Tag Archives: censorship

Parler sues Amazon, asks court to reinstate platform

Posted on by

Parler sues Amazon, asks court to reinstate platform

By John Kruzel and Chris Mills Rodrigo – 01/11/21 12:37 PM ES

Social media company Parler sued Amazon on Monday, alleging that its suspension from Amazon’s hosting service violated antitrust law and breached the companies’ contractual arrangement.

In its lawsuit, Parler, which is especially popular among conservatives, asked a federal judge to order that the platform be reinstated online.

The 18-page complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, where Amazon is headquartered, accuses Amazon Web Services (AWS) of applying a politically motivated double standard to Parler in contrast to its treatment of the more mainstream social media giant Twitter.

“AWS’s decision to effectively terminate Parler’s account is apparently motivated by political animus,” the lawsuit reads. “It is also apparently designed to reduce competition in the microblogging services market to the benefit of Twitter.”

Multiple legal experts told The Hill that Parler’s antitrust claim was unlikely to succeed. The lawsuit does not establish that Parler’s suspension was part of an agreement between Amazon and Twitter, the rival social media company that Parler identified as the beneficiary of its shutdown.

“On the antitrust side, it’s pretty weak,” said Erik Hovenkamp, a law professor at the University of Southern California. “The biggest flaw in the complaint by far is really just that it doesn’t allege facts that would indicate a conspiracy between Amazon and Twitter.”

The lawsuit comes a day after Amazon suspended Parler, citing concerns it could not adequately screen out potentially incendiary content, including material that incites violence. It also follows Wednesday’s deadly, Trump-inspired insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that left five people dead.

The app saw a massive surge in users between the mob attack at the Capitol and when it was pulled down from Amazon Web Services.

Parler saw approximately 825,000 installs from the Apple and Google stores between Wednesday and Sunday, a more than 1,000 percent increase from the same period a week earlier, according to data from SensorTower shared with The Hill.

Parler told the court that its newfound popularity explained part of the urgency behind its emergency request to have its suspension reversed.

“It will kill Parler’s business — at the very time it is set to skyrocket,” the filing states.

In addition to its antitrust claim, Parler also alleged that Amazon breached their contract by not giving 30 days notice before terminating Parler’s account. 

However, Amazon told The Hill that it notified Parler over the past several weeks that numerous posts on its site had promoted violence, in violation of their agreed-upon terms. According to a letter obtained by BuzzFeed, Amazon informed Parler of 98 examples of content “that clearly encourage and incite violence” over that timeframe.

“We made our concerns known to Parler over a number of weeks and during that time we saw a significant increase in this type of dangerous content, not a decrease, which led to our suspension of their services Sunday evening,” an AWS spokesperson told The Hill.

However, Amazon reportedly notified Parler over the past several weeks that numerous posts on its site had promoted violence, in violation of their agreed-upon terms. According to a letter obtained by BuzzFeed, Amazon informed Parler of 98 examples of content “that clearly encourage and incite violence” over that timeframe.

David Hoffman, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said it would severely undercut Parler’s breach of contract claim if in fact Amazon had warned the company repeatedly that it was playing host to offensive material.

“It’s not simply that there’s one day of bad posts,” Hoffman said, referring to Amazon’s letter. “There have been repeated warnings over time about Parler’s failure to comply with Amazon’s terms of use. Given those repeated warnings over time, it’s sort of rich to say, ‘You didn’t give us enough time.’”

Hoffman also noted that Amazon’s standard policy is to resolve web-hosting disputes through an arbitration process rather than in the courts, presenting another potential legal pitfall for Parler.   

Amazon’s suspension of Parler came after the Apple and Google app stores — essentially the only places for Americans to download mobile apps — decided over the weekend to stop carrying Parler.

The furor over the app stems from its role in facilitating last week’s violent riot at the Capitol. Trump supporters and right-wing extremists used the app, which has billed itself as a haven for free speech, to coordinate and incite the demonstrations ostensibly opposing the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

Without access to Amazon Web Services, the app has been dark on Monday.

The Boot Is Coming Down Hard and Fast

Posted on by

The Boot Is Coming Down Hard and Fast by Caitlin Johnstone – January 10, 2021 https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/01/09/the-boot-is-coming-down-hard-and-fast/

A lot’s been happening really fast. It’s a white noise saturation day and it’s impossible to keep track of everything going on, so I’m just going to post my thoughts on a few of the things that have happened.

❖

Biden has announced plans to roll out new domestic terrorism laws in the wake of the Capitol Hill riot.

“Mr. Biden has said he plans to make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism, and he has been urged to create a White House post overseeing the fight against ideologically inspired violent extremists and increasing funding to combat them,” Wall Street Journal reports.

Did you know that Biden has often boasted about being the original author of the US Patriot Act?

The first draft of the civil rights-eroding USA PATRIOT Act was magically introduced one week after the 9/11 attacks. Legislators later admitted that they hadn’t even had time to read through the hundreds of pages of the history-shaping bill before passing it the next month, yet somehow its authors were able to gather all the necessary information and write the whole entire thing in a week.

This was because most of the work had already been done. CNET reported the following back in 2008:

“Months before the Oklahoma City bombing took place, [then-Senator Joe] Biden introduced another bill called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995. It previewed the 2001 Patriot Act by allowing secret evidence to be used in prosecutions, expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and wiretap laws, creating a new federal crime of ‘terrorism’ that could be invoked based on political beliefs, permitting the U.S. military to be used in civilian law enforcement, and allowing permanent detention of non-U.S. citizens without judicial review. The Center for National Security Studies said the bill would erode ‘constitutional and statutory due process protections’ and would ‘authorize the Justice Department to pick and choose crimes to investigate and prosecute based on political beliefs and associations.’

Biden’s bill was never put to a vote, but after 9/11 then-Attorney General John Ashcroft reportedly credited his bill with the foundations of the USA PATRIOT Act.

“Civil libertarians were opposed to it,” Biden said in 2002 of his bill. “Right after 1994, and you can ask the attorney general this, because I got a call when he introduced the Patriot Act. He said, ‘Joe, I’m introducing the act basically as you wrote it in 1994.’”

The post 9/11 era is over. The single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism. The polarization that threatens our democracy. If we don’t reconnect our two Americas, the threats will not have to come from the outside. pic.twitter.com/ADgGcf7qEo

— Rep. Elissa Slotkin (@RepSlotkin) January 8, 2021

A recent Morning Joe appearance by CIA analyst-turned House Representative Elissa Slotkin eagerly informed us that the real battle against terrorism is now inside America’s borders.

“The post 9/11 era is over,” Slotkin tweeted while sharing a clip of her appearance. “The single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism. The polarization that threatens our democracy. If we don’t reconnect our two Americas, the threats will not have to come from the outside.”

“Before Congress, Elissa worked for the CIA and the Pentagon and helped destabilize the Middle East during the Bush and Obama admins,” tweeted journalist Whitney Webb in response. “What she says here is essentially an open announcement that the US has moved from the ‘War on [foreign] terror’ to the ‘War on domestic terror’.”

❖

In response to pressures from all directions including its own staff, Twitter has followed Facebook’s lead and removed Donald Trump’s account.

And it wasn’t just Trump. Accounts are vanishing quickly, including some popular Trump supporter accounts. I myself have lost hundreds of followers on Twitter in the last few hours, and I’ve seen people saying they lost a lot more.

It also wasn’t just Trump supporters; leftist accounts are getting suspended too. The online left is hopefully learning that cheering for Twitter “banning fascists” irrationally assumes that (A) their purges are only banning fascists and (B) they are limiting their bans to your personal definition of fascists. There is no basis whatsoever for either of these assumptions.

Wow! These people hold rallies protesting the unjust evictions of poor people during the Covid. We have been telling you. They will come for the Progressives as well. That is why we must protect our freedom of speech and our civil liberties. pic.twitter.com/IXVW86HjL6

— Craig Pasta Jardula (@yopasta) January 9, 2021

Google has ratcheted things up even further by removing Parler from its app store, and Apple will likely soon follow. This push to marginalize even the already fringey social media sites is making the libertarian/shitlib argument of “If you don’t like censorship just go to another platform” look pretty ridiculous.

This is all happening just in time for the Biden administration, about which critics had already been voicing grave concerns regarding the future of internet censorship.

The censorship of a political faction at the hands of a few liberal Silicon Valley billionaires will do the exact opposite of eliminating right-wing paranoia and conspiracy theories, and everyone knows it. You’re not trying to make things better, you’re trying to make them worse. You’re not trying to restore peace and order, you’re trying to force a confrontation so your political enemies can be crushed. You’re accelerationist.

A Venn diagram of people who support the latest social media purges and people who secretly hope Trumpers freak out and attempt a violent uprising would look like the Japanese flag.

The correct response to a huge section of the citizenry doubting an electoral system we’ve known for years is garbage would have been more transparency, not shoving the process through and silencing people who voice doubts and making that entire faction more paranoid and crazy.

❖

Supporting the censorship of online speech is to support the authority of monopolistic tech oligarchs to exert more and more global control over human communication. Regardless of your attitude toward whoever happens to be getting deplatformed today, supporting this is suicidal.

Silicon Valley Twitter Censors Shut Down President Trump’s Account: So Arrogant They Seek to Silence Even the President of the United States

Posted on by

Silicon Valley Twitter Censors Shut Down President Trump’s Account: So Arrogant They Seek to Silence Even the President of the United States

OAKLAND, Calif. — Twitter said on Friday that it had permanently suspended President Trump from its service “due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” effectively cutting him off from his favorite megaphone for reaching his supporters.

“We have determined that these tweets are in violation of the Glorification of Violence Policy and the user @realDonaldTrump should be immediately permanently suspended from the service,” Twitter said in a blog post.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1347684877634838528&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2021%2F01%2F08%2Ftechnology%2Ftwitter-trump-suspended.html&siteScreenName=nytimes&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

The suspension comes a day after Mr. Trump was barred from using Facebook for the remainder of his term, and after a number of other digital platforms limited Mr. Trump from their services.

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyhttps://181214c01f2fa3968a0818f078e960d8.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.Trump and Social MediaThe President Is Losing His PlatformsJan. 7, 2021Facebook Bars Trump Through End of His TermJan. 7, 2021Twitter and Facebook Lock Trump’s Accounts After Violence on Capitol HillJan. 6, 2021

Kate Conger is a technology reporter in San Francisco, covering privacy, policy and labor. Previously, she wrote about cybersecurity for Gizmodo and TechCrunch. @kateconger

Why Would Anyone Want to Serve in Canada’s Politically Correct Anti-Free Speech Military?

Posted on by

Why Would  Anyone Want to Serve in Canada’s Politically Correct Anti-Free Speech Military?

Canada’s politically correct military leadership has been dancing to the censorship tune of Jewish groups demanding a purge of the ranks of “right wingers”. The Friends of the Simon Weisenthal Centre “is urging Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan to turn all suspected acts of racism, white supremacy and hateful conduct within the Canadian Armed Forces over to a specialized task force of military police officers or the RCMP for investigation. … The centre also wants to see the military adopt a policy of immediately sending all cases of alleged white supremacist activity to military police or the RCMP for investigation.” (CBC, September 4, 2020) [What, exactly, is “White supremacy”? Opposition to massive Third World immigration is sometimes labelled White supremacy. So is White pride. But Zionism or Jewish pride are alright?] “We need to end this culture of tolerance for neo-Nazis and neo-Nazi activities within our Armed Forces and it needs to be done now,”  Jaime Kirzner-Roberts of the Wiesenthal Centre demanded.

“The commander of the Canadian army says he plans to issue a special order that will give individual army units across the country “explicit direction” on how to deal with soldiers suspected of hateful conduct and extremism.

Lt.-Gen. Wayne Eyre told CBC News he also will reinforce the message personally by convening a meeting of all commanding officers and regimental sergeants major — 450 mid-level leaders — to discuss the problem of far-right infiltration of the military. “There is absolutely no place in the Canadian Army for those who hold hateful beliefs and express these beliefs through hateful behaviour. If you have those types of beliefs — get out. We don’t want you. You bring discredit and dishonour upon our organization.” (CBC, September 15, 2020)

So, as a member of the present military, you’re asked to risk your life to defend freedoms in other countries (say, Afghanistan), which the same military denies to you? Let the wankers, and soy boys and snowflakes go and fight, if they don’t go scuttling to the nearest “safe space” first.

So cadaver guy has no use for political diversity in the Canadian Armed Forces. Who’d want to fight for other’s freedoms in an army that has no room for political diversity. Let the wankers, soy boys and snowflakes fight for “diversity”.

Telegraph Lifts Website Paywall In Response To Extinction Rebellion ‘Assault On The Free Press’

Posted on by
Police officers wearing face masks and gloves due to the COVID-19 pandemic, detain an activist from the climate protest group Extinction Rebellion as they demonstrate in Parliament Square in London on September 2, 2020, on the second day of their new season of mass rebellions.

Telegraph Lifts Website Paywall In Response To Extinction Rebellion ‘Assault On The Free Press’

© AFP 2020 / TOLGA AKMENUK19:01 GMT 05.09.2020Get short URLby James Tweedie451Subscribe

On Friday, environmentalist group Extinction Rebellion blockaded three printworks used by the Times, The Sun, The Telegraph and the Daily Mail who they accused of failing to report on climate change issues ‘accurately’. Home Secretary Priti Patel condemned it as an attack on the free press and democracy.

British newspaper The Telegraph has lifted its paywall for the weekend after an Extinction Rebellion (XR) blockade it dubbed a bid to “stifle our free press.”

Telegraph editor Chris Evans tweeted: “It’s free until Monday morning. Do enjoy – and feel free to agree or disagree. That’s democracy…”

​Friday’s actions by the environmentalist group at three print works in England and Scotland blocked deliveries of The Times, The Sun, The Scottish Sun, The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, all conservative-leaning titles which have a combined daily circulation of some 3 million copies. ©

Wikipedia / Kaihsu Tai / The Co-operative TilehurstSpectator Chairman Bans Adverts From The Co-Op After Supermarket Chain Seeks To ‘Influence Content’The group claimed it was “using disruption to expose the failure of these corporations to accurately report on the climate and ecological emergency,” as protesters chained themselves to delivery vehicles.

In a message on the Telegraph website, which referred to XR as “extremists,” Evans said: “I’m very concerned by the attack on free speech.”

“Whatever your politics, you should be worried by this,” he added. “There are also questions for the police who perhaps placed the right of these few people to protest above the right of the rest of the people to read a free press.”

Daily Mail political commentator Dan Hedges blamed the “liberal establishment” for encouraging XR to act illegally.

​Home Secretary Priti Patel also condemned the XR protest, tweeting: “This attack on our free press, society and democracy is completely unacceptable.”

​Evans prodded opposition Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer on his reticence to comment on the incident.

​But former Labour MP for Vauxhall hailed the “excellent decision.”

​In a piece for the Telegraph, another former Labour MP Ian Austin called the response of the Hertfordshire Police Force to the protest in Broxbourne “pathetic.”

“Don’t we have the right to read what we want and to go to work?” he asked. “You can’t have protesters or politicians deciding what people can or can’t read. And you can’t prevent newspapers being published and distributed because you disagree with their editorial line.”

In September 2019, Heathrow Pause, a splinter group led by XR co-founder Roger Hallam, put tens of thousands of passengers’ lives at risk when they attempted to fly remote-controlled drones over London’s biggest airport. At least 19 people including Hallam were arrested.

Andrew Anglin on the Meaning of Freedom of Speech in an Adult Society — If Trump doesn’t win our issue will be basic survival.

Posted on by

If Trump doesn’t win our issue will be basic survival.

Twitter’s Claim That They Need to Protect People from Information Undermines the Core Concept of Modern Democracy

All of this is to say: information has to be taken at face value, and all information should be examined through a critical lens by adult readers. The social media companies are now dealing with people as though they are children, incapable of any kind of critical analysis whatsoever. I don’t know if people are or are not capable of critical analysis, but I do know that the primary, foundational assumption of a universal suffrage democracy is that every adult member of society is capable of rational analysis and critical decision-making. That’s the most basic claim of this system, as it justifies allowing them to vote and determine who runs the government.

By undermining the ability of people to make rational and informed decisions, Twitter is undermining the concept of universal suffrage democracy itself. Of course, they don’t care, because our rulers do not actually believe in anything other than power. They profess various ideologies at different times, but only use these ideologies to push their agenda that exists totally independently from the ideologues.

BEAT THE LOCKDOWN: HEAR PAUL FROMM IS BACK IN VANCOUVER TALK FRIDAY, JULY 31, 2020

Posted on by

BEAT THE LOCKDOWN: HEAR PAUL FROMM IS BACK IN VANCOUVER TALK FRIDAY,  JULY 31,    2020

The Canadian Association for Free Expression Proudly Presents

Paul Fromm

Director, Canadian Association for Free Expression

Winner of the George Orwell Free Speech Award, 1994

The COVID-19 Scamdemic: Stripping Canadians of Their Liberties & Creating a Cashless New World Order of Sheep

&

Anti-Racism is a Code Word for Anti-White: How the Cultural Marxist Wrecking Crew (politicians, most media and many corporate traitors) Have Made War on European Canadians
 https://bitchute.com/video/J2YMkidM

Apple Bans Gab from App Development After Company Makes Antitrust Case to DOJ

Posted on by

Apple Bans Gab from App Development After Company Makes Antitrust Case to DOJ

233

Apple CEO Tim Cook acknowledged that iPhone sales in the past quarter would be disappointing, amid weakness in China and other emeging markets
NOAH BERGER/AFP

Lucas Nolan17 Jun 2019231 2:44

Tech giant Apple banned the developer account of free speech-focused social media network Gab, preventing the company from creating apps for iPhones and other Apple devices, shortly after the startup submitted a complaint to the Department of Justice about Big Tech’s anti-competitie business practices.

Breitbart News spoke with the CEO of Gab.com, Andrew Torba, about the company’s recent developments. As Torba wrote on Twitter, the free speech social media platform recently submitted a complaint to the DOJ which it hopes will spark an investigation into the business practices of the Masters of the Universe in Silicon Valley. Gab aimed to question if these firms were acting in a deliberately anti-competitive manner against smaller “alt-tech” businesses, and Apple’s recent actions may have proven Gab’s point.

The Gab.com Twitter page made a number of tweets explaining the company’s viewpoint, these can be seen below:

BREAKING: Gab’s attorneys have submitted a complaint to the Department of Justice in hopes of sparking a serious investigation into Big Tech’s business practices to determine if, and how, they are behaving in a deliberately anti-competitive manner against alt-tech businesses.

— Gab.com (@getongab) June 6, 2019

It’s not just us. This is what happens when you try to post a link to @Minds on its main rival, Facebook. pic.twitter.com/XagmbbyVNn

— Gab.com (@getongab) June 6, 2019

Coordinated deplatforming, when done in such a way as to limit competition in the free market, is illegal. Based on our experience, we believe Silicon Valley companies are colluding to exclude challengers to existing social media companies.

— Gab.com (@getongab) June 6, 2019

Big Tech understands that curated walled gardens lose their vibrancy and fail, much as Compuserve and AOL failed.

— Gab.com (@getongab) June 6, 2019

We hope the DOJ will mount a vigorous and thorough investigation into this matter. In particular the duopoly on mobile app distribution that Apple/Google have with 98% marketshare.

— Gab.com (@getongab) June 6, 2019

Shortly after this thread of tweets, Gab found that its new Dissenter Web Browser had been rejected from Apple’s app store. Apple also chose to ban the firm’s developer account entirely, citing “objectionable content,” as the reason. Gab’s Dissenter browser is a web browser that only delivers content that users purposefully visited, like Google Chrome or Apple’s Safari browser, yet Apple believes that the app falls under it’s “objectionable content” label.

BREAKING: Gab’s Dissenter Web Browser was rejected by Apple today. Furthermore, we were banned from our App Store developer account for “objectionable content.” For a web browser.

We have filed this information with the Department of Justice and urge them to investigate. pic.twitter.com/raw8u3cgX2

— Gab.com (@getongab) June 10, 2019

Gab CEO Andrew Torba told Breitbart News that Apple admitted that the app itself did not break the company’s terms of service but rather they were banning it because it was built by Gab. The company has since reported this additional info to the Department of Justice. In a statement, Torba told Breitbart News:

Coordinated deplatforming, when done in such a way as to limit competition in the free market, is illegal. Based on our experience, we believe Silicon Valley companies are colluding to exclude challengers to existing social media companies. Big Tech understands that curated walled gardens lose their vibrancy and fail, much as Compuserve and AOL failed.

Gab is focused on giving The People back their digital sovereignty. We are no longer simply building a free speech social network. We are building the free speech internet. Our free speech web browser, Dissenter, is only the beginning. We will be releasing a full product line of open source free speech software that is decentralized, built, and controlled by The People.

While Gab’s web browser, Dissenter, may not be available in the app store, it can still be downloaded for desktop users here. 

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com

EconomyPoliticsTechantitr