Category: free speech

CNN attempts to censor its competition

CNN’s Oliver Darcy suggests that two CNN competitors, Newsmax and OAN, be “cancelled” for political reasons by their carriers:

“Just a reminder that neither @Verizon, @ATT, nor @comcast have answered any questions about why they beam channels like OAN & Newsmax into millions of homes. Do they have any second thoughts about distributing these channels given their election denialism content? They won’t say.”

I hate to break this to Oliver Darcy: but Verizon, ATT, and Comcast don’t owe him an explanation.

Let us not forget that in the wake of the 2016 election, CNN was a bullhorn purveyor of “election denialism”. The network constantly spouted crackpot theories about mysterious Russian agents swinging the 2016 election for Donald Trump.

No one talked about colluding to remove CNN from the airwaves, though. (Many of us did, however, privately stop watching CNN during the Trump years, as their biases constantly showed.)

This will be the new modus operandi: entrenched, politically connected players like CNN and Twitter will use collusion with likeminded (or coerced) business partners to “cancel” competitors. The Democratic Party will cheerlead and pitch in where necessary.

Notice that Twitter’s free-speech competitor, Parler, was “cancelled” through a collusion among a group of left-leaning tech companies. This happened after conservative Twitter users abandoned Twitter for Parler in large numbers.

And now CNN will attempt the same with Newsmax and OAN. They’ll use the same excuse: “public safety”—the go-to pretext of dictatorships since time immemorial.

There is never a valid “public safety” argument for permanently censoring a news outlet. Or a social media platform, for that matter…much as I dislike social media.

PA Lt. Gov. John Fetterman attempts to rewrite the Constitution

In the above video, Pennsylvania’s Democratic Lt. Governor, John Fetterman, announces that dissident claims about the recent election are no longer allowed.

Never mind that Democrats have claimed for 4 years that “Russians” swung the 2016 election to Donald Trump.

The Democratic Party apparatchiks aren’t even pretending anymore. Henceforth, they will decide the boundaries of acceptable speech for the rest of us.

Come and take it, Mr. Fetterman. Come and take it. 

Twitter: perfectly cool with Chinese government propaganda, though

Last week I reported how the Chinese government, using Twitter, puts a happy spin on its brutal suppression of ethnic minorities, especially the Tibetans and the Uighur people. 

The ladies over at the Victory Girls blog point out that Twitter is well aware of the Chinese government propaganda on their platform.

They have no qualms about any of that. But they banned the account of the President of the United States.

In recent days, Twitter has also purged thousands of less well-known conservative accounts, and a leaked video indicates that Twitter CEO and Head Commissar Jack Dorsey is far from done. 

And they wonder why we don’t trust a word they say…

Sarah Hoyt on online censorship and Facebook

THE STINK OF FEAR

In the essay (which you should read), Hoyt talks about her recent experiences with Facebook banning and suspending her content (which, I assure you, is quite mild as online discourse goes).

Here’s a sample:

“Even the Soviets turned a blind eye to jokes about the regime, because they knew it was a safety valve.”

Yes, but:

1.) The social justice mob has proven time and again that they have no sense of humor.

2.) To compare Mark Zuckerberg to Yuri Andropov would be a slight to the latter.

Walkie-talkies may make a comeback

Can Zuckerberg and Dorsey ban these, too?

Walkie talkies were all the rage during my childhood in the late 1970s. This was especially true during that decade’s brief CB radio craze, around 1976.

You probably haven’t thought about using a walkie-talkie in years. But given the state of things on the Internet, you may want to give old technology a second look. You can purchase a set of walkie-talkies on Amazon.

Shhh….we won’t tell them that your only motivation is to escape the speech codes of the Big Tech CEOs and their minions. 

Jack Dorsey’s censorship plans exposed in leaked video

Well, Jack Dorsey seems to be moving even faster than AOC to clamp down on free speech in this Brave New World of ours that begins next Wednesday.

In a leaked video, Jack Dorsey states that many more Twitter accounts will be banned.

In other words, this isn’t just about Donald Trump….this is about you.

“We are focused on one account right now, 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, this week, and the next few weeks, and go on beyond the inauguration.”

The best message we can send Jack Dorsey in return ends with the words, “and the horse you rode in on.”

I mean that figuratively, of course.

Leave Twitter, and never go back.

The good news is that Twitter’s stock is trending downward. It will fall even further as more conservatives, moderates, and freedom-loving independents jettison it.

The only way Twitter makes money is through ad revenue. Users and eyeballs mean money to Twitter. Unlike Facebook, Twitter can’t even sell your personal information, because most people are on Twitter anonymously, or input only minimal personal info.

There isn’t much money to be made showing ads to Antifa radicals…which will be the bulk of Twitter’s user base when this is over.

Twitter will reap what it has sown.

BLOOD FLATS

Former marine Lee McCabe is on the run from the law, mafia hitmen, and rural meth dealers. A gun-blazing chase through the badlands of Kentucky.

Preview BLOOD FLATS on Amazon now.

Suing Facebook, Twitter for censorship

The legal backlash against the Big Tech speech bullies is already underway, starting in North Dakota:

“A bill proposed by Republican lawmakers in North Dakota could enable lawsuits to be filed against Twitter and Facebook by users who have seen their accounts deleted or censored.”

Personally, I tend to favor voting with my feet. I don’t want to sue Twitter. I want so many people to leave Twitter that Twitter will go out of business.

Or, to paraphrase Cato the Elder: “Twitter delenda est.”

Seriously. If Twitter didn’t already exist, who would make the case for inventing it?

But either way, social media is likely to reap the whirlwind as a result of its recent actions. It will not be business as usual from here on out.

The AOC threat: don’t underestimate her

Conservatives, moderates, and freedom-loving independents: It’s time to take Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez seriously.

As most of you know, a new sheriff and his minions come into town next week. And they’re already talking about clamping down on freedom of expression. 

While Trump was president, the Democrats favored an oppositional press. That changes now that they’re taking power:

AOC says way must be found to ‘rein in our media environment so that you can’t just spew’ lies

Every dictatorial regime since time immemorial has arbitrarily declared the arguments of the opposition “lies”, and then promptly silenced them.

For what it’s worth, I don’t necessarily believe that this is what Joe Biden personally wants to do. But Biden is elderly, enfeebled, and he will struggle to keep the radicals of his party in check. 

So far, he seems intent on pandering to the Democratic Party’s far-left base. 

Which brings us to AOC

What about AOC? If you sift through the videos on her Twitter and Instagram feeds, you’ll find that she does indeed talk about “reining in” the media, as well as some kind of “truth and reconciliation” process after the Dems take power.

We don’t yet know what she means by that. The Vietnamese communists used the term “truth and reconciliation” after they took over South Vietnam in 1975. Purges, reeducation camps, and worse followed.

Don’t underestimate Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez

There has been a tendency among conservatives until now to treat AOC as a kind of joke. Superficially, she often gives off the appearance of being a ditzy college coed who has imbibed some leftwing talking points without fully understanding them.

Oh, she doesn’t really know what she’s saying! has been the reaction of many conservatives. 

I would suggest to you that at least some of AOC’s superficial ditziness is an act. Let’s remember: As recently as 2017, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was a twenty-something waitress with few prospects for much of anything. In a few short years, she has not only been elected (twice!) to the House of Representatives. She has also captivated the press, and browbeaten senior members of her party—including the President-elect of the United States–into taking her radical proposals and pronouncements seriously. And she’s still barely in her thirties. 

Time and again, AOC has managed to outmaneuver her opponents, and convinced the press to lionize her, and portray all that she says and does in a positive light. When she hints at imposing her speech codes and government confiscation plans on the rest of us, she knows exactly what she’s saying, and exactly what she plans to do. 

Why men, in particular, underestimate AOC

Another complication is that many men find AOC attractive on some level. She is, her politics aside, probably the hottest-looking woman in government at present. (Though Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota, would give AOC a run for her money in that department.)

None of us is strictly a political animal. Liberal female voters in the 1990s gave Bill Clinton wide, wide latitude because he was so charming. In 1992 (I’m old enough to remember) there was no shortage of reports about sexual harassment and sexual misconduct allegations against Bill Clinton. Everybody knew about them. But many progressive female voters secretly wouldn’t have minded being sexual propositioned by Clinton themselves. And so they gave him a “pass”. 

Men are no different. In fact, men are much, much worse. While handsome male serial killers like Scott Peterson attract their share of female groupies, convicted murderess Jodi Arias was receiving marriage proposals from lusty men on a weekly basis in 2016.

Women are influenced by their passions, true. But most men between the ages of puberty and death are virtually led around by their schlongs, as if each one were a guided, woman-seeking missile. 

If men will send letters proposing marriage to convicted [boyfriend killer!] Jodi Arias, it really isn’t so hard to believe that men will let their dorkers do the thinking when appraising AOC. After all, AOC probably hasn’t killed anyone. 

Most liberal males trip all over themselves while playing the white knight in defense of AOC. Because…who knows? That obese, neck-bearded Millennial leftwing dude on Twitter might just have a chance of getting lucky if AOC happens to see his series of tweets in defense of her. 

Yeah, like that’s going to happen. But hope springs eternal among the obese, neck-bearded Millennial leftwing crowd. 

But conservative men are conflicted, too. It’s easy to condemn Nancy Pelosi or Rashida Tlaib. Few men are sexually conflicted about either of them. But what if AOC’s mind could be changed? If you’re a conservative male, perhaps you harbor a secret fantasy about meeting AOC, and finding that opposites really do attract. Wouldn’t it be great to…

Enough. AOC is not some ditzy college chick who just happened to wake up one morning as one of the most influential people in Congress. Nor is she your fantasy girlfriend. AOC is a crafty, dedicated leftwing revolutionary, who already displays dictatorial tendencies. 

Men: Do not underestimate AOC just because a part of you thinks about sleeping with her. (And remember: that isn’t going to happen, anyway.)

***

With Joe Biden and the most left-leaning Democratic Congress in history now poised to take power, conservatives, moderates, and freedom-loving independents everywhere need to start taking AOC seriously.

President-elect Joe Biden, no less, listens to what AOC has to say. So should you…very carefully, and without any blinders imposed by her superficially disarming manner, and comely appearance. 

Parler may never return

The politically motived, Big Tech collusion against Parler may have shut down the platform permanently, according to a statement from Parler’s CEO, John Matze:

“It [the restart] could be never. We don’t know yet…It’s hard to keep track of how many people are telling us that we can no longer do business with them.”

This is not a technical problem of switching hosting companies. Websites switch hosting providers all the time. This is about organized political pressure.

Apparently, some big guns in the tech industry, aligned with the Democratic Party and progressive interests, have orchestrated a “blacklisting” of the nonconformist social media site.

Worst case, Parler could obtain hosting with an offshore hosting provider. It can’t be that difficult. (Someone hosts Pornhub, after all, right?) But the company may face the additional challenge of finding a source of revenue.

Social media sites don’t ship any product. Their sole source of revenue is usually advertising. But the big advertising networks have no doubt locked out Parler by now. 

There would still be workarounds. But they’re not easy. Matze may have decided to accept defeat.

This will no doubt have a chilling effect on the next social media site that doesn’t want to toe a specific ideological line. The message here is: Do what you’re told, and don’t step outside the establishment-dictated mainstream. Or the Big Tech CEOs and their employees will crush you. 

NY Rangers’ Tony DeAngelo leaves Twitter, baffles journalist

Vincent Z. Mercogliano, a staff writer for the USA TODAY Network, seems befuddled, and more than a little indignant, at the decision of NY Rangers defenseman Tony DeAngelo to close his Twitter account and (gasp!) open an account at Parler:

“In his latest stunt, the 25-year-old defenseman deactivated his Twitter account — which, had he done quietly, I wouldn’t be writing about it.

But by indicating that it was an apparent protest of the company’s decision to ban Donald Trump, then following it up with a puzzling Instagram post — in which he wrote, “If they let Parler back up at some point I will be on Parler. Until then I will not be using social media apps” — it called extra attention to him and brought on a slew of questions.”

Notice Mercogliano’s use of the dismissive word “stunt”. Everything that famous—or wannabe famous—people do on social media is a “stunt” in one way or another. That’s what the combination of celebrity and social media has always been about, since the very beginning. 

Mercogliano then chides DeAngelo for his embrace of the evil, wicked, very dangerous Parler app—which the tech giants have temporarily crushed through collusion, anyway:

“DeAngelo has been a vocal Trump supporter, so him being upset by Twitter’s decision to boot the outgoing president was no surprise. For me, most of the questions centered around DeAngelo’s decision to align himself with Parler.

I hadn’t heard of Parler, a social network, until a couple days ago, but it’s been in the news since Wednesday’s shocking invasion of the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. Some planning for the appalling attack apparently took place on Parler, with Google subsequently removing the app while calling it a “public safety threat”

This is, of course, the new party line. If you have an account on Parler, you seek to overthrow the new Democratic Party order that begins on January 20, and  establish a Fourth Reich in the United States. 

I don’t use Parler myself, not because I object to its existence,  but because social media isn’t my thing. But I know several people who do use it. One is a 74-year-old retiree who has never owned a firearm, or thrown a punch in anger in his entire life. The other is my 52-year-old high school classmate. She’s 5’1″ tall, a hundred bounds soaking wet. She runs a dog training service in South Carolina. In high school, she was a mild-mannered wallflower.

The Dangerous People of Parler? The ones I know, at least, are not exactly the fearsome malefactors that inhabit the fevered leftwing imagination. 

To his credit, at least Vincent Z. Mercogliano refrained from trotting out the “white supremacist” bogeyman. But his remarks indicate that he, like most of the journalistic class, is woefully out of touch with the average American.

The man and woman on the street wants nothing to do with Twitter. And we’re appalled at the Big Tech conspiracy to censor Parler, even if we personally want nothing to do with that, either. 

Twitter blocks Rep. Lauren Boebert, too

And why this blog will no longer link to Twitter content

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is one of President Donald Trump’s defenders in Congress. She has been locked out of her Twitter account until Inauguration Day. Interesting timing. 

Twitter has basically decided to censor everyone who doesn’t rigidly adhere to a specific political line. 

As I’ve said repeatedly in recent days, we each need to do our part to free the Internet of social media’s iron grip. And Twitter is the worst of the worst. 

This is not just about the recent election, conservatives, or Republicans. Even the left-leaning New York Times has acknowledged that social media has gotten too powerful, and they are abusing that power. 

A handful of unelected tech executives and their employees should not set the boundaries of acceptable expression on the Internet. This is a very slippery slope, and we have slid too far already.

And yes: “each of us doing our part” applies to me, too. Here is what I am doing:

1.) Account deactivation

This morning I deactivated my personal Twitter account. (It deletes automatically 30 days after deactivation.)

2.) No more Twitter links/embeds

This blog will no longer link directly to Twitter, or embed content from Twitter (which is the same thing as a link to Twitter). When Twitter content must be mentioned or shown, I’ll use a thumbnail screenshot, if available.

***

Twitter is not important. A handful of journalists have made Twitter seem more significant than it actually is or ever was. You don’t need Twitter for your business, your social life, or for informational purposes.

Just stop using Twitter now. Deactivate your account, and don’t go back. 

Forbes buried Jim Collins’s Twitter article

Apparently…

But it’s in the Internet archive:

Twitter Is The Worst Company On Planet Earth. Here’s How To Bet Against The Stock—and Deactivate Your Account

“Twitter is a faux-tech outfit with no competitive moat and a customer base filled with—it would seem—idiots. It’s too small to be considered Big Tech, but the media has given it outsized influence. Only you and I can fight that war and destroy Twitter’s base. So, delete your account, and short the stock. Making money while doing the right thing feels extra good…doesn’t it?”

Hear, hear. 

Although all of the mainstream social media companies have become speech tyrants in recent years, some of them have had their uses.

I won’t deny that I’ve had fun surfing YouTube videos over the years. I am grudgingly grateful to Facebook for enabling me to reestablish contact with long-lost friends from the 2000s, 1990s, 1980s, and 1970s.

But Twitter is always a ride through a toxic cesspool.  I never liked it, even before the most recent controversies. 

Idaho ISP to block Twitter and Facebook over censorship concerns

An Internet service provider in Idaho has announced that it will block both Twitter and Facebook in response to these platforms’ egregious practices of political censorship.

Idaho company to block Facebook and Twitter for censorship

The company, Your T1 WIFI, is based in Priest River, Idaho, and provides Internet service in parts of northern Idaho and nearby Spokane, Washington.

This is obviously only one Internet service provider, in what I would assume to be a sparsely populated area. 

But more may follow. Ultimately there are two ways to fight the censorship practices of Facebook and Twitter: block them back, and vote with your feet. 

On the subject of voting with one’s feet: No one needs a Twitter account. Period.

If you do want to keep your Facebook account intact as your personal rolodex, I can understand that. Admittedly, I have become dependent on Facebook, too. The platform has become my primary means of communicating with some people.

But that will change. I plan to phase out my use of Facebook in Q1 of 2021, so I can permanently delete Mark Zuckerberg’s tarpit from my life. 

But even if you don’t want to delete Facebook just yet, there are still actions you can take, or rather—not take.

Don’t post content on the site, don’t interact with content, and (whatever you do) don’t click on any Facebook ads in your newsfeed. That’s how Facebook makes money. 

Sarah Jeong vs. Andy Ngo

The crackpot Sarah Jeong made headlines in 2018, after the New York Times named her to its editorial board, and her derogatory, neurotic tweets about white people (white men in particular) came to light. 

The mainstream media pretended that it never happened. Don’t look at those tweets! they said. The liberal Vox even declared the whole thing a rightwing conspiracy. (Isn’t everything they don’t like a rightwing conspiracy?) 

But in the end, who really cares who works at the New York Times? The paper has pretty much discredited itself, anyway.

Most folks just shrugged it off, and Jeong joined the editorial board of the NYT. But that didn’t last very long. It seems Ms. Jeong was temperamental even by their standards. She’s since been downgraded to an “opinion columnist”. Make of that what you will.

Sarah Jeong mostly exists on Twitter nowadays, among likeminded company. She has recently joined the chorus of the leftwing mob screeching that Andy Ngo should be silenced on the platform.

Keep in mind: Andy Ngo’s main thoughtcrime is that he filmed Antifa and BLM rioters….er, “peaceful protestors enaged in arson, looting, and assault” during last summer’s orgy of BLM/Antifa violence. 

Andy Ngo, incidentally, has a book coming out next month, and it’s driving the far left crowd absolutely bonkers.

Twitter wants an open Internet…in Uganda

I doubt there’s too much testosterone in the corporate offices of Twitter; but it would have taken a big brass pair—or incredible tone-deafness—for Twitter to tweet a message like this one:

“Ahead of the Ugandan election, we’re hearing reports that Internet service providers are being ordered to block social media and messaging apps. We strongly condemn internet shutdowns – they are hugely harmful, violate basic human rights and the principles of the #OpenInternet.”

The management of Twitter, it seems, is all about free political speech…so long as that speech happens to involve politics and Internet users outside the United States.

Or maybe Jack Dorsey is just trolling us…