May 31, 2016 Jewish Groups Welcome Censorship Luke Ford No sacred cows.

Jewish Groups Welcome Censorship

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Luke Ford

They don’t speak for me.

Know any white guys who want to restrict freedom of speech? I don’t.

The Torah has no such category as hate speech or racism or bigotry or anti-Semitism. These are all gentile terms contrary to Torah. Torah Jews don’t spend time “fighting anti-Semitism” or “fighting racism” or “fighting homophobia.”

From Times of Israel:

Jewish groups welcome FB, Twitter pledge to crack down on hate speech
YouTube, Microsoft also sign code of conduct with European Commission, requiring removal of reported content within 24 hours

Jewish groups welcomed a pledge by four internet giants to crack down on online hate speech, though some questioned the firms’ commitment to act.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft on Tuesday signed a code of conduct with the European Commission that requires them to delete the majority of reported illegal hate speech within 24 hours, The Telegraph reported.

The European Jewish Congress offered an “enthusiastic welcome” to the code of conduct in a statement Tuesday, but the World Jewish Congress reacted more coolly in a statement the same day, voicing “skepticism about the commitment of these firms to effectively police their respective platforms.”

YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and others “already have clear guidelines in place aimed at preventing the spread of offensive content, yet they have so far utterly failed to properly implement their own rules,” the CEO of the World Jewish Congress, Robert Singer, said in the statement.

“Tens of thousands of despicable video clips continue to be made available although their existence has been reported to YouTube and despite the fact that they are in clear violation of the platform’s own guidelines prohibiting racist hate speech. … Nonetheless, YouTube gives the impression that it has been cracking down on such content. Alas, the reality is that so far it hasn’t.”

Last week, France’s Union of Jewish Students, or UEJF, and the anti-racist organization SOS Racisme sued Twitter, YouTube and Facebook for failing to remove anti-Semitic, racist and homophobic content, Le Parisien reported.

The two groups, together with SOS Homophobie, said that on March 31 and May 10, they found 586 examples of such content. Only 4 percent of the content was deleted by Twitter, 7 percent by YouTube and 34 percent by Facebook, the groups said.

In 2013, the Paris Court of Appeals issued a landmark ruling forcing Twitter to block the hashtag #UnBonJuif — French for “a good Jew” — and to remove the thousands of associated anti-Semitic tweets that violated France’s law against hate speech.

The ruling was a turning point in the fight against online hate speech in France and beyond because it caused Twitter to abandon its policy of applying as little censorship as is permissible in the United States, where Twitter’s head office is based and where there are fewer limitations on free speech than in many countries in Europe.

YouTube has since permanently banned videos posted by Dieudonne, a French comedian with 10 convictions for inciting racial hatred against Jews.

In 2014, Facebook removed the page of the Holocaust denier Soral for “repeatedly posting things that don’t comply with the Facebook terms,” according to the company. Soral’s page had drawn many complaints in previous years.

Despite complaints of partial compliance on hate speech removal by the internet giants, European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor celebrated the accord Tuesday as “a historic agreement that could not arrive at a better time.” It is “very important” that governments and online companies “work in tandem to make the internet a safer space for all,” he said.

The president of the Conference of European Rabbis, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, was also optimistic, saying in a statement that “internet hate leads to a culture of fear. We hope that today’s announcement will be the first step in combating that culture.”

REPORT: “The recent terror attacks have reminded us of the urgent need to address illegal online hate speech. Social media is unfortunately one of the tools that terrorist groups use to radicalize young people,” said Vera Jourova, European Commissioner in charge of Justice,Consumers and Gender Equality, at a daily press briefing of the Commission.”The Internet is a place for free speech, not hate speech. The Code of Conduct against illegal online hate speech, agreed with IT companies today, will ensure that public incitement to violence to hatred has no place online,’’ she added.

The definition of illegal online content is based on the Framework Decision on Combatting Racism and Xenophobia which criminalises the public incitement to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin.

Jewish groups welcome the agreement. Daniel Schwammenthal, Director of the AJC Transatlantic Institute, declared : “For too long, social media companies claimed their ‘community standards’ are sufficient to deal with the haters on their platforms. For too long, users flagging posts such as ‘Kill all Jews’ were frequently told though such calls to murder didn’t violate these same ‘community standards.’ We hope this agreement will help ensure social media platforms are no longer abused by those who threaten people’s lives and the very values our free societies are built on.’’“We trust the European Commission and EU Member States will monitor closely whether this agreement is properly implemented and take the appropriate measures should the code of conduct prove to be ineffective,” he added.“This is a historic agreement that could not arrive at a better time,” said European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor. “We have seen a massive growth of online hate speech and incitement in recent years and it is very important that governments, law enforcement agencies and online companies work in tandem to make the internet a safer space for all.”“It has been demonstrated that many of those who have shed blood on the streets of Europe in recent years have been indoctrinated online, so hopefully this agreement can cut off a means of recruitment into extremist organizations.”

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Far-right parties winning over some Jewish voters, top rabbi warns

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Luke Ford

VIENNA (Reuters) – Far-right parties in some European countries are winning over Jewish voters by exploiting fears about militant Islamists and mainstream parties must do much more to address Europeans’ security concerns, a Jewish leader said on Tuesday.

Boosted by Europe’s migrant crisis, Norbert Hofer of Austria’s anti-immigration Freedom Party only narrowly lost the country’s presidential election on May 22. He would have been the first far-right head of state in the European Union.

“I understand that, most probably, a not insignificant part of the (Jewish) community here voted for Hofer for the presidency,” the head of the Conference of European Rabbis (CER), Pinchas Goldschmidt, told Reuters in an interview.

Goldschmidt, who is also the chief rabbi of Moscow, said he had received reports of a similar shift among French Jews towards supporting the anti-immigration National Front ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections next year in France.

“When God gave out intelligence, not everybody stood in line. And so when those parties come with a populist message to the Jews and say ‘We’re going to save you from the Muslims’ … propaganda is effective,” he added.

Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem in April – a gesture rich in symbolism, given the Nazis’ role in Austrian history and the flight or murder of most Austrian Jews following the country’s annexation by Adolf Hitler in 1938.

“Not only from the Freedom Party in Austria but also from the side of, for example, the National Front in France … and also (Geert) Wilders in Holland, they all seem to want us Jews to say they are acceptable,” Goldschmidt said.

Today Austria is home to an estimated 15,000 Jews and more than 500,000 Muslims.

“DANGEROUS” POPULISM

The security threat posed by Islamist militants has become much clearer after last year’s Paris attacks and must be tackled, Goldschmidt said, adding that Europe’s Schengen area of passport-free travel made that more difficult.

“I think that since the populist right-wing parties raised real concerns of people, unless the mainstream parties of Europe are going to address those issues, they’re going to lose.”

Goldschmidt, who was in Vienna for a gathering of the CER, suggested measures including the creation of a European anti-terrorism task force, improvements in border security and more effective integration of refugees.

He also condemned what he said was the tendency of far-right parties to conflate ordinary Muslims with Islamist militants.

“(The) moderate Muslim is our natural ally. They are as much the victims of radical Islamism as we Jews. It is the populism, the generalization, which is dangerous and destructive.”

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ADL Report: KKK Declining in Stature and Significance

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Luke Ford

ADL: Only 3,000 Klan Members in Small Groups With No Central Leadership
New York, NY, May 11, 2016 … Despite efforts by Ku Klux Klan groups to gain publicity by exploiting the presidential election and distributing hate literature, the Klan today is a collection of mostly small, disjointed groups with no predominant leadership or stability, according to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “Tattered Robes: The State of the Ku Klux Klan.”

“What remains of the Klan is a collection of mostly small and disjointed groups that have difficulty in recruiting members and even maintaining any semblance of long-term stability,” said Oren Segal, Director of ADL’s Center on Extremism. “Klan groups form and dissolve just as quickly, and few longstanding groups still exist. Even those aren’t very healthy.”

ADL’s report identifies current trends among Klan groups and provides examples of recent Klan activity. While many are adept at exploiting the media by staging political endorsements, leafleting, and occasional rallies, most organized Klan groups suffer from a lack of cohesion and paucity of members, key factors in its long-term trend of decline. Other factors in its decline include a perception that Klan groups are old or outdated, as well as the presence of other types of white supremacist groups that compete for membership with Klan groups.

Some quick facts about Klan group membership and recent activity:

There are currently about 30 active Klan groups in the U.S, most of them very small. There are approximately 3,000 Klan group members nationwide, as well as an additional but unknown number of supporters and associates.
Distributing racist fliers has evolved into a key Klan tactic, as it requires few members to accomplish. In 2015, ADL counted 86 separate incidents in which Klan fliers were left on doorsteps or driveways in neighborhoods around the country, an increase from 73 similar incidents in 2014.
There were only three public Klan rallies across the United States in 2015. Klan organized rallies were held in Montgomery, Alabama; Columbia, South Carolina; and the University of Mississippi. Some Klan group members did take part in extremist events staged by other groups.
More than half of the currently active Klan groups were formed only in the last five years, showing how short-lived and unstable today’s KKK groups tend to be.
The report says that some regional Klan groups, such as the North Carolina-based Loyal White Knights, which is the most active Klan group in the U.S. today, have a broad, though shallow, geographical reach. In 2015, the Loyal White Knights, which has between 150 and 200 members, were able to draw attention to themselves in 15 different states in the south and east, primarily through leafleting.

Most Klan groups, however, are significantly smaller. The Kentucky-based Elders Blood-N-Blood Out Knights, for example, consists of just a handful of members.

IDEOLOGY OF KLAN GROUPS: HATRED OF NON-WHITES INFUSED WITH NEO-NAZISM

Many Klan groups today promote a traditional Klan ideology infused with varying degrees of neo-Nazi beliefs or affiliations. For some Klan groups, embracing neo-Nazi tenets has resulted in symbiotic relationships with neo-Nazi groups. Some Klan groups have formed alliances with factions of Aryan Nations and the National Socialist Movement.

“Making explicit or de facto alliances allows more joint events, which can help mask the small numbers that individual white supremacist groups are able to generate,” said Dr. Mark Pitcavage, ADL Senior Research Fellow and one of the authors of the report.

Klan groups have rallied recently around issues such as immigration and alleged “white genocide” and have attended anti-Muslim protests. Klan members and supporters in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and West Virginia have distributed anti-Muslim fliers urging readers to join the Klan and “help fight the spread of Islam.” Other groups use attention-getting antics to attract publicity. One group, the International Keystone Knights, made news for appealing an “Adopt-a-Highway” court ruling in Georgia, a common white supremacist publicity stunt, while the Arkansas-based Knights Party drew attention after sponsoring a racist billboard in their home state.

CRIMINAL ACTIVITY AND VIOLENCE

ADL’s report also details how individuals with present or past connections to Klan groups have recently been convicted of a wide range of violent crimes from murder sprees to assault. Some have attempted and conspired to commit murder, while others have been arrested for illegal possession of a variety of weapons, from brass knuckles to firearms and explosives. However, the declining Klan membership has in the long-term meant reductions in criminal activity as well, a trend that will hopefully continue.

ADL’s Center on Extremism fights extremism, terrorism and all forms of hate in the real world and cyberspace with unmatched capabilities in research, analysis, investigation, and online monitoring. Recognized as the foremost authority on extremism, the Center provides resources, expertise and training which enables law enforcement, public officials, community leaders and internet and technology companies to identify and counter emerging threats.

Posted in ADL, Anti-Semitism, KKK | Comments Off

ADL: Anti-Semites Spearhead Attack Campaign Against Jewish Journalists

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Luke Ford

ADL: White supremacists and anti-Semites have been bombarding Jewish journalists with anti-Semitic tweets, particularly if the journalists have been critical of presidential candidate Donald Trump or his family. Anonymous tweeters whose background is unknown have also joined in the attack.

Journalists such as Julia Ioffe, Bethany Mandel, Jonathan Weisman and Ben Shapiro have all been targets of this campaign. Many of the tweets feature Holocaust imagery. Yellow Jewish stars with the word “Jude” are superimposed on the pictures of these journalists. There are also disturbing images of concentration camps and ovens directed at the journalists, as well as cartoons depicting anti-Semitic stereotypes.

While the actual identity of many of the people sending the offensive tweets can’t be determined, at least two well-known neo-Nazis have blatantly attacked Jewish journalists online. In a recent blog post, neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin went after Weisman, a New York Times reporter, who received an avalanche of anti-Semitic tweets after mentioning the anti-Semitic campaign against Ioffe. In an earlier blog post, Anglin had also encouraged his followers to troll Ioffe on Twitter after she wrote a profile of Melania Trump for GQ magazine.

Anglin derided Weisman for publicizing the hateful tweets directed at him. Anglin alleged that Jewish journalists like Weisman and Ioffe had provoked the wrath of white supremacists. But Anglin went further, practically declaring that there is a war on with Jewish journalists. He wrote, “You’ve all provoked us. You’ve been doing it for decades—and centuries even—and we’ve finally had enough. Challenge has been accepted.”

Another neo-Nazi, Andrew Auernheimer–also known as “Weev”–tweeted at Weisman, “Get used to it you f—ing kike. You people will be made to pay for the violence and fraud you’ve committed against us.”

Anglin and Auernheimer are both adept at propaganda. Anglin uses his website, The Daily Stormer, to attack Jewish journalists and other Jews and encourages his followers to troll them online. Anglin himself was banned from Twitter after he ran a propaganda campaign with fake tweets about the Klan coming to the University of Missouri following some racial incidents at the school. Auernheimer is a well-known hacker who this year sent flyers advertising The Daily Stormer to dozens of printers located at universities across the country.

Both Anglin and Auernheimer are known figures who have used social media to attack Jews, but there are legions of anonymous Twitter users who are exploiting the Internet to carry out these anti-Semitic campaigns against Jewish journalists. While white supremacists used to promote their anti-Jewish propaganda on extremist forums and random websites, they are now able to mainstream their hate on sites used by millions of people and easily recruit others to join in their efforts.

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#IStandWithHateSpeech

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Luke Ford

#IStandWithHateSpeech because Torah does not recognize any such category as racism, bigotry, xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia.

Twitter:

* In 24 hours the EU bans all hate speech. Does not matter to them if facts and opinions are silenced, therefore ->

#IStandWithHateSpeech

* if you can’t rebutt opposing views without calling it hate speech then your argument probably wasn’t strong anyway.

EU LINKS UP WITH TWITTER, TECH FIRMS TO COMBAT HATE SPEECH
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union reached an agreement Tuesday with some of the world’s biggest social media firms, including Facebook and Twitter, on ways to combat the spread of hate speech online.
Under the terms of a code of conduct, the firms, which also include YouTube and Microsoft, have committed to “quickly and efficiently” tackle illegal hate speech directed against anyone over issues of race, color, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin. The sites have often been used by terrorist organizations to relay messages and entice hatred against certain individuals or groups.
Among the measures agreed with the EU’s executive arm, the firms have said they will establish internal procedures and staff training to guarantee that a majority of illegal content is assessed and, where necessary, removed within 24 hours. They have also agreed to strengthen their partnerships with civil society organizations who often flag content that promotes incitement to violence and hateful conduct. The European Commission and the firms have also agreed to support civil society organizations to deliver “anti-hate campaigns.”
“The internet is a place for free speech, not hate speech,” said Vera Jourova, the EU commissioner responsible for justice, consumers and gender equality. She added that the code of conduct, which will be regularly reviewed in terms of its scope and its impact, will ensure that public incitement to violence to hatred has “no place online.”
The firms themselves say there’s no conflict between their mission statements to promote the freedom of expression and clamping down on hate speech.
Twitter, which has been at the center of much of the hate speech that’s spread online over the past few years, says it will continue to tackle the issue “head-on” along with partners in industry and civil society.
“We remain committed to letting the Tweets flow,” said Twitter’s European head of public policy Karen White. “However, there is a clear distinction between freedom of expression and conduct that incites violence and hate.”
And Facebook’s head of global policy management Monika Bickert urged the company’s 1.6 million users to use the site’s in-built reporting tools in the event they find content they consider unacceptable.
“Our teams around the world review these reports around the clock and take swift action,” she said.

Great to see that the tech giants are following the directives of the ADL and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Wiesenthal Center Applauds Social Media Giants’ Commitment to Combat Online Hate in Europe
Hate is hate: much more still needs to be done to combat online hate in US, not only Europe
The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Digital Terrorism and Hate Project commends today’s announcement that social media giants, including Facebook, Twitter, Google/YouTube, and Microsoft have committed to the European Union to remove “illegal” hate postings from their services within the next 24 hours.
“We applaud today’s important announcement as a significant step in the long struggle to degrade the leveraging of social media platforms by terrorists, their supporters, neo-Nazis, anti-Semites, and other extremists in Europe,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center who has founded and heads the Human Rights NGO’s Digital Terrorism and Hate Project for the last two decades.
“However, much more needs to be done by these companies to deal with the unfettered access of extremists to their powerful platforms in the US,” he added. “This includes Twitter shutting down vicious hate hashtags. Twitter allows hate hash-tags that use the “n-word” and threaten Jews, Muslims and other minorities,” Cooper also said, adding, “It is vital that these companies take all necessary steps to strengthen their own Terms Of Use, make them transparent and create the mechanism to deal with the burgeoning problem of online hate in our country.”
Rabbi Cooper also expressed concern that the companies were, in effect deploying on double on dealing with hate, “It appears from today’s announcement that hate postings, for example about the “Big Lie” of the blood libel (that Jews use the blood of Christian children for ritual purposes) would be removed in Germany, but remain untouched if posted through a US server.” He added, “Hate is hate and if a Social media company would remove such postings from its online pages in Germany, it should do the same globally.”
For the last two decades, the Wiesenthal Center’s Digital Terrorism and Hate Project has been a trailblazer in exposing, monitoring and combating the abuse of online technologies by extremists of all kinds, in the US and overseas. The Center’s annual interactive report has been reviewed by the US Congress and helps train law enforcement, intelligence, and community activists globally. In 2012 the Center introduced a password-sensitive app for law enforcement that enables instant access to our expert researchers. While cyber hate is on the rise, only close to half of this country’s law enforcement agencies have a social media policy, according to a recent police survey. The Simon Wiesenthal Center regularly meets with the leading social media companies and releases an annual report card reflecting the commitment (or lack thereof) of companies to curb online terror and hate.

Hispanics in black face:

John Rivers: Why do billionaires like Carlos Slim, Mark Zuckerberg & Jeff Bezos use their Media Platforms to destroy their enemies? Because they can.

From my Twitter home page:

* Trump holds 2 pressers in 2 business days.
Sanders takes no Qs at event billed as presser.
Clinton hasn’t held a formal presser in 6 months.

* Clinton keeps asking us to imagine her losing. Ask yourself if Trump would make that mistake.

* Dishonest press viciously targets voters for fueling Trump’s rise, calls for recriminations.

Posted in Censorship, Donald Trump, Europe | Comments Off

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