TikTok admitted today that it has banned certain phrases from being used by users in regions that include Russia, Bosnia and Jordan, with "gay", "I am gay" and "transgender" named as examples by the BBC. The firm says it will continue to restrict the terms and related hashtags to "comply with local laws" and to prevent their use "to discover pornographic content."

A report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) think-tank said many LGBT hashtags were "shadow-banned" in Bosnia, Jordan and Russia.A shadow ban limits the discovery of content without indicating that a particular hashtag is on a ban list. TikTok said that while some terms were restricted to comply with local laws, others were limited because they were primarily used to discover pornographic content.

The ban was incompetently implemented, resulting in Tik Tok suffering from the Scunthorpe Problem, which appears to have played a role in exposing the policy.

An important thing to note is that this is only vicariously a form of censorship. It is a content policy, embraced willingly (if covertly) by TikTok so that it can profit in markets it has no obligation to enter in the first place.

The traditional techie argument for such policies is that you can't possibly expect businesses to forgo operations in totalitarian or oppressive regimes, that their need to do so trumps any ethical or human rights concerns, and that complaining about it makes you naive and childish. (Tik Tok is based in such a regime, at least for now.)

But a level of flagrant bigotry, beyond the needs of capital or authoritarian regimes, is something Tik Tok has long specialized in. Last year, it admitted limiting material posted by people who were disabled, disfigured, autistic or simply "ugly". Tik Tok's contempt for minorities and the marginalized is corporate culture, not merely an act of compliance.

"This is increasingly sounding like a Black Mirror episode"Elon Musk, introducing Neuralink. Elon Musk's brain-computer-interface venture today unveiled a prototype that involves a pig with a computer chip implanted inside their brain. The coin-sized device is implanted beneath the creature's skull. "It's like a Fitbit, but in your skull," says Musk, and it's implanted by []

A reported UFO in the Congo turned out to be a Loon Balloon, floated 20km up to provide cellular internet out in the sticks. The operators neglected to tell the relevant authorities what they were doing; two UFO hunters ended up in jail while Loon, a subsidiary of Google holding company Alphabet, smoothed things out. []

Isolation.site does just one thing: it visits URLs that you want to check out but don't trust, and shows you what comes up. It's not just a convenient wrapper around the curl command-line tool, but generates a rendered snapshot of the site to look around. Protect your devices from web-transmitted infections (WTIs). Picked up some []

No, your phone does not qualify as emergency tech. While it's obviously a huge help when you find yourself in a jam, your phone's main utility in the event you're stranded with a dead vehicle or stuck somewhere in the middle of the night is to call somebody for help. Instead, you should always have []

TL;DR: The Complete Google Cloud eBook and Video Course Bundle will get you up to speed on using one of the fastest-growing cloud platforms anywhere. While a lion's share of the talk in the cloud services space is consumed by the big two Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure there's actually a []

For power and strength training, coaches and trainers are increasingly recommending kettlebell work. These portable weights combine strength training, cardiovascular fitness, and improving your flexibility while also strengthening your core. While kettlebells are great for explosive workouts and dynamic strength, balance and agility training, they do have a few downsides, like needing about ten different []

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TikTok admits secretly banning the word "gay" and similar terms in Russia, elsewhere - Boing Boing

Twitter is the platform where people from all over the world, including leaders and celebrities, voice their opinions freely. But this free speech model did not go well within the governance framework of the Communist Party of China (CCP); the microblogging site was banned in mainland China and its equivalent called Sina Weibo emerged. Here's the catch: users' posts on Weibo are heavily-monitored and censored, removing the very essence of free speech.

For the past few months, as the world is grappling with coronavirus that probably originated in China, it looks like Twitter too may have become victim of a censorship bug that could have the same origin.

There was a lot of controversy when Fei-Fei Li, an artificial intelligence (AI) expert who allegedly has close connections with the CCP, was appointed to the board of Twitter as an Independent Director in May 2020.

Li quit her role as chief scientist of artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) from Google in October 2018 following a controversy surrounding Google's Project Maven initiative, which helped the Pentagon identify drone targets from blurry video footage.

Li was also instrumental in the setting up of a new Google AI lab in China that may be involved in the controversial Project Dragonfly, which was meant to be a search engine that would suit China's censorship rules.

Twitter currently uses an AI technique called deep learning to recommend tweets to its users and also uses AI to identify racist content and hate speech, or content from extremist groups.

France-based Chinese dissident and commentator Wang Longmeng speaking to Radio Free Asia said that hiring Li to work at Twitter was like hiring a fox to guard the hencoop. "They seem to have ignored the backstory of Li's previous cooperation with China," he said. "Fei-Fei Li... secretly opposed Google's cooperation with the US Department of Defense from a high moral standpoint ... but turned a blind eye to Project Dragonfly, in which Google was planning to help the Chinese Communist Party vet online speech."

Wang said Li also used a slogan closely associated with Chinese President Xi Jinping and the CCP in a 2017 media interview in China, pledging to help Beijing develop its AI capabilities. Li was quoted in Chinese media as using the CCP slogan "stay true to our founding mission" and said that "China has awakened."

"I hope that democratic countries will reflect on this and start plugging the loopholes," he said. "Fei-Fei Li is very likely to be one of those loopholes."

A week after Li joined Twitter, numerous handles that had criticised this appointment were allegedly suspended without basis or reasons. A Twitter user Caijinglengyan discovered that four of his accounts were simultaneously deleted on May 18. He did not receive an explanation until May 23, when he was told his accounts had been taken down for violating Twitter's rules against posting identical content on duplicate accounts.

The user stated that he believes the real reason for his account cancellations was that on May 17, he tweeted that Twitter's new board member has a "red background."

Caijinglengyan claimed that many other Twitter accounts used by Chinese dissidents were suddenly suspended without notice. After he contacted them, he found that they had also criticised Li or started commenting about her just before their accounts were banned.

Journalist Didi Kirsten Tatlow, a Berlin-based researcher and writer specialising in Chinese affairs, tweeted about her latest research paper for the German Council on Foreign Relations which was on the topic - 'How Democratic security can protect Europe from a Rising China'. Soon after this, she received a communication from Twitter about possible complaints on this post. While Twitter did not find any basis to take actions here, it surely looks like a targeted attack of bots which may have reported this tweet minutes after it was posted.

While speaking to India Today, Didi Kirsten opined that this could be part of a targeted campaign where tweets critical of the CCP and its allies were mass reported. It could be bots or anonymous users who are tasked with carrying this out in an organised manner. How else would one explain the immediacy of Didi's posts getting reported?

As tensions build in Ladakh near the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the death of soldier Subedar Nyima Tenzin hailing from Tibet and part of the Special Frontier Force (SFF) of the Indian Army has changed the dynamics of this conflict. Reporting from the ground, India Today's @AbhishekBhalla7 managed to interview the father of a solider injured in a mine blast. This interview went viral and further irked the Chinese establishment now that the SFF and that its soldiers regularly fought against China as part of the Indian Army was no secret.

Bhalla's Twitter handle went kaput soon after; "unusual activity" cited on the restricted page. It was taken up with the Twitter India team and the account was restored soon after.

Twitter responded to questions of India Today, saying: "We would like to reiterate that the account was never suspended. The reporter was facing a login related issue which was resolved quickly."

The login issue occurred only after the account was restricted and was visible to Twitter followers while visiting Bhalla's account. Bhalla confirms this chronology of events. His account was reset after being restricted. While his account was restricted, he could not access his account and needed a two-factor authentication to reset his access.

In late August, @ChinarCorpsIA - one of the official handles of the Indian Army - was allegedly shadow banned when the handle posted a thread on India's war in 1965 against Pakistan. Multiple tweets part of the thread was hidden or unavailable to the followers of the handle.

Other than journalists, OSINT handles too are facing the brunt while posting tweets that question the policies of CCP and reporting developments on the LAC with respect to the ongoing events involving the Chinese and Indian armies.

Famous handles like @Indopac_info and @CestMoiz have recently expressed their anguish over their own tweets being hidden from their views. These are results of an account allegedly getting shadow banned.

The problem for users is not just suspension of accounts by Twitter, but a more powerful option that the micro-blogging site may have in its repertoire-a shadow ban. Often, journalists and popular handles alike allegedly get shadow banned if their account violates a preset rule structure of Twitter.

Twitter reject the claim that they ever indulge in shadow banning a user.

A shadow ban can be defined as "deliberately making someone's content undiscoverable to everyone except the person who posted it, unbeknownst to the original poster."

When a person is shadow banned, their posts on a platform are rendered essentially invisible to everyone but themselves. Their experience using a site may not change - they feel like they are still posting normally - but other people cannot see the material they produce.

A company statement dated July 2018 reads: "We do not shadow ban. You are always able to see the tweets from accounts you follow (although you may have to do more work to find them, like go directly to their profile). And we certainly don't shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology."

But critics are not satisfied. Interestingly, as of January 1, 2020 Twitter's Terms of Service state that they: (...) may also remove or refuse to distribute any Content on the Services, limit distribution or visibility of any Content on the service (...)

In fact, there is even a website where one can verify if his/her Twitter handle is shadow banned based on a few parameters.

Popular OSINT handle Indopac_info who is a noted critic of the CCP spoke to India Today on the same.

He says, "Twitter has many reasons to restrict a user's reach with their "shadow ban" algorithms. They make sure that only part of my followers receives my tweets on their feed. Many followers told me that they no longer see my tweets or only see some of them. Sometimes, they receive my tweets with a delay of hours or up to 1-2 days."

"Twitter also deletes most of the retweets and likes that I get. I see my retweet count going down a lot, all the time actually and in big numbers. Followers also tell me that they see their retweets and likes disappear. I see the same with new followers. Twitter deletes the follows and followers told me the same many times."

He feels that such actions on CCP critical accounts are widespread and many others face similar issues, especially when commenting on China and CCP.

Jennifer Zeng (@jenniferatntd) is a People's Republic of China-born human rights activist and author, best known for her practice of 'Falun Gong'- the subsequent government suppression of the movement - and the book, Witnessing History: One Chinese Woman's Fight for Freedom and Falun Gong, she wrote about her experience regarding it.

She spoke to India Today on this issue and expressed concerns that she too experiences issues that a lot of others have expressed. Even though she is based in the USA, she feels her voice gets suppressed regularly on Twitter.

She said "I feel very sad that I have to do 'calculations' before posting something. We are supposed to have freedom of speech in the US. But in my case, I had to practice a kind of self-censorship, although many people say that I am very brave, I still am afraid. Tech giants are having too much power. This is a very serious issue that we must tackle now. I hope we find a way to deal with it."

Jennifer was referring to her story on Fei-Fei Li and the fear of the same getting suppressed if she had tweeted about the same. So, she posted updates without triggering "alarms".

It won't be unrealistic to assume an army of fake bots or actual people reporting CCP critical tweets. This could very well be the reason behind the message Berlin-based journalist Didi Kirsten Tatlow received from Twitter. It is a fact that Twitter removed close to 200,000 Chinese Twitter bots and fake accounts that were indulging in posting pro-CCP content during the Covid-19 outbreak and Hong Kong protests. Some of the handles and tweets disappearing could also be owing to mass reporting of the same by such bots and fake accounts.

Solomon Yue, Vice-Chairman and CEO at Republicans Overseas, spoke to India Today expressing his anguish and called for a US-Senate level hearing on the alleged shadow banning of Twitter. Republicans Overseas is a political organisation in the USA that is recognised by the Republican National Committee.

He said, "What I like to see is that Twitter users who have experienced shadow banning of CCP critics by Twitter gather their evidences while my friends in the US Senate to hold a Senate Committee hearing based on their evidences. Twitter is not supposed to regulate free speech when it was exempted from users' legal actions by Congress."

The US Congress exempts social networking sites from lawsuits in order to not regulate or edit free speech.

(The writer is a Singapore-based Open-Source Intelligence analyst)

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Someone out there doesn't like Twitter accounts critical of China - India Today

One of Pakistans biggest TikTok stars has made the shocking decision to leave the app. Jannat Mirza, who is the biggest TikTok star in the country, and has more than 8 million followers on TikTok, recently revealed that she is quitting the app after a rough period of being shadowbanned by the app.

Known for her Bollywood lip-syncs and slow-mo, transform videos, the star has acquired quite a following in recent months. But lately, she fears that her hard work is getting squandered due to her being shadowbanned.

Shadowbanning is the act of blocking a users content on social media sites, in such a way that the user doesnt know its happening. This means that unless you go to the users profile and look for content, you will find it, otherwise a random user wont see it on their timeline, especially if theyre not following you.

Read more: Fiza Hussains journey from Aalima to notorious Hareem Shah

Mirza realized that her low views and her most recent videos being put under review rather than simply being uploaded most likely means that TikTok itself isnt allowing her to do good numbers, she posted a screenshot on her Instagram stories declaring that she would leave the app soon. It is yet to be seen if she actually does end up leaving the app that launched her into the cultural zeitgeist or if she can work with TikTok to figure out how to fix the problems with the app.

Mirza broke out on the social app thanks to her stunning good looks, and even attracted attention from within the Pakistani industry who sought her out for modeling and music videos.

Among them was Sarmad Qamar, who had the actress star in a music video for his song. Her fame also brought her an opportunity to work in Bollywood alongside Kartik Aryan, which she turned down due to the ill treatment of Muslims in India. Instead, shes set to star in the next Syed Noor film with Saima.

Read more: Pornography: Pakistan issues final warning to TikTok

However, there has been a downside to her success, with fans editing her pics and making lewd content with her face. She has previously been subjected to being hacked as well and has publicly admitted to feeling sad over the lengths people would go to tarnish her image.

Nonetheless, with 8 million followers on TikTok and more than a million followers on Instagram, it is clear that regardless of TikTok, Mirza is here to stay. With her stepping into the acting world, you may just see her transition to other mediums soon.

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Why is Pakistans biggest TikTok star leaving the app? - Global Village space

Renters facing eviction have been offered a reprieve but only if they live in areas under local coronavirus lockdowns.

Robert Jenrick, the housing secretary, confirmed that court proceedings for evictions would restart in England and Wales on 21 September after being suspended early in the pandemic.

But he said that if an area was in a local lockdown that included a restriction on gathering in homes, evictions would not be enforced by bailiffs.

Jenrick also announced a truce on enforcement action this Christmas, with no evictions permitted in England and Wales in the run-up to and over the holiday except in the most serious circumstances, such as cases involving antisocial behaviour or domestic abuse.

The measures appeared to confirm fears among homelessness and renter campaign groups that the government would not be persuaded into a more permanent U-turn to protect renters who lost income during the spring and summer lockdown and so were issued eviction notices by their landlords.

District councils have said that up to half a million people could be at risk, while the housing charity Shelter said by the end of June, about 174,000 renters had been warned by their landlords that they were facing eviction. Shelter estimated that a quarter of a million renters were in arrears.

As states across the world ordered citizens to stay home in February, the UN housing rapporteur was unequivocal. Housing has become a frontline defence against coronavirus,said Leilani Farha. She called on states to declare an end to all evictions of anyone, anywhere for any reason until the end of the pandemic.

Four months later, and as parts of the world emerge into the so-called new normal, her successor, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, iswarningof an impending tsunami of evictions. In the US, amajority of states have resumed evictions, leaving as many as 40 million disproportionately people of colour vulnerable to homelessness due to rent arrears.

Bailiffs are back in business across the channel, too, afteran extension to Frances winter eviction banexpired last month. In Paris, the mayor, Anne Hidalgo, has protected social renters by extending the eviction ban on public housing to 31 October protecting them until next summer by segueing into next winterstrve hivernale.

Some countries are doing more. In Spain, where the leftwing Podemost party are part of a governing coalition,the government has introduced an eviction banthat will remain in force until six months after the end of the state of emergency. An interest-free micro-loan scheme is open to renters who have lost income due to the pandemic.

Strong protections are also in place in Germany, where renting is widespread andrenters unions are well-established and powerful. In March the federal government banned the eviction of tenants who fall behind in rent between April and the end of September, while giving itself the discretion to extend the measure for another six months. Landlords can still take tenants to court to recover lost rent.

For millions, though, the situation remains bleak and uncertain. Thousands in poorer countries such as Kenya and Brazil were being thrown out of their homes even as the pandemic raged, Rajagopal reported. He warned that when people are deprived of shelter, they become more vulnerable to COVID-19 and this heightens the risk of widespread contagion.

I call upon all States to comply with their human rights obligations and ensure that no one is left in a position of increased vulnerability to Covid-19, he said.

Damien Gayle

Ministers have already changed the law to increase notice periods to six months, meaning renters served notice now can stay in their homes over winter. The only exceptions are cases where tenants have demonstrated antisocial behaviour or committed fraud, and the landlord would like to let their property to another tenant.

We have protected renters during the pandemic by banning evictions for six months the longest eviction ban in the UK, Jenrick said. To further support renters, we have increased notice periods to six months an unprecedented measure to help keep people in their homes over the winter months.

The campaign group Generation Rent had welcomed the one-month extension to the eviction ban, but called for a long-term plan to protect renters homes with emergency legislation to restrict the use of section 21 no-fault evictions, as well as eviction for rent arrears.

Labours shadow housing secretary, Thangam Debbonaire, said the announcement showed that the government was gearing up for a drastic increase in evictions this winter, just as coronavirus cases are rising.

They are threatening public health and putting lives at risk, she said. The ban on evictions cannot end until they have a credible plan to keep their promise that no renter should lose their home because of coronavirus.

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Reprieve for renters facing eviction in England and Wales - The Guardian

It is no secret algorithms dominate our online social lives it is not as if we arent making our own decisions when it comes to who we talk to or what media we consume, but it would be wilfully ignorant to ignore how systems have been programmed to categorise, collect, and suggest data just based on our likes and follows. This exposes us to content, people and ideas that we just would not have found on our own but it begs the questions of how much control do these systems have in restricting what we see?

This brings us to shadow banning.

Shadow banning is the decision of a social media platform to partially or wholly obstruct a persons content from being interacted with preventing new people from searching for your content, ensuring you do not appear under hashtags or even limiting how often you are suggested as a person to follow are just a few ways this can be achived. Platforms such as Instagram and Tiktok rarely acknowledge the claims of this nature but rather point to their right to remove posts that do not align with their Community Guidelines and how agreeing to use the platform is consenting to their power to do so.

In the grand scheme of things, having your videos taken down or fewer people finding and engaging content is not the greatest detriment to the world, but there is a significant pattern to who is being shadow banned. If I refer back to Tiktoks community guidelines, they claim to scrap videos created to facilitate harm onto others but within the guidelines, they make an effort to reiterate that they allow educational, historical, satirical, artistic, and other content that can be clearly identified as counterspeech or aims to raise awareness of the harm caused by dangerous individuals and/or organisations. This quote and their statement to show support of the Black Lives Matter movement will come as surprise especially to the number of black creators that have seen their engagement rates fall and their videos be taken down on their app.

Instagram has shown itself to be just as complicit in this there has been significant backlash from sex workers, sex educators and often queer inclusive sex-positive spaces on the app. Chante Joseph in her Guardian piece exposed the grey area that is not as clearly defined as Instagrams no nudity policy where the administrators can flag content as sexually suggestive; many people argue that this is necessary to ensure children are not exposed to inappropriate content rather than parents taking accountability or social media platforms at least attempting to introduce any form of age restriction, the onus is placed on creators. But consider, for example, LGBTQIA+ creators; their accounts are providing information that young people who may not have even come out to themselves would otherwise be able to access so they can process and understand their feelings in a healthy space that wasnt available to them just a decade ago. In essence, these guidelines about what a person is allowed to share is being defined by some arbitrary moral standard where discussions of sex specifically those outside the realm of the heteronormative are something to be protected from, even though there are very few spaces that allow for them in real life either.

Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook all are often steeped in their reputation of being superficial and resting on the self-gratification of people wanting to be seen (which isnt even itself a bad thing), but besides that they can be used to share ideas, political thoughts and knowledge. So when black creators attempting to inform the masses are restricted from sharing information or when sex workers messages on misogyny are inaccessible because their page is considered too sexually suggestive (a term not defined so therefore difficult to avoid), the silence is deafening. Shadowbanning is a threat to us because it maintains for us the illusion of control. Yet the whole idea is synonymous with censorship and the obstruction of information. Further, this obstruction is dictated by what platforms see as appropriate so the power we assumed we had in our voices can still be silenced.

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Shadow banning and its role in modern day censorship - Cherwell Online

WWE Chairman Vince McMahon issued a statement on Friday banning Superstars from engaging with third party platforms such as Twitch and Cameo.

McMahon sent out a letter to the talents which stated that all such activities were to be terminated within the next 30 days, by October 2. Failing to do so would lead to fines, suspension, or even termination of contract at WWEs discretion, the notice stated.

The reason behind the edict was to promote and protect the WWE brand in every conceivable way, the letter said. According to PWInsider, WWE has now released a statement regarding the matter.

Much like Disney and Warner Bros., WWE creates, promotes and invests in its intellectual property, i.e. the stage names of performers like The Fiend Bray Wyatt, Roman Reigns, Big E and Braun Strowman. It is the control and exploitation of these characters that allows WWE to drive revenue, which in turn enables the company to compensate performers at the highest levels in the sports entertainment industry. Notwithstanding the contractual language, it is imperative for the success of our company to protect our greatest assets and establish partnerships with third parties on a company-wide basis, rather than at the individual level, which as a result will provide more value for all involved.

It was reported that the decision was not taken very well by the WWE Superstars. Several of them used third-party platforms for fan interactions as well as extra income, especially during the pandemic. AJ Styles is quite active on his Twitch stream. Alexa Bliss and Roman Reigns recently opened their Cameo accounts as well.

Former WWE Superstars have also spoke up against it, including Batista. He infamously quit WWE over refusal to let him participate in opportunities outside the company.

#NoComment but I am retweeting!!!! #RealTalk https://t.co/eP6tgD2C4S

Shadow Person Dave Bautista (@DaveBautista) September 5, 2020

Banning wrestlers from making extra money on third party deals twitch, YouTube, cameo strikes me as a crummy thing to do.

Just my opinion.

Mick Foley (@RealMickFoley) September 5, 2020

Alright guys. Girls. Are they gonna fireEveryone? Just keep doing you. DontWorry.

player/coach (@CMPunk) September 5, 2020

Sooooooo guess now would be a good time to launch my Twitch and Cameo??

Renee Paquette (@ReneePaquette) September 4, 2020

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WWE releases statement on the new third party ban; Superstars react - Wrestling-Edge.com

Shadow ban (also known as ghost ban) is one of the most discussed aspects of social media platforms. Over the years, a number of users have experienced that their content does not reach the desired amount of users. Shadow banning is an act where a social media portal can partially block a user from their online community. Users do not have a way to know whether they have been shadow banned unless they experience a decrease in their reach.

Twitter, which predominantly is a portal for people to reach millions through limited alphabets, has been criticised in the past over shadow banning. Back in 2018, the company had given out an official statement that they do not limit users from reaching their audience. However, the update inJanuary 2020 terms of the platform subtly state that Twitter does shadow ban its users.

Also read:Heartbreaking tweet announcing Chadwick Boseman's death 'most liked ever', Twitter says

Back in July 2018, President Donald Trump had accused Twitter of shadow banning Republican politicians. This had resulted in an outcry on the internet where Twitter was criticised for silencing its users. However, in an official statement, Twitter had cleared the air by stating that it does not shadow ban. An excerpt of the statement has been given below. Users can read the complete statement here.

We do not shadow ban. You are always able to see the tweets from accounts you follow (although you may have to do more work to find them, like go directly to their profile). And we certainly dont shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.

Also read:Twitter users apt webinar post leaves netizens chuckling; Check it out

However, Twitter updated its terms and services in 2020 and subtly confirmed that it does shadow ban users on its platform. The official terms state that the platform may limit distribution or visibility of any content on the platform. While Twitter has been accused of limiting the distribution of content for many users, it won't be the only social media platform to do so. Similar shadow banning has been reported by users on Facebook, Instagram and others.Check out an excerpt from the updated terms of Twitter below -

We may also remove or refuse to distribute any Content on the Services, limit distribution or visibility of any Content on the service, suspend or terminate users, and reclaim usernames without liability to you.

Also read:NBA fans claim bots hijacked Twitter to condemn players' "political" boycott

Also read:Tom Cruise heads out to watch 'Tenet' in theater; Twitter says it is his 'biggest stunt'

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What is Shadow Ban on Twitter? Limiting the distribution & visibility of content explained - Republic World - Republic World

The phenomenal rise of social media (SM) platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and others is proving to be a double-edged sword in the functioning of democracies. On the one hand, it has democratised access to information. On the other hand, it has concentrated power over that information with a handful of private companies, their billionaire owners, and certain ideologically committed activist groups.

Billions of netizens around the world now feel empowered to bypass traditional curators of information, such as journalists and editors, in searching for their choice of content. They have also become creators and disseminators of content, not just consumers of it. This is further accentuated by tech platforms directing more content at people similar to what they have already seen, thus creating echo chambers of like-minded groups.

This is already known. What is happening now, however, is the next stage of that transformation in how information is generated, disseminated, and consumed, and it is directly impacting how democracies function. There is a global war underway, involving the role of SM and freedom of expression, which is an extension of the culture wars between the Left and Right.

India is seeing the early skirmishes of the online version of this war, which has already progressed to a much higher intensity elsewhere, most notably the United States (US). In Americas bitterly polarised polity, the frontline of this war is a battle between Twitter and President Donald Trump. The formers flagging of a presidential tweet as fake news, and the latters executive order altering the liability of SM platforms who edit content, is worth understanding better.

One of the most stark aspects of the Wests culture wars has been its erosion of the right to freedom of expression, which had been a hallmark of its modern democracies. Especially since the early 20th century, US Supreme Court rulings by the legendary Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, interpreting its Constitutions first amendment, had established what many considered a gold standard of free speech.

While those struggles for free speech had pushed for more freedom, even to say and write very unpleasant things, the intensification of the Wests culture wars in this century has seen a reversal of that trend. Curbs on hate speech became widely accepted and implemented. But, thereafter, there has been a relentless push by so-called woke activists for ever more curbs on speech, often implemented forcefully and without consensus, based solely on political correctness.

A key aspect of this has been the shift from earlier activism against governments clamping down on speech to a focus instead on pushing media, and especially SM, to impose curbs on politically incorrect speech.

The irony in this new activism for speech curbs is that it is being championed by those who call themselves liberals. Of course, this does not represent classical liberal philosophy, and is instead a reflection of the far-Left takeover of present-day liberalism. This is visible around the world, whether in the forced withdrawal of a US academics paper contradicting the zeitgeist about race relations, or in the unsavoury departures of senior staff at the once venerable New York Times, after they had dared to publish op-eds reflecting Centre-Right views. In India, this bullying has manifested itself in the ganging up by self-avowed liberal authors to stop the publication of a book contradicting their narrative on this years Delhi riots.

Such far-Left canons have now invaded the realm of big tech firms. That should hardly be a surprise, considering Silicon Valleys preference for recruiting liberal and woke employees. Books and articles by conservative authors such as Douglas Murray and business journalists such as George Anders have documented explicit hiring policies, practices and statistics to confirm Left-wing dominance among SM employees. It was, therefore, inevitable that employee activism would push these platforms into adopting leftist, illiberal policies.

The inconsistencies in those policies show up when SM platforms apply selective standards, such as when Twitter was accused of hypocrisy for not flagging or proscribing the aggressive, warlike tweet of a West Asian leader.

President Trumps executive order directly impacts this. In US law, SM had been protected against the kind of liabilities such as defamation that traditional news media are subject to, on the grounds that SM are simply platforms for others opinions and did not edit or otherwise shape that information. But now that they are, by flagging, shadow banning, or deleting posts and accounts, the Trump order echoes many voices that had been asking for SM to be treated on par with media outlets.

A similar battle is raging about SM giants abuse of their massive power by sourcing news from media companies without paying for it, and then disseminating and profiting from it. Despite a bitter legal struggle, Australia is likely to become the first nation to require Google to pay for such content.

These battles are relevant to India, which is both the largest democracy as well as one of the largest user bases for SM platforms. Some of these battles have already begun here, such as the recent Indian version of the Wests leftist pressure on Facebook to put curbs on Right-wing posts. It is time to broaden the dialogue here about how India ought to respond.

Baijayant Jay Panda is vice-president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and a former Member of Parliament.

The views expressed personal

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Social media: The new theatre of Indias culture wars - Hindustan Times

Actor Kangana Ranaut feels that she has been shadow-banned by Twitter, after noticing that she has been losing around 40,000-50,000 followers every day. She said that it was unfair but added that nationalists have to struggle everywhere.

It started when one of Kanganas followers claimed that her follower count is decreasing on Twitter and it went down from 992k to 988k in the span of an hour. She replied, I agree I notice pattern every day 40-50 thousand followers drop, I am very new to this place but how does this work? Why are they doing this any idea? @TwitterIndia @jack @TwitterSupport.

Another follower suggested that she has been shadow banned for promoting nationalistic sentiments. Shadow banning is a form of Twitter censorship in which the microblogging site hides or blocks your content from your followers and other Twitter users. This happens if one is in violation of Twitters policies.

Kangana seemed to agree with this explanation and said, Hmm I see Nationalists have to struggle every where, racket is so strong, I noticed because last night we were to very close to a million, anyway, sincere apologies to all those who are getting unfollows automatically, so unfair but arnt we used to this now?

Also see | Sushant Singh Rajputs sister Shweta shares happy pics of them dancing to Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast Mast: Miss you bhai

For a while now, Kangana has been raising her voice against the movie mafia and practice of nepotism in the film industry. Recently, she talked about Bollywoods alleged drugs nexus and claimed that 99% of people in the industry are drug users.

On Sunday, Kangana likened herself to late actor Sushant Singh Rajput and said that she was also targetted and isolated by the heavyweights of Bollywood. I was also called bipolar, a sexual predator, I was sl*t shamed, they isolated and banned me, eventually entire media banned me n my films as well, and mafia openly declared my tragic end, and all this happened in full public glare, no one said anything #IAmSushant, she wrote on Twitter.

Kangana has been seeking justice for Sushant. She has alleged that the movie mafia tried to destroy his career and used their connections in the media to plant fake blind articles about him.

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Kangana Ranaut feels she is shadow banned by Twitter as her followers decrease, asks how does it w... - Hindustan Times

Mashable's series Algorithms explores the mysterious lines of code that increasingly control our lives and our futures.

The world in 2020 has been given plenty of reasons to be wary of algorithms. Depending on the result of the U.S. presidential election, it may give us one more. Either way, it's high time we questioned the impact of these high-tech data-driven calculations, which increasingly determine who or what we see (and what we don't) online.

The impact of algorithms is starting to scale up to a dizzying degree, and literally billions of people are feeling the ripple effects. This is the year the Social Credit System, an ominous Black Mirror-like "behavior score" run by the Chinese government, is set to officially launch. It may not be quite as bad as you've heard, but it will boost or tighten financial credit and other incentives for the entire population. There's another billion unexamined, unimpeachable algorithms hanging over a billion human lives.

In the UK, few will forget this year's A-level algorithm. A-levels are key exams for 18-year olds; they make or break college offers. COVID-19 canceled them. Teachers were asked what each pupil would have scored. But the government fed these numbers into an algorithm alongside the school's past performance. Result: 40 percent of all teacher estimates were downgraded, which nixed college for high-achieving kids in disadvantaged areas. Boris Johnson backed down, eventually, blaming a "mutant algorithm." Still, even a former colleague of the prime minister thinks the A-level fiasco may torpedo his reelection chances.

In the U.S., we don't tend to think about shadowy government algorithms running or ruining our lives. Well, not unless you're a defendant in one of the states where algorithms predict your likelihood of committing more crime (eat your heart out, Minority Report) and advise judges on sentencing. U.S. criminal justice algorithms, it probably won't surprise you to learn, are operated by for-profit companies and stand accused of perpetuating racism. Such as COMPAS in Florida and Wisconsin, which ProPublica found was twice as likely to label Black defendants "high risk" than white defendants and was wrong about 40 percent of the time.

The flaws in such "mutant algorithms," of course, reflect their all-too-human designers. Math itself isn't racist, or classist, or authoritarian. An algorithm is just a set of instructions. Technically, the recipe book in your kitchen is full of them. As with any recipe, the quality of an algorithm depends on its ingredients and those of us who have to eat the result really don't think enough about what went on in the kitchen.

"All around us, algorithms provide a kind of convenient source of authority, an easy way to delegate responsibility; a short cut that we take without thinking," writes mathematician Hannah Fry in her 2018 book Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms. "Who is really going to click through to the second page of Google every time and think critically about every result?"

Try to live without algorithms entirely, however, and you'll soon notice their absence. Algorithms are often effective because they are able to calculate multiple probabilities faster and more effectively than any human mind. Anyone who's ever spent longer on the road because they thought they could outsmart Google Maps' directions knows the truth of this. This thought experiment imagining a day without algorithms ended in terrible gridlock, since even traffic-light systems use them.

Still, you would be right to be concerned about the influence algorithms have on our internet lives particularly in the area of online content. The more scientists study the matter, the more it seems that popular search, video and social media algorithms are governing our brains. Studies have shown they can alter our mood (Facebook itself proved that one) and yes, even our 2016 votes (which explains why the Trump campaign is investing so much into Facebook ads this time around).

So before we find out the full effect of algorithms in 2020 let's take a look at the algorithms on each of the major content services many of which are surprisingly easy to erase from our lives.

No algorithm on Earth, not even China's Social Credit system, has the power of Mark Zuckerberg's. Every day, nearly 2 billion people visit Facebook. Nearly all of them allow the algorithm to present posts in the order that the company has determined most likely to keep them engaged. That means you see a lot more posts from friends you've engaged with in the past, regardless of how close you actually are to them. It also means content that causes big back-and-forth fights is pushed to the top. And Zuckerberg knows it.

"Our algorithms exploit the human brains attraction to divisiveness," warned a 2018 internal Facebook study, unearthed by the Wall Street Journal. Left unchecked, these mutant algorithms would favor "more and more divisive content in an effort to gain user attention & increase time on the platform."

Zuckerberg, reportedly afraid that conservatives would be disproportionately affected if he tweaked the algorithm to surface more harmonious posts, shelved the study. It's been a good four years for conservatives on Facebook, who have been playing the referee ever since they petitioned Zuckerberg to stop using human editors to curate news in 2016. Now look at Facebook's top performing posts in 2020; on a daily basis, the list is dominated by names such as Ben Shapiro, Franklin Graham, and Sean Hannity.

But even conservatives have cause to be disquieted by the Facebook algorithm. Seeing friends' popular posts has been shown to make us more depressed. Facebook addiction is heavily correlated with depressive disorder. So-called "super sharers" drown out less active users, according to the 2018 report; an executive who tried to reduce the super-sharer influence on the algorithm abruptly left the company.

How to fix it

Luckily, you can reduce their influence yourself. Because Facebook still allows you to remove the sorting algorithm from your timeline, and simply view all posts from all your friends and follows in reverse chronological order (that is, most recently posted at the top). On Facebook.com, click the three dots next to "News Feed," then click "most recent." On the app, you'll need to click "settings," then "see more," then "most recent."

The result? Well, you might be surprised to catch up with old friends you'd almost forgotten about. And if you interact with their posts, you're training the content algorithm for when you go back to your regular timeline. In my experience, reverse chronological order isn't the most thrilling way to browse Facebook the algorithm knows what it's doing, locking your brain in with the most exciting posts but it's a nice corrective. If you're one of the two billion on Facebook every day, try this version at least once a week.

The YouTube "watch next" algorithm may be even more damaging to democracy than Facebook's preference for controversial posts. Some 70 percent of YouTube videos we consume were recommended by the service's algorithm, which is optimized to make you watch more YouTube videos and ads no matter what (the average viewing session is now above one hour).

That means YouTube prioritizes controversial content, because whether you love it or hate it, you'll keep watching. And once you've watched one piece of controversial content, the algorithm will assume that's what you're into, steering you to the kind of stuff viewers of that video opted to watch next. Which explains how your grandparents can start by watching one relatively innocuous Fox News video and end up going down a QAnon conspiracy theory rabbit hole.

A former Google programmer, Guillaime Chaslot, found the YouTube algorithm may have been biased enough to swing the outcome of the 2016 election, which was decided by 77,000 votes in three states. "More than 80 percent of recommended videos were favorable to Trump, whether the initial query was 'Trump' or 'Clinton'," he wrote in the immediate aftermath. "A large proportion of these recommendations were divisive and fake news." Similarly, Chaslot found that 90 percent of videos recommended from the search query "is the Earth flat?" said that yes, indeed it is.

This isn't just a problem in the U.S. One of the most important case studies of the YouTube algorithm's political impact was in Brazil, where fringe right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro was elected president after unexpectedly becoming a YouTube star. "YouTubes search and recommendation system appears to have systematically diverted users to far-right and conspiracy channels in Brazil," a 2019 New York Times investigation found. Even Bolsonaro's allies credited YouTube for his win.

How to fix it

Keep the algorithm at bay. Disable 'Up Next.'

Turning off autoplay, an option next to the "Up Next" list, will at least stop you from blindly watching whatever the YouTube algorithm recommends. You can't turn off recommendations altogether, but you can at least warn less tech-savvy relatives that the algorithm is doing its level best to radicalize them in service of views.

Chaslot's nonprofit algotransparency.org will show you what videos are most recommended across the site on any given day. By now, you may not be surprised to see that Fox News content tends to float to the top. Your YouTube recommendation algorithm may look normal to you if it's had years to learn your likes and dislikes. But a brand-new user will see something else entirely.

While parent company Facebook allows you to view your feed in reverse chronological order, Instagram banished that option altogether back in 2016 leading to a variety of conspiracy theories about "shadow banning." It will still show you every photo and story if you keep scrolling for long enough, but certain names float to the top so frequently that you'd be forgiven for feeling like a stalker. (Hello, Instagram crushes!)

How to fix it

As of a February update, Instagram will at least let you see who you've been inadvertently ignoring. Click on your profile icon in the bottom right corner, click on your "following" number, and you'll see two categories: "Least Interacted With" and "Most Shown In Feed." Click on the former, scroll through the list, and give your most ignored follows some love.

You can also sort your feed by the order in which you followed accounts, which is truly infuriating. Why offer that option, and not just give us a straight-up chronological feed? Instagram is also said to be testing a "Latest posts" feature that will catch you up on recent happenings, but this hasn't rolled out to all users yet.

Just like its social media rivals, Twitter is obsessed with figuring out how it can present information in anything other than most recent order the format that Twitter has long been known for. Founder Jack Dorsey has introduced solutions that will allow you to follow topics, not just people, and to show you tweets in your timeline that drove the most engagement first.

How to fix it

Go! See latest tweets! Be free of the algorithm!

All of these non-chronological tweaks fall under the "Home" heading at the top of the page. Click the star icons next to it, and you'll have the opportunity to go back to traditional Twitter-style "Latest Tweets." Of all the social media services, Twitter is the one that makes it easiest to ignore its recommendation algorithm.

It may take a little more scrolling to find the good stuff on Latest Tweets, and of course what you're seeing depends on what time of day you're dipping into the timeline. Still, Latest Tweets is your best bet for a range of opinions and information from your follows unimpeded by any mutant algorithms.

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Algorithms control your online life. Here's how to reduce their influence. - Mashable