Twitter Bans Thousands Of Saudi State-Backed Propaganda Accounts

Twitter on Friday shared over a terabyte of information on 5,929 accounts they say belonged "to a significant state-backed information operation on Twitter originating in Saudi Arabia, which were "amplifying messages favourable to Saudi authorities."

Disclosed in a Friday blog post, the state-linked accounts represented the "core portion of a larger network of more than 88,000 accounts engaged in spammy behavior across a wide range of topics."

Devised and managed by Saudi-based social media management firm Smaat, which operated them "on behalf of - but not necessarily with the knowledge of their clients" (an interesting 'out' for said clients), the accounts were involved in various forms of platform manipulation, mostly in Arabic.

Primarily, accounts were amplifying messages favourable to Saudi authorities, mainly through inauthentic engagement tactics such as aggressive liking, Retweeting and replying. While the majority of the content from this network was in Arabic, a portion of it related to events relevant to Western audiences, including amplification of discussion around sanctions in Iran and appearances by Saudi government officials in Western media.

…

Smaat managed a range of Twitter accounts for high-profile individuals, as well as many government departments in Saudi Arabia. -Twitter

Twitter has suspended the company's access to the platform, as well as the accounts of Smaat senior executives.

The overall manipulation network reportedly used "third-party automated tools" in to primarily amplify helpful, non-political content at high volumes - which Twitter suggests was an attempt to make it more difficult to identify propaganda. Smaat may have also believed that amplifying helpful tweets, such as crisis response information or weather updates, would attract more followers.

The company says it will continue to take strong enforcement action against any state-backed information campaigns "which undermine our company's mission, principles, and policies."

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/twitter-bans-thousands-saudi-state-backed-propaganda-accounts

Klein: ICC Decision to Probe Israel for ‘War Crimes’ Is Pure Antisemitism

JERUSALEM — The inexcusable decision by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor to proceed with a probe into Israeli “war crimes” can only be explained as being motivated by raw antisemitism.

How else to fathom the ICC’s singling out of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which goes further than any other military in the world to protect civilians in the battlefield.

The IDF operates in a complex theater in which Palestinian terrorists use civilians as human shields, deliberately house their terrorist infrastructures in densely populated civilian areas and indiscriminately fire projectiles into Jewish civilian population zones.

Still, the IDF goes to extreme lengths to ensure the protection of Palestinian civilians even though terrorists intentionally surround themselves with civilians to thwart Israeli operations because they know that Israel is a beacon of morality.

The Israeli military regularly warns civilians of incoming attacks with phone calls and text messages. It employs “roof knocking” — or firing warning shots before any aerial bombing – thus providing Palestinian terrorists with advance warning of incoming attacks. If civilians in the vicinity still don’t evacuate, the Israeli army often makes announcements on loudspeakers. The IDF has called off scores of military raids because civilians were in the way.

Making a mockery of justice, ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced on Friday that she was “satisfied that there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation into the situation in Palestine.” Bensouda ignores that Palestine, of course, is not an existing state.

Bensouda claimed “there is a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes were committed in the context of the 2014 hostilities in Gaza” by the IDF for allegedly launching disproportionate attacks and “willful killing and willfully causing serious injury to body or health… and intentionally directing an attack against objects or persons using the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions.”

For good measure, she seemingly drew a moral equivalence between the IDF and Hamas, charging that there is “reasonable basis to believe that members of Hamas and Palestinian armed groups” also “committed… war crimes” by targeting civilians or engaging in torture.

Her statements have been taken as an indication that a full investigation could be launched, potentially resulting in charges against Israeli officials.

Bensouda’s outrageous claim of “willful killing” flies in the face of everything the IDF does to protect civilians. And her charge of Israel’s “disproportionate” response during the Gaza War opposes basic military doctrine of deterrence.

Let’s not forget why the Gaza War was launched in the first place. Hamas repeatedly violated a truce by firing scores of rockets from Gaza into Israeli civilian population zones. In one day alone, July 8, Hamas launched 40 rockets into Israel, prompting Israeli retaliation and the start of the conflict.

What nation on earth would allow a terrorist army to amass a rocket infrastructure in a neighboring territory and use that land — which Israel evacuated in hope of peace — as a staging ground for constant terrorist rocket attacks?

https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2019/12/21/klein-icc-decision-to-probe-israel-for-war-crimes-is-pure-antisemitism/

Noahide World Order

After DA Let Child Sex Trafficker Walk Free, Child Victim Killed Him, Now She’s Facing Life

Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Gravely had a chance to protect Chrystul Kizer from her sex trafficker but he failed. Not only did he set free the accused sex traficker, Randy Volar III, 34, but he is now blaming the victim, Volar’s killer, the young girl who was being sex trafficked by Volar on www.backpage.com.

Four months before Chrystul Kizer, 18, killed her abuser, Volar was arrested on child sexual assault charges and possession of child pornography, in possession of hundreds of videos of child pornography, which even included homemade videos staring Volar having sex with the extremely young girls he was trafficking.

In June of 2018, Kiser was just 17-years-old when she fatally shot Volar and burned his house down. A year earlier, when she was 16, she met the pedophile sex trafficker who immediately began advertising the young black girl on Backpage. Since then, the website has been shuttered for doing just that, selling young girls for sex on the internet. Backpage was closed down by the feds in 2018.

Gravely, who had a chance to put Volar away for the rest of his natural life, rid Kenosha, WI of a known child sex trafficker, and keep his town safe, allowed Volar to walk free without posting one red cent for bail. We at TFTP know Gravely as the DA who refuses to reopen the investigation into Michael Bell, Jr., a Kenosha young man who was killed by cops in his own driveway.

Michael Bell, Sr. has worked tirelessly to compel Gravely into holding the killer cops accountable for his son’s homicide which took place in front of Bell’s own family. Now, it seems, Gravely’s ineptitude is rising to the surface, once again the result of judicial inaction.

According to the local news coverage of the incident, and the recent expose’ by the Washington Post:

Four months before his death, police arrested Volar on charges that included child sexual assault, but they then let him go without bail, according to The Washington Post. During the course of their investigation, police found “hundreds” of child pornography videos, and more than 20 “home videos” of Volar with underage black girls, according to files given to Kizer’s family and reviewed by the Washington Post. Gravely cannot bravely accept his inaction and blame himself for not locking up the 33-year-old alleged pedophile. Instead, he blames Kizer, saying no matter what torture she endured as a sex trafficking victim, she had no legal right to kill her oppressor — apparently, even if her very life was in danger and it was an act of self-defense.

If somebody commits crimes against you, even horrible crimes, that you aren’t allowed to go kill them in response.

Gravely told the local media his office would have ended up charging Volar with the crimes with which he was charged but now that he’s dead that’s not possible.

Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Gravely told the Kenosha News that police had sent the case to his office three months later and a prosecutor requested more info from police. Gravely said that info didn’t arrive until the day Volar’s body was discovered.

How convenient for Gravely it seems. Not only can he now say he was working on charging Volar but can paint Kizer as a teenaged vigilante who bragged about killing her oppressor on social media.

Unfortunately for Gravely, not only would Kizer not be charged with murder but Volar would still be alive had Gravely’s office done its job and kept a pedophile, sex trafficker, child pornography producer, and child rapist where he belonged, behind bars.

Unlike Volar, Kizer is being held on a million dollars bond. Her trial is set for March of the coming year.

https://thefreethoughtproject.com/after-pedophile-sex-trafficker-walks-free-child-victim-killed-him-now-shes-facing-life/

Russia's "Sovereign Internet" Test Will Cut Off Entire Country From Web On Monday

On Monday a key initiative undertaken by the Russian government for over the past year to establish a 'sovereign internet' will face a major test. That's when the country and its information systems will be intentionally disconnected from the worldwide web, according to Russia's communications ministry.

Russia aims to ready its own web to both survive a global internet shutdown and defend against foreign cyber-attacks and intrusion on its data infrastructure.

The test is based on the recently passed “sovereign internet” bill into Russian law, which requires “all communications operators, messengers and email providers [to] participate in the tests, as well as state-run institutions and security services,” according to a summary of the law by Reuters.

Essentially it means all Russian internet traffic will be routed to exchange points approved by the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor), Russia's federal executive body responsible for censorship in media and telecommunications.

These hubs will filter traffic in such a way that data sent between Russians internet users should work seamlessly, simultaneously rejecting any communication with foreign computers. The test will evaluate “the possibility of intercepting subscriber traffic and revealing information about the subscriber, blocking communication services,” according to an internal government document.

However, the ministry noted it shouldn't significantly impact regular individual internet users and is to take place in stages on Dec. 23.

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/russias-sovereign-internet-test-will-cut-entire-country-web-monday

Ex-FBI agent jailed for illegally accessing email of anti-Mueller activist for spying purposes

The crime happened last year

A former FBI analyst was sentenced on Friday for illegally accessing his neighbor's email for spying purposes.

Mark Tolson pleaded guilty in September to one misdemeanor charge of computer fraud, the Washington Post reported. Court documents state that he illegally accessed the email account of Washington lobbyist Jack Burkman, who was working with a notorious far-right activist on a smear campaign against Robert Mueller.

More from Politico:

Tolson admitted he unlawfully accessed Burkman's emails in October 2018, after the conspiracy-minded lobbyist announced plans to hold a news conference to air sexual harassment allegations against Mueller. After snooping through Burkman's account, Tolson sent screenshots of the messages and offered the password to an unspecified journalist, court filings say.

Tolson's wife, Sarah Gilbert Fox, facilitated the illicit access by providing Burkman's email password, which she had obtained for work she'd previously done for him.

At his sentencing Friday, Tolson told U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema that he committed the crime out of a desire "to protect Director Mueller."

Brinkema, however, did not fully buy Tolson's claim. Bringing the illegally obtained emails to the media before the FBI demonstrated that Tolson's had other motivations for obtaining the emails, she said.

"This is actually a very serious offense," Brinkema said, Politico reported. "You're lucky. Your wife is lucky. The government could have prosecuted her as well."

In the end, Brinkema sentenced Toslon to seven days in jail, ordered him to serve 50 hours of community service, fined him $500, and placed him on probation for one year.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/ex-fbi-agent-jailed-for-illegally-accessing-email-of-anti-mueller-activist-for-spying-purposes

Germany to Force Internet Providers to Hand Over Data, Passwords of People Accused of ‘Hate Speech’

Angela Merkel’s government is preparing a new bill that will force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to hand over data, including passwords, of those accused of engaging in “hate speech” online.

Minister of Justice Christine Lambrecht, a member of the Social Democrats (SPD), is preparing the bill, which will force service providers, email hosts, online retailers, and others to give the government the usernames, passwords, IP addresses, and more of suspects, MDR reports.

Lambrecht was slammed by many over the proposal, with Hamburg’s data protection officer Johannes Caspar calling it an attack on privacy.

“The fight against the ugly phenomena of right-wing extremism and hate crime apparently acts as a door opener for a comprehensive expansion of state control powers,” he warned.

The German minister defended herself and the bill, claiming that the passwords and data would only be requested as part of a court order and only in serious cases.

“It is not a question of asking for passwords en masse, it is a completely wrong representation and not at all the point and purpose,” she said.

Populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) politician Joana Cotar said the proposed legislation was a “fight against the free Internet” and argued it would be used to silence citizens critical of the German government.

The far-left Die Linke agreed with the AfD, accusing the government of setting up a surveillance state.

Germany already has one of the most draconian sets of laws concerning “hate” on social media, including approving legislation imposing fines of up to 50 million euros on social media companies who do not remove hate content in what the government considers a timely manner.

The German authorities are also known to engage in large-scale raids of citizens accused of spreading “hate speech” online, with a 2016 raid seeing 60 homes searched across 14 states.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/12/21/germany-to-force-internet-providers-to-hand-over-data-of-those-accused-of-hate-speech/

France: Youths Charged with Forcing Children Into Prostitution

Four young men have been arrested and indicted in the French city of Rouen on charges of forcing at least four underage girls into prostitution.

The suspects aged 16 to 22 were arrested on Sunday and are believed to have formed a pimping gang and forced the underage girls, whom they had kidnapped, to engage in as many as 15 sex acts per day, radio broadcaster Tendance Ouest reports.

“One of the accused was already in pre-trial detention and the other three have been placed under judicial supervision,” said Rouen public prosecutor Pascal Prache.

The four suspects are accused of forcing the underage girls, whose identities and ages were not disclosed, to be sexually abused for money for several months, with as many as 15 acts per day at an average price of 100 euros.

“The cases started in apartments located on the Hauts de Rouen before also taking place in an accommodation in downtown Rouen. The victims were young girls who ran away or lived in foster homes. At this stage, there are at least four,” a police source said.

Investigators say the gang had been active since the start of 2019 and that the investigation that led to their arrests started in February when an alleged victim testified at the Le Havre police station.

The arrests come just days after five men in Chaperon-Vert Gentilly, a suburb of Paris, were arrested after they kidnapped a 16-year-old and forced her to engage in as many as 200 sex acts in a five day period.

The suspects in the case were also young men, aged 17 to 22, and were previously known to police.

Child sex abuse and child prostitution have become a pressing issue in areas like Seine-Saint-Denis, a “no-go zone” suburb of Paris.

A report released last month claimed that a third of the underage prostitutes in the suburb were under 15, with some of them as young as just six.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/12/21/france-youths-charged-with-forcing-children-into-prostitution/

Hong Kong Police Arrest 4 Alleged Financiers Of The Protest Movement

On Thursday, police in Hong Kong announced the arrests of several individuals whom they described as leaders of the Hong Kong protests movement. But these individuals (their identities have not been released) were not simply collared out in the street.

Instead, police described the four as leaders of Spark Alliance, a mysterious organization that has been one of the main financiers of the protest movement, including by bailing protesters out of jail and helping to defray their legal fees.

Police seized HK$70 million ($9 million) in bank deposits and personal insurance products from Spark, claiming that the group broke laws about money laundering.

In a response posted to its FB group, Spark blasted the police, accusing them of deliberately trying to cut off one of the most important avenues of financing in the protest movement.

On Thursday evening, police announced the arrests of four people connected with Spark Alliance for suspected money laundering, the first cases brought over financing the demonstrations after six months of protests against China’s tightening grip over Hong Kong. Authorities froze HK$70 million of bank deposits and personal insurance products linked to the fund, while also seizing HK$130,000 in cash.

"The police attempted, through false statements, to distort the work of Spark Alliance as money laundering for malicious uses," the group said in a statement on Facebook. "Spark Alliance condemns this kind of defamatory action."

The arrests and seizures, as Bloomberg explains, shed light on the innerworkings of the Hong Kong protest movement. Millions of Americans who have read the news reports about the protests have probably been left wondering how the protesters became so organized.

Well, this is how: Since the beginning of the movement, wealthy working HKers have observed their duty to help those battling it out on the front lines in any way possible. Mostly, they do it through donations to groups that purport to help bail out protesters after they've been arrested, or groups that simply provide food and shelter for the demonstrators, many of whom are teenagers, or in their early 20s.

This division of responsibilities is part of what's allowed the movement to continue on for as long as it has.

But by cracking down on the money, HK police are essentially pulling the rug out from under Hong Kongers facing criminal charges for protest-related activities.

Because Spark Alliance and another, more transparent, fund called the 612 Humanitarian Fund are responsible for financing the protest movement: According to BBG, the two funds account for 70% of the money raised by the protest movement.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/hong-kong-police-arrest-4-alleged-financiers-protest-movement

>>7581319

dig no one escapes scutiny

>>7581319

dig no one escapes scrutiny

>>7580953

We are being studied Anon's

Friend or foe???? Either way you'll never get a straight answer, kek

>>7581463

Yeah I was just posting to show the bias and hypocrisy