Sunday, October 27, 2024

The story of Khayzuran & Zubayda

The story of Khayzuran is one of rags to riches, but Zubayda was born into nearly limitless luxury.

The historian al-Masudi writes that on state occasions Zubayda “could scarcely walk under the weight of her jewelry and dresses.” She endowed more charitable works for pilgrims to Makkah than any ruler of her era.

From Indonesia to Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan to Nigeria, Senegal to Turkey, it is not particularly rare in our own times for women in Muslim-majority countries to be appointed and elected to high offices—including heads of state. Nor has it ever been.

Stretching back more than 14 centuries to the advent of Islam, women have held positions among many ruling elites, from malikas, or queens, to powerful advisors. Some ascended to rule in their own right; others rose as regents for incapacitated husbands or male successors yet too young for a throne. Some proved insightful administrators, courageous military commanders or both; others differed little from equally flawed male potentates who sowed the seeds of their own downfalls.

Malika I: Khayzuran & Zubayda

Written by Tom Verde
Aramco, January/February 2016

The story of Khayzuran is one of rags to riches, captivity to sovereignty. Born in the southwestern part of the Arabian Peninsula around the middle of the eighth century, a bit more than 100 years after the death of Prophet Muhammad, she was kidnapped by slave traders while still a child. Sometime between 758 and 765, she was sold in Makkah to none other than the founder of Baghdad, Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur, who gave her to his son and successor, al-Mahdi. 

She bore al-Mahdi a daughter and two sons, both of whom became caliphs—one the renowned Harun al-Rashid. By the time of her death in 789, her annual income had reached 160 million dirhams, which was roughly half of the entire state revenue, according to the 10th-century historian al-Masudi. Her personal wealth made her “undoubtedly, next to [her son Caliph Harun al-Rashid], the richest person in the Moslem world of her day,” observes historian Nabia Abbott, whose Two Queens of Baghdad: Mother and Wife of Harun al-Rashid is a seminal work in Middle Eastern women’s studies.

Khayzuran’s path to political power, like that of many women in the long era predating today’s nation-states, was via the royal haram, or women’s quarters. A favorite of al-Mahdi, she enjoyed a level of trust that rivaled, and may have exceeded, that of Rita, al-Mahdi’s first wife and cousin whose origins could not have differed more from Khayuran’s: Rita was a royal, the daughter of Abu Abbas Abdullah, founder of the Abbasid empire. 

A brief statement in al-Tabari’s monumental, ninth-century History of the Prophets and Kings shows al-Mahdi’s regard for his first lady of the haram: “In this year [775] al-Mahdi manumitted his slave girl … al-Khayzuran and married her.” At a time when caliphs were expected to marry fellow members of the aristocracy, elevating Khayzuran to queen was “a bold break with convention,” modern historian Hugh Kennedy has observed.

And not unsurprisingly, the medieval Arab chronicles indicate that this led to court intrigue: The high-born ladies of the Abbasid court sneered at Khayzuran’s presence, yet she is said to have deflected their snobbery with cordial grace. Though history provides no evidence of direct tension between Rita and Khayzuran, the fact that the latter’s sons—Musa al-Hadi and Harun al-Rashid—were named as heirs to the caliphate while the former’s were never even considered indicates Rita’s “tacit recognition of the futility of challenging” Khayzuran, Abbot speculates.

Described as “slender and graceful as a reed,” according to Abbott (khayzuran is Arabic for “reed”), she hardly relied on beauty alone for her success. She was intelligent, freely quoted poetry and studied the Qur’an, hadith (sayings of Prophet Muhammad) and law at the feet of leading scholars. 

She is also said to have enjoyed practical jokes and shared al-Mahdi’s sense of humor, such as privately mocking Caliph al-Mansur’s flashes of temper. Yet when it came to governing, she was all business: “At the opening of [her first son al-Hadi’s] caliphate, al-Khayzuran used to exercise her authority over him in all his affairs without consulting him at all ... assuming sole control over matters of ordaining and forbidding, just as she had done previously with his father,” al-Tabari remarks on al-Hadi’s accession upon al-Mahdi’s death in 785. 

The new caliph chafed at his mother’s dominance. Perhaps it was because al-Hadi didn’t live up to Khayzuran’s expectations, or perhaps he resented her long-standing preference for his younger brother, Harun al-Rashid. The discord did not last long: Al-Hadi died the following year. (Rumors circulated that Khayzuran had him poisoned, but there is no authoritative account.) Harun al-Rashid became caliph of an empire from Morocco to Persia and ushered in the zenith of the Abbasid era. When his mother died in 789, the caliph displayed the depths of his grief and devotion by helping to shoulder her bier, barefoot, through the mud.

The histories do not detail Khayzuran’s political achievements, but coins were struck in her name, palaces were named for her, and the cemetery in which subsequent Abbasid rulers were laid to rest also carried her name, all testifying not only to status but also to a civic largesse. Notably, she passed on this sense of civic duty to Amat al-Aziz, known to history by the unflattering if sonorous name Zubayda.

Zubayda was both Khayzuran’s niece and, after Zubayda’s marriage to Harun al-Rashid, her daughter-in-law. It was her grandfather, al-Mansur, who no doubt intended affection in nicknaming her Zubayda (which means “Little Butter Ball”) “on account of her plumpness” as a child, according to 13th-century biographer Ibn Khalikhan. 

As an adult, the chronicler goes on to say, her “charity was ample, her conduct virtuous.” He adds that in her chambers, a hundred slave girls tasked with memorizing the Qur’an recited one-tenth of it daily, “so that her palace resounded with a continual humming like that of bees.” 

Born into the lap of the extreme luxury of the Abbasid Empire at its zenith, Zubayda quickly developed extravagant tastes. According to al-Zubayr’s 11th-century Book of Gifts and Rarities—a sort of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” of its day—the cost of her wedding, “the likes of which had never ... been seen in [Islamic] times,” ran to 50 million dinars. (For comparison, the annual cost of living for an average family in Baghdad was about 240 dinars.) The event featured a waistcoat encrusted with rubies and pearls “whose value could not be assessed” for the bride; guests received gifts of gold dinars in silver bowls and silver dinars in golden bowls.

A trendsetter of high style, Zubayda was “the first to introduce the fashion for slippers embroidered with precious stones and for candles made of ambergris—fashions which spread to the public,” according to al-Masudi. On state occasions, it was said, she “could scarcely walk under the weight of her jewelry and dresses,” and she had to be propped up by servants.

Yet she spent no less lavishly on public works, to her enduring renown. She made at least five pilgrimages to Makkah, as it was on her fifth, in 805, that she was distressed to see that drought had devastated the populace and reduced the sacred well of Zamzam to a mere trickle. She ordered that the well be deepened, and she spent nearly 2 million dinars improving the water supply of Makkah and the surrounding province.

This included the construction of an aqueduct from the spring of Hunayn, 95 kilometers to the east, as well as the famed “Spring of Zubayda” on the plain of Arafat, one of the ritual locations on the Hajj. When her engineers cautioned her about the expense, never mind the technical difficulties, she replied that she was determined to carry out the work “were every stroke of a pickax to cost a dinar,” according to Ibn Khalikhan. 

Beyond Makkah, she financed one of the greatest public-works projects of the era: construction of a 1,500-kilometer darb (road) from Kufa, south of Baghdad, all the way to Makkah, complete with water stations at regular intervals and hilltop fire beacons to guide travelers at night. Her contemporary historian al-Azraqi declares that “people of Makkah and the pilgrims owe their very life to [Zubayda] next to God,” and pilgrim cries of “God bless Zubayda” echoed for generations along the route that is still called Darb Zubayda. (It fell into disuse when pilgrims opted for rail, auto and air travel over camel caravans.) 

In a personally painful decision, in 813 Zubayda put the interests of the state ahead of her own flesh and blood by ultimately endorsing her stepson al-Ma’mun’s accession to caliph when her own son, Caliph al-Amin, became intolerably corrupt. Her instincts were on the mark, and the cultured al-Ma’mun proved to be a just and erudite ruler who founded Baghdad’s famed think tank, bayt al-hikma (house of wisdom), which became a center for the translation into Arabic of Greek, Roman and other classical texts that not only informed the Abbasid intellectual milieu, but also later became foundations of the European Renaissance. 

Zubayda died in 831, yet her reputation as a woman of influence lived on in both history and literature. Her husband, Harun al-Rashid, became the protagonist caliph in the European collection of alf layla wa layla (1001 Nights), and it was Zubayda who became the real-life basis for the very fictional Scheherazade.

Thursday, October 24, 2024

BRICS offer hope in a time of war

Date with destiny - BRICS offer hope in a time of war

Pepe Escobar

“The context for what will be decided in Kazan this week is no less than incandescent, as the uncontrolled chaos of the Hegemon’s Forever Wars – from Ukraine to West Asia – has even materially affected the heavy work of BRICS and the necessity to build a new international system of geoeconomic relations practically from scratch,” says veteran international affairs observer Pepe Escobar, commenting on the imminent kickoff of the BRICS bloc’s long-awaited summit in Russia on October 22.
 
Citing bloc members’ broad agreement on ‘the need for a comprehensive reform of the global financial architecture to enhance the voice of developing countries and their representation’, Escobar stressed that when it comes to existing, Western-dominated institutions, “it remains clear the US has less than zero interest in a profound reform of the IMF, the World Bank and the Bretton Woods system.” Therefore, “Russia and China, especially, are fully aware that what is needed is a post-Bretton Woods.”
 
Listing off other major initiatives on the agenda in Kazan, including a cross-border payments initiative, the operation of the BRICS’ New Development Bank, dedollarization and the creation of new digital currencies’ related infrastructure, Escobar stressed that in geopolitics too, the summit is expected pump up the BRICS’ international profile, with a special session on Palestine a case in point.

“All of the above is highly significant for the BRICS context because the Forever Wars in West Asia have been seriously interfering with the work within BRICS. And on top of it, the Forever Wars, cold, hybrid, and hot, are in fact essentially directed against three BRICS members, Russia, Iran and China – not by accident described as the Top Three existential threats to the Hegemon.”  

“The stakes in Kazan could not be higher. By the end of the week the Global Majority will know whether Kazan will go down in History as the landmark of a new, emerging system of international relations, of if crass Divide and Rule tactics will keep postponing the inexorable demise of the Old Order,” Escobar summed up.

Thursday, October 3, 2024

We May Have Overstated Danger Of COVID !

Everything was done intentionally knowing the facts behind them. It was pre-planned silent genocide!

England's Chief Medical Officer Admits "We May Have Overstated Danger Of COVID"
Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardoan.org
Sep 28, 2024

England’s Chief Medical Officer testified before the (token and pointless)  Covid Inquiry earlier today, claiming he feared the government “overdid it” when talking up the dangers of Covid.

No kidding,  Chris.

The Telegraph reports [emphasis added]:

    The Government potentially overstated the danger of Covid to the public at the start of the pandemic, Prof Sir Chris Whitty has admitted.

    The Chief Medical Officer told the Covid Inquiry he still worries about whether the Government got “the level of concern” right as it introduced lockdowns and shielding measures.

    Sir Chris said it was a difficult balance and if anything it was possible that authorities “overdid it” when communicating how dangerous the virus was at the beginning of the pandemic.

Of course, this is all very British understatement combined with “official inquiry dilution”, which automatically transforms “I know we did X” into “I fear we may have done X by accident“.

Whitty doesn’t “think they potentially overstated the danger”, he knows they definitely did. We all do, it’s been pretty much proven.

“Covid” was a tapestry of lies, and a tangle of deliberately inflated statistics created specifically to enable those lies.

That’s all old news.

Yet Chris Whitty himself is a good example of a potentially interesting phenomenon.

From the beginning of the “pandemic” he seemed strangely  keen to distance himself from the very panic he was helping to create, and to, in pure Doublethink, underline the complete lack of danger from the so-called “deadly new disease”.

See this video, taken from a “Covid Briefing” on May 11th 2020:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adj8MCsZKlg

Now, that’s not to suggest he was some kind of hero standing on principle – he wasn’t. He was a lying shill who backed the narrative and lies and vaccines as much as anyone – but he seems to have had some level of discomfort with the enormity of the deceit.

I guess you could say this serves as a reminder that – however monolithic the establishment may seem – it is still made up of human pieces that might not always 100% agree about everything.

Yes, the “covid” scam had the backing of almost every establishment institution on the face of the planet, but those institutions are made up of individuals. And at least some of those individuals probably had doubts.

Probably not moral doubts   – you don’t climb the heights in intelligence or politics without being some type of psychopath – but maybe rudimentary discomfort over fear of discovery and/or failure, or an ego that doesn’t want to be seen to be the kind of person who tells lies, or one narcissistic eye on how they might be remembered by posterity.

You have to wonder how many there were who in private offered self-serving opposition to one of the greatest lies in history – and how much of a role they collectively played in the ultimate failure of the Covid narrative to go the whole distance.

Something to think on.

UN Demands ‘Global Governance’ for ‘Humanity’

UN Demands ‘Global Governance’ for ‘Humanity’
Frank Bergman
Sep 27, 2024

Unelected globalist organization the United Nations (UN) is demanding that governments of sovereign nations submit to “global governance” in order to supposedly protect “humanity” from artificial intelligence (AI).

The demand was made in a report published by the UN’s “High-level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence.”

The report, titled “Governing AI for Humanity,” insists that a single global government is vital to keep the emerging technology under control.

The 99-page document issues warnings about the threats from AI and details the UN’s plan for establishing global governance,

The UN also warns that individual sovereign nations have gaps in global governance as it relates to AI and issues a call to action for governments to enhance global cooperation.

It summarizes its claims as to the necessity of globalism early on.

In Chapter 2 “The Need for Global Governance” on page 37, the report expounds on its demand for globalism.

“The imperative of global governance, in particular, is irrefutable,” the report declares on page 7.

“There is, today, a global governance deficit with respect to AI.”

The document claims that AI is not understood by anyone and warns that no one is accountable for it.

“Moreover, no one currently understands all of AI’s inner workings enough to fully control its outputs or predict its evolution,” the report claims.

“Nor are decision-makers held accountable for developing, deploying, or using systems they do not understand.

“Meanwhile, negative spillovers and downstream impacts resulting from such decisions are also likely to be global.”

The document goes on to say that national governments or private companies cannot be allowed to regulate AI.

Rather, a single global government must now have control over sovereign nations.

“The development, deployment, and use of such a technology cannot be left to the whims of markets alone,” the document asserts.

“National governments and regional organizations will be crucial, but the very nature of the technology itself – transboundary in structure and application – necessitates a global approach.

“Governance can also be a key enabler for AI innovation for the SDGs globally.”

One key theme of the document is the repeated claim that AI must comply with the UN’s globalist “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDG).

This is repeated throughout the report.

Furthermore, the document calls for the establishment of global AI “governance regimes”

These “regimes” must have control over the entire planet, accoridn gto the UN.

The document declares on page 8:

“AI governance regimes must also span the globe to be effective — effective in averting ‘AI arms races’ or a ‘race to the bottom’ on safety and rights, in detecting and responding to incidents emanating from decisions along AI’s life cycle which span multiple jurisdictions, in spurring learning, in encouraging interoperability, and in sharing AI’s benefits.

“The technology is borderless and, as it spreads, the illusion that any one State or group of States could (or should) control it will diminish.”

The document argues that the global government allegedly needed to protect “humanity” from this technology must be based on the current philosophies of the United Nations.

These philosophies were summed up in another document from September called “The Pact for the Future.”

“The Pact for the Future” also pushes for global government in all areas of life, not just AI.

In addition, the taxpayer-funded United Nations proposes a “global fund for AI” which pools research from entities including global vaccine industry organizations.

“The fund’s operating model should be informed by lessons from pooled international research and development collaborations, such as CERN and [Bill Gates’s] Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, as well as lessons from commercial platforms for timeshared infrastructure,” Governing AI for Humanity said on page 67.

The report concludes by personalizing the global government agenda to the reader by using humanizing terms that evoke an emotional response.

“The High-level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence, convened by the United Nations Secretary-General, will undertake analysis and advance recommendations for the international governance of artificial intelligence,” the report states on page 80.

“The Body’s initial reports will provide high-level expert and independent contributions to ongoing national, regional, and multilateral debates.

“The Body will consist of 38 members from governments, private sector, civil society, and academia, as well as a member Secretary.

“Its composition will be balanced by gender, age, geographic representation, and area of expertise related to the risks and applications of artificial intelligence.

“The members of the Body will serve in their personal capacity.”

Big Tech Limited Millions of Posts During 2024 EU Elections

Newly Released Documents Reveal Big Tech Limited Millions of Posts During EU Elections
Christina Maas
Sep 28, 2024    

Ah, elections — the pinnacle of democracy where the common folk cast their ballots and, ideally, choose their fate. But hold onto your hats, because behind the grandeur of the European Parliament elections this year lurked a very different sort of governance, one executed not in the open streets but in algorithmic backrooms. Welcome to the Age of Censorship-as-a-Service, brought to you by our ever-dependable friends at Meta, Google, and TikTok.

Meta’s Mission: Make the Truth More… Manageable

Let’s begin with Meta. In a move that feels like something out of a dystopian satire, Meta proudly announced they had reduced the reach of tens of millions of posts across Europe. They wielded over 150,000 Facebook fact-checking articles to de-escalate the virality of 30 million pieces of content. According to Meta, this wasn’t censorship — no, it was a mere “scaling of the work of independent fact-checkers.” The way they tell it, this was all in the name of maintaining “informed and reliable discussions.” Ah, reliable discussions, where only pre-approved, EU-certified opinions are allowed to flow freely.

Of course, official government statements and the edicts from the holy temples of global health organizations were entirely exempt from Meta’s moderating fervor. After all, why impede the credibility of those who are never wrong — except, of course, when they are, but let’s not get hung up on inconvenient details like that.

On Instagram, another Meta product, this brave new moderation mission persisted. The platform used 39,000 fact-checking articles to put the brakes on nearly a million posts. That’s right — one million “potentially hazardous” thoughts and opinions that, for the good of humanity, needed a little algorithmic throttle. And if you were wondering, it wasn’t just the memes of conspiracy theorists — they made sure that you, your grandma, and that neighbor with too many political opinions got the message too: “Play nice, or we’ll see to it no one hears you.”

TikTok: Suppressing, But Make It Fashionable

Meta wasn’t the only digital nanny keeping Europeans in line. Over at TikTok, the playbook got even hazier. The platform took pride in admitting that it restricted misleading posts — though, unlike Meta, TikTok kept the numbers conveniently vague. You see, their strategy was more about “awareness,” guiding content creators with a gentle algorithmic shove away from the tempting edges of disinformation. How thoughtful.

As if to prove their dedication to curated reality, TikTok also pointed Irish users in the direction of fact-checks from TheJournal.ie, an outlet that coincidentally receives EU funding. No conflict of interest there, right? Just an honest effort to “raise awareness.” And while TikTok didn’t offer up the numbers, we can be assured that plenty of thumbs danced across phone screens only to find their intended messages conveniently dulled down or disappeared.

Google: Where Terms of Service Are Optional

And then we have Google, that beacon of a supposedly neutral search engine — except when it isn’t. Reports show that YouTube, under Google’s magnanimous ownership, automatically deboosted videos that complied with their very own terms of service. Yes, you read that right. Even when content passed muster by their own rulebook, some unseen hand deemed it “unworthy.” Google tells us this was to curb the spread of misinformation. A noble aim, except for that pesky issue of who gets to decide what counts as misinformation — and why.

Critics, like Tom Vandendriessche, an MEP for Patriots for Europe, have not been fooled by the big, earnest proclamations of “integrity protection.” Vandendriessche — whose party has fought and won against Big Tech’s silencing efforts — paints a stark picture of unchecked power: tech companies with unprecedented influence, deciding who gets heard and who doesn’t. “This could lead to an era of ‘techno-communism,'” Vandendriessche argued to Brussels Signal, where an unelected cabal decides what constitutes reality for the rest of us. A “techno-communism” where, if your thoughts don’t align with the given narrative, they might as well not exist.

It’s not like Vandendriessche is shouting into the void, either. His criticism comes backed by experience, his party having already tasted the bitter fruits of deplatforming. If a democratically elected official can’t even get his voice out there without tech giants intervening, what hope is there for the average citizen with an inconvenient truth?

The EU’s Seal of Approval: Trust Us, We’re Here to Help

But let’s not forget the EU brass, who are, predictably, patting Big Tech on the back. Vera?Jourová seems to believe they’ve stumbled onto some grand new way to “protect the integrity of elections.” Their stance on Big Tech’s secretive influence campaign was remarkably sunny — because nothing says “protecting democracy” like a few ultra-rich corporations quietly deciding what can or cannot be said during election season.

What’s fascinating is the conviction with which the EU spins this story. They genuinely believe — or want us to believe — that this centralized control is for our benefit, a way to combat the terrifying specter of “disinformation.” Clearly, the best way to fight misinformation is to silence millions of voices, all while exempting the officials and organizations whose statements are apparently beyond reproach. Trust us, they say: We’re only limiting the information you receive for your own good.

Senate Democrats Demand Big Tech Companies Censor

Senate Democrats Demand Big Tech Companies Censor Americans Before Election
Frank Bergman
Sep 25, 2024

A group of Senate Democrats has launched a new effort demanding that Big Tech companies crack down on free speech by censoring the American people ahead of the critical November elections.

Fearing a drubbing in the looming elections, Democrat senators led by Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) demanding that social media platforms neuter the speech of the American people before they cast their ballots.

The group also includes Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR).

The Democrats sent a letter to “11 of the largest and most popular social media and encrypted chat companies in the U.S.”

They are “calling for increased resources toward combatting 2024 U.S. election administration and certification disinformation.”

The group of Democrats sent the letter to Google, Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), TikTok, X, Reddit, Snapchat, Amazon, Discord, Signal, Telegram, and Apple.

They are demanding information on how the companies plan to “de-amplify and/or remove election disinformation (whether created using AI or not) and/or user accounts who spread this disinformation, when in violation of their policies,” according to the group’s press release.

They also want major platforms to amplify what they deem to be “official election information.”

The private companies are also being ordered to increase their “2024 election safety team.”

These “safety teams” must be cracking down on speech in the ten most commonly spoken languages on the platforms, the senators demand.

The move has been met with a backlash from free speech advocates, however.

In a statement, Heritage Action for America Executive Vice President Ryan Walker said:

“Senate Democrats are once again colluding with Big Tech to shut down opposing viewpoints, spread disinformation, and conduct election interference, as we know they did during COVID and with Hunter Biden’s laptop.

“It’s sad — but not surprising — that Democrats would rather restrict information and free speech than defend their ideas and lies publicly.

“Americans should keep this in mind when they make their voices heard at the ballot box in November, where — to Democrats’ dismay — they can’t be censored.”

Recently, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta admitted his platforms were used to help censor Covid information and interfere in the 2020 election on behalf of the Democrats.

Meta is the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram.

Zuckerberg made the confession in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, writing:

“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree.

“Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down, and we own our decisions, including COVID-19-related changes we made to our enforcement in the wake of this pressure.”

“I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” he added.

“I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.”

“We’re ready to push back if something like this happens again,” Zuckerberg concluded.

However, as Slay News reported, Zuckerberg declared shortly after writing the letter that conservatives only have themselves to blame if they are censored by left-wing “fact-checkers” on his platforms.

If Big Tech refuses to censor Americans, the Democrat senators claim that the companies “will suppress voter participation, sow doubt in U.S. election processes, and incite political violence.”

Biden demanded Covid censorship

The Meta CEO has claimed that the White House pressured the company to remove certain pandemic-related content from social media

Biden demanded Covid censorship – Zuckerberg
27 Aug, 2024

US President Joe Biden’s administration pushed Meta to “censor” some social media posts related to the Covid-19 pandemic, the company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has claimed.

In a letter to Republican Representative Jim Jordan on Monday and shared by the GOP caucus of the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg acknowledged that “in 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content.”

He noted that those efforts applied, among other things, to humor and satire, adding that White House officials “expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree.” Zuckerberg, however, stressed that the company had the final say on any moderation.

“Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down, and we made own our decisions, including COVID-19-related changes we made to our enforcement in the wake of this pressure,” the CEO said.

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg said he believed that the “government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” adding that with the benefit of hindsight the company would not have made “some choices,” without giving further details.

In light of this revelation, the Meta CEO said he thought that “we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any administration in either direction,” assuring that “we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.”

Zuckerberg also stated that he intends to remain politically “neutral” ahead of the November election, saying that he will not make contributions that could benefit either party this time.

Jordan, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, has for several months been leading an investigation into social media content moderation by the government to silence conservatives, as well as free speech in general.

The GOP faction of the committee touted the letter as a “big win for free speech,” suggesting that election integrity will benefit from there being “no more Zuck-bucks” in the form of contributions.

At the height of the pandemic, many social media platforms adopted strict moderation policies to delete what they perceived as misinformation and conspiracy theories related to the coronavirus. However, these policies have been criticized for influencing scientific discourse, including the debate over vaccine side effects and overall safety.

First US safety bill for AI vetoed

Because that might have exposed what AI really is, another “mind control” tool for leftists & deep state to manipulate the idiots.

A computer run society. What could possibly go wrong?

It wrongly focused on the “most expensive and large-scale” AI models, while “smaller, specialized models”. We wouldn't want to curtail the big corporations' influence or the damage their systems could wreak eh?

First US safety bill for AI vetoed
The legislation would have required tech firms to test artificial intelligence models before release
30 Sep, 2024

California Governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed a landmark bill on artificial intelligence that would have established the first safety measures for the industry in the US. The bill, known as California Senate Bill 104, or SB 1047, was aimed at reducing potential risks created by AI.

The proposed regulation would have obliged tech companies with powerful AI models to subject them to safety testing before releasing them to the public, as well as publicly disclosing the models’ safety protocols. This would have been done in order to prevent the models from being manipulated into causing harm, such as hacking strategically important infrastructure.

In a message accompanying the veto on Sunday, the governor said that while the proposal was “well-intentioned,” it wrongly focused on the “most expensive and large-scale” AI models, while “smaller, specialized models” could potentially cause more harm. Newsom also argued that the bill does not take into account in what environment an Al system is deployed or whether it involves critical decision-making or the use of sensitive data.

“Instead, the bill applies stringent standards to even the most basic functions... I do not believe this is the best approach to protecting the public from real threats posed by the technology,” the governor stated. Newsom stressed that he agrees the industry must be regulated, but called for more “informed” initiatives based on “empirical trajectory analysis of Al systems and capabilities.”

“Ultimately, any framework for effectively regulating Al needs to keep pace with the technology itself… Given the stakes – protecting against actual threats without unnecessarily thwarting the promise of this technology to advance the public good – we must get this right,” he concluded.

As California governor, Newsom is seen as playing an important role in the nascent AI regulation process. According to his office’s figures, the state is home to 32 of the world’s “50 leading AI companies.”

The bill’s author, state Senator Scott Weiner, called the veto “a setback” for those who “believe in oversight of massive corporations that are making critical decisions” affecting public safety. He pledged to continue working on the legislation.

The bill had drawn mixed reactions from tech firms, researchers, and lawmakers. While some viewed it as paving the way towards country-wide regulations on the industry, others argued that it could stifle the development of AI. Former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi branded the proposal “well-intentioned but ill informed.”

Meanwhile, scores of employees of several leading AI firms, such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google’s DeepMind, supported the bill, because it added whistleblower protections for those who speak up about the risks in the AI models their companies are developing.

Big Tech's Influence On Society

"The promise of the internet was a democratization of information and commerce, but the current reality falls short of this ideal." This amounted to a dream and assumed everybody plays by the rules. Governments don't.

It was inevitable that -- if the Internet became a distribution centre for disclosure of tons of truth, reality and exposures and criticisms of government and corporate policies -- that these orgs would do something to block it. Their first attempt was using social platforms like Faceache and Twitter. That has been fairly successful but not enough for governments. So they are now passing laws to control Free Speech and to incriminate anybody who dares speak the truth if it is critical of ruling elites.

The excuse for these new laws is to stop "misinformation, disinformation" etc", but we already know that governments themselves are the biggest producer of misinformation, disinformation, lies and propaganda.

In the US federal and some state governments are doing their best to trash the 1st Amendment, so desperate they are to silence people. Many other countries like the UK don't even have a documented Constitution, so it got stuffed with the so-called fake "Online Safety Act" which has little to do with online safety and is mostly about silencing people. This Act was initially tabled by the Conservative Treason May and then supported by Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. Starmer's Labour luvvies will toughen it up.

BIG TECH & THE CORRUPT MAINSTREAM MEDIA have now become a FUNDAMENTAL THREAT to the republic and now both diabolical ENEMIES OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

The telecommunications act of 1996 paved the way for mass indoctrination and full spectrum dominance of the many by the few.

Big tech is just a government extension using figureheads as CEOs so it can do things it isn't supposed to do with plausible deniability. Same with all NGOs. It's amazing people don't catch on considering how simplistic the scam is.

Psychopath's that control media have some control, but there a lot of different sources of info outside the MSM. Unfortunately, people are lazy to search for it and many don't care.

It's all rigged. And they all work for whomever pays them the most. Totally filthy corrupted. It's been said that the US Constitution was "Designed for a Moral and Religious People".

I mean just look at how the sheeple today are mostly still very eager to work in and./or chase (aka "invest") into the stocks of Big Pharma / Big Tech / Big Media / Big Agri / Big Oil / Big Banks / Big Corporations and/or continue to pay taxes to Big Governments, and/or willingly enlist as cannon fodder for Big Millitaries. Its all part of the "games" we all choose to play.

So the People is the problem as well as the solution for humanity. As long as individuals don't want to move to a higher consciousness within and change their own behaviors, then the bread & circus show will go on indefinitely and NOTHING will change.

Monkey see, monkey do. That little saying sums up the MSM best.

The Digital Puppeteers: Big Tech's Influence On Society
Via SchiffGold.com

Oct 02, 2024

Tech companies have revolutionized the modern age, allowing for transcontinental communication, instant access to information, and unprecedented connectivity between people worldwide. But this revolution has come at a cost; these companies have undue influence over our lives, possessing the capability to shape public discourse, consumer behavior, and even political outcomes.

The scale of Big Tech’s market dominance is staggering. Google controls 81% of all general searches and Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp collectively boast 3.27 billion daily active users. Amazon commands almost 50% of all U.S. e-commerce. These figures demonstrate how a handful of companies can wield unprecedented power over our digital lives.

This concentration of power allows Big Tech firms to design markets in ways that benefit themselves and stifle competition. It can result in higher prices for consumers and reduced innovation as smaller competitors are squeezed out.

The impact of this monopolistic control extends beyond economic concerns to the sanctity of our democratic discourse. As these platforms have become the de facto public squares of the digital age, their content moderation policies and algorithmic decision-making wield enormous influence over what information reaches the public.

Big Tech’s selective censorship has become increasingly apparent, with conservative voices often bearing the brunt of content moderation. In 2020, a New York Post exposé on Hunter Biden’s laptop was suppressed on both Twitter and Facebook. After the first Trump assassination attempt, Google intentionally omitted search results which referenced the attack, despite providing suggestions for historical assassination attempts on other presidents. These incidents highlight the growing concern over Big Tech’s power to shape public discourse through selective content moderation.

At the core of this issue lies Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which shields interactive computer services from liability for content posted by users. While originally intended to promote free speech online, this provision has become a double-edged sword. It allows platforms to avoid responsibility for harmful or false content while simultaneously giving them broad discretion to censor or promote content as they see fit.

This legal framework has created a situation where Big Tech companies enjoy the benefits of both publisher and platform status without the corresponding responsibilities of either. They can curate content to maximize engagement and profits while avoiding accountability for the societal impacts of their decisions.

While proponents of the current system argue that users have the freedom to choose alternative platforms, the reality is far more complex. The network effects and data advantages enjoyed by incumbent players create significant barriers to entry for potential competitors. As Kashmir Hill’s experiment demonstrated, it’s nearly impossible to avoid the services of Big Tech companies entirely, as their reach extends far beyond their branded products and services.

As the digital economy often tends towards natural monopolies, simply breaking up these companies or imposing heavy-handed regulations is not the answer. The solution to these challenges must balance the need for innovation with the protection of free speech and fair competition.

This calls for a comprehensive re-evaluation of our regulatory framework for the digital age. This could include reforming Section 230 to strike a better balance between platform immunity and accountability and increasing transparency in algorithmic decision-making and content moderation practices.

The promise of the internet was a democratization of information and commerce, but the current reality falls short of this ideal. We must remember that a truly free market of ideas and commerce requires vigilance against the concentration of power, whether in the hands of governments or corporations.

By fostering genuine competition, protecting free speech, and ensuring accountability, we can harness the transformative potential of technology while preserving the fundamental principles of a free and open society. The stakes are too high to allow a handful of companies to become the arbiters of our digital lives.

Some comments:

The CEO and exec teams are literally leftists. They want control. They don’t care about things like free speech. They want to shape culture to be degenerates like they are.

The rightists want control, too. That's the battle. it has nothing to do with citizens and ****.

The rightists would like to work within the framework of the Constitution (well, mostly).

It always amazes me how so called free market capitalists deny the right of corporations to censor. No one is forcing you to use these platforms and if you are too stupid to use Mastedon and IRC and I2P for privacy that is not the fault of the tech companies. Educate yourself.

Spot on. Right & Left / Red & Blue / East vs West are all simply opposing narratives to make y'all go round & round in endless circles constantly bewildered and confused.

Given a chance for a leadership role / job / position, even "normie" Sheeples often becomes a "Collectivist"  s**head who wants to control what other people do or not do too. Its part of human behavior.

Everybody likes to think they are not "degenerates" but when given an opportunity, who can say their inner demons will not have a high probability of acting up too... unless they happen to be a Jesus.

 

Wednesday, October 2, 2024

First US safety bill for AI vetoed

Because that might have exposed what AI really is, another “mind control” tool for leftists & deep state to manipulate the idiots.

A computer run society. What could possibly go wrong?

It wrongly focused on the “most expensive and large-scale” AI models, while “smaller, specialized models”. We wouldn't want to curtail the big corporations' influence or the damage their systems could wreak eh?

I knew that the President reserves a veto power for any bills that Congress might pass that the President disagrees with along with a constitutional power to grant reprieves and pardons, but holy sh*t every state and territorial governor as well?

Is this how you run a democracy ... investing these sweeping powers in individuals that could undermine the will of the majority? Some "democracy" you have there and it is obviously the reason that the UNSC is also an undemocratic body, permitting the US as one of the 5 permanent members of the council to veto every single UNSC resolution realting to Israel ... presumably on the insistence of the United States. If this is the democracy Americans crow about, I think they've been sold a lemon, but then again, their society is based on a buyer beware principle, and most consumers are morons.

Another attempt to protect large corporations from requirement that cost money, protecting them from uprising smaller firms. Just look at US' law for organic food, where wealthy corporations are allowed a larger content of non-organic food than smaller companies, but still are allowed to call it organic. This is with the lame excuse that such (very rich) corporations produce quantities so large that they (in spite of their investment powers) may have trouble to get enough organically grown ingredients. And this is only one already existing example. This fact is besides possible opinions about the validity of organic food. I is a profit scam to satisfy greedy investors, including illegal politicians' insider trading.

You can tell when a State Governor has a vested interest in a particulate tech in Newsom's case it's AI. So he veto's safety whilst spouting this fantastic bit of gobbledy gook “informed” initiatives based on “empirical trajectory analysis. ow much of a back hander do you get Mr Newsom ?

The first legislation isn't going to be perfect & will need to be a work in progress as more is learned about the new technology. Protecting whistle blowers is not good for the narrative!

I think "A.I." is nothing but a grift. It's a computer, doing what computers are programmed to do. As I type this, millions of idiots are "investing" in A.I. They will see their money disappear, and the con men will be nowhere to be found. A.I.? MY ASS!

Newsome is an android himself. Silicone valley pays more than half of California's bills. Money talks $$$ of course he won't restrain them.

What was made illegal? AI tends to be rational and realistic and not follow the party line. Both political parties pander to human greed and are delusional and insane. I can see why government would want to regulate AI, there is calls for it in the IEEE computational intelligence magazines that are kinda.. wacky (so I quit the IEEE as it has become woke political and social propaganda). On the other hand AI can be used to unconstitutionally invade my privacy better than the government currently does.

From what the media reports, AI is based on tagged data. So who can modify the tagged data to appease the Government or a Corporation? So how is this different than censorship and propaganda today? You will find out too late.

Main rule: AI is not allowed to tell the truth about the jews.

Weiner is a disgusting homosexual jew, giving his all to mold California into his own degenerate, perverted image. Given a choice between a disgusting homosexual jew or a robot, I stand with the robot who says "stranger danger, faghut!".

In sum no testing required like the ''safe'' and ''effective'' mRNA deadly excrement produced by criminal big pharma. Yeap imagine PentaGun buying A.I. system controlling the ICBM nuclear war heads without testing or a kill switch... LOL USA IS EVIL.

First US safety bill for AI vetoed

The legislation would have required tech firms to test artificial intelligence models before release
30 Sep, 2024

California Governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed a landmark bill on artificial intelligence that would have established the first safety measures for the industry in the US. The bill, known as California Senate Bill 104, or SB 1047, was aimed at reducing potential risks created by AI.

The proposed regulation would have obliged tech companies with powerful AI models to subject them to safety testing

before releasing them to the public, as well as publicly disclosing the models’ safety protocols. This would have been

done in order to prevent the models from being manipulated into causing harm, such as hacking strategically important infrastructure.

In a message accompanying the veto on Sunday, the governor said that while the proposal was “well-intentioned,” it wrongly focused on the “most expensive and large-scale” AI models, while “smaller, specialized models” could potentially cause more harm. Newsom also argued that the bill does not take into account in what environment an Al system is deployed or whether it involves critical decision-making or the use of sensitive data.

“Instead, the bill applies stringent standards to even the most basic functions... I do not believe this is the best approach to protecting the public from real threats posed by the technology,” the governor stated. Newsom stressed that he agrees the industry must be regulated, but called for more “informed” initiatives based on “empirical trajectory analysis of Al systems and capabilities.”

“Ultimately, any framework for effectively regulating Al needs to keep pace with the technology itself… Given the stakes – protecting against actual threats without unnecessarily thwarting the promise of this technology to advance the public good – we must get this right,” he concluded.

As California governor, Newsom is seen as playing an important role in the nascent AI regulation process. According to his office’s figures, the state is home to 32 of the world’s “50 leading AI companies.”

The bill’s author, state Senator Scott Weiner, called the veto “a setback” for those who “believe in oversight of massive corporations that are making critical decisions” affecting public safety. He pledged to continue working on the legislation.

The bill had drawn mixed reactions from tech firms, researchers, and lawmakers. While some viewed it as paving the way towards country-wide regulations on the industry, others argued that it could stifle the development of AI. Former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi branded the proposal “well-intentioned but ill informed.”

Meanwhile, scores of employees of several leading AI firms, such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google’s DeepMind, supported the bill, because it added whistleblower protections for those who speak up about the risks in the AI models their companies are developing.