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Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

How The FBI Helps Ukrainian Intelligence Hunt ‘Disinformation’ On Social Media

Posted by M. C. on April 29, 2023

The FIB spending your tax dollars to give free stuff to one of the most corrupt entities on the planet.

https://open.substack.com/pub/leefang/p/how-the-fbi-helps-ukrainian-intelligence?utm_source=direct&r=iw8dv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

LEE FANG

The Federal Bureau of Investigation pressures Facebook to take down alleged Russian “disinformation” at the behest of Ukrainian intelligence, according to a senior Ukrainian official who corresponds regularly with the FBI. The same official said that Ukrainian authorities define “disinformation” broadly, flagging many social media accounts and posts that he suggested may simply contradict the Ukrainian government’s narrative.

“Once we have a trace or evidence of disinformation campaigns via Facebook or other resources that are from the U.S., we pass this information to the FBI, along with writing directly to Facebook,” said llia Vitiuk, head of the Department of Cyber Information Security in the Security Service of Ukraine.

“We asked FBI for support to help us with Meta, to help us with others, and sometimes we get good results with that,” noted Vitiuk. “We say, ‘Okay, this was the person who was probably Russia’s influence.'”

Vitiuk, in an interview, said that he is a proponent of free speech and understands concerns around social media censorship. But he also admitted that he and his colleagues take a deliberately expansive view of what counts as “Russian disinformation.”

“When people ask me, ‘How do you differentiate whether it is fake or true?’ Indeed it is very difficult in such an informational flow,” said Vitiuk. “I say, ‘Everything that is against our country, consider it a fake, even if it’s not.’ Right now, for our victory, it is important to have that kind of understanding, not to be fooled.”

In recent weeks, Vitiuk said, Russian forces have used various forms of disinformation to manufacture fake tension between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the four-star general who serves as commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s military.

Indeed, recent reports have focused on the relationship between the two Ukrainian leaders. The German newspaper Bild reported that Zelenskyy and Zaluzhnyi had argued regarding tactics deployed in the battle over Bakhmut. Vitiuk said that any notion of conflict between Zelenskyy and his military chief, however, is false.

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Why is Facebook censoring Sy Hersh’s NordStream report? – Responsible Statecraft

Posted by M. C. on April 24, 2023

The social media giant says his piece on US responsibility for blowing up the pipeline is false, allows other stories with proven dubious claims.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/04/21/why-is-facebook-censoring-sy-hershs-nordstream-report/

Written by
Branko Marcetic

Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, U.S. policy toward the conflict has inter-mingled uneasily with the U.S. government’s growing convergence with the social media platforms that make up today’s digital public square.

Tech companies have selectively relaxed their bans on violent and hate speech to align with Ukraine’s war effort, shuttered the accounts of media outlets critical of the war and U.S. policy to it, and seen a vast army of bots push content supporting Ukraine and its NATO partners. And now, Facebook is actively censoring and discouraging the sharing of Seymour Hersh’s reporting on the alleged U.S. role in the attack on the Nordstream pipelines.

As of Thursday, if you try to share on Facebook the February 8 Substack post in which Hersh first laid out the anonymously sourced charge, you’ll first be met with a prompt informing you about “additional reporting” on the subject in the form of Norwegian fact-checking website Faktisk, and warning you that “pages and websites that repeatedly publish or share false news will see their overall distribution reduced and be restricted in other ways.”

If you decide to “share anyway,” Hersh’s piece is posted but blurred out, and labeled “false information” by the social media platform. (It’s since been unblurred and labeled “partly false information”). The phenomenon was first pointed out by Michael Shellenberger, and has since been replicated by othersincluding myself.

Besides labeling the post as false, Facebook also sent me a notification roughly 10 hours later informing me about the notice they’d added and that I had shared something that “includes information that independent fact-checkers said was partly false.” Facebook cautions that “people who repeatedly share false information might have their posts moved lower in News Feed,” suggesting that if I go on to share any other reporting that’s been challenged by fact-checkers, I’ll be punished by having my account’s reach throttled.

Yet the fact-check in question from Faktisk — Norwegian for “Actually” — leans heavily on open source intelligence whose reliability has itself been recently challenged. Hersh has previously fended off criticism that his reporting doesn’t match up with public data about ship movements by arguing this information can be manipulated. Indeed, in a piece putting forward its own, alternate theory to Hersh’s, the New York Times itself noted that the pipelines weren’t closely monitored by commercial or government sensors, and that there were roughly 45 “ghost ships” whose location transponders weren’t on.

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The ‘Twitter Papers’ Reveal the Totalitarians Among Us

Posted by M. C. on December 6, 2022

Wonder what CIA financed Facebook has been up to? The same as the FIB or CIA. Is it just “the same”?

The Ron Paul Liberty Report

https://rumble.com/v1z2djk-the-twitter-papers-reveal-the-totalitarians-among-us.html

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Watch “Peak ‘Woke’? Facebook, Netflix Crashing And Burning” on YouTube

Posted by M. C. on October 28, 2022

https://youtu.be/D6RjYjjv9aY

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The Totally Not-Political FBI Pressures Facebook

Posted by M. C. on August 29, 2022

By Tom Woods

What they did do, Zuckerberg said, was downgrade posts about the Hunter Biden laptop so that fewer people would see them. When Rogan asked for specific numbers, Zuckerberg said he didn’t know them off the top of his head but conceded that the downgrading was significant.

From the Tom Woods Letter:

Two items for you today.

(1) Although the Big Tech platforms don’t exactly seem like they have to be dragged kicking and screaming into suppressing unpopular opinions, we keep learning about ways the federal government has been pressuring them to do so.

We found out quite recently that the federal government pressured Twitter to drop Alex Berenson, for example.

The latest case came just the other day, when Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg made an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Rogan asked him about the Hunter Biden laptop story, and we found out that the FBI had approached Facebook cautioning it against allowing the free dissemination of what it of course called Russian propaganda.

Zuckerberg said:

“The FBI basically came to us, some folks on our team, and was like, hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert. We thought there was a lot of propaganda in the 2016 election. We have it on notice that there is about to be some kind of dump that’s similar to that, so just be vigilant.

“So our protocol is different from Twitter’s. What Twitter did is they said you can’t share this at all. We didn’t do that.”

What they did do, Zuckerberg said, was downgrade posts about the Hunter Biden laptop so that fewer people would see them. When Rogan asked for specific numbers, Zuckerberg said he didn’t know them off the top of his head but conceded that the downgrading was significant.

Zuckerberg went on: “We just kind of thought, hey, look, if the FBI, which I still view as a legitimate institution in this country — it’s a very, very impressive law enforcement — they come to us and tell us that we need to be on guard about something, then I want to take that seriously.”

You think there’s the tiniest chance that the FBI is a political organization?

One favorable development has come from all this, at least: the right side of the ideological divide has rapidly shed its superstitious reverence for agencies like the FBI.

(2) On another note: in case you missed episode 2183 of the Tom Woods Show, I had a chance to speak to Mikkel Thorup, an expert on international relocation and expat issues, having visited 100 countries himself and lived in nine, and an expat himself for over 20 years.

I myself am too much of a homebody to leave the U.S., but I know for a fact that more of my readers than ever are considering their international options, whether that’s outright relocation or measures short of that, like second citizenships and the like.

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Facebook OKs Calls for Violence Against Russians

Posted by M. C. on March 12, 2022

http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2022/march/10/facebook-oks-calls-for-violence-against-russians/

Written by Daniel McAdams

Anyone following social media’s “Community Standards” knows how selectively they are enforced. Your humble writer was permanently banned from Twitter in 2019 for using a word to describe Sean Hannity’s mental slowness that is otherwise used perhaps millions of times per day by others with full impunity. Likewise, calls for violence against Sen. Rand Paul are also made routinely with impunity, in direct violation of the stated “Community Standards.”

But even the hypocrisy and cynicism we have seen to this point by Big Social Media does not prepare one for a shocking development today, as first reported by Reuters and then picked up by the Washington Post: Facebook (and Facebook-owned Instagram) have “updated” their “Community Standards” guidelines and will now allow calls for violence against Russians.

Yes that’s right. Russians – not the Russian government or the Russian economy, or even top Russian political figures but just plain old Russians – are now subject to new guidelines that ALLOW rather than forbid “Hate Speech” and even actual calls for violence!

EXCLUSIVE Facebook and Instagram to temporarily allow calls for violence against Russians https://t.co/dhcObdoDk6 pic.twitter.com/QVokunNzyx — Reuters (@Reuters) March 10, 2022

For those who felt that Japanese internment camps and “colored” drinking fountains were a disgusting chapter, thankfully relegated to the dustbin of history, who were sure that we’ve moved far beyond such primitive racism and violence, here’s a reminder that lurking just below the surface and subject to re-activation by the powers-that-be in the propaganda machine is that same old violent hatred of others. And social media is more than happy to accommodate the wishes of its governmental masters.

It is very clear that we are not progressing as a society toward ever-more liberal values. We are regressing to a violent, feral state. Endlessly looking inward for enemies to destroy. “Anti-vaxxers,” Trump voters, and now just plain old everyday Russians. Kill them. They are evil. Is this OK?

Facebook, a de facto arm of government, is now encouraging calls for violence against innocent people who happen to be of a particular race or ethnic background or linguistic group.

Race-hate of an unpopular ethnic and religions group? Haven’t we seen this horrific movie before?


Copyright © 2022 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
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Watch “”It Happens With This Device! I Never Use It!” Edward Snowden” on YouTube

Posted by M. C. on January 15, 2022

Edward Snowden talks about Google, Facebook and Apple. And what is happening behind these companies.

https://youtu.be/ZeaYBp-kVHM

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Kyle Rittenhouse trial exposes Big Tech’s ‘censor until proven innocent’ approach

Posted by M. C. on November 22, 2021

Dan Gainor, VP of the Media Research Center, said Big Tech’s attempts to stifle discussions about Rittenhouse proves how much control it has in societal and political issues. “It’s dangerous that they have this much power over what can be discussed in a public forum,” he said. “They could prevent free elections in every free country in the world if they wanted to.”

https://view.parlermailer.com/?qs=478a6a8a57833fc6d62fa340774f8d1fcc79a595708ababba646845a85d2fe8876bb7dd2e4a5ea2570052919cb9393edac07367c4afefaf516278aa4764016cacbdef0f75e81ff515aef9fb7f111cf89

A Wisconsin jury finding Kyle Rittenhouse acted in self-defense, when he shot three people at a BLM protest in Kenosha last year, makes more apparent the dangerous powers of Big Tech. Within days of the August 2020 shootings, Facebook labeled Rittenhouse a mass murderer, telling Breitbart: “We’ve designated the shooting in Kenosha a mass murder and are removing posts in support of the shooter.” It also blocked search results on “Kyle Rittenhouse.”

In September 2020, Twitter suspended the account of Rittenhouse’s attorney for attempting to raise funds for the teenager’s defense. GoFundMe cited its policies against supporting those charged with violent crimes when thwarting efforts to pay for Rittenhouse’s legal fees, despite plenty of similar fundraisers remaining live. Only after the verdict of innocence was reached would GoFundMe allow campaigns to help pay for the teen’s legal fees and living expenses. 

During Rittenhouse’s trial, Facebook again blocked search results on his name, leaving users to converse about it only on their profiles or in their subscribed feeds. And YouTube suspended live streams about the trial hosted by independent legal analysts.  

In America, alleged criminals are presumed innocent until proven guilty. The court of Big Tech social media, however, is anything but impartial. And their actions regarding this particular case should concern us all. 

Dan Gainor, VP of the Media Research Center, said Big Tech’s attempts to stifle discussions about Rittenhouse proves how much control it has in societal and political issues. “It’s dangerous that they have this much power over what can be discussed in a public forum,” he said. “They could prevent free elections in every free country in the world if they wanted to.”

What do you think? Should Big Tech protect its users from the “bad side” of a criminal case? Talk about it on Parler.

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The Frances Haugen Insurgency | The Libertarian Institute

Posted by M. C. on November 8, 2021

In reality, Haugen has “revealed” only that the social media platform founded by Mark Zuckerberg has not been conducting itself in the manner in which Haugen’s associates want it to.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/the-frances-haugen-insurgency/

by Laurie Calhoun

Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen has taken the world by storm by stealing and sharing reams of company communications in which the social media giant’s cavalier attitudes toward a range of behaviors among its users are revealed. She compares what she regards as “the Facebook problem” with earlier corporate revelations in history which led to legislation regulating tobacco and automobile use, and she emphasizes that children are specifically at risk from the company’s policies. The disgruntled former employee also alleges that Facebook products—in particular, Instagram—harm young women by promoting unhealthy and unrealistic body images.

Despite the vagueness and generality of these complaints, Haugen is being hailed as a “whistleblower” by everyone who agrees with her ideological and political perspective, which is as plain as day: textbook neoliberal, big government, pro-Democratic Party. The objective of the Frances Haugen insurgency is equally manifest: to implement formal government censorship of social media platforms, a literal Ministry of Truth, for “the good” of the people who use them.

The mere fact that Haugen has been granted such an impressive platform and portrayed throughout the mainstream media as some sort of heroine does not imply that she is a “whistleblower” any more than calling the innocent people killed by bombs “collateral damage” somehow exonerates the killers for their completely avoidable acts of homicide. Frances Haugen, whose vast and highly visible media tour has been funded by Pierre Omidyar (according to Glenn Greenwald, formerly of The Intercept, which, too, is funded by Omidyar), is not, let us be perfectly frank, a whistleblower. This is yet another case where language has been redefined to support a particular political program. Just as “assassination” became “targeted killing” and “torture” became “enhanced interrogation techniques” when authorized by the U.S. president, the concept of “whistleblower” has now been rebranded to cover people who speak out in ways approved of by the very people who provide the speaker with a platform for airing grievances with which all “good” people will agree, with the ultimate aim of expanding the orchestrators’ own domain of power and control.

In reality, Haugen has “revealed” only that the social media platform founded by Mark Zuckerberg has not been conducting itself in the manner in which Haugen’s associates want it to.

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The Military Origins of Facebook

Posted by M. C. on October 25, 2021

Facebook’s growing role in the ever-expanding surveillance and “pre-crime” apparatus of the national security state demands new scrutiny of the company’s origins and its products as they relate to a former, controversial DARPA-run surveillance program that was essentially analogous to what is currently the world’s largest social network.

In light of this, it was no exaggeration when New York Times columnist William Safire remarked that, with TIA, “Poindexter is now realizing his twenty-year dream: getting the ‘data-mining’ power to snoop on every public and private act of every American.”

https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/04/investigative-reports/the-military-origins-of-facebook/

by Whitney Webb

In mid-February, Daniel Baker, a US veteran described by the media as “anti-Trump, anti-government, anti-white supremacists, and anti-police,” was charged by a Florida grand jury with two counts of “transmitting a communication in interstate commerce containing a threat to kidnap or injure.”

The communication in question had been posted by Baker on Facebook, where he had created an event page to organize an armed counter-rally to one planned by Donald Trump supporters at the Florida capital of Tallahassee on January 6. “If you are afraid to die fighting the enemy, then stay in bed and live. Call all of your friends and Rise Up!,” Baker had written on his Facebook event page.

Baker’s case is notable as it is one of the first “precrime” arrests based entirely on social media posts—the logical conclusion of the Trump administration’s, and now Biden administration’s, push to normalize arresting individuals for online posts to prevent violent acts before they can happen. From the increasing sophistication of US intelligence/military contractor Palantir’s predictive policing programs to the formal announcement of the Justice Department’s Disruption and Early Engagement Program in 2019 to Biden’s first budget, which contains $111 million for pursuing and managing “increasing domestic terrorism caseloads,” the steady advance toward a precrime-centered “war on domestic terror” has been notable under every post-9/11 presidential administration.

This new so-called war on domestic terror has actually resulted in many of these types of posts on Facebook. And, while Facebook has long sought to portray itself as a “town square” that allows people from across the world to connect, a deeper look into its apparently military origins and continual military connections reveals that the world’s largest social network was always intended to act as a surveillance tool to identify and target domestic dissent.

Part 1 of this two-part series on Facebook and the US national-security state explores the social media network’s origins and the timing and nature of its rise as it relates to a controversial military program that was shut down the same day that Facebook launched. The program, known as LifeLog, was one of several controversial post-9/11 surveillance programs pursued by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that threatened to destroy privacy and civil liberties in the United States while also seeking to harvest data for producing “humanized” artificial intelligence (AI). 

As this report will show, Facebook is not the only Silicon Valley giant whose origins coincide closely with this same series of DARPA initiatives and whose current activities are providing both the engine and the fuel for a hi-tech war on domestic dissent.

DARPA’s Data Mining for “National Security” and to “Humanize” AI

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, DARPA, in close collaboration with the US intelligence community (specifically the CIA), began developing a “precrime” approach to combatting terrorism known as Total Information Awareness or TIA. The purpose of TIA was to develop an “all-seeing” military-surveillance apparatus. The official logic behind TIA was that invasive surveillance of the entire US population was necessary to prevent terrorist attacks, bioterrorism events, and even naturally occurring disease outbreaks. 

The architect of TIA, and the man who led it during its relatively brief existence, was John Poindexter, best known for being Ronald Reagan’s National Security Advisor during the Iran-Contra affair and for being convicted of five felonies in relation to that scandal.

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