Tag: social media

Canadians contacted at home by gov officials over social media posts after hate speech law passes: JCCF

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms says it is receiving reports that some Canadians have been contacted at their homes by government officials over social media posts made months or even years earlier, following the passage of Canada’s new hate speech legislation.

The organization said the reports come after Parliament passed Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, which expands Canada’s hate speech laws by creating new offences, increasing penalties, and removing certain legal safeguards that previously limited prosecutions for hate-related expression. The group said Canadians who are contacted by government officials over online posts should consider recording the interaction.

“If you believe your rights have been infringed or that you have been unfairly targeted, we encourage you to submit a case application through the Justice Centre’s online portal,” the organization said.

The Justice Centre provides legal representation to Canadians who believe their constitutional rights or freedoms have been violated by federal, provincial, or municipal governments or government entities, including universities, human rights commissions, professional associations, and public school boards. It said applications for legal assistance must be submitted online.

Canada would not be the first country to begin arrests for social media posts. The Times in the UK which used freedom of information requests to examine arrests in England and Wales under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988. The laws prohibit communications that are “grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character,” as well as messages that are “threatening, or knowingly false.”

According to The Times, there were 12,183 arrests in 2023 and 1,119 people were sentenced. The newspaper also reported that more than 65,000 arrests have been made since 2017.

Jake Hurfurt, head of research investigations at Big Brother Watch, told The Times the trend is “seriously concerning.” “Police look to be wasting countless hours on arresting people for posting things online that, while offensive, are not illegal. Heavy-handed use of vague communications offences is a threat to everyone’s freedom to express themselves online,” Hurfurt said.

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Israel Pays Millions to “Influencers” to Shore Up American Support

Israel is waging a multimillion-dollar propaganda campaign to shore up support for the country among Americans.

Alarmed by polls that show Americans are increasingly fed up with their tax dollars subsidizing Israel’s reckless military campaigns, The Wall Street Journal reported, the nation is waging that campaign with conservative “influencers” as well as with artificial intelligence.

The latest revelation shows that Israel is terrified that American economic and military largesse will end if support among Americans continues cratering. And it follows last week’s report from Time that U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale, an Israeli foreign agent, ran a campaign to block the memorandum of understanding that temporarily ended Trump’s unconstitutional war with Iran.

Millions of Dollars, Millions of Texts

“Emma” and “Sarah” are part of a group called “Friends for Peace” and text messages asking, “How do you think the U.S. and Israel’s peace talks with Iran will impact global security?” the Journal reported, citing an example of the Israeli propaganda.

“Millions of similar texts have flooded American cellphones in recent months,” the newspaper disclosed:

They are written with artificial intelligence, pushed by a longtime Trump adviser’s firm — and paid for by the Israeli government.

The reason: A strong majority of Americans — six of 10 of those polled — now views Israel unfavorably, Pew Research found in March, because of its wars against Gaza and Iran.

So “Israel is pouring tens of millions of dollars into a somewhat quixotic effort to beat back that tide, drawing on novel strategies powered by AI and directly paying conservative media,” the Journal continued. The newspaper pointed to what Vice President J.D. Vance told podcaster Joe Rogan last week.

“You know there’s a lot of talk about how much is the Israeli government influencing American politics and there are certainly certain people within the Israeli government who hate the [Iran] deal,” Vance told the wildly popular podcaster:

And we see exact evidence. There was a Time story that came out yesterday that basically there are certain influencers in America who are being paid in order to attack the deal. 

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HILARIOUS: Mamdani Gets the Twitter/X Meme Treatment After Admitting He Doesn’t Have the Authority to Arrest Netanyahu

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani has finally admitted that he lacks the authority to arrest Israeli leader Netanyahu.

While the media has taken this whole ridiculous affair seriously for some reason, people on the internet are giving it the mockery it deserves.

People have taken the image of Mamdani from his video and added their own funny commentary.

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French Lawmakers Approve Ban on Social Media for Under 15s

French lawmakers on Tuesday adopted a bill banning children under 15 from using social media, making France the first country in the European Union to approve a blanket ban on the platforms as concerns grow worldwide over the harmful effects of digital content on kids.

Both chambers of the Parliament voted in favor of the measure, a flagship initiative of French president Emmanuel Macron’s second term. The bill also bans the use of mobile phones in high schools.

Several families in France have sued TikTok over teen suicides they say are linked to harmful content. Children’s advocates and parents applauded the vote.

“We’ve been campaigning for this bill from the start because, frankly, we have no other option, no other way to counter tech giants,” said Gaëlle Berbonde, a 52-year-old who lives in the Paris region. “The only thing we can do is protect our children, just as we protect our children from drinking alcohol.”

Berbonde told The Associated Press that her daughter was in seventh grade when she got her first smartphone. A parental control app helped monitor what she did online, but Berbonde had no idea what TikTok really was. After a few months, the family realized that the daughter was cutting herself and was suffering from anorexia and depression. She spent a year and a half in hospital but is now 16 and well.

The legislation is one of the final major measures adopted under Macron’s presidency before he leaves office next year. Macron wants the law to take effect at the start of the new school year in September. However, a review to determine whether the bill complies with the French Constitution is likely to take place and could delay its implementation.

The ban won’t cover online encyclopedias, educational or scientific directories.

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UK: Historic pub accused of ‘misogyny’ as influencers complain of ‘sickening’ 200-year-old name

Ahistoric pub has been branded misogynistic as American influencers complain of its “sickening” 200-year-old name.

The Henry VIII pub sits opposite Hever Castle, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, and has stood proudly in the heart of the Kent village for five centuries.

After going viral on social media, Londoners looking to have their fill of English history now run rampant through the manicured castle grounds, seeking out the perfect Instagram spot outside the Big Smoke.

Tourists’ gaze will often fall upon the country pub opposite the attraction, whose name some visitors blame on the “patriarchy”.

Deirdre Rae, an American self-acclaimed life coach who moved to London, was one of the first to rage over the pub’s name.

After going viral on social media, Londoners looking to have their fill of English history now run rampant through the manicured castle grounds, seeking out the perfect Instagram spot outside the Big Smoke.

Tourists’ gaze will often fall upon the country pub opposite the attraction, whose name some visitors blame on the “patriarchy”.

Deirdre Rae, an American self-acclaimed life coach who moved to London, was one of the first to rage over the pub’s name.

“Imagine being Anne Boleyn and finding out people thought it was a good idea to open a pub dedicated to the man who beheaded you right in front of your childhood home,” she said.

“I’m just finding out about this and I’m sickened by the disrespect,” one said, while others cried out for a petition to change the “disrespectful as f**k” name. Some proposed the “Anne Bole Inn”.

“It’s how they’ve always treated women, nothing changes if nothing changes,” another added.

“It’s ridiculous to say our pub’s misogynistic,” one local told Britain’s News Channel.

“It’s history. That’s what it is. If influencers out here think they know better than us, they have another thing coming.”

But Ms Rae’s claim was met with some mocking responses as others lamented the “deeply-ingrained misogyny” pervading through British history.

“When you get the chance to ask her, let me know,” one ridiculed, while another mused that the beheaded Queen was unlikely to find out.

Others condemned her “simplistic analysis”, while insisting the story was far more complicated than at first glance.

“I don’t think the pub’s name is intended as misogynistic or offensive to Anne, who was executed in 1536,” royal historian Gareth Russell told the People’s Channel.

“I’m not sure renaming it as ‘The Anne Bole Inn’ has quite the sense of gravitas you might want for honouring a Queen of England…

“But that being said, I’ve always thought it was an odd choice to name the pub opposite her childhood home after the husband who signed her death warrant,” he added.

The Henry VIII was named as such as far back as 1848, although the site has long-served as a boozer for the locals and dates all the way back to the 1500s.

The second Queen Consort to Henry VIII was executed for treason in 1536 following a three-year reign alongside the King.

She spent her early youth in Hever Castle after her father inherited the estate in 1505. The King’s fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, eventually took over ownership of the property as part of the couple’s annulment settlement.

The pub at that time was renamed to the “Bull and Butcher”, a pun on “Boleyn Butcher”, following her beheading, when the inn was still a part of the castle’s estate.

However, with the site serving as a popular tourist attraction, Hever Castle has embraced the Tudor times, with an extensive annual programme including jousting tournaments and archery displays.

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BOMBSHELL FILES: CCP Used TikTok Data in 2020 Election Scheme as US Intelligence Officials Buried the Report

Newly released intelligence documents are raising explosive questions about how much the Chinese Communist Party attempted to interfere in the 2020 presidential election—and whether members of the American intelligence community prevented the allegations from being fully investigated.

The latest episode of The Patriot Perspective examines files describing an alleged Chinese operation intended to damage President Donald Trump politically and prevent his reelection.

One CIA report outlined China’s broader objective as leveraging domestic and foreign groups opposed to Trump to reduce his support, pressure him to resign, or stop him from winning another term. 

Although the intelligence did not conclusively establish that China changed the election’s outcome, the documents depict a foreign adversary determined to exploit America’s political divisions.

The most alarming material concerns the collection of Americans’ personal information.

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Hitler posts, vanishing accounts and legal threats: what happened after a Montreal man was exposed?

A Montreal man linked by online researchers to social media accounts that allegedly praised Adolf Hitler, attacked Jews online and celebrated the October 7 massacre has denied any responsibility for the posts — as several associated accounts disappeared, changed names or were made private following public scrutiny.

The allegations concern Zubair Sattar, a Montreal businessman associated with EMFURN Furniture and VVS Jewelry, two online businesses.

On June 9, an online researcher known as Leviathan published findings alleging that Sattar was connected to accounts using the alias “RealZubidoo” across multiple platforms. Posts attributed to those accounts included a Hitler GIF alongside the statement that Hitler “should’ve finished the job,” Holocaust-related mockery, antisemitic slurs and content questioning the reality of Nazi gas chambers.  (All those publications are unavailable since all the accounts have been deleted, turned private or banned.)

Rebel News attempted repeatedly to obtain Sattar’s response, visiting publicly listed business addresses, calling company telephone numbers and sending written questions.

Instead of answering the specific questions, Sattar sent legal notices warning against defamation and mischaracterization.

In his final response, however, Sattar firmly denied the allegations. “I reject any suggestion that I hold animosity toward individuals on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, or background,” he wrote, adding that he had “no knowledge of these posts or why they were attributed to me.”

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Jim Jordan Fights UK Plan to Force Legacy Media Into Feeds

Britain’s government has decided that a functioning adult with thumbs and a phone cannot be trusted to pick your own news. So it has drawn up a plan to pick it for you.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport published a paper on June 23 proposing that social media platforms and video sharing sites be forced to push a hand-picked list of broadcasters to the top of your feed.

The list runs BBC, ITV, STV, Channel 4, S4C and Channel 5. The government files them under “public service media.” You might file them under the channels people have spent two decades scrolling away from.

Now the argument has crossed the Atlantic. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan sent Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy a letter on July 14 warning that the plan “would serve as a major threat to online speech and expression and infringe on the rights of American companies and their users.” He wants a briefing by 10 a.m. Washington time on July 28.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

The platforms being ordered around are American. Their users are everywhere. A British minister rewriting how YouTube ranks video reaches straight into feeds in Ohio and Osaka.

The DCMS says the goal is to help people “discover trusted news sources” and to fight “misinformation” and “disinformation.”

Translated, the state has chosen your news and would rather you stopped wandering off. Who gets to decide what counts as “trusted”? The same government running the scheme, of course.

The paper leans on real numbers. Ofcom found that social media is now the main news source for 51 percent of adults and 75 percent of people aged 16 to 24. People left. The government’s response is not to ask why they left. It is to guarantee the approved broadcasters a spot at the top while everyone else scraps for whatever attention is left over.

The trick lies in the technology. On television, “prominence” is old furniture. You can legally park BBC One near the top of the channel guide, and the Media Act 2024 dragged that habit onto smart-TV home screens. A recommendation feed works nothing like a channel list. It sorts content in real time by what you personally watch, click and share. Forcing “prominence” onto that means reaching into the ranking and hoisting chosen publishers above where your own behavior left them. Less a nudge, more a shove.

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A Kiss in Indonesia and Its Aftermath Reveal the Heart and Soul of Islam

A kiss is still a kiss, as the old song goes, but in Indonesia’s Aceh province, it’s going to cost you. Not in terms of money, but in terms of the skin off your back. A young couple in Aceh just found that out after they shared a kiss on a TikTok stream, and found themselves hauled before a Sharia court and charged with violating the rules of modesty and the proper decorum that is to be maintained between an unmarried man and woman.

For that, they were each sentenced to 21 lashes, and the sentence was recently carried out before a gaping crowd of righteously indignant Sharia-adherent Muslims who know now never, ever to livestream a kiss. And so once again we see the true heart and soul of Islam: terror. While Muslim and non-Muslim Islamic apologists in the West continue to insist that the true Islam is benign and cuddly, and that terrorism is only a tiny minority of extremists’ “hijacking” of the religion, in reality, terror is at the very center of Islam. This latest caning in Aceh shows that anew.

The South China Morning Post reported Friday that “as each blow landed on their backs, the unnamed man, 22, and woman, 25, visibly grimaced. The woman later burst into tears, wailing in pain as the public punishment continued.” The Post noted that video of the canings had kicked up the usual firestorm: “It was far from the first such case to gain international attention and the response has become familiar: footage spreads online, rights groups condemn the punishment as inhumane and Aceh’s status as the Muslim-majority country’s sole sharia-enforcing province is thrust back into the spotlight.”

Yes indeed: “In a statement issued the same day as the flogging, Amnesty International said all forms of corporal punishment constituted torture or other ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment,’ while its co-regional director, Montse Ferrer, called the caning of the couple ‘a horrifying act of discrimination.’”

In Aceh, however, they simply don’t care: “Nurjani, a 62-year-old housewife in Banda Aceh, said she supported caning because it ‘was about religion’ and in line with sharia law.” She explained: “If you do not do anything wrong, then there is nothing to fear. I support caning and I believe that if you lead your life in the right way and walk the right path, no one will question you.” Another Aceh resident, Muhammad Nasir, agreed, saying: “If someone is caned, it will be a lesson for them so that they do not do the same thing again. It has a physical element to it, but it is mostly social and designed to make the person ashamed of their crimes.”

Yes, and more than just ashamed: terrified. The caning is designed to make people afraid to violate Allah’s law again. People who have been caned in Indonesia have ended up collapsing and being hospitalized. If you don’t want to end up permanently injured, or at very least to suffer agonizing pain in front of a crowd that has gathered to watch you suffer, then don’t kiss a girl on TikTok.

This has nothing to do with virtue, the idea of choosing to do what is good because it is good. This is all about fear from the beginning to the end. The Qur’an tells Muslims to “strike terror in the enemies of Allah” (8:60), and lest any of Allah’s obedient slaves are tempted to violate his law and thus become his enemies as well, they get terrorized, too.

Muslim women live in terror of Muslim men, who have Allah’s standing permission to beat them if they “fear disobedience” from them (Qur’an 4:34). In an Islamic state, Non-Muslims, both women and men, live in fear of Muslims, for their lives could be taken in an instant simply for a false charge of blasphemy, and even in the best of times, they have to live in subjugation and degradation, always subjected to discrimination and harassment at the hands of the Muslims.

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Brussels Has Opinions About Your Social Media Feed

The European Commission wants the power to force a redesign of the apps on your phone. Regulators in Brussels said Friday that Instagram and Facebook break European law because the products are built to hold your attention. They are ready to fine Meta as much as 6 percent of its global revenue, more than $12 billion, until the company rebuilds the apps to Brussels’ liking.

The preliminary findings target the ordinary machinery of a modern feed, from infinite scroll and autoplay to push notifications and the recommendation systems that decide what you see next. The Commission’s proposed remedy seems like a product spec written by a government. It wants autoplay and infinite scroll switched off by default, real screen time breaks built in, and the algorithm retuned so it stops working so hard to keep you around.

The finding falls under the Digital Services Act, the law Brussels uses to police what Europeans can post and see online.

The machinery now aimed at button placement and video autoplay is the same machinery built to decide which content stays up and which comes down. Once a regulator can order how an app is designed, the distance between design and speech runs short.

Someone has to define “addictive,” and under this law that someone is the government. The Commission says Meta pushes users into “autopilot mode” and failed to weigh the risks its design poses to minors and what it calls vulnerable adults.

The behavior it describes, opening an app and scrolling longer than you meant to, is familiar to anyone with a phone. The question is who gets to name it a harm and prescribe the cure.

“Protecting the physical and mental health of Europeans must be a priority for social media platforms. The Digital Services Act provides a clear framework to hold platforms accountable for the addictive design and effects of their services. We are fully committed to enforcing our legislation in Europe,” said Henna Virkkunen, the Commission’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy.

The title alone shows how wide the mandate has grown. One official holds a brief that spans “tech sovereignty, security and democracy,” and from that chair rules that a scrolling feed threatens public health.

Meta rejects the finding. “We disagree with these preliminary findings, which don’t accurately take into account the significant steps we’ve taken to protect teens.

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