If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. On Sunday, a significant disruption occurred during a Reform Party rally when TikTok unexpectedly suspended its livestream. The event, held at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre in England, featured key speeches from Reform Party leader Nigel Farage and other prominent figures, including Ann Widdecombe. The suspension, which lasted approximately 30 minutes, was later attributed to a “moderation error,” according to a TikTok spokesperson. The interruption sparked immediate concerns among viewers when the live stream ceased during a critical moment of Ann Widdecombe’s speech. Widdecombe, a former Brexit Party MEP, and Conservative MP, was discussing the future strategies and core values of Reform, emphasizing the party’s commitment to “common sense” and criticizing current governmental approaches. Widdecombe highlighted the urgency of the upcoming days leading to the July 4th vote, reflecting on the political discourse she has encountered: “These next four days are crucial,” and added her personal observation of having “heard more common sense” in recent years compared to her lengthy tenure with the Conservatives. The temporary blockage of the live stream did not go unnoticed, and TikTok was quick to restore service to Farage’s account, confirming the restoration and the brief nature of the suspension. This isn’t the first time the party has faced censorship issues with online platforms this election season. In June, Google reinstated Reform UK’s advertising account after backlash and accusations of election interference by Nigel Farage. Farage criticized the move on Twitter, claiming it stifled their message, and called for immediate action from Google’s Matt Brittin. The public and media reaction influenced Google to restore the account, raising broader concerns about Big Tech’s role in political processes. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post TikTok Says It Was an “Error” To Shut Down Reform Party’s Speech appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Google is testing facial recognition on one of its campuses, and refusing to be subjected to this is not an option for the giant’s employees. In other words, opt-out is not a feature of the surveillance scheme – the only possibility available to employees is to fill out a form and declare they don’t want images recorded by security cameras, taken from their company IDs, stored. Reports are saying that this is happening in Kirkland, a suburb of Seattle, where facial recognition tech is used to identify employees using images on their ID badges, in order to keep those unauthorized from entering the premises. And while in the testing phase badges are being used, that won’t be the case in the future, Google representatives have said, but reports quoting them do not clarify what type of ID – or images – might be used instead. According to Google and its division behind the project, Security and Resilience Services (GSRS), the purpose is to mitigate possible security risks. Google “guinea-pigging” its own employees is seen as part of a wider push by the corporation to position itself in the expanding AI-driven surveillance development and deployment, regardless of this being yet another privacy controversy being added to Google’s already existing huge privacy controversy “portfolio.” A spokesperson for Google insisted that the testing in Kirkland and eventual implementation of the technology is squarely security-driven, and reports mention one serious incident, the 2018 shooting at the YouTube office in California, as justification for the measures now being put in place. However, there is already evidence that this type of employee surveillance is being used to control and discipline them as well. According to an internal document seen by CNBC, the Kirkland experiment is “initially” taking place there, suggesting facial recognition will be deployed elsewhere on Google campuses; and the officially stated goal is to identify persons who “may pose a security risk to Google’s people, products, or locations.” But even before the more sophisticated and elaborate surveillance trials started, Google used security camera footage to identify a number of employees who protested over labor conditions, as well as the giant’s Project Nimbus, which involves the company in the conflict in the Middle East. More than 50 people got fired. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Google Is Piloting Facial Recognition for Some Employees and Won’t Let Employees Opt Out appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Sunday Smiles

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently took aim at AI rivals for "creating God" during a recent interview with YouTuber Kane Sutter. He went on to say, "I find it a pretty big turnoff when people in the tech industry... talk about building this 'one true AI.'"Zuckerberg appeared to be alluding to some in Silicon Valley who fancy the idea of building a technology that could surpass the general intelligence of human beings. "It’s almost as if they kind of think they’re creating God or something and... it’s just — that’s not what we’re doing. I don’t think that’s how this plays out," Zuckerberg said.'I, being a historian of computing, have a rather jaded and cynical view of the hyperbolic optimism of our field.'Futurism reported that Zuckerberg contends that an AI god would essentially be unrealistic because people have different needs and interests. To sufficiently tend to all of those needs and interests, there will be a need for several different forms of artificial intelligence.The Meta CEO also went on to criticize closed AI platforms as opposed to open-source AI, adding that open-source AI would continue to encourage people to create different AIs specifically tailored to their own needs. He used OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini AI as examples to drive home his point. He added that Meta is doing things a little differently, instead focusing on creating multiple AI tools for different purposes, according to the Hindustan Times.While OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman has already suggested that artificial general intelligence—a form of AI that would be able to complete any task that a human can—is already a "reasonably close-ish future." Earlier this year, Altman said AGI will "change the world much less than we all think and it will change jobs much less than we all think."However, it is still uncertain how AGI will affect the world if it actually manifests. Shane Legg, chief AGI scientist at Google DeepMind, said that there's around a 50% chance that AGI will be a reality by 2028. But not everyone holds the same amount of optimism about the technology as Legg. Grady Booch, an IBM Fellow and chief scientist for software engineering, said that AGI will never happen."I, being a historian of computing, have a rather jaded and cynical view of the hyperbolic optimism of our field and as such am somewhat conditioned to be a contrarian when it comes to predictions such as this," Booch said.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

A Florida man is in critical condition after a shark attack on the east coast of the Sunshine State. Around 11:15 a.m. on Friday, the Nassau County Sheriff's Office Marine Unit responded to a distress call from a boat reporting a shark bite that caused a "critical injury." The boat was off the coast of Fernandina Beach – which is roughly 35 miles north of Jacksonville. The Nassau County Sheriff’s Office posted a video on Facebook revealing the details of the attack and how the deputy saved the man.The man was on a fishing trip and had been bitten by the shark on the boat. The man, who was said to be in his 40s, suffered a "severe" shark bite to his right forearm and had "lost a lot of blood." A Nassau County Sheriff’s Office deputy boarded the boat and applied a tourniquet to stop the heavy bleeding.The Nassau County Sheriff’s Office said the deputy piloted the boat to the Dee Dee Bartels boat ramp – where Fernandina Beach Fire Rescue was waiting. The victim was immediately airlifted to the nearby UF Health Jacksonville Medical Center. The shark attack victim is currently listed in critical condition. The man is said to have been alert and expected to recover. Sheriff Bill Leeper of the Nassau County Sheriff's Office called the deputy a "hero" for the quick-thinking assistance that he provided to the distressed victim. There had only been eight confirmed shark attacks in Nassau County since 1882, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File. Nassau County is approximately 150 miles north of Volusia County, which is considered to be the "shark bite capital of the world."There have been 351 confirmed shark attacks in Volusia County since 1882, including 17 bites in 2021. There were 16 shark attacks in the state of Florida last year, or 44% of all of the attacks in the entire United States and 23% of the worldwide total. In June, there were three swimmers who were attacked by sharks in two different incidents in the Gulf Coast of Florida. One woman had to have her arm amputated and suffered "critical injuries" to her hip in the shark attack that happened in Walton County – which is located in Florida's northwest panhandle. On the same day, two teenage girls were victims of a shark attack near Seacrest Beach, about four miles further east of the first attack. One of the girls suffered "significant injuries to the upper leg and one hand," while the other endured minor injuries on one of her feet, according to officials. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Remember this moment.

You're Paying Their Student Loans: Peer-Reviewed Paper Is Full of Nonsensical Woke Jargon

Steve Bannon: Trump Will Win Election in 'Landslide,' Calls for Justice, Not Retribution

Heritage Foundation Gears Up for Fight to Make Democrats Keep Joe Biden on the Ballot

Bad Move: Nancy Pelosi Short-Circuits While Trying to Defend Biden