Daily Archives: January 9, 2021

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius stated, Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

What we observe to be reality is not reality, but our perception of it. We are all marred by our own limitations in comprehending what is true. What then becomes of our understanding of the world when information is culled by intermediaries? The entities who do this say our comprehension will be heightened, but what is their authority? Might they not see the objects of their consideration parallactically in which what they take to be truth is observed from different vantage points, altering its content and meaning.

The Internet today may be viewed as our centurys Gutenberg press. In the middle of the 15th century, Johannes Gutenberg introduced to Europe a printing press with movable, metal type. Its creation facilitated many advancements, including the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution and expanded literacy. As with any leap forward, pernicious ramifications also ensued. Religious friction, which exploded into riots, massacres and open warfare, was driven, to a degree, by this new technology, which accelerated the networking of allied forces.

When the frontiers of expression are enlarged, a compelling impulse for censorship follows. This may come from establishmentarians or supposed reformers. The online censors of our time may be compared to both the iconoclasts of the former era, who destroyed great works of religious art, or to the compilers of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, which limited the expansion of human knowledge by banning transformative works.

The names of the banned on this list are testament to the errancy of authorities, for we would not have our modern world if the work of Galileo Galilei, Rene Descartes and John Locke were kept from us, but these and many other geniuses were the subject of restriction or removal.

The same excessive and deeply destructive desires for dominance are as present in our technological world as they were centuries ago, for the human heart has not changed. Today, the richest people who ever lived control the largest markets for goods ever conceived as well as the most prevalent means of communication.

Search engines, financial communication, social media, newspapers, television, movies and politics are all dominated by a few individuals. Paradoxically, though each made their fortune via the free market, all seem to be wedded to neo-socialist causes and woke politics that miscast race as the central issue in economics and social relations.

Deceit is wrought by lies and omissions, which are propagated to cover, to protect or to enrich. It, therefore, is significant that great numbers of Americans have asserted that search and social-media companies have acted deceitfully, for the terrain these companies control is vast. Are the leftist politics of such enterprises a cover for their rapacious greed to dominate economic life? Such supremacy requires political control that is attained readily if the putative goal be perceived as benevolence for the many and not dominion for the few.

These technological enterprises know no precedent. The Founding Fathers could not have conceived of the power, the scope and the wealth of the combines at issue. Their owners have been called barons, but such an appellation seems wrong. We may wager that if by some magic the Founding Fathers could be transported to our time, they would call these men, kings, and we know the Founders beliefs with regard to monarchical despotism.

It would be bad enough if the tools used by these companies were straightforward and perceptible to consumers. They are not. Intrinsic to targeted advertising is the placing of people into cohorts, which may be determined by their search or messaging patterns. Those with similar patterns are grouped together. Though seemingly benign, pattern recognition, aided by algorithms and artificial intelligence, allows companies to know more about the inclinations of users than people know about themselves.

With such knowledge, future actions may be plotted with accuracy, and suggestions, omissions of information and ephemeral goads may be used to entrench behaviors. All this can be done without conscious perception. These companies exceed in their powers the agents conceived by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

The First Amendment states that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech . A law, foundational to the expansion of the Internet, has, in its recent application, done just that. Section 230 states, No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. The intent was to promote discourse. Through the censorship of disfavored speech, this intent has been turned on its head.

Reports exist of a nexus between fact-checkers employed by American companies and China. If proven, this is an extreme danger, for fact-checking has figured prominently in politics. A new rule to replace Section 230 is needed desperately.

To mirror our Framers intent, such a rule may read, People may post anything that is lawful and which does not incite imminent violence. Content or images prohibited by law would thus be excluded; there could also be an age-sensitive viewing function. While not a comprehensive solution to the ills of the medium, such a substitute could be of profound benefit.

Many actions can be explained by greed, some by cowardice and a great number by stupidity. We must limit all these as we strive to ensure that people are not manipulated nor information suppressed.

John Poindexter is a physicist and a former assistant to the president for national security affairs. Robert McFarlane is chairman of an international energy company and a former assistant to the president for national security affairs. Richard Levine is a former deputy assistant secretary of the Navy and a former NSC staff director. They recently authored the book Americas #1 Adversary And What We Must Do About It Now!

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Technological expansion of expression has lead to new levels of censorship - Washington Times

Reports on Tuesday claimed that Apple Maps was "censoring" directions to Washington, D.C., though there's little reason to believe that's the case.

According to some users on Twitter and reports from various blogs, iPhone users attempting to get directions to Washington were met with a message saying that directions were "not available at this time because of current road conditions."

As of 5:20 p.m. Eastern Time, those messages are no longer showing on Apple Maps. Getting directions to Washington appears to be working normally again.

It's likely that a technical issue or current road conditions caused the problem. Washington is bracing for protests ahead of Congress voting to certify the 2020 election results, and officials have closed many roadways in the area.

The culprit being a technical glitch is also supported by the fact that retrieving directions from "My Location" didn't work, though navigating to Washington from nearby Alexandria did.

There's also a chance that a surge in users trying to get directions to the U.S. capital snarled Apple's system.

Original post:
Apple accused of 'censoring' directions to Washington, D.C., ahead of election protests - AppleInsider

In increasingly divisive times, as frustrated consumers of information retreat into echo chambers, its as important as ever to hear what all sides have to say.

On many modern-day issues of controversy there is a hair-trigger impulse to reject the other side before even listening. I get that. There are certain outlets and individuals who you know will spew garbage, but sometimes its important to sort through the trash to know how to clean it up.

Take the rising star of modern-day McCarthyism, The Epoch Times, which sees Communist China behind every rock. The media outlet is the creation of the Falun Gong cult, growing exponentially in the last few years with its adoration of Donald Trump. The Manhattan-based media company, its Canadian version with offices in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver, is well-known for its conspiracy theories and blatant misinformation, some disinformation, masking as journalism.

It has raised eyebrows here in Chilliwack with some residents posting online, some have asked me directly, about why copies of the newspaper are being delivered.

I asked Canada Post about the corporations policy on what they will or, more importantly, what they will not deliver. Media relations spokesperson Phil Legault said they always listen to complaints from customers or employees about controversial mailings. But: As Canadas postal administration, Canada Post is obligated to deliver any mail that is properly prepared and paid for, unless it is considered non-mailable matter. The Courts have told Canada Post that its role is not to act as the censor of mail or to determine the extent of freedom of expression in Canada. This is an important distinction between Canada Post and private sector delivery companies.

Any views we may have about the content do not change our obligation to deliver. Any further questions about the publication should be directed to the publisher.

Valid response. Those of us in the information dissemination business, who also like to write opinion columns, should also adhere to the words of Voltaire biographer Evelyn Beatrice Hall who wrote in 1906: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

(A quote often misattributed to Voltaire himself.)

RELATED: BC Court of Appeal left to walk tightrope of freedom of expression in Neufeld-Hansman case

RELATED: LETTER: Calls to remove Throness show we are losing freedoms in Canada

The Epoch Times is controversial for some pretty obvious reasons: It promotes extreme right-wing conspiracy theories, it repeats lies, misinformation and disinformation spread by Donald Trump and supporters, and shares disinformation from other conservative U.S. groups like Judicial Watch.

The Epoch Times repackages lies as news, and dont get me started on their opinion pieces. But while outright lies, such as those told by Trump, are shocking and should stop, misinformation and its big brother disinformation should always be met with information, dissection and correction, rather than cancel culture.

We have to be careful about stopping free expression, even if its bad free expression. In Canada, we have section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that states: Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.

Whats dangerous about The Epoch Times is that the misinformation is real, but in most cases, subtle. The faux-journalism against China and cheerleading for Trump isnt hate speech and doesnt violate any laws regarding free speech.

(Whether promoting Trump and the lies that led to this weeks sedition and domestic terrorism in Washington, DC, is a step too far, is another question altogether.)

The Epoch Times is best used to wrap fish or line your green bin. But in Canada it has a right to exist unlike in China, ironically, where any criticism is forbidden.

This publication is frustrating because of the nonsense it spreads. It may be bad journalism, but I insist that the fact that it is allowed to exist is actually a good thing for our democracy and our freedom.

Do you have something to add to this story, or something else we should report on? Email: editor@theprogress.com

Want to support local journalism during the pandemic? Make a donation here.

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OPINION: Why censoring misinformation is a bad idea Chilliwack Progress - Chilliwack Progress

I dont know which is worse, fake news or withholding the news, aka censorship.

How can there be right-wing news in contradiction with left-wing news? It was President Barack Obama that called for a news curator: The Ministry of Truth. Whos truth? As Joe Biden spouted, We believe in truth over fact.

The left media pushed the Russian hoax and people actually believed Trump was a Russian asset or agent. The Mueller investigation was based on a fake dossier. Robert Mueller never investigated that.

When that failed, the Democrats voted unanimously to impeach the president over a phone call. They pushed a Ukraine bribe smear. The witnesses believed he intended to bribe Ukraine, but he didnt.

Then we find out 12 months after the impeachment hearings that the FBI had Hunter Bidens laptop and that he was under investigation. The information on that laptop included damning information that Joe Biden knew all about the business transactions and verified by a business partner whistleblower. The left-wing media passed this off as Russian disinformation and people believed it.

Then two major pharmaceutical companies waited for three days after the election to announce a vaccine for the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19.

Am I really expected to believe that the Democratic Party, Department of Justice and the media that resisted Trump 24/7, 365 days for four years wouldnt stoop to voter fraud to unseat him? Did you know Democrat attorneys unconstitutionally changed election laws in battleground states prior to Election Day?

Joe Biden received 15 million more votes than President Obama? Biden won a little over 500 counties while President Obama won almost 900 counties. Now the evidence, ballots, are being shredded and computer files deleted, same MO over and over, delete. We either have a constitutional republic or we dont, right Nancy (Pelosi), if you can keep it.

Far-left representatives are calling for retaliation on Donald Trump supporters. Its real and theyre pushing for a Truth and Reconciliation Act. Suddenly America awakes under fascism.

Hank Schwarzbach

Fairfield

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Letter to the Editor: Fake news or censorship? - Fairfield Daily Republic

In a video message posted Friday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) forcefully condemned the violence that took place in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday while calling out the hypocrisy of the left and legacy media, which throughout last year downplayed violent riots in American cities as "peaceful protests" for racial justice.

"The events that we saw this week should sicken every one of us. Mob violence of the kind that you see in third world countries happened not just in America, but in your Capitol building. I don't care what hat they wear, I don't care what banner they're carrying, riots should be rejected by everyone every single time," Rubio said in his video statement.

On Wednesday, tens of thousands of Trump supporters gathered in Washington, D.C., to protest the certification of the Electoral College results in Congress, which officially made Joe Biden president-elect. An initially peaceful protest turned into mob violence after some of the protesters led the crowd to lay siege on the Capitol. Police officers were assaulted, government property was damaged by the trespassers, and offices in the Capitol were ransacked as the mob ran wild. One woman was fatally shot by Capitol Police and three other members of the mob died of medical complications during the incident. A Capitol Police officer who was violently beaten by rioters wielding a fire extinguisher later died of his injuries.

News media headlines about the incident called it a "riot," a "siege," or even an "insurrection."

Without making excuses for the violence this week, Rubio accused the media and the left of engaging in hypocrisy for being quick to condemn the riot by Trump supporters but slow to do so for mob violence at Black Lives Matter protests throughout last year.

"Now are the left hypocrites? Absolutely," Rubio said. "I remember what they now are calling 'insurrection,' they were justifying just this summer. They called it 'the language of the unheard' when rioters were burning cities. Is the mainstream media, especially places like CNN and MSNBC outrageously biased? Of course, 100%. I remember one of the CNN hosts last summer on the air saying something like, 'tell me where it says protests need to be polite and peaceful.'"

Rubio was referring to CNN host Chris Cuomo, who after violence and looting by BLM and Antifa last June, said on the air, "show me where it says that protests are supposed to be polite and peaceful."

"This kind of blatant bias, this double standard, that's one of the reasons why so many Americans have sought political shelter in divisive political movements and in conspiracy theories that offer them the promise of fighting back against it," Rubio asserted.

"But here's what I want you to hear right now," he said. "We can't allow our anger about all of that stuff to turn us into them."

"Remember what President Nixon said at the White House as he was leaving after his downfall, one of the lessons he said, 'Others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.'

"We can't destroy ourselves," he continued.

Rubio went on to give his opinion on what led to the violence that shocked and horrified Americans this week. He accused the media, Big Tech companies like Facebook and Twitter, and the Democratic Party of eroding the confidence of millions of Americans in the integrity of the election.

He also said, without naming President Trump specifically, that politicians lied when they said that Vice President Mike Pence had the power to overturn the election, which he did not. Trump repeatedly and incorrectly claimed that Pence had the power to reject slates of electors from states whose results were disputed by the Trump campaign.

It kind of begins with millions of Americans who voted for President Trump. They saw the nonstop bias and double standard of the legacy media. They see how social media companies covered up stories negative to Joe Biden. They saw how state officials mutilated election integrity laws to help the Democrats. And the result is you have millions of people who are convinced that the election wasn't fair and that the outcome wasn't' t legitimate. Millions of people. And they wanted something done about it.

And of those millions of people, tens of thousands of them came to Washington D.C. this week demanding that action be taken, that we do something. Ninety-nine percent of the people who came here had nothing to do with that mob. Nothing. But one percent of tens of thousands of people is a lot of people. It's enough to inflict damage on buildings, and it's enough to do even more damage to our country.

Now that we're looking at what's going on and learning more about it, there are growing signs that many of those in that mob were believers in a ridiculous conspiracy theory. And others were lied to by politicians that were telling them that the vice president had the power to change the election results.

The result is that now four people have died. Police officers were seriously injured. And our country was embarrassed before the entire world.

Rubio called on the Republican Party to take a moment for "honest reflection," noting that when President Donald Trump was elected in 2016, the GOP controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Four years later, they've lost control of all three.

"We need to reflect on why this has happened, because this country needs a viable and attractive alternative to the agenda of the radical left," Rubio pleaded.

"We shouldn't and we can't go back to the party of 2012, a party that frankly was out of touch with the unheard voices of millions of working Americans," he continued.

"We must continue to fight for working Americans, not for corporations. We welcome legal immigrants, but we have to enforce our laws. We have to take the threat of China seriously. We have to investigate what went wrong in the last election and fix our election laws so people can have faith and confidence in them. We must continue to call out the media bias instead of being bullied by them. And we must oppose political correctness, social media censorship, identity politics, and this cult of wokeness.

"And we can do all these things without indulging the darkest instincts or inciting the most destructive impulses, and without the rhetoric and behavior that keeps the millions of Americans who agree with us from joining us in this fight."

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Sen. Marco Rubio: Capitol violence was the result of media bias, Big Tech censorship, and lies from President Trump - TheBlaze

This isnt just an event, this is a movement.

Thats how Jack Frost, one of the organizers of theReOpenCalNowconference, planned for this weekend, characterizes their effort. Presenters include a bipartisan group of politicians including Fiona Ma, Californias State Treasurer, a Democrat, and Congressman Tom McClintock, one of the most reliable conservative Republicans in America. Presenters also include sheriffs who will not enforce the lockdown, attorneys who are challenging the lockdown, and economists and businesspeople to explain how the consequences of the lockdown have been catastrophic for millions of Californians.

The conference will also feature presenters from the medical community, and for that, big tech has suppressed the organizers attempts to publicize the event. How theyre doing this offers an update on just how pervasive big tech suppression of dissent has become.

Because the ReOpenCalNow organizers are targeting a high level audience of policymakers, they assembled an email list of several thousand of Californias local elected officials. The list includes city council members, county supervisors, and members of school boards. Using MailChimp, they sent out three email blasts before receiving the following message:

We received a direct complaint regarding a recent campaign sent from the account with the username ReOpen Cal Now. Direct complaints are serious because they indicate that a recipient contacted Mailchimp, our hosting facility, or a blocklisting agency about an unsolicited email.

The MailChimp email went on to say:

Because the content associated with your industry conflicts with our Acceptable Use Policy (mailchimp.com/legal/acceptable_use), Mailchimp is unable to serve as your email service provider and your account has been disabled.

MailChimp went on to reject all appeals, and it is clear that the reason they would not reinstate ReOpenCalNows account was not because of spam. The laws protecting people from receiving spamdo not applyto publicly available emails of elected officials. Every email on the list compiled by ReOpenCalNow were publicly available and corresponded to an elected official.

Tab Berg, whose consulting firm Tab Communications is assisting ReOpenCalNow to publicize their event, explained that by using MailChimp before the account was disabled, he was able to quickly verify that only four people out of over 3,000 recipients marked the emails as spam, and only one recipient logged a complaint directly with MailChimp. This would not be enough to trigger a cancellation of service, even if the emails were not going to public officials. Once MailChimp was informed as to the public nature of the email list being used, the account would have been immediately reactivated on appeal. The reason MailChimp cancelled ReOpenCalifornias account is because information about alternative therapies for COVID-19 is the target of organized censorship.

Evidence to support this version of what happened is found in how ReOpenCalNow was treated when they attempted to start an account on another major platform, Mailer Lite. Their application generated an immediate rejection from MailerLite. They wrote:

The approval team determined that your account violates paragraph 9. of our Terms of Use on appropriate content. We are sorry to disappoint you. I could not be of more help but thank you for understanding.

When ReOpenCalNow appealed, noting that they are a non-profit educational group that hosts public policy conferences, and that the content clearly falls under 1st Amendment expression, they received a second rejection:

Thank you for your interest in Mailerlite however, unfortunately, your websites type of content is not permitted on our platform. You can read more about this in our Terms of Use here:https://www.mailerlite.com/legal/terms-of-service. Due to the reason outlined above we were unable to approve your account.

In Mailerlites terms of service, the following applicable provision is found: You are also not allowed to send content that encourages discrimination, bullying or actions that could impose health-risk, such as anti-vaccination material.

This coordinated exclusion of dissenting medical opinions on COVID-19 was further evidenced in Facebooks refusal to permit paid ads from ReOpenCalNow. Their initial refusal was based on their recent policy inconsistently applied to stop accepting political ads. Upon appeal, ReOpenCalNow was told your website contains dangerous content that violates Facebooks terms of service.

Dangerous content. That is how awebsite, and the conference it promotes, is considered by the biggest social media and email platforms in the world. A conference that is organized and features individuals with impeccable reputations and credentials who dare to question the political and medical response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Consider the primary transgression of the organizers: A panel scheduled for mid-day on January 9 that features four doctors, individuals with medical licenses, with extensive experience treating COVID-19 patients. Their crime? Claiming there are therapeutic early stage treatments for COVID-19 that yield a high percentage of cures.

What if these doctors are right? For that matter, what if theyre wrong? So what? Why is it that COVID-19 is arguably the first disease in history where the treatment opinions of licensed physicians are suppressed and their reputations are scandalized, and virtually no approved early stage treatments are even offered as alternatives? Whats going on?

What is happening to the organizers of ReOpenCalNow is emblematic of a large and multifaceted political sickness in California today. A grotesque misreading of medical data being used to justify a lockdown that has destroyed the livelihoods of millions while enriching a handful of gigantic corporations and their shareholders. In parallel, anorganized suppressionof treatment alternatives has occurred that quite possibly has cost thousands of lives.

This is a reflection of the arrogance of big tech, united with other powerful opportunistic special interests ranging from big pharma to a thoroughly corrupt political establishment. The consequences of mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be overstated, and yet expert debate over what to do is denied by the platforms that once, in a better and very recent time, represented an explosion of freedom.

One may hope the organizers of the ReOpenCalNow event this weekend will livestream to multiple platforms. Online viewing is free to anyone whoregisters on their website, but shouldYouTubeorFacebook take a predictable next step and de-platform them, there remains at least for now robust alternatives the organizers should consider: DLive, Rumble, BitChute and Odysee.

Movements survived and grew in the days before the internet by using actual, physical newsletters, phone calls, and in-person gatherings. Perhaps it will come to that again, unless such activity shall itself be deemed too dangerous by the powers that be.

Ben Garrison political art and cartoons used with permission.

Edward Ring is a contributing editor and senior fellow with the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013 and served as its first president. The California Policy Center is an educational non-profit focused on public policies that aim to improve Californias democracy and economy. He is also a senior fellow of the Center for American Greatness.

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Big Tech Censorship Suppresses the Reopen California Movement - California Globe

We may not intend to hex our enemies these days, as damn sought to do. But weve hardly moved beyond a trepidatious use of language. Today its not bad words that will get you in trouble, so much as ideas deemed forbidden or ideologically unacceptable. And though most of the people going after you wouldnt regard themselves as religious, their moral righteousness often recalls the most austere, dour, unforgiving sect, the kind that might think that fizzy water is an unnecessary decadence and that pictures of kittens degrade the soul.

Perhaps I remember the past inaccurately. When I was growing up in the 1980s, after all, the music industry was dealing with Tipper Gores campaign to place Parental Guidance: Explicit Lyrics on offensive records, which only upped their desirability among teenagers everywhere. But then, as the 1990s progressed, I distinctly recall a general no one is above mockery sentiment amongcomedians and writers everywhere.

The implicit idea was this: censorship is a rotten old idea held by uptight prudes and Christian conservatives, and the Left is a space of free-thinking, liberal transgression, provocation and open-mindedness. This went for the mockers, too everyone was an idiot, and no one was above criticism. As philosopher Raoul Vaneigem put it in his 2015 defence of free speech, it was a time where nothing was sacred, everything could be said.

Today, as we accept the reality of yet another lockdown, perhaps there are other challenges we can set ourselves as a society, beyond making bread, or reading the entirety of Prousts In Search of Lost Time, or whatever else those not deemed essential to the ongoing maintenance of British society are doing. These quests could include listening to each other when we disagree; refining our own arguments before attacking others; imagining that our interlocuter is as well-motivated as webelieve ourselves to be; speaking to each other on the phone before denouncing each other online; forgiving ourselves and others for mistakes weve all made; recognising that people change their minds; and other such horribly reasonable thoughts.

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Nobody cares about swearing today, the censors will come for your ideas - Telegraph.co.uk