US Orders Facebook to Censor Iran Posts; Israel Invited into DOD Web
If you ever wondered what would happen to the Internet during World War Three, here are two bookend news stories about how information is already being controlled at both ends.
First, Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, suspended dozens of accounts this past week that expressed positive mention of assassinated Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. Istagram accounts of Farsi language journalists that previously reached hundreds of thousands were suspended and posts removed by the company.
A Facebook spokesperson acknowledged that this was done after the parent company was informed that it could be prosecuted under U.S. Sanctions laws imposed in recent months on Iran.
Second, Whitney Webb reports the U.S. Department of Defense has opened a back door to Israel to intercept much of the data that flows through classified Pentagon and Intelligence Community computer networks and remote devices. Defense contractor Lockheed Martin became a major investor in the Israeli cybersecurity company. After installing Cyberreason's software across its own network, Lockheed Martin became the largest conduit providing Cybereason’s software to U.S. federal and military agencies. See, below . . .
Instagram Censoring the Accounts of Farsi Media Outlets and Iranian Influencers, International Federation of Journalists Says
By Jeffery Martin On 1/10/20 at 8:42 PM EST
Current Time 0:14
Duration 1:04
HD
World Censorship Instagram Social media IranIn the aftermath of the killing of Iran's major general Qassem Soleimani, Iranian journalists have reported the censorship of their Instagram accounts. Posts about Soleimani have disappeared from Instagram which is currently the only operational international social media site within Iran.
In a letter to Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri, the Association of Iranian Journalists in Tehran, Iran, called the censorship "unprecedented in the history of social networks and in conflict with the very innate actuality of media." The Association of Iranian Journalists is a full member organization of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
"At a time when Iranian citizens need access to information it is unacceptable that Instagram should choose to censor Iranian media and individual journalists and uses," said IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger.
Newsweek reached out to Mosseri for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Stephanie Otway, a spokesperson for Facebook, which owns Instagram, told codastory.com that the company conducts business "under U.S. sanctions laws, including those related to the U.S. government's designation of the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] and its leadership."
[Instagram said any accounts maintained by or on behalf of the Revolutionary Guards, as well as content that supports it, are in violation of its community guidelines banning terrorist content.
“This is just a field of law that really hasn’t been written quite yet,” explained Eliza Campbell, associate director at the Cyber Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C, who said the existing laws had failed to keep up with online speech. “The terrorist designation system is an important tool, but it’s also a blunt instrument,” she said. “I think we’re walking down a dangerous path when we afford these platforms – which are private entities, have no oversight, and are not elected bodies – to essentially dictate policy, which is what’s happening right now.”]
https://www.newsweek.com/instagram-censoring-accounts-farsi-media-outlet...
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How an Israeli Spy-Linked Tech Firm Gained Access to the US Gov’t’s Most Classified Networks
Through its main investors, SoftBank and Lockheed Martin, Cybereason not only has ties to the Trump administration but has its software running on some of the U.S. government’s most classified and secretive networks.
by Whitney Webb
https://www.mintpressnews.com/cybereason-investors-offer-israeli-spy-cla...
January 14th, 2020
By Whitney WebbIf the networks of the U.S. military, the U.S. intelligence community and a slew of other U.S. federal agencies were running the software of a company with deep ties, not only to foreign companies with a history of espionage against the U.S. but also foreign military intelligence, it would — at the very least — garner substantial media attention. Yet, no media reports to date have noted that such a scenario exists on a massive scale and that the company making such software recently simulated the cancellation of the 2020 election and the declaration of martial law in the United States.
Earlier this month, MintPress News reported on the simulations for the U.S. 2020 election organized by the company Cybereason, a firm led by former members of Israel’s military intelligence Unit 8200 and advised by former top and current officials in both Israeli military intelligence and the CIA. Those simulations, attended by federal officials from the FBI, DHS and the U.S. Secret Service, ended in disaster, with the elections ultimately canceled and martial law declared due to the chaos created by a group of hackers led by Cybereason employees.
The first installment of this three part series delved deeply into Cybereason’s ties to the intelligence community of Israel and also other agencies, including the CIA, as well as the fact that Cybereason stood to gain little financially from the simulations given that their software could not have prevented the attacks waged against the U.S.’ electoral infrastructure in the exercise.
Also noted was the fact that Cybereason software could be potentially used as a backdoor by unauthorized actors, a possibility strengthened by the fact that the company’s co-founders all previously worked for firms that have a history of placing backdoors into U.S. telecommunications and electronic infrastructure as well as aggressive espionage targeting U.S. federal agencies.
The latter issue is crucial in the context of this installment of this exclusive MintPress series, as Cybereason’s main investors turned partners have integrated Cybereason’s software into their product offerings. This means that the clients of these Cybereason partner companies, the U.S. intelligence community and military among them, are now part of Cybereason’s network of more than 6 million endpoints that this private company constantly monitors using a combination of staff comprised largely of former intelligence operatives and an AI algorithm first developed by Israeli military intelligence.
More . . . at https://www.mintpressnews.com/cybereason-investors-offer-israeli-spy-cla...
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Comments
The wacko's want to control the world
I imagine tRump will not like being the brunt of anything mean being said about the greatest orange man ever. So how far will they take this, first they came for.......
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/01/12/us-pressure-social-media-censoring-su...
Under US pressure, social media companies censor critical content and suspend Venezuelan, Iranian, and Syrian accounts
As the US escalates its hybrid wars, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are suspending accounts and censoring content that conflicts with Washington’s pro-war narrative. The Grayzone spoke to several people silenced in these social media purges.
By Ben Norton
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
pro-morales
accounts in the New Anez Bolivia's accounts have also been deleted. yesterday elijah magnier had tweeted that if his account is suspended, he'll be a 'V-something-or-other]. oh, fiddlesticks; maybe he'd meant Farcebook instead?
on Twitter as well, there are folks pointing out that a number of notable amerikan figures are lambasting the government, not Twitter for being obedient fascists, sadly.
Imagine Trump working with Russia instead of Israel
Boy can you imagine how many heads would explode if word of that got out? But since it's Israel...shhh. We can't talk about that.
Meanwhile Trump is throwing vulnerable Americans off food stamps and congress is going to give Israel billions more. This burns me to no end!
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
OTOH,
funding CyberTreason costs big bucks...er...shekels. TINA, serf!
thank you so much for posting this;
i'd been reading about it on Twitter, one link having led to 'Facebook’s Soleimani Ban Flies in Face of First Amendment, If sanctions can be invoked by a social media network to take down certain content, what is next?', by Ari Paul of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, commondreams.org, Jan. 15
some snippets:
What's next?
This site and other like it going down
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
nah, c99% is no
threat to social networking, not that individuals quoted might not be.
you'd asked:
had you meant c99's twitter and/or facebook (if c99 has one) accounts? or the site in general being taken down?
I am a bit confused.
Accounts that had a positive slant on the assination were deleted? Because sanctions?
Seems negative slanted accounts would trigger the sanctions problem.
Either way, it is not good, in any way, shape, or form.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Explanation
The accounts that were nuked were those that had anything at all nice to say about Soleimani, the guy that was murdered by the US. Accounts that are bloodthirsty warmongering trash and praise the murder were not touched.
Thanks, edg
The essay referred to pro-assassinations (favorable accounts), and I found that odd.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
The apparent merging of US and Israeli Intel may be
the more significant. After the Patriot Act, and the legalization of mass surveillance in America after 9/11, censorship is the logical next step in creating a police state. But, the almost brazen acknowledgement that it will be administered by a partnership with Israeli Intelligence is nearly mind-blowing.
Trump mentioned something earlier this week about expanding NATO into the ME. Coincidence?
Whitney is a national treasure. She's almost the only one who still peeling back the layers.
Israel is our aircraft carrier in the Middle East
ByeDone once said that if Israel didn't exist we'd have to create it. Israel is also involved in our border security videos and don't forget how Israel was caught spying on Trump's WH but got away Scott free from any repercussions.
Then of course there is Epstein and his spying and blackmailing people in our government. Israel spilled the beans on Clinton's affair with Monica. And speaking of pedophilia in the WH Whitney wrote about how many administrations had brought children there. Yes indeed Whitney is a national treasure. The series she did on Epstein was most excellent and she tied it back to the mob days, Cohen and prohibition.
BTW. Did people see the story about Epstein taking under aged girls to his island in 2018? Zero Hedges has it.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
NBC News covered the 2018 Epstein developments.
But, not a word about Lady Maxwell or the Israeli connection that Whitney has been developing. Of course. Interesting that Webb has cracked open this whole new Lockheed Martin angle at this point. Wonder how long it will take someone in our intrepid media to give it the wider exposure it deserves.
Also
I read a discussion about how Russia is playing in Ukraine and doing some nefarious things and how people bought it hook line and sinker with absolutely no doubt that it was true. One person kept trying to wake people up to the fact that Israel does much more meddling in our elections through buying our congress members etc. He included how Sheldon Ander.....someone gave Trump $100 million for his election and lots of other ways how Israel is more meddlesome than Russia could dream of and boy did he get Dawg piled on! The names he was called...he didn't let up but no one could be pushed from their position that every damn thing that happens here is Russia's fault.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Russia is a flack catcher for Israel on the election
interference and hacking sides. I think it's curious that Israel has so long been one of the most active proponents of expansion of US domestic surveillance. But, of course, they manufactured most of the CALEA-compliant interception equipment that was mandated since 1997. No doubt, the raw intel take gets split three ways.
as far as the relationship
of the US to Israel, we always must ask: 'which is the client, which is the state?' remember also, that lindsey graham had called for a military alliance with israel, although if it had been formalized, i hadn't read about it. also, bibi has claimed that he had convinced Boss Tweet to pull amerika out of the JCPOA, and now wants iran to sign onto a new version, likely written by pompeo and bibi & minions.
yes, whitney webb is a national treasure, although she lives in chile. so are (nomadic) eva bartlett, sharmine narwani, vanessa beeley, and craig murray.
from eva's twitter account:
and remember: colombia is now a Nato partner, under nato's umbrella, etc.
and right on cue:
eva bartlett: ‘After US killing of Iran’s Soleimani, narrative control on social media is getting worse’, jan. 17, 2020, RT.com
a lengthy compilation, incuding syria and bolivia, but even more notably:
Accounts Calling For Genocide A-Okay on Twitter
jack dorsey really is a fascist.
‘Elite Accountability Insulation button’? Twitter will let users turn off & censor replies’, 8 Jan, 2020, Rt.com