Zuckerberg loses $7.2 BILLION after corporate ad boycott pressing Facebook to police ‘hate speech’
RT | June 27, 2020
Plummeting Facebook shares have wiped out billions of founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s personal wealth. The impetus? Corporations such as Coca-Cola and Verizon have pulled their ads, demanding that Facebook censor hate speech.
Zuckerberg lost $7.2 billion, after Facebook’s shares fell by 8.3 percent on Friday, Bloomberg reported. The dive in value happened after Unilever, one of the largest advertisers in the world, joined the list of major companies that suspended their ad campaigns on Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram. At around the same time, Coca-Cola said it was also pulling all its social-media advertising for 30 days.
More than 120 corporations, including Verizon, Dove, Lipton, Hershey’s, and Honda joined the boycott organized by activists and civil-rights groups that demanded Facebook combat what they term hate speech and disinformation on its platform.
Responding to the criticism, Zuckerberg, whose remaining net worth is now being estimated at $82.3 billion by Bloomberg, has promised to ban ads with “hateful content.” The prohibited advertising will include materials that describe a specific demographic as “a threat to the physical safety, health or survival of others.” He also vowed to fight potential voter suppression, and to take down posts by politicians and government officials if the company deems them to be an incitement to violence.
While Zuckerberg did not explicitly mention the boycott, it was clear from the announcement he was trying to appease its critics. The US media landscape has been deluged by a wave of calls for advertiser boycotts that came in the wake of the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests. The action targeted primarily conservative outlets and speakers, and ended up being so widespread that it garnered the attention of US President Donald Trump, who considered making such behavior “illegal.”
Still, while Facebook has largely avoided explicit Twitter-style hounding of ‘wrong’ political opinions so far, the social-media platform has been frequently accused of censorship. Despite its proclaimed strive for “transparency,” Facebook is very vague on its policies about ‘forbidden’ content. It has been repeatedly caught flagging and removing certain posts for no obvious reason. One of the most recent scandals involved a colored version of an iconic World War II photo depicting a Soviet flag over the Reichstag – that was sanctioned on V-Day for showing “dangerous individuals and organizations.”
Other Silicon Valley giants, such as Twitter and Google-owned YouTube, have been waging an open war on comments deemed hateful or inflammatory. Twitter has been embroiled in a public spat with Trump, labeling several of his tweets as violating the company’s policy against “abusive behavior.”
US House of Representatives Committee Proposes $3.8 Billion to Fund Anti-Russia Measures in 2021
Sputnik – June 27, 2020
WASHINGTON – The United States House of Representatives Armed Services Committee has proposed allocating $3.8 billion to fund anti-Russia measures in the 2021 fiscal year, according to the committee’s National Defence Authorization Act proposal.
“The proposal provides an additional $3.789 billion for strategic sealift, satellite communications, refueling, submarine, and antisubmarine warfare capabilities that enhance deterrence against Russia”, the document read.
Additionally, officials in Washington are pushing to limit any military cooperation between the US and Russia, although exceptions will be made for the purposes of building dialogue that will reduce the risk of conflict, according to the document.
The committee is also looking to fully fund the European Defence Initiative and provide $250 million to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. One-fifth of these funds can be used to purchase lethal weapons, the committee said.
The proposal, which was tabled by Chairman Adam Smith, would authorize roughly $730 billion in spending for the purposes of national defence.
In December, President Donald Trump approved the 2020 National Defence Authorization Act, which had a topline budget of $738 billion.
Belgium Urges Sanctions against Israel if it Annexes West Bank
Palestine Chronicle | June 27, 2020
The Belgian parliament on Friday passed a resolution urging the government to call on the European Union to impose sanctions against Israel if it proceeds with its plan to annex large swaths of the occupied West Bank.
The measure “concerning Israel’s annexation of occupied territories in Palestine”, passed in the 150-member House of Representatives with 101 affirmative votes, 39 abstentions and zero votes against it.
The body was also due to vote on a motion calling for the recognition of a Palestinian state but this was delayed after it was sent back to the foreign affairs committee for further debate.
MPs from left-wing parties, including the Socialist Party and members of the French and Green parties, proposed the resolutions.
“It is a matter of defending international law. There is no equidistance to be respected in this fight,” said MP Ecolo Simon Moutquin who authored the resolution.
The resolution has two objectives, he said: “On the one hand, send a message to the Israeli government ‘Don’t cross that red line’. On the other hand, give some hope to the Palestinians who have suffered injustice for decades.”
More than 1,000 European lawmakers across the political spectrum issued a letter earlier this week warning Israel against annexing parts of the occupied West Bank.
Legislators said they “share serious concerns about [US] President Trump’s plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the imminent prospect of Israeli annexation of West Bank territory.”
UAE conceals news about normalising ties with Israel
MEMO | June 27, 2020
Despite the official announcement, the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) mass media has concealed news about medical cooperation with Israel from its people, Arab48.com reported on Friday.
The National reported the news while the Spokeswoman of the Ministry of Health Hend Al-Otaiba posted a tweet on her account.
It was noteworthy that the country’s mouthpieces, Sky News Arabic and Al-Hadath, did not make reference to this news, despite offering wide coverage of internal UAE issues and the medical assistance the country offers to the needy.
Local UAE newspapers including Al-Bayan, Al-Khaleej and Emarat Al-Youm also did not feature the news.
However, mass media covered the article of UAE Ambassador to the US Yousef Al-Otaiba, where he claimed that his country is moving against the Israeli annexation of Palestinian lands.
During the last two decades, Israel launched several major offensives on the Palestinians and Lebanese, and killed thousands along with settlement expansion at the expense of the Palestinians. Meanwhile, the Arab world, especially the UAE, continued criticising the Palestinian resistance while maintaining good relations with Israel.
Taliban Refute Reports on Russia’s Alleged Role in Killings of US Troops in Afghanistan
Sputnik – 27.06.2020
KABUL – Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid refuted on Saturday the recent reports citing US intelligence assessments alleging that Russian intelligence has solicited killings of US troops by the Taliban in Afghanistan, saying that these rumors are set to create obstacles to US pullout from the country.
According to Mujahid, all weapons and tools used by the movement were already present in the country or captured from the opposition. The spokesman stressed that the Taliban’s activities are not related to any intelligence organ or foreign country.
Mujahid stated that the Taliban was committed to the deal with the United States, saying that its implementation would ensure comprehensive peace and stability in Afghanistan.
On Friday, The New York Times published an article where it cited unnamed government sources as saying that US President Donald Trump was presented with an intelligence report that claimed that Moscow could have payed bounty to armed Islamic insurgents in Afghanistan to assassinate US soldiers. The outlet said Trump had so far failed to act on the report.
In February, the US and the Taliban signed a peace deal that concluded rounds upon rounds of talks pursuing to launch the reconciliation process in Afghanistan after almost two decades of armed conflict and insurgency.
Last week, US Special Representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad said that intra-Afghan talks were closer than ever after Kabul and the Taliban carried out a significant exchange of prisoners.
North Korea: ‘Only option left to counter nuclear with nuclear’
Press TV | June 27, 2020
North Korea says Washington has left Pyongyang with no choice but to “counter nuclear with nuclear” in a bid to confront hostile US policies against the Asian country.
“In order to eliminate the nuclear threats from the US, the DPRK government made all possible efforts either through dialogue or in resort to the international law, but all ended in vain,” North Korean state news wrote in an essay, using an abbreviation for the country’s official name.
“The option left was only one, and that was to counter nuclear with nuclear,” it added.
The 5,000-word article documented the history of North Korea’s grievances with the US, South Korea and its allies and came a day after all of these countries marked the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War.
It also came just days after the North said it was suspending “military action plans” against the South after it had blown up a liaison office used for talks between the two countries in a North Korean border city.
The two Koreas were on a path of rapprochement beginning in January 2018 before US intransigence to relieve any of the sanctions on the North effectively killed diplomacy.
North Korea has been under harsh US sanctions for years over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
US President Donald Trump has attempted to court Pyongyang, and although he has met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un three times, he has refused to relieve any of the sanctions on the North. That has in turn hampered efforts to demilitarize the Korean Peninsula.
Kim outlined last month a plan to further boost his country’s nuclear deterrence capabilities.
The Washington-Pyongyang nuclear talks have made little progress since late last year, particularly after the global fight to curb the pandemic, which has so far infected nearly 10 million people and killed over 496,000 others around the world.
North Korea’s hardening of stance comes amid reports that the US is preparing to conduct its first full-fledged nuclear test since 1992.
Last December, Kim ended a moratorium on the country’s missile tests and said North Korea would soon develop a “new strategic weapon.”