In the last few years, president Trump has been the primary target of social media and search engine manipulation of the algorithms used for the social engineering of entire populations, as the DailyMail quantified a few days ago. The bias is between 2:1 and 3:1 to the advantage of leftist media, but unfortunately this is not being addressed.
What is, is equally important, is the silencing of individual voices and deplatforming, Facebook’s locking out Robert Spencer and shadow banning this site, as well as many others.
It’s the using of broken shields on websites such as ours, implying that in some way the site is unsafe, maybe malicious and not to be trusted.
I see it daily in the comments on this site, “I lost my Twitter account for saying…”. The right to free speech is being eroded rapidly. I don’t bother with social media accounts anymore, as they get mass reported because of my connection here. That’s just not right. Facebook, Twitter and Google are now monopolies and they have a duty to act fairly and without bias.
We have hundreds of articles on this site referencing free speech.
Amy Mek, is constantly and aggressively attacked online, and Twitter allows this.
It’s now fairly common for defenders of human rights and dignity to be threatened following complaints about the breaking of sharia law. I have seen dozens affected by Twitter enforcing sharia law at Pakistans request such as here at michellemalkin.com.
Being unable to raise funds to generate content by Patreon or even have a credit card account is another attack on defenders of democratic values.
But back to President Trump (sadly not mine, I suffer under the government leadership of a little potato), the White House has launched a campaign to collect evidence from those affected:
The Trump Administration is fighting for free speech online.
No matter your views, if you suspect political bias has caused you to be censored or silenced online, we want to hear about it! https://t.co/9lc0cqUhuf pic.twitter.com/J8ICbx42dz
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 15, 2019
You can fill out the details of how you have been affected HERE. We can only hope that they will use this evidence to hold these tech giants to account, and break the lie that they are unbiased. This defines behavior fascism. Fox news ran a great piece on the recent mass banning by Facebook.
I believe the banning of James Woods was just one ban too far for the president.
AnneM04031959 says
Prediction: Look for an “EO” to come out from this.
CRUSADER says
You are right!
E.O. wrote below….
CRUSADER says
You are right!
“E.O.” wrote below….
Frank Anderson says
I take no pleasure in observing that the Constitution in the VAST MAJORITY of circumstances applies only to the actions of government, or under the color of law. The only exception that I know about (and there may be a few others) is regarding “public accommodations”. An early Supreme Court case finding this exception is Katzenbach v McClung, which is available online. Unless the social media monopolies can be found to be public accommodations they are probably free to trample every right we expect under the Constitution, including free speech, association and press. All of us who read, write or comment here are exercising those rights as far as government rules are concerned. But we might as well be in the UK, EU, Soviet Union or Nazi Germany as far are the private companies are involved. The bottom line is to fire them and find better places to share ideas. Every time we employ their services, we are making money for them at our labor and expense. MOVE ON.
eduardo odraude says
But if they are monopolies, are they not subject to some of the same laws as public accommodations? Or else required to be broken up?
Frank Anderson says
E.O., one of my great advantages in life is that I am neither afraid nor embarrassed to say, “I don’t know.”
Six months after major surgery, I was the ONLY lawyer who would be allowed to represent a member of a fraternity in a totally kangaroo court. The “trial” lasted 12 continuous hours, with me asking for a continuance because of chest pains. During the “trial” 3 of the 4 “charges” were dismissed, therefore no record was created concerning them. Never the less, the “accused” was “convicted” of ALL FOUR “charges”. The “appeal” process to the national fraternity was so burdensome and expensive that we both quit and moved on.
Private clubs or enterprises can get away with most anything, including murder by manipulating the system. In this case my client was goaded 3 times into heart attacks and hospital stays because he complained about diversion and mishandling of fraternity money.
CRUSADER says
EO, I would expect so — regarding monopolies, etc.
FA, sorry to hear of those health issues. I do think that gun clubs have gotten short shrift.
Frank Anderson says
Crusader, this was not a gun club that I wrote about. It is one of the best known “charitable” fraternities in the US, Mexico and Canada. The national office is fully aware of the travesty that happened and did nothing. I have better uses for my time and money.
Joe says
If these companies want to protected by the digital millennium copyright act (DMCA), they can not express their views by banning content without a specific reason. Banning content on “community standards” is not specific. Without a specific reason, they are banning content to create an opinion. In other words, Facebook, Twitter, and others are sites where the management polices the opinion. Opinions and other forms of expression are definitely not in the DMCA safe harbor. Without DMCA protection, a social media company would be sued out of business for violation of copyrights. Allowing some content and not others to form an opinion is the same thing as expressing an opinion. News and blogger sites are responsible for the content they create, and social media sites should be held to the same standard if they express an opinion or take sides through blocking.
In addition, if Facebook and other social media sites are going to discriminate against speech, abortion, and other topics, they must clearly state that in an obvious place. The discrimination rules demand it. “No Shirt. No Shoes. No Service!” must be clearly stated to be valid. If Facebook discriminates against those who oppose terrorism, they must exactly state that in their “community standards”. But they don’t. The FTC is supposed to fine them. When Facebook discriminates against JW or other sites that oppose terrorism, they must state exactly what rule they broke. They can’t simply say that JW violated “community standards”. The vague “community standards” reason is not specific enough to practice discrimination.
Frank Anderson says
Joe, I hope you are correct. Suing financial giants is often a self-destructive act. Whether it is cooperative members trying to take control away from established self-serving directors or totalitarian thought controlling managers they have all the money and motivation to destroy any who challenge their decisions. Lawsuits that are possible in theory can turn into disasters in practice without the financial and time commitments required to stand up to every abusive tactic that can be applied. Suing also means that all the time and effort used in that war cannot be used for more productive efforts. To me, the only time such legal wars make any sense is when absolutely no other choice is available. I write from experience.
Please consult a currently licensed attorney practicing in your jurisdiction for any legal advice.
Warren Raymond says
I cannot access the site from Australia. Tried yesterday already.
marc says
Yep, I hear Australia has joined the list of countries censoring us, easily bypassed with a VPN
https://freespeechdefense.net/2017/03/how-you-can-combat-online-censorship/
Flavius Claudius Iulianus says
https://www.rt.com/news/459563-christchurch-call-trump-macron/
Shea says
Good
mortimer says
Superb article! Thank you, Marc.
Rufolino says
From Britain, this looks like an excellent proposal by Trump.
A_M_Swallow says
The social media companies are obviously acting as a cartel. We now have to prove that they communicate.
Go for the advertisers. The heads of big companies will not like being asked why they spend so much of their money at communist controlled organisations.
Myst says
I can’t access the site from the UK. Tommy Robinson got banned a reporter who is our voice as it were against Islam, his following is huge, he got his page removed by Facebook and twitter they tried they tried to get his YouTube vids removed to. We are all getting banned for sharing or even mentioning ommy Robinson name. He is a candidate for mep. They have imprisoned him several times on trumped up charges. The latest being an invented contempt of court charge purely because he was doing a report outside the court where Muslim grooming gangs who touchered the children raped them and used them as sex slaves for multiple men, were in court. He was not saying anything that was not already in the public domain They imprisoned him with out a trial where he was kept in solitary confinement to protect him from the Muslims in there who would kill him. The deepststes persecution of this man is appalling. Anyone complaining about the two tier policing in this country which puts Muslims first is banned. Its an evil idealogy but you get banned for speaking out against it. Yet Muslim hate preachers continue unchecked. Hope not hate an awful far
left page regularly posts things that incite hatred against people like Tommy and others who they vilify and incite others to, they heavily edit videos to put out fake information, e.g. A clip of Tommy hitting a bloke, becomes Tommy attacking someone unprevoked, they deliberately cut out the bit before which shows tommy walking along and being attacked, and so defending himself. I report them regularly to Facebook for hate speach, fakenews etc. And not once has Facebook upheld my complaint. Watch panorama to see how they try to manipulate people to put out fake stories on people that hnh have decided to vilify. Yet nothing is done to stop them. So there is definately a bias towards far left and left information, the left have the right to free speach any one not on that side does not. The other point is fb just bans you saying your post didn’t comply with their standards etc, yet they never tell you why it didn’t comply, or, in my case even which post it was. My appeals back to them stating that by not giving people information on which post didn’t comply, why it didn’t comply etc then they are setting people up to fail as if you don’t know specifically why it breached how can you possibly know not to do it again. I’ve been in fb jail 4 times now and have not been tod why. To remove someone’s private page also leaves them unable to access their photos, any games they play and may have paid into etc that must breach some kind of laws as people are encouraged to play the games and post pictures etc, fb has become a central social record and archive to some. Its their hub to information, communication etc. To arbitrarily remove it without even letting people remove their photos etc or allow them to continue playing games they have bought into is fascism and orwellian thinking. Their definition of hate speach it seems is a movable feast depending if its a view of the left. If so its OK if its to the right boom your gone. That’s a corruption of power and betrayal of trust, and a whole lot of other betrayals to. The UK at the moment is betraying its own indemic Christian people and non Muslims but favouring, protecting and siding with Muslims and Islam. Sharia law is creeping into our law. People are being prosecuted and imprisoned for criticising Islam… That’s sharia law. So what is happening is not only against free speach it’s a vehicle to allow Islam to continue unchecked and the government is complicit by allowing this to continue. Denying free speach is the vehicle to allowing Islam to become dominant and it stinks.
UNCLE VLADDI says
Banning people online for nebulous ill-defined reasons such as ‘hateful’ content is to defame them in public.
We have laws against defamation (slander; libel) so perhaps a YUGE class-action lawsuit would end up with those so-denigrated owning said tech giants.
gravenimage says
White House initiative to hold social media to account for censorship and bias
……………..
Mixed feelings about this. This is of course heartening in a way; but government involvement in private companies can of course be a double-edged sword.