Sleepwet: vrijgegeven documenten bewijzen dat de VS gewone burgers bespioneert >> zie ons voorland.......

Onlangs vrijgegeven documenten, gepubliceerd door 'The Electronic Border Foundation' (EFF) en verkregen van de in opspraak geraakte Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), bewiijzen dat de VS wel degelijk gewone burgers bespioneert, mensen die niets onwettigs hebben gedaan.....

Vooral de NSA en FBI maken zich schuldig aan het afluisteren van gesprekken tussen mensen die op geen manier een bedreiging vormen...... Ook aan het publiek in de VS is meermaals voorgehouden dat met metadata verzameling hun privacy niet geschonden zou worden, wel dus.......

Overigens bleek eerder al, dat de geheime diensten in de VS (waartoe ik in deze ook de FBI reken) foto's en filmpjes uit internet bestanden van mensen plukken en bekijken........

'Onafhankelijke' rechters besluiten achter gesloten deuren wat wel of niet is toegestaan en daarover is geen enkele openheid...... In Nederland wil de regering met de Sleepwet die stap zelfs achterwege laten bij het verzamelen van data en reken maar dat men wel degelijk telefoongesprekken zal beluisteren, ook al is daar geen enkele reden toe...... De toestemming mag met de Sleepwet in werking, ook achteraf worden gevraagd en gegeven >> de dood in de pot voor ons recht op privacy, onze privacy waar al niet teveel meer van over is........

Zie in de VS waar wij naar toe gaan met de nieuwe Sleepwet, die Rutte 3 van plan is erdoor te drukken...... Geloof maar niet dat het referendum, zelfs als de grote meerderheid tegen de Sleepwet stemt, daar enige verandering in zal brengen....... We hebben immers niet voor niets een 'constitutionele democratie', met een volksvertegenwoordiging, uh ik bedoel een bedrijven- en welgesteldenvertegenwoordiging.......

Newly Released Documents Prove the US Gov’t Is Spying on Innocent Americans

February 26, 2018 at 7:39 am

Written by Derrick Broze

(AP) — The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has acquired formerly classified court orders from the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) which detail how the court violates the privacy of innocent Americans caught in the crossfire of federal surveillance. The documents are the result of Freedom of Information Act requests filed by the EFF as part of an effort to shine light on the inner workings of the secret court.

The EFF writes:

These documents raise larger questions about whether the government can meaningfully protect people’s privacy and free expression rights under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which permits officials to engage in warrantless mass surveillance with far less court oversight than is required under the “traditional” FISA warrant process.[…]

Although many of the 13 opinions are heavily redacted — and the government withheld another 26 in full — the readable portions show several instances of the court blocking government efforts to expand its surveillance or ordering the destruction of information obtained improperly as a result of its spying.

The documents provided to the EFF detail several cases where conversations of people not targeted by federal authorities were swept up in the course of surveillance investigations. Specifically, the documents show the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) spying on innocent people and attempting to conceal the practice. A 40-page court opinion from 2004 or 2005 details how FISC Judge Harold Baker declined a proposal from FBI to save these conversations, often known as incidental collection. “The opinion demonstrates both the risks of over-collection as part of targeted surveillance as well as the benefits of engaged, detailed court oversight,” The EFF notes.

Under the standards set by section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the FISC approves digital surveillance for federal agencies who are supposed to follow certain procedures to prevent the accidental interception of innocent people’s communications. The new documents highlight how the FBI used incidental collection to capture the communications of a number of innocent people.

The FBI attempted to argue to Judge Baker that the practice has “minimal, if any” impact on the Fourth Amendment protections against invasions of privacy. The FISC apparently actually did their job by attempting to prevent this practice from continuing and becoming normalized. The surveillance court appeared to admonish the FBI for expanding the use of incidental communications, rather than deleting the communications of individuals unrelated to ongoing investigations.

The EFF notes that the court “faulted the FBI for failing to account ‘the possibility that overzealous or ill-intentioned personnel might be inclined to misuse information, if given the opportunity.’ As the court put it, ‘the advantage of minimization at the acquisition stage is clear. Information that is never acquired in the first place cannot be misused.’”

The surveillance court was originally created under the the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) in response to reports produced by the 1975 Church Committee. The Senate panel was tasked with investigating the foreign and domestic surveillance operations by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), NSA, and FBI during the 1970s. The Church Committee also released detailed reports on the governments Counter Intelligence Programs (COINTELPRO) that were used against activists and influential voices of opposition during the 1950s and ’60s.

These newly released documents offer the latest example of how the secret surveillance court is ripe for abuse. Although this example shows one judge working to maintain some level of accountability, the vast majority of the documents were redacted so there is no way to see if this case is the exception or the norm. Further, this court order is thirteen to fourteen years old. Take a moment to consider the massive growth of the U.S. surveillance state and the FISC specifically. There is simply no way to trust that this single judges effort to hold the federal government accountable represent the status quo.

Much of the issues surrounding the secret surveillance court related to Section 702 of the FISA bill. According the EFF, Section 702 “allows the NSA to collect emails, browser history and chat logs of Americans. Section 702 also allows other agencies, like the FBI, to search through that data without a warrant. Those searches are called ‘backdoor searches.’” As revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013, Section 702 also authorizes two Internet surveillance programs known as PRISM and Upstream.

PRISM gathers messaging data sent via Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and other tech companies, while Upstream taps into the so-called backbone of the Internet to gather data on targets. The NSA began collecting Americans’ international phone calls and emails without a warrant immediately after the 9/11 attacks as part of the Stellar Wind program. Once the public became aware of the program in 2008, Congress codified the program into law by passing section 702 of FISA.

The FISA Court is a glaring example of The Deep State. A secret court run by secret judges who interpret the law behind closed doors and who refuse to publicly release their findings or their interpretation.

By Derrick Broze / Republished with permission / Activist Post / Report a typo

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Zie ook: 'Volkskrant en Nieuwsuur Fake News over 'Russische hacks.....''

Via Artwave Art de volgende link: 'Hoe zit het precies met die 'sleepwet'? In deze vier podcasts leggen we het uit' (door de Volkskrant, dus let op en geloof vooral niet alles wat je verteld wordt, zo zouden wij ook voordelen hebben van de sleepwet..... ha! ha! ha! ha! Alsof ze je had eraf hakken en dan stellen dat je nu veel beter gebruik van je andere hand zal gaan maken....)

'Topgeheim' NSA document bewijst dat Syrische 'rebellen' worden aangestuurd door Saoedi-Arabië, met medeweten van VS.......

Ontving afgelopen maandag een artikel op Anti-Media, oorspronkelijk van Zero Hedge, waarin wordt aangetoond dat Saoedi-Arabië met medeweten van de VS, de 'gematigde rebellen'* aanstuurt en dat al vanaf het begin van de strijd, die tot nu toe meer dan een half miljoen slachtoffers heeft geeeist........

Oké het is in feite geen nieuws, daar ook uit o.a. documenten op Wikileaks al bleek dat de VS op de hoogte was van deze aansturing...... Sterker nog: zelfs de VS heeft terreurgroep IS van wapens voorzien en vervoerde o.a. leden van deze terreurgroep van Libië naar Syrië, om daar te vechten tegen het bewind en de bevolking.......

Ook is al langer bekend, dat S-A alle terreurgroepen in Syrië (behalve IS**), van geld en wapens voorziet.....

Ondanks dat en zoals al vaker op deze plek gesteld: hoe meer bewijs, hoe beter!

In het Zero Hegde artikel aandacht voor een aanval van het 'Vrije Syrische Leger' (Free Syrian Army >> FSA) op burgerdoelen in Damascus. De Saoedische prins Salman bin Sultan gaf deze terreurgroep opdracht om het vliegveld van Damascus plat te gooien en de stad te doen oplichten (met explosies van raketaanvallen). Bij die aanval is een groot aantal burgers omgekomen en hoewel de VS een paar dagen van te voren op de hoogte was van deze enorme oorlogsmisdaad, heeft het daar geen actie op ondernomen.......

Jammer dat ook in dit artikel het Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) wordt genoemd. Dit orgaan, gesitueerd in Engeland, bestond aanvankelijk uit 1 man, een gewezen misdadiger die Syrië ontvluchtte om veroordeling wegens begane misdaden te voorkomen...... Het SOHR heeft aantoonbaar een groot aantal valse berichten de wereld ingestuurd..... Ondanks dat omarmen het grootste deel van de westerse politici en de reguliere westerse (massa-) media dit orgaan, daar het zich verzet tegen de regering Assad, dat is tegenwoordig blijkbaar genoeg om alle leugens in 'westerse waarheid' om te toveren......

Lees dit verder prima artikel van Tyler Durden (en geeft het door!):

Top-Secret NSA Memo Proves Syrian Rebels Were Directed by Saudis — and the US Knew

October 24, 2017 at 8:22 pm
Written by Tyler Durden

(ZHE) — The Intercept has just released a new top-secret NSA document unearthed from leaked intelligence files provided by Edward Snowden which reveals in stunning clarity that the armed opposition in Syria was under the direct command of foreign governments from the early years of the war which has now claimed half a million lives.

The US intelligence memo – marked “Top Secret” – is arguably the most damning piece of evidence to date which gives internal US government confirmation of the direct role that both the Saudi and US governments played in fueling an armed insurgency which launched massive and well-coordinated attacks on civilians, civilian infrastructure, as well as military targets in pursuit of regime change. The NSA report is sourced to the intelligence agency’s controversial PRISM program – which gives the NSA the ability to sweep up all communications and data exchanged through major US internet service providers like Google. The memo focuses on events that unfolded outside Damascus in March of 2013.

One of the videos that Saudi-backed FSA fighters uploaded to YouTube identified by The Intercept as showing rockets launched on civilian areas of Damascus on March 18, 2013. US intelligence knew of the secret operation three days in advance yet did not stop it.  

According to the document, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) was ordered to “light up Damascus” and “flatten” the Syrian capital’s international airport by Prince Salman bin Sultan – a prominent member of the Saudi royal family tasked with overseeing operations in Syria as a top Saudi intelligence officer. The document further reveals that the “Saudis sent 120 tons of explosives/weapons to opposition forces” – presumably in the lead up to the operation.

The report not only confirms that the assault happened, but that the Saudi government was “very pleased” with the outcome: “Attacks against airport, Presidential palace and other locations occurred on 18 March,” the memo reads. Also significant is that the memo confirms US intelligence foreknowledge of the attack on a major civilian airport: “Reports gave U.S. three days warning about 18 March 2013 attacks (2 year anniversary of revolution).”

Prince Salman bin Sultan, who is currently the Saudi Deputy Defense Minister. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

According to The Intercept, various news reports from the time confirmed significant attacks and damage from FSA-fired rockets upon civilian areas. Not only is Damascus International Airport Syria’s main civilian transport hub – which was used by millions each year before the war – but it remained in daily operation for commercial flights in March 2013, when Saudi intelligence ordered the attacks with knowledge of US intelligence.

As The Intercept reports:

A number of videos posted by Syrian opposition media on the day of the attacks purport to show rebel fighters firing rockets at the same sites mentioned in the U.S. document. The March 2013 attacks in Damascus provide a concrete example of the role that foreign powers played in the day-to-day reality of the conflict. A number of videos posted by Syrian opposition media on the day of the attacks purport to show rebel fighters firing rockets at the same sites mentioned in the U.S. document. Local media reports from that day described an attack in which rockets struck within the areas of the presidential palace, a local government security branch, and the airport. A representative of the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights quoted in a story the next day reporting the attacks, stating that they were unable to confirm whether they resulted in casualties.

However, The Intercept’s commentary is inaccurate in claiming that the Syrian Observatory (SOHR) did not report casualties from the attack as one of the Arabic news sources it links to above (Middle East based Alwatan News), reports:

“The Free Syrian Army targeted Kafr Sousa [an area of Damascus near Mezzeh] and they fired 24 missiles on Damascus airport… 60 people died in yesterday’s attacks, according to the Syrian Observatory.” [as translated by Zero Hedge]

And intense attacks continued through April and into the summer of 2013 according to international media reports from the time, also confirmed by a photo circulated through the AFP*** showing civilian passengers waiting in airport lounges the month following the initial March 2013 rocket attacks.

While the Saudi-US role in fueling the jihadist insurgency from the earliest days of the war in Syria has long been thoroughly documented, this latest leaked NSA bombshell report provides astoundingly clear proof that the relationship between the anti-Assad insurgents and foreign intelligence was even more direct, and existed earlier in time than most analyst and mainstream pundits led the public to believe.

*****

Below is the leaked National Security Agency document published by The Intercept earlier today:

Leaked NSA document contents in text format:

By Tyler Durden / Republished with permission / Zero Hedge / Report a typo

==========================================

*   'Gematigde rebellen', lees: moordenaars, verkrachters en martelbeulen, in het westen opgehemeld als romantische rebellen die zich verzetten tegen een 'barbaarse dictator'. Terwijl de realiteit volkomen tegengesteld is aan deze leugens: de meerderheid van deze rebellen bezit niet eens de Syrische nationaliteit! Voorts is het Syrische bewind democratisch gekozen, door een overgrote meerderheid van de bevolking en dat in door internationale waarnemers als eerlijk beoordeelde verkiezingen!

**  Behalve IS, zijn alle terreurgroepen ('gematigde rebellen') in Syrië gelieerd aan Al Qaida!

*** AFP: Agence France-Presse.

Zie ook:
ISIL weapons traced to US and Saudi Arabia 

''Topgeheim' NSA document bewijst dat Syrische 'rebellen' worden aangestuurd door Saoedi-Arabië, met medeweten van VS.......' 

'VS steun voor terreurgroepen IS (ISIS) en Al Qaida tot november 2018'

Google censuur en toch echt nieuws volgen? Gebruik een andere browser naast die van Google, of dump Google helemaal!!

Whitney Webb publiceerde op 25 augustus jl. een artikel op MintPress News, een bericht over het nieuwe censuur beleid van Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft en Twitter.

Webb geeft in het artikel de alternatieven waarmee je de censoren en geheime onderzoekers (geheime diensten) van de overheid en het bedrijfsleven kan omzeilen, zo kan u uw eigen 'Virtual Private Network' (VPN) opzetten, waarmee u zelfs uw IP-adres geheim kan houden.

Google heeft de laatste maanden diverse onafhankelijke mediaorganen geblokkeerd, die niet het algemene westerse politieke (neoliberale) beleid volgen en zich verzetten tegen de enorme berg leugens in de reguliere westerse massamedia......... Google en anderen doen dit in de strijd tegen 'fake news', waarbij men voor het gemak even vergeet dat vooral diezelfde massamedia verantwoordelijk zijn voor het brengen van nepnieuws, ofwel 'fake news..........' Anders gezegd: Google verzet zich tegen 'fake news', door juist de alternatieve media te blokkeren, die ditzelfde 'fake news' dag in dag uit aan de paal nagelen!!

'Fake news' (of nepnieuws zo je wilt) in de westerse massamedia >> neem de berichtgeving voor en tijdens de illegale oorlogen tegen: Afghanistan, Irak, Libie en nu weer Syrië........ Om over het tot voor kort lange zwijgen door die media over de oorlog tegen Jemen nog maar te zwijgen... (wat ik nu dus niet doe..) De smerige oorlog en genocide die de reli-fascistische dictatuur van Saoedi-Arabië tegen de sjiitische bevolking van Jemen voert/uitvoert, dit met behulp van een arabische coalitie, aangevuld met de hulp van de VS en Groot-Brittannië....... (en met de stilzwijgende goedkeuring die de meerderheid van westerse politici, als de mislukte PvdA sierkwast Koenders, aan deze oorlog en genocide geven..... Die goedkeuring geven ze door te zwijgen!)

Of wat dacht je van de totaal foute en valse berichtgeving in de westerse massamedia t.a.v. de fascistische apartheidsstaat Israël......

Hier het bewuste artikel van Webb dat ik overnam van Anti-Media, doe er je voordeel mee!

Your Guide to Avoiding Internet Censorship of Independent News Journalism

August 25, 2017 at 10:43 am

Written by Whitney Webb

There are lots of good strategies for beating both corporate and government Internet censors and snoops. These range from alternatives to Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter — to direct subscriptions to authors and pubs — to setting up your own VPN. All are worth the effort.

(MPN) — While Google’s Information Age dominance has long been recognized to have some unsavory consequences, the massive technology corporation has, in recent months, taken to directly censoring content and traffic to a variety of independent media outlets across the political spectrum — essentially muting the voices of any site or author who does not toe the establishment line.

This new offensive has coincided with Google efforts to clamp down on “fake news” and “extremist” content, which – on its subsidiary, YouTube – led to the categorical blocking of videos portraying war crimes and other disturbing events of the Syrian conflict and Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Other independent media figures, such as Luke Rudowski and Carey Wedler, on the popular video streaming service, saw many of their videos demonetized.

Though the crackdown on YouTube was more obvious, the Google search engine – the most popular in the world – is now burying or blocking independent media sites from its search results.

Conservatives have long claimed that Google was selectively targeting their content due to the personal political bias of the company’s executives — but now, since Google announced its new guidelines, numerous progressive, transparency, and anti-war websites that act as watchdogs to the establishment have seen their traffic diminish substantially.

Counterpunch, World Socialist Website, MintPress News, Democracy Now, American Civil Liberties Union and Wikileaks are just a handful of the sites that have seen massive drops in their returns from Google searches. The World Socialist Website alone experienced a 67 percent decrease in returns from Google following the implementation of Google’s new algorithm targeting so-called “fake news.” MintPress News, however, has suffered the steepest decline, having seen a 76 percent decrease in traffic from Google since the new algorithm was put into effect.

WikiLeaks‏Verified account @wikileaks

Why has Google changed its search system to push down publications (left & right) critical of Washington DC? https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/09/google-censors-block-access-to-counterpunch-and-other-progressive-sites/ …

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Google has its reasons for choosing to censor viewpoints that clash with or even raise questions about the official narrative. Google shares deep connections with the U.S.’ political powerbrokers, notably with the CIA, which originally helped fund Google into existence with the intention of controlling the flow of information.

Understandably — in light of its deep connections to those who stand the most to lose from the actual free flow of information — Google has emerged as a leader of the “fight” against so-called “fake news.” The concept of “fake news” took on sudden weight following last November’s U.S. presidential election: in the tweets and rants of newly-elected President Donald Trump, media predictions of a Clinton victory were ridiculed as “FAKE NEWS,” while Clinton supporters also wound up blaming “fake news” for Clinton’s loss in the election.

In short order, the term became a term of derision and dismissal applied to any and all disagreeable reporting. With the “fake news” net cast so wide, the ground was fertile for a campaign against the official story-challenging work of independent media — dependent for its reach, to a far greater extent than its mainstream media counterparts, upon the good graces of monster Internet traffic cops such as Google.

The following guide offers a variety of solutions and options for those concerned with Google’s overreach and its decision to become the Internet’s unelected “Ministry of Truth.”

Dumping Google Search

Dominating over 80% of global searches made on the Internet, Google’s chokehold on the flow of information is undeniable. Now that its algorithm has been shown to target news sites critical of the establishment on both sides of the aisle, finding an alternative becomes an essential task irrespective of one’s political leaning.

However, don’t expect other brand name search engines like Microsoft’s Bing or Yahoo to come to the rescue, as these too have been caught censoring search results in the past. Microsoft, in particular, is very untrustworthy, given its eager participation in the NSA’s PRISM surveillance program — where it illegally shared the Internet user data, including search queries, of U.S. citizens without their knowledge.

Given its willingness to cooperate with the government against the interest of American citizens, Microsoft would be perhaps more willing even than Google to censor access to so-called “fake news.”

Yahoo is little better, as it too was an early adopter of the PRISM surveillance program, second only to Microsoft. Like Microsoft, they willingly cooperate with government censorship efforts – as well as the outing of dissidents – in other countries.

Thankfully, as far as search engines go, there are other options available that not only respect your privacy but also offer fairer searches, including some features that even Google doesn’t offer.

DuckDuckGo

Of all the viable Google alternatives, DuckDuckGo is the most well-known, having been promoted by PCMag.com, the Guardian, and The New York Times as a “long-term” threat to Google’s search dominance. It was even one of the top 50 sites of 2011, according to Time magazine.

However, the “mainstream” accolades are, in this case, well-deserved. DuckDuckGo is best known for its motto “the search engine that doesn’t track you,” complete with Tor browser functionality. While this is a clear boon for privacy enthusiasts – or anyone concerned about illegal NSA spying – it also results in search results that are not filtered based on your search history. In other words, users are more likely to be presented with search results that challenge their existing ideas.

DuckDuckGo also boasts an impressive search algorithm that excludes Google results but includes results from other well-known search engines, mixed with the data obtained by DuckDuckGo’s own web crawler bot. The results are filtered for spam and re-ordered using its trademark “Instant Answers” platform, which places high-quality answers above other results and advertisements. The “Instant Answers” platform gathers answers provided by top popular websites, like Wikipedia, in addition to community-built answers.

For those tech-savvy users who don’t trust the spam filtering or even the “Instant Answer” platform, these functions — as well as DuckDuckGo itself — is open-source and also offers DuckDuckHack, where users can create their own plug-ins for use in DuckDuckGo and even help improve the search engine overall.

For less savvy tech users, DuckDuckGo conveniently functions like any other search engine, in addition to providing several features even Google doesn’t offer. It also has a search app for both iPhone and Android, as well as plug-ins for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, and offers support in several languages.

Ixquick/StartPage

Ixquick is an American/Dutch meta-search engine, meaning it simultaneously searches multiple databases and other search engines, including Google, across the Internet. It uses a “star system” to rank search results, placing a star next to each result for every search engine that ranks that result as one of its 10 best for a given search. A five-star result, for example, means that five search engines considered that result to be among the 10 most relevant.

Ixquick — which has now merged with its subsidiary, StartPage — also tackles the issue of privacy by not storing user-specific details such as cookies or past search results. Like DuckDuckGo, Ixquick offers unfiltered search results generated by Google’s “personalized” searches. Privacy enthusiasts may recognize Ixquick as the default search engine for the Tor browser.

Ixquick is supported in 17 languages and offers a plug-in for Mozilla Firefox. They also offer a privacy-minded, encrypted email server called StartMail.

Gibiru

Gibiru, like the aforementioned search engines, prides itself on offering maximum privacy. It avoids tracking its users by providing anonymous and encrypted searches. It describes itself as “the preferred Search Engine for Patriots” and offers non-personalized, anonymous web results while emphasizing the disdain of its developers for the NSA. Part of what sets Gibiru apart is its claim to offer “uncensored” searches, as their web crawlers intentionally include pages that Google has blocked or buried in its search results.

Gibiru also has a unique feature called “Uncensored News.” In addition to aggregating results from other search engines, Gibiru adds its own algorithm that specifically looks for results from independent media outlets, particularly those that tend to “promote ‘alternative’ views from the mainstream.”

Recognizing that mainstream media results are picked up by Google and Bing, Gibiru does not use its bandwidth searching through these results. Even up-and-coming independent media sites can gain inclusion in Uncensored News results by communicating with the Gibiru team.

Gibiru offers both a toolbar and a plugin for Mozilla Firefox.

Subscribe directly to your favorite pages

Though the above search engines can assist in more accurate and less censored internet searches, the best way to get news you trust is directly from the source. Anyone who reads independent media eventually develops preferences for certain sites and authors whose content they consistently find reliable and interesting.

If you are concerned with Google’s clampdown on independent media, the most surefire way to ensure your access to the sites you enjoy is by subscribing directly to them via email. Most independent media pages offer you the option to subscribe to their mailing lists, where you receive their top stories on a daily basis. Some pages charge for subscriptions, but most – such as MintPress News’ Daily Digest – are free and allow you to unsubscribe at any time. Some websites, including MintPress, also offer apps for Android or iPhone, which allow users direct and convenient access to the content of those pages.

If you are concerned that all of the newsletters and stories of the pages you want to follow will clutter your email, there are several good options. Some mail servers allow you to label certain types of incoming mail, and creating a specific label for “news” can streamline the process of following all of your favorite pages in one place. Alternatively, you can create an email account dedicated to news in order to keep it separate from email accounts more focused on work or socializing.

In some cases, however, your favorite writers may not regularly publish in the same place, making their work difficult to follow via email subscription. Many authors have either their own web pages dedicated to their work or publish on websites such as Medium — a site offering both free and premium membership options, that hosts the writings of many big names in independent news from across the political spectrum.

Signing up for Medium allows you to follow any writer you like, even mainstream ones – a boon, for instance, if you like a certain writer at, say, The Wall Street Journal but don’t trust the paper as a whole. Certain popular writers in independent media — such Nafeez Ahmed’s Insurge Intelligence — even publish some of their biggest stories exclusively on Medium.

Dump social media for news

Facebook’s moderation system, which combines an automated flagging system with limited human oversight, has consistently drawn criticism, once banning a satirical account which criticized U.S. military spending.(AP/Czarek Sokolowski)

Though some may value their Facebook account for keeping in touch with friends and family, the social media giant is quickly becoming unreliable for receiving news content posted by your friends as well as the people or pages you follow. Facebook and Twitter have each been caught censoring on several occasions and both now openly patrol for “fake news” and “hate speech” — burying stories that users would otherwise see, based on the recommendations of Facebook or Twitter-approved flaggers. Many of these flaggers have been found to publish “fake news” themselves or have a strong bias against particular viewpoints, particularly those critical of conservative politics.

Just as with Google, Facebook and Twitter users can no longer be sure that their newsfeeds contain the news they want to read, just as content creators and publishers can no longer expect the same scope and reach they once enjoyed on social media.

Unfortunately, the alternatives to Facebook and Twitter are few and lack the large user communities that make a social network successful. However, there are two notable sites that are attempting to change that.

One of those sites is Steemit. Steemit is a social media platform that runs a blogging and social network website built on top of a blockchain database. Steemit now boasts a decently sized community, though it hardly compares to Facebook in terms of daily users. Part of its success has been due to the site’s commitment to paying users for creating and curating popular content on the site. Per the site’s system, users receive digital points (“Steem”) depending on the success of their posts, which they can exchange for more tangible rewards or payment via online exchanges. With $1 of Steem now worth just over $4 USD, some people have found using Steemit to be both socially and economically beneficial.

Another potential Facebook competitor is Minds — an open source, encrypted, and community-owned social network site that values free speech and doesn’t bow to government or advertiser pressure. It hosts individual user profiles and blogs and creates an unfiltered newsfeed for its users.

Members can even be paid for posting their content if it garners a significant number of views and upvotes. Although at present the Minds community is tiny compared to that of Facebook, it may in years to come become a more popular alternative, as Facebook continues to disappoint.

Avoiding outright censorship if and when It happens

While censorship has long been a reality in countries like China, Western governments like to tout themselves as being the guardians of freedom and the free flow of information. But many of these governments, particularly the United States, have come to realize in recent years that they are on the losing side of the “information war,” as trust in the corporate-owned media and the government itself has sunk to historic lows.

Though Western governments have, so far, outsourced censorship to technology companies like Google and Facebook, there is little reason to believe that these governments will refrain from demanding the outright censorship of information that doesn’t toe the official line.

Take, for example, the recent rhetoric of U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May who, in the wake of the Manchester bombing, has pushed for censoring “extremist propaganda” online. May’s assertion concerned internet watchdog groups, who likened her proposals to China’s widespread censorship of the Internet.

If official government censorship comes to your country – or if you suspect that it is already there – the easiest workaround is setting up a virtual private network, or VPN. A VPN allows you to use your computer as though it were connected to a network other than the one you actually use. In the event of government censorship in your country, a VPN allows you to virtually connect to a network set up in another country where such censorship is not in effect. Using a VPN has the added bonus of greater Internet privacy — as effective VPN protocols encrypt your traffic, helping to protect you from government surveillance as well as censorship.

VPNs are provided by VPN service providers, not all of whom are created equal. VPN providers with good reputations include Strong VPN, SurfEasy, and TunnelBear.  Of these, TunnelBear is the least expensive – offering a free service – and SurfEasy the most expensive at $11.99 per month. However, the Opera browser now includes SurfEasy’s VPN services for free. A comprehensive guide on how to choose the best VPN service provider for your needs can be found here.

By Whitney Webb / Creative Commons / MintPress News / Report a typo
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Zie ook: 
'Google manipuleerde VS presidentsverkiezingen van 2016 en censureert niet alleen linkse/alternatieve sociale media'

'Facebook stelt perstituee van New York Times aan als censuur-agent...... ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!'


'May, premier GB, wil als reactie op de aanslagen in Londen en Manchester, de mensenrechten buiten werking stellen en censuur op het internet doorvoeren..........'


'Boris Johnson wil (sociale) media controleren en censureren.......'


'Washington Post medewerkers is verboden grote adverteerders te bekritiseren..... Of hoe miljonairs en miljardairs de voorheen onafhankelijk pers beheren'

'Censuur teistert het internet: video over aanslag Las Vegas verwijderd door YouTube.............'