Free Speech Online - Page 3

Following Elon Musk’s announcement that the “block” feature would be removed from X (formerly Twitter), actor James Woods pointed out why he believed this was a bad idea. Musk, the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” responded, “then delete your account.” Musk then blocked Woods, popular conservative pundit and author Catturd, and other prominent users  who dared to make their opinion on his intensely unpopular idea known.

Elon Musk’s X platform, previously known as Twitter, is now seeking job applicants to stop disinformation and promote “credible” stories about the election, despite the Tesla CEO saying he had planned to make the social media platform more friendly to free speech.

Google-owned YouTube has announced a “long-term vision” for its “medical misinformation” policy, indicating that the platform will censor content it considers to be misinformation related to the prevention, treatment, or denial of “specific health conditions.”

Free speech friendly platform Minds.com has partnered with Livepeer to introduce a video live streaming feature in the platform, in response to user demand.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of the newly rebranded X (formerly Twitter), has come forward to explain the platform’s transformation and its increasingly stringent approach to censorship content it judges to be “lawful but awful.”

Newly disclosed emails from within Facebook (now known as Meta) reveal that the Biden administration and its appointed officials exerted significant pressure on the tech giant. Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook frequently bent the knee to the White House demands, such as one case in which emails state executives were “ready to tell the White House that it had demoted a video posted by Tucker Carlson by 50% in response to the White House’s demands, even though the post didn’t violate any policies.”

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has become a censorship battleground, with reports that Democrats in the Senate may attempt to add provisions that would make it easier for the federal government to control online speech, after Republicans in the House passed a version of the bill that would make it harder.

Threads, the soon-to-be-launched app touted by Facebook (now known as Meta) as the “sane” alternative to Elon Musk’s Twitter, will — much like other Facebook apps — collect a dizzying array of details about its users.

A podcast hosted by comedian Theo Von and featuring Roseanne Barr was blacklisted by YouTube after the pair engaged in a sarcastic discussion about the misinformation policies of social media platforms.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has already been censored by Instagram and YouTube, says the latter platform has taken down another one of his  videos.

A new report from the Judiciary Committee’s select committee on the weaponization of the federal government has released an interim report about the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which became one of the most important deep state outposts pushing the censorship of Americans.

Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) has introduced an amendment to the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which forbids the Department of Defense from contracting or cooperating with any organization that facilitates the censorship of Americans.

YouTube has taken down a video interview by Jordan Peterson of Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., prompting accusations that the Google-owned platform is once again seeking to manipulate national politics and interfere in a presidential election in the U.S.

In a move that has raised eyebrows in the tech and legal communities, Twitter has suspended the accounts of Aaron Greenspan, a well-known critic of Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk. Self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” Musk has not explained how banning his critics fits with his view of free speech.

The self-proclaimed “front page of the internet,” Reddit has seen hundreds of the notoriously left-wing platform’s most popular subreddits go private in response to recent policy changes resulting in the shutdown of multiple third-party apps.

According to internal documents reviewed by Vice, the Department of Homeland Security in 2018 sought to develop a method for assigning “risk scores” to social media users, in a program to identify “disinformation” efforts named “Night Fury” by the DHS.

Reddit, the social media platform known for woke politics and leftist censorship, is laying off approximately five percent of its employees and slowing its hiring process according to recent reports.

The U.S Department of State has sanctioned Iranian tech company Arvan Cloud, along with its two co-founders and its United Arab Emirates-based affiliate, for “their roles in facilitating the Iranian regime’s censorship of the Internet in Iran.”

Ella Irwin, the head of trust and safety at Twitter, has resigned from her position, marking the second high-profile departure from the role since Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media giant.

TikTok Inc filed a lawsuit against the state of Montana’s ban on the short-form video platform, arguing the ban violates the First Amendment.

Elon Musk has reportedly chosen Linda Yaccarino, a seasoned media executive, World Economic Forum chairperson, and coronavirus vaccination campaign creator, to lead Twitter hoping to bring stability to the platform that has been recently characterized by turbulence and controversy.

The press team for Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) had their access to Mailchimp suspended after linking to a post on Truth Social by Donald Trump, in which the former president backed the Ohio senator’s new legislation on railway safety.

A report by Lee Fang, a former journalist for the Intercept, states that the FBI is pressuring Facebook and other social media platforms to censor “disinformation” at the behest of Ukrainian officials — even when the information is not false.

Wikipedia could be banned from the UK as a result of impending censorship legislation, the charity that hosts the website has warned.

California bill AB 587, touted by Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom as a fix for “disinformation” on social media, has been challenged by a First Amendment lawsuit brought by podcaster and journalist Tim Pool, satirical website the Babylon Bee, and Minds.com, a free-speech friendly social media platform.

Elon Musk’s Twitter is now disabling comments, likes, and retweets for tweets containing links to Substack, a popular writing and newsletter platform. Self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” Musk may be censoring Substack to launch a competing product from Twitter. 

The  Democrat-dominated Connecticut legislature is seeking to create a censorship board through Senate Bill 6410 to regulate online speech.

Tell me if this story sounds familiar: there’s a national security panic. Foreign adversaries threaten the homeland. Petty bipartisan disputes are put aside, and draft legislation is rushed out. At last, Congress is doing something.

Elon Musk’s Twitter has restricted accounts of prominent conservative politicians, journalists, and activists that are raising awareness about the fact that radical transgender activists called for a “Trans Day of Vengeance” ahead of the mass shooting at a Nashville Christian school, carried out by a woman who identified as transgender.

Authoritarian governments across the world are looking to censor the internet in order to “control people”, a senior official from ICANN has said.

The past several months have revealed a huge amount of government pressure on social media platforms to censor public content. New emails revealed through Missouri v. Biden show the administration went further, urging Facebook to censor private communications on its WhatsApp messaging service too.

In the latest Twitter Files report published on Friday, journalist and author Matt Taibbi revealed that Twitter partnered with the Virality Project, which warned the social media platform that “true stories that could fuel hesitancy,” complained that “anti-vaccine” accounts were retweeting the CDC, and ironically ran searches for the term “surveillance state” while looking for more information to censor.

NewsGuard, the establishment “news-rating” project that presents itself to the public as an impartial authority on the trustworthiness of news publishers, is telling reporters that it is not “government funded” — despite receiving a $750,000 contract from the Department of Defense to track “misinformation.”

Thanks to leaks, lawsuits, the Twitter Files, and congressional inquiry, the sheer size and complexity of the “disinformation” industry is starting to be exposed.

A 59-year-old woman in Poland is facing up to five years in prison for posting pro-Russian and pro-Putin sentiments on Facebook last year.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has announced the markup of bills aimed at preventing the government from colluding with private companies to censor American citizens.