Reclaim The Net is supported by the community. If you support free speech and restoring privacy and civil liberties, please become a supporter here. Thank you. | The authorities in Hong Kong are moving to get a protest song banned from major social platforms based in the US - a total of 32 YouTube videos are on a censorship list.We delve into this case today.
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Get the post here. | In a sharp spotlight on the interplay between national security and individual privacy, newly disclosed documents have unveiled that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) entered into a contract with the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in 2018 to develop a project, dubbed "Night Fury," designed to analyze and assign "risk scores" to social media accounts.
The Brennan Center for Justice procured these documents through a public records request, and Motherboard was the first to report on them. Project Night Fury aimed at utilizing automation to detect and evaluate social media accounts for connections to terrorism, illegal opioid distribution, but also disinformation campaigns.
The DHS document stated, "The Contractor shall develop these attributes to create a methodology for developing a ranking, or 'Risk Score,' associated with the identified accounts." |  | Project Night Fury had also planned on incorporating involvement from Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to provide "cross-mission operational context," according to one of the documents.
Experts had warned DHS about the inherent difficulties and biases involved in automated judgment for these matters, citing that characteristics like being "pro-terrorist" have no concrete definition.
Notably, DHS terminated Project Night Fury in 2019. However, it underscores the agency's continued interest in social media as a resource for analysis. This comes in the wake of earlier reports of CBP utilizing an AI-powered tool, Babel X, for analyzing travelers' social media at US borders.
While Night Fury's focus was initially on "counter-terrorism, illegal opioid supply chain, transnational crime, and understanding/characterizing/identifying the spread of disinformation by foreign entities," the documents indicate that UAB's work was intended to "scale to other DHS domains" and "build next generation capabilities." | If this stuff is important to you, please help out by becoming a supporter here. | Politician are pushing to put a ban your ability to have private messages. Government want a backdoor to all of your communications.
Our breakdown of this form of an attack on speech dates back to the 1990s and the early days of the internet...
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Watch the video on Rumble here. |  | Leaked emails revealed that the FBI helped a Ukrainian intelligence agency to censor Twitter users. Some of the people that were targeted are American and Canadian journalists, raising First Amendment concerns.
Previous reports have already covered how the FBI was approached to aid in online censorship regarding the Ukraine war.
In March 2022, a special agent at the FBI sent Twitter a list of accounts that "are suspected by the SBU [Ukraine's intelligence agency] in spreading fear and disinformation." The email included a memo from the SBU requesting that Twitter ban the accounts and provide their user data, according to a Twitter Files report by Aaron Maté.
The email to Twitter was sent by Special Agent Aleksandr Kobzanets, the assistant legal attaché at the American embassy in Ukraine.
"Thank you very much for your time to discuss the assistance to Ukraine," Kobzanets wrote. "I am including a list of accounts I received over a couple of weeks from the Security Service of Ukraine.
"These accounts are suspected by the SBU in spreading fear and disinformation. For your review and consideration." |  |  | | The SBU said that the accounts have been "used to disseminate disinformation and fake news to inaccurately reflect events in Ukraine, justify war crimes of the Russian authorities on the territory of the Ukrainian state in violation of international law."
The agency continued to say that "to stop Russian aggression on the information front," Twitter should "take urgent measures to block" the accounts "and provide us with user data specified during registration."
Twitter said that it would review the accounts' "inauthenticity" but questioned the inclusion of Canadian and American journalists in the list. The list included 163 accounts.
Twitter's head of Trust and Safety at the time, Yoel Roth, said the accounts would be reviewed but the first order of business would be to identify potential inauthenticity because the list included American and Canadian journalists.
Roth said that authentic accounts would be suspended if it obtained evidence that they were tied to foreign governments. He continued to say that reporters "who cover the conflict with a pro-Russian stance are unlikely to be found in violation of our rules absent other context that might establish some kind of covert/deceptive association between them and a government.
"Any additional information or context in those areas is of course welcome and appreciated," Roth added.
Kobzanets replied that it was unlikely for more information to be provided.
34 of the 163 accounts were banned, 20 have since been deactivated while the rest are active.
|  | Apple is planning to expand ways for people to use a digital driver's license and state IDs on the Wallet App.
In a post, the company announced that soon people will be able to "present an ID to businesses."
The feature will not require additional hardware from the business. Additionally, users will only be required to show the necessary information to authenticate an interaction.
Apple said the upcoming feature could be used to verify users' age for alcohol purchases or admission to concerts.
"Starting this fall, businesses will be able to accept IDs in Apple Wallet — no additional hardware needed. This will streamline their ability to securely check a customer's age in person for things like alcohol purchases, or to verify a customer's identity at checkout for car rentals, and more. To seamlessly and securely present their ID in Wallet to an enabled business, users simply hold their iPhone or Apple Watch near the business's iPhone. Users will be shown what information is being requested and whether the receiving party will be storing the information. Users will then be asked to authenticate and consent by using Face ID or Touch ID," Apple wrote in the post.
Support for digital IDs on the Wallet app is available in Colorado, Georgia, Arizona, and Maryland. Currently, the only use for the digital IDs is at TSA checkpoints at a few airports. |  | CEO of TRUTH Social Devin Nunes announced that the social media platform has launched globally. TRUTH Social was launched by former President Donald Trump as an alternative to Big Tech platforms.
"We've created a system that is a bulwark against big tech," Nunes said in an interview with Just the News.
"We're not reliant on any big tech–other than we have to be in the Google Play Store and in the Apple App Store. But we have no problem with that because we want to have a clean platform and now we are opened up globally."
The social media network is popular among conservatives and others who are tired of the restriction of free speech on Big Tech platforms. These platforms have also been accused of collecting and selling users' data without consent. TRUTH Social claims it does not sell data.
"We're not looking to sell anyone's data and I think that's the main thing," Nunes, a former Congressman, said.
"The other big issue is that we have a simple timeline. We understand that your timeline is your timeline," he added, referring to algorithms used to rank content.
TRUTH Social recently introduced groups, allowing people with common interests to pool together.
"In the last few weeks, we've also launched groups, the group function which gives us a lot more capability," Nunes said. |  | HSBC, Bank of China, and Hang Seng Bank suspended the accounts of four members of the Hong Kong pro-democracy League of Social Democrats (LSD).
Protesting the move outside of HSBC Hong Kong headquarters, LSD's chair Chan Po-Ying said the decision by the bank was tarnishing the city's international financial hub reputation.
"It's like we're going back to the stone age," Chan said.
In a statement to local news outlet HKFP, HSBC said that it regularly reviews the activities and relationships of customers.
"We may decide that we will no longer be able to maintain the banking relationships with certain customers," the bank added.
LSD had been an HSBC customer for 17 years.
LSD is one of the remaining opposition parties in Hong Kong with the guts to speak out. It regularly holds street rallies and booths.
Last October, PayPal refused to continue providing services to the party citing without explanation "excessive risks."
Vice-chair of the party, Dickson Chau, said that it would be hard for the party to receive donations after losing the bank accounts, and added that LSD savings would only last for about one or two years.
Chau also said the LSD was not planning on opening accounts with other banks.
"I don't think we can open a new account as the LSD anymore. We haven't tried it, but I think it would not be possible," he said.
Raphael Wong, the party's former chairperson, said: "When an organization loses its accounts for receiving donations, and is fined for fundraising on the streets, what can it do? [It will be] waiting for its own death [as Hong Kong] loses another voice." | Reclaim The Net exists because of paid readers. If you can, please help out and become a supporter. Thank you.
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