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Twitter ‘accidentally’ suspends satirical site Babylon Bee after it mocked Kamala Harris and USPS conspiracies

RT | August 17, 2020

Twitter suspended the account of parody news site The Babylon Bee after it mocked Democrat VP candidate Kamala Harris and ‘mail vote suppression’ conspiracies. It was shortly restored amid protests about censorship.

The Bee went dark around 6 pm on Monday. Archives showed that their last tweet was a story about President Donald Trump “riding around in an SUV” smashing mailboxes “to make it impossible for people to mail in their ballots.”

The tweet before that one was about Harris proposing a “housing plan” where “everybody gets free 10’x10’ room and three meals a day” – a clear reference to prison, as Harris had been a prosecutor before getting elected to the Senate.

One conservative commentator pointed out that Twitter spokesman Nick Pacilio was previously the press secretary for Harris’s abortive presidential campaign.

The publication’s editor in chief Kyle Mann shared a screenshot of the email from Twitter, telling him the account was suspended for “violating rules against platform manipulation and spam.”

According to Twitter’s own rules, behavior that “that manipulates or disrupts people’s experience” is out of bounds. The company defines manipulation as “using Twitter to engage in bulk, aggressive, or deceptive activity that misleads others and/or disrupts their experience.”

Before anyone could figure out if that covers censorship of satire, however, the Bee’s account was back up – only with a greatly diminished follower count. The publication was free to share its latest story, about how the Democrats have reversed their position on the USPS after Trump had his face put on all stamps.

The Bee’s stinging mockery of mainstream media news coverage has made it a lot of enemies over the years, including CNN and the “fact checkers” at Snopes, who argued that Americans are too stupid to realize this kind of content is satire.

Mann and the Bee’s defenders have countered that the site clearly labels stories as satire. If the mainstream media reporting has become so ridiculous that the audience can’t tell it apart from ridicule, that’s not the Bee’s problem but their own, they say.

In a message to another Bee editor, Twitter said the account was “flagged as spam by mistake” by “systems” tasked with doing that, without specifying whether it was a computer algorithm or a person that made the call.

August 18, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Managing the Narrative

Corporations and government use internet to control information

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • August 18, 2020

Some Americans continue to believe that when they go to the internet they will get a free flow of useful information that will guide them in making decisions or coming to conclusions about the state of the world. That conceit might have been true to an extent twenty years ago, but the growth and consolidation of corporate information management firms has instead limited access to material that it does not approve of, thereby successfully shaping the political and economic environment to conform with their own interests. Facebook, Google and other news and social networking sites now all have advisory panels that are authorized to ban content and limit access by members. This de facto censorship is particularly evident when using the internet information “search” sites themselves, a “service” that is dominated by Google. Ron Unz has observed how when the CEO of Google Sundar Pichai faced congressional scrutiny on July 29th together with other high-tech executives, the questioning was hardly rigorous and no one even asked how the sites are regulated to promote certain information that is approved of while suppressing views or sources that are considered to be undesirable.

The “information” sites generally get a free pass from government scrutiny because they are useful to those who run the country from Washington and Wall Street. That the internet is a national security issue was clearly demonstrated when the Barack Obama Administration sought to develop a switch that could be used to “kill it” in the event of a national crisis. No politician or corporate chief executive wants to get on the bad side of Big Tech and find his or her name largely eliminated from online searches, or, alternatively, coming up all too frequently with negative connotations.

Google, for example, ranks the information that it displays so it can favor certain points of view and dismiss others. Generally speaking, progressive sites are favored and conservative sites are relegated to the bottom of the search with the expectation that they will not be visited. In late July, investigative journalists noted that Google was apparently testing its technical ability to blacklist conservative media on its search engine which processes more than 3.5 billion online searches every day, comprising 94 percent of internet searching. Sites targeted and made to effectively disappear from results included NewsBusters, the Washington Free Beacon, The Blaze, Townhall, The Daily Wire, PragerU, LifeNews, Project Veritas, Judicial Watch, The Resurgent, Breitbart, Drudge, Unz, the Media Research Center and CNSNews. All the sites affected are considered to be politically conservative and no progressive or liberal sites were included.

One has to suspect that the tech companies like Google are working hand-in-hand with some regulators within the Trump administration to “purge” the internet, primarily by removing foreign competition both in hardware and software from countries like China. This will give the ostensibly U.S. companies monopoly status and will also allow the government to have sufficient leverage to control the message. If this process continues, the internet itself will become nationally or regionally controlled and will inevitably cease to be a vehicle for free exchange of views. Recent steps taken by the U.S. to block Huawei 5G technology and also force the sale of sites like TikTok have been explained as “national security” issues, but they are more likely designed to control aspects of the internet.

Washington is also again beating the familiar drum that Russia is interfering in American politics, with an eye on the upcoming election. Last week saw the released of a 77 page report produced by the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) on Russian internet based news and opinion sources that allegedly are guilty of spreading disinformation and propaganda on behalf of the Kremlin. It is entitled “Understanding Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem” and has a lead paragraph asserting that “Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem is the collection of official, proxy, and unattributed communication channels and platforms that Russia uses to create and amplify false narratives.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, The New York Times is hot on the trail of Russian malfeasance, describing the report and its conclusions in a lengthy article “State Dept. Traces Russian Disinformation Links” that appeared on August 5th.

The government report identifies a number of online sites that it claims are actively involved in the “disinformation” effort. The Times article focuses on one site in particular, describing how “The report states that the Strategic Culture Foundation [website] is directed by Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the S.V.R., and stands as ‘a prime example of longstanding Russian tactics to conceal direct state involvement in disinformation and propaganda outlets.’ The organization publishes a wide variety of fringe voices and conspiracy theories in English, while trying to obscure its Russian government sponsorship.” It also quotes Lea Gabrielle, the GEC Director, who explained that “The Kremlin bears direct responsibility for cultivating these tactics and platforms as part of its approach of using information and disinformation as a weapon.”

As Russia has been falsely accused of supporting the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and the existence of alternative news sites funded wholly or in part by a foreign government is not ipso facto an act of war, it is interesting to note the “evidence” that The Times provides based on its own investigation to suggest that Moscow is about to disrupt the upcoming election. It is: “Absent from the report is any mention of how one of the writers for the Strategic Culture Foundation weighed in this spring on a Democratic primary race in New York. The writer, Michael Averko, published articles on the foundation’s website and in a local publication in Westchester County, N.Y., attacking Evelyn N. Farkas, a former Obama administration official who was running for Congress. In recent weeks, the F.B.I. questioned Mr. Averko about the Strategic Culture Foundation and its ties to Russia. While those attacks did not have a decisive effect on the election, they showed Moscow’s continuing efforts to influence votes in the United States…”

Excuse me, but someone writing for an alternative website with relatively low readership criticizing a candidate for congress does not equate to the Kremlin’s interfering in an American election. Also, the claim that the Strategic Culture Foundation is a disinformation mechanism is overwrought. Yes, the site is located in Moscow and it may have some government support but it features numerous American and European contributors in addition to Russians. I have been writing for the site for nearly three years and I know many of the other Americans who also do so. We are generally speaking antiwar and often critical of U.S. foreign policy but the contributors include conservatives like myself, libertarians and progressives and we write on all kinds of subjects.

And here is the interesting part: not one of us has ever been told what to write. Not one of us has ever even had a suggestion coming from Moscow on a good topic for an article. Not one of us has ever had an article or headline changed or altered by an editor. Putting on my ex-intelligence officer hat for a moment, that is no way to run an influencing or disinformation operation intended to subvert an election. Sure, Russia has a point of view on the upcoming election and its managed media outlets will reflect that bias but the sweeping allegations are nonsense, particularly in an election that will include billions of dollars in real disinformation coming from the Democratic and Republican parties.

Putting together what you no longer can find when you search the internet with government attempts to suppress alternative news sites one has to conclude that we Americans are in the middle of an information war. Who controls the narrative controls the people, or so it seems. It is a dangerous development, particularly at a time when no one knows whom to trust and what to believe. How it will play out between now and the November election is anyone’s guess.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

August 18, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

The Abyss of Disinformation Gazes Into Its Creators

By Patrick Armstrong | Startegic Culture Foundation | August 17, 2020

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. – Friedrich Nietzsche

The other day the U.S. State Department published “Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem“. The report should have a disclaimer like this:

Everything you read in the NYT or hear Rachel Maddow say about Russia is true: Putin is a murderer, a thief and a thug, he shot down MH17, poisoned the Skripals, elected Trump, invaded Georgia and stole Crimea. If you question any part of this, you are controlled and directed by Russian Disinformation HQ.

Freedom of speech does not entitle you to doubt The Truth.

The methodology of all of these things – this is one of several – is uncomplicated. Paul Robinson has commented on the dependence of so much comment about Russia, and this report in particular, on the myth of central control.

  1. Anything anywhere on Russian social media, whether sensible or crazy, was personally put there by Putin to sow discord and weaken us. All social media or websites based in Russia are 100% controlled by Putin.
  2. The Truth about Russia is found in the West’s official statements and in the “trusted source media”. Anyone who questions it benefits Putin, who wants to bring us down, and is therefore acting as a servant of Russian Disinformation HQ.

The argument really is that simple and can be found in its baldest (and stupidest) version on the EU vs DiSiNFO site, The NATO Centre of Excellence is pretty bad while The Integrity Initiative seems to have been embarrassed into silence. Note the “disinfo”, “excellence” and “integrity” bits – that’s called gaslighting. Who funds these selfless truth seekers? The EU, NATO and the British government. But they’re good and truthful, unlike those tricky Russians.

In this particular effusion they look at seven websites, six of which are registered in Russia and one in Canada. The report declares that they are in an ecosystem directed from Russian Disinformation HQ. In reality they are sites which publish writers who – to take one example – think that it is a bit unusual that a deadly nerve agent smeared on a door handle requires the roof of the house to be replaced. But doubt, these days, is the outward sign of an inward Putinism.

Door handle!

Yeah, OK, but why the roof?

Putinbot!

One of the websites mentioned in the report is the one you’re reading now – Strategic Culture Foundation.

The Strategic Culture Foundation is directed by another Russian intelligence agency, the S.V.R., according to two American officials.

Could these be the officials who told the NYT about the bounties? Or gave it the photos it had to walk back a few days later? Or said their sources had “mysteriously gone quiet?” Or told it all 17? Or said it was probably microwave weapons? Or gave us years of scoops about how Mueller was just about to lock him up? Or told the NYT that Russia’s “economy suffers from flat growth and shrinking incomes“? Probably, but you’re not supposed to ask these questions.

The report has a good deal of speculation about who backs Strategic Culture Foundation (p 15). Personally I don’t much care who runs it (and I very much doubt that the Kremlin understands the point of running an opinion website). I’ve been in the USSR/Russia business for some time and what I think hasn’t changed much since 1986 or so. I’ve written for a number of sites which have faded away and I will not permit having what I write changed; the one time it happened twelve years ago, I immediately switched my operations elsewhere. Strategic Culture Foundation has never changed anything I’ve submitted and only twice suggested a topic – this one and Putin’s weaponised crickets. (And the warning is still up at the U.S. State Department site!) The other writers on the site whom I know haven’t changed their views either. Strategic Culture Foundation hasn’t created something that didn’t exist before, it’s collected something that already existed. What do we writers have in common? Well, Dear Reader, look around you. Certainly we question The Truth. Or maybe SCF is a place where people “baffled by the hysterical Russophobia of the MSM and the Democratic Party since the 2016 election” can find something else? Or maybe it’s part of Madison’s “general intercourse of sentiments”?

There was a theory in the Cold War that the two sides would eventually converge. I often think that they met and then kept on going and passed each other. In those days the Soviets did their best to block what they considered to be – dare I suggest it? – disinformation. And so RFE/RL, BBC, Radio Canada and so on were jammed. We, on our side, didn’t care who listened to Radio Moscow or read Soviet publications. Today it’s the other way round. Which fact prompts the easy deduction that the side that’s confident that it has a better connection to reality and truth doesn’t waste effort trying to block the other. In a fascinating essay, the Saker describes Russian propaganda for its home audience: “give as much air time to the most rabid anti-Kremlin critiques as possible, especially on Russian TV talkshows”. They even took the trouble to dub Morgan Freeman’s absurd “we are at war” video. That’s brilliant – we won’t tell you they hate you, we’ll let them tell you they hate you.

The report talks as if this “ecosystem” were big and influential. But it’s a tiny mouse next to a whale. Total followers on Twitter of all seven sites are 156 thousand (p65). That’s nothing: the NYT has 47.1 million Twitter followers, BBC Breaking News 44.8, WaPo 16.1. Why even Rachel Maddow has ten million followers eager to hear her explain how Russia is going to turn off your furnace next winter. So the rational observer has a choice to make after reading this report: either the report ludicrously over-exaggerates the influence of this “ecosystem” or 156,000 website followers are astonishingly influential and I, with my Strategic Culture Foundation pieces, personally control several Electoral College votes.

The real message of “Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem“, to someone who isn’t invested in spinning – ahem – theories about a Kremlin disinformation conspiracy, is that the “pillars” are feeble and the “ecosystem” small: Maddow alone has three times the followers of these seven plus the RT (3 million) the “all 17” report spent nearly half its space irrelevantly ranting about. Or maybe it’s saying that American voters are so easily influenced that “the Lilliputian Russians, spending a pittance compared to the Goliaths of the Clinton and Trump campaigns, was the deciding factor in 2016“.

Ironically this thing appeared at the same time as two that suggest Washington’s view of Moscow needs some work: It’s Time to Rethink Our Russia Policy and The Problem With Putinology: We need a new kind of writing about Russia. Good to see titles like that but they aren’t really rethinking anything: they still agree that Putin’s guilty of everything that Maddow says he is. Real re-thinking might get a toehold, for example, were people to contemplate why it is imbecilic to say that Moscow holds military exercises close to NATO’s borders. But you’ll only see that sort of thing on Strategic Culture Foundation and the others.

But now the abyss gazes back

Clinton loses an election, blames Russia, the intelligence agencies pile on, the media shrieks away. Americans are told patriotic Americans don’t doubt. And now we arrive at the next stage of insanity. William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, informs us that “Russia is backing Donald Trump, China is supporting Joe Biden and Iran is seeking to sow chaos in the U.S. presidential election…”. I guess that means that Russia and China will cancel each other out and that he’s telling us that Iran will choose the next POTUS. Who would have thought that the fate of the “greatest nation in earth” (as Presidents Trump, Obama, Bush Jr, Clinton, Bush Sr and Reagan like to call it) would be hidden under a turban somewhere in Iran?

So, American, know this: your “trusted sources” are telling you not to bother to vote in November – it’s not your decision.

August 17, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

Beijing ‘will retaliate’ as no Chinese journalist in US has been granted visa extension since May 8

RT | August 17, 2020

Washington should immediately correct its mistake and stop persisting with escalation against Chinese journalists working in the United States, Beijing has warned.

No Chinese journalist in the US has been granted a visa extension since Washington limited their stay to 90 days, with an option to extend, on May 8, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters on Monday.

China will take a necessary and legitimate response to safeguard its rights, Zhao said, commenting on Washington’s “wrong actions.” It was not immediately clear what retaliation China might consider.

The spokesman cited “the Cold War mentality and ideological biases” while saying that Washington’s actions have seriously interrupted Chinese journalists reporting in the US, harmed the Chinese media’s reputation and normal people-to-people exchange.

The Trump administration announced in February that it would begin treating five major Chinese state-run media entities with US operations the same as foreign embassies. The next month, the number of Chinese journalists allowed to work at the US offices of Chinese media was slashed from 160 to 100.

In June, the US State Department added four more Chinese media outlets to those it treats as foreign embassies.

In response, China has revoked the press credentials for American journalists from three newspapers.

Some Chinese analysts have urged Beijing to impose visa restrictions on American journalists in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region as part of countermeasures.

August 17, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

New York: Lebanese Government Defends Intellectual Freedom of Diplomat Against Zionist Intimidation Campaign

By Eric Striker – National Justice – August 14, 2020

The Lebanese consul in New York City refused to cower to a Jewish-led mob demanding the firing of Abir Taha, a Lebanese intellectual and career diplomat who serves as the consul general.

Taha, whose books have been published by Arktos, has written academic books about Nationalsocialism, geopolitics and Nietzschean philosophy, as well as novels influenced by Eastern spirituality. Jewish groups are calling her Nazi and anti-Semite.

A group called Outlive Them NYC, who describe themselves as “antifascist Jews in occupied NYC organizing to defend all our communities,” led a mob that blocked the entrance of the Lebanese consul demanding Taha’s resignation just two days after the tragic August 4th explosion in Beirut that killed 178 people and leveled a large portion of the city.

According to the consulate’s website, the Jews and leftists flooded their system with emails and almost collapsed their network as retaliation for their decision to defend Taha’s intellectual freedom. The result of this action is that thousands of Lebanese citizens who required both conventional services as well as information on the status of loved ones potentially impacted by the explosion were significantly delayed by the callous haters.

The Lebanese have doubled down on defending Taha’s free speech and professionalism. In a public statement, they declared that “[Abir Taha] is a career diplomat (من الملاك) who has joined the diplomatic corps and who will remain in this corps until she retires, because she is part of the administration, not a political class or group. Indeed, she is politically independent, with no political affiliation or loyalty to any party or politician. She only strives to serve Lebanon and its people, her only pride, loyalty and duty.”

In a shocking display of arrogance, the foreign emissaries were subjected to an ultimatum by the mob of New York Jews and “antifa” members demanding that Taha be fired by August 10th “or else.” The release concludes that, “What is currently happening to the Consul General : harassment, threats, insults, blaming her for all of our country’s woes, insulting the Consulate staff members, and lastly, giving her an “ultimatum” to resign until August 10, 2020 “or else” (…) … all of this is really sad and unfair since she and the entire staff of the Consulate General of Lebanon have been tirelessly serving our community, even during these difficult times, without any interruption or delay. She certainly doesn’t deserve this. The entire staff of the Consulate certainly doesn’t deserve this.”

By taking a principled stance, the Lebanese state breaths a breath of fresh air into the American police state, where citizens live in fear of their opinions being known and are arbitrarily blacklisted from employment for questioning the narratives of the elite.

The disgusting act of trying to leverage access to embassy services right after a tragedy to enforce US-style political correctness was celebrated by Al Arabiya, a media company owned by Saudis, which reported that the consul had to close its doors on August 12th in response to the protests.

There is no evidence of this being true. The consul appears to be open during its usual hours and Taha is still listed as its head.

August 14, 2020 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Facebook’s latest ‘hate speech’ update proves no censorship will ever be enough for social media thought police

By Helen Buyniski | RT | August 12, 2020

Facebook has expanded its already-prodigious list of banned content to include insults, blackface, and the notion that Jews control major industries. But even these new rules aren’t enough – and nothing ever will be.

The social media behemoth has bent the knee in spectacularly groveling fashion following a pro-censorship campaign disguised as an advertiser protest against Facebook’s supposed leniency toward “hate speech.” In a blog post on Tuesday, the platform announced a dramatic expansion of its Hate Speech policy along with the formation of a “Diversity Advisory Council” and a handful of “inclusivity” task forces.

Facebook has even volunteered to submit to an “independent, third-party audit in 2021,” issuing a call for proposals for would-be auditors to “grade its homework” – i.e. verify it’s not manipulating statistics to make itself look tougher on “hate speech” than it really is. In sum, Facebook has completely dropped its pretense of defiance and acquiesced to the demands of Stop Hate for Profit, the boycott campaign led by notorious censorship advocates the Anti-Defamation League.

Just as the ADL maintains its dominance by hyping up hate crimes to give the impression that Nazis and KKK members are lurking around every corner, triggering worried liberals to throw money at them to make the bad people go away, Stop Hate for Profit convinced large corporations that buying ads on Facebook was akin to endorsing the local chapter of the Hitler Youth – or Trump’s re-election campaign. Companies already walking on eggshells amid the racial reckoning triggered by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis were in no position to oppose the ADL, especially when it had deputized social justice powerhouses like the NAACP and Color of Change to give its cause a patina of authenticity.

Never particularly well-defined, the concept of “hate speech” on Facebook already included not only “generalizations that state inferiority” (of the hygienic, mental, or moral variety), “expressions of contempt,” and “expressions of disgust,” but even “expressions of dismissal.” Yes, stating one does not care about [protected group] counts as hate speech on the world’s largest social media platform. “Mocking the concept, events or victims of hate crimes” is also outlawed, an interesting policy wrinkle given the ADL’s known propensity for flat-out inventing its own hate crime stats.

To the laundry list of oddly-specific no-nos (which includes both comparisons between “black people and apes or ape-like creatures” and “black people and farm equipment”), Tuesday’s update added blackface and comments about “Jewish people running the world or controlling major institutions such as media networks, the economy or the government.”

The latter is a touchy subject, given that Jewish Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Jewish Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg once paid for propaganda images depicting Jewish currency speculator and infamous liberal megadonor George Soros as an octopus with his tentacles engulfing the earth. Presumably, the new policy prevents users from commenting that Jewish nonprofit the ADL underwrote the campaign to censor such talk in the first place, or that Soros has been publicly trying to unseat Zuckerberg from the CEO’s chair for months. Wouldn’t it be ironic if in knuckling under to the ADL, Zuckerberg walked right into a trap that would secure his own departure from the company? But that would be an antisemitic conspiracy theory that doesn’t bear thinking about. Perish the thought!

Even the blackface ban seems designed for overreach. Facebook acknowledged the measure would rule out portraying Black Pete, a traditional character seen at Christmas celebrations in the Netherlands who sports blackface, or morris dancers who happen to have painted their faces black, but might permit critical discussion of – for example – a politician discovered to have worn blackface at some point.

The amount of “collateral damage” done to organic human conversations on Facebook by algorithms removing content whose real meaning they’re unable to determine – given artificial intelligence’s inability to recognize sarcasm, nuance, or indeed anything less subtle than a blow to the head – is massive. By continuing to expand the “hate speech” category long past what anyone would consider “hate,” Zuckerberg’s platform has placed a fatwa on edgy humor. And if their “blackface enforcement” is anything like their “hate speech” enforcement, spray-tan users are likely to find their posts flagged as offensive.

In its quarterly Community Standards Enforcement Report, Facebook hyped a massive increase in hate speech enforcement for the last quarter, noting it had deleted 22.5 million “items” as opposed to 9.6 million during the previous period. While Zuckerberg revealed during last month’s Big Tech antitrust hearings that Facebook censors nearly 90 percent of so-called “hate speech” before it’s seen by anyone at all, the quarterly report proclaimed that percentage had actually risen to 95 percent – raising the question of who, if anyone, is complaining about much of this material, and who was offended enough to push for an advertiser boycott in the first place.

Mainstream media coverage of the new rules almost always includes a few malcontents opining that Facebook either hasn’t gone far enough, didn’t act soon enough, or isn’t really sincere in its desire to shield anyone possessing “protected characteristics” from mean comments (seriously, “profane terms or phrases with the intent to insult” are classed as hate speech, too).

Zuckerberg surely knows he’s going to be apologizing for the rest of his life – or the rest of his time as CEO, at least – and adding more and more types of naughty conversation to Facebook’s “hate speech” compendium. How soon will it be before they decide it makes sense to just release a list of approved opinions and allow users to select from these family-safe, pre-digested ideas?

Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter @velocirapture23

August 13, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Beijing Blasts ‘Double Standards’ as Twitter Labels Only Russian, Chinese Media ‘State-Affiliated’

By Tim Korso – Sputnik – 13.08.2020

Twitter’s decision to target Russian and Chinese media by limiting their ability to deliver content to the platform’s users comes as part of an apparent broader effort by Western social media to censor points of views that are different from the mainstream agenda.

Media outlets should be treated in an equal manner and not on a case-by-case basis if they comply with the laws and regulations of the countries they operate in, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Russia said regarding the recent actions of Twitter. On 6 August, the social media platform flagged numerous Russian and Chinese media outlets, including Sputnik, as “state-affiliated”, limiting their ability to promote and amplify tweets.

The Chinese Embassy stressed the importance of the media as a crucial link uniting countries around the world and condemned the actions preventing them from properly functioning. It pointed out that Twitter had pledged to mark all media outlets in one way or another controlled by the governments of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, but has in fact so far only targeted those based in Russia and China.

“We hope that the said social networks [sic] will abandon prejudices and ‘double standards’, and will, in a spirit of transparency and tolerance, consider the role of media from various countries in boosting international exchanges and cooperation; [that they] will not selectively create obstacles, and politicize issues”, the embassy said.

Double Standards in Twitter’s ‘Affiliation’ Marks

Twitter claims to have introduced the “state-affiliated” label for the sake of “transparency and practicality”, but has shown little transparency itself in explaining why media outlets from only two of the aforementioned five countries have been slapped with the new status, hindering these outlets’ capabilities compared to others and essentially censoring them.

The social media platform said that some media outlets, such as the UK’s BBC or the US’ National Public Radio (NPR), would be exempt from the rule despite being funded and sometimes even established by these countries’ respective governments. Twitter claimed that only outlets whose agendas are not influenced by their governments would be eligible for the waiver, but somehow all major Western mainstream media were spared from the platform’s censorship, despite often falling in line with their governments’ political stances. The social media platform failed to respond to Sputnik’s inquiry into why only media outlets from two countries have been affected by the feature.

August 13, 2020 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Former Israeli soldier sues pro-Palestinian Toronto restaurant

By Yves Engler · August 11, 2020

As part of a well-organized, multilayered, Israel nationalist lobby bid to bankrupt a small left-wing restaurant a prominent Toronto interior designer sued Kimberly Hawkins for $800,000. Shai DeLuca is claiming the Foodbendersowner libeled him.

The suit was filed by RE-LAW LLP and the US-based Lawfare Project which harasses pro-Palestinian activists. The Lawfare Project, reports Nora Barrows-Friedman, is “a pro-Israel group that works to silence activists by filing lawsuits against them and smearing supporters of Palestinian rights as anti-Semites.”

In a statement of claim DeLuca said two posts on Foodbenders’ Instagram account on July 6 defamed him. One of the posts was apparently a screenshot of DeLuca’s Instagram account with the comment, “he’s literally gathering his other whining Zionist friends to attack Palestinians and others in support of @foodbenders.” A second post, reported Toronto.com, featured the statement, “this guy is one of the people who was attacking @foodbenders. He’s an IDF [Israel Defense Forces] SOLDIER (aka terrorist) yet he’s using the BLM [Black Lives Matter] movement for likes. How can you sit there and post about BLM when you have your sniper rifle aimed at Palestinian Children.”

DeLuca’s statement of claim suggests Foodbenders’ statements were libelous. But, on Twitter DeLuca describes himself as an “IDF sergeant (ret)” and a quick Google search demonstrates that he is an aggressive proponent of Israeli military violence. DeLuca publicly defended Israel’s 2014 onslaught on Gaza that left more than 2,000 Palestinians dead and has spoken at a number of international events promoting the Israeli military. DeLuca even claims IDF experience helps with interior design!

(In recent years the Israeli military has bombed Syria on a weekly basis and has multiple boots on Palestinian necks. In his 2008 book Defending The Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel’s Security & Foreign Policy Zeev Maoz notes: “There was only one year out of 56 years of history in which Israel did not engage in acts involving the threat, display, or limited use of force with its neighbors. The only year in which Israel did not engage in a militarized conflict was 1988, when Israel was deeply immersed in fighting the Palestinian uprising, the intifada. So it is fair to say that during each and every year of its history Israel was engaged in violent military actions of some magnitude.” Maoz concludes: “None of the wars — with a possible exception of the 1948 war of Independence — was what Israel refers to as Milhemet Ein Brerah (‘war of necessity’). They were all wars of choice or wars of folly.”)

DeLuca works with the rabidly pro-Israel Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA). Funded by Donald Trump mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, Seth Klarman and other anti-Palestinian billionaires, CAMERA regularly promotes the IDF and is “aligned with right-wing and hawkish political views”, reports the Jewish Forward.

In his statement of claim to the Ontario Court of appeal DeLuca presents his military service as simply a requirement that every Israeli must fulfill. “He grew up in the State of Israel where he served his compulsory term of military service as a sergeant in the Israel Defense Forces”, it notes. But, elsewhere DeLuca offers a more politicized depiction of his time in the IDF. Asked in 2018 by the Canadian Jewish News “What shaped your strong connection with Israel?” DeLuca responded: “I grew up in an extremely Zionist family. The matriarch of my family, my grandma, and I had a very special relationship. She always said that if she’d had the opportunity, she would’ve gone to Israel. She talked a lot about the importance of defending our homeland. This was really strongly instilled in me. From the age of 15, I knew that, at 18, I’d go do my army service in Israel. I finished high school in Toronto and in November 1995, I went into the Israeli army.”

When speaking to a pro-Israel Canadian audience DeLuca promotes fighting in the IDF but when a social justice activist reframes his actions as a moral outrage against Palestinians he claims to have been duty bound and the victim of malice. DeLuca’s position is not unique. After pro-Palestinian activists protested a presentation by Israeli military reservists at York in November, those who brought the ‘terrorists’ to the university and in some cases assaulted the protesters claimed they were the victims. In 2018 a private Toronto school that flew an Israeli flag and promoted its military also claimed “anti-Semitism” when pro-Palestinian graffiti was scrawled on its walls.

To get a sense of DeLuca’s extreme anti-Palestinian ideology, last week he retweeted ethnic cleansing denial, claiming Israel merely occupied mosquito infested lands. “The only ones that Zionism displaced were mosquitos,” he messaged. “The lands Zionists acquired to establish themselves were malaria ridden, and they reclaimed those lands.” This, of course, is complete nonsense.

It requires chutzpah to join a brutal occupation force halfway across the world, spend years promoting it and when called on it claim you are the victim. DeLuca should either stop promoting a violent foreign military or accept that people are going to criticize him for doing so.

…

For those interested in supporting Foodbenders please email: PALILEGALFUND@GMAIL.COM

 

Please email Cityline TV (info@cityline.tv) to say Shai DeLuca, who is a contributor, promotes a violent foreign army and denies the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

August 11, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Twitter censoring tweets containing links to BitChute video service, flags posts as ‘potentially harmful’

RT | August 7, 2020

Video hosting service BitChute has accused Twitter of censoring tweets including links to their platform, and numerous users have experienced the apparent ban, though the social media app has yet to officially respond.

“It appears as if Twitter has started blocking all tweets that contain Bitchute videos,” BitChute’s account tweeted on Friday morning. They encouraged users to share their own examples of censorship too.

Numerous users then posted screenshots of them trying to post links to videos on the website, only to be blocked by Twitter and told the material they were about to post was “potentially harmful.”

When you try and post a link to BitChute, Twitter will preview the tweet to the user, and send two messages. One in red says, “something went wrong, but don’t fret — let’s give it another shot.”

This message is essentially useless because the “potentially harmful” statement will pop up when the user tries to hit “tweet.”

The Twitter and Twitter Support pages have not officially responded to the seeming censorship, and BitChute has said they received no warning about the content blockage.

The ban appears to go beyond posting new content too. If a user tries to follow an old link to a BitChute video through Twitter, they are brought to a warning page that tells users the link “may be unsafe.” The various reasons it could be “unsafe” include “spammy links that mislead people or disrupt the experience” or even “violent or misleading content that could lead to real-world harm.”

A user needs to “ignore this warning and continue” in order to make it to the BitChute link originally requested.

Since launching in 2017, BitChute has been accused by liberal activists and mainstream media outlets of being a conspiracy theorist-driven and right-wing hosting site. The platform has found success through giving creators far more freedom than other platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, which have become more aggressive in their moderation and banning of content. Many content creators who have found themselves banned or demonetized on sites like YouTube have found their way over to BitChute.

BitChute was banned by PayPal along with right-wing figures like Alex Jones in 2018. The Southern Poverty Law Center has accused them of hosting “hate-fueled material.”

Despite the accusations of hosting hate videos, much of the content on BitChute is related to technology and not-politically motivated. Even that content, however, seems to have been blocked by Twitter in what appears to be a blanket ban on anything related to the site.

August 7, 2020 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

The Pharmaceutical Narrative is Failing

By Bretigne Shaffer – LewRockwell.com – August 7, 2020

So now we don’t have to listen to what those doctors said in front of the US Supreme Court, because it turns out that one of them has some whacky beliefs about sex with demons causing reproductive disorders. What a relief.

I’m not going to pretend that the things Dr. Stella Immanuel has said don’t sound just a little crazy to me. They do. But I’ve been observing this game long enough to have a pretty good idea of how this works:

Someone says something that contradicts the dominant narrative (in this case, the narrative about medical science), and the machine that supports that narrative goes into overdrive to discredit them, with whatever information they can dig up–as long as it doesn’t involve discussing the actual substance of what the person has said.

I understand that for some people, maybe even for a great many, that is the end of the conversation. So for everyone who is satisfied with the “fringe doctors promoting hydroxychloroquine also believe demon sex causes fybroids” narrative–please, stop here. Your ride is over, and you may go on believing that this group of doctors and other professionals has been thoroughly discredited by these statements.

For everyone else, if you are at all interested in why such a coordinated effort has been launched to silence and discredit this group, why–even before the sex demon stuff was uncovered–videos of the group’s press conference were quickly yanked from YouTube, and why their own website was taken down without warning by its host, SquareSpace, (their new website can now be found here) then please keep reading.

WHAT THE AMERICA’S FRONTLINE DOCTORS GROUP SAID:

What follows is a brief summary of the key points made by the group America’s Frontline Doctors at their press conference last week. I will not comment on the validity of their claims, however founder Dr. Simone Gold has provided support for much of what the group said, in a white paper that can be found here.

1. They believe that hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for Covid-19.

This is the claim made by several of the speakers, including Dr. Immanuel, based on their own clinical experience, as well as on multiple published studies. Many of those studies are listed here, and here.

2. State licensing boards are using their power to forcibly prevent people from having access to this drug.

According to Dr. Gold, many states have empowered their pharmacists to not honor prescriptions for hydroxychloroquine to be used in treating Covid-19. This, she says, is unprecedented: “It has never happened that a state has threatened a doctor for prescribing a universally accepted safe generic cheap drug off-label.”

Meanwhile, says Gold, the drug is available over the counter in many other countries, including Iran and Indonesia, where it can be found “in the vitamin section”.

3. There is a coordinated campaign to discredit and suppress information about the drug hydroxychloroquine as a possible treatment for Covid-19:

“If it seems like there is an orchestrated attack going on against hydroxychloroquine,” said Dr. James Todaro, “it’s because there is.”

Dr. Todaro is speaking from experience. He was the co-author of a March 13 white paper arguing for the use of hydroxychloroquine against Covid-19. The paper was made public on Google Docs, received a lot of attention, and was then removed–without warning–by Google. (It has since been put back up.)

4. The World Health Organization (the authority upon which YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has said she bases her company’s policy on “misinformation”) halted its trials of hydroxychloroquine based on a blatantly fraudulent study that relied on data that it appears never even existed. The WHO later resumed trials after independent investigators discovered the problems and the study’s authors retracted it.

5. We should be able to have a free and open discussion about this.

Dr. Dr. Joseph Lapado from UCLA, sums it up:

We’ve been using (hydroxychloroquine) for a long time. But all of a sudden it’s been escalated to this area of looking like some poisonous drug. That just doesn’t make sense… At the very least, we can live in a world where there are differences of opinion about the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine, but still allow more data to come, still allow physicians who feel they have expertise with it to use that medication, and still, you know, talk and learn and get better at helping people with Covid-19.

WHY THE ALL-OUT MEDIA ASSAULT ON THE FRONTLINE DOCTORS?:

The influence that the pharmaceutical industry wields over media outlets is no secret. As of 2018, an estimated 70% of all news advertising in the US came from pharmaceutical companies. I have written elsewhere about how “reporting” on medical issues can be difficult to distinguish from outright marketing for drug companies.

Social-media platforms are not immune to this influence, whether it comes via advertising dollars; “partnerships” such as that between the CDC Foundation and MailChimp (which like many other platforms, has an explicit policy of censoring content about vaccines that does not align with the positions of the CDC and the WHO); direct investment, such as that of Google’s parent company Alphabet; or indeed at the behest of politicians such as Congressman Adam Schiff, who last year wrote to the CEOs of Amazon, Facebook and Google, requesting that those companies censor information and products that did not conform to the officially sanctioned position on vaccines. All three complied.

So it should come as small surprise that both Google and YouTube have now taken to removing content supportive of hydroxychloroquine, a drug that is no longer covered by patent, and can be made and sold by any generic producer, for a fraction of the price that Gilead, for example, might charge for its still-patented Remdesivir. Twitter and Facebook have likewise removed posts about the drug, most notably–and with no visible sense of irony–removing posts of the video in which the Frontline Doctors speak out about widespread media censorship of the topic. (You can now see those videos on Bitchute.)

One need not have an opinion on the merits of the drug hydroxychloroquine in order to recognize that something very odd is happening here. Something that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with free and open inquiry or honest scientific discourse.

Many argue that the politicization of this drug is founded in a desire to unseat President Trump, that the opposition to it is primarily because it was endorsed by Trump, and if it is deemed to be a failure (or even better, dangerous to patients) it will be a powerful strike against the president. That may well be part of what has motivated this. But there is another motivation, having to do with the desire to push a more expensive medication onto the market, and to push a new vaccine on the world’s population.

More broadly, it has to do with the narrative that those in the business of selling drugs demand we believe: that we are all in desperate need of their products (but only the ones still under patent) if we are to be healthy–or indeed, if we are to survive at all.

If it turns out that this “new” virus is easily treatable, with hydroxychloroquine or anything else, then the industry’s dreams go up in smoke. If hydroxychloroquine turns out to be a safe and effective way of treating Covid-19 (as multiple studies and the experience in many other countries outside of the US indicate it may be) then there is much less reason for anyone to receive a vaccine for it, let alone the entire world’s population. Likewise, there is no pressing need to develop a new, more expensive treatment.

But even more than that: If it turns out that hydroxychloroquine is after all a safe and effective treatment for Covid-19, then this whole episode – the silencing of dissenting voices, the “fact-checking” on social media, the campaigns against “misinformation” – will be revealed in plain sight, for what it has always been: Nothing more than a well-funded marketing campaign and damage-control effort on behalf of the industry that wants you to believe that you need to use its expensive products in order to go on living.

So when a group of doctors took to the steps of the US Supreme Court and told the world how they were having success using a cheap anti-malarial that had been in use for 65 years to treat the most deadly contagion of our generation, it was a massive blow to the narrative upon which the pharmaceutical purveyors’ success depends. And over the next few days, as viewers engaged in a race with the censors, quickly downloading videos before they were removed, to post them on other platforms… it became clear that the censors and the gatekeepers had lost control of the conversation.

This is not only about hydroxychloroquine. Every time media outlets or social-media platforms engage in outright censorship of content, in a way that happens to benefit pharmaceutical companies, both parties lose just a little more credibility. The actions we are witnessing now are not the actions of an industry confident in the value of what it provides to the world. They are the actions of a desperate, threatened creature. They are the actions of an entity that is not strengthened by the truth, but weakened by it. That is what these (increasingly obvious) acts of censorship tell us. What we are witnessing are the pangs of a lumbering, wounded, behemoth.

August 7, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

Newspapers: Fusion Centers Have Secretly Created A National Citizen Spying Program

MassPrivateI | August 6, 2020

What has the public learned about Fusion Centers since the recent BlueLeaks hack was released over a month ago? Not a lot.

The Feds have done a great job of keeping the public from finding out what DHS Fusion/Intelligence Centers are really doing. In a country founded on freedom, we find federal and local law enforcement scrambling to keep the true function of Fusion Centers hidden from the public.

By piecing together news articles from Maine and Texas papers, a disturbing picture begins to unfold of warrantless surveillance of Americans.

The first proof that Fusion Centers were being used to spy on everyday citizens and activists can be found in a Maine Press Herald article from mid-July.

“A cache of internal police documents stolen from a secretive Maine State Police intelligence unit has provided the first substantial glimpse into how it collects and shares information about crime suspects and political activists and, in rare cases, keep tabs on domestic extremists, gang members and anti-government groups.”

The article goes into greater detail describing how local police use Fusion Centers to track down low-level offenders and ID people from social media or video footage.

“Police agencies commonly contact the Maine center with requests for help identifying a person depicted in a photo, sometimes captured from a surveillance camera. Other pictures are taken directly by law enforcement, or appear to be pulled from Facebook or other social media sites.”

Maine police even went so far as to ask the Fusion Center to identify a passenger in a car who refused to identify himself, and did not consent to having his photograph taken or his fingerprints scanned.

Another article in the Maine Press Herald which predated BlueLeaks, revealed that Fusion Centers refuse to acknowledge that they are secretly scanning everyone’s faces and spying on their cellphones.

“Despite evidence that the Maine State Police has worked for years with federal agencies to develop its use of digital surveillance technology, the agency now uses that law to refuse to answer any questions about such efforts, or even acknowledge that they exist.”

A third Maine Press Herald article revealed that Fusion Centers are secretly collecting a massive database of license plate numbers, the names and addresses of legal gun owners, and monitoring political activist groups and collecting members names and addresses.

Fusion Centers created a national citizen spy program

The Austin Chronicle revealed that Fusion Centers have used secret informants to create a national “Suspicious Activity” network.

“In early June, an intelligence center operated by the Austin Police Department was hacked, along with many others like it across the country. Known as BlueLeaks, the collection of leaked documents from the hack contains over 10 gigs of material taken from the Austin center. They reveal a secret citizen spying program that’s active in the Austin area and across the country.”

The article reveals how Fusion Centers have created a vast network of secret “Threat Liaison Officers” (TLOs).

“Documents examined by the Chronicle show that each TLO must sign a nondisclosure agreement with ARIC, including those not working in law enforcement, essentially creating secret citizen officers.”

Secret citizen spies or TLOs could be someone you least expect. TLOs could be anyone: “private security officers with local hotels, malls, large venues, and local semiconductor companies. Government employees in “education,” “code enforcement,” and “public works” also contribute to ARIC as FOUO TLOs.

According to the article, TLOs could be teachers, trash collectors, ministers, priests, rabbi’s or even counselors.

Basically DHS has succeeded in creating a network of secret government spies masquerading as everyday people.

A TLOs job is to report people for doing mundane things like asking questions, taking pictures or being observant of one’s surroundings. TLOs are also reporting people for “suspicious” social media posts, whatever that means.

“According to one FOUO TLO’s report, an individual was seen taking photos of Zach Scott’s Topfer Theatre on Sept. 22, 2016. The report includes five different pictures of a young person using a camera on a tripod to photograph the theatre from across the street.”

To make it easier to report Americans for doing mundane things, Fusion Centers have provided TLOs with a checklist.

“The leaked documents include submission forms TLOs use to make their reports. At the top of the forms are boxes to check indicating the type of activity being reported. These include the aforementioned “School Threat,” but also Eliciting Infor­ma­tion, Observation/Surveillance, and Suspicious/Odd Facebook Post. The TLO report spreadsheet contains 128 reports of school threats. But the category most reported by far was Expressed or Implied Threat, with more than a thousand entries.”

To say that this is reminiscent of China, the USSR or East Germany is an understatement. As the Chronicle warned, ‘worrisome examples of suspicious activity have led to increased scrutiny’ which means the Feds and local police could be secretly monitoring innocent Americans without out any public scrutiny.

If you thought DHS’s “If You See Something, Say Something” was a failure guess again. DHS has managed to justify creating 78 Fusion Centers whose sole purpose, it seems, is to spy on innocent Americans and track their daily movements.

August 6, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

US State Department ‘Russian disinformation’ report aims to stop normalisation of relations, discredit alternative media – embassy

RT | August 6, 2020

Russia’s embassy in Washington believes apparatchiks at the State Department have put together a hysterical report on “Russian propaganda” to prevent politicians improving relations.

The Russian diplomats say the dispatch on the “Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem.” is an attempt to obstruct Moscow’s proposals to resume cooperation in key areas. They also claim the communique is obviously geared to discredit alternatives to the mainstream press, which generally toes the US establishment line. It’s also notable that the publication coincides with a request for $138 million in 2021 to spend on “countering” Russian media.

“(The) report is an attempt to silence Russian official proposals to resume cooperation in key areas on which the security of the entire world depends,” the embassy wrote on its Facebook account. “The US State Department is not very fond of the existence of alternative sources of information. Serious resources are employed to discredit them. Any voice that contradicts Washington is dubbed ‘disinformation’ in the service of the ‘Kremlin’ and Russian intelligence.”

Parts of the document are absurd, the Russian diplomats noted. For example, the authors classified far-right opposition LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky and the private radio station Govorit Moskva as “Official Government Communications.” The officials also cite Russian media with state funding, with headlines from Sputnik, RIA Novosti, RT and others presented as examples of ‘disinformation.’

“If this serves as the pinnacle of the entire structure, so carefully built by our American colleagues, then it seemingly looks like a house of cards,” the commentary reads. “Russian and foreign media outlets that dare to criticize the United States should bear in mind that they can and almost certainly will become the subject of thorough scrutiny. Their accounts in American social media are at risk of being suspended with no explanation.”

In its Special Report Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem, the GEC claims that Russia is a key threat in terms of disinformation and propaganda. According to the document, this “ecosystem” involves official government channels, state-run mass media, proxy-resources, and social network. The Russian authorities, as follows from the report, are responsible for the development of such tactics and platforms as part of their approach to the use of information as a weapon.

Russia repeatedly denied Western media allegations that it indulges in misinformation. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that the recent allegations that Russia and China were propagating misinformation about the coronavirus infection were yet another manifestation of the West’s Russophobia and Sinophobia. The US State Department has requested $138 million in 2021 to “counter disinformation and propaganda from Russia.”

The US already has a government-controlled foreign broadcasting arm, the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which operates the Voice of America and Radio Liberty/Free Europe, and their various branches. The operation is entirely funded from the US budget, with its current expenses amounting to around $800 million annually, according to Voice of America. This is more than two and a half times what Russia spends on RT.

August 6, 2020 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

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