Is Facebook Media?

Facebook Temporarily Blocks Black Lives Matter Activist After He Posts Racist Email

This s the title of and older story that I am bringing back which happened late last year and got little attention.  While watching the news feed on my own facebook,  An old friend went suddenly Sean Hannity on me and once started it just all linked up and high profiled. I came to see how easily manipulated the feed could be.  I saw how easily we could be persuaded to take up the telephone and call to support obsolete neoliberal talking point by the constant barage of Democratic Party machine group think, and even old dead free market crap about liberty.  All of this is spiced with a strong dose of classic Libertarian bullshit. We are called a progressive community in the North Bay but in truth there is a staunch majority of liberal Democratic Party loyalists that are still pissed off about Hillary and yearn to go back to the days of Obama.
Getting back to Facebook I will first set the stage by saying that across this country most people still get their news from TV.  This is well documented.  However in our circles and among the young and progressive activists and our friends Facebook principally and social media in general is the window into the world of information and news. KQED and KPFA distant third and umtheenth.  Does this make Facebook a media company, do they edit, even censor or do they gently push ideas?  Turns out the answer is no, sort of yes and no and definitely yes,but the platform is undeniably fertile ground for exploitation for those with an agenda.  Most of the users are clearly net consumers of this mediated information. So this would seem to support  the answer.  Yes they are media and therefore this debate is also as about issues of privatization of the utility of communications systems and influence as it is about censorship. It is a proverbial can of worms.  Telephones and postal mail use to be regulated to prevent thought control.  TV and news outlets use to be required to provide equal time for opposing views, but with Facebook? All bets are off and I am more than a little worried.

This is from the story:

Facebook faced international scorn last week when it censored a Norwegian writer’s post featuring the historic Vietnam war photo of nine-year-old Kim Phuc running naked from a napalm attack. Journalists criticized the decision, saying the Pulitzer-winning image had clear news value, and Norway’s largest newspaper published a front-page letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, urging him to live up to his role as “the world’s most powerful editor”.

After the intense backlash, Facebook reinstated the photo, but media ethicists said the spat exposed fundamental flaws and unresolved challenges in the way the company controls the news. While Zuckerberg continues to insist that his corporation is a “platform” and “tech company” – and not a media site or publisher – the reality is that Facebook has become a primary news source for many users and a vital tool for reporters.

Shaun King – a senior justice writer for the New York Daily News, who frequently writes viral stories about police brutality – posted on his Facebook page a screenshot of an email that twice called him the N-word, saying “FUCK YOU N*****!” The technology corporation said it was blocking him from posting for 24 hours, saying he had violated its “community standards”. 

I really mean can of worms, I know you all love your Facebook and it is sometime incredibly sweet and warm and almost human,  but beware.  This is part of your  mental environment (count your hours.) The Internet is the information environment upon with you form opinions and make decisions.  It is so big it is only a quasi business.  If Facebook were a religion it would be the second largest on the planet and as such it is wide open to those who would persuade you and money is no object, this is big.

As the discussion about fake news, terrorism, hate speak, social media trolling software deployed by governments, law enforcement agencies and NSA back doors proceed, trust me this will only become worse.  As authoritarian governments work to stop the resistance and yet the resistance itself deploys social media aggressively as a powerful organizing tool the shit will hit the fan.  Just a head up.

Facebook Temporarily Blocks Black Lives Matter Activist After He Posts Racist Email:

Injured General Motors Colombian Worker and Activist Denied Visa

One notable and vitally important part of last years Standing Rock protest was it strong international and intersectional framework. I was very impressed at the sophistication of the organizers. This story connects this with internationalism, Naomi Klein's global call to action and Sara Jaffe's hopeful book Necessary Trouble, Americans in Revolt.  Trade agreements between elites in Columbia and other countries with the US include the exchange and sharing of information.  Here is a case of suspected collusion between a corporation and governments to black ball activists.  One of the shining hopes of the Resistance is Internationalism.  Although difficult to confirm due to secrecy, this articles shows that in the age of terrorism watch and no fly lists, we may see more of this directed at activists such as this injured General Motors worker who was flying to meet with Oregon-based Central America Solidarity Committee. The cancellation has not been officially explained, and supporters suspect retaliation for the aggressive protest tactics employed by the Colombians.

     In official statements“GM has put in place training, funding, and other resources so the Asotrecol members can return to productive work again and care for their families.”
     Shell-Spurling brushes aside GM’s statements, charging that the company has spent years denying the problem, or making insincere offers of partial restitution. GM exercises strong political influence in both the United States and Colombia, she adds, and the governments of both countries have generally supported GM in the struggle with ASOTRECOL. She cited the action of U.S. Ambassador Kevin Whitaker to cancel Parra’s visa a prime example of such support.
     Although there has been no confirmation, Paige says there is some suspicion that Parra’s visa cancellation may have been related to a meeting that had been scheduled this month with U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon).  The Portland Solidarity Committee had pressed for the meeting, Shell-Spurling says, in hopes that Sen. Wyden’s attention would spur GM to finally settle with all the injured workers.

General Motors to Colombian Workers Injured on the Job: You're on Your Own:



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More industry propaganda spread by New York Times

Read this one more thoughly


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/technology/net-neutrality.html?_r=0

Verizon's AppFlash App Can Track Phones, Target Ads | Digital Trends

The article is too full of minutia and doesn't say much more than the headline. Suffice to say, every company is doing it, legal or not.

One of the commenter's statement below the article is that "nothing really changed" with this legislation.  This is straight out of industry talking points.  Although it is true that the recent FCC rules had yet to go into effect, the research, millions of public inputs and public interest briefs and the arduous rule making process has been ongoing for nearly 10 years, this throwing the baby out with the bathwater is the proverbial legislative "Green Light" that starts the race to the bottom for privacy and net neutrality that the industry has lobbied for many years.  Wall street will now see dollar signs and reward and invest in the most aggressive and abusive companies. Yes this does matter, even if the former rules would not have solved the problem of invasion of privacy.

Verizon's AppFlash App Can Track Phones, Target Ads | Digital Trends:



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How the Republicans Sold Your Privacy to Internet Providers

The only thing wrong with this article is that it blames the Republicans....They are to blame for everything you know, as if the Democrats had not gone down this road and sold us out over and over again to the ATTs, TeleComs, Comcasts, NBCs, and Googles of the world. And so it continues.



  .How the Republicans Sold Your Privacy to Internet Providers - The New York Times:

The bill not only gives cable companies and wireless providers free rein to do what they like with your browsing history, shopping habits, your location and other information gleaned from your online activity, but it would also prevent the Federal Communications Commission from ever again establishing similar consumer privacy protections.
The bill is an effort by the F.C.C.’s new Republican majority and congressional Republicans to overturn a simple but vitally important concept — namely that the information that goes over a network belongs to you as the consumer, not to the network hired to carry it. It’s an old idea: For decades, in both Republican and Democratic administrations, federal rules have protected the privacy of the information in a telephone call. In 2016, the F.C.C., which I led as chairman under President Barack Obama, extended those same protections to the Internet.

Well the very idea of it boils my blood.  "information that goes over a network belongs to you as the consumer, not to the network hired to carry it. It’s an old idea."  Indeed it is an old idea. It started with the founding of the country and the early postal service envisioned as a democratizing communications system -that would become the envy of the world. (And we were then not consumers then but citizens.) If you want to read up on it I very much recommend a book I have just finished, Prologue to a Farce: Communication and Democracy in America.  I warn you it is a sad sad book.

And then there is the much lauded democratizing potential of the Internet....Blah, blah, blah.  A very good idea, but just hasn't worked out that way in real life politics largely controlled by corporate plutocracy. Very recently there was  good piece in the Nation, basically an momentarily premature obituary on "Net Neutrality" .  Trumps new FCC chair who is an obvious hatchet man for the industry plans to kill his own agency.  Not a new idea.  The gist of the NYT piece is that congress took power away from the FCC so they can not regulate in our interest.  True enough but this is a big overstatement on the true nature of that agency since it's inception.

One article that predicted what was going to happen  Tom Wheeler: Trump, GOP Plan To 'Modernize' The FCC A 'Fraud'  in "Tech Dirt" goes very deep  on the political scuttlebutt side but it is full of great references  Like who are these companies and what do they mean by competition and modernization?

The end result of this "modernization"? Less oversight than ever for industry giants AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Charter. Given these companies' growing size, long and undeniable track record of anti-competitive behavior and outright fraud, what could possibly go wrong?

.....and we wouldn't want to go to Net Neutrality's funeral and memorial with out a few word to say and maybe some facts. Read it.


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Trump’s Net Neutrality-Hating FCC Chair Is Already Gutting Public-Interest Regulations

I share the concern with many of my techie friend the Net Neutrality is very important and we are losing it by pieces and now by lumps.  You should read up.



Trump’s Net Neutrality-Hating FCC Chair Is Already Gutting Public-Interest Regulations | The Nation:

Within days of assuming the presidency, Trump named Ajit Pai as his FCC chair. A former associate general counsel for the Verizon telecommunications conglomerate, Pai was one of the FCC’s five commissioners during the Obama era. In that role, he often dissented against consumer-friendly regulations, robust market competition, and diversification of media ownership. Now, as FCC chair, Pai has moved rapidly to undo Obama’s FCC legacy, reversing or weakening measures that had begun to restore the commission’s commitment to regulating on behalf of the public, rather than the corporate, interest.

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Money Talks, especially a whole lot of money from AT&T & Comcast

This is a very sad story about mainstream civil rights groups taking huge amounts of money from corporations in order to support these corporations lobbying efforts. In this case get this the NAACP is promoting the end of net neutrality, go figure

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/41955-civil-rights-groups-funded-by-telecoms-back-donald-trumps-plan-to-kill-net-neutrality

The Internet's Own Boy