Archiv: YouTube / Google LLC / Alphabet Inc. (monopolies)


11.07.2025 - 22:37 [ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) / Büro des Hohen Kommissars für Menschenrechte ]

From economy of occupation to economy of genocide – Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese

(June 30, 2025)

In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 investigates the corporate machinery sustaining the Israeli settler-colonial project of displacement and replacement of the Palestinians in the occupied territory. While political leaders and Governments shirk their obligations, far too many corporate entities have profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now genocide. The complicity exposed by the report is just the tip of the iceberg; ending it will not happen without holding the private sector accountable, including# its executives. International law recognizes varying degrees of responsibility – each requiring scrutiny and accountability, particularly in this case, where a people’s self-determination and very existence are at stake. This is a necessary step to end the genocide and dismantle the global system that has allowed it.

02.07.2025 - 03:26 [ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) / Büro des Hohen Kommissars für Menschenrechte ]

From economy of occupation to economy of genocide – Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese

In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 investigates the corporate machinery sustaining the Israeli settler-colonial project of displacement and replacement of the Palestinians in the occupied territory. While political leaders and Governments shirk their obligations, far too many corporate entities have profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now genocide. The complicity exposed by the report is just the tip of the iceberg; ending it will not happen without holding the private sector accountable, including# its executives. International law recognizes varying degrees of responsibility – each requiring scrutiny and accountability, particularly in this case, where a people’s self-determination and very existence are at stake. This is a necessary step to end the genocide and dismantle the global system that has allowed it.

02.07.2025 - 03:14 [ Al Jazeera ]

UN report lists companies complicit in Israel’s ‘genocide’: Who are they?

Are private companies liable under international law?

According to Albanese’s report, yes. Corporate entities are under an obligation to avoid violating human rights through direct action or in their business partnerships.

States have the primary responsibility to ensure that corporate entities respect human rights and must prevent, investigate and punish abuses by private actors. However, corporations must respect human rights even if the state where they operate does not.

A company must therefore assess whether activities or relationships throughout its supply chain risk causing human rights violations or contributing to them, according to the report.

The failure to act in line with international law may result in criminal liability. Individual executives can be held criminally liable, including before international courts.

02.07.2025 - 03:08 [ Al Jazeera ]

‘Israel’s genocide continues because it is lucrative for many’

As we’ve been reporting, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has named more than 60 companies, including major arms manufacturers and technology firms, in a report alleging their involvement in supporting Israeli settlements and military actions in Gaza, which she called a “genocidal campaign”.

Albanese compiled the report based on more than 200 submissions from states, human rights defenders, companies, and academics.

“While life in Gaza is being obliterated and the West Bank is under escalating assault, this report shows why Israel’s genocide continues: because it is lucrative for many,” Albanese wrote. She accused corporate entities of being “financially bound to Israel’s apartheid and militarism.”

04.04.2025 - 19:39 [ Anadolu ]

Israel’s AI use in Gaza potentially normalizes civilian killings, obscures blame, exposes Big Tech complicity: Expert

Israel’s use of artificial intelligence (AI) in its ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip – aided by tech giants such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon – is fueling concerns over the normalization of mass civilian casualties and raising serious questions about the complicity of these firms in potential war crimes, according to a leading AI expert.

Multiple reports have confirmed that Israel has deployed AI models such as Lavender, Gospel, and Where’s Daddy? to conduct mass surveillance, identify targets, and direct strikes against tens of thousands of individuals in Gaza – often in their own homes – all with minimal human oversight.

17.11.2024 - 15:55 [ Mint Press ]

Exposed: How Israeli Spies Control Your VPN

(September 11th, 2024)

Kape Technologies is a major player in the online privacy world, one of the three giants that collectively control the market. It owns many of the world’s top VPNs, including ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, ZenMate, Intego Antivirus, and a host of tech websites that promote its products.
(…)
Although it is headquartered in London and employs more than 1,000 people worldwide, Kape Technologies maintains a distinctly Israeli flavor. This begins with its owner, Teddy Sagi. Born in Tel Aviv, the tycoon, who previously spent time in prison for financial crimes, is estimated to be worth $6.4 billion, making him among the top ten richest Israelis.
(…)
Company co-founder and longtime CEO Koby Menachemi began his tech career as a developer for Unit 8200, while Liron Peer, the company’s current head of accounting, also served three years in the controversial military unit. Meanwhile, Menachemi’s successor as Kape CEO, Ido Erlichman, is a veteran of Unit 217, the Duvdevan Unit, an elite commando group that carries out intelligence operations and assassinations against the local Arab population.
(…)
Facebook’s collaboration with Unit 8200 goes far deeper, however. This author’s 2022 MintPress News investigation found that a vast number of Unit 8200 veterans had gone on to work in senior positions at Meta, Facebook’s parent company.
(…)
The same investigation found at least 99 former Unit 8200 agents working at Google. These included Google’s head of strategy and operations, Gavriel Goidel; its head of insights, data and management, Jonathan Cohen; and Google Waze’s head of global self-service, Ori Daniel.

Microsoft, meanwhile, hired at least 166 Unit 8200 veterans to fill its ranks, including many that went straight from the military into the company, suggesting that it is actively recruiting from the regiment.

20.09.2023 - 04:33 [ ORF.at ]

KI bestimmt Risiko für genetische Erkrankungen

(19.09.2023)

Die Suche nach den Ursachen für genetische Erkrankungen ist ein großes Unterfangen, bei dem vermehrt auch künstliche Intelligenz (KI) zum Einsatz kommt. Ein neues KI-Werkzeug von Google DeepMind kann das Krankheitsrisiko abschätzen, das von bestimmten Genmutationen ausgeht. Die entstandene Datenbank soll künftige Untersuchungen zur Entstehung der Krankheiten deutlich erleichtern.

20.09.2023 - 04:25 [ European Bioinformatics Institute / European Molecular Biology Laboratory ]

New predictions of genetic variant pathogenicity using AlphaFold protein structures

(19.09.2023)

Google DeepMind has developed a new tool called AlphaMissense, which uses the AlphaFold human protein structure models to predict whether a sequence variant which changes one amino acid in a protein is likely to be tolerated or to impact protein function.

The Ensembl Variant Effect Predictor now integrates Google DeepMind’s new AlphaMissense Catalogue.

20.09.2023 - 04:19 [ endpts.com ]

Al­phaFold, meet Al­phaMis­sense: Google Deep­Mind‘s AI suc­ces­sor pre­dicts how 71M mu­ta­tions cause dis­ease

Google Deep­Mind has de­vel­oped an AI sys­tem that pre­dicts the chances that tens of mil­lions of ge­net­ic vari­ants will cause dis­ease.

20.09.2023 - 01:45 [ European Molecular Biology Laboratory ]

DeepMind and EMBL release the most complete database of predicted 3D structures of human proteins

(22 July 2021)

For those scientists who rely on experimental protein structure determination, AlphaFold’s predictions have helped accelerate their research. For example, a team at the University of Colorado Boulder is finding promise in using AlphaFold predictions to study antibiotic resistance, while a group at the University of California San Francisco has used them to increase their understanding of SARS-CoV-2 biology.

The AlphaFold Protein Structure Database builds on many contributions from the international scientific community, as well as AlphaFold’s sophisticated algorithmic innovations and EMBL-EBI’s decades of experience in sharing the world’s biological data. DeepMind and EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) are providing access to AlphaFold’s predictions so that others can use the system as a tool to enable and accelerate research and open up completely new avenues of scientific discovery.

19.08.2023 - 00:05 [ CNN ]

Homeland Security report details how teen hackers exploited security weaknesses in some of the world’s biggest companies

(August 10, 2023)

Staffed by senior US cybersecurity officials and executives at major technology firms like Google, the board does not have regulatory authority, but its recommendations could shape legislation in Congress and future directives from federal agencies.

17.07.2023 - 17:41 [ searchengineland.com ]

Twitter didn’t just block unregistered users, it blocked Google Search

(July 3, 2023)

Postscript. A few days later, Twitter implemented some SEO changes that showed the content from tweets to both Google and users, but overlayed a modal asking users to register. This allowed Google to regain access to the content for indexing and search ranking purposes.

05.07.2023 - 12:04 [ Fox News ]

Biden likely violated First Amendment during COVID-19 pandemic, federal judge says

A U.S. District Court judge is temporarily preventing White House officials from meeting with tech companies about social media censorship, arguing that such actions in the past were likely First Amendment violations.

The Tuesday injunction by Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty was in response to recent lawsuits from Louisiana and Missouri attorneys general. The suits allege that the White House coerced or „significantly encourage[d]“ tech companies to suppress free speech during the COVID-19 pandemic.

05.07.2023 - 12:00 [ APnews.com ]

Judge limits Biden administration in working with social media companies

U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana granted the injunction in response to a 2022 lawsuit brought by attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri. Their lawsuit alleged that the federal government overstepped in its efforts to convince social media companies to address postings that could result in vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic or affect elections.

01.07.2023 - 13:06 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

Revealed: Google and Facebook DID allow NSA access to data and were in talks to set up ‚spying rooms‘ despite denials by Zuckerberg and Page over PRISM project

(8 June 2013)

Meanwhile, Twitter is one company which has managed to keep mum in PRISM discussions.

01.07.2023 - 13:04 [ theGuardian.com ]

NSA Prism program taps in to user data of Apple, Google and others

(7 Jun 2013)

The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims „collection directly from the servers“ of major US service providers.

Although the presentation claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies, all those who responded to a Guardian request for comment on Thursday denied knowledge of any such program.

26.06.2023 - 09:36 [ Robert F. Kennedy Jr / Twitter ]

Supporters are sending us screenshots of @YouTube telling users trying to rebroadcast my speech, “Peace and Diplomacy,” that it violates their policy on “medical misinformation.” You can still watch the speech here:

25.06.2023 - 17:55 [ ChildrensHealthDefense.org ]

Part 2: The Belly of The Daily Beast and Its Perceptible Ties to the CIA

Part 2 of a two-part series takes a deep dive into the history of the CIA’s central role in orchestrating news and editorial coverage in America’s most influential liberal national media outlets — and its continued hold today.

25.06.2023 - 16:41 [ ChildrensHealthDefense.org ]

Part 1: CIA’s Extraordinary Role Influencing Liberal Media Outlets Daily Kos, The Daily Beast, Rolling Stone

Part 1 of a two-part series takes a deep dive into the history of the CIA’s central role in orchestrating news and editorial coverage in America’s most influential liberal national media outlets — and its continued hold today.

23.06.2023 - 11:01 [ GadgetsNow.com ]

Google‘s troubles mount, as EU joins US‘ breakup call

Both the governments seemingly agree on one thing: The era of Google’s dominance in advertising technology must end. The European Commission recently joined the Department of Justice in touting a breakup as a viable remedy for the California-based tech giant’s alleged monopoly abuses. In its probe, the EU said a divestment is needed because a behavioral remedy wouldn’t stop Google from “self-preferencing.”

23.06.2023 - 10:58 [ Bloomberg ]

Google’s Ad Tech in Peril as EU Joins US’s Breakup Bandwagon

The European Commission last week joined the Department of Justice in touting a breakup as a viable remedy for the California-based tech giant’s alleged monopoly abuses.

23.05.2023 - 11:35 [ Al Jazeera ]

US says China can spy with TikTok. It spies on world with Google

(28.03.2023)

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which the US Congress must vote to reauthorise by December to prevent it from lapsing under a sunset clause, allows US intelligence agencies to carry out warrantless spying on foreigners’ email, phone and other online communications.

While US citizens have some protections against warrantless searches under the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, the US government has maintained that these rights do not extend to foreigners overseas, giving agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) practically free rein to snoop on their communications.

22.03.2023 - 20:51 [ theVerge.com ]

Amid layoffs and lost games, Amazon Luna comes to Canada, Germany, and the UK

Remember: Google Stadia is dead as a doornail, and Amazon Luna, the company’s rival cloud gaming service, wasn’t doing much better.

15.02.2023 - 21:38 [ theGuardian.com ]

‚Team Jorge‘ unmasked: the secret disinformation team who distort reality – video

A covert team of Israeli contractors who claim to have manipulated more than 30 elections around the world using hacking, sabotage and automated disinformation on social media have been exposed in a new investigation. The unit is run by Tal Hanan, a former Israeli special forces operative who now works privately using the pseudonym ‚Jorge‘. In more than six hours of secretly recorded meetings, Hanan and his team explained how they could gather intelligence on rivals, including by using hacking methods to access Gmail and Telegram accounts

15.02.2023 - 09:34 [ theGuardian.com ]

Revealed: the hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

The investigation reveals extraordinary details about how disinformation is being weaponised by Team Jorge, which runs a private service offering to covertly meddle in elections without a trace. The group also works for corporate clients.

Hanan told the undercover reporters that his services, which others describe as “black ops”, were available to intelligence agencies, political campaigns and private companies that wanted to secretly manipulate public opinion. He said they had been used across Africa, South and Central America, the US and Europe.

15.02.2023 - 09:13 [ Haaretz ]

Hacking, Extortion, Election Interference: These Are the Tools Used by Israel‘s Agents of Chaos and Manipulation

Team Jorge, this investigation believes, works with a residential proxy provider, in order to provide its avatars with local digital identities in the form of real IPs that cannot be found by social media sites.

Team Jorge also seems to work with a cellular provider that serves AIMS in a similar manner, likely giving avatars their local numbers and supplying the infrastructure needed to grant them SMS verification.

The deliberately misleading technical infrastructure also serves to hide such actors. The process creates another layer of plausible deniability between, in this case, Team Jorge, the client and the campaign’s content, and helps them further mask the truth. Or, as Hanan put it in one presentation: „My signal is from Indonesia, the WhatsApp from Hong Kong, Telegram from Germany. And none of them are my numbers.“

15.02.2023 - 08:12 [ Haaretz ]

The Israelis Destabilizing Democracy and Disrupting Elections Worldwide

From a small office building, a group of Israelis is spreading global disruption

04.02.2023 - 10:17 [ Cnet.com ]

IBM now has 18 quantum computers in its fleet of weird machines

(May 6, 2020)

Eighteen quantum computers might not sound like a lot. But given that each one is an unwieldy device chilled within a fraction of a degree above absolute zero and operated by Ph.D. researchers, it‘s actually a pretty large fleet. In comparison, Google‘s quantum computers lab near Santa Barbara, California, has only five machines, and Honeywell only has six quantum computers.

29.01.2023 - 20:32 [ Bert Walther / Nitter ]

Schlapphüte offen für neue Technologien…

04.10.2022 - 19:24 [ Cnet ]

IBM now has 18 quantum computers in its fleet of weird machines

(May 6, 2020)

Eighteen quantum computers might not sound like a lot. But given that each one is an unwieldy device chilled within a fraction of a degree above absolute zero and operated by Ph.D. researchers, it‘s actually a pretty large fleet. In comparison, Google‘s quantum computers lab near Santa Barbara, California, has only five machines, and Honeywell only has six quantum computers.

18.08.2022 - 01:54 [ Jackson Hinkle / Nitter ]

I’ve been permanently demonetized & suspended (twice) by YouTube, permanently banned from PayPal/Venmo, permanently banned from Twitch, lost my merch stores on Represent & Teezily, & now I’m being warned by Discord that my entire server might get nuked. So much for free speech.

31.07.2022 - 17:17 [ America First Legal ]

AFL LAWSUIT REVEALS DAMNING CDC DOCUMENTS PROVING GOVERNMENT COLLUSION WITH BIG TECH TO CENSOR FREE SPEECH AND PROMOTE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION PROPAGANDA

Last July, then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki admitted that the White House was working with social media companies to identify “misinformation.” Specifically, she said, “we’re regularly making sure social media platforms are aware of the latest narratives, dangerous to public health that we and many other Americans are seeing across all of social and traditional media. And we work to engage with them to better understand the enforcement of social media platform policies.”

AFL immediately submitted FOIA requests to the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health to uncover the degree to which the CDC and the White House have been censoring content that it has deemed “disinformation” or “misinformation.” Predictably, the Biden Administration obstructed and delayed complying with their legal obligation to provide such information, and AFL sued the CDC to compel their release.

Today, after a year of work, AFL has obtained its first damning release of documents.

31.07.2022 - 17:12 [ TKP,at ]

Dokumente beweisen: US-Regierung nutzt Big Tech zur Zensur

Am Mittwoch gab die NGO Organisation America First Legal (AFL) bekannt, dass sie dank einer Klage gegen die Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) an die Dokumente gelangt sei. Der erste Versuch, an die Dokumente über den „Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)“ über das Weiße Haus an die Dokumente zu kommen, war gescheitert.

AFL interpretiert die Dokumente nicht nur als Beweis für eine Koordinierung zwischen den privaten Konzernen und der Regierung. Es habe sich um geheime Absprachen gehandelt, um die Zensur auf den Internetplattformen zu koordinieren.

Spätestens ab Dezember 2020 und mindestens bis Juni 2021 kommunizierte die CDC mit Google, Facebook und Twitter. Die „Zusammenarbeit“ ging so weit, dass Beiträge von einzelnen Nutzern als Beispiele vorgelegt wurden, um festzuhalten, was zensiert werden muss.