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

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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.

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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

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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.”

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

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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.

 

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.

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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.

COLLUSION: Project Veritas Suspended From Twitter for Revealing Pinterest’s Censorship of Conservatives

Project Veritas Suspended Twitter

The big tech platform suspended Project Veritas for reporting the shady actions taken by another big tech platform.

Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe revealed today that his organization was suspended from Twitter for tweets revealing Pinterest’s mass censorship of conservative websites and individuals on its platform.

On June 11, O’Keefe interviewed a whistle blower at Pinterest who revealed that the platform adds conservative news websites, including Big League Politics, to a list of “porn” websites in an attempt to prevent our links from being posted to the platform, and that employees at Pinterest consider Ben Shapiro, a Jewish conservative commentator, to be an anti-Muslim “white supremacist.” Project Veritas was suspended from Twitter for posting screen shots from the company’s Slack chat illustrating this.

“Twitter has decided that investigative journalism is a violation of their terms of service,” wrote O’Keefe on his personal Twitter account. “@Project_Veritas has been temporarily suspended from posting for tweeting internal communications from @Pinterest which show them calling @benshapiro a ‘white supremacist.’”

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It would appear Twitter is doing its best to protect their fellow big tech platform in this latest move. Unfortunately, Big League Politics and others have already reported on the Pinterest employees calling Shapiro a “white supremacist”.

Big League Politics reported:

Further documents published by Project Veritas show an employee calling right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro a “white supremacist,” and putting listing Candace Owens alongside him as “ones to watch for content.”

“Ben Shapiro is a white supremacist who has regularly spewed anti muslim hate and he and candace owens and few others may be ones to watch content for over the next few days,” a post from an internal Slack chat said.

“I reported all the top instances of his “Myth of the tiny radical muslim” video from youtube that a number of journalists have been calling out,” the post continued. “There will no doubt be people searching for his content across platforms. I’ll start putting together a list of things like this video of his that may be worth creating an advisor for (though not blocking results).

As Big League Politics also reported, the platform considers our website to be “porn” and uses this as an excuse to prevent links to our stories from being posted to its platform.

In Pinterest’s text document, “porn_domain_blacklist”, dozens of conservative media outlets are considered “porn”. Big League Politics, Western Journal, TeaParty.org, PJ Media, and others are all covered in the dragnet, and considered “porn” by the big tech platform.

The whistle blower explained to Project Veritas’ James O’Keefe that the porn blacklist is used to ensure links to conservative and pro-choice websites are not posted to the platform.

It is unclear why Twitter took this action against Project Veritas, considering the leaked Slack chat does not identify a user by name, or identify private information about Slack employees, the rule Twitter claims was broken by the whistle blowing organization.

LEFT-WING COMEDIAN FANTASIZES ABOUT ACID ATTACKING RIGHT-WING POLITICIANS

Left-Wing Comedian Fantasizes About Acid Attacking Right-Wing Politicians

“Why bother with a milkshake?”

JUNE 12, 2019

A left-wing comedian in the United Kingdom says she fantasizes about acid-attacking right-wing politicians, asking “why bother with milkshakes?”

During an appearance on Radio 4 last night, Jo Brand, who is a lifelong Labour Party supporter, tacitly endorsed political violence.

“Certain unpleasant characters are being thrown to the fore, and they’re very, very easy to hate, and I’m kind of thinking, why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid?” asked Brand.

“That’s just me, sorry, I’m not gonna do it, it’s purely a fantasy, but I think milk shakes are pathetic, I honestly do. Sorry,” she added.

“This is incitement of violence and the police need to act,” tweeted Nigel Farage, who was ‘milkshaked’ by a leftist while on the campaign trail last month.

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While Brand’s vicious suggestion may have been made in jest, there are plenty of unhinged, radicalized leftists who are only too willing to actually carry out such an attack.

As we previously reported, a left-wing activist who works for a charity called ‘Happy City’ called for Nigel Farage to be acid attacked before deleting the tweet.

“Bravo to Paul Crowther, good on you mate. Great that milkshakes have become a thing when it comes to racists in our midst,” tweeted Ruth Townsley, before adding, “I’d prefer acid but milkshakes will do for now I guess.”

So much for the tolerant left!

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Instagram Promotes ‘Trans Disabled Model’ Who Is Calling For The Killing Of All ‘Transphobes’

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After banning tons of conservatives for their “dangerous” political views, Facebook-owned Instagram promotes trans disabled model actively calling for the “killing” of all “transphobes.”

By Chris Menahan

Facebook-owned Instagram on Monday promoted “trans disabled model” Aaron Philip, 18, across their platform and to their more than 304 million followers in honor of Pride Month. 

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Their post read:

It’s Pride Month – officially! 🌈⚡️🦄 – and Aaron Philip (@aaron___philip) has a message for young LGBTQ+ people: “Take care of each other and keep growing. This is your world and everywhere is your space,” says the 18-year-old fashion model. “Soak it all up.” This June, we celebrate the LGBTQ+ community by sharing stories of #UntoldPride. “Pride to me means acknowledging the roots and history of our community and holding space to collectively uplift and take care of one another,” Aaron says.

Follow along this month and beyond as we shine a spotlight on people who are making a difference just by being themselves, and check out @lgbt_history to see even more stories of #UntoldPride.

After Instagram promoted Philip all over their site, Twitter and on Facebook, Philip within hours began calling for the “killing” of all “transphobes.”

Philip wrote on Twitter: “i’ll be that girl. k*ll all transphobes & abolish the prison industrial complex. if you’re not k*lling transphobes then beat their ass or scare them. make them shit themselves. all or nothing.”

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Philip wrote in another tweet: “i want to watch every transphobe burn.”

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One day before Instagram’s campaign kicked off, Philip wrote: “you don’t have to be civil and kind to transphobes. no. raise hell.”

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Philip wrote: “if you see a transphobe you come for their neck. i didn’t make the rules sorry :/”

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Philip suggested earlier this year that “white men” were responsible for creating transphobia: “white men created colonialism which created transphobia and the erasure (of knowledge) of gender variant/trans identity in history.”

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After being criticized for “talking down on black men” but not saying enough about “white male toxic behavior,” Philip responded: “are you dumb? the point of criticizing patriarchy in general is literally to criticize white men & the oppressive structures they’ve imposed upon the world as we know it. however, every and any man benefits from patriarchy by being men & having those privileges. shut the fuck up.”

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Instagram and Facebook banned right-wingers like Paul Joseph Watson, Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, Laura Loomer and left-winger Louis Farrakhan earlier this year for their “dangerous” political views, meanwhile this is what they’re choosing to promote.

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