Axios (10/31/23) reported that in a two-week period, TikTok saw “nearly four times the number of views to TikTok posts using the hashtag #StandwithPalestine globally compared to posts using the hashtag #StandwithIsrael.” As a result, the conservative outrage machine kicked into high gear.
‘Free Speech’ Fans Call for Censoring TikTok as Chinese Plot to Make Israel Look Bad
Tag: Big Government
Separatists fed up with Trudeau want province to break away from Canada, become 51st state
Separatists fed up with Trudeau want province to break away from Canada, become 51st state
“Trudeau, at heart, is a fascist; he’s a communist at heart, he’s a globalist,” the source said, who maintained that the prime minister “will never be held to account” because his administration also appoints the country’s judges.
H/T: The Most Revolutionary Act
Haven’t they been paying attention?! Joe Biden is a socialist, too!? /sarcasm
GOP Stops Pretending It Ever Actually Cared About ‘Antitrust Reform’
GOP Stops Pretending It Ever Actually Cared About ‘Antitrust Reform’
To be clear, despite the press narrative to the contrary, I don’t think either party is particularly serious about antitrust reform. Congress is simply too grotesquely corrupt, and the combined cross-industry lobbying opposition to meaningful reform too great, to currently be overcome without some sort of major policy and cultural trajectory shift and a massive upheaval in Congress.
Related:
Big Tech Antitrust Push in Congress Is Blunted by GOP-Led House
The appointment of Massie, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained inventor who has filed dozens of patents, signals that the Judiciary Committee under Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio will shift its focus away from legislation aimed at curbing the power of the largest tech companies. Jordan has been more focused on free-speech issues, including big tech’s perceived liberal bias.
“We’re all united in wanting to stop the censorship of conservatives and the suppression of free speech,” Jordan said in an interview. “That’s going to be a focus of the full committee work.”
Funny, that’s not what Massie told Breitbert. 🤷🏼♀️
When the FBI Attacks Critics as “Conspiracy Theorists,” It’s Time to Reform the Bureau
Below is my column in the Hill on the need for a new “Church Committee” to investigate and reform the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) after years of scandals involving alleged political bias. In response to criticism over its role in Twitter’s censorship system, the FBI lashed out against critics as “conspiracy theorists” spreading disinformation. However, it still refuses to supply new information on other companies, beyond Twitter, that it has paid to engage in censorship.
When the FBI Attacks Critics as “Conspiracy Theorists,” It’s Time to Reform the Bureau
Previously:
The FBI Paid Twitter $3.4 Million for Processing Requests:
Twitter’s “Guidelines for law enforcement” does state under a section titled “Cost reimbursement” that “Twitter may seek reimbursement for costs associated with information produced pursuant to legal process and as permitted by law (e.g., under 18 U.S.C. §2706).” But the fact that this garnered millions from the FBI was not, as far as I can tell, known until now.
The FBI Paid Twitter $3.4 Million for Processing Requests
The FBI Paid Twitter $3.4 Million for Processing Requests
There’s been ample insinuation that these agencies were politically motivated. But all of this was happening at a time when President Donald Trump was in power and his people were running DHS and the FBI. Rather than agencies intent on swaying the 2020 election for Biden, their actions seem like run-of-the-mill paranoia and attempts at control.
This brings us back to the money the FBI gave Twitter for “time spent processing requests.” In the last installment of the Twitter Files, Matt Taibbi reported on some of those requests, many of which were related to potential election misinformation. Twitter looked into the flagged tweets and accounts, sometimes complying with the FBI and sometimes not.
…
Twitter’s “Guidelines for law enforcement” does state under a section titled “Cost reimbursement” that “Twitter may seek reimbursement for costs associated with information produced pursuant to legal process and as permitted by law (e.g., under 18 U.S.C. §2706).” But the fact that this garnered millions from the FBI was not, as far as I can tell, known until now.
Related:
No, The FBI Is NOT ‘Paying Twitter To Censor’
But this is a misreading/misunderstanding of how things work. This had nothing to do with any “influence campaign.” The law already says that if the FBI is legally requesting information for an investigation under a number of different legal authorities, the companies receiving those requests can be reimbursed for fulfilling them.
…
I do think it remains a scandal the way that 2703(d) orders work, and the inability of users to push back on them. But that is the law. And it has literally nothing whatsoever to do with “censorship” requests. It is entirely about investigations by the FBI into Twitter users based on evidence of a crime. If you want, you can read the DOJ’s own guidelines regarding what they can request under 2703(d).
Under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, law enforcement must obtain a court order under 18 U.S.C. §2703(d) (2703(d) order) to compel a provider to disclose more detailed records about a customer’s or subscriber’s use of services, such as the following
The FBI’s Gestapo Tactics: Hallmarks of an Authoritarian Regime
August 22, 2022 – By John & Nisha Whitehead
“We want no Gestapo or Secret Police. FBI is tending in that direction.”—Harry Truman
With every passing day, the United States government borrows yet another leaf from Nazi Germany’s playbook: Secret police. Secret courts. Secret government agencies. Surveillance. Censorship. Intimidation. Harassment. Torture. Brutality. Widespread corruption. Entrapment. Indoctrination. Indefinite detention.
The FBI’s Gestapo Tactics: Hallmarks of an Authoritarian Regime
“Big government” and other lies we live by: How one Orwellian concoction consumed America
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley died 57 years ago today.
He had warned 4 years previously that our apparently democratic societies were in fact ruled by a “Power Elite” – “modern technology has led to the concentration of economic and political power”.
How right he was!
Source.
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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