Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
UKIP's European election candidate Carl Benjamin designated as 'hate agent' in secret Facebook list - report
RT
Thu, 23 May 2019 09:15 UTC
Carl Benjamin, British candidate to the European Parliament, best known under his YouTube handle 'Sargon of Akkad'.
Carl Benjamin, a British candidate in the European Parliament elections, has reportedly been labelled a 'hate actor' by Facebook including for 'neutral representation' of a Proud Boys member.
Benjamin's inclusion on the 'blacklist' was reported by Breitbart on Wednesday, mere hours before the kickoff of the UK portion of the European elections. Benjamin, mostly known as a prolific political commentator on his YouTube channel 'Sargon of Akkad,' stepped into offline politics last year when he joined the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and is now vying for a seat in the European legislature.
According to the excerpts from the internal Facebook document, as cited by Breitbart, the social networking site's censors are keeping a detailed log of Benjamin's behavior both on and off the platform, such as voicing support for a member of the right-wing Proud Boys group or hurling a homophobic slur.
The online snooping is encouraged by Facebook, which allegedly tells its employees to collect various "signals" of individuals' 'bad behavior', even outside the platform. The entries are then used to determine whether the person should be included on the 'hate agent' list.
The examples provided by Breitbart show how laboriously Facebook's thought police documents not only "hate signals" but also takes note of "borderline" content by Benjamin and others. It has a long memory, too, apparently looking at content posted as early as three years into the past. These are "Level Three" signals. "Level Two" and "Level One" signals are, respectively, two and one years old.
Benjamin is on notice for "Level Two" and "Level Three" signals. In one particularly instance, Benjamin is given a black mark for giving a "neutral representation of John Kinsman, member of Proud Boys" on October 21 last year. Despite its admitted neutrality, the instance was filed by Facebook under "praise or support for a designated Hate Entity."
Controversial 'hate monitor' group the Southern Poverty Law Center describes the Proud Boys as an "extremist" and "hate" group known for "anti-Muslim and misogynistic" rhetoric. Contrary to initial media reports, it was not designated as "extremist" by the FBI last year.
Benjamin was also found to have run afoul of Facebook guidelines for posting a screenshot of a homophobic slur directed at himself, reposting a commenter's anti-German rant with a seemingly neutral comment of his own, which Facebook considered support for a "statement of inferiority against Germans," and a post mocking the ideology of ethnostate, which for some reason was flagged as promotion of the creation of an ethnostate by an overzealous Facebook censor.
Some of the content is marked as "borderline", and most of the examples are suggested for deletion. Apart from "hate signals," there are also notes that highlight controversial content published by Benjamin, including a provocative cartoon on Islam listed as "cartoon violence against vulnerable people" and a Hitler meme.
Breitbart reported earlier that while the list includes some left-wing figures, it is mostly filled with right-wing personalities including Tommy Robinson and Candace Owens.
Facebook, as well as its fellow social media giant Twitter, have been widening their apparent crackdown on non-establishment figures amid accusations of targeting predominantly right-wing users. Launched ahead of the US mid-term elections last October, it saw over 800 political pages being removed, sparking concerns of censorship and election interference.
Benjamin's election campaign Twitter account was also recently terminated, prompting outcries of meddling in the vote.
Related:
A Faceboog/NSA ancestor: East German Stasi files open to public online for first time
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
Another ridiculous Facebook banning ...
From https://www.prisonplanet.com/faceboo...-old-post.html we learn that:
Some eleven years ago, Human Events editor-in-chief Raheem Kassam posted on Facebook: "men cannot be women". He was just banned from Facebook today, apparently because that post violated their transgender guidelines.
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
Youtube strikes again: YouTube To Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views (Slashdot.org):
===========YouTube said on Wednesday that it plans to remove thousands of videos and channels that advocate for neo-Nazism, white supremacy and other bigoted ideologies in an attempt to clean up extremism and hate speech on its popular service. From a report:The new policy will ban "videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion," the company said in a blog post. The prohibition will also cover videos denying that violent incidents, like the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, took place. YouTube did not name any specific channels or videos that would be banned. "It's our responsibility to protect that, and prevent our platform from being used to incite hatred, harassment, discrimination and violence," the company said in the blog post. The decision by YouTube, which is owned by Google, is the latest action by a Silicon Valley company to stem the spread of hate speech and disinformation on its site. A month ago, Facebook evicted seven of its most controversial users, including Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist and founder of InfoWars. Twitter banned Mr. Jones last year.
The companies have come under intense criticism for their delayed reaction to the spread of hateful and false content. At the same time, President Trump and others argue that the giant tech platforms censor right-wing opinions, and the new policies put in place by the companies have inflamed those debates. The tension was evident on Tuesday, when YouTube said that a prominent right-wing creator who used racial language and homophobic slurs to harass a journalist in videos on YouTube did not violate its policies. The decision set off a firestorm online, including accusations that YouTube was giving a free pass to some of its popular creators.
===========
A company powerful enough to determine "for us" what speech should be prohibited, is powerful enough to determine that what we speak should be prohibited.
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
Like a virus, censorship is spreading. Australia, France, San Francisco...
After Assange’s Espionage Act Indictment, Police Move Against More Journalists for Publishing Classified Material
Less than two months after the arrest of journalist Julian Assange, and two weeks after his indictment under the Espionage Act, emboldened governments have sent the police after journalists who’ve challenged the state. Joe Lauria reports.
By Joe Lauria
in Sydney, Australia
Special to Consortium News
Following the arrest and Espionage Act indictment of Julian Assange a number of police actions against journalists for publishing classified information and other journalistic activity has heightened fears among mainstream journalists that they could be next.
Police in Sydney, Australia on Wednesday raided the offices of the taxpayer-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation, copying thousands of files related to a 2017 ABC broadcast that revealed allegations of war crimes by Australian special forces in Afghanistan.
Three Australian Federal Police officers and three police technicians entered ABC’s Sydney headquarters with a search warrant that named two ABC investigative journalists and the network’s news director. The police demanded to look through the journalists’ emails, ABC reported.
David Anderson, the ABC managing director, said it was “highly unusual for the national broadcaster to be raided in this way”.
“This is a serious development and raises legitimate concerns over freedom of the press and proper public scrutiny of national security and Defence matters,” he said. “The ABC stands by its journalists, will protect its sources and continue to report without fear or favour on national security and intelligence issues when there is a clear public interest.” John Lyons, ABC’s executive editor and head of investigative journalism, tweeted:
https://consortiumnews.com/wp-conten...15-700x298.png
Lyons said the federal police were going through dozens of emails with the authority to delete or even change their content. Protagonist Winston Smith’s job in Orwell’s 1984 was to rewrite news archives.
“I recall writing ages ago about Australian legislation giving the Australian govt power to ‘add, alter or delete’ targeted material,” Australian psychologist and social critic Lissa Johnson told Consortium News. “The msm barely batted an eyelid at the time. Now that power is being wielded against the ABC.”
Gaven Morris, ABC’s news director, said: “Journalism is not a crime.”
“Our journalists do a really difficult job, I’m proud of what they do, they do it in the public’s interest,” he said. “I’d say to all the journalists at the ABC and all the journalists across Australia, don’t be afraid of the job you do.”
Marcus Strom, president of Australia’s journalists’ union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, called the raid “disturbing.”
“It should chill the public as well as journalists,” he said.”These raids are all about intimidating journalists and intimidating whistle blowers so that mistakes made by the Government, including potential crimes, by the military, remain covered up, remain secret, and don’t fall in to the public domain.”
Political Editor’s Home Raided
On Tuesday morning in an unrelated case, Canberra police entered the home of the political editor of the Murdoch-owned Daily Telegraph. “Journalist Annika Smethurst opened her front door to find seven AFP officers waiting for her. All because she dared to do her job and keep the nation informed on what its government was doing,” the Telegraph said in an editorial.
Ironically, the Smethhurst article in April 2018 that raised the ire of the government “revealed the departments of Defence and Home Affairs were considering new powers allowing Australians to be monitored for the first time,” The Telegraph reported. “Her original article included images of top secret letters between Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo and Defence Secretary Greg Moriarty.”
French Journalists Arrested
Assange was arrested in London on April 11. Police in Paris arrested two journalists who were covering Yellow Vest protests on April 20. One of the journalists, Alexis Kraland, said he was taken into custody after refusing to be searched and to turn his camera over to police at Gare du Nord train station. The largest journalism union in France demanded an explanation from police.
SF Police Raid Journalists’ Home
And on May 10 in San Francisco, police using sledgehammers to break down the door, raided the home of Bryan Carmody, a freelance journalist, to get him, while handcuffed, to reveal the source who leaked him a police report into the sudden death of the city’s elected public defender. Police took away computers, cameras, mobile phones and notes.
San Francisco Police Chief William Scott said initially that Carmody had “crossed a line” with his report. After a public outcry and demands that Scott resign, the police chief issued an apology.
Fears Justified
While there is no direct connection between Assange’s arrest and indictment for possessing and disseminating classified material and these subsequent police actions, a Western taboo on arresting or prosecuting the press for its work has clearly been weakened. One must ask why Australian police acted on a broadcast produced in 2017 and an article published in April only after Assange’s arrest and prosecution.
https://consortiumnews.com/wp-conten...01-700x296.png
Within hours of Assange’s Espionage Act indictment on May 23, major publications and media figures, who have harshly treated Assange, began lining up in his defense out of self-interested concern that the government could apply the same prosecutions to them for also routinely publishing classified information.
Their fears are beginning to be realized.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at joelauria@consortiumnews.com and followed on Twitter @unjoe .
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
Google Busted
SGTreport
Published on Jun 2, 2019
"The Brave browser is 2X FASTER than Chrome and Safari, it's FREE & it's PRIVATE plus you'll earn rewards for using it!
https://brave.com/sgt200
Google is finally facing long overdue scrutiny from the DOJ, hopefully the blatant censorship and tortious interference by Google and You Tube against content creators around the world, will be brought to a quick end. Thanks for tuning in, LIKING and sharing this link."
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
Mike Adams joins the Deplatformed from FaceBook. (His YouTube channel was wiped 9 months ago). As of June 9, 2019. From his personal FB:
Quote:
Mike Adams
1 hr ·
Natural News (facebook.com/healthranger) has been de-platformed by Facebook.
His response appears in the video here
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
Google CEO: YouTube Will Begin Targeting 'Content Which Doesn't Exactly Violate Policies'
By James Barrett
June 10, 2019
A day after acknowledging that his videos did not violate its policies, YouTube decided to demonetize all of conservative comedian and commentator Steven Crowder's videos in response to a left-wing Vox employee complaining that Crowder repeatedly made fun of him because of his identity. On the same day, YouTube announced a mass ban on all content promoting one group as superior to another "in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status."
In an interview with Axios published Sunday but filmed before YouTube's unveling of its new policy last week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai signaled YouTube's crackdown and its plans to expand the ban to include "borderline content."
"Look, we aren't quite where we want to be," Pichai told "Axios on HBO." While YouTube is improving on eliminating content it deems problematic, he suggested, they are still working toward even more extensive content-controlling measures.
Google, said Pichai, "rank[s] content based on quality." They plan to apply that same approach to YouTube. "And so we are bringing that same notion and approach to YouTube so that we can rank higher quality stuff better and really prevent borderline content," he said.
Pichai then offered a definition of what he means by "borderline content." "Content which doesn't exactly violate policies, which need to be removed, but which can still cause harm," he said, in language echoing YouTube's statement to Crowder days later.
The issue is "a hard computer science problem," said Pichai, but an even harder "societal problem because we need better frameworks around what is hate speech, what’s not, and how do we as a company make those decisions at scale, and get it right without making mistakes."
As The Daily Wire reported, amid the Crowder controversy last week, YouTube announced sweeping changes to how it handles content. "YouTube has always had rules of the road, including a longstanding policy against hate speech," YouTube said Wednesday in a statement.
"Today, we're taking another step in our hate speech policy by specifically prohibiting videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status."
"We will begin enforcing this updated policy today; however, it will take time for our systems to fully ramp up and we'll be gradually expanding coverage over the next several months," the platform explained.
Earlier this year, YouTube said it was going to crack down on channels that "repeatedly brush up against our hate speech policies" by barring them from working with the YouTube Partner ad program.
The announcement came the same day YouTube told Crowder that it had decided to demonetize all of the videos of his popular channel — a decision that came less than 24 hours after the company admitted his videos "don’t violate our policies." "Even if a creator's content doesn't violate our community guidelines, we will take a look at the broader context and impact, and if their behavior is egregious and harms the broader community, we may take action," YouTube said in a statement Wednesday.
"In the case of Crowder's channel, a thorough review over the weekend found that individually, the flagged videos did not violate our Community Guidelines. However, in the subsequent days, we saw the widespread harm to the YouTube community resulting from the ongoing pattern of egregious behavior, took a deeper look, and made the decision to suspend monetization. In order to be considered for reinstatement, all relevant issues with the channel need to be addressed, including any videos that violate our policies, as well as things like offensive merchandise."
Related:
===================================
Pretty soon they'll use "Minority Report" pretended tools as arguments... "You haven't thought of it yet but you were going to!"... "Clank!"
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
Quote:
Posted by
Hervé
Insert double bird salute here (to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, not to Avalon Administrator Hervé, from my all time basketball idol, Kareem Abdul Jabbar)
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
As the extracted paragraph from this Natural News article (below) does attest, it's a problem, a BIG one.
A little tricky to know whether this article should reside just here, on this thread, or over here: perhaps both.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Facebook’s banning of Natural News for “off-platform” content means the social media platform believes it has the right to monitor the speech of its users no matter where they speak, and if that speech is found to be offensive to Facebook’s censors, the entire channel is wiped out."
BREAKING: Facebook banned Natural News for “off-platform” article that Natural News never posted to Facebook
Tuesday, June 11, 2019 by: Mike Adams
(Natural News) Just days after being banned and deleted by Facebook, Natural News has now learned that Facebook banned Natural News because of an opinion article that Natural News never posted to Facebook. The article in question — “LGBT progressivism horrors” — warned against children being physically and chemically disfigured by parents pushing an LGBT indoctrination agenda onto their own children.
It can be read here
Related post: @Arwen, here
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
Whatever happened to "free speech"? Was it ever really free?
Can you imagine what the world would be like if we all had the ability to censor anything and everything we don't agree with and/or don't want others to hear? The silence would be deafening.
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
An informative discussion about just this between Richard Dolan and Jimmy Church, on Richard's radio show. The date was 20 May, 2019.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=E8VZ-lGQXl4
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
YouTube and Twitter Censor Project Veritas EXPLAINED
Published on Jun 14, 2019
Project Veritas has recently learned that Pinterest insider Eric Cochran has been placed on administrative leave.
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
Mailchimp Shuts Down GreenMedInfo's Newsletter for "Anti-Vaccine" Content
Wednesday, June 19th 2019
Quote:
"Mailchimp, one of the world’s most widely used email marketing services, and CDC Foundation partner, has shut down the account of GreenMedInfo.com for “anti-vaccine content...GreenMedInfo has used Mailchimp as an email service provider for over 10 years, with an account in good standing and excellent compliance relative to the industry statistics. They’ve charged us, on average, $3,000 a month to send out our free newsletter to a global subscriber base of over 300,000, all who voluntarily opted into our list to receive our content. Since 2007, they have been paid a total of $145,944.77 in exchange for sending out hundreds of millions of free newsletter emails to over 200 countries around the world. We have never sent content to individuals without their consent, nor without them first asking us to do so."
Full article here
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
...
Tells one who is holding all these outfits' strings... Kind of like: "Listen: If you want to remain a member of our exclusive Faculty Club, you'd better align with our wishes..."
Related:
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
There is a huge amount of attention needed to the ramifications of the social credit system. The strange feature of how it is rolling out in my experience with the US, even for someone who was always considering oneself "liberal": the values being promoted in the name social welfare seem truly upside down. I am definitely not a religious person IMO and it is PARAMOUNT to protect everyone's rights to their own path, to practice religion, to be protected by freedom of expression and to allow the discourse.
Obviously every day this is more blatantly undermined. Why people think this censorship will not be their problem proves that denial is not a river in Egypt.
Notice that youtube actually seems to be wiping out parts of this video and a high pitched alarm sound is used during parts of the video....
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
https://i.imgur.com/nrtlL2A.png
Link to the Twitter post
Quote:
• Insider: Google "is bent on never letting somebody like Donald Trump come to power again."
• Google Exec Says Don't Break Us Up: "smaller companies don't have the resources" to "prevent next Trump situation"
• Google Head of Responsible Innovation Says Elizabeth Warren "misguided" on "breaking up Google"
• Insider Says PragerU And Dave Rubin Content Suppressed, Targeted As "Right-Wing"
• LEAKED Documents Highlight "Machine Learning Fairness" and Google’s Practices to Make Search Results "fair and equitable"
• Documents Appear to Show "Editorial" Policies That Determine How Google Publishes News
• Insider: Google Violates "letter of the law" and "spirit of the law" on Section 230
Video
:facepalm:
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
Quote:
Posted by
Delight
Obviously every day this is more blatantly undermined. Why people think this censorship will not be their problem proves that denial is not a river in Egypt.
Notice that youtube actually seems to be wiping out parts of this video and a high pitched alarm sound is used during parts of the video....
I took a look at the video on YT and they posted a response. Now we can hear it all!:
This video has been re-uploaded. Due to privacy complaints, some of the investigative journalism in this report has been censored. You can view the full, un-redacted version on our website: https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/0...
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
More than one way to "deplatform" accurate information provider:
British state censor fines RT UK quarter million dollars for reporting truth
RT
Fri, 26 Jul 2019 09:46 UTC
British broadcast regulator Ofcom slapped RT with a six-figure fine for allegedly breaching impartiality rules. It comes before a pending Judicial Review and dwarfs fines imposed on media outlets that gave air to hate speech.
Last December, Ofcom said that in seven instances over the year RT failed to adhere to the British impartiality rules when covering controversial issues like the Skripal poisoning case in the UK or the role played by the US in the war in Syria. RT believes the decision to be wrong and has challenged it in court. Last month, London High Court allowed the case to proceed despite Ofcom claiming that RT's case had no merit.
On Friday, the regulator announced its decision to slap a £200,000 ($250,000) fine on RT as sanction for the alleged 2018 violations. The penalty seems "particularly inappropriate and disproportionate per Ofcom's own track record," RT's press service said in response. "It is very wrong for Ofcom to have issued a sanction against RT on the basis of its breach findings that are currently under Judicial Review by the High Court in London. RT went to court over Ofcom's December findings against our network because we believe that they were reached in a manner contrary to the law and were wrong. Last month we received confirmation from a judge at a hearing in the High Court that, despite Ofcom's opposition, our case against Ofcom should proceed. And while we continue to contest the very legitimacy of the breach decisions themselves, we find the scale of proposed penalty to be particularly inappropriate and disproportionate per Ofcom's own track record. It is notable that cases that involved hate speech and incitement to violence have been subject to substantially lower fines."
In 2016, Ofcom fined Peace TV Urdu £65,000 for airing public lectures, in which the Jewish people were called a "cursed race" possessing "evil genius" that wants "to bring the world to heel through the global banking network."
The same year Noor TV was fined £75,000 for airing a sermon, during which a speaker said that killing a Jew would be an act of devotion to the will of Prophet Muhammed. "It is astonishing that, in contrast, Ofcom sees RT's programmes - which Ofcom thought should have presented more alternative points of view - as worthy of greater sanction than programmes containing hate speech and incitement to violence."We are duly considering further legal options," RT press service said.
Re: Internet Censorship: So it continues...
I received this email yesterday regarding the censorship of Tulsi Gabbard, a democratic candidate for president. Apparently Google isn't just meddling with conservatives. They must be manipulating outcomes for someone specific.
TULSI 2020
Pamela —
On June 28th, 2019 in the immediate hours following the first Democratic Presidential debate, millions of Americans were searching online for information about Tulsi Gabbard. In fact, according to multiple news reports, Tulsi was the most searched candidate on Google. Then, without any explanation, Google suspended Tulsi’s Google Ads account.
For hours, Tulsi’s campaign advertising account remained offline while Americans everywhere were searching for information about her. During this time, Google obfuscated and dissembled with a series of inconsistent and incoherent reasons for its actions. In the end, Google never explained to us why Tulsi’s account was suspended.
Google controls 88 percent of all internet search in the United States – essentially giving it control over our access to information. That’s one reason why Tulsi has been a vocal proponent of breaking up the tech monopolies. And no matter what the motivation was for doing so, Google’s arbitrary and capricious decision to suspend Tulsi’s Google Ads account during a critical moment in our campaign should be of concern to all political candidates and in fact all Americans. Because if Google can do this to Tulsi, a combat veteran and four term Congresswoman who is running for the nation’s highest office, Google can do this to any candidate, from any party, running for any office in the United States.
Big Tech’s dominance represents a clear and present danger to our democracy. That’s why Tulsi is fighting back, and has filed a lawsuit against Google in federal court. Today’s New York Times reported on the lawsuit filed by our campaign against Google.
Tulsi gave this statement to the NYT: “Google’s discriminatory actions against my campaign are reflective of how dangerous their complete dominance over internet search is, and how the increasing dominance of big tech companies over our public discourse threatens our core American values. This is a threat to free speech, fair elections and to our democracy, and I intend to fight back on behalf of all Americans.”
Please join Tulsi in her fight for our core American values of free speech and fair elections. The Big Tech companies need to be held accountable for their actions, and that’s why we need Tulsi in the White House!
-TULSI2020
