Totalitarian Media Regime

2012
Sberbank's German Gref: one should not give power/information to the people as then it will be harder to manipulate them, -- while the rest of his panel, from USA, UK, and Russia are for empowering users of Internet.

December 2016

 * EU's Infowar On Russia - Putting In Place A Totalitarian Media Regime And Speech Control - Jon Hellevig, December 16, 2016

January 2018

 * The War on Dissent - CJ Hopkins, CounterPunch, January 26, 2018
 * ''The message is, “try to fuck with us, and we will marginalize you, and demonize you, and demonetize you, and disappear you.”

October 2018

 * Leaked Google research shows company grappling with censorship and free speech - Nick Statt, The Verge, October 10, 2018
 * Google, The 'Good Censor' - The American Conservative, October 10, 2018
 * The Good Censor - GOOGLE LEAK | Censorship | Facebook - Scribd
 * No Google Isn't Trying To Censor The Web - Kalev Leetaru, Forbes, October 10, 2018
 * ''The “leaked” presentation was quickly framed by some as a roadmap to censorship and that it demonstrated the company was examining how to suppress certain viewpoints or crack down on internet freedoms. Yet, a closer read of the presentation would suggest precisely the opposite: a company at the center of many of our debates about the future of the online world grappling with the existential question of the modern web: how to absolutely preserve freedom of speech, while at the same time preventing terrorists, criminals, repressive governments and trolls from turning this incredible force for good into a toxic and dangerous place that undermines democracy, advances terrorism, assists fraudsters and empowers hatred? How do we elevate the voices of the disenfranchised and give them a place at the table of global discourse, while not also awakening the trolls that seek to repress them? How do we empower the free expression of ideas and bring an incredibly diverse and divided world together, while embracing the differences that make us who we are? How do we reach across countries and cultures, across languages and landscapes, to have meaningful conversations about the future of our shared planet? Most importantly, how can technology play a positive role in helping facilitate the good, empowering civil discourse, while discouraging the bad, from terrorist recruiting to fraud to toxic speech and trolling?

May 2019

 * Applying AI to Keep the Platform Safe - facebook for developers, May 1, 2019
 * Facebook's Edge AI Content Scanning Brings NSA-Style Surveillance And Censorship To The Planet - Kalev Leetaru, Forbes, May 5, 2019
 * ''The microphone could even be left permanently on to scan the surrounding background environment 24/7, creating a globally distributed network of billions of always-on microphones transcribing global private conversations.

June 2019

 * Prisma poisti verkkokaupastaan kirjan, joka on viestintäasiantuntijan mukaan julkaistu hämäyksen vuoksi: "Se on taitava väärennös – täyttä roskaa" - Aamulehti, June 3, 2019
 * I DEMAND an Explanation from Medium.Com Regarding Their Censorship of My Work - Mark F. McCarty, June 3, 2019
 * European Court Of Justice Suggests Maybe The Entire Internet Should Be Censored And Filtered - Mike Masnick, Techdirt, June 5, 2019
 * How Finland fights the fake news trolls - Video by Tom Bateman, BBC, June 6, 2019
 * Facebook Has Banned The Word "Honk" For Violating Their Community Standards - ZeroHedge, June 6, 2019
 * YouTube, Facebook Purges Are More Extensive Than You Think - Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone, June 7, 2019
 * YouTube is deleting videos on Nazi history as part of its hate speech crackdown - MIT Technology Review, June 7, 2019
 * Google Deploys Squads Of Firemen To Burn Offensive Books, Videos, Websites - The Babylon Bee, June 7, 2019
 * The Trust Project: Big Media and Silicon Valley’s Weaponized Algorithms Silence Dissent - Whitney Webb, Mint Press News, June 7, 2019
 * Facebook Deletes ‘Natural News’ Facebook Page - Breitbart, June 10, 2019
 * Global Internet Censorship Lockdown Begins In Canada - Resurrection Europa, June 10, 2019
 * The Omnipresent Surveillance State: Orwell’s 1984 Is No Longer Fiction - John W. Whitehead, Rutherford Institute, June 10, 2019
 * The Censorship of Social Media: A Facebook Experience - Paula Densnow, OffGuardian, June 11, 2019
 * New York Times to Cease Political Cartoons After Anti-Semitism Backlash (PHOTOS) - Sputnik, June 11, 2019
 * Pinterest Bans Zero Hedge By Adding To "Porn Domain Block List" Used To Target Conservatives - ZeroHedge, June 11, 2019
 * ‘Woke clickbait’ ruined media, so now they demand censorship – and Big Tech obeys - Nebojsa Malic, RT, June 15, 2019
 * The Guardian’s direct collusion with media censorship by secret services exposed - Thomas Scripps, WSWS, June 22, 2019
 * Guardian Continues to Promote “Progressive” Censorship - Kit Knightly, OffGuardian, June 23, 2019
 * Vimeo bans media watchdog Project Veritas after it accused Google of anti-Trump bias - RT, June 27, 2019

July 2019

 * Medium Has Begun Banning Its Users For Disputing Pro-War Narratives - Rainer Shea, July 8, 2019
 * Russia's RT and Sputnik barred from UK conference on media freedom - AFP, July 9, 2019
 * When discerning the truth becomes an automated process - Padraig Joseph McGrath, InfoRos, July 10, 2019
 * UN Launches All-Out War On Free Speech - Judith Bergman, ZeroHedge, July 11, 2019
 * Assange Defense Account Deleted By Twitter - Caitlin Johnstone, July 13, 2019

August 2019

 * ‘Shut the Site Down,’ Says the Creator of 8chan, a Megaphone for Gunmen - Kevin Roose, The New York Times, August 4, 2019
 * Terminating Service for 8Chan - Matthew Prince, Cloudflare blog, August 5, 2019
 * Online providers knock 8chan offline after mass shooting - AP, August 5, 2019
 * 8chan: Another Mass Shooting, Another Internet Purge - Kit Knightly, OffGuardian, August 5, 2019
 * ''This is the third “mass casualty event” in less than a year that was immediately followed up by censorship of the internet
 * Updating our advertising policies on state media - Twitter Inc., August 19, 2019
 * Twitter Declares Total Advertising Ban on State-Run Media Outlets - Sputnik, August 20, 2019
 * The state of this! Twitter’s advertising ban is ideological & anti-democratic - Neil Clark, RT, August 20, 2019
 * Facebook takes down anti-protest accounts ‘due to Beijing links, not content’ - South China Morning Post, August 20, 2019
 * Twitter Bans 200,000 Accounts It "Believes" Are Run By Chinese Government - Sputnik, August 21, 2019
 * Twitter relying on US/European gov-funded regime-change groups to crack down on foreign states - Ben Norton, The Grayzone, August 24, 2019

December 2019

 * The new cold war and the redoubling of U.S. propaganda power - Rainer Shea, December 27, 2019
 * The West Is Entering an Era of Totalitarian Media Control - Cybersecurity Analyst - Sputnik, December 27, 2019

COVID-19

 * ''See also Wuhan coronavirus outbreak


 * Google censors Google Doc of medical hydroxychloroquine coronavirus treatment trial paper - Reclaim the Net, March 25, 2020
 * Anti-Vaccine Posts On Facebook, Instagram And Twitter Could Be Banned Under New UK Laws - The Independent, March 27, 2019
 * how to recognise and tackle Covid-19 myths - European Parliament, March 30, 2020
 * "The EU has pressured tech giants like Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft to stop the spread of fake news about COVID-19." (on soundtrack)
 * We cannot allow Facebook and Twitter to use Covid-19 to launch their own coup d’état - RT, April 2, 2020
 * Internet Speech Will Never Go Back to Normal - The Atlantic, April 25, 2020
 * ''In the debate over freedom versus control of the global network, China was largely correct, and the U.S. was wrong.
 * Narrative Managers Argue China-Like Internet Censorship Is Needed - Caitlin Johnstone, April 27, 2020
 * Why Did YouTube Remove The Doctors’ Briefing? - Rod Dreher, The American Conservative, April 28, 2020
 * Censorship Continues. Facebook Permanently Deleted SouthFront’s Page - SouthFront, April 30, 2020
 * ''Recently, Deutsche Welle and several other mainstream media outlets released articles alleging that SouthFront is spreading disinformation about the COVID-19 outbreak.
 * The Inevitable Coronavirus Censorship Crisis is Here - Matt Taibbi, April 30, 2020 (mirror)
 * Health Professionals Make Urgent Call to Social Media CEOs: “Viral misinformation is threatening our patients’ lives” - Avaaz, May 7, 2020
 * Our Facebook Ban: the Fatal 0.2% - Ron Unz, Unz Review, May 11, 2020
 * YouTube censors epidemiologist Knut Wittkowski for opposing lockdown - New York Post, May 16, 2020
 * What critical thinking? Wayback Machine is now complicit in Big Tech censorship - Elliot Leavy, RT, May 19, 2020
 * Google Drive takes down user’s personal copy of Judy Mikovits’ Plandemic after it was flagged by The Washington Post - Reclaim the Net, May 20, 2020

May 2020

 * April 2020 Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior Report - Facebook, April 2020
 * SouthFront’s YouTube Channel Is Banned - SouthFront, May 2, 2020
 * Pre-crime: Twitter will warn users about their 'HARMFUL' language, BEFORE they tweet - RT, May 5, 2020
 * After Youtube and Facebook, Vimeo bans ‘Sayed Hasan’ & Nasrallah’s videos - Resistance News Unfiltered, May 16, 2020
 * Planet of the Censoring Humans - Matt Taibbi, May 30, 2020

June 2020

 * FBI launches open attack on ‘foreign’ alternative media outlets challenging US foreign policy - Gareth Porter, The Grayzone, June 5, 2020 (mirror)
 * ''The FBI’s first step toward intervening against dissenting views on social media took place in October 2017 with the creation of a Foreign Influence Task Force (FTIF) in the bureau’s Counterintelligence Division. Next, the FBI defined any effort by states designated by the Department of Defense as major adversaries (Russia, China, Iran and North Korea) to influence American public opinion as a threat to US national security.
 * The American Press Is Destroying Itself - Matt Taibbi, June 12, 2020
 * Narrative Control Operations Escalate As America Burns - ''Caitlin Johnstone, June 13, 2020
 * 'Facebook doesn't care': Activists say accounts removed despite Zuckerberg's free-speech stance - Olivia Solon, NBC News, June 15, 2020
 * Google bans two websites from its ad platform over protest articles - NBC News, June 15, 2020
 * ''The two sites, ZeroHedge and The Federalist, will no longer be able to generate revenue from any advertisements served by Google Ads.
 * Tucker: Google tries to censor content it disagrees with - Fox News, Jun 16, 2020 (video)
 * NBC colludes with UK thought police to get ZeroHedge & Federalist deplatformed from Google Ads, smear them as ‘far-right’ - RT, June 16, 2020
 * ‘Independent’ Facebook fact-checker exposed as partisan smear factory packed with CNN alumni - RT, June 18, 2020
 * Twitter Censors Trump For “Threat Of Harm”, Has No Problem With Threats To Bomb Foreigners - Caitlin Johnstone, June 24, 2020
 * “Free Speech” In The US Empire Is As Illusory As “Free-Range” Eggs - Caitlin Johnstone, June 26, 2020

July 2020

 * The great American firewall: On the question of censorship - Danny Haiphong, MR Online, July 17, 2020
 * The Left is Now the Right - Matt Taibbi, July 20, 2020
 * Twitter bans 7,000 QAnon accounts, limits 150,000 others as part of broad crackdown - NBC News, July 21, 2020
 * ''Its classification of QAnon as coordinated harmful activity was a new designation.
 * Just a glitch? Google hides conservative & alt-media websites from search results for hours - RT, July 21, 2020
 * Catch and Kill: The Protection Racket Used by Trump, Weinstein, Epstein and Wall Street - Pam Martens and Russ Martens, Wall Street on Parade, July 22, 2020

August 2020

 * The White House’s plan to purge Chinese tech from the internet is just bluster — for now - James Vincent, The Verge, August 6, 2020
 * The Filthy Hypocrisy of America’s “Clean” China-Free Internet - Sam Biddle, The Intercept, August 7 2020

October 2020

 * Facebook Bans All Pages, Groups & Instagram Accounts Linked to QAnon - Sputnik, October 6, 2020
 * Facebook and Twitter Cross a Line Far More Dangerous Than What They Censor - Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept, October 16 2020
 * Social Media CENSORING Hunter Biden Article! - The Jimmy Dore Show, October 14, 2020 (video)
 * Twitter rolls out ‘DISPUTED’ warnings for users trying to post ‘misleading’ content after backlash over Biden emails censorship - RT, October 16, 2020
 * With the Hunter Biden Expose, Suppression is a Bigger Scandal Than The Actual Story - Matt Taibbi, October 24, 2020

November 2020

 * Glenn Greenwald Escapes His $100 Million Webzine - Ron Unz, Unz Review, November 1, 2020
 * US seizes another crop of Iranian propaganda domains masked as news outlets - Campbell Kwan, ZDNet, November 5, 2020
 * ''The United States announced on Wednesday it has seized 27 domains that were used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to spread global covert influence campaigns.
 * DOJ Seizes 27 Domains, Claims They are Controlled by Iran - Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, November 4, 2020
 * ''One of the news sites taken down was the American Herald Tribune (AHT), a website whose editor in chief, Anthony Hall, is based in Canada. It’s not clear how the US government decided that AHT or the other websites are affiliated with Iran.

Smear campaigns

 * ''See also April 2018 attack on dissent


 * The Making of a YouTube Radical - Kevin Roose, The New York Times, June 8, 2019
 * The New York Times Wants To Censor My Videos - Unravelling their Smear Campaign - SyrianGirlpartisan, June 10, 2019 (video)
 * NYT Accused of ‘Smearing' Peterson, Shapiro in Story About ‘Radical’ YouTubers -Sputnik, June 11, 2019

War on Syria

 * ''See also US covert war on Syria


 * Mainstream Policy Expert Reveals How He Was Silenced On Syria: "Truth Did Not Matter" - ZeroHedge, November 28, 2019
 * ''A mainstream media and academic expert this week issued a rare admission: that pretty much everything the establishment has fed the public on Syria is false or distorted; but it remains that after tragic eight-year long war is slowly coming to a close, new indisputable facts are coming to light. "Truth did not matter at all," he admits after years of providing commentary for mainstream publications."

Legislature

 * H.R.5181 - Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016; S.3274 - Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act
 * on EU strategic communication to counteract propaganda against it by third parties (2016/2030(INI))
 * ''A. whereas the EU has committed to guiding its actions on the international scene in compliance with principles such as democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as media freedom, access to information, freedom of expression and media pluralism, the last of which can, nevertheless, be limited to a certain extent as stipulated in international law, including in the European Convention on Human Rights; whereas third-party actors aiming to discredit the Union do not share the same values; (ibid: more interesting whereases)

'Countering Hybrid threats'

 * EU operational protocol for countering hybrid threats - European Commission, July 5, 2016
 * There is usually an emphasis on exploiting the vulnerabilities of the target and on generating ambiguity with the intention to hinder decision-making processes. Massive disinformation campaigns, using social media to control the political narrative or to radicalise, recruit and direct proxy actors can be vehicles for hybrid threats.


 * Countering hybrid threats: Council calls for enhanced common action - European Council December 10, 2019
 * ... the Council highlights the valuable contributions of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki and encourages its cooperation with relevant NATO Centres of Excellence. It also welcomes the regular and structured staff-to-staff exchanges, including the cooperation between the Hybrid Fusion Cell of the EU Intelligence and Situation Centre (INTCEN) and the NATO Hybrid Analysis Branch.

StratCom

 * ''See also Cambridge Analytica


 * Questions and Answers about the East StratCom Task Force -EU, May 12, 2018
 * ''The Task Force works within the existing budget for EU Strategic Communication. In addition, the Task Force was granted €1.1 million in 2018 for its work to address Russia’s disinformation. In 2019, the budget increases to €3 million. From January 2019, the budget is being directed to ensure professional media monitoring, disinformation analysis and data analysis.
 * "EUvsDisinfo"; sample media product: "debunking" of Chemical weapons - a false pretext to attack Assad since the very beginning.