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Facebook admitted Sunday that it had blocked links to the Wikileaks trove of emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee.
In a Twitter post late Saturday, WikiLeaks accused the social media giant of "censorship" and gave its followers an online workaround, saying "try using https://archive.is."
The WikiLeaks allegation followed a firestorm of controversy that erupted earlier this year when former Facebook workers admitted routinely suppressing conservative news.
Source: https://nypost.com/2016/07/24/facebook-admits-to-blocking-wikileaks-links-in-dnc-email-hack/
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Facebook Admits to Blocking Wikileaks Links in DNC Email Hack
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The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane holding his own hand.
-- Fred Allen
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @09:12PM
Cue the apologists who claim that Facebook is a private sector corporation and can censor anything at all, which is entirely true. Except the problem is that social media has become so essential to our society that Facebook censorship can effectively make unpersons, and people who aren't on Facebook might as well not exist at all. That's why privatization of social media is bad, and all social media corporations must be nationalized to make the First Amendment apply to them as government agencies. It's time for USA Facebook of all residents, with mandatory enrollment just like Selective Service and Social Security, and with mandatory participation just like the Internal Revenue Service.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday July 26 2016, @09:14PM
Another good reason to not use facepalm.
Glad I left there.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @09:17PM
Something is horribly wrong with you if you joined FB in the first place!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MostCynical on Tuesday July 26 2016, @09:23PM
Teenagers?
University and college students?
Travellers keeping "in touch" with friends at home?
People with active social lives and a need to share?
Yup, something "horribly wrong" with all of them.
Naïvity, innocence, and trust are not *bad*, they are just unfortunate, when you end up getting done-over.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @09:48PM
Yup, something "horribly wrong" with all of them.
There is indeed something horribly wrong if you choose to sacrifice your privacy to a company like Facebook [stallman.org] for reasons like that. There is no "need to share".
Even the term "social media" is vomit-inducing. I'm not sure how people can use it seriously without gagging.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 27 2016, @12:20AM
In the early days, Facebook wasn't as bad as it is today. Like many other people, I created an account, just to see WTF it was all about. Likewise, I created a MySpace account, when it was new. I watched MySpace evolve from something that was merely objectionable, into an abortion. Likewise, we've watched Facebook evolve.
All of you superior creatures who know how bad Facebook is - how did you discover that fact? Apparently, you've never clicked on a Facebook page, you have simply never visited the site - yet you know how horrible it is? Oh, I see, you've been following the evaluations and comments of braver souls who have explored the cesspool.
I guess it's time for a newsflash, right? Virtually every internet business is in it for the money. Almost every page you visit online is hoping to make a few cents from you, or more. Even Soylentnews hopes that you will subscribe, thereby helping to keep Soylent online. Facebook is greedy, and they have crap ethics. They sell every bit of data they can scrape off of you. We know this because - well, because you never created an account there, right?
Let me repeat - I have a Facebook account. And, I actually find it somewhat useful, when I need to track some lackwit who doesn't know any better than to post all his/her shit to Facebook. The cops have admitted as much. I recall a photo posted on Facebook, of some moron showing off a big double fistful of cash, immediately after a robbery. The cops also saw that photo. The fool was picked up later that day.
The more discerning people among us can admit that Facebook has some few redeeming values. At the same time, we can avoid feeding the Facebook Moneymaking Machine. Do you think that Facebook knows all of my health problems/condition? Fek no, they don't.
When it was new, I was less careful about permissions and crap. I even clicked on a couple of their apps, or whatever they are called. As I learned more about Facebook, I used the settings to protect my privacy better, and I dumped those stupid apps. Was the damage already done? Probably, but then again, I fed them plenty of false information.
I see little problem with using Facebook, if you are actually using Facebook. Unfortunately, most people are used BY Facebook.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 27 2016, @01:02AM
In the early days, Facebook wasn't as bad as it is today.
The mere concept of "social media" is revolting, and it was obvious what it would turn into from the beginning. Come on now. It's only the billionth time a company has abused its users, so it should be obvious by now that posting your information everywhere is a bad idea.
All of you superior creatures who know how bad Facebook is - how did you discover that fact?
Gee, I don't know. Maybe reading the countless news articles about how Facebook abuses its useds, as well as having a brain. If you give away your private information to a "social media" company, it isn't hard to predict that they'll sell it, spread it around, give it to the government, and possibly do malicious and/or harmful things with it. Even absent the news articles, predicting that Facebook would abuse its users in increasingly horrible ways was too easy.
I guess it's time for a newsflash, right? Virtually every internet business is in it for the money.
Not just Internet businesses. And this is another reason it was so easy to predict what Facebook's actions would be, so there was no need for "braver souls" to be used by Facebook first.
Let me repeat - I have a Facebook account. And, I actually find it somewhat useful, when I need to track some lackwit who doesn't know any better than to post all his/her shit to Facebook.
There is no "need" here. And someone like that isn't worth reading about. I don't care if some dumb criminal is occasionally caught because they bragged about their exploits on fecal media.
Unfortunately, most people are used BY Facebook.
The big users of Facebook are the advertisers, giant companies, and the government, all of whom are more than happy to siphon up data from the suckers who falsely believe themselves to be the users of Facebook.
The best thing would be for Facebook and all similar to companies to vanish off the face of the Earth, but that doesn't look like it will happen. There's just too many suckers that can be easily scammed.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 27 2016, @01:17AM
Well, geez, you're a freaking omnipotent genius. You knew what Facebook would be way back in 1950, I suppose. You didn't even have to hear the name to know what it would become. You're amazing.
"And someone like that isn't worth reading about."
It isn't "reading about". If you are unable to imagine a situation in which you want to know where someone is, or what he/she is doing, or even whether they are still alive, then I suppose that you don't have much of a life.
Facebook is a fact of life. You can't just wish that it would go away. It's here, it's real, and the less intelligent people use it carelessly. Their carelessness enables people to track them. Sometimes, I can put that to use. You can't? Then, maybe you lack imagination.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 27 2016, @02:45AM
Well, geez, you're a freaking omnipotent genius.
Wrong. It doesn't take a genius to realize the obvious. How many times have companies sold user information and just generally abused their users? It was not hard to predict Facebook would do these things with the information people gave it. Is your standard of "genius" really so low?
Facebook is a fact of life.
It's a fact of life only in the sense that it exists and a lot of people use it. But many bad things exist, so this is merely another addition to that list.
You can't? Then, maybe you lack imagination.
It's not that I "can't", but that I refuse on principle to use Facebook and its ilk in any way.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 27 2016, @01:25AM
You realize this site, and /. before it, are arguably social media, yes?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 27 2016, @02:40AM
Sure, if you use an incredibly broad and useless definition of "social media". But then I would just say that that's not the type of "social media" being discussed.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday July 27 2016, @03:32AM
With some people it's more like anti-social media...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 27 2016, @06:31AM
Yet with others is more like social anti-media.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 27 2016, @10:57AM
Ponder it a moment. There are way better news sites. What keeps everyone coming around are the discussions, debates, and outright arguments. So we're definitely social media.
Historically, I think social media was done right just before D2 went in over at our great green grandparent. Everything since then has been people trying and failing to improve on that. Except for us. We rock my stripey socks.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Thexalon on Wednesday July 27 2016, @02:25PM
Arguments? Wrong room, this is abuse! (stupid git)
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 27 2016, @10:42PM
So we're definitely social media.
So "social media" is basically any website that allows users to post comments and have discussions. Okay, well, even if you define it that way, this site is still significantly different from Facebook and its ilk. No real name policy, no massive surveillance, no selling of private information, no real expectation of posting sensitive information, etc. Pretty much all of the abuses in the link above. If this site did even a small fraction of the evil things Facebook does, it's almost certain that a grand majority of people here would leave. So while this website may qualify as "social media" under some extremely broad definitions of the term, clearly Facebook is a different kind of "social media".
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 27 2016, @10:59PM
Indeed, we do it right. Them? Pounding the pooch.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 27 2016, @03:22AM
All of you superior creatures who know how bad Facebook is - how did you discover that fact? Apparently, you've never clicked on a Facebook page, you have simply never visited the site - yet you know how horrible it is? Oh, I see, you've been following the evaluations and comments of braver souls who have explored the cesspool.
I guess it is a moderately higher form of wisdom to learn from the experience of others. For me, it was just another Twitter. I didn't see a good reason to use it and even early on, I could see the problems that would develop (such as having a massive circle of "friends" that need maintenance, too much of my information online, silly drama (just look at how much bellyaching and mod bombing there is with a slashdot-style rating system), and no pressing use case (still doesn't exist now either).
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 27 2016, @02:19PM
"and even early on,"
I will readily grant that things were pretty obvious "early on". Unlike the posts made by AC, you apparently took a wait-and-see stance, until things started going to crap. Salutes for that.
Personally, I was an early signer-upper, and I used it very little. Early signs that it was turning to crap irritated and scared me, but I was still hoping that Facebook might have enough redeeming values to be worthwhile.
Unfortunately, they blew away all of their redeeming values long before they became a publicly traded company. As mentioned earlier, I post almost nothing to Facebook, I read very little. The main purpose for keeping the account, is to check up on people who make it difficult to check up on them. They won't answer a phone call, but they'll post on Facebook? Go figure . . . .
(Score: 3, Informative) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday July 26 2016, @11:15PM
Teenagers?
University and college students?
Travellers keeping "in touch" with friends at home?
People with active social lives and a need to share?
Email is an easy option for all of the above.
Yup, something "horribly wrong" with all of them.
If they don't stay clear of the likes of facebook.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MostCynical on Tuesday July 26 2016, @11:31PM
Alas, the problems with "social media" aren't perceived by *most* people.
"Normal" society (the parts that can't, or choose not to, understand) sees anyone espousing the problems as "loony".
Conspiracy theorists, people with mental health concerns, IT and tech "nerds" are all lumped together by "mainstream" society, and dismissed, even when it has been shown over and over that "they" *are* out to get us, you and your data are *not* safe online (or anywhere with CCTV, or wifi coverage, or electronic ticketing, or rfid readers, or electronic tollway tags, or ....)
You can't educate the willfully ignorant.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 27 2016, @01:46AM
Conspiracy theorists, people with mental health concerns, IT and tech "nerds" are all lumped together by "mainstream" society, and dismissed
IT has gone mainstream normal and oldschool "autistic" tech nerds are not welcome in IT either.
https://ddg.gg/?q=we%27re+social+coders [ddg.gg]
You can thank Linus "Git" Torvalds for the world domination of GitHub as the Facebook of Social Coding. Membership in GitHub is absolutely mandatory, so much so that if you don't have a GitHub profile, you're dismissed as a crank who's simply not a coder. You see plenty of people here on SoylentNews proudly refuse to use Facebook, yet SoylentNews is all over GitHub.
GitHub is social media.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday July 26 2016, @11:35PM
I joined to see pictures of my daughter's graduation that others had taken.
I left because of GARBAGE that is fb!
Glad I'm Canadian, and it is now fully.?. deleted.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 27 2016, @11:28AM
Try re-enabling/re-creating your FB-account (using the same email-address as that first time).
Don't be too surprised about how much FB conveniently manages to provide again.
Most of your initial account was never actually deleted, just made inaccessible to normal users (of course, FB's analysis and inference tools keep access to this data).
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Tuesday July 26 2016, @09:39PM
I'm not sure if that was supposed to be funny. I read it as a somewhat serious suggestion. Not with mandatory posting (as the last sentence implies) but with a mandatory account.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Wednesday July 27 2016, @12:11AM
I took it as serious until the last sentence nuked the shark. Comparing the proposed mandatory participation to the Selective Service and the IRS, as if that were a good thing, has to be a troll. I thought it was a pretty good troll, so I modded it Funny. It's hilarious to me that somebody else modded it Insightful, and I wonder if they finished reading before modding.
(Score: 5, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 27 2016, @01:27AM
As the resident staff troll, I declare it a pretty fine example of trolling. Pithy and manages to insult both sides of the argument at once.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 27 2016, @11:32AM
I like what you do for Soylent News behind the scenes, but I'm not a big fan of yours when you comment.
With that said, I read this comment and died laughing. I couldn't help but give you a funny mod because of it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 27 2016, @12:57PM
S'okay, it's hard to be a fan of mine unless you appreciate the value of having a contrarian position always on hand.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Wednesday July 27 2016, @06:02PM
I facepalm whenever you start racebaiting, and roll my eyes when you use the term "natural rights," but I generally appreciate what your comments bring to the table even when I disagree with them.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 27 2016, @11:08PM
If you're talking about the my anti-black sentiments, those are entirely cultural and I'd rather see all the reasons for them disappear. I don't want 1/5 of black men to have served prison time by the time they're my age. The only way it's going to not happen is for them to stop glorifying illegal lifestyles though. All the hugs and understanding and vilifying of white people in the world is not going to help.
If you're talking about me bringing them up in inappropriate venues, yeah, I'll cop to doing a bit of trolling there. Not of the general community but absolutely of the blame whitey crew. I do so love slapping them in the face with a proverbial schlong.
Natural rights I'll explain another time. Been babysitting all day and I'm wore smooth out.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday July 28 2016, @01:43AM
I think it's really unfortunate that you self-identify as having anti-black sentiments. If a black person began explaining to you why they had anti-white sentiments, would you find them reasonable? Even just the language is clearly intended to offend before you follow up by explaining that it's just the culture you're opposed to, as if that makes it okay to identify as anti-some-color-of-people. It's unfortunate that our language conflates color and culture, but that doesn't make your statement less cringe-worthy. Whenever somebody identifies as anti-some-part-of-humanity I worry that they're about to get some armbands out and throw a Nazi Party.
It's also unfortunate that the government refuses to let small communities do as they wish. One mans law is another mans oppression. If you tell uniformed cops to enforce laws that go against local customs, you're going to end up with some dead cops and some imprisoned citizens. This is true for poor white communities as well. Rich people seem to get around laws through means other than violence, usually. Black communities have some issues to work through, but whether or not they violate your cultural norms is not one of them.
Natural rights I'll explain another time.
SPOILER: They don't really exist, they're just part of a bullshit philosophical tradition.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 28 2016, @03:00AM
You just self-identified as anti-Nazi. Where precisely should we draw that particular line? What percentage of a culture would you say needed to have served prison time in their adult life to be justified in saying something is fucked up? Should we give them understanding that they treat women like pieces of meat and abandon their children? Fuck that. Black culture is a cancer and anyone who follows it are scum.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday July 28 2016, @04:21AM
Nazi isn't a color. Black is something people are taught to identify as from a young age. Its immutability is implicit. Anti-black and anti-Nazi are not comparable in the slightest. Black culture has contributed a lot to white culture, and vice versa. I suspect your children grew up being influenced by black music, and if they didn't your grandchildren certainly will. Have fun with that.
And even being anti-Nazi, I have no desire to bomb or SWAT podunk klan members.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 28 2016, @09:00AM
Oh indeed, I have a great appreciation for black culture pre-1990 or so. It's only since then that it's become entirely toxic.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @11:42PM
Call it the National Socialist Party.
(Score: 2) by weeds on Wednesday July 27 2016, @01:46AM
Facebook is private, they can do whatever they like. Freedom of speech doesn't mean you get to use my press. Not to mention that the first amendment only says the government cannot restrict your speech. Next, the claim that "people who are not on Facebook might as well not exist at all" is a rather extraordinary claim. As such it requires extraordinary proof. Since this claim is made with no proof, it should be discounted out of hand. However, mandatory nationalization of any "press" is the worst idea ever. As far as mandatory enrollment in some selected social media... Wait, you can't be serious, this must be sarcasm.
Get money out of politics! [mayday.us]
(Score: 2) by TheB on Wednesday July 27 2016, @03:06AM
Just like the Republican and Democratic parties.
They are private clubs which control access to society and government.
Gatekeepers who are not answerable to the public which they control.
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Wednesday July 27 2016, @03:15AM
What you should realize is it's quality not quantity that matters more. A corrupt small government could screw you even worse than a big one. Outsource the evil stuff to friends and allies.
Facebook, Apple, Disney, Monsanto etc don't even have to _pretend_ to follow those amendments many of you consider sacred, nor a lot of the nice stuff you've got over the years.
Much of it won't apply in Corporate Land. FOIA does not apply to Apple. Freedom of speech does not apply to Facebook. Good luck with bringing in your guns to Disneyland.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday July 27 2016, @02:34PM
Indeed, all empirical evidence suggests erring on the side of a really large government is less bad than erring on the side of a really small government. On the one extreme, you have the secret police watching your every move and sending suspect people to the gulag. On the other extreme, you have random warlords simply killing anyone suspected of being either criminals or opposed to the random warlord, or suspected of being a friend or family member of the guy they just killed, because they don't have the infrastructure to determine if somebody is actually guilty of anything nor to imprison them if they are guilty of something.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 27 2016, @03:28PM
Your odds are better when there's only one top guy and his family and friends than when there are dozens and you're not sure who could be the latest wannabe.
That's why even in the days of Saddam Hussein life actually wasn't that bad as long as you kept yourself and loved ones away from Uday and similar.
The dictators who stay in power usually keep a monopoly on violence so there aren't any upstarts. You severely punish anyone who takes over villages and sets themselves up as a warlord without your permission.
Thus it becomes fairly predictable - everyone knows the rules. The rules may be really crap but everyone knows that if they follow the rules, they and their family have a decent chance of still being alive and OK next month or even next year. And that's how dictators or even conventional governments in general stay in power. Once you can't ensure some semblance of order, you're no longer a ruler or government. People might decide it's worth a gamble to try killing you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 27 2016, @01:18PM
...Facebook censorship can effectively make unpersons, and people who aren't on Facebook might as well not exist at all.
How I wish this were true... Unfortunately, FB still tracks those unpersons. Juuuussstt in case they ever give up their protest and sign up for facebook. That way, FB already knows everything about you, can 'suggest' friends and more importantly, immediately start showing you 'relevant' ads.
How I wish that not being on FB would mean you don't exist (for FB or for the morons on it)