rferl--2019-09-26--Amnesty International Accuses Iran Of Blatant Intimidation Of Activist With Arrests

Amnesty International Accuses Iran Of 'Blatant' Intimidation Of Activist With Arrests

Amnesty International has accused Iranian authorities of a "blatant" attempt to intimidate a women's rights activist by arresting some of her relatives.      Amnesty said in a statement dated September 25 that three members of Masih Alinejad’s family were arrested at their homes in Tehran and in the northern city of Babol.       "These arrests are a blatant attempt by the Iranian authorities to punish Masih Alinejad for her peaceful work defending women’s rights," said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.      "Arresting the relatives of an activist in an attempt to intimidate her into silence is a despicable and cowardly move," he added.      Masih Alinejad, an exiled journalist, founded a popular online campaign in 2014 called My Stealthy Freedom, which pushes back against women being forced to wear the compulsory hijab in public in Iran.      She has also encouraged women to post pictures of themselves without the compulsory hijab online as an act of protest in a campaign titled "White Wednesdays."      Amnesty said the three arrested are Alinejad’s brother, Alireza Alinejad, and Hadi and Leila Lotfi, brother and sister of her former husband, Max Lotfi.      "The fact that they have resorted to going after the family members of an activist is an indication of just how threatened the authorities feel by the growing support for the women’s rights movement in Iran and how desperate they are to put a stop to it," Luther said.      "Instead of harassing and detaining the family members of Masih Alinejad, Iran’s authorities should release them immediately and end their campaign of repression against women," he added.      Iran's treatment of women has come under scrutiny once again after the tragic death of a young Iranian woman who was arrested while trying to sneak into a stadium to watch a men's soccer match.      Twenty-nine-year old Sahar Khodayari died several days after setting herself alight on September 2 outside a courthouse where she had been summoned after being arrested for trying to enter Tehran's Azadi Stadium in March dressed as a man.      "Two weeks ago, the death of Sahar Khodayari, who set herself on fire after facing charges for trying to enter a football stadium, shocked the world and drew attention to Iran's appalling treatment of women," Luther said.      "[These] arrests are another illustration of the Iranian authorities' chilling determination to crush women’s rights activism."


rferl--2019-11-21--Amnesty: 'Surveillance Giants' Google, Facebook Threaten Human Rights

Amnesty International says Facebook and Google need to change their business model, arguing that it is "predicated on human rights abuse."  In a report published on November 21, the London-based human rights watchdog said that what it calls the "surveillance-based" business model pursued by the two U.S.-based Internet giants was "inherently incompatible with the right to privacy."  Facebook and Google, which the report calls "Surveillance Giants," threaten other human rights, including "freedom of expression and opinion, freedom of thought, and the right to equality and non-discrimination," it said.  Amnesty International urged governments and legislators to guarantee people's right not to be tracked by advertisers or other third parties.  The companies' business models force people to make a "Faustian bargain" to allow access to their personal data in order to access platforms that dominate the global public square -- outside of China, the report says.  It notes that more than 90 percent of all Internet searches conducted through Google's platforms, while the 2.45 billion active users on Facebook's main platform each month account for around 70 percent of social-media users.  In its response published with the report, Facebook denies its business practices violate human rights principles, disputes that its business model is "surveillance-based," and points out that users sign up voluntarily for the service.


usnews--2019-11-21--Amnesty International Calls Facebook, Google Rights Abusers

Amnesty International has issued a scathing indictment of Google and Facebook.  It says the two most dominant internet corporations should be compelled to abandon what it calls their surveillance-based business model, saying it is “predicated on human rights abuse.”  The global rights group says in the 60-page report published Thursday that the companies’ business model is “inherently incompatible with the right to privacy and poses a threat to a range of other rights” including freedom of expression and non -discrimination.  The report says the business model forces people to make a “Faustian bargain” because Google and Facebook have grown to dominate the global public square.  In a written response, Facebook disputes the report’s conclusion that it surveils its users and violates their privacy. Google also disputed the findings.  Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


theverge--2019-11-20--Facebook and Google surveillance is an ‘assault on privacy,’ says Amnesty International

Facebook and Google’s persistent surveillance of billions of people around the world threatens human rights and free expression, says Amnesty International. In a new report, the NGO argues the companies need to change their business model and stop being reliant on people’s data.  The internet is a necessary part of daily life for people all over the world. The “Big Five” tech companies — Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Facebook — dominate almost all online services. Facebook and Google are particularly powerful when it comes to speech and free expression — two fundamental rights that Amnesty International says are under assault.  “Billions of people have no meaningful choice but to access this public space on terms dictated by Facebook and Google”  The report points out that Google now controls 90 percent of search engine usage around the world, while one third of the globe uses a Facebook-owned service every day. “Billions of people have no meaningful choice but to access this public space on terms dictated by Facebook and Google,” said Kumi Naidoo, Secretary General of Amnesty International.  The report comes amid growing regulatory scrutiny of major tech companies. Facebook is currently being investigated for allegedly violating users’ privacy, and the social network’s data has been used to manipulate elections. Google is facing inquiries about its data collection policies. And both companies are being probed over how their allegedly uncompetitive business practices may have impacted consumers.  “This isn’t the internet people signed up for,” said Naidoo. The companies have made people reliant on their services and now monitor every message and search query. “We are now trapped. Either we must submit to this pervasive surveillance machinery – where our data is easily weaponized to manipulate and influence us – or forego the benefits of the digital world.”  In a statement emailed to The Verge, a Google spokesperson said the company is working to give people more control over their data. “We recognize that people trust us with their information and that we have a responsibility to protect it,” they said. “Over the past 18 months we have made significant changes and built tools to give people more control over their information.”  According to Amnesty, part of the problem is that tech companies have gotten too big. “The dominance of the companies’ platforms means it is now effectively impossible to engage with the internet without ‘consenting’ to their surveillance-based business model,” the report says. The decisions these companies make — to regulate speech, collect people’s health information, or allow politicians to lie in ads— are felt all over the world.  In an effort to combat the idea that Facebook should be broken up, Mark Zuckerberg has been promoting the idea that Facebook is moving towards more privacy and data security, while its Chinese rivals are not. “Our services like WhatsApp are used by protestors and activists everywhere due to strong encryption and privacy protections,” he said during a speech at Georgetown University last month. “On TikTok, the Chinese app, mentions of these same protests are censored, even here in the US. Is that the internet that we want?  But a better solution, according to Amnesty International, is to change the business model. As long as tech companies rely on ads to make money, user data will be their favorite currency. The report didn’t offer an alternative monetization strategy that would work better — but it could include subscriptions, as the Center for Humane Technology’s Tristan Harris has suggested in the past.  A Facebook spokesperson said the company disagreed with this assessment. “Our business model is how groups like Amnesty International – who currently run ads on Facebook – reach supporters, raise money, and advance their mission,” they added.  The second part of the solution is more regulation. The report called on governments to pass new data privacy laws and enforce the ones that currently exist. “Now it is time to reclaim this vital public space for everyone rather than a few powerful unaccountable companies in Silicon Valley” said Naidoo.


thetorontostar--2019-10-10--Amnesty International urges Malaysia to end death penalty

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Amnesty International urged Malaysia’s government on Thursday to keep its promise to abolish the death penalty, saying unfair trials and the use of harsh treatment to obtain confessions put people at risk of execution.  The rights group released details of nearly two years of research on 150 cases as well as interviews with prisoners’ families, lawyers and embassy officials in a report that it said showed the use of the death penalty was “fatally flawed.”  Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s government promised shortly after taking power in May 2018 to scrap capital punishment, which mandates hanging as punishment for a wide range of crimes including murder, drug trafficking, treason, kidnapping and acts of terror.  But the government backtracked after public objection. Parliament, which resumed meeting this week, will instead remove mandatory death penalties for some offences and give courts discretion in imposing the sentence.  The report said 73% of the 1,281 people on death row as of February were convicted of drug offences, including 568 foreigners from 43 countries and many poor members of ethnic minorities.  It said some prisoners were tortured and beaten to make them confess. In one case, a Malaysian man detained in 2005 for possessing drugs and later sentenced to death had his finger broken by police, who also threatened to beat up his girlfriend, it said.  Those who are poor often go without legal assistance until they are brought to court, it said. Some were asked to sign documents in the Malay language that were not translated for them, according to the report.  The group said the pardon process was also not transparent, with no clear criteria and access to pro-bono legal services controlled by prison officials. It said half of the foreigners on death row didn’t seek pardons.  “Our research found a pattern of unfair trials and secretive hangings that itself spoke volumes. From allegations of torture and other ill-treatment to an opaque pardons process, it’s clear the death penalty is a stain on Malaysia’s criminal justice system,” Amnesty Malaysia director Sharmini Darshni Kaliemuthu said.  The group said its requests to meet Malaysian authorities including the police and officials in the attorney-general’s office for more details were rejected or unanswered.  It said government sources indicated 469 people had been executed since Malaysia’s independence from Britain in 1957, half of them for drug trafficking.  The death penalty is currently retained for nearly three dozen offences. Amnesty International urged Malaysia to move toward scrapping capital punishment by repealing mandatory death sentences for all crimes and maintaining a moratorium on executions until then.


thetorontostar--2019-07-03--Amnesty International accuses Border Patrol of harassing intimidating humanitarian aid workers

Amnesty International accuses Border Patrol of harassing, intimidating humanitarian aid workers

SAN DIEGO—Amnesty International is calling on Congress to hold public hearings over what the human rights organization calls “a campaign of intimidation,” launched by the federal government, that targets activists and lawyers helping migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border. In a 44-page report released Tuesday morning, Amnesty International accused the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice of violating the Constitution by carrying out an “unlawful and discriminatory campaign of intimidation, threats, harassment and criminal investigations against people who defend the human rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.”  “The Trump administration’s targeting of human rights defenders through discriminatory misuse of the criminal justice system sets it on a slippery slope toward authoritarianism,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International. “The U.S. government is disgracing itself by threatening and even prosecuting its own citizens for their vital work to save the lives of people in a desperate situation at the border,” she added. The report essentially accuses Border Patrol agents of criminalizing humanitarian aid by subjecting the people who carry out that work to warrantless searches, prolonged detention and arrest. Amnesty International claims this violates the Constitution because citizens are being punished for exercising their First, Fourth and 14th Amendment rights — which guarantees freedom of speech, protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures, and establishes equal protection under the law.  When officials announced Operation Secure Line in October 2018, they described it as a response to the Central American migrant caravans bringing thousands of people to the U.S.-Mexico border. In March, NBC published reports of leaked documents showing DHS tracking journalists, lawyers and humanitarian workers. CBP responded to news of the leaked documents with the following statement: “It is protocol following these incidents to collect evidence that might be needed for future legal actions and to determine if the event was orchestrated,” the statement read. “CBP and our law enforcement partners evaluate these incidents, follow all leads garnered from information collected, conduct interviews and investigations, in preparation for, and often to prevent future incidents that could cause further harm to the public, our agents, and our economy.” Apart from referencing that incident, Amnesty International’s report also highlights individual cases of humanitarian aid workers being detained at the border.  For example, photographer and volunteer Jeff Valenzuela was detained by Border Patrol agents on Dec. 26 and 28. During the first incident, Border Patrol agents forced Valenzuela to unlock his phone under the guise of looking for child pornography. However, the agents looked closely through photos of a recent border visit.  During the second episode, federal agents at the San Ysidro Port of Entry handcuffed Valenzuela and shackled him by his ankle to a metal bench for four hours inside a Customs and Border Protection office, according to the report. “I don’t plan to let these intimidations, I don’t plan to let harassment, any amount of handcuffs, to really stop me,” Valenzuela told Amnesty International. “Because none of the work that we’re doing is a criminal act. Humanitarian work is not a crime.” The Amnesty International report makes several recommendations for Congress, DHS and DOJ. This includes asking Congress to hold public hearings on this alleged campaign of intimidation. Other recommendations for Congress included increased oversight for DHS and DOJ to prevent those agencies from misusing the criminal justice system to target human rights defenders. For DHS, the report recommends the agency halt any intimidation and harassment of humanitarian workers and to adopt exemptions for humanitarian workers from criminal investigation. For DOJ, Amnesty International recommends a “humanitarian exemption” that would exempt aid workers from criminal prosecution related to smuggling and harbouring charges.

Gustavo Solis - The San Diego Union-Tribune


theintercept--2019-07-02--Amnesty International Condemns US Attacks on Border Journalists and Human Rights Defenders

Amnesty International Condemns U.S. Attacks on Border Journalists and Human Rights Defenders

Though undocumented people have always been the core target of this campaign, the blast radius of the government’s hyper-politicized crackdown has steadily expanded over the years. A new report published by Amnesty International on Tuesday details a two-yearlong attack on human rights defenders, attorneys, and journalists working along the U.S.-Mexico border, calling out a pattern of escalating enforcement in violation of domestic and international law.  The shape of the Trump administration’s approach to policing immigration is at this point familiar. Since January 2017, federal agents and officers have been under orders to enforce a harsh interpretation of immigration laws without restraint. The result has most infamously manifested in the forced separation of immigrant parents from their children and, more recently, a series of horrific reports detailing conditions in border-area detention centers.  The U.S. “government has executed an unlawful and politically motivated campaign of intimidation, threats, harassment, and criminal investigations against people who defend the human rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers,” the report said, adding that both the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice “have increasingly misused and leveraged the criminal justice system to deter and punish those individuals for challenging — or even simply documenting — the systematic human rights violations by US authorities against migrants and asylum seekers.”  Brian Griffey, a lead researcher on the report, wrote to The Intercept: “These attacks on human rights defenders are an integral part of the Trump administration’s broader campaign of human rights violations against people seeking asylum on the U.S.-Mexico border.”  “The Trump administration’s contempt for lawyers, journalists, and good Samaritans shows its greater contempt for the rule of law and the judiciary, as it continues to apply human rights-violating policies broadly and as quickly as it can, to do maximum damage to vulnerable communities,” before courts are able to rein them in and restore order, he added.  Based on nearly two dozen interviews, the report drew on dozens of cases in Texas, Arizona, and California from 2018 to 2019, in which immigration advocates, attorneys, and journalists were targeted by law enforcement with actions ranging from surveillance and prolonged detention to the charging of serious felonies. The human rights organization argued that by unlawfully choking off asylum access at ports of entry and dumping asylum seekers who have made it to U.S. soil back into dangerous Mexican border towns, U.S. officials and their Mexican counterparts first manufactured a crisis, then criminalized the civilian response to it.  “By discriminatorily targeting human rights defenders — most of them US citizens — based solely on their political or other opinions, speech and activities, the Trump administration has violated international law, the US Constitution, US laws, and corresponding DHS policies that acknowledge those legally binding civil liberties protections,” the report said.  Amnesty specifically pointed to violations of “freedom of expression; right to privacy; equality under the law; and freedom from discrimination, including on the basis of political or other opinion” by U.S. law enforcement under international law. In the domestic context, the organization said the administration’s crackdown violated “constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech under the First Amendment; and equal protection under the law, without discrimination, under the Fourteenth Amendment.”  Two episodes documented by Amnesty, and previously exposed by The Intercept, have emerged as the clearest examples of law enforcement targeting people whose work does not align with the Trump administration’s border and immigration agenda: an expansive, binational, multi-agency, intelligence-gathering operation focused on migrant caravan-related advocacy and journalism in the Tijuana-San Diego area, and the criminal prosecution of nine human aid volunteers working with migrants crossing the Arizona desert. In both cases, Amnesty found that law enforcement leaned heavily on a portion of the U.S. criminal code — known as 1324 — to justify its targeting of advocates in the borderlands. Noting that “a federal appellate court struck down the human smuggling crime being applied by DHS to justify its politically motivated surveillance,” Griffey, the Amnesty researcher, said the “laws being applied by US authorities are vague and inconsistent with international standards.”  The best known Trump administration smuggling prosecution is the case of Scott Warren, an Arizona-based humanitarian aid volunteer who was arrested in January 2018 and accused of providing two undocumented men with food, water, and a place to sleep over two days. Charged with two counts of harboring and one count of conspiracy, Warren faced up to 20 years in prison. In June, a federal judge declared a mistrial in Warren’s case.  Describing his arrest as a “retaliatory attack” — Warren was arrested hours after a group he volunteers with published a report implicating the Border Patrol in the destruction of thousands of gallons of water left for migrants in the desert — Amnesty spearheaded an international campaign calling for the charges against Warren to be dropped.  “If Dr. Warren were convicted and imprisoned on these absurd charges, Amnesty International would recognize him as a prisoner of conscience — detained for his volunteer activities motivated by humanitarian principles and his religious beliefs — and would continue to campaign for his immediate and unconditional release, and for his criminal record to be expunged,” the report noted.  Warren and his attorneys, along with the government’s prosecutors, were back in court Tuesday, just as the Amnesty report was made public.


theverge--2019-02-14--Pressure mounts on Facebook and Google to stop anti-vax conspiracy theories

As a measles outbreak continues to spread in Washington state, Facebook is “exploring additional measures” to fight false anti-vaccine content on the platform, Bloomberg reports.  The news comes on the heels of criticism from Representative Adam Schiff, who sent Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg a letter about vaccine misinformation on Facebook and Instagram today. In the letter, first reported by Bloomberg’s Sarah Frier, Schiff voiced concerns that both Facebook and Instagram serve up misleading, fear-mongering content about vaccines, which have been shown to be safe, effective, and critical for public health. Schiff also sent a similar letter to Google’s Sundar Pichai about vaccine misinformation on YouTube.  In the letters, Schiff wrote that the misinformation on these platforms could make parents ignore legitimate medical advice to vaccinate their children. “Repetition of information, even if false, can often be mistaken for accuracy,” he wrote. He referenced recent reporting by Julia Carrie Wong at The Guardian, who discovered that both Facebook and YouTube are full of fear-mongering, inaccurate anti-vaccine propaganda. What’s more, Wong found, YouTube’s recommendation algorithm helped lead people to those lies.  Schiff applauded YouTube for its recent move to start restricting recommendations for videos “that could misinform users in harmful ways,” which YouTube told The Guardian will include certain anti-vaccine videos. (Google declined to comment on the record to The Verge.) In July, YouTube announced that it will also link viewers to outside information “alongside videos on a small number of well-established historical and scientific topics that have often been subject to misinformation.” For example, YouTube links people to a Wikipedia page when they search for the MMR vaccine on the platform. Bloomberg points out, however, that anti-vaccination videos still rise to the top of YouTube’s search results for “vaccines.”  In response to an inquiry about Schiff’s letter, a Facebook spokesperson told The Verge in an email: “We remove content that violates our Community Standards, downrank articles that might be misleading, and show third-party fact-checker articles to provide people with more context.” The company is “committed to accurate and useful information,” the spokesperson said. “We have more to do, and will continue efforts to provide educational information on important topics like health.”  The spokesperson did not immediately respond to a follow-up question asking for clarification about what those efforts might be. But a Facebook spokesperson told Bloomberg that they might include “reducing or removing this type of content from recommendations, including Groups You Should Join, and demoting it in search results, while also ensuring that higher quality and more authoritative information is available.”  In his letters, Schiff also asked both Google and Facebook heads for information about whether they’ve accepted money for anti-vaccine advertisements. According to the Daily Beast, anti-vaccine ads on Facebook have targeted demographics “most likely to include mothers,” including in Washington state where there is an ongoing measles outbreak. (Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the allegation.)  Vaccine misinformation is dangerous to more than just the kids whose parents voluntarily leave them unvaccinated — it’s dangerous to the community at large because it can encourage the spread of preventable, potentially deadly diseases like measles. While measles is known for causing a rash and a fever, the incredibly contagious virus can also cause pneumonia, brain damage, and death. People who aren’t able to receive the measles vaccine — including children under the age of 12 months — rely on everyone else being vaccinated to keep the virus at bay.  That’s why measles flare-ups like the one in Clark County, Washington, are so worrying, Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told The Verge in January. “[Parents] have to live in fear of walking out with their infant into Walmart, or the public library.”


westernjournal--2019-04-18--A Consensus of Amazon Employees Reject the Radical Climate Change Agenda

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westernjournal--2019-03-28--Google Amazon and Other Corporate Giants Ban Together To Target Texas Religious Freedom Bills

Google, Amazon and Other Corporate Giants Ban Together To Target Texas Religious Freedom Bills

Google, Amazon, IBM and Texas businesses banded together to oppose several Texas bills offering religious exemptions to businesses and state license holders.  The group of businesses, along with several local Texas chambers of commerce, sent a letter to the Texas state legislature Wednesday declaring that they will oppose any legislation that affords protections to business owners who refuse service to individuals based on deeply held religious beliefs.  They also oppose protections for physicians and other state-licensed professionals who refuse non-emergency services, such as abortions, for the same reasons.  “We will continue to oppose any unnecessary, discriminatory, and divisive measures that would damage Texas’ reputation and create problems for our employees and their families,” the letter read, according to The Associated Press.  “These include policies that explicitly or implicitly allow for exclusion of LGBTQ people, or anyone else, as well as the preemption of municipal nondiscrimination laws, in whole or in part.”  TRENDING: Former Top Prosecutor Explains Why Obama Needs To Be Held to Account for Russia Investigation  Several of the companies involved also banded together in 2017 to oppose a Texas bill that would have required transgender people to use the bathrooms assigned to their biological gender.  The bill would offer “faith-based exemption” protections to state-licensed professionals.  It would also prevent state licensure boards from denying licenses to individuals based on their religious beliefs, in addition to other bills offering the aforementioned protections to business owners and physicians.  On Twitter, American Society of Association Executives quoted CEO John Graham as asserting that legislation that “would weaken protections for the LGBTQ community would have severe economic consequences, in terms of lost jobs and event bookings across Texas.  RELATED: Republican Lawmaker’s Jesus-Focused Prayer Slammed by Dems as ‘Offensive’ and Islamophobic  A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.  We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.


fortune--2019-10-15--Apple’s Routing of User Data to Google Could Be Breaking EU Privacy Law

Bernie Sanders Wants to Ban Stock Buybacks. He Should Focus on This Instead


theguardian--2019-10-11--Revealed: Google made large contributions to climate change deniers

Google has made “substantial” contributions to some of the most notorious climate deniers in Washington despite its insistence that it supports political action on the climate crisis.  Among hundreds of groups the company has listed on its website as beneficiaries of its political giving are more than a dozen organisations that have campaigned against climate legislation, questioned the need for action, or actively sought to roll back Obama-era environmental protections.  The list includes the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a conservative policy group that was instrumental in convincing the Trump administration to abandon the Paris agreement and has criticised the White House for not dismantling more environmental rules.  Google said it was disappointed by the US decision to abandon the global climate deal, but has continued to support CEI.  Google is also listed as a sponsor for an upcoming annual meeting of the State Policy Network (SPN), an umbrella organisation that supports conservative groups including the Heartland Institute, a radical anti-science group that has chided the teenage activist Greta Thunberg for “climate delusion hysterics”.  SPN members recently created a “climate pledge” website that falsely states “our natural environment is getting better” and “there is no climate crisis”.  Google has defended its contributions, saying that its “collaboration” with organisations such as CEI “does not mean we endorse the organisations’ entire agenda”.  It donates to such groups, people close to the company say, to try to influence conservative lawmakers, and – most importantly – to help finance the deregulatory agenda the groups espouse.  A spokesperson for Google said it sponsored organisations from across the political spectrum that advocate for “strong technology policies”.  “We’re hardly alone among companies that contribute to organisations while strongly disagreeing with them on climate policy,” the spokesperson said. Amazon has, like Google, also sponsored a CEI gala, according to a programme for the event reported in the New York Times.  CEI has opposed regulation of the internet and enforcement of antitrust rules, and has defended Google against some Republicans’ claims that the search engine has an anti-conservative bias.  But environmental activists and other critics say that, for a company that purports to support global action on climate change, such tradeoffs are not acceptable.  “You don’t get a pass on it. It ought to be disqualifying to support what is primarily a phoney climate denying front group. It ought to be unacceptable given how wicked they have been,” said Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island who is one of the most vocal proponents of climate action in Congress.  “What all of corporate America should be doing is saying if you are a trade organisation or lobby group and you are interfering on climate, we are out. Period,” he added.  On its website, Google says it is committed to ensuring its political engagement is “open, transparent and clear to our users, shareholders, and the public”.  But the company declined to answer the Guardian’s questions on how much it has given to the organisations.  On a webpage devoted to “transparency”, it describes the groups – among hundreds of others, including some progressive advocates such as the Center for American Progress – as having received “substantial” contributions.  Apart from CEI, they include the American Conservative Union, whose chairman, Matt Schlapp, worked for a decade for Koch Industries and shaped the company’s radical anti-environment policies in Washington; the American Enterprise Institute, which has railed against climate “alarmists”; and Americans for Tax Reform, which has criticised companies who support climate action for seeking out “corporate welfare”.  It has also donated undisclosed sums to the Cato Institute, which has voiced opposition to climate legislation and questioned the severity of the crisis. Google has also made donations to the Mercatus Center, a Koch-funded thinktank, and the Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action, a pressure group that said the Paris agreement was supported by “cosmopolitan elites” and part of Barack Obama’s “destructive legacy”.  Bill McKibben, a prominent environmentalist who has been on the frontline of the climate crisis for decades, said Google and other companies were engaged in a “functional greenwashing” given the contradiction in their public pronouncements and private donations. He said Google and other technology companies had also not used their own lobbyists to advocate for change on climate.  “Sometimes I’ll talk to companies and they will be going on and on about their renewable server farm or natural gas delivery, and I say thank you, but what we really need is for your lobbying shop in Washington to put serious muscle behind it. And they never do,” McKibben said. “They want some tax break or some regulations switch and they never devote the slightest muscle behind the most important issue of our time or any time.”  A spokesperson for Google said: “We’ve been extremely clear that Google’s sponsorship doesn’t mean that we endorse that organisation’s entire agenda – we may disagree strongly on some issues.  “Our position on climate change is similarly clear. Since 2007, we have operated as a carbon neutral company and for the second year in a row, we reached 100% renewable energy for our global operations.”  The company said it called for “strong action” at the climate conference in Paris in 2015 and helped to sponsor the Global Climate Action summit in San Francisco last year.  But that position is at odds with the support it gives to CEI.  The group’s director of energy and environment policy, Myron Ebell, helped found the Cooler Heads Coalition 20 years ago, a group of libertarian and rightwing organisations that have sowed the seeds of climate denial with funding from the fossil fuel industry.  When Donald Trump was elected to the White House in 2016, Ebell joined the transition team and advised the new president on environmental issues, successfully lobbying Trump to adhere to a campaign promise and abandon the Paris agreement.  Kert Davies, the founder of the Climate Investigations Center, a research group that examines corporate campaigning, said Ebell had led the anti-climate-action crusade for decades.  “They’re extremists,” he said, referring to the Cooler Heads Coalition. “They are never finished,” he said. “Myron has taken a lot of credit for Trump’s actions and is quite proud of his access.”  Recently, however, Ebell – who declined a request for an interview – has criticised the White House for not rolling back environmental protections aggressively enough, even though the Trump administration has gutted every major environmental act established under Obama.  His wishlist now includes reversing a 2009 finding by the Environmental Protection Agency that CO and other greenhouse gases endanger the health and welfare of Americans.  CEI said it “respects the privacy of its donors” and declined to answer questions about Google. A CEI spokesperson told the Guardian: “On energy policy, CEI advances the humanitarian view that abundant and affordable energy makes people safer and economies more resilient. Making energy accessible, especially for the most vulnerable, is a core value.”  One source who is familiar with Google’s decision-making defended the company’s funding of CEI.  “When it comes to regulation of technology, Google has to find friends wherever they can and I think it is wise that the company does not apply litmus tests to who they support,” the source said.


theguardianuk--2019-10-16--Democrat calls on Google to stop funding climate crisis deniers

A Democratic lawmaker has called on Google CEO Sundar Pichai to stop investing in organizations that deny the existence of the climate crisis, saying it was hard to overstate how detrimental the impact of such groups had been on the US climate debate.  Kathy Castor’s letter to Pichai followed a report in the Guardian last week that revealed Google had made “substantial” contributions to some of the most notorious climate deniers in Washington, despite the internet giant’s insistence it supports political action to combat the crisis.  The groups included the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has actively sought to roll back Obama-era environmental protections and helped convince Donald Trump, the US president, to abandon the Paris Agreement.  Google has said it supported the climate accord, but continued to offer financial backing to CEI and similarly-minded groups.  “It is hard to overstate the detrimental impact groups like CEI have had on the climate debate in the United States since the early days of the Kyoto Protocol,” Castor, a Democratic representative from Florida, said. “Because of their public and behind-the-scenes efforts to obfuscate and obstruct, we have lost critical time to cut greenhouse gas pollution and now face a shrinking window of opportunity to avert the worst impacts of climate change.”  Google has said that its support for CEI and other groups, including the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation, reflected support for the groups’ “strong technology policies”, and not their stance on the climate crisis.  “We’ve been extremely clear that Google’s sponsorship doesn’t mean that we endorse that organization’s entire agenda – we may disagree strongly on some issues,” a Google spokesperson told the Guardian about its donations.  But in her letter to Pichai, Castor, who is chair of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, said there was no way to distinguish their support from other issues.  “It is impossible to separate your support for one sliver of CEI from the whole. Your financial contributions support the organization’s infrastructure, augment its political influence, and, in turn, legitimize all of its activities – not just the ones you like,” she wrote.  Google declined to offer new comment on the letter, and referred to previous statements on the issue.  Castor closed her letter by pointing to Google’s own website, and its declaration that the company was striving to “build sustainability into everything we do”.  “I urge you to apply this mantra when you make decisions about which thinktanks and organizations to support in the future,” she said.  It was not the only public response to the Guardian’s report last week, which was part of a broader investigation into the fossil fuel industry, the structures behind it, and the climate emergency.  Activists with Extinction Rebellion staged a protest in front of Google’s London headquarters on Wednesday, with more than 100 mothers – and babies – staging a “nurse-in” to protest the company’s funding of climate deniers.


theguardianuk--2019-11-04--Facebook and Google urged to ban political ads before UK election

The UK does not have time to solve the problems of online political advertising before the general election, meaning it should be voluntarily suspended by Facebook and Google until after the vote, campaigners, academics and non-profits have said.  In a letter addressed to Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, the chief executives of Facebook and Google, as well as Nick Clegg and Kent Walker, the heads of policy of the respective companies, the campaigners write that “with the announcement of the election coming in only six weeks, there is no time for regulations to catch up” with the reality of online advertising.  “This legislative blackspot is particularly concerning in light of Facebook’s recent policies to allow politicians to openly publish disinformation through ads. Equally concerning is the lack of transparency as to what data is being used to target ads, and how such ads are being targeted,” they say.  “As we prepare to enter purdah, and without proper legislation, we’re calling on you to take a stand and issue an immediate moratorium on all political and issue-based advertising on your platforms until the conclusion of the UK parliamentary elections on 12 December.”  The letter, signed by representatives of seven organisations including Mozilla, Doteveryone, the Open Data Institute and Sheffield University, notes the decision to voluntarily pause political adverts is not without precedent.  “Google blocked political advertising two weeks before polling day,” the letter says. “In the Israeli and Canadian elections, political ads were blocked outright for the duration of the election period.”  Twitter has announced a voluntary suspension of all political adverts, with the chief executive, Jack Dorsey, writing: “It’s not credible for us to say: ‘We’re working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, but if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad … well … they can say whatever they want’.”


breitbart--2019-12-22--'Home Alone 2' Wikipedia Page Changed to Note Trump Is Film's First Cast Member to Be Impeached

The Home Alone 2: Lost in New York Wikipedia page was reportedly altered briefly this week to note the impeachment of President Donald Trump, who appeared in a brief cameo in the Christmas classic.  Trump made a cameo in the 1992 film in which he gave directions to actor Macaulay Culkin, who played Kevin McCallister, as the two stood inside the Trump Organization’s Plaza Hotel.  Friday, author Sarah Kendzior tweeted a photo of the updated entry from the online encyclopedia:  “On December 18th, 2019 Donald Trump became the first cast member of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York to be impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives,” the text read.  Sunday, the entry was removed and the page locked for “Extended confirmed protection, also known as 30/500 protection, allows edits only by editors with the extended confirmed user access level.”  However, the Donald Trump Wikipedia page text read that “Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 18, 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He is the third impeached U.S. president in history.”  The free encyclopedia’s editors have slanted their articles to favor Democrat talking points regarding the phone call between President Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to Breitbart News’s T.D. Adler.  Editors on Wikipedia, consistent with the site’s rampantleft-wingbias, have repeatedly advanced the narrative of President Trump colluding with Russia to the point of trying to misrepresent the outcome of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation debunking the collusion narrative. They have similarly worked to discredit, and sometimes purge, any serious criticism of the integrity of the investigation and legitimacy of the allegations. Even with the DOJ Inspector General’s report regarding FISA surveillance warrants against Trump adviser Carter Page potentially releasing this month, it is unlikely such bias will end.  Wikidata, a site affiliated with Wikipedia, reportedly labeled First Lady Melania Trump a “former sex worker and porn star,” Adler wrote in November.  “Many Wikipedia-affiliated sites use Wikidata’s information, so the description consequently appeared at her page on Simple Wikipedia, whose target audience expressly includes children, and remained for over a week,” he concluded.


globalresearch--2019-04-11--The Problem with Wikipedia and the Digital Revolution

Yesterday (April 10, 2019) a reader alerted me to the fact that I am being smeared on Wikipedia as a “vocal supporter of the current Russian government and its policies.” The reader also reports that an article in the Daily Beast calls me a “Putin worshiper.” The reader says that he tried to edit the Wikipedia entry without success, and he urged me to give it my attention.  I do not know whether the person who wrote my Wikipedia entry intended to smear me or is merely uninformed. However, dissenting voices do get smeared on Wikipedia. It is an ongoing problem for many of us. For years readers and people who know me would make corrections to my Wikipedia biography, but as soon as the corrections were made, they would be erased and the smears reinstalled.  The problem with Wikipedia is that it is an idealistic approach based on the belief that truth is more likely to emerge when everyone has a voice than when explanations are provided by a select group of experts or peers. This idealistic approach is not without merit. Moreover, it might work very well with subjects and people who do not have ideological opponents or are of no threat to those intent on controlling explanations.  The problem arises when a subject or a person is controversial and is especially the case if the person’s arguments disprove or dissent from official explanations. In The Matrix in which we live, truth-tellers are unwelcome to those who control the explanations in order to advance their agendas. Until truth-tellers can be silenced or completely censured, the practice is to discredit them with smears. Thus, I and many others have been described as “conspiracy theorists” for reporting factual information that contradicts the official and unproven explanation of 9/11, anti-semites for criticizing Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians and influence over U.S. foreign policy, and as “Russian agents” or “Putin stooges” for keeping the record straight about Ukraine, Syria, and Putin’s effort to avoid military conflict with the West.  In the pre-Internet age it was difficult to smear people. Newspaper editors would allow letters to the editor to correct factual mistakes or to provide a different interpretation of a collection of facts, but shied away from smears. This doesn’t mean that smears never happened, but not with the abandon of the Internet era.  Open works in process like Wikipedia, Internet comment sections and social media are ideally suited for smearing people and broadcasting the smears worldwide prior to any correction of them. Thus, the digital revolution has been a godsend to government agencies such as the CIA, State Department, Mossad, the Israel Lobby, corporations and other private interest groups, ideological movements such as neoconservatism and Identity Politics, and politicians, all of whom have agendas that are furthered by controlling the explanations.  As money is the highest value for many people, there is an unlimited supply of people who can be hired to smear those who challenge official explanations. A smear can start in a comment section, move to social media, and from there to a website and on to Wikipedia.  It is truth tellers who are smeared, people such as Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Manning, and whistleblowers whose messages are inconvenient for powerful private and government interests.  Smears are effective. There is no shortage of gullible and uninformed or misinformed people. They take a smear at face value and avoid the person or idea smeared. Despite the extreme clarity of Julian Assange’s orchestrated persecution, many see him as a “rapist escaping justice,” “Russian spy,” and “a blackmailer of governments and people.”  In short mud sticks better than facts. That is why I am not optimistic about the future of truth in the digital age. Many see the digital age as the era when truth will flourish. I understand their case. Their belief is not without merit. But the digital age is also an age in which lies can flourish because, unlike the print age, they can be so easily spread.  Consider, for example, the description of me as a “vocal supporter of the current Russian government and its policies” and a “Putin worshiper.” I am a well known critic of the Russian government’s neoliberal economic policies. Michael Hudson and I have jointly criticized the Russian government’s neoliberal economic policies and demonstrated that they are harmful to Russia’s economy. I am known also as a skeptic of Putin’s policy of turning the other check to Washington’s and Israel’s aggressions. I appreciate and admire Putin’s enormous self-control, but I have expressed concern that Putin’s unwillingness to put down a hard foot fails to turn away wrath and instead encourages more aggression that sooner or later will result in thermonuclear war.  The Russian government is aware of my position, as is the Russian media where I am often interviewed. My position is also clearly expressed on my website, which is read internationally. So why does the Daily Beast and Wikipedia misrepresent my position?  Wikipedia and comment sections can work only if commentators are responsible people who are carefully monitored by knowledgable and responsible monitors. But this takes us back to peer-reviewed explanations that Wikipedia was created to avoid.  Historically, messengers are killed, so truth tellers have to expect smears or worse–Julian Assange was arrested this morning inside the Ecuadoran embassy in London. Mankind is fallen. Governments do evil. The most evil is done to those who oppose evil. Truth cannot be told without cost to he who tells the truth.  When I speak of truth-tellers, I am speaking of people whose motive is to tell the truth. Truth is their agenda. I am not saying that truth tellers are infallible and always right. I am saying that they strive to be. They do not intentionally write falsehoods and mislead.  Truth is not opinion. It is pointless to tell a truth teller that you disagree with him. You can present a case that his facts are wrong. You can present a case that there is a better explanation of the facts.  In my experience when most people say they disagree, they mean that they prefer another explanation that is more congenial to their feelings and emotions. For example, many Americans believed the preposterous Russiagate fib because they dislike Trump, just as today conservative talk radio has adopted the official explanation of 9/11 because it can be used against the outspoken female Muslim member of Congress. The facts have nothing to do with either belief. In both cases, the facts are resisted because the truth is not as emotionally comforting or as useful for the agenda at hand as the lie.  I have no objection if readers undertake to monitor and correct the account presented of me in Wikipedia. It will be an ongoing process, and will require the commitment of many of you. Those behind the attacks on me have a lot of money and a lot of hirelings, and they can erase your work as soon as you finish.  The digital revolution and the control mechanisms it provides makes it far more likely that we will end up in a locked down dystopia than would ever have been possible in the print age. But the digital revolution represents perhaps an even greater threat to humanity. It is making humans redundant.  What are humans to do when everything is automated? If the tech nerds have their way, we soon won’t be allowed to drive cars.  What will humans do when there is no need for their labor? Boston Dynamics, a Waltham Massachusettes company, has come up with a robot that replaces warehouse workers. The prediction is that 40 million more Americans will be shoved out of the workforce by robots over the next ten years.  Has anyone thought about who is going to be employed and have the money to purchase the products of robots? No doubt we will be promised all kinds of new and better jobs like we were promised to take the place of the offshored manufacturing and professional service jobs. The promised jobs never showed up. And no, this is not a luddite argument. Everyone can’t be employed designing robots to replace humans.  Each warehouse will rush to increase its profits by laying off employees, and none will consider the aggregate effect on consumer demand for the products in the warehouses. Will the warehouses have to give back their gained profits in taxes to support the unemployed? Will the warehouses have any profits if people haven’t income from jobs with which to buy the products in the warehouses? Does the robot age mean profits have to be socialized in order to sustain human life?  An intelligent approach to technology would be to focus on technology that enhances human performance, not on technology that eliminates the need for humans.  At Stanford University technology has emerged, or is emerging, that permits real time changes in the movements of a person’s mouth as he speaks in order to broadcast a message different than the one the speaker is speaking. The mischief possible with this technology is unacceptable. Television could destroy any unwelcome politician or leader by showing him delivering a message designed to destroy him. If people catch on, it would mean the end of televised speeches as no one would believe any speech unless they were present in person.  People already find it challenging to comprehand reality. The emergence of technology capable of falsifying reality in real time presages a future in which fact and fiction become indistinguishable. The unintended consequence of this technology may well be the death of truth.  Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.  This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.


naturalnews--2019-05-08--Facebook to suppress all websites that arent officially recognized by the corrupt dishonest Wikipe

Facebook to suppress all websites that aren't officially recognized by the corrupt, dishonest Wikipedia website

(Natural News) Anyone who’s been to college in the Wikipedia era, especially anything above the associate degree level, knows that’s the last reference resource professors will accept from students when writing research papers.  That’s because Wikipedia, which is kind of, sort of, self-edited contains gigabytes of false, phony, or erroneous information. The site isn’t peer reviewed by any means, and it’s just not a reliable source of information.  And yet, a new censorship tool being introduced by Facebook will intentionally or inadvertently rely heavily on Wikipedia for the establishment of ‘credible’ news and information sites.  Facebook received a lot of attention for overt censorship last week. But the social network is engaging in covert suppression of independent media too — most recently with its introduction of “Click-Gap,” a way of favoring established websites and suppressing non-established ones.  Here’s how this latest bald-faced censorship scheme will work.  Click-Gap will work to penalize news and information sites that have yet to establish “authority” outside of Facebook, where ‘authority’ is assessed based on the number of clicks sites get from sources other than the platform, like establishment media sources.  Facebook’s “VP of integrity” and “VP of news integrity” officially explain it this way on the platform’s blog:  Click-Gap looks for domains with a disproportionate number of outbound Facebook clicks compared to their place in the web graph. This can be a sign that the domain is succeeding on News Feed in a way that doesn’t reflect the authority they’ve built outside it and is producing low-quality content.  This is huge because Facebook has become a primary traffic driver for new websites of all kinds, including, of course, news sites. But, as Breitbart Tech reports, Click-Gap appears to have been designed to promote websites that managed to build up their readership and following before social media became a thing. So the system will naturally favor the older, establishment media outlets like CNN, Washington Post, The New York Times, etc. — some of the biggest drivers of fake news in the era of POTUS Donald Trump. (Related: POTUS Trump blasts ‘illegal’ social media BIAS and censorship, vows actions.)  Of course, this is precisely the kind of scenario the mainstream media outlets want; anything they can do to shut out independent media competition, the better.  As for how Wikipedia factors into all of this, Breitbart Tech notes that Click Gap will favor the establishment press in another way.  “One of the largest sources for links and citations of news sources is Wikipedia, the Leftist-dominated ‘online encyclopedia,’” Breitbart noted. “But conservative sources…are frequently blacklisted as ‘unreliable’ on the site.” Hence, they are not used, which is ironic given the fact that Wikipedia itself is considered ‘unreliable’ by academia using primarily mainstream media sources.  Facebook would be working in tandem with another big tech giant that also loves to censor conservative content: Google, the world’s No. 1 search engine. Can you guess which pages Google produces the most when it comes to searches?  That’s right — Wikipedia pages. In fact, these frequently appear at the top of Google search pages, making them much more frequently selected by users. And again, since Wikipedia itself feeds so many other mainstream news sites, this, too, will factor into the sites that Click Gap and its underlying algorithm will favor.  Anything to crush conservative and independent media because the establishment media cannot compete with us on its own.  Case in point: CNN is now reporting that Democrats in Congress are ‘training’ themselves to appear on Fox News, because it is a ratings behemoth compared to, well, CNN, and the rest of the joke cable news networks.  It must have hurt to report that.  Read more about the rising censorship of the tech giants at TechGiants.news and Censorship.news.


naturalnews--2019-08-03--Corrupt FBI cites completely discredited SNOPES and Wikipedia to declare conspiracy theorists are

Corrupt FBI cites completely discredited SNOPES and Wikipedia to declare "conspiracy theorists" are domestic terrorism threat

(Natural News) What has happened to the world’s premier law enforcement and anti-terrorism agency? Have all of its leaders lost their minds or, more likely, have they become so politicized and infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome they can no longer think clearly and rationally?  These are legitimate questions given the contents of an internal FBI document revealed last week by Yahoo News.  According to an analysis of the report by The Gateway Pundit, it appears as though elements within the bureau have not only made some inherently questionable speculative allegations, but the sources cited as the basis for at least some of them are not only suspicious but outright comical.  The crux of the FBI report, which originated in the Phoenix office, according to Yahoo News, warns that “conspiracy theorists” who discuss the “Deep State” are a new, emerging domestic terrorist threat.  Furthermore, one of the conspiracies identified as problematic in the report is the belief that a deep state plot existed — or continues to exist — to oust POTUS Donald Trump from office.  Now, based on at least two years’ worth of reporting, mostly by the independent media but not exclusively so, rational Americans understand and know that a) “Spygate” is a real thing; b) it was launched by the Obama administration; and c) the objective, clearly, was to drive POTUS Trump out of office.  But beyond that, sources for the report’s conclusions included the far-Left ‘fact-checking’ site Snopes and Wikipedia, the latter of which is banned as a student reference source by most colleges and universities because it is biased, non-objective, and often incorrect.  Notes Twitter user Rosie memos: “Wow. The @FBI has yet to say a word about ANTIFA but the Arizona office is tiptoeing around calling conspiracy theorists, domestic terrorists. They cite Qanon, Sandy Hook, Pizzagate and Islamberg.”  “Shockingly their citations are WIKIPEDIA and SNOPES? Are you kidding @FBI @TheJusticeDept are these really your sources? Is there no one in the intelligence community that understands wiki can be edited by anyone and Snopes is owned by a sexual predator couple?”  As you can see in the tweets, the sources are plainly listed: Snopes. Wikipedia.  This, from Connors State College, regarding the unreliability of Wikipedia as an academic source: “Wikipedia is increasingly used by people in the academic community, from first-year students to professors, as the easiest source of information about anything and everything. However, citation of Wikipedia in research papers may not be considered acceptable, because Wikipedia is not a creditable source.”  You know who else says that Wikipedia isn’t a reliable source? Wikipedia, as noted at this link.  Snopes is equally unreliable and often false — motivated by political bias rather than facts, as Natural News has reported.  But hey, to the FBI, these are now bona fide reliable sources. (Related: Are Unrecorded FBI Interviews a G-Man’s License to Lie?)  No wonder fewer and fewer Americans trust this agency.  There’s more, however, and it’s something that Director Christopher Wray should have to answer for.  As The Gateway Pundit revealed, the bureau wants to develop or purchase an off-the-shelf “social media early alerting tool” so that agents can monitor social media in real time, just like what happens in China, Cuba, Venezuela and, increasingly, Russia.  “With increased use of social media platforms by subjects of current FBI investigations and individuals that pose a threat to the United States, it is critical to obtain a service which will allow the FBI to identify relevant information from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other Social media platforms in a timely fashion,” the FBI said in a recent proposal that’s been updated.  “Consequently, the FBI needs near real-time access to a full range of social media exchanges in order to obtain the most current information available in furtherance of its law enforcement and intelligence missions,” it says.  Anyone who isn’t backing POTUS Trump’s efforts to ‘drain the swamp’ after all that has happened to him is part of the problem.


naturalnews--2019-11-13--Dr. Mercola reveals how Google and Wikipedia tag team to censor natural health websites while promot

Dr. Mercola reveals how Google and Wikipedia tag team to censor natural health websites while promoting Big Pharma and processed junk food

(Natural News) Back in June, Mercola.com, the most visited natural health website in the world, was deleted from Google’s search results for supposedly spreading “misinformation” about health, nutrition, and vaccines. However, the real reason that Google went on this censorship purge is because Dr. Joseph Mercola represents a serious threat to the viability of mainstream medicine, of which Google is now a major stakeholder.  In a new video posted to his Brighteon.com account, Dr. Mercola, a board-certified physician who runs a successful practice that’s helped millions of people around the world, reveals how Google has essentially morphed into its own drug company. No longer just a simple search engine, Google has effectively rigged its system to favor only articles and other related content that support pharmaceutical drugs, vaccines, and junk food – all things that Dr. Mercola’s medical perspectives call into question.  Because Dr. Mercola’s understanding of medicine is, in many ways, contradictory to what the establishment claims is undeniable medical fact, including the popular misnomer that all vaccines are safe and effective, he’s become a target for elimination by Big Tech. And the same thing is happening to many others just like him who prefer to tell the truth rather than parrot establishment propaganda.  “My site has been a top destination for health topics for over 17 years, but Google has now decided to remove these pages that have legitimately earned the trust of the public and replace them with health information from advertising companies that promote junk food and drugs through Google ad services,” Dr. Mercola explains, using the example of an in-depth article he wrote about rheumatoid arthritis, entitled, “Rheumatoid Arthritis: Painful Debilitating Disease More Devastating Than Previously Recognized,” that Google has simply blocked from showing up when Google users search for information about this topic.  “This is a clear example of malicious bias that is affecting Google and the information you see.”  For more related news about Big Tech fascism and Google censorship, be sure to check out EvilGoogle.news and Censorship.news.  Google wants users to stop taking care of themselves naturally, and instead choose drugs and vaccines for their health  It used to be the case that when a Google user typed “rheumatoid arthritis” into the Google search bar, this particular article by Dr. Mercola came up as one of the top results. That’s because this article is very popular and has helped many people all around the world, boasting well over one million page views.  But that was way back when Google’s algorithms were fairer and less biased, and pulled up relevant information based on actual popularity with real people, as opposed to just propaganda that’s been selectively curated by Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) “machine learning” robots.  Nowadays, pretty much anything you search for on Google related to health will pull up drug industry propaganda from one of three sites: WebMD, Healthline, and Medical News Today. You’ll also likely see a few “fact-checking” sites thrown in there as well that “debunk” natural and alternative options for whatever health issue you searched.  Google also embeds advertising for drugs and vaccines within these links to WebMD, Healthline, and Medical News Today, the goal of which is to herd readers back into the conventional pen, and away from the “alternative” modalities suggested by Dr. Mercola and many others who are similarly being censored across the Google platform.  “Google is a drug dealer, and you just need to say no to help you and your family take control of your health,” warns Dr. Mercola.  Be sure to check out the Dr. Mercola Brighteon.com page to learn more, and to support this fellow truth advocate as he endures, like we all are, this barrage of Big Tech censorship.


newsbusters--2019-06-25--Propaganda Machine Wikipedia Enabling Armenian Genocide Denial

Propaganda Machine? Wikipedia Enabling Armenian Genocide Denial

A recent exposé of a regional Wikipedia project revealed some troubling stories of propaganda and abuse — even denial of a genocide  The Wikipedia branch in Azerbaijan, a small democratic Muslim country in the Middle East, allowed editors to write that the Armenian genocide was a “fraud.” Further investigation revealed that a team of administrators in the country were using Wikipedia to spread propaganda against Armenians, who share a border with their nation.  A Wikipedia proposal to remove the admins who allowed and encouraged the content to be written and circulated has been launched. However, the offenders have yet to be removed from the platform.  The complaint includes details of articles that refer to the Armenian genocide (the 1915 event where the Ottoman Empire slaughtered 1.5 million Armenians) as the “So-called Armenian genocide.” The genocide is listed under a category labeled “Armenian frauds.”  The user who submitted the proposal said, “While all wikis have some inherent biases built in politically, playing politics with the attempted destruction of an entire group of people brings our entire movement into disrepute.”  The admin who created the Armenian genocide denial page is openly contesting this proposal, saying “Your suggestions clearly serve the Armenian interests and show that you are on the [sic?] side.” He proposed that Armenian Wikipedia be blocked in Azerbaijan, stating that there was conflict on both sides.  The same admin has used all the Wikipedia tools to block users whom he disagrees with, according to another complaint. One user was blocked because he used sources that a “large part of the Azerbaijani public” disagreed with, because those sources confirmed that the Armenian genocide happened.  One user stated that the information compromise had been happening “since 2017.”  Wikipedia is trusted by major tech companies and used by Facebook and Google. Facebook uses Wikipedia to link to descriptions of news sources on its platform, while Google uses Wikipedia for a variety of tools. The controversial “Knowledge Panel” relied on Wikipedia for information about hot topics, politicians, and celebrities, while on Google’s sister company, YouTube, Wikipedia is used to fact check “climate change deniers.”  However, Wikipedia is not a valid resource for raw information, because of its crowdsourcing nature. Multiple unpaid contributors all make edits to Wikipedia for various reasons. Its rules are arbitrary. Journalist Tim Pool wrote, “I was a fan of Wikipedia until I became 'notable' enough to get one and now I'm shocked at the insane garbage they claim to be their standards.” It seems as if Wikipedia’s standards don’t even work.  Neither Google nor Facebook responded to requests for comment from the Media Research Center.  The media in America has long ignored the Armenian Genocide. Major news networks completely avoid the subject during the anniversary, April 24. Even during the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Holocaust, little or no mention was made on the news networks.


thegatewaypundit--2019-05-02--This Didnt Age Well Fake News Wikipedia Devoted an Entire Page to Spygate conspiracy theory by D

This Didn’t Age Well… Fake News Wikipedia Devoted an Entire Page to “Spygate (conspiracy theory by Donald Trump)”

Fake News Wikipedia devoted an entire page to Spygate (conspiracy theory by Donald Trump)  Spygate is a conspiracy theory initiated by President Donald Trump in May 2018 that the Obama administration had implanted a spy very early in his 2016 presidential campaign for political purposes.[1][2][3][4]  On May 22–23, 2018, Trump made these assertions, without evidence, adding that it was done in an effort to help Trump’s rival, Hillary Clinton, win the general election. He said this person was paid a “massive amount of money” for doing so.[5][6] Stefan Halper, a longtime FBI informant, had approached separately three Trump campaign advisers in 2016 in a covert effort to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, but as of April 2019, no evidence has surfaced that he had joined Trump’s campaign or acted improperly.[7]  On June 5, 2018, Trump further alleged that a counterintelligence operation into the Trump campaign had been running since December 2015.[8] The House Intelligence Committee, then in Republican control, concluded in an April 2018 report that the FBI counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign began in late July 2016, while the February 2018 Nunes memo written by Republican aides reached the same conclusion, as did the February 2018 rebuttal memo by committee Democrats.[9][10][11]  High-ranking politicians on both sides of the aisle, as well as Fox News personalities, have dismissed Trump’s allegations as lacking evidence and maintained that the FBI did nothing improper. Trump’s claims have been shown to be false.[5][12][13]


thegatewaypundit--2019-08-02--WOW FBI Caught Using Far Left Websites Wikipedia and Snopes as Sources for Junk Report on Deep Stat

WOW! FBI Caught Using Far Left Websites Wikipedia and Snopes as Sources for Junk Report on Deep State “Conspiracy Theories”

Yahoo News has obtained a new FBI document dated May 30, 2019 that warns ‘conspiracy theorists’ are the new domestic terrorism threats.  What exactly is considered a ‘conspiracy theory?’  The document specifically called out ‘QAnon’ which is a belief that “Q” is a government official posting information on an online forum about Trump’s efforts to dismantle the Deep State.  “The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts,” the document states.  The document also claims the FBI believes conspiracy theory-driven extremists are likely to increase during the 2020 presidential election cycle.  The FBI appears to be bracing for Spygate backlash because they said another factor driving the so-called threat is “the uncovering of real conspiracies or cover-ups involving illegal, harmful, or unconstitutional activities by government officials or leading political figures.”  The FBI did not offer any specifics about which political leaders or which cover-ups it was referring to, however the timing is suspicious as Spygate begins to unravel.  Here are the documents:  It’s nice to know the FBI is using far left websites for their reporting on the Deep State.   God help us.  UPDATE: Snopes co-founder David Mikkelson once accused of embezzling company money and spending it on prostitutes


thegatewaypundit--2019-12-21--Far-Left WikiPedia Continues to Report ‘Spygate’ Did Not Occur — Pushes #FakeNews, Hides Truth from

Far-Left WikiPedia Continues to Report ‘Spygate’ Did Not Occur — Pushes #FakeNews, Hides Truth from the Masses and Censors Fact-Based Reporting  The FBI and DOJ and multiple government agencies were out in force in 2015 spying on candidate Trump in attempts to link him up with their fake Russia conspiracy.  General Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell gave us clues in September that Professor Mifsud may have been one of the Deep State’s spies used against the Trump team in late 2015!  In June of 2018 The Gateway Pundit posted an article identifying unredacted words in previously redacted texts between corrupt cops Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two individuals supposedly having an affair and key players at the top of the FBI involved in spying on candidate and then President Trump.  The discovery came from an individual on Twitter who was then removed from Twitter named Nick Falco who identified a word uncovered in a Senate text that was previously redacted by the corrupt DOJ.  In our post we noted that hidden in the information released by the Senate at that time were unredacted Strzok–Page texts that showed that the FBI initiated actions to insert multiple spies in the Trump campaign in December 2015.  As we reported previously, according to far left LA Times, Comey stated in March of 2017 under oath that the FBI investigation into the Trump – Russia scandal started in July 2016.  We knew then without a doubt that Comey lied about this.  Falco’s tweet stated that the texts released from corrupt FBI investigator Peter Strzok to corrupt FBI attorney Lisa Page state the following:  Additional information we also provided showed that Obama’s spy, Stefan Halper, was awarded a contract in September of 2015.  We also pointed out that the problem with Obama spying on Trump before July 2016 is that it is against FBI rules:  Retired assistant FBI director for intelligence Kevin Brock also has questions. Brock supervised an agency update to their longstanding bureau rules governing the use of sources while working under then-director Robert Mueller. These rules prohibit the FBI from directing a human source to perform espionage on an American until a formal investigation has been opened – paperwork and all. Brock sees oddities in how the Russia case began. “These types of investigations aren’t normally run by assistant directors and deputy directors at headquarters,” he told me. “All that happens normally in a field office, but that isn’t the case here and so it becomes a red flag. Congress would have legitimate oversight interests in the conditions and timing of the targeting of a confidential human source against a U.S. person.” -The Hill  The problem with Comey lying about the start date of the Trump counterintelligence campaign before Congress is that it is against the law.  President Trump tweeted out a follow up to our post the next day undoubtedly referring to our post :  The Mainstream Media was interested. They were interested in denying the fact that spying on candidate Trump occurred in spite of evidence to show it and then slammed the President and the Gateway Pundit for posting the above tweets from Nick Falco.  To this day Wikipedia (which supports crazy far-left and dishonest positions in anything related to President Trump) calls this work, a conspiracy and Spygate a conspiracy.  Wikipedia calls the above a conspiracy and the Gateway Pundit a conspiracy site. They don’t call CNN, NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, ABC, the New York Times, Washington Post, and the many other far left sites conspiracy sites for pushing the Trump – Russia collusion for more than two years but President Trump and the Gateway Pundit are slandered with this label in spite of being totally correct.  Their entire rebuttal omitted the facts. For example, they state that the texts were released previously, yes they were but, THEY WERE REDACTED. Wikipedia is a joke when it comes to US politics!  US Intelligence and the Justice Department, including the FBI, were indeed spying on candidate Trump in 2015.  Candidate Trump declared his candidacy for President in June of 2015. While public polls said Hillary would win in a landslide, behind the scenes, the DNC must have been frightened because the Democrats and the Deep State pulled out all their illegal tricks shortly after Trump’s announcement in 2015.  We now know that corrupt DOJ attorney and number four at the DOJ, Bruce Ohr, set aside time to meet with Christopher Steele in his calendar in early October of 2015. Steele is the alleged author of the fake Steele dossier used to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign, transition team and Presidency. Ohr’s calendar shows this meeting :  Shortly after that meeting, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr’s wife is hired by the far left smear firm Fusion GPS. We have conflicting information about Nellie Ohr’s exact hire date, for all we know she could have been hired on October 2, 2015, the same date as the Steele-Ohr meeting. She testified she started working for Fusion GPS in October of 2015 :  Based on his calendar and his wife Nellie’s testimony, we know that Bruce Ohr lied in front Congress. Ohr lied about Nellie’s start date with Fusion GPS. The demoted and disgrace DOJ attorney Bruce Ohr stated in his testimony before Congress that Nellie started with Fusion GPS in November of 2015:  In Nellie’s testimony to Congress in response to Representative Jim Jordan’s questions, Nellie says the following –  Ms. Ohr. Uh-huh. I mean, I did a couple of different projects for them [Fusion GPS].   Mr. Jordan. Can you tell me what those projects were?   Ms. Ohr. Yeah. The first project, the initial project had to do with looking into a particular Russian firm that was suspected of being involved in sex trafficking.   (p 10)   Mr. Jordan. Can you tell me the name of that firm?   Ms. Ohr. Vlad Models.   Mr. Jordan. Okay. And what else did you work on?   Ms. Ohr. I worked on a project looking into the relationship of Donald Trump with organized crime, a Russian organized crime.   Mr. Jordan. Okay. And was that work at all related to the now famous dossier?   Ms. Ohr. No.   Mr. Jordan. What was it related to then — walk me through what that work entailed?   Ms. Ohr. What it entailed in what sense?   Mr. Jordan. Describe what you were doing and what the objective was?   Ms. Ohr. Yeah, I would write occasional reports based on the open source research that I described about Donald Trump’s relationships with various people in Russia.  So Nellie worked for Fusion GPS to find dirt (or make up dirt apparently) on President Trump and she was hired in October of 2015, give or take a few weeks.  But in addition to this, Bruce Ohr is the topic of discussion in a 302 report where he states that someone, very likely his wife – the one name that adequately fits in the redacted sections below, worked for Fusion GPS to dig up Trump’s connections to Russia. Nellie also knew, according to her husband, that she was working for “the Clinton Campaign, John Winer at the State Department and the FBI”!!!  General Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell gave us another clue in September. She requests that the US government provide her and her client, General Mike Flynn, documents related to Deep State spy Joseph Mifsud from an event in late 2015 –  Notice that Powell refers to “302s” regarding the dinner event in 2015 that General Flynn attended, which means that the FBI was interviewing Mifsud as early as 2015 and knew EXACTLY who Mifsud was and was not before Papadopoulos ever met Mifsud. Notice also that the timing of this event was days before Strzok’s text in late December of 2015!  So we now know that Joseph Mifsud, the same individual that spied on George Papadopoulos in 2016, was also involved in setting up General Flynn with Russians in late 2015.  Oh, we also know that Wikipedia is absolutely inaccurate and even slanderous in their posts related to Spygate, President Trump’s tweet that Spygate started in 2015 and our post that supported the President’s tweet.


thesun--2019-04-30--Web giants slammed for failing to tackle self-harm online as Wikipedia snubs government summit

WIKIPEDIA was last night named and shamed for not bothering to turn up to an emergency Government summit on how to tackle self-harm online.  Tech giants including Google and Facebook agreed to fund the Samaritans and to sign up to a new code of practice to take down harmful content at the meeting.  But ministers were left fuming with Wikipedia for snubbing an invite to attend the major Whitehall summit for the second time this year.  It comes despite concerns their site breaches ethical codes by including detailed descriptions of suicide.  And there was criticism that the amount pledged by the tech giants was meagre in comparison to their huge revenues - and the scale of the problem.  Heath Secretary Matt Hancock is expected to call Wikipedia bosses in for a grilling another time.  A Whitehall insider told The Sun: “Wikipedia did not bother to show up and the Samaritans have said they have not been very good at engaging with them.  “Wikipedia have refused to engage with us. We want to engage constructively, but it is hard to believe they are taking this seriously if they don’t bother engaging.”  But Mr Hancock said good progress has been made with other tech giants at the meeting, including Google, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.  The companies have agreed to fund The Samaritans to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds.  And they have signed up in principle to new guidelines being drawn up by the suicide prevention charity to take down harmful content online.  The pledge follows tragic high-profile cases including Molly Russell, 14, who took her life in 2017 after viewing self-harm content on Instagram.  And figures showed suicide rates among teens have almost doubled in eight years.  But the cash falls short of demands from the NSPCC - who want tech firms to completely rid their platforms of content promoting self-harm or else hand over a share of annual profits.  The US giants are forecast to rake in combined revenues of £183billion and profits of £49.4billion this year.  Labour’s Clive Efford, on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, told the Mirror their funding offer "wasn’t nearly enough to tackle the problem”.  Labour deputy leader Tom Watson said: “Tech giants have refused to take responsibility for harmful content for too long.  “The summit is welcome but we need more than warm words; Government must legislate to protect our children.”  Mr Hancock admitted that more work needs to be done to tackle the problem  He said: “We have made good progress today and there is still more to do - but I am determined to make sure that the internet and social media is made safer - especially for children.  “The crucial thing is that we have an independent body, The Samaritans, being able to be the arbiter of what is damaging content that needs taken down so all tech companies can follow the new rules that have been set out.  “I feel the tech companies are starting to get the message, they’re starting to take action - but there’s much more to do.”  The Sun has contacted Wikipedia for comment.


newswars--2019-01-29--Impotence Substance Abuse Brain Tumors Google Tracking Very Intimate Info

Impotence, Substance Abuse, Brain Tumors: Google Tracking Very Intimate Info

Google and other online advertising platforms engage in disturbing privacy violations through the categories they use to target internet users, according to a new filing that reveals just how creepy this data collection can get.  Google and other online ad companies use intimate personal information like political beliefs, religion, sexual orientation, and even diseases and disabilities to target users for advertising, according to new evidence filed by digital rights organizations in Poland, Ireland and the UK.  Their complaint takes aim at real-time bidding (RTB), online ad auctions in which highly sensitive information about users gleaned from their browsing history is traded by thousands of third-party companies which use these behavioral profiles to target ads.  “Incontinence,” “special needs kids,” and “gay life” are just a few of the categories on the Internet Advertising Bureau’s list that could infringe on Article 9 of the GDPR, the EU privacy law which bars the use of such sensitive data without explicit consent from users.  Since most internet users have no idea these tags are being attached to them, let alone bought and sold by companies they’ve never heard of, this kind of invasive profiling clearly runs afoul of the law, the group says.     A doctor on Fox News is claiming that any doctor that gives parents an exemption from vaccinating their children should be prosecuted. Alex reveals the dark agenda to use vaccines to hurt the population.  Google’s categories are even more invasive: “AIDS & HIV,” “debt collection & repossession,” and “drug and alcohol treatment” are just a few on a list that runs to 53 pages. “’Special category’ personal data like this enjoys special protections in the GDPR. I believe this raises the stakes of our complaint,” said Johnny Ryan of no-track browser Brave, one of the complainants.  Ad auction companies broadcast an average UK internet user’s intimate data profile about 164 times per day, according to the New Economics Foundation. Ryan believes if the industry just made some “minor changes,” excluding sensitive data points that are not actually necessary for ad targeting, it could comply with the GDPR without significantly altering its business model.  “Hugely detailed and invasive profiles are routinely and casually built and traded as part of today’s real-time bidding system, and this practice is treated though it’s a simple fact of life online. It isn’t: and it both needs to and can stop,” said Michael Veale of University College London, another complainant.  Poland is the latest country to sign on to the complaint, with digital rights organization Panoptykon joining the digital rights groups from the UK and Ireland which opened the original case against the ad exchanges last fall.  In response to a TechCrunch article republishing the category lists, Google released a statement claiming they prohibit advertisers from targeting based on “sensitive categories such as race, sexual orientation, health conditions, pregnancy status, etc.”  They do not explain why multiple categories under each of those headers can be found on their “Publisher Verticals” list.     Jan Irvin joins Alex Jones to detail how YouTube, now owned by Google, banned the Infowars interview he posted early this week for “violating community guideline standards” when his goal was to prevent children and young people from ingesting toxic, dangerous, and mind altering drugs.


realclearpolitics--2019-08-03--Political Tension at Google Is Only Getting Worse

Political Tension at Google Is Only Getting Worse  Another former engineer has alleged that the company fired him over his political beliefs.


fortune--2019-02-06--Huawei Offers to Create Polish Security Lab to Ward Off 5G Bans

Huawei has offered to open a security-testing facility in Poland, if the authorities will allow it.  The Chinese company, which is the biggest telecommunications equipment manufacturer in the world, is having a hair-raising time on the trust front these days. Many intelligence agencies suspect that its equipment could provide Chinese spies with a surveillance conduit—a possibility that Huawei denies—and there’s an ever-increasing list of countries that won’t allow its equipment into future 5G mobile networks.  Poland is one of the countries that’s likely to shun Huawei, after its security services last month arrested a Chinese Huawei sales director for allegedly spying alongside a Polish employee of the telco Orange.  Desperate to avoid that fate, Huawei on Wednesday made its security center pitch.  “We are ready to establish a cybersecurity center in Poland if authorities accept this as a trusted solution,” Huawei Poland chief Tonny Bao said at a press conference, as reported by Reuters. Another executive chimed in that Poland’s government had no reason to lock Huawei out of 5G deployments.  Huawei already operates security labs in some countries, in order to assuage fears about its trustworthiness. It opened one last year in Bonn, Germany, and next month it’s due to launch a lab in Brussels, Belgium—the heart of EU-level policy-making. At these facilities, telecommunications network operators can come in and test Huawei’s equipment.  The company also owns a nine-year-old facility in the U.K. called the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre, or HCSEC. This operates on another level, giving British intelligence workers—who comprise some of the staff there—the opportunity to peek inside Huawei’s equipment. It is more likely that the Polish lab, if the offer were to be accepted, would be for the benefit of telcos.  Earlier this week, it was reported that HCSEC will soon issue a report hammering Huawei over its security, and its failure to address previously-raised issues.  Separately, Bloomberg reported Wednesday that Canada is more likely than not to ban Huawei from 5G rollouts, though it may delay the decision in the light of China’s detention of three Canadians. Canada last year arrested Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who faced deportation to the U.S. on a variety of charges.  German ministers are also reportedly meeting on Wednesday to discuss what to do about Huawei’s involvement in the shift to 5G networks.  Countries that have effectively issued such bans include Australia, New Zealand and Japan. The U.S. has by many accounts been pressuring all its allies to follow suit.


sputnik--2019-01-09--US NSA Uses Kaspersky Lab to Catch Hacker Then Bans Firm in Return - Reports

Not only is the exposure of Martin’s theft believed to be the largest breach of classified material in US history, but the exposure took place at a time when the FBI was conducting an investigation of Kaspersky, which eventually led to a ban on Kaspersky Lab products in US government computers, the report said.  The report surmised that Kaspersky Lab’s ability to catch Martin, a former NSA contractor, casts doubt on US ability to protect its own computers, especially because Martin was able to steal an estimated 50 terabytes of data from the NSA and other government agencies undetected over a two-decade period.  The theft included some of the NSA’s most sophisticated and sensitive hacking tools, which were stolen despite a scramble to upgrade computer security following leaks by another NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, three years earlier, the report explained.  Martin, who is set to go to trial in June, was arrested August 27, 2016, following a search of his home shortly after Kaspersky Lab turned its material over to the NSA. He was indicted in February 2017.  Ironically, the exposure of Martin occurred at a time when the FBI was engaged in an aggressive, behind-the-scenes campaign to discredit the company and get its software banned from US government computers on national security grounds. A ban on Kaspersky Lab products was announced the following year.  Kaspersky Lab insists it operates independently and transparently and has repeatedly denied having ever worked for any government or engaged in espionage.


activistpost--2019-09-17--Explosion Hits Russias Largest Virus Lab Which Houses Plague Smallpox Ebola And Other Deadly Viru

Explosion Hits Russia’s Largest Virus Lab Which Houses Plague, Smallpox, Ebola And Other Deadly Viruses

A sudden explosion at a Siberian virus research center on Monday reportedly left the facility engulfed in flames, according to several Russian news outlets.  Firefighters and other emergency personnel were dispatched to the “Vector Institute” located several miles from Novosibirsk – an emergency which was upgraded “from an ordinary emergency to a major incident,” according to RT, due to the research center for virology and biotechnology housed in the facility; however, the mayor of Koltsovo said there were no biologically dangerous substances in the area where the explosion occurred, and that the Vector laboratory was not in use at the time.  The State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology Vector, also known as the Vector Institute, is a biological research center in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia. It is analogous to both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Army Chemical and Biological Defense Command. It has research facilities and capabilities for all levels of Biological Hazard, CDC Levels 1-4.  Of note, Vector is reportedly one of two places worldwide where smallpox is stored.  The laboratory is known for having developed vaccines for Ebola and hepatitis, as well as for studying epidemics and genera issues surrounding immunology. During the Cold War, it was thought to be part of now-defunct Soviet biological weapons program, meaning that some of the most dangerous strains – including that of – are still being kept inside the Institute’s building . With that in mind, a local branch of the Emergencies Ministry swiftly responded to the call, sending in 13 fire engines and 38 firefighters, who entered the six-story building minutes after arrival. –RT  According to Ukrinform.ua, a gas cylinder exploded on the fifth floor of the six-story building while construction crews were working at the time, after which a fire broke out in an area approximately 100 square feet. One worker suffered second- and third-degree burns and was taken to a local hospital.  This article was sourced from ZeroHedge.com  Subscribe to Activist Post for truth, peace, and freedom news. Follow us on Minds, Twitter, Steemit, and SoMee. Become an Activist Post Patron for as little as $1 per month.  Provide, Protect and Profit from what’s coming! Get a free issue of Counter Markets today.