Political Censorship: it's everywhere

 

Here's Kyle Becker at Trending Politics reporting on unconstitutional censorship:

This is Not America:
Political Censorship Campaign Unconstitutionally
Targeted Millions of Americans

The United States government is unconstitutionally targeting millions of Americans for their political speech by directly contracting with private ‘third parties’ that flag their viewpoints for alleged ‘misinformation.’

The federal government has contracted with at least five private companies or public non-profits to ‘flag’ Americans’ views on everything from Covid-19 to the 2020 election.

In an editorial at Just the News, John Solomon and Greg Piper reported on four of these groups, but the report suggests that the radical left’s operation to chill free speech is just the tip of the iceberg.

. . .

“The consortium is comprised of four member organizations: Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, and social media analytics firm Graphika,” the article adds. “It set up a concierge-like service in 2020 that allowed federal agencies like Homeland’s Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and State’s Global Engagement Center to file ‘tickets’ requesting that online story links and social media posts be censored or flagged by Big Tech.”

“Three liberal groups — the Democratic National Committee, Common Cause and the NAACP — were also empowered like the federal agencies to file tickets seeking censorship of content,” the article goes on. “A Homeland-funded collaboration, the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, also had access.”

. . .

It should be noted that the U.S. Constitution not only guarantees Americans’ right to free speech, but the right to consume information freely in the marketplace of ideas.

To conclude:

The U.S. government is violating the Constitutional charter that brought it into existence by violating the rights of Americans in states across the country. 

So where are the lawsuits?  Read Mr. Becker’s full report here.

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NewsGuard's Media Blacklist

art credit: inforrm.wordpress.com

Microsoft Teams with Establishment ‘NewsGuard’ to Create News Blacklist:

Without consulting with its users, Microsoft has installed an establishment media browser extension, purportedly designed to rate the accuracy of news websites, as a default setting on mobile versions of its Edge browser. In practice, it creates a news blacklist by warning users away from sites including Breitbart News, The Drudge Report, and the Daily Mail.

The browser extension, called “Newsguard,” presents users with a red warning label if they navigate to a website that it judges to be unreliable. A “green” rating is given to websites that NewsGuard considers trustworthy.

A number of pro-Trump websites, including Breitbart News, are given a “red” rating by the extension.

NewsGuard itself is not new, but its installation by Microsoft is. In a related Breitbart story titled “Bill Kristol Correctly Describes NewsGuard: ‘Establishment People’ Like ‘Establishment Websites’”:

In a March 2018 interview with NewsGuard Executive Editor James Warren, establishment conservative Bill Kristol correctly noted that NewsGuard, an app and browser plug-in which allows users to avoid what it considers “fake news” websites, would face skepticism since “establishment people” like “establishment websites.” NewsGuard has added Breitbart News, the Drudge Report, and the Daily Mail to its “fake news” blacklist.

. . .

NewsGuard lists Breitbart News, the Daily Mail, and the Drudge Report as fake news websites, but gives the all-clear to CNN, Buzzfeed, the Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Vice News, despite recent high profile fake news stories from a variety of these approved sites.

CNN? Buzzfeed? New York Times? Good grief. Who is making the decisions about what is and is not Fake News. Yet more media and social malpractice.

UPDATE 8:35pm on 1/23: A reader posted this as Reply #3 at the Lucianne aggregator:

While I think this is terrible, it is only on the phone version of [Mircrosoft's] Edge. Since the three users of that browser work for Microsoft I am not sure that anyone will notice. 

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