Why Everyone Should Be Concerned About Parler Being Booted From the Internet

U.S CRISIS AND BIG TECH’S CONTROL OVER POLITICS 

Amre Metwally

The Wire | January 17, 2021

The Parler website is seen before its shutdown in this still from video, January 10, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Reuters TV

The real coordinated inauthentic behaviour on social media made itself abundantly clear in the aftermath of the January 6 assault on the US Congress. The culprit isn’t a troll farm or Russian influence. This time, the coordinated inauthentic behavior is coming from California.

Late last week, Google and Apple both suspended Parler – the social media platform of choice for the alt-right – and demanded a “moderation improvement plan” from Parler. Amazon, as of midnight, also suspended Parler from its web hosting services, citing “inadequate content-moderation practices.” Okta, an identity management software company in San Francisco, California, was notified that Parler had a free trial of its product and subsequently rushed to terminate access.

Twitter’s Ban on Trump will Only Deepen the US Tribal Divide

U.S. IN CRISIS 

Jonathan Cook

Anyone who believes locking President Donald Trump out of his social media accounts will serve as the first step on the path to healing the political divide in the United States is likely to be in for a bitter disappointment.

The flaws in this reasoning need to be peeled away, like the layers of an onion.

Twitter’s decision to permanently ban Trump for, among other things, “incitement of violence” effectively cuts him off from 88 million followers. Facebook has said it will deny Trump access to his account till at least the end of his presidential term.

The Suppression Of Trump Voters Will Not Create Long Term Stability

U.S. CRISIS

DISPATCHES FROM MOON OF ALABAMA, BY “B”

Someone at CNN was tasked with writing a thrilling story about a brave democratic congressman who did not shy away from confronting the Capitol intruders.

How a swift impeachment was born under siege

Rioters were still ransacking the halls of the US Capitol when two Democrats stuck in lockdown together in the House office buildings across the street started drafting the impeachment resolution that led to the unprecedented second impeachment of President Donald Trump almost exactly one week later.

California Rep. Ted Lieu was forced to evacuate his office in the Cannon Office Building as insurrectionists converged on the Capitol. Grabbing a crowbar in his office, Lieu said he and his chief of staff called the top aide to Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline while wandering the halls and asked if they could hunker down in Cicilline’s office in the Rayburn House Office Building. …

The Leopard Doesn’t Change its Spots: US Foreign Policy Under Biden

U.S. IMPERIALISM  

James O’Neill

It is a great pity that the Australian mainstream media is so narrow in its choice of sources for stories to appear on its pages and in its telecasts. This point was vividly brought home to me when I read in the English language version of the Russian website Pravda.ru (truth) about the alleged killing of Al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden. The story was written by Larry Romanoff and entitled The Death of Osama bin Laden 10 January 2021).

Indian Farmers on the Frontline Against Global Capitalism

INDIAN FARMERS MOVEMENT 

Colin Todhunter

Countercurrents | January 16, 2021

In a short video on the empirediaries.com YouTube channel, a protesting farmer camped near Delhi says that during lockdown and times of crisis farmers are treated like “gods”, but when they ask for their rights, they are smeared and labelled as “terrorists”.

Engels on the Peasant War in Germany

INDIAN FARMERS MOVEMENT 

Prabhat Patnaik

IDEAs | January 13, 2021

At a time when peasant masses in the country are engaged in a valiant struggle for the repeal of the Central government’s three infamous laws, and have laid peaceful siege to Delhi, braving rains and bitter cold, it is worth recalling Friedrich Engels’ study of the peasant war in Germany in 1525, that also celebrated its outstanding leader Thomas Muenzer. Such a recall becomes necessary for another reason.

As Farm Law Protests Continue, NIA Sees ‘Anti-National’ Plot, Summons Activists

INDIAN FARMERS’ MOVEMENT 

Sandeep Singh

The Wire | January 17, 2021

Farmers gesture as they block a national highway during a protest against farm bills passed by India’s parliament, in Shambhu in the northern state of Punjab, India, September 25, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Adnan Abidi/File photo

New Delhi: Even as the union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar told that the government will continue to engage with protesting farmers, several prominent people involved with and supporting the agitation have been slapped with notices from the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Among those who received notices are farmers’ leader Baldev Singh Sirsa, Punjabi actor and activist Deep Sindhu, a Punjab-based television journalist Jasbir Singh, and activist Gurpreet Singh, popularly known as Mintu Malwa.

The Ugly Truth Behind WhatsApp’s Data Privacy

BIG TECH

Sasank and Prabir Purkayastha

People’s Democracy | January 17, 2021

WHATSAPP, a company owned by Facebook since 2014, has issued a new privacy policy changing its data-sharing rules, which will come into effect by February 8, 2021. In this new policy, WhatsApp has declared that it will share data with Facebook, its parent company, about users’ chats, connections, location and device information, transactions and payments. It will also share data of our interactions with other businesses that use Facebook as a platform. The public outcry over the new privacy policy has prompted an exodus to much safer alternatives like Signal. The weekly downloads of Signal and Telegram, another popular messaging app, has increased by millions, coupled with a significant drop in WhatsApp’s new downloads.

The Pandemic: Global Death Toll Tops 2M

COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Countercurrents | January 16, 2021

The global death toll from COVID-19, identified also as coronavirus, pandemic topped 2 million on January 15, 2021.

The number of dead, compiled by Johns Hopkins University, U.S., is about equal to the population of Brussels, Mecca, Minsk or Vienna. It is roughly equivalent to the population of the Cleveland metropolitan area in the U.S., or the entire U.S. state of Nebraska.

Inequality and Epidemic

COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Kumar Rana

Frontier | Vol. 53, No. 22-25, Nov 29 – Dec 26, 2020

[Following is a slightly shortened version of a talk given by the author at a webinar hosted by the Bengal Institute of Political Studies on 19 May 2020]

Ever since the begining of recorded history, in equality and epidemic have been closely and complimentarily related with each other. Exploited populations contribute immensely to the accumulation of global wealth through their natural resources and human labour, but they themselves are deprived of the opportunities necessary for survival, let alone leading a decent life. With this, as Rob Wallace in his Big Farms Make Big Flu (Monthly Review Press, 2016) has elaborated, capital robs the population of the natural resources and gives them big flu in return.