Twitter Files: FBI Helps Ukraine Censor Twitter Users And Obtain Their Info, Including Journalists

Twitter Files: FBI Helps Ukraine Censor Twitter Users And Obtain Their Info, Including Journalists:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has aided a Ukrainian intelligence effort to censor social media users and obtain their personal information, leaked emails reveal.

In March 2022, an FBI Special Agent sent Twitter a list of accounts on behalf of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Ukraine’s main intelligence agency. The accounts, the FBI wrote, “are suspected by the SBU in spreading fear and disinformation.” In an attached memo, the SBU asked Twitter to remove the accounts and hand over their user data.

The Ukrainian government’s FBI-enabled targets extend to members of the media. The SBU list that the FBI provided to Twitter included my name and Twitter profile. In its response to the FBI, Twitter agreed to review the accounts for “inauthenticity” but raised concerns about the inclusion of me and other “American and Canadian journalists.”

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Cheese Pizza? Meta’s Instagram Facilitated Massive Pedophile Network

Cheese Pizza? Meta’s Instagram Facilitated Massive Pedophile Network:

A comprehensive investigation by the Wall Street Journal and the Stanford Internet Observatory reveals that Meta-owned Instagram has been home to an organized and massive network of pedophiles.

But what separates this case from most is that Instagram’s own algorithms were promoting pedophile content to other pedophiles, while the pedos themselves used coded emojis, such as a picture of a map, or a slice of cheese pizza.

Instagram connects pedophiles and guides them to content sellers via recommendation systems that excel at linking those who share niche interests, the Journal and the academic researchers found.

The pedophilic accounts on Instagram mix brazenness with superficial efforts to veil their activity, researchers found. Certain emojis function as a kind of code, such as an image of a map—shorthand for “minor-attracted person”—or one of “cheese pizza,” which shares its initials with “child pornography,” according to Levine of UMass. Many declare themselves “lovers of the little things in life.” -WSJ

According to the researchers, Instagram allowed pedophiles to search for content with explicit hashtags such as #pedowhore and #preteensex, which were then used to connect them to accounts that advertise child-sex material for sale from users going under names such as “little slut for you.”

Sellers of child porn often convey the child’s purported age, saying they are “on chapter 14,” or “age 31,” with an emoji of a reverse arrow.

Meta claims to have taken down 27 pedophile networks over the past two years, and says it plans more removals.

“That a team of three academics with limited access could find such a huge network should set off alarms at Meta,” said Alex Stamos, the head of the Stanford Internet Observatory and Meta’s chief security officer until 2018, adding that the company has far more effective tools to ‘map’ its pedophile network than outsiders do.

“I hope the company reinvests in human investigators,” he added.

Researchers investigating the network set up test accounts within the pedophile network, which were immediately inundated with “suggested for you” recommendations of child-sex content, as well as accounts linking to off-platform trading sites.

Read moreCheese Pizza? Meta’s Instagram Facilitated Massive Pedophile Network

Like, Totally Orwellian: Nearly A Third Of GenZ Favors ‘Government Surveillance Cameras In Every Household’

What can you say?….

Like, Totally Orwellian: Nearly A Third Of GenZ Favors ‘Government Surveillance Cameras In Every Household’:

Nearly one-third of Generation Z says they’d be just fine with government-installed surveillance cameras in every household under the guise of reducing domestic violence and other illegal activity.

“Would you favor or oppose the government installing surveillance cameras in every household to reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity?” asks a new survey from the Cato Institute. Of the responses, 29% of those aged 18-29 said yes.

As the NY Post notes;

In 1791, the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham proposed building a “panopticon” in which people’s behavior could be monitored at all times.

But Bentham’s panopticon was meant to be a prison. A sizable segment of Generation Z would like to call it home.

When it comes to other age brackets, 20% of millennials (between the ages of 30 and 44) also want everyone watched.

Read moreLike, Totally Orwellian: Nearly A Third Of GenZ Favors ‘Government Surveillance Cameras In Every Household’

Putin Slams Kiev’s “Barbaric Act” In 1st Public Comments On Dam Catastrophe

Putin Slams Kiev’s “Barbaric Act” In 1st Public Comments On Dam Catastrophe:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has addressed the Nova Kakhovka dam blast in public comments on Wednesday for the first time, charging that it was a “barbaric act” of the Ukrainian government and its military forces.

Russia’s defense and foreign ministries had already laid blame on Kiev for the “catastrophic” attack. Putin’s comments came during a phone call to Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan – the first since his reelection. Putin offered Erdogan congratulations, but the two also discussed in-depth the dam disaster which has deeply impacted both Crimea and southern Ukraine as people are flooded out of their homes and towns. Evacuations and rescue efforts continue.

Putin told Erdogan in the phone call that the breach was “a barbaric act which has led to a large-scale environmental and humanitarian catastrophe.”

Read morePutin Slams Kiev’s “Barbaric Act” In 1st Public Comments On Dam Catastrophe

WHO Adopts European-Style COVID-19 Vaccine Passports As Part Of New Global Digital Health Certificate

You thought they’d stop at Covid?…

WHO Adopts European-Style COVID-19 Vaccine Passports As Part Of New Global Digital Health Certificate:

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The World Health Organization (WHO) said it will take up the European Union’s digital COVID-19 vaccine passport framework as part of a new global network of digital health certificates.

The WHO said in a June 5 statement that it had entered into a “landmark digital health partnership” with the European Commission (EC), the European Union’s executive body.

As part of this new joint venture, Europe’s existing framework of digital vaccine passports will serve as the first building block of a global network of digital health products.

Read moreWHO Adopts European-Style COVID-19 Vaccine Passports As Part Of New Global Digital Health Certificate

Turkish Lira Craters 7% In Record Drop, Hits All Time Low As State Banks Retreat From Defense

 

Turkish Lira Craters 7% In Record Drop, Hits All Time Low As State Banks Retreat From Defense:

One month ago we told readers of our premium subscriber feed that shorting the Turkish Lira was our “highest conviction” trade.

We were right: just under month later, the lira has lost almost 20%, a staggering, unprecedented move in the world of FX, and those who followed our reco (in size) can take a few months off.

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This Is What Happened To The Gold And Silver Prize In Lebanon After A 90% Devaluation Of The Lebanese Pound…

In case you needed a visual of how gold and silver protect your financial assets…

The people holding only fiat money have been financially destroyed and still have to battle with hyperinflation.

Lebanon is a country spiraling out of control, as planned by TPTB…

U.S. 4 Star General Wesley Clark, Oct 3, 2007: ‘We’re Gonna Attack And Destroy The Governments In 7 Countries In 5 Years’ … ‘Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan And Iran’ (Video)

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Irish Farmers Raise Alarm Over Government’s Proposal To Kill Off 200,000 Cows

Irish Farmers Raise Alarm Over Government’s Proposal To Kill Off 200,000 Cows:

Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Irish government is facing a backlash after reports broke of a proposal to kill off as many as 200,000 cows over the next three years in an effort to meet the country’s emissions reduction goals.

Last week, the Irish Independent reported on a government document describing plans for a potential cull of up to 65,000 dairy cows per year for the next three years. The paper reportedly obtained the documents from Ireland’s Department of Agriculture through a freedom of information request. In all, killing off 200,000 cows would wipe out about 10 percent of Ireland’s dairy cow population.

Read moreIrish Farmers Raise Alarm Over Government’s Proposal To Kill Off 200,000 Cows

Final Stand? Half A Million French Protesters Take To Streets Against Pension Reform

Final Stand? Half A Million French Protesters Take To Streets Against Pension Reform:

Over half a million people are expected to protest across France on Tuesday against President Emmanuel Macron’s widely unpopular pension overhaul, according to Euronews. This will be the 14th day of nationwide demonstrations since January.

Trade unions are making one last attempt to pressure lawmakers to reverse Macron’s move to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. Months of large protests have failed as union leaders are starting to get the memo:

Read moreFinal Stand? Half A Million French Protesters Take To Streets Against Pension Reform

They Are Never Going To See It Coming, And So They Won’t Be Prepared…

They Are Never Going To See It Coming, And So They Won’t Be Prepared…:

There is nothing wrong with being optimistic, but blind optimism can be a very dangerous thing.  The reason why so many of the “experts” were shocked by the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009 is because they didn’t want to believe that such a thing could happen.  Unfortunately, we are witnessing a similar pattern now.  Even though we are absolutely drowning in debt, inflation is wildly out of control, our currency is being transformed into toilet paper, the housing market has started to crash and mass layoffs are being conducted all over the nation, a lot of the “experts” continue to insist that everything is going to be just fine.  For example, the following comes from a CNN article entitled “The case for a 2023 US recession is crumbling”

Many CEOs, investors and economists had penciled in 2023 as the year when a recession would hit the American economy.

The thinking was that the US economy would grind to a halt because the Federal Reserve was effectively slamming the brakes to squash inflation. Businesses would lay off workers and inflation-weary Americans would slash spending.

Umm, I hate to interrupt CNN’s wishful thinking, but the reality is that businesses really are laying off workers.

In fact, the number of job cuts that have been announced through the first five months of this year is 315 percent higher than the number of job cuts that were announced through the first five months of last year.

And more workers are being laid off with each passing day.  Earlier today, I was saddened to learn that Spotify has just decided that yet another round of layoffs has become necessary…

Read moreThey Are Never Going To See It Coming, And So They Won’t Be Prepared…

Kiev’s Long-Term “Last Resort” Plan To Blow-Up The Kakhova Dam Exposed

Kiev’s Long-Term “Last Resort” Plan To Blow-Up The Kakhova Dam Exposed:

A day after Ukraine’s much-heralded counter-offensive appears to have failed, almost before it had even begun, a major dam in the Russian-occupied region of Kherson is suddenly bombed, prompting mass evacuations as floods spread across the region.

As we detailed earlier, both sides accuse each other of the attack that puts tens of thousands of homes at risk and might even threaten the safety of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.

However, as Raul Ilargi Meijer writes, twice last year (here and here), Ukrainian officials discussed Kiev’s plans to blow up the dam.

Andrew Korybko lays out the real narrative here:

The partial destruction of the Kakhovka Dam on early Tuesday morning saw Kiev and Moscow exchange accusations about who’s to blame, but report from the Washington Post (WaPo) in late December extends credence to the Kremlin’s version of events.

Titled “Inside the Ukrainian counteroffensive that shocked Putin and reshaped the war”, its journalists quoted former commander of November’s Kherson Counteroffensive Major General Andrey Kovalchuk who shockingly admitted to planning this war crime:

Read moreKiev’s Long-Term “Last Resort” Plan To Blow-Up The Kakhova Dam Exposed

1000s Evacuated As Massive Wall Of Water Surges Through Ukraine After Major Dam ‘Blown Up’

1000s Evacuated As Massive Wall Of Water Surges Through Ukraine After Major Dam ‘Blown Up’:

Images and videos posted on social media show a major dam and hydroelectric power plant in the Russian-occupied region of Kherson, located in southern Ukrainian, destroyed early Tuesday. Water rushed through the dam into the Dnieper River, which separates Ukrainian and Russian forces. Both sides accuse each other of the attack that puts tens of thousands of homes at risk and might even threaten the safety of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.

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Journalists Are Asking Ukrainian Soldiers To Hide Their Nazi Patches, NYT Admits

So those symbols have “meanings unique to Ukraine” and “should be interpreted by how Ukrainians viewed them, not by how they had been used elsewhere.”

So I would like to know how Ukrainians view this in a unique way (click on image to enlarge)…

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Journalists Are Asking Ukrainian Soldiers To Hide Their Nazi Patches, NYT Admits:

The New York Times has been forced to very, very belatedly deal with something which had long been obvious and known to many independent analysts and media outlets, but which has been carefully shielded from the mainstream masses in the West for obvious reasons.

The surprising Monday Times headline said that “Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History.” This acknowledgement comes after literally years of primarily indy journalists and geopolitical commentators pointing out that yes indeed… Ukraine’s military and paramilitary groups, especially those operating in the east since at least 2014, have a serious Nazi ideology problem. This has been exhaustively documented, again, going back years. But the report, which merely tries to downplay it as a “thorny issue” of Ukraine’s “unique” “History” – suggests that the real problem for Western PR is fundamentally that it’s being displayed so openly. Ukrainian troops are being asked to cover those Nazi symbols please!–as Matt Taibbi sarcastically quipped in commenting on the report.


NBC News report in 2014: “Germans were confronted with images of their country’s dark past on Monday night, when German public broadcaster ZDF showed video of Ukrainian soldiers with Nazi symbols on their helmets in its evening newscast.”

The authors of the NYT report begin by expressing frustration over the optics of Nazi symbols being displayed so proudly on many Ukrainian soldiers’ uniforms. Suggesting that many journalistic photographs which have in some cases been featured in newspapers and media outlets worldwide (typically coupled with generally positive articles on Ukraine’s military) are merely ‘unfortunate’ or misleading, the NYT report says, “In each photograph, Ukrainians in uniform wore patches featuring symbols that were made notorious by Nazi Germany and have since become part of the iconography of far-right hate groups.”

The report admits this has led to controversy wherein news rooms actually must delete some photos of Ukrainian soldiers and militants. “The photographs, and their deletions, highlight the Ukrainian military’s complicated relationship with Nazi imagery, a relationship forged under both Soviet and German occupation during World War II,” continues the report.

So it’s merely “thorny” and “complicated” we are told. Below is a small sampling of the kinds of patches that appear on Ukrainian military uniforms with “some regularity” – in the words of The New York Times:

NATO itself has in the recent past been forced to delete images on its official social media accounts due to Nazi imagery being present among Ukrainian troops during photo shoots.

The following line from the report says everything you need to know about the so-called “paper of record” and its one-sided and ultra-simplistic coverage of what many are finally waking up to realize is a war with a deeply complex reality (to say the least), and far from the MSM’s goodies vs. baddies Hollywoodesque narrative of Putler vs. the free world which is typical of networks from CNN to Fox to NBC…

From the NY Times:

Read moreJournalists Are Asking Ukrainian Soldiers To Hide Their Nazi Patches, NYT Admits