Tag: censorship

No, AOC, It’s Not the Government’s Job to ‘Rein in Our Media’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) told her social media followers earlier this week that Democrats in Congress might respond to the Capitol riot with some sort of “media literacy” initiative.

The phrase media literacy ordinarily implies helping individuals make sense of the media landscape, but AOC seems to have more in mind than that: She suggested “we’re going to have to figure out how we rein in our media environment so that you can’t just spew disinformation and misinformation.”

It’s true that both traditional media and social media sometimes spread “disinformation and misinformation.” But the federal government has no formal role to play in suppressing its spread. The First Amendment explicitly bars Congress from infringing on freedom of the press or freedom of speech, and the Supreme Court has recognized no exceptions for disinformation. If the government could ban disinformation, after all, it could use that as a cover for banning speech that is not actually false but merely critical of the government, or of specific politicians. Recall that Democrats swiftly denounced The New York Post‘s report on Hunter Biden’s foreign connections as “disinformation,” even though many underlying aspects of the story have since been confirmed.

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The Mobbing of a Portland Bookstore Reminds Us Why Fahrenheit 451 Was Written

For three days and counting, protesters in Portland, Oregon have gathered at a local bookstore to demand that it stop selling a new book critical of Antifa.

“Far-left activists surrounded Powell’s Books in Portland on Monday and demanded the store stop selling Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy, a book about antifa written by Andy Ngo,” Reason’s Robby Soave reports. “The protests forced the store to close early.”

Ngo, the editor-at-large of The Post Millennial, a Canadian conservative news site, has documented the activities of Antifa, a leftist group that advocates violence in the name of fighting fascism. The journalist was beaten by Antifa activists at a rally in 2019, leaving him with a serious brain injury.

Left-wing activists say that because Ngo documents and criticizes the activities of Antifa, which claims to simply be “anti-fascist,” he is therefore a fascist. Saying his work is too dangerous to be allowed to be aired, Antifa members have called for Ngo to be banned from social media. Now they are trying to get his book banned from bookstores.

“We have to show up every day until they stop selling that f—king book,” one activist said. She claimed it was like “stopping the historical publication of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf.'”

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Ocasio-Cortez Says Congress Must ‘Rein In’ Media Environment

Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Tuesday that Congress is looking into reining in “our media environment” to prevent the spread of disinformation.

Ocasio-Cortez discussed how she feared for her life during last week’s Capitol Riot in a live stream on Instagram Tuesday evening, Fox News reported. A viewer asked Ocasio-Cortez if Congress is discussing “truth and reconciliation or media literacy initiatives” to help with healing following the turbulent events of the past few weeks, the publication reported.

“I can say, there is absolutely a commission being discussed but it seems to be more investigatory in style rather than truth and reconciliation, so I think that’s an interesting concept for us to explore,” Ocasio-Cortez said. 

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If Big Tech Can Ban Certain Political Views So Easily, Why is Child Porn Rife on Their Platforms?

As TFTP reported on Monday, Parler has been a haven for those who have been banned, deleted, or otherwise algorithmed into the memory hole by establishment media platforms. Users moved to Parler because the platform claimed not to censor their content and it was safe space for MAGA folks. For over a year, Parler has remained an open network where pro-Trump users largely proceeded uncensored. Until now.

Early Monday morning, Amazon took down Parler from its web-hosting service. Amazon Web Services, or AWS said Parler had violated its terms of service given its inadequate content-moderation practices for failing to remove posts glorifying the recent riot at the U.S. Capitol. Google and Apple joined in as well, ensuring that Parler is deplatformed indefinitely.

This move came on the heels of a massive purge of tens of thousands of pro-Trump folks who allegedly espoused ridiculous Qanon theories. It was bad enough that these folks were duped into following the psyop known as Q. Now, however, instead of realizing the absurdity of these ideas as they are debunked in the public arena, that is no longer an option. Now, they will grasp onto these whacky ideas as the massive monopolistic power of tech behemoths imposing their neoliberal will on them gives them justification for doing so.

Sadly, many on the left — who used to claim to stand for free speech — are now praising the collusion by big tech to censor their political enemies, completely ignoring the fact that it will inevitably turn on them whenever convenient for the establishment.

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Are You Ready for Total (Ideological) War?

So, welcome to 2021! If last week was any indication, it is going to be quite an exciting year. It is going to be the year in which GloboCap reminds everyone who is actually in charge and restores “normality” throughout the world.

…or at least attempts to restore “normality,” or the “New Normality,” or the “Great Normal Reset,” or “The New Normal War on Domestic Terror” … or whatever they eventually decide to call it.

In any event, whatever they call it, GloboCap is done playing grab-ass. They have had it with all this “populism” malarkey that has been going on for the last four years.

Yes, that’s right, the party is over, you Russian-backed white supremacist terrorists! You Trump-loving, anti-mask grandmother killers! You anti-vax, election-fraud-conspiracy theorists! You deviants who refuse to follow orders, wear your damn masks, vote for who they tell you, and believe whatever completely nonsensical official propaganda they pour into your heads!

Oh, yes, you really did it this time! You stormed the goddamned US Capitol. You and your racist, Russia-backed army of bison-hat wearing half-naked actors have meddled with the primal forces of GloboCap, and now, by God, you will atone!

No, do not try to minimize your crimes. You entered a building without permission! The building where America simulates democracy! You walked around in there waving silly flags! You went into the Chamber, into people’s offices! One of you actually put his filthy populist feet up on Pelosi’s desk … ON HER DESK! This aggression will not stand!

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Twitter Suspends 70,000 Accounts Claming QAnon Ties

Twitter has reportedly banned more than 70,000 accounts it claims are linked to the QAnon movement following the events on Capitol Hill last week.

The Hill reports that Twitter has announced that it has banned over 70,000 accounts sharing content relating to the QAnon conspiracy theory on its platform following the protests at Capitol Hill last week. Twitter confirmed in a recent blog post that it has removed the accounts in an effort to “protect the conversation on our service from attempts to incite violence.”

The blog post states: “We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm. Given the violent events in Washington, DC, and increased risk of harm, we began permanently suspending thousands of accounts that were primarily dedicated to sharing QAnon content on Friday afternoon.”

Twitter stated that “many” of the individuals affected by the ban “held multiple accounts” sharing content relating to the QAnon conspiracy theory. The banned accounts were allegedly “engaged in sharing harmful QAnon-associated content at scale and were primarily dedicated to the propagation of this conspiracy theory.”

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WHY “CANCEL CULTURE” SHOULD MATTER TO LIBERTARIANS

Today’s cancel culture is a prime example of one of several highly influential instruments of social control outside the state. Many libertarians fall prey to the temptation of brushing aside the importance of cultural institutions and non-state means of social control because they don’t violate the non-aggression principle.

Progressives, however, have long recognized the importance of non-state foundations of social order, including public opinion. One can readily recognize today’s “organs” that form the “rallying point of public opinion”: academia, the mainstream corporate media, social media outrage mobs, and – to a growing extent – corporate boardrooms.

Today, the biggest threat to free speech and expression is coming not from the government but from “cancel culture.” The fact that this threat is not coming from the government should serve as a lesson that libertarians who turn a blind eye to non-state sources of social control do so at their own peril.

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