Facebook is surveillance monster feeding on our personal data

Our world today may be a high-tech wonderland, but we, the users, own nothing in it, with our personal data being the new oil for Big Tech. How do we break its grip on our digital lives? We asked Richard Stallman, the founder and leader of the Free Software Movement.

A BuzzFeed journalist recently used a Facebook transparency tool to investigate the sort of companies utilizing her data for advertising, finding her personal data was “everywhere” with “no control.”

BuzzFeed News reporter Katie Notopoulos recently investigated the sort of personal details that advertisers collect on Facebook users, specifically the information collected on her. Notopoulos explained how she did this in the article, allowing Facebook users to check the sort of data that Facebook gives advertisers access to.

On Facebook under Settings, there’s a page in the Ads section where you can view your Ad Preferences. Most of this is fairly straightforward — choices about how you’ll allow ads and how advertisers target you based on things like what pages you’ve liked. But there’s one section there that will probably surprise you: a list of advertisers “Who use a contact list added to Facebook.”

Check yours out right now (I’ll wait, just try it). According to the description, “These advertisers are running ads using a contact list they or their partner uploaded that includes info about you. This info was collected by the advertiser or their partner. Typically this information is your email address or phone number.”

The list of Advertisers, a feature Facebook added for transparency, is incomprehensible to anyone who isn’t an expert in advertising (and even some who are!), and leads to the unsettling realization that, fuck, man, our data is out there and trafficked without our consent and being used by advertisers in ways we have no clue about.

https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/facebook-is-surveillance-monster-feeding-on-our-personal-data-richard-stallman/

Saudis Fly MPs Under House Arrest in Saudi Arabia Back to Yemen to Form New Parliament

Yemeni members of parliament who have been under house arrest in Saudi Arabia since 2015 were returned to Yemen on a private Saudi plane to take part in a new Saudi-brokered Yemeni parliament.

HADRAMOUT, YEMEN — Three months ago, MintPress News unveiled Saudi plans to hijack Yemen’s parliament. On Saturday, Saudi Arabia successfully carried out the plan when it forced members of Yemen’s House of Representatives to hold a council session in the eastern city of Sayun in Yemen’s Hadramout governorate.

Yemeni members of parliament who have been under house arrest in Saudi Arabia since 2015 were returned to Yemen on a private Saudi plane and received by Saudi officials at the Al-Rayyan airport in eastern Yemen. Local Yemeni media was barred from covering their arrival and Saudi state-run Al-Arabiya was the sole media outlet allowed to cover the event. It was held under heavy security with Saudi troops on patrol and was attended by ousted former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and ambassadors from countries backing Saudi plans in Yemen.

More than 100 lawmakers attended the parliamentary session in Sayun city. Sultan al-Borkani, a tribal Sheikh from late Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s General People’s Congress (GPC), was elected to be the new speaker of the Saudi-backed parliament, replacing the current, legitimately elected speaker, Yahya al-Ra’I, who is still presiding over the council’s sessions in Sana’a. The parliamentary session was aimed at giving the Saudi-led Coalition legal cover for its occupation of the country.

Saudis still cannot form quorum for business

Despite sizable Saudi efforts, less than half of the parliament’s MPs were not present at the Sayun session, leaving the session short of the number of MPs needed to achieve quorum. The Assembly of Representatives has a total of 301 members.

The parliamentary session was originally slated to be held in Aden but was moved to Sayun after a group of separatists allied with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in southern Yemen prevented parliament from convening in the city. According to politicians in southern Yemen, the Saudi move to form a new parallel parliament is a threat to local efforts in southern Yemen to form an independent state.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/saudis-fly-mps-under-house-arrest-in-saudi-arabia-back-to-yemen-to-form-new-parliament/257408/

Austria Wants To Ban Online Anonymity, And Urges The World To Follow In Its Footsteps

Convinced that Mark Zuckerberg doesn't quite yet have enough user data, Austria is now considering a new law that would require large internet platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to register their users, effectively banning anonymity on social media sites. The new law would be targeted at depriving "those behind hate posts of anonymity," according to The Local.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said: "Unfortunately there have been an increasing number of clear violations, denigrations and humiliations online in the past under the cover of anonymity. That's why we need a framework for more responsibility online."

But isn't the anonymous denigration and humiliation of others a founding principle of the internet, and part of what makes it great?

The law, if passed, would go into effect in 2020 and would make it mandatory for users of popular social media sites to register their users. The platforms would have flexibility on how they register their users, but Austria seeks to give its authorities access to a user's identity in the event of "hate postings or on suspicion of other laws being broken".

The report didn't say what, exactly, qualified as a "hate posting".

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-13/austria-wants-ban-online-anonymity-and-urges-world-follow-its-footsteps

Did Russia Just Call The End Of The OPEC Deal?

OPEC and heavyweight Russia may fight America for its share of the oil market, Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told TASS on Saturday, even if it means quitting the OPEC deal and lowered oil prices.

OPEC and Russia have tapered oil production according to the agreed upon production cut deal, but the United States continues to increase its production and is picking up market share in the process - market share formerly held by OPEC members and the other non-OPEC signatories to the deal including Russia.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-15/did-russia-just-call-end-opec-deal

>>6188866

Patsy in place

Supports Zionist narrative of Christians V Islam.

Some Arab rulers serving US, Zionists; waging war against Muslims: Leader

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has blasted leaders of “certain Islamic nations” for serving Israel and the United States in stark contrast to the teachings of Islam’s holy book, the Qur'an.

“Many wrongdoings, misunderstandings, despairs, disloyalties, hostilities and submissions to tyrannical powers result from estrangement with the Qur'an, and the spirituality and knowledge that come with it,” the Leader told reciters and researchers of the holy book in Tehran Monday.

“Unfortunately, the rulers of some Islamic countries do not adhere to Qur'anic teachings and instead of being ‘harsh against the unbelievers,’ they have become servants and followers of America and the Zionists; and instead of being ‘merciful to one another,’ they pave the way for divisions and wars, like the wars in Yemen and Syria, and the massacre of Muslims.”

Addressing the closing ceremony of the 36th International Qur'an Contests, Ayatollah Khamenei said, "Today, many leaders of Arabic countries are of this kind.”

The Leader noted that some of those rulers “colluded with Israelis and stepped on the blood of Palestinians.”

Over the past years, leaders of some Arabic countries, namely Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have led overt and covert efforts to normalize ties with the Israeli regime.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has on many occasions hinted at extensive security and political dealings with Arab nations that largely remain a secret upon the request of their leaders.

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/04/15/593484/Iran-Leadr-Ayatollah-Khamenei-Arab-leaders-serving-Israel-US

Abolish the Income Tax, Abolish the IRS

Everybody hates income taxes. Some people say there are too many loopholes or too few incentives or that they're too high or too low or that the system is rigged against (insert your favorite group here) or biased in favor of (insert your least favorite group here) or that the IRS is abusive or too lenient and – almost everybody agrees – the whole thing is corrupt and corrupting.

I know several of these complaints contradict other complaints, but you know what? They're all true. Every single one. Our tax code is a jumbled mess of contradictions, and the IRS is alternately abusive and permissive.

At the left-leaning Daily News today, David Cay Johnston writes that "there’s a fundamental problem at the heart of the way we fund our government." He says that there are actually two tax systems, one for "working stiffs and retirees," and the other for "rich business owners [who] operate under a different system." Johnson's solution? Hire a lot more IRS auditors who will stick it to the rich.

That's just silly, of course. The rich already pay the vast majority of income taxes. The top 1 percent pays more than 35 percent of all income tax collected; the bottom half pays only about 3 percent. Those figures come from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation from before the 2017 tax reform law, which generally cut taxes even further for the middle class, while raising them a bit on wealthy blue state residents. If anything, the bottom half of Americans aren't invested in what happens in Washington, because they don't have any skin in the game.

But even if they did, is putting thousands or even hundreds of thousands of additional Americans through the IRS audit wringer a good way to increase fairness?

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/abolish-the-income-tax-abolish-the-irs/

>>6189003

yep and affirms this is just the beginning

>>6189051

well put

>>6189113

Good point.

We have

/qresearch:

UK

NZ

AUS

GERMANY

Ireland

South Africa

India

Canada

France

But no Israel

How fucking interesting??????

We do have JQ research tho!

Speaks volumes

>>6189195

knew i'd miss someone

>>6189226

I posted some stuff on it last week use the research tool for my digs

>>6189257

or Barr said report before mid April and they needed a distraction

>>6189288

jewbart deflecting trying to move spotlight off zionists

>>6189333

trips of truth confirm, yep all guilty should be dealt with

YouTube Mistakenly Tags Notre Dame Fire Video As '9/11 Conspiracy'

Demonstrating just how poorly designed its algorithms intended to filter out 'conspiratorial' content can be, particularly when reacting in real time to a breaking news event, YouTube has apologized after its recently launched conspiracy-filtering feature accidentally tagged a livestream of the devastating fire at Notre Dame cathedral as a '9/11 conspiracy' video.

As Bloomberg pointed out, shortly after the fire broke out, several news organizations launched live streams of the horrific blaze on YouTube.

Below a stream from France24 and several other channels, a box of text appeared bearing a snippet from Encyclopedia Britannica about the 9/11 attacks, indicating that the footage had been mistakenly labeled a 9/11 conspiracy video.

YouTube introduced the text boxes last year, but in recent months has taken steps to suppress content it deems 'conspiratorial', filtering them out of search results for related topics to prevent the content from corrupting the minds of unsuspecting users.

A YouTube spokesman apologized for the error and said these labels are assigned by algorithms that occasionally make mistakes.

"We are deeply saddened by the ongoing fire at the Notre-Dame cathedral," said a YouTube spokesman. "These panels are triggered algorithmically and our systems sometimes make the wrong call. We are disabling these panels for live streams related to the fire."

The mistake was widely mocked on Twitter.

And as one reporter astutely reported, YouTube's new tool meant to filter out false information is doing the exact opposite.

But sure - let's continue to allow tech firms to decide what information is fit for public consumption. Because clearly they're doing such a great job.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-15/youtube-mistakenly-tags-notre-dame-fire-video-911-conspiracy

>>6189440

predictive programming anyone?

>>6189458

assuming they figured Barr was going to drop the report today as he said first half of April