Tag Archives: Twitter

Investigating Social Media Censorship

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On July 14th, The Conservative Review posted an article about the ongoing battle between Twitter and free speech. For a real analysis of exactly who and what Twitter is, please read this article from The Conservative Treehouse.

The article at The Conservative Review reports:

Can Congress pass a law requiring that all platforms of speech censor any negative comment about Pfizer? “Well, of course not,” you will say, “it violates the First Amendment.” In that case, why should it be different when the executive branch works intimately with government-created and liability-protected monopolies to zap anyone’s Twitter account who is critical of Pfizer and its magical products? That is not free market or private enterprise; it is the worst form of fascism, and now a new federal court ruling might bring this point to life.

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Louisiana granted the request from the Louisiana and Missouri attorneys general for discovery to collect documents linking the Biden administration to social media censorship. Thanks to this important order, we might be able to discover the scope of collaboration between government and Twitter and Facebook to censor stories (and people) pertaining to the Hunter Biden laptop story, the origins of COVID-19, the efficacy of masks and lockdowns, and election integrity.

On May 5, Missouri AG Eric Schmitt and Louisiana AG Jeff Landry filed a First Amendment complaint against the Biden administration in the Western District of Louisiana alleging that the administration violated the Free Speech Clause by working with the tech giants to label all dissenting viewpoints on the aforementioned issues as “misinformation.” They alleged that this effort is being led by a “Disinformation Governance Board” (“DGB”) within the Department of Homeland Security.

The article concludes:

While the legal dispute plays out in court, it’s time for conservatives in the legislatures to hit back at the RINO governors for continuing to act as if anything COVID-related – be it a vaccine or mask mandate – is somehow coming from the private sector. The government mandated it for some, censored opposing viewpoints, absolved pharma of liability, paid for the product, distributed it, and marketed it. The notion that private actors endorsing these policies is an exercise in free-market capitalism is absurd. It is the responsibility of the state to interpose against such tyranny by banning companies from joining in with the federal policies.

We saw this done very effectively when the Florida Department of Health recommended against the baby shots and refused to distribute them. Publix actually decided on its own to follow the guidance of Florida rather than the federal government. It demonstrates that so much of this enforcement in the private sector is being done with the federal boot on companies’ necks. Those Republicans who hide behind affinity for the “private” sector and free markets to allow federal tyranny, censorship, and persecution to continue are complicit in the worst form of fascism.
The fact that private monopolies get roped into government fascism doesn’t ameliorate the pig; it makes it even more dangerous.

As I write this, I am restricted on Facebook because of posting articles about the effectiveness of the Covid vaccine and the health problems people have experienced as a result of the vaccine. I believe this information should be easily accessible to the public, but evidently Facebook does not. I am not telling people to avoid social media, but I strongly suggest that you find sources other than Facebook and Twitter for your news if you want to get all of the news.

Supporting Harassment Of People You Disagree With

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There are a lot of Americans lamenting the lack of civility in our current political debate. However, many of those same Americans are not willing to look at some of the roots of that incivility.

On Saturday, The New York Post reported the following:

A left-wing activist group is offering $50 to anyone who gives them the location of the six Supreme Court justices who voted last month to overturn Roe v. Wade.

ShutDownDC said it would pay the bounty to anyone who shares a “confirmed sighting” of Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett or John Roberts.

The group will pay a whopping $200 if the justice was still in the location where they were sighted after 30 minutes, according to a Friday tweet.

This is not acceptable behavior, but I haven’t heard a lot of voices calling them out. The article includes a Tweet advertising that they will pay for a sighting of one of the conservative justices. Where are the voices calling for civility in American politics?

The article notes:

Twitter prohibits users from encouraging or calling on others to harass an individual or group of people, according to its rules and policies document. The platform hasn’t yet commented on why the bounties don’t violate its rules, Fox News reported.

ShutDownDC’s public bounty offer came after protesters affiliated with the group targeted Kavanaugh while he dined at a Morton’s steakhouse in Washington DC Wednesday evening. Kavanaugh was ultimately forced to flee the eatery through a back door.

This is a new low in American politics and needs to be discouraged strongly. This is harassment of people with opposing views. What we need is honest debate–not harassment.

 

Popularity On Twitter

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Popularity on social media is a bit questionable at best. It’s like sitting at an imaginary ‘cool kids’ table in high school–and I do mean imaginary. However, there are those who use the number of followers on Twitter as a gauge of something. What, I don’t know, but something. At any rate, the question is, “How many people on Twitter are actually real people?”

Breitbart posted an article on Wednesday reporting that nearly half of President Joe Biden’s 22.3 million Twitter followers are fake accounts. One wonders who set up these fake accounts and why they were set up.

The article reports:

Software company SparkToro found that 49.3 percent of accounts following the official @POTUS Twitter account are “fake followers” or inauthentic accounts known as bots, according to a report by Newsweek.

The same analysis reportedly also found that more than 14 million accounts that follow Biden’s personal @JoeBiden Twitter account are either fake or insufficiently active. Therefore, a crackdown on fake Twitter accounts could see users like Biden lose a huge number of followers.

SparkToro reportedly defines fake followers as “accounts that are unreachable and will not see the account’s tweets (either because they’re spam, bots, propaganda, etc. or because they’re no longer active on Twitter).”

The news of Biden’s fake Twitter followers comes after Tesla founder Elon Musk, who is currently trying to buy Twitter, expressed concerns about the number of bots on the social media platform.

Musk has since announced that his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter cannot move forward until the number of bot accounts on the platform is independently confirmed.

The SpaceX CEO tweeted that his offer was based on “Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate,” and he believes bots could account for 20 percent of the platform “or *much* higher.”

All of this has come to light because of Elon Musk’s plan to purchase Twitter. The article at Breitbart notes that uncovering these numbers may actually be part of Elon Musk’s negotiation process to acquire Twitter. Knowing that Elon Musk is a successful businessman who knows how to negotiate, that is entirely possible.

How Short Is The Average American’s Memory?

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Disinformation is something the Biden administration wants to fight against. However, they seem to be spreading it themselves. On Thursday, The Daily Caller posted an article about some recent disinformation put out by the current White House.

The article reports:

The White House tweeted COVID-19 disinformation Thursday evening to imply that President Joe Biden deserves credit for vaccinating Americans against the virus.

The official White House twitter account tweeted that when Biden took office, on Jan. 20, 2021, there were millions of Americans unemployed and no COVID-19 vaccines available. The tweet went on to tout the decrease in unemployment since then, calling it the fastest drop in unemployment at the start of a president’s term ever.

…Biden himself had already received two doses of the coronavirus vaccine before he became president. He received his first dose of Pfizer’s vaccine Dec. 21, 2020, and then his second dose on Jan. 13, 2021.

Maybe he forgot.

On Saturday, Townhall reported that the misinformation had been corrected.

Townhall reported:

On Thursday night, as Katie highlighted, the official White House Twitter account, tweeted out a falsehood about the timeline of the availability of the vaccines. Though it has since been corrected, the original tweet in question is still up. 

…Glenn Kessler, the fact-checker for The Washington Post, also weighed in, demanding to know who was manning the account and calling for them to “Delete this false tweet.”

The job growth claims in the tweet are also questionable. Adding back jobs that you killed with the shutdown of the economy does not count as economic growth–it counts as recovery. This is really not the time for the Biden administration to be praising itself for its economic achievements–inflation has wiped out the salary gains Americans achieved during the Trump administration and food shortages and other supply chain issues have become a problem. I think the Biden administration needs to spend less time bragging and more time actually finding solutions to the problems they have created.

The Fight For Free Speech Continues

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On Wednesday, The Daily Wire reported that the U.S. government has opened an investigation into Elon Musk’s business dealings.

The article reports:

“The Securities and Exchange Commission is probing Mr. Musk’s tardy submission of a public form that investors must file when they buy more than 5% of a company’s shares,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “The disclosure functions as an early sign to shareholders and companies that a significant investor could seek to control or influence a company.”

The report said that Musk’s April 4 disclosure filing was at least 10 days late, a move that is believed to have saved him more than $140 million because share prices could have been higher if the public knew about his ownership of 5% of the company.

“The case is easy. It’s straightforward,” Daniel Taylor, a University of Pennsylvania accounting professor, said. “But whether they’re going to pick that battle with Elon is another question.”

The report noted that a lawsuit against Musk from the SEC would likely not stop him from taking over Twitter since the company’s board of director’s unanimously approved to be acquired by Musk and the SEC may lack the power to do so. Musk’s purchase of Twitter is also reportedly being reviewed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Elon Musk has also stated that he would reinstate the account of President Trump.

The article notes his comments on the banning of President Trump:

“I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the county, and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice,” Musk said, adding that the decision was “morally bad.”

“That doesn’t mean that someone gets to say whatever they want to say,” Musk said. “If they say something that is illegal or destructive to the world, then there should be perhaps a timeout, temporary suspension or that particular tweet should be made invisible or have very little traction.”

“I would reverse the permanent ban,” Musk added.

Musk indicated that action could be taken against an account if there were tweets that violated platform policy, which he said “should be either deleted or made invisible, and a suspension—a temporary suspension—is appropriate, but not a permanent ban.”

Musk said that permanent bans “should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots, or scam, spam accounts.”

President Trump has stated that he would not return to Twitter but focus on his own social media site, Truth Social.

Stay tuned.

Blocking Free Speech

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A politically neutral Twitter is a threat to Democrat success at the voting booth. If people had been allowed to know more about Hunter Biden’s laptop, it might have changed their votes. There are still some people who because of their primary news sources don’t know about the information on Hunter Biden’s laptop or the efforts to suppress the news about the laptop. That is not healthy for our Republic. There will be a fight to prevent Elon Musk from turning Twitter into a free speech platform because that is a threat to the Democrats’ monopoly on the American media.

Fox News reported Wednesday on a letter sent from Representative Jim Jordan to Federal Trade Commission chief Lina Khan regarding the sale of Twitter.

The article reports:

“The day after Twitter’s board of directors agreed to sell Twitter to Mr. Elon Musk, the Open Markets Institute (OMI), an extreme left-wing political advocacy organization, called on Biden regulators at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the Justice Department to ‘block’ the purchase,” Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote in a letter sent to Khan on Wednesday and obtained by FOX Business. 

“We are concerned that OMI – where you were previously employed as Legal Director – may be trying to leverage its close relationship with you to take action to further limit free speech online,” Jordan told Khan.

Open Markets Institute Director Barry Lynn issued a statement on April 26 saying the group believes Musk’s purchase of Twitter “poses a number of immediate and direct threats to American democracy and free speech.”

Lynn went on to say that Open Markets “believes the deal violates existing law,” and that the FCC, DOJ and FTC “have ample authority to block it.”

Jordan wrote in his letter to Khan that “OMI appears to believe that the FTC will be receptive to its cavalier effort to influence a federal agency that is run by its former employee.”

The article concludes:

Khan has a lengthy history of urging the federal government to go after Big Tech firms and regulate their power. After she became head of the FTC, tech behemoths Facebook and Amazon both asked that she be removed from any involvement in the agency’s antitrust litigation against the companies, alleging that she has a clear bias against them that is well documented.

I am not convinced that the people saying that Elon Musk buying Twitter is a threat to free speech actually understand what free speech is.

The Deep State Tries To Put Guardrails On Twitter

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On Wednesday, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about how the political left and the fourth branch of government are attempting to put guardrails on Twitter now that Twitter is threatening them with free speech.

The article reports:

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.

This CISA announcement was quickly followed by various government officials and agencies saying it was critical to combat Russian disinformation, as the events in Ukraine unfolded.  In essence, Ukraine was the justification for search engines like Google, DuckDuckGo, and social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to begin targeting information and content that did not align with the official U.S. government narrative.

Previously those same methods were deployed by the U.S. government, specifically the CDC and FDA, toward COVID-19 and the vaccination program. All of this background aligns with the previous visibility of a public-private partnership between the bureaucracy of government, the U.S. intelligence agencies and U.S. social media.  That partnership now forms the very cornerstone of the DHS/CISA effort to control what information exists in the public space.  It is highly important that people understand what is happening.

In July of 2021 the first admission of the official agenda behind the public-private partnership was made public {Reuters Article}.

What we are seeing now is an extension of the government control mechanisms, combined with a severe reaction by all stakeholders to the latest development in the Twitter takeover.

For two years the control mechanisms around information have been cemented by govt and Big Tech.  Even the deployment of the linguistics around disinformation, misinformation and malinformation is all part of that collective effort.  The collaboration between the government and Big Tech is not a matter for debate, it is all easily referenced by their own admissions.   The current issue is how they are deploying the information controls.

The Daily Wire reported on Tuesday:

The European Union issued a warning to Elon Musk on Tuesday, telling him that he must comply with EU regulations on policing online content, or face severe penalties.

In an interview with the Financial Times Tuesday, EU Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton said that he was giving Musk a “reality check,” adding that Twitter must cooperate with the EU’s rules on content moderation, including the pending Digital Services Act. The prospective legislation would force large tech platforms to take more action to disclose and remove illegal content, including “hate speech,” as noted by The Guardian.

There are people in America and around the world that are afraid of free speech. We are going to have to be alert to make sure that those people are not successful in determining what Americans and people around the world are allowed to hear.

A New Future For Twitter

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On Monday, NewsMax reported that Twitter is planning on accepting Elon Musk’s final offer for $43 billion to buy the company.

The article reports:

Twitter may announce the $54.20-per-share deal later Monday, once its board has met to recommend the transaction to Twitter shareholders, the sources said, adding it was still possible the deal could collapse at the last minute.

Musk, the world’s richest person according to Forbes, is negotiating to buy Twitter in a personal capacity and Tesla is not involved in the deal.

The article concludes:

The deal, if it happens, would come just four days after Musk unveiled a financing package to back the acquisition.

This led Twitter’s board to take his offer more seriously and many shareholders to ask the company not to let the opportunity for a deal slip away, Reuters reported on Sunday. Before Musk revealed the financing package, Twitter’s board was expected to reject the bid, sources had said.

The sale would represent an admission by Twitter that Agrawal is not making enough traction in making the company more profitable, despite being on track to meet ambitious financial goals the company set for 2023. Twitter’s shares were trading higher than Musk’s offer price as recently as November.

Musk unveiled his intention to buy Twitter on April 14 and take it private via a financing package comprised of equity and debt. Wall Street’s biggest lenders, except those advising Twitter, have all committed to provide debt financing.

Musk’s negotiating tactics — making one offer and sticking with it — resembles how another billionaire, Warren Buffett, negotiates acquisitions. Musk did not provide any financing details when he first disclosed his offer for Twitter, making the market skeptical about its prospects.

This could be very interesting. It would be nice to bring free speech back to Twitter. I am on Truth Social as rwg@Right Wing Granny. Truth Social is unfiltered and I wouldn’t use it as a reliable source, but it is a place where people can express their ideas and opinions freely. It would be nice if Twitter also became a place where free speech is welcomed.

UPDATE: The purchase is complete. The reaction of the political left is totally entertaining!

 

 

The Double Standard Among Us

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The Daily Wire recently posted an article sharing some of their observations regarding the possible takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk.

The article reports:

When Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter and make it a private company, Twitter’s board of directors responded with a poison pill — and the legacy media responded with a poison pen.

Journalists have contended that Musk’s bid to loosen the social media platform’s speech restrictions represent a threat to the First Amendment, threaten to give billionaires too much control over the media, or even presage the fall of our republic into a totalitarian oligarchy. These unduly emotional responses reveal that the legacy media’s fear is not so much Musk as it is free speech — and losing their ability to create the national narrative.

It really is all about control.

The article notes:

CNN’s Brian Stelter seemed to criticize the capitalist system of private media ownership. “There is also a lot of folks out there saying it’s troubling enough that private companies control these key communication platforms around the world, maybe it’s even worse to have the world’s richest person trying to buy one and take it private,” he said on April 14. In the same vein, and on the same day, Business Insider ran a story titled “Elon Musk’s attempt to buy Twitter represents a chilling new threat: billionaire trolls taking over social media.”

But billionaire ownership of the media is hardly new. And judging by their position on the payroll, it seems not to leave journalists ill at ease. To take but a few examples:

Even CNN founder Ted Turner still has a net worth of $2.3 billion, after being “squeezed out” of his own company many years ago.

If billionaire status does not actually offend the journalistic Left, what does? Perhaps Musk’s political donations to some Republicans, including George W. Bush, Kevin McCarthy, Joni Ernst, Lindsey Graham, and Marco Rubio? Possibly, but many businessmen (including our former president) have donated to politicians of both parties — and self-described centrist Musk is no exception.

It’s okay to be a millionaire who owns a news outlet if you are a liberal. It’s required that if you are a corporation that you pay more in taxes unless you are a liberal (see Disney). The double standard lives among us.

Let The Games Begin

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On April 14th, The New York Post reported that Elon Musk has launched a $41 billion bid to buy Twitter, saying the proposed deal is part of his plan to bring “free speech around the globe.”

Wow. I suspect a lot of Twitter employees are currently having a nervous breakdown.

The article continues:

Musk’s offer price of $54.20 per share, which comes just days after he rejected a seat on the social media company’s board, represents a 38% premium to Twitter’s April 1 close, the last trading day before the Tesla CEO’s more than 9% stake in the company was made public.

Twitter’s shares jumped 12% in premarket trading.

“I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk wrote in a letter to Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor.

“Since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.”

“My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,” Musk said.

The article concludes:

“Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?” Musk asked users in a Twitter poll on March 28, in which over 70 percent of the 2 million voters responded “No.”

Musk — the richest person in the world with a fortune of more than $265 billion, according to Forbes — bought some 73.5 million shares of the company, worth an estimated $2.89 billion, according to an SEC filing. 

The massive purchase may have violated federal law, according to financial experts. After the billionaire filed his disclosure forms, Twitter’s share price skyrocketed 30 percent.

Marc Bain Rasella, a Twitter shareholder, sued Musk for not disclosing his stake in the social media company soon enough.

The richest man in the world is obviously very good at three-dimensional chess.

Better Late Than Never I Guess

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Townhall posted an article on Thursday about a recent article in the New York Times.

The article at Townhall reports:

The New York Times is out with a story today about the ongoing Department of Justice investigation into Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. Deep down in the text, the story confirms Hunter Biden’s laptop — full of salacious information and photos — is indeed authentic. 

“The Justice Department inquiry into the business dealings of the president’s son has remained active, with a grand jury seeking information about payments from around the world,” the New York Times reports. “People familiar with the investigation said prosecutors had examined emails between Mr. Biden, Mr. Archer and others about Burisma and other foreign business activity. Those emails were obtained by The New York Times from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop. The email and others in the cache were authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation. In some of the emails, Mr. Biden displayed a familiarity with FARA, and a desire to avoid triggering it.”

The article at Townhall reminds us:

During the 2020 presidential election, the New York Post first reported on the laptop and its contents. As the oldest newspaper in the country, the New York Post was banned from Twitter for weeks after being accused of spreading “misinformation.”

This is the story that got the New York Post removed from Twitter as the story was described as “Russian disinformation”. The media spin was that the Russians made up the laptop contents to discredit candidate Joe Biden. Very few informed Americans who saw the New York Post story doubted its veracity, but it was suppressed so as not to have a negative impact on the Biden campaign for the presidency. The suppression of pertinent information is just one of many reasons that we have the most corrupt and ineffective President in American history currently residing in the White House.

When Common Core Math Comes To Congress

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Yesterday Trending Politics posted an article about a recent Tweet by Senator Bernie Sanders.

The article reports:

Sanders tweeted: “2 senators cannot be allowed to defeat what 48 senators and 210 House members want. We must stand with the working families of our country. We must combat climate change. We must delay passing the Infrastructure Bill until we pass a strong Reconciliation Bill.”

But that’s the way our system is set up. The Senate is supposed to be the deliberative body and the House of Representatives is supposed to be more easily swayed by the trends of the moment. The Senate is there to protect America from any rash action taken by the House of Representatives. That system was somewhat diluted by the Seventeen Amendment, but traces of it remain in place.

The article notes a few Tweets in response to Senator Sanders’ Tweet:

“This is a pretty hilarious way of trying to say “48 senators should win a vote over 52 senators when it’s a bill I like.” That’s some pretty creative math,” said one Twitter user.

“It’s 52 senators defeating what 48 senators want,” said Nick Pappas. “You need Manchin & Sinema because all 50 senators on the GOP side reject your proposal outright. Get a majority in the chamber if your plan is so popular.”

“48 senators and 210 House members are, last I checked, a minority of both chambers,” said Dan McLaughlin.

“In other words, 52 senators are defeating what 48 senators want and 225 House members are defeating what 210 want,” tweeted Greg Price.

“I know math isn’t a big thing with socialists, but it’s at least 52 Senators rejecting your radical agenda. And 52 is a bigger number than 48.”

“Bernie’s policies are based on the idea that 25 states do not matter,” said Tim Pool.

Please follow the link above to read the article for more Twitter entertainment.

Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch

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While much of America was focused on the hearings in Washington, censorship of ideas or events that were contradictory to the ruling political class continued. Yesterday NewsMax reported that Twitter had suspended the accounts of anyone seeking to audit 2020 presidential election results. What are they afraid of? Obviously the hearings in Washington are a good distraction from various audits taking place around the country.

The article reports:

Twitter, assailed by some critics as hostile to conservative voices, has apparently imposed a ban on those seeking to audit 2020 presidential election results, including some involved in the first-of-its-kind forensic audit in Maricopa County, Arizona.

Reports first noted the banning of two accounts sharing information from the Arizona forensic audit, but accounts sharing information on audit intentions in other states were suspended by Twitter on Tuesday afternoon, according to multiple reports.

Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers tweeted the news and warned followers she might be a future victim of Big Tech censorship

…The accounts included those designed to inform about the Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Pennsylvania audits, too. Those are among the states that decided the election for President Joe Biden and the bans come on the day House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Jan. 6 Select Committee began hearing from law enforcement officers who were beaten during the storming of the Capitol.

The article notes that Project Veritas has also been banned from Twitter. It really is time for someone to start a social media platform that can compete with Twitter and will allow all points of view.

Behind The Scenes At Big Tech

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I received this video in my email this morning from Project Veritas.

The email also noted the following highlights from the video:

  • Vijaya Gadde, Twitter Legal, Policy and Trust & Safety Lead: “One of the interesting things is a lot of the work that we’ve been doing over the last week is work that we’ve built on in other places around the world, where we’ve seen violence unfold as a result of either misleading information or coded rhetoric.”
  • Gadde: “A lot of our learnings here [in the United States] have come from other markets. So, in that sense, you know, we do feel like it is – this is our global approach.”
  • Gadde: “We need to be very focused on being able to enforce any of these policies or enforcement decisions we make at scale.”
  • Gadde: “We decided to escalate our enforcement of the civic integrity policy and use a label that disabled engagements to stop the spread of potentially inflammatory content, which is the content around election interference, election fraud, stealing the election, that type of thing.”
  • Gadde: “We think that the severity of what’s happening on the ground, coupled with the information that’s contained in these [election fraud] tweets — misleading information about the election being stolen and massive fraud around the election are what is changing our analysis of how we should enforce this [civic integrity] policy. It [election fraud tweets] is a much more severe violation given what we were seeing on the ground.”
  • Gadde: “We’re going to actually be more aggressive in our enforcement beyond de-amplification.”

This kind of thinking does not fit the paradigm of a free society.

 

The Role Of The Media In The 2020 Presidential Election

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Yesterday The Washington Times (the link is to the article posted on outline, as I don’t have a subscription to The Washington Times) posted an article about the role of the media in the 2020 Presidential election.

The article reports:

A new post-election poll conducted by the Media Research Center reveals that 36% of voters who chose presumptive President-elect Joseph R. Biden were not aware of the evidence linking him “to corrupt financial dealings with China through his son Hunter Biden,” noted an analysis of the findings released Monday.

“Thirteen percent of these voters (or 4.6% of Biden’s total vote) say that had they known these facts, they would not have voted for the former Vice President. Such a shift away from Biden would have meant President Trump would have won the election with 289 electoral votes,” the conservative press watchdog noted.

The greater implication: Press coverage was at fault.

“It is an indisputable fact that the media stole the election. The American electorate was intentionally kept in the dark. During the height of the scandal surrounding Hunter Biden’s foreign dealings, the media and the big tech companies did everything in their power to cover it up. Twitter and Facebook limited sharing of the New York Post’s reports, and the liberal media omitted it from their coverage or dismissed it as Russian disinformation,” says Brent Bozell, founder of the center.

Remember that The New York Post was shut out of Twitter for posting an article about Hunter Biden’s business dealings. Any articles dealing with Biden family corruption are immediately fact-checked by Facebook. My right wing granny group on Facebook has been charged with sharing false information (anyone can join, please do). There is a mass exodus from Facebook right now. I am not sure how permanent it will be. As much as it is nice to communicate with old friends, it is not so nice to be brainwashed. Actions have consequences, and Facebook may be facing those consequences.

Some Of Our News Media Is Not Telling Us The News

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Just the News posted an article today about some recent censorship by Twitter. They are getting really good at suppressing news that does not agree with the current liberal narrative. It might be time to examine the protected status they have had that prevents them from being sued for censorship.

The article reports:

Twitter has censored a post from White House adviser Dr. Scott Atlas last week arguing that masks and mask mandates are ineffective in stopping the coronavirus.

Atlas, who joined the White House coronavirus team in August as a science adviser tweeted: “Masks work? NO,” and said the widespread use of masks is not supported.

The tweet apparently violated a Twitter policy that prohibits the sharing of false of misleading information pertaining to the coronavirus pandemic.

In such instances, Twitter disables the account of the individual until the person in question deletes the post.

“I don’t understand why the tweets were deleted,” Atlas told the Associated Press. He told the wire service that his tweet was meant to show that “general population masks and mask mandates do not work,” clarifying that his stance is that masks should be used when social distancing cannot be enforced.

Atlas noted that infection rates soared even in places where masks were mandated, including Los Angeles, Hawaii, Miami, the Philippines and Japan.

It seems to me that Dr. Atlas as a doctor has a basis for his statement. His statements should have as much validity as Dr. Fauci’s statements. The fact that Twitter is censoring Dr. Atlas because he does not agree with the current narrative should be concerning to all Americans.

Censorship At Work

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Censorship in social media is alive and well. The New York Post is reporting today that White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany has been locked out of her Twitter account for sharing an article in The New York Post that reflected badly on Presidential candidate Joe Biden.

The article reports:

“Your account has been locked,” a message from the social media network informed McEnany, whose account has more than 1 million followers.

“We have determined that this account violated the Twitter Rules,” the network said, highlighting her prior tweet with a link to The Post’s article.

Without providing any evidence, Twitter said McEnany — who shared a screenshot with The Post — violated “our rules against distribution of hacked material.”

McEnany told The Post she will not comply with Twitter’s request that she delete her tweet to restore access to her account.

“This is a story reported by the New York Post and Fox News with the Biden campaign notably not disputing the authenticity of the emails,” McEnany said. “I will not comply with censoring reporting that may not fit the ideology of Silicon Valley. This is abominable and not the American way.”

Twitter on Wednesday blocked users from sharing The Post’s link to the story, which describes an alleged 2015 email from Burisma energy executive Vadym Pozharskyi thanking Hunter Biden for “giving an opportunity to meet your father.”

Joe Biden has claimed numerous times that he never even discussed Hunter’s business dealings with Hunter. The emails say otherwise.

I guess the question is, “Were Facebook and Twitter so reluctant to share information from President Trump’s stolen tax returns?”

Bad Reporting Is One Of The Things That

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Today The Gateway Pundit posted an article that illustrates how misquoting a person can create a totally false impression of the person and of what was said. The thing to keep in mind here is that the mainstream media attacks those who it considers to be a future threat to their narrative and their hold on power.

The article reports:

The far left media is making up completely fraudulent quotes now to smear the Republicans.

The Hill reported on Saturday that South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem called the removal of Confederate statues was an effort to “discredit” our Founding Fathers.

This would be quite a quote if it was true.
But it’s not true.
It was completely made up to make the popular Republican governor and the Republican party look racist and stupid.

The tweet is still up over 24 hours later.

The article posts the actual quote:

Here are Governor Noem’s actual words:

“Across America these last several weeks, we have been witnessing a very troubling situation unfold. In real time, we are watching an organized, coordinated campaign to remove and eliminate all references to our nation’s founding and many other points in our history. The approach focuses exclusively on our forefathers’ flaws, but it fails to capitalize on the opportunity to learn from their virtues. Make no mistake, this is being done deliberately to discredit America’s founding principles by discrediting the individuals who formed them so that America can be remade into a different political image.”

As you can see, there is no reference to the Confederacy or the statues. This is a blatant attempt to stop the forward political progress of a woman who has served her state well, both in Congress and as Governor. This is the sort of reporting that divides rather than informs.

No Longer Fair And Balanced

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“Fair and Balanced” has been the slogan of Fox News since it began in 1996. Unfortunately, as the children have taken the management over from their father, the station is no longer quite as fair and balanced as it used to be.

The Daily Caller posted an article yesterday reporting that Fox News reportedly cut ties with social media personalities Diamond & Silk after the pair stirred controversy over incorrect comments about the novel coronavirus. Actually I am not sure anyone on the news is currently making accurate comments about the coronavirus.

Diamond & Silk are Trump supporters who are entertaining and funny. They do not claim to be scientists. They are as entitled to their opinion on the coronavirus as much as anyone else is. I believe that they are being censored not because of their comments about the coronavirus but because of their support of President Trump.

The article reports:

“After what they’ve said and tweeted you won’t be seeing them on Fox Nation or Fox News anytime soon,” a source with knowledge of the situation said according to The Daily Beast.

Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller.

The siblings came under fire after saying on March 30 that the number of Americans who have died from the novel coronavirus is being misreported to make President Donald Trump look bad, The Daily Beast reported.

They also accused billionaire Bill Gates of being involved with the virus on April 10 during a livestream, saying he has pushed for “population control,” the publication reported. Diamond & Silk said they would not be taking any vaccine that Gates was involved in producing, according to The Daily Beast.

Just for the record, Bill Gates is an advocate of population control and is one of the major fund sources for the World Health Organization. It may be that Diamond & Silk were fired because some of what they were saying was a little too close to the truth.

Skewing The News Can Have Consequences

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Bias in news reporting comes in a variety of ways. One way is to leave out critical parts of a story in order to give a totally misleading impression. Unfortunately the news media did that recently in a situation where someone died.

Townhall posted an article that illustrates how harmful and misleading media bias can be.

The article reports:

Media outlets and journalists on social media heavily pushed a story about a woman and her husband drinking fish tank cleaner because it contained chloroquine phosphate after President Trump had mentioned the medicinal version of chloroquine could be used to help treat COVID-19.

After drinking the cleaner, the couple began to feel sick and were rushed to the hospital, where her husband later died and she was put in intensive care. She told NBC News they drank it out of fear of contracting the coronavirus and had heard Trump talking about chloroquine to treat patients.

However, some of the reports and social media left out the fact the couple did not ingest the medicinal form of chloroquine that Trump had said could be used to help cure those infected with the Wuhan coronavirus.

Axios’ story about the incident completely left out the part about them ingesting fish tank cleaner. Their tweet for the original story has been deleted and an editor’s note was added to the story hours after it was first published.

…Journalists on Twitter often left out the part explaining the couple did not use the tablet form of chloroquine, racking up thousands of retweets and likes off of the false premise.

NBC News Correspondent Heidi Przybyla’s tweet about the story went viral, but she did not add the key detail until two hours later and at the very bottom of her thread, which has received far less attention.

The most blatant example of journalistic malpractice was found in a tweet by Axios and the response by Jennifer Rubin:

Understand as you read this that the political left would love to see President Trump’s daily coronavirus updates go away. Why? Because when the President talks to the people directly, Americans see a man handling the situation as well as could be expected. The media spin rooms try to spin what was said, but if people see it for themselves, the spin has less impact.

Please follow the link to the article at Townhall. It shows a number of tweets attempting to blame President Trump for the death of the man who drank fish tank cleaner. While the man’s death is a tragedy, no one told him to drink fish tank cleaner. It was a really dumb thing to do. However, the reporting of this tragedy is only one example of how irresponsible our mainstream media has become.

Letting A Lie Stand

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John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog today about a lie told by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. She has made a number of anti-Semitic statements during her short term in Congress.

The article reports:

Yesterday Tlaib retweeted the claim that a “herd of violent Israeli settlers” had “kidnapped and murdered” a seven-year-old Palestinian boy. The original tweet was accompanied by a video that showed an Israeli rescue team recovering the body of the boy from a cistern.

The article concludes:

The whole thing was a hoax, made up out of whole cloth. (Not the death of the boy, which was real, but the assertion that he was murdered by Israeli “settlers.”) The tweet by the Palestinian politician, Hanan Ashrawi, has now been deleted, as has Tlaib’s retweet. But Tlaib’s deletion was silent, with no explanation or apology, or any attempt to correct the misinformation that she had spread to tens of thousands on Twitter.

What happened is obvious. Like many people, Tlaib believes anything that tends to confirm her pre-existing bigotry. There is no need to investigate or verify the facts when an opportunity to smear Jews is at hand.

Anyone can make a mistake and believe something that isn’t true. However, Congresswoman Tlaib owed the people who follow her on Twitter and explanation of why her tweet was deleted and a correction to the story. Kidnapping and murder is generally not something that Israelis do to children. Unfortunately the Palestinians who Tlaib supports have a history of killing innocent people–both Israeli and American–citizens of Israel and tourists. The Representative needs to check her facts more carefully.

Don’t Trust What You Read On Twitter

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Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about a tweet by CNN’s Joe Lockhart .

This is the tweet:

There’s only one problem with the tweet–it is totally made up.

The article at The Gateway Pundit reports:

After his tweet went viral with thousands of retweets and 10’s of thousands of ‘likes’ with ‘conservative’ WaPo blogger Jennifer Rubin retweeting it, Lockhart admitted he made up the entire conversation.

“Ok maybe I made up the convo, but you know that’s exactly what they’re thinking.” Lockhart tweeted.

After major backlash from thousands of people calling Lockhart out for his lies, he pulled a Schiff and claimed it was just satire and parody.

This is what all Democrats do when they get caught lying and fabricating conversations.

Note that in the tweet Lockhart is saying that the Senators don’t know incriminating information against President Trump because they watch Fox News. Think about that for a minute–CNN, known for its fake news has reported stories that are totally false. The reporting on Fox News–particularly Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham has consistently proved to be true. What about the people who watch CNN and have no idea that everything Fox News has reported for the past two years has turned out to be true? How does that compare to the truthfulness of CNN? The false reporting of CNN and other biased media outlets bears much of the responsibility for the divisiveness currently found in America.

The Thin Line Of Censorship

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A friend of mine who is in radio advertising tells me that radio stations do not have the ability to refuse political ads. During an election season, a station must air all ads that a political campaign pays for. Evidently this is the result of the fact that radio stations are controlled by the Federal Communications Commission. Unfortunately the new media is very loosely controlled by anything. This is a very mixed blessing. I don’t want the government telling me that I have to accept political ads on my blog whether or not I agree with the ads. However, the censorship of conservative speech that is going on at YouTube, Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc., is not acceptable.

Breitbart is reporting today that according to a report by 60 minutes more than 300 of President Donald Trump’s political ads have taken down by Google and its video platform YouTube, mostly over the summer.

The article reports:

The CBS reporters were unable to find specific reasons for the mass takedowns of Trump ads, a common problem with social media companies, which are often reluctant to explain precisely why a ban or other act of censorship has happened. “We found very little transparency in the transparency report,” concluded 60 Minutes.

The article includes the following quote from CBS News:

60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl asked Wojcicki, “Have you taken down any of President Trump’s ads at all?” YouTube’s CEO responded, “There are ads of President Trump that were not approved to run on Google or YouTube.” When pressed for an example, Wojcicki added, “Well, they’re available in our transparency report.”

In response to concerns raised after the 2016 election cycle, Google and YouTube, like Facebook, keep a searchable archive of political ads that have run on the site.

60 Minutes reviewed the archive to learn more about President Trump’s problematic political ads. We found that over 300 video ads were taken down by Google and YouTube, mostly over the summer, for violating company policy. But the archive doesn’t detail what policy was violated. Was it copyright violation? A lie or extreme inaccuracy? Faulty grammar? Bad punctuation? It’s unclear. The ads determined to be offending are not available to be screened. We found very little transparency in the transparency report. 

We are coming into a very important election season. American voters need to hear both sides of every campaign. We already know that the mainstream media is extremely biased. How are people supposed to get information when free speech is being suppressed?

The Deep State Doesn’t Go Down Easily–In Any Country

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The American Thinker posted an article today about Boris Johnson and his efforts to follow the will of the British voters and exit the European Union. Although I don’t fully understand the procedures involved in the British Parliament, I can see that there is a massive effort to block the exit the people of Britain voted for.

The article reports:

Yes, if thing stand as they do now, delays will go on into eternity, each deadline pushed back, and an exit from the European Union impossible.  The E.U. will notice this and just keep throwing up a wall of resistance to a deal to ensure that Britain stays, like it or not, or else keep moving the goalposts — into eternity.  When delays are endless, what an opportunity.  These useless satraps have nothing better to do, after all.  They like the pounds flowing in.  And such a coincidence: the parliamentary betrayal happened on the 80th anniversary of France and Germany declaring war on Britain.  Plus ça change…

What happened Tuesday certainly involves complicated parliamentary maneuvers, and the people writing of such disappointment do understand how these stakes work.

That said, it seems that the worst that can happen is that the country will be forced into a general election — very soon.  Johnson says that’s what he wants.  There’s actually reason to think Labor may just try to stop him.  But it’s likely he’ll succeed.

Advantage Boris.

After all, how was it that Johnson, instead of the eminently more reasonable-seeming Theresa May, ended up in his position?  He’s only there at all, and not too long ago, because of a powerful groundswell of public support for respecting the will of the majority on leaving the European Union.  Three years of dithering and delays by the inept May kowtowing to the wishes of the European Union and its endless delays is precisely why the Tories decided to take a chance on Boris, someone they rejected earlier as too wild and crazy.

The article concludes:

Johnson, meanwhile, is weathering the storm like a sea captain, tweeting his stance copiously, and coming up with excellent summations of what’s at stake. 

…He’s showing courage.  He’s not losing his nerve.  Voters will take note.  And while nothing is certain, it seems more than a little likely that with his gutsiness and steady hand, he will win this election, sweeping out the weaklings in his party, and then steam full speed ahead toward Brexit, which is what the British really voted for, deal or no deal.  The E.U. in such conditions, unlike now, is going to really, really, really want a deal.

I love the fact that he is using Twitter to bypass the media and speak directly to the people. That reminds me of another world leader. Please follow the link and read the entire article. Even though this is occurring in Britain, it matters to America. Boris Johnson is a leader with the courage to take on the deep state. We need more of that sort of leadership around the world.

What You Are Not Supposed To See

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Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article with the following headline, “Twitter Suspends Mitch McConnell Campaign Account for Sharing Death Threats Against Mitch McConnell…”

Now why do you suppose they did that? If the threats had been against a Democrat, would the account have been suspended? No–The tweet would have simply highlighted as an example of the actions of violent right wing extremists.

The article reports:

Black Lives Matter Louisville leader Chanelle Helm is a political activist who has met with numerous high profile politicians, including current presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, to advance the identity politics of her movement.

Ms. Chanelle Helm posted video to her Facebook page showing a protest Monday at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s house. Ms. Helm was proud.

Ms. Helm was shouting: “just stab the motherf—er in the heart.”  “F*ck yo neck, b*tch. Murder Turtle! Murder Turtle! … F*ck yo thoughts and prayers … F*ck you, f*ck yo wife, f*ck everything you stand for.”

To highlight the hypocrisy of the radical leftists, several social media and twitter accounts began sharing the video of Ms. Helm’s call to violence; including the twitter account of Mitch McConnell.

In response to the video showing how violent Ms. Chanelle Helm is, and bringing forth the transparency of sunlight upon the group’s objectives, Twitter began demanding the videos and tweets must be removed.  Failure to remove the video results in the twitter account being suspended from the platform.  Twitter suspended Mitch McConnell’s account.

The article concludes:

The same simpatico relationship exists with Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and a host of social media platforms. The events in/around Sanford, FL (2012); Ferguson, MO (2014) and Baltimore Maryland (2015), were not just purposeful; they were quite financially lucrative for the identity network. After all, they learned at the knee of the master:

The question to ask is, “Who gains by pitting one group of people against another?” If we are fighting each other, we are noticing that our Washington politicians go to Washington as members of the middle class and quickly become millionaires. As long as they can keep us fighting among ourselves and not noticing what they are doing, they can continue their corruption.