A video capturing a few passionate young Americans confronting a former senior White House official Matthew Pottinger and being forcefully removed from the venue has recently made a splash across social media platforms in China and the US. According to José Vega, the 25-year-old American who was being dragged out of the venue violently, Pottinger made inflammatory remarks accusing China of instigating a potential World War III during his speech at a forum on security issues relating to the Taiwan Straits recently held in New York. Outraged by these false allegations, José and his friends Simon Miller and Robert Castle felt compelled to speak out against Pottinger’s divisive rhetoric.
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.
For all the (mostly misleading) talk of the US government having too much say in content moderation decisions, this move would literally put US government officials effectively in control of content moderation decisions for TikTok. Apparently the thinking is “welp, it’s better than the Chinese government.” But… that doesn’t mean it’s good. Or constitutional.
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Honestly, what this reads as is the moral panic over China and TikTok so eating the brains of US officials that rather than saying “hey, we should have privacy laws that block this,” they thought instead “hey, that would be cool if we could just do all the things we accuse China of doing, but where we pull the strings.”
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So, look, if we’re going to talk about US government influence over content moderation choices, why aren’t we talking much more about this?
CFIUS monitoring agencies, including the departments of Justice, Treasury and Defense, would have the right to access TikTok facilities at any time and overrule its policies or contracting decisions. CFIUS would also set the rules for all new company hires, including that they must be U.S. citizens, must consent to additional background checks and could be denied the job at any time.
Today, many Americans are celebrating Labor Day even though most of the world celebrates Labor Day on 1 May. The origins of Labor Day in the US tell us a lot about American politics.
Citing a recent McCarthyite smear piece by The New York Times, Senator Marco Rubio published a letter on Wednesday that he’d sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland calling for the investigation of American leftist antiwar groups, claiming they are “tied to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and operating with impunity in the United States.”
We stand together against the rise of a new McCarthyism that is targeting peace activists, critics of US foreign policy, and Chinese Americans. Despite increased intimidation, we remain steadfast in our mission to foster peace and international solidarity, countering the narrative of militarism, hostility, and fear.
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) contacted The Grayzone to dispute our characterization of their organization as a CIA cutout. Listen to our highly revealing conversation with the NED’s communications director.
Among some circles, there is the sentiment that activists in America should focus only on what is going on in their own country, as there are enough problems here, why put their energies elsewhere? On the other hand, there is the idea that if an individual has not recently visited Palestine, whether Palestinian or not, that person could not possibly have an informed perspective with which to speak.
Naturally this list is subjective to an extent, and probably contains some mistakes and things that I missed. However, I think the top 3 are somewhat obvious and its no great surprise why I chose the regimes and dictators that I did. My criteria was their death toll, their reactionary power and influence, and also their plans and the resulting death toll, even if some of those plans were not fulfilled.
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