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Meta Is Aggressively Censoring Criticism Of US-Israeli Warmongering

Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 07, 2024

I am at risk of getting banned from both Instagram and Facebook as both Meta-owned platforms keep censoring my criticisms of Israel’s US-backed atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon, placing strikes on my accounts in the process.

Both Facebook and Instagram have deleted screenshots of a post I made on Twitter (or whatever you call it now) which reads as follows:

Iran is not my enemy. Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis are not my enemies. My enemies are the western imperialists and their Israeli partners in crime who are inflicting a waking nightmare upon the middle east and working to start a massive new war of unfathomable horror.

In the reasons given for this censorship, both Facebook and Instagram said “It looks like you shared symbols, praise or support of people and organizations we define as dangerous, or followed them.”

My appeals against this removal have been denied, saying the post “does not follow our Community Standards on dangerous individuals and organisations.”

Hours later, Instagram removed a second post citing the same reasons, this one about Lebanon and Hezbollah. It was two screenshots from a longer Twitter post which reads as follows:

Hezbollah are just Lebanese people. There’s this framing of “liberating Lebanon from Hezbollah” like they’re some kind of invasive, alien presence, when they’re an entirely native fighting force organically arising from the injustices and abuses inflicted by Israel and the west.

The imperial spin machine always does this. The empire uses narrative to try and de-couple the people it wants to kill from the rest of the population in the nation they are targeting in order to legitimize the violence they want to inflict upon the country. They want to take out a certain government or element within a nation that conflicts with their interests, so they start babbling about “terrorists” or “evil dictators” or “regimes” in order to make it seem like they’re not just attacking a country and murdering people who disobey them.

If they can uncouple a nation from the people in that nation who they want to kill in the eyes of the public, then they can portray that killing as a heroic act of liberation from a force which doesn’t belong there. If they can get you to believe that, then they can get you to believe they’re killing people for the benefit of the nation they’re attacking, instead of for their own benefit.

It’s literally always solely and exclusively for their own benefit, though. It’s literally always a lie.

As you can see, both of these posts are just criticisms of the foreign policy of the United States, the nation where Meta is based. Meta has an extensive history of working hand in glove with the US government to regulate speech.

This is indistinct from government censorship. If the US government designates its enemies as “terrorists” and massive Silicon Valley platforms are censoring criticism of US wars against those enemies in order to be in compliance with US law, then the US government is just censoring speech which criticizes US warmongering, using a corporate proxy in Silicon Valley.

Meta has been ramping up censorship of speech that’s critical of Israel and its US-backed atrocities for a while now, with a sharp increase that was anecdotally noticeable immediately after the company announced back in July that it would be instituting vague new censorship protocols against the word “Zionism”. After that move, critics of US foreign policy like Aaron Maté, Jonathan Cook, and Tadhg Hickey began reporting that their posts about Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza were being unexpectedly taken down on Facebook. 

I also had one of my articles which was critical of Israel removed from Facebook in July, which the platform refused to reinstate. This followed other acts of censorship that Facebook has been imposing on my account since last October, all for my criticisms of Israel’s US-backed atrocities in Gaza. 

Last November Facebook deleted a Twitter screenshot from my page which read, “You don’t understand man, Hamas uses human shields. Really really advanced human shields, the kind where there aren’t even any Hamas members anywhere near them. It’s just 100% human shield with 0% combatant, the most secure kind of shield there is.”…………………………………………………………………………

I think it’s important to document all this in detail because Meta is such a massive tool of US imperial narrative control. Facebook has a staggering three billion users worldwide, and Instagram has two billion. It’s impossible to overstate the impact that censoring speech in a pro-US direction will have on worldwide human communication.

From my earliest days at this gig I’ve been making a point of forcefully criticizing the world’s mightiest and most tyrannical power structure and then documenting the various ways the imperial narrative managers have worked to diminish my reach. I’ve been algorithmically throttled on Facebook since 2017, I’ve been permanently banned on TikTok and keep encountering censorship there under my new account, and I was even banned from Twitter until some commentators with larger voices than my own intervened on my behalf. 

Whoever controls the narrative controls the world, and the manipulation of information on the internet is a major agenda of the US-centralized empire toward that end. These pricks won’t be happy until we’re all a bunch of mindless, bleating sheep.  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/meta-is-aggressively-censoring-criticism?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=149899947&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

October 7, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | media | Leave a comment

Media Urge Expansion of Ukraine War—Nuclear Risk Be Damned

Julie Hollar, 3 Oct 24,  https://fair.org/home/media-urge-expansion-of-ukraine-war-nuclear-risk-be-damned/

Ukraine has for months been asking the Biden administration for permission to use long-range US, British and French weapons to strike deeper in Russian territory, which would be a clear escalation in the war. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the move would cross a red line for him, and recently announced that he was loosening Russia’s nuclear doctrine for using nuclear weapons.

Despite the risks of such escalation—and a lack of evidence that it would shift the war in Ukraine’s favor—Biden’s public reluctance to loosen his limits has been met in the war-hungry media primarily with derision.

Lowering the bar

The US, Britain and France have all supplied Ukraine with long-range missiles, including Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS). But Biden has thus far limited their use to border areas. Britain and France are following Biden’s lead on range limitations.

Last month, in response to further advances by Russia into Ukraine, Ukraine launched a surprise invasion into Russian territory in Kursk. Since then, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pressed the US for more and longer-range missiles, Putin has increasingly raised the specter of nuclear retaliation.

Under its 2020 nuclear doctrine, Russia could respond with nuclear strikes to nuclear or conventional attacks it deemed a “threat to its existence,” if they came from a nuclear power. His new doctrine lowers the bar, so that a “critical attack” on Russia carried out with the “participation or support of a nuclear power” would be grounds for launching a nuclear response—including against the supporting power.

In other words, if Ukraine used long-range missiles supplied by a NATO power to launch an attack on Russia that it deemed “critical,” Putin could respond with a nuclear strike, against either Ukraine or against that NATO country.

Dismissing the nuclear risk

In the opinion pages of US corporate media, the risk of nuclear war or other retaliation by Putin was quickly dismissed, as outlets pressed Biden for further escalation.

The Washington Post editorial board (9/22/24) urged Biden to acquiesce to Zelenskyy under the headline, “Ukraine Needs Long-Range Missiles Before Winter’s Onset.” The board argued that since Putin has issued “red lines” in the past that could prompt nuclear war, and “has not followed through on his threats,” therefore –

there’s no reason to think now he would risk a wider war with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization at a time when his forces are already severely depleted.

The board suggested that Putin is more likely to “align himself with Iran or its proxies to strike at US forces in the Middle East.” Though it deemed that “a risk worth weighing,” it didn’t discuss it any further. It concluded: “Mr. Biden needs to give permission and set the ground rules quickly.”

Politico editor-at-large Matthew Kaminski (9/18/24) called Zelenskyy’s request “a fair ask.” He made a similar argument to the Post editors that Putin’s “threatening noises” after each “allegedly escalatory step” from the US never turn into actions.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board (8/28/24) simply dismissed worries of escalation out of hand:

The Biden administration fears Mr. Putin might escalate his war if Ukraine puts more of his military at risk, but the war isn’t winding down. Ukraine has been attacking Russian targets with domestically produced drones, and on Sunday President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the “first successful combat use of our new weapon—a Ukrainian long-range rocket drone” designed “to destroy the enemy’s offensive potential.”

The Hill published a column by Joseph Bosco (10/1/24) that sneered, “Biden is clearly intimidated by Putin’s threats of retaliation, as stated again last week regarding Zelenskyy’s request for longer strike authority.” Apparently readers were supposed to just dismiss those threats, because Bosco didn’t even try to make an argument about them.

Barely bothering to justify

When it came time to justify the escalation, pundits seemed content to make noises about the need for victory, barely bothering to offer actual arguments about why long-range missiles in particular would achieve that goal.

The Journal editors wrote that Biden’s “latest bad excuse” for not giving Zelenskyy what he wants “is that such strikes wouldn’t make much of a difference.” They cited the neoconservative, military industry–funded Institute for the Study of War, which suggested that even if Russia has already moved 90% of its military aircraft out of reach of those missiles, as Biden officials argued, there were plenty of other things a trigger-happy military could hit. The Journal concluded with the vague claim that “the US can strengthen Ukraine’s position and make negotiations to end the war more likely.”

The Post also cited the ISW, and wrote weakly that the long-range missiles “could” hit Russian “arms depots, air fields and military bases,” which “perhaps…might force Mr. Putin to draw back his deadly cache further from Ukraine’s borders.”

Politico‘s Kaminski simply argued that Ukrainians need “a morale and momentum shift,” and “lowering the restrictions on missile use could help.”

Dubious experts

Establishment media’s news sections were sometimes little better than their opinion sections. The New York Times (9/12/24) splashed on its front page an article about the pressure on Biden to give Ukraine the green light that suggested a growing consensus among experts that Biden’s reluctance is nonsensical:

To a growing number of military analysts and former US officials, the administration’s reticence makes no sense, especially since, they say, Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk has yet to elicit an escalatory response from Moscow.

“Easing the restrictions on Western weapons will not cause Moscow to escalate,” 17 former ambassadors and generals wrote in a letter to the administration this week. “We know this because Ukraine is already striking territory Russia considers its own—including Crimea and Kursk—with these weapons and Moscow’s response remains unchanged.”

Two weeks later—and buried on page 9—the Times (9/26/24) reported quite a different story:

US intelligence agencies believe that Russia is likely to retaliate with greater force against the United States and its coalition partners, possibly with lethal attacks, if they agree to give the Ukrainians permission to employ US-, British- and French-supplied long-range missiles for strikes deep inside Russia, US officials said.

The intelligence assessment, which has not been previously reported, also plays down the effect that the long-range missiles will have on the course of the conflict, because the Ukrainians currently have limited numbers of the weapons and it is unclear how many more, if any, the Western allies might provide.

‘Silver bullet or powder keg’?

The same day, a USA Today headline (9/26/24) read, “Why Long-Range Missiles Could Be Either a Silver Bullet or a Powder Keg for Ukraine/Russia War.” The promised “silver bullet” never fully materialized in the text, but the paper’s sole quoted source—who was given several paragraphs—skewed the article entirely in that direction.

That source was Fred Kagan of the neoconservative, military industry–funded American Enterprise Institute. Kagan is also affiliated with the Institute for the Study of War (which was founded by his wife, Kimberly Kagan) and was an influential proponent of “surges” in both Iraq and Afghanistan—in other words, he’s about as hawkish as they come.

Under the subhead, “How the weapons could help Ukraine fight Russia,” the paper quoted Kagan explaining that long-range missile strikes could “reduce the effectiveness of Russian military action.” It also paraphrased an anonymous “senior Defense official” who, unlike their administration, seemed to favor the move, noting that one “strategic effect” would be that “the war would drag on even longer.” (The official presented this as a positive development, in that it would force Moscow to “to reconsider its costs.”)

USA Today also gave Kagan the last word, to argue that Putin’s threats are “hollow”:

“The burden thus far has been put on those advocating for allowing Ukraine to strike legitimate military targets in Russia,” Kagan said. “But I think the burden really needs to shift now to those who say that some fear of an unspecified escalation should continue to cause us to hold the Ukrainians back.”

Contrary opinions hard to find

It’s been hard to find voices calling for restraint in major corporate media—with a few notable exceptions. One came in a Hill column (9/17/24) under a byline shared by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Donald Trump, Jr. They warned that “nuclear war would mean the end of civilization as we know it, maybe even the end of the human species.” The op-ed took the opportunity to plug candidate Donald Trump as the one “who has vowed to end this war.”

Trump, of course, argued in his televised debate with Kamala Harris that “we’re playing with World War III” in Ukraine. What he and his Hill proxies neglected to mention is that Trump, while in office, pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with Russia, both of which greatly increased the likelihood of nuclear war or “World War III.”

Another pro-restraint take came from longtime Post columnist David Ignatius, who just over a year ago reported being compelled by Ukraine’s “moral argument” for using cluster bombs (FAIR.org, 7/8/23). Ignatius (9/30/24) struck a markedly less hawkish tone recently, writing that “the Ukraine conflict is probably as close as we’ve come to the brink of all-out superpower war since the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis.” He concluded: “We’re very lucky, on balance, that [Biden] doesn’t play a reckless game.”

Otherwise, one mostly had to look to outlets in the tank for Trump, or independent outlets like the Nation (9/18/24) and Current Affairs (9/25/24), for skepticism of military escalation.

As Current Affairs‘ Nathan Robinson points out, even if Biden resists the pressure,

with the foreign policy “blob” so willing to risk all of our lives, the next president, whether Trump or Harris, may well be less resistant to the pressures that push presidents toward taking extraordinarily risky gambles that imperil all of humanity.

We could sure use a media more skeptical of that blob, rather than one that gleefully joins in.

October 5, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | media | Leave a comment

Nuclear horror still haunts us Threads tapped into our fear of apocalypse

Unherd 23rd Sept 2024 Paul Heron, September 23, 2024

On 13 September, Vladimir Putin issued a sobering threat. If Ukraine used Nato-supplied missiles against targets deep inside Russia, the president warned, the alliance would be  “directly participating in the conflict” — and the US and its allies would be “fighting with Russia”. Putin’s comments echoed another threat, two years ago, when he drew several ”red lines” for Nato, adding that he was prepared to use nuclear weapons if they were crossed.

Here, then, we have the one of the least welcome developments of the 2020s: the return, after decades of absence, of the terrible spectre of nuclear war. And for those old enough to remember what it was like the first time round — or for their children who’ve watched the clips on YouTube — surely the most disturbing example of what atomic catastrophe might actually look like was first broadcast 40 years ago today. Shown by BBC Two on 23 September 1984, Threads is more horrifying and urgent than ever.

The scenario imagined in Threads is troublingly familiar. After an American-backed coup in a strategically important nation — in this case Iran — the Soviets invade. The US then moves to deploy troops. In unemployment-hit Sheffield, meanwhile, ordinary life goes on. A young couple prepares to become parents. The husband’s middle-aged father has been laid off; his redundancy money will go toward the renovation of the family’s home. Elsewhere, the local council is quietly making preparations in the event of war. Sheffield’s size, and the proximity of RAF Finningley, make the South Yorkshire town a prime target.

It is, by common consent, one of the darkest films ever made. There’s a disturbing sense of logical inevitability about the way the world moves step-by-step toward the precipice. The attack, when it comes, is unflinching, unsentimental and horrifyingly believable.

Writer Barry Hines — best-known for his novel A Kestrel for a Knave  — sketches his native milieu with deft assurance. Hines, who died in 2016, was from the mining village of Hoyland, just outside Sheffield. In his career, he often focused on Northern England’s working class, and Threads is no different. As the Iran crisis escalates, for instance, we see protesters taking to the streets in a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament march (most of the film’s actors were in fact CND members). Days later, there’s a moment of black humour when a speaker at a much more fraught protest calls for a general strike, as if that could have any effect whatsoever. It’s tempting to read the scene as a subtle comment on the eclipse of traditional Left politics in the age of Thatcherism.

Indeed, the whole film takes on added depth when viewed within that context: I think the film’s darkness has its roots not simply in the terrifying subject matter, but also in the broader political context of the Eighties. ………………………………………………………………………………..

Yet more than its narrator, it’s surely the denouement of Threads that makes it so enduring. When, after ratcheting up the tension, we’re finally shown the actual bombing, it is genuinely frightening. There are no heroics, only suffering and death, either instantaneous or slow. Later, the nuclear exchange having run its course, a stark computer readout informs us that 3,000 megatons have been exploded globally, with 210 falling on Britain. Needless to say, the film’s second half isn’t easy to watch. Threads explores severals aspects of desperate postwar life: the hazards of radiation; the search for loved ones in the ruins; shortages of food and water; the collapse of law and order; the shooting of looters; the impossibility of treating the multitudes of sick and injured; the coming of nuclear winter. Just as powerful is the film’s final minutes, which shows the world years after the bombs have fallen. Almost everyone seems to be under eighteen, the clear implication being that no one lives very long anymore. Technology is at near-medieval levels.

This wretched narrative is hammered home by an utter lack of sentimentality. Threads has no heroes and major characters die abruptly. What viewers get instead are wordless montages, and blunt facts delivered in cyan text on a black screen. As in Brecht’s theatre, interpreting what is put before us in our usual clichéd, complacent way is made impossible…………………………………………

Docudramas as accomplished as Threads, so full of dark passion and righteous anger, are rare today. The gravity and urgency of the political situation in the mid-Eighties inspired a superb example of British cinematic modernism. The defenders of social democracy knew their world was disappearing, but faced an infinitely worse possibility: the destruction of the world, tout court. It’s clear this threat has in some way returned — thanks to Putin’s threats, but also events in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific — though I have my doubts whether our governing or creative classes fully grasp what that means.

Today there is a lack of vision. Perhaps the Cold War is distant enough that its lessons are being forgotten. Watch Threads and you’ll recall them soon enough.  https://unherd.com/2024/09/nuclear-horror-still-haunt-us/

September 23, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | media | Leave a comment

Award-winning Australian film-maker David Bradbury detained in India (he exposed India’s repression of its peaceful anti-nuclear activists).

The police used riot tactics and baton charges, mace and teargas to bludgeon the good people of Indinthakarai into submission. Which is the situation today. They are too scared to come out of their homes in mass protest. The Government of India, of Prime Minister Modi  has become a terrorising state of its own people. 

David Bradbury 14 September 24

I flew from Bangkok to Chennai Tuesday night with my two children – Nakeita Bradbury (21) and Omar Bradbury (14).

We all have visas issued by the Indian Govt in Australia before we left Sydney, last Saturday, Sept 7th.

After three days in Bangkok we flew to Chennai to begin what was to be a family holiday to remember: five major tourist destinations in two weeks.

Accommodation and internal flights (non refundable…) booked in advance in several locations.

(In Bangkok I showed my latest doco – a tribute to Neil Davis who was tragically killed in a 24 hour coup in Bangkok 39 years ago. Death is a Lady was shown at the Foreign Correspondents Club and we raised $Aust407 for the children of Gaza).

Arriving at Immigration counter at Chennai airport, my two children got their passports stamped and were able to go through no problem. When it came my turn, the perplexed official had to call for help as he laboured over his computer terminal.

Putting in my details had obviously triggered alarm bells. He called for his Supervisor who similarly winced as he looked over his shoulder. It was

2am in the morning. My kids waited patiently on the ot her side of the glass barrier between us. 

Eventually I was told it would not be possible for me to enter India. I asked why not? I had a legitimate visa I told them. 

And my kids were on the other side of the barrier separating us.

We were here on a family holiday we’d planned and saved for many months. With the usual Indian courtesy of avoiding the question: 

‘Why not? What is wrong with my visa..?’ 

My kids were on one side of the border…and I was on this side. I could not join them. As they waved sadly, reluctantly Goodbye to me, I was led off down a corridor to a small room with high ceilings. Pretty disgusting room with papers and rubbish on the floor under a bed which had a filthy mattress on it, no sheets. A metal grill window that looked out to a blank corridor wall. 

Occasionally a guard would come and stare through it at me. 

During the course of the rest of the day and into the night various Immigration 

Plainclothes police would come and interrogate me. What was I doing in India? What did I do here before in previous visit in 2012? Who did I know here in India and who have you been talking to before I came to India this time. Can you open up your phone and give it to us, please? Can we have their phone number?

I was cold and asked for my long trousers and socks which were in my suitcase and some medication I was taking for an enlarged prostrate. They never got them for me, only an hour before they forced me back onto the flight to Bangkok. My bag still hasn’t arrived here in Bangkok. 

I asked if I could make a phone call to the Australian embassy in Delhi but that request was ignored. 

As the plane took off from Chennai yesterday morning for Bangkok at 1.30am, it hurt my world weary heart to accept being separated from my kids and our plans to have a grand tour of the Indian subcontinent which included going to Varanasi to show my Omar how Hindus deal with death and farewelling their loved ones into the next life.(Omar lost his mum, my wife to breast cancer five months ago. We both feel strongly attached to each other). 

What had caused the cancellation of my Indian Visa? Over the course of the afternoon and being interrogated by Indian Immigration plainclothes,  I quickly concluded the Indian Govt had not forgiven me for writing an article for my local newspaper back in Australia and daring to enter a ‘No-go’ zone for both Indian national press and foreign media like myself in 2012.

Back then after I’d done my duties on the jury of the Mumbai International film festival, with wife Treena (Lenthall) and son Omar, then aged 3, we went and stayed in a small fishing village on the southern most tip of India. At a village called Indinthakarai where thousands of locals led by Dr Udayakamur, Catholic priests and nuns. Since the 1980’s the good fisherfolk of Indinthakarai had maintained a David and Goliath struggle against the pro-nuclear designs of the central Govt in far away New Delhi. 

These people embraced Treena, Omar and I because we felt for them in their struggle against the central Government 3,000kms away in New Delhi who had run roughshod over their rights and their community. We lived in the village for the next two weeks and filmed their everyday lifestyle, their fishing in the ocean which their livelihood depended upon. I interviewed their leaders on why they were so upset with the Government. One of them, a wonderful man called Dr Udayakamur stood out. He told me why they were determined to keep on with their struggle.

It was because their Government had signed a very dodgy deal with the Russians to build six nuclear powers plants on top of a major earthquake fault line. That faultline right where a cabal of corrupt senior Indian politicians and senior bureaucrats had signed the contract with the Russians had seen 1,000 villagers swept to their deaths when the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami hit.

He told me on camera how the humble fisherfolk of Idinthakarai 

whose ancestors had ploughed the ocean for millennia; 

How the Delhi Govt refused to have any community consultation and refused repeated requests by the people of Indinthakarai to be given access to environmental assessment reports.

Dr Udayakamur is an earnest practitioner of Gandhi’s non violent protest actions to effect Change.

The locals under Dr Uday staged sit-down protests where they buried their bodies in the sand up to their necks on the foreshore where the nuclear plants were being built. Thousands of people marched into the sea out front of the power plants defying police orders. 

In the end their actions were in vain. The police used riot tactics and baton charges, mace and teargas to bludgeon the good people of Indinthakarai into submission. Which is the situation today. They are too scared to come out of their homes in mass protest. The Government of India, of Prime Minister Modi  has become a terrorising state of its own people. 

Dr Uday faces 58 criminal charges which includes ’Sedition’. He faces many years in gaol and long years before that in drawn out court proceedings. It has taken its toll on his health and his family. 

All this happening out of sight of reporter’s notebooks and cameras in the world’s largest ‘Democracy’. 

September 15, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | media | Leave a comment