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Facebook’s Leaked Content Moderation Documents Reveal Serious Problems

December 29, 2018 Gaurav Shukla, Gadgets.ndtv.com , , , , ,
Facebook's thousands of content moderators worldwide rely on a bunch of unorganised PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets to decide what content to allow on the social network, revealed a report. These guidelines, which are used to monitor billions of posts every day, are apparently filled with numerous gaps, biases, and outright errors. The unnamed Facebook employee, who leaked these documents, reportedly feared that the social network was using too much power with too little oversight and making too many mistakes.

Screws Get Tighter: Twitter Suspends #NoWarInSpace

December 28, 2018 Bruce Gagnon, Space For Peace , ,
The corporate directed screws are getting tighter.  Info has power and Mr. Big is feeling the heat from an increasingly informed and connected global population.  The Internet is now being caged - like a protest zone - what the oligarchy calls a 'free speech zone'. That means you can speak out all you want but only in controlled and acceptable locations.  In the high-tech world that means the corporate entities control the Internet and can put you in a box so that few ever see or hear from you. This Twitter suspension of @NoWarinSpace is the perfect example of where we are being sent - one could call it Internet prison.

Zuckerberg Urged To Resign As New Privacy Scandals Hit Facebook

December 21, 2018 Staff, Rt.com , ,
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg should “log out” over an “unprecedented level of negligence,” a US congressman said after a new report revealed how the company allowed cherry-picked firms unhindered access to user data. Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill) has called on Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of the scandal-ridden social-network company, to resign after the New York Times exposed deals with more than 150 firms, including Netflix, Amazon and Spotify, that allowed them to bypass users’ privacy settings. Sony, Microsoft and Amazon were allowed to view users’ contacts through their friends. Spotify, Netflix and Royal Bank of Canada, for instance, were able to “read,” “write” and “delete” users’ massagers, the Times reported on Tuesday.

For The First Time Social Media Outpaces Print Newspapers As News Source

December 12, 2018 By Elisa Shearer, Pewresearch.org ,
Social media sites have surpassed print newspapers as a news source for Americans: One-in-five U.S. adults say they often get news via social media, slightly higher than the share who often do so from print newspapers (16%) for the first time since Pew Research Center began asking these questions. In 2017, the portion who got news via social media was about equal to the portion who got news from print newspapers. Social media’s small edge over print emerged after years of steady declines in newspaper circulation and modest increases in the portion of Americans who use social media, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted earlier this year.

Civil Society Groups Ask Facebook To Provide Method To Appeal Censorship

November 14, 2018 Staff, Eff.org , ,
San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and more than 70 human and digital rights groups called on Mark Zuckerberg today to add real transparency and accountability to Facebook’s content removal process. Specifically, the groups demand that Facebook clearly explain how much content it removes, both rightly and wrongly, and provide all users with a fair and timely method to appeal removals and get their content back up. While Facebook is under enormous—and still mounting—pressure to remove material that is truly threatening, without transparency, fairness, and processes to identify and correct mistakes, Facebook’s content takedown policies too often backfire and silence the very people that should have their voices heard on the platform.

‘Brutally Honest’: Public Outcry Forces Facebook To Stop Banning Pics Of Starving Yemeni Girl

October 29, 2018 Staff, Rt.com , , , ,
A backlash prompted Facebook to stop removing posts featuring a photo of an emaciated seven-year-old Yemeni girl, which accompanied a harrowing New York Times report from the war-torn country. The atrocities in Yemen don’t make poignant headlines in Western mainstream media as often as stories about chemical weapons in Syria or ‘Russian meddling,’ as the conflict usually gets sidelined in the press, but there are notable exceptions. ‘The Tragedy of Saudi Arabia’s War’ was the title of a grim report published by the NYT on Friday. An image of a starved child named Amal Hussain was chosen by the journalists to illustrate the horrible death toll and suffering inflicted on the small Arab nation of Yemen by the armed intervention of its Saudi neighbor.

In Latest Fit Of Censorship, Facebook Deletes Video Detailing Brutal Legacy Of Christopher Columbus

October 19, 2018 By Jon Queally, Commondreams.org , , , , ,
With nothing but a vague "violation of community standards" note and offering no ability to appeal the decision, Facebook has once again blocked a piece of critical journalism—this time a short documentary video depicting the brutal legacy of Christopher Columbus—from its global online platform. "Monbiot’s piece of video journalism was about the airbrushing of history; therefore, there is a great irony in the fact it has now been airbrushed from their platform." —Yannis Mendez, Double Down News.The short video—produced by Double Down Newsand titled "The true legacy of Christopher Columbus: 'Western Civilisation'"—features author and journalist George Monbiot recounting the infamous European explorer's history of subjugation and brutalization of the Indigenous people he encountered when he arrived in the so-called "New World" in the late 15th Century.

Social Media Censorship Intensifies

October 13, 2018 By Kurt Nimmo, Activistpost.com , , ,
The midterm election is being used as an excuse to purge social media accounts and thus reduce traffic to websites on the target list. First it was alt-right figures like Milo Yiannopoulos and Mike Cernovich who had their accounts pulled for behavior that is an everyday occurrence by others on social media. Then Alex Jones was taken down. This was a landmark event that served notice on other websites diverging from the establishment narrative and spreading dangerous “alternative facts.” Now the effort has moved on the the next level of targets, those with moderate to high social media traffic and successful websites with growing viewership. Not millions like Jones, but a couple hundred thousand all the way down to tens of thousands.

Social Media Posts And Photos From #IndigenousPeoplesDay2018

October 10, 2018 By Vincent Schilling, Newsmaven.io ,
Yesterday was Indigenous People’s Day 2018 and over 60 cities across Turtle Island celebrated with parades, dances, song and concerts. One major draw was the day’s celebration in Los Angeles, where the Black Eyed Peas and Redbone combined efforts for a grand slam occasion. In remembrance of the day, we combed the internet for some great photos and fun with the hashtag #IndigenousPeoplesDay2018. Enjoy! Deb Haaland: Thank you New Mexico Highlands University, for inviting me to speak about Indigenous People's Day. We must vote to ensure our voice is included in the narrative. I am so honored to have spent #IndigenousPeoplesDay2018 with you.

Army Capt. Brittany DeBarros Under Scrutiny For Tweeting Facts

September 29, 2018 Staff, Couragetoresist.org , , ,
US Army Capt. Brittany DeBarros has taken to social media to share some basic facts about our country’s endless wars, and the impact those are having both abroad and at home. The July 20th edition of the Army Times declared, “An Army Reserve psychological operations officer is on day seven of 14-orders, according to her Twitter account, and she’s taking the opportunity to let the internet know she does not approve of the Defense Department.” Brittany hasn’t stopped speaking out since, despite pressure from the Pentagon. Brittany started posting a series of simple graphic messages on July 14. The first one read, “I’m on Army Orders for the next 14 Days and there’s not much I can do about that. WHAT I CAN DO is schedule daily posts in my absence with facts about the horror being carried out by our war machine for profit.”

3 Ways Facebook Is Increasingly Becoming An Arm Of The US Government

September 27, 2018 By Tyler Durden, Zerohedge.com , , , ,
Facebook has lately announced a series of major steps it would take to combat fake news and the global spread of misinformation that it says could influence elections, but the more we learn about just who it is Facebook is partnering with in this endeavor, the clearer it becomes that these initiatives are not at all designed to foster independent thought and discourse, but to ultimately ensure that public online discourse doesn't stray too far from official state narratives. Mark Weisbrot, a co-director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, recently slammed Facebook’s decision to work with US government-funded organizations as "Orwellian" — especially given the fact these organizations themselves "specialize in overseas propaganda."

US Schools Hiring Private Companies To Spy On Students’ Social Media

September 19, 2018 Trevon Austin, Wsws.org , , ,
More than 100 school districts and public universities have hired social media monitoring companies over the past five years to spy on students’ social media accounts under the pretext of “school safety” and preventing school shootings, according to a report in the New York Times. The private companies exploit social tragedy, recruiting more institutions after every mass shooting despite little evidence that the spying programs have any effect on violence. The customers of these companies include school districts experiencing school shootings, such as the Newton Public Schools in Connecticut, as well as some of the largest school districts in the nation, including in Los Angeles and Chicago. Large universities like Michigan State and Florida State have also contracted services from the companies.

That Facebook Will Turn To Censoring The Left Isn’t A Worry—It’s A Reality

August 24, 2018 Alan Macleod, Fair.org , , , ,
On August 6, a number of giant online media companies, including Facebook, YouTube, Apple, Spotify and Pinterest, took the seemingly coordinated decision to remove all content from Alex Jones and his media outlet Infowars from their platforms. Jones, perhaps the internet’s most notorious far-right conspiracy theorist, has claimed that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax, the Democratic Party is running a child sex ring inside a DC pizzeria and that the Las Vegas shooting was perpetrated by Antifa. Despite or perhaps because of such claims, his website Infowars has built up an enormous following: 3 million Americans, almost 1 percent of the population, visited the site in July 2018, according to Alexa.

In A Corporatist System Of Government, Corporate Censorship Is State Censorship

August 14, 2018 Caitlin Johnstone, Caitlinjohnstone.com , , ,
Today Twitter has silenced three important anti-war voices on its platform: it has suspended Daniel McAdams, the executive director of the Ron Paul Institute, suspended Scott Horton of the Scott Horton Show, and completely removed the account of prominent Antiwar.com writer Peter Van Buren. I’m about to talk about the censorship of Alex Jones and Infowars now, so let me get the “blah blah I don’t like Alex Jones” thing out of the way so that my social media notifications aren’t inundated with people saying “Caitlin didn’t say the ‘blah blah I don’t like Alex Jones’ thing!” I shouldn’t have to, because this isn’t actually about Alex Jones, but here it is: I don’t like Alex Jones. He’s made millions saying the things disgruntled right-wingers want to hear instead of telling the truth...

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.
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