Prohibiting Access to Social Media: Reasonable Limits? - "In Peckingham v North Carolina, the United States Supreme Court in its spring 2017 session unanimously set aside a statute providing that registered sex offenders may not access social media sites. The statute placed too much of a restriction on the defendant’s freedom of expression. The Court held that the “vast democratic forums of the Internet,” and social media in particular, were today the primary places for the exchange of views essential to a democracy.Access to this information was as important as the ability to speak... The United Nations Human Rights Council last year adopted policies on the proper interpretation of the freedom of expression in the major human rights and civil rights conventions to ensure that these freedoms should be protected online as well as off... A German court a few years ago ruled that access to the Internet is an essential human right"
If access to the internet is a human right, a big tech monopoly banning people is questionable. The internet is very much like a utility
Demonstrators protest outside Meta offices over women's health issues - "Demonstrators descended on Meta’s London office this morning to protest at the alleged censorship of women’s health issues on Facebook. Women held up signs reading “Let us mind our lady business”, “Get Ovary it Meta’ and ‘Words Meta’ in reference to the platform’s handling of language relating to the female body... The protest was organised by Bodyform after its adverts featuring words such as ‘vagina’ and ‘menstrual cycle’ were rejected as sexual content by Facebook... Research of 2,000 women by Bodyform found there are around 40 words - including menopause, miscarriage, vulva and discharge - that are censored on social media. This is because algorithms can deprioritise posts with these phrases - known as 'shadow banning' - which prevents them from generating engagement... “I hope they change the algorithm - I think it’s an algorithm of hate."... Facebook says it does not have a blanket ban on words such as “menopause” or “vagina” and that adverts are governed by stricter policies... "The adverts were removed by mistake by our automated review systems and have since been reinstated. We apologise for any confusion caused.”"
Dr Jordan B Peterson on Twitter - "I can't believe the entire US--including the bloody @TheDemocrats (for whom @RobertKennedyJr is running)--isn't up in arms about this: A nominally American company @YouTube @Google Is ACTIVELY SUPPRESSING A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE during an ELECTION CAMPAIGN Remember when Trump was Satan for "colluding with the Russians" for (not) doing the same thing Why the silence @HillaryClinton @BarackObama @JoeBiden ? Do you care nothing for the free speech even if those in your own party?"
Kari Lake on Twitter - "🇺🇸🇺🇸Wow!🇺🇸🇺🇸 In a Fourth of July Landmark ruling a Federal District Court just ordered the government to immediately end their mass-censorship operation targeting Americans who talk about election fraud, covid, vaccines and other important issues. This is a HUGE WIN for the First Amendment. And a huge LOSS for government officials who work in elections, public health, and other agencies. We the People will NOT be silenced."
Meme - History Gems: "New twist on why I am not using this site as much as I used to. I’ve just been slammed with a bunch of restrictions! The algorithm picked up on one of my history posts from 2020 about a certain Austrian painter who got into German politics. Now there are people who post odious things and somehow admire this awful person but mine was just an innocent history article about an element of his administration with the army. Clearly it’s inoffensive, but as so much content is posted they have to use a computer to check and sometimes it gets it wrong but also finding 3 year old material is poor. Facebook this is why I no longer see you as a viable option 👎🏻"
Never mention Hitler on Facebook
Vance ShibaInu - "So, Facebook just forced a feature on us all that hides "problematic", "low quality" and "sensitive" content from your feed without your permission. It's turned on by default. I had to turn mine off manually. Go from Settings > News Feed > Reduce and see for yourself. 🤔"
Too bad you can't turn off censorship of "Sensitive content" - only increase it
Meme - History Gems: "New twist on why I am not using this site as much as I used to. I've just been slammed with a bunch of restrictions! The algorithm picked up on one of my history posts from 2020 about a certain Austrian painter who got into German politics. Now there are people who post odious things and somehow admire this awful person but mine was just an innocent history article about an element of his administration with the army. Clearly it's inoffensive, but as so much content is posted they have to use a computer to check and sometimes it gets it wrong but also finding 3 year old material is poor. Facebook this is why I no longer see you as a viable option"
Meme - taylorlorenz: "Second Community guidelines violation in less than a week. How are we supposed to discuss or talk about news stories and the media when IG censors it? Other people posted this exact screenshot and got no violation. This is so ridiculous and I'm in danger of losing my IG account now."
"Hunter Biden latest video: Nude water slide riding with hookers at 4k per night Malibu rental"
When journalists get a taste of their own medicine
Meme - TaylorLorenz.Substack.com @TaylorLorenz: "Locked out of posting on IG again after getting another community guidelines violation for hate speech!!"
"Are u fucking kidding me!!!!"
Meme - *Spongebob running outside/Squidward Looking Out the Window* "Me in fb jail for absolutely nothing"
"people with their private parts out in their fb stories"
Meme - "Algorithms are causing human language to reroute around them in real time. I'm listening to this youtuber say things like "the bad guy unalived his minions" because words like "kill" are associated with demonetization
academics trying to reconstruct what went wrong in a thousand years are gonna think demonetization is a variant of demonization which is... incorrect, but only technically"
"these words were invoked for ritual purposes"
"It was believed that certain words had the power to attract the wrath of a feared entity called "the algorithm" whose assumed powers were as far reaching as they were vague."
NBC News on X - "Leaders of several organizations tell @NBCNews they're gearing up for a long fight with Elon Musk over his management of X as he loosens the rules around hate speech."
Andrew Smith on X - "The Left gets to define "hate speech" for just about every major corporation in the USA and the EU. From Amazon, Google, PayPal, GoFundMe, and Facebook to banks engaged in "debanking" conservatives. Twitter remains the sole exception and has to be bought to heel."
Weird that civil rights groups are trying to bully Twitter when there's no right to be "safe" from "hate speech"
Streaming platform Rumble responds to UK Parliament request to “penalize” Russell Brand - "Russell Brand has been accused of sexual assault, rape, and emotional abuse by four women, with the allegations dating back to between 2006 and 2013... YouTube has since demonetized the actor’s channel to “protect the community” amid the ongoing inquiries, meaning Brand will no longer be able to make money from any adverts played on his content. Now, Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski has revealed the UK Parliament reached out and asked whether Rumble would be willing to do the same. But Rumble has refused, Pavlovski insisting the company will “defend what’s right”... Stating that the company stands for “very different values” compared to YouTube, the letter continued; “We have devoted ourselves to the vital cause of defending a free internet — meaning an internet where no one arbitrarily dictates which ideas can or cannot be heard, or which citizens may or may not be entitled to a platform.” Rumble also called the UK Parliament’s request “deeply inappropriate and dangerous”, concluding with an ‘empathetic rejection’ that the company would not be joining in on “cancel culture”."
Very weird request by the UK Parliament
New Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal raises free-speech concerns - "Wikipedia co-founder and Internet theorist Larry Sanger slammed the comments. “So this is how he feels about free speech. Of course. Another Silicon Valley jerk engaging in doublespeak, using what should be an open public square for manipulation and indoctrination,” he fumed in a tweet. Naysayers didn’t get much solace on Agrawal’s first full day, when Twitter announced it would no longer allow posting images or videos of people without their consent. Media theorist and CUNY Journalism School professor Jeff Jarvis said the move could negatively “affect how journalism is done on Twitter.”... “The woman who took the video of George Floyd, if she had not been able to post that video, that case would not have happened and that murderer would have gotten away with it. That concerns me,” Jarvis added. Gainor called the new restrictions “very alarming.”"
From 2021
Facebook confirms 'hate speech' suspension for quoting Farrakhan - "Facebook has confirmed the suspension of a user who appealed it after being blocked for thirty days for reporting statements by Louis Farrakhan. Facebook user Damon Rosen told Arutz Sheva he received a 30-day "Community Standards" suspension for posting the message: "Louis Farrakhan said he asked G-d to hit Florida extra hard with coronavirus ... to punish all the Jews & Cubans who hated Fidel Castro."... Rosen said: "I was watching Minister Louis Farrakhan speak, Saturday, 4th of July, when he said that he asked G-d to make Florida the epicenter of the coronavirus, and his reasoning was because all of the people from the Jewish community of Cuba who fled to Florida - their hatred for Fidel Castro is why, and that it's ruined the relationship between the United States and Cuba. "I posted that practically verbatim. A few days later, I got a message from Facebook saying that the post violated their community standards and they gave me a 30-day ban. "Now, this is amazing. I'm a Jewish guy from America living in Israel pointing out blatant anti-Semitism and I'm the one who ends up with a 30-day ban." After appealing the ban Rosen received an answer: "We reviewed your post again and it doesn't follow our Community Standards." Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of the Israel-based Shurat Hadin civil rights organization has in the past launched major lawsuits against Facebook for inciting terror. Responding to the suspension, she told Arutz Sheva: "Facebook’s actions censoring those who oppose arch anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan are disturbing but hardly surprising at this point. "Facebook’s absurd and biased positions have been in place for a long while. It is hoped that the Attorney General and U.S. Senate which is reviewing the dangers of unregulated social media and the enormous unchecked power they possess will hopefully begin the process of reining the platforms in and putting safeguards in place. "For too long Jews have been the victims of these online policies and forums for hate speech and the Jewish community needs to lead the battle against social media.""
Weird. People claim that there's no issues mentioning protected groups on Facebook as long as you don't insult them or post hate speech. Guess Facebook didn't get the memo
Meme - "_ _ _ _ E R *Black man driving car*"
"Driver"
"Driver"
"You can't post, comment or use Messenger for 30 days. This is because you previously posted something that didn't follow our Community Standards. This post goes against our standards on hate speech, so no one else can see it."
Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts | Facebook - "Matt Walsh was banned from Twitter for the below statement. Whether you agree or disagree with his statement, the state of language where the terms “sex” and “gender” has not been settled in the wake of growing acceptance of trans individuals. Silencing individuals taking one position or the other on the subject doesn’t help the country reach a consensus. Let Walsh state his opinions and let others argue why he is or isn’t wrong.
——-
“The greatest female Jeopardy champion of all time is a man. The top female college swimmer is a man. The first female four star admiral in the Public Health Service is a man. Men have dominated female high school track and the female MMA circuit. The patriarchy wins in the end.”"
From 2022
Bernie isn't a fan of Twitter's Trump ban - "yesterday it was Donald Trump who was banned and tomorrow it could be somebody else who has a very different point of view. So I don’t like giving that much power to a handful of high tech people, but the devil is obviously in the details, and it’s something we’re going to have to think long and hard on.”
Meme - *Demolition Man*
"Could you imagine a world like this movie. Where your opinion is so infantilized and repressed that you have to think twice before expressing yourself because the fear of being censored and punished"
"Living there must be a really pain in the as..."
"Your comment goes against our community standars
INFORMATION ABOUT OUR RULES
You can't post, comment or use messenger for 30 days
Continue"
Meme - The Babylon Bee @TheBabylonBee: "Evil Fascist Dictator Censored And Voted Out Of Office *Trump*"
Elon Musk @elonmusk: "A lot of people are going to be super unhappy with West Coast high tech as the de facto arbiter of free speech"
"West Coast high tech has to make the distinction between banning hate speech and banning speech it hates."
Meme - "I'm getting laid tonight
False Information
Reviewed by independent fact checkers"
Meme - Creepy Mark Zuckerberg: "YOU OK? YOU HAVN'T VIOLATED ANY COMMUNITY STANDARDS INA FEW DAYS"
Meme - "No fact check on this complete nonsense, I'm shocked. Happy laughing y'all."
Gallery Diaspora: "When Alexander came into Africa, instead of burning libraries-and that's one of the greatest myths of history, he sent the books home to Aristotle who rewrote a lot of them and put his own name on them; so a lot of what you think is Aristotle's writings is plagiarism from African writings."
Adam Schiff on X - "Elon Musk has been amplifying antisemitic content, profiting from misinformation, and allowing pro-Hamas propaganda to spread on X. This needs to stop. I've joined @RepDanGoldman and @RepRaskin in demanding accountability from X."
What Are the Consequences for Adam Schiff’s Lies? - WSJ - "In the good old days if a member of Congress was caught in a major lie, knowingly misleading Congress and the American public, there were consequences. His own party would denounce him, the electorate would surely vote him out of office but perhaps he would resign in disgrace beforehand. But not today. Rep. Adam Schiff was playing to the base with a calculated lie, cheered on by fellow party members and supported by most of the media. He is a hero—to some. There are not, nor will there be, consequences for him. How times have changed. Any wonder the approval rating of Congress is at such an abysmally low rating?"
Schiff: There is now 'more than circumstantial evidence' of Trump-Russia collusion - "Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday that there is “more than circumstantial evidence now” to suggest that President Donald Trump’s campaign may have colluded with Russia’s attempts to disrupt the election, but he would not offer details." (2017)
Disinformation from Schiff, media damaged America - "House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has been feeding the American people misinformation for years. He used his position — replete with access to information and people in the know — to distribute wild accounts of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. The effect was to frighten and alarm millions of Americans, sowing division between neighbors, toxifying our discourse and raising anxieties. The Trump administration spent time and resources fighting off the fallacy that cursed them since day one and deprived the American people of a president who could devote his time and energy to the policies they had elected him to enact. Just a year ago, Adam Schiff was on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, Fox News — anyone who would have him — talking about Trump/Russia collusion “in plain sight.” Even after the Mueller report clearly indicated that there was no provable collusion or coordination between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, Schiff continued to propagate the lie... We found out this week that Schiff always knew there was no evidence of collusion. By day he would interview former Obama administration officials including Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, national security adviser Susan Rice and Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who would tell him there was nothing, and by night he’d jump on a newscast assuring Americans that he’d seen evidence of something. But there was nothing. The canard Schiff continued to promulgate was supercharged, though, by the media, who went wall to wall with their coverage. Relics from Watergate were dragged out onto “Breaking News” sets and we were told how serious the matter was. Hysterical anti-Trump media personalities took to social media to scold anyone who doubted the Russia conspiracy, lecturing us about putting “country over party.” The coordination between Schiff and the media was pernicious. As Lee Smith wrote in the New York Post, “The tragic fact is that once-prestigious press organizations, including CNN as well as MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post, weren’t fooled by the collusion hoax. They were an essential part of it.” Adam Schiff is a vile actor. Democrats must follow their own mantra and put their country over party and eject the snake in their midst. There are bipartisan endeavors — like infrastructure legislation, economic recovery and the battle against the pandemic — that have undoubtedly been hindered by the malevolence of the congressman from California who abused his power by weaponizing his position in order to bring down a duly-elected president. We will continue to bear the poisoned fruit from his actions for years and it will happen again in a different form unless there is a reckoning, once and for all."
‘We don’t do this’: Even Twitter’s censors rejected Adam Schiff’s censorship request - "Twitter balked at Schiff’s demand that Twitter suspend an array of posters or label their content as “misinformation” and “reduce the visibility” of them. Among those who Schiff secretly tried to censor was New York Post columnist Paul Sperry. Sperry drew Schiff’s ire by writing about a conversation allegedly overheard by one of his sources. Sperry’s article, which appeared in RealClearInvestigations, cited two sources as overhearing two White House staffers discussing how to remove newly-elected President Trump from office... Rather than simply refute the allegation, Schiff wanted Sperry and other critics silenced. His office reportedly laid out steps to cleanse Twitter of their criticism, including an instruction to “remove any and all content about Mr. Misko and other Committee staff from its service — to include quotes, retweets, and reactions to that content.” The date of Schiff’s non-public letter in November 2020 is notable: Earlier that year, I wrote a column for The Hill criticizing Schiff for pushing for censorship of misinformation in a letter that he sent to social media companies. His office promptly objected to the very suggestion that Schiff supported censorship. We now know Schiff was actively seeking to censor specific critics on social media. These likely were viewed as more than “requests” since Schiff was sending public letters threatening possible legislative action against these same companies. He wanted his critics silenced on social media. After all, criticizing his investigations or staff must, by definition, be misinformation — right?... even a company that maintained one of the largest censorship programs in history could not bring itself to do what Schiff was demanding — but the demand itself is telling. Not only does it show how dishonest some politicians have been in denying censorship while secretly demanding it, it also shows the insatiable appetite created by censorship... The move by Schiff to ban Sperry and others on Twitter — and to remove content — is highly ironic. Schiff has been criticized repeatedly for promoting “misinformation” and for relying on unidentified “sources” for his claims of Trump’s criminality. For example, Schiff pushed the false claim that the infamous Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation; he also was criticized for pushing false narratives of Trump-Russia collusion in the 2016 election... Schiff is unlikely to be deterred by the release of these communications. He recently sent a letter to Facebook, warning it not to relax its censorship efforts... Schiff’s actions embody the slippery slope of censorship. By labeling his critics as QAnon supporters or purveyors of “misinformation,” he sought to have allies in social media “disappear” critics like Sperry — yet he found that even those allies could not stomach his demands. Given Twitter’s censorship of even satirical sites, it was akin to being turned down by a Kanye West podcast as being too extreme. With the disclosure of apparent FBI involvement in Twitter’s censorship program, the release of the Schiff files is another rare insight into how government officials attempted to enlist social media companies for censorship by surrogate or proxy. That is precisely why many in the media, political and business establishments have mobilized against Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter who has released these compromising files."
Clearly, Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, is a far right Qanon conspiracy theorist, since everyone knows that the Twitter Files were a nothingburger
Meme - "WHAT? FACEBOOK DELETED OUR PROFILE PICTURE AGAIN? *Woman with 2 kids, looking like exposed breasts*"