Facebook Bans White Nationalist's Account Over Hate Speech

Facebook has joined other online platforms and has banned Christopher Cantwell's accounts. according to Facebook spokeswoman Ruchika Budhraja who spoke to AP.

The platform also removed several pages connected to the white nationalist movement on grounds of violating the company's hate speech/organizations policies.

“I’m not surprised by almost any of this because the whole thing we are complaining about here is that we are trying to express our views, and everybody is going through extraordinary lengths to make sure we are not heard,” Cantwell told AP in a phone interview from an undisclosed location.

“Frankly, whatever you think of my views, that is very scary to me,” he said. “Facebook and Instagram is one thing but not being able to participate in the financial system because of your political opinions is something that, you know, people should worry about in America.”

Daily Stormer Kicked Off Godaddy and then Google ... Now Hosted in Russia

The white supremacist website was first dropped from Godaddy (who was the domain registrar), and they switched to Google for that service, but Google then dropped them too, all following the Charlottesville, Virginia riot this week.

The site then moved to the dark net briefly. And is now based in Russia

Spotify Pulling Racist Music from Site

The move came after a music blog called Digital Music News ran a story IDing 37 white supremacist bands available on Spotify, the site whose brand tagline is "Spotify: Music for everyone"

The company's press office then stated that they remove music "that favors hatred or incites violence against race, religion, sexuality" as soon as it is "brought to our attention."

OkCupid Just Banned a White Supremacist

Tweeting, "There is no room for hate" the internet dating site has banned a white supremicist.

"We were alerted by another dater on OkCupid who had been contacted by Cantwell recently," the company told Mashable.

This was followed shortly by OkCupid tweeting:

"We were alerted that white supremacist Chris Cantwell was on OkCupid. Within 10 minutes we banned him for life."

OkCupid CEO Elie Seidman told Mashable. "The formula for this one was easy: 'Nazi or supremacist == bad.'”

Israel to Close Al Jazeera, Ban Journalists - AJ

According to AJ themselves, Israel's communication minister has announced Israel has plans to revoke media credentials and close AJ in Jerusalem

"We have based our decision on the move by Sunni Arab states to close the Al Jazeera offices and prohibiting their work," Ayoub Kara said, adding that the channel is being used by groups to "incite" violence - an accusation AJ has denied. 

In response, AJ wrote: "Al Jazeera stresses that it will closely watch the developments that may result from the Israeli decision, and will take the necessary legal measures towards it."

Israel has repeatedly claimed to be "the only democracy in the Middle East" but AJ's coverage of "the occupied Palestinian territories" doesn't make things easier for it. Other Middle Eastern countries also don't like AJ because it is based in Qatar, with which Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and other neighbors are currently in a kind of "cold war." (Read more about that: Qatar's Neighbors Deliver List of Demands)

Chinese Tourists Arrested for Making Hitler Salute in Germany

According to police, a fine or a prison sentence up to 3 years is possible for a pair of Chinese tourists who made a particular gesture outside the Parliament building this week.

Germany has strict laws on "hate speech" and symbols linked to Hitler and the Nazis. The Nazi organization is "banned" in Germany.

The law is more commonly used to prosecute Germans who have far right political ideas.

The two men were released on a bail of around $600 each and are allowed to leave the country, and when the sentence is finally decided (in their absence), the bail money will probably be enough to cover it.

Google VS Terrorism

Google's now going to be doing new things to reduce terrorist videos.

They'll be using a new algorithm to automatically find terrorism images, and will have more people working to monitor videos.

It will also effect educational and other videos that are about terrorism or include images that promote subjugation of religions or races. They'll have warnings now, and they won't have commenting available. This means that they will also have less engagement and will be harder to find.

Turkey Blocks Wikipedia

A formal judgement has approved the administrative measure, indicating that a permanent restriction is now in place for all language editions of the online encyclopedia in Turkey.

Some are pointing towards Wikipedia's depiction of Erdogan as a dictator as a cause:

"Erdoğan detractors have noted that under Erdoğan, more journalists have been incarcerated in Turkey than in any other country, including North Korea. Detractors have also pointed out the fact that the April referendum essentially nullified the traditional legal 'check' of parliamentary fiscal review, that parliament had previously held over his executive branch of government. Detractors have claimed that Erdoğan's unceasing efforts at broadening his executive powers while also minimizing his executive accountability may amount to the 'fall of Turkish democracy,' and the 'birth of a dictator.'

"The loss of availability is consistent with internet filters used to censor content in the country," according to independent, non-partisan network monitoring observatory Turkey Blocks.

"SSL errors are issued for https requests, indicating failing to connect to the authentic servers, while the unencrypted addresses now return an nginx http 404 error indicative of filtering."