Category: POLITICS

Google staff keep ‘blacklist’ of conservative and ‘fringe’ sites – report

CAP

Google reportedly runs two “blacklists,” one allowing staff to remove “fringe” websites from search results and another for filtering out opinion articles, according to conservative news outlet the Daily Caller.

The lists allow Google employees –who CEO Sundar Pichai told Congress in December never “manually intervene on any particular search result”– to suppress certain addresses in a user’s search results.

The Daily Caller claims to have seen screenshots of the lists in question. Google did not address whether its staff deliberately weed out certain political content, but did say they are working to filter out “inappropriate” search results.

The first list, titled “webanswers_url_blacklist,” lets staff block specific web addresses from popping up in Google’s ‘featured snippets’ when a user asks a question. Many of the pages blocked are op-ed articles, which a user could mistake for straight news reporting. This list appears to target opinion pieces in general, regardless of their political bent.

Another list, which the Daily Caller suggests was compiled by algorithm, blanket blacklists a host of conservative and “fringe” sites from appearing in the ‘featured snippets.’ The American Spectator, Breitbart, The Gateway Pundit and the website of Bring Your Bible to School Day are among those included. Several progressive sites, including Consortium News and a blog called Breitbart Unmasked also reportedly made the list.

CAP

CAP

That Google would censor conservative or “fringe” content will come as no surprise to some. The company, along with a bevy of other Silicon Valley tech giants, has been accused of harboring a liberal bias for several years now, with new stories of favoritism surfacing regularly.

A recent study found that Google’s search algorithms display a “left-leaning ideological skew,” while video footage of an internal company meeting recorded after the 2016 election showed executives calling Donald Trump’s victory “deeply offensive” and talking about using AI to fight populism in future.

YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, implemented a blanket ban on “hateful” and “supremacist” videos last week. The ban, which came about after Vox journalist Carlos Maza led a campaign against conservative shock-jock Steven Crowder, swept away or demonetized thousands of videos critical of the social justice movement and several video reports on extremist movements by legitimate journalists.

‘This will not go well’: YouTube cracks down on pundits & journalists after policy change

CAP

Though the right has made the most noise about big tech’s alleged censorship efforts, a growing number of left-wing voices have been sounding the alarm too. Facebook has been perhaps most overt in clamping down on anti-establishment content across the political spectrum, but Google has also come under fire for changing its algorithms to de-rank left-wing, socialist, and anti-war websites.

Journalist Max Blumenthal called the tech giants’ clampdown part of “a wider war on dissident narratives in online media.”

0

DOZENS OF POLICE OFFICERS INJURED IN MEMPHIS RIOTS

Dozens of Police Officers Injured in Memphis Riots

Violent protests in response to shooting of armed felon during arrest

JUNE 13, 2019

At least 25 officers were injured in violent clashes with protesters after US Marshals fatally shot a multiple-felony suspect during an arrest. Mounted police, a helicopter and tear gas were all required to disperse the crowd.

Two journalists were injured and six police officers were hospitalized in the clashes late Wednesday, according to Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland.

“Let me be clear – the aggression shown towards our officers and deputies tonight was unwarranted,” Strickland said in a statement.

The crowd launched bricks and rocks at Memphis police and multiple police vehicles were damaged; the windows of a local fire station were also smashed.

The violent clashes occurred in response to the reported death by shooting of a felony suspect, who was killed in a botched raid by US Marshals in North Memphis.

According to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, agents attempted to arrest the suspect –who reportedly had multiple felony warrants–– but the man entered a car and began ramming police vehicles indiscriminately before exiting with a weapon.

Police opened fire and the suspect was pronounced dead at the scene. It is, as yet, unknown how many shots were fired or how many times the suspect was hit. Memphis police were not directly involved in the shooting.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) said it is “closely monitoring” the situation.

0

House to Hold Hearing on Slavery Reparations

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) held a press conference on Dec. 13 to announce that she will be chairing a new Congressional Jazz Caucus. To help accomplish this, on Dec. 12 Jackson Lee introduced H.R. 4626, "to preserve knowledge and promote education about jazz in the United States and abroad."

By Tony Lee

A House Judiciary subcommittee will hold hearings on reparations next Wednesday, marking the first time in more than a decade that the House will discuss potentially compensating the descendants of slaves.

“The Case for Reparations” author Ta-Nehisi Coates and actor Danny Glover are reportedly set to testify before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, and the hearing’s stated purpose will be “to examine, through open and constructive discourse, the legacy of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, its continuing impact on the community and the path to restorative justice,” according to a Thursday Associated Press report.

The June 19 hearing also “coincides with Juneteenth, a cultural holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved blacks in America.”

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), who sits on the subcommittee, again introduced H.R. 40 earlier this year to create a reparations commission. Jackson Lee said her bill would create a commission “to study the impact of slavery and continuing discrimination against African-Americans, resulting directly and indirectly from slavery to segregation to the desegregation process and the present day.” She added in January that the “commission would also make recommendations concerning any form of apology and compensation to begin the long delayed process of atonement for slavery.”

“The impact of slavery and its vestiges continues to effect African Americans and indeed all Americans in communities throughout our nation,” Jackson Lee said. “This legislation is intended to examine the institution of slavery in the colonies and the United States from 1619 to the present, and further recommend appropriate remedies. Since the initial introduction of this legislation, its proponents have made substantial progress in elevating the discussion of reparations and reparatory justice at the national level and joining the mainstream international debate on the issues. Though some have tried to deflect the importance of these conversations by focusing on individual monetary compensation, the real issue is whether and how this nation can come to grips with the legacy of slavery that still infects current society. Through legislation, resolutions, news, and litigation, we are moving closer to making more strides in the movement toward reparations.”

Jackson Lee argued that despite the progress of African-Americans in the private sector, education, and the government in addition to “the election of the first American President of African descent, the legacy of slavery lingers heavily in this nation.”

“While we have focused on the social effects of slavery and segregation, its continuing economic implications remain largely ignored by mainstream analysis,” she continued. “These economic issues are the root cause of many critical issues in the African-American community today, such as education, healthcare and criminal justice policy, including policing practices. The call for reparations represents a commitment to entering a constructive dialogue on the role of slavery and racism in shaping present-day conditions in our community and American society.”

In the Senate, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), a 2020 presidential candidate, introduced the companion legislation, saying creating a reparations committee “is a way of addressing head-on the persistence of racism, white supremacy, and implicit racial bias in our country.”

“It will bring together the best minds to study the issue and propose solutions that will finally begin to right the economic scales of past harms and make sure we are a country where all dignity and humanity is affirmed,” Booker said in April.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), in addition to nearly every Democrat running for president, has endorsed Jackson Lee’s bill.

And though Coates praised Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-CA) this week on the reparations issue, Warren, like nearly every other 2020 Democrat with the exception of former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, has squirrelly dodged questions about whether the United States government should make cash payments to the descendants of slaves.

0

Russia Hoax 4-Eva: House Intel Committee Subpoenas Michael Flynn

Screen Shot 2019-06-13 at 10.39.07 AM

By Joshua Caplan

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Thursday subpoenaed retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and former Trump Deputy Campaign Manager Rick Gates for documents and testimony.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the panel’s chairman, claims the pair have been uncooperative in Congress’s “oversight” investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

“As part of our oversight work, the House Intelligence Committee is continuing to examine the deep counterintelligence concerns raised in Special Counsel Mueller’s report, and that requires speaking directly with the fact witnesses,” Schiff said in a statement. “Both Michael Flynn and Rick Gates were critical witnesses for Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation, but so far have refused to cooperate fully with Congress.”

The California Democrat continued: “That’s simply unacceptable. The American people, and the Congress, deserve to hear directly from these two critical witnesses. We hope these witnesses come to recognize their cooperation as being with the United States, not merely the Department of Justice.”

Flynn and Gates are to turn over documents to the committee by June 26th and sit for an interview, under oath, on July 10th, the subpoena states.

Flynn admitted to making false statements to the FBI regarding conversations he shared with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in 2017, while Gates pleaded guilty to false statements and conspiracy charges related to political consulting efforts he and onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort undertook for Ukraine. The trio was charged as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into now-debunked collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

The development comes a day after Flynn, who served as President Donald Trump’s first national security advisor, hired seasoned lawyer Sidney Powell as his new counsel as he awaits sentencing.

The former Assistant U.S. Attorney is an outspoken critic of the Mueller probe and has called Andrew Weissmann, often referred to as the special counsel’s “pit bull,” the “poster boy for prosecutorial misconduct.”

The move came after court filings revealed last week that Flynn terminated his lawyers Stephen Anthony and Robert Kelner of Covington & Burling LLP, as his counsel.

President Trump praised Powell’s hiring on social media Thursday morning, calling her a “great lawyer.”

“General Michael Flynn, the 33 year war hero who has served with distinction, has not retained a good lawyer, he has retained a GREAT LAWYER, Sidney Powell. Best Wishes and Good Luck to them both!” the president tweeted.

 

0

Facebook Bans ‘Dysfunctional Veterans’ Page That Raises Money For Homeless Veterans

Facebook Bans Dysfunctional Veterans

Facebook banned the popular veterans page for the second time this week.

By

Dysfunction Veterans, a Facebook page run by Michael Rivers, himself a veteran, was banned from Facebook for allegedly violating its content policies regarding firearms.

Speaking to Big League Politics, Rivers explained that his page was banned for buying ads on Facebook to promote a contest where entries could win an AR-15 rifle, even though according to the letter of Facebook’s community guidelines, his promotion was following Facebook’s rules.

“We do try to stay within Facebook’s guidelines, they just make them up as they go along,” said Rivers. “We ran a contest, a promo to give away an AR-15. It was a licensed firearms company, and we are an online retailer. According to Facebook rules, it’s okay because we are two online retailers that follow all applicable state and federal guidelines.”

He went on to explain that 8 days into the advertisement, which was approved by Facebook, they removed the advertisement and banned the staff member who posted it for 30 days. Rivers immediately ended the advertisement and removed all reference of it from the page, but Facebook proceeded to ban members of his staff two more times for the same, deleted advertisement.

“They banned us again for the same exact thing,” said Rivers. “So again, we appealed it, and then yesterday the page was unpublished and they cited the same thing again.”

“We had ended the promo last month, midway through it. After two or three weeks of not running it, they banned us for the same advertisement.”

Rivers says he appealed the latest ban and supplied Facebook with relevant excerpts from their own community guidelines as evidence his page did nothing wrong. He is currently waiting to hear back from the big tech platform.

In addition to selling merchandise via the Dysfunction Veterans online store, Rivers also runs a non-profit organization focused on providing housing to homeless veterans, DV Farm, that sometimes receives cash injections from the profits made from the Dysfunctional Veterans retail operation. Rivers provides housing and support to up to five homeless veterans at a time, and says his organization focuses on the “problem child” cases that are ignored by the Veterans Administration and other veterans organizations.

While Rivers remained optimistic about DV Farm’s ability to continue, it seems Facebook’s decision to remove the page for a post that seemingly did not violate the big tech platform’s rules may impact the non-profit.

“We are not federally or state funded so we rely solely on donations,” said Rivers. “Every month, of course, the non-profit being brand new, there would be a shortfall. We try to keep it in the black, but it can be an expensive project.”

“No matter what, whatever I make off the Dysfunctional Veterans store, goes to making sure the non-profit keeps running.”

Rivers also revealed that a similar incident happened in the days before the 2016 presidential election. His page was removed by Facebook without an explanation, and after other veterans who are now CEO’s and prominent business individuals reached out to Facebook on Rivers’ behalf, the page was reinstated. Rivers still has no idea why his page was removed, or why it was reinstated.

“In the last few days before the voting started, we were on fire. Every meme we posted was reaching millions,” said Rivers. “And we were shut down, and of course they would not show us what we posted that violated the community guidelines.”

“People reached out to me from other organizations, other CEO’s, and within 24 hours Dysfunctional Veterans was back up.”

He explained that this is a “habit” of Facebook, where they will remove content and ban pages without giving them an explanation of what they did wrong or what behavior they should avoid in the future.

Big League Politics contacted Facebook for comment on why the Dysfunctional Veterans page was removed, and did not receive a response.

Rivers’ other Facebook page, Veteran Humor, is still published on the platform.

1

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑