X Re-Joins Pro-Censorship Advertisers’ Alliance
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | July 2, 2024
Given how X has gone out of its way to reveal the depth and breadth of online censorship via the Twitter Files, this makes for an awkward reunion: the company has decided to rejoin the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM).
It’s a pro-censorship, World Economic Forum-affiliated advertisers’ group, that achieves its objectives through the “brand safety” route (i.e., the censorship “brand” here would be demonetization). And last summer, it was scrutinized by the US Congress.
GARM is one of those outfits whose roots are very entangled (comes in handy when somebody tries to probe your activities, though) – and the chronology is not insignificant either: formed in 2019 as a World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) initiative, partnered with the Association of National Advertisers (ANA).
Then came another “partnership” – that with WEF (World Economic Forum), specifically, its Shaping the Future of Media, Entertainment, and Sport project – a “flagship” one.
In May 2023, the US House Judiciary Committee wanted to know what exactly was happening here, and whether “brand safety” as a concept, as exercised by these entities, could be linked to censorship of online speech.
So the Committee subpoenaed the World Federation of Advertisers (and GARM), asking for records that might show whether these groups “coordinated efforts to demonetize and censor disfavored speech online.”
Committee Chairman Jim Jordan was at the time concerned that this conduct might have run afoul of US antitrust laws.
For X, despite the strides the platform has made toward protecting users’ speech since the Twitter takeover, the GARM relationship is most likely simply about (ad) money – and one of the several efforts to make the platform profitable at last.
Those who were hoping for a “free speech absolutism” on a platform like this might be disappointed, the Congress might investigate some more; but ultimately, the move represents a “realpolitik-style” compromise.
And so X is “excited” and “proud” to be back as a GARM member. The company’s “Safety” account posted something about “the safety of our global town square” apparently being relevant to this decision, but did not elaborate.
Now listed by GARM along with X are YouTube and Chanel – and, in between, some of the biggest pharma and telecoms out there.
Big Money, one might say.
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The lies about the 1967 war are still more powerful than the truth
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
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Keep this enemy (GARM) closer to learn their strategies and allegiances.
Yes, I’m being optimistic—hoping X is making some sort of ‘kol nidre’ deal with GARM.
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I highly recommend having accounts on Minds and MeWe, if only as backups, somewhere people can still find ya in case you do end up getting suspended or banned on X. Gettr and Truth are ok too, though not as good as Minds or MeWe. a) can’t hurt to have backups, just in case and b) you might end up liking one or more of them better than X.
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It’s been clear for months that Elon pulled a bait and switch, this is just further confirmation. It was never about free speech, it was a branding gimmick to establish himself and the image of the company under him. It has been clear for months though, it’s grandstanding, the shadow banning is still going on, the bots are still there, select favorite accounts seem to get free boosting while other select disfavored accounts get the opposite, whether they are paying for premium or not. And I’m hearing more and more from people who pay for premium, get suspended or banned for BS reasons, try to appeal and can’t get in touch with a human or get their money back. Which seems like straight up theft. I’m still active there, kind of, plan on keeping my account until or unless I am banned, but I use it less and less. And I’m fairly certain given my experience with engagement on other platforms was supposedly smaller user bases, that a big part of the reason Elon allows the bot networks to continue operating on his platform is because it inflates his user base numbers, which he uses when dealing with investors. which is fraud, but since it was already in full swing when he bought the thing, apparently he decided to just keep it that way…
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To give an example of what I mean by better engagement on platforms with supposedly smaller user bases, I have over 18,000 followers on x, get about 100 views per tweet give or take unless I go out of my way to retweet it several times throughout the day after tweeting something. Then it might get a few hundred. Despite the fact that I am followed by 18,000 people, supposedly. Whereas on Minds I have just over a thousand, but get the same exact or better level of engagement at all times. Same amount of views, or more, and consistently more engagement from other users, whether in the form of comments or reminds or likes.
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