Tuesday, August 30, 2022

A peek at the feds' blackball system
How FBI, social media curb what you can know

Social media can assist their FBI "advisers" on controlling purported "disinformation" thru various means. Among those are:

✓ Shadow ban. The user is unaware that only she or he can see the post or that many people have been prevented from seeing it.

✓ De-platform. The user is barred from posting anything at all on a social media platform, as happened to President Trump when he complained on Twitter of election fraud.

✓ De-boost. Facebook quickly ratcheted down promotion by Facebook users of the New York Post's pre-presidential-election story on evidence found -- in Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop -- of kickbacks by foreign interests to Joe Biden while he was vice president.

✓ Restriction of access to content. Various routines are used to curb access. In 2016, the Google system barred access to a foreign report on statistical evidence that that year's Democratic primaries appeared to have been rigged. The Bing system however permitted access.

✓ De-monetization. Youtube is well-known for demonetizing sites that express news judgments or opinions with which its management disagrees. Those targeted for de-monetization may have engaged in unethical practices. But many others have been targeted over content that clashes with the "consensus views" promulgated by the privileged elite (America's oligarchs, such as Black Rock's Larry Fink).

✓ Requirement that users take down content or face shut-off. For example, if someone says something like "XYZ Airlines lies!" in a Youtube video, the video-caster will be told that such opinion goes against community policy of protecting the feelings of major potential advertisers and told to delete the offending matter or face permanent blackballing.

✓ Use of warning labels requiring click-thru to access content. Every extra step a potential reader must take decreases overall readership -- especially if the warning label is couched in language that makes a potential reader feel somewhat criminal for wanting to read or view the site.

You may also like our companion site Grist
https://paulconant.substack.com/p/how-fbi-social-media-control-what?sd=pf

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