Posts

States’ Lawsuit Reveals Feds Pushed Censorship Tools to Big Tech

/0 Comments/in , /by

Disclosures brought about by Missouri and Louisiana’s tech First Amendment lawsuit against the federal government reveal that the U.S. State Department actively marketed government-funded online censorship tools to Big Tech companies.

As reported by the Federalist, an official at the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, or GEC, sent an email to the popular business networking platform LinkedIn advertising the so-called “disinfo cloud,” a GEC-funded project that sought to identify “disinformation” online.

GEC senior advisor Samaruddin Stewart first wrote to LinkedIn in February 2020, requesting a meeting, saying he had been “tasked with building relationships with technology companies,” and that he was reaching out to companies interested in “countering disinformation.”

In another email to LinkedIn employees following the meeting, Stewart advertised the GEC’s censorship tool.

“I’ll send information… about gaining access to Disinfo Cloud — which is a GEC funded platform that offers stakeholders an opportunity to discover companies, technology, and tools that can assist with identifying, understanding, and addressing disinformation,” said Stewart. (Read more from “States’ Lawsuit Reveals Feds Pushed Censorship Tools to Big Tech” HERE)

Delete Facebook, Delete Twitter, Follow Restoring Liberty and Joe Miller at gab HERE.

Economic Downturn in Tech Industry Could Affect Americans in Worst Way

/0 Comments/in , /by

Americans could suffer from Big Tech firms laying off workers and freezing hiring as the economy remains volatile, the founder of a Bay Area job search community told Fox News.

“The average American will probably be impacted, at least in some form, by what may happen in this next economic downturn in the tech industry,” Albert’s List founder Albert Qian said. “We touch these things every single day, whether it’s Google Search, a store on Amazon, an Apple device.”

“When the Microsofts, the Googles, the Amazons, the Twitters, when those companies start laying off people, that’s when we need to start paying attention,” he continued.

Major tech companies have taken steps to cut their workforce in anticipation of an economic downturn in the coming months. Microsoft, for example, recently announced layoffs across multiple divisions, and Meta implemented a hiring freeze. (Read more from “Economic Downturn in Tech Industry Could Affect Americans in Worst Way” HERE)

Delete Facebook, Delete Twitter, Follow Restoring Liberty and Joe Miller at gab HERE.

Lawsuit Reveals Vast Censorship Scheme by Big Tech and the Federal Government

/0 Comments/in , /by

A little noticed federal lawsuit, Missouri v. Biden, is uncovering astonishing evidence of an entrenched censorship scheme cooked up between the federal government and Big Tech that would make Communist China proud.

So far, 67 officials or agencies — including the FBI — have been accused in the lawsuit of violating the First Amendment by pressuring Facebook, Twitter and Google to censor users for alleged misinformation or disinformation.

Victims of the Biden-Big Tech’s “censorship enterprise” include The Post, whose Hunter Biden laptop exposé was suppressed by Facebook and then Twitter in October 2020 after the FBI went to Facebook warning them with great specificity to watch out for a “dump” of Russian disinformation, pertaining to Joe Biden, with an uncanny resemblance to our stories.

“We allege that top-ranking Biden administration officials colluded with those social media companies to suppress speech about the Hunter Biden laptop story, the origins of COVID-19, the efficacy of masks, and election integrity,” is how the lawsuit was summarized by the intrepid Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who is leading the action.

Censorship related to alleged “misinformation” about pandemic lockdowns, vaccines and COVID-19, and included material from the esteemed infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists associated with the Great Barrington Declaration which proved over time to be correct and eventually much of which was adopted as official policy by the CDC. (Read more from “Lawsuit Reveals Vast Censorship Scheme by Big Tech and the Federal Government” HERE)

Delete Facebook, Delete Twitter, Follow Restoring Liberty and Joe Miller at gab HERE.

Yelp Steers Women Away From Crisis Pregnancy Centers, Claims They Give ‘Misleading Information’ to Prevent Abortion

/0 Comments/in , /by

Yelp is now the latest Big Tech company to shore up access to abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Yelp has now decided to flag crisis pregnancy centers to dissuade women from using their services rather than those provided at abortion clinics.

Beginning on Tuesday, Yelp, a website and app that purports to connect “people with great local businesses,” will begin flagging both faith-based and non-faith-based CPCs with a “consumer notice” regarding the limited medical services CPCs usually provide.

“This is a Crisis Pregnancy Center,” reads the notice posted with most CPC organizations listed on Yelp. “Crisis Pregnancy Centers typically provide limited medical services and may not have licensed medical professionals onsite.”

Yelp has openly admitted that it hopes to prevent unsuspecting pregnant women who may be seeking abortions from utilizing the services offered by CPCs instead.

“It’s been well-reported that crisis pregnancy centers often attempt to provide misleading information to people seeking abortion care to steer them to other options,” a company statement says, “– with this new notification we’re aiming to further protect consumers from the potential of being misled or confused.” (Read more from “Yelp Steers Women Away From Crisis Pregnancy Centers, Claims They Give ‘Misleading Information’ to Prevent Abortion” HERE)

Delete Facebook, Delete Twitter, Follow Restoring Liberty and Joe Miller at gab HERE.

Here We Go Again! Twitter Announces Plan to ‘Protect’ November Midterm Elections

/0 Comments/in , , /by

By Breitbart. Far-left Twitter has declared it will “protect” the midterm elections with a range of policies designed to suppress what the company considers “misinformation,” and deliver Twitter-curated news to users.

2020 was the first American election in which Big Tech companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Google had “election integrity” policies — and they resulted in one of the most consequential stories of that cycle, the New York Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden’s corrupt business dealings, being suppressed just weeks before the election.

This tracks with what Breitbart News has predicted, which is that Big Tech companies will do everything they can to prevent the widely-predicted Republican sweep in November from taking place.

Twitter was one of the companies that suppressed that story in the name of fighting “misinformation” — now it plans to activate similar policies ahead of the midterms.

Twitter also says they will roll out “state-specific event hubs,” which will allow the platform to feed handpicked information to users based on their state and local races. It will also roll out a “dedicated explore tab” for the U.S. elections containing news stories curated by Twitter. (Read more from “Here We Go Again! Twitter Announces Plan to ‘Protect’ November Midterm Elections” HERE)

__________________________________________________________

Twitter Rolls Out Election Misinformation Rules Ahead of US Midterms

By New York Post. . .The San Francisco-based tech giant said it will apply its “civic integrity policy” to the Nov. 8 midterm elections, in which all 435 seats in the US House of Representatives as well as a third of the Senate will be up for grabs.

The stated goal of the policy, which was first introduced in 2018, is to “elevate credible information” and “help keep you safe on Twitter.”

“The mission of our civic integrity work is to protect the conversation on Twitter during elections or other civic processes,” according to Twitter.

Twitter will offer users “prebunks” — or prompts on the home screen that help guide people to accurate information. It will also apply labels to tweets that it deems to be misleading. . .

Twitter, Facebook and other tech sites banned then-President Donald Trump from their platforms after his supporters ransacked the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Read more from “Twitter Rolls Out Election Misinformation Rules Ahead of US Midterms” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

Delete Facebook, Delete Twitter, Follow Restoring Liberty and Joe Miller at gab HERE.

Shocking New Study Shows Big Tech Censorship Is A Way Bigger Problem Than You Thought

/0 Comments/in , /by

When people talk about censorship, they typically regard the victim as the particular person or entity whose speech is suppressed by some aggressor — which in recent memory has been predominantly Big Tech. But what about all the people for whom that information is no longer available? These people are victims of secondhand censorship, which massively compounds the issue, as revealed by a shocking new study.

The Media Research Center (MRC), which defines secondhand censorship as “the number of times that users on social media had information kept from them,” found that Big Tech has engaged in direct censorship of individuals and organizations at least 4,000 times. Other users, however, were blocked from seeing these posts or videos at least 144,301,713 times in the first quarter of 2022 alone. That’s more than 36,000 times the instances of direct suppression.

By adding the followers of those censored by Big Tech, MRC calculated how many people were prevented from seeing a post or video that was removed or otherwise suppressed.

“It’s truly mind-boggling that the Silicon Valley speech police have this kind of power,” MRC founder and President Brent Bozell said. “This report gets us one step closer to understanding the real impact anti-conservative discrimination at Facebook, Twitter and others are having on speech in this country.”

Through its own CensorTrack database, MRC found Facebook to be the greatest culprit, with users undergoing secondhand censorship 86,627,526 times. YouTube was second at 23,543,230, and Twitter was close behind at 17,065,054. (Read more from “Shocking New Study Shows Big Tech Censorship Is a Way Bigger Problem Than You Thought” HERE)

Delete Facebook, Delete Twitter, Follow Restoring Liberty and Joe Miller at gab HERE.

There’s Been a Massive ‘Censorship Fail’ of Banned ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Song (VIDEO)

/0 Comments/in , /by

After YouTube removed a “Let’s Go Brandon” song over what it claims is “medical misinformation,” fans have now pushed it to the top spot on iTunes and Amazon. . .

“Another censorship fail from the Left,” Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert tweeted. “YouTube bans ‘Let’s Go Brandon’. Patriots rally and put the song at the TOP of the iTunes chart, even beating out Adele.”

“Good work,” she said, tweeting at the artists.

(Read more from “There’s Been a Massive ‘Censorship Fail’ of Banned ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Song” HERE)

Delete Facebook, Delete Twitter, Follow Restoring Liberty and Joe Miller at gab HERE.

How China’s Ban on ‘Sissy Men’ Is Impacting Big Tech

/1 Comment/in , /by

The Chinese government has recently taken action against what it calls “sissy men” – males, often celebrities, deemed too effeminate.

On Sept. 2，2021, government regulators banned their appearance on both television and video streaming sites. Using the Chinese derogatory slur “niang pao” – literally, “girlie guns” – Chinese cultural authorities explained that they were rolling out a rule to purge “morally flawed celebrities” in order to “correct aesthetics” in “performing styles” and “wardrobes and makeups.” . . .

To me, it’s no coincidence that the ban has come during the intense national campaign against China’s domestic big tech giants, which the government increasingly sees as a threat to its ability to keep tabs on its citizens. . .

In the mid-2010s the Chinese government’s grip on the country’s entertainment sector began to weaken after decades of control over who could star on TV and what sort of stories could be told. TV dramas, films and talent shows produced by private tech companies started to take off, while ratings and ad revenues of state-owned television stations tumbled.

Beginning in 2016, the government started to censor web videos with the same criteria it had been using for television. However, the restrictions seemed to only inspire more creative and subversive expressions of sexuality on video streaming sites. (Read more from “How China’s Ban on ‘Sissy Men’ Is Impacting Big Tech” HERE)

Delete Facebook, Delete Twitter, Follow Restoring Liberty and Joe Miller at gab HERE.

DHS Deploying Big Tech To Spy on Americans Through Social Media

/0 Comments/in , /by

In an effort to target “domestic extremists,” the Department of Homeland Security is deploying Big Tech to spy on Americans through social media and report on whether they might be a threat.

NBC News reported a “sweeping set of policy changes” to improve the way the government collects data includes “the sorts of public social media posts that threatened an attack on the U.S. Capitol” in January.

The FBI and other agencies have seen the posts, the report said, but determined they weren’t “actionable,” cited unnamed senior officials.

“DHS plans to expand its relationships with companies that scour public data for intelligence, one of the senior officials said, as well as to better harness the vast trove of data it already collects about Americans, including travel and commercial data through Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service and other DHS components,” the report said. . .

“From the description it appears DHS is going to pay ‘big tech’ (Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, SnapChat, Twitter, etc.) via contracts, to hire and organize internal monitoring teams to assist the government by sending information citizens they deem ‘dangerous,'” the blog said. (Read more from “DHS Deploying Big Tech To Spy on Americans Through Social Media” HERE)

Delete Facebook, Delete Twitter, Follow Restoring Liberty and Joe Miller at gab HERE and MeWe HERE

Leaked Docs Show Obama FTC Gave Google Its Monopoly After Google Execs Helped Obama Get Re-Elected

/0 Comments/in , /by

Eight years ago, the Federal Trade Commission had the chance to face down Google — the giant of Silicon Valley whose power now alters the free flow of information at a global scale, distorts market access for businesses large and small, and changes the nature of independent thought in ways the world has never experienced.

Instead, the FTC blinked — and blinked hard, choosing to close the investigation in early 2013. A remarkable leak to Politico of agency documents about the 2012 Google investigation reveals that, despite ample evidence of market distortions and threats to competition presented by the agency’s lawyers, the five commissioners of the FTC deferred instead to speculative claims by their economists.

Records and reporting about the 2012 investigation suggest the FTC did so while bending to political pressure from the Obama White House — which was, in turn, bending to political pressure from Google. William Kovacic, a former FTC chair under President George W. Bush, reviewed the more than 3,00 pages of documents leaked to Politico and concluded the agency overlooked “what many experts and regulators would consider clear antitrust violations,” calling the specificity of issues outlined “breathtaking.”

In short, where we find ourselves today — with Google as the primary filter of the world’s information, engaging in a network of exclusionary contracts and anti-competitive conduct, and subject to an antitrust lawsuit led by the Department of Justice and joined by 48 state attorneys general — could have, and should have, been avoided.

That it wasn’t, however, provides key takeaways about where we are now with Big Tech, and, in particular, the method of enforcement of our antitrust laws, whose application has become too tightly wrapped around the axle of price, and captured by the speculative science of economic forecasting. It also reveals just how politicized antitrust enforcement has become — influenced by the siren song of internet exceptionalism and the powerful tug of Google, one of the world’s richest companies. (Read more from “Leaked Docs Show Obama FTC Gave Google Its Monopoly After Google Execs Helped Obama Get Re-Elected” HERE)

Delete Facebook, Delete Twitter, Follow Restoring Liberty and Joe Miller at gab HERE and MeWe HERE