The latest attack on independent media
Detailing big tech's latest attempt to take down independent media.
Independent media is breaking the mold of corporate media. As time goes on more people realize the mainstream media is propaganda and go to alternative sources to get their information. This is worrying to many elements of the establishment as they are losing control of the narrative. This has led to an assault on independent media from big tech. An example of this is what independent media host Kyle Kulinski reports in this video. Within the video, Kulinski explains he has been labeled “borderline content” and thus will not be recommended in the algorithm. He also explains as youtube CEO Susan Wojcicki admitted that youtube tweaks the algorithm to recommend “authoritative sources”. This means youtube will try to steer viewers towards corporate news outlets like Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN. This attack on independent media took a step further recently when white house press secretary Jen Psaki said the government is working with tech companies to censor “misinformation”. The latest update in this assault on independent journalism came today when Twitter announced they will be partnering with AP and Reuters to provide “authoritative context” on “global topics and conversations”. This is a problem for two main reasons first AP and Reuters tow the state department line on nearly every foreign policy issue and second, this could easily be a slippery slope to full-on censorship.
Don’t question big brother.
The two so-called “authoritative sources” Twitter is using to go after independent media push blatant propaganda and misinformation. Both publications have many connections to the national security state for example Reuters director Dawn Scalici was a c.i.a agent for 30 years and believes her job at Reuters is to "meet the disparate needs of the U.S. government". Aside from these connections, there are many examples of both of these outlets publishing blatant propaganda. For example, AP published the blatantly false story that claimed Paul Manafort met with Jullian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy. AP reported on this easily debunkable evidence-free claim with no skepticism. If this Twitter policy was in place at the time this story came out reporters like Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, and Aaron Mate would have been flagged for their correct reporting on this story, and Twitter users would have been directed to AP’s parroting of an evidence-free conspiracy theory. AP also often whitewashes the actions of the U.S. government such as in this article that argues Trump’s killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani was not actually an assassination. But as bad as AP is the more worrying element of this story is that Twitter is using Reuters as an “authoritative source” an outlet that is full of nonstop propaganda and misinformation. Take Venezuela for example where Returns ran articles with headlines like “The Maduro mystery: Why the armed forces still stand by Venezuela’s beleaguered president”. In this article, they repeat the Venezuelan opposition and state department line. They even refer to Hugo Chavez as a “socialist strongman” despite the fact that he was democratically elected and consistently polled well amongst the Venezuelan people. Another example of this propaganda is this article that portrays the Trump sanctions on Venezuela as ones that only target government officials. This is blatantly false as reports have found these sanctions have killed 40,000 people and a UN report found they have a “devastating effect on the whole population” especially on “those in extreme poverty, women, children, medical workers, people with disabilities or life-threatening or chronic diseases, and the indigenous population.” Again this Twitter policy would mean those who report the fact that these murderous sanctions have a devastating effect on the population of Venezuela would be flagged by Twitter and readers will be redirected to Reuters which whitewashes the sadistic sanctions. Reuters also published unbelievably biased reporting on Bolivia. For example, they repeated the false OAS claim that there was election fraud in favor of Evo Morales in the 2019 Bolivian election. They even went as far as to parrot the fascist coup regime’s claim that they were fighting “leftists terrorists” when in reality they were killing political dissidents. Reuters continues to this day to repeat propaganda on Bolivia such as when they tried to portray the elected leftist Bolivian government’s arrest of coup leader Janie Anez as a “crackdown on the opposition". There are many other examples of Reuters repeating the state department line such as their repeating of the false claim that Russia was offering bounties to the Taliban for killing American soldiers or their article on the OPCW whistleblowers that fails to even mention the leaked documents from the inspectors on Wikileaks. Again on all of these issues the reporters that were correct on these stories would have been flagged by Twitter and “corrected” with misinformation and propaganda from Reuters and AP had this policy been in place.
The slippery slope to censorship.
This is only step one of the attacks on independent media. As of right now this policy is going to be used to flag independent content and sent readers to AP and Reuter’s state department-approved content. But this could easily go further into outright censorship. Twitter could easily go further into outright censoring those Reuters and AP deem “misinformation”. This means those who were correct on issues like the Iraq war, Russiagate intervention inLybia and Syria, and the coups in Venezuela and Bolivia could be censored as Ap and Reuters parroted the false state department narrative on all of those issues. I really hope all on the left can now see the dangers of supporting Big-tech censorship. It is now being used as an establishment tool to wage war on the independent media. All independent media figures need to call out this attack or it will mean the end of the free flow of information on the internet.