Twitter Isn’t Censoring Accounts to Keep Users ‘Safe’, It Is Using Its Power to Spoon-feed the World Establishment Narratives

By Eva Bartlett (via RT Op-Ed)

It’s one thing to have policies against violence, abuse, and harassment. But in “protecting” users, Twitter is hell-bent on censoring voices that rock the boat, even when all they have tweeted is a peer-reviewed scientific paper.

Last week, Simon Goddek, who has a PhD in biotechnology and researches system dynamics, tweeted a link to a scientific study titled, “Is a Mask That Covers the Mouth and Nose Free from Undesirable Side Effects in Everyday Use and Free of Potential Hazards?”

Some time later, his account was frozen and he received a notice from Twitter that it would remain frozen until he deleted the offending tweet, and for the 12 hours following that.

In his Telegram group, he wrote:

I was put into Twitter jail for citing a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Cancel science is real.

What’s especially concerning is that I didn’t make any personal comment on the paper’s content. I only said that regarding that paper, masks CAN lead to massive health damages. It’s the conclusion of a scientific piece of work that has been peer-reviewed by at least 2 experts in the field.

According to Twitter, Goddek violated their policy on, “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to Covid-19.”

The article in question wasn’t even as risqué as others and merely addressed undesirable side effects of mask wearing. How is that “misinformation”?

I spoke with Goddek to learn more about what happened. Turns out, it’s not the first time.

The first time I got censored because I cited a scientific, peer-reviewed paper on masks. I was just citing their work, and I got put into Twitter jail. In that tweet, I was saying, ‘Look, it seems masks don’t work.’ So, I also said my opinion.

This time, I found another study on masks, which says there are adverse effects if you wear masks. So, I was citing the paper without putting my own opinion, and they censored me again, made me delete it and put me into Twitter jail again.

On April 17, Naomi Wolf tweeted she had been locked out of Twitter for the fourth time for sharing a Stanford study, “proving the lack of efficacy of masks.” That study was also peer-reviewed.

This isn’t merely a case of Twitter deciding that Goddek and Wolf were not in the position to be discussing the efficacy or dangers of masks. Twitter is censoring pretty much anything about Covid that doesn’t match the narrative promoted by the WHO, CDC, and other such bodies.Zombie Seizures: The Hacking of Twitter

Even a well-known epidemiologist has faced Twitter’s wrath. An article in the American Institute for Economic Research noted:

Harvard Professor Martin Kulldorff and co-creator of the Great Barrington Declaration, one of the most cited epidemiologists and infectious -disease experts in the world has been censored by Twitter. His tweet on how not everyone needs a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 was not taken down. He had a warning slapped on it and users have been prevented from liking or retweeting the post.

That article also emphasized:

“Dr. Kulldorff serves on the Covid-19 vaccine safety subgroup that the CDC, NIH, and FDA rely upon for technical expertise on this very subject.”

On April 10, a group called Drs4CovidEthics tweeted:

Not a month on Twitter & we were locked out of our account, forced to delete our pinned tweet. We must self-censor or be banned says Twitter (paraphrasing) We mustn’t contradict official sources. But our letters contradict official sources. With good reason. Which we can’t tweet.

What do they know better than Twitter censors? They’re merely “doctors & scientists from 25+ countries, including heads of ICU, world leading immunologists, experts in public health, drug safety, respiratory illness, GPs, researchers in vaccines, pharmacology, virology, biochemistry…”

I searched for more examples of extreme Twitter censorship and found further censorship of vaccine related information, and one person’s hypothesis on why vaccine talk is so particularly taboo: “$157 billion buys a lot of Facebook and Twitter bans.”

The popular independent website Off Guardian recently was locked out of Twitter for sharing one of its own articles on Covid vaccines, they told me.

In fact, Twitter has been censoring Off Guardian for at least a year. When users try to open a tweet to an Off Guardian article, they are met with a warning that the link could be potentially spammy or unsafe.

The warning continues with a large blue button advising to return to the previous page, and a teeny tiny “continue” on to the article option. Same thing for the independent Canadian website Global Research.

Last year, I tried to tweet an article written by respected journalist F. William Engdahl for New Eastern Outlook (NEO). Twitter wouldn’t allow me to even tweet it, instead giving me an error message about the link being “potentially harmful.”

And it’s not only matters of Covid. Just now, I tried to tweet another NEO article, not related to Covid, and was again met with the same message.

A Twitter account focusing on the propaganda around Xinjiang had his account suspended.

And when the New York Post wrote exposés about Hunter Biden’s emails, Twitter locked the Post’s account.

Which makes it all the more clear this isn’t about “facts” or “safety” but blatant censorship.

Whether or not you agree with a point or comment being made by one of the people censored by Twitter, we should be allowed to access their perspective, research for ourselves and come to our own conclusions. We don’t need Twitter to hold our hands and spoon-feed us establishment narratives.

Twitter’s “rules” page reads:

Twitter’s purpose is to serve the public conversation. Our rules are to ensure all people can participate in the public conversation freely and safely.

If you believe that, as the saying goes, I have a bridge to sell you.

Advertisement

Examining The Ethics & Implications Of Twitter’s Censorship Policy In India

By Andrew Korybko (via One World)

Twitter caused a stir by complying with the Indian government’s request to temporarily “withhold” access to dozens of accounts for users within the country in response to claims that they were “inciting violence” during the ongoing farmers’ protests, which prompts some very important ethical questions that have a few disturbing implications for the freedoms of speech and assembly in Western-style democracies across the world.

Everyone across the world is talking about social media censorship after former US President Trump was deplatformed last month by the world’s largest companies in this sphere following the storming of his country’s Capitol on 6 January, but another recent incident is similarly alarming but hasn’t received the amount of global attention that it deserves. Twitter caused a stir by complying with the Indian government’s request to temporarily “withhold” access to dozens of accounts for users within the country in response to claims that they were “inciting violence” during the ongoing farmers’ protests. To its credit, Reuters reported on this controversial decision when it happened, and the BBC just followed up to inform its readers that access has been restored to many of the affected accounts. Nevertheless, the ethical questions related to this course of events and the disturbing implications that they pose for the freedoms of speech and assembly in Western-style democracies haven’t been adequately addressed. 

Strictly speaking, “India’s information technology laws empower the government to seek to block online content deemed as inciting disruption to public order”, according to Reuters. In this sense, Twitter was just abiding by the legal request of one of the many countries in which it operates. Be that as it may, there are concerns that the affected accounts weren’t objectively “inciting disruption to public order” simply for posting with the hashtag #modiplanningfarmersgenocide. The politics of genocide are very emotive and the issue is oftentimes exploited for ulterior motives. Even so, it’s questionable whether provocative claims such as that one amount to “Genocide incitement (which) is a public offence and a great threat to public order”, according to one of the unnamed Indian officials that spoke to Reuters. Rather, as some observers suspect, India might have exploited its pertinent legislation in order to suppress the largest and most sustained anti-government protests in recent memory. 

It’s up to the reader themselves to investigate this issue more thoroughly in order to draw their own conclusions about that particular example, but the takeaway is that governments across the world could at least in theory take advantage of the law in order to censor their political opponents. At the same time, however, there are plenty of examples that one can think of where it would be necessary for governments to request the immediate “withholding” of access to certain accounts that are genuinely “inciting disruption to public order”, such as during the midst of an ongoing Color Revolution attempt. It’s unclear, though, whether Twitter would dutifully comply in those scenarios since the company is regarded as having a very strict liberal-globalist worldview which is thought to generally align with the goals of Color Revolution participants in Belarus, Venezuela, and elsewhere. One can easily imagine the company denying such requests for political reasons, unlike in India where it fears being shut out of its enormous market if it goes against the government. 

These points raise two serioius questions. The first is whether Twitter will follow an apolitical approach of complying with all governments’ relevant requests without discrimination, even if there are grounds like in the Indian case to legitimately wonder whether the law is being exploited for domestic partisan purposes. The second question is whether exceptions will be made on a case-by-case basis due to ideological and/or economic considerations, the first of which is relevant to the Belarusian and Venezuelan scenarios as mentioned and the latter in regards to retaining access to India’s enormous market. The answers to these questions will directly affect the lives of countless people living in Western-style democracies, especially those in the US and Western Europe. As it stands, it’s unclear whether Twitter would temporarily withhold access to accounts within America and France for instance if Washington and Paris claim that some participants in certain rallies (e.g. anti-Biden and Yellow Vests, respectively) are “inciting disruption to public order”. 

Of course, it would help those governments’ cases if they could at least point to some law or another that’s officially on the books in order to “justify” what could in reality just be their exploitation of the legal process for the purpose of censoring their political opponents, but even if they can’t, Twitter has both ideological and economic reasons to comply with their requests. It’s for this reason why lawmakers in those countries and others should raise this scenario within their legislatures in order to hold decision makers to account in the event that they attempt to exploit the law to that end. Every Western-style democracy must have a serious discussion about the ethical questions and implications posed by the Indian precedent. Failure to do so will actually put their citizens’ freedoms of speech and assembly at risk of being undermined through potential collusion between corrupt government officials and Big Tech. It also risks empowering Big Tech into thinking that it can carry out its own widespread censorship sprees for ideological reasons with impunity. 

To be clear, Twitter itself is a complex entity. It can be used as a tool for good in the hands of responsible decision makers who understand the need to temporarily “withhold” access to accounts that are genuinely “inciting disruption to public order”. Peaceful members of the population also use its free services to organize protests in accordance with the law. On the other hand, Twitter can also be exploited as a weapon by corrupt bureaucrats to censor their political opponents on false “security” pretexts. The company can also “go rogue” and impose its own censorship scheme on targeted populations using the same pretext (albeit arguing that the affected accounts’ posts “violated its terms of service” instead of “the law”) in order to meddle in the domestic political affairs of sovereign states. With these risks in mind, countries should urgently initiate conversations between the state and civil society over the contentious issue of Big Tech’s growing role over nearly every facet of people’s lives, and credible steps should be undertaken to preemptively thwart these dark scenarios.

As Apple, Google, Amazon Ban Parler, Twitter Allegedly Profited by Refusing to Remove Child Porn

By Matt Agorist (via Free Thought Project)

As TFTP reported earlier this month, Parler has been a haven for those who have been banned, deleted, or otherwise algorithmed into the memory hole by establishment media platforms. Users moved to Parler because the platform claimed not to censor their content and it was safe space for MAGA folks. For over a year, Parler has remained an open network where pro-Trump users largely proceeded uncensored. Until now. Though the Parler url is still active, it is no longer a functioning social media site.

In the middle of the night on January 11, Amazon took down Parler from its web-hosting service. Amazon Web Services, or AWS said Parler had violated its terms of service given its inadequate content-moderation practices for failing to remove posts glorifying the recent riot at the U.S. Capitol. Google and Apple joined in as well, ensuring that Parler is deplatformed indefinitely.

This move came on the heels of a massive purge of tens of thousands of pro-Trump folks who allegedly espoused ridiculous Qanon theories. It was bad enough that these folks were duped into following the psyop known as Q. Now, however, instead of realizing the absurdity of these ideas as they are debunked in the public arena, that is no longer an option. Now, they will grasp onto these whacky ideas as the massive monopolistic power of tech behemoths imposing their neoliberal will on them gives them justification for doing so.

In the meantime, however, the social media giants Twitter and Facebook remain unfazed as they keep their insidious relationships with the US government thriving. While banning Trump for his speech during the riots at the capitol, Twitter is alleged in a lawsuit to have victimized a child by knowingly allowing a video of him to go viral.

The boy and his mother are now suing the platform alleging that it benefitted financially by failing to remove the video featuring the child and another minor — which was retweeted thousands of times and garnered nearly 200,000 views.

To be clear, this was not a mistake that simply didn’t pick up on the nature of the content. The boy and his mother, according to the lawsuit, repeatedly contacted Twitter about the content, but the social media giant allegedly didn’t suspend accounts distributing it until a federal agent from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) intervened.

In fact, according to the lawsuit, Twitter even responded to the boy and his mother via email and said the child porn did not violate its policies. According to the suit, an email shows Twitter telling John Doe on Jan. 28, 2020, that it “reviewed the content, and didn’t find a violation of our policies, so no action will be taken at this time.”

“What do you mean you don’t see a problem?” the minor asks in a response that same day. “We both are minors right now and were minors at the time these videos were taken. We both were 13 years of age.”

A subsequent screen shot shows that the video accumulated 167,000 views within a day and received more than 2,200 retweets and 6,640 likes.

The video made its way to Twitter after the boy was tricked into sharing the content with a fake account on Snapchat. The account belonged to child traffickers posing as a 16-year-old girl and they blackmailed the boy into sending in the video.

“Plaintiff John Doe was solicited and recruited for sex trafficking as a minor,” reads the lawsuit brought in part by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE). “After John Doe escaped from the manipulation, child sexual abuse material depicting John Doe was disseminated on Twitter. When Twitter was first alerted to this fact and John Doe’s age, Twitter refused to remove the illegal material and instead continued to promote and profit from the sexual abuse of this child.” 

Twitter has not confirmed any details about the incident. But the attorney representing the family says the video going viral — despite the heavy-handed censorship on the platform — shows that they are more concerned with censoring political speech than protecting children.

“We found it very interesting that Twitter, over the last few months, has really shown the world what kind of policing of their platform they are capable of, what the technology is they have at their fingertips, and what they are able to do,” Lisa Haba, partner at the Haba Law Firm, told Fox News in an interview.

She then added that “you would think that amongst everything they are able to police that there would be a premium priority on the protection of children. They literally have policies stating that they’ll do that but their practices say another word.”

As FOX reported, John Doe is seeking damages under the federal Trafficking Victims’ Protection Reauthorization Act, and claiming the platform was a significant cause of his distress. As the suit noted, recent legislation has clarified that Section 230 doesn’t apply to platforms that knowingly facilitate sex trafficking.

For years, TFTP has reported on this phenomenon of Facebook attacking political speech while child exploitation goes unchecked. In 2018, Facebook and Twitter — without warning or justification — deleted the pages of Free Thought Project and Police the Police which had over 5 million followers.

During this purge, they also removed hundreds of other pages including massive police accountability groups, antiwar activists, alternative media, and libertarian news outlets. Facebook claimed to remove these pages in the name of fighting disinformation online and creating a safer user experience. But this was a farce. Illustrating just how big of an ostentatious sham this was, just weeks after claiming to keep their community safe, a child was openly sold on their platform.

An auction was held on Facebook in which a child bride was put up for sale in a public post. People openly bid on Facebook for a 16-year-old girl’s hand in marriage.

Facebook claims they removed the post, but this wasn’t until weeks after the auction had ended and the girl had been sold. Had the post had something about Qanon on it, however, rest assured, it would have been removed immediately.

This was no isolated incident either. The Guardian reported a study in 2020 that suggested Facebook is not fully enforcing its own standards banning content that exploits or endangers children.

According to the study, it examined at least 366 cases between January 2013 and December 2019, according to a report from the not-for-profit investigative group Tech Transparency Project (TPP) analyzing Department of Justice news releases.

Of the 366 cases of child sex abuse on Facebook, the social media giant reported just 9% of them to authorities. Investigations initiated by authorities discovered the other 91% of the cases — not Facebook.

It’s not just Facebook either. Twitter is in the same boat. In 2020, TFTP reported on Twitter allowing the promotion of child molestation on their platform.

Since we reported on the rebranding of pedophiles as Minor Attracted Persons several years ago, the terminology became so popular that it morphed into multiple categories and abbreviations. There are now NOMAPS, which apparently are the “best kind” of MAP because the “NO” means they don’t want to have sex with children. That’s where the pro-c MAPs come in. The “pro-c” denotes pro-contact as in the belief that children can consent into having physical contact and sex with an adult. Children cannot consent to sex with an adult.

Though our report led to the deletion of multiple accounts who openly advocated for sex with children, these pro-pedophile tags on Twitter still openly trend to promote this content.

The platforms that swiftly moved in and banned pro-peace, anti-racist, pro-liberty, and antiwar speech have no problem allowing #mappositivity #mappositivity2 #mappositivity3 #mappride #mapcommunity#mapcommunity2 #mapally #promap #zoophile #zoopride #zoopositivity #zoosexual.

If you still think that big tech censorship is in your best interests, you need to read this article.