The Weaponization of Social Media: What You're Not Being Told

themindunleashed.com

Facebook. Twitter. YouTube. Snapchat. Instagram. Reddit. “Social media” as we know it today barely existed fifteen years ago. Although it provides new ways to interact with people and information from all across the planet virtually instantaneously and virtually for free, we are only now beginning to understand the depths of the problems associated with these new platforms. More and more of the original developers of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter admit they no longer use social media themselves and actively keep it away from their children, and now they are finally admitting the reason why: social media was designed specifically to take advantage of your psychological weaknesses and keep you addicted to your screen.

SEAN PARKER: If the thought process that went into building these applications—Facebook being the first of them to really understand it—that thought process was all about “How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?” And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever, and that’s gonna get you to contribute more content and that’s gonna get you more likes and comments. So it’s a social validation feedback loop. I mean it’s exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. And I think that we—the inventors/creators, you know, it’s me, it’s Mark, it’s Kevin Systrom at Instagram, it’s all of these people—understood this consciously and we did it anyway.

SOURCE: Sean Parker – Facebook Exploits Human Vulnerability

It should be no surprise, then, that in this world of social media addicts and smartphone zombies, the 24/7 newsfeed is taking up a greater and greater share of people’s lives. Our thoughts, our opinions, our knowledge of the world, even our mood are increasingly being influenced or even determined by what we see being posted, tweeted or vlogged. And the process by which these media shape our opinions is being carefully monitored and analyzed, not by the social media companies themselves, but by the US military.

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You REALLY want to know? US Army asks members how serving ‘impacted’ them, gets schooled in replies

RT

The US Army probably expected an influx of patriotic replies when it asked for testimonies about people’s service. Instead, Twitter offered disturbing stories of debilitating injuries, mental health problems and suicide. 

It all began with a a video of a soldier who told the camera he joined to serve "something greater than myself." The army, the featured soldier said, had given him the opportunity to "give to others" and better himself "as a man and a lawyer."

The Army then made the mistake of asking Twitter at large for their thoughts.

That was where the patriotism ended. The account was quickly inundated with responses from former service members and their families — and they make for some seriously disturbing reading.

From damaged mental health and suicide, friends lost to war, post-traumatic stress (PTSD), nightmares and life-changing injuries, almost none of the responses were positive. 

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Twitter suspends clearly marked AOC parody account with 85k followers, igniting conservative outrage

Comment: Yet more screaming bias and humourless double standards that we've come to expect from Twitter.

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RT

Twitter, it seems, has no sense of humor. An Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez parody account, clearly marked as such and boasting 85,000 followers, has been banned along with its creator, reportedly for being “fake and misleading.” 

Twitter permanently suspended both Mike Morrison’s personal Twitter account and his Ocasio-Cortez parody account @AOCPress without warning, apparently accusing Morrison of violating its policy on fake accounts even though the AOC parody had been clearly marked as a parody in both its account name and its bio.

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Paul Joseph Watson on Social Media Censorship

Paul Joseph Watson

What must happen next. It's crucial that you sign up at http://summit.news/newsletter 

KEY ARTICLE: Platform Access is a Civil Right - https://humanevents.com/2019/05/03/pl...

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter And Scribd Scramble To Scrub NZ Shooting Evidence

Zero Hedge

Facebook, YouTube, Scribd and several other content platforms are scrambling to remove material related to the New Zealand mosque shootings, including footage livestreamed by 28-year-old shooter Brenton Tarrant of Australia, Bloomberg reports.

49 people were killed and dozens injured in attacks on two Christchurch mosques on Thursday - the deadliest of which occurred at the Masjid Al Noor mosque at approximately 1:45 p.m., where the murders of 41 of the 49 people were broadcast over Facebook live and quickly distributed across various platforms.



 




In the immediate aftermath, researcher and journalist Nick Monroe quickly determined the shooter's identity and provided a running Twitter thread as events unfolded - including three links to footage of the shooting.

His fast-moving thread was featured in at least one broadcast news report, and quickly became the 'go-to' for the latest information on the shootings.

Twitter, however, immediately locked Monroe's account until he deleted a tweet with links to footage of the livestream - one of eight he has been made to take down.

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See also: New Zealand To Change Gun Laws After Mosque Shooting

Mother, 38, is arrested in front of her children and locked in a cell for seven hours after misgendering a person on Twitter

Comment: Welcome to Brave New World 

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Martin Beckford
Daily Mail

A mother was arrested in front of her children and locked up for seven hours after referring to a transgender woman as a man online.

Three officers detained Kate Scottow at her home before quizzing her at a police station about an argument with an activist on Twitter over so-called 'deadnaming'.

The 38-year-old, from Hitchin, Hertfordshire, had her photograph, DNA and fingerprints taken and remains under investigation.

More than two months after her arrest on December 1, she has had neither her mobile phone or laptop returned, which she says is hampering her studies for a Masters in forensic psychology.

Writing on online forum Mumsnet, Mrs Scottow - who has also been served with a court order that bans her from referring to her accuser as a man - claimed: 'I was arrested in my home by three officers, with my autistic ten-year-old daughter and breastfed 20-month-old son present.

'I was then detained for seven hours in a cell with no sanitary products (which I said I needed) before being interviewed then later released under investigation ... I was arrested for harassment and malicious communications because I called someone out and misgendered them on Twitter.'

Confirming the arrest, Hertfordshire Police said: 'We take all reports of malicious communication seriously.' 

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Tulsi Gabbard Slams "Neocon/Neolib Warmongers" After NBC Propaganda Exposed

Zero Hedge

Tulsi Gabbard lashed out at "neocon" and "neolib warmongers" after NBC News was exposed trying to smear her as a Kremlin stooge. The network was called out over the weekend for relying on a Democrat-run firm that created fake Russian twitter bots to stage a "false flag" campaign against Republic Roy Moore in the 2017 Alabama special election - New Knowledge.

To justify its claim that Tulsi Gabbard is the Kremlin’s candidate, NBC writes:

“analysts at New Knowledge, the company the Senate Intelligence Committee used to track Russian activities in the 2016 election, told NBC News they’ve spotted ‘chatter’ related to Gabbard in anonymous online message boards, including those known for fomenting right-wing troll campaigns.”

Only to be called out hard by journalist Glenn Greenwald:

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'The Book Community' and the return of book-burning

Tim Dawson
Spiked

The Book Community has jumped the shark. Who are the 'Book Community'? Well, they're the nebulous group of super-woke flakes who bullied young-adult (YA) fantasy author Amelie Wen Zhao into pulling the publication of her debut novel, Blood Heir. While it wasn't slated for release until June, some review copies had been sent out. Apparently the book has already shaken some readers - and some people who obviously haven't read it - to the core. Zhao's depiction of slavery in one scene has been deemed problematic. Reverse racism, lack of genderqueer representation, and a central antagonist with a limp are some of the other criticisms leveled against it, and Twitter is fuming. Zhao has issued an apology and agreed with her publishers to cancel publication.

The novel is probably terrible. I'm not particularly into sword and sorcery stuff - though the fact that it has upset so many flakes has naturally piqued my interest. But you don't need to like, or even read, a book to defend its right to be published. Of course, Amelie Wen Zhao halted publication herself. You could argue that she has 'listened to feedback' and acted accordingly. But the line between listening to feedback and being bullied by very angry zealots is a thin one, and this incident seems to have crossed it. Zhao relies on these people for her income and is scared. That's understandable. And really, really bad. Our cultural landscape is increasingly controlled by the permanently outraged. Books - even trashy fantasy novels - are a key component of civilisation. They are tangible, material repositories of humanity, in all its forms. Burning books is the sign of a society going wildly wrong. Banning books, also. Scaring authors into pulling the publication of their books surely sits in the same egregious territory.

Nobody has a monopoly on morality and it is gross to try to force writers to comply with your particular worldview. There is no requirement for any minority group (or, for that matter, any majority group) to be represented in a story. There is no requirement when representation does occur for it to be positive or negative. People who think otherwise have forgotten what fiction is, and they have forgotten what freedom is, too. 

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Twitter Just Purged 2,000 Accounts for Challenging Official Narrative on Coup in Venezuela

RT 

 

Twitter has announced that it took down about 2,000 accounts in Venezuela, most of which it claimed were “engaged in a state-backed influence campaign.” This comes amid accusations of a US-led coup attempt. 

 

The San Francisco-based social media giant released a blog post on Thursday saying that it removed 1,196 accounts located in Venezuela which it deemed to “appear to be engaged in a state-backed influence campaign targeting domestic audiences.” It also removed another 764 accounts, however, noted: “We are unable to definitively tie the accounts located in Venezuela to information operations of a foreign government against another country.” 

 

The Twitter purge of accounts was met with criticism and accusations of censorship. 

 

Host of the Empire Files, a documentary & interview series, Abby Martin lamented that amid Twitter censorship of pro-government supporters, “pro-coup Venezuelans & right-wing exiles dominate the media sphere.” 

 

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Liking Tweets now potential Thought Crime in UK

Comment: Well worth watching this video to see how ridiculous (and dangerous) this kind of thought policing has now become. 

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Banned on Facebook and Twitter: Top ten alternative media sites to bookmark (if you can find them)

The Free Thought Project

The social media purge has begun and pages that question the government or point out police brutality have been wiped from the platforms.

Sites dealing with government transparency, pages dedicated to police brutality and alternative media - take a closer look at the top ten accounts with millions of followers that were recently suspended by Twitter and Facebook. 

PAGE: The Free Thought Project

• NUMBER OF FOLLOWERS: 3.1mn
• ABOUT: The widely known website which calls itself "a hub for free thinking conversations" focuses on government transparency. Founded in 2013 by Jason Bassler and Matt Agorist, the site claims to "shed light" on "corrupt entities" across our planet. Its reports have covered the Monsanto row, police brutality and shootings in the US, as well as an insight into how the American government gets personal information about any citizen.
• BANNED ON FACEBOOK: YES
• BANNED ON TWITTER: YES

PAGE: The Anti-Media

• NUMBER OF FOLLOWERS: 2.1mn
• ABOUT: Initially launched on Facebook by blogger and entrepreneur Nick Bernabe, the Anti-Media is now an independent news aggregator with a hefty amount of followers. The group, which poses as "non-partisan" and "anti-establishment," publishes loads of "mainstream" stories, including ones dealing with the UN report about a number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan, the Tesla crisis, and Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
• BANNED ON FACEBOOK: YES
• BANNED ON TWITTER: YES

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Internet Censorship Just Took An Unprecedented Leap Forward, And Hardly Anyone Noticed

Caitline Johnstone

While most indie media was focused on debating the way people talk about Kanye West and the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an unprecedented escalation in internet censorship took place which threatens everything we all care about. It received frighteningly little attention.

After a massive purge of hundreds of politically oriented pages and personal accounts for “inauthentic behavior”, Facebook rightly received a fair amount of criticism for the nebulous and hotly disputed basis for that action. What received relatively little attention was the far more ominous step which was taken next: within hours of being purged from Facebook, multiple anti-establishment alternative media sites had their accounts completely removed from Twitter as well.

As of this writing I am aware of three large alternative media outlets which were expelled from both platforms at almost the same time: Anti-Media, the Free Thought Project, and Police the Police, all of whom had millions of followers on Facebook. Both the Editor-in-Chief of Anti-Media and its Chief Creative Officer were also banned by Twitter, and are being kept from having any new accounts on that site as well.

“I unfortunately always felt the day would come when alternative media would be scrubbed from major social media sites,” Anti-Media’s Chief Creative Officer S.M. Gibson said in a statement to me. “Because of that I prepared by having backup accounts years ago. The fact that those accounts, as well as 3 accounts from individuals associated with Anti-Media were banned without warning and without any reason offered by either platform makes me believe this purge was certainly orchestrated by someone. Who that is I have no idea, but this attack on information was much more concise and methodical in silencing truth than most realize or is being reported.”

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Social Media Giants Choking Independent News Site Traffic to a Trickle

Whitney Webb

Mint Press News
 

Several prominent figures, including Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, warned the EU Parliament that its proposed censorship measure would begin transforming the Internet from an open platform for sharing and innovation, into a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users.

 

For much of the year, independent media [including Global Research] has felt the sting of increased social media censorship, as the “revolving door” between U.S. intelligence agencies and social-media companies has manifested in a crackdown on news that challenges official government narratives. 

With many notable independent news websites having shut down since then as a result, those that remain afloat are being censored like never before, with social media traffic from Facebook and Twitter completely cut off in some cases. Among such websites, social media censorship by the most popular social networks is now widely regarded to be the worst it has ever been – a chilling reality for any who seek fact-based perspectives on major world events that differ from those to be found on well-known corporate-media outlets that consistently toe the government line.

Last August, MintPress reported that a new Google algorithm targeting “fake news” had quashed traffic to many independent news and advocacy sites, with sites such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Democracy Now, and WikiLeaks, seeing their returns from Google searches experience massive drops. The World Socialist Website, one of the affected pages, reported a 67 percent decrease in Google returns while MintPress   experienced an even larger decrease of 76 percent in Google search returns. The new algorithm targeted online publications on both sides of the political spectrum critical of U.S. imperialism, foreign wars, and other long-standing government policies.

Now, less than a year later, the situation has become even more dire. Several independent media pages have reported that their social media traffic has sharply declined since March and – in some cases – stopped almost entirely since June began. For instance, independent media website Antimedia – a page with over 2 million likes and follows – saw its traffic drop from around 150,000 page views per day earlier this month to around 12,000 as of this week. As a reference, this time last year Antimedia’s traffic stood at nearly 300,000 a day.

Other pages, particularly those that promote natural-health news along with political news, have seen their pages deleted without warning by Facebook as recently as earlier this week. One such page, Collectively Conscious, saw its Facebook page with over 900,000 likes and follows deleted without warning after Facebook said the page “violated its terms of use agreement” but did not state which terms had been violated. Other similar pages, such as Nikola Tesla and Earth We Are One, were likewise suddenly deleted without explanation. 

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Comey Tweeted About His Righteous FBI Leadership; Then a Current FBI Agent Stood Up & Absolutely Wrecked Him: “You & the FBI Ruined Our Lives”

True Pundit

James Comey just got his world rocked by a current FBI Agent.

True Pundit has written about FBI Agent Omar Montoya, a decorated agent who sued the FBI for a series of wrongful workplace discrimination-related offenses.

Montoya took to Twitter to respond to a Comey Tweet from Wednesday.

And it was not pretty.

It could be considered the shot heard around the FBI world, as a current FBI agent stood up and hammered his former FBI boss. Perhap other agents will follow Montoya’s lead.

Montoya has stones, no doubt. That’s why he joined the FBI. More on that later.

Here is the exchange.

pic.twitter.com/hDDslbyNQR

— Omar Montoya (@omontoya32) May 24, 2018

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Trump Mocks The Deep State: 'What Goes Around, Comes Around!'

Charles Spierling
Information Liberation

This is epic.

From Breitbart:

President Donald J. Trump ridiculed the purveyors of the ongoing Russian investigation Wednesday, mocking them on Twitter for getting "caught" in a scandal.

"Look how things have turned around on the Criminal Deep State," he wrote on Twitter. "They go after Phony Collusion with Russia, a made up Scam, and end up getting caught in a major SPY scandal the likes of which this country may never have seen before! What goes around, comes around!"

Trump quoted Judge Andrew Napolitano of Fox News who said that it was "clear" that the FBI had "eyes and ears all over the Trump campaign."
Here's his tweetstorm: 

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‘Internet safety’ just means internet censorship

Fraser Myers
Spiked

t the end of a week in which the House of Commons defeated Labour’s draconian plans to regulate the press, the Tories revealed their own draconian plans to regulate the internet. The culture secretary, Matt Hancock, has pledged to make Britain ‘the safest place in the world’ to be online. But when the world’s ‘safest’ internet is currently found in China, where access is heavily restricted and censored by the state, it becomes clear how terrifying the government’s safety agenda really could be.

Digital secretary Margot James told Sky News the government would order social-media firms to take down any ‘abusive’ content immediately. Fines for non-compliance could run up to four per cent of a firm’s global turnover, which could mean up to £1 billion for the largest firms. Just as clampdowns on press freedom are often justified with tough talk against the press barons, the war on social media is presented as a fight against the new social-media oligarchs. But, in truth, clampdowns on big tech are really just a proxy for clampdowns on us, the users. After all, it is we, the public, who actually produce all the supposedly vile, offensive and abusive content that social-media companies will be ordered to censor.

If anything, outsourcing censorship to social-media firms gives them more power over us, not less – certainly over what we can and can’t see in our timelines. What constitutes material that is abusive or offensive is highly subjective. Under Hancock’s plans, that judgement, for the most part, will be left in the hands of the big social-media companies. Even without legal pressure, Twitter has permanently banned alt-light commentator Milo Yiannopoulos and right-wing rabble-rouser Tommy Robinson. When so much political debate takes place on social media, we need to push back against these companies’ attempts to cleanse our newsfeeds of problematic material – not encourage it.

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UK: Sharing 'Hate Posts' Online Could Lead to Six Months In Jail Under Newly Proposed Rules

Chris Menahan
Information Liberation

The rulers of what many are now calling "Cuck Island" want to throw Brits in prison for sharing or commented on so-called "hate posts" on social media.

Though the crime rate in culturally enriched Britain is skyrocketing and London saw a 44% jump in its murder rate last year, the government is evidently focused entirely on shutting down free speech so no one can publicly complain about it.

From The Daily Mail: 

Social media users who share or comment on racist or anti-gay postings will face jail under rules proposed yesterday.

Advice for judges and magistrates recommends harsh punishments for those found guilty of stirring up hatred against racial, religious or sexual minority groups.

Among those jailed should be people who post comments or share online hate speech because they have been reckless as to whether they stir up hatred, say the proposals from the Sentencing Council.

Those found guilty of hate trolling by commenting or sharing social media should typically receive a sentence of six months in jail.

"Hate trolling" means sharing politically incorrect facts. The lunatic leftists controlling Britain want to throw right-wingers in prison for 6 months not just for posting such "hate," but for merely commenting on it or sharing it.

Anyone who is convicted of orginating hate speech that threatens anyone’s life or which is widely distributed should expect three years.

Even someone whose words or material were judged as hateful, but were not considered to have threatened life or reached a big audience, is likely to be punished with a year in jail.

[...]The council’s proposals say the most serious hate offences include speeches given by public figures with the aim of stirring up hatred, online content inciting violence towards racial or religious groups, and websites that publish abusive and insulting material to a worldwide audience over a long period.

Aggravating factors include activity ‘in a particularly sensitive social climate’ or delivered to an impressionable audience.

Using multiple social media platforms also makes an offence more grave.

George Orwell would have been laughed at had he put ideas like this in 1984 -- yet here we are.
 
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They Admitted Social Media Is Programming Us

Comment: Yes but....Yes but....No. Get rid of Facebook from your life. 

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TruthStream Media

Syrian Crisis Shows US Empire Losing Hegemony as Western Mainstream Media Losing Grip Over Narrative

Comment: If you are going to read one article this week then it should be this one. Perezalonso offers a good summary of the moat egregious disinformation that passes for mainstream news on the Syria crisis.  

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Andrés Perezalonso
Sott.net

  © South Front

 Hassan Diab appears in the video of the victims of the 'chemical attack' in Douma.
Later the boy explained to Russian media how the event was staged.

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 Two of the most remarkable facts concerning the April 14th attack on Syria by the US, UK and France are:

1. Materially, the attacks were completely ineffective, as explained by Joe Quinn's article About Those 'Nice, New, Smart' Missiles And The 'Chemical Weapons' Sites in Syria. The Syrians understood this, which is why they were celebrating rather than mourning when the sun came up.
2. They were carried out hours before the OPCW mission reached Syria and right after the Russian Ministry of Defense began showing testimonies of local doctors denying there was a chemical attack in Douma. This suggests F.UK.US. were in a hurry to make a show of force before the facts could be properly analyzed while distracting attention away from the evidence.

Rather than demonstrating strength, these facts speak of weakness, impotence and a desire to compensate with theatrics. The US knows it cannot go too far in its pursuit of regime change in Syria because it risks paying a heavy price at the hands of Russia. Even if it could take out all Russian forces in Syria, it is not willing to lose any ships, aircraft or personnel and thus lose its status as the supreme global military force. Furthermore, there is always the risk of escalation, which is madness when it comes to nuclear powers. The Americans are acutely aware that they are playing with fire, which explains how careful they were to stay away from Russian targets. The attack was carefully measured to appear stronger than last year's, yet not strong enough to provoke Russia into action. This could also explain, in part, why the Trump administration is seeking to replace US troops in Syria with an Arab force, as it is much safer (and cheaper) to fight with proxy forces.

In the aftermath of the strikes on Syria, and as more information is coming out about the chemical attack that never was, it is becoming increasingly clear that Western mainstream media outlets are also losing their dominant positions and their grip on the narrative.

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Activist ‘raising awareness’ for Syria on Twitter used photos from Gaza & Mosul

RT 

A US-based activist’s post, ostensibly meant to “raise awareness” about Syrian civilians, turned out to be a complete fabrication. Twitterati found the photos he used were actually from Gaza and Mosul. 

A Cleveland-based user who goes by the name of Sami Sharbek has posted two photos on his Twitter account – one showing Middle Eastern-looking residential blocks being bombed from the air; the other depicting a man carrying a crying child. “This is not a movie. This is Syria,” he wrote in the caption.

The post was widely retweeted and liked. As of Wednesday morning, it had racked up over 125,000 shares and 154,000 likes. However, what many people failed to notice is that the photos portraying the perils of war were shot outside Syria.

Some users have shared the links to news stories featuring the original photos. “Wrong,” John Mangun, BusinessMirror Columnist, tweeted, sharing a link to a 2014 Independent story covering Israeli air raids on Palestine.

This photo shows the same airstrike featured in the photo tweeted by Sharbek. It comes from Reuters' coverage of an Israeli strike on eastern Gaza city.

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