Trump: Social media companies are 'silencing millions of people'

[Stormysaga + 62]

President Trump blasted efforts from social media companies to "censor" controversial messages and clamp down on "fake news," urging tech companies to allow Americans to figure out the truth for themselves. Trump accused the companies of "silencing millions of people."

The president's message comes amid efforts by major social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to examine Russian election interference efforts on their sites, as well as moves from some companies to ban right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from displaying his content on their platforms.
 

 

[Sofia + 35]

Facebook owns Instagram. Google owns YouTube. Both of those two together hold an overwhelming position of leverage on public discourse and in some cases critical infrastructure to the internet itself. If they were truly private firms policing content, they suddenly stop being publisher platforms and start being accountable for there content. If they can shut off the conservatives cause they feel like it, they are culpable and liable for things like terrorist propaganda. 

[BlackTortoise + 103]

There are over 145 million Americans on Facebook. There are over 200 million Americans on You tube. 80% of searches start at Google. If you block someone from these platforms, you silence them.

[Vlad Kovalenko + 115]

Who decides what's real and what's fake? Therein lies the problem. Can the government be trusted to regulate what's real news and what isn't? That's the problem any time we regulate anything. It only works as well as the government allows it to.

[Sofia + 35]

Google, Facebook, Twitter, and MSM control 95% of public discourse. The rest is independent local papers, random wordpress blogs, the water cooler at the office, and small talk after church. They can alter the perception of reality for a huge majority of people if they all manage to coordinate. It's dangerous

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

I've been censored repeatedly on LinkedIn.

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

18 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

I've been censored repeatedly on LinkedIn.

You sir, are LinkedOut!  Send a tweet to The Don, he can add them to his list!  If some people have their way, The Don will need Linkedin in a couple of years, and he won't want to be censored.

Edited August 24, 2018 by Dan Warnick

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

For lurkers who may not realize just how encompassing Google is, here is a link to a new 55 page study, summary below:

https://digitalcontentnext.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/DCN-Google-Data-Collection-Paper.pdf

Google Data Collection

Professor Douglas C. Schmidt, Vanderbilt University
August 15, 2018

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. Google is the world’s largest digital advertising company. It also provides the #1 web browser, the #1 mobile platform, and the #1 search engine worldwide. Google’s video platform, email service, and map application have over 1 billion monthly active users each. Google utilizes the tremendous reach of its products to collect detailed information about people’s online and real-world behaviors, which it then uses to target them with paid advertising. Google’s revenues increase significantly as the targeting technology and data are refined.

2. Google collects user data in a variety of ways. The most obvious are “active,” with the user directly and consciously communicating information to Google, as for example by signing in to any of its widely used applications such as YouTube, Gmail, Search etc. Less obvious ways for Google to collect data are “passive” means, whereby an application is instrumented to gather information while it’s running, possibly without the user’s knowledge. Google’s passive data gathering methods arise from platforms (e.g. Android and Chrome), applications (e.g. Search, YouTube, Maps), publisher tools (e.g. Google Analytics, AdSense) and advertiser tools (e.g. AdMob, AdWords). The extent and magnitude of Google’s passive data collection has largely been overlooked by past studies on this topic.

3. To understand what data Google collects, this study draws on four key sources: 

a. Google’s My Activity and Takeout tools, which describe information collected during the use of Google’s user-facing products;

b. Data intercepted as it is sent to Google server domains while Google or 3rd-party products are used;

c. Google’s privacy policies (both general and product-specific); and

d. Other 3rd-party research that has examined Google’s data collection efforts. 

4. Through the combined use of above resources, this study provides a unique and comprehensive view of Google’s data collection approaches and delves deeper into specific types of information it collects from users. This study highlights the following key findings:

a. Google learns a great deal about a user’s personal interests during even a single day of typical internet usage. In an example “day in the life” scenario, where a real user with a new Google account and an Android phone (with new SIM card) goes through her daily routine, Google collected data at numerous activity touchpoints, such as user location, routes taken, items purchased, and music listened to.

Surprisingly, Google collected or inferred over two-thirds of the information through passive means. At the end of the day, Google identified user interests with remarkable accuracy. 

b. Android is a key enabler of data collection for Google, with over 2 billion monthly active users worldwide. While the Android OS is used by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) around the world, it is tightly connected with Google’s ecosystem through Google Play Services. Android helps Google collect personal userinformation (e.g. name, mobile phone number, birthdate, zip code, and in many cases, credit card number), activity on the mobile phone (e.g. apps used, websites visited), and location coordinates. In the background, Android frequently sends Google user location and device-related information, such as apps usage, crash reports, device configuration, backups, and various device-related identifiers.

c. The Chrome browser helps Google collect user data from both mobile and desktop devices, with over 2 billion active installs worldwide.

The Chrome browser collects personal information (e.g. when a user completes online forms) and sends it to Google as part of the data synchronization process. It also tracks webpage visits and sends user location coordinates to Google.

d. Both Android and Chrome send data to Google even in the absence of any user interaction. Our experiments show that a dormant, stationary Android phone (with Chrome active in the background) communicated location information to Google 340 times during a 24-hour period, or at an average of 14 data communications per hour. In fact, location information constituted 35% of all the data samples sent to Google. In contrast, a similar experiment showed that on an iOS Apple device with Safari (where neither Android nor Chrome were used), Google could not collect any appreciable data (location or otherwise) in the absence of a user interaction with the device. 

e. After a user starts interacting with an Android phone (e.g. moves around, visits webpages, uses apps), passive communications to Google server domains increase significantly, even in cases where the user did not use any prominent Google applications (i.e. no Google Search, no YouTube, no Gmail, and no Google Maps). This increase is driven largely by data activity from Google’s publisher and advertiser products (e.g. Google Analytics, DoubleClick, AdWords). Such data constituted 46% of all requests to Google servers from the Android phone. Google collected location at a 1.4x higher rate compared to the stationary phone experiment with no user interaction. Magnitude wise, Google’s servers communicated 11.6 MB of data per day (or 0.35 GB/month) with the Android device. This experiment suggests that even if a user does not interact with any key Google applications, Google is still able to collect considerable information through its advertiser and publisher products. 

f. While using an iOS device, if a user decides to forgo the use of any Google product (i.e. no Android, no Chrome, no Google applications), and visits only non-Google webpages, the number of times data is communicated to Google servers still remains surprisingly high. This communication is driven purely by advertiser/publisher services. The number of times such Google services are called from an iOS device is similar to an Android device. In this experiment, the total magnitude of data communicated to Google servers from an iOS device is found to be approximately half of that from the Android device. 

g. Advertising identifiers (which are purportedly “user anonymous” and collect activity data on apps and 3rd-party webpage visits) can get connected with a user’s Google identity. This happens via passing of device-level identification information to Google servers by an Android device. Likewise, the DoubleClick cookie ID (which tracks a user’s activity on the 3rd-party webpages) is another purportedly “user anonymous” identifier that Google can connect to a user’s Google Account if a user accesses a Google application in the same browser in which a 3rd-party webpage was previously accessed. Overall, our findings indicate that Google has the ability to connect the anonymous data collected through passive means with the personal information of the user.

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

VIII. CONCLUSION 

101. Google counts a large percentage of the world’s population as its direct customers, with multiple products leading their markets globally and many surpassing 1 billion monthly active users. These products are able to collect user data through a variety of techniques that may not be easily graspable by a general user. A major part of Google’s data collection occurs while a user is not directly engaged with any of its products.

The magnitude of such collection is significant, especially on Android mobile devices. And while such information is typically collected without identifying a unique user, Google distinctively possesses the ability to utilize data collected from other sources to de-anonymize such a collection.

[Qanoil + 116]

11 hours ago, BlackTortoise said:

There are over 145 million Americans on Facebook. There are over 200 million Americans on You tube. 80% of searches start at Google. If you block someone from these platforms, you silence them.

A Facebook Story

[Qanoil + 116]

11 hours ago, Stormysaga said:

President Trump blasted efforts from social media companies to "censor" controversial messages and clamp down on "fake news," urging tech companies to allow Americans to figure out the truth for themselves. Trump accused the companies of "silencing millions of people."

Facebook Censors Star Spangled Banner Video

[ronwagn + 6,290]

Bravo for all the smart comments but especially all the information from Tom Kirkman! 

I highly recommend gab.ai as the free speech website. See me there at https://gab.ai/ronwagn 

Of course, oilprice.com seems free speech to me also and can be used for a lot of topics. Minds.com is another free speech website. 

 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

41 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

Bravo for all the smart comments but especially all the information from Tom Kirkman! 

I highly recommend gab.ai as the free speech website. See me there at https://gab.ai/ronwagn 

Of course, oilprice.com seems free speech to me also and can be used for a lot of topics. Minds.com is another free speech website. 

Thanks Ron.

Here, have some weekend reading to mull over:

Society Is Made Of Narrative. Realizing This Is Awakening From The Matrix.

[Epic + 390]

1 hour ago, Qanoil said:

Facebook Censors Star Spangled Banner Video

I think this link is the video that was re-posted after the original vid was banned:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaxGNQE5ZLA

[Qanoil + 116]

56 minutes ago, Epic said:

I think this link is the video that was re-posted after the original vid was banned:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaxGNQE5ZLA

Yes, I remember watching this video a year or two ago.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

Thanks Tom, A very good Matrix article. Food for thought. I will have to rewatch the movie.