The conspiracy world celebrates a new chapter in its crusade against humanity. 09/19/2022 14:00

The arguments of anti-vaccine and, in general, the opinions of lovers of conspiracies are so difficult to hold that we will not entertain them. In fact, we have a really fun article on some crazy conspiracy theories if youre interested in the subject and want to be entertained for a while.

Recently, thanks to the information shown on Gizmodo, we have learned how groups dissidents of traditional science and lovers of conspiracies have at emoji of a vegetable as its code in code for circumvent censorship of Mark Zuckerbergs social network. By the way, we also have an article showing the meaning of WhatsApp emoticons.

The carrot is the favorite emoji of anti-vaccines on Facebook

If you take a look at Tweet that we show you under these lines, you will be able to know the story of a man called Marc Owen Jones, who was invited to join an anti-vaccine group on Facebook. What those responsible for the group did not know is that Marc is an associate professor at Hamad bin Khalifa University and investigator about the growing trend for disinformation In the net. Once inside, he was able to verify a strange technique for avoid censorship of the social network. One of the messages it said the following:

My sister, 57, entered the hospital with respiratory problems. She has two and the b.

Given that we are dealing with a group of people against the vaccinesit can be understood that the carrots they are the way to avoid writing said word and, thus, be able to circumvent the algorithm in charge of pointing out the publications that could be problematic. In fact, the attempt to avoid censorship seems evident, given the message posted by Marc, where one of the group leaders type the following:

If a post has been rejected or deleted, it was probably me. As moderators, our primary role is to protect the group from censorship and removal. Encryption is important and carrots, to date, go undetected by artificial intelligence censorship.

It seems that the resemblance of the vegetable with a needle to give injections could be the reason chosen by the group to skip censorship, although the use of emojis from the group is also often observed in other groups. cupcake either shot glasses, English shot is used to name both this type of glass and the injections. assumptions human health monitors continue their crusade against the vaccines and each time they look for new ways to hide among the publications of the different social networks. It seems, at the moment, that Facebook has not taken action in the matter.

Go here to read the rest:

This is the emoji with which anti-vaccines are dodging censorship on Facebook - Gearrice

Look, I was raised by Trekkies. I get it.

I understand what its like to follow a show religiously, to trace its ups and downs, and to debate endlessly with fans of other franchises over which franchise is better. I know what its like to dedicate ones time to arguing over whether the U.S.S. Enterprise could defeat an Imperial Star Destroyer (though I prefer Star Trek over Star Wars, not a chance Star Destroyers are simply too large). I know what its like to argue over subliminal, liminal and superliminal messages inserted into episodes by oft-harried writers. I know how much fun it can be to chew on plot inconsistencies or to debate the canonicity of various third-party sources.

At no point in my life, however, did I ever pretend I was doing politics by doing so. The same, regrettably, cant be said for the consumers of certain purveyors of conservative news commentary.

This is the only explanation I can give for why school board candidates the country over even in Washoe County are running on the same platform: Our nations schools need to be taken back from an ultra-left curriculum which teaches children various harmful theories (the label preceding each theory rotates depending on who the Big Bad is each week; the described content of each, however, is intentionally divorced from any recognizable epistemology). If you elect them, they promise to ban harmful books from our school libraries and fire if not prosecute anyone who disagrees.

Which schools specifically are teaching this? Why, our schools, of course all schools, whether theyre located within walking distance of the corner of Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco or the suburbs of southern Idaho, all share the same Marxist curriculum, library books and teachers. How do they know this? Well, they saw it on LibsofTikTok. Does that all sound very silly and ignorant to you? Then you might be a groomer.

To be blunt, this is all about as real as any piece of halfway immersive science fiction, which is a long winded way of saying its not real at all. There are, indeed, schools just as there are, indeed, recognizable bits of physics in the Star Trek universe. Past that, the connection between reality and fantasy is only as strong as the writers need it to be to advance each plot each plot and talking point being whatever is needed to keep viewers afraid enough to buy dodgy supplements, fake gold coins, and overpriced emergency survival supplies. Since each talking point is based on the news and a carefully curated collection of home videos instead of The Silmarillion or the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, however, they feel real.

They are not, however, real enough to a large enough population to win general elections not even in comparatively conservative Boise.

Boise is both the capital of and largest city in Idaho, one of the most consistently conservative states in the country. Idahos voters are so conservative, in fact, that Donald Trump received a larger majority in Idaho in the last election than he received in Nevadas own Douglas County. Douglas County, for perspective, was the first, last, and thus far only constituency to elect Danny Tarkanian to something in a general election a decision they openly regretted because Danny and his wife were somehow too liberal (they refused to support some of the internet trolls running for statewide office under the Republican banner, in other words) for their sensibilities.

Now, Boise is admittedly a bit more liberal than the rest of the state, but its still no Democratic Party stronghold. If you flip Washoe Countys last election results on their head if, that is, you take the percentages President Biden (a bit over 50 percent) and Donald Trump (a bit over 46 percent) each received and give them to the opposing candidate youd end up with the most recent presidential election results in Boises home county, Ada (Boise, confusingly enough, is not located in considerably more conservative Boise County).

Put briefly, Boise may not be as ruby red as the rest of the Gem State, but its still more supportive than not of Republican candidates and causes and certainly more supportive of Republicans than any county of similar population in Nevada.

Unsurprisingly, then, incumbent politicians in Boise prefer to position themselves on the conservative side, culturally and politically speaking. Thats perhaps why, when Steve Schmidt an incumbent member of the Boise School Board received an endorsement from the Idaho Liberty Dogs, a hardline conservative group that previously gained notoriety by claiming libraries in neighboring Meridian were distributing smut-filled pornography, he opted first for nuance over outright denunciation.

Depending upon your personal beliefs, that (endorsement) may give you cause for concern or comfort, Schmidt wrote in a since-deleted Facebook post. I am not a member of their group and I dont represent them.

That, even in comparatively conservative Boise even for a widely respected incumbent who received the support of past superintendents and trustees, as well as the local teachers union wasnt anywhere near strong enough. Local leaders criticized both the endorsement and Schmidts reaction. The Idaho Liberty Dogs, demonstrating their character, responded by comparing an opposing rabbi to Hitler and claiming he supports groups that indoctrinate and groom our children. All of that led the Idaho Statesman to endorse his opponent: Shiva Rajbhandari, an 18-year-old Boise High student who pledged to take a gap year before college to complete his term if the rest of the school board couldnt find a suitable student to replace him after he graduates.

On September 7th, Boises comparatively conservative voters got their chance to weigh in.

The result? 56 percent of the voters in that election decided theyd rather have an 18-year-old high school student who might leave the position in a year or two than a previously respected incumbent who didnt have the sense or the spine to clearly distance himself from a bunch of rabid conservative propaganda junkies.

To be clear, Steve Schmidt didnt run as someone who would ban books or fight some esoteric sociological theory prepended with Marxist in the title for narrative effect. He ran as an establishment conservative the sort Nevada used to produce on the regular. He was, by many accounts, an excellent and professional school board member.

He was, in other words, a better candidate for school board than any of the candidates challenging the incumbents on Washoe Countys ballots.

But he still wasnt good enough. When given an opportunity to distance himself from a pack of overzealous fans living in political fantasy worlds, he refused to channel his inner William Shatner and tell them to get a life and that was all it took to lose him the election in Boise.

Not Reno. Not Las Vegas. Not San Francisco. Refusing to stand up against conservative medias most fervent, overzealous fans lost Schmidt the election in Boise.

It certainly must not have helped Schmidts cause that the rest of Idaho is ruby red enough for those same fans to seize political control from time to time. Nampa, one of Boises suburbs, recently banned 22 books from their schools libraries because they allegedly contained pornography, including Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale. Meanwhile, the Idaho House (the states lowest legislative chamber in more ways than one) tried to pass a law House Bill 666, amusingly enough that would criminally charge librarians if a minor checked out a book that was considered harmful by that august body; that bill ultimately died in the state senate.

Additionally, since Idaho is so conservative, its also paradoxically a punching bag by the very same conservative media some of its residents love so much. After all, if even Idaho is teaching students porn literacy (its not, but dont let that get in the way of a good plotline), surely every other school in the country including the one in your neighborhood must be so much worse!

The worst part, if youre a politician trying to build a constituency, is there frankly arent that many fans. Only three million or so people watch Tucker Carlson if you add up everyone in the country who watches cable news commentary at the same time, you reach a high water mark of around six million viewers out of a nation of over 330 million. Thats not even 2 percent of the population. Speaking as a now-former longtime member of the Libertarian Party, I know a thing or two about trying to win elections with only 1-2 percent of the electorate it doesnt work, especially when that 1-2 percent is more interested in demonstrating loyalty to their fellow fans than they are in getting outside, touching grass, and maybe talking to a neighbor or two.

Boises voters saw firsthand what happens when you let the fans take over the show. Its bad enough when it happens to a beloved media franchise (looking at you, The Rise of Skywalker). Its considerably worse when it leads to school board members bullying children because of their gender identity, books getting removed from school libraries, and politicians leading witch hunts against Marxist indoctrination from the capitol grounds because the fans favorite talking heads on television or social media showed them a 30-second viral video which proves there are luxury gay space communists infiltrating every branch of Idahos Idahos! government.

So they voted accordingly.

The rest of us, meanwhile, just wish these dorks who keep bringing guns to school board meetings, threatening to ban books, and driving our existing board members towards a mental health crisis would just go home and leave the families of Washoe County alone. Our schools have enough problems without candidates role playing as fourteenth-level Freedom Warriors fighting the Dark Lord of Marxism on the taxpayers dime.

David Colborne ran for office twice and served on the executive committees for his state and county Libertarian Party chapters. He is now an IT manager, a registered nonpartisan voter, the father of two sons, and a weekly opinion columnist for The Nevada Independent. You can follow him on Twitter @DavidColborne or email him at [emailprotected].

Conservative book censors and conspiracy theorists dont even win in Boise

Look, I was raised by Trekkies. I get it.

I understand what its like to follow a show religiously, to trace its ups and downs, and to debate endlessly with fans of other franchises over which franchise is better. I know what its like to dedicate ones time to arguing over whether the U.S.S. Enterprise could defeat an Imperial Star Destroyer (though I prefer Star Trek over Star Wars, not a chance Star Destroyers are simply too large). I know what its like to argue over subliminal, liminal and superliminal messages inserted into episodes by oft-harried writers. I know how much fun it can be to chew on plot inconsistencies or to debate the canonicity of various third-party sources.

At no point in my life, however, did I ever pretend I was doing politics by doing so. The same, regrettably, cant be said for the consumers of certain purveyors of conservative news commentary.

This is the only explanation I can give for why school board candidates the country over even in Washoe County are running on the same platform: Our nations schools need to be taken back from an ultra-left curriculum which teaches children various harmful theories (the label preceding each theory rotates depending on who the Big Bad is each week; the described content of each, however, is intentionally divorced from any recognizable epistemology). If you elect them, they promise to ban harmful books from our school libraries and fire if not prosecute anyone who disagrees.

Which schools specifically are teaching this? Why, our schools, of course all schools, whether theyre located within walking distance of the corner of Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco or the suburbs of southern Idaho, all share the same Marxist curriculum, library books and teachers. How do they know this? Well, they saw it on LibsofTikTok. Does that all sound very silly and ignorant to you? Then you might be a groomer.

To be blunt, this is all about as real as any piece of halfway immersive science fiction, which is a long winded way of saying its not real at all. There are, indeed, schools just as there are, indeed, recognizable bits of physics in the Star Trek universe. Past that, the connection between reality and fantasy is only as strong as the writers need it to be to advance each plot each plot and talking point being whatever is needed to keep viewers afraid enough to buy dodgy supplements, fake gold coins, and overpriced emergency survival supplies. Since each talking point is based on the news and a carefully curated collection of home videos instead of The Silmarillion or the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, however, they feel real.

They are not, however, real enough to a large enough population to win general elections not even in comparatively conservative Boise.

Boise is both the capital of and largest city in Idaho, one of the most consistently conservative states in the country. Idahos voters are so conservative, in fact, that Donald Trump received a larger majority in Idaho in the last election than he received in Nevadas own Douglas County. Douglas County, for perspective, was the first, last, and thus far only constituency to elect Danny Tarkanian to something in a general election a decision they openly regretted because Danny and his wife were somehow too liberal (they refused to support some of the internet trolls running for statewide office under the Republican banner, in other words) for their sensibilities.

Now, Boise is admittedly a bit more liberal than the rest of the state, but its still no Democratic Party stronghold. If you flip Washoe Countys last election results on their head if, that is, you take the percentages President Biden (a bit over 50 percent) and Donald Trump (a bit over 46 percent) each received and give them to the opposing candidate youd end up with the most recent presidential election results in Boises home county, Ada (Boise, confusingly enough, is not located in considerably more conservative Boise County).

Put briefly, Boise may not be as ruby red as the rest of the Gem State, but its still more supportive than not of Republican candidates and causes and certainly more supportive of Republicans than any county of similar population in Nevada.

Unsurprisingly, then, incumbent politicians in Boise prefer to position themselves on the conservative side, culturally and politically speaking. Thats perhaps why, when Steve Schmidt an incumbent member of the Boise School Board received an endorsement from the Idaho Liberty Dogs, a hardline conservative group that previously gained notoriety by claiming libraries in neighboring Meridian were distributing smut-filled pornography, he opted first for nuance over outright denunciation.

Depending upon your personal beliefs, that (endorsement) may give you cause for concern or comfort, Schmidt wrote in a since-deleted Facebook post. I am not a member of their group and I dont represent them.

That, even in comparatively conservative Boise even for a widely respected incumbent who received the support of past superintendents and trustees, as well as the local teachers union wasnt anywhere near strong enough. Local leaders criticized both the endorsement and Schmidts reaction. The Idaho Liberty Dogs, demonstrating their character, responded by comparing an opposing rabbi to Hitler and claiming he supports groups that indoctrinate and groom our children. All of that led the Idaho Statesman to endorse his opponent: Shiva Rajbhandari, an 18-year-old Boise High student who pledged to take a gap year before college to complete his term if the rest of the school board couldnt find a suitable student to replace him after he graduates.

On September 7th, Boises comparatively conservative voters got their chance to weigh in.

The result? 56 percent of the voters in that election decided theyd rather have an 18-year-old high school student who might leave the position in a year or two than a previously respected incumbent who didnt have the sense or the spine to clearly distance himself from a bunch of rabid conservative propaganda junkies.

To be clear, Steve Schmidt didnt run as someone who would ban books or fight some esoteric sociological theory prepended with Marxist in the title for narrative effect. He ran as an establishment conservative the sort Nevada used to produce on the regular. He was, by many accounts, an excellent and professional school board member.

He was, in other words, a better candidate for school board than any of the candidates challenging the incumbents on Washoe Countys ballots.

But he still wasnt good enough. When given an opportunity to distance himself from a pack of overzealous fans living in political fantasy worlds, he refused to channel his inner William Shatner and tell them to get a life and that was all it took to lose him the election in Boise.

Not Reno. Not Las Vegas. Not San Francisco. Refusing to stand up against conservative medias most fervent, overzealous fans lost Schmidt the election in Boise.

It certainly must not have helped Schmidts cause that the rest of Idaho is ruby red enough for those same fans to seize political control from time to time. Nampa, one of Boises suburbs, recently banned 22 books from their schools libraries because they allegedly contained pornography, including Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale. Meanwhile, the Idaho House (the states lowest legislative chamber in more ways than one) tried to pass a law House Bill 666, amusingly enough that would criminally charge librarians if a minor checked out a book that was considered harmful by that august body; that bill ultimately died in the state senate.

Additionally, since Idaho is so conservative, its also paradoxically a punching bag by the very same conservative media some of its residents love so much. After all, if even Idaho is teaching students porn literacy (its not, but dont let that get in the way of a good plotline), surely every other school in the country including the one in your neighborhood must be so much worse!

The worst part, if youre a politician trying to build a constituency, is there frankly arent that many fans. Only three million or so people watch Tucker Carlson if you add up everyone in the country who watches cable news commentary at the same time, you reach a high water mark of around six million viewers out of a nation of over 330 million. Thats not even 2 percent of the population. Speaking as a now-former longtime member of the Libertarian Party, I know a thing or two about trying to win elections with only 1-2 percent of the electorate it doesnt work, especially when that 1-2 percent is more interested in demonstrating loyalty to their fellow fans than they are in getting outside, touching grass, and maybe talking to a neighbor or two.

Boises voters saw firsthand what happens when you let the fans take over the show. Its bad enough when it happens to a beloved media franchise (looking at you, The Rise of Skywalker). Its considerably worse when it leads to school board members bullying children because of their gender identity, books getting removed from school libraries, and politicians leading witch hunts against Marxist indoctrination from the capitol grounds because the fans favorite talking heads on television or social media showed them a 30-second viral video which proves there are luxury gay space communists infiltrating every branch of Idahos Idahos! government.

So they voted accordingly.

The rest of us, meanwhile, just wish these dorks who keep bringing guns to school board meetings, threatening to ban books, and driving our existing board members towards a mental health crisis would just go home and leave the families of Washoe County alone. Our schools have enough problems without candidates role playing as fourteenth-level Freedom Warriors fighting the Dark Lord of Marxism on the taxpayers dime.

David Colborne ran for office twice and served on the executive committees for his state and county Libertarian Party chapters. He is now an IT manager, a registered nonpartisan voter, the father of two sons, and a weekly opinion columnist for The Nevada Independent. You can follow him on Twitter @DavidColborne or email him at [emailprotected].

See more here:

Conservative book censors and conspiracy theorists don't even win in Boise The Nevada Independent - The Nevada Independent

Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo in Palko v. Connecticut

Freedom of speech, the press, association, assembly, and petition: This set of guarantees, protected by the First Amendment, comprises what we refer to as freedom of expression. It is the foundation of a vibrant democracy, and without it, other fundamental rights, like the right to vote, would wither away.

The fight for freedom of speech has been a bedrock of the ACLUs mission since the organization was founded in 1920, driven by the need to protect the constitutional rights of conscientious objectors and anti-war protesters. The organizations work quickly spread to combating censorship, securing the right to assembly, and promoting free speech in schools.

Almost a century later, these battles have taken on new forms, but they persist. The ACLUs Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project continues to champion freedom of expression in its myriad forms whether through protest, media, online speech, or the arts in the face of new threats. For example, new avenues for censorship have arisen alongside the wealth of opportunities for speech afforded by the Internet. The threat of mass government surveillance chills the free expression of ordinary citizens, legislators routinely attempt to place new restrictions on online activity, and journalism is criminalized in the name of national security. The ACLU is always on guard to ensure that the First Amendments protections remain robust in times of war or peace, for bloggers or the institutional press, online or off.

Over the years, the ACLU has represented or defended individuals engaged in some truly offensive speech. We have defended the speech rights of communists, Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, accused terrorists, pornographers, anti-LGBT activists, and flag burners. Thats because the defense of freedom of speech is most necessary when the message is one most people find repulsive. Constitutional rights must apply to even the most unpopular groups if theyre going to be preserved for everyone.

Some examples of our free speech work from recent years include:

Link:

Free Speech | American Civil Liberties Union

from the ENJOY-YOUR-FREEDOM-they-gunpointed dept

The government of Turkey, headed by exceedingly thin-skinned President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has devolved into a corrupt, anti-democratic state that still respects the freedom of the press in theory, but, in practice, only respects the freedoms of its favored press outlets, which are free to write anything the government allows them to write.

Journalists who retain their independence tend not to retain their literal freedom. The Turkish government has jailed more journalists than any other government but Chinas. The excuse for jailing people who write what the government doesnt like is the same excuse used everywhere to justify unjustifiable encroachments on peoples freedoms: terrorism.

Jonathan Spicers investigative report for Reuters digs into the how of Turkeys censorship regime, which starts with a government entity erected by Erdogan one specifically designed to ensure his regime has an ongoing source for government-approved reporting.

Directions to newsrooms often come from officials in the governments Directorate of Communications, which handles media relations, more than a dozen industry insiders told Reuters. The directorate is an Erdogan creation, employing some 1,500 people and headquartered in a tower block in Ankara. It is headed by a former academic, Fahrettin Altun.

Altuns officials issue their instructions in phone calls or Whatsapp messages that sometimes address newsroom managers with the familiar brother, according to some of these people and a Reuters review of some of the messages.

The Communications Directorate does what else? directs communications. The Erdogan administration claims this means nothing more than the normal PR work of government: issuing statements, holding press briefings, and offering comments. But thats not how it actually works.

There are independent press outlets in Turkey. Theyre under constant attack by the government. Then there are the unofficial official press outlets ones controlled by the Directorate but with a thin veneer of plausible deniability. The biggest media outlets in the country are owned by people close to Erdogan, providing a willing mouthpiece for the presidents version of current events.

If Erdogans government isnt directly oppressing journalists by jailing them, its applying indirect pressure by pulling state-sponsored ads from publications the Directorate claims have breached media ethics. From 2019 to 2020, papers owned by Erdogans inner circle received less than 16 days of suspended advertising. The other five papers not controlled by the Turkish government? 554 days.

And, of course, government claims of media ethics breaches mainly targeted content critical of the government, such as investigative reporting on suspected corruption.

And while the Directorate is a home-grown government enterprise, its base of operations (if not its sphere of influence) is much broader.

The body employs media monitors, translators and legal and public relations staff inside and outside Turkey. It has 48 foreign offices in 43 countries worldwide. These outposts deliver to headquarters weekly reports on how Turkey is portrayed in foreign media, according to an insider.

When the government is this good at censorship and this dedicated to silencing critics, sooner or later those it wishes to silence will just start doing the work themselves. Its not a chilling effect in Turkey. Its a never-ending blizzard. And it even affects those working for press outlets the government likes.

Self-censorship is now mostly automatic in mainstream media, according to several industry sources. It has existed in some form for years.

The TRT editor said that when Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2006 the first Turk to do so the state broadcaster did not mention the news until then-Prime Minister Erdogan offered his official congratulations. It was such a relief that I remember to this day, because we would never have covered it if there were no congratulations, the editor said.

And that was before Erdogan ascended to the presidency. Since then, things have gotten much worse. An independent press remains, but just barely. How long it will continue to survive seems to be almost entirely in the governments hands.

Filed Under: censorship, journalism, recep tayyip erdogan, turkey

Read this article:

Censorship Starts At Home: Turkish Gov't Controls The Press, Repeatedly Claims It Does Not Control The Press - Techdirt

A century ago, Virginia lawmakers created the Virginia State Board of Censors with the goal of keeping a close eye on what the public saw on the big screen.

The all-white board later renamed the Division of Motion Picture Censorship required edits to more than 2,000 movies between the 1920s and 1960s, and it was especially concerned about depictions of race and sexuality.

The boards targets included:

Melissa Ooten, gender research specialist at the University of Richmond, wrote Race, Gender, and Film Censorship in Virginia, 19221965, a book about the board. She sat down with VPM News Ben Paviour to discuss her research.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Paviour: Youve studied the State Board of Censors. Can you talk a little bit about what that is how it came about?

Ooten: So, the state board of sensors originated in 1922. And it was in play until 1965. And it was a board of three people who viewed all films before they could be shown in the state of Virginia legally. So, they had the power to determine that a movie cannot be shown, or more commonly, that certain scenes had to be cut out of it before it could be shown in the state.

What were they looking out for? What did they find objectionable?

Especially in the 1920s and 1930s, they were concerned about race relations. So, they looked especially at films in which you saw more equal treatment of people of color. That would be something they did not want shown, to be clear. And then anything dealing with sexuality, women's sexuality, in particular. Some violence, but that was less there were a few states that had these boards. New York's was more concerned with violence, particularly gambling those issues. But Virginia was really looking for things that they thought bordered on obscene in terms of sexuality and then race relations.

Why did they ultimately disband?

Because of Supreme Court decisions giving movies greater and greater freedom of speech rights. And they were never well funded.

When the movies switched from being silent to sound, they went for years without having the equipment to hear the sound. So, they would ask these film distributors to send them the transcript. It's not like it was some well-funded machine, right? It was three people, often loyal to the Democratic Party, which was in control of Virginia at the time. And often older white women. There were some women who served for decades for their 60s, 70s and 80s.

Do you see any parallels to contemporary movements to censor books, to take them out of schools, to restrict the sales of books? Or do you think these are very different issues?

I think they're connected. But I think what is interesting about the censorship board is that most of what they censored was not aimed at children, right? It was movies children really wouldn't be watching, period. And I think what we're talking about today is very much around kids. Or that's how it's being portrayed. But I mean, all these are part of broader culture wars.

What, if anything, do you think the State Board of Censors tells us about the era in which it operated in Virginia?

So, this was passed in 1922. It is around the same time Virginia passes an anti-miscegenation law. It is around the same time other sorts of regulations around race and around sex and sexuality [were passed]. So, it was meant as the cultural arm as they're doing these other regulations. How can we also regulate this medium that they see as potentially problematic? Because who knows what Hollywood is producing?

This at a time when Virginia is primarily rural. There is very much a strain of, The liberal radicals in Hollywood are doing [something objectionable] and now they've come to show their fare in Virginia. But then it also shows how that dissipates over time because most of their power is in the 20s and 30s.

Read more here:

Virginia Board of Censors sought to enforce Jim Crow on the big screen - VPM News

Public libraries in the U.S. are under increasing scrutiny.

Last year, the American Library Association reported a record number of book challenges, topping nearly 1,600 books.

"How a book on a shelf could be a threat to anyone is beyond us. Libraries are for voluntary reading. Libraries are for choice. They're a resource we should fiercely protect and preserve."

Efforts are also more aggressive. Several communities have voted to stop funding their public libraries. In others:

"There's been a few instances where there have been physical threats or, for example, the library in Montana that found books in their book dropped that had been riddled with bullets."

Today, On Point: Protecting America's public libraries.

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. She works on projects "addressing censorship and privacy in the library."

Patrick Sweeney, political director of EveryLibrary, the first and only national political action committee for libraries. He is also the former Administrative Librarian of the Sunnyvale Public Library in California.

George M. Johnson, author of All Boys Arent Blue. The book is a young adult non-fiction memoir about Johnson's journey growing up as a queer Black man in America. Its the third most challenged book of 2021 out of nearly 1,600 books. It has been targeted for removal in at least 14 states. (@IamGMJohnson)

Kimber Glidden, director of the Boundary County Library in Idaho.

On the climate in American libraries

Deborah Caldwell-Stone: "We're seeing the result of a divisive campaign intended to limit everyone's access to information, to really sanction one viewpoint, one political view, one approach to information, to prevent everyone from having the ability to make choices for themselves.

"We're observing organized advocacy groups try to impose an agenda on libraries to change policies, to ban books, to really limit the ability of the public library to serve as a community resource that meets the information needs of everyone in the community, but instead limits their offerings to what's approved by a few political groups in the community. And this has had very real consequences for libraries across the country.

"We're seeing contentious board meetings. We're seeing librarians actually charged in criminal court with pandering obscenity to minors. And we're also working with libraries, closely monitoring situationslike you've described, where there's been an effort to either defund the library or take over the library board in order to impose a particular agenda."

In Jamestown Township, Michigan, voters voted to defund the Patmos Library.

The library has 67,000 books, videos and other items. There were only about 90 titles voters had a problem with. Why were they willing to risk the whole library over that tiny fraction number of titles?

Deborah Caldwell-Stone: "We're seeing the result of a lot of disinformation and misinformation about libraries, how librarians work and the content of the books. For example, I absolutely reject the idea that books that deal with puberty, human reproduction, sexual health, developing good relationships have anything to do with what's called grooming. That's a falsehood that's spread by a number of advocacy groups that really have an anti-pornography, anti-LGBTQIA agenda.

"And these talking points are picked up. People don't have any basis to question them. And as a result, they are encouraged to act on that false information when they participate in elections. You know, and it's also a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of public libraries as a whole. These are community institutions that are intended to serve everyone in the community. And we know that we live in a rapidly diversifying society, that there are all kinds of people in every community that have different information needs.

"And so the library, by its nature, is going to be acquiring works that represent a variety of ideas, viewpoints, including books you might not agree with. That you might not give to your own child, but another family, another parent would want their child to read. And there's this loss of civic engagement, community feeling where we share a resource. And we understand there's a book on the shelf that is there for me. But by its very nature, the library is also going to have books on the shelf that I don't agree with, but I tolerate that. I understand that, because that means that the library will be there for me, as well, to serve my information needs.

"And we're seeing a real loss of that community, of that understanding of the library as a community institution. And the loss can be so great. A public library is essential for not only for reading books, but, you know, many, many times it's the community's portal to the internet. It supports home schooling. It supports the ability to train for new jobs, to find new jobs. It supports small businesses in the community. It's a real resource. It can help seniors with applying for Social Security.

"You know, the public library has really turned into that place, that third place you go to. Not only to read a murder mystery, but also where you can find support and information to live your best life, to find work to support your family. ... If you're a young adult, it's the place you can go to prepare to go into college, to enter the military, to start a successful career."

On defunding libraries for political leverage

Patrick Sweeney:"I think it is fundraising and getting elected. You know, we are seeing that the governors who we are seeing surfacing themselves to run for president are the ones that are beating the indoctrination and grooming drums the most. Speaking of Idaho, Heather Scott in Idaho had the Panhandle Patriots come to a meeting where she was talking about the grooming indoctrination of children who said that they weren't scared of librarians and they defend against librarians.

"Librarians are average age over 40 and 80% female. So these open carry highly militant organizations are going to shoot a 48 year old female librarian over some books. But what we're seeing is that talk was really about fundraising. It was really about riling her base. It was really about her getting the resources she need to move her personal agenda forward. You know, I think that's the most terrifying thing, how effective these lies have become in order to raise money. And so disconnect and divisiveness in our country simply for short term political gain."

On what we stand to lose when libraries are under threat

George M. Johnson: "We literally just go back to our origins, when we start to deny the ability of reading and writing. And that's what it really is, right? We're trying to literally deny an ability for people to read and people to write. And that is something that my ancestors know about very well, because we were denied that ability to read and write. It was illegal for people like me to be able to read and write in the 1800's and in the 1700's in this country. And so when we are specifically targeting books by Black people, books by queer people, we are going back to this country's origins, which is interesting.

"Because that's the whole tagline, right? Make America Great Again. And it's like, But at what point are you speaking of? Are you speaking before Black people had civil rights? Are you speaking of during slavery? Are you speaking of when the indigenous people? Like what point was it great for the people who you're literally targeting right now? And so even like when we hear those type of statements, we know exactly what the dog whistle is, too. And so when you start to say, Well, we're going to remove these specific books and we're going to start to remove these specific talking points.

"What you are really saying is that there is a second class and a third class of citizen that exists in this country, and we are going to remove the materials that make them powerful, that make other people want to know about these people, and that make other people build those bridges of empathy towards these people. Because the danger is if we lose our power as the majority, oh my God, there might actually be equity and equality. And that's not what we want. We don't want equity inequality. Like who would want that when we've been in power for so long? And so that's really the danger in removing that. It's like the onion and we just keep peeling away layers. First it's books. Then it's our rights. Then what's next?"

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Censorship wars: Why have several communities voted to defund their public libraries? - WBUR News

Tiago Henriques, a seasoned artificial intelligence expertwho noticed that news of adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines were highly censored in the media, decided to create a Facebook group that lets the vaccine-injured and their loved ones share their stories.

Most Facebook pages on the topic of vaccine side effects and adverse events get removed very quickly by the social media platform, managing to get only a few thousand followers. With technical skills and the use of methods that stay within the confines of Facebooks terms of service, Henriques and his team managed to keep their page up much longer, getting over 245,000 followers to date.

The Facebook group Died Suddenly News was created in late June 2021. Members of the private group share personal stories of people they know who have developed serious medical conditions or even died shortly after receiving the COVID-19 shots.

I wanted people to talk to each other. Individuals whove gone through the same experience, they can be there for each other, be compassionate, show some love, and just get a little bit of relief, because a lot of these people live in small communitiesthey have nobody to talk to, said Henriques in an interview on NTDs Evening News aired on Sept. 9.

The physicians wont listen to them, the nurses wont listen to them. And I think this was a great avenue for these people to feel listened to.

Henriques, who resides in Nova Scotia, says that the group started off slowly but that as the months went by, it gained momentum with more and more people signing up. In the last three, four months, its like absolutely exploded, he said.

The AI expert says the heartbeat of the group is those who share their stories.

The stories that you read on there [about] vaccine injuries, vaccine deaths, theyre very visceral, he said. These are real people in your communities, telling you, telling everybody about their story, and I think thats what makes it more real.

Henriques says the page is currently moderated by about 15 to 20 moderators, who remove any trolls attempting to disparage members or be disrespectful to them.

We keep a pretty tight lid on things. We try to make things run like a Swiss watch, but sometimes its challenging. It is a big group, it is growing, so were going to have those growing pains, he said.

Henriques, who programs in languages such as Python, PyTorch, and TensorFlow, says his team has respected Facebooks terms of service but is aware that even then their page may still be targeted and shut down. He is in the process of creating a separate platform that is not prone to censorship by social media companies.

[Its] kind of like Facebook, except with all the statistics from all over the world, he said.

Im going to have the geographical locations, which vaccines they took, what lot number, what happened to them, all the important statistical data. Were also going to have a section there where they can find help.

The programming expert says he will keep the new website open source for anyone, including those from media organizations, who are interested to see what the data is almost in real time of people around the world injured by the vaccines.

To fund the project, Henriques has set up fundraising campaigns in GoFundMe and GiveSendGo, where anyone who is interested in the cause can donate.

My mission is to have our very own platform free from censorship and judgmenta place where caring people can come share their stories free from harassment and feeling safe in a community that truly listens to them, his fundraiser pages say.

The need for the new platform is important as it would allow us to compile statistics and evidence on whats really going on in the world. It will give us autonomy and not have to fear being turned off at any time by the powers that be.

NTDs Jason Perry contributed to this report.

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Isaac Teo is an Epoch Times reporter based in Toronto.

Original post:

Facebook Group Provides a Platform for Vaccine Injured to Share Their Stories - The Epoch Times

On July 16, 2021, the day that Joe Biden accused Facebook of "killing people" by failing to suppress misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, a senior executive at the social media platform's parent company emailed Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in an effort to assuage the president's anger. "Reaching out after what has transpired over the past few days following the publication of the misinformation advisory, and culminating today in the President's remarks about us," the Meta executive wrote. "I know our teams met today to better understand the scope of what the White House expects from us on misinformation going forward."

Murthy had just published an advisory in which he urged a "whole-of-society" effort to combat the "urgent threat to public health" posed by "health misinformation," possibly including "appropriate legal and regulatory measures." Biden's homicide charge came the next day, and Meta was keen to address the president's concerns by cracking down on speech that offended him.

The email, which was recently disclosed during discovery in a federal lawsuit that Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed in May, vividly illustrates how the Biden administration engages in censorship by proxy, pressuring social media platforms to implement speech restrictions that would be flagrantly unconstitutional if the government tried to impose them directly. Landry and Schmitt, both Republicans, argue that such pressure violates the First Amendment.

"Having threatened and cajoled social-media platforms for years to censor viewpoints and speakers disfavored by the Left," the lawsuit says, "senior government officials in the Executive Branch have moved into a phase of open collusion with social-media companies to suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content on social media platforms under the Orwellian guise of halting so-called 'disinformation,' 'misinformation,' and 'malinformation.'As a direct result of these actions, there has been an unprecedented rise in censorship and suppression of free speechincluding core political speechon social-media platforms."

Landry and Schmitt reiterate that point in a "joint statement of discovery disputes" they filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. "Under the First Amendment, the federal Government should have no role in policing private speech or picking winners and losers in the marketplace of ideas," they say. "But that is what federal officials are doing, on a massive scalea scale whose full scope and impact [are] yet to be determined."

So far, Schmitt reports, documents produced by the government in response to a court order have identified 45 federal officials who "communicate with social media platforms about 'misinformation' and censorship." Schmitt and Landry think many other officials are involved in "a vast 'Censorship Enterprise' across a multitude of federal agencies," and they are seeking additional documents to confirm that suspicion.

In response to inquiries, Landry and Schmitt say, "Facebook and Instagram identified 32 federal officials, including eight current and former White House officials," who have contacted them regarding "misinformation and censorship of social-media content." YouTube "identified 11 federal officials, including five current and former White House officials," while Twitter "identified nine federal officials, including at least one White House official."

Judging from the examples that Schmitt cites, the tenor of these communications has been cordial and collaborative. The social media companies are at pains to show that they share the government's goals, which is precisely the problem. Given the broad powers that the federal government has to make life difficult for these businesses through public criticism, litigation, regulation, and legislation, the Biden administration's "asks" for stricter moderation are tantamount to commands. The administration expects obsequious compliance, and that is what it gets.

Shortly after sending the July 16 email to Murthy, according to Landry and Schmitt's joint statement, the same Meta executive sent the surgeon general a text message. "It's not great to be accused of killing people," he said, adding that he was "keen to find a way to deescalate and work together collaboratively."

And so he did. "Thanks again for taking the time to meet earlier today," the Meta executive says in a July 23, 2021, to an official at the Department of Health and Human Services.* "I wanted to make sure you saw the steps we took just this past week to adjust policies on what we are removing with respect to misinformation, as well as steps taken to further address the 'disinfo dozen.'" He brags that Meta has removed objectionable pages, groups, and Instagram accounts; taken steps to make several pages and profiles "more difficult to find on our platform"; and "expanded the group of false claims that we remove to keep up with recent trends."

Twitter also was eager to fall in line. "I'm looking forward to setting up regular chats," says an April 8, 2021, message from Twitter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). "My team has asked for examples of problematic content so we can examine trends. All examples of misinformation are helpful, but in particular, if you have any examples of fraudsuch as fraudulent covid cures, fraudulent vaccine cards, etc, that would be very helpful."

Twitter responded swiftly to the government's censorship suggestions. "Thanks so much for this," a Twitter official says in an April 16, 2021, email to the CDC. "We actioned (by labeling or removing) the Tweets in violation of our Rules." The message, which is headed "Request for problem accounts," is signed with "warmest" regards.

The government also got fast service from Instagram. In a July 20, 2021, email, Clarke Humphrey, digital director for the White House COVID-19 Response Team, requests the deletion of an Instagram parody of Anthony Fauci, Biden's top medical adviser. "Any way we can get this pulled down?" Humphrey asks. "It is not actually one of ours." Less than a minute later, he gets his answer: "Yep, on it!"

Twitter's desperation to please the Biden administration likewise went beyond deleting specific messages. Landry and Schmitt note "internal Twitter communications" indicating that senior White House officials "specifically pressured Twitter to deplatform" anti-vaccine writer Alex Berenson, "which Twitter did." In an April 16, 2021, email about a "Twitter VaccineMisinfo Briefing" on Zoom, Deputy Assistant to the President Rob Flaherty tells colleagues that Twitter will inform "White House staff" about "the tangible effects seen from recent policy changes, what interventions are currently being implemented in addition to previous policy changes, and ways the White House (and our COVID experts) can partner in product work."

Like Twitter, Facebook was thirsty for government guidance. In a July 28, 2021, email to the CDC headed "FB Misinformation Claims_Help Debunking," a Facebook official says, "I have been talking about in addition to our weekly meetings, doing a monthly disinfo/debunking meeting, with maybe claim topics communicated a few days prior so that you can bring in the matching experts and chat casually for 30 minutes or so. Is that something you'd be interested in?" The CDC's response is enthusiastic: "Yes, we would love to do that."

The communications uncovered so far mainly involved anti-vaccine messages, many of which are verifiably false. But Americans have a First Amendment right to express their opinions, no matter how misguided or ill-informed. That does not mean social media platforms are obligated to host those opinions. To the contrary, they have a First Amendment right to exercise editorial discretion. But that's not what is really happening when their decisions are shaped by implicit or explicit threats from the government. Notwithstanding all the friendly words, Facebook et al. have strong incentives to cooperate with a government that otherwise might punish them in various ways.

Ostensibly, the Biden administration is merely asking social media companies to enforce their own rules. But those rules are open to interpretation, and the government is encouraging the companies to read them more broadly than they otherwise might.

Maybe Twitter would have banished Alex Berenson even if White House officials had not intervened, but maybe not. Multiply that question across the myriad moderation decisions that social media platforms make every day, and you have a situation where it is increasingly difficult to tell whether they are exercising independent judgment or taking orders from the government.

"Although a 'private entity is not ordinarily constrained by the First Amendment,'" Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas noted in a 2021 concurrence, "it is if the government coerces or induces it to take action the government itself would not be permitted to do, such as censor expression of a lawful viewpoint.The government cannot accomplish through threats of adverse government action what the Constitution prohibits it from doing directly." That is the gist of the argument that Landry and Schmitt are making in their lawsuit.

The danger posed by the Biden administration's creepy crusade against "misinformation" is magnified by its broad definition of that concept, which encompasses speech that the government deems "misleading," even when it is arguably or demonstrably true. "Claims can be highly misleading and harmful even if the science on an issue isn't yet settled," Murthy says, and "what counts as misinformation can change over time with new evidence and scientific consensus."

In other words, the "scientific consensus," however Murthy defines it, can be wrong, as illustrated by the federal government's ever-evolving advice about the utility of face masks in preventing COVID-19 transmission. The CDC initially dismissed the value of general masking, then embraced it as "the most important, powerful public health tool we have." More recently, it has conceded that commonly used cloth masks do little, if anything, to stop coronavirus transmission.

"Twitter's 'COVID-19 misleading information policy,' as of December 2021, noted that Twitter will censor (label or remove) speech claiming that 'face masksdo not work to reduce transmission or to protect against COVID-19,'" Schmitt says. "Other platforms had similar policies. Both Senator Rand Paul and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis were censored by Youtube for questioning the efficacy of masks." Twitter even removed a mask-skeptical tweet by Scott Atlas, a member of the Trump administration's coronavirus task force. But "now," Schmitt says, "a growing body of science shows that masks, especially cloth masks, are ineffective at stopping the spread of COVID-19, and can impose negative impacts on children."

Landry and Schmitt's lawsuit also notes Twitter's blocking of theNew York Post's story about Hunter Biden's laptop, which was deemed "disinformation" prior to the 2020 presidential election but turned out to be accurate. Social media companies have made similarly questionable decisions regarding discussion of the COVID-19 "lab leak" theory, which remains contested but has not been disproven.

Even acting on their own, social media platforms are bound to make bad calls. But when the government demands that they all hew to an officially recognized "consensus," the threat to free inquiry and open debate is far graver.

*CORRECTION: The name of the HHS official is blacked out in the email obtained by Landry and Schmitt, so it's not clear whether the recipient was Murthy.

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Biden Admin's 'Misinformation' Crusade is Censorship by Proxy - Reason

One aspect of dictatorships that citizens of democratic nations often find puzzling is how the population can be convinced to support such dystopian policies. How do they get people to run those concentration camps? How do they find people to take food from starving villagers? How can they get so many people to support policies that, to any outsider, are so needlessly destructive, cruel, and dumb?

The answer lies in forced preference falsification. When those who speak up in principled opposition to a dictators policies are punished and forced into silence, those with similar opinions are forced into silence as well, or even forced to pretend they support policies in which they do not actually believe. Emboldened by this facade of unanimity, supporters of the regimes policies, or even those who did not previously have strong opinions, become convinced that the regimes policies are just and goodregardless of what those policies actually areand that those critical of them are even more deserving of punishment.

One of historys great masters of forced preference falsification was Chairman Mao Zedong. As Lszl Ladnyrecalled, Maos decades-long campaign to remold the people of China in his own image began as soon as he took power after the Chinese Civil War.

By the fall of 1951, 80 percent of all Chinese had had to take part in mass accusation meetings, or to watch organized lynchings and public executions.These grim liturgies followed set patterns that once more were reminiscent of gangland practices:during these proceedings, rhetorical questions were addressed to the crowd, which, in turn, had to roar its approval in unisonthe purpose of the exercise being to ensure collective participation in the murder of innocent victims; the latter were selected not on the basis of what they had done, but of who they were, or sometimes for no better reason than the need to meet the quota of capital executions which had been arbitrarily set beforehand by the Party authorities. From that time on, every two or three years, a new campaign would be launched, with its usual accompaniment of mass accusations, struggle meetings, self-accusations, and public executionsRemolding the minds, brainwashing as it is usually called, is a chief instrument of Chinese communism, and the technique goes as far back as the early consolidation of Maos rule in Yanan.

This decades-long campaign of forced preference falsification reached its apex during the Cultural Revolution, in which Mao deputized radical youths across China, called Red Guards, to purge all vestiges of capitalism and traditional society and impose Mao Zedong Thought as Chinas dominant ideology. Red Guards attacked anyone they perceived as Maos enemies, burned books, persecuted intellectuals, and engaged in the systematic destruction of their countrys own history, demolishing Chinas relics en masse.

Through this method of forced preference falsification, any mass of people can be made to support virtually any policy, no matter how destructive or inimical to the interests of the people. Avoiding this spiral of preference falsification is therefore why freedom of speech is such a central tenet of the Enlightenment, and why it is given such primacy in the First Amendment of the US Constitution. No regime in American history has ever previously had the power to force preference falsification by systematically and clandestinely silencing those critical of its policies.

Until now. As it turns out, anastonishingnewreleaseofdiscoverydocuments inMissouri v. Bidenin which NCLA Legal is representing plaintiffs including Jay Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff, and Aaron Kheriaty against the Biden administration for violations of free speech during Covidreveal a vast federal censorship army, with more than 50 federal officials across at least 11 federal agencies having secretly coordinated with social media companies to censor private speech.

Secretary Mayorkas of DHS commented that the federal Governments efforts to police private speech on social media are occurring across the federal enterprise. It turns out that this statement is true, on a scale beyond what Plaintiffs could ever have anticipated.The limited discovery produced so far provides a tantalizing snapshot into a massive, sprawling federal Censorship Enterprise, which includes dozens of federal officials across at least eleven federal agencies and components identified so far, who communicate with social-media platforms about misinformation, disinformation, and the suppression of private speech on social mediaall with the intent and effect of pressuring social-media platforms to censor and suppress private speech that federal officials disfavor.

The scale of this federal censorship enterprise appears to be far beyond what anyone imagined, involving even senior White House officials. The government is protecting Anthony Fauci and other high level officials by refusing to reveal documents related to their involvement.

The discovery provided so far demonstrates that this Censorship Enterprise is extremely broad, includingofficials in the White House, HHS, DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, and the Office of the Surgeon General; and evidently other agencies as well, such as the Census Bureau, the FDA, the FBI, the State Department, the Treasury Department, and the US Election Assistance Commission.And it rises to the highest levels of the US Government, including numerous White House officials In their initial response to interrogatories, Defendants initially identifiedforty-fivefederal officials at DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, and the Office of the Surgeon General (all within only two federal agencies, DHS and HHS), who communicate with social-media platforms about misinformation and censorship.

Federal officials are coordinating to censor private speech across all major social media platforms.

The third-party social-media platforms, moreover, have revealed that more federal agencies are involved.Meta, for example, has disclosed that at least 32 federal officialsincluding senior officials at the FDA, the US Election Assistance Commission, and the White Househave communicated with Meta about content moderation on its platforms, many of whom were not disclosed in response to Plaintiffs interrogatories to Defendants.YouTube disclosed eleven federal officialsengaged in such communications, including officials at the Census Bureau and the White House, many of whom were also not disclosed by Defendants.Twitter disclosed nine federal officials,including senior officials at the State Department who were not previously disclosed by Defendants.

Federal officials are granted privileged status by social media companies for the purpose of censoring speech on their platforms, and officials hold weekly meetings on what to censor.

These federal bureaucrats are deeply embedded in a joint enterprise with social-media companies to procure the censorship of social-media speech.Officials at HHS routinely flag content for censorship, for example, by organizing weekly Be On The Lookout meetings to flag disfavored content, sending lengthy lists of examples of disfavored posts to be censored,serving as privileged fact checkers whom social-media platforms consult about censoring private speech, and receiving detailed reports from social-media companies about so-called misinformation and disinformation activities online, among others.

Social media companies have even set up secret, privileged channels to give federal officials expedited means to censor content on their platforms.

For example,Facebook trained CDC and Census Bureau officials on how to use a Facebook misinfo reporting channel. Twitter offered federal officials a privileged channel for flagging misinformation through a Partner Support Portal.YouTube has disclosed that it granted trusted flagger status to Census Bureau officials,which allows privileged and expedited consideration of their claims that content should be censored.

Many suspected that some coordination between social media companies and the federal government was occurring, but the breadth, depth, and coordination of this apparatus is far beyond what virtually anyone imagined. And the scale of this censorship apparatus raises troubling questions.

How could so many federal officials be convinced to engage in the clandestine censorship of opposition to tin-pot public health policies fromChinawhich havekilledtens of thousands of young Americans andlets be honestwere never really that popular to begin with? The answer, I believe, is that high-level White House officials such as Anthony Fauci must have been simultaneously threatening social media companies if they did not comply with federal censorship demands, while also threatening entire federal bureaucracies if they did not toe the Party line.

By simultaneously threatening both the federal bureaucracy and social media companies, a handful of high-level officials could effectively transform the federal government into a sprawling censorship army reminiscent of Maos Red Guards, silencing any opposition to tin-pot public health policies with increasing detachment and certitude as this systematic silencing falsely convinced them that the regimes policies were just and good. A few of these federal employees must have eventually let slip to the Republicans that this jawboning was taking place, which appears to have been how this suit began.

In plaintiff Aaron Kheriatyswords:

Hyperbole and exaggeration have been common features on both sides of covid policy disputes. But I can say with all soberness and circumspection (and you, kind readers, will correct me if I am wrong here):this evidence suggests we are uncovering the most serious, coordinated, and large-scale violation of First Amendment free speech rights by the federal governments executive branch in US history.

Republished from the authors Substack

Michael P Senger is an attorney and author of Snake Oil: How Xi Jinping Shut Down the World. He has been researching the influence of the Chinese Communist Party on the worlds response to COVID-19 since March 2020 and previously authored Chinas Global Lockdown Propaganda Campaign and The Masked Ball of Cowardice in Tablet Magazine. You can follow his work on Substack

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Faucis Red Guards: The Mass Censoring of Social Media - Brownstone Institute

I read with interest your editorial (The Guardian view on Chinas censors: the sense of an (acceptable) ending, 24 August). In 2016, I was about to publish a book on pop art, which had a short section on artists responding to political and social turmoil in the 1960s, and which included an illustration of Jim Dines Drag Johnson and Mao (1967). The etching depicts Mao Zedong of the Peoples Republic of China and the US president Lyndon B Johnson, who sent troops to counter Chinese communist support in the Vietnam war.

Dines coloured etching applies cosmetic touches to the lips, cheeks and eyelids of these two supposed (and opposed) freedom fighters (and a black heart painted on the chin of Mao), essentially to caricature political propaganda and masculine conviction. The capitalist and communist leaders appear as drag actors whose posturing affects a global audience. The printers of my book a Chinese company forced the London publisher to remove the offending illustration and text. In our cosy western world, we should never take free speech for granted, especially if it concerns art.John FinlayEdinburgh

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Chinas censorship reaches far beyond its own borders - The Guardian