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Owl 69/70/75 Online
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Post: #21
RE: Orwellian Descent
I am actually far more comfortable with a company that owns the airplanes making this kind of decision that for it to come by government edict. Those airplanes are their private property, and if they want to require it, fine.
11-23-2020 05:34 PM
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Post: #22
RE: Orwellian Descent
(11-20-2020 09:09 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  maybe they should put stars on their masks? Y'know, for ol' times' sake? This Government overreach has gotten WAAAY out of control...and history shows that does not lead to good places, especially from Germany's past history. Rather be for freedom than government dictatorial decrees.

Merkel spent her first 35 years under Communist East Germany.
11-23-2020 07:50 PM
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Post: #23
RE: Orwellian Descent
(11-21-2020 11:16 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  
(11-21-2020 10:49 AM)Native Georgian Wrote:  Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was published in 1949. Ever since, “Big Brother” has been something that existed mostly in the imagination, at least for Americans. A warning of things that might happen one day, off in the distant future.
Well, here we are. Good luck!

Any American who thinks Big Brother is off in the distant future is kidding him/herself.

And people really need to understand how much freer we are than even the British and Canadians, let alone the rest of Europe.
11-23-2020 07:51 PM
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Was SoMs Eagle Offline
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Post: #24
RE: Orwellian Descent
(11-20-2020 08:47 PM)shere khan Wrote:  Coming soon to a blue state near you.

National Democratic Socialists

Yes. They called them Nazis in the 30s and 40s in Germany.
11-23-2020 07:55 PM
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TigerBlue4Ever Offline
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Post: #25
RE: Orwellian Descent
muh globalism...
11-23-2020 08:15 PM
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CrimsonPhantom Offline
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Post: #26
RE: Orwellian Descent
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.

[Image: gfmsa-screenshot-1.jpeg]

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.

Link

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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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11-24-2020 07:24 PM
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olliebaba Offline
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Post: #27
RE: Orwellian Descent
With Trump gone who will stop these Big Tech companies. The Reps only talk to them but are just putting on a show. I wonder if Bite'em will create a Director of National Propaganda like Goebbels? OAN and Newsmax...goodbye if that happens.
11-24-2020 07:42 PM
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CrimsonPhantom Offline
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Post: #28
RE: Orwellian Descent
(11-24-2020 07:42 PM)olliebaba Wrote:  With Trump gone who will stop these Big Tech companies. The Reps only talk to them but are just putting on a show. I wonder if Bite'em will create a Director of National Propaganda like Goebbels? OAN and Newsmax...goodbye if that happens.

Quote:“If they (tech companies) sell ads that run alongside harmful content, they should be considered complicit in the harm. If their algorithms promote harmful content, they should be held accountable for helping redress the harm. In the long run, the only real way to moderate content is to moderate the business model.”

In other words Reed is not interested in the business model itself, i.e., what’s behind the process of selling ads and how Big Tech manages to make it so lucrative – namely, by harvesting data and undermining users’ privacy “at scale.”

This is ironic considering his previous involvement with the California privacy push, but also reveals what Section 230 would look like from the point of view of a Democratic administration: regulate more to censor even more, rather than to ensure censorship is eradicated.

For now at least, Section 230 continues to protect tech companies not only from lawsuits, but also from their own users.

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11-24-2020 07:52 PM
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Post: #29
RE: Orwellian Descent
It has to start somewhere. Civil disobedience. Cops and especially Sheriffs don't want to enforce B.S. rules handed down from tyrants.

Here is Huntington Beach, California protesting tyrant Newsome's 10 p.m. curfew. They know that covid isn't smart enough to discriminate about what time it gets transmitted. Also, they see the hypocrisy of the so called leaders and how worried they apparently are about it.



11-24-2020 07:53 PM
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Post: #30
RE: Orwellian Descent


11-24-2020 08:04 PM
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Post: #31
RE: Orwellian Descent
Quote:A Member of Parliament from the ruling Conservative Party was seen shouting, “You don’t need to obey an illegal order!” at police as they arrested an elderly woman at a peaceful anti-lockdown protest in London on Tuesday.

Metropolitan Police were filmed hauling the elderly woman “spread eagle” into the back of a police van, arresting her for alleged breaches of the Chinese coronavirus restrictions. Shocked at what he was witnessing, Sir Charles Walker MP shouted at the officers, calling their actions an “absolute disgrace”.

Following the arrest, the Tory MP took to the House of Commons to implore Prime Minister Boris Johnson to put an end to the “unconstitutional” and “un-British” restrictions on the right to protest.

“She was an old lady robbed of her dignity for having the courage to protest about having her fundamental rights and those of my constituents and others removed,” Sir Charles said.

“This is a disgrace. This is un-British. It is unconstitutional and this government, our prime minister, needs to end these injustices now,” the Conservative MP demanded.



Speaking to The Telegraph, Sir Charles went on to say of the incident: “It’s not what they’re protesting about, I’m not an anti-vaxxer, it’s their right to protest, the right not to give their name and addresses — they’re not violent, they’re just a bunch of people.”

“I suspect she’s a great British eccentric and I watched from up here in the House, her holding onto the railings and not wanting to corporate,” he added.

“It’s just nonsense, how can two people fail to disperse? The police are happy that they’ve followed the law, but the law is rotten,” the Conservative MP concluded.

Overzealous policing of anti-lockdown protesters is nothing new in the British capital. Since the beginning of the protest movement in the UK, the police have consistently clamped down on anti-shutdown demonstrations, while appearing to take a comparatively hands-off approach to leftist movements, such as Black Lives Matter.

At the last major rally against the lockdown in London earlier this month, police arrested 190 peaceful activists for supposed breaches of the coronavirus restrictions.

Police threatened journalists with arrest during the demonstration and officers were even seen threatening to arrest a man dressed as Santa Claus. Again, this is nothing new, as officers threatened Breitbart News’s James Delingpole with arrest for reporting at a lockdown protest in May.

Commenting on the arrest of the elderly woman, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “A group had come together to protest. Police engaged with those present and explained the current restrictions around gatherings of more than two people.”

“Two women refused to engage and were subsequently arrested for breaching the coronavirus restrictions. A short while later part of the group had re-gathered outside the Palace of Westminster.

“A third woman refused to comply, was arrested for breaching the coronavirus restrictions and then became uncooperative with officers. She was taken by police transport to custody,” the spokesman concluded.

Former Brexit MEP Martin Daubney joined Charles Walker in condemning the police, who he described as “COVID-1984 boot boys”, and lamented that the incident was a signal of how quickly the United Kingdom has “slipped into authoritarianism”, adding: “Sad, sad times.”

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11-25-2020 01:30 PM
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Post: #32
RE: Orwellian Descent
(11-21-2020 10:49 AM)Native Georgian Wrote:  Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was published in 1949. Ever since, “Big Brother” has been something that existed mostly in the imagination, at least for Americans. A warning of things that might happen one day, off in the distant future.

Well, here we are. Good luck!

Thanks to open borders and illegal immigration our demographics have changed over time. Say goodby to what the founding fathers, in their infinite wisdom, set up. Socialism/communism, ALL POWERFUL FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, is now the in thing. Destroy the educational system. Don't teach civics, history, morals or responsibility any more. Allow violence, de-fund the police, take away our guns/rights. Re-write the constitution. Make this nation the same as any other 3rd world nation. That's where we are headed.
11-25-2020 02:16 PM
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Post: #33
RE: Orwellian Descent
China proposes a global cyberspace community, while Chinese citizens are still heavily censored


Quote:Simultaneously as it is keeping much of the outside internet out of the bounds of its Great Firewall, China is prepared to cooperate with other countries in order to create a common, global cyberspace community that would focus on the underlying infrastructure – which China’s leading tech companies can serve well.

The idea to build this “community” was floated in a letter penned by President Xi Jinping and read at this year’s Wuzhen World Internet Conference, reports are saying.

Now in its seventh iteration, the conference, which Beijing uses to promote and “export” its model of restricted and controlled internet, in the past saw participation from Apple and Google CEOs Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai. This year, along with representatives of Chinese giants Alibaba and ZTE, Qualcomm and Cisco CEOs Steve Mollenkopf and Chuck Robbins are also taking part via video.

But the top speaker is no doubt Xi, whose message stressed the importance of digital technology in the era of coronavirus, but also the need for countries to work together on producing this “shared cyberspace,” i.e., internet infrastructure.

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Think tank proposes UK free speech act


Quote:A new paper authored by Adam Smith Institute’s legal fellow and technology lawyer Preston J. Byrne explores the state of freedom of speech in the UK and suggests that current problems the country is facing in this area could be solved by adopting rules protecting free speech modeled after the First Amendment of the US Constitution. )

As things stand, UK citizens can accuse others and even send them to prison for “crimes” like feeling offended by their speech, or finding that speech distressing or uncomfortable. But proper free speech protections should extend all the way to things that may be understood as “loathsome and hateful,” Byrne notes.

The reason to look for a new way of ensuring freedom of expression, which is a vital element in any true democracy, is the fact the UK has several laws that contravene it, such as the Public Order, Communications, Terrorism, and Malicious Communications acts, respectively. The way these are at times implemented goes against their original purpose and amounts to overreach, the paper’s author argues.

The newest batch of legislation that is a cause for concern in this space are the proposed Online Harms Bill and Scotland’s Hate Crime Bill, Byrne warns, adding that all these create a legal environment that protects the hearer rather than the speaker, and relies on social attitudes to introduce ever more restrictive policies.

On the other hand, the legislation that at this point guarantees free speech in the UK is based on Article 10 of the European Convention, that Byrne says is “woefully inadequate.” He believes that the article deals more with restricting than expanding free speech, while at the same time being quasi constitutional and poorly implemented in practice.

According to the paper, what Article 10 does is let subjective social and cultural trends shrink the boundaries of free speech, instead of providing an objective firm guarantee for it.

For all these reasons, Byrne thinks the UK should look for inspiration in the First Amendment to ensure protection of free speech and eliminate interference from the state, and name this new legislation the UK Free Speech Act.

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Australian intelligence agencies scooped up coronavirus tracing data


Quote:Based on what the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) has found, Australia’s intelligence and security agencies may have “incidentally” collected COVIDSafe contact tracing app’s data during the first six months after its launch. These findings were all a part of the report IGIS submitted to the Australian Information Commissioner.

The report furnished by IGIS stated that the data collection may have occurred “in the course of lawful collection of other data” which also makes it permissible under the country’s Privacy Act. One of the spokespeople for IGIS told a local news outlet that “execution of warrants” could be a possible reason why COVID app data collection could have occurred.

“Collection is considered ‘incidental’ if it is not possible or practicable to collect the data covered by the warrant without also inadvertently collecting COVIDSafe ap data,” said a spokesperson from IGIS.

It is worth noting that IGIS is not precisely pointing out which among the six intelligence and security agencies in its jurisdiction has been “incidentally” collecting user data. IGIS also stated that agencies were “taking steps to ensure any COVID app data is deleted as soon as practicable.” Even the country’s Privacy Act mandates that any state agency collecting COVIDSafe app data incidentally on grounds of “lawful collection of information” is to delete the data “as soon as practicable.”

The government has even passed strict punishments in case of disclosure, decryption, use, or collection of data for other purposes apart from contact tracing, which the data is originally intended for. What’s more, even IGIS is planning to verify whether the app data is being “deleted as soon as practicable after an agency becomes aware that it has been collected” over a period of six months.

“IGIS anticipates those inspections being completed prior to the next report to the Information Commissioner,” said a spokesperson.

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11-25-2020 07:27 PM
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Post: #34
RE: Orwellian Descent
Quote:Big tech may have enlisted a new soldier in their fight to silence conservatives on the internet: Outbrain.

Outbrain is a platform that publishers can use to display ads on their websites – including this one… formally.

This morning Dan got an email from Outbrain, informing us that they’d no longer be allowing us to use their platform. “It has come to our attention that some of the content on one or more of the domains associated with your account are in violation of the terms of our agreement” Outbrain says, without specifying what was violated.

Bizarrely, this email comes from their “anti-fraud team”…. who allege no fraud.



Twitter and Facebook in particular have long faced allegations of censoring conservatives. Twitter in particular has flagged hundreds of Trump’s tweets (and zero of Biden’s). Both platforms also made an effort to suppress the New York Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden.

While we have idea whatsoever what content of ours supposedly violated their terms of service, and we can only speculate that it’s for purely ideological reasons, it would be yet the millionth time this has happened to conservatives.

Outbrain is free to clarify what policy was violated – though it’s a bit odd they didn’t do so in the first place.

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11-27-2020 06:46 PM
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Post: #35
RE: Orwellian Descent
Facebook censorship covers up evidence of war crimes


Quote:War-torn Syria is figuratively and literally being picked apart: not only has it seen physical destruction at the hands of Islamic State and other terrorist groups of its historic sites, that are major world heritage monuments, but there’s also been widespread looting of its ancient treasures.

Facebook is then often used as the place where looters and black marketers set up groups that help them find their buyers, reports said.

While Facebook is busy trying to find an efficient way to suppress political speech and content, this type of criminal activity reportedly all too often slips through the giant’s censorship cracks, although the platform prohibited the sale of such items back in June.

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Twitter blocks links to Sidney Powell’s legal defense fund website, brands it “potentially harmful”


Quote:In its latest act of censorship against Sidney Powell, one of the attorneys spearheading legal challenges that allege voter fraud in the 2020 US presidential election, Twitter has blocked links to her legal defense fund website.

Twitter appears to have started blocking links to the site shortly after Powell published her 104-page complaint in Georgia that alleges “massive election fraud” and “multiple violations of Georgia laws.”

Powell is hosting a copy of the filing on her legal defense fund website but shortly after it was posted, Twitter users started to notice that they were being blocked from sharing it and presented with a message that states: “Your tweet couldn’t be sent because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.”

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Twitter temporarily suspended account of The Plot Against The President documentary


Quote:Twitter has emerged as one of the most radical social media platforms when it comes to suppressing and censoring information favorable to, or even coming from, President Trump.

This started in the months leading up to the 2020 election, and continues now with what looks like a purge of accounts of those associated with the documentary, The Plot Against the President.

The account for the film, @PATPmovie, had been suspended indefinitely, while according to a statement from its producers, accounts of several of their crew have also been blocked, including those that are inactive.

[Image: Screen-Shot-2020-11-27-at-21.27.50.png]

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Democrat Senators ask YouTube CEO to censor election “misinformation”


Quote:A group of Democratic Senators has requested YouTube remove videos containing election “misinformation.” They want YouTube to implement the strict censorship measures we have seen from Twitter.

In a letter addressed to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, Senators Gary Peters of Michigan, Robert Mendez of New Jersey, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, expressed “deep concern” over the election misinformation spreading on the video-sharing platform.

“These videos seek to undermine our democracy and cast doubt on the legitimacy of President-elect Biden’s incoming administration. Moreover, because the current president has not committed to a peaceful transition of power, misinformation and manipulated media content on your platform may fuel civil unrest,” the senators wrote in the letter.

“Our teams are working around the clock to quickly remove content that violates our policies and ensure that we are connecting people with authoritative information about elections,” said a YouTube spokesperson in a response to the letter. “Like other companies, we allow discussions of this election’s results and the process of counting votes, and are continuing to closely monitor new developments.”

However, via a tweet, the company confirmed that almost 90 percent of the results on election searches are from mainstream media companies such as Fox and CNN. So the company is already low-key censoring the hundreds of hours of content by independent outlets, citizen journalists, and commentary channels.

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Saying trans women aren’t women could soon be a crime in Scotland, depending on how it’s said


Quote:Depending on how it is said, saying that trans women are not women could soon be breaking the law in Scotland – that’s according to Scotland’s Justice Secretary. Proponents of freedom of speech fear that trans activists could use the law as a weapon against their enemies.

Humza Yousaf, the Justice Secretary said that saying gender is fixed is not hate speech against trans individuals unless the intention was to “stir up hatred.” His remarks follow criticism from public figures such as Rowan Atkinson and Chris Brookmyre, who felt that the hate crime bill would have a “chilling effect” on the public debate of controversial social issues.

“When people start throwing around accusations of hate, especially when those people are perceived to have an authority, we think there will be a chilling effect,” said Susan Smith, the director of For Women Scotland, an organization that opposes affording full women’s rights to trans individuals who identify as women. “The stirring up part of this bill has the potential to make life very much harder for a number of people by using this law as a weapon.”

Last week, the women’s rights advocacy group Murray Blackburn McKenzie expressed its concern that defining a woman as an adult female would lead to an investigation by the police. Yesterday, the justice secretary clarified that it would only be an offense if the intention were to incite hatred.

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Snowden: The modern internet became “less for the individual” and all about centralized control and censorship


Quote:Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Glenn Greenwald has interviewed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Greenwald was the journalist Snowden contacted in 2013 when he decided to go public with documents revealing global mass surveillance carried out by US and British spy agencies.

In the video interview published on Wednesday, Greenwald and Snowden, who is living in exile, spoke about a range of issues, including the state of the internet today and how it compares to its early days.

Greenwald wanted Snowden to recall what the internet was like in its infancy, for the benefit of those who are too young to remember it and only know it the way it is today – marked by centralization, and corporate Big Tech control and censorship.

Snowden spoke about the values that made the web exciting in the early days, when it was creative and cooperative, but also decentralized by virtue of most websites being built by individuals. These were small and not particularly sophisticated but “original and human” – a value that was lost as the internet became more and more centralized with the influx of big corporate and commercial players.

Another difference Snowden spoke about was the ability of people to protect their identities, choosing their own names and staying outside the system of personal data collection and tracking made possible by real identity rules imposed by Facebook and others.

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Tulsi Gabbard calls on President Trump to pardon Edward Snowden and Julian Assange


Quote:Outgoing Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has asked Donald Trump to pardon Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower, and Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder.

Both Assange and Snowden have been charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 as they had leaked or published classified information. Gabbard posted a video on Twitter where she asked Trump to consider pardoning both men.

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11-28-2020 06:35 PM
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Post: #36
RE: Orwellian Descent
Snowden should get the death penalty. He disclosed info and then went to China and Russia.

I can go with Assange pardoned.
11-28-2020 06:57 PM
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Bear Catlett Offline
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Post: #37
RE: Orwellian Descent
And lefties wonder why we don't want them to turn our country into Europe.
11-28-2020 07:22 PM
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Post: #38
RE: Orwellian Descent
Twitter’s “activist entrepreneur” manager for “safety” wants “transformative justice”


Quote:Roughly six months ago, Twitter covertly hired someone to be “head of product for conversational safety.” The person hired, some are suggesting, seems underqualified and her ideas could be seen as controversial depending on where you stand on the issue of censorship.

Twitter hired Christine Su for the role. She is a young American “activist entrepreneur.” Before joining Twitter she ran her startup called PastureMap, which helps ranchers choose more ecofriendly grazing practices.

Su is an odd choice for the role considering she has master’s degrees in agriculture and land use. According to the blog Protocol, the position could have probably been likely suited for someone with “experience in and out of academia, politics, and programming; an impenetrable wall of media-savvy; close ties to the exec suite,” especially since it’s currently one of Twitter’s most important jobs.

But, she has experience and interest “in mission-driven tech work for years,” and that was apparently enough for Twitter to hire her.

“As a queer woman of color who is an Asian American in tech in rural America, that experience is a very intersectional one. I’ve had plenty of experiences moving through spaces where I wanted more safety,” Su said.

Her apparent qualification or lack thereof aside, her ideas might be even more controversial, especially in this age of mass censorship.

According to Su, monitoring, reporting, and moderating questionable content is not enough. It does not address the harm done to the groups of people targeted, nor does it prevent the harm from happening again. For that reason, procedural and transformative justice is at the core of her dream of safer Twitter.

Link

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Gaming needs more regulation to rein in “hate speech,” EU anti-terror official says


Quote:Video games need to be subjected to more regulation and they apparently have something to do with the threat of terrorism – otherwise why would this opinion come from the mouth of the EU’s anti-terrorism coordinator, Gilles de Kerchove?

According to Kerchove, who spoke for AFP, terrorists can use video games to spread their ideology and he went as far as to say that real world attacks can be prepared by using games.

Kerchove has been in his job for 13 years now and a lot of terrorism has hit various parts of Europe in the meantime, resulting in hundreds of victims; this suggests that EU’s law enforcement and officials like the Belgian here are probably not doing their job well, considering all the powers and regulation of various relevant sectors of society and different industries they already have at their disposal.

But Kerchove’s mind went elsewhere; to vilify gaming as an actual likely component in a terrorist threat. His argument: some games have appeared in Germany, apparently created by “extreme right groups” and in these games, players are supposed to shoot the likes of German Chancellor Merkel, billionaire George Soros, and Arabs. He also spoke about gaming as possibly an “alternative” way of spreading ideology.

There are other “horrors” that he identifies gaming: “It can be a form of communicating. It’s encrypted. It can also be a way to test attack scenarios,” Kerchove said, without expanding on that last point.

He also mentions games as a way to “launder money” – maybe because every industry out there can potentially be used for the same purpose?

And more than a decade into Facebook and YouTube using algorithms to surface content in their users’ feeds in order to satisfy their business interests in terms of user engagement and ad sales, Kerchove is now discovering this practice and is upset because what he calls borderline and “problematic” (so, not actually illegal?) content also tending to float up in those feeds.

Kerchove added the EU wants “more, not less encryption” in general – but would also like tech companies to provide them with full access to unencrypted messages whenever law enforcement and prosecutors ask.

He argued, “Is it right that we aren’t able to identify who is behind an IP address…?”

Kerchove’s musings on these topics come mere days ahead of the presentation of the EU’s Digital Services Act whose goal, its creators say, is to “rein in Big Tech excesses and internet hate speech.”

Link


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New Hanover County GOP campaigns are censored by Facebook for “misinformation”


Quote:The New Hanover County, North Carolina, Republican Party has accused Facebook of censorship for flagging its political ads as “misinformation.”

The Republican Party in New Hanover, recognizing the importance of digital campaigning amid the lockdowns, decided to launch Facebook campaigns. According to party chair Will Knecht, the party went ahead and hired two firms to help with the digital campaigns. But their plan to use Facebook as an avenue to boost local candidates’ profiles did not work.

Trouble started after Facebook’s fact-checkers claimed that The New Hanover Republican Party page violated its misinformation policies.

The punishment was the demonetization of the page and limiting the page’s ability to share content.

“As a 30 plus year Deputy Sheriff, Charlie Miller knows what it takes to protect both our citizens and officers in our community. Vote for Charlie Miller in State House District 19!” read an ad that was not taken down.

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UK MP Khalid Mahmood calls for censorship of “misinformation” about coronavirus and politicians


Quote:The UK MP and Shadow Defense Minister for procurement, Khalid Mahmood, has said that there is rampant “misinformation” going around in the country and wants it silenced.

Mahmood joins the league of several other politicians in wanting to censor what they deem to be misinformation. Speaking at the Speaking during the Westminster Forum Conference, he also added that “misinformation about politicians” was also being widely shared and that responsibility “is totally negated from platforms where someone can put whatever they want and move forward.”

He also added that politicians needed to deal with how social media platforms are going to censor people’s conversations on social media. Considering the fact that the UK government is already planning on heavily regulating the online social media landscape with its Online Harms Bill, claims from politicians such as Mahmood asking for even stringent monitoring seems to hint at a gloomy future for free speech online.

Pointing out to the fact that online profiles cannot always be traced down immediately and online platforms would also need time to deal with such issues, the UK MP further suggested that the problem needed to be tackled before it got too late.

Politicians on one end are calling out social media and online platforms for not tackling what they think is misinformation successfully. Stakeholders of online platforms, in return, are commenting that there needs to be a stronger legislation in place to implement the kind of measures politicians are aiming at, and almost no one is speaking up for free expression.

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Protests continue in France over “security” law that bans citizens from photographing or livestreaming police


Quote:Protests organized across France on Saturday saw tens of thousands come out against a new law now in the works that rights groups think will limit freedom of expression and lower the bar on police accountability.

Already approved in the lower house of the French parliament, the law must also be passed by the Senate and the protests organized in several major cities now aim to pressure the government into amending it to change or remove some of its most important provisions.

In Paris alone, some 50,000 are said to have gathered, displaying signs with messages such as, “Democracy under attack,” and, “Who watches the watchmen?”

Reports say that the goal of the bill is to treat it as a crime and in that way prevent sharing of images of on duty police officers – showing their faces or anything else that might identify them.

Earlier this week, video emerged of three police officers abusing and beating a music producer.

The images, which show the victim Michel Zecler being kicked and punched at a Paris studio, have shocked the nation. Zecler’s “crime” was not wearing a face mask.

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11-30-2020 07:33 PM
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CrimsonPhantom Offline
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Post: #39
RE: Orwellian Descent
Oregon nurse suspended after showing “indifference” to COVID on TikTok


Quote:A nurse from Salem, Oregon, has been put on administrative leave for what the Salem Health hospital said was her “indifference” towards restrictive coronavirus measures online.

In a statement on Facebook, the hospital called a TikTok video that the nurse, Ashley Grames, posted on the @Loveiskind05 account a demonstration of “cavalier disregard” for how serious the coronavirus pandemic is.

[Image: Screen-Shot-2020-12-01-at-01.03.53.png]

The short video shows a woman in medical gear with a shocked expression on her face, and is captioned by suggesting this is how her coworkers react “when they find out I still travel, don’t wear a mask when I’m out and let my kids have play dates.”

It turned out that the hospital only found out about this when Facebook users reported the nurse in the comments left on the health institution’s page, warning in a dramatic tone that their staff may not believe in science, does not understand basic protocols, and even questioned how sanitary the facility is.

Others wanted to see the nurse fired rather than suspended, referring to her TikTok as proof of “incredibly” irresponsible behavior and urging the hospital to pay closer attention to whom it hires.

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UK towns use coronavirus to justify mass surveillance of residents’ personal details


Quote:Xantura, a private data analytics company, has signed highly lucrative and by the looks of things highly privacy-invasive deals with local governments in British towns, whose goal is to spy on residents who might be breaking Covid rules.

The profiling program, dubbed OneView, is supposed to track people in order to predict who is most likely to get infected with the virus by not obeying lockdown rules.

Xantura boasted that it had millions of pieces of data collected during its previous 12 years of working with local councils – and that this is now a set big enough to make its algorithms “incredibly accurate.”

But an investigation by the Daily Mail shows there is concern that Xantura is harvesting massive amounts of sensitive personal information, and doing it for no good reason.

This data comes from local councils and the algorithms seem to be attempting to build a complete profile of an individual’s personality and circumstances, in order to predict how they might react to Covid restrictions.

Among the pieces of sensitive data that have been harvested so far, said to now be reaching millions of details, is information about people’s family debt, income, living arrangements, and even school absences. In addition Xantura tracks “unfaithful and unsafe sex, emotional health and wellbeing, sleep issues and dangerous pets, anger management issues and socially unacceptable behavior,” the report said.

Privacy groups like Big Brother Watch but also some British MPs fail to understand why so much detailed private data is needed to achieve the goal of predicting the spread of Covid, and also want to see more transparency around the whole controversy.

Big Brother Watch see this case as evidence that the pandemic has given rise to widespread mass surveillance that is now becoming a trend, adding that local authorities are handling this amount of personal data in a nontransparent fashion, without allowing people to know how it is used and how it might affect their lives.

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Facebook deleted account of grieving mother, denying her access to photos of her late son


Quote:Facebook has deleted the account of a mother, causing her to lose videos and photos of her son who died seven years ago.

Facebook said that she breached community standards but did not specify the policies she violated.

Nicky Massey, a UK Labour Party councilor from Cambridge, realized she could not log into her Facebook account last Monday. She said, “It said my account had been blocked and I need to find some identification.”

“When I went to try and do it, it said my account had been basically deleted, deactivated due to breach of community standards and it’s not reversible,” she added.

She explained that she first thought that she had been hacked. It would not be the first time. 10 years ago, she was hacked and lost all photos of her son when he was in the hospital.

Her late son Ethan was born in 2009, 16 weeks premature. His premature birth led to health complications and he died in 2013, before his fourth birthday, due to a lung infection.

She was not the only one that lost her account around the same time. Her fellow moderators of the Facebook page of National Save Our Children’s Centres, an organization fighting budget cuts at kids’ centers, also lost their Facebook accounts.

Massey said that the removal of their accounts “was not connected to that page.”

“All of us have behaved to our best standards, as you would imagine, so we don’t understand the reasoning,” she explained.

Massey was devastated at the removal of the account because she lost memories of her son.

“I took a Facebook live video of my son Ethan, his first steps. We were told he wasn’t going to walk and he amazed us all by walking.

“That’s gone. It’s the whole story – my announcement that I was pregnant with Ethan, my announcement that I had him early, and then of course as he got sicker, those updates.

“Although they’re not nice memories, they are memories that pull you back to that time of when he was here, and they’re gone,” she said.

Link

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UK citizens will have to show digital passport and vaccination status to get access to public life


Quote:In the UK, people might soon not be able to access public spaces such as restaurants, sports stadiums, and movie theaters without proof of coronavirus vaccination through an app. So, while the vaccine could be optional, Britons who choose not to take it might face major restrictions in access to public life if they can’t produce the app when requested.

Nadhim Zahawi, a member of parliament who was recently tasked with the deployment of the coronavirus vaccine, warned that businesses would require proof of COVID-19 vaccination from customers before they enter, similar to the current QR code scanning for contact tracing. In other words, once a vaccine is approved, Britons will require “immunity passports.”

Zahawi confirmed that the department of health was looking to develop immunity passports.

“We are looking at the technology,” he said speaking to the BBC. He added that such technology would be “a way of people being able to inform their GP (physician) that they have been vaccinated.”

“But I also think you’ll probably find that restaurants and bars and cinemas and other venues, sports venues, will probably also use that system – as they have done with the app.”

Zahawi also confirmed the vaccine would not be compulsory but hinted that those who choose not to might face many restrictions.

“I think it is right that it is voluntary. People have to be allowed to decide for themselves whether they want to be vaccinated or otherwise. But, I think the very strong message that you will see, this is the way we return the whole country, and so it’s good for your family, it’s good for your community, it’s good for your country to be vaccinated. And, ultimately people will have to make a decision,” he explained.

The head of the NHS Test and Trace system, Baroness Dido Harding who was CEO of the communications group TalkTalk during one of the biggest data breaches in UK history, said that her team was working on updating the app so that it could show the vaccination status.

Speaking to the Times, she said that she was hoping that “in the future to be able to have a single record as a citizen of your test results and whether you’ve been vaccinated.”

Link

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Australian citizen finally released from jail after Egypt arrest for hitting “like” on a political post


Quote:An Australian citizen has finally returned home after spending 10 months in a prison in Cairo over a Facebook post. The Egyptian government continues to ignore human rights and is notorious for arbitrarily detaining human rights activists and critics.

Early this year, in January, Waled Youssef visited his family in Cairo. However, he did not get to spend time with family as planned as he was arrested and sent to Tora Prison in Cairo.

Youssef was detained by local police while sightseeing with his family. The officers went through his belongings and scrolled through his Facebook timeline. He was then accused of being a member of a banned political group because he had liked a post by a former presidential candidate, who has been in prison since the last election.

However, according to the lawyers of the 45-year-old Youssef, he has never belonged to any Egyptian political party, let alone a banned political group. But the Egyptian authorities were having none of it and denied appeals and even prevented him from getting visitors.

As a result, Youssef’s lawyers had to lobby the Australian government and the United Nations to intervene. Eventually, an Egyptian court ordered his release on October 14. He was released from the prison, where he was sharing a small cell with about a dozen other prisoners, 12 days later. He then had to wait several weeks for a flight back home to Australia.

In a statement released by his lawyers on his return home, he expressed his relief at being back home finally.

“I never would have expected a trip to visit my family would see me thrown into Tora prison. It was the most harrowing experience 10 months of my life. I just want to heal and recover from this unbelievable and horrendous experience,” he said.

The Egyptian government does not take kindly to criticism, especially on its stand on human rights. About two weeks ago, at least two members of the human rights advocacy group Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) were arrested for attending a meeting with diplomats from Europe. The charges were, among others, “spreading false news” and “joining a terror group.”

Even private citizens of other nations could be jailed if they like posts from opponents of the Egyptian government.

Link

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Could “fact checkers” be coming to streaming services? UK culture secretary lashes out at “The Crown” accuracy


Quote:“Fact-checking” could be coming to TV drama – lest viewers start thinking they are watching a documentary, or perhaps a news program.

In particular, many who are currently up in arms in the UK over what they say is inaccurate portrayal of the royal family in the Netflix series, The Crown, seem to have little faith that viewers will be able to tell the difference on their own.

For that reason, UK Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden has joined those who want Netflix to make it absolutely clear that this work of fiction is just that, fearing that otherwise, the perception of the royal family might suffer irreparable consequences by people taking every twist of plot and dialogue as factual representation of what had happened.

A part of the problem seems to be that the series’ screenwriter, Peter Morgan, is seen as a proponent of republicanism (i.e., anti-monarchy) in the UK, and that his script shows it. A friend of Prince Charles has been quoted making this statement, while Charles himself is seen as the one whose reputation would be damaged the most from any wrong perceptions stemming from this TV drama.

Viewers are variously described as “being lured” and “manipulated.” One example is the claim in the series that Charles continued his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles during his marriage to Diana, which critics say is false, even though he admitted it in 1994.

Among those calling for facts to be established and labels and disclaimers placed on the TV series are the Mail on Sunday, Margret Thatcher’s allies, Navy commanders who participated in the Falklands war, but also Diana’s brother Earl Spencer, while some conservative politicians are looking for ways to “punish” Netflix by exploring why it pays corporate tax on UK subscriptions in the Netherlands (where the streaming service is based in Europe).

On the other hand, what’s particularly concerning to those critical of Netflix here is the huge audience the series has had so far – 29 million in the first week, more than half a million more than tuned in to watch the Charles and Diana wedding.

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12-01-2020 03:32 PM
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CrimsonPhantom Offline
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Post: #40
RE: Orwellian Descent
12-04-2020 01:21 PM
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