heard before, someone who claims they worship demons and can petition them in return for knowledge or power. The other describes themselves as a “Solomonic magician”, and claims to be able to command demons to do his bidding, as some Jewish and Islamic traditions have believed of King Solomon, who ruled Israel in the 10th century BC.

I first discovered this debate because, in the course of studying 16th century books of magic attributed to Solomon, I had found, to my astonishment, that “Solomonic magic” is still alive and well today, and growing in popularity. Twitter had suggested to me that I might be interested in an account called “Solomonic magic”, and a few clicks later I had found myself immersed in a vast online community of young occultists, tweeting and retweeting the latest theories and controversies, and using TikTok to share their craft.

To my further bemusement, it seemed that the tradition of Solomonic magic had recently faced accusations that its strict and authoritative approach to the command of demons amounted to a form of abuse, akin to domestic violence. As I had made a note in my diary of a public debate that I wanted to attend out of sheer curiosity, it seemed astonishing to be asking myself whether Solomonic magic, the same found in books of necromancy dating back hundreds of years, was on the brink of cancellation in 2021.

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Facebook employee said censorship colleagues were “drunk on power”

A Facebook data scientist accused fellow employees of being “drunk on power” for censoring posts supporting Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who killed two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, at the height of last summer’s riots.

The data scientist said some of the censored posts did not violate the platform’s policies as they were discussing whether Rittenhouse was being treated fairly and if he was acting in self-defense. Rittenhouse’s official stance at trial will be self-defense.

Facebook removed many posts supporting Rittenhouse because its policies prohibit the praising of “mass shootings” and “mass shooters.”

In Facebook internal discussions, obtained by the New York Post, most employees agreed with the censorship of pro-Rittenhouse posts. However, one employee, a data scientist, disagreed.

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Pope Francis calls on social media platforms to censor more “misinformation”

In a virtual meeting during the weekend, Pope Francis called on tech companies to be more responsible about the spread of “misinformation.”

The Pope made the remarks during the World Meeting of Popular Movements, which, according to Reuters, is “a grouping of grassroots organizations and social movements which bring attention to inequality in labour, land ownership, health care, and other social issues in the developing world.”

The pope noted that “the pandemic had laid bare the social inequalities that afflict our peoples.” He added that “technology can be a tool for good, and truly it is a tool for good, which permits dialogues such as this one, and many other things, but it can never replace contact between us, it can never substitute for a community in which we can be rooted and which ensures that our life may become fruitful.”

In his speech, the Pope singled out tech platforms for aiding the spread of misinformation.

He said: “In the name of God, I ask the technology giants to stop exploiting human weakness, people’s vulnerability, for the sake of profits without caring about the spread of hate speech, grooming, fake news, conspiracy theories, and political manipulation.”

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Facebook Adds To Its Orwellian Content Moderation By Protecting Activists And Journalists From “Bullying”

Just when you thought the censorship at social media companies couldn’t possibly get any worse, Facebook has come along and moved the bar. 

The company is now going to be protecting activists and journalists, who is is called “involuntary” public figures, with additional safeguards against “harassment and bullying”, Reuters reported. 

The company says people it determines to be “human rights defenders” will be protected under the new safeguards, which we’re sure will be completely discretionary and applied only to those “activists” who are advocating for liberal causes. 

Nevermind the fact that when someone becomes an “activist” they are no longer an “involuntary” public figure, but we digress.

Facebook’s handling of public figures has been an area of debate over the last month, as the company deals with allegations form a “whistleblower” who went public with details of the company’s content moderation strategies. 

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Another fake fact check from Facebook’s “Science Feedback”: this one about Amish Covid-19 immunity

If you’ve paid attention, you already know that Facebook’s “Science Feedback” and other health-related fact checkers are prolific distributors of misinformation and false information that typically benefits the vaccine or pharmaceutical industry.

They tend to “fact check” articles about medical studies and topics that are having an impact on the public, in hopes of tamping down the buzz and circulation of the data or details.

This week, these players are working hard to keep the public from learning that the Amish have claimed to reach “herd immunity” with Covid-19 and fared better than places that imposed drastic measures. The Amish say they did so without masking, closing, social distancing, or vaccination.

The Amish claim of herd immunity was previously reported by Associated Press and other news organizations, but didn’t get wide circulation. The propagandists and fake fact checkers didn’t challenge the topic at the time.

But my report on the same, which aired last Sunday on Full Measure, must be having an impact.

In response, Facebook’s Health Feedback propagandists have made several false and unsupported claims in an attempt to discredit The Amish approach and the reporting about it.

The fake fact-checkers, edited by a woman named Fernanda Ferreira, falsely claim that “natural immunity post-infection is variable, while vaccination provides safer and more reliable immunity.” The bulk of the scientific studies show the opposite. (You can find them here and decide for yourself.)

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Zuckerberg’s election spending was ‘carefully orchestrated’ to influence 2020 vote: ex-FEC member

A former federal election official on Thursday called the $400 million-plus that Mark Zuckerberg spent to help finance local elections a “carefully orchestrated attempt” to influence the 2020 vote — and recommended that all states ban private funding of election offices.

Hans von Spakovsky, a former Federal Election Commission member, said the billionaire Facebook founder’s donations to a pair of nonprofits that doled out the cash to nearly 2,500 counties in 49 states “violated fundamental principles of equal treatment of voters since it may have led to unequal opportunities to vote in different areas of a state.”

“My reaction is that this was a carefully orchestrated attempt to convert official government election offices into get-out-the-vote operations for one political party and to insert political operatives into election offices in order to influence and manipulate the outcome of the election,” said von Spakovsky, a Republican who now runs the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative.

He added: “All states should ban private funding of government election offices no matter the source.”

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Arizona AG calls for DOJ to probe Facebook after it says users can share info on how to enter US illegally

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is urging the Department of Justice to investigate Facebook’s “facilitation” of illegal migration into the United States after the tech giant said that it allows users to share information related to human smuggling and entering a country illegally.

“Facebook’s policy of allowing posts promoting human smuggling and illegal entry into the United States to regularly reach its billions of users seriously undermines the rule of law,” Brnovich said in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland. “The company is a direct facilitator, and thus exacerbates, the catastrophe occurring at Arizona’s southern border.”

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Instagram Censors Evolutionary Biologist For Post Pointing Out Men Are Physically Stronger Than Women

Facebook owned Instagram has censored Evolutionary biologist Colin Wright after he posted a chart that proves men are biologically stronger than women in a range of sports, even if they have undergone gender transitioning treatment.

Instagram removed Wright’s post which contained a chart from a scientific study titled Transgender Women in the Female Category of Sport: Perspectives on Testosterone Suppression and Performance Advantage.

The peer-reviewed study was published in the journal Medicine & Sports, which has been in wide circulation since 1969. 

The study by researchers at the University of Manchester in the UK and Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm found that biological males categorically have performance advantages over biological females across sports that are contested in the Olympics.

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FACEBOOK’S SECRET BLACKLIST OF “DANGEROUS INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS”

TO WARD OFF accusations that it helps terrorists spread propaganda, Facebook has for many years barred users from speaking freely about people and groups it says promote violence.

The restrictions appear to trace back to 2012, when in the face of growing alarm in Congress and the United Nations about online terrorist recruiting, Facebook added to its Community Standards a ban on “organizations with a record of terrorist or violent criminal activity.” This modest rule has since ballooned into what’s known as the Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy, a sweeping set of restrictions on what Facebook’s nearly 3 billion users can say about an enormous and ever-growing roster of entities deemed beyond the pale.

In recent years, the policy has been used at a more rapid clip, including against the president of the United States, and taken on almost totemic power at the social network, trotted out to reassure the public whenever paroxysms of violence, from genocide in Myanmar to riots on Capitol Hill, are linked to Facebook. Most recently, following a damning series of Wall Street Journal articles showing the company knew it facilitated myriad offline harms, a Facebook vice president cited the policy as evidence of the company’s diligence in an internal memo obtained by the New York Times.

But as with other attempts to limit personal freedoms in the name of counterterrorism, Facebook’s DIO policy has become an unaccountable system that disproportionately punishes certain communities, critics say. It is built atop a blacklist of over 4,000 people and groups, including politicians, writers, charities, hospitals, hundreds of music acts, and long-dead historical figures.

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