An independent panel created in part to stop Facebook from censoring content now has the ability to remove posts in response to user complaints, the company announced Tuesday.

Facebook created the Oversight Board in October 2020, in response to complaints that the social media giant was stifling free speech. The board was originally meant to determine whether content that Facebook had banned should stay up. Now, it will also be tasked with the reverse, determining whether content that Facebook has allowed to remain on the site should be removed.

Chelsea Clinton is calling on Facebook to ban Fox News host Tucker Carlson from the platform following a surge in online engagement with a post that included the conservative television personality’s speculation on the effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines.

The former first daughter on Wednesday tweeted a screenshot of a Facebook post that included Carlson’s monologue from the night before, in which he said, “If the vaccine is effective, there is no reason for people who have received the vaccine to wear masks or avoid physical contact.”

“So maybe it doesn’t work and they’re simply not telling you that,” he added at the time.

According to data from the social media tool CrowdTangle, Carlson’s segment had become the most popular post on Facebook by Wednesday.

Facebook has blocked a New York Post story on BLM co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors’s property-buying spree from being posted on its platform.

Last week, the New York Post revealed that Patrisse Khan-Cullors, one of the co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, had purchased four high-end properties worth millions of dollars. As the Post reported:

The self-described Marxist last month purchased a $1.4 million home on a secluded road a short drive from Malibu in Los Angeles, according to a report. The 2,370-square-foot property features “soaring ceilings, skylights and plenty of windows” with canyon views. The Topanga Canyon homestead, which includes two houses on a quarter-acre, is just one of three homes Khan-Cullors owns in the Los Angeles area, public records show.

The revelation led to anger among many on the left, who had perhaps come to the realisation that the millions of dollars raised by BLM may not have just gone into activism. Hawk Newsome, the head of Black Lives Matter in the Greater NYC area, said that there should be an “independent investigation” into how BLM spends its money “If you go around calling yourself a socialist, you have to ask how much of her own personal money is going to charitable causes,” he said. “It’s really sad because it makes people doubt the validity of the movement and overlook the fact that it’s the people that carry this movement.”

BLM is the biggest and most dangerous scam in American history. The grifters at the top of the organization enrich themselves while poor communities across the nation are devastated by the chaos they foment and profit off of. How could anyone still support these con artists?

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) April 11, 2021

On Thursday, people started to realise that the New York Post story on Khan-Cullors was being blocked from posted on Facebook. Anyone attempting to share the post would be met with an error message, claiming that it goes against Facebook’s Community Standards. National File was able to independently confirm the blocking of the link in a number of tests, including on the Facebook timeline and within direct Messenger messages. No other New York Post stories are currently subject to the same restrictions on Facebook.

Facebook is up to its usual tricks. A New York Post story on BLM's co-founder buying millions in property is not allowed to be posted on their platform! I'd guess Facebook would claim it's "targeted harassment," aka exposing embarassing facts about people we want to protect! pic.twitter.com/I7cj3b3vuK

— Jack Hadfield 🇬🇧 (@JackHadders) April 15, 2021

This isn’t the first time that Big Tech has cracked down on a viral New York Post story in an attempt to prevent it from gaining even more traction. In October last year, both Facebook and Twitter blocked the posting of the New York Post’s article that revealed emails and embarassing photos from Hunter Biden. Despite the fact this content came from his laptop which he had left at a repair shop, Twitter also suspended the Post’s account for the “distribution of hacked materials.”

A global coalition of more than three dozen groups on Monday launched a campaign to ban surveillance advertising, which the leaders of the effort described as “the extractive profit model underlying so many of Big Tech’s worst behaviors.”

“Surveillance advertising — the core profit-driver for gatekeepers like Facebook and Google, as well as adtech middlemen — is the practice of extensively tracking and profiling individuals and groups, and then microtargeting ads at them based on their behavioral history, relationships, and identity” the coalition — co-organized by Accountable Tech and the American Economic Liberties Project — said in a joint statement.

“These dominant firms curate the content each person sees on their platforms using those dossiers — not just the ads, but newsfeeds, recommendations, trends and so forth — to keep each user hooked, so they can be served more ads and mined for more data,” added the coalition — which also includes Demand Progress, People’s Action and Public Citizen.

“Big Tech is making billions off surveillance advertising,” the groups noted on their campaign website. “Society is paying the price.”

The coalition of nearly 40 organizations — whose advocacy ranges from antitrust, corporate accountability and consumer protection to privacy, civil rights and counter-disinformation — argued that by “funding the misinformation machine,” “aiding and abetting violent extremists,” and more “Big Tech’s toxic business model is undermining democracy.”

In their joint statement released ahead of the March 25 House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on “Social Media’s Role in Promoting Extremism and Misinformation,” the groups said that “Big Tech platforms amplify hate, illegal activities and conspiracism — and feed users increasingly extreme content — because that’s what generates the most engagement and profit.”

“Their own algorithmic tools have boosted everything from white supremacist groups and Holocaust denialism to COVID-19 hoaxes, counterfeit opioids and fake cancer cures,” the coalition added. “Echo chambers, radicalization and viral lies are features of these platforms, not bugs — central to the business model.”

The coalition criticized social media giants for “eroding our consensus reality and threatening public safety in service of a toxic, extractive business model.”

Big Tech ‘Making Billions’ Off Surveillance Advertising | Children’s Health Defense

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s cyber regulator has launched a hotline to report online comments that defame the ruling Communist Party and its history, vowing to crack down on “historical nihilists” ahead of the Party’s 100th anniversary in July.

The tip line allows people to report fellow netizens who “distort” the Party’s history, attack its leadership and policies, defame national heroes and “deny the excellence of advanced socialist culture” online, said a notice posted by an arm of the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) on Friday.

“Some with ulterior motives … have been spreading historical nihilistic misrepresentations online, maliciously distorting, denigrating and negating the history of the Party,” said the notice.

On Monday, Justice Clarence Thomas announced that the Supreme Court soon will have to put an end to Big Tech tyranny. Amen. If the high court fails to act, it could mean the end of free speech in the 21st century and the shriveling of our constitutional rights to mere “paper rights” — still there…

A number of America First commentators, including former Congressional candidate Laura Loomer, and Nick Fuentes, are demanding the proposed Big Tech bills in Florida’s legislature be strengthened with various amendments.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced at the start of February a number of actions that would be taken against Big Tech by his administration, with the focus more on how Big Tech censorship and interference would effect elections within the state. As National File reported:

Some of the new regulations include a mandatory opt-out from content filters created by Big Tech companies, which can leave users “shadowbanned” without the need for full platform removal, a right of action for all Floridians against Big Tech companies who violated this, and a number of daily fines related to interference in elections, including a $100,000 daily fine levied for any company that suspends political candidates. DeSantis claimed that the Big Tech companies were the number one threat to democracy and freedom of expression in America.

Fox News’s Tucker Carlson remarked that the proposed action plan “really does set the standard for the rest of the country.” However, this is what a number of America First commentators currently fear, who argue that the Big Tech bills now put forward in the Florida House and Senate based on DeSantis’s plan go nowhere near far enough.

Laura Loomer, the former Florida Congressional candidate who was the first de-platformed candidate in US history, criticized the bills in two key areas. Loomer said that the fines proposed for Big Tech companies were “chump change” for the huge corporations, with the $4.6 million fine that Facebook and Google would have received for censoring her during 2019-2020 campaign only amounting to 0.006% and 0.002% of their 2020 revenues respectively. There is also no evidence to suggest that such fines would happen retroactively regardless.

“Paying a minor fine to prevent a candidate or candidates they don’t like from winning an election is a steal of a deal,” Loomer said. “In its current form, the wording of this legislation would make things worse for censored candidates, because it would give Big Tech an easy way to interfere with an election with minimal consequences in the form of small fines.”

Secondly, Loomer argued, there is no protection for constitutional speech in Florida’s Big Tech bills, and only requires the social media platforms to “apply censorship, deplatforming, and shadow banning standards in a consistent manner” among its users. “Sounds nice and all, but Zuckerberg and Dorsey read that as ‘Sweet! I can consistently ban conservative speech among all of my little users!’” Loomer argued.

The Facebook oversight board, commonly known as the “Facebook supreme court,” which was established by the social network as a quasi-independent body to hear appeals on Facebook’s decision to censor or ban content, has now been empowered to demand more censorship from Mark Zuckerberg’s platform.