Global Research, March 26, 2024
Region: Middle East & North Africa, USA
Theme: Media Disinformation
In-depth Report: PALESTINE
The US government claims that TikTok is a national security threat because China can collect data on its users for “intelligence gathering.” Give me a break! The House of Representatives passed a bill to ban TikTok unless Byte Dance, the Chinese parent company “divests” from the app within six months or so, in other words, they are forcing Byte Dance to sell TikTok within a certain time period in order for it to operate in the US. Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that he is putting together an investor group to supposedly buy TikTok.
The reality is that they are not going after TikTok because of China’s “intelligence gathering” on US citizens, it is because Western governments, Israel and their mainstream media networks are being exposed for their lies and propaganda more than ever before by various alternative media websites, blogs, social media, and video-sharing platforms such as TikTok.
China’s “Intelligence Gathering” vs. Israel’s War Crimes
It is most likely that the US congress is scapegoating China mainly to protect Israel’s reputation in the last bastion of its supporters in the United States were there are more than 170 million TikTok users. In one way or another Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and beyond has been exposed on TikTok and it does not look good for the self-described “Jewish State.”
Last January, the US-based TIME magazine reported on the reality of how the world views Israel and its actions in the Middle East, “New data shared with TIME magazine business intelligence company Morning Consult shows that support for Israel around the world has dropped significantly since the war in Gaza began.” Morning Consult found that Israel’s standing in world opinion has dropped dramatically, “Net favorability—the percentage of people viewing Israel positively after subtracting the percentage viewing it negatively—dropped globally by an average of 18.5 percentage points between September and December, decreasing in 42 out of the 43 countries polled.”
From China to South Korea, even in the UK and several countries in Latin America all had a somewhat positive view of Israel, but when the war on Gaza began, opinion polls on Israel’s favorability status collapsed:
China, South Africa, Brazil, and several other countries in Latin America all went from viewing Israel positively to negatively. And many rich countries that already had net negative views of Israel—including Japan, South Korea, and the U.K.—saw steep declines. Net favorability in Japan went from -39.9 to -62.0; in South Korea from-5.5 to -47.8; and in the U.K. from -17.1 to -29.8
Sonnet Frisbie, the deputy head of political intelligence at Morning Consult said that “the data shows just how tough of a road Israel has right now in the international community.” Of course, the US population still holds a favorable opinion of Israel, “The U.S. remains the only rich country that still had net positive views of Israel. Net favorability dropped just 2.2 percentage points, from a net favorability of 18.2 to a net favorability of 16 from September to December” the report said.
Al Jazeera, ‘Israel has lost the war of public opinion,’ by Imam Omar Suleiman published last year said that “In a new media landscape dominated not by Western media giants but by Instagram reels, TikTok videos and YouTube shorts, Israel’s ongoing war on the besieged Gaza Strip is more than televised.”
Israel’s crimes have been exposed due to the internet including alternative media networks and various social media platforms since the Zionist controlled mainstream media failed to do its job which should not be a surprise to anyone.
Platforms such as TikTok has more than 170 million users in the US which is a concern for both the US and Israeli governments who propagandize the US population on a daily basis on the situation of Palestine through their control of the mainstream media and Hollywood:
Audiences across the world, and especially young people, have been watching the devastation caused by Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of the Palestinian enclave on their preferred social media platforms, in real-time, for over a month. Anyone with internet access has seen countless videos of babies torn apart by bombs, women crushed under tonnes of concrete and mothers cradling the dead bodies of their children
Suleiman said that “Israel, of course, still continues with its usual efforts – and more – to control the narrative about its bloody wars and decades-old occupation.” He pinpoints how Israel is losing the information war:
Yet, despite all these efforts, thanks largely to social media, Israel is no longer able to conceal the truth about its conduct in Palestine. It can no longer control the narratives and the public opinion on Palestine. As mainstream media loses its ability to single-handedly decide what Western and, to a certain extent, global audiences get to witness about the situation in Palestine, the brutality of Israel’s occupation has been laid out in the open for everyone to see
The Times of Israel published an article based on Israel’s obvious concerns regarding TikTok, ‘Major US Jewish group backs bipartisan bill that could see TikTok banned’ said that “One of the most prominent Jewish groups in the country has thrown its support behind a fast-advancing bill that could lead to the massively popular video app TikTok being banned in the United States.”
The world knows that both Democrats and Republicans in the US Capital are in the pockets of Jewish lobbying groups are moving forward in efforts to ban TikTok because its a “Chinese owned app” and it is collecting data on American citizens, but there are companies (some are based in the US including Amazon) who have been selling your data for some time.
The article states that “Politicians backing the bill, who include leaders from both parties, have centered their criticism of TikTok on national security concerns related to the app’s Chinese ownership and data collection practices.” Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Washington said that “It is very important that it is targeted and specific to the national security threat” and that “This is not related to content. This is about the threat because of the data that has been collected.” So, the ban on TikTok is not related to the content? That’s pure nonsense. The Times of Israel at least stated the facts on why the US and Israel is really interested in banning the platform:
Jewish Federations of North America, representing hundreds of organized Jewish communities, said its support for the bill is rooted in concerns about antisemitism on the platform. The Jewish Federations and the Anti-Defamation League have accused TikTok of allowing antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment to run rampant
The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) wrote a letter to the US Congress claiming that “The single most important issue to our Jewish communities today is the dramatic rise in antisemitism” and that “Our community understands that social media is a major driver of the drive-in antisemitism and that TikTok is the worst offender by far.”
Banning TikTok is about censorship. It is a fact that Israel’s war crimes and the destructive nature of the US war machine is getting exposed more than ever before. US lawmakers are giving Byte Dance which is managed by Shou Zi Chew, a Singaporean citizen, about six months to divest US assets from the app, or they will face a ban. If the ban of TikTok moves forward, then free speech in the US is completely dead. But that does not mean all social media platforms or even websites will be in danger for the foreseeable future because there will be other apps and platforms that the US, EU, and Israeli political establishment won’t be able to control.
Banning TikTok will Only Motivate Us to Create Other Platforms
Social Media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter (although owned by Elon Musk) have been completely hijacked by the government censorship regime. The Western political establishment, Globalist bankers, Zionists, Multi-national corporations such as Big Oil and Big Pharma and others around the world are facing an information war that they are clearly losing.
The internet has given us the tools to fight the mainstream media and their lies. Several social media platforms have grown to be a vital tool to challenge government and corporate propaganda such as TikTok, but there are also other various types of online-video platforms such as Rumble, Bit Chute, Odysee (part of LBRY, a blockchain based file-sharing and payment network) and we must include instant messaging services such as Telegram and VK where you can post articles and videos as well.
The point here is that regardless of how certain governments such as the US and the European Union who have banned foreign media companies such as Russia’s RT News and Iran’s Press TV, they also have plans to ban social media platforms, but it won’t work.
They believe that banning TikTok will prevent people from getting the truth especially to what is happening in Palestine, but they are wrong, it will only help motivate people to create new platforms and other ideas, they will create new channels of information that would get out to the public. Whether they ban TikTok or not, the genie is out of the bottle, the truth can never be suppressed.
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Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his own blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from SCN
The original source of this article is Global Research
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TikToker sings for Palestine
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Shutting Down Free Speech in America: Government and Lobbyists Work Together to Destroy the First Amendment
Global Research, September 24, 2018
Region: USA
Theme: Law and Justice, Media Disinformation, Police State & Civil Rights
During the past several years, there has been increased pressure coming from some in the federal government aided and abetted powerful advocacy groups in the private sector to police social and alternative media. It is a multi-pronged attack on the First Amendment which has already limited the types of information that Americans have access to, thereby narrowing policy options to suit those in power.
The process has been ostensibly driven by concerns over alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, but it is really about who controls and limits the public’s right to know what is going on out of sight in Washington and New York City, where politics and money come together. If one is interested in the free flow of information and viewpoints that comes with the alternative media, it certainly does not look that way. Robert Parry described it as a deliberate process of “demonizing and silencing dissent that questions mainstream narratives.”
Last October top executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter were summoned to Capitol Hill for a discussion of their role in what is alleged to be Russia’s influence on the presidential campaign and went back home contrite and promising to improve. They have indeed improved by punishing members whose views have been found to be unacceptable, blocking them and suspending their access to the sites. Meanwhile, the federal government for its part has attempted to silence independent non-U.S. based voices by declaring Russian media outlets RT America and Sputnik to be “foreign agents,” requiring them to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA). It is an unprecedented action against a news agency and invites quid-pro-quo for U.S. media operating overseas, leaving the American public more ignorant of world affairs than it already is.
Qatar based Al-Jazeera, which has been particularly targeted by Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as “a major exporter of hate against the Jewish people,” will also be required to register with FARA to comply with the new National Defense Authorization Act. Al-Jazeera, it should be noted, has employed undercover investigative journalism to expose the corruption of Britain’s government by Israeli supported Jewish groups. It’s similar series on the activity of Zionist lobbyists in America is on hold due to threats from Jewish organizations to severely punish the network if the documentary should ever be aired.
More recently Facebook has been active in removing accounts and advertising, much of it pro-Palestinian or otherwise critical of Israel, but also to include highly respectable Telesur’s “The Empire Files,” which looked at the consequences of U.S. sanctions on Venezuela. Anything that criticizes the corporate worldview is fair game for censorship. American Herald Tribune, which is critical of U.S. foreign policy in many areas, has recently had its Gmail shut down while Google also stopped servicing ads on its website. Its Facebook page was also closed, all done without any warning or explanation.
One of the organizations most interested in limiting conversations about what is going on in the world is the ADL which claims that it is “the world’s leading organization combating anti-Semitism and hate of all kinds,” though it clearly excludes incitement or even physical harm directed against Palestinian Arabs resentful of the Israeli occupation of their country. Its definition of “hatred” is really quite selective and is focused on anyone criticizing Israel or Jewish related issues. Its goal is to have any such speech or writing categorized as anti-Semitism and, eventually, to have “hate crime” legislation that criminalizes such expressions.
It is particularly ironic that Israel, which has now declared that it is in no way subject to international law, has itself proposed across the board censorship of the most prominent social media platforms on a global scale by creating an “international coalition that would make limiting criticism of Israel its primary objective.” It would operate through a “loose coalition…[that] would keep an eye on content and where it is being posted, and members of the coalition would work to demand that the platforms remove the content…in any of their countries at the request of members.”
More recently, Israel has been exposed by Wikileaks as hosting a conference describing how it now has a Command Center that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to scan the internet worldwide looking for “anti-Semitic” content. For Israel, anti-Semitic content means any criticism of its government or its behavior towards the Arabs. It reportedly pulls 200,000 posts a day and then reviews them using AI for content considered to be unacceptable. The roughly 10,000 posts determined to be anti-Semitic are then passed on to “intelligence and law enforcement agencies” in countries that have hate speech legislation for further action. The Israeli government also complains directly to the social media source to have the material taken down and works through Jewish organizations in cities and countries where there is considerable “anti-Semitic” activity to pressure governments to act even if there is no legal basis.
As most genuine independent journalism is currently limited to the alternative media, and that media lives on the internet, the ADL and those who are acting in collusion with the Israeli government are focusing on “cyberhate” as the problem and are working with major internet providers to voluntarily censor their product. On October 10th, 2017 the ADL issued a press release out of its New York City offices to explain just how far the censorship process has gone. The organization boasted of the fact that it was working with Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter “to engineer new solutions to stop cyberhate.” Apple is not identified by name in the press release but one should presume that it is also involved, as well as YouTube, which is owned by Google. When you consider that the associates in this venture with ADL are vast corporations that control huge slices of the communications industry, the consequences of some kind of corporate decision on what constitutes “hate” become clear. Combatting “cyberhate” will inevitably become across-the-board censorship for viewpoints that are considered to be unacceptable, including any criticism of Israel.
ADL will be the “convener” for the group, providing “insight on how hate and extremist content manifests – and constantly evolves-online.” Which means it will define the problem, which it calls the “spew[ing] of hateful ideologies” so the corporate world can take steps to block such material. And “the initiative will be managed by ADL’s Center for Technology and Society in Silicon Valley.”
Facebook already employs thousands of censors and there is literally no limit to how far those who want to restrict material that they consider offensive will go. To be sure, most groups who want to limit the flow of information do not have the clout or resources of ADL with its $64 million annual operating budget so its “cyberhate” campaign will no doubt serve as a model that others will then follow. For ADL, reducing criticism of Israel is a much-sought-after goal. For the rest of us, it is a trip into darkness.
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This article was originally published on American Herald Tribune.
Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
The original source of this article is Global Research
BIG BROTHER in the 21. Century 