The restrictions also extend to foreign journalists, notably barring them from entering Gaza, leaving Al Jazeera’s personnel among the few reporters present on the ground. This decision has been informed by longstanding accusations from Israeli authorities of the network’s alleged anti-Israel bias. The criticism has escalated following the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.

The Israeli government has escalated its measures against Al Jazeera by raiding its offices and halting its broadcast amidst the ongoing conflict in Gaza today. Describing the network as a vehicle for Hamas propaganda, Israel’s actions culminated on Sunday when police stormed Al Jazeera’s premises at the Ambassador hotel in Jerusalem. Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi publicized the raid with a video on X/Twitter, showcasing officers and inspectors seizing equipment from a hotel room.

Despite these tense conditions, Al Jazeera has been one of the few channels reporting from Gaza, where, as alleged by the Hamas-run health ministry, at least 34,683 Palestinians have been killed and 78,018 injured since the conflict’s escalation on October 7. Israeli officials maintain that Al Jazeera has maintained close connections with Hamas, an allegation the network strongly refutes.

In a significant legislative move last month, the Israeli parliament approved a law granting the government authority to temporarily shut down foreign broadcasters considered threats to national security amid the ongoing war with Hamas. Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi emphasized that the ban was effective immediately and required renewal every 45 days. The order potentially allows for office closures, website takedowns, and equipment seizures.

As the host country for Al Jazeera, Qatar continues its role in mediating ongoing negotiations between Israel and Hamas. These talks are part of efforts to resolve the conflict that has persisted for nearly seven months. Previously, Qatar’s mediation efforts have successfully facilitated a temporary ceasefire and the release of 105 Israeli hostages.

The network has accused Israel of deliberately targeting its journalists. Hamza Al-Dahdouh, whose father Wael Al-Dahdouh heads Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau, was reportedly killed in an Israeli strike. Israel, however, denies any intent to target journalists. In a firm response to the ban, Al Jazeera stated, “Israel’s suppression of free press to cover up its crimes by killing and arresting journalists has not deterred us from performing our duty.”

A total of 18 organizations – predominantly comprising providers of encrypted email and messaging services – have voiced concerns about the potential experimental regulation by the European Commission (EC), singling out the “detrimental” effects on children’s privacy and security and the possible dire repercussions for cyber security.

Made public on January 22, 2024, this shared open letter argues that the EC’s draft provision known as “Chat Control,” mandating the comprehensive scanning of encrypted communications, may create cyber vulnerabilities that expose citizens and businesses to increased risk. Further inflating the issue, the letter also addresses a stalemate amongst member states, the EC, and the European Parliament, who haven’t yet reconciled differing views on the proportionality and feasibility of the EC’s mass-scanning strategy in addressing child safety concerns.

Among the signatories are Proton, an encrypted email service from Switzerland; Tuta Mail and NextCloud, specializing in email and cloud storage respectively; as well as Element, a provider of encrypted communications and collaboration services. Together, they implore EU leaders to consider a more balanced version of the mandate, as suggested by the European Parliament, which experts argue to be more potent and efficient than mass scanning of encrypted services.

The proposed version of the regulation by the EC pushes tech companies to inject “backdoors” or leverage “client-side scanning”, to scrutinize the content of all encrypted communications for evidence of child sexual abuse. However, these companies are forceful in their conviction that despite its purpose to combat cybercrime, the mechanism could be swiftly utilized by offenders, “compromising security for everyone.”

The application of client-side scanning – juxtaposing “hash values” of encrypted messages with a “hash value” database of unlawful content residing on personal devices – has met stiff critique from the security community.

In defiance of the EU’s strong standpoint towards data protection, which paved the way for ethical, privacy-centric tech companies to flourish in the European market, these tech firms believe the EC’s proposal could contradict other EU regulations like the Cyber Resilience Act (CSA) and the Cybersecurity Act, which encourage the application of end-to-end encryption to counter cyber risks.

The tech firms propose alternatives to mandatory scanning they believe are more effective and prioritize data protection and security. They argue an approach aligned with the European Parliament’s proposals provides a robust framework for child protection. Moreover, they discuss the danger of such scanning technology being potentially misused by oppressive regimes to squash political dissidents.

They conclude that while they are not solely resistant to solutions, they stress the importance of devising strategies closely aligned to the European Parliament’s proposals. In a statment to Reclaim The Net Matthias Pfau, founder of Tuta, adds that such legislation “to scan every chat message and every email would create a backdoor – one that could and will be abused by criminals.”

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net.

KupoCon disclosed an official declaration on their website, stating the reasons behind the sudden withdrawal of Calloway’s much-awaited appearance:

“On Monday, it was brought to our attention that a series of offensive posts had been interacted with by Susan Calloway’s X account. This included comments and reactions. These interactions spanned almost a year. Promptly addressing this issue, we reached out to Susan for clarification, recognizing that her account had been previously hacked. Regrettably, the ensuing events triggered a wave of abusive comments directed not only at Susan and her supporters, but KupoCon, attendees and the KupoCon team.”

Deemed “offensive,” the posts liked by Calloway’s account encompassed a meme regarding socialist college students shared by Turning Point USA, a post by Riley Gaines arguing against males participating in women’s sports matches, and more.

Calloway encountered criticism from some vocal Final Fantasy fans due to these social media interactions. KupoCon thereafter revealed that she would no longer grace their imminent Toronto event.

The group fell short of stipulating the cause behind the sudden alteration of the plans, stating merely that her absence is due to “recent events.”

Calloway’s X handle, @SusanCalloway, has been deactivated since then.

(Article cross-posted from Reclaim The Net)

YouTube has also declared its plan to delist videos promoting “cancer treatments proven to be harmful or ineffective,” effectively disallowing content creators from encouraging natural cures.

The platform pledges to implement its medical misinformation policies when a topic exhibits high public health risks, is supposedly prone to misinformation, and when official guidance from health authorities is accessible to the public.

The changes also see YouTube recommitting to groups such as the WHO and other health bodies on what information is deemed to be acceptable for people to talk about on the platform – despite these institutions having recently received major blows to their credibility.

According to the policy update, YouTube will no longer host content that:

• Misinforms about prevention techniques or contradicts current health authority guidelines, including inaccuracies regarding the safety or efficacy of approved vaccines.
• Promotes treatments that local health bodies or the WHO have neither approved nor recognized as safe and effective. Moreover, it bans content that advocates for harmful substances or practices that have been scientifically proven to be detrimental.
• Denies the existence of specific health conditions.

As stated in its blog post, YouTube intends to punish content promoting not only what it believes to be overtly harmful treatments but also unproven ones that are audaciously offered as replacements for recognized alternatives.

For instance, influencers suggesting vitamin C supplements or garlic for cancer may have their content removed, the post states.

This marks a substantial escalation in the Google-owned platform’s ongoing crusade against what it believes to be the dissemination of medical misinformation, heavily catalyzed by the controversial experience of battling narratives about themes such as COVID-19 and vaccines, something YouTube was heavily criticized for as truthful content ended up being censored on the platform.

YouTube had targeted vaccine “misinformation,” such as demonetizing and deleting vaccine skepticism, thereby refining their approach in response to the global pandemic situation.

YouTube has also punished the entire Project Veritas by issuing a “strike.”

“YouTube has taken down our Pfizer DirectedEvolution bombshell. It had 800K views,” O’Keefe announced on Twitter. “Pfizer is scrambling today per sources inside.”

“Project Veritas channel has been given a ‘strike’ and ability to upload ANY new videos is ‘restricted’ for a week with threats of future ‘permanent removal’ Project Veritas announced.

The subject of the video, Jordan Trishton Walker, Pfizer’s director of research and development strategic operations, was later approached by O’Keefe and his team in a New York restaurant and asked about the comments he made in the undercover video. The later video showed the Pfizer employee becoming angry after being confronted by O’Keefe.

“You work for Pfizer,” O’Keefe said to Walker in the video. “My question for you is, why does Pfizer wanna hide from the public the fact that they’re mutating the COVID viruses?”

O’Keefe was referring to an undercover video, that YouTube has now deleted, where Walker said, “One of the things we’re exploring is like, why don’t we just mutate it [the COVID virus] ourselves so we could create — preemptively develop new vaccines, right?”

“So, we have to do that,” he added. “If we’re gonna do that though, there’s a risk of like, as you could imagine — no one wants to be having a pharma company mutating fucking viruses.”

Walker goes on: “Don’t tell anyone. Promise you won’t tell anyone,” Walker says in the video. “The way it would work is that we put the virus in monkeys and we successively cause them to keep infecting each other and we collect serial samples from them.”

In the later video, which is still up on YouTube at the time of writing, Walker said, “You fucked up,” alleging that he lied to Project Veritas’s undercover reporter because he was “trying to impress a person on a date.” After being confronted by Project Veritas, Walker called the police and smashed one of Project Veritas’ iPads. Project Veritas is no stranger to YouTube censorship. The Big Tech video giant censored the journalism group after it exposed Google’s biased AI back in 2019.

Article cross-posted from Reclaim The Net.

The Azov Regiment is a unit of Ukraine’s National Guard. It was based in the city of Mariupol before Russia took control.

The group has been accused of being associated with nazi groups and Meta is making a distinction between Azov Regiment and Azov Movement.

“The war in Ukraine has meant changing circumstances in many areas and it has become clear that the Azov Regiment does not meet our strict criteria for designation as a dangerous organization,” Meta’s spokesperson said.

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov said that the decision by Meta will allow people around the world “to learn about the feat of the defenders of Mariupol, and Russian propaganda will lose its argument for blaming Ukrainian heroes.”

“The ministry has been in constant communication with Meta. Hundreds of accounts of Ukrainian military personnel, bloggers, and activists have been unblocked,” he added.

However, some groups and individuals associated with the Azov Movement are still designated “dangerous.” These include the movement’s founder Andriy Biletsky and National Corps.

Article cross-posted from Reclaim The Net.

The show will feature funny and viral content captured by Ring cameras, like “neighbors saving neighbors, marriage proposals, military reunions and silly animals.”

Such videos can be entertaining and often go viral. However, they pull people’s attention from the mass surveillance Ring cameras conduct. Videos from Ring cameras have been used in investigations by law enforcement in the US and abroad, even pulling video from people’s doorbell cameras without a warrant.

By cultivating fears about crime in the suburbs and partnering with police departments, Amazon has aggressively rolled out Ring home surveillance cameras.

Amazon has rolled out several surveillance technologies, including Rekognition, a facial recognition algorithm used by law enforcement.

Article cross-posted from Reclaim the Net.