Tag: social media

Most Democrats Now Favor Social Media Censorship

While a majority of Americans still think social media sites should permit free speech, most Democrats want companies like Twitter and Facebook to regulate content on their platforms.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 51% of American Adults believe it’s better for the owners of social media like Facebook and Twitter to allow free speech without interference. That’s down from 61% in January 2018. Thirty-five percent (35%) now think it’s better for social media companies to regulate what is posted to make sure some people are not offended, up from 23% in 2018. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Keep reading

Facebook’s former public policy director for elections suggests more censorship is needed

Former Facebook public policy director for global elections Katie Harbath says social media and tech platforms might lead to future political violence.

“I still believe social media has done more good than harm in politics, but it’s close,” she said to the WSJ. “Maybe it’s 52-48—and trending south.”

Harbath left Facebook last year. She’s now part of the Integrity Institute, yet another group that advises lawmakers in the US and Europe on laws promoting more regulation of social media. She’s also a fellow at several think tanks that focus on election issues.

Despite the massive amount of censorship that Facebook has implemented in the last few years, a move that has driven many users to seek out alternative platforms, Harbath is one of those who believes that Facebook needs to do more.

Keep reading

Twitter creates January 6th “harmful” content enforcement team

Twitter has announced the formation of a team of content reviewers to scan the platform for “harmful” content relating to the January 6, 2021 riot.

The platform said that it “convened a cross-functional working group” from members of its Site Integrity division and the Trust and Safety team.

This new team will scan the platform for harmful content about the anniversary of last year’s riot at the US Capitol.

The new team is part of Twitter’s commitment to “strong enforcement action against accounts and tweets that incite violence.”

“Our approach both before and after January 6 has been to take strong enforcement action against accounts and tweets that incite violence or have the potential to lead to offline harm,” a representative for Twitter explained in a statement to Reuters.

Keep reading

When Government Uses The Private Sector As Agents Of Censorship

Over the weekend, Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene got the Donald Trump treatment from Twitter: The social media platform permanently banned her personal account. If this were simply a private group deciding who can and can’t participate in its forums, then there’s no problem. That would be Twitter’s right. But we know Democrats are using private companies to censor speech they don’t like, and any discussion that threatens their plans to accumulate ever more political power. This is not America, more like Amerika.

Twitter booted Greene due to her “repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy,” which is another way to say she’s tweeting messages contrary to the narrative constructed by the Faucists: There is no solution to the pandemic outside of vaccines, lockdowns, and masks.

Twitter, which regularly sends users to “Twitter jail” when their tweets challenge and offend left-wing orthodoxy, permanently banned Trump a year ago “​​due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” It has also permanently suspended a Newsmax reporter “for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy,” which means his tweets didn’t meet the Twitter mob’s demand for conformity. Dr. Robert Malone, an mRNA vaccine researcher, has also been suspended from Twitter. The official word is he disobeyed the platform’s COVID-19 misinformation policy – he said something the Twitter hall monitors didn’t like.

Meanwhile, YouTube pulled the video of the Joe Rogan podcast in which Malone compared America’s widespread obsession with vaccine mandates and extreme pandemic measures – to the exclusion of therapeutics and sensible precautions, we should add – to “​​what the heck happened in Germany in the ‘20s and ‘30s.” 

YouTube also promises it will “​​remove any content published today (or anytime after) that alleges widespread fraud or errors changed the 2020 U.S. presidential election outcome.” We don’t recall a similar policy dealing with the faked Trump-Russia scandal. 

None of this would be troubling if Twitter and the other social media companies that regularly police and block content (always in one direction: against the political right) if it were nothing more than private companies making private decisions. But Big Tech companies have become government agents enforcing one party’s speech codes.

Keep reading

Those Who Support Internet Censorship Lack Psychological Maturity

Twitter has permanently suspended the personal account of Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene for what the platform calls “repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy,” much to the delight of liberals and pro-censorship leftists everywhere. This follows the Twitter ban of Dr Robert Malone on the same grounds a few days prior, which followed an unbroken pattern of continually escalating and expanding censorship protocols ever since the 2016 US election.

In reality nobody ever gets banned for “Covid misinformation”; that’s just today’s excuse. Before that it was the fallout from the Capitol riot, before that it was election security, before that it was Russian disinformation, foreign influence ops, fake news, etc. In reality the real agenda behind the normalization of internet censorship is the normalization of internet censorship itself. That’s the real reason so many people get banned.

I myself had already written many, many articles warning warning about the increasingly widespread use of internet censorship via algorithm manipulation and deplatforming long before the first “Covid misinformation” bans started happening. Arguably the most significant political moment in the US since 9/11 and its aftermath was when liberal institutions decided that Trump’s 2016 election was not a failure of status quo politics but a failure of information control, which just so happened to align perfectly with the agendas of the ruling power structure to control the dominant narratives about what’s going on in the world. 

Keep reading

Silicon Valley Should Not Restrict Public Discourse About Covid Measures Which Affect Everyone

Twitter has banned the account of controversial virologist Dr Robert Malone, who reportedly had half a million followers at the time of his removal. Malone is credited even by mainstream critics as having played a significant role in the development of the mRNA technology being used for Covid-19 vaccines today, but has recently come under fire for comments about the safety of those vaccines’ use on children which the Authorized Fact Checkers have labeled “dangerously and flagrantly incorrect.”

Everyone should oppose the removal of Malone and commentators who share his views, regardless of whether they agree with them or vehemently despise them. The reason for this is very simple: only a fool would support government-tied monopolistic billionaire corporations regulating public discourse about Covid responses which affect us all. This is true regardless of what you personally happen to believe about mRNA vaccines.

Arguments that Malone and his ilk are peddling “misinformation” have no bearing on the question of whether they should be removed from the platforms everyone uses to debate ideas and discuss information. It is entirely legitimate to make arguments that their claims are inaccurate, but it is not at all legitimate to claim that platforms which large sectors of humanity have come to rely on for public discourse should interfere with or obstruct those conversations.

Keep reading

New York Democrat introduces new social media censorship bill

The bill sponsored by state Senator Brad Hoylman wants to tackle what’s referred to as unlawful online content such as “misinformation” (particularly around Covid/vaccines), and posts that might allegedly lead users to develop eating disorders or engage in self-harm.

Envisaged in the bill is an amendment to New York’s penal code that lets citizens, the state attorney general and city corporation councils sue tech companies behind social media networks, or individuals, if they are suspected of “contributing” to spread of misinformation in a manner that’s “knowing or reckless.”

And while the bill is worded in a way that states content seen as endangering people’s safety or health should be clamped down on if it is “promoted” – including (but not exclusively) by means of algorithms and other methods of recommendation, experts say the distinction between that and any post created by users is not clear enough to stand up to legal scrutiny.

Keep reading

Twitter sued, accused of acting ‘on behalf’ of US govt

Former New York Times reporter and outspoken critic of the US response to the Covid pandemic Alex Berenson is suing Twitter for suspending his account, claiming the platform “acted on behalf of the federal government.

In the lawsuit, filed this week in the Northern District of California, Berenson accused Twitter of breach of contract and of violating his First Amendment rights.

The alleged breach of contract stems from the fact that Berenson claims a Twitter executive had repeatedly assured him that he would be free to express his views on the platform without fear of retaliation. 

“Despite the controversy around his statements, a senior Twitter executive repeatedly assured Mr. Berenson that the company backed his right to free expression and that he would continue to enjoy access to the platform,” Berenson’s lawyers said in the suit. 

The independent reporter and best-selling author was reportedly suspended from Twitter in August over a tweet questioning whether Covid vaccines could actually prevent infection and transmission of the virus, referring to them as “therapeutic” drugs. A Twitter spokesperson at the time said Berenson was permanently suspended for “repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules.”

In the tweet, Berenson wrote: “It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. Don’t think of it as a vaccine. Think of it – at best – as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS.”

Berenson argues the platform acted on behalf of the Biden administration in censoring his posts, as the president himself had criticized “misinformation” about Covid spreading on social media only days before the author’s suspension. 

He is also claiming in his lawsuit that a California law applying to “common carriers” applies to Twitter. The legislation, dating back to 1872, regulates companies that “offer to the public to carry persons, property, or messages.”

Keep reading

DOD Issues New Policy on Extremism That Includes ‘Likes’

The Pentagon has updated its policy regarding extremism among military personnel.

The revised policy comes as the result of a Counter Extremist Activity Working Group established in the Spring by Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin.

Officials say the new policy does not seek to focus on any one ideology, thought, or political orientation, but to define more clearly what qualifies as prohibited extremist activity.

A report issued Dec. 20 provides a lengthy definition of “extremist activities” that range from advocating or engaging in political violence to knowingly displaying paraphernalia, words, or symbols in support of extremist activity.

This can include “liking” content on the internet, according to Pentagon press secretary John Kirby.

“The physical act of liking is, of course, advocating,” Kirby told reporters Monday. “And advocating for extremist groups—certainly groups that advocate violating the oath of the Constitution, overthrowing the government, terrorist activities. Liking is an advocation.”

According to the report, extremist activity can include posting, liking, sharing, re-tweeting, or otherwise distributing content—when such action is taken with the intent to promote or otherwise endorse extremist activities.

Keep reading