Russian Firms Rush to Buy Anti-Drone Def... Wed Apr 17, 2024 08:58 | Bloomberg
Ukraine Buys Huge Amounts of Russian Fue... Fri Jan 20, 2023 08:34 | Antonia Kotseva
Turkey Has Sent Ukraine Cluster Munition... Thu Jan 12, 2023 00:26 | Jack Detsch
New Israeli Government Promises to Talk ... Tue Jan 10, 2023 21:13 | Al Majadeen
Russia Training Iranian Pilots Ahead of ... Tue Jan 10, 2023 15:19 | The Times of Israel Anti-Empire >>
A Blog About Human Rights
UN human rights chief calls for priority action ahead of climate summit Sat Oct 30, 2021 17:18 | Human Rights
5 Year Anniversary Of Kem Ley?s Death Sun Jul 11, 2021 12:34 | Human Rights
Poor Living Conditions for Migrants in Southern Italy Mon Jan 18, 2021 10:14 | Human Rights
Right to Water Mon Aug 03, 2020 19:13 | Human Rights
Human Rights Fri Mar 20, 2020 16:33 | Human Rights Human Rights in Ireland >>
Government-Sponsored Agency the Global Disinformation Index is Censoring Anything Deemed ?Harmful? I... Wed Apr 17, 2024 19:00 | Will Jones Government-sponsored agency the Global Disinformation Index is censoring journalism by causing publications to be starved of advertising if they publish anything deemed "harmful", such as gender critical content.
The post Government-Sponsored Agency the Global Disinformation Index is Censoring Anything Deemed “Harmful” Including Gender Critical Content appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
They Were Catastrophising the Climate in the 17th Century Wed Apr 17, 2024 17:00 | Guy de la Bédoyère All summer long there were "so great rains, that produced greater floods than in the memory of man", wrote John Locke in 1673. The 17th century was full of exactly the same climate catastrophising we hear today.
The post They Were Catastrophising the Climate in the 17th Century appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Why Are Psychologists Sharing Memes Mocking Their Patients on Social Media? Wed Apr 17, 2024 15:00 | Dr Kirsty Miller Dr Kirsty Miller was shocked to discover clinical psychologists sharing memes mocking their patients on social media. The problem, she argues, is the profession has been taken over by Critical Social Justice ideology.
The post Why Are Psychologists Sharing Memes Mocking Their Patients on Social Media? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Can You Game Google Scholar? Wed Apr 17, 2024 13:00 | Noah Carl Citations are the currency of academia and Google Scholar as the main way of tracking them. However, a new paper shows that it's possible to game Google Scholar and artificially inflate one's citation count.
The post Can You Game Google Scholar? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
The NatCon Siege: Why is the New Elite so Terrified of a Bunch of Middle-Aged Men Spouting Mainstrea... Wed Apr 17, 2024 11:00 | Dr David McGrogan David McGrogan, who attended the NatCon conference in London last year, marvels at the sheer stupidity of the Brussels mayors who tried to shut down this year's conference. Why give NatCon all that free publicity?
The post The NatCon Siege: Why is the New Elite so Terrified of a Bunch of Middle-Aged Men Spouting Mainstream, Fairly Anodyne Right-of-Centre Policy Positions? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic. Lockdown Skeptics >>
Voltaire, international edition
The cost of war, by Manlio Dinucci Wed Apr 17, 2024 04:12 | en
Angela Merkel and François Hollande's crime against peace, by Thierry Meyssan Tue Apr 16, 2024 06:58 | en
Iranian response to attack on its consulate in Damascus could lead to wider warf... Fri Apr 12, 2024 13:36 | en
Is the possibility of a World War real?, by Serge Marchand , Thierry Meyssan Tue Apr 09, 2024 08:06 | en
Netanyahu's Masada syndrome and the UN report by Francesca Albanese, by Alfredo ... Sun Apr 07, 2024 07:53 | en Voltaire Network >>
|
From Facebook to Policebook
This is a repost from the World Socialists Website now regularly censored by google and the headline catches the essence of how things are panning out today.
On Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a notice outlining extraordinary plans by the social media company to monitor all the postings and messages of its users, censor independent journalism, and use artificial intelligence (AI) to report users to the police and intelligence agencies. On Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a notice outlining extraordinary plans by the social media company to monitor all the postings and messages of its users, censor independent journalism, and use artificial intelligence (AI) to report users to the police and intelligence agencies.
Zuckerberg began his post, released in conjunction with the company’s quarterly earnings report, by declaring that 2017 was a “hard year” for Facebook. “The world feels anxious and divided—and that played out on Facebook. We’ve seen abuse on our platform, including interference from nation states, the spread of news that is false, sensational and polarizing, and debate about the utility of social media.” Facebook, he writes, has the responsibility to “amplify the good and prevent harm. That is my personal challenge for 2018.”
In Facebook’s “newspeak,” this means that the company will act aggressively this year to suppress the spread of information online and censor content, under the guise of combatting “fake news” and “Russian meddling.”
The truly ominous implications of this project are outlined in Zuckerberg’s post. Among Facebook’s initiatives, he writes, is “new technology to detect suicidal posts that has helped first responders reach more than 100 people who needed help quickly, and we’ve built AI systems to flag suspicious behavior around elections in real time and remove terrorist content.”
In other words, Facebook has introduced AI systems to collect, monitor and interpret all the information posted on its social media platform. As always, the introduction of such a sweeping system of mass surveillance is justified with seemingly praiseworthy motivations. After all, who could object to measures aimed at stopping suicides or terrorist attacks? The actual purpose of the new systems, however, is very different.
Zuckerberg points to the sweeping scope of the company’s artificial intelligence plans later: “Our goal with AI is to understand the meaning of all the content on Facebook.” Every single post, photo, video, message, comment, reaction and share will be fed into the company’s increasingly powerful computer systems to be analyzed for “harmful” content, and reported to the police and intelligence agencies as deemed necessary.
The real—and sinister—aim of Facebook’s actions is also made clear by the other initiatives that the company is taking. Most significantly, Zuckerberg stressed the company’s determination to make sure that “the information you see on Facebook comes from broadly trusted and high-quality sources, in order to counter misinformation and polarization.”
What are these “broadly trusted” sources? “For example, take the Wall Street Journal or New York Times,” wrote the multibillionaire CEO. “Even if you don’t read them or don’t agree with everything they write, most people have confidence that they’re high quality journalism. On the flip side, there are blogs that have intense followings but are not widely trusted beyond their core audience. We will show those publications somewhat less.”
In other words, corporate media sources will be promoted, while other publications, even those that “have intense followings,” will be demoted. As for being “shown somewhat less,” what Zuckerberg means is that they will be blocked from reaching a broader audience. More simply, they will be censored.
In addition to censoring news from alternative sources, Zuckerberg states at the beginning of his post that Facebook is working to “show fewer viral videos” because such content is not “good for people’s well-being and for society.”
The viral videos Zuckerberg is referring to include footage of police violence, social exposures like reporting on last year’s Grenfell Tower inferno that exposed social inequality in London, and documentation of the war crimes carried out by the US military. Any such content will be “demoted,” which Zuckerberg later notes “reduces an article’s traffic by 80 percent.”
Zuckerberg’s central pretense—that Facebook will promote sources that “people have confidence” in—is a fraud. In fact, according to a Gallup poll published last year, Americans’ trust in the mass media “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly” reached its lowest level in poling history, with only 32 percent of participants saying they have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust. At the same time, the use of social media to read news has been growing exponentially, reaching two-thirds of the US population according to a poll by the Pew Research Center.
The growth in the popularity of Facebook and other social media networks was in large measure due to the fact that they allowed their users access to information and viewpoints unavailable through mainstream media outlets. Now, Facebook has reversed course and declared that its intention is to promote the official narrative and block independent news sources that question it.
Facebook, Google, Twitter and other giant social media companies—working closely with intelligence agencies and governments—are seeking to leverage their role as mechanisms of communication to become instruments of censorship and repression. In the process, they are turning one of the most important and liberating technological advances of the 21st century, the growth and expansion of artificial intelligence, into a mechanism for police control and dictatorship.
The fight against Internet censorship is an urgent task facing workers all over the world. The World Socialist Web Site is leading the fight against the greatest threat to free speech since the Second World War. On January 23, it published an open letter calling for an international coalition of socialist, antiwar, left-wing and progressive websites, organizations and activists to fight Internet censorship.
The principles for this coalition are:
• Safeguarding the Internet as a platform for political organization and the free exchange of information, culture and diverse viewpoints, guided by the principle that access to the Internet is a right and must be free and equally available for all.
• Uncompromising insistence on the complete independence of the Internet from control by governments and private corporations.
• Unconditional defense of net neutrality and free, unfettered and equal access to the Internet.
• The banning and illegalization of government and corporate manipulation of search algorithms and procedures, including the use of human evaluators, that restrict and block public visibility of websites.
• Irreconcilable opposition to the use of the Internet and artificial intelligence technologies to carry out surveillance of web users.
• Demanding the end to the persecution of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden and the complete restoration of their personal freedom.
• Advocating the transformation of the corporate Internet monopolies into public utilities, under internationally coordinated democratic control, to provide the highest quality service, not private profit.
• The fight against Internet censorship and the defense of democratic rights cannot be conducted through appeals to capitalist governments and the parties and politicians who serve their interests, but only in uncompromising struggle against them. Moreover, this struggle is international in scope and totally opposed to every form and manifestation of national chauvinism, racism and imperialist militarism. Therefore, those who are truly committed to the defense of democratic rights must direct their efforts to the mobilization of the working class of all countries.
We urge all of those who agree with these principles to contact the World Socialist Web Site and take up the fight against Internet censorship.
|