California | November 11, 2021
76% of Americans think Facebook making society worse, CNN poll says
California | November 11, 2021
Three-quarters of Americans think Facebook is making U.S. society worse and nearly half say they know someone who was led to believe a conspiracy theory due to content on the social media platform, a CNN poll conducted by SSRS said Wednesday.
The belief that Facebook harms society, 76% to 11%, holds firm even among regular users, at 70% to 14%, although there is a bit of a split over whether the website itself is to blame for society’s ills.
Among those who think it is problem, 55% say the cause is the way people use the platform while 45% believe it is due to how Facebook is run… (Excerpts from the Washington Times)
California | October 4, 2021
Moneymaking move: Facebook whistleblower alleges social network fed U.S. Capitol riot
California | October 4, 2021
Facebook prematurely turned off safeguards designed to thwart misinformation and rabble-rousing after Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in last year’s elections in a moneymaking move that a company whistleblower alleges contributed to the deadly Jan. 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol. The whistleblower, former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen, also asserted during an exclusive interview that aired Sunday on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that a 2018 change to the content flow in Facebook’s news feeds contributed to more divisiveness and ill will in a network ostensibly created to bring people closer together. Despite the enmity that the new algorithms were feeding, Facebook found that they helped keep people coming back — a pattern that helped the Menlo Park, California, company sell more of the digital ads that generate most of its advertising…. (Excerpts from the Washington Times)
California | September 14, 2021
Facebook Company Documents Reveal a Secret Elite That’s Exempt
California | September 14, 2021
Mark Zuckerberg has publicly said Facebook Inc. allows its more than three billion users to speak on equal footing with the elites of politics, culture and journalism, and that its standards of behavior apply to everyone, no matter their status or fame. In private, the company has built a system that has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules, according to company documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The program, known as “cross check” or “XCheck,” was initially intended as a quality-control measure for actions taken against high-profile accounts, including celebrities, politicians and journalists. Today, it shields millions of VIP users from the company’s normal enforcement process. Some users are “whitelisted”—rendered immune from enforcement actions—while others are allowed to post rule-violating material pending Facebook employee reviews that often never come… (Excerpts from the Wall Street Journal)
California | August 31, 2021
Big Tech, woke finance crack down on Flynn, Gateway Pundit in cancel culture purge
California | August 31, 2021
In recent days, Twitter permanently banned independent journalist Alex Berenson, Google demonetized The Gateway Pundit from its ad network, and Chase Bank canceled the credit cards of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. With national attention riveted over the weekend on two major stories — the frantic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan amid its fall to the Taliban and category 4 Hurricane Ida slamming into the Louisiana coast — Big Tech and woke finance dramatically extended the reach of cancel culture with brazen moves to silence and harass three high-profile voices of political and scientific dissent: independent journalist Alex Berenson, popular conservative news and opinion website The Gateway Pundit, and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn…(Excerpts from the Just the News)
California | August 16, 2021
Religious Freedom Must Be First and Foremost
California | August 16, 2021
Two authors warn against the encroachment by social media upon our first liberty. In a recent Wall Street Journal commentary, authors Salvatore J. Cordileone and Jim Daly argue that, as they put it, “The First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty is being dismantled, and with it the profound contributions that religion makes to American unity and self-government.” Cordileone, who heads the Catholic Archdoicese of San Francisco, and Daly, who leads Focus on the Family, note that religious liberty allows us to fight government overreach by instilling in us the virtues necessary for that fight. And while they don’t say it in so many words, they might as well: Without that fundamental freedom, the American experiment is toast. “There is a reason,” they write, “the Pledge of Allegiance places our national loyalty ‘under God.’ Without that protection, the ambitions of power tend to corrupt conscience and deform human rights.”… (Excerpts from the Patriot Post)
California | July 2, 2021
Facebook Now Sending Messages to Some Users Asking About Potentially ‘Extremist’ Friends
California | July 2, 2021
Some Facebook users have recently reported being sent warning messages from the social media giant relating to “extremists” or “extremist content.”
“Are you concerned that someone you know is becoming an extremist?” one message reads. “We care about preventing extremism on Facebook. Others in your situation have received confidential support.”
The message also provides a button to “Get Support,” which leads to another Facebook page about extremism.
Redstate editor Kira Davis, who said was sent a screenshot of the message from a friend, wrote: “Hey has anyone had this message pop up on their FB? My friend (who is not an ideologue but hosts lots of competing chatter) got this message twice. He’s very disturbed.”..
(Excerpts from the Epoch Times)