25 September 2017 — WSWS
The world’s biggest corporations like Google, Facebook, and Amazon are intensifying efforts to block internet users from accessing left-wing web sites like the World Socialist Web Site.
Tag: Amazon
World’s Richest Person Escapes Scrutiny From His Own Paper–and Its Rivals
28 July 2019 — FAIR
The last major investigative piece on Amazon in the three most prestigious newspapers appeared almost two years ago (New York Times, 8/15/15).
The three most prominent US newspapers haven’t run a critical investigative piece on Jeff Bezos’ company Amazon in almost two years, a FAIR survey finds.
A review of 190 articles from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Bezos-owned Washington Post over the past year paints a picture of almost uniformly uncritical–ofttimes boosterish–coverage. None of the articles were investigative exposes, 6 percent leaned negative, 54 percent were straight reporting or neutral in tone, and 40 percent were positive, mostly with a fawning or even press release–like tone.
Digital labour: Wages for crowdwork
5 November 2015 — Red Pepper
Digital labour: Wages for crowdwork
Byron Peters is an artist and writer who has produced collaborative art pieces to tell the story of resistance movements centred on digital labour. He spoke to Jenny Nelson about online activism and the hidden labour behind digital life
The Washington Post and Amazon are “Doing Business with the CIA” By Norman Solomon
18 December 2013 — — Global Research
News media should illuminate conflicts of interest, not embody them. But the owner of the Washington Post is now doing big business with the Central Intelligence Agency, while readers of the newspaper’s CIA coverage are left in the dark.
Media Lens: All Journalism Is ‘Advocacy Journalism’ By David Edwards
15 August 2013 — Media Lens
Writing for the Washington Post in June, Paul Farhi wondered if, in breaking the story of the US National Security Agency’s spying programme, the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald had ‘become something other than a journalist in the activist role he has taken’.
Amazon, WilkiLeaks, the Washington Post and the CIA By Peter Hart
6 August 2013 — FAIR Blog
So what does Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ decision to buy the Washington Post mean?
That was the question NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik tackled on Morning Edition (8/6/13). It was good to hear Folkenflik note that there is an “enormous constellation of issues” that affect Amazon’s bottom line in Washington–which should raise some concerns about conflicts of interest on issues like internet sales taxes and copyright/intellectual property.
Britain: £5,200,000,000 will be robbed from you today
31 January 2013 — Morning Star Online
by Rory MacKinnon Corporate Affairs Reporter
Britain will be robbed of £5.2 billion today as an army of accountants file fiddled tax returns for the rich.
Leveson and Leviathan, or What the Papers Won’t Say By Dan Hind
29 November 2012 — Return of the Public
Journalists and their editors have an unusual privilege. As brokers of public speech they largely determine how the world beyond our immediate experience appears to us. They decide what matters and who to take seriously. This privilege is particularly pronounced when it comes to their own trade, where, after all, they have firsthand knowledge. And they do not like to let outsiders in on the process, if they can help it. The anthropologist Georgina Born describes in her book Uncertain Vision a 1997 conversation with Jim Gray and Jeremy Paxman of Newsnight: Continue reading
Leveson and Leviathan, or What the Papers Won’t Say By Dan Hind
29 November 2012 — Return of the Public
Journalists and their editors have an unusual privilege. As brokers of public speech they largely determine how the world beyond our immediate experience appears to us. They decide what matters and who to take seriously. This privilege is particularly pronounced when it comes to their own trade, where, after all, they have firsthand knowledge. And they do not like to let outsiders in on the process, if they can help it. The anthropologist Georgina Born describes in her book Uncertain Vision a 1997 conversation with Jim Gray and Jeremy Paxman of Newsnight: Continue reading
Target Iran: Drawing Red Lines in the Sand By William J Cox
13 September 2012
At 60 manuscript pages and based on 100 of the latest sources, Target Iran is of the new genre of eBooks on critical political subjects written for the modern on-the-go reader who requires reliable in-depth information to reach an informed opinion, but whose time is too limited to go to the bookstore or to conduct online research.
The book contains a history of Iran and its conflict with the United States and Israel over its uranium enrichment program, a discussion of the likelihood of war between the parties and a peaceful solution that offers a comprehensive nuclear weapons policy for all nations.
Attached is a PDF copy, which can be read on your computer, and the book is available for free downloads in all eBook formats, including PDF and Kindle, at Smashwords. Click Here
Target Iran is also available at Amazon Kindle. Click Here
Best,
Why is the Internet on strike today?
18 January 2012 — Mozilla.org
From Mozilla, a non-profit organization and developer of Firefox
Today, Mozilla is joining the virtual strike against Internet censorship – along with others like Wikipedia and Google – to raise awareness of US Congress legislation that could fundamentally alter the Internet we know and love.
Movement Moves On After Police Occupy the OWS Park BY Danny Schecter
16 November 2011 — Greanville Post
Joshua Trujillo/AP Seattle activist Dorli Rainey, 84, reacts after being hit with pepper spray during an Occupy Seattle protest.
It was strange, after all these weeks, to be on the outside looking in at a new set of occupiers that were there because they have the guns and we don’t.
When Mao said that ‘power grows out of the barrel of a gun’ he most assuredly did not have anything like Occupy Wall Street on his mind, but somehow the insight applies.
And this from Mozilla Firefox on Internet censorship
16 November 2011
Fight for the Internet’s Future
Right now, the US Congress is considering legislation that could profoundly affect the future of the internet we all know and love. It’s called the Stop Online Piracy Act, but the fact is that it won’t accomplish that goal. Instead, it will impose new, far-reaching consequences for us all. Here are just a few of the ways it could affect you:
• Every single online communications platform — from YouTube to Facebook to Amazon — could be under threat if a single rights holder alleges a violation.
• It would make the Web less stable and secure.
• General-purpose social media sites, like Twitter or Facebook, could be forced to track and control user behavior, chilling innovation and undermining free expression.
• Your internet provider could be required to inspect all of its users’ traffic and browsing.
Mozilla is joining with many other Internet companies and public-interest organizations to urge members of Congress to reject this legislation. We urge you to email your representatives in Congress today. And then please join our ongoing efforts to fight this legislation and ensure that the Web remains a thriving platform for innovation that’s open and accessible to all.
‘Theater of the Absurd’: Netanyahu and His Endgame in Palestine By Ramzy Baroud
30 October 2011 — Ramzy Baroud
During his deliberately offensive speech on September 23, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the General Assembly as ‘the theater of the absurd.’ Israel’s few friends at the United Nations – led by the US delegation – listened gleefully and applauded as Netanyahu heralded a steady stream of insults.
Books: The Return of the Public (space) By Dan Hind
9 March 2011 — williambowles.info
A book recommendation: ‘The Return of the Public’ By Dan Hind. Verso Books, London 2010.
I intend to write a review of this book sometime soon, but I think it’s one of the most important books to come out of the Left in the UK for a long, long time. ‘The Return of the Public’ is a ‘call to arms’ for us, the people to retake the space that’s been stolen from us.
With the destruction of our traditional forms of political expression, we have no collective voice, no public space that we can call our own. Instead, at best we have ‘single issues’ but no sense of the collective.
‘The Return of the Public’ explains how this came to be and offers a way out. Important and stimulating reading.
Pick up a copy on Amazon.co.uk
Amazon take down of Wikileaks – Is the free internet dead?
Information Clearing House Newsletter 3 December, 2010: This Website Supports The Work Of Wikileaks and Julian Assange
3 December, 2010 — Information Clearing House
A Call To Action
I call on all of ICH readers to donate towards to cost involved in hosting and other expenses at Wikileaks. At a time when our government is employing all of the resources at its disposal to destroy this organization and its principals we can not remain silent.
We must put our money where our mouth is.
Do we live in a free society or are you afraid of the US government?
Are You Brave Enough To Take A Stand and say: “The world needs Wikileaks.”
Click here to donate and support this courageous organization.
wikileaks.ch/support.html
WikiLeaks: Experts Explain America’s Role In Afghanistan Corruption
By Braden Holly
President Hamid Karzai’s half-brother, is getting paid by the CIA and that thousands of other officials are being paid off. That, in my mind, is corruption,” said Pratap Chatterjee, an author and columnist for the Guardian. “A lot of the biggest money in Afghanistan is U.S. military and State Department contracts.”
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26984.htm
US Takes Cut of Donations by Allies to Afghanistan
By Ian Traynor
THE US military has been charging its allies a 15 per cent handling fee on hundreds of millions of dollars raised internationally to build up the Afghan army, according to US diplomatic cables.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26983.htm
Housmans Radical Books London, Newsletter of Events in August 2010
1 August, 2010 — Housmans
NEWS
1. Paul Russell’s UK Street Photography Exhibition
2. What is wrong with using Amazon?
EVENTS
3. ‘Soho Noir’ with Cathi Unsworth and Paul Willetts
4. ‘Fighting Fascism in London’ with David Renton
5. ‘How to Live Free in London’ with Katharine Hibbert
6. ‘The Short Film Movement’
7. ‘Dan Chatterton – London‘s One Man Revolution’ with The Freethought History Research Group
8. Future Events
BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
9. Cathi Unsworth Picks Five
From Copenhagen to Cochabamba, via the Amazon By Ben Powless
17 April, 2010 — Climate and Capitalism
On his way to the World Peoples’ Conference in Bolivia, a member of the Indigenous Environmental Network from the Six Nations in Ontario revisits the scenes of struggle to defend indigenous communities and rights in the Peruvian Amazon.
This article first appeared in rabble.ca, and is published here with the author’s permission. Photos he took in Peru can be viewed on Flickr.
The Amazon, it is often said, functions like the lungs of Mother Earth. The dense forest and undergrowth absorb much of the carbon dioxide that we manage to pump into the skies — an ever more important and taxing effort in light of the threats to our climate.
In December, countries around the world gathered in Copenhagen to reach an agreement to protect the climate, even if purely face-saving, and failed. With that sour taste gone, Bolivia has invited governments, social movements, Indigenous Peoples, politicians, really anyone who cares, to attend the so-called World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. The conference will be held the 19th-22nd in Cochabamba.
MEDIA LENS ALERT: GATES OF DELUSION Media Distortions And +Real+ Climate Scandals
22 February, 2010 — MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media
Since November last year, the public has been bombarded with the story of stolen emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, revealing a supposed “scandal” of scientific malpractice, stupidly and lazily named “climategate”. Further media frenzy erupted over an erroneous Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change statement that 80 per cent of Himalayan glacier area would very likely be gone by 2035. Other climate-related storms in a teacup have been appearing in the corporate media almost on a daily basis. This nonsense is distracting attention from a mountain of evidence that human-induced climate change is accelerating and poses a deadly threat to civilisation.
James Hansen, the leading NASA climate scientist who first warned the US Congress of the dangers of global warming in 1988, gave us his view of media performance on “climategate”:
“The media have done a great disservice to the public. This mess should be cleared up in the next year or so, although the damage may linger a while, because some people who paid attention to sensationalism may not bother with accurate explanations of the truth.
“The impression left from this affair is that there are some parts of the media that care less about responsible reporting than about selling newspapers or other ware. Some of the problem may be honest ignorance, as the quality of science reporting has declined in recent decades. And of course some media are controlled by people who have a political axe to grind.” (Hansen, email to Media Lens, February 18, 2010)
Misleading the Debate on Climate
The excellent Realclimate website at www.realclimate.org, run by authoritative climate scientists, has been diligently issuing rebuttals of the relentless barrage of disinformation churned out by the Daily Mail, the Sunday Times, the Daily Telegraph and, yes, even the Guardian, the self-proclaimed flagship newspaper of the environment. (See Realclimate, ‘Whatevergate,’ February 16, 2010; www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/whatevergate/)
The New Dark Age 