Posts

Facebook Launches Extremist Snitch Campaign

/in , /by

Want to mess with someone you dislike? Maybe some person hiding behind a pseudonym that insulted you on Facebook with an abandon that only an anonymous coward might muster? Well now you can. Facebook has made it easier than ever to snitch on your enemies.

“Are you concerned that someone you know is becoming an extremist,” is the unsolicited message popping up by the thousands, if not millions, on the feeds of unsuspecting users. Facebook then helpfully offers “confidential support.”

As reported in American Greatness, another new popup courtesy of Facebook is a warning that “you may have been exposed to harmful extremist content recently,” which goes on to say “you can take action now to protect yourself and others.”

What irony. How is this not an ominous new escalation in the war on free speech and unmanipulated thought? Where exactly is the line drawn that separates the “extremists” from the rest of us? And how can we trust a company to be impartial when applying that definition, when it is ran by a CEO that spent over $400 million dollars to buy a national election and put his senescent puppet into the White House?

To those with a sense of history and more than a little skepticism over man’s capacity to remain civilized, these moves are not isolated or insignificant. They are part of a rapidly progressing movement to concentrate economic and political power and silence dissent.

The apparent hypocrisy, where looting, vandalism, violence and intimidation is tolerated when motivated by favored causes, while mere ideas are crushed if they challenge those causes, erases any credibility Facebook – or any of the big online platforms – might otherwise have. They’re not looking for extremists. They’re looking for political dissidents who are on the wrong side.

The day may come when people on the Left realize the con. Because this ongoing transformation of America into an oligarchy will not end well for the foot soldiers on the Left, regardless of how useful they are today. That day may not come too soon.

 *   *   *

Facebook Suspends Trump for At Least Two Years

/in , /by

Facebook, Facebook, Facebook. They just keep doubling down. That’s what you can do when you’re among the most powerful companies in the history of Western Civilization.

As reported by the New York Times and countless other news outlets, Facebook’s “Oversight Board” upheld Facebook’s suspension of former president Donald Trump. The irony is thick.

This is the company whose CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, who still owns 29.3 percent of Facebook, bought the 2020 election. The man who personally spent about $400 million dollars to selectively target voters in Democrat rich precincts in swing states, is going to make sure the man who he paid to defeat has no chance to bellyache about it. Let’s remember that Mark Zuckerberg, whose net worth is last estimated at $119 billion, can spend $400 million the way most of us can buy a cup of coffee.

There’s so much wrong with this it’s hard to know where to begin. Perhaps bullet points will suffice:

(1) Zuckerberg’s expenditure epitomizes the new reality: Democrats have all the money. They have the unions, they have big media, they have big tech, they have the woke corporations, and they have the billionaires.

(2) What Zuckerberg did violated existing campaign laws by creating unequal access to voting opportunities. It also was ethically suspect insofar as politically motivated private money was funding public agencies entrusted with overseeing voting.

(3) Trump did not incite the riots that took place on January 6th. By the standard Facebook used to judge Trump’s actions, so many politicians are guilty, most of them Democrats, that none of them should have Facebook accounts anymore.

(4) In any event Facebook is not suspending Trump for another two years based on his actions of January 6th. They are keeping Trump off Facebook because they don’t want him to use their platform to influence the 2022 elections.

(5) Facebook may be a “private company,” but they enjoy the legal immunity of a communications platform. With that immunity comes the responsibility to operate as a public forum, accepting all content that does not violate the First Amendment.

(6) The reason Facebook relies on the highly subjective “danger to the public” rationale for banning Trump from their platform is because it is the only way they can claim he is not entitled to First Amendment protections. It is wholly unjustified.

Ultimately what companies like Facebook are doing is sowing the seeds of Balkanization. They are driving more and more people onto alternative platforms. Trump himself is rumored to have a new social media platform he intends to launch soon as a competitor to Facebook.

Facebook has made the political calculation that their monopoly status will remain in spite of increasingly robust alternative platforms emerging. In this they may be right. It is time to force Facebook in court to either adhere to the obligations attendant to their Section 230 immunity, or lose those protections.

Zuckerberg’s come a long way since he built a website where his buddies could post photos of women and rate them on their sex appeal. That was only 16 years ago! In interviews, Zuckerberg claims his earlier “Facemash” had nothing to do with “Facebook.” Anyone who’s so much as smelled a line of code knows that’s BS. Change the name, expand the scope. Same architecture, same sordid founding user base. It’s fine if Zuckerberg wanted to be a crass undergraduate with a “prank” website that morphed into a zillion dollar company, but where’s the outrage from the predictable quarters? Where are the cancel culture police?

And now, this young man buys national elections, and decides who can speak, and who must be silent.

 *   *   *

 

Facebook Now Allows Claims That COVID Was Engineered

/1 Comment/in , /by

How many people had their “reach” throttled down to nothing, or had their groups cancelled, or were banished altogether from Facebook, for stating what initially was taboo, then was controversial, and now is a likely fact: COVID-19 is an engineered “gain of function” virus, not found in nature.

It was only two months ago that Facebook announced they would “crack down on groups that break its rules.” As if they haven’t been cracking down ever since 2016. When Facebook has a CEO that’s willing to personally spend nearly a half-billion dollars to buy the presidency of the United States – and they do, his name is Mark Zuckerberg – you may rest assured that Facebook “cracking down” on unwanted political sentiments is an ongoing phenomenon.

Perhaps it’s fair to give Facebook credit for being flexible. Or maybe they’re just recalibrating their political agenda: When the overriding goal was to destroy the reelection chances of Donald Trump, it was important to claim anything Trump said must be false, but once Trump was out of office, it was safe to permit speculation as to the origins of COVID-19.

The news media sure played up the reversal. It made the headlines on CNN, Politico, Reuters, the Washington Post, USA Today, Yahoo, and countless other media properties. The Washington Post, predictably enough, had to put a leftist spin on the news, with a headline warning that “Facebook’s reversal on banning claims that covid-19 is man-made could unleash more anti-Asian sentiment.”

Is it possible that Americans will ever manage a collective puke at this infantile, destructive propaganda? At what point do we all dare again to identify the sources of potentially existential threats, even when they aren’t the work of wicked White people?

There are now dozens of alternative platforms big enough to host millions of users, free of censorship. But Facebook hosts 2.6 billion users. YouTube, for that matter, hosts 2.0 billion users. No other platforms come anywhere close to this sort of reach. When it comes to social networks, Facebook is a monopoly. When it comes to online video, YouTube is a monopoly.

This is why political activists have to work in both worlds – they operate on the monopoly platforms like Facebook, because of its unique potential to get their message in front of millions, while at the same time they migrate as many people as they can to their accounts on alternative platforms. That way, on the day that Facebook – without any accountability whatsoever – vaporizes their account, their lists, their content, all their years of work, they aren’t completely destroyed.

 *   *   *

Facebooks “Fact Checkers” Are Partisan Fact Blockers

/1 Comment/in , /by

It is difficult to overstate the helpless feeling that results when one finally realizes that the most powerful arbiters of communications in the history of the world are not platforms, but publishers, intent on ensuring that only news and information they approve of ever sees the light of day.

The most egregious refutations of the approved narrative are banned entirely, left to sputter away on backwater alternative platforms that lack the capacity to virally connect with a mass audience. But reputable journals are victims of more refined tactics, equally frustrating, equally unfair. One of the most reputable of these reputable victims is City Journal, one of the finest policy magazines in America.

Earlier this month City Journal exposed the force behind Facebook’s “fact checking” operation, a nonprofit organization named “Science Feedback.” These people are not objective fact checkers in any sense of the word. They are a partisan gang of fact blockers, created to filter out of mainstream online content anything that violates their ideological and political preferences.

City Journal author John Tierney describes how his report on the harms to children from wearing masks was labeled by Facebook’s “fact checkers” as “Partly False Information. Checked by independent fact-checkers.” But as Tierney describes, there is solid evidence to back up his claim that wearing masks can cause oxygen deprivation, especially in children and athletes.

Tierney is not alone. The “fact checkers” have labeled two peer reviewed studies conducted in Germany on this topic “unsupported,” and for their justification, turned to pronouncements from the American Academy of Pediatrics, a professional association which advocates for progressive causes.

The shameful behavior of these “fact checkers” is well documented. As Tierney reminds us, when back in October President Trump said that COVID vaccines were going to be available within a month or two, “Science Feedback” slapped an “inaccurate” label on his prediction, saying the vaccine wasn’t going to arrive sooner than mid-2021. The reality? Within days after the November election, the vaccines were announced as ready, and shots began in December.

How do you fight corporations that have lined up, with all their hundreds of billions of dollars, to hire “fact blockers,” implacable and blatantly biased? City Journal appealed to Facebook and to Science Feedback, and neither changed their position despite being given compelling evidence to support Tierney’s claims.

Ultimately what these propagandists do is spread the truth when the truth is convenient, and lies when lies are convenient. Their mission is to promote whatever reality they’re paid to promote, and to suppress and smear anything that challenges that reality.

“Science Feedback” is focused on two things, heath and climate, which are the “emergencies” being hyped to take away individual freedom and national sovereignty. Organizations like “Science Feedback” are the reason why whenever millions of people hear cliches like “science based policy,” or “trust the science,” or the infantile “Science Says…” they turn away in disgust.

The ironic bottom line result of organizations like “Science Feedback” is to discredit “science” as a politicized fraud, adding it to the list of institutions for which reasonable people have lost all trust.

 *   *   *

Facebook Ramps Up Manipulative, Biased Content

/in , /by

For those who have been deplatformed, Facebook was never just a “platform,” it was always a publishing empire with an editorial agenda. That reality is becoming more explicit, as Facebook’s expressions of editorial prerogative move increasingly in the direction of producing its own content.

A new online resource working to expose Facebook’s status as a publisher, not a platform, is erasebook.info. The latest post on erasebook criticizes Facebook’s launch of a “climate change information center.” Like Facebook’s other “information centers” – which focus on COVID-19 information and “Voting Information,” there is an obvious political agenda – or editorial position – underlying the content they’re providing.

Offering one-sided, supposedly objective content that pushes for “zero net carbon emissions,” and claiming the information is all “science based” is manipulative, misleading, and dangerous. It fails to acknowledge the downside of draconian restrictions on energy choices, and it discredits science.

Facebook’s “information center” on COVID-19 is equally biased. Their agenda is exemplified by their recent flagging of posts from Tucker Carlson as “false information.” Carlson’s transgression? Having a Chinese virologist on his program who claimed “the virus is not from nature.”

Facebook is going to have a lot of explaining to do, the next time it faces a judge or a congressional panel that questions its status as a “platform,” exempt from publisher liability.

 *   *   *

 

Parler’s “Erasebook” Makes the Case Against Facebook

/in , /by

Facebook is evil. So goes Parler’s new website, erasebook.info, which makes “The Case Against Facebook.” They even provide detailed instructions on how to download your entire Facebook history and then delete your Facebook account.

If you want a good summary of all the ways Facebook is manipulating our minds and monitoring our thoughts, this new website is a good place to start. Launched in August, erasebook has posts diving into topics such as Facebook’s decision to block posts defending Kyle Rittenhouse, or even searches for “Kyle Rittenhouse,” as well as links to fundraising campaigns for Rittenhouse.

A recent article on erasebook exposes how Facebook is deleting posts alleging leftist organizations started wildfires in Oregon, claiming they’re “conspiracy theories.” Other articles explain how Facebook makes deceptive claims about user privacy, allegedly uses your phone’s mic to record your conversations, and of course, shaping the 2020 election outcomes.

Erasebook offers compilations of the lawsuits against Facebook, an “evil list” of the “30 most dangerous tech companies,” reports on congressional anti-trust hearings against these “technoauthoritarians,” and much more.

Parler’s motivation for launching its erasebook campaign is obvious enough. They want to drive people off Facebook and onto Parler. They’re up against the massive advantage Facebook has in membership, nearly three billion vs just over three million. To compete with Facebook, they’ll also have to add – to name a just a few – groups, live chat, video, and better search functions.

But it is terrific to see a well organized and ongoing assault on one of the most powerful and problematic companies in the history of the world.

 *   *   *