Censorship
- Abortion Services Censored on Social Platforms Globallywww.projectcensored.org Abortion Services Censored on Social Platforms Globally
In the aftermath of the US Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, online abortion services are facing global censorship
>Even beyond the United States, other countries’ governments are censoring reproductive health information. In Argentina, where abortion remains legal, Google has blocked ads regarding reproductive health. > >Advocates also cite widespread misinformation as a dangerous threat for those seeking information about reproductive care. Crisis pregnancy centers (CPC), facilities that misleadingly represent themselves as reproductive health care clinics but do not provide abortion services, have spent $10 million on Google ads within the last two years. After many CPC ads were reported for disinformation, Google “claimed to have removed particular ads for fake clinics that violated its policies, but they did not take action on the systemic issues with fake clinic ads.”
- A censored comment under a Youtube video about Aaron Bushnel
"And what is the actual evidence for this cruel accusation? In addition to that, keep in mind that most psychiatrists aren’t to be trusted unless you are Peter Breggin… I see a pattern that is thousands of years old, anyone who exposes wickedness of people, they accuse him as mentally ill.. Happened to the prophets.. Also happened to many activists all over the world.. How else are they going to trick the public?"
- Repression of Palestinian Mediawww.projectcensored.org #14 Repression of Palestinian Media
The May 11, 2022, murder of Palestinian reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, evidently by Israeli soldiers, while she was covering one of their routine raids on a West
>During spring 2021, Palestinians and pro-Palestine activists took to social media to condemn the evictions of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem. Subsequently, activists who condemned the evictions and journalists who covered them faced account suspensions and restrictions on social media, Nadda Osman reported for Middle East Eye. > >Mona Shtaya of 7amleh told Osman that these restrictions were part of a longstanding pattern: “Annually there are tens of thousands of requests that the [neocolonial] cyber unit [sends] to social media companies in an attempt to silence Palestinians. The number of requests is increasing annually. In 2019 [the neocolony] made 19,606 requests from the cyber unit to social media companies regarding content takedowns.” > >Repression of Palestinian speech online could soon get much worse. In a January 18, 2022, article for the Jordan Times, Ramzy Baroud revealed that [the neocolony’s] minister of justice, Gideon Sa’ar, is pushing legislation known as the “Facebook Law.” The legislation would grant [the neocolony’s] courts broad powers to remove online content deemed to be “inflammatory” or harmful to the security of the state from social media or “any website at all.” > >Although the law ostensibly prohibits all violent, hateful rhetoric posted online, the Palestinian Digital Rights Coalition and the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council issued a statement opposing the legislation on the grounds that it would be used in a discriminatory manner and ultimately “increase the muzzling of Palestinian voices and advocacy for the Palestinian cause on social media platforms.” > >Although Abu Akleh’s murder was widely covered, the systematic repression of Palestinian journalists and the silencing of Palestinian expression on social media has been largely ignored by the establishment press. The arrest of dozens of Palestinian journalists detailed in Abraham’s Intercept article never made it onto the corporate news media’s radar. There have been scattered reports in the corporate press about censorship of Palestinian activists on social media. > >The Washington Post published a May 2021 article about Palestinians being blocked on social media. The same month NBC News reported on Palestinian accusations of censorship against social media platforms. ABC News ran an October 2021 story about leaked Facebook documents recording its employees’ concerns about restrictions on content about Palestine. With the exception of publications focused specifically on [the neocolony] or the Middle East, there has been no discussion in the corporate media of [the neocolony’s] so-called “Facebook Law.”
- You cannot talk about VPNs without talking about fed involvement.
VPNs have become a huge market in recent years, with all of them offering essentially the same service but branded differently.
I've talked about VPNs before and how you likely don't need one if all you care about is "privacy". Otherwise it has some usecases for like downloading torrents or accessing geo-blocked content but that's about it.
To synthesize, the VPN owners can see what you do instead of your ISP when you use a VPN. You better trust that they don't keep logs and encrypt your traffic.
Who do you trust more, some VPN company, or your ISP? That's a personal question only you can answer.
Privacy and "security" is what VPNs advertise heavily on. Security is nonsense from their part; there is no additional security to using a VPN. NordVPN for example likes to talk about the evil hackers in starbucks that will hack your wifi, but that literally never happens (not never never but not enough to justify paying them money for it).
In any case, all VPN rankings omit one very important fact: fed involvement. that's security 101.
The CIA controlled an encryption company for decades (established after WW2): Crypto AG. They sold encryption machines to embassies around the world under this name, and it was only found out they were CIA in the 2010s.
We've known since Snowden about backdoors in Windows that allow the NSA to bypass encryption and spy on anyone they want.
And it's a very glaring issue. Look at any of those rankings and they'll talk about privacy and encryption protocols, and never once mention potential fed involvement or other causes for concern.
Even worse, if they do talk about it, they often talk about "Chinese" involvement. How the fuck did the discourse get so bad in just 10 years? They don't even have anything to back it up. Meanwhile we have evidence of NSA and CIA involvement in encryption and surveillance.
NordVPN especially is strange. They advertise a LOT and always sell at a discount (which makes the VPN cheaper than most competition). ProtonVPN too, I don't trust anything Proton ever since they surrendered info to the feds about one of their clients (an eco-activist). Secondly they are a "Swiss" company like Crypto AG, but were not founded by Swiss people.
So again, who do you trust more? Some VPN company trying to sell you a product under false pretences, or your local ISP company?
- Musk removes twitter videos of him and Chappelle embarrassing themselves making fun of poor peoplegizmodo.com Elon Musk Gets Viciously Booed by Stadium Crowd at Dave Chappelle Show
“You shut the fuck up,” Chappelle said as the crowd booed the billionaire.
- Are Lemmy websites and instances still getting censored on Reddit?
Some months ago I tried to make posts that link to Lemmygrad; but Reddit removed them because it got counted as "spam". (Most posts got removed by mods.)
Sometime later, I also remember trying to post a link to https://join-lemmy.org; but Reddit removed that link too.
I sense that Reddit is trying to censor Lemmy.
- Disseminating Youtubes deliberate dysfunction [collective effort]
Now, it has come to my attention over the years, that youtube has very specific designs that make political propaganda more effective, I want to create a master list of functions that are omitted and functions that are included to make it less useable, less functional and less open/free as it could be/should be.
just to note the most basic:
ALGORYTHMIC SUPPRESSION OF ANTIWAR/LEFTIST/HISTORY CONTENT
Search function that does not allow proper setting of specifics
Search results filled with non-search related videos
Video suggestions being pushed constantly, specifically rightwing content (Jordan Peterson, Peter Molyneux, Ben Shapiro, Tim Pool, Joe Rogan(not himself rightwing but 99% of his guests)
300.000 bot accounts that autofill new think tank financed influencers likes to amp them to the search suggestion feed
comment replies are not forwarded to you, so the last answer to a pinned comment can be overridden by whataboutist bots to be invisible to the next user
No option to BLOCK content properly, I cannot create a term based filter-list as in ANY email application in existence. NOT POSSIBLE ON YOUTUBE ON PURPOSE
Now: fill me in on your experiences
- Relevant Repost: Jessica Ashooh: The Taming of Reddit and the National Security State Plant Tabbed to Do Itwww.mintpressnews.com Jessica Ashooh: The Taming of Reddit and the National Security State Plant Tabbed to Do It
Exploring the troubling background of Reddit Director of Policy Jessica Ashooh, her links to a dictatorship and hawkish think tanks.
- Very cool ways Russians are getting around censorshipwww.bbc.com The Russians using emojis to evade censors
Amid a protest crackdown, young people are still risking freedom to oppose the conflict in Ukraine.
- Anonymous releases 364,000 files about Russia's censorship of invasionwww.upi.com Anonymous releases 364,000 files about Russia's censorship of invasion - UPI.com
Anonymous has released 364,000 files from Roskomnadzor, the Russian agency that monitors and censors media, including documents from as recent as Saturday, according to whistleblower group Distributed Denial of Secrets.
- Jessica Ashooh: The taming of Reddit and the National Security State Plant tabbed to do it | MR Onlinemronline.org Jessica Ashooh: The taming of Reddit and the National Security State Plant tabbed to do it | MR Online
How and why did a hawkish young mandarin hothoused at elite universities and in the halls of state power end up an executive at an anarchic messageboard site with an anti-establishment reputation?
- Facebook banned user for a month for posting photos of Ukrainian neofascistswww.workers.org Letter to the Editor: Attacked for telling the truth on Ukraine
Dear Editors, Facebook banned me for a month. Why? Cause I posted two pictures of Ukraine Nazis, armed by the U.S. and NATO. (tinyurl.com/2p8uc3ee) They are part of the Ukraine army that has bombed and attacked the people of Donetsk and Donbass and Lugansk, just like we have fascists in the U.S.
- Chief Czech prosecutor warns against public support for Russia, punishable by up to 3 years in prison.english.radio.cz Chief prosecutor warns against public support for Russian aggression
Chief prosecutor warns against public support for Russian aggression
- Twitter suspended account of US skier Aaron Blunck after he praised Beijing organisers.www.scmp.com US skier says Twitter account suspended after he praised Beijing organisers
Three time Olympian Aaron Blunck says China has ‘done a stellar job’, while criticising biased coverage of the Games.
- Sci-Hub: Researchers Fight ISP Blockingtorrentfreak.com Sci-Hub: Researchers File Intervention Application To Fight ISP Blocking * TorrentFreak
Social science researchers have filed an intervention application to prevent ISP blocking of Sci-Hub at the behest of major publishers.
Sci-Hub: Researchers File Intervention Application To Fight ISP Blocking
Last December, academic publishers Elsevier, Wiley, and American Chemical Society filed a lawsuit demanding that Indian ISPs block access to Sci-Hub and Libgen for copyright infringement. The ongoing case now includes an intervention application from a group of social science researchers who say that blocking the platforms would result in a great societal loss to the country.
Assisted and represented by the Delhi-based Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), a group of social science researchers affiliated with universities across Delhi has now filed an intervention application that aims to educate the High Court on the negative implications of ordering local ISPs to block the platforms.
“They have submitted that they cannot access countless essays/books/articles because of the exorbitant rates the publishers charge for them and that these publishers own more than 50% of the total output in social science research. The only way in which they can access these resources is by relying upon LibGen and Sci-Hub. Moreover, LibGen and Sci-Hub offer access to up-to-date research which is unavailable elsewhere.”
“The Applicants’ reliance on [Sci-Hub and Libgen] has incomparably increased during the pandemic where, on account of the indefinite closure of university premises, they lost access to library resources and, in many cases, also to the institutional access to research databases,” the intervention application reads.
“[L]ib-Gen, being a free digital library, has democratized access to knowledge resources not only by eliminating paywalls but also providing access from any physical location as long as the person has access to the internet,” they add.
Blocking Would be Against The Law After highlighting the risks to society should the Court authorize blocking, the researchers turn to the legality of doing so. They believe that while the publishers own the copyrights to the articles, the use of those articles is allowed under India’s Copyright Act, at least under certain conditions.
They note that the publishers are not seeking the removal of specific infringing content but the blocking of entire websites in perpetuity. They argue that there are less restrictive measures available and these should have been sought first, rather than going directly for complete blocking of Sci-Hub and Libgen.
Before issuing any blocking order, they also ask the court to consider Article 19(1) that recognizes the fundamental right to access information.
- Meet the Nicaraguans Facebook falsely branded bots and censored days before elections - The Grayzonethegrayzone.com Meet the Nicaraguans Facebook falsely branded bots and censored days before elections - The Grayzone
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter suspended pro-Sandinista media outlets and journalists days before Nicaragua's elections, amid US government pressure
- Facebook allows ads from the cult of Raël
In the very few times I've been on Facebook, I've gotten ads from Raël twice now.
Rael is a sex cult and sect founded in 1974 by some French guy to make a shit ton of money and r*pe his female followers.
And apparently for Facebook, it's perfectly fine to promote an ad claiming aliens invented humanity and rael (yes he named himself after his cult) is their humble messenger. They don't recruit you just yet into the cult, this comes after you download their ebook (which I didn't do, I gave them enough information about me after I clicked on the link) I guess.
This is on French-language Facebook, so I have no idea how to kick up a witch hunt over this. Twitter maybe, but I have a tiny account with no followers (burner account I made some 10 years ago lol).
I did report the ads and the page but facebook is notoriously ineffective and careless about their moderation, so I doubt they'll see anything wrong with letting a literal cult recruit on their platform. Zuckerberg gotta make that money!
And this comes after claims that they want to stop fake news lmao.
The silver lining is it's a page for my country and it's apparently really new. 89 followers only since they started, earlier this year. Maybe I can email some government agency and ask them the status of this cult with a link to the page on facebook.
It's also worth noting the (French) Wikipedia article about the cult is incredibly... cautious. They present them in a very good light, and discussions have been ongoing since 2009 (in the discussion page) with someone who gets their edits exposing rael as what they are reverted, because they somehow don't conform to wikipedia standards (you have to include sources in a certain way and original research is not allowed, so if someone leaves rael and makes a witness statement, you can't use that).
This is so fucking infuriating. Delete the fucking bourgeoisie, and delete cult grifters from the face of the earth. If they want to join their aliens so bad, who are we to deny them?
- /r/worldnews mods remove hundreds of comments debunking the "Uyghur genocide."
The comments there are surprisingly really good. Even redditors are done with Zenz.
- Twitter partners with UK govt-backed, CIA-linked Reuters to censor alternative views | The Grayzonethegrayzone.com Twitter partners with UK govt-backed, CIA-linked Reuters to censor alternative views - The Grayzone
Twitter is using Reuters, a CIA-linked outlet funded by the British government as part of a covert UK information warfare program, to censor "misinformation"