Another nearby page deals with the broader topic of Media Bias in general.

Many young people get news and opinions from social media rather than television or other mass media, but social media sites engage in bias and censorship, just as TV and newspapers have for years.

Related topics:
Privacy issues on Facebook
News about Google
Habitual dependence on cell phones
Anything you have ever said can be used against you

Overview articles:

(Scroll down for timely news, or click here.)

The Left Did This to Itself.  The standard for "free speech" these days is basically:  if it offends someone it can and should be censored.  After all, feelings come first.  If it is witty, if it is offensive, if — god forbid — it is "hateful," it must go!  Scrub it from the internet!  That is the standard set by the left, set in stone by Big Tech, and consecrated by the Cultural Marxist state.  Leftists cannot have it both ways, but they do not understand that, partly because they keep driving out their more gifted members.  If you want free speech for the voices of sexual liberation, you must tolerate it for more traditional, sexually temperate voices.  If you want free speech for BLM and other pro-black activists, you have to permit speech for dissident rightists too, including white advocates.  That is, if you want to be morally and philosophically consistent.  The Left wants to have its cake and eat it too.  That just does not work long-term.  Those terrible, self-serving standards tend to boomerang back on the standard-bearers.

The Unapologetic Bias of the American Left.  [Scroll down]  In the old days of the early 21st century, Silicon Valley and other tech giants went through the motions that they were more interested in providing social media access, online buying, and internet services than massaging them all to indoctrinate the public.  Even during the Obama years, they protested vehemently suggestions that they had given campaign cash inordinately to leftist candidates, or were beginning to massage internet search results or asymmetrically blocking conservative users.  Not now.  Big Tech has offered no coherent defense of its censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, or even appeared to worry about the hypocrisy that they had gladly let Trump's illegally obtained and published tax returns fly through the cyberworld, in the manner that Christopher Steele's leaked and made-up hoax was freely promulgated online during the late critical days of the 2016 campaign.  Now Twitter, without much worry, just shrugs that it blocks even conservatives in government from posting.

Bring Free Speech Back to Social Media — Now.  One key weapon being deployed to punish conservatives is the so-called "fact check."  It's being used to censor thousands of conservatives communicating with millions of followers.  It's happened tens of thousands of times, and it's getting worse.  Facebook is one of the worst offenders.  Facebook, with 2.7 billion users, is dramatically skewed to the left in its fact-checking operation.  It now has an international "Oversight Committee" dominated by George Soros-funded entities that make a mockery of unbiased review.  Citizens wanting to rally in support of reopening the country have been banned because some public gatherings in some states are forbidden.  Antifa, however, thrives largely unchecked and unchallenged as it riots in the streets and harasses members of Congress in their homes.  Conservatives have made good-faith attempts to resolve these many conflicts, but to no avail.  Covid-19 has sent social media sites into censorship overdrive.  If you disagree with the social media prescription for the virus, you are silenced.

The Liberal War On You.  We are witnessing the death of the liberal political machine that the elite has operated since the end of World War II, and everything that it is doing to conservatives right now — the censorship, the threats, the intimidation, the violence — is proof that it is dying.  These are not the acts of an ideology in ascendance but rather of a scurrilous political paradigm in precipitous decline.  And it's only going to get worse as those losing their grip on political and cultural power desperately try to hold onto it in the face of our populist revolt.  Be prepared.  It's going to get uglier.

Our Evil Tech Overlords.  Project Veritas is the investigative organization started by James O'Keefe and helped along by the late Andrew Breitbart.  James has broken multiple dramatic stories recently, but his Google story is the most concerning yet — if only because the pervasive implications and sheer massive influence of Google.  Working undercover, the Veritas journalist exposes the Head of Responsible Innovation for Google, Jen Gennai.  Even her title is Orwellian.  Gennai decried the results of the 2016 election, and so Google decided to change their Artificial Intelligence algorithm, which determines what a reader might be interested in reading or, in the case of YouTube, watching. [...] The problem, here, is that anyone using Google believes he is receiving unbiased, automated search results based on the subject he is searching.

The Next Battlefront:  Social Media.  As of March 31, 2019, there are over 2.38 billion monthly active Facebook users (MAU) worldwide with Twitter reporting 326 million global MAU for the third quarter of 2018 and YouTube claiming 1.3 billion users.  Moreover, all are solidly left-leaning and quickly heading to the far left.  If social media were around during Lenin's time, there is no doubt that he would be focusing his efforts to propagandize that powerful platform as well. [...] In the beginning, social media in the United States were seen as the new oasis of free thought and speech, but after making a hard left turn, they are quickly painting conservative viewpoints into a corner.  The handful of leftist cyberspace dictators are forcing users to think and say only what has been deemed appropriate.  When Facebook states that it is protecting their users by preventing certain kinds of speech, in reality what they are doing is tilling the soil for future propaganda and control.

Despite Twitter's Protests, The Stifling of Conservative Speech On The Platform Is Real.  About a year ago, many of us on the political right saw impressions of our tweets drop precipitously — sometimes in the millions per month — while follower counts were increasing or remaining stagnant.  With our visibility on the platform reduced, our ability to grow our Twitter presence has flatlined completely.  Because of Twitter's importance to the political debate in America, this is no trivial matter.  Our ability to influence the debate in real-time has been squelched.  While it does not outright censor expressions of conservative views, Twitter has admitted to using a complex and opaque Quality Filter algorithm that has the effect of disproportionately restricting the voices of conservatives under the guise of limiting harmful or abusive users.  Many Twitter users refer to this throttling as a "shadowban."

Timely news and commentary:

India: Muslim YouTuber with 303,000 subscribers calls for rape and beheading.  What Nupur Sharma said was accurate, but this rage stems from the fact that she said it critically.  If she had said it was wonderful that Muhammad married a child, all would be well.

Twitter Is Just Fine With Calls to Assassinate Justice Thomas.  Shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned, a Twitter user with the handle @redfrnn, who has since deleted his or her or xis account, tweeted: "i'm going to assassinate supreme court justice Clarence Thomas."  The same Twitter user had just before that tweeted a photo of a gun, saying: "im considering buying a mac mini."  Twitter, however, did not find this murderous psychopath to be in violation of their rules, despite the fact that those rules say, "You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people."  Well, sure.  You can't threaten violence against an individual, but Clarence Thomas, he's a conservative.  And not only does Thomas dare to dissent from the Left's agenda, but he is one of the most powerful individuals in the country who is actively working against it.  So would the Twitter fascists mind if @redfrnn or someone else actually did kill him?  It's unlikely that they'd shed a tear, even for the fallen rule of law in our staggering republic.

I Got Thrown Off Etsy and PayPal for Expressing My Belief in Biological Reality.  If readers recognize my byline, it's because I've spent the last few years arguing strenuously for the (apparently controversial) positions that biological sex is real, that there are only two sexes, and that the differences between males and females matter in some policy contexts.  My views are hardly out of the mainstream.  Indeed, we are now seeing a pronounced (if belated) pushback against activists who've insisted that biological sex is some kind of transphobic mirage.  But for several years, those activists have controlled the commanding heights of many universities, NGOs, and even political parties.  This is one of the reasons why I left my career as an academic biologist in 2020:  I was tired of researching science in a subculture whose gatekeepers demanded that I repudiate basic scientific facts about human beings.

The Federal Bureau of Tweets:  Twitter Is Hiring an Alarming Number of FBI Agents.  Twitter has been on a recruitment drive of late, hiring a host of former feds and spies.  Studying a number of employment and recruitment websites, MintPress has ascertained that the social media giant has, in recent years, recruited dozens of individuals from the national security state to work in the fields of security, trust, safety and content.  Chief amongst these is the Federal Bureau of Investigations.  The FBI is generally known as a domestic security and intelligence force.  However, it has recently expanded its remit into cyberspace.  "The FBI's investigative authority is the broadest of all federal law enforcement agencies," the "About" section of its website informs readers.  "The FBI has divided its investigations into a number of programs, such as domestic and international terrorism, foreign counterintelligence [and] cyber crime," it adds.  For example, in 2019, Dawn Burton (the former director of Washington operations for Lockheed Martin) was poached from her job as senior innovation advisor to the director at the FBI to become senior director of strategy and operations for legal, public policy, trust and safety at Twitter.

Now YouTube censors House Jan. 6 committee, citing 'misinformation'.  YouTube has deleted a video of testimony from a House select committee hearing probing the Capitol riots — because the platform said the posting advanced election misinformation.  The clip, which was uploaded Tuesday by the Democrat-led Jan. 6 panel, was removed because it featured footage of then-President Donald Trump telling the Fox Business Network that the election had been stolen, the New York Times reported.  The Google-owned platform insisted that the excerpt, which also included videotaped testimony from former Attorney General William Barr, violated its terms of service.  The clip was no longer visible on the committee's website as of Friday.

Twitter Repeatedly Claims 'Error' To Disguise Deliberate Censorship Of Conservatives.  Twitter repeatedly locks the accounts of conservatives who criticize the left's narrative.  When outrage about the Big Tech company's knack for political censorship bubbles, Twitter occasionally claims it made a mistake.  This week, it happened again.  Citing an "error," Twitter reinstated the account of "Relatable" podcast host Allie Beth Stuckey on Monday night.  But that was only after it received backlash for locking the Christian conservative's account because she criticized Fox News for celebrating a California couple who forced radical transgender ideology on their 14-year-old daughter when she was an infant.  "I'm stunned that Fox News ran a segment celebrating a girl whose parents 'transitioned' her into a boy when she was 5 because she apparently told them she was a boy 'before [she] could talk.'  Absolutely maddening & heartbreaking," Stuckey's original tweet stated.

How the Media Used Russiagate Conspiracy Theories to Create a News Cartel.  In the fall of 2019, Facebook announced that it would be writing selected media outlets some very big checks.  The launch of Facebook News was billed as a way to give consumers more access to information, but it was actually an attempt at appeasing big media companies.  Facebook, with its older and more conservative user base, had become the epicenter of election conspiracies from the Clinton campaign and its media allies.  While Hillary Clinton and her associates were eager to shift the blame for her defeat by relaunching their existing Russiagate smears with false claims that Russian Facebook ads had tilted the election to Trump, the media's obsession with Facebook was even more corruptly self-interested.  About a third of Americans regularly get their news through Facebook.  The tech giant's algorithms had the ability to make or break the news media, and would go on to break the digital media empires of the Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, and others in the lefty clickbait brigade.

Biden Senior Climate and Energy Policy Advisor Demands Social Media Companies Immediately Block Content Identifying Biden Policy as Source of Energy Inflation.  As things in society start to collapse; and as people begin to really feel the inflationary consequences of the Biden energy policy in action; suddenly all of those 'talking points' about shutting down the fossil fuel industry take on a new meaning.  People didn't realize the Green New Deal was going to mean $10/doz eggs, $15/gal milk, $20 happy meals at McDonalds, or $150/tank of gasoline.  Now they are paying attention.  For former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, the current senior climate and energy policy advisor within the White House, all of these 'in your face' surfacing Green New Deal consequences have become problematic for the Biden administration.  Her proposed solution, however, is rather remarkable.  In this interview discussing the skyrocketing inflation and consequences created by the Green New Deal policies, Gina McCarthy urgently begs all of the social media companies to start removing the content from American people who are giving real world examples of the pain and economic hardship they are feeling.  McCarthy says that if social media do not start to help Joe Biden hide the pain, the climate change agenda might be at risk.  [Video clip]

YouTube is now censoring journalism for the Biden administration.  For as ugly as the worst acts of those who descended on Washington, DC, on Jan. 6, 2021, were, none could justify the chilling assault on liberty and justice that has followed in their wake.  The Ruling Class has used Jan. 6 to wage a jihad against its political opposition, including an assault on our most basic rights such as free speech.  Big Tech has reinforced the narrative that views antithetical to regime orthodoxy are dangerous and must be policed accordingly.  In the latest example, YouTube deleted a Jan. 6, 2021, interview conducted by a Post reporter with a Capitol breach participant.  In the video, Aaron Mostofsky, son of a Brooklyn Supreme Court judge, explains why he was compelled to come to the Capitol, namely "to express ... [his] opinion as a free American ... that this election was stolen."  To Google-owned YouTube, the footage contains dangerous "misinformation" — speech that it equates with harm — meriting removal.  In its removal notice, it asserts that "it's our job to make sure that YouTube is a safe place for all," arguing that "content that advances false claims that widespread fraud ... changed the outcome of the US 2020 presidential election is not allowed ..."

The Editor says...
Even if there is conflicting information on YouTube, how does that make it something other than "a safe place for all?"

Former Obama Adviser Lets Cat out of the Bag on What Dems Want to Do to Control Us.  Former White House Communications Director for the Obama administration Dan Pfeiffer appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Monday [6/6/2022] and what he said was revealing, threatening, and great — all at the same time.  Pfeiffer claimed that the people who listen to "right-wing media" were "more likely to believe conspiracy theories about vaccines, conspiracy theories about elections. [...] He put out what was the constant theme of the segment — attacking Facebook for purveying "news," which Mika laughingly said was "not where you get news."  Because how dare you not listen to mainstream outlets like hers?  That was quietly hilarious, when you think about all the conspiracy theories that Democrats and MSNBC have pushed over the last few years, with Russia collusion, paid for and spread by the DNC, with the Clinton campaign top of the list.  People on the left believe all kinds of crazy things about pee tapes and Ginni Thomas (Justice Clarence Thomas' wife) trying to "overthrow" the government (big scoop: she did no such thing) because of the crazy pushed by liberal mainstream media.  Meanwhile, while there's a lot from the mainstream against conspiracy theories on the right, there's not so much targeted at deflating the conspiracy theories that flourish on the left.

YouTube takes down video exposing U.S. involvement in 2014 Ukraine coup.  It's not hard to figure out why Congress does nothing but complain about Big Tech misbehavior and censorship:  It's obvious that the platforms are aligned with the Marxist deep state and the companies that own them with the Washington establishment.  Google-owned YouTube proved that again in recent days by removing a smoking gun video proving that the Obama regime was knee-deep in a plot to depose the duly-elected leader of Ukraine in 2014 because he did not 'align' with them or their globalist values.  "It was one of the most-watched versions of the intercepted and leaked conversation between then-Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt, the then U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, in which the two discuss who will make up the new government weeks before democratically-elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown in a violent coup on Feb. 21, 2014," Consortium News reported this week.

Shouldn't Hillary Clinton Be Banned From Twitter Now?  Last week, in the trial of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, prosecutor Andrew DeFilippis asked ex-campaign manager Robby Mook about the decision to share with a reporter a bogus story about Donald Trump and Russia's Alfa Bank.  Mook answered by giving up his onetime boss.  "I discussed it with Hillary," he said, describing his pitch to the candidate:  "Hey, you know, we have this, and we want to share it with a reporter... She agreed to that."  In a country with a functioning media system, this would have been a huge story.  Obviously this isn't Watergate, Hillary Clinton was never president, and Sussmann's trial doesn't equate to prosecutions of people like Chuck Colson or Gordon Liddy.  But as we've slowly been learning for years, a massive fraud was perpetrated on the public with Russiagate, and Mook's testimony added a substantial piece of the picture, implicating one of the country's most prominent politicians in one of the more ambitious disinformation campaigns we've seen.

Facebook, Instagram Employees 'Censor or Delete' Protests against Iran.  Former and current Facebook and Instagram employees are shedding light onto the "fact checkers" that are censoring vital content such as protests against Iran.  "According to a report by BBC Persian, these employees admitted that at all levels of the company, the Iran regime's influence has infiltrated, leaving biased and pro-regime content monitors to restrict, censor or delete posts about the current protests in Iran" reports The Foreign Desk.

Meet the Conspiracy Theorist Behind Twitter's 'Crisis Misinformation Policy'.  Twitter's pick to stop the spread of misinformation in times of crisis has a history of pushing falsehoods.  Yoel Roth, the head of Twitter's safety and integrity unit, unveiled the site's "crisis misinformation policy" on Thursday [5/19/2022].  In a blog post, Roth outlined how Twitter will place warning labels on tweets deemed to contain misinformation and prevent them from being "amplified or recommended" in times of armed conflict, natural disasters, or public health emergencies.  Roth is a questionable pick to launch the policy, given his own track record with misinformation.  Roth oversaw Twitter's decision to block the sharing of an October 2020 New York Post report on emails from Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop.  Roth told the Federal Election Commission he made the decision based on "rumors" shared by the United States government's intelligence community that the Russian government might release materials hacked from Hunter Biden.

The Editor says...
Consider for a moment that "times of armed conflict, natural disasters, or public health emergencies" includes almost 100 percent of the foreseeable future.

Social media giants brace for lawsuits thanks to Texas anti-censorship law.  Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are likely to be sued by Texans who have been restricted on the platforms thanks to a new anti-censorship law in the state.  HB 20, a Republican-backed anti-Big Tech law that stops social media companies from restricting users due to their political beliefs, was reinstated by a federal appeals court last week, paving the way for Texans to sue platforms that censor them.

Project Veritas Catches Vicious Twitter Executive Dismissing Free Speech and Mocking People with Asperger's.  It did not take Elon Musk long to react to the second explosive undercover video of Twitter executives disparaging free speech and even mocking Musk for Asperger's.  This will not end well for Mr. Alex Martinez, Lead Client Partner for Twitter advertising.  [Video clip]

Report: Facebook Fought Against Regulation by Manipulating the News.  A recent report reveals that a lobbying group funded by Facebook has been planting stories in newspapers across the United States in an effort to manipulate the media and fight big tech regulation.  A report from the Washington Post reveals that a political advocacy group called American Edge was secretly funded by Facebook (now known as Meta) and has been manipulating news narratives by placing stories in newspapers across the United States.  American Edge aimed to oppose Senate-backed antitrust legislation that attempted to reign in the Big Tech Masters of the Universe.

Undercover Project Veritas recording reveals Twitter engineer saying platform censors the right but NOT the left.  A senior engineer at Twitter has admitted the social media giant has a strong left-wing bias and they routinely censor conservatives.  Siru Murugesan was recorded saying the company culture is extremely far left where workers are 'commie as [...] ' and they 'hate, hate, hate' Elon Musk's $44 billion takeover.  In a shockingly frank conversation, filmed over several encounters, he said the firm 'does not believe in free speech' and even started to turn him left-wing when he joined.

'Twitter does not believe in free speech.'  Every conservative knows that Twitter does not believe in free speech.  However, just because one knows something, that doesn't mean it's not tremendously satisfying to hear that admission from the horse's mouth — and in this case, the horse is Siru Murugesan, a senior engineer caught on hidden camera in a Project Veritas video.  Murugesan is an interesting man because he concedes two important things:  (1) working at Twitter has turned him into a leftist because that's the mindset of the entire company, and (2) he's beginning to think Elon Musk is making sense when he says free speech is important.  Murugesan's open-mindedness may flow from the fact that he's been experiencing some cognitive dissonance.  According to Murugesan, it's unquestionable that "Twitter does not believe in free speech."  However, he hasn't quite grasped that this hostility to free speech is about power and control.

WHO director calls China's zero-COVID policy 'unsustainable' and gets censored for it.  There was a time in the early days of the pandemic when World Health Organization director Tedros Ghebreyeseus seemed to be China's best friend and chief defender.  And China in turn defended the WHO. Only belatedly did the WHO acknowledge China hadn't been as forthcoming as they had initially claimed.  But gradually the situation seems to have changed.  Last summer Tedros agreed his organization had ruled out the lab leak theory too quickly.  "I have worked in the lab, and lab accidents happen," he said as part of an effort to pressure China to provide more information about the origin of the virus.

Texas law that allows users to sue social networks for censorship is now in effect.  The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals has paused the temporary injunction on controversial law HB 20, which another court blocked from taking effect last year.  As Houston Public Media notes, the state introduced HB 20 last year after high-profile conservatives, including Donald Trump, were blocked on social media websites.  Under the law, users will be able to sue large social media platforms with more than 50 million active monthly users such as Facebook and Twitter if they believe they were banned for their political views.  HB 20 also prohibits social networks from removing or restricting content based on "the viewpoint of the user or another person."

Texas appeals court reinstates law prohibiting social media companies from banning users over political views.  A federal appeals court has reinstated a Republican-backed Texas law that prevents large social media companies from banning users over their political views.  The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel did not explain its reasoning for granting the state's request for a stay of a December order from a federal judge.  The order also did not evaluate the law on its constitutionality.  It merely allows the law to go back into effect while the case continues in the lower district court.  The decision is a win for Republicans who have accused social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter of being biased against conservatives.  A flashpoint on the issue came when Former President Donald Trump's Twitter account was permanently suspended days after he was accused of inciting the Jan. 6 riot on Capitol Hill.

Wikipedia deletes article on PA senate primary candidate who is surging toward defeating Dr. Oz.  Wikipedia, now a highly politicized propaganda outlet, apparently wants Dr. Oz to win the Pennsylvania Republican Senate nomination.  That is the logical conclusion from their decision to delete an existing article on Kathy Barnette, who has surged into second place, only 1.3% (i.e., within the margin of error) behind Dr. Mehmet Oz in the latest Trafalgar Group poll: [...] As of this writing, the only mention of Kathy Barnette is in an article on the Republican primary.

It's OK to incite violence on Twitter — as long as it's against the right.  In the wake of an unprecedented leak from the Supreme Court of a draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, national Democrats have taken to social media appearing to encourage violence.  Earlier this week, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot issued a tweet calling on "friends in the LGBTQ+ community" to recognize this moment as "a call to arms," stating in a second tweet that "we will not surrender our rights without a fight."  Multiple verified Twitter accounts, including a senior correspondent at Vox, have tweeted calls to "burn it down," referring to both the country and the Supreme Court itself.  Notably, this rhetoric is taking place on a platform that purports to ban the "glorification of violence" and that infamously issued a permanent ban against a sitting president of the United States for, according to Twitter employees, doing just that — though with far less specific and anodyne tweets.

Free Speech Failure Jack Dorsey:  Twitter Blacklisting Donald Trump Was a 'Business Decision'.  Twitter co-founder and free speech failure Jack Dorsey recently agreed with Elon Musk after the Tesla CEO said that the platform's decision to ban former President Donald Trump permanently was "morally wrong and flat out stupid."  According to Dorsey, he blacklisted Trump after making a "business decision."  Business Insider reports that Twitter founder Jack Dorsey recently agreed with Tesla CEO Elon Musk's statement that banning former President Donald Trump from Twitter was a mistake.  Musk plans to acquire Twitter for $44 billion and confirmed this week that he would reinstate Trump's account if the deal goes ahead.

Coming soon: a defamation suit against Twitter.  In Ireland.  Defamation, per Oxford Languages:  "the action of damaging the good reputation of someone; slander or libel."  In banning me from the platform for supposedly violating "our COVID-19 misinformation rules," a statement it made to multiple news outlets last year, Twitter did not merely severely damage my reputation as a journalist.  It tarred me as a menace to public health.  I am not exaggerating.

Lori Lightfoot issues a 'call to arms' against Supreme Court justices.  Chicago's incompetent Mayor Lori Lightfoot, presiding over a city devolving into violent, bloody anarchy on the streets, is encouraging violent protests at the homes of Supreme Court justices believed to be supporting a draft decision by Justice Alito overturning Roe v. Wade.  That is the logical interpretation if two tweets she issued that Twitter believes do not violate its "standards" that prohibit advocating violence:  [Tweet]

Tech Giants Are Censoring, Blacklisting and Banning Posts on the "2000 Mules" Ballot Trafficking Documentary.  The virtual premiere for the movie '2000 Mules' was held last night live from Las Vegas.  In the film, Dinesh D'Souza and True the Vote provide answers and evidence of the stolen 2020 Election.  The explosive documentary was released on Tuesday at select theaters across the nation.  The movie "2000 Mules" proves through geo-tracking and video confirmation that Democrats used ballot trafficking to steal the 2020 election from President Donald Trump.  The national conspiracy involved every battleground state.  THOUSANDS of Americans participated in the virtual premiere last night.

Missouri and Louisiana File Suit Against Biden Administration Over Collusion With Tech Giants to Suppress Free Speech.  On Thursday, the states of Missouri and Louisiana filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana against numerous Biden Administration officials and agencies alleging that they colluded with social media companies to suppress and censor free speech on several topics, including Hunter Biden's "laptop from hell" and the Wuhan lab leak theory surrounding the origins of COVID-19.

When 'Fact Checking' Fails, There's Always Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation.  The media likes to lecture Americans about the increasing threat to democracy posed by 'conspiracy theories.'  The term, historically relegated to UFOs and the JFK assassination, has picked up steam in recent years as it seems to have obtained some political usefulness.  Early examples include the Hillary Clinton private email server, spying on the Trump 2016 Presidential campaign, and the contention that Trump-Russia collusion was a product of the Clinton campaign's opposition research.  In each of these instances, dismissing allegations of wrongdoing as conspiracy theories proved more useful than trying to dispute what later turned out to be reality.  The response proved so effective for politicians and campaigns that now mainstream media and technology companies have adopted it as a key tactic to suppress politically damaging stories.  But what happens when these conspiracy theories turn out to be true?  It seems to be happening more often and consistently in one ideological direction.

The Ministry of Truth Is Real.  Things got pretty weird, pretty quickly in the wake of Elon Musk's trial balloon about buying Twitter[.] [...] The Biden administration and progressive activists (including former President Obama) sprang into action following Monday's [4/25/2022] announcement and — quite literally — began the process of defining disinformation and calling for its regulation to make sure bad speech was addressed and eliminated from the collective safe space. [...] But the Biden administration, feeble as it is, was just doing the hard job laid out for it by former president Barack Obama[,] who was just doing the job laid out for him by the Aspen Institute's disinformation commission.  Obama gave a speech at Stanford University on April 21st outlining the threats of disinformation online and how unfettered speech is a threat to democracy (Musk was already well in the throes of figuring out how to convince Twitter to sell by this point, of course).  And the former president painted a very frightening picture, indeed.  One that ultimately pointed a finger back at "companies that have come to dominate the internet generally, and social media platforms in particular."

Top Twitter lawyer who banned Trump and hid Hunter Biden laptop scandal donated $18,000 to the Democrats.  Twitter's top lawyer Vijaya Gadde is in the spotlight after Elon Musk criticized her in a string of scathing tweets, leading a former company executive to accuse the billionaire of 'bullying' and spearheading a harassment campaign.  Gadde, 47, has been a low-key Silicon Valley power player for years, and at Twitter played a key role in the contentious decisions to ban Donald Trump and suppress news articles about Hunter Biden's laptop.  After moving to the US from India with her family as a toddler, Gadde and her family faced racism as she grew up in Beaumont, Texas, where she has said her father had to seek approval from the Ku Klux Klan to sell insurance door-to-door.

The Editor says...
I lived in Beaumont at about the time Ms. Gadde was born, and her anecdote about getting permission from the KKK seems highly dubious.  The KKK kept a very low profile.  Also I don't think I ever saw a door-to-door salesman when I lived there.

YouTube Bans Video Featuring Conservative Expert on Voter Fraud.  YouTube on Tuesday [4/26/2022] removed a video of a podcast discussion of vote fraud and the 2020 election from its platform, but the participants in the discussion insist they did or said nothing wrong.  The video featured an expert from The Daily Signal's parent organization, The Heritage Foundation, and had been on YouTube for more than a year without incident before being taken down.

Amazon Targets Conservative Children's Book About Gender Identity.  Once again, Amazon has shown it's on the side of leftist activists, not free speech.  Matt Walsh, a popular conservative podcast host and writer at The Daily Wire, just released a children's book titled "Johnny the Walrus." The book, according to the description on Amazon, tells the tale of Johnny, who likes to pretend to be a dinosaur or a knight.  But one day "when the internet people find out Johnny likes to make-believe, he's forced to make a decision between the little boy he is and the things he pretends to be — and he's not allowed to change his mind," states the description.  Amazon is clearly trying to squash Walsh's book.

Biden Regime Announces Creation of "Disinformation Governance Board" Under the Authority of Homeland Security with a Lunatic in Charge.  Following Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter last week, which was a triumphant victory in the ongoing war over free speech, the Biden Regime announced the creation of a "Disinformation Governance Board" that will be tasked with silencing anything deemed to be misinformation that's related to homeland security.  And, yes.  It's just as dystopian and creepy as it sounds.  The new board will operate under the authority of the Department of Homeland security with a special focus on Russia and "irregular migration," according to the Post Millennial.

Deep State Response, Dept of Homeland Security Will Establish Disinformation Board with Obvious Agenda.  I think we are now seeing the outlines of how the Fourth Branch of Government are planning to keep control over information, specifically public discussion on Big Tech platforms, even as Elon Musk moves to open the valves of information from the social media platform Twitter.  Previously the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced a new Dept of Homeland Security priority to combat disinformation {LINK} on technology platforms including social media.  Many eyebrows were raised as the announcement appeared to be an open admission that the U.S. government was going to control information by applying labels, that would align with allies in social media, who need a legal justification for censorship and content removal.

Big Tech [has censored] criticism of Biden more than 600 times:  Study.  In a two-year time span, Big Tech censored President Joe Biden's critics 646 times.  The censored cases, including deleted social media accounts or posts and those given "warning labels" that stopped people from sharing or commenting, were counted between March 2020 and March 2022 by Free Speech America's Media Research Center.  Of the 646 cases, 140 involved the New York Post's story about Hunter Biden's laptop, with Twitter being the most aggressive censor.  The largest category of censored cases, however, included 232 posts that attempted to blast the president's behavior with women and children.

Obama Calls for More Social Media Censorship.  If someone says they are for free speech "but" — they aren't for free speech.  While giving a speech at Stanford University, former President Barack Obama lamented the rise of disinformation on social media platforms.  And while Forty-Four claims he is "pretty close to a First Amendment absolutist," he also says that doesn't apply to Twitter and Facebook[.]

Wikipedia deletes entry for Hunter Biden investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners.  Wikipedia editors removed the entry for Rosemont Seneca Partners earlier this week on the ground that it was "not notable," archived comments from its Talk Page reveal.  The deletion happened Wednesday.  The investment company co-founded by Hunter Biden has been at the heart of numerous questions surrounding his overseas business dealings.  "This organization is only mentioned in connection with its famous founders, Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz," said a Wiki editor identified only as Alex who additionally warned that "keeping it around" ran the risk of the page becoming "a magnet for conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden."  Arguments to merge the story with Hunter Biden's official wikipedia page were also overruled.

Twitter bans ads that contradict science on climate change.  Twitter says it will no longer allow advertisers on its site who deny the scientific consensus on climate change, echoing a policy already in place at Google.  "Ads shouldn't detract from important conversations about the climate crisis," the company said in a statement outlining its new policy Friday [4/22/2022].  There was no indication that the change would affect what users post on the social media site, which along with Facebook has been targeted by groups seeking to promote misleading claims about climate change.  The announcement coinciding with Earth Day came hours before the European Union agreed upon a deal requiring big tech companies to vet their sites more closely for hate speech, disinformation and other harmful content.

The Editor says...
If I raise doubts about flawed computer models, failed predictions of doom, and a wide variety of events blamed on global warming, am I making "misleading claims about climate change?"

Former 'Lie of the Year' award winner Barack Obama announces crusade to stop 'spread of disinformation'.  Barack Obama has joined the leftist establishment's efforts to maintain control over their approved narrative, announcing that the Obama Foundation will be devoting its resources to training the next generation of information monitors under the oft-invoked pretense of combating "disinformation." a term which like "democracy" has been twisted into a pretzel in true Orwellian fashion by the political left.  Fresh off of his speech at the big "Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy" conference sponsored by The Atlantic, Obama took to Twitter to announce his involvement in the new initiative, invoking the key buzz words in a pair of tweets that were met with incredulity by many who can recall the former president's tendency to play fast and loose with the truth during his eight years in the White House.

The Editor says...
On a nearby page, I have assembled a partial catalog of Barack H. Obama's lies, which should go a long way towards the disqualification of Mr. Obama as the arbiter of disinformation.

YouTube removes Tucker Carlson interview with woman who detransitioned.  Helena Kerschner began taking testosterone at the age of 18.  She was lured into the realm of trans ideology, and believing that she was not female, after delving into online fan fiction communities.  She spoke to Tucker Carlson, and when a clip of her interview was posted to YouTube, it was taken down for "violating YouTube's policy on spam, deceptive practices and scams."  The video showed a segment of a longer interview Kerschner gave to Carlson about her transition and detransition, what led her down the road of gender identity exploration and questioning, how she found her way out, and what her view on the gender industry is after her experience.  [Video clip]

Is Hunter Biden's Laptop Killing Twitter as We Know It?  [Scroll down]  Which is to say, it can be reasonably assumed that had Elon Musk been running Twitter in October of 2020 he would never have blocked the transmission of the New York Post story on Hunter's laptop because — drumroll — Musk believes that "free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy."  The reaction from Twitter employees was swift.  "I may have to rethink my employment if that actually happens" tweeted one, tellingly revealing exactly the mindset that resulted in shutting down the Post Twitter account and the Post laptop scoop. [...] The Twitter board would use a "poison pill" defense to kill the Musk bid to take the company.  And why?  For the very same reason that anonymous Twitter employee said he would want out of his Twitter job if Musk took over:  because he would be forced to stop censoring conservative speech.  And if there's anything Twitter executives, board members and employees value more than earning money for employees and shareholders it would be silencing conservative speech.

DuckDuckGo Search Engine CEO Announces Changes to Internet Search Algorithms to Promote Approved Content.  DuckDuckGo used to be the preferred search engine for those who wanted privacy on-line and unfiltered, i.e. organic, search engine responses.  Unfortunately, CEO Gabriel Weinberg is now stating he will change the algorithm to remove independent information and media outlets and will replace them with only approved MSM results.

Twitter Suspends LibsofTikTok For Featuring Liberals Talking About Themselves?  Twitter has continued its ever-widening censorship of social media this week with the suspension of the popular site, The @LibsofTikTok.  What is interesting about this latest move is that it lacks even the pretense of neutrality.  The liberal group Media Matters had targeted the site due to its use by Fox News and conservatives to run embarrassing stories for the left.  So Twitter suspended a site that entirely features liberals talking about themselves.  Twitter suspended the site for "hateful conduct."  It warned the site "You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease."  However, the site highlights liberals speaking about themselves and their values in their own voices.  There is no explanation, which is common for the company.  It simply suspended the site and told it to reform itself.

Twitter faces the 'nightmare' of being forced into free speech.  Twitter's board of directors gathered this week to sign what sounds like a suicide pact.  It unanimously voted to swallow a "poison pill" to tank the value of the social media giant's shares rather than allow billionaire Elon Musk to buy the company.  The move is one way to fend off hostile takeovers, but what is different in this case is the added source of the hostility:  Twitter and many liberals are apoplectic over Musk's call for free speech protections on the site.  Company boards have a fiduciary duty to do what is best for shareholders, which usually is measured in share values.  Twitter has long done the opposite.  It has virtually written off many conservatives — and a large portion of its prospective market — with years of arbitrary censorship of dissenting views on everything from gender identity to global warming, election fraud and the pandemic.  Most recently, Twitter suspended a group, Libs of Tik Tok, for "hateful conduct." The conduct?  Reposting what liberals have said about themselves.

One Industry Insider Suggests The U.S. Government Plays A HUGE Role In Twitter.  There aren't a lot of new insights I come across where I sit dumbfounded, but this was one of them.  A huge kudos to Sundance over at Conservative Treehouse for shedding some light on the mostly-unknown world of Big Tech.  As bad as Twitter and the entire tech oligarchy is, it would appear that the situation is worse than even imagned.  Shadow banning of conservatives isn't fair — or legal, if Twitter is indeed the new public square — but things are about to really heat up if Sundance's insights and Elon's recent actions prove meaningful.  In short, Musk either intentionally or unintentionally stumbled upon the fact that Twitter's servers might be, or probably are, owned by several world governments and almost assuredly our own.  The next time you consider the fact that the sitting President of the United States was banned, just imagine THOSE ramifications.

Big Abortion's Big Tech Allies Aim to Censor Pro-Lifers.  They Won't Win.  The future of abortion law in the U.S. hinges on the forthcoming ruling in a Supreme Court case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, but the pro-life movement must begin gearing up to fight another insidious foe — Big Tech censorship.  Organizations standing for the sanctity of life are well aware of the uphill battle they face.  The prominent anti-abortion group Live Action had its content censored online long before the docket put the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion nationwide in the crosshairs.  In 2019, social media platform Pinterest added Live Action's website to its blacklist of banned sites.  The blacklisting meant users were unable to link to Live Action's content or post it on Pinterest.

Twitter bans Bill Clinton rape accuser Juanita Broaddrick over COVID-19 vaccine tweet.  Juanita Broaddrick has been banned from Twitter after the platform flagged her most recent tweet challenging the effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccines.  Broaddrick, the former nursing administrator who accused former President Bill Clinton of raping her, provided to Fox News Digital an email from Twitter announcing the suspension of her account.  The company said her account has been locked for "violating the policy on spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19."

Twitter IS 'State-Affiliated Media'.  British politician and broadcaster George Galloway has made headlines in the U.K. with his threat to press legal action against Twitter for designating his account "Russia state-affiliated media," a label which will now show up under his name every time he posts anything on the platform.  "Dear @TwitterSupport I am not 'Russian State Affiliated media'," reads a viral tweet by Galloway.  "I work for NO Russian media.  I have 400,000 followers.  I'm the leader of a British political party and spent nearly 30 years in the British parliament.  If you do not remove this designation I will take legal action."  Galloway argues that while his broadcasts have previously been aired by Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik, because those outlets have been shut down in the U.K. by Ofcom and by European Union sanctions he can no longer be platformed by them even if he wants to.  If you accept this argument, then it looks like Twitter is essentially using the "state-affiliated media" designation as a marker of who Galloway is as a person, rather than as a marker of what he actually does.

Twitter Suspends Former U.N. Weapons Inspector for Questioning Ukrainian Government Claims of War Crimes.  A quote attributed to George Orwell states, "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act."  It appears that quote was considerably prescient as Big Tech and the U.S. intelligence apparatus collaborate to retain their narrative.  Former U.N. Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter has been suspended from Twitter for questioning the transparently sketchy circumstances around Bucha, Ukraine.  [Twitter warning]  Regardless of your position on the Ukraine -vs- Russia conflict, the larger concern is the manipulation of information in an increasingly totalitarian era.  The entire premise of democracy, speech and open debate is being undermined by the collaboration of tech platforms and the U.S. intelligence apparatus.  In this era of new "democratic norms", trust in the institutions of government has collapsed.

If Congress Doesn't Rein In Big Tech, Censors Will Eliminate The Right From Public Discourse.  Something both convoluted and disturbing happened on Twitter this week that illustrates why it's not enough for lawmakers in Washington to haul Big Tech executives before congressional committees every now and then and give them a good talking to.  Congress actually has to do something about this.  Regulating social media giants like Twitter and Facebook as common carriers, prohibiting them from censoring under the absurd pretext that speech they don't like is "harmful" or "abusive," would be a good place to start.  If that doesn't happen, Twitter will eventually ban every conservative voice and every media outlet that dares to challenge left-wing pieties about race, gender, and a host of other issues.

Tucker Carlson [was] Censored By Twitter After Agreeing With Censored Tweets.  Twitter removed a post by Tucker Carlson Tuesday after the Fox News host dared to point out that content recently banned by the social media company contained factual information.  [Tweet]  Carlson's offending post highlighted screenshots from Twitter telling satire site The Babylon Bee and conservative activist Charlie Kirk to remove tweets regarding transgender Biden HHS appointee Rachel Levine deemed "hateful conduct."

Invasion of the Fact-Checkers.  In the past five years, a cadre of fact-checkers has marched through the institutions of journalism and installed itself in the U.S. media as a privatized, quasi-governmental regulatory agency.  What's wrong with facts, you say?  Fueled by a panic over misinformation, the fact-checking industry is shifting the media's primary obligation away from pursuing the truth and toward upholding vague notions of public safety, which it gets to define.  In the course of this transformation, journalists are being turned into rent-a-cops whose job is to enforce an official consensus that is treated as a civic good by those who benefit from — and pay for — its protection.  At Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — content flagged as false or misleading gets downgraded in the platform's algorithms so fewer people will see it.  Google and Twitter have similar rules to bury posts.  In reality, America's new public-private "Ministry of Truth" mainly serves the interests of the tech platforms and Democratic Party operatives who underwrite and support the fact-checking enterprise.

Twitter is Punishing Another Account Over Rachel Levine.  On Sunday night, Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon shared over Twitter that the social media platform informed him that the account for the satirical news site "has been locked for violating the Twitter rules," when it comes to "hateful conduct."  The problematic tweet in question is from March 15, and links to a post from that same day proclaiming "The Babylon Bee's Man Of The Year Is Rachel Levine."  [Tweet]  Despite such a warning, the tweet in question is still available. [...] Levine was narrowly confirmed by the Senate last March as the assistant secretary to Health & Human Services, and was also promoted to four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, which The Washington Post predictably celebrated as the "organization's first-ever female four-star admiral."  Not only did were there celebrations about a so-called accomplishment, but those who dared to take issue were censored.

Tulsi Gabbard 'censored': Google, YouTube deem[s] Fox News interview 'inappropriate or offensive'.  Google and YouTube have declared former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be inappropriate viewing.  Ms. Gabbard posted a three-minute clip on Twitter on Wednesday evening, most of which was of an appearance by her on Fox News Channel's "The Ingraham Angle."  [Tweet]  But she labeled the clip "this is what Google/YouTube doesn't want you to say," based on the first several seconds.

Democrats, Green Activists Pressure Big Tech to Censor More Climate 'Misinformation'.  A House Democrat leading an investigation of oil industry "misinformation" blames social media companies for blocking legislation to counter climate change, even as Big Tech corporations move to demonetize and suppress debate on climate-related issues.  Google acted to demonetize "climate denial" information.  Facebook upped its fact-checking of climate-related posts, and emails obtained by watchdog groups show it targeted conservative site PragerU and independent journalist John Stossel.  Twitter promised to be a forum only for credible content on climate change.  Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., is chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee's subcommittee on the environment, which has conducted two hearings on oil "misinformation" and postponed a third.

Social Media:  The Intimidation and Enforcement Arm of the American Left.  The American left uses their dominant position in social media to manipulate the legacy media, set the agenda, browbeat the elected members of the Democrat party, and intimidate corporate America. [...] The latest example:  the unfathomable reaction by these same perfidious entities to the Parental Rights in Education bill recently passed in Florida.  The bill simply codifies the centuries-old and previously never questioned understanding that teaching and discussing gender identity and sexuality to preadolescents (in the case of the bill — children four to eight years old) is solely the prerogative of the parents, not teachers working for the state.  The left immediately dubbed the legislation as the "Don't Say Gay" bill and began an unprecedented national disinformation campaign to obfuscate about the bill and denigrate Ron De Santis and all conservatives as being bigots and opposed to all gay rights.  The initial step in this process was that committed leftists with a massive social media following put out the call to their legion of mind-numbed basement dwellers seeking meaning in their otherwise spiritually empty lives while voluntarily chaining themselves to their laptops and keyboards.  These foot soldiers then begin the campaign of tweeting and posting en masse the predetermined talking points to the media, politicians and major corporations.  Within hours, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and NBC aired stories about the "Don't Say Gay" bill and the unconscionable bigotry of Ron De Santis and all conservatives.

Google Attacks Us For Reporting On Our Own Poll — Calls It 'Harmful lnformation'.  The other day we received a notice from Google's AdSense ad network that one of our articles violated its policies and, as a result, they wouldn't allow any of their network's ads to appear on that article until we "fixed" the violation.  What was the violation?  According to Google, the article contained "unreliable and harmful information."  What does that mean?  Dig deeper and here's how Google describes this particular violation:  "We do not allow content that:
  •   makes claims that are demonstrably false and could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process.
  •   promotes harmful health claims or relates to a current, major health crisis and contradicts authoritative scientific consensus.
  •   contradicts authoritative scientific consensus on climate change."
Previously, we noted in this space that Google had stripped ads from two of our editorials about global warming, and we pointed out that this was likely part of a new post-COVID censorship campaign by the left.

Google Ministry of Information Announces Zero Tolerance Policy Against Any Information That Does Not Support NATO War Against Russia.  Comrade citizens, after success with the Ministry of Information controlling efforts surrounding the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and public health vaccinations, The Division of Correct Thinking has announced they will also not tolerate any information against their war efforts in Ukraine.  [Tweet]  All good global citizens will appreciate the Ministry's effort to protect you from bad Russian influences.  Only the approved truth must remain visible to combat any Russian efforts to influence our thinking.  The only horrors approved for review must be approved by the compliance division within the Google Ministry of Information.

President Trump Weighs In On His Interview With Nelk Boys that Was Deleted From Youtube after 5 Million Views.  President Trump appeared on the Full Send podcast with the Nelk Boys, who are extremely popular social media influencers with 7 million subscribers and 1.15 billion views.  YouTube deleted the video after receiving over 5 million views because it violated their community guidelines.  [Tweet]  Some clips were shared on Twitter after Youtube canceled the interview.

Researchers Working On Algorithm To Diagnose You With Mental Illness Based On Internet Posts.  Researchers at liberal Dartmouth College have created an artificial intelligence model that identifies mental illnesses based on Reddit discussions, the college announced.  Critics of the AI modelling claim its another step on the path to introducing a social credit score, like China, in which citizens are controlled.  Others claim the AI model will pave the way for citizens and internet users to be imprisoned in "cyber Gulags" for daring to disagree with mainstream media narratives.

Twitter suffers a devastating 9th Circuit defeat.  In January 2021, after the lil bird kicked off Donald Trump, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton said he would investigate Twitter's "content moderation" (aka censorship) policies.  Twitter didn't like this idea.  So it went running to its home courts in California to try to get them to quash Paxton's investigation before his office had tried to enforce a single subpoena.  Because First Amendment, which Twitter appeared to think protects it from any and all legal and governmental scrutiny.  Things have not gone as planned for the lil bird.  On Wednesday [3/2/2022], following some back-and-forth, three 9th Circuit judges blew Twitter out of the water.  They found that Twitter's effort to block the investigation was not "ripe," because Texas hadn't actually gone to court to enforce its requests.  By itself, that portion of the ruling was more procedural than substantive.  But the judges didn't stop there.

The Tyranny of Big Tik:  Social Media Giant Outlaws Anti-Government Wrongthink.  TikTok is owned by China-based tech company ByteDance.  As you might've heard, the People's Republic isn't known for its adoration of insolence toward authority.  Apropos of such an absence of amore, the platform's new prohibitions strive to stamp out "Harmful Misinformation."  "Misinformation is defined as content that is inaccurate or false," the update explains.  "We will remove misinformation that causes significant harm to individuals, our community, or the larger public regardless of intent."  What constitutes "significant harm"? [...] Users aren't anymore allowed to engage in the following:  ["]The undermining of public trust in civic institutions and processes such as governments, elections, and scientific bodies["]

The surgeon general calls on Big Tech to turn over Covid-19 misinformation data.  President Biden's surgeon general on Thursday [3/3/2022] formally requested that the major tech platforms submit information about the scale of Covid-19 misinformation on social networks, search engines, crowdsourced platforms, e-commerce platforms and instant messaging systems.  A request for information from the surgeon general's office demanded that tech platforms send data and analysis on the prevalence of Covid-19 misinformation on their sites, starting with common examples of vaccine misinformation documented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  The notice asks the companies to submit "exactly how many users saw or may have been exposed to instances of Covid-19 misinformation," as well as aggregate data on demographics that may have been disproportionately exposed to or affected by the misinformation.

Twitter suspends John Solomon's account for story on peer-reviewed COVID study.  Twitter on Thursday [3/3/2022] suspended the account of Just the News CEO and Editor John Solomon for tweeting a story about a peer-reviewed study on COVID vaccines published in a respected medical journal by a research university that has worked with the both National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization.  The platform claimed the story was "violating the policy on spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19" even though the story quoted federal agencies' context for the issue raised by the story.

Rep. Vicky Hartzler's account locked for tweet criticizing transgender athletes in women's sports.  Rep. Vicky Hartzler, Missouri Republican, was locked out of her Senate campaign account for a tweet declaring that "men pretending to be women" don't belong in female sports.  Hartzler campaign manager Michael Hafner posted a shot Monday of the Twitter message saying that his boss' account had been "locked for violating the Twitter Rules," specifically for violating prohibitions on "hateful conduct."  Her tweet said:  "Women's Sports are for Women, not men pretending to be women."

Pfizer is Funding Facebook's Fact-Checking Partner.  Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. is sponsoring journalism training programs utilized by Facebook to train its "fact-checking" partners and censor stories and posts critical of COVID-19 vaccines.  The International Center For Journalists (ICFJ) — itself funded by the Open Society Foundations amongst others — is partnered with Meta, Facebook's parent company, on its "Journalism Project" initiative.  In turn, Facebook relies on the journalists funded and trained by ICFJ to "combat misinformation" on its platform through its controversial fact-checking operation.  Together, Facebook and the ICFJ have funded news outlets based in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East with a focus on COVID-19 reporting.  Facebook's fact-checking partner ICFJ, however, also receives financial backing from Pfizer, with its recently announced 2022 Arthur F. Burns Fellowship — named after a former Federal Reserve chairman — lists the pharmaceutical giant as one of the program's sponsors.

Twitter Says It Accidentally Removed Ukrainian Accounts Tracking Russian Troop Movements.  Twitter admitted Wednesday [2/23/2022] it had accidentally suspended several accounts from Ukraine and elsewhere that were reporting on Russian troop movements and military operations.  "We've been proactively monitoring for emerging narratives that are violative of our policies, and, in this instance, we took enforcement action on a number of accounts in error," a Twitter spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.  "We're expeditiously reviewing these actions and have already proactively reinstated access to a number of affected accounts."  Many of the suspended accounts were using satellite imagery to track Russian military operations near Russia's border with Ukraine, according NBC News, which first reported the accounts' suspensions.

The Editor says...
Twitter seems to do a lot of things "accidentally," and the "accidents" always favor the same types of people.

Facebook is Removing News Articles Exposing Hillary Clinton Spied on Trump, Including Sitting US Senators Posts About It.  In yet another example of how bad Facebook has become in regards to censorship, get this!  After years of allowing the mainstream media to flat out lie about Trump over and over again, now they're censoring an actual investigation that exposed it was actually Hillary Clinton colluding with foreign powers to spy on Trump.  So, a tech company is now dictating what is truth and what is lies.  [Video clip]

YouTube CEO Thinks It Would Be Awesome for Government to Censor Free Speech so She Doesn't Have To.  In August 2021, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) sent a letter to YouTube Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Susan Wojcicki raising concerns about YouTube's then-latest censorship of religious and politically conservative speech.  Specifically, Rubio questioned three incidents and demanded that the Google-owned company clarify how each incident resulted in a violation of YouTube's community guidelines.  In the letter, Rubio questioned a "series of actions by YouTube to censor or otherwise restrict the speech of its users, particularly ... a pattern of apparent political and religious bias on YouTube's part."

The 2010 Essay that Explains What the Woke Want.  By the time this is published, one of two things will be true:  Joe Rogan will be a martyr to woke cancel culture and the machinations of Leftist PR machines, or he will have survived one of the most sustained attacks ever experienced by a public figure and possibly revealed that wokeness itself has become a paper tiger.  One way or another, the episode has revealed a waning power in the cancel-happy Left, though Rogan's removal from Spotify would most assuredly show that they still have claws.  But it is telling that simply screaming about "misinformation" was not enough to silence a figure of Rogan's stature:  racial blackmail had to be employed, and even that got pushback from the leaders of Spotify, though whether that pushback was enough remains to be seen.

The 'Cancel Joe Rogan' Campaign Enters Its Third Phase — Courtesy of CNN's Jan. 6 Obsession.  First, they tried accusing him of spreading "misinformation" about the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccinations.  Then, they dredged up old footage showing him using the N-word and pretended to be offended, calling him a racist.  Now, the effort to cancel comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan has entered its third phase, and it's even more ludicrous than the first two.  Now, they are bringing out one of their favorite ploys, using the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol to smear the podcaster in a desperate attempt to compel Spotify to stop hosting his podcast.  In a lengthy op-ed, CNN Enterprise writer/producer John Blake laid out his case for arguing that Rogan's use of the n-word was somehow as deadly to American society as the U.S. Capitol riots.

Letter from Facebook Jail.  On Sunday, I posted a humorous one-stanza poem by Hilaire Belloc, the great English author and member of Parliament.  The title is "Epitaph on the Politician Himself," and it describes how sad the author is at seeing a corrupt politician die of natural causes, when he clearly should have been hanged after conviction for corruption.  A friend asked for clarification on its meaning — not unusual with poetry — and I answered the question.  Within seconds my account was restricted, and I received the all-too-familiar notice of a 30-day suspension from the megalomaniacs of Menlo Park.  There wasn't time for someone to report it, or for a human being to review it.  This was an act of Facebook's famous Artificial Intelligence, known to its users as the Algorithm, or the Bot, or Blinky's Minions.  The system registered a reference to hanging and shut down the user who posted it.  Immediately.  There was no recognition that this was a literary discussion, analyzing a century-old poem by an English parliamentarian.

I am not sorry and I do not care.  If I see one more hostage video of someone offering up a sniveling, groveling apology for something he said or did years ago that was taken out of context, I am going to vomit.  The latest was Joe Rogan.  Now hear this Mr. Rogan and everyone else.  Stop apologizing.  The Marxists don't want your apology; they want you gone.  If you don't play into this stupid game, they will move on.  If everyone takes the 1985 Madonna attitude, cancel culture will be canceled.  This episode isn't about what Rogan said; this is about Rogan having millions of subscribers, while the legacy media has no ratings.  Since the legacy media is the propaganda arm of the Marxist party, they can't have that — especially if Rogan has people on his show who don't agree with Pravda/CCP approved narrative.  That's what this is all about.

Why The Joe Rogan-Spotify Fight Will Define Free Speech For Us All.  Remind us again what it was that Joe Rogan said that got the left so apoplectic.  Did he spew hate speech?  Call for an insurrection?  Say mean things about a protected minority?  No?  The left wanted him canceled because he supposedly aired misinformation about COVID?  Are you kidding?  If this is the new standard for censorship, you can kiss free speech goodbye.  After all, anything can be labeled "misinformation."  Would you dare to say climate change hysteria is unfounded?  Or government-provided daycare is a bad idea?  Or Joe Biden's massive welfare expansion is a bad idea?  Election fraud is real? [...] What information did Rogan spread about COVID that has so alarmed the left?  That masks are ineffective?  That all we needed was a 15-day lockdown to "slow the spread"?  That there was no way the virus resulted from Chinese lab experiments?  That schools had to be shut down?  That this was a "pandemic of the unvaccinated"?  Oh, wait, those were all uttered by people like Anthony Fauci.

Lessons to learn from Joe Rogan's apology spree.  Rogan has been a target for quite some time for deviating from the group think.  Back in 2019, Rogan had caused controversy by stating the obvious about Biden's rapidly declining cognitive abilities.  Last October, Rogan has exposed CNN for misrepresenting alternative COVID treatment.  Rogan is a liberal who supports Bernie Sanders and Michelle Obama.  But the micro-mob wants total surrender.  They think the recent controversies will enable them to force Rogan out forever, labelling him a racist and anti-vaxxer whacko and damaging him to an extent that no other platform will accept him.  The goal is also to make an example out of Rogan and to deter other aspiring rebels.

NY Doctor Proved Everyone Wrong About Hydroxychloroquine.  Many doctors around the world started using the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) early on in the COVID-19 pandemic.  Among them is Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, a practicing physician in a Jewish community in Monroe, New York.  He garnered national attention in March 2020 when he told radio host Sean Hannity that he'd had a near-100% success rate treating COVID-19 patients with HCQ, azithromycin and zinc sulfate for five days.  "I've seen remarkable results; it really prevents progression of disease, and patients get better," he said at the time.  In response, county health officials said Zelenko's claims were "unsubstantiated" and urged residents to listen to public health officials.  In this interview, he explains how HCQ works against COVID-19, and discusses the lies spun about the drug to suppress its widespread use.  Zelenko had a very active Twitter account and would get millions of views on his tweets, and like many other truth tellers in this crazy pandemic, he was censored and recently removed from Twitter.  [Video clip]

Elon Musk slams GoFundMe for bowing to Trudeau and Canceling Freedom Truckers, while allowing BLM donations.  Tesla CEO Elon Musk accused GoFundMe of hypocrisy after the company canceled the Freedom Convoy fundraiser on Friday after it actively supported a campaign for the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest in Seattle.  The crowdfunding platform claimed the convoy fundraiser — which raised $10 million Canadian dollars ($8 million USD) in support of truckers protesting against COVID-19 vaccine mandates — violated its terms of service 'which prohibits the promotion of violence and harassment.'  GoFundMe plans to distribute the remaining $9 million of donated funds to 'credible and established charities' that were reportedly chosen by the convoy organizers and have been verified by the platform.

The censoring of Joe Rogan is a tactic right out of old Soviet Union.  Make no mistake, the recent Joe Rogan vs.  Spotify scandal is not about COVID and what constitutes proper medical protocols to fight it.  It's about the future of free speech in America.  White House press secretary Jen Psaki's statement on Tuesday, directing Big Tech and Spotify to do "more" to eradicate alleged COVID "misinformation" on the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast, suggests that the future of the First Amendment is bleak.  A representative of a ruling party dictating to a private company what content is "accurate" and what is not, is a clear sign that the US government has embraced censorship.  Just like the Soviets, the benevolent authoritarians want to "protect" you from the bad influence of the Rogan type "rogues." Consider that the Rogan interview deemed wrongheaded by America's elites was not with some charlatan but with a medical doctor, a clinician, Dr. Robert Malone.  Malone's thought crime is that he doesn't sing in unison with the "The Science" espoused by Tony Fauci, who has been stood up as the COVID Minister of Propaganda whose every word must be accepted as truth.

Jim Banks finally speaks out regarding Twitter transgender censorship.  A top Republican who was censored and temporarily suspended by Twitter for controversial statements about a transgender government official said the platform dealt with him in a contradictory manner and unfairly targeted him as a conservative.  Republican Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana had his official Twitter account temporarily suspended for a few weeks in October for allegedly misgendering Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, who is a transgender woman.  According to a screenshot posted of the censored tweet, Banks said, "The title of first female four-star officer gets taken by a man," a reference to Levine, whom the Biden administration touted as the nation's first openly transgender and first female four-star officer in the uniformed services late last year.  Levine, who was born and identified as a male until age 54, transitioned in 2011.

The Editor says...
It is impossible to "transition" from a man to a woman or vice versa.  The DNA in every cell in your body shows you're male or you're female — permanently.

American Truckers Organizing Freedom Convoy to DC but Here Come the Censors.  The Freedom Convoy that made it across Canada from Vancouver to Ottawa is now occupying the streets in front of Parliament and is being supported by people in their efforts against vaccine mandates. [...] American truckers are now trying to follow in the footsteps of their Northern brethren — organizing a similar convoy from California to Washington, D.C., to stand against government overreach.  But Facebook is trying to stop them, removing the page from which they were organizing the effort.  Facebook claimed that the page was violating policies around QAnon.  Just as there was an effort to smear the Canadian effort by Justin Trudeau and some in liberal media, even claiming it was somehow associated with Russia, it looks like they're going after the U.S. effort.

Medical journal hints at Facebook lawsuit for throttling investigation of COVID vaccine trial.  The fact-checking industry, empowered by the vast resources of social media giants, is under sustained scrutiny amid a possible legal battle among the British Medical Journal, Facebook owner Meta and a contractor it pays to flag purported COVID-19 misinformation.  Facebook stopped some readers from sharing a BMJ investigation of "data integrity" issues in a Pfizer COVID vaccine trial, BMJ editors wrote in an open letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in November.  It also slapped "missing context" labels on posts that went through, warning users they could be penalized for sharing the article.  Contractor Lead Stories seemed more interested, however, in promoting guilt by association and policing political views than checking the facts, the journal's editors wrote in a blistering New Statesman op-ed last week.

US truckers slam Facebook for removing page organizing DC freedom convoy.  American truckers are following Canada's lead and organizing a protest against vaccine mandates.  The U.S. group's Facebook page, however, was removed early Wednesday in a move that the organizer called "censorship at its finest."  The group, titled "Convoy to D.C. 2022," acted as a place for truckers to plan and coordinate their trek from California to Washington, D.C.  Jeremy Johnson, who set up the Facebook group, said his personal account was also removed, prompting him to contact a civil rights attorney to discuss the next steps.  "They like to silence people that speak the truth," Johnson said of his Facebook ban.

Joe Rogan Makes the Left Look Even Worse With His Reply on Spotify Controversy.  We previously reported how Spotify had weighed in on the controversy being pushed by the left about Joe Rogan.  While they said that they were now going to be putting a content label on any discussions involving COVID, they also made it clear without even mentioning him that they weren't getting rid of Rogan, despite the push from the left.  Now Rogan has also weighed in and he showed exactly why more people are listening to his show than media like CNN.  He's humble, he's looking for the truth, and he's real.  He's not pushing a narrative.  Unlike the media that would like to do him in.

Joe Rogan apologizes to Spotify and musicians amid boycott over his podcast.  Podcaster Joe Rogan has apologized to Spotify, while also addressing the controversy around his podcast.  Musicians Neil Young and Joni Mitchell recently boycotted the service for continuing to host "The Joe Rogan Experience," which has been accused by medical professionals of spreading Covid misinformation.  Both musicians have since pulled their music libraries from Spotify.  "I want to thank Spotify for being so supportive during this time and I'm very sorry that this is happening to them and that they're taking so much heat from it," Rogan said Sunday.  He also apologized to Young and Mitchell.

Talk Show Host Bongino Permanently Banned From YouTube.  Conservative talk show host Dan Bongino had both of his YouTube accounts permanently banned Wednesday, a YouTube spokesperson confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation.  Bongino's second channel, the Dan Bongino Show Clips, was initially suspended and demonetized for seven days after Bongino posted a video in which he said masks were "useless" in stopping the spread of the coronavirus, violating YouTube's COVID-19 misinformation policy.  Bongino then attempted to upload a video within the seven-day suspension period on his main channel, resulting in a permanent ban for both accounts, a YouTube spokesperson confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation. [...] Bongino will not be able to create a new YouTube account in the future, the spokesperson said.

Elizabeth Warren may face consequences for practicing censorship.  Elizabeth Warren, a mediocre law professor who parlayed a fake Native American identity into a gig at Harvard and a seat in the United States Senate, thought that, once in government, she'd try her hand at censorship.  When Joseph Mercola and Ronnie Cummins wrote a book about COVID with which Warren disagreed, she used her position as a Senator to try to get Amazon to censor the book. [...] [O]n September 7, 2021, writing in her capacity as a United States Senator, on official Senate letterhead, Warren sent a very long letter to Andy Jassy, Amazon's CEO, expressing her concern that Amazon itself was publishing misinformation by allowing Mercola's and Cummins's book, The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing the Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal, to appear on its bestseller list and daring to give it a favorable ranking.  After waffling on for pages several pages, and mendaciously claiming the book was "potentially unlawful," Warren "asked" Amazon to modify the algorithms to destroy the book's ranking.  Chelsea Green responded in November by suing Warren for violating the First Amendment, although news of that filing only reached the media recently.

Amazon and Facebook spent more money than ever lobbying in 2021.  Amazon and Facebook parent company Meta spent more money in 2021 lobbying lawmakers and officials than any year before, according to lobbying disclosure filings.  Amazon spent $20.3 million on lobbying while Meta spent $20.1 million in 2021, according to a review of lobbying disclosure filings by MarketWatch.  The figures are record totals for both tech companies, who spent $18.9 million and $19.7 million on lobbying in 2020, respectively.  Google's lobbying spend for 2021 clocked in at $11.5 million, while Microsoft spent $10.3 million and Apple spent $6.5 million, according to MarketWatch's review.  The high totals come amid increasing government scrutiny of the tech industry as regulators and lawmakers alike look to crack down on the companies' perceived anti-competitive behavior, as well as target social media "misinformation," hate speech and online censorship.

YouTube: Pastor MacArthur's Sermon is 'Hate Speech'.  A sermon delivered by Pastor John MacArthur has been labeled "hate speech" by YouTube.  MacArthur is pastor of Grace Community Church.  His sermons are broadcast on hundreds of radio stations around the nation.  He is a best-selling author and a beloved member of the evangelical community.  Pastor MacArthur delivered a message Sunday about Biblical sexuality — part of a nationwide campaign to draw attention to Canadian legislation that would silence pastors on LGBT issues.

The Murdering Of Free Speech In America.  Nearly a year ago, [Glenn] Greenwald wrote in his Substack newsletter that "in their zeal for control over online speech, House Democrats are getting closer and closer to the constitutional line, if they have not already crossed it."  He was referring to "the third time in less than five months" that lawmakers had "summoned the CEOs of social media companies to appear before them, with the explicit intent to pressure and coerce them to censor more content from their platforms."  A few months later, the Biden administration "announced that government officials are working directly with Facebook to limit the spread of 'misinformation.'"  White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki admitted that "we're flagging problematic posts for Facebook."  Then there is Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the Democrat from Connecticut who has demanded, says George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, "that Big Tech companies commit to even more 'robust content modification,'" which is "an Orwellian term for censorship."

Dan Bongino Responds to YouTube After They Suspend His Channel.  Today [1/14/2022], YouTube suspended and demonetized the channel of conservative firebrand Dan Bongino.  According to Bongino's response to the YouTube representative handling the case, which we'll cover in a moment, his channel was nuked for questioning the efficacy of masks.  That seems especially egregious given the overwhelming amount of evidence that masks have been largely ineffective in suppressing the spread of COVID-19 in communities across the globe.  Further, even many coronavirus hawks are now admitting they simply aren't a solution against Omicron, though, various compilations of real-world data never really showed them to be effective prior either.

Google demonetizes meteorologist and researcher Roy Spencer.  The website DrRoySpencer.com has been demonetized by Google, its owner, climatologist and former NASA scientist Dr. Roy Spencer, announced in a blog post.  According to Spencer — who is considered a climate change skeptic but has rejected the label of being a "climate denier" — Google has cut his website off from Adsense for allegedly spreading unreliable and harmful claims.  Spencer notes that revenue he is now losing was low, but other aspects of this decision concern him more, although the scientist doesn't plan on appealing for the time being, believing that it would be an uphill struggle against what he calls "liberal arts educated fact checkers" — and Google's announced policy to stomp out content it labels as skeptical of the climate change theory.

Twitter Allows Iranian Threats To Assassinate Former President Trump.  Twitter is allowing official Iranian government accounts to issue death threats against former president Donald Trump and other Trump administration officials.  Twitter's refusal to remove these ongoing threats is renewing congressional scrutiny on the social media platform.  Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the regime's paramilitary fighting force that engages in terrorism and assassination plots, tweeted during the weekend that it will take revenge for the death of terror mastermind Qassem Soleimani, who two years ago was killed in Iraq in a drone strike ordered by Trump.

One Year Ago, Big Tech Declared Open War On America.  Here's What's Next.  President Donald Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter one year ago this day.  In the ensuing turmoil, it's easy to forget why.  Ask near-any self-declared politico around Washington, D.C., and you'll hear an unsure and uncertain allusion to the Capitol riot.  It's important to understand their reasons, however, to understand what's in store for the rest of our country.  Fortunately, we don't need to wonder; Twitter was open and upfront on the issue — at least as much as they ever are:  The sitting president of the United States, they declared, had sent two terrible and unpardonable tweets.

Naomi Wolf: The Hysteria Is Not Genuine, It's A Strategy.  Author Naomi Wolf has been an outspoken critic of vaccine mandates and Covid tyranny from the start.  Today, she talks to Steve Bannon about her belief that the left's "hysteria" about Covid is actually a well-planned campaign to oppress the people.  "They are starting with a purge of conservatives, but what they are doing is keeping us down home, not allowing us to congregate, not allowing us to hear each other... herding us like horses on to social media and then saying we're going to police what you can say on social media...  We can't say anything about vaccines.  The vaccines are a Trojan horse.  The vaccines are a proxy.  You criminalize speech around vaccines.  You clear away dissent and clear away freedom of speech, and that's the last pillar that protects us."

Facebook Censors Pro-American Children's Books as 'Disruptive Content'.  Writer, commentator, and editor Bethany Mandel only wanted to provide alternatives to the woke books being provided to children in school.  So she was shocked when Facebook took down her page advertising such alternatives due to "disruptive content."  "There was no warning," Mandel says of Facebook's action.  "They told us that our ads were low quality or disruptive content, but they never actually defined what about them was low quality and disruptive content. ... This is a wholesome new children's book [series] that you can buy for your children for Christmas.  It couldn't have gotten less dangerous and more innocuous than our ads.  We're literally just selling children's books."

Big Tech Needs to Be Broken Up.  Unfortunately, a concept so basic as the right to speak your mind is now under siege.  Big Tech monopolies like Twitter and Facebook have become arbiters of what they feel is permitted speech, taking your right to self-expression into their own hands — and promptly crushing it.  Big Tech companies have worked hard over the past several years to enlarge their power and influence over how we live our lives, and we have finally reached a breaking point.  They have carefully cultivated a monopoly on online speech, establishing too-big-to-fail echo chambers that reinforce leftist concepts and punish dissenting patriots, canceling them and banishing them from the internet.  Not only have these companies hijacked the First Amendment by establishing and exercising their new-found power to abuse dissenters, but they have now also launched an all-out assault on the conditions of informed opinions.  They do not want the American people to consider different perspectives and arrive at their own conclusions about medical care.

Twitter Suspends Matt Walsh Over Transgender Tweets.  Twitter suspended Daily Wire podcast host Matt Walsh Friday for his posts that counter-argued the gender identity of transgender people.  The platform suspended Walsh for 12 hours for tweets containing statements refuting transgenderism by pointing to biological facts rather than "gender identity."  The suspension could be extended if the censored tweets are not removed from the podcast host's account.  "The greatest female Jeopardy champion of all time is a man," Walsh said in a Dec. 30 tweet, according to the Daily Wire.  "The top female college swimmer is a man.  The first female four star admiral in the Public Health Service is a man.  Men have dominated female high school track and the female MMA circuit.  The patriarchy wins in the end."  "I am not referring to an individual person as if she is two people," a separate tweet stated.  "Everyone else can run around sounding like maniacs if they want but I will not be participating.  No thank you."

Big Tech Censors mRNA Pioneer Over Vaccine Safety.  Dr. [Robert] Malone is a world-renowned molecular biologist who, in 1987 as a graduate student at the Salk Institute, mixed strands of RNA with droplets of fat and found that the substance induced human cells to begin producing proteins.  Malone wrote at the time that it might be possible to "treat RNA as a drug."  Malone's pioneering work and that of other scientists ultimately led to the development of mRNA vaccines used against COVID-19.  Malone has raised concerns about possible adverse events associated with these vaccines.  He has been critical of the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the pharmaceutical industry, claiming that they are not honestly communicating these risks to the public.  He also has faulted his fellow scientists, the news media, and others who, he believes, have marginalized scientists who have raised these concerns.

John Ondrasik Catches YouTube's Hand in the Liberal Cookie Jar.  As detailed here a few days ago, musician John Ondrasik, who usually records under the Five for Fighting moniker, released a video earlier this month of him performing his song "Blood on My Hands" while standing within sight of the White House.  He placed the video on Twitter and YouTube.  Given how the song excoriates the Biden Administration for its utterly incompetent handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal, one expected pushback.  On Friday, the expectation was met when YouTube briefly pulled the video, returning it to the site only after Ondrasik made a pointed complaint to YouTube.

All of Facebook's "errors" benefit the same people.
Facebook lifts ban on conservative children's publisher Heroes of Liberty, blames 'error'.  Facebook did an about-face after banning the account of Heroes of Liberty, a conservative children's book publisher whose works include biographies of Ronald Reagan, Thomas Sowell and Amy Coney Barrett.  Andy Stone, spokesperson for Meta, which owns Facebook, tweeted Monday that the decision last month to disable permanently the publisher's account was a mistake.  "This should not have happened.  It was an error and the ad account's been restored," Mr. Stone said.  His tweet came in response to a post from Fox senior political analyst Brit Hume, who called the ban "sickening."  Mr. Hume and others rallied to Heroes of Liberty's defense after editor and board member Bethany Mandel said that Facebook had shut down the newly launched publishing house's advertising account over the "disruptive content" of its ads.

Police State?  Genocide?  Could It Happen Here?  There are many examples in recent years of individuals losing their jobs, having their businesses boycotted, and getting their social media accounts cancelled or suspended because they promoted conservative ideas, supported Biblical standards, or refused to bow down to the demands of the woke culture.  The dehumanization process of conservatives and traditional Christians as "others" and "enemies" is rapidly increasing.  The more it continues to happen, the more many in the media insist that it isn't happening.  A friend of mine recently stated that this can't go on much longer, that millions of Americans are going to stand up against the cancel culture, censorship, and the marginalization of traditional values.  I nodded my head when she said it, but I don't think I really believed it.  When you have a society that is already in the process of banning words, burning Bibles, and allowing four-year-olds to choose their gender, you have a society that has pretty much already jumped the shark.  When you have millions who have sunk so far down the rabbit hole that they actually believe this is "progress," you realize Rome has been burning for a while now.

When Government Uses The Private Sector As Agents Of Censorship.  Over the weekend, Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene got the Donald Trump treatment from Twitter:  The social media platform permanently banned her personal account.  If this were simply a private group deciding who can and can't participate in its forums, then there's no problem.  That would be Twitter's right.  But we know Democrats are using private companies to censor speech they don't like, and any discussion that threatens their plans to accumulate ever more political power. [...] Twitter booted Greene due to her "repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy," which is another way to say she's tweeting messages contrary to the narrative constructed by the Faucists:  There is no solution to the pandemic outside of vaccines, lockdowns, and masks.  Twitter, which regularly sends users to "Twitter jail" when their tweets challenge and offend left-wing orthodoxy, permanently banned Trump a year ago "due to the risk of further incitement of violence."  It has also permanently suspended a Newsmax reporter "for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy," which means his tweets didn't meet the Twitter mob's demand for conformity.  Dr. Robert Malone, an mRNA vaccine researcher, has also been suspended from Twitter.  The official word is he disobeyed the platform's COVID-19 misinformation policy — he said something the Twitter hall monitors didn't like.

Trump Responds to Marjorie Taylor Greene Ban: 'Twitter is a Disgrace to Democracy'.  Former President Donald Trump responded to Twitter banning Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene by calling the platform a "disgrace to democracy."  Trump himself was banned from the social media platform nearly one year ago.  "Twitter is a disgrace to democracy.  They shouldn't be allowed to do business in this Country," Trump asserted.  The statement continued, "Marjorie Taylor Greene has a huge constituency of honest, patriotic, hard-working people.  They don't deserve what's happened to them on places like low-life Twitter and Facebook."

Did banned mRNA vax inventor Robert W. Malone M.D. just break the Google algorithm?  Did the Twitter punks who banned mRNA vaccine inventor and bona fide vaccine expert Robert W. Malone, M.D. just set off the Mother of all Backfires?  Kind of looks like it, now that they've drawn so much public interest to the man that they've apparently broken the Google algorithm for censoring stories about him. [...] Although Malone is a giant in his field and hard to discredit the way they can do with assorted pipsqueaks out there, somehow they think they need to silence the man.  On Google, they've tried to paint him as a nut, a conspiracy theorist, a vaccine skeptic, a Nazi, based on the search results they tried to throw up.  But the truth got out anyway, and their manipulated algorithms have been exposed, discrediting them, and in any case, not working.

Twitter just permanently banned Marjorie Taylor Greene.  The megalomaniacs at Twitter are at it again!  This time they've vaporized firebrand Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene:  [Tweet]  A Twitter spokesperson said they banhammered her for "Covid misinformation".

Twitter Bans Marjorie Taylor Greene's Personal Account over Covid Remarks.  Twitter permanently closed Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R., Ga.) personal account on Sunday over repeated violations of the company's Covid misinformation policy, a company spokesperson told CNN.  The congresswoman's official account, @RepMTG, remains functional.  It wasn't immediately clear what comments on the personal account prompted the suspension.  "We permanently suspended [Greene's personal account] for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy," the spokesperson said.  "We've been clear that, per our strike system for this policy, we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations of the policy."

Marjorie Taylor Greene permanently BANNED from Twitter.  Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was permanently suspended from Twitter on January 2 over alleged "misinformation" regarding COVID-19 vaccines.  Greene's personal account was suspended, while her professional account remains.  Twitter said that the suspension was enacted after "repeated violations" of their policies. [...] Greene responded to the ban on her Gettr account.  She wrote that "When Maxine Waters can go to the streets and threaten violence on Twitter," which she did, telling supporters to go harass Trump supporters wherever they saw them and to "get in their face."  "Kamala and Ilhan can bail out rioters on Twitter," which they did, touting their contributions to bail funds that set out to free BLM and Antifa rioters from jail during the summer of 2020.  "And Chief spokesman for terrorist IRGC can tweet mourning Soleimani," which yes, also happened, "but I can get suspended for tweeting VAERS statistics, Twitter is an enemy to America and can't handle the truth."

Twitter Suspends mRNA Inventor Dr. Robert Malone.  After months of providing valuable Covid-19 information that runs counter to the official narrative, Twitter has finally banned Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of mRNA technology.  Malone, who will appear on the Joe Rogan show Thursday according to associate Ed Dowd (one of four contributors to the Malone doctrine), had more than 520,000 followers.  He has been an outspoken critic of both mRNA vaccines, as well as the abysmal failures of policymakers worldwide in responding to the pandemic.

Twitter admits 'error' in suspending Just the News founder's account over COVID facts.  Twitter late Thursday acknowledged that Just the News founder and Editor-in-Chief John Solomon's account was "suspended in error" this week over a post about a COVID-19 vaccine.  The respond follows an appeal earlier in the day by Solomon after his account was suspended Tuesday for his tweet linking to the article "Pfizer to continue distributing version of COVID-19 vaccine not fully approved by FDA."  Eric Zuckerman, who leads the social media giant's U.S. News Partnerships division, responded in one sentence to Solomon, saying:  "Twitter Support has reviewed your appeal and determined that your account was suspended in error."  Twitter users who clicked on Solomon's tweet Monday to try to read the story were first directed to a warning page, asserting the link was "potentially spammy or unsafe" and contained "violent or misleading content that could lead to real-world harm."

Twitter suspends virologist Robert Malone.  The account of Dr. Robert Malone, a veteran vaccine researcher and a prominent voice of skepticism on the issue of universal inoculation against Covid-19, has been suspended by Twitter.  Malone's account had over 516,000 followers when the platform silenced him on Wednesday.  It remains unclear if the suspension was automatic or done by a human.  Twitter gave no immediate comment.  Malone reacted to the news on his other social media, saying it meant that he "must have been on the mark, so to speak."  "It also means we lost a critical component in our fight to stop these vaccines being mandated for children and to stop the corruption in our governments, as well as the medical-industrial complex and pharmaceutical industries," he wrote, encouraging people to tune in to his interview on the Joe Rogan podcast later on Thursday.

The Inventor Of mRNA Tech, Dr. Robert Malone, Banned Permanently From Twitter For Sharing This Video Proving Pfizer Vax Does More Harm Than Good.  The inventor of mRNA technology and internationally known and loved, Dr. Robert Malone, has been banned for life from Twitter for sharing an earth-shaking video from the Canadian Covid Care Alliance.  According to CCCA, Pfizer's own 6-month report data on its COVID-19 inoculation shows that greater illness and death in the inoculation arm than the placebo arm.  Plus, poor trial design, missing data, underpowered studies, passive surveillance and more.  The Twitter suspension of Dr. Malone also comes a day before he is to appear on the Joe Rogan Podcast.  Kill your Twitter accounts.  If the most important voice in vaccinology is not allowed to speak, then the entire platform is one big fraud and gaslighting project.  [Video clip]

Twitter Gets Hit with the Censorship Lawsuit America Has Been Waiting For.  Social media giant Twitter is being sued by former New York Times journalist and best-selling author on Covid-19 issues Alex Berenson.  Berenson is best known for his heterodox views on the Covid-19 pandemic, which has assailed the mainstream media for putting out demonstrable misinformation and untruths about the virus and the vaccines.  Now, he is suing Twitter for selectively banning him from the platform and for tarnishing his reputation in the process.  "Mr. Berenson also has a uniquely viable claim that Twitter acted on behalf of the federal government in censoring and barring him from to its platform," the lawsuit said.

Berenson v Twitter.  [Full text of Berenson's lawsuit.]

Project Veritas-affiliated Twitter account suspended after exposing CNN producer involved in pedophilia scandal.  Following last week's exposing of a CNN producer embroiled in a pedophilia scandal, the investigateCNN twitter account that the story was posted from has been suspended.  On Wednesday, Project Veritas published explicit texts and videos of a CNN producer, later revealed to be Rick Saleeby, a producer on "The Lead with Jake Tapper."  [Tweet]  Project Veritas published the story on a Twitter account called investigateCNN, which was soon after banned by the platform, according to Robby Starbuck.

Taking a Cue From China, Facebook Censors Chinese Whistleblower on COVID's Origins.  Dr. Li-Meng Yan, a Chinese virologist, escaped to America after facing threats for speaking out on the origins of COVID-19.  China couldn't stop Yan from telling her story, so Facebook is stepping in to help the communist regime censor the whistleblower.  Last week, The Daily Signal published an exclusive interview with Yan about her research that COVID-19 was created in a Wuhan, China, research lab.  Yan believes it was done with the approval of the People's Liberation Army, the armed wing of Chinese Communist Party.  But when Facebook users attempt to share The Daily Signal's story, it's flagged with an obtrusive "partly false information" warning.

Facebook bizarrely claims its 'fact-checks' are 'opinion'.  Facebook is a private company, so it can censor whomever it wants.  But what Facebook is doing lately is just sleazy.  Recently, I sued them because they defamed me.  They, along with one of their "fact-checkers," a group called Science Feedback, lied about me and continue to lie about me.  Now Facebook has responded to my lawsuit in court.  Amazingly, their lawyers now claim that Facebook's "fact-checks" are merely "opinion" and therefore immune from defamation.  Wait — Facebook's fact-checks are just "opinion"?!  I thought fact-checks are statements of fact.  That's how Facebook portrays them on its website:  "Each time a fact-checker rates a piece of content as false, Facebook significantly reduces the content's distribution ... We ... apply a warning label that links to the fact-checker's article, disproving the claim."  "Disproving."  Sure sounds like Facebook claims its labels are statements of fact.

Wikipedia Threatens to Purge 'Communist Mass Killings' Page, Cites Anti-Communist Bias.  "A spectre is haunting Europe — the specter of communism."  This is the preamble to Karl Marx's "The Communist Manifesto," a document responsible for inspiring some of the worst dictators in human history.  Men like Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot all used the words penned by Marx to justify acts of horrific violence.  And Wikipedia doesn't want you to know about communism's legacy of death and ruin.  Visitors to the "Mass killings under communist regimes" Wikipedia entry were greeted with a disclaimer that the page "is being considered for deletion" for a myriad of reasons including neutrality issues and factual inaccuracies.

5 tips to avoid being cancelled by LinkedIn.  I'm down to around one post a month on LinkedIn in order to avoid censorship, but apparently even that is too often as my LinkedIn account is suspended again.  I suspect I no longer exist and that everything I've written in the past is now "gone" from view in order to protect the community from truth and facts.  I really think LinkedIn should just be honest about it.  Why not call a spade a spade instead of beating around the bush?  They should simply say "those people who think that speaking the truth and using facts and scientific evidence are acceptable behavior on LinkedIn should find another platform.  That's not the way we roll here.  We are all about enforcing the false government narrative on people and any dissenters to the government viewpoint are not tolerated and not welcome."

Twitter will now ban users that repeatedly claim vaccinated people can spread Covid.  Twitter has quietly updated its "COVID-19 misleading information policy" to impose new sanctions on tweets about vaccines, PCR tests, and health authorities.  These sanctions include removing and labeling tweets.  Both types of sanctions also result in Twitter users accruing strikes on their account which can lead to a permanent suspension.  While the top of Twitter's COVID-19 misleading information policy pagecurrently states "Overview November 2021," a December 2 archive of the page shows that the page was updated and the "Overview November 2021" text was added after December 2.  One of the most notable changes to this "COVID-19 misleading information policy" we noticed is related to claims about whether vaccinated people can spread the coronavirus.

Facebook court filing admits 'fact checks' are just a matter of opinion.  Surprisingly little attention is being paid to a bombshell admission made by the attorneys representing the corporation formerly known as Facebook, Inc., which has now transitioned into Meta Platforms, Inc.  In a court filing responding to a lawsuit filed by John Stossel claiming that he was defamed by a "fact check" Facebook used to label a video by him as "misleading," Meta's attorneys assert that the "fact check" was an "opinion," not an actual check of facts and declaration of facts.  Under libel law, opinions are protected from liability for libel. [...] But at a minimum, this is a public relations disaster, revealing that their "fact checks" are not factual at all and should be labeled as "our opinion" or some such language avoiding the word "fact."

Twitter Blacklists Account Providing Updates on Ghislaine Maxwell Trial.  Twitter has blacklisted an account posting courtroom updates from the trial of Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is accused of sex trafficking minors.  The popular account's suspension comes amid a wide-ranging purge of anonymous accounts from new CEO Parag Agrawal's platform.  An account set up to monitor the investment portfolio of house speaker Nancy Pelosi following insider trading allegations was also taken down.

Proof:  COVID vaccines cause prion diseases.  There is no doubt the mRNA vaccines are causing prion diseases.  People didn't have these diseases before the shot and suddenly they develop them after the shot.  There is no other explanation for this.  None of the "fact checkers" can explain the cause of the excess rates.  Prion diseases are incurable and always fatal.  You can die as soon as 6 weeks after COVID vaccination (see within 6 weeks and within 6 months examples).  However, Twitter believes this is not true, but they refuse to tell anyone why they think that.  Other fact checkers who have checked this out never did a VAERS query and are unable to explain away the "excess" number of reports other than doing a blanket dismissal that everything in VAERS is fraudulent without providing any evidence of that claim (other than one report out of 1.6M reports).  None of the fact checkers will debate on this to set the record straight.

My Twitter Ban Proves Twitter Manipulates Its Platform to Silence Conservatives.  If you had any hope Jack Dorsey leaving Twitter might help the platform navigate back toward enabling an open exchange of ideas, the big update his successor announced on his first day at the helm should nip that optimism in the bud.  "Beginning today," Twitter warned, "we will not allow the sharing of private media, such as images or videos of private individuals without their consent.  Publishing people's private info is also prohibited under the policy, as is threatening or incentivizing others to do so."  What will this mean in practice?  While Twitter says "context matters" and that some "newsworthy events" will be exempted, the move is obviously aimed at the kind of undercover reporting Project Veritas is using effectively. (Otherwise they would have explicitly excepted anything of public concern.)

Twitter Censors American Heart Association Article on mRNA Vaccines and Cardiac Health.  On Nov. 8, 2021, the American Heart Association (AHA) journals published the abstracts that researchers and clinicians would present during online scientific sessions beginning on Nov. 13.  The scientific sessions are rigorous events, and content must be submitted and selected.  One of the abstracts published in the journal Circulation dealt with mRNA vaccines and cardiac health.  When Twitter users tried to share the information in the abstract, people interested in reading it encountered a warning that it could be an unsafe link.

An FDA official demanded Google censor a YouTube video the agency didn't like.  Federal efforts to censor social media extend past discussions with companies like YouTube over broad guidelines about Covid-19 "misinformation" to specific demands for suppression of individual posts, an email from an FDA official reveals.  In the April 30 email, the Food and Drug Administration director of social media, Brad Kimberly, told a Google lobbyist about that the agency expected YouTube to pull a video touting the potential of a new monoclonal antibody treatment for Covid.  (Google owns YouTube.)  "Overall, the video is very problematic when it comes to COVID misinformation," Kimberly wrote to the lobbyist, Jan Fowler Antonaros.  "This video should [emphasis added] be pulled."  YouTube initially declined to remove the video.  However, it has since been taken offline.

New Twitter media sharing policy [is] expected to yield unwarranted takedowns.  Twitter's new policy banning photographs and videos of private citizens posted without their consent is likely to be abused by powerful users to remove content they don't like and create confusion regarding Twitter's censorship rules.  Twitter's new private information policy, which it updated Tuesday, provides for the removal of content if a private citizen or their authorized representative wants a photo or video taken down.  Conservatives say the new rule could be taken advantage of by powerful organizations, groups, and individuals who can claim to be an "authorized representative" of a private citizen in order to try and censor content they don't like.

Pete Hegseth argues New Twitter Policy is Meant to Protect Far-Left Orgs like BLM, Antifa.  Appearing on Fox News, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley says private citizens should be able to sue Twitter after the social media giant announced a new privacy policy prohibiting images shared without the consent of the person depicted.  [Video clip]

Wikipedia Community Considers Deleting Entry on Mass Killings Under Communism over Claims of 'Bias'.  The Wikipedia entry for "mass killings under Communist regimes" is reportedly under threat of being removed from the platform over claims of bias.  The Telegraph reports that a Wikipedia entry which details "mass killings under Communist regimes," is at risk of deletion over claims of bias within the entry.  The Wikipedia page which outlines the details of millions of people under one-party Communist regimes such as the Soviet Union and China has been flagged for deletion.

Destroying Democracy by 'Saving Democracy'.  Overwhelming majorities of Democrats now favor the government censoring political views deemed "false" even at the expense of freedom of speech and writing.  Liberal women, in particular, are leading the charge for greater and greater authoritarian censorship.  It's bad enough that a majority of Democrats previously supported tech companies to restrict and censor views, it's far worse that they are now advocating the full force and power of the state to do so.  Democracy, as expressed in our Republic, thrives through a multiplicity of views, opinions, and ways of life.  Conservatives know this, which is why conservatives have historically defended decentralization and civil society, and have been suspicious toward ever-increasing power of the state.  The enforcement of a uniform way of life, opinions, and news outlets is antithetical to democracy.

Losing Confidence in the Pillars of Our Civilization.  For much of 2020 to even suggest that the Wuhan Institute of Virology may have played a role in the birth and spread of the COVID-19 earned media derision.  Few reporters suggested that federal health agencies such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases might be disseminating contradictory or even inaccurate information about the pandemic.  To believe this was happening instead earned condemnation in the media as if one were some conspiracy theorist or nut.  Rarely have communication industries — veritable utilities in the public domain — so asymmetrically censored speech and applied such one-sided standards of suppressing free expression.

How many times must Facebook be caught censoring the truth?  In 2019, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stood at Georgetown University and pledged to "fight to uphold as wide a definition of freedom of expression as possible," promising in uncertainty to "err on the side of greater expression."  He went on, "I don't think most people want to live in a world where you can only post things that tech companies judge to be 100 percent true."  Such declarations seem almost quaint now, if not outright lies.  In the wake of the 2020 election, COVID-19 and every remotely controversial event that has followed, Twitter, Facebook and Google — America's premier speech platforms, which house and shape our national discourse — have taken the decidedly opposite approach, limiting the free flow of information, dialogue and any opinion that runs counter to what the Silicon Valley speech gods and their army of partisan fact-checkers have singlehandedly determined as fact.

Twitter Suspended Me For Saying Kyle Rittenhouse Did Nothing Wrong — After His Acquittal.  Kyle Rittenhouse did nothing wrong.  So said a jury of his peers after weeks of witness testimony, a careful review of the video evidence, and Rittenhouse's own dramatic appearance on the stand.  Twitter, however, reached a different verdict.  In the exuberant hours after Rittenhouse's acquittal, I tweeted the phrase "Kyle Rittenhouse did nothing wrong" to my 10,000 followers.  The tweet went viral, generating hundreds of retweets and thousands of likes.  Included was a photo of my suspension, from a few days earlier, for saying the exact same phrase.  I felt vindicated.  Twitter, however, got the last laugh.  On Sunday morning, I woke up to another suspension for insisting that Rittenhouse was in the right.  The first had been for 12 hours.  This one is for seven days.

FLASHBACK: GoFundMe deleted Rittenhouse fundraiser but allowed fundraisers for Antifa militants.  GoFundMe is a crowdsourcing platform that many people often use to get help paying for medical and legal expenses, but the administrators of the site don't let just anyone use it.  The rules are different for radical leftists than they are for conservatives.  When supporters of alleged Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse launched a GoFundMe to help with his legal defense fees, the site admins took the campaign down and refunded the donations.  It appears that GoFundMe does not think Rittenhouse is deserving of a defence, but that Antifa militants are.  The site told The Washington Times that the campaigns for Rittenhouse violated their terms of service.  The site's terms of use prohibit "activity that GoFundMe may deem in its sole discretion to be unacceptable."

What privacy concerns?  The trial is a public hearing in a public building.  Everything that happens in the trial is a matter of public record.
All Independent Streams Of The Kyle Rittenhouse Trial Are Being Taken Down By YouTube Over "Policy Violations" — Only MSM Streams Are Available.  Prosecutors and defense lawyers are making their closing arguments in the criminal trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old who is charged with homicide after fatally shooting two protesters during unrest last year in Kenosha, Wisconsin.  Rittenhouse and his lawyers have argued that he was acting in self-defense when he shot three people with his AR-15-style rifle.  In a dramatic turn on the stand last week, Rittenhouse testified that he feared for his life.  Prosecutors, led by Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger, have argued that Rittenhouse created the peril he faced that night through a series of reckless actions that left other people fearful for their own lives.

YouTube censors information about vaccine injuries on Sen. Ron Johnson's channel.  Alphabet, Incorporated, owner of YouTube, Google, and other tech media, has taken on the role of final arbiter of medical science, even in fast-changing fields where data if far from complete.  YouTube, which enjoys a commanding presence in online video, is exercising is market dominance to prevent information of critical importance from reaching most people on the risks of adverse reactions to the pseudo-vaccines developed in hope of containing the Covid epidemic.

YouTube Hides 'Dislikes' Following Mass Downvoting of Biden Administration Videos.  YouTube has announced it will hide 'dislikes' from videos to curb "creator harassment," with critics pointing out that this is merely a way of removing the huge amount of downvotes on videos posted by the Biden administration.  "YouTube has announced that it'll be hiding public dislike counts on videos across its site, starting today," reports The Verge.  "The company says the change is to keep smaller creators from being targeted by dislike attacks or harassment, and to promote "respectful interactions between viewers and creators."  The dislike button will still be there, but it'll be for private feedback, rather than public shaming."  Quite how viewer feedback in the form of a thumbs down icon represents "harassment" is anyone's guess, but the immediate response to the announcement from many was that the Google-owned company was merely moving to protect the Biden White House from ridicule.

The Editor says...
When did YouTube make any effort to protect the Trump White House from ridicule?

Rep. Issa demands apology from Google for removing speech from YouTube.  Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, is demanding an apology from Google after a video of a speech he gave was removed from YouTube for spreading "medical misinformation," according to an exclusive interview he gave with the Washington Examiner.  In the speech, given at the EDGE 2021 conference in Las Vegas, Issa discussed numerous technology areas, including artificial intelligence and open access to data.

Newsmax Reporter Permanently Suspended From Twitter for 'Spreading COVID-19 Misinformation.  Newsmax White House correspondent Emerald Robinson has been permanently suspended from Twitter for repeatedly violating the platform's policy against spreading COVID-19 misinformation, a Twitter spokesperson confirmed to The Hill on Tuesday [11/9/2021].  After regaining access to her account, Robinson received her fifth violation, resulting in a permanent ban, the Twitter spokesperson said.  The permanent suspension comes just hours after Robinson returned to Twitter following a temporary seven-day suspension she received last week after claiming the COVID-19 vaccines contain a tracking substance.  Robinson took to the social media platform last Monday to warn that, "the vaccines contain a bioluminescent marker called LUCIFERASE so that you can be tracked."  "Read the last book of the New Testament to see how this ends," she said.  The post was later removed by Twitter and replaced with a note stating that the original content violated its rules.

Twitter bans conservatives for 'misgendering' Rachel Levine.  Congressman Jim Banks (R-IN) was suspended on Twitter last week for "misgendering" Rachel Levine who is the HHS Deputy Secretary.  Levine was recently named "First Openly Transgender Four-Star Officer and First Female Four-Star Admiral of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps on October 19, 2021" according to a release from the U.S. Department of Human Health and Services.  Rep. Banks tweeted "The title of first female four-star officer gets taken by a man" which resulted in his account being locked until he deleted the tweets.  Not The Bee, which is a satire site, reacted to Bank's suspension which resulted in its own suspension as well.  PJ Media, a center-right organization, tweeted against Levine's award and title.  Twitter banned it too.  Twitter and Big Tech in general take action against individual opinions based on personal beliefs, morals, and convictions whenever they disagree with what the left supports.

Reporting on Muslim Persecution of Christians Offends Facebook's 'Standards'.  Apparently, reporting on the horrific persecution Christian minorities experience in the Muslim word is a punishable offense for Facebook, as that topic falls beneath the social media giant's "standards."  That's what I was told when I logged onto my Facebook account a few days ago.  A box popped up saying, "This post goes against our Community Standards," followed by, "Only you can see this post because it goes against our community standards," with a link to the offensive post in question.  I was then locked out for 24 hours.

Perception Is Not Reality, No Matter What the Liberal Media Say.  [Scroll down]  Medical data that contradict or even question Washington's COVID pronouncements are tagged as "misinformation" and banned from social media such as Facebook and YouTube.  If you can't see it, it can't be real.  And when Twitter permanently suspended President Trump's account, the people in charge hoped for "out of sight, out of mind."  If they stopped him from tweeting, then he did not exist, at least in the Twitterverse, and could not rally his 15.6 million Twitter followers.

My Week In Twitter Jail Shows How Jack Dorsey Lies To Protect Leftist Propaganda.  I just returned from a one-week Twitter suspension for telling a joke, but even as I didn't break any Twitter rules, I'm actually glad this happened.  My sentence to Twitter to jail proves that everything Twitter tells the public, the government, and its investors is a lie.  First, let me explain what (ostensibly) led Twitter to suspend me.  Last Monday I saw a former Biden COVID adviser, Andy Slavitt, commenting on that day's passing of Colin Powell.  He said the lesson of his death was that everyone should get vaccinated.  I replied joking, "Get vaccinated, then you too can die of Covid."  Incidentally, I've told this story IRL several times and whenever I get to the part about what I tweeted, the people I'm talking to start laughing.  Seems only Twitter's humorless scolds can't take a joke.  Within minutes, Twitter locked me out of my account and told me to delete the tweet.

Internal Facebook Chats Show Politics Trumps All.  According to documents dubbed "The Facebook Paper," the comapny's internal racial justice chat exposed that the company prioritized left-wing politics in its decision-making.  Which included calls for a right-wing news site to be excluded from a key distribution avenue.  The controversy stems from the News Tab.  Facebook's News Tab aggregates news articles from various outlets and presents them to users within the app and on the desktop.  Internal chats indicate that Facebook employees worked to control the narrative on controversial political issues like the January 6 riot.  Some employees targeted Breibart, a right-wing media platform.  "Get Breitbart out of News Tab," one message read.

Facebook Employees Attack Zuckerberg for Not Suppressing Conservatives Enough.  In leaked internal messages, unhinged Facebook employees harshly criticized CEO Mark Zuckerberg for not censoring conservatives to the levels they feel are appropriate.  One employee ominously wrote:  "History will not judge us kindly."  The New York Post reports that Facebook employees are criticizing CEO Mark Zuckerberg in leaked internal messages, blaming the CEO's obsession with growth for a number of scandals that the company has faced in recent months.  One staffer reportedly wrote on the day of the January 6th Capitol riots which were partly organized via Facebook:  "History will not judge us kindly."  The consistent message throughout the messages is that the company's overwhelmingly leftist staff feel the company hasn't done enough to suppress and censor conservative voices.

Facebook "Whistleblower" Frances Haugen Travels to the UK to Promote Government Intervention and On-Line Censorship.  The goal of the leftist group who organized and coordinated the sequence of events behind Frances Haugen is becoming increasingly obvious.  Ms. Haugen first surfaced during a CBS 60 Minutes episode where she promoted the idea that government needed to intervene in the Facebook censorship process because the content of speech was not being limited enough.  Ms. Haugen advocated for government intervention to enhance Big Tech censorship.  48 hours later, Haugen was testifying before congress.  That should have triggered all alarm bells that far-left political operatives were organizing an advanced censorship campaign to stop speech they deemed as detrimental to their interests.  That speech consists of any speech that does not comply with the leftist world view.  Shortly thereafter, it was discovered that Ms. Haugen is represented by the same legal group, and group of Lawfare lawyers, who supported Hillary Clinton.

The Facebook Papers Are a Big Fat Nothingburger.  More than a dozen mainstream media organizations published reports today on the so-called Facebook Papers, a trove of internal company documents obtained and released by former Facebook employee Frances Haugen.  The headlines promised dramatic revelations and damning indictments.  "Insiders say Facebook's CEO chose growth over safety," reports The Washington Post.  For Axios, the Facebook Papers paint the social media company as "a brutish corporate actor that prioritizes its business over safety."  Bloomberg News tweets that the documents provide "rare, vivid insight into ways Facebook has faltered in its mission."  The gap between those sensational claims and what actually appears in the articles is stark.  If this is the best The New York Times, the Associated Press, etc., could do, then the Facebook Papers are a nothingburger.

Big Mother's Smothering Protection of Little Joseph.  [Scroll down]  Soon, Rapper Bryson Gray produced a wildly viral video repeating the ["Let's go Brandon!"] chant.  The artist also claimed that "they" use the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext to censor and oppress.  YouTube, an arm of "Big Mother," deleted the video to control "misinformation."  Nothing like censorship to reassure the public that we're still free.  Don't badmouth little Joseph.  Big Mother is watching.  The censorship follows shortly on the heels of a decision from Big Mother's election "fairness" arm, the Federal Elections Commission.  In that case, the FEC ruled that Twitter and Facebook did not interfere in the election by censoring accurate and truthful reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop story which revealed solid evidence of Biden family influence peddling in Ukraine, China, and other countries.  Big Mother also told the public that the evidence was just Russian disinformation — a complete lie.  No matter, Big Mother's FEC dutifully protected little Joseph.  According to the New York Times, "The election commission determined that Twitter's actions regarding the Hunter Biden article had been undertaken for a valid commercial reason, not a political purpose, and were thus allowable."

NYT: Far Left Facebook 'Whistleblower' Is Running an 'Outlet Store' of Leaks in Coordinated Campaign.  In a recent article, the >i>New York Times outlines the seemingly coordinated media blitz orchestrated by far-left Facebook "whistleblower" Frances Haugen.  The Times compares the coordinated release of stories from Haugen's team to an "outlet store" of leaked insider documents.  The New York Times reports in an article titled "Inside the Big Facebook Leak," that far-left Facebook "whistleblower" Frances Haugen is spending her time deciding who she would trust with a number of internal Facebook documents which have since been reported on extensively.  Although she initially fed the information to the Wall Street Journal for what the Times labels a "boutique rollout," she is now running a coordinated campaign to roll out the documents that the Times calls an "outlet store."

Report: Facebook Suppressed Breitbart News Traffic by Twenty Percent.  The Wall Street Journal has published internal material from anonymous sources at Facebook revealing that the company introduced tools that suppressed the traffic of Breitbart News by 20 percent, and other conservative publishers by double-digit margins.  The company introduced two tools after the 2016 election that disproportionately harmed conservative publishers.  The Journal highlights internal Facebook research showing that if both tools were removed, it would increase traffic to Breitbart News by 20 percent, the Washington Times by 18 percent, Western Journal by 16 percent, and the Epoch Times by 11 percent.  Facebook eventually removed one of the tools while keeping the other — but it is unclear which of them had the most impact on traffic.

In completely unsurprising news, Facebook employees hate conservatives.  Conservatives who post on Facebook know that the site routinely censors their content.  Now, though, whistleblowers are offering concrete proof confirming what conservatives have intuitively understood:  One of the most important vehicles for modern communication has lots of employees who hate conservatives and their ideas.  Three things routinely happen to conservatives on Facebook:  (1) Facebook rejects entirely something they post because it violates Facebook's "community guidelines."  Efforts to get that decision reviewed always fail.  (2) Facebook has allowed people to post something, only to slap it with a "disputed" or "fact checked" label.  (3) There's the infamous "sensitive content" label:  [Illustration]  However, when conservatives complain about these common censorship maneuvers, they're told that they're imagining it.  It doesn't happen because of bias, they're told.  Instead, it's simply that conservative content is less accurate than that from the more careful and honest progressive outlets.  (Please, ignore the entire Russia hoax.)

Twitter suspends GOP congressman for calling Biden health adviser Rachel Levine a man.  Republican Reps.  Jim Banks and Marjorie Taylor Greene were dinged by Twitter this week for saying that Rachel Levine, a transgender Biden administration official, was a man.  Mr. Banks of Indiana said Saturday that his official account was suspended after he tweeted, "The title of first female four-star officer gets taken by a man," referring to Dr. Levine's promotion to four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.  Meanwhile, Twitter placed a "hateful conduct" warning on — but did not remove — a tweet by Ms. Greene, Georgia Republican, that said, "A dude who lived the first 50 years of his life as a man isn't the first female anything."

The Editor says...
I've never been on Twitter or Facebook; but apparently, I wouldn't last a day on either one.

Facebook's Political Maelstrom Exposed.  The Wall Street Journal has obtained internal Facebook documents that shed light on how politics has affected the social media giant's behavior in recent years.  Some argue that the documents confirm suspicions that Facebook deliberately suppresses conservative views, but to me the story seems more complicated than that: [...] The New York Times and Washington Post are just as partisan as Breitbart, a major focus of the WSJ story, and they are no more accurate.  Yet Facebook pays them for, and features prominently, their content.  Apparently no one at Facebook has ever questioned whether false and hateful reporting by the Post and the Times, such as the Russia collusion hoax to name just one example, should cause their content to be suppressed or downgraded.

YouTube deletes MAGA rapper's 'Let's Go Brandon' song because it contains 'medical misinformation' with lyric 'pandemic ain't real'.  A MAGA hat-wearing rapper whose song Let's Go Brandon went from a YouTube sensation to near the top of the charts on iTunes was removed after the woke streaming giant said the video contained 'medical misinformation.'  Rapper Bryson Gray announced on Twitter Thursday that the music video for his anti-Biden song was canceled by YouTube.  'What medical misinformation is in the song?  Whoa,' he asked.  In the music video, Gray appears in an 'Impeach Biden' T-shirt and a MAGA bucket hat while holding an assault rifle.  The song features the lyrics 'pandemic ain't real, they just planned it,' and 'Biden said the jab stop the spread, it was lies.'

YouTube Removes 'Let's Go Brandon' Song as Reports Indicate Similar Actions Taken Against Others.  'Let's go, Brandon' — the meme with the implicit criticism of Joe Biden — has taken off like a rocket.  As we saw today, it was even used by Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL) on the floor of the House as well as by the Attorney General of Texas Ken Paxton when announcing he would be suing Joe Biden over the border for stopping the building of the border wall.  As we noted, while Joe Biden stopped the border wall that would have helped protect Americans, he was having fencing built around his beach house.  But given that criticism of Biden, one might imagine there would be a backlash from some in the media or on the left against the meme.  Now some are asking if that's what's happening after actions taken by YouTube.

Internal Twitter Study Says Platform 'Amplifies' The Right.  An internal study published by Twitter on its algorithms indicated that the platform actually amplifies right-of-center voices over left-leaning ones.  The reality, however, is more complicated.  Rumman Chowdhury, the head of Twitter's machine learning, ethics, transparency and accountability (META) team, told Protocol that the study only showed results based on bias in amplification — not what caused it.  The content could be amplified for any reason.  In short, the study was unable to determine whether Twitter's home feed algorithms are biased towards conservative content.  Interestingly, Twitter did not specify which outlets or politicians are considered "right-wing" by the platform.

YouTube Bans 'The Vietnamese Alex Jones' After Whining John Oliver Complained.  YouTube has banned a radio host after English "Comedian" John Oliver described him as 'the Vietnamese Alex Jones'.  Oliver complained on his HBO show that "While Alex Jones has been removed from YouTube for spreading misinformation," Nguy Vu, the host of King Radio, "is still going strong on the platform despite the fact you just heard him say 'masks are killing people,' which clearly violates YouTube's ban on claims that wearing a mask is dangerous."

Google bans ads, monetized content that questions 'scientific consensus' of climate change.  Google has released strict new guidelines regarding content on climate change on its platforms, promising to ban advertisements and demonetize YouTube videos that challenge "well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change."  In a statement released Thursday [10/7/2021], Google published its new guidelines, "Updating our ads and monetization policies on climate change," seeing fit to disincentivize all content that characterizes claims of man-made climate change as "a hoax or a scam," in the process enforcing some of the most restrictive measures against dissenting from mainstream thought on climate change.  As of next month, any claims which deny that "long-term trends show the global climate is warming, and claims denying that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change," will be subject to removal or demonetization.

YouTube temporarily bans Steven Crowder for hurting transgender feelings.  American Marxism, unable to use economics to attack America, now opts for tribalism, dividing Americans into victims and abusers.  The abusers are always straight White men.  Currently, the left's two primary victim classes are Blacks and LGBTers, especially so-called transgender people.  Anything you say about them that is not slavishly supportive is hate speech, and that's true whether your statements are factually accurate or not.  And that's why popular YouTuber Steven Crowder has been put in YouTube's deep freeze.

Big Tech Censors GOP Congressmen More Than Democrats, 54-to-1.  Big Tech censorship is omnipresent in the world and political sphere at large.  There has been an uproar over online censorship against conservatives.  The main targets have included individuals who aim to make an impact in the conservative movement through their own organization or political platform.  The American Principles Project is a conservative group that focuses on the importance of family and protecting parents and children from the attacks of wokeism and progressivism in the 21st century.  With no warning or notice, YouTube shut down its eight year old account.  The account has since been restored but the initial decision still holds impact.  Congresspeople have also been censored which limits their ability to reach new voters and gain support for their political platform.  President Donald Trump was censored 625 times from May 2018 to January 2021 while Joe Biden was censored zero times.

YouTube yanks conservative American group account with no warning, reinstates after backlash.  After deleting the conservative American Principles Project's 8-year account with no warning on Monday, YouTube reinstated it temporarily after massive backlash but has removed a number of videos claiming they are in violation of their online policies.  "At 6:30 am, American Principles Project received an email from YouTube notifying us that our page was shut down.  They failed to give us any reason why whatsoever.  Just that we had either 'severe or repeated violations' of their community guidelines," president Terry Schilling told the Daily Caller. [...] The social media giant cited reuploads of former White House adviser Steve Bannon's War Room on the APP channel as the reason for their suspension.  Bannon's YouTube channel was banned without any explanation in January.

They banned the Post, but Twitter didn't take these tweets down.  When Twitter banned the New York Post one year ago, it was clear from the start that the decision was arbitrary, hypocritical — and political.  The Post asked our friends at Twitchy.com, a site dedicated to chronicling the worst of Twitter, to help collect some examples of things the service didn't ban.  Go after a Democratic politician and you're flagged.  But call for a Republican to die, and everything's fine:  [Tweets shown as examples.]

The Fakest "Whistleblower" Ever.  In a lesser-noticed but revealing portion of Frances Haugen's stage-managed PR tour last week, the vaunted "Facebook Whistleblower" took a moment to show off her "national security" credentials for Republican Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska.  After the two had finished rehearsing all the reasons why American children are at such grave risk from a dangerously unregulated internet, they pivoted to another topic — that being Haugen's previous experience at Facebook working in what she describes as "counter-espionage" operations.  Yes, you read that right:  Haugen was apparently a "project manager" at something called the "threat intelligence org," located deep in the bowels of Facebook, at which she claims to have presided over a team carrying out "counter-espionage" ops on behalf of Mark Zuckerberg.

Sen. Ron Johnson Says Lives Are Being Lost Due to Big Tech Censorship of Conservatives.  Censorship of videos and written posts on major social media outlets about successful treatments of victims of the CCP virus — also known as the novel coronavirus — are causing people to lose their lives, according to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).  "Everything to do with COVID has been most troubling because the internet could have been used so helpfully, so powerfully, by allowing doctors to disseminate their practices of medicine," Johnson told reporters during a virtual news conference hosted Tuesday [10/12/2021] by the Media Research Center (MRC) and the MRC blog Free Speech America (FSA).  "I remember doctors doing videos out of New York recognizing that ventilators weren't working.  I remember a couple of doctors out of California talking about how they were treating COVID with repurposed drugs and those videos were taken down, they were censored," Johnson said.

Google, YouTube to demonetize any content that does not comport with the left's idea of "climate change".  Once again, two major technology giants are choosing left-wing politics over rationality and truth because their CEOs must figure when the Marxist revolution in America is complete they're going to have a seat at the governing table.  This week Google and Google-owned YouTube announced they will no longer allow content questioning the left's "climate change" dogma to be monetized. [...] But again, there is no "consensus" that climate change — and yes, the world's climate is ever-changing — is caused by human activities.  One liberal academic, Dr. Steve Koonin, who served as the undersecretary of energy for science during the Obama regime, told Tucker Carlson earlier this year that the narrative is a fiction made up by politicians and echoed by left-wing media for their personal benefit and empowerment — and he based his opinion on actual science, not speculation or political viewpoints.  According to data from the U.S. government, Koonin said in June that there are "no detectable human influences" on natural disasters like hurricanes and it has been that way for more than a century.  He also said that today's heatwaves in the U.S. are just as common as they were back in 1900.

Facebook Whistleblower's Private Twitter Account Reveals Marxist Sympathies.  The corporate media's fêted Facebook "whistleblower" tweeted a number of racially charged comments, as well as claiming to have bought books by Karl Marx for young children, The National Pulse can exclusively reveal.  Frances Haugen — who went from nobody to testifying on Capitol Hill within a matter of days — has been demanding mass censorship on social media, particularly aimed at those who don't share her worldview.  But her own behavior on social media may serve to undermine her moral authority on the matter.  A private profile linked to Haugen which appeared in her biography for speaking events such as the 2015 Girl Geek Dinner reveals an even more bizarre side to the former Facebook staffer.  It also contains posts detailing work for her previous employers such as Google and her time attending Harvard Business School.

Beware of Regime-Approved Whistleblowers.  Last week a new kind of social media witness appeared:  a whistleblower.  Frances Haugen emerged with a great deal of fanfare, complete with a public relations firm, a verified account on Twitter, and a fawning entourage, including members of the press and Congress.  But instead of denouncing social media for its excessive power, wealth, and hostility to traditional American values, Haugen pleaded for regulations that happen to align with the peculiar values and interests of Silicon Valley.  She denounced free speech on the platform as a threat to democracy and lamented Facebook's disbanding of its civil Integrity team, which was the key to Facebook's recent meddling in American elections.  While some of her criticisms were designed to appeal to normal people with normal sensibilities — such as exposing Facebook's shockingly frank willingness to create algorithms to track and engage children — the bulk of her agenda was not so different from the preferences of social media leaders.  Namely, she wants social media to act as a gatekeeper and curator of content, much like the legacy media did before the internet was created.

Google Suspends American Principles Project YouTube Account.  Google suspended the YouTube account of conservative think tank American Principles Project (APP) on Monday, president Terry Schilling told the Daily Caller.  "At 6:30 am, American Principles Project received an email from YouTube notifying us that our page was shut down.  They failed to give us any reason why whatsoever.  Just that we had either 'severe or repeated violations' of their community guidelines," Schilling said.  Schilling tweeted a screenshot of the email YouTube sent APP noting the ban.  YouTube did not explain which guidelines APP broke but did offer Schilling the opportunity to appeal his suspension.

mRNA Vaccine Inventor 'Blocked' From Reading New England Journal of Medicine.  Dr Robert Malone, the inventor of mRNA vaccines and RNA as a drug, has apparently been banned from reading the New England Journal of Medicine after they decided to manually block his IP address in a stunningly "petty act."  "This is fascinating.  I am apparently no longer allowed to read the New England Journal of Medicine," Dr Malone said Thursday [10/7/2021] on Twitter.  "They have blocked my internet protocol address."  Malone said he's aware of how to get around IP blocks "but what is fascinating is that the NEJM would even take the trouble to do this petty act."

Here's the Reason Google Is Going After "Climate Denial" Right Now.  Over the weekend, we learned that Google will ban any and all "climate deniers" from advertising on Google's Advertising platform — the largest such platform on the Internet.  True to form, media coverage appears to be largely in lockstep with Google and is wrote it less as a major tech story and more as a press release. [...] Google is under a lot of scrutiny right now in the tech world.  While companies like Apple are doing what they can to further and further protect private information, Google is making it easier than ever for its customers — advertisers — to get the information they need on you, the product they provide those customers.

Throttling free speech is not the way to fix Facebook and other social media.  Listening to former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen, senators decried how Facebook is literally killing people by not censoring content, and Haugen proposed a regulatory board to protect the public.  But before we embrace a new "ministry of information" model to protect us from dangerous viewpoints, we may want to consider what we would lose in this Faustian free-speech bargain.  Warnings over the "addiction" and "unhealthy" content of the internet have been building into a movement for years.  In July, President Biden slammed Big Tech companies for "killing people" by failing to engage in even greater censorship of free speech on issues related to the pandemic.  On Tuesday, many senators were enthralled by Haugen's testimony because they, too, have long called for greater regulation or censorship.  It all began reasonably enough over concerns about violent speech, and then expanded to exploitative speech.  However, it continued to expand even further as the regulation of speech became an insatiable appetite for silencing opposing views.

Real Facebook Whistleblower Exposes Frances Haugen: 'She's a Deep State Stooge'.  Facebook 'whistleblower' Frances Haugen is actually a 'Deep State' stooge who was tasked with justifying stricter censorship rules across the internet, a real whistleblower has claimed.  In case you missed it, earlier this week, Haugen came forward to warn the world that Facebook needed to be censored even more than it is so that 'evil' conservatives and independent thinkers are eradicated completely.  She was met by instant universal praise by the mainstream media, given a multi-million dollar legal team, verified on Twitter, given a prime-time television slot, and invited to air her grievances to Congress.  This is in stark contrast to actual whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, Julian Assange or Chelsea manning — all of whom have been exiled, kidnapped, imprisoned and shunned by the media.

Google Attacks Free Speech on Climate Claims.  Google is moving into full authoritarian mode, cracking down on digital ads promoting what they determine to be false climate change claims or being used to make money from such content.  The tech giant is claims it is hoping to limit revenue for alleged climate change deniers and stop the spread of so-called misinformation on its platforms.  Google and other Big Tech publishers have increasingly veered toward active censorship of positions that undermine leftist dogma.  Several of those, however, have later proven to be wrong, such as suppression of reports on Hunter Biden's laptop and the coronavirus lab-leak theories.  The company said Thursday [10/7/2021] in a blog post that the new policy will also apply to YouTube, which last week announced it would also be determining what is and isn't vaccine misinformation.

Google Announces They Will Monitor YouTube Videos For "Prohibited Claims" About Climate Change.  Comrade rebels, the Ministry of Truth is here to guide you in your correct thoughts.  Google, the world's largest internet search engine and owner of the YouTube platform, has announced their intent to demonetize any content providers who challenge scientific consensus on climate change and global warming.  According to CBS, any person who advances a "prohibited claim" will have ads on their their content removed.

YouTube demonetizes climate denialism content.  And while one can still deny that reality in their YouTube content, they won't be able to monetize or run advertisements for it.  On Thursday [10/7/2021], YouTube updated its ads and monetization policies to prohibit the monetization of climate denialism content.  The policy covers content that claims climate change is a hoax or a scam.  Creators will also be unable to monetize content that denies that the global climate is warming or that humans contribute to climate change.  Advertisements for this type of content are now also prohibited on YouTube.  YouTube says the policy decision was simple:  Advertisers and creators do not want to be associated with climate denialism.

Also posted under Silencing the global warming skeptics.

Reopen California Schools Facebook Page Mysteriously Disappears.  After a member of Reopen California Schools PRA'd the vaccine-related death of a 15-year-old Sonoma County teenager, their Facebook page, with over 18,000 members, has mysteriously gone "poof".  [Tweet]  Facebook did have a major outage yesterday, and was down for about six hours.  Once you could access the site, it was still wonky.  So, perhaps this is the reason Reopen California Schools can no longer access their page.  Possible, but doubtful.  With the increasing attacks on grassroots activism groups formed by parents against school boards and teachers unions, this type of naked swipe by Big Tech comes as no surprise.

Facebook 'whistleblower' worked for unit that censored Hunter Biden laptop story.  Facebook "whistleblower" Frances Haugen — who urged members of Congress this week to force the social-media giant to increase its policing of "misinformation" — worked for a unit at Facebook that censored the New York Post's blockbuster Hunter Biden laptop stories last fall.  Haugen testified this week that the Facebook's "civic integrity" unit was established for the 2020 election to combat "misinformation" and wound down when Biden won, Breitbart News reported.  A poll indicated the "laptop story" — which was about evidence that Joe Biden and his family cashed in on his position as vice president in business deals that potentially compromised national security — affected the outcome of the election.  The White House still insists that despite further confirmation that the messages on the laptop are authentic, the claims amount to "Russian disinformation."

What Facebook 'whistleblower' Frances Haugen really wants: more censorship of conservative views.  How convenient that Facebook "whistleblower" Frances Haugen just gave the social network another excuse to crack down on conservative content.  In her congressional testimony Tuesday, Haugen, a data scientist, called on Congress to enact more regulations on her former employer to combat misinformation on the platform, saying the company puts profits over public safety.  At issue for Haugen is Facebook's algorithm, which in 2018 the company changed to prioritize high-engagement content, thereby contributing — according to Haugen — to increased divisiveness and polarization among users.  Haugen even went so far as to say that Facebook's switching off of "safeguards" after the 2020 election led to the Jan. 6 US Capitol riot. [...] Whatever you think of the Capitol riot, Facebook did not cause it.  The way Haugen used the word "insurrection" hinted of her likely progressive-lefty politics — revealing her true motives.  And what Haugen means by "safeguards" is no doubt censoring of conservative content, in a way [New York] Post readers know all too well.

Facebook Censorship Partner Steve Hayes Defends Facebook's Election Meddling On Behalf Of Joe Biden.  Stephen Hayes, the editor and CEO of the Never Trump website The Dispatch, told Fox News viewers on Monday night that his publication, which Big Tech employs to censor content including pro-life posts, did not see enough evidence about the Hunter Biden laptop story to "fact-check" it.  "We didn't do a straight-up fact-check on the Hunter Biden story in part because there wasn't enough information in those early days to do a definitive fact-check," Hayes said of the story that Big Tech throttled and corrupt media ignored in the weeks leading up to the pivotal 2020 presidential election.  "That's part of the role of fact-checkers, determining what's factual so that you're correcting facts rather than trying to correct opinion." [...] The Dispatch editor-in-chief Jonah Goldberg was one of the many people on the left and in the corrupt corporate media to pretend shortly before the 2020 presidential election that the Hunter Biden story was Russian disinformation.

Democrats and Media Do Not Want to Weaken Facebook, Just Commandeer its Power to Censor.  There is no doubt, at least to me, that Facebook and Google are both grave menaces.  Through consolidation, mergers and purchases of any potential competitors, their power far exceeds what is compatible with a healthy democracy.  A bipartisan consensus has emerged on the House Antitrust Committee that these two corporate giants — along with Amazon and Apple — are all classic monopolies in violation of long-standing but rarely enforced antitrust laws.  Their control over multiple huge platforms that they purchased enables them to punish and even destroy competitors, as we saw when Apple, Google and Amazon united to remove Parler from the internet forty-eight hours after leading Democrats demanded that action, right as Parler became the most-downloaded app in the country, or as Google suppresses Rumble videos in its dominant search feature as punishment for competing with Google's YouTube platform.  Facebook and Twitter both suppressed reporting on the authentic documents about Joe Biden's business activities reported by The New York Post just weeks before the 2020 election.

Facebook Whistleblower Is a Democrat Activist [...] Republicans Pretend They Cannot See What's Going On.  The transparency of this operation was/is brutally obvious.  Frances Haugen appears on CBS 60-Minutes as a Facebook "whistleblower", and already had a congressional hearing lined up for 48 hours later?  C'mon man... did the lessons of Sandra Fluke or Christine Blasey Ford not register with anyone?  Former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen is a left-wing activist with a long history of giving money to far-left fellow travelers including congressional moonbat AOC.  Haugen is the Blasey-Ford of 2021 and her objective is to further advance the premise of censorship and political targeting under the guise of protecting children.

Facebook 'Whistleblower' Has Ties to Group Behind Trump's First Impeachment, Jen Psaki's Former PR Firm.  As earlier predicted by Becker News, the Facebook "whistleblower" Frances Haugen called for more censorship during her Senate testimony on Tuesday.  "I am here today because I believe that Facebook's products harm children, stoke division, and weaken our democracy," she said in opening remarks.  "The company's leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer but won't make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people.  Congressional action is needed.  They won't solve this crisis without your help."

How to Reclaim Freedom of Speech in a Culture of Censorship.  The First Amendment protects citizens against government censorship and limitations of freedom of expression, though it does not prevent private companies from setting their own rules.  (This is a very important point that must be taken into account anytime freedom of speech limitations come into question.)  Because we live in a world of high-tech communication that's underscored by the internet and social media, it's impossible to have a discussion about free speech without bringing online platforms into the conversation.  And, admittedly, this is where it gets a little sticky.  Because most social media platforms and large online media companies overwhelmingly have a liberal slant or bias, it's often difficult for those on the right side of conversations to express themselves without being attacked or censored.

LinkedIn Bans Geologist for Climate Change Posts: 'This Type of Content Is Not Allowed'.  Greg Wrightstone, a geologist and expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has posted content on LinkedIn for years.  It would often spark discussions and debates among his followers — and the occasional trolls.  That changed last month.  Wrightstone, who serves as executive director of the CO2 Coalition, says he was banned from LinkedIn for posting factual information related to climate change.  His appeal was denied, leaving him without a voice on a platform where he had cultivated a significant following.  [Tweet]  Having been stripped of his ability to communicate on LinkedIn, Wrightstone now is speaking out and sharing his story publicly with The Daily Signal.

The Digital Revolution Eats Its Children.  It can't be a coincidence that Facebook's empire of evil shut down today, the day before whistleblower Frances Haugen will testify before the consumer protection subcommittee of Senate Commerce.  Seven hours after Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram disappeared into the cybersphere Gehenna, the system remained offline.  Reuters reported late Monday that "sabotage by an insider would be theoretically possible," and my Twitter feed is full of speculation about an inside job.  There are some things that even the Wokies can't stomach.  The butchery of the souls of young people is one of them.  Leave aside Facebook's totalitarian manipulation of content on behalf of the liberal elite:  Its most egregious crime is the mass manipulation of pre-teens and teenagers through the self-image terrorism of Instagram.

Facebook whistleblower reveals she filed at least eight SEC complaints.  A former Facebook employee has unmasked herself as the source behind damaging leaks about the social media giant — and claimed it deliberately sought to stoke discontent to keep users coming back to their newsfeeds.  Frances Haugen, 37, came forward on America's top-rated news show 60 Minutes Sunday night, with the data scientist also accusing her former employer of contributing to the January 6 riots.  She said: 'Facebook, over and over again, has shown it chooses profit over safety.'

Facebook whistleblower speaks publicly ahead of congressional testimony.  A Facebook whistleblower revealed her identity in a Sunday night interview while trashing the social media giant for prioritizing divisive content over safety to garner higher profits.  Frances Haugen, 37, spoke out publicly for the first time since quitting Facebook in May when the company dismantled her unit that attempted to address misinformation on the popular platform.  Before leaving the company, Haugen copied thousands of pages on internal documents — some of which had already been reported on — to back up her claims.  "The thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook," Haugen said on CBS's "60 Minutes."

The Editor says...
Yes, but isn't that true of every company?  For example, do grocery stores have self-checkout and "loyalty" cards for your benefit or theirs?

A eulogy is not an affidavit.
Twitter Slammed for Fact-Checking Obituary of Woman Whose Death Has Been Linked to COVID Vaccine.  Twitter fact-checked an obituary of a young mother whose death is being attributed to a blood disorder induced by COVID-19, prompting backlash from Republican lawmakers and members of conservative media.  The social media giant put a since-removed "misleading" label on a tweet that included a link to the obituary along with the caption:  "Seattle, WA — Jessica Berg Wilson, an 'exceptionally healthy and vibrant 37-year-old young mother with no underlying health conditions,' passed away from COVID Vaccine-Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia.  She did not want to get vaccinated."  Twitter's "misleading" label also included information on "why health officials consider COVID-19 vaccines safe for most people."  The obituary posted to Oregon Live asserts that Wilson died last month "from COVID-19 Vaccine-Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia (VITT)," a blood-clotting syndrome.

Donald Trump asks federal judge in Florida to force Twitter to reinstate his account.  Former U.S. President Donald Trump asked a federal judge in Florida to force Twitter to reinstate his account on Friday [10/1/2021].  In July Trump sued Twitter, Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google, as well as their chief executives, alleging they unlawfully silence conservative viewpoints.  Trump's request for a preliminary injunction against Twitter was filed late on Friday in Miami, Bloomberg News reports.

The Largest Autocracy on Earth.  This summer, the population of Zuckerberg's supranational regime reached 2.9 billion monthly active users, more humans than live in the world's two most populous nations — China and India — combined.  To Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and CEO, they are citizens of Facebookland.  Long ago he conspicuously started calling them "people" instead of "users," but they are still cogs in an immense social matrix, fleshy morsels of data to satisfy the advertisers that poured $54 billion into Facebook in the first half of 2021 alone — a sum that surpasses the gross domestic products of most nations on Earth.  GDP makes for a telling comparison, not just because it gestures at Facebook's extraordinary power, but because it helps us see Facebook for what it really is.  Facebook is not merely a website, or a platform, or a publisher, or a social network, or an online directory, or a corporation, or a utility.  It is all of these things.  But Facebook is also, effectively, a hostile foreign power.

"Facebook is a lie-disseminating instrument of civilizational collapse".  The Atlantic, the magazine and multi-platform publisher run by a company owned by Steve Jobs' widow, is heaping brutal criticism on Facebook, including calling it an 'instrument of civilizational collapse.'  The essay is making a rough week for the social media giant even worse.  Executive Editor Adrienne LaFrance referred to Facebook as a 'hostile foreign power' and was heavily critical of CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a column titled The Biggest Autocracy on Earth published Monday.

YouTube Bans All 'Harmful Vaccine Content' From Its Platform.  Google-owned YouTube said on Sept. 29 that it will ban all "harmful vaccine content" from its platform, including claims that vaccines are ineffective at reducing transmission of disease, prompting concerns that the firm will escalate censorship of dissenting viewpoints.  "We've steadily seen false claims about the coronavirus vaccines spill over into misinformation about vaccines in general, and we're now at a point where it's more important than ever to expand the work we started with COVID-19 to other vaccines," YouTube wrote in a blog post.  So far, the Bay Area-based company said it has removed 130,000 videos for violating its policies that it claims were created in tandem with various "experts" to deal with alleged "COVID-19 and medical misinformation."  Now it removes content that claims "approved vaccines are dangerous and cause chronic health effects, claims that vaccines do not reduce transmission or contraction of disease, or contains misinformation on the substances contained in vaccines," YouTube stated on its blog, saying that its policy will now apply to content that questions the efficacy of all vaccines, not just those for COVID-19.

YouTube Bans All Content Stating 'Vaccines Are Ineffective or Dangerous,' Deletes RFK Jr And Dr Mercola's Channels.  Under YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki's new speech codes, YouTubers can now be banned for quoting CDC director Rochelle Walensky admitting last month on live TV that covid shots do not "prevent transmission" of the virus. [...] [Indeed], just quoting the long list of horrible side effects in Pfizer's own covid vaccine insert now qualifies as "misinformation."

Google Subsidiary YouTube Bans Any Content or Discussion Critical of Vaccines.  Google has made a big move today [9/29/2021] to block any public discussion of vaccines, side-effects or efficacy.  Within an announcement on YouTube, the Google subsidiary has changed its policy and will now block any content that is critical of vaccines.  Only correct thoughts and approved speech, from the global government perspective, will be permitted on the YouTube platform.

YouTube Announces It Will Ban All 'Anti-Vaccine' Content.  The social media giant YouTube will begin banning content it deems "anti-vaccine," claiming that sowing skepticism about the coronavirus vaccine has led to reduced vaccination rates across the country.  "Misinformation researchers" have claimed for years that vaccine skepticism on YouTube was leading to reduced vaccination rates not only for COVID-19 vaccines but for childhood disease vaccines as well.  But YouTube has resisted targeting anti-vax skeptics, saying that maintaining a relatively open platform was a free speech issue.  But the social media company has come under increasing threat from government regulators who want YouTube and other social media sites to spout only government-approved ideas about vaccines.  The YouTube ban could easily include bans on content that discusses side effects or vaccine efficacy.

YouTube bans all content containing vaccine misinformation.  YouTube has banned all videos containing misinformation about vaccines that are currently administered and have been approved by local health authorities or the World Health Organization.  The measure is an expansion of a policy covering COVID-19 vaccines.  The service says that users shouldn't, for instance, post videos in which they claim that vaccines lead to chronic side effects (other than rare side effects that health authorities have acknowledged); content that alleges vaccines don't reduce transmission or contraction of diseases; or videos that have inaccuracies about vaccine ingredients.  There are some exceptions.  YouTube "will continue to allow content about vaccine policies, new vaccine trials and historical vaccine successes or failures."

Twitter Censors Daily Signal Video About Border Patrol on Horseback.  Twitter suppressed a 2017 video by The Daily Signal about Border Patrol horses amid continuing false news reports that mounted agents whipped Haitian refugees in Del Rio, Texas.  Twitter did not allow users to see the 4-minute video sometime after The Daily Signal and its audience began promoting the story again Thursday evening in response to the debunked reports.  The social media giant restored access to the video Monday afternoon without explaining the three days of censorship.

John Stossel Sues Facebook Alleging Defamation Over 'Fact-Check' Label.  Former TV journalist John Stossel has reportedly filed a lawsuit against Facebook seeking at least $2 million in damages, alleging that the company defamed him by adding "fact-check" labels to two videos he posted related to climate change.  After Facebook's labels, the lawsuit claims "his viewership plummeted due to both Facebook's censorship and the reputational harm caused by the false labels."  Variety reports that former TV journalist John Stossel is suing tech giant Facebook for defamation, seeking at least $2 million in damages after Facebook added fact-checking labels to two videos Stossel posted relating to climate change.  A Facebook spokesperson told Variety in a statement:  "We believe this case is without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously against the allegations."

Republicans [are] blacklisted 53 to 1 over Democrats on social media.  Blacklists are back and the Democrats have got 'em:  According to a review of the actions of the big social media companies against politicians, the Media Research Center has found that Republicans are censored at a rate 53 times more than Democrats on social media.  The attacks on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, Instagram, and others have been against both standing Republican members of Congress as well as Republican candidates running for office, with further evidence showing that Facebook very specifically has been favoring Democratic incumbents.  Nor have the top managers and owners of these social media companies been able to counter this data.

Top Republican torches LinkedIn for censoring Americans at the request of China.  A top Republican has become the first member of Congress to call out LinkedIn, the only major American social media platform that operates in China, for censoring American users on behalf of the ruling Communist Party.  Rep. Jim Banks, chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee in Congress, sent a letter Friday [9/24/2021] to Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, criticizing them for bowing down to the Chinese government by blocking the profiles of Americans who refer to the Asian superpower in a critical fashion.

'Fact Checks' by Non-Experts Are Shutting Down Genuine Scientific Inquiry.  We recently published a new climate change report in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics (RAA).  The nearly two dozen co-authors of our paper are experts in solar physics and climate science from 14 countries.  We were looking at the role of the Sun in climate change.  We found that, depending on which scientific datasets you choose, you could explain the global warming since the 19th century as being anything from mostly natural to mostly human-caused.  The huge uncertainty over such a key question is a major concern.  A few days after our paper was posted online, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published their 6th Assessment Report (AR6).  The IPCC AR6 concluded that it was "unequivocal" that recent global warming was almost entirely human-caused.  The journalist Alex Newman was struck by the contrast between the two different reports.  He interviewed us, representatives for the IPCC, and several other scientists for an article in The Epoch Times.  People began sharing Newman's article on social media.  One of Facebook's "independent fact-checkers," Climate Feedback, quickly stepped in.  This "fact-checker" website, financially supported by Facebook, TikTok, Google News Initiative, and others, declared the article to be "incorrect" and "misleading."  Facebook then began censoring any posts sharing the link.

Facebook Takes Down Project Veritas Video Featuring HHS Staff Denouncing the COVID-19 Vaccine.  On Sunday [9/19/2021], Project Veritas released a bombshell undercover video featuring doctors and nurses from Health and Human Services discussing their doubts about the vaccine and how it may potentially be causing more harm than good.  The same videos were shared to the account of Project Veritas founder, James O'Keefe.  Not long afterward, Facebook and Instagram took down the videos from O'Keefe's account.  Project Veritas Chief of Staff Eric Spracklen posted to Twitter that the reason behind the deletion of the videos from O'Keefe's account was that it "could contribute to physical harm."

How our culture and our government gave too much power to Facebook.  Capitalism offers an optimal paradigm to organize a virtuous society's economic affairs.  But virtue is a precondition for capitalism, not a product of it, and no modern phenomenon better highlights that distinction than the rise of addictive social-media platforms.  This past week, The Wall Street Journal reported on Facebook's knowledge of the harmful impact of its Instagram platform on teen girls; on Facebook's role in promoting anger on its platform; on Facebook's weak response to employee-reported drug-cartel and human-trafficking activity on its platform; on how the Facebook platform thwarted Mark Zuckerberg's desire to promote COVID-19 vaccinations; and on Facebook's "XCheck" program, which exempts high-profile accounts and VIP users from Facebook's enforcement actions.  More stories are still forthcoming.  It's easy to criticize Facebook for these apparent failures, but we should pause to assess what we as a society should hold Facebook accountable for — and not.

A Hinge Moment of History.  [Scroll down]  As recently as a year ago, the clampdowns on free speech, where Twitter or Facebook would delete your account or put a warning on you were about these kind of emotional issues.  Something changed along the way, and now you will be banned or deleted or blocked or silenced simply for disagreeing with the official version of events.  For example, the Great Barrington declaration, which was written by three of the most prominent epidemiologists in the world from Harvard, Oxford, and I think it was Stanford.  That was basically deleted from YouTube, banned from Facebook, simply because it contradicted the WHO, CDC official version of events.  In what world did we suddenly wake up and find ourselves living in in which it is not permitted to disagree with government bodies on a matter of public policy on an issue that has only emerged in the past few months?  Even on an emotionally uncontentious topic such as how best to handle a pandemic, you are not allowed to criticize the official version.  I do not think there are experts.  It is just groupthink enforced by a cabal of woke billionaires, who have more power than anyone else on the planet.

Amazon Reverses Ad Ban for Book Investigating BLM, Cites 'Inaccurately Enforced' Policies.  Amazon on Thursday [9/16/2021] reversed its earlier decision to block an advertisement for a new book that is critical of the leadership of the Black Lives Matter movement, saying it had not properly enforced its own policies.  "BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution" is the latest book by Mike Gonzalez, a former reporter and opinion editor for The Wall Street Journal who is a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, parent organization of The Daily Signal.  The Heritage Foundation this week attempted to buy an ad on the digital platform of Amazon, the world's largest retailer, to promote Gonzalez's book.  However, Amazon notified Heritage on Tuesday that it had rejected the ad.  After Heritage officials appealed, Amazon reversed itself.

Twitter censored Hunter Biden laptop stories after 'rumors' from US intelligence warned of 'a hack-and-leak operation' that would 'involve' him.  An executive with Twitter told the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that the social media company blocked New York Post's reporting on leaked emails from Hunter Biden's laptop after hearing rumors from US intelligence officials that it would result in Biden getting hacked.  The head of Twitter's Site Integrity Team, Yoel Roth, said the company's decision to block access to New York Post's reporting in October of 2020 was justified because of the information they allegedly received from US intelligence officials, according to the Washington Free Beacon.  In a complaint filed with the FEC by a conservative group, Twitter was accused of giving an illegal campaign contribution to Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign by blocking the public access to the articles and withholding information from voters in a way that supported Biden's bid for the presidency.

The Federal Election Commission is just fine with social media suppressing the story of Hunter Biden's laptop.  The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent regulatory agency whose function is to enforce federal campaign finance laws, including monitoring donation prohibitions, and limits and oversees public funding for presidential campaigns.  Just yesterday [9/13/2021], the FEC ruled that Twitter did not violate any election laws last year when it prevented users from sharing links to the New York Post news story about Hunter Biden.  Back in October 2020, the Post had carried an article covering Hunter Biden's questionable business dealings in Ukraine while his father Joe Biden was vice president.  Biden had even bragged about using his influence and that of President Obama to fire the Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating the matter and getting closer to the truth.  At best this was a matter of conflict of interest, at worse it was a case of high-scale corruption and abuse of power.

RNC mulls appeal of FEC ruling for Twitter in Hunter Biden laptop censorship.  The Republican National Committee was "weighing its options" Monday [9/13/2021] after a report said the Federal Election Commission has tossed its complaint that Twitter illegally suppressed The [New York] Post's expose about Hunter Biden's emails.  "As Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said recently, it was a 'total mistake' for Twitter to suppress this important story," RNC spokeswoman Emma Vaughn said.  "Worse, it was also illegal and our complaint persuasively explains why."  Vaughn added:  "The RNC is weighing its options for appealing this disappointing decision from the FEC."  US Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) tweeted, "Big Tech and the Mainstream Media blocked the Hunter Biden story to affect the outcome of the election in violation of election law.  They are now lying about it and facing zero consequences!"

America's high-tech tyranny is far more sophisticated than Putin's crude autocracy.  [Scroll down]  On Monday, the US Federal Election Commission decreed that there was nothing untoward about Twitter's decision to censor a story in this newspaper in October detailing Hunter Biden's corrupt dealings, including his arranging a 2015 meeting between his father, then the second-most powerful man in the world and the Obama administration's point man on Ukraine, and Burisma, a shady Ukrainian energy firm that was paying the illustrious vice-presidential son some $83,000 a month for, umm, his expertise in Eastern-European energy affairs, no doubt.  The FEC, it seems, has concluded that Twitter's decision was a purely "commercial" one, having to do with the tech giant's policy against publishing "hacked materials," according to an outline of its ruling obtained by The New York Times (most likely thanks to a leak by a left-leaning member of the FEC staff).

Does Facebook Have Different Rules for VIPs?  Report of Leaked Documents Suggest It Does.  Facebook reportedly has a specific set of elite users who don't have to follow the same censorship rules applied to average users.  There's a club of elites who don't have to follow the same rules, and Facebook has reportedly hidden it until now.  "A program known as XCheck has given millions of celebrities, politicians and other high-profile users special treatment, a privilege many abuse" reported The Wall Street Journal on Monday [9/13/2021].  The Journal suggested that XCheck "was initially intended as a quality-control measure for actions taken against high-profile accounts, including celebrities, politicians and journalists."  In practice, however, it reportedly "shields millions of VIP users from the company's normal enforcement process."  The report described some users as being "whitelisted" or "rendered immune from enforcement actions — while others are allowed to post rule-violating material pending Facebook employee reviews that often never come."

I've Been Suspended by YouTube.  Last night, as I have been doing for months, I did an episode of "my" internet show, "The World According to Ben Stein."  It's a panel show lasting about an hour.  The producer is my pal, Judah Friedman.  None of us gets paid a dime.  We talk about politics and economics and sometimes about internet dating (although I am happily married and don't do internet dating).  It's a very small little enterprise, and we are all skeptical about everything. [...] The phone rang.  It was Judah Friedman to tell me that he had just been notified by "YouTube" that they would not be showing the "show" we did last night and further that we were banned from YouTube for a week.  Our crime?  That we had questioned the Covid vaccine and gone against the prevailing wisdom of the experts on Covid in our area and nationally.  That was enough to get us banned on YouTube for a week.  Now, observe what has happened.  YouTube is such an immense communications entity that to be banned from it is to banned from national mass communication.  Yes, it's not part of the government, so the First Amendment does not strictly apply to it.  BUT, it is so big that it approximates the government.  And to be banned from it is to be banned from national debate on important issues.

I See Free Speech Disappearing Before Our Very Eyes.  [Scroll down]  But now we have a new and devilish threat:  To understand it, we must know that the USA's founding document is the Constitution.  It is a uniquely perfect document, allowing for the maximum of self-government and self-discipline in a world of confusing and aggressive men and women who do not always agree, often function with hatred in their hearts, and sometimes do not wish well for our nation.  But the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, allows us to function anyway, even with all of these shortcomings and dangers.  If the citizenry can be allowed to self-govern, the nation can work.  If the rights of Americans to speak freely, to worship, to petition for a redress of grievances, can be preserved, the nation will survive and flourish.  It was to demolish that framework towards which Al Qaeda worked.  Again, Al Qaeda did not succeed.  But now we have an alliance between the almighty Big Tech Internet companies of this country and the Democrat regime of this country.  Together, they have done the unthinkable: they have hit the citizens with overwhelmingly potent restrictions on free speech.  They have taken away free speech from a man whom they hate — Donald Trump — and preserved it for the most wicked terrorists on the planet:  Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their friends.

Texas Governor Signs Law Allowing Users to Sue Social Media Companies Over Suspensions.  Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill passed by the GOP-led legislature that is designed to stop social media companies from censoring users based on their political statements or viewpoints.  The measure was introduced earlier this year but was delayed when dozens of Democrat state lawmakers left the state to deny Republicans quorum and block the passage of a voting overhaul bill that Abbott, a Republican, signed several days ago.  House Bill 20, the social media bill, was signed by Abbott on Thursday.  It prevents companies from suspending users based on their politics and allows Texas residents to file lawsuits to reinstate accounts that are deemed to have been unfairly targeted and removed.  Namely, the legislation targeted platforms that have at least 50 million users, which would include Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, among others.

Democrats Are Clearing The Way For A Major Social Media Crackdown.  Democrats look poised to beat Republicans to the punch on regulating Big Tech, despite years of complaints from the conservative base about social media censorship.  Former President Donald Trump railed against the likes of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter's Jack Dorsey during his four-year stint in the Oval Office, but GOP lawmakers failed to take action in any meaningful way to respond to the concerns of their voters about Big Tech platforms' aggressive use of power.  Now, Democrats are seizing the opportunity to enforce the biggest social media crackdown yet, and they're threatening to use many of the same tools Republicans have been eyeing for years.

How to Tell What the Government Fears Most.  If truth exists independently from governmental decree, and science is a process in search of truth, then why are governments working with Google, Facebook, and Twitter to censor scientific debates?  Is truth so fragile that it will not survive false attacks?  Is science so dependent on "official edicts" that it must be regulated and practiced only by a small priestly caste?  If scientific consensus depends on government creating a monopoly over information, does this mean that truth is whatever government deems it to be?  Since government is incentivized to invest in fear, is it likely that government will ever declare a truth that isn't also scary?

WhatsApp and Facebook pays more than 1,000 workers to READ messages that are flagged as 'inappropriate' and even share them with the DOJ.  WhatsApp's promise of private messages with end-to-end encryption appears to have been false, an investigation revealed.  When Facebook purchased the popular messaging app for $19 billion in 2014, both companies assured users that their data could not be accessed by either company.  But Facebook not only hired 1,000 workers to sift through millions of messages on WhatsApp, which has two billion users around the world, but it also shared some of those messages with law enforcement and the U.S. Department of Justice to help put people in prison, ProPublica claims.

Sky News Boss Lambasts YouTube for Suspension, 'Opaque' Guidelines.  Claims that Sky News Australia is spreading COVID-19 misinformation are "frankly ridiculous," according to CEO Paul Whittaker, who issued a stinging criticism of video-sharing giant YouTube, at a parliamentary inquiry on Monday [9/6/2021].  Fronting the Standing Committee on Environment and Communications, Whittaker questioned why the Google-owned tech giant could be an arbiter of content.  "There is no expectation that our viewers agree with every opinion expressed by every host, guest, or panellist," he said.  "But it now appears commonplace to discredit any debate on contentious issues as 'misinformation'."  "YouTube's actions make clear that it is not a neutral platform, but a publisher selectively broadcasting content and censoring certain views, while allowing videos that are patently false, misogynistic, and racist to proliferate," Whittaker said.

Tech tyrants elevate Biden to 'Dear Leader' status, with criticism forbidden.  Shana Chappell, whose son, U.S. Marine and lance corporal Kareem Nikoui, was murdered in Afghanistan thanks to the Biden administration's fecklessness, took to social media to say exactly what she thought of Biden, including questioning the legitimacy of his presidency.  It was classic free speech of the type the First Amendment protects... so Instagram (which Facebook owns) suspended her.  It later reinstated her, assuring that it was all a mistake when we all know that the only mistake was that Facebook/Instagram got caught.  The mere fact that Facebook/Instagram took this step — and thought it could get away with it — is a perfect example of the fact that the tech tyrants are functioning in the same way as North Korean censors, banning any speech critical of the "Dear Leader" and his policies.

Big Tech, woke finance crack down on Flynn, Gateway Pundit, Berenson in cancel culture purge.  With national attention riveted over the weekend on two major stories — the frantic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan amid its fall to the Taliban and category 4 Hurricane Ida slamming into the Louisiana coast — Big Tech and woke finance dramatically extended the reach of cancel culture with brazen moves to silence and harass three high-profile voices of political and scientific dissent:  independent journalist Alex Berenson, popular conservative news and opinion website The Gateway Pundit, and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.  On Saturday, Twitter permanently banned Alex Berenson, who has built a large social media following challenging public health establishment orthodoxy on COVID issues ranging from lockdown to vaccine mandates.  "The account you referenced has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules," a Twitter spokesperson responded to an inquiry from Fox News.

Instagram Deleted Account of Mother of Slain Marine:  Report.  Facebook has reportedly backtracked after it deleted the account of Shana Chappell, the grieving mother of Lance Cpl.  Kareem Nikoui, who was killed in Afghanistan last week.  Like so many other censorship instances before, the Big Tech platform claimed the removal was a mistake, according to the New York Post.  Lance Cpl.  Kareem Nikoui was killed in the recent Kabul attack.  Chappell reportedly posted on Instagram that President Joe Biden was disrespectful when they met after the death of her son.  She added that she told the president that her son's blood was "on [his] hands," according to Reclaim The Net.  Chappell reportedly posted on Facebook that her Instagram account had been deleted, and her Facebook account was subsequently restricted.  "As soon as I posted about what happened to my son Instagram started pulling up my posts from months ago and sending me notifications that if I kept posting stuff like this that they would disable my account.  Posts from months ago," she said, according to Reclaim The Net.  California State Senator Melissa Melendez (R), a Navy veteran, appeared to be appalled by Instagram's actions.

COVID vaccine doubter Alex Berenson permanently banned from Twitter.  Conservative commentator and vaccine doubter Alex Berenson has reportedly been permanently suspended from Twitter for violating the social media platform's COVID-19 misinformation rules.  Berenson's account was banned Saturday [8/28/2021] after "repeated violations" of the rules, a Twitter spokesperson told NBC News in a statement.  Berenson, a one-time New York Times reporter, addressed the suspension in a Saturday night post to his Substack page, blaming his removal from Twitter on a recent post where he was critical of the coronavirus vaccine.  "It doesn't stop infection.  Or transmission.  Don't think of it as a vaccine," the tweet read.

Goodbye Twitter:  I am officially suspended.  This was the tweet that did it.  Entirely accurate.  I can't wait to hear what a jury will make of this.  [Tweet]

Big Tech Censorship Is an Assault on Individual Liberty.  Most state legislatures are actively considering laws to protect their constituents' online free speech from Big Tech censorship.  In response, Big Tech increasingly advances an argument designed to appeal to libertarians and other supporters of limited government.  Big Tech claims state policymakers should not safeguard their constituents' free-speech rights because doing so would be an assault on free markets and Big Tech's property rights.  Big Tech's reasoning is seriously flawed and undermines, rather than promotes, individual liberty.  Before addressing the serious flaws in Big Tech's arguments, it is worth noting the hypocrisy of Big Tech's decision to assert libertarian, free-market principles in defense of censoring Americans' speech.  Big Tech often claims it has property rights and free-market rights that should be immune from government intervention.  In particular, these businesses claim the government has no right to meddle in the choices private companies make regarding their businesses, including decisions about the kinds of material permitted on social media platforms.

YouTube Yanks Over 1 Million COVID-19 Videos It Deems 'Dangerous'.  YouTube has removed more than 1 million videos on its platform containing alleged misinformation related to COVID-19.  The Google-owned company announced the figure in a blog post Wednesday, "Perspective:  Tackling Misinformation on YouTube," written by Neal Mohan, YouTube's chief product officer.  "Since last February, we've removed over 1 million videos related to dangerous coronavirus information, like false cures or claims of a hoax," he said.  The company focuses on removing content that can directly lead to "egregious real world harm," according to Mohan.  YouTube also said it was addressing misinformation by optimizing search results to prioritize "quality" news and information from "trusted sources."  For information related to COVID-19, the company relied on "expert consensus" from health organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization.  "In the midst of a global pandemic, everyone should be armed with absolutely the best information available to keep themselves and their families safe," Mohan said.

The Editor says...
Why are we not allowed to see the less-than-best information, too?

Democrats Aren't Even Bothering To Hide Their Wrongdoing.  Thanks to the news out of Afghanistan, Jen Psaki's recent admission that the executive branch has been colluding with the tech giants to suppress free speech, has apparently passed into the ether with far less scrutiny than it deserves.  In fact, this is such a clear violation of the First Amendment that it defies any obvious logic or rationale.  But Psaki's announcement isn't the first act in this play; it's only the most recent act in the left's years-long flouting of the rule of law.  It appeared, at first, as though there might have been a major revelation in the works and that the administration was simply trying to get out in front of it.  The media, however, know that they control the narrative and no matter how big a bomb gets dropped, they are confident that they can whitewash it or twist it into something else.

Twitter Shows Its Colors With Its Latest Move Against DeSantis' Press Sec Christina Pushaw.  How many times have we seen Twitter pull the trigger against someone on the right now?  But they're not at all biased, right?  They just went after another one.  This time, it's Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' press secretary, Christina Pushaw.  As we reported earlier, the AP did a flawed hit piece on DeSantis (how many of those have we seen at this point?), falsely suggesting a pay for play scheme on the part of DeSantis for promoting a Regeneron COVID-19 antibody treatment.  His press secretary and other outlets debunked the claims.  But the AP then claimed that because Pushaw defended DeSantis, somehow she was activating an online mob against their reporter.

WaPo: Taliban gets a voice on Twitter because they 'play by the rules', unlike Trump.  The same mainstream media outlet that faced backlash for lamenting the death of "austere religious scholar" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is now facing backlash for drawing attention to the Taliban's "sophisticated" use of social media.  In a news report published Wednesday [8/18/2021], The Washington Post claimed via "analysts" that the Taliban remains online and active on social media networks because they haven't broken any of the rules.  The piece might have possibly been able to evade backlash had the Post stuck to just reporting on the Taliban's social media strategies.  Instead, the Post chose to add a political twist by contrasting the Taliban's online behavior with that of former President Donald Trump.  "U.S. conservatives have been demanding to know why former president Donald Trump has been banned from Twitter while various Taliban figures have not," the Post reported.

Taliban will be allowed to stay on Twitter — as long as they don't 'glorify violence' — while ex-president Trump is still banned.  Twitter has refused to join its social media counterparts in banning the Taliban from its platform, saying it'll monitor content to ensure there aren't messages 'glorifying violence'.  The move is in stark contrast to the company's Big Tech rivals.  Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram (both owned by Facebook), TikTok and YouTube have all banned and terminated accounts that are related to, promote or praise the Taliban.  Twitter said in a statement that it will 'continue to proactively enforce our rules and review content that may violate Twitter rules, specifically policies against glorification of violence, platform manipulation and spam.'

Twitter says Taliban can stay on platform if they obey rules.  Unlike former President Donald Trump, the faces and voices of the reconstituted Taliban regime in Afghanistan can apparently tweet to their hearts' content.  In a statement obtained by Mediaite Tuesday, Twitter ducked the question of whether it would bar representatives of the Islamic fundamentalist government from getting their message out 280 characters at a time — saying only that it would "continue to proactively enforce" its rules outlawing the "glorification of violence, platform manipulation and spam."  "Twitter's top priority is keeping people safe, and we remain vigilant," the statement added.  Both official Taliban spokesmen have unverified accounts on Twitter.  One, Zabihullah Mujahid, has more than 310,000 followers.  His most recent tweet as of Tuesday afternoon promoted a press conference by Taliban leaders and drew hundreds of responses, many of them from well-wishers.

Trump remains barred from Twitter but Taliban spokesperson still using platform for propaganda.  Social media giant Twitter was taken to task on Sunday [8/15/2021] by users who noticed that a spokesman for the Taliban remains free to use the platform unfettered to spout whatever messages he wants, sans fact-checks or warnings, while former President Donald Trump remains banned.  The observations were made as Taliban fighters have now completely overrun Afghanistan and have taken control of the presidential palace amid deadly, chaotic scenes at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, including three Afghans who attempted to stowaway on a U.S. military jet falling to their deaths.  The account of Zabihullah Mujahid is not blue-check verified, but he has some 280,000 followers and is often quoted by major news agencies.  Recently, he posted an update about the group's "military units" as they entered the capital of Kabul while U.S. troops were assisting the evacuation of American embassy diplomats and staff.

Res Ipsa Blog Hit By Targeted Cyber Attack.  Today [8/17/2021] Res Ipsa was targeted for a second time in a cyber attack to prevent access to the site.  While access for some was restored by WordPress technical support, I could not post or even gain access to the site for much of the day.  WordPress confirmed that this was an intentional attack to freeze the site and my ability to post.  We do not know when a third attack will occur.  What was particularly sad is that, when I disclosed this criminal act on Twitter, some on social media and even this blog celebrated or condoned the hack because they disagree with my viewpoints.

Taliban Spokesman Has Active Twitter Account, Trump Still Suspended.  A Taliban spokesman still has an active Twitter account, despite the platform's suspension of former President Donald Trump for "hateful" and "violent" content.  The Taliban is actively moving to retake Afghanistan after U.S. withdrawal, with countless men, women, and children in danger for their lives. [...] In the past two weeks, notable conservative commentators Erick Erickson and Allie Beth Stuckey were both suspended from Twitter after they said that transgender olympian Laurel Hubbard was "still a man."  Liz Harrington, Trump's chief spokeswoman, was also suspended after she questioned the integrity of the 2020 election.

I Am Getting Tired of Being Right All the Time.  In the last several months I have written extensively and freely here at RedState about COVID-19 science, including reports on the viability of the lab-leak theory, only because it is now deemed acceptable by BigTech.  Prior to May such posts would almost certainly have been slapped with a Facebook fact-check even though no credible information (only the word of the Chinese Government and financially interested researchers), existed then or exists now definitively proving that the virus came from anywhere outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology. [...] We were right, yet to this day Facebook operates its hive of misinformation, policed by "fact-checkers," with impunity.  Their stated goal of preventing the spread of misinformation was compounded by their blocking of and subsequent removal of factual information and reporting.  Why, you may ask?  Well, it might have something to do with the fact that the very people who may be responsible for perpetrating the development of this virus were included in refuting the potential that they were responsible.  Remember Peter Daszak?  The President of EcoHealth Alliance which funneled cash and research information to the Wuhan Insitute of Virology?  The man who sat on the WHO team charged with investigating the virus's origins?  He was a Facebook fact-checker.

Autonomy for Red America, Part 1.  The deplatforming of Parler was a watershed moment, as conservatives realized they would, in short order, become more than just political dissidents out of power for a presidential or Congressional term or two.  Parler's ability to do business — provide conservatives a social network free of onerous ideological censorship — was destroyed by a cabal of larger businesses on which it depended.  These decisions from Apple and Amazon Web Services, most prominently, were coordinated and ideological.  Silicon Valley's willingness to destroy Parler effectively silenced the voices of the 10 million users on its platform.  The turn toward increasingly rigid ideological censorship at micro-blogging and link-sharing sites like Twitter and Facebook has created space for smaller competitors dedicated to free expression, like Locals, Gab, Parler, Telegram and others.  In addition, alternatives to Silicon Valley photo- and video-sharing platforms like YouTube and Instagram have also begun to take shape, as more Americans realize their time on platforms owned by a Big Tech committed to censorship will come to an end — probably sooner rather than later.

The Silent Majority is Going to Get Loud.  In recent years, suppression of expression has taken another alarming turn — outright censorship.  Divergent political views, and even legitimate news stories, are being suppressed by legacy news media, Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube and other social media sites.  Some have argued that as private companies they may censor content at their discretion.  However, these social media companies have become the new town squares.  Their control over information goes far beyond that of a private company merely expressing its opinion.  In addition, the Harris/Biden administration recently disclosed that it is colluding with social media oligarchs to "prevent the spread of misinformation."  Of course, anything contrary to their preferred narrative is considered "misinformation."  This is the power of government being used to crush political speech.  It is a clear violation of our right to freedom of speech — and they don't care.

Why We Should Care That YouTube Has Silenced Sen. Rand Paul.  Another day, another instance of a Big Tech company censoring content it doesn't like.  This time, YouTube — owned by Google — took down a video by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in which he discusses face masks and COVID-19. YouTube also banned Paul from its platform for a week.  "We removed content from Senator Paul's channel for including claims that masks are ineffective in preventing the contraction or transmission of COVID-19, in accordance with our COVID-19 medical misinformation policies," YouTube said in a public statement.  Notably, YouTube's policy cites the World Health Organization and "local authorities" as its source of what's correct about COVID-19.  Yet the WHO not only flubbed its early response to the disease, it was criticized and defunded by then-President Donald Trump for its connections with China and general dysfunction.  But this is only one bad part about YouTube's decision.  Paul, a physician, wasn't saying in the video that masks are ineffective against the coronavirus.  He was saying that some masks are effective, while others are not.

Sen. Rand Paul suspended from YouTube, forced to remove video.  Sen. Rand Paul has been suspended from YouTube.  The Kentucky Republican also was forced to remove a video that YouTube said broke its rules against what it deems medical misinformation.  The one-week suspension began Monday over a video in which Mr. Paul said that "cloth masks don't work" and most over-the-counter masks "don't prevent infection," YouTube told reporters.  Mr. Paul took to Twitter to call the suspension "a badge of honor."  [Tweet]

Why I Am Deleting All Content After 48 Hours.  Never in my life, would I believe the sitting President of the United States call out 12 Americans in a McCarthyism like attack in the United States.  As you are aware, I was placed at the top of this list.  The last week has brought a tremendous amount of reflections to me, and a lot of unacceptable threats to a company full of amazing people that have helped me support you in this journey.  By now I am sure you know that there was a recent NY Times article attacking me and it was one of the most widely distributed stories in the world.  The article was loaded with false statements made about me and my organization.  The report would be laughed at if it were to be submitted for peer review, the groups that created it are funded by dark money and operated by an illegal foreign agent.  The press never questioned it, but ran with their orders from above. [...] A dissenter of medical mandates is now a target and obstacle to be removed.  I know — that's 25 years' worth of blood, sweat and tears coming down.  I can hardly believe these words are coming out of my mouth.  It's a testament of just how radical things have degenerated in the recent past.  However, I will continue to publish new articles, BUT going forward, each article I publish will be available for only 48 hours and will then be removed from the website.

CDC and Facebook 'Coordinated Closely' on Censorship of COVID-19 'Misinformation': Watchdog.  Facebook "coordinated closely" with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in controlling the narrative of the CCP virus pandemic, including suppression of alleged misinformation, and gave the health agency free advertising estimated at $3 million, according to Judicial Watch, which obtained emails that were released on July 28.  The CDC released 2,469 new documents to Judicial Watch in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filed against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  In an email exchange beginning on Jan. 26, 2020, days after a senior program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation connected the CDC with Facebook, a representative at the social media giant informed the CDC of the actions it was taking in regards to combating misinformation on the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, also known as the novel coronavirus, that causes COVID-19.

Despite Facebook Bias, Breitbart News Destroys Establishment Media on Platform.  Despite the presence of a range of leftist "fact-checkers" with the power to suppress posts on the platform and open censorship of conservative news stories by Facebook, Breitbart News is demolishing its establishment foes on Facebook.  Facebook has an established track record of censoring conservative media.  It censored the New York Post twice, first for the Hunter Biden laptop story and then for a negative story about a Black Lives Matter co-founder.  It censored Tucker Carlson's page, reducing the Fox News host's reach on the platform little more than a month before the 2020 election.  It censored the Wall Street Journal over an op-ed on coronavirus.  And it censored Breitbart News — for a live video of a press conference.

Facebook shuts out NYU academics' research on political ads.  Facebook has shut down the personal accounts of a pair of New York University researchers and shuttered their investigation into misinformation spread through political ads on the social network.  Facebook says the researchers violated its terms of service and were involved in unauthorized data collection from its massive network.  The academics, however, say the company is attempting to exert control on research that paints it in a negative light.  The NYU researchers with the Ad Observatory Project had for several years been looking into Facebook's Ad Library, where searches can be done on advertisements running across Facebook's products.

The Social Media Giants Call Me a Violent Extremist.  Reading PJ Media the other day, I discovered to my shock that, without my knowing it, I've somehow become a violent extremist.  As a result, the social media giants Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube are determined to eradicate my nefarious presence from the interwebs.  I don't know when this particular boom will be lowered on me, if ever, but if my website Jihad Watch and I suddenly disappear from your daily Internet reading, you'll know that our intrepid self-appointed protectors are working night and day to keep you safe from violent extremism, and are to be commended for doing so.  It turns out that I'm a violent extremist in the view of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), which I might have viewed as yet another crackpot Leftist attempt to deflect attention away from the ongoing reality of Islamic jihad terrorism, and toward the chimeras of "white supremacist terrorism," "Trumpist terrorism," and whatever else they're calling foes of Old White Joe these days.

65,000 Americans censored by social media.  According to the legal team for former president Donald Trump, almost 65,000 people have submitted examples of censorship by the social media companies Google, Facebook, and Twitter, and the lawyers have amended Trump's the lawsuit to add those individuals to it. [...] I personally am not hopeful this lawsuit will change much, even if Trump wins.  The numbers suggest that the blacklisting and censorship is widespread and carries the support of large numbers of people at these companies.  In order to have any impact the damages have to be heavy, so much so that they threaten the very businesses of these tech giants.  Only then will their managements make it clear to all the employees that it is impermissible to blackball commentary, of any sort.  Barring that, I fully expect these brownshirts to shrug off any court defeat and continue their policy of censorship and the silencing of debate.  If anything, I fully expect them to accelerate their effort, teaming up with the Democrats in both Congress and the White House to use all the tools available to them to prevent the public from reading any stories critical of those Democrats.

Dr. Rand Paul Releases Video Slamming YouTube for Censorship.  Today [8/3/2021], physician and U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) released a video calling out YouTube for censoring his content.  Recently, Dr. Paul uploaded a video to his YouTube channel, which was an interview with a journalist, and during the interview they discussed a variety of topics, including the science behind masks.  Despite the fact that Dr. Paul's comments were based on scientific evidence, YouTube, acting in lockstep with the government, claimed it contradicts the government's official position and censored the video.

Sounds like a joke, but apparently it's not.
AP, Reuters Sign Deal To Help Twitter Decide What's True.  The Associated Press and Reuters signed a deal with Twitter to help them "elevate credible information," the social media site and the outlets announced Monday [8/1/2021].  Twitter said in a blog post that the outlets would help in providing context to trending content and identifying potentially misleading information.  The outlets will help expand Twitter's efforts to explain trends or other popular information, "especially where facts are in dispute."  The outlets will also help when Twitter's team does not have "specific expertise or access to a high enough volume of reputable reporting."

Database Proving How Fauci Funded Wuhan Lab Has Been Taken Offline.  The National Institutes of Health database tracking U.S. taxpayer-backed research grants — including the controversial award from Mr. Anthony Fauci's agency to the Wuhan Institute of Virology — can no longer be accessed.  When searched, the database, which itemizes the billions of taxpayer-funded grants distributed by various National Institutes of Health (NIH) agencies, yields no results and prompts users with an error message.  Among the agencies included in the registry is the Fauci-led National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which has come under scrutiny for funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.  The website also previously revealed NIAID-directed funds for joint research between disgrace COVID-19 investigator Peter Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance and the Chinese government-run lab under the auspices of a nearly $3.7 million grant entitled "Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence."

Trump Amends Big Tech Lawsuit as 65,000 Americans Submit Censorship Stories.  Former President Donald Trump's legal team has amended his class action lawsuit against Big Tech to incorporate additional class representatives and more censorship stories provided by everyday Americans.  According to the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), Trump's July 7 lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter, and Google is adding "additional censorship experiences" from some of the nearly 65,000 people who submitted them to the institute.  "Late last night, Amended Complaints were filed in the Big Tech lawsuits against Facebook, Inc., Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter, Inc., Jack Dorsey, Google LLC, and Sundar Pichai," AFPI said in a July 28 statement.  "Since the initial filing on July 7, 2021, nearly 65,000 American people have submitted their stories of censorship through America First Policy Institute's (AFPI) Constitutional Litigation Partnership (CLP) at TakeOnBigTech.com," AFPI added.

Twitter Suspends Science Writer After He Posts Results Of Pfizer Clinical Test.  Twitter LogoJust yesterday [7/30/2021], we discussed the censoring of a commentator by Twitter for merely expressing an opinion over the need for a "pause" on any federal mandates on Covid-19 as new research is studied.  Now, a former New York Times science reporter, Alex Berenson, has been suspended for simply citing the results from a clinical trial by Pfizer and raising questions over any vaccine mandate.  In the meantime, the White House accused both the Washington Post and New York Times of irresponsible reporting on Covid, but surprisingly Twitter has not suspended those accounts.  It is the license of the censor.  Twitter is unwilling to let people read or discuss viewpoints that it disagrees with as a corporation.  Many on the left, however, have embraced the concept of corporate speech and censorship.  It turns out that the problem with censorship for many was the failure to censor views that they opposed.  With the "right" censors at work, the free speech concerns have been set aside.

As COVID surges, why is YouTube suppressing SkyNews for its reports on HCQ and ivermectin?  In one of the most outrageous instances of internet censorship, YouTube has suppressed Australian news giant SkyNews for a week, based on its reports about hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. [...] And it's wrong on at least two levels.  One, even if the network was wrong (a big 'if'), the censorship would be wrong, too.  In a free society, news agencies sink or swim based on the accuracy of their information.  To shut them down on a false claim of denying COVID, or for reporting on the benefits of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, serves zero useful purpose.  In a country with a free press, if SkyNews is wrong about those treatments, their credibility will vanish and their audience will evaporate.  Viewers are not stupid.  But YouTube seems to think they are.

Sky News Australia Suspended by YouTube.  YouTube has temporarily suspended Sky News Australia from posting on its video platform, issuing a first strike to the popular conservative news channel over "COVID-19 misinformation," according to a statement.  The tech giant said its decision to issue a strike was based on local and global health authority guidance, which Sky News Australia challenged as being constantly "subject to change" alongside updates to guidance from the various authorities.  Sky News Australia said the suspension was over "old videos" posted on its channel.  The strike means that Sky News Australia is suspended for a week from uploading content to its 1.85 million subscribers on its YouTube account.

The Shadow State:  Twitter Suspends Commentator for Criticizing Vaccine Policies.  I recently discussed how the Biden Administration was actively encouraging corporations to limit speech and impose vaccine mandates as a type of shadow state.  Rather than take such actions directly (and face both legal and political challenges), the Administration is relying on its close alliance with Big Tech and other companies to carry out such tasks.  That surrogate relationship is particularly clear in the expanding censorship program carried out by Twitter, Facebook and other companies.  Twitter's action against political commentator Dave Rubin is an example of how these companies are now dispensing with any pretense in actively barring criticism of government policies and viewpoints.

GOP Fights Back:  House Republicans Launch Massive Assault Against Big Tech, Unveil 32 Bills.  House Republicans launched an effort to rein in Big Tech's growing tyranny with an onslaught of new bills in a massive push to fight back against online censorship.  Republicans in the House Energy and Commerce Committee unveiled a package of 32 bills to hold Big Tech accountable by reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, protecting children and improving transparency, among other goals.  "Big Tech has broken our trust that they can be good and responsible stewards of their platforms," said Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA).  McMorris Rodgers did note that "the goal is for these drafts is to lead to concrete legislation and reforms.  The Committee is asking for stakeholder and public engagement on these draft bills as part of their thoughtful process in their Big Tech Accountability platform to drive meaningful change."

Most States Appeal Antitrust Case Against Facebook.  State and territorial attorneys general are appealing a federal judge's dismissal of their antitrust complaint against Facebook.  The complaint, filed Wednesday [7/28/2021] by 48 state and territorial attorneys general and led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, was dismissed in June, along with a complaint brought by the Federal Trade Commission.  The attorneys general alleged Facebook illegally maintained a social media monopoly by acquiring smaller competitors and preventing other platforms from operating with its software.  "We filed this notice of appeal because we disagree with the court's decision and must hold Facebook accountable for stifling competition, reducing innovation, and cutting privacy protections.  We can no longer allow Facebook to profit off of exploiting consumer data," James said in a statement to The Hill news organization.

Twitter suspends Dave Rubin after tweet critical of Democrats, vaccine mandates.  Twitter suspended liberal commentator Dave Rubin of the Rubin Report on Thursday after he publicly criticized the federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Big Tech 'Counterterrorism' Org Shifts Focus from Islamic Extremism to 'Far Right'.  Big Tech companies including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Reddit, Verizon, Airbnb, and Mailchimp will expand a project of collusion on "counterterrorism" efforts that target domestic right-wing organizations.  The organization, which initially focused on building a database on content shared by Islamic extremists linked to Al Qaeda, ISIS, and the Taliban, will now shift focus to right-wing groups including the Proud Boys.

Facebook blocks woman's 'why are men so dumb' comment as 'hate speech'.  A Detroit woman said she was temporarily banished from Facebook for "hate speech" after participating in a time-honored tradition:  commenting on a meme labeling the opposite sex as "dumb."  "At first I thought it was a joke [and] I'm like yeah right I'm blocked ... what?" Candace King told Fox News of her social media timeout, which allegedly occurred after she participated in a thread entitled "why men are so dumb."  The Facebook topic initially focused on how women will notice a difference in two different shades of purple — but quickly devolved into a discussion over mens' purported inability to differentiate nuanced shades.

House Republicans accuse Joe Biden of behaving like a 'Cuban dictator' with efforts to control social media spread of public health 'misinformation'.  Joe Biden has been accused of acting like 'a Cuban dictator' in a letter signed by 190 House Republicans, after his administration moved to force tech companies to clamp down on coronavirus misinformation.  A letter to the president was written on Thursday by Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and the three top Republicans in the House — Leader Kevin McCarthy, Whip Steve Scalise and Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik.  'The federal government's ongoing efforts to pressure private companies to censor speech that it disagrees with is alarming and an affront to the First Amendment,' they wrote, in a letter obtained by Fox News.

Klobuchar proposes stripping Section 230 protections for 'health misinformation'.  Senate Democrats introduced new legislation Thursday to hold social media platforms accountable for health-related misinformation during public health emergencies, a move that could cause more censorship during crises similar to the coronavirus pandemic.  The Health Misinformation Act, introduced by Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, would amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the controversial liability shield for user-generated content online.  If passed, the legislation would allow social media giants, such as Facebook and YouTube, to be sued for dangerous health misinformation on their platforms.  The bill would direct the Health and Human Services secretary to issue guidelines about what constitutes health misinformation.

White House Communications Director Admits They're Trying to Censor Conservative News Sites.  During an interview with CNN this week, White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield admitted the Biden administration's censorship efforts are specifically targeting conservative news sites for publishing "misinformation."  "You've heard the president speak very aggressively about this.  He understands this is an important piece of the ecosystem but its also the other thing, the president has pointed out and spoke to when he was asked about this yesterday, it is also the responsibility of the people creating the content and again I would go back to, there are conservative news outlets who are creating irresponsible content that's sharing misinformation about the virus," Bedingfield said.

White House Relies on British Dark Money Group to Identify 'Misinformation' and Justify Censorship.  A left-wing dark money group in Great Britain is behind the Biden regime's claim that 12 social media personalities are responsible for the majority of vaccine misinformation online.  White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki mentioned the group's findings during the daily press briefing on Thursday after she announced that the administration has been coordinating with social media companies to combat what they consider COVID "disinformation."  "There's about 12 people that are producing 65 percent of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms.  All of them remain active on Facebook despite some of them even being banned on other platforms including ones that Facebook owns," Psaki said.  Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) discussed the group behind the claim in a series of tweets Tuesday.

The American Descent into Madness.  [Scroll down]  We know from the failed Soviet system and from the French Revolution that the most mediocre in society became its most eager auditors of correct behavior.  The arbiters of proper thought — the self-righteous paid toady, the perpetual victim employed in service to government payback, the freelancing snitch — were always the villains of freedom, productivity, and humanity, whether we read of the killing off of Alexander the Great's inner circle, the forced suicides of the Neronian circle, the Jacobin murder spree, or the nightmarish world described by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.  That the Biden Administration has now joined with Silicon Valley to hunt down on social media any dissenters from this month's official policy on vaccinations and mask-wearing was not so shocking as to be expected from a media that banned coverage of Hunter Biden's laptop.  In Cuban-fashion, millions of judge-jury-executioner online snitches, with government encouragement, will help root out incorrect thoughts at light speed.

Sidestepping the First Amendment.  Emperor Joe Bay-den and Jen "Goebbels" Psaki have decided to start walking down a very dangerous path into the early stages of fascism:  [Video clip]

Marjorie Taylor Greene compares Twitter to the Chinese Communist Party in her her first tweet after 12-hour suspension.  Marjorie Taylor Greene broke her 12-hour Twitter suspension on Tuesday by comparing the social media giant to the Chinese Communist Party, claiming they are stifling free speech.  'American social media company Twitter banned me for 12 hrs, censoring me, & violating my freedom of speech,' the Georgia representative posted.  'You know who else silences, censors, and bans people they don't like and want heard.  Communist China,' she continued, along with an emoji of the Chinese flag.

Psaki does U-turn on flagging Facebook content, says no efforts to 'block any individual posts'.  White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has switched rhetorical gears on the Biden administration's role in flagging "misinformation" on Facebook.  Days of outrage over multiple comments regarding the removal of COVID-19 posts prompted a U-turn of sorts by Ms. Psaki on Tuesday [7/20/2021].  "We've not asked Facebook to block any individual posts," the Democrat told reporters when pressed for details on its relationship with Facebook.  "The way this works is that there are trends that are out there on social media platforms.  You're aware of them.  We're aware of them.  Anyone in the public can be aware of them."

Fear Free Speech:  Biden Denounces Big Tech as "Killing People" By Not Censoring Speech.  President Joe Biden slammed Big Tech companies this week for "killing people" by failing to engage in even greater censorship of free speech on issues related to the pandemic.  It was a surprising condemnation of companies who have been loyal allies of Biden, including killing stories embarrassing to his family like the Hunter Biden laptop scandal before the election.  It also has censored stories questioning his victory in 2020.  Nevertheless, Biden denounced the range of uncensored free speech as the cause of death for many — the ultimate anti-free speech trope for those seeking to convince people to embrace their own censorship.  Biden was asked by a reporter what his message was to "platforms like Facebook" on the subject of "COVID misinformation."  He responded "They're killing people.  The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and they're killing people."  This comes as these companies have been criticized for censoring debates over the origin or treatment of Covid-19.

White House Press Sec.  Jen Psaki Wants To Quash Misinformation — She Has A History Of Promoting It.  White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki came under fire on Friday for saying that promoting "misinformation" should get you banned from every social media platform.  "You shouldn't be banned from one platform and not others for providing misinformation," Psaki said in Friday's White House press briefing, calling on Facebook to "measure and publicly share the impact of misinformation on their platform."  But Psaki herself has a history of promoting many stories on Twitter before becoming White House press secretary that turned out to be false.  After the New York Post published emails in late October 2020 found on Hunter Biden's laptop implicating his father, then-Democratic nominee for President Joe Biden, in his overseas business dealings, Psaki promoted Politico's much criticized story that lauded a letter signed by 50 former senior intelligence officials claiming the released emails had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."

Joe Biden's troubling TECHnique.  Any assessment of Joe Biden's performance last week runs into an obstacle.  While it was awful from start to finish, the hard part is deciding which was the absolute worst moment.  Was it the president's latest attack on state voting law reforms, which he bizarrely called "the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War"?  Was it the administration's outrageous invitation for the pampered popinjays at the United Nations to sit in judgment of America's racial strife?  Or perhaps it was Biden's decision to push a one-party spending spree of trillions of dollars even as inflation levels reached their highest mark in 13 years?  Under almost any president, each of those events would qualify as a low point.  But Biden is proving to be spectacularly awful at his job, and he did something else that captures the award for the week's Worst of the Worst.  Friday, the president accused Facebook of "killing people" and demanded it silence those opposed to or questioning the coronavirus vaccines.

Appeals Court Agrees to Review Decision on Big Tech's Section 230 Immunity.  A little-watched civil rights case that threatens Silicon Valley's Section 230 immunity took a huge step forward on July 16, as an appeals court that rarely does so agreed to review a lower court's decision.  The U.S. Appeals Court for the Second Circuit in New York agreed to review a lower court's ruling that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) protects Big Tech companies such as Vimeo from civil rights liability in censorship cases.  Big Tech censorship became a hot button issue during the 2020 presidential campaign when then-President Donald Trump was selectively censored by Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.  The controversy became especially heated late in the campaign when a New York Post series of news articles regarding the allegedly corrupt business dealings of President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, was banned by the Big Tech giants.

The New Orthodoxy: Jurisdiction over your Thoughts.  [Scroll down]  Their problem is that the truth is an ever-fixed mark.  While they cannot transform the truth — the truth, by its very nature, is unchanging — they circumvent this limitation by exercising power over what can be said.  This gives the impression that what can be said is what is supposed to be said, and that what is prohibited must certainly be false.  Not by the merits of the claim but whether the claim is allowed to be communicated or researched or even debated.  This is how falsehoods win over the truth, and how politics corrupts it all.  Reporting on studies of vaccine effectiveness — even by the inventor of the mRNA technology used in some COVID vaccines — are banned from YouTube.  Medical experts and scientists who present evidence and arguments contrary to government-approved thoughts are silenced.  It seems the only authorized information on these platforms is that which is approved by "the CDC, FDA and other local health authorities."  White House press secretary Jen Psaki, expressing the position of the Biden Administration, called for Americans to be banned from all social media platforms if they dare think for themselves and disagree with "science."

The 'COVID Misinformation' Train Wreck.  White House officials are notifying Facebook about posts that allegedly spread COVID-19 misinformation as part of efforts by President Joe Biden's administration to combat what U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy described as "an imminent and insidious threat to our nation's health."  Murthy and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki discussed their efforts as part of a "new campaign" to fight virus-related misinformation. [...] Psaki said part of the Biden administration's new campaign involves asking social media companies to be more active in combatting misinformation and to share the results of their efforts publicly. [...] Psaki added that an estimated 12 individuals are responsible for about 65 percent of all anti-vaccine misinformation on social media.  Though some of those individuals are blocked on some social media platforms, she said they are not blocked on Facebook. [...] Of course, this raises lots of questions.  Who are these "12 individuals... responsible for about 65 percent of all anti-vaccine misinformation on social media"?  If they are "an imminent and insidious threat to our nation's health," why can't the government just talk to them directly?

The White House Just Confirmed Facebook Works as a Government Censorship Tool.  Speaking to reporters at the White House Thursday afternoon, Press Secretary Jen Psaki explained how the White House and the federal government are working to flag posts on Facebook which they see as "problematic."  "We're flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation," Psaki said, referring to information about the Wuhan coronavirus vaccine.  [Tweet]  Surgeon General Vivek Murphy is advocating for harsh punishments for those in violation.  [Tweet]  But what's problematic is this type of approach and censorship from the government.  Early last year Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg emailed Dr. Anthony Fauci offering a partnership to promote and police information about Wuhan coronavirus.  That led to Facebook, at Fauci's direction, censoring the lab leak theory for more than year.  Only recently did Facebook start allowing posts about the theory, which is exceedingly credible, to remain on the platform.

Facebook's Top Censorship Board Is Filled With Elite, Power-Loving Bureaucrats.  Facebook Oversight Board co-chair and Helle Thorning-Schmidt made it very clear that she does not believe free speech is a human right.  "How do you moderate content and how do you find that balance between human rights and free speech, which is a human right, but also other human rights because free speech is not an absolute human right," the censorship head asked during a live stream this week.  "It has to be balanced with all the human rights and that is what the oversight is there to do," she added.  Thorning-Schmidt is one of the 20 people who sit on Facebook's newest attempt to create a mass censorship campaign, which the White House just recently publicly endorsed.  The board masquerades as a means of providing support to "people's right to free expression and ensure those rights are being adequately respected."

Mark Levin: 'Jen Psaki Is the Best Witness for the Trump Lawsuit'.  Conservative radio host Mark Levin noted Thursday evening that White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki made the case for former President Donald Trump's new lawsuit when she urged social media companies to suppress anti-vaccine ideas.  Recently, Trump sued several social media giants for censoring him and other uses, arguing that Big Tech had to abide by the First Amendment since it took direction from the government about public issues such as the coronavirus pandemic.  Levin noted that Psaki's arguments had given new weight to Trump's arguments, which are considered relatively novel.

Twitter explodes after Psaki urges Big Tech to unite on bans for 'misinformation' spreaders.  The White House is courting intense criticism again Friday after press secretary Jen Psaki said that once users are banned from one social media platform for spreading coronavirus "misinformation," they should be expelled from all others as well.  Remarking on steps social media outlets could take for public health, she advised they "create robust enforcement strategies that bridge their properties and provide transparency about rules.  You shouldn't be banned from one platform and not others if you are for providing misinformation out there."  The remarks riled critics already concerned about collaboration between the Biden administration and Big Tech Psaki discussed from the podium on Thursday [7/15/2021], as they seek to vaccinate more Americans amid spikes in coronavirus cases in the past few weeks.

Twitter explodes after Psaki urges Big Tech to unite on bans for 'misinformation' spreaders.  The White House is courting intense criticism again Friday after press secretary Jen Psaki said that once users are banned from one social media platform for spreading coronavirus "misinformation," they should be expelled from all others as well.  Remarking on steps social media outlets could take for public health, she advised they "create robust enforcement strategies that bridge their properties and provide transparency about rules.  You shouldn't be banned from one platform and not others if you are for providing misinformation out there."  The remarks riled critics already concerned about collaboration between the Biden administration and Big Tech Psaki discussed from the podium on Thursday, as they seek to vaccinate more Americans amid spikes in coronavirus cases in the past few weeks.

FB oversight member says free speech 'is not an absolute human right'.  A Facebook Oversight Board member says free speech is "not an absolute human right," and must be balanced against "other human rights" when deciding what content to censor.  The board member, former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt, said "free speech is not an absolute human right."  "It has to be balanced with other human rights," she said Thursday at a Politico Europe event.  The 20-member Facebook Oversight Board was set up last year to allow corporate executives to claim distance from politically sensitive decisions.  The board in May recommended that the company uphold a continued ban on former President Donald Trump's account after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

US Surgeon General Asks Big Tech to Restrict Voices That Challenge Biden Regime Narrative on Vaccinations.  Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, Vice Admiral, U.S. Public Health Service Surgeon General of the United States, has produced new guidance to combat "misinformation" about health guidance as provided by the U.S. Government.  Comrades, the 'Ministry of Truth' is becoming very real.  The government push to promote vaccinations for COVID-19 has gone well beyond reasonable advancement for the public health.  Now, we are entering a phase where the ongoing demand is becoming problematic, propaganda.  More government advocates are pushing toward mandatory vaccinations for a virus that has 99.9% survival rate.  If you stand back — the scale of the demand far exceeds the known risk from the virus itself — things just don't add up.

'Bidenflation' — The next thing big tech censors.  They've already started.  Inflation has risen substantially since President Joe Biden assumed office in January, but Sean Parnell, a U.S. military vet and candidate for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, says that topic appears to be the next one to fall prey to social media censorship.  "Big Tech & their partisan leftwing 'fact checkers' don't care about the truth, they only care about protecting Biden & the Dems," he posted on Twitter along with a graphic showing price increases for a basket of commodities depicting a "missing context" label.  "We're seeing rising gas prices & record inflation because of Joe's 2 trillion dollar spending boondoggle & his decision to cripple our energy sector," Parnell, a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump who barely lost a race for Pennsylvania's 17th congressional district in November, added.

Biden administration 'flagging problematic posts for Facebook,' Psaki says.  The Biden administration is playing an active role in flagging Facebook posts it considers to be "problematic" or "disinformation," according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki.  During a Thursday [7/15/2021] press conference, Psaki said White House senior staff were engaging with "social media platforms" to combat the spread of "misinformation specifically on the pandemic."  "In terms of actions we are taking or that we're working to take, I should say, from the federal government, we've increased disinformation research and tracking within the surgeon general's office.  We're flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation," she said.

'One of the Worst Narratives for Us': Facebook Execs Feared Trump Win.  Facebook executives were terrified of being blamed for a Trump presidential victory, according to a New York Times story.  Those same executives later censored the Hunter Biden story that helped Joe Biden win the presidency. [...] This is the same Facebook that violated its own rules to censor the Hunter Biden story before the presidential election.  Director of Communications Andy Stone tweeted then that Facebook would be suppressing the New York Post story, saying, "While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post, I want be clear that this story is eligible to be fact checked by Facebook's third-party fact checking partners.  In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform."  The International Fact-Checking Network's Associate Director Cristina Tardáguila called that move "dangerous."  Yet now it's pretty clear why they did it.  Facebook executives were terrified about being called "a far-right echo chamber," and didn't want the blame for a Trump sequel.

Big Tech are State Actors.  A 'state actor' is a private company that either acts on behalf of the government or has other special relationships with the government, which subject it to constitutional restrictions on government, including the First Amendment.  Google's YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have been state actors since about 2010.  They claimed to be neutral, non-discriminating in their political and scientific views, and denied any political bias — until about a year ago.  Then they reversed the narrative and said that they are private companies that can discriminate against whomever they want.  I can list half a dozen ways in which they are state actors.  The pressure on them from Democrat officials, asserted by Trump in his lawsuit, is one of them.  Obamanet, or net neutrality, is another one.  But most obviously, they became state actors when federal and state government agencies opened accounts on their platforms and started to use them for interaction with the public.  By accepting (and luring) multiple government accounts, they became public forums and state actors.

Trump's Lawsuits Against Big Tech Will Go 'All the Way' to Supreme Court, Backers Say.  Former President Donald Trump's lawsuits against censorship by Big Tech companies likely will reach the U.S. Supreme Court, the leaders of a public policy group backing the legal action say.  "Ultimately, we are going to take [the case] all the way," Brooke Rollins, president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, said in a press call Thursday afternoon.  When Newsmax's Emerald Robinson asked Pam Bondi, chairwoman of Constitutional Litigation Partnership and a former state attorney general of Florida, to clarify how far the group thinks the case will go, Bondi said both the attorneys on the case and the America First Policy Institute "believe it will go to the United States Supreme Court."  The Constitutional Litigation Partnership was established under the America First Policy Institute to fight the legal battles that threaten Americans' freedoms.  Trump announced the class-action lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter, Google, and the companies' CEOs on Wednesday [7/7/2021].

German Court Orders YouTube To Pay 100,000 Euros For Censoring Pandemic Protest Footage.  YouTube has been fined 100,000 euros by the German Higher Regional Court at Dresden after it wrongly deleted a user's video which showed massive pandemic lockdown protests in Switzerland — and then failed to reinstate the video 'immediately' after the court ordered it to do so on April 20.  Instead, the company waited nearly a month to revive the video, which led to last week's fine, issued on July 5th, according to WELT.de.

YouTube deletes Trump video, freezes CPAC account.  YouTube deleted a video of former President Donald Trump from the American Conservative Union's account and prevented the group from live-streaming the former president's Sunday CPAC speech.  In a statement, ACU Chairman Matt Schlapp said the group learned that its account had been frozen for seven days over a video from Friday in which Mr. Trump announces his class-action lawsuit against the Silicon Valley titans such as Google and YouTube.  That loss of access to its video account meant the ACU, which runs the Conservative Political Action Conference, could not upload Mr. Trump's speech or any other live content from its CPAC 2021 Part 2 in Dallas over the weekend.

Trump v. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, et al.  On July 7, 2021, President Trump's legal team filed three major lawsuits in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.  The suits named as defendants:  Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg (21-cv-22440), Twitter and Jack Dorsey (21-cv-22441) and YouTube and Sundar Pichai (21-cv-22445 as defendants.  Judge Kathleen Mary Williams, an Obama nominee, has been assigned to the Facebook case.  Judge Robert Nichols Scola, Jr, an Obama nominee, has been assigned the Twitter case and Judge K. Michael Moore, a George H.W. Bush nominee, has been assigned the YouTube case.  There is no substitute for reading the actual complaints but here are some of the highlights. [...]

Why Big Tech Will Lose the Censorship Wars.  Last Wednesday [7/7/2021], former President Trump filed a class action lawsuit against Twitter, Facebook, and Google pursuant to their partisan censorship of viewpoints that conflict with those of their CEOs and employees.  The next day, Trump took to the Wall Street Journal, where he succinctly summed up his most compelling argument for suing:  "If they can do it to me, they can do it to you."  Ironically, this echoes what Bernie Sanders told the New York Times last March: "[Y]esterday it was Donald Trump who was banned, and tomorrow, it could be somebody else."  If Trump and Sanders take the same position on Big Tech censorship, the issue deserves serious attention.  Yet the Democrats and the media have summarily dismissed the class action lawsuit as a publicity stunt while insisting that "private companies" aren't bound by the First Amendment.

Fight back against Big Tech oligarchs before free speech disappears.  When YouTube recently banned radio host Eric Metaxas for violating their speech guidelines, it hardly rated a headline.  We're too accustomed to Big Tech canceling people, and too afraid we'll be next.  But cases like this have inspired a bipartisan push in Congress to break up the likes of Google (owners of YouTube), Facebook, Apple and Amazon, which presume to decide if your opinion is valid in the public square.  The First Amendment prevents Congress from limiting speech, but the Founders didn't envision corporations so massive, they could silence citizens more effectively than any law.  I've spoken to candidates who fear crossing them because Big Tech can throttle their reach — or worse, deny them sweet campaign cash.  To paraphrase an axiom:  A company big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.

A Coup Against The Constitution?  The information space is dominated by leftist control and ideas.  The outlets that propagate conservative ideas must operate as insurgents and constantly be alert for attacks on their operations.  The usual answer to complaints about this notes, "These are private companies who can do what they want on their own platforms, just build your own".  That requires access to certain technical resources, which, as the alternative to Twitter startup Parler found out, are also controlled by the statist left.  Conservative efforts were shut down by an alliance of Amazon, Google, and Apple.  The monopoly status of the tech tyrants makes competing with them effectively impossible.  The use of this power was painfully evident when the tech firms all conspired to hide evidence of corruption by Hunter Biden and then candidate Joe Biden near the end of the 2020 election.  Hunter's laptop was found and contained a potentially election-crushing trove of information.  The news media and social media propaganda wing of the left went into immediate 1984 mode and hid the story by the New York Post, then banned anyone on social platforms who mentioned it.  They even went back to their old favorite and claimed it was Russian disinformation.

The Week In Review.  During a press conference at Trump National Golf Club on Wednesday, former President Donald J. Trump announced that he has filed class-action lawsuits against the three companies, and their respective CEOs.  The left and their media immediately began pooh-poohing the news, citing so-called "experts" who claim Trump doesn't have a chance of winning the lawsuits, but don't be so sure.  One of Trump's greatest achievements as president was the progress he made in appointing conservative judges and justices within the judicial branch, and there are a lot of conservatives sitting on a lot of benches.  Furthermore, Big Tech has clearly engaged in censorship, not just with Trump but with many other conservatives, and Trump's team should be able to make a strong case.  The real motivation behind Trump's move, according to the left, is greed.  They pointed to the fundraising efforts that began soon after the announcement.  Note that the left practically invented this tactic but are outraged when any conservative applies it to their efforts.

Donald J. Trump:  Why I'm Suing Big Tech.  One of the gravest threats to our democracy today is a powerful group of Big Tech corporations that have teamed up with government to censor the free speech of the American people.  This is not only wrong — it is unconstitutional.  To restore free speech for myself and for every American, I am suing Big Tech to stop it.  Social media has become as central to free speech as town meeting halls, newspapers and television networks were in prior generations.  The internet is the new public square.  In recent years, however, Big Tech platforms have become increasingly brazen and shameless in censoring and discriminating against ideas, information and people on social media — banning users, deplatforming organizations, and aggressively blocking the free flow of information on which our democracy depends.  No longer are Big Tech giants simply removing specific threats of violence.  They are manipulating and controlling the political debate itself.  Consider content that was censored in the past year.  Big Tech companies banned users from their platforms for publishing evidence that showed the coronavirus emerged from a Chinese lab, which even the corporate media now admits may be true.  In the middle of a pandemic, Big Tech censored physicians from discussing potential treatments such as hydroxychloroquine, which studies have now shown does work to relieve symptoms of Covid-19. In the weeks before a presidential election, the platforms banned the New York Post — America's oldest newspaper — for publishing a story critical of Joe Biden's family, a story the Biden campaign did not even dispute.

Wounded Army vet, GOP candidate outraged when Twitter censors picture of his scarred face 'sensitive content'.  A former U.S. Army captain who was burned and disfigured by an IED explosion in Afghanistan in 2008 is railing at Twitter for marking a photo he posted to celebrate Independence Day last weekend as "sensitive content."  Sam Brown, who is running as a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Nevada next year challenging Democratic incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, posted a photo of himself saluting in a combat uniform along with the phrase, "Freedom isn't free."

Trump files a class-action lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter and Google for censoring him, demands an end to Big Tech's 'silencing and blacklisting' of conservative voices.  Former President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday [7/7/2021] he was launching a class action law suit against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Google CEO Sundar Pichai on behalf of victims of 'cancel culture.'  He demanded the end of 'shadow banning,' and 'blacklisting' as he stood in the blazing sun, using his Bedminster golf course clubhouse as a backdrop.  'In addition, we are asking the court to impose punitive damages on these social media giants,' he said.  'We're going to hold big tech very accountable.'

James O'Keefe Has Twitter on the Backfoot After Massive Legal Victory Against Them.  Back in April, Project Veritas CEO James O'Keefe brought a lawsuit against Twitter after the social media giant terminated his account over the excuse — without evidence — that he was running multiple fake accounts.  Perhaps not so surprisingly, they did this as Project Veritas was exposing CNN's technical director Charlie Chester.  The lawsuit was filed in a New York state court, which Twitter immediately attempted to have transferred to a California federal court where the chances that the lawsuit would be dismissed are rather high... too high, in fact.  In order to make that happen, Twitter's lawyer, Amer Ahmed, attempted to make the case that O'Keefe would seek legal damages, which would guarantee the move to the California court, but O'Keefe had a different idea in mind according to Project Veritas: [...]

Trump to sue Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter's Jack Dorsey: report.  Former President Donald Trump filed suits Wednesday against Big Tech titans Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for shuttering his accounts and taking similar actions against other conservatives in what he called the "illegal and shameful censorship of the American people."  The class-action filings seek unspecified damages for alleged First Amendment violations that Trump said could total "trillions" of dollars.  Trump is also asking federal judges to overturn the controversial immunity protections granted to internet companies in 1996 by declaring Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act unconstitutional.  "We're asking the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida to order an immediate halt to stop social media companies' illegal and shameful censorship of the American people.  That's exactly what they're doing," he said.

LinkedIn Reinstates Account of mRNA Vaccine Inventor Who Questions COVID-19 Vaccine Benefit for Children.  LinkedIn has reinstated the account of mRNA vaccine technology inventor Dr. Robert Malone, who said his page was deleted last week after he made comments about mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and questioned whether they're appropriate to give to certain groups of people.  In a Twitter post on Monday evening, Malone said he'd received a "very kind and personal note from a senior executive of LinkedIn," and shared, with permission, an anonymized version of the message.  "Dr. Malone's account has been fixed as of this morning," the note from the LinkedIn official read.  "I'd like to apologize on behalf of LinkedIn — we're just not good enough at detangling complicated, subtle scientific claims concurrent with similar (but different) misinformation coming from others."  Malone said he is "truly grateful for his kind gesture."

Wikipedia Co-founder Warns: 'Wikipedia Is More One-Sided Than Ever'.  Larry Sanger, a co-founder of Wikipedia, warned that the online encyclopedia is "more one-sided than ever" in light of the website's entries for Black Lives Matter, the 2020 election, former President Donald Trump's two impeachments, and other contentious topics.  Sanger, in particular, took issue with how some Wikipedia entries are sourced.  "In short, and with few exceptions, only globalist, progressive mainstream sources — and sources friendly to globalist progressivism — are permitted," he wrote in an article on his website.  Several centrist news outlets like The Daily Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal, and The Weekly Standard are sometimes allowed to be sourced, he said, but Wikipedia editors are "careful never to leave the current Overton Window of progressive thought."

Facebook Takes on New Policing Role, Asks Users to Report 'Extremists'.  It is no secret that over the last several years, Big Tech has been on a wild goose chase for anyone that doesn't align with liberal ideologies, but Facebook has taken the hunt to new heights.  As reported on CharlieKirk.com, messages now pop up asking users "are you concerned that someone you know is becoming an extremist?"  The message continues, "we care about preventing extremism on Facebook.  Others in your situation have received confidential support."  The message continues with an information icon that reads, "hear stories and get advice from people who escaped violent extremist groups."

Right Side Broadcasting Network Suspended From YouTube.  YouTube has suspended Right Side Broadcasting Network from its platform and removed the news site's videos of former President Donald Trump's rallies.  YouTube took down the videos because the footage allegedly violated the platform's Community Guidelines, according to RSBN.  Trump's most recent rally in Ohio reached over three million views on RSBN's channel before it was removed.  The channel won't be able to upload any new content for one week.  YouTube claims RSBN violated its policy regarding "spam, deceptive practices and scams."  The platform says it removes content that "take[s] advantage of the YouTube community" prohibits content where the "main purpose is to trick others into leaving YouTube for another site."

1984! Facebook Slammed After Sending 'Extremism' Exposure Warnings.  Facebook is getting bashed for sending notifications to users who it deemed as having been exposed to "extremist content" that may be considered too right wing.  Users across the internet torched Facebook for sending them pop-up warnings that they had been exposed to so-called "extremist" content.  RedState editor Kira Davis tweeted July 1:  "Hey has anyone had this message pop up on their FB?  My friend (who is not an ideologue but hosts lots of competing chatter) got this message twice.  He's very disturbed."  The Facebook notification asked, "Are you concerned that someone you know is becoming an extremist?"  The platform followed up by assuring users that "We care about preventing extremism on Facebook.  Others in your situation have received confidential support."  One Media Research Center staffer received the message three times within a minute.  The internet was quick to torch the platform for the notification.

Facebook asks Republicans if they need 'support' for becoming 'extremists' and will send the same to anyone who has searched 'key words related to white supremacy'.  Facebook is targeting conservative voices and asking them if they need 'support' after becoming 'extremist' in its latest overreach on free speech and censorship which users say is patronizing and offensive.  Several conservative voices like Newsmax TV host John Cardillo, House Delegate Nick Freitas and Alex Berenson shared screenshots of the alerts they received on Twitter.  One Canadian user who'd accessed a meme [...] got the alert and so did RT journalist Rachel Blevin.

Facebook's New "Hate Group" Warning For Users Is Terrifyingly Orwellian.  [Scroll down]  Is it crazy to believe that there are right-wing hate groups out there who pose some type of danger?  No.  What is crazy here is that "extremism" is equated with "right-wing extremism."  There seems to be no option or even descriptions for those "concerned" about left-wing extremism.  It's almost as if it doesn't exist.  Other Facebook users are receiving messages with dire warnings that they may have been exposed to hateful content.

YouTube Takes Down Right Side Broadcasting's Video of Trump Rally with Over 2 Million Views — Bans Them from Covering Trump Rally Tomorrow.  President Trump held his first rally of the political season on Saturday in Wellington, Ohio at the Lorain County Fairgrounds.  Trump held the rally in support of Max Miller who is challenging Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, a Never-Trumper who voted to impeach President Trump in January.  The event was PACKED hours before President Trump's speech.  Right Side Broadcasting Network aired the live feed for the rally tonight in Ohio.  38,000 supporters were watching the rally at 5 PM ET — two hours before the event.  This compares to a typical Biden speech that draws around 700 viewers during the entire live speech!

Report: Emails Show Biden Team Pressured Facebook to Censor the Trump Campaign.  During the election, we saw an effort by Big Tech to cashier stories that might have hurt Joe Biden.  Twitter even banned the url of a New York Post story about an email on Hunter Biden's laptop.  The story was critically important because it showed Joe Biden had lied about not knowing anything about his son Hunter's business associates.  But, Twitter blocked the story at a critical time in the month before the election, claiming they had done so because it was "hacked" material, when there was no such evidence that was true.  They later admitted it was a mistake, but oh well, too late.  Facebook also admitted they reduced the distribution of the story.  So, here's another question that needs to be asked to the Big Tech guys.  Did the Biden team ask to take down that story or any other stories/posts?  There's a story that came out this week, oddly enough from CNN, that really raises that question again about what influence the Biden team had on Big Tech before the election to remove things they didn't like from social media.

Newly Uncovered Emails Show Top Biden Officials Demanding Facebook Censor Their Opponent Before Election.  Recently released emails reveal that, during the lead-up to the November election, Biden campaign hacks pressured Facebook to silence his political opponent, the sitting president of the United States.  The radical Democrats had become concerned with so-called "violent rhetoric" and "misinformation" coming from the Trump campaign's Facebook accounts.  This resulted in a years-long barrage of complaints from the party in an attempt to exert political influence over the world's largest social media giant.

Mailchimp suspends the Babylon Bee for "harmful information".  At the shallowest level, there is a layer of dumbness over this story, but buried underneath is something even more disturbing.  The Babylon Bee, a popular satire site, had been using the services of Mailchimp to manage their email list.  Then, on Thursday of this week, they were notified that their account had been suspended.  The reason offered was that the system had detected "harmful information" in some of the site's emails.  After the Bee's CEO went public with the news, someone at Mailchimp apparently realized how foolish they looked and quickly moved to restore the account.

The Books Are Already Burning.  Last month, DarkHorse had almost five million views on YouTube.  But speaking freely has come with a price.  The couple's two YouTube channels have each received several warnings and one official strike, which the company says was because of their advocacy of the drug ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19.  Three strikes from YouTube and a channel can be deleted.  According to Weinstein, that would mean the loss of "more than half of our income."  How have we gotten here?  How have we gotten to the point where having conversations about important scientific and medical subjects requires such a high level of personal risk?  How have we accepted a reality in which Big Tech can carry out the digital equivalent of book burnings?  And why is it that so few people are speaking up against the status quo?

Twitter, California Sued for Cooperating on Censorship.  A conservative influencer filed a lawsuit against Twitter and the California secretary of state on June 17, alleging they colluded to censor election-related content, violating the plaintiff's rights to free speech, equal protection, and due process.  The lawsuit cites emails and documents from the California Office of Elections Cybersecurity, which show state employees flagging tweets to Twitter because they purportedly contained misinformation.  Twitter subsequently removed many of the flagged tweets, including those written by Rogan O'Handley, the plaintiff.  Twitter went on to permanently suspend O'Handley for a tweet that said "most votes in American history," alongside a photo of the U.S. Capitol surrounded by barbed wire in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot.

Fact-Check Site Used by Google Lists All Conservative Outlets as "Low Credibility" — But Lists All Far Left and Liberal Mainstream Outlets as High Credibility.  Amid rampant censorship and demontization of the truth, conservatives are being purged from the internet.  Left-wing propaganda is brazenly permeating the airwaves, dominating the narrative in mainstream media, entertainment and academia.  In an effort to bolster the iron curtain and reinforce misinformation, an explosion of "fake-news" fact-checker sites devoted to delegitimizing The Gateway Pundit to continue to emerge.  The self-appointed gatekeepers of facts operate under the guise that they have no bias whatsoever and are typically cloaked behind a veil of anonymity.

Why Has "Ivermectin" Become a Dirty Word?  On December 8, 2020, when most of America was consumed with what The Guardian called Donald Trump's "desperate, mendacious, frenzied and sometimes farcical" attempt to remain president, the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held a hearing on the "Medical Response to Covid-19."  One of the witnesses, a pulmonologist named Dr. Pierre Kory, insisted he had great news.  "We have a solution to this crisis," he said unequivocally.  "There is a drug that is proving to have a miraculous impact."  Kory was referring to an FDA-approved medicine called ivermectin.  A genuine wonder drug in other realms, ivermectin has all but eliminated parasitic diseases like river blindness and elephantiasis, helping discoverer Satoshi Ōmura win the Nobel Prize in 2015.  As far as its uses in the pandemic went, however, research was still scant.  Could it really be a magic Covid-19 bullet?  Kory had been trying to make such a case, but complained to the Senate that public efforts had been stifled, because "every time we mention ivermectin, we get put in Facebook jail."

Big Tech Is Outsourcing Censorship Through Dishonest 'Fact Check' Firms.  With new online trends around social media "fact check" companies and with new narratives around misinformation and disinformation, there has been criticism that the people pushing for this are engaging in political censorship and oftentimes suppressing legitimate inquiry.  [Video clip]

Facebook "Overwhelmingly" Being Used For Online Recruitment In Active Sex Trafficking Cases.  A stunning new report ties social media platforms — the most prominent of which is Facebook — to "the majority" of online recruitment in active sex trafficking cases.  The data was revealed in the Human Trafficking Institute's 2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report, according to CBS.  Human Trafficking Institute CEO Victor Boutros said on CBSN Wednesday:  "The internet has become the dominant tool that traffickers use to recruit victims, and they often recruit them on a number of very common social networking websites.  Facebook overwhelmingly is used by traffickers to recruit victims in active sex trafficking cases."  [Video clip]

Where Were Facebook Fact Checkers For Feckless Fraudulent Fauci?  If Inspector Clouseau and Dr. Joseph Mengele had a love child, it would be Dr. Anthony ("I am science, hear me roar") Fauci, who fumbled his way through a pandemic he helped create and whose misleading, self-serving, and contradictory pronouncements between baseball games, magazine photo-shoots, and talk show appearances contributed to the deaths of millions.  Leading the pack of Fauci's unindicted co-conspirators is Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook.  Facts, as Ronald Reagan would say, are stubborn things.  They do not change.  So when Facebook went from banning and nuking posts and posters asserting that the China virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology to allowing posts considering the possibility after Fauci's incriminating emails exposed his lies, Facebook acknowledged several things.  First, the information it proclaimed "false" was in fact not false, not even 'partly' and, that its fact-checkers were wrong.  Second, as heavily redacted emails between Fauci and Zuckerberg hint at, the two were in cahoots to actually suppress the truth in support of a false narrative that would not embarrass Fauci or China.

Tucker Carlson, Buckhead, and Why Our Cities Fail.  If you attempt to watch the YouTube version of Tucker Carlson's report on what's going on in Atlanta from Monday night, you'll find yourself wading through warnings that "the following content has been identified by the YouTube community as inappropriate or offensive to some audiences."  There is nothing pornographic in Carlson's report.  Nor is there foul language.  What's "inappropriate" or "offensive" in it is the truth about the people who run Atlanta, truth that everyone knows and understands.  It's the fact someone might speak the truth in a video appearing on YouTube that is offensive to the "YouTube community."  The funny thing is, Carlson isn't telling the half of it.

Fact-checking Facebook's carbon dioxide fact-checkers.  The false face of Facebook is once again presented in the censorship of our organization, the CO2 Coalition, an Arlington, Virginia-based nonprofit that promotes the benefits of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.  On Earth Day this year, The Washington Times published my op-ed "There is no climate emergency — We love CO2 and so should you."  Shortly after publication, the paper's Facebook post on the commentary was labeled "false and misleading" and its ad for it was rejected.  Facebook's actions were based on a lengthy "fact-check" by eight scientists titled "Washington Times presents list of false and misleading statements about the impacts of CO2 and climate change" by Climate Feedback (CF).  However, a detailed analysis by actual experts of CF's "fact-check" showed it to be the real purveyor of false and misleading information.

YouTube Suspends Ron Johnson Over Hydroxychloroquine Claims.  Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has been suspended from YouTube for seven days after he posted content promoting experimental treatments for COVID-19.  The senator led two Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearings on the potential benefits of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.  Johnson slammed the decision, saying it was just another example of Big Tech censorship.  "YouTube's ongoing COVID censorship proves they have accumulated too much unaccountable power," he told Fox News.  "Big Tech and mainstream media believe they are smarter than medical doctors who have devoted their lives to science and use their skills to save lives," he added.

UK Govt Tells Social Media to Censor Videos of Illegal Migrant Crossings.  Home Secretary Priti Patel under "conservative" PM Boris Johnson has been working to flood the UK with record migration and is now pressuring social media companies to censor videos of illegal migrant border crossings.  Patel tried to justify the censorship by claiming that allowing the public to see what's really happening on their borders only serves to "encourage" illegal migrants to make such crossings.

Instagram is Forcing Users to Remove Satirical Posts about Fauci Emails.  Shortly after Dr. Anthony Fauci's emails were published by BuzzFeed and The Washington Post after Freedom of Information Act requests, Facebook and Instagram started to suppress mentions and screenshots of them after they were flagged by its third-party "fact checkers."  Now, Instagram is using these third-party fact checks to flag satirical posts about these emails and force users to delete them.

How Facebook is fueling the border crisis by failing to close down dozens of groups offering passage into the US.  Facebook has been blamed for fueling the border crisis as human smugglers are using its platform to organize the passage of desperate migrants into the US in exchange for as little as $1,700.  Dozens of Facebook pages and groups openly offer illegal crossings across the US-Mexico border, posting prices, routes, discount options, videos they claim show successful trips — and even testimonials from what they claim to be happy customers.

Facebook Censored My Video Questioning Climate Change Alarmists.  Whom does Facebook trust to censor content posted on its platform?  A Ph.D. graduate from France.  Really.  The Frenchman, Emmanuel Vincent, started a fact-checking group he calls "Climate Feedback."  It does "a new kind of fact-checking."  It sure is new — and wrong.  I released a video in which some climate scientists argue that climate change is not a "crisis."  They believe people adjust to changing temperatures.  [Video clip]  The video features clips of a debate I moderated in 2019 at the Heartland Institute.  Well, it was supposed to be a debate, but it turned into a panel when the 30 to 40 climate change alarmists Heartland invited did not show up.  "It's warmed up around one degree Celsius since 1900 and life expectancy doubled in industrialized democracies," said panelist Pat Michaels, past president of the American Association of State Climatologists.  "And yet, that temperature ticks up another half a degree, and the entire system crashes.  That's the most absurd belief."  I included that clip in the video that Facebook then censored.  More than 25 million people watched it on Facebook.

House Republicans demand answers about why Facebook censored lab leak theories after it emerged that Mark Zuckerberg was emailing Dr Anthony Fauci.  Senior Republicans are demanding to know why Facebook censored posts that shared the COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis after it emerged that chief executive Mark Zuckerberg was in e-mail contact with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's leading coronavirus scientist.  Republicans on the House judiciary and oversight committees have written to Zuckerberg asking him to hand over all documents and communications between Facebook employees and U.S. government officials.  They accuse the federal government of using a private company to skirt First Amendment protections.

Sen. Cruz Argues Facebook Was Censoring COVID-19 Content 'On Behalf Of The Government'.  Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, argued on "Sunday Morning Futures" that "it now is clear" that Facebook was "utilizing their monopoly position to censor on behalf of the government" regarding information related to COVID-19 and its origins.  Cruz made the comment reacting to Facebook saying on May 26 that it would no longer ban posts suggesting COVID-19 is man-made amid mounting calls from President Biden and other officials for further investigation into the pandemic's origins.  The announcement marked a reversal for the social media giant.  In February, Facebook said it would remove posts claiming the virus was man-made or manufactured "following consultations with leading health organizations, including the World Health Organization" who had "debunked" the claim.

Ted Cruz Says Facebook Is Acting as a State Agency with Significant Liability.  [Video clip]

Nigeria announces Twitter ban — in statement on Twitter.  The Nigerian government announced Friday it had indefinitely suspended Twitter's operations in the West African country — but drew mockery for posting its statement about the ban on Twitter.  Minister for Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said that the country had "suspended, indefinitely, the operations of the microblogging and social networking service, Twitter, in Nigeria."  The statement, posted on the ministry's official Twitter account, cited "the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria's corporate existence."  The suspension came two days after the social media giant deleted a post from President Muhammadu Buhari that threatened to punish regional secessionists.

Twitter declares access to its platform a 'human right' despite banning Trump and conservatives for their views.  Twitter declared access to its platform a 'human right' on Saturday, prompting conservatives to accuse the firm of hypocrisy after it banned former President Donald Trump and others for violating its terms of service.  The social media giant's statement came as a response to Nigeria's decision to ban Twitter over the deletion of a tweet from Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari that was seen as threatening separatist movements.  'We are deeply concerned by the blocking of Twitter in Nigeria.  Access to the free and #OpenInternet is an essential human right in modern society,' the company said in a statement.

Microsoft says error led to no matching Bing images for Tiananmen 'tank man'.  Microsoft Corp on Friday blamed "accidental human error" for its Bing search engine not showing image results for the query "tank man" in the United States and elsewhere after users raised concerns about possible censorship around the Tiananmen Square crackdown anniversary.  Users, including in the United Kingdom, Germany and Singapore, reported Friday that when they performed the search Bing returned the message, "There are no results for tank man."  David Greene, civil liberties director at the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that content moderation was impossible to do perfectly and "egregious mistakes are made all the time."  But he said it could be more sinister:  "At worst, this was purposeful suppression at the request of a powerful state."

Media Destroy Their Own Credibility.  [Scroll down]  Quite simply, as long as there was a 2020 presidential election in doubt, Donald Trump and anyone else who even suggested that COVID-19 originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, was dismissed as a "conspiracy theorist."  The self-aggrandizing "fact-checkers" at Snopes epitomized part of this coordinated effort.  Citing an interview between Tucker Carlson and Chinese virologist Dr. Li-Meng Yan, during which Yan insisted the virus was made in a lab, Snopes labeled the assertion "controversial and outright false" and further insisted "conspiracy theorists have peddled notions that the virus was made in a lab and intentionally released as a biological weapon despite rigorous scientific research proving otherwise."  Facebook epitomized the other half of the equation, enacting a policy whereby all claims that "COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured" would be deleted.  In short, anything challenging the idea that the virus originated in nature was either ridiculed or censored.

The New Secession Crisis: The Democrats have already left the Union.  The Democrats have already seceded from America's historic conception of nationhood in many respects: [...] THEY have attacked us through their Big Tech proxies, damaging our ability to speak freely in the new public square, coordinate political action, or share information with each other outside of a tightly-controlled corporate media apparatus.  This censorship campaign started with popular but more politically marginalized figures such as Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos and moved, boiling the frog slowly, to deplatforming the sitting president of the United States.  Thousands of right-wing dissidents, many with large followings, have been effectively removed from public discourse for political reasons, often with only the flimsiest proceduralist justifications.  When Project Veritas conducted devastating undercover exposes on the misbehavior of quasi-state corporate media, in which key figures from these entities actually directly admitted they are engaged in propaganda, the group was banned from social media.

Hey Facebook, Ban This!  Last week, we learned that Facebook had been banning posts suggesting that COVID-19 originated in a Chinese lab.  We became aware only when Facebook announced that it would no longer ban such posts, raising the question of why it was doing so in the first place.  It wasn't as though there was no possibility that a lab leak was responsible.  There was an ongoing discussion of this.  Then over the weekend, we learned that Facebook apparently has plans to ban posts that might encourage "vaccine hesitancy."  What does that mean?  Who knows.  Facebook never reveals how it makes such decisions.  "Anything that questions the vaccine or the narrative regarding the vaccine, which is, you know, everyone should get the vaccine and the vaccine is good and you're not going to get many bad side effects, anything outside of that realm is basically considered under 'vaccine hesitancy' by Facebook's algorithms," Morgan Kahmann, a former data center technician for Facebook, told Fox News.

Group of Tech Execs Takes On Social Media Censorship.  Facebook's abrupt decision last week to change its policy of censoring any posts elevating the theory that COVID-19 might have been manmade came as no surprise to Mike Matthys, a tech venture capital executive who has worked in Silicon Valley for several decades.  The social media giant only made the about-face once President Biden acknowledged that some facets of the U.S. intelligence community believe that COVID escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China.  Biden then announced a 90-day investigation into the virus's origins.  Before that, many Democrats and most members of the media had dismissed the COVID-came-from-a-lab narrative as a crackpot conspiracy theory.

Free speech under attack.  It has been said that "everything is about sex, except sex, which is about power."  An intriguing notion, but incomplete.  Speech, especially the fight to control the speech of others, is also about power.  How else to describe Facebook's ban on users sharing the claim the COVID-19 virus came from a Chinese lab?  The sudden lifting of the ban, following a White House plan to investigate the pandemic's cause, only underscores the social media giant's desire to restrict users' speech.  Now you can't, now you can.  Either way, it's speech control.  If just Facebook and others in Big Tech lusted for such power, it would be bad enough.  But free speech is under attack everywhere over the simple right to express ideas that break with the party line.

Facebook says mentions of COVID-19's possible origins in Wuhan are now allowed.  How generous.  Facebook has long banned anyone who discussed the evidence that a worldwide pandemic killing millions and destroying the global economy may have been released from a government lab in Wuhan, China.  Facebook would not allow the theory to be discussed as "debunked" despite widespread criticism that the social media giant was, again, engaging in corporate censorship.  The false claim that this theory was "debunked" was pushed by various media platforms as part of the criticism of then-President Donald Trump and his administration.  Now, however, President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, and others have acknowledged that there is a basis for suspect the lab as the origin of the outbreak.  So now Facebook will allow you to talk about it.

Report: Facebook Is Censoring COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy.  Facebook is suppressing comments and posts expressing doubts about the COVID-19 vaccine to "drastically reduce user exposure to vaccine hesitancy," a new report states.  "Reducing the visibility of these comments represents another significant opportunity for us to remove barriers to vaccination that users on the platform may potentially encounter," the Facebook documents say.  Project Veritas first reported the censorship after two whistleblowers shared leaked documents demonstrating how the Big Tech company is testing algorithms to limit the spread of vaccine skepticism.  The internal memos examined by Project Veritas revealed that the algorithm currently affects 1.5 percent of users who question the immunization on health authority pages.

Facebook will no longer remove posts claiming the coronavirus is 'man-made'.  Facebook will no longer remove posts claiming the coronavirus is "man-made," it said Wednesday [5/26/2021].  In February, the tech giant said it would take down "debunked" claims that humans created the virus that causes COVID-19, but it has reversed its policy amid renewed interest in the virus' origins from scientists and politicians.  "In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made from our apps," a Facebook representative told Insider in an emailed statement.  "We're continuing to work with health experts to keep pace with the evolving nature of the pandemic and regularly update our policies as new facts and trends emerge."

If you love Hitler, you can find a home on Twitter.  According to CNN, "Facebook will no longer remove claims that Covid-19 was man-made."  Wonderful!  Yet why did Facebook appropriate the right to be an arbiter in scientific disputes to begin with?  That is similar to AT&T eavesdropping on your phone conversations and interrupting them each time AT&T believes that you made an erroneous remark.  To be fair, according to the same CNN article, Facebook took part in this scholarly dispute following "consultations with leading health organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO)."  That is the same WHO that has consistently provided cover for Chinese propaganda since the very beginning of the pandemic.

PJ Media Demands an Apology for the Damage Facebook's Dishonest Partisan Fact-Checkers Have Done to Our Reputation.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, left-wing media outlets are falling all over themselves to report evidence pointing to the COVID lab-leak theory — formerly called the lab-leak "conspiracy."  A few months ago it was the stuff of the tinfoil-hat brigade.  The science was settled!  The SARS-CoV-2 virus came from bats and definitely not from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.  Thus saith the fact-checkers, who are never wrong about anything and who have the final say about which information you're allowed to see on social media!  Defy them at your own peril!  Let's review:  Science Feedback, official fact-checkers for Facebook, announced in a February 2020 headline that "Scientific evidence indicates virus that causes COVID-19 infection is of natural origin, not the result of human engineering:  The article claimed there was no evidence that biosecurity failures at the Wuhan lab precipitated the pandemic.  Facebook began labeling all articles that suggested otherwise as "Incorrect," "Misleading," and "Unsupported".

Beauty Influencer Dropped By Sephora for Being a Conservative Files Defamation Lawsuit.  Beauty influencer Amanda Ensing has filed a defamation lawsuit against the makeup giant Sephora after they very publicly cut ties with her for being a Christian conservative in January.  The makeup shop responded to liberal activists who were outraged that they would dare to work with a Republican by saying that she "shared content on social media that is not aligned with Sephora's values around inclusivity."  Ensing posts family friendly beauty content mixed with some posts about her Christian conservative views — such as her support for the Second Amendment.

Nobody is checking the social media fact checkers.  It's time that changed.  For most of 2020 the supposed arbiters of truthiness insisted that lab leak stories should not be taken seriously and should be suppressed on social media.  Just yesterday Facebook finally lifted is baseless ban of the lab leak theory.  The real problem here is not that fact checkers got something wrong, it's that they have the power to censor what journalism Americans see and consume unilaterally.  Nobody is checking the fact checkers, and it is time that changed.  It's time for government to regulate the fact checking industry.  This may seem antithetical to traditional conservative values of small government, but the ubiquitous and monopolistic nature of social media, the power it has to frame how we see the world, is an existential challenge.  We cannot be slaves to orthodoxy if that means Americans are subject not only to lies, but also the censorship of the truth.

Fact-checking the fact-checkers.  It is time for the news business to admit that "fact-checking" is a tiresome, misleading, and dishonest blight on actual reporting.  It hardly existed in Fleet Street when I left Britain in 1997.  Checking facts was understood to be the core of a reporter's job, not something sloughed off to someone else.  Perhaps this was because British education was mostly essay writing, not checking multiple-choice boxes.  Students quickly learn to write fluently when faced with blank sheets of foolscap and limited time to fill them.  Quality obviously varied, but educated people were assumed to be capable of coherent composition.  The residual challenge was knowing the facts or, in the case of reporters, finding them out.  So, it was startling at first to encounter America's bifurcated system, in which "fact-checkers" monitor reporters like gamekeepers trying to catch poachers.  And it's far worse now than it was back then.  Fact-checking has grown beyond recognition in the past 25 years and chokes the news business like a parasitic vine.

Putin gets Twitter to treat his opponents like it did Trump.  The New York Times is boo-hooing that Putin is putting pressure on Twitter to ban his critics.  That complaint is rich.  The NYT and the rest of the anti-American media pressed Twitter to ban President Donald John Trump and his supporters.  NYT sobbed, "Russia is increasingly pressuring Google, Twitter and Facebook to fall in line with Kremlin internet crackdown orders or risk restrictions inside the country, as more governments around the world challenge the companies' principles on online freedom."  The companies oppose online freedom.  If not, Google's YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook would not be censoring conservatives.  They would adopt the old AOL chatroom policy of banning swear words but not ideas.

Five reasons not to be optimistic about America's future.  [Scroll down]  Next, we are experiencing a concerted assault on free speech, from which all our rights emanate.  Free speech is regarded by the Left as an outdated concept.  The cancer known as political correctness is a way of stifling free expression in favor of socially controlled thought.  As liberals take over our colleges and universities, they are indoctrinating young people to believe that conservative ideas amount to hate speech and should be suppressed.  The result is that today's students are demanding limitations to free expression.  In a poll of 800 undergraduates, 51 percent favored codes limiting free speech on campus.  30 percent said the First Amendment is outdated.  Where do we go from here?  Free speech is being replaced with the thought police, political correctness, and the cancel culture — all of it enforced by the woke crowd.

Facebook's censorship of Wuhan lab story shows 'its true ugly colours'.  Facebook was today [5/27/2021] accused of 'showing its true and ugly colours' and smothering free speech as it scrapped its ban on posts debating whether Covid-19 could be man-made — but only after Joe Biden ordered the CIA to probe if the virus came from a Wuhan lab.  Mark Zuckerberg's global policy chief Nick Clegg, the former British MP and Liberal Democrat leader, has also been branded 'feeble' for allowing months of censorship on the social network.  Critics branded Facebook's behaviour 'contemptible' and begged them to respect free speech rather than 'ingratiating' themselves with states such as China, which has banned the website but remains a $5 billion-a-year ad market.

Facebook Gives American Journalists Permission to Write About COVID Originating From Wuhan Lab.  Comrade Citizens, the magnanimous leader of Facebook has decided to allow the previously censored discussion to take place.  Big Technocracy has given permission to the U.S. media to write investigative articles about COVID-19 originating from the Wuhan bioweapons lab. [...] Please remember to thank Dear Leader Mark Zuckerberg for his decision to allow conversational debate on Facebook.  However, also remember your responsibilities as good citizens to remain compliant to the topics that are permitted, and do not stray into conversations that are not approved by the technocratic command and control authority.

The Editor says...
The Editor has never been on Facebook.  Be smart — don't start!

Facebook lifts ban on suggesting COVID-19 was man-made after Biden orders intel agencies to probe whether coronavirus leaked from Wuhan lab.  Facebook will allow users to claim on its platform that COVID-19 may have originated in a lab in Wuhan, China — a reversal of its previous policy which banned comments suggesting the coronavirus was man-made.  The move comes after Fauci changed his tune on where the virus may have originated — and after Biden ordered his intelligence agencies to launch a probe into whether it leaded from a Wuhan lab.  'In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured from our apps,' the company said in a blog post on Wednesday [5/26/2021].

DeSantis Torches Reporter, Asks Why Iran Leader Allowed To 'Talk About Killing Jews' On Social Media But Trump Is Banned.  Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis torched a reporter Monday who asked whether the governor signed a Big Tech censorship bill because of former President Donald Trump.  "You're loyal to former President Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is now a resident in Florida and he was de-platformed," the unidentified reporter asks.  "Is this bill for him?"  "The bill is for everyday Floridians, this is what we've said and it will allow any Floridian to be able to provide what they're doing.  But I do think that's another issue that has been brought to bear:  when you de-platform the president of the United States but you let Ayatollah Khomeini talk about killing Jews, that is wrong," DeSantis said, referring to the Supreme Leader of Iran.

17,000 tweet 'Hitler was right,' and Big Tech barely reacts.  Yesterday afternoon [5/23/2021], the phrase #FireMeghanMcCain was trending on Twitter.  What terrible, awful thing had she said to warrant trending on Twitter?  The co-host of "The View" had done something few others have:  decried an alarming spike in anti-Semitism.  It's not surprising, if you're familiar with Twitter, to see how an outspoken defender of the Jewish people may find herself in its cross hairs.  This is a place where variations of the phrase "Hitler was right" were posted more than 17,000 times (according to the Anti-Defamation League) in just a one-week span in May.  As in-person violence against Jews has spiked, so too has hatred against Jews online.  They are not disconnected phenomena, but part of the same ecosystem of hate that has blossomed along with the increase in tensions in the Middle East.

Facebook Blocks Doctor's Message on COVID's Low Infant Mortality Rate.  A physician's message about low pediatric deaths from COVID-19 was blocked from Facebook for violating "community standards on spam."  Dr. Tracy Høeg, sports, spine, and regenerative medicine doctor responded to a poster's question about the infant mortality rate due to COVID.  Dr. Høeg told users following her account that there were 19 infant deaths due to COVID in April, a number that is rapidly declining.  "Part of the reason I have (for the most part) left Facebook is they delete my post/responses that are factual, which I triple check," she wrote.  "I was responding to a question about what the number of pediatric deaths were due to COVID in April.  I don't feel like directly citing numbers from CDC and AAP should be deleted as spam, but maybe that is just me.  I have moved to Twitter FYI."

The Truth Behind the Partisan Machinations of Facebook's 'Fact-Checkers'.  Last month PJ Media ran a syndicated column by radio host Dennis Prager — an opinion piece about the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  A few days later, the article was rated "factually inaccurate" by the supposedly "nonpartisan" fact-checkers at Facebook partner Health Feedback, an organization under the umbrella of France-based "Science Feedback."  This is not the first time we've been fact-checked by this activist group masquerading as a fact-checking organization.  In fact, Townhall Media sites, including Townhall, RedState, and PJ Media, have been fact-checked at least 20 times over the last two years.  The vast majority of these attacks were not fact checks at all, rather differences of opinion on policy issues, particularly in the areas of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Steven Crowder Is Suing YouTube Over Vague Rules, but It's Not Just About Him.  Conservative comedian Steven Crowder filed notice last week of a lawsuit against YouTube, claiming, "This is the big one, boys and girls."  Crowder's May 14 filing follows his second "strike" in as many months.  In March, YouTube demonetized Crowder's channel and issued his first demerit of 2021 on grounds that one of his videos contained COVID-19 misinformation.  In April, Crowder earned "strike two" under the pretext of harassment and cyberbullying.  One more infraction in the designated 90-day window and he will be permanently cut off from his 5 million YouTube followers.  Crowder is polemical — he is, after all, a comedian — but his undue scrutiny ignores a morass of unpunished "violations" that proliferate on YouTube all around him.

Censorship: A Personal Story.  All Islamic political and religious doctrine is found in 3 texts — Koran, traditions of Mohammed (Hadith) and life of Mohammed (the Sira).  The only ideas that I speak about come from Allah and Mohammed.  Political Islam is the part of Islamic doctrine that deals with the non-Muslim, the Kafir.  Oddly enough, more Islamic doctrinal text is devoted to politics than religion.  My books sold like crazy.  I was selling books by the tens of thousands.  My Sharia Law for Non-Muslims was a #1 best seller on Islamic law on Amazon.  My video "Why We Are Afraid" had millions of views on YouTube. [...] But a storm cloud appeared on the horizon.  The Tennessean newspaper put out a Sunday front page article which said that I was an anti-Muslim bigot and a hater.  This was followed by several other attack pieces.  An organization called the SPLC, Southern Poverty Law Center, (the SPLC is not a civil rights group, is not southern, is not poor and is not a law center) declared that I was one of the biggest bigots in the US.  Indeed, the SPLC said Nashville was a hate city because I live here.  Then the media tornado hit.

Satirical Impressions of Dr. Anthony Fauci Banned on TikTok.  To the growing list of banned topics on Chinese Communist run TikTok, we can now add satirical impressions of Dr. Anthony Fauci.  According to comedian Tyler Fischer, whose hilarious Fauci impressions have gone viral on Twitter and YouTube, apparently TikTok is not amused.

Facebook Shuts Down Huge Israel Prayer Page After Radical Muslims Targeted It with Hate Speech.  The Jerusalem Prayer Team (JPT), established in 2002, with more than 75 million followers has been shut down by Facebook.  Mike Evans told CBN News the FB page has been the target of radical Islamists.  "There was an organized attempt by radical Islamic organizations to achieve this objective.  They posted over a million comments on our site, and then had the people contact Facebook saying that they never posted to the site.  That was a complete scam and fraud.  It was a very clever, deceptive plan by Islamic radicals."  The attack came during the midst of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas and other Islamic groups in the Gaza Strip.  Michael

Spanish politician temporarily suspended by Twitter after saying 'a man cannot get pregnant'.  Francisco José Contreras, deputy to Spain's far-right Vox Party, was locked out of his Twitter account for 12 hours last week after saying "a man cannot get pregnant" because they have "no uterus or eggs."  Contreras' comments were in response to an article he shared on the social media platform about a transgender male who announced they were a father after giving birth to a baby girl.  Contreras said in a Facebook post on May 11 that he had received a message from Twitter which informed him that he had violated its policies on "hate speech" for the remarks.

VIMEO Cancels Mike Lindell's My Pillow Account:  "This is worse than what Twitter did to me and my company!".  Big box stores like Costco, Sam's Club, Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl's, Wayfair, and Kroger have all stopped carrying "My Pillow" products.  Christian, patriot, and My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell will lose over $68 million+ this year alone, thanks to decisions by these big box stores to punish him for fighting to expose the election fraud in the November 2020 election.  Mike Lindell has been permanently suspended on Twitter, and his Absolute Proof video has been removed from Vimeo and Google-owned YouTube.  Why are social media bullies allowed to decide what Americans can or cannot see?  Who made them the ultimate judge and jury about which news is acceptable and which news is unacceptable?

Top Facebook official says social media companies are 'not bound by the First Amendment'.  A top Facebook official dismissed criticism that the social media giant violated former President Donald Trump's First Amendment rights by keeping him off the platform.  Michael McConnell, co-chairman of Facebook's Oversight Board, discussed the company's recent decision to uphold its ban on Trump for six months while the company clarifies its policy.  The former president was kicked off the platform after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.  "Private companies are not bound by the First Amendment," McConnell said Sunday on Fox News.  "And so, he has no First Amendment rights.  He's a customer.  Facebook is not a government, and he is not a citizen of Facebook."

The Democratic Party finds a new but shaky faith in corporate free speech.  Of course, Democrats insist they are not attacking free speech, just combating "disinformation."  After all, they say, private companies have every right to control speech — unless you are, say, a bakery opposed to preparing a cake for a same-sex wedding, or a company contributing to political causes.  The current mantra defending Facebook's corporate speech rights seems strikingly out of sync with years of Democrats and political activists demanding the curtailment of such rights.  When Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado refused on religious grounds to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) denounced the bakery's claim of free speech:  "It was never about a cake — it's about making sure no one has a license to discriminate against LGBTQ+ Americans." [...] Notably, Warren felt that one company (Masterpiece Cakeshop) can be forced to speak while another corporation (Facebook) should be able to stop others from speaking.  When Facebook barred Trump, Warren declared:  "I'm glad that Donald Trump is not going to be on Facebook.  Suits me."  House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) also celebrated and added:  "Facebook must ban him.  Which is to say, forever."

Six Insane and Idiotic Positions by Democrats, and How Republicans Should Respond.  For me, the most disturbing position that's been taken by Democrats' over the past several years has been their direct opposition to Americans' freedom of speech.  They don't even try to hide it anymore.  If they don't like what you're saying, they want you silenced, which is a major departure from years past.  It used to be that we could have open and honest discussions on issues, but not anymore.  The party of tolerance has become entirely intolerant.  Democrats have been clever in framing their anti-speech argument around two boogiemen they've used to scare their sheep: hate speech and misinformation.  It's a clever approach because for anyone who's not paying attention — which apparently describes a large swath of our electorate — hate speech and misinformation are easy to rally against.  The problem, of course, comes when we try to answer this question:  Who gets to decide what is hate speech, and what is misinformation?

The Social Media Witch Trial Of Trump — And America.  Pursuant to the Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy — which sounds like it could have only come straight out of either Hogwarts or the Politburo — Facebook's "independent" Oversight Board has exiled Donald J. Trump from the realm of modern communication.  Put another way, about 20 unelected former political leaders, journalists and human rights activists have suffocated the speech of a former president of the United States of America.  But hey, what do politicians, not to mention journalists or human rights activists, know about the universal right of freedom of expression these days, anyway?  So there you have it, America — the Bill of Rights is kaput — subsumed to relativism, faceless technocrats and an international oligarchy. [...] The question we all need to ask now is this:  If an American who formerly held the highest public office in the land isn't entitled to enjoy the fruits and protections of the First Amendment, then what hope do we possibly have as everyday citizens?

Joe Rogan Reveals How Twitter Banned Him From Sharing A Video In A Direct Message On Ivermectin.  Twitter is blocking messages about the drug ivermectin.  Ivermectin, which scores of studies have shown to be effective against Covid-19 at any stage in the disease.  Joe Rogan, who hosts the most popular podcast on Spotify, shared his experience recently:  "I tried to send a friend of mine a direct message yesterday on Twitter, and it was blocked," Rogan said.  "I couldn't send a direct message.  I was asking him if this was accurate," about ivermectin.  [Video clip]

Twitter Blocks Account Sharing Trump's Posts.  Twitter took action against an account that was sharing tweets with content that was copied from former President Donald Trump's new social media tool.  The account named "The Desk of Donald J. Trump" was sharing posts from the former president's new website, "From the Desk of Donald J. Trump," on Twitter.  The bio included a note that stated it was "Not Donald J. Trump Tweeting."  However, according to NBC News' Brandy Zadrozny, a Twitter spokesperson said the company suspended the account because, "As stated in our ban evasion policy, we'll take enforcement action on accounts whose apparent intent is to replace or promote content affiliated with a suspended account."

Twitter bans Trump's new media platform account.  Twitter suspended the new account for former President Donald Trump's recently launched communications platform that the 45th president uses to communicate directly with his followers.  Trump's account for his new platform, @DJTDesk, was introduced this week, then suspended by Wednesday evening [5/5/2021].

Sen. Warren after Facebook's Trump ban: 'They're acting like they're bigger than government'.  Sen. Elizabeth Warren blasted Facebook as having too much power and "acting like they're bigger than government" after the company decided to uphold its suspension of former President Donald Trump Wednesday [5/5/2021].  "I'm glad that he's not on Facebook," the Massachusetts Democrat told Cheddar News.  "I think that he poses a real danger.  But I don't think that Facebook ought to have this kind of power.  We need to break up these giant tech companies, and Facebook is one of them.  "They are crushing competition," she continued.  "And in cases like Facebook, they're acting like they're bigger than government.  The group that made this decision calls itself 'the Supreme Court' — they are not the Supreme Court, they're part of a private company.  They need to be broken up, we need a chance for competition to flourish here, and we need a chance to have some power that balances out what these giants are up to."

Twitter [is] reportedly suspending accounts that are sharing posts from Trump's blog.  Twitter has reportedly suspended the accounts of several users who were tweeting the exact wordage found on former President Donald Trump's new website, "From the Desk of Donald J. Trump."  According to senior NBC News reporter Brandy Zadrozny, who shared a screenshot of one of the accounts, @DJTDesk, the social media platform removed the account.

First Trump, Then Who?  Facebook Makes Wrong Call in Censoring Trump.  Facebook's Oversight Board decided Wednesday to uphold Facebook's and Instagram's suspension of former President Donald Trump from their platforms.  This decision is the wrong one, and one that all Americans, regardless of political affiliation, should be concerned about.  However, the Oversight Board was entirely appropriate to admonish Facebook for the fact that its penalty was vague and standardless.  Big Tech companies should not be allowed to play by a set of rules that give them undue influence over American society while also avoiding any accountability for how they use that influence.  It is time for Congress to act and reform Section 230 — which protects publishing platforms from being held liable for content posted by users — in a way that respects the rights of those engaged in private enterprise.  True reform must also ensure that companies like Facebook and Instagram take responsibility for the choices they make — especially when it comes to censoring individuals and opinions they don't like.

"Content Modification" - Facebook's New Campaign Should Have Free Speech Advocates Freaking Out.  [Scroll down]  The ads are clearly directed at younger users who may be more willing to accept censorship than their parents who hopelessly cling to old-fashioned notions of free speech.  Facebook knows that it cannot exercise more control over content unless it can get people to stop worrying and love the censor.  There was a time when this would have been viewed as chilling:  a corporate giant running commercials to get people to support new regulations impacting basic values like free speech and privacy.

Florida Passes Bill Prohibiting Social Media Giants Deplatforming Politicians.  The Florida legislature on April 29 passed a bill to prohibit social media platforms with huge user bases from knowingly deplatforming politicians and other Floridians.  If a social media company deplatforms a user they know to be a political candidate they face penalties of up to $250,000 per day for statewide officials and $25,000 per day for a candidate for other offices, the bill states.  This applies to platforms with over $100 million in annual revenue and over 100 million monthly users, eliminating many but the giants like Facebook and Twitter.  The move comes amid significant criticism from all over the world that social media platforms Facebook and Twitter have de-platformed users for merely expressing differing political viewpoints.

[Nonsense] that Twitter permits, truth that Twitter bans.  To say the media have a double-standard in how they treat conservatives and progressives is akin to saying the Third Reich treated Jews and Aryans unequally.  Nowhere is this more obvious more frequently than on the giant social media cesspool called Twitter.  Conservatives get banned for questioning election results or vaccination mandates, whereas progressives routinely — literally — get away with calling for the death of conservatives or even white people in general.  Suggest that hydroxychloroquine with zinc may be effective in treating COVID-19, as former president Trump did, and you get banned from the Twitterverse.  No matter that the American Journal of Medicine and numerous physicians now recommend taking HCQ and zinc to help prevent or alleviate the effects of the coronavirus.  [Indeed], I got put in Twitter jail — on two separate occasions — for breaking community standards and Twitter's rules of conduct for...well, I don't even know, honestly.

Official documents reveal officials colluded with a PR firm working for the Biden campaign pressuring social media to suppress posts.  Forget about those claims that Big Tech has every right to censor political information on their platforms because they are private firms.  That's not true when these companies operate as "state actors" working in collusion with or at the command of government entities.  Judicial Watch once again has uncovered stunning proof of malfeasance through lawsuits based on freedom of information laws. [...] I am so old that I remember when liberals celebrated the free market of ideas, and thought censorship was bad.  Now that the left is engaged in shoving election-rigging, race quotas and mob rule down our throats, they are behaving like all the other totalitarian [political regimes and suppressing all views but their own.  "Misinformation" today means views that progressives don't like.

Judicial Watch FOIA Request Uncovers Direct Evidence of California Government and Biden Campaign Instructing Social Media Firms to Remove Content.  Judicial Watch has done an excellent job discovering direct evidence of collusion between government officials, the Biden campaign and social media companies Facebook, Twitter, Google (YouTube) to censor speech and remove content.  California officials were using a list generated by a firm called SKDK (working for Biden campaign) to inform the social media companies of content for removal. [...] This is an explosive new element to an ongoing story of big tech censorship because the documents directly highlight California government officials and tech companies working together to remove political content adverse to the interests of the Biden campaign; and later the Biden administration.  One of the California government officials, Deputy Secretary of State and Chief Communications Officer Paula Valle, even begins to question the legality of their coordinated conduct after journalists and people who had their content removed started asking for specific answers why.

Facebook Oversight Board Member Warns Against Censoring Misinformation.  A member of Facebook's Oversight Board said the company's misinformation policies need overhauling in an exclusive interview with the Washington Free Beacon.  "I regard the category of misinformation as being one where we need to be extremely cautious," Michael McConnell told the Free Beacon.  "There are legitimate differences of opinion on lots of matters, and we need to make sure we don't squelch legitimate disagreement of historical, scientific, or political nature in the name of misinformation."  The Oversight Board faces increased scrutiny as it prepares to decide whether former president Donald Trump should be allowed back on Facebook.  Facebook banned Trump from the platform on Jan. 7, following the Capitol riots.  At the time, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the risks of allowing the president to continue using the platform were "simply too great."

The Editor says...
In order to competently censor (mis)information, you would have to know everything, which you don't, and you would have to be 100 percent trustworthy, which — if you work for Facebook — you probably aren't.

Fake Chicago Police tweet about Derek Chauvin not being removed by Twitter, CPD says.  Twitter is refusing to remove or attach a warning to a doctored image that purports to show a Chicago Police Department tweet that states, "We are all Derek Chauvin" — despite that the post is not real and the agency has made several attempts to have it taken down, CPD officials tell Fox News.  The altered image began circulating on Twitter at the beginning of the weekend and features a picture of Chauvin, the recently convicted Minneapolis Police officer, underneath the five-word sentence, which appears in bigger font than is customarily used on the social media platform.  By Saturday, the post had garnered approximately 38,600 retweets and 175,000 likes, according to local news site CWBChicago.

James O'Keefe suing CNN following permanent ban from Twitter:  We've 'never lost' a lawsuit.  Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe is taking action after being permanently banned from Twitter, with plans to go after CNN with a defamation lawsuit expected Monday, he told "Sunday Morning Futures."  "There are people on Twitter who are impersonating me who still remain on Twitter," he said.  "I will depose [Jack Dorsey] under oath... And tomorrow I will sue CNN."  Project Veritas has already launched a lawsuit against Twitter for defamation in New York after the social media giant removed the founder for exposing CNN for manipulating political events.  Twitter claimed O'Keefe was removed from the platform for operating fake accounts, which he denied.

How to Starve Big Tech.  It's not an exaggeration to say that if America remains on her current trajectory, she will be unrecognizable in another generation. [...] The sad part is that Big Tech's control over the free flow information is almost entirely illusory and based wholly on our submission to it.  Much in the same manner that consumers become zealously brand-conscious, we have come to accept that Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have some innate value that makes them indispensable.  We forget that Big Tech's dominance has come about in just one generation and we can track a direct trajectory between the rise of Big Tech and the radical Left's ascendancy.

Is Big Business Now A Greater Threat To Free Speech Than Government?  [Scroll down]  Today, however, something novel is happening in America:  private actors have become a greater threat to free speech than the government is.  Part of that comes from a laudable achievement — we have tamed free speech's historical foe, the state.  But part also comes from the rise of new means of communication that not only displace the old but are uniquely susceptible to monopolization in a way the old media were not.  That means that for the first time, corporate power might be a greater threat to our rights — especially our right to free speech — than the power wielded by the state.  This accounts in part for the recent resurgence in antitrust advocacy.  Not long ago, there was considerable diversity not only in the sources of news and entertainment but also in the distribution of such things.  Not only have the sources of news been subject to consolidation, but they have become separated from the methods by which they reach us.  This vertical dis-integration might be seen as an antitrust success, except that the distribution methods are even more consolidated than the news sources.

The Truth about Project Veritas and Media's Skewed Narrative.  James O'Keefe, founder and CEO of Project Veritas, explains his defamation lawsuit against Twitter following the social media company banning his accounts from their website, "I think that this is the only recourse that we have, is to use the country's libel laws against these Goliaths who act with malice and a reckless disregard for the truth."  [Podcast]

LinkedIn censors ex-DHS senior official's posts decrying censorship of Hunter Biden laptop story.  When the U.K.'s Daily Mail published a bombshell report on the verified contents of Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop earlier this month, sharing the "shocking details" the president's son left out of his low-selling memoir, Stewart Baker tried to share it.  Baker, a former National Security Agency general counsel and Department of Homeland Security subcabinet appointee now in private practice, took to LinkedIn.  "The social media giants that won't let you say the 2020 election was rigged are the people who did their best to rig it:  Hunter Biden laptop was genuine and scandalous — Daily Mail," Baker wrote, providing the report link.

Fights over free speech and the future of social media.  Would you say social media platforms offer "a forum for a true diversity of political discourse?"  Congress used this language over 20 years ago to describe the internet when it passed Section 230, a federal law that provides liability protection for online service providers when they transmit or take down user-generated content.  While the internet generally does offer such a forum, on social media platforms, it is disappearing.  Big Tech, including social media platforms, are now under the microscope, and legislators have very different ideas on what, if anything, needs to be done.  The recent hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee — billed as an investigation of digital misinformation among Facebook, Twitter and Google — showed just how divided members of Congress, both parties and the public are on the future of social media.

Trump Got Banned from Twitter Over False Claims of Inciting Violence — Maxine Waters Incites Violence Captured on Video and Keeps Her Account.  On January 8, 2021, Twitter banned the Leader of the Free World and President of the United States over false claims of inciting violence on January 6.  Of course, it was later proven that President Trump did not incite a riot and instead told his supporters to "peacefully" protest at the US Capitol on January 6.  President Trump's account is still banned by Twitter along with several of his top supporters.  Twitter banned The Gateway Pundit account after posting exclusive video of Democrats dropping off 61 boxes of ballots at the TCF Center at 3:30 AM on election night.  On Saturday night Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) flew to Minnesota Saturday to stir up the hate on the streets. [...] Waters urged violent leftists to "get more confrontational" with authorities.  But Mad Maxine still has her Twitter account?

Facebook Bigwig Donated Millions to Black Lives Matter.  Then The Company Censored Criticism of BLM's Controversial Founder.  Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz has poured over $5 million into a network of nonprofits run by Black Lives Matter leader Patrisse Cullors, according to financial disclosure records, raising questions about whether this relationship played a role in the company's decision to censor unflattering news articles about the activist last week.  The social media giant blocked its users from posting links to a New York Post story that revealed Cullors, a self-described Marxist, spent $3.2 million on high-end real estate as her Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation raked in millions in donations.  Facebook said the reporting violated its "privacy and personal information policy."  The Post argued that the decision was "so arbitrary as to be laughable" and noted that the media routinely report on real estate purchases by other celebrities and political figures without facing social media censorship.

Facebook Just Gave 2.8 Billion Users A Reason To Quit Their Accounts.  Facebook has had a bad month and, having lost the data of 533 million users, new revelations may just make the social media giant's 2.8 billion active users think about calling it quits.  The revelations come from two very different sources: a university student and a prominent UK newspaper, but both are likely to significantly undermine trust in the social network.  The first comes from a viral thread posted by student Zamaan Qureshi:  "So I decided to download my Facebook data after learning I was a part of the 533m breach," he explained.  "Clicked on a folder called "your_off_facebook_activity" and was unsurprised to learn that Facebook is following me all over the internet."

Pushing Back at the "Redcoats" Who Are Next Door to Us.  As Big Tech tightens its censorship noose around conservative communication, it becomes even more critical that patriots stay informed and connected.  If farmers and shopkeepers in the 1770s could devise ways to communicate around the superior British Army to win the Revolutionary War, certainly conservatives in 2021 can be just as creative devising ways to circumvent our own "Redcoats" — Big Tech. [...] From boycotts to buy-cotts; from writing letters and emails to making phone calls; from joining organizations to attending rallies and other imaginative ways — patriots must peacefully push back against tech and corporate authoritarian insanity or soon we will become the Marxist States of America.

Twitter Bans James O'Keefe After Latest Round of Hidden Videos Exposing CNN — O'Keefe to Sue Twitter for Defamation.  Twitter banned Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe after he posted multiple videos exposing CNN's left-wing bias.  Project Veritas on Thursday [4/15/2021] released a third bombshell undercover video of CNN Director Charlie Chester admitting that the network is "trying to help" Black Lives Matter by protecting their narrative on race.  Chester admits that they have only been pushing stories that implicate white people, during a conversation with a Tinder date that ended up being a Project Veritas reporter.  Chester admitted that while researching Asian hate, they found that it is mostly black men attacking them — so they did not dig in deeper.

Facebook censors DailyMail.com story on BLM co-founder's multi-million dollar LA property empire.  Facebook has stopped users from sharing articles by DailyMail.com about a BLM founder Patrisse Cullors' multi-million dollar property empire while users were allowed to share it from other outlets.  Users that wanted to share links to the DailyMail.com were met with a message that said it 'couldn't be shared.'  'This content was removed for violating our privacy and personal information policy,' a Facebook spokesperson told DailyMail.com.  However, other outlets, such as Black Enterprise, a media company that covers black-owned businesses, was allowed to be shared by Facebook users.  It's not the first time Facebook has censored content from conservative voices.

Twitter Permanently Blacklists James O'Keefe After CNN Expose.  James O'Keefe, the founder of the investigative journalism organization Project Veritas, has been permanently blacklisted by Twitter, just as his organization releases bombshell undercover footage showing senior CNN employees admitting to using "propaganda." @Project_Veritas, the organization's official account, has also been suspended.  In a comment to Breitbart News, a Twitter spokeswoman said the suspension was permanent.  This comes directly after O'Keefe and Project Veritas publicly embarrassed the far-left news network CNN.

Twitter bans James O'Keefe, O'Keefe says he plans to sue.  This week James O'Keefe has been releasing a series of undercover sting videos involving CNN.  Suddenly today [4/15/2021], Twitter suspended his account:  [Tweet]  The Project Veritas account is also suspended at this moment.  Fox News is reporting that a Twitter spokesperson said O'Keefe was permanently suspended for violating its rules against platform manipulation.  Specifically, the company accused O'Keefe of operating fake and/or multiple accounts.  O'Keefe denied that and said he would sue Twitter for defamation.

Today's blacklisted American:  A congresswoman because she speaks her mind.  They're coming for you next:  Since her election in November 2020 Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) has repeatedly irritated many people for her strong and very outright conservative opinions on everything from election fraud to religion to Donald Trump and Joe Biden.  As a result she has become the target by many on the left, resulting in her Twitter account being suspended more than once.  In one case it was because she had said posted a tweet celebrating Easter and glorifying the resurrection of Jesus.  In another case it as because she called for the supporters of Trump to rally against election fraud and the possibility that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.  In both cases her account was reinstated by Twitter within twelve hours, with the social media platform claiming the first suspension was a mistake while the second was not (having violated Twitter's partisan rules that forbid anyone from suggesting that there might have been election tampering that led to Biden's victory).  These Twitter attacks are ugly and illustrate that platform's anti-Republican and leftist agenda, but it is still a private company.  More important have been the efforts to muzzle Greene in Congress, led by the Democrats.

When Government Demands Social Media Censorship, Americans of All Political Beliefs Lose.  In what's becoming a Capitol Hill ritual, lawmakers recently called the leaders of Facebook, Google, and Twitter back before Congress to give them their latest pummeling.  This particular session focused on "misinformation" and how social media companies purportedly played a role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, but it easily could have been mistaken for any number of previous hearings, where lawmakers berated and demanded action from the tech giants.  For some lawmakers, concerns about the spread of "misinformation" led to suggestions that social media platforms disregard free speech and increase the content they censor.  In recent months, tech companies have already ramped up censorship in the name of a nebulous "social good."

YouTube bans Sebastian Gorka's channel for repeated violations of 'presidential election integrity policy'.  After repeated violations of YouTube's "presidential election integrity policy," the video platform terminated the channel for a radio show hosted by Sebastian Gorka, a onetime aide to former President Donald Trump.  Gorka's show, America First, was removed sometime over the past three days.  The Washington Examiner can confirm it was live as recently as Thursday.  The show features right-wing commentary on politics "to be the new front lines in the ongoing Culture War against the Left," according to a description on Apple Podcasts.  "In accordance with our long standing strikes system, we terminated the channel America First with Sebastian Gorka, for repeated violations of our presidential election integrity policy," Ivy Choi, a YouTube spokesperson, told the Washington Examiner on Sunday [4/11/2021].

The FBI / DOJ is MIA on Hunter Biden, Seth Rich, Anthony Weiner laptops.  The FBI and DOJ have been missing in action for years.  Failing in disclosing and acting on the information in the Hunter Biden, Seth Rich, and Anthony Weiner laptops.  The two-tiered system of American justice has never been more hypocritical on display.  Democrats and the deep state lie, cover-up and protect the likes of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Hunter Biden, and the Biden crime family.  Yet the full weight and power of the government are brought against any Republican connected to Donald Trump.  The story of the Hunter Biden, Seth Rich, and Anthony Weiner laptops is a tale of just how debased and corrupt our Government institutions and modern media have become. [...] Attorney General William Barr covered up the existence of the Hunter Biden FBI investigation for two years.  Twitter, Facebook, and corporate media censored the Hunter Biden laptop story with weeks to go before the election.

Twitter does not want you to know that the co-founder of BLM just bought a $1.4 million house in an exclusive lily-white neighborhood.  Social media censorship is escalating and ever more blatant.  Unfettered knowledge is dangerous to the phony narratives that progressives wish to brainwash the public into accepting, and with social media, the blockade imposed by mainstream media potentially can be breached by people posting otherwise obscure media sources to their social media accounts.  The latest prominent victim is Jason Whitlock, originally a sportswriter but now a social critic who brings insightful commentary on many issues, including race.  (For the record, Whitlock is Black, a fact that seems to make a difference to most people on the left.)  Yesterday [4/9/2021], Jason Whitlock posted a link to a story about Patrice Cullors and her apparent spouse Janaya Khan (who self-identifies as "black, queer, and gender-nonconforming") buying a $1.4-million compound in the Topanga Canyon area of Greater Los Angeles. [...] When Jason Whitlock noted the purchase on his widely followed Twitter account, Jack Dorsey's minions decided this was too much information.

Justice Thomas argues for making Facebook, Twitter and Google utilities.  Last fall, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that it was time to rein in Section 230 immunity.  Now, Justice Thomas is laying out an argument for why companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google should be regulated as utilities.  On Monday [4/5/2021], the Supreme Court vacated a lower court ruling in finding that President Trump had acted unconstitutionally by blocking people on Twitter.  That case, which the justices deemed moot, hinged on the idea that the @realdonaldtrump account was a public forum run by the president of the United States, and therefore, was constitutionally prohibited from stifling private speech.  In his concurrence, Justice Thomas agrees with the decision, but argues that, in fact, Twitter's recent ban of the @realdonaldtrump account suggests that it's platforms themselves, not the government officials on them, that hold all the power.

Twitter confirms it suspended Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's account 'in error'.  Twitter confirmed Monday [4/5/2021] that it suspended Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's account "in error" because she tweeted on Easter, "He is risen" — the second time the social media giant has sidelined the Georgia Republican in a month.  Greene announced that she was back online in a post.  "@Twitter suspended me again by 'mistake' yesterday after I tweeted, 'He is risen.'  Everyone knows that's a LIE, and it was no mistake," she wrote on Twitter.  In a statement, Twitter insisted it happened "in error."  "We use a combination of technology and human review to enforce the Twitter Rules across the service.  In this case, our automated systems took enforcement action on the account referenced in error.  This action has been reversed, and access to the account has been reinstated," the statement said.

Clarence Thomas Provides Legal Roadmap To Tearing Down Social Media Censorship.  Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas offered a roadmap to eliminating rampant social media censorship from online monopolies on Monday [4/5/2021].  In a ruling for writ of certiorari on the case of President Joe Biden v. Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, Thomas concurred in an opinion to send the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit with instructions to dismiss as moot, now that Biden is in the White House.  The case, launched in August, questions whether the First Amendment strips government officials of their ability to block third-party accounts on Twitter if the personal account is used to conduct official business.  The lower court ruled Trump violated the First Amendment when blocking users on the platform, which served as a public forum.

Twitter reverses another ban on Marjorie Taylor Greene after she claims she was suspended for tweeting 'He is risen!  Happy Easter!'  Twitter suspended the account of Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene 'in error' on Sunday [4/4/2021] for the second time in weeks.  The Congresswoman questioned whether her Twitter account was suspended after she wished her followers happy Easter.  But the social media platform explained the suspension as a result of the site's algorithm.  'We use a combination of technology and human review to enforce the Twitter Rules across the service.  In this case, our automated systems took enforcement action on the account referenced in error.  This action has been reversed, and access to the account has been reinstated,' Twitter explained in a statement.  Greene's account was suspended for about 12 hours before Twitter had it reinstated.

Data Show Biden 'Dislikes' Deleted by the Millions on YouTube.  To conservatives who have been throttled and even censored online, this will make perfect sense:  YouTube appears to be working on behalf of the Biden administration.  An analysis of data indicates that the platform has deleted more than 2.5 million "dislikes" from various White House videos featuring Joe Biden, likely in a bid to make him seem far more popular than he really is.

YouTube Deleted 2.5 Million 'Dislikes' From Biden White House Videos, Data Indicates.  YouTube has deleted about 2.5 million 'dislikes' from videos on the official White House channel of President Joe Biden, according to data collected and posted online by a researcher who wished to remain anonymous.  YouTube recently announced that it's testing a new page design that hides the dislike count.  The Google-owned video platform allows users to give videos either a thumb up (like) or thumb down (dislike). For at least two years, it's had a policy to remove likes and dislikes it considers spam.  "We have policies and systems in place to ensure that the engagement on YouTube is authentic, and remove any fraudulent metrics," a YouTube spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email, but when asked, wouldn't go into details on what criteria it uses to make these calls.  The White House videos have seen these kinds of interventions on an ongoing basis, but it appears it's only the dislikes that are disappearing.

Terms of Servitude.  [Scroll down]  While online platforms claim only to be applying their terms of service in neutral fashion, those terms themselves stink of delegitimization.  Once this shadow falls upon you and your account, you are as good as deactivated.  You know this; you know they know this; they know you know they know it.  Forced de facto to impose a precautionary principle on yourself, you "voluntarily" recoil well from the fuzzy line of unofficial censorship that advances far beyond the bright official line.  Already in March of 2020, Google had erased heterodox research on COVID-19. But things escalated rapidly when election season came in earnest.  The New York Post was locked out of Twitter for breaking a story about Hunter Biden's Chinese business ventures.  The sitting president had his social media accounts shut down entirely.  Twitter competitor Parler was removed from Amazon's servers for hosting discussions among Trumpists about the unfolding events.  And YouTube banned even the allegation of widespread election fraud.  Americans realized — or should have — that they had suddenly been herded into a communications control system unlike any ever imposed — or even conceived — in America.

Today's blacklisted Americans:  Conservatives on the email provider MailChimp.  They're coming for you next:  The email provider MailChimp has since the November election made it a clear policy to routinely cancel the accounts of conservatives if they dare send out any emails it deems politically incorrect.  In November MailChimp instantly disabled the email account of two tea party organizations, one in Virginia and the other in South Carolina, when they each tried to send out email notices to their members about post-election pro-Trump rallies.  In January MailChimp did the same to a conservative organization in California that was running a conference calling for the end of the overbearing lockdown rules imposed by the Democrat governor Gavin Newsom.

The Editor says...
For helpful tips, please see "If you think somebody is reading your email..." on this page or this page.

Report: Big Tech Employees Donated 12 Times More to Democrats than Republicans.  The Internet Accountability Project (IAP) released a report showing big tech employees and corporate PACs contributed more than 12 times the money to Democrats than Republicans in 2020.  The IAP, whose mission it is to "rein in big tech before it's too late," discovered employees of Facebook and Twitter, compounded with their PAC donations, have contributed over $5.5 million to Democrats while contributing less than $435,000 to Republicans, a ratio of 12 to one.

Trump blasts big tech 'censorship' after interview pulled by Facebook.  Former President Donald Trump on Thursday night [4/1/2021] decried big tech "censorship" after an interview he gave to his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, was taken off Facebook.  "I did a very nice interview with Lara," the former commander-in-chief said in a separate interview on cable news channel Real America's Voice.  "Facebook took it off and it's disgraceful," he told host Dr. Gina Loudon.  The interview was for Lara Trump's podcast and published Tuesday.  When she posted the footage to Facebook and sister-company Instagram, it was removed.  "What's happening now in this country, nobody ever thought would happen," the former president said in Thursday's interview.  "It is total censorship."

YouTube is like the Soviet Union, and conservatives are Voice of America.  [I]n the last two years, social media companies went from limiting access to or deleting individual posts and users to almost a full ban on conservative viewpoints. [...] The latest victim to fall to the social media totalitarianism is a conservative news and comedy host, Steve Crowder, who was forbidden to post YouTube for a week.  That suspension comes on the heels on Steve's recent Twitter ban.  Apparently, the cause for the YouTube suspension was Crowder's episode investigating individual cases of voter fraud in Nevada.  Steve's crew went to dozens of addresses in Nevada, showing that addresses were nonexistent or that people who voted from those addresses did not live there.  For each voter fraud case, Steve's episode provided a detailed explanation on how the vote that came from a particular address was invalid.  There were no "harmful or dangerous acts," "hateful and derogatory content," or "violence" in the video.  Everything contained in the video was verified, so there was no false information, either.  Steve went farther to explain that YouTube had cleared the episode, because no assertion of "widespread voter fraud affecting the outcome of the election" was made in the video.

Instagram Removes Kaitlin Bennett's Iconic Graduation Photo From 2018 for 'Inciting Violence'.  Instagram has removed conservative political commentator Kaitlin Bennett's iconic graduation photo from three years ago for "violence and incitement."  Meanwhile, the platform has allowed an endless stream of threats against the right-wing firebrand to continue for years.  Apparently, Instagram believes that photos of you peacefully exercising your Second Amendment right are a crime.  In their notification to Bennett, they said "we don't allow content that may lead to a genuine risk to physical harm or direct threat to public safety."

Facebook Scrubs Trump Interview With Daughter-In-Law, Threatens New Restrictions.  Shares of Twitter are paring earlier gains on Wednesday following a Fox News report that President Trump is moving ahead with his plans to launch a rival social media network. [...] Trump was banned from Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms after the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots.

Facebook removes video of Trump interview with daughter-in-law Lara Trump.  Facebook removed a video of an interview with former President Trump conducted by his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, saying any content "in the voice of Donald Trump" would be scrubbed from the social media platform.  Facebook permanently banned the former president from their platform in January after the Capitol riot.  On Tuesday [3/30/2021], Lara Trump, a Fox News contributor, posted an image on Instagram of her sitting across from her father-in-law, urging followers to "Join us tonight!"  A group of Trump officials were sent an email from a Facebook employee, warning that any content posted on Facebook and Instagram "in the voice of President Trump is not currently allowed on our platforms (including new posts with President Trump speaking)" and warned that it "will be removed if posted, resulting in additional limitations on accounts that posted it."

[Discard] Your Mask:  Take Back Your Freedom — Hope Is Eternal!.  [Scroll down]  Another Holocaust will not materialize from the mask.  But it does clearly show what happens when a piece of cloth isn't questioned.  We are told to simply wear a mask — any piece of cloth covering the mouth and nose will work.  The scientific data behind this idea is weak at best.  What is the percentage of completely healthy individuals in their 20s [to] 50s who have died from COVID only?  And what, if any, were the circumstances?  There is so much the Government doesn't tell us.  No, questions can't be asked.  If you dare speak up, share data from other sources or call the Virus Hysteria a sham, you will now become part of the censure culture — no Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or other platforms for you!

The Commonalities Between the Rise of the Nazis and the Tactics of the American Left Cannot be Ignored.  [Scroll down]  Second, the Nazi Party was fixated on censorship and eliminating any cultural institution, publication or speech that did not fully support them.  In other words, their version of today's "cancel culture."  The Nazis were notorious for book-burning rituals in order to intimidate and send the message that they would shut down anyone and anything that did not align with their ideology.  Once in control of the national levers of powers, they did so with impunity.  The American left is figuratively burning books as it uses social media mobs as the vehicle to send the message that they will shut down anyone or anything that does not align with their ideology.

Democrats' Proposed Changes To Section 230 Will Shut Down Conservative Outlets.  While Congress was grilling some Big Tech CEOs this week, Democratic leaders were busy in the background, working on proposals to change how Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is written.  Sadly, there are plenty of people on both sides of the ideological divide who have become so angered by the actions of Twitter and Facebook, along with the other social media heavyweights, that support for this sort of action seems to be growing.  But what House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and his cronies are planning to do won't stop some of the worst abuses of Jack Dorsey and company.  Instead, it will open the door to unofficial censorship of anyone with insufficiently woke views and could lead to endless lawsuits, not just against the social media platforms, but all publishers of online content.

Conservatives need to attack the tech monopolies aggressively.  Conservatives need to acknowledge a paradigm shift has occurred:  Big Tech companies are not "free market capitalists," but are, in fact, agents of American socialism.  When Michelle Obama tweets out that Twitter and Facebook should deplatform the sitting President of the United States, and they follow that directive within a day or so, we need to realize there is a new power structure in place.  Keep in mind that Hitler rose to power with the support of German industrialists.  He never needed to have his government pass a decree ordering the Final Solution; his followers knew what was expected.

Twitter's Jack Dorsey declares that disrespecting the quran is forbidden.  And if you rip up or otherwise destroy a quran and post it on Twitter, you will get banned for life.  But the people (Muslims) who call for your execution and threaten your life on Twitter because you disrespected the quran do NOT get banned.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admits it was a mistake to block New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story — but REFUSES to say who authorized it.  Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said Thursday [3/25/2021] it was a 'total mistake' for The New York Post to be locked out of its Twitter account for tweets sharing the newspaper's report on Hunter Biden's emails.  'We made a total mistake with the New York Post, we corrected that within 24 hours,' Dorsey told House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, who had asked about that example.  'It was not to do with the content, it had to do with a hacked materials policy, we had an incorrect interpretation,' Dorsey added.  Scalise had probed the Twitter boss on The New York Post's treatment, versus that of The Washington Post, which had to run a correction recently on a report of a conversation between former President Donald Trump and a top Georgia election official[.]

Mark Zuckerberg:  Facebook Will 'Honor Oversight Board's Decision on Donald Trump's Account.  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during a hearing Thursday [3/25/2021] that he will "honor" the potential decision by the company's oversight board to reinstate former President Donald Trump's Facebook account.  The Facebook "Supreme Court" is packed with anti-Trump and progressive individuals.  Rep. Billy Long (R-MO) asked Zuckerberg if he would respect the Facebook oversight board's decision to reinstate Trump's Facebook account if the group, nicknamed the "Facebook Supreme Court," were to rule in Trump's favor.

Bernie Sanders says he's not 'comfortable' with Trump Twitter ban.  Senator Bernie Sanders said recently that he's not "comfortable" with former President Trump's Twitter ban, arguing it could lead suppression of users across the political spectrum.  The Vermont Independent found common ground with many Republicans who accused the social media network of left-leaning bias and political censorship after they banned Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack US Capitol riot.  Sanders made the comments to New York Times columnist Ezra Klein Tuesday, after Trump aides announced the former president would soon return to social media with his own platform.

Why The Oligarchs Fear Christianity.  Gab has been banned from three different banks over the course of the past three weeks.  We operate a legal US business. [...] Gab is the test case for the oligarchs, they will soon start attacking churches and Christian organizations in the same way that Gab has been persecuted for nearly five years now.  Perhaps this secession will become geographic next.  Time will tell, but personally I'm mentally prepared for it.  We didn't choose this, the psychopathic oligarchs in the American regime did.  We will gladly embrace it and no longer associate with wickedness and their death cult of communism and critical theory.  They can keep their drag queen story hours, 87 genders, degeneracy, moral depravity, and endless chaos.  We choose our humanity, freedom, order, and Jesus.  This is, of course, exactly why those in power are attacking Gab.  Tens of millions of Christians are using Gab's services every month to unite and access an uncensored free flow of information that can't be found anywhere else on the internet.

Twitter suspends me for criticizing Cardi B.  Politicians such as Maxine Waters can praise and encourage BLM/Antifa violence via Twitter, and they still have access.  Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamanei can send anti-Jewish and anti-Israel tweets, and he's still on the platform.  But dare criticize rapper Cardi B over her depraved 2021 Grammy Awards "performance" featuring her song, "WAP," which itself would have been censored pre-Sexual Devolution, and that's a suspension for you. [...] Anyway, Twitter wants me to be a "good boy" and delete the tweet.  This will never, ever happen.  Given the filth and insult they allow (mainly from the left) on their platform, it's almost satirical to take issue with my message.  I won't yield to the double standard.

Disqus' De-Platforming of Frontpage:  The Left's fascistic purges continue.  The relentless de-platforming of conservatives in general and of the David Horowitz Freedom Center specifically, continues.  On March 3rd the Editors at FrontPage received an email from Disqus, the networked community platform used by hundreds of thousands of sites all over the web. [...] As of tomorrow, March 17th, Disqus is de-platforming us.  They have refused to respond to inquiries seeking further explanation.  Disqus has taken on faith the libelous accusations of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a widely-discredited, partisan group that frequently characterizes mainstream conservative organizations as "hate groups."

"I'm working for a company that's doing a lot of damage in the world.".  The latest from Project Veritas.  [Video clip]

Glenn Greenwald Testifies to House Subcommittee About Big Tech and Media Aligned Censorship.  Journalist Glenn Greenwald appeared today [3/12/2021] before the House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law holds a hearing entitled, "Reviving Competition, Part 2: Saving the Free and Diverse Press."  Mr. Greenwald testified about the inherent dangers of Big Tech arbitrarily controlling speech, and the ideologically aligned media looking the other way.  One of the examples Greenwald uses to highlight the alignment is how Big Tech suppressed the New York Post and their factually evidenced and well documented Hunter Biden story; and how the aligned media apparatus then supported that silencing.  In essence, the institutions of the U.S. government are collapsing; the institutions of communication technology are advancing censorship without oversight; and the institutions of the Fourth Estate are completely compromised.

Twitter just scored several own goals in their lawsuit against Ken Paxton.  [Thread reader] Here's Twitter openly admitting that they make editorial decisions, that these decisions have to be made in secret and that Twitter is actually no different from a newspaper. [...] And here's Twitter admitting that they are relying on First Amendment rights meant for the press. [...] Twitter says it can't share information on their moderation process because that would undermine the moderation process.  Here's the problem.  Section 230 protection only applies to those acting in good faith.  By hiding their process, we can't know if they're acting in good faith. [...] Whoever wrote this is twisting themselves into pretzels because they know Twitter acted in bad faith to get rid of people they don't like.

A new way to burn books:
Amazon stops selling books that frame LGBTQ identities as illness.  Amazon has decided to stop selling books that cast lesbian, gay and transgender identities as mental illnesses.  The e-commerce titan revealed its decision in a letter to three Republican senators who cried foul last month over the removal of a conservative scholar's book about transgender people.  The book, "When Harry Became Sally:  Responding to the Transgender Moment," was published in 2018 but recently disappeared from Amazon's website, Kindle store and Audible audiobook platform.  "As to your specific question about When Harry Became Sally, we have chosen not to sell books that frame LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness," Amazon executive Brian Huseman wrote in the Thursday [3/11/2021] letter to Sens. Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, Mike Lee and Mike Braun, which was published by The Wall Street Journal.

My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell claims he is launching his own social media site.  My Pillow founder Mike Lindell has made the grand claim that he is launching his own social media site — after he was booted from Twitter for spreading baseless claims about election fraud.  The pillow pusher said on conservative radio host Charlie Kirk's podcast Friday that his Big Tech rival could even be live within a month, Business Insider reported.  "Every single influencer person on the planet can come there.  You're going to have a platform to speak out," Lindell announced, adding that he has been working on the site for four years.  "It's not just like a little Twitter platform," said the businessman, who has claimed that he lost $65 million in revenue this year because of mass boycotts over his ongoing claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

Twitter Sues Texas AG Ken Paxton for Investigating Their Censorship Practices.  CTH spidey senses are on maximum alert on the background to this story.  On its face Twitter is suing Texas AG Ken Paxton for targeting them with inquiries into their practice of censorship and deplatforming.  The lawsuit baseline is essentially (and ironically) because Paxton is a government official, Twitter is claiming their 'first amendment' right to control speech on their private platform is under attack.  However, you might ask yourself why Twitter chose Paxton and not Florida Governor DeSantis or any other government official who is doing essentially the same thing as AG Paxton with their efforts against Big Tech.  This is where suspicious cat comes into play because there's always another angle with these tech leftists... you just need to know how to spot it.  Ken Paxton is under investigation by the FBI for an unrelated securities fraud case, and there has been a long-standing court battle underway.

The CDC Is About To Be Canceled By Google & Facebook For COVID Heresy.  According to the CDC's analysis, between March 1 and December 31 last year, statewide mask mandates were in effect in 2,313 of the 3,142 counties in the United States.  And, looking at the county-by-county data, the CDC concludes that mask mandates were associated with an average 1.32% decrease in the growth rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths during the first 100 days after the mask policy was implemented.  Wait, what?  Only 1.32%?  You read that correctly, they didn't misplace the decimal:  according to the federal government agency that is responsible for managing the COVID-1984 pandemic, the difference between mask mandates and no mask mandate is literally just a 1.32% difference.  And bear in mind, it's entirely possible that the real figure is even lower than that, given all the questionable COVID statistics.  For example, the CDC reports that influenza cases in the United States have dropped to almost zero in the 2020-2021 flu season, down from 56 MILLION the previous year.  It's amazing they expect anyone to take this data seriously.  Are we honestly supposed to believe that the flu has been eradicated?

Twitter Suspends Kassam AGAIN After Mocking Biden YouTube Audience Size.  Twitter suspended the account of National Pulse Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam for mocking the size of President Biden's YouTube audience.  The latest in a recent string of temporary suspensions of his account, Kassam's offending tweet focused on the small audience watching the event "President Biden delivers remarks on the American Rescue Plan."  [Tweet]  Kassam later added to the thread:  "Remember, they claim he got 81 MILLION votes.  Honeslty I'm starting to believe he didn't get 18 MILLION."

Conservatives snicker as Urban Dictionary censors term 'BLUE ANON,' the hot new label for left-wing conspiracy theorists.  Conservatives chalked up a victory in the battleground of pejorative labels, concluding that the trending 'Blue Anon' branding of left-wing conspiracy theorists is sufficiently stinging after the term earned censorship bona fides.  The term made it into the online Urban Dictionary of slang words and phrases earlier this week, only to be removed by Sunday [3/7/2021].  A search of the term, a play on 'QAnon' that has been used increasingly in recent months to mock leftists, now comes up empty.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Announces Bill Prohibiting Social Media Censorship.  Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) announced on Friday [3/5/2021] that he plans to sign a bill into law that would prohibit social media companies from censoring Texans' viewpoints online, adding that censorship is "not going to be tolerated in Texas."  "We see that the First Amendment is under assault by these social media companies, and that is not going to be tolerated in Texas," said Governor Abbott at a press conference on Friday alongside State Senator Bryan Hughes (R).

YouTube: Trump's account will be restored when 'risk of violence has decreased'.  YouTube's CEO said the video sharing platform will lift its suspension of former President Donald Trump's account once the company determines "the risk of violence has decreased."  In comments at an Atlantic Council forum Thursday, CEO Susan Wojcicki said Trump's account was suspended after the channel uploaded videos that violated YouTube's incitement of violence policy.  The move came in the days following the Capitol riots on Jan. 6 and was one of several social media platforms to suspend the former president's account.  Trump had uploaded videos after the riot in which he said that impeaching him for inciting violence at the Capitol would be "very dangerous for the USA."

YouTube Blacklists Donald Trump's CPAC Speech, Suspends RSBN Channel.  The Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), a conservative news broadcaster, received a two-week suspension from YouTube because it covered President Donald Trump's speech at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).  The video nearly accumulated 4 million views before being censored by the Google-owned platform.  The official Twitter account of RSBN reported the news.  "RSBN has been suspended from YouTube for two weeks because of the Trump #CPAC2021 speech, which violated their guidelines on election misinformation.  The video was approaching 4 million views.  They have also removed it from their platform."

Abbott Moves To End Big Tech Viewpoint Censorship: 'Un-American' And 'Soon To Be Illegal' In Texas.  Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Thursday [3/4/2021] that he's seeking to outlaw viewpoint discrimination on social media.  "I am joining [state Sen. Bryan Hughes] to announce a bill prohibiting social media companies from censoring viewpoints," Abbott announced late Thursday night via Twitter.  "Too many social media sites silence conservative speech and ideas and trample free speech," he asserted.  "It's un-American, Un-Texan, & soon to be illegal."

Google Censorship Continues — RSBN Suspended for Carrying President Trump CPAC Speech.  Control is a reaction to fear; it has always been thus.  In this example Google, the parent company of YouTube, is removing all copies of President Trump's CPAC speech claiming the content violates their terms of service.  RSBN broadcast the speech then hosted it on their YouTube channel.  As a result RSBN has been suspended from their YouTube account.

Twitter Verifies, Suspends Tiny Left-Wing Fact-Check Account.  Twitter appeared to bend over backwards to verify a new left-wing fact-checker soon after the account's creation.  But now, the account has been suspended.  Twitter had awarded a blue-check "verified" badge to an account called the Trusted Report Team, "@trteam_official."  The account had been verified despite not reaching even 200 followers, and it had just "Joined February 2021," according to the account bio.  The account's few tweets were swimming with leftist propaganda.  One tweet claimed that Dr. Seuss drew "racist cartoons," along with an article from Snopes.  Snopes claimed that Seuss "had a history of creating cartoons featuring racist propaganda, and offensive caricatures of Black people, Asians, and Arabs.

Unreleased Federal Report Concludes 'No Evidence' that Free Speech Online 'Causes Hate Crimes'.  Freedom of speech on the internet did not lead to a rise in "hate crimes," according to a report sent from the U.S. Department of Commerce to Congress in January — a report that has yet to appear on any government website.  Breitbart News has obtained a copy of the report, [...].  But sources close to the government say they are baffled as to why it wasn't released publicly after being sent to Congress.  The report was prepared by the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which is responsible for advising the President on all matters related to telecommunication and the internet.  It was drafted to revise the findings of a previous report from NTIA in 1993 titled The Role of Telecommunications in Hate Crimes.

ICE locks Twitter account that alerted public of illegal immigrants freed by sanctuary cities.  ICE has locked down a Twitter account that was used to alert the public to illegal immigrants released by sanctuary cities.  @ICEAlerts is now "protected," meaning only those who had already been following the account can see the target names.  Users also can't retweet the old posts, said Jon Feere, a former senior employee at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under President Trump.  ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the change, but Mr. Feere said the Biden administration doesn't want people to know what kinds of criminals it's no longer actively seeking to deport.

The Editor says...
This part is news to me:  I didn't know the government had direct and immediate control of Twitter.

ICE locks Twitter account that alerted public of illegal immigrants freed by sanctuary cities.  ICE has locked down a Twitter account that was used to alert the public to illegal immigrants released by sanctuary cities.  @ICEAlerts is now "protected," meaning only those who had already been following the account can see the target names.  Users also can't retweet the old posts, said Jon Feere, a former senior employee at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under President Trump.  ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the change, but Mr. Feere said the Biden administration doesn't want people to know what kinds of criminals it's no longer actively seeking to deport.

The Editor says...
This part is news to me:  I didn't know the government had direct and immediate control of Twitter.

Amazon Prime Stops Streaming Clarence Thomas Documentary During Black History Month.  Amazon showed it has its limits when it comes to its dedication to diversity and inclusion when it failed to continue streaming a critically acclaimed and popular documentary on the only black Supreme Court justice during Black History Month.  Recently, Amazon Prime dropped Created Equal:  Clarence Thomas in His Own Words, an acclaimed and popular PBS documentary on Justice Clarence Thomas, making it unavailable to stream during Black History Month.  Thomas is our nation's only black justice currently serving on the U.S. Supreme Court, and one would think that between Amazon's claim to "building an inclusive culture" and the fact that it's Black History Month, Amazon would want to stream this inspiring documentary on its platform.

Judicial Watch to Facebook:  End Censorship of Trump.  Judicial Watch announced today it asked Facebook's Oversight Board to end the censorship of former President Trump and allow him back onto the platform.  Judicial Watch told the Oversight Board that the decision to suspend Trump is an affront to free speech and transparency.  The Oversight Board is empowered by Facebook to review and overturn Facebook's censorship decisions.  "Facebook and Big Tech censorship of former President Trump is an attack on the free speech of every American," stated Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch President.  "Simply put:  Big Tech must stop censoring conservatives in their effort to help Joe Biden."

Facebook [has been] Found Primarily to Blame for the Capitol Hill Riot, Yet Parler Is Still the Only App Punished for It.  After the Capitol Hill riot on January 6 happened, Democrats and the media pointed every finger they had available at Trump supporters as a whole.  Moreover, they began blaming anything that might even be connected to conservatives.  Immediately, Democrats began targeting Parler, a free-speech platform that disaffected and banned Twitter users moved to, in order to be able to say what they wanted without big tech punishing them for it.

Trump Versus Big Tech.  A Twitter equivalent could be built for a few hundred grand.  It could run on hardware that fits on a dining room table and easily support a billion users, run in triplicate so it could survive a nuclear war.  It just would not have any users.  Adding significant numbers of users takes several years.  Here comes President Trump!  President Trump brings an ingredient to the party no technology company can recreate, even in an artificial intelligence lab.  President Trump brings an audience — tens of millions — passionately connecting with their pals and building the kind of scale that weathers any setback.  These users show up because it is a cause, not a platform.  While it would take a decade for some technologist to build another Twitter with a new tech stack, President Trump and the MAGA team could do it in months.  There is nothing Twitter can do about it.  Nobody is going back to Twitter from the MAGA equivalent.  Twitter needs massive revenue to make a buck, mostly from ads.

Twitter Locked Focus On The Family's Account Because The Christian Group Said Boys And Girls Are Different.  Global Christian ministry Focus on the Family remains locked out of its Twitter account after the organization tweeted a link to an article by writer Zachary Mettler on its affiliated-platform, the Daily Citizen.  The tweet recited basic biology, and Twitter was not happy.  In today's censorious bully culture, speaking truth will land you in the digital gulag.  "On Tuesday, President-elect Joe Biden announced that he had chosen Dr. Rachel Levine to serve as Assistant Secretary for Health at the Department of HHS. Dr. Levine is a transgender woman, that is, a man who believes he is a woman," the Daily Citizen account tweeted. [...] This is not the first time Focus on the Family has been censored by the tyrannical powers that be.

Canada To Follow Australia's Lead In Charging Facebook For Links.  After blocking links to all news content in Australia, Facebook has reportedly "friended" the country again by coming back to the negotiating table, at least according to Prime Minister Scott Morrison.  That doesn't mean that Mark Zuckerberg has dropped his objections to Austrailia's pending legislation that would force the social media giant to pay for links to Australian news content, however.  Neither side seems to be backing down at this point.  Australia may not be in this battle alone, though.  We're learning this weekend that Canada is drafting a similar measure and basically daring Facebook to impose a blackout on them as well.

YouTube Takes Down Video of Testimony Given During Ohio House Session.  Google's YouTube last week removed a video that showed an attorney testifying to the Ohio legislature.  Thomas Renz, an attorney with the Ohio Stands Up! group, spoke to the Ohio House State and Local Government Committee in support of House Bill 90, which would implement legislative oversight of orders given by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine.  Renz said over the course of around 36 minutes that he opposed the harsh orders imposed by DeWine, a Republican, and health officials amid the COVID-19 pandemic.  Renz noted that officials initially believed the fatality rate from the disease, which is caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, was much higher than the flu, but it's now close to the influenza's rate.  He also alleged that no one under the age of 19 has died from COVID-19 in the state, among other claims.  State officials say 11 children under 19 have died from the disease.

Censored Hunter Biden Laptop Story Comes Back Around to Bite Twitter.  The former Delaware computer repair shop owner who gave Rudi Giuliani and the FBI emails alleged to be from Hunter Biden's laptop has again sued Twitter for defamation.  John Paul Mac Isaac claimed that Twitter defamed him by censoring a New York Post story over its alleged use of "hacked materials."  Due to Twitter's suppression of the story, Americans branded Mac Isaac a hacker, costing him business opportunities and ultimately leading him to shut down his business, the lawsuit claims.  "Plaintiff is not a hacker and the information obtained from the computer does not constitute hacked materials because Plaintiff lawfully gained access to the computer, first with the permission of its owner, Biden, and then, after Biden failed to retrieve the recovered data despite Plaintiff's reuses, in accordance with the Mac Shop's abandoned property police," the lawsuit claims.  "Plaintiff, as a direct result of Defendant Twitter's actions and statements, is now widely considered a hacker."

Facebook's Ban on News in Australia Is Waking People Up.  The saying "if you're not paying for it then you're the product" is a popular explanation for why some Internet services, like the Google apps, Facebook, Twitter, etc., let users join them for "free."  The situation is better understood when restated as "the users supply the content and the giant Internet platforms monetize it."  Big Silicon has become mind-blowingly rich by selling advertising and data mining access to content provided by billions of 'members.'  In return, the members receive the privilege of being 'allowed' to upload their videos, post their rants, share their snaps, and do reportage on these magnificent sites.  Ever since users captured the 2004 tsunami on their brick cell phone cameras, it is Joe Ordinary, not Robert Capa or Margaret Bourke-White who records breaking events.  Joe Ordinary creates videos, literature, and memes, and documents occurrances at a level of detail never seen before.

YouTube Takes Down New Trump Interview.  YouTube took down a newly recorded interview with former President Donald Trump in Google's latest action against conservatives.  A Newsmax spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email that the company was told the Feb. 17 interview was removed because it violated YouTube's community guidelines.  A Google spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email:  "We have clear Community Guidelines that govern what videos may stay on YouTube, and we enforce our Community Guidelines consistently, regardless of speaker and without regard to political viewpoints."  "In accordance with our presidential election integrity policy, we removed this video from the Newsmax TV channel," the spokesperson added.  The set of policies cited is aimed at preventing spam, scams, and deceptive practices, the California-based company says.  Included is a policy implemented late last year.  Google said in announcing the policy that it would remove "content that misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election."

Biden Silent Over Big Tech Suspensions Because He 'Benefits From the Censorship,' Banned Journalist Says.  After he was suspended from Twitter this week, journalist Paul Sperry said the White House is silent over Big Tech censorship because it benefits certain politicians.  Sperry told The Epoch Times that President Joe Biden has been "silent" about companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google taking action against certain accounts — namely conservatives — because he "benefits from the censorship."  "In fact, he's in the White House now largely because Twitter blocked the New York Post's scoops about the Biden family's shady foreign dealings and influence peddling in Communist China and Ukraine," Sperry said, referring to the Post's reports and other reports that claimed his family members' including son and brother, business dealings in China and Ukraine.  Biden, during the 2020 campaign, denied the allegations that he did anything untoward and said he had no knowledge of his family's business ties.

Democrats Work on Plan For Big Tech to Shut Down Dissent.  An interesting article within Reuters points out how the Democrats in congress are working with the White House to craft legislation to make "social media companies accountable for the spread of disinformation."  Or put another way, the Democrats are attempting to eliminate any ability of those who disagree with them; or worse yet, would outline their corrupt endeavors.  Ultimately this level of control is a reaction to fear.  So the logical question is:  what exactly are they fearful of?  Perhaps the answer is in alignment with the reason Democrats have surrounded the capital with military guards, fence and barbed-wire.

Poland fights Big Tech with push to block social media censorship.  Social media companies that censor users or remove posts for ideological reasons could soon face fines in Poland in a world-first attempt to curb the power of Big Tech through legislation.  Speaking to Fox News, the architect of the law, Deputy Polish Justice Minister Sebastian Kaleta, said social media companies have for too long been targeting conservatives, Christianity and traditional values by banning them and removing posts and the Polish government is saying "enough!"  "We see that when Big Tech decides to remove content for political purposes, it's mostly content which praises traditional values or praises conservatism," he said, "and it is deleted under their 'hate speech policy' when it has no legal right to do so."

Instagram Will Now Monitor Your Private Messages To Watch For 'Hate Speech'.  Instagram announced in the past week that they will begin policing private direct messages in their latest crackdown on so-called "hate speech" on their platform, a report says.  In line with the recent racial abusive comments that are "targeted at footballers in the U.K." after losing a match, the social media platform Instagram announced Wednesday that they will be imposing stricter measures in order "to help prevent" the further spread of abuse and hate speech in direct messages, Daily Wire reported.

Media's censorious gatekeepers are mad, because they're losing power.  With Donald Trump out of office and de-platformed, you'd think mainstream media gatekeepers would be happy.  You'd think wrong.  Though the media-Big Tech regime is doing its best to silence opponents and seize control of the high ground, the news from within is grim.  They aren't happy with how things are going.  That's because they know they're losing.  Some are losing audiences and revenues.  But more important, they're losing control of the narrative.  And since control of the narrative, and the power and self-importance that accompany that control, is the most important thing in their lives, they can't be happy.

Facebook will debunk myths about climate change, stepping further into 'arbiter of truth' role.  Facebook announced Thursday [2/18/2021] it will now debunk common myths about climate change, further leaning into the "arbiter of truth" role that the company once renounced.  The social media giant said it is adding a section to its climate change information hub that will features facts with accurate information about misconceptions and falsehoods.  This will include the fact that polar bear populations are declining because of global warming, as well as the fact that too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere harms plant life.  The company said it plans to rely on experts from George Mason University, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the University of Cambridge to identify and debunk climate change myths.  Facebook has introduced these information hubs and relied on them as a key part of its tactic to combat the widespread problem of misinformation on its services.  It's a stark turnaround from CEO Mark Zuckerberg's statement last May, when he defended unfettered speech from politicians on the platform and said he did not think "Facebook or internet platforms in general should be arbiters of truth."

Also posted under Silencing the Global Warming Skeptics.

Facebook Censors Australia from Posting News, Censors Australian Publishers Globally.  A proposed law from the Land Down Under did not go over well with Facebook.  Facebook has decided to block all news in and from Australian users in response to a proposed law that would require the platform to pay news publishers for stories that appear on Facebook.  "In response to Australia's proposed new Media Bargaining law, Facebook will restrict publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content," said William Easton, Facebook's Managing Director, Facebook Australia & New Zealand in a blog post.  "The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content.  It has left us facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia.  With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter," Easton continued.

Prime minister Scott Morrison attacks Facebook for 'arrogant' move to 'unfriend Australia'.  The Australian government has been blindsided by Facebook suddenly blocking all news on the platform in Australia but says the "heavy-handed" move will not stop parliament from passing landmark laws to force tech giants to pay for journalism.  Australians woke up on Thursday [2/18/2021] to discover they couldn't view or share news on the social network after Facebook blocked the content in an escalation of a row over whether it should have to pay media companies for displaying their content.  Facebook is opposed to the federal government's news media code which has already passed the lower house of parliament and is expected to soon pass the upper house.

Facebook Blocks News From Australia — Yes, The Entire Country.  Australian officials are pushing back against the totalitarian grip of Big Tech.  As a result of investigations into Google and Facebook the Australian government is set to establish fines against tech companies for anti-trust violations.  However, some officials are now discussing taking actions that are beyond civil lawsuits, and are now advocating for arrest of company officers for unlawful conduct.  The battle lines are being drawn, and in response to the Australian government position on anti-trust Facebook (feeling they are elite and above the law) has now decided to block all news articles from the entire country from their social media platform.

Following Australia's Lead Russia Has Passed A Law On Fines For Censorship Against Russian Citizens The Law Will Apply To Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.  Big Tech's efforts to restrict user access to various Internet platforms are a serious challenge, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with leaders of parliamentary factions on Wednesday [2/17/2021].  He responded to the recent statements made by Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the State Duma (lower house), who put the spotlight on Big Tech's violation of freedom of speech.  "What you said about these so-called platforms, IT companies, is a serious challenge not only for us — we see what has happened in the [United] States," Putin noted.  According to him, it is quite obvious that such an "ideological divide" runs throughout the world.

Twitter Suspends Free Speech Group's Account.  The Twitter account for a national free speech organization has been suspended for allegedly violating Twitter's rules, but the group's president says she has no idea why the account would be suspended.  "I looked at all the tweets that I had approved for the couple of days before, and nothing is like doxxing anybody," Nicole Neily, Speech First's president, told The Daily Signal in an interview Tuesday.  Doxxing is the publishing of private or identifying information about an individual on the internet, usually with malicious intent.  The national organization, which works to promote free speech on campuses, in the media, and in the courts, had its Twitter account suspended on Feb. 8.  "I've read the terms of service and why you might be suspended, and literally nothing lines up," Neily said.

Kevin Sorbo left in the dark by Facebook after 500K followers purged: 'Told absolutely nothing'.  Facebook is giving actor Kevin Sorbo the silent treatment about a 500,000-fan purge of his official page.  The former "Hercules" star appears to be the latest high-profile name to be digitally exiled by the social media giant.  Content policing temporarily took out former Republican politician Ron Paul, in addition to more serious bans for former President Trump's page and Brandon Straka of the once-500,000-strong "Walk Away" page.

Social Media App Parler Resumes After Finding New Computer Servers.  Parler, a social media app that was shut down last month by tech giants, said Monday that it has secured new computer servers and resumed operations.  "We are off of the big tech platform, so that we can consider ourselves safe and secure for the future," Parler CEO Mark Meckler said in an interview with Just The News.  Meckler said the platform will employ artificial intelligence and "human editors to police for illegal speech that violates its service agreement but otherwise is remaining true to its free speech, no censorship roots," the site said.  Dan Bongino, a prominent Parler user and shareholder, applauded the move, saying, "Cancel culture came for us, and hit us with all they had.  Yet we couldn't be kept down.  We're back, and we're ready to resume the struggle for freedom of expression, data sovereignty, and civil discourse.  We thank our users for their loyalty during this incredibly challenging time."

One Man Banned.  Twitter, like Facebook, is one of the lucky winners in the Network Effect Economy.  It's the opposite of Yogi Berra's restaurant where nobody goes anymore because it got too crowded:  Everybody goes to Twitter because everybody goes to Twitter.  But besides a lack of ability to publicize my writings, other downsides of having my account disappeared by Twitter quickly emerged:  I couldn't easily see other people's tweets.  Other people couldn't see my old tweets.  I pretty much vanished from Google's search engine.

Facebook's Trump Ban an Example of Uneven Standards, Republicans Tell Oversight Board.  Republicans in Congress told Facebook's oversight board that the social media company's suspension of former President Donald Trump is an example of uneven deplatforming standards.  Top House GOP members, including Reps.  Ken Buck (R-Colo.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), told the board in a letter that they see violent speech published from all parts of the political spectrum on social media platforms, including Facebook, pointing to calls for the murder of police officers from the far-left Antifa network and a top Iranian official promising violence against the United States.  "The debate about how to effectively deal with these and other individuals is necessary and important," the lawmakers wrote.  "However, we remain concerned that the deplatforming standards are not applied in a fair and neutral manner."  Republicans referred to a report compiled by a team led by former Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), about conservative concerns with Facebook, alleging the report "found numerous issues that resulted in a clear political bias against conservative viewpoints."  They also noted that Facebook limited a story about President Joe Biden's son Hunter from being shared shortly before the 2020 election, claiming it contained disinformation, even though subsequent reporting confirmed many of the points presented.

Twitter suspends accounts of Project Veritas, James O'Keefe.  The account of Project Veritas has been suspended from Twitter as of Thursday, and the investigative outlet's founder, James O'Keefe, also had his account restricted. [...] There is conflicting information on social media right as to whether it is a suspension or a ban.  O'Keefe and Project Veritas have appealed the decision.

American Police State:  No Questions Allowed.  [Scroll down]  All of these questions are now too dangerous or too inconvenient for the U.S. government to abide.  They are too dangerous or too inconvenient for Google, Facebook, and Twitter to tolerate on their "free speech" platforms. [...] Look how fast questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election became a state offense.  In November, doing so was mocked as mere "conspiracy-mongering."  In December, it had become a "threat to democracy."  By January, it was "insurrectionist."  And by February, Congress is holding a Soviet show trial to punish the president; the FBI is busy arresting his supporters; the military is purging MAGA troops from its ranks; and prominent media personalities openly suggest drone strikes against American citizens.  This is not normal in a free country, and it is important to say so.  Free people neither fear nor punish debate; open and continuous disagreement is, in fact, a hallmark of all free societies.  Anybody who claims that political speech should be punished as criminal incitement is no friend to freedom.  Anybody who pretends that words are violence is only looking to police thought.

It's just the cost of doing business:
Twitter Reports 1.14 Billion Net Loss for 2020 After Censoring Conservative Voices.  Twitter announced that they officially took a beating financially in 2020 after silencing and banning dozens of conservative influencers including censoring the President of the United States Donald J. Trump.  American social-networking company Twitter announced on Wednesday [2/10/2021] its financial results for the fiscal year 2020, saying it recorded a net loss of $1.136 billion against net income a year earlier.

Twitter Confirms Ban of Donald Trump Is Permanent; They May Not Have Thought This Through.  At the end of an interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box" Wednesday [2/10/2021] in which he talked in part about the big tech company's plans to roll out new revenue streams, Twitter chief financial officer Ned Segal was asked, in what was almost an aside, about the possibility of President Donald Trump returning to the social media platform, if he wins re-election in 2024. [...] It seems hard to believe, but it was a year ago this week, when Democrats demanded both Facebook and Twitter remove a video Trump shared of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) ripping up a copy of his State of the Union speech.  She justified her unprofessional actions with the excuse that it was full of lies.  And the reason the leftists gave for pulling the video was that it was "inaccurate."

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been banned from Instagram.  Instagram on Wednesday [2/10/2021] took down the account of controversial anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  "We removed this account for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines," a spokesperson for Facebook, which owns Instagram, said in a statement.  Kennedy, the son of late former US Attorney General, US Senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, has repeatedly spoken out against vaccines.  He has lobbied Congress to give parents exemptions from state requirements that mandate they vaccinate their children.  The lifelong Democrat downplays his anti-vaccine views, though, by saying that he is actually in favor of safe vaccines and noting that all of his children have been vaccinated.  Kennedy's Facebook page, with more than 300,000 followers, was still active at the time of publication.  The company spokesperson said there were no plans to take down that page "at this time."

Trump Will Never Be Allowed Back On Twitter, CFO Confirms.  As a reminder, Twitter permanently suspended Trump's account on January 9, in the aftermath of the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill, for inciting violence.  Which leaves with a question:  if the Senate finds Trump not-guilty of the impeachable offense of "inciting insurrection", then will Twitter abide by that ruling and allow Trump back on? (We know the answer, obviously).  Additionally, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said last night, during the first earnings call since Trump's ban that the social media giant is "bigger than any one account."

Nothing To See Here:  Facebook's Leftist Oversight Board Member Leaves To Join Radical Biden Regime.  A law professor who's been sitting on leftist Facebook's oversight board stepped down to accept a position in President Joe Biden's Department of Justice.  Pamela Karlan will serve as principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice's Civil Division after spending less than a year on the Facebook board set up in 2019 to review the social media behemoth's content policing decisions.

Facebook Will Take Down Posts With Claims About Vaccines It Deems False.  Facebook announced on Feb. 8 that it will take down posts with claims about vaccines that health organizations or its fact-checkers deem false.  "Today, we are expanding our efforts to remove false claims on Facebook and Instagram about COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines, and vaccines in general during the pandemic," said a post from the social media giant.  "Since December, we've removed false claims about COVID-19 vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts."  "Today, following consultations with leading health organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO), we are expanding the list of false claims we will remove to include additional debunked claims about the coronavirus and vaccines," Facebook stated in a blog post.

Who decides if his claims are true or false?
Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft is permanently banned from Twitter after false election fraud claims.  Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft has been permanently banned from Twitter after posting false election fraud claims to the site.  Conservative radio host Wayne Allyn Root's account was also suspended Sunday [2/7/2021] after both men were accused of 'violating Twitter's civic integrity policy'.  Following the storming of the U.S. Capitol [last] month, Twitter has banned over 70,000 accounts for sharing misinformation.

The Editor says...
Twitter will decide what's information and what's misinformation.  In other words, Twitter will suppress any opinions that do not conform to the opinions of Twitter's left-wing managers.

Twitter Indefinitely Suspends Gateway Pundit Account After We Announce More Video of TCF Center Fraud Will Be Released in Coming Days.  Earlier today [2/6/2021] we tweeted out an update on our ongoing investigation of the Detroit TCF Center on November 4, 2020.  On Friday The Gateway Pundit released exclusive video from the TCF Center showing late-night deliveries of tens of thousands of votes to the TCF Center HOURS AFTER the deadline to turn in absentee ballots.  The absentee ballots were counted before election day.  The only absentee ballots they had left to count came in from the Zuckerberg boxes that were checked hourly.  We have much more on this incident to report on in the coming days.

The NYU Study:  The Claim Of Anti-Conservative Bias In Social Media Is Unfounded But Inconclusive?  There has been much press about the New York University study, "False Accusation:  The Unfounded Claim that Social Media Companies Censor Conservatives."  It is being touted by the media as establishing that any allegations of bias against conservatives is "disinformation," the term used by authors Paul M. Barrett and J. Grant Sims of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.  That term of course is now used as a basis for flagging or censoring material.  The problem is that the study is largely conclusory and, though buried in the study, acknowledges that it is not based on any real hard data and is therefore "inconclusive."  Conservatives have hit the study as funded by Craig Newmark, a billionaire tech titan who is a major donor to Biden and Democratic candidates.  Newmark has reportedly supported groups in favor of blacklisting and called on Big Tech to take action against "bad actors."  However, the authors did reveal Newmark's funding and, while Barrett has also been attacked for a record allegedly supporting Big Tech, the credibility of the study would be judged on its actual support and analysis.

DeSantis takes aim against social media platforms.  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held a news conference Tuesday [2/2/2021] to announce the support of legislation to protect social media users' privacy, saying "big tech has come to look more like big brother with each passing day."  The governor said the legislation will seek a slew of changes that DeSantis says will protect privacy and censorship by social media platforms.  He called out Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple and Amazon for being "nameless, faceless boards of censors."  "Over the years, however, these platforms have changed from neutral platforms that provided Americans with the freedom to speak to enforcers of preferred narratives," DeSantis said.

Twitter Locks Down Family Group's Account Over Man-Lady Levine, Biden's No. 2 At HHS.  Twitter's top biologists have spoken again.  All skeptical discussion about "transgender" ideology is hate speech and will be deleted.  Last week, the social-media site shut down Focus on the Family's Daily Citizen account because it stated an objective truth about President Joe Biden's new assistant secretary of health.  Rachel (Richard) Levine, it tweeted, is a biological man.  Saying so, Twitter says, is "hateful."  The lockdown, which Twitter did not apply to the group's main account, is just the latest in the website's campaign to silence dissent from leftist orthodoxy on sexual matters.  Agree with us, or be censored and driven from the public square.

Project Veritas Reveals Top Facebook Execs Discussing Their Power and Plans to Help Biden Administration.  Project Veritas released footage of Facebook executives acknowledging they have "too much power" and expressing their commitment to working with the Biden administration on a number of shared priorities.  "In his first day, President Biden has already issued a number of executive orders on areas that we as a company really care quite deeply about," Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says in the Jan. 21 recording.  "I think that these were all important and positive steps, and I am looking forward to opportunities where Facebook is going to be able to work together with this new administration on some of their top priorities, starting with the COVID response."

Louder with Crowder is Suing Facebook.  That's right, we're putting our money where our mouth is.  Time to sue Facebook.  [Video clip]  We want Facebook to stop these practices or to be honest about what it is they're doing.  Simply stated, is Facebook a publisher or a platform?  They need to be open about what they are and act accordingly.  There is a double standard here.  What are the actual standards by which Facebook says we, its users, govern ourselves?  Facebook needs to disclose what they're doing as a business, especially as they solicit money for advertising.  We need Facebook to stop throttling pages and content and to stop favoring certain outlets over others.  In a word, stop acting like a publisher or just admit that they are one.

Facebook's squad of thought police:  Devine.  When you see him speak, it's hard to believe that such a gormless geek as Mark Zuckerberg may be the most powerful person in the free world.  But socially inept tech oligarchs now wield unprecedented power to censor political thought and speech and are transforming America into an authoritarian surveillance state.  For now, it is conservatives they are silencing and demonizing, in partnership with the Democratic Party.  We already know Silicon Valley leans left, judging by political donations that went almost exclusively to Joe Biden from top social media executives and accounted for 95 percent of employee contributions, according to Wired.  But the partisan power of Big Tech was laid bare this month when they acted in concert to censor Donald Trump and many of his 74 million voters, and then crushed free speech competitor Parler.

Twitter Suspends Christian Group for Accurately Describing Biden's Transgendered Health Official Dr. Levine's Biological Sex.  A Christian organization has been suspended from the Twitter social media platform for stating Dr. Rachel Levine's, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), biological sex.  In recent weeks tech giants like Twitter, Facebook, and Google have been censuring mostly conservative voices on social media platforms, including former President Donald Trump and My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell.  "You can now add Focus on the Family's The Daily Citizen to the list," Jim Daly, president of the organization, wrote in a blog last week.

Facebook Abandons Any Pretense Of Being A Neutral Private Business Player.  As you may have already heard, there's a recall effort going on in California right now, aiming to remove Governor Gavin Newsom from office.  Even if the proponents of that movement manage to gather the required number of signatures and get the measure on the ballot, it's far from a sure thing that there will be enough votes to actually replace him.  But a little thing like public debate isn't going to stop Facebook from making its intentions clear well in advance.  As our colleague, Scott Hounsell reports this week at RedState, the social media giant is now refusing to sell any advertising space for messages supporting the recall effort.  This sort of blatant liberal bias and favoritism is just so painfully obvious and Facebook isn't even making the slightest effort to disguise it.

Crossing the Digital Rubicon.  Behold the technological behemoths Apple, Google and Amazon flexing their monopolistic powers fatally crippling a competitive forum for public discourse in the form of a plucky app called Parler.  The leader of the most powerful nation on Earth was summarily ejected by Twitter, et al. — with no accountability and no recourse — severing communications with millions of followers.  Leaders of the world express dismay at the brazen display.  The corporate technological overlords claim the moral high ground.  In 2016, Apple defied federal investigators' requests for 'back door' access to a dead terrorist's iPhone.  Apple's flapping flag on Public Relations Hill was roundly praised by privacy advocates and civil libertarians.  Yet Apple's flag meekly bowed to the Chinese Communist Party, denying Hong Kong protestors safety of virtual private networks, or exposing overseas Chinese citizen's data to CCP inspection, or cutting off access to news and information beyond the Great Firewall.  Apple's obedience to Beijing is joined by none other than the sanctimonious Google and Amazon, whose hypocrisy facilitates the genocide of the Uighurs.  Politicians and partisans in the U.S. called for the social media ban of the President and the corporations finally complied.  Employees of the very same corporations are joining the government, the very same employees that approve of Parler's crippling, and that overwhelmingly financially support one political party.

The political storm ahead.  It looks to me as if we are about to enter a very dark and dangerous political storm such as our nation has not seen.  The sunlight of a free exchange of ideas, of thought-provoking discussion, of attending church, of tolerating a simple different point of view appears close to being extinguished.  History is being rewritten and even statues of Lincoln are being brought down.  One must wonder, how long it will be until we are no longer allowed to have cities, counties, colleges, or streets named Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Jackson or Roosevelt.  Is Darkness now falling in America?  The cabal of Big Tech, the Deep State, and the progressive/socialist party is for all practical purposes ignoring and curtailing the Bill of Rights.  At this time, the Thought Police appear to be winning. [...] Since the controversial Election of 2020, The left has "disappeared" citizens, outlawed free association, cancelled books, had people fired or made them unemployable because they thought or voted in a different way.  This new regime has actually discussed publicly, re-education camps.  Publishers are being threatened.

West Virginia newspaper publisher files antitrust lawsuit against Google and Facebook for 'monopolizing the digital advertising market'.  A West Virginia news publisher has filed an antitrust suit against Google and Facebook, who together receive roughly half of all digital ad dollars in the U.S. and are facing antitrust charges from federal and state authorities.  The company, HD Media, owns several papers in the state, including the Herald-Dispatch in Huntington and the Charleston Gazette-Mail.  HD Media claims Google has so monopolized the online ad market that 'it threatens the extinction of local newspapers across the country.'  The suit also alleges that Google and Facebook conspired to further their dominance with a secret agreement, referring to a suit filed by 10 Republican attorneys general in December.

YouTube removes actual Senate videos of doctors testifying about early treatments of COVID.  Senator Ron Johnson tweeted last night [1/27/2021] that YouTube, which is owned by Google, removed two official videos from his Senate hearing last year with doctors testifying about early treatments of COVID: [...] Google and our other big tech overlords have decided that we can't talk about HCQ and how well it works at getting rid of the virus for people.  There were COUNTLESS stories about it working, but because President Trump was pushing it, the media hated it and are trying to rid it from existence as a COVID treatment.  We are at a very dangerous place in our country.  As I've said before we aren't just at a tipping point, we are beyond that now.  We are in the age of information oppression and censorship.  If you don't agree with everyone, then your voice must be silenced.  Pretty soon they will be deleting videos and banning accounts of people disagreeing with Climate Change.  This is where we are now.

Big Tech is suppressing information about writ of quo warranto, the 'Trump play'.  President Trump has a play he and his team can make to challenge the results of the 2020 election.  It's a longshot, but it doesn't fall into the realm of shadow-government-military-coup or some of the other theories we've heard lately.  This one is legitimate, legal, and does not require suspension of disbelief.  It's called a "writ of quo warranto," something we've covered a couple of times on NOQ Report recently.  Unfortunately, unless you're a regular reader of Leo Donofrio, 100percentfedup, or a handful of other websites, you've probably never heard of it.  We've found a strong suppression of the facts and opinions surrounding this, a suppression that has hit close to home here.  Google, after showing our original article on the first page for searches for the term, has removed the article altogether.  Links of Facebook and Twitter were quickly censored.

This Is How Conservatives Get Erased From the Internet.  Two companies, Google and Apple, each control about half of the smartphone market.  So when the two companies made a move against Parler, the conservative social media alternative, it effectively erased its app from existence.  Joining the party was a third member of the FAANG Big Tech consortium, Amazon, which deplatformed Parler from Amazon Web Services.  AWS controls a third of the cloud marketplace.  Microsoft and Google are in 2nd and 3rd place.  Blocking an app doesn't permanently kill a social networking service, though it places it at a structural disadvantage, but Apple and Google can flag sites as unsafe through their browsers.  Google's Chrome commands 45% of the browser market in America while Apple's Safari has a little under 40%.  While browser flags can be currently bypassed, it would add a further structural disadvantage that would make people less likely to use the service, and there's nothing stopping Apple and Google from permanently blocking access to any conservative site.

Facebook Says No More Ads For Movement To Recall Gavin Newsom.  Fascbook is doubling down.  Since the violence at the Capitol our dear leader, the almighty Zuck, has sought out to silence dissent against his comrades in the Democrat party.  While of course Fascbook is free to do as they please as a private company, somehow claiming to be a free and open forum at the same time is a bit disingenuous.  Their actions continue to threaten the free exercise of speech by individuals and by the press, as numerous personal accounts have been suspended for alleged "hate speech" and seemingly innocuous articles posted by news organizations on only one side of the aisle (guess which side) are now being flagged by Fascbook's "fact checkers" as false or for other vague violations.

Facebook Hires Biden Transition, Obama Admin Official as VP of 'Civil Rights'.  Facebook has hired Roy Austin, an Obama administration veteran and a member of President Joe Biden's transition team, as the social media company's vice president of civil rights and deputy general counsel.  Austin had been a civil rights prosecutor and served as a Department of Justice (DOJ) supervisor before becoming a deputy assistant to President Barack Obama in the Office of Urban Affairs, Justice, and Opportunity in 2014.  In 2017, he went into private practice as a criminal defense and civil rights attorney at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis.  In November, Biden named him as one of the volunteers on the Agency Review Team for the DOJ in his transition.

Experts see legal counteroffensive against Big Tech crackdown on conservative dissent.  Amid a Big Tech crackdown on conservative-leaning social media content and users, legal experts say such firms are exposing themselves to potential legal challenge across several broad fronts, including antitrust action for collusion, revocation of Section 230 liability shields, and shareholder suits breach of fiduciary duty.  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Jan. 13 issued civil investigative demands (CIDs) to Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon Web Services, and Apple, asking the companies for their policies and practices regarding content moderation and, more specifically, for information related to Parler, a social media application popular among conservatives that was recently terminated or blocked by Google, Amazon, and Apple.  Parler had become a popular alternative to Twitter, particularly among conservatives and followers of former President Trump, whose own Twitter account was permanently suspended by the platform earlier this month for content purportedly violating its rules.

Disagreeing With Biden's Transgender Policy Is 'Incitement' Now?! Facebook Says So.  On Tuesday, Facebook suspended Robert A.J. Gagnon, a prominent Christian scholar on the topic of Bible sexuality, for 7 days.  His crime?  Speaking out against transgender ideology and President Joe Biden's new transgender military policy.  Facebook claimed that Gagnon's criticism of this government-imposed ideology violated the platform's "Community Standards on violence and incitement." Ironically, Gagnon's post drew attention to Facebook's suspension of his friend, Laurie Higgins, who got a 7-day ban for criticizing Biden's policy.  "There was absolutely no incitement to violence on our part.  We abhor violence done to any person," Gagnon told PJ Media on Tuesday.  "This is just a thinly veiled and pathetic excuse for censorship of any critical views toward trans-tyranny over our consciences, religion, and reason."

Donald Trump's ban from YouTube extended indefinitely.  Former President Donald Trump's YouTube channel will remain suspended indefinitely, the online video platform said Tuesday [1/26/2021].  Trump was first banned from the Google-owned company Jan. 12 for at least a week in the wake of the riot at the US Capitol.  YouTube announced the extension of that suspension last week — before issuing yet another one Tuesday.  "In light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, the Donald J. Trump channel will remain suspended," YouTube spokesperson Ivy Choi said in a statement.  "Our teams are staying vigilant and closely monitoring for any new developments."  More than 2.79 million people subscribed to Trump's YouTube channel.

YouTube strips rising media company Epoch Times of ability to monetize video content.  YouTube, the video platform service that is a Google subsidiary, has banned The Epoch Times, a rising, conservative-leaning media outlet, from earning money off its videos.  "YouTube demonetized the Epoch Times and related accounts last week," Stephen Gregory, publisher of The Epoch Times confirmed to Just the News on Tuesday in an email.  "This is the latest example of big tech suppression of free speech, a step on the road to communist-style censorship."  A YouTube spokesperson acknowledged Tuesday in an email to Just the News that the company had demonetized the publication's channel and affiliated channels and had suspended them from the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) — over issues related to harmful or sensitive content.

The Children's Table.  If as a conservative you feel like a second-class citizen in your own country, congratulations.  You get it.  The Internet Oligarchs have sentenced us to the children's table while they dine like swine in the main ballroom.  All my friends got kicked off Twitter.  I am still there [...].  But it is awfully lonely.  They all went to Gab but nobody is gabbing it seems.  Its CEO boasts of adding 30 million users in a short time, and indeed it has.  Missing though are the non-political discussions that made Twitter fun.  We are exiled because of our political beliefs even though that is a small part of who we are.  While others are living their normal lives and discussing movies and sports and cars, we are isolated.  We are not allowed to converse.  We are locked out.

My Pillow guy Mike Lindell permanently banned from Twitter.  Twitter banned My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell from the platform after he used his account to spread baseless claims about fraud in the presidential election.  Twitter said Tuesday that it permanently suspended Lindell — a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump — because of his "repeated violations" of the company's civic integrity policy, which it implemented last fall to clamp down on misinformation.  Twitter didn't say which of Lindell's posts pushed it over the edge.  But he had used his personal account and My Pillow's corporate account in recent months to post and share bogus rumors about widespread election fraud that appeared aimed at undermining President Biden's victory.

Jonathan Turley Drops Facts on What's to Come With Twitter's New 'Birdwatch' Program.  With much predictable fanfare and hype from the mainstream media Monday [1/25/2021], Twitter announced the creation of what they call their "Birdwatch" program, which they say is designed to help counter the spread of alleged misinformation.  In a series of tweets, the popular social media platform described Birdwatch as "a community-driven approach" to combatting "misleading information."  In subsequent tweets, they gave a rough idea of how the program is supposed to work, encouraged people to sign up to be "testers", and said they will use feedback in order "to help shape this program and learn how to reach our goal of letting the Twitter community decide when and what context is added to a Tweet".

Taking Cara Babies Founder Is Bullied And Doxed For Privately Supporting Trump.  Despite President Joe Biden's promise to unite the country, his supporters have continued to wage a dangerous, illiberal war against people with whom they disagree.  While prominent outlets such as Forbes have focused their attention on blacklisting former Trump administration officials, everyday Biden supporters are extending the search-and-destroy campaign to include individuals who supported Trump in their private capacity.  The latest victim of the left's Great Purge is Cara Dumaplin, a beloved baby sleep consultant who has saved thousands of new parents countless hours of sleep.  Cara is a mom of four, a neonatal nurse, and married to a pediatrician.  The program she founded, Taking Cara Babies, offers classes, e-books, and personal phone consultations to new parents struggling to get their newborns to sleep through the night.  In addition to these paid resources, Cara offers free sleep training advice on her social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, where she has 1.3 million followers.

It's time to stand up against the muzzling of America.  Everyone knows what a credit score is.  But social credit scores are new.  They're the latest corporate import from Communist China, where government and big business monitor every citizen's social views and statements.  And they're the latest form of cancel culture in this country, as corporate monopolies and the left team up to shut down speech they don't like and force their political agenda on America.  For those who still believe in free speech and the First Amendment, this is the time to take a stand.  Like the old-fashioned kind of credit score, your social credit requires a lot of maintenance.  You'll need to get good grades in school and stay out of trouble with the law.  But that's just the start — you have to earn your right to live in polite society these days.  So if you want to get a good job, stay at hotels and be served at restaurants, you will need to do a few other things.  You will need to voice the right opinions.  You will need to endorse the right ideas.  You will need to conform.  That's what the corporate chieftains tell us, anyway.

The Masks Are Coming Off.  [Scroll down]  We've had the censoring of Talk Radio on YouTube.  Although this was then restored after intervention at the highest level, I understand some of the wonderful conversations between Mike Graham and Peter Hitchens are still banned.  YouTube have also banned videos from extremely qualified scientists around the world, including two lengthy interviews given in English by one of the most qualified microbiologists on planet earth, Professor Sucharit Bhakdi.  We've then seen the President of the United States being banned from Facebook, Instagram and more recently Twitter.  I am no fan of Donald Trump, but it is clear that he has never used these platforms to "incite violence" — the excuse given for his ban — and it is obvious that there something else going on there.  And we've also seen numerous conservatives and scientists who oppose or question the mass quarantining of healthy people literally losing hundreds of Twitter followers in the last few days.  Their followers are simply being deleted by Jack's Magical Dissent Removing Algorithm, which has been invoked with a vengeance. [...] If 2020 was the year in which people put their Masks on, 2021 is already shaping up to be the year when the Globalists and Global Pravda really take theirs off.  They are really going for it, blatantly censoring dissent, brazenly de-platforming alternative views, and shamelessly using technology to ensure that reasoned, fact-based challenges to establishment narratives are silenced.

Twitter takes 17 hours to mobilize after tweet threatening Trump.  It took Twitter 17 hours to suspend an account bearing the name of Iran leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for posting a death threat to former President Trump.  The hateful tweet came from @khamenei_site on Thursday — an account later determined to be bogus — and depicted the likeness of Trump on the golf course being targeted by a drone flying overhead.  "Revenge is inevitable," said the post, translated from Farsi.  By mid-Friday morning, @khamenei_site was suspended for violating Twitter rules, with the social media giant later clarifying that the account was fake.

Censorship Goes Official:  House Democrats are Now Urging FBI to Investigate Parler.  The social media app known as Parler took a heavy blow when it had its entire website ripped out from under it due to Amazon pulling it off its servers following the riot at the Capitol.  Parler is now getting back on its feet, but now it has a new foe, the United States Government.  According to Fox News, the House Oversight Committee's top Democrat, Carlyn Maloney, is attempting to sic the FBI on Parler, claiming that it was the platform that made the riot possible.  Not only that, but she's also claiming that it's a possible breeding ground for foreign countries to incite sedition.

House Oversight chair asks FBI to investigate Parler.  Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, House Committee on Oversight and Reform chair, on Thursday requested the FBI to investigate the social media platform Parler and any role it may have played in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.  The New York Democrat wrote a letter to FBI Director Christopher A. Wray to ask that he investigate Parler, which was a platform that became popular with Trump supporters that felt unwelcome on larger social media apps such as Twitter and Facebook.  "I am writing to request that as part of its comprehensive investigation of the January 6 assault on the Capitol, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conduct a robust examination of the role that the social media site Parler played in the assault, including as a potential facilitator of planning and incitement related to the violence, as a repository of key evidence posted by users on its site, and as a potential conduit for foreign governments who may be financing civil unrest in the United States," Ms. Maloney said in the letter.

OANN: Michelle Malkin, RSBN and Gateway Pundit Suspended on Twitter for Violating New Orwellian "Civic Integrity" Rule.  Last week Twitter banned a Gateway Pundit tweet questioning fraud in the election.  Twitter handed The Gateway Pundit account a 12-hour suspension for questioning the stolen election.  Then upped it to a six-day suspension.  This was doled out in the middle of the night.  Someone on the late shift was targeting us.  The Gateway Pundit is one of the top 120 websites in America today and a leading voice for conservatives. [...] Twitter suspended the Gateway Pundit account again on Tuesday [1/19/2021] for another week for violating the "civic integrity" rules.  This is a new Orwellian category that allows Twitter to ban any conservative at will.

The Tech titans ignore incitement to violence against conservatives.  "Doxing" is defined as publishing on the internet private or identifying information about people with malicious intent.  People who are doxed have their lives destroyed.  Some are attacked so viciously they go into hiding.  It's therefore a dangerous incitement to violence that Don Winslow, a Russiagate conspiracy theorist, has released a video urging people to root out every single Trump supporter in America and target them for destruction.  Yet Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have allowed the video to remain, with the Twitter version having over 4 million views and getting retweeted over 28 thousand times.  The video (which I won't link but you can find [elsew]here) shows footage of Trump rallies and explains that all of the attendees are "domestic terrorists."  These domestic terrorists, he says, are hiding in plain sight.

Video Exposes Twitter Execs Planning 'Global Approach' to Censorship.  Guerilla journalism organization Project Veritas revealed devastating footage of Twitter leadership's plans for a "global" approach" to censoring "conspiracy theories."  Guerilla journalist and Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe released a video tweet exposing Twitter leadership's "Plans For Political Censorship On Global Scale" on Jan. 18.  O'Keefe's tweet specifically noted that Twitter leadership is cracking down on what they call "misleading information or coded rhetoric."  Twitter's Legal, Policy and Trust & Safety Lead Vijaya Gadde could be heard in the footage saying that Twitter must go "Beyond de-amplification" and spoke of "conspiracy theories," alleging the platform will be "permanently suspending those accounts."  "The statements appeared to be related to Twitter's massive purge of 70,000 QAnon-related accounts in the wake of the deadly Jan. 6 riot," the New York Post theorized.  The video allegedly showed a virtual conference that took place on Jan. 8, the same day sitting President Donald Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter.

Parler's fight is every American's fight.  Parler, the social media alternative to anti-conservative, anti-President Donald Trump, anti-Christian speech police at Twitter, has responded to Amazon Web Services' yank of hosting privileges with a lawsuit.  And in its lawsuit, Parler is alleging that Amazon elites "repeatedly asked whether the president had joined or would join Parler now that he was blocked by Twitter and Facebook," as Breitbart reported.  Isn't that interesting.  That would mean the social media censors took a particular dislike to Trump to the point of going after those who might be his friends or allies.  Or business partners.  Or those who would grant him the ability to have a voice.  It's a chilling and complete clamp-down of Trump's constitutionally backed, God-given rights to freely speak and express himself.

New Facebook competitor adds 2.5 million subscribers — in a single week.  Will MeWe prove to be the "anti-Facebook"? The three-years-plus-old social media platform got a big boost toward that objective over the past week.  They added as many users as people who live in the Twin Cities metro area — 2.5 million — based on the platform's promises to make their subscribers their only customers. [...] If a MeWe can rise up and launch successfully enough to start signing people up at a rate of 2.5 million a week, should Congress get involved at all in dealing with Facebook, Twitter, et al?  Its success so far does appear to challenge the perception of de facto speech monopolies — at least at the moment.

Totalitarians in Focus.  Vijaya Gadde, a Public Relations executive at Twitter, thinks she is a good person.  Some may beg to differ.  [Video clip]

Twitter Shares Fall Even More Following Trump Ban.  Twitter shares — since President Donald Trump's permanent ban — slid even more on Monday [1/18/2021] before a slight rebound. [...] At this point, Twitter is down at least 15 percent so far in 2021.  Last week, CNBC analyst Jim Cramer warned that Twitter's stock could slide even further because of Trump's ban.  "I think that there are a lot of people who literally knew that the president was the most important person" on Twitter, he said, adding that "you had to keep checking him, and then you had to check people who talked about him."

Democrats Outsource Political Repression to Corporate Monopolies.  The repression will be televised.  It will go better with Coke, it will promise to clear up your bad breath and make your toilet shine.  It will be in the cloud, it will be digitized and monetized.  It will have a trademark, a brand, and it will be outsourced to the private sector.  Democrats love public-private partnerships and they outsourced political repression to the private sector.  The Constitution has inconvenient things to say about freedom of speech and so the Democrat government of elected and unelected officials outsourced the problem of censoring and suppressing speech to the handful of Big Tech monopolies of the internet.  That same old document written by old white dead men, not to mention centuries of jurisprudence and tradition, prevents the government from kicking down your door in the middle of the night for wrongthink.  But nothing keeps corporations from firing you for wrongthink, for being related to someone who committed wrongthink, or for insufficient political correctness.

Somewhat related:
CNN Demands Cable Companies Blacklist OAN and Newsmax TV.  After spending five years attempting to claim President Trump stole the 2016 election, after five years of pushing the Russia Collusion Hoax, after five years of promoting and encouraging violence against Trump and his supporters, the far-left CNN is now demanding that its competition at OAN and Newsmax TV be blacklisted.  CNNLOL isn't bothering to hide its McCarthysim anymore.  CNNLOL is straight-up calling for the big cable TV companies to rip OAN and Newsmax TV off of their bundles, to no longer make either network available to their customers.  And after the cable companies agree to do this (and they will), CNNLOL will go after every streaming outlet that carries OAN and Newsmax, and on and on and on.

Josh Hawley Strikes Back; Finds New Publisher For His Book On Big Tech Abuses.  Senator Josh Hawley has been the target of a ferocious campaign of personal and professional destruction from the rabid left as well as his own colleagues but it looks like he may be getting the last laugh.  Following the Missouri Republican's principled stand to protect democracy by calling into question of the legitimacy of the election in blue states where fishy activity took place, he was savagely attacked by the media and corporations that wanted to cancel him.

Mika Brzezinski Scolds Facebook Leadership for Trying to Suck Up to Biden: 'You Need to Be Shut Down!'  "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski went on a rant against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg for helping foment the Capitol riot, saying their social media website should be shut down.  Brzezinski said the actions Facebook has taken, such as targeting QAnon conspiracy pages and removing President Trump's accounts, are too little, too late since the riot already happened.  "And Mika, the amazing thing is again, I just want to underline this really quickly, the algorithms at Facebook actually promote this extremism.  They promote the extremism within," Joe Scarborough said.

Big Tech, Big Brother and the End of Free Speech.  In George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four," members of the Outer Party of Oceania engage in the Two Minutes Hate ritual against Emmanuel Goldstein, who is supposed to be the enemy of the people but may actually just be a fabricated symbol to distract the people from their real enemy — Big Brother.  In Nancy Pelosi's "Twenty Twenty-One," members of the Democratic Party engage in the Two Hours Hate against Donald Trump, who is supposed to be the enemy of the people, but may actually just be a fabricated symbol to distract the people from their real enemy — Big Tech.  Two hours of hate — er, debate — was held in the House of Representatives last Wednesday for the avowed purpose of removing a president of the United States.  That's all it took.  Two hours.  That should tell you everything you need to know about the state of democracy in our country.

Corporations' Worrying Embrace of Censorship.  In recent days, some of the nation's most powerful corporations have engaged in a concerted effort, at the behest of a major political party, to limit the speech of millions of Americans who engaged in wrongthink.  First, Twitter permanently banned the sitting president.  As is its right.  And when millions of his fans left and bolstered Parler, a different platform, Apple, Google, and Amazon went ahead and shut it down as well.  But if you say that targeted deplatforming, though not Stalinist, is troubling, the same people who want to compel everyone to buy state-mandated health insurance, who want to dictate how corporations compensate their employees, who want to force nuns to buy abortifacients, and who want to destroy the lives of bakers and florists who run businesses according to long-held religious beliefs, will vigorously defend the value of free-association rights that allow corporations to act this way.  So I'm pretty skeptical that most of these people are genuine champions of individual market choices, and aren't just super excited about silencing people.

Why Was Parler Censored by Its Competitors?  I've been a big fan of Medium, although I've learned quickly that there are certain "publications" — essentially sub-blogs — that it's best to avoid.  Today I saw a piece published two days ago, The Moderation War Is Coming to Spotify, Substack, and Clubhouse, that addressed how Parler was censored and destroyed by Apple, Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon, and then warned that Parler won't be the last.  The given reason, of course, was that people were saying violent things on Parler and all the bien-pensants are, of course, shocked, shocked that this was "permitted."  It might be different if the double standard weren't so glaring.

Former Facebook Executive Advocates for Reeducation and Deprogramming to Protect The U.S. Totalitarian State.  They are no longer hiding it any more.  The leftists are publicly demanding that government intervene using the same tactics deployed against ISIS propaganda to target wrong-think by conservative American citizens.  [Video clip]

The Great Digital Escape.  Did you know you can back up your social media data?  It's officially a good thing to do and the major social media platforms provide utilities to permit this. [...] Of course the question becomes: where does one move the data and to what end?  Enter the emerging world of personal data services which allow you to store your data under encryption and let you control access and potentially sell your data to who you choose.  For decades Big Silicon has been making billions by hoovering up their user's data and monetizing it.  Now some entrepreneurs see a business opportunity in providing storage spaces to users from which companies have to negotiate permissions to access.

Double Standard:  Amazon Is Still Selling 'Kill All Republicans' T-Shirts After Banning Parler For 'Violence'.  Even as Amazon took away Parler's right to exist by kicking the platform off Amazon Web Services (after AWS has become a near-monopoly in providing Internet access) after accusing Parler executives of allowing users to 'incite' the Capitol Building violence and rioting earlier this month, the gargantuan hypocritical gatekeepers of expression and speech appear to have no problem hosting a vendor who sells a t-shirt calling for the elimination of Republicans.

The Five Most Obvious Acts of Fraud in the 2020 Election that You Are No Longer Allowed to Discuss.  For months now, since Election night on November 3rd, The Gateway Pundit has been exposing the massive and unprecedented fraud in the 2020 presidential election.  The days when Democrats find 500 ballots in a trunk of a car are over.  Today their election fraud includes likely every segment of the election process from illegal voters to fraudulent counting.  Since the US Capitol rioting on January 6th the Democrat-Media Complex, including the tech giants, will no longer allow ANY discussion on fraud in the 2020 election.  Democrats and RINO Republicans like Lindsey Graham are determined to shut this discussion down.  This is a lie.  They are trying to control what you can say, read or see.

How Media Bias Hurts the Country.  Recent events, especially those connected with the rhetoric and activities of President Donald Trump, have shown that an "enlightened few" in a small number of unelected, unaccountable companies have acted to control the norms of open debate and part of the global public conversation on the internet, and perhaps thereby embitter political debate.  On January 6, 2021, Twitter suspended the account of Donald Trump, and a day later, Facebook, and then Twitter, issued an indefinite suspension and a permanent ban on messages by Trump.  They cite their rules forbidding content that incites violence.  At the same time, Google and Apple removed Parler, a small social network with ten million, popular with conservatives, from its stores, and Amazon eliminated Parler, which broadcasts parleys, from its hosting service.

Republican-Governed States Can Stop Social Media Censorship.  Legislation has been introduced in the North Dakota legislature to prohibit social media companies from censoring messages and posts, as reported by Breitbart and ARS Technica. [...] The legislation would provide that websites with over 1 million users would be "liable in a civil action for damages to the person whose speech is restricted, censored, or suppressed, and to any person who reasonably otherwise would have received the writing, speech, or publication."  Lead bill sponsor Rep. Tom Kading said, "It's just wrong to ban a sitting president."  More controversially, perhaps legislation could provide a right for anyone world-wide to sue in the state on the theory that people in North Dakota were denied the opportunity for open dialogue and exposure to different ideas.

Twitter temporarily suspends GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.  Twitter on Sunday [1/17/2021] temporarily suspended the account of new Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene after she posted a tweet questioning the results of the state's runoff election for Senate.  Twitter announced the 12-hour suspension, saying it determined Green's post "violated the Twitter rules, so we've temporarily suspended some of your account features."  The social media giant tagged one of Greene's tweets about the Jan. 5 election.  "The 1/5 disaster in Georgia lays solely in the hands of state leadership who failed voters in our state.  @GaSecofState and@GabrielSterling were begged by Republicans to fix our elections.  They did nothing.  They are to blame, not me, not @realDonaldTrump, not @CollinsforGA," she wrote on Twitter, referencing election officials in the Peach State.

Former Facebook Official Calls For Verizon, AT&T, Others To Deplatform OANN And Newsmax.  Former Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos called for carriers like Verizon, AT&T, and others to deplatform One America News Network (OANN) and Newsmax during a Sunday morning appearance on CNN's "Reliable Sources."  Discussing the ongoing political polarization in America in the wake of the November election and the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, Stamos suggested that since people now "are able to seek out the information that makes them feel good," an incentive exists for some outlets to "become more and more radical."

It's Not Censorship, It's a Coordinated Effort.  Big Tech, social media, and the press used the violence on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 as a pretext to purge their platforms of conservative figures and Republican officials, most notably President Donald Trump.  Amazon, Apple, and Google conspired to deplatform Parler, regarded as a conservative, or free-speech, alternative to Twitter.  Critics of the sweeping actions argue, rightly, that censorship violates not only First Amendment freedoms but also the spirit of the law protecting internet service providers from liability.  But this isn't censorship.  Rather, it's part of the strategic logic of mass conflict.  The leadership of the political, corporate, and cultural establishment that today rules America shut down the communications of those against whom they are waging war.

Parler website appears to [be] back online and promises to 'resolve any challenge before us'.  The website of controversial social media platform Parler was back online Sunday, following a nearly week-long outage after it was booted from Amazon Web Services and kicked off Apple and Google's app stores.  Amazon, Google and Apple cut ties with Parler for what they said was a failure to moderate content and threats of violence by some of its right-wing user base.  Some of the Pro-Trump rioters who descended on the US Capitol on January 6, fueled by baseless allegations of voter fraud, had been planning the event and spreading misinformation about the presidential election on Parler.

Apple CEO Tim Cook defends removing Parler from its App Store.  Apple CEO Tim Cook defended removing Parler from his company's App Store — saying he doesn't see an "intersection" between the right to freedom of speech and the ability to provoke violence.  Apple and Google booted the conservative-leaning social media site's app and Amazon Web Services dropped Parler from its servers — following the violent riots at the US Capitol on Jan. 6 that led to the deaths of five people, including a cop[.]  "We looked at the incitement to violence that was on there.  And we don't consider that free speech and incitement to violence has an intersection," Cook told host Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday."  Cook said there are more than 2 million apps on the App Store and they all are expected to abide by the terms of service.

Amazon Goes Mad.  Amazon abruptly de-platformed Parler last week, terminating its web services hosting account with a speed and lack of notice clearly designed to ruin the company.  Amazon covered up this action by a fig leaf of allegations that Parler did not adequately control incitements to violence, or that someone might sometime use Parler to suggest that someone think about using violence, ignoring the extent to which Facebook, Twitter, and other social media freely allow all sorts of Progressive groups to glorify, incite, and condone violence.  By doing this, Amazon has exposed itself to an impressive spectrum of risks, both legal and business.

You Can't 'Just Build Your Own Twitter'.  The balance of two opposing forces — military-industrial surveillance capitalism and progressive cultural hegemony — once formed an equilibrium that gave the average Joe some options in life.  That equilibrium was on its way out for a while, but it collapsed with the Capitol riots. [...] We're seeing the beginnings of what unambiguous power looks like.  Corporate donors are dropping the GOP, throwing away an intimate, decades-long DD/lg relationship.  But perhaps more important is the wave of unprecedented internet censorship that included the digital death penalty for Trump and his allies, and also for any users who continue to make claims of election fraud.  This was seemingly coordinated among the entire now-private public square, and private companies are of course allowed to do whatever they want.

Apple's Tim Cook Just Comes Right Out and Says It About Canceling Parler: 'We Don't Consider That Free Speech'.  What, in a word, did Parler do, to first be removed from Apple and Google app stores, and ultimately kicked off Amazon servers in a blatant effort to eliminate Parler?  In a clip released Friday of an interview on this week's "Fox News Sunday" with host Chris Wallace [of course; safe space], Cook [said,] "We looked at the incitement to violence that was on there, and we, we don't consider that free speech and incitement to violence has an, has an intersection." [...] Want some more elitist arrogance from Cook?  He reminded Wallace that Apple has only "suspended" Parler, and if they "get their 'moderation' together, they would be back on there."  So who moderates the moderators, Tim?  You?  Dorsey?  The mayor of Zuckerville?  Who bestowed that responsibility on you?

The organized disappearing and banning of Donald J. Trump.  In recent times, most presidents upon leaving office have quietly retired to their home states to pen their memoirs, appear at patriotic or commemorative events, and lend their wisdom to university panels or think-thank sessions.  Former President Bill Clinton (D), by virtue of his wife's political ambitions, his daughter's whatever, and of course his own ego, was much more visible, remaining on the world stage with his Clinton Foundation, which keeps the entire family nicely afloat.  And very unlike the others, the Obamas (D) have remained very visible — not leaving Washington, D.C., but instead purchasing a lavish home in the city's most upscale neighborhood plus another $14,000,000 estate while flitting around the world.  However, Big Tech, Big Media, major entertainment, all populated by many people with small and minor minds, are now waging an all-out campaign to have President Trump disappear.  He and his followers are being purged, censored, fired, silenced, unhosted, destroyed.

Big Tech Targeting Leads to Massive Increase in Signal App Users.  An interesting development as Big Tech decides to go into full totalitarian surveillance and targeting mode.  Encrypted communication apps are now exploding with new users.  This outcome will not come as a surprise to CTH readers because the 'Rebel Alliance' has been using encrypted communication like Signal App for several years and planning to deal with the mass targeting currently underway.  This is why CTH has/is so closely guarded the privacy of CTH readers. [...] Inherently people want freedom, liberty and privacy.  The more Big Tech shows they are ideologically totalitarian, and simultaneously supportive of the big surveillance state, the more the free market will provide options to get away from their reach.

Conservatives accuse liberals and Big Tech of using Capitol assault as pretext for censorship.  Conservatives say Big Tech companies, pressured by liberals, are using the Capitol attack to justify the unfair censorship of Republicans and the removal of platforms like Parler.  Nathan Leamer, former adviser to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, said there was a "cabal of reporters, writers, influencers, who generally work at places like MSNBC, the New York Times, and such" who get to decide what is or isn't allowed on social media and who is or is not censored.  "Through their influence, they have a direct line to those in charge of the moderation practices of Twitter," said Leamer, who is now a vice president at the Republican strategy firm Targeted Victory.  Since last week's Capitol riots, almost all major social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, have announced bans, in some form, of President Trump's accounts, justified by arguing that they fear he will incite further violence.

Dorsey: 'This Is Going to be Much Bigger Than Just One Account'.  In a new video provided to Project Veritas by an unidentified Twitter employee, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey warns of further censorship following Twitter's recent ban on the president of the United States.  "We know we are focused on one account right now," Dorsey said, in reference to his company's decision to ban President Trump.  "But this is going to be much bigger than just one account and it's going to go on for much longer than just this day, and this week, and the next few weeks and go beyond the inauguration.  We have to expect that, and we have to be ready for that."

Twitter insider leaks tape of CEO Jack Dorsey telling staff Trump ban is 'bigger than just one account' and will 'go on beyond the inauguration'.  Twitter's CEO Jack Dorsey has been recorded during an internal meeting saying that the company's clampdown on inciting violence will go much further than simply banning Donald Trump.  The president was permanently barred from Twitter on Friday, with Twitter saying: 'We have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.'  Trump is now blocked from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitch, among others.  On Thursday Project Veritas, which seeks to expose bias in media, published a clip which they said was given to them by a Twitter whistleblower.  [Video clip]

Project Veritas Drops a Video on Twitter CEO Jack Talking About Trump and What Is To Come.  Yesterday [1/13/2021], Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey wrote a long Twitter thread trying to justify his banning of President Donald Trump from the platform as well as the actions taken against some other people on the right. [...] But people weren't buying his justification.  As we've seen, Twitter immediately shut off a critical story in October that Joe Biden had lied about never having met with his son's foreign business partners, even suspending the NY Post and preventing the url to the story they had on the Biden scandal from being spread on Twitter.  Jack later had to admit there was no violation of the Terms of Service.  But in the meantime a troublesome story for Biden was suppressed.  But when Democrats spread actual conspiracies or things that might impede public safety, their tweets don't seem to get the same attention.  But now Project Veritas has a whistleblower video on Jack Dorsey from a source inside Twitter.

Project Veritas Video Exposes Twitter CEO's Censorship Plans: 'Much Bigger Than Just One Account'.  On Thursday night, Project Veritas released a secretly recorded video of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey talking about his company's censorship plans beyond President Donald Trump and his exit from office.  Previewing the release, Project Veritas President James O'Keefe tweeted, "A whistleblower inside @Twitter recorded their CEO @jack and sent us the tape."  According to O'Keefe, the video details Twitter's agenda for further political censorship.

Parler CEO says social media app may not return.  Parler CEO John Matze said his controversial social media platform may never get back online after major service providers accused it of failing to police violent content and booted it from their networks, according to a report.  Matze said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday that he didn't know when, or if, the fledgling outfit would be back.  "It could be never.  We don't know yet," he said, but later sounded a more optimistic note.  "It may take days, it may take weeks but Parler will return and when we do we will be stronger," Parler told the news outlet.

David Marcus Outlines Some Violent Material Twitter Refuses to Censor.  The Federalist journalist David Marcus goes through a list of all the things that Twitter is refusing to censor while they crackdown on conservative speech.  [Video clip]

Parler Claims Amazon 'Repeatedly Asked' if President Donald Trump Joined Platform.  Parler says in a legal filing that a representative from Amazon Web Services (AWS) had "repeatedly asked whether the President had joined or would join Parler now that he was blocked by Twitter and Facebook."  In a lawsuit filed against Amazon on Monday, Parler says that the tech giant was "motivated by political animus," and violated antitrust law when it booted the social media platform from its web hosting service.  Amazon claims that it kicked Parler offline because because words on the platform might "incite violence."  In Parler's latest legal filing against Amazon, the social media platform says that between January 6 and 8, "AWS expressed no concerns with Parler's content moderation."

Twitter's twisted logic.  It's no secret that President Trump — as a private citizen, a presidential candidate, and as president — has used Twitter to make outrageous, uncivil, and conspiratorial statements.  But this has been true for years.  Until this month, when Trump was permanently banned from the social network, the company had resisted the step, arguing that it had a policy against banning world leaders. [...] In taking the step not just to ban Trump but to restrict his access to the @POTUS account, Twitter broke with its own standard.  In a statement, the network said that "we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence."  If incitement to violence is the new metric, however, Twitter is going to have to explain why it has banned Trump and not other world leaders who have consistently and repeatedly incited violence.  For instance, an account attributed to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, remains active despite being used to promote violence and anti-Semitism.

Assault on the Capitol Has Let Loose the Electronic Octopus.  [President] Trump has been banned for life from Twitter and barred indefinitely from Facebook.  Twitter said in a statement it excluded Trump "due to the risk of further incitement of violence."  The president had called for thousands of his followers to assemble at a massive Washington, D.C., rally protesting the results of the election.  Splinter groups broke off from the massed protesters.  Some stormed into the halls of Congress, social media platforms canceled Trump after he urged his followers, albeit "peacefully and patriotically," to go protest at the U.S. Capitol, where the mayhem followed.  After the assault — and after Democrats won the presidency, kept the House, took the Senate and threatened to pack the Supreme Court — furor broke out against Trump.  The outrage included the banning of Trump and some of his supporters from social media.  Thousands of scared social media users then retreated to the more conservative site Parler.  But in near-unison, Google, Apple and Amazon removed Parler from their platforms.

Twitter, Facebook: $51 Billion Combined Market Value Erased Since Trump Ban.  Social media giants Facebook and Twitter have collectively seen $51.2 billion in combined market value wiped out over the last two trading sessions since they banned President Donald Trump from their platforms following the U.S. Capitol breach.  Large tech firms and a number of Democratic political figures have claimed Trump incited violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.  The incident disrupted debates in both the House and Senate as lawmakers were forced to shelter in place while police and security attempted to regain control.  Trump took to Twitter following the outbreak of violence to call on protesters to "go home in peace."  He denounced the violence as a "heinous attack" that "defiled the seat of American democracy" on Jan. 7.  It is unclear who instigated the breach of the building.

Twitter Doubles Down on Decision to Ban Donald Trump.  President Donald J. Trump is banned on Twitter.  He's banned on Facebook.  A sitting US president has been de-platformed over the chaos that erupted on the Hill last week.  He's been impeached again for inciting the riot that Democrats say amounted to insurrection.  The "Save America" rally was held on January 6, the same day as the congressional certification of the 2020 Electoral College results.  Pro-Trump supporters stormed the Capitol Building.  Five people died.  Yet, the FBI now says that this might have been a pre-planned event, which undercuts the Democratic narrative that Trump was totally at fault for the chaos.  Trump was probably going to be banned from Twitter no matter what after he left office.  That was a given.  In fact, Twitter was sort of coy about that move as we entered the final weeks of his presidency.  This fiasco just accelerated the plan.

Refuse to Be Silenced.  Parler's gone for now, the victim of a conspiracy to silence, but it will return.  The fascists can try, but they can't shut us up forever.  Truth flows like water around obstacles.  The Twitbookgram decided to start playing whack-a-prole to bonk unapproved ideas on the noggin and pretty soon too many heads will be popping up out of too many new holes.  They will pop up on Gab, or Clouthub, or Dave Rubin's Locals.com.  People will find a way to be heard.

Here's How We Flatten the Democratic Party During the Next Four Years.  Trump made a colossal tactical blunder by telling his supporters to fight vote fraud in the streets.  That led to last week's excesses, and the biggest crackdown on conservatives in American history. [...] The suspension of President Trump's Twitter account (denounced by Germany's Angela Merkel and top French officials as a violation of basic rights) is an affront to democracy:  Whatever Trump did or didn't do, he is the elected president of the United States, convicted in no court of law, and the people have the right to hear from him.  The suspension of the free-speech social media platform Parler is another totalitarian outrage by what France's Finance Minister calls "the digital oligarchy."

Facebook to remove all posts using 'stop the steal' phrase.  Facebook announced Monday [1/11/2021] that it would remove all content that includes the phrase "stop the steal" leading up at least to the presidential inauguration.  The social media giant said it is "treating the next two weeks as a major civic event," and using precaution following last week's fatal siege of the US Capitol, it said in a statement.  "We're taking additional steps and using the same teams and technologies we used during the general election to stop misinformation and content that could incite further violence during these next few weeks," the statement said.  The announcement comes less than one week after Facebook suspended President Trump's account indefinitely — and said the site is not allowing "any ads from politicians, including President Trump."

GAB CEO: "What we're seeing in America right now is the rise of Communism".  During an interview with WBRE, a local tv station in Scranton, PA, Andrew Torba, the Christian CEO of Gab, answered many of the questions Americans are asking about the alternative, free speech platform.  Torba explains why he founded GAB in 2016 as an alternative, free speech social media platform:  "I was living and working in Silicon Valley at the time, and I had very close relationships inside of Facebook, Twitter, and Google, by nature of my last start-up company which was a digital advertising company," Torba explained, adding, "I got to see the evils of their business model for many years."  The GAB CEO explained that because of the many relationships he developed within these big tech companies, he had "insider sources" who warned him that "the rise of censorship was coming and was inevitable."

Glenn Greenwald Perfectly Sums Up Dems' Love of Big Tech Censorship.  Left-learning journalist and lawyer Glenn Greenwald has become the voice of reason with a number of issues, the biggest one being censorship.  In fact, when he left The Intercept, the very online news organization that he co-founded, it was because he believed editors were doing everything in their power to bury negative stories about the Biden family.  Greenwald spoke out about Twitter's desire to hide the New York Post's story on Hunter Biden's laptop.  And now he's speaking out about Big Tech censorship.  The investigative reporter shared a thread on Twitter explaining the real reason the left cheers Big Tech censorship: because it takes out their political opponents.

Tulsi Gabbard Pulls Back the Curtain on Why Congress Won't Act Against Big Tech.  Conservatives have been calling for a reform of tech company power for some time, including the reformation of Section 230.  Moreover, politicians talk a big game about coming down on these tech companies but never really seem to move on their threats or declarations.  Ever wonder why?  Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard will tell you.  Gabbard sat down with the Daily Caller and revealed just why politicians seem to freeze when it comes to acting against big tech and the reason is simple and predictable; it all boils down to money.

Amazon seeks to keep right-wing app Parler offline.  Seattle-based Amazon.com, Inc. has asked a federal judge to deny a request to reinstate the cloud-service account for conservative social media network Parler.  The company's lawyers on Tuesday [1/12/2021] claimed Parler shrugged off police violence content on its site before and after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.  The Seattle Times reported that Parler filed a lawsuit Monday against Amazon claiming a breach of contract and antitrust violation after its account was suspended.  Attorneys for Amazon said the case was not about suppressing speech but about what they called Parler's "demonstrated unwillingness" to remove content that threatens public safety.  Parler claims Amazon colluded with Twitter to "kill Parler's business."

Twitter's official tweet about the Uganda election is unbelievable.  On Tuesday, Twitter left every sentient American wondering how a company so stupid could become so powerful.  Twitter spent last year silencing anything that would help Trump, including accurate facts about Biden pimping out his debauched son to foreign countries for big bucks.  It then inaugurated this year by booting the president of the United States off Twitter, followed by silencing all of his supporters.  But Twitter wasn't done.  Yesterday, in connection with the Uganda elections, Twitter issued a proud public policy statement about the absolute necessity of free speech on the internet, especially around elections.

I honestly can't believe Twitter just tweeted this.  But Twitter just tweeted this.  Twitter really just tweeted this in the middle of the conservative purge.

YouTube suspends President Trump's channel for 'a minimum' of one week.  YouTube announced Tuesday [1/12/2021] it is suspending President Trump's channel for at least a week.  Content from Trump's channel was removed Tuesday for violating YouTube's policies and over concerns it would incite violence, the company said in a statement to The [New York] Post.  The tech giant added it will also be disabling comments underneath videos on his channel.  "After careful review, and in light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, we removed new content uploaded to the Donald J. Trump channel and issued a strike for violating our policies for inciting violence," a YouTube spokeswoman said in a statement to The Post.

The Cold Civil War:  Social Media Bans Threaten Free Speech For All.  After last week's Washington, D.C., protests, it didn't take long for the Big Tech billionaires who own, control and run much of the internet and social media to reveal what they truly are: willing tools, a Fifth Column even, of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and enemies of free speech.  A reckoning is due.  In a scene reminiscent of "The Godfather," the Big Tech companies moved aggressively last weekend to "settle all family business" by deplatforming President Donald Trump, his supporters, a swath of the conservative movement, and anyone else who dares to voice an "unWoke" opinion.

The world's biggest gun forum was booted off the Internet because they can be.  AR15.com is a forum with a robust community that serves as a clearinghouse of sorts for firearm dealers and suppliers.  In a statement provided to The Federalist they said in part,  ["]On Monday, January 11, 2021, I received notice from our site registrar that AR15.com had violated their terms of service and that AR15.com would be shut down immediately.  The registrar's decision to de-platform AR15.com was final and no method to appeal was offered.["]  Their registrar is GoDaddy.com.  The fact that GoDaddy did not give a specific example of how AR15.com violated their terms of service I'm going to hazard a guess and say it's because they just discovered it's a gun forum.

Regulate Social Media Like Public Utilities.  Democracy took a big blow when Twitter shut down President Donald Trump's accounts and Google and Amazon ousted Parler, a site favored by millions of conservatives.  Big Tech, which is run by the left, is robbing Americans of their right to communicate freely and exchange ideas.  The nation's founders worried that the government would use its power to censure and crush competing viewpoints.  Their remedy was the First Amendment, guaranteeing all of us freedom of speech and association and barring government censorship.  They had no way of anticipating that tech companies would grow more powerful than governments and have the monopolistic ability to suppress or cancel political viewpoints.  Yet, Facebook and Twitter now "wield the unchecked power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions," explains ACLU lawyer Kate Ruane.  And Google, now the eponym for all internet searching, suppresses content by placing it on a distant page few searchers will ever get to.

There May be a Number of Ways Big Tech Implicated Themselves In Their Purge of Parler.  The web giants of this country exhibited a deeply troubling level of power in the past week, but in their zeal to exact their influence these tech titans may have unintentionally created problems for themselves.  Things began with Twitter initially blocking President Trump's account a month or so back, in the name of election security.  Following the mob scene in D.C. last week they flexed these digital muscles once again, and then things escalated between the major companies driving our tech sector.  Soon after the melee in the Congressional chambers, the President's Twitter account was again locked down.  FaceBook ramped that action up, and suspended his account outright, and then Twitter followed suit.  The company then took down the official Presidential Twitter account as well.  This only begins the unforeseen minefield these companies might be stomping through today[.]

Ron DeSantis Shows Why He's a Boss.  With big tech cracking down on internet speech, specifically conservative viewpoints, it's far past time for the GOP to fight back in ways they can.  While there's little that can be done at the national level now because Trump and the Republican Senate squandered those opportunities the last four years, there's plenty that can happen downstream.  Contrary to the media's narrative, the GOP is still fairly dominate at the state level.  [Ron] DeSantis is once again leading on the big issues, coordinating with the GOP led Florida House of Representatives to divest his state from Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and Google.

Uganda Takes A Stand, Bans Facebook & Twitter From Internet After Censorship, Twitter Policy Has Meltdown.  On Tuesday, Uganda punched back at Facebook and Twitter by banning them from the internet after the two companies started censoring Uganda officials ahead of the election in the country.  "We demand that @Facebook & @Twitter write directly to the individuals that lost their accounts.  Since @Facebook cited @MoICT_Ug in their statement, let them write to us so that there's a chance for a fair hearing.  Accounts lost on Facebook belong to @GovUganda employees," tweeted Uganda Media Centre.

Idaho Internet Provider Blocks Access to Twitter, Facebook to Customers Who Request It.  A North Idaho Internet provider blocked access to Twitter and Facebook at its customers' requests.  According to emails sent to customers over the weekend, Your T1 WIFI — which provides services in the Spokane and northern Idaho areas — said it received phone calls from customers after those websites moved to block certain types of content and suspended accounts associated with President Donald Trump.  "It has come to our attention that Twitter and Facebook are engaged in censorship of our customers and information," an email to Your T1 WIFI customers said.  "We have the past couple days been fielding calls from customers voicing the concern that they do not want these sites allowed to be displayed on their internet feed... and that they do not want their children to go to these sites," the email added.  "They could do this themselves but some do not have the technical knowledge to do so and it would be very tiresome for us to do it for them and it would be expensive to visit each customer that wants this done."

Idaho Internet Provider Blocks Facebook, Twitter.  An internet service provider (ISP) in the North Idaho and the Spokane, Washington, area has decided to block Facebook and Twitter for its customers after some called in to complain about censorship on the platforms.  The ISP, Your T1 WIFI, confirmed that it will block Facebook and Twitter from its WIFI service for some customers starting this Wednesday, according to a report by KREM 2.  The move comes after Twitter permanently banned President Donald Trump from its platform, and Facebook locked the president out of his account "indefinitely."

Gab Backed Up President Trump's Twitter, Recreated It On Website.  President Donald Trump may be gone from Twitter, but his tweets could now live on forever.  According to Populist Press, Gab backed up Trump's entire Twitter account before it was removed and recreated his page on Gab.

Gab CEO Defies Tech Tyrants — Restores All of President Trump's Tweets from Twitter — Trump's Account on Gab.  Popular businessman and President Donald Trump had a social media account on Twitter for several years and even before he was President of the United States.  Last week Twitter, Facebook, and others banned and removed the US President from their platforms.  It was a statement on the unprecedented power of their platforms and the power of collusion.  The tech giants want you to know who's boss and who will decide what is acceptable discourse in this once free country.  But the story did not end there.  Gab CEO Andrew Torba completely backed up President Trump's Twitter account before it was deleted and recreated the president's account on Gab.

Rush: If Democrats Can Erase Us from Social Media, Can They Erase Our Votes?  Now that the Democrats have abandoned all pretenses of being a legitimate political entity instead of a power-mad pack of rabid authoritarians, the future is bleak for conservatives.  Last Friday [1/8/2021], in an audacious move that many previously believed was unthinkable, the Dems' indispensable allies in Silicon Valley acted in a coordinated manner to ban President Trump from all of their platforms along with tens of thousands of his supporters.  Such censorship is commonplace with the Democrats' partners in totalitarian China but that it is taking place in America despite the First Amendment shows the dangerous power that has been placed in the hands of the leftist tech oligarchs who are now arguably more powerful than governments.  The blitzkrieg that also included the takedown of competitor Parler is only the start and if they can silence the voices of conservatives, can the Democrats and their tech cohorts also take away their votes?  That is the question being asked by talk radio legend Rush Limbaugh who on Monday's edition of his nationally syndicated show said that the titans of tech are running the United States."

Florida State Rep Calls on DeSantis to Take Massive Action Against Apple, Amazon, Facebook & Twitter.  On Tuesday, Florida State Rep. Randy Fine called on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to take massive action against several Big Tech companies in response to their disgusting attacks on free speech.  "Florida taxpayers should not be forced to do business with entities that censor them." — said Fine.  Fine is urging DeSantis to divest state funds from key players in Big Tech including Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter due to their attack on conservatives.

Twitter Hasn't Suspended These Accounts Or Tweets That Openly Incite Violence.  On Friday, Twitter joined a slew of other social media companies in permanently suspending Donald Trump's accounts.  Subsequently, many other conservative users found themselves deplatformed by the tech giant.  The tech oligarchs' argument is that Trump's social media presence incites violence, as evidenced by the riot in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.  Twitter argued that several of Trump's tweets violated its Glorification of Violence policy, which states, "You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people.  We also prohibit the glorification of violence."  Unsurprisingly, there are countless Twitter accounts that regularly call for harm or violence, in violation of this policy, yet have been allowed to persist.  While the president's posts and remarks have included some awful things, they have been in no way worse than much of what transpires on the platform.  Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, has an intact Twitter account that consistently glorifies acts of violence, yet the brutal dictator has not faced any censorship or suspension.

What Now?  [Scroll down]  Both Twitter and Facebook deplatformed Trump, and when he shifted from his personal Twitter account to the POTUS account, Twitter silenced that one, too.  Other enemies of the left were also kicked off social media — among them Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn, and Steve Bannon.  Facebook ejected the WalkAway movement, in the process deleting countless heartfelt posts by ordinary citizens explaining why they'd quit the Democratic Party.  YouTube took down a video by Rudy Giuliani.  Amazon, Google, and Apple removed Parler, a "free-speech" alternative to Twitter and Facebook, from their app stores.  The CEO of Mozilla, developer of the Firefox browser, wrote an essay entitled "We Need More than Deplatforming."  (Yet the social-media accounts of the Chinese Communist Party and Ayatollah Khamenei remained untouched.)

The Parler purge is just the beginning.  President Donald Trump has been booted permanently from Twitter.  Parler, the low censorship, zero censorship alternative to Twitter has been suspended from Google, Apple, Amazon.  Conservatives by the droves have lost thousands of followers on Twitter overnight — and all coincidentally come just after it's solid and clear, Democrats will hold the White House, House and Senate come January's end.  Democrats and America's foreign enemies are cheering.  Everyone else is feeling the chill.  And rightly so:  Mark these words, this is a purge of conservative speech, conservative expression, conservative rhetoric — and this is all just the beginning.  With tyrants, the mission is to blot out all dissenting viewpoints.  This Big Tech tyrannical purge is all about testing waters, to see what can be accomplished to make Trump and his supporters completely irrelevant on the political landscape.  Call it stage one.  Stage two is to expand the tyranny beyond the scope of social media.

Progressives Who Desperately Want to Censor Parler Just Got Some Bad News.  They tried, and it looks like they may have failed.  Social media company Parler, which has been under attack from the far-left for not censoring conservatives, seems to have found a new home after Amazon Web Services decided to stop hosting the company's site.

Parler finds refuge with right-leaning webhosting service.  A handful of Big Tech companies moved to take down social media platform Parler over the weekend, but it appears to have found a new company to help try to keep its website running.  On Monday, Parler registered its domain and server to be hosted by Epik, an internet webhosting company known for working with right-leaning websites.  Gab, another social media platform popular with conservatives, also uses Epik.  A web domain search shows that Parler is now registered with Epik.  Epik put out a statement on Monday claiming it had no discussion of providing future services to Parler.  Epik did acknowledge, however, that Parler was "working on satisfying the requested terms placed upon them."

It's not just Twitter: Numerous online services take action against Trump, Trump-related content.  It's not just Twitter.  The U.S. Capitol riots provoked an avalanche of online backlash against President Donald Trump on Thursday and Friday, causing numerous online services to sever ties with Trump or his associated political activities.  Twitter, of course, permanently banned Trump from the platform late Friday, citing "risk of further incitement of violence."  Financial Times reporter Dave Lee noted Friday that Trump's campaign has not been sending emails to its supporters since Wednesday, an indication that its email service providers are severing ties.  In fact, one service provider — Campaign Monitor — confirmed it had suspended the Trump campaign's access to its service.

Parler SUES Amazon!.  Parler is suing Amazon Web Services for removing Parler from the internet.  This is a brief summary and explanation as to why.  [Video clip]

Internet Browsers Gearing Up to Silence President Trump, Conservatives.  If you didn't think things could get worse, think again.  Earlier this week, Big Tech conducted one of the most disgusting and massive assaults on free speech in American history.  Here is a quick recap of some of the key events that took place last week against President Donald Trump and conservatives across the world: [...] Don't be fooled.  The Democratic Party will strip every right from you until you are left with nothing.

Twitter Shares Drop by 12 Percent After Company Banned Trump.  Shares dropped after the market opened on Monday, reaching a low of $45.17.  Twitter shares closed at $51.48 on Jan. 8.  Twitter said it removed Trump's account on Friday because some of his recent posts were glorifying violence.  The company echoed critics who attempted to connect Trump's rhetoric with the breach of the U.S. Capitol.  Trump responded by accusing Twitter of coordinating "with the Democrats and the Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me — and YOU, the 75,000,000 great patriots who voted for me."  Twitter also banned prominent users including lawyer Sidney Powell and Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn.  Other users who weren't banned left the platform, including radio hosts Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh.

Ron Paul locked out of managing his Facebook account for violating 'community standards'.  Former Rep. Ron Paul said Facebook suspended him from managing his account, citing a violation of its community standards.  "With no explanation other than 'repeatedly going against our community standards,' @Facebook has blocked me from managing my page.  Never have we received notice of violating community standards in the past and nowhere is the offending post identified," Ron Paul tweeted Monday.

Jack is straight up gloating about Parler being destroyed.  In just a matter of hours Parler went from being the number 1 free app in Apple's App Store to being murked into digital oblivion.  And Twitter's Jack Dorsey wouldn't have it any other way.  It's really nice to have options when it comes to social media.  And people were making known their displeasure with Twitter's aggressive censorship by moving to alternative platforms like Parler.  But as we all know Parler was savagely cornered by a Silicon Valley mob, beaten to death, and its body dumped into the San Francisco Bay.

'PARLER' Social Media alternative site has been scrubbed from the internet.  The far-Left fascists are coming for us, ALL of us.  [Video clip]

Parler Sues Amazon, Asks Court to Reinstate Platform.  Social media company Parler sued Amazon on Monday, alleging that the Seattle-based firm's hosting service violated anti-trust laws and their contractual agreement.  The company, which was taken offline by Amazon's services early Monday morning, asked a federal judge in Washington state to reject Amazon's shutdown of its services.  Parler argued that Amazon's move was "motivated by political animus" and designed to reduce competition to benefit Twitter.  Twitter is a customer of Amazon Web Services' division.  The emergency order asked a judge to reject Amazon's shutdown of Parler's account and said it is akin to "pulling the plug on a hospital patient on life support."

Parler sues Amazon for antitrust violations.  According to Kruzel, Parler is demanding in federal court that Amazon reinstate the platform on its servers.  Amazon faced heavy criticism from conservatives after it announced that it would be kicking Parler off of its web hosting servers.  The move came shortly after Apple and Google removed the Parler app from their respective application stores, causing many to criticize the companies as oligopolies acting in concert with social media giants to stifle competition.

Parler sues Amazon, asks court to reinstate platform.  Social media company Parler sued Amazon on Monday [1/11/2021], alleging that its suspension from Amazon's hosting service violated antitrust law and breached the companies' contractual arrangement.  In its lawsuit, Parler, which is especially popular among conservatives, asked a federal judge to order that the platform be reinstated online.  The 18-page complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, where Amazon is headquartered, accuses Amazon Web Services (AWS) of applying a politically motivated double standard to Parler in contrast to its treatment of the more mainstream social media giant Twitter.  "AWS's decision to effectively terminate Parler's account is apparently motivated by political animus," the lawsuit reads.  "It is also apparently designed to reduce competition in the microblogging services market to the benefit of Twitter."

It Looks Like the Big Tech Conspiracy Just Killed Parler.  Last evening I posted on how Apple, Google, and Amazon had allied to destroy the upstart social media company Parler.  Parler's competitive advantage was that it was a place where the nasty, vicious little multi-sexual SJWs who control the ability to use Twitter didn't have power.  In the space of just a few hours, Google and Apple removed the Parler app from their app stores, and Amazon announced it was booting Parler off its hosting service.  That sequence of events dealt a major blow to Parler.  Not only was Parler basically off-limits to about 95% of the world's phones, but it no longer had the necessary infrastructure to operate.  Never fear, we were told by the "build your own internet" crowd.

Parler and the Problem of Escaping Internet Censorship.  Back when Parler was first taking off, I warned that its app-based dependency meant that two companies, Apple and Google, can eliminate it anytime they like.  It was only a matter of time.  The transition from desktops and laptops to Android and IOS devices mean that users are operating in a walled garden run by two very lefty companies.  Those companies can do with the garden what they please.  Those users who choose to jailbreak their devices have more options, but most don't.  Conservatives can try to distribute the knowledge more widely and encourage that kind of self-empowerment.  But the bottom line is most smartphone, Kindle, Chromebook, etc users want a simple device that just works and runs all the apps in the app store.  Doing anything more complicated would be inconvenient.

Crazy 2020 Is Dead!  Long Live Crazier 2021!.  [Scroll down]  Multimillionaire Michelle Obama, who seems seldom to allow a serious crisis to go to waste, was calling for the complete weaponization of social media and the permanent banning of Trump.  A scared Mark Zuckerberg seemed to agree.  The multibillionaire had infused $350 million of his own money into key preselected precincts to boost voting turnout in a way the Left in the old days would have called the dark money that undermines democracy.  A day after Michelle Obama's call, Trump coincidentally was indeed banned from Twitter "for life," along with a number of conservatives, and "indefinitely" canceled from Facebook.  Trump followers fleeing to alternate social media sites discovered that their apps could be blocked by Apple and Google.  Amazon joined in blocking the servers of one of these, again coincidentally. [...] The trillion-dollar social media monopolies, on cue from the Obamas and the Left, are now making the necessary adjustments for a hard left-wing controlled presidency and Congress.  Soon, in calmer times, antitrust lawyers will be suing Big Tech for its efforts to destroy its business rivals and ideological opponents as a textbook case of corporate market rigging.

Parler CEO: Attorneys Drop Company as Website Goes Offline.  Parler's website is offline on Monday after Amazon, Apple, Google, and a slew of other companies took action against the social media platform.  Users trying to access Parler were notified that the site couldn't be reached.  Parler CEO John Matze said on Fox's "Sunday Morning Futures" that companies had colluded "to make sure that at the same time we would lose access to not only our apps, but they're shutting all of our servers off tonight, off the Internet.  He also revealed that other companies, including the law firm that was representing Parler, had joined in acting against the company.

The Progressive Purge Begins.  The digital purge started shortly after idiots stormed the Capitol, but it was planned for a long time.  The left spent the middle of the last century burning books, now they're deleting social media accounts, but the objective is the same: eliminate thought they do not like.  The average Democrat doesn't see it as that and can't fathom the idea that they're embracing fascism.  All they see is a people they've been convinced are evil being removed from the digital world in the name of tolerance.  The irony is lost on them.  So is the danger.  Banning Donald Trump and Trump supporters from the digital world is not an end step; it's the beginning.

Nunes Calls on DOJ, FBI to Launch RICO Investigation Over Parler.  House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA) on Sunday called for a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) investigation into Big Tech stifling the new social media platform Parler.  "The effect of this is there is no longer a free and open social media company or site for any American to get on anymore because these big companies — Apple, Amazon, Google — they likely destroyed what was likely a billion dollar company," Nunes explained to Fox News' Maria Bartiromo.  "Poof.  It's gone."  The congressman explained the concern is bigger than a company taking a financial hit.  "Republicans have no way to communicate.  It doesn't even matter if you're Republican or conservative.  If you don't want to be regulated by left-wingers that are at Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or you get shadowbanned, nobody gets to see you, they get to decide what's violent or not violent.  It's preposterous," Nunes said.

Parler CEO Says Service Dropped By "Every Vendor" And Could End His Business.  Parler CEO John Matze said today [1/10/2021] that his social media company has been dropped by virtually all of its business alliances after Amazon, Apple and Google ended their agreements with the social media service.  "Every vendor from text message services to email providers to our lawyers all ditched us too on the same day," Matze said today on Fox News.  Matze conceded that the bans could put the company out of business while raising free speech issues, calling it "an assault on everybody."  "They all work together to make sure at the same time we would lose access to not only our apps, but they're actually shutting all of our servers off tonight, off the internet," Matze said.

Texas Attorney General Vows to Fight Big Tech Censorship with Everything He's Got.  Twitter purged President Trump and thousands of conservative accounts on Friday [1/8/2021].  Because of Big Tech censorship, Parler is now the fastest growing social media company.  Thursday morning Parler CEO John Matze made a bold statement on his rapidly growing social media platform and condemned censorship of Facebook and Twitter.  24 hours later, Apple and Google threatened to ban Parler unless they censor and deplatform those who do not fall in line with the Communists.  Friday evening Google followed through with their threats and banned Parler from the Google play store.  Amazon is now targeting Parler for ruin.

Alternatives to Twitter.  One wonders how profitable Twitter will be once they get around to banning everyone Democrats and Social Justice Warriors think should get banned.

Book Burners 2.0: Clinton-Tied Groups Push Joe Biden to Kill Free Speech.  Left-wing organizations are plotting to suppress dissent.  A coalition of extremely well-funded radical groups, many with direct ties to the Clintons, have signed an open letter to Joe Biden requesting that he host a range of federal government "solutions" to the problem of "disinformation."  From questions about the coronavirus vaccine to "climate denialism" to "lies about abortion," and more, these leftist groups are tapping into their well-known tyrannical tendency to squash dissent.  If readers have not yet caught on, "disinformation" is a dog whistle for speech that challenges left-wing orthodoxy.  By seeking to silence opposition, the leftist organizations are following in the footsteps of book-burners from the Nazis in Germany to Mao's Red Guards.

Here's a disturbing video of people inciting violence if that's really Twitter's concern.  As Twitchy reported Friday [1/8/2021], Twitter has permanently suspended the @realDonaldTrump account, explaining, "We have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence."  There are a lot of videos like this one going around, but this one, put together by Caldron Pool, might be one of the best and most extensive.  While Democrats and the media are clutching their pearls over the president's alleged incitement of violence this week, here are some other people Twitter might want to take a look at if inciting violence is a bannable offense.  [Link to video clip]

Facebook and Twitter largely 'culpable for all the harm, all the hate, all the death' in Capitol attack: former Obama adviser.  Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites should be held accountable for helping to stoke the divisiveness that led to Wednesday's attack on the Capitol, according to a former Obama adviser who has also worked for Facebook. [...] A former economic adviser under President Barack Obama and the former Facebook privacy and public policy adviser, [Dipayan] Ghosh, as well as a growing number of scholars, is calling for social networks to face consequences for enabling the spread of the lies, hate speech, and conspiracy theories that led to the Capitol attack.

The Editor says...
[#1] Don't BLM and Antifa rioters use social media platforms to conspire with one another?  [#2] Here is a word of advice to all those who want to communicate with each other over short distances after they are locked out of Twitter, Facebook, and Parler:  Family Radio Service (FRS) walkie talkies work very well, no license is required, and (for now) they can be purchased and used anonymously.

Silicon Valley Is a Clear and Present Danger to Our Rights.  In case you haven't been paying attention, the battle over personal data, free speech and the free flow of information between the American people and the tech giants is heating up.  As the Googles and Facebooks of the world take an unconstitutional role in deciding what speech and information should be online, it's becoming clear much more is at stake than first meets the eye.  It's also becoming apparent that there are some voices on the Right who are either deeply naïve and ignorant about what is at stake or they are in fact paid collaborators of the tech companies.  Most people who use social media are not entirely sure what their personal data is being used for, or to what extent they've actually given permission for the use of such data.  Fact is, most people have given far more permission to the tech companies than they may realize.

Unelected, unaccountable, non-transparent entity will censor Americans for the Dems.  The latest tyranny comes from the social media giants.  I always thought Glenn Greenwald was too extreme left for me, but he nails it here.  This is unprecedented extreme behavior from the tyrannical new government ruled by the media.  Silicon Valley is more powerful than the President and is destroying free speech.  Glenn Greenwald said this is the "initiation of a new war on terror."  He doesn't say that lightly.  Biden said he wants a new law on terrorism to criminalize free assembly and speech.  They explicitly say it will be directed INWARD, Greenwald states correctly.  Once Trump is gone, their strategy is clear to make any Trump supporter or anyone on the right into terrorists and treat them as such.  Silicon Valley has our data and all the control.  They are more powerful than any nation-state and are unaccountable and non-transparent.  [Video clip]

Twitter Is The Enemy Of The American People.  On Oct. 18, 2020, Twitter banned the account of Dr. Scott Atlas for defending President Donald Trump's position on mask mandates.  In his tweet, he cited scientific studies, and the tweet contained absolutely no false information.  Also in October, Twitter banned the account of The New York Post for accurately reporting on a story about Hunter Biden's laptop.  Today we know these were just the first salvos in this evil company's assault on American liberty.  For all its talk about safety, community, and the health of discourse, we see today that Twitter acts in favor of one interest and one interest alone:  its own, even when it means destabilizing the American people.  On Friday [1/8/2021], the company permanently banned Trump from its platform and began a purge of conservative voices.  They claim this is needed to protect America from a coup.  That is a farcical lie.  They did it because their political enemies such as Trump and Sen. Josh Hawley are now out of power, and they mean to keep it [that] way.

Big tech is staging a digital coup.  Big tech censorship is coming for conservative voices and it is coming fast.  In their actions to remove conservative voices from the public sphere, big tech companies that collectively control the flow of information for billions of people have all but announced that they are in control of the American political system.  We cannot meet in person because of COVID-inspired restrictions, and now we cannot meet online out of fears of being silenced.  With support from influencers like Michelle Obama, as well as many in congress and media, social media sites are banishing conservatives from their user base.  It's happening with alarming speed.  The government has been forcing people to not meet in person.  All life has turned online.  And now the spaces that nearly everyone uses to interact with friends, work, family, strangers, to meet, to exchange ideas, are being purged of those who do not adhere to progressive or Democratic ideas.

Parler has now been booted by Amazon, Apple and Google.  Parler, the alternative social media platform favored by conservatives, now finds itself virtually homeless on the internet as Amazon, Apple and Google have all booted it from their platforms in a span of a little more than 24 hours.  Amazon will remove Parler from its cloud hosting service, Amazon Web Services, Sunday evening, effectively kicking it off of the public internet after mounting pressure from the public and Amazon employees.

The Streisand Effect kicks in:
Parler No. 1 On App Store A Day After Apple Warns Of Removal.  Conservative social media platform Parler is trending on the App Store, a day after Twitter Inc banned Donald Trump's personal account.  What Happened:  The platform that describes itself as a "non-partisan public place" has risen to the No. 1 spot for downloads on Apple Inc's App Store, TechCrunch has reported.  According to analytics firm Sensor Tower, Parler had around 210,000 installs on Friday, a 281% rise from the day before, when there were 55,000 downloads.

If Twitter Has Taught Us Anything This Week, It's That The Platform Isn't "Fixable".  One of the many bits of fallout from Wednesday's riot was the decision by Twitter to permanently ban President Trump's account, as Allahpundit covered yesterday. [...] Yes, they have rules against promoting violence, but contrary to some of AP's analysis, I'm hard-pressed to see how that definition was applied in this case. [...] The people responsible for the violence are the people who made the decision to show up and commit acts of violence.  By this definition, every elected official who encouraged people to show up for a Black Lives Matter rally that later devolved into a riot is equally accountable for the arson and looting that followed.

The Purge Is Here:  Twitter [is] Banning Influencers on Right, [and] Removing Followers.  The left and Big Tech have been moving quickly over the past couple of days.  The President of the United States has been booted off Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram.  Shopify has booted MAGA merchandise from their stores.  Parler is getting pressure by both Apple and Google to 'moderate' their site, 'moderate' their belief in free speech.  So far their CEO is refusing the pressure.  Meanwhile Joe Biden is thinking up a new law to deal with "ideologically-inspired" "domestic terrorism."  He declared the thousands of protesters who had been at the Capitol were "domestic terrorists," making no distinction between those who committed crimes and those who had not (which was most of the people).

Apple Removes Parler From App Store After Use in Capital Riot.  Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. are removing Parler from their services, part of a growing backlash after the social media network was among those used to organize Wednesday's riots at the Capitol.  Apple dropped Parler from its App Store, while Amazon's cloud unit decided to stop hosting the social media company starting Sunday night.  They joined Alphabet Inc.'s Google, which removed the app from its Google Play store on Friday, saying that it created an "ongoing and urgent public safety threat."

3 overseas leaders who know how repression and tyranny work speak out on censorship of Trump and election skepticism.  When people with experience of political corruption and repression warn Americans about danger signs in the current efforts to shut down dissidents, we should take note.  The democratically elected leaders of 2 major Latin American countries are speaking up and warning Americans about the efforts to censor and repress skepticism about the legitimacy of an election.  They are joined the leader of Russia's opposition, the bête noire of Vladimir Putin, in whose pocket Donald Trump supposedly resides.

'Banning free speech': President Trump pushes back on Twitter ban.  President Trump condemned Twitter shortly after the social media platform banned him permanently.  "As I have been saying for a long time, Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech, and tonight, Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and the Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me — and YOU, the 75,000,000 great patriots who voted for me," the president said in a message on Friday night [1/8/2021] from his presidential Twitter account.  "Twitter may be a private company, but without the government's gift of Section 230 they would not exist for long."  Trump circumvented Twitter's ban of his personal account, posting the message briefly from his @POTUS handle before the tweet disappeared.  His message was then released in an official statement.  "As we've said, using another account to try to evade a suspension is against our rules," a Twitter spokesperson told the Washington Examiner on Friday night.  "We have taken steps to enforce this with regard to recent Tweets from the @POTUS account.

The Boot Is Coming Down Hard And Fast.  In response to pressures from all directions including its own staff, Twitter has followed Facebook's lead and removed Donald Trump's account.  And it wasn't just Trump.  Accounts are vanishing quickly, including some popular Trump supporter accounts.  I myself have lost hundreds of followers on Twitter in the last few hours, and I've seen people saying they lost a lot more.  It also wasn't just Trump supporters; leftist accounts are getting suspended too.  The online left is hopefully learning that cheering for Twitter "banning fascists" irrationally assumes that (A) their purges are only banning fascists and (B) they are limiting their bans to your personal definition of fascists.  There is no basis whatsoever for either of these assumptions.  Google has ratcheted things up even further by removing Parler from its app store, and Apple will likely soon follow.  This push to marginalize even the already fringey social media sites is making the libertarian/[leftist] argument of "If you don't like censorship just go to another platform" look pretty ridiculous.

Greg Gutfeld Joins Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Lou Dobbs In Leaving Twitter.  Fox News host Greg Gutfeld joined other prominent conservative voices on Saturday by abandoning his Twitter account after the social media platform permanently banned President Donald Trump.  "To be true to the resolution to myself:  this is my last tweet.  [O]ther than to read news, [I won't] be on [T]witter," Gutfeld first tweeted on Jan. 2. [...] On Saturday, after Twitter had banned the president and seemingly began purging the followers of conservative accounts, Gutfeld returned for a final sign-off.  "[O]kay, this IS my last tweet:  CNN tries to get FNC banned.  Apple targets Parler.  Publishers dump writers.  [M]usic labels drop artists.  [T]witter bans/removes thousands.  [T]ech companies join hands.  [T]his redefines who the true rebels are."

Google Purges Parler App; Apple Threatens to Remove It.  Big Tech's crusade against conservatives continued furiously Friday night.  Google removed the Parler app from its store and Apple threatened to do the same.  Free market advocates repeatedly told conservatives the solution to Big Tech censorship was building their own platform.  Now Google has removed a free speech platform from its store, blocking millions from accessing the app.

Trump fans ditch Twitter en masse after president's suspension.  Trump superfans are heading for the exits.  Just hours after President Trump was permanently banned from Twitter, his diehards on the platform vowed they would move on as well.  "Goodbye Twitter" trended during the early morning hours Saturday as people continued to come to grips with the leader of the free world being deplatformed.  "Goodbye Twitter friends.  See you @parler," said one user, citing a more pro free speech social media alternative to Twitter that is popular with conservatives.

Hey, Twitter, are you sure about this?  For a half-century, the trend in political culture has been inexorably in one direction: toward the steady loosening and eventually the near-obliteration of media filters. [...] The erosion of traditional establishment filters — first by such mediums as direct mail, talk radio and cable, later and most powerfully by social media — has been a primary factor in the rise of potent ideological movements on right and left alike.  It is why the election and bizarre presidency of an insurgent disruptor like Donald J. Trump — inconceivable in the 20th century era of establishment media — was eminently conceivable in this era.  And it is why the decision Friday night by Twitter to permanently ban Trump from its platform is a signal moment — a historic move, even before we know the consequences that will flow from it.  It represents an effort to reassert the notion that filters have a place in political communication and that some voices have lost their claim on public legitimacy — even when that voice has 89 million followers and is just two months past receiving the second-highest number of votes in U.S. election history.

Trump Campaign No Longer Able To Send Out Emails After Mail Service Suspends Access.  Continuing this unprecedented day of internet purges and censorship, Nationalist Review can inform our readers that the mail server used by the president's campaign team has been suspended.  Campaign Monitor, the service in question, confirmed to the Financial Times' Dave Lee that they have suspended access to Trump's ability to send out emails to his millions of subscribers.  The move effectively cuts off communication between his team and his core supporters.  What is not clear however, is what other services have banned his team.  The Trump campaign sends out a massive amount of emails — 33 in January so far.  But, it has been 48 hours since the campaign has reached out to its supporters via email, prompting most journalists to speculate that other providers have shut off access as well.

No More Newsletters?  Trump Suspended from Email Service.  President Donald Trump has reportedly been banned from using at least one email service, severing his ability to communicate with his supporters.  "At least one of the services the team used, @CampaignMonitor, has suspended Trump's access, the company confirmed," Financial Times writer Dave Lee announced on Twitter Jan. 8.  Lee commented earlier in that same tweet that Trump as a result has been silenced on email, "There hasn't been any Trump emails for more than 48 hours.  Almost unheard of — he sent 33 in the first six days of Jan; 2,500+ last year. (h/t @TrumpEmail)."  Lee tweeted a statement allegedly from Campaign Monitor itself, declaring in no uncertain terms that Trump's presence there was terminated.

The All-Out Assault on Conservative Thought Has Just Begun.  After the white nationalist riots in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and others renewed their demands for the suppression of conservative speech on social media.  After Trump's supporters breached the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Big Tech companies clamped down on President Donald Trump and many of his supporters.  Incoming President Joe Biden has said he plans to pass a law against domestic terrorism.  While conservatives rightly denounced the violence this week, this response bodes ill for conservative speech not just on social media, but in the public square and even in private organizations.  In the aftermath of the Capitol riots, Twitter suspended President Donald Trump's account for the first time and Facebook permanently banned the president.  After Trump deleted the tweets Twitter had flagged and had his account restored, Twitter proceeded to ban him entirely on Friday, and then it banned the official President of the United States (POTUS) account.

The new dark age of silencing.  Very quickly, the Democratic Party's allies in at Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Apple have moved to shut down many legitimate and popular conservative and Republican news outlets, including the Twitter feed of the President of the United States.  With the Democrats in control of the government, these leftist internet platforms know they have nothing to fear by doing this, that if anything the Democrats controlling Congress will applaud them and encourage them to censor more conservative and Republican outlets, to shut them all down if possible.  Beforehand, these social media platforms had held their fire somewhat out of fear that the Republicans would change their special tax status exemptions that define them as open platforms, not publishers.  No longer.  Their desire to silence their opponents can now swing into high gear, and they are pushing it for all it is worth, including attempting to silence their direct competitors, such as Parler, a twitter-like platform that prides itself on censoring no one.  It is also very important to recognize that this isn't being done only by the big corporate bosses.  No, sirree, this censorship of conservatives and Republicans is fully endorsed by the workforce at these companies.

Michelle Obama Gave The Order for Big Tech to Delete President Trump From Social Media Platforms.  It really is a thing to behold the Left's active effort to send all the riots, unrest, and fires of the past several years down the memory hole.  When Ferguson, Missouri, was set on fire by Black Lives Matter and Lisa Fithian-trained shock troops, no one called for Barack Obama to be taken off Twitter, Facebook, or any other social media.  However, his wife, Michelle Obama, this week called for the permanent removal of President Trump from all social media platforms because of Wednesday's siege at the Capitol Building.  The next day he was.

CNN Parties Over Twitter's 'Amazing' Choice to Ban Trump:  He's 'Been Kneecapped!'  Mark it down, NewsBusters readers:  January 8, 2021 will go down as one of the greatest days in the lives of more than a few CNN charlatans due to the massive, unprecedented crackdown on American free speech, including Twitter's permanent banning of President Trump.  On CNN's Situation Room, the mood was euphoric as they celebrated the "amazing situation" and "historic moment" of Twitter having "kneecapped" Trump before our very eyes, even though it was many years later for these censorship fiends.  Chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta delivered the news, feigning concern for what Trump will do now and how it'll affect his "state of mind" considering "he's been unstable."  Acosta boasted that, if Trump were to send out a video message, the White House would have to rely on the media even though they're "their least favorite people in the world."

Let me say something briefly about the Big Tech purge tonight.  [Thread reader]  Now there is a sizable percentage of Americans who flat out believe the election is stolen.  So they won't believe that voting matters any more.  And now Twitter and the Tech giants have decided you shouldn't be able to complain about it either.  The old refrain used to be "if you don't like how a social media platform behaves start your own."  Well, that looks pretty hollow tonight, doesn't it?  I guess now the left will say "if you want to speak freely start your own internet, create your own cell phone companies, IOS, computers, and so on."  And this ignores that there are anti-trust laws designed to keep one side from controlling everything.  Indeed, often traditional methods of expression are shut down.  Many states have imposed limitations on gatherings applied to expressive activities and the courts have mainly collectively gone on an extended bathroom break.  So to a person who thinks this way, they can't vote and they can't even complain and get their message out effectively. [...] Twitter and big tech thinks they are helping to lower this nation's temperature.  But my fear is that they just threw a match on a puddle of gasoline.  For that reason, [I] hope they stop this.

Twitter bans Trump 'due to the risk of further incitement of violence'.  Twitter suspended President Trump permanently.  The platform announced the suspension on Friday evening [1/8/2021], citing a "close review of recent tweets from" the president's personal account.  It said in a blog post that the suspension was "due to the risk of further incitement of violence."  The social media platform's review focused on two of the president's tweets Friday, which it said violated its Glorification of Violence policy.  The policy, Twitter stated, "aims to prevent the glorification of violence that could inspire others to replicate violent acts and determined that they were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021."

Twitter Permanently Banning Donald Trump Is 'Absolute Authoritarian Lunacy'.  Before Christmas, this was floated:  Twitter could permanently ban Donald Trump.  At the time, being the sitting president, he was offered an exemption.  You can't ban the leader of the free world.  Well, given the events of this week and the storming of the Capitol Building by pro-Trump supporters, the social media giant has decided to ban the president of the United States days before he's set to leave office.

Breaking: Twitter Suspends Dan Bongino For Posting Trump's Video Calling For Peace.  If there's one thing Twitter hates, it's when conservatives call for peaceful protests.  Prominent conservative Dan Bongino was locked out of his Twitter account for 12 hours after he posted President Donald Trump's call to "go home peacefully" on January 6th.  In response, Bongino said he is done with the far-left platform for good.  This is the same call to peace that got Trump banned from the social media giants like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat.

Welcome to West China.  Did you ever wonder what it's like to live in a one-party state?  Well, wonder no more.  You're living in one.  The major means of communication — in today's terms that means social media — have now been taken over completely by the left.  Not only has Donald Trump — still the president of the United States — been permanently banned from Twitter, its rapidly growing, open-to-all substitute Parler has almost simultaneously been de-platformed by Google.  You can't get their app for Android anymore.  Apple threatens to be next, demanding Parler kowtow (by Saturday!) to Cupertino's vision of what the world should be.

Big Tech has become a tyranny.  In a crowded field, those cheering the suspension of Donald Trump's Facebook account might just be the most idiotic people in political life today.  The decision announced by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg yesterday to close down Trump's page for the rest of his presidency, perhaps indefinitely, represents the most profound assertion yet of Big Tech's right to police democratic politics.  At a stroke, unaccountable billionaire capitalists have decided to deprive a democratically elected president — the leader of the free world, no less — access to a large part of what now constitutes the public square.  A line has been crossed that can never be uncrossed.  And yet, among commentators and politicos, many of them liberals and left-wingers, this has been met not with shock and horror, but a boneheaded chorus of 'what took you so long?'.

Down the Memory Hole overnight:
Hacked.  My Twitter account was hacked a few days ago.  I learned about it via several emails from Twitter.  [Illustration]  Whoever hacked my account changed my email address:  [Illustration]  Twitter obviously knew my user name — @jhinderaker — and my email address.  I followed the instruction to contact Twitter support right away.  That is when the trouble started.  Twitter responded to my help ticket by telling me they have no record of my existence:  [Illustration]  I have been on Twitter since 2008 and have around 14,000 followers, but they "were not able to locate any history of an account with this email and username."  Despite the fact that they had emailed me, using that username, at that email address, just the day before.  I then made eight or nine attempts to alert Twitter to my account being hacked, using their help function.  But I was immediately foiled because the first thing you have to do is put in your username, which they kept telling me they'd never heard of.

Blaze Reporter Who Covered Riot Deplatformed.  The Blaze journalist Elijah Schaffer, who has put his own physical safety at risk to report on riots throughout 2020 has been shockingly deplatformed for unknown reasons.  "Journalist Elijah Schaffer has been banned from Facebook and Instagram on Friday [1/8/2021].  He reported on Twitter that the two social media platforms, both of which are owned by Facebook, took down his profile and content," The Post Millennial posted Jan. 8.  Schaffer announced that his Instagram account had been banned earlier that same day.

Twitter boots Trump allies Mike Flynn and Sidney Powell.  Twitter on Friday [1/8/2021] suspended the accounts of President Trump's allies, former Gen. Mike Flynn and lawyer Sidney Powell, who backed his claims that fraud handed victory to President-elect Joe Biden.  The action follows the Wednesday attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters after Trump told them to "fight like hell" to persuade Congress to overturn Biden's win.  Powell recently claimed that Trump offered her a White House job to investigate voter fraud, but that senior White House staff — fearful of her wild claims of fraud — proceeded to block her from Trump's orbit.  Flynn reportedly floated Trump declaring martial law during a post-election Oval Office meeting, though he denied it.

The woke purge.  Cancel culture doesn't exist, they say.  And yet with the flick of a switch, billionaire capitalists voted for by precisely nobody have just silenced a man who is still the democratically elected president of the United States.  With the push of a button in their vast temples to technology, the new capitalist oligarchs of Silicon Valley have prevented a man who won the second largest vote in the history of the American republic just two months ago — 74 million votes — from engaging with his supporters (and critics) in the new public square of the internet age.  Not only does cancel culture exist — it is the means through which the powerful, unaccountable oligarchies of the internet era and their clueless cheerleaders in the liberal elites interfere in the democratic process and purge voices they disapprove of.  That's what Twitter's permanent suspension of Donald Trump confirms.  The new capitalists' cancellation of the democratically elected president of the United States is a very significant turning point in the politics and culture of the Western world.

Twitter Permanently Suspends Trump.  Twitter announced Friday it had decided to permanently suspend President Donald Trump's personal account, @realDonaldTrump, citing "the risk of further incitement of violence."  "After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence," a post from Twitter Safety read. [...] The company cited two of the president's tweets from Friday as the reason for the permanent suspension: one in which he announced he would not be attending President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration on January 20 and a second where he praised his supporters as "great American Patriots" who will not be "disrespected or treated unfairly," just days after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, leaving five people dead.

The Editor says...
How many Democrats refused to attend the Inauguration of President Trump?  Were any of them kicked off Twitter as a result?

Rush Limbaugh deactivates his Twitter account after President Trump permanently banned.  Radio host Rush Limbaugh's Twitter account has been deactivated.  Twitter confirmed to USA TODAY that the account wasn't suspended but "deactivated by the owner."  Limbaugh is considered the leading conservative talk radio host and has been on the airwaves for more than three decades.  He has been an adamant supporter of President Donald Trump and his Twitter account, @RealRLimbaugh, had a similar to the style of Trump's @realDonaldTrump.  Twitter permanently banned Trump from the social media platform Friday, citing the risk that he would incite further violence.  He had 88.6 million followers.

Trump Responds to Twitter's Permanent Account Suspension.  President Donald Trump responded to Twitter's move to permanently suspend his account from its platform late Friday, condemning the big tech giant and saying that it does not stand for free speech.  The president also said he anticipates a "big announcement" soon and that his team is negotiating with other sites and is also looking at building a separate platform.  "As I have been saying for a long time, Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech, and tonight, Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and the Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me — and YOU, the 75,000,000 great patriots who voted for me," Trump said in a statement.  "Twitter may be a private company, but without the government's gift of Section 230 they would not exist for long," he added.  "I predicted this would happen.  We have been negotiating with various other sites, and will have a big announcement soon, while we also look at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future.  We will not be SILENCED!" he said.

Trump tweets from POTUS handle account, says looking 'at the possibilities of building out our own platform'.  President Donald Trump continued tweeting Friday evening using the government-owned @POTUS account, despite having his @realDonaldTrump account permanently suspended by Twitter earlier in the day.  "As I have been saying for a long time, Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech, and tonight, Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me," Trump wrote in a series of tweets that are no longer visible on the social media service.  The tweets were removed from the service almost immediately.  It's unclear what steps Twitter took in the handling of the @POTUS account.

Google Play suspends Parler until app develops moderation policies.  Google suspended the social media platform Parler on Friday from its Google Play app store until the "Twitter for conservatives" adopts content moderation policies following the attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of President Donald Trump supporters.  [Which had been infiltrated by Antifa.]  Parler, founded in 2018, has found traction among conservative users looking for alternatives to more mainstream apps like Facebook and Twitter, which moderate content more rigorously.  Parler has banned users for trolling conservatives but doesn't have a formal set of moderation policies.

Steve Bannon's podcast is REMOVED from YouTube.  Steve Bannon's podcast has been removed from YouTube just hours after Rudy Giuliani appeared on the show blaming the MAGA mob riot that left five dead on the Democrats for 'censoring and suppressing' Donald Trump supporters.  The YouTube account for Bannon's War Room podcast was taken down Friday [1/8/2021] for violating the platform's Terms of Service, according to the Washington Examiner.  A Friday evening [1/8/2021] search for the podcast brought up an error message reading: 'This page isn't available.  Sorry about that.  Try searching for something else.'  Youtube had warned earlier this week that it would ban accounts that continued to spread misinformation about voter fraud.

The Editor says...
Please tell me about the "misinformation about voter fraud" that was spread by Steve Bannon.

Apple Threatens to Remove Parler Social Networking Service From App Store.  Alphabet Inc's Google on Friday [1/8/2021] suspended the Parler social networking service from its app store, citing posts inciting violence and demanding "robust" content moderation from the app favored by many supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump.  Apple Inc on Friday also gave the service 24 hours to submit a detailed moderation plan, pointing to participants using the service to coordinate Wednesday's siege of the U.S. Capitol building.  The actions by the two Silicon Valley companies mean that the network seen as a haven for people expelled from Twitter could become unavailable for new downloads on the world's main mobile phone app stores within a day.  It would still be available in mobile browsers.

ACLU raises concerns amid Twitter's ban of Trump.  The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday is raising concerns about social media platforms banning users, in the aftermath of Twitter's decision to permanently suspend President Trump.  While the ACLU has repeatedly locked horns with Mr. Trump and his administration over issues such as the president's travel ban, the ACLU is worried about the ramifications of tech companies diminishing online speech.  "We understand the desire to permanently suspend him now, but it should concern everyone when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield the unchecked power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions — especially when political realities make those decisions easier," said Kate Ruane, ACLU senior legislative counsel, in a statement.  "President Trump can turn to his press team or Fox News to communicate with the public, but others — like the many Black, Brown, and LGBTQ activists who have been censored by social media companies — will not have that luxury."

Brandon Straka, 500K-strong 'Walk Away' page banned by Facebook:  Every member of my team!'  The "Walk Away" movement has been flushed down an Orwellian "Memory Hole" at Facebook.  Founder Brandon Straka, his team, and his 500,000-strong Facebook page with citizens who abandoned the Democratic Party were purged from the site this week.  "Facebook has removed the #WalkAway Campaign and has banned me and every member of my team!!!" he tweeted Friday.  "Over half a million people in #WalkAway with hundreds of thousands of testimonial videos and stories is GONE.  Facebook has banned everything related to #WalkAway."

Democrats Cheer Twitter For Engaging In Political Censorship.  Top Democrats cheered far-left Twitter's decision to ban President Donald Trump on Friday night, calling the controversial move "long overdue."  Democrat Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), who most claim is a "moderate" or a "centrist," cheered the political censorship, writing on Twitter:  "Thank you @twitter for taking this action.  We must come together as a country to heal and find a common path forward."  [Tweet]  Far-left Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) wrote on Twitter:  "Great.  Now let's permanently suspend him from the White House."

Why [the] ban of @realDonaldTrump proves Twitter [is] not 'just a platform'.  Twitter has "permanently banned" President Donald Trump's account.  While this will please Democrats, and perhaps lessen the (justifiable) heat the company is taking from regulators, it just proves again that Twitter's claims that it is "just a platform" are hogwash.  Some of Trump's tweets were untrue and incendiary, but so are the Ayatollah Khamenei's.  His account is still up.  The difference is Twitter is run by American liberals, who only really police one type of person, of one political persuasion.  It's a little ridiculous that what finally did Trump in was tweeting that he wouldn't be attending Joe Biden's inauguration.  Twitter twisted that to mean that he still won't accept the results of the election — which just shows they were looking for an excuse.  Rather than let the readers judge, they pulled the plug.

The Zuckerberg heist.  In September 2020, [...] I sounded the alarm over Silicon Valley's hijacking of our election system through a private nonprofit called the Center for Technology and Civic Life. [...] In case you were snoozing, as far too many citizens in this country are, CTCL is the deep-pocketed liberal advocacy group subsidized by Big Tech oligarchs and radical philanthropists.  The center received $350 million from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.  Election information-rigging Google is a top corporate partner.  The Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Democracy Fund (founded by "Never Trumper" billionaire and eBay former chairman Pierre Omidyar) also pitched in.  There are unknown other wealthy donors to the 501(c)(3) "charity," but I can't tell you who and how many they are because their identities are protected by IRS rules.

Facebook bans Trump for at least [the] remainder of [his] presidency.  Facebook on Thursday [1/7/2021] banned President Donald Trump from using its social network or Instagram "indefinitely, including the last two weeks of his presidency.  In a post on the site, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote that Trump's refusal to condemn his extremist supporters who stormed and occupied the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday showed that he "intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden."  For weeks leading up to the count of Electoral College votes in Congress on Wednesday, some Trump supporters openly planned a violent confrontation at the Capitol.  Trump had repeatedly endorsed the gathering, at which he encouraged supporters to march to the Capitol.

Big Tech Launches Massive Coordinated Cyber Attack on 74,000,000 Trump Voters — GOP Silent.  Big tech has launched an unprecedented and coordinated cyber attack on President Donald Trump and his 74,000,000 voters.  As this was happening, the GOP was dead silent.  On Friday, Twitter permanently banned hundreds, if not thousands, of Trump supporters and prominent allies — before banning the president himself.  Nearly every account that helped to promote the Stop the Steal rallies or challenge the election results were banned, including Ali Alexander, Michael Coudrey, Gen. Mike Flynn, Sidney Powell, and Lin Wood.  Countless smaller accounts that supported the president were also getting suspended in a seemingly constant rate.  The same has been happening over on Facebook and Instagram.

Donald Trump Block Shows Twitter 'Must Not Like Democracy,' Says Parler CEO John Matze.  The CEO of Parler, a social media platform favored by conservatives, has said Twitter's blocking of Donald Trump suggests it "must not like democracy."  John Matze — who co-founded the website in 2018 — made the comment on Thursday [1/7/2021] in response to the president's daughter, Tiffany Trump, who shared a statement released by her father that pledged an "orderly transition" to Joe Biden later this month.  Trump's statement was issued on Thursday via the White House communications chief Dan Scavino as the president was facing a 12-hour Twitter block for policy-breaking posts made as his supporters stormed the Capitol Building on Wednesday.  "What ever happened to freedom of speech?" Tiffany Trump wrote on Parler, attracting thousands of comments and shares, including from Matze, who has repeatedly pitched his platform as a "free speech" alternative to mainstream social networks.

Trump Vows To Start Own Social Platform After Being Banned From Twitter.  Donald Trump has stated he wants to create his own social media platform after being permanently suspended from Twitter.  The outgoing President of the United States was permanently banned from the platform yesterday, January 8, with Twitter stating that Trump may incite further violence as its reason for removing the 74-year-old from the platform.  Announcing the news, the social media platform said in a statement:  'After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.'

The tech monopolies have sprung into action.  [Scroll down]  Trump did not instigate violence.  The tech tyrants have systematically deleted Trump's words and the search engines will not help you find them, but you can, with difficulty, discover what he said on January 6:  ["]We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.  I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.["] [...] Having erased facts so they could claim Trump incited violence, the tech monopolies were set.  To date, this is the purge, in chronological order, all predicated on Trump "promoting violence":
  •   Believe it or not, it started with Pence unfollowing Trump on Twitter.
  •   Zuckerberg personally banned Trump from Facebook.
  •   Snapchat locked Trump's account.
  •   Shopify removed Trump's organization and campaign store.
  •   Michelle Obama called on all tech companies to ban President Trump.
  •   Facebook deleted the Walk Away movement page, including 500,000 Walk Away testimonials.
  •   Twitter banned General Flynn.
  •   Twitter banned Sidney Powell.
  •   Google's YouTube terminated Steve Bannon's War Room podcast while 500,000 were watching in real-time.
  •   Twitter permanently banned President Trump's personal account.
  •   The Gateway Pundit says that Twitter banned hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other lesser-known sites that challenged election results.
  •   The Trump campaign's email service has banned the campaign from its platform.
  •   Twitter deleted the official President of the United States account (@POTUS)

Here Comes the Crackdown.  After the Capitol protest/riot occurred, I said to my colleagues the folks on the left will use it to go after President Donald Trump, Republicans and Trump supporters in general.  They will use it to justify a crackdown on social media and other arenas.  That's already coming to pass and it only happened yesterday.  They're calling to ban anyone who went into the building from plane travel. [...] By the way, where's the crackdown on the Antifa terrorists who fly from state to state?  But the left is not just stopping with going after the folks who were in the Capitol at the protest, they are going after Republicans, and not just because of the riot.

Twitch Suspends Donald Trump Indefinitely.  Twitch has locked President Donald Trump's account indefinitely following the riots that took place on Capitol Hill on Wednesday [1/6/2021].  "In light of yesterday's shocking attack on the Capitol, we have disabled President Trump's Twitch channel," a Twitch spokesperson said in a statement, according to the Verge.

Shopify Pulls Trump Campaign, Trump Organization Online Stores; Claims Trump Condoned 'Violence'.  The online retail platform Shopify has shut down online stores for any entity affiliated with President Trump, claiming that the president has violated its standards for threatening or condoning violence.  Shopify announced the move on Thursday [1/7/2021] following a Wednesday riot by a pro-Trump crowd in the Capitol over the results of the election.  Online stores for Trump's campaign and the Trump Organization, which is largely a real estate company, were shut down on Thursday.

Yes, it was a Fraudulent Election.  [Scroll down]  Election fraud in a democracy is pretty serious, no?  And yet, apart from a small though intrepid group pushing failed court cases, our fearless leaders and their media propagandists just want to sweep it under the rug.  YouTube will not even allow postings that suggest the election outcome was changed by "widespread fraud or errors."  Which, of course, is exactly what may have happened.  Why the silence and creepy censorship?  The answer leads to a very dark place.  Some of the people who occupy positions of influence and power, including both Republicans and Democrats, saw President Trump as an existential threat to this country, so getting him out by any means necessary was justified in their minds.  That was a sinister, and also very foolish, calculus.  But stealing the election was a scheme that went too far; a scheme which would itself pose an even greater threat to the country.  They may see that now.

Breaching the Capitol:  The Surprise That Was No Surprise.  Twitter, Facebook, YouTube banned the President from social media for 12 [to] 24 hours.  This response is deeply irresponsible.  Like him or hate him, the President of the United States should never be censored.  Voters have a right to know his thoughts no matter what they are.  If Iranian Mullahs can make threats to the United States on Twitter, the President of the United States can express his views.

Twitter locks Trump's account for 12 hours, signals he could be banned.  Facebook and Twitter took the extraordinary step on Wednesday [1/6/2021] of locking President Donald Trump's account on their platforms after his supporters stormed the Capitol building to protest the election.  Twitter said it has locked President Donald Trump's account for 12 hours, and warned for the first time that it may suspend him permanently.  The temporary lock reflects Trump's violation of the Twitter rules, the company said.

Facebook Will Ban And Delete All Photos And Videos Of Any Aspect Of Wednesday Protests.  Facebook announced it would be stripping all photos and videos featuring Wednesday's riots at the U.S. Capitol, claiming such content promoted criminal activity.  "At this point," the company wrote, "they represent promotion of criminal activity which violates our policies."  No such widespread censorship was afforded to the left-wing riots erupting last year, killing at least 30 people while reporters stood in front of burning blazes and characterized the events as "peaceful protests."  Facebook's decision comes as Twitter declared a 12-hour suspension of President Donald Trump's account, going on to threaten a permanent ban against the president after removing a video from the White House urging his supporters raiding the capitol building to "go home now."  The tech giant also barred users from sharing Trump's plea for peace by prohibiting likes, retweets, or replies.  Twitter continued, warning it would be monitoring even "statements made off Twitter" for possible suspension.

Trump calls for peace, tells demonstrators to go home and Twitter removes the post, suspends his account.  The new party line that social media and the propaganda narrative media are enforcing is that any questioning of the fairness of the past presidential election amounts to incitement to violence.  Apparently using that illogic as a basis, Jack Dorsey's Twitter actually censored a video that President Trump posted, calling for demonstrators to go home and be peaceful.  That sort of thinking would lead to Twitter suspending the accounts of anyone complaining about racial injustice, since Black Lives Matter demonstrations have wrought so much damage on so many cities, in the name of racial justice.  The same standards never apply to leftists and conservatives when Twitter is censoring.  It's almost as if they want to falsely portray him as inciting violence... ya think?  Even ABC noted the deletion, though it ignored the call to peace:  [Video clip]

How to Steal an Election in Four Steps.  [Scroll down]  The media and social media considered the Hunter Biden story so politically devastating to Joe Biden that they censored it.  The American free press banned a true, well-documented, relevant news story because it harmed their candidate politically, something a totalitarian government does.  In the days preceding the election, that same media tried to make it seem as if covid was getting much worse, quickly, and that we needed to mandate closures nationwide: we needed to elect Biden.  Dr. Fauci and the CDC implied the virus could be a problem for years.  Two days after the election they announced that a vaccine had been discovered, which actually had been found weeks or months earlier since a number of researchers and Trump himself had made references to it in tweets, but the news — and the vaccine — had been withheld from the public because it could've helped Trump politically.

Facebook Censors Ad Highlighting Raphael Warnock's Praise of Jeremiah Wright.  Facebook has censored an ad drawing attention to Democrat senate candidate Raphael Warnock's praise for far-left hate-preacher Jeremiah Wright, [...] The ad was bought by American Crossroads, a nonprofit linked to Karl Rove.  It highlights Warnock's praise for Wright, but was taken down by Facebook after it was "fact-checked" by Lead Stories, one of Facebook's approved third-party fact-checkers.  Lead Stories claims the ad "leaves out context," because it implies he was "communicating the same sentiment" as Wright.  But Lead Stories also admits that Warnock referred to Wright as a "preacher and a prophet."

More about Jeremiah Wright and the TUCC.

Twitter Censors Trump and Campaign 543 Times, But Never Biden.  Twitter's censorship crusade against President Donald Trump and his campaign pressed on this week.  The site labeled videos from Fox News and One America News Network.  It also labeled Peter Navarro's report on election irregularities, and the Dominion Voting Systems audit report from Antrim County, Michigan, among other tweets.  The president's Twitter account and the account for his campaign, @TeamTrump, have been censored, suppressed, and limited 543 times since May 31, 2018.  Since Dec. 14, both accounts have received 57 more labels.  Former Vice President Joe Biden and his campaign, @TeamJoe, have not been censored at all.  Twitter also labeled several news clips.  A clip from Mark Levin's show on Fox News discussing how the Democratic Party and the media are using the election to divide the nation was labeled as having disputed claims about election fraud.  The same warning was applied to multiple clips from One America News Network.

YouTube Removes Trump Lawyer's Opening Statement From Senate Committee Hearing.  One of President Donald Trump's lawyers said YouTube removed his opening statement from a Senate Homeland Security hearing on election fraud.  "YouTube has decided that my opening statement in the U.S. [Senate], given under oath and based upon hard evidence, is too dangerous for you to see; they removed it.  To this day, 'our evidence has never been refuted, only ignored.'  Why is Google so afraid of the truth? #BigBrother," lawyer Jesse Binnall wrote on Twitter.  Another video of his testimony at the hearing, uploaded on Dec. 17 by a separate account, appeared to still be up.

Protect Election Integrity - Censor Anyone Who Questions the Election.  Last week, Google's YouTube announced that "supporting the integrity" of the election required it to censor anyone alleging that "widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of a historical U.S. Presidential election".  By historical presidential election, Google meant this one.  Democrats are still free to allege that they would have won in 2000 or 2016, if it hadn't been for the chads or the Russians.  A huge tech monopoly closely tied to the Democrats, which was sued by the Trump administration over its illegal abuses, censoring critics of the Democrat election fraud is protecting and supporting something alright, but that thing is very definitely not integrity.  Election integrity, like fact checking, is one of those curious terms whose meaning was 'Orwellianized' in the last decade.  Fact checking used to mean media organizations checking their facts before they published a story.  Now the media has mostly done away with internal fact checking and uses fact checking to describe its efforts to censor conservative media.

Google's YouTube Shuts Down Dilbert Creator Scott Adams.  Google-owned YouTube shut down Dilbert Comic strip creator Scott Adams on Friday, stripping a video off the platform from the podcaster's channel without warning.  "Google (YouTube) just shut me down," Adams wrote on Twitter featuring a screenshot of the message from YouTube.  "The video they deleted is no different from all of my other content.  I assume they'll come for the other videos soon."

Twitter Hinting They'll Dump President Trump If Biden Is Inaugurated.  Social media has had a love-hate relationship with the right.  They loved the revenue and traffic our sites and brought them, but they hate the very ground we stand on, especially President Trump.  They are now hinting they will kick the President off the platform if Joe Biden is sworn in as President.  Democrats thought they had a lock on social media when they leveraged Facebook's data-mining tools to get the vote out for Obama.  You can only imagine their horror when they saw Trump turn the tables on them in 2016.  They were blindsided when the right broke new ground as great innovators and pioneers with our use of Social Media to bypass media gatekeepers of information.

Election Interference:  Twitter Changes Rules Back to What They Were Before Election Now That they Manipulated Election Results.  This is quite extraordinary.  Twitter on Wednesday [12/16/2020] announced they were switching back rules to before the election.  The rules served their purpose.  They were able to list any criticism of the fraudulent election as "disputed" or "fake news."  And they especially hit President Trump hard.  But now that the tech giant was able to manipulate the results and censor conservative arguments they are going to back off the new rules.  This is after they manipulated election results.

Twitter Confirms Trump Could Be Banned From Platform After Inauguration.  Twitter confirmed that they could clamp down harder on President Donald Trump's personal Twitter account after he leaves office.  Trump will lose the protections that Twitter offers to world leaders when he becomes a private citizen, exposing him to the possibility of being more strictly moderated and possibly even banned if he continues to disseminate "conspiracy theories," according to The Independent.  According to Twitter's "principles & approach" to world leaders, "if a Tweet from a world leader does violate the Twitter Rules but there is a clear public interest value to keeping the Tweet on the service, we may place it behind a notice that provides context about the violation and allows people to click through should they wish to see the content."

Big Tech and IT Security.  Big Tech is impairing and maliciously exploiting the nation's critical IT and communications infrastructure for their own benefit and the benefit of third parties.  During COVID-19, a declared national emergency, they have:
  •   Interfered with medical advice and communications of doctors and other medical practitioners regarding COVID-19.
  •   Prevented patients and doctors from accessing medical information and/or blocked medical advice about COVID-19.
  •   Banned accounts and/or deleted content from physicians and scientists who recommended specific COVID-19 treatments, such as Hydroxychloroquine.
  •   Threatened to block all medical advice contradicting recommendations of the World Health Organization.
  •   Replaced (rather than merely deleted or restricted) medical content which they do not like with their own content and denigrated the original content.
Almost all the interventions related to COVID-19 went against any useful treatments and prophylaxis, but spread panic, and promoted lockdowns, and masks.  This nicely aligned with their own interests — reducing interpersonal communication, leading to increased reliance on their services, and thus, increasing their profits and power.  Big Tech profits have skyrocketed during this pandemic.  This also coincided with the strategy of the Democrat party to use COVID-19 as a pretext for adopting fraud-ridden mail-in voting, for blaming President Trump for COVID-19 suffering, and for blanket house arrest orders (lockdowns).  Big Tech also interfered with the bidirectional communications between the government and the public in general.

Curiouser and Curiouser.  [Scroll down]  All the people that hate America have aligned for this coup.  This is the Hail Mary of all times and they're going for it.  Big tech such as Google, You tube, Twitter and facebook have shut down conservative commentary.  If you do something as simple as tweet about the irregularities of this election, you're booted.  Total control, and there's nothing you can do about it.  Well, TV is worse.  On Monday, Rudy and the crew were in Arizona presenting their case.  If you thought that the witnesses, mathematic anomalies, extended time frames, weird ballots, etc, in Pennsylvania were pretty amazing, that was just a warm up to Arizona.  I have to believe that anyone who is being honest with themselves and not running on blind hatred of Trump, would have to say after that hearing, that there's NO WAY that there wasn't massive fraud involved.  So let me ask those who continue to tell me that I'm spreading vile [falsehoods], that Trump lost because people hate [him], and I should suck it up and move on:  Why isn't the media broadcasting these hearings so the American people can make up their own minds?  If it's just smoke and mirrors, if there's no substance, then why not air it.  Make fools out of people like me??  Better yet, if Rudy and his evidence and witnesses are really [baseless], why isn't the media covering it, so they can rip it all to shreds?  You know why.  They don't want YOU to see what really happened.  The less people that see what these folks have as evidence, makes their job of pushing their agenda much easier.  So, we have big tech in on this.  We have the media in on this.  Who else is in on this?  I'm afraid that it's so widespread that we really are in the biggest clash between good and evil we have ever seen.

Systemic discrimination?  In the U.S.?  Study after study shows that the mainstream media have presented President Trump and stories surrounding his administration in a negative light roughly 90 to 95 percent of the time, while fawning over Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama.  Almost every newspaper and magazine features page after page of smears, innuendo and outright lies about Trump and his every action, while proffering glowing coverage on his political opponents.  And then there is Big Tech.  The giant social media companies have made a mockery of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which indemnifies "platforms" from potential legal issues stemming from their content.  They have eagerly utilized the benefits the act grants to those entities supposedly not censoring and discriminating content, while continually censoring and discriminating against content, including that of the President of the United States, in the manner of a partisan "publisher."

Twitter Removes 'Like,' 'Reply' and Retweet Count Functions From Multiple Trump Tweets About the Election.  Twitter disabled "liking" and replying to multiple tweets from President Donald Trump about the election on Saturday morning [12/12/2020].  The platform also removed the retweet count, so that people cannot see how many times it has been shared.  Users are now required to quote tweet the messages if they would like to share them.  When you attempt to do so, a a window pops up saying "this claim about election fraud is disputed."  There is also a "find out more" button that takes you to a curated list of tweets about how "election fraud of any kind is exceedingly rare in the US, election experts confirm."

The YouTube Ban Is Un-American, Wrong, and Will Backfire.  Start with the headline: Supporting the 2020 U.S. Election.  YouTube in its company blog can't even say, "Banning Election Conspiracy Theories."  They have to employ the Orwellian language of politicians — Healthy Forests, Clear Skies, "Supported" Elections — because Google and YouTube are now political actors, who can't speak plainly any more than a drunk can walk in a straight line. [...] This announcement came down at roughly the same time Hunter Biden was announcing that his "tax affairs" were under investigation by the U.S. Attorney in Delaware.  Part of that investigation concerned whether or not he had violated tax and money laundering laws in, as CNN put it, "foreign countries, principally China."  Information suggestive of money-laundering and tax issues in China and other countries was in the cache of emails reported in the New York Post story blocked by Twitter and Facebook.

Youtube Announces It Will Delete All Posts Alleging that Widespread Fraud Cost Trump the Election.  Google-owned Youtube has announced that it will summarily delete all videos that claim that Donald Trump lost the presidency due to widespread voter fraud.  In a Wednesday blog post, YouTube said any post "that misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome" of the election will be removed.  The content will be removed starting Wednesday [12/9/2020].  YouTube added that it is already rigging search results and algorithms to hide "misleading" election videos from its users.  YouTube said that the censorship effort will be "Limiting the reach of borderline content and prominently surfacing authoritative information." YouTube added that "Problematic misinformation represents a fraction of 1% of what's watched on YouTube in the U.S," and adds, "we know we can bring that number down even more."

Facebook faces U.S. lawsuits that could force sale of Instagram, WhatsApp.  Facebook Inc could be forced to sell its prized assets WhatsApp and Instagram after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and nearly every U.S. state filed lawsuits against the social media company, saying it used a "buy or bury" strategy to snap up rivals and keep smaller competitors at bay.

YouTube Announces New Censorship Rules — Will Take Down Videos Alleging Fraud and Disputing 2020 U.S. Presidential Election Results.  YouTube announced Wednesday [12/9/2020] it will take down videos questioning the integrity of the U.S. presidential election that millions of Americans, most notably President Trump, believe was stolen through numerous fraudulent actions, lawfare chicanery and computer manipulation.  YouTube says it already has been rigging search results and algorithms to hide "misleading" election videos, describing the censorship effort as, "Limiting the reach of borderline content and prominently surfacing authoritative information."

Is the news broken?  [Transcript]  Twitter drew controversy shortly before the election when it censored The New York Post's article.  It was about controversies surrounding Joe Biden's son, Hunter, his foreign business deals, and contents alleged to be on his laptop computer.  At a Senate hearing, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said his company blocked the Post's tweets because of a policy against sharing material "hacked" from someone's computer, though there was no indication such material was in The Post article.  Jack Dorsey:  Upon further consideration, we admitted this action was wrong and corrected it within 24 hours.  Actually, it caused a two week long stalemate.  When Twitter finally unlocked the Post's account, the newspaper celebrated with a FREE BIRD front page.  From Twitter to Facebook and Google, Internet giants are under fire for their increasingly heavy-hand when flagging and blocking certain views, news and science.

How Google Falls.  America just lived through the first wave of what might be called a one-sided software war.  Software, as in Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other "Big Techs," worked together to impact an election cycle.  Nobody disputes that, not even the techs.  Actually, they are pretty proud of it.  Americans, particularly the ones daily censored on Twitter and Facebook, look at these monoliths and see eternal weaponry arrayed against them.  Their senators and reps will never break them up.  Most take money from Google, and the rest live in fear of crossing them.  One man's monolith is another man's dinosaur.  Don't fear these guys; they just got there first.  Looking at the technology behind all these firms, one finds they are using conventional software stacks, the kind pretty much everyone uses today.  They just have scale — they spent billions on hardware, software, programming.  An impossible hurdle to duplicate.  But it's not.  Not at all.

Dehumanizing Americans.  By now, most Americans are well aware of the efforts to block communication countering the alternate reality of the "Great Reset." Mainstream Media, Facebook, Twitter and other communication networks are working overtime to censor speech contrary to the approved narrative.  Even the president of our country is being censored.  He routinely has had corrections added to his Twitter feed; his speeches are not carried by MSM, and his attorneys' attempts to get the facts out about the stench of election fraud are sidelined or ignored.  As for Joe Average Citizen, social media giants such as Facebook pointedly block communication that is out of line with their "standards," while so-called "fact checkers," aka brainwashers, post relentless reminders about the newly favored "realities" of the Great Reset.

Facebook 'de-prioritizes' removing slurs against white people, men and Americans and will police them less aggressively than anti-black hate speech.  Facebook has de-prioritized removing hateful slurs against white people, men and Americans, instead focusing on blocking slurs against black people, gays, Jews and other groups.  The change on Thursday [12/3/2020] in Facebook's algorithm is a shift from the social network's 'race-blind' system that previously removed anti-white insults as well posts such as 'men are dumb' or 'Americans are stupid.'  The changes are to the social network's automated systems, meaning hateful posts about whites, men or Americans that are reported by users can still be deleted if they violate Facebook policies.

Etsy Bans MAGA Knitter for 'Harmful Misinformation'.  E-commerce platform Etsy says it is stamping out "harmful misinformation... from knitters making MAGA-themed beanies.  Conservative author and activist Michelle Malkin reported that Etsy user "Deplorable Knitter" had received a permanent ban from the platform for trying to sell beanie hats bearing the "Stop the Steal" slogan, a Republican rallying cry against voter fraud.

Twitter is in China's pocket.  [Scroll down]  This is the dilemma Jack Dorsey has created for himself in assigning his company to be the absolute arbiter of truth.  No one denies that the President traffics in half-truths or borderline conspiracies, as do many others who sign up to use Twitter's service.  But some state actors are using Twitter in a far nefarious manner than by simply retweeting favorable news clips.  In the past week, state-labeled accounts from the CCP of China have spread misinformation regarding the origins of COVID-19, pointing the finger at frozen food from Europe and Italy, in an attempt to shield themselves from culpability and obfuscate any investigation into their actions in Wuhan or their virology studies.  The posts from Chinese state-run media have gone unchallenged by Twitter, and Twitter's communications team, whose members apparently don't like using their own platform, remains silent.

Without Censorship, There Can Be No Control.  We can all attest to the fact that social media companies have been censoring conservative viewpoints for quite some time now, though when it started can be debated. [...] We know all too well that colleges across America have been blocking conservative speakers from appearing on campus for years, but social media has remained relatively free in the area of speech.  Until the age of Trump, that is.  From Youtube removing videos and users to Twitter blocking the president of the United States, social media censorship has gotten out of control.

Facebook is censoring information about the election.  Whether on Facebook, on Twitter, or in the Senate, these people think you're stupid, and they're no longer trying to hide it.  If we bow down to them, they will be proven correct.

The Big Tech Occupation.  Big Tech has infiltrated the American homeland and is imposing speech laws that resemble those of Europe, challenging the authority and longevity of the First Amendment.  Although we share common ideals with other Western nations, we pursue and defend those ideals very differently.  Nowhere is this more apparent than in our approach to speech.  It is important to understand how fundamentally different our country is from the rest of the world if we want to understand why Big Tech's speech codes shout not be inflicted on American citizens in American jurisdictions.  Put another way, if the would-be monarchs of Silicon Valley get their way, their speech codes will ultimately undermine our American values of free speech and the First Amendment itself.

Saying, 'Trust The Science' Showcases Democrat Ignorance.  [Scroll down]  Instead, as we've seen throughout history, anything that challenges the "accepted science" gets ridiculed and censored.  Dr. Scott Atlas, a professor of neuroradiology and senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, certainly someone who knows something about science, has consistently made the case against lockdowns due to their severe consequences.  For instance, the World Food Programme reports the economic consequences from shutdowns will push 135 million worldwide to the brink of starvation.  Yet Atlas is consistently censored on Twitter and ridiculed in the media.  Similarly, a Danish group completed the largest study of mask use ever, over 4000 people back in April, but only managed to find a publisher for this important work this November.  Why?  Perhaps because their study showed — what every peer-reviewed study has shown over the past 20 years — "no statistical significance" of mask effectiveness.  Not surprisingly, the "accepted science" community has been suspending accounts tweeting the link to the study.

Facebook fact-checker issues correction to censoring of Candace Owens post after she threatens legal action.  Political commentator Candace Owens took a victory lap after a third-party Facebook fact-checker retracted the censoring of her post after lawyers were allegedly involved.

Twitter Blocks 'Potentially Harmful' Links to Sidney Powell Election Lawsuit.  Twitter is blocking users from sharing links to lawyer Sidney Powell's lawsuit relating to widespread voter fraud in the 2020 Presidential election.  A number of users across Twitter have reported being unable to share links to lawyer Sidney Powell's lawsuit relating to voter fraud in the 2020 Presidential election.  When attempting to share the link to the document, users receive a notification stating that the link has been identified as "potentially harmful."

Voter Fraud — Second Of Three:  More Dead Voters In Pennsylvania.  If you have ever read the novel "1984" you know the most terrifying aspect of the book is its description of how the government has come to control the people via its absolute control over information. [...] The book was once very abstract science fiction.  No longer.  As I write it has been all of two days since the last time my Twitter account was shut down, because I dared to espouse an opinion with which the "fact checkers" disagreed.  We will see if I make it through the weekend without being silenced again.

Twitter [is] Now Stopping Users From "Liking" President Trump's Tweet — Forcing Users to Read False Election Information.  Twitter has stepped up [its] war against President Donald J Trump by forcing users to re-read falsified election info before allowing users to like the presidents tweets.  Now, when liking one of the tweets Twitter deems "inaccurate", you are met with a caution box saying "this claim about election fraud is disputed — Help keep Twitter a place for reliable info.  Find out more before liking." [...] If you click on the "Find our more" tab, you are sent to a page soon Twitter filled with biased, liberal news sources.

Twitter's New Censorship Czar Announces Her Agenda.  Twitter just got a new leader for their Ministry of Propaganda, and she recently gave the world a glimpse into her agenda.  Spoiler alert, it ain't good, folks.  Protocol, a tech news site, recently published a profile of Christine Su, the company's senior product manager for conversation safety at Twitter.  In the piece titled, "How a Young, Queer Asian-American Businesswoman is Rethinking User Safety at Twitter," Su discussed her plans for Twitter's policies regarding the policing of speech on the platform.  According to Protocol, Su, who was hired six months ago, is responsible for "keeping everyday users safe online and rethinking the fundamentals of the platform along the way."  To accomplish this, the Twitter employee indicated that the company's censorship policy will focus on "transformative and procedural justice.'

The Left's Adoption of Schrödinger's Cat.  In the modern-day Wild West that is the internet, actual fact-checkers would be not only beneficial, but welcomed.  Instead, what we've witnessed in recent years is that supposed fact-checkers actually check news stories for the sole purpose of ensuring they concur with their own individual worldview.  If not, they automatically label them as false or just suppress their distribution.  The most disturbing example has to be the decision made last month by Facebook's third-party fact-checkers to shut down the New York Post story detailing the damning content of Hunter Biden's emails.  Was the story false?  No, but the "fact-checkers" argued that it couldn't be verified.  In a subsequent hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, both Facebook and Twitter — who conducted similar censorship — admitted that they had zero evidence indicating that the story was false.  The fact that over a month later the Biden Campaign has still not contested the authenticity of the emails is a clear indicator that they are genuine, and the self-proclaimed fact-checkers are more accurately described as fact-suppressors.

Twitter is now warning you away from witness testimony at public hearings.  If these facts were asserted by Team Biden, every network would have covered this Pa hearing LIVE.

'Orwellian': Parler CEO Eviscerates Facebook's 'Secret Internal Algorithm'.  Parler CEO John Matze had some harsh criticism for Facebook after it was revealed that they employed a secret algorithm to boost left-leaning media outlets on its platform.  It seems like yet another issue that will motivate conservatives to migrate over to alternative social media organizations like Matze's company.  During an appearance on "Fox & Friends," Matze reacted to a reported published by The New York Times outlining Facebook's conduct in the aftermath of the presidential election.  The report alleged that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg decided to change the platform's algorithm after Nov 3 to push corporate media outlets like CNN to the forefront.  The change "resulted in a spike in visibility" for "big, mainstream publishers."

Sidney Powell's Site Gets Censored by Twitter After She Drops Big Election Lawsuits.  Sidney Powell filed lawsuits in both Michigan and Georgia on Wednesday night [11/25/2020] alleging multiple constitutional violations and seeking to have the elections decertified.  But people soon noticed something funny when they tried to share the link to her suits on her website on Twitter.  As the Epoch Times reported, such efforts were flagged with "Something went wrong, but don't fret — let's give it another shot" and another message warning of an unsafe link if you went to the site, "We can't complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.  Visit our Help Center to learn more."  It doesn't explain what is harmful or plain what the "partners" are.

Amazon versus Alex Berenson (& me).  Alex Berenson brings and independent mind and a formidable set of skills to his heterodox coverage of the COVID-19 epidemic.  He is a former New York Times investigative reporter and a writer of spy thrillers.  He has just released his third pamphlet in the series Unreported Truths About COVID-19 and Lockdowns.  When the first pamphlet in his series was published this past June Berenson had a close encounter with Amazon of the kind with which we have become all too familiar.  His pamphlet was rejected by Kindle Direct Publishing.  And then ensued the usual dance: [...] Berenson published the third pamphlet in his Unreported Truths series this week and went through the same routine with Amazon.  One had to follow the story via Berenson's Twitter feed.

Lots of Takeaways From November 2020.  [Scroll down]  The social media monopolies closed off communication of matters that advantaged Trump and disseminated matters that advantaged His Fraudulency [Biden].  The ban on news published by the New York Post about the Hunter Biden laptop was only the tip of an iceberg.  Millions of Americans were fed controlled news, as Stalin did in the Soviet Union with Izvestia and Pravda, and as Hitler and Goebbels did in Nazi Germany with Der Stürmer.  Twitter, Facebook, and Google are monopolies more dangerous than John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil ever was.  These people have an agenda, and they — not Putin — engineered massive election fraud.  Yes, they are smart.  Much smarter than the Republican senators who question them.  They engineered His Fraudulency's election, broke all kinds of rules, and then they "humbly" apologized ... after the fact, after the damage was done, after it could not be remedied.  That was the game:  manipulate voters and, afterwards, apologize.

Twitter to Warn Users When They 'Like' Controversial Tweets.  Don't touch that like button!  Twitter has unveiled a new policy to display warnings when users like a labelled tweet.  Twitter has outlined a wide range of updates to undermine conservative opposition amid the recent 2020 presidential election.  "Giving context on why a labeled Tweet is misleading under our election, COVID-19, and synthetic and manipulated media rules is vital," Twitter declared on Monday [11/23/2020] as it unveiled yet another policy change.  The official Twitter account explained that new "prompts" in recent months "helped decrease Quote Tweets of misleading information by 29%."  Now the platform is "expanding them to show when you tap to like a labeled Tweet."

When has this writer ever called any news organization "far-left?"
YouTube Suspends Far-Right News Network OANN Account for One Week, Citing COVID Misinformation.  YouTube has penalized the right-wing One America News Network for promoting a bogus cure for COVID-19.  On Tuesday [11/24/2020], YouTube said it removed a video posted by OANN, a relentlessly pro-Trump outfit owned by Herring Networks, because it violated the site's policy prohibiting coronavirus misinformation.  Because OANN has received a "strike," it is temporarily prevented from uploading new videos or live-streaming for one week.  YouTube also has demonetized OANN's channel, meaning it is no longer eligible to participate in the site's advertising revenue-sharing program.

Mainstream Media Thinks Parler Is a "Threat to Democracy" Because Libertarians and Conservatives Get to Post.  After years of being censored on Facebook and Twitter, conservatives, libertarians, and other fans of free speech are making a mass exodus to new platforms.  One that has really taken off since the election is Parler, which has been the most downloaded app in the country over the past two weeks.  Unsurprisingly, the mainstream media and left-wing extremists are outraged.  How dare the people who have been censored, deplatformed, and shut down on their social media sites move to a site that promises not to treat them like pariahs?  They go as far as to say it's a "threat to democracy" because libertarians and conservatives get to post.  I mean, seriously, we can't be letting conservatives and libertarians post their opinions all willy-nilly, right?  What will happen without the "fact-checkers?"

The Censorious Left Is Obliterating Free Speech.  A lot of things worry me about a Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration, but nothing troubles me more than that it will accommodate the left's disturbing march toward selective suppression of free speech.  Much of the war against this sacred liberty occurs at the level of our culture, but when a leftist-friendly administration is in power, our efforts to combat this culturally will be more difficult.  As a result of structural and technological changes in our society, threats to free speech no longer come from the government alone, and so, our constitutional guarantees against encroachments are now inadequate.  There has been such a consolidation of power in the media and social media that these two institutions pose a great danger to our speech apart from any state action.

Big Tech's free speech suppression is dangerous information warfare.  It may just have been the fact that they were beamed in virtually to the hearing room, but our billionaire Big Tech overlords looked more cyborg than human when they testified before a Senate committee Tuesday [11/17/2020].  Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, 43, in funereal black, with a castaway beard and nose ring, stood stiffly in front of an austere shelf of white bowls and empty bottles and talked about "humans" versus "algorithms."  Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg, 36, was freckly and clean-shaven, but came across as equally robotic.  He wore a white shirt, blue jacket and striped tie against a bland backdrop of silk drapes and a potted plant.  Both spoke in a slow monotone.

Hawaii's gift to the rest of us:
Democrat Senator Hirono:  Conservative Bias On Social Media Is 'Completely Baseless'.  Hawaii's Mazie Hirono is either very good at playing dumb, or just plain ignorant.  Probably both, though.  She's not a Senator, so much as a left-wing entertainer — just like 99% of her colleagues.  [Video clip]

Sen Josh Hawley Blows The Lid Off Of Facebook's Censorship Collusion With Other Platforms.  Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., on Tuesday pressed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on a newly revealed whistleblower complaint alleging that Facebook employees coordinate with Twitter and Google employees to make certain content moderation decisions.  Hawley said a former Facebook employee "with direct knowledge of the company's content moderation practices" contacted his office about an "internal platform called Tasks that Facebook uses to coordinate projects, including censorship."  [Video clip]

Big Tech Corporate Leftists at WordPress Suppress Critical Public Watchdog.  The maverick website Conservative Treehouse (CTH) recently announced that WordPress would no longer host them due to alleged violations of its terms of service.  When CTH asked WordPress to identify the alleged violations, it cited its policy against "prohibited content" and "calls to violence."  WordPress didn't bother to identify any specific offending content or explain how the site's content violated the terms.  But fans know the truth.  WordPress is part of a coordinated corporate crackdown to silence conservative voices.  CTH played an indispensable role in the pushback against the Russia collusion hoax.  The site is known for its long analytic pieces that spotted overlooked details in court documents and publicly-available transcripts.  It had a knack for finding context to seemingly irrelevant developments.  Perhaps no other source demonstrated as much skill in deciphering redactions to uncover the identity of bad actors within the government.  CTH frequently embarrassed the Department of Justice and the FBI for their blatant hypocrisy and protection of insiders.

Why I Left Facebook — And Why You Should Too.  [Scroll down]  I've been on Facebook for more than a decade.  I credit it with renewing old friendships I thought were lost to diverging lives, and for making many new friends.  But this combination — selling me to the highest bidder and treating me like a rat in a maze — is simply too much.  I will miss Facebook and the ready possibility of conversations with friends and family, but I'm gone.

Why Not Trust Rudy Giuliani?  [Scroll down]  Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, the three juggernauts of mass communication, have gotten in bed with big media, and now all the news that's fit to print is all the truth that's fit to say.  People are being banned for trying to sift new information and share it.  I've personally seen accounts blocked not when a man threatens violence on Antifa, but when he posts pictures of Antifa using violence against him.  (One man among many, a public celebrity known as Philip Anderson to his friends and KingFreeSpeech to his fans, had his teeth knocked out and was called a n----- by white radicals.  He posted a picture with his face bloodied and teeth hanging and was almost immediately banned from Instagram.  I repeat, one man among many.  I, Hypocrite, a Facebook page that simply posts pictures of leftists being leftists, has been deleted several times and is constantly on the ropes.  Garbage Human, which does exactly the same thing, is gone.)

Six Takeaways as Facebook, Twitter CEOs Testify at Senate Hearing.  [#1] 'Tasks' and Coordination:  Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., one of the staunchest critics of the social media companies, said that a Facebook whistleblower had contacted his office about an internal platform called Tasks.  Hawley said the whistleblower, a former Facebook employee with direct knowledge of the company's content moderation policies, explained that Facebook's censorship teams used Tasks.  As an exhibit, Hawley showed a Tasks screenshot that seemed to show communication among Facebook employees and those of other tech giants.  "So, as I understand it, Facebook censorship teams communicate with their counterparts at Twitter and Google and then enter those companies' suggestions for censorship onto the Tasks platform so that Facebook can then follow up with them and effectively coordinate their censorship efforts," Hawley said.  "Let me ask you directly under oath, now:  Does Facebook coordinate its content moderation policies or efforts in any way with Google or Twitter?"  Zuckerberg didn't give a clear answer.

Welcome to Social Government.  [Scroll down]  Well what if I told you a Policy Director at Facebook was Nancy Pelosi's Chief of Staff before taking said job directing policy at Facebook?  What if I told you the head of algorithm policy at Facebook worked for Hillary at The State Department?  Or that the Head of Content Policy worked for the Hillary presidential campaign?  What if I told you the person in charge of privacy policy at Facebook used to work for Al Franken, before he worked for Senator Bonoff, before he worked for Congressman Oberstar?  Or that the Director in charge of "countering hate and extremism" at Facebook came from the Clinton Foundation?  Did you know that the person at Facebook who currently "oversees programs on countering hate speech and promoting pluralism", and "develops internal third party education and drives thought leadership on hate speech and content moderation" was one of Obama's policy advisers at The White House?  Do you even know what "pluralism" is?

A Twitter Tale of Two Timestamps.  As I noted yesterday [T]witter has once again upheld my appeal of their 3rd lockdown of me over the Benford's law post that they've been auto locking people over for a week but I noticed something interesting about my latest appeal and reversal. [...] This process involves a series of falsehoods & dishonorable actions by the crew at [T]witter.
  [#1]   Falsely flagging said link as some type of intimate image without consent
  [#2]   Falsely (and automatically) accusing users in writing of spreading intimate images without consent.
  [#3]   Falsely flagging people who delete said tweets as having broken said rules
  [#4]   Falsely claiming to review appeals
  [#5]   Falsely claiming (in writing) that they have reviewed said appeal and that all of this has been an "error".
  [#6]   And Falsely apologizing for said "error" with the full intention of repeating it if you dare send out that tweet again.
Now if I expected better from these folks I might be disappointed, after all there is a reason why so many have left this platform or have gone elsewhere, and some have asked why I don't to the same.

Sen. Blumenthal Urges Mark Zuckerberg to Remove Breitbart, Gateway Pundit, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Steve Bannon from Facebook.  You are witnessing your future under Democrat-Marxist control.  On Tuesday Senator Dick Blumenthal questioned Mark Zuckerberg on why Breitbart, The Gateway Pundit and Steve Bannon still have accounts on his platform. [...] Obviously, Blumenthal and today's Democrats show NO REGARD for the US Constitution.  Conservative publishers have been censored and put out of business by Facebook since the 2016 election.

Josh Hawley Confronts Mark Zuckerberg with Evidence of Internal Facebook Censorship Tool.  At the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on Big Tech censorship today, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) confronted Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg with evidence of an internal tool used by the social network to coordinate censorship with Google and Twitter.  The tool, called Tasks, is used improve the workflow of Facebook employees, but is also used by Facebook employees to collaborate with Google and Twitter in censoring users across platforms, according to Sen. Hawley.

Twitter CEO Dorsey Says It Was 'Wrong' to Block New York Post Hunter Biden Story.  Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Tuesday [11/17/2020] acknowledged that the platform was "wrong" to block a New York Post report about Hunter Biden last month.  During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing regarding "censorship, suppression and the 2020 elections," Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg were asked about their companies' decision to suppress a New York Post story about a laptop and emails reportedly belonging to Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden.  Twitter had blocked the sharing of the article both publicly and in private direct messages, while Facebook limited distribution of the article but did not completely block it.

Prepare for the Great Decoupling — Deplatforming moves downstream to WordPress.com and Mailchimp.  In the past day there have been two very disturbing developments in internet deplatforming.  We are all familiar with deplatforming from major social media services such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as those platforms outright silencing important news that harms Democrats, like the Biden family influence peddling scandal.  Twitter regularly now places notices or restrictions even on Trump's tweet on the allegation that his opinions on the election are disputed.  In the four years Trump as been the subject of dishonest and malicious conspiracy claims, particularly Russia collusion, I can't remember Twitter ever placing such restrictions on the tweets from Adam Schiff, other Democrat politicians, or mainstream media outlets peddling that disinformation.

Twitter flags Nikki Haley for saying obviously true things.  As with so many stories in politics these days, this one started with a tweet.  In this case, it was from former governor and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.  Given all of the election fraud stories we've been covering for this entire cycle, her comments seemed innocuous enough.  [Tweet]  Surprise, surprise.  Twitter almost immediately slapped a "disputed" warning label on the tweet.  But rather than meekly accepting this next round of censorship, Haley pushed back.  She asked why she was singled out for this sort of attention when Ayatollah Khamenei is allowed to tweet out Holocaust denial material.  It may come as a surprise to no one that Twitter apparently doesn't have a policy about denying the Holocaust.  But you're not allowed to tweet about things that actually did happen right here in the United States.

Twitter Puts Warning Label on Nikki Haley's Tweet But Lets Ayatollah Slide.  Twitter slapped a warning label on a tweet from former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley arguing that "election fraud does happen," but the social media platform has looked the other way at tweets from Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei denying the Holocaust.  The social media platform placed a "disputed" label on Haley's statement that "Despite what the media tells us, election fraud does happen, and policies like ballot harvesting and mailing ballots to people who don't request them makes it easier."  The label links to a series of fact checks that do not address Haley's claim about ballot harvesting.

The Conservative Treehouse is being de-platformed.  An invaluable source of facts, documents, and analysis of the deep state and ruling class is being driven off its web platform.  Techno-fascism looms.

The Treehouse is Deplatformed.  Most CTH readers are likely aware of the term "deplatforming."  Unfortunately, the big tech control mechanism to shut down speech & assembly has now arrived on our doorstep. [...] What does this mean?  It means CTH is being kicked-off the WordPress website hosting platform because the content of our research and discussion does not align with the ideology of those who define what is acceptable speech and what is not.  What was our violation?  After ten years of brutally honest discussion, opinion, deep research and crowdsourcing work — with undeniable citations on the events we outline — there is no cited violation of any term of service because CTH has never violated one.  The WordPress company is not explaining the reason for deplatforming because there is no justifiable reason for it.  At the same time, they are bold in their position.  Perhaps this is the most alarming part; and everyone should pay attention.  They don't care.

Free Speech Platform Gab Enjoys Explosive Growth Due to Big Tech Censorship.  Free speech platform Gab has enjoyed a major boost in traffic this year, particularly surrounding the presidential election, and is set to reach over 55 million page views this month.  Gab has doubled the number of people visiting the site every week, now visited by 8 million people from around the world.  Breitbart News recently spoke with Andrew Torba, the CEO and founder of the free speech platform Gab.  Torba told Breitbart News that the site has enjoyed major growth this year, particularly surrounding the 2020 election.

Hillary's Claim That Russia Interfered In Election [was] Allowed, But Social Media Shuts Down Trump's Voter Fraud Claim.  Since Election Day 2020, President Donald Trump has claimed, without evidence, that there were some shenanigans in the presidential election — voter fraud, dead people voting, and the like.  Social media was having none on it.  In a 24-hour period between mid-morning Thursday [11/5/2020] and Friday, Twitter censored six of Trump's posts.  The posts weren't immediately visible.  Instead, there was this note attached by Twitter:  "Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process." Site visitors could still click "view" on the right side to see the post.  In one post, Trump said:  "All of the recent Biden claimed States will be legally challenged by us for Voter Fraud and State Election Fraud.  Plenty of proof — just check out the Media.  WE WILL WIN! America First!"

Why Twitter Won't Let People Share Sworn Court Documents Alleging Voter Fraud.  If you thought Twitter's censorship of reported Joe Biden family corruption or frequent flagging of the U.S. president's tweets were isolated incidents, think again.  Big Tech's efforts to shield favored political figures and positions from scrutiny have only increased.  You and I can find ourselves branded with censorious labels even for sharing court documents containing sworn testimony, should the offending share touch any of a growing number of third rails.  Today, the integrity of the 2020 presidential election is the greatest third rail of them all.  I found that out this week when I tweeted screenshots of the summary of a sworn affidavit, and a link to that affidavit, delivered by Detroit poll challenger Zachary Larsen.  In the affidavit, Larsen, a former Michigan assistant attorney general, claims to have witnessed several disturbing instances of fraud during the vote-counting he watched on and after Nov. 3, 2020.

GoFundMe Derails Fundraiser For 'Whistleblower' Mail Carrier From Pennsylvania.  A GoFundMe account for "whistleblower" mail carrier Richard Hopkins from Erie, Pennsylvania, had his account put on "hold," unable to withdraw funds, journalist James O'Keefe reported Sunday [11/8/2020].  Hopkins claims he was instructed to collect late ballots, with the apparent intent from Postmaster Rob Weisenbach to backdate the votes.  The mail carrier made the explosive claims in a signed affidavit under the penalty of perjury.  [Quoting a tweet:]  "BREAKING: [GoFundMe] has flagged [USPS] Whistleblower Richard Hopkins campaign after raising nearly $120,000 in 24 hours," O'Keefe said.  "Your fundraiser is currently under review and withdrawal are on hold," read a notice from the company, according to a screenshot posted by O'Keefe.

Benford's Law Shows Biden Vote Fraud.  I was just going to include this in Monday's state-of-play voting fraud roundup, but since I found out that Facebook is blocking access to one of the source articles, literally preventing you from posting a link to it (I tested), saying that it "this link goes against our community standards."  So I decided to do this post to let you have something you can share on Facebook.  The first link I saw on the topic was this GitHub piece forwarded to me by reader Brandon Byers, who noted "the Wikipedia entry for Benford's Law was edited 11/5 in order to downplay its usefulness in detecting election fraud."  It appears that a lengthy edit war is still going on there.

Saturday's Media Declaration Is A Naked Attempt To Silence Republicans, And Nothing Has Changed.  Nothing has changed since Friday night.  You might find that strange, given the media stampede to certify the election results for their man, but it's crucial.  The calls made Saturday morning are as arbitrary as they were last Tuesday, could just as easily have waited for Monday, and fly in the face of massive evidence of voter irregularities that, at minimum, should be heard in court before anyone considers calling the election.  Add pending lawsuits and official recounts in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan and Wisconsin, and the conclusion is an attempt by the American media to pick our president and decide our election.  The danger comes now, when in concert with Silicon Valley censors they use their own decree to dismiss and silence anyone who says otherwise.

When Establishment Republicans Tell You This Election Was on the Level, Do You Believe Them?  If Democrats looking into alleged Democrat ballot fraud find no Democrat crimes; and Democrat news anchors hold off on calling states for Trump until they've flipped days later for Biden; and Democrat social media companies censor online discussions questioning how it's possible for the president to expand his vote shares in states like Florida and Ohio and in Democrat precincts across the country while simultaneously losing in Rust Belt states run by Democrats after late-breaking vote bursts for Biden magically appear, then Republicans surely have nothing to worry about.

Twitter Labels/Hides 7 of Trump's Most Recent 16 Tweets.  As of early Friday morning, President Trump had issued 16 tweets in 24 hours, and seven of them were labeled as "misleading" and hidden by Twitter.  Around 2 a.m., Trump reacted to the censorship, writing:  "Twitter is out of control, made possible through the government gift of Section 230!"  Several of the suppressed tweets were video clips of President Trump's news conference on Thursday evening, where he discussed the problems he sees with the ballot counting and alleged fraud.

Trump will lose a certain Twitter privilege if Biden wins the 2020 election.  If President Trump loses the election, he will also have to say goodbye to a Twitter privilege that lets world leaders keep up tweets with certain offensive or misleading content, according to a report.  Trump, as president, has benefited from the Twitter policy that flags content that violates the platform's rules — but does not outright force their deletion, as is the case with ordinary users, Bloomberg reported.  But if Biden wins the election, come January, Trump will fall into the former world leader category, losing the special treatment, the report said.  Since election night, eight of Trump's tweets have been flagged by the social media giant.

Assuming he loses the election...
Twitter Confirms Trump's Account Will No Longer Receive 'Special Protections' Starting January 20th, Will Be Censored for Violations.  Twitter has confirmed that President Donald Trump will no longer receive "special protections" beginning on January 20th at 12:01 p.m. if he does not win the election.  The platform has already been censoring the president and his supporters for years, but is now promising even more censorship if he does not fall in line.

Twitter is wildly censoring President Trump.  During these insecure days, Trump has been trying to have a tweetstorm to keep his base informed and engaged.  The hard-left activists at Twitter, though, are doing everything they can to stop him.  Trump tweeted out a short clip of a speech he gave on Thursday, in which he said that Detroit and Philadelphia are famous for corruption and should not be allowed to affect the outcome of this election.  He also added that the Republicans won a case against Philadelphia regarding election observers, only to have the election officials ignore the court order.  The fact that they're refusing to allow observers, he said, indicates that they're trying to commit fraud.  To get to that video, though, one has to click past a warning saying that "Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civil process."

The election coup plot, explained.  I fully expect that Twitter and Facebook will suppress circulation of this blog post, but so what?  The half of the country that never strays beyond the mainstream media narrative would find it unbelievable, a fantasy of conspiracy theorizing.  After four years of their media telling them that Russia hacked the 2016 election, and Hillary claiming she was cheated, the new media-approved narrative is that any questioning of electoral fraud is an attack on democracy.  Such people are a lost cause, unless (or until) crimes are proven in court and election cheaters are sentenced to prison.  But for the rest of us who have eyes and brains, there is no stopping suspicion and activism in the "nasty street fight ahead."

Twitter slaps warning label on Team Trump S.C. victory tweet.  Twitter censored the Trump campaign Tuesday night, slapping a warning label on a tweet claiming victory in South Carolina.  The Team Trump account posted that "President @realDonaldTrump wins #SouthCarolina!" shortly after 8 p.m., an hour after polls closed.  Mr. Trump did win the state — unsurprisingly since no Democratic presidential candidate has won South Carolina in nearly a half-century.  The 2020 Biden-Harris ticket made little effort to win the state and no handicapper saw a Democratic victory there.

It truly appears that the fix is in.  What we're seeing happening in Michigan and Wisconsin is nothing short of election theft.  That is unambiguous to anyone who is paying attention.  But they're having trouble revealing it to other Americans because, on cue, it's being censored across the board.  The President's Tweets are being hit.  Prominent conservatives' Facebook and Twitter posts are being suppressed.  For those who are just coming in on the topic I'm conspicuously dancing around, it appears that the election really is being stolen right before our eyes.  Michigan and Wisconsin are seeing voting totals materialize overnight that make it clear the fix is in.  And they're not even trying to hide it.  In Michigan, an overnight vote update added 138,339 votes to Vice President Joe Biden's totals.  That same [update yielded] ZERO votes for President Trump.

Twitter Blocks Presidential Communications On Election Night.  Tonight as America elects its next president, social media company Twitter has blocked the communications of the President of the United States to the American people.  After Joe Biden declared he is winning, Trump tweeted that Biden is trying to steal the election.  Twitter immediately blocked the tweet.

These "errors" only go in one direction.
'Enforcement Error': Facebook Reinstates 'New Jersey Women For Trump' Page After Trump Complains.  Facebook reinstated a pro-Trump Facebook page with more than 29,000 members after President Donald Trump slammed them for taking it down days before the presidential election.  "Put them back NOW!" Trump tweeted at Facebook on Sunday morning [11/1/2020], along with a story from NJ.com explaining what happened.  [Tweet]  Shortly after Trump complained, Facebook reinstated the page, claiming they made an "enforcement error," according to the president, who thanked them.

Trump reacts swiftly after Facebook removes 'Women for Trump' group: 'Put them back Now!'  Facebook's seemingly blatant censorship of conservative voices appears to be reaching a fevered pitch the closer Election Day looms.  The latest example of the media network's censorship came to the public's attention very early Sunday morning thanks to the keen eyes of President Donald Trump.  At 12:47 am Sunday morning [11/1/2020], he retweeted a report from NJ.com detailing how a Facebook group with nearly 30,000 pro-Trump women was outright deleted Saturday afternoon without any explanation.

Facebook censorship board is comprised mostly of foreign nationals with ties to George Soros.  The recently appointed Facebook oversight board tasked with deciding which posts get blocked from the world's most popular social networking website is stacked with leftists and foreign nationals who will be functionally regulating the speech rights of American citizens in the United States.  The Board includes a close friends of leftwing billionaire George Soros who generously funds the Open Society Foundations (OSF), a network of left-leaning groups across the world that ostensibly function as non-profit organizations.  Soros dedicates huge sums to spread an agenda ideologically driven by the objective of global market integration, which threatens the sovereignty of nations.  More than half of the members of the censorship board have ties to Soros.  Soros is known for targeting conservative politicians.

Live Not By Lies.  On October 16, 2020, in a Parisian suburb, a Muslim refugee decapitated 47-year-old schoolteacher Samuel Paty.  Previously, during a lesson devoted to freedom of expression, Paty had shown a Charlie Hebdo cartoon depicting Islam's founder, Mohammed, to his students.  On October 17, at nine a.m., I posted Paty's photo on Facebook with a salute to his courage.  Within minutes, I received notification from Facebook that my salute to Samuel Paty "goes against our Community Standards on hate speech."  Note the capitalization of "Community Standards." [...] What exactly is happening here?  In saluting Paty and naming his killer's ideology, I violated a new religion.  In demonizing Christianity, others also followed the dogma of the new religion.  What to call this new religion?  In the past, we used terms like "Political Correctness," "cultural Marxism," "social justice warrior," "woke," "liberal," "progressive," and "leftist." I use the term "Team Anti-Western-Civilization," but this is clearly too awkward.  We need a handy new term for a new, powerful religion that is now affecting all of us.

Twitter backs down and unlocks New York Post account after two-week standoff over Hunter Biden posts.  The New York Post is now free to roam about the Twitterverse after a two-week clash with the social media giant over posting links to its reporting about Hunter Biden.  In a series of tweets Friday evening, Twitter Safety announced that it was updating its policy regarding how to handle content that was blocked for a policy that has since been changed — and that as a result, the New York Post's account would no longer be restricted.

Twitter backs down, unlocks Post's account.  Twitter backed down Friday [10/30/2020] in its battle with The [New York] Post and unlocked its main account after a two-week stalemate over the Hunter Biden exposé.  The move came after The Post refused Twitter's demand that it delete six tweets that linked to stories that the company claimed — without any evidence — were based on hacked information.  The Post never budged, and kept the tweets on the account during the standoff — even as Twitter obscured them from view.  In a series of tweets, the social-media giant said it was revising its "Hacked Materials Policy" and "updating our practice of not retroactively overturning prior enforcement."

Verifiability, Not Truth:  How Wikipedia Buries Stories Like the Biden Corruption Scandal.  The foundation that owns Wikipedia and its co-founder Jimmy Wales bill the online encyclopedia as the solution to Silicon Valley's alleged problems with "fake news" due to the site's sourcing standards and neutrality policy.  Corporate media have echoed their narrative in touting the online encyclopedia.  Yet thanks to skewed policies, the site is itself a huge source of partisan opinion and fake news masquerading as fact, leading to incidents such as editors censoring recent revelations regarding the alleged corruption of the Biden family.  There is a long-running understanding that Wikipedia is about "verifiability, not truth," meaning that even when corporate media and academic sources are provably wrong, the falsehood will stand on the online encyclopedia.

Twitter Throws Up A Wall On Border Issues.  In 2016, building a border wall and reducing illegal immigration were pivotal issues in the presidential election.  Human trafficking, drug smuggling, and gang members crossing over onto U.S. soil were such a strong concern that Donald Trump's promises to put a lid on the problem helped him gain the White House throne.  Four years later, those worries have slipped a few notches as Americans struggle with a worldwide pandemic, lockdowns, and the loss of jobs, income, and businesses — not to mention their liberty and freedom.  Even so, immigration must still be a worthy opponent to the left if Twitter finds it necessary to block border wall construction updates.

Mark Zuckerberg was 'not aware' that Facebook's head election integrity official used to work for Biden.  During a period of intense questioning with senators on Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that he was not aware that a person who identifies herself as the person who "leads efforts to ensure election integrity on [Facebook]" was formerly a policy adviser to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.  The exchange, which was held via video conference, came in response to a question from Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who was quizzing Zuckerberg about the prevalence of prominent former Democratic staffers in key positions at Facebook.  According to Fox News, Thune asked, "My understanding is that the person that is in charge of election integrity and security at Facebook is a former Joe Biden staffer, is there someone closely associated with President Trump in the same role at Facebook?"  Thune's question appears to have been referring to Atlantic Council Senior Fellow Anna Makanju, whose work for Biden is prominently stated on her Atlantic Council biography.

Twitter censors DHS border wall tweet as 'hateful'.  Twitter deleted a tweet and shut down the account of the country's border chief late Wednesday [10/28/2020] after he posted a message celebrating construction of nearly 400 miles of wall.  "This should outrage every American citizen," said acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan, who was with other Homeland Security officials at the border Thursday to celebrate wall construction.  The tweet, which was still blocked as of Thursday morning, said walls "stop gang members, murderers, sexual predators and drugs," and said "It's a fact, walls work."

Vimeo Removes Video Showing Ties Between Pro-China Group, Black Lives Matter Founder.  A popular video platform has removed a video critical of apparent connections between the Chinese Communist Party and a founder of the Black Lives Matter organization.  New Zealand investigative journalist and author Trevor Loudon said the video was posted on Vimeo for only "a few hours" and had about 1,600 viewers before Vimeo took it down.  "It really touched a nerve for Vimeo to take it down after just a few hours," Loudon told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.  The move by the New York-based video hosting and sharing platform follows a pattern of major tech companies such as Twitter and Facebook restricting or censoring conservative content.

Yes, [the] Media Are Rigging [the] Election Against Half The Country.  Here's How.  [Scroll down]  Twitter and Facebook have been openly meddling in the 2020 election by censoring political opponents, suppressing their supporters, limiting the distribution of articles and arguments in their favor, and other draconian efforts.  The media have more or less cheered them on.  NeverTrumpers, and their more traditional Democratic media colleagues, seem to think that so long as they are protected by social media companies — and there is no reason to think they won't be — that censorship of non-leftist media is not anything they will fight.  Some openly support bans on anyone they politically disagree with.  Failure to defend journalists who are actually under attack — as opposed to those who are merely criticized — is a hallmark of many in the media.

Crenshaw Rips Twitter's Dorsey: 'Partisan And A Hypocrite'.  On Wednesday, after Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Google's CEO Sundar Pichai, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress while Democrats remained crushingly silent about Big Tech's alleged attempts to suppress conservative points of view, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) ripped Dorsey, calling him a "partisan and a hypocrite," and slammed Democrats:  "There are no liberals left in the Democrat Party.  Not a single Democrat Senator defended free speech or freedom of the press today."

Dorsey Just Lied To Congress And Claimed Twitter Never Censored President Donald Trump.  Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey lied to Congress on Tuesday [10/27/2020] during a Senate hearing focused on Big Tech's content moderation policies when he claimed that his social media company has never censored President Donald Trump.  "Just to be clear, we have not censored the president," Dorsey said in response to Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.  "We have not taken the tweets down that you're referencing.  We have added context with a label and we do the same for leaders around the world."

Ted Cruz rips Jack Dorsey over censorship of Post's Hunter Biden bombshell.  Sen. Ted Cruz teed off on Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey over the social-media giant's censorship of The [New York] Post's reporting on Hunter Biden, in a stunning rebuke during Wednesday's [10/28/2020] Big Tech hearings on Capitol Hill.  "Mr. Dorsey, who [...] elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?" Cruz thundered at the social-media mogul.  "Why do you persist in behaving as a Democratic super PAC, silencing views to the contrary of your political beliefs?"  Dorsey, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google parent company Alphabet, testified via live feed before the Senate Commerce Committee on topics including election security and preventing the spread of misinformation regarding the coronavirus.

Big Tech On Trial.  CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google testified today before the Senate Commerce Committee on Big Tech censorship, and its naked support of the Democratic Party.  The hearing lasted for nearly four hours.  This exchange between Ted Cruz and the apparently homeless Jack Dorsey has been the most discussed moment in the hearing:  [Video clip]  [...] Basically, the Silicon Valley giants are sitting tight and counting on Joe Biden to win the election.  If that happens, there will be no accounting.  But if Trump wins, they could face serious trouble.

Facebook Just Lied to Congress About Its Censorship of Conservatives.  [Thread reader]  Mark Zuckerberg just told [Senator] Markey that FB doesn't make "exceptions".  I have direct evidence that they do make exceptions.  See thread with many examples and screenshots from when I filmed with a hidden camera at FB.  [Numerous photos]

Twitter is running a blackmail operation — cooperate or no traffic for you.  For all their talk of "neutral platforms," the Big Shots at Big Tech — Twitter, Facebook and Google — are running a protection racket.  They figure they can dictate what Americans get to see and read, and what other media companies must do to reach the public via those platforms.  It's a clear threat to a healthy democracy — and Congress has noticed.  On Wednesday, the Senate launched a hearing to investigate "Big Tech's bad behavior."  Center-stage:  Twitter's strong-arm tactics to censor The Post ever since we began reporting on Hunter Biden's e-mails.  First, it froze our account and banned our stories; then, amid a public backlash, it agreed to unfreeze us — but only if we deleted our original tweets.  Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sounded like every mob enforcer and shakedown artist in history:  Nice paper you got there, New York Post.  Shame, should something happen to it.  He knows full well media outlets depend on social media, and Google search algorithms, to help readers access our reporting.

How America Becomes Totalitarian.  Although President Trump has been critical of the press, he has not taken any action against journalists or censored them in any way.  The same cannot be said for American companies like Twitter, who claim that it is their mission to prevent the spread of misinformation yet allow China to use the platform to help shield itself from criticism with bald-faced lies.  When it comes to promoting misinformation that originates in China, like Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian's claim that the United States military brought COVID-19 to China, Twitter does not seem to have a problem with it, leaving Lijian's Twitter account intact, while blocking the account of President Trump's press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany.  It is clear that Twitter subscribes to the Orwellian idea that all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Twitter, Facebook Confess There Is No Evidence Of Russian Disinformation Behind Hunter Biden Story.  In Wednesday's [10/28/2020] Senate hearing on Big Tech and Section 230, both Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that neither had any evidence that the New York Post's reporting on Joe Biden's knowledge of his son Hunter Biden's foreign business deals is Russian disinformation.  "For both Mr. Zuckerberg and Dorsey who censored the New York Post stories or throttle them back, do you have any evidence that the New York Post story is part of Russian disinformation or that those emails are not authentic?" Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin asked.  "Do you have any information whatsoever they are not authentic or they are Russian disinformation?  Dorsey and Zuckerberg both denied receiving any indication that the story was part of a Russian misinformation campaign.

Censorship In America; Amazon Refuses Controversial Documentary On Their Platform.  I wrote back on September 25th about the upcoming release of noted author and documentary filmmaker Dr. Shelby's Steele's latest film called "What Killed Michael Brown?" [...] One prescient reader foretold accurately the censorship this film would soon encounter:  "It sounds like and seems to me that the 'blowback' from 'conservatives' is not from conservatives at all but from someone who KNOWS who Shelby Steele is and what he stands for and want to shut him up."  Well that "someone" turned out to be Amazon.com.  Two weeks before the October 16th release of the film, Amazon (whose owner is Washington Post owner Jeffrey Bezos) sent a notice to Eli Steele, Dr. Steele's son, informing them their documentary would not immediately be available on Amazon's video platform.

Zuckerberg:  We Censored the Hunter Biden Story Because an Unnamed Individual at the FBI Told Us to be On the Lookout for Russian Disinformation.  Two possibilities:  [#1] The FBI gave him a general, nonspecific warning about Russian disinformation, and Zuckerberg is just using this as an excuse for his own company's partisan censorship.  [#2] More chillingly — the FBI, which was sitting on the laptop for a year and thereby keeping the story bottled-up, took the extra step of poisoning the well and claiming that the story was Russian disinformation to Zuckerberg, to make sure it got censored if it did come out.  If Zuckerberg's telling the truth, it's #2.

Cruz Blasts Twitter: 'Mr. Dorsey, Who [...] Elected You?'.  Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) grilled Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on the platform's decision to block the New York Post's stories on Hunter Biden, as well as the decision to suspend the Post's account.  Dorsey tried to explain during the hearing that the company had been in error on its quick "enforcement" that blocked the two URLs from being shared over direct messaging or via tweet.  However, he insisted that in order to unlock the Post's account, they would have to delete their original tweets that violated policy.  This was part of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing on Oct. 28.  "You can censor The New York Post, you can censor Politico, you can presumably censor The New York Times or any other media outlet, Mr. Dorsey, who [...] elected you?" fired Cruz.  He continued, asking why Twitter was "in charge of what the media are allowed to report, what the American people are allowed to hear, and why do you persist on behaving as a Democratic SuperPac silencing views to the contrary?"  The New York Post has been locked out of its account since Oct. 14.

Marsha Blackburn Calls Out Google CEO Sundar Pichai over Suppression of Breitbart News.  Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) criticized Google's Sundar Pichai for suppressing the visibility of Breitbart News in Google search results during a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee today.  Pichai was present along with the CEOs of Twitter and Facebook.  "Google searches for 'Joe Biden' generated approximately 30,000 impressions for Breitbart links.  This was on May 1.  And after May 5th, both the impressions and the clicks went to zero," Senator Blackburn noted.

Ted Cruz Slams Twitter CEO for Censoring NY Post Biden Story: 'Behaving as a Democratic Super PAC'.  Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) slammed Twitter and its CEO Jack Dorsey during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, comparing the company to a "Democratic super PAC."  The Committee last week voted to subpoena Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, after both platforms reduced circulation or entirely blocked a New York Post story featuring materials purportedly from Hunter Biden's laptop.  The social media companies' actions have led conservatives to accuse them of censorship.  "Mr. Dorsey, who [...] elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear, and why do you persist in behaving as a Democratic super PAC, silencing views to the contrary of your political beliefs?" Cruz said during the hearing.

Facebook, Twitter, Google CEOs testify in Section 230 Senate hearing.  The CEOs of three of the nation's top tech firms — Google, Twitter and Facebook — are being grilled by a Senate panel on Wednesday after coming under fire over censorship concerns, specifically for blocking The Post's reporting on Hunter Biden's business dealings in Ukraine and China.  Sen. Roger Wicker, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, questioned Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey why the social media platform flagged a post from President Trump about mail-in ballots, but allowed tweets that "glorify violence" against Israel by Iranian Ayatollah ali Khamenei to remain on the site untouched.  "Mr Dorsey, is that acceptable, based on your policies?" Wicker asked.  "We believe it's important for everyone to hear from global leaders," Dorsey said.

Tech Tyrants Who Have Eliminated a Majority of Conservative Content on their Platforms Insist Stripping Them of 230 Protections Would Harm Free Speech.  This is rich.  Tech tyrants Jack Dorsey from Twitter and Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook are arguing that stripping them of 230 protections will harm free speech online.  Since late 2016, after the election of Donald Trump as President, the tech tyrants have been censoring and banning non-approved conservative content on their platforms.  The partners in crime at Google have blacklisted conservative websites in their algorithms and search results.  The same is not happening on the left or with the fake news mainstream media.

Facebook is still slow-walking information about Hunter Biden.  Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook team are smarter than Jack Dorsey and his Twitter team.  When the New York Post published information about Hunter Biden's hard drive and its truly disreputable contents, Twitter blocked any references to the material and banned the New York Post from Twitter.  That got Congress's attention.  Meanwhile, Facebook opted to slow walk material about Hunter Biden, effectively preventing anything from going viral.  This low profile approach is dulling complaints about Facebook's muted censorship.

Media Firemen Scramble to Save Biden Candidacy.  During the Biden stretch run, the firemen on the left have shredded what is left of their reputations as journalists to destroy information the Deep State does not want their audiences to have.  Even before Hunter Biden's laptop surfaced, the media busied themselves suppressing information that was readily available to the ordinary citizen — montages of Biden plagiarizing, groping little girls, making racially insensitive comments, eulogizing exalted KKK cyclops, threatening Ukrainian prosecutors, even sexually assaulting at least one very credible Democrat — and they did so with enough success that the Biden camp felt comfortable positioning Joe as the candidate with "character."  The Hunter laptop was too tangible to dispose of subtly.  Not since Joseph Goebbels urged the German Student Union "to commit to the flames the evil spirit of the past" has a western nation so flagrantly thrown in on the side of ignorance.  Twitter has gotten most of the attention for its total blocking of the New York Post, which broke the laptop story, but the firemen at NPR were not far behind.

Trump's Grassroots MAGA Army Working Around Platform Controls.  A diverse and patriotic MAGA movement is overwhelming the mechanisms of narrative control; and they are doing it by flooding the zones with a combination of "old school" and "modern tech" workarounds.  It's quite honestly the most remarkable political dynamic since the organic Tea Party erupted in 2009.  Before getting into the details of how this truly organic situation is unfolding it is worth looking at how big tech is freaking out.

Facebook censors AT, backs down hours later.  A Taiwanese media outlet owned by Guo Wengui, a Chinese dissident billionaire, published some of the Hunter Biden sex tapes.  Other Guo-owned outlets allege that (a) Nancy Pelosi and the DOJ have known what's on Hunter's hard drive since September; (b) China "owns" Joe Biden; (c) Joe was responsible for the deaths of CIA informants; and (d) the outlet has millions of videos and photos of people who have also allowed the Chinese government to compromise them.  Facebook has spent most of the day suppressing the spread of this information.  On October 14, 2020, the New York Post began reporting on emails about Ukraine from a laptop that Hunter Biden had allegedly dropped off for repair and never recovered.  Since then, the FBI has said that the computer is legitimate.  No one from the Biden camp has denied the authenticity of either the laptop or its contents.  We learned too that the computer contained videos and photographs of Hunter Biden engaged in sexual activity.  These images allegedly include impropriety with underage girls.  What almost overshadowed the shocking allegations was the ferocity with which the Tech Tyrants acted to prevent the news from spreading.  Twitter blocked any attempts to tweet the story and locked the New York Post out of its Twitter account.  Even though the laptop has been authenticated, Twitter has not budged from this stance.

Confronting political censorship.  The bombshell discovered on a laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden, were quickly contained last week when dominant social media platforms chose to shield them from public view.  A New York Post exclusive, including email references to a meeting between then-Vice President Biden and an executive of corruption-tainted Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings, lent fresh rationale to President Trump's call last year for investigation of the Bidens for peddling access.  Congressional Democrats retaliated and tried unsuccessfully to oust Mr. Trump from office.  The Hunter Biden revelations comprise an epic October surprise with the potential of tarnishing Mr. Biden's image weeks before his Election Day faceoff against the Republican president.  But Twitter and Facebook chose to block users from linking to the story, effectively forcing readers to engage in a game of online hide-and-seek to read it.

With the Hunter Biden Expose, Suppression is a Bigger Scandal Than The Actual Story.  The flow of information in the United States has become so politicized — bottlenecked by an increasingly brazen union of corporate press and tech platforms — that it's become impossible for American audiences to see news about certain topics absent thickets of propagandistic contextualizing.  Try to look up anything about Burisma, Joe Biden, or Hunter Biden in English, however, and you're likely to be shown a pile of "fact-checks" and explainers ahead of the raw information.

Nothing Funny About Facebook's Serial Attacks On The Babylon Bee.  Seth Dillon oversees one of the web's funniest destinations, but there's an edge to his voice that's hardly comic.  Dillon, the CEO of The Babylon Bee, is at war with social media.  Again.  It's an odd place for a humor site to be, but it's in sync with the current wave of Big Tech bullying.  Dillon says the trouble began two years ago when Facebook aligned with third-party fact checkers like Snopes to battle misinformation on the platform.  That seemingly noble stance led to Snopes and, by extension, Facebook, labeling a satirical Bee article as "false."

Twitter Roadblocks Kimberly Klacik.  Esteemed countermoonbat Kimberly Klacik must be getting some traction, despite the unlikelihood of a Republican winning a seat in Congress from the ruins of Baltimore.  She scares the Democrat apparatchiks at Twitter enough that they put up a roadblock to limit retweets linking to an article in the Wall Street Journal that makes it clear voters would be wise to elect her.

Twitter Blocks Daily Signal's Kenosha Video With 'Sensitive Material' Warning.  Twitter put a "sensitive material" label Thursday on The Daily Signal's news video showing businesses burned by rioters in Kenosha, Wisconsin.  The Daily Signal's three-minute video, released late Wednesday, highlights some of the destruction wrought by rioters on the nights of Aug. 23 and 24. [...] Twitter's "sensitive material" warning does not remove the content from the platform, but does make the material harder to access by requiring users to click on the "view" button on the warning label.  Twitter users, and not the platform itself, usually flag tweets they say includes sensitive content.  This is sometimes a "coordinated effort by trolls on the left" who report tweets as a means to suppress content they don't agree with, Lyndsey Fifield, The Heritage Foundation's social media manager, said.

Blind Horse.  Bret Weinstein had his life threatened at Evergreen College for refusing to declare his inherent racism, his Unity 2020 Twitter account was suspended without explanation — and now this.

3 Ways Donald Trump's Debate Performance Will Affect The Race.  [Scroll down]  You could almost hear the "No! No! No!" coming from [Joe Biden's] campaign war room, but there he went, claiming his family's now-public, corrupt dealings with foreign corporations seeking access to power are just Russian disinformation. [...] For a week, the titans of the American left have worked to quash this story, sending surrogates out to argue with the evidence while Big Tech actively suppresses the information and Biden hides from reporters more interested in asking him the flavor of his milkshake.  It was going to be hard to hide until Election Day, but any hope of that is now dashed.  Even the allied news networks that have diligently worked to ignore the story have now unintentionally aired it.  There's no part of this story that plays into the vice president's campaign message, and no aspect of it will do well with voters.

Meet the Bidens, the one family who made a fortune in the Obama economy.  In their self-absorbed, navel-gazing, illiterate dyslexia, the American political press gets the words all out of order.  It's not "free speech" they back, but "speech-free."  It's not the pen that's mightier than the sword.  For these lazy jackals, it's the eraser that is mightier than the sword.  The eraser and the gag.  And the mute button.  This is what happens when truth and facts become entirely subservient to rage and posturing.  Pick what you like and mute all the rest.  The stuff of Cafeteria Journalists.

Twitter Doesn't Want People to Know the Detroit News Endorsed Republican John James for Senate.  On Thursday [10/22/2020], The Detroit News endorsed Republican John James over incumbent Democrat Gary Peters for U.S. Senate.  "It is an honor to have the endorsement of one of Michigan's most prestigious and well-read publications," James said in response to the endorsement.  "Our state and nation are currently at a crossroads, and Michigan has the choice between a combat veteran or a career politician, a war fighter or a gaslighter.  It's time for Michigan to have effective leadership in the Senate where no voice will be left out."

Is China Now In Control of Our Flow of Information?  Big Tech, no stranger to censorship, is guilty of silencing conservative voices on their platforms.  For years, conservatives have been locked out with trumped up charges of not following "community standards" with no clear definition of what standards were being violated.  It has become increasingly clear that conservatives were targeted for their content.  This week, the matter came to a head when Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed they will prevent Americans from seeing the New York Post's explosive article about incriminating emails, documents, and pictures stemming from Hunter Biden's laptop.  The emails implicate Joe Biden and the Chinese Communist Party.  They had no concerns exposing President Trump's illegitimately released tax records or the release of the phony Steele dossier, but they are clearly covering for Joe Biden lest it halt his presidential aspirations, and by doing so they are interfering in a presidential election.

Twitter removes anti-mask tweet from Dr. Scott Atlas.  Twitter removed a tweet from a top White House coronavirus adviser, saying that, contrary to official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, masks don't prevent the spread of the virus.  On Saturday [10/17/2020], Dr. Scott Atlas tweeted that evidence showed masks don't work, according to NBC News.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released guidance in April urging Americans to wear masks in public to prevent the spread of coronavirus after weeks of recommending the opposite.

These five people are allowed to tweet but one of America's oldest newspapers can't.  The New York Post, one of America's oldest newspapers, founded by America's first monetary expert-turned pop culture icon, has been muzzled on Twitter for reporting a bombshell that could affect the presidential election.  Twitter has refused to unlock the New York Post's account since last Wednesday unless the outlet deletes multiple tweets about its reporting on 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, the Post reported. [...] But while the Big Apple tabloid is gagged online, Twitter allows the likes of Louis Farrakhan, Richard Spencer, Ali Khamenei, Nicolas Maduro and O.J. Simpson to tweet freely.

Twitter looks to keep The Post's account hostage through Trump-Biden debate.  It's now been a week since Twitter locked The [New York] Post's account over its exposé on Hunter Biden's emails — and it appears the hostage situation will continue through the final presidential debate on Thursday.  The social media giant is refusing to unlock The Post's main account unless the news organization deletes six tweets about its own reporting on Joe Biden's son.  This means The Post may not be able to share its coverage of the last showdown between President Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden ahead of the Nov. 3 election with its close to 2 million followers.  Twitter locked The Post's main account Oct. 14, when the news org published the first article in its series of bombshell reports.

The 'Good Censors'.  I don't know if, as the New York Post alleged last week, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden met with a Ukrainian energy executive named Vadym Pozharskyi in 2015.  I don't know if Biden's son Hunter tried to broker such a meeting as part of his board directorship deal with Pozharskyi's firm, Burisma Holdings. [...] What I do know is that if I read the story online and found it compelling, I should have been able to share it with friends.  Instead, both Facebook and Twitter made a decision to try to kill the Post's scoop.  Andy Stone, the former Democratic Party staffer who is now Facebook's policy communications manager, announced that his company would be "reducing" the "distribution" of the Post story.  Twitter barred its users from sharing it not only with followers but also through direct messages, locking the accounts of people — including White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany — who retweeted it.  This is not an isolated incident.  In May, Twitter attached a health warning to one of President Trump's Tweets.

The 'Black Problem' in Television.  Larry Elder produced a fantastic documentary titled Uncle Tom that simply asks why blacks are expected to think and vote monolithically on issues critical to the black community.  It has been roundly ignored by the media since its release.  Sure, it can be viewed as a rental on places like YouTube or directly from Salem Radio's website, but in terms of equity of distribution, there is a sizable market loss when not accessed through a paid subscription service.  Likewise, it has become known that Shelby Steele, the independent black thinker, had a project titled What Killed Michael Brown? that was rejected by Amazon streaming services.  As the title suggests, this film explores the history and facts of the infamous Ferguson incident that ushered in a reinvigorated narrative of police-on-black brutality and murder.  For simply asking a question that runs counter to a prevailing (and acceptable) viewpoint, his material is effectively censored.

Facebook ghosts anti-Whitmer pages in Michigan, extends crackdown to state politics.  Social media blackouts raising conservatives' ire are not confined to the national level, as Facebook has for the second time erased without warning a group that opposed Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's stringent lockdowns.  The group "Impeach Whitmer" had never been flagged or warned for any post by its roughly 7,000 members before Facebook suddenly scrubbed it on Oct. 8, hours before authorities made the first arrests in an alleged plot to kidnap the Michigan governor.  The group's founder, Brandon Hall, said he was announcing Facebook's action now because he had received no reply from the social media giant explaining how he allegedly violated company policies.

Report: Facebook Successfully Suppressed Reach of NY Post Biden Bombshell by Half.  A recent study by the social media engagement tracking firm Newswhip found that the New York Post's recent bombshell story on Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and their alleged deal with Burisma had its reach cut in half by Facebook compared to anti-Trump stories from other publications.  This stands in stark contrast to Twitter's efforts to censor the story, which actually doubled the attention it received according to the MIT Technology Review.  Newsweek reports that social media tracking firm Newswhip recently analyzed the engagement that the New York Post's bombshell story on Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden received across social media.

Meet your (Chinese) Facebook censors.  China is one of the most censorious societies on Earth.  So what better place for Facebook to recruit social media censors?  There are at least half a dozen "Chinese nationals who are working on censorship," a former Facebook insider told me last week.  "So at some point, they [Facebook bosses] thought, 'Hey, we're going to get them H-1B visas so they can do this work.'"  The insider shared an internal directory of the team that does much of this work.  It's called Hate-Speech Engineering (George Orwell, call your office), and most of its members are based at Facebook's offices in Seattle.  Many have Ph.D.s, and their work is extremely complex, involving machine learning — teaching "computers how to learn and act without being explicitly programmed," as the techy website DeepAI.org puts it.  When it comes to censorship on social media, that means "teaching" the Facebook code so certain content ends up at the top of your newsfeed, a feat that earns the firm's software wizards discretionary bonuses, per the ex-insider.  It also means making sure other content "shows up dead-last."

Facebook Demonetizes Satire Site Babylon Bee, Claims Monty Python Spoof 'Incites Violence'.  Facebook is demonetizing the Christian, political satire page "The Babylon Bee" after they published an article satirizing Sen. Mazie Hirono's comments during the Amy Coney Barrett hearings in a fictional depiction.  The Bee's CEO Seth Dillon announced the demonetization on Tuesday in a tweet, claiming that the big tech company pulled down the article based on a "regurgitated joke from a Monty Python movie."

Tea Party group files complaint against Twitter for allegedly suppressing negative Biden news.  Tea Party Patriots Foundation said Tuesday [10/20/2020] it was filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Twitter, alleging the social media company violated campaign finance laws through its treatment of bad news for Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden.  Jenny Beth Martin, TPPF president, said in a statement she believes Twitter has used "corporate resources well in excess of $25,000 in their ongoing efforts to support the Biden candidacy while opposing President Trump's reelection."  TPPF said its complaint focuses squarely on Twitter, its CEO Jack Dorsey, and Twitter vice president Brandon Borrman.

More "Experts" [are] Being Silenced By Big Tech — What Did They Say?  America's Frontline Doctors held their 2nd Summit in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Saturday [10/17/2020].  They are a group of physicians and researchers who feel strongly that mass lockdowns, masking requirements and the prevention of early COVID-19 treatment has caused immeasurably suffering — and likely unnecessary deaths — in our fight against COVID-19.  As of early this morning, their video and tweets appear to still be spreading on Twitter and YouTube. [...] America's Frontline Doctors held its 1st Summit in June of this year and articles, tweets, Facebook posts, and videos were widely censored online.  Just days ago, Dr. Scott Atlas — a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force was suspended from Twitter for posting that masks don't work particularly well in the fight against COVID-19.

A Senate Pass for Twitter and Biden?  The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee was supposed to issue a subpoena Tuesday [10/20/2020] to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey — but those plans seem to be on hold.  When will the remaining conservative leaders in Washington have enough of this abuse?  Freedom loving Americans have long been fed up with the double standards, suspensions, editorializing, and censorship by social media corporations.  Active interference in elections should be troubling to those on both sides of the aisle — but it looks like the Democrats and even some Republicans will try to whistle past the Biden scandal graveyard on this one.  Senators are hardly the only individuals owed an explanation (and now not getting it) for the blatant censorship of evidence of the Biden's criminal enterprise.  Everyone on social media deserve answers about why Twitter can behave like the Chinese Communist Party and control access to, as well as dissemination of, information.

Facebook workers [are] 'ashamed' by tech giant's censorship of Post's Hunter Files reporting.  "Facebook is almost an arm of the Democratic Party — an arm of the far-left wing of the Democratic Party."  So said the former Facebook insider as we sat down for an interview at a Midtown restaurant Friday afternoon.  A gloomy rain had left the joint deserted, yet the man across the table from me spoke in hushed tones and looked over his shoulder in between remarks for fear of retaliation.  Yet he felt he had to speak out, because staffers are "intentionally trying to swing people further to the left," as he had put it in an e-mail requesting the meeting.  I already knew that, of course.  It was a Facebook communications manager, Andy Stone, who on Thursday [10/15/2020] announced the firm was reducing circulation of The Post's still-undisputed reporting on the Hunter Files — an employee who happened to work for Democratic lawmakers before joining the tech giant.  What the Facebook insider wanted to impress upon me, however, was how Facebook's partisan tilt is common knowledge inside the firm.  He had the secret chats to prove it.  Facebook employees who wish to speak freely take to Blind, an anonymous social network for the tech industry, where workers at major firms like Uber, Google, Twitter and the like trade gossip and occasionally blow the whistle on malfeasance.

Wikipedia bans editors from expressing support for traditional marriage.  Wikipedia has decided to restrict its editors from expressing opposition to same-sex marriage on its platform — a decision that comes months after co-founder Larry Sanger said the site's neutrality policy was "dead."  Volunteers who write and edit Wikipedia's articles can no longer include on their profile page any "userbox" — a badge expressing their beliefs — that is against gay marriage.  For example, one such userbox states, "This user believes marriage is between one man and one woman." The decision was made after a recent discussion where "predominantly left-wing editors" argued such a stance was "discriminatory" and against site policy, according to Breitbart.

Don't Believe Your Lying Eyes — or Joe Biden's Big Mouth.  The move by Facebook and Twitter to censor a New York Post story about Joe Biden was Silicon Valley's version of an October surprise.  Since publication of a story last week alleging that Hunter Biden was introducing foreign business colleagues to his father, Twitter has kept locked the account of the 200-year-old newspaper until it deletes its tweets about its Biden reporting.  By removing the story from news feeds, locking the accounts of the Trump campaign and White House spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany, and prohibiting editors of the newspaper from sharing the piece even from their own accounts — actions taken without evidence anything in the story was false — the tech oligarchy signaled it was throwing its weight behind what it believes to be the coming Democratic order in Washington.  It also provided Americans with an authentically shocking snapshot of the type of "managed" society that we now inhabit.  In the new American system, large Silicon Valley corporations use their government-sanctioned and immensely profitable monopoly status to routinely censor information and libel anyone they please at the behest of unelected partisan verticals that have colonized large segments of the federal bureaucracy and security agencies.  As each corrupted interest rubber stamps each other's actions, power is removed from public hands and public view.

Crackdown on QAnon continues as TikTok bans conspiracy theory content.  TikTok is the latest social media company to go after the QAnon conspiracy theory.  The mega-popular video app is now deleting accounts that post QAnon-related content, NPR reports, an escalation from its previous policy of reducing the visibility of the posts.  "Content and accounts that promote QAnon violate our disinformation policy and we remove them from our platform," the company told NPR.  "We've also taken significant steps to make this content harder to find across search and hashtags by redirecting associated terms to our Community Guidelines."  QAnon's content often focuses on undocumented claims of a Satanic conspiracy between Democrats and pedophiles.

The Tech Lords are Fools and Knaves.  [Scroll down]  I can even see an innocent reason for censoring the [New York] Post's piece for "hacking" and publishing embarrassing private information.  It's understandable that the Tech Lords would want to damp down the plebs from publishing each other's sordid little scandals. [...] And where were you, dear Tech Lords, when the Obama administration "hacked" the private conversation between LTG Michael Flynn and the Russian ambassador?  Where were you when the Hillary Clinton campaign publicized false embarrassing private information about Donald Trump?  Where were you when the New York Times published President Trump's private tax returns?  Exactly.  It would never have occurred to you noble lords that those Trump scandals, that you published without a second thought, are exactly the same as the New York Post story that you censored.  Why?  Because you chaps know literally nothing about politics.

MIT Tech Review:  Tech Censorship Nearly Doubled Attention for NY Post Biden Bombshell.  The attempt by the social media Masters of the Universe to stop the spread of the New York Post bombshell article about Joe Biden and his son Hunter's alleged dealings with Burisma, has nearly doubled the level of attention the story gained.  What is known as the "Streisand Effect" — a social phenomenon that occurs when an attempt to censor information has the unintended consequence of further publicizing it instead — went into overdrive after social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter attempted to suppress a NY Post article about Hunter Biden, according to data published in the MIT Technology Review.

Facebook, Twitter censored Trump, campaign 65 times, Biden zero:  Study.  Facebook and Twitter have censored President Trump and his campaign accounts at least 65 times in the last two years, while Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden and his camp have never been dinged, according to a report released Monday [10/19/2020].  The conservative Media Research Center's Techwatch department found that the tech giants had a decidedly lopsided approach to the presidential candidates and their campaigns when it comes to flagging and axing their content.  The biggest discrepancy came with Twitter, which accounted for 98% of the censorship incidents against the Trump camp from May 2018 to Oct. 16, 2020.  The analysis did not include ads from PACs or super PACs.

Censoring the Biden story:  How social media becomes state media.  [Scroll down]  Yet the funny thing about kompromat — a Russian term for compromising information — is that often it is true.  Indeed, it is most damaging and most useful when it is true; otherwise, you deny the allegations and expose the lie.  Hunter Biden has yet to deny these were his laptop, his emails, his images.  If thousands of emails and images were fabricated, then serious crimes were committed.  But if the emails and images are genuine, then the Bidens appear to have lied for years as a raw influence-peddling scheme worth millions stretched from China to Ukraine to Russia.  Moreover, these countries likely have had the compromising information all along while the Bidens — and the media — were denying reports of illicit activities.  Either way, this was major news.  The response of Twitter and Facebook, however, was to shut it all down.  Major media companies also imposed a virtual blackout on the allegations.  It didn't matter that thousands of emails were available for review or that the Bidens did not directly address the material.  It was all declared to be fake news.

Is Twitter, Facebook censorship of New York Post Biden-Ukraine story the beginning of social tyranny?  Twitter and Facebook have both limited distribution of an Oct. 14 report from the New York Post's Emma-Jo Morris and Gabrielle Fonrouge entitled, "Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad" detailing an alleged meeting between former Vice President Joe Biden and Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi who Biden's son, Hunter, used to work for, in April 2015.  The Wall Street Journal's Robert McMillan and Jeff Horwitz reported on Oct. 15, "Twitter on Wednesday blocked users from posting links to the articles, initially citing a potential violation of its rules regarding hacked materials.  The company later said the articles also violated its policies on displaying private information like email addresses and phone numbers without a person's permission... Twitter's move came after Facebook also limited the distribution of the articles on its platform, saying it was awaiting guidance from its third-party fact-checking partners — independent organizations that routinely review the accuracy of viral content.  Facebook has slowed the spread of the Post articles pending a decision by those partners, company spokesman Andy Stone said in a Twitter message on Wednesday morning."

How Big Tech is Working on Stealing the Presidential Election From Trump.  Allum Bokhari, an investigative tech writer for Breitbart, published a book last month explaining how Big Tech intends to defeat Trump.  If anyone should know, it's him, having written about Big Tech's attacks on conservatives for years.  And it's important to read this book, because the censorship is now so vast it is difficult to learn about it by merely digging up article after article.  In #Deleted:  Big Tech's Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal the Election, Bokhari goes over how it's being stealthily done on many fronts, usually under the guise of something else.  Big Tech uses certain buzzwords to justify its censorship, cleverly all vague, used as excuses to crack down on conservative content.

Twitter refuses to unlock New York Post account unless Hunter Biden posts [are] deleted.  Twitter has refused to unlock the New York Post's account since Wednesday [10/14/2020] unless the outlet deletes six tweets about its reporting on 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, the Post reported.  Both the San Francisco-based social media platform and Facebook came under fire this week after the two blocked users from sharing a Post article showing purported communication between 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, and an adviser to a Ukrainian energy company.  The younger Biden's work in the country while his father was vice president was at the heart of President Trump's impeachment trial earlier this year.

Matt Gaetz tweets out entire Hunter Biden story line by line to evade Twitter block.  Rep. Matt Gaetz, Florida Republican, had an idea on how to get around Twitter's block of the New York Post's Hunter Biden bombshell:  Tweet it out one line at a time.  He said Twitter had censored the New York Post, the House Judiciary Republicans, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and "thousands of other users for sharing this damning story on Hunter Biden."  "So I'm tweeting the entire story line by line in a thread below," Mr. Gaetz said on Thursday, urging readers to retweet it "before it's deleted!"  Sure enough, the multi-tweet thread included the story as well as photos and graphics from the New York Post's Wednesday scoop about Hunter Biden's dealings with the Ukrainian natural-gas company Burisma Holdings during his father's tenure as vice president.

Facebook's Lead Executive on Election Policy Was Vice-President Joe Biden's Advisor to Ukraine.  Anna Makanju is the Facebook executive in charge of "election integrity on the platform"; and guess what her job was before that position.  "Previously, she was the special policy adviser for Europe and Eurasia to former US Vice President Joe Biden". [...] That's right folks, the Facebook executive currently blocking all of the negative evidence of Hunter and Joe Biden's corrupt activity in Ukraine is the same person who was coordinating the corrupt activity between the Biden family payoffs and Ukraine.

Social media backlash resurrected over Biden's transition team's ties to Facebook and Twitter.  The Biden campaign is facing renewed criticism over its deep connections with Big Tech after both Twitter and Facebook censored a story from The New York Post detailing allegedly corrupt business deals by Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden.  The move prompted fresh criticism on social media over the Biden transition team's hiring of top Facebook executive Jessica Hertz, which reportedly came days after the 2020 Democrat's campaign penned a letter to the social media giant urging them to censor President Trump's posts.  Twitter's suppression of the Hunter Biden revelations also came days after the company's director of public policy, Carlos Monje, reportedly left his post to work for the Biden transition team.

Twitter Locks Account of Republican Senate Candidate Lauren Witzke — Again.  Twitter has once again censored the Republican candidate for Delaware's U.S. Senate seat, Lauren Witzke, over a tweet drawing attention to the consequences of mass immigration for Europe.  As Breitbart News previously reported, Witzke has already been locked out of her Twitter once this month.  The far-left platform, whose CEO, Jack Dorsey, will likely be subpoenaed by the Senate Judiciary Committee next week over its censorship of the New York Post's bombshell Biden-Ukraine story, said the tweet constituted "hateful conduct."

Twitter's Censorship of the New York Post Is Un-American.  [Scroll down]  Indeed, if journalists were forbidden from distributing "content obtained without authorization," the majority of the biggest news stories of the past century would be off limits.  President Donald Trump's tax return story.  The Pentagon Papers.  Watergate.  The Iran-Contra scandal.  All the revelations of Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning.  The most vital charge of journalism is to procure information that the powerful hide.  Twitter claims it doesn't want to incentivize hacking by allowing its platform to be used to distribute possibly "illegally obtained materials."  Yet, when a Daily Caller reporter offered evidence that Hunter Biden's laptop was obtained by a repair shop legally, Twitter suspended his account as well.  The very notion that the establishment media wouldn't run with hacked emails from Trump, if they pointed to possible misconduct, strains credulity. [...] By the way, as of yet, no one has really disputed the veracity of the Post's reporting.  Hunter Biden has not claimed that those aren't his pictures or his emails.

Somewhat related:
Amazon Prime Cancels Shelby Steele.  Though most of the focus is on Twitter's White Knighting of Joe Biden, it's also worth noting that many other voices are inhibited by Big Tech because they fail to conform to leftist orthodoxy.  Just today [10/15/2020], the Wall Street Journal reported that Shelby Steele's documentary What Killed Michael Brown?, which explores race relations in the United States, has been rejected because it "doesn't meet Prime Video's content quality expectations."  Amazon claims the documentary, which Steele made with his son Eli, isn't "eligible for publishing" and that they "will not be accepting resubmission of this title and this decision may not be appealed."

Biden campaign 'glad' Twitter, Facebook censored Post's Hunter Biden exposé.  Joe Biden's campaign said Thursday [10/15/2020] they had no problem with Twitter and Facebook's unprecedented censoring of The [New York] Post's bombshell reporting on Hunter Biden's business dealings — even admitting they were "glad" it happened.  Biden campaign national press secretary Jamal Brown went so far as to claim that the gagging of one of America's largest news organizations "made clear" that The Post's reporting on Ukraine- and China-related documents from a Hunter Biden hard drive was untrue.

By censoring The Post, Big Tech is begging for big-time reform.  The increasing brazenness with which the various Big Tech behemoths distort their search algorithms to hide conservative viewpoints, undermine conservatives through "shadow banning" and weaponize the sanctimonious and self-serving "fact-checking" cottage industry to suppress conservative voices has long been clear.  The 2017 dismissal of Google engineer James Damore exposed the search giant as an "ideological echo chamber" (Damore's words) — a company that, incidentally, has a jaw-dropping 87.3 percent share of the US search market.  Facebook has outright banned anti-lockdown pages and removed posts supportive of the besieged teenager Kyle Rittenhouse.  Twitter affixes "fact-checking" warnings exclusively to the tweets of conservatives. [...] Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has even raised the possibility that the shameless censorship may amount to in-kind political contributions in violation of extant campaign-finance law.

Bring Them In.  By banning Republican content while amplifying Democratic Party messaging this close to a national election, Big Tech in essence is contributing potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in free advertisements (in-kind contributions) to Democratic candidates, including their nominee for president.  "Twitter, and Facebook... they're like really, it's a massive campaign contribution," President Trump said on Fox Business News Thursday morning [10/15/2020].  Their involvement will extend past Election Day and into January 2021 if the results are still unknown.  In the interim, Silicon Valley oligarchs plan to crush any online dissent, including by the president of the United States, if a message runs afoul of plans to install Joe Biden in the White House.  Even if Trump legitimately wins reelection, any premature declaration of victory will be suppressed or outright removed from social media and Internet search engines.

Twitter Is Silencing Anybody Who Wants to Talk About Hunter Biden.  As a libertarian, I respect Hunter Biden's right to party.  As a conservative (and occasionally a Republican sympathizer), I condemn the brazen corruption that pays for Hunter's lavish, hedonistic lifestyle.  So I took an interest in the New York Post's story on Wednesday about a laptop they claim to have obtained, allegedly once belonging to the younger Biden.  The NYP claims the laptop contains evidence that Hunter profited from his father's name, and may prove his father was part of it.  I don't know if any of that is true.  It confirms my prejudices, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's accurate. [...] You know who doesn't think it's funny, though?  Twitter.  That social-media website is so unamused by the NY Post's Hunter Biden story that users can't even link to it.

Social Media Acts Like a Cartel.  It Should Be Treated as One.  Social media had spent four years training for this moment.  Democrats had spent four years arguing that the media paying attention to Hillary's emails and social media allowing them traction on their services elected Trump.  And Big Tech had defined its election role as preventing history from repeating itself.  Everything else is a haze of excuses and meaningless buzzwords like "disinformation", not to mention newfound standards that just arrived last week.  The bottom line is that there's a coordinated campaign to suppress material damaging to Biden before the election.  And, unlike the media, social media is a Big Tech cartel.  Facebook, whose Democrat spokesman made a point of expressing his disgust with the story and announcing that it was being throttled, controls 80% of social media.  Google, which controls 80% of search, buries the original Post story under media "explainers" dismissing it.  There's a coordinated political program here [...]

11 Hacks, Leaks, And Hoaxes That Twitter And Facebook Didn't Throttle — Because They Hurt Trump.  On Wednesday, Twitter and Facebook banned their users from sharing a link to an explosive report from the New York Post containing emails indicating Hunter Biden had lucratively monetized his father's vice presidency through international business dealings.  A massive public relations disaster ensued, including fierce reactions from senators and members of Congress with tech oversight.  In response, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey claimed Twitter had banned the link because it included private information obtained through hacking.

If We Let Big Tech Strangle The Press, Say Goodbye To Your Freedoms.  With the recent suppression of a New York Post story damaging to Joe Biden's presidential campaign, many Americans have finally had enough of the one-sided censorious behavior of tech giants.  Less than three weeks before one the most contentious and fraught elections in American history, Facebook and Twitter users were alarmed when it became clear they were prevented from sharing the Post's article detailing the sordid dealings of Joe Biden's son, Hunter.  Both citizens and lawmakers justifiably fear the enormous influence wielded by entities like Facebook, Google, and Twitter; the rise of an unchecked tech-tyranny where one side of the political aisle has its views promoted while the other side has its views punished.  Nearly two centuries ago, the author of one of the most penetrating insights on American life shared similar fears of what would happen should a free press remain free in name only.

Twitter will stop removing hacked material and will label Tweets for context instead of blocking links.  Twitter is no longer blocking links to the Joe Biden Ukraine story and has now changed its policies to say it will label posts it finds questionable instead of removing them or stopping people from sharing them, after being threatened with subpoenas and investigations by Republicans.  The about-turn came on Thursday night after an explosive 24 hours during which Trump's re-election campaign and his White House Press Secretary had their accounts locked for posting links to the Biden story.  The story by The New York Post suggested Biden met with a Ukrainian businessman in 2015, when his son Hunter was being paid by the businessman, and that he then used his power as Vice President to force Ukrainian officials to fire a prosecutor who was looking into the businessman's gas firm.

90% of campaign contributions from Twitter and Facebook went to Democrats:  Study.  Both Facebook and Twitter have come under scrutiny for their campaign contributions in a new study by Joseph Vazquez, an analyst with the Media Research Center, a conservative press watchdog.  Mr. Vazquez reviewed the current political donation records of both social media giants on Open Secrets, an independent nonprofit which tracks federal campaign donations and lobbying data.  The report was released Thursday [10/15/2020].  "Open Secrets records revealed that for 'all federal candidates,' both Facebook and Twitter gave over 90% of their political contributions to Democrats for the 2020 cycle so far," Mr. Vazquez wrote.

Conservatives Must Fight Big Tech or Lose.  Is technology going to be a tool of individual choice or social control?  Facebook and Twitter's desperate attempts to block a damaging story about Joe and Hunter Biden is the culmination of four years of work to transform social media into the media.  Under the guise of false claims about disinformation, foreign election interference, bots, networks, deepfakes, public health risks, and assorted tech paranoia, free speech died on the internet.  The moment when the White House Press Secretary had her account locked for tweeting a damaging news story about Joe Biden brought home the Big Tech reality to most Republicans.  Just like the media, Big Tech is the Democrat Party, and the Democrat Party is Big Tech.  But, unlike the media, Big Tech controls the marketplace of ideas to an unprecedented degree.

Kamala spokesman, Democrat PAC staffer now hold top comms posts at Twitter, Facebook.  Twitter's efforts to suppress a New York Post article about Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden and his son Hunter come with renewed interest over the political biases of its top officials, including a communications officer who previously worked for Biden's running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris.  The ongoing debate over free speech on social media took on new urgency Wednesday when Twitter flagged as "potentially harmful" a report in the Post about emails indicating that Hunter Biden introduced his father, then the Vice President of the United States, to Vadym Pozharskyi, a top adviser to the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, less than a year before the elder Biden openly pressured the Ukrainian government to fire a prosecutor tasked with investigating the company.

The Last Copier in the Woods Arrives Sooner than Expected.  If anybody is around to write history in a generation or two, October 14th 2020 will go down as the first day of a new Year Zero.  Yesterday, with less than three weeks to go in a national election in a settled democratic society with an ostensibly free press, the woke billionaires of the social media cartel decided to freeze and/or cancel the Twitter/Facebook accounts of the President's press secretary, the Trump campaign, Republican Senate candidates and Republican House members.  So America is now formally a one-party state, at least as far as fair access to media platforms is concerned.  In old-school "people's republics", the dictator keeps the opposition party off the air.  In the subtler version operated by social media, woke dictators of a nominally two-party state are now openly keeping one of those two parties off your telephones and tablets.

YouTube bans QAnon, other conspiracy content that targets individuals.  YouTube said Thursday [10/15/2020] that it would no longer allow content that targets individuals and groups with conspiracy theories, specifically QAnon and its antecedent, "pizzagate."  "Today, we are taking another step in our efforts to curb hate and harassment by removing more conspiracy theory content used to justify real-world violence," the company announced on its blog.  The new rules, an expansion of YouTube's existing hate and harassment policies, will prohibit content that "threatens or harrasses someone by suggesting they are complicit in one of these harmful conspiracies, such as QAnon or Pizzagate," the post read.  YouTube said it would be enforcing the updated policy immediately and plans to "ramp up in the weeks to come."

YouTube Just Banned QAnon.  Will It Actually Work?  On Thursday [10/15/2020], YouTube became the latest platform to crack down on QAnon, the baseless conspiracy theory promoting the idea of a deep state leftist cabal of pedophiles and child traffickers.  In a blog post, the company said that it would be "taking another step in our efforts to curb hate and harassment by removing more conspiracy theory content used to justify real-world violence."  It specifically cited QAnon as an example, noting that it had removed thousands of individual QAnon-themed videos and hundreds of QAnon-affiliated channels as a result of this policy update.

Gregg Jarrett:  Facebook and Twitter's censorship is an insult to democracy — they must stop or be broken up.  The great Twitter and Facebook masquerade is over.  Posing as disinterested and neutral media platforms, they have unmasked themselves as partisan protectors of Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden and propaganda advocates of the progressive cause.  It is time that Twitter and Facebook be forced to halt their destructive practices or be broken up.  The two technology giants wield too much marketplace power in the ever-expanding social media universe.  With power comes abuse.  This was on full display Wednesday when both Twitter and Facebook blocked access to a New York Post story offering stunning email evidence that Biden may have exploited his position as vice president to financially benefit his son, Hunter Biden.

Sen. Hawley:  Twitter Censorship of Biden Story 'Looks... Like an In-Kind Campaign Contribution'.  Reacting to Twitter's censorship of a New York Post story involving Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, and Burisma, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) accused "big tech" of wanting to influence the election.  Hawley said he's asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate what "looks like an in-kind contribution to the Biden campaign." [...] Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey issued a statement Wednesday night, which Sen. Hawley called "insulting."  Dorsey tweeted:  "Our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great.  And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we're blocking: unacceptable."

Ted Cruz slams Twitter CEO: Jack Dorsey 'behaving as Joe Biden's press secretary'.  Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey will be subpoenaed by Senate Republicans next week and questioned on why the social media company blocked two New York Post articles alleging Hunter Biden corruption while his father was vice president, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told "Outnumbered Overtime" Thursday [10/15/2020].  The Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee told host Harris Faulkner he couldn't tweet out the second article while he was in the confirmation hearing for Judge Amy Coney Barrett earlier in the day.  "Let me be very clear, Twitter is interfering in this election.  They are censoring the press," Cruz said, and further explained, "silencing the media is a direct violation of the principles of the First Amendment."

Hawley asks FEC to probe Twitter, FB for potential violations on Post censorship.  Sen. Josh Hawley on Wednesday [10/14/2020] demanded that the Federal Election Commission investigate Twitter and Facebook for possibly violation campaign-finance law by censoring The Post's reporting on emails from Hunter Biden's laptop.  The Missouri Republican wrote in a letter to the FEC that the social media giants' "active suppression of public speech" regarding The Post's article would appear to constitute a contribution to Joe Biden's campaign under federal law.  Federal law prohibits any corporation from making a contribution to a federal candidate for office.  "There can be no serious doubt that the Biden campaign derives extraordinary value from depriving voters access to information that, if true, would link the former Vice President to corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs," Hawley wrote.  "This censorship manifestly will influence the presidential election."

Twitter Cites 'Hacked Materials Policy' to Justify Censorship of NY Post Hunter Biden Article.  Twitter said Thursday [10/15/2020] that it censored a New York Post article based on emails between Hunter Biden and a Burisma executive in accordance with its "hacked materials policy."  "In line with our Hacked Materials Policy, as well as our approach to blocking URLs, we are taking action to block any links to or images of the material in question on Twitter," a Twitter spokesperson told National Review when asked why the platform was not allowing users to share the Post's article.

Shhh! Don't Talk About Hunter Biden.  The story might have been a one-day affair — except for Twitter and Facebook interfered to keep people from sharing it. [...] "Unsafe"?  For the Biden campaign, maybe, given that Hunter Biden says (for example, in this ABC Nightline interview) that he never talked to his father about Burisma business.  Facebook muted the story on its platform.  This really is outrageous.  You can say that Twitter and Facebook are private companies, and that therefore they have a right to do this.  I think that is true as a matter of law — but should it be?  They operate more like public utilities than newspapers.  Leaving aside the legality of this move, think about what it says that the two most powerful social media companies have taken it upon themselves to censor a major newspaper's story about a presidential candidate's allegedly corrupt son, just weeks before the election?  Do you not see how dangerous this is, given the power of social media over our discourse?  Twitter and Facebook crossed a line.  They showed their true colors today.  When the election is over, Congress is going to have to have some serious discussions about regulating them in the interest of free speech and fairness.

More about Joe Biden's gaffes and scandals.

Cruz Blasts Twitter, Facebook For Censoring Story Linking Joe Biden to Burisma.  Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wrote to the CEOs of Facebook and Twitter on Wednesday, asking why their platforms had chosen to censor a New York Post story reflecting Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in a poor light, calling the move an "obvious and transparent attempt" to influence the forthcoming election.  Twitter "shouldn't act as Biden's PR team," Cruz tweeted earlier in the day.  Cruz in his letters to the tech giants contrasted the way the social media platforms have treated "less well-sourced" reporting critical of other candidates — citing in Facebook's case a 2017 Buzzfeed report on the so-called "Steele dossier" and New York Times reports on President Trump's tax returns.  "This rush to limit the dissemination and reach of a report — containing information of high public interest and consequence — and the contrast with how similarly situated material on other candidates has been handled, strongly suggests that the true motivation is to influence the upcoming presidential election," he wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Biden campaign, MSM, and social media oligarchs all are signaling voters that Joe Biden's pay-for-play scandal with Hunter as bagman is a BFD.  The surest way to convince people that they ought to pay attention to something is to tell them they shouldn't be allowed to see it.  About a century ago, when Boston had a municipal movie censor, producers vied to be "banned in Boston" as a way of convincing the public to flock to their flicks.  This century's version of the same lesson is called "the Streisand effect," after the singer drew attention to her lavish seaside estate in California by attempting to suppress aerial pictures taken of it. [...] The Biden campaign has already badly blundered in its handling of the scandal unearthed when a computer repair store took legal ownership of a MacBook left with it more than 90 days and discovered thousands of emails as well as images and videos, some of them pornographic, showing Hunter Biden.  The store owner turned the laptop over to the FBI late last year, which has taken no public action and, out of frustration with the story being buried, released a copy of the hard drive to Rudy Giuliani, through an intermediary.

Twitter Locks Trump Campaign Account Less than 3 Weeks Before Presidential Election.  Twitter locked the account of @TeamTrump, an official Trump campaign account, citing the same policy it used to ban links to the New York Post's bombshell story on hitherto unrevealed links between Joe Biden and the Ukrainian gas giant Burisma.  Mike Hahn, a social media manager for Team Trump, revealed the censorship in a tweet earlier today [10/15/2020].

Power Mad Twitter Suspends WH Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany's Personal Account.  The New York Post broke politically-damaging news about Joe Biden on Wednesday [10/14/2020], reporting on recovered emails that further prove Hunter Biden sold access to his father during the Obama administration.  The emails referenced a meeting Hunter Biden allegedly arranged between then-Vice President Joe Biden and an executive at the corrupt Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, the same corrupt company that paid Hunter Biden over $80,000 a month in an apparent effort to buy influence with Joe Biden.  And the effort appears to have worked.  Twitter and Facebook felt the need to protect Joe Biden from the negative press and took the unprecedented step of censoring the Post's story.  The power-mad company then locked White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany's Twitter account after McEnany shared the story.

Hawley Demands Facebook Explain Its Censorship Of Bombshell Hunter Biden Report.  Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley is demanding Facebook explain its preemptive censorship of a bombshell report from the New York Post contradicting Joe Biden's repeated assertions that the former vice president never discussed his son's potentially criminal overseas business conduct.  Emails published by the New York Post Wednesday morning show that contrary to Joe Biden's claims that he never talked business with his son, Hunter Biden, "or with anyone else," the vice president at the time was indeed introduced to Ukrainian Burisma advisor Vadym Pozharskyi by Hunter.  Hunter Biden was raking in upwards of $50,000 a month in excess compensation for serving on the board of Burisma while his father served as the "public face" of the Obama administration's policy towards Ukraine.

Hunter Biden's Smoking Guns.  [Scroll down]  Good job by Emma-Jo Morris and Gabrielle Fonrouge of reporting on the story for the New York Post.  Absolutely no one is surprised that Joe Biden lied about this contact when asked.  Now we just have proof of it.  You wouldn't think a story that merely confirms what people already knew about Biden's lies would have been the tripwire for Internet media giants to abandon even the pretense of objectivity, but you'd be wrong.

Bookmark Today's Date — Big Tech Has crossed the event horizon to protect Joe Biden.  Everyone knew it would eventually happen and today is the day.  In an effort to influence the 2020 U.S. election, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and the social media technocrats have crossed the Rubicon today and banned all sharing of the explosive information about Hunter and Joe Biden's self-serving deals with Ukraine.  In an effort to stop evidence from surfacing showing candidate Joe Biden lied about his involvement with corrupt Ukraine business deals, Facebook and Twitter have openly deployed their activist technicians to generate algorithms blocking content sharing of The New York Post article(s).  Additionally all users, including White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany are being removed from all platforms for sharing the story.

Sen. Josh Hawley Blasts Jack Dorsey After the CEO Admits Twitter's Actions Censoring Hunter Biden News Was 'Unacceptable'.  Missouri Senator Josh Hawley blasted Jack Dorsey on Wednesday night [10/14/2020] after the Twitter CEO admitted that the platform's actions banning the explosive Hunter Biden report from the New York Post was "unacceptable."  In a tweet about Twitter's censorship, Dorsey wrote that "our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great.  And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we're blocking: unacceptable."

Kaleigh McEnany attacks Twitter for not banning articles that accused Trump of collusion with Russia.  White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany hit out at Twitter on Wednesday night after it locked her personal account over a tweet referencing a story about Joe Biden's dealings with his son Hunter's business associates in the Ukraine.  Speaking with Sean Hannity on Fox News, McEnany accused the social media giant of bias and censorship for only banning content that 'hurts the side of the aisle that Silicon Valley prefers'.  She accused the social media giant of allowing articles that accused Trump of collusion with Russia to be posted on its site, despite the president being cleared during his impeachment trial earlier this year.

Jack Dorsey apologizes after Trump threatened to remove Facebook and Twitter protections.  Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey apologized on Wednesday night after the social media giant faced backlash over its decision to block links to a story which claims Joe Biden met with a Ukrainian businessman while he was Vice President, but he has still not lifted restrictions on it.  It came just an hour after President Donald Trump threatened to remove the US legal protections that exempts the likes of Twitter and Facebook from liability for the material users post on their networks.  Trump called for the law, known as Section 230, to be repealed as he blasted the social media giants as 'terrible' for 'reducing circulation' of a New York Post article which published the claims about his rival Biden earlier in the day.

President Trump Rakes Facebook and Twitter Over the Coals for Censoring Hunter Biden Story.  On Wednesday [10/14/2020], The New York Post published a blockbuster story about a "smoking gun" email allegedly proving that then-Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter introduced the VP to an executive at the notoriously corrupt Ukrainian gas company Burisma — before Joe Biden pressured the Ukrainian president to fire a prosecutor looking into Burisma.  Facebook announced that it was reducing the article's distribution, even before any fact-check.  Twitter also apparently prevented an editor at the Post from tweeting the article.

Big Tech is in the tank for Biden [and the] Democrats.  In case there was any doubt that Facebook and Twitter are corruptly partisan, the social-media giants censored The [New York] Post's story Wednesday [10/14/2020] on Hunter Biden's e-mails suggesting he took cash for access to his father, Joe Biden.  The bombshell exclusive was trending all Wednesday morning on social media platforms until Big Tech stepped in to run protection for the Democratic presidential candidate.  Facebook announced it would censor the story by "reducing its distribution on our platform."  Twitter also intervened to protect Biden from the scandal yesterday by blocking The Post's Twitter account, @nypost, claiming the story violates its rules against "distribution of hacked material."  Links to the story were tagged by Twitter with a warning message:  "This link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful."

Twitter CEO admits handling of blocked Post article was 'unacceptable'.  Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said it was "unacceptable" that the social media giant blocked users from sharing a [New York] Post exposé about Hunter Biden's emails without providing a clear message as to why it was taking the action.  Dorsey released his statement in a tweet Wednesday night [10/14/2020] — hours after a number of high-profile Republicans, including Sen. Josh Hawley, blasted the social media giant for blocking the stories from being shared on the platform.  "Our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great.  And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we're blocking: unacceptable," Dorsey wrote in the tweet.  Twitter blocked users from sharing an article that indicated Hunter Biden introduced his father Joe to a Ukranian businessman — charging that "hacked materials" were used in the story.

Liberal Reporter:  What Twitter and Facebook Did on Biden Story Is 'Creepy and Authoritarian'.  The New York Post obtained emails showing that Joe Biden lied about not knowing what his son, Hunter, was doing regarding his Ukrainian activities.  Hunter Biden was allegedly selling access while sitting on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, despite having zero experience in this field, while earning tens of thousands of dollars a month.  This corrupt arrangement occurred back in 2014 when Joe was leading anti-corruption efforts in the country.  Multiple people raised the alarm over this gig.  And it's a sore subject, as evidenced by Joe Biden's aggressive reaction toward it.

If 'unreliable' is the issue, why did social media never block anti-Trump stories?  This is what totalitarianism looks like in our century:  not men in darkened cells driving screws under the fingernails of dissidents, but Silicon Valley dweebs removing from vast swaths of the Internet a damaging expos  on their preferred presidential candidate.  That's what Facebook and Twitter did to the New York Post's bombshell report on Hunter Biden, revealing why the illustrious vice-presidential son was hired by a shady Ukrainian energy firm in exchange for at least $50,000 a month.  According to e-mails obtained by The Post, Hunter introduced the firm's executives to his father — just when Joe Biden was the second-most powerful man on earth, with outsize influence over the fate of the embattled Eastern European country.

Justice Clarence Thomas:  Section 230 Protections for Big Tech Are Too Broad.  Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) is applied too broadly to social media companies in a recent letter.  The law, which was passed at the beginning of the dot-com era, allows internet companies to avoid liability for content that has been posted by users on their platform.  According to Thomas, "many courts have construed the law broadly to confer sweeping immunity on some of the largest companies in the world."  According to a report by Axios, Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that Section 230 of the CDA should be narrowed.  Section 230 grants broad legal protections to social media companies with regard to content posted by users.

'This is Digital Civil War': NY Post Editor Fumes After Facebook and Twitter Censor Biden Bombshell.  Both Facebook and Twitter are censoring a bombshell story in the New York Post that implicates Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his ne'er-do-well son Hunter Biden in major corruption involving Ukraine.  Blockbuster emails from Hunter Biden's laptop reveal that he introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a Ukrainian energy executive.  Sohrab Ahmari, the op-ed editor for the Post expressed outrage on Twitter over the censorship, calling it a "Big Tech information coup" and a "digital civil war."  "I, an editor at The New York Post, one of the nation's largest papers by circulation, can't post one of our own stories that details corruption by a major-party presidential candidate, Biden," said Ahmari.

Democrats, Mainstream Media, Silicon Valley Try to Suppress Biden-Burisma Story.  The Biden campaign lashed out at the New York Post after it reported Wednesday [10/14/2020] on emails showing that Hunter Biden arranged a meeting between an adviser to the Ukrainian company he worked for and then-Vice President Joe Biden, despite the elder Biden's repeated denials he ever discussed business dealings with his son.  One email dated April 17, 2015, said, according to the Post:  "Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together.  It's realty [sic] an honor and pleasure."

Tucker Carlson Hits a Home Run Describing Censorship and Biden Emails:  "This is a dark moment".  Tucker Carlson described Hunter and Joe Biden's dealings tonight [10/14/2020] in a brutally honest monologue.  Carlson began by describing the censorship of social media monopolies trying to keep the truth from the American people about what Joe and Hunter Biden were doing to make big money.  Influence peddling seems to be the main focus with the Bidens, who are accused of selling access to the former VP.  The monologue described the Computer Repair Shop owner who came to find the emails and photos on a laptop brought in for repair but never claimed.  The description Carlson gives of the corruption should be devastating but CNN reported zero minutes about the emails tonight.  Our media is actively protecting Joe Biden right before an election.

Hunter Biden and the Big Tech information coup.  There is nothing to see.  In 2014, Hunter Biden joined the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma on a reported salary of $50,000 a month.  Hunter knows nothing about the energy business, and he doesn't seem to speak Ukrainian.  'I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,' Joe Biden said in 2019, though he had been photographed playing golf in the Hamptons with Hunter and another Burisma board member, Devon Archer, in 2014.  But there is nothing to see.  On Wednesday, the New York Post published an email from Vadim Pozharskyi, an adviser to the Burisma board, from April 2015.  Pozharskyi thanks Hunter for 'inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spend some time together'.  But there is nothing to see. [...] There is nothing to see because Facebook doesn't want you to see it and Twitter won't let you share it.

Twitter warns users that Hunter Biden story in New York Post may be 'unsafe'.  Twitter users who click on a link to a New York Post story involving Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden's son, Hunter Biden, were redirected on Wednesday to a webpage labeling the hyperlink of the Post's story as "unsafe."  "Warning: this link may be unsafe," reads the message from Twitter.  "The link you are trying to access has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially spammy or unsafe, in accordance with Twitter's URL Policy."  Content that violates Twitter's URL policy includes, "violent or misleading content that could lead to real-world harm," spammy links that mislead users, malicious links that could harm devices or steal information, and other categories of content that may violate other Twitter rules.

Facebook reducing distribution of Hunter Biden story in New York Post.  Facebook is limiting the distribution of a story in the New York Post about a purported email between Hunter Biden and an adviser to a Ukrainian energy company.  The 2015 email indicates that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to Burisma, thanked Biden for "giving an opportunity" to meet former Vice President Joe Biden.  The former vice president has previously said he has "never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings."  Facebook said it would rely on its fact-checking partners to determine the story's legitimacy, but until then, it is taking steps to tamp down on its spread.

Benghazi hero John Tiegen's Facebook and Instagram accounts disabled by Facebook.  John "Tig" Tiegen, a retired U.S. Marine who served on the security team that defended the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya during the Sept. 11, 2012 attack, had his Facebook and Instagram accounts disabled over the weekend.  On Saturday, Tiegen tweeted a screenshot of a Facebook notice that his account was disabled.  According to the screenshot, Tiegen was told his account had been disabled because it "did not follow our Community Standards."  It was not clear from the message Facebook sent Tiegen why his account was disabled.  On Monday, Tiegen shared another screenshot showing that his Instagram account was also disabled.  Facebook is a parent company to Instagram.

Levin: Facebook Folds, Any Future Censorship Efforts 'Will Not Be Tolerated'.  "What chance do average Americans have for free speech" if Big Tech platforms like Facebook blatantly censor conservative commentator and Constitutional Scholar Mark Levin, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) asked Thursday, prompting Levin to agree and vow that future censorship "will not be tolerated."  "Absurd.  If Big Tech will blatantly try to censor The Great One, what chance do ordinary Americans have for free speech?" Sen. Cruz tweeted, linking to a Washington Examiner article, titled "Mark Levin says he was 'prepared to go to war' before Facebook backed down on censorship of his page."

Twitter Locks Account of Ric Grenell over Voter Fraud Warning.  Twitter locked the account of former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell after he shared an image of ballots sent to him by a friend living in California, who says they were addressed to his parents — who he claims have been dead for ten years.  "He's my friend in California, a very close friend of mine.  It's his parents who were sent these ballots, and he gave me the photo, and he gave me permission."

The Left's 'Mostly Peaceful' Revolution/Coup.  [Scroll down]  Google will skew search results to always paint President Trump as illegitimate.  Twitter of course will suspend the president's account because it would be undemocratic to allow him to speak directly to Americans.  Facebook will do the same.  All this will be done to prevent Trump from lying to the people about what is obviously a popular national uprising to award Joseph Biden the presidency he won fair and square, despite how the obviously "stolen" election pans out.  At least that is how the media and Big Tech will paint it.

Conservatives, Republican Candidates Report Censorship and Shadow Banning by Twitter, Facebook, Google.  Conservative radio and Fox News host Mark Levin says Facebook is censoring his content.  "Facebook has just sent us this message.  It's a clear effort at censorship," Levin wrote on his Facebook page Monday morning.  "Every link I post is from a legitimate source.  But because so many people are seeing what I'm posting and we're within weeks of the election it's clear that Facebook is trying to influence the election's outcome.  It's also clear Facebook is pushing a leftwing agenda.  I'll address this tonight on radio."  Twitter guru, actor James Woods, is regularly banned from Twitter for being a political commentator.  Woods was suspended from Twitter for 24 hours for being retweeted by President Trump.

Twitter just censored Trump's FLU tweet!  This morning [10/6/2020] Trump tweeted about Flu season coming up, noting that we deal with sometimes high death tolls during Flu season without shutting the country down and we need to learn to do the same with COVID: [...] There is literally nothing wrong with this tweet whatsoever.  The 100,000 fatality number for the flu that Trump uses as an example is legitimate and it is true that in some, if not most populations the coronavirus is less lethal than the flu.  But Twitter censored Trump's tweet anyway, claiming that it was "spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19".

Facebook banning all QAnon accounts to stop 'militarized social movements'.  Facebook is banning all QAnon accounts from its platforms as part of its move to block "militarized social movements" from operating and organizing online, the social media giant announced Tuesday [10/6/2020].  The move, which also extends to Instagram, represents the company's strongest response yet to the controversial online right-wing conspiracy movement that has increasingly inserted itself into the nation's political discourse.  "Starting today, we will remove Facebook pages, groups, and Instagram accounts for representing QAnon," the company said in a press release.  "We're starting to enforce this updated policy today and are removing content accordingly, but this work will take time and will continue in the coming days and weeks."  "Our Dangerous Organizations Operations team will continue to enforce this policy and proactively detect content for removal instead of relying on user reports," the release said.

House Democrats say Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet, Apple enjoy 'monopoly power' and recommend big changes.  A Democratic congressional staff report recommends changes to antitrust laws and enforcement that could result in major changes for Big Tech companies, such as spinning off or separating parts of their businesses or making it harder to buy smaller companies.  The staff found, after a 16-month investigation into competitive practices at Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google, that the four businesses enjoy monopoly power that needs to be reined in by Congress and enforcers.  In a nearly 450-page report, the Democratic majority staff laid out their takeaways from hearings, interviews and the 1.3 million documents they scoured throughout the investigation.

Twitter Leftists Ban Top US Doctor David Samadi After He Tweets Well Wishes to President Trump.  There have now been 126 international studies on HCQ (hydroxychloroquine) and its effectiveness in treating the coronavirus.  76 of these international studies are peer reviewed.  64%, or nearly 2/3's of the studies found HCQ effective in treating COVID-19 in the early treatment stage of the disease.  After President Trump announced he had been tested positive for the coronavirus Dr. David Samadi, a top 100 US doctor tweeted out encouragement to President Trump and suggested the proven early treatment of HCQ, zinc and Zpack.

Dem 'Squad' accuses Twitter of shielding Trump from hate-tweets after dismissing attacks on them.  Reps.  Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., are complaining that Twitter has gone the extra mile to shield President Trump from tweets wishing him ill as he battles COVID-19 after failing to block death threats against them.  As Trump, an avid Twittter [sic] user, faced brutal attacks on the platform Friday [10/2/2020] after reporting his diagnosis, the San Francisco-based social media giant said posts "that wish or hope for death, serious bodily harm or fatal disease against *anyone* are not allowed and will need to be removed."  That prompted questions from Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez, half of a group of four Democratic House members dubbed "the Squad," about why Twitter hasn't intervened on behalf of other public figures, from politicians to celebrities and journalists who have received death threats or messages wishing them harm.

Facebook Removes Trump Campaign Ad.  Facebook has reportedly removed a recent ad from the Trump campaign, claiming that the ad features factually incorrect information about refugees and the coronavirus pandemic.  NBC News reports that Facebook stated this week that it took down political ads by the Trump campaign that claimed that accepting refugees from abroad could increase the risk of exposure to the coronavirus. [...] Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement on the removal:  "We rejected these ads because we don't allow claims that people's physical safety, health, or survival is threatened by people on the basis of their national origin or immigration status."

The Editor says...
They don't allow such claims — even if they're true.  Americans most certainly are at risk when immigrants come here, especially those who have never been to a doctor, and those who are running from the law.

Amazon blocks sale of merchandise with "stand back" and "stand by".  Amazon, eBay, and other online retailers are pulling merchandise from their sites emblazoned with the words "stand back" and "stand by" and displaying the insignia of the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group.  Shirts bearing the words cropped up for sale after President Trump uttered the phrase on Tuesday night, referring to the white supremacist group, during his debate with Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.  Individuals associated with the Proud Boys online took Mr. Trump's directive as words of encouragement, and products displaying the phrase quickly made their way onto sites including Amazon and Teespring, an online platform that lets users create and sell their own merchandise.

I got locked out of Twitter for having the 'wrong' opinion on Covid.  I woke yesterday morning to find that I had been locked out of Twitter for "violating our rules against abuse and harassment".  I was dumbfounded.  Which of my recent tweets had been abusive or harassed anyone?  I glanced down the email to see something I had posted last week in response to yet another We're All Doomed! report on the BBC news.

Tucker Carlson calls out 'censorship' after Facebook limits his show's account for 'sharing of false news'.  Facebook limited Fox News host Tucker Carlson's show page recently for repeatedly sharing "false news," according to a post the conservative commentator shared on his Facebook profile.  "Today's censorship by Facebook.  'Reduced Distribution.'  It's no coincidence that the election is just weeks away," said a post on the Tucker Carlson Tonight Facebook page Thursday.  The post contained a screenshot of a notice from Facebook warning Carlson that his page's reach is getting limited due to consistently sharing fake news.

The Shocking Full Extent of Big Tech Censorship of Conservatives.  In the runup to the 2020 elections, the social media giants mean to shut down whatever outlet or voice that helped elect President Trump, the greatest upset in left-wing history, in 2016.  And this has been going on for a long time.  [Allum] Bokhari details how Facebook, Twitter, Google and the rest depend upon Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) under the First Amendment, which provides them with immunity from lawsuits, thereby permitting these social media giants to engage in what is essentially U.S. government-sanctioned censorship (despite the fact that they are determined to destroy the President of the United States) and discriminatory business practices free from legal challenge.

As Joe Rogan's Platform Grows, So Does the Media and Liberal Backlash.  Why?  Joe Rogan has amassed one of the largest and most influential media platforms in U.S. politics, if not the single most influential.  The value of his program was quantified in May when the streaming service Spotify paid a reported $100 million for the exclusive rights to broadcast his podcast.  As one illustrative example of his reach, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden appeared on Rogan's program six days ago, and the episode has already been viewed more than 5 million times on YouTube alone.  The first time Snowden appeared on his program was last October, and that episode, just on YouTube, has more than 16 million views.  To put that in perspective:  The top-rated cable news programs are the Fox News shows hosted by Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, and they average between 4 to 5 million viewers, or one-fourth the number of views Rogan's discussion with Snowden generated.  Rogan is rarely discussed in mainstream political and media circles, which raises its own questions.

DOJ Unveils Proposed Legislation To Rein In Speech-Policing By Corrupt Tech Monopolies.  The Department of Justice introduced draft legislation to Congress Wednesday [9/23/2020] outlining specific reforms requested by the agency in compliance with President Donald Trump's Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship, which curtails big tech liability protections under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.  The proposed reforms stem primarily from the department's recommendations in June which were developed and released in response to the president's directive in May seeking to roll back protections that provide blanket immunity to online platforms hosting third-party content.

Celebrities Push Zuckerberg to Censor More Speech on Facebook and Instagram.  Show-business luminaries led by reality television personality Kim Kardashian are "freezing" their Facebook and Instagram accounts for a day to let Mark Zuckerberg — the principal owner of those social media platforms — that he needs to step up his anti-free speech campaign and remove posts and accounts that spread so-called hate, propaganda, and election misinformation.  The 39-year-old Kardashian — the wife of presidential candidate and rap mogul Kanye West — has 188 million followers on Instagram and over 30 million fans on Facebook.  She believes that those platforms are responsible for spreading hate and deceiving many people about the important facts of the news of the day.

Big Tech Shuts Down Chinese Virologist for COVID Claim.  Big Tech has cracked down on the Chinese scientist who says the Chinese government engineered the COVID-19 virus in a lab and released the pathogen intentionally.  Facebook and Instagram warn that virologist Li-Meng Yan's claims are false, and Twitter has suspended her account.  Fox talker Tucker Carlson discussed the censorship on last night's program after broadcasting Yan's claims on Tuesday [9/15/2020].  Yan's claims are in a research paper published at the non-peer reviewed website Zenodo, and the mainstream media is pushing the claim that Yan is peddling a "debunked conspiracy theory."

Ted Cruz vs.  Big Tech.  Yahoo, Google, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as other social media sites, are extremely biased against conservatives, Republicans, and President Trump.  A Pew Research Center survey conducted in June finds that about three-quarters of U.S. adults say it is very (37%) or somewhat (36%) likely that social media sites intentionally censor political viewpoints that they find objectionable.  Just 25% believe this is not likely the case.  Americans are divided over whether social media companies should label posts on their sites as inaccurate or misleading, with most being skeptical that these sites can accurately determine what content should be flagged.  Take Twitter, for example.  A tweet included a picture of the viral "Moscow Mitch" meme, which took the internet by storm in mid-2019 when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) rejected an election security bill.  Yet, these social media sites censor President Trump.

Facebook Censors Pro-Trump Ad After Fact-Checker Admits Claim May Be True.  Amid pressure from left-wing activists and media outlets to clamp down on "misinformation" from the right, Facebook has begun censoring political ads that receive negative fact-checks — fact-checks that are produced by mostly left-leaning fact-checkers and that mostly target right-leaning ads.  In at least two new cases, these fact-checks do not actually check facts — they instead merely state that factually true claims are "missing context," then downgrade the ads.  The danger of this political speech-silencing policy by the social media giant — which nearly 70% of Americans use and where more than 40% read their news — is on full display in the case of the censoring of the pro-Trump 30-second political ad "Too Risky."

Spotify is reportedly fighting with employees about hosting episodes of Joe Rogan's podcast that some consider transphobic.  Spotify is facing a heated internal struggle with employees over whether it should host episodes of "The Joe Rogan Experience" that some staffers described as transphobic, Vice reported.  Vice reported that CEO Daniel Ek addressed staff concerns at an all-hands meeting on Wednesday [9/16/2020].  "In the case of Joe Rogan, a total of 10 meetings have been held with various groups and individuals to hear their respective concerns," Ek said, per three sources who spoke to Vice on the condition of anonymity.  Vice said its sources shared questions that had been submitted for the Q&A portion of the meeting.  The questions, which shortened the name of the podcast to "JRE," suggest that friction is building between Spotify's leadership and its staff over the podcast.

Twitter Shuts Down Account of Chinese Professor Who Has Evidence China Created the Coronavirus in a Lab.  Twitter is at it again.  This time shutting down individuals who tweet information detrimental to the Chinese Communist Party.

Big Brother Bezos May Be Watching.  Let me apologize in advance for a lament that is more than a little self-serving, but as an author, I feel compelled to speak out.  I just received an email from Susan Daniels, the Ohio private investigator who first broke the story that Barack Obama was using a Connecticut Social Security number.  Hers is one of the stories I tell in my book Unmasking Obama.  Without my prompting or editing, Daniels wrote a review of my book and sent it to Amazon.  Amazon has become not only the most popular way to buy books, but also the primary way authors and publishers keep score.  The Amazon sales ranking matters as do the reviews.  Unfortunately, low-level, leftist, cyberbeavers work tirelessly to undermine authors who challenge the progressive agenda.

Facebook [is] Paying Social Media Users to Suspend Accounts Ahead of November Elections.  Need a little stimulus money to get you through the pandemic and sick of political nonsense on social media?  You're in luck!  Facebook is offering money to those who are willing to stop using Facebook and Instagram in the weeks before the November presidential election.  "To assess the impact of social media on voting, the company will pay selected members up to $120 to deactivate their accounts beginning at the end of September" according to the New York Post.  The announcement came from yet another social media outlet, when Facebook spokesperson Liz Bourgeois tweeted last week, "anyone who chooses to opt-in whether it's completing surveys or deactivating FB or IG for a period of time — will be compensated.  This is fairly standard for this type of academic research."

Fmr Acting AG Whitaker:  Facebook, Twitter Algorithms Could Be Viewed by DOJ as an 'Illegal Campaign Contribution'.  Friday [9/4/2020], during an appearance on Fox News Channel's "Tucker Carlson Tonight," former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker argued for a Department of Justice investigation into how Facebook and Twitter were altering their algorithms for the sake of politics.  Whitaker told host Tucker Carlson he did not see American democracy surviving another election cycle under the circumstances by which those social media outlets function.  "Yes, I actually do believe we are going to get to the bottom of this insidious, really, censorship of mostly conservative voices on social media," he said.  "And I think the Department of Justice has been looking at this issue, and I also believe that because of the way the algorithms that Facebook and Twitter and the like use to provide your news feed, I think that could be viewed, and maybe viewed by this Department of Justice, as a campaign contribution, an illegal campaign contribution, that ultimately, I think, they will step in and take action."

America's tech tyrants will do anything to elect Biden.  If you watched Tucker Carlson's show on Friday night [9/4/2020], you're probably pretty depressed right now.  The entire show was devoted to the fact that the Big Tech companies — Facebook, Twitter, Google, and YouTube (which Google owns) — are working hard to ensure that Trump cannot win the presidency.  Their work takes many forms.  There's the money aspect — these young(ish) tech titans emerged from an American education system that taught them to hate their country. [...] Tucker discussed the known fact that Google has altered its search algorithms to ensure that, when people type in a query, the search engine will not return any conservative sites in its answers. [...] Through YouTube, Google also pulls down or demonetizes conservative content, especially content that channels the Democrats' Wuhan virus narrative.  Facebook does the same.  Twitter routinely locks out conservative views with which it disagrees, including censoring President Trump.

Facebook accused of pulling post about Kenosha gunman after declaring shooting 'mass murder'.  Facebook has been accused of removing a commentator's post about Kyle Rittenhouse, the gunman in last week's deadly shooting in Kenosha, Wis., after the social media giant labeled the incident a "mass murder."  In a Twitter thread on Tuesday, media analyst Mark Dice claimed that Facebook had removed a video that purportedly shows Rittenhouse offering to help a wounded protester.  Images posted by Dice purportedly showed Facebook notifying him that it doesn't allow "symbols, praise or support of dangerous individuals or organizations."  Actions considered "dangerous" by Facebook included "terrorist activity," and "mass or serial murder."

Facebook to Limit Political Ads Week Before Election, Label Premature Calls.  Facebook Inc. will prohibit new political advertisements in the week before the U.S. presidential election in November and seek to flag any candidates' premature claims of victory, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said.  The steps are meant to head off last-minute misinformation campaigns and limit the potential for civil unrest, Mr. Zuckerberg said in a statement Thursday [9/3/2020].

Or, to put it another way...
Zuckerberg Says Facebook Will Suppress Trump Victory Claims After Election.  In another example of social media companies putting their fingers on the scales in the upcoming president election, Facebook has announced it will suppress what it calls "premature claims of victory by candidates," while failing to identify what that means.  The news comes as The National Pulse highlights the attempts by the left to delay the naming of a winner by several days or over a week after the election.  President Trump shared The National Pulse story with the question:  "Rigged Election?"

Facebook Will Ban Campaigns from Uploading Ads in Last Week of Election to Avoid 'Civil Unrest'.  Social media giant Facebook has announced plans to ban new political ads for the week leading up to Election Day on November 3. Mark Zuckerberg announced the ban along with several other changes because he fears "there could be an increased risk of civil unrest across the country."  NBC News reports that Facebook has announced plans to ban new political ads in the week leading up to Election Day on November 3.  The site will also remove posts that try to suppress or discourage voting according to company CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Twitter Allows Blue-Checked, Black Feminist to Call for Race War Against Whites.  Twitter wastes no time claiming that everything conservatives say is "violence" and bans them for it.  But it has turned a blind eye to direct calls for violence in support of Black Lives Matter posted by a blue check-marked feminist nicknamed Feminista Jones.  The Twitter account calling for open warfare between blacks and whites is maintained by writer Michelle Taylor, a hate speech purveyor who has had her dreck published in a long list of anti-American, left-wing outlets such as Salon, Time, Ebony, and the Washington Post.  Taylor has won herself a vaunted "blue checkmark" from Twitter, meaning that Twitter not only verified that her feed is indeed hers, but that they endorse her work.  Very few people on the right have ever gotten a blue checkmark, but Twitter hands out that honorific like cheap candy to leftists.

YouTube may ban California's most popular political satirist.  A best-selling political author and commentator based in Los Angeles could be deleted from YouTube after posting a short clip of Kyle Rittenhouse and criticizing Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Kamala Harris.  Mark Dice, who has 1.6 million YouTube subscribers and millions of weekly video views, warned his audience on Wednesday that his days could be numbered on the Google-owned platform for so-called policy violations, from which liberal commentators seem immune despite posting violent and inflammatory rhetoric.

Lin Wood, attorney for Kyle Rittenhouse, says he was locked out of Twitter account.  The high-profile attorney for Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old charged with fatally shooting two people in Kenosha, said he was locked out of his Twitter account Tuesday [9/1/2020] after posting about raising money for Rittenhouse's legal defense.  L. Lin Wood argued the action against his account is the latest example of Twitter censorship of conservative voices and he intends to file a lawsuit against the social media giant and its CEO Jack Dorsey.  "I'm going to take Jack Dorsey [...] down," Wood told Fox News.  "He has been abusing the First Amendment of this country for his own agenda."

CNN and Twitter Target President Trump and The Gateway Pundit.  CNN and Twitter are at it again.  Today CNN slandered President Trump and the Gateway Pundit and encouraged Twitter to take down a tweet based on CDC data that the President retweeted.  CNN and Twitter don't want Americans to know the full truth about COVID-19.  Last night we posted an article about COVID-19[.] [...] The gist of the article is that COVID-19 is not nearly as deadly as first projected by the WHO and then by Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx.  Based on CDC numbers this past week only 6% of all deaths attributed to COVID-19 were instances where the only factor in the individual's death was due to COVI9-19.

A Tyranny Perpetual and Universal?  [Scroll down]  To cite only two examples:  free speech is under attack as it never has been before.  Right now, the battlefield is mostly social media sites, hence the attacks are publicly justified as legitimate acts by private businesses.  "The First Amendment doesn't cover the private sector; property rights mean they can do what they want!"  Leave aside the extent to which the ruling class cares about property rights for property not their own (answer: not much); how meaningful is the distinction between public and private speech when the modes of public discourse increasingly are concentrated in the private hands of the ruling class?  Answer:  also not much.  When it comes to freedom of association, the government arm of the ruling class is absolutely ruthless in declaring everything a "public accommodation" so that freedom effectively becomes nonexistent.  But when half a dozen (or fewer) big tech companies take over the means of disseminating speech and ideas — oh, no!  That's not a public accommodation!  Those are private firms and the rights of private firms are sacrosanct!  As if this were not enough, take a look at how free speech polls these days: the younger the demographic, the less support one sees.

Twitter supports threatening comments against law enforcement officers.  There is an old saying that goes, "actions speak louder than words."  On Wednesday [8/26/2020], Twitter made a big statement in its actions and comments.  Essentially, Twitter said that it supports threats against law enforcement officers.  The action comes as Shaun King, an activist and podcast host with over 1 million followers on the platform, threatened the safety of law enforcement officers on Tuesday.  King called for the name of the officer that shot Jacob Blake in Kenosha.  The shooting has sparked riots across the city over several nights.  Twitter made comments to the NY Post on Wednesday that the tweet did not violate any of their policies.  The policies in question are around threatening harm to an identifiable group.  It's the same policy that has been used against President Trump in the past.

Biden's "Dislikes" Mysteriously Disappear From YouTube.  During Joe Biden's 'acceptance' speech on Thursday, there were strong, negative reactions posted to his YouTube channel, as well as the Democrat Party's page.  In real time, live audience "dislikes" significantly outnumbered "likes."  However, suddenly, those 'dislikes' have been removed.

Joe Biden's mysteriously disappearing "Dislikes" on YouTube.  During Joe Biden's presidential nomination acceptance speech Thursday night, both his personal YouTube page and the Democratic Party's YouTube page saw strong, negative reactions from live audiences.  In fact, "Dislikes" outnumbered "Likes," in real time.  Yet both pages' "Dislikes" mysteriously dropped in the hours after the Democratic National Convention (DNC) had concluded.  The changing statistics led some on social media to wonder if the Google-owned YouTube platform was protecting Biden.  The number of Democratic convention stream "Dislikes" — or people pressing a button saying they did not like the content onscreen — dropped on Friday below where they stood on Thursday last night.  The removed Dislikes could be a signal that YouTube is concerned about fake accounts or bots trying to influence the election or indicative of something else, experts said.

Amazon Livestreamed All 4 Nights of DNC, Ignores RNC Day 1.  Amazon Prime Video did not offer a live stream of the Republican National Convention during primetime on Monday after it livestreamed all four nights of the Democratic National Convention last week.  The RNC blackout meant that Amazon Prime subscribers couldn't watch the first night of the convention through the Prime Video mobile app or through Fire TV devices.  Breitbart News made multiple attempts to search for a primetime RNC livestream on Amazon but only found archived RNC footage from earlier in the day.

Wikipedia Is Badly Biased.  Wikipedia's "NPOV" is dead.  The original policy long since forgotten, Wikipedia no longer has an effective neutrality policy.  There is a rewritten policy, but it endorses the utterly bankrupt canard that journalists should avoid what they call "false balance."  The notion that we should avoid "false balance" is directly contradictory to the original neutrality policy.  As a result, even as journalists turn to opinion and activism, Wikipedia now touts controversial points of view on politics, religion, and science.  Here are some examples from each of these subjects, which were easy to find, no hunting around.  Many, many more could be given. [...]

Candace Owens Will Sue Facebook over 'Blatant Censorship'.  BLEXIT founder Candace Owens will sue Facebook over its "blatant censorship" after the social media platform demonetized her page following her comments about senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) swearing into congress in 2017 as an "Indian-American."  Candace Owens said that Facebook has suppressed her page after she commented her thoughts on senator Harris being chosen as Democrat nominee Joe Biden's vice president for the upcoming November election.

Notice that all Twitter "mistakes" go in the same direction.
Twitter Apologizes For Suspending the Babylon Bee's Account 'By Mistake'.  Twitter has apologized to the conservative satirical website the Babylon Bee for wrongfully suspending its account after accidentally flagging it as spam Monday night [8/17/2020].  The Babylon Bee's editor-in-chief Kyle Mann shared an email from Twitter on his personal account Monday night detailing the suspension.  The email read, "Your account, TheBabylonBee has been suspended for violating the Twitter Rules.  Specifically for:  Violating our rules against platform manipulation and spam.  You may not use Twitter's services in a manner intended to artificially amplify or suppress information or engage in behavior that manipulates or disrupts people's experience on Twitter."

No Need for a Conspiracy Theory.  In recent days, social media like Twitter and Facebook have taken action to prevent Q-Anon, a shadowy entity that promotes various conspiracy theories, including the "Deep State," from using their platforms.  For those who haven't been following this matter, the "Deep State" is basically also a shadowy conspiracy, within the government, that seeks to undermine the policies of Republicans. [...] I call such people the "permanent government," people who have chosen to make their careers in and off government.  The existence of these people is not open to any serious debate: residents of the Washington area see them morning and evening, commuting in and out of the city; they're why suburban Washington exists, why the Beltway has a near permanent traffic jam, and why it became necessary to build a modern subway system.  Some of these people, mainly at lower levels, are largely unaffected by what policies are being pursued, while for others, those policies have direct consequences.

Facebook's "Fact Checker" Rates Another True Statement False.  We live in an era where even fact checkers require fact checks.  Facebook has partnered with a number of "third-party" fact checkers due to what they call their commitment "to fighting the spread of misinformation on Facebook."  Once once of Facebook's independent fact checkers rates a claim false, every page that has shared that information receives a warning, and their page's traffic can be throttled as punishment.  If their "fact checking" was implemented honestly, MSNBC and CNN wouldn't even be on their platform anymore.  While plenty of bunk does get refuted by Facebook's fact checkers, those legitimate fact checks seem to serve the purpose of cloaking the purely ideological "fact checks" that they implement.

Facebook is lying — and people are dying.  In the 1930's, a skillful propagandist named Paul Joseph Goebbels was able to exercise great control over the news in Germany.  Using radio — a new media at the time — and film, Goebbels influenced the country's opinions on antisemitism, churches, and even the arts.  One of his most useful techniques was censoring any message that didn't agree with the Nazi Party's objectives.  In 2020, the new media platforms of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are similarly influencing the world's opinion on matters of antisemitism, the church, the arts, and even healthcare.  And, like Goebbels, one of their most useful techniques is censoring any message that doesn't agree with their common objectives.

Facebook censors American Thinker.  Two weeks ago, I wrote that the social media giants are refusing to allow people to publish anything about the Wuhan virus that contradicts information from the World Health Organization.  This censorship hit close to home on Monday when Facebook banned an American Thinker reader from posting William Sullivan's post about Sweden's successful decision not to implement lockdowns.

Who Elected Twitter and Facebook to Censor Speech?  I have spent my professional life defending the First Amendment and the free-speech rights it enshrines.  It is the bulwark of all our freedoms.  The attacks on it are proliferating alarmingly.  Now, the most powerful social media platforms — which function as today's public square — are arrogantly silencing a U.S. president.  If a president's right to be heard in the public square may be freely assaulted, who is safe?  This is extremely dangerous to self-government and the perpetuation of our civil rights.  Yet politicians, many of them bought off by those social-media giants, do nothing.  And the news media, which in the days of more objective journalism boldly championed free speech, say little or nothing if Republicans or conservatives are the targets.  The same is true of former civil-liberties organizations.

Corriher: We're Being Disappeared.  In the latest case of internet censorship and election meddling, Twitter has decided to effectively ban the main competitor to YouTube:  Bitchute.  Censorship will continue to increase as we get closer the U.S. election.  [Video clip]

Twitter Official Who Announced Trump Campaign Account Suspension Is Former Kamala Harris Press Secretary.  Twitter on Wednesday [8/5/2020] banned President Trump's campaign from tweeting until they delete a tweet about the Coronavirus that the tech company says violates its "rules against misinformation."  This is happening in an election year during a pandemic.  Where is the DOJ? Where are the Republican lawmakers?  The Washington Post corrected its report that Twitter banned President Trump over his tweet of a video clip of a Fox News interview in which he said children are "almost immune" from Covid-19.  Twitter banned Trump's campaign, not the President's account.

Facebook, Twitter Censor President Trump's Fox News Interview.  Facebook and Twitter censored a video clip of President Donald Trump's recent interview on Fox News' Fox & Friends over alleged coronavirus "misinformation."  Facebook said it removed the video of the interview because President Trump claimed that children have heightened immunity to coronavirus.  The Trump campaign stands by this claim, but Facebook disagrees, and used it as an excuse to prevent American citizens using the platform from hearing what their president has to say.  This is despite repeated assurances from Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg that the platform will not censor politicians.

Facebook's Claims That Their 'Fact-Checkers' Are Free Of Bias Doesn't Stand Up To Scrutiny.  According to RealClearInvestigations,18 of the board's 20 members are tied to groups that have taken funds from the progressive billionaire's foundation.  Their links with Open Society Foundations do not necessarily reflect their political affiliations but the percentage of members tied to the organizations raises some concerns.  Some of the members are directly connected to Soros-funded groups.  For example, Afia Asantewaa Asare-Kyei is a program manager at Soros' Open Society Foundations in West Africa, and Pamela Karlan, a Stanford University Law professor, is a member American Constitution Society, which was founded and funded by Soros.

Facebook removes Trump post for first time citing coronavirus misinformation rules; Twitter also clamps down.  Facebook and Twitter are both taking action after a video shared by President Trump they say contains misinformation about the coronavirus.  "This video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from COVID-19 which is a violation of our policies around harmful COVID misinformation," Facebook spokesperson Liz Bourgeois told Fox News in a statement.  In the removed video, the president told Fox & Friends that schools should remain open.

YouTube censored my talk on policing.  If your 12-year-old son goes on YouTube, he can watch [various inappropriate things.] [...] Yet your children can't watch a livestreamed speech on policing I gave Thursday, arguing that US law enforcement isn't engaged in systemic violence against blacks.  YouTube has deemed the speech inappropriate for children under 18 and blocked access to minors.  I suppose I should be grateful — at least it's on the Web at all.  YouTube had initially wiped the speech off its servers entirely on the ground that it violated the site's "community guidelines" for keeping YouTube a "safe place."  No further explanation was given.

Big Tech Censorship is the IRS Scandal of 2020.  This week, Breitbart News revealed that Google, is trying to intervene in the 2020 elections by censoring conservative news and preventing voters from receiving information they need to make an informed decision in November.  Google has killed search traffic to Breitbart.  Moreover, Twitter suspended Breitbart News' account after the website streamed a press conference of dissident doctors on Facebook Live.  YouTube — owned by Google — removed the video, and Twitter censored tweets that included excerpts from the video, including a tweet by the President of the United States.  Facebook also suspended private groups that posted the video.  Though there are a few cases of liberal posts being flagged or taken down, Big Tech is distorting the national debate to benefit Democrats and hurt Republicans.

Social Media Censorship Won't Keep Trump from Being Reelected.  Remember a couple of months ago people were all excited about Dr. Robert Epstein claiming Google preventing Trump-related searches or banning Trump ads was going to throw the election to the Democrats and Joe Biden?  I certainly do, because at the time Dr. Epstein went public with his predictions about the forthcoming 2020 election, my Twitter account blew up from people bringing it to my attention.  Dr. Epstein is a prominent American psychologist and author.  He was formerly editor-in-chief of Psychology Today magazine and a distinguished professor at the University of California — San Diego.  Epstein has been involved in controversies and criticisms of Google and other Big Tech platforms since 2012 when Google began placing security warnings on links to his website, which reduced his site traffic.

Fauci's Daughter Ali Fauci Is A Software Engineer For Twitter.  NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci, facing harsh criticism for his response to the Coronavirus outbreak, has a daughter named Alison ("Ali") who is a software engineer for Twitter.  This comes as Silicon Valley increasingly cracks down on so-called misinformation about the virus from truth-minded individuals who do not automatically accept what the experts like Fauci have to say.  Fauci's daughter's software engineer job at Twitter was confirmed in articles by Heavy and Deseret.  Twitter has some explaining to do to convince independent-minded people that there is no conflict of interest when it comes to censoring information critical of Ali's father Dr. Fauci.

Election Interference:  Twitter Just Censored a Doctor, Public Health Expert, and GOP Chairwoman.  Twitter informed me that my account was suspended for sharing content they disagree with, and while I suppose I should be flattered by joining such august company as Donald Trump Jr., this issue is bigger than me:  it is a question of censorship.  The reason I was given by Twitter for why my account was suspended was because, according to them, I spread "false information" about COVID-19, or rather, information that goes against "accepted science."  Is it possible that the geniuses at Twitter are referencing the medical journal Lancet, which published a study claiming hydroxychloroquine was not effective in fighting the coronavirus and that this drug, which has been used for decades with great success to treat malaria, may cause cardiac problems?  Because, if so, that study was later retracted after it was discovered that the underlying data the company used was totally falsified.

By Suppressing Medical Debate, It Is Twitter that Endangers Americans.  Twitter has once again acted as judge, juro, and executioner.  For four days, Twitter prevented the @BreitbartNews twitter account from posting, only restoring its permissions earlier today.  This is in no small part because Twitter dragged its feet on Breitbart News's appeal[.]  Twitter initially locked Breitbart News's account because it posted a video of a press conference featuring Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) and licensed doctors sharing their views and opinions on coronavirus and the medical response to the pandemic.  The event was held by the organization America's Frontline Doctors and organized by the Tea Party Patriots.

Social Media Censorship Is Scary.  One of the many great things about being an American is that we have the right to freedom of speech.  I may not agree with what my neighbor has to say, but I will fight to the death for his or her ability to say it.  This concept was a founding principle that is now in jeopardy because of the monopoly power wielded by social media giants.  An example of this disturbing trend occurred this week when a video from several frontline doctors who questioned the status quo position on COVID-19 treatments and protocols was summarily scrubbed from most top internet and social media sites.  After going "viral," the video was immediately taken down by Twitter, YouTube, and several other prominent platforms.  Unfortunately, many Americans missed the opportunity to watch the video before it was removed.

The Worthlessness of Congressional Hearings.  [Scroll down]  These businesses are unquestionably the largest monopolies in world history.  Google has gone from completely dominating internet searches to basically owning the internet, dominating online email and gobbling up other internet giants like YouTube.  Facebook is the Coke to Twitter's Pepsi, but Facebook also gobbled up the #3 social media site Instagram.  Amazon is the all-time undisputed king of merchandise sales, making owner Jeff Bezos the Richest Man on Earth. [...] This tiny handful of tech companies aren't just big.  They're on a scale never seen in history.  Being big, in and of itself, isn't a problem.  But the people controlling these companies are doing what powerful people do.  They're flexing their power to either buy or crush competitors.  Which is ultimately bad for everyone.  But they're not just exerting dangerous market dominance, they are using their massive size and power to impose their personal social and political preferences on the public.

Twitter defends blocking Trump tweets but not Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei.  A Twitter spokeswoman has defended the company's decision to block and restrict tweets from President Trump but not those of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei which call for genocide of the Israeli people.  The reason?  Because the Iranian dictator's tweets pass as "commentary on political issues of the day" while Trump's could "inspire harm," Twitter claims.

Use Antitrust Against Big Tech.  On July 27th, a landmark hearing will take place in Washington, DC.  For the first time, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will all testify before the House's Antitrust subcommittee.  These four extraordinarily powerful Big Tech CEOs, whose companies are worth a combined $4 trillion, have never testified together — and it will be the first time that Bezos has ever testified before Congress.  Bezos, Pichai, Zuckerberg, and Cook will almost certainly argue that their companies are not monopolies.  Google and Facebook offer free services; Amazon offers incredible prices and excellent service; Apple offers beautiful products and competes with Android.  But that's a surface level analysis of the sheer power that these men wield.

Jim Jordan to tech executives:  You're 'out to get conservatives'.  Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan put technology and social media executives on notice at the outset of a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday [7/28/2020].  Citing several areas of concern, the GOP congressman sent a clear signal that the issue of censoring conservative voices will be front and center when Republicans question Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and other tech leaders.  "I'll just cut to the chase:  Big Tech is out to get conservatives," Jordan began.  "That's not a suspicion.  That's not a hunch.  That's a fact."

Big Tech must be brought to heel over election influencing.  As the war on conservative voices online reaches fever pitch in the run-up to November's presidential election, Silicon Valley's oligarchy finally was called to account Wednesday [7/29/2020] on Capitol Hill.  "Big Tech is out to get conservatives" Ohio Republican Jim Jordan told the bosses of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple.  "That's not a suspicion, that's not a hunch.  That's a fact."  Then he laid out a litany of censorship atrocities in a blistering opening statement before the congressional antitrust panel.

Big Tech, Establishment Media Crush Free Speech Through a Form of Prior Restraint.  Big tech and mainstream media have joined forces to crush free speech and press freedom.  Not only are they censoring alternative medical views on coronavirus, but they are also censoring news outlets that happen to cover those views.  On Monday night [7/27/2020], Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (owned by Google) took down video from a Facebook live stream of a press conference on coronavirus in Washington, DC, by a group of doctors that was covered by Breitbart News that day.  The press conference was held by a group called America's Frontline Doctors, which was organized and sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots.  The press conference featured doctors talking about their own views about the treatment of coronavirus or COVID-19, sometimes presenting perspectives that are not featured by the "experts" making policy for the country.  Some talked about hydroxychloroquine; others touted the scientific case for reopening schools.

Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz Calls Out Google for Censoring Websites.  Representative Matt Gaetz called out Google for censoring conservative news sites like the Gateway Pundit, Daily Caller, Breitbart, Western Journal and the American Spectator.  Of course Google's Head denied any such thing.  If you go to Google and search for top stories in various categories where the Gateway Pundit has led in the news cycle you won't find Gateway Pundit included in the list of related articles on the subject.  This happens over and over and over and today Rep. Matt Gaetz from Florida asked Google's Head Sundar Pichai about it.

Election Interference:  Google Purges Breitbart from Search Results.  A few days after the 2016 election, at an internal meeting later leaked to Breitbart News, top Google executives, including Sundar Pichai, Sergey Brin, and Kent Walker, lamented President Trump's victory, comparing Trump voters to "extremists" and discussing their desire to make Trump's election and the populist movement a "blip" in history.  True to their word, four years later, Google is deliberately working to interfere with the reelection of Trump in 2020.

Why is Big Tech censoring doctors who have treated COVID-19 patients?  [Thread reader]  We organized a group of practicing physicians, many of whom have personally treated COVID-19 patients, and we spoke directly to the American people about our experience and understanding of the virus and its treatment options.  As a result:
  •   Facebook removed the livestream of our conference that had 15 million+ views
  •   Twitter forced us to delete video testimonials from our physicians
  •   Our web host removed our website and claimed a "violation of their TOS"
  •   The media smeared us with lies & falsehoods
Why are social media company employees with no medical degree or clinical experience censoring the perspectives of practicing physicians?  Why are journalists claiming hydroxychloroquine is ineffective when there are numerous studies showcasing its efficacy against COVID-19?  Why are state governors restricting physicians from prescribing an FDA approved medication for 65 years and empowering pharmacies to over-rule your doctor?  These actions are unprecedented and have never happened before in medicine.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube Remove Video Of America's Frontline Doctors Disputing Media Lies On COVID and Hydroxychloroquine.  This video is being posted to Vidmax to give one more source to view and share it from.  From Breitbart News:  Facebook has removed a video posted by Breitbart News earlier today, which was the top-performing Facebook post in the world Monday afternoon, of a press conference in D.C. held by the group America's Frontline Doctors and organized and sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots.  The press conference featured Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) and frontline doctors sharing their views and opinions on coronavirus and the medical response to the pandemic.  YouTube (which is owned by Google) and Twitter subsequently removed footage of the press conference as well.  [Video clip]

Twitter Censors Videos of Doctors' Capitol Hill Coronavirus Press Conference, Locks Breitbart Account.  Twitter deleted Breitbart News' Periscope livestream of a Washington D.C. press conference held on Monday by the group America's Frontline Doctors and organized and sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots.  Breitbart News recently reported that the Masters of the Universe quickly censored a live stream published by Breitbart News of a press conference held in Washington D.C. by the group America's Frontline Doctors and organized and sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots. [...] A Twitter spokesperson told Breitbart News:  "Tweets with the video are in violation of our COVID-19 misinformation policy.  We are taking action in line with our policy here: [link]

The Editor says...
In other words, Twitter will decide what's true and what's not.

The Establishment Has No Clothes.  [Scroll down]  Many of the richest men in America didn't even graduate from college.  Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg certainly didn't.  Gates and Zuckerberg, and the rest of Big Tech, hardly conduct themselves in a manner one would term as elite.  Gates engages in suspicious, if not nefarious, activity in the realm of vaccines; there are credible stories of his having corrupted the public health bureaucracies in this country and others.  Zuckerberg and his cohorts in social media are busy attempting to censor the very free speech that made them billionaires.  So much so that on Monday and Tuesday a newly formed group of physicians called America's Frontline Doctors held a two-day summit in Washington to bring public attention to the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as a treatment for COVID-19 and to call for an end to economic lockdowns and mask mandates, and by Tuesday afternoon social media and Big Internet was actively engaged in scrubbing any evidence they had bothered to speak.  The doctors speaking out on behalf of HCQ were calumnied and insulted.

Facebook's Neutral "Fact Checkers" Exposed As Ex-CNN Staffers And Democratic Donors.  Today in news about the radical left-wing censorship machines our social media companies have become, it was exposed this week that Facebook's fact-checker, Lead Stories, is an outfit that is stocked to the brim with ex-CNN staffers.  The organization presents itself as neutral yet "most of its employees" have donated to the Democratic party, according to RT.  The National Pulse reached out to Facebook's fact checkers this week after a story they published about Black Lives Matter was flagged as "partly false" by the platform.  This led TNP to "do some digging" on who was behind the smear.  What they found was stunning: an organization "staffed almost entirely by Democratic donors, half of whom had worked for CNN in the past."

Is Twitter Hiding A Screenshot Of Its Trend And Search Blacklist Tools?  While we cannot confirm independently that the screenshot is, in fact, from Twitter's development/moderator tools, it certainly would open up a whole new can of worms regarding the hack if it turns out to be.

Cancel Culture is a Mighty Tool of Fascism's Advance.  When all opposition is silenced, certainly totalitarianism will prevail.  Every day The Mainstream Media (MSM) and the tech giants (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Google, et al.) abet or conceal what "cancel culture" does.  In fact, they are the perpetrators of many of the cancel culture's manifestations.  They, MSM and the tech giants, are our rulers now, but they are only placeholders for the rulers they hope will come:  A Grand Socialist State Paradise.  This GSSP would, of course, be led by Democrats.  It is laughingly ironic that the MSM and the tech giants don't realize that the crocodile will eat them, too, for there is no free press under totalitarianism!

Ricky Gervais: 'If You're Mildly Conservative on Twitter People Call You Hitler'.  The creator of The Office, Ricky Gervais, has called out the online "fascists" that want to shut down freedom of speech, saying that "if you're mildly conservative on Twitter people call you Hitler."  Continuing on his press tour marking the nineteenth anniversary of The Office, Gervais followed up his criticisms of cancel culture with an attack on the idea of so-called "hate speech".

Twitter suspends dozens of accounts associated with white nationalist Identitarian movement.  Twitter said it suspended dozens of accounts associated with the Identitarian movement, a white nationalist ideology whose adherents oppose multiculturalism in Europe.  More than 50 accounts connected to the movement were suspended from the social media service Friday after the publication of a report about its proliferation on the platform, NBC News first reported Friday [7/10/2020].  "The accounts in question were suspended for violating our policies in relation to violent extremism," a Twitter spokesperson told The Washington Times.

Twitter Covering Up For Antifa — Suspends Account Exposing Terror Training Tactics Videos.  Antifa is posting videos online on how you can smash windshields, cut seatbelts and drag people from their vehicles.  This antifa member says its necessary when Americans don't stop and wait during their street protests.  There is NOTHING about this group that is civil or lawful.  [Video clip]

Popular chess channel hit by YouTube's racial justice algorithm.  Apparently, saying things like "white knight takes black pawn" is now too racist for Google's artificial intelligence.

Biden Campaign Asks Facebook To Censor President Trump's Posts.  The Biden campaign doesn't believe Facebook is doing enough to censor President Trump.  In a letter to Facebook's vice president for global affairs and communications Nick Clegg on Monday, Biden's campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon criticized the tech giant for "haggling" with the White House and requesting "edits and deletions" of Trump's posts about the George Floyd protests, rather than removing them entirely.  She specifically asked Facebook to remove posts from President Trump that suggest a connection between mail-in ballots and voter fraud.  Dillon insisted that such posts were unfounded and constituted voter suppression.  Meanwhile, in a special election in New Jersey last month nearly a fifth of ballots collected were discovered to be fraudulent.

Woke censorship is basically a superstitious cult.  We live in a society gripped by a quasi-religious fervor — and obsessed with symbols and irrational fears.  Anything that is thought to have the slightest association with racism, no matter how attenuated the connection or how innocent the explanation, must be crushed and expunged.  The mere presence of a possibly offending word is deemed a threat, whether it is truly offensive or any real people have actually taken offense.  We are engaged in a war with shadowy forces that we can't truly understand, but must exercise the utmost vigilance, lest they sneak up on us unawares.

Twitter's Brazen 2020 Election Interference Will Eventually End In Banning Trump.  It seems clear now that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is going to ban President Donald Trump.  It's just a matter of when.  Dorsey will come up with a pretext, however absurd or cynical, as part of Twitter's ongoing efforts to interfere in the 2020 election.  It will probably consist of a charge that Trump has had one too many violations of some entirely subjective and impossible-to-define Twitter policy on abusive or harmful speech.  We got another preview of what that might look like this week when Twitter once again appended a warning label to a Trump tweet that apparently violated Twitter's policy against "abusive behavior." What did Trump say that was abusive?  He said there would never be an "autonomous zone" in the nation's capital, and that any mob trying to take over D.C. streets would be met with "serious force."  In other words, the president promised to enforce the law.  That was considered "abusive" by Twitter.

Comedy writer permanently banned from Twitter for saying "men aren't women".  Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan has been permanently banned from Twitter after he tweeted "men aren't women tho" in response to a tweet by a women's group wishing men who identify as women a happy Pride Month.  Lineman, who had hundreds of thousands of followers on the social network, is the creator or co-creator of the sitcoms Father Ted, Black Books, and The IT Crowd.  Twitter said Linehan "has been permanently suspended after repeated violations of our rules against hateful conduct and platform manipulation."

Facebook to Prohibit Hate Speech in ads:  Meaning — Conservatives & Trump Supporters Free Speech Rights Null & Void.  As companies boycott Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has decided to join Twitter and the Stalinists who demand he become the arbiter of so-called hate speech.  Under its new policies, Facebook will ban ads that claim people from a specific race, ethnicity, nationality, caste, gender, sexual orientation or immigration origin are a threat to the physical safety or health of anyone else, Zuckerberg said, according to CNBC.  What exactly does that mean?  Does it mean BLM can't be criticized?

Conservatives Are Treated like Second-Class Citizens, and That's Dangerous.  For years we have been screaming at the top of our lungs that Google and Twitter and Facebook were censoring our political speech.  The social media giants are so certain that they can get away with their discrimination that they cancel in broad daylight the most popular voices and publications with hardly a whimper from our elected representatives.  They seek out and eliminate the revenue streams of viewpoints they despise without any due process.  Private companies or not, they represent the modern equivalent of the town square, long protected and made available for all Americans, and submitting to Big Tech's authority to choose winners and losers in the great American public forums of our time is not different from requiring subjects to beseech the royal crown for permission to speak.  It's impermissible and un-American and a threat to social stability, yet everywhere, conservatives are targeted for their beliefs, and the federal government does nothing.

The Facebook Ad Boycott Is About Silencing Conservatives, Not Stopping 'Hate'.  In the latest twist on cancel culture, major corporate advertisers are pulling ads from Facebook as part of a #StopHateForProfit campaign launched last week by the Anti-Defamation League.  But this campaign isn't about stopping hate.  On Wednesday [6/24/2020], Goodby Silverstein & Partners — which represents companies such as BMW, Frito-Lay, PepsiCo and HP — said it's joining what is supposed to be a month-long Facebook boycott in July.

Defund the Thought Police.  Due process is not the strong suit of mobs.  Neither is nuance, open discussion, or disagreement.  These inherent defects should be painfully obvious as mobs pull down statues, seize sections of cities, and demand the public approach them on bended knee, literally.  Anyone who dares push back, perhaps with a mild tweet saying "All lives matter," faces immediate censure.  If the mob is successful, any offenders will lose their jobs.  Feckless employers are all too eager to appease the mob and hope it turns on another target.  In this perilous environment, the most frenzied voices do more than dominate the public square.  They monopolize it by silencing dissent.  They have received full-throated support from the tech giants that control electronic discussion and the media giants determined to shape the narrative rather than report the news.  Twitter and NBC are the poster children for this assault on free and open discussion.

Twitter Went Too Far Yesterday and Now People Are Searching for a New Social Media Network.  Let's go over what Twitter did to make people so mad.  At the beginning of the day, a racist grifter looking for social media fame followed a woman to her home after claiming that she flipped him off and called him the "n-word."  He proceeded to film himself harassing the panicked woman and displaying her license plate.  According to some Twitter users who looked into the man, who was identified as Karlos Dillard, Dillard has an odd history that includes claiming people were racist toward him while filming them, and then even selling merchandise off of his videos.  Despite the fact that this video clearly violated several of Twitter's rules, Twitter dragged its feet for an entire day before it finally took down the tweet and suspended Dillard's account.  While Twitter was taking its sweet time moving on this blatant disregard for an innocent woman's safety, it was firing off at the hip toward President Donald Trump.

Facebook Conservative targeting case breaks wide open with undercover evidence, stunning content moderator confessions.  Facebook content moderators discussed using their positions to censor Republicans and conservatives in an undercover video released by activist group Project Veritas on Tuesday [6/23/2020].  The video shows individual Facebook content moderators working for a third party contractor, Cognizant, expressing their eagerness to censor supporters of President Donald Trump.  The footage also shows that CNN host Don Lemon was granted an "exception" by a Facebook for speech that would have otherwise violated Facebook's rules against hate speech.  The footage includes a shot of an internal order to the Cognizant team instructing moderators not to censor a video of Lemon saying that white men are "the biggest terror threat in this country."  "This is implying that white men are terrorists and so would typically violate [Facebook rules against "dehumanizing" speech].  As this is a newsworthy event, FB's content policy team is allowing a narrow exception for this content on the platform," a manager told moderators in a November 2018 message.

Facebook moderators brag about deleting pro-Trump posts in Project Veritas sting.  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long insisted that the company is politically neutral, but the same apparently can't be said for all of its content moderators.  The social-media giant said it would review its training and oversight after a Project Veritas sting released Tuesday showed moderators on hidden-camera footage claiming that they delete pro-Trump and conservative posts; that the company harbors an anti-Trump bias, and that Facebook shadow-bans content, despite its claims to the contrary.

Intolerance threatens US - here's who to blame for 'cancel culture'.  Activists sue to block a Trump rally, the New York Times fires a non-compliant editor, Twitter "fact-checks" conservative voices.  Ivanka Trump, Sid Rosenberg, Erik Prince, Raymond Ibrahim, Jeh Johnson, Kevin McAleenan and countless others "disinvited" to speak on college campuses.  Wonder where today's "cancel culture" comes from?  It comes from college campuses, fueled by young people and abetted by an older generation that has not had the courage to say no.  This is how the slide toward totalitarianism begins.  Silencing the opposition is essential to creating "legitimacy" for despots like Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un; if political opponents have no voice, people will assume they don't exist.

Project Veritas Video Shows Facebook Content Moderators Discussing Censoring Conservatives, Reveals 'Exception' Given To Don Lemon For Hate Speech.  Facebook content moderators discussed using their positions to censor Republicans and conservatives in an undercover video released by activist group Project Veritas on Tuesday [6/23/2020].  The video shows individual Facebook content moderators working for a third party contractor, Cognizant, expressing their eagerness to censor supporters of President Donald Trump.  The footage also shows that CNN host Don Lemon was granted an "exception" by a Facebook for speech that would have otherwise violated Facebook's rules against hate speech.

Man Tried To Share His Regrets About Transgender Life.  YouTube Censored It.  Information provided exclusively to The Federalist shows YouTube removed a Heritage Foundation video featuring testimony from a former transgender-identifying woman for violating the company's hate speech policy.  YouTube confirmed the decision in a Thursday [6/18/2020] email to The Federalist.  Now Heritage is fighting back with a new video, released first to The Federalist, in which Federalist contributor Walt Heyer doubles down.  "I said that children suffering from gender dysphoria should not be encouraged to try experimental hormones in surgery, and I stand by that statement," Heyer emphasizes.  The seven-minute clip, which Heritage will publish on YouTube, includes footage of Heyer's remarks from the original panel, with the allegedly hateful six-word violation bleeped like a curse word.

Conservative Clergy of Color Rips Google Over 'Deliberate Censorship' of Conservatives.  The Conservative Clergy of Color took Google to task in a statement slamming the Internet giant over its "deliberate censorship" of conservatives.  "As pastors and leaders in our communities, we are appalled by the blatant bigotry and bias against conservative and Christian voices in our country today.  We are sickened by the dirty trick Google played against two conservative websites over a simple difference of opinion," Conservative Clergy of Color leaders, which include Bishop Aubrey Shines, Rev. Derek McCoy, Rev. MJ Reid, and Pastor Francisco Vega, said in a statement.

Let's 'Demonetize' NBC News And Google.  his week saw a depressing new low in the attempt by the left to silence voices with which it disagrees when an NBC News "reporter" tried to enlist Google to block two conservative websites' ability to make money.  In a report on Tuesday [6/16/2020], NBC News' London-based Adele-Momoko Fraser claimed that Google had banned The Federalist and Zero Hedge from its ad platform over articles that were "pushing unsubstantiated claims about the Black Lives Matter protests."  Google soon tried to correct the record, saying that "The Federalist was never demonetized."  Google had only threatened to blacklist the site from its ad network.  (It did "demonetize" Zero Hedge.)  What's more, contrary to NBC News, Google's actions against The Federalist and Zero Hedge had nothing to do with articles they published, but with reader comments on those sites.

NBC Appoints Itself Internet-Speech Arbiter.  Wow.  I guess every day at the "NBC News Verification Unit" is a game of "Two Truths and a Lie."  Yesterday [6/16/2020] NBC News, the employer of Brian Williams and former employer of Matt Lauer, Mark Halperin, and Chris Matthews, revealed that it has an obscure self-described "verification unit" that appointed itself to police American political discourse, and initially reported that Zero Hedge and the Federalist had been banned from generating revenue through widely used Google Ads, deeming their content to be racist.  The report characterized those sites as "far-right," even though the Federalist publishes a variety of right-of-center viewpoints and Zero Hedge is an idiosyncratic libertarian-leaning financial and market news site.

NBC News' Attempt to Demonetize the Federalist Is Illiberal Insanity.  NBC News reported today that two sites, ZeroHedge and the Federalist, had been banned from generating revenue through widely used Google Ads.  A Google spokesperson initially told NBC News that it "took action after determining the websites violated its policies on content related to race."  I don't know much about ZeroHedge, but the contention that the Federalist (where I worked as a senior editor from 2013 to 2019) is "far-right," as reporter Adele-Momoko Fraser claims twice in her piece, is utter nonsense.  The Federalist publishes a wide variety of opinions.  Some pieces are more provocative than others.  Some are very provocative.  So what?  NBC News is trying to make the site sound like the Daily Stormer, when in fact it has contributions from well-known mainstream libertarians, social conservatives, and moderate Republicans.  All of the content falls well within normal parameters of contemporary political discourse — which is exactly what outlets such as NBC News are trying to shut down.

Did NBC and Google engage in antitrust collusion against two conservative sites?  Leftists cannot allow ideological competition.  If their ideas have to go head-to-head with conservative ideology, their ideas lose.  Leftists and other fascists win only by shouting more loudly and breaking things more aggressively than do people committed to individual rights.  Sometimes, though, if you're arrogantly confident that you have the upper hand, you get careless.  That's what happened with NBC and Google when they colluded to demonetize The Federalist and Zero Hedge.  It's no coincidence that the Department of Justice almost immediately afterward announced that it was going to end the immunity that protected internet platforms from antitrust actions if they try to stifle competition — something that may save American Thinker from a demonetizing attack.  There's a lot to unpack here.  First, under §230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, the big platforms were made immune from liability for third-party content on the ground that they were functioning as bulletin boards, not publishers.  They're still protected even though they're now making judgments about the content (usually in ways that hurt conservatives). They're also immune from antitrust actions if they work with other parties' to silence the latters' competition.

NBC Tries and Fails to Wreck a Conservative Website.  Here's Why It's Deeply Problematic.  If you value a robust media offering a variety of voices, you should be troubled by a chilling incident that occurred this week.  Citing the work of two foreign-based activist groups, NBC News reported Tuesday that Google would demonetize a conservative news and opinion outlet, The Federalist — meaning not allow it to carry Google Ads on its site.  Why?  Because of The Federalist's coverage of the George Floyd protests.  Later that day, Google clarified that its specific issue was the comments section below articles on The Federalist, not the articles themselves.  When The Federalist removed its comments section, Google said it considered the issue resolved.  This episode shows how a media outlet such as NBC News apparently is willing to collude with radicals alongside one of the world's most powerful tech companies to ruin the competition.

NBC News Reporter Thanks Foreign Groups for 'Collaboration' in Pushing Google to 'Defund' The Federalist.  NBC News reporter Adele-Momoko Fraser thanked two foreign non-profit organizations for their "collaboration" in urging Google to demonetize The Federalist, a respected conservative American news website, on Tuesday [6/16/2020]. [...] The Federalist is a conservative news and opinion site that features, among others, Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway.  Zero Hedge, another site targeted by the groups, is a blog featuring commentary on politics and economics.

NBC News under fire for apparently pushing Google to remove conservative sites from ad platform.  NBC News is facing intense backlash for apparently influencing Google to punish two conservative news sites over what was deemed offensive coverage of the George Floyd protests.  In a report published Tuesday afternoon, NBC News claimed Google "banned" The Federalist and ZeroHedge from Google Ads for "pushing unsubstantiated claims" about the Black Lives Matter movement.  Google later pushed back, claiming that The Federalist "was never demonetized," and adding, "We worked with them to address issues on their site related to the comments section."  "We have strict publisher policies that govern the content ads can run on and explicitly prohibit derogatory content that promotes hatred, intolerance, violence or discrimination based on race from monetizing," a Google spokesperson initially told NBC News.  NBC, however, did not link to the "derogatory content" from The Federalist or ZeroHedge.

More about Google.

Twitter Hires Ex-FBI Lawyer Who Played Key Role In Probe Of Trump Campaign.  Twitter announced Monday [6/15/2020] that it has hired the former FBI lawyer who approved key steps taken during the investigation into the Trump campaign, including the decisions to surveil former campaign aide Carter Page and to use an FBI agent to secretly monitor Michael Flynn during a national security briefing for the campaign.  James Baker will serve as deputy general counsel of Twitter, said Sean Edgett, the general counsel of the social media company.  Baker "is committed to our core principles of an open internet and freedom of expression," Edgett said in a statement.

Snapchat CEO says platform has 'First Amendment' right to censor Trump, Zuckerberg weighs in.  The CEOs of two of the world's biggest social media platforms are attacking President Donald Trump anew as they angle to censor some of his comments and 'fact-check' his responses.  Snapchat chief Evan Spiegel is defending his platform's actions to limit the reach of the president's content by actually invoking the First Amendment's free speech guarantee while urging other platforms to do the same.  Spiegel, who heads up Snapchat and Bitmoji, made his remarks during an interview with Bloomberg News that was published Thursday.  They come after Twitter started fact-checking President Trump's tweets last month, referencing cherry-picked articles to support the claim that he's been dishonest.  "The government is explicitly threatening private platforms about exercising their First Amendment rights," Spiegel said.

Twitter's Jack Dorsey [is a] Worse Threat To Democracy Than Russia's Putin.  Election meddling, anyone?  By "fact-checking" just one tweet by President Donald J. Trump, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey shows he and other social media giants like him have both the power and the desire to swing elections and the power and desire to swing the 2020 election away from Trump and toward the incoherent Joe Biden who probably thinks tweeting is what those honking geese were doing outside his basement window.  That action, along with tagging another Trump tweet commenting on the need for law enforcement and civil and state authorities to confront rioting in Minneapolis as possibly promoting violence interferes with the 2020 election in ways that Vladimir Putin could only dream of.  By controlling what we see and hear and know and think about, the Dorseys of the world can influence massive numbers of votes, more than could ever possibly be stolen by fraudulent mail-in voting schemes.

We Can't Let Social Media Become the Socialist Media.  It was an unprecedented moment in the history of social media.  On May 26th, Twitter decided it needed to correct a statement from President Donald Trump when he criticized the legitimacy of mail-in voting.  Out of cyberspace's blackness, social media decided it had not only the right, but the obligation to inform the public about what the "truth" is.  Make no mistake.  Despite an ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has been subsumed by a sudden urgency to root out "systemic racism" and expose "white privilege" in America (which has, in turn, been subsumed by the blind rage and greed of rioting and looting), freedom of speech remains fundamental to keeping America free.  America's foundational value of free speech should mean that, whether you are a humble factory worker or the President of the United States, you have the right to your opinion, and to express that opinion without fear of being arrested, censured or financial ruined.

GoFundMe suspends Candace Owens' campaign to help bar owner in stunning censorship move.  Amid all the turmoil in America of late, there may not be a more far-reaching crisis than the ongoing effort to censor speech.  In the run-up to the November election, Big Tech platforms like Google, which owns YouTube, Twitter and Facebook now censor content with abandon, deciding what is and is not acceptable speech.  The latest example of this involves a GoFundMe account set up by Candace Owens, titled "Mob rule has no place in America," which was subsequently shut down after raising $205,000 in a few hours.  The conservative activist launched a GoFundMe campaign in support of Michael Dykes, a Birmingham bar owner who called George Floyd a "thug" — Floyd served at least four stints in prison, including a 5-year sentence for aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon.  The media narrative is that at the age of 46, he was turning his life around, though a toxicology report said he had fentanyl in his system at the time of his death, as well as meth.

The Left Is as Scared of the Truth as of a Plague.  Why is it that the Left needs to censor and shout down any opposing views rather than debating the merits of their arguments?  Because their narratives cannot withstand scrutiny beyond clever videos and slogans.

Things you're not allowed to say: lowlights of the new censorship.  Liberals don't want to change minds, to have a debate; they want to banish the argument.  The things that you're not allowed to say.  And then they'll bemoan that we live in a fragmented society, where people retreat to their bubbles, and they'll be shocked when the next election doesn't go the way they think.

Pro-Police Site Taken Down Amid Anti-Cop Hysteria.  At the moment, police officers are in an awful position.  The good officers — and they make up the bulk of the police officers in this country — are being held accountable not just for what other officers did, but often for what officers in completely different states have done.  It's hardly fair, yet most officers know that life isn't fair.  However, there are a handful of outfits that have been unapologetically pro-cop, and one is Blue Lives Matter.  Of course, with a name like that, you'd kind of expect them to be pro-police.  However, the site is being taken down after its parent company faced an internal backlash.

Blue Lives Matter Website To Be Shut Down Because Shut Up, They Said.  Cancel culture remains on the march.  Barring any sort of intervention, it appears that the next victim will be the website Blue Lives Matter, dedicated to highlighting assaults on police officers and offering support for their families.  You might be wondering what anyone would find so offensive about a site specializing in that sort of content.  Well, you actually probably aren't wondering if you've been following all of the protests in the news lately.  All cops are bad now.  And some people working at other publications owned by the media company responsible for the site (Defense Maven) noticed the existence of BLM and expressed their "embarrassment and horror" at realizing their employer published such claptrap.  They immediately demanded that the site be shut down.

Facebook pulls ad from gun-toting Georgia candidate taking on Antifa: 'Big Tech censorship of conservatives must end'.  A GOP congressional candidate is accusing Facebook of "censorship" after the social media giant took down a campaign video that shows her holding an AR-15 rifle and warning Antifa to "stay [...] out of northwest Georgia."  Marjorie Greene, a businesswoman running in Georgia's 14th District, posted the ad on Facebook Tuesday [6/2/2020].  By Thursday, Facebook told her campaign the video was coming down because it violated company policies against promoting the use of firearms.  The video is still running on Twitter, and Greene has bought air time to run the ad on broadcast and cable TV in advance of the Tuesday primary.

Twitter says it will focus on 'context' not 'fact-checking' after Trump confronts social media.  Social media behemoth Twitter announced that it is getting out of the 'fact-checking' business and will instead focus more on the "context" of messages after a dust-up with President Donald Trump led him to threaten platforms with new regulations.  In as series of messages Tuesday evening, platform officials and co-founder Jack Dorsey said they have reviewed "Twitter Safety" policies regarding posts that could be in violation of their posting rules, saying the site will now focus on "context, not fact-checking" content.  The messages come about a week after Twitter attempted to fact-check a post President Trump made about mail-in vote fraud and then labeled another tweet as having "glorified violence."

Twitter flags Republican tweets for 'glorifying violence,' but leaves others untouched.  Twitter for several years has been at the forefront of one of the tech world's more intractable ongoing problems:  To what extent do social media companies regulate the speech posted on their platforms?  Most companies police user content to varying degrees.  Facebook's "community standards," for instance, forbid an extensive range of posts from sexual content to "cruel and insensitive" material — though Twitter has for years overseen user posts in an arguably more hands-off manner:  It allows sexually explicit content, for instance, while Facebook's recent censorship of anti-lockdown protest groups drove home its heavier hand of content regulation.  Yet Twitter in recent weeks is indicating that it intends to increase regulation of at least some types of tweets:  It has flagged several posts from prominent Republican politicians — including President Donald Trump — and claimed that their messages violate its terms of service regarding the "glorification of violence."

Twitter Targets Trump Again, Flagging Tweet After Executive Order.  Twitter flagged and hid a tweet posted by President Donald Trump's early Friday morning after the president signed an Executive Order challenging the growing political bias in tech companies, whose platforms are meant to be neutral.  Trump's tweet was in response to the growing unrest and rioting in Minnesota, in response to the horrific death of George Floyd while in police custody. [...] Trump signed the Executive Order Thursday aimed at social media giants he says, have been operating as biased publishers rather than platforms for free speech.

Twitter And Social Media Are A Cancer On Our Civic Life.  They Don't Deserve Protection.  There's nothing like a row between Twitter and President Trump to turn everyone into an expert on 47 U.S. Code § 230, a heretofore obscure section of federal law that deals with liability protections for companies like Twitter. [...] So let me just say up front, I am not an expert on Section 230 or on federal liability law generally. [...] But I don't need to be an expert in liability law to know this: social media are corrosive to our civic life, and social media companies like Twitter are largely unaccountable for their actions in that regard.  Without question, Twitter and Facebook and YouTube have harmed democratic life in America, eroded our civic values, and exacerbated divisions and distrust between citizens.  If they all disappeared tomorrow, the country would be better off.

The Editor says...
The same could be said of cell phones and cable TV.

Cracking Down on Misfits' Crime Sprees and Big Tech.  [Scroll down]  Indeed, as others have noted, Twitter regularly permits actual calls to violence on its site if the target is the president or conservatives. [...] Twitter is targeting the President of the United States 24/7, while turning their heads from protest organizers who are planning, plotting, and communicating their next moves daily on this very platform.  Indeed, Yoel Roth, Twitter's (ludicrous) head of site integrity himself has tweeted that Trump was a "racist tangerine" and complained of "actual Nazis in the White House."  To my knowledge he's still in that position and his tweets still are neither flagged nor removed.

33 Examples of Twitter's Anti-Conservative Bias.  President Donald Trump is right that social media companies have been targeting conservatives.  Twitter, in particular, has been engaging in a relentless attack on the American political process by censoring conservatives.  Now that has escalated to fact-checking the president nearly five months from a presidential election.  The Media Research Center released a report in 2018, which found that Twitter led in censoring the right.  That hasn't changed.  Project Veritas caught Twitter with hidden camera interviews admitting the process of shadow banning — which means content is hidden from users without the poster ever knowing it.  One engineer admitted that accounts were flagged as bots simply by searching for words such as "America" and "God."  Twitter's rules have been influenced by liberal think tanks like the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Since then, Twitter has gotten worse.  Here are some examples: [...]

Trump should just kill social media altogether.  [Scroll down]  Social media concerns have thus far been immune to legal recourse for content published on their domains thanks to a twenty-six-word catena of legalese tucked into §230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.  This single sentence is credited with giving rise not just to social media, but to the entirety of the internet:  "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." [...] The pith of Trump's order is to treat social media channels like news publishers, thus making them legally answerable for what appears on their public-facing feed.  It would also strip the veneer of impartiality these digital giants use to distinguish themselves from traditional paper-and-ink publishers.  Then, presumably, anti-conservative bias in the form of subtle suppression of right-wing opinion could be tackled.

German official vows to 'open any doors' to get Twitter to move to Germany, where it'll be 'a perfect fit'.  Hit the road, Jack!  That's the response of many Americans after a German government official lobbied Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to relocate to Germany amid the tech monopoly's escalating feud with President Trump.  Basically, Twitter has begun censoring and doing bogus "fact-checks" on Trump's tweets while continuing to allow left-wing politicians and media outlets to post inflammatory fake news.

YouTube reinstates Giuliani podcast exploring Biden ties to China.  YouTube removed and then reinstated an episode of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani's podcast about former Vice President Joe Biden's relationship with China.  A spokesperson for the platform told the Washington Examiner on Thursday [5/28/2020] that the video, which was posted on April 24 and deleted on May 12, was removed accidentally and has been reposted.  "Our team is glad the mistake was rectified," Giuliani's spokesperson told the Washington Examiner.  Giuliani's team was informed early in the morning on May 12 that "video has been removed from YouTube" because it "was flagged to us for review," and upon that review, they "determined that it violates our guidelines," according to a representative for the former New York City mayor.

Facebook is right.  Twitter is wrong.  Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey opened up a Pandora's box two days ago by dropping a fact-check on a tweet by Donald Trump regarding mail-in ballots.  That raised all sorts of hell from a bombastic President, as well as more questions than answers.  There are several problems with Twitter deciding to put its thumb on the scale of 'truth' on its social platform.  The site has previously come under enormous scrutiny over widely perceived political and ideological bias.  The charges against the company include its unfair and unbalanced actions in banning conservative or politically right-leaning accounts, as well as shadow-banning and limiting views and engagements on trending topics which it deems problematic.  The extent of these actions is unknown, as Twitter does not share discipline or corporate information regarding personal accounts, but none of that matters.  Twitter now sits right in the sights of legislative tech-happy politicians such as Sen. Josh Hawley, Sen. Ted Cruz and of course the President himself.  And Twitter's new selective fact-checking system has only further infuriated the company's critics.

The New Internet Censorship.  [Scroll down]  Not to be outdone, Facebook recently has begun "fact-checking" posts from conservative voices and censoring content — remember the Ukrainian "whistleblower," Eric Ciaramella, whom John Roberts refused to name during President Trump's impeachment trial?  Everyone who wanted to know his name could find out because Adam Schiff had carelessly neglected to black out his name from hearing transcripts, but Facebook made a policy of deleting any posts naming Ciaramella under the pretense of protecting him from retribution.  Angry Trump supporters soon figured out that the way to circumvent the censors was to create a post naming Ciaramella as the whistleblower and taking a screen shot of it, deleting the post, and then posting the screenshot.  The robot censors can only read typed text, not text in photos.

Twitter needs to fact-check these tweets from prominent liberals.  [Scroll down]  Start with a 2017 tweet from CNN contributor Ana Navarro claiming that an "Ivanka Fund got $100 million pledge from the Saudis and UAE."  The truth:  The cash went to a World Bank initiative for female entrepreneurs.  Navarro's tweet garnered more than 43,000 retweets.  Or how about a 2019 tweet from actress Nancy Lee Grahn that featured photos of migrant children at a border detention center and railed against Team Trump for allegedly torturing kids?  As Internet sleuths pointed out, Grahn's photo was cropped to remove the timestamp: 2015.  It garnered nearly 50,000 retweets anyway.  Then there was Rachel Maddow's blog's 2018 claim that the White House had edited the video of the president's Helsinki news conference with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin "to remove [a] question about whether [he] wanted Trump to win."  The Washington Post and numerous other outlets debunked the claim, yet the tweet is still up, with 24,000 retweets — and no Twitter warning label.

Twitter is digging its own grave.  President Trump is allegedly preparing some sort of executive order that would clamp down on Twitter and potentially other social media outlets.  This is apparently a move in response to the company's decision to start "fact-checking" some of the President's tweets and flagging them as being content of dubious accuracy.  Whether or not this is something that the White House is even able to do will likely be a subject of debate until the courts settle the matter, but that's hardly the key issue at hand.  At National Review, David Harsanyi wrote at length about the folly of Twitter deciding to jump into the business of fact-checking and flagging certain bits of content and not others.  He notes that politics is rarely a dispute over facts, but rather values, dooming such fact-checking efforts to wind up being viewed as partisan harassment.

Trump to sign executive order on social media companies.  President Trump is signing an executive order Wednesday [5/27/2020] aimed at social media companies, a White House official said.  White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters that the president is signing the order "pertaining to social media," but she could not provide details.  The president has criticized Twitter this week for posting, for the first time, fact-checking items to his tweets about mail-in voting.

8 Lies by Joe Biden and the Left that Twitter Didn't 'Fact Check'.  Twitter added a "fact check" label to President Donald Trump's tweets raising widely-held concerns with mail-in voting fraud earlier today, but it has failed to apply a similar standard to repeated falsehoods by elected Democrats, the mainstream media, and Joe Biden.  Unlike Facebook, which gives itself plausible deniability for fact-checking bias by relying on "third party fact checkers" (almost all left-leaning) to pick and choose what to fact-check and what to ignore, Twitter made the decision to fact-check Trump's tweet itself, linking to an official "moment" curated by Twitter employees and containing numerous articles from the mainstream media calling the president a liar.

The Folly of Twitter's Fact-Check Policy.  No American, not even the president, has an inherent right to a social-media account.  Tech companies such as Facebook and Twitter are free to ban any user they see fit.  They're free to fact-check anyone they want, to create a framework of acceptable speech, and to enforce their policies either consistently or capriciously.  They're free to accuse Donald Trump — and only Trump, if they see fit — of being a liar.  They're free to do all of these things.  Even if they shouldn't.  Yesterday [5/26/2020], after years of pressure from media and Democrats, Twitter labeled two of Trump's tweets [...] as "potentially misleading."  It's a mistake for any platform to drop its neutral stance and take on fact-checking duties, a task that's going to be impossible to accomplish either objectively or effectively.  It's going to corrode trust in the brand, but it won't change a single mind.

Mark Zuckerberg criticizes Twitter for fact-checking Trump.  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Twitter was wrong to fact-check President Trump's tweets that made the dubious claim that mail-in ballots increase voter fraud.  Zuckerberg reasoned that the social media platforms shouldn't be the "arbiters of truth[.]"  "We have a different policy, I think, than Twitter on this," Zuckerberg said in an excerpt from a Fox News interview scheduled to air on The Daily Briefing Thursday [5/28/2020].  "I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn't be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online," Zuckerberg went on.  "In general, private companies probably shouldn't be, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that."

Twitter Adds Labels to Trump's Tweets for First Time.  Twitter added information to refute the inaccuracies in President Trump's tweets for the first time on Tuesday, after years of pressure over its inaction on his false and threatening posts.  The social media company added links late Tuesday to two of Mr. Trump's tweets in which he had posted about mail-in ballots and falsely claimed that they would cause the November presidential election to be "rigged."  The links — which were in blue lettering at the bottom of the posts and punctuated by an exclamation mark — urged people to "get the facts" about voting by mail.  Clicking on the links led to a CNN story that said Mr. Trump's claims were unsubstantiated and to a list of bullet points that Twitter had compiled rebutting the inaccuracies.

Trump says 'big action to follow' after Twitter puts fact-check label on his tweets.  President Trump indicated he would take action against Twitter after it affixed fact-check labels on his tweets.  "Twitter has now shown that everything we have been saying about them (and their other compatriots) is correct.  Big action to follow!" he tweeted Wednesday [5/27/2020].  Hours earlier, Trump threatened to regulate or shut down social media companies because conservatives felt their voices were being censored by the platforms.  Twitter placed the label on the president's tweets for the first time Tuesday when he tweeted about mail-in voting in California.  The warning linked to a page with tweets and articles discussing the issue.

This is not news.  Wikipedia hasn't been politically neutral for at least a decade — if it ever was.
Wikipedia Co-Founder:  Site's Neutrality No Longer Exists, Favors Leftism.  Conservatives have long been blowing the whistle on Wikipedia's leftist bias.  The site's co-founder Larry Sanger apparently agrees with them.  In a blog post last week, Sanger argued that Wikipedia has abandoned all neutrality in the name of avoiding what activist journalists call the "false balance" — the idea that not all opposing views of an argument should be given equal time.  He goes through several pages to support his thesis, noting the rather charged language often employed.  When comparing the pages for former President Barack Obama and the current President Donald Trump, the differences are night and day, with the former receiving overwhelmingly positive treatment while the latter is frequently portrayed negatively.

President Trump wants a commission set up to review complaints of anti-conservative bias and censorship on social media.  President Donald Trump is considering creating a commission to review complaints of anticonservative bias and censorship on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google.  It is understood that the new body will take the form of White House commission, the Wall Street Journal reported.  A White House official told the paper:  'Left-wing bias in the tech world is a concern that definitely needs to be addressed from our vantage point, and at least exposed [so] that Americans have clear eyes about what we're dealing with.'

YouTube Censors Former CBS Journalist Sharyl Attkisson For Reporting On Hdroxychloroquine.  YouTube is not a group of doctors, nurses, or have any sense of medical education, but their Nazi CEO claims that they will not tolerate and they will remove any videos that present a different, lawful narrative against the current one they are presenting.  Former CBS journalist Sharyl Attkisson has come under their attack just as The Sons of Liberty have in attempting to investigate certain claims about COVID-19, 5G, coronavirus and drugs used as treatment, including hydroxychloroquine and chlorine dioxide.

Plandemic: The COVID-19 Video YouTube and Facebook Don't Want You to See.  Over the last couple of days, I've had several friends send me a link to a video about COVID-19 called "Plandemic."  They said they can't post it on Facebook; Facebook either removes it or threatens them with suspension before they try to post it.  When I went to the URL on YouTube, it had been pulled for allegedly violating YouTube's terms of service.  A YouTube spokesperson told Buzzfeed News that they remove "content that includes medically unsubstantiated diagnostic advice for COVID-19."

Google slaps down conservative sites reporting the truth on coronavirus.  Google, the top search engine in the United States, appears to be hitting conservative sites who are publishing articles that run contrary to the accepted narrative surrounding the coronavirus.  Multiple reports have come into NOQ Report concerned with major drops in traffic from the search giant.  So, we checked our own stats and realized it had started happening to us as well.  We will not be "outing" other conservative sites who may require Google traffic to function properly (our biggest search traffic source is DuckDuckGo, which I highly recommend from a privacy perspective).  I will not be disclosing the names or websites associated with the people I talked to on this matter.  Google's various teams, for their part, have not responded to requests for information.

YouTube Censors Noted Anti-Lockdown Epidemiologist.  Welcome to the 2020 New World Order, when a social media platform like YouTube thinks it knows more about the coronavirus pandemic than an epidemiologist.

You can't criticize CCP influence of WHO.  That would be un-YouTube.

Epidemiologist's Video On Coronavirus 'Herd Immunity' Had 1.3 Million Views, Until YouTube Removed It.  YouTube removed a video of a prominent epidemiologist explaining his view that achieving "herd immunity" is the best way to combat the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.  Dr. Knut M. Wittkowski is a former head of biostatistics, epidemiology and research design at Rockefeller University, but his contrarian take on tackling coronavirus was removed by the tech company for purported "misinformation."  A prominent advocate for the concept of "herd immunity" as being the only effective way, short of a vaccine, that society can fully return to normal life, Wittkowski considers social distancing and lockdown measures to be unnecessary and even counterproductive.

Washington Post Media Columnist Wants an 'Executive Editor' for 3 Billion Facebook Users!?  Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan acknowledged Facebook has nearly three billion users, but she still wants it to have an "Executive Editor" to punish and censor the "misinformation" that is harming our democracy.  The fact that Facebook's new Oversight Board has only two out of twenty members who are conservative does not seem to impress Sullivan.  Sullivan asserted in her Friday [5/15/2020] column, "Facebook has a huge truth problem.  A high-priced 'oversight board' won't fix it."  That "truth problem" starts with allowing Donald Trump to be elected.

Google Erases the Existence of Those Who Speak Unwelcome Truths.  Daniel Greenfield, the peerless Shillman Fellow and FrontPage writer, tweeted the news on May 7: "Google just erased my Sultan Knish blog and Front Page Mag articles from the first pages of results for my name doubt very much this is accidental."  I did too, so I checked for myself, and sure enough: a Google search for "Robert Spencer" now does not bring up Jihad Watch, where most of my writing outside of books has been published for the last seventeen years, but it does give you defamatory and distorted attack pieces from the far-Left Southern Poverty Law Center and the Saudi-funded Bridge Initiative, and nothing that doesn't portray me and my work in the most unfavorable possible light.  This latest example of the tech giants' determination to silence all dissenting voices reveals one often overlooked fact: they are desperately afraid.  Google is so afraid of Jihad Watch, in fact, that it is going to great lengths to make you think that the site (which you can find here) doesn't exist at all.

YouTube censors epidemiologist Knut Wittkowski for opposing lockdown.  Big Tech companies are aggressively tamping down on COVID-19 "misinformation" — opinions and ideas contrary to official pronouncements.  Dr. Knut M. Wittkowski, former head of biostatistics, epidemiology and research design at Rockefeller University, says YouTube removed a video of him talking about the virus which had racked up more than 1.3 million views.  Wittkowski, 65, is a ferocious critic of the nation's current steps to fight the coronavirus.  He has derided social distancing, saying it only prolongs the virus' existence and has attacked the current lockdown as mostly unnecessary.  Wittkowski, who holds two doctorates in computer science and medical biometry, believes the coronavirus should be allowed to achieve "herd immunity," and that short of a vaccine the pandemic will only end after it has sufficiently spread through the population.

Truth, not politics, is at the root of the left-right divide.  From Lenin to today's left, lying, especially about opponents, is morally acceptable as long as it serves the left's goals of defeating opponents and attaining more power.  Once you realize this, the divide becomes explicable.  Why has YouTube taken down the video of two emergency room physicians who argue that the lockdown may not be called for?  Because the left does not argue with opponents; it shuts them down.  And that is because it has no interest in truth.  That's why the left is pressuring YouTube and Facebook to prohibit anything the left differs with from appearing on their platforms.  Just as the Soviets labelled everything in the Western press "imperialist propaganda," the left labels everything with which it differs "misinformation."

Twitter Permanently Suspends Account of Republican Running to Challenge Rep. Ilhan Omar.  A Republican candidate running to challenge Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota had her Twitter account permanently suspended for repeated violations of Twitter rules, according to a Twitter spokesperson.  Danielle Stella says she was banned for a tweet in which she spread a baseless claim about Omar and said if the claim is true, Omar should be tried for treason and hanged, according to a post to her Facebook account.  Two Twitter accounts of Stella's have been suspended, her campaign confirmed to CNN.

Facebook Is Giving $1,000 To Content Moderators Who Said Online Trolls Turned Them Into Conspiracy Theorists.  Facebook agreed to pay out a $52 million settlement to thousands of current and former content moderators who said they are suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome after viewing upsetting content on the job, The Verge reported Tuesday [5/12/2020]. Each moderator will receive a minimum of $1,000 and will be eligible for additional compensation if they are exhibiting other trauma due to the kind of content they regularly view, the report noted.  The settlement applies to 11,250 moderators, some of whom told the Verge in 2019 that they became conspiracy theorists while moderating content people post online.

Facebook Puts Soros, Muslim Brotherhood, Activists in Charge of Censorship.  Facebook controls as much as 80% of social media traffic.  That means that it has the power to erase conversations, shift narratives, and control how people speak to one another.  With 190 million users in the United States, the social network monopoly has more control over what people see than all of the media giants combined do.  And now Facebook is putting some very troubling political activists in charge of its Oversight Board who will decide how it censors. [...] What does Facebook's Supreme Court of Censorship look like when you zoom in?  Only a quarter of the Oversight Board originates from the United States.  That means three quarters of the censorship court comes from countries with no First Amendment.  While people from outside the United States may believe in certain kinds of free speech, political speech in this country will be determined by a majority Third World board of left-leaning political activists.

Social media networks scrambling to remove viral 'Plandemic' conspiracy video.  Social media networks are scrambling to get rid of a viral conspiracy video spreading false claims about the coronavirus, according to a report.  The roughly 26-minute "Plandemic Movie" has been viewed and shared widely on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo and clips of it also circulated on Twitter this week, CNBC reported.  The clip, apparently an excerpt of a larger documentary to be released this summer, makes a number of bogus, unproven or misleading claims, like that the coronavirus pandemic was created to make profits off vaccines.  And in defiance of the advice of medical experts, it suggests that masks can make people sicker and that sheltering in place harms the immune system.  One video, shared on Facebook by someone claiming to be one of the filmmakers, had been viewed more than 1.7 million times and shared more than 140,000 times as of Thursday [5/7/2020].

Tumblr Announces Crackdown on 4.47M 'Reblogs' for 'Hate Speech'.  Tumblr has launched its new witch-hunt style initiative to wipe out "hate speech" on the platform.  Tumblr released a blog announcing its crackdown on offensive speech headlined "Updates to how we enforce our Community Guidelines on hate speech" on May 4.  Tumblr claimed to be "steadfast believers in free speech" before showing its true colors — bragging about its accomplishment of "approximately 4.47M reblogs being removed from Tumblr."

Russian Prosecutors Order Deletion Of Corona Conspiracy Videos From YouTube, Social Media.  Russia is punishing anti-lockdown protesters and coronavirus conspiracy theorists with fines and prison and ordering the deletion of conspiracy videos from Russian social media. [...] I don't think this virus is a bioweapon and strongly believe the US government's claims it was leaked from a Chinese lab are just war propaganda (they need someone to blame with 30-50 million Americans unemployed) but it has become abundantly clear our "authorities" are just using the virus as an excuse to seize power.

Twitter Makes Big Move Into Thought Policing.  [Scroll down]  No doubt I will be accused of overreacting by some, but I've been watching this play out for years.  At times it seems as if Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter's Jack Dorsey are engaged in some sort of personal, perverse billionaire fun and trying to see which one can make his platform more heavy-handed when it comes to the freedom of expression of its users.  Dorsey gets my vote every time, and not just because I use Twitter far more than Facebook.  Twitter is forever trying new ways to police speech in the name of "safety," which is laughable.  Dorsey and Co. use the safety angle to position themselves as the arbiters of what words mean and whether they should be classified as "hate speech."

Project Veritas Uncovered an Important Coronavirus Story and Twitter Is Actively Suppressing It.  Project Veritas recently released a video detailing how the number of Wuhan coronavirus deaths in the New York City area are being padded.  Patients are being labeled as "coronavirus deaths" even though the person may have never even tested positive for the virus.  The watchdog group shared their investigative video on Twitter.  Interestingly enough, the social media platform was caught removing retweets.  One of the Project Veritas members caught the number of retweets decreasing from 6,324 immediately to 5,981 in a video.  "He caught Twitter reducing the number of retweets of our COVID-19 video," founder James O'Keefe said in a video uncovering the social media giant's move.  "Jack Dorsey, what are you doing?"

Facebook Bans Popular Alt Media Website, Likely to Censor Post about Coronavirus as a Bioweapon.  A popular alternative media website that regularly publishes controversial information, Unz Review, has been censored by Facebook shortly after publishing an article that considers the possibility coronavirus could be a bioweapon.  Academic Ron Unz, the publisher of the website, made the announcement on Friday morning that his website was being censored by the monolithic social media giant.

Why Did YouTube Remove The Doctors' Briefing?  [Scroll down]  I absolutely believe that it's wrong to censor what qualified medical professionals (read: not quacks) are saying about the crisis, which is so unique in our experience as a nation.  A strong lockdown was necessary at first.  If there is good medical evidence that the lockdown, and related public health strategies, might be doing more harm that good at this date, then let's hear that argument.

California Doctors Go on Ingraham Angle, Challenge Official COVID Policy — YouTube then takes down their videos!  On Saturday [4/25/2020] two California doctors of Immunology went on with KERO News 23 in California and made a video disputing the official state coronavirus policy in California.  Doctors Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi said their facilities have tested over 5,200 patients for the coronavirus throughout the county, making up for over half of all testing in Kern County.  According to their data, the death rate of the coronavirus is similar in prevalence to the flu.  And they believe only the sick and elderly should be quarantined and that businesses should open.  They also revealed that the state of California is pressuring doctors to pad the COVID-19 numbers. [...] On Monday night the two California doctors went on The Ingraham Angle with Laura Ingraham to discuss their expertise and challenge the official state narrative on the coronavirus.  Following their appearance on the show their videos were removed from Google-YouTube!  They did not pass official WHO policy.

Thank You, Democrat Governors, for Re-Electing President Trump!.  Government-imposed totalitarianism is not going over well in the land of the free.  Citizens are rising up across the nation against officials restricting their lives and destroying their livelihoods in ways unheard of here before now.  Sparked by the Operation Gridlock that recently brought ten thousand protesters to the Michigan capitol, citizens in dozens of states are creating their own gridlocks.  On the sunny Sunday of April 19 in Denver, Colorado, thousands staged a drive-by car protest, honking horns and flying flags for hours on streets around the Capitol.  A thousand more families and friends gathered happily on the Capitol lawn to cheer them on with homemade posters pleading with the Democrat governor to let them get back to work.  A fun picnic, but without the deviled eggs.  Facebook censors shut down the main group, Operation Gridlock Denver, the morning of the protest, but since many groups were publicizing the event, it wasn't hard for people to find information.  Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged that Facebook has decided that these rallies are "harmful disinformation," so they will protect us by eliminating it.  Oh, thank you, mini-god Mark.  Nevertheless, the Denver Gridlock was a spectacular success.

Facebook's dangerously fake "fact checking".  I've been drawing attention to the increasingly aggressive efforts by political and corporate interests to control the information you get on the new and online.  I have often spoken of disingenuous "fact checking" efforts conducted by conflicted third parties who are actually trying to shape public opinion and control the information the public can access.  One chilling example comes in the form of Facebook's fake "science fact checks."  The social media company has improperly been censoring and flagging material as "false."  A recent example is a popular documentary by Epoch Times about the possible link between Covid-19 and a research lab in Wuhan, China.

YouTube CEO Says You Better Parrot the World Health Organization or Face Removal.  YouTube's CEO went on CNN to chat with Brian Stelter yesterday about how her platform is handling "misinformation" about the Wuhan virus.  The media's hall monitor is always down for talk of censorship of anyone who disagrees with him and Susan Wojcicki was more than happy to throw some fodder his way.  But it's the organization she's choosing to use as the standard for "truth" that caught my ear.

Sorry, Facebook:  Announcing a protest isn't 'harmful misinformation'.  A scattering of protests aimed at coronavirus lockdowns erupted across the country, sparked not by social-distancing guidelines but by politicians' unilaterally dictating what products citizens are permitted to purchase in box stores, attempting to shut down drive-in Masses at churches and closing parks and beaches, among other ill-conceived and gratuitous intrusions.  So naturally, Facebook decided to censor organizers' posts.  Like any protest movement, this one is a mixed bag:  Some of the protesters are acting in bad faith, some are idealists and some are merely terrified of losing their livelihoods, their homes and their careers while waiting around for a government check that might never come.

Protests by the Left Get a Pass - While Conservatives Get Arrested.  On Monday, April 21st, members of National Nurses United (NNU), a radical union that advocates for socialized medicine, gathered outside the White House to protest against President Trump.  Video of the protest was carried on Facebook Live by the same dot com monopoly which had banned 'Reopen' protests as being harmful.  After the rally, protesters clumped together with reporters, and there was no social distancing in sight.  Despite that Facebook did not take down the NUN page.  And the media celebrated the protesters. [...] In the same weeks as the 'Reopen' protests against state lockdowns and for reopening businesses were taking place, a parallel series of protests against President Trump were also happening across America.  Police cracked down on the 'reopen' protests, arresting an organizer in New Jersey, while the media condemned them, spun conspiracy theories trying to tie them to members of the Trump administration, and falsely accused protesters of causing an increase in coronavirus in Kentucky.  Facebook deleted protest groups in coordination with state governments, labeling the protests, illegal.  Blue state governments, dot com overlords, and the media all warned that protesting in the age of the coronavirus was dangerous and illegal.  Even if the protesters were in cars or maintaining social distance.

Facebook Assists Dems in Shutting Down Bill of Rights.  Topping the list of assaults on our Constitutional freedoms is the war on our right to speak freely and peacefully assemble as governors warn their citizens to stay safe, stay home, and shut up.  Joining them is the social media giant Facebook which, in its general censorship of conservative thought and opinion, has now decreed that using their platform to communicate complaints about government overreach during the Wuhan virus crisis and to organize protests against said overreach violates Facebook's Alice-In-Wonderland "community standards[.]"  In the age before cable, there was an iconic sci-fi program called The Outer Limits whose opening featured a series of test patterns, flickering screens and a narrator known as the "control voice" who solemnly intoned, "Do not attempt to adjust your television set.  We will control all that you see and hear."  Today that is a chilling reality as social media giants like Facebook routinely censor what people can see and hear on their sites.

Blue State Governors Demand Facebook Remove Information Organizing Protests Against Their "Orders" — Facebook Complies.  There's some misinformation quickly spreading about Facebook taking down all content where people are organizing protests against state "orders."  In reality what Facebook is doing is responding to requests from state officials to remove content the state dictators claim is defiance of their orders.  Facebook is complying with those removal requests.

Facebook Working With State Governments to Take Down Coronavirus Lockdown Protest Announcements.  Facebook says it is working with state governments to take down organizing announcements for protests of the COVID-19 Chinese coronavirus lockdowns.  The protests have been spreading around the nation by Americans concerned the cure is worse than the disease and is killing the country and that the orders by governments go far beyond what is necessary to control the spread of the virus and are more about controlling citizens.

Facebook's 'fact checkers' are the real fake news after censoring Post story.  Way back on Feb. 23, The Post ran an opinion piece by Steven Mosher saying that we couldn't trust China's story about the origins of COVID-19.  He argued that the virus might — might — have jumped to the human population thanks to errors at a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan, rather than via that city's now-notorious "wet market."  The piece was widely read online — until Facebook stepped in.  The social media giant's "fact checkers" decided this was not a valid opinion.  If you tried to share Mosher's column on Facebook, the social network stuck a "False Information" alert on top, saying that finding was "checked by independent fact-checkers" and preventing your friends from clicking to connect to the original article to see for themselves.  Again, this was an opinion column, not a news report.

On 4 Fronts, How China Quietly Infiltrates American Life.  TikTok, a rapidly growing social media app that allows users to post short videos, has come under scrutiny for its connection to China.  TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a company based in China, though the service — like countless other social media and internet platforms — isn't available in its home country.  But TikTok has a massive audience overseas.  The app had been downloaded over 750 million times in a year, The New York Times reported in late 2019.  The parent company denies any kind of censorship or tracking of data; however, many accuse TikTok of doing both.

Twitter Suspends Bannon's 'War Room:  Pandemic' Account Without Reason.  War Room:  Pandemic was launched in January, as many politicians and the media were still consumed with the impeachment story.  The show has played host to leading experts including Dr. Steven Hatfill, Bill Gertz, as well as anti-Chinese Communist Party dissidents.  Co-hosts Steve Bannon, Jason Miller, Raheem Kassam, and Jack Maxey provide breaking news updates and analysis on the coronavirus pandemic.  The show has been lauded by the mainstream media as one of the first shows out there on the subject matter.

Planning Three Steps Ahead:  On the Need and a Plan to Divorce From China.  China Virus 19 has brought home to more Americans than ever before that we absolutely have to divorce from China. [...] We knew that Apple makes iPhones and so much else of their stuff there.  So do all the other Silicon Valley high-tech behemoths.  On the one hand they all are blazing Kaepernick-quality leftist Democrats.  Their money goes solid Democrat.  Their politics is so far to the left that they even violate free speech values to tilt towards Democrats.  Twitter closes down mainstream conservatives and Republicans.  YouTube bans Dennis Prager lectures on the "Ten Commandments" because Prager mentions such words as "murder," as in quoting "Thou Shalt Not Murder."  Diamond and Silk get expelled from the Facebook "community."  And yet these same flaming Silicon leftists flock to China to build all their products there because the labor can be had dirt-cheap and exploited shamelessly.

Hillary Clinton:  Facebook Is Conspiring Against Me.  Name three things that will never go away.  Cockroaches, human evil, and Hillary Clinton.  And now, Hillary is back for some reason to rant some more about a vast conspiracy.

Clinton's Facebook Conspiracy Theory.  After proclaiming a myriad of excuses and airing her wounded pride in the New York Times best-selling book What Happened, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton now points a manicured finger of blame at the conservative takeover of social media for the embarrassing, unthinkable, and clearly unmanageable loss.  What?  Back up a minute.  Conservatives rule social media?  Yep, Mrs. Clinton said that and more.

Facebook Removes Trump Campaign Ads — Saying They Violate Their Census Policy.  Tech Giants Google and Facebook continue to purge conservative content from platforms — They are hiding conservative pro-Trump news on Google — They are shadow-banning conservative news on all social media platforms.  In February 2018 Facebook launched a new algorithm to ensure that conservative news would not spread on the social media platform.  The algorithm change caused President Donald Trump's engagement on Facebook posts to plummet a whopping 45%.  In contrast, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) did not appear to have suffered a comparable decline in Facebook engagement.

A 'vulture' circles over Twitter.  A conservative hedge fund manager, known as a 'vulture' and 'financial terrorist', based on his history of tormenting socialists, has suddenly got his sights on Twitter.  Couldn't happen to a nice bunch of woke, hostile, leftists.

Republican Donor Buys Stake In Twitter, Folks on the Left Have a Meltdown.  Major Republican donor Paul Singer has just purchased a big stake in Twitter and is reportedly pondering changes, among them getting rid of the present CEO, Jack Dorsey, according to a report in The Guardian. [...] Singer is reportedly unhappy with Dorsey's leadership, including his split attention because he's also in charge of Square, an payment company and that Dorsey wants to live part of the year in Africa.  Twitter's share price has suffered, although it recently picked up quarterly revenue.

Researchers have already tested YouTube's algorithms for political bias.  In August 2018, President Donald Trump claimed that social media was "totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices."  Not much was new about this: for years, conservatives have accused tech companies of political bias.  Just last July, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) asked the FTC to investigate the content moderation policies of tech companies like Google.  A day after Google's vice president insisted that YouTube was apolitical, Cruz claimed that political bias on YouTube was "massive."  But the data doesn't back Cruz up — and it's been available for a while.  While the actual policies and procedures for moderating content are often opaque, it is possible to look at the outcomes of moderation and determine if there's indication of bias there.  And, last year, computer scientists decided to do exactly that.

Rand Paul Blasts YouTube over Censorship of Speech on Senate Floor.  Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has called out Google-owned YouTube after it blacklisted a clip of him speaking on the Senate floor, an act of censorship he calls "chilling and disturbing."  Google censored Paul because he read out the name of the alleged "whistleblower," Eric Ciaramella.  Politico reported the story as "new," even though Breitbart News first revealed that YouTube was blocking clips of the Senator mentioning Ciaramella's name last week.

Google Censors Rand Paul's Speech Naming the Whistleblower.  The Big Tech company Google, along with its video-sharing subsidiary YouTube, has been banning videos of a speech from the floor of the U.S. Senate where Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) named the whistleblower, according to Breitbart News.  In the speech, Senator Paul highlighted the highly questionable and suspicious interactions between a staffer on the House Intelligence Committee, Shawn Misko, and the whistleblower, CIA operative Eric Ciaramella.  Although numerous investigative journalists have speculated Ciaramella is the whistleblower, Democrats and the media have been suppressing any mention of his name.  As Breitbart notes, YouTube's actions to censor the video in question constitute a direct censorship of the congressional and historical record, an unprecedented act of censorship of public information.

FCC commissioner rips Twitter for suspending popular conservative account.  The commissioner for the Federal Communications Commission blasted Twitter after the social media company suspended the popular conservative account Comfortably Smug for a tweet about Joe Biden.  "Hard to see how this @ComfortablySmug tweet — which combined known examples of political satire — violated Twitter's rules against abuse and harassment," FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said Tuesday on Twitter.  Comfortably Smug, an anonymous conservative troll account, was suspending after tweeting, "Where's Hunter, Fat?" The tweet references both Biden's son Hunter Biden and a comment the former vice president made on the campaign trail where he called a voter "fat" and "sedentary" at a campaign event in Iowa.

Twitter locks James O'Keefe's account for reporting two men work for Bernie Sanders.  Investigative journalism is challenging when the propagandists in mainstream and social media do everything they can to discredit the truth.  This is what James O'Keefe at Project Veritas deals with on a regular basis as they drop bombshell after bombshell about Democrats, mainstream media, and Big Tech.  Among those exposed by Project Veritas recently are Bernie Sanders' campaign, CNN, and Twitter.  This is why it's not surprising Twitter has locked his account based on a Tweet last month that called for a correction from mainstream media.

Zerohedge Suspended On Twitter.  First it was Facebook, then all of New Zealand; now Twitter has decided to suspend Zero Hedge.  Just as in the prior bans, which were eventually overturned, so in this case it is unclear what prompted Twitter's abrupt censorship: the only notification we received from twitter was the following: [...]

'Whistleblower' Censorship Hits Facebook and the Senate.  When Facebook last fall said it would delete "any and all mentions" of the name of the CIA operative believed to be the "whistleblower" who sparked President Trump's impeachment, it wasn't kidding.  A number of Facebook members complain the social media giant has been taking down recent RealClearInvestigations stories about the whistleblower within hours of sharing them with friends.  "I posted your article to Facebook, got a bunch of likes and comments and shares," said a user in Sacramento who linked to RCI's Jan. 22 story, "Whistleblower Was Overheard in '17 Discussing With Ally How to Remove Trump."  "But when I looked to see if there were additional responses, I saw that Facebook had removed the post.  Wow!  The story disappeared overnight, no message to me."  She said she tried reposting the story twice, but Facebook's content police removed it both times within an hour or so.

The Editor says...
If you depend on Facebook as a primary news source, you are badly misinformed.

Top Conservative and Pro-Trump Website Zero Hedge is Suspended from Twitter.  The tech giants Google, Facebook and Twitter continue to purge conservative content from their platforms.  In February 2018 Facebook launched a new algorithm to ensure that conservative news would not spread on the social media platform.  The algorithm change caused President Donald Trump's engagement on Facebook posts to plummet a whopping 45%.  In contrast, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) do not appear to have suffered a comparable decline in Facebook engagement.

Twitter Attaches Warning to President Donald Trump's Beautiful Pro-Life Video.  President Trump made history again on Friday [1/24/2020] being the first sitting president ever to address the annual March for Life rally in Washington DC. But not everyone was celebrating the president's message on Life.  Twitter attached a warning to President Trump's pro-life video this morning.

Twitter Puts Warning on Trump Team's Pro-Life Video Featuring Smiling Babies.  Twitter censored and attached a warning to a pro-life ad from the Trump campaign that featured beautiful babies growing in the womb, being hugged by the president, and playing on playgrounds.  Twitter hid the video for a short time on Friday with this warning, "This media may contain sensitive material." In order to see it, a viewer would have to click through the warning.  The video, seen below, has nothing sensitive in it except to disagree with Democrats who think it's okay to kill babies.  The pro-life message that life is worthwhile and babies deserve to live was loud and clear in the message.  There was nothing inappropriate about it.

YouTube blocks links to texts of Virginia anti-gun Bills.  YouTube is now blocking links to the State of Virginia Legislative Information System (LIS).  On Saturday [1/11/2020], the YouTube channel Guns & Gadgets posted a video titled "Virginia Anti-Gun Bills To Be Heard Jan 13," wherein the proprietor discussed the 10 bills that will come before the Virginia legislature beginning January 13.  In the video's description, he listed LIS links to the text for each bill.  As of 1 a.m.  Sunday morning, YouTube was blocking the links with the following warning: [...]

Tucker Carlson calls out DC establishment conservative nonprofits for selling out and protecting hi tech bullies that censor conservatives.  I was frankly shocked by Tucker Carson's courage last night [12/20/2019]; he's not going to be getting a lot of cocktail party invitations from the cream of the beltway conservative establishment anymore.  If you missed Carlson's epic denunciation of the big DC establishment think tanks — the likes of the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute and Competitive Enterprise Institute — do yourself a favor and spend the next six-and-a-half minutes watching the video embedded below.  He points out that Google, Facebook, Twitter and the others are all enjoying special legal protection that enables them to get away with censoring conservatives, and that the biggest and richest conservative think tanks support continuing this legal protection, and coincidentally they receive donations from Google and other tech titans.  [Video clip]

Inconvenient Anti Socialism Video Banned by Social Media Censors.  I have made peace with the fact that social media censors like Twitter and Facebook have shadow-banned me.  Google has not allowed any advertising on my website.  What I found disturbing is that on the infamous phony impeachment day, Wednesday, December 18, 2019, my Facebook page censors removed content to an article that was inconvenient to the liberal false narrative that "socialism is great once we get to do it," more specifically, the video (I've seen the breadlines of communism) in which Donald Jr. talks about his 93-year old maternal grandmother whom he visited every summer in the former Czechoslovakia.  He talked about himself as a five-year old boy, dressed in a blue jean jacket with stars on it, experiencing fear for the first time, going through communist customs, being pulled out of the line at the airport, by a drab-uniformed soldier from the communist era, armed with an AK-47, asking him if he was there to preach capitalism and America.  What could a five-year old boy possibly know about capitalism?  Donald Jr. told a crowd in a recent speech, "I've seen the breadlines of communism" while he visited his grandparents in the former Soviet satellite, Czechoslovakia.

YouTube new harassment policies ban racial, sexist or LGBTQ insults.  YouTube said Wednesday [12/11/2019] it will intensify harassment policies on its massive video site, including removing videos that insult people based on race, gender or sexual orientation — whether the victim is famous or a private figure.  Personal threats, even ones that are veiled or implied, will be prohibited, and video creators with a pattern of harassing behavior could be prevented from making money with their videos.

DNC Demands More Censorship by Facebook of 'Misinformation'.  The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg containing yet another complaint about "misinformation" on the platform.  In the letter, obtained by Reuters, DNC CEO Seema Nanda wrote that "we have significant remaining concerns about Facebook policies that allow the platform to be used to spread misinformation and undermine our democracy."

Twitter's "Director of Trust and Safety Council" — Jen Clarke — Is a Trump-Hating, Far Left Lunatic.  In July 2018 we reported that a study by the leftist website VICE News found that Twitter is censoring top pro-Trump lawmakers.  Twitter is targeting pro-Trump Republican lawmakers Matt Gaetz, Devin Nunes, Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan and John Ratcliffe with the same shadowbanning technique.  Twitter is also censoring prominent pro-Trump accounts including:  Mike Cernovich, Jack Posobiec, Paul Joseph Watson, TGP's Jim Hoft, TGP's Cassandra Fairbanks and others.

Google and YouTube Take Down Over 300 Trump Ads.  60 Minutes found over 300 Trump ads have been taken down by Google and YouTube for violating the companies' policies.  The report notes the campaign videos generally ran over the summer but were taken down by the companies after only a few days.  During an interview with 60 Minutes, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki was asked to respond to conservative critics who say YouTube discriminates against content creators with a conservative viewpoint.

Andy Ngo Suspended From Twitter for Stating Facts.  Journalist Andy Ngo gets a lot of abuse.  We saw what Antifa thugs did to him for trying to cover their activities in Portland.  The liberal Silicon Valley establishment doesn't treat him any better.  When he risked traumatizing Chelsea Clinton by exposing her to factual reality, Twitter suspended him.  Ngo's thought crime was tweeting this:  "The US is one of the safest countries for trans people.  The murder rate of trans victims is actually lower than that for cis population.  Also, who is behind the murders?  Mostly black men."

Trump supporters create social media platform tailored for them.  A new social media platform for supporters of President Trump has emerged as his backers continue to migrate away from traditional forums such as Reddit.  The new website, [...] was created [...] after Reddit became more controlling about what content could be posted in the forum.  In June, the company announced that the subreddit would be "quarantined."  The quarantine, which is still in effect, doesn't ban the forum but removes certain features and restricts how its content is shared.  It also includes a warning about viewing the subreddit.

Twitter suspends conservative journalist Andy Ngo.  Twitter suspended a conservative gay journalist for hate speech Monday for stating without rancor that trans murder rates are low.  Andy Ngo committed the "hateful conduct" in response to a tweet by former first daughter Chelsea Clinton that said that "since 2013, more than 150 trans people have been murdered in the U.S., the majority Black transgender women," which she called "an epidemic of violence and hate."  Not so fast, Mr. Ngo said, noting that 150 deaths over several years in a nation of more than 300 million people is hardly an epidemic.

YouTube and Facebook are erasing content with whistleblower's name.  The day has finally arrived when our online media monopolies are blatantly censoring the news that Americans can see. [...] [Eric] Ciaramella is being made into a non-person, because House Democrats are dead set against calling him to testify in the impeachment inquiry that they are putting on starting Wednesday.  They don't want the public to know that he was an associate of John Brennan, evidently a central figure in the manufacturing of the Russia hoax, that he worked for VP Biden, and that he is a registered Democrat.  History has seen similar efforts to pretend in the media that persons inconvenient to the powerful don't exist.

President Trump. vs. the Media.  In order to try to protect and further their myriad of deceitful anti-Trump, anti-conservative, anti-Christian narratives, leftists in the media (and in academia) have engaged in a widespread campaign of censorship.  Google (in more ways than one), YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and the like, have all either blacklisted, banned, or otherwise tried to keep Americans from the receiving the truth.

Facebook Removes News Reporting, Mention of Alleged 'Whistleblower's' Identity.  Facebook is removing any mention of the potential whistleblower's name and is cracking down against Facebook publishers that mention any allegation of the potential whistleblower's name, claiming they are violating Facebook's Community Standards and Policies.  For example, on Wednesday evening [11/6/2019], Facebook removed Breitbart posts reporting on the fact other respected news outlets have reported the identity of the alleged whistleblower is Eric Ciaramella.  Any Facebook user who attempts to click on that article on Facebook is now given a message that says, "this content isn't available at the moment."

The Sentence a Doctor Cannot Say on YouTube.  There is a sentence so devastating to liberal dogma that a doctor is not allowed to speak it in a YouTube video.  Michelle Cretella, executive director of the American College of Pediatricians, is the thought criminal who had to be censored.  The forbidden sentence:  "See, if you want to cut off a leg or an arm, you're mentally ill, but if you want to cut off healthy breasts or a penis, you're transgender."  Dr Cretella has plenty more to say that the liberal establishment won't like regarding just how evil it is to sacrifice children to the transgender agenda:  [Video clip]

YouTube Bans Daily Signal Video On Gender Transitions Over 'Hate Speech'.  The Daily Signal, the Heritage Foundation's investigative reporting, news, and commentary outlet, says that one of their videos, a YouTube testimonial from a pediatrician about gender transition surgery for children, was censored by YouTube for "hate speech."  According to the Daily Signal's Kate Trinko, the group's 2017 video starring Dr. Michelle Cretella, "pediatrician with many years' experience and the executive director of the American Academy of Pediatricians," was pulled off YouTube because, in the video, Cretella suggested that, "if you want to cut off a leg or an arm you're mentally ill, but if you want to cut off healthy breasts or a penis, you're transgender."

Greta Thunberg Calls on Facebook to Censor Her Critics.  The celebrated Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has threatened to quit Facebook if the social media platform refuses to silence her critics.  "I am, like many others, questioning whether I should keep using Facebook or not," Thunberg wrote in a Facebook post last week.