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Facebook Admits Its ‘Fact-Checks’ Are Nothing but a Liberal’s Opinion

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Anyone who’s been online over the last several years knows all about “fact-checks.”

Those are statements that purportedly are assembled by experts for companies like Facebook or Twitter – or media outlets like legacy newspaper corporations – that claim to express the truthfulness of online statements. . .

It’s because Facebook has admitted in a court filing its “fact-checks” are nothing but someone’s opinion.

Longtime climate change blogger Anthony Watts explained on his site that Facebook’s confession came in a court fight with commentator and journalist John Stossel. . .

Watts explained now that Facebook is defending itself against Stossel’s charges by claiming the “fact-checks” are “protected opinion.”

The report explained Facebook now has blown “the ‘fact check’ claim right out of the water.” (Read more from “Facebook Admits Its ‘Fact-Checks’ Are Nothing but a Liberal’s Opinion” HERE)

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Facebook Declared Kyle Rittenhouse Guilty, Silencing His Defense in the Court of Public Opinion

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“We’ve designated the shooting in Kenosha a mass murder and are removing posts in support of the shooter,” Facebook announced barely a week after the event, as it began a truly epic campaign of censorship blatantly at odds with its professed support for free speech.

Just for starters: Killing two people is mass murder now? Sure looks like the social-media giant’s staff just reached for the nearest excuse to suppress posts that conflicted with their personal prejudices — and no higher-up bothered to correct the call.

The blackout went far and wide: Facebook actively policed its users for pro-Kyle Rittenhouse posts and removed the content. It even targeted posts from legal scholars arguing the merits of his self-defense case.

And it made it hard to see even the stuff it didn’t get killed outright. “One of the big things that they did was manipulate the search engine so you couldn’t even find any references to Kyle Rittenhouse,” Dan Gainor, vice president of the Media Research Center, told The Post. “They’re out of touch with normal people.”

More broadly, the company explained its blackout thusly: “We don’t allow symbols, praise or support of dangerous individuals or organizations on Facebook. We define dangerous as things like: terrorist activity, organized hate or violence, mass or serial murder, human trafficking, criminal or harmful activity.” (Read more from “Facebook Declared Kyle Rittenhouse Guilty, Silencing His Defense in the Court of Public Opinion” HERE)

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Left Wing Billionaire Is Targeting Facebook in Funding Campaign

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Left-wing billionaire Pierre Omidyar is funding a constellation of advocacy organizations and campaigns targeting tech giant Facebook for its alleged harms to users, including the proliferation of “hate speech” and “misinformation” on its platform.

Omidyar, the founder of eBay, has long been a vocal critic of Facebook and major tech companies in general, funding research into how best to break up the tech giant and providing financial backing for advocacy group “The Real Facebook Oversight Board” that publishes frequent criticism of it.

Omidyar’s crusade against Facebook garnered recent attention following a report by Politico that Omidyar was providing funding and strategic support to former Facebook employee Frances Haugen, who has testified before the Senate and other legislative bodies around the world calling for stricter regulation of the tech giant. Haugen also leaked internal Facebook documents and communications to The Wall Street Journal, and filed several whistleblower complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleging Facebook misled its investors by failing to adequately disclose its platforms’ negative effects.

Omidyar serves as chair of philanthropy organization Luminate, which is currently providing strategic government relations and media support to Haugen. Luminate and the Omidyar Network, one of Omidyar’s grant-making organizations, are also funding Reset, an anti-Big Tech group led by former Hillary Clinton campaign adviser Ben Scott which is assisting Haugen in her lobbying efforts. (Read more from “Left Wing Billionaire Is Targeting Facebook in Funding Campaign” HERE)

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Social Media Companies Blame COVID for Censorship

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Social media companies still use COVID-19 staff shortages to justify removing content that doesn’t violate platform rules.

Both Twitter and Facebook scaled back human reviews of content in the early days of the pandemic. The companies employ contractors to sift through material that may break their sites’ rules, and said many contractors could not do that work from home. Two years on, both companies blame the effects of COVID-19 for erroneous content removal and the suspension of users’ ability to appeal the censorship of their content.

Both social media giants have increased content restrictions throughout the pandemic, even while claiming they can’t adequately review removals. Twitter and Facebook rolled out new initiatives to ban or hide speech that suggested COVID-19 came from a Wuhan lab, although that theory has gained traction in the scientific community. Twitter regularly suspends politicians and other users who question vaccine mandates.

Both Twitter and Facebook switched to remote work in March 2020. Twitter said at the time it would rely on “machine learning and automation” to “take a wide range of actions on potentially abusive and manipulative content,” and acknowledged that this change would lead to more mistakes and incorrect penalties for users.

Although Twitter previously said the increased use of automated systems was a temporary move during the pandemic, a Twitter spokeswoman told the Washington Free Beacon the company would continue to “utilize machine learning” to enforce Twitter rules. The spokeswoman did not say whether Twitter would increase human review. (Read more from “Social Media Companies Blame COVID for Censorship” HERE)

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WATCH: Facebook Officially Rebranding to Try and Hide Past Scandals, Twitter Users Immediately Mock New Name

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By Breitbart. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company is rebranding itself as Meta in an effort to encompass its virtual-reality vision for the future — what Zuckerberg calls the “metaverse.”

Skeptics point out that it also appears to be an attempt to change the subject from the Facebook Papers, a leaked document trove so dubbed by a consortium of news organizations that include The Associated Press. Many of these documents, first described by former Facebook employee-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen, have revealed how Facebook ignored or downplayed internal warnings of the negative and often harmful consequences its algorithms wreaked across the world.

Facebook the app, along with Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, are here to stay; none will be changing their names. The company’s corporate structure also won’t change. But on Dec. 1, its shares will start trading under a new ticker symbol, “MVRS.”

“Facebook is the world’s social media platform and they are being accused of creating something that is harmful to people and society,” said marketing consultant Laura Ries. She compared the name Meta to when BP rebranded to “Beyond Petroleum” to escape criticism that it harmed the environment. “They can’t walk away from the social network with a new corporate name and talk of a future metaverse.” (Read more from “WATCH: Facebook Officially Rebranding to Try and ‘Reverse’ Damage” HERE)

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Facebook Changes Its Corporate Name to ‘Meta’ Amid Torrent of Scandals

By New York Post. . .The change comes as Facebook seeks to shake a torrent of scandals after whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked company research showing Instagram’s negative effect on teens’ mental health, Facebook’s struggles to stop human trafficking on its platform and the widespread sharing of false news about elections on its sites.

A defiant Zuckerberg — who has not publicly responded to calls to testify in Congress amid the scandals — indirectly addressed the issue during the event and accused critics of being stuck in the past.

“With all the scrutiny and public debate, some of you might be wondering why we’re doing this right now,” said Zuckerberg. “Some people will say that this isn’t a time to focus on the future, and I want to acknowledge that there are important issues to work on in the present. There always will be.

“For many people, I’m not sure there will be a good time to focus on the future,” Zuckerberg added in an apparently sarcastic jab.

Nevertheless, the new name quickly provoked jeers on social media, with many critics noting that the move looked like a desperate attempt to change the subject.

(Read more from “Facebook Changes Its Corporate Name to ‘Meta’ Amid Torrent of Scandals” HERE)

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How Facebook Decides Who Gets Protected From Fake News, Hate Speech

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Facebook in 2019 began classifying countries in a “tier” system that dictated the amount of resources used to moderate content posted on the platform in those nations, according to a new report.

The prioritizing system placed the United States, Brazil and India in “tier zero” — meaning more resources were dedicated to moderating content and enforcing Facebook’s regulations in those countries, The Verge reported Monday.

Israel, Germany, Indonesia and Iran were categorized in “tier one,” so Facebook committed slightly less to enforcement of its rules and election integrity safeguards, according to the technology news outlet. Facebook reportedly formed “war rooms” for content moderation in those countries, including on elections.

Twenty-two countries were placed in “tier one” but did not have dedicated “war rooms,” and Facebook put the rest of the globe in “tier three,” which meant the platform only took action on rule-violating election-related content if it was flagged by moderators. (Read more from “How Facebook Decides Who Gets Protected From Fake News, Hate Speech” HERE)

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Leaked Facebook Document Reveals Blacklist of ‘Dangerous’ Organizations, Individuals

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Facebook’s blacklist of dangerous individuals and organizations has been leaked to the public.

A reproduced snapshot, published by The Intercept on Tuesday, features 100 pages of more than 4,000 groups and individuals that the social media giant classifies under “terror,” “hate,” “crime,” “militarized social movement” or “violent non-state actor” designations. . .

In a lengthy Twitter thread, Facebook’s policy director for counterterrorism and dangerous organizations, Brian Fishman, confirmed that a version of the DOI list had been leaked but emphasized that it is “not comprehensive.” He added that defining and identifying dangerous organizations is “extremely difficult,” noting there is “no hard and fast definitions agreed upon by everyone.” . . .

“While we ban thousands of organizations, including over 250 white supremacist groups, under these rules, we also update this list as new ones emerge,” he said. “This is an adversarial space, so we try to be as transparent as possible, while also prioritizing security, limiting legal risks and preventing opportunities for groups to get around our rules.”

Though Fishman does not condone the Intercept’s leak, he noted in his Twitter thread that Facebook would use it as an opportunity to get better. (Read more from “Leaked Facebook Document Reveals Blacklist of ‘Dangerous’ Organizations, Individuals” HERE)

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Facebook’s Whistleblower Could Be the Best Thing to Ever Happen to Big Tech

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Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen testified before Congress on Oct. 5, urging lawmakers to regulate the tech giant and offering potential policy solutions to the platform’s myriad controversies — many of which echo proposals made by Facebook itself.

While several of Haugen’s ideas, such as restricting the use of engagement-based algorithms, appear to challenge the core business model of Facebook and other platforms, other proposals, such as her proposed reforms to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and enhanced public oversight of social media, are much more in line with what tech giants have been advocating for years. If enacted, these policies could end up further entrenching Facebook and other tech giants as dominant platforms by placing increased costs on smaller competitors, experts say.

“There is a reason we have seen Facebook call on new regulations for internet companies,” Jeffrey Westling, Technology and Innovation fellow at the R Street Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Established, dominant firms can bear those costs while rival firms cannot.” . . .

In her testimony before Congress Haugen advocated for reforming Section 230 to strip liability protections from companies for content amplified by algorithms, citing the alleged societal harm such content could cause.

“I strongly encourage reforming Section 230 to exempt decisions about algorithms,” Haugen said. “They [Facebook] have a hundred percent control over their algorithms, and Facebook should not get a free pass on choices it makes to prioritize growth and virality and reactiveness over public safety.” (Read more from “Facebook’s Whistleblower Could Be the Best Thing to Ever Happen to Big Tech” HERE)

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Congressman Demands Facebook Release Research on Instagram’s Impact on Child Exploitation

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Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck demanded Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hand over research into Instagram’s effects on teen users in a letter sent Thursday and obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Leaked documents published by The Wall Street Journal in September detailed some of Facebook’s research into how its image-sharing platform Instagram affects the mental health of teen girls, including how the platform can exacerbate suicidal tendencies and contribute to eating disorders. The research showed, among other things, that Instagram contributed much more to negative mental health than other social media platforms.

Buck, who serves as Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, urged Zuckerberg to release all of Facebook’s research into Instagram’s effects on teen mental health, requesting information on how the platform contributes to eating disorders, anxiety, depression, suicidal tendencies and other mental health issues.

“Your company’s hypocrisy and immense apathy toward the detrimental impacts Instagram has on children’s wellbeing is astounding,” Buck wrote.

Buck also requested internal company studies on how Instagram’s algorithms promote overly sexualized portrayals of minors. Facebook removed 1.4 million pieces of content in the second quarter of 2021 it deemed to be sexually exploiting children, according to its transparency reports. (Read more from “Congressman Demands Facebook Release Research on Instagram’s Impact on Child Exploitation” HERE)

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Facebook ‘Whistleblower’ Worked for Unit That Censored Hunter Laptop Story

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Facebook “whistleblower” Frances Haugen – who urged members of Congress this week to force the social-media giant to increase its policing of “misinformation” – worked for a unit at Facebook that censored the New York Post’s blockbuster Hunter Biden laptop stories last fall.

Haugen testified this week that the Facebook’s “civic integrity” unit was established for the 2020 election to combat “misinformation” and wound down when Biden won, Breitbart News reported.

A poll indicated the “laptop story” – which was about evidence that Joe Biden and his family cashed in on his position as vice president in business deals that potentially compromised national security – affected the outcome of the election.

The White House still insists that despite further confirmation that the messages on the laptop are authentic, the claims amount to “Russian disinformation.” A new book by a Politico reporter confirmed the authenticity of a 2017 email regarding a deal with Communist Party-tied CEFC Chinese Energy stating 10% of the profits were to be held “for the big guy.” The “big guy” was identified as Joe Biden last October by former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski. (Read more from “Facebook ‘Whistleblower’ Worked for Unit That Censored Hunter Laptop Story” HERE)

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