Zuckerburg and other Tecnocrats , in Congressional hearings for “censoring”, said Facebook does NOT censor , nor do they favour one political side:

Another lie as proven on May 2019, when Facebook Canada president , as a guest on “the Agenda” on TV Ontario said:
Our “specialist” , or “researchers” have now discovered that Conservatives , In their thoughts, methods and other behaviours are THE SAME AS WHITE SUPREMISTS .! And will be treated as such on the Facebook platform.

Or something very close to those words....look up the program and hear him say these prejudice, hateful, DANGEROUS concepts that are now being use by Facebook for banning Facebook NON Conformists !

So much is questionable about this, it’s laughable.

And yet it’s soon to be used by the Anti-Constitutional parties in the USA, and other Oligopoly controlled countries.

As of May 9, 2019, you are no PROHiBITED from posting or SPEAKING a list of names ( using audio monitoring Artifical Intellegence).
UNLESS your reference is in a negative , unsupportive way.
You are now being told WHAT and HOW you are to think, in order to gain access to the “public Square”

Even more evident of Raketerring, Commers and Banking violations and various Communtications and business laws, is that banking, transportion and other commercial means -which are required to survive in today’s world- are being blocked, banned and restricted from use for these people by theses related Corporations.

This IS is the test- start of a US/Canadian version of the Chinese social credit score- better identified as a Manitory Behaviour Compliance Score- or a Social Conformity Regulation.

This should scare the crap out of EVERYONE - yes, even those whom might support such an idea ( ie , to squelch any conversation that may compete with your own position) ...because history has shown, they will soon find a reason to come for YOU and your ideas.

We should be discusted to think of all the lives lost fighting wars -to support the ideals of freedom of thought and speech- and the 500 years of various hardships, progress and commitment to creating a free society in the US and BNA.

But the means to now control you, your right to speak freely to others and to have your thoughts controlled exists and is rapidly being deployed in every area of your life . You will have to agree to alll the beliefs set out before you, otherwise you will “de-perosned” put in an electronic “goolog”- as is now happing to many INTERNET Users. There commercial accounts are shut down, they are abused by a noisy “few” and are pressured by fiscal giants who wield power.

This also gives a select group of people ( RichTech giants, corporations, or one particular political party) to meddle in EVERY topic, election information and fair debate, free media and just turns the internet into a giant, unchallangble PROPAGANDA machine.

Please speek up NOW ,before you too are “deleted” for not “thinking and behaving as directed”.
You don’t have to agree with what is being said, but you should have the freedom to decide for yourself.

I wonder also if these "10 thousand" minions are also much good at "reconsidering" and "undeleting" you if you complain that your YouTube or whatever has been removed, or disbarred from advertising, for no legitimate reason...

Some very "middle of the road" or "entertainment" sites on YouTube were worrying about having been partially demonetized many months ago...For featuring "violence", many of their proprietors said. On sites devoted to ghost stories? [shakes head] On true crime sites? The mind boggles.

If Google/YT and Facebook/"Policebook" reduce the content they carry to something that AOL or Focus On The Family or whatever thinks is suitable - for junior school kids - then they will become a lot less popular. And they will lose money! Their shares have already gone down.

That article WSWS published a few days ago about these clowns now getting money fron the CIA is the only thing that would explain Schmidt and Zuckerberg's spinelessness!

But how can even a black budget replace what millions of previously satisfied consumers and advertisers brought in? :)

the coming insurrection!

This video presentation can be saved locally by 'right clicking' over the video and selecting 'save link as.' https://tinyurl.com/y89tsxxt

I think of note is the infantile piece on the Facebook position published in the New York Times technology section yesterday that makes no mention of the decision's political intent. https://www.nytimes.com/201...

First of all usury is mistaken for capitalism. And that is a fatal mistake.

As for this quote in the article attributed to Clint Watts: “The greatest concern moving forward,” he said, “might likely be a foreign intelligence service, posing as Americans on social media, infiltrating one or both political extremes in the US and then recruiting unwitting Americans to undertake violence against a target of the foreign power’s choosing.”

Yeah, the fear is they'll do what the deep state within the FBI has been doing in the U.S. for at least 70 years.

(And why does my comment immediately go to moderation? Pt calling the kettle black?)

All comments go to moderation. There are guidelines against abusive language, trolling, etc. This is a serious discussion page on the way forward for the working class, not some crap-posting site where anyone can post a meme of somebody's ass.

It's true that our government supports monopolies but how to avoid the laws are another matter.

This is all rediculous bordering with absurd when largest commercial purveyors of violence, intimidation and physical and emotional domination for profit or political expediency like FB, Google and Tweeter and more, impudently claim guardianship of human civility, acceptable political discourse and social progress.

Social media is an abomination and must be abolish in its global form of massively concentrated capital serving neoliberal oligarchic elite while destroying humanity via orchestrated economic/financial crises and wars for profit.

As all other social platforms, FB does what they are designed to do by NSA: mass spying and survellance, mass manipulation of human feelings of vulnerable via supposed judgment of likelibity, promoting sheeple mentality by imposing leaders and creating from free citizenry brainless followers of establishment puppets, politicians, celebrities, brain damaged sports gladiators or filthy rich Wall Street abominations, not to mention distortion social relations into macabre, peddling financial interests of oligarchy and spreading moronic cult of technology or rathe addiction to useless gadgets, spreading nothing but fake news and defending establishment status quo via blatant censorship and suppression of knowledge and ideas threatening FB corporate interest and interest of IC which FB is almost exclusively serving.

What is tragic however is that too many in a torpor of their machinic unconscious, arrested by western liberalism, minds , their ethics, aesthetics, technics, psychics and politics, see benefits of their slave like submission to social media mind control to outweigh extreme dangers to humanity at large.

Why this deafening silence of the lambs at gates of slaughterhouse?

Sounds like the old East Germany 😏 ! Where the Stasi and their "Spitzeln" held sway...People used to say that's why the DDR had no unemployment: because half the population was employed spying on the other half!

Does sound like a job scheme for unemployed/retired US spooks and cops.

Well: I hate being censored by moderators and "flaggers", including on this site. They don't always go after trolls by any means.

Anyway: Aren't some posts deleted automatically on some platforms because somebody who doesn't like them flags them as "spam"? That could be any random conservative. They've been doing that sort of thing for years! And giving left-wing books one-star reviews on Amazon.

So: WHICH sites *aren't* partners-in-censorship with Facebook? And which are? That would be useful to know.

"Having no social reform to offer, the ruling elites see censorship as the only means to prop up their rule."

That says it all.

❝ Given the explosive content of the statements made at Thursday’s hearing, it is extraordinary that they received no significant coverage in either the print or broadcast media. ❞

extraordinary

That is true of most articles I read on this website and other progressive ones.

"Given the explosive content of the statements made at Thursday’s hearing, it is extraordinary that they received no significant coverage in either the print or broadcast media" is astonishing indeed since e.g. the NY Times reports on most other of Thune's doings.

While the main focus of the actions by the internet platform corporations Google, Facebook, Twitter, concerns suppression of information, its other purpose is to access what the intelligence agencies call "open sources of information". These set the agenda for the government in knowing where to direct its intelligence, security and propaganda activities.
Just as governments send barflies into barrooms to eavesdrop on what people are discussing, so the monitoring of the internet serves a similar purpose, and warns the government where its propaganda is effective or non-effective.

"The group includes “a dedicated counterterrorism team” of “former intelligence and law-enforcement officials and prosecutors who worked in the area of counterterrorism.” In other words, there is a revolving door between the technology giants and the state intelligence and police forces, with one increasingly indistinguishable from the other."

It's obvious that the elites are frightened that "knowledge" will lead to social unrest--the population must be kept uninformed and ignorant. Propaganda has proven to be successful in the past and will work again in the future only if the ruling class can gain total control of the internet.

I think they're trying to put a genie back in the bottle that has long since escaped. History shows you can't put genies of the technological or social progress sort back into bottles; any more than women will ever go back to wearing crinolines.

They will force real resistance underground as they have historically.

Greetings to all!!

This article proves why political collaboration is necessary. Julian Assange mentioned the existential threat of artificial intelligence (AI) to humanity.

We see it everyday on the WSWS, in the comments posted as provocation, misdirection, and pessimism by newly-created screen names. Always ask provocateurs to identify themselves and their interest. Expose the lies and the motives behind them!

The growth of AI is an indication that the ruling class has lost its collective mind, and therefore needs something to think in its place, while removing human emotion. This is how scenarios for nuclear war get drawn up and possibly implemented, which is the danger to which Assange refers.

As a blacklisted artist & revolutionary socialist, my social media posts get smashed in every forum, except here. Therefore I rely on the WSWS to allow me to embed a relevant link in a comment, when necessary. It's the only way my political publications can get any exposure in this current climate.

This collaboration the WSWS is proposing, does NOT compromise their political position. EVERYONE opposed to censorship must join this fight! In doing so, they will come to realize that it is being led by the 4th International, and therefore all must learn & respect orthodox Trotskyism. This will require much political work, but it's what needs to be done. If we don't begin uniting around this issue, all of us will be annihilated by fascism.

But your "new screen names" on here are just as likely to indicate that the WSWS's articles on issues of extreme interest such as this one and #metoo for instance, are attracting lots of new readers and commentators: because they have seen the WSWS'S articles shared: or found them via search engines other than Google.

And not everybody is on Disqus so they may join it just to comment. Simple.

I have long argued that the alternative progressive and left media must align. Without an organized yet free media, we cannot win.

For many it is not possible to support, financially, the many good sites out there. An organized yet free media would certainly help both in the fight against internet censorship and for the fight to promote socialism.

Yes: this is what I say! The WSWS, Counterpunch et al should join with the broader left websites such as Alternet, Commondreams, etc, etc: &form a legal fighting fund to fight censorship bt taking Google and Facebook to court. *Hear me, WSWS leadership?*

No good just grousing...

Why would wsws join with websites beholden to the Democratic Party that pursue a political agenda completely at odds with that of the wsws?

Once these programs are fortified, the official definition of terrorism and interpretation thereof will be amended to include any activity or speech that threatens the current bourgeois order. It will be cloaked in a sea of words written in legalese but it's meaning will be clear to those who will be (or are already being) censored.

And all the sites doing it will lose money (as Facebook is already doing) because Millennials are used to better!

Perhaps but the real purpose of Facebook isn't just earning profits, it's earning profits by providing several key services to the intelligence community. Voluntary surveillance and databasing of the population, data mining to identify trends and the overall social mindset, and now extreme censorship. It's earned the nickname CIABook for a reason. Expect losses in revenue from these moves to be offset by subsidies and bailouts if necessary.

Besides, much of the youth have already moved to other social media outlets years ago. Facebook has a higher population of gen y gen x and even baby boomers.

As if the world is experiencing 'terror' because of the armchair bandits(me included) that espouse ideas not in the mainstream, assert rhetorical extremes and generally act in a way that supports anarchy. Indeed, the world is experiencing terror because of the USA, UK and EU and their draconian military extremes that induce people worldwide to rebel. If the leadership of a nation dare to do away with the U$D as their main trading currency and instead seek to accept or create their own, you can be sure that terror will follow....and now, that through the use of the fake war on terror the war on speech is beginning to ramp up to true 1984 levels. Turn away from Google. LEAVE their platforms. QUIT them.....and they will die!

Great idea! :) Armchair bandit away. It's all many of us are good for!!

Oh: and what do you think of bitcoin? This site seems to think it's capitalist temptation of Satan or something... Yet surely it's one way the USD WILL be undermined as a world currency?? :)

Turn away from Google.

Ask 380 million patriots to drop their little flags? I surely want them too as well. There is indeed a path forward. It's not simple, but it's not impossible either.

It's a sign of terrible weakness and deep-seated fear, when a ruling elite thinks it can control the way vast swathes of the population 'see' the world around them, on terms dictated by the elite themselves, regardless of how the people see their 'objective' situation and circumstances. Arguably, the attempt to control the flow of information on the Internet, won't just fail, but it'll actually undermine the elite's ability to rule and their legitimacy going forward. Already, too many people have lost faith in the elite and their role and, what passes as a 'social contract' has broken down... permanently. In fact, these draconian proposals illustrate just how advanced the social and political crisis is; otherwise they would be unecessary.

So, society increasingly resembles a 'tinderbox' wating for some economic 'spark', like new financial 'dislocation', and then all hell could quickly break loose, and the powerful institutions that seem so solid could rapidly crumble as not enough people believe in them anymore. When a lot of people withdraw their 'consent' to be ruled by an elite, it's basically over with. The elite cannot simply ignore the interests of the people and expect to get away with it forever, without the people withdrawing their consent, which usually has dreadful consequences.

In my opinion, the tech companies are doing this because they read the handwriting on the wall. They are good capitalists in business to make money. If they don't implement the censorship in a way that perhaps they can control, then governments around the world will do it for them. The corporations are not going to stand up against censorship and risk their livelihoods and profits. Meanwhile, this gives the government cover as this censorship is given the appearance of not being imposed from the top down by the government but rather voluntarily by the corporations who are acting not in self-interest but in the "public interest". What a farce.

Secure those big Gov contracts

Moreover, some are discussing the expropriation and transformation of the mega-data social media and internet service oligopolies into public utilities.

That's a logical explanation for all those silent and dormant followers on social media.

Hence gun control...

Thank you Andre,
for helping a growing number of us to understand that the information technology revolution is ultimately a product of human labour and intellect. Moreover, it is a product of working class - ie waged and salaried, labour and intellect. What the international working class now needs to fully understand is that it has produced a very powerful new tool that is now being turned against its very producers, by a profit crazed, totally out of control, psychopathic ruling class. Ref' the Davos 'Risk Report'.

Depends what you put on there... :) One can "pose" as banal too... :)

Your arrogant opinion of yourself serves only the 'hegemon' . Europe is no saviour in the wings, an aspiration of yours revealing your own 'gullible' nature. Your own naivety feeding your own cynicism.
Van Morrison has a line in a song:
"You don't pull no punches; but you don't push the river".

deplorable makes good points, while your attack is harsh and uncalled for. he says: "The insidious practice of promoting 'share' and the making of cybernetic 'friends' out of perfect strangers, when the word itself, implies since time immemorial direct physical contact between people, and not by proxy." though ungrammatical, what is clear is that there's a distinction between a friend and, to be generous, a pen-pal; and FB blurs that distinction.

arrogant? naive? cynical? you're way off base.

". . . the attempt to negate access to information and discussion of political issues critical of the regime not only in the US but worldwide."

this is the big issue: censorship. also, deplorable deplores the nature of this social media colossus. his critique is no different than that found in the writings of more polished media critics.

"You don't pull no punches; but you don't push the river".

without malice, though with a touch of indignation, for knocking deplorable's commentary without just cause, the same may be said of your post.

Look again at Deplorable's post. "[T]he moronic nature of most subscribers"?! Who expose "their banal and inconsequential lives"?! We are talking about billions of working people. I too don't choose to post details of my life on FB, but Deplorable is saying something quite different. And in the very next paragraph he adds some praise for... European big business, which is "putting the squeeze on these crooks and tax evaders"! For all the pithy radical phrases he comes up with, his hostility--no, his hatred--of the working class comes through in this and, I might add, in other of his posts. Ordinary people use FB for definite social reasons: as a kind of escape from feelings of alienation, depression, loneliness, and of course in many cases out of ignorance. One must understand this, not simply heap arrogant scorn on it. The role of the working class in overthrowing capitalism is not based on its present consciousness, of course, and to bitterly dismiss FB users as "morons" who lead "banal and inconsequential lives," --this is the most open repudiation of everything that the WSWS stands for. The comments are far worse than arrogant, they are ignorant and, by dismissing the only consistently revolutionary class in society, they only serve the interests of the status quo.

"Look again. . . the status quo."

deplorable is guilty of no more than failing to see the bigger picture, and of being too hasty to judge a world-wide phenomenon, that is still growing in appeal and innovation. he is not wrong in what he sees, but he does not see it all.

And also, the international linking and connection that social media has facilitated is inherently positive. Sneering at people making use of this reveals nothing else but an attitude of pure contempt. And this contempt masks a fear of the people unbound..Free of their self-opinionated 'betters'.
I haven't been nearly hard enough on Deplorable. With all his
"smart-alecness and cleverality"
(Patrick Kavanagh).

"And also, the international linking . . . Kavanagh)."

my last post sees your point of view, without dismissing his.

"...Their banal and inconsequential lives..". !!!
Please Lord Deplorable. Forgive us. We are nothing. You are the great one.

"'. . .Their banal and inconsequential lives. . .' !!! Please Lord Deplorable. Forgive us. We are nothing. You are the great one."

another prejudicial subjective unsupported characterization, for sure - his, that is. can't say he's right or wrong: it's how he sees it. there's probably a lot of triviality on FB, but it's a social glue that billions of people are taking to, and it's giving people an opportunity to participate with others in ways that are deeply satisfying - and in some cases revolutionary, in that FB has been a means for revolutionaries to communicate, which has helped them to evade & blunt the powers of oppressive gov'ts.

There is a certain intellectual honesty in your comments. By all means seek to communicate, but don't be surprised if you come in for sharp political criticism. Your unalloyed praise of Mencken is important and revealing. Mencken was a muckraking sort of pundit, but his racist and right wing, anti-democratic views are well known. This excerpt from Wikipedia is footnoted and accurate:

"As an admirer of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, he was a detractor of religion, populism and representative democracy, which he believed to be a system in which inferior men dominated their superiors.[2] Mencken was a supporter of scientific progress, skeptical of economic theories and critical of osteopathic and chiropractic medicine.

"Mencken opposed American entry into World War I and World War II. His diary indicates that he was a racist and anti-semite, and privately used coarse language and slurs to describe various ethnic and racial groups (though he believed it was in poor taste to use such slurs publicly).[3] Mencken also at times seemed to show a genuine enthusiasm for militarism, though never in its American form. "War is a good thing," he once wrote, "because it is honest, it admits the central fact of human nature… A nation too long at peace becomes a sort of gigantic old maid."[4]