“Non-crime hate incident” (NCHI) recording is about to come back with a vengeance in the UK.
The recently-elected Labour government has decided to reverse the previous cabinet’s decision to stop wasting police time by having them report such huge numbers of these, often in reality trivial events.
However, even before this policy u-turn engineered by Labour, there were already 12,340 NCHI reports in the first half of the year, rights group Big Brother Watch revealed.
The now former Conservative government hardly put its foot down against such a “granular” (and some would say, absurd) way of policing people’s behavior, that wouldn’t sit oddly with an Orwell novel.
The Conservatives’ solution was to tell the police to report only what they viewed as real risks that could escalate into significant harm – a definition already clear as mud, one might say.
Now, Labour is happy to announce that they are reversing even that attempt at toning down the practice, and the spin to justify this latest decision is that it is needed to “monitor” antisemitic and anti-Islamic “non crime incidents.” Other communities are not mentioned.
This appears to be one of the “band-aid solutions” applied to recent serious rioting in the country, and the UK government didn’t forget to reassure citizens that the right to free speech will – somehow – be preserved in the process.
Just to illustrate what type of “events” the police include in their NCHI reporting – the UK press mentions a case where “a woman said children had used chalk on the pavement outside her home, claiming she was targeted as she was not from the UK.”
In another case, somebody’s “emotional distress” because they were removed from a WhatsApp group was also reported as a “non-crime hate incident.”
However, trying to whittle down this type of “HCHI spamming” to what could reasonably be treated as a threat has now failed.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the new approach would be that of “zero tolerance.”
And – likely of thousands upon thousands of reports, including distinctly dubious ones, every month.
Big Brother Watch noted that in addition to children playing with chalk on sidewalks, “sticking flags on poles” also featured among NCHI reports in the past period.
“Police should protect free speech and privacy by only putting details on file only when necessary,” the group recommended.
August 30, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, UK |
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French authorities announced preliminary charges against Telegram CEO Pavel Durov for allegedly enabling criminal activities on his messaging app. He was ordered to pay €5 million bail and barred from leaving France while the probe continues.
Sputnik reached out to international experts to ask if social media bosses should be held personally responsible for what happens on their apps.
Zach Vorhies, a former senior software engineer at YouTube and Google turned whistleblower, believes that “in an era where a digital footprint can directly lead to a jail cell, the concept of ‘privacy by design’ becomes not just a best practice but a moral imperative.”
He stressed that “if tech companies continue to acquiesce to government demands that undermine user privacy, we may be witnessing the end of digital anonymity as we know it.”
Ryan Hartwig, Facebook whistleblower and co-author of Behind the Mask of Facebook said: “No, social media owners shouldn’t be responsible for what is on their platform, unless they are aware of illegal activity and do nothing to stop it or report it.”
“A dictatorship can declare political activity illegal, thus instantly turning millions of political posts into ‘illegal content’,” Hartwig said.
Philip Giraldi, Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest and former CIA field officer, said it was clear that “if free speech is the standard there should be no such responsibility as the actual poster is the one who should be responsible for the content if it is criminal in nature.”
“To behave otherwise would require a massive censorship presence as well as detailed rules about what is acceptable, which would defeat the purpose of having free speech online,” he said.
August 30, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights |
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Telegram CEO Pavel Durov did not strike any special arrangement with the Russian government, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Friday. The tech entrepreneur left Russia after a conflict with the authorities in 2014.
Durov, who is a citizen of four countries including France, was arrested in Paris last Saturday and accused of complicity in illicit activities by users of his messaging app. His supporters claim that Paris is trying to intimidate him into violating the privacy of Telegram clients and imposing stricter moderation of public content, which would align with French policies.
The billionaire, who is currently based in the UAE, left Russia in 2014, after law enforcement accused him of protecting terrorists by refusing to give Russian investigators access to suspects’ communications. He claimed that his platform was designed in a way that made such surveillance impossible.
The row effectively ended in 2020, when the Russian telecoms regulator announced that it no longer had any issues with Telegram. There were rumors at the time that company management and the Russian government had secretly come to an understanding.
”There was no deal between the Kremlin and Durov,” Peskov told journalists, when asked whether there was such a relationship.
Asked whether President Vladimir Putin met Durov in person, the presidential spokesman said to his knowledge no such encounter ever happened. Previously there were claims in some media that Putin and Durov had a meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan in mid-August. Peskov denied that earlier this week.
On Wednesday, Durov attended a court in Paris, which formally indicted him on a slate of charges and released him on a €5 million ($5.55 million) bond. He has been banned from leaving France while the case continues.
Durov faces a potentially lengthy prison term in France on charges of “administering an online platform” used by criminals and refusing to cooperate with authorities in their investigation. French President Emmanuel Macron has denied that the case against Durov is political in nature.
August 30, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | France, Russia |
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British-Palestinian surgeon Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah was vindicated this week after a complaint by a notorious pro-Israel lobby group was rejected by the General Medical Council. UK Lawyers for Israel sought to have the distinguished plastic and reconstructive surgeon suspended and banned from practising medicine.
The so-called “lawfare” organisation is widely known for filing vexatious complaints and litigation to silence critics of Israel and its apartheid policies. The lobby group was behind a complaint to remove art work by children from Gaza which was on display at a London hospital. In another case, UKLFI was slapped down by the chairman of an English football club for allegedly threatening behaviour.
UKLFI claimed that alleged social media posts by Abu-Sittah impaired his fitness to practise medicine and sought for his medical licence to be suspended. This smear is said to have been designed to bring Abu-Sittah’s distinguished reputation into disrepute, and undermine his prominent profile as a public figure in the British Palestinian community. It also sought to undermine Abu-Sittah’s rights to freedom of expression.
Dr Abu-Sittah is known for his humanitarian work in conflict zones, particularly Gaza. He argued that the complaint was politically motivated. He clarified that he was not the author of several posts in question, while others had been translated inaccurately. The tribunal expressed concern over UKLFI’s inability to provide verified translations of the Arabic language posts.
The tribunal also dismissed UKLFI’s arguments that Abu-Sittah’s alleged social media activity posed a risk to patients or the public. No evidence was found to suggest any compromise to patient safety. On the contrary, several compelling testimonies, including one from a British-Israeli colleague, attested to Abu-Sittah’s fair and professional treatment of all patients.
The move by one of the key arms of Israel’s lobby in the UK was seen widely as a smear campaign designed to tarnish Abu-Sittah’s reputation. Nevertheless, in April, he was elected as rector of the University of Glasgow, winning an overwhelming 80 per cent of the vote following a campaign that resonated deeply with students.
Abu Sittah’s successful legal team was comprised of experts from Bindmans LLP, 11KBW and Furnival Chambers. The team included Tayab Ali, who is also the Director of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP); Axel Landin, Zac Sammour and Soraya Bauwens.
The surgeon’s humanitarian efforts in Gaza have been praised widely. He volunteered his medical services for forty-three days from 9 October 2023, when Israel launched what the International Court of Justice has called a plausible genocidal campaign in the besieged enclave.
Upon his return to London, Abu-Sittah spoke at an ICJP press conference, recounting the harrowing experience in Gaza, including performing multiple amputations on children and working with severely limited medical supplies.
The vindication of Abu-Sittah is the second legal victory for the British Palestinian doctor since his return from Gaza. In May, he successfully overturned a Schengen-wide travel ban imposed on him by the German government, in what appeared to be yet another vexatious legal campaign to silence the 55-year-old.
This vindication is seen as a major victory not only for Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, but also for all medical professionals engaged in humanitarian work in conflict zones.
August 29, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Israel, Palestine, UK, Zionism |
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Brazil’s Supreme Court has escalated the country’s retaliation against Elon Musk by freezing the financial assets of Starlink Holding, a subsidiary of Musk’s. This action is in response to another Musk company, X, which has refused to censor posts and designate a legal representative in Brazil.
This decision was part of a broader action taken by the controversial Justice Alexandre Moraes of the Supreme Court, who targeted an economic entity led by Musk. According to Brazilian media, on August 18, Moraes mandated the freezing of all financial assets of Starlink within Brazil to secure the payment of penalties levied against X by Brazilian courts.
Justice Moraes’ decision stems from the ongoing dispute involving X’s operations in Brazil. The company, under Musk’s direction, had recently shut down its Brazilian office on August 17, citing disagreements with the Supreme Court’s fines and content censorship mandates. This closure followed the court’s demand, made the day before, for X to appoint a legal representative to address these issues formally.
The lack of a legal representative prompted Justice Moraes to issue an ultimatum to the social network, giving them 24 hours to comply under threat of service suspension in Brazil. The urgency and consequences of these legal actions were communicated via a post on the Supreme Court’s X profile, directly responding to X’s announcement about the office closure to protect employees and the withdrawal of their representative.
Aside from X, Musk’s Starlink operates within Brazil, providing satellite internet services, particularly in the Northern region. The leadership of Starlink in Brazil has been informed and summoned to respond to the financial obligations imposed on X by the Brazilian judiciary.
Starlink, the satellite internet service by SpaceX, is particularly significant in Brazil for enhancing connectivity in remote and underserved regions, such as the vast Amazon rainforest where traditional broadband is impractical. This technology provides reliable internet access, supporting educational resources, digital commerce, and connectivity during natural disasters, which are frequent in regions prone to floods and landslides.
Additionally, improved internet access aids environmental monitoring efforts in the Amazon, facilitating better resource deployment against illegal activities such as deforestation and wildlife trafficking.
August 29, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance | Brazil, Human rights |
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The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) – a part of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – has been enlisting private entities to help achieve one of its goals.
According to CISA, it would be to combat election misinformation and secure “election infrastructure” – while according to critics, it is to continue with the mission of censoring lawful speech “disfavored” by the current authorities seeking to remain where they are after November – by hook or crook.
CISA doesn’t feel the need to hide this activity that has been taking place since 2018 through a program called the Election Infrastructure Subsector Coordinating Council (SCC). It is here that US government entities – federal, state, and local – meet private groups (“partners” as CISA calls them).
We obtained the latest document for you here.
What’s coordinated here, according to the agency, and as was reported by The Federalist, is the reduction of “cyber, physical, and operational security risks to election infrastructure.” The coordination is done to the point where government and private sector have adopted “a unified approach.”
Information sharing ahead of the presidential election is also happening as SCC works with the Government Coordinating Council (GCC).
According to CISA, this collaboration is now “unprecedented” while what is referred to as “private sector owners and operators” sit, as part of SCC, in meetings with the FBI and election officials.
But CISA has other partners – the Election Integrity Project (EIP), formed months before the 2020 election, which has been blasted by the House Judiciary Committee as a tool for the government to bypass the First Amendment and censor speech.
The CISA site has a document, “Mis-, Dis-, and Malinformation: Planning and Incident Response Guide for Election Officials,” put together by CISA/GCC Joint Mis/Disinformation Working Group.
In it, CISA “defines” what each of its targets is supposed to be, and ends up doing what all “misinformation warriors” do – offer subjective and broad descriptions susceptible to interpretation, instead of clear definitions.
For example, “malinformation” is said to be information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”
The document mentions “delegitimization of election results” as one form of mis, dis, and mal information.
It’s unclear if CISA has both 2016 and 2020 elections in mind – or only one – but this is how the activity is described: “Narratives or content that delegitimizes election results or sows distrust in the integrity of the process based on false or misleading claims.”
August 29, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | CISA, DHS, FBI, United States |
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The Biden-Harris White House looks determined to justify and normalize the practice of the government colluding with private companies, in this instance Big Tech, to censor speech.
After Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, admitting that his company came under pressure from the current administration to conduct censorship and that he “believes” that was wrong – the White House doubled down on the controversial, and quite possibly, unconstitutional, policy.
In his letter, Zuckerberg chose to focus on Meta censoring content related to COVID-19, and in response, a White House spokesman revealed the government does not share Zuckerberg’s stance that the policy of pressure was wrong.
“Encouragement” is how that’s phrased. “When confronted with a deadly pandemic, this administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety,” stated the White House spokesman to media requests.
He further justified the actions described by Zuckerberg as needed because the White House believes private companies, including those from the tech industry, “should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people.”
And with the stage set in this way – the spokesman concluded that these companies are then free to make “independent choices about the information they present.”
But Zuckerberg’s letter to the Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan does a pretty good job of explaining how these “independent choices” get made. Senior figures from the Biden administration, Zuckerberg stated, in 2021 “repeatedly pressured our (Facebook, Instagram) teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire.”
The decision on content removal, and introduction of new rules into platform policies to facilitate censorship, Zuckerberg concedes, was “ultimately ours” – but made under pressure.
If Meta tried to defy these “suggestions” – the administration showed “a lot of frustration.”
“I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” the letter, sent in response to the Committee’s subpoena first issued in early 2023, reads.
The Committee has been investigating how the government may have colluded with private companies to suppress speech it disapproves of, and whether those actions constitute First Amendment violations.
Even before the current Biden-Harris administration came to power, Facebook was being steered in a desired direction, one example being the notorious case of the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop news story, the Zuckerberg letter reveals.
The FBI contacted the social media giant with a “warning” that there could be an anti-Biden family “Russian disinformation” campaign – and Facebook heeded it by “fact-checking and temporarily demoting (links to the article).”
August 29, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, FBI, Human rights, United States |
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Telegram founder Pavel Durov has been formally indicted by a French court, accused of being an accomplice in several crimes allegedly committed by users of his messaging app. After paying a fine of five million euros, Durov was released from prison, but he is banned from leaving France and could be arrested again in the future.
Durov was arrested in Paris after arriving at the local airport from Azerbaijan. The charges against him could lead to a sentence of up to ten years in prison, but a series of diplomatic pressures appear to be hampering the authoritarian plans of French officials. Durov, despite being Russian by birth, holds several passports and is a citizen of different countries, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Durov lived in Dubai for many years and developed deep economic and strategic ties with the UAE government. For this reason, the pressure from the Arab country for France to release him was massive. The UAE threatened to end military and economic cooperation agreements, which certainly raised concerns in the French government. In practice, it can be said that the UAE used its international position as an important commercial and diplomatic hub to help Durov face the tyranny of the French authorities.
It must be said that there is no solid argument to condemn Durov. Social media creators cannot be held responsible for what other users do on their platforms. If Durov provided the French authorities the keys to access Telegram’s internal codes, he would not only be helping to punish the criminals who use the app, but also violating the private data of millions of innocent users – in addition to giving the French government access to data shared by state officials, businessmen and military personnel who use Telegram.
If France were truly committed to values such as freedom and democracy, Durov’s arrest would never have happened. However, contemporary France is anything but democratic. Paris is becoming a dictatorship under Emmanuel Macron, who has repeatedly refused to recognize the electoral defeat of his party coalition, taking authoritarian measures similar to those of some autocratic regimes around the world.
Durov himself is a French citizen. If France were a democracy, it would be concerned about guaranteeing the individual freedoms of its citizens. However, even Middle Eastern Islamic countries such as the UAE, which are often described as “autocratic” by the West, are more respectful of democratic values than France – as seen in the UAE’s efforts to have Durov released from prison.
The most interesting fact about Durov’s case, however, is that some Western media outlets are trying to describe him as a kind of Russian “agent.” There is a narrative that Telegram is a Russian tool of “hybrid warfare.” Western propagandists are trying to mislead the public into believing the fallacy that Durov refuses to share data with the French authorities in order to supposedly “protect the Russians.” However, the truth is quite different.
Despite being born in Russia, Durov has always been an opponent of the Russian government. Ideologically libertarian, Durov has always had a Westernized view of his country’s politics, seeing Moscow as an enemy of individual freedom. He left his homeland in search of greater freedom in the West—and is now being persecuted by France, the country where Durov sought citizenship in the hope of finding greater freedom than in Russia.
Durov is now learning in the worst possible way that the “freedom” advocated by the West is just rhetoric. In France, where he expected to be “free,” Durov is being persecuted simply for upholding his libertarian values and refusing to share sensitive data with state authorities. Durov has never faced such brutal persecution in his own country, which shows that the level of violation of individual freedoms in the West is higher than in Russia.
It is not yet known what Durov’s future will be. He is not “free” yet, since Paris has ordered him to remain on French territory. The local authorities are trying to intimidate him, using psychological terror to make him reveal the Telegram’s codes. Banned from leaving France, Durov’s only hope may be to seek asylum in the French-based diplomatic facilities of a country of which he has citizenship.
Only one thing is certain for Durov: he is not safe in France, the country where he once believed he would find freedom.
Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram.
August 29, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | France, Human rights |
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France is extorting Pavel Durov for Telegram’s encryption codes so they can censor the messaging platform, Serbian lawmaker Aleksandar Pavic has claimed in an interview with RT.
Durov was detained on Saturday in Paris and charged with failing to cooperate with the French authorities in investigating serious crimes allegedly committed using Telegram.
“These are mafia tactics, let’s be very clear. They are trying to extort the encryption keys from him,” Pavic told RT in an exclusive interview.
“If Pavel Durov resists, I think [Telegram] has an even better future. If he doesn’t succumb to the pressure, to the blackmail,” the Serbian parliamentarian added, noting that Telegram downloads have surged since the arrest.
Should Durov give in, Russia will “warn the free world – which is no longer the West” – that Telegram has been compromised, Pavic said.
Had Durov been arrested in Russia, the West would have denounced Moscow as repressive, but it’s different when France does it, he added, describing it as a “totalitarian mindset.”
People around the world are tired of “Big Brother telling them what is right to read, what shouldn’t be read, what they should think and what they shouldn’t think,” he said, noting that he has been using Telegram for years precisely because of its relative lack of censorship.
According to Pavic, Durov’s arrest is just the latest attack on free speech, which began about two decades ago ahead of the US invasion of Iraq and intensified with the arrest of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who published evidence of US war crimes in 2010.
Since 2014 and the US-backed Maidan coup in Ukraine, the “demonization” of Russia has been used to censor anyone whose reporting goes against the mainstream media line, he added.
“Anyone’s fair game now,” Pavic told RT. “Anyone who opposes the Western, globalist, deep-state narrative.”
Although born in Russia and a Russian national, Durov also has UAE, French, and St. Kitts and Nevis citizenship. Both Russia and the Emirates have requested consular access, but have been rejected because Paris considers his French citizenship to take precedence.
Pavic was in Moscow for the BRICS Municipal Forum event. An RT and RT Balkans columnist, he represents a populist opposition party (We – Power of the People) that won 12 seats in the 250-member parliament last fall, but has since split into two factions.
With Macron due in Belgrade later this week, Pavic said he hopes Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic will back his criticism of Durov’s arrest with a practical step, such as suspending talks to buy Rafale fighter jets from France.
Full video interview at Odysee
August 29, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | France, United States |
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The arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov, when he had decided to take a little trip to Paris, has caused a stir in various spheres – from the business and tech world to media and politics. We will focus on the latter, especially as the incident is becoming another milestone in a wider political reorganization.
Durov comes from a niche that claims transnational status above all else. Information and communication technologies seem to have turned the world into a common space and abolished sovereign jurisdiction. The enormous influence that the IT giants have acquired has been converted into gigantic amounts of money, which has in turn increased their influence further. Transnational corporations have always existed – in areas such as mining, engineering, and finance. But despite their international character, they were still tied to particular states and their interests. The global communications industry, and its associated innovation sector, has dared to break that link.
The period of globalization that lasted from the late 1980s to the late 2010s favored this sort of attitude. It encouraged the creation of a level playing field on which the most developed countries had a clear advantage. They benefited the most. The costs associated with the techno-giants’ growing ability to manipulate societies – including their own in the West – were not seen as critical.
The crisis of liberal globalization has led to a change in the international reality (you could also invert that statement and say the reverse without changing the essence). Thus, the willingness to play by common rules has rapidly and universally diminished. What is fundamental is that this applies even where these laws were originally written, in the leading states of the Western community.
The previous era has not disappeared without a trace. The world has become fiercely competitive, but it remains closely interconnected.
Two things hold it together. The first is trade and production, the logistical chains for which were created during the globalization boom and have qualitatively transformed the economy. They are extremely painful to break. And the second is a unified information field, thanks to ‘nationally neutral’ communications giants.
But there is something strange that separates us. It is not a desire to grab more of the pie – in the sense of what Lenin called the expansionist “imperialist predators” – but rather a sense of internal vulnerability that is growing in various states.
Paradoxically, this is more of a factor in the bigger and more important countries, because these are the powers that are involved in the biggest game. This explains their impulse to minimize any factor that might affect internal stability. First and foremost, this pertains to the channels that serve as conduits for influence (read: manipulation), either from outside or from certain internal forces.
Structures that operate transnationally – understandably – immediately look suspect. The view is that they should be ‘nationalized’, not through ownership but in terms of demonstrating loyalty to a particular state. This is a very serious shift, and in the foreseeable future this process could dramatically weaken the second pillar of the current global interconnectedness.
Durov, a committed cosmopolitan liberal, is a typical representative of the ‘global society’. He has had tensions with all the countries he has worked in, starting with his homeland and continuing throughout his more recent travels. Of course, as a big businessman in a sensitive industry, he has been in dialectical interaction with the governments and intelligence services of different countries, which has required maneuvering and compromise. But the attitude of avoiding any national entrenchment persisted. Having passports for all occasions seemed to widen his scope for action and increase his confidence. At least for as long as this very global society lived and breathed, calling itself the liberal world order. But it’s now coming to an end. And this time the possession of French nationality, along with a number of other things, promises to exacerbate rather than alleviate the predicament of the accused.
The ‘transnational’ entities will increasingly be required to ‘ground’ themselves – to identify with a particular state. If they do not want to, they will be affixed to the ground by force, by being recognized as agents not of the global world but of specific hostile powers. This is what is happening now with Telegram, but it’s not the first and it will not be the last such instance.
The struggle to subjugate the various actors in this sphere, thus fragmenting a previously unified field, is likely to be a key component of the next global political phase.
The tightening of control over everything to do with data will inevitably increase the degree of repression in the information sphere, especially since it is not easy in practice to block unwanted channels. But if relatively recently it seemed impossible to dig up the world’s information superhighway and make it unusable for travel, this no longer seems so far-fetched.
The most interesting question is how the likely shrinking of the global information realm will affect trade and economic connectivity, the remaining pillar of world unity. Judging by the pace of change, there will soon be newsworthy developments there too.
This article was first published by Russia in Global Affairs, translated and edited by the RT team
August 28, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance |
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While Telegram founder Pavel Durov waits to be formally charged by French prosecutors for multiple charges relating to the platform’s lack of moderation, no such fate is likely to befall Mark Zuckerberg. The CEO of Meta has admitted his company opted to accede to the US government’s demands to censor content.
While Telegram founder Pavel Durov waits to be formally charged by French prosecutors for multiple charges relating to the platform’s lack of moderation, no such fate is likely to befall Mark Zuckerberg.
Unlike Durov, the Meta CEO has admitted to what was an open secret anyway: that he caved to repeated White House demands to throttle content on his platform. Senior Biden administration officials, “pressured” Meta to “censor” content, acknowledged Zuckerberg in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on August 26.
Elon Musk was quick to note there’s be no arrest for Zuck as he “censors free speech and gives governments backdoor access to user data.”
Let’s see how the two platforms and their CEOs line up:
Pavel Durov
The Russian-born IT entrepreneur co-created Telegram – a blend of private messaging and public channels –with his brother in August 2013. Durov vowed to champion encryption in messaging, not allow the moderation of messages, deny requests to store records of confidential data, telephone messages and internet traffic of clients, or hand over keys for decrypting users’ correspondence upon request.
“Telegram has historically had problems with regulators in some parts of the world because, unlike other services, we consistently defended our users’ privacy and have never made any deals with governments,” Durov wrote in 2017.”
Telegram’s unlimited in size “channels” and group chats are encrypted using a combination of 256-bit symmetric AES encryption, 2048-bit RSA encryption, and Diffie-Hellman secure key, per the Telegram team. Telegram doesn’t provide end-to-end encryption for common private and group chats, but does provide a secret chat feature. Telegram lets users post files enjoying unlimited cloud storage. There is no targeted advertising or algorithmic feed. The platform’s audience exceeded 950 million users by July 2024.
The US government wanted to get its hands on Telegram’s code to infiltrate the system and spy on its users, Durov revealed in an April interview with ex-Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson. The entrepreneur rejected pressure to allow a “backdoor” in the app for Western intelligence. Durov resisted personal “pressure” in the US, where law enforcement officials approached him, seeking to “establish a relationship to in a way control Telegram better.”
“[But] for us running a privacy-focused social media platform, that probably wasn’t the best environment to be in. We want to be focused on what we do, not on government relations of that sort,” Durov said.
Mark Zuckerberg
Zuckerberg turned his Meta (formerly Facebook) into a tool for US censorship. The platform with its standard for messaging apps end-to-end (e2e) encryption and non-open source algorithm has served up documented cases of censorship and manipulation of public opinion proven by whistleblowers and information leaks. After the 2016 US elections, conservative viewpoints were suppressed under the pretext of “hate speech” while liberal ones were elevated.
In 2018 it was revealed that UK-based political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica engaged in the harvesting of tens of millions of Facebook profiles in 2014. They were used to target users with personalized political ads, including during the 2016 US presidential campaign. The company engaged in similar harvesting and vote manipulation operations in nations across the globe.
Posts criticizing everything from US foreign and immigration policy, climate policies, to vaccines were occasionally deleted outright, but more often hidden or deranked.
Used as an election manipulation tool, whistleblowers have documented Facebook’s skewed content moderation directives regarding candidates and their supporters, in direct violation of the company’s policy on protecting political speech.
Facebook barred Donald Trump from the platform in the wake of the 6 January Capitol riot after being accused of “incitement of violence”. He was reinstated his account had “new guardrails in place.”
Biden officials “repeatedly pressured” Facebook for months to “censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire” during the pandemic, Zuckerberg has admitted. As a result, in April of 2020 Facebook announced that it was imposing limits on “harmful misinformation about COVID-19.” The decision was reversed a year later.
On the eve of the 2020 presidential elections Facebook suppressed the New York Post story based on damning files in Hunter Biden’s laptop containing evidence of a pay-to-play corruption scheme by the Biden family.
Mark Zuckerberg admitted that in an interview with Joe Rogan in 2022, claiming he was ordered to censor the story by the FBI. He has now conceded that the Hunter laptop story was not “Russian disinformation,” as it was alleged at the time by the Democrats and the mainstream media.
While Meta admitted in 2021 that Palestinian posts using words like “martyr” and “resistance” were inaccurately labeled as incitement to violence, the platform revealed its hypocrisy the following year. Meta openly supported calls for violence against Russian citizens after the start of the special military operation. In March 2022 it loosened prohibitions on violent speech for users in Eastern Europe, allowing the placement of ads with such content.
August 27, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | United States |
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Legacy media and some establishment figures are busy justifying the arrest of Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov, attacking the platform, but also making not-so-veiled threats aimed at other platform owners.
Ukrainian-born former member of the US National Security Council Alexander Vindman, who played a key role in the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump, took to X (calling it “Twitter”) – to warn the social site and its owner Elon Musk that there could be “broader implications” in the context of the Durov arrest.
To Musk specifically, Vindman’s extraordinary message, which reads very much like a threat, is that he “should be worried.” As ever, the accusation is that X is allowing “misinformation” – that is, not censoring enough. And the implication is that unless that happens, there could be more arrests.
In one post Vindman went through the Democrat keywords (mentioning “MAGA tech bros,” “weirdos,” referring to Trump as “sexual predator”) and expressed admiration for the EU’s way of “enforcing content moderation” – ostensibly, as opposed to his adoptive country.
Former Belgian PM Guy Verhofstadt was also on X to reiterate how EU elites see, and treat the issue of free speech while throwing around dramatically-worded accusations: “Telegram sits at the center of global cybercrime… Free speech is not without responsibilities!”
It follows that other platform owners could face a situation similar to Durov’s.
Officials who no longer hold formal office often serve to express some extreme points of view that those in government would rather not say publicly, and other handy mouthpieces are always legacy media outlets.
Thus the Guardian sees Telegram as a platform for “information and disinformation” about the war in Ukraine, but then goes on to brand it as the favorite app of “racists, violent extremists, antisemites” – this is the Guardian giving life to claims made by a pro-censorship group.
Europeans and the war again, and the Washington Post decided to disseminate the accusation originating from a senior EU security official that Telegram is “a primary platform for Russia to disseminate disinformation in Europe and Ukraine.”
According to CBS, the same is true of another war: “Encrypted messaging apps like Telegram and WhatsApp have been a huge source of misinformation and disinformation in the Israel-Hamas war. Misinformation experts say it’s because they are difficult to moderate.”
And the New York Times decided to hand-pick several of the worst examples among the hundreds of millions of Telegram users, to vilify apps in general and argue in favor of censorship.
August 27, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | European Union, Human rights |
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