News of the Cyber World

[kyonides]

Guys, I won't lie to you. Today we're loaded with some really weird or unexpected news.

Facebook Prevents RFK Jr. from Launching Instagram Campaign Account

Facebook-owned Instagram is preventing Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is competing with President Joe Biden in the Democrat primary, from setting up an official campaign account, according to the candidate.

In a post on Twitter, RFK Jr. said that his campaign account is being automatically banned when they attempt to set up a campaign account.

“When we use our TeamKennedy email address to set up Instagram accounts we get an automatic 180-day ban,” said the Democrat candidate on Twitter. “Can anyone guess why that’s happening?”

“To silence a major political candidate is profoundly undemocratic. Social media is the modern equivalent of the town square. How can democracy function if only some candidates have access to it?”

RFK Jr’s personal Instagram account was banned from the platform in February 2021, at the height of the coronavirus panic, for “repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines,” per a Facebook (now known as Meta) statement at the time.

In another tweet, the Democrat candidate thanked Twitter owner Elon Musk for allowing him and his campaign to “have a voice.”

Google’s YouTube Drops Policy
that Censors Discussion of 2020 Election Fraud

YouTube, facing increased competition from platforms that are friendlier to free speech including Rumble and Twitter, has dropped a policy responsible for the widespread censoring of conservative voices. It is now possible to dispute the results of the 2020 election on YouTube.

Stressing the need to allow people to “openly debate political ideas,” YouTube said it will “stop removing content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in the 2020 and other past US Presidential elections.”

Google stressed that its election misinformation policies remain in place for future elections.

“All of our election misinformation policies remain in place, including those that disallow content aiming to mislead voters about the time, place, means, or eligibility requirements for voting; false claims that could materially discourage voting, including those disputing the validity of voting by mail; and content that encourages others to interfere with democratic processes.”

The tech company also boasted that it is tipping the scales in favor of the corporate legacy media, by ensuring that “see content from authoritative sources prominently in search and recommendations.”

...YouTube’s search blacklist file, which allowed the company to manually intervene in politically charged search results to boost the visibility of its handpicked channels.

The blacklist, called a “smoking gun” by one Google whistleblower, was at times adjusted in response to complaints from the corporate legacy media.
...
Twitter, which has unbanned several prominent conservatives under Elon Musk, recently allowed users to begin uploading longform videos. Musk recently personally intervened to override the decision of the company’s “trust and safety” team to censor Matt Walsh’s What is a Woman documentary, a move that was followed by the resignation of the platform’s top censor.

BBC Accused of Censorship After Blocking
Andrew Tate Interview for UK Viewers

After previously trolling a former VICE reporter into flying to Bucharest on the false promise of an interview, kickboxing champion turned social media star Andrew Tate granted the BBC “the privilege” of his first interview after being released from Romanian prison into house arrest custody in April.

However, before the British public broadcaster aired the interview, Tate pre-empted what he suspected would be a legacy media hit job by releasing his own footage of the 40-minute sit-down with the BBC’s Lucy Williamson on his Rumble channel. The BBC quickly released their own version of the interview a few hours later, apparently hastily cobbled together given several sloppy edits, and cut down to just 9 minutes.

There has been backlash over the BBC’s edited version from some, and given the message that greets British users of the YouTube platform when they attempt to now watch the video — “the uploader has not made this video available in your country” — it appears the BBC have decided to shut the clip down. At the time of this reporting, the video, which is still available outside of the UK, has over 160,000 dislikes compared to just 19,000 upvotes on YouTube.
...
Andrew Tate’s brother Tristan Tate accused the broadcaster of having a political agenda behind the decision to block the video regionally, saying: “It’s almost as though there is an agenda to paint my brother in a negative light. When the attack fails, make sure nobody in England sees it.”

No Escape: ALL TV Remotes Must Have
Dedicated BBC Button, Broadcaster Demands

In a submission to the British government, the state-funded BBC has demanded that all TV remote controls containing dedicated buttons for the likes of Netflix should be required by law to have a similar button for the BBC.

Seemingly not satisfied with having the power to force all television viewers to pay for their service, regardless of whether they use it or not, the BBC is now expressing frustration at the growth of private entertainment alternatives, with those at the head of the organisation now demanding the government step in to change that.

According to a report by The Times, the UK government has already acquiesced to this demand, with a coming media bill to force smart television makers to include a dedicated section for all public broadcasters — including the BBC — at the top of their main menu within the operating system.

This forced placement is not enough for some at the broadcaster, however, with the BBC demanding that a dedicated button be added to remote controls for televisions sold in the UK where similar buttons are available for other privately owned streaming services.
...
“Without a legislative backstop, PSBs [public service broadcasters] are losing out to global platforms,” it continued. “There should be a requirement for a dedicated PSB button on remote controls in instances where there are similar buttons for non-PSB services.”

So far, this demand has been resisted by the British government, which has said that adjustments to remote controls is “not in scope” of the coming bill.