Church of God News

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What is commonly known as ‘big tech’ is more and more seen to be like ‘big brother’: a totalitarian system to decide what information people should have available to them. Governments have learned this.

Notice the following:

Freedom House: Social Media Increasingly Conduit for Surveillance and Voter Manipulation

November 5, 2019

The U.S.-based democracy and freedom watchdog group said in its latest report that many governments are using social media to spy on citizens and manipulate elections.

“Our two main themes this year were looking at how governments are using social media to undermine their own elections and also monitor their citizens,” said Allie Funk, co-author of the report titled Freedom on the Net 2019.

“We found that domestic actors – whether that be government or politicians that are seeking to be elected – actually used the internet to undermine a fair and free election in their country.”

The report says the most often-used tool was the spread of disinformation mostly by far-right politicians. “I don’t know if everybody realized how quickly governments were going to use this against us,” Funk said.

But government attempts to curb internet freedoms can backfire. This summer in Russia, after the Kremlin stymied opposition political candidates anti-government protesters used social media to organize.

“The protesters there were acutely aware that the government was probably watching or surveilling, so they started using code words for different protest movements, and they started to organize on these platforms as well to get administrative aid or to get food or water to other protesters,” Funk said.

The report finds that internet freedoms have been declining every year since Freedom House began compiling the report in 2009. https://www.voanews.com/usa/freedom-house-social-media-increasingly-conduit-surveillance-and-voter-manipulation

The government of the USA does a lot of surveillance with social media and other forms of electronic communications.

Plus, we are seeing societal changes reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984.

Notice also the following:

November 5, 2019

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.

Those were the slogans of the Party in George Orwell’s 1949 novel “1984” that allowed the superstate of Oceania to keep its population under control. The Thought Police thwarted dissent. The Ministry of Truth promoted lies. The Ministry of Love tortured lovers.

Those dystopian warnings about the fake becoming the gospel have shaped the minds of generations since they appeared in print more than a half-century ago. And now a new exhibit on Orwell at the University of New Mexico’s Zimmerman Library in Albuquerque, New Mexico seeks to remind people about the author’s premonitions amid a new — yet very familiar — era. …

Orwell’s concepts of doublespeak (deliberately euphemistic, ambiguous, or obscure language), newspeak (doublespeak for political propaganda) and thoughtcrimes (thoughts deemed illegal by a mob or a government) continued to be cited in response to current events.

President Donald Trump’s practice of blurting falsehoods — like saying, “The Kurds are much safer right now” after Turkey invaded Kurdish strongholds — have been called Orwellian.

The same has been noted for some Democrats. California Gov. Gavin Newsom claimed in August that the “vast majority” San Francisco’s homeless people came from Texas. (A 2019 report found 70 percent had previously lived in the city). https://apnews.com/d00f819347c04c08833fd3b419935b31

As far as “doublespeak” goes, in many parts of Western society you are expected to think that males are females and females are males if that is how they identify. The facts of birth, anatomy, hormones, and DNA are to be overlooked.

Views that do not go along with the mainstream are also increasingly drowned out.

Here is one complaint about that:

November 4, 2019

I was speaking with former ambassador and U.S. presidential candidate Alan Keyes yesterday, and he made the crucial point that since government is an extension of the People, politically-motivated censorship of the Peoples’ ability to engage in speech is, in fact, a form of treason against America.

By selectively censoring conservatives and Trump supporters, tech giants like Google, Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, Reddit and YouTube are engaged in criminal treason and must be held accountable for their actions. …

Google and the other tech giants now believe that they alone get to choose who becomes president, and that their un-elected, anti-American CEOs and in-house spooks get to appoint the leaders they want. … The First Amendment is being shredded by these criminal corporations that now pose the single greatest threat to the future of America and the free world.

It is time to stop their collusion and treason against America. Human freedom cannot coexist with tech giants’ censorship, so we either dismantle the tech giants or we kiss human freedom goodbye. …

The evil tech giants must also be forced to stopping banning apps that offer political speech they don’t like. Apple continues to ban the Natural News upgrade app, claiming that because we are critical of Satanism, abortion and vaccines, our app is not welcomed on Apple device. (Yes, Apple is pro satanism, infanticide and vaccine murder.)

Just as it would be wrong for a phone company to deny phone services to people based on the speech they express during phone calls, it is wrong and illegal for tech company gatekeepers to deprive Americans of their free speech civil rights merely because the tech companies don’t like what people are saying. https://www.naturalnews.com/2019-11-04-trump-must-go-on-the-offensive-against-big-tech-seize-domains-end-censorship.html

Despite concern, electronic tech and governmental ability to censor is going to continue. It was prophesied:

16 He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, 17 and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

18 Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666. (Revelation 13:16-18).

The above prophecy was written over 1900 years ago and required something like electronic monitoring to be able to be fulfilled. We are at the point in human history where the technology will support a totalitarian ‘big brother.’

While ‘alternative media’ has complained about ‘big tech’s internet bias, even some in the mainstream media are taking note that there are at least possible problems. Here, for example, is something from the Washington Post:

The new censors won’t delete your words — they’ll drown them out

Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth. Each day, the hero of George Orwell’s “1984” “corrects” old newspapers to make sure that the information is in still accord with the current Party line. … Nowadays, many of the states (and lots of parties and groups) that want to censor political speech are doing so in an information environment that has been rapidly and massively transformed. Once, speech was scarce and it was possible to control the speakers. Now, the attention of listeners is scarce — and speakers and their words can simply be drowned out. …

We now expect Google, Facebook, Twitter and other companies to police the Internet for dangerous and illegal material — violent, terrorist, criminal — and some democratic governments require them to do so. But what if they did decide to repress material for political reasons? How would we know? According to a report this week, Google has, at the request of the Russian government, already agreed, quietly, to eliminate some websites from its searches in Russia. 02/08/19 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-new-censors-wont-delete-your-words–theyll-drown-them-out/2019/02/08/c8a926a2-2b27-11e9-984d-9b8fba003e81_story.html?utm_term=.9881bc535883

Google is one of the largest big tech firms.

Fear tactics, which discourage users to go to certain websites, are something that Google is being accused of using. Notice the following:

Big Tech Tries To Scare Independent Media Readers Into Compliance With Dire Warnings: Stealth Censorship Shutting Us Down One Voice At A Time

Another day and another dire warning from Google’s Gmail as I attempted to click a link from my Disqus email notifications, left in the Breaking News Alert page, telling me the link Gateway Pundit was “suspicious” and “leads to an “untrusted site,” before asking me if I wished to proceed or go back.

Welcome to the world of Conservative Independent Media.

Gateway Pundit is a conservative site, that has been around since 2004, run by Jim Hoft. As all media, GP is run by humans and I will not say they have never made a mistake, but they do not pump fake news. The liberally biased Politifact has rated three statements by Gateway Pundit, which is listed in their “All statements from The Gateway Pundit,” page which “fact checks” statements and links to those fact check articles.

One statement is listed as “true,” and one as “mostly true,” and one they rated as false.

Interestingly enough, even the story Politifact ranked as false, was mostly true, but Politifact tried to split hairs in order to justify the “false” ranking.

Quick Recap: The accuser of Roy Moore admitted that she added something to Roy Moore’s signature in her yearbook, after many outlets had already noticed the difference in writing. So Gateway Pundit, headlined “WE CALLED IT! Gloria Allred Accuser **ADMITS** She Tampered With Roy Moore’s Yearbook ‘Signature’.”

Technically that is true because she did alter the original signature, which included a date, by adding a location, and didn’t reveal she had did so until questions arose. Then after Politifact raked the story as false, Facebook, who at the time used Politifact as a “fact checker” downranked the article so that it was not easily found unless someone went directly to the GP page and scrolled to find it. …

as a search finds quite a few stories and images, showing Gmail has been doing this for years to certain emails.

What this indicates to me is a desire on the part of big tech to “scare” Independent Media readers into not interacting with each other, or “scaring” them away from opening a newsletter they have subscribed to and confirmed via email, before ever receiving one. 02/15/19 http://allnewspipeline.com/Shutting_Us_Down_One_Voice_At_A_Time.php

And Facebook?

Well apparently it has decided it supports vaccines and wants to suppress those with a different view:

Facebook censors have found a new target, it seems.

Company executives told Bloomberg News that they’re considering cutting from their pages any news that undercuts vaccinations — meaning, anyone who disagrees with the government about the need to vaccinate kids will see one of their key platforms completely shuttered.

Move over, conservatives. Apparently, the new enemy of the social media people is — drumroll, please — the anti-vaccination movement. …

Facebook’s job is not to censor. In fact, its mission statement, amended as it was in 2017, is to “give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.”

That means even those with views that go against the grain ought to be included in Facebook discussions, in Facebook recommended news feeds, among Facebook media pages. If not, why not?

Or the better question: What’s to fear?

Facebook ought to think carefully before shutting down the exchange of ideas on vaccinations. Censorship isn’t just un-American. It can actually spark backlash. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/feb/15/facebook-turns-censorship-eyes-toward-anti-vaccina/

But it is more than vaccinations, Facebook actually has an algorithm that determines what it thinks your political views are.

It reminds me of the Chinese social credit score system (see 666 Surveillance and ‘Famine of the Word’ Censorship and ‘Fear the Surveillance Police State’). As well as something the US is doing (see DHS is monitoring all journalists, bloggers, and media influencers: Will this affect press freedom and lead to the fulfillment of prophecies?).

Google and Facebook are censoring (see Facebook and Google censorship is real and disturbing: Moves towards European 666?).

Pinterest also has its issues (see Pinterest Censorship, George Orwell’s ‘Ministry of Truth,’ and related WCG predictions). As does Mail Chimp (see ‘Threat to independent media worse than you know’).

And Twitter?

While it allows Donald Trump to say almost anything, it has issues as well. Notice someone who told about the boyfriend of another politician:

Writer Luke Thompson was temporarily suspended by Twitter for calling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez out on giving her boyfriend a job in her Congressional office.

Thompson had discovered that Ocasio-Cortez’s boyfriend, Riley Roberts, is now listed as staff in the House directory and tweeted “while you were having a nice Valentine’s Day, @AOC decided to put her boyfriend on staff – drawing a salary on the taxpayer’s dime. Nice to see her adapting to the swamp so quickly.”

Twitter claimed that a screenshot of his House directory listing violated the rules against posting private information. Ocasio-Cortez responded to Thompson’s claim by saying that he only has an account so that he can access her schedule. 02/15/19 https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/02/writer-temporarily-suspended-by-twitter-for-questioning-if-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-put-her-boyfriend-on-payroll/

Twitter has also been accused on engaging in a practice called ‘shadow banning’ (see Twitter’s ‘shadow ban’ political bias exposed).

That is something that Google and YouTube (a Google-Alphabet company) algorithms have been accused of doing (see also YouTube censorship of ‘conservative’ content).

YouTube wants to do more of that. Notice:

While the evolution of Google’s YouTube from a free expression platform into something entirely different has been underway for a while, it just took another step in a very short-sighted and restrictive direction. NBC News reports:

YouTube has announced that it will no longer recommend videos that “come close to” violating its community guidelines, such as conspiracy or medically inaccurate videos… Chaslot said that YouTube’s fix to its recommendations AI will have to include getting people to videos with truthful information and overhauling the current system it uses to recommend videos.

There’s a lot to unpack here so let’s get started. First, it appears YouTube has announced the creation of a new bucket when it comes to content uploaded to the site. It’s no longer just videos consistent with company guidelines and those that aren’t, but there’s now a category for “conspiracy or medically inaccurate videos.” This is a massive responsibility, which neither YouTube or anyone else seems fit to be judge and jury. In other words, YouTube is saying it’s comfortable deciding what is “conspiracy” and what isn’t. Which brings up a really important question.

So no videos of government officials lying the public into wars, or is that the Silicon Valley approved type conspiracy? https://t.co/mUEQGMlLyr

— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) February 11, 2019

“Conspiracy” and covering up conspiracies is a fundamental part of the human experience, and always has been. It demonstrates extreme hubris for a tech giant to claim it can differentiate between a legitimate conspiracy to explore, versus an illegitimate one. One person’s righteous investigation is another’s conspiracy theory, with Russiagate serving as an obvious contemporary example. https://alethonews.com/2019/02/13/youtube-will-determine-what-conspiracy-is-and-stop-recommending-such-videos/

Because of threats, problems, and algorithm biases from YouTube, we in the CCOG have taken steps over the past several years to be able to prolong our presence on the Internet should YouTube someday suspend us like it has done to others.

This is not paranoia. The prudent foresees evil and takes action (Proverbs 22:3).

Some think that one solution is to switch browsers to a relatively new one called Brave:

How to avoid censorship by changing browsers

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) monitor your web activity.

Government, law enforcement, or political pressure can force ISPs to restrict the content you see, effectively censoring the internet.

They might also do it in accordance with their own ideologies, filtering content to support their vision for a better world, whether you agree with it or not.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

The Co-Founder of Mozilla has developed a new browser that lets you stay anonymous while browsing the web.

It’s called Brave.

Brave uses sophisticated anti-snooping technology, including spyware, adware, and tracker blocking features to hide you from prying eyes.

Better yet, Brave’s servers hold none of your data, so even if it wanted to snoop, it can’t. It’s designed to keep you in control of your data at all times. 12/05/18 https://en.softonic.com/articles/how-to-avoid-censorship-by-changing-browsers

The founder of Brave was forced to resign from Mozilla (Firefox) because he had, a few years earlier, sent money to support a traditional marriage initiative in California (which passed at the time).

While Brave could be of temporary value to users, it really does not help someone if a government or tech company removes content (like pulling a place off Facebook or YouTube).

The Bible shows that a European totalitarian dictator will rise up (Revelation 13, 17:12-13).

Yet now, in the USA and especially out of it, we are seeing more and more calls for restrictions and censorship.

Europe has placed a lot of pressure on big tech to censor.

More is coming.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 5th, 2019 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Prophecy.

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