by Sam Manzella 3h ago

President Trump has suggested delaying the presidential election in November, an absurd, incredibly out-of-line proposal that literally no one thinks is feasible.

In a tweet issued this Thursday, July 30, Trump boldly and baselessly declared that universal mail-in voting due to the COVID-19 pandemic would result in the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history.

It will be a great embarrassment to the USA, he added. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???

GIPHY

Never mind that even his staunchest allies from the GOP have rejected his idea (and that tweets do not a policy make). As The New York Times reports, Trump doesnt even have the power to universally change the date of an election. Only Congress could make a decision of that caliber.

As NewNowNext has reported at length, Trump will most likely face off against Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden in November. The former VP has already scored an endorsement from HRC and launched a new initiative aimed at LGBTQ voters.

In a media statement, HRC president Alphonso David denounced Trumps poorly received suggestion as a strategy to distract us from his failed response to COVID-19 and boost his own failing campaign:

The President is losing the election because of his cruelty, incompetence, and corruption. There appear to be no limits to his efforts to propagate lies about the safety of this election He has repeatedly contradicted medical experts and science, and has taken us backwards as a nation. If the President is worried about conducting the election during a pandemic, he should support the $3.6 billion in the Heroes Act to help states and local governments implement vote-by-mail and other expanded options for voting. He should be helping ensure every American can vote safely in November, rather than continuing to advance misinformation and to undermine our democracy.

Queer activists and politicians chimed in on Twitter, too:

Trumps nonsensical tweets will come as no surprise to anyone whos followed his administrations vehemently anti-LGBTQ track record. In the summer of 2017, the president issued a series of now-infamous tweets stating he would be banning transgender people from serving in the U.S. military.

After years of legal battles contesting its validity, the trans military ban actually came into fruition in 2019. LGBTQ advocates are still fighting tirelessly to protect the rights of transgender Americans in its shadow. All this to say, even if it the presidents tweet was just a cruel joke, were taking its implications seriously.

Brooklyn-based writer and editor. Probably drinking iced coffee or getting tattooed.

Here is the original post:

LGBTQ Advocates React to Trump's Ridiculous "Delay the Election" Tweet - NewNowNext

Rep. Matt Gaetz says Silicon Valley is increasing its influence over voters, accusing Google of engaging in election interference in hopes for a Democratic victory in November.

Beyond getting President Trump out of office, Gaetz said on Wednesday that the tech giant is working to turn the United States into China through its ties with the country.

"We have proved today that many of Americas largest technology platforms are not acting in the best interest of our country," Gaetz said on Fox News's Hannity.

The CEOs of four of the country's biggest tech companies appeared in front of the House Judiciary Committee earlier in the day to answer lawmakers' questions regarding online competition.

Gaetz has been a major critic of Silicon Valley, accusing companies of silencing conservative voices online and on social media. During the testimony, the Florida Republican grilled Google CEO Sundar Pichai about allegations that the company was advancing China's artificial intelligence capabilities after refusing to work with the U.S. military.

"Its not that they are just working with China, they are trying to turn our country into China," Gaetz said. "Google, in particular, is the most dangerous election interference organization in the world."

Gaetz also said tech companies made him and other Republicans the victims of shadow banning or blocking content from being seen online. He said this was particularly relevant during the Russia investigation.

"Twitter shadow banned four members of Congress during the Russian hoax: Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, Devin Nunes, and Matt Gaetz," he said. "That was not a coincidence ... the Department of Justice should go and investigate these major tech platforms and prove that they are not biased. We've got enough smoke. There's definitely fire."

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'Most dangerous election interference organization': Matt Gaetz accuses Google of trying to turn US into China - Washington Examiner

In early June, Erynn Chambers stepped onto her porch, just outside the front door of her North Carolina home, opened TikTok on her phone, and began to film herself.

"Black neighborhoods are overpoliced, so of course they have higher rates of crime," she sang to her own tune. "And white perpetrators are undercharged, so of course they have lower rates of crime."

Chambers, 27, who started using the short-form video app during quarantine, had just watched a TikTok by drag queen Online Kyne discussing the manipulation of statistics to make Black Americans appear more violent. Chambers, an elementary school music teacher, set her frustration to music.

"It went viral pretty much overnight," Chambers said. "It was incredible."

Chambers refers to her content, made under the user name @Rynnstar, as "edu-tainment" education and entertainment and she uses it, in part, to raise awareness of the American Black experience. She's one of a number of Black creators on TikTok who have used the app as a platform for advocacy against racism. Chambers' post has nearly 2 million views and was reposted countless times.

But TikTok sits uneasily at the intersection of viral social media, celebrity and activism. The platform has long been accused of elevating white voices over Black voices. While Black creators have been integral to the rise of TikTok some of the most popular dances, challenges and trends were born in the imaginations of Black TikTokers their work hasn't always gotten the same level of attention as that of their white peers.

Black creators said that their content wasn't highlighted on the "For You" page at the same rate as that of their white peers and that their videos have been taken down and audio-disabled without explanation, and experts say they often don't get credit for trends and challenges they start.

Over the last few months, however, in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd in police custody in May and Breonna Taylor in March, TikTok has made some forays into elevating Black creators on the app. Yet some worry that there's a flip side to the elevation of activism: burnout.

In early June, just days before Chambers' viral video was posted, TikTok posted an apology to its Black creators, saying it was sorry to those "who have felt unsafe, unsupported, or suppressed." TikTok promised long-term action to make the platform more diverse and to elevate Black creators. The apology came after a TikTok Blackout in May, an on-app protest against the suppression of Black voices, as protests against police brutality and racism took place worldwide.

Since then, some users of TikTok, including many Black creators, have reported seeing a more diverse and inclusive "For You" page, TikTok's infinite scroll homepage, which feeds users a constant stream of videos. In the past, the "For You" page has been accused of what might be called infinite whiteness.

But grading the app's move toward inclusiveness and how successfully it's amplifying Black voices differs across content creators. Some say they are optimistic that a more inclusive TikTok is in the works; others describe the battle for representation as simply exhausting. Each of the half-dozen Black TikTok creators who spoke to NBC News said they've experienced burnout but some, who say they are tired of arguing with followers and fighting for representation, are considering leaving the app altogether.

One frustration that can lead to burnout is the lack of credit given to Black creators who originate trends on the app, said University of Southern California assistant journalism professor Allissa Richardson, author of "Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones and the New Protest #Journalism."

"I saw a ton of Black youth creators complaining that even though they made up these dance challenges, they were increasingly being pushed to the bottom of the search results on TikTok," Richardson said.

Most famous is the renegade, a dance phenomenon that helped propel white creators like Charli D'Amelio to over 70 million followers. It was created by a Black 14-year-old named Jalaiah Harmon. Although the trend was, for a time, the most popular on the app, Jalaiah was recognized only toward the end of the trend's life cycle by mainstream media and TikTok alike, garnering profiles in the The New York Times and Teen Vogue. She now has over 1 million followers on TikTok.

TikTok isn't the only social media platform to have come under scrutiny over its handling of race. YouTube, Twitter and Reddit have been accused of allowing hate speech to thrive.

"TikTok is acknowledging the problem. They're not saying it's not real. They're saying we have work to do," said Bria Jones, 26, a fashion, beauty and lifestyle TikTok influencer based in Kansas. Jones, who goes by @HeyBriaJones on the app, has grown a base of more than 278,000 followers in just under a year.

Mutale Nkonde, a fellow at Stanford University's Digital Civil Society Lab who is a member of TikTok's independent advisory board, the Content Advisory Council (she doesn't work for TikTok), said she has been impressed with TikTok's proactiveness in addressing racism on the app.

"They're really leading in terms of seeking out people who will push back against the technology when the technology is not doing right by Black people," Nkonde said.

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Get breaking news and insider analysis on the rapidly changing world of media and technology right to your inbox.

The issues of racial bias and content suppression of Black creators on TikTok reached a boiling point on May 19, when Black TikTok creators held a Blackout to uplift their content and raise awareness that their videos were underrepresented.

During the Blackout, users changed their profile pictures to the Black Lives Matter raised fist. Black creators used specific hashtags like "#ImBlackMovement" and posted videos about their content and experiences on TikTok. In solidarity, some white creators agreed not to post content to help amplify their Black counterparts.

June 1 brought the TikTok apology.

TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer, along with some of the app's engineers, also held a video conference last month with around a dozen Black creators, including Jones, to learn more about their experiences.

"I do feel like they are making changes," Jones said. Other Black creators said they're noticing more equality on the app, too.

High school activist Deonna Blocker, 17, who goes by @Deesymone on the app, estimates that she now sees 70 percent Black creators on her "For You" page and 30 percent white creators. However, because every user's "For You" page is different based on the content a user interacts with, it's unclear whether any other user is being shown the same breakdown of content.

"I think they're definitely doing a better job at presenting Black creators. Before ... my ['For You' page] was very white, and I would very rarely see a Black creator," Deonna said. "Once everything went down with George Floyd and even Juneteenth and the Blackouts ... it went up significantly." Deonna's videos calling out racism and highlighting Blackouts have gotten thousands of views.

Improvement can be creator-specific: TikTok's "For You" homepage feeds each user a unique stream of content. While some Black creators say they're seeing changes noticing more engagement and increases in followers others say they believe they're shadow banned on the app, or blocked from reaching the main TikTok feed without any kind of notification from TikTok.

TikTok told NBC News it unequivocally does not shadow ban users.

Nkonde, the advisory council member, said the app has also told her it doesn't engage in shadow banning. But she said that if shadow banning still occurs as a glitch in the system, it must be addressed.

"If your app is just going to have all of these glitches and all of these glitches impact Black people, your app is still racist," Nkonde said.

Emily Barbour, 25, who is @emuhhhleebee on the app, said she feels as though she's being gaslighted when she's told that the app is working to highlight Black creators. Some videos Barbour has posted that she felt would typically get high levels of engagement have hardly made a blip on the radar of other TikTokers.

"It's exhausting, because it's just following along this pattern that's been going on for decades, years, centuries, where Black people aren't being heard and everybody's pretending it's not happening," Barbour said.

Chambers, who created the viral song, had used her platform to convey a wealth of information, from linguistics to history to activism, long before this spring's Black Lives Matter protests. But Chambers said that after the May Blackout and the June apology, she noticed that her account was starting to pick up traction. Her account has more than 400,000 followers.

Other TikTokers, like Jones, moved toward activism after Floyd's death.

"I started speaking on Black lives, and I started speaking on my experiences, and I started this series where I talked about my experiences with microaggressions, and that went very, very viral and brought in a lot of new followers for me, and those were just straight up stories I experienced," Jones said.

Jones said she shifted her TikTok's focus to include education when she interacted with followers who told her they had changed their behavior after learning from her.

But a large following can be excessively demanding.

"When you've got 400,000 people who want to hear you and are expecting to hear from you, it can be exhausting," Chambers said.

All of the creators who spoke to NBC News said they have experienced burnout at one point or another especially those whose pages have been elevated and whose follower counts have skyrocketed.

"People assume because you're willing to speak up about something, you're now an ambassador to everybody else in your demographic, and it's not true. ... It does contribute a lot to the burnout, because I don't know everything. Not one of us knows everything," Barbour said.

Barbour said that for Black creators, sharing their trauma in the name of education can feel draining and that having to argue with followers about their experiences can lead them to want to quit altogether.

"It's so unrealistic to assume because you like this Black creator and because they speak up about these things that they're going to speak up about everything and give their opinions about everything," she said. "It can't work, especially considering this is an app and it's something we're not getting paid for."

Frustration and burnout aren't the only side effects Black creators experience when their content isn't elevated and they're not given credit for their work, said Richardson, the journalism professor.

"For some of these kids, they do want to have that level of clout that will enable them to do other things that they love," she said. "And without that necessary audience, those eyeballs, without that metric in place to prove that they are an influencer, they're denied the lucrative endorsements that maybe their white peers receive more regularly."

Jones said she believes a more equitable TikTok is coming, particularly after the meeting with other Black creators and TikTok executives last month.

"It's a difficult issue, because it's so much deeper than an algorithm," Jones said. "It's a society thing. It's going to take a lot of work."

TikTok executives told Jones that they planned to check in with the creators who were invited to the meeting after 90 days to discuss whether they've seen improvements in the app's equity.

Jones said she's optimistic that the future of TikTok is one in which Black creators are on a level playing field with their white counterparts.

"It will come in time. I don't know what that timeline's going to look like, but I'm very hopeful TikTok has the resources and brainpower on their team to make this happen," she said.

Go here to read the rest:

From the renegade to Black Lives Matter: How Black creators are changing TikTok culture - NBC News

As the war on conservative voices online reaches fever pitch in the run-up to Novembers presidential election, Silicon Valleys oligarchy finally was called to account Wednesday on Capitol Hill.

Big Tech is out to get conservatives Ohio Republican Jim Jordan told the bosses of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. Thats not a suspicion, thats not a hunch. Thats a fact.

Then he laid out a litany of censorship atrocities in a blistering opening statement before the congressional antitrust panel.

They included:

Think about that, said Jordan. They can lie for China. They can shill for China. But you say something against them, you get censored.

Then of course there is Twitter. CEO Jack Dorsey was absent from the hearing, despite an invitation, but that didnt stop Jordan from excoriating the social-media giant.

He said Twitter shadow-banned four conservative members of Congress two years ago: Jordan and fellow Republicans Matt Gaetz, Devin Nunes and Mark Meadows.

What did Mr. Dorsey tell us? It was just a glitch in our algorithm ...

Weve heard that excuse time and time again.

Then he listed the times in the past several weeks that Twitter has censored President Trumps tweets by affixing warning labels to them.

For instance, Twitter labeled as abusive a Trump tweet last month that read: There will never be an Autonomous Zone in Washington, D.C., as long as Im your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!

While Twitter didnt appear on Capitol Hill, in Israels Knesset, a Twitter spokeswoman during a hearing on anti-Semitism Wednesday was grilled about political bias.

She was asked why tweets from President Trump have been censored but not tweets from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling for the genocide of Jews and the elimination of Israel.

World leaders indulging in foreign-policy saber-rattling on military and economic issues are generally not in violation of our Twitter rules, the spokeswoman said.

By contrast, she said Trumps tweet violated Twitters policies regarding the glorification of violence based on the historical context of the last line of that tweet and the risk that it could possibly inspire harm.

Which is clear as mud.

Jordan also pointed out that Khamenei, the leader of the largest state sponsor of terrorism, last week threatened American citizens in a tweet: The Islamic Republic of Iran will never forget the martyrdom of Haj Qasem Soleimani the Iranian general suspected of carrying out terrorist operations who was killed by a targeted drone strike and will definitely strike a reciprocal blow to the US.

There is no warning label affixed to Khameneis tweet.

Other highlights of the Capitol Hill hearing were Jordan ripping into Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google parent company Alphabet, about Googles efforts to help Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

There is ample evidence. A video leaked to Breitbart in 2016, for instance, showed Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page lamenting Trumps victory at a meeting of Google executives, and vowing not to make the same mistake again.

Brin promised that before the 2020 election Google would be very vigilant and thinking about all these issues [to see] what we can do to lead to maybe a better quality of governance and decision-making.

Jordan also cited a 2019 Project Veritas undercover expos in which Google executives explained how they planned to undermine Trump and influence the 2016 election.

Jordan asked Pichai Wednesday about a 2016 e-mail from the head of multicultural marketing to Google execs referring to a silent donation the company had made to the Clinton campaign and you applauded her work, the Ohio congressman said.

Can you assure Americans today you wont tailor your features to help Joe Biden in the upcoming election? Jordan asked.

Pichai denied any partisanship and said he and the company support both campaigns today. But eventually he offered a commitment to fairness.

Gaetz, a Florida Republican, was equally savage with Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg. Gaetz asked why the CEO fired virtual-reality wunderkind and Facebook exec Palmer Luckey, who during the 2016 election cycle had donated $10,000 to an anti-Hillary Clinton group.

When you fire people as a consequence of their politics, do you think that impacts the culture and perhaps empowers some of the content moderators to also treat people worse as a consequence of their politics?

Zuckerberg denied the charge, but Gaetz replied: Ive seen the messages where you have specifically directed Mr. Luckey to make statements regarding his politics to the benefit of your company ...

There is a serious question as to whether or not you are giving truthful testimony here or whether youre lying to Congress.

Boom.

Maybe the tech giants have reasonable excuses for each incident of censorship and bias, but taken together there is a pattern of conduct which leads to the inescapable conclusion that they are in the business of trying to rig elections.

They must be brought to heel.

The shark attack that killed New York mom Julie Dimperio Holowach off the Maine coast this week has been described as incredibly rare, bad luck and due to a population explosion of seals.

All of which may be true, but what is not mentioned is that the global population of killer great whites also has been exploding in the 16 years since they were designated a protected species, to the detriment of humans.

An indication of the growing aggression of these apex predators came in Australia earlier this month when a great white leaped out of the water and snatched a 10-year-old boy from a fishing boat. The child survived only because his father jumped into the water to save him.

With six fatalities already this year, compared to just two in 2015, shark attacks in Australia have increased to the point of causing economic damage to coastal towns as tourists stay away.

Shark conservationists blame the victim for being in the sharks territory but surely human life takes priority.

Great whites were protected in 2004 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. At the time, Japan opposed the move, saying there was zero evidence the shark numbers were in peril and warning that overprotection posed a risk to humans.

Lets hope Holowach, 63, is the last great white victim on the East Coast but the Australian experience advises caution.

If there is one person to blame for the shabby, spiteful tone suffusing Congress, it is Nancy Pelosi.

She was at it again this week after her Capitol Hill colleagues boorish questioning of Bill Barr, indulging in her favorite sport of fattism.

He was like a blob, the House Speaker told MSNBC Tuesday, her face writhing with distaste, after the unflappable attorney general made a meal out of House Dems.

Its not the first time Pelosi, 80, has insulted an opponents weight. A couple of months ago she snarked that the president was morbidly obese.

There are plenty of unflattering comments Barr could make about Pelosis appearance, not to mention her rectitude and intellect, but hes too much of a gentleman.

For all her faux gentility, Pelosi sets the tone for her party.

While she constantly lambastes President Trump for indecorous behavior, she has done more than anyone to erode the norms of civility that used to define Congress.

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Big Tech must be brought to heel over election influencing: Devine - New York Post

RUSH: Theres a congressional hearing going on today. The same House committee, the Judiciary Committee. This is a hearing into antitrust monopolistic practices of big tech. You have Tim Cook from Apple there. You got Zuckerberg from Facebook there. Youve got Bezos from Amazon there. You got the Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, Pichai, whatever his name is. Theyre all there, and theyre being hit hard by Jim Jordan and others.

The purpose of the hearing is multifaceted, as you will hear in a sound bite we have of Jim Jordan. Hes choosing to go after them for their anti-conservative bias, particularly Google and Facebook: Their search results in case of Google and Facebook for their shadow banning and Twitter. Jack Dorseys there as well.

And then there are others who are going after them on monopolistic grounds like Apple and its App Store and the fact that basically these people have no competitors. And when a competitor pops up, they buy them and shut them down and silence them. So theres Its, as I say, a multifaceted attack on Big Tech.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now to the audio sound bites. Here is Alex Marlow. Alex Marlow was on with Tucker Carlson last night. Alex Marlow is the editor-in-chief at Breitbart, and this is an example of how Google is essentially trying to erase Breitbart from existing via its search engine. So Tucker Carlsons question: Give us an example of what youve learned that Google is doing to your site.

MARLOW: Gradually since the 2016 election, Googles been diminishing our search results and then all of a sudden, in May of this year, we virtually lost all Google traffic, all search traffic altogether. Let me give you some specific pieces of data: A Google track, something called a visibility index. This is sort of like their Nielsen score.

Thats when your content shows up on one of their pages. Breitbarts is down 99.77%. Overall, our Google traffic is down nearly two-thirds. If you want to search for Joe Biden or Biden, the chance of you getting a Breitbart article are virtually zero, virtually no opportunity for you to get it unless, of course, you add the word Breitbart.

RUSH: All right. Now, I know theres a number of different reactions that you can have to this. A, its obvious what Google is doing here. They are practicing censorship, and theyre doing everything they can, via their search engine and results, to eliminate conservative websites. They are also using the fact that they control internet advertising, to deprive conservative websites of any Google-related advertising.

And most of the advertising on the internet sadly is run through Google. They own it. It is their primary source of income. And they are defunding conservative websites and blogs. And theyre also eliminating conservative websites and backlogs from any search results. Now, you can argue, Its unfair, they shouldnt be. But look. Theyre Google. They can do what they want to do. The idea that we should expect a bunch of leftists to treat us fairly is kind of naive.

I dont want to be cruel here, but Google is what it is. I mean, if youre gonna end up somehow becoming dependent on them, then you ought to realize that at some point theyre gonna turn on you. Its like the story of the scorpion and the frog, or pick your animal. Scorpion hitches a ride across a lake on the back of a turtle. And the turtle says, I dont want to take you because youre gonna kill me.

No, no, no, I wont, I wont, youre gonna save my life, youre gonna get me across the lake. So the turtle takes the scorpion across the lake. And as sure as you can count it, they get to the other side, the scorpion stings the turtle and kills it. And the turtle, I thought you said that you werent gonna sting me.

And the scorpion said, What did you think I was gonna do? Im a scorpion. Its what I do. I sting you. Google is the scorpion. Now, maybe when this all started Google was fair or more fair than they are now. But to expect a bunch of leftists this would be like expecting the Democrat Party to give us access and to have the Democrat Party promote our point of view for 40 or 50% of the day. We would never expect that to happen.

And yet there is this expectation that Google should. Well, but its the only search engine. No, its not the only search engine. Theres all kinds of search engines out there. Theres DuckDuckGo. Theres Bing, which is Microsoft. Look, I dont want to appear to be insensitive. Because I understand. I understand the problem. Google is the search engine of search engines. And they ought to be playing fair since they have so much power.

And thats what this hearing is about today. The monopolistic power that these tech companies have and theres always the threat of antitrust legislation unless they straighten up. But the Democrats are not gonna do anything to harm Google. The Democrats are not gonna do anything to harm Facebook. The Democrats arent gonna do anything to harm Twitter.

And the Democrats run the House. So the idea that the Democrats are going to do anything to damage their political partners? Thats kind of the wrong expectation. I want you to hear nevertheless Jim Jordan during his I guess this is his opening statement today. This is how he kicked off what he thinks this is all about.

JORDAN: Ill just cut to the chase. Big techs out to get conservatives. Thats not a suspicion. Thats not a hunch. Thats a fact. July 20 of 2020 Google removed the home pages of Breitbart and The Daily Caller. Just last night we learned Google has censored Breitbart so much, traffic has declined 99%. June 16th, 2020, Google threatened to demonetize and ban The Federalist. June 29th, 2020, Amazon bans President Trumps account on Twitch after he raises concerns about defunding the police. June 4th, 2020, Amazon bans a book critical of the coronavirus lockdown written by a conservative commentator.

May 27th, 2020, Amazon Smile wont let you give to the Family Research Council and the Alliance Defense Fund, but you can give to Planned Parenthood. Facebook, June 19th, 2020, takes down posts from President Trumps reelection campaign. November 1st, 2018, Facebook silences a pro-life organizations advertisement. May 19th, 2016, former Facebook employees admit Facebook routinely suppresses conservative views. And I havent even mentioned Twitter.

RUSH: Why would we expect them to behave any differently than this? Do we not know who liberals are? Do we not know what they do? Do we not know how they operate? Now, I know, look. Again. Theyre all promising to be fair. Googles denying that theres any bias. And Facebook, Zuckerberg, they deny theres any bias. And the same with Twitter. Jack, no, we dont have any. Theyre out there lying through their teeth about it. But in terms of their behavior, they are who they are. Theres not a single thing about what Googles doing that is a surprise.

Now, they definitely have a monopoly on searches. There is no question that. And so its a legitimate question. Why should they be allowed to be a monopoly when IBM wasnt allowed to be one? Microsoft was not allowed to be one. Standard Oil was not allowed to be one. AT&T, Ma Bell, not allowed to be one. So why is Google allowed to be one? The answer is because they are partners with the Democrat Party. Its that simple.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So Ive got this sound bite from Zuckerberg. I dont think Im gonna have time to get it in because the question is longer than the bite. But you gotta hear this. Here is what he was asked by James Sensenbrenner, Republican, Wisconsin. He said, It was reported that Donald Trump Jr, got taken down (from Twitter) for a period of time, because he put something up of the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine. There still is a debate on whether it is effective. Wouldnt that be up to somebody else to say, okay, what somebody posted on this really isnt true?

In other words, hes asking the question of Zuckerberg that I asked yesterday. Who on Twitter is the medical expert that can immediately proclaim that this Nigerian doctor doesnt know what shes talking about? Who is the medical expert at Twitter, at Facebook? Who is it that has the authority to claim that a doctor doesnt know what shes talking about and can pull down any reference to that doctors comments? Zuckerbergs answer coming up.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I just watched this loco weed, this guy Jamie Raskin, this Democrat from Maryland, ask an epic question of Zuckerberg. These guys have got Cambridge Analytica on the brain. This question was all about (doing impression), So you allowed the Russians to tamper in the election. You allowed Cambridge Analytica to turn America into a bunch of anti-Semites and a bunch of racists. Theres millions of people in Cambridge Analytica, and Cambridge -

Cambridge Analytica is just one conservative outfit that used Facebook like the Democrat Party and thousands of organizations use Facebook. But because there was one conservative group that found a way to turn Facebook to its advantage, we gotta single em out and we gotta destroy em, and Zuckerberg, you gotta explain, how did you let this conservative outfit use your company so effectively?

Now, Zuckerberg started to answer as soon as the break ended, so I havent heard his answer. I think, you know, all these guys, Zuckerberg and Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai, when these things are over, they probably get together, Can you believe these idiots that the American people have elected? They sit perfunctorily through these hearings and they tell these people what they think they want to hear and then they end it and go home and nothing ever changes.

Google is gonna remain a monopoly on search. Google, Facebook, whatever, is gonna remain a monopoly on whatever it is. Twitter is gonna remain the sewer that it is. And theyre all going to remain tied to the hip of the Democrat Party. Now, heres Zuckerbergs answer. Question he was asked by Sensenbrenner, It was reported that Donald Trump Jr, got taken down (from Twitter) for a period of time, because he put something up of the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine. There still is a debate on whether it is effective. Wouldnt that be up to somebody else to say, okay, what somebody posted on this really isnt true, heres what the facts are, rather than having a Twitter or Facebook take it down?

Its a great question. Its what I raised yesterday. Who is the medical expert at Twitter or Facebook that can, on the fly and within minutes, claim that the Nigerian doctor doesnt know what shes talking about? Nor does anybody in her doctors group know what theyre talking about. Who is it at Facebook that knows these things? Who is it at Twitter? Heres Zuckerbergs answer.

ZUCKERBERG: We do not want to become the arbiters of of truth. I think that that would be a bad position for us to be in and not not what we should be doing. But on specific claims, if someone is gonna go out and say that hydroxychloroquine is proven to cure COVID, when in fact it has not been proven to cure COVID and that that statement could lead people to take a drug that in some cases some of the data suggests that it might be harmful to people, we think that we should take that down. That could cause imminent risk of harm.

RUSH: Yeah, but we dont want to be arbiters of truth. See, we dont want to be arbiters of truth except on hydroxychloroquine, and then we will be arbiters of truth. This business of research that suggests it might be harmful to people is bogus. Its a Lancet survey and story and a research bunch and still up there. Lancets a magazine. Its bogus. There have been so many bogus studies and reports of the dangers of hydroxychloroquine, and theyve all been debunked.

And thats why hydroxychloroquines making a comeback because there are doctors around the world who are using it, who swear by it, whove never lost a patient. And they dont understand why in the world, in the medical community, its not being advocated. Its cheap. Theres your answer. Its plentiful. It has 50 years of market testing. Its an anti-malarial drug, thats its primary usage, but you talk about clinical trials and all that, hydroxychloroquine has had 50 years. They dont need to have massive testing here with COVID-19. They have, and doctors with using it because in their experience it works.

But I just think, folks, that the real question is: so Donald Trump Jr. retweets the Nigerian doctor, and others do, and they get immediately taken down, their accounts suspended. Which means that somebody at Twitter and somebody at Facebook is claiming to be a medical authority, and we dont know who they are. Now, Dr. Simone Gold is the leader of the group that Dr. Immanuel is part of, Stella Immanuel is a Nigerian doctor. Shes the one that led the group on the steps of the Supreme Court. And it was her video that went viral, 20 million views before they were able to take it down.

By the way, my tech blog buddies, they are angry as hell at that. They cant believe that 20 million people saw it before it was taken down. Its irresponsible. Somebody at Facebook and somebody at Twitter must pay. So it got out there. But Dr. Simone Gold says: Our website host, which is Squarespace, has just completely and arbitrarily shut down our website, claiming a violation of their terms of service. This is crazy. We are a group of doctors advocating for a better understanding of COVID-19 and its available treatment options. This is outrageous. Were not subverting anything. Were not purposely countering medical ethics. Were not making anybody sick. Were advocating for a better understanding of COVID-19. They take us down.

Their website host has canceled them, not just Twitter and Facebook. But here we go. Michigan hospital study says: Treatment with Hydroxychloroquine Cut Death Rate Significantly in COVID-19 Patients Treatment with hydroxychloroquine cut the death rate significantly in sick patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and without heart-related side-effects, according to a new study published by Henry Ford Health System.

Our analysis shows that using hydroxychloroquine helped saves lives, said neurosurgeon Dr. Steven Kalkanis, CEO, Henry Ford Medical Group and Senior Vice President and Chief Academic Officer of Henry Ford Health System. As doctors and scientists, we look to the data for insight. And the data here is clear that there was benefit to using the drug as a treatment for sick, hospitalized patients.'

From the Desert Review: Local Doctor Pushing Proven Treatment Of COVID Into National Debate A front-line local doctor treating COVID-19 patients claims to have figured out what works to keep his patients alive. He claims to have answers on better controlling, and curbing, a pandemic that knows no boundaries. Dr. George Fareed is a physician who can be spotted during football season as local high schools field doctor working with athletes from Holtville, El Centro, Imperial, and lately, with Brawley Union High School.

Its really tragic, in a way, because the use of hydroxychloroquine I mean, theres doctors all over the country, some who know each other, some who dont, theyre all singing the praises of this drug. This would be a massive, massive conspiracy here. At any rate, if this is all true, then the hydroxychloroquine cocktail, azithromycin, Z-Pak, zinc, whatever, would solve some of the very basic problems that were now facing. Its a preventative. It would prevent hospitalizations. It would keep the hospitals and ICUs from being overrun with COVID-19 patients. It apparently can be used early on in hospitalization to prevent patients from requiring ventilators, can reduce the length of a hospital stay.

Does it strike any of you as strange that theres literally no desire and no interest on the part of so many in the medical community to even consider it? Hydroxychloroquine, all you have to do is mention it, and it is immediately impugned and ripped to shreds. There is no curiosity whatsoever from the people well call the nonbelievers.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Folks, I got a theory here about whats going on. And the theory might irritate some people, but let me share it with. Okay, 24 and 8, Mike. Have them standing by. Go back to 1988. In 1988, there were the big three ABC, CBS, NBC and then you had the New York Times, the Washington Post. That was the media. They owned it.

There were only three TV networks and the two big papers, and that was a monopoly. They owned it. They owned what to report, what not to report. They owned commentary. Then this show kicked off in August of 88, and we busted their monopoly. For the first time, for the first time in generations maybe first time ever there was an alternative to the liberal dominance in news and information controlled by CBS, NBC, ABC, and the newspapers.

So this show begins, then Rush Limbaugh the TV Show, then a number of other conservative radio talk shows, nationally and locally, then Fox News. And pretty soon the blogosphere and websites. And pretty soon there is this massive, right-wing, alternative media that busts up the mainstream medias monopoly and they still havent gotten over it!

They are still trying to recapture the days of glory when they were able to get rid of anybody they wanted to with one of two stories. Theyd get rid of Nixon, get rid of any Republican they wanted to because they had. That all ended in August of 1988. I think that even though its taken them 30 years, they have now begun to reestablish their control of the flow of news and information and theres a new big three now.

Its not ABC, CBS, NBC anymore. Its Google, Facebook, and Twitter. I think the Democrat Party and Big Media have gone ahead and conceded that if theyre to get their dominance and their monopoly in news back, its gonna have to be with Google and Twitter and Facebook. I think those are the new big three replacing ABC, CBS, NBC from all the way back in 1988 and years before.

Now, it took them 30 years to recover from what started in 1988. But thats what were facing. Now, ABC, CBS, NBC are still powerful. Dont misunderstand. CNN, all that. But the real monopoly in news now is Facebook and Twitter and Google with their search engine, because it is those three who can eliminate conservatism on the Web. They can eliminate by denying advertising revenue.

They can deny them presence in search engines. They have tried to take me and this program out I cant tell you how many times, and theyve failed. Do you know why? We have never been dependent on them. I have never been dependent on social media for a dollar of revenue generated by this program. We do it independently. We dont depend on some foreign sales outfit, some conglomerate that sells advertising for everybody.

We do it ourselves.

So its the same thing. Where the media didnt make me, they cant break me. The media is not responsible for any of my revenue. They cant take it away. They can try. They can institute these boycotts. They can try to destroy me, my reputation, all that and theyve tried numerous times. Theyve failed. So they can be beat, or they can be stopped. But not if you depend on em for either revenue or search engine results or what have you.

See the original post here:

The New Big Three Revived the News Monopoly We Busted - Rush Limbaugh

The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) has released a statement urging the South Australian Liberal government to reject a proposed bill that aims to ban conversion therapy practice in the state.

The statement follows news that South Australias Labor opposition were working on a bill to outlaw conversion therapy, with support expected from The Greens, due to hit parliament in September.

InDaily reported earlier this month that Shadow Human Services Minister Nat Cook was drafting legislation to ban the conversion therapy statewide, while Attorney-General Vickie Chapman says she has looked into how to criminalise the practice.

Australian Christian Lobbys state director Christopher Brohier says Attorney-General admitted there is no evidence of such practices in SA, with Chapman telling InDaily the practice has not yet been identified as operating in South Australia.

That is the truth, and there is grave danger of unintended consequences in banning non-existent practices, Broheir said in a statement, expanding the debate to include gender diversity and religious teaching.

A ban on a doctor or parent confirming a gender-confused child in their natal sex means substandard health care for young people with gender dysphoria, Broheir continued.

Even wait and see attempts will be deemed conversion therapy.

Brohier and the ACL also believe the ban would prevent Australian churches, mosques and other faith communities from teaching gender and sexuality according to their faith.

It would be highly irresponsible for the Marshall Government to support a private members bill which is based on a myth. The Liberal Government must promptly make it clear that it would oppose this Bill.

Brohiers statement also echoes calls from the ACLs Managing Director Martyn Iles, who spoke out against state bans back in 2019.

Speaking to InDaily,Shadow Human Services Minister Nat Cook said her Bill would be designed to see a conversion ban through changes to the Criminal Law Consolidation Act and the Health and Community Services Act, enforced by SA Police and the Health Complaints Commissioner.

I think this is a situation where people would be blissfully unaware that this was actually an issue and clearly in a society where we expect and insist on equality and inclusion there should be no notion that this type of therapy is even considered, Cook said.

To think that there are people out there that would be wilfully and deliberately harming people purely on the basis of their sexuality and gender is something which I find completely unacceptable and I dont think it passes any type of test in this community.

Yes. Conversion therapy, which is very much a reality across Australia, has been condemned by numerous medical and mental health professionals and peak bodies as harmful to LGBTIQ+ folks here and around the world.

The effects of the practice, which seeks to force people to deny their sexuality or gender identity, were examined in depth by La Trobe University, the Human Rights Law Centre and Gay & Lesbian Health Victoria in 2018, resulting in a comprehensive report.

Preventing Harm, Promoting Justice: Responding to LGBT conversion therapy in Australiaexamined the experiences of 15 LGBT+ Australians who had survived the practice, developing recommendations for definitive legal reform.

The report urges governments, the health sector and religious communities themselves to better respond to those struggling to reconcile their sexuality or gender with their religious beliefs.

The report reveals immense trauma and grief participants felt at the prospect of having to choose between their faith or their gender and sexuality, both intimate and important parts of themselves, La Trobe Universitys Dr Tim Jones said of the report in 2018.

The psychological and spiritual trauma experienced by our participants, at their loss of faith, or their struggle to be accepted by their communities, was devastating.

The future of conversion therapy practices in Australia is uncertain. While many states and territories, including Western Australia, have started considering how to enact a ban, the Morrison Governments Religious Discrimination Bill is still on the horizon, and could undermine state legislation.

A special provision in the draft legislation that protects statements of belief (section 41.1.c) would allow the Attorney General to override future state laws prohibiting the promotion of the harmful and discredited practices.

Sections 15 and 16 of the Bill could also make it harder to deregister a counsellor who engages in conversion practices based on their religious beliefs.

Leigh Andrew Hill

Help support the publication of OUTinPerth by contributing to ourGoFundMe campaign.

Read more from the original source:

ACL says conversion therapy a 'myth', fights ban in South Australia - OUTinPerth

New York rapper 50 Cent wants Instagram to get its act together. The hip-hop veteran has come forward to single out the powerhouse for allegedly shadow banning his account and keeping him from growing his followers.

On Monday, the hip-hop veteran went to his Instagram page to single out the social media powerhouse. Fif noted how hes had 25 million followers for an entire year but also downplayed the alleged tactic on how much hes grinding.

I have been shadow banned this page has been stuck at 25 million for a year. Smh but im every where so i dont care. -50 Cents Instagram

According to reports, shadow banning can ultimately kill a persons chance at blowing up on social media. Someones content will ultimately get limited visibility on a platform as a result of the action.

From Instagrams point of view, shadowbanning makes sense. Shadowbanning allows Instagram to filter out accounts that dont comply with their terms. Some people use inauthentic measures to expand their Instagram following, like automated bots or hundreds of hashtags irrelevant to their content. If thats the case, it seems only fair for Instagram to block those accounts, so users can continue receiving genuine and helpful content. (Hub Spot)

Back in June 2020, 50 Cent shared his issues with Instagram. The rap heavyweight slammed IGs commenting system and turned off the feature as a result.

Follow me on Twitter im turning my comments off on IG too many Bots trying to sway public opinions. #bransoncognac#lecheminduroi -50 Cents Instagram

In May 2018, 50 Cent said he had enough with IG. Fifty blamed his issues with Instagram on its censorship and content restrictions.

Follow this link:

50 Cent's Shadow Ban Instagram Accusation Is His Latest IG ...

When 50 Cent speaks people listen but when he posts the world takes notice. He now thinks one of the most popular social media apps is limiting his reach.

As spotted on HipHopDX, the Queens native is now claiming that Instagram has shadow banned him.

The term speaks to when a user has been restricted to how many people can see their feed via searchable hashtags. Curtis came to this conclusion after he noticed his followers have not increased within the last year. He detailed his gripes in typical Fif fashion.

I have been shadow banned this page has been stuck at 25 million for a year, he wrote. Smh but im every where so i dont care. #bransoncognac #lecheminduroi #Starz #ABCforlife #Ghost #RasinigKanan #BMF.

Instagram addressed some user concerns regarding their posts and not being fed into hashtags back in 2017.

We understand users have experienced issues with our hashtag search that caused posts to not be surfaced, Instagram said in astatement. We are continuously working on improvements to our system with the resources available.

As we all know Fofty has very little chill when it comes to social media thus the thought of IG capping his reach wouldnt be an unreasonable assumption. Instagram has yet to formally respond to the allegations.

Photo: Bernard Smalls

Link:

Outta Control: 50 Cent Accuses Instagram Of Shadow Banning ...

When the CEOs of Big Tech testify in Congress on Wednesday, theyll almost certainly be hit with a dubious and regular Republican talking point: censorship of conservative voices on social media.

President Donald Trump and other politicians and pundits on the right love to complain that social media companies censor conservatives. There is no evidence that's true. In fact, conservative news thrives on Facebook. Of Trumps thousands of lies, Twitter had the audacity to lightly fact-check him three times.

During the hearing before the House Antitrust Subcommittee, Apples Tim Cook, Amazons Jeff Bezos, Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg, and Googles Sundar Pichai will try to convince lawmakers their corporate behemoths arent monopolies. These companies absolutely need to be interrogated about their unprecedented wealth and power. But, thanks partly to the flow of dark money, Republicans have hijacked the conversation to push the narrative that they are the real victims in all of this.

Mashable spoke to experts about the history, facts, and potential consequences of the GOP's "bias" claims. Heres what you need to know.

From 2016 to the present, Republicans have seized on anecdotes to claim Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google intentionally moderate content in a way that unfairly impacts conservatives. They have claimed that these companies remove or down-rank (or shadow ban) conservative content and profiles because "elite Silicon Valley" companies are supposedly liberal. GOP senators even had a hearing dedicated to the issue, and Sen. Josh Hawley has introduced legislation that would require companies to prove they are politically neutral.

"[T]he only people who have been in a position to call bullshit on this, the tech companies, are too terrified to say no..."

Tech companies aren't good at defending against these arguments at least without trying to appease right-wingers in the process. They dont want to piss off the people in charge of regulating and taxing them, and would prefer to avoid alienating high-profile users like Trump, and his followers, who drive engagement (and profits). When presented with cases of bias, in some cases, the companies backtracked even when the content did violate some company policies. Giving in just reinforced the idea that bias existed in the first place.

Every one of these things reinforces the next, and at every step of the way, the only people who have been in a position to call bullshit on this, the tech companies, are too terrified to say no, so the story just keeps growing, Berin Szka, the president of the non-profit, non-partisan technology think tank TechFreedom, said.

Proving bias is more complicated than pointing to several instances of someones post or profile being removed, and concluding theres something larger at work. The problem is its difficult to prove a negative.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the director of FactCheck.org, explained that to truly assess bias, you have to establish a data set (i.e., pieces of content), find comparable content on the left and the right, and then see if they were treated the same. This has to be done multiple times. Jamieson and other scholars have successfully conducted these analyses on print media and cable news, and found there is generally bias on both sides, although not one overwhelming "liberal media" bias.

Doing the same for social media, however, is a different story. There is simply too much data. And these social networks aren't necessarily open to outside researchers poking under the hood. There are privacy concerns, and it could jeopardize company secrets.

From a methodological standpoint, its virtually impossible to do, Jamieson said. You'll never capture the full base of the content in order to start your analysis.

Because of those challenges, Jamieson explained that people claiming bias then move to argument by anecdote," like when Ted Cruz complained about conservative bloggers Diamond & Silk being temporarily banned by Facebook. It made headlines, but one case does not prove that something systemic is at work.

In the absence of actual data, some conservatives have tried to create the appearance of empirical evidence. Politicians point to a 2016 Gizmodo story that showed how Facebook used human moderators not automated systems, as it claimed to populate its trending news tab as evidence of anti-conservative bias (helped by the articles inflammatory headline).

Then last year, the Trump campaign solicited complaints of social media censorship, but that was basically just a way to get voter emails and donations. A Columbia research fellow did his own analysis on high-profile figures banned by Twitter, and found they were mostly Trump supporters. Many of them David Duke and Richard Spencer, just to name two also happened to be white supremacists spreading hate speech.

That's related to another issue: people on the right may in fact experience more content moderation than people on the left because right-leaning ideologies and content overlap with behavior thats not allowed on social networks. For example, Twitter started expanding and enforcing its policies against hate speech, and, surprise, surprise, they applied to Trump's dog-whistle politics. Since Russian trolls successfully manipulated the 2016 election with inflammatory rhetoric and fake news alike, Facebook has been working to de-emphasize conspiracy theories and incendiary content from disreputable sources, which most often comes from right-wing sites like Gateway Pundit.

These people are not entirely wrong when they claim there might be some disparate effect when Facebook changes its algorithm to handle sites that use clickbaity headlines, or post conspiracy theories, or rely on bots to promote their content, Szka said.

Despite these instances of moderation, conservative content the more sensationalist the better actually thrives on social media networks, especially Facebook. Ben Shapiro and Breitbart consistently rank as top voices on Facebook.

Some conservatives have attempted to take internet companies to court. That hasnt worked out so well. In one lawsuit against Google, and another against Twitter and others, federal judges decided in both cases that tech companies arent violating First Amendment rights when they make content moderation decisions, because the First Amendment protects citizens from the government dictating the parameters of their speech, not private companies.

The term liberal media did not arise organically. Since the 1960s, conservative politicians have sought to discredit criticism from the press by calling them unfair or biased. In the 1970s, Richard Nixon accused the press of conducting a witch hunt (sound familiar?) as reporters pursued Watergate. Once Rush Limbaugh hit the airwaves in the 1980s, he argued that the press was not the actual arbiter of the truth he was. Fox News shifted its tone at the time to echo Limbaugh, and the rest is history.

Conservatives, who normally would not seek to regulate or dictate the policies of a private company, found a new target in social media and internet companies, too.

"It's an old argument that is being revivified and applied to something that you would not ordinarily call news, Jamieson said. Ordinarily you would expect a conservative to say the platforms are privately owned companies, they can do whatever they want. It is a little odd to hear conservatives argue that a privately owned company should have constraints placed on it."

Some conservatives are ready to join the fight against internet companies because decades of animosity with the press have entrenched the idea of liberal bias as a problem. Making these accusations also plays well with conservative voters, as does taking CEOs to task for bias in front of Congress.

It plays well when you run in an election, Ashkhen Kazaryan, TechFreedoms director of civil liberties, said. A crucial player in that ecosystem is Sen. Josh Hawley. When he ran for senator, one of his big things was that he 'took on Google.' He was one of the first who proved that its very successful messaging, especially when it comes to conservatives.

Experts say another reason conservatives engage in these arguments is to work the refs. That is, if they accuse the people in charge of moderating content of bias loudly enough, moderators might be disinclined to do so again in the future to avoid looking biased. Conservatives have a huge incentive to keep social media companies from moderating untrue or bigoted posts, since the narratives created by Trump allies such as Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson spread so effectively online and helped Trump and Republicans rise to power.

"Attacking somebody for being biased is effective if you can get them to change their behavior in a way that benefits you, Jamieson said. There's a tactical reason to attack the platforms for bias if you increase the likelihood that they're going to let you get away with things as a result because they're trying so hard not to be biased."

The strategy appears to be working.

Social media platforms have differed in their responses to claims of anti-conservative bias. Twitter has stood by its efforts to introduce conversational health measures, despite complaints about shadow banning, and has been more aggressively going after hate speech and conspiracy theories. It also appended fact-checking or warning labels to three of Trumps recent tweets.

Facebook, on the other hand, declined to act on the same Trump statements. The platform has largely bent over backwards to appease Republican complaints. In 2018, it hired a former Republican senator to do an audit of bias on the site. The report accused non-partisan, neutral fact checkers of liberal bias," and resulted in policy changes that allowed for more graphic anti-abortion ads

It has also appointed an organization affiliated with Tucker Carlsons ultra-right wing website the Daily Caller as a fact checking partner, despite the Daily Callers status as a routine peddler of misinformation. That appointment, and the audit, result in more than just lip service to conservatives: it undermines fact-checkers and the nature of truth and accountability itself.

"When the fact-checking group holds you accountable as a candidate, your voting constituency can say, 'Well I don't believe that, because I don't believe any fact checkers, they're all liberal,'" Jamieson said. So tactically what's the effect of being able to discredit fact-checkers? It minimizes your accountability.

There is a lot at stake for these social media companies. Trump took out his anger at Twitter by, well, tweeting. He also crafted an executive order that asked the Federal Communications Commission to rewrite a portion of the Communications Decency Act, Section 230, that shields social media companies from liability.

Section 230 is a cornerstone for the internet that actually protects freedom of speech, because it allows social media companies to host forums or other publishing tools for people without being liable for what users say. Amending Section 230 would not only change the internet, but could open the door for reinterpretations of the First Amendment.

The First Amendment and Section 230 protect free speech in our democracy as we know it, Kazaryan said. Messing with them based on knee-jerk reactions and feelings about how these companies conduct their business could be extremely damaging to democracy.

Jamiesons research has shown that bias, on both sides, is part of human nature. However, these bad faith arguments, made to work the refs, could have consequences that echo far beyond the internet.

Link:

The truth about 'anti-conservative bias' at Facebook and Twitter - Mashable

50 Cent has one of the most popular pages on Instagram. The rapper is well-known for his social media antics but, for some reason, he hasn't been seeing his follower count rise. He's been investigating and he came to the conclusion that he was shadow-banned by the social network, speaking out on the platform.

"I have been shadow banned," revealed Fiddy. "This page has been stuck at 25 million for a year. Smh but im every where so i dont care."

People who have been shadow-banned are generally not discoverable to new users using the search function, also obstructing them from gaining new followers. As you can imagine, this can be pretty damaging to an emerging artist. While 50 Cent is a legend, he has had his issues with Instagram in the past, speaking on them and even switching over exclusively to Twitter to piss them off. It's not hard to see why IG would want to limit the exposure they give to Fif, who has been pretty controversial in the past, but this just seems petty.

Obviously, he is one of the biggest artists to speak out about shadow-banning.

Do you think that IG will put a hold on their obstructive means with him or will he stay at 25 million followers forever?

See original here:

50 Cent Reveals He's Been Shadow-Banned By Instagram - HotNewHipHop