Last year, Harvard historian Niall Ferguson predicted that “Silicon Valley is never going to let 2016 happen again.” He was referring to Donald Trump’s social-media-enabled surprise victory — at least to the political establishment and pollsters — over Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. Parenthetically, a similar unexpected result has apparently just played out in the Australian national elections.
Tag: free speech (Page 2 of 3)
An Op-Ed published by two M.D.s in the Journal of the American Medical Association essentially calls for on- and off-line censorship of what the authors decry as health or medical misinformation. The latter apparently mean quashing any discussion of approaches outside the conventional Big Pharma paradigm or surgical interventions.
The owner of the irreverent, muckraking Turtleboy Sports blog knows a thing or two, to borrow language from that TV commercial for an insurance company, about online censorship. The entertaining and provocative Massachusetts-based investigative journalism portal — plus its slightly toned down, less vulgar TB Daily News version — focuses mainly on municipal corruption, felonious activity, and welfare scammers and assorted “hoodrats,” rather than sports. Given that the big social media networks have repeatedly de-platformed Turtleboy Sports and associated sites, owner “Uncle Turtleboy” claims that he “invented” tech censorship.
You don’t have to be a fan of controversial, fringe Infowars at all, for example, to be concerned about the implications for free speech. The latest bans, which also includes independent journalist Laura Loomer, appears to be a warm-up act by social media platforms for future censorship of mainstream conservatives, populists, and libertarians heading into the 2020 election.
The irreverent Turtleboy Sports blog is definitely not for everyone. The muckraking, adult content is often vulgar, but its slick writers could even give the clever New York Post headline writers some pointers. The entertaining and provocative Massachusetts-based blog focuses mainly on municipal corruption, felonious activity, and welfare cheats rather than sports. No surprise that the blog has broken stories that initially escaped the notice of the mainstream media. Like it or agree with its content or not, the future of Turtleboy Sports, and its slightly toned down TB Daily News version, has emerged as an online free speech issue.
Congressman Devin Nunes is suing Twitter for defamation in a filing that he says is the first of many. Nunes, a California Republican who headed the House Intelligence Committee (which made him a target of the far left or alt left), is seeking money damages totaling $250 million (a trendy number) for defamation from the social media network, among other forms of requested relief. He also maintains that Twitter shadow-banned him and others. Although the president has spoken about and tweeted about social network bias, neither the Trump administration or possibly compromised GOP lawmakers collectively have taken any substantive steps to address against social media censorship as yet. Nunes has taken the matter into his own hands.
Despite insistence by its CEO Jack Dorsey that it is an impartial platform, a new study suggests that Twitter disproportionately suspends political conservatives or Trump supporters (which is not always the same thing). Dr. Richard Hanania, a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University, published his findings this week in Quillette.
Conventional western medicine tends to focus on treating symptoms, rather than the underlying condition, with pharmaceutical drugs. These meds often come with severe side effects, causing some patients to seek alternative healthcare. In a New York Times Op-Ed, a cardiologist appears to suggest that the Big Tech search engines should censor any “fake medical news” that raises questions about the efficacy of pharmaceutical drugs.
Under pressure from censorship-loving left-wing activists, one or more advertisers pulled their commercials from Tucker Carlson Tonight after the FNC host had the temerity to report on what was actually happening in Tijuana, Mexico, since the migrant caravan showed up there.
Conservative firebrand Laura Loomer has handcuffed herself to the front door of Twitter headquarters in New York City to protest online censorship and is live-streaming the encounter. Twitter recently put Loomer’s account on a permanent suspension.
Update: the NYPD has reportedly arrested Laura Loomer.
So Laura Loomer handcuffed herself to the Twitter headquarters.https://t.co/iWI2O2qyMz
— Kassy Dillon (@KassyDillon) November 29, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Although Loomer — who often uses the left’s confrontational tactics against them — is receiving criticism by dismissive liberals and conservatives, especially the blue-check Twitter cohort, the demonstration continues with a heavy police presence. It doesn’t appear that she is leaving anytime soon.
That said, in this era of politically motivated social media suspensions, outright bans, shadowbanning, de-platforming, de-monetization, inflated or squelched trends, and so on, is this form of street theater completely out of line?
I support Laura Loomer. https://t.co/FPiPM36Av3
— Jeff Giesea🌿 (@jeffgiesea) November 29, 2018
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In June 2017, Loomer, an independent journalist, rushed the stage at Shakespeare in the Park during a contemporary interpretation of Julius Caesar to protest the the assassination of a Trump lookalike in the play’s Caesar role.
Y'all liberals (I love you all) who read me don't get this Laura Loomer stuff.
Breaking the 4-minute mile was seen as impossible. Roger Bannister broke it, and since then 1,400 followed him.
"Conservatives" never engaged in left-wing style activism.
Today the game changed.
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