By Will Morrow, wsws.org

The New York Times and Washington Post this week published reports of a private meeting last month between eight major technology and social media corporations and the US intelligence agencies, to discuss their censorship operations in the lead-up to the November 2018 mid-term elections.

The meeting was convened at Facebook's Menlo Park, California, headquarters on May 23, and was attended by representatives from Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Snap, Twitter and Oath, which owns Yahoo and the telecommunications network Verizon, along with agents from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

The Post described the meeting, organized at the request of Facebook, as a “new overture by the technology industry to develop closer ties to law enforcement.” Both articles were based on anonymous statements by individuals who attended. One attendee told the Post that the conversation was a “back-and-forth, with both sides talking about how they were thinking about the problem and how we were looking for opportunities to work together.”

The meeting is yet another testament to the increasing integration of the technology giants with the US military/intelligence apparatus. These companies, which provide a growing share of the technical infrastructure for the repressive apparatus of the state, increasingly see the censorship of left-wing, anti-war, and progressive viewpoints as an integral part of their business strategy.

Amazon, Microsoft and Google are competing to secure control over a $10 billion project to host the Pentagon's Cloud infrastructure, a position that will literally mean hosting the communications between military units engaged in battle. Employees at the three companies have also written letters in recent months denouncing their provision of artificial intelligence technology to improve drone targeting (Google), facial recognition of civilians by police agencies (Amazon), and assisting in the operations of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Microsoft).

The Times and the Post are the main media voices for the campaign by the Democratic Party and intelligence agencies for Internet censorship, under the guise of opposing the spread of “misinformation” by the Russian government. This McCarthyite campaign is based on the totally unsubstantiated allegation that Russian “fake news” led to popular disillusionment with Hillary Clinton in the 2016 vote, and the subsequent election of Donald Trump. The newspapers' synchronized reports therefore present last month's meeting as aimed at preventing Russian interference in the mid-term elections.

But the real target of the censorship campaign is popular access to left-wing news sources not controlled by the corporate media, and the proliferation of oppositional social media content, such as videos of police killings, mass roundups of immigrants, military interventions, protests and exposures of corporate malfeasance and government criminality.

Since the beginning of the year, Facebook has rolled out a series of changes to its News Feed, including demoting political content in favor of so-called “personal moments,” and prioritizing content from so-called “trustworthy sources”—in reality pro-establishment propaganda outlets—including the Times and the Wall Street Journal. The social media giant has also changed its algorithms to reduce the spread of “viral videos,” which CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared are “not good for people's well-being and society.”

Last Thursday, Facebook published an announcement by its Head of News Integrity Tessa Lyons, announcing a further expansion of these measures, including the introduction of “fact-checking” for videos and photos. The post also stated that Facebook is introducing “machine learning to help identify and demote foreign Pages that are likely to spread financially-motivated hoaxes to people in other countries.” These will work alongside Facebook's army of “fact checkers”—i.e., censors—many of them former security and intelligence agents, who belong to the 20,000 people employed in its “security” and “moderation” department.

The “demotion” of what Facebook calls “false news” was codified in “community guidelines” published by the company in April. The guidelines state that because the suppression of “false news” is a “sensitive issue,” the company does not openly remove news stories, which would be easily detected by publishers and their followers, but does the same thing secretly: “significantly reduc[ing] its distribution by showing it lower on the News Feed.” (See: “Facebook codifies its censorship regime”)

Lyons repeated this line of argument in an interview with PBS' Miles O'Brien on May 16. Admitting that “censoring and fully removing information unless it violates our community standards is not the expectation from our community,” Lyons explained that instead “we work to reduce the damage it can do” by restricting its proliferation. The Washington Post reported yesterday that while speaking at the International Fact Checkers Network conference last week, Lyons “told attendees that ... [Facebook] will soon use machine learning to predict pages that are more likely to share misinformation.”

With the official ending of net neutrality this month, the financial oligarchy that controls both the search and social media monopolies and internet service providers has further tightened its grip over the freedom of expression on the internet, with ISPs given the prerogative to block and throttle internet content at will.

The expansion of internet censorship takes place amidst mounting pressure on whistleblower Julian Assange, the Wikileaks journalist who has been effectively imprisoned in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012, where he was forced to take refuge to avoid being extradited to the US and charged for publishing evidence of US government crimes. The persecution of Assange for the “crime” of publishing the truth is aimed at intimidating whistleblowers and honest journalists all around the world.

Google , which attended last month’s meeting with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, has altered its search engine algorithms to censor left-wing and anti-war websites, including the World Socialist Web Site, whose Google search traffic fell by three quarters in response to changes by the search engine in April 2017. There are indications that Google has recently intensified its censorship of the World Socialist Web Site, with search impressions falling by as much as one third over the past month.

In August 2017, the World Socialist Web Site published an open letter to Google demanding that it end its censorship of the internet, declaring, “Censorship on this scale is political blacklisting. The obvious intent of Google’s censorship algorithm is to block news that your company does not want reported and to suppress opinions with which you do not agree.”

We urge all readers of the World Socialist Web Site seeking to defend the freedom of expression online to contact us and join the struggle against internet censorship.

On June 8 we asked if the then ongoing ISIS attack on Albu Kamal was part of a U.S. plan:

There is sneaking suspicion that the U.S. directed the ongoing ISIS attack on Abu Kamal to gain control over the crossing and to disable road supplies from Iran through Iraq into Syria.
...
The U.S. must be given no chance to use the ISIS pretext to take Abu Kamal. The Syrian government must rush to support its forces in the border city. It must immediately request that Iraqi forces cross the border from Al-Qaim and support the endangered Syrian troops.

Some reinforcement came in and Albu Kamal was soon back in Syrian government hands. The Syrian army also launched an operation to destroy ISIS positions in southeastern desert.

Southeast Syria (red: Syrian Army, green: U.S. zone around al-Tanf crossing to Iraq, grey: ISIS, yellow: U.S./Kurdish SDF)

But U.S. interference in the east continued:

The Russian military is warning of a false-flag "chemical incident" in Deir Ezzor governorate. The Syrian Observatory reports that Islamic State remnants in the southeastern desert and in the Rukban camp, both under cover of the U.S. occupied zone around al-Tanf, prepare for a large attack on Syrian government forces. It claims that such an attack is an attempt to occupy the zone between al-Tanf and Albu Kamal at the Euphrates. Both operation would be planned diversions intended to draw Syrian forces away from Deraa and could provide excuses for U.S. intervention on the opposition side.

Late Sunday an airstrike destroyed a building in the Harri area near Albu Kamal directly on the Syrian-Iraqi border. The building was used as a headquarter for the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMU) who are securing the border in coordination with the Syrian army in the fight against the Islamic State. More than 20 fighters were killed and more than 10 were wounded. This may have been in preparation for the reportedly planned large ISIS attack.

Another serious incident followed last night when U.S. supported Maghawhir al-Thawra "rebels" (which include 'former' ISIS fighters) attacked Syrian government forces:

A Syrian army officer was killed in a U.S strike on a Syrian army outpost near a U.S. base close to the Iraqi-Syrian border, a commander in the regional alliance supporting President Bashar al-Assad told Reuters.The Pentagon, said, however, that a U.S.-backed Syrian rebel group stationed in the Tanf garrison had engaged on Thursday evening an “unidentified hostile force” outside a “deconfliction zone” around the garrison, forcing it to retreat. It said there were no casualties on either side.

The Syrian Observatory claims that eight Syrian soldiers were killed in the attack. There is some footage of a desert chase with "technicals" that is supposed to be from these clashes. They took place in al-Halba, 70 kilometers northwest of al-Tanf and only 50 kilometers from Palmyra.

The U.S. sent "rebels" it trains at al-Tanf outside its self declared 55 kilometers deconfliction zone around Tanf to attack Syrian government forces. It supported them by air strikes. U.S. special forces are said to have taken part. This is likely the case as only U.S. special forces can call in such airstrikes.

It seems obvious that the U.S. is using ISIS, U.S. trained "Maghawhir al-Thawra" rebels, and its air power in another attempt to cut the land route between Syria and Iraq. It wants to use the upcoming Syrian campaign against al-Qaeda and ISIS in the southwest around Daraa to make a new move in the east.

But Syria and its allies will not allow that. They are building up their own forces in the east. As Elijah Magnier reported yesterday:

[D]uring my visit to the city of Palmyra and its surroundings, the presence of thousands of Russian troops is striking, indicating that Moscow is sending new infantry and special forces in very large numbers. This large presence has not been announced.

The Syrian army is also sending additional forces into the area and more Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units have arrived in the Al-Qaim/Albu-Kamal area.

Syria and its allies obviously decided to counter the U.S. move. Their operations at the Syrian-Iraqi border are coordinated by the common operation room in Baghdad.

Last night Syria, Iraq, Iran and Russia again discussed the situation in the east and made their decision:

SURA @AlSuraEnglish - 23:47 UTC - 21 Jun 2018#BREAKING - #Iraq, #Syria, #Russia and #Iran confirm new mission to secure the #Iraqi-#Syrian border from all terrorist groups. The mission was devised in the operations room in Iraq's capital, #Baghdad.

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via Sura - Iraqi, Syrian, Iranian and Russian officers in the operations room Baghdad -

"All terrorist groups" include the Maghawhir al-Thawra "rebels" and their U.S. protectors at al-Tanf.Meanwhile the Syrian army continues its preparations for the large attack around Daraa which might bring it in conflict with Israel.

The U.S. again issued a nonsensical warning against such an attack but with a significant change in its wording:

The statement, however, omitted a line in a past statement on the subject that said the U.S. would take “firm and appropriate measures” if Syria violated the de-escalation measure.

It has been confirmed that Iran will not be involved in the fight in Daraa (We had noted that . three weeks ago.) Hizbullah special forces might take part in the areas near the Lebanese border. Jordan reinforced its position on its side of the border. It is unlikely to join any fight but it will want to keep fleeing "rebels" from entering the country.

The operation in the southwest around Daraa will proceed. The U.S. attempts to use the occasion to cut Syria from Iraq in the east will be prevented by the new Baghdad operations room mission. It's high time for the U.S. to give up on its nonsense schemes in the southeast. The humanitarian situation in the Rukban camp near the U.S. positions in al-Tanf is catastrophic and the civilians there want to come back under Syrian government control. The al-Tanf position is indefensible against any larger force. The U.S. forces there can still move out without a fight. If they do not leave voluntarily, force will be used to remove them.

Posted by b on June 22, 2018 at 06:30 AM | Permalink

The Times is a virtual press agent for US wealth, power and privilege – supporting its wars of aggression against sovereign independent nations threatening no one.  The self-styled newspaper of record is a lying machine – consistently reporting disinformation, Big Lies and fake news on major issues, notably geopolitical ones, anything about Russia, and nations Washington attacks. Claiming it conducted an investigation into what allegedly happened in Douma, Syria on April 7, indisputably proved fake, it falsely reported the following:

“On the evening of April 7, Syrian military helicopters dropped a chlorine bomb on the rooftop balcony of an apartment building in the opposition-held town of Douma, near Damascus.” 

“Dozens of people were sheltering inside as President Bashar al-Assad’s forces waged an intense bombing campaign in a final push to seize control of the rebel enclave.”

So-called “opposition” forces and “rebels” are code words for US-supported terrorists.

The so-called incident the Times cited never occurred. Not a shred of evidence indicated Syrian use of chemical or other banned weapons throughout years of war. Plenty of evidence showed US-supported terrorists used these weapons numerous times. In Douma on April 7 and afterwards, there were no deaths, no injuries, no one harmed by toxic agents of any kind, no forensic evidence of their existence in soil samples tested by Russian scientific experts. Eyewitnesses, doctors and other medical personnel refuted claims about Douma residents harmed by chemical toxins. Videos created by al-Qaeda-linked White Helmets were fake.

The only medical problems reported were respiratory ones from smoke and dust inhalation, nothing from chemical toxins.

A previous article said the following:

Douma resident Hassan Diab, aged-11, was one of 17 Douma witnesses testifying in the Hague.

He explained “(w)e were (in) the basement, and we heard people shouting that we needed to go to a hospital.” 

“We went through a tunnel. At the hospital they started pouring cold water on me” – referring to al-Qaeda-connected White Helmets involved in staging the fake incident.

Douma hospital emergency ward administrator Ahmad Kashoi explained “(t)here were people unknown to us who were filming the emergency care.”

“They were filming the chaos taking place inside, and were filming people being doused with water. The instruments they used to douse them with water were originally used to clean the floors…”

“That happened for about an hour. We provided help to (the alleged victims) and sent them home. No one has died. No one suffered from chemical exposure.”

Hospital medical provider Halil al-Jaish said patients treated only suffered from respiratory problems because of smoke and dust inhalation, not CW exposure. Other witnesses confirmed the same thing, including hospital doctors. The alleged CW incident was staged, not real, blaming Assad for what didn’t happened, used as a pretext for US, UK and French warplanes to terror-bomb Syrian sites.

Here’s what the Times falsely reported, claiming “(w)e counted at least 34 victims spread across two floors and in stairways. Many were found near water sources.”

“Our reporting suggests they moved up into the building, not knowing the bomb was on the rooftop, or that they were walking into a death trap.” 

“Their bodies showed horrific signs of chemical exposure. A leaked UN report, exclusively obtained by The Times, said 49 were killed, including 11 children.”

All of the above is fabricated rubbish. Here’s the key point, the Times saying “(w)e were unable to visit Douma.”

How can a credible investigation be conducted without visiting the alleged crime scene. IT CANNOT!

The Times claimed it managed to do what’s impossible for forensic experts. Off-site investigations lack credibility.

Russia’s reconciliation center in Syria said “(a)ll the accusations brought by the White Helmets, as well as their photos…allegedly showing the victims of the chemical attack, are nothing more than…another piece of fake news…”

The Times claim about a Syrian helicopter dropping a chlorine-filled bomb on Douma was a bald-faced lie – claiming “witness reports” reports proved it another Big Lie. The alleged Douma CW incident was a US-orchestrated hoax, a classic false flag, Syria falsely blamed for a non-incident. In its June 24 fake news report, the Times disgracefully supported the Big Lie. 

Throughout years of US aggression in Syria, the Times and other media scoundrels provided propaganda services, suppressing hard truths about what’s gone on, featuring some of the most disgraceful disinformation in modern memory.