[NCAC] PRIVATE CENSORSHIP – FIGHTING SUPPRESSION OF SPEECH BY NON-GOVERNMENTAL ACTORS

not sure why YouTube didn't censor him earlier . . . .

 

for the Miranda Devine fans out there . . .

Suspect Frank James was spewing racist hate years before Brooklyn subway shooting

https://nypost.com/2022/04/13/suspe...ng-racist-hate-well-before-brooklyn-shooting/

 

yeah, actually I disagree. I don't think he gave a particularly good answer to this.

Let me offer up a somewhat tentative, speculative hypothesis. I have no opinion as to whether this hypothesis is true or not, if I were a social scientist I would develop some social science to figure out a potential solution to the hypothesis.

My hypothesis is this: YouTube did not censor Frank James over the past how-ever-many-years for his videos (hate speech and all) because Frank James is not the correct skin color to censor.

Moreover, I think YouTube--to the extent that YouTube might even have been aware of Frank James's existence (and I find it difficult that his videos didn't raise some flags somewhere along the line at some time)--elected NOT to censor Frank James's videos the way they might have censored someone else's videos who fit the correct "hate speech" profile. I find it VERY difficult to believe that Frank James never came to the attention of YouTube's "Community Guidelines" police at any time.

In other words I believe YouTube actively chose NOT to censor Frank James because he was not a white hate speecher but instead tolerated his videos because he was (and still is) a black hate speecher.

I think Miranda Devine's column above in the NY Post spells out more of the particulars that background my admittedly tentative and speculative hypothesis.

 

YouTube got pretty proactive with these guys and didn't wait until after they pulled their guns out and started shooting.

Apparently they violated YouTube's "Harmful and Dangerous" policy.

 

Elon Musk’s Twitter Bid Proves The ‘Private Business Can Do What It Wants’ Censorship Defense Was Always Garbage

https://thefederalist.com/2022/04/14/elon-musks-twitter-bid-proves-the-private-business-can-do-what-it-wants-censorship-defense-was-always-garbage/

excerpt:

When Big Tech companies like Twitter have censored users or content that challenges their agendas in the past — see, the New York Post’s Hunter Biden’s laptop bombshell, the 45th president of the United States, reporting on the crisis at the U.S. southern border, an obituary of a mother who reportedly died from Covid shot complications, members of Congress, investigative reporting on abortion, summaries of court decisions about election law, a Federalist editor who said boys and girls are different, The Babylon Bee, and the “Libs of Tik Tok” account, which exposes educators talking about their radical sex ideology, to name a few — a gaggle of censorship aficionados inevitably insist that “because the First Amendment doesn’t regulate private companies they can silence whoever the heck they want.”

As he typically does in such matters, Washington Post columnist Max Boot provides a textbook example.

After the New York Post published bombshell reporting about a compromising laptop belonging to then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter — a laptop which, more than a year later, The New York Times and Boot’s own employer have admitted is legit — Boot loudly defended Twitter’s “private-sector” right to censor the story.

“Facebook and Twitter are private-sector companies, and they have no obligation to pass along possible Russian disinformation. That’s not ‘censorship.’ It’s editorial judgment, and it’s something we need more of online,” Boot insisted in October 2020. “I’m all for free speech, but the First Amendment does not impose on companies a mandate to spread Russian — or Republican — disinformation.”

Now that Musk has offered to buy Twitter and make it a really private company, Boot is singing a different tune. “I am frightened by the impact on society and politics if Elon Musk acquires Twitter. He seems to believe that on social media anything goes,” Boot cried on Thursday morning. “For democracy to survive, we need more content moderation, not less.”
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more at the link

 

https://jonathanturley.org/2022/04/...-featuring-liberals-talking-about-themselves/

Twitter Suspends LibsofTikTok For Featuring Liberals Talking About Themselves?
by jonathanturley
April 15, 2022

Twitter has continued its ever-widening censorship of social media this week with the suspension of the popular site, The @LibsofTikTok. What is interesting about this latest move is that it lacks even the pretense of neutrality. The liberal group Media Matters had targeted the site due to its use by Fox News and conservatives to run embarrassing stories for the left. So Twitter suspended a site that entirely features liberals talking about themselves.

Twitter suspended the site for “hateful conduct.” It warned the site “You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.”

However, the site highlights liberals speaking about themselves and their values in their own voices. There is no explanation, which is common for the company. It simply suspended the site and told it to reform itself.

Formed in November 2020, the “Libs of Tik Tok” account has more than 613,000 followers on Twitter and has become a major feeder for conservative new sites. Clearly, if the site changes videos or misrepresents what was said, it can be sued for defamation or false light. However, the primary objections online is that the site fuels criticism of the left.

The success of the site drew the familiar crowd demanding the silencing of opposing voices or groups.

Notably, the liberal Media Matters stressed that the site had simply become too successful. Sophie Lawton described the reposting of liberal voices as “targeting teachers and schools with anti-LGBTQ smears.” She described that the site was growing in influence as the basis for stories by Fox, Joe Rogan, Meghan McCain and others. However, all she describes is the use of tapes of liberal subjects talking about themselves and objects that “the Libs of TikTok content has become ammunition for their arguments.”

That was apparently enough for Twitter, which defined reposting liberals to be a form of hateful conduct.

The action seems consistent with the chillingly anti-free speech agenda of Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal. In an interview with Technology Review editor-in-chief Gideon Lichfield, he was asked how Twitter would balance its efforts to combat misinformation with wanting to “protect free speech as a core value” and to respect the First Amendment. Agrawal responded:

“Our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment, but our role is to serve a healthy public conversation and our moves are reflective of things that we believe lead to a healthier public conversation. The kinds of things that we do about this is, focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed.

One of the changes today that we see is speech is easy on the internet. Most people can speak. Where our role is particularly emphasized is who can be heard. The scarce commodity today is attention. There’s a lot of content out there. A lot of tweets out there, not all of it gets attention, some subset of it gets attention.”​

Twitter seems to have followed Agrawal’s lead. It is not just thinking less about free speech. It is not thinking of it at all. Libs of TikTok was getting too much attention so it suspended it without further explanation.

Notably, there are many sites that watch and repost videos of evangelical ministers and conservative figures for use on liberal sites. That includes “Right Wing Watch” run by the liberal People for the American Way. It is all free speech. However, Twitter is now in the business of shaping viewpoints and values. It has, according to its CEO, simply moved beyond free speech.

Given such actions, it is understandable why Twitter employees are reportedly not just in a panic over Elon Musk buying the company (and reintroducing free speech principles) but even requiring emotional support to just “get through the week.”

That is the problem with free speech. Just when you think that you have moved beyond it, it just comes back. For corporate censors, it is a perfect nightmare.
​

​

 

“A Magnet for Conspiracy Theories”: Wikipedia Kills Entry for Hunter Biden’s Investment Company

https://jonathanturley.org/2022/04/...s-entry-for-hunter-bidens-investment-company/

excerpt:

Wikipedia editors are under fire this week for removing the entry for Rosemont Seneca Partners,the investment company connected to Hunter Biden and his alleged multimillion dollar influence peddling schemes. The site bizarrely claimed that the company was “not notable.” The timing itself is notable given the new disclosure that Hunter Biden’s business partner, Eric Schwerin, made at least 19 visits to the White House and other official locations between 2009 and 2015. That included a meeting with then-Vice President Joe Biden despite Biden’s repeated claim that he knew nothing about his son’s business dealings. Schwerin was the president of Rosemont Seneca.

Wikipedia has been accused of raw bias in removing the entry at a time when interest in the company is at its peak, including the possibility of an indictment of Hunter Biden over his financial dealings. Rosemont Seneca is one of the most searched terms for those trying to understand the background on the Biden business operations.

Yet, an editor “AlexEng” wrote that the company was simply “not notable” — an absurd claim reminiscent of the recent claim by Atlantic Magazine’s writer Anne Applebaum that she did not cover the scandal because it simply was “not interesting.”

Alex wrote: “This organization is only mentioned in connection with its famous founders, Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz.” That itself is an odd statement. It is mentioned as one of the key conduits of alleged influence peddling money. Alex added that “keeping it around” ran the risk of the page becoming “a magnet for conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.” It is that last comment that I found most concerning as part of this decision.

Any Wikipedia page could be a magnet for conspiracy theories, including the page on Hunter Biden himself. The fact is that this is a real company with real dealings that are the subject of a real criminal investigation. Indeed, various Republican members have already pledged to conduct investigations into this and other companies if they secure either house of Congress after the midterm elections.

So Wikipedia killed it just as a United States Attorney is drilling down on financial dealings of Hunter Biden, including money received from foreign sources through Rosemont Seneca.
​

more at the link

 

bump for @JayGoogle

 

bump for @JayGoogle

 

bump for @JayGoogle