Social media
A federal appellate court just blew up the absurd argument that the world’s largest carriers of speech and journalism can censor views they don’t like. Next stop, the Supreme Court
A federal appeals court just struck a massive victory for freedom of speech.
On Friday afternoon, in a brilliantly argued 90-page decision, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of a Texas law stopping the biggest social media companies from censoring their users.
The ruling will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court, setting up a hugely important battle. If the high court confirms the Fifth Circuit’s view, companies like Twitter will mostly lose the power to censor their users for legal speech. If not, their censorship could become even more aggressive.
(A clarion call for free speech:)
More here: Unreported Truths
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Voltaire
https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-09-16-andrew-tate-banned-social-media-exposing-covid.html
by: Ethan Huff
Friday, September 16, 2022
A controversial social media “creator” by the name of Andrew Tate has been axed from the internet for speaking his mind about the plight of modern men, the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) scamdemic, and more.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Tate himself said in an interview with Fox News‘ Tucker Carlson – watch below – every social media platform banned him all at once and without warning. He also saw his online banking accounts shuttered as punishment for rocking the boat.
One of his videos that has since gone viral shows Tate talking about modern-day slavery and the plight of humanity as people strive for success in a debt-based Ponzi scheme that has never served their interests.
“People started to realize how money is made,” Tate said about how the advent of the internet started a mass awakening. “People started to realize it’s all a scam.”
Tate, a “self-made millionaire,” also spoke of cryptocurrency and how it is outpacing global reserve currencies. This is waking people up to the notion that there is no need for corrupt central banks anymore – as if they were ever truly needed in the first place.
Tate might be annoying, but his speech is still free speech
During his discourse with Carlson, Tate exemplified a lot of braggadocio about what the plandemic restrictions really started to ramp up, he and his friends traipsed off to Sweden, one of the only countries in the world that never had any lockdowns.
Tate and his friends would party it up in Scandinavia and afterward travel to Germany where some of the worst restrictions in the world were enforced with an iron fist. He would then show his followers the difference.
During his travels, Tate also encountered plenty of tyranny and abuse at airports and on commercial airplanes, prompting him to buy his own private plane that never required face masks, distancing or any other insanity.
Instead of enjoying these luxuries all to himself and his inner circle, Tate would post on social media about it, riling up his fan base to demand that such restrictions be dropped – and this is why he was ultimately banned from social media. (Related: Remember when Donald Trump promised to put an end to “radical left” social media censorship?)
Another topic Tate often speaks about that upsets the powers that be is the unfair way men are treated in today’s society. Women are routinely sent to the front of the line where they receive all the attention and praise while men are all but ignored unless they are someone famous with lots of money.
Discussing men’s issues is a major no-no in today’s Jezebelian world, and Tate now knows full well what happens to people when they deviate from the script.
At the same time, Tate can be rather garish in his verbal displays and he is not exactly a positive role model when it comes to how he made his fortune.
“I think Tate has a lot of good things to say, but in an objective sense the dude is still super sleazy,” expressed one commenter at Revolver. news.
“He made his first million running a camgirl business; openly brags about sleeping with over a thousand women; flaunts his cars in the most ostentatious way possible etc. Obviously shouldn’t be banned and hopefully, he can cool down on the physical pleasures, but being banned in itself doesn’t make you a good person by default.”
More of the latest news about social media tyranny can be found at Censorship.news.
Sources for this article include:
Simply put, man, these privately held companies can just take someone right off of their platform is f*cked up, and in fact, the scary part about it is even speaking up against them — like I am currently doing — could get me censored. So we really don’t have real, true freedom of speech anymore, which is scary. And personally, you just see Mark Zuckerberg admit to it live on Joe Rogan, and the news wasn’t really talked about. So, all of these media platforms have controlled narratives by people who are paying them in their pockets.
Sept 14, 2022
YouTuber Jake Paul has slammed Mark Zuckerberg and Big Tech oligarchs for censoring the American people and destroying free speech.
Jake Paul recently came under fire for speaking out against the censorship of fellow social media influencer Andrew Tate, saying, “I don’t roll with Andrew Tate… But, I roll with free speech.”
Thegatewaypundit.com reports: Andrew Tate was recently banned from all social media platforms because of his views. Tate says that he was even banned from banks, Skype, Airbnb, and Uber in a “coordinated effort all at once.” No matter how much you disagree with someone’s speech, censorship is un-American.
The Regime is censoring everybody these days, including The Gateway Pundit. We recently reported that Jim Hoft of The Gateway Pundit is a key plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by the State of Missouri. The lawsuit alleges that the public statements, emails, and recently released documents, establish that the President of the United States and other senior officials in the Biden Administration violated the First Amendment by directing social-media companies to censor viewpoints that conflict with the government’s messaging on Covid-19 and election integrity, which is a direct assault on the First Amendment.
The censorship of The Gateway Pundit is intended to harm dissidents of the Biden Regime and silence the truth about these issues.
As The Gateway Pundit reported, Jake Paul has been vocal in the past about the Biden Regime’s failed policies that have led to “highest gas prices, worst inflation, plummeting crypto prices, highest rent prices ever, and creating new and incomprehensible language.”
If you’re reading this and voted for Biden and you still don’t regret it then you are the American problem,” Jake concluded on Twitter.
Jake Paul squared off with Anderson Silva in front of the media on Tuesday in preparation for their upcoming boxing match.
The undefeated YouTube sensation is set to take on the former boxing champion from Brazil on October 29th at the Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona.
During the conference, The Gateway Pundit correspondent Jordan Conradson asked Paul, “what do you think of attempts to censor Americans by big tech companies and the current occupant of the White House?”
Everybody was caught off guard by the question, but Jake gave an excellent answer. He also used the opportunity to take a swipe at Zuckerberg and the Fake News Media for censoring information.
The crowd cheered when he agreed with our freedom of speech.
Paul: I think it’s a good question. I think the state of our society is in a really interesting place and a bad place at that. Simply put, man, I don’t think there should be censorship; freedom of speech. And the fact that these privately held companies can just take someone right off of their platform is f*cked up, and in fact, the scary part about it is even speaking up against them — like I am currently doing — could get me censored. So we really don’t have real, true freedom of speech anymore, which is scary. And personally, you just see Mark Zuckerberg admit to it live on Joe Rogan, and the news wasn’t really talked about. So, all of these media platforms have controlled narratives by people who are paying them in their pockets.
The Gateway Pundit reported that Mark Zuckerberg admitted to Joe Rogan that Facebook algorithmically censored the Hunter Biden laptop story for seven days on a request from the FBI to protect the Bidens.
This is not the only critical content that Facebook has censored to control the narrative.
Watch below:https://rumble.com/embed/v1hdat1/?pub=13m19j
OANN’s Daniel Baldwin shared the clip on his Twitter account. Watch below:
An investigation has exposed a vast coordinated network online
On August 4, for example, Amnesty International published a report on Ukrainian troops basing forces and weaponry in residential areas, including schools and hospitals, which both endangers civilians and constitutes a war crime. Three days later, CBS broadcast a documentary showing that just 30% of the vast Western arm shipments to Kiev actually reach the frontline, the rest disappearing or being sold on the black market.
Researchers at the University of Adelaide have published a landmark paper on the activities of bot accounts on Twitter related to the conflict in Ukraine. These Australian findings are truly staggering – of 5.2 million tweets on the social media network from February 23 to March 8, between 60 to 80% were shared by fake accounts. What’s more, 90% of those posts were pro-Ukraine.
No wonder Elon Musk retreated from his Twitter deal, it’s all bots! Lou
https://www.rt.com/news/562509-ukrainian-bots-in-twitter/
By Slobodan Kolomoets
Sept 10, 2022
© NurPhoto via Getty Images
Researchers at the University of Adelaide have published a landmark paper on the activities of bot accounts on Twitter related to the conflict in Ukraine. These Australian findings are truly staggering – of 5.2 million tweets on the social media network from February 23 to March 8, between 60 to 80% were shared by fake accounts. What’s more, 90% of those posts were pro-Ukraine.
In particular, these accounts pushed the hashtags #IStandWithUkraine, #IStandWithZelenskyy, and #ISupportUkraine, and myths like the ‘Ghost of Kiev’, a fictional Ukrainian fighter pilot who is farcically alleged to have taken down 40 Russian jets within hours of the military operation commencing.
Significant spikes in activity were recorded at key points in the initial stages of the fighting, such as Russia’s capture of Kherson on March 2, and the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant on March 4.
The accounts identified were overwhelmingly English language, leading the researchers to conclude these fake users sought to “drive more disruption in English-speaking countries” and “influence a variety of user groups.” Despite the significant focus on English, Ukrainian bots also employed the Russian language to “cause more disruption” in the country.
The accounts were successful in their objective of stimulating discussions and trends around particular topics, kickstarting and increasing online discussion around a number of subjects, including the question of whether Ukrainians should flee the country. The researchers recorded “significant flows” of information from Ukrainian bots to non-bot accounts.
The study is the first analysis of social media content related to the conflict and covers a very small time period – just two weeks. It is almost inevitable that the level of pro-Kiev sentiment expressed by users – troll and organic alike – will have increased even further beyond the 90% recorded during this timeframe. Numerous commentators have drawn attention to the weaponization of Twitter, Facebook, et al in support of the Western proxy war in Ukraine.
One need only spend a few minutes scrolling major social media networks to identify a profusion of anonymous, recently registered users pumping out pro-Ukraine, pro-NATO, and pro-war propaganda, and attacking anyone critical of ascendant Western narratives. It is, in the words of writer Caitlin Johnstone, “the most aggressively trolled war of all time.”
Unsurprisingly though, the Western media – which remains overwhelmingly committed to not publishing any negative information about Ukraine whatsoever – has universally ignored the bombshell findings of this academic paper. You can only imagine the blanket coverage if the findings were related to Russia.
The hesitancy of corporate news outlets to report on matters that do not reflect positively on Kiev is nonetheless somewhat understandable, as on the vanishingly rare occasions this has happened, the backlash has been savage.
On August 4, for example, Amnesty International published a report on Ukrainian troops basing forces and weaponry in residential areas, including schools and hospitals, which both endangers civilians and constitutes a war crime. Three days later, CBS broadcast a documentary showing that just 30% of the vast Western arms shipments to Kiev actually reach the frontline, the rest disappearing or being sold on the black market.
Such was the incendiary response to these reports on social media, Amnesty was successfully bullied into apologizing for any “anger and distress” its disclosures caused – CBS went one further and pulled its documentary from the web. The academic study would tend to suggest that much of this counterblast was in fact attributable to automated accounts and deliberately intended to create the false impression that condemnation of both organizations was omnipresent.
The University of Adelaide paper also raises obvious questions about the true nature of something called NAFO – the ‘North Atlantic Fellas Organization’ – which was a leading force in the online counterblast against Amnesty and CBS. NAFO has a history of harassing pro-Russian voices and mass reporting accounts until they are temporarily or permanently suspended. Many prominent officials have praised the group, and it has received positive profiles in The Economist, Politico, and the Washington Post.
As is so often the case, dubious tactics and conduct of which Russia is widely accused cease to be villainous when it’s Western countries and their allies doing it. One might reasonably ask whether the entire mainstream media controversy over Kremlin bots on social media was just a smokescreen for far larger and more effective operations much closer to home.
You cannot post truths on social media anymore. The censorship on social media is pathetic. Everybody is scared to post because the rules are set up for petty tyrants to do as they please.
Bill Gates funnels hundreds of millions of dollars to sink Twitter if Elon Musk restores free speech
Watch the little coward try to scuttle away
Doofuses like this one are preventing free speech?
These idiotic engineers don’t even comprehend the basic concept of communism.
CENSORSHIP
Idiot Alert
Hinting she doesn’t believe it should even exist.
on 12 May, 2022
Video Screenshot
The head of what has been dubbed the Biden administration’s ‘Ministry of Truth’ previously compared free speech to “fairy dust” during testimony about social media censorship in front of the UK Parliament.
Yes, really.
Nina Jankowicz, recently appointed DHS ‘disinformation czar,’ made the comments while providing oral evidence regarding the implementation of the UK’s controversial Online Safety Bill, which will ban legal content which has “the potential to cause harm.”
After agreeing that the government should set minimum speech standards which ban “misogyny,” Jankowicz blasted alternative social media platforms for supporting “freedom of expression and fairy dust.”
She also said that government-connected communications regulators such as Ofcom should “be able to establish the minimum standards that would be applied to all platforms and incur fines.”
“That could be based, again, on the preexisting terms of service,” she added.
Jankowicz also endorsed empowering governments to demand data on individual users from social media cites for the purpose of implementing further censorship policies.
“The social media platforms can do that if they are compelled to,” she said.
Jankowicz also asserted that social media platforms should utilize algorithms that would “allow us to get around some of the free speech concerns” by demoting content so few people saw it.
“You can shout in the black void, but you do not get a huge audience to do that,” she stated.
The comments are in line with previously statements made by Jankowicz when she revealed that free speech made her “shudder” while also promoting the lie that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation.
The disinformation czar also ludicrously cited Christopher Steele as an expert on disinformation. Steele was the author of the infamous Clinton campaign-funded Trump ‘peegate’ dossier’ that turned out to be an actual product of disinformation.
As we previously highlighted, Jankowicz previously demanded that “trustworthy verified people” like her be given the power to edit other people’s tweets, making Twitter more like Wikipedia.
Yup, read that again. So much for our so-called values on free speech
Twitter has reinstated Alexandra Lavoie’s account. This was blocked because she works for Rebel News, a site Trudeau despises. Tell me, are you offended by her question? See what I mean? This vile political censorship must be stopped.
And Trudeau is a petulant fart with no substance, an airhead with no depth. Many Canadians are ashamed for voting this pathetic turd in.
Cancel culture is inbuilt in the techno-feudalist project: conform to the hegemonic narrative, or else. Journalism that does not conform must be taken down.
By Pepe Escobar
Special to Consortium News
This month, several of us – Scott Ritter, myself, ASB Military News, among others – were canceled from Twitter. The – unstated – reason: we were debunking the officially approved narrative of the Russia/NATO/Ukraine war.
As with all things Big Tech, that was predictable. I lasted only seven months on Twitter. And that was long enough. Contacts in California had told me I was on their radar because the account grew too fast, and had enormous reach, especially after the start of Operation Z.
I celebrated the cancelation by experiencing an aesthetic illumination in front of the Aegean Sea, at the home of Herodotus, the Father of History. Additionally, it was heart-warming to be recognized by the great George Galloway in his moving tribute to targets of the new McCarthyism.
In parallel, comic relief of the “Mars Attacks” variety was provided by expectations of free speech on Twitter being saved by the benign intervention of Elon Musk.
Techno-feudalism is one of the overarching themes of my latest book, Raging Twenties – published in early 2021 and reviewed here in a very thoughtful and meticulous manner.
Cancel culture is inbuilt in the techno-feudalist project: conform to the hegemonic narrative, or else. In my own case regarding Twitter and Facebook – two of the guardians of the internet, alongside Google — I knew a day of reckoning was inevitable, because like other countless users I had previously been dispatched to those notorious “jails”.
On one Facebook occasion, I sent a sharp message highlighting that I was a columnist/analyst for an established Hong Kong-based media company. Some human, not an algorithm, must have read it, because the account was restored in less than 24 hours.
But then the account was simply disabled – with no warning. I requested the proverbial “review”. The response was a demand for proof of ID. Less than 24 hours later, came the verdict: “Your account has been disabled” because it had not followed those notoriously hazy “community standards.” The decision was “reviewed” and “it can’t be reversed”.
I celebrated with a Buddhist mini-requiem on Instagram.
My hit-by-a-Hellfire missile Facebook page clearly identified for the general public who I was, at the time: “Geopolitical analyst at Asia Times”. The fact of the matter is Facebook algorithms canceled a top columnist from Asia Times – with a proven record and a global profile. The algos would never have had the – digital – guts to do the same with a top columnist from The New York Times or the Financial Times.
Asia Times lawyers in Hong Kong sent a letter to Facebook management. Predictably, there was no response.
Of course becoming a target of cancel culture – twice – does not even remotely compare to the fate of Julian Assange, imprisoned for over three years in Belmarsh under the most appalling circumstances, and about to be dispatched for “judgment” in the American gulag for the crime of committing journalism. Yet the same “logic” applies: journalism that does not conform to the hegemonic narrative must be taken down.
Conform, or Else
At the time, I discussed the matter with several Western analysts. As one of them succinctly put it, “You were ridiculing the U.S. president while pointing out the positives of Russia, China and Iran. That’s a deadly combination”.
Others were simply stunned: “I wonder why you were restricted as you work for a reputable publication.” Or made the obvious connections: “Facebook is a censorship machine. I did not know that they do not give reasons for what they do but then they are part of the Deep State.”
A banking source that usually places my columns on the desks of selected Masters of the Universe put it New York-style: “You severely p****d the Atlantic Council”. No question: the specimen who oversaw the canceling of my account was a former Atlantic Council hack.
Ron Unz in California had the account of his extremely popular website Unz Review purged by Facebook on April 2020. Subsequently, readers who tried to post their articles met with an “error” message describing the content as “abusive”.
When Unz mentioned my case to renowned economist James Galbraith, “he really was quite shocked, and thought it might signal a very negative censorship trend on the Internet.”
The “censorship trend” is a fact – for quite a while now. Take this U.S. State Department 2020 report identifying “pillars of Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem.”
State Dept. Directive
The late Pompeo-era report demonizes “fringe or conspiracy-minded” websites who happen to be extremely critical of U.S. foreign policy. They include Moscow-based Strategic Culture Foundation – where I’m a columnist – and Canada-based Global Research, which republishes most of my columns (but so does Consortium News, ZeroHedge and many other U.S. websites). I’m cited in the report by name, along with quite a few top columnists.
The report’s “research” states that Strategic Culture – which is blocked by Facebook and Twitter – is directed by the SVR, Russian foreign intel. This is ridiculous. I met the previous editors in Moscow – young, energetic, with enquiring minds. They had to quit their jobs because after the report they started to be severely threatened online.
So the directive comes straight from the State Department – and that has not changed under Biden-Harris: any analysis of U.S. foreign policy that deviates from the norm is a “conspiracy theory” – a terminology that was invented and perfected by the C.I.A.
Couple it with the partnership between Facebook and the Atlantic Council – which is a de facto NATO think tank – and now we have a real powerful ecosystem.
It’s a Wonderful Life
Every silicon fragment in the valley connects Facebook as a direct extension of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s LifeLog project, a Pentagon attempt to “build a database tracking a person’s entire existence.” Facebook launched its website exactly on the same day – Feb. 4, 2004 – that DARPA and the Pentagon shuttered LifeLog.
No explanation by DARPA was ever provided. The MIT’s David Karger, at the time, remarked, “I am sure that such research will continue to be funded under some other title. I can’t imagine DARPA ‘dropping out’ of such a key research area.”
Of course a smokin’ gun directly connecting Facebook to DARPA will never be allowed to surface. But occasionally some key players speak out, such as Douglas Gage, none other than LifeLog’s conceptualizer: “Facebook is the real face of pseudo-LifeLog at this point (…) We have ended up providing the same kind of detailed personal information to advertisers and data brokers and without arousing the kind of opposition that LifeLog provoked.”
So Facebook has absolutely nothing to do with journalism. Not to mention pontificating over a journalist’s work, or assuming it’s entitled to cancel him or her. Facebook is an “ecosystem” built to sell private data at a huge profit, offering a public service as a private enterprise, but most of all sharing the accumulated data of its billions of users with the U.S. national security state.
The resulting algorithmic stupidity, also shared by Twitter – incapable of recognizing nuance, metaphor, irony, critical thinking – is perfectly integrated into what former C.I.A. analyst Ray McGovern brilliantly coined as the MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex).
In the U.S., at least the odd expert on monopoly power identified this neo-Orwellian push as accelerating “the collapse of journalism and democracy.”
Facebook “fact-checking professional journalists” does not even qualify as pathetic. Otherwise Facebook – and not analysts like McGovern – would have debunked Russiagate. It would not routinely cancel Palestinian journalists and analysts. It would not disable the account of University of Tehran professor Mohammad Marandi – who was actually born in the U.S.
I received quite a few messages stating that being canceled by Facebook – and now by Twitter – is a badge of honor. Well, everything is impermanent (Buddhism) and everything flows (Daoism). So being deleted – twice – by an algorithm qualifies at best as a cosmic joke.
Pepe Escobar’s latest book is Raging Twenties. He remains un-cancelled on VK, Telegram and Instagram.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Analyst says he “wouldn’t be surprised” if Trump’s account is restored.
Fire them all Elon!
7 April 2022
Theo Wargo via Getty Images
Twitter insiders are “panicking” over their ability to censor content being restricted following Elon Musk becoming its largest shareholder, according to a Reuters report, with one analyst revealing he “wouldn’t be surprised” if Twitter restores Donald Trump’s account now that Musk is on the board.
Earlier this week, it was revealed that Musk had become the largest shareholder of Twitter after acquiring a 9.1% stake.
The following day, it was announced that the Tesla Chief Executive had taken a seat on the company’s board.
This has prompted alarm and “fear” amongst Twitter employees and managers, according to the report, because Musk is a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” (as if this is a bad thing).
“Despite Twitter’s reiteration this week that the board does not make policy decisions, four Twitter employees who spoke with Reuters said they were concerned about Musk’s ability to influence the company’s policies on abusive users and harmful content,” reports Reuters.
In other words, woke snowflakes who have seized control of Twitter and used it as a tool to silence the speech of dissenters and political adversaries are worried their monopoly on control might be coming to an end.
“The employees said his views on moderation could weaken years-long efforts to make Twitter a place of healthy discourse, and might allow trolling and mob attacks to flourish.”
A “place of healthy discourse” equates to a safe space for far-left activists and radicals, who wantonly violate the same rules that have led to conservatives having their accounts permanently banned.
“Mob attacks” are also a routine feature of Twitter discourse, with virtually all of them being led by far-left mobs.
Employees are fearful that Twitter’s insistence that Musk’s presence on its board won’t lead to more free speech on the platform is hollow.
“I find it hard to believe (the board) doesn’t have influence,” said one employee. “If that’s the case, why would Elon want a board seat?”
Others are concerned Musk might push back against Twitter’s policy of “inclusivity,” which is seemingly based on transgender activists being empowered to ban people who think chromosomes exist.
Guidehouse Insights analyst Sam Abuelsamid told Reuters that Musk could be influential in restoring Donald Trump’s Twitter account.
“I wouldn’t be surprised” if Twitter restores Trump’s account now that Elon owns nearly 10% of the company,” he said.
Numerous employees are considering quitting over Musk’s involvement.
“Some people are dusting off their resumes,” one person said. “I don’t want to work for somebody (like Musk).”
Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.
Tales from the Conspiratum 