Big Tech is Back On a Censorship Binge

[DontTreadonMe7]

LAug 13, 2018

Published on: August 12, 2018 by RRadmin7

Big Tech Is Back on a Censorship Binge

The websites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have become hopelessly fixated on who should be allowed as members of their social media club. The membership rulebook is under constant revision. If you are someone who holds to leftist views, you might not notice the changes. That is because conservatives and Christians are the only ones being restricted.
A couple weeks ago, there were headline reports about Twitter’s effort to “shadow ban” conservatives. A “shadow ban” involves blocking a website account in a way where the account’s content is not readily available to others on a website. The user is unaware that their content is blocked.
When a YouTube page that hosts The Hal Lindsey Reports sends out a notification about his latest video, I don’t always receive the message. Since I’m on his contact list, I should be alerted every time he adds a new post. I don’t receive the notice because someone has decided to limit the number of people who can access his material.
Last week, there was an outright ban on Alex Jones by Facebook, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. Jones was marked as an easy target because he is the source of many conspiracy views. He believes that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was fake, the 9/11 attack was planned by the U.S. government, and the moon landing was staged in a Hollywood studio.
I think it is very dangerous to free speech to allow Jones to be banned. The Silicon Valley is the most liberal region of America, and it’s very obvious that these companies would like to silence all voices on the right.
Tech companies such as Facebook, Senator Ted Cruz said, have “a degree of power and an ability to censor that William Randolph Hearst at the height of yellow journalism could never have imagined. They have the ability, if there is a speaker who is disfavored, simply to silence the speaker — to shadow ban them so that you might speak, but your words float off into oblivion and nobody hears them.”
Several years ago, I decided against posting Rapture Ready’s content on Facebook and Twitter because I knew that censorship would eventually become a problem. Lately, I’ve read numerous letters that detail how social media has largely destroyed platforms that people spent years building up. Last week, I read an email from Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily. He said the Internet Cartel had caused a profound shrinking in his site’s traffic and revenue. “WND.com, for instance, saw drops in revenue from more than $10 million in 2016 to $6 million last year to perhaps as little as $4 million in 2018,” said Farah.
Martin Niemöller was a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. He wrote the following poem that should be applied to this current situation:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
The only thing to keep us from falling into a situation where Big Brother controls access to all web platforms is the fear of public opinion. These big tech firms have gone through several steps where they would restrict someone and then back away from criticism, and then they would censor the same person in a different way. With each cycle, the restrictions become progressively worse.
If the Democrats win control of the government, they have promised to add controls to the web. Senator Chris Murphy said censorship of websites is so vital the “Survival of our democracy depends on it.”
Other Senate Democrats are already circulating plans for a government takeover of the internet. The paper suggests forcing social media platforms to identify and track the person behind all user accounts. To protect us from Russia agents, they want the federal government to act as a tyrannical gatekeeper of the worldwide web.
If we continue down this path, the day will eventually come when President Trump’s Twitter account is deleted. I’m sure Jack Dorsey, the head of Twitter, gets asked each day why he hasn’t already made this move. When Facebook had its last earnings report, reporters were constantly badgering the firm on why it allows Fox News to have a platform. I think these so-called reporters have become so evil, they’re incapable of realizing they are acting like Nazis.
I firmly believe that God is going to hold things together until the very end. If we reach the point where the web authorities have decided to label and ban all Christian sites as purveyors of hate speech, the rapture will occur right before they get a chance to throw the switch. Since this demonic cabal is obsessed with finishing its task, we have a strong indication that time is very short.
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).
–Todd

http://www.raptureready.com/category/nearing-midnight/

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[Green Man]

Hundreds of Google employees, upset at the company’s decision to secretly build a censored version of its search engine forChina, have signed a letter demanding more transparency to understand the ethical consequences of their work.

In the letter, which was obtained by The New York Times, employees wrote that the project and Google’s apparent willingness to abide by China’s censorship requirements “raise urgent moral and ethical issues.” They added, “Currently we do not have the information required to make ethically-informed decisions about our work, our projects, and our employment.”

The letter is circulating on Google’s internal communication systems and is signed by about 1,000 employees, according to two people familiar with the document, who were not authorized to speak publicly.

The protest presents another obstacle for Google’s potential return to China eight years after the company publicly withdrew from the country in protest of censorship and government hacking. China has the world’s largest internet audience but has frustrated American tech giants with content restrictions or outright blockages of services including Facebook and Instagram.

It is also the latest example of how Google’s outspoken work force has agitated for changes to strategy. In April, the internet company’s employees spoke out against its involvement in a Pentagon program that uses artificial intelligence to improve weaponry. By June,

Google had said it would not renew a contract with the Pentagon for A.I. work.

Google’s interest in bringing search back to China came to the forefront earlier this month, when reports surfaced that the company was working on a search app that restricts content banned by Beijing. The project, known internally as Dragonfly, was developed largely in secret, prompting outrage among employees who worried they had been unwittingly working on technology that would help China withhold information from its citizens.

“We urgently need more transparency, a seat at the table, and a commitment to clear and open processes: Google employees need to know what we’re building,” the letter said.

The letter also called on Google to allow employees to participate in ethical reviews of the company’s products, to appoint external representatives to ensure transparency and to publish an ethical assessment of controversial projects. The document referred to the situation as a “code yellow,” a process used in engineering to address critical problems that impact several teams.

Google declined to comment on the letter. It has said in the past that it will not comment on Dragonfly or “speculation about future plans.”

Employees are expected to press management about Dragonfly at a weekly staff meeting on Thursday. As of late Wednesday, one of the top questions on an internal software system called Dory, which lets employees vote for the questions that executives should answer at the meeting, asked whether Google has lost its ethical compass, said employees familiar with the letter. Other questions on Dory asked directly about the Dragonfly project and specific information that may be censored by the Chinese government, such as air pollution data.

This week’s staff meeting will be the first opportunity for Google’s work force to ask executives about Dragonfly since the meeting was not held last week. The absence of a gathering — the result of a regularly scheduled break in the summer, according to company spokesman Rob Shilkin — led to fears among employees that leadership was becoming less transparent following several controversies over Google’s government work.


Historically, Google has been more responsive to employee concerns and more transparent about future projects and inner workings than other major technology companies, inviting questions from workers at its staff meetings and encouraging internal debate.

The internal dissent over Dragonfly comes on the heels of the employee protests over Google’s involvement in the Pentagon project to use artificial intelligence. After Google said it would not renew its contract with the Pentagon, it unveiled a series of ethical principles governing its use of A.I.

In those principles, Google publicly committed to only use A.I. in “socially beneficial” ways that would not cause harm and promised to develop its capabilities in accordance with human rights law. Some employees have raised concerns that helping China suppress the free flow of information would violate these new principles.

In 2010, Google said it had discovered that Chinese hackers had attacked the company’s corporate infrastructure in an attempt to access the Gmail accounts of human rights activists. The attack, combined with government censorship, propelled Google to pull its search engine from the country.

The exit from China was a seminal moment for the company — a symbol of its uncompromising idealism captured by Google’s unofficial motto of “Don’t Be Evil.” At the time, Chinese internet users marked the loss of Google’s search engine by laying flowers at the company’s Beijing offices in what became known as an “illegal flower tribute.” A possible re-entry to China, according to current and former employees, is a sign of a more mature and pragmatic company.

Google has maintained a significant presence in China even though its flagship services are not accessible in the country. Last year, Google announced plans for a research center in China focused on artificial intelligence. And it has introduced translation and file management apps for the Chinese market. Google now has more than 700 employees in China.

Google’s work on Dragonfly is not a guarantee that its search engine will be welcomed back to China. The government would have to approve its return and it has kept American technology firms like Facebook at arm’s length, opting instead to work closely with homegrown internet behemoths.

Some employees are in favor of re-entering China, arguing that exiting the country in protest of censorship has done little to pressure Beijing to change its position while it has made Google nonessential among the world’s largest base of internet users.

When Google pulled out of China in 2010, Sergey Brin, the company’s co-founder, said it objected to the country’s “totalitarian” policies when it came to censorship, political speech and internet communications. If anything, China has only tightened its controls in the last eight years — leaving the company in a bind for how to justify its return.

“You can never satisfy a censor, particularly the ones in China,” said Charles Mok, member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council who advocates for information technology and who is affiliated with the territory’s democratic camp.

Google is probably facing intense pressure to introduce more of its products in China, Mr. Mok said, but added that the company would lend legitimacy to government censorship if it debuted a censored search product in China.

“Then the Chinese government can say, ‘Google is O.K. with it too,’” he said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/technology/google-employees-protest-search-censored-china.html?action=click&module=In%20Other%20News&p gtype=Homepage&action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=H omepage

[Lenno]

I checked my Utube favorites list this morning, a further 20 channels have been disappeared, now the "Islamophobes" have been banned as well as any channel that hopes to tell the truth. Some channels, 6 in my list, have deleted all their content in an effort to preserve their presence on the tube. Now banks are canceling their credit card processing services to TradCon businesses in a concerted effort to bankrupt alternative news orgs.
Krystal Nacht cannot be too far behind

[dstraito]

It is such a week argument when you can not refute an opponents position so you ban it.

they must really be afraid of the truth.