Top Social Media Websites Caught Censoring Controversial Content

Source: Washington's Blog

Censorship By Top Social Media Websites

Facebook pays low-wage foreign workers to delete certain content based upon a censorship list. For example, Facebook deletes accounts created by Palestinian resistance groups.

Digg was caught censoring stories which were controversial or too critical of the government. See this and this.

Now, even social media site Reddit – which helped launch the anti-Sopa Internet blackout and publicize GoDaddy’s slimy Sopa support – is doing the same thing.

As just one example, posts from this website are being censored by Reddit. Specifically, a friend of this site who has submitted stories to Reddit has received the following messages of rejection from a Reddit moderator named davidreiss666:

from davidreiss666 via /r/worldnews/

WashingtonBlog is not something we consider a good source for r/Worldnews. From davidreiss666 via /r/worldnews/

Please submit that story from an alternate domain. Thank you.

And another moderator named Maxion:

from Maxion via /r/worldnews/
I am sorry but this submission is not appropriate for this subreddit.

There are certainly also more open-minded moderators at Reddit. But a couple of censors can squash discussion on entire topics.

Why Are They Censoring?

Why are they censoring?

Well, censorship is rampant in America … and social media has grown so big that it has become a target as well.

In addition, as I pointed out last year [for ease of reading, we'll skip indentation]:
Wired reported on Friday:

The Pentagon is looking to build a tool to sniff out social media propaganda campaigns and spit some counter-spin right back at it.

Scary NSA Propaganda: Anonymous Cyberattack Will Take Down Power Grid

Source: Infowars
Kurt Nimmo

An article for Wall Street Journal subscribers reveals that NSA boss Gen. Keith Alexander believes the hacktavist collective Anonymous may soon have the capability to take down the power grid in the United States through a cyberattack.

Alexander has peddled his theory at White House meetings and in other private sessions, according to people familiar with the gatherings, WSJ reports. “While he hasn’t publicly expressed his concerns about the potential for Anonymous to disrupt power supplies, he has warned publicly about an emerging ability by cyberattackers to disable or even damage computer networks,” writes Siobhan Gorman.

It’s not easy to disrupt the power grid in the United States. Most systems use proprietary operating systems and applications that are “not readily available for study by your average hacker,” writes Michael Tanj. Power grid or drinking-water systems and networks are not connected to the public internet.

In other words, it would take more than the efforts of an internet meme scattered across imageboards and forums to disrupt this complex system. It would take the concerted resources of a nation-state like China or Russia – or more likely the NSA itself.

“Even in places like the United States, where there isn’t much you cannot find online, you’re not going to be able to get the depth and detail you need to turn off the lights with a simple network connection. You’re going to have to deploy national-level resources,” writes Tanj.

The NSA knows this. It is exploiting the minimal threat poised by Anonymous as part of a propaganda campaign designed to extend the reach of its “Perfect Citizen” program. Perfect Citizen is being developed by defense contractor Raytheon and consists of sensors that would report public utility anomalies to the NSA via a partnership with Homeland Security, according to Ryan Singel. A Raytheon employee described it as a “Big Brother” system.

The NSA has over the years specialized is slurping up mega-amounts of private data in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The resultant database is the largest in the world. It only makes sense the NSA will do the same with the data it will now collect from utilities and the public infrastructure.

McCain: Cybersecurity Bill Ineffective Without NSA Monitoring the Net

Source: Wired
Kim Zetter

After three years of haggling to produce bipartisan cybersecurity legislation that addresses the security of the nation’s critical infrastructure systems, the Senate finally got a bill this week that seemed destined to actually pass.

That is, until a hearing on Thursday to discuss the bill in which Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) sideswiped lawmakers behind the proposed legislation and announced that he, and seven other Senate ranking members, were opposed to the bill and would be introducing a competing bill in two weeks to address failings they see in the legislation.

McCain and his colleagues oppose the current bill on the grounds that it would give the Department of Homeland Security regulatory authority over private businesses that own and operate critical infrastructure systems and that it doesn’t grant the National Security Agency, a branch of the Defense Department, any authority to monitor networks in real-time to thwart cyberattacks.

The bill neglects to give authority “to the only institutions currently capable of [protecting the homeland], U.S. Cybercommand and the National Security Agency (NSA),” McCain said in a written statement presented at the hearing. “According to [General Keith Alexander, the Commander of U.S. Cybercommand and the Director of the NSA] in order to stop a cyber attack you have to see it in real time, and you have to have those authorities…. This legislation does nothing to address this significant concern and I question why we have yet to have a serious discussion about who is best suited to protect our country from this threat we all agree is very real and growing.”

The current cybersecurity bill proposes to do what nothing else has succeeded in doing to date – that is, improve the security of critical infrastructure systems. It would do this by giving the government regulatory power over companies that operate such systems to force them to do due diligence.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) introduced the legislation on Tuesday along with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.).

BBC: Lets Kill the Internet and Start Over

Source: The Daily Bell

Viewpoint: The internet is broken – we need to start over … Last year, the level and ferocity of cyber-attacks on the internet reached such a horrendous level that some are now thinking the unthinkable: to let the internet wither on the vine and start up a new more robust one instead. On being asked if we should start again, many – maybe most – immediately argue that the internet is such an integral part of our social and economic fabric that even considering a change in its fundamental structure is inconceivable and rather frivolous. I was one of those. However, recently the evidence suggests that our efforts to secure the internet are becoming less and less effective, and so the idea of a radical alternative suddenly starts to look less laughable. – BBC/ Prof Alan Woodward, Department of Computing, University of Surrey

Dominant Social Theme: Look, can we talk? The Internet is paedophiles’ best friend and a virus manufacturer besides. If we get rid of it, we’ll all be a lot safer. And especially the children. Good Lord, the children! The children!

Free-Market Analysis: It is clear to us by now that the Anglosphere power elite is increasingly desperate to shut down the Internet any way it can. This article posted at the BBC (whether or not the author understands he’s been enlisted on behalf of a larger Western elite agenda) is a good example of a sub dominant social theme within the context of this aim.

The power elite wants to run the world, and what we call the Internet Reformation has badly dented their plans. How does one run a secret, super-duper conspiracy to create a New World Order when one’s every move is plastered on the Internet the very next day?

It’s next to impossible. The elites have invested heavily in making their global operations “user friendly.” They’ve tried to pretend that increasingly authoritarian Western governments and global facilities such as the IMF and UN have agendas that are entirely supportive of human rights and individual prosperity.

Nothing could be further from the truth. What the Internet has shown us with increasing clarity over this past decade is that Western banking elites and their enablers and associates will stop at nothing in their quest for ultimate power.

They wish for one-world government (the UN), a one-world military (NATO), a one-world court (the recently formed Soros-sponsored International Criminal Court), a one-world central bank (the IMF), etc.

The exposure of the elite’s goals and its methodologies – its dependence on the corrupt counterfeiting practices of central banks for the trillion-dollar torrents of capital necessary to build world government – has led to an upswell of indignation and scrutiny around the world.

US Claims Cyber War is the New Terrorism

Source: RT

The mainstream media has been asking the question, is the US ready for a cyber war? Obama has emphasized the importance of being prepared for the new WMD's, weapons of mass disruption. According to Obama, terrorism can be acted with a few strokes of a keyboard. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has said that cyber threat will surpass terroristic threats. So could the next Pearl Harbor come in the form of a cyber attack? Conn Hallinan, columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus, helps us answer these looming questions.

Members of UK Parliament Recommend Censoring Online Extremism

Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Natalie Nicol

In a report published last week, members of the United Kingdom Parliament concluded that the Internet plays a major role in the radicalization of terrorists and called on the government to pressure Internet Service Providers in Britain and abroad to censor online speech. The Roots of Violent Radicalisation places the Internet ahead of prisons, universities, and religious establishments in propagating radical beliefs and ultimately recommends that the government “develop a code of practice for the removal of material which promotes violent extremism” binding ISPs.  

While the Terrorism Act 2006 authorizes British law enforcement agencies to order certain material to be removed from websites, lawmakers on the Home Affairs Committee stated that “service providers themselves should be more active in monitoring the material they host.” Their report raises serious concerns that political and religious speech will be suppressed. Security expert Peter Neumann who testified before the Committee asked why websites like YouTube and Facebook can’t be as “effective at removing . . . extremist Islamist or extremist right-wing content” as they are at removing sexually explicit content or copyrighted material that violates their own terms of service.

Citing “persuasive evidence about the potential threat from extreme far-right terrorism” and lauding the recent conviction of four London men who used the Internet to plot a bombing of the London Stock Exchange, Parliament Members commended the report saying, “[it] tackles the threat from home-grown terrorism on and off line.” A spokesman for the House of Commons Home Office stated that the Committee would continue to “work closely with police and internet service providers to take Internet hate off the web."

In an interview with the International Business Times, Trend Micro security director Rik Ferguson criticized the Committee’s recommendations and argued that making ISPs “judge, jury and executioner” imposes responsibilities on ISPs that rightfully belong to law enforcement. “Material of a political or religious nature is by definition much more difficult to define and much more difficult to police without crossing the line to impact on freedom of expression,” Ferguson stated. 

Escalating Cyber War Spells Trouble for Internet Freedom

Source: Activist Post
Eric Blair

The cyber war escalated to a whole new level yesterday. The U.S. government shut down the popular website MegaUpload at the behest of corporate interests. The Feds accused MegaUpload of stealing $500 million in potential lost revenue from copyright holders.

Almost immediately, the hacktivist group Anonymous retaliated by launching massive DDoS attacks on several websites including the US Copyright Office, Department of Justice, FBI.gov, Universal Music Group, Music Picture Association of America, and the Recording Industry Association of America. The attack called “Operation MegaUpload” is also said to be targeting Whitehouse.gov.

Many Internet freedom and privacy activists are cheering Anonymous’ assault against the U.S. Government and the corporate interests that control it. But I’m getting the eerie feeling that Anonymous is playing right into the hands of those who wish to control and censor the Internet.

First, I must state unequivocally that the U.S. government and the copyright holders are clearly the aggressors in this war. Their actions violate current copyright laws where the content providers must prove damages in the court of law before they can sabotage and ransack a business they accuse of stealing. Even though a grand jury supposedly indicted MegaUpload, it’s nearly impossible for them to prove “potential lost revenue” since those engaged in file sharing cannot automatically be considered lost customers.  

Because of this conundrum, copyright holders instead lobbied the government to change the laws to legalize this form of censorship through blunt force and without due process. It seems that since the sought-after legislation, SOPA, has been recently shelved due to universal protest, the State was compelled to act above the law to destroy those sharing information on the Web.

Even more suspicious is that some of the chief copyright holders pushing for these new guilty-until-proven-innocent laws were the ones who developed, promoted, and profited from file sharing in the first place. Again, it’s all beginning to feel like a set-up designed to justify Internet censorship, which is clearly the end game for the powers that be.

Thus the cyber war seems to be heading in the same direction as all literal and figurative wars do. Let’s remember that the public never wins in war. War always justifies atrocities against freedom and proves devastating for infrastructure. Fighting fire with fire very rarely results in anything but destruction. And it’s far easier to destroy something than to create a solution.

Congress Authorizes Pentagon To Wage Internet War

Source: Global Research
Steven Aftergood

Congress has given the U.S. military a green light to conduct offensive military activities in cyberspace.

“Congress affirms that the Department of Defense has the capability, and upon direction by the President may conduct offensive operations in cyberspace to defend our Nation, allies and interests,” said the FY 2012 defense authorization act that was adopted in conference this week (section 954).

The blanket authorization for offensive cyber operations is conditional on compliance with the law of armed conflict, and the War Powers Resolution, which mandated congressional consultation in decisions to go to war.

“The conferees recognize that because of the evolving nature of cyber warfare, there is a lack of historical precedent for what constitutes traditional military activities in relation to cyber operations and that it is necessary to affirm that such operations may be conducted pursuant to the same policy, principles, and legal regimes that pertain to kinetic capabilities,” the conference report on the defense authorization act said.

“The conferees also recognize that in certain instances, the most effective way to deal with threats and protect U.S. and coalition forces is to undertake offensive military cyber activities, including where the role of the United States Government is not apparent or to be acknowledged.”

“The conferees stress that, as with any use of force, the War Powers Resolution may apply.”

This is an odd formulation which suggests that the War Powers Resolution may also not apply.  In any case, the Resolution is a weak reed that has rarely been used by Congress to constrain executive action.

According to the Congressional Research Service, “Debate continues on whether using the War Powers Resolution is effective as a means of assuring congressional participation in decisions that might get the United States involved in a significant military conflict.”

Funny Money, Syria Psiphon, DeCONtamination - New World Next Week

Source: Corbett Report and Media Monarchy
James Corbett and James Evan Pilato


Welcome back to http://NewWorldNextWeek.com -- the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in alternative news and open source intelligence. This week: