The future of Facebook

'Five Eyes' Summit in Australia Ramps Up Internet Censorship

http://wsws.org/en/articles/2018/09/05/five-s05.html

"Despite the high-profile character of the gathering, the event received almost no publicity. The communique also denounced tech companies for not meeting with Five Eyes officials to discuss clamping down further on social media. The Five Eyes edicts signal an even more draconian offensive."

WSWS wrote:

The claims by right-wing Republicans that they are being censored by the technology giants, and the antics of Jones and his fascistic allies, are sideshows aimed at distracting attention from the fact that left-wing political opposition is the central target of the censorship by Facebook, Twitter and Google, amid the creation of the framework of a police state.

re: "aimed at"

So, Jones doesn't really believe that he's being censored, but he's deliberately pretending to worry about being censored, to distract attention from the censoring of the left? That's really the only interpetation of the writer's words that I can come up with, but it seems pretty goofy.

And let's be honest here. If social media outlets were only censoring Jones and his facistic allies, but leaving the left alone, would WSWS really be all that concerened about the violation of some First Amendment right to he hosted on Facebook?

That Rubio-Jones exchange reminds me of when Marilyn Manson played in Edmonton in the late 90s. Some of the local fundamentalist Christians showed up to protest his satanic debaucheries, and were met by a contingent of "free-speech" counter-demonstrators. Hilarity ensued when some of the Manson fans somehow got into a fight with the "free speech" group, and ended up getting their asses kicked by the very people who were defending the right of their hero to perform.

Matt Taibbi on this --

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/facebook-censors...

"This is the nuance people are missing. It’s not that people like Jones shouldn’t be punished; it’s the means of punishment that has changed radically.

For more than half a century, we had an effective, if slow, litigation-based remedy for speech violations. The standards laid out in cases like New York Times v. Sullivan were designed to protect legitimate reporting while directly remunerating people harmed by bad speech. Sooner or later, people like Alex Jones would always crash under crippling settlements. Meanwhile, young reporters learned to steer clear of libel and defamation. Knowing exactly what we could and could not get away with empowered us to do our jobs, confident that the law had our backs.

If the line of defense had not been a judge and jury but a giant transnational corporation working with the state, journalists taking on banks or tech companies or the wrong politicians would have been playing intellectual Russian roulette. In my own career, I’d have thought twice before taking on a company like Goldman Sachs. Any reporter would.

Now the line is gone. Depending on the platform, one can be banned for “glorifying violence,” “sowing division,” “hateful conduct” or even “low quality,” with those terms defined by nameless, unaccountable executives, working with God Knows Whom.

The platforms will win popular support for removals by deleting jackasses like Jones. Meanwhile, the more dangerous censorship will go on in the margins with fringe opposition sites — and in the minds of reporters and editors, who will unconsciously start retreating from wherever their idea of the line is.

The most ominous development involves countries asking for direct cleansing of opposition movements, a la China’s search engine, or Tel Aviv’s demands that Facebook and Google delete pages belonging to Palestinian activists. (This happened: Israel’s justice minister said last year that Facebook granted 95 percent of such requests.)"

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Look out, flat-earthers.... Soon enough it'll be your turn to have the bandwidth turned off because you dared to tell people "the truth!!!"

Click on the video to see some top-notch revolt against the gatekeepers.

https://tinyurl.com/yc3aoubh

At about 1:20, I love the way he says "...YOU guys..." with that sinister undertone.

Watching the Hawks -  Policing Free Speech

https://youtu.be/H7JdA6R4WJU

@ 15:00 Investigative Rolling Stone mag's Matt Taibbi on Facebook, the Atlantic Council and the corporate policing of free speech. 'An extraordinary, terrifying development.'

It's a big internet, and there are always other options.

If you think that Facebook is censoring your lies, consider Diaspora.  Get your message out to the hundreds and hundreds of Diaspora users.

Rabble/babble has NEVER felt obligated to host all opinions and ideas.  Why should any other private host like rabble/babble?  Why is it on them to provide a microphone to any idjit that wants one?

LOL.  Even the ever-woolyheaded WSWS seems to acknowledge that Kavanaugh said no such thing, ever.

Quote:

As a result of the Weekly Standard’s “fact-checking,” the ThinkProgress story, entitled “Brett Kavanaugh said he would kill Roe v. Wade last week and almost no one noticed” will be accompanied by a companion article from the Weekly Standard: “Fact Check: Has Brett Kavanaugh ‘Stated He’d Overturn’ Roe v. Wade?”

I've noticed, though, that when the k00Ks lack something sufficiently controversial to inflame the rebellious passions of the people then they'll just make something up based solely on assumptions.  "Local politician wants to see citizens die grisly deaths" rather than just "Local politican abstains from vote on new Stop sign".  I really don't think the internet will be any the lesser for getting rid of that silliness.

And the k00Ks are still allowed to tell the truth, as boring as it might be sometimes.

Facebook takes down some pages about BC municipal electoral candidates:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-bc-candidates-targeted-by-anonymous-social-media-posts/

"

Facebook has shut down two accounts linked to Vancouver’s civic election, declaring the accounts violate its policies and that the company has placed a priority on preventing election interference.

Facebook took down one account that was promoting mayoral candidate Hector Bremner, under the name Vancouverites for Affordable Housing. Another account disparaging the Non-Partisan Association’s (NPA) candidate with the page name Vancouver Deserves Better Than Ken Sim was also taken down.

“This is honestly just the nastiest election cycle ever,” said Mike Witherly, who is a campaign strategist with the NPA. The party complained about both of the Facebook pages that were ultimately taken down.

“I think people are getting ideas as they see the investigation into Russian interference [in the American elections]. It’s giving people a sense of its effectiveness and prompting people to try it.”

 'the latest escalation of corporate censorship used as state censorship in the west..."

If you wanna say "used in lieu of state censorship" or maybe "used to go after the same targets that the state dislikes" that's okay, but the phrasing as written is a ham-fisted attempt at conflation.

Something is either state censorship or it's not. That's because the state has the actual power to physically prevent you from writing or publishing something, whereas the worst that Facebook can do is kick you off their website.  

Alternative Media is Under Attack From All Angles (and vid)

https://www.rt.com/shows/watching-the-hawks/441152-facebook-bans-blevins...

"Facebook has unleashed a concerning new and brazen round of account purges. Journalist Max Blumenthal and RT America correspondent Rachel Blevins join the show to discuss."

Facebook Crackdown on Alternative Media (and vid)

https://www.rt.com/shows/in-question/441134-facebook-crackdown-on-altern...

"Anya Parampil breaks down a new effort by Facebook to stop what it calls political spam from circulating on its site. Facebook used the opportunity to remove very popular pages..."

"dissident voices".

The thing is Facebook is not stand alone. They have marketed their login as the gateway to so many other sites that avoiding Facebook means not having access to many other sites. This is how they make a Facebook demise more difficult to see in the short term.

Caissa wrote:

This is not meant as an insult, Babble will be gone long before Facebook.

I wouldn't be so sure. If you had told me thirty years ago that the local, family-owned sports equipment shop down the road from my house would outlive Sears, I probably would have said you were nuts. But it's still there, and Sears, well...

That said, if we were making predictions about which outfit would have the more glorious history, financially speaking, that honour would have to go to Sears, even factoring in current tragedies. The family-owned sports shop in my old neighbourhood is still confined to one store, I believe.

TRNN: Facebook Erases Hundreds of Alternative Media Pages in Mass Purge (1/2)

https://youtu.be/UiBKj1RTS30

"Facebook is erasing popular alternative media pages that had millions of likes and suspending anti-war and anti police brutality accounts acting in coordination with Twitter..."

Updated: In Latest Fit of Censorship, Facebook Deletes Video Detailing Brutal Legacy of Christopher Columbus

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/17/updated-latest-fit-censorsh...

"Monbiot's piece of journalism was about the airbrushing of history. Therefore, there is a great irony in the fact it has now been airbrushed from Facebook's platform."

NATO's proxy censor, the Atlantic Council, hard at work protecting you .  

Facebook has some very dedicated followers but it is largely generic social media. Volume is not staying power (Anyone up for Pokemon Go?)

Babble is a smaller group of course but it is committed and not generic with fewer potential replacements. I would not bet on Facebook outliving babble.

Very interesting. Apparently facts do not accord with msm disseminated theory. Who duh thunk it?

Facebook Hired PR Firm To Label Its Critics 'Agents of Soros'

https://on.rt.com/9io7

"In a bid to counteract negative publicity, social media giant Facebook hired a PR agency to discredit critics claiming that they were agents of liberal billionaire George Soros, a NYT report has revealed..."

Manipulation and the Role of Social Media

https://t.co/kkHTFY2D4T

"Social media and Google serve 3 strategic purposes for the US government. Firstly, they allow the US to conduct espionage, secondly, they facilitate the speed of disinformation, and thirdly, they serve as conduits for the transmission of social contagions.

Two things are important in understanding the US government's offensive agaianst unfavourable nonaligned countries. Firstly, the origins of Facebook and Google, and secondly, their collective influence over human motivations through coercion and the spread of social contagions through distorted reality..."

The World Google Controls and Surveillance Capitalism

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/12/17/the-world-google-controls-and-su...

"From the US to the EU, one thing has become painfully clear to me in recent months: free speech, the freedom of conscience, and privacy are all under threat by big tech companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google. In fact, these companies are far more the enemy of the people than the NSA or GCHQ. Surveillance capitalism is now part of our everyday..."

Facebook As An American Geopolitical Weapon

https://surveillancevalley.com/blog/facebook-as-an-american-geopolitical...

"...How closely and openly Facebook has been integrated into America's corporate-national-security apparatus."

When I was 11 years old, I got upset because one of my classmates told everyone else a secret that I had wanted her not to say anything about. My parents responded by telling me that the best way to keep a secret is to not say anything. How easily we forget that lesson. I'm always amazed by people claiming that Facebook is bad because of privacy breaches. Well, I never signed up for Facebook, and as far as I know, Facebook didn't point a gun at anyone's head and force them to do so either. And if you post information on the Internet and it comes back to haunt you, how is that anybody's fault but your own? I'm astounded at the amount of data about themselves that people will willingly post.

When are we going to stop blaming the corporations for everything and start taking responsibility for ourselves and the well-being of our communities? As irksome as the right can be on lamenting a loss of a sense of individual responsibility, regarding things like this, they have a point. We don't post personal information on Facebook, Facebook can't turn around and use it to manipulate us. It's that simple.

“We should look at problems online and say it’s causing harm, it’s harming often very vulnerable people because of content they’re engaging with, and the companies that host that and serve it and direct people to it should be responsible. And they will be held liable for it if they don’t act against unlawful content.”

"unlawful content"

So this law is only targeting material that would be literally illegal under British law?

If so, I can understand the reasoning, though I'm curious about what sort of things Zuckerberg can get away with hosting under US law, but would be illegal in the UK. Off the top of my head, the only thing I can really think of would be hate-speech(protected in the US but not Britain). But then, why don't the MPs just come out and say "hate speech"?

Cards on the table, I suspect the agenda here is to target opinions which are suddenly provoking a moral-panic because of their appearance on Facebook, but which would previously have just been laughed off if delivered by some nattering old crank in Hyde Park. Maybe that's unfair on my part, but the politicians are kind of inviting that speculation with their vague propositions.

I suppose it is better than nothing but it seems to me this is just a whack-a-mole game, where Facebook removes one, and almost immediately others take its place

Facebook needs to have a system in place to prevent these sickos from getting any exposure on Facebook to begin with. Canada needs some strict legislation to that effect.

Facebook bans Faith Goldy and 'dangerous' alt-right groups

Social media giant says platform can't be used to spread hate

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/facebook-faith-goldy-ban-alt-right-1.5088827