Tag: Twitter

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Bombshell Intercept Report Exposes DHS’ Mission Creep From Fighting Terrorism To Disinfo

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A very interesting segment on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson show(10/31/22) featured a bombshell Pulitzer-worthy report by The Intercept’s Lee Fang, which revealed that the Department of Homeland Security(DHS), has for five years now, been collaborating with Twitter, Facebook, and other social media companies, in determining whose speech needs to be suppressed. This of course flies in the face of the “private company” defense usually used to justify questionable speech infringement practices by the social media giants.

More importantly, Lee Fang’s bombshell also touched on the apparent “mission creep”(his words) of DHS, where over the last five years, the powerful agency had unilaterally(without congressional approval) shifted from its stated focus of combating terrorism and terrorist groups like Al-Qaida, to combating disinformation online.

Asked whether the Biden administration was working with tech companies to censor people, Lee Fang responded (1:10): “Yeah, that’s right Tucker. We looked at really hundreds of documents that paint a vivid picture of the FBI, the DHS, closely collaborating with top social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook, to censor various forms of content under the banner of fighting disinformation, and the story shows a couple of things, one, it shows what you just mentioned, a very cozy relationship between the government and these tech giants. There’s those monthly meetings that you just mentioned, but also, just very cozy emails and texts, not a very adversarial relationship. We looked at one text where a Microsoft executive texts Jen Easterly, the top disinfo director at DHS, appointed by[President]Biden, basically saying that the private sector needs to get more comfortable with the government closely collaborating on reports, talking about the expanded role for DHS in censoring a really broad collection of topic areas of policy and political topics.”

Lee Fang then touched on what I believe is by far, the biggest bombshell from his piece, and that is, the “mission creep” aspect. Fang said(2:11): “Just broadly speaking, the story also just looks at the mission creep of DHS. This is an agency that was founded in the aftermath of 9/11 to combat foreign terror threats of Al-Qaeda and the like, but over the last five years, it’s kind of evolved in its mission, its move towards fighting disinfo, and their justification is disinfo radicalizes the homeland, it can lead to disruptions in public health, or political violence…”

Even given DHS’ understandable explanation for going after online disinformation, no reasonable person can ever conclude that Congress would have approved the same powerful tools/tactics used to counter terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda, to be applied against U.S. residents for basically saying the “wrong things” on social media. Sadly however, this is exactly where we find ourselves today, with DHS’ speech police designating people they deem “misinformers” as terrorists, and then mercilessly destroying their lives and livelihoods using among other things, the military. This is shameful conduct which most Americans have always associated with third world dictatorships.

It is because of DHS’ mission creep, that Yours Truly believes Lee Fang’s bombshell piece deserves a Pulitzer. Simply put, DHS’ mission creep, which at the very least should have been run through Congress for approval prior to enforcement, has not only seriously impacted the lives and livelihoods of many U.S. residents who have nothing to do with terrorism, but has also robbed them of their rights under the first amendment.

Congress needs to immediately step in to not only address DHS’ mission creep, but also to hold the officials involved accountable, preferably, via referral for criminal prosecution given the way their unconstitutional actions upend innocent people’s lives

It’s also important to point out here what history has taught us, and that is, not everything the government labels “misinformation” is necessarily so. Often times, there are topics the government simply doesn’t want out there, being discussed in public. One recent classic example is directed energy weapons. For decades, government agents, and their surrogates in the mainstream media, went out of their way to label people who expressed concerns about these weapons as delusional conspiracy theorists. In 2022 however, we not only have the same directed energy weapons being openly discussed by the same mainstream media channels who denied their existence, but also, the government considers the threat so serious, that Congress swiftly enacted a handsome compensation scheme for victims of such attacks.

Bottom line folks, as host Tucker Carlson correctly stated, this bombshell piece by The Intercept is not only a great story, it’s also a huge public service for which Lee Fang deserves a lot of praise and reward. The only question now is whether Congress will do its job, and rein in Mission Creep DHS, and its unconstitutional speech police.

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WaPo’s Taylor Lorenz Addresses Charges That She Doxxed A Conservative Twitter Influencer

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Washington Post’s Columnist Taylor Lorenz has caused a lot of uproar from conservatives after she published identifying details about the creator of a prominent conservative influencer on Twitter. Conservatives have since lashed out at Lorenz, accusing her of unethical doxxing. Lorenz denies the doxxing accusations, arguing that because the Twitter account in question(“Libs of TikTok”) is used to go after LGBTQ personalities, knowledge of the person behind the account is newsworthy. She appeared on CNN’s Reliable Sources(04/24/22) to defend her position.

Host Brian Stelter(video at 3:05):“So there are several arguments against your article. One is that this person’s identity is simply not newsworthy, that it doesn’t matter who this anonymous conservative woman is, and that you naming her is targeting her, trying to hurt her. What do you say to those folks?”

Taylor Lorenz:“Well, first of all, this woman is targeting LGBTQ folks. I mean, she brags about getting multiple teachers fired. The entire goal of the account is to direct hate to Trans and LGBTQ people. She has said that she doesn’t believe gay people who come out should be allowed to teach children, she attacked the Trevor Project calling it a ‘groomer’ organization, so I don’t know what she’s talking about in that sense…I think you can have concern about what your children are learning in school, and not follow an LGBTQ hate account that the whole goal is to get Trans and LGBTQ people sort of excluded from public life, and drive these very harmful narratives around Trans people…Those are two very very very very different things. She’s also talked about mobilizing her base to run for local school boards, and is collecting email lists which 100% are going to be used for political purposes, so this is a political force, this is an influential media force, the idea that this woman is not newsworthy is nonsense…I cover influencers for a living and I’m telling you this woman is more influential than a lot of people that I cover…the right will make those arguments because they don’t want scrutiny.”

So there you have it, folks. Team “Libs of TiKTok” is claiming unethical doxxing by WaPo’s Taylor Lorenz, and TeamLorenz is countering with the argument that “Libs of TikTok”, and right wingers generally, are simply afraid of legitimate scrutiny.

$1 million question now is, what does TeamPublic think?

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NYT’s Maggie Haberman Addresses Backlash Over Trump Coverage

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman appeared on CNN NewDay (06/02/21), where she addressed the recent backlash on social media, over her reporting that former President Trump is telling his supporters he’ll be reinstated by August. Haberman, a constant target of liberals still seething with rage over her “role” in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss to Trump, took a lot of Twitter attacks from the same liberals, who accused her of helping deplatformed Trump spread his propaganda.

In her appearance on CNN’s NewDay, Haberman countered these accusations saying her reporting was newsworthy because it sheds light on the ongoing incitement by Trump and his allies(didn’t stop on Jan 6th). She also pushed back at her sharpest critics, Biden-loving liberals, who she said, have settled on an erroneous strategy of wishing Trump away. Haberman’s full segment on NewDay is available here, but the relevant clip is below

Haberman specifically said in response to her critics, “This is an ongoing incitement and I think that there’s a valid reason to use that term. Why people are attacking me for reporting this has always been a bit of a mystery. As I said before, people are in their own media ecosystems, and there are a lot of people around[President]Biden, and a lot of people who support Biden, who want to pretend that if they call Trump the former guy, and if you don’t say his name, that the only thing that would matter is if you give him attention. He’s the former President, he is in control of the Republican Party to a big extent, people in that party[Republican] are having a big debate that I would say is parallel to what we saw in 2015 which was, how do you deal with Trump, who according to Republican leaders at the time for the most part, had no chance of becoming the Republican nominee, and obviously that didn’t work out. Ignoring him was not the answer in 2015. Will it be the answer now? I guess we are going to find out….I think what a former President, and possible future nominee, as unlikely as that might be at the moment is saying…is newsworthy.”

Haberman is essentially arguing that whether liberals like it or not, Trump is still in many respects, the leader of the modern Republican Party, and what he says is newsworthy, especially in this case, where he appears to be inciting his supporters towards the same kind of violence we witnessed January 6th. She adds that efforts by establishment Republicans to ignore Trump into irrelevance in 2015, ended up with him scooping the GOP nomination and the presidency in 2016, and that it is foolhardy for liberals to repeat the same mistake, and expect a different outcome–probably her strongest argument.

Bottom line folks, even though I’m one of the aforementioned “liberals still seething with rage” over Haberman’s “role” in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss, I readily admit that on this issue, she’s absolutely right. As much as we liberals would like to wish Trump away, the fact of the matter is, he’s still in charge of the Republican Party. Where, as here, he appears to be inciting his supporters towards the same kind of violence we witnessed on January 6th, Maggie Haberman is being a good journalist in reporting that. Simply put, the Maggie-bashing on Twitter is totally unwarranted in this case.

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Is The Surveillance State Targeting Dems Using Twitter

California ACLU Technology and Civil Liberties Director Nicole Ozer penned a very troubling piece in December 2016 on how federal spy centers aka fusion centers are increasingly using Twitter for mass surveillance.


According to Nicole’s piece a company called Dataminr, partly owned by Twitter, provides the federal spy centers(fusion centers) with tweet data, including GPS location, which the spy centers use for surveillance purposes. Twitter says it stopped Dataminr from providing tweet data to fusion centers in 2016 but given the Trump administration’s demonstrated hostility towards any form of criticism especially on Twitter, any reasonable person would go back and verify whether Dataminr has indeed stopped its cooperation with federal spy centers.

The article also points out that this kind of Twitter surveillance is  directed more at minorities and political activists. It is therefore not a stretch to suggest that #TheResistance movement which has grown in leaps and bounds on Twitter since December 2016 when Nicole Ozer penned her article, has also become a target of these federal spy centers(fusion centers). In other words there is reason to believe that Dem activists are increasingly being subjected to surveillance by these federal spy centers over their anti-Trump tweets–a clear cut violation of their first amendment rights.

Bottom line congressional Dems must demand hearings on this troubling nexus between Twitter and federal spy centers to make sure the public(especially Dems) are not being punished with unconstitutional surveillance for their anti-Trump posts on Twitter

Alternatively, because congressional Dems have developed a reputation for weakness, ACLU’s Nicole Ozer should revisit the issue and inform the public as to whether Dataminr really terminated its cooperation with federal spy centers as Twitter alleged in 2016.

Yours Truly already knows the answer to this question but will give Twitter/Dataminr the benefit of the doubt nonetheless.

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