Social Media Companies' Suppression of News is Equal to Voter Suppression

It doesn't matter if you're a conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican, Libertarian or Green. If you're a decent human being, you'll agree that voter suppression is wrong.

By now you've probably heard how Facebook and Twitter attempted to suppress the distribution of an article by the NY Post on Hunter Biden's emails which are "potentially harmful" to him as well as his father, Presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Unfortunately, I predicted this. Facebook and Twitter Censorship of the NY Post article on Hunter Biden was an attempt to prevent the motivation of conservative voters to take a trip to the polls.

I wrote about in my book a potential method for social media sites to increase voter turnout for a specific candidate. In this case, Facebook and Twitter attempted to prevent the sharing of a news article which would have significantly increased conservative turnout less than 30 days before the election.

Quote from "Hacking of the Free":

Sadly, today winning elections today isn't about convincing people who to vote for, but simply about convincing enough people to show up and vote. Political strategists know this, and social media companies know this. Add to this that social media is now outpacing print newspapers as a new source, and you'll quickly understand that suppressing news on social media can be very damaging to ensuring that the public is properly informed of news.

Since the social media companies are fully aware of this information, suppressing information which will make voters angry at a candidate is absolutely equivalent to attempting to suppress their votes. So while Facebook and Twitter will suppress an article which puts a negative light on Joe Biden, they'll happily show me an article about who a squirrel predicted will win the 2020 Presidential Election.

The only reason that people knew about the censored article is that the news that Facebook and Twitter were preventing sharing the article went viral. Unfortunately in the process of this news going viral, several high profile accounts were completely silenced by Twitter for speaking out against this censorship, including James Woods.

Social media companies have already lost a lot of their users' trust. This latest incident could further damage the companies reputations, as users begin to flock to other social media platforms including MeWe or Parler.

Censorship is wrong. Censorship with the intention of manipulating the results of an election is even worse.

Ken is a Cyber Security Professional and author of the book Hacking of the Free. The views expressed in this post do not reflect the views of his employer or clients.

Before Photoshop: 1960s CIA Computerized Photo Processing

 

In the 1960s, computers were typically large, bulky machines used for the processing of text data or mathematical equations. Processing was typically performed using punchcards, or if you're really lucky, a terminal with a monochrome display. A pocket calculator typically contains more computing power than a 1960's computer, and a smartphone contains more computing power than the average 1960's data center.

It came to me as quite a surprise then, when I found documentation for a 1960's CIA computer system designed to process aerial photographs.

It's no secret that for decades the CIA has relied on aerial photography to collect foreign intelligence essential to our armed forces. However, the computerized capabilities which the CIA had available are absolutely remarkable.

According to declassified documents from the CIA's Freedom of Information Act Reading Room, the CIA possessed at least one computer in the 1960's capable of performing automated analysis of photography, including edge analysis and auto correlation. This computer would not only record to magnetic tape and print out analyzed versions of the photos, but even send the photo to a plotter for basically on-the-fly printing of a basic map/sketch of the photo.

One of the main goals of this system development was Automatic Target Recognition. For example, identifying the location of enemy aircraft in a photo, and automatically flagging the photo as containing aircraft.

If the CIA had this sort of technology in the 1960's, just imagine what their computer systems are able to do today.

This article is part of a series relating to my upcoming book Spy Machines, which explores technology used by the early CIA and other members of the intelligence community.

One positive from COVID-19 - I finally get to attend BlackHat - Virtual Attendance

One of the things I've always struggled with as a Cyber Security professional is that I'm typically too busy to take off work to attend conventions such as BlackHat.

However, thanks to COVID-19, BlackHat is being offered in a completely virtual format this year. As such, I can attend virually while still accomplishing my daily job duties!

There is a "free" option if you're interested.

Enjoy!