{"id":531413,"date":"2022-12-26T05:43:31","date_gmt":"2022-12-26T02:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/revelations-about-twitter-intel-ties-raise-questions-about-big-tech-other-sites\/"},"modified":"2022-12-26T05:43:31","modified_gmt":"2022-12-26T02:43:31","slug":"revelations-about-twitter-intel-ties-raise-questions-about-big-tech-other-sites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/revelations-about-twitter-intel-ties-raise-questions-about-big-tech-other-sites\/","title":{"rendered":"#Revelations about Twitter-intel ties raise questions about Big Tech, other sites"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3db822df324\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3db822df324\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/revelations-about-twitter-intel-ties-raise-questions-about-big-tech-other-sites\/#%E2%80%9CRevelations_about_Twitter-intel_ties_raise_questions_about_Big_Tech_other_sites%E2%80%9D\" >&#8220;Revelations about Twitter-intel ties raise questions about Big Tech, other sites&#8221;<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-2' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/revelations-about-twitter-intel-ties-raise-questions-about-big-tech-other-sites\/#Searching_Google\" >Searching Google<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/revelations-about-twitter-intel-ties-raise-questions-about-big-tech-other-sites\/#Catch_up_on_Twitters_censorship_of_The_Posts_Hunter_Biden_laptop_story\" >Catch up on Twitter\u2019s censorship of The Post\u2019s Hunter Biden laptop story<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/revelations-about-twitter-intel-ties-raise-questions-about-big-tech-other-sites\/#Riot_mods\" >Riot mods<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h1><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"%E2%80%9CRevelations_about_Twitter-intel_ties_raise_questions_about_Big_Tech_other_sites%E2%80%9D\"><\/span>&#8220;Revelations about Twitter-intel ties raise questions about Big Tech, other sites&#8221;<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h1>\n<div>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft\">\n        <\/aside>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter<\/a> Files have provided stunning confirmation of a Deep State-Big Tech conspiracy to censor ideas and individuals deemed harmful to their shared ends \u2014 from protecting Joe Biden\u2019s candidacy for president to draconian COVID-19 lockdowns \u2014 under the pretext of national security or public health.<\/p>\n<p>But Twitter was far from the only platform with the motive and means to purge dissenting voices from establishment orthodoxy. Nor was it the only such platform with a \u201cTrust and Safety\u201d (read: \u201ccensorship\u201d) team helmed by former US intelligence officials, which met regularly with their former security-state employers to combat \u201cmisinformation\u201d in the run-up to the 2020 election.<\/p>\n<p>Take Facebook. Since 2016, it has embraced a \u201ccontent moderation\u201d scheme called \u201cRemove, Reduce, Inform\u201d to address \u201cproblematic\u201d content.<\/p>\n<p>During the COVID-19 pandemic, as demanded by the Biden administration, Facebook employed the scheme to suppress and counter content violative of the Anthony Fauci party line.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/weingarten-631.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"The Senate is looking into censorship on Twitter. \" class=\"wp-image-25134782\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/weingarten-631.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/weingarten-631.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/weingarten-631.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><figcaption>Chuck Grassley was censored by YouTube for posting videos on COVID. <\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Aaron Berman, Facebook\u2019s misinformation policy chief, described how the company relied on purportedly independent but reliably progressive fact-checkers to flag COVID \u201cmisinformation\u201d during an August 2021 Stanford University-convened conference on America\u2019s \u201cINFODEMIC.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Facebook would remove such content, limit its reach into users\u2019 feeds algorithmically and\/or slap warning labels on it featuring links to \u201cauthoritative information\u201d in a bid, for example, to combat \u201cvaccine hesitancy\u201d \u2014 which would also trigger its algorithm to reduce distribution.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Berman also describes \u201cMinority Report\u201d-like \u201cpredictive\u201d AI tools that Facebook leveraged to determine questionable content likely to go viral for targeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignright\">\n    <\/aside>\n<p>Facebook removed pages, groups\u00a0and accounts that repeatedly featured such content.<\/p>\n<p>As with many Twitter officials involved in content-moderation decisions, Berman had been a\u00a017-plus-year employee of the CIA, where among other things he wrote and edited the President\u2019s Daily Brief. Ex-intelligence officials from the CIA, FBI, DHS and beyond fill Facebook\u2019s trust and safety team ranks.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook has <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>lied such tools on myriad other topics, including algorithmically limiting the distribution of The Post\u2019s Hunter Biden laptop story weeks before the 2020 presidential election \u2014 flagging posts even from US senators like Republican Chuck Grassley on the doings of John Durham\u2019s Russiagate special counsel and reducing the reach of \u201chyperposters\u201d who had spread \u201cmisinformation\u201d during the 2016 election.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Facebook has even applied flags to certain individuals to diminish content connected with them, such as when the platform labeled Kyle Rittenhouse\u2019s shooting a \u201cmass murder,\u201d and on those grounds, blocked searches of his name and content in \u201cpraise or support\u201d of him.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s platform has also created a two-tier censorship system known as \u201cXCheck,\u201d under which Facebook had, as of 2020, \u201cwhitelisted\u201d some 5.8 million \u201cVIPs\u201d who were not subjected to the same censorship rules mere mortals faced.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/twitter-shadowbanned-020.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"Jacqueline Lopour, an ex-CIA analyst who serves as senior manager for intelligence collections at Google.\" class=\"wp-image-25134785\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/twitter-shadowbanned-020.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/twitter-shadowbanned-020.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/twitter-shadowbanned-020.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><figcaption>Jacqueline Lopour, an ex-CIA analyst, serves on Google\u2019s trust and safety staff.<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">CBC<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Searching_Google\"><\/span>Searching Google<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Google-owned YouTube has repeatedly censored content and suspended figures up to and including Republican Sens. Ron Johnson and Rand Paul for\u00a0posting videos on their channels featuring COVID wrongthink.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It has demonetized and limited the reach of videos on subjects from the Ten Commandments to Karl Marx and everywhere in between posted by conservative publishers like PragerU, according to a lawsuit filed by the group.<\/p>\n<p>YouTube terminated thousands of channels covering content of which it disapproved during the 2020 election.\u00a0<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Catch_up_on_Twitters_censorship_of_The_Posts_Hunter_Biden_laptop_story\"><\/span>Catch up on Twitter\u2019s censorship of The Post\u2019s Hunter Biden laptop story<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>In October 2021, the platform declared it would not allow ads or monetization for content that \u201ccontradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Though it denies it targets anyone for politics, evidence suggests Google\u2019s dominant search function reduced in its rankings results from conservative sources such as Breitbart, the Daily Caller and The Federalist, thereby hurting their traffic.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Not even email is immune. The Republican National Committee is suing Google over claims it politically discriminated against it by sending millions of RNC emails to recipients\u2019 spam folders in Gmail \u2014 undermining its fundraising and electioneering efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Public records show Google\u2019s trust and safety staff, like that of Twitter and Facebook, is filled with longtime intelligence community officials. Representative among them is Jacqueline Lopour, an ex-CIA analyst who serves as senior manager for intelligence collections, which manages \u201cintel operations\u201d on, among other things, \u201cmisinformation\u201d and \u201chate speech,\u201d according to LinkedIn.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Riot_mods\"><\/span>Riot mods<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The Jan. 6 Capitol breach was, of course, used to justify some of the most dramatic interventions in the digital public square. Beyond the deplatforming of former President Donald Trump and mass account suspensions and pervasive censorship of offending content regarding the 2020 election that ensued, in the day\u2019s immediate wake, Amazon removed Parler from its cloud hosting service, and Apple and Google booted it from its app store, effectively disappearing the conservative-friendly alternative social media company.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The censorship goes beyond social media and search platforms. Amazon has refused to host advertising for books like Mike Gonzalez\u2019s \u201cBLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution\u201d and Abigail Shrier\u2019s \u201cIrreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.\u201d It removed Ryan T. Anderson\u2019s similarly themed \u201cWhen Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment\u201d from the world\u2019s largest bookstore altogether.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There have even been efforts to take down entire conservative networks.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After House Democrats sent letters to various cable, satellite and streaming providers questioning whether they would continue carrying networks such as Fox <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a>, Newsmax and OANN in light of their allegedly spreading of misinformation pertaining to the 2020 election and pandemic, both AT&amp;T-owned DirecTV and Verizon dropped OANN from their channel offerings.<\/p>\n<p>This is to say nothing of the various e-commerce, e-mail delivery, hosting and fundraising platforms that have effectively curbed speech by booting users supportive of policies with which they disagree.<\/p>\n<p>What of the coordination between many of these companies and the US national security apparatus?<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/aaron-berman-01.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"Berman worked for the CIA for 14 years. \" class=\"wp-image-25134786\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/aaron-berman-01.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/aaron-berman-01.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/aaron-berman-01.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><figcaption>Aaron Berman, Facebook\u2019s misinformation policy chief and a 17-year veteran of the CIA, described how the company relied on purportedly independent but reliably progressive fact-checkers to flag COVID \u201cmisinformation.\u201d <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As NBC News reported back in August 2020, the likes of not just Twitter but Facebook, Google and myriad other companies met with federal government officials from the FBI, DOJ, CISA and ODNI to discuss the handling of \u201cmisinformation\u201d prior to the November election.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>These \u201cgovernment partners\u201d had been meeting with such companies regularly and would continue doing so in the run-up to the election.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignright\">\n    <\/aside>\n<p>We also know that on top of Twitter\u2019s response to direct calls for censorship from the FBI, the national security apparatus also fed censorship requests to a cutout, the University of Washington and Stanford University-led Election Integrity Partnership, which conveyed more than 4,800 of those requests to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms. The platforms censored 35% of all flagged items.<\/p>\n<p>Where does it end?<\/p>\n<p>This raises questions about how pervasive was the censorship regime to which Americans were subjected during the throes of the pandemic through the 2020 election, and perhaps in this past November\u2019s midterms.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>What role is the federal government playing right now \u2014 as outgoing House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Adam Schiff and his Democratic colleagues badger the likes of Meta to maintain their censorship policies \u2014 in rigging the digital public square-turned-intelligence asset in its favor?<\/p>\n<p>And where are the Facebook Files? And the Google Files?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>House Republicans have an obligation to not only expose the coordinated government-Big Tech assault on the First Amendment\u00a0but to\u00a0prevent such corruption of our political system and undermining of liberties from ever happening again.<\/p>\n<p><em>Benjamin Weingarten is deputy editor of RealClearInvestigations.<\/em>\n                        <\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more News articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/12\/25\/revelations-about-twitter-intel-ties-raise-questions-about-big-tech-other-sites\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Revelations about Twitter-intel ties raise questions about Big Tech, other sites&#8221; The Twitter Files have provided stunning confirmation of a Deep State-Big Tech conspiracy to censor ideas and individuals deemed harmful to their shared ends \u2014 from protecting Joe Biden\u2019s candidacy for president to draconian COVID-19 lockdowns \u2014 under the pretext of national security or&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":531414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/weingarten-index.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[137694,32128,71443,74856,4974,20101,5043,26293,4976,10401],"class_list":["post-531413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-12-25-22","tag-censorship","tag-chuck-grassley","tag-cia","tag-facebook","tag-fbi","tag-first-amendment","tag-google","tag-social-media","tag-twitter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}