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Censorship

Facebook Calls for More Regulations on Everything But Censorship

April 14, 2021 by Allum Bokhari Leave a Comment

Facebook is calling for more regulation of the tech industry, including a vague call for “more transparent” content moderation and accountability for hosting illegal content, but makes scant mention of regulation to prevent censorship and political interference by the Silicon Valley giants themselves.

In a wide-ranging post on its official website, Facebook says “It’s been 25 years since comprehensive internet regulations were passed. It’s time for an update.”

Yet the four areas that Facebook calls for more regulation in would not check the company’s vast and growing power to interfere in elections around the world. The items mentioned by Facebook are “combating foreign election interference,” “protecting people’s privacy and data,” “enabling safe and easy data portability between platforms,” and “thoughtful changes to Section 230.”

Some of these proposals could theoretically weaken censorship. Data portability between platforms, for example, could theoretically make it easier to transfer a profile from Facebook to a competitor. Yet Facebook is no friend to free speech-oriented competitors — in 2018, Facebook Messenger blocked links to Minds.com, a competing social network that allows a much wider range of free expression than Facebook.

Section 230 reform could also create free speech obligations for platforms like Facebook. But it could also do the opposite, imposing consequences on Facebook — and its smaller competitors — for failing to take down illegal content quickly enough. Facebook’s idea for Section 230 reform is of the latter kind, suggesting harsher consequences for platforms that don’t take down such content swiftly enough.

There is no sign that Facebook supports a Hawley-style exemption for companies below a certain market cap, meaning the regulation would mainly hurt smaller companies that don’t have the content moderation capacities (and multibillion-dollar warchest) that Facebook does — companies like Gab, Parler, Rumble, and Minds.

Not only does Facebook fail to call for regulation to prevent Silicon Valley’s political interference — a growing concern for foreign governments — it openly boasts about efforts to interfere in politics around the world.

“We detect and remove manipulation campaigns around the world and across our apps,” boasts Facebook. “Since 2017, we have removed over 100 networks worldwide for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior, including ahead of major democratic elections.”

While branded as a campaign against “inauthentic behavior,” Facebook’s election interference has overwhelmingly targeted the populist right.

In France in 2017, Facebook removed more than 30,000 accounts ahead of the country’s presidential election, in what was widely interpreted as an attack on pages supportive of nationalist candidate Marine Le Pen.

In Brazil in 2018, Facebook censored the main network of support for populist president Jair Bolsonaro days before a runoff election.

In Italy in 2019, ahead of EU elections, Facebook censored dozens of accounts with a combined 2.46 million followers, most of which were supportive of the League, Matteo Salvini’s right-wing populist party, and the left-wing populist 5-star movement.

Facebook is one of the many platforms that censored President Donald Trump while he was still in office, the first time a world leader was permanently banned from the platform, leading to outcry from national governments around the world.

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.

Filed Under: Breitbart, Censorship, Economy, Facebook, Free Speech Online, Gab, Josh Hawley, Mark Zuckerberg, Masters of the Universe, Minds, News, Parler, Politics, Section 230, Tech

China Launches Hotline to Report Criticism of Communist Party Ahead of 100th Anniversary

April 13, 2021 by John Hayward Leave a Comment

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) prepared for its 100th-anniversary celebration in July by setting up a hotline for citizens to report “historical nihilists” who dare to complain about the Party online.

Chinese law makes it possible to jail anyone who speaks ill of the Party or its designated heroes.

Reuters quoted a notice from the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the authoritarian regime’s top Internet-control bureaucracy, announcing a “tip line” for faithful Communist citizens to report anyone who tries to “deny the excellence of advanced socialist culture” with online posts:

“Some with ulterior motives … have been spreading historical nihilistic misrepresentations online, maliciously distorting, denigrating and negating the history of the party,” said the notice.

“We hope that the majority of internet users will actively play their part in supervising society … and enthusiastically report harmful information,” it said.

“Historical nihilism” is a phrase used in China to describe public doubt and scepticism over the Chinese Communist party’s description of past events.

China has imposed all manner of laws forbidding criticism of the CCP or disagreement with the Party’s official version of history. Many of these laws have been promulgated or tightened around important dates, such as the anniversary of the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square, a forbidden subject for Chinese citizens to discuss. Frank discussions of China’s forced labor policies and disagreements with China’s dishonest history of the coronavirus pandemic are also likely to be classified as “historical nihilism” by the operators of the new snitch line.

The CCP hopes to make its centennial on July 1 a major propaganda event, with an emphasis on China’s “historic achievements” under dictator Xi Jinping. The party now claims it has almost 92 million members, making it “the largest Marxist ruling party in the world.” Absolute loyalty to the CCP, its ideology, and its version of history will be a major theme of the anniversary event.

Filed Under: Asia, Breitbart, Censorship, China, Chinese Communist Party (CCP), National Security, News, propaganda

Intel Introduces 'Bleep' AI to Censor Offensive Speech

April 12, 2021 by Lucas Nolan Leave a Comment

Silicon Valley giant Intel has announced that it will be releasing an AI program named Bleep that is capable of censoring “offensive” and racist speech from gaming audio. Intel claims that the AI tool will allow users to detect and remove toxic speech from their voice chat.”

Forbes reports that tech firm Intel has announced that it has plans to release a new AI program that will censor various types of offensive and racist speech from gaming audio. The program, called Bleep, will provide users with a sliding scale of hate speech options, but now social media users are calling the program “hilarious/horrifying.”

Bleep is still currently under development and is expected to launch sometime in 2021. The program will be integrated into the audio system of Intel desktop and laptop computers. Bleep is designed to let users “detect and remove toxic speech from their voice chat” as a “key step” towards eliminating toxicity online, specifically in gaming, according to Intel vice president Roger Chandler.

An image of the software was revealed during Intel’s showcase. The software includes a sliding scale to determine where a user wants to hear “none,” “some,” “most” or “all” speech that falls under a category of offensive language, including ableism, body shaming, aggression, LGBTQ+ hate, misogyny, name-calling, racism, xenophobia, sexually explicit language, swearing, white nationalism, and a slider determining how often the user wants to hear the “N-word.”

The sliding scale feature was designed to accommodate different situations according to Kim Pallister, general manager of Intel’s gaming solutions team. Pallister stated that users may want more permissive speech options if they’re playing games with friends, or some games may include offensive in-game audio that users still want to hear.

Marcus Kennedy, general manager of the gaming and esports segment in Intel’s client computing group, told Forbes: “I think it would have been naive to step into this space to try to do something here if we didn’t expect any kind of dialogue. We absolutely expected this to generate something, but from our perspective, the right thing to do is to continue to anchor on empowering the gamer and we will stand behind that no matter what kind of pushback we get.”

Many also took to social media to ridicule the program:

Computer, I want you to simulate a full Xbox Live multiplayer lobby for the 2009 video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Enable misogyny, name calling, racism and xenophobia, sexually explicit language, and swearing… Oh, and computer? Turn all N-word prohibitors… off. pic.twitter.com/UN6XRKJ9EX

— Joshua Legarreta (@Strange_Sunset) April 8, 2021

computer, today i feel like being a little bit misogynistic

— bea (@beesmygod_) April 7, 2021

Read more at Forbes here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address [email protected]

Filed Under: Breitbart, Censorship, Economy, hate speech, Intel, Masters of the Universe, News, SJWs, Social Justice, Tech, video games

Big Tech Gains Momentum in Censoring ‘When Harry Became Sally’

April 10, 2021 by Thomas D. Williams Ph.D. Leave a Comment

Yet another bookseller has followed Amazon’s lead in removing a bestselling book questioning the advisability of sex reassignment surgery.

Online aggregator bookshop.org has banned scholar Ryan T. Anderson’s 2018 book When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment, citing complaints.

On April 9, Anderson wrote that bookshop.org, whose mission is “supporting local, independent bookstores” has confirmed it removed When Harry Became Sally due to “multiple complaints and concerns from customers, affiliates, and employees about the title.”

As Breitbart News reported, online retail giant Amazon subjected Anderson’s work to a digital book-burning in February, scrubbing all traces of the book from its site just days before a Congressional vote on the Equality Act.

Amazon cancelled the carefully researched book not because of any factual errors or incendiary language but because it undermines transgender ideology by showing its utter lack of scientific grounding.

Numerous experts in the field, including the former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, have lavished praise on the book and no one has yet produced a serious scholarly response to the arguments it makes.

In March, Amazon doubled down on its decision, announcing that while they “provide our customers with access to a variety of viewpoints, including books that some customers may find objectionable,” they draw the line at those who oppose treating gender dysphoria with puberty blockers and gender transition surgery.

We “have chosen not to sell books that frame LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness,” they declared in a March 11 letter to four Republican Senators.

The letter came in response to an inquiry by the senators — Rubio, Hawley, Braun, and Lee — as to why Amazon has decided to ban a scholarly work presenting one side of the transgender debate.

In its letter, signed by Vice President for Public Policy Brian Huseman, Amazon repeated that it offers “customers across the political spectrum a wide variety of content that includes disparate opinions” but that “we reserve the right not to sell certain content.”

Amazon will continue censoring “disparate opinions” regarding the nature and treatment of gender dysphoria, which refers to the psychological distress experienced by those who do not feel comfortable with their biological sex.

In response to bookshop.org’s decision to join Amazon in banning When Harry Became Sally, pro-life champion Lila Rose tweeted: “This is wild.”

“What exactly was wrong with this title?” Rose asked bookshop.org. “When Harry Became Sally is a thoughtful, balanced analysis of current concerning trends in treatments of gender dysphoria. It’s a scholarly work. Why are you censoring it?”

Follow @tdwilliamsrome

Filed Under: Amazon, Big tech, Breitbart, Censorship, digital book burning, Free Speech, LGBT, Lila Rose, News, Politics, puberty blockers, Ryan Anderson, Science, Tech, Transgender

China to Hollywood: Stop ‘Randomly Mixing Chinese Elements’ into Movies

April 9, 2021 by John Hayward Leave a Comment

China’s state-run Global Times on Thursday told Hollywood it needs to do more than just throw a few “Chinese elements” into big-budget films if it wants to succeed at the Chinese box office, which surpassed the American box office during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

The Global Times editorial offered few concrete suggestions for how American films could compete more effectively in China, whose film industry has begun producing “homegrown” big-budget features that frequently outperform even recent Hollywood successes like Godzilla vs. Kong.

“The top ten most anticipated films during China’s May Labor Day holiday are all domestic films, including Zhang Yimou’s first spy thriller Impasse, video game-based fantasy Dynasty Warriors, and adventure suspense film Schemes in Antiques,” the article reported.

On the other hand, Chinese audiences are supposedly somewhat tepid about most high-profile upcoming American releases, although they are apparently keeping their fingers crossed for Fast and Furious 9, suggesting exploding cars may have become a universal cinematic language that crosses all cultural barriers.

“Maybe it is because of the COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] epidemic that Chinese people are turning their eyes more toward their own stories,” the Global Times warned. “If Hollywood still cannot really respect and understand Chinese culture and just randomly mixes some Chinese elements into their films, it will lose a large amount of its fans in China.”

Many Americans are worried the Chinese Communist Party already has too much influence over Hollywood, and the problem could grow worse if the crippled American theater industry does not swiftly recover from the pandemic, since — as the Global Times unsubtly hinted — Chinese box office receipts will become increasingly important to the profitability of American studios. 

Sometimes American filmmakers throw in the sort of little gestures to Chinese culture or politics the Global Times derided, adding scenes to the Chinese release of movies — or, increasingly, planting them right in the middle of the cut American audiences see — that show extremely efficient and professional Chinese scientists or military officials popping in to help deal with the aliens, giant robots, or other movie menaces of a Hollywood production.

In other cases, Hollywood films are rewritten to make them more palatable to Chinese government censors, which is how the ageless Tibetan sorcerer who should have taught magic to Doctor Strange absurdly became Tilda Swinton, without a peep of concern from the hypersensitive film industry about the loss of a plum opportunity for an Asian actor.

In an especially weird recent example, the goofy video game-fantasy film Monster Hunter — which went out of its way to include roles for Asian actors — was yanked out of Chinese theaters and hastily edited because ten seconds of dialogue supposedly offended “patriotic Chinese audiences.”

Chinese audiences were so offended they proceeded to review-bomb the game the movie was based on, even though the supposedly offensive joke from the movie has absolutely nothing to do with the game, and further demanded “punishment” for everyone involved in producing the film.

Some of the Monster Hunter critics lambasted the film’s Chinese partners and distributors for thinking they could douse the flames of patriotic anger merely by clipping the objectionable dialogue out instead of banning the film altogether, which sounds a bit like the Global Times telling Hollywood it cannot compete in the increasingly important Chinese market by adding a few “Chinese elements” to its productions.

The expectation seems to be that American studios will cater more fervently to China and take even more steps to ensure their biggest movies actively please Chinese audiences, while studiously avoid giving the smallest hint of cultural or political offense. Given the current state of the U.S. box office, this might not be an unreasonable expectation.

Filed Under: Asia, box office, Breitbart, Censorship, China, Entertainment, Hollywood, National Security, News

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