A recently surfaced recording of a Zoom call between the Biden/Harris team from 2020 reveals disconcerting evidence of the team's intentional targeting and manipulation of voters and relentless bullying of media outlets to control information. //

“One of the smartest things that the party did itself was over the last couple of years, they actually invested in a team that Tim runs… to detect and track misinformation and misinformation narratives in various corners of the internet and then flag them to platforms as a violation of their policy.” //

Matt Orfalea
@0rf
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Replying to @0rf
RINKEVICH: "We targeted folks based on online behavioral cues, building out personas, based on the type of content they were consuming, what they were searching, the kinds of websites they were visiting so that we could target folks in real-time as they were exposed to that… Show more

4:11 PM · Aug 7, 2024 //

Matt Orfalea
@0rf
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Replying to @0rf
But the Biden team didn't just get the media to forward their deception, they changed real votes. According to Rinkevich, "concern around [Biden's] mental acuity in particular went down by 8 points over the course of our campaign," resulting in "about 200K" votes for Biden. /16

4:11 PM · Aug 7, 2024

Now Facebook has been forced to admit that they erroneously censored one of the photos taken immediately after Trump was shot by a 20-year-old sniper at a Pennsylvania rally on July 13. The picture, showing a defiant Trump, depicted the former president rising to his feet and yelling, ”Fight! Fight!” as blood streamed down his face. It instantly became one of the most iconic photos of our times. //

A post on Mark Zuckerberg’s social media site by a user with the handle End Wokeness that showed the Republican presidential candidate defiantly pumping his fist in the air while blood streams down his face had initially been flagged as misinformation.

The user was threatened with being deplatformed.

However, on Monday, Dani Lever, a spokesperson for the social network’s parent company, Meta, admitted the tech giant made a “mistake.”

Jonathan Turley
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7h
@JonathanTurley
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Not long after I ran a column criticizing NewsGuard, the company came knocking to ask about my revenue sources and why I do not notify people that I write from what it views as a conservative or libertarian perspective...
thehill.com
The most chilling words today: I’m from NewsGuard and I am here to rate you
Jonathan Turley
@JonathanTurley
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...Apparently from where NewsGuard reviewers sit, I am a de facto conservative or libertarian who needs to wear a digital bell to warn others...
7:29 AM · Jul 28, 2024

But I pay not to have advertising, and the closest I come to financial support would be my wife, since we live in a community property state. If NewsGuard wants to blacklist me with my wife, it is a bit late. Trust me, she knows. //

NewsGaudians are the new brownshirts. It is well-funded and relentless. What to do about fact-checkers who cannot spell Res ipsa loquitur, let alone understand its meaning, when the meaning is defined for them?

I will follow Professor Turley’s lead:

This is why my book calls for a number of reforms, including barring federal funds for groups engaged in censoring, rating or blacklisting sites.

What do I expect? In about 2 weeks, some guardian goon from NewsGuard will show up at my “online” door:

“Show me your papers. Please tell me why the 'H' in Thompson is silent. What are you trying to hide, sir?"

On Saturday, legal scholar and writer Jonathan Turley laid out the details of a House Judiciary report detailing the efforts of several shadowy organizations to censor right-leaning content on various social media platforms, and those efforts are an affront to anyone who understands the concept of free speech.

Few Americans have ever heard of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, let alone understand how it shapes what they read and hear in news and commentary. That may soon change.

An alarming new report of the House Judiciary Committee details this organization’s work to censor conservative and opposing viewpoints in the media by targeting figures such as Joe Rogan and entire social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter).

It is part of a massive censorship system that a federal court recently described as “Orwellian.” The sophistication of this system makes authoritarian regimes like China’s and Iran’s look like mere amateurs in censorship and blacklisting. //

One of the most insidious efforts has been to strangle the financial life out of conservative or libertarian sites by targeting their donors and advertisers. This is where the left has excelled beyond anything that has come before in speech crackdowns.

This is dangerous. This is using the weight of government to suppress free speech. This isn't about policies made in a vacuum by these social media companies. This is about government actors, as Mr. Turley notes, including the president down to unnamed members of his administration and, we feel certain, members of Congress in effect using these organizations to lean on the social media companies. They are targeting the platform's income streams - advertising - and they are succeeding at it. //

Dutch Letter
3 hours ago
“To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness, without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical (imaginary) idea.” - James Madison

We are no longer a virtuous people and we no longer elect virtuous representatives. We vote for who is the lesser of two evils in every contest, and we do not protest but on assigned days when voting is allowed. We have become complicit actors in our own doom.
Of course, we commiserate, and complain to each other, yet closer to the abyss we creep.

NetChoice often argued out of both sides of their mouth when Section 230 protections were in play. During back and forth with NetChoice counsel, Justice Gorsuch observed that NetChoice’s argument was, conveniently, both sides of the coin:

“So it’s speech for the purposes of the First Amendment, your speech, your editorial control, but when we get to Section 230, your submission is that that isn’t your speech?

So now, the cases head back to the lower courts, who've been tasked with doing their homework and using the proper framework to analyze the issues. //

anon-7lqi anon-tf71
4 hours ago
i think administratively you can declare any platform with more that 25% market share as a "public square".
Public squares are obliged to allow speech that smaller venues do not have to.
keeps 230 intact. focuses the law on the companies large enough to impact the public in any meaningful way

JustCause_for_Liberty anon-7lqi
3 hours ago edited
I do not even think its that hard. They get to declare if they are publishers or platforms. If you are a publisher you get no protections from 230 and are subject to liability claims for all content. If you are a platform you get liability protections from 230 but lose all rights to moderate content from users or their speech and posts. If laws are broken from users then refer those to law enforcement. Otherwise its not their job.

Just FYI their self identification of publisher or platform is for the entirety of that service. You either have to sell the Company or completely shut down the service and deploy a completely separate service afterwards to redeclare.

Like so many of the news items involving the pandemic and Dr. Anthony Fauci, details that were previously considered unreportable or forbidden have eventually come to light as being accurate and no longer deniable. The Washington Post displays the tendency by far too many in the press to push approved narratives and dispatch the facts for the sake of what is called propriety. //

It has taken the Washington Post over two years to come around and attest to those facts.

Commit snafu slapped an irrevocable Apache 2.0 license on confidential API Docs. //

The documents also suggest Google has whitelists that will artificially boost certain websites for certain topics. The two mentioned were "isElectionAuthority" and "isCovidLocalAuthority."

Just like in 2020, Google could not articulate what "policy" the Trump ad violated other than it might be effective.

Elon Musk

@elonmusk
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The Australian censorship commissar is demanding global content bans!
Global Government Affairs

@GlobalAffairs
The recent attacks in Australia are a horrific assault on free society. Our condolences go out to those who have been affected, and we stand with the Australian people in calling for those responsible to be brought to justice.

Following these events, the Australian eSafety…
2:47 PM · Apr 19, 2024 //

Elon Musk

@elonmusk
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I’d like to take a moment to thank the PM for informing the public that this platform is the only truthful one
datahazard
@fentasyl
Australia's Prime Minister taking time during his presser to advertise for Elon.

"By and large, [other social media] responded appropriately to the calls [for censorship] by the E-Safety Commissioner. X chose not to.
...
We know, I think overwhelmingly, Australians want…
11:28 AM · Apr 22, 2024

Google doesn't want us to report on climate change alarmism, the transgender movement that seeks to nuke biology and erase women, election integrity, the deadly consequences of Biden's border crisis, or the sacred cows of COVID "science." These are all untouchable in Google's view if you engage in "wrongspeak" that contradicts the framing and "facts" conjured up by the left.

Here are just a few examples of the stories Google has deemed too dangerous to publish:

• Lawsuit Targets Mississippi Policy Allowing Mail Votes to Be Counted After Election Day
• Largest-Ever COVID Vaccine Study Finds What Many of Us Already Suspected
• VIDEO: Dem Voter Explains Why She's Switching Sides in 2024
• Will the Democrats Let Donald Trump Be President If He Wins?

Ben Kew @ben_kew
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NPR’s far-left CEO Katherine Maher: "Our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that’s getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done."
0:18 / 2:11
7:46 AM · Apr 17, 2024

Look, it is a staggeringly ignorant thing for anyone to come out and declare that the facts and the truth can become distaff items in the servicing of the narrative. For this to be a set of principles held by someone overseeing a news outlet is downright disturbing. This is — quite literally — Orwellian “Big Brother” (Sister) statism thought-policing taking place. And as we have come to learn, this is hardly Maher slipping up and having the veil slide on her views; she not only holds to these principles of lording over the facts, she brags about it. //

She goes on to say the First Amendment makes it “a little bit tricky” to censor content. She is not holding the 1-A as sacred; she is declaring it an inconvenience to her goals. Controlling speech and driving the approved narrative — with the partnership and coordination of government — is kind of, sort of, a little bit, maybe the polar opposite of what journalism is charged with as its mission statement. This is who NPR chose to lead its news dissemination outfit. Maher is vastly inexperienced and displays all of the traits that run counter to journalistic principles, yet NPR selected her to run its entire operation.

It is not a question of who thought this was a good idea, but “why?” //

The reason why she was hired might be seen in the reaction to all of these revelations in the broader journalism sphere. That is to say – there is no reaction. Uri Berliner’s column has mostly been covered in the press by the reactions it has generated. The actual revelations he delivered and the effects it has been having on the press industry have gone wholly unaddressed. Now we have a CEO of a major news outlet found to have a history of avowed hostility towards facts and the truth in order to drive the news narratives, and nobody in journalism circles seems at all bothered by these revelations.

There is abject silence because so many news divisions operate in this very fashion. //

Katherine Maher is not an anomaly in the industry; she is the very product that is sought out. A generation ago, the idea of trampling on the First Amendment would have generated immediate howls from proper journalists. Today, a news division CEO can boldly tout the need to silence free expression, and she is welcomed with open arms. The only reason this is a possible problem today is that the voices pointing out her disturbing views had not been properly silenced.

Over the last year, we've alerted our readers to specific RedState articles that Google has demonetized, meaning that no ads can be shown on those articles and RedState doesn't receive any revenue on them, for allegedly violating its guidelines. Google claims the offending articles contain "dangerous or derogatory content" or "unreliable and harmful claims," but what they really contain is content Google and/or the government deem dangerous to groupthink and the accepted narratives – content that might make people question what they're being spoon-fed by legacy media propagandists.

Some might argue that it's not censorship because Google doesn't require that we take the "offending" post down. I'd argue that it's still a form of censorship because it's making it painful to go against the orthodoxy. If RedState can't pay its writers, RedState and the "dangerous" truths and opinions published on the site will go away. (Or so it thinks.)

Since August 2023, Google has demonetized more than 85 RedState stories, and that total is growing every day. //

Why is Google flagging all these stories?

It's doing it because each flagged article harms our domain score overall, which lowers our ad rates and leads to a lower quality of ads being shown on our site.

It's doing it because we're getting closer to the 2024 election and Google wants to make sure that outlets that practice real journalism are sent a big message: that any criticism of the integrity of the election will not be tolerated.

watch this video below that details quite a few of the big lies that were told about Donald Trump by the media. No matter how you feel about Trump, the important thing to pay attention to is the readiness and willingness of corporate media to tell falsehoods about him.

The video is over five minutes long because there are a lot of examples of this happening.

https://twitter.com/Sassafrass_84/status/1774901013629059379

What you're seeing is an active attempt by our own government to lie to and manipulate us with the help of corporate media and big tech companies, all for the benefit of one political party. This is one of the most heinous attempts at subjugation in the history of this country and given the Biden administration's open attempts to establish organizations within the government that dedicate themselves to policing information, you can bet that it's only going to get worse.

Let’s not pretend this is about countering communist China or protecting Americans. It’s about using CCP tactics here at home. //

Namely, the push to “ban” TikTok is a thinly veiled scheme to force ByteDance to sell to a U.S. company. The purpose of forcing a sale should be obvious. If a U.S. firm owns TikTok, the federal censorship industrial complex can use the platform as it has used virtually every other social media company: to spy on and manipulate American citizens. //

The suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was banned from Twitter, Facebook, and most other social media platforms almost as soon as it was reported, was only possible because of the leverage that federal intelligence agencies had over these social media companies.

Over the past year, we’ve learned more and more about the depth and breadth of collusion between Big Tech and the federal government, which views social media companies as proxies that enable it to censor and manipulate American citizens. Anything that cuts against the deep state’s preferred narrative is labeled as “misinformation” that must be suppressed, censored, or banned. Instead of doing this directly, the intelligence community dragoons social media companies into carrying out these tasks, and the effect is the quashing of free speech online.

Make no mistake, this is the goal of the movement to “ban” TikTok. How else to explain the effort to force a TikTok sale? If the goal was really to ban TikTok (because the CCP uses it to collect data on American citizens, or because it’s harmful to its users’ mental health, or both) then Congress would have simply passed a bill that banned the app from stores and web-hosting services in the United States. It could have been a straightforward, one-page bill.

Google has been putting its thumb on the scale to help Democratic candidates win the presidency in the last four election cycles during which it censored Republicans, according to a right-leaning media watchdog.

The Media Research Center published a report alleging 41 instances of “election interference” by the search engine since 2008. //

A source close to Google told The Post that third parties who have looked at our results and “found no evidence to support claims of political bias.”

“There is absolutely nothing new here — just a recycled list of baseless, inaccurate complaints that have been debunked by third parties and many that failed in the courts,” a Google spokesperson told The Post.

This TikTok ban isn't going to stop with TikTok. You and I both know that once we hand the government mouse a piece of cheese, it's going to ask for a glass of your rights. If and when something happens on the internet that could have been prevented with more power, they will look at the law that banned TikTok and say that the reason X happened is because it wasn't sweeping enough. They will add things to it that give the government more power.

This TikTok bill puts the government's foot in the door when it comes to internet censorship. If the government truly cared about protecting innocent people, then we would see them discussing ways to protect children from pedophiles.

Doing something that fast for the benefit of the people isn't something Congress is known for.

That means something fishy is going on.

Sure enough, a poison pill was found, and leave it to Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie to find it. As he pointed out on Tuesday, the TikTok ban is actually a "trojan horse" that would effectively give the executive branch power to ban pretty much anything on the internet he doesn't like.

The so-called TikTok ban is a trojan horse. The President will be given the power to ban WEB SITES, not just Apps. The person breaking the new law is deemed to be the U.S. (or offshore) INTERNET HOSTING SERVICE or App Store, not the “foreign adversary.”

Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie
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The so-called TikTok ban is a trojan horse.

The President will be given the power to ban WEB SITES, not just Apps.

The person breaking the new law is deemed to be the U.S. (or offshore) INTERNET HOSTING SERVICE or App Store, not the “foreign adversary.”

https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20240311/HR%207521%20Updated.pdf
8:17 AM · Mar 12, 2024

In other words, this bill would give the government, namely the executive branch, broad powers of censorship over the internet. Websites like Telegram and VPN programs would take a hit for starters. What's also worrisome is that "foreign adversary" is not a clearly defined idea, which means this could be something left up to the opinion of the President.

It should be noted that Massie also posted a follow-up tweet pointing out who is completely untouchable in this bill. See if you can't figure out who it is just by the language.

Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie
·
Replying to @RepThomasMassie
If you think this isn’t a Trojan horse and will only apply to TikTok and foreign-adversary social media companies, then contemplate why someone thought it was important to get a very specific exclusion for their internet based business written into the bill:
9:19 AM · Mar 12, 2024

[Amazon.com] //

Rand Paul @RandPaul
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🧵‼️ The lengths some in Congress will go to for more authority and control over Americans’ freedom of speech never ceases to amaze me. The TikTok bill recently advanced by the House would endanger the 1st amendment and empower the federal govt to ban social media platforms…
3:45 PM · Mar 9, 2024 //

Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog
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Irony overload here. RuPaul starts an online bookstore whose primary mission is to stand against so-called 'book bans.' Within a week, my books, and books from @libsoftiktok and others, are banned from the anti-book banning site. Tremendous work all around.

National Review @NRO
A founder of the "all-inclusive" online bookstore Allstora, which launched last week with the promise to “carry all books,” admitted to removing titles and apologized for previously selling “harmful books.” | @abigailandwords

https://trib.al/haiJXVM
11:25 PM · Mar 10, 2024

How deep did the Biden administration's censorship regime go, which infamously targeted Twitter and Facebook? According to newly subpoenaed emails by the House Judiciary Committee, it even reached the world's largest retailer, Amazon. //

Rep. Jim Jordan released some of the details on Monday, which included former Biden official Andy Slavitt pressuring Amazon to censor books that questioned the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines. //

That last sentence is chilling. As if there's nothing wrong with what was occurring, an Amazon worker asks, "Is the Admin asking us to remove books, or are they more concerned about search results/order (or both)?" //

Rep. Jim Jordan
@Jim_Jordan
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How did the Biden White House conclude that there was “propaganda and misinformation” in books sold in Amazon’s bookstore?

The White House ran keyword searches for controversial topics, such as “vaccine,” and emailed Amazon when it didn’t like how the search results appeared:
11:44 PM · Feb 5, 2024 //

Rep. Jim Jordan
@Jim_Jordan
·
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After the White House spent a week berating Amazon, what did the online bookstore do?

Starting March 9—the same day as its meeting with the White House—Amazon enabled “Do Not Promote” for books that expressed the view that vaccines were not effective.
11:44 PM · Feb 5, 2024

Regardless of its form, Big Tech’s prolonged addiction to censorship reveals a market failure. In other industries, the remedy would be competition. If barred from one road on the way to work, why not take another? Due to network effects and myriad anti-competitive practices, a small number of successful social media companies today function as oligopolies, able to work together to throttle your access to all viable roads at their discretion. Twitter bypassed the censorship problem because an eccentric billionaire mortgaged himself for his beliefs. We should not expect more calvary like Elon Musk in the Silicon Valley. //

Perhaps the most important assumption in these questions that could decide this case is, whose speech is whose on social media? When Grandma posts on Facebook, does the statement belong to her as the author or to the website as a publisher whose algorithm inserted it into your feed? NetChoice argues that Grandma’s story belongs to Facebook and, therefore, Facebook receives First Amendment rights for choosing to feature or censor her comments through its editorial discretion. //

However, even if the vast majority of Americans are incorrect and social media websites can claim your speech as their own to protect their right to censor, these companies are hypocrites every time they invoke what is called Section 230 to protect themselves. This is a 1996 statute meant to shield nascent online platforms from the liabilities of being a publisher. For example, if something illegal was posted on Myspace, the website was protected because it was not Myspace’s speech.

Yet today, Big Tech is telling us that they deserve to have it both ways—that posts on social media are simultaneously the platforms’ (to benefit from First Amendment protections) and not the platforms’ (to benefit from Section 230 protections).

If no other institution, logic, or physical law of the universe has this sort of bold inconsistency, I am skeptical of Big Tech’s entitlement to it. Only last year, Google was in the Supreme Court arguing that YouTube’s targeted recommendations to users were not editorial speech and, therefore, merited Section 230 protections, contradicting this year’s NetChoice legal arguments.