Daily Archives: August 20, 2018

2018-08-20: News Headlines

Howard Lisnoff (2018-08-20). The Mass Media's Outrage at Trump: Why the Surprise? counterpunch.org They're coming fast and furious! Here come 343 media outlets that are criticizing (Guardian, August 15, 2018—at least 350 at this writing) Il Duce for creating the frenzy of "fake news" among his followers and encouraging the violent among his ilk to attack counterprotesters and journalists at campaign events and "public" appearances. The Boston Globe took the lead position More

Steve Brown (2018-08-20). Station Manager Quincy McCoy Disgraces KPFA and Pacifica Radio With Unilateral Banning. indybay.org KPFA manager Quincy McCoy has unilaterally banned the longtime show Guns and Butter without any hearing or due process and censored all the past shows. This is from "Free Speech" radio. Quincy has a long history of deciding what should be on the air without any process of the staff and community who pay for the station.

wsws.org (2018-08-20). Teacher hostility grows to Michigan Department of Education's curriculum changes. wsws.org The Michigan Department of Education has proposed new social studies standards which remove references to essential democratic rights and aim to censor the study of history.

Sophia A. McClennen, Salon (2018-08-19). Trump's War on Words and the Failures of a 'Weaponized' Defense. alternet.org The story of "weaponize" is a cautionary tale, a tale of how an assault on nuance and meaning is contagious | After 9/11/2001 the nation watched as the George W. Bush administration deployed specific language to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. During that time, the Bush team misrepresented, lied, obfuscated, named, renamed, refused to name, censored, and silenced to advance its agenda. Recall, for example, the Abu Ghraib photo sca. . .

Global Research News (2018-08-19). Selected Articles: Turkey's Financial Crisis, Sanctions, Dollar Hegemony. globalresearch.ca For almost seventeen years, Global Research, together with partner independent media organizations, has sought Truth in Media with a view to eventually "disarming" the corporate media's disinformation crusade. | To reverse the …

RT (2018-08-19). US govt doesn't think people have intelligence to decipher news, hence censorship — Keiser. rt.com As Twitter and Facebook are criticized over censorship and constant finger-pointing at Russia, RT's Max Keiser speaks to the senior editor of the Grayzone Project, Max Blumenthal, who sums up the reality of the situation. |

RT (2018-08-19). Facebook 'censors' conservative education page, says it was a mistake, but few are convinced. rt.com Facebook says it had mistakenly deleted videos and limited the reach of US conservative educational organization PragerU. The content has now been restored, but PragerU supporters don't think it was an accident.

RT (2018-08-18). Trump: 'We won't let' discrimination of conservatives on social media happen. rt.com US President Donald Trump has spoken out about censorship against conservatives on social media, saying it is a "very dangerous thing" and calling for everyone to be allowed to participate in the online conversation.

wsws.org (2018-08-18). Google employees protest plans to build censored search engine in China. wsws.org Google CEO Sundar Pichai confirmed Thursday that the company has worked to develop a censored version of its search engine in collaboration with the Chinese state.

Dave Lindorff (2018-08-17). Mainstream Media Hypocrisy on Display. counterpunch.org Some 300 newspapers, large and small, joined today in publishing, often on their front pages, editorials defending the First Amendment's freedom of the press, often making note of their own efforts to combat current threats to that freedom posed by President Trump's attacks on journalists and the entire Fourth Estate, which Trump routinely denounces in More

Ryan Gallagher (2018-08-17). Google Executives Misled Staff in Meeting on China Censorship. Here Are 13 Questions They Must Answer. theintercept.com Co-founder Sergey Brin said he didn't know about the China plans, which CEO Sundar Pichai said are "in an exploration stage" — despite previous reports.

Thomas Knapp (2018-08-17). Murphy's Law: Big Tech Must Serve as Censorship Subcontractors. counterpunch.org In a recent tweet, US Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) warned that "Infowars is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart." His solution: "These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it." More

Paul Street (2018-08-17). Corporate Media: the Enemy of the People. counterpunch.org I detest the malignantly racist, sexist, narcissistic, and authoritarian pathological liar and bully Donald Trump on many different levels, and I share none of his sick world view, but the corporate media really is, well (to use Trump's recurrent phrase), "the enemy of the people." Here below is an essay I first published (on the More

wsws.org (2018-08-17). Facebook censors Telesur and Venezuela Analysis. wsws.org As the Trump administration escalates its onslaught against Venezuela, technology corporations are stepping up censorship of sites critical of US policy.

RT (2018-08-17). Pentagon hypes China threat amid renewed strategic competition. rt.com The Pentagon is raising an alarm about "rapidly" growing Chinese military capabilities, from long-range bombers to a blue-water navy, as mainstream media warn that Chinese pilots are "likely" training for strikes against the US.

Consortiumnews.com (2018-08-16). Trump-Media Logrolling. consortiumnews.com Hundreds of mainstream newspapers on Thursday have coordinated editorials against Trump's attacks on the press, but as Sam Husseini explains, the major media need to do some soul-searching itself. By Sam Husseini Today, hundreds of newspapers, at the initiative of The Boston… Read more →

Ryan Gallagher (2018-08-16). Google Staff Tell Bosses China Censorship is "Moral and Ethical" Crisis. theintercept.com Google employees are demanding answers from the company's leadership amid growing internal protests over plans to launch a censored search engine in China. | Staff inside the internet giant's offices have agreed that the censorship project raises "urgent moral and ethical issues" and have circulated a letter saying so, calling on bosses to disclose more about the company's work in China, which they say is shrouded in too much secrecy, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter. | The internal furor began after The Intercept earlier this month revealed details about the censored search engine, which would remove content that China's authoritarian government views as sensitive, such as information about political dissidents, free speech, democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest. It would "blacklist sensitive queries" so that "no results will be shown" at all when people enter certain words or…

RT (2018-08-16). Fake news media is 'opposition party' & bad for America – Trump. rt.com US President Donald Trump has tweeted that the "fake news media" is the "opposition party," while calling it "very bad" for the US. In true Trump style, he followed that up by saying "we are winning" the fight.

RT (2018-08-16). 'Full of itself': Facebook using Russia as excuse to censor information online, says Steve Malzberg. rt.com Facebook is using false claims against Russia and its supposed "bots" and "trolls" as justification to shut down pages of news outlets it doesn't agree with, conservative commentator Steve Malzberg told RT's "Watching the Hawks."

RT (2018-08-15). Five examples that show internet censorship is as much a threat to the left as the right. rt.com The banning of right wing controversialist Alex Jones from multiple social media platforms last week was a cause of celebration for many liberals, but should those on the left really be so complacent about creeping censorship? |

RT (2018-08-15). Alex Jones suspended from Twitter after tweet calling to end censorship. rt.com Controversial right-wing commentator Alex Jones has been banned from tweeting after he posted a link to a video of himself calling on President Trump to "take action" against tech companies censoring his content. |

Democracy Now! (2018-08-14). How Monsanto Plants Stories, Suppresses Science & Silences Dissent to Sell a Cancer-Linked Chemical. democracynow.org As Monsanto comes under scrutiny for allegedly hiding the dangers of its weed killer, Roundup, we talk to a reporter who says the company attempted to censor and discredit her when she published stories on their product that contradicted their business interests. Carey Gillam is a veteran investigative journalist and author of "Whitewash – The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer and the Corruption of Science."

Hatewatch Staff (2018-08-13). Hatewatch Headlines 8/13/2018. splcenter.org ADF goes on hate radio to attack hate-group status; White nationalists' message permeates mainstream right; Twitter gives Proud Boys the boot; and more.