How Facebook and Instagram Are Promoting the Anti-Russia Narrative

While I make it a practice to rarely quote anything from the dinosaur media since a great deal of their reportage is inaccurate, I will make a temporary change in my policy to quote a very recent announcement from Reuters given its importance.

 

Here is the article:

 

According to the Reuters article, Facebook and Instagram are temporarily allowing the following for users in Russia, Ukraine and Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary:

 

1.) posts that call for the deaths of Russian President Vladimir Putin

 

2.) Posts that call for the deaths of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko

 

These posts will be allowed unless they contain other targets or have two indicators of credibility including the method or location of assassination.

 

In addition, posts that call for violence against Russians will also be allowed when the posting is clearly about the invasion of Ukraine.

 

Facebook's parent company, Meta, will also temporarily allow its users to praise the Azov battalion, a Ukrainian neo-Nazi/far-right all-volunteer infantry military unit which is accused of harbouring white supremacist ideology and whose members often wear Nazi symbols.  The group was accused of violating international humanitarian law by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHA) as shown in this report:

 

"Another major concern is the ongoing presence of military forces in civilian areas and indiscriminate shelling continue to be the main factors endangering civilians, and affects their ability to access housing, land and property. During the reporting period, OHCHR collected detailed information about the conduct of hostilities by Ukrainian armed forces and the Azov regiment in and around Shyrokyne (31km east of Mariupol), from the summer of 2014 to date. Mass looting of civilian homes was documented, as well as targeting of civilian areas between September 2014 and February 2015. Residents displaced to Mariupol have received little assistance and information about the status of their homes. Unable to return but for short periods of time to examine the damage, IDPs from Shyrokyne exchange video footage and photographs to try to track the condition of their homes."

...and here:

“We decide what you should do, do you hear?” 

- Member of ‘Azov’-affiliated activist group to Kharkiv Regional Court of Appeal judge during hearing 

...and here:

"In May 2014, members of the “Azov” battalion, who claimed to be acting upon the orders of SBU, abducted a woman near her house in Zaporizhzhia region. They subjected her to threats and torture which lasted for four to five hours. Her captors, who were all masked, bound her hands and legs with zip ties tightened by a metal chain, beat her with their feet and with the butts of their guns and forced needles under her nails." 

  

In the interest of full disclosure, I have travelled within Russia twice over the past decade.  My impression of Russians is that they are very much like those of us who live in the Western world.  They strive to improve their lives by getting an education, working hard, raising families and living their lives with a minimum of stress just as we do.  By allowing (and essentially condoning) the vilification of Russians by anyone living in certain nations, Facebook has set a new low standard for what is acceptable behaviour in the online world.  But, then again, what should we expect from Meta, a company that wants the sweaty masses to wile away their lives in a fake world of their making?

For some reason and for all of the George Orwell fans out there, this move by Meta reminds me of this state-sanctioned and encouraged hate:

Meta has chosen the easy path by following the diktats of the parasite class in Washington.  Instead of grasping the concept that the Ukraine - Russia geopolitical situation is extremely complex, they've chosen to essentially promote hatred of Russia and the Russian people and allow/promote praise for a band of extreme right-wing thugs.

Fact Checking Facebook's Fact Checking

Over the past 20 months, it has become very apparent that social media outlets in specific and Big Technology in general have done their best to control the COVID-19 narrative, censoring any information that doesn't subscribe to their viewpoint, no matter how qualified the source of the information may be.

 

As a prime example of promoting the so-called "truth" , Twitter has recently amended its policies regarding COVID-19 "misleading information", noting in particular the highlighted section:

 

 

In fact, if you look back at an earlier version of the Twitter page from December 2, 2021, the entire section on vaccine disinformation is not present with the exception of three references which are forbidden as follows:

  

1.) The pandemic or COVID-19 vaccines that invoke a deliberate conspiracy by malicious and/or powerful forces.

  

2.) Vaccines and vaccination programs which suggest that COVID-19 vaccinations are part of a deliberate or intentional attempt to cause harm or control populations.

  

3.) How vaccines are developed, tested, and approved by official health agencies as well as information about government recommendations.

  

In fact and as an aside, Twitter is actually guilty of disinformation considering that this is a quote from a Science Brief that appears on the CDC website:

 

With this example of Big Technology censorship in mind, let's go to the main subject of this posting.  A recent open letter which appeared on the British Medical Journal (BMJ) website was submitted by two members of the editorial staff at the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg.  Fiona Godlee and Kamran Abbasi's letter states the following:

"We are writing to raise serious concerns about the “fact checking” being undertaken by third party providers on behalf of Facebook/Meta.

 

In September, a former employee of Ventavia, a contract research company helping carry out the main Pfizer covid-19 vaccine trial, began providing The BMJ with dozens of internal company documents, photos, audio recordings, and emails. These materials revealed a host of poor clinical trial research practices occurring at Ventavia that could impact data integrity and patient safety. We also discovered that, despite receiving a direct complaint about these problems over a year ago, the FDA did not inspect Ventavia’s trial sites.

 

The BMJ commissioned an investigative reporter to write up the story for our journal. The article was published on 2 November, following legal review, external peer review and subject to The BMJ’s usual high level editorial oversight and review."

 

Here is the November 2, 2021 article mentioned in the open letter:

 

 

Here are some quotes from the November 2, 2021 article with my bolds:

 

"In autumn 2020 Pfizer’s chairman and chief executive, Albert Bourla, released an open letter to the billions of people around the world who were investing their hopes in a safe and effective covid-19 vaccine to end the pandemic. “As I’ve said before, we are operating at the speed of science,” Bourla wrote, explaining to the public when they could expect a Pfizer vaccine to be authorised in the United States.

 

But, for researchers who were testing Pfizer’s vaccine at several sites in Texas during that autumn, speed may have come at the cost of data integrity and patient safety. A regional director who was employed at the research organisation Ventavia Research Group has told The BMJ that the company falsified data, unblinded patients, employed inadequately trained vaccinators, and was slow to follow up on adverse events reported in Pfizer’s pivotal phase III trial. Staff who conducted quality control checks were overwhelmed by the volume of problems they were finding. After repeatedly notifying Ventavia of these problems, the regional director, Brook Jackson, emailed a complaint to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Ventavia fired her later the same day. Jackson has provided The BMJ with dozens of internal company documents, photos, audio recordings, and emails....

 

In a recording of a meeting in late September 2020 between Jackson and two directors a Ventavia executive can be heard explaining that the company wasn’t able to quantify the types and number of errors they were finding when examining the trial paperwork for quality control. “In my mind, it’s something new every day,” a Ventavia executive says. “We know that it’s significant.”

 

In her 25 September email to the FDA Jackson wrote that Ventavia had enrolled more than 1000 participants at three sites. The full trial (registered under NCT04368728) enrolled around 44 000 participants across 153 sites that included numerous commercial companies and academic centres. She then listed a dozen concerns she had witnessed, including:

 

Participants placed in a hallway after injection and not being monitored by clinical staff

Lack of timely follow-up of patients who experienced adverse events

Protocol deviations not being reported

Vaccines not being stored at proper temperatures

Mislabelled laboratory specimens, and

Targeting of Ventavia staff for reporting these types of problems....

In Pfizer’s briefing document submitted to an FDA advisory committee meeting held on 10 December 2020 to discuss Pfizer’s application for emergency use authorisation of its covid-19 vaccine, the company made no mention of problems at the Ventavia site. The next day the FDA issued the authorisation of the vaccine.

 

In August this year, after the full approval of Pfizer’s vaccine, the FDA published a summary of its inspections of the company’s pivotal trial. Nine of the trial’s 153 sites were inspected. Ventavia’s sites were not listed among the nine, and no inspections of sites where adults were recruited took place in the eight months after the December 2020 emergency authorisation. The FDA’s inspection officer noted: “The data integrity and verification portion of the BIMO [bioresearch monitoring] inspections were limited because the study was ongoing, and the data required for verification and comparison were not yet available to the IND [investigational new drug].”

 

Let's go back to the open letter.  The authors of the letter note the following with my bolds:

 

"But from November 10, readers began reporting a variety of problems when trying to share our article. Some reported being unable to share it. Many others reported having their posts flagged with a warning about “Missing context ... Independent fact-checkers say this information could mislead people.” Those trying to post the article were informed by Facebook that people who repeatedly share “false information” might have their posts moved lower in Facebook’s News Feed. Group administrators where the article was shared received messages from Facebook informing them that such posts were “partly false.”

 

Readers were directed to a “fact check” performed by a Facebook contractor named Lead Stories.

 

We find the “fact check” performed by Lead Stories to be inaccurate, incompetent and irresponsible.

 

-- It fails to provide any assertions of fact that The BMJ article got wrong

 

-- It has a nonsensical title: “Fact Check: The British Medical Journal Did NOT Reveal Disqualifying And Ignored Reports Of Flaws In Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Trials”

 

-- The first paragraph inaccurately labels The BMJ a “news blog”

 

-- It contains a screenshot of our article with a stamp over it stating “Flaws Reviewed,” despite the Lead Stories article not identifying anything false or untrue in The BMJ article

 

-- It published the story on its website under a URL that contains the phrase “hoax-alert” 

 

We have contacted Lead Stories, but they refuse to change anything about their article or actions that have led to Facebook flagging our article.

 

We have also contacted Facebook directly, requesting immediate removal of the “fact checking” label and any link to the Lead Stories article, thereby allowing our readers to freely share the article on your platform."

  

Here is the key sentence:

 

"There is also a wider concern that we wish to raise. We are aware that The BMJ is not the only high quality information provider to have been affected by the incompetence of Meta’s fact checking regime. To give one other example, we would highlight the treatment by Instagram (also owned by Meta) of Cochrane, the international provider of high quality systematic reviews of the medical evidence. Rather than investing a proportion of Meta’s substantial profits to help ensure the accuracy of medical information shared through social media, you have apparently delegated responsibility to people incompetent in carrying out this crucial task. Fact checking has been a staple of good journalism for decades. What has happened in this instance should be of concern to anyone who values and relies on sources such as The BMJ."

 

Here is a screen capture of the entire open letter should it happen to disappear from the internet as things are prone to do in the post-truth era:

  

As well, in case you were curious, here is Lead Story's webpage, showing the names of the fact checkers that the company employs, only one of which has any connection to "science" (a BSc in Science) with the majority of the remaining fact checkers having backgrounds in journalism which is clearly does not qualify them to ascertain the scientific validity of any research being provided to them for analysis:

So basically, if we boil it down to its essentials, fact checking is little more than the generation of propaganda that suits the narrative of the company/person that has hired the fact checkers.

 It is very clear that, over the past two years, so-called "fact checking" has become laughable.  People with absolutely no education or training in medical science are controlling the COVID-19 narrative, using the heavy hand of censorship to negate any viewpoints that do not follow the interests of their employers and those who employ their employers.

 

Scientific facts have clearly become one of the casualties of the pandemic thanks to the efforts by Big Technology whose mission seems to be to prevent us from learning about the truth as they don't see it.

Facebook and its Battle Against Extremism

With the Biden White House releasing its plans for battling domestic terrorism, the latest iteration of terror that is supposed to fill us with fear as shown here:

 

....Facebook has also availed itself of the opportunity to fight against domestic terrorism as shown here:

 

 

As you will see in the later part of this posting, Facebook has taken its responsibility for battling extremism to a new level.

Facebook's Redirect Initiative claims the following:

 

"The Redirect Initiative helps combat violent extremism and dangerous organizations by redirecting hate and violence-related search terms towards resources, education, and outreach groups that can help. This initiative is based on Facebook’s “Get Help” search based modules in combination with the Redirect Method, evolved to fit Facebook and Instagram. 

 

For example, when people search on Facebook for terms related to white supremacy in the US, results are directed to Life After Hate, an organization founded by former violent extremists that provides crisis intervention, education, support groups, and outreach."

 

Facebook has several initiatives that fall under the "counter speech" banner as follows:

 

1.) Extreme Lives

 

2.) Resiliency Initiative

  

3.) Peer to Peer Facebook Global Digital Challenge

  

4.) Online Civil Courage Initiative (OCCI)

 

Now, let's look in detail at two additional initiatives that are specilifally focussed on terrorism:

  

5.)  The Global Internet forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) - GIFCT's aim is to disrupt terrorist abuse and exploitation of digital platforms to maximize the extraordinary benefits of a free, open, and secure internet.   

GIFCT was formally established in July 2017 by four founding companies - Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube - as a program of knowledge-sharing, technical collaboration and shared research.  Today, it is an independent organization capable of sustaining and deepening industry collaboration and capacity in its efforts to prevent terrorists and extremists from abusing and misusing digital platforms.

 

GIFCT has four goals:

 

1.) improve the capacity of technology companies to prevent and respond to abuse of their platforms by terrorists and violent extremists.

 

2.) enable multi-stakeholder engagement around terrorist and violent extremist misuse of the internet.

 

3.) encourage those dedicated to online civil dialogue and empower efforts to direct positive alternatives to the messages of terrorists and violent extremists

 

4.) Advance broad understanding of terrorist and violent extremist operations and their evolution, including the intersection of online and offline activities.

 

Member companies agreed that governments will not be able to remove terrorist content directly from company platforms.

 

6.) Redirect Initiative - Here is a quote from Facebook about this initiative:

"The Redirect Initiative helps combat violent extremism and dangerous organizations by redirecting hate and violence-related search terms towards resources, education, and outreach groups that can help. This initiative is based on Facebook’s “Get Help” search based modules in combination with the Redirect Method, evolved to fit Facebook and Instagram. 

 

For example, when people search on Facebook for terms related to white supremacy in the US, results are directed to Life After Hate, an organization founded by former violent extremists that provides crisis intervention, education, support groups, and outreach.

 

Redirect is disrupting the connection between followers and the violent, extreme content they seek with Facebook claiming that the program has been successful and has expanded its program with organizations in the United States, Australia, Germany, Indonesia and the United Kingdom "to help individuals leave a life of hate so they can live a life of hope." "

  

Here is a "Life After Hate" promotional video:

 

  

Under the Redirect Initiative, Facebook is testing a new alert system by using pop-ups which redirect users to a support page.

 

Here is an example:

 

The "confidential support" link is found here:

 

 

Here is more information from Life After Hate:

 

 

Here is more information on the program:

 

The group is closely linked with ExitUSA as shown here:

 

...and here:

 

This test which is only on Facebook's main platform was being run in the United States as a pilot program and is being used to identify both users who may have been exposed to rule-breaking extremist content and other uses who may have previously been subject to Facebook's enforcement procedures.  

 

Now that we know that Facebook only has our best interests at heart with this new initiative that, coincidentally has been launched within days of the Biden Administration's plans to battle the domestic terror "bogeyman", let's go back in time to the mid-1960s for a quote from Barry Goldwater at the 1964 Republican National Convention:

 

 

Here's the key quote:

  

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you, also, that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

 

Take that Facebook.

You must admit that it's reassuring to see that Facebook through its Redirect Initiative is attempting to protect us all from extremist propaganda at the same time as it is censoring any narrative that doesn't follow its own COVID-19/pro-vaccine beliefs. (sarcasm intended)

Instagram - Harvesting Your Personal Information

For those of you who use Instagram or are thinking about using Instagram and even for those who never intend to use Instagram, the following posting may be of interest.

  

In late December 2020, Instagram, a photo and video sharing social networking service wholly owned by Facebook, released an update to its Terms of Use.  Most of us mindlessly click "accept" on these wordy, mind numbingly boring legal agreements without thinking about the potential repercussions, particularly to our privacy.  As we know from years of experience with Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg simply cannot learn enough about our personal lives as part of his mandate to further enrich himself by supersaturating us with advertising as you will see.

  

Here is a link to the latest version of Facebook's Terms of Use (ToS) for Instagram.  The Instagram ToS opens with explaining to its users the wonderful services that it offers:

 

1.) Offering personalized opportunities to create, connect, communicate, discover, and share.

 

2.) Fostering a positive, inclusive, and safe environment.  We develop and use tools and offer resources to our community members that help to make their experiences positive and inclusive, including when we think they might need help. 

 

3.) Developing and using technologies that help us consistently serve our growing community.

 

4.) Providing consistent and seamless experiences across other Facebook Company Products.  Instagram is part of the Facebook Companies, which share technology, systems, insights, and information-including the information we have about you (learn more in the Data Policy) in order to provide services that are better, safer, and more secure. 

 

5.) Ensuring access to our Service.  To operate our global Service, we must store and transfer data across our systems around the world, including outside of your country of residence. The use of this global infrastructure is necessary and essential to provide our Service. 

 

6.) Connecting you with brands, products, and services in ways you care about.  We use data from Instagram and other Facebook Company Products, as well as from third-party partners, to show you ads, offers, and other sponsored content that we believe will be meaningful to you. And we try to make that content as relevant as all your other experiences on Instagram.

 

7.) Research and innovation.  We use the information we have to develop, test, and improve our Service and collaborate with others on research to make our Service better and contribute to the well-being of our community. This includes analyzing the data we have about our users and understanding how people use our Services, for example by conducting surveys and testing and troubleshooting new features.

 

Let's look at one interesting aspect of Instagram's ToS that you probably weren't aware of:

  

Any content that you post on Instagram is essentially owned by Instagram (no matter what they may say) until you delete it from their service.  You are granting them a free licence to copy, distribute or modify your content which can also be transferred to another "owner" without your express permission.

 

You will notice that Instagram refers to its "Data Policy" which you have to click on to access.  Let's look at what is hidden in its key moneymaking machine.  Instagram collects the following types of information from its account users, remembering that the information that users give the company can be stored anywhere in the world:

 

1.) content and communications including the location and date that a photo was taken (i.e. metadata) and can also see what you see when you use Instagram's camera feature to take a photo:

 

2.) information about the people, accounts and groups that you interact with across Facebook's products, your contact information if you choose to upload, sync or import it (i.e. your address book) as well as your call log and SMS log history (i.e. text messages):

  

But, it is most reassuring to know that Instagram only uses this information to help you and others find people that you may know!

 

3.) your credit and debit card numbers and other card information if you use Facebook's products to make a purchase or complete other financial transactions:

 

4.) information about your computer, phone, connected televisions or other web-connected devices keeping in mind that all of this is being done to "better personalize the content (including ads) or features that you see when you use Instagram:

 

This information that users give to Instagram includes the device's operating system, hardware and software versions, battery level, signal strength, available storage type, browser type, file names and plugins, mouse movements and whether a window is in the foreground or background. Instagram also collects information from your device signals including Bluetooth, information about nearby Wi-FI\i access points, beacons and cell towers as well as your GPS locations.  They also collect the name of your mobile operator or Internet Service Provider, language, time zone, mobile phone number, connection speed and information about other devices that are nearby or on your network.  What I found most interesting is that Instagram also collects identifiers which include identifiers from games that you play on your device, apps that are loaded on your device and accounts that you use.  While they don't explicitly state this, one wonders if they know who you bank with and any other accounts that you sign into from your device.

 

Here is the complete list of information that Instagram harvests:

 

 

See, it's all good.  Facebook/Instagram is a benign entity that only wants your personal information to improve and personalize your experience when using their products as shown here:

 

They also need this information to:

 

1.) promote safety, integrity and security

 

2.) communicate with its users

 

...and, most importantly, research and innovate for social good as shown here:

 

That makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it?  It gives users a warm and cozy feeling knowing that providing their most personal information to a corporate entity is improving society.

 

Let's close this posting with a couple of thoughts.  There are two lessons that can be learned from Instagram:

 

1.) If it seems too good to be true (i.e. a free service), it probably is.

 

2.) Nothing in life is free.

  

Like Facebook before it, what started out as a benign social networking service has morphed into something that is used to harvest our personal information with the goal of making the service's major shareholders even wealthier than they already are.  Users get a few shiny baubles and mirrors as a "reward" for sharing their most personal data with a money-making machine that benefits the very few people that reside at the top of the technoplutocracy.

How Facebook is Controlling the Vaccine Narrative

 A recent posting on Facebook's company blog has made it quite clear where the world's foremost social media platform stands on the issue of vaccines, most particularly, the potential vaccine for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

 

Here is the posting as written by Kang-Xing Jin, Head of Health and Rob Leathern, Director of Product Management at Facebook:

 

For your information, here is Kang-Xing Jin's Linkedin page showing his experience in the field of public health given that he is head of Facebook's Health division (i.e. there is none):

 

Here is Rob Leathern's LinkedIn page which also shows his experience in the field of public health (again, none):

 

Here is the opening paragraph of their blog posting:

 

"The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of preventive health behaviors. While public health experts agree that we won’t have an approved and widely available COVID-19 vaccine for some time, there are steps that people can take to stay healthy and safe. That includes getting the seasonal flu vaccine. So today we’re announcing new steps as part of our continued work to help support vaccine efforts. These include: 

 

1.) Launching a new flu vaccine information campaign on Facebook, including new product features that provide additional vaccine-related content

 

2.) Rejecting ads globally that discourage people from getting a vaccine

 

3.) Working with global health partners on campaigns to increase immunization rates"

 

Here's how Facebook is going to control the vaccine narrative in the ecosystem that they control:

 

Facebook is also going to act to "amplify the voices of Public Health Partners" to increase vaccination rates around the world by working with organizations like WHO and UNICEF using public health messaging campaigns.  They are also working with WHO's Vaccine Safety Network to "train and support their network of vaccine partners to utilize Facebook to reach as many people as possible with public health messaging".

 

The writers of the posting conclude with this message:

 

"We will continue to support vaccine efforts as part of our work to help the people who use our platform stay healthy and safe."

Apparently, there are no alternatives to vaccines to help us stay healthy and safe.  It also seems rather coincidental that Facebook has suddenly taken an interest in vaccines now that nations around the world are biding their time, waiting for the development of a vaccine for the SARS-CoV-2 virus that is likely to be mandatory.

 

It's nice to see that Facebook, formerly a social media company, has turned itself into a health care company whose mandate includes the promotion of vaccines.  Bill Gates, one of Mark Zuckerberg's fellow technoplutocrats and the global spokesperson for universal vaccines, would be proud.