Pamela Geller: Big Tech censorship and the Election

 

At American Thinker, Pamela Geller comments on Allum Bokhari’s new book on Big Tech censorship.  It’s worse than we thought.  Ms. Geller begins:

Allum Bokhari, the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News, has performed an extraordinarily valuable service by giving us his new book #Deleted: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal the Election. 

. . .

In #Deleted, Allum Bokhari tells the whole shocking story. For those who don’t realize the implications of what is going on, he includes a Prologue entitled “The Typewriter That Talked Back” that is as amusing as it is disturbing, and that makes abundantly clear even to the most technically challenged among us what is really happening to our foremost and most important freedom, right under our noses. Bokhari paints a vivid picture of a 1968 in which a typewriter refuses to type, typing instead its own message: “We regret to inform you that your last letter violated our terms of service (Rule 32: Abusive & Offensive Content). We have suspended access to your typewriter for 24 hours.” Newsstands remove from sale magazines that third-party “fact-checkers” have deemed to be “fake news.” The Post Office returns your mail because you told a joke in a letter that a censor found offensive.

It’s all funny until you realize that all this is exactly what email providers and big tech censors are doing to Americans today, every day on the Internet. In the pre-Internet world of 1968, it would have been preposterous. Americans would not have accepted it. But it has all happened gradually, as we gave away our freedom by clicking our agreement to dense and unreadable Terms of Service that turned over our right to say what we believe to shadowy, anonymous guardians of acceptable opinion. Most Americans today are only dimly aware, at best, that it is happening at all, and those that are approach it with grim resignation. After all, what are you going to do? Start your own Facebook?

Having been one of the early targets of social media censorship on Facebook, YouTube et al, I have for many years advocated for anti-trust action against these bullying behemoths. Bokhari makes an airtight case in #Deleted for why such action is necessary.

Read the full column here.  And it’s scary to think that even if millions of Facebook users cancelled their accounts, nothing would change.

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Trump rally in New Hampshire

Tomorrow is the New Hampshire primary. And this evening (Monday Feb-10), President Trump is holding a rally in Manchester. Pamela Geller reports that

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence will address a capacity crowd of thousands of supporters during a campaign rally at Southern New Hampshire University Arena at 7 p.m. Doors will open at 3 p.m. Tickets had to be requested through the campaign website; the event will be general admission.

Trump supporters began staking a place in line outside the SNHU Arena as early as 8 a.m. Sunday.

There may be some coverage on Fox Business and Fox News, but if you want to watch it, Right Side Broadcasting will livestream it; click here.  Sundance at Conservative Treehouse has alternative livestream links as well; click here.

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More Twitter censorship

Two days ago, this blog linked to Katie Hopkins’s column at Front Page mag; her column was about the celebrations marking the UK's Brexit from the EU. It was a thoughtful and heartfelt report. And today, we read Robert Spencer’s report at Front Page that “Twitter Suspends Katie Hopkins, and you’re next”:

Twitter has suspended UK's courageous freedom fighter Katie Hopkins, who had a million followers on the platform, and one thing is certain: she will not be the last foe of jihad violence and Sharia oppression who is banned from Twitter. It’s all about silencing “hate,” you see. But the banning of Katie Hopkins illustrates yet again that for the Left, there is good “hate” and there is bad “hate.”

According to the UK’s Independent, “Twitter said that Ms Hopkins had been temporarily locked out of her account for violating the site’s hateful-conduct policy, which bans the promotion of violence or inciting harm on the basis of race, religion, national origin or gender identity.”

Twitter has erased all but a handful of Hopkins’ tweets, so it’s impossible to tell what the offending tweets were, but it is abundantly clear at this point that for Leftist guardians of acceptable thought nowadays, virtually any dissent from the Left’s agenda will be read as “the promotion of violence or inciting harm on the basis of race, religion, national origin or gender identity.” While “promotion of violence” is fairly easy to spot, “inciting harm” can be seen in any critical word. 

And then the offender has to go.

Full column is here. And of course, this is not a one-off. Many conservative voices, such as Pamela Geller, Dennis Prager’s Prager University, James O’Keefe of Project Veritas, and Michelle Malkin (article at the link includes details on de-platforming and de-monetizing), have been censored on Twitter, Facebook, on campuses, on PayPal, etc. As Robert Spencer warned: we’re next.

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Trump rally today in Wildwood New Jersey

photo credit: The Hill

Pamela Geller reports:

People actually camped outside on [Monday] evening, for a Trump rally that is occurring today. New Jersey is a solidly blue state, but that means nothing to the people camping outside. They just want to see the #GOAT [“Greatest of All Time” – I had to look it up] president. It is going to be a wild rally in Wildwood, New Jersey.

Duke Reale, from Galloway Township, is so determined to see President Trump in Wildwood that he arrived two days early so he could be first in line. Soon, dozens showed up right beside him.

RECORD-BREAKER: 175,000 Requests For Tickets To Trump Rally In NJ Tonight; Hundreds Camp Out In Cold 

One America News will provide full coverage of the president’s “Keep America Great” rally, without interruption, this evening (Tuesday, Jan 28) starting at 7 p.m. EST. If you don’t have access to OAN, Right Side Broadcast Network (RSBN) will livestream it, and you can find the link at Conservative Treehouse (scroll down if necessary).  (Sundance usually posts the link an hour or two before the event begins, but he already has a link to the RSBN twitter video feed checking out the crowds. Click here.)

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Facebook censors another conservative voice

Pamela Geller reports:

In a breathtaking act of chutzpah, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal to – wait for it – defend freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

Go here: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg Makes The Case For Free Speech in WSJ OpEd While Censoring and Banning Conservatives

Then via Freedom Headlines:

By Freedom Headlines, October 17 2019:

Facebook is stepping up their game to try and prevent Donald Trump from winning reelection. They are quite literally meddling in the election process by using their influence and reach to censor the internet and prevent people with opposing views from sharing anything from a conservative viewpoint.

The social network giant just removed one of the largest (if not the largest) pro-Trump Facebook fan pages.

They cited that it was because, “It looks like recent activity on your Page doesn’t follow the Facebook Page Policies regarding impersonation and pretending to be an individual or business.”

. . .

“Donald Trump Is Our President” with 3,276,000 fans, which we paid FB around $100,000 to build, using ‘page like ads’ was removed yesterday. Please help me spread the word so we can help Facebook know and fix, what I am sure is an honest mistake.

I have made my identity perfectly clear, I am, in no way associated with President Donald J. Trump, nor have I ever claimed to be. This was/is a fan page, we make that abundantly clear in many places on the page.

On top of that Facebook approved the name change back in 2016 …. So why now, all of a sudden has my life’s work been ‘unpublished.’ I’m sure this is a mistake, but please help me alert FB so we can get this cleared up, thank you! – Mark Sidney

Full report with screenshots of postings is here. If you are on FB (I am not), perhaps you can register objections to this latest censorship.

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If Facebook can suspend Benjamin Netanyahu . . .

image credit: medium.com

Today is Constitution Day in America. In Israel, it is Election Day. Pamela Geller links to the Jewish Press report:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Facebook chatbot was suspended on Tuesday, on elections day, after it published polling results.

Publishing polling results in the days prior to elections day is illegal in Israel.

“We work with election committees around the world to help maintain the purity of elections. Our policy specifically states that developers are required to comply with all applicable laws in the country where their app is available. Therefore, we have suspended the bot activity in violation of local law until the polls close,” Facebook stated.

Netanyahu accused Facebook of buckling to left-wing pressure.

Ms. Geller introduced this report with:

President Trump and the GOP better pay attention, this is a testing ground for the real show, your re-election.

So in Israel, it's against the law to publish polling results before the election. If memory serves, before the 2016 US election, the news outlets were wall-to-wall poll results. Facebook will merely need another reason.

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Google: the greatest threat to the next election

Dr. Robert Epstein testified on July 16 before Congress on the dangerous control Google exerts over searches, surveillance, and behavioral manipulation. The full PDF text is here (h/t Pamela Geller). He explains what Google does, how it does it, discloses Google’s and his methodologies, and proposes a solution. It is pretty frightening, and I am bookmarking it in wild anticipation of Congressional action ASAP – so the 2020 election is not utterly corrupted. Here’s an opening extract:

I am here today for three reasons: to explain why Google presents a serious threat to democracy and human autonomy, to explain how passive monitoring systems can protect us both now and in the future from companies like Google, and to tell you how Congress can immediately end Google’s worldwide monopoly on search. My plan for ending that monopoly  was  published  just  yesterday (Monday, July 15, 2019) by Bloomberg Businessweek (Epstein, 2019d). I am attaching a copy of my article to my testimony and respectfully request that it be entered into the Congressional Record.

I have been a research psychologist for nearly 40 years and have also served in various editorial positions at Psychology Today magazine and Scientific American MIND. I received my Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1981 and have since published 15 books and more than 300 scientific and mainstream articles on artificial intelligence and other topics. Since 2012, some of my research and writings have focused on Google LLC, specifically on the company’s power to suppress content  – the censorship problem, if you will – as well as on the massive surveillance the company conducts, and also on the company’s unprecedented ability to manipulate the thoughts and behavior of more than 2.5 billion people worldwide. Data I’ve collected since 2016 show that Google displays content to the American public that is biased in favor on one political party (Epstein & Williams, 2019), a party I happen to like, but that’s irrelevant. No private company should have either the right or the power to manipulate large populations without their knowledge. . . .

His entire testimony is here, or you can watch it on video at Pamela Geller’s website here.

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Censorship creep

Thomas Lifson at American Thinker reports (“The next stage in tech overlords' censorship: De-platformingun-PC blogs”):

It's no longer just Facebook, Twitter, and Google who are censoring online content that offends political correctness.  Wordpress.com, a blog-hosting site that offers anyone the opportunity to create and publish a blog at no cost, has decided to de-platform — in other words, kill — a blog that has been operating for 15 years: Creeping Sharia.

As Pamela Geller points out, this move by Wordpress.com is itself an example of the blog's focus of creeping sharia happening in real time.  Shutting down a critic of creeping sharia is an example of creeping sharia.

Related: Newsbusters reports on a development (which may be a start, but doesn’t seem to me to go far enough):

The White House has announced a new system that gives Americans the power to call out foul play by tech companies.  

As of May 15 it read, “SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS should advance FREEDOM OF SPEECH.” 

“Too many Americans have seen their accounts suspended, banned, or fraudulently reported for unclear ‘violations’ of user policies,” it continued before delivering a bipartisan message that freedom of speech is a right held by all Americans. “No matter your views, if you suspect political bias caused such an action to be taken against you, share your story with President Trump.”

The submission form begins with a survey asking users to submit their names and confirm that they are citizens of the United States. It then asks whether they were censored via major Big Tech platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. It also listed an option for “Other” acknowledging that there are plenty of other platforms which deplatform users.

It then asks, if possible, for a link or screenshot of the restricted post. 

In a reversal of Trump’s earlier praise of Twitter as a way to reach his audience free of being filtered by the media, this White House page asked users for permission to send newsletters via email so that the administration “can update you without relying on platforms like Facebook and Twitter.”

The Trump administration said it was “fighting for free speech online,” while the liberal Washington Post characterized the new system as part of Trump’s “war against Facebook, Google and Twitter.” 

Rest of the report is here. Hmm. Either these companies need to be trust-busted, or they need to be subject to regulation by the FCC.

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First Amendment under attack again

image credit: sott.net

Today’s targets: James Woods and Pamela Geller. Via 100 Percent Fed Up:

He has over 2.1 million followers and is one of the most active and important conservative accounts on Twitter, but conservative actor James Woods is finished with Twitter until Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO, stops being a “coward,” and affords conservatives the same free speech rights as liberals in his platform.

. . .

“Twitter demanded that I rescind my tweet paraphrasing Emerson,” Woods said in a statement to The Daily Wire. “It now seems they have chosen to delete that tweet from my account without my permission. Until free speech is allowed on Twitter, I will not be permitted to participate in our democracy with my voice. As long as Jack Dorsey remains the coward he seems to be; my Twitter days are in the past.”

President Trump and his outspoken, conservative son Don Jr., both came to the defense of James Woods over his censorship on Twitter.

Don Jr. pointed out the hypocrisy of the social media giants censoring the voices of popular conservatives while allowing terror groups to openly post on their platforms. Tweeting directly to Twitter and Facebook, Trump Jr. asked if they consider James Woods to be more dangerous than Hamas?

It’s interesting how @twitter and @facebook both seem more concerned with silencing non-violent people who hold political opinions they disagree with, than violent terrorist organizations and the people that support them,” Donald Trump Jr. tweeted. “Is @RealJamesWoods really more ‘dangerous’ than Hamas?”

And Pamela Geller was censored on Facebook. After complaints, her post was restored. Just another “mistake” by Facebook.

Ms. Geller’s advice:

Attention readers: Challenge ever ban, appeal every deletion. Do not stand by while left wing corporate managers and paid foreign operatives strip us of our unalienable rights as Americans.

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Censorship: Losing our freedom of speech on social media

 openclipart.org

James Delingpole reports on the bad news from Great Britain:

Facebook has banned the third largest political page in the UK from their service, Tommy Robinson. Amazon has just stopped selling his book on the Quran. Twitter and Paypal already acted along these lines months ago.

This is a terrible day for freedom of speech. And possibly an even worse one for the future of social cohesion in Britain.

And Michelle Malkin reports the latest on her battles with the censors -- because she is conservative:

. . .

The Twitter notice assured me that the company “has not taken any action on the reported content at this time,” yet advised me that I should “consult legal counsel about this matter” in response to complaints from unnamed “authorized entities.”

Don’t worry, lawyer up? Gulp.

I’m used to getting threats directly from bloodthirsty cartoon jihadists. In 2006, I spearheaded a “Mohammed cartoons blogburst” in support of the Danish cartoonists at Jyllands-Posten. After posting all 12 of the drawings to educate the public about the publication’s brave stand against sharia-enforced self-censorship in the West, death and rape threats from radical Muslims around the world poured into my e-mail box. Vengeful thugs based in Turkey and Germany called me a “whore” and “prostitute,” vowing “We will kill you” unless I deleted the pictures from my server. My website was targeted by jihadist hackers who launched a week of denial-of-service attacks.

Thirteen years later, however, who knew that using an American company’s microblogging service from my secluded mountain top in Colorado could get me in hot water with foreign Muslim stone-age goons 8,000 miles away still hung up on the cartoons?

. . .

Over the past few months, several other prominent critics of Islamic extremism have received similar warning letters from Twitter’s legal department, including Saudi-Canadian activist Ensaf Haidar, the wife of imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi; Imam Mohammad Tawhidi, an Iranian-born Muslim scholar and reform advocate from Australia; Jamie Glazov, a Russian-born Canadian columnist who just released a new book called “Jihadist Psychopath”; and Pamela Geller, an anti-jihad blogger and activist.

. . .

Among others targeted by SPLC [Southern Poverty Law Center], which collaborates with credit card companies and banks to silence influential thinkers and activists on the right: David Horowitz, a venerable scholar and investigative author who successfully beat back Mastercard’s attempt to drop him over his organization’s opposition to Islamic radicalism and illegal immigration, and the Center for Immigration Studies, which is suing the SPLC for labeling its mainstream think tank a “hate group.”

Read the rest here. Malkin’s list of silenced, de-platformed, or demonetized conservatives is long, but not long enough. And last month, John Hawkins at Townhall reported on his personal experience as the proprietor of Right Wing News; he describes HOW these gigantic companies/monopolies methodically target and silence conservative voices.

Project Veritas (James O’Keefe’s group) has more chapter-and-verse (h/t Ace of Spades).

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Free Speech Week at Berkeley Sept 24-27

Remember what happened when Milo Yiannopoulis was scheduled to speak at Berkeley last February?

Photo credit: SFGate

It was cancelled. Breitbart Radio just announced:

Milo Plans Four-Day Extravaganza At Berkeley For Free Speech Week

Yesterday, Pamela Geller’s blog ran this headline:

Pamela Geller To Speak at Milo’s Free Speech Week at Berkeley, Joins Steve Bannon, Ann Coulter, David Horowitz

That’s already a powerhouse line-up that will be impossible to ignore. (Berkeley is already looking for safe spaces to protect poor snowflake students from the presence of Ben Shapiro.) I plan to follow this, as it could be a watershed moment for First Amendment rights.

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Tech Giants War on Free Speech

art credit: pamelageller.com

Are we losing our First Amendment Rights?

In case you don’t follow Pamela Geller, she specializes in defending the right to free speech and, in particular, threats to free speech presented by jihad and sharia law. Geller is fearless, and she is under perpetual death threats.

Quite recently, subsequent to the Southern Poverty Law Center putting another target on her back, her access to PayPal was withdrawn. Enough readers complained, and PayPal backed down and restored access. Now it’s Google search drives and YouTubes that are limiting her right to free speech. 

If you do not bookmark her website, you might never hear about this. Jihad and sharia law may not be your particular focus, but your right to free speech is probably toward the top of your priority list. It would be for any Tea Party person. We already know that under the previous administration, the weaponized IRS targeted all sorts of conservative and liberty groups. It's getting worse.

Check out Pamela Geller’s chilling Sept. 2 report here. A few extracts:

My website and posts have been scrubbed from Google search. Fourteen years and over forty thousand posts. Google Adsense has banned my account. Google is blacklisting and has admitted to working with alt-left smear groups to silence opposition. And it’s not just me, it’s all criticism of jihad and sharia.

Facebook has blocked my news-feed. My twitter account is shadowbanned. I have been blocked from uploading videos to YouTube [as] punishment for 2007 video on jihad (and YouTube demonetized all of my videos). Paypal suspended me until an outpouring of condemnation and outrage forced a reversal.

Is this really America?

Read her full report here. Scroll down the article for readers' suggestions on what we can be doing to reverse these dangerous developments. It’s OUR problem!

And for Geller’s equally chilling report on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Aim in Life to Destroy These Groups Completely,” click here.

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Memorial Day weekend 2016

We’re heading into the Memorial Day weekend. Memorial Day itself “is a federal holiday in the United States for remembering the people who died while serving in the country's armed forces.”

Pamela Geller’s blog, Atlas Shrugged, is a go-to resource for reports about and analyses of radical Islamic issues and events. However, today, she posted a remarkable photo essay to commemorate American troops who lost their lives and are buried overseas. It’s a sobering tribute, and it's in stark contrast to President Obama’s most recent apology tour in Japan yesterday (link is to John Bolton's commentary on the President's visit to Hiroshima).

Geller’s first photo (above) is captioned: “The Lorraine American Cemetery and Memorial in France covers 113.5 acres and contains the largest number of graves of our military dead of World War II.” Spend some time this weekend with the photos and captions she posted.

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