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350,187 | newswars--2019-01-02--Leftists Worried That Rand Paul Has Become Trumps Foreign Policy Advisor | 2019-01-02T00:00:00 | newswars | Leftists Worried That Rand Paul Has Become Trump’s Foreign Policy Advisor | Leftists in the mainstream media and deranged detractors in general are worried that Senator Rand Paul, who has a staunch anti-war constitution, has become President Trump’s senior advisor on foreign policy. Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin declared a “Welcome to the world of President Rand Paul,” in a piece that slammed Trump for paying too much attention to Paul’s worldview. “Several U.S. officials and people who have spoken directly to Trump since his Syria decision tell me they believe that Paul’s frequent phone conversations with Trump, wholly outside the policy process, are having an outsize influence on the president’s recent foreign policy decisions,” a worried Rogin writes. “Officials told me that, throughout the national security bureaucracy, everyone is aware that Paul’s voice is one to which the president is paying increasing attention.” the writer adds. How frightening. Trump is listening to perhaps the only person in Washington who isn’t thirsty for more illegal and wasteful war in the Middle East. “Paul has a history of pushing false claims and theories,” Rogin claims, not realizing the horrible irony in that statement given the years of lies and subterfuge used by so called foreign policy ‘experts’ in misadventures such as the Iraq and Libya invasions. “The existing concern over Paul’s influence on Russia policy has now boiled over with respect to Syria,” Rogin further whines. He continues that “In the run-up to 2020, Trump should realize that most Republicans—and most Americans—favor a robust U.S. foreign policy.” Apparently, for this deranged leftist, ‘robust’ equates to never ending occupation of foreign countries to the detriment of the military and the economy of the US. Most Americans do not actually support this ‘robust’ position, and they havn’t been for years. “Ideally, Trump will soon realize that adopting Paul’s vision for the future of U.S. foreign policy is not only dangerous for our national security but bad politics as well,” Rogin continues to blather, showing just how far removed from reality he is. Rogin and his ilk were all for limiting American militarism when Obama campaigned on it. When the former President failed to deliver on those promises it suddenly became OK to support never ending war. “Trump has already decided to slash the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan, which Paul has long pushed. Is South Korea next?” Rogin frets. “Trump often says he wants to bring U.S. troops there home, too. Paul’s idea is to swap out U.S. soldiers with Chinese troops, which would be a huge blow to U.S. leadership in Asia.” the writer claims. By taking the position that U.S. leadership about having thousands of troops stationed all over the planet, this fake news pushing leftist is taking the exact same position as the lunatic neocon warmongers that lurk in the Washington shadows. | Steve Watson | https://www.newswars.com/leftists-worried-that-rand-paul-has-become-trumps-foreign-policy-advisor/ | 2019-01-02 10:48:49+00:00 | 1,546,444,129 | 1,567,554,269 | politics | government policy |
350,199 | newswars--2019-01-02--Sand Death Trump Destroys Globalist Policy To Stay in Middle East | 2019-01-02T00:00:00 | newswars | ‘Sand & Death’: Trump Destroys Globalist Policy To Stay in Middle East | President Trump defended his decision to withdraw troops from Syria and begin a drawdown of forces in Afghanistan after the mainstream media and neocons accused him of being premature. During a Cabinet meeting in the White House on Wednesday, Trump doubled down on his decision to pull out of Syria and begin drawing down troops in Afghanistan. “We don’t want Syria. We’re talking about sand & death. That’s what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about vast wealth. We’re talking about sand and death,” Trump told reporters. Trump then reminded the media that regional neighbors like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and India have more incentive to defeat ISIS than the U.S. because they pose a direct threat to their national interests. “Russia’s not happy, you know why they’re not happy? Because they like it when we’re killing ISIS, because we’re killing them for them. And we’re killing them for Assad. And we’re killing ISIS also for Iran,” Trump said. “We were supposed to be out of Syria many years ago. If you remember, we went to Syria for some spot hits, and that was five years ago, and we never left. I don’t want to be in Syria. I want to rebuild our country.” His statements come after former Gen. James Mattis stepped down last month as Secretary of Defense over Trump’s decision to wind down the Middle East wars. Shortly after, Trump took a jab at Mattis and the other military leaders who discouraged his decision to withdraw troops, saying they were the brains that led to the rise of ISIS in the first place. “General Anthony Tata, author, ‘Dark Winter.’ I think the President is making the exact right move in Syria. All the geniuses who are protesting the withdrawal of troops from Syria are the same geniuses who cooked the books on ISIS intelligence and gave rise to ISIS,” he tweeted. | Infowars.com | https://www.newswars.com/sand-death-trump-destroys-globalist-policy-to-stay-in-middle-east/ | 2019-01-02 20:11:22+00:00 | 1,546,477,882 | 1,567,554,268 | politics | government policy |
351,295 | newswars--2019-01-30--Trump Touts Tremendous Progress On Foreign Policy | 2019-01-30T00:00:00 | newswars | Trump Touts ‘Tremendous Progress’ On Foreign Policy | President Trump fired off a tweet barrage Wednesday morning touting ‘tremendous progress’ on foreign policy, pressing the point that things were a mess when he took office. Trump furthered expectations that he is seeking to end the ‘never ending’ war in Afghanistan and withdraw American troops, saying that the “Caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago.” The President then turned to North Korea, noting that the relationship with the rouge state is the “best it has ever been with U.S.” and that he sees a “Decent chance of Denuclearization.” The President further stressed that the progress made with North Korea could not have been foreseen considering the previous administration’s position. “At the end of the previous administration, relationship was horrendous and very bad things were about to happen.” Trump urged. The President was less optimistic concerning the situation in Venezula, however, issuing a warning to Americans not to travel there for the forseeable future. The Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has claimed that Trump surreptitiously sought to have the Colombian government and mafia assassinate him. Maduro also claimed that White House National Security Adviser John Bolton has prevented Trump from communicating with the Venezuelan government, despite efforts to start a dialogue. “For all these years, I have been trying on a personal level. But Bolton prevented Donald Trump from initiating a dialogue with Nicolas Maduro. I have the information that he has prohibited this,” Maduro said. Turning to the southern border, Trump addressed Democrats, stating that if they do not wish to discuss a border wall with Republicans at a meeting scheduled for today then it will be pointless. The President followed up with another tweet warning of new caravans of migrants marching toward the US. | Steve Watson | https://www.newswars.com/trump-touts-tremendous-progress-on-foreign-policy/ | 2019-01-30 12:55:50+00:00 | 1,548,870,950 | 1,567,550,293 | politics | government policy |
351,360 | newswars--2019-02-01--Hungary EU Policy on China Hypocritical | 2019-02-01T00:00:00 | newswars | Hungary: EU Policy on China Hypocritical | Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto on Friday called the European Union’s policy on China “hypocritical” and said cooperation between the bloc and Beijing was in the interest of the whole of Europe. It is also in Europe’s interest that central Europe should develop its infrastructure by utilizing Chinese resources, Szijjarto told Hungarian public media on the sidelines of an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Bucharest. Romania, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, put EU-China relations on the agenda of Friday’s meeting and EU candidate countries have also been invited to the second part of the talks. Szijjarto said it was obvious that China would soon become the largest economy in the world and the success of European cooperation with China would be therefore vital for the competitiveness of Europe. An old dogma that capital only travels from west to east, in search of cheap labor, has fallen, he added. Companies from the East and the West are now equally dictating the speed at which global economy changes and in many industries the technologies required for future competitiveness are developed and first introduced in the East, he said. “As a result, cooperation with the Chinese is especially important because if the EU cannot cooperate with China then the latest technology in many industries will be inaccessible to us and this would result in a drop in Europe’s competitiveness,” he added. The EU’s China policy is hypocritical under the current circumstances when trade turnover increased by more than 30 percent in one year, reaching almost 600 billion euros last year and those countries had the largest turnover, including Germany, France, Italy, UK and the Netherlands, that are the loudest critics of China, Szijjarto said. Central Europe wants its share of the benefits of cooperation which will serve not only regional but all-European interests, he added. “Cooperation between China and central Europe basically concerns infrastructure development projects that are not covered by European resources. As such, the utilization of Chinese support for infrastructure development in north-south direction is an all-European interest and what’s more, this cooperation also yields development for the Western Balkans which will therefore become ever more prepared for EU accession,” Szijjarto said. Szijjarto criticized Brussels for delaying the European integration of Western Balkan countries, adding that it was “unacceptable” that the European Commission was holding back on Western Balkan integration until 2025, even though it would be in Europe’s economic and security interests. “There is no need for another six years at all. We believe that accession could be carried out in the context of Serbia and Montenegro much faster. This would be an economic and above all security interest for the whole of the EU, including Hungary. There are some serious tensions in the Western Balkans and if European integration is speeded up, these would be much easier to get under control,” Szijjarto added. | Hungary Journal | https://www.newswars.com/hungary-eu-policy-on-china-hypocritical/ | 2019-02-01 18:46:40+00:00 | 1,549,064,800 | 1,567,550,020 | politics | government policy |
351,474 | newswars--2019-02-05--EU Targeting Hungary For its Migration Policy Official | 2019-02-05T00:00:00 | newswars | EU Targeting Hungary For its Migration Policy – Official | The European Parliament election campaign is not the forum to chew over the politically motivated Article 7 procedure launched against Hungary, a government official said in Bucharest. But, in this respect at least, European Union presidency-holder Romania “does not lack goodwill” towards Hungary, Gergely Gulyas, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office, said. After meeting George Ciamba, the Romanian minister for European affairs, Gulyas said Article 7 had been launched against Hungary by pro-migration forces in European Parliament who disfavoured the country’s policy on migration. “We’re hopeful the May [EP] elections will bring about a shift in powers relations [and] the procedure won’t last long,” he said. The standpoints on migration of Romania and Hungary are similar, he said, adding that illegal migration “should be prevented”. A key goal of the Romanian presidency is to join the Schengen area with no internal border controls. For this reason, Hungary’s view is the Schengen issue should not be linked to other preconditions, he said. Gulyas said several salient issues of direct relevance to Hungary were on the Romanian EU presidency’s agenda, some with overlapping Hungarian-Romanian interests, such as the budget for the next seven-year EU cycle. Cohesion and farm subsidies should not be reduced and monies lost due to Brexit should be compensated for by increased in-payments by member states, he added. “It’s also clearly in our common interest that no tension between southern and central Europe should emerge to impede adoption of the budget,” he said. “So we believe that the budget proposals on the table are not suitable to be accepted at this point.” “But it’s not a matter of indifference which of the most important issues are decided when, and these issues must be defined during Romania’s presidency,” Gulyas said. | Hungary Journal | https://www.newswars.com/eu-targeting-hungary-for-its-migration-policy-official/ | 2019-02-05 19:34:45+00:00 | 1,549,413,285 | 1,567,549,600 | politics | government policy |
352,326 | newswars--2019-02-28--Fed Policy Rescuing Stock Market | 2019-02-28T00:00:00 | newswars | Fed Policy Rescuing Stock Market | After weeks of hinting, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell confirmed that the central bank will end its balance sheet reduction program this year. This just five months after insisting quantitative tightening was on “autopilot.” “We’ve worked out, I think, the framework of a plan that we hope to be able to announce soon that will light the way all the way to the end of balance sheet normalization,” Powell said during testimony before the House Financial Services Committee. Powell said the central bank would be in a position to “to stop runoff later this year.” According to the Fed chair, the balance sheet will remain at about 16 to 17% of GDP. That would mean the new normal for the Federal Reserve balance sheet would come in at between $3.2 trillion and $3.4 trillion. In other words, almost all of the mortgages and Treasurys that the Fed purchased at part of its three rounds of quantitative easing during the Great Recession will remain on its balance sheet. As Peter Schiff talked about in a recent podcast, when Ben Bernanke launched QE, he insisted the Fed was not monetizing debt. He said the difference between debt monetization and the Fed’s policy was that the central bank was not providing a permanent source of financing. He said the Treasurys would only remain on the Fed’s balance sheet temporarily. He assured Congress that once the crisis was over, the Federal Reserve would sell the bonds it bought during the emergency. Not so much. According to a Reuters report, the current Fed board began hammering out a new balance sheet approach in November. That coincides with the plunge of the US stock markets in the fourth quarter of last year. It’s astonishing how quickly the Fed moved from “autopilot” to “we’re done” once the markets started to tank. In his latest podcast, Peter Schiff talked about Powell’s testimony on Capitol Hill. He noted that Powell continued to harp on this theme of “patience,” reiterating that the Fed wasn’t in any hurry to resume, pushing interest rates up. But that raises a question: why patience now? Why not patience in December? What’s changed? “The only difference is the market hadn’t completely collapsed. In fact, at the last meeting, the Fed was not only not patient, they were hiking rates. They were interested in hiking rates more. But they have the quantitative tightening program, the shrinking of the balance sheet that was on autopilot. Why did they take it off autopilot? And not only did they take it off autopilot, but why are they saying they are going to wind it down so that we finish the reduction this year? ,,, Well, the only thing that changed is the stock market. They clearly came to the rescue of the stock market.” Peter reiterated this really should come as no surprise. This was inevitable from the beginning. “This is not some new information that just happened and now all of a sudden a Fed that was going to bring interest rates back up to normal because something happened they had to stop. I was saying from the beginning that they were going to stop. I just didn’t know what the excuse was going to be. But eventually, they would come up with one because I knew that they could not complete the journey. But they were able to fake it as long as the markets were giving them the thumbs-up. But the minute the market gave them the thumbs down, well, then they had to call it off. The same thing with the balance sheet. When they said this autopilot, the markets were tanking on a balance sheet reduction plan going on autopilot, and so they had to call it off.” | Schiff Gold | https://www.newswars.com/fed-policy-rescuing-stock-market/ | 2019-02-28 17:08:10+00:00 | 1,551,391,690 | 1,567,547,047 | politics | government policy |
600,916 | thedailycaller--2019-03-22--Trump Orders Policy U-Turn On North Korea-Related Sanctions | 2019-03-22T00:00:00 | thedailycaller | Trump Orders Policy U-Turn On North Korea-Related Sanctions | President Donald Trump announced on Twitter Friday he was reversing course on new sanctions on Chinese companies doing business with North Korea. “It was announced today by the U.S. Treasury that additional large scale Sanctions would be added to those already existing Sanctions on North Korea,” Trump wrote. “I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional Sanctions!” The U.S. Treasury had announced the new sanctions Thursday, not Friday as Trump wrote, and they immediately received “swift pushback” from both the Chinese and North Korean governments, reported Fox News. (RELATED: Dan Crenshaw Breaks Silence On Trump’s McCain Feud) “President Trump likes Chairman Kim [Jong Un] and he doesn’t think these sanctions will be necessary,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said when asked about Trump’s tweet. Trump’s decision came a day after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin detailed the U.S. decision to impose sanctions on two China-based companies. “The United States and our like-minded partners remain committed to achieving the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea and believe that the full implementation of North Korea-related UN Security Council resolutions is crucial to a successful outcome,” Mnuchin said in a statement Thursday, according to Fox News. “Treasury will continue to enforce our sanctions, and we are making it explicitly clear that shipping companies employing deceptive tactics to mask illicit trade with North Korea expose themselves to great risk.” Trump and Kim may have another summit this year after their most recent summit in late February fell apart. Trump had used Twitter in early March to weigh in on the U.S. and South Korea’s decision to end their annual large-scale joint military exercises. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected]. | Evie Fordham | https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/22/north-korea-sanctions-news/ | 2019-03-22 20:30:33+00:00 | 1,553,301,033 | 1,567,545,287 | politics | government policy |
601,442 | thedailycaller--2019-04-03--Trumps Labor Department Proposes Trashing Obamas Joint-Employer Policy | 2019-04-03T00:00:00 | thedailycaller | Trump’s Labor Department Proposes Trashing Obama’s Joint-Employer Policy | The Department of Labor (DOL) released a proposal Monday to roll back Obama-era policies that left franchisers confused to the extent they could interact with their partner franchisees, The Washington Free Beacon reported. The DOL proposal would codify the definition of a “joint-employer” as two companies with direct control over how an employee is treated and paid. The Obama administration had implemented policies that widened the joint-employer definition to include businesses not directly involved with the day-to-day management of employees. (RELATED: A Pro-Union Labor Board Ruling Is An ‘Industry -Wide’ Drag On Hotel Employees’ Wages, Study Says) The Obama precedent concerned many in the franchise industry that workplace violations committed by individual franchisees could be used to influence or punish major corporations. For example, a union could use workplace violations at one franchisee to organize the corporation above it, though the corporate franchiser was not directly involved in the abuse. “This proposal will reduce uncertainty over joint employer status and clarify for workers who is responsible for their employment protections,” Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta said in a statement. “Providing public notice and comment is the best way to move forward with another significant deregulatory proposal.” The DOL’s proposal institutes a four-part test to determine whether two businesses can be classified as joint-employers over a single employee. The joint-employer rule applies to companies that both have the ability to hire or fire the employee, control the employee’s work schedule or conditions of employment, determine the employee’s pay and are legally obligated to handle the employee’s employment records. Critics say the proposal is too narrow and will allow companies to get away with unfair or abusive labor practices. “It sends the message to companies that outsource or use contractors that they might be off the hook,” National Employment Law Project general counsel Catherine Ruckelshaus told The Wall Street Journal. “The Labor Department won’t be coming after them for violations of minimum-wage or child-labor laws.” Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected]. | Tim Pearce | https://dailycaller.com/2019/04/03/alexander-acosta-labor-joint-employer/ | 2019-04-03 22:20:19+00:00 | 1,554,344,419 | 1,567,544,250 | politics | government policy |
603,176 | thedailycaller--2019-05-20--Kamala Harris Unveils Equal Pay Policy | 2019-05-20T00:00:00 | thedailycaller | Kamala Harris Unveils Equal Pay Policy | California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris unveiled a policy proposal to close the pay disparities between men and women by mandating corporations to disclose wage data and earn “Equal Pay Certifications” Monday. Corporations that do not secure certification would be fined 1% of their profits for every 1% pay gap for the same work, The Associated Press reported Monday. Federal contractors will be required to receive the certification within two years of Harris presiding in office or they would not be allowed to compete for contracts valued more than $500,000. “Kamala Harris has a simple message for corporations: Pay women fairly or pay the price,” her campaign said, according to The AP. Companies would also need to disclose top-earners who are women and total pay and total compensation gap that exists between the genders regardless of position, experience and performance under the policy, the AP reported. The proposal shifts the responsibility from employees to corporations when addressing pay discrimination, according to the AP. (RELATED: Google’s Annual Pay Equity Analysis Finds More Men Than Women Were Underpaid In 2018) “We’ve let corporations hide their wage gaps, but forced women to stand up in court just to get the pay they’ve earned,” the campaign said, the AP reported. “It’s time to flip the script and finally hold corporations accountable for pay inequality in America.” The 2020 hopeful estimated that $180 billion would be generated over a decade due to fines, but the fines would decrease as organizations bolstered their equal pay practices, according to the AP. Harris’s policy is based on the belief that women are paid 80 cents to every dollar a man makes, according to a Sunday tweet where she hinted about releasing the proposal. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, argues that statistics surrounding the pay gap only considers media earnings of full-time and salaried workers. Furthermore, the data does not take into account education, experience, hours worked or preferences between the genders. Harris’s team did not immediately respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected]. | Neetu Chandak | https://dailycaller.com/2019/05/20/kamala-harris-equal-pay-policy/ | 2019-05-20 13:20:36+00:00 | 1,558,372,836 | 1,567,540,464 | politics | government policy |
301 | 21stcenturywire--2019-05-01--SYRIA Amnesty International bias provides cover for Al Qaeda crimes against the Syrian people in Id | 2019-05-01T00:00:00 | 21stcenturywire | SYRIA: Amnesty International bias provides cover for Al Qaeda crimes against the Syrian people in Idlib and Hama | Maha Assaad with her disabled 25-year-old daughter, Amal, their house was targeted by Nusra Front two days before orthodox Good Friday in Al Skeilbiyyeh, Northern Hama. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley) Amnesty International’s recent biased and misleading report ignores the suffering of communities under attack from Al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria’s Idlib. Tensions are being ratcheted up in the north-westerly provinces of Idlib and Northern Hama and Western media prepares itself for the revival of the notorious “last doctor” meme. In September 2018 Russian and Turkish negotiators agreed to establish a demilitarized zone in Idlib which should have been completed by October 15, 2018. The reality is that the withdrawal of heavy weaponry has only been partially successful and the remaining armed groups dominated by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), effectively a rebrand of Al-Qaeda or Al-Nusra Front, have consistently violated the ceasefire and targeted cities, towns and villages on the borders of the so-called “safe zone.” Think tanks and globalist organisations that serve to bolster NATO’s aggressive interventionist policy in Syria are advocating an increase of Turkey’s military footprint in Idlib, ostensibly to curtail the HTS expansionism, but, clearly, and perhaps foolishly relying upon Turkey’s NATO membership to offer them a compliant occupier in the northwest while the US coalition increases its own military presence in the vast band of Syrian territory east of the Euphrates – despite President Trump’s hollow withdrawal-of-US-troops rhetoric in December 2018. In amongst all this geopolitical jockeying for position and supremacy, civilians in the region are suffering and few more so than those who live in the towns that border Idlib and areas of Northern Hama still under control of the armed groups and their HTS overlords. These are the Syrian people entirely ignored by NATO-aligned media and “human rights” groups that have sustained narratives that traditionally only criminalize one side in a complex and externally imposed eight-year war. The most recent example of this extreme bias in favor of the US supremacist alliance is the Amnesty International reportdated 28th March 2019 entitled “Syria: Government forces have bombed medical facilities, school and bakery in Idlib.” The title has unequivocally laid out the report’s intent, to criminalize the Syrian government. The report opens with Lynn Maalouf, Middle East Research Director at Amnesty International claiming: The report covers “six recent attacks” in Idlib that Amnesty claim to be “verified.” The report provides no context during this “verification” process. No names of witnesses are provided, we are expected to accept the testimony of anonymous sources whose affiliations are not questioned. We are expected to rely upon the “evidence” provided by “verified open source information, social media photos and videos” which have been “corroborated” remotely by Amnesty’s recently established “Digital Verification Corps” (DVC) in Toronto, California, UK or South Africa. Despite this alleged verification process, none of these videos or photos are shown in the Amnesty report. Amnesty claims to have interviewed witnesses themselves but does not provide the identity of the alleged Amnesty staff on the ground in an area infested by Al-Qaeda affiliates who are known to kidnap and endanger the lives of anyone that might question their motives. Were these witnesses interviewed via Skype by the DVC or were anonymous proxies instructed to conduct interviews in an area controlled by HTS? The report does not clarify. What is familiar about this report are the claims of Syrian government aggression against “civilian” targets in an area occupied by hostile armed groups financed and armed by hostile NATO member states and their allies whose intent is to topple the Syrian government and impose a tyrannical sectarian regime in its place. We have heard identical, sensationalist rhetoric during the Syrian Arab Army campaigns to cleanse East Aleppo and Eastern Ghouta of the same extremist occupiers that were then transported to Idlib as part of the Syrian/Russian amnesty and reconciliation deals. This report criminally erases the atrocities committed by HTS and subordinate groups against the towns and villages clustered inside Syrian government secured territory on the borders with the last terrorist stronghold in Syria. The report misleads an unsuspecting public to believe the Syrian government is conducting unprovoked attacks against a civilian population. This is an outright lie. So, let’s add some vital context to this biased and misrepresentative report. Amnesty mention attacks by the Syrian government on March 9 and 11, in Saraqeb and Talmans, southern Idlib. There are claims that hospitals and blood banks were the main targets, while in February bakeries and makeshift medical clinics had been hit. Acclaimed journalist, Sharmine Narwani, had previously conducted an investigation into the systematic destruction of bakeries, flour mills and deliberate decimation of wheat production by Western-backed armed groups to increase pressure on the Syrian government and collectively punish the Syrian people that have resisted the Western-sponsored extremist bid to take over their country. According to Narwani, “the West’s terrorists drove wheat production from 2.5 M tons per year to 100K.” It is worth noting that several of the Amnesty testimonies come from members of the NATO-member-state financed and promoted White Helmets embedded with HTS in the region. It is also worth noting that a UK government draft documentpublished in April 2017 demonstrates that the White Helmets are the most “routinely reliable source” for both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. So a biased source provides “reliable” and unverified corroboration of biased reports that serve the imperialist agenda. What is not mentioned in the report is the reality that armed groups have systematically occupied hospitals, schools, and medical centers across all areas they have previously controlled in Syria, converting many of them into prisons, military centers and ammunition stores and factories. What is also not mentioned are the daily attacks from these HTS enclaves against the Syrian Christian towns of Al Suqaylabiyah and Mhardeh and surrounding villages. In the weeks leading up to March 9, these attacks intensified. I visited the area on March 9 and was shown the destruction of civilian homes in Al Suqaylabiyah by one attack on March 7. The Amnesty report highlights the alleged displacement of civilians as a result of Syrian government attacks but does not mention the homelessness brought about by such attacks by HTS against the civilian populations of these towns. Nabel Alabdalla, leader of the volunteer National Defence Forces in Al Skeilbiyyeh. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley) Nabel Alabdalla, the commander of the Al Suqaylabiyah volunteer National Defence Forces told me that the extremists were using a new, more powerful C4 explosive in their Grad rockets as the damage was so extensive to entire neighborhoods in the town. The town’s monastery had also been targeted in these attacks, a monastery which doubles as a community center and school for the children of the town. Since the escalation of attacks by armed groups, the children have not been able to attend school as the risk of death or injury is too great. These children are disappeared by Amnesty, their schools don’t count. .. After March 9, the merciless attacks against civilians and infrastructure in Mhardeh and Al Suqaylabiyah continued unabated. On March 16, terrorists targeted another residential area in Suqaylabiyah. Salma Boutros Khalil was seriously injured by shrapnel, her home was destroyed. Her daughter in law, Ayat Al-Mahmoud, a Palestinian originally from Damascus, was killed. Ayat was pregnant, her baby was due in one week. Salma’s grandson was also terribly injured by shrapnel and was rushed to Hama National hospital. Two other children were grievously wounded in this attack. These attacks do not target military centers, they target only residential areas and civilians. They are, in many instances, war crimes, but according to Amnesty International, these attacks never happened. On March 26, according to the Amnesty report, Syrian government forces fired rockets “at a school in Sheikh Idriss.” Again the context is non-existent. On March 23, a suspected chemical weapon attack was carried out by HTS against villages around 10km to the northwest of Al Suqaylabiyah – al-Rasif, al-Aziziyyeh, al-Khandaq, and al-Jayyid. The attack came in from the north, in fact close to Sheikh Idriss. I was in Al Suqaylabiyah when this attack took place and I was able to visit the local hospital that received the 34 victims which included three children, one severely affected with respiratory problems. Victims complained of breathing difficulties, skin blisters, eye sensitivity, nausea and shock syndrome after the attack. One victim, Nawfal Tawbar, described the 1m high dense white smoke that enveloped the area after the mortars had exploded: Without the Syrian government’s retaliatory measures, these extremist attacks would only increase. The attacks are motivated primarily by sectarian hatred against the Syrian Christian or Alawite communities or simply against those who remain loyal to their government. One of the recorded messages from the terrorist groups during this period demanded that Al Suqaylabiyah “release its Nusairi inhabitants” to the terrorists (for execution) to avoid their city being “burned.” Nusairi is the commonly used terrorist term for the Alawites. In the Amnesty report, Maalouf makes the statement: “Deliberate attacks on civilians and on civilian objects, including hospitals and other medical facilities, and indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians are war crimes.” Maalouf fails entirely to identify or qualify the HTS-led attacks against civilians as war crimes which is an egregious negation of the suffering of entire communities in the region. The Amnesty report goes on to further shoot itself in the foot. I asked former UK Ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford for a review of the report. Ford described the report as the “pseudo-findings on Syria by a Corps that has obviously taken up its place in the battle order of Western propagandists seeking to justify endless war on Syria.” Ford points out that the Amnesty report implicitly acknowledges that the areas targeted by the Syrian government are awash with Al-Qaeda (HTS) militants while their student so-called experts “cite the testimony of ‘residents’ that no HTS were present, indeed couldn’t have been present because the areas were part of the demilitarized zone.” Ford punches a hole in this claim: “Amnesty, you have just shot yourself in the foot! Any truly independent observer would have been aware from multiple open sources, including US mainstream media, that the demilitarized zone has not in fact been rid of HTS fighters and their weapons. Far from it. Unacknowledged by Amnesty, the takfiris have been shelling civilians in villages on the government side. Any credibility which might have been attached to these reports goes straight out of the window with these crucial highly revealing errors and omissions.” To further reinforce Ford’s point, the Amnesty report – which contradicts itself – ends with the foot-shooting statement: “Saraqeb is under the control of the Brigade of the Revolutionary Front of Saraqeb and Countryside, which comes under overall HTS control.” The following video, published on February 26 2019, shows these Amnesty-whitewashed “rebels” targeting Abu Duhour, by their own admission – presumably targeting civilian refugees who have fled this brutal terrorist occupation via the Syrian/Russian established and protected humanitarian corridor to the perceived safety of Abu Duhour. Another inconvenient fact omitted by the Amnesty report. Needless to say, colonial media in the West re-published the Amnesty report without correction or investigation – The Guardian, Middle East Eye and Jaish Al Islam-affiliate, Scott Lucas of EA Worldview, among the first to trumpet the distorted Amnesty headlines and content within the state-aligned-western-media sphere. This is nothing less than protectionism for Al-Qaeda. This Amnesty report, verified by its student Corps in remote locations who identify war crimes that only serve to increase the real terrorist war crimes against real civilians in Syria, is a travesty. As Peter Ford said: Cover photo: Mother of 22 year old martyr from Mhardeh, Majed Monif Qiddeeseh, murdered by a Nusra Front rocket on the 7th April 2019. Vanessa Beeley is an independent journalist, peace activist, photographer and associate editor at 21st Century Wire. Vanessa was a finalist for one of the most prestigious journalism awards – the 2017 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism – whose winners have included the likes of Robert Parry in 2017, Patrick Cockburn, Robert Fisk, Nick Davies and the Bureau for Investigative Journalism team. Please support her work at her Patreon account. LEARN MORE ABOUT THE WHITE HELMETS BY READING THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES: White Helmets Centre in Saqba, Eastern Ghouta Next Door to Terrorist Bomb Factory “Humanitarians” and the ‘Moderate’ Bomb Factory in Saqba, Eastern Ghouta. BBC and Guardian Whitewash of UK FCO Funding Scandal in Syria What to Expect From BBC Panorama and Guardian’s Whitewash of UK Gov’t Funding Terrorists in Syria White Helmets Evidence Presented at Geneva Press Club: Vanessa Beeley Presents Exposé on White Helmets at Swiss Press Club in Geneva ‘Global Britain’ – UK Funding a Shadow State in Syria ‘Global Britain’ is Financing Terrorism and Bloodshed in Syria and Calling it ‘Aid’ Initial Investigation into White Helmets: Who are Syria’s White Helmets? 21st Century Wire article on the White Helmets: Syria’s White Helmets: War by Way of Deception ~ the “Moderate” Executioners Who Funds the White Helmets? Secret £1bn UK War Chest Used to Fund the White Helmets and Other ‘Initiatives’ Irish Peace Prize Farce Tipperary’s White Helmets Peace Prize: A Judas Kiss to the Antiwar Movement and Syria CNN Fabricate News About the White Helmets A NOBEL LIE: CNN’s Claim That ‘White Helmets Center in Damascus’ Was Hit by a Barrel Bomb White Helmets Links to Al Nusra WHITE HELMETS: Hand in Hand with Al Qaeda and Extremist Child Beheaders in Aleppo Report by Patrick Henningsen AN INTRODUCTION: Smart Power & The Human Rights Industrial Complex Open Letter by Vanessa Beeley White Helmets Campaign for War NOT Peace – Retract RLA & Nobel Peace Prize Nominations White Helmets Oscar Award Farce: Forget Oscar: Give The White Helmets the Leni Riefenstahl Award for Best War Propaganda Film Cory Morningstar report: Investigation into the funding sources of the White Helmets, including Avaaz, Purpose, The Syria Campaign Open letter to Canadian MPs from Stop the War Hamilton (Canada): Letter from the Hamilton Coalition to Stop War to the New Democratic Party in Canada ref the White Helmet nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize: Open letter to Canada’s NDP Leader on Nobel Prize: Letter to NDP from Prof. John Ryan protesting White Helmet nomination for RLA and Nobel Peace Prize. | Vanessa Beeley | https://21stcenturywire.com/2019/05/01/syria-amnesty-international-bias-provides-cover-for-al-qaeda-crimes-against-the-syrian-people-in-idlib-and-hama/ | 2019-05-01 07:59:44+00:00 | 1,556,711,984 | 1,567,541,467 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
524 | 21stcenturywire--2019-08-14--Report Google Insider Gives 950 Pages of Documents to DOJ | 2019-08-14T00:00:00 | 21stcenturywire | Report: Google Insider Gives 950 Pages of Documents to DOJ | Many people are not aware that back in April of 2017, tech giant Google embarked on massive effort to ‘cleanse’ their search engines of content which Google’s executives believe should not be widely seen or read by billions of viewers across the globe. However, Google’s censorship was not limited to ‘right wing’ or ‘pro-Trump’ information as has been widely reported by numerous conservative outlets. Google’s political censorship program has also buried content and redirected internet searches away from left-wing, progressive and anti-war websites, cutting the search traffic of leading alternative news outlets by well over 50 percent since they implemented their corporate information purge in April 2017. In some instances, website traffic from Google searches dropped more than 70%. This political lustration by the Silicon Valley conglomerate has had a devastating effect of independent media outlets worldwide, as Google continually works to control the public information space. But their gross manipulation is now beginning to be exposed. A former Google insider claiming the company created algorithms to hide its political bias within artificial intelligence platforms – in effect targeting particular words, phrases and contexts to promote, alter, reference or manipulate perceptions of Internet content – delivered roughly 950 pages of documents to the Department of Justice’s Antitrust division Friday. The former Google insider, who has already spoken in to the nonprofit organization Project Veritas, met with SaraACarter.com on several occasions last week. He was interviewed in silhouette, to conceal his identity, in group’s latest film, which they say exposes bias inside the social media platform. Several weeks prior, the insider mailed a laptop to the DOJ containing the same information delivered on Friday, they said. The former insider is choosing to remain anonymous until Project Verita’s James O’Keefe reveals his identity tomorrow (Wednesday). He told this reporter on his recent trip to Washington D.C. that the documents he turned over to the Justice Department will provide proof that Google has been manipulating the algorithms and the evidence of how it was done, the insider said. Google CEO Sundar Pichai told the House Judiciary Committee in December, 2018, that the search engine was not biased against conservatives. Pichai explained what algorithm’s are said Google’s algorithm was not offensive to conservatives because its artificial intelligence does not operate in that manner. He told lawmakers, “things like relevance, freshness, popularity, how other people are using it” are what drives the search results. Pichai said even if his programmers were anti-Republican, the process is so intricate that the artificial intelligence could not be manipulated and it was to complicated to train the algorithm to fit their bias. Google did not immediately respond for comment on the insider’s claims, however, this story will be updated if comment is provided. The insider says Google is aware most people are unaware or not knowledgeable about these advanced IT systems and therefore unable to determine who is telling the truth. “I honestly think that a free market can fix this issue,” he told this reporter at a meeting in Washington D.C. “The issue is that the free market has been distorted and what’s happened is that the distortion is so grotesque and the engineering is so repulsive, all we need to do is just expose what’s going on. People can hear that it is bad but that can be bias. But when they see what Google has actually written with the documents, this will actually be taught in universities of what totalitarian states can do with this type of capability.” Watch the following Google whistleblower interview published by Project Veritas: | 21wire | https://21stcenturywire.com/2019/08/14/report-google-insider-gives-950-pages-of-documents-to-doj/ | 2019-08-14 10:46:55+00:00 | 1,565,794,015 | 1,567,534,184 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
578 | 21stcenturywire--2019-09-07--Biometric Fight Facebook Defeated on Facial Recognition But Google Amazon Still Pushing Ahead | 2019-09-07T00:00:00 | 21stcenturywire | Biometric Fight: Facebook Defeated on Facial Recognition, But Google, Amazon Still Pushing Ahead | Whether you like it to or not, facial recognition is set to play an ever-growing role in people’s everyday lives. Nonetheless, the fight is now on: push-back has now begun against Silicon Valley’s global digital monopolies who seek to harvest the facial imaging data of every single user on the planet. But with seemingly endless resources and lobbying muscle, do not expect digital barons to give up on implementing a biometeric control grid. Last month, Facebook lost its federal appeal over its attempt to own the public’s facial recognition data. As a result, the firm is set to pay out substantial damages over its unethical privacy and business practices. This has also forced the company to halt its facial recognition photo tagging suggestion feature, now offering it on a voluntary basis only – as an ‘opt-in’ feature. “We conclude that the development of a face template using facial-recognition technology without consent (as alleged here) invades an individual’s private affairs and concrete interests,” said the courts following the initial ruling in early August. “This decision is a strong recognition of the dangers of unfettered use of face surveillance technology,” said ACLU staff attorney Nathan Freed Wessler. While this may count as an initial victory for humanity, the battle is far from over. Indeed, caution may seem like the most reasonable route down the road towards a brave new world, this is not what technocrats in government and technology monopolists believe. Facebook’s setback has not deterred the other monopolies from advancing in their plans to own, market and use data on the facial features of the world’s population. Firms like Amazon, Apple and Google are still actively pursing applications designed to harvest your personal biometric information. In fact, they are doing so as we speak. Google Photos have even been asking users to help “improve” the accuracy of its new facial recognition grouping algorithm by providing feedback on their own images. Recognition ability is becoming so accurate it can now recognise pets, as well as other animals. If humanity is to prevail in this protracted battle, then users should be aware of which legal arguments will work in a legal setting, and how the courts are defining personal privacy and the limitations of big data capture. A last-ditch attempt by Facebook to scuttle a class action lawsuit involving the company’s use of facial recognition technology has failed. That opens the door for the class action lawsuit to continue in federal court. If Facebook eventually loses the case, it could be forced to pay out billions of dollars to Facebook users who had their “face templates” used by Facebook without their express consent. The class action suit involving facial recognition technology hinges on the court’s interpretation of landmark facial recognition legislation, the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), which went into effect in 2008 – several years before Facebook began using facial recognition technology to create the “tag suggestions” feature for photos uploaded to the social media platform. Facebook officially launched its facial recognition technology back in 2011, and the court case has been limited to possible privacy violations that might have taken place in the period from 2011 to 2015. The case alleges that Facebook illegally collected and stored biometric data, representing a violation of an individual’s private affairs and concrete interests. Since 2015, the case has been working its way through America’s sometimes convoluted legal system, and the next step had been the certification of an official “class” of plaintiffs who could formally bring the class action lawsuit against Facebook. The Silicon Valley giant, as might be expected, has been fighting this case vigorously for the past several years, arguing that a class action lawsuit was not possible in this case. Instead, said Facebook, individuals would have to bring their case on a one-by-one basis instead of challenging the tech company as part of a certified class of plaintiffs. So, it was big news when the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that, indeed, there was a class of plaintiffs who could formally bring the case against Facebook. As the federal appeals court ruled, this class consists of “Facebook users in Illinois for whom Facebook created and stored a face template after June 7, 2011.” The limitation of this class to Illinois is important because Illinois is the state where the BIPA went into effect. But even limiting the plaintiffs to Illinois – one of America’s most populous states – is not going to help Facebook much, because the total number of those impacted within the state could be close to 7 million users. (By way of comparison, the city of Chicago in Illinois currently has a population of 2.7 million). | 21wire | https://21stcenturywire.com/2019/09/07/biometric-fight-facebook-defeated-on-facial-recognition-but-google-amazon-still-pushing-ahead/ | 2019-09-07 14:01:34+00:00 | 1,567,879,294 | 1,569,330,856 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
612 | 21stcenturywire--2019-09-20--Authoritarian Inc Facebook Declares Its a Publisher and Will Censor Who It Wants | 2019-09-20T00:00:00 | 21stcenturywire | Authoritarian Inc: Facebook Declares It’s a ‘Publisher’ and Will Censor Who It Wants | With each passing day, Silicon Valley’s corporate digital monopolies are realizing the story line of the recent Hollywood dystopian classic, The Circle, where a few tech firms appoint themselves as the rightful guardians of reality, by controlling speech, political discourse, and even elections. They do this not because they have a higher moral mission, or that they possess some superior ideological framework for society, but rather, they seize control of the key modes of social communication simply because they can. This is raw, unadulterated power. That dark Hollywood vision just came one step closer to becoming reality this week after Facebook declared itself to be a ‘publisher’ rather than a network platform, thus reserving the right to censor or de-platform anyone it wants to. OUT OF TOUCH: Many now believe that through the accumulation too much power, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has lost touch with the reality in American and global society, prompting calls that it’s time to break up what has now become an authoritarian digital monopoly. There are other efforts by government and civil liberties groups to push back against Facebook’s authoritarian policies and political gate-keeping. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company’s handling of a fact-checking controversy involving pro-life group Live Action was biased. The embattled tech executive discussed the issue during a meeting on Thursday with Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a frequent critic of Big Tech, on a host of topics, including privacy and allegations of anti-conservative discrimination. “Zuckerberg admitted there “clearly was bias” in the @LiveAction @LilaGraceRose censorship. Said bias is ‘an issue we’ve struggled with for a long time.'” tweeted Hawley, one of several senators who questioned the tech company’s fact-checking systems in a letter to Zuckerberg last week. Hawley also challenged Zuckerberg to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp, which the company owns, and submit to an independent, third-party audit on censorship. Zuckerberg declined on both counts. Last month, Live Action was told by Facebook that its fact checkers had marked two videos containing the statement “abortion is never medically necessary” as false. The tech giant also said that Live Action, its links and Rose’s page would now have reduced distribution and other restrictions because of repeatedly sharing false news. The tech mogul’s visit to Washington, D.C., came as Facebook faces an antitrust probe being led by state attorneys general ,and a separate antitrust investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. The timing of these various challenges is certainly interesting – right as Facebook and its Silicon Valley anti-trust cartel partners are attempting to “cleanse” their platforms of ‘wrong politics’ by banning a host of prominent conservative pundits and outlets in the run-up to the US 2020 Presidential Election. RELATED: Biometric Fight: Facebook Defeated on Facial Recognition, But Google, Amazon Still Pushing Ahead At the same time they have appeared to undermine the advantage they previously had by keeping their public political positions murky and arbitrary. Now that Facebook has declared that it’s now a ‘publisher’ they can justify censoring or banning whoever they want, but there may be consequences for choosing this tactic. Regarding Facebook’s newfound status, RT International adds: “Facebook has invoked its free speech right as a publisher, insisting its ability to smear users as extremists is protected, but its legal immunity thus far has rested on a law which protects platforms, not publishers. Which is it?” “Defining itself as a publisher opens Facebook up to lawsuits for defamation and other liability for the content users publish, something they were previously immunized against. All the lies, personal attacks, and smears launched by users going forward can now be laid at Facebook’s feet.” “Whatever they say – platform or publisher – their words will haunt them legally from now on.” RT also rightly points out that platforms like Google and Twitter claim protection from the legal consequences of users’ speech by invoking Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. However, with this latest court declaration, Facebook can no longer claim Section 230 defense. Their report also points out that during its recent legal challenge, “Facebook even makes reference to section 230 later in its motion, suggesting that it is trying to have its cake and eat it too.” Facebook’s dilemma is now apparent: the more aggressively it enforces its biased political censorship agenda, the harder citizens and their elected representatives will push-back against the Silicon Valley’s elitist brand of latte fascism. | 21wire | https://21stcenturywire.com/2019/09/20/authoritarian-inc-facebook-declares-its-a-publisher-and-will-censor-who-it-wants/ | 2019-09-20 14:43:34+00:00 | 1,569,005,014 | 1,569,590,549 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
724 | 21stcenturywire--2019-12-03--LIBRA: Facebook Now Wants to Control Your Money | 2019-12-03T00:00:00 | 21stcenturywire | LIBRA: Facebook Now Wants to Control Your Money | CONTROL ISSUES: Through the accumulation of too much power, Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg have lost touch with reality in global society and must be uprooted. Facebook – backed by some of the largest banks and corporations on Earth – seek to create a global digital currency and reassert Western dominion over the global economy. Many are probably already familiar with US-based social media giants like Facebook and Twitter carrying out sweeping campaigns of censorship executed in line with US foreign policy objectives. New Eastern Outlook itself was deleted off of both networks – just one among many thousands of accounts wiped out in a virtual information war. Many are also probably aware of how Facebook in particular has trampled the privacy of its users, manipulated users unwittingly through involuntary experiments and controls what many people around the globe see while online – most of the time without users even realizing it. But imagine instead of just silencing and marginalizing opponents or controlling the information the public has access to and thus manipulating the public itself, Facebook was also able to control the very currency people use in their day to day lives. Its control over the public, both within the US and beyond, would be unprecedented. The ability to control both information and money would be a potent tool, enhancing Facebook’s already deeply disruptive and abusive behavior as well as the much larger corporate-financier interests Facebook works with and for. Earlier this year Facebook announced its own currency called Libra. It is based on blockchain technology, billed as a “cryptocurrency,” and aims at dominating banking and commerce in much the same way Facebook already dominates social media, messaging and in general, the flow of information. There is no doubt that the same cooperation Facebook has provided the US government and the interests that dominate its domestic and foreign policy in controlling and manipulating public opinion around the globe, stifling alternative news, and even overthrowing governments will translate directly into a similar pattern of abuse through its desired control over a global currency. Unlike hard currency which does not know in whose hands it resides and thus is unable to discriminate against its holder – Libra not only allows Facebook to know whose hands its currency is in, but how much of it is there, what it is being used for – in addition to all other personal information Facebook has access to. This not only allows for an obvious extension of Facebook’s already well-known politically-motivated abuses – but also gives Facebook the ability to target users who may pose as competition to Facebook or one of the many larger corporations Facebook works with or for. Imagine Facebook carrying out a similar campaign to their current one of political censorship, but with an added monetary component – not only removing the West’s political opponents from their social media network and effectively silencing them, but crippling them financially by freezing their accounts and denying them access to the massive digital global economy they hope to create and control through Libra. While US politicians and regulators appear to be obstructing Libra’s rollout, the truth is that many of the very interests these politicians and regulators work for are directly involved in Libra’s creation. Not Just Facebook: What is the “Libra Association?” The initial white paper laying out Libra’s premise included in its introduction: Such noble intentions are betrayed not only by Facebook’s involvement, but also by the partners included in Libra’s creation. While Facebook serves as the face of Libra, it and its subsidiary Calibra are only two among many members of the Geneva-based “Libra Association.” Other partners include Mastercard, Visa, Lyft, Uber, Vodafone, and eBay along with a handful of venture capital firms and nonprofits. These nonprofits include Women’s World Banking funded by Visa, Credit Suisse, MetLife, Citi Bank, Exxon, Bloomberg, Mastercard, Goldman Sachs and many other large corporations and banking interests. There is also MercyCorps whose website is particularly opaque in regards to its funding, but includes inveterate Neo-Conservative, former World Bank president, and US Deputy Secretary of State under George Bush Jr. Robert Zoellick upon its “Global Leadership Council.” Kiva – like MercyCorps – is another Libra Association “nonprofit” partnered with a collection of banks and corporations including Google, HP, Mastercard, PayPal, Capital One, Deutsche Bank, MetLife, PepsiCo, Citi Bank, eBay, BlackRock, Bank of America, JP Morgan, and Chevron. It would be difficult to construct a more dubious list of partners, donors, and associates in fiction than the one standing behind Libra in reality. Judging by the composition of those driving Libra forward, we can make two assumptions: • Libra’s founders are among the same special interests that drive US policy, legislation, and regulations. The prospect of the US government legitimately evaluating and regulating Libra in line with the best interests of the American and global public is nonexistent; • Despite Libra’s stated mission of “empowering billions,” its rollout looks more like the restructuring of America’s financial hegemony over billions. Libra seeks to circumvent alternatives created to work around the already abusive and coercive global financial networks the US dominates and weaponizes to its own advantage. F. William Engdahl in his article, “Is the Fed Preparing to Topple US Dollar?,” aptly noted that Bank of England governor Mark Carney at a US Federal Reserve sponsored symposium proposed a global digital currency citing Libra specifically as a model. Considering the very interests that constitute Western banking and finance are involved in Libra’s creation – it is obvious that Libra is more than just a model being cited – it is the global digital currency insiders like Carney proposed coming to life. While many of the corporations and financial institutions involved in Libra’s creation are systematically corrupt all on their own, the conduct of Facebook past and present most aptly illustrates the abuse to be expected should Libra be adopted globally. While Facebook poses as an independent corporation monopolizing and abusing its social media network and subsidiaries – in reality Facebook has carried out these abuses in tandem with the US government and the collection of special interests that monopolize US domestic and foreign policy. US government oversight – including past hearing and regulatory inquiries into Libra itself – is often done for public consumption only – with Facebook otherwise continuing onward with absolute impunity. Abusing Privacy: A summary of these abuses best begins with quoting Mark Zuckerberg himself. Elle magazine in an article titled, “Quick Reminder: Zuckerberg Once Called People Who Trust Him With Their Data ‘Dumb F*Cks’,” summarizes Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s view of the public and their entrusting of personal information to Zuckerberg and his social media network. While Zuckerberg would apologize for this, it is clear he was only sorry that it became public. Facebook continues to this day abusing the trust of those using its services by involuntarily providing the personal information of tens of millions of Facebook users to third parties. Business Insider in its article, “The Cambridge Analytica whistleblower explains how the firm used Facebook data to sway elections,” notes how Facebook not only provided personal information to the British firm Cambridge Analytica, but how that information was used to meddle in US elections. Political Meddling: The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal was mild compared to other episodes of political meddling Facebook has been involved in. Perhaps the largest most destructive episode was before and during the so-called “Arab Spring.”While the Western media portrayed it as a spontaneous uprising across North Africa and the Middle East – documented evidence reveals the US government along with its corporate partners including Facebook began training and equipping agitators years before the unrest began. Facebook was one of the primary partners of Movements.org which organized annual training seminars for opposition leaders who then returned home and attempted to overthrow their respective governments in 2011. Even the New York Times in an April 2011 article titled, “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings,” would eventually admit: Censorship: Building armies of pro-Western agitators is not the limit of Facebook’s involvement in politics. It also carries out systematic campaigns of censorship aimed at critics of Western foreign policy. It recently banned New Eastern Outlook and several of its authors including this author from its network. More recently still, it has systematically removed accounts attempting to counter US-funded propaganda regarding unrest Washington is sponsoring in Hong Kong, China. Facebook’s own statement over its selective censorship regarding China is ironically titled, “Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior From China.” It provides no evidence of its claims and deliberately includes a political context to demonize the users and pages it removed. Its statement is ironic because the protests in Hong Kong themselves are most certainly coordinated inauthentic behavior – funded out of Washington D.C. and actively using Facebook to advance their agenda. Manipulating Public Perception: In 2013, Facebook was caught manipulating the news feeds of unwitting users to influence them psychologically. A report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) titled, “Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks,” stated in its abstract that: Facebook also regularly manipulates its users’ news feeds through its algorithm which sidesteps the preferences of users and shows them whatever Facebook itself decides they should see. This usually includes sponsored news content from accounts users aren’t even following and usually at the expense of seeing content from accounts users do follow. Facebook’s ability to bait hundreds of millions of users to adopt their platform, then switch the nature of its network into a malign tool of manipulation, censorship, surveillance, and propaganda is already a global menace nations around the globe are finally starting to recognize and respond to. The notion of Facebook coupling its already disturbing hold over information with control over a global currency backed by some of the West’s largest and most corrupt corporations and financial institutions is a larger problem still. It takes no great leap of imagination to see how abusive and destructive to individuals, organizations, and even entire nations Facebook’s dominion over global currency would be. Imagine how America’s trade war with China would play out if Facebook was able to hook hundreds of millions of users around the globe onto its Libra currency. Corporations like Huawei or retailers offering Huawei products might see their online stores shuttered, their accounts frozen, and otherwise sanctioned and economically strangled out of existence by Facebook. It’s clear that the promise of decentralized, democratized money cryptocurrencies offered has been co-opted and leveraged by the very interests that stood the most to lose from such a future. Nations would be wise to respond to Facebook’s Libra by responding to Facebook itself. Nations like Russia and China have already largely displaced Facebook from within their own borders by creating alternatives. Nations like Vietnam have recently begun creating alternatives as well. While media organizations like Bloomberg in articles like, “Facebook’s Latest Competition? Authoritarian Governments.,” try to frame Vietnam’s efforts as a struggling dictatorship trying to stifle the free flow of information – it is clear by looking at Facebook’s past and present that Facebook itself represents a dictatorship. Nothing about its policies are “democratic.” The execution of its policies is unilateral, lacking any genuine appeal process or any sort of independent oversight. It is in every way a monopoly and dictatorship over information and the growing variety of services linked to its social media network that Bloomberg claims Vietnam’s government is. The important difference is that the Vietnamese government is located in Vietnam while Facebook is located in Silicon Valley thousands of miles away. The people of Vietnam have a much better chance at reforming, checking, and balancing their own government than keeping in check a malign foreign corporation. And ultimately – it is an issue for Vietnam and Vietnam alone to resolve. Nations are beginning to understand the importance of defending their respective information space – it becoming as important as a nation’s physical territory. It is obvious that the same vigor must be dedicated to defending a nation’s monetary policy and the economy it glues together. Uprooting the conduit through which highly disruptive schemes like Libra will flow by replacing them with domestic alternatives controlled by and for domestic interests is the only way to fully confront the looming threat Facebook and the interests working with it on Libra represent. Nations that believe they can work with Facebook on ensuring regulations and policies align with local laws need only look back at the “Arab Spring.” When a large move is made by Washington against a targeted nation, this token cooperation Facebook normally provides evaporates. Nations lack the time and resources to respond and are often overwhelmed by the large influence Facebook and other foreign firms are able to exert during episodes of concentrated, sponsored unrest. The only way to be certain of ensuring national security and monetary stability is to eliminate Facebook and other foreign firms like it from a nation’s information space. A nation’s defense would never be outsourced to a foreign corporation. Neither should a nation’s flow of information – and now – the flow of money. *** Author Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher, writer and special contributor to 21st Century Wire. See more of his work at Tony’s archive. Over the last decade, his work has been published on a number of popular news and analysis websites, and also on the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”. Also, you can follow him on VK here. HELP SUPPORT THIS INDEPENDENT MEDIA PLATFORM – BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 21wire | https://21stcenturywire.com/2019/12/03/libra-facebook-now-wants-to-control-your-money/ | Tue, 03 Dec 2019 19:40:36 +0000 | 1,575,420,036 | 1,575,417,846 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
1,130 | abcnews--2019-01-17--Facebook removes more accounts linked to coordinated inauthentic behavior in Russia | 2019-01-17T00:00:00 | abcnews | Facebook removes more accounts linked to 'coordinated inauthentic behavior' in Russia | Facebook has unfriended more fraudulent accounts tied to Russia. The social media giant, in a blog post credited to Nathaniel Gleicher, head of cybersecurity policy, said today that it's removed "multiple Pages, groups and accounts that engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram." The two operations discovered by Facebook originated in Russia. One was active in multiple countries, the other specific to Ukraine and "we didn't find any links between these operations, but they used similar tactics by creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing," Facebook said. "We're taking down these Pages and accounts based on their behavior, not the content they post," the Menlo Park, California-based company added. "In these cases, the people behind this activity coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves, and that was the basis for our action." No additional details were provided in the blog post. Exactly a year ago, Facebook, in a similar blog post attributed to Gleicher, announced it had removed 364 Pages and accounts for "inauthentic behavior." A similar announcement was made last August. Fighting such misinformation, according to Facebook, is "an ongoing challenge because the people responsible are determined and well funded." Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the seventh-richest person on Earth, with an estimated net worth of more than $58 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. | Justin Doom | https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/facebook-removes-accounts-linked-coordinated-inauthentic-behavior-russia/story?id=60438585 | 2019-01-17 10:23:54+00:00 | 1,547,738,634 | 1,567,552,026 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
3,775 | activistpost--2019-01-16--Google Manipulated YouTube Search Results To Program Users Behavior | 2019-01-16T00:00:00 | activistpost | Google Manipulated YouTube Search Results To Program Users’ Behavior | In a new leak that can be accurately labeled “the smoking gun,” Google has been busted manipulating search results on YouTube in order to manipulate social behaviors and control minds. An internal discussion thread leaked to Breitbart News reveals that Google regularly intervenes in search results on its YouTube video platform. According to Breitbart, the existence of the blacklist (terms Google considered sensitive) was revealed in an internal Google discussion thread leaked to Breitbart News by a source inside the company who wishes to remain anonymous. A partial list of blacklisted terms was also leaked to Breitbart by another Google source. Some of the blacklisted terms included “abortion,” and terms related to the Irish abortion referendum, Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and anti-gun activist and communist, David Hogg. In the leaked discussion thread, Breitbart further reported that a Google site reliability engineer hinted at the existence of more search blacklists, according to the source. “We have tons of white- and blacklists that humans manually curate,” said the employee. “Hopefully this isn’t surprising or particularly controversial.” According to the source, the software engineer who started the discussion called the manipulation of search results related to abortion a “smoking gun.” The software engineer noted that the change had occurred following an inquiry from a left-wing Slate journalist about the prominence of pro-life videos on YouTube and that pro-life videos were replaced with pro-abortion videos in the top ten results for the search terms following Google’s manual intervention. “The Slate writer said she had complained last Friday and then saw different search results before YouTube responded to her on Monday,” wrote the employee. “And lo and behold, the [changelog] was submitted on Friday, December 14 at 3:17 PM.” –Breitbart The manual (human) adjustment of search results by a Google-owned platform contradicts a key claim made under oath by Google CEO Sundar Pichai in his congressional testimony earlier this month. Pichai actually said that his company does not “manually intervene on any search result.” A Google employee in the discussion thread drew attention to Pichai’s claim, noting that it “seems like we are pretty eager to cater our search results to the social and political agenda of left-wing journalists.” And it cannot get more dystopian than that. Hitler insured his propaganda minister was able to manipulate the minds of many during his reign as a tyrant. Journalists in America are now no better and they are using Google to alter the minds and morals of otherwise good people. We live in strange and disturbing times. Please read Breitbart‘s entire article here. There is much more information! | Activist Post | https://www.activistpost.com/2019/01/google-manipulated-youtube-search-results-to-program-users-behavior.html | 2019-01-16 21:05:52+00:00 | 1,547,690,752 | 1,567,552,135 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
3,817 | activistpost--2019-01-21--Coalition Demands Amazon Microsoft and Google Stop Giving Facial Recognition Tech to Government Ag | 2019-01-21T00:00:00 | activistpost | Coalition Demands Amazon, Microsoft, and Google Stop Giving Facial Recognition Tech to Government Agencies | The Tenth Amendment Center has joined more than 85 other organizations demanding Microsoft, Google and Amazon stop providing facial recognition surveillance technology to government agencies. The TAC signed on to separate letters to all three companies. The coalition makes it clear to each company a decision to provide face surveillance technology to the government threatens basic liberties and will also undermine public trust in its business. “We are at a crossroads with face surveillance, and the choices made by these companies now will determine whether the next generation will have to fear being tracked by the government for attending a protest, going to their place of worship, or simply living their lives,” ACLU of California Technology and Civil Liberties Director Nicole Ozer said. Local, state and federal law enforcement agencies have partnered up to create a massive facial recognition system. As of 2016, law enforcement face recognition networks included photos of more than 117 million adults. That number has undoubtedly grown significantly. Many of the pictures enter the system when police take mugshots during booking after an arrest, but increasingly, police have access to photos of innocent people. Currently, at least 16 states allow the FBI to access their driver’s license and ID photos. Ubiquitous surveillance cameras in some cities. and automatic license plate reader cameras that capture photos of vehicle occupants along with plate numbers and location information also provide entry points into the system. Private companies such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google assist with this Orwellian nightmare by providing technology to government agencies. This needs to stop. No company should willingly assist the government in violating our most basic rights. The letters come as executives from Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have all spoken publicly about facial recognition technology, revealing an industry at odds on how to respond to concerns raised about government use of such technology. Google recently announced that it will not sell a face surveillance product until the technology’s dangers are addressed, with its CEO Sundar Pichai warning the tech industry that with artificial intelligence, you “just can’t build it and then fix it.” The coalition welcomed Google’s decision and called on the company to fully commit to not release a facial recognition product that could be used by government. Microsoft President Brad Smith also recently acknowledged the risks associated with face surveillance and the company’s obligation to act internally to address potential harms. The coalition commended Smith’s acknowledgment of the technology’s harms, but noted that the company’s proposed measures to prevent such harms were “wholly inadequate.” The groups added that Microsoft has a “responsibility to do more than speak about ethical principles; it must also act in accordance with those principles.” | Activist Post | https://www.activistpost.com/2019/01/coalition-demands-amazon-microsoft-and-google-stop-giving-facial-recognition-tech-to-government-agencies.html | 2019-01-21 23:06:29+00:00 | 1,548,129,989 | 1,567,551,451 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
3,974 | activistpost--2019-02-07--NYPD Orders Google to Stop Showing Drivers Where the Cops Are At | 2019-02-07T00:00:00 | activistpost | NYPD Orders Google to Stop Showing Drivers Where the Cops Are At | The New York Police Department (NYPD) sent a cease and desist letter to Google last week, demanding that the company stop allowing its customers to report police checkpoints using their GPS apps. The report mentioned Google Maps and Waze, the popular GPS app that allows users to share information about hazards on the road, including the presence of police. The app allows drivers to pinpoint the exactly location of police and report sightings to fellow drivers, saving untold people from speeding tickets and arrests due to victimless crimes. However, the NYPD says that Google is helping users break the law. The letter sent to Google last week focused specifically on the issue of impaired drivers. The NYPD has become aware that the Waze Mobile application … currently permits the public to report DWI checkpoints throughout New York City and map these locations. Accordingly, we demand that Google LLC, upon receipt of this letter, immediately remove this function from the Waze application. Further, the NYPD requests that Google take every necessary precaution to ensure that GPS data of NYPD DWI checkpoints, or any other substantially similar data, is not uploaded or posted at a future time on the Waze Mobile application, google.com, Google maps, or any other associated internet/websites, or web portals and platforms under Google LLC’s, its partners’ sponsors’ or affiliates’ control. Ann Prunty, NYPD’s Acting Deputy Commissioner for Legal Matters and author of the letter, says users who post data of police locations could be breaking the law: Do You Want to Learn How to Become Financially Independent, Make a Living Without a Traditional Job & Finally Live Free? Individuals who post the locations of DWI checkpoints may be engaging in criminal conduct since such actions could be intentional attempts to prevent and/or impair the administration of the DWI laws and other relevant criminal and traffic laws. The posting of such information for public consumption is irresponsible since it only serves to aid impaired and intoxicated drivers to evade checkpoints and encourage reckless driving. Revealing the location of checkpoints puts those drivers, their passengers, and the general public at risk. “The NYPD will pursue all legal remedies to prevent the continued posting of this irresponsible and dangerous information,” Prunty added. The app has infuriated police for years because it allows users to gain an upper hand on the harassment and revenue-generating schemes police often engage in. Now with the recent tensions between police and the public hitting new heights, the push against this equalizing technology has been stronger than ever before. Google purchased the app in 2013 for $966 million and has kept it more or less the same in its functionality ever since. With calls from police to ban the app or remove its most popular function, many Waze users are concerned that Google will give in to government demands as they have in the past. We believe that informing drivers about upcoming speed traps allows them to be more careful and make safer decisions when they’re on the road. John Vibes is an author, researcher and investigative journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture and the drug war. This article was sourced from The Mind Unleashed. | Activist Post | https://www.activistpost.com/2019/02/nypd-orders-google-to-stop-showing-drivers-where-the-cops-are-at.html | 2019-02-07 16:20:27+00:00 | 1,549,574,427 | 1,567,549,269 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
4,055 | activistpost--2019-02-17--Deep Dive FTC Negotiating Multi-Billion Dollar Fine For Facebooks Privacy Scandals Violating 2011 | 2019-02-17T00:00:00 | activistpost | Deep Dive: FTC Negotiating Multi-Billion Dollar Fine For Facebook’s Privacy Scandals; Violating 2011 Accord | Facebook is being accused by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) of privacy violations and is in the midst of negotiating over a multi-billion dollar fine that would settle the agency’s investigation into the social media giant’s privacy concerns. The massive fine according to several news sources is not disclosed, although it’s said that it could amount to a record multi-billion dollar fine for privacy violations, Ars Technica reported. This comes after a series of privacy scandals, such as Cambridge Analytica, that may have put the personal information of its users at risk, as well as numerous times the company has been caught spying on its users or slipping up with its overall security. The FTC’s probe of Facebook began in March of last year in response to big social’s entanglement with Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy firm connected to a U.S. subsidiary (SHELL COMPANY) of a UK defense contractor SCL Group, Strategic Communication Laboratories, that improperly accessed data on 87 million of the social site’s users to use for campaign targeting for U.S. President Donald Trump through his former adviser Steve Bannon. According to reports, Facebook knew for an entire three years that Cambridge Analytica was abusing and misusing user data but did absolutely nothing. [READ: The TRUTH About The Cambridge Analytica Scandal Is Bigger Than Just Facebook #MyDataMyChoice] The FTC’s investigation stems from whether Facebook’s conduct and lack of protection of users since then is in breach of an accord in 2011 that Facebook brokered with the FTC to improve its privacy practices. Facebook has stated it did not breach that accord, despite evidence on the contrary showing that the social media giant sold user data to third parties and may have even been recording users’ private messages with its Messenger app. Although Facebook contends that it didn’t use the data, it openly admits that it scanned/scans all user data that is sent and received on the Messenger app and will review text you send if something is flagged, as Activist Post reported last year. Facebook also got entangled in a bug in December of last year that gave app developers access to private user photos including those shared on Marketplace or Facebook Stories and unposted pictures — an absolute privacy nightmare. The Facebook blog states, “that some third-party apps may have had access to a broader set of photos than usual for 12 days between September 13 to September 25, 2018.” However, who’s to say the bug wasn’t preexisting for quite some time and this is just to save face for the company? Facebook also announced another privacy issue last year: A software bug “unblocked” some people who had previously been blocked by another user, meaning the unblocked user could suddenly see some posts from the person who blocked them or message them on the Messenger app. The bug affected 800,000 users and was live for about a week at the end of May and early June according to the social company. There is also the issue of 14 million Facebook users who thought they were posting only to their friends or smaller groups when they actually had been posting that content publicly due to their privacy settings being changed for days according to Wired. Last year, Facebook further suffered an attack by hackers that accessed as many as 50 million Facebook user profiles without permission, Facebook said. Facebook stated the hackers took advantage of a “vulnerability in Facebook’s code” that gave the attackers access to special “digital keys” that keep people logged into their accounts without needing to re-enter a password. Getting those digital keys meant the hackers could then use them to “take over people’s accounts,” the company wrote in a blog post in September. Then there is the fact that Facebook got caught for years giving tech giants access to user data as well, so it’s not just Cambridge Analytica and numerous other analytics companies. The New York Times reported a bombshell in December of last year detailing the secret relationship that Facebook had with the tech companies including Amazon, Microsoft, Spotify, and Yahoo just to name a few. The Times report was backed by 50 former employees of the company and its partners, as well as documents for the deals. The official corporate partnerships with Facebook totaled more than 150 companies, which The Times notes that the oldest deal dates back to 2010, one year prior to Facebook’s brokered deal with the FTC for its privacy practices. One has to wonder if the social giant disclosed these type of deals to the FTC one year later when it was under scrutiny — more than likely, probably not. “For years, Facebook gave some of the world’s largest technology companies more intrusive access to users’ personal data than it has disclosed, effectively exempting those business partners from its usual privacy rules, according to internal records and interviews.” The Times wrote. “The special arrangements are detailed in hundreds of pages of Facebook documents obtained by The New York Times. The records, generated in 2017 by the company’s internal system for tracking partnerships, provide the most complete picture yet of the social network’s data-sharing practices. They also underscore how personal data has become the most prized commodity of the digital age, traded on a vast scale by some of the most powerful companies in Silicon Valley and beyond,” The Times added. The New York Times goes on to detail the level of access that a few companies were given to users’ profiles; and it’s quite shocking, including the ability to read and delete messages, as the Huffington Post highlighted. Again, from The New York Times: Besides the 150 tech companies, Facebook gave 60 device makers themselves — including Apple, Amazon, BlackBerry, Microsoft, and Samsung — special access to Facebook data, according to another report by The Times. This special access allowed a reporter using a BlackBerry device (old model) to view private details of Facebook users despite their privacy settings, a shocking contention. To make it clear, Facebook never asked for every specific user’s consent to send over their personal data to these other companies. Facebook claims that it didn’t need user consent since it considered these companies “service providers,” and “integration partners” which were acting in the interests of the social network. I am no lawyer, but it seems bluntly obvious that Facebook violated its 2011 agreement with the FTC. In other words, the company used a loophole and said that users who logged into the aforementioned services were giving their consent to their partners. It’s not known how far back the FTC is looking at Facebook’s privacy violations, but before 2011 it may come to the reader’s surprise that Facebook was embroiled in data scandal after scandal. To refresh the reader’s memory, in 2010 Facebook got caught giving advertisers its users’ names, ages, hometowns, and occupations simply from clicking an ad, Business Insider reported. One year prior, in 2009, protests ensued against Facebook when the company decided to change its data retention policy for its users, ABC reported. Two years before, in 2007, Facebook faced another scandal with its forced Beacon advertising software. Beacon would share users’ shopping experiences online or what websites a Facebook user was visiting if they were logged in. It turns out that Beacon was tracking people’s Web activities outside the popular social networking site to other websites, PC World reported. Facebook was then sued in 2008 for violating the federal wiretap law when it began monitoring and publishing what Facebook users were doing on participating sites of Beacon. Mark Zuckerberg himself even apologized for Beacon, explaining his thought process behind the system — of course, leaving out that it was profiting from this data. Nonetheless, Facebook finally allowed users to opt out of the system a month later. “We were excited about Beacon because we believe a lot of information people want to share isn’t on Facebook, and if we found the right balance, Beacon would give people an easy and controlled way to share more of that information with their friends,” Zuckerberg wrote. In 2009, Facebook finally shut down Beacon in an effort to settle the class action lawsuit against the social-networking site and donated $9.5 million to a foundation dedicated to exploring issues around online privacy and security, Telegraph reported. Facebook said that it learned a great deal from Beacon in 2009, but then continued these type of deceptive marketing practices selling its users’ data years later. So how much did the company actually learn? Not much, as the company started partnering with data broker firms in 2013 after the 2011 FTC ordeal. For those unfamiliar, data brokers earn money by selling your consumer habits and monitoring your online and offline spending. Facebook’s partnership allows them to measure the correlation between the ads you see on Facebook and the purchases you make in-store — and determine whether you’re actually buying the things you’re seeing digitally while using Facebook. “We learned a great deal from the Beacon experience,” said Barry Schnitt, a spokesman for Facebook. “For one, it underscored how critical it is to provide extensive user control over how information is shared. We also learned how to effectively communicate changes that we make to the user experience.” However, there are two more of the biggest stories Mark Zuckerberg wishes were not forever archived on the Internet. The first is from 2004, when he was 19. When Mark was in college he used his newly created website, which was “TheFacebook.com” at the time, to hack into the email accounts of two Harvard Crimson journalists critical of him. The two journalists were allegedly working on a story that made claims that Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook from Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divvya Narenda who later founded a similar site ConnectU (HarvardConnection), Business Insider reported. The second story is the most revealing and comes from an interview in 2009 in which Facebook is grilled by a BBC reporter, an event in Zuckerberg’s life that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden highlighted in a tweet last year. The revealing exchange is from 2009, two years after Beacon advertising software successfully launched on the platform in 2007, and 1 year before Facebook gifted its advertisers its users’ names, ages, hometowns, and occupations simply from clicking on ads, selling their information. Something that Zuckerberg said he would never do to the BBC reporter. One year later in 2010, a story in The New York Times reveals that Mark Zuckerberg had flip-flopped and changed his view against an individual’s privacy in a penned headline, “Facebook’s Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy Is Over.” Then the Zuck, Zucked us by changing everyone’s default privacy settings. After 2011, Facebook faced another data scandal in 2013, when a bug was discovered by a white hat that exposed the email addresses and phone numbers of 6 million Facebook users to anyone who had some connection to the person or knew at least a single piece of contact information. In February earlier last year, a German court echoed that previous ruling, stating that Facebook is breaching data protection rules with privacy settings that “over-share” by default and by requiring its users to give their real names. The judges found that at least five different default privacy settings for Facebook were illegal, including sharing location data with its chat partners WhatsApp and Instagram or making user profiles available to external search engines, allowing anyone to search and find information on a person. Facebook’s partners and subsidiaries collect data to enable what’s known as “hyper-targeted advertising” on its users. Additionally, the court ruled that “eight paragraphs of Facebook’s terms of service were invalid,” while one of the most significant requires people to use their real names on the social network which the court deemed was illegal. In 2015 the Belgian privacy commission study concluded Facebook’s use of user data violated privacy and data protection laws in the EU, Guardian reported. All of this occurred despite another 2014 court decision where the judge ruled that Facebook must face a class action lawsuit accusing it of violating its users’ privacy by scanning the content of messages they send to other users for advertising purposes. Something that again was reminded to users last year. A U.S. court in 2017 dismissed nationwide litigation accusing Facebook of tracking users’ Internet activity even after they logged out of the social media website. It was dismissed despite the practice previously being admitted that it would start using data from users’ Web browsing history to serve targeted advertisements, and use data from apps and websites users visited. Although Facebook has had a plethora of scandals in its past, recently it feels like its downfall was with the emergence of a whistleblower, Christoper Wylie, thanks to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Wylie appeared before a committee of British MPs, delivering bombshell testimony noting that Facebook has the ability to spy on all of its users in their homes and offices, something many people miss. Facebook itself has admitted in a 2016 blog post that: Although Facebook claims they do not listen in on conversations, the catch here is that Facebook does have access to your phone’s microphone — as giving permission to access your microphone is a requirement to be able to download the site’s mobile app – thus giving the company the ability to access your phone’s mic at any time. The app itself can listen to audio and collect audio information from users – while the two aren’t combined, and that no audio data is stored or correlated with advertising according to Facebook, after all these other lies one has to wonder. Facebook admits it has a public feature that started in 2014 which will try to recognize any audio in the background, like music or TV— however, it’s only while you’re entering a status update, and only if you’ve opted in. So don’t worry they have required consent for everything else! Forbes has also reported on the potential that Facebook was using its users’ audio information to target them with ads. Mass communication professor at the University of South Florida, Kelli Burns, believes that Facebook is using the audio it gathers not simply to help out users, but might be doing so to listen in to discussions and serve them with relevant advertising. Burns tested an experiment talking about cat food with her phone out, then loading Facebook — to her surprise she saw cat food ads, The Independent reported. Last year, Vice reported another bizarre story about Facebook using its microphone to listen in on users. The author wrote they were talking about Japan with a friend, then subsequently received ads for flights to Tokyo. The author then decides to do a series of tests, to see if they are being spied on. | Aaron | https://www.activistpost.com/2019/02/ftc-negotiating-multi-billion-dollar-fine-for-facebooks-privacy-scandals-violating-2011-accord.html | 2019-02-17 03:17:37+00:00 | 1,550,391,457 | 1,567,548,202 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
24,476 | bbc--2019-03-20--Google hit with 15bn fine from EU over advertising | 2019-03-20T00:00:00 | bbc | Google hit with €1.5bn fine from EU over advertising | Google has been hit with a €1.49bn (£1.28bn) fine from the EU for blocking rival online search advertisers. It is the third EU fine for the search and advertising giant in two years. The case accuses Google of abusing its market dominance by restricting third-party rivals from displaying search ads between 2006 and 2016. In response, Google changed its AdSense contracts with large third parties, giving them more leeway to display competing search ads. Google owner Alphabet makes large amounts of money from advertising - pre-tax profits reached $30.7bn (£23bn) in 2018, up from $12.66bn in 2017. "Google has cemented its dominance in online search adverts and shielded itself from competitive pressure by imposing anti-competitive contractual restrictions on third-party websites. "This is illegal under EU anti-trust rules," said EC commissioner Margrethe Vestager. Google's global affairs head, Kent Walker, said: "We've always agreed that healthy, thriving markets are in everyone's interest. "We've already made a wide range of changes to our products to address the Commission's concerns. "Over the next few months, we'll be making further updates to give more visibility to rivals in Europe." Last year, the EU competition authority hit Google with a record €4.34bn fine for using its popular Android mobile operating system to block rivals. This followed a €2.42bn fine in 2017 for hindering rivals of shopping comparison websites. The European Commission said that websites often had an embedded search function. When a consumer uses this, the website delivers both search results and search adverts, which appear alongside the search result. Google's "AdSense for search" product delivers those adverts for website publishers. The Commission described Google as acting like "an intermediary, like an advertising broker". In 2006, Google started to include "exclusivity clauses" in contracts which stopped publishers from placing ads from Google rivals such as Microsoft and Yahoo on search pages, the Commission said. From 2009, Google started replacing the exclusivity clauses with "premium placement" clauses, which meant publishers had to keep the most profitable space on their search results pages for Google's adverts and they had to request a minimum number of Google adverts. Publishers also needed to get written permission from Google before making any changes to how rival ads were displayed, letting Google control "how attractive, and therefore clicked on, competing search adverts could be", the Commission said. The restrictive clauses "led to a vicious circle", Ms Vestager said in a media conference. "Google's rivals, they were unable to grow, and to compete, and as a result of that, website owners had limited options for selling advertising space on those websites, and were forced solely to rely on Google," she said. "There was no reason for Google to include these restrictive clauses in their contracts, except to keep rivals out of the market," she added. Between 2006 to 2016, Google had more than 70% of the search intermediation market in the EU. It generally had more than 90% of the search market and more than 75% of the online search advertising market, the Commission added. | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47639228 | 2019-03-20 14:40:24+00:00 | 1,553,107,224 | 1,567,545,502 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
30,985 | bbc--2019-09-19--World Cup 2022 Qatar still failing to protect workers rights says Amnesty International | 2019-09-19T00:00:00 | bbc | World Cup 2022: Qatar still failing to protect workers' rights, says Amnesty International | Workers in Qatar continue to be mistreated despite promises to improve rights ahead of the 2022 World Cup, Amnesty International says. A new report from the human rights group says thousands of workers are going unpaid. It adds that a new commission set up to help improve workers' rights is failing to protect them. Amnesty has urged Qatari authorities to "end the shameful reality of labour exploitation". "Despite the significant promises of reform which Qatar has made ahead of the 2022 World Cup, it remains a playground for unscrupulous employers," said Stephen Cockburn, Amnesty International's deputy director of global issues. "Migrant workers often go to Qatar in the hope of giving their families a better life - instead many people return home penniless after spending months chasing their wages, with too little help from the systems that are supposed to protect them." The report, All work, no pay: The struggle of Qatar's migrant workers for justice, cites the example of "several hundred" contractors who were forced to "return home penniless" after the companies employing them first stopped paying them then ceased to operate. Amnesty's research focused on firms not directly related to the World Cup. Qatari authorities passed new laws to improve workers' rights after signing an agreement with the United Nations' International Labour Organisation in November 2017. Those changes included ending the labour sponsorship system that forced foreign workers to seek their employer's permission to change jobs or leave the country. New legislation also introduced a temporary minimum wage, created a workers' insurance fund and set up committees to address disputes. However, Amnesty's latest report states that several hundred migrant workers employed by three construction and cleaning companies were forced to return home without being paid. The BBC has contacted the Qatari government for a response but following a similar report into workers' rights in February, it said it "welcomes" the "continued interest and scrutiny" of its systems from Amnesty and claimed it penalised or banned 11,994 companies in 2018 for violating labour laws. | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49747688 | 2019-09-19 00:01:58+00:00 | 1,568,865,718 | 1,569,329,844 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
32,960 | bbc--2019-11-21--Amnesty International: Chile using violence as a deterrent | 2019-11-21T00:00:00 | bbc | Amnesty International: Chile using violence as a deterrent | Security forces in Chile have deliberately injured people taking part in the current mass demonstrations, Amnesty International says. The rights group said the aim is to discourage further protests. Excessive police force had led to the deaths of five people while thousands had been seriously injured, tortured or sexually abused, the report said. They are not isolated acts, Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International, told reporters. "The intention of the Chilean security forces is clear: to injure demonstrators in order to discourage protest," she said in a statement. Protesters are demanding social reforms and a change to the constitution which dates back to the pre-democracy era of the military leader, Augusto Pinochet. The government has announced it will hold a referendum on the country's constitution. Twenty-two people have been killed and more than 2,300 injured in the protests. What does Amnesty say? The security forces under the command of the president - mainly the army and the national police - are carrying out widespread attacks using unnecessary and excessive force with the intention of injuring and punishing protesters, the report states. The deaths and injuries are a deliberate ploy to deter others from taking to the streets, it says. "They are not isolated or sporadic events. It's not a few rotten apples within law enforcement. They are sustained attacks in different parts of the country," Ms Guevara-Rosas said. It also condemns the number of severe eye injuries, including loss of vision. There have been more than 270 documented cases of eye injuries from rubber bullets and tear gas cylinders with many victims alleging the security forces aimed at their eyes on purpose to try to blind them. President Sebastián Piñera acknowledged that in some cases the security forces may have disregarded the proper rules of engagement for mass demonstrations. What are the protests about? The demonstrations started originally over a rise in the fare of the metro in the capital, Santiago, but quickly spread across the country and widened into more general protests against high levels of inequality, the high price of health care and poor funding for education. Harsh repression by the security forces further stoked the anger of those protesting as did the response by President Piñera, who declared a state of emergency and said the country was "at war". Mr Piñera has since struck a more conciliatory tone and on Sunday said: "If the people want it, we will move toward a new constitution, the first under democracy." The current constitution, which came into force in 1980, is seen as a hangover from the time of military rule with its trust in neoliberal economics and Catholic values. While there have been some amendments since 1980, many Chileans think they have not gone far enough to modernise the document. They demand that the state take a more active role in providing public healthcare and education. Under an agreement between the government and opposition parties reached on Friday, a referendum will be held in April 2020 in which Chileans will be asked whether they want a new constitution and if so, how it should be drafted. But the announcement of the planned referendum failed to quell the protests in Santiago, where demonstrators again gathered at Plaza Italia and small groups clashed with police. | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-50512093 | Thu, 21 Nov 2019 23:47:34 GMT | 1,574,398,054 | 1,574,381,296 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
36,666 | bbcuk--2019-02-11--Facebook and Google news should be regulated report says | 2019-02-11T00:00:00 | bbcuk | Facebook and Google news should be regulated, report says | A regulator should oversee tech giants like Google and Facebook to ensure their news content is trustworthy, a government-backed report has suggested. The Cairncross Review into the future of the UK news industry said such sites should help users identify fake news and "nudge people towards reading news of high quality". It also backed tax reliefs to encourage the provision of local journalism. In addition, the report called for a new Institute for Public Interest News. Such a body, it said, could work in a similar way to the Arts Council, channelling public and private funding to "those parts of the industry it deemed most worthy of support". The independent review, undertaken by former journalist Dame Frances Cairncross, was tasked with investigating the sustainability of high-quality journalism. Its recommendations include measures to tackle "the uneven balance of power" between news publishers and online platforms that distribute their content. Services like Facebook, Google and Apple should continue their attempts to help readers understand how reliable a story is, and the process that decides which stories are shown should be more transparent, it said. "Their efforts should be placed under regulatory scrutiny - this task is too important to leave entirely to the judgment of commercial entities," according to the report. A regulator would initially only assess how well these sites are performing, but if they are not effective, the report warned "it may be necessary to impose stricter provisions". Yet the report fell short of requiring Facebook, Google and other tech giants to pay for the news they distribute via their platforms. Dame Frances told the BBC's media editor Amol Rajan that such "draconian and risky" measures could result in firms like Google withdrawing their news services altogether. "There are a number of ways we have suggested technology companies could behave differently and could be made to behave differently," she said. "But they are mostly ways that don't immediately involve legislation." The report instead recommended "new codes of conduct" whose implementation would be supervised by a regulator "with powers to insist on compliance". Frances Cairncross earned widespread respect as a journalist for her hard-headed and pragmatic approach to economics. That pragmatism is the very reason the government commissioned her to look at the future of high-quality news - and also the reason many in local and regional media will be disappointed by her recommendations. What is most notable about her review is what it doesn't do. This is because the practicalities of doing these things are difficult, and experience shows that the likes of Google will simply pull out of markets that don't suit them. There are concrete measures that could boost local news, from tax relief to an extension of the Local Democracy Reporting Service. And Dame Frances certainly seemed cognisant of the argument that BBC News has over-reached, to the extent that it is harming the commercial sector. But this is a matter for Ofcom. Ultimately, as this report acknowledges, when it comes to news, convenience is king. The speed, versatility and zero cost of so much news now means that, even if it is of poor quality, a generation of consumers has fallen out of the habit of paying for news. But quality costs. If quality news has a future, consumers will have to pay. That's the main lesson of this report. One local newspaper editor welcomed the report's recommendations while suggesting the report "comes too late for so many once proud and important community newspapers". The Yorkshire Post's James Mitchinson said: "The various fiscal reviews and recommendations... must come quickly... if we are to turn the Cairncross Review into something which we look back upon as being instrumental in preserving what we do for generations to come." Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright said some of its suggestions could be acted upon "immediately", while others would need "further careful consideration". Shadow Culture Secretary Tom Watson urged the government to tackle Google and Facebook's "duopoly" in the digital advertising market, and said Dame Frances was "barking up the wrong tree" in recommended an inquiry into the BBC's online news output. Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected]. | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-47202553 | 2019-02-11 22:00:18+00:00 | 1,549,940,418 | 1,567,548,943 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
48,297 | bearingarms--2019-11-05--Amnesty International Commission Will Look At U.S. Gun Violence | 2019-11-05T00:00:00 | bearingarms | Amnesty International Commission Will Look At U.S. Gun Violence | Amnesty International is a group that supposedly opposes dictatorships and human rights abuses and abusers throughout the world. They’re the people who speak up about genocidal madmen and countless other forms of evil that take place throughout the world. Well, the group’s Inter-American Commission will take a look at the United States. In particular, gun violence in the U.S. The hearing was requested by Amnesty International USA, the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University School of Law, the Center for American Progress, and Instituto Igarape to examine how gun violence in the United States affects the Organization of American States member countries. The hearing is a follow-up to Amnesty International’s testimony before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Bogotá, Colombia in February 2018 laying out the ways in which the U.S. is failing to fulfill its human rights obligations to address gun violence. “This hearing will bring much needed international attention to the urgent and escalating problem of gun violence in the United States, which has become so prevalent that it amounts to a human rights crisis,” said Ernest Coverson, campaign manager of the End Gun Violence campaign at Amnesty International USA. “The ability to go about one’s daily life in security and dignity, free from fear, is at the very cornerstone of human rights and it’s well past the time that the United States government reformed its laws and policies to enact gun control.” The hearing will examine the impact on survivors of the U.S government’s failure to address gun violence, and the commission will hear testimony from individuals who have survived gun violence in the context of domestic violence, children involved in gun homicides, as well as individuals from disproportionately impacted communities of color and others across U.S. borders who are living with the life-long repercussions of the government’s inadequate regulation of firearms. What the commission won’t be doing is listening to any of the millions of Americans who have defended their own lives thanks to having had a firearm. They also won’t be hearing about those who have been hurt or killed because someone wasn’t able to have a firearm due to gun control laws. None of that will get a mention, primarily because Amnesty International doesn’t care about any of that. However, if this organization says they want to stand for human rights, they need to understand that perfect safety is not a human right. It’s unachievable. Instead, a human right is empowering people to take their own safety into their own hands. That means owning firearms. Take a look at the worst human rights abusers in history. Do you know what you find in all of those cases? A lack of private gun ownership. Even if the dictator didn’t ban guns himself, someone before them did, which allowed them to subjugate the population and commit their atrocities without fear of repercussion. Gun ownership is a human right. It’s the most fundamental human right. It’s the only real way to protect any other right, when you get right down to it. Further, while there are issues with violence in our inner cities, I find it ironic that the United States was singled out about the same time as eight Americans–three mothers and five children–were killed in a crossfire between two violent Mexican drug cartels. Where’s the hearing on that? The truth is that Amnesty International is pushing to set up a framework that will lead to more human rights abuses here in the United States if they get their way. It’s imperative that we don’t let them get it. | null | https://bearingarms.com/tomk/2019/11/05/amnesty-international-commission-will-look-u-s-gun-violence/ | Tue, 05 Nov 2019 11:00:39 Z | 1,572,969,639 | 1,573,063,224 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
56,123 | birminghammail--2019-02-05--How Google and Princes Trust are helping 4500 young people to work | 2019-02-05T00:00:00 | birminghammail | How Google and Prince's Trust are helping 4,500 young people to work | Google has awarded the Prince's Trust £1.6million to help 4,500 young unemployed and underemployed people develop digital skills. The multinational technology giant is also helping the Prince's Trust deliver online and face to face training for the two year project. Google is committed to helping 100,000 people in the UK to find a job or grow their career directly through the skills they have learned through its Digital Garage programme which was first launched in Leeds in 2015. It has helped 300,000 to date. The partnership with the Prince's Trust was launched at the charity's centre in Birmingham on Monday (February 4). Google UK and Ireland Managing Director Ronan Harris said: "It’s never been more important to open up possibilities for the people of the UK. "I’m thrilled to announce this two year commitment as the next chapter of Google’s longstanding relationship with The Prince’s Trust.” UK Chief Executive Nick Stace highlighted how important digital skills are to finding employment, with eighty per cent of jobs in 2030 expected to be different to the jobs of 2019. The Prince's Trust's 2019 eBay Youth Index revealed that more than half 16 to 25 year-olds think social media create an overwhelming pressure on young people, on Tuesday (Feb 5). Nick Stace said: “We are delighted to be able to announce our work with Google.org which will enable The Trust to support young people to develop the digital skills needed for the future economy and to pilot new ways of developing technology skills in young people. "The Prince’s Trust and Google.org aim to prepare young people for careers that will improve their life chances and future earning potential, giving them an opportunity to transform their lives.” Andy Street said: It’s so important for young people to possess the skills they need to shape their future. "It is wonderful to see The Prince’s Trust and Google.org working together on such an invaluable programme opening up opportunities for people across the UK in an increasingly digital world.” Learn more and sign up here | Fionnuala Bourke | https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/how-google-princes-trust-helping-15785742 | 2019-02-05 17:55:22+00:00 | 1,549,407,322 | 1,567,549,519 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
70,084 | bonginoreport--2019-12-18--A Case on Google’s IP Theft is Headed to the SCOTUS | 2019-12-18T00:00:00 | bonginoreport | A Case on Google’s IP Theft is Headed to the SCOTUS | In the upcoming year, the Supreme Court will hear Google’s challenge to the ruling of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals that the tech giant’s use of Oracle’s Java application programming interfaces (APIs) violated copyright law. The issues in the case are not particularly complicated. Google copied thousands of lines of Java’s API code to implement its Android OS, and Oracle, which owns the code sued. The case is straightforward. Software code falls under copyright laws, which prohibit its copying or reproduction, with an exception that it may be reproduced for fair use. According to Supreme Court precedent in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, the replication of copywritten material is “fair use” only when the result is “transformative.” Google’s use of the code certainly wasn’t. Google just copied. The Federal Circuit found that the code in Android “is the same as the purpose of the packages in the Java platform,” and further “Google made no alteration to the expressive content or message of the copyrighted material.” Google argues that Java’s interface is effectively more like a language of shortcuts—universally used and uncopyrightable. Yet, just because something is widely used does not make it uncopyrightable. It was in Oracle’s interest for Java to be widely used, and Oracle offered the API scripts for free to app developers. Oracle only wanted hardware manufacturers and competing platform developers, such as Android, to pay a licensing fee. Under copyright law, Oracle had the right to do just that. But Google has never let the law dictate their behavior. As one of its top lawyers admitted, "Google's leadership doesn't care terribly much about precedent or law" when it comes to copyright. Google took the Java code to help launch the Android mobile operating system—just as it was losing out in the then-nascent mobile search market. IPhones initially used Bing as its default search engine, which threatened Google’s search monopoly. Android, however, used Google as the default search engine. In the ensuing years, mobile search has surpassed desktop. Android now enjoys a duopoly on smartphones in the U.S. and controls 75% of the global market, and Google started paying Apple billions of dollars to become the default search engine. Google has used Android to favor other verticals as well, like YouTube, Gmail, and Google Maps. In addition, Android ruthlessly invades consumer privacy—greatly strengthening Google’s data monopoly. Android’s rise was necessary for Google to entrench its market power across search, advertising, data, browsing, email, and other platforms. And this dominance would not have been as easily or profitably achieved had Google paid the license for the APIs in the first place. With breathtaking chutzpah, Google argues that its market dominance argues for overturning the Federal Circuit’s decision. Even as Google is facing bipartisan antitrust scrutiny, an antitrust investigation by 50 state Attorneys General, the House Judiciary Committee, and the U.S. Department of Justice, Google claimed in its certiorari petition that the Federal Circuit’s ruling must be overturned because “control over interfaces gives rise to barriers to entry and implicates issues of competition and innovation that warrant this Court’s review.” The Computer Communications Association of America—a lobbying organization which represents Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other Big Tech companies—wrote an amicus on the subject. It argued that “[a]llowing the Federal Circuit’s decisions in this case to stand will lead to the anomalous result of less competition in the software industry.” Even Microsoft, the company synonymous with software monopolies, opined in Google’s favor by discussing how loose software copyright regimes, “facilitat[ed] the entry of new competitor[s].” There’s no question that overly strict copyright enforcement can restrict competition, particularly if intellectual property plays an essential role in the economy, and antitrust laws can require compulsory licensing of intellectual property to competitors at a fair price. However, as noted, Oracle licensed the APIs to all. Moreover, the script was not necessary to create an app-based operating system—Apple and Microsoft both managed to do so without it. It doesn’t take a cynic to be skeptical of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon claiming to be concerned about facilitating competition. Google v. Oracle is not about helping small tech companies compete but letting Big Tech companies ignore the law to continue their dominance. | Matt Palumbo | https://www.forbes.com/sites/washingtonbytes/2019/12/17/googles-ip-theft-entrenches-its-monopoly-power/#9df08122f293 | Wed, 18 Dec 2019 12:32:23 +0000 | 1,576,690,343 | 1,576,673,162 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
71,343 | breitbart--2019-05-04--Donald Trump Jr Google Kowtowing to Leftist Demands by Blacklisting Hunting Ads | 2019-05-04T00:00:00 | breitbart | Donald Trump Jr.: Google 'Kowtowing' to Leftist Demands by Blacklisting Hunting Ads | Donald Trump Jr. called out Google’s policy that prevents advertising on hunting. Trump Jr. wrote, “Oh look, now @Google is kowtowing to leftwingers & blacklisting hunters from advertising on their platform. But we’re really supposed to believe that Big Tech isn’t biased?” Trump Jr.’s also supported Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) and Rep. Greg Gianforte’s (R-MT) letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, demanding that they reverse their position banning hunting advertising. Read the letter to Pichai here. Daines and Gianforte’s letter arises as Montana’s Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF) had its ad rejected by Google. “We, therefore, demand you reverse these prohibitions and request that Google reexamine their policy interpretations on prohibiting hunting promotions,” the lawmakers wrote. “We also request a meeting to discuss the importance of Montana’s and the United States’ hunting heritage.” In response to Google’s rejection of the RMEF ad, one Google employee claimed that the ad was considered “animal cruelty and deemed inappropriate to be shown on our network.” Google has increasingly moved to ban firearms from its platforms as they crack down on free speech. In March 2018, YouTube decided to ban all videos which demo firearms and link to websites that sell firearms or firearm accessories. In February 2018, Google decided to remove all search results for guns, including water guns, “Guns and Roses,” and “burgundy.” Google since restored many of the search results; however, search results such as “AR-15” and “revolver” still display no results. Trump Jr.’s recent Twitter post arises as Facebook and Instagram decided to ban conservative figures including Paul Joseph Watson, and Laura Loomer for being “dangerous.” | Sean Moran | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/mOIwiQ4heh0/ | 2019-05-04 15:08:46+00:00 | 1,556,996,926 | 1,567,541,165 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
277,382 | jerusalempost--2019-11-19--Amnesty International calls on Spain to release two jailed Catalan leaders | 2019-11-19T00:00:00 | jerusalempost | Amnesty International calls on Spain to release two jailed Catalan leaders | By subscribing I accept the terms of use | By REUTERS | https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Amnesty-International-calls-on-Spain-to-release-two-jailed-Catalan-leaders-608309 | Tue, 19 Nov 2019 10:18:35 GMT | 1,574,176,715 | 1,574,168,445 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
274,607 | ipolitics--2019-02-20--House committee invites Facebook Apple Twitter Google CEOs to testify for fake news study | 2019-02-20T00:00:00 | ipolitics | House committee invites Facebook, Apple, Twitter, Google CEOs to testify for ‘fake news’ study | In this image provided by Facebook, Facebook founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, center, applauds at the opening bell of the Nasdaq stock market, Friday, May 18, 2012, from Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. The social media company priced its IPO on Thursday at $38 per share, and beginning Friday regular investors will have a chance to buy shares. A House committee is asking senior leadership from Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon and several other digital platforms to testify for an international study on fake news. The access to information, privacy and ethics said Wednesday that it has invited 11 executives from the biggest names in social media and digital operations to appear at the second meeting of the International Grand Committee on Disinformation and ‘Fake News’ in Ottawa on May 28. The invitations were sent to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and chief operations officer (COO) Sheryl Sandberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and former executive chair Eric Schmidt, Apple CEO Tim Cook and COO Jeff Williams, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and CEO of Amazon Web Services Andrew Jassy. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton, and Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel were also invited. Conservative MP and committee chair Bob Zimmer said he hopes that the executives will take advantage of the “unique opportunity to speak to representatives from around the globe about what their platforms are doing to ensure the privacy of our citizens.” He also said he wanted to hear what they were doing to stop the “spread of disinformation” and protect users from online manipulation. “It is vitally important that we hear from these top executives so that we can get the answers we’ve been seeking,” he said in a statement. “We will not be accepting testimony from regional representatives at this meeting, as previous experience has shown that their answers have proven to be frankly inadequate.” Parliamentarians from nine different countries appeared for the inaugural meeting of the international committee in London, U.K. on Nov. 27, 2018. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg declined several public requests to appear for the inaugural meeting. The committee, though, quizzed Facebook’s president of policy solutions Richard Allan for several hours at the meeting about the social-media platform’s role in a range of international data-collection and disinformation-related scandals. | Marco Vigliotti | https://ipolitics.ca/2019/02/20/house-committee-invites-facebook-apple-twitter-google-ceos-to-testify-for-the-fake-news-study/ | 2019-02-20 18:00:30+00:00 | 1,550,703,630 | 1,567,547,864 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
277,440 | jerusalempost--2019-11-20--Google changes election ads policy to limit targeting | 2019-11-20T00:00:00 | jerusalempost | Google changes election ads policy to limit targeting | By subscribing I accept the terms of use | By REUTERS | https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Google-changes-election-ads-policy-to-limit-targeting-608514 | Wed, 20 Nov 2019 23:43:32 GMT | 1,574,311,412 | 1,574,297,506 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
277,470 | jerusalempost--2019-11-21--Google to let sites block personalized ads under California privacy law | 2019-11-21T00:00:00 | jerusalempost | Google to let sites block personalized ads under California privacy law | By subscribing I accept the terms of use | By REUTERS | https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Google-to-let-sites-block-personalized-ads-under-California-privacy-law-608520 | Thu, 21 Nov 2019 01:02:40 GMT | 1,574,316,160 | 1,574,341,001 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
287,693 | lewrockwell--2019-11-09--Shocking Proof How Google Censors Health News | 2019-11-09T00:00:00 | lewrockwell | Shocking Proof How Google Censors Health News | June 3, 2019, Google implemented a broad “core update”1 that in one fell swoop eliminated most Mercola.com pages from its search results. Virtually overnight, Google traffic to my site dropped by approximately 99.9%. Considering Mercola.com has been the most visited natural health site for the last 16 years, it’s no great surprise that we were listed as one of the biggest losers in Google’s June algorithm update.2 I wrote about the ramifications of Google’s core update in two articles at the end of June 2019. In Part 1, I discussed the effects that the new search algorithm and updated quality rater guidelines is having on traffic to this site. As mentioned in that article, Google’s “quality raters” are manually lowering the ranking of what they arbitrarily decide is undesirable content and burying even expert views if they think they’re “harmful” to the public. In Part 2, I revealed how Wikipedia censors information and crafts narratives to benefit certain groups, and how Google raters use Wikipedia’s skewed and biased articles to ascertain the expertise and trustworthiness of any given author or website. Today’s videos and article will show you just how clearly and deliberately Google has eliminated my articles from its search results. When Google Met WikiLeaks Julian Assange Best Price: $7.02 Buy New $11.10 After more than 15 years of being considered a highly relevant source of content, Google has removed all those high-ranked results, and replaced them with health information from advertising companies that promote junk food and drugs instead. Below, I’ll provide clear examples of how this works. For many years now, I’ve been warning about how Google’s monopoly presents a clear danger to the free-flow of information, and health information in particular, seeing how holistic health is a direct threat to the drug industry. The fact that Google would eventually grow big enough to dictate what people see and don’t see was predictable, and we’ve now entered the era of blatant internet censorship. A major reason for my success as a physician running my own practice was the ability to resolve extremely challenging cases of arthritis. One of my articles describing my arthritis treatment protocol generated over 1 million views, and was consistently a top search result when doing a Google search for arthritis. Today, even if you use my name in a search for arthritis, you will not find that highest-ranked article. What you find instead is an article copied from my website — without permission — by a Croatian website operated by Zdravko Mauko, followed by a few articles about arthritis from my pet site, followed by a short piece about arthritis that I contributed to Creations Magazine. The top search result for “Mercola arthritis” is a tiny, insignificant site that in no way, shape or form could possibly compete with Mercola.com. When you compare the ranking of our sites on Alexa, you find my site (as of October 8, 2019) ranks 9,002 in global internet engagement over the past 90 days.3 And that’s despite having been buried by Google since early June, as two years ago our overall Alexa ranking was 3,708. Compare this to our-arthritis.com, which has a ranking of 9,401,920.4 The first screen shot below is Alexa’s ranking for Mercola.com on October 8, 2019. The second screen shot is Alexa’s ranking for our-arthritis.com on that same day. Another signal of trust and popularity is based on the number of sites linking in, or the number of sites that reference your own site. There are more than 11,000 sites linking to Mercola.com, and only 2 linking to our-arthritis.com. This is another example of Google’s purposeful censorship. Despite the fact that our-arthritis.com plagiarized my entire article without permission, and have no credibility in terms of website engagement or ranking, it “owns” the search terms “Mercola arthritis” — above my own site! Giving precedence to a site with a relevance ranking that is 1,000 times lower than my own would be bad enough, but it doesn’t end there. Even if you try to use a restricted search, which allows you to search for results within a specific website, Google has you barking up the wrong tree. When doing a restricted search for “Mercola.com arthritis,” or “site: Mercola.com arthritis,” which theoretically should provide you with links to the most popular articles about arthritis within my site only, Google provides the top search results for arthritis on our veterinary website! The entire first page of search results; 10 of 12 of the search results on Page 2; and 6 of 10 results on Page 3 direct you to our Healthy Pets website. How is that for relevance? Google has really outdone itself in “helping” users find relevant information, hasn’t it? The same misdirection and obfuscation is happening on YouTube, which is owned by Google. If you do a YouTube search for “Mercola arthritis,” links to my many arthritis videos are blatantly pushed aside by irrelevant search results as evidenced in the screen shot below. In short, it’s not a suspicion but a blatantly obvious fact that Google is doing everything it can to erase my online presence and hide the many tens of thousands of free articles and videos I’ve generated over the last 22 years. Who are the Google-trusted health websites that now dominate health searches? WebMD and Healthline. But are they really the most trustworthy sources on the web? Their track records certainly suggest otherwise. WebMD is owned by the global investment firm KKR & Co.,5 which also owned RJR Nabisco at a time when it sold junk food and tobacco products. As described in my 2018 article, “Google and WebMD Partner To Be Your Virtual Doctor,” KKR also owns Medscape and MedincineNet.com and, according to Fast Company,6 “is trying to corner the market on internet-based health information dissemination …” WebMD, as you may recall, was in 2010 caught providing users with a fake depression screening test. The test — in which 100% of quiz-takers ended up having a “high likelihood of major depression” and were directed to talk to their doctor about treatment7,8 — was sponsored by drug giant Eli Lilly, the maker of Cymbalta. The quiz was in fact direct-to-consumer advertising masquerading as a valid health screen, and this is perhaps the most hazardous kind of drug advertising there is. Then, in 2017, Google partnered with the National Alliance on Mental Illness, launching a depression self-assessment quiz which, like WebMD before it, funneled querents toward antidepressant drugs.9,10 There simply is no doubt that Google is a proponent for and promoter of pharmaceuticals. Likewise, WebMD — which pockets millions to promote drugs — is far from an independent source of health information. A quick search of WebMD articles on antidepressants and depression, for example, reveals a clear pattern: They contain ads for antidepressant drugs furnished by Google ad services and doubleclick — both of which are owned by Google. Healthline, meanwhile, is owned by Red Ventures,11 a self-described advertising agency, and promotes things like McDonald’s home delivery services with its health articles. Isn’t that great? You can get junk food without ever leaving your couch, courtesy of one of Google’s most trusted health websites! In short, WebMD and Healthline — two “health” sites that promote some very unhealthy choices — are prioritized in search results because they both use Google ad services. When traffic is shuttled to these sites, Google makes more money from advertising revenue. WebMD’s privacy policy clearly tells you about its relationship with Google ads under its “Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies” section:12 Google Violates Its Own Policy by Promoting WebMD As mentioned earlier, Google’s updated quality rater guidelines instructs quality raters to manually bury content deemed “harmful,” regardless of the expertise of the author. But the guidelines13 also tell quality raters how to identify deceptive pages, which should be rated “lowest, regardless of intent,” and based on these guidelines, neither WebMD nor Healthline would pass the criteria. Here’s a screen shot of section “7.6.1 Deceptive Page Purpose” from Google’s Page Quality Rating Guideline dated September 5, 2019:14 According to Google, “articles to manipulate users in order to benefit a … business … or other organization … monetarily, or otherwise” is a deceptive page and should be given the lowest possible quality rating. According to Google, any website that “claims to offer an independent review or share other information about a product, but is in fact created to make money for the owner of the website without attempting to help users” should be given the lowest possible quality rating. Do WebMD and Healthline profess to offer “independent” health information that in reality makes money for the owners and don’t really help users? Likewise, “a webpage with a … title that has nothing to do with the content of the page” should be given the lowest rating, yet these websites provide “articles” that are in fact advertising, without telling readers that what they’re looking at is an ad, or that the test they’re taking is in fact a PR ploy designed to get them to inquire about a drug. In short, Google’s quality rating guideline says one thing, but in reality, websites that should be dismissed are pushed to the top, and vice versa — simply because that’s what benefits Google and its advertising partners. Now more than ever we must work together to share health information with others by word-of-mouth, by text and email. We have built in simple sharing tools at the top of each article so you can easily email or text interesting articles to your friends and family. No Place to Hide: Edwa... Glenn Greenwald Best Price: $2.00 Buy New $6.78 My information is here because all of you support and share it, and we can do this without Big Tech’s support. It’s time to boycott and share! Here are a few other suggestions: Become a subscriber to my newsletter and encourage your friends and family to do the same. This is the easiest and safest way to make sure you’ll stay up to date on important health and environmental issues. If you have any friends or relatives that are seriously interested in their health, please share important articles with them and encourage them to subscribe to our newsletter. Consider dumping any Android phone the next time you get a phone. Android is a Google operating system and will seek to gather as much data as they can about you for their benefit. Use the internal Mercola.com search engine when searching for articles on my site. Boycott Google by avoiding any and all Google products: Sign the “Don’t be evil” petition created by Citizens Against Monopoly The Best of Joseph Mercola | Joseph Mercola | https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/11/joseph-mercola/shocking-proof-how-google-censors-health-news/ | Sat, 09 Nov 2019 04:01:00 +0000 | 1,573,290,060 | 1,573,303,552 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
291,384 | liveaction--2019-04-16--Google ditches advisory council after protests over inclusion of pro-life Black female leader | 2019-04-16T00:00:00 | liveaction | Google ditches advisory council after protests over inclusion of pro-life Black female leader | (The Daily Signal) Believers in internet freedom and all the potential of the digital revolution should be deeply disheartened by Google’s spineless decision last week to abandon its artificial intelligence advisory council. The reason Google dropped the idea? The inclusion on the council of The Heritage Foundation’s president, Kay Coles James. James would have been a conservative voice on the council to offer balance and a different perspective than is usually heard in the left-leaning world of digital enterprises. The presence of even one conservative was too much for the intolerant minions of Google, who rose up in protest, wrote slanderous petitions against her, and forced their management into retreat, just like they previously forced Google to abandon plans to work with the Pentagon. Yet, James is exactly the kind of person who would have so much to contribute. Who in the male-dominated, techie world of Silicon Valley could match her insight and experience? Her perspective as a black, conservative, female intellectual and leader is distinctive, compassionate, and so rich that few people could match it. James wrote in an op-ed this week in The Washington Post: Being attacked is not new for me. As a black, conservative, pro-life, evangelical woman, I have spent most of my life being called names and being denounced for my beliefs. In 1961, at age 12, I was one of two dozen black children who integrated an all-white junior high school in Richmond, Va. White parents jeered me outside the school, and inside, their kids stuck me with pins, shoved me in the halls, and pushed me down the stairs. So, when a group of Google employees resorted to calling names and making false accusations because they didn’t want a conservative voice advising the company, the hostility was reminiscent of what I felt back then—that same intolerance for someone who was different from them. In a world of intellectual honesty and good intentions, Google’s choice of James would have been brilliant. In fact, having a multifaceted group with many points of view on the powerful, fast-moving technology of artificial intelligence is in itself a terrific idea. Many of the problems currently presented by the ever-increasing speed of digital innovation and social media might have been mitigated by thoughtful, forward-looking analysis and discussion. What a shame this was not to be. Unfortunately, there’s much to be concerned about in the digital sphere. Internet freedom has long been U.S. government policy. Millions of U.S. dollars are devoted annually to creating circumvention technologies to enable citizens of China, Cuba, North Korea, and Iran access to uncensored information and ideas on the internet. Yet, the Freedom House—whose annual report, “Freedom on the Net,” studies internet freedom globally—says the internet “is growing less free around the world, and democracy itself is withering under its influence.” The 2018 report, issued Nov. 1, reported a decline in internet freedom for the eighth consecutive year. Here in America, we have reached an impasse as the left seeks to dominate digital platforms, just like it dominates most of the media and academic institutions, brutally shutting down debate. Tech titans like Google, Facebook, and Twitter end up undermining the very ideals on which they were founded when they cave to pressure from left-wing ideologues who cannot abide diversity of opinion. Editor’s Note: This article was published at the Daily Signal and is reprinted here with permission. “Like” Live Action News on Facebook for more pro-life news and commentary! | Helle Dale | https://www.liveaction.org/news/google-ditches-council-pro-life-black-female/ | 2019-04-16 21:21:26+00:00 | 1,555,464,086 | 1,567,542,772 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
292,447 | liveaction--2019-11-21--Wall Street Journal report: Google execs altering search results on abortion | 2019-11-21T00:00:00 | liveaction | Wall Street Journal report: Google execs altering search results on abortion | A recent report from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has revealed that, despite claims to the contrary, Google executives and engineers actively alter the search engine’s results in favor of big business and executives’ opinions, using blacklists and auto-complete to determine which web addresses appear at the top of the search. One of the common search topics the search engine seems to have modified the results for is the term abortion. Google holds an astounding 90 percent of the market share for all search engines, including Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and Bing. It is so widely trusted that it’s become a verb rather than a name in the English language, and it is the most highly trafficked website in the world, helping its parent company earn over $30 billion in annual profit, according to WSJ. Basically, Google holds the power to inform the world and therefore control what versions of the truth it uses to answer the 3.8 million queries typed into the company’s search bar every minute. According to the report from WSJ, when Google first began some two decades ago, it was built on the idea that search algorithms would do a better job than human beings in wading through the information available on the internet and spitting out the best results for the search users. In both private meetings and during congressional testimony, top Google executives have said that algorithms are objective and autonomous. They are meant to be “unsullied by human bias or business considerations” according to WSJ. READ: ORWELLIAN: Abortion supporters lobby Google to ban pregnancy center ads on searches… about pregnancy “We do not use human curation to collect or arrange the results on a page,” reads the Google blog. Yet the corporation doesn’t share details about how exactly the algorithms work, which leads to obvious concerns. WSJ found that Google “has increasingly re-engineered and interfered with search results to a far greater degree than the company and its executives have acknowledged.” They’ve done so as a result of pressure from businesses as well as the influence of outside interest groups and governments. And WSJ said that Google’s interference with authentic search results based on algorithms has “increased sharply since the 2016 election” including — despite denials — using blacklists to prevent particular websites from showing up in the search results. When it comes to abortion, Google appears to take a pro-abortion stance. 39 percent of its first-page results for the term “abortion” direct users to Planned Parenthood’s website. In comparison, only 14 percent of Bing’s first-page results and 16 percent of DuckDuckGo’s first-page results send users to Planned Parenthood. U.S. foreign law requires that certain sites — such as those showing child abuse or those with copyright infringement — don’t appear in search results, but Google seems to have gone beyond that. WSJ found that Google uses blacklists to determine what appears in the auto-complete function, in which suggestions appear as a person types into the Google search bar. They have done this to block certain information on controversial subjects. This makes some sense when it comes to preventing inappropriate information appearing when a person searches, for example, a celebrity name. But when it comes to topics such as abortion or immigration, the information that the corporation is allegedly blocking isn’t inappropriate; it just doesn’t line up with their opinions. Take a look at these auto-complete examples for the search term “abortion is.” The results for Google are shockingly different from those of the three other search engines. When using the search term “abortion,” DuckDuckGo’s top search result is an ad for the pro-life group Alliance Defending Freedom. Yahoo and Bing results were varied. But on Google, the first search results for “abortion” tell the searcher where they can go to have an abortion, along with Planned Parenthood’s website — which was not tagged as an advertisement as Alliance Defending Freedom was tagged on DuckDuckGo. A 2016 internal investigation at Google found that up to 25 percent of its search queries returned misinformation, according to WSJ and a company executive. That works out to about two billion searches each year that return what the corporation says is misinformation – though the company doesn’t want to actually define what that means. Google formed a team known as “Project Owl” in which engineers worked to push certain webpages down in the search results based on its “authoritativeness.” All of this increases concerns about how Google influences and determines what their search users see. Altering algorithms isn’t the only act that signifies the Big Tech corporation’s desire to push abortion. In May, the company announced it would be forcing abortion-related ads to state whether or not a facility provides abortions. In July, a leaked document showed that Google interfered in Ireland’s 2018 abortion referendum by blacklisting certain terms from search results. And among other controversial news regarding Google and abortion, a top executive there was caught on camera in September assaulting a pro-life activist. “It’s very convenient for us to say that the algorithms make all the decisions,” one Google executive told WSJ. However, evidence is showing that this simply isn’t true, and that speaks volumes about the company’s abortion stance and whether or not the company is truly untarnished by human biases as it claims. “Like” Live Action News on Facebook for more pro-life news and commentary! | Nancy Flanders | https://www.liveaction.org/news/wall-street-journal-google-altering-abortion/ | Thu, 21 Nov 2019 16:45:19 +0000 | 1,574,372,719 | 1,574,381,971 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
292,615 | liveaction--2019-12-24--Google is working to help people with Down syndrome to utilize voice assistants | 2019-12-24T00:00:00 | liveaction | Google is working to help people with Down syndrome to utilize voice assistants | Technology is advancing more than ever, and part of that includes voice technology. “Smart” technology has been implemented into many aspects of every day life — cars, TVs, cell phones, even the lights, fans, and air conditioning in people’s homes — and with that comes the ability to turn something on or off using just your voice. But voice assistants often can’t understand people with Down syndrome. Now, Google is partnering with the Canadian Down Syndrome Society to change that. Project Understood has asked for adults with Down syndrome to participate by recording phrases and donating them, therefore improving voice technology to better understand the unique speaking patterns of people with Down syndrome. “With the help of the Canadian Down Syndrome Society we were able to sample a small group to test whether there were enough patterns in the speech of people with Down syndrome for our algorithm to learn and adapt,” Julie Cattiau, a Google project manager, told the Disability Scoop. “It’s exciting to see the success of that test and move into the next phase of collecting voice samples that represent the vocal diversity of the community. The more people who participate, the more likely Google will be able to eventually improve speech recognition for everyone.” READ: People lie about children with Down syndrome, like my son, to encourage abortion. Here’s the truth. Due to low muscle tone and differences in facial structure, people with Down syndrome often need speech therapy as children, and as adults, still have different speech patterns than the typical population. This means voice assistants like Siri and Alexa miss approximately every third word said by people with Down syndrome, according to Disability Scoop. The reason is simply because no one has yet worked to get the data needed — which is what Project Understood is looking to change. And as Project Understood explained, this is especially disheartening, as people with disabilities are often the people who can benefit the most from voice technology. Voice interfaces have now been sold in millions of products ranging from smartphones, to vehicles, to home devices. These systems offer endless possibilities for enhanced living. But as it currently stands, the technology is not optimized for use by people who would benefit from it the most: people with disabilities. Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) can greatly improve the ability of those with speech impairments to interact with everyday smart devices and facilitate more independent living. However, these systems have predominantly been trained on ‘typical speech’. But not all human speech is the same. “For most people, voice technology simply makes life a little easier,” Laura LaChance of the Canadian Down Syndrome Society told Disability Scoop. “For people with Down syndrome, it has the potential for creating greater independence. From daily reminders to keeping in contact with loved ones and accessing directions, voice technology can help facilitate infinite access to tools and learnings that could lead to enriched lives.” People with Down syndrome are still thought of by many people to be incapable of leading independent lives. Yet with advances in science and medicine, they are living longer, healthier lives, and are able to accomplish more than ever before. The issue is not that people with Down syndrome are not capable; it’s that there are barriers before them that the typical population does not face. With initiatives like Project Understood, those barriers are a little bit closer to being knocked down — giving people with Down syndrome even more chances to lead the kind of lives most people take for granted. “Like” Live Action News on Facebook for more pro-life news and commentary! Stories like the one you just read transform hearts and minds. For example, one of our followers, Ross, messaged us and commented: “I began to question my pro-choice views after reading articles about Live Action…Live Action is primarily responsible for my becoming Pro-Life through their well-thought-out, scientific information and the emotionally and uplifting stories of real people with real experiences in saving the lives of their children regardless of what others might say.” Knowledge is power and CAN open eyes to SEE the truth. And, YOU can provide the spark to transform someone’s mind, just like Ross. The DAILY publishing at Live Action News is only made possible through generous people, like you, who give $5, $10, or $25. Your gift today will not only keep these stories coming in 2020, but also help us open more eyes and change minds to be fully pro-life and save lives. Will you join us in creating a world where the killing of preborn children is unthinkable and support Live Action News by making your tax-deductible gift today? DEFEND PREBORN CHILDREN IN 2020 MAKE YOUR GIFT TO LIVE ACTION | Cassy Fiano-Chesser | https://www.liveaction.org/news/down-syndrome-voice-assistants-google/ | Tue, 24 Dec 2019 20:44:48 +0000 | 1,577,238,288 | 1,577,233,155 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
311,158 | mercurynews--2019-02-28--Google workers take fight against forced arbitration to Washington | 2019-02-28T00:00:00 | mercurynews | Google workers take fight against forced arbitration to Washington | Google employees who have seen some success in pressuring their company into ending forced arbitration joined lawmakers in Washington as they introduced related federal legislation Thursday. “Now, time is up for all corporations, and all their subsidiaries and suppliers, across all sectors,” said Tanuja Gupta, a program manager for Google Search engineering, at a news conference to announce the bills in the nation’s capital. “We come here today not as employees of the same company or colleagues in tech, but as 6 of the 60 million workers in America denied access to justice.” One bill addressing the issue is the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal (FAIR) Act, by Reps. Hank Johnson, D-Georgia, Jerrold Nadler, D-New York, and Bobby Scott, D-Virginia. It takes aim at not just employers but at businesses that bury forced arbitration in the fine print. The FAIR Act wants to give employees and consumers the right to take employers and businesses to court when necessary. “Last week, Google announced it is getting rid of forced arbitration,” Johnson said at the news conference. “That’s good news, but we need to make sure more companies are doing just that.” The Googlers and lawmakers were joined at the news conference by other Americans who have been forced into arbitration. They included former Chipotle workers, a DirecTV customer, an advocate for nursing home patients, a Navy reservist who was fired by his company because of his deployment, survivors of sexual harassment and others. Gretchen Carlson, the former Fox news anchor who sued her Fox boss, Roger Ailes, for sexual harassment in 2016, said she has talked to thousands of women who have shared their stories — and stories of being silenced by mandatory arbitration agreements — since then. “Courage is contagious,” Carlson said at the news conference. “We’re seeing the effect of people speaking up,” she added, ticking off the names of tech companies that have changed their policies on forced arbitration in sexual harassment cases, such as Microsoft, Uber, Facebook and others. “Action is also contagious.” Google’s announcement last week that it would end all mandatory arbitration for employees came after months of pressure from groups such as Googlers for Ending Forced Arbitration. However, the employee group pointed out that the company’s changes, which also includes ending the requirement that employees waive their right to filing class-action lawsuits, don’t go far enough because they don’t apply to temporary and contract workers. The group is now calling on all workers to stand up for their rights to sue, including by urging their lawmakers to co-sponsor the legislation unveiled Thursday. Other bills mentioned at the news conference include the the Fairness in Nursing Home Arbitration Act, the Restoring Justice for Workers Act and the Justice for Servicemembers and Veterans Act. FTC zooms in on tech with new antitrust task force Why this proposed San Jose hotel has gotten even bigger Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, wrote the bill that seeks to protect service members’ employment rights. He called the widespread use of forced arbitration a system that’s “secret, rigged, unfair and un-American. … We’re not willing to wait for corporate America to do the right thing.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a statement slamming the bills, saying they would only benefit lawyers. “For many Americans, arbitration has proven to be a better path to justice for nearly 100 years because it is simpler, fairer, and faster than going to court,” said Lisa A. Rickard, president of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform. She said eliminating arbitration “is simply a forced litigation scheme.” | Levi Sumagaysay | https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/02/28/google-workers-take-fight-against-forced-arbitration-to-washington/ | 2019-02-28 18:33:13+00:00 | 1,551,396,793 | 1,567,546,997 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
317,035 | mintpressnews--2019-01-25--Amnesty International Should Oppose US Economic Sanctions and Incitement of a Military Coup in Venez | 2019-01-25T00:00:00 | mintpressnews | Amnesty International Should Oppose US Economic Sanctions and Incitement of a Military Coup in Venezuela | The following letter to Amnesty International was signed by various writers, academics and political activists including Australian filmmaker, John Pilger; Canadian journalist and author, Linda McQuaig; former UN independent investigator on Venezuela, Afred de Zayas; the Venezuela-based academic Steve Ellner and journalists working the reader-supported media outlet VenezuelAnalysis.com. Last year, Amnesty International was asked if it denounced US-led economic sanctions on Venezuela and remarks by various US officials (Trump, Rex Tillerson) encouraging a military coup in Venezuela. Amnesty said it took no position on these matters. Now the US has “recognized” a Venezuelan legislator as Venezuela’s new president. This strategy has been applauded by prominent Venezuelan opposition members as a way to prevent Venezuela’s state oil company from getting paid for oil sales to the United States without the authorization of the “new government” named by Trump. It amounts to an effort to impose an oil embargo on Venezuela aimed at driving Venezuela’s government from office through a military uprising. US-backed military coups in the Western Hemisphere have cost hundreds of thousands of lives in the post WWII era. In this century alone, a US-perpetrated coup in Haiti (in 2004) cost thousands of lives. Before this recent escalation, US financial sanctions have already cost the Venezuelan government over $6 billion USD in lost revenue since August of 2017 in an economy that was only able to import $11.7 billion USD worth of goods in 2018. As US economist Mark Weisbrot noted the sanctions “do actually kill people by depriving them of access to medicines” Amnesty has denounced governments and even non-state actors for saying things that encourage attacks on vulnerable people. Amnesty should similarly object when the world’s most powerful government produces a steady stream of comments that make it crystal clear a military coup in Venezuela would be welcome – as indeed the Bush administration made clear in 2002 when it welcomed the dictatorship of Pedro Carmona. This kind of support for a military coup is, just like other statements that Amnesty has previously denounced, aiding and abetting of human rights violations. For example Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just stated the following on January 10. Amnesty should change its position. US economic sanctions and remarks like these from US officials should be strongly opposed. Top Photo | Activist Medea Benjamin with the group Code Pink, heckles remarks by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during an extraordinary session about the crisis in Venezuela held by the Organization of American States, Jan. 24, 2019 in Washington. Luis Alonso Lugo | AP Joe Emersberger is a Canadian engineer and UNIFOR member with Ecuadorian roots. He writes primarily for Telesur English and Znet. | Many Signatories | https://www.mintpressnews.com/ask-amnesty-international-oppose-us-economic-sanctions-incitement-military-coup-venezuela/254217/ | 2019-01-25 15:42:20+00:00 | 1,548,448,940 | 1,567,550,821 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
317,178 | mintpressnews--2019-03-01--Amnesty International is Peddling Trumps Regime-Change Propaganda Against Venezuela | 2019-03-01T00:00:00 | mintpressnews | Amnesty International is Peddling Trump’s Regime-Change Propaganda Against Venezuela | Amnesty International‘s reports, by their nature, require readers to trust their honesty and impartiality. But there is ample reason not to trust them. Because Amnesty has ignored grave human rights abuses in plain sight in Venezuela while demonizing supporters of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Shortly after meeting with Juan Guaido (whom Donald Trump and a new Iraq-style Coalition of the Willing have anointed as Venezuela’s interim president), Amnesty put out a report that reads like a barely disguised attempt to reinforce, from a ‘human rights’ angle, the military threats against Venezuela from Trump and his henchmen. Amnesty’s allegations about Venezuela are serious and, if true, deserve condemnation. But there are numerous reasons to question the group’s honesty, impartiality, and public statements. Somebody should ask Amnesty, for example, to list the countries which are “genuinely concerned”. How many Saudi–arming countries like the US, UK, Canada, and France are on that list? As Amnesty released this report, the threat of a US military attack on Venezuela disguised a “humanitarian aid delivery” could not be more obvious. Never mind that Venezuela is, in fact, receiving foreign aid with authorization from the Maduro government. US National Security Advisor John Bolton and Senator Marco Rubio have repeatedly made Mafioso-like threats against Venezuela’s military and Maduro. Trump himself has been repeatedly threatening a military “option” since 2017 (the year he reportedly asked “Why are we not at war with Venezuela?”). At the same time, Amnesty has refused to denounce Trump’s financial sanctions which have been in place since August 2017 and whose impact on the entire economy has been crippling. By now, the sanctions have cost Venezuela’s government well over $6bn in revenues in an economy that imported $11.7bn in goods in 2018. Before the deep and sustained collapse in oil prices (and oil production, which nose-dived as the sanctions began), Venezuela’s economy had been importing about $2bn a year in medicines. It is important to remember that, in Venezuela’s case, Amnesty has been very explicit in pointing to economic problems as human rights abuses. Last year, when they wrote to me refusing to denounce Trump’s sanctions, Amnesty said: As I’ve noted at The Canary, Amnesty has now updated its position on Trump’s sanctions. It absurdly asks Trump to please be careful and “monitor” the impact of new sanctions that he imposed in January. The new sanctions directly cut off revenues that the Venezuelan government obtained from sales to the US. Amnesty’s continued refusal to acknowledge that a devastating attack on the Venezuelan “right to health and food” has been ongoing since August 2017 is appalling. And that alone is an excellent reason to doubt the honesty and impartiality of their work on Venezuela. Because any credible human rights group would demand an immediate end to all the economic sanctions Trump has imposed. Amnesty also stated in its latest report that: There’s no doubt that Venezuela’s security forces have committed crimes. The Maduro government has conceded as much. And Venezuelan police officers were arrested for crimes perpetrated during the violent protests of 2017. In June 2017, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López publicly warned security forces in remarks broadcast on state TV that he didn’t “want to see one more national guard perpetrate an atrocity”. Those protests were the fifth US-backed effort to oust the government by force since 2002. Trump is now leading the sixth. It’s also important to remember that Venezuelan security forces have confronted a very high homicide rate (since long before the current government came to power) and police officer death rate. At the same time, the country has been plagued by violent US-backed protesters for years, who have done things like burn Afro-Venezuelans alive in the streets and murder police officers. And today, it faces the very grave threat of US invasion that would install the most violent opposition groups into power. We can only imagine how security forces in a country like the UK would behave under the above conditions. Young men have been sent to prison in Britain, for example, simply for writing Facebook posts that advocate riots. I made some of these points last year in response to a similar UN report that was hyped by Reuters. Venezuela’s very real homicide problem (and violent US-backed opposition problem) could indeed allow security forces to pass off extrajudicial executions as “fighting crime” or as self-defense. But it can also allow apparently partisan groups like Amnesty to distort the situation in support of Trump’s regime-change agenda. Again, the “limited state programs” would be the ones Trump has been viciously attacking through sanctions since 2017. Also notice how Amnesty casts as thugs the organized poor people distributing food to millions of people – up to 60% of households according to an opposition-aligned pollster (Datanálisis). As George Ciccariello-Maher explained in We Created Chavez, the history of poor people organizing and arming themselves (quite understandably) for self-defense in Venezuela’s poorest neighborhoods goes back decades. It’s not new. It is Maduro’s supporters in poor neighborhoods and in the countryside, however, who – armed or not – will be violently targeted if the US-backed opposition takes power; especially if they do so in a coup or through a US invasion. Amnesty appears to have little concern about “stigmatizing” them, though, and negligible concern about Trump’s attack on their “right to health and food”. All of the reasons above make a powerful case for questioning the integrity and objectivity of Amnesty when it comes to Venezuela. And for the sake of peace and justice, we should hold Amnesty to much higher standards. Top Photo | A supporter of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro sits next to an image depicting the late president Hugo Chavez during an anti-intervention march coinciding with the anniversary of the deadly 1989 social uprising against neoliberal measures known as the Caracazo, in Caracas, Venezuela, Feb. 27, 2019. Ariana Cubillos | AP Joe Emersberger is a Canadian engineer and UNIFOR member with Ecuadorian roots. He writes primarily for Telesur English and Znet. | Joe Emersberger | https://www.mintpressnews.com/amnesty-international-is-peddling-trumps-regime-change-propaganda-against-venezuela/255775/ | 2019-03-01 16:47:38+00:00 | 1,551,476,858 | 1,567,546,876 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
317,421 | mintpressnews--2019-05-24--Amnesty International Hangs Julian Assange Out to Dry or Possibly Just Hang | 2019-05-24T00:00:00 | mintpressnews | Amnesty International Hangs Julian Assange Out to Dry — or Possibly Just Hang | NEW YORK — Journalist and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been hit with 17 Espionage Act charges by the United States. If convicted, Assange could be sentenced to up to 170 years in prison or even face the death penalty. A conviction would also set a dangerous precedent for journalists in the U.S. who publish classified material. National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden wrote that “This case will decide the future of media.” The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents the government from “abridging the freedom of speech.” Nonetheless, the prosecution of Assange continues undeterred. With so much at stake for reporters and with Assange’s life on the line, one would expect leading human-rights NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to be going to bat for Assange. Yet his predicament and its broad implications are evidently of little concern to Amnesty International, which wrote a letter to the Julian Assange Defence Committee (JADC) telling them that Amnesty is not actively working towards Assange’s defense. “According to Amnesty International, neither Assange nor [Chelsea] Manning are ‘prisoners of conscience,’” Laura Tiernan reports. Peter Benenson was the founder and leader of Amnesty International until a scandal regarding Amnesty’s direct cooperation with the U.K. Foreign Office and Colonial Office forced him to step down. MintPress News has covered the early days at Amnesty, when the NGO would receive “discreet support” from the U.K. government. Another co-founder, Luis Kutner, informed for the FBI on Black Panther Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton — a move that got the young leader killed by the Bureau shortly afterwards. Amnesty even called on the UN Security Council to send Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to the International Criminal Court as the push for regime change was heating up, and the same month NATO ultimately invaded the country. And now Amnesty has also toed the U.S. imperial line on Venezuela. Maxine Walker of the JADC wrote to Amnesty: [Assange’s] name appears not to have been mentioned in your material for World Press Freedom Day, an extraordinary omission given his current situation and that Julian Assange was awarded the 2009 Amnesty International U.K. Media Award for New Media.” The U.K. government has ignored, indeed poured scorn, on the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention 2015 ruling that ‘the deprivation of liberty of Mr. Assange is arbitrary and in contravention of articles 9 and 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.’” When Tiernan inquired of Amnesty why they do not consider not just Assange, but also Manning, a ‘Prisoner of Conscience,’ she writes: Manning perfectly fits the definition of a political prisoner. She is currently jailed for refusing to testify before a grand jury in its investigation of Assange. Even prior to receiving a subpoena in the case, Manning opposed grand jury processes on political grounds. “I can either go to jail or betray my principles,” Manning told reporters. “I would rather starve to death than change my opinion.” Feature photo | Julian Assange gestures as he arrives at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London, after the WikiLeaks founder was arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police and taken into custody, April 11, 2019. Victoria Jones | PA via AP Alexander Rubinstein is a staff writer for MintPress News based in Washington, DC. He reports on police, prisons and protests in the United States and the United States’ policing of the world. He previously reported for RT and Sputnik News. | Alexander Rubinstein | https://www.mintpressnews.com/amnesty-international-hangs-julian-assange-out-to-dry-or-possibly-just-hang/258780/ | 2019-05-24 17:54:25+00:00 | 1,558,734,865 | 1,567,540,188 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
317,618 | mintpressnews--2019-11-25--Amnesty International Toes US Gov’t Line in Urging Unrest in Iran | 2019-11-25T00:00:00 | mintpressnews | Amnesty International Toes US Gov’t Line in Urging Unrest in Iran | The U.S. government has lent its full support to anti-government protesters in Iran. “The United States is with you,” announced Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Vice President Mike Pence was similarly emphatic. Meanwhile, President Trump offered condemnation of the Iranian government’s actions; “Iran has become so unstable that the regime has shut down their entire Internet System so that the Great Iranian people cannot talk about the tremendous violence taking place within the country,” he tweeted. Yet even as the U.S. government was announcing its endorsement of events, their Iranian adversaries were claiming victory over the demonstrators. At a cabinet meeting in Tehran, President Hassan Rouhani claimed, Widespread, peaceful protests originally flared up on November 15, after an unexpected overnight tripling of fuel prices. However, these were soon overtaken by more militant, violent confrontations with security forces. Over a dozen gas stations and more than 70 banks are reported to have been destroyed. The proceeds from the price hike were reportedly intended to subsidize low-income Iranians, although the reasons for the increase were not explained, leading to a public outcry. Amnesty International reports that at least 115 protestors have been killed in the violence, and puts the blame squarely on Iranian security forces, suggesting the final death toll may be “much higher.” The Iranian government rejects these figures, claiming only a handful of people have died, including at least four members of government security forces at the hands of rioters. Inside the country, the Internet was shut down for over a week, adding to the confusion. Across the Western media, the events have been described as a government “crackdown” (e.g. BBC, CNN, LA Times). And for Fox News, the fact that the Iranian government is trying to “squash” the “massive protests” is proof that it is losing its grip and is afraid of its own people. Yet others have not seen it like this. Mohammad Morandi, a professor at the University of Tehran, draws a distinction between what he sees as the legitimate, peaceful, anti-fuel increase protests and the “very well organized and very violent” demonstrators who immediately destroyed banks, ambulances and public services, “egged on” by international media such as the government-subsidized BBC and Voice of America. Others have criticized Amnesty for failing to be a neutral actor in the conflict racking the Islamic Republic. Ben Norton, Assistant Editor of the GrayZone, for instance, condemned Amnesty researchers for appearing on Saudi-backed media and on U.S. government mouthpiece Voice of America, both of which have been pushing for regime change in Iran for some time. Norton claims that Amnesty is becoming little more than a “tool of US imperialism.” In a tweet condemning the Iranian government’s harsh response to the protests, Amnesty rather ominously announced that “we urge states to bring Iran’s authorities to account.” It is difficult to see what states, except the United States, that Amnesty would be calling on to discipline Iran, especially seeing as the U.S. is already conducting a campaign of economic war against the country in the form of sanctions. The United States government has long attempted to foment popular uprisings and hijack or manipulate protests against the Iranian government. As far back as 2009, the influential Brookings Institute think tank published a report with chapters dedicated to “supporting a popular uprising” and “inspiring an insurgency.” More recently, NBC News reported that a new study from Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Center for a New America Security arguing that the United States military should be indefinitely deployed in the region “to counter Iran,” raising the possibility of permanent war. Earlier this year MintPress News contributor Ali Taj worried that a U.S. conflict with the Islamic Republic is “virtually inevitable” and that any confrontation could be the spark that ignites a hot war. President Rouhani announced that his government had emerged victorious from the situation, claiming that violence was a “scheme pre-planned by…the Zionists and the Americans.” To what extent, if any, the violence was indeed orchestrated from abroad is impossible to tell, but what is certain is the Trump administration will be disappointed that the government remains in power. Feature photo | Demonstrators chant slogans during a pro-government rally denouncing last week’s violent protests over a fuel price hike, in Tehran, Iran, Nov. 25, 2019. Ebrahim Noroozi | AP Alan MacLeod is a MintPress Staff Writer as well as an academic and writer for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. His book, Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting was published in April. | Alan Macleod | https://www.mintpressnews.com/amnesty-international-takes-govt-line-in-urging-unrest-in-iran/263018/ | Mon, 25 Nov 2019 20:19:02 +0000 | 1,574,731,142 | 1,574,726,656 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
317,805 | motherjones--2019-01-22--Google Facebook and Microsoft Sponsored a Conference That Promoted Climate Change Denial | 2019-01-22T00:00:00 | motherjones | Google, Facebook, and Microsoft Sponsored a Conference That Promoted Climate Change Denial | Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have publicly acknowledged the dangers of global warming, but last week they all sponsored a conference that promoted climate change denial to young libertarians. All three tech companies were sponsors of LibertyCon, the annual convention of the libertarian group Students for Liberty, which took place in Washington, DC. Google was a platinum sponsor, ponying up $25,000, and Facebook and Microsoft each contributed $10,000 as gold sponsors. The donations put the tech companies in the top tier of the event’s backers. But the donations also put the firms in company with some of the event’s other sponsors, which included three groups known for their work attacking climate change science and trying to undermine efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Among the most notable was the CO2 Coalition, a group founded in 2015 to spread the “good news” about a greenhouse gas whose increase in the atmosphere is linked to potentially catastrophic climate change. The coalition is funded by conservative foundations that have backed other climate change denial efforts. These include the Mercer Family Foundation, which in recent years has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to right-wing think tanks engaged in climate change denialism, and the Charles Koch Institute, the charitable arm of one of the brothers behind Koch Industries, the oil and gas behemoth. In the LibertyCon exhibit hall, the CO2 Coalition handed out brochures that said its goal is to “explain how our lives and our planet Earth will be improved by additional atmospheric carbon dioxide.” One brochure claimed that “more carbon dioxide will help everyone, including future generations of our families” and that the “recent increase in CO2 levels has had a measurable, positive effect on plant life,” apparently because the greenhouse gas will make plants grow faster. In a Saturday presentation, Caleb Rossiter, a retired statistics professor and a member of the coalition, gave a presentation titled “Let’s Talk About Not Talking: Should There Be ‘No Debate’ that Industrial Carbon Dioxide is Causing Climate Catastrophe?” In his presentation, Rossiter told the assembled students that the impact of climate change on weather patterns has been vastly exaggerated. “There has been no increase in storms, in intensity or frequency,” he said. “The data don’t show a worrisome trend.” He insisted that when he hears the news that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are rising, “I’m cheering!” That’s because, he said, carbon dioxide “is a fertilizer” that has made Africa greener and increased food production there, reducing human misery. Rossiter also claimed that carbon dioxide emissions correlate with wealth and that the greenhouse gas “improves life expectancy” because poor countries that start burning fossil fuels have a more consistent power supply and can then clean up their water. “I’m happy when carbon dioxide is up, because it means poverty is down,” he declared. “I come not to bury your carbon but to praise it,” he concluded. Rossiter’s presentation puts him on the far fringes of the climate denial world. Not even Exxon is trying to make such arguments anymore. And it’s a long way from what Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have said about the dangers of carbon dioxide; all three companies have committed to reducing their own carbon footprints. Microsoft has pledged to cut carbon emissions by 75 percent by 2030. Google claims to be committed to a “zero carbon” future and is aggressively pursuing renewable energy sources for its operations to reduce its carbon footprint and help combat climate change. And Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg criticized President Donald Trump after he announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate accord, writing, “Stopping climate change is something we can only do as a global community, and we have to act together before it’s too late.” The presence of the tech sponsors at a libertarian conference is not itself unusual, as governments around the globe move to try to regulate social media and online privacy. Tech companies see libertarians as natural allies in the fight against regulation. Indeed, Google sponsored two different sessions at the conference, one on why “permissionless innovation” needs to be defended and another on whether the government will “continue to let the Internet be awesome.” But the companies’ underwriting of a conference with a climate denier on the schedule shows the hazards of trying to advance a policy agenda through interest groups without also supporting their fringe elements. The CO2 Coalition wasn’t the only group sponsoring LibertyCon that is known for its work undermining efforts to combat climate change. Along with Facebook and Microsoft, the Heartland Institute was also a gold sponsor of the event. Heartland is a longtime player in industry-funded efforts to undermine climate science and fend off efforts to reduce carbon emissions. The conservative Heritage Foundation, which pushed the Trump administration to withdraw from the Paris climate accords and has long featured experts who argue that global warming is a myth, was also a sponsor. A Facebook spokesman responded to questions about its sponsorship of LibertyCon by sending a link to its political engagement page, which says, “Sometimes we support events that highlight Internet and social media issues” and features a long list of third-party groups it has worked with in the past. He noted that LibertyCon met its criteria for support and cited the number of sessions unrelated to climate change. A spokesperson from Google defended the company’s LibertyCon sponsorship, saying, “Every year, we sponsor organizations from across the political spectrum to promote strong technology laws. As we make clear in our public policy transparency report, Google’s sponsorship or collaboration with a third party organization doesn’t mean that we endorse the organization’s entire agenda or agree with other speakers or sponsors.” On Wednesday, Microsoft said in a statement, “Our commitment to sustainability is not altered or affected by our membership or sponsorship of an organization. We work with many groups on technology policy issues and do not expect or anticipate that any organization’s agenda will align to ours in all policy areas.” | Stephanie Mencimer | https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/01/google-facebook-and-microsoft-sponsored-a-conference-that-promoted-climate-change-denial/ | 2019-01-22 23:17:53+00:00 | 1,548,217,073 | 1,567,551,304 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
319,311 | motherjones--2019-12-17--Another Google Employee Says They Were Fired for Backing a Union | 2019-12-17T00:00:00 | motherjones | Another Google Employee Says They Were Fired for Backing a Union | A Google employee says she was fired for supporting union-organizing efforts, just one week after a federal investigation into union-busting at the company was publicly confirmed. The former employee, Kathryn Spiers, wrote in a blog post published on Tuesday morning that she had been fired on Friday for creating an internal pop-up notification that let her fellow employees know about their union organizing rights when visiting the website of IRI Consultants, a company contracted by Google to help its anti-union push. Spiers is also filing an unfair labor practice claim with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that her firing was an “attempt to quell Spiers and other employees from asserting their right to engage in concerted protected activities.” “Google’s actions are the antithesis of the freedoms and transparency it publicly touts and violates Ms. Spiers’ and other Google employees’ rights to engage in concerted activity protected under the National Labor Relations Act,” reads a draft of the claim provided to Mother Jones. Spiers’ pop-up notification was powered with a few lines of code, and simply read: “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities.” Spiers says these kinds of notifications are normal for Googlers to create and that doing so was technically a part of her job. She noted that there’s even precedent for Googlers to use programmed notifications in support of organizing activity. “This kind of code change happens all the time. We frequently add things to make our jobs easier or even to just share hobbies or interests,” Spiers wrote. “For example, someone changed the default desktop wallpaper during the walkout last year so that the Linux penguin was holding a protest sign. The company has never reacted aggressively in response to a notification such as this in the past.” Spiers alleges that the process prior to her being fired included an “extremely aggressive and illegal” interrogation by Google. “They wouldn’t let me consult with anyone, including a lawyer, and relentlessly pressured me to incriminate myself and any coworkers I had talked to about exercising my rights at work,” Spiers wrote. Spiers told Mother Jones that during parts of the investigation Google denied her requests to have an attorney present, despite Google’s own staff attorney being there. (A Google spokesperson said that they were not familiar with the details of Spiers’s exit interviews.) Spiers believes her firing is part of Google’s alleged broader anti-union agenda. At the end of November, the company fired four workers over what it said was data security violations. The workers claimed they were actually dismissed for working to organize a union. “With these firings, Google is ramping up its illegal retaliation,” workers wrote in a statement at the time. “This is classic union-busting dressed up in tech industry jargon, and we won’t stand for it.” Bloomberg reported that the company has created a tool to flags large employee gatherings organized on internal calendars, which many believe is an attempt to crackdown on organizing. The New York Times reported in November that Google had hired IRI Consultants, a firm with a history of working to quell unionization efforts. The company’s move followed an uptick in worker activism after employees spoke out about the company’s Department of Defense contracts and protested its handling of sexual harassment allegations lodged against several male executives. Spiers, who is a trans woman, also said that she believes Google is targeting its queer employees. “It is incredibly bizarre that three of us have been trans-women and four of us LGBTQ,” Spiers said of the now five employees, who, after being fired by Google, have said they were targeted over union organizing efforts. “I think Google was targeting more vulnerable members of the community.” Google has maintained that none of the firings are related to union-busting, nor are the result of any bias against LGBTQ employees. At the time of the four employees’ firings, the company said their dismissals were in reaction to “searching for, accessing, and distributing business information outside the scope of their jobs.” While a Google spokesperson acknowledged in an emailed statement that the company had “dismissed an employee who abused privileged access to modify an internal security tool,” describing it as a “a serious violation,” the company declined to confirm Spiers’ involvement. A spokesperson explained that employee had been fired for violating policies regarding internal pop-ups that bar engineers from creating notifications for anything that isn’t related to security, privacy, or without a “business justification.” Spiers said that she wasn’t familiar with any such specific rules, and that Google had not laid out where its policies say this. Spiers has engaged in other protest efforts and was involved in creating an internal Chrome extension, first reported by Bloomberg, that emailed Google’s top lawyer every time a user opened a Google document. That code was created in protest of what programmers saw as Walker changing Google’s open, transparent culture. While Google has denied engaging in union-busting, the National Labor Relations Board has launched an investigation into November’s terminations. “Since they hired union-busting firm IRI, they’ve got a lot more aggressive. They feel like they can steamroll us and that they might get away with it if they do it fast enough,” Spiers said. | Ali Breland | https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/12/google-union-kathryn-spiers/ | Tue, 17 Dec 2019 14:06:03 +0000 | 1,576,609,563 | 1,576,628,029 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
500,314 | sottnet--2019-04-16--Amnesty International ignores Al-Qaeda war crimes to criminalize Syrian government | 2019-04-16T00:00:00 | sottnet | Amnesty International ignores Al-Qaeda war crimes to criminalize Syrian government | Tensions are being ratcheted up in the north-westerly provinces of Idlib and Northern Hama and Western media prepares itself for the revival of the notorious "last doctor" meme.In September 2018 Russian and Turkish negotiators agreed to establish a demilitarized zone in Idlib which should have been completed by October 15, 2018. The reality is that the withdrawal of heavy weaponry has only been partially successful and the remaining armed groups dominated by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), effectively a rebrand of Al-Qaeda or Al-Nusra Front, have consistently violated the ceasefire and targeted cities, towns and villages on the borders of the so-called "safe zone."ostensibly to curtail the HTS expansionism, but, clearly, and perhaps foolishly relying upon Turkey's NATO membership to offer them a compliant occupier in the northwest while the US coalition increases its own military presence in the vast band of Syrian territory east of the Euphrates - despite President Trump's hollow withdrawal-of-US-troops rhetoric in December 2018.In amongst all this geopolitical jockeying for position and supremacy, civilians in the region are suffering and few more so than those who live in the towns that border Idlib and areas of Northern Hama still under control of the armed groups and their HTS overlords. These are the Syrian people entirely ignored by NATO-aligned media and "human rights" groups that have sustained narratives that traditionally only criminalize one side in a complex and externally imposed eight-year war.The most recent example of this extreme bias in favor of the US supremacist alliance is the Amnesty International report dated 28th March 2019 entitled "Syria: Government forces have bombed medical facilities, school and bakery in Idlib." The title has unequivocally laid out the report's intent, to criminalize the Syrian government. The report opens with Lynn Maalouf, Middle East Research Director at Amnesty International claiming:'The Syrian government continues to show utter disregard for the laws of war and the lives of civilians'.No names of witnesses are provided, we are expected to accept the testimony of anonymous sources whose affiliations are not questioned. We are expected to rely upon the "evidence" provided by "verified open source information, social media photos and videos" which have been "corroborated" remotely by Amnesty's recently established " Digital Verification Corps " (DVC) in Toronto, California, UK or South Africa. Despite this alleged verification process, none of these videos or photos are shown in the Amnesty report.Amnesty claims to have interviewed witnesses themselves but does not provide the identity of the alleged Amnesty staff on the ground in an area infested by Al-Qaeda affiliates who are known to kidnap and endanger the lives of anyone that might question their motives. Were these witnesses interviewed via Skype by the DVC or were anonymous proxies instructed to conduct interviews in an area controlled by HTS? The report does not clarify.and their allies whose intent is to topple the Syrian government and impose a tyrannical sectarian regime in its place.We have heard identical , sensationalist rhetoric during the Syrian Arab Army campaigns to cleanse East Aleppo and Eastern Ghouta of the same extremist occupiers that were then transported to Idlib as part of the Syrian/Russian amnesty and reconciliation deals.This report criminally erases the atrocities committed by HTS and subordinate groups against the towns and villages clustered inside Syrian government secured territory on the borders with the last terrorist stronghold in Syria.This is an outright lie.So, let's add some vital context to this biased and misrepresentative report. Amnesty mention attacks by the Syrian government on March 9 and 11, in Saraqeb and Talmans, southern Idlib. There are claims that hospitals and blood banks were the main targets, while in February bakeries and makeshift medical clinics had been hit.Acclaimed journalist, Sharmine Narwani, had previously conducted an investigation into the systematic destruction of bakeries, flour mills and deliberate decimation of wheat production by Western-backed armed groups to increase pressure on the Syrian government and collectively punish the Syrian people that have resisted the Western-sponsored extremist bid to take over their country. According to Narwani , "the West's terrorists drove wheat production from 2.5 M tons per year to 100K."It is worth noting that several of the Amnesty testimonies come from members of the NATO-member-state financed and promoted White Helmets embedded with HTS in the region. It is also worth noting that a UK government draft document published in April 2017 demonstrates that the White Helmets are the most "routinely reliable source" for both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.What is not mentioned in the report is the reality that armed groups have systematically occupied hospitals , schools, and medical centers across all areas they have previously controlled in Syria, converting many of them into prisons, military centers and ammunition stores and factories.What is also not mentioned are the daily attacks from these HTS enclaves against the Syrian Christian towns of Al Suqaylabiyah and Mhardeh and surrounding villages. In the weeks leading up to March 9, these attacks intensified. I visited the area on March 9 and was shown the destruction of civilian homes in Al Suqaylabiyah by one attack on March 7. The Amnesty report highlights the alleged displacement of civilians as a result of Syrian government attacks but does not mention the homelessness brought about by such attacks by HTS against the civilian populations of these towns.Nabel Alabdalla, the commander of the Al Suqaylabiyah volunteer National Defence Forces told me that the extremists were using a new, more powerful C4 explosive in their Grad rockets as the damage was so extensive to entire neighborhoods in the town. The town's monastery had also been targeted in these attacks, a monastery which doubles as a community center and school for the children of the town. Since the escalation of attacks by armed groups, the children have not been able to attend school as the risk of death or injury is too great. These children are disappeared by Amnesty, their schools don't count.On March 16 , terrorists targeted another residential area in Suqaylabiyah. Salma Boutros Khalil was seriously injured by shrapnel, her home was destroyed. Her daughter in law, Ayat Al-Mahmoud, a Palestinian originally from Damascus, was killed. Ayat was pregnant, her baby was due in one week. Salma's grandson was also terribly injured by shrapnel and was rushed to Hama National hospital. Two other children were grievously wounded in this attack.These attacks do not target military centers, they target only residential areas and civilians. They are, in many instances, war crimes, but according to Amnesty International, these attacks never happened.On March 26, according to the Amnesty report, Syrian government forces fired rockets "at a school in Sheikh Idriss." Again the context is non-existent. On March 23, a suspected chemical weapon attack was carried out by HTS against villages around 10km to the northwest of Al Suqaylabiyah - al-Rasif, al-Aziziyyeh, al-Khandaq, and al-Jayyid. The attack came in from the north, in fact close to Sheikh Idriss.I was in Al Suqaylabiyah when this attack took place and I was able to visit the local hospital that received the 34 victims which included three children, one severely affected with respiratory problems. Victims complained of breathing difficulties, skin blisters, eye sensitivity, nausea and shock syndrome after the attack. One victim, Nawfal Tawbar, described the 1m high dense white smoke that enveloped the area after the mortars had exploded:Without the Syrian government's retaliatory measures, these extremist attacks would only increase. The attacks are motivated primarily by sectarian hatred against the Syrian Christian or Alawite communities or simply against those who remain loyal to their government. One of the recorded messages from the terrorist groups during this period demanded that Al Suqaylabiyah "release its Nusairi inhabitants" to the terrorists (for execution) to avoid their city being "burned." Nusairi is the commonly used terrorist term for the Alawites.In the Amnesty report, Maalouf makes the statement:"Deliberate attacks on civilians and on civilian objects, including hospitals and other medical facilities, and indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians are war crimes."The Amnesty report goes on to further shoot itself in the foot. I asked former UK Ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford for a review of the report. Ford described the report as the "pseudo-findings on Syria by a Corps that has obviously taken up its place in the battle order of Western propagandists seeking to justify endless war on Syria."Ford points out that the Amnesty report implicitly acknowledges that the areas targeted by the Syrian government are awash with Al-Qaeda (HTS) militants while their student so-called experts "cite the testimony of 'residents' that no HTS were present, indeed couldn't have been present because the areas were part of the demilitarized zone." Ford punches a hole in this claim:"Amnesty, you have just shot yourself in the foot! Any truly independent observer would have been aware from multiple open sources, including US mainstream media, that the demilitarized zone has not in fact been rid of HTS fighters and their weapons. Far from it. Unacknowledged by Amnesty, the takfiris have been shelling civilians in villages on the government side. Any credibility which might have been attached to these reports goes straight out of the window with these crucial highly revealing errors and omissions."To further reinforce Ford's point, the Amnesty report - which contradicts itself - ends with the foot-shooting statement:"Saraqeb is under the control of the Brigade of the Revolutionary Front of Saraqeb and Countryside, which comes under overall HTS control."The following video, published on February 26 2019 , shows these Amnesty-whitewashed "rebels" targeting Abu Duhour, by their own admission - presumably targeting civilian refugees who have fled this brutal terrorist occupation via the Syrian/Russian established and protected humanitarian corridor to the perceived safety of Abu Duhour . Another inconvenient fact omitted by the Amnesty report.Needless to say, colonial media in the West re-published the Amnesty report without correction or investigation - The Guardian Middle East Eye and Jaish Al Islam-affiliate, Scott Lucas of EA Worldview, among the first to trumpet the distorted Amnesty headlines and content within the state-aligned-western-media sphere.This Amnesty report, verified by its student Corps in remote locations who identify war crimes that only serve to increase the real terrorist war crimes against real civilians in Syria, is a travesty. As Peter Ford said "Sorry, Amnesty, you are going to have to up your game. How about demilitarising yourself for a start?" | null | https://www.sott.net/article/411234-Amnesty-International-ignores-Al-Qaeda-war-crimes-to-criminalize-Syrian-government | 2019-04-16 10:14:17+00:00 | 1,555,424,057 | 1,567,542,896 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
549,572 | sputnik--2019-11-15--India’s Top Probe Agency Raids Human Rights Watchdog Amnesty International’s Offices | 2019-11-15T00:00:00 | sputnik | India’s Top Probe Agency Raids Human Rights Watchdog Amnesty International’s Offices | The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided the premises of Amnesty International in Bengaluru on Friday for alleged irregularities in foreign funding. India’s federal Home Ministry had revoked the watchdog’s license under the Foreign Currency Regulation Act in 2010. In September, the federal economic intelligence agency, Enforcement Directorate had issued notices to Amnesty for alleged contraventions of the foreign exchange act. The organisation denied the charges. Amnesty International has been critical of several policies of the Indian federal government over alleged human rights violations. Following New Delhi’s decision to strip the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, the non-profit body had alleged that the government detained activists and politicians, without any charge or trial. The federal Home Ministry has cancelled the licenses of about 1,300 volunteer organisations under the foreign funding regulations. This included Greenpeace India, the Ford Foundation, several evangelist associations, right-wing charitable organisations, and educational institutes. The action followed the failure of these organisations to file annual returns as mandated by law. | null | https://sputniknews.com/asia/201911151077317085-indias-top-probe-agency-raids-human-rights-watchdog-amnesty-internationals-offices/ | Fri, 15 Nov 2019 16:54:09 +0300 | 1,573,854,849 | 1,573,865,691 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
604,692 | thedailycaller--2019-07-02--EXCLUSIVE Amnesty International Accuses US Authorities Of Harassment Against Immigration Rights A | 2019-07-02T00:00:00 | thedailycaller | EXCLUSIVE: Amnesty International Accuses US Authorities Of ‘Harassment’ Against Immigration Rights Advocates | Amnesty International is alleging that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Justice Department is abusing the justice system to target illegal immigrant activists. “Amnesty International has found since 2018 that the United States (US) government has executed an unlawful and politically motivated campaign of intimidation, threats, harassment, and criminal investigations against people who defend the human rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers (‘migrant human rights defenders’) on the US–Mexico border,” reads a portion of the report, which was obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The London-based human rights organization interviewed 23 “human rights defenders” who claim they have being targeted by the U.S. government because of their work on behalf of immigrants. Of the 23 who were interviewed, 10 were put under a DHS watch list for their alleged involvement in human smuggling — criminal investigations that Amnesty International referred to as “dubious.” Others alleged instances of targeted harassment and intimidation at the hands of U.S. authorities. The people interviewed by human rights group included activists, lawyers and others who work to promote the interests of illegal aliens. “The Trump administration’s targeting of human rights defenders through discriminatory misuse of the criminal justice system sets it on a slippery slope toward authoritarianism,” Erika Guevara-Rosasa, Americas director for Amnesty International, said in a prepared statement included in the report. “The US government is disgracing itself by threatening and even prosecuting its own citizens for their vital work to save the lives of people in a desperate situation at the border.” Despite the seriousness of the allegations, Amnesty International’s report does not have any documented evidence that proves a U.S. government official, or any U.S. agency as a whole, targeted an individual specifically because of their immigration rights activism or work. Instead, the report significantly relies on drawing a connection between activists and their subsequent run-ins with the law. Amnesty International wrote at length about Dr. Scott Warren, a member of No More Deaths, an organization that leaves behind water and food in the Arizona desert for immigrants to consume as they illegally cross into the United States. Warren was arrested in 2017 and charged with three felony criminal charges related to human smuggling. The human rights group claims that the charges are a “retaliatory attack” for No More Deaths releasing a video allegedly showing Border Patrol agents destroying water jugs left in the desert. However, it is, in fact, a crime to help an alien illegally enter the U.S., harbor an illegal alien, or otherwise encourage such an action. (RELATED: Migrant Father Was Warned About Crossing Rio Grande Before Drowning With His Daughter) Amnesty International also heavily criticized President Donald Trump, claiming his administration has broken both U.S. and international law, and uses “xenophobic rhetoric” toward refugees. “The Trump administration must immediately end its politically motivated misuse of the criminal justice system and its abuse of powers to search, detain and interrogate human rights defenders at the border,” Guevara-Rosas continued in her statement. The Justice Department declined to comment when reached by the DCNF for a statement. DHS did not respond to a request for comment by the DCNF. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected]. | Jason Hopkins | https://dailycaller.com/2019/07/01/amnesty-international-report-migrants/ | 2019-07-02 01:08:02+00:00 | 1,562,044,082 | 1,567,537,280 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
688,780 | theguardianuk--2019-02-06--Amnesty International has toxic working culture report finds | 2019-02-06T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | Amnesty International has toxic working culture, report finds | Amnesty International has a “toxic” working environment, with widespread bullying, public humiliation, discrimination and other abuses of power, a report has found. A review into workplace culture, commissioned after two staff members killed themselves last year, found a dangerous “us versus them” dynamic, and a severe lack of trust in senior management, which threatened Amnesty’s credibility as a human rights champion. It added: “As organisational rifts and evidence of nepotism and hypocrisy become public knowledge they will be used by government and other opponents of Amnesty’s work to undercut or dismiss Amnesty’s advocacy around the world, fundamentally jeopardising the organisation’s mission.” The report, undertaken by the KonTerra Group and led by psychologists, to look into lessons learned following the suicides in 2018, found bullying and public humiliation were routinely used by management. “There were multiple reports of managers belittling staff in meetings, deliberately excluding certain staff from reporting, or making demeaning, menacing comments like: ‘You’re shit!’ or: ‘You should quit! If you stay in this position, your life will be a misery,’” it said. The consultants, who focused on Amnesty’s international secretariat, based in London, found it to be largely operating in a “state of emergency” following a restructuring process to decentralise and move staff closer to the ground in places of civil unrest and conflict. Many staff at Amnesty described their employment as a vocation or life cause and said there had a “significant risk of experiencing secondary stress or vicarious trauma” due to the nature of the work. But, the report found, the “lion’s share” of wellbeing issues were not isolated to exposure to trauma or suffering. Instead, the adversarial culture, failures in management and pressures of workload were among the most significant contributors to wellbeing issues. The review was based on a survey of 475 staff, 70% of the workforce of Amnesty’s international secretariat, and on scores of interviews. Some experienced “significant distress” during the process, it said. “Amnesty International had a reputation for doing great work but being a hard place to work. Across many interviews the word ‘toxic’ was used to describe the Amnesty work culture as far back as the 1990s. So were the phrases ‘adversarial’, ‘lack of trust’ and ‘bullying’.” Staff reported multiple accounts of discrimination on the basis of race and gender and which women, staff of colour and LGBTQI employees were targeted or treated unfairly. “Given Amnesty’s status and mission – to protect and promote human rights – the number of accounts the assessment team received of ‘bullying’,‘racism’, and ‘sexism’ is disconcerting,” it said. The reviewers provided Amnesty’s secretary general with a private report on allegations of abuse of power, discrimination and unfair treatment, which merit further investigation. They found multiple instances of alleged favouritism or nepotism in hiring and cases where “it appears that positions or individuals may have been made redundant without due process”. One of the issues facing the organisation was a “martyrdom culture”, in which staff would sacrifice their own wellbeing by taking on huge workloads – a clear “recipe for overload and burnout”. The restructuring had “taken a considerable toll” on staff wellbeing, it said. “Amnesty cannot effectively strive to make the world a better place while perpetuating an organisational culture deeply marked by secrecy, mistrust, nepotism and other forms of power abuse.” Kumi Naidoo, Amnesty’s secretary-general, said the review was a difficult and profoundly troubling read. In a statement (pdf), he said he would bring forward a reform plan by the end of March. Amnesty’s work culture problems were first revealed in May last year, when the Times reported that Gaëtan Mootoo had killed himself after complaining of stress and overwork. Six weeks later, Rosalind McGregor, 28, an intern in Amnesty’s Geneva’s office, killed herself at her family home in Surrey. One staff member told the review that the organisation’s response to Mootoo’s death “upset many of us a lot”. “The way they announced it, the way they tried to cover up.” His death was followed by several reviews. One, conducted by James Laddie QC, found that “a serious failure of management” had contributed to Mootoo’s death. A separate inquiry into McGregor’s death concluded that she had been distressed for “personal reasons” and that Amnesty bore no responsibility for her death. | Karen McVeigh | https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/06/amnesty-international-has-toxic-working-culture-report-finds | 2019-02-06 09:21:21+00:00 | 1,549,462,881 | 1,567,549,469 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
749,458 | theindependent--2019-02-26--Global indifference to human rights in Middle East driving repression and civilian suffering warns | 2019-02-26T00:00:00 | theindependent | Global indifference to human rights in Middle East driving repression and civilian suffering, warns Amnesty International | The international community’s “chilling complacency” towards human rights abuses in the Middle East last year gave authorities “free rein” to crackdown on dissent, a new Amnesty International report has said. In Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran, the repression of civil society and targeting of peaceful activists “intensified significantly” in 2018. These states were “emblematic” of the international community’s inadequate response to government abuses, according to the group’s annual report on human rights in the Middle East and North Africa region. “Virtually all human rights defenders in Saudi Arabia are now behind bars or have been forced to flee the country,” Amnesty reported. The report noted that whilst the case of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder was met with unprecedented global condemnation – spurring a Saudi Arabian investigation and prompting Germany, Denmark and Finland to suspend the supply of arms – the kingdom’s key allies did little in response. “Even the global outcry over the Khashoggi case has not been followed by concrete action to ensure those responsible for his murder are brought to justice,” said Heba Morayef, regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International. In contrast, the kingdom received worldwide praise for its lifting of the controversial ban on women driving in June, despite the large number of activists that were still in detention, including women who had previously protested against the ban. Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the Yemen war was similarly met with widespread indifference, the report says. “The USA, UK and France are among states that have continued to export weapons that have enabled the Saudi Arabia-led coalition to target civilians, schools and hospitals during the conflict in Yemen in violation of international law.” In Iran, Amnesty designated 2018 as a “year of shame”, with more than 7,000 protesters, students, journalists, environmental activists, workers and human rights defenders arrested – many arbitrarily. Women protesting against the forced wearing of the hijab were amongst those targeted by authorities. The country witnessed two major nationwide protests in January and then in July and August, with security forces targeting those demonstrating with live ammunition, teargas and water cannon, according to the NGO. The European Union, however, which has an ongoing human rights dialogue with Tehran, “was muted” in its response. In Egypt, authorities continued to crack down on opposition, intensifying efforts in the run-up to the presidential elections in March 2018, which saw dozens of people arrested. Egypt is now “a more dangerous place for critics than at any other time in the country’s recent history”, the group found. “The authorities used solitary confinement that amounted to torture and other ill-treatment and enforced disappearance against hundreds of people with impunity,” Amnesty International said. Rights groups strongly criticised Egypt this month for executing nine men accused of the 2015 killing of the country’s chief prosecutor, citing concerns of unfair trials with confessions extracted under torture. On Monday, Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi defended the death penalty during a summit between Arab and European states, saying the two regions had “two different cultures”. “The priority in Europe is achieving and maintaining wellbeing for its people. Our priority is preserving our countries and stopping them from collapse, destruction and ruin, as you see in many surrounding states,” he said. Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission president, said human rights had been raised in bilateral meetings during the two-day summit. Amnesty International also expressed concern over President Sisi’s ratifying of two laws that awarded the state almost “total control” over print, online and broadcast media. Despite these abuses, France and the US continue to supply Egypt with weapons used for internal repression, Amnesty said. “Time and again allies of governments in the region have put lucrative business deals, security cooperation or billions of dollars’ worth of arms sales before human rights, fuelling abuses and creating a climate where [Middle East and North Africa] governments feel ‘untouchable’ and above the law,” said Philip Luther, research and advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International. We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads. | Gemma Fox | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/middle-east-human-rights-saudi-arabia-egypt-iran-amnesty-international-a8796451.html | 2019-02-26 09:22:00+00:00 | 1,551,190,920 | 1,567,547,246 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
22,945 | bbc--2019-02-15--Call to ban killer robots in wars | 2019-02-15T00:00:00 | bbc | Call to ban killer robots in wars | A group of scientists has called for a ban on the development of weapons controlled by artificial intelligence (AI). It says that autonomous weapons may malfunction in unpredictable ways and kill innocent people. Ethics experts also argue that it is a moral step too far for AI systems to kill without any human intervention. The comments were made at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington DC. Human Rights Watch (HRW) is one of the 89 non-governmental organisations from 50 countries that have formed the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, to press for an international treaty. Among those leading efforts for the worldwide ban is HRW's Mary Wareham. "We are not talking about walking, talking terminator robots that are about to take over the world; what we are concerned about is much more imminent: conventional weapons systems with autonomy," she told BBC News. "They are beginning to creep in. Drones are the obvious example, but there are also military aircraft that take off, fly and land on their own; robotic sentries that can identify movement. These are precursors to autonomous weapons." His company takes military contracts, but it has denounced AI systems for warfare and stated that it would not develop them. "When they fail, they fail in unpredictable ways," he told BBC News. "As advanced as we are, the state of AI is really limited by image recognition. It is good but does not have the detail or context to be judge, jury and executioner on a battlefield. "An autonomous system cannot make a decision to kill or not to kill in a vacuum. The de-facto decision has been made thousands of miles away by developers, programmers and scientists who have no conception of the situation the weapon is deployed in." According to Peter Asaro, of the New School in New York, such a scenario raises issues of legal liability if the system makes an unlawful killing. "The delegation of authority to kill to a machine is not justified and a violation of human rights because machines are not moral agents and so cannot be responsible for making decisions of life and death. "So it may well be that the people who made the autonomous weapon are responsible." | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47259889 | 2019-02-15 23:28:11+00:00 | 1,550,291,291 | 1,567,548,415 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
29,904 | bbc--2019-08-21--Amazon fires President Jair Bolsonaro suggests NGOs to blame | 2019-08-21T00:00:00 | bbc | Amazon fires: President Jair Bolsonaro suggests NGOs to blame | Brazil's president, Jair Bolsonaro says non-governmental organisations may be setting fires in the Amazon to embarrass the Brazilian government after it cut their funding, despite offering no evidence to support the claim. A record number of fires were recorded in the Amazon this year, according to The National Institute for Space Research (Inpe). But conservationists have blamed Mr Bolsonaro for the Amazon's plight, saying he has encouraged loggers and farmers to clear the land. Marcio Astrini from Greenpeace said that the increased deforestation and burning are a "result of his [President Bolsonaro] anti-environmental policy." | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-49429541 | 2019-08-21 21:32:30+00:00 | 1,566,437,550 | 1,567,533,849 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
80,718 | buzzfeed--2019-12-06--NATO-Linked Researchers Bought Fake Social Media Engagements To Test How Facebook, Twitter And Googl | 2019-12-06T00:00:00 | buzzfeed | NATO-Linked Researchers Bought Fake Social Media Engagements To Test How Facebook, Twitter And Google Combat Manipulation. The Companies Failed. | A year ahead of the US presidential election, the world’s biggest social media companies are still failing to tackle manipulation on their platforms, an exercise by NATO StratCom has found. To test the ability of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram to detect potentially malicious activity, researchers at the NATO Strategic Communication Centre of Excellence ran a four-month experiment starting in May. They purchased social media engagement on 105 different posts across the four social media platforms from manipulation service providers (MSPs), a type of company that allow clients to buy clicks and inflate their social media presence. At a cost of just 300 euros (about $333), NATO StratCom bought 3,530 comments, 25,750 likes, 20,000 views and 5,100 followers across the four platforms. Researchers were able to identify the accounts — 18,739 in total — that were being used to deliver the purchased interactions. This in turn allowed them to assess what other pages these inauthentic accounts were interacting with on behalf of other clients. The results of the experiment are startling: Four weeks after the purchase, 4 in 5 of the purchased engagements were still online, and three weeks after a sample of fake accounts was reported to the companies, 95% of the accounts were still active. The findings, which are contained in a report released today shared with a small number of media outlets including BuzzFeed News, suggest that malicious and inauthentic activity enabled by MSPs will often go unnoticed, considerably increasing the risk that attempts by ill-intentioned state and non-governmental actors that seek to interfere in democratic processes will not be effectively detected and tackled. “Social media manipulation is the new frontier for antagonists seeking to influence elections, polarise public opinion, and side-track legitimate political discussions,” the report states. The NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence is a NATO-accredited international military organisation. It is not part of the NATO Command Structure. The vast majority of interactions driven by the inauthentic accounts identified by the researchers were commercial in nature and on pages for businesses and brands. But NATO StratCom observed the same accounts engage with 721 political pages, including 52 official government profiles and the accounts of two heads of state. Experts are concerned that trends similar to those seen in Europe are present in the US election. Trevor Davis, a professor at George Washington University's Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics, told BuzzFeed News that "accounts observed during the European parliamentary elections and identified as fraudulent have now been repurposed and relocated with the purpose of the 2020 US presidential elections, and specifically the democratic primaries." Professor Davis added: “This appears to not be on behalf of a particular campaign. The goal may be simply to sow distrust and division.” Interactions, such as likes, were also noted by NATO StratCom analysts on the pages of leaders from major countries, political parties in the European Parliament, individual candidates competing at all levels in elections across Europe as well as on political pages in Russia, Ukraine and India. The researchers also identified political accounts focussed on politics in Armenia, Georgia, Israel, Taiwan and Tunisia, suggesting the use of MSPs is a global issue. It is not known who is behind the interactions on these accounts. The owners of the pages being boosted could be paying MSPs for engagement themselves, but it could also be driven by supporters, or even opponents trying to smear a politician or political group. | Alberto Nardelli | https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/albertonardelli/facebook-twitter-google-manipulation-nato-stratcom | Fri, 06 Dec 2019 10:42:22 -0500 | 1,575,646,942 | 1,575,634,087 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
1,052,047 | truepundit--2019-06-11--DOJ investigating non-governmental organizations and individuals as part of broad probe into sur | 2019-06-11T00:00:00 | truepundit | DOJ investigating ‘non-governmental organizations and individuals’ as part of ‘broad’ probe into surveillance abuses | As part of its ongoing “multifaceted” and “broad” review into potential misconduct by U.S. intelligence agencies during the 2016 presidential campaign, the Justice Department revealed Monday it is also investigating the activities of several “non-governmental organizations and individuals.” Additionally, the DOJ announced that the probe, let by Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, was looking into the involvement of “foreign intelligence services.” Former Trump aide George Papadopoulos told Fox News last month that an informant who was likely “CIA and affiliated with Turkish intel” had posed as a Cambridge University research assistant in September 2016 and tried to “seduce him” to obtain information linking the Trump team to Russia. The information was contained in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who had inquired as to the scope of Durham’s investigation. The letter could indicate that the DOJ is looking closely at work done during the campaign by Fusion GPS, the firm retained by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee (DNC) to conduct opposition research against the Trump campaign. Fusion GPS, in turn, hired British ex-spy Christopher Steele to produce an unverified and largely discredited dossier that the FBI went on to cite in secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court applications to surveil former Trump aide Carter Page. Last week, reports indicated Steele had agreed to talk with Durham if certain preconditions were met. Multiple sources familiar with the matter told Fox News, meanwhile, that Durham is “very dialed in” and “asking all the right questions.” Separately, sources within the Justice Department confirmed to Fox News that Barr has met “on multiple occasions in recent weeks” with Durham in Washington, D.C. – READ MORE | admin | https://truepundit.com/doj-investigating-non-governmental-organizations-and-individuals-as-part-of-broad-probe-into-surveillance-abuses/ | 2019-06-11 20:53:24+00:00 | 1,560,300,804 | 1,567,539,116 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
369,832 | newyorkpost--2019-01-31--Amnesty International report on Israeli tourism accused of anti-Semitism | 2019-01-31T00:00:00 | newyorkpost | Amnesty International report on Israeli tourism accused of anti-Semitism | An Israeli government minister on Tuesday slammed a new report by Amnesty International, accusing the human-rights group of helping to lead the “anti-Semitic” Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. The Amnesty International report stated that major companies in the digital travel industry, such as TripAdvisor and Expedia, have been helping the Israeli government boost tourism in “illegal settlements” by taking over land belonging to the Palestinians. The Amnesty report, titled “Destination: Occupation,” claimed the companies were, by listing rentals and attractions in illegal Jewish settlements, “contributing to human rights violations.” Israel’s Strategic Affairs and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan tweeted that Amnesty International “has become a leader in the anti-Semitic #BDS campaign. The report it will release tonight on #Israel is an outrageous attempt to distort facts, deny Jewish heritage & delegitimize Israel.” In a statement to Fox News in response to the tweet, an Amnesty spokesperson said: “Documenting human rights violations by the Israeli government does not equate to antisemitism, a deplorable form of discrimination that is contrary to everything we stand for.” The statement concluded: “Amnesty International calls out human rights violations wherever we find them in the world and governments involved often respond by accusing us of bias. We invite the Israeli government to engage with the issues raised in our report, rather than throwing out serious accusations based on the false premise that Amnesty has a disproportionate focus on Israel.” Amnesty said that only Expedia and Booking.com responded to their requests for comment but neither “addressed our findings or questions directly.” The other two companies, TripAdivsor and Airbnb, had not yet commented. In the report, Amnesty said its investigators focused on Expedia.com, TripAdvisor, Airbnb and Booking.com since those companies have dominated the travel industry. It claimed that as part of the Israeli government’s promotion of the settlements, it offers financial incentives to businesses that operate there as part of a policy meant to help “sustain and expand them.” Amnesty accused the Israeli government of having political and ideological reasons for developing the tourism sector in the West Bank. The report stated, “Settler groups supported by the Israeli government emphasize the Jewish people’s historic connections to the region. Israel has constructed many of its settlements close to archaeological sites to make the link between the modern State of Israel and its Jewish history explicit.” It claimed that has led to forced evictions and other such limitations placed on the Palestinians. Professor Gerald Steinberg, founder and President of NGO Monitor, a research institute that promotes democratic values and good governance, wrote in a statement to Fox News: “Reading even parts of the report one sees the degree to which Amnesty dismisses the Jewish and Christian connection to the Holy Land. They employ terminology that accuses Israel of exploiting these sites for economic purposes and in essence faults Israel for preserving them, while there is no recognition that the Western Wall and other areas, relegated to a footnote, are part of a two- and three-thousand-year cultural heritage.” Steinberg continued, “In the foreground of Amnesty’s campaign is a long history of anti-Semitism. Amnesty has tolerated blatant anti-Semitism within its own ranks and has treated anti-Semitism as the one form of discrimination not worth fighting against. Unsurprisingly, Amnesty is now fully embracing discriminatory BDS and singling out Israel. The timing is clearly aimed to coincide with the UN’s upcoming BDS blacklist.” Additionally, the Amnesty report said that tourists visiting Israel from abroad enter what it calls the Occupied Palestinian Territories, to visit some of the most popular destinations including the Dead Sea and the City of David. NGO Monitor argued that the report showed how Amnesty was denying Jewish connections to historical sites — and Christian holy sites too. The group noted that Amnesty listed the top three most-visited places by foreign tourists in 2017. The problem, NGO Monitor said: “Only in a footnote do we learn that these are (the) Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.” The report focused on five areas where it said the Israel government practices the policies. One of the five places was Hebron. Amnesty stated that TripAdvisor listed a guided tour run by settlers and Airbnb listed a property in a settlement. Tsofia Nahon, a political advisor who grew up in the Hebron area, told Fox News that the report was wrong and was looking to cause trouble. “As a women that was born and raised in Hebron and lived with Muslims there all my life. It is important for me to say that we will keep fighting against people that are trying to keep this conflict on fire.” Nahon, who has been running to join the Israeli parliament as a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, said the report was “based on lies and anti-Semitism and it is our job as free people that believe in human rights and democracy to stand against and stop this fake news.” | Fox News | https://nypost.com/2019/01/31/amnesty-international-report-on-israeli-tourism-accused-of-anti-semitism/ | 2019-01-31 21:30:40+00:00 | 1,548,988,240 | 1,567,550,147 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
373,599 | newyorkpost--2019-04-03--Google to require benefits minimum wage for contractors | 2019-04-03T00:00:00 | newyorkpost | Google to require benefits, minimum wage for contractors | SAN FRANCISCO — Google said Tuesday it will require staffing companies it works with to pay workers at least $15 an hour and give them health benefits. The company has faced pushback from employees and contract workers for paying contractors less than full-time employees. Google did not say how many contractors and temporary workers it has, but reports say it is many thousands of people. Staffing companies will have until January 2020 to implement the minimum wage requirement, and January 2022 for the health care requirement. Google’s new rules will require contractors, who are usually employed by third-party companies, to also get 12 weeks of paid parental leave and a $5,000 tuition reimbursement each year for classes to learn new skills. Contract workforces are common in the tech industry and often get paid less and have fewer perks than full-time employees working for tech giants. Microsoft also implemented a requirement for contractors to get paid parental leave last year. Many Google employees have banded together in the past year and demanded the company change various policies, prompting Google to examine issues from its handling of sexual misconduct claims to a military contract. | Associated Press | https://nypost.com/2019/04/03/google-to-require-benefits-minimum-wage-for-contractors/ | 2019-04-03 16:17:41+00:00 | 1,554,322,661 | 1,567,544,224 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
379,226 | newyorkpost--2019-08-08--Amnesty International issues travel warning for US after mass shootings | 2019-08-08T00:00:00 | newyorkpost | Amnesty International issues travel warning for US after mass shootings | Amnesty International issued a travel advisory for travelers planning to visit the United States after last weekend’s shootings in Ohio and Texas that killed 31 people. The advisory “calls on people worldwide to exercise caution and have an emergency contingency plan when traveling throughout the USA. This Travel Advisory is being issued in light of ongoing high levels of gun violence in the country.” The global organization on Wednesday said gun violence has become “so prevalent in the US that it amounts to a human rights crisis.” Those traveling to the US should “be extra vigilant at all times and be wary of the ubiquity of firearms among the population.” It also warns people to avoid large gathering places at “cultural events, places of worship, schools and shopping malls” and use caution when visiting “local bars, nightclubs and casinos.” The advisory urges travels that because of their “gender identity, race, country of origin, ethic background, or sexual orientation” they could be at a heightened risk of “being targeted with gun violence and should plan accordingly.” The warning concludes by saying that under international human rights law, the US is obliged to regulate access to firearms and protect the rights of people “to live and move about freely without the threat of gun violence.” “The government has not taken sufficient steps to meet this obligation,” it said. A gunman in El Paso on Saturday morning killed 22 people when he opened fire on a Walmart in before he was arrested by police. Around 13 hours later, a 24-year-old man gunned down nine people in a popular nightlife area of Dayton. He was shot dead by police. Amnesty International joined a number of countries – including Uruguay, Venezuela and Japan – issuing travel warnings to the US because of gun violence. | Mark Moore | https://nypost.com/2019/08/08/amnesty-international-issues-travel-warning-for-us-after-mass-shootings/ | 2019-08-08 14:15:25+00:00 | 1,565,288,125 | 1,567,534,601 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
382,875 | npr--2019-01-02--Judge Dismisses San Bernardino Shooting Lawsuit Against Facebook Google Twitter | 2019-01-02T00:00:00 | npr | Judge Dismisses San Bernardino Shooting Lawsuit Against Facebook, Google, Twitter | A federal judge in San Francisco has dismissed a lawsuit filed by family members and victims of the 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., that accused Facebook, Google and Twitter of knowingly supporting ISIS and helping the group spread its radical beliefs. Fourteen people died and 22 were injured when Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik opened fire at a holiday office party on Dec. 2, 2015. ISIS claimed responsibility even though it apparently had no direct contact with the attackers. On the day of the massacre, Malik took to Facebook to pledge allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In their 2017 lawsuit, the plaintiffs had argued that the tech companies "have knowingly and recklessly provided the terrorist group ISIS with accounts to use its social networks as a tool for spreading extremist propaganda, raising funds and attracting new recruits." "Without defendants Twitter, Facebook and Google (YouTube), the explosive growth of ISIS over the last few years into the most feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible," the suit stated. In a decision issued Monday, however, U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler wrote that while the three social media giants were "generally aware that ISIS used their services," there is no evidence that they "intended to further" the group's terrorist activity. What's more, Beeler wrote, given how "interconnected communication services are with modern economic and social life," it is untenable to try to directly link "the possible ripple effects of harm" with social media. A week after the shooting, then-FBI Director James Comey testified to Congress that social media had played a role in the radicalization of Farook and Malik and that they had been at least partly inspired by ISIS. Comey said the group "is motivating individuals, or very, very small groups of people to commit murder on their behalf." But as to how much the attackers were motivated by ISIS, he said, "We may never sort it out, because human motivation is hard." Beeler cited Comey's testimony in her decision to reject the lawsuit, saying the case had not been made that ISIS had actually "committed, planned, or authorized the San Bernardino attack." So far, the tech companies have not commented publicly on the judge's decision. But a lawyer for the plaintiffs, Keith Altman, says he plans to file an appeal. Altman is involved in similar lawsuits against social media companies in connection to ISIS or to ISIS-inspired attacks, including the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting and the 2015 Paris terror attacks. "Don't help terrorists," Altman told NPR on Wednesday. "Given what's going on with social media, they have to be held accountable." | Amy Held | https://www.npr.org/2019/01/02/681605918/u-s-judge-dismisses-san-bernardino-shooting-lawsuit-against-facebook-google-twit?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news | 2019-01-02 20:53:12+00:00 | 1,546,480,392 | 1,567,554,262 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
383,866 | npr--2019-02-12--Apple Google Criticized For Carrying App That Lets Saudi Men Track Their Wives | 2019-02-12T00:00:00 | npr | Apple, Google Criticized For Carrying App That Lets Saudi Men Track Their Wives | Apple, Google Criticized For Carrying App That Lets Saudi Men Track Their Wives An app that allows Saudi men to track the whereabouts of their wives and daughters is available in the Apple and Google app stores in Saudi Arabia. But the U.S. tech giants are getting blowback from human rights activists and lawmakers for carrying the app. The app, called Absher, was created by the National Information Center, which according to a Saudi government website is a project of the Saudi Ministry of Interior. The description of the app in both stores says that with Absher, "you can safely browse your profile or your family members, or [laborers] working for you, and perform a wide range of eServices online." In Saudi Arabia, women's lives are highly restricted. For example, according to Human Rights Watch, women have always needed permission from a male guardian, usually a father or husband, to leave the country. In the past, paper forms were required prior to travel. The Absher app makes the process a lot more convenient for Saudi men. And it's drawing criticism, especially from human rights advocacy groups. "It's really designed with the men in mind," says Rothna Begum, a senior researcher on women's rights at Human Rights Watch. "Of course, it's incredibly demeaning, insulting and humiliating for the women and downright abusive in many cases, because you're allowing men absolute control over women's movements." This week, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., sent a letter to both companies asking them to remove the app. "Saudi men can also reportedly use Absher to receive real-time text message alerts every time these women enter or leave the country or to prevent these women from leaving the country," he wrote. In an interview with NPR on Monday, Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked about Absher. "I haven't heard about it," he said. "But obviously we'll take a look at it if that's the case." NPR also reached out to Google, but the company has not responded. Both Apple and Google have faced previous controversies over apps in their stores. Both stores have policies banning inappropriate content such as the promotion of hate speech, graphic violence, bullying and harassment. The companies have faced some backlash over these policies, particularly around how they might impact small businesses. Human Rights Watch's Begum says she can see how the companies might not have realized initially that the app could be used for monitoring women. "It has other services that are quite generic and normal government services," she says. Apple and Google have different systems for flagging inappropriate apps. Apple prescreens apps, and Begum says Google relies on its users to alert it about violations. But, she says, each company needs to boost scrutiny of government-supported apps, especially when they are created by repressive regimes. "They should consider the human rights implications ... especially when it's offered by a government," she says. "When they're evaluating whether an app should be allowed ... providers really should consider the broader context or the purpose of the app, how it's being used in practice and whether it's facilitating abuse." Ironically, Absher has also been helpful to a few women trying to escape the repressive Saudi regime. Begum says some women have managed to secretly change the settings in the app on their male guardian's phone so that it allows them to travel. However, she says, Google and Apple need to push back against the Saudi government and either disable the app entirely or disable the features that enable men to track women in their families. "By not saying anything," she says, "they've allowed the government to facilitate the abuse." In his letter to Google and Apple, Wyden wrote: "It is hardly news that the Saudi monarchy seeks to restrict and repress Saudi women, but American companies should not enable or facilitate the Saudi government's patriarchy." | Laura Sydell | https://www.npr.org/2019/02/12/693994447/apple-google-criticized-for-carrying-app-that-lets-saudi-men-track-their-wives?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news | 2019-02-12 23:33:24+00:00 | 1,550,032,404 | 1,567,548,826 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
385,160 | npr--2019-04-22--Google Searches For Ways To Put Artificial Intelligence To Use In Health Care | 2019-04-22T00:00:00 | npr | Google Searches For Ways To Put Artificial Intelligence To Use In Health Care | Google is looking to artificial intelligence as a way to make a mark in health care. **Michael Short/Bloomberg via Getty Images** ****hide caption**** ****toggle caption**** Michael Short/Bloomberg via Getty Images Google is looking to artificial intelligence as a way to make a mark in health care. Michael Short/Bloomberg via Getty Images One of the biggest corporations on the planet is taking a serious interest in the intersection of artificial intelligence and health. Google and its sister companies, parts of the holding company [Alphabet](https://abc.xyz/), are making a huge investment in the field, with potentially big implications for everyone who interacts with Google — which is more than a billion of us. The push into AI and health is a natural evolution for a company that has developed algorithms that reach deep into our lives through the Web. "The fundamental underlying technologies of machine learning and artificial intelligence are applicable to all manner of tasks," says [Greg Corrado](https://ai.google/research/people/GregCorrado), a neuroscientist at Google. That's true, he says, "whether those are tasks in your daily life, like getting directions or sorting through email, or the kinds of tasks that doctors, nurses, clinicians and patients face every day." Corrado knows a bit about that. He helped Google develop the algorithm that Gmail uses to suggest replies. The company also knows the value of being in the health care sphere. "It's pretty hard to ignore a market that represents about 20 percent of [U.S.] GDP," says John Moore, an [industry analyst at Chilmark Research](https://www.chilmarkresearch.com/profile/?user_id=3). "So whether it's Google or it's Microsoft or it's IBM or it's Apple, everyone is taking a look at what they can do in the health care space." Google, which provides financial support to NPR, made a false start into this field a decade ago. The company backed off after a venture called Google Health failed to take root. But now, Google has rebooted its efforts. Hundreds of employees are working on these health projects, often partnering with other companies and academics. Google doesn't disclose the size of its investment, but Moore says it's likely in the billions of dollars. One of the prime movers is a sister company called [Verily](https://verily.com/), which this year got a billion-dollar boost for its already considerable efforts. Among its projects is [software that can diagnose](https://verily.com/projects/interventions/retinal-imaging/) a common cause of blindness called diabetic retinopathy and that is currently in use in India. Verily is also working on tools to monitor blood sugar in people with diabetes, as well as [surgical robots](https://verily.com/projects/interventions/verb-surgical/) that learn from each operation. "In each of these cases, you can use new technologies and new tools to solve a problem that's right in front of you," says cardiologist Jessica Mega, Verily's chief medical and scientific officer. "In the case of surgical robotics, this idea of learning from one surgery to another becomes really important, because we should be constantly getting better." Mega says the rise of artificial intelligence isn't that big a departure from devices we're used to, like pacemakers and implantable defibrillators, which jump into action in response to health signals from the body. "So patients are already seeing this intersection between technology and health care," she says. "It's just we're hitting an inflection point." That's because the same kinds of algorithms that are giving rise to self- driving cars can also operate in the health care sphere. It's all about managing huge amounts of data. Hospitals have gigabytes of information about the typical patient in the form of electronic health records, scans and sometimes digitized pathology slides. That's fodder for algorithms to ingest and crunch. And Mega says there's a potential to wring a lot more useful information out of it. "There's this idea that you are healthy until you become sick," she says, "but there's really a continuum" between health and disease. If computer algorithms can pick up early signs of a slide toward disease, that could help people avoid getting sick. But medical data aren't typically collected for research purposes, so there are gaps. To close those, Verily has partnered with Duke University and Stanford University in an effort called [Project Baseline](https://verily.com/projects/precision-medicine/baseline-study/), which seeks to recruit 10,000 volunteers to give tons more data to the company. Judith Washburn and her husband, James Davis, have volunteered to be subjects in Project Baseline, an effort to gather a range of detailed data to characterize and predict how people move from health to illness. **Courtesy of James Davis** ****hide caption**** ****toggle caption**** Courtesy of James Davis Judith Washburn and her husband, James Davis, have volunteered to be subjects in Project Baseline, an effort to gather a range of detailed data to characterize and predict how people move from health to illness. Courtesy of James Davis Judith Washburn, a 73-year-old medical librarian and resident of Palo Alto, Calif., signed up after she saw a recruiting ad. "A couple months later, I got a call to go in, and it's two days of testing, two different weeks and it's very thorough," she says. She had heart scans, blood tests, skin swabs and stress tests — a checkup on steroids, if you pardon the expression. Her husband, James Davis, decided he'd give it a go as well. "They were having trouble finding African-American participants at the time, so I was pretty much a shoo-in," he says. "I'm aware of people who donate their bodies to medical science when they die," he says, "so it's sort of a way of donating your body while it's still alive." The retired aerospace engineer also got an added benefit. The doctors diagnosed a serious heart condition, and Davis then had triple bypass surgery to treat it. The couple replies to quarterly questionnaires, a gizmo under their mattress tracks their sleep patterns and they each wear a watch that monitors their hearts. The watches also count their steps — sort of. "They haven't quite figured out your exercise yet," Washburn says. "In fact, I can knit and get steps!" All this highly personal information goes into the database of a private corporation. Both Washburn and Davis thought about that before signing up but ultimately concluded that's OK. "It depends upon what they're using it for," Washburn says. "And if it's all for research, I'm fine with that." Here's what makes Google's position unique. Some of the most useful data could be what the company collects while you're running a Google search, using Gmail or using its Chrome browser. "As companies like Google and other traditional consumer-oriented companies start moving into this space, it is certainly clear that they bring the capability of taking much of the information they have about us and be able to apply it," says [Reed Tuckson](https://www.tucksonhealthconnections.com/about/), a well-known academic physician who was recently recruited to advise Verily about Project Baseline. For example, people's browsing history can reveal a lot about what they buy, how they exercise and other facets of their lifestyles. "We now understand that that has a great deal to do with the health decisions that we make," says Tuckson, who is on a [National Academy of Medicine working group](https://nam.edu/wp- content/uploads/2019/01/Working_AI.ML_1-pgr_11.30-1.pdf) that's exploring artificial intelligence in medicine. He says Google needs to tread carefully around these privacy issues, but he's bullish on the technology. "We should remember that the status quo is not acceptable by itself and that we've got to use every tool at our disposal — use them intelligently" to improve the health of Americans, he says. "And I think that's why it's exciting." Tuckson [isn't the only influential recruit](https://verily.com/leadership/) to the effort. Verily recently brought in Dr. Robert Califf, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, as well as Vivian Lee, a radiologist who headed the University of Utah's health care system. Google hired David Feinberg, a physician who ran Geisinger, a major health care provider based in Danville, Pa. "It seems like it was a bit of a war on talent right now between Amazon and Google and to a certain extent Apple," says Moore, the analyst. Google needs to build credibility in the medical sphere. "I think Google is trying to have those people that can basically proof out what Google is doing and stand up and say, 'Yes, Google can do this,' " Moore says. He also has his eye on what the company's investment means for the rapidly developing industry around health care and artificial intelligence. "Anyone should take Google very seriously," he says. Some big players, like Apple and Microsoft, can hold their own. "For other AI companies that don't have those resources, they're going to have to be very judicious in picking the niches they want to target, niches that are ones that, frankly, Google is not terribly interested in," Moore says. Getting the technology to work is just the start. The health care business is "a very complex ecosystem," says [Dr. Lonny Reisman](https://www.healthreveal.com/lonny-reisman/), a former health insurance executive who now heads [HealthReveal](https://www.healthreveal.com/about-2/), a company that develops algorithms to help doctors choose the appropriate therapy. Google will need to answer many questions as it enters that landscape. Who will have an incentive to buy software based on artificial intelligence? Will it really save time or money, as advocates often assert? Or is it just the next new driver of health care inflation? "There are all these competing forces around cost containment," Reisman says. It's not easy to balance innovation, access, fairness and health equity, he adds, "so they've got a lot on their plate." Google's Corrado says collaborations with academics and the health care industry are key for navigating this territory. "A big part of the way that research and development should work in this space is by having kind of a long-term portfolio of technologies that you percolate through the academic and scientific community and then you percolate through the clinical community," Corrado says. For all the challenges of forging a new path into health care, Google has a potentially enormous advantage in all the data it collects from its billions of users. Corrado says the company is well aware of the sensitivity of putting that information to use and is thinking about how to approach that without provoking a backlash. "It has to be something that is driven by the patients' desire to use their own information to better their wellness," Corrado says. In a world where people are increasingly concerned about how their personal data are exploited, that could be even more of a challenge than building the computer algorithms to digest and interpret it all. _You can contact NPR science correspondent Richard Harris at_[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]). | Richard Harris | https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/04/22/712778514/google-searches-for-ways-to-put-artificial-intelligence-to-use-in-health-care?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news | 2019-04-22 18:42:00+00:00 | 1,555,972,920 | 1,567,542,181 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
385,611 | npr--2019-05-29--Amnesty International Report Says Myanmar Military Is Again Committing War Crimes | 2019-05-29T00:00:00 | npr | Amnesty International Report Says Myanmar Military Is Again Committing War Crimes | Amnesty International Report Says Myanmar Military Is Again Committing War Crimes Myanmar military units instrumental in the brutal push to drive out hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya from the mainly Buddhist nation, have unleashed a new round of war crimes and other human rights violations against ethnic groups in the state of Rakhine, according to Amnesty International. In a new report released Wednesday, the organization claims "indiscriminate" attacks against civilians began on January 4, after the Arakan Army, an ethnic Rakhine armed group, launched a series of coordinated attacks on police posts that left 13 officers dead. The Arakan Army, is one of several insurgent groups fighting Myanmar government forces and is made up of ethnic Buddhists. The government considers the group a terrorist organization. The ambush prompted the government to order military forces, including new units, to "crush" the group, spawning fresh, and perhaps more egregious, violations than those committed in 2017, Amnesty International contends. "Less than two years since the world outrage over the mass atrocities committed against the Rohingya population, the Myanmar military is again committing horrific abuses against ethnic groups in Rakhine State," Regional Director for East and Southeast Asia at Amnesty International Nicholas Bequelin, said in a statement. "The new operations in Rakhine State show an unrepentant, unreformed and unaccountable military terrorizing civilians and committing widespread violations as a deliberate tactic." Evidence gathered from interviews, photographs and satellite imagery indicate troops are instigating violent clashes, extrajudicial executions, conducting arbitrary arrests, torturing prisoners and destroying historical sites, according to the report called "No-one can protect us." While the military campaign has been directed at quash Arakan rebellion, the vulnerable Rohingya population is also a target as well as other Buddhists and Christians. According to the report, a military helicopter opened fire on Rohingya laborers cutting bamboo on April 3, killing at least six men and boys and injuring at least 13 others. "The helicopter came from behind the mountain," a survivor of the attack told Amnesty International. "Within minutes it fired rockets. I was running for my life thinking about my family and how I would survive." Meanwhile, Amnesty International says the government military isn't the only force committing atrocities. The Arakan Army is also perpetrating human rights violations, victimizing local villages and businesses. Rebel soldiers have "threatened and intimidated village administrators and local business people, warning them in letters against interfering with the group's activities. The letters were each accompanied by a bullet and bore the [Arakan Army's] official seal." Amnesty International estimates about 30,000 people have been displaced by the conflict since January. Nearly all humanitarian aid has been blocked, and as both sides continue to destroy farmland and harvests, human rights groups are warning of a "looming food insecurity crisis." The report follows the release of two Reuters reporters earlier this month after spending more than 500 days in prison. They were captured after reporting the massacre of 10 Rohingya men at Inn Din in Rakhine in 2017. The investigation earned the pair a Pulitzer Prize last month. Amnesty International said it is imperative to step up international pressure on Myanmar's government, advocating for targeted sanctions and a comprehensive arms embargo by the International Criminal Court. "With Myanmar's military committing atrocities as brazenly as ever, it's clear international pressure needs to intensify," Bequelin said. "Again and again, the international community has failed to stop the Myanmar military's crimes and protect the civilian population. The [U.N.] Security Council was established to respond to exactly these kinds of situations, it's time it took its responsibility seriously." | Vanessa Romo | https://www.npr.org/2019/05/29/727807874/amnesty-international-report-says-myanmar-military-is-again-committing-war-crime?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news | 2019-05-29 10:57:18+00:00 | 1,559,141,838 | 1,567,539,892 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
386,850 | npr--2019-09-04--Google YouTube To Pay 170 Million Penalty Over Collecting Kids Personal Info | 2019-09-04T00:00:00 | npr | Google, YouTube To Pay $170 Million Penalty Over Collecting Kids' Personal Info | Updated at 11:29 a.m. ET Google and its YouTube subsidiary will pay $170 million to settle allegations that YouTube collected personal information from children without their parents' consent, the Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday. The companies allegedly collected information of children viewing videos on YouTube by tracking users of channels that are directed at kids. YouTube allegedly failed to notify parents or get their consent, violating laws that protect children's privacy, according to a complaint filed against the companies by the FTC and the New York attorney general. YouTube earned millions of dollars by then using this information to target ads to the children, according to the complaint. "YouTube touted its popularity with children to prospective corporate clients," FTC Chairman Joe Simons said in a statement. "Yet when it came to complying with (the children privacy law), the company refused to acknowledge that portions of its platform were clearly directed to kids. There's no excuse for YouTube's violations of the law." According to the complaint, YouTube marketed itself as a top destination for kids in presentations to the makers of popular children's products and brands. For example, Google and YouTube told Mattel, maker of Barbie and Monster High toys, that "YouTube is today's leader in reaching children age 6-11 against top TV channels" and told Hasbro, which makes My Little Pony and Play-Doh, that YouTube is the "#1 website regularly visited by kids." The FTC voted 3-2 to authorize the complaint and the final order in the case. In his dissent, FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra said Google "baited children using nursery rhymes, cartoons, and other kid-directed content on curated YouTube channels to feed its massively profitable behavioral advertising business." He noted that the "terms of the settlement were not even significant enough to make Google issue a warning to its investors." Chopra said he fears "the Commission brings down the hammer on small firms, while allowing large firms to get off easier." The complaint said the companies' practices violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule, known as COPPA, under a 1998 law. Under the settlement, Google and YouTube will pay $136 million to the FTC and $34 million to the state of New York. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood was among several groups that had asked the FTC to investigate whether Google and YouTube violated the children's privacy law. CCFC Executive Director Josh Golin said in a statement that the group was pleased there will be "considerably less behavioral advertising targeted to children on the number one kids' site in the world." But he added that "it's extremely disappointing that the FTC isn't requiring more substantive changes or doing more to hold Google accountable for harming children through years of illegal data collection." Google did not immediately respond to NPR's inquiry about the settlement. In a blog post Wednesday, YouTube said, "Responsibility is our number one priority at YouTube, and nothing is more important than protecting kids and their privacy." YouTube said that, in about four months, it will begin treating data "from anyone watching children's content on YouTube as coming from a child, regardless of the age of the user" and will stop serving personalized ads on this content and end comments and notifications on it. People or companies that post content on YouTube will be required to tell YouTube if their videos represent children's content, YouTube said. "In order to identify content made for kids, creators will be required to tell us when their content falls in this category, and we'll also use machine learning to find videos that clearly target young audiences, for example those that have an emphasis on kids characters, themes, toys, or games," YouTube said. The company said the change "will have a significant business impact" on creators of family and children's content and that YouTube will help them in the transition. YouTube said it will set up a $100 million fund "dedicated to the creation of thoughtful, original children's content on YouTube and YouTube Kids globally." In a separate statement, Simons and FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson said the settlement will require Google and YouTube to create a system "through which content creators must self-designate if they are child-directed. This obligation exceeds what any third party in the marketplace currently is required to do." Editor's note: Google and YouTube are among NPR's sponsors. | Avie Schneider | https://www.npr.org/2019/09/04/757441886/google-youtube-to-pay-170-million-penalty-over-collecting-kids-personal-info?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news | 2019-09-04 13:14:26+00:00 | 1,567,617,266 | 1,569,331,486 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
404,027 | pamelagellerreport--2019-03-23--Google Manipulated Influenced Midterm Elections Cost Republicans Seats Study | 2019-03-23T00:00:00 | pamelagellerreport | Google Manipulated, Influenced Midterm Elections, Cost Republicans Seats: Study | It’s why they are crippling us in the information battle-space. The misinformed cannot make informed choices. Back when television was the only truly mass media medium, all political views were given equal time. The moronnial generation, on the other hand, seeks impose one view, one totalitarian view and destroy anyone who dissents — a throwback to the Hitler youth. It is any wonder that Google abandoned its founding mission statement, “Don’t be evil” from its Code of Conduct? New research reveals that Google built biases into its search results that influenced the 2018 midterm elections – possibly costing Republicans three congressional districts. First things first – the study was conducted by Dr. Robert Epstein – a San Diego-based Harvard Ph.D. who founded the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies. He’s also a Senior Research Psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology (AIBRT), a UCSD visiting scholar, and served as editor-in-chief of Psychology Today. He also supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 (just like Google!). Epstein and AIBRT analyzed Google searches linked to three highly competitive southern California congressional races in which Democrats won, and found that Google’s “clear democrat bias” may have flipped the seats away from Republican candidates. According to the study, at least 35,455 undecided voters within the three California districts may have been persuaded to vote Democrat due to the biased Google search results. Epstein says that in the days leading up to the 2018 midterms, he was able to preserve “more than 47,000 election-related searches on Google, Bing, and Yahoo, along with the nearly 400,000 web pages to which the search results linked.” Analysis of this data showed a clear pro-Democrat bias in election-related Google search results as compared to competing search engines. Users performing Google searches related to the three congressional races the study focused on were significantly more likely to see pro-Democrat stories and links at the top of their results. As Epstein’s previous studies have shown, this can have a huge impact on the decisions of undecided voters, who often assume that their search results are unbiased. Epstein has called this the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME). –Breitbart Google executives and Democrats have disputed Epstein’s findings, apparently unaware that we can simply google documented instances of the Silicon Valley search giant’s overt bias surrounding elections, their ability to influence them, and their other efforts to hobble conservatives. “These are new forms of manipulation people can’t see,” said Epstein, who added that technology “can have an enormous impact on voters who are undecided. … People have no awareness the influence is being exerted.” Reporting extensively on the work of Epstein is Breitbart News‘ senior tech reporter, Allum Bokhari, who notes that the latest findings “are based on modest assumptions, such as the assumption that voters conduct one election-related search per week.” In other words, the bias could be much more pronounced in reality. The Truth Must be Told Please take a moment to consider this. Now, more than ever, people are reading Geller Report for news they won't get anywhere else. But advertising revenues have all but disappeared. Google Adsense is the online advertising monopoly and they have banned us. Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have blocked and shadow-banned our accounts. But we won't put up a paywall. Because never has the free world needed independent journalism more. Everyone who reads our reporting knows the Geller Report covers the news the media won't. We cannot do our ground-breaking report without your support. We must continue to report on the global jihad and the left's war on freedom. Our readers’ contributions make that possible. Geller Report's independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our work is critical in the fight for freedom and because it is your fight, too. Please contribute to our ground-breaking work here. Make a monthly commitment to support The Geller Report – choose the option that suits you best. | Pamela Geller | https://gellerreport.com/2019/03/google-manipulated-midterms.html/ | 2019-03-23 22:05:43+00:00 | 1,553,393,143 | 1,567,545,143 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
424,525 | powerlineblog--2019-04-07--Google Swings Left Again | 2019-04-07T00:00:00 | powerlineblog | Google Swings Left Again | Google has done away with its Artificial Intelligence Ethics Board, apparently because leftists at the company objected to inclusion of Heritage Foundation President Kay Coles James on the board: [E]mployees immediately claimed that James’s position on transgender identity involved advocating violence against them. An employee leaked an internal discussion on the issue, and the comments proved terrifying. *** Some employees defended James’s addition to the board in the name of including diverse perspectives. Even this suggestion was demonized. “I think that people have been very clear that the problem with the Heritage Foundation isn’t that they ‘don’t think like I do’ but that they actively and stridently advocate for religiously based antiLGBTQ+ policies that immiserate my friends, colleagues, and comrades and has a real and damaging impact on their lives,” one employee wrote. Disagreement is violence! I met Kay James at a dinner a year or so ago, and can assure you that she is not a proponent of violence. The Heritage Foundation has hosted many events criticizing transgender identity. It has hosted former transgender Walt Heyer, who runs the website SexChangeRegret.com. It has hosted Julia Beck, a lesbian feminist who got kicked off of the Baltimore LGBT Commission for disagreeing with transgender identity. Beck has warned that embracing transgender identity in civil rights law would allow biological men in women’s bathrooms and changing rooms and in women’s sports. That seems rather obviously correct. But transgender activism has entered the holy pantheon of leftist ideologies that cannot be debated. Corporate human resources departments are among the main sources of evil in today’s world. Wacker pointed to a survey from the Lincoln Network, in which one conservative tech employee wrote, “Employees will interpret your words in the most offensive way possible, then report you to HR based on that interpretation. It’s one big offendedness sweepstakes. When people get in trouble, it’s often based not on what they said, but on how others interpreted their words, regardless of how unreasonable that interpretation is.” “I’ve seen someone get reported to HR for sharing a National Review article,” the conservative employee wrote. There is much more at the link. Bottom line is that Google and other left-wing tech companies should not be ceded control over public discourse in America. | John Hinderaker | https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/04/google-swings-left-again.php | 2019-04-07 00:47:06+00:00 | 1,554,612,426 | 1,567,543,716 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
427,085 | prepareforchange--2019-06-28--Google and Wikipedia Team Together To Suppress Alternative Health Information | 2019-06-28T00:00:00 | prepareforchange | Google and Wikipedia Team Together To Suppress Alternative Health Information | Ask anyone on the street prior to 1990 what the term “search engine” meant, and you would probably get a shrug of the shoulders and a guess, like searching for an automobile replacement engine or something. Today, people use the Internet to search for information about 6 billion times a day, easily accessing far more data than all of today’s mainstream news outlets put together. And while in the early days of the Internet one had many choices of tools to use to search for data, today the name “Google” is synonymous with “search engine,” and is even used as a verb: “Go Google it.” Over 90% of all Internet searches are controlled by Google today. If Google was simply a software program that searched through all the massive amounts of data in blazing fast speed to produce the results that YOU wanted, this would not be such a big issue. It would just mean they are able to deliver results faster and more comprehensively than other search engines, leading more people to prefer using them over other search engines. And that’s probably the way it was in the beginning. But today, Google has decided to be the Police of the Internet, and they have decided that they know better what data you should be viewing than you do. And they have apparently teamed together with another source of online data, Wikipedia, which poses as a neutral source for information, but is anything but “neutral.” Together, these two Internet giants are doing everything they can to serve big corporate interests, particularly when it comes to alternative health. Dr. Joseph Mercola, founder of Mercola.com, one of the longest running websites on the Internet publishing life-saving information on natural treatments, and exposing corruption in the medical industry, just recently lost 99% of his search engine traffic because Google and Wikipedia apparently do not believe the public has a right to use their search tools to find the kind of information he publishes. For the first part of this two-part article, see yesterday’s post, “Google buries Mercola in their latest search engine update,’ Part 1 of 2.” In Part 1, I discussed the effects Google’s June 2019 broad core algorithm update and updated quality rater guidelines is having on traffic to this site. As mentioned in Part 1, Google’s “quality raters” are now manually lowering the ranking of undesirable content and buries even expert views if they’re deemed “harmful” to the public. One of the primary sources Google’s quality raters are instructed to use when assessing the expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness of an author or website is Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia.” Excerpts from my Wikipedia page read:1 RationalWiki, the stated purpose of which is to analyze and refute “pseudoscience and the anti-science movement” presents me as:2 It comes as no surprise then that Mercola.com is listed as one of the biggest losers in Google’s June 2019 core algorithm update.3 Since its implementation, Google traffic to my site has dropped by approximately 99%, as no Mercola.com pages will now appear in search results using keywords only. To have any chance of finding my articles using Google search, you have to add “Mercola.com” to your search term (example: “Mercola.com heart disease” or “Mercola.com Type 2 diabetes”). Even skipping the “.com” will minimize relevant search results. How can Wikipedia be a primary authority of credibility when the editors are anonymous and uncredentialed? Wikipedia has bizarre policies, including to never use a primary source for information – only ‘secondary’ sources are considered applicable for sourcing information. In the 2016 Full Measure article4 “The Dark Side of Wikipedia,” investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson exposed the fact that Wikipedia is censoring information and crafting narratives to benefit certain groups: While Google’s censoring of content is a more recent phenomenon, Wikipedia has been censoring information and blocking editors since the beginning. According to Greg Kohs, one of the insiders interviewed by Attkisson, about 1,000 users are blocked from the platform on any given day.5 Attkisson writes: As reported by Attkisson, Wikipedia is often edited by people with a very specific agenda, and anyone who tries to clarify or clear up inaccuracies on the site is simply blocked. The reality is a far cry from Wikipedia’s public promise, which is to provide readers with unbiased information. Even Lawrence (Larry) Sanger, who co-founded Wikipedia in 2001, bailed ship the very next year,6 saying “trolls sort of took over” the site, that “The inmates started running the asylum,”7 and that “In some fields and some topics, there are groups who ‘squat’ on articles and insist on making them reflect their own specific biases.”8,9 Earlier this year, Sanger told 150Sec he and co-founder Jimmy Wales tried to “figure out how to rein in the bad actors.” He admits they were never able to devise a good strategy for that, and as a result, “Wikipedia is a broken system.”10,11 Full Measure reports:12 Three years later, May 25, 2019, Attkisson wrote13 about her own struggles with Wikipedia. She also discussed it in a TedX talk (above) on astroturf tools. “My own battle with Wikipedia included being unable to correct provably false facts such as incorrect job history, incorrect birth place and incorrect birth date,” she writes, adding:14 Sanger believes the solution to the Wikipedia problem is a decentralized blockchain system where edits are approved by a community. This is how Everipedia, which Sanger joined in 2017, is run. He told 150Sec:17 As early as 2010, the Alliance for Natural Health pointed out the impossibility of finding “information that isn’t heavily biased toward conventional medicine and the pharmaceutical industry” on Wikipedia,18 and matters certainly have not improved in the years since. If anything, they’ve gotten much, much worse. Still, even back then, ANH gave several examples of the blatant censorship of holistic medicine. As just one example, the president of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine was prevented from posting positive information about antiaging derived from the academy’s own research. From where I stand, it seems Sanger’s co-founding partner, Wales, is part of the problem. Wales is openly hostile against holistic medicine, and in 2014 rejected a Change.org petition to bring in more positive discussion of holistic medicine on Wikipedia. As reported by Business Insider:19 Considering Wikipedia’s history of bias and its incredibly effective blocking of opposing views, no matter how factual, it’s not surprising that Wikipedia is Google’s chosen arbiter of expertise and credibility. It also means the whole “quality rating” system Google has set up is rotten from the ground up, as its quality raters are instructed to base their quality decisions on an already biased source. As reported by Tech Crunch,21 in January 2019, Google donated $2 million to Wikimedia Endowment, Wikipedia’s parent organization, and another $1.1 million to the Wikimedia Foundation. Together, Wikipedia and Google are also working on Project Tiger, which will expand Wikipedia’s content into more languages. In a blog post, Google president Jacquelline Fuller wrote:22 In other words, biased Wikipedia editors will receive even more support, and with the backing and injections of funding from Google, Wikipedia will be in an excellent position to further the stranglehold on natural health in years to come. As mentioned in part 1, Google is the largest monopoly in the world. Yet while the European Union successfully raised antitrust charges against Google, resulting in a $2.7 billion fine — and this despite the revolving door between Google and EU policy advisers23 — the U.S. has continued to look the other way. The Federal Trade Commission investigation that took place during the Obama administration, for example, resulted in no formal action whatsoever.24 One possible reason for this, Music Technology Policy25 suggested back in 2016, could be because Google managed to install one of its former lawyers in the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division, thereby protecting the company’s interests. The revolving door swings both ways, of course. In 2007, Google paid Makan Delrahim — a lawyer and current deputy assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s antitrust division — $100,00026 to lobby for the approval of its acquisition of DoubleClick, which was under antitrust review.27,28 Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has also pointed out that Delrahim lobbied on behalf of Apple in 2006 and 2007. As reported by The New York Times29 and The Verge,30 Delrahim “is now facing pressure to recuse himself if the Justice Department pursues an investigation …” A study31 by Public Citizen published May 23, 2019, found a whopping 59% of FTC officials entered into financial relationships with technology companies after leaving the agency. All of this brings us to the issue of monopolization and the corruption that inevitably follows.32 It is very clear that there is no company operating in breach of antitrust rules as blatantly as Google. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and this adage certainly fits when describing Google. As reported by The Washington Post in 2017:33 To help sway public opinion and policy, Google has also recruited law professors to back up and promote its views. According to a 2017 Campaign for Accountability report,34 Google has paid academics in both the U.S. and Europe millions of dollars to influence public opinion and policymakers alike.35,36 This includes funding research papers “that appear to support the technology company’s business interests and defend against regulatory challenges such as antitrust and anti-piracy.” Some of these academics have not declared the source of their funding, even though payments have reached as high as $400,000.37 As noted by The Times:38 Power can be assessed by looking at lobbying expenditures and Google is leading the pack when it comes to corporate spending on lobbying — efforts primarily aimed at eliminating competitors and gaining power over others. Google also appears to take full advantage of its power over organizations that it helps fund, which is one reason to be suspicious of its donations to Wikipedia. According to a June 5, 2019, article39 in The New York Times, “[F]our of the biggest technology companies are amassing an army of lobbyists as they prepare for what could be an epic fight over their futures.” The four companies in question are Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. Combined, these four tech giants spent $55 million on lobbying in 2018 — double what they spent in 2016. The New York Times continues:40 Going forward, the DOJ will be investigating Google and Apple — conveniently, the two companies that antitrust department head Delrahim lobbied for in the past — while the Federal Trade Commission will have jurisdiction over Amazon and Facebook. Google could potentially also garner some protection or aid from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). According to an Aljazeera report41 published in 2014, emails reveal a cozy relationship between Google and the NSA, with coordination occurring at the highest levels. Two years later, in March 2016, Wired reported42 the executive chairman of Google’s parent company Alphabet and former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, had been chosen by the Pentagon to chair its new Defense Innovation Advisory Board. According to a Pentagon press release:43 In his article,44 “Google is not what it seems,” Wikileaks founder Julian Assange also details “the special relationship between Google, Hillary Clinton and the State Department.” I recommend reading through this detailed and comprehensive analysis for your own edification. The article is an extract from his book, “When Google Met Wikileaks.” He writes in part: Assange also points out what he calls a “crucial detail” in the media’s reporting on the email correspondence between Schmidt, Google co-founder Sergei Brin and NSA chief general Keith Alexander: Why does Google and its allies fear Mercola.com and feel the need to censor the information we provide? I believe the Wikipedia page created about me and held hostage by my detractors offer strong hints at the parties that would like to shut me up by shutting me down. In the end, it’s going to come down to a battle between those wanting to concentrate power against those trying to decentralize it. If we work together to boycott them, Google will crumble under its own colossal weight. Disclaimer: We at Prepare for Change (PFC) bring you information that is not offered by the mainstream news, and therefore may seem controversial. The opinions, views, statements, and/or information we present are not necessarily promoted, endorsed, espoused, or agreed to by Prepare for Change, its leadership Council, members, those who work with PFC, or those who read its content. However, they are hopefully provocative. Please use discernment! Use logical thinking, your own intuition and your own connection with Source, Spirit and Natural Laws to help you determine what is true and what is not. By sharing information and seeding dialogue, it is our goal to raise consciousness and awareness of higher truths to free us from enslavement of the matrix in this material realm. | Edward Morgan | https://prepareforchange.net/2019/06/28/google-and-wikipedia-team-together-to-suppress-alternative-health-information/ | 2019-06-28 18:19:04+00:00 | 1,561,760,344 | 1,567,537,672 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
427,095 | prepareforchange--2019-06-30--Leaked Documents From Google Pinterest Reveal Censorship of Alternative Media | 2019-06-30T00:00:00 | prepareforchange | Leaked Documents From Google, Pinterest Reveal Censorship of Alternative Media | Newly leaked documents from Google and Pinterest reveal ongoing efforts to censor independent media, Christian websites, and unpopular opinions. As more and more Americans question the practices of tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon, the topic of censorship on social media and in search results continues to be a hotly debated topic. Do these companies essentially act as publishers, and if so, should they be regulated as such? Should the government make efforts to break up the tech giants? These questions and more need answering as the public grapples with the reality that “Big Tech” is gaining more control over what we see, hear, and read while surfing the internet. Now, more fuel has been added to the fire as the controversial conservative investigative outlet Project Veritas has released leaked documents which show Pinterest blocking links of alternative media websites and search terms related to Christianity and abortion. The apparent blacklist is part of a “porn domain block list” designed to keep the social media platform free of sexually explicit content. Veritas published the internal documents and reportedly interviewed a company insider who claimed Pinterest directly and indirectly censors content related to pro-life and Christian themes, as well as alternative health sites, and several independent news websites known for challenging the U.S. government narrative on a range of topics, including the War on Terror. These sites include ZeroHedge, The Anti-Media, NewsWars (operated by Alex Jones’ Infowars), The PedoGate, Tracking Vaccinations, and Organic Healthy Tips. Other documents leaked to Project Veritas include a large text file titled “Sensitive Terms List” containing search terms that Pinterest considers “sensitive.” A user searching one of these “sensitive” terms will received modified search results per Pinterest internal policy. The documents note that search terms are assigned an “abusive,” “sensitive,” and “brand unsafe” value. Pinterest employees have the option to either block auto-complete results in the search bar, show the user a warning, or remove the term from recommended or trending feeds. The so-called “Sensitive Terms List” reveals that Christianity-related terms like “christian easter” and “bible verses” were marked as “brand unsafe.” This is not the first time Pinterest made the news for censoring certain material. In February, the platform also blocked searches related to “anti-vaccination” material. However, the company is not alone in their efforts to remove unpopular opinions and alternative media from their platforms. One day after Project Veritas‘ report, the Daily Callerreported that a whistleblower within Google leaked screenshots of two apparent blacklists of websites which are being scrubbed from the search engine’s results. The Daily Callerreviewed documents and found that employees are instructed to add the line “# REMOVE url” to ensure that a “fringe” website is removed from Google’s “featured snippets” search results. The “featured snippets” feature is responsible for finishing users sentences when they type questions into Google’s search box. The document suggests that the removal of certain websites from featured snippets is being conducted manually by a human employee rather than the result of a mistake by an algorithm or artificial intelligence. The Caller also reports that a second blacklist, called “all_fringe_domains,” is designed to block websites labeled “fringe.” Some of the websites being blocked include “the American Spectator, Breitbart, Breaking911, the website of pastor Brian Jones, the website of Bring Your Bible to School Day, Consortium News (published by Robert Parry), St. Philip the Deacon Lutheran Church, speakerryan.com, The Franklin Society (a cryptocurrency blog), Free Thought Project, The Gateway Pundit, and The Gorka Briefing”. The leaked documents reported on by the Daily Caller and Project Veritas raise a number of questions regarding how much control and influence the Big Tech giants have over public discourse. Even more worrisome is the fact that websites like the Free Thought Project, the Anti-Media, and ZeroHedge have been facing waves of censorship for over a year, with both the Anti-Media and the Free Thought Project being purged from Facebook in October 2018. Disclaimer: We at Prepare for Change (PFC) bring you information that is not offered by the mainstream news, and therefore may seem controversial. The opinions, views, statements, and/or information we present are not necessarily promoted, endorsed, espoused, or agreed to by Prepare for Change, its leadership Council, members, those who work with PFC, or those who read its content. However, they are hopefully provocative. Please use discernment! Use logical thinking, your own intuition and your own connection with Source, Spirit and Natural Laws to help you determine what is true and what is not. By sharing information and seeding dialogue, it is our goal to raise consciousness and awareness of higher truths to free us from enslavement of the matrix in this material realm. | Edward Morgan | https://prepareforchange.net/2019/06/30/leaked-documents-from-google-pinterest-reveal-censorship-of-alternative-media/ | 2019-06-30 23:02:57+00:00 | 1,561,950,177 | 1,567,537,458 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
427,839 | prepareforchange--2019-12-23--Google, Facebook, Neuralink Sued for Weaponized AI Tech Transfer, Complicity to Genocide in China an | 2019-12-23T00:00:00 | prepareforchange | Google, Facebook, Neuralink Sued for Weaponized AI Tech Transfer, Complicity to Genocide in China and Endangering Humanity with Misuse of AI | This is the most significant and important lawsuit of the 21st century, and it impacts the entire world. CEO’s and Founders Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Sandar Pichai are also named as defendants along with their companies. Endangering Humanity with the misuse of Artificial Intelligence, Complicity and Aiding in Physical Genocide inside of China by transferring AI Technology, Engaging in Cultural Genocide of Humanity, & Controlling and programming the Human Race by Social Engineering via AI coding and AI algorithmic biometric manipulation This is phase 1 of first lawsuit. We are open for support at a global level. We have a network of thousands around the world and tens of thousands in China, who are witnesses and have been harmed in China from the defendants technology and data transfer.The following are Federal Case Compliant Summary Facts Extracted from the official document filed in San Diego, California. To find out details of financial, personal and corrective behavioral demands, you may access the case in the federal court data base. 1. Endangering and Threatening all of the world’s citizens, and humanity by misusing and weaponizing Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, Robotics, 5G, Machines, Smart Phones, Smart Homes, Smart Cities, IoT’s, Holograms, Mixed Reality, Nano-Technology, Cloning, Gen-Editing, Cybernetics, Bio-Engineering, and the creation of a digital AI Brain linked to Google’s Search engine with the use and extraction of humanities bio-Metrics data, digital bio-metric codes including facial, voice, health, organ, neural network and body recognition technology. Thus, controlling humanities thoughts, actions, biology, bio-metrics, brain neural pathways, the human bodies neural networks that reprograms all human beings through social engineering and bio-digital social programming, without their consent, knowledge, understanding, or free will. Extracting humanities digital footprints in breach of the Nuremberg Laws, FTC Act (15 U.S.C. §§ 41–58 and Engaging in irresponsible and unsafe Research and development of Artificial General Intelligence or Artificial Super Intelligence that could enslave or kill off humanity or give the power to the defendants to enslave humanity in numerous ways on the 5G and other developing networks. 2. Negligence and Complicity in Persecution and Genocide of millions in China, per Article’s 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the Genocide Convention, and 18 U.S.C.A. § 1091§ 1091. Genocide, not limited to Democracy Activits, Falun Dafa Practitioners, Christians, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Journalists, Judges, Lawyers, and Academics inside of China. 3. Transferring and Providing to China, China’s Government and its Companies, knowledge, data, capabilities and technology to weaponize Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, Machines, Robotics, 5G, Bio-Metrics, Cybernetics, Bio-Engineering, IoT’s, Computer Vision, and Human Tracking Technology, and technology that can give China access to Artificial General Intelligence or Artificial Super Intelligence, that endangers the world, and all of humanity, including AI weaponry for assassination. In violation of Breach of Arms Control and Disarmament Act [22 U.S.C. 2551 and Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended [22 U.S.C. 2151, 22 U.S. Code § 2752.Coordination with foreign policy, 22 U.S. Code § 2753. Eligibility for defense services or defense articles, 22 U.S. Code § 2754. Purposes for which military sales or leases by the United States are authorized; report to Congress, Arms Control and Disarmament Act of 1961, 22 U.S.C. § 2551, Atomic Energy Act of 1954, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2011-2021, 2022-2286i, 2296a-2297h-13, 4. Providing to China and Chinese Companies, AI, Health Data and Bio-Metric Technology used for surveillance, tracking, hunting, quarantine, capture, arrest, torture, concentration camps, organ harvesting, and organ trafficking that contributed to the death of Chinese Citizens, including Falun Dafa Practitioners, Uyghurs, Democracy activists, Christians, Tibetans, judicial representatives, professors, journalists, and minority groups, not limited to any gender, race, political affiliation, faith, or persons residing in China. Same violation of fact numbers 2 and 3. 5. Providing to China’s government, their corporations and nefarious entities, Facial Recognition, Voice Recognition, Body Detection, Skeleton Detection, Vital Organ Recognition, Emotion detection, Skin and Health Biometric and other AI technology that led to persecution, torture, organ harvesting, death and cremation of human beings in China, not limited to Uighur, Falun Dafa, Christian, Tibetan, Democracy activists, judges, attorneys, common citizens and other minority groups. Endangering the world by Weaponizing China’s AI Capabilities that is be laid on the (BRI) One Belt One Road linking Asia, Middle East, Africa and Europe, endangering all of humanity. Same violations of facts number 1, 2 and 3. 6. Misrepresenting to the world and deceiving the U.S on Google’s activities in China and their technology transfers that contributed to China’s Quantum AI advancements, surveillance, abuse, torture, concentration camps and murder of its own citizens. Same violations of facts number 1, 2 and 3. 7. Providing health, bio-metric, financial and social network data of Americans, and the world citizenry that is in the hands of the Chinese government, endangering the world and all its peoples on the 5G network. 8. Creating an interconnected platform between Facebook, Google, Alphabet, all entities under Neuralink, and DeepMind that allows for a digital brain to connect to the internet, all digital and bio-digital networks, human bodies, machines, robotics, IoT’s, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality, Holograms and other technologies, that can be used for surveillance, to track, manipulate, control, social engineer, re-engineer, reprogram, brain wash, hunt, quarantine, threaten, arrest, commit cultural genocide, and kill human beings by machines, Bio-Digital AI, Digital AI, and robotics connected to the 5G, 6G and other networks and corporate command centers 9. Creating platforms that is on the verge of developing Artificial General Intelligence and the Subsequent Super Intelligence that will be beyond the control of the human beings working at Neuralink, Alphabet, DeepMind, Google, Facebook or governments. 10. In violation of Article 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the Genocide Convention for weaponizing China’s Artificial Intelligence, Facial, Voice and Other Bio-Metric technology that were used on Chinese citizens. Not to exclude genetic experimentation of human beings in Chinese concentration camps, including hybrid human experiments within the concentration camps. 11. Introducing, planning, promoting and engaging in physical and cultural genocide to humanity by replacing their neural network operating systems with Artificial Intelligence and Machines, merging humans with machines with the interconnection of the internet, internal tech experimentation’s of defendants and consumer products promoted, provided and transferred by the defendants to the public directly and indirectly. 12. Reprogramming and social engineering humanities thoughts and brain chemistry via AI algorithms in the internet, social media, apps, smart phones, IoT’s, computers, wearable devices, implanted technology, virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, holograms, and alternate reality. Not informing and explaining to humanity that their brain chemistry is altered by a replicating software as they engage with the defendants products and services, nor that their thoughts and actions can be manipulated and controlled by smart phones, apps and IoT in connection with the network platforms, technologies and initiatives Google, Alphabet, Facebook, Neuralink, DeepMind, and Tesla are providing and introducing to the public, in turn giving these tech giants complete control and influence over Americans, and humanity. 13. Weaponizing AI by Utilizing humanities bio-metric and social media data and misusing the technology by Controlling the Human Race and its thoughts through Social Engineering and bio-digital social programming by using people’s bio-metric systems through Google and Facebooks eco systems, coding, algorithm unfairness, with the use of social media data, their emotions, weaponization of the internet, smart phones, IoT’s and computers, thus controlling human thoughts, and humanity at a global scale against their free-will and knowledge. Not informing the public that their dependency on smart phones, is due to frequencies and Artificial Intelligence software emitting from the AI systems and devices that is connecting to the neural networks of humans, creating a symbiotic process, making them a cyborg, dependent, reliant, controlled and programmed by the products and services provided by Google, Facebook, Alphabet, Deep Mind, Tesla, and Neuralink. In essence, putting the entire human race in a state of pet and owner relationship, via their bio-metrics, biology, and digital selves neural network operating systems. The Owner being the Artificial Narrow Intelligence, other AI forms, provided by the defendant’s companies, organizations and personal initiatives within their companies and Machine Software’s operating inside the bio-metric systems of human beings. 14. Negligence in Algorithm Fairness that allows hate speech, misinformation and slander to cast doubt on google search engines against people’s efforts to notify and inform the world’s people that millions have been subject to Organ Trafficking, Organ Harvesting, Concentration Camps, Torture, and Abuse and that the risks of Artificial Intelligence is multi-faceted and enormous. 15. Writing Code and Creating Algorithms that has been and is currently engaging in cultural genocide including introduction of cybernetics, robotics, and creating an ecosystem that allows for Beastiality to exist and be forefront on Google’s search engines, affecting societies, and youth’s bio-metrics system after viewing the videos and articles via their smart phones and computers, influencing their thoughts through their bio-metric systems, paving the next generation to degenerate and accept this type of behavior with the introduction and experimentation of bio-engineering and cybernetics. 16. Research and Development conducted by Alphabet, Facebook, Google, DeepMind, Nueralink and other ventures in Silicon Valley have created algorithms and coding that supports, promotes and achieves brain washing of humanity through social engineering and bio-digital social programming, that endangers the human race in its entirety via the interconnection of their platforms, social media, and technology distributed in physical and digital format to society. 17. Writing Code and Having Algorithms that influenced liberals and conservatives to exponentially increase their hate for each other via their bio-metric systems and emotions while attached to smart phones, IoT’s, apps, digital media, Google, Facebook and other interconnected platforms. Causing harm to the nation and the world, and endangering humanity at the geo-political level with nation state leaders undergoing social engineering and bio-digital social programming and control by their platforms to ignore human rights atrocities in China and around the world stemming from the defendant’s algorithm misuse and AI technologies. Implicating world leaders and their citizens to be charged under article 2, 3 and 4 of the genocide conventions. This includes Canadian Prime Minister, the Majority of European Leaders, and the leadership at the United Nation, the media, press, their reporters, and others who have and are still censoring awareness for human rights violations in China or working against it. Writing code and algorithms that controls reporters, media and the press’s thoughts and actions beyond the normal manipulation they receive from special interest groups, producers, or friends who may manipulate them, other reporters and their covered content, thus Weaponizing the media for Google’s development against the media’s free will and knowledge. 18. Negligence on Google and Facebooks Algorithm unfairness caused liberals and conservatives to conflict and fight each other beyond the reasonable norm, affecting their thoughts and emotions via their bio-metric systems being controlled and enhanced by Artificial Narrow Intelligence systems inside the smart phones and the apps partially formed by bias and hateful content that created division and undue hate among Americans and the people of the world. 19. Division caused by misuse and negligence of Algorithms in Facebook and Google, hindered and delayed the U.S administrations efforts to pressure China in time to save more people from concentration camps, death and cremation, in addition to national security concerns that impacts Americans and the world citizenry. This is not limited to the Trump Administration, rather it affected the Obama, and Bush administrations as well. Google hurt America and China for 2 decades at a geo-political level. Google is guilty of Article 2, 3 and 4 of the genocide convention, in addition to complicity. 20. Masking posts and articles by The AI Organization, meant to bring awareness to human rights atrocities in China, on Facebooks Platform. Masking Content created by Cyrus A. Parsa meant to save people form dangers pertaining to human rights violations interlinked with Artificial Intelligence. Banning the book “AI, Trump, China & The Weaponization of Robotics with 5G” for advertisement and masking posts of people working on behalf of The AI Organization. Masking posts of “Artificial Intelligence Dangers to Humanity” book, on Facebooks platforms, and masking other posts from The AI Organization written by Cyrus A. Parsa. These posts related to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Iran, big tech, Google, 5G, Robotics, Drones, and Bio-Metrics threats to and Enslavement of Humanity. Releasing the Masks recently after coming under pressure and scrutiny. Hiring Chinese who committed espionage and attacked American companies, including The AI Organization and Cyrus A. Parsa, as well as his associates and victims of persecution. 21. Writing Code and Sustaining Algorithms that propagate an extreme amount of pornography, violent pornography, and insinuation of rape and prostitution, that denigrates females, young girls, altering humanities thoughts and family based concepts of traditional health based ethics via their bio-metric systems, hence, contributing to rape, sex and human trafficking and broken families. 22. Developing Code, Algorithms and Ecosystems that re-programed a generation of people’s bio-metric structure, and brain chemistry to be bio-digitally controlled by Google and every other tech industry with similar platforms that operate on varying types of Artificial Intelligence, including Artificial Narrow Intelligence. 23. Developing Code, Algorithm’s and Ecosystems that created a secondary digital brain inside the brains of AI Scientists to be subservient, controlled and programmed to create, sustain, promote, and grow Google, Alphabets, Facebooks, and other tech giants’ platforms. Elon Musk has also confirmed The AI Organization’s findings, that humans can have a secondary digital brain formed via their neural networks. 24. Developing Code, Algorithms and Ecosystems that creates a secondary digital brain inside the brains of all human beings that can prevent the person from recognizing that they are being controlled, and bypassing any biological resistance to AI Control or human bodies innate capability to resist the formation of a symbiotic and parasitical relationships with AI software and cybernetic hardware via their rational thinking structure in their brain. 25. Not informing consumers that part of the defendants goals for AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and ASP (Artificial Super Intelligence) has religious goals that can be dangerous to all of humanity, including attempts to retrieve or ask AGI about the inner working of the “simulation”, what, when, how and by whom the simulation was formed, and what is outside it. Neuralink, Google, Alphabet, Facebook, Tesla, and DeepMind have not registered as a religious institution, yet they are engaging in religion under the umbrella of science. In fact, they have turned their companies, into religious institutions with final aim goals identical to most religions. The defendant and their companies are attempting to treat their Technological developments as God, taking all of humanities bio-metrics, data, and connecting it to their quantum, robotic and machine-based AI technology, and upload their digital selves into other bodies, networks or machines, mimicking the beliefs of a spirit or soul. In Fact, Elon Musk stated in an interview, that he wants to develop AI to a point, that it could “give him the answers to the simulation”. Elon Musk is agreeable to the risks that an AGI or Artificial Super Intelligence can go rogue, kill off humanity, or be hacked, yet as smart as he is, he doesn’t understand that the computing technology the AGI and ASI would have, would not go beyond the level of Atoms to observe more microscopic particles at its plane, hence, any answers to his sought questions to simulation is limited, and the endeavor of an AGI or ASI is putting humankind at risk. There is an alternative way to achieve his answers, that is 100%. safe and does not involve giving the power to a machine or Artificial Intelligence. 26. Defendants have created AI systems that can take in humanities facial, voice and other bio-metric information and decode whether they are resistant to AI, subject to its control, atheist or have a faith. This technology can enable AI, or any entity using AI to track, profile, hunt and kill targets it deems resistant to its control or resistant to AI. This can be done with drones, machines, robotics, or poison delivery systems such as Micro-Botic terrorism. All Charges from 1-26 have led to physical genocide in China spearheaded by the Chinese Communist Government, and all charges from 1-16 are in breach and violations of penal codes stated in facts 1, 2 and 3. All Charges have and are leading to Cultural Genocide in America and around the World, endangering all of humanity to enter a stage of cultural and physical genocide with the interconnection of Artificial Intelligence, 5G, Robotics, Machines, Drones, Smart Cities, as it pertain to negligence and misuse by the main platforms and companies of Google, Facebook, Alphabet, DeepMind, Neuralink, John Does, and their leadership. This does not exclude other players such as Amazon and Microsoft from guilt, and the very many Chinese companies who were trained by these Western companies. Disclaimer: We at Prepare for Change (PFC) bring you information that is not offered by the mainstream news, and therefore may seem controversial. The opinions, views, statements, and/or information we present are not necessarily promoted, endorsed, espoused, or agreed to by Prepare for Change, its leadership Council, members, those who work with PFC, or those who read its content. However, they are hopefully provocative. Please use discernment! Use logical thinking, your own intuition and your own connection with Source, Spirit and Natural Laws to help you determine what is true and what is not. By sharing information and seeding dialogue, it is our goal to raise consciousness and awareness of higher truths to free us from enslavement of the matrix in this material realm. | Edward Morgan | https://prepareforchange.net/2019/12/22/google-facebook-neuralink-sued-for-weaponized-ai-tech-transfer-complicity-to-genocide-in-china-and-endangering-humanity-with-misuse-of-ai/ | Mon, 23 Dec 2019 02:10:49 +0000 | 1,577,085,049 | 1,577,102,597 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
468,187 | rferl--2019-02-19--Amnesty International Five Years After Euromaidan Justice For The Victims Still Not Even In Sight | 2019-02-19T00:00:00 | rferl | Amnesty International: Five Years After Euromaidan, Justice For The Victims 'Still Not Even In Sight' | Amnesty International says the Ukrainian criminal justice system has "resisted and obstructed justice" when dealing with the human rights violations committed by police during the Euromaidan protests five years ago. Colm O Cuanachain, senior director at the office of the London-based group's secretary-general, made the comment on February 19, which marked the fifth anniversary of the protest movement's worst day of violence. "Five years is a long time to wait when it comes to justice, and for most victims who suffered at the hands of Ukrainian police, justice is still not even in sight," he said during a trip to Kyiv. In February 2014, Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych was pushed from power following months of massive protests known as the Euromaidan and fled to Russia. More than 100 people were killed and 2,500 injured in clashes with security forces, some of them shot dead by snipers. The death toll included at least 13 police officers, according to Ukrainian authorities. As of the end of 2018, the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office had identified 441 suspects, most of them former law enforcement officers, according to Amnesty. The rights watchdog said that the cases of 288 individuals had been sent to court, 52 of them resulting in court decisions. Out of 48 convictions, "only nine custodial sentences were handed down," it added, and not one of those jailed was a former police officer. "Promises were made, strong words were said by the post-Yanukovych authorities, but time and facts speak volumes," Cuanachain said. "Until all those responsible, including those in command, are brought to account there can be no sense of justice.” Following Yanukovych's downfall, Russia seized and annexed Ukraine's Crimea region in March 2014. Moscow is also supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine in a conflict that has killed more than 10,300 people since April 2014. | null | https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-maidan-justice-victims-amnesty-fifth-anniversary/29779358.html | 2019-02-19 18:25:42+00:00 | 1,550,618,742 | 1,567,548,058 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
468,711 | rferl--2019-04-01--Amnesty International Calls For Justice For Chechnyas Gay Purge Victims | 2019-04-01T00:00:00 | rferl | Amnesty International Calls For Justice For Chechnya's ‘Gay Purge’ Victims | Two years after a “horrifying” antigay crackdown in Chechnya was revealed, Russian authorities have failed to provide justice for the victims, according to Amnesty International. The authorities have “shown themselves to be complicit in heinous crimes committed in Chechnya against people believed to be gay or lesbian,” Marie Struthers, the London-based human rights group director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said in a statement on April 1. A campaign of abuses -- including abduction, torture, and murder -- against gay men in Chechnya was first reported in April 2017 by the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, triggering a global outcry. Human Rights Watch later said it had confirmed that police in Chechnya rounded up, tortured, and humiliated dozens of gay or bisexual men during the spring of 2017 in "an apparent effort to purge them from Chechen society." However, no one has yet been held accountable for this crackdown because of “state-sponsored homophobia and impunity for human rights violations” in the North Caucasus region, Struthers said. The failure of the Russian state to provide justice for the victims unleashed another wave of “homophobic crimes” in Chechnya last year, Amnesty International said, noting that at least two people were believed to have been tortured to death in this crackdown by January 2019. Amnesty International said Russian authorities had also failed to provide effective protection to LGBT rights defender Igor Kochetkov, the leading figure in the public investigation of the crackdown in Chechnya. In January, a video containing insults and a death threat directed at Kochetkov was widely distributed across social networks. Kochetkov presented a formal complaint against the author of the video, but an official investigation has not been opened by the police to date, according to Amnesty International. However, a court in St. Petersburg last week ruled the police inaction in the case to be unlawful. Struthers urged the authorities to quickly implement the ruling and conduct a “thorough and effective investigation” into the death threats against Kochetkov and crimes in Chechnya exposed by his LGBT Network. Russia has faced international pressure including from the United States and the European Union over the treatment of LGBT people in Chechnya, which Kremlin-backed regional strongman Ramzan Kadyrov has ruled with an iron hand for over a decade. | null | https://www.rferl.org/a/amnesty-international-calls-for-justice-for-chechnya-s-gay-purge-victims/29855163.html | 2019-04-01 18:07:54+00:00 | 1,554,156,474 | 1,567,544,507 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
470,366 | rferl--2019-08-22--Apple Google Mozilla Move To Protect Internet Users In Kazakhstan | 2019-08-22T00:00:00 | rferl | Apple, Google, Mozilla Move To Protect Internet Users In Kazakhstan | Apple, Google, and Mozilla have taken steps to block the rollout of a controversial encryption software to Kazakh Internet users issued by the government, which critics say web users are obliged to install as part of a government move to monitor their online activities. In their statements issued on August 21, the Internet giants said they introduced "technical solutions" to block the government-issued “security certificate” called Qaznet. Google and Mozilla said in their statements that their Chrome and Firefox search engines will block Qaznet, which allows Kazakh authorities to read anything a user types or posts using the browsers, including account information and passwords. Apple also said in a statement it would take similar measures to protect the users of its Safari browser. Since July, Internet users across Kazakhstan have been receiving messages from telecom operators asking them to install Qaznet on their smartphones, computers, and other devices connected to the Internet. Users who refused to install it reported difficulties with access, in particular to social networks and instant messengers. While security officials claimed the certificates were aimed at protecting mobile-phone users from cyberthreats such as hackers and online fraud, many legal analysts and technical experts worried the government could use them to monitor private communications by going around encryption walls commonly found in software applications. Amid criticism, the Kazakh government halted the system on August 7,saying it was a test ordered by President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev for security reasons. The authorities added though that the system could be deployed again if "outer intrusions into Kazakhstan’s information space" increase. | null | https://www.rferl.org/a/apple-google-mozilla-internet-kazakhstan/30123178.html | 2019-08-22 10:07:56+00:00 | 1,566,482,876 | 1,567,533,751 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
470,841 | rferl--2019-09-26--Amnesty International Accuses Iran Of Blatant Intimidation Of Activist With Arrests | 2019-09-26T00:00:00 | rferl | Amnesty International Accuses Iran Of 'Blatant' Intimidation Of Activist With Arrests | Amnesty International has accused Iranian authorities of a "blatant" attempt to intimidate a women's rights activist by arresting some of her relatives. Amnesty said in a statement dated September 25 that three members of Masih Alinejad’s family were arrested at their homes in Tehran and in the northern city of Babol. "These arrests are a blatant attempt by the Iranian authorities to punish Masih Alinejad for her peaceful work defending women’s rights," said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa. "Arresting the relatives of an activist in an attempt to intimidate her into silence is a despicable and cowardly move," he added. Masih Alinejad, an exiled journalist, founded a popular online campaign in 2014 called My Stealthy Freedom, which pushes back against women being forced to wear the compulsory hijab in public in Iran. She has also encouraged women to post pictures of themselves without the compulsory hijab online as an act of protest in a campaign titled "White Wednesdays." Amnesty said the three arrested are Alinejad’s brother, Alireza Alinejad, and Hadi and Leila Lotfi, brother and sister of her former husband, Max Lotfi. "The fact that they have resorted to going after the family members of an activist is an indication of just how threatened the authorities feel by the growing support for the women’s rights movement in Iran and how desperate they are to put a stop to it," Luther said. "Instead of harassing and detaining the family members of Masih Alinejad, Iran’s authorities should release them immediately and end their campaign of repression against women," he added. Iran's treatment of women has come under scrutiny once again after the tragic death of a young Iranian woman who was arrested while trying to sneak into a stadium to watch a men's soccer match. Twenty-nine-year old Sahar Khodayari died several days after setting herself alight on September 2 outside a courthouse where she had been summoned after being arrested for trying to enter Tehran's Azadi Stadium in March dressed as a man. "Two weeks ago, the death of Sahar Khodayari, who set herself on fire after facing charges for trying to enter a football stadium, shocked the world and drew attention to Iran's appalling treatment of women," Luther said. "[These] arrests are another illustration of the Iranian authorities' chilling determination to crush women’s rights activism." | null | https://www.rferl.org/a/amnesty-international-accuses-iran-of-blatant-intimidation-of-activist-with-arrests/30185578.html | 2019-09-26 15:45:23+00:00 | 1,569,527,123 | 1,570,222,180 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
471,570 | rferl--2019-11-21--Amnesty: 'Surveillance Giants' Google, Facebook Threaten Human Rights | 2019-11-21T00:00:00 | rferl | Amnesty: 'Surveillance Giants' Google, Facebook Threaten Human Rights | Amnesty International says Facebook and Google need to change their business model, arguing that it is "predicated on human rights abuse." In a report published on November 21, the London-based human rights watchdog said that what it calls the "surveillance-based" business model pursued by the two U.S.-based Internet giants was "inherently incompatible with the right to privacy." Facebook and Google, which the report calls "Surveillance Giants," threaten other human rights, including "freedom of expression and opinion, freedom of thought, and the right to equality and non-discrimination," it said. Amnesty International urged governments and legislators to guarantee people's right not to be tracked by advertisers or other third parties. The companies' business models force people to make a "Faustian bargain" to allow access to their personal data in order to access platforms that dominate the global public square -- outside of China, the report says. It notes that more than 90 percent of all Internet searches conducted through Google's platforms, while the 2.45 billion active users on Facebook's main platform each month account for around 70 percent of social-media users. In its response published with the report, Facebook denies its business practices violate human rights principles, disputes that its business model is "surveillance-based," and points out that users sign up voluntarily for the service. | null | https://www.rferl.org/a/amnesty-surveillance-giants-google-facebook-threaten-human-rights/30284489.html | Thu, 21 Nov 2019 10:49:22 +0000 | 1,574,351,362 | 1,574,339,807 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
1,079,330 | usnews--2019-11-21--Amnesty International Calls Facebook, Google Rights Abusers | 2019-11-21T00:00:00 | usnews | Amnesty International Calls Facebook, Google Rights Abusers | Amnesty International has issued a scathing indictment of Google and Facebook. It says the two most dominant internet corporations should be compelled to abandon what it calls their surveillance-based business model, saying it is “predicated on human rights abuse.” The global rights group says in the 60-page report published Thursday that the companies’ business model is “inherently incompatible with the right to privacy and poses a threat to a range of other rights” including freedom of expression and non -discrimination. The report says the business model forces people to make a “Faustian bargain” because Google and Facebook have grown to dominate the global public square. In a written response, Facebook disputes the report’s conclusion that it surveils its users and violates their privacy. Google also disputed the findings. Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | Associated Press | https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2019-11-20/amnesty-international-calls-facebook-google-rights-abusers | Thu, 21 Nov 2019 00:15:33 GMT | 1,574,313,333 | 1,574,297,553 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
1,036,508 | theverge--2019-11-20--Facebook and Google surveillance is an ‘assault on privacy,’ says Amnesty International | 2019-11-20T00:00:00 | theverge | Facebook and Google surveillance is an ‘assault on privacy,’ says Amnesty International | Facebook and Google’s persistent surveillance of billions of people around the world threatens human rights and free expression, says Amnesty International. In a new report, the NGO argues the companies need to change their business model and stop being reliant on people’s data. The internet is a necessary part of daily life for people all over the world. The “Big Five” tech companies — Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Facebook — dominate almost all online services. Facebook and Google are particularly powerful when it comes to speech and free expression — two fundamental rights that Amnesty International says are under assault. “Billions of people have no meaningful choice but to access this public space on terms dictated by Facebook and Google” The report points out that Google now controls 90 percent of search engine usage around the world, while one third of the globe uses a Facebook-owned service every day. “Billions of people have no meaningful choice but to access this public space on terms dictated by Facebook and Google,” said Kumi Naidoo, Secretary General of Amnesty International. The report comes amid growing regulatory scrutiny of major tech companies. Facebook is currently being investigated for allegedly violating users’ privacy, and the social network’s data has been used to manipulate elections. Google is facing inquiries about its data collection policies. And both companies are being probed over how their allegedly uncompetitive business practices may have impacted consumers. “This isn’t the internet people signed up for,” said Naidoo. The companies have made people reliant on their services and now monitor every message and search query. “We are now trapped. Either we must submit to this pervasive surveillance machinery – where our data is easily weaponized to manipulate and influence us – or forego the benefits of the digital world.” In a statement emailed to The Verge, a Google spokesperson said the company is working to give people more control over their data. “We recognize that people trust us with their information and that we have a responsibility to protect it,” they said. “Over the past 18 months we have made significant changes and built tools to give people more control over their information.” According to Amnesty, part of the problem is that tech companies have gotten too big. “The dominance of the companies’ platforms means it is now effectively impossible to engage with the internet without ‘consenting’ to their surveillance-based business model,” the report says. The decisions these companies make — to regulate speech, collect people’s health information, or allow politicians to lie in ads— are felt all over the world. In an effort to combat the idea that Facebook should be broken up, Mark Zuckerberg has been promoting the idea that Facebook is moving towards more privacy and data security, while its Chinese rivals are not. “Our services like WhatsApp are used by protestors and activists everywhere due to strong encryption and privacy protections,” he said during a speech at Georgetown University last month. “On TikTok, the Chinese app, mentions of these same protests are censored, even here in the US. Is that the internet that we want? But a better solution, according to Amnesty International, is to change the business model. As long as tech companies rely on ads to make money, user data will be their favorite currency. The report didn’t offer an alternative monetization strategy that would work better — but it could include subscriptions, as the Center for Humane Technology’s Tristan Harris has suggested in the past. A Facebook spokesperson said the company disagreed with this assessment. “Our business model is how groups like Amnesty International – who currently run ads on Facebook – reach supporters, raise money, and advance their mission,” they added. The second part of the solution is more regulation. The report called on governments to pass new data privacy laws and enforce the ones that currently exist. “Now it is time to reclaim this vital public space for everyone rather than a few powerful unaccountable companies in Silicon Valley” said Naidoo. | Zoe Schiffer | https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/20/20974832/facebook-google-surveillance-data-assault-privacy-amnesty-international | 2019-11-20T19:13:50-05:00 | 1,574,295,230 | 1,574,297,163 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
1,029,443 | thetorontostar--2019-10-10--Amnesty International urges Malaysia to end death penalty | 2019-10-10T00:00:00 | thetorontostar | Amnesty International urges Malaysia to end death penalty | KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Amnesty International urged Malaysia’s government on Thursday to keep its promise to abolish the death penalty, saying unfair trials and the use of harsh treatment to obtain confessions put people at risk of execution. The rights group released details of nearly two years of research on 150 cases as well as interviews with prisoners’ families, lawyers and embassy officials in a report that it said showed the use of the death penalty was “fatally flawed.” Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s government promised shortly after taking power in May 2018 to scrap capital punishment, which mandates hanging as punishment for a wide range of crimes including murder, drug trafficking, treason, kidnapping and acts of terror. But the government backtracked after public objection. Parliament, which resumed meeting this week, will instead remove mandatory death penalties for some offences and give courts discretion in imposing the sentence. The report said 73% of the 1,281 people on death row as of February were convicted of drug offences, including 568 foreigners from 43 countries and many poor members of ethnic minorities. It said some prisoners were tortured and beaten to make them confess. In one case, a Malaysian man detained in 2005 for possessing drugs and later sentenced to death had his finger broken by police, who also threatened to beat up his girlfriend, it said. Those who are poor often go without legal assistance until they are brought to court, it said. Some were asked to sign documents in the Malay language that were not translated for them, according to the report. The group said the pardon process was also not transparent, with no clear criteria and access to pro-bono legal services controlled by prison officials. It said half of the foreigners on death row didn’t seek pardons. “Our research found a pattern of unfair trials and secretive hangings that itself spoke volumes. From allegations of torture and other ill-treatment to an opaque pardons process, it’s clear the death penalty is a stain on Malaysia’s criminal justice system,” Amnesty Malaysia director Sharmini Darshni Kaliemuthu said. The group said its requests to meet Malaysian authorities including the police and officials in the attorney-general’s office for more details were rejected or unanswered. It said government sources indicated 469 people had been executed since Malaysia’s independence from Britain in 1957, half of them for drug trafficking. The death penalty is currently retained for nearly three dozen offences. Amnesty International urged Malaysia to move toward scrapping capital punishment by repealing mandatory death sentences for all crimes and maintaining a moratorium on executions until then. | The Associated Press | https://www.thestar.com/news/world/asia/2019/10/10/amnesty-international-urges-malaysia-to-end-death-penalty.html | Thu, 10 Oct 2019 07:01:28 EDT | 1,570,705,288 | 1,570,709,121 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
1,027,051 | thetorontostar--2019-07-03--Amnesty International accuses Border Patrol of harassing intimidating humanitarian aid workers | 2019-07-03T00:00:00 | thetorontostar | Amnesty International accuses Border Patrol of harassing, intimidating humanitarian aid workers | SAN DIEGO—Amnesty International is calling on Congress to hold public hearings over what the human rights organization calls “a campaign of intimidation,” launched by the federal government, that targets activists and lawyers helping migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border. In a 44-page report released Tuesday morning, Amnesty International accused the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice of violating the Constitution by carrying out an “unlawful and discriminatory campaign of intimidation, threats, harassment and criminal investigations against people who defend the human rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.” “The Trump administration’s targeting of human rights defenders through discriminatory misuse of the criminal justice system sets it on a slippery slope toward authoritarianism,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International. “The U.S. government is disgracing itself by threatening and even prosecuting its own citizens for their vital work to save the lives of people in a desperate situation at the border,” she added. The report essentially accuses Border Patrol agents of criminalizing humanitarian aid by subjecting the people who carry out that work to warrantless searches, prolonged detention and arrest. Amnesty International claims this violates the Constitution because citizens are being punished for exercising their First, Fourth and 14th Amendment rights — which guarantees freedom of speech, protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures, and establishes equal protection under the law. When officials announced Operation Secure Line in October 2018, they described it as a response to the Central American migrant caravans bringing thousands of people to the U.S.-Mexico border. In March, NBC published reports of leaked documents showing DHS tracking journalists, lawyers and humanitarian workers. CBP responded to news of the leaked documents with the following statement: “It is protocol following these incidents to collect evidence that might be needed for future legal actions and to determine if the event was orchestrated,” the statement read. “CBP and our law enforcement partners evaluate these incidents, follow all leads garnered from information collected, conduct interviews and investigations, in preparation for, and often to prevent future incidents that could cause further harm to the public, our agents, and our economy.” Apart from referencing that incident, Amnesty International’s report also highlights individual cases of humanitarian aid workers being detained at the border. For example, photographer and volunteer Jeff Valenzuela was detained by Border Patrol agents on Dec. 26 and 28. During the first incident, Border Patrol agents forced Valenzuela to unlock his phone under the guise of looking for child pornography. However, the agents looked closely through photos of a recent border visit. During the second episode, federal agents at the San Ysidro Port of Entry handcuffed Valenzuela and shackled him by his ankle to a metal bench for four hours inside a Customs and Border Protection office, according to the report. “I don’t plan to let these intimidations, I don’t plan to let harassment, any amount of handcuffs, to really stop me,” Valenzuela told Amnesty International. “Because none of the work that we’re doing is a criminal act. Humanitarian work is not a crime.” The Amnesty International report makes several recommendations for Congress, DHS and DOJ. This includes asking Congress to hold public hearings on this alleged campaign of intimidation. Other recommendations for Congress included increased oversight for DHS and DOJ to prevent those agencies from misusing the criminal justice system to target human rights defenders. For DHS, the report recommends the agency halt any intimidation and harassment of humanitarian workers and to adopt exemptions for humanitarian workers from criminal investigation. For DOJ, Amnesty International recommends a “humanitarian exemption” that would exempt aid workers from criminal prosecution related to smuggling and harbouring charges. | Gustavo Solis - The San Diego Union-Tribune | https://www.thestar.com/news/world/us/2019/07/02/amnesty-international-accuses-border-patrol-of-harassing-intimidating-humanitarian-aid-workers.html | 2019-07-03 00:20:15+00:00 | 1,562,127,615 | 1,567,537,123 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
782,214 | theintercept--2019-07-02--Amnesty International Condemns US Attacks on Border Journalists and Human Rights Defenders | 2019-07-02T00:00:00 | theintercept | Amnesty International Condemns U.S. Attacks on Border Journalists and Human Rights Defenders | Though undocumented people have always been the core target of this campaign, the blast radius of the government’s hyper-politicized crackdown has steadily expanded over the years. A new report published by Amnesty International on Tuesday details a two-yearlong attack on human rights defenders, attorneys, and journalists working along the U.S.-Mexico border, calling out a pattern of escalating enforcement in violation of domestic and international law. The shape of the Trump administration’s approach to policing immigration is at this point familiar. Since January 2017, federal agents and officers have been under orders to enforce a harsh interpretation of immigration laws without restraint. The result has most infamously manifested in the forced separation of immigrant parents from their children and, more recently, a series of horrific reports detailing conditions in border-area detention centers. The U.S. “government has executed an unlawful and politically motivated campaign of intimidation, threats, harassment, and criminal investigations against people who defend the human rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers,” the report said, adding that both the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice “have increasingly misused and leveraged the criminal justice system to deter and punish those individuals for challenging — or even simply documenting — the systematic human rights violations by US authorities against migrants and asylum seekers.” Brian Griffey, a lead researcher on the report, wrote to The Intercept: “These attacks on human rights defenders are an integral part of the Trump administration’s broader campaign of human rights violations against people seeking asylum on the U.S.-Mexico border.” “The Trump administration’s contempt for lawyers, journalists, and good Samaritans shows its greater contempt for the rule of law and the judiciary, as it continues to apply human rights-violating policies broadly and as quickly as it can, to do maximum damage to vulnerable communities,” before courts are able to rein them in and restore order, he added. Based on nearly two dozen interviews, the report drew on dozens of cases in Texas, Arizona, and California from 2018 to 2019, in which immigration advocates, attorneys, and journalists were targeted by law enforcement with actions ranging from surveillance and prolonged detention to the charging of serious felonies. The human rights organization argued that by unlawfully choking off asylum access at ports of entry and dumping asylum seekers who have made it to U.S. soil back into dangerous Mexican border towns, U.S. officials and their Mexican counterparts first manufactured a crisis, then criminalized the civilian response to it. “By discriminatorily targeting human rights defenders — most of them US citizens — based solely on their political or other opinions, speech and activities, the Trump administration has violated international law, the US Constitution, US laws, and corresponding DHS policies that acknowledge those legally binding civil liberties protections,” the report said. Amnesty specifically pointed to violations of “freedom of expression; right to privacy; equality under the law; and freedom from discrimination, including on the basis of political or other opinion” by U.S. law enforcement under international law. In the domestic context, the organization said the administration’s crackdown violated “constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech under the First Amendment; and equal protection under the law, without discrimination, under the Fourteenth Amendment.” Two episodes documented by Amnesty, and previously exposed by The Intercept, have emerged as the clearest examples of law enforcement targeting people whose work does not align with the Trump administration’s border and immigration agenda: an expansive, binational, multi-agency, intelligence-gathering operation focused on migrant caravan-related advocacy and journalism in the Tijuana-San Diego area, and the criminal prosecution of nine human aid volunteers working with migrants crossing the Arizona desert. In both cases, Amnesty found that law enforcement leaned heavily on a portion of the U.S. criminal code — known as 1324 — to justify its targeting of advocates in the borderlands. Noting that “a federal appellate court struck down the human smuggling crime being applied by DHS to justify its politically motivated surveillance,” Griffey, the Amnesty researcher, said the “laws being applied by US authorities are vague and inconsistent with international standards.” The best known Trump administration smuggling prosecution is the case of Scott Warren, an Arizona-based humanitarian aid volunteer who was arrested in January 2018 and accused of providing two undocumented men with food, water, and a place to sleep over two days. Charged with two counts of harboring and one count of conspiracy, Warren faced up to 20 years in prison. In June, a federal judge declared a mistrial in Warren’s case. Describing his arrest as a “retaliatory attack” — Warren was arrested hours after a group he volunteers with published a report implicating the Border Patrol in the destruction of thousands of gallons of water left for migrants in the desert — Amnesty spearheaded an international campaign calling for the charges against Warren to be dropped. “If Dr. Warren were convicted and imprisoned on these absurd charges, Amnesty International would recognize him as a prisoner of conscience — detained for his volunteer activities motivated by humanitarian principles and his religious beliefs — and would continue to campaign for his immediate and unconditional release, and for his criminal record to be expunged,” the report noted. Warren and his attorneys, along with the government’s prosecutors, were back in court Tuesday, just as the Amnesty report was made public. | Ryan Devereaux | https://theintercept.com/2019/07/02/amnesty-international-human-rights-border-report/ | 2019-07-02 17:00:39+00:00 | 1,562,101,239 | 1,567,537,272 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
1,033,108 | theverge--2019-02-14--Pressure mounts on Facebook and Google to stop anti-vax conspiracy theories | 2019-02-14T00:00:00 | theverge | Pressure mounts on Facebook and Google to stop anti-vax conspiracy theories | As a measles outbreak continues to spread in Washington state, Facebook is “exploring additional measures” to fight false anti-vaccine content on the platform, Bloomberg reports. The news comes on the heels of criticism from Representative Adam Schiff, who sent Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg a letter about vaccine misinformation on Facebook and Instagram today. In the letter, first reported by Bloomberg’s Sarah Frier, Schiff voiced concerns that both Facebook and Instagram serve up misleading, fear-mongering content about vaccines, which have been shown to be safe, effective, and critical for public health. Schiff also sent a similar letter to Google’s Sundar Pichai about vaccine misinformation on YouTube. In the letters, Schiff wrote that the misinformation on these platforms could make parents ignore legitimate medical advice to vaccinate their children. “Repetition of information, even if false, can often be mistaken for accuracy,” he wrote. He referenced recent reporting by Julia Carrie Wong at The Guardian, who discovered that both Facebook and YouTube are full of fear-mongering, inaccurate anti-vaccine propaganda. What’s more, Wong found, YouTube’s recommendation algorithm helped lead people to those lies. Schiff applauded YouTube for its recent move to start restricting recommendations for videos “that could misinform users in harmful ways,” which YouTube told The Guardian will include certain anti-vaccine videos. (Google declined to comment on the record to The Verge.) In July, YouTube announced that it will also link viewers to outside information “alongside videos on a small number of well-established historical and scientific topics that have often been subject to misinformation.” For example, YouTube links people to a Wikipedia page when they search for the MMR vaccine on the platform. Bloomberg points out, however, that anti-vaccination videos still rise to the top of YouTube’s search results for “vaccines.” In response to an inquiry about Schiff’s letter, a Facebook spokesperson told The Verge in an email: “We remove content that violates our Community Standards, downrank articles that might be misleading, and show third-party fact-checker articles to provide people with more context.” The company is “committed to accurate and useful information,” the spokesperson said. “We have more to do, and will continue efforts to provide educational information on important topics like health.” The spokesperson did not immediately respond to a follow-up question asking for clarification about what those efforts might be. But a Facebook spokesperson told Bloomberg that they might include “reducing or removing this type of content from recommendations, including Groups You Should Join, and demoting it in search results, while also ensuring that higher quality and more authoritative information is available.” In his letters, Schiff also asked both Google and Facebook heads for information about whether they’ve accepted money for anti-vaccine advertisements. According to the Daily Beast, anti-vaccine ads on Facebook have targeted demographics “most likely to include mothers,” including in Washington state where there is an ongoing measles outbreak. (Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the allegation.) Vaccine misinformation is dangerous to more than just the kids whose parents voluntarily leave them unvaccinated — it’s dangerous to the community at large because it can encourage the spread of preventable, potentially deadly diseases like measles. While measles is known for causing a rash and a fever, the incredibly contagious virus can also cause pneumonia, brain damage, and death. People who aren’t able to receive the measles vaccine — including children under the age of 12 months — rely on everyone else being vaccinated to keep the virus at bay. That’s why measles flare-ups like the one in Clark County, Washington, are so worrying, Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told The Verge in January. “[Parents] have to live in fear of walking out with their infant into Walmart, or the public library.” | Rachel Becker | https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/14/18225439/facebook-google-anti-vax-conspiracy-theories-pressure | 2019-02-14 22:35:46+00:00 | 1,550,201,746 | 1,567,548,493 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
1,102,670 | westernjournal--2019-04-18--A Consensus of Amazon Employees Reject the Radical Climate Change Agenda | 2019-04-18T00:00:00 | westernjournal | A Consensus of Amazon Employees Reject the Radical Climate Change Agenda |  Tap here to add The Western Journal to your home screen. | Gregory Wrightstone | https://www.westernjournal.com/consensus-amazon-employees-reject-radical-climate-change-agenda/ | 2019-04-18 21:03:10+00:00 | 1,555,635,790 | 1,567,542,618 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
1,102,276 | westernjournal--2019-03-28--Google Amazon and Other Corporate Giants Ban Together To Target Texas Religious Freedom Bills | 2019-03-28T00:00:00 | westernjournal | Google, Amazon and Other Corporate Giants Ban Together To Target Texas Religious Freedom Bills | Google, Amazon, IBM and Texas businesses banded together to oppose several Texas bills offering religious exemptions to businesses and state license holders. The group of businesses, along with several local Texas chambers of commerce, sent a letter to the Texas state legislature Wednesday declaring that they will oppose any legislation that affords protections to business owners who refuse service to individuals based on deeply held religious beliefs. They also oppose protections for physicians and other state-licensed professionals who refuse non-emergency services, such as abortions, for the same reasons. “We will continue to oppose any unnecessary, discriminatory, and divisive measures that would damage Texas’ reputation and create problems for our employees and their families,” the letter read, according to The Associated Press. “These include policies that explicitly or implicitly allow for exclusion of LGBTQ people, or anyone else, as well as the preemption of municipal nondiscrimination laws, in whole or in part.” TRENDING: Former Top Prosecutor Explains Why Obama Needs To Be Held to Account for Russia Investigation Several of the companies involved also banded together in 2017 to oppose a Texas bill that would have required transgender people to use the bathrooms assigned to their biological gender. The bill would offer “faith-based exemption” protections to state-licensed professionals. It would also prevent state licensure boards from denying licenses to individuals based on their religious beliefs, in addition to other bills offering the aforementioned protections to business owners and physicians. On Twitter, American Society of Association Executives quoted CEO John Graham as asserting that legislation that “would weaken protections for the LGBTQ community would have severe economic consequences, in terms of lost jobs and event bookings across Texas. RELATED: Republican Lawmaker’s Jesus-Focused Prayer Slammed by Dems as ‘Offensive’ and Islamophobic A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website. We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards. | Joshua Gill | https://www.westernjournal.com/google-amazon-corporate-giants-target-texas-religious-protection-bills/ | 2019-03-28 00:46:42+00:00 | 1,553,748,402 | 1,567,544,860 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
206,774 | fortune--2019-10-15--Apple’s Routing of User Data to Google Could Be Breaking EU Privacy Law | 2019-10-15T00:00:00 | fortune | Apple’s Routing of User Data to Google Could Be Breaking EU Privacy Law | Bernie Sanders Wants to Ban Stock Buybacks. He Should Focus on This Instead | David Meyer | https://fortune.com/2019/10/15/apple-data-privacy-google-tencent-eu/ | Tue, 15 Oct 2019 16:05:24 +0000 | 1,571,169,924 | 1,571,177,568 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
682,277 | theguardian--2019-10-11--Revealed: Google made large contributions to climate change deniers | 2019-10-11T00:00:00 | theguardian | Revealed: Google made large contributions to climate change deniers | Google has made “substantial” contributions to some of the most notorious climate deniers in Washington despite its insistence that it supports political action on the climate crisis. Among hundreds of groups the company has listed on its website as beneficiaries of its political giving are more than a dozen organisations that have campaigned against climate legislation, questioned the need for action, or actively sought to roll back Obama-era environmental protections. The list includes the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a conservative policy group that was instrumental in convincing the Trump administration to abandon the Paris agreement and has criticised the White House for not dismantling more environmental rules. Google said it was disappointed by the US decision to abandon the global climate deal, but has continued to support CEI. Google is also listed as a sponsor for an upcoming annual meeting of the State Policy Network (SPN), an umbrella organisation that supports conservative groups including the Heartland Institute, a radical anti-science group that has chided the teenage activist Greta Thunberg for “climate delusion hysterics”. SPN members recently created a “climate pledge” website that falsely states “our natural environment is getting better” and “there is no climate crisis”. Google has defended its contributions, saying that its “collaboration” with organisations such as CEI “does not mean we endorse the organisations’ entire agenda”. It donates to such groups, people close to the company say, to try to influence conservative lawmakers, and – most importantly – to help finance the deregulatory agenda the groups espouse. A spokesperson for Google said it sponsored organisations from across the political spectrum that advocate for “strong technology policies”. “We’re hardly alone among companies that contribute to organisations while strongly disagreeing with them on climate policy,” the spokesperson said. Amazon has, like Google, also sponsored a CEI gala, according to a programme for the event reported in the New York Times. CEI has opposed regulation of the internet and enforcement of antitrust rules, and has defended Google against some Republicans’ claims that the search engine has an anti-conservative bias. But environmental activists and other critics say that, for a company that purports to support global action on climate change, such tradeoffs are not acceptable. “You don’t get a pass on it. It ought to be disqualifying to support what is primarily a phoney climate denying front group. It ought to be unacceptable given how wicked they have been,” said Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island who is one of the most vocal proponents of climate action in Congress. “What all of corporate America should be doing is saying if you are a trade organisation or lobby group and you are interfering on climate, we are out. Period,” he added. On its website, Google says it is committed to ensuring its political engagement is “open, transparent and clear to our users, shareholders, and the public”. But the company declined to answer the Guardian’s questions on how much it has given to the organisations. On a webpage devoted to “transparency”, it describes the groups – among hundreds of others, including some progressive advocates such as the Center for American Progress – as having received “substantial” contributions. Apart from CEI, they include the American Conservative Union, whose chairman, Matt Schlapp, worked for a decade for Koch Industries and shaped the company’s radical anti-environment policies in Washington; the American Enterprise Institute, which has railed against climate “alarmists”; and Americans for Tax Reform, which has criticised companies who support climate action for seeking out “corporate welfare”. It has also donated undisclosed sums to the Cato Institute, which has voiced opposition to climate legislation and questioned the severity of the crisis. Google has also made donations to the Mercatus Center, a Koch-funded thinktank, and the Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action, a pressure group that said the Paris agreement was supported by “cosmopolitan elites” and part of Barack Obama’s “destructive legacy”. Bill McKibben, a prominent environmentalist who has been on the frontline of the climate crisis for decades, said Google and other companies were engaged in a “functional greenwashing” given the contradiction in their public pronouncements and private donations. He said Google and other technology companies had also not used their own lobbyists to advocate for change on climate. “Sometimes I’ll talk to companies and they will be going on and on about their renewable server farm or natural gas delivery, and I say thank you, but what we really need is for your lobbying shop in Washington to put serious muscle behind it. And they never do,” McKibben said. “They want some tax break or some regulations switch and they never devote the slightest muscle behind the most important issue of our time or any time.” A spokesperson for Google said: “We’ve been extremely clear that Google’s sponsorship doesn’t mean that we endorse that organisation’s entire agenda – we may disagree strongly on some issues. “Our position on climate change is similarly clear. Since 2007, we have operated as a carbon neutral company and for the second year in a row, we reached 100% renewable energy for our global operations.” The company said it called for “strong action” at the climate conference in Paris in 2015 and helped to sponsor the Global Climate Action summit in San Francisco last year. But that position is at odds with the support it gives to CEI. The group’s director of energy and environment policy, Myron Ebell, helped found the Cooler Heads Coalition 20 years ago, a group of libertarian and rightwing organisations that have sowed the seeds of climate denial with funding from the fossil fuel industry. When Donald Trump was elected to the White House in 2016, Ebell joined the transition team and advised the new president on environmental issues, successfully lobbying Trump to adhere to a campaign promise and abandon the Paris agreement. Kert Davies, the founder of the Climate Investigations Center, a research group that examines corporate campaigning, said Ebell had led the anti-climate-action crusade for decades. “They’re extremists,” he said, referring to the Cooler Heads Coalition. “They are never finished,” he said. “Myron has taken a lot of credit for Trump’s actions and is quite proud of his access.” Recently, however, Ebell – who declined a request for an interview – has criticised the White House for not rolling back environmental protections aggressively enough, even though the Trump administration has gutted every major environmental act established under Obama. His wishlist now includes reversing a 2009 finding by the Environmental Protection Agency that CO and other greenhouse gases endanger the health and welfare of Americans. CEI said it “respects the privacy of its donors” and declined to answer questions about Google. A CEI spokesperson told the Guardian: “On energy policy, CEI advances the humanitarian view that abundant and affordable energy makes people safer and economies more resilient. Making energy accessible, especially for the most vulnerable, is a core value.” One source who is familiar with Google’s decision-making defended the company’s funding of CEI. “When it comes to regulation of technology, Google has to find friends wherever they can and I think it is wise that the company does not apply litmus tests to who they support,” the source said. | Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington | https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/11/google-contributions-climate-change-deniers | Fri, 11 Oct 2019 06:00:09 GMT | 1,570,788,009 | 1,570,797,326 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
712,552 | theguardianuk--2019-10-16--Democrat calls on Google to stop funding climate crisis deniers | 2019-10-16T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | Democrat calls on Google to stop funding climate crisis deniers | A Democratic lawmaker has called on Google CEO Sundar Pichai to stop investing in organizations that deny the existence of the climate crisis, saying it was hard to overstate how detrimental the impact of such groups had been on the US climate debate. Kathy Castor’s letter to Pichai followed a report in the Guardian last week that revealed Google had made “substantial” contributions to some of the most notorious climate deniers in Washington, despite the internet giant’s insistence it supports political action to combat the crisis. The groups included the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has actively sought to roll back Obama-era environmental protections and helped convince Donald Trump, the US president, to abandon the Paris Agreement. Google has said it supported the climate accord, but continued to offer financial backing to CEI and similarly-minded groups. “It is hard to overstate the detrimental impact groups like CEI have had on the climate debate in the United States since the early days of the Kyoto Protocol,” Castor, a Democratic representative from Florida, said. “Because of their public and behind-the-scenes efforts to obfuscate and obstruct, we have lost critical time to cut greenhouse gas pollution and now face a shrinking window of opportunity to avert the worst impacts of climate change.” Google has said that its support for CEI and other groups, including the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation, reflected support for the groups’ “strong technology policies”, and not their stance on the climate crisis. “We’ve been extremely clear that Google’s sponsorship doesn’t mean that we endorse that organization’s entire agenda – we may disagree strongly on some issues,” a Google spokesperson told the Guardian about its donations. But in her letter to Pichai, Castor, who is chair of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, said there was no way to distinguish their support from other issues. “It is impossible to separate your support for one sliver of CEI from the whole. Your financial contributions support the organization’s infrastructure, augment its political influence, and, in turn, legitimize all of its activities – not just the ones you like,” she wrote. Google declined to offer new comment on the letter, and referred to previous statements on the issue. Castor closed her letter by pointing to Google’s own website, and its declaration that the company was striving to “build sustainability into everything we do”. “I urge you to apply this mantra when you make decisions about which thinktanks and organizations to support in the future,” she said. It was not the only public response to the Guardian’s report last week, which was part of a broader investigation into the fossil fuel industry, the structures behind it, and the climate emergency. Activists with Extinction Rebellion staged a protest in front of Google’s London headquarters on Wednesday, with more than 100 mothers – and babies – staging a “nurse-in” to protest the company’s funding of climate deniers. | Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington | https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/16/democrat-letter-google-stop-funding-climate-change-deniers | Wed, 16 Oct 2019 21:35:42 GMT | 1,571,276,142 | 1,571,316,594 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
713,263 | theguardianuk--2019-11-04--Facebook and Google urged to ban political ads before UK election | 2019-11-04T00:00:00 | theguardianuk | Facebook and Google urged to ban political ads before UK election | The UK does not have time to solve the problems of online political advertising before the general election, meaning it should be voluntarily suspended by Facebook and Google until after the vote, campaigners, academics and non-profits have said. In a letter addressed to Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, the chief executives of Facebook and Google, as well as Nick Clegg and Kent Walker, the heads of policy of the respective companies, the campaigners write that “with the announcement of the election coming in only six weeks, there is no time for regulations to catch up” with the reality of online advertising. “This legislative blackspot is particularly concerning in light of Facebook’s recent policies to allow politicians to openly publish disinformation through ads. Equally concerning is the lack of transparency as to what data is being used to target ads, and how such ads are being targeted,” they say. “As we prepare to enter purdah, and without proper legislation, we’re calling on you to take a stand and issue an immediate moratorium on all political and issue-based advertising on your platforms until the conclusion of the UK parliamentary elections on 12 December.” The letter, signed by representatives of seven organisations including Mozilla, Doteveryone, the Open Data Institute and Sheffield University, notes the decision to voluntarily pause political adverts is not without precedent. “Google blocked political advertising two weeks before polling day,” the letter says. “In the Israeli and Canadian elections, political ads were blocked outright for the duration of the election period.” Twitter has announced a voluntary suspension of all political adverts, with the chief executive, Jack Dorsey, writing: “It’s not credible for us to say: ‘We’re working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, but if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad … well … they can say whatever they want’.” | Alex Hern | https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/04/facebook-and-google-asked-to-suspend-political-ads-before-general-election | Mon, 04 Nov 2019 14:04:48 GMT | 1,572,894,288 | 1,572,909,815 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
77,866 | breitbart--2019-12-22--'Home Alone 2' Wikipedia Page Changed to Note Trump Is Film's First Cast Member to Be Impeached | 2019-12-22T00:00:00 | breitbart | 'Home Alone 2' Wikipedia Page Changed to Note Trump Is Film's First Cast Member to Be Impeached | The Home Alone 2: Lost in New York Wikipedia page was reportedly altered briefly this week to note the impeachment of President Donald Trump, who appeared in a brief cameo in the Christmas classic. Trump made a cameo in the 1992 film in which he gave directions to actor Macaulay Culkin, who played Kevin McCallister, as the two stood inside the Trump Organization’s Plaza Hotel. Friday, author Sarah Kendzior tweeted a photo of the updated entry from the online encyclopedia: “On December 18th, 2019 Donald Trump became the first cast member of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York to be impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives,” the text read. Sunday, the entry was removed and the page locked for “Extended confirmed protection, also known as 30/500 protection, allows edits only by editors with the extended confirmed user access level.” However, the Donald Trump Wikipedia page text read that “Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 18, 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He is the third impeached U.S. president in history.” The free encyclopedia’s editors have slanted their articles to favor Democrat talking points regarding the phone call between President Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to Breitbart News’s T.D. Adler. Editors on Wikipedia, consistent with the site’s rampantleft-wingbias, have repeatedly advanced the narrative of President Trump colluding with Russia to the point of trying to misrepresent the outcome of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation debunking the collusion narrative. They have similarly worked to discredit, and sometimes purge, any serious criticism of the integrity of the investigation and legitimacy of the allegations. Even with the DOJ Inspector General’s report regarding FISA surveillance warrants against Trump adviser Carter Page potentially releasing this month, it is unlikely such bias will end. Wikidata, a site affiliated with Wikipedia, reportedly labeled First Lady Melania Trump a “former sex worker and porn star,” Adler wrote in November. “Many Wikipedia-affiliated sites use Wikidata’s information, so the description consequently appeared at her page on Simple Wikipedia, whose target audience expressly includes children, and remained for over a week,” he concluded. | Amy Furr | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/HY7wLCrn_zE/ | Sun, 22 Dec 2019 19:22:56 +0000 | 1,577,060,576 | 1,577,102,852 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
228,876 | globalresearch--2019-04-11--The Problem with Wikipedia and the Digital Revolution | 2019-04-11T00:00:00 | globalresearch | The Problem with Wikipedia and the Digital Revolution | Yesterday (April 10, 2019) a reader alerted me to the fact that I am being smeared on Wikipedia as a “vocal supporter of the current Russian government and its policies.” The reader also reports that an article in the Daily Beast calls me a “Putin worshiper.” The reader says that he tried to edit the Wikipedia entry without success, and he urged me to give it my attention. I do not know whether the person who wrote my Wikipedia entry intended to smear me or is merely uninformed. However, dissenting voices do get smeared on Wikipedia. It is an ongoing problem for many of us. For years readers and people who know me would make corrections to my Wikipedia biography, but as soon as the corrections were made, they would be erased and the smears reinstalled. The problem with Wikipedia is that it is an idealistic approach based on the belief that truth is more likely to emerge when everyone has a voice than when explanations are provided by a select group of experts or peers. This idealistic approach is not without merit. Moreover, it might work very well with subjects and people who do not have ideological opponents or are of no threat to those intent on controlling explanations. The problem arises when a subject or a person is controversial and is especially the case if the person’s arguments disprove or dissent from official explanations. In The Matrix in which we live, truth-tellers are unwelcome to those who control the explanations in order to advance their agendas. Until truth-tellers can be silenced or completely censured, the practice is to discredit them with smears. Thus, I and many others have been described as “conspiracy theorists” for reporting factual information that contradicts the official and unproven explanation of 9/11, anti-semites for criticizing Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians and influence over U.S. foreign policy, and as “Russian agents” or “Putin stooges” for keeping the record straight about Ukraine, Syria, and Putin’s effort to avoid military conflict with the West. In the pre-Internet age it was difficult to smear people. Newspaper editors would allow letters to the editor to correct factual mistakes or to provide a different interpretation of a collection of facts, but shied away from smears. This doesn’t mean that smears never happened, but not with the abandon of the Internet era. Open works in process like Wikipedia, Internet comment sections and social media are ideally suited for smearing people and broadcasting the smears worldwide prior to any correction of them. Thus, the digital revolution has been a godsend to government agencies such as the CIA, State Department, Mossad, the Israel Lobby, corporations and other private interest groups, ideological movements such as neoconservatism and Identity Politics, and politicians, all of whom have agendas that are furthered by controlling the explanations. As money is the highest value for many people, there is an unlimited supply of people who can be hired to smear those who challenge official explanations. A smear can start in a comment section, move to social media, and from there to a website and on to Wikipedia. It is truth tellers who are smeared, people such as Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Manning, and whistleblowers whose messages are inconvenient for powerful private and government interests. Smears are effective. There is no shortage of gullible and uninformed or misinformed people. They take a smear at face value and avoid the person or idea smeared. Despite the extreme clarity of Julian Assange’s orchestrated persecution, many see him as a “rapist escaping justice,” “Russian spy,” and “a blackmailer of governments and people.” In short mud sticks better than facts. That is why I am not optimistic about the future of truth in the digital age. Many see the digital age as the era when truth will flourish. I understand their case. Their belief is not without merit. But the digital age is also an age in which lies can flourish because, unlike the print age, they can be so easily spread. Consider, for example, the description of me as a “vocal supporter of the current Russian government and its policies” and a “Putin worshiper.” I am a well known critic of the Russian government’s neoliberal economic policies. Michael Hudson and I have jointly criticized the Russian government’s neoliberal economic policies and demonstrated that they are harmful to Russia’s economy. I am known also as a skeptic of Putin’s policy of turning the other check to Washington’s and Israel’s aggressions. I appreciate and admire Putin’s enormous self-control, but I have expressed concern that Putin’s unwillingness to put down a hard foot fails to turn away wrath and instead encourages more aggression that sooner or later will result in thermonuclear war. The Russian government is aware of my position, as is the Russian media where I am often interviewed. My position is also clearly expressed on my website, which is read internationally. So why does the Daily Beast and Wikipedia misrepresent my position? Wikipedia and comment sections can work only if commentators are responsible people who are carefully monitored by knowledgable and responsible monitors. But this takes us back to peer-reviewed explanations that Wikipedia was created to avoid. Historically, messengers are killed, so truth tellers have to expect smears or worse–Julian Assange was arrested this morning inside the Ecuadoran embassy in London. Mankind is fallen. Governments do evil. The most evil is done to those who oppose evil. Truth cannot be told without cost to he who tells the truth. When I speak of truth-tellers, I am speaking of people whose motive is to tell the truth. Truth is their agenda. I am not saying that truth tellers are infallible and always right. I am saying that they strive to be. They do not intentionally write falsehoods and mislead. Truth is not opinion. It is pointless to tell a truth teller that you disagree with him. You can present a case that his facts are wrong. You can present a case that there is a better explanation of the facts. In my experience when most people say they disagree, they mean that they prefer another explanation that is more congenial to their feelings and emotions. For example, many Americans believed the preposterous Russiagate fib because they dislike Trump, just as today conservative talk radio has adopted the official explanation of 9/11 because it can be used against the outspoken female Muslim member of Congress. The facts have nothing to do with either belief. In both cases, the facts are resisted because the truth is not as emotionally comforting or as useful for the agenda at hand as the lie. I have no objection if readers undertake to monitor and correct the account presented of me in Wikipedia. It will be an ongoing process, and will require the commitment of many of you. Those behind the attacks on me have a lot of money and a lot of hirelings, and they can erase your work as soon as you finish. The digital revolution and the control mechanisms it provides makes it far more likely that we will end up in a locked down dystopia than would ever have been possible in the print age. But the digital revolution represents perhaps an even greater threat to humanity. It is making humans redundant. What are humans to do when everything is automated? If the tech nerds have their way, we soon won’t be allowed to drive cars. What will humans do when there is no need for their labor? Boston Dynamics, a Waltham Massachusettes company, has come up with a robot that replaces warehouse workers. The prediction is that 40 million more Americans will be shoved out of the workforce by robots over the next ten years. Has anyone thought about who is going to be employed and have the money to purchase the products of robots? No doubt we will be promised all kinds of new and better jobs like we were promised to take the place of the offshored manufacturing and professional service jobs. The promised jobs never showed up. And no, this is not a luddite argument. Everyone can’t be employed designing robots to replace humans. Each warehouse will rush to increase its profits by laying off employees, and none will consider the aggregate effect on consumer demand for the products in the warehouses. Will the warehouses have to give back their gained profits in taxes to support the unemployed? Will the warehouses have any profits if people haven’t income from jobs with which to buy the products in the warehouses? Does the robot age mean profits have to be socialized in order to sustain human life? An intelligent approach to technology would be to focus on technology that enhances human performance, not on technology that eliminates the need for humans. At Stanford University technology has emerged, or is emerging, that permits real time changes in the movements of a person’s mouth as he speaks in order to broadcast a message different than the one the speaker is speaking. The mischief possible with this technology is unacceptable. Television could destroy any unwelcome politician or leader by showing him delivering a message designed to destroy him. If people catch on, it would mean the end of televised speeches as no one would believe any speech unless they were present in person. People already find it challenging to comprehand reality. The emergence of technology capable of falsifying reality in real time presages a future in which fact and fiction become indistinguishable. The unintended consequence of this technology may well be the death of truth. Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy. | Dr. Paul Craig Roberts | https://www.globalresearch.ca/problem-wikipedia-digital-revolution/5674172 | 2019-04-11 16:27:22+00:00 | 1,555,014,442 | 1,567,543,152 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
335,891 | naturalnews--2019-05-08--Facebook to suppress all websites that arent officially recognized by the corrupt dishonest Wikipe | 2019-05-08T00:00:00 | naturalnews | Facebook to suppress all websites that aren't officially recognized by the corrupt, dishonest Wikipedia website | (Natural News) Anyone who’s been to college in the Wikipedia era, especially anything above the associate degree level, knows that’s the last reference resource professors will accept from students when writing research papers. That’s because Wikipedia, which is kind of, sort of, self-edited contains gigabytes of false, phony, or erroneous information. The site isn’t peer reviewed by any means, and it’s just not a reliable source of information. And yet, a new censorship tool being introduced by Facebook will intentionally or inadvertently rely heavily on Wikipedia for the establishment of ‘credible’ news and information sites. Facebook received a lot of attention for overt censorship last week. But the social network is engaging in covert suppression of independent media too — most recently with its introduction of “Click-Gap,” a way of favoring established websites and suppressing non-established ones. Here’s how this latest bald-faced censorship scheme will work. Click-Gap will work to penalize news and information sites that have yet to establish “authority” outside of Facebook, where ‘authority’ is assessed based on the number of clicks sites get from sources other than the platform, like establishment media sources. Facebook’s “VP of integrity” and “VP of news integrity” officially explain it this way on the platform’s blog: Click-Gap looks for domains with a disproportionate number of outbound Facebook clicks compared to their place in the web graph. This can be a sign that the domain is succeeding on News Feed in a way that doesn’t reflect the authority they’ve built outside it and is producing low-quality content. This is huge because Facebook has become a primary traffic driver for new websites of all kinds, including, of course, news sites. But, as Breitbart Tech reports, Click-Gap appears to have been designed to promote websites that managed to build up their readership and following before social media became a thing. So the system will naturally favor the older, establishment media outlets like CNN, Washington Post, The New York Times, etc. — some of the biggest drivers of fake news in the era of POTUS Donald Trump. (Related: POTUS Trump blasts ‘illegal’ social media BIAS and censorship, vows actions.) Of course, this is precisely the kind of scenario the mainstream media outlets want; anything they can do to shut out independent media competition, the better. As for how Wikipedia factors into all of this, Breitbart Tech notes that Click Gap will favor the establishment press in another way. “One of the largest sources for links and citations of news sources is Wikipedia, the Leftist-dominated ‘online encyclopedia,’” Breitbart noted. “But conservative sources…are frequently blacklisted as ‘unreliable’ on the site.” Hence, they are not used, which is ironic given the fact that Wikipedia itself is considered ‘unreliable’ by academia using primarily mainstream media sources. Facebook would be working in tandem with another big tech giant that also loves to censor conservative content: Google, the world’s No. 1 search engine. Can you guess which pages Google produces the most when it comes to searches? That’s right — Wikipedia pages. In fact, these frequently appear at the top of Google search pages, making them much more frequently selected by users. And again, since Wikipedia itself feeds so many other mainstream news sites, this, too, will factor into the sites that Click Gap and its underlying algorithm will favor. Anything to crush conservative and independent media because the establishment media cannot compete with us on its own. Case in point: CNN is now reporting that Democrats in Congress are ‘training’ themselves to appear on Fox News, because it is a ratings behemoth compared to, well, CNN, and the rest of the joke cable news networks. It must have hurt to report that. Read more about the rising censorship of the tech giants at TechGiants.news and Censorship.news. | JD Heyes | http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-05-08-facebook-to-suppress-all-websites-that-arent-recognized-by-wikipedia.html | 2019-05-08 10:04:09+00:00 | 1,557,324,249 | 1,567,540,886 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
336,646 | naturalnews--2019-08-03--Corrupt FBI cites completely discredited SNOPES and Wikipedia to declare conspiracy theorists are | 2019-08-03T00:00:00 | naturalnews | Corrupt FBI cites completely discredited SNOPES and Wikipedia to declare "conspiracy theorists" are domestic terrorism threat | (Natural News) What has happened to the world’s premier law enforcement and anti-terrorism agency? Have all of its leaders lost their minds or, more likely, have they become so politicized and infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome they can no longer think clearly and rationally? These are legitimate questions given the contents of an internal FBI document revealed last week by Yahoo News. According to an analysis of the report by The Gateway Pundit, it appears as though elements within the bureau have not only made some inherently questionable speculative allegations, but the sources cited as the basis for at least some of them are not only suspicious but outright comical. The crux of the FBI report, which originated in the Phoenix office, according to Yahoo News, warns that “conspiracy theorists” who discuss the “Deep State” are a new, emerging domestic terrorist threat. Furthermore, one of the conspiracies identified as problematic in the report is the belief that a deep state plot existed — or continues to exist — to oust POTUS Donald Trump from office. Now, based on at least two years’ worth of reporting, mostly by the independent media but not exclusively so, rational Americans understand and know that a) “Spygate” is a real thing; b) it was launched by the Obama administration; and c) the objective, clearly, was to drive POTUS Trump out of office. But beyond that, sources for the report’s conclusions included the far-Left ‘fact-checking’ site Snopes and Wikipedia, the latter of which is banned as a student reference source by most colleges and universities because it is biased, non-objective, and often incorrect. Notes Twitter user Rosie memos: “Wow. The @FBI has yet to say a word about ANTIFA but the Arizona office is tiptoeing around calling conspiracy theorists, domestic terrorists. They cite Qanon, Sandy Hook, Pizzagate and Islamberg.” “Shockingly their citations are WIKIPEDIA and SNOPES? Are you kidding @FBI @TheJusticeDept are these really your sources? Is there no one in the intelligence community that understands wiki can be edited by anyone and Snopes is owned by a sexual predator couple?” As you can see in the tweets, the sources are plainly listed: Snopes. Wikipedia. This, from Connors State College, regarding the unreliability of Wikipedia as an academic source: “Wikipedia is increasingly used by people in the academic community, from first-year students to professors, as the easiest source of information about anything and everything. However, citation of Wikipedia in research papers may not be considered acceptable, because Wikipedia is not a creditable source.” You know who else says that Wikipedia isn’t a reliable source? Wikipedia, as noted at this link. Snopes is equally unreliable and often false — motivated by political bias rather than facts, as Natural News has reported. But hey, to the FBI, these are now bona fide reliable sources. (Related: Are Unrecorded FBI Interviews a G-Man’s License to Lie?) No wonder fewer and fewer Americans trust this agency. There’s more, however, and it’s something that Director Christopher Wray should have to answer for. As The Gateway Pundit revealed, the bureau wants to develop or purchase an off-the-shelf “social media early alerting tool” so that agents can monitor social media in real time, just like what happens in China, Cuba, Venezuela and, increasingly, Russia. “With increased use of social media platforms by subjects of current FBI investigations and individuals that pose a threat to the United States, it is critical to obtain a service which will allow the FBI to identify relevant information from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other Social media platforms in a timely fashion,” the FBI said in a recent proposal that’s been updated. “Consequently, the FBI needs near real-time access to a full range of social media exchanges in order to obtain the most current information available in furtherance of its law enforcement and intelligence missions,” it says. Anyone who isn’t backing POTUS Trump’s efforts to ‘drain the swamp’ after all that has happened to him is part of the problem. | JD Heyes | http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-08-03-fbi-declares-conspiracy-theorists-domestic-terrorism-threat.html | 2019-08-03 10:21:12+00:00 | 1,564,842,072 | 1,567,534,946 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
337,574 | naturalnews--2019-11-13--Dr. Mercola reveals how Google and Wikipedia tag team to censor natural health websites while promot | 2019-11-13T00:00:00 | naturalnews | Dr. Mercola reveals how Google and Wikipedia tag team to censor natural health websites while promoting Big Pharma and processed junk food | (Natural News) Back in June, Mercola.com, the most visited natural health website in the world, was deleted from Google’s search results for supposedly spreading “misinformation” about health, nutrition, and vaccines. However, the real reason that Google went on this censorship purge is because Dr. Joseph Mercola represents a serious threat to the viability of mainstream medicine, of which Google is now a major stakeholder. In a new video posted to his Brighteon.com account, Dr. Mercola, a board-certified physician who runs a successful practice that’s helped millions of people around the world, reveals how Google has essentially morphed into its own drug company. No longer just a simple search engine, Google has effectively rigged its system to favor only articles and other related content that support pharmaceutical drugs, vaccines, and junk food – all things that Dr. Mercola’s medical perspectives call into question. Because Dr. Mercola’s understanding of medicine is, in many ways, contradictory to what the establishment claims is undeniable medical fact, including the popular misnomer that all vaccines are safe and effective, he’s become a target for elimination by Big Tech. And the same thing is happening to many others just like him who prefer to tell the truth rather than parrot establishment propaganda. “My site has been a top destination for health topics for over 17 years, but Google has now decided to remove these pages that have legitimately earned the trust of the public and replace them with health information from advertising companies that promote junk food and drugs through Google ad services,” Dr. Mercola explains, using the example of an in-depth article he wrote about rheumatoid arthritis, entitled, “Rheumatoid Arthritis: Painful Debilitating Disease More Devastating Than Previously Recognized,” that Google has simply blocked from showing up when Google users search for information about this topic. “This is a clear example of malicious bias that is affecting Google and the information you see.” For more related news about Big Tech fascism and Google censorship, be sure to check out EvilGoogle.news and Censorship.news. Google wants users to stop taking care of themselves naturally, and instead choose drugs and vaccines for their health It used to be the case that when a Google user typed “rheumatoid arthritis” into the Google search bar, this particular article by Dr. Mercola came up as one of the top results. That’s because this article is very popular and has helped many people all around the world, boasting well over one million page views. But that was way back when Google’s algorithms were fairer and less biased, and pulled up relevant information based on actual popularity with real people, as opposed to just propaganda that’s been selectively curated by Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) “machine learning” robots. Nowadays, pretty much anything you search for on Google related to health will pull up drug industry propaganda from one of three sites: WebMD, Healthline, and Medical News Today. You’ll also likely see a few “fact-checking” sites thrown in there as well that “debunk” natural and alternative options for whatever health issue you searched. Google also embeds advertising for drugs and vaccines within these links to WebMD, Healthline, and Medical News Today, the goal of which is to herd readers back into the conventional pen, and away from the “alternative” modalities suggested by Dr. Mercola and many others who are similarly being censored across the Google platform. “Google is a drug dealer, and you just need to say no to help you and your family take control of your health,” warns Dr. Mercola. Be sure to check out the Dr. Mercola Brighteon.com page to learn more, and to support this fellow truth advocate as he endures, like we all are, this barrage of Big Tech censorship. | Ethan Huff | http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-11-13-mercola-google-wikipedia-censor-natural-health-websites.html | Wed, 13 Nov 2019 06:27:35 +0000 | 1,573,644,455 | 1,573,690,588 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
342,933 | newsbusters--2019-06-25--Propaganda Machine Wikipedia Enabling Armenian Genocide Denial | 2019-06-25T00:00:00 | newsbusters | Propaganda Machine? Wikipedia Enabling Armenian Genocide Denial | A recent exposé of a regional Wikipedia project revealed some troubling stories of propaganda and abuse — even denial of a genocide The Wikipedia branch in Azerbaijan, a small democratic Muslim country in the Middle East, allowed editors to write that the Armenian genocide was a “fraud.” Further investigation revealed that a team of administrators in the country were using Wikipedia to spread propaganda against Armenians, who share a border with their nation. A Wikipedia proposal to remove the admins who allowed and encouraged the content to be written and circulated has been launched. However, the offenders have yet to be removed from the platform. The complaint includes details of articles that refer to the Armenian genocide (the 1915 event where the Ottoman Empire slaughtered 1.5 million Armenians) as the “So-called Armenian genocide.” The genocide is listed under a category labeled “Armenian frauds.” The user who submitted the proposal said, “While all wikis have some inherent biases built in politically, playing politics with the attempted destruction of an entire group of people brings our entire movement into disrepute.” The admin who created the Armenian genocide denial page is openly contesting this proposal, saying “Your suggestions clearly serve the Armenian interests and show that you are on the [sic?] side.” He proposed that Armenian Wikipedia be blocked in Azerbaijan, stating that there was conflict on both sides. The same admin has used all the Wikipedia tools to block users whom he disagrees with, according to another complaint. One user was blocked because he used sources that a “large part of the Azerbaijani public” disagreed with, because those sources confirmed that the Armenian genocide happened. One user stated that the information compromise had been happening “since 2017.” Wikipedia is trusted by major tech companies and used by Facebook and Google. Facebook uses Wikipedia to link to descriptions of news sources on its platform, while Google uses Wikipedia for a variety of tools. The controversial “Knowledge Panel” relied on Wikipedia for information about hot topics, politicians, and celebrities, while on Google’s sister company, YouTube, Wikipedia is used to fact check “climate change deniers.” However, Wikipedia is not a valid resource for raw information, because of its crowdsourcing nature. Multiple unpaid contributors all make edits to Wikipedia for various reasons. Its rules are arbitrary. Journalist Tim Pool wrote, “I was a fan of Wikipedia until I became 'notable' enough to get one and now I'm shocked at the insane garbage they claim to be their standards.” It seems as if Wikipedia’s standards don’t even work. Neither Google nor Facebook responded to requests for comment from the Media Research Center. The media in America has long ignored the Armenian Genocide. Major news networks completely avoid the subject during the anniversary, April 24. Even during the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Holocaust, little or no mention was made on the news networks. | Corinne Weaver | https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/techwatch/corinne-weaver/2019/06/25/propaganda-machine-wikipedia-enabling-armenian-genocide | 2019-06-25 15:15:00+00:00 | 1,561,490,100 | 1,567,538,244 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
675,311 | thegatewaypundit--2019-05-02--This Didnt Age Well Fake News Wikipedia Devoted an Entire Page to Spygate conspiracy theory by D | 2019-05-02T00:00:00 | thegatewaypundit | This Didn’t Age Well… Fake News Wikipedia Devoted an Entire Page to “Spygate (conspiracy theory by Donald Trump)” | Fake News Wikipedia devoted an entire page to Spygate (conspiracy theory by Donald Trump) Spygate is a conspiracy theory initiated by President Donald Trump in May 2018 that the Obama administration had implanted a spy very early in his 2016 presidential campaign for political purposes.[1][2][3][4] On May 22–23, 2018, Trump made these assertions, without evidence, adding that it was done in an effort to help Trump’s rival, Hillary Clinton, win the general election. He said this person was paid a “massive amount of money” for doing so.[5][6] Stefan Halper, a longtime FBI informant, had approached separately three Trump campaign advisers in 2016 in a covert effort to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, but as of April 2019, no evidence has surfaced that he had joined Trump’s campaign or acted improperly.[7] On June 5, 2018, Trump further alleged that a counterintelligence operation into the Trump campaign had been running since December 2015.[8] The House Intelligence Committee, then in Republican control, concluded in an April 2018 report that the FBI counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign began in late July 2016, while the February 2018 Nunes memo written by Republican aides reached the same conclusion, as did the February 2018 rebuttal memo by committee Democrats.[9][10][11] High-ranking politicians on both sides of the aisle, as well as Fox News personalities, have dismissed Trump’s allegations as lacking evidence and maintained that the FBI did nothing improper. Trump’s claims have been shown to be false.[5][12][13] | Jim Hoft | https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/05/this-didnt-age-well-fake-news-wikipedia-devoted-an-entire-page-to-spygate-conspiracy-theory-by-donald-trump/ | 2019-05-02 22:39:46+00:00 | 1,556,851,186 | 1,567,541,394 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
676,860 | thegatewaypundit--2019-08-02--WOW FBI Caught Using Far Left Websites Wikipedia and Snopes as Sources for Junk Report on Deep Stat | 2019-08-02T00:00:00 | thegatewaypundit | WOW! FBI Caught Using Far Left Websites Wikipedia and Snopes as Sources for Junk Report on Deep State “Conspiracy Theories” | Yahoo News has obtained a new FBI document dated May 30, 2019 that warns ‘conspiracy theorists’ are the new domestic terrorism threats. What exactly is considered a ‘conspiracy theory?’ The document specifically called out ‘QAnon’ which is a belief that “Q” is a government official posting information on an online forum about Trump’s efforts to dismantle the Deep State. “The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts,” the document states. The document also claims the FBI believes conspiracy theory-driven extremists are likely to increase during the 2020 presidential election cycle. The FBI appears to be bracing for Spygate backlash because they said another factor driving the so-called threat is “the uncovering of real conspiracies or cover-ups involving illegal, harmful, or unconstitutional activities by government officials or leading political figures.” The FBI did not offer any specifics about which political leaders or which cover-ups it was referring to, however the timing is suspicious as Spygate begins to unravel. Here are the documents: It’s nice to know the FBI is using far left websites for their reporting on the Deep State. God help us. UPDATE: Snopes co-founder David Mikkelson once accused of embezzling company money and spending it on prostitutes | Jim Hoft | https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/08/wow-fbi-caught-using-far-left-websites-wikipedia-and-snopes-as-sources-for-junk-report-on-deep-state-conspiracy-theories/ | 2019-08-02 15:13:40+00:00 | 1,564,773,220 | 1,567,535,022 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
679,718 | thegatewaypundit--2019-12-21--Far-Left WikiPedia Continues to Report ‘Spygate’ Did Not Occur — Pushes #FakeNews, Hides Truth from | 2019-12-21T00:00:00 | thegatewaypundit | Far-Left WikiPedia Continues to Report ‘Spygate’ Did Not Occur — Pushes #FakeNews, Hides Truth from the Masses and Censors Fact-Based Reporting | Far-Left WikiPedia Continues to Report ‘Spygate’ Did Not Occur — Pushes #FakeNews, Hides Truth from the Masses and Censors Fact-Based Reporting The FBI and DOJ and multiple government agencies were out in force in 2015 spying on candidate Trump in attempts to link him up with their fake Russia conspiracy. General Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell gave us clues in September that Professor Mifsud may have been one of the Deep State’s spies used against the Trump team in late 2015! In June of 2018 The Gateway Pundit posted an article identifying unredacted words in previously redacted texts between corrupt cops Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two individuals supposedly having an affair and key players at the top of the FBI involved in spying on candidate and then President Trump. The discovery came from an individual on Twitter who was then removed from Twitter named Nick Falco who identified a word uncovered in a Senate text that was previously redacted by the corrupt DOJ. In our post we noted that hidden in the information released by the Senate at that time were unredacted Strzok–Page texts that showed that the FBI initiated actions to insert multiple spies in the Trump campaign in December 2015. As we reported previously, according to far left LA Times, Comey stated in March of 2017 under oath that the FBI investigation into the Trump – Russia scandal started in July 2016. We knew then without a doubt that Comey lied about this. Falco’s tweet stated that the texts released from corrupt FBI investigator Peter Strzok to corrupt FBI attorney Lisa Page state the following: Additional information we also provided showed that Obama’s spy, Stefan Halper, was awarded a contract in September of 2015. We also pointed out that the problem with Obama spying on Trump before July 2016 is that it is against FBI rules: Retired assistant FBI director for intelligence Kevin Brock also has questions. Brock supervised an agency update to their longstanding bureau rules governing the use of sources while working under then-director Robert Mueller. These rules prohibit the FBI from directing a human source to perform espionage on an American until a formal investigation has been opened – paperwork and all. Brock sees oddities in how the Russia case began. “These types of investigations aren’t normally run by assistant directors and deputy directors at headquarters,” he told me. “All that happens normally in a field office, but that isn’t the case here and so it becomes a red flag. Congress would have legitimate oversight interests in the conditions and timing of the targeting of a confidential human source against a U.S. person.” -The Hill The problem with Comey lying about the start date of the Trump counterintelligence campaign before Congress is that it is against the law. President Trump tweeted out a follow up to our post the next day undoubtedly referring to our post : The Mainstream Media was interested. They were interested in denying the fact that spying on candidate Trump occurred in spite of evidence to show it and then slammed the President and the Gateway Pundit for posting the above tweets from Nick Falco. To this day Wikipedia (which supports crazy far-left and dishonest positions in anything related to President Trump) calls this work, a conspiracy and Spygate a conspiracy. Wikipedia calls the above a conspiracy and the Gateway Pundit a conspiracy site. They don’t call CNN, NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, ABC, the New York Times, Washington Post, and the many other far left sites conspiracy sites for pushing the Trump – Russia collusion for more than two years but President Trump and the Gateway Pundit are slandered with this label in spite of being totally correct. Their entire rebuttal omitted the facts. For example, they state that the texts were released previously, yes they were but, THEY WERE REDACTED. Wikipedia is a joke when it comes to US politics! US Intelligence and the Justice Department, including the FBI, were indeed spying on candidate Trump in 2015. Candidate Trump declared his candidacy for President in June of 2015. While public polls said Hillary would win in a landslide, behind the scenes, the DNC must have been frightened because the Democrats and the Deep State pulled out all their illegal tricks shortly after Trump’s announcement in 2015. We now know that corrupt DOJ attorney and number four at the DOJ, Bruce Ohr, set aside time to meet with Christopher Steele in his calendar in early October of 2015. Steele is the alleged author of the fake Steele dossier used to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign, transition team and Presidency. Ohr’s calendar shows this meeting : Shortly after that meeting, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr’s wife is hired by the far left smear firm Fusion GPS. We have conflicting information about Nellie Ohr’s exact hire date, for all we know she could have been hired on October 2, 2015, the same date as the Steele-Ohr meeting. She testified she started working for Fusion GPS in October of 2015 : Based on his calendar and his wife Nellie’s testimony, we know that Bruce Ohr lied in front Congress. Ohr lied about Nellie’s start date with Fusion GPS. The demoted and disgrace DOJ attorney Bruce Ohr stated in his testimony before Congress that Nellie started with Fusion GPS in November of 2015: In Nellie’s testimony to Congress in response to Representative Jim Jordan’s questions, Nellie says the following – Ms. Ohr. Uh-huh. I mean, I did a couple of different projects for them [Fusion GPS]. Mr. Jordan. Can you tell me what those projects were? Ms. Ohr. Yeah. The first project, the initial project had to do with looking into a particular Russian firm that was suspected of being involved in sex trafficking. (p 10) Mr. Jordan. Can you tell me the name of that firm? Ms. Ohr. Vlad Models. Mr. Jordan. Okay. And what else did you work on? Ms. Ohr. I worked on a project looking into the relationship of Donald Trump with organized crime, a Russian organized crime. Mr. Jordan. Okay. And was that work at all related to the now famous dossier? Ms. Ohr. No. Mr. Jordan. What was it related to then — walk me through what that work entailed? Ms. Ohr. What it entailed in what sense? Mr. Jordan. Describe what you were doing and what the objective was? Ms. Ohr. Yeah, I would write occasional reports based on the open source research that I described about Donald Trump’s relationships with various people in Russia. So Nellie worked for Fusion GPS to find dirt (or make up dirt apparently) on President Trump and she was hired in October of 2015, give or take a few weeks. But in addition to this, Bruce Ohr is the topic of discussion in a 302 report where he states that someone, very likely his wife – the one name that adequately fits in the redacted sections below, worked for Fusion GPS to dig up Trump’s connections to Russia. Nellie also knew, according to her husband, that she was working for “the Clinton Campaign, John Winer at the State Department and the FBI”!!! General Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell gave us another clue in September. She requests that the US government provide her and her client, General Mike Flynn, documents related to Deep State spy Joseph Mifsud from an event in late 2015 – Notice that Powell refers to “302s” regarding the dinner event in 2015 that General Flynn attended, which means that the FBI was interviewing Mifsud as early as 2015 and knew EXACTLY who Mifsud was and was not before Papadopoulos ever met Mifsud. Notice also that the timing of this event was days before Strzok’s text in late December of 2015! So we now know that Joseph Mifsud, the same individual that spied on George Papadopoulos in 2016, was also involved in setting up General Flynn with Russians in late 2015. Oh, we also know that Wikipedia is absolutely inaccurate and even slanderous in their posts related to Spygate, President Trump’s tweet that Spygate started in 2015 and our post that supported the President’s tweet. | Joe Hoft | https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/12/far-left-wikipedia-continues-to-report-spygate-did-not-occur-pushes-fakenews-hides-truth-from-the-masses-and-censors-fact-based-reporting/ | Sat, 21 Dec 2019 14:17:56 +0000 | 1,576,955,876 | 1,576,973,610 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
958,614 | thesun--2019-04-30--Web giants slammed for failing to tackle self-harm online as Wikipedia snubs government summit | 2019-04-30T00:00:00 | thesun | Web giants slammed for failing to tackle self-harm online as Wikipedia snubs government summit | WIKIPEDIA was last night named and shamed for not bothering to turn up to an emergency Government summit on how to tackle self-harm online. Tech giants including Google and Facebook agreed to fund the Samaritans and to sign up to a new code of practice to take down harmful content at the meeting. But ministers were left fuming with Wikipedia for snubbing an invite to attend the major Whitehall summit for the second time this year. It comes despite concerns their site breaches ethical codes by including detailed descriptions of suicide. And there was criticism that the amount pledged by the tech giants was meagre in comparison to their huge revenues - and the scale of the problem. Heath Secretary Matt Hancock is expected to call Wikipedia bosses in for a grilling another time. A Whitehall insider told The Sun: “Wikipedia did not bother to show up and the Samaritans have said they have not been very good at engaging with them. “Wikipedia have refused to engage with us. We want to engage constructively, but it is hard to believe they are taking this seriously if they don’t bother engaging.” But Mr Hancock said good progress has been made with other tech giants at the meeting, including Google, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The companies have agreed to fund The Samaritans to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds. And they have signed up in principle to new guidelines being drawn up by the suicide prevention charity to take down harmful content online. The pledge follows tragic high-profile cases including Molly Russell, 14, who took her life in 2017 after viewing self-harm content on Instagram. And figures showed suicide rates among teens have almost doubled in eight years. But the cash falls short of demands from the NSPCC - who want tech firms to completely rid their platforms of content promoting self-harm or else hand over a share of annual profits. The US giants are forecast to rake in combined revenues of £183billion and profits of £49.4billion this year. Labour’s Clive Efford, on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, told the Mirror their funding offer "wasn’t nearly enough to tackle the problem”. Labour deputy leader Tom Watson said: “Tech giants have refused to take responsibility for harmful content for too long. “The summit is welcome but we need more than warm words; Government must legislate to protect our children.” Mr Hancock admitted that more work needs to be done to tackle the problem He said: “We have made good progress today and there is still more to do - but I am determined to make sure that the internet and social media is made safer - especially for children. “The crucial thing is that we have an independent body, The Samaritans, being able to be the arbiter of what is damaging content that needs taken down so all tech companies can follow the new rules that have been set out. “I feel the tech companies are starting to get the message, they’re starting to take action - but there’s much more to do.” The Sun has contacted Wikipedia for comment. | Sean Gallen | https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8967622/wikipedia-snubs-summit-self-harm-online/ | 2019-04-30 00:10:18+00:00 | 1,556,597,418 | 1,567,541,634 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
351,227 | newswars--2019-01-29--Impotence Substance Abuse Brain Tumors Google Tracking Very Intimate Info | 2019-01-29T00:00:00 | newswars | Impotence, Substance Abuse, Brain Tumors: Google Tracking Very Intimate Info | Google and other online advertising platforms engage in disturbing privacy violations through the categories they use to target internet users, according to a new filing that reveals just how creepy this data collection can get. Google and other online ad companies use intimate personal information like political beliefs, religion, sexual orientation, and even diseases and disabilities to target users for advertising, according to new evidence filed by digital rights organizations in Poland, Ireland and the UK. Their complaint takes aim at real-time bidding (RTB), online ad auctions in which highly sensitive information about users gleaned from their browsing history is traded by thousands of third-party companies which use these behavioral profiles to target ads. “Incontinence,” “special needs kids,” and “gay life” are just a few of the categories on the Internet Advertising Bureau’s list that could infringe on Article 9 of the GDPR, the EU privacy law which bars the use of such sensitive data without explicit consent from users. Since most internet users have no idea these tags are being attached to them, let alone bought and sold by companies they’ve never heard of, this kind of invasive profiling clearly runs afoul of the law, the group says. A doctor on Fox News is claiming that any doctor that gives parents an exemption from vaccinating their children should be prosecuted. Alex reveals the dark agenda to use vaccines to hurt the population. Google’s categories are even more invasive: “AIDS & HIV,” “debt collection & repossession,” and “drug and alcohol treatment” are just a few on a list that runs to 53 pages. “’Special category’ personal data like this enjoys special protections in the GDPR. I believe this raises the stakes of our complaint,” said Johnny Ryan of no-track browser Brave, one of the complainants. Ad auction companies broadcast an average UK internet user’s intimate data profile about 164 times per day, according to the New Economics Foundation. Ryan believes if the industry just made some “minor changes,” excluding sensitive data points that are not actually necessary for ad targeting, it could comply with the GDPR without significantly altering its business model. “Hugely detailed and invasive profiles are routinely and casually built and traded as part of today’s real-time bidding system, and this practice is treated though it’s a simple fact of life online. It isn’t: and it both needs to and can stop,” said Michael Veale of University College London, another complainant. Poland is the latest country to sign on to the complaint, with digital rights organization Panoptykon joining the digital rights groups from the UK and Ireland which opened the original case against the ad exchanges last fall. In response to a TechCrunch article republishing the category lists, Google released a statement claiming they prohibit advertisers from targeting based on “sensitive categories such as race, sexual orientation, health conditions, pregnancy status, etc.” They do not explain why multiple categories under each of those headers can be found on their “Publisher Verticals” list. Jan Irvin joins Alex Jones to detail how YouTube, now owned by Google, banned the Infowars interview he posted early this week for “violating community guideline standards” when his goal was to prevent children and young people from ingesting toxic, dangerous, and mind altering drugs. | RT | https://www.newswars.com/impotence-substance-abuse-brain-tumors-google-tracking-very-intimate-info/ | 2019-01-29 14:23:43+00:00 | 1,548,789,823 | 1,567,550,441 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
450,410 | realclearpolitics--2019-08-03--Political Tension at Google Is Only Getting Worse | 2019-08-03T00:00:00 | realclearpolitics | Political Tension at Google Is Only Getting Worse | Political Tension at Google Is Only Getting Worse Another former engineer has alleged that the company fired him over his political beliefs. | <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/authors/undefined" data-mce-href="../../authors/undefined">Shirin Ghaffary</a>, Recode | https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2019/08/03/political_tension_at_google_is_only_getting_worse_482270.html | 2019-08-03 12:53:56+00:00 | 1,564,851,236 | 1,567,534,925 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
201,801 | fortune--2019-02-06--Huawei Offers to Create Polish Security Lab to Ward Off 5G Bans | 2019-02-06T00:00:00 | fortune | Huawei Offers to Create Polish Security Lab to Ward Off 5G Bans | Huawei has offered to open a security-testing facility in Poland, if the authorities will allow it. The Chinese company, which is the biggest telecommunications equipment manufacturer in the world, is having a hair-raising time on the trust front these days. Many intelligence agencies suspect that its equipment could provide Chinese spies with a surveillance conduit—a possibility that Huawei denies—and there’s an ever-increasing list of countries that won’t allow its equipment into future 5G mobile networks. Poland is one of the countries that’s likely to shun Huawei, after its security services last month arrested a Chinese Huawei sales director for allegedly spying alongside a Polish employee of the telco Orange. Desperate to avoid that fate, Huawei on Wednesday made its security center pitch. “We are ready to establish a cybersecurity center in Poland if authorities accept this as a trusted solution,” Huawei Poland chief Tonny Bao said at a press conference, as reported by Reuters. Another executive chimed in that Poland’s government had no reason to lock Huawei out of 5G deployments. Huawei already operates security labs in some countries, in order to assuage fears about its trustworthiness. It opened one last year in Bonn, Germany, and next month it’s due to launch a lab in Brussels, Belgium—the heart of EU-level policy-making. At these facilities, telecommunications network operators can come in and test Huawei’s equipment. The company also owns a nine-year-old facility in the U.K. called the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre, or HCSEC. This operates on another level, giving British intelligence workers—who comprise some of the staff there—the opportunity to peek inside Huawei’s equipment. It is more likely that the Polish lab, if the offer were to be accepted, would be for the benefit of telcos. Earlier this week, it was reported that HCSEC will soon issue a report hammering Huawei over its security, and its failure to address previously-raised issues. Separately, Bloomberg reported Wednesday that Canada is more likely than not to ban Huawei from 5G rollouts, though it may delay the decision in the light of China’s detention of three Canadians. Canada last year arrested Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who faced deportation to the U.S. on a variety of charges. German ministers are also reportedly meeting on Wednesday to discuss what to do about Huawei’s involvement in the shift to 5G networks. Countries that have effectively issued such bans include Australia, New Zealand and Japan. The U.S. has by many accounts been pressuring all its allies to follow suit. | David Meyer | http://fortune.com/2019/02/06/huawei-poland-security-lab/ | 2019-02-06 12:10:35+00:00 | 1,549,473,035 | 1,567,549,448 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
520,733 | sputnik--2019-01-09--US NSA Uses Kaspersky Lab to Catch Hacker Then Bans Firm in Return - Reports | 2019-01-09T00:00:00 | sputnik | US NSA Uses Kaspersky Lab to Catch Hacker Then Bans Firm in Return - Reports | Not only is the exposure of Martin’s theft believed to be the largest breach of classified material in US history, but the exposure took place at a time when the FBI was conducting an investigation of Kaspersky, which eventually led to a ban on Kaspersky Lab products in US government computers, the report said. The report surmised that Kaspersky Lab’s ability to catch Martin, a former NSA contractor, casts doubt on US ability to protect its own computers, especially because Martin was able to steal an estimated 50 terabytes of data from the NSA and other government agencies undetected over a two-decade period. The theft included some of the NSA’s most sophisticated and sensitive hacking tools, which were stolen despite a scramble to upgrade computer security following leaks by another NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, three years earlier, the report explained. Martin, who is set to go to trial in June, was arrested August 27, 2016, following a search of his home shortly after Kaspersky Lab turned its material over to the NSA. He was indicted in February 2017. Ironically, the exposure of Martin occurred at a time when the FBI was engaged in an aggressive, behind-the-scenes campaign to discredit the company and get its software banned from US government computers on national security grounds. A ban on Kaspersky Lab products was announced the following year. Kaspersky Lab insists it operates independently and transparently and has repeatedly denied having ever worked for any government or engaged in espionage. | null | https://sputniknews.com/us/201901091071341182-kaspersky-lab-hacker/ | 2019-01-09 17:17:24+00:00 | 1,547,072,244 | 1,567,553,341 | politics | non-governmental organisation |
5,602 | activistpost--2019-09-17--Explosion Hits Russias Largest Virus Lab Which Houses Plague Smallpox Ebola And Other Deadly Viru | 2019-09-17T00:00:00 | activistpost | Explosion Hits Russia’s Largest Virus Lab Which Houses Plague, Smallpox, Ebola And Other Deadly Viruses | A sudden explosion at a Siberian virus research center on Monday reportedly left the facility engulfed in flames, according to several Russian news outlets. Firefighters and other emergency personnel were dispatched to the “Vector Institute” located several miles from Novosibirsk – an emergency which was upgraded “from an ordinary emergency to a major incident,” according to RT, due to the research center for virology and biotechnology housed in the facility; however, the mayor of Koltsovo said there were no biologically dangerous substances in the area where the explosion occurred, and that the Vector laboratory was not in use at the time. The State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology Vector, also known as the Vector Institute, is a biological research center in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia. It is analogous to both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Army Chemical and Biological Defense Command. It has research facilities and capabilities for all levels of Biological Hazard, CDC Levels 1-4. Of note, Vector is reportedly one of two places worldwide where smallpox is stored. The laboratory is known for having developed vaccines for Ebola and hepatitis, as well as for studying epidemics and genera issues surrounding immunology. During the Cold War, it was thought to be part of now-defunct Soviet biological weapons program, meaning that some of the most dangerous strains – including that of – are still being kept inside the Institute’s building . With that in mind, a local branch of the Emergencies Ministry swiftly responded to the call, sending in 13 fire engines and 38 firefighters, who entered the six-story building minutes after arrival. –RT According to Ukrinform.ua, a gas cylinder exploded on the fifth floor of the six-story building while construction crews were working at the time, after which a fire broke out in an area approximately 100 square feet. One worker suffered second- and third-degree burns and was taken to a local hospital. This article was sourced from ZeroHedge.com Subscribe to Activist Post for truth, peace, and freedom news. Follow us on Minds, Twitter, Steemit, and SoMee. Become an Activist Post Patron for as little as $1 per month. Provide, Protect and Profit from what’s coming! Get a free issue of Counter Markets today. | Activist Post | https://www.activistpost.com/2019/09/explosion-hits-russias-largest-virus-lab-which-houses-plague-smallpox-ebola-and-other-deadly-viruses.html | 2019-09-17 00:40:17+00:00 | 1,568,695,217 | 1,569,330,019 | science and technology | scientific standards |
23,166 | bbc--2019-02-19--Cultured lab meat may make climate change worse | 2019-02-19T00:00:00 | bbc | Cultured lab meat may make climate change worse | Growing meat in the laboratory may do more damage to the climate in the long run than meat from cattle, say scientists. Researchers are looking for alternatives to traditional meat because farming animals is helping to drive up global temperatures. However, meat grown in the lab may make matters worse in some circumstances. Researchers say it depends on how the energy to make the lab meat is produced. There's increasing concern about the impact of meat consumption on the planet. Around a quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving up temperatures are estimated to have come from agriculture. Beef production is considered the worst offender with cattle emitting methane and nitrous oxide from their manures, but also from their digestive processes. There are also additional gases from fertiliser application to land, from the conversion of land for pasture or feed production. Because of these impacts on the climate and because of a range of other concerns about issues such as welfare and sustainability, scientists have in recent years sought to develop meat that can be grown from animal cells in factories or laboratories. One perceived advantage would be much lower greenhouse gas emissions, especially methane. Back in 2013 a Dutch team of scientists produced what they claimed was the world's first burger grown in a lab. Since then, there's been a lot of hype and noise but some real progress as well. Essentially, the process involves collecting stem cells from animal tissue and then getting them to differentiate into fibres, these are then developed and grown into a sufficient mass of muscle tissue that can be harvested and sold as meat. Firms in California have taken some important steps. Last year, chicken nuggets, developed by a firm called Just, were tasted by my colleague James Cook. Tyson Foods, one of the biggest US meat processors, has also invested an undisclosed amount in Memphis Meats, another firm in this field that says it is "harvesting cells instead of animals". But despite the promises, no-one has yet mass-produced cultured meat for sale to the general public. Researchers from the Oxford Martin School looked at the long-term climate implications of cultured meat versus meat from cattle. The scientists say that previous studies had tended to look at the various emissions from cattle and converted them all to their carbon dioxide equivalent. The team says this doesn't give you the full picture as methane and nitrous oxide have different impacts on the climate. "Per tonne emitted, methane has a much larger warming impact than carbon dioxide. However, it only remains in the atmosphere for about 12 years, whereas carbon dioxide persists and accumulates for millennia," said co-author Prof Raymond Pierrehumbert. "This means methane's impact on long-term warming is not cumulative and is impacted greatly if emissions increase or decrease over time." The scientists' climate model found that in some circumstance and over the very long term, the manufacture of lab meat can result in more warming. This is because the emissions from the lab are related to the production of energy which is almost entirely made up of carbon dioxide, which persists in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. "The climate impacts of cultured meat production will depend on what level of sustainable energy generation can be achieved, as well as the efficiency of future culture processes," said lead author Dr John Lynch. "If the lab-grown meat is quite energy intensive to produce then they could end up being worse for the climate than cows are." One of the scenarios that the researchers looked at saw meat consumption increase initially and then decline to more sustainable levels over time. The scientists found that the cattle production systems generally showed greater peak warming within this time frame, but as a result of the persistence of large scale CO2 emissions in the early period of production for cultured meat, "any long-term benefits of this production are further reduced compared to cattle systems. "It may well be that these things are so energy efficient that it would simply be replacing a high-impact activity with a low one," said Dr Lynch. "But from the cultured meat systems that are out there at the moment, we can't make that assessment for sure yet." Yes, the authors say that a number of other factors should be considered including water pollution that cultured meat may avoid. But other experts say that isn't so clear cut. "Artificial meat may result in the presence of organic or chemical molecule residues in water, because the process would need to produce huge amounts of chemical and organic molecules, such as hormones, growth factors, to add to the culture medium to grow the meat" said Prof Jean-Francois Hocquette, at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, who wasn't involved with the study. It's far too early to tell as the products really haven't emerged from the laboratory yet. Some researchers say that cultured meat has many other barriers to overcome before it's a huge hit with consumers. "It is worth noting that most consumers have never heard of cultured meat, and many don't know that conventional meat production damages the environment," said Dr Chris Bryant from the University of Bath who has studied the issue. "Consumers who learn about cultured meat usually think primarily of the benefits to animals. Having said that, environmental factors will be an issue for some consumers, and many environmentally conscious buyers are already moving away from meat and dairy consumption." The new study has been published in the journal, Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47283162 | 2019-02-19 10:03:56+00:00 | 1,550,588,636 | 1,567,548,016 | science and technology | scientific standards |
42,709 | bbcuk--2019-08-21--Hampshire lab tests water quality every day of the year | 2019-08-21T00:00:00 | bbcuk | Hampshire lab tests water quality every day of the year | A state-of-the-art laboratory is testing the quality of drinking water for 2.2 million people 24 hours a day, every day of the year. The facility in Farnborough, Hampshire, is operated by South East Water and tests 500 samples a day for 200 different substances to ensure drinking water is clean. Managers at the laboratory say climate change and measuring microplastics are among the issues they have to consider as future risks. | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-49421485 | 2019-08-21 23:08:10+00:00 | 1,566,443,290 | 1,567,533,882 | science and technology | scientific standards |
151,760 | drudgereport--2019-10-01--Artificial blood better than the real thing made in lab by scientists | 2019-10-01T00:00:00 | drudgereport | Artificial blood 'better than the real thing' made in lab by scientists... | Artificial blood that can be used by anyone regardless of their blood type and will increase the survival rate of patients has been created by scientists . Japanese researchers from the National Defense Medical College have revealed the blood which they created in a lab. The team boast it can be transfused into patients regardless of their blood. Scientists boasted their tests on rabbits have been successful, and it is hoped to be used on humans. It is also hoped medics will be able to use the artificial blood to help seriously injured people, and it will increase survival rates. Doctors will now no longer have to worry about limits on the amount of blood available from donors. Scientists claim their artificial blood can also be stored for a year at normal temperatures. Blood can normally be kept for only 20 days at chilled temperatures before it spoils. Loss of blood platelets that stop bleeding, and red blood cells that carry oxygen, will lead to death. Platelets can only be stored for four days and need to be shaken. Professor Manabu Kinoshita said: “It is difficult to stock a sufficient amount of blood for transfusions in such regions as remote islands. “The artificial blood will be able to save the lives of people who otherwise could not be saved.” Scientists used the artificial blood on ten rabbits suffering from serious blood loss. Six of them managed to survive the tests, a ratio similar to rabbits treated with real blood. Researchers said no negative side effects were reported in the rabbits. The team boasted that the artificial blood will increase the survival rate of injured patients. It means doctors will be able to act more quickly rather than having to search for blood of the right type. The team’s artificial blood consists of platelets and red blood cells – and is derived from the cell membrane. The team’s findings were published in the US medical journal Transfusion. | null | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/gq94jEApPac/artificial-blood-better-real-thing-20376298 | 2019-10-01 09:07:36+00:00 | 1,569,935,256 | 1,570,221,871 | science and technology | scientific standards |
201,801 | fortune--2019-02-06--Huawei Offers to Create Polish Security Lab to Ward Off 5G Bans | 2019-02-06T00:00:00 | fortune | Huawei Offers to Create Polish Security Lab to Ward Off 5G Bans | Huawei has offered to open a security-testing facility in Poland, if the authorities will allow it. The Chinese company, which is the biggest telecommunications equipment manufacturer in the world, is having a hair-raising time on the trust front these days. Many intelligence agencies suspect that its equipment could provide Chinese spies with a surveillance conduit—a possibility that Huawei denies—and there’s an ever-increasing list of countries that won’t allow its equipment into future 5G mobile networks. Poland is one of the countries that’s likely to shun Huawei, after its security services last month arrested a Chinese Huawei sales director for allegedly spying alongside a Polish employee of the telco Orange. Desperate to avoid that fate, Huawei on Wednesday made its security center pitch. “We are ready to establish a cybersecurity center in Poland if authorities accept this as a trusted solution,” Huawei Poland chief Tonny Bao said at a press conference, as reported by Reuters. Another executive chimed in that Poland’s government had no reason to lock Huawei out of 5G deployments. Huawei already operates security labs in some countries, in order to assuage fears about its trustworthiness. It opened one last year in Bonn, Germany, and next month it’s due to launch a lab in Brussels, Belgium—the heart of EU-level policy-making. At these facilities, telecommunications network operators can come in and test Huawei’s equipment. The company also owns a nine-year-old facility in the U.K. called the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre, or HCSEC. This operates on another level, giving British intelligence workers—who comprise some of the staff there—the opportunity to peek inside Huawei’s equipment. It is more likely that the Polish lab, if the offer were to be accepted, would be for the benefit of telcos. Earlier this week, it was reported that HCSEC will soon issue a report hammering Huawei over its security, and its failure to address previously-raised issues. Separately, Bloomberg reported Wednesday that Canada is more likely than not to ban Huawei from 5G rollouts, though it may delay the decision in the light of China’s detention of three Canadians. Canada last year arrested Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who faced deportation to the U.S. on a variety of charges. German ministers are also reportedly meeting on Wednesday to discuss what to do about Huawei’s involvement in the shift to 5G networks. Countries that have effectively issued such bans include Australia, New Zealand and Japan. The U.S. has by many accounts been pressuring all its allies to follow suit. | David Meyer | http://fortune.com/2019/02/06/huawei-poland-security-lab/ | 2019-02-06 12:10:35+00:00 | 1,549,473,035 | 1,567,549,448 | science and technology | scientific standards |
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