Twitter wants to discourage users from sharing tweets it has “disputed” with new warning

Quote:Although it initially announced that inserting itself and its opinions into the way people use the platform would be limited to the US election, Twitter’s intrusive behavior continues even weeks after.

It started with adding labels that could declare content coming from US politicians as “misleading,” and this soon turned out to be mostly about Donald Trump and curbing his ability to effectively communicate using the social network.

Ahead of the vote, if a user wanted to retweet such messages, they would see warnings that this was, according to Twitter, “misleading information.”

Now the trend continues with the same type of flagging being applied when a user attempts to like such a tweet.

The purpose of placing all these obstacles in the way information is published and shared on the platform is to control it, and Twitter says that has been successful: quote tweets of information that the company has determined to be “disputed” (by whom?) or flat-out untrue, have decreased 29 percent since the new system was put in place several months ago.

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Zuck personally signed off on algorithm manipulation towards establishment, legacy media

Quote:Facebook has taken another decision that favors news outlets it thinks are “credible” – such as CNN, NPR, and the New York Times over smaller, independent media.

The Big Tech giant has introduced a “news ecosystem quality” metric that is internally used in the company to judge a certain news outlet and decide if that needs to be preferred over the rest. This new change is a response to the huge surge of what Facebook thinks is “misinformation” on the platform post the US presidential elections, as reported by the Times.

Simply put, this metric, abbreviated as “NEQ” would favor established and dominant outlets such as CNN over other outlets that aren’t as prominent but still push information that their readers would want to stay updated on. After the metric has come to play, all outlets that enjoyed a high NEQ (establishment media) significantly benefited.

Based on what the Times reports, three people close to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that the change was personally signed off by him. What’s more, the move is apparently being welcomed by some sections of the company’s employees, with some asking if the changes can be made permanent. Some employees of the company have reportedly been referring to the update as a “nicer new feed.”

The Times has also reported that Facebook has conducted research in early November to determine if the content being shared on its platform is “good for the world” or “bad for the world.”

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Google Photos is working on feature that allows users to flag “misleading” shared albums

Quote:Big Tech’s growing crackdown on “misinformation” and “misleading” content has reached the popular online photo storage service Google Photos.

App researcher Jane Manchum Wong has discovered that the service is working on the ability for users to report “misleading” shared albums.



Google already outlines some of the types of content it deems to be misleading in its Google Photos “Abuse Program Policies and Enforcement” page. The page lists “misleading content related to civic and democratic processes,” “misleading content related to harmful health practices,” and even “manipulated media” as examples of content that violate Google Photos’ policies.

These labels have been used by all of the major Big Tech platforms to mass censor public posts about the 2020 US presidential election, the coronavirus, and memes.

This development suggests that similar posts or even archives of these posts in Google Photos could now start to be flagged and censored if they’re included in a shared album.

Google states that flagged content on Google Photos may be reviewed and that this review can lead to enforcement action which includes “restricting access to the content, removing the content, refusing to print the content, and limiting or terminating a user’s access to Google products.”

This means that if Google Photos is the sole service someone uses to store and archive their photos, they could potentially lose access to their entire photo archive as a result of Google deeming their shared albums to be misleading. And because these rules apply to all Google products, not just Google Photos, these users could also lose access to any other Google products and services that they rely on.

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Facebook will encourage users to take coronavirus vaccine as part of “charm offensive for Joe Biden”

Quote:As part of its efforts to stave off the threat of regulation or break up under a potential Biden administration, Facebook is reportedly planning to encourage users to take a coronavirus vaccine, promote the sharing of content about the Paris climate agreement, and introduce further measures to crack down on coronavirus “misinformation.”

The Financial Times describes Facebook’s plans as a “charm offensive for Joe Biden” and notes that these initiatives “align with Mr Biden’s top priorities in government.”

The pro-coronavirus vaccine messaging is reportedly going to be part of a “major push” and Facebook is considering publishing a banner ad at the top of users’ News Feeds that encourages them to take a coronavirus vaccine after it has been approved.

To incentivize sharing of content related to the Paris climate agreement, which Biden has promised to rejoin, Facebook plans to introduce “stickers, buttons, and other functions,” according to the Financial Times.

In addition to pushing messaging that promotes the coronavirus vaccine and climate change, Facebook will also be reportedly expanding its efforts to “combat misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic.”

Facebook already aggressively censors content that it deems to be coronavirus misinformation. The company has applied warning labels to 167 million coronavirus posts this year. These warning labels reduce the visibility of Facebook posts by 95%.

Additionally, the company has removed 12 million posts from Facebook and Instagram for coronavirus misinformation.

Facebook also prohibits ads that discourage coronavirus vaccines and warns users when they try to share any coronavirus-related article.

These purported plans to appeal to Biden are likely to compound the existing level of one-sided censorship on Facebook’s platforms where posts that challenge mainstream coronavirus talking points are restricted while posts that parrot the talking points of health authorities are amplified.

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Mexico City abandons compulsory coronavirus track and trace after citizens refuse to be tracked

Quote:No, thanks was the response many residents gave to the government’s plan for compulsory contact tracing through a QR code system in Mexico City. Privacy is a concern in Mexico as the government does not have a good track record of respecting citizens’ rights and citizens weren’t going to put up with any contact tracing.

On November 13, the local government of Mexico City tweeted that contact tracing through a QR code system would be compulsory at public places such as restaurants.

“All persons entering a closed space must scan a QR code with their mobile device,” the graphic stated, atop a list of steps spelling out how the program will work.

“The system will allow us to identify positive cases and stop chains of contagion. Therefore, its use will be mandatory,” the local government announced.

The Mexico City authorities planned to make it compulsory for businesses since the city is on high alert for COVID. The QR code would have to be displayed at the entrance of any premise. People entering the business would then have to scan the code using an app on their smartphones. After scanning, their numbers would be added to a database so that they would be contacted if someone who visited the same business later tests positive for COVID.

However, residents of Mexico City took issue with the fact that the government wanted to make the contact tracing through the QR code system compulsory.

“I’m not going to scan anything. Thanks for the suggestion, though,” one person replied.

“No, it’s not our duty to give you our data. You have earned our mistrust. Nor should it be mandatory to carry a cellphone,” Verónica Calderón, a journalist, wrote in a tweet.

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