SAN FRANCISCO – Twitter has been on a recruitment drive of late, hiring a host of former feds and spies. Studying a number of employment and recruitment websites, MintPress has ascertained that the social media giant has, in recent years, recruited dozens of individuals from the national security state to work in the fields of security, trust, safety and content.
Caitlin Johnstone
Listen to a reading of this article:
❖
In what appears to be yet another escalation in Silicon Valley’s redoubled efforts to quash dissident voices since the beginning of the Ukraine war, PayPal has just blocked the accounts of multiple alternative media voices who’ve been speaking critically against official US empire narratives. These include journalist and speaker Caleb Maupin and Mnar Adley and Alan MacLeod of MintPress News.
By Supratim Barman
In a Globalised World, when we see images of the conflict that is currently occurring in Ukraine on our News Feeds, Whatsapp Groups, Telegram Twitter and Instagram; as well as of course on our TeleVision sets; we tend to lose sight of the human element and how close it could have been us instead. We sit far away and analyse it, show our support for the Corporation side by posting stickers and flags on our social media profiles and we feel good; as if we have done something worthwhile with our day. As if we have somehow “helped”.
Listen to a reading of this article:
❖
Reuters reports that Facebook and Instagram are now allowing calls for the death of Russians and Russian leaders in exemption from the platforms’ hate speech terms of service due to the war in Ukraine:
“Meta Platforms will allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion, according to internal emails seen by Reuters on Thursday, in a temporary change to its hate speech policy.”
Twitter has also altered its rules against incitement and death threats in the case of Russian leaders and military personnel, as Ben Norton explains here for Multipolarista.
Listen to a reading of this article:
❖
“I’m concerned about Russian disinformation spreading online, so today I wrote to the CEOs of major tech companies to ask them to restrict the spread of Russian propaganda,” US Senator Mark Warner tweeted on Friday.
It seems we may have reached the moment when it is time to say goodbye. It has been fun, educational and sometimes cathartic – for me at least. I hope you got something from our time together too.
I am not going anywhere, of course. Not for now at least. I love to write. For as long as I feasibly can, I will continue to rail against injustice, call out corporate power and its abuses, and demand a fairer and more open society.
Think Tank-Social Media AxisThat ASPI is now partially in charge of Twitter’s moderation, influencing what hundreds of millions of people see daily, is a grave threat to the free flow of information, as well as to the chances for a peaceful 21st century.
It may seem like another world, but it was only a little over a decade ago that scholars were engaged in an energetic debate over the liberatory nature of the internet. Today, as millions of people spend hours a day on Zoom meetings, navigate their children through ‘online learning’, and write work emails late into the night, the notion that the internet was ever going to liberate us from capitalism seems naïve if not farcical. On the contrary, it has been the internet that has allowed, in the most troublesome sense, the world to go on amid ecological, epidemiological, economic, social, and political crises as we are told to wait out a pandemic by eradicating any remaining distance between work and home or public and private while wrecking our backs, necks, eyes, and sense of peace, autonomy, self-knowledge, and control.
File photo: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden speaks at a conference in Moscow, Russia September 2, 2021. © REUTERS/Olesya Astakhova10 June 2021 — Big Brother Watch
Big Brother Watch Team
Home Secretary Priti Patel has supported plans for police to publish more bodycam footage of events to tackle “misleading” social media videos.
She told the annual Police Federation of England and Wales conference “I will not let the police be subjected to trial by social media.”
24 May 2021 — Mint Press News
MintCast is joined by Mickey Huff, Suhair Nafal, and Jessica Buxbaum to discuss censorship and Israel’s collusion with Google and Facebook.
The ongoing assault on Palestine has captured the world’s attention. The latest violence was sparked by an attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem by Israeli security forces, resulting in over 300 casualties, as Muslims had gathered to celebrate Ramadan in the region’s holiest place of worship. Outside, far-right groups cheered as the mosque was damaged, and launched pogroms against non-Jews inside Israel.
Continue reading
17 March 2021 — MintPress News
17 March 2021 — The Rutherford Institute
“Americans deserve the freedom to choose a life without surveillance and the government regulation that would make that possible. While we continue to believe the sentiment, we fear it may soon be obsolete or irrelevant. We deserve that freedom, but the window to achieve it narrows a little more each day. If we don’t act now, with great urgency, it may very well close for good.”—Charlie Warzel and Stuart A. Thompson, New York Times
Databit by databit, we are building our own electronic concentration camps.
5 March 2021 — Mint Press News
What You Can’t See Won’t Hurt You
As social media replaces actual social interactions, our thoughts and opinions are increasingly coming under the purview of the cybersecurity industry and national security interests that want to regulate what and who can see, talk to and hear in the U.S. cognitive space.
22 February, 2021 — Global Research
Imagine if an ordinary working man went on a rampage and killed 929 people and maimed 316 others. The media would naturally call such a man a serial killer or a homicidal maniac. Now imagine if a big pharmaceutical company did the same thing by releasing a vaccine that killed and maimed a similar number people. Would the drug company be treated the same as the working guy? Would their product be denounced as a “killer vaccine” and shunned by the public, or would they be praised on the cable news channels, provided lavish funding by the government, granted full immunity from liability for personal injury, waved through the regulatory process, and had the red carpet rolled out for their spectacular nationwide “Product Launch” extravaganza?26 October 2020 — Jonathan Cook
Facebook, Google and Twitter are not neutral platforms. They control the digital public square to aid the powerful – and can cancel any of us overnight
Middle East Eye – 26 October 2020
There is a growing unease that the decisions taken by social media corporations can have a harmful impact on our lives. These platforms, despite enjoying an effective monopoly over the virtual public square, have long avoided serious scrutiny or accountability.
9 October, 2020 — Land Destroyer
(Gunnar Ulson – NEO) – The United States, United Kingdom and the European Union are fond of passing judgement on nations around the globe regarding “free speech.” Continue reading
6 October 2020 — Mint Press
24 September 2020 — Land Destroyer
(Tony Cartalucci – LD) – The Thai government has begun legal proceedings against US-based social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and Google. This comes at a time when nations around the globe have begun pushing back against the abusive American tech firms and their role in advancing US foreign policy and in particular, illegal US interventions including war.
Continue reading
The New Dark Age 