Internet free speech threatened
This is a chilling, must-read article.
In it, William Jacobson quotes a post he wrote last Friday:
…[In the past there have been] attempts to intimidate internet hosting companies and companies that provide internet infrastructure to cut off access to the internet. [Previously] the effort has been focused on the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer. People might not care that The Daily Stormer is taken down, but the history of leftist tactics show that the target universe will expand dramatically and it will not be long before efforts are directed, as they are now for advertisers, at mainstream conservative and right-of-center websites”¦.
Companies like Cloudfare and others who provide internet infrastrucure will come under increasing pressure, and it won’t be limited to the Storm Fronts of the world. We know from history that the “hate” label is broadly applied for political purposes, and will be used only against right-of-center websites.
It certainly didn’t take long for that prediction to come true. The site Jihad Watch was predictably next on the list, because it focuses on the threat from Islamist terrorists and although not a hate site in my book, it is focused on Islamist terrorism and doesn’t mince words about the fact that most of the world’s terrorists today cite Islam as their inspiration. Robert (not Richard, who is a different person!) Spencer and Pam Geller have been under attack for a long time about this, and the latest development is quite chilling in terms of free speech, whether you agree with their site or not.
This is what Spencer has written about the issue:
The Left is mounting an all-out assault against the freedom of speech, and using Charlottesville to try to crush all dissent. I received this email today. I know also that Lauren Kirchner has sent it to other counter-jihad sites as well”¦.
[Question in Email followed by Spencer answer]
1) Do you disagree with the designation of your website as hate or extremist? Why?
Yes, certainly I do. For years, Leftists and Muslim groups with numerous ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood have smeared as “hate” all attempts to speak honestly about the motivating ideology behind jihad terrorism. In reality, it is not hateful, racist or extremist to oppose jihad terror, and the claim that it is [is] not only libelous but insidious: the intent has clearly been to intimidate people into thinking it wrong to oppose jihad terror, and it has worked, as illustrated by the neighbors of the San Bernardino jihad murderers, who saw suspicious activity at their home but didn’t report them for fear of being “racist.”
2) We identified several tech companies on your website: PayPal, Amazon, Newsmax, and Revcontent. Can you confirm that you receive funds from your relationship with those tech companies? How would the loss of those funds affect your operations, and how would you be able to replace them?
The intent of your questions, and no doubt of your forthcoming article, will be to try to compel these sites to cut off any connection with us based on our opposition to jihad terror. Are you comfortable with what you’re enabling? Not only are you inhibiting honest analysis of the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat, but you’re aiding the attempt to deny people a platform based on their political views. This could come back to bite you if your own views ever fall out of favor. Have you ever lived in a totalitarian state, where the powerful determine the parameters of the public discourse and cut off all voice from the powerless? Do you really want to live in one now? You might find, once you get there, that it isn’t as wonderful as you thought it would be.
3) Have you been shut down by other tech companies for being an alleged hate or extremist web site? Which companies?
No. This is a new thing. First came the ridiculous claim that opposing jihad terror was “hate,” and now comes the other shoe dropping: the attempt to cut out the ground from under the feet of those who “hate.” You can only hope that you aren’t similarly defamed one day; perhaps if that does happen, you will realize (too late) why the freedom of speech is an indispensable element of a free society.
4) Many people opposed to sites like yours are currently pressuring tech companies to cease their relationships with them ”“ what is your view of this campaign? Why?
Nazis will be Nazis. Fascists will be fascists. Today they call themselves “Antifa” and the like, but they’re acting just like Hitler’s Brownshirts did, when they shouted down and assaulted anti-Nazi speakers. Now the violent thugs work in a more genteel fashion: they just pull the Internet plug on those they hate. You, Lauren Kirchner, are aiding and abetting a quintessentially fascist enterprise. Authoritarianism in service of any cause leads to a slave society despite the best intentions of those who helped usher it in.
This should make your blood run cold.
We need to keep fighting to keep speech and protesting as our right to be free. Privacy is every Americans right. Freedom of speech and freedom of the internet,. We must keep the internet free from the government. No tracking search engine that owns its own search results Lookseek.com try it have a nice day
And we are surprised, why?
Who didn’t know this was what is under the veneer when you scratch a so-called ‘progressive’? The left have shown themselves to be no different, indeed worse than those they rail against.
“Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.”
― Eric Hoffer
Long story short, it is well past the time to either break up monopolies like Google and others, or regulate them like a utility since they are so relied upon for information.
Tim P:
Why do you think people were or are surprised? I don’t see that.
I’ve listened to ProPublica. They’re straight up communists, don’t be surprised by this.
Spencer’s response to that mafia-like email was too polite by half. The proper answer to every one of those questions is, “Suck my d***.”
The irony is that, judging by her last name, Lauren Kirchner is presumably Jewish, and she’s shutting down web sites like Jihad Watch that are devoted to monitoring the most anti-semitic group of people out there.
Apologies for here copying a long passage from ProPublica (http://tinyurl.com/yd77hcnx), but I think it’s worth reading.
ProPublica also provides a link to a spreadsheet listing the first 70 sites they’ve investigated. They’re currently working to persuade Google that more than 900(?) sites should be banned and purged from the internet. (It’s not clear to me how many they think should be immediately banned. Maybe they envision censorship imposed in stages.)
For compiling their censorship database, ProPublica has largely depended on data from SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center) and ADL (Anti-Defamation League).
The Left, and the leftists within Google, will bring tremendous pressure on Google. If they don’t comply, leftists and their media will brand Google as bigots and racists, and they will try to destroy Google. They may well be aided by the Justice Department, since Trump seems to have no control of the Department’s staff. How then can Google not comply? And won’t Apple et al. soon follow? Will this blog survive? Probably yes, but only because its traffic count is too small. Not sure about this.
Anyway, here’s a small bit of the censorship announcement:
“The SPLC list is controversial in some circles, but the group does provide detailed public explanations for many of its designations. For instance, the SPLC documented its decision to include the Family Research Council, an evangelical lobbying group, on its list by citing the group’s reliance on discredited science and unsubstantiated attacks on gay and lesbian people.
We supplemented the SPLC list with a list of top extremist websites provided to us by the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL does not publish this list and supplied it to us for research purposes.”
The SPLC has to keep finding hate groups to keep the funding coming in. There have been a number of exposes about the SPLC and their hatred of people they disagree with who they label hate groups.
Sean:
Last names tell you nothing. Could easily be her married name. What’s more, Kirchner is not a Jewish surname ordinarily. The two most prominent Kirchners, the German 20th century artist and the Argentinian oresident (and her husband) are not Jewish. The name is German and the root means church.
We can be chilled all we want but until the Right figures out how to respond effectively to the attacks by the Left and then carries the battle to them we will continue to lose. Not to go all-Godwin, but Spencer’s response reminds me of the plaints of the Jews being pushed into the gas chambers that God would avenge them. The Israeli Jews called them “bars of soap” because they did not fight back.
I do not know how to respond but I think the first step is to realize that we are in a civil war and to act accordingly. Neo, I wonder how your left wing friends will respond when you are being lead away by the police for hate crimes?
The “Right”, and by that I mean every day conservatives, is in a bit trouble. The only thing it controls is the elected portion of the government; and one could debate that given the actions of key power brokers; e.g. McCain, Collins, Flake, etc.
The un-elected portion of the government seems to be pretty much in the hands of the Left; i.e. Judiciary and Bureaucracy.
Then there is the education system, and the people who pull the strings of the media (by media the internet, social media, etc.) are hard core left.
Just to round out the picture, if anyone on the right tries to organize in any way, the Left unites to scour them as racist, hate-group, Fascist, and so on. Not only do they pillory them, they will bring the force of the judicial system down on them given the slightest provcation.
If the Left wins majorities in upcoming elections, it will be too late to turn it around.
The Right, and again I am talking about every day Americans, badly need some leaders who will grit their teeth, endure the attacks and organize some opposition to the direction in which the country is hurtling.
I’ve been expecting this for quite some time. It’s an obvious move by the Left. Very much in line with modern warfare’s focus in destroying an enemy’s “Command and Control”. Cut off the ability to communicate, to share knowledge and you strike a fatal blow against an enemy’s central control.
What activist liberal useful idiots fail to grasp is that if they cut off redress of grievance, if they succeed in disenfranchising the right, violence is all that remains. And, snowflakes will not prevail in a brutal conflict.
While leftists must know that real violence will erupt but welcome it, thinking that they will easily win the conflict, as their deep state has been preparing for it since before Obama’s 2nd term. They also imagine that in a civil war, the military will, just as they normally do follow en masse the orders of the high command.
What they fail to consider is that the right is dispersed with no centralized control mechanisms.
Guerrilla warfare that denies food supplies to the big cities, attacks the city’s power and water supplies and engage in what is known as “fourth generation” warfare is what they will face.
Their last feeling/thought is likely to be one of deep surprise.
None of us here want this and hopefully it can be avoided but that is the destination toward which they are driving the disagreement.
skeptic says : “Neo, I wonder how your left wing friends will respond when you are being lead away by the police for hate crimes?”
They’ll be the ones who turned her in & are standing outside her home cheering as she’s led away in chains. Give us a hard one next time.
From Cloudfare — “Why We Terminated Daily Stormer”:
The rest is here. It’s worth a read.
Surprise, surprise. From the beginning of the www it was clear that the free flow of ideas would eventually be shut down.The left never rests until put 6 feet down. Unintended Consequences time approaches. Hurry up so I can be of use; for the sake of my children and grandchildren.
I have been thinking about this since the early 80s, preparing year by year. “Gentlemen prepare to defend yourselves.”
Services like Google, Facebook, and Cloudfare are given immunity to what is published by third parties on their platforms. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 which includes amended parts of the 1934 Act specifically states:
`SEC. 230. PROTECTION FOR PRIVATE BLOCKING AND SCREENING OF
OFFENSIVE MATERIAL.
`(a) FINDINGS- The Congress finds the following:
`(1) The rapidly developing array of Internet and other
interactive computer services available to individual Americans
represent an extraordinary advance in the availability of
educational and informational resources to our citizens.
`(2) These services offer users a great degree of control
over the information that they receive, as well as the
potential for even greater control in the future as technology
develops.
`(3) The Internet and other interactive computer services
offer a forum for a true diversity of political discourse,
unique opportunities for cultural development, and myriad
avenues for intellectual activity.
`(4) The Internet and other interactive computer services
have flourished, to the benefit of all Americans, with a
minimum of government regulation.
`(5) Increasingly Americans are relying on interactive media
for a variety of political, educational, cultural, and
entertainment services.
`(b) POLICY- It is the policy of the United States–
`(1) to promote the continued development of the Internet and
other interactive computer services and other interactive media;
`(2) to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that
presently exists for the Internet and other interactive
computer services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation;
`(3) to encourage the development of technologies which
maximize user control over what information is received by
individuals, families, and schools who use the Internet and
other interactive computer services;
`(4) to remove disincentives for the development and
utilization of blocking and filtering technologies that empower
parents to restrict their children’s access to objectionable or
inappropriate online material; and
`(5) to ensure vigorous enforcement of Federal criminal laws
to deter and punish trafficking in obscenity, stalking, and
harassment by means of computer.
`(c) PROTECTION FOR `GOOD SAMARITAN’ BLOCKING AND SCREENING OF
OFFENSIVE MATERIAL-
`(1) TREATMENT OF PUBLISHER OR SPEAKER- 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.
`(2) CIVIL LIABILITY- No provider or user of an interactive
computer service shall be held liable on account of–
`(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to
restrict access to or availability of material that the
provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious,
filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise
objectionable, whether or not such material is
constitutionally protected; or
`(B) any action taken to enable or make available to
information content providers or others the technical means
to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).
https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/tcom1996.pdf
The way I read this is that the government is treating them as common carriers and giving them civil and criminal immunity for what is published. This was written in the context of allowing private blocking of content by parents, cable and satellite companies, but acknowledges “objectionable” content as free speech and therefore immune from censorship.
`(3) The Internet and other interactive computer services
offer a forum for a true diversity of political discourse,
unique opportunities for cultural development, and myriad
avenues for intellectual activity.
`(5) Increasingly Americans are relying on interactive media for a variety of political, educational, cultural, and
entertainment services.
If they start taking sides by banning political opinion they don’t like, they should lose their immunity to prosecution at the least. And how is this different from forcing Pizza Shop owners and Bakeries to serve gay weddings? Google and Facebook are very much like monopolistic utilities. They are granted certain “exceptions” to the law because of the universal service they provide. When they stop being universal providers, they should lose any special considerations.
Is this a net neutrality issue? It’s not a first amendment one, as far as I can tell.
Manju, if by net neutrality you mean equal representation of opposing views, then no, this is not a net neutrality issue. It’s a free speech issue because Facebook, Google, & Cloudfare have become owners of the soapbox in the middle of the public square, and they’ve decided to take sides. They are THE venue for public discussion and should not allowed to become exclusionary.
Neo,
Fair enough. I was thinking it might be another way of saying Kershner but you’re probably right.
In any case, she posted this lolworthy post:
Lauren Kirchnerâ€Verified account @lkirchner Aug 18
More
I guess it’s a rite of passage for all lady journos now, to get called a “fascist c*nt” after asking someone a question for an article.
Even when they’re screwing decent people over, they find ways to complain. Glad to see she’s getting appropriate responses.
Just to round out the picture, if anyone on the right tries to organize in any way, the Left unites to scour them as racist, hate-group, Fascist, and so on. Not only do they pillory them, they will bring the force of the judicial system down on them given the slightest provcation.
This is why I see most people on the Right withholding condemnation of the neo-Nazis. Not because any of us care for them or their politics but because the Left has been calling us all Nazis. And it’s having a funny effect. The more we withhold condemnation, or dole it out in equal portions to both sides, the more Nazis they find hiding under their beds.
I wonder sometimes to what extent my comments are being tracked to discern my political bent, and where this may lead.
I wonder sometimes to what extent my comments are being tracked to discern my political bent, and where this may lead.
miklos000rosza: I didn’t used to worry about it.
I’ve changed my mind.
Is this a net neutrality issue? It’s not a first amendment one, as far as I can tell.
manju: Net neutrality is an entirely different issue. It sounds like you should read up on it if you imagine it might apply.
It’s true what happens to the Daily Stormer vis-a-vis Cloudfare is not strictly a first amendment issue either.
But if one believes “freedom of speech” goes beyond the concern of being arrested or otherwise harassed by the federal government, you should be afraid … very afraid.
Unless you think it’s okey-doke to dox people, get them fired, and prevent them from expressing their opinions on the internet because you don’t like what they say.
And maybe, Manju, that’s who you are.
If I enter the following into Google search, I get 257 “hits.”
miklos000rosza site:neoneocon.com
So, of course, Google has recorded instances of your user name at this blog, which lead to your comments. Other search words could be added. If so, the results could reveal comments of a particular political bent. But I don’t think that’s exactly tracking. Do you? Do you have something else in mind? Not trying to start an argument. Just curious. Thanks.
“I wonder…”
Wonder no more. 100%. Where it may lead is up in the air. But being a cautious person I lean towards Unintended Consequences by John Ross.
Neo,
Earlier in response to my comment above you said, “Why do you think people were or are surprised? I don’t see that.”
I was speaking rhetorically.
However, many who pay only cursory attention to current events and who obtain all, or the majority of their news from the MSM are only now beginning to see what others have discerned for some time.
More frighteningly, many others are on-board with these tactics thinking that they are striking a true blow against fascism. While totally missing the irony of their position.
The entire concept of free speech seems to be rapidly vanishing in the media, the internet, campuses, and an ever increasing segment of the public. Especially in mega-urban blue state areas. The incessant MSM barrage of disinformation and propaganda does have an effect.
Reminds me of something I first read here, I think, a while back. Who Goes Nazi
I’ve been cautious about exposing my identity online. Hence my huxley pseud.
But I know the powers that be — Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, not to mention the NSA — sussed me out a long time ago and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Happily, I’m of retirement age and I’m not looking for a job at Google, Apple etc. Besides, what my conservative opinions don’t damage, my age in the tech world will, when it comes to employment.
Looking back, I believe I paid more of a price than I imagined for being forthright about my conservative opinions.
Google Unitneded Consequences and comments about the same. They, the powers that be know and have known for decades. get used to it,
.
I’am a lifetime NRA memeber since 1980. Every piece of mail that is delivered to my house has been scanned for 2 decades. Come and get me. Will not go guietly.
huxley,
You may run but you can not successfully run. You will be followed. Your on;y choice is drop out and never plug back in. If that is your choice, more power to you. When me and mine drop out we will be well prepared and difficult to track dow as MN has 10,000 plus lakes.
If you are at all a nerd, you know the minimal cartoonist, xkcd. Love the guy and I know he’s a guy because I know my nerd guys. Here’s an xkcd cartoon which chapped my backside.
https://xkcd.com/1357/
Xkcd wants to reduce to freedom of speech to being arrested by the federal government. Anything beyond that comes down to xkcd’s belief that if your speech is a problem to others, you must be an asshole and you have been shown the door.
He leaves out the unpleasant fact that liberals/progressives don’t merely want to escort you out the door of their online communities, they want to make sure you never work again and people like you won’t have a place on the internet to express your opinions.
Once upon a time leftists were sufficiently marginalized to realize they had to have a place to speak their piece and so they supported the broad terms of freedom of speech.
Now that they have the power to prevent their opponents from speaking or even being employed, they are happy to renege on their early commitment to freedom of speech.
Geoffrey Britain Says:
August 21st, 2017 at 5:24 pm
…
What activist liberal useful idiots fail to grasp is that if they cut off redress of grievance, if they succeed in disenfranchising the right, violence is all that remains. And, snowflakes will not prevail in a brutal conflict.
…
What they fail to consider is that the right is dispersed with no centralized control mechanisms.
Guerrilla warfare that denies food supplies to the big cities, attacks the city’s power and water supplies and engage in what is known as “fourth generation” warfare is what they will face.
..
None of us here want this and hopefully it can be avoided but that is the destination toward which they are driving the disagreement.
* **
1. See Steyn’s Maxim: The political class has refined Voltaire: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death my right not to have to listen to you say it.
…. If the political culture forbids respectable politicians from raising certain issues, then the electorate will turn to unrespectable ones.
2. In 1975, there was a hit song called “Convoy.” It’s still popular. There may be food for thought in that.
3. For the Left, this is a feature, not a bug.
(Aren’t cliches useful? There’s a reason they get used.)
Tim P Says:
August 21st, 2017 at 10:02 pm
…
Reminds me of something I first read here, I think, a while back. Who Goes Nazi
* * *
I remember reading that earlier; I think a lot of the discussion revolved around the fact that the author’s predictions were totally untestable, and thus reflected nothing more than her own prejudices and opinions, although they had a surface plausibility.
Now, if you could actually compile some data on people who WERE Nazis (of the original type), had some confidence that the information was truthful, and could develop a metric of Nazification, you could possibly get some useful predictive information.
Also, one would have to determine the dividing line between willing partisan Nazis, and unwilling coerced Nazis, of which there were very many (this latter state, per several commenters’s observations on many occasions, is the condition into which the Left is trying to herd everyone whom they aren’t already identifying as “the enemy” – which includes people who thought they already were on the Left).
I do agree with her that being Jewish didn’t preclude being a Nazi. Many Christians of all denominations gladly jumped on the bandwagon. So did Muslims and atheists and pagans and every other shade of belief and deity.
Nazi-ism is an angry ideology looking for a target and a rationale. At the moment, there are a number of groups who are basically Nazi-A and Nazi-B, etc.
Unfortunately, their battles against each other have a lot of innocent victims.
‘huxley’ referred us to a cartoon on free speech by xkcd.
The cartoon has a point: the 1st Amendment DOES apply only to FedGov. Additionally, nobody HAS to listen, and nobody HAS to agree with the speaker’s point of view. The xkcd cartoon seems a quick tossoff, a snarky rejoinder that maybe a given speaker really hasn’t said anything worth listening to.
And yet … (somehow, anymore, there’s ALWAYS a “but” after a statement of agreement, isn’t there?) … Martin Niemoller’s poem “First they came for the Socialists” popped into my head the moment I’d read the cartoon. I hope that Mr. xkcd never has to deal with the New Red Guard / GoodThink Monitors who patrol the internets these days. He might learn that “being yelled at, boycotted, and banned” for mere speech is quite real and quite unpleasant.
Once again,read Unitended Consequenes by John Ross, then you will realize why the revolution will not be telized
I know nothing about the target website, so went to Wikipedia for some probably-biased information; it seems even other white nationalists don’t like The Daily Stormer either (Anglin is publisher/author of TDS — odd that the acronym worked out that way):
White nationalist websites such as Stormfront and Counter-Currents have taken issue with what they see as lowbrow coverage on The Daily Stormer, as well as Anglin’s defense of Christianity and denunciation of the white supremacist group Christian Identity.[I didn’t really understand this complaint, but I had been confused and thought Daily Stormer and Stormfront were related somehow]
Kyle Rogers of the Council of Conservative Citizens has also criticized the website for reprinting its material.[8] …
Colin Liddell of AlternativeRight.com has criticized Anglin’s beliefs and tone. Liddell, who believes that stopping migration and encouraging higher birthrates is more important for preserving the white race, condemned Anglin for writing that it was impossible for the race to survive without adopting his views on Jews, Hitler and the Holocaust.[5]
Liddell considered that Anglin was attracting poor whites with his provocative online persona in the same manner as monster trucks and professional wrestling, writing that “it is hard not to conclude that Anglin is a paid shill and agent provocateur, whose purpose is simply to infest and discredit White nationalism”.[2] Jared Taylor of American Renaissance criticized The Daily Stormer’s “extremely harsh, dismissive and insulting tone toward blacks”, which he called unhelpful.[2]
* * *
None of these organizations are “right wing” in my opinion, they’re just a bunch of ctrl-alt fanatics.
But deleting them is a step onto the slippery slope of diss-functioning the respectable Right; which, of course, is the goal.
Ann Says:
August 21st, 2017 at 6:06 pm
From Cloudfare – “Why We Terminated Daily Stormer”:
…
The rest is here. It’s worth a read.
* * *
Especially the way they admit that what they are doing is going to have bad consequences down the line.
“Someone on our team asked after I announced we were going to terminate the Daily Stormer: “Is this the day the Internet dies?” He was half joking, but only half. He’s no fan of the Daily Stormer or sites like it. But he does realize the risks of a company like Cloudflare getting into content policing.
There’s a saying in legal circles that hard cases make bad law. We need to be careful of that here. What I do hope is it will allow us all to discuss what the framework for all of the organizations listed above should be when it comes to content restrictions. I don’t know the right answer, but I do know that as we work it out it’s critical we be clear, transparent, consistent and respectful of Due Process.”
One of the commenters on their site suggested it might have been more respectful of all of those if they had asked The Daily Stormer for a retraction and apology for the claim that was, apparently, The Last Straw, before shutting them down.
However, that kind of due process is not required for private companies (kind of like the First Amendment), but Cloudfare acknowledges that abridging it damages their credibility in the future.
“We’re going to have a long debate internally about whether we need to remove the bullet about not terminating a customer due to political pressure. It’s powerful to be able to say you’ve never done something. And, after today, make no mistake, it will be a little bit harder for us to argue against a government somewhere pressuring us into taking down a site they don’t like.”
Ya think!?!?
huxley Says:
August 21st, 2017 at 10:34 pm
…
Once upon a time leftists were sufficiently marginalized to realize they had to have a place to speak their piece and so they supported the broad terms of freedom of speech.
Now that they have the power to prevent their opponents from speaking or even being employed, they are happy to renege on their early commitment to freedom of speech.
* *
One gender-fluid-being, one vote, one time?
Actually, the cartoonist is correct that no one should be forced to support your speech or listen to you, and if this was the case of, oh, one out of a hundred available florists or bakers or photographers not wanting to provide services for white nationalists, instead of the united position of the massively-monopolistic internet providers, he might have a real point.
(See the long list of chokepoints at the link Ann gave for the Cloudfare apologia.)
However, since we know that the real purpose is only to censor people the Left doesn’t like (remember how h8teful the Right was when they quit going to concerts by the Dixie Chicks back in the day?), the sermon rings a little hollow.
I suspect xkcd did NOT agree with his fellow nerd Damore of ex-Google fame.
Television had great promise. It didn’t live up to the expectations. It has become a morass of mostly mediocre pablum – bread and circuses for the masses. CNN – 24 hour news was a good idea, but has become a propaganda outlet for the progressive movement. Fox was a good idea, but it is slowly being transformed into a progressive outlet.
The internet had such promise also. A venue for people to stay in touch, a way to gather information, a new marketplace, a forum for debate/sharing of ideas, and more. Instead, it is becoming a battleground to attack/destroy people, an all-seeing eye to spy on people, and a medium that, much like television, desperately craves eyeballs and will stop at nothing to get them.
That a few internet organizations now have the power to abridge free speech is chilling in the extreme. Will history show that this was the beginning of the end for our experiment in freedom and self government?
Robert (not Richard, who is a different person!) Spencer and Pam Geller have been under attack for a long time about this, and the latest development is quite chilling in terms of free speech, whether you agree with their site or not.
* * *
Saw this on PowerLine also.
It’s confusing to have two R. Spencers running different websites; they are not related in any way that I can see.
“(Robert) Spencer is a member of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the Eastern Catholic Antiochian Greek Catholic counterpart of the ancient Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch.[9][10] … In a 2006 interview, Spencer stated that his grandparents were forced to emigrate from an area that is now part of Turkey because they were Christians.”
“(Richard) Spencer was born in Boston, Massachusetts,[12] the son of ophthalmologist Rand Spencer and Sherry Spencer (née Dickenhorst),[13][14] an heiress to cotton farms in Louisiana.[15] He grew up in Dallas, Texas. In 1997, he graduated from St. Mark’s School of Texas.[15] In 2001, Spencer received a B.A. with High Distinction in English Literature and Music from the University of Virginia and, in 2003, an M.A. in the Humanities from the University of Chicago.[15] He spent the summer of 2005 and 2006 at the Vienna International Summer University.[16] From 2005 to 2007, he was a doctoral student at Duke University studying modern European intellectual history, where he was a member of the Duke Conservative Union.[15][13] His website says he left Duke “to pursue a life of thought-crime.”[17]”
Not exactly the bios of ignorant thugs, for either of them.
Robert is fighting back, since (according to xkcd and others) it’s alright to shut down organizations that you disagree with.
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/21/paypal-bans-jihad-watch-from-accepting-donations/
Breitbart reached out to Spencer, who gave the following comment on his sudden suspension from PayPal:
People have complained for years about the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate group” list lumping legitimate groups in with the KKK, neo-Nazis, etc. Now this has teeth, as PayPal and others are closing their platforms to those who dissent from the establishment Leftist line, based on the SPLC’s hit list.
The Left sees blood in the water after Charlottesville and is moving in for the kill, attempting to delegitimize, silence and destroy all dissenting voices. The freedom of speech, the foundation of a free society, is being eroded away under our very noses. The recent meeting of the Vice President of Facebook with the Pakistani government, and his assurances that Facebook would remove all criticism of Islam, reveal what’s really going on here: not an attempt to shut down actual “hate speech,” which would result in the closing of many mosques, but an attempt to shut down all criticism of Islam in accord with Sharia blasphemy laws, with the goal of allowing the jihad to advance unopposed and unimpeded.
…
In Jihad Watch’s post about the suspension, Spencer called for a boycott of PayPal saying, “So: if you support the work of Jihad Watch, close your PayPal account now. Contact them and tell them why. Tell all your friends that PayPal has bowed to Left-fascism, and to boycott it.” For now, the site is accepting donations directly via check sent to 1040 1st Ave #121, New York, NY 10022.
PayPal did not respond to a request for comment from Breitbart Tech.
* *
See again the chokepoint list from Ann’s link to Cloudfare’s site.
https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/
The Left’s intimidation has achieved at least one of its goals.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/21/exclusive-america-first-rallies-canceled-replaced-with-online-day-of-action-over-threat-of-violence/
ACT for America is canceling its America First Rallies, previously scheduled for Saturday, September 9, “out of an abundance of caution” due “to the recent violence in America and in Europe.” The national security organization will instead replace the 67 rallies organized across 36 states with an online “Day of ACTion.”
In a press release, exclusively given to Breitbart News, event organizers say the reason for making the difficult decision “is to contribute to the de-escalation of rising tension and violence in America while pursuing the organization’s goal of a safe and secure America.”
…
The original goal of the rallies was to show support for “common sense ‘America First’ security policies proposed by President Trump” – policies that “prioritize real protection over political correctness, and celebrate American exceptionalism.”
* *
Now that “political correctness” has been replaced by overt “political coercion” it’s hard to see where the peaceful conservatives will find any platforms.
However, here is a bright note amidst the gloom.
https://www.city-journal.org/html/culture-not-culture-wars-15405.html
Dennis Prager conducted the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra last Wednesday night, and what had threatened to become another dispiriting episode in the culture wars turned instead into an evening of passionate advocacy for high culture and classical music.
Santa Monica is one of the most liberal cities in California, so it was not wholly surprising that when the orchestra’s conductor invited Prager, a conservative talk radio host, to conduct a Haydn symphony for an orchestral fundraiser, a rebellion broke out among some musicians and the city’s political class. Two violinists in the ensemble, both UCLA professors, penned a letter suggesting that their fellow musicians boycott the upcoming performance. “A concert with Dennis Prager would normalize hatred and bigotry,” wrote Professors Andrew Apter and Michael Chwe in their March 27, 2017, letter. A webpage asked readers to urge their friends not to attend the concert, since attending would help “normalize bigotry in our community.” Local politicians weighed in. Councilman Kevin McKeown warned that the orchestra’s decision to invite Prager may “affect future community support for the Symphony.”
[but don’t accuse the Left of being h8ters] Mayor Ted Winterer sniffed that he had “certainly . . . not encouraged anyone to attend.”
Fortunately for the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra, the boycott attempt, despite sympathetic coverage in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, was a dud. And the concert was a rousing success that ideally won new converts to classical music and to the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra itself.
On Wednesday evening, no protesters showed up outside or inside Disney Hall, Frank Gehry’s famed curvilinear eruption of steel designed for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. …Then came the key demographic question: Are there any fans of Dennis Prager here? The response was thunderous. “OK, I get the message,” Lamell laughed. “I won’t keep you away from him for too long.”
* * *
Followed by a very good critique of the performance.
I didn’t know Heather MacDonald was a music aficionado in addition to her other interests.
There may be hope for California yet.
What was that Domino Theory again?
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/21/conservative-canadian-site-rebel-disrupted-loses-domain-provider/
Conservative Canadian website The Rebel said its domain provider cut its internet registration, making the site inaccessible to some users around the world on Monday as the company scrambled to get back online using a second provider.
The move comes after GoDaddy Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google and other technology firms last week pushed the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer offline by terminating services of the online publication that helped organize the violent rally in Virginia on Aug. 12.
Rebel Media founder Ezra Levant, whose website often rails against Muslims and refugees, did not identify the firm that severed his site’s registration, although he said he was given 24 hours’ notice and no explanation for the move.
* * *
Wiki is “up to date”
The Rebel Media (officially The Rebel News Network Ltd.,[3] stylized as TheREBEL.media, and shortened to The Rebel) is a Canadian, far-right[4][5] online political and social commentary media website founded in February 2015 by the former Sun News Network host Ezra Levant.
Former Sun News Network parliamentary correspondent Brian Lilley and former Sun News reporter Faith Goldy later joined the outlet.[6] Gavin McInnes is also a contributor.[7]
Many of The Rebel’s contributors announced their departure — or were released — in the second half of August, 2017, following Faith Goldy’s prominent coverage of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
…
Faith Goldy, a former journalist and online show host of The Rebel, was fired on August 17, 2017, for her participation in a podcast associated with The Daily Stormer, a neo-nazi and white supremacist news site. [26]
* * *
I haven’t listened to Goldy’s reports or interview.
Ezra Levant is one of Mark Steyn’s co-h8ters, some of you may recall.
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/five-years-two-tribunals-a-raft-of-secret-hearings-a-supreme-court-challenge-how-the-battle-for-free-speech-was-won/
Some folks like to offend. Ezra Levant knew he would stir anger, for instance, when in 2006 he published the notorious Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in his now-defunct magazine, the Western Standard. Yet even Canada’s leading right-wing gadfly–hungry to get his Calgary-based biweekly some attention–never imagined his decision would land him before a provincial human rights bureaucrat, with the looming threat of hefty financial penalties. Syed Soharwardy, a Calgary imam, complained to the Alberta Human Rights Commission, claiming the illustrations were an affront to the dignity of all Canadian Muslims. Two years later, Levant sat, scarlet with anger, at a pro forma interview as Shirlene McGovern, an investigator with the commission, blandly asked his “intent and purpose” in publishing the images.
Levant had demanded the right to video-record the proceedings, and the resulting footage became a YouTube sensation. Hunching over a conference table, he unleashed a rant that began with him proclaiming the right to “publish what the hell we want, no matter what the hell you think,” and ended with him inviting McGovern to assume the worst about his intentions. “I published the cartoons in the most unreasonable manner. Whatever offends you, I reserve the right to publish, for whatever offensive reason I want. I reserve the right to publish the cartoons for exactly the reason they complain about.”
If there was a watershed moment in the debate, this was it. Levant’s interview (or, as he put it, “interrogation”) became a top 10 hit on YouTube, sparking unaccustomed conversation about the chilling effect of Islamic sensitivities on public discourse. By then, Maclean’s was facing similar complaints over 18 separate articles, including a book excerpt in which columnist Mark Steyn argued high birth rates and the spread of radical ideology in Muslim countries represent a threat to Western values and ways of life.
To maximize publicity–or to raise its chance of winning–the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) complained not just to the federal commission but to those in Ontario and B.C. as well. The Ontario commission ruled it did not have jurisdiction to hear the complaint; the Canadian commission dismissed the case without referring the matter to a tribunal. But the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal went ahead with a hearing, combing the content of Steyn’s excerpt for offending material, judging the articles fit for public consumption but chiding Steyn for trying to “rally public opinion by exaggeration and causing the reader to fear Muslims.”
The CIC claimed moral victory. “We are delighted the tribunal has discredited the content of the articles that Maclean’s and Mark Steyn have been publishing,” said lawyer Faisal Joseph. But few others were cheering. Even long-time believers in Section 13 were astounded by the spectacle of a state tribunal reviewing a newsmagazine’s content, while questions of fairness abounded. With no evidence of intent, and without proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, critics noted, the tribunal was clearly prepared to brand someone a racist–one of the most reviled labels in Canadian society. “This is a serious business,” Wayne Sumner, a University of Toronto philosophy professor who has studied hate speech, told Maclean’s in 2008. “The proper place for it is in a criminal court, not a human rights tribunal.”
More troubling signs would later emerge, as the procedures and practices of human rights panels came under scrutiny. It turned out that one man, a former commission employee, had been lodging practically all of the Section 13 complaints investigated by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. For a time, Richard Warman had been acting as an investigator while complaints he’d made were before the commission. Officials’ insistence that Warman never wore both hats on the same file was less than reassuring.
* * *
Still up today:
https://www.therebel.media/
Story headlines on the front page
Why The Rebel rejects the Alt-Right
Conservative politicians, Media Party still won’t denounce the alt-left
John Lott: Donald Trump protects gun owners’ rights
Just when you think the SJWs can’t get any crazier.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2017/08/21/kendall-jenner-accused-cultural-appropriation-twitter-emoji/
She used a “fist” of the wrong shade.
Who knew emoji came in different races now?
Pushback.
Will dissed Googlers be the next Gamergaters?
How much damage can they do with sabotage?
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/20/madine-it-is-time-for-google-to-change-its-infamously-difficult-interview-questions/
Read it for the “old skul” v. “new skul” questions.
And then go look up the oldy-but-goody final exam that ends with:
“Define the universe. Give two examples.”
http://www.davedoyle.com/prof/pastProjects/Nerd/humor/ultimate_final.html
(Oh, well, it didn’t cost me anything to Google it for you.)
This is the list linked in the Madine article; I wanted to archive it because it’s insane.
http://www.breitbart.com/tag/rebels-of-google/
Madine: It Is Time for Google to Change Its Infamously Difficult Interview Questions
Google’s interview process is notoriously difficult, stretching the brainpower of the brightest whiz kids from the top schools in the country to determine if they are good enough to join the best. But Google’s focus has shifted its focus markedly, from being the best tech company on Earth to being the Internet’s morality police force – and its interview process will have to change to keep up.
by COLIN MADINE20 Aug 2017, 9:57 AM PDT189
Rebels of Google: Tampons Kept in Men’s Restrooms Because ‘Some Men Menstruate’
An exclusive interview with a high ranking former Google engineer who wishes to remain anonymous reveals more aspects of the company’s political monoculture, in which conservative and libertarian employees allege they experience a hostile work environment.
by LUCAS NOLAN17 Aug 2017, 9:21 AM PDT2636
Rebels of Google: Senior Vice President Led BLM Chant on Google Stage
An exclusive interview with a high ranking former Google engineer who wishes to remain anonymous reveals more aspects of the company’s politically correct office culture, including senior employees leading a Black Lives Matter chant on stage.
by LUCAS NOLAN15 Aug 2017, 9:56 AM PDT562
Rebels of Google: ‘Imagine Your Google Account Frozen on Purpose’
A former Google employee warns of the danger posted to ordinary users if authoritarians gain more influence at the company.
by ALLUM BOKHARI13 Aug 2017, 8:51 AM PDT42
Rebels of Google: Softball Interviews for Ivy Leaguers and ‘Underrepresented Minorities’
A Google Research project indicating that underrepresented minorities and Ivy League graduates were more likely to receive softball interviews at the company was shut down by Google’s human resources department upon seeing the results, according to an insider.
by ALLUM BOKHARI11 Aug 2017, 7:21 AM PDT487
Rebels of Google: Senior Management ‘On The Verge Of Tears’ After Trump Win
“Google is run like a religious cult … conform and carry out the rituals, and you’ll be rewarded and praised.”
by ALLUM BOKHARI9 Aug 2017, 12:15 PM PDT970
Rebels of Google: ‘Constant Abuse, Sneers, Insults And Smears … Sometimes You Get Punched’
Google was thrown into turmoil last night after the company fired James Damore, author of a manifesto defending viewpoint diversity and a fact-based approach to the alleged gender gap in tech. In exclusive interviews with Breitbart News, more Google employees are now speaking out in support of the manifesto.
by ALLUM BOKHARI8 Aug 2017, 11:29 AM PDT1224
Google anonymous
Former Google Employee: ‘There Are Efforts to Demote Anything Non-PC from Search Results’
Google was thrown into turmoil last night after the company fired James Damore, author of a manifesto defending viewpoint diversity and a fact-based approach to the alleged gender gap in tech. In exclusive interviews with Breitbart News, more Google employees are now speaking out in support of the manifesto.
by ALLUM BOKHARI8 Aug 2017, 11:28 AM PDT743
Rebels of Google: ‘Senior Leaders Focus on Diversity First and Technology Second’
In exclusive interviews with Breitbart News, Google employees are speaking out against their company’s political biases.
by ALLUM BOKHARI7 Aug 2017, 5:58 PM PDT10530
BTW, don’t believe everything you read from these rebels.
One of them quotes an ex-Googler who says this:
“Chuck says this has resulted in a massive class bias at Google. Despite working there for many years, he cannot recall a single white or Asian person in his entire department who was born to a middle-class family.”
I personally know 2 white male middle-class Tier 2 programmers at Google.
Not saying they aren’t exceptions, though.
“Last names tell you nothing. Could easily be her married name. What’s more, Kirchner is not a Jewish surname ordinarily.”
The irony is that most stereotypically “Jewish” surnames, other than biblically-derived ones like Cohen and Levy, are Germanic. Like Kaufman, which was my grandmother’s maiden name.
FOAF:
Many “Jewish” surnames are German-derived, but many are not. The latter tend to be Slavic or Polish, or place names that are in those areas. For the German ones (such as Kaufman, for example), there are certain names that are traditionally Jewish and others that are not.
But really, there is no way to tell. Here’s an article on the subject:
When I was young, I knew someone Jewish whose last name was Christian. I kid you not.
Not just internet free speech is threatened.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/08/u-s-civil-rights-commission-wants-no-enemies-on-the-left.php
Last week, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights unanimously passed a resolution condemning the Nazi, KKK, and white-nationalist participants in the Charlottesville rally. Good.
Then, the Commissioners voted down an amendment by Gail Heriot that would have added:
Though we support peaceful protest and note that most of the counter-demonstrators were peaceful, we condemn violence by anyone, including violence by so-called antifa demonstrators.
That amendment failed by a vote of 6-2, with only Gail and Peter Kirsanow (an African-American) supporting it.
Not good.
…
The Civil Rights Commission, like much of the mainstream media, wants to sweep this indecent left-wing assault on freedom under the rug. One almost has to laugh at the response of Civil Rights Commissioner Karen Narasaki to reports of violence by antifa in Charlottesville. “You can’t believe everything you read in the media,” this useful idiot retorted. As Fund puts it, apparently the “paper of record” for so many liberals is to be considered bird-cage lining material if it contradicts the left-wing narrative.
That’s why President Trump performed a service to the nation when, following the Charlottesville violence, he countered this willful blindness by insisting that politically motivated violence comes from both sides. By refusing to acknowledge this reality, six of the eight members of the Civil Rights Commission put the interests of the left above the interests of the nation.
…massive class bias at Google…
I believe it. The company where I made my big IPO bucks was started by Israelis. If you weren’t Israeli or didn’t possess an Ivy League pedigree, you weren’t going anywhere as an engineer.
It was a tough place to work and when my stock options vested, I left.
A friend stayed for five years more. He was an excellent programmer. He was doing senior work, but no way would he ever be promoted to Sr. Engineer. So he left and went to Apple before the iPod broke. He made a killing there and we lost touch.
You want to stop the Left from being the Left by talking? Good luck with that.
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/08/20/mark-steyn-left-making-organized-attempt-say-dont-vote-democrat-youre-nazi/
Sunday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend,” conservative commentator Mark Steyn argued the actual goal of some of those among counter-protesters at events held to promote free speech or the preservation of some historical monuments wasn’t against the real focus of those events.
Instead, he said it was to label those that don’t vote Democrat or that voted for Trump as “Nazi.”
…
“It is dangerous – as you were talking about earlier, it is an explicit thing to actually tie policy differences on rather boring things like taxes and immigration to the most crude form of demagoguery,” Steyn added. … They want to say, ‘If you vote for Trump, you’re a Nazi. So we can’t talk with you. All we can do is smash up your rally.”
J.J. ” Will history show that this was the beginning of the end for our experiment in freedom and self government?”
If this is the beginning of the end of freedom, will the history be scrubbed?
The Other Chuck,
No. I mean the principle that Internet Service Providers can’t discriminate on the basis of content.
This sounds awfully close to a net neutrality argument to me, except to whom it applies goes much further than ISPs.
Ok, but you’re faced with the rather ironic problem that you must overcome a first amendment challenge. Facebook, Google, & Cloudfare have a right to free speech, which includes the right to not say or support viewpoints that they abhor.
You need a compelling governmental interest as to why their first amendments rights should be curtailed.
“Facebook, Google, & Cloudfare have a right to free speech, which includes the right to not say or support viewpoints that they abhor.”
You mean like bakers and photographers? If ANY business can be compelled to provide services in support of causes they disagree with, ALL businesses should be.
Pingback:Maggie's Farm
Gab is already under attack by Google. Their android app has been removed from the Google Play Store for “violating hate speech policy”. Apple has been making excuses to not offer the app.
This happened just after Gab raised over one million dollars to continue improving their site. The Gab CEO has pointed out the hypocrisy:
“Andrew Torba
Andrew TorbaPRO · @a
ISIS, child porn, live-streamed murder on Facebook, tens of thousands of death threats to the President: all allowed by Apple/Google.
Free speech on Gab, which follows and respects the law: not allowed.”
Gab is a social media site devoted to free speech (although there are limits when it comes to threats and cyber attacks). They are not going to sit back and be silenced and welcome any who want to be in the front line protecting our right to free speech.
@Ann – thanks again for a great link.
Seems that Cloudfare’s CEO had misgivings in his thoughtful response.
He also said the “last straw” was some commenter over there arguing that Cloudfare is obviously on their side (Daily Stormer) since Cloudfare resisted calls to block their site.
(In fact, Cloudfare got in trouble for forwarding complaints about DS to the site’s owner that included the complainer’s identity)
Would have been nice to include a screen capture of those and similar comments, so we understand the context better.
.
A private company offering a service to the public.
Should they be forced to serve all?
If we think so, will we also think so of the bakers and florists?
@Ann – just re-read my comment – the latter 3/4 is not talking about you.
Would have been nice of Cloudfare to include the capture, and the questions are posed to the larger audience here.
Diversity is a good thing. MANDATORY diversity, on the other hand, is extremely bad, and inevitably the controls used to enforce “diversity” are used to suppress it instead where it actually matters.
In the same way, net neutrality is a good thing. MANDATORY net neutrality, controlled and audited by the FCC, is not, and Trump was right to reject it.
You hear about it when a political celebrity like a Laura Southern, Tommy Robinson – or the Paul Joseph Watson of the world – are shut down, but you don’t hear about the 1,000’s of regular, normal people across every major social media platform who are banned every day.
Express an opinion not approved by the left and your account is gone, without chance or hope of redress or explanation.
It’s been happening for years. Off your radar and ignored.
The Left distorts, manipulates, lies, on its way to its totalitarian triumph?
What a surprise!
SDN Says:
August 22nd, 2017 at 6:46 am
“Facebook, Google, & Cloudfare have a right to free speech, which includes the right to not say or support viewpoints that they abhor.”
You mean like bakers and photographers? If ANY business can be compelled to provide services in support of causes they disagree with, ALL businesses should be.
* * *
I would rather NO businesses should be.
However, since most private business have now been redefined as public accommodations (following the precedent of the Civil Rights Act*) and forced to “accept all comers”, then Google et al. certainly qualify for legal action. IF anybody is willing to tackle them.
The Left is cool with defending al-Qaeda terrorists; “right-wing h8ters” not so much.
*The error in the CRA was in extending its reach beyond curtailing government (state, local) laws and regulations that mandated segregation and prohibited integration. Natural evolution of civil sensitivities would eventually have rubbed out most self-imposed segregation, and left it at a minimal level. Now there is a back-lash bringing it back to the front-burner (AFNAB: a feature not a bug & CWTD: cure worse than disease).
In all cases, liberty is safest if the government thumb is just kept off the scales.
Warren Bonesteel Says:
August 22nd, 2017 at 9:34 am
You hear about it when a political celebrity like a Laura Southern, Tommy Robinson — or the Paul Joseph Watson of the world — are shut down, but you don’t hear about the 1,000’s of regular, normal people across every major social media platform who are banned every day.
Express an opinion not approved by the left and your account is gone, without chance or hope of redress or explanation.
It’s been happening for years. Off your radar and ignored.
* * *
Citations?
Remedies?
Is any on-line platform safe from busy-bodies?
Seems to me folks can use other services for the most part to avoid letting these services have too much “monopoly” power….
DuckDuckGo or IXQuick vs Google
Firefox vs Chrome
Set up your own website vs Facebook
(or pick an alternative based on your use:
https://beebom.com/facebook-alternatives/ )
As for Cloudfare, petition the websites who use it to find an alternative service that won’t ban them, if you think their reason for banning Daily Stormer (note – it doesn’t stop the site from being on the internet, just the use of a proxy to handle the large traffic) is itself offensive or wrong.
How do you know which do use Cloudfare?
Well, you ought to be using a script blocker addon for your own privacy protection anyway.
An addon like uMatrix, will clearly identify what scripts are running on a given website page.
And, it will color code “bad” ones, that you can still enable if you like (other similar addons might block them without you knowing).
Complaints about these services rings hollow if we have these concerns but don’t take the simplest of action to stop using them.
In the end, our choices are what is giving them power. If enough folks avoid them, they will get the message. After all, isn’t that what marketplace competition is about?
As you probably know, YouTube channels can generate considerable revenue for their creators. I just learned a couple days ago that Google/YouTube is now censoring and demonetizing, and delisting from the search engine, all videos containing firearms content. Exceptions include the NRA, who pays YouTube large sums, and any firearms videos that promote gun control.
The new policy is a bit complex and I skimmed it from one source, so I don’t have the full facts. But my two thoughts are: Why attack the just the 1st Amendment when you can attack the 1st and 2nd?
Conservatives, at least those of the Wall Street Journal stripe, have always questioned anti-trust legislation and DOJ action. As a conservative, it always struck me that anti-trust has an important role to play, though the black letter law is horribly written. So my second thought is that it is way past time to bust up the Goolag.
“So my second thought is that it is way past time to bust up the Goolag.” – TJ
Before we even get to this point, how about using alternatives?
There are plenty of alternatives to YT.
Instead of doing this simple bit, we advocate going to “11” right away.
Big Maq,
With an Android phone you are STUCK with gmail for activation (google play).
The only other option is iPhone where Apple just paid $2 million to SPLC.
I’ve long ago changed to DuckDuckGo and Brave but it seems we have less and less options with these government/corporate alignment companies.
Why don’t these large tech corporations –operating as virtual monopolies of a recently invented system of communication– at least fall under the newly expanded view of ‘public accommodation? ‘
If communication tech companies have the privilege to cut users off because their private business owners have personal beliefs and fee-fees, then the whole public accommodation thing is baloney.
As a freelance illustrator, working in pre-internet days, I was asked to sign contracts giving the client all rights, to all media in the entire universe, even as yet not invented, in perpetuity. (Never mind that I tried to cross those greedy sci-fi bits out,) this for the privilege of getting a little job to draw a tiny magazine spot illustration!
I was also not allowed to discuss rates, contracts, terms of this with other illustrators, because that would be considered the same as mega corporation monopoly collusion. Especially ironic since there were basically only 4 parent companies that owned most media.
Surely there is some way our individual constitutional right to free speech and a free press covers digital communication, not only Ben’s printing press or the rights of mega corporations.
Esther Says:
August 22nd, 2017 at 2:41 pm
Why don’t these large tech corporations —operating as virtual monopolies of a recently invented system of communication— at least fall under the newly expanded view of ‘public accommodation? ‘
If communication tech companies have the privilege to cut users off because their private business owners have personal beliefs and fee-fees, then the whole public accommodation thing is baloney.
* * *
Makes a good legal argument.
We’ve always known that the view of the Left is “rights for me, not for thee.”
Warren Bonesteel:
Actually, you hear some things about ordinary folk, as well. See this and this book about the phenomenon of public shaming through social media. It’s not quite the same as banning, but it’s somewhat related, and for these people some of their accounts are deleted in addition to the shaming (Justine Sacco’s Twitter account was deleted, for example).
Manju:
Facebook, Google, & Cloudfare have a right to free speech, which includes the right to not say or support viewpoints that they abhor.
As corporate entities engaged in simple commerce that may make sense, but given their special position as the overwhelming venue for public discussion and debate, and their FCC special status of immunity, they should not be allowed to practice what amounts to government supported censorship. Their free speech is NOT curtailed since they can disclaim responsibility for content.
As an example, take the live streamed video of a mentally disabled young man being tortured in Chicago. Without the grant of immunity Facebook could be sued for being a co-conspirator to the torture. Suppose after that attack Facebook blocked all opposing views to the torture because a majority of them came from white supremacists. What’s going on now is preemptive but achieves the same result.
http://nypost.com/2017/01/04/special-needs-man-tortured-while-attackers-stream-it-on-facebook/
You don’t like Nazis and block their access. Fine. But if you then allow only AntiFa access, you are in effect supporting them, and should lose your immunity to prosecution. You’ve become the propaganda arm of their hate filled violence.
Businesses, like all bullies, back down when challenged.
Perhaps PayPal’s team of professional virtue-signallers should have done their thorough review BEFORE reflexively banning Jihadwatch.
At least Cloudfare had an additional rationale (allegedly, The Daily Stormer dragged them into the fight) and recognized they were standing on a slippery slope.
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/08/victory-paypal-removes-ban-on-jihad-watch
“PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy in our User Agreement prohibits individuals and groups from using PayPal for activities that promote hate, violence, or racial intolerance. If we become aware of a website or organization using our services that may violate our polices, our dedicated team of professionals conducts a thorough review. Ultimately, a decision is made and communicated to the organization. In this instance, we have made the determination to lift the limitation applied to your account associated with the Acceptable Use Policy.”
Trum is fighting so hard for you Americans that soon you won’t even have freedom online any more. Not that you ever had freedom in the US, of course.
Relying on kings in DC to save your bacon, worked out real well this time, America, what’s next.
This should make your blood run cold.
We aren’t Tired of Winning Yet! Keke.
The ALt Right grew in strength not because “conservatives wanted to pay attention to them”. The ALt Right grew in strength because people are powerless before the evil and might of the Leftist alliance.
That common cause, supersedes social or economic or political allegiances more and more.
You are with the Alt Right, or you are against the, whether you like it or not. Their own leaders have clearly explained this to the public.
You have to grit your teeth and FIGHT, irregardless of whether you want to or not.
Welcome to the War, humans.
I see a variety of “there outta be a law” arguments here, or setting the stage for it.
And we say we want to reverse the G-March?
We cannot have it both ways.
So, both ways means two choices? The big government of the Soviet Union or the no government of Somalia?
To Big Maq,
There was a point in history when Mr. Libertarian, Milton Friedman had a position of high economic authority in the Chilean gov., trying to fix their economy. It didn’t turn out well, or as well as it should have, and Freidman much later said, “Well I didn’t understand how important it is for government to execute basic financial management, and for the citizens to respect and comply with it.” (Paraphrasing)
Conservatives always appreciate the importance of good governance. Libertarians less so. But Milton Friedman learned the hard way.
The GOPe hates anti-trust, as well as some conservatives. I just don’t see it. Monopolies are really bad for markets. The bust-up of Ma Bell was a large positive. The DOJ action against MSFT was somewhat unfair but survivable. You are right that there will always be occasions where gov. action goes wrong. But less or no gov. action isn’t necessarily always a positive.
My original post was about YouTube, but that is just one facet of the Goolag. I haven’t used Goolag search for many years, and I used to use Vimeo before they became NetNeut Nazis. YouTube is clearly the 800 lb gorilla in its space.
@TJ – Milton Friedman also said that folks who are concerned about corporate monopolies tend to forget about the monopoly government has, and the bigger consequences of that.
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My point about Google and the rest is that they are NOT monopolies.
They may become so in future, ONLY if people continue to choose them and their products over any other.
Calling for the government to step in at this point on Google is way pre-mature, even if we think there is a good case for it to do so on corporate monopolies.
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Also, “survivable” is hardly the standard to give a pass on government involvement. It is clear, after the fact, that the perceived monopoly was only a short lived market dominance for Microsoft – same with IBM. We will never know the true impact those actions had on our economy.
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MaBell was one of the biggest beneficiaries of government restriction on competition. So, of course, there would be a surge in the positive outcomes in a breakup. Imagine if they’d have been in a competitive marketplace since day one!
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Ultimately, as we call for government involvement and justify it, largely with a leftist premise, then what stops the left coming around to use those same laws for their own agenda and benefit?
So long as the Leftist alliance exists, nothing you do matters. Any “proposed solution” will fail, whether that is internal affairs or domestic policy or foreign policy.
Of course, wiping out the Leftist alliance from the face of the earth isn’t a permanent solution either, since there are larger and stronger societies that use the Left as cannonfodder.
Vox Day, because of his technical background and how SJWs like to harass him into becoming an Alinskyite (partial success), easily predicted the abuses of Leftist orgs like Google.
Of course, even in 2001, I realized cyber security was going to be a big issue. Some people are just late to the party.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-22/we-live-in-fear-of-the-online-mobs
“That power keeps growing, as does the number of subjects they want to declare off-limits to discussion. And unless it is checked, where does it lead? To something depressingly like the old Communist states: a place where your true opinions about anything more important than tea cozies are only ever aired to a tiny circle of highly trusted friends; where all statements made to or by the people outside that circle are assumed by everyone to be lies; where almost every conversation is a guessing game that both sides lose. It is one element of Margaret Atwood’s “A Handmaid’s Tale” that does resonate today: Any two acquaintances must remain so mutually suspicious that every day, they can discuss only the pleasant weather and their common fealty to the regime.”
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It’s not just the big things, either, but the incessant nibbling at the edges of speech.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/media/341210-how-the-ap-stylebook-censors-pro-life-and-other-conservative-words
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10883/political-correctness-radical-islam
This courtship and marriage between the Western chattering classes and radical Muslim fanatics was elaborated by Andrew C. McCarthy in his crucial 2010 book, The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.
Since then, this union has strengthened. Both the United States and the rest of the West are engaged in a romance with forces that are, bluntly, antagonistic to the values of liberty and human rights.
To understand this seeming paradox, one needs to understand what radical Islamism and PC have in common. Although Islamism represents all that PC ostensibly opposes — such as the curbing of free speech, the repression of women, gays and “apostates” — both have become totalitarian ideologies.
The totalitarian nature of radical Islamism is more obvious than that of Western political correctness — and certainly more deadly. Sunni terrorists, such as ISIS and Hamas — and Shiites, such as Hezbollah and its state sponsor, Iran — use mass murder to accomplish their ultimate goal of an Islamic Caliphate that dominates the world and subjugates non-Muslims.
The attempt in the West, however, to impose a strict set of rules about what one is allowed to think and express in academia and in the media — to the point that anyone who disobeys is discredited, demonized, intimidated and in danger of losing his or her livelihood — is just as toxic and just as reminiscent of Orwell’s view of a diseased society.
These rules are not merely unspoken ones. Quoting a Fox News interview with American columnist Rachel Alexander, the Clarion Project points out that the Associated Press — whose stylebook is used as a key reference by a majority of English-language newspapers worldwide for uniformity of grammar, punctuation and spelling — is now directing writers to avoid certain words and terms that are now deemed unacceptable to putative liberals. (see above).
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Ymar Sakar Says:
August 23rd, 2017 at 10:32 pm
So long as the Leftist alliance exists, nothing you do matters. Any “proposed solution” will fail, whether that is internal affairs or domestic policy or foreign policy.
Of course, wiping out the Leftist alliance from the face of the earth isn’t a permanent solution either, since there are larger and stronger societies that use the Left as cannonfodder.
Vox Day, because of his technical background and how SJWs like to harass him into becoming an Alinskyite (partial success), easily predicted the abuses of Leftist orgs like Google.
Of course, even in 2001, I realized cyber security was going to be a big issue. Some people are just late to the party.
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Have you seen this review? It’s burden is that Facebook knows more about you than and government surveillance program.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n16/john-lanchester/you-are-the-product
“Facebook already had a huge amount of information about people and their social networks and their professed likes and dislikes.​2 After waking up to the importance of monetisation, they added to their own data a huge new store of data about offline, real-world behaviour, acquired through partnerships with big companies such as Experian, which have been monitoring consumer purchases for decades via their relationships with direct marketing firms, credit card companies, and retailers. There doesn’t seem to be a one-word description of these firms: ‘consumer credit agencies’ or something similar about sums it up. Their reach is much broader than that makes it sound, though.​3 Experian says its data is based on more than 850 million records and claims to have information on 49.7 million UK adults living in 25.2 million households in 1.73 million postcodes. These firms know all there is to know about your name and address, your income and level of education, your relationship status, plus everywhere you’ve ever paid for anything with a card. Facebook could now put your identity together with the unique device identifier on your phone.
That was crucial to Facebook’s new profitability. On mobiles, people tend to prefer the internet to apps, which corral the information they gather and don’t share it with other companies. A game app on your phone is unlikely to know anything about you except the level you’ve got to on that particular game. But because everyone in the world is on Facebook, the company knows everyone’s phone identifier. It was now able to set up an ad server delivering far better targeted mobile ads than anyone else could manage, and it did so in a more elegant and well-integrated form than anyone else had managed.
So Facebook knows your phone ID and can add it to your Facebook ID. It puts that together with the rest of your online activity: not just every site you’ve ever visited, but every click you’ve ever made — the Facebook button tracks every Facebook user, whether they click on it or not. Since the Facebook button is pretty much ubiquitous on the net, this means that Facebook sees you, everywhere. Now, thanks to its partnerships with the old-school credit firms, Facebook knew who everybody was, where they lived, and everything they’d ever bought with plastic in a real-world offline shop. All this information is used for a purpose which is, in the final analysis, profoundly bathetic. It is to sell you things via online ads.”
Big Maq Says:
August 22nd, 2017 at 1:17 pm
“So my second thought is that it is way past time to bust up the Goolag.” — TJ
Before we even get to this point, how about using alternatives?
There are plenty of alternatives to YT.
Instead of doing this simple bit, we advocate going to “11” right away.
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The sword of justice has two edges.
Thinking about this today because I drove past the Masterpiece Cake Shop, home of the “anti-gay-marriage” lawsuits, now going to Supreme Court.
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/masterpiece-cakeshop-ltd-v-colorado-civil-rights-commn/
Issue: Whether applying Colorado’s public accommodations law to compel the petitioner to create expression that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage violates the free speech or free exercise clauses of the First Amendment.
Posted before I finished —
I think Masterpiece should win, on the cited 1st Amendment grounds.
Bakeries are not “public accommodations” just because they are businesses open to the public.
Nobody has to have a wedding cake to survive.
Hurt feelings are not hateful discrimination.
I don’t agree 100% that all of original businesses targeted in the Sixties qualify either, although within a limited region being unable to purchase food or shelter certainly made life much more difficult and unpleasant, and sometimes ultimately fatal; but the Civil Rights Act was intended to break the back of the Jim Crow laws that were unquestionably unConstitutional, and did so by cutting the First Amendment to fit a Procrustean bed.
So, if Masterpiece wins, we can actually have a rational debate about the boundary of First Amendment rights and “discrimination”.
However, then the Left (academia, tech, Hollywood, etc) can legally refuse to “serve” people who violate their sincerely held, although not-religious, beliefs about what is acceptable speech and conduct.
Instead of doing it illegally, as they do now, while getting a pass from media and some government agents because they are on the Left Side of History.
But, if Masterpiece loses, Google and Facebook have a much harder time justifying their own discriminatory conduct, because if a one-man bakery in a really large metro area is a Public Accommodation, then a near-monopoly supplier of world-wide technology ought to qualify.
Unless, of course, the Law determines that it’s perfectly okay to discriminate against Conservatives even if they aren’t themselves hatey-hate-haters, because they support some policies that the HHHs also agree with.
Or something.
Ymar Sakar Says:
August 23rd, 2017 at 10:32 pm
So long as the Leftist alliance exists, nothing you do matters. Any “proposed solution” will fail, whether that is internal affairs or domestic policy or foreign policy.
Of course, wiping out the Leftist alliance from the face of the earth isn’t a permanent solution either, since there are larger and stronger societies that use the Left as cannonfodder.
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Which are the “larger and stronger societies that use the Left as cannonfodder.” ?
The hard Left’s fellow-travelers (to use the old moniker) have always been expendable, but I also wondered what society they are “larger and stronger” than?
Genuine interest in your POV, not trolling.
PS thanks for your replies on another thread, the link to which I have lost; I concede the homework point, and appreciate your reasoned discussion, as most people just recite anti-LDS boiler-plate without bothering to look into the actual doctrines taught in the church.
My opinion: the skin-color controversy of the ancient Lamanite/Nephite cultures was primarily a symbolic differentiation, temporally attributable to the difference of melanin due to the increased tanning of the “uncivilized” Lamanites – they were all genetically cousins, as you are well aware, and nothing suggests they became different “races” in the short time period covered; mingling of the groups occurred more than once.
The 19th-century ban on giving black converts priesthood authority (not a total ban on baptizing them, but functioned the same at least until after the Civil War and Emancipation) has never been explained by the General Authorities; all the “reasons” are speculative. I lived in SLC when the ban was lifted, and all the white-bread Mormons I knew thought it was great. My “diverse” ward in South Texas included several wonderful elderly Black sisters , who were a delight to talk with, and mixed-race families. Currently good friends with a Liberian immigrant family, who are hard-working and assimilating just fine.
FWIW.
Which are the “larger and stronger societies that use the Left as cannonfodder.” ?
If you ask me a question, I’ll try to answer it. Unlike most people from publicly educated internet schools, I don’t assume people are trolling. I’ll figure that out soon enough once you respond to my first answer.
First, I’ll stick to the “most orthodox answer”: the Deep State, a term first proposed by the Alt Right as a way to talk about about Free Masons, Illuminati, alien UFO government black op funded rogue cells, and Federal Reserve conspirators.
The research goes all the way back to Madam Blowski, sp, and Area 51 where satanist followers of Hollywood and the occult were practicing sex rituals to open up a portal in the area right before the event was said to happen.
The Alt Right talks about “Deep State”, but what they really mean is all the secret societies behind what people see as Red vs Blue. It’s a Matrix analogy, ever hear the term taking the “Red Pill”? It’s a Matrix reference, the world you live in is a facade and a virtual reality, controlled and managed by the “real players”. You are merely an actor on the stage, playing to the script, whether that script comes from Soros, from Republicans, or cuckservatives, or Ctrl Left, or Hussein. Thus until you take the Red Pill of Morpheus which represents enlightenment and transmigration, you cannot see the world for what it truly is.
This viewpoint is very popular amongst betrayed Republicans and the younger generation of Demoncrat light “independents” who believe in hookups and the Rights of Man vs Gaystapo Feminazis.
From a christian perspective, the god of this world is Lucifer and his Satanic alliance. These are immortals or nearly such, who have a deadline that they need to play under. They need to kill Jehovah or the Most High before this deadline, or somehow take power, because they are going to be punished otherwise, as described in the Book of Enoch against the Watchers or grigori.
What do I believe? I believe in my own research and my own authority. Some of it does turn out to be concurrent with what people in the world and Alt Right think, however, I can’t help change that. People will believe what they want to believe.
The christians believe Lucifer is in charge of many things. The UFO boys want to believe extra biological aliens from Alpha Centauri are responsible. The government conspiracy boys think it is the CIA. Whatever.
I’ll take what is true and useful, and discard the rest. Sort of like how people shop around with religions now.
To avoid the anti Left from arguing amongst ourselves, people came up with the term “Deep State”. It’s something that the mainstream, such as represented by the pops here, can accept and use. In fact, they use it a lot now. But it is also a term that bypasses the differences of the various communities and factions that are being recruited by the Alt Right. Fight the “Left” can mean different things to different people, but no matter why they fight, the Alt Right wants to recruit more fighters into their Holy War Deus Vult propaganda against the Leftist alliance.
Because I am closer to neutral and can see more clearly, I don’t jump on band wagons. They are usually traps, like Soddom.
and appreciate your reasoned discussion, as most people just recite anti-LDS boiler-plate without bothering to look into the actual doctrines taught in the church.
Everyone has knee jerk responses to certain things from experience. After all, do I not make fun of Trum and Ctrl Left for the same reason?
I’ve watched presentations from FairMormon, a pro Mormon org. I use neutral sources, that wasn’t my source obviously because they don’t agree with me. But I’ve also read anti Mormon presentations, and I am not a fool, I know they have an agenda. They are also… how shall I put this, more sinister in their presentation. When they give a joke, it’s like a joke from Hussein Obola. Everyone laughs at your expense. When the Latter Day Saints make a joke, it is different.
Hah, I’m so strange I can pick up the slightest little “dog whistles” as people now call it. Deceiving me is a lot harder than deceiving Americans and Euros. This was so in the days which I relied upon secular resources and my own research. Now that I have found the existence of something people call the Holy Ghost/ Holy Spirit… they are no longer a contest any more. When being possessed by the Holy Spirit that increases your IQ, can you imagine what that does to someone who already has nearly reached the limit of comprehension on human nature… I can now. Jean De Arc was taught more advanced martial arts in 2 years than I obtained in 10 years using the modern internet and modern training methods. It is no contest at all. The professional soldiers, knights, and commanders were in awe of her ability to fight open field battles, handle sieges, and defeat in sparring knights 10-30 years her senior in battle experience. This little illiterate peasant girl somehow transcended the limits of human knowledge.
I got “roped” in by the Holy Spirit mostly because some people want power and women, but I wanted the truth and the knowledge that transcended human corruption and stupidity. They know exactly what my weaknesses are, there is no hiding it. I don’t care if I become crazy in the eyes of the world, an enemy of the world, or a fool in the eyes of the wise sheep skins. If that was the price for the burning truth, well I had already paid the down payment. Might as well get the rest.
they were all genetically cousins, as you are well aware, and nothing suggests they became different “races” in the short time period covered; mingling of the groups occurred more than once.
Right, even a light tanning of the skin can result in severe discrimination. In Brandon Sanderson’s novels, having dark eyes made you a slave and servant to the “light eyed”. It wasn’t races. It just color differentiation. How will they react when the “Apostle” saint warrior that comes out to be the only loyal one, is a dark eyed man? That’ll be fun to see.
Skin color wasn’t a primary issue of division, but it still existed. For America’s Civil War 1, skin color also wasn’t the primary division, it was the eugenics belief of the slave lords that they created with christians like Southern Baptists in 1850, to create the totalitarian pro Lucifer slave regime necessary to corrupt the nations.
Skin color was just a way to justify how blacks weren’t human, and thus not made in the image of god, thus they could be used as slaves the way the Israelis enslaved the nephiliim giants that they didn’t wipe out. The ancients had proof that the Amorites were not completely human. The white slave lords tried to prove that as well, but they rigged the game with blacks. They could NOT prove it, so they resorted to bounty hunters, lynching, beatings, and terror.
That pissed off the Most HIgh to such a degree that civil War 1 cleansed and tested the nation with blood. A minor slap on the wrist, compared to the Divine flood or Soddom. Next one is coming up though, and it will be a bit more severe. If atheist materialists are right, if Mao kills off a hundred million, he wins, because dead is dead. If christians are right, then the spirit exists afterwards and some of them want revenge and justice. So if there is a power that listens to these spirits… then it is not over. Mao hasn’t “won” yet, because he hasn’t killed off the spirits.
Also Ham was said to have been cursed, and then somehow got dark skin. So dark skin wasn’t a different race at the time, as they all came from Noah’s line. The only difference would have been who they married. The Lamanites, before they were the Nephites in the last civil war, were said to have a higher population growth. That may or may not have made sense, but if they had acquired a population from other tribes, then it would make sense. Because they didn’t know about DNA, they might have attributed this to god’s plan or perhaps they knew about it and also said it was god’s plan.
has never been explained by the General Authorities; all the “reasons” are speculative.
Not all the reasons are speculative. This decision was handled by the Divine Counsel based upon the strategic requirements of spiritual warfare. Anyone who has been in the Divine counsel, present, past, or future, would know the reasons. The General Authorities are the servants of Jesus the Christ, thus they just do what they are told. If they don’t do what they are told to, the doctrine says something will happen to them akin to what happened to Reid in his “accidental” exercise machine problem.
Looking at the Latter Day leadership sermons, like the one that decided to outlaw plural marriage… I was surprised at that. If I was handling the war strategy of the Most High, I would have made the same choice, at about the same time. That a human could figure this out on his own, against the protests of his own people in Utah… that seemed unlikely at the time. The only probably solution is that he was influenced by a divine intelligence, the Holy Spirit, in his decision.
If Utah had not given up plural marriage, the strategic and logistical strength of Utah could have been shattered by the secret free mason societies. The antecedent to the KKK. Later, when the KKK came to power, they might have targeted Utah as well, due to reasons over blacks mixing with whites.
Lucifer’s strategic plans are becoming more and more transparent to me. When Lucifer makes a move, the Most High makes a counter move. Thus even if a person does not know what the Divine Counsel has determined, they can derive it based upon figuring out what Lucifer is doing.
The reason why this was not explained is most likely that the General Authorities themselves weren’t told why. In the speech made by the LDS leader that made plural marriage an excommunication level offense, he gave the reasons why. If the later leaders had no valid reasons… then either it was kept secret in order to not offend the world or they were just not told because they didn’t need the info to follow the orders.
In the US military, a lot of orders are given without an explanation. You don’t have the paygrade to need to know. If you need to know, you’ll be told. If you aren’t told, that is because you didn’t need the information for your job.
Brigham Young was actually against the Free Masons, and called them “secret combinations”. Basically evil secret societies. Not all the Free Masons are like that, of course, since Joseph Smith also joined the Free Masons. So why would the Free Masons attack other Free Masons? Because they are a secret society and the orders come from a leader they don’t even know the identity of…
I researched a little bit into the origins of the Free Masons. They are connected to the Knights Templar and not the stone mason guilds. The story of the last Grandmaster as he fought against both French secular kings and the “Vicar of Christ” sitting in the Vatican, was pretty good for a christian incident of spiritual warfare.
Suffice it to say that the “modern Free Masons” are no longer a secret society. Or rather, the lowest levels are not. Did you know that almost every single NASA astronaut is a Free Mason member? No wonder they didn’t have women in the beginning. Women cannot be Free Masons yet, except for maybe some new revelations.