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October 11, 2018
They Are Trying To Silence Us - As Media Suffers Its 'Worst, Most Humiliating Chapters In Modern Journalism,' Independent Media Is Needed Now More Than Ever
One of the most dishonest statements a writer and/or reporter can make is the claim that they have no bias, or as CNN's Chris Cillizza stated in October 2016 "Let me say for the billionth time: Reporters don't root for a side. Period."
I called BS then, and I call it now. CNN's own Chris Coumo proved Cillizza's dishonesty two years before Cillizza made that laughable claim by admitting, on-air, that in the media's push for Hillary Clinton to announce a presidential run, "We couldn't help her any more than we have, she's got just a free ride so far from the media, we're the biggest ones promoting her campaign, so it had better happen." (Video here, published in 2016, but Cuomo's statements were made in 2014)
As a writer myself, I will tell readers straight up, I am a conservative and everything from our choice in topics, to our observations, contain the inherent bias of our own ideology.
The differences between the establishment media and Independent Media are many, but the top three are listed below.
1) Independent Media writers openly admit their bias, whereas establishment liberal media pundits claim their bias does not affect their work.
2) Independent Media will state our observations, but will link to our source material or embed original documents, rather than just say "I read it and this is what is important to you," so that readers can read, research and use their own judgement to determine if they agree with our observations, and highlight what they find to be of importance to them.
3) The most important difference, the most critical at this moment is that Silicon Valley, including Google, YouTube (Owned by Google's parent company Alphabet), Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, etc..... are actively censoring conservatives, and have stepped up those attacks against Independent Media, while heavily promoting the liberal media establishment.
MEDIA SUFFERS 'WORST, MOST HUMILIATING CHAPTERS IN MODERN JOURNALISM'
The statement in quotation above comes from one of the most detailed, documented and sourced, take downs of the establishment liberal media behavior over the last month, in relation to the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
While we at ANP covered many items individually as they happened, Washington Examiner's Becket Adams, provides the entire timeline of the liberal media's "immediate willingness to trade this industry's already badly battered reputation for a political victory."
I cannot recommend this piece enough, the documented lies, misleading headlines, the timeline, it is a journalistic piece of art, to which Adams concludes towards the end, "The errors all pointed in one direction."
Taken separately, a fair-minded person could say the authors of these and still more unfairly anti-Kavanaugh reports were merely ignorant or sloppy. But taken all together – and mind you, this doesn't even include the commentaries – it paints a far more damaging picture for some of the nation’s most prestigious and vaunted newsrooms.
From the smaller errors to the more egregious ones (like NBC's decision to air the Swetnick interview), there’s only one thing that ties all the awful reporting together. Every single story worked against Kavanaugh, as if with a unity of purpose intended to ensure that he would never be given a fair chance to clear his good name and reach the Supreme Court.
Kavanaugh has a lifetime appointment now, which may or may not be worth what he had to put up with to get it. But the clear victim here is the credibility of the news media itself, which has suffered far more damage than any number of attacks President Trump could inflict upon it.
Please read it in its entirety, the piece is titled "Confirmation bias: Brett Kavanaugh and the major media's worst moment," because it clearly shows the need for more voices, more independent opinion, more information, at a time when Silicon Valley is determined to silence us, conservatives, Independent Media, and social media users that do not conform to the preferred narrative.
BIG TECH STEPS UP ATTACKS
On October 3, 2018, I received an email from the newer social media platform Gab, which was created as an alternative to Twitter when it became apparent that Twitter was actively censoring, shadow banning and silencing conservative opinion.
Gab does what Twitter originally claimed it would do, allows free speech, the free exchange of ideas and opinions, which is why the liberal media and its cohorts immediately started claiming "Gab has been described as a platform for white supremacists and the alt-right."
That is untrue. I have a Gab account and sure there are some white supremacists, but there are also far left, radical liberals, and many in between the two fringes, and as promised, unless someone is posting illegal content (child porn, terrorist content, etc....) they do not censor the content.
The email from Gab states the following:
It's interesting how we've never had any issues with either of our payment processors for over two years now, but all of a sudden when Gab.com is the only platform on the internet to host Alex Jones and defend free expression for all people, we become the target.
In the last two weeks both of our payment processors have threatened to or have frozen our service. This is why we are crowdfunding from You, The People, to build our own free speech-friendly infrastructure. Learn how to become a Gab shareholder here: https://www.startengine.com/freespeech
Paypal did not terminate our service--yet. They threatened to a few weeks ago over a meme from 2012 called "Navy Seal Copypasta." They took the meme literally like idiots who know nothing at all about basic internet culture. We refused to censor the meme because the context and intent were very clear. We have not heard back since we told them this 11 days ago and our account is still active as of now.
Stripe, our other payment processor, is demanding quote:
"Modification of your terms of service to indicate that adult or illegal content cannot be streamed through GabTV or otherwise distributed through the Gab service. The implementation of reasonable controls to ensure that no adult or illegal content is being streamed through GabTV or otherwise available on the Gab service."
Both of these make no sense because we already do not allow any illegal content and take action against it. Further, any adult content must be marked as NSFW (Not Safe For Work) per our user guidelines, which is a similar feature that Reddit and others have for adult content on their site. Stripe has no problem working with Facebook, Pinterest, and Squarespace, all of which certainly have adult content if you go looking for it.
We will keep fighting to break free from Silicon Valley’s dystopian control over the internet and infrastructure. With your help, we can accomplish this. Join us and invest in Gab here: https://www.startengine.com/freespeech
I have no way of knowing what Gab's ultimate fate will be, especially in a time when Silicon Valley is doing its best to limit free speech, but according to Alexa, since January 2018, Gab has increased in users and traffic.
In that time Internet users discovered far more about Twitter, and other social media's censorship practices, with the Twitter lockouts, user purges, the Project Veritas undercover videos where Twitter engineers admitted to tweaking algorithms so they would label certain speech (God, Guns, America first) as bot behavior, or Russian bots.
Twitter recently banned the very vocal conservative actor James Woods, demanding he remove one of his posts, to which he refused to do, and he publicly accused them of trying to "kill my free speech." Wood's was eventually allowed back on the platform after Twitter took it upon themselves to remove his post. Of course Woods immediately posted a screen shot of the post that offended their delicate sensibilities, and he has been on a tear on the platform ever since.
More recently a very popular Twitter user, the conservative GayPatriot, has once again been suspended, without reason, although most users have their own opinions as to why he was suspended, with the general consensus being he is the "wrong type of gay," meaning a conservative.
Remember, Democrats and their liberal cohorts in Silicon Valley think they "own" certain populace demographics, so those that do not conform to the preferred narrative, often get silenced.
Facebook has taken to putting a little "information" icon on items users share and for Independent Media websites the info tab, when clicked, leads to Wikipedia's description of the sites, where they label Independent media sites as "conservative," yet establishment media, to which the majority of Americans know has a liberal bias, they do not mention that ideological lean at all. Yet another subtle attempt to deligitimize independent content while endorsing liberal content.
[MAJOR UPDATE]Facebook purged over 800 accounts and pages pushing political messages for profit. Mostly conservative, American based, with claims they "spam" (meaning they share their work) calling them "inauthentic." Note- That is a direct lie, a couple of those pages were run by ANP friend, Dean James, over at Right Wing Tribune, and his personal account is gone as well.
ANP readers already know from a previous article by Stefan Stanford that YouTube has demonetized our whole channel and Pinterest has deleted our All News PipeLine board, while the "threats" shown by our Cloudfare continue to remain at a higher rate than usual.
We are not alone, dozens, if not hundreds, of other conservative channels, accounts, boards, are seeing the same type of attempts to limit their voices from being heard online.
Google just suffered another black-eye as an internal document titled "The Good Censor," was shared by someone within the company, with Breitbart. The 85 page document that shows Google's internal briefings arguing "that due to a variety of factors, including the election of President Trump, the “American tradition” of free speech on the internet is no longer viable," as described by Breitbart, which has the entire document embedded.
Key points, along with the pages they are found on are listed by Breitbart:
P2 – The briefing states that “users are asking if the openness of the internet should be celebrated after all” and that “free speech has become a social, economic, and political weapon.”
P11 – The briefing identifies Breitbart News as the media publication most interested in the topic of free speech.
P12 – The briefing says the early free-speech ideals of the internet were “utopian.”
P14 – The briefing admits that Google, along with Twitter and Facebook, now “control the majority of online conversations.”
P15 – Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is linked to Google’s position as a platform for free expression. Elsewhere in the document (p68), Google and other platforms’ move towards moderation and censorship is associated with the role of “publisher” – which would not be subject to Section 230’s legal protections.
PP19-21 – The briefing identifies several factors that allegedly eroded faith in free speech. The election of Donald Trump and alleged Russian involvement is identified as one such factor. The rise of the populist Alternative fur Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) party in Germany – which the briefing falsely smears as “alt-right” – is another.
PP26-34 – The briefing explains how “users behaving badly” undermines free speech on the internet and allows “crummy politicians to expand their influence.” The briefing bemoans that “racists, misogynists, and oppressors” are allowed a voice alongside “revolutionaries, whistleblowers, and campaigners.” It warns that users are “keener to transgress moral norms” behind the protection of anonymity.
P37 – The briefing acknowledges that China – for which Google has developed a censored search engine – has the worst track record on internet freedom.
P45 – After warning about the rise of online hate speech, the briefing approvingly cites Sarah Jeong, infamous for her hate speech against white males (Google is currently facing a lawsuit alleging it discriminates against white males, among other categories).
P45 – The briefing bemoans the fact that the internet has until recently been a level playing field, warning that “rational debate is damaged when authoritative voices and ‘have a go’ commentators receive equal weighting.”
P49 – The document accuses President Trump of spreading the “conspiracy theory” that Google autocomplete suggestions unfairly favored Hillary Clinton in 2016. (Trump’s suspicions were actually correct – independent research has shown that Google did favor Clinton in 2016).
P53 – Free speech platform Gab is identified as a major destination for users who are dissatisfied with censorship on other platforms.
P54 – After warning about “harassment” earlier in the document, the briefing approvingly describes a 27,000-strong left-wing social media campaign as a “digital flash mob” engaged in “friendly counter-commenting.”
P57 – The document juxtaposes a factoid about Russian election interference with a picture of Donald Trump.
P63 – The briefing admits that when Google, GoDaddy and CloudFlare simultaneously withdrew service from website The Daily Stormer, they were “effectively booting it off the internet,” a point also made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the FCC in their subsequent warnings about online censorship.
P66-68 – The briefing argues that Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are caught between two incompatible positions, the “unmediated marketplace of ideas” vs. “well-ordered spaces for safety and civility.” The first is described as a product of the “American tradition” which “prioritizes free speech for democracy, not civility.” The second is described as a product of the “European tradition,” which “favors dignity over liberty and civility over freedom.” The briefing claims that all tech platforms are now moving toward the European tradition.
P70 – The briefing sums up the reasons for big tech’s “shift towards censorship,” including the need to respond to regulatory demands and “expand globally,” to “monetize content through its organization,” and to “protect advertisers from controversial content, [and] increase revenues.”
P74-76 – The briefing warns that concerns about censorship from major tech platforms have spread beyond the right-wing media into the mainstream.
The document is damning and the liberal establishment media is ignoring it, with Google offering a statement claiming the document should be considered internal research, and not an official company position. Yet, official company positions are generated by their internal research, which pretty much negates their claim.
BOTTOM LINE - INDEPENDENT MEDIA IS NEEDED NOW MORE THAN EVER
If the total abdication of obligation to inform the public of the truth on the part of the establishment media, causing them to suffer the "worst, most humiliating chapters of modern journalism" over the past month, was not enough to make everyone see that alternate voices, more information from Independent Media is needed now more than ever, than the Breitbart leaked document, and the fact that the liberal establishment media isn't informing the public of "news" about Google's manipulation, control and censorship, should make it crystal clear now.
In a time where big tech and social media are doing everything in their power to silence those that will not conform to the liberal preferred narrative, whether it is by manipulating search results, steering the public to establishment media while burying the independent voices, or actively suspending or terminating accounts on social media's part, along with the deliberate "fake news" pushed by establishment media, the need to support Independent Media is more critical than ever.
Midterms are coming up in a few weeks and the MSM, social media and big tech want one result and will use any underhanded, dirty method they can find to silence anyone that wants a different outcome than they do.
Readers can help: Share articles with friends, family, email contacts. Share on social media if you use them. Discuss issues found on Independent Media if you find them important, to balance the liberal bias the news outlets and newspaper shove down the throats of the public every day. Donate to your favorite sites if you can, and if you aren't in a position to help financially, support them in prayer.
They are trying to silence us, all of us. The only way to fight back, is how we did it in 2016, support each other in any manner we can, spread the word and bypass the censors. We did it once before, we can do it again.
NOTE TO READERS: ANP Needs Your Help. With digital media revenue spiraling downward, especially hitting those in Independent Media, it has become apparent that traditional advertising simply isn't going to fully cover the costs and expenses for many smaller independent websites.
Any extra readers may be able to spare for donations is greatly appreciated.
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