Free Speech Online - Page 9

Facebook got it wrong. They’ve got it wrong on many other occasions and will get it wrong on many future occasions, of course, but this time is different — they’ve admitted they got it wrong.

Tech giant Facebook is facing newfound accusations of bias and censorship, with employees now alleging that the company is displaying an anti-Arab and Muslim bias.

Executives at the social media website Twitter reportedly promised in a recent shareholder meeting to be more transparent about its censorship of conservatives, but still claim that the site is unbiased in its blacklisting of accounts.

Twitter has called on the Indian government to respect free speech after the social media giant received a visit from Indian police at its office in New Delhi over its labeling of a tweet by a governing party spokesman as “manipulated media.”

Facebook Vice President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg stated in a recent op-ed that Facebook shouldn’t be hampered by regulation so that it can be free to spread its technology worldwide but also American values such as “free expression.”

Following a recent report from Project Veritas revealing insider info from Facebook whistleblowers relating to the company’s handling of vaccine discussion, James O’Keefe and his investigative team have now revealed that the company “filters” content that expresses vaccine skepticism based on values such as supporting liberty or personal religious beliefs.

A recent report from James O’Keefe and investigative journalism group Project Veritas claims that social media giant Facebook is working to actively censor vaccine concerns across its platform. Whistleblowers claim that content that might promote “vaccine hesitancy,” such as shocking but true news stories, are downranked and censored by the Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe.

Twitter is set to largely abandon its image cropping algorithm after its own research found that the system is biased in favor of presenting white people over black people. The algorithm also demonstrated favor towards women over men.

Palantir founder and Silicon Valley conservative Peter Thiel, along with senate candidate J.D. Vance are leading an investment in Rumble, a video hosting platform competing with YouTube that is popular with prominent conservatives.

A new feature in Google Docs will prompt users to write in gender-neutral language in an attempt to avoid offending anyone in the workplace. Soon, if you type “chairman” in Google Docs, the service will prompt you to replace it with “chairperson.”

Twitter refused to comment on its 12-hour ban of the Spanish politician Francisco José Contrera, deputy leader of Vox, the leading populist conservative party in the country. Why did Twitter ban Contrera? Because he said men can’t become pregnant.

The social media platform Parler returned to Apple’s App Store on Monday, making the app once again available on all iPhones, and has also revealed its new CEO, George Farmer.

Social media company Twitter reportedly plans to launch a subscription service called Twitter Blue that will include an “undo tweets” feature and “collections” for $2.99 a month. The service still lacks an edit button, the one feature universally desired by the platform’s active users.

A recent report from the Associated Press claims that an army of fake bot accounts have been boosting China’s messaging on Twitter, and the platform was slow to take action to stop the propaganda campaign.

According to a recent NBC News poll, the majority of Americans say that they use social media at least once a day and also believe that platforms like Facebook and Twitter are dividing the nation rather than bringing it together. 77 percent of conservatives believe social media platforms are dividing the country.

Texas Senate Bill 12, a proposed law aimed at limiting the power of Big Tech companies to censor users in the Lone Star State, has won praise from Prof. Adam Candeub, who was former President Donald Trump’s point man on tech censorship.

Twitter has announced a new feature called “Tip Jar” this week that makes it easy for users to send money to their favorite “creators” on the Twitter platform. Only certain accounts will be able to utilize the Tip Jar feature to make money, including journalists, experts, and nonprofits selected by the Masters of the Universe.

Twitter temporarily suspended the account of Karoline Leavitt, communications director for Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), in what was claimed to be an “error” by the social media company.

Talk of former President Donald Trump has declined drastically on Facebook and Twitter, according to recent data. Conversations about Trump on Facebook and Twitter have declined by about 90 percent on both platforms since the former president was blacklisted by the Masters of the Universe. The data for Twitter does not include tweets and retweets from accounts that have been banned or deactivated.

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), who has been endorsed by Donald Trump in the Alabama Senate race, gave an exclusive interview to Breitbart News about the threat of tech censorship, comparing Silicon Valley’s suppression of speech to Communist China’s and urging the breakup of Big Tech companies.

To combat toxicity on the platform, social media website Twitter is reportedly developing a feature to makes users reconsider sending messages that its system detects as “mean” or offensive. The Masters of the Universe believe that asking “Want to review this before tweeting?” will solve the platform’s supposed “toxicity” issues.

Twitter banned an account themed around Donald Trump’s new communications platform, even though Trump’s team denies that they set up the account. The Masters of the Universe called the account a case of “ban evasion.”

Appearing Tuesday on Yahoo! Finance Live, Twitter CFO Ned Segal reaffirmed that the social network giant will never reverse its blacklisting of former President Donald Trump. Segal’s pledge came ahead of the Facebook Oversight Board’s decision to uphold its ban on the former president’s account.

Facebook’s “Supreme Court” has upheld Mark Zuckerberg’s blacklisting of former President Donald Trump’s accounts temporarily, giving Facebook another six months to announce whether it will be lifting the suspension or deleting Trump’s pages.

The Facebook “Supreme Court” will announce its final decision on former President Trump’s Facebook account on Wednesday morning, according to a recent announcement.

Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) has introduced a bill that takes aim at a key vulnerability of Big Tech — their increasing resemblance to common carriers.

A coalition of “human rights” organizations, many of them funded by Google, have written an open letter to President Joe Biden urging the creation of a “Disinformation Defense and Free Expression Task Force.”

The far-left Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has said that Twitch, the Amazon-owned video streaming platform, should invest even more resources into censorship tools — even after the platform twice banned Donald Trump, first temporarily during the campaign season, and then permanently in January.

Reddit is reportedly blocking links to Rumble, an anti-censorship video hosting platform and competitor to YouTube. Many prominent conservatives maintain a presence on Rumble, including Dan Bongino, PragerU, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), widely touted as a potential 2024 presidential candidate.

Police should wipe allegations of so-called non-crime hate incidents from the record if no crime was found to have been committed, Home Secretary Priti Patel reportedly told police leaders.

Google has censored a public Google document collecting stories in mainstream news media and posts on social media about adverse reaction to COVID-19 vaccines. The document was over 100 pages long when it was censored by Google. It has since been re-hosted at this website.

Non-profit organization PragerU, founded by radio host Dennis Prager to produce short informative videos on conservative topics, has been permanently banned from the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok for “multiple violations” of the platform’s community guidelines. According to PragerU, Silicon Valle has a “proven track record of silencing conservative voices and being against free speech,” and TikTok has joined a “competition for who can be the most woke.”

Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of the Google-owned video-sharing platform YouTube, has received a “Free Expression” award from the Freedom Forum Institute in a virtual ceremony — sponsored by YouTube.

The neighborhood social media app Nextdoor is reportedly introducing new “anti-racism notifications” that will alert users if the app thinks that they’re going to post something racist. The company’s example of a racist post that will receive the notification is “all lives matter.”

Apple’s control over access to the iPhone application marketplace is so total that even leftist organizations are saying the tech giant has too much power to censor.

In a recent interview, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that he believes Facebook is helping to make the world a better place — even if it causes some damage.