Facebook announces sweeping new restrictions on criticism of protected groups.
The battle over permissible speech in American society was helpfully, and predictably, elaborated by Facebook last week in an update to its “hate speech” rules. The social media giant’s changes are a signal of the new limits being placed on political expression and the freedom of the mind. Other major American institutions are almost sure to follow its lead.
Free speech is not a human right, according to prominent Facebook censorship board member Helle Thorning-Schmidt.
“What we’re trying to find, of course, I think many of us engaging in this conversation, is that middle road. How do you moderate content and how do you find that balance between human rights and free speech, which is a human right, but also other human rights because free speech is not an absolute human right,” the Facebook Oversight Board co-chair said during a live stream of Politico’s Tech 28 spotlight.
Some Facebook users have recently received warnings about “extremism” and offers of help for those with acquaintances attracted to “extremist” ideas. It’s part of an international push to discourage and restrict communications considered radical and hateful. While often couched in concern about the potential for violence, this effort looks increasingly like a scheme to narrow the boundaries of acceptable discussion and muzzle speech that makes the powers-that-be uncomfortable.
As part of their strategy to combat “extremism,” Facebook is issuing a new warning to users about “harmful” content an individual may have been exposed to. They’re also urging users to turn in others they suspect of being extremists.
h/t Mauser
The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that Facebook can be held liable for sex traffickers who use the social media platform to recruit and prey on children. The court ruled in favor of three Houston civil actions involving teenage sex trafficking victims. All three victims said they met their traffickers through Facebook’s messaging functions.
YouTube took down one of our videos about a freedom rally last week. Twitter keeps shadow banning this account. And now the censors at Facebook are warning users about our content. Did they all get orders from Ottawa to silence me and the PPC? pic.twitter.com/jPcQLetGy2
— Maxime Bernier (@MaximeBernier) June 22, 2021
Can’t make it up. @facebook is censoring the @who recommendation that people under 18 not be vaccinated. pic.twitter.com/pYCUBUTsqO
— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) June 22, 2021
The National Post and many other papers owned by Postmedia published an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday, calling for action against the “predatory monopoly practices of Google and Facebook against Canadian news media.”
The tech boss is finally being recognized as the American villain he is, rather than the folk hero he’s tried to present himself as.
Many have understandably applauded Facebook’s decision to ban former President Donald Trump from the site for the next two years, but the ability of a company to decide who should be in the public square, which the social network has effectively become, raises troubling questions about the future of our tattered democracy.
The decision was announced by Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom who’s now the vice president of global affairs at the social network, but there’s no question that the final call here belonged to Facebook’s co-founder, chairman, CEO, and controlling stockholder.
(A little surprised this is from the Daily Beast – Go incognito)
During one email exchange between the pair in Feb. 2020, Zuckerberg asked Fauci about the best ways he could help with the synthesising and mass distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine, offering to throw unlimited money at the project via his foundation.
Ah, yes, the Fauci emails! They are confirming and will confirm even more of what we have said all along and that there is an actual conspiracy between many of the big corporate fascists and their counterpart fascists in government. The latest links Fauci with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to drive the narrative of fear of coronavirus into the people prior to election.
Facebook’s ‘independent fact checkers’ relied on a letter spearheaded by a major financial backer of the Wuhan Institute of Virology to ‘debunk’ articles exploring the possibility that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in a leak from the lab, it has emerged.
For nearly a year, Facebook censored articles exploring the lab leak theory, labeling them ‘false information’ and punishing news publishers by limiting their reach on the platform, before the social media giant sheepishly reversed course last month.
Facebook relies on third-party fact-checkers to ‘debunk’ false claims, and in the case of the lab leak theory, a February article from Facebook partner Science Feedback played a key role in the social media site’s censorship.
Anything to please their Communist Chinese masters and stay on that gravy train.
Human smugglers along the southern border are openly advertising their services on Facebook and the social media company has fallen short on removing such content.
A plethora of user accounts have posted offers to facilitate illegal border crossings on the platform. Some even directly advertise how much they charge for the service. Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), who took office in January, repeatedly alerted Facebook to the issue in general and to a number of specific posts of this kind, but most of them haven’t been removed, she said.
Tech giant Facebook has stated that it will stop protecting politicians on its platform from content moderation and will inform world leaders when they receive a “strike.”
h/t Marvin
Facebook Inc has suspended former US President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts for two years.
He was barred indefinitely from both sites in January in the wake of posts he made on the US Capitol riots, but last month Facebook’s Oversight Board criticised the open-ended penalty.
Facebook said Mr Trump’s actions were “a severe violation of our rules”.
Horseshit.
Trump blasts Facebook ban: ‘Ultimately, we will win’
