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Venezuelanalysis: Official Statement On Facebook’s Removal Of Our Page

August 11, 2018 Staff, Venezuelanalysis.com , , ,
On Thursday morning our Facebook page was arbitrarily "unpublished" by Facebook with no warning or explanation, apart from a standard message informing us that we had allegedly violated the company's terms and conditions. The timing of such a move is concerning for several reasons. Firstly, there is the international context, in which Facebook appears to be targetting independent or leftwing sites in the wake of Russiagate. However, in terms of our own coverage, in the days leading up to our removal, we had published important pieces which challenge the corporate mainstream media narrative on Venezuela. Specifically, we published an article giving details on the assassination attempt against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, as well as a very popular analysis criticising the mainstream media's coverage of the attack.

How Facebook’s Political AD Verification Policy Stifles Immigration Activists

August 10, 2018 Massoud Hayoun, Psmag.com , , , , ,
The social media company says it's working to resolve concerns that the policy will silence countless activists, particularly undocumented people decrying the Trump administration. Immigrant rights groups are demanding that Facebook rethink a new policy requiring political advertisers to submit their Social Security numbers, federal government identification, and addresses. The groups say the policy will inevitably block many from accessing the platform, particularly undocumented activists decrying the Trump administration's immigration practices. On Friday, a coalition of rights organizations lambasted Facebook's policies, which the company enacted in May in response to growing outcry over Russian interference in the 2016 election. "All the while Facebook clamps down on legitimate and non-political advocacy by immigrants and non-profit organizations, it has featured paid advertising by the Customs and Border Patrol agency for the past few months," the coalition's statement reads.

Facebook Censors Anti-Fascist Rally In Washington

August 3, 2018 Andre Damon, Wsws.org , , ,
The social media giant Facebook carried out a major escalation in the campaign to censor the Internet Monday, deleting the official event page for an anti-fascist rally scheduled for August 12 in Washington, D.C. on the grounds that it was engaged in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” The event, entitled “No Unite the Right 2 – DC,” was scheduled as a counter-protest to a fascist demonstration called for August 12 by the organizers of last year’s Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, during which a right-wing extremist murdered counter-protestor Heather Heyer. The rally’s organizers include Chelsea Manning, the whistleblower imprisoned and tortured for six years by the Obama administration for revealing American war crimes. Manning told the New York Times the demonstration was “real and organic,” declaring “Folks from D.C. and Charlottesville have been talking about this since at least February.”

Facebook Begins Ranking News Sites By Trust And Combating “Propaganda” During Elections

May 5, 2018 By Aaron Kesel, Activistpost.com , , , ,
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated Tuesday that his company has begun to implement a system that will rank news organizations based on trustworthiness while suppressing content that doesn’t fit in that metric, CNET reported. Zuckerberg said that Facebook has gathered data on how its users perceive news brands by asking them to identify whether they have heard of certain publications and if they trust them. “We put that data into the system, and it is acting as a boost or a suppression, and we’re going to dial up the intensity of that over time,” Zuckerberg said. “We feel like we have a responsibility to further break down polarization and find common ground.”

Capitalism VS. Mental Health, The SS “Light” And Zuck Testifies To His Employees

April 20, 2018 Eleanor Goldfield, Occupy.com , ,
Next up, you may know that Zuck appeared before Congress last week but did you know that what he REALLY did was appear before his employees? And Orwell's got nothing on the DHS and their new media list. Finally, this is your brain on capitalism. Dr. Harriet Fraad is a mental health expert as well as a political radical. She sees first hand what capitalism does to our mental health - how the psychology of the system shapes everything from our personal relationships to mass shootings. Be it the “dethronement of white men,” white elitist “feminism” or how we all suffer under the patriarchy, Dr. Fraad lends a necessary mental health lens to the conversation of capitalist oppression.

The Weird And Surprising Things I Found In The File Facebook Has On Me

March 23, 2018 By Nick Whigham, Nzherald.co.nz ,
It was the first day of pre-school. After my Mum leaned down and gave me one final bear hug, I was off to start my education as I casually waved her away without looking at her — clearly she was cramping my style. I don't remember this seminal moment, but I happened to stumble upon the footage this week by complete happenstance. The video is of a TV screen playing an old VHS tape and appears to be taken on a camera phone. My guess is my younger sister found the tape and filmed the video to send to me. But maybe I should just ask Facebook, because that's where I found it — in the huge file containing my extensive Facebook history the company keeps on me.

From Facebook To Policebook

February 10, 2018 By Andre Damon, Wsws.org , ,
On Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a notice outlining extraordinary plans by the social media company to monitor all the postings and messages of its users, censor independent journalism, and use artificial intelligence (AI) to report users to the police and intelligence agencies. Zuckerberg began his post, released in conjunction with the company’s quarterly earnings report, by declaring that 2017 was a “hard year” for Facebook. “The world feels anxious and divided—and that played out on Facebook. We’ve seen abuse on our platform, including interference from nation states, the spread of news that is false, sensational and polarizing, and debate about the utility of social media.” Facebook, he writes, has the responsibility to “amplify the good and prevent harm. That is my personal challenge for 2018.”

TeleSUR English’s Day In Facebook ‘Jail’ Raises Doubts About Silicon Valley Hospitality

January 26, 2018 By Elliott Gabriel, Mintpressnews.com , , ,
QUITO, ECUADOR — Facebook users who followed Latin American news outlet teleSUR English were confused on Tuesday when the fan page suffered a mysterious disappearance from the site that lasted nearly a full day. The page’s deletion and subsequent reemergence raised questions about potential censorship by the California-based social networking giant, which has previously acted at the behest of repressive governments and faces pressure from U.S. officials and traditional media to crack down on so-called “fake news.” The page has a modest presence on Facebook – about 400,000 followers – as well as millions of social media interactions, such as comments, likes, shares and views. The page also hosts tens if not hundreds of hours of originally-produced video content — including original programs, documentaries, and tightly-edited one-minute clips.

Facebook Announces Major Plan To Censor News Content

January 17, 2018 By Andre Damon, Wsws.org , ,
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Friday that the world’s largest social network is initiating major changes aimed at deprioritizing news and political content on individual users’ news feeds in favor of “personal moments.” The change is the most significant effort to date to censor online information. Facebook is currently a major source of news for hundreds of millions of people throughout the world. The number of global Facebook users has increased from 100 million in 2008 to more than 2 billion. According to a Pew Research poll last November, 45 percent of Americans use Facebook for news content, more than any other social media platform. It has become a significant mechanism for the organization of protests and the spread of information outside of the control of the major media conglomerates. It is this that Facebook, working closely with the major capitalist states, wants to end.

Twitter & FB Reward Military Violence Over Small-Time Threats

January 3, 2018 By Eleanor Goldfield, Artkillingapathy.com , , , ,
In December 2017, Twitter released new rules against violence and physical harm. Included in those rules is a focus on “Accounts that affiliate with organizations that use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes…This policy does not apply to military or government entities…” As an example then, when the U.S. dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb in our arsenal (sickly nicknamed the Mother of All Bombs or MOAB) on Afghanistan, corporate media couldn’t get out their praise fast enough. Be it referring to Donald Trump as presidential or the Fox News show Fox & Friends playing footage of the bomb dropping to Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue,” the clear cut and grotesque promotion of large scale violence was blatant. And according to Twitter, totally fine.

Facebook Deleting Accounts At Direction of US & Israel

December 31, 2017 Glenn Greenwald, TheIntercept.com , ,
A Facebook spokesperson told the New York Times that the company deleted these accounts not because Kadyrov is a mass murderer and tyrant, but that “Mr. Kadyrov’s accounts were deactivated because he had just been added to a United States sanctions list and that the company was legally obligated to act.” As the Times notes, this rationale appears dubious or at least inconsistently applied: Others who are on the same sanctions list, such as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, remain active on both Facebook and Instagram. But just consider the incredibly menacing implications of Facebook’s claims. What this means is obvious: that the U.S. government — meaning, at the moment, the Trump administration — has the unilateral and unchecked power to force the removal of anyone it wants from Facebook and Instagram by simply including them on a sanctions list. Does anyone think this is a good outcome?

Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Dark Art Of Digital Propaganda

December 26, 2017 By Lauren Etter, Vernon Silver, and Sarah Frier, bloomberg.com , ,
Under fire for Facebook Inc.’s role as a platform for political propaganda, co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has punched back, saying his mission is above partisanship. “We hope to give all people a voice and create a platform for all ideas,” Zuckerberg wrote in September after President Donald Trump accused Facebook of bias. Zuckerberg’s social network is a politically agnostic tool for its more than 2 billion users, he has said. But Facebook, it turns out, is no bystander in global politics. What he hasn’t said is that his company actively works with political parties and leaders including those who use the platform to stifle opposition—sometimes with the aid of “troll armies” that spread misinformation and extremist ideologies.

From An Open Internet, Back To The Dark Ages

November 26, 2017 Jonathan Cook, www.counterpunch.org , , , ,
By Jonathan Cook for Counterpunch. In December the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plans to repeal already compromised regulations that are in place to maintain a semblance of “net neutrality”. Its chairman, Ajit Pai, and the corporations that are internet service providers want to sweep away these rules, just like the banking sector got rid of financial regulations so it could inflate our economies into giant ponzi schemes. That could serve as the final blow to the left and its ability to make its voice heard in the public square. The social media giants soon responded. It is becoming ever clearer that Facebook is interfering as a platform for the dissemination of information for progressive activists. It is already shutting down accounts, and limiting their reach. These trends will only accelerate. Google has changed its algorithms in ways that have ensured the search engine rankings of prominent leftwing sites are falling through the floor. It is becoming harder and harder to find alternative sources of news because they are being actively hidden from view.

How ‘Fake News’ Scare Is Marginalizing The Left

October 15, 2017 Julianne Tveten, www.inthesetimes.com , , ,
By Julianne Tveten for In These Tmes. In the wake of the 2016 election, pundits pointed their fingers at Facebook, Google and Twitter, accusing them of spreading misinformation about political issues and figures to the U.S. voting citizenry. A circuitous, concern-trolling tactic, the Fake News scare soon gained momentum among corporate media outlets and politicians seeking to find palatable scapegoats for the stunning election of Donald Trump. When the pressure grew too high to ignore the calls for Fake News containment, the Internet giants took action. Google began to stymie ads it deemed dubious. Facebook floated features to flag Fake News and tweaked its ad policy. Months later, Twitter joined the chorus, essentially echoing Facebook’s approach. These adjustments, however, haven’t stifled propaganda. On the contrary, they may have stifled dissent.

DOJ Seeking Info On 6,000 People Who ‘Liked’ Anti-Trump Facebook Page

September 30, 2017 Alberto Luperon, www.lawnewz.com , , , ,
By Alberto Luperon for Law Newz - The ACLU-DC is trying to stop three search warrants that’d let the Department of Justice snoop around protesters’ Facebook accounts over Inauguration Day protests. They filed in D.C. Superior Court on Thursday, saying the government’s demands violate the Fourth Amendment because they are so broad, and threatening First Amendment speech. These warrants ask for too much information not directly relevant to the federal probe, argues the ACLU. This includes information on the plaintiffs’ friends, associates, and the approximately 6000 individuals who just “liked” an anti-Donald Trump Facebook page. Requested data would go back to Nov. 1, 2016, a week before the presidential election. “The warrants make no provision for avoiding or minimizing invasions into personal and associational/expression information, for preventing such information from being shared widely within the government, or for destroying irrelevant material when the investigation is concluded,” said the ACLU filing. In other words, this might chill First Amendment speech by giving the government means to observe anyone who were simply linked to anti-Trump protesters. This fight stems from arrests made Jan. 20. Demonstrators came to Washington D.C. to protest President Donald Trump‘s inauguration, and over 200 ended up getting charged with felony rioting.
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