An affordable price is probably the major benefit persuading people to buy drugs at www.americanbestpills.com. The cost of medications in Canadian drugstores is considerably lower than anywhere else simply because the medications here are oriented on international customers. In many cases, you will be able to cut your costs to a great extent and probably even save up a big fortune on your prescription drugs. What's more, pharmacies of Canada offer free-of-charge shipping, which is a convenient addition to all other benefits on offer. Cheap price is especially appealing to those users who are tight on a budget
Service Quality and Reputation
Although some believe that buying online is buying a pig in the poke, it is not. Canadian online pharmacies are excellent sources of information and are open for discussions. There one can read tons of users' feedback, where they share their experience of using a particular pharmacy, say what they like or do not like about the drugs and/or service. Reputable online pharmacy canadianrxon.com take this feedback into consideration and rely on it as a kind of expert advice, which helps them constantly improve they service and ensure that their clients buy safe and effective drugs. Last, but not least is their striving to attract professional doctors. As a result, users can directly contact a qualified doctor and ask whatever questions they have about a particular drug. Most likely, a doctor will ask several questions about the condition, for which the drug is going to be used. Based on this information, he or she will advise to use or not to use this medication.
LOS ANGELES – Two men have been charged in a 41-count criminal complaint for allegedly submitting more than 8,000 fraudulent voter registration applications on behalf of homeless people in Los Angeles County, the District Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday.
Carlos Antonio De Bourbon Montenegro, also known as Mark Anthony Gonsalves, was charged with 18 felony counts of voter fraud, 11 felony counts of procuring a false or forged instrument, two felony counts of perjury and one felony count of conspiracy to commit voter fraud, along with nine misdemeanor counts of interference with a prompt transfer of a completed affidavit, according to the DA’s Office.
Montenegro, 53, allegedly submitted more than 8,000 fraudulent voter registration applications between July and October, as well as allegedly falsifying names, addresses and signatures on nomination papers under penalty of perjury to run for mayor in Hawthorne.
The conspiracy charge alleges that Montenegro submitted and filed signed nomination papers containing 41 signatures and addresses to the city clerk this summer and that just 18 of the names, addresses and signatures on the nomination papers were validated by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s Office.
It also alleges that Montenegro was subsequently issued write-in candidate nomination papers and that he “submitted and filed signed write-in candidate nomination papers containing 32 signatures and addresses for fictitious, non-existent or deceased person” with the city clerk’s office.
According to the criminal complaint, Montenegro and co-defendant Marcos Raul Arevalo, 34, “and other unknown co-conspirators” used three post office boxes in Hawthorne as well as Montenegro’s home address “as mailing addresses for over 8,000 voter registration applications for fictitious, non-existent or deceased persons, that were submitted for processing to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s Office and the California Secretary of State.”
Arevalo is charged with eight counts of voter fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit voter fraud and four counts of procuring and offering a false or forged instrument, along with four misdemeanor counts of interference with a prompt transfer of a completed affidavit.
If convicted as charged, Montenegro faces a possible maximum sentence of 15 years and eight months in state prison, while Arevalo faces a possible maximum sentence of seven years in prison.
Montenegro’s mother, Madeline Gonsalves, said she asked her son if what he was doing was legal.
“He’s an extremely intelligent person,” Madeline said of her son. “I kept telling him, ‘Are you sure this is OK?’ He said, ‘Mom, they’re homeless people. They need to vote like anyone else.'”
“My son has lots of ideas,” Madeline added.
The pair was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in Department 30 of the Foltz Criminal Justice Center.
The case remains under investigation by the Los Angeles County’s District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigation.
Montenegro is also accused of providing fake names, addresses and signatures on nominations to help him run for mayor of Hawthorne.
The defendants allegedly attempted to get mail-in ballots sent to them for the fake voters, but the registrar quickly flagged the applications, and no ballots were sent out.
The case stemmed from an investigation by the DA’s Bureau of Investigation. The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s Office, FBI, Covina Police Department and the California Secretary of State’s Office also assisted in the initial investigation, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Trying to sort out the voting systems, hardware and software is crazy. Here is some help for you such that you can work your own answers to questions you may have. There is much much more for sure, but this summary is merely a tip sheet for the reader.
The nation’s three largest voting machine manufacturing vendors — Election Systems & Software (ES&S), Dominion Voting Systems, and Hart InterCivic — have all publicly acknowledged that they place modems in some of their vote tabulators and scanners.
While the vendors claim that their “firewalls” protect computers from outside interference, many of the nation’s leading technical experts say this claim is bogus.
“Once a hacker starts talking to a voting machine through the modem,” says Princeton University Computer Science professor Andrew Appel, “they can hack the software and make it cheat in future elections.” It’s as straightforward as that.
So, what can we do?
“We should be unplugging all of these machines from the internet,” says Kevin Skoglund, the computer scientist who led the 10-expert investigatory team. This means keeping elections technologies disconnected all the time, including on election night.
“We cannot make our computers perfectly secure,” says Andrew Appel. “What we should do is remove all of the unnecessary, hackable pathways, such as modems. We should not connect our voting machines directly to the computer networks. That is just inviting trouble.” More here.
We begin with more details by Sidney Powell (General Flynn’s lawyer and part of the Trump legal team).
The we have this summary from American Oversight, which is a very left leaning group of lawyers but they too have concerns regarding Georgia’s overhaul of the state voting systems.
In July 2019, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced that the state had awarded a $107 million contract to manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems to replace existing voting machines with a new “verified paper ballot system.” As reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, both Dominion and the state’s former elections company, Election Systems & Software, had connections with Gov. Brian Kemp’s administration. Dominion lobbyist Jared Thomas had been a longtime political and campaign aide to Kemp, who previously served as secretary of state, and another lobbyist, Barry Herron, had worked for Diebold Election Systems, which had originally sold Georgia its electronic voting machines.
Georgia voters had complained about malfunctioning voting machines after the November 2018 midterm elections, even filing a lawsuit aimed at overhauling the state’s election system, including the electronic machines. But critics worry that the new electronic ballot-printing devices from Dominion won’t be much better, contending that hand-marked paper ballots remain the most secure voting method. In fact, the new devices were given a test run in six Georgia counties during the November 2019 election, and ran into a number of issues. And records we’ve already obtained showed that voter check-in devices used “1234” as their default password — an “exceptionally weak security measure.” (State officials have said the passwords have been changed.)
Elsewhere in the state, voters reported long lines and ballot issues, and concerns remain about the hidden costs of the new voting system, the state’s planned purge of 300,000 names from its voter rolls, and security weaknesses in voting equipment. With the 2020 elections looming and the security of U.S. voting systems less than certain, American Oversight is investigating state officials’ communications with Dominion Voting Systems and its subcontractor KnowInk, and is requesting records that could shed light on how the state is working to ensure secure and accurate elections.
After allegations emerged that called into questioned the integrity of voting machines produced by Dominion Voting Systems, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)—part of the Department of Homeland Security—issued a statement on Nov. 12 disputing the allegations, saying “the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.”
What the agency failed to disclose, however, is that Dominion Voting Systems is a member of CISA’s Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council, one of two entities that authored the statement put out by CISA.
A screenshot taken on Nov. 16, 2020, of the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency website shows the members of the Sector Coordinating Council. (Screenshot/The Epoch Times)
In addition, Smartmatic, a separate voting machine company that has been the subject of additional concerns, is also a member.
The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Dominion and Smartmatic had input or were otherwise involved in CISA’s Nov. 12 statement.
The joint statement on the integrity of the Nov. 3 election was issued by the Executive Committee of the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council (GCC), an Executive Committee representing a coalition of certain state & local government officials and government agencies, and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council (SCC), a coalition primarily composed of voting system manufacturers that also includes Democracy Works, an organization which promotes the use of technology to increase voter participation.
The statement claims, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
“While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too,” says the statement.
Some of the allegations surrounding the integrity of the presidential election, including by President Donald Trump’s legal team, have been focused on the voting systems provided by Dominion, and to a lesser extent, Smartmatic. Both Dominion and Smartmatic have dismissed concerns over their systems.
Both companies are listed as members of CISA’s Sector Coordinating Council and appear to be actively involved as they are named as “Organizing Members” of the SCC. Among the key objectives of the SCC is to “serve as the primary liaison between the election subsector and federal, state, and local agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), concerning private election subsector security and emergency preparedness issues.”
The Charter states the primary mission of the Council is to “advance the physical security, cyber security, and emergency preparedness of the nation’s election infrastructure, in accordance with existing U.S. law. This mission will be accomplished through voluntary actions of the infrastructure owners and operators represented in the Council.”
CISA’s Reliance on Commercial Vendors
CISA says that it “works to ensure the physical security and cybersecurity of the systems and assets that supports the Nation’s elections,” including voter registration databases, IT infrastructure and systems to manage elections (including counting, auditing, and validating election results), voting systems, storage facilities for voting system infrastructure, and polling places including early voting locations.
In effect, CISA appears to act as something of an interface between commercial vendors and state & local governments.
“CISA is committed to working collaboratively with those on the front lines of elections—state and local governments, election officials, federal partners, and vendors—to manage risks to the Nation’s election infrastructure,” the agency states on its website.
As CISA notes, they do not have direct oversight or responsibility for the administration of our nation’s elections as that responsibility lies with state and local governments.
“Ultimate responsibility for administering the Nation’s elections rests with state and local governments, CISA offers a variety of free services to help states ensure both the physical security and cybersecurity of their elections infrastructure,” the agency writes on its website.
Dominion Using CISA to Deny Allegations
On Nov. 12, this publication published an article detailing a number of concerns raised about the integrity of Dominion Voting Systems in a sworn Aug. 24 declaration from Harri Hursti, a poll watcher and acknowledged expert on electronic voting security.
Hursti’s observations were made during the June 9 statewide primary election in Georgia and the runoff elections on Aug. 11, 2020, and centered primarily, although not exclusively, around the Dominion systems and equipment.
Hursti summarized his findings as follows:
“The scanner and tabulation software settings being employed to determine which votes to count on hand marked paper ballots are likely causing clearly intentioned votes not to be counted”
“The voting system is being operated in Fulton County in a manner that escalates the security risk to an extreme level.”
“Voters are not reviewing their BMD [Ballot Marking Devices] printed ballots, which causes BMD generated results to be un-auditable due to the untrustworthy audit trail.”
As part of the article, we reached out to Dominion Voting Systems for comment on Nov. 11 about the allegations contained in Hursti’s sworn statement, to which the company did not respond. Our article was published on the morning of Nov. 12. That afternoon CISA published its statement denying any problems with the voting systems.
The next day, Nov. 13, Dominion sent us an email titled “SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: FACTS & RUMORS,” which cited the joint statement published by the GCC and SCC, of which Dominion is an organizing member.
A screenshot taken on Nov. 16, 2020, of the “Election Infrastructure Subsector Coordinating Council Charter,” dated Feb. 15, 2018, shows both Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic as organizing members. The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency uses “EISCC” and “SCC” interchangeably to refer to the Sector Coordinating Council. (Screenshot/The Epoch Times)
Nowhere in its email did Dominion disclose that it had any affiliation with CISA, or was an active member of the SCC, one of the issuing councils. The email itself referenced the statement in third-party fashion:
“According to a Joint Statement by the federal government agency that oversees U.S. election security, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity, & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA): ‘There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.’ The government & private sector councils that support this mission called the 2020 election ‘the most secure in American history.’”
CISA did not respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times about whether it has investigated the claims made in the Georgia lawsuit about Dominion.
Concerns Raised in Georgia Lawsuit
While it remains unclear whether CISA and the GCC/SCC have evaluated concerns raised in the Georgia lawsuit, their public statements categorically deny any problems with the systems.
However, in an Oct. 11 order just weeks prior to the presidential elections, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg agreed with the concerns associated with the new Dominion voting system, writing that the case presented “serious system security vulnerability and operational issues that may place Plaintiffs and other voters at risk of deprivation of their fundamental right to cast an effective vote that is accurately counted.”
Despite the court’s misgivings, Totenberg ruled against replacing the Dominion system right before the presidential election, noting that “Implementation of such a sudden systemic change under these circumstances cannot but cause voter confusion and some real measure of electoral disruption.”
Given the recent timing of Judge Totenberg’s order, it does not appear that any of these issues were addressed by Dominion, CISC, or any of its affiliated organizations or Councils, despite their later statements claiming there were no such issues.
Joe Biden has said he would lockdown the nation based on the science. Question is, what science? Virology experts hardly all agree on the threats and implications of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Michael Osterholm, an infectious-disease expert and one of the 13 members of Biden’s new coronavirus task force called for a national lockdown lasting four to six weeks to slow the rise of virus cases across the country. Read here in detail.
Then we have governors that are going to another round of lockdowns: California, New York, Michigan and Oregon and in various forms including just some cities like Chicago. Cancel the holidays they say….close businesses at 10pm, that is when the virus shows up. Yeesh….but let’s go deeper into critical thinking shall we?
The New England Journal of Medicine has published a study that goes to the heart of the issue of lockdowns. The question has always been whether and to what extent a lockdown, however extreme, is capable of suppressing the virus. If so, you can make an argument that at least lockdowns, despite their astronomical social and economic costs, achieve something. If not, nations of the world have embarked on a catastrophic experiment that has destroyed billions of lives, and all expectation of human rights and liberties, with no payoff at all.
AIER has long highlighted studies that show no gain in virus management from lockdowns. Even as early as April, a major data scientist said that this virus becomes endemic in 70 days after the first round of infection, regardless of policies. The largest global study of lockdowns compared with deaths as published in The Lancet found no association between coercive stringencies and deaths per million.
To test further might seem superfluous but, for whatever reason, governments all over the world, including in the US, still are under the impression that they can affect viral transmissions through a range of “nonpharmaceutical interventions” (NPIs) like mandatory masks, forced human separation, stay-at-home orders, bans of gatherings, business and school closures, and extreme travel restrictions. Nothing like this has been tried on this scale in the whole of human history, so one might suppose that policy makers have some basis for their confidence that these measures accomplish something.
A study conducted by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in cooperation with the Naval Medical Research Center sought to test lockdownsm along with testing and isolation. In May, 3,143 new recruits to the Marines were given the option to participate in a study of frequent testing under extreme quarantine. The study was called CHARM, which stands for COVID-19 Health Action Response for Marines. Of the recruits asked, a total of 1,848 young people agreed to be guinea pigs in this experiment which involved “which included weekly qPCR testing and blood sampling for IgG antibody assessment.” In addition, the CHARM study volunteers who did test positively “on the day of enrollment (day 0) or on day 7 or day 14 were separated from their roommates and were placed in isolation.”
What did the recruits have to do? The study explains, and, as you will see, they faced an even more strict regime that has existed in civilian life in most places. All recruits, even those not in the CHARM group, did the following.
All recruits wore double-layered cloth masks at all times indoors and outdoors, except when sleeping or eating; practiced social distancing of at least 6 feet; were not allowed to leave campus; did not have access to personal electronics and other items that might contribute to surface transmission; and routinely washed their hands. They slept in double-occupancy rooms with sinks, ate in shared dining facilities, and used shared bathrooms. All recruits cleaned their rooms daily, sanitized bathrooms after each use with bleach wipes, and ate preplated meals in a dining hall that was cleaned with bleach after each platoon had eaten. Most instruction and exercises were conducted outdoors. All movement of recruits was supervised, and unidirectional flow was implemented, with designated building entry and exit points to minimize contact among persons. All recruits, regardless of participation in the study, underwent daily temperature and symptom screening. Six instructors who were assigned to each platoon worked in 8-hour shifts and enforced the quarantine measures. If recruits reported any signs or symptoms consistent with Covid-19, they reported to sick call, underwent rapid qPCR testing for SARS-CoV-2, and were placed in isolation pending the results of testing.
Instructors were also restricted to campus, were required to wear masks, were provided with preplated meals, and underwent daily temperature checks and symptom screening. Instructors who were assigned to a platoon in which a positive case was diagnosed underwent rapid qPCR testing for SARS-CoV-2, and, if the result was positive, the instructor was removed from duty. Recruits and instructors were prohibited from interacting with campus support staff, such as janitorial and food-service personnel. After each class completed quarantine, a deep bleach cleaning of surfaces was performed in the bathrooms, showers, bedrooms, and hallways in the dormitories, and the dormitory remained unoccupied for at least 72 hours before reoccupancy.
The reputation of Marine basic training is that it is tough going but this really does take it to another level. Also, this is an environment where those in charge do not mess around. There was surely close to 100% compliance, as compared with, for example, a typical college campus.
What were the results? The virus still spread, though 90% of those who tested positive were without symptoms. Incredibly, 2% of the CHARM recruits still contracted the virus, even if all but one remained asymptomatic. “Our study showed that in a group of predominantly young male military recruits, approximately 2% became positive for SARS-CoV-2, as determined by qPCR assay, during a 2-week, strictly enforced quarantine.”
And how does this compare to the control group that was not tested and not isolated in the case of a positive case?
Which is to say that the nonparticipants actually contracted the virus at a slightly lower rate than those who were under an extreme regime. Conversely, extreme enforcement of NPIs plus more frequent testing and isolation was associated with a greater degree of infection.
I’m grateful to Don Wolt for drawing my attention to this study, which, so far as I know, has received very little attention from any media source at all, despite having been published in the New England Journal of Medicine on November 11.
Here are four actual media headlines about the study that miss the point entirely:
CNN: “Many military Covid-19 cases are asymptomatic, studies show”
SciTech Daily: “Asymptomatic COVID-19 Transmission Revealed Through Study of 2,000 Marine Recruits”
ABC: “Broad study of Marine recruits shows limits of COVID-19 symptom screening”
US Navy: “Navy/Marine Corps COVID-19 Study Findings Published in New England Journal of Medicine”
No national news story that I have found highlighted the most important finding of all: extreme quarantine plus frequent testing and isolation among military recruits did nothing to stop the virus.
The study is important because of the social structure of control here. It’s one thing to observe no effects from national lockdowns. There are countless variables here that could be invoked as cautionary notes: demographics, population density, preexisting immunities, degree of compliance, and so on. But with this Marine study, you have a near homogeneous group based on age, health, and densities of living. And even here, you see confirmed what so many other studies have shown: lockdowns are pointlessly destructive. They do not manage the disease. They crush human liberty and produce astonishing costs, such as 5.53 million years of lost life from the closing of schools alone.
The lockdowners keep telling us to pay attention to the science. That’s what we are doing. When the results contradict their pro-compulsion narrative, they pretend that the studies do not exist and barrel ahead with their scary plans to disable all social functioning in the presence of a virus. Lockdowns are not science. They never have been. They are an experiment in social/political top-down management that is without precedent in cost to life and liberty.
[The earliest version of this article misstated the conditions of the control group. They were equally locked down with those who participated in the study. The difference between the two concerned testing frequency and the isolation response. This does not affect this article’s conclusion; indeed it strengthens it: even under extreme measures, the virus spread, and more so with the extra measure intended to control the virus. Nearly all infections were without symptoms.]
VP Biden and the whole democrat caucus perhaps need a short class on petroleum before they declare their war on oil and coal.
A Federal Leasing and Development Ban Threatens America’s Energy Security and Economic Growth, Undermines Environmental Progress
API: Energy produced on federal lands and waters plays a critical role in America’s energy revolution, accounting for 12% of U.S. natural gas production and nearly a quarter of U.S. oil production.
According to a new OnLocation analysis, The Consequences of a Leasing and Development Ban on Federal Lands and Waters (Sept. 2020), U.S. energy leadership could be at stake if a federal leasing and development ban is enacted.*
Highlights from the analysis include:
Energy Security Impacts
U.S. oil imports from foreign sources could increase by 2 million barrels a day by 2030
Annual U.S. natural gas exports could decrease by 800 billion cubic feet by 2030
U.S. offshore natural gas and oil production could decrease by 68% and 44% respectively
Economic Impacts
U.S. GDP could decline by a cumulative $700 billion by 2030
Nearly 1 million jobs could be lost by 2022
U.S. households could spend a cumulative $19 billion more on energy by 2030
Over $9 billion in government revenue could be at risk
Environmental Impacts
National U.S. CO2 emissions could increase by an average of 58 million metric tons and keep rising to represent a 5.5% increase in the power sector by 2030
Current transition from coal to natural gas could be delayed, keeping half the coal capacity that would otherwise be retired by 2030
Total U.S. coal use could increase by 15% by 2030
Petroleum is an important substance across society, politics, technology including in economy. Besides, apart from fuel there are a lot of petroleum by products that show up in our modern life. Let’s look at some uses of petroleum below.
Agriculture
Detergents, Dyes, and Others
Plastics, Paints and More
Pharmaceuticals
Rubber
1. Agriculture
When we talk about agriculture we are talking about fertilizers. Here, petroleum is used in the production of ammonia which serves a source of nitrogen. The Haber process is used in this case. Pesticides are also made from oil. All in all, petroleum based products are used extensively in agriculture as it helps in running farm machinery and fertilize plants.
2. Detergents, Dyes, and Others
Distillates of petroleum that include toluene, benzene, xylene, amongst others are used to obtain raw materials that are further used in products like synthetic detergents, dyes, and fabrics. Benzene and toluene which gives polyurethanes is often used in oils or surfactants, and it is also used to varnish wood.
3. Plastics, Paints and More
Plastics are mostly made of petrochemicals. Petroleum-based plastic like nylon or Styrofoam and other are made from this element. Usually, the plastics come from olefins, which include ethylene and propylene. Petrochemicals are also used to produce oil based paints or paint additives. Petrochemical ethylene is found in photographic film.
4. Pharmaceuticals and Cosmetics
Petroleum by-products like mineral oil and petroleum are used in many creams and other pharmaceuticals. Tar is also produced from petroleum. Cosmetics that contain oils, perfumes are petroleum derivatives.
5. Rubber
Petrochemicals are also used in manufacturing synthetic rubber which is further used to make rubber soles on shoes, car tire and others rubber products. Rubber is primarily a product of butadiene.
Popular Products Made from Petroleum
Some products made from or contain petroleum are; wax, ink, vitamin capsule, denture adhesive, toilet seats, upholstery, CDs, putty, guitar strings, crayons, pillows, artificial turf, hair colouring, deodorant, lipstick, heart valves, anaesthetics cortisone, aspirin.
FB: As the U.S. braces for election-related unrest next month, Facebook executives are implementing emergency measures reserved for “at-risk” countries in a company-wide effort to bring down the online temperature.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the social media giant plans to limit the spread of viral content and lower the benchmark for suppressing potentially inflammatory posts using internal tools previously deployed in Sri Lanka and Myanmar.
The tools, now a key component of Facebook’s strategy to prepare for the contentious U.S. election, would only be activated in “dire circumstances” and instances of violence, people familiar with the matter told the Journal.
The measures would loosen the threshold previously established for content deemed dangerous on the platform, and would slow down the dissemination of specific posts as they begin to gain traction, the Journal explains. An internal adjustment would also be applied to news feeds to control the content available to users.
“Deployed together, the tools could alter what tens of millions of Americans see when they log onto the platform, diminishing their exposure to sensationalism, incitements to violence and misinformation, said the people familiar with the measures,” the Journal writes. “But slowing down the spread of popular content could suppress some good-faith political discussion, a prospect that makes some Facebook employees uneasy, some of the people said.”
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone told the Journal that the company has “spent years building for safer, more secure elections,” and that their strategy is based on “lessons from previous elections, hired experts, and built new teams with experience across different areas to prepare for various scenarios.”
The move comes days after Facebookcensored a story from The New York Post detailing allegedly corrupt business deals by Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden — which prompted harsh backlash from President Trump and Republicans who have long criticized the platform’s role in regulating content.
“Once we’re past these events and we’ve resolved them peacefully, I wouldn’t expect that we continue to adopt a lot more policies that are restricting of a lot more content,” Zuckerberg said.
Company higher-ups have said these tools are the nuclear option and will only be used in the event of election-related violence or other dire circumstances, people familiar with the planning told the outlet. Some employees at the company said they were uneasy about these measures and particularly concerned that they could suppress legitimate political discussions and viral content, according to the Journal.
Facebook established its toolkit for humanitarian intervention after facing widespread criticism for mishandling violent hate speech against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. As far back as 2014, human rights activists implored Facebook to crack down on inflammatory rumors and calls for violence against the minority Rohingya population. After years of violence, mass exodus, and thousands of deaths, Facebook admittedin 2018 that it had been “too slow to act” and wasn’t “doing enough to help prevent our platform from being used to foment division and incite offline violence.” The company pledged to better prepare for future crises and promptly banned several high-profile figures that were named by the United Nations as complicit in the genocide.
Facebook announced last month that it would not accept new political ad submissions a week before election day and plans to ban all political ads indefinitely once the polls close. It also said it will label any premature declarations of victory by either candidate (though, really, we all know which one they’re worried about) and include “specific information…that the counting is still in progress and no winner has been determined.” Facebook’s VP of global affairs and communications, Nick Clegg, recently said that, to date, the company’s rejected 2.2 million ads and withdrawn 120,000 posts in total across Facebook and Instagram that were trying to “obstruct voting” in the 2020 presidential election. More here.
