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The Banning of a President

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The wild west of the internet is quickly coming to an end.  With multiple congressional hearings pulling social media companies to heel, we are witnessing the taming of what was once the fastest truest form of public communication worldwide.

What makes social media so powerful is it levels the playing field. No longer do you need to be employed by a publication or network to break a story, share an opinion, or display live footage of an event that is not from a corporate entity. This has brought insight to the public that has never been done before. For the first time in history, we can all collectively witness an event together, not the “reporting” from a corporation.

During the Las Vegas shooting, I watched personal testimonies reporting from the ground what they were witnessing, and it did not entirely match the news reporting hours later. This has been a crux for major media outlets.

As much as we want to complain about the content on social media, it has advanced our society and help oppressed people since its inception.

The Iranians were able to mobilize via Twitter and Facebook to protest their elections. Egyptians used Twitter to quickly organize protests addressing extreme political corruption and police brutality. The United States has utilized these platforms from forming protests to organizing online to make their voice heard.

So why would we want these platforms to ban anyone? Unless they are blatantly breaking the county’s laws on the platform, what is the purpose? Why we would expect Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to be a moral authority on anything at all?

Are they a communications network like our internet service providers and phone companies, or are they a private website that can control content as they please?

The struggle is they play both sides.  It has been documented thousands of times of posts/tweets with illegal, horrendous content that has been reported, but not removed. Yet, a trucker in Missouri can post some crass meme and is banned for 30 days.  None of their users understand the rules, what will get you banned?

Today we learned the President of the United States is not immune.  The banning of the leader of the free world should have every single one of us outraged.  Facebook and Twitter should not be allowed to silence their leader.

I see the celebrations of some who do not support the sitting President, and it is completely insane to not recognize, if they will do it to him, who else?

Roger Stone, like him or not, was banned from Twitter for criticizing CNN journalists.

Martin Shkreli (Pharma Bro) was banned for photoshopping his head in a pic with journalist Lauren Duca. While not explicit, it was considered sexual harassment. The pic was mild compared to popular memes of other famous figures, including the Speaker of the House. Why does Lauren Duca, freelance journalist for the Huffington Post, Washington Post, and Teen Vogue get special protection?

This is profoundly serious. This may be the most important topic in our country right now. We have received a truly clear, very loud message:

You are either with us, or against us. And we shut down the opposition.

Both Google and Apple removed a popular social media app Parler from their store. Although there was no violation of terms of use, it was removed with the intent to stop communication and possible organization of United States citizens.

Whether any of us like it or not, opposition is what makes this country the best. We need the different voices to sharpen each other.  All of us should want each of us to be heard. Better arguments win people, not silencing.

Godwin’s Law of Nazi analogies is a meme on the internet that states as the discussion grows longer, the probability Nazi comparison approaches. We have watched the Trump administration suffer this law from the Presidential run.  However, despite this, no public figure account or media outlet was shutdown.  Banning Trump’s Twitter is the middle of a slippery slope.

An example of silencing a voice of opposition can be found in Sophie Scholl. Sophie lived in Germany and was an anti-Nazi political activist. She bravely distributed anti-war flyers at her university and was a tough one to silence. They “banned” her with the guillotine.

In court she was quoted saying, “Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don’t dare express themselves as we did.”

It does not matter which side you are on. Somebody needs to make a start for us, as many of us are afraid to say it first, and we need them to be free to do so.

 

 

 

 

 

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Events

Russiagate – How We Got Here

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It has been two years since Russiagate dominated the news. For the first three years of the Trump presidency the press and Democratic senators riddled the media with of a Russian conspiracy.

Remarkably, outlandish claims by “journalists” went uncheck. At one point, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow suggested the following:

” And it is like -50 degrees in that Dakotas right now. What would happen if Russia killed the power in Fargo today? Alright. What would happen if all the natural gas lines that service Sioux Falls just poofed on the coldest in recent memory and it wasn’t in our power whether or not to turn them back on? What would you do if you lost heat indefinitely as the act of a foreign power on the same that the temperature matched the temperature in Antarctica? What would you and your family do?”

This rhetoric was typical while a federal investigation to the sitting president was underway.

Yet, the power and natural gas never went out. The evidence of collusion never came to fruition. But all the crazy zeal and claims by the major media outlets remained. Even now you can peruse the “The control-F search you should do on the Mueller report” on CNN. The entire story ends abruptly in April of 2019. Completely abandoned, while passionately covered for three years, ultimately, did not serve their narcissist purpose and without any explanation, left unended.

Or did it?

The lack of evidence was certainly frustrating. Fortunately, the Cambridge Study came along. A British firm Cambridge Analytica was able to profile millions of Facebook users through questionnaires and personality apps. This data was released to multiple presidential campaigns.

While Cambridge Analytica maintains that they did nothing wrong, Facebook asserts that they violated the terms of use.  It should be noted that Facebook did not have measures to protect their terms of use at the time. Rather, if a developer came forward from the third-party application company to bring the uses to light, only then did Facebook act.

This is what created the congressional meetings for social media. The founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg sat through ten hours of questioning by the United States congress. Some senators expressed concern on regulations, others called for it. There were big questions, would social media consider a paid version, where advertising did not influence its decisions.  Are they so important to our communications, like the phone company?

We were left with some unanswered questions from the federal government, but an attempt to self-regulate was made by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and more.

Along came “Fact Checkers”, which have been notoriously politically bias. Millions of Americans have witnessed up to this point a perceived censorship of their opinion. Warnings or straight banning for sharing already published posts are common on all platforms.

While this has been a frustration, the complete banning of the President and removal of the Parler application from Google Play and Apple Store, while not actually violating terms of use has been an eye opener.  Banning the President from all social media is damn scary.

While many argue that the platforms are private businesses and have a right to ban anyone, they collectively banned a private business that did NOT violate terms of use from the two operating systems used on all mobile devices in the world is VERY scary.

In contrast, let us look at the popular application Tik Tok. A Chinese based company made a viral app that captures short videos. However, they actively sensor posts. In fact if it is contradictory to the Communist Chinese government it is frowned on. They have even removed posts supporting the freedom of Hong Kong during their protests.

The application currently farms data of its users and is completely subject to China the moment they want their information. The concern is so paramount, that it is a bipartisan issue, both senators Schumer and Rubio publicly drew concern for this application’s availability in the United States. Banning it from the stores was considered for a moment.

However, all of us can download Tik Tok, but Parler, a U.S. based application that has not violated any terms of use, has not only been banned from the app stores, but even Amazon cow towed to the activist mob.

While the news of the internet runs fast, and it seems short lived, anything YOU want to know is there if you just look. We cannot forget that Rachel Maddow suggested Americans will freeze to death. That footage of border cages built under the Obama administration was used to discredit the Trump administration.  We cannot forget that elected officials attempted to scare us into believing that Russia comprised an election, while scoffing at people for questioning the next election.

Discernment does not come easy. It takes experience, a willingness to see the other side, humility, and time. Being able to perceive true motives is difficult at best, and often nearly impossible. However, if you watch a person, a business, or a politician for a bit, it should become obvious. Pay attention! If anyone is choosing to divide and create unnecessary debate, they want to control with fear. Subjugation is the goal, and frankly, it comes from all sides.

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Politics

Joe Biden Should Debate

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In an article by Spectator.us,

“Reintroducing @JoeBiden
into the familiar environment of a one-on-one debate might bring forth his true self, like one of those heartwarming viral videos in which elderly people with dementia play old music perfectly from memory,” writes @mattjpfmcdonald

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Politics

Joe Biden Posts to Ban Assault Weapons

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On Facebook post from August 5, 2020, Joe Biden stated “Weapons of war have no place in our communities. When I was a senator, I took on the NRA and secured a 10-year ban on assault weapons — and as president, I’ll ban these weapons again.”

 

Weapons of war have no place in our communities. When I was a senator, I took on the NRA and secured a 10-year ban on assault weapons — and as president, I’ll ban these weapons again.

Posted by Joe Biden on Wednesday, August 5, 2020

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