And the censorship goes on

Four headlines reporting censorship on social media and at movie theaters -- just in the last week:

From Newsbusters:

Twitter Locks Conservative Site Outfor ‘Hate’ Citing Facts About STDs

From Steve Green at PJ Media:

Twitter Permanently Bans 'GayPatriot' Bruce Carroll, Cites Kafka for Precedent

From Beth Baumann at Townhall:

Suppression: Theaters Drop 'Gosnell' Movie Despite It Being a Top-Grossing Film

From John Stossel at NWF Daily News:

            Shut up, they explain

UPDATED 5pm

From Scott McKay at American Spectator:

           A Letter From Facebook Jail: The casualties of Big Tech’sassault on free expression

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At the movies

Diamond and Silk made their regular appearance on Jesse Watters’s show last night, and if you didn’t see it, they promoted their new film Dummycrats:

As President Trump continues to drain the swamp, social media stars Diamond & Silk are on a mission to expose what’s left of it. Americans cannot trust the mainstream media to report about the Dummycrats. If the media won’t report the truth…Diamond & Silk will.

It sounds like more of a documentary, and those gals are always fun to watch. I can find only one showing tomorrow, Monday, Oct.15 at the following Cleveland area movie theaters:

Cedar Lee at 8pm

2163 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights, OH 44118

Cinemark 24 at 8pm

6001 Canal Road, Valley View, OH 44125

Regal Richmond Town Square Stadium 20

631 Richmond Road, Richmond Heights, OH 44143

I posted about Gosnell, Free Speech, and Free Markets a few days ago. Just to follow up, the Gosnell film is still showing at the AMC Classic Solon 16 (6185 Enterprise Parkway, Solon, OH 44139) and at the Cinemark At Valley View.

Please check the websites for showtimes, which may be subject to change.

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Google memo 'The Good Censor'

image credit: spartareport.com

Yesterday’s blog was about the film Gosnell, free speech, and free markets. Now comes an American Thinker report by Thomas Lifson titled

“Stunning 85-page Google memo 

'The Good Censor' leaked to Breitbart”

Lifson's blog begins:

If you are not worried about the power of Google to shape debate and elections according to its leftist political bias, you're not paying attention.  I congratulate Breitbart.com for the scoop, and I urge everyone – I am looking at you, President Trump and Congress – to read and ponder the fate of the Republic unless this company is defanged, most likely by antitrust action, but possibly also via civil courts. 

He then quotes Allum Bokhari's introduction and summary of the memo here, including:

An internal company briefing produced by Google and leaked exclusively to Breitbart News argues that due to a variety of factors, including the election of President Trump, the "American tradition" of free speech on the internet is no longer viable. ...

[T]he 85-page briefing, titled "The Good Censor," admits that Google and other tech platforms now "control the majority of online conversations" and have undertaken a "shift towards censorship" in response to unwelcome political events around the world.

The briefing labels the ideal of unfettered free speech on the internet a "utopian narrative" that has been "undermined" by recent global events as well as "bad behavior" on the part of users. ...

It acknowledges that major tech platforms, including Google, Facebook and Twitter initially promised free speech to consumers.  "This free speech ideal was instilled in the DNA of the Silicon Valley startups that now control the majority of our online conversations," says the document.

The briefing argues that Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are caught between two incompatible positions, the "unmediated marketplace of ideas" vs. "well-ordered spaces for safety and civility."

Terrifying. The Breitbart scoop is here. Our household is exploring alternatives to Google, including Brave. Does anyone see an alternative to Facebook? 

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Gosnell, free speech, and free markets

image credit: thoughtsonfilm.com

The film about “America's all-time champion serial killer” Kermit Gosnell opens later this week at a few theaters, and its subject matter is outside Cleveland Tea Party’s core mission. But the topic of “free markets” is very much a core Tea Party value.

The film Gosnell has been an uphill battle from the start. It was difficult to produce, and efforts to market it are being thwarted as I type. If this film is emblematic of the closing of free markets and increasing censorship in the mainstream media and on social media, then it is very much on the front burner of the Cleveland Tea Party. How can one have free markets if a legal product is not allowed to be promoted in the marketplace?

Fox News is running paid ads, but NPR and PBS won’t run them, and Facebook has banned any ads promoting this film. It should not matter whether you are Pro Choice, Pro Life, or undecided. The issues of Roe vs Wade and abortion were hot talking points during the entire nomination process of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, so the film has a place in the current and ongoing debate. 

The other day I attended a presentation by the filmmakers Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer followed by a private screening of Gosnell. Mark Steyn’s must-read blog on the film is here. The website for the film is here and it includes a drop-down which specifies theaters showing this film, listed by state. Only two were located in the greater Cleveland area (Valley View and Solon).

The goal of the two film-makers is to get enough venues and audiences to get this film to be eligible for NetFlix general access/release. If I understood them correctly, if they get enough showings and viewings in theaters this year, they can get a much wider distribution for this film via NetFlix, and they intend to categorize it as a crime drama along the line of, say, Law and Order, to reach an audience that might otherwise not choose to watch a film advertised as being about abortion per se. I thought that was a good marketing strategy. And if you are reading this blog, I hope you will consider seeing the film later this week, even if you don't think you'll like it.

From SteynOnline:

If making the film was hard, breaking through the societal omertà is harder: The Hyatt in Austin, for example, just canceled a screening at the behest of Planned Parenthood. So do be alert both to bookings of Gosnell at your local multiplex and to attempts to get it bounced. As producers and (with Andrew Klavan) screenwriters, Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer set out to tell a story none of the big studios would touch, and their doggedness deserves to find an audience.

In a free market, the producers would be free to buy ads. Facebook claims the ad does not meet their “standards.” No, Facebook just doesn’t like the film and doesn’t want any more exposure of the Gosnell case. That’s not what's supposed to happen to free speech in free markets. How can you function in a free market when you are muzzled because you have a different view? No, that’s censorship, and that is why I posted with these links.

Exit question: Who will be censored next?

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