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Not a 'neutral public forum': Ted Cruz says Facebook actively censors, suppresses conservative speech

Senator Ted Cruz
Fox News
Thu, 12 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC
Zuckerberg
© AP/Andrew Harnik
When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee and Commerce Committee joint hearing Tuesday, I asked a relatively simple question: does Facebook consider itself a neutral public forum?

Zuckerberg said that Facebook is a "platform for all ideas," but declined to give a "yes" or "no" answer. The problem is, this is not merely an academic distinction between words. Facebook's answer to the question could affect millions of users, and attract (or prevent) a lot of attention from federal regulators.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) states: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

This is a good provision. It means that, for example, if you run a blogging platform and someone posts a terrorist threat in the comments section, you're not treated as the person making the threat. Without Section 230, many social media networks could be functionally unable to operate.

In order to be protected by Section 230, companies like Facebook should be "neutral public forums." On the flip side, they should be considered to be a "publisher or speaker" of user content if they pick and choose what gets published or spoken.


Comment: More on Zuckerberg's Congressional hearing:

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Star of David

Israeli government's pathetic effort to smear murdered journalist Yaser Murtaja as a terrorist is failing

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Wed, 11 Apr 2018 16:06 UTC
Yaser Murtajajournalst Gaza
© AIN Media
Yaser Murtaja, founder of Ain Media.
Last Friday, an Israeli sniper killed Yaser Murtaja, 30, one of six Palestinian journalists shot that day. Yesterday the Israeli Prime Minister's office and Defense Minister sought to smear Murtaja as a terrorist.
Defense Minister @AvigdorLiberman: The photographer () was a terrorist with a prior association w/ the military wing of Hamas. He held the rank of captain & was paid regularly by Hamas since 2011. He used to fly drones to collect intel on IDF forces at the front.
The claim featured a photograph of Murtaja with a drone, taken from his own Facebook page. Murtaja proudly worked as a photographer with drones. His famous recent Facebook entry, in which he said he dreamed of leaving Gaza, featured a drone image.

Comment:

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Arrow Up

Russian six-time Paralympian champion wins court case against German newspaper over doping claims


RT
Fri, 13 Apr 2018 11:53 UTC
Athlete Mikhalina Lysova
© Ramil Sitdikov / Sputnik
Athlete Mikhalina Lysova.
Russian six-time Paralympic champion Mikhalina Lysova has won a court case against German newspaper Bild, which called her "the Russian who takes doping" on the eve of the 2018 PyeongChang Games.

In the article published several days before the start of the Paralympic Games, the German paper groundlessly accused the athlete of doping, insisting that Lysova takes prohibited performance-enhancing drugs.

"Paralympic scandal! Russian athlete who takes doping may travel to PyeongChang," the outlet wrote.

Lysova was not initially included in the list of approved Russians competing under the name of 'Neutral Paralympic Athletes' (NPA) in South Korea. But several days before the opening ceremony, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) granted Lysova Paralympic entry, declaring her eligible to compete in PyeongChang.
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War Whore

French police removed protesting students from iconic Sorbonne University


RT
Fri, 13 Apr 2018 15:44 UTC
Police
© AFP
French police stand in front of students from the Tolbiac campus, part of the prestigious Sorbonne University in Paris on April 12, 2018.
Police removed some 200 students who occupied the famous Sorbonne University in Paris. Several universities across France remain blocked by protesters raging against a new educational reform.

The demonstrators in the University of Paris, commonly known as the Sorbonne, occupied the spaces inside the building on Thursday afternoon. The university authorities attempted to negotiate with the protesters but when three-hour talks failed, they called for police intervention. The evacuation of the students which took place in the early hours of Friday was "calm" and "without incidents," according to the police statement.

The students were protesting against the government plans to grant universities the power to set up admission criteria in order to avoid overcrowding. The opponents of the reform insist that the law would violate the basic French principle of education for everyone.

On Friday, the Sorbonne announced on Twitter that it would shut for at least two days for "security reasons."
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Eye 2

India: Horror turns to outrage at gang rape and murder of 8-year-old Kathua girl


The Times of India
Fri, 13 Apr 2018 15:24 UTC
Asifa India murdered girl
New Delhi - The groundswell of horror against the alleged bid to communalise the gory gang rape and murder of eight-year-old Asifa in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua grew across the country on Thursday as outrage reminiscent of the Nirbhaya protests erupted on social media.

On a day when junior foreign minister and former Army chief Gen V K Singh spoke forcefully for the hapless victim, J&K deputy CM Nirmal Singh said he had called for an explanation from two BJP colleagues - Lal Singh and Chandar Prakash Ganga - but said they had denied inciting communal passions. The duo have defended those charged, portraying them as victims of an alleged frame-up.

Comment: Horrific indeed, and reminiscent of the case of Pakistani girl Zainab Ansari:

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Bulb

While homelessness rockets in the UK, Finland has found a simple solution

Harry Quilter-Pinner
The Guardian
Fri, 13 Apr 2018 15:10 UTC
homeless man
© Barry Lewis / Alamy Stock Photo/Alamy Stock Photo
‘The tragedy is that it’s entirely within our power to do something about it: homelessness is not a choice.’ A homeless man in London.

The number of rough sleepers in Britain is soaring, with deaths now a weekly occurrence. It's time we got over our prejudices
"I was born in Liverpool and grew up on a council estate. I had a clean home, toys and nice meals as a kid. When I was nine years old, the sexual abuse started. My abusers made me feel special. They gave me gifts, moneys, cigarettes and sweets. When I was 13 I ran away from home and soon found myself in the murky world of prostitution on the streets. My life was out of control."
This is how it all started for Simon. I met him 23 years later at SCT, a local charity I help to run in east London that offers support to people who are homeless and face alcohol and drug addiction. He used to make me coffee every morning at the social enterprise cafe we run. In the intervening period he had spent years in and out of hostels and institutions, as well as long spells on the streets.

When I met him, Simon was sober and working for the first time in years. He said at the time that SCT "offered me the opportunity to get my life back on track. Life is worth living now. I'm looking forward to my future." Tragically, this future wasn't to be: soon afterwards he decided to return to the streets and died as a result.

I would like to be able to say that Simon's story is an exception. But in reality it is all too familiar, as new statistics published by the Guardian showed on Wednesday. The number of homeless people dying on the streets or in temporary accommodation in the UK has more than doubled over the past five years to more than one per week. The average age of a rough sleeper when they die is 43, about half the UK life expectancy.
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Cross

Archdiocese of Los Angeles sells former convent to Katy Perry, nun appeals to Pope Francis

Elizabeth Llorente
Fox News
Thu, 12 Apr 2018 14:53 UTC
convent Los Angeles Katy Perry
© Splash News
Pictured is the convent that Katy Perry has set out to purchase.
A nun fighting Katy Perry's purchase of a former convent is fired up and reaching out to a higher authority -- Pope Francis himself -- to intervene in the case that has brought the "Roar" singer a rash of negative publicity.

"They'll have to kill me first if they want to keep me quiet," Sister Rita Callanan, 80, told Fox News this week, referring to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which she said wrongly sold the property to Perry. "I am asking Pope Francis to intercede."

Callanan and her attorneys hope the pontiff will review the case and speak to the Signatora, the highest court in Rome. "It's like the U.S. Supreme Court," according to Callanan.

The nun says the death last month of Sister Catherine Rose Holzman - a close friend and ally in the fight over the sale of their order's convent on eight acres in the Los Feliz area - has motivated her to stay in the battle, despite urgings by doctors and friends to drop the matter for health reasons.
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Quenelle

Almost 10% of Americans have deleted their Facebook account due to privacy fears

Lucas Nolan
Breitbart
Thu, 12 Apr 2018 14:00 UTC
facebook
According to a new report, nearly 1 in 10 Americans surveyed have deleted their Facebook account citing privacy fears as their motivation for leaving the platform.

Business Insider UK reports that according to a survey of 1000 Americans by Carolina Milanesi and technology research group Techpinions, nearly 1 in 10 Americans have deleted their Facebook account over privacy concerns. The figures discovered by Milanesi and Techpinions would seem to contradict Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg who said recently that there was not a "meaningful" number of users deleting their Facebook pages.

Here are some of the most important figures from the Milanesi and Techpinions survey:
  • 17% of Americans have deleted the Facebook app from their phone due to concern for their privacy.
  • 35% of Americans are using Facebook less than they used to directly as a result of the privacy issue.
  • 9% of Americans have deleted their Facebook account.
  • 39% of Americans are "very aware" and 37% say they're "somewhat aware" of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Comment: Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook have been sailing through troubled waters lately. Perhaps they should have considered how much normal people value privacy before formulating their data-mining money-making scheme. See:

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Books

Study shows 22% of American millennials haven't heard of the Holocaust


CBS News
Thu, 12 Apr 2018 12:19 UTC
concentration camps
More than one-fifth of millennials in the U.S. -- 22 percent -- haven't heard of, or aren't sure if they've heard of, the Holocaust, according to a study published Thursday, on Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day. The study, which was commissioned by The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and conducted by Schoen Consulting, also found that 11 percent of U.S. adults overall haven't heard of the Holocaust or aren't sure if they did.

Additionally, 41 percent of millennials believe two million Jews or fewer were killed during the Holocaust, the study found. Six million Jews were killed in World War II by Nazi Germany and its accomplices.

Two-thirds of millennials could not identify in the survey what Auschwitz was.

Comment: Apart from the historical facts regarding the Holocaust - such as the actual number of victims or which groups were targeted along with the Jews - consider the following extract, from Political Ponerology:
Perception of the truth about the real environment, especially an understanding of the human personality and its values, ceases to be a virtue during the so-called "happy" times; thoughtful doubters are decried as meddlers who cannot leave well enough alone. This, in turn, leads to an impoverishment of psychological knowledge, the capacity of differentiating the properties of human nature and personality, and the ability to mold minds creatively. The cult of power thus supplants those mental values so essential for maintaining law and order by peaceful means. A nation's enrichment or involution regarding its psychological world view could be considered an indicator of whether its future will be good or bad.

During "good" times, the search for truth becomes uncomfortable because it reveals inconvenient facts. It is better to think about easier and more pleasant things. Unconscious elimination of data which are, or appear to be, inexpedient gradually turns into habit, and then becomes a custom accepted by society at large. The problem is that any thought process based on such truncated information cannot possibly give rise to correct conclusions; it further leads to subconscious substitution of inconvenient premises by more convenient ones, thereby approaching the boundaries of psychopathy.

. . . Catastrophe waits in the wings. In such times, the capacity for logical and disciplined thought, born of necessity during difficult times, begins to fade. When communities lose the capacity for psychological reason and moral criticism, the processes of the generation of evil are intensified at every social scale, whether individual or macrosocial, until everything reverts to "bad" times.

. . .
When a few generations' worth of "good-time" insouciance results in societal deficit regarding psychological skill and moral criticism, this paves the way for pathological plotters, snake-charmers, and even more primitive impostors to act and merge into the processes of the origination of evil. They are essential factors in its synthesis. ...

Those times which many people later recall as the "good old days" thus provide fertile soil for future tragedy because of the progressive devolution of moral, intellectual, and personality values which give rise to Rasputin-like eras.


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Propaganda

Zuckerberg: Facebook censorship of Diamond & Silk was an 'enforcement error'

Lucas Nolan
Breitbart
Fri, 13 Apr 2018 12:14 UTC
diamond and silk
© YouTube
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed before Congress today that YouTube stars Diamond and Silk were limited on the platform due to an 'enforcement error.'

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared before the Energy and Commerce Committee of the House of Representatives in Washington today where he claimed that Facebook's limiting of YouTube duo Diamond and Silk was the result of an "enforcement error." Rep. Joe Barton, a Republican representing Texas's 6th congressional district and vice-chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said to Zuckerberg; "I'm going to read you a question that I was asked, I got this through Facebook and I've got dozens like this."

Barton then quoted a question he was sent via Facebook which reads; "'Please ask Mr. Zuckerberg why is Facebook censoring conservative bloggers such as Diamond and Silk. Facebook called them unsafe to the community, that is ludicrous, they hold conservative views, that isn't unsafe.' What's your response to that?" asked Barton.
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