In a rush to comply with new sanctions, US companies have gone overboard i.e. @PayPal began blocking certain donations to indie media website @TheGrayzoneNews, illustrating exactly how US sanctions are now being weaponized to censor media and free speech. thegrayzone.com/2020/01/09/pay…
On Friday, Silicon Valley giant @Facebook announced it's deleting all positive posts about the #SoleimaniAssassination on its platform and its subsidiary Instagram, which will have profound ramifications for freedom of speech and access to information. edition.cnn.com/2020/01/10/tec…
That Facebook’s actions appear to be coordinated with the U.S. government is not a coincidence. Since 2018 it has partially outsourced its editorial control over news and content to the Atlantic Council, the think tank of NATO.
The Council’s board is a who’s who of high government officials and effectively the “deep state” is controlling what we read, creating something close to a global state-controlled media apparatus. atlanticcouncil.org/about/board-of…
Weaponizing sanctions as a means to censor speech and media is a dangerously slippery slope that could end w social media users, publishers, and journalists arrested and charged for simply posting alternative sides of the Western imperialistic narrative.
🧵Israel’s role in the Syrian war to secure its own interests
The Israeli military has been involved in backing at least a dozen Syrian opposition groups, including the Al-Qaeda offshoot in Syria, Jabhat Al-Nusra, which would later change its name to Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham.
Israel steals Syrian resources from Golan Heights
Israel provided salaries for Syrian opposition fighters
🧵The CIA exists to carry out clandestine operations at the behest of the U.S. government. Over the decades, that has included political assassinations.
In this series, MintPress details nine well-known political figures the CIA is widely accused of attempting (and, in some cases, succeeding) to assassinate.
🧵A new MintPress News study has unearthed a network of former agents of Israeli spying agency, Unit 8200 working at TikTok, a company charged with supposedly being a Chinese-owned hub of anti-Semitic content.
Amid claims it is an anti-Semitic platform, TikTok has actually hired numerous agents from Israeli spying agency, Unit 8200.
Reut Medalion, head of TikTok’s head of its cybersecurity operations team, is a former Unit 8200 commander.
🧵Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen reprised his Borat character on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Many users on social media complained about the Anglo-Israeli’s use of tired stereotypes, but what few know, however, is his deep connections to both the US and Israeli national security states.
A MintPress News investigation from @AlanRMacLeod delves into this murky relationship.
Cohen once casually revealed that his movie, Brüno, was made with the help of the CIA.
Documents abstained under the Freedom of Information Act also show the US military was involved.
🧵Activision Blizzard’s new video game Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has some seriously problematic aspects, not least the dehumanization of Arabs. It is set in Iraq, where players kill Iraqi combat forces and pursue Saddam Hussein. Previous Call of Duty games have glorified the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Cuba’s Fidel Castro.
This targeting of America’s enemies is no coincidence. The game’s developer, Activision Blizzard, work closely with the US military and the US national security state to create the games. Furthermore, top Activision Blizzard executives are former CIA operatives.
🧵Journalists in the United Kingdom have suffered an increasing number of attacks from the British state. Earlier this month, Electronic Intifada’s Asa Winstanley was detained by police in a dawn raid on his home. Ten counter-terrorism police stormed his house and stole his electronic devices, presumably in an attempt to monitor his communications.
Winstanley is the latest in a series of prominent pro-Palestine figures detained by police, including Richard Medhurst, Sarah Wilkinson, Craig Murray and Julian Assange.
MintPress fills you in on the details of this worrying development.