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Sheryl Sandberg Misled Congress About Facebook’s Conscience

Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

SHERYL SANDBERG MISLED CONGRESS ABOUT FACEBOOK’S CONSCIENCE

FACEBOOK CHIEF OPERATING officer Sheryl Sandberg draped herself in the star-spangled banner of American principles before today’s Senate Select Intelligence Committee hearing on social media. Sandberg proclaimed that democratic values of free expression were integral to the company’s conscience. “We would only operate in a country where we could do so in keeping with our values,” she went on. Either this was a lie told under oath, or Facebook has some pretty lousy values.

“We would only operate in a country where we could do so in keeping with our values.”

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., questioned Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey about the fact that they are both ostensibly American companies, but also firms with users around the world — including in countries with legal systems and values that differ drastically from the United States. Rubio cited various governments that crack down on, say, pro-democracy activism and that criminalize such speech. How can a company like Facebook claim that it’s committed to free expression as a global value while maintaining its adherence to rule of law on a local level? When it comes to democratic values, Rubio asked, “Do you support them only in the United States or are these principles that you feel obligated to support around the world?”

Sandberg, as always, didn’t miss a beat: “We support these principles around the world.” Shortly thereafter she made the claim that Facebook simply would not do business in a country where these values couldn’t be maintained.

Based on the information Facebook itself makes available, this is false. In its latest publicly available “transparency report,” Facebook says it helps block free expression as a matter of policy — so long as it’s technically legal in a given market.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Facebook Is An Intolerant Authoritarian Organization That Suppresses Free Speech

Facebook Is An Intolerant Authoritarian Organization That Suppresses Free Speech

Facebook Is An Intolerant Authoritarian Organization That Suppresses Free Speech

Facebook, Twitter, Google are information monopolies that intentionally violate the US Constitution’s protected First Amendment right. These organizations are evil and they are destroying the public’s right to know. These organizations should be nationalized without compensation and put under the governance of known and committed defenders of the First Amendment. Facebook, Twitter, and Google are inconsistent with a free society. They are functionaries in Big Brother’s police state.

If an investigative journalist looked into these organizations, I believe many links to the CIA and deep state would be found.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/28/technology/inside-facebook-employees-political-bias.html

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/08/30/facebook-engineer-stunning-admission-we-tear-down-posters-welcoming-trump-supporters.html

Read more:

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/08/31/facebook-censorship-mad-ben-nimmo-and-atlantic-council.html

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/08/29/social-media-giants-enter-nato-service.html

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/08/27/facebook-kills-inauthentic-foreign-news-accounts-us-propaganda-stays-alive.html

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/08/14/four-person-nato-funded-team-advises-facebook-flagging-propaganda.html

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/05/24/facebook-partners-with-hawkish-atlantic-council-nato-lobby-group-protect-democracy.html

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/04/30/how-facebook-etc.-suppress-key-truths.html

Social Media vs the Constitution


Salvador Dali The burning giraffe 1937
Dali: “The only difference between immortal Greece and our era is Sigmund Freud who discovered that the human body, which in Greek times was merely neoplatonical, is now filled with secret drawers only to be opened through psychoanalysis.”
An ancient Latin saying goes: “Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi” (what is permissible for Jupiter, is not for an ox). It feels very much on topic when social media are concerned. And as the heat over their censorship is turned up, it may well be the decisive factor.

Reuters reiterates today that on May 23, Manhattan US District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald ruled that Donald Trump’ Twitter account is a public forum and blocking Twitter users for their views violates their right to free speech under the First Amendment. The same, says the ruling, applies to other government officials’ accounts.

On August 10, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University sent the Justice Department a list of 41 accounts that remained blocked. Since, at least 20 have been unblocked. Interestingly, the same Justice Department has stated that the ruling was “fundamentally misconceived” arguing Trump’s account “belongs to Donald Trump in his personal capacity and is subject to his personal control, not the control of the government.”

Potentially even more interesting is that “the Internet Association, a trade group that represents Twitter, Facebook Inc, Amazon.com, and Alphabet Inc, filed a brief in the case earlier this month that did not back Trump or the blocked users but urged the court to “limit its decision to the unique facts of this case so that its decision does not reach further than necessary or unintentionally disrupt the modern, innovative Internet.” “

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Social Media Titans Holding Private Meeting To Coordinate Strategy For 2018 Midterms

Representatives from around a dozen US tech titans are holding a private Friday meeting at Twitter headquarters to coordinate their efforts ahead of the 2018 US midterm elections, reports BuzzFeed News.

Last week, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, invited employees from a dozen companies, including Google, Microsoft, and Snapchat, to gather at Twitter’s headquarters in downtown San Francisco… –BuzzFeed News

“As I’ve mentioned to several of you over the last few weeks, we have been looking to schedule a follow-on discussion to our industry conversation about information operations, election protection, and the work we are all doing to tackle these challenges,” Gleicher wrote.

The meeting has a three-part agenda; each company will present their latest efforts to counter “information operations,” then there will be a discussion about problems each company faces; and finally, participants will discuss whether such coordination conclaves should become an annual affair.

Nine of the companies meeting Friday also met in May at Facebook to discuss similar issues along with two US government representatives; Department of Homeland Security Under Secretary Chris Krebs and Mike Burham from the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force created last November. The attendees say they were discouraged after the meeting after receiving little input from the G-men.

Red Dawn?

Social media giants – particularly Facebook and Twitter – faced harsh scrutiny from Democratic legislators following the 2016 US election for allowing “fake news” and Russia to rob Hillary Clinton of her turn to be president, or for somehow forcing her to ignore several key states while campaigning.

On the other hand, Facebook VP of advertising, Rob Goldman, admitted in February that “the majority of the Russian ad spend happened AFTER the election,” and “I have seen all of the Russian ads and I can say very definitively that swaying the election was *NOT* the main goal.” 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Five examples that show internet censorship is as much a threat to the left as the right

Five examples that show internet censorship is as much a threat to the left as the right

Five examples that show internet censorship is as much a threat to the left as the right
The banning of right wing controversialist Alex Jones from multiple social media platforms last week was a cause of celebration for many liberals, but should those on the left really be so complacent about creeping censorship?

So far, the evidence suggest that there is indeed plenty for the left to worry about when it comes to corporations like Facebook and Twitter and their alliances with government censors.

1. Facebook censorship of Venezuelan news

In May, Facebook partnered with the Atlantic Council in an effort to weed out “inauthentic content” on the platform. This organization is funded by various NATO governments and a slew of arms manufacturers like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Its board includes names like Henry Kissinger and former CIA director Michael Hayden — and it has consistently lobbied for regime change in Syria and, you guessed it, Venezuela, where it has funnelled large amounts of money into pro-opposition groups for years.

So, it’s no surprise that weeks after Facebook partnered up with this less-than-objective group, it deleted from its platform the page belonging to top English-language, left-leaning Latin American news outlet Telesur without any explanation at all. The page was restored two days later, with Facebook citing vague “instability on the platform” as the cause of the block.

Telesur just so happens to be one of the only major outlets reporting on events in Venezuela in a manner that goes against the US government position and US mainstream media perspective — so obviously, out with Alex Jones it must go.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Twitter Shut Down My Account For “Abusing” John McCain

Twitter Shut Down My Account For “Abusing” John McCain

UPDATE: It looks like the suspension was lifted just after I hit publish on this. A lot of my fans and even a few haters made a big noise in objection to Twitter’s actions, and it worked! As we discussed recently, the plutocratic manipulators work so hard to manufacture our consent because they need that consent, and they can’t act if we don’t give it to them. I’ve left the article as-is below for posterity, and so people can see my experience with #Resistance Twitter’s attempt to silence dissident speech. Never stop fighting.

~

I’ve received an email from Twitter which reads as follows:

Hello Caitlin Johnstone,

Your account, caitoz has been suspended for violating the Twitter Rules.

Specifically, for:

Violating our rules against abusive behavior.
You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. We consider abusive behavior an attempt to harass, intimidate, or silence someone else’s voice.

Note that if you attempt to evade a permanent suspension by creating new accounts, we will suspend your new accounts. If you wish to appeal this suspension, please contact our support team.

They’re calling it a “suspension”, but nobody can view my page and I can’t perform any activities on it, and it appears to be permanent unless I succeed in going through the anonymous and unaccountable appeals process. Now when people try to access my account, they get a screen that looks something like this depending on what device they’re using:

I haven’t abused anybody, and I’ve been observing extreme caution with my language for the last few days ever since I made a political tweet about John McCain which drew the wrath of #Resistance Twitter. The offending tweet reads as follows:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Must Watch Interview – Iraq War Whistleblower Banned from Twitter Tells His Story

Must Watch Interview – Iraq War Whistleblower Banned from Twitter Tells His Story

During my time in Iraq working for the State Department, a time that I initially was a red, white and blue government official, I frequently lied to the media. I lied to them about how things were going, I lied to them about how successful we were. My colleagues and I were contemptuous of them, most of the people we talked to in the media didn’t know enough to ask important questions, most of them didn’t care enough to ask questions and simply jotted down whatever we told them, and it was just remarkably easy to fool them. It’s almost as if they wanted to play along with us.

At one point I described it as they weren’t looking for “the story,” just “a story.” I made some remarks about how many of them were more concerned about looking good in their stand-ups, getting their makeup on straight than looking for details or questioning the lies that the government put forward. 

– Peter Van Buren, Iraq War Whistleblower, banned from Twitter a few days ago

The above quote is from an extraordinary discussion between Daniel McAdams, Scott Horton and Peter Van Buren that occurred yesterday.

Stop whatever you’re doing right now and watch this, it’s that important.

Let’s now get right into why this is so incredibly problematic. Mr. Van Buren claims that he was deleted from Twitter after making a mainstream journalist named Jonathan Katz uncomfortable with what was an obvious joke that no honest person would ever take as a real threat of violence.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Apple, Google, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter Subvert the US Constitution, Free Speech, and American Liberty

Apple, Google, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter Subvert the US Constitution, Free Speech, and American Liberty

The coordinated attack on widely watched Info Wars host Alex Jones by Apple, Facebook, Google/Youtube, and Spotify is all the proof that we need that the total failure to enforce America’s anti-trust laws has produced unaccountably powerful firms that are able to exercise far more censorship, not only in America but also abroad among Washington’s vassal states, than the Nazi Gestapo or Stalin’s NKVD were ever able to achieve.

Recently the progressive Rob Kall and I discussed on his show the implications of a trillion dollar company, which Apple now is. A day or two afterward, Rob Kall wrote an article on his website OpEdNews in which he made a case that a trillion dollar company had too much power for our continuation as a free people. I agree with him. Only 16 countries out of 195 countries in the world, a mere 0.08 percent, have a GDP equal to or larger than one trillion dollars.

Think about that. Apple is larger than the GNP of almost every country in the world. In other words, Apple has the power of a major government. Apple could be a member of the G-20. Apple could institute its own currency and be part of SDR drawing rights. Apple could participate as a backer of IMF and World Bank loans. Apple could have its own military and secret service.

No sooner than Rob Kall made his case than Apple proved it, along with the other tech monopolies: Google/Youtube, Spotify, and Facebook. https://www.rt.com/usa/435259-infowars-ban-twitter-reacts/

In the US almost everything has been monopolized—the digital world; 90% of the print and TV media owned by 5 or 6 companies; 90% of bank deposits in 5 large banks “too big to fail; Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes which have abolished independent community family stores; auto parts franchises that have abolished family businesses; restuarant franchises that have destroyed family restaurants; pharmacautical and chemical monopolies.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Crackdown Continues: Twitter Suspends Libertarian Accounts, Including Ron Paul Institute Director

One day after what appeared to be a coordinated attack by media giants Facebook, Apple, Spotify and Google on Alex Jones, whose various social media accounts were banned or suspended in a matter of hours, the crackdown against alternative media figures continued as several Libertarian figures, including the Ron Paul Institute director, found their Twitter accounts suspended.


Two more casualties of the Twitter purge of antiwar voices: @ScottHortonShow, the new editorial director of http://Antiwar.com, and @DanielLMcAdams, director of the Ron Paul Institute.

Are you next?


On Monday, Twitter suspended the editorial director of antiwar.com Scott Horton, former State Department employee Peter Van Buren, and Dan McAdams, the executive director of the Ron Paul Institute.


Scott Horton, Peter Van Buren, and Dan McAdams have been suspended from Twitter.
If you go to their accounts, you will see their old tweets, but they are prohibited from making new tweets. They were reported by @KatzOnEarth for criticizing his posts. Please complain to Twitter.


Horton was reportedly disciplined for the use of “improper language” against journalist Jonathan M. Katz, he said in a brief statement, while McAdams was suspended for retweeting him, he said. Past tweets in both accounts were available to the public at the time of the writing, unlike the account of Van Buren, which was fully suspended.

According to TargetLiberty, Horton and McAdams fell victim of Twitter’s suspension algorithm after objecting to Katz’s quarrel with Van Buren over an earlier interview.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trump’s Tweets End the Myth of Fed Independence

Trump’s Tweets End the Myth of Fed Independence

President Trump’s recent Tweets expressing displeasure with the Federal Reserve’s (minor) interest rate increases led to accusations that President Trump is undermining the Federal Reserve’s independence. But, the critics ignore the fact that Federal Reserve “independence” is one of the great myths of American politics.

When it comes to intimidating the Federal Reserve, President Trump pales in comparison to President Lyndon Johnson. After the Federal Reserve increased interest rates in 1965, President Johnson summoned then-Fed Chairman William McChesney Martin to Johnson’s Texas ranch where Johnson shoved him against the wall. Physically assaulting the Fed chairman is probably a greater threat to Federal Reserve independence than questioning the Fed’s policies on Twitter.

While Johnson is an extreme example, history is full of cases where presidents pressured the Federal Reserve to adopt policies compatible with the presidents’ agendas — and helpful to their reelection campaigns. Presidents have been pressuring the Fed since its creation. President Warren Harding called on the Fed to lower rates. Richard Nixon was caught on tape joking with then-Fed chair Arthur Burns about Fed independence. And Lloyd Bentsen, President Bill Clinton’s first Treasury secretary, bragged about a “gentleman’s agreement” with then-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan.

President Trump’s call for low interest rates contradicts Trump’s earlier correct criticism of the Fed’s low interest rate policy as harming middle-class Americans. Low rates can harm the middle class, but they also benefit spend-and-borrow politicians and their favorite special interests by lowering the federal government’s borrowing costs. Significant rate increases could make it impossible for the government to service its existing debt, thus making it difficult for President Trump and Congress to continue increasing welfare and warfare spending.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Big Social Media Companies Are Being Used As A Weapon To Advance The Agenda Of The New World Order

The Big Social Media Companies Are Being Used As A Weapon To Advance The Agenda Of The New World Order

In 2018, we have seen an unprecedented crackdown on anti-establishment voices on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. When they were first created, these social media platforms were essentially neutral, and they really did greatly contribute to the marketplace of ideas. But now there is a tremendous effort to censor voices that are a threat to the establishment, and in recent months we have witnessed the greatest purge of conservative voices in the history of the Internet. Anything that does not conform to the agenda of the elite is being labeled as “hate speech”, and countless anti-establishment voices have had social media accounts either “shadowbanned” or terminated completely. Needless to say, this could dramatically affect the outcome of the elections in November.

And it isn’t just political voices that are being silenced. As you will see at the end of this article, Facebook has been shutting down dozens and dozens of alternative health pages.

Why would they do that?

Well, the New World Order absolutely hates when people start questioning conventional medicine, vaccines and the giant pharmaceutical companies. Rather than engaging in legitimate debate, they would rather shut down dissenting voices instead.

Before the Internet came along, the elite had a virtual monopoly over the flow of information in our society. They owned all of the television networks, radio stations, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, etc.

But then the Internet happened, and all of a sudden ordinary people like you and I could communicate with one another on a mass scale without having to go through the gatekeepers. It was a wonderful thing, but we all knew that it wouldn’t be like that forever.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Twitter Caught Censoring Conservative Journalists With Site-Wide Shadowbans

Two days after Twitter told Congress that they aren’t politically biased when censoring content, several prominent conservatives discovered that the social media giant automatically includes them in a site-wide “Quality Filter Discrimination” shadowban which prevents anyone not already following them from viewing their posts.

While the filters have been around since August 2016 and were supercharged in May, Twitter’s aggressive censorship of conservative accounts was noticed Thursday afternoon by the Daily Wire‘s Ryan Saavedra, after he said he saw reduced activity following a viral tweet with 3.85 million views in which Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters (CA) calls for attacks on members of the Trump administration. In short order, a flood of influential conservative Twitter users discovered they were shadowbanned also using an account checking tool at shadowban.eu.

🇺🇸

Twitter shadow ban test says I am shadowbanned.
I noticed my account was getting a lot less activity after I posted a video about Maxine Waters that went viral.
It’s disappointing

to see @Twitter @TwitterSupport @Jack @LeslieBerland censoring conservative reporters.


…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

CA Judge: Twitter Can Be Sued For Falsely Advertising They Allow Free Speech

CA Judge: Twitter Can Be Sued For Falsely Advertising They Allow Free Speech

A California judge has ruled that social media giant Twitter can be sued for falsely advertising free speech. The judge said that Twitter’s policy of banning users “at any time, for any reason or for no reason” may constitute an “unconscionable contract” for a company which advertises free speech.

The judge rejected Twitter’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit from Jared Taylor, who was banned by the platform in December last year, according to Breitbart.  Taylor, a self-described “white activist” may proceed with his lawsuit against Twitter because the social media company falsely advertises free speech, yet bans users for “any or no reason.”  The judge also ruled that Twitter could be sued on the basis of misleading its users, due to the platform’s promise not to ban accounts on the basis of viewpoint or political affiliation, which is frequently violated.

“This ruling has massive implications for the platform going forward,” said Noah Peters, Jared Taylor’s lawyer. “this is the first time that a social media company’s argument that it can censor user speech has been rejected by a court.”

Taylor describes himself as a “race realist” and has defended white separatism, claiming that races are “not equal”, but his attorney says this trial is not about his client’s particular views, and that’s a correct assessment.  The trial is about Twitter’s disallowance of free speech although they use that term to advertise the social media platform.

“Our lawsuit is not about whether Taylor is right or wrong,” Peters said in February.It’s about whether Twitter and other technology companies have the right to ban individuals from using their services based on their perceived viewpoints and affiliations.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Morgan Stanley: The Tech Bubble “Can Burst At Any Moment, Without Warning”

Earlier this week, Goldman Sachs, whose market-timing calls leave much to be desired, declared that tech stocks are “not a bubble”, and went so far as to predict that the secular increase in tech names could continue for decades, spawning vivid memories of Goldman’s May 2008 prediction of $200 oil just months before the start of the second great depression, and before oil crashed more than $100/barrel, wiping out a generation of muppets.

However, it is now safe to say that with the exception of some truly naive individuals, virtually nobody believes Goldman any more, and thus Goldman’s “all clear” may be just the top-tick so many had been waiting for.

One skeptic is Bank of America’s Michael Hartnett who back in March, just as the tech sector suffered its first big rout of 2018, had the gall to tell the truth and observe that the “e-Commerce” sector, which consists of AMZN, NFLX, GOOG, TWTR, EBAY, FB, was now up 617% since the financial crisis, making it the 3rd largest bubble of the past 40 years, and at this rate – assuming no major drop in the 6 constituent stocks – was set to become the largest bubble of all time over the next few months.

Hartnett followed up this this week by noting that while so far Tech stocks have seen record inflows as they have emerged as the “defensive growth” sector of the late market cycle…

… the “big risk” is “as in 1998, that credit tremors spread and investors forced to deleverage from risk assets, raise cash”, while the “biggest risk” is a “quick, deep tech selloff.  Or, as Bloomberg’s Andrew Cinko put it on Friday it, “if the times get tough and investors must delever they will sell “what they own,” and that “those who are rotating to financials and banks this week and away from tech may simply be trading the frying pan for the fire.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is Social Media Destroying Humanity on Purpose?

Is Social Media Destroying Humanity on Purpose?

You may not be on social media yourself, but chances are your friends and family are. Some of us are on there for work purposes and some so we can keep in touch with loved ones who live far away. There are valid reasons we have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But things are getting ugly out there in Internetland and it begs the question of whether social media is destroying humanity.

And even worse, is social media destroying humanity on purpose, because it was engineered to do so?

You’d have to live under a rock big enough to block all internet communications to not have heard about the privacy scandals that have plagued Facebook recently. From Cambridge Analytica mining user’s datato Facebook’s massive profits from your data, it’s been all over the news. Zuckerberg even had to testify to Congress about it for 10 hours recently, in the end apologizing for his part in the scandal.

But your lack of privacy may be just a drop in the bucket. 

A while back, Facebook admitted that they were performing psychological experiments on users by adjusting their news feeds to see if they could alter the moods of users. They have a long and disturbing history of experimenting on users.

But it may be far more serious than merely toying with us. It’s entirely possible that they’re actually programming us. All it takes is a glimpse at the headlines to realize the world has become more insane than ever – and maybe this has been done deliberately. Maybe social media is destroying humanity on purpose.

One former Facebook executive said, “We have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.”

And everyone knows this is true.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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