Category: FACEBOOK

‘This should go well’: Trolling and worry as Twitter reveals plan to flag ‘lies & misinformation’

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Twitter is experimenting with features that will supposedly help identify tweets containing lies with community help, but the social media giant’s track record of bias and questionable banning standards has users concerned.

Tweets that spread “lies” or “misinformation” will be highlighted for users with a bright-colored warning that is nearly the same size as the offending post, according to a report from NBC News. The changes are supposedly part of a policy revamp at Twitter, scheduled to go into effect next month.

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Who are these “community” judges, juries and executioners? “Fact-checkers and journalists” who are verified on Twitter will be the able to decide which tweets promote “misleading” information, though a Twitter spokesperson told NBC that the site will be testing “many different ways” to combat “misinformation.” 

A “Community Notes” section also gives users the ability to earn points based on being a “good neighbor,” which is apparently a Twitter euphemism for someone who flags other people’s tweets. Points and community badges could be rewarded to those who act in “good faith” when targeting offending tweets.

The point system is meant to prevent “bad actors” from abusing it. Considering how much political fighting there is on Twitter, odds that this tool will be abused are close to 100 percent, however.

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Screenshots from a public testing site show tweets from both conservative and liberal politicians being flagged, as well as tweets denying climate change.

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Having been accused of political bias and shadowbanning users with more right-wing beliefs in the past, many do not have faith in Twitter responsibly identifying “misleading” information.

“Can’t wait to see just how much of a disaster this is going to be,” reporter Seth Mandel tweeted in response to the coming changes.

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“This should go well,” added commentator and podcaster Stephen Miller.

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Twitter already put a new policy in place last month banning tweets that share “manipulated media.” That, however, could mean anything from deep fakes to memes such as that of President Donald Trump giving a medal to the military dog Conan, an obviously humorous and trolling tweet that was quickly “fact-checked” by reporters anyway.

With such precedents, it’s not surprising that many Twitter users fear the new tools could be abused to flag legitimate satire.

Facebook has faced similar criticism for attempts at censorship of what they deem to be harmful content. CEO Mark Zuckerberg even recently set up an Oversight Board, completely funded by Facebook of course, so people can attempt to appeal the social media giant’s decisions on banned content.

Twitter also has a history of trying to punish “wrongthink.” Author Yasha Levine had his account locked after objecting to the US pushing for war with Russia. Actor James Woods only recently returned to the platform after months-long absence, after Twitter locked his account and demanded he delete an offensive tweet.

“If you try to kill the King, you better not miss,” the politically-outspoken Woods tweeted, quoting a line from the famous TV show ‘The Wire’ that paraphrases Ralph Waldo Emerson. Twitter deemed it to be some kind of threat or incitement of violence.

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With the new flagging rules and seemingly impossible-to-control policies in the pipeline, it would be no surprise to see even more attempts at thought control, putting a wedge between the social media giant and already frustrated users.

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BREAKING: CHINA TO QUARANTINE CITY OF SHENZHEN IN GUANGDONG PROVINCE, CAUSING “MAD RUSH” TO HONG KONG

BREAKING: China to Quarantine City of Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, Causing “Mad Rush” to Hong Kong

Infected citizens now fleeing to other nations

Mike Adams | Natural News – FEBRUARY 7, 2020

This is a breaking news update from Natural News, translated from the Chinese language Liberty Times Net website, which has produced some of the best reporting on the coronavirus pandemic outbreak.

According to the report, the communist Chinese government has just announced the imminent quarantine of the city of Shenzhen in the Guangdong Province, causing a “mad rush” of Chinese citizens fleeing to Hong Kong to try to escape the quarantines before the international community blocks all flights from Hong Kong. This effort will, of course, only serve to accelerate the spread of the virus internationally.

There are roughly 25 million people in the greater Shenzhen municipal area, so this is a significant increase in the number of Chinese citizens who will soon be living under military-enforced quarantine. (Currently over 50 million, soon to be at least 75 million and growing…)

Here’s the translated text that explains this. Just remember, automated machine translations from Chinese to English are very difficult, so the English appears quite broken:

Shenzhen News Network reported that the Shenzhen Municipal People’s Government said on the 7th, all communities will be 100% closed management, if there are confirmed cases of residential “hard isolation” for 14 days, and organize “regulatory service team” to do key ethnic groups tracking, where there is a history of close contact with the case 100% of the implementation of centralized isolation, households also want to take temperature and other measures.

According to Hong Kong’s “Position News” reported that Shenzhen city from the 8th began to seal the city after the announcement of the news, 7 days from the emergence of a large number of people want to pour into Hong Kong, from the scene film can be seen at 10:28 p.m., shenzhen port before the appearance of long lines of taxis, are to load the people of Shenzhen into Hong Kong, long car long about 1 km.

The same story also reports that the hard quarantine of Shenzhen begins on Feb. 8th (tomorrow), which is why people are panic fleeing today, while they can still get out: (another important reminder to always have a bugout bag)

Comprehensive Chinese media reports, the Shenzhen Municipal Government announced that from February 8 on the city’s people’s vehicles fully implement control, in the “vehicle epidemic control checkpoint” vehicle control, and foreign vehicles to sacrifice “advance declaration measures”, the first time the public driving through the “vehicle epidemic prevention checkpoint”, must be at least 1 day in advance of the Internet registration declaration, approval before passing.

https://www.brighteon.com/440295cb-ff15-4c57-a9dd-8b207652113a

THE WUHAN QUARANTINE HAS BEEN BREACHED… “HONG KONG IS FINISHED”

Shenzhen, in Southern China, is very close to Hong Kong. This explains why Shenzhen residents are fleeing to Hong Kong, no doubt bringing more infections with them. Many residents will attempt to take flights out of Hong Kong in order to escape the draconian quarantine, which means of course that some of these people will be inadvertently spreading the coronavirus pandemic to yet more countries, including the United States, which still accepts flights from Hong Kong and China.

According to the Liberty Times Net story, observers in Taiwan are now saying, “Hong Kong is finished” and are demanding that flights from Hong Kong be cut off in order to protect Taiwan and other Asian countries from the exploding pandemic. Some of the quotes in the story include, “”The people of Hong Kong are dead, Taiwan will soon be cut off…” and “next week becomes the crazy influx of Hong Kong people into Taiwan.”

We pray for the people of Hong Kong in this desperate time. They are good people, and they don’t deserve this madness from communist China.

CHINA’S QUARANTINE EFFORTS NOW ACCELERATING THE SPREAD OF THE PANDEMIC

It brings up an important point in all this. As China is chasing the outbreak with ever-expanding quarantines, the citizens who live in those areas are attempting to flee before the quarantine, causing a mass exodus of infected individuals who would have otherwise probably just stayed home if not for the draconian quarantine measures enacted by the Chinese government. In effect, the quarantines are accelerating the spread of the virus to other countries due to this “fleeing” effect.

Much of this likely stems from the fact that China is now running door-to-door roundups of citizens, medically kidnapping them and throwing them into “quarantine prison camps” with bars on the windows of each room. Nobody wants to end up a prisoner in one of these “death hospitals.”

The coronavirus pandemic is currently spreading at the rate of roughly a 20% increase per day, achieving sustained, exponential growth that has spread to three cruise ships, dozens of countries and an ever-expanding list of mainland Chinese cities.

The initial attempt to quarantine the Wuhan region in order to stop the coronavirus has clearly failed. Yet the WHO, the CDC and the totally discredited mainstream media are still lying to the public, falsely claiming this outbreak is “under control” and “poses no risk to America.” Those claims are malicious, dangerous lies that even the CDC’s own scientists are contradicting in their public statements.

In addition, multiple health experts are now on the record confirming this pandemic has broken containment and will spread globally.

Any media source saying this is “no big deal” is actually trying to make the pandemic worse by keeping people uninformed and unprepared.

https://www.brighteon.com/0208e343-0c03-45b7-a4fe-eb84836571a3

 

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‘I’ll straight up get armed’: Yet another Bernie staffer caught spouting extremist ideas, is there a problem in the campaign?

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A video exposing the extreme viewpoints of yet another staffer of the Bernie Sanders campaign has some questioning whether there is a growing issue inside the Vermont senator’s ranks.

A video released on Tuesday by Project Veritas reveals a man identified as Martin Weissgerber, a paid field organizer for the Sanders presidential campaign in South Carolina, fantasizing about sending Republicans to “reeducation camps” and Sanders dissolving the Senate and House of Representatives should he become president.

“Do we just cease — do we just dissolve the Senate, House of Representatives, the judicial branch, and have someone like Bernie Sanders and a cabinet of people make all the decisions on climate? I mean, I’m serious,” the staffer says when talking about how Sanders could tackle climate change as president.

He also says he wants Republicans like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham sent to “reeducation camps.”

“What will help is when we send all the Republicans to the reeducation camps,” he says. “Can you imagine Mitch McConnell? Lindsey Graham?”

At another point in the hidden camera footage, the staffer says he’s prepared for a revolution that requires armed resistance and even calls to“guillotine the rich.” He did comment that Sanders does not share his views that are more far left.

With this being the second Sanders staffer to be caught on camera spouting extremist ideas — the first said “cities will burn” if Bernie loses and Trump is reelected — conservative pundits are questioning whether there is an issue within the ranks of the Vermont senator that he needs to address.

‘Cities will burn!’ If Sanders loses, how many Bernie Bros will entertain radical fantasies?

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“Another Bernie Sanders staffer has been caught on camera saying he’d gladly use violence to take over our government and kill people for socialism. Let me guess, this isn’t ‘real socialism’ either…even though this is how it always turns out?” actress and outspoken conservative Mindy Robinson tweeted.

Reporter Andy Ngo took a look at the staffer’s social media pages and found that he lives what appears to be quite a luxurious lifestyle and is also a rapper on Soundcloud who goes by the name King Manic.

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The staffer later did a total lockdown of his social media, including deleting his Twitter account.

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Sanders and his campaign have not commented on any of the videos.

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Censorship: Instagram and Facebook Crack Down on Second Amendment Influencer Marketing

By Jose Nino

Cam Edwards of Bearing Arms reported that Facebook and Instagram have now banned influencers from promoting firearms, tobacco, and vaping products through “branded content” on these social media platforms.

This move could prove to be detrimental for firearms companies since it could disproportionately impact their marketing and advertising strategies. Additionally, influencer’s ability to make money on these platforms could also be dramatically affected.

CNBC reported:

Instagram announced Wednesday it would no longer allow “branded content” that promotes those goods on either platform…

This change closes a loophole in Facebook’s advertising policies. Even though Facebook’s ad policies have banned the advertising of vaping, tobacco and weapons, private users can post about them, and until now advertisers could theoretically put paid promotion behind those posts.

The company said it would begin enforcement of the new rule “in the coming weeks.” An Instagram spokesperson said this is the first time it’s implementing restrictions around the type of items that can be promoted for branded content.

Edwards noted that “If this only affects companies that pay to promote the posts by influencers, as CNBC reports, this won’t have much of an impact.”

However, he believes that “if this is truly a ban on ‘branded content,’ it’s going to affect much more than that, and I fear that’s actually the case.”

Taking a look at how Facebook defines “branded content” should be a cause for concern:

“Branded content is produced by a publisher or creator for payment by a business partner, where the partner influences the content or is featured in it.”

Instagram’s defines branded content as the following:

We define branded content as a creator or publisher’s content that features or is influenced by a business partner for an exchange of value (for example, where the business partner has paid the creator or publisher).

Our policies require creators and publishers to tag business partners in their branded content posts when there’s an exchange of value between a creator or publisher and a business partner.

Given how important influencers are for gun businesses, this announcement by the social media giants may present many problems for gun-related companies in the future. After all, influencers are some of the most effective ways for companies to expand their audiences on social media.

Although social media companies are private entities and they can craft policies that they see fit, the political nature of some of their decision-making is worrisome.

In a much saner America, companies knew their role and stayed away from politics. Now, it seems that every company feels obligated to have a political take and craft policies that are in line with the Politically Correct Left.

Social media consumers on the Right should not lay down and let Big Tech abuse them. They should continuously voice complaints and also team up with wealthy right wingers to exercise shareholder influencer over these companies. By using market pressure and shaming, right wing social media consumers can at least make Big Tech thought policers think twice before considering more woke policies.

 

 

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COLLUSION: Facebook Bans Top Independent Journalist From Exposing YouTube Censorship on Platform

The tech corporations are colluding to destroy freedom of speech.

By Shane Trejo

Independent journalist Ford Fischer has been temporarily banned from posting links on Facebook after he tried to post an article on the platform exposing censorship on YouTube.

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Fischer explained in a Facebook post that this is the first time the platform has censored him in such a manner.

“I just tried to post a news story about YouTube censorship to Facebook. Facebook banned me from sharing links for 2.5 days without explanation. This is the first time FB has ever suspended any feature for me,” he wrote.

The ReclaimTheNet.org article that Facebook does not want to be shared on its platform explains that 2019 represented a low point for YouTube due to its intensifying crackdown on content creators:

2019 started with YouTube and other social media continuing their account banning and suspending spree, often baselessly – a trend started the previous year. These kinds of blunders were likely caused by overreliance on algorithms and overzealous attempts to keep content under control.

Comedian Steven Crowder’s troubles on YouTube began in February when his annual Anti-Oscars Party live stream was suspended on the grounds of four copyright claims from Disney and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) Oscars.

These bogus claims were filed under DMCA rules that are supposed to allow fair use, and Crowder argued that his content as a transformative work fell under the fair use principle. He also said the real reason the entertainment giants came after him by abusing YouTube’s broken copyright system was anti-competitive – simply to keep him off the platform.

Even when the issues were later rectified, it was days after the livestream and the damage was already done.

This system was further exploited later in the year to block President Trump’s “Nickelback Joe Biden meme” video, exploring a corruption scandal involving the former US Vice President in a humorous way. Those who disliked the meme decided to take it down using a questionable copyright claim, ignoring that parody is another example of fair use.

While it would be expected that Facebook would want to proliferate an article bashing their competitor, that is not the case. The Big Tech entities – including but not limited to Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter and Pinterest – are actively colluding to destroy digital free speech.

The tech industry even held a conference earlier this year where the private sector came together to network and devise new ways to choke the freedom of expression of dissidents:

The Koch Brothers and George Soros sponsored the “Private Sector Leadership Summit” last week in San Francisco, CA where the billionaire globalist oligarchs urged tech corporations to increase their Big Brother censorship practices.

The event took place on July 17 at the Airbnb headquarters. The summit is an offshoot of the “Communities Overcoming Extremism: The After-Charlottesville Project.” Top sponsors included the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Soros Fund Charitable Foundation, the Charles Koch Institute (CKI), Comcast NBC Universal, the National Immigration Forum, and neocon Bill Kristol’s organization, Defending Democracy Together.

Speakers at the event included CKI Director of Free Expression Sarah Ruger, Cato Institute Vice President John Samples, ADL Extremism Center Director Oren Segal, ADL Senior Vice President of Programs George Selim, and Americans for Prosperity Vice President for Legal and Judicial Strategy Casey Mattox. The event made official the peculiar union of the Koch foundation with the political Left, as they scramble to protect the globalist status quo…

The event made it clear that there will be many opportunities for funding from the corporate elite to facilitate the Orwellian nightmare in the digital age. If the plotting of the Koch network is ultimately successful, it won’t even require government intervention for Big Brother to become reality.

“The work of combating extremism will require alliances, partnerships, and funding decisions, in many cases between surprising bedfellows. Join a diverse range of leaders for a conversation about how and why they have sought to involve their organizations in the work of overcoming extremism, including through policy alliances and philanthropic investments,” the program reads.

Heading into the next year’s presidential election, the censorship is only going to ramp up, and Big Tech will be working in unison to crush independent voices.

 

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(THIS IS WHY THEY WANT OUR GUNS AMERICA) – ANTIFA Attacks Another Journalist in Portland, Stealing His Camera Equipment and Leaving Him Bloodied

These domestic terrorists must be stopped.

By Shane Trejo

A journalist who covers ANTIFA rallies in Portland, OR is raising money to buy new camera equipment after he was attacked by domestic terrorists and robbed at a rally on Dec. 7.

Journalist Brandon Brown explained in a post last week on Twitter that he went to cover a Nazi Hammerskins rally that turned out to be a hoax. Without any Nazis around to attack, ANTIFA turned their ire toward Brown and roughed him up instead.

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In his GoFundMe page, Brown explained that he showed up at the protest alongside members of “Portland’s Liberation,” a pro-LGBT libertarian group. ANTIFA began attacking members of Portland’s Liberation, which had shown up to protest the Nazis as well. As Brown was filming their rampage, he was assaulted by the domestic terrorists.

“As I filmed this menacing behavior, ANTIFA protesters aggressively turned on me. One of my cameras was knocked to the ground by the angry mob. I was struck by approximately 20 different people before they were able to break the Go Pro mount I was holding on to and wrestle my Lytro illum out of my hands eventually breaking the strap that was wrapped around my wrist,” Brown wrote.

“They smashed my glasses and caused injury to my left eye, requiring a hospital visit. The diagnosis is that the vitreous of my left eye is detached deformed and appears granular from trauma. It will require follow up care,” added Brown, who is hoping to raise $5,000 to replace his equipment.

Video of the terrorist assault can be seen here:

Unfortunately for Brown, he should not expect much support from Portland police in finding the perpetrators. They are in the back pocket of ANTIFA, due to orders from the city’s complicit Mayor Ted Wheeler.

Wheeler has gone to war with Portland law enforcement leaders because of his unwillingness to keep the public safety due to his far-left views.

“He crossed a line when he publicly stated in a Facebook message that I was not allowing the police to enforce the law, that gave license to people elsewhere, particularly in right-wing political circles, but, as I say, this became a global phenomenon,” Wheeler said about police union president Daryl Turner.

Turner had hammered Wheeler for an alleged stand-down order that he sent to Portland police so ANTIFA could run the streets during violent protests over the summer.

“It’s time for our Mayor to do two things,” Turner wrote in an open letter directed at Wheeler. “Tell both ANTIFA and Proud Boys that our City will not accept violence in our City and remove the handcuffs from our officers and let them stop the violence through strong and swift enforcement action. Enough is enough.”

“Where are the voices condemning the lawlessness and violence? If this violence had been directed at ANTIFA, there would have been an immediate call for an independent, outside investigation,” Turner wrote. “This is a perfect example of Portland politics at work and why our great City is now under fire in the national news.”

Portland has become a national laughingstock because of the city’s derelict far-left leadership. Only after ANTIFA is declared a terrorist group and federal resources can be used to crush the reviled organization will cities like Portland have law and order once again.

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Twitter’s ‘ban’ on political ads has a gaping, legacy media-shaped loophole

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Trying to stay ahead of spurious allegations of enabling ‘Russian meddling’ into US elections, Twitter has outlawed all political advertising – but left an exemption most US legacy media, though partisan, will easily sail through.

“Twitter globally prohibits the promotion of political content. We have made this decision based on our belief that political message reach should be earned, not bought,” the company announced Friday, sharing the details of its ad ban.

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Elaborating on the decision in a thread, Twitter’s head of legal, policy and Trust & Safety Vijaya Gadde effectively admitted that the ban was driven by concerns over digital advertising “driving political outcomes” – even though the effects of micro-targeted ads “are not yet fully understood.”

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The ban is scheduled to go into effect on November 22. In addition to banning candidates, parties, and affiliated groups like political action committees (PACs) from advertising, Twitter is also ruling out ads that are about influencing votes, parties, ballot initiatives or elections. “Cause-based ads” will be allowed with certain restrictions, but again not when coming from candidates, parties or politicians.

If this sounds convoluted, banning both people and content, that’s because it is. However, the policy has a sizeable exemption for “news publishers” who can run ads referencing “political content and/or prohibited advertisers,” so long as there is no advocacy for or against.

To qualify, a publication’s website must have “a minimum of 200,000 monthly unique visitors in the US,” the ability to contact its editors and reporters online, have a searchable archive, and not be a user-generated platform or aggregator. Nor can the publication be dedicated to advocating on a single issue.

These parameters clearly skew the playing field in favor of US legacy media – despite its open partisanship over the past several years. Not only have the legacy media and Democrats blamed the social media for enabling the election of President Donald Trump, they have also led the charge in pressuring Twitter, Facebook and others to “deplatform” any alternative voices they might find unsavory.

As voice after voice gets purged from social media, still think there’s no censorship?

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Most recently, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-California) actually demanded Twitter suspend Trump’s account as part of her pitch for the 2020 presidential nomination – so far, without effect.

In August, Twitter rolled out a ban on ads from “state-controlled news media entities,” using a convoluted definition that also carves out exemptions for well-established legacy outlets in the West.

(Full disclosure: Twitter banned RT ads long before that, without explanation or process, following the initial 2017 congressional hearings into social media platforms, and the revelation that it proposed a multi-million dollar deal to RT during the 2016 election, which was declined.)

The vast majority – about 86 percent – of Twitter’s revenue comes from advertising, with data licensing and other sources accounting for the rest. The company turned an annual profit for the first time in 2018, five years after going public.

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Facebook Removes Any News Reporting On – or Even Mention of – Who the ‘Whistleblower’ Is Alleged to Be

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By ALLUM BOKHARI 11/8/2019

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Facebook is removing any mention of the potential whistleblower’s name and is cracking down against Facebook publishers that mention any allegation of the potential whistleblower’s name, claiming they are violating Facebook’s Community Standards and Policies.

For example, on Wednesday evening, Facebook removed Breitbart posts reporting on the fact other respected news outlets have reported the identity of the alleged whistleblower is Eric Ciaramella. Any Facebook user who attempts to click on that article on Facebook is now given a message that says, “this content isn’t available at the moment.”

To be clear, Breitbart did not “out” the alleged whistleblower but did provide additional relevant reporting about him; he is, after all, a public figure, having served on the National Security Council. Moreover, his name has been used in the Mueller report (p283) and Ambassador Bill Taylor’s testimony.

Administrators of Breitbart News’ Facebook page began receiving notifications on Wednesday evening stating that Breitbart’s page is “at risk of being unpublished” but were not given any details as to why, or even which posts were allegedly at issue.

Yesterday afternoon, however, in response to questions from Breitbart, a Facebook spokesman issued the following statement:

Any mention of the potential whistleblower’s name violates our coordinating harm policy, which prohibits content “outing of witness, informant, or activist.” We are removing any and all mentions of the potential whistleblower’s name and will revisit this decision should their name be widely published in the media or used by public figures in debate.

Breitbart News is currently the 68th-most visited site in the United States according to Alexa, and the 13th most-engaged Facebook publisher in the world according to NewsWhip.

Multiple other publishers have named the alleged whistleblower or reported on outlets naming him, including Heavy.com, the Washington Examiner, The Federalist, and the Western Journal. Saagar Enjeti, Chief Washington Correspondent for The Hill, also tweeted the alleged whistleblower’s name.

Radio hosts Mark Levin and Glenn Beck, Students for Trump co-chair Ryan Fournier, former Deputy Assistant to the President Sebastian Gorka, bestselling author Dinesh D’Souza, One America News host Jack Posobiec, and TownHall.com senior columnist Kurt Schlichter are among the other public figures and major media personalities who have also named the alleged whistleblower.

It isn’t only conservatives reporting on Ciaramella. New York Magazine and HuffPost contributor Yashar Ali identified Ciaramella as the alleged whistleblower in a since-deleted tweet. Ali claimed to have confirmed the identity with three sources. Facebook’s requirement to revise its policy on Ciaramella appears to already have been met.

Other publishers that have named the alleged whistleblower on Facebook have reported that their posts have been taken down as well.

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DOC: SCHIFF STAFFER MET WITH IMPEACHMENT WITNESS IN UKRAINE… …TRIP PAID BY BURISMA SPONSORED ORG!

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By Aaron Klein – Oct 17, 2019

Itinerary for a trip to Ukraine in August organized by the Atlantic Council think tank reveals that a staffer on Rep. Adam Schiff’s House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence held a meeting during the trip with acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, now a key witness for Democrats pursuing impeachment.

The Atlantic Council is funded by and works in partnership with Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

Taylor has been called by House Democrats to appear next week to provide a deposition as part of the investigation being led by Schiff into President Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Taylor himself has evidenced a close relationship with the Burisma-funded Atlantic Council, writing analysis pieces published on the Council’s website and serving as a featured speaker for the organization’s events. He also served for nine years as senior advisor to the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council, which has co-hosted scores of events with the Atlantic Council.

As Breitbart News reported, Thomas Eager, a staffer on Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee, took a trip to Ukraine in August billed as a bipartisan “Ukraine Study Trip” in which ten Congressional staffers participated.

Eager is also currently a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Congressional Fellowship, a bipartisan program that says it “educates congressional staff on current events in the Eurasia region.” The pre-planned Ukraine trip was part of the fellowship program.

Burisma in January 2017 signed a “cooperative agreement” with the Council to specifically sponsor the organization’s Eurasia Center, the same center that sponsored Eager’s Ukraine trip.

A closer look at the itinerary for the August 24 to August 31 trip shows that the delegation’s first meeting upon arrival in Ukraine was with Taylor.

Spokespeople for Schiff’s office did not reply to multiple Breitbart News requests sent over the course of the last three days for comment on Eager’s meeting with Taylor.

When Breitbart News first reported on Eager’s visit to Ukraine two weeks ago, Schiff’s office quickly replied to several comment requests, denying any impropriety related to Eager’s association with the Atlantic Council or the trip.

The unanswered Breitbart email requests to Schiff’s office from the past three days posed the following question:

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While in Ukraine, did Mr. Eager speak to Mr. Taylor about the issue of reports about any representatives of President Trump looking into alleged Biden corruption in Ukraine?

The dates of the pre-planned trip are instructive. Eager’s visit to Ukraine sponsored by the Burisma-funded Atlantic Council began 12 days after the so-called “whistleblower” officially filed his August 12 complaint.

Schiff and his office have offered seemingly conflicting statements on the timeline of the California Congressman’s initial contact with the so-called “whistleblower.”

Speaking on September 17, Schiff told MSNBC, “We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower. We would like to.”

Schiff’s spokesperson, Patrick Boland, was quoted on October 2 saying, “At no point did the committee review or receive the complaint in advance.” Boland said Schiff’s committee received the complaint the night before it publicly released the document.

On Oct 2, however, the New York Times reported that Schiff received some of the contents of the complaint through an unnamed House Intelligence Committee aide initially contacted by the so-called “whistleblower,” described as a CIA officer.

The Times reported the aide “shared some of what the officer conveyed to Mr. Schiff.”  The referenced officer refers to the so-called “whistleblower.”

The newspaper also reported:

By the time the whistle-blower filed his complaint, Mr. Schiff and his staff knew at least vaguely what it contained

Speaking to CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Schiff conceded that he was not clear enough about his contact with the so-called “whistleblower.”

“I should have been much more clear,” Schiff said.

Taylor, who emerged from government retirement in June to serve as charge d’affaires in Kyiv, is being deposed by House Democrats after text messages provided to Democrats showed him expressing concern about Trump’s requests for Ukraine to investigate the Bidens over issues related to Burisma.

NBC News quoted sources saying Taylor will be represented during the deposition by attorney John Bellinger, who served at the National Security Council and as the State Department’s lead lawyer under President George W. Bush’s administration.

Bellinger was a prominent “Never Trump” Republican, drafting an August 2016 letter with dozens of other senior Republican national security officials warning Trump would be the “most reckless President in American history.”

Taylor and Atlantic Council

Taylor has authored numerous analysis pieces published by the Atlantic Council.

In March, three months before he became Trump’s ambassador to Ukraine, the Atlantic Council featured an oped co-authored by Taylor in which the diplomat argued Ukraine “has further to travel toward its self-proclaimed European goal” of reformation.

In 2017, Taylor wrote a piece for the Council about a Ukrainian parliament vote on health care reform.

In November 2011, the Atlantic Council hosted Taylor as the featured speaker at a discussion event when he was appointed that year as Special Coordinator for Middle East Transitions at the State Department.

When he deployed to Ukraine as Trump’s ambassador in June, the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC), which has co-hosted events with the Atlantic Council, authored a piece in the Kyiv Post welcoming him.

Taylor for the last nine years served as a senior adviser to the USUBC.

The USUBC’s piece noted that the “USUBC has worked closely with Ambassador Taylor for many years,” touting his role as the business group’s senior adviser.

On June 26, just nine days after arriving in Ukraine as ambassador, the USUBC already hosted Taylor for a roundtable discussion about his new position.

Vadym Pozharskyi, adviser to the board of directors at Burisma Holdings, was also previously hosted as a USUBC featured speaker.

A USUBC senior adviser is David J. Kramer, a long-time adviser to late Senator John McCain, who served at the McCain Institute for International Leadership as senior director for human rights and democracy. Kramer played a central role in disseminating the anti-Trump dossier.

In the USUBC piece welcoming Taylor to Ukraine, Kramer himself commented about Taylor’s ambassador position.

“He’s a great choice for now,” Kramer gushed.

Geysha Gonzalez is the sponsoring Atlantic Council officer listed on the Congressional disclosure form for Schiff staffer Eager’s trip to Ukraine. She is deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Gonzalez is also one of eleven members of the rapid response team for the Ukrainian Election Task Force, which says it is working to expose “foreign interference in Ukraine’s democracy.”

Another member of the team is Kramer.

Kramer revealed in testimony that he held a meeting about the anti-Trump dossier with a reporter from BuzzFeed News, who he says snapped photos of the controversial document without Kramer’s permission when he left the room to go to the bathroom. That meeting was held at the McCain Institute office in Washington, Kramer stated.

BuzzFeed infamously published the Christopher Steele dossier on January 10, 2017, setting off a firestorm of news media coverage about the document.

The Washington Post reported last February that Kramer received the dossier directly from Fusion GPS after McCain expressed interest in it.

In a deposition taken on December 13, 2017, and posted online earlier this year, Kramer revealed that he met with two Obama administration officials to inquire about whether the anti-Trump dossier was being taken seriously.

In one case, Kramer said that he personally provided a copy of the dossier to Obama National Security Council official Celeste Wallander.

In the deposition, Kramer said that McCain specifically asked him in early December 2016 to meet about the dossier with Wallander and Victoria Nuland, a senior official in John Kerry’s State Department.

Schiff signed form

Schiff’s signature appears on the required post-travel disclosure form filed with the House Committee on Ethics documenting the visit to Ukraine. The form signed by Schiff says that Eager’s trip to Ukraine was paid for by the “Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.”

The form bearing Schiff’s signature (above) describes the visit thusly:

Series of meetings and visits with gov’t officials, party officials, civil society and private sector reps in Ukraine to learn about ongoing political and military issues, including conflict in the East.

The costs for Eager’s visit listed on the form are $2202.91 for transportation, $985.50 for lodging, and $630.15 for meal expenses.

Speaking to Breitbart News, Gonzalez confirmed that Eager started his one-year fellowship with the organization in January and that Eager is still a fellow.

Gonzalez said the pre-planned trip was part of the fellowship program, which also includes a full year of round tables and other educational events. She said it was not within her portfolio to comment on issues of funding from Burisma or other donors.

Burisma and Atlantic Council 

Besides funding the Atlantic Council, Burisma also routinely partners with the think tank.

Only four months ago, the company co-hosted the Council’s second Annual Kharkiv Security Conference.

Burisma further co-hosted a U.S.-Ukraine Business Council event with the Council last year in Washington, DC.  David Kramer of the dossier episode is a senior adviser to the Business Council.

Burisma and the Atlantic Council also signed a cooperative agreement to develop transatlantic programs with Burisma’s financial support, reportedly to focus “on European and international energy security.”

Burisma advertises that it committed itself to “15 key principles of rule of law and economic policy in Ukraine developed by the Atlantic Council.”

Common funding themes

Besides Burisma funding, the Atlantic Council is also financed by billionaire activist George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, Google, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc., and the U.S. State Department.

Google, Soros’s Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Fund, and an agency of the State Department each also finance a self-described investigative journalism organization repeatedly referenced as a source of information in the so-called “whistleblower’s” complaint alleging Trump was “using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country” in the 2020 presidential race.

The charges in the July 22 report referenced in the “whistleblower’s” document and released by the Google and Soros-funded organization, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), seem to be the public precursors for a lot of the so-called “whistleblower’s” own claims, as Breitbart News documented.OPEN

One key section of the so-called “whistleblower’s” document claims that “multiple U.S. officials told me that Mr. Giuliani had reportedly privately reached out to a variety of other Zelensky advisers, including Chief of Staff Andriy Bohdan and Acting Chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine Ivan Bakanov.”

This was allegedly to follow up on Trump’s call with Zelensky in order to discuss the “cases” mentioned in that call, according to the so-called “whistleblower’s” narrative. The complainer was clearly referencing Trump’s request for Ukraine to investigate the Biden corruption allegations.

Even though the statement was written in first person –  “multiple U.S. officials told me” – it contains a footnote referencing a report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

That footnote reads:

In a report published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on 22 July, two associates of Mr. Giuliani reportedly traveled to Kyiv in May 2019 and met with Mr. Bakanov and another close Zelensky adviser, Mr. Serhiy Shefir.

The so-called “whistleblower’s” account goes on to rely upon that same OCCRP report on three more occasions. It does so to:

  • Write that Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko “also stated that he wished to communicate directly with Attorney General Barr on these matters.”
  • Document that Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani “had spoken in late 2018 to former Prosecutor General Shokin, in a Skype call arranged by two associates of Mr. Giuliani.”
  • Bolster the charge that, “I also learned from a U.S. official that ‘associates’ of Mr. Giuliani were trying to make contact with the incoming Zelenskyy team.” The so-called “whistleblower” then relates in another footnote, “I do not know whether these associates of Mr. Giuliani were the same individuals named in the 22 July report by OCCRP, referenced above.”

The OCCRP report repeatedly referenced is actually a “joint investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and BuzzFeed News, based on interviews and court and business records in the United States and Ukraine.”

BuzzFeed infamously also first published the full anti-Trump dossier alleging unsubstantiated collusion between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia. The dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee, and was produced by the Fusion GPS opposition dirt outfit.

The OCCRP and BuzzFeed “joint investigation” resulted in both OCCRP and BuzzFeed publishing similar lengthy pieces on July 22 claiming that Giuliani was attempting to use connections to have Ukraine investigate Trump’s political rivals.

The so-called “whistleblower’s” document, however, only mentions the largely unknown OCCRP and does not reference BuzzFeed, which has faced scrutiny over its reporting on the Russia collusion claims.

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