Video - Council of Europe Conference on Freedom of Expression FoE2015 session4 live - ECHR

Video - The Invasion of Europe - Pat Condell

Free speech? - Merkel presses Zuckerberg to monitor racist posts on Facebook.

Free speech? - Merkel presses Zuckerberg to monitor racist posts on Facebook. (RT).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she wants more action from Facebook when it comes to filtering hateful racial posts. The comments were overheard by media as Merkel was speaking to CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the sidelines of the UN summit.

Merkel’s request could be heard on a live transmission broadcast seconds before the introductory remarks at a luncheon in New York on Saturday.

The German leader asked Zuckerberg about hate speech posts, with the Facebook CEO responding: “We need to do some work.”

Merkel followed up: “Are you working on this?” Zuckerberg was heard replying: “Yeah.”

The transmission was then cut off as the luncheon began.

This is not the first time Merkel has called on Facebook to curtail hate speech comments on the social network.

“When people stir up sedition on social networks using their real name, it’s not only the state that has to act, but also Facebook as a company should do something against these [people],” Merkel told regional newspaper Rheinische Post earlier in September.

The German leader added that the social media company has the tools to track hate speech, but is lacking in enforcement. “The rules need to be implemented,” Merkel said.

The increased attention towards online hate is believed to have been triggered by an influx of refugees traveling to Germany, with around 1 million migrants expected to come to the country this year. The rise in immigrants and refugees from war zones has divided the population, with massive pro- and anti-refugee rallies hitting the country amid intensifying hate rhetoric.

Following criticism, Facebook committed to improve its efforts to fight racism online. On September 14, the company announced its cooperation with German Internet watchdog, Voluntary Self-Monitoring of Multimedia Service Providers, to keep an eye on hate speech posts. Hmmmm......I warned that the flood of refugees would bring a massive increase of extreme right, just wait till the next elections in Europe, and limiting free speech won't stop it on the contrary. I don't approve of hate speech but free speech is a must in a democracy.

Video - Does Free Speech Offend You?

Should offensive speech be banned? Where should we, as a society, draw the line where permitted speech is on one side, and forbidden speech is on the other? Should we even have that line? And should free speech be limited by things like trigger warnings and punishments for microaggressions? Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, answers these questions and more.

You can support Prager University by clicking https://www.prageruniversity.com/dona... Free videos are great, but to continue producing high-quality content, even small contributions are greater.

Video - Facebook claims ‘a bug’ made it track nonusers, Anyone interested in a bridge for sale?

Facebook faces class action law suit for violating privacy by amassing users facial recognition data.

Facebook faces class action law suit for violating privacy by amassing users facial recognition data. (TW).

Facebook faces class action law suit for violating the privacy of its users by collecting their facial data and storing it.

Facebook is being accused of violating the privacy of its users by collecting their facial data, according to a class-action lawsuit filed last week. Facebook has been allegedly collecting facial recognition data from millions of FB users and creating “the largest privately held stash of biometric face-recognition data in the world,” according to Courthouse News Service.

The class action lawsuit filed by Carlo Licata and associates alleges that this facial recognition program violates the privacy of its users. The plaintiffs have cited an Illinois law called the Illinois Biometrics Information Privacy Acts, which requires companies to get written content from a user if it is collecting biometric data. Further, according to the Illinois law, such company must state the purpose and length of its data collection program.

The plaintiffs claims that Facebook’s biometric program shows “brazen disregard for its users’ privacy writes.” They have also argued that even by changing user settings, the FB users can't escape the facial recognition collection program, reports the Chicago Tribune. Hmmmm......Reason xxxx why i don't go to facebook......Read the full story here.

"We are far closer to the tyrannical model than we are the free model" Greenwald.

"We are far closer to the tyrannical model than we are the free model" Greenwald. (sltrib).

The 48-year-old, who worked to publish the documents leaked by former government contractor Edward Snowden, spoke for about 40 minutes and took questions for 20 minutes more about privacy and Snowden.

Greenwald said the most shocking thing he's found in the tens of thousands of NSA documents published so far has been the NSA's motto: Collect it all.

"It's not, like, 'Collect a lot of it,' or even, like, 'Collect all the terrorist communications,' " Greenwald said. "It's like saying the goal of the NSA is to eliminate all private communications."

He contended this impedes Americans' freedom: If people are being monitored, they aren't as creative and don't think as freely.

Also, the decisions to collect the data and store it was done with no public discussion. Greenwald said that in free societies, government officials have an expectation of transparency and citizens have an expectation of privacy.

Tyrannical societies have an opposite system. "I would submit, and I don't think that it's in dispute, that we are far closer to the tyrannical model than we are the free model," Greenwald said.

Greenwald also discussed the NSA's Utah Data Center, located in Bluffdale. He pointed to NSA documents from 2009 and 2010 saying the agency had a problem storing all the data it was collecting. The Utah Data Center helps solve that problem, Greenwald said.

In a meeting with reporters before his speech, Greenwald said the data center has an "ominous role in the surveillance state."

"The better [the government's] capacity for storage, and the more space they have to do it the longer they can keep the data," Greenwald said. Read the full story here.

'Advanced Islamist Democracy' Turkey threatens Google with ban over hostage image.

'Advanced Islamist Democracy' Turkey threatens Google with ban over hostage image. (BBC).

Turkey threatened to ban Google unless it removed links to images of a prosecutor being held at gunpoint.

The images were taken last week in a siege at an Istanbul courthouse when two gunmen took the prosecutor hostage. All three died during a rescue attempt. The threatened ban on Google was lifted after the search giant removed links to sites hosting the pictures. Turkish authorities briefly cut off several social networks in a bid to stop images circulating.

This is about the freedom of information.

If Google caves in now for the demands of the 'Turkish 'Dictator', you can expect him to throw a fit each time something displeases him on Google.

Appeasement doesn't work with Dictators...especially Islamist ones, next it will be 'blasphmy speech', The 'Armenian Genocide.....or whatever he will come up with to silence the opposition.

Google has a duty to defend the freedom of information....or step out of the business as search engine. Read the full story here.

Update: US urges Turkey to unblock access to social media sites.

State Department spokesperson Marie Harf told Today's Zaman on Monday that her country supports freedom of expression in Turkey and opposes any action that encroaches on the right to free speech.

Google said it is working to restore access. "An independent and unfettered media is an essential element of democratic, open societies," Harf said after the social media bans became known.

'Free Speech Police' - US Government Develops System To Automatically Detect Cyberbullying.

'Free Speech Police' - US Government Develops System To Automatically Detect Cyberbullying. (SP).

A grant of around $120,000 was granted to Rutgers University by the National Science Foundation to create a system that automatically detects hurtful online speech.

“This project aims to define new approaches for automatic detection of cyberbullying by integrating the relevant research in social sciences and computer science,” the grant reads.

According to the NSF, cyberbullying has become a “critical social problem, with over 40% of teenagers in the US having reported being cyberbullied,” leading many to psychiatric and psychosomatic disorders.

The idea is that the system will to search for keywords as well as study the social relationships between teenagers who send and receive mean messages.

The program also aims at “employing social intervention mechanisms” that help prevent future cyberbullying activities.

Data on cyberbullying will also “be made available to the larger research community,” according to the grant. The project will start in July and is set to last for two years, with the goal of improving cyberbullying detectors.

“The project will yield new, comprehensive models and algorithms that can be used for cyberbullying detection in automated settings.” Assistant Professor Vivek K. Singh of Rutgers’ School of Communication and Information, who has done research on Twitter hashtags, will be leading the project.

The Obama administration has made tackling cyberbullying a priority, and so has the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which runs a website to stop cyberbullying that encourages reporting mean online behavior to the police. Hmmmm......Why do i have the distinct feeling this is about limiting free speech, political and Religious speech and not so much about cyber bullying?