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TikTok users in the US have reported being unable to write the word ‘Epstein’ in messages amid accusations that the social media platform is suppressing content critical of President Donald Trump.
Platform has restricted image creation on the Grok AI tool to paying subscribers, but victims and experts say this does not go far enough
Trump’s most brazen attack on free speech yet.
what’s so striking about the Kimmel case is how swiftly Nexstar (and ABC) rolled over. They didn’t even try to put up a fight to defend their own ability to control what goes on their airwaves. They instead apparently decided that fighting the government is costly and risky, putting licenses or even a valuable merger at risk, and that risking that isn’t worth it for Jimmy Kimmel.
This is what it looks like when a society’s elite rolls over in the face of authoritarianism. It never ends well.
“Thank you very much @elonmusk for giving me back my monetization tonight,” she wrote on X in February.
“You’re welcome,” Mr. Musk replied.
When Ms. Loomer lost her access to X Premium, she also lost the ability to earn money from her paid subscribers and from X’s revenue program, which shares ad dollars with premium users. She estimated in an interview that she lost about $50,000 from X during the period when her account was suppressed.
“I think it’s wrong to say it’s a free speech platform and then shut off people’s ability to monetize,” Ms. Loomer said.
A Russian scientist working at Harvard Medical School has been detained in the United States and placed in immigration detention. According to multiple independent Russian media outlets and the scientist’s friends, she now faces possible deportation to Russia, where she could be subject to political persecution over her anti-war stance.
On Jan. 7th, Greenblatt appeared before Knesset's Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs to encourage further censorship initiatives that the Israeli government could take on.
The Apartheid Defense League is an anti-Palestinian hate group whose primary focus is right-wing, pro-Israel advocacy.
Greenblatt pushed for the State of Israel to consider the fight against antisemitism online and around the world to be another front (alongside Gaza, Lebanon, West Bank, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Iran) that the country must contend with.
“Capturing TikTok might seem less meaningful than holding on to Mount Hermon. Libelous tweets certainly might seem less deadly than missiles from Yemen. But this is urgent because the next war will be decided based on how Israel and its allies perform online as much as offline. Make no mistake, it’s real,” he said.
eJP - In the Knesset, ADL chief admits failure to extinguish the post-Oct. 7 ‘inferno of antisemitism,’ calls for new strategies
https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/in-the-knesset-adl-chief-admits-group-has-failed-to-combat-antisemitism-calls-for-new-strategies/
Of course, Greenblatt had no advice on encouraging censorship on Facebook or X because both of those institutions are already anti-Palestinian.
After Elon Musk boosted antisemitic conspiracies on X and denounced the ADL, he had to launder his reputation with corporate America. So, he suddenly became a pro-Israel fanatic and began regurgitating hasbara BS.
Relatively-recently, Wikipedia deems the ADL to be an unreliable source on the Israel/Palestine issue.
Democracy Now! - Wikipedia Declares ADL an “Unreliable” Source on the Israel-Palestine Conflict
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/6/21/headlines/wikipedia_declares_adl_an_unreliable_source_on_the_israel_palestine_conflict
There have been edit wars going on re: this issue for as long as Wiki has existed. Pro-Israel editors have long been coordinating edits on Wiki to present a pro-Israel narrative.
Some pro-Palestine editors might have begun doing the same thing - but recently, many such editors were busted for primarily ETIQUETTE-related reasons. Like being 'impolite' or something to a pro-Israel editor.
For this, the ADL recently celebrated:
https://x.com/ADL/status/1880363032179798081
The ADL and other pro-Israel groups are likely putting pressure on Wiki to take these actions. No such pressure has been applied to the many sock-puppet pro-Israel accounts that regularly edit-war on Wiki over this issue.
RE: META
META has long been censoring & penalizing pro-Palestine content and that which is critical of Israel. In fact, META discriminates against Palestinians and their supporters so badly that an internal audit by the company put out a report stating it hurts Palestinian human rights.
Based on the data reviewed, examination of individual cases and related materials, and external stakeholder engagement, Meta’s actions⁸ in May 2021 appear to have had an adverse human rights impact (as defined in footnote 3) on the rights of Palestinian users to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, political participation, and non-discrimination, and therefore on the ability of Palestinians to share information and insights about their experiences as they occurred. This was reflected in conversations with affected stakeholders, many of whom shared with BSR their view that Meta appears to be another powerful entity repressing their voice that they are helpless to change.
The Independent - Facebook and Instagram ‘violated Palestinian users’ rights by taking down posts, according to its own report
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/meta-facebook-instagram-palestinian-rights-b2173756.html
HRW even issued a follow-up report about META, concluding:
Human Rights Watch found that the censorship of content related to Palestine on Instagram and Facebook is systemic and global. Meta’s inconsistent enforcement of its own policies led to the erroneous removal of content about Palestine. While this appears to be the biggest wave of suppression of content about Palestine to date, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has a well-documented record of overbroad crackdowns on content related to Palestine. For years, Meta has apologized for such overreach and promised to address it. In this context, Human Rights Watch found Meta’s behavior fails to meet its human rights due diligence responsibilities. Despite the censorship documented in this report, Meta allows a significant amount of pro-Palestinian expression and denunciations of Israeli government policies. This does not, however, excuse its undue restrictions on peaceful content in support of Palestine and Palestinians, which is contrary to the universal rights to freedom of expression and access to information.
Human Rights Watch - Meta’s Broken Promises
https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/systemic-censorship-palestine-content-instagram-and
The Guardian - Meta censors pro-Palestinian views on a global scale, report claims
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/dec/21/meta-facebook-instagram-pro-palestine-censorship-human-rights-watch-report
META implemented a new policy called 'community engagement expectations' (CEE) - which bans discussions about politics. CEE violations can hurt performance reviews and sometimes lead to termination of employment.
[...] Under the CEE, which launched in 2022, discussions of armed conflict, war, or other political matters are banned inside the company; violations can hurt performance reviews and, in some cases, lead to termination.
One former Meta employee believes the CEE was largely a reaction to the Black Lives Matter protests and the 2020 US presidential election. “Before that, you could have a profile photo that says ‘Make America Great Again,’” the source says. But the turmoil such political expressions caused within the company led Meta to crack down.
“Whether it is an opinion or a fact shared, at our size—and again, with the diversity of our population—an opposing or seemingly neutral comment could trigger feelings of contention, sadness, anger, distraction and even grief,” Williams, the diversity chief, wrote in her message last month. Williams reminded workers that they are welcome to speak up externally, including on Meta apps such as Instagram or Threads.
WIRED - How Watermelon Cupcakes Kicked Off an Internal Storm at Meta
https://www.wired.com/story/meta-palestine-employees-watermelon-cupcakes-censorship/
META is also implicated in a WhatsApp 'leak' that has allowed the IDF to further target Palestinians.
Against the backdrop of the ongoing war on Gaza, the threat warning raised a disturbing possibility among some employees of Meta. WhatsApp personnel have speculated Israel might be exploiting this vulnerability as part of its program to monitor Palestinians at a time when digital surveillance is helping decide who to kill across the Gaza Strip, four employees told The Intercept.
The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2024/05/22/whatsapp-security-vulnerability-meta-israel-palestine/
This is all by design, since prominent positions in META are even held by Likud appointees like former Netanyahu advisor, Jordana Cutler, or former (and fired) Israeli government officials like Emi Palmor.
When META employees petitioned company execs about the findings of the BSR report, they were instead censored under the purview of CEE.
Human Rights Watch’s allegations validated concerns of the Palestinian Working Group, a years-old intranet forum at Meta, consisting of more than 200 staff, for discussing issues faced by Palestinian users, according to one of the sources. The group in December organized an internal letter to top executives with a list of demands aimed at making services such as Facebook and Instagram safe and fair for Palestinian supporters.
The letter drew over 450 signatures in a few hours before workers say the internal community relations team took down the petition and deleted emails soliciting support from workers’ inboxes. Akhter, one of the organizers, had her “system access” disabled for three months, she would later say on Instagram. She said the petition had been flagged for violating Meta’s community engagement expectations, or CEE.
WIRED - How Watermelon Cupcakes Kicked Off an Internal Storm at Meta
https://www.wired.com/story/meta-palestine-employees-watermelon-cupcakes-censorship/
RE: X/Twitter limiting the reach of pro-Palestine content
In the following video (not sure of the time-stamp), Elon Musk assures right-wing supporters of Israel that he will 'limit the reach' of pro-Palestine content.
The Forward
https://forward.com/culture/562411/elon-musk-ben-shapiro-twitter-antisemitism-jewish/
Facebook built two versions of a fix for clickbait this year, and decided to trust algorithmic machine learning detection instead of only user behavior, a
The report also says there is no evidence that Dattani is antisemitic.
"Based on Mr. Dattani's evidence, the scholarship that was reviewed and provided, we cannot find that Mr. Dattani harboured or harbours any beliefs that would be characterized as anti-Semitic or that he has demonstrated any biases (conscious or unconscious) towards Jews or Israelis," says a segment of the report cited by Dattani in his Aug. 1 letter to Virani.
Another excerpt of the report cited by Dattani says he has a "high degree of self-awareness and sensitivity" regarding the challenges faced by Canadian Jews.
A federal judge’s order Tuesday prohibiting various Biden administration agencies and officials from communicating with social media companies about certain content thrust an under-the-radar lawsuit into the national spotlight.
censorship as he experienced it was more Kafka-esque than Stalinist
Snow asked if she could drop me off at the nearest subway stop. I said it was no problem, and as we turned I asked how many siblings her husband had. She had been complaining towards the end of lunch that she and her husband had to support them.
"Twelve, but half of them died. So there are six of them, total."
"I’m sorry to hear that," I said.
"Oh don’t be. It was like that for everyone back then. Because you know, Mao had probably gone crazy, and encouraged everyone to be a ‘hero mother’ by having five kids. They say that’s what caused the famine. But Mao was crazy and…"
She broke off and laughed.
"You see," she said, "we can say this here, just you and me; we just can’t say it in print." Then, suddenly, switching to English, she exclaimed, "That’s China!"
Snow asked if she could drop me off at the nearest subway stop. I said it was no problem, and as we turned I asked how many siblings her husband had. She had been complaining towards the end of lunch that she and her husband had to support them.
"Twelve, but half of them died. So there are six of them, total."
"I’m sorry to hear that," I said.
"Oh don’t be. It was like that for everyone back then. Because you know, Mao had probably gone crazy, and encouraged everyone to be a ‘hero mother’ by having five kids. They say that’s what caused the famine. But Mao was crazy and…"
She broke off and laughed.
"You see," she said, "we can say this here, just you and me; we just can’t say it in print." Then, suddenly, switching to English, she exclaimed, "That’s China!"
So here’s the deal. If you think the Twitter Files are still something legit or telling or powerful, watch this 30 minute interview that Mehdi Hasan did with Matt Taibbi (at Taibbi’s own demand): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a597e6Wv_xg Hasan came prepared with facts. Lots of them. Many of which debunked the core foundation on which Taibbi and his…
PC culture to the power of the CPC
I never thought more globalisation would see them beg for MORE censorship
“It’s truly inexcusable that the censors didn’t catch something like this”
“Capital deleted posts off the entire web, but in the end it can’t block the raging, surging, angry will of the people!”
“Hah, so you’d rather cut out the insulting part in the night without banning it outright? Sure, go ahead and help the foreigners save face!”
yikes, clearly the whole world needs to censor itself even when China isn't involved, so their feelings don't get hurt
“If there is no severe punishment, in the future others who want to humiliate China will just humiliate China, thinking it’s fine to just give those Chinese a version to screen with the insults cut out,”
we've all accepted profit over morality for too long. clearly keeping silent and looking the other way to China's abuses is not a policy that's worked for anyone in the western world. we're all complicit.
"It means that the N.B.A. has weighed China’s human rights abuses against China’s potential as a source of revenue, and it has decided that it can live with state policies like the detention of hundreds of thousands of Chinese Muslims in the northwestern province of Xinjiang."
"American executives and policymakers initially reconciled themselves to following China’s rules by arguing that China’s turn toward capitalism, and its exposure to the United States, would gradually lead toward democracy and a greater respect for human rights. They argued, in effect, that silence was the most productive form of criticism.
It should now be clear that silence is merely complicity, no more or less.
It is the moral price the N.B.A. and other businesses are paying for making money in China."
wild world we live in where companies gladly destroy free speech and fairness to make a buck.
"Under the game's rules, players can be removed for behaviour that results in public disrepute, offends the public or damages its image, Blizzard said, adding that the two hosts were also fired."