[News] Facebook gives nod to secret pro-Israel campaign

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/facebook-gives-nod-secret-pro-israel-campaign 



  Facebook gives nod to secret pro-Israel campaign

Ali Abunimah <https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah> - 21 
February 2019

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Facebook <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/facebook> has banned 
several pages belonging to such viral media outlets as In the Now 
because they are affiliates of the Russian-funded network RT – even 
though these media outlets violated none of the social network’s rules.

Yet The Electronic Intifada can exclusively reveal that Facebook has 
given a nod of approval to a network of secretive and deceptive pages 
set up by The Israel Project, a lobby group that collaborates 
<https://www.theisraelproject.org/conference_with_yossi_kuperwasser> 
with 
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/bds-is-a-dirty-business-those-who-battle-it-on-israels-behalf-must-stay-clean/> 
the Israeli government 
<https://www.theisraelproject.org/michael_oren_conference_call_12_6_2017> 
and with 
<https://www.theisraelproject.org/conference_with_deputy_of_israel_council> 
Israel’s 
<https://www.theisraelproject.org/tip_conference_call_with_colonel_eyal_rosen_former_head_of_the_idf_southern_command_artillery_unit> 
military 
<https://www.theisraelproject.org/tip_conference_call_with_amos_gilad> 
establishment 
<https://www.theisraelproject.org/tip_conference_call_with_nitzan_nuriel_the_former_director_of_the_counter_terror_bureau_at_the_prime_minister_s_office> 
to influence public opinion against Palestinians.

Last week, Facebook took down several pages run by Maffick Media. This 
came after CNN ran a report 
<https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/15/tech/russia-facebook-viral-videos/index.html> 
that the majority stakeholder of the company “is Ruptly, a subsidiary of 
RT, which is funded by the Russian government.”

Often featuring reporter Rania Khalek, one of those outlets, In The Now, 
creates viral videos on current affairs, including this recent one 
debunking US claims used to justify the Trump administration’s regime 
change effort in Venezuela:

    It’s moments like this you should really question why CNN, why the
    US government and its proxy think tanks are so scared of what people
    like me and @AnissaNow
    <https://twitter.com/AnissaNow?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw> have to say.
    These entities really want to shut us up. Why? Because we say things
    like this pic.twitter.com/xMabspwZcP <https://t.co/xMabspwZcP>

    — Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) February 16, 2019
    <https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/1096735241211920384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

Khalek is a former editor and writer 
<https://electronicintifada.net/people/rania-khalek> for The Electronic 
Intifada.


    Government-linked censorship

As Kevin Gosztola reported for /Shadowproof/ 
<https://shadowproof.com/2019/02/16/cnn-manufactured-story-about-russia-video-company-facebook-censorship/>, 
CNN’s hit piece revealed no violations of Facebook policies by Maffick 
Media’s pages.

    Seriously, I encourage you to watch the videos I’ve posted in this
    thread & go check out @IntheNow_tweet
    <https://twitter.com/IntheNow_tweet?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>’s other
    videos, which cover climate change, politics & history. Watch and
    ask yourself why CNN finds this content so offensive that it
    pressured @Facebook
    <https://twitter.com/facebook?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw> to censor it

    — Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) February 18, 2019
    <https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/1097540558623596544?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

    It has been 3 days since @facebook
    <https://twitter.com/facebook?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw> suspended
    @IntheNow_tweet
    <https://twitter.com/IntheNow_tweet?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>'s page at
    the behest of @CNN <https://twitter.com/CNN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw> and
    US government funded think tanks. We had almost 4 million
    subscribers, did not violate any Facebook rules, were given no
    warning & Facebook isn’t responding to us.

    — Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) February 18, 2019
    <https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/1097519030318100482?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

However CNN drew on Ben Nimmo of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic 
Research Lab as a supposed expert to claim that In The Now journalists 
“routinely boost Kremlin narratives, especially those which portray the 
West negatively.”

A pro-war think tank, The Atlantic Council boasts funders 
<https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/support/supporters> including NATO, the 
governments of the United States, United Kingdom and United Arab 
Emirates, and a slew of arms companies.

Its supposed digital sleuth Nimmo has such a poor track record that he 
has falsely identified 
<https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/10/23/facebook-censorship-of-alternative-media-just-the-beginning-says-top-neocon-insider/> 
living individuals, including a Ukrainian concert pianist and a British 
senior citizen, as “Russian bots.”

CNN also acknowledged that the relationship between Maffick Media and RT 
was brought to its attention by the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a 
cut-out of the US and NATO-financed <http://www.gmfus.org/our-partners> 
German Marshall Fund.

The Alliance for Securing Democracy’s “advisory council 
<https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/about-us/advisory-council/>” is a 
who’s who of US government figures and right-wing ideologues including 
former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, neoconservative 
war hawk Bill Kristol, former CIA acting director Michael Morell, 
Hillary Clinton presidential campaign chair John Podesta and former NATO 
Supreme Allied Commander Admiral James Stavridis.

CNN reporters claimed 
<https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/status/1097180952751529984> that 
their network’s “investigation” uncovered that “Russia is paying to 
produce viral videos aimed at Americans” – even though the fact that In 
The Now has Russian funding was not a secret 
<https://twitter.com/AricToler/status/1097666056070615040> and already 
widely <https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1097843838301978624> known 
<https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/1097662909767925760>.

CNN even misquoted Maffick Media chief operating officer J. Ray Sparks 
to make it seem like he had acknowledged duplicitous behavior by his 
company to conceal its Russian funding, when he was merely noting that 
it was “standard industry practice” among all media outlets not to 
include extensive disclosures about their ownership structures.

CNN was forced to issue a correction after Gosztola revealed this deception.

    Here's conversation I recorded with @RaniaKhalek
    <https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw> about CNN,
    which fabricated a story around her work and the work of In The Now.
    They had little to nothing until Facebook censored journalists
    critical of US govt. Then CNN published their report.
    https://t.co/da2B4XoGgl

    — Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) February 19, 2019
    <https://twitter.com/kgosztola/status/1097967778705928192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

Journalist Glenn Greenwald, a campaigner against censorship, excoriated 
<https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1097834759181553664> CNN as 
“obsessed with, and steadfastly devoted to, pressuring social media 
companies to censor from the internet political content critical of the 
US government.”

    CNN is obsessed with, and steadfastly devoted to, pressuring social
    media companies to censor from the internet political content
    critical of the US Govt. They work with US-funded groups to do it.
    What odd behavior for a news outlet: sounds more like an arm of the
    State Dept. https://t.co/9fKht31I7o

    — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 19, 2019
    <https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1097834759181553664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

Greenwald also pointed out 
<https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1097835497429307392> that CNN’s 
owner, “AT&T, has very close relationships with the US security state, 
especially its spying.”

    CNN's owner, AT&T, has very close relationships with the US security
    state, especially its spying. CNN never discloses this. CNN employs
    many ex-agents. They never disclose the interests of their weapons
    advertisers in the wars they promote. But they demand FB censors others.

    — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 19, 2019
    <https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1097835497429307392?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

The network also “employs many ex-agents” and “never disclose the 
interests of their weapons advertisers in the wars they promote,” 
Greenwald added. “But they demand Facebook censors others.”


    Secret Israeli propaganda

In stark contrast to Facebook’s swift removal of pages belonging to 
media outlets that challenge US government policies, the social network 
has taken no action against a secret influence campaign 
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/censored-film-reveals-israel-projects-secret-facebook-campaign/25486> 
run by The Israel Project, a major lobby group.

The effort to manipulate unsuspecting Facebook users was revealed in 
/The Lobby – USA/ <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/lobby-usa>, an 
undercover Al Jazeera documentary that was never broadcast by the 
network due to censorship by Qatar 
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/national-security-cited-reason-al-jazeera-nixed-israel-lobby-film/24566> 
following pressure from pro-Israel organizations.

But The Electronic Intifada obtained a leaked copy of the film and 
published it in full 
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/watch-film-israel-lobby-didnt-want-you-see/25876> 
in November.

The Israel Project created a network of seemingly innocuous pages, 
including Cup of Jane <https://www.facebook.com/DailyCupOfJane/> – which 
has more than half a million followers – Soul Mama 
<https://www.facebook.com/SoulMamaCares/>, History Bites 
<https://www.facebook.com/HistoryBites/>, We Have Only One Earth 
<https://www.facebook.com/pg/WeOnlyHaveOneEarth> and This Explains That 
<https://www.facebook.com/ThisExplainsThat/>.

These pages mostly share funny or inspirational material, often with a 
progressive or feminist tilt, mostly with no connection to Israel.

But The Israel Project regularly drops pro-Israel material into the 
stream of content – while concealing entirely or failing to explicitly 
acknowledge that the pages are run by a group that works to promote 
Israel and its government’s policies.

In the leaked film, Jordan Schachtel, who worked for The Israel Project 
at the time, tells the undercover Al Jazeera reporter about the logic 
and extent of the covert Facebook operation:

“We’re putting together a lot of pro-Israel media through various social 
media channels that aren’t The Israel Project’s channels,” Schachtel 
tells the undercover reporter. “So we have a lot of side projects that 
we are trying to influence the public debate with.”

“That’s why it’s a secretive thing,” Schachtel adds. “Because we don’t 
want people to know that these side projects are associated with The 
Israel Project.”

The reporter asks if the idea of “all the rest of the non-Israel stuff 
is to allow the Israel stuff to pass better.”

“It’s just that we want to like blend in everything,” Schachtel explains.

David Hazony, the managing director of The Israel Project, is also heard 
telling Al Jazeera’s undercover reporter: “There are also things that we 
do that are completely off the radar. We work together with a lot of 
other organizations.”

“We produce content that they then publish with their own name on it,” 
Hazony adds.

In September, soon after it revealed The Israel Project-run pages, The 
Electronic Intifada asked Facebook if the secret influence campaign 
violated any of Facebook’s policies – particularly in light of the 
furore over the alleged, though unsubstantiated or false 
<https://www.thenation.com/article/russiagate-elections-interference/>, 
charges of a massive Russia-backed effort to use social media to 
influence the 2016 US presidential election.

But until now, The Electronic Intifada did not publish Facebook’s 
response: A spokesperson for Facebook wrote that the company looked at 
the pages covertly run by The Israel Project and concluded that they 
“don’t violate any of Facebook’s pages policies.”

This is hardly surprising given that it was already known 
<https://theintercept.com/2017/12/30/facebook-says-it-is-deleting-accounts-at-the-direction-of-the-u-s-and-israeli-governments/> 
that Facebook partners with the Israeli and US governments to delete 
accounts that those governments do not like.

But it is more clear proof that Facebook isn’t concerned about 
protecting users from unwitting exposure to government propaganda.

Rather, it is colluding with the US and allied governments, and 
government-aligned corporate media like CNN, to suppress reportage and 
opinion that challenge the United States and its client regimes like Israel.


-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20190221/8a421c53/attachment.htm>