Originally appeared at ZeroHedge
On the evening before National Security Advisor John Bolton reiterated that “all options [including, presumably, military intervention] are on the table” regarding the situation in Venezuela, Twitter announced that it had joined the US-backed coup by taking down 2,000 accounts that it said were engaged in a “state-backed influence campaign”, according to RT.
In a blog post, Twitter said it removed 1,196 accounts located in Venezuela which it deemed to “appear to be engaged in a state-backed influence campaign targeting domestic audiences.” The company also removed another 764 accounts, but said “we are unable to definitively tie the accounts located in Venezuela to information operations of a foreign government against another country.”
The purge was part of a crackdown on “foreign information operations”, which also serves as a resource for researchers hoping to investigate these operations. In the post, Twitter announced that it was adding five new sets of account sets to its archive of foreign influence campaigns.
Twitter has removed 764 accounts located in Venezuela. We are unable to definitively tie the accounts located in Venezuela to information operations of a foreign government against another country. However, these accounts are another example of a foreign campaign of spammy content focused on divisive political themes, and the behavior we uncovered is similar to that utilized by potential Russian IRA accounts. We are disclosing them out of an abundance of caution and welcome the feedback of researchers.
Additionally, we have removed 1,196 accounts located in Venezuela which appear to be engaged in a state-backed influence campaign targeting domestic audiences. We have shared information on these accounts with our industry peers, and continue to investigate malicious activity originating in Venezuela, both targeting audiences with in Venezuela and abroad.
Abby Martin, host of YouTube series Empire Files, lamented that amid Twitter censorship of pro-government supporters, “pro-coup Venezuelans and right-wing exiles dominate the media sphere.”
While pro-coup Venezuelans & right-wing exiles dominate the media sphere, tech companies are actively censoring pro-government accounts they say are working to "influence" people https://t.co/AEfKmHhl1w
— Abby Martin (@AbbyMartin) January 31, 2019
While at least one independent journalist accused Twitter of acting as an “extension” of the US government.
Twitter is now removing thousands of accounts supposedly linked to Venezuela's sovereign government.
This comes after Twitter suspended Venezuelan government accounts 1.5 years ago.
Social media corporations act as an extension of US government interestshttps://t.co/AVoF3vNAIa
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 31, 2019
And another journalist highlighted Twitter’s caveat that the company wasn’t able to “definitively tie” the accounts to the Maduro regime, meaning that some pro-Maduro Venezuelans with no ties to the government may have found their accounts eliminated.
Amazing how one dataset is Venezuela, just days after US set a coup into motion against its government. As usual, the caveat is buried: “We are unable to definitively tie the accounts located in Venezuela to information operations of a foreign government against another country.” https://t.co/8Krx9E1YDu
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) January 31, 2019
Of course, this isn’t the first time Twitter has cracked down on pro-government Twitter accounts. In September, Twitter suspended the official account of the Venezuelan government’s press team, reportedly without giving any explanation. In an interesting twist on a punitive technique often employed against conservatives, Twitter and several other US social media companies also removed the “verified” labels from accounts belonging to Maduro.
But of course anybody who questions Twitter’s commitment to open expression is a bigot – and probably a Nazi.
This is how it rolls now. Nothing new here. People talk of freedom and personal choice but, there is really very little of that in action. They will not change. The price of this going into the future is, that Twitter and the like will have no friends. When a new tech, possibly derived form people way out of control from the Occidental companies and influences rise to replace Twitter and the like, there will be boo whoing over not only the loss to shareholders but, a loss of ‘freedom ‘. The joke is en route. The internet in the 90s was about doing and saying what you wanted. Now it is about doing what is deemed ‘cool’ or socially acceptable.
The game is getting stale. However, change is always in motion. Twitter I never used. I could care less about the platform. It’s just another piece of software that will head into the same fate, as so many others, which is into oblivion. It’s a leftover from a time when the US truly dominated cyberspace in the 1990s. Today is Feb. 2019. My take. Don’t let these fools et to you. Their replacements are already at their desks and working for them. ;)
All major tech companies have been coopted by Uncle Sam. When is China and Russia going to pull its finger out and have English-language platforms? It allowed live journal to die. How stupid!
they dont want their populations mass polluted, by west and their users. Back in 1990 when we close the deal with the chinese to produce our computers and monitors, we make a lot of offers to them for establishing english platforms within china and they refused flat and that was the reasoning they have given us. If that reasoning still stands I dont know.
Makes sense. Look how our society has been destroyed by Globalism and neo- liberal Economics American-style.
If I know anything about the Chinese, then spending their money and energy to do something for those small countries who still communicate in English is not at the top of their list. Plus, frankly speaking, the English language is not their forte. But they saw much of this coming, and simply denied these unofficial branches of the US Govt access to the Chinese market. Partly as a result of this, Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba etc are now among the largest, and most successful, internet companies anywhere.
Now all of this is heavily monitored by the Chinese Govt so it’s far from ideal. But compare it to oh-so-advanced Europe, lying at the feet of the Dark Throne, submissive like a doggie. Its population only gets jewish news from across the Channel and across the Atlantic; since their intel agencies are also fully suborned, neither the cattle nor the EU governments even know what is true any more.
I could not agree with you more. An excellent synopsis of how the world is currently.
The internet had the potential to free us all and then the usual suspects got their dirty hands on it to enslave us more than ever. A disgrace!
I found the (((usual))) suspects fingerprints all over this crime scene by the way. https://dailystormer.name/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/jewish-fingerprint.jpg
Well the Internet has freed us, if the US had its way, this site would be blocked, along with all sites that dare to question American wisdom and power.
Yes the empire is fighting back, but they are losing.
I never understood the idiots who support twitter and facebook that allegedly fighting against globalization but go there and tell everything about their lives and put it on record for all to see and follow. Common sense seem to have taken its leave from humans.
lol
Freedom of speach American way.
In any future war the resistance against our slave-masters must not only target enemy bases, but also Google, Servers, CIA-Facebook, Twitter and their servers in the arctic as well. Once these monopolies are disabled, then humans will begin to regain conciseness again. https://www.hackread.com/