Digital Freedom

Have we just discovered another mechanism Big Tech uses to censor people?

Targeted accounts also included businesses, celebrities, influencers and others who “have nothing to do with terrorism,”

All were allegedly placed in a database of terror-linked accounts run by the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, or GIFCT, a nonprofit group intended to stop the spread of mass shooting videos and other terrorist content across social media sites.

After adult performers who used rival sites allegedly had their names added to the GIFCT’s list, traffic to the rival sites drastically fell, the suits allege. Meanwhile, OnlyFans’ traffic and profits soared as the site became a household name.

The lawyers claim they have acquired a list of more than 21,000 Instagram accounts they say were unfairly tagged as potential terrorists

The GIFCT was formed by Meta, Microsoft, Twitter, and Google’s YouTube in 2017 in a joint effort to stop the spread of mass shooting videos and other terrorist material online. When a member of the group flags a photo, video or post as terrorist-related, a digital fingerprint called a “hash” is shared across all its members.

In effect, that means a bikini pic wrongly flagged as jihadist propaganda on Instagram can also be quickly censored on Twitter or YouTube, all without the poster or public knowing that it was placed on the list — much less how or why.

“Due to the proliferation of the GIFCT database, any mistaken classification of a video, picture or post as ‘terrorist’ content echoes across social media platforms, undermining users’ right to free expression on several platforms at once,” Electronic Frontier Foundation researchers Svea Windwehr and Jillian C. York wrote in 2020.

“While [the GIFCT’s system] sounds like an efficient approach to the challenging task of correctly identifying and taking down terrorist content, it also means that one single database might be used to determine what is permissible speech, and what is taken down — across the entire Internet,” the researchers added.

Amazon scientists could recreate any voice based on just a one-minute audio sample.

• Section 10 of the revised bill even authorizes jail time—up to two years—for anyone whose social media message could cause “psychological harm amounting to at least serious distress.” The message doesn’t even have to cause harm.

• There’s also a separate crime of transmitting “false communications,” punishable by fines or up to 51 weeks of imprisonment. The problem here should be obvious: these are utterly subjective criteria. People disagree all the time about what constitutes a false statement.

• The UK’s new proposed censors at OFCOM are making it clear they’ll never enforce against corporate media concerns; it’s only small media creators, activists, citizen journalists, and everyday users who will be subject to the extra scrutiny and accompanying punishments.

• If it passes, the censorious, anti-encryption Online Safety Bill won’t just affect the UK—it will be a blueprint for repression around the world.

What if the social media platform defers censorship decisions to the government itself? Can the government circumvent free speech protections by using a cut-out to censor citizen speech critical of its policies or preferred political candidates?

Under the DMA, gatekeepers like Apple will be required to:

• Allow users to sideload apps directly from the internet and from third-party stores.
• Make services such as voice and video calling and messaging interoperable with third-party services.
• Allow app developers to offer third-party payments systems.
• Make sure all apps can be uninstalled.
• Allow users the option to change the default voice assistant.
• Give developers access to hardware features like near-field communication technology, secure elements and processors, authentication mechanisms, and the software used to control those technologies.
• Share data and metrics such as ads and marketing performance data with developers and competitors.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4, finance expert Matthew Lynn said: “Companies don’t need to aggressively take positions on what are still quite divisive social issues. It probably didn’t come from the CEO – it comes from a bunch of millennial 20-somethings running the Twitter feed.

“To tell customers that they should go and close down their accounts and go to a different bank because they have a slightly different view on this is way too aggressive.”

Every time they want to restrict your freedom, they use money laundering and terrorism financing as an excuse.

The traceability rules are intended to curb the use of crypto for money laundering and terrorism financing by bringing in compliance requirements for crypto service providers

“(Bill C-11) provides the CRTC the discretion to regulate user-generated content like a fan doing a cover song or someone making cooking videos in their kitchen or doing how-to-fix-a-bike videos,”

Telegram, a messaging application known for its dedication to user data privacy, has just handed over that very data to the anti-free speech, authoritarian German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA.)

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) was able to obtain detailed insights into people’s movements and recorded their visits to liquor stores, pharmacies, visits to friends and trips to other provinces, also collecting information on time spent in each location.

“Questions remain about the specifics of the data provided if Canadians’ rights were violated, and what advice the Liberal government was given,”said Conservative MP Damien Kurek.

Another reason to switch to Brave browser