Hamas: Washington adopts Israel’s ceasefire-disrupting position
Palestinian Information Center – August 29, 2024
ISTANBUL – The Hamas senior official Sami Abu Zuhri said the US administration adopts the Israeli position, which is disrupting ceasefire negotiations, noting that Washington is not serious about obliging Israel to stop its war on the Gaza Strip.
This came in his interview with Aljazeera Net in Istanbul on the sidelines of his participation in a conference held by the “Al-Quds International Foundation”.
Abu Zuhri told Aljazeera Net that the US administration does not show serious intention to obligate Israel to conclude an agreement.
He explained that the Hamas Movement “accepted the proposal of the brokers – Egypt, Qatar and the United States – on July 2, but Israel kept imposing new conditions, although the offer is outlined by the US President Joe Biden’s speech and the UN Security Council resolution.”
On the prospects for the negotiations in the future, Abu Zuhri said, “In all cases, there is an ongoing Israeli war of extermination in Gaza, and all international parties have to assume their responsibilities to stop the Israeli aggression and crimes.”
Abu Zuhri added, “the ball is now in the Israeli and the US court. If the Us administration is serious to reach an agreement, it must intervene to compel the Israeli occupation authority to stop this aggression against the Palestinian people and respect the previously reached agreements.”
With regard to the ongoing developments in the occupied West Bank, and the expansion of the Israeli occupation army’s military operations, Abu Zuhri said that the Israeli occupation army exploits the US cover to expand its aggression in the West Bank, stressing that the Israeli aggression is not limited to Gaza but extends to all the occupied Palestinian territories, especially the West Bank and Jerusalem.
US, Russian Deputy Envoys Have Heated Exchange at UN Security Council Over Gaza Ceasefire
Sputnik – 30.08.2024
UNITED NATIONS – The deputy representatives of the US and Russian missions to the United Nations engaged in an argument at the UN Security Council meeting over which of their countries is doing a better job at trying to resolve the conflict in Gaza, a Sputnik correspondent reported.
“I don’t need to sit here and explain to you why the US did what it did with regard to these resolutions. You know quite well and I think everybody in this room does,” US Deputy Envoy Robert Wood said in response to his Russian counterpart Dmitry Polyanskiy.
The Russian diplomat remarked earlier that the United States has been blocking a ceasefire in Gaza by supporting Israel and vetoing UN Security Council resolutions concerning the Palestinian enclave.
“One delegation, shielding their main Middle Eastern ally, as we are well aware, for ten months has been blocking any real steps to that end, essentially compelling all members of this council to become complicit in the collective punishment of Palestinians,” Polyanskiy said, adding that the US falsely claimed that Israel had agreed to a ceasefire deal.
“However, it turned out – and no one is surprised about this- that these calls were far from a reality as was the US so-called Biden-plan which was [adopted by the Security Council on June 10 as Resolution 2735],” Polyanskiy continued. “Israel did not agree to that deal then, nor has it agreed now to end its operations… [The US is] modifying the parameters for a ceasefire in Gaza for the benefit of Western Jerusalem. Let us recall that the Security Council did not consent to any reformatting of the parameters of agreements that were set out in Resolution 2735.”
Wood pointed out that the United States is now focusing on its efforts together with Egypt and Qatar to implement a framework that was agreed to by the Israeli government and Hamas.
Wood also emphasized that Hamas has been changing its position on the proposed ceasefire and hostage release deal.
“So my recommendations to you and your government would be, if you are going to contribute something positively, then contribute it. If not, you should be quiet,” Wood said.
Polyanskiy replied that that Wood should keep his recommendations about him or the Russian government to himself and the United States should stop getting in the way of the UN Security Council discussing the Palestinian dossier.
The United States bears the responsibility of what is happening now in Gaza, where more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, 2023. “If my other colleagues don’t have the courage to tell you this to your face, I have no problem doing so,” Polyanskiy said.
New York University adopts new speech code making Zionism a protected category
MEMO | August 29, 2024
Ukraine’s New Long-Range Weapon Won’t Be The Wunderwaffe That Some Imagine
By Andrew Korybko | August 28, 2024
The Associated Press reported that “Ukraine counts on new long-range weapon to bypass Western restrictions and hit deep into Russia” after Zelensky announced the “Palianytsia” during Ukraine’s 33rd Independence Day celebrations on Saturday. Defense Minister Umerov was also quoted as writing on Facebook that “This once again proves that for victory, we need long-range capabilities and the lifting of restrictions on strikes on the enemy’s military facilities.” Palianytsia’s range is equivalent to the ATACMS’.
Therein lies the reason behind the media hype over this new weapon. Although Kiev claims that it was an entirely indigenous creation, it’s difficult to believe that NATO countries didn’t contribute to it. More than likely, Western military-technical specialists participated in its production, though this might have been done without their political leadership being aware. The goal appears to have been to pressure them into lifting restrictions by Ukraine on the use of their weapons after this fait accompli.
Chinese Special Representative for Eurasian Affairs Li strongly implied as much after he warned earlier this week that Western “super hawks” and members of the military-industrial complex are behind the push for letting Ukraine use their weapons to hit deep inside of Russian territory. About that scenario, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov also chimed in and accused Zelensky of “blackmailing” the West, which he said would amount to “playing with fire” if they end up going through with it.
The US still doesn’t let Ukraine strike targets deep inside of Russia, even though the precedent is for it to always give Kiev whatever it demands after some time. This delay is attributable both to a desire to control escalation with Russia and to simple pragmatism. After all, if the best weapons were given and deployed right away (after training was completed of course) but didn’t make much of a difference, then there’d be nothing better to give them once they ran out and defeat would soon follow.
It therefore makes sense to start small and exercise restraint before scaling up and easing restrictions. As regards the Palianytsia, while it might have an important tactical purpose if its claimed range is accurate, its real significance is to justify the easing of those aforesaid restrictions on the use of American arms. Ukraine wants policymakers and the public to believe that the Palianytsia was already used and Russia didn’t “overreact” like some expected, so it also won’t “overreact” if ATACMS restrictions are soon lifted.
While this ploy might prove successful, two of the implied points contained within the preceding narrative are counterproductive to Ukraine’s soft power cause. For example, some might question the need for more American arms and financing if Ukraine is already able to supposedly create long-range missiles on its own without any help like it claims just happened. There’s also the question of why the lifting of restrictions is so urgent if Ukraine is winning like it also claims is the case too.
If its military-industrial complex is carrying on just fine without any Western support and its invasion of Kursk has truly been the game-changer that some have presented it as being, then it follows that foreign aid could be curtailed and there’s no reason to risk an escalation with Russia by easing restrictions. Neither is obviously true, but the fact that Ukraine is still pushing this narrative shows how much more desperate it’s becoming as well as the importance of elite and public opinion on this sensitive issue.
The Palianytsia is therefore more of a psychological weapon than a tactical one due to its envisaged role in reshaping perceptions and getting America to lift its restrictions on using the ATACMS to strike deep inside Russian territory. Even if it succeeds, however, that probably won’t change the military-strategic dynamics of this conflict in Kiev’s favor since Russia continues to gradually gain ground in Donbass, and its impending capture of Pokrovsk could lead to a chain reaction of victories in the near future.
How is the US Convincing the Philippines to Destroy Itself?
By Brian Berletic – New Eastern Outlook – 29.08.2024
As China rises, Asia rises with it. The Southeast Asian state of the Philippines stood to rise alongside the rest of the region until relatively recently as the United States successfully convinces the Philippines to do otherwise.
Before the current administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took office, China was working with the Philippines to build badly needed modern infrastructure. Now, rather than working and trading together with China, the Philippines is pointing missiles at China. It has “invited” the United States, the Philippines’ former colonial master, to build new military facilities across its territory, using semantics and legal loopholes to sidestep the Philippines own constitution and undermine its sovereignty in the process.
Instead of rising with the rest of Asia, the Philippines continues to escalate toward a conflict that could set the entire region back decades or more.
Just as the United States politically captured Ukraine in Eastern Europe in 2014 and transformed it into a geopolitical battering ram against neighboring Russia at the expense of Ukraine’s population, economy, sovereignty, and possibly even its existence, it is repeating the same process with the Philippines vis-à-vis China.
How has the United States convinced a nation of over 115 million people to forego economic progress and development in exchange for an escalating confrontation with its own largest trade partner? What are the mechanisms Washington uses to convince an entire nation to race toward conflict and self-destruction?
A Vast Network of Propaganda
There is growing awareness of the means by which the US interferes politically in targeted nations through the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and adjacent organizations, agencies, and foundations, compromising a nation’s leadership and reshaping national policies to serve Washington at the expense of the targeted nation.
The NED does this through targeting every aspect of a nation-state, from its political system, to academia, from its courts and legal system to a nation’s information space.
Philippine information space, like many nations around the globe, has been targeted by a vast media network built up by the US government as well as corporate money funneled through intermediaries including foundations and endowments, to poison the Philippine people not only against China specifically, but against the Philippines’ own best interests in general.
Part of this vast network are so-called “fact-checking” projects the US government together with the largest names in Western media as well as US-based tech giants like Google uses to paradoxically reinforce US government disinformation and attack and undermine people and organizations working to inform the public – including the Philippine public – of what the US is really doing and why.
In the Philippines, this network includes PressOne. Its “fact-checking” activities have repeatedly targeted those exposing US interference in the Philippines’ internal political affairs and undermining Philippine sovereignty.
PressOne has falsely “fact-checked” claims regarding the building of US military bases across the Philippines using semantics to argue that while the US is certainly building military facilities for its own use in the Philippines, technically the Philippines retains ownership over these facilities.
PressOne outright lied claiming, “President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. has denied that the facilities were intended to be military bases.” The Reuters report PressOne cites does not deny the facilities are indeed military bases, it simply claims the bases are not meant for “offensive action” against any country – another example of semantics.
In another example, PressOne conducted a smear against this author citing US and Philippine government claims, as well as through the use of a number of logical fallacies including guilt by association.
PressOne’s task is to convince those reading its content that a US-led effort to transform the Philippines into a Ukraine-style proxy against its largest trading partner, China, is not taking place, but if it were, it is somehow in the Philippines’ best interests.
It should then come as no surprise that PressOne’s “fact-checking” activities are the result of US government funding to stand-up such projects. At the bottom of each “fact-check” article on PressOne it claims, “PressOne.PH is a verified signatory of the Code of Principles of the International Fact -Checking Network (IFCN) at Poynter.”
Poynter in turn discloses it is funded by the US government through the NED along with corporate-funded foundations connected to the Omidyar Network as well as the Google News Initiative, itself a partner of the US State Department as well as other US-allied governments.
All of this, in turn, is part of an influence operation targeting China the US spends hundreds of millions of dollars on every year.
Funding Disinformation Hundreds of Millions a Year
In 2021 the US Congress introduced the “Countering Chinese Communist Party Malign Influence Act.” It, along with other legislation and funds, seeks to spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to, “counter the malign influence of the Chinese Communist Party globally.”
In practice, however, such legislation only seeks to reinforce the US’ actual malign influence.
As Reuters revealed earlier this year in an investigative report, “Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic,” the US government“aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China.” Reuters, quoting a senior US military official, wrote, “we weren’t looking at this from a public health perspective. We were looking at how we could drag China through the mud.”
The same Reuters report admitted that, far from an isolated instance, the US has a myriad of such programs run out of “psychological operations” centers engaged in systematic propaganda. Thus, while the US government was certainly “countering” China, it wasn’t because China was wielding “malign influence,” it was because China was undermining America’s own malign influence.
A Long-Run Policy to Contain China
In addition to lying about public health, the US seeks to convince the Philippine public to give up trade, economic development, and infrastructure projects with China and instead invest public funds into military spending ahead of what will likely be a Ukraine-style proxy war against China.
The centerpiece of Washington’s political capture and exploitation of the Philippines is the “Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement” (EDCA) it uses to build military facilities across Philippine territory it uses to base troops, equipment, weapons, and ammunition. The facilities contribute toward a wider regional strategy of militarily encircling and containing China, a foreign policy objective pursued by Washington since the end of World War 2.
Published by the US State Department’s own Office of the Historian is a 1965 memorandum from then US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to then US President Lyndon B. Johnson titled, “Courses of Action in Vietnam” which admitted that US military operations in Southeast Asia only“made sense” if they were “in support of a long-run United States policy to contain Communist China.” The same memorandum identified 3 fronts along which the US sought to contain China, including East Asia, Pakistan and India, as well as Southeast Asia where the Philippines is located.
Today, this policy of encirclement continues through mechanisms like the EDCA. Despite clearly running in contradiction to the Philippine people’s best interests, the well-funded propaganda campaign the US runs worldwide including in the Philippines (including the above mentioned PressOne) is attempting to convince the Philippine people that China is a threat, that the Philippines’ former colonial masters are their“allies,” and that buying US weapons and fighting Washington’s wars alongside US troops is the path forward toward a brighter future.
Considering the pile of ashes and bones the US is transforming Ukraine into even as this same process gains momentum in the Philippines, it is clear that along this path, there is no future at all for the Philippines. This unfortunate transformation and the deep socio-political scars it is creating within the Philippines serves as yet another warning about the importance of treating a nation’s information space as it does its physical domains and the importance of protecting this domain as well or better than a nation protects its land borders, shores, and air space. Only time will tell if other nations heed this warning, or simply follow Ukraine and the Philippines into self-destruction.
Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer.
Government and Private Groups Still Unite to Target Election “Misinformation”
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | August 27, 2024
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.”
Biden-Harris Administration Defends Big Tech Censorship Pressure Following Zuckerberg’s Admission
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | August 28, 2024
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).”
US State Dept. Used Telegram to Stir Up Protests in Foreign Countries, Says Ex-Official
Sputnik – 29.08.2024
WASHINGTON — The US, from 2014 to 2020, valued Telegram for its ability to bypass state media control and surveillance, enhancing its use by political groups and dissidents, former State Department official Mike Benz said.
“Telegram is this very powerful vehicle for the US State Department to be able to mobilize protests, to be able to galvanize political support against authoritarian countries,” Benz said during an interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson that aired on Wednesday.
The remarks were in response to Carlson’s question about why the US government, which upholds the Constitution and democracy, would attempt to end democracy in various countries through censorship.
The US favored Telegram from 2014 to 2020 due to its ability to circumvent state control and surveillance through its private functions and anonymous forwarding features, which were beneficial to US-funded political groups and dissidents, Benz said.
Later in the interview, Benz was asked about the possible impact of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov’s arrest on US entrepreneur Elon Musk and whether the authorities view Musk similarly.
“With Elon, I don’t think they want to take him out. What they want is corporate regime change or him to play ball,” Benz said.
Durov was detained at Paris Le Bourget Airport on August 24. The Paris Prosecutor’s Office reported on August 28 that Durov was not placed in a pretrial detention center but was banned from leaving France, and he must also post a bail worth 5 million euros. Durov is charged with complicity in administering an online platform for the purpose of making illegal transactions by an organized group and other offenses. He could face up to 10 years in prison.
West using ‘mafia tactics’ on Durov – Serbian MP
RT | August 28, 2024
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.
UK backs Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles inside Russia – media
RT | August 28, 2024
The UK is in favor of allowing Ukraine to use its Storm Shadow missiles for strikes deep inside Russia but is keeping its support out of the public eye so as not to cause a rift with the US, The Telegraph reported on Tuesday, citing sources.
Ukraine already has the greenlight from Britain to use Storm Shadows to strike Crimea and other areas claimed by Kiev, but not to target internationally recognized Russian territory. Amid Kiev’s ongoing incursion into Kursk Region, Vladimir Zelensky has stepped up his calls for the country’s Western backers to lift the restrictions on the use of their weapons for strikes in Russia. This is particularly the case for the British missiles, which can avoid enemy radar and hit targets up to 305km (190 miles) away.
However, according to The Telegraph, the decision on how Ukraine can use the missiles is not just up to London, as they are produced in close cooperation with France and the US, and are generally used alongside classified American systems.
While French President Emmanuel Macron previously said that Ukraine can use the missiles to strike sites in Russia from which the latter launches its own attacks, US officials have been reluctant to grant similar authorization. A White House source told the news outlet that the US administration is concerned that the use of long-range missiles, even without Washington’s outward approval, could escalate matters and lead to US troops being drawn into the conflict.
The UK has so far not made a formal request to Washington about Ukraine’s use of the missiles inside Russia, the news outlet claimed. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is reportedly reluctant to provoke a dispute over the issue, despite his own earlier claim that Kiev was free to use UK-supplied weapons as it saw fit.
Starmer, who refused to comment on the missile issue at a briefing on Tuesday, now wants to try a “consultative approach” and discuss the matter with allies before he makes any decisions, sources told the news outlet.
“The US fear escalation more than we do because they have to deal with it. We don’t… They, after all, would have to pick up the pieces. Little Britain cannot fight Russia,” a senior military source told The Telegraph.
Moscow has long criticized the West for providing military aid to Ukraine, and warned against allowing it to strike targets deep inside Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin previously said that such attacks would amount to direct Western participation in the conflict.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov slammed discussions on the use of long-range missiles against Russia as “a ruse” to create the impression that the West wants to avoid excessive escalation, whereas the opposite is true.
Теlegram’s Durov vs Meta’s Zuckerberg: How Do They Stack Up on Censorship?
By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 27.08.2024
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.
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From the Archives
The Crusades – colliding narratives
Ashes of Pompeii | June 13, 2026
They say history is written by the victors, but the Crusades offer an interesting historical contrast: a two-century collision that produced not one history, but two parallel, irreconcilable realities. The dates and the battles are identical in both accounts, but the moral axis is entirely flipped.
In the traditional Western narrative, the Crusades are framed as a heroic, if tragic, epic. The First Crusade is a pious pilgrimage; the knights are romanticized figures of chivalry in shining armor, bravely holding the line in a hostile, exotic land. The eventual loss of the Holy Land is mourned as the “fall of Outremer,” a tragic retreat of European civilization. In this telling, the East is often reduced to a passive backdrop, its inhabitants viewed through a lens of mystique or backwardness, mere obstacles to a divine mandate.
But cross the Mediterranean, and the exact same timeline reads like a chronicle of foreign invasion and eventual, hard-won restoration against the barbarous northerners. The dates do not change, but the adjectives do. Here is the history as it is remembered in the Levant… continue
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- The Crusades – colliding narratives
- Trita Parsi: Iran War Ends Today? Threats of Deporting Trita Parsi
- What Is SIDS?
- DHS docs: Govt bracing for nationwide anti-AI riots, preparing to crack down on dissent
- India signals rethink over West Asia
- Israeli Ex-Navy Chief admits massive damage from Iran missiles
- The strategic arsenal US lost in war against Iran – and why replenishment will take years
- If Americans Knew
- Did Trump just threaten a nuclear attack on Iran? Another merger for Israel-Firster David Ellison –Daily Update
- Israeli Firm Accused of Launching Smear Campaigns During US, European Elections
- As World Cup kicks off, Gaza amputee girls chase football dreams
- Oxfam: More Palestinians killed by Israel across West Bank in last 3 years than previous 17 years combined
- US-Iran ceasefire may be imminent, but will Israel blow it up? – Daily Update
- The Issue of Israel Is Ending Democracy In Michigan
- Israel is stealing homes, livelihoods, and lives in West Bank
- Gaza is not an aberration – Israel planned this genocide decades ago
- Israel is changing the face of Lebanon, mainstream media is normalizing it – 3 articles
- Genocide lobby benefits from EU anti-racist fund
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
- Germany’s Die Welt: “Too Much Is Too Much” … Green Energies Are Cannabalizing Each Other!
- Germany’s Ecological Holocaust… Once Fairy Tale Forests Getting Cleared For Wind Turbines
- A Grand Solar Minimum Has Arrived…Global Cooling Of At Least 1°C Is Expected By The 2030s, 2040s
- European “Expert Commission” Urges COVID-19-Like Global Climate State Of Energency!
- Real-World Observations Do Not Support The Position That Climate Change Is Human-Caused
- Germany’s AfD Party Calls Debunked Climate Scenarios “Greatest Fraud In Human History”
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