DECEMBER 13, 2018
Millie Weaver and Kaitlin Bennett discuss the extent of Google’s censorship, privacy violations against Americans and the Chinese DragonFly Project.
Alex Jones & Millie Confront Google CEO Sundar Pichai
The fact-checkers became disillusioned with Facebook after the company ignored requests for meaningful data that showed the impact of the anti-fake news initiatives. Participating journalists anecdotally reported minimal results and Facebook allegedly did nothing to assuage their concerns.
Facebook began courting journalists and roughly 40 media partners, including AP, Snopes, and Politifact for the project in the aftermath of the 2016 US presidential elections but despite the noble intentions and lofty goals, research and anecdotal evidence suggest the debunking had little effect. Facebook’s hiring of the Definers PR firm to smear critics was the final straw for many disillusioned do-gooders.
ALSO ON RT.COMStanding against Soros: Facebook board defends COO Sandberg’s decision to snoop on billionaire“They’ve essentially used us for crisis PR,” Brooke Binkowski, former managing editor of Snopes, said to the Guardian.“They’re not taking anything seriously. They are more interested in making themselves look good and passing the buck … They clearly don’t care.”
Binkowski went one step further, accusing the platform of spreading its own fake news and pressuring debunkers to help Facebook’s advertising partners.
“I strongly believe that they are spreading fake news on behalf of hostile foreign powers and authoritarian governments as part of their business model,” Binkowski said. “I was bringing up Myanmar over and over and over… They were absolutely resistant.”
ALSO ON RT.COMUK MPs seize documents expected to expose Facebook’s covert data harvesting
In addition, fact-checkers received increased death threats and harassment from members of the online far-right as well as conservatives who accused both Snopes and Facebook of exhibiting a left wing bias.
“They threw us under the bus at every opportunity,” Binkowski said. A Facebook spokesperson claimed the company is now offering journalist safety training for partners.
Kim LaCapria, a former content manager and fact-checker with Snopes, also left due to the malign influence Facebook was exerting. She accused the company of giving the “appearance of trying to prevent damage without actually doing anything.”
She claimed that on more than one occasion she and her colleagues found themselves wasting their time debunking satire websites or debunking information that affected Facebook advertisers.
She also decried the financial arrangement Facebook has with Snopes. “That felt really gross,” she said. “You’re not doing journalism anymore. You’re doing propaganda.”
ALSO ON RT.COMFacebook spied on Android users’ calls & texts while pretending to care about privacy
Several media partners became jaded when it emerged that Facebook had conducted a smear campaign tying opponents to billionaire Jewish philanthropist George Soros.
“Why should we trust Facebook when it’s pushing the same rumors that its own fact-checkers are calling fake news?” said a current Facebook fact-checker who was not authorized to speak publicly about their news outlet’s partnership.
It’s worth asking how do they treat stories about George Soros on the platform knowing they specifically pay people to try to link political enemies to him?
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By Neil Clark
It’s another example of the double standards of the social media giant and how, if you don‘t have officially-approved ‘victim’ status, you won’t get protection.
The account’s name is ‘ironstowe’. His Twitter title is ‘Not My President.’ At 22.40 on December 10, he sent me the following tweet from New York, USA.
The message was quite clear. Saddam was killed. Bin Laden was killed. Putin will be killed and then it’ll be the turn of ‘the likes’ of me.
The tweet came in response to one of mine in which I reminded people of what we were told about Iraqi WMDs in 2002/3, and compared the hysteria then with the anti-Russian hysteria today. It had quite impact, getting over 1,170 retweets and almost 2.5k likes.
But clearly ‘ironstowe’ didn’t like it, despite the politician he claims to be a ’big supporter’ of, Barack Obama, being a critic of the Iraq War.
His tweet spoilt what should have been a happy day for me as it was my wedding anniversary. Receiving it caused me great distress and made me very angry.
But as shocking as the communication was, it’s the response of Twitter that is the most outrageous part of the whole story. I reported the tweet, as indeed did many of my followers, but Twitter said, just a couple of minutes later, that having reviewed my report “carefully”, they found that “there was no violation of the Twitter Rules against abusive behavior”. I wrote back to appeal, but their response was the same. They weren’t interested.
Yet, the Twitter rules they linked to in their email to me clearly states, in the section marked ‘Violence,’ that “You may not make specific threats of violence or wish for the serious physical harm, death, or disease of an individual or group of people.”
This is exactly what ironstowe did. But he escaped censure and is still tweeting today as if nothing had happened.
Just imagine if an account holder from Russia had sent such a tweet to a journalist from CNN. I’ve absolutely no doubt that they’d have been suspended within minutes. Think of all the so-called ‘Russian bots’ who have been culled in recent months just for being Russians. Think of the anti-war commentators who have been suspended or banned from Twitter, for doing far less than ‘ironstowe‘.
It’s not the first time I’ve been sent threats via Twitter and the company has failed to act. Less explicit, but no less chilling was one I received from ‘HoagsObjects’/America 1st’ on September 24. I had tweeted earlier that day in support of Russia’s decision to supply S-300 air defence missiles to Syria to protect it from Israeli attacks. ‘HoagsObjects’ menacing response was “I hope to meet you in person one day.”
I reported the tweet, but again, Twitter said there was no violation. ‘HoagsObjects’ pinned tweet, by the way, declares “Truth! Palestine never existed.”
In the summer, I was the subject of another disturbing tweet from Idrees Ahmad, a lecturer at the University of Stirling, tweeting under the handle @im_PULSE.
It read: “It’s July 2018, Neil Clark hits his head against a sharp object, and sh*t oozes out”.
Among those who ‘liked’ the tweet was the shady black-list compiling ‘PropOrNot’ organisation, who also retweeted it, and the Kent-based troll account Don Quixote’s Horse’ @Quixote’s Horse, which smears foreign policy dissidents while courageously blocking them so they can’t respond.
Again, Twitter did nothing. It’s clear that its rules are only applied selectively. Narratives are the important thing.
Ahmad is a strong supporter of Western-backed regime change in Syria. I oppose intervention. If an opponent of Western policy had sent Ahmad the same tweet, I’ve little doubt they’d have been booted off the platform post-haste. Just imagine too if a left-wing supporter of Jeremy Corbyn had sent such a disgusting tweet to a Blairite Labour MP. It would have been all over the newspapers. But I’m not a member of the officially-designated ‘victim’ groups. I am a critic of Western foreign policy, a socialist and a regular on RT. So I’m fair game.
Political censorship appears to be taking place under the guise of ‘implementing‘ Twitter rules, while genuine offenders are given a free pass.
Asa Winstanley reports that the Electronic Intifada was ordered by Twitter to delete a tweet linking to a story about Israel’s commando raid into Gaza last month.
In August, the anti-war writer Caitlin Johnstone had her Twitter account temporarily suspended for violating the rules “against abusive behavior” for a tweet about the pro-war Senator John McCain. Her tweet read: “Friendly public service reminder that John McCain has devoted his entire political career to slaughtering as many human beings as possible at every opportunity, and the world will be improved when he finally dies.”
You might agree/disagree with the sentiment Caitlin expressed, but it was clearly not a death threat, unlike ironstowe’s tweet to me.
Another person to be banned permanently from Twitter recently is Peter Van Buren, a former State Department whistleblower. He tweeted: “I hope a MAGA guy eats your face” to journalist Jonathan Katz, who had called him “a garbage human being”. Katz reported him for “promoting violence.”
But was van Buren’s tweet any worse than the one ironstowe sent to me, and for which he escaped with impunity?
Twitter loses credibility if its rules are not applied equally across the board. Politics should not come into its policing policies.
Being a supporter of US Empire, the state of Israeli military actions, or regime-change operations in Syria shouldn’t mean you’re exempt from disciplinary procedures. And being an anti-war activist who opposes neocon policies shouldn’t mean you get no protection or are given a ‘red card’ when you’ve done nothing wrong. I would welcome a discussion with Jack Dorsey on these important issues.
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Pichai was grilled on whether Google was in violation of the public trust by tracking users’ habits via mobile devices, and also answered questions about the censorship of conservatives.
In Congressman Jim Nadler’s (D-NY) opening statement, he called Google’s bias a “fantasy dreamed up by some conservatives” and a “right-wing conspiracy,” however OpenSecrets.orgrecords reveal he’s bought and paid for by Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., his top contributor.
“Google is among the dominant firms in this field. As such, given the public’s widespread use and reliance on its products and services, there are legitimate questions regarding the company’s policies and practices, including with respect to content moderation and the protection of user data privacy.
“But before we delve into these questions, I must first dispense with a completely illegitimate issue, which is the fantasy, dreamed up by some conservatives, that Google and other online platforms have an anti-conservative bias.
“As I have said repeatedly, no credible evidence supports this right-wing conspiracy theory. I have little doubt that my Republican colleagues will spend much of their time presenting a laundry list of anecdotes and out-of-context statements made by Google employees as supposed evidence of anti-conservative bias. But none of that will actually make it true. And even if Google were deliberately discriminating against conservative viewpoints—just as Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting discriminate against progressive ones—that would be its right, as a private company, to do so.
“But we should not let the delusions of the far right distract us from the real issues that should be the focus of today’s hearing. For example, we should examine what Google is doing to stop hostile foreign powers from using its platform to spread false information, in order to harm our political discourse.”
Open Secrets also shows Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., is a major Democrat contributor, including donations of up to $227,199 to the failed campaign of Texas senatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke.
Roger Stone and Alex Jones at Tuesday’s House hearing © Reuters / Jim Young
As Pichai made his way into the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday morning, Jones followed the CEO down the hall, repeatedly chanting “Google is evil!”
Accompanied by conservative strategist and fellow Infowars personality Roger Stone, Jones ranted at Pichai for Google’s alleged censorship of conservative voices, until Pichai’s police escort warned the bellicose conspiracy theorist to be quiet or be arrested.
“They’re going to talk about me in this committee, I will be talked about – so what am I supposed to do?” Jones asked reporters. “His people come lie to Congress over and over and over again and we don’t get to respond to them,” he added.
Jones’ interest in free speech on the internet is a personal one. Google was one of more than a dozen tech companies that banned Jones from using some of its services this August, for allegedly promoting violence and for hate speech. The move was cheered by social-justice types but was decried by conservatives and free-speech advocates.
While Jones may have favored a more confrontational approach, lawmakers inside the hearing took Pichai to task on a litany of accusations. Democrats slammed Pichai for not cracking down harder on Russians purchasing political ads (a paltry $4,700 worth, according to Pichai himself). Both parties questioned him on his company’s opaque data collection policies, while Republicans grilled him on persistent allegations of liberal bias.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren asked Pichai why a picture of President Donald Trump was for a long time the first result for a search for the word “idiot,” on Google. Pichai explained this away as the work of impartial algorithms, but that explanation didn’t satisfy some lawmakers.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R) from Texas asked Pichai whether Google’s algorithms themselves are biased, and whether pro-Trump and anti-immigration content had been deliberately tagged as “hate speech.”Pichai again denied the allegations of bias.
His online presence greatly diminished by the bans, Jones is unlikely to be sated by the results of Tuesday’s hearing. In an Infowars stream of proceedings titled ‘Live at the Google Treason Hearings’, Jones called Google “absolutely the most horrible corporation on earth.”
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DECEMBER 10, 2018
From Bloomberg, “France to Probe Possible Russian Influence on Yellow Vest Riots”:
France opened a probe into possible Russian interference behind the country’s Yellow Vest protests, after reports that social-media accounts linked to Moscow have increasingly targeted the movement.
According to the Alliance for Securing Democracy, about 600 Twitter accounts known to promote Kremlin views have begun focusing on France, boosting their use of the hashtag #giletsjaunes, the French name for the Yellow Vest movement. French security services are looking at the situation, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Sunday in a radio interview with RTL.
Russia has been criticized for using social media to influence elections in the U.S. and elsewhere. Attempts to use fake news reports and cyberattacks to undercut the 2017 campaign of French President Emmanuel Macron failed, but Russian-linked sites have pushed questionable reports of a mutiny among police, and of officers’ support for the protests.
The media is furious Russian media is covering these protests.
While Trump was attacked for using tear gas on foreign invaders, Macron’s army firing off some 10,000 tear gas canisters — so many canisters they reportedly nearly ran out — is “defending liberal democracy!”
“An investigation is now underway,” Le Drian said. “I will not make comments before the investigation has brought conclusions.”
The Twitter accounts monitored by the alliance usually feature U.S. or British news. But the French protests “have been at or near the top” of their activity for at least a week, according to Bret Schafer, the alliance’s Washington-based social media analyst. “That’s a pretty strong indication that there is interest in amplifying the conflict” for audiences outside France.
The Alliance for Securing Democracy is a unit of the German Marshall Fund of the U.S., which monitors pro-Kremlin activity.
The assertion of police dissatisfaction — which doesn’t appear to be supported by facts — resembles other Kremlin-backed disinformation campaigns that have tried to engender mistrust in Western governments and show that liberal democracies are in decline, Schafer says.
Just ignore the fact liberal democracies are in decline the world over — they’ve actually never been stronger!
The “Alliance for Securing Democracy” and their entirely fraudulent Hamilton 68 dashboardwas started by Bill Kristol, CIA officials and other Democrat neocons and they refuse to identify any of the alleged “Russian trolls” they claim to be tracking.
Any “journalist” who cites their dashboard as a legitimate source is not a journalist but a government propagandist.
The future our “liberal” rulers want is one where all non-establishment media is censored into oblivion and all popular revolts against their rule are pawned off on the Russkies.
Everyone you see in these videos are just Russian bots.
Buzzfeed “journalist” Ryan Broderick last week blamed the protests entirely on a Facebook algorithm change which favored local news:
These people are insane.
No, this is not a joke. The app, “Smart Pakem”, which launched in Indonesia last month at the request of the Indonesian government, will allow users and government officials to uphold Sharia law and target and report people who hold “misguided” beliefs in violation of Islamic law, which forbids insults of Islam, insults against the Prophet Mohammed, or the recognition of any other religion besides Islam.
Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world, with an estimated Muslim population of 207 million.
Trending: Former Comms Director for Arkansas Democratic Party Arrested for Child Porn, National Media Silent
Indonesia’s criminal code prohibits blasphemy, which is defined as “the act or offense of speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things”.
The Code’s Article 156(a) targets those who deliberately, in public, “express feelings of hostility, hatred, or contempt against religion”. The penalty for violating Article 156(a) of Indonesia’s criminal code is a maximum of five years imprisonment.
Rajan Anandan, who serves as the VP of Google in south-east Asia, has not shown any resistance to the app, which is available in the Google app store.
The National Secular Society (NSS) has since written to Anadan requesting the Google not stock the app in the app store, arguing that the app will have negative consequences for religious minorities and will further minimize freedom of expression.
According to Human Rights Watch, 125 people were convicted of blasphemy in Indonesia between 2004 and 2014. 23 additional people have been convicted since 2014.
Stephen Evans, who serves as the chief executive of NSS said said Google’s decision to stock the Sharia app was “incongruous with Google’s mission statement” and “runs directly contrary to the democratic ideals which Google says it stands for”. Evans also said the app will “normalize restrictions on freedom of expression in Indonesia and elsewhere”.
NSS, which works to repeal blasphemy laws around the world, strongly condemned Indonesia’s blasphemy law.
“Indonesia’s blasphemy law is a morally unjustifiable tool of repression which should be repealed as soon as possible. While this law exists anyone who believes in free expression should make it as difficult as possible for the Indonesian government to enforce the law. Google has greatly benefited from the freedom to share information globally. We ask it and other multinational companies to consider whether they can in good conscience profit from the repression caused by governments’ crackdowns on free speech.”
Since the app’s launch in the Google app store, it has been flooded with one star reviews and criticisms by anti-Sharia and human rights advocates.
On November 29, 2018, investigative journalist Laura Loomer handcuffed herself to Twitter HQ in NYC after she was banned from Twitter for criticizing Sharia law. While handcuffed, Loomer argued “Twitter, Facebook, Apple, Google, Instagram, they are essentially upholding Sharia. Silicon Valley is essentially upholding Sharia when they decide to ban me for posting facts about Islam, when they decide to ban me for posting facts about Sharia law and criticizing an anti-Jewish Muslim Congresswoman.”
WATCH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJSYVPfGVkQ&t=7s
Read More about Silicon Valley Sharia here.
Even though the French government abandoned the fuel tax hike after sweeping protests, the movement still calls upon its followers to gather on December 8. “The Act IV” will be held under the motto “we stay on our course.” The Facebook event has already counted 6,000 people who wish to participate and 22,000 others who are “interested.”
READ MORE: ‘Hypocrite’: Macron takes heat over Twitter post on ‘pollution deaths’ in France
On Thursday Eric Drouet one of the movement’s most famous leaders announced the Yellow Vests plans to approach the residence of Emmanuel Macron. “Saturday will be the final outcome, Saturday is the Elysee, we all would like to go to the Elysee,” he said.
ALSO ON RT.COMFrench parliament’s left parties to discuss vote of no confidence against governmentThe intelligence services have reported to the Elysee Palace, the official residence of the president, that there have been “calls to kill” and “carry arms to attack” parliamentarians, government officials and police officers, Le Figaro newspaper said on Thursday.
“They are putschists. [There is] a coup attempt,” a source claimed. The ministry has even been reportedly instructed to forbid its staff and ministers from working this weekend.
Security forces were also tipped that Saturday’s demonstrations may be hit by unprecedented violence caused by both “radicalized…extreme right and extreme left,” Le Figaro added.
Yellow Vest protests, named after high-visibility jackets all drivers in France must carry in their vehicles, are entering their third week. Started as unprompted rallies called on social media against fuel price hikes and Macron’s unpopular reforms, they have evolved into one of the most dangerous challenges for the nation in recent decades.
December 1 protests turned violent across the whole country and saw over 130 people injured and more than 400 arrested. Four people, including an elderly woman, died amid the fierce clashes between rioters and officers.
ALSO ON RT.COM5 striking VIDEOS that reveal the violence & compassion of France’s Yellow Vest protestsThe French government had to concede to the protesters’ demands and abandoned the fuel tax hike plan – at least for the 2019 budget. However, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe who broke the news, did not clarify whether Paris might reintroduce the hike in a budget update later in 2019.
The real problem lies in the government that has lost touch with its people, Yellow Vest protesters recently told RT. The government has to “put humane attitude first, and not the money,” one more demonstrator said. Another added that they “would prefer to be at work, than to find [themselves] on the streets shouting, hoping for nothing.”
According to Jean Bricmont, a French writer and political commentator, the fiery protests have more to do with the “incompetent,” EU-dependent government policy than the rising gas prices. “The revolt is not just about the gas prices, it’s a general revolt against the policy of the government,” he told RT.
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The entrance sign to Facebook headquarters. ©Reuters / Elijah Nouvelage
The British Parliament on Wednesday released a trove of Facebook documents, which it took possession of amid a larger inquiry into Cambridge Analytica, a firm that used Facebook data to profile users for political purposes. MP Damian Collins, who chairs Parliament’s Digital, Culture Media and Sports Committee, said the probe established several key issues.
ALSO ON RT.COMUK MPs seize documents expected to expose Facebook’s covert data harvestingFacebook’s change of platform in 2014-2015 allowed it to enter into “whitelisting” agreements with app developers, giving them access to user data, in particularly how users are linked as friends within the platform. The documents didn’t reveal what policy Facebook used to decide which firms were worthy of the privilege and which were not.
The increased exposure of private data generated more revenue for app developers, and this outcome was the key driver behind the changes made by Facebook. The social network itself received data about how people were using third party apps in return.
The data-hungry mammoth wanted to know how people used their mobile phones, so it changed Facebook’s mobile app to enable it to harvest more information from devices it was installed on. It deliberately made it harder for users to be aware of this happening in order to avoid bad PR, the MP stressed.
Facebook also used its position as user data provider to affect the businesses of its competitors in social media, like Twitter, the report said.
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