BIG TECH spies, agents for the ruling elites
Facebook checking private messaging, and ACTIVELY INTERFERING
Here is a short story in between some larger articles I am working on.
First, a quick mention of a great German movie, that might be unknown to many. Not a Hollywood production, not in English, about the time before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Definitely a movie I would highly recommend watching!
“At once a political thriller and human drama, THE LIVES OF OTHERS begins in East Berlin in 1984, five years before Glasnost and the fall of the Berlin Wall and ultimately takes us to 1991, in what is now the reunited Germany. THE LIVES OF OTHERS traces the gradual disillusionment of Captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe, best known for his lead roles in Michael Haneke's FUNNY GAMES and as Dr. Mengele in Costa-Gavras' AMEN), a highly skilled officer who works for the Stasi, East Germany's all-powerful secret police. His mission is to spy on a celebrated writer and actress couple, Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck).”
It is a brilliant depiction of an oppressive police state that does not trust their own citizens. Instead, they spy on them, in their own homes. Private conversations with friends, family members… All listened in on, recorded, and, if proven to be ‘subversive’ to the interests of the state, acted upon… And those people would disappear, or in a best case, end up in prison. We watch it now, this story from more than 30 years ago, it seems so old fashioned, clearly something from the time of the Soviet Communists, that has long since ended!
How lucky are we to live in the Free Western World!
But are we?
We keep hearing and reading, in ever faster succession, stories about the Big Tech media companies, negative ones, revelations that, in normal times among normally aware people, would incite anger and demands for oversight and legal action.
I have chronicled some in previous articles, and here is another more recent example. Meta, the company owning Facebook and Instagram, has removed 81 China based accounts that were engaging in political influencing campaigns, “including posing as American liberals and conservatives to bash U.S. politicians”, as well as an unconnected Russian network of similar fake accounts (but much larger and much more complex, consisting of “1,633 accounts, 703 Pages, one Group and
29 accounts on Instagram”), that “focused its efforts in Europe and wrote about the war in Ukraine”.
“The Chinese influence attempts consisted of 81 Facebook accounts that primarily targeted the United States and the Czech Republic, Meta stated.“
Meta itself reported on this through a report titled “Taking down coordinated inauthentic behavior from Russia and China”.
Another story was how the Facebook group “Died Suddenly News”, a fast growing group there that collected reports about people who died suddenly and ‘inexplicably’, suddenly ‘died’ when they reached 300.000 members, when Facebook removed the group.
And earlier last week, a report that Facebook is censoring private messages in relation to an FBI whistleblower on Jan 6. This article by Newsmax, titled “Facebook Censoring Content Related to FBI Whistleblower”, covered a story broken by the New York Post.
This story revolves around FBI Special Agent Steve Friend, and his incredible whistleblower complaint filed with the Department of Justice. Even Trump amplified this story, and praised Friend for his actions and courage, as he got fired from his job at the FBI because he had dared question the politicized approach by the FBI leadership, into an ‘overzealous’ investigation into the January 6 ‘insurrection’.
Steve Friend as a SWAT team member
I won’t go over the whole case, you can read more details in the NYPost article “FBI hero paying the price for exposing unjust ‘persecution’ of conservative Americans” here, but I want to highlight a single aspect of his report.
The NYPost summarized the allegations made by Friend, and that list included this:
“ FBI domestic terrorism cases are being opened on innocent American citizens who were nowhere near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, based on anonymous tips to an FBI hotline or from Facebook spying on their messages. These tips are turned into investigative tools called “guardians,” after the FBI software that collates them.”
That is very curious, and we find more information in an earlier report, also by the NYPost, titled “Facebook spied on private messages of Americans who questioned 2020 election”.
Miranda Devine, the author of that article (and the other ones on Steve Friend), opens as follows:
“Facebook has been spying on the private messages and data of American users and reporting them to the FBI if they express anti-government or anti-authority sentiments — or question the 2020 election — according to sources within the Department of Justice.”
Devine reports how Facebook had flagged ‘subversive’ private messages in the course of 19 months, redacted them, and send them over to the domestic terrorism operational unit at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC. All that without probable cause, or without a subpoena. As one source said: “It was done outside the legal process and without probable cause. Facebook provides the FBI with private conversations which are protected by the First Amendment without any subpoena.”
After receiving them, the FBI then used those private messages as ‘leads’, disseminating them to their local field offices all over the country, who then went to their local US Attorney offices in their districts to get a warrant to ‘officially’ obtain those private conversations they already had in possession. Unsurprisingly, nothing illegal or criminal showed up, making this also a ‘waste of their time’.
Miranda Devine continued her report:
“The Facebook users whose private communications Facebook had red-flagged as domestic terrorism for the FBI were all “conservative right-wing individuals.”
“They were gun-toting, red-blooded Americans [who were] angry after the election and shooting off their mouths and talking about staging protests. There was nothing criminal, nothing about violence or massacring or assassinating anyone.
“As soon as a subpoena was requested, within an hour, Facebook sent back gigabytes of data and photos. It was ready to go. They were just waiting for that legal process so they could send it.”
Of course, Facebook denied those allegations, but it showed up again in the testimony of Steve Friend, and again in what happened to Friend’s wife (more about that in a little).
Miranda Devine preempted any possible use of such denial, and added:
“Facebook’s denial that it proactively provides the FBI with private user data without a subpoena or search warrant, if true, would indicate that the initial transfer has been done by a person (or persons) at the company designated as a “confidential human source” by the FBI, someone with the authority to access and search users’ private messages.
In this way, Facebook would have “plausible deniability” if questions arose about misuse of users’ data and its employee’s confidentiality would be protected by the FBI.
“They had access to searching and they were able to pinpoint it, to identify these conversations from millions of conversations,” according to one of the DOJ sources.”
Crucially, after pointing out that her sources with knowledge of the information that was send between Facebook and the FBI had admitted that ‘they [Facebook and the FBI] were looking for conservative right-wing individuals. None were Antifa types,’ she explains why this is now coming out, and why those DOJ sources had come forward to talk with her about this:
“The DOJ sources have decided to speak to The Post, and risk their careers, because they are concerned that federal law enforcement has been politicized and is abusing the constitutional rights of innocent Americans.”
And another whistleblower added to that:
“The most frightening thing is the combined power of Big Tech colluding with the enforcement arm of the FBI,” says one whistleblower. “Google, Facebook and Twitter, these companies are globalist. They don’t have our national interest at heart.”
This news spread around among anons and conservatives, but it is surprising how it did not get any more traction, given the implications of it.
Check out this video, posted in reaction to that bombshell report by Miranda Devine by Jack Posobiec on Telegram, here, with the comment “BREAKING: Facebook has been spying on "election deniers" via their private messages and then sharing that data with the FBI: "It's not a surprising report, because we live under a regime."
Chief Nerd on Telegram posted about collusion of Big Tech and the government, in violation of our First Amendment rights:
“Facebook Exec Admits They Colluded with the Government to Violate First Amendment Rights of Users
Sen. Josh Hawley: "The United States Government is bound by the First Amendment. They cannot encourage or coerce or incite or collude with a private party to get around the First Amendment. You just said to me today that that's basically what they did. That you coordinated with them repeatedly over a pattern of months and years to adjust and target your speech policies, for protected speech, at the behest of the United States Government. I have to tell you, I've got a big problem with that and I think all your users should too."”
Even Trump is spreading that news, trying to wake people up from the reality of a growing police state, during his many speeches all over the country: “It was also recently revealed that the FBI went to Facebook in the weeks before the 2020 election and told them that the Hunter Biden laptop was all Russian disinformation.”
Covid and vaccine expert The Ethical Skeptic has already adjusted his writing on Twitter as well, to avoid “keyword based censorship”, and writes \/ instead of ‘vaccine’ or ‘the shot’, to make it harder to find his comments through targeted search queries.
This is nothing new, and people have noticed this already.
Kanekoa the Great alluded to this kind of search through private messages in a critical comment:
“You posted private messages on Facebook questioning the integrity of the 2020 election. Purchase denied.”
Does that sound far-fetched?
No, it doesn’t. Not to me.
Let’s go back to Steve Friend’s wife, as promised. And back to the great Miranda Devine (really, keep an eye on her articles, or get a paid subscription to the New York Post to support her work!), as well, as she broke this story as well, in this unfolding drama.
She opens her new article, ‘Facebook ‘silencing’ activity related to FBI whistleblower Steve Friend’, with this paragraph:
“More evidence of how vindictive, obsessive and downright sinister Facebook is: Now it appears to be monitoring private messages and suppressing material related to the whistleblower complaint of heroic FBI special agent Steve Friend.”
Miranda continued to explain the background of this new story:
“After Friend’s bombshell revelations last week in a whistleblower complaint to the Department of Justice inspector general, his cause received an avalanche of public and private support, including from former FBI agents and conservative groups.”
So, what happened next, that exposed how downright dirty and sinister Facebook’s reach and actions are? A local chapter of ‘Moms for Liberty’ (M4L), had sent a text message to a mutual friend of that member of M4L and Steve Friend’s wife.
“What can M4L do for Steve Friend right now? We want to offer community support of fundraising (though we feel it would likely be shut down). Can you reach out to him and let him know Moms for Liberty is thinking of him and if we can provide any assistance we are here.”
Steve’s wife replied, using her own personal Facebook Account to send a private message to that chapter of M4L, in which she identified herself as ‘Steve Friend’s wife’, thanked them, explained that her husband was trying to get permission to speak openly, and asked them to share his story on their own personal social media accounts.
Miranda Devine explained what happened next:
“About 30 minutes later, Mrs. Friend received a notification from Facebook that her account had been suspended because the “account, or activity on it, doesn’t follow our Community Standards.”
At the Moms for Liberty end, Mrs. Friend’s Facebook message disappeared. In its place was a notification saying, “Message unavailable.”
This is incredible. This is not just ‘spying’ without a subpoena or probable cause, it is not just suppressing stories that are of import for the public to reach properly informed opinions on topics of vital public interest, it IS ACTIVELY MONITORING AND INTERFERING WITH people’s private messages!
Miranda asked the obvious questions:
“Why is Facebook monitoring private messages and attempting to suppress material related to Friend’s protected whistleblower complaint? Were they asked to do so by the FBI?”
I can testify, from personal experience, that Facebook IS INDEED monitoring private messages, and not just monitoring, but ACTIVELY INTERFERING, not just about January 6th, but with a much wider net of topics and keywords!
As background: I started working as a teacher in a local private high school (History, Ancient Literature and Religion), and my son transferred from the public high school in our township to this school as well. He really wanted to leave, as the impersonal style of that school (where he was only a number, one among a class of over a thousand students in his grade alone), as well as the horrendous level of some (many) of the teachers (in particularly his history teacher, who had started the school year last year explaining why George Washington was a horrible person, and the US founded on horrible principles by bad people, among other such gems of woke scholarship).
Part of the process involved sending his school records to the new school, where it was reviewed by someone of the main staff there (a friend of mine from before I started working there).
It was noticed that my son had failed his Physical Education class 2 years ago, and I received a message through facebook, stating that this person was reviewing his transcripts, noticed that he failed PE, that such was very odd, and asked me if I knew why he had failed that class.
I replied, through messenger on Facebook, as a private message:
But for some reason, I could not send that message, at all!
So I clicked on the red notification under my message, that told me “Message could not be sent. Tap for details.”
That brought me to the following screen:
I could receive the message from this person, and I could send other messages (as shown, my reply that I would answer through WhatsApp instead). So the issue was NOT anything about not having the latest version of Messenger, nor my internet connection, nor the storage on my device.
So what about the next set of explanations?
That person had NOT deactivated or suspended their account (but had just messaged me). I did not block that person, how else could I have received their request for information on that failing grade? Neither was it a group chat, where everybody else had already left.
That leaves the next and only remaining option:
What I had sent in that message, ‘WENT AGAINST THEIR COMMUNITY STANDARDS’. You see the whole message in full, what did I write that could possibly form an infraction of their community standards? I wrote about COVID-19. Not even in a negative way, or stating something ‘unscientific’ or ‘uncivic’. No, I had merely mentioned it. Perhaps I am flagged as ‘conservative’ or ‘to be watched’ (even though I only use Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends…), on some special list, that made that my mention of that word, COVID-19, resulted in Facebook ACTIVELY PREVENTING me to send that message!
They did not only snoop in on my private messages, they took the extra step to PREVENT ME from sending it! This is not just about January 6 or an ‘insurrection’, real or imagined, but about the mere mention of Covid. Which means that ANY keyword could be used next…
I don’t understand why people don’t create a massive uproar, that such companies can get away with such blatant infractions of our personal freedoms and rights! They do it sneakily, in hiding, as they know they would lose their users, or get sued in the process.
Luckily, intrepid people have been working hard, and besides Musk bringing to light the corruption at Twitter and the massive abuse of bots to inflate numbers and to wage active information war (see my article on the Ash conformity experiments, for example) others as well, whose efforts are leading to court cases that are bringing real results, forcing the big companies into the light, changing those restrictive, authoritarian practices.
“The fate of the world...no, civilization itself... requires that Twitter and Facebook lose this battle.
Free speech MUST remain an inalienable and inherent right.
Inherent means one that is not granted to a subject by a State, but one that is God-given and may not be trodden upon by the state.
This is the essence of the American Republic. We must win these monumentally important battles and defeat our Big Tech overlords.”
(Shared by Cognitive Carbon, on Telegram)
Share this article.
Share your own stories.
Create an uproar, and demand that this abuse of power, this illegal collusion with government agencies, STOP!
Enough is enough.
We cannot remain complacent!
Twitter, Facebook, Google and other such websites and companies have an enormous influence on what we think, and what we know. Even on what we feel. They are not just private companies, but as market squares of public information, facilitating public debate, they play an active role in our society.
This collusion with selective groups in government, to create an oppressive atmosphere, with those companies as self-appointed guardians, must stop.
Simply moving over to other platforms, is not enough: we need to end this practice, and protect our speech and the public discourse/information sources.
To end, I leave you with this insight from an author who knew:
When you go east on the Dumbarton Bridge, you drive past FB HQ. There are always people out front taking pictures, like tourists. 🤮
I really don't understand how the employees have just left their conscience at the door. Is the paycheck worth that much to you?
Quite interesting. I am a baby boomer born in 1953. In my rise in my career, I was with a company that was very good at analog electronic circuit testing. Their primary competitor zoom ahead with digital technology.. We became the leader again. We created the best analog digital converters in the world. We made the crossover from analog to digital and regained market share.
We were then involved in battle with the convergence of digital world, media world, and sound. Our digital switchers became the lead product in the transition to digital TV.
As my career evolved, I became involved in software. I watched Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, slug it out.
I saw a big data be coming of age, and was offered a position with a big data company. I saw what they could do with it, with publicly procured databases, and I declined the job. It was time to retire.
I saw the evil in big data, but now I see all the good guys that have used big data. I am starting to calm down now. I know God wins.
🙏❤️🗳
Nobody777