Social Media Censorship Threatens Information Sharing Vital to Gun Owner Rights

By David Codrea

Watson “too extreme” to be allowed unrestricted access? [YouTube screenshot]
Ammoland Shooting SportsU.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Many of your favorite YouTubers could be about to disappear,” political and social commentator Paul Joseph Watson warns (note some language is NSFW). He’s referring to how the video-sharing giant is categorizing popular conservative issue proponents as “extremist” and limiting their audiences by placing them in “restricted” mode.

“Why does the media want to silence me? It’s because I’m kicking their @$$ and they can’t win the argument on a level playing field … They’re clearly building the narrative that anyone who even hints at challenging the leftist dogma on anything is an extremist and must be silenced.”

Censorship by the social media giants appears to be a plan to salvage exclusive gatekeeper status for those the “progressives” want us to get our information from, the people I call “Authorized Journalists.” They’ve been desperate to shut down the upstarts ever since they sensed the competition meant they were no longer needed. Back in 2009, one of their mouthpieces was even proposing:

“[P]erhaps the best way to limit the avalanche is to make the technologies that overproduce information more expensive and less widespread … via a progressive energy tax …”

That plan to use coercive and confiscatory government taxes to suppress information appears to have gone nowhere, so now the social media giants are taking the task on themselves.

Zuckerberg has the ear of world leaders at APEC – Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. [Facebook]
So aside from developing censorship tools to gain access approval from totalitarian regimes like China, Facebook takes it on itself to suppress views not shared by “progressive” CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Through its Orwellian-named “Initiative for Civil Courage Online” and other policy directives designed to stifle and even remove alternative thought, “conservative” views are being deemed “racist,” “xenophobic” and “hateful,” or “fake news.”

Twitter is also taking steps to control what it will allow and what it will restrict. Aside from its notorious banning of gay conservative Milo Yiannopoulos, per a recent Breitbart report:

“Twitter has confirmed it is experimenting with graying out the profiles of users it deems are posting ‘sensitive content,’ displaying a warning to others before they can read their tweets.”

Not offensive or hateful, right Twitter?

It’s curious how they missed Marxist parasites flipping off communist genocide victims. I guess that’s not hateful or offensive enough.

So who determines “sensitive content,” and specifically those who should be regarded as “haters”?

Colleague Herschel Smith at “The Captain’s Journal” notes Google’s guidelines for determining “offensive” content defers to some of the usual suspects:

“Reputation research is important for identifying websites which promote hate and violence. The Pew Research Center, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Southern Poverty Law Center are some reputable sources that can be used for reputation research.”

Oh really?

This creature has a voice in which news is “fake”?

And who are the arbiters of news that’s real and news that’s “fake”… ?

How about totally unqualified “leftwing moonbats”?

Readers of my blog, “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance” have seen regular instances of my work, including exclusive AmmoLand Shooting Sports News reports, that have been removed from the Google News feed. What that means is much of the stuff that is not being reported by anyone else is confined to the echo chamber of regular readers, and dependent for further propagation either by readers taking it on themselves to share links or via social media like Facebook or Twitter.

And what that means is … well, here, let me give you an example you can see for and prove to yourself: This link (now limited to the relatively obscure Internet Archive/Wayback Machine because the host site is no more) shows the hundreds of reports my late friend and colleague Mike Vanderboegh and I did exposing Operation Fast and Furious “gunwalking” before the “mainstream media” even noticed it.  Most of it has remained ignored even though our early reports have been vindicated by what has since been uncovered, and there’s no reason to think the unexplored claims wouldn’t bear out if those with the resources to do so investigated them.

It’s a big club and we ain’t in it.

It probably will never happen because Mike and I weren’t “real reporters.”

Noting the reason behind letting guns walk to Mexico (it was, as an ATF source noted from the outset, “to pad statistics,” not the “botched gun sting” misdirection that mainstream outlets would have us believe), it’s easy to see how closing off social media venues for sharing such information is a direct threat to gun owners being able to get the information they need to protect their rights.

I realize many gun owners won’t have anything to do with social media, and expect to see comments here to that effect. I would argue that is a squandering of resources, and cedes an ideological battlespace to the enemies of the right to keep and bear arms.

It’s curious that whenever “conservative” messengers start to gain traction in the marketplace, “progressives” try to use government coercion to shut them down and regain an enforced lead.  We saw it with the internet tax proposal and we have seen it proposed against “right wing talk radio” with calls for the FCC to reinstitute the Opposite Day “Fairness Doctrine.”

Using the chair they not shy about picking up in this particular bar fight, the case could be made that Facebook, Google, and Twitter respectively hold near-monopolies on the services they provide. Acting in concert and with full knowledge of each others’ policies to reward “right thinking” and punish “wrong thinking” seems effectively an act of collusion.

Censored By Facebook
Censored By Facebook

Also see: Facebook Censorship Closes Off Information Ignored By Gatekeeper Media

David Codrea in his natural habitat.

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.

In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

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trumped

Look at how germany has made speech it does not approve of illegal on social media. If the left had the votes for it that would be the law of the land here. The next best choice is simply having social media companies handle it for the state.

trumped

There is no question that hillary would be President now without social media and youtube. Thus, the psychological conditioning and bombardment by the media of propaganda about russia, fake news, trump, etc to justify massive social media censorship.

Janek

Given time all “Social Media” is corrupted. That’s why ‘dog whistles’ like “Da Community” fall into common usage!

intheaspens

Check out minds.com – and no, I don’t work for them.

Jim S

The one thing I have hope for, is when these restrictions are put in place, alternative media outlets sprout up. We cant do much for the lemmings that believe whatever Zuckerberg or Bloomberg say, but we can continue to voice opposition to those wanting to take rights away.

Gregory Romeu

Isn’t that the reason alternative media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter, “sprouted up”?

Just for the sake of the argument so, what if other social media outlets sprout up? Who’s to prevent them from doing the very same thing, violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States?

Tor

It depends on exactly what crops up to replace them, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that the upstart is designed in such a way that it is incapable of implementing that kind of censorship because of the technical design of the platform.

Wild Bill

@Greg R, The problem with our current free speech is the lying. The press lies. The media lies. Groups lie. Fake groups lie. It goes without saying that politicians, judges, and bureaucrats lie. Our decisions are supposed to be based upon truth and merit.

Jim S

Sorry Greg, that ship sailed a while back and we have been fighting it for decades now..

Gregory Romeu

Jim S, I’m well aware of that. I have no blinders on.

Gregory Romeu

That’s because the people turn their backs on the recipe that is necessary to maintain a semblance of Civility. When people turn their backs on the church, God, moral standards and Judeo-Christian values. Every Plateau that establish truth and the directives for maintaining truth. Without the guidelines to maintain a semblance of decency and civility you get the crap we have in society today. This is what you’ll see that most government buildings erected before 1913 all have biblical and you gave Christian markings because our country was built by the Bible under God with FAITH. Without faith you have… Read more »

Wild Bill

Not to worry Greg, Soon we will all be subject to shria law and have the wisdumb of the koran to guide us by force.

Tionico

no chance. Not ALL. There will always remain a remnant who refuse to bown the knee to the false gods who now scream for our fealty.

Vanns40

Theoretically a wide open and free internet should make for a more inquisitive society, anxious to ferret out the truth and willing to do actual research to obtain it. I realize that there are those who blindly follow whatever fits their agenda but there are a lot of us who, before we make any judgements, will pull in the reins and start digging. Do we (and I include myself here) make mistakes, sure, but we learn every time we do and we learn from those mistakes. Forums like FB & Twitter that used to be wide open and now, either… Read more »

Gregory Romeu

When any person or group suppresses free speech you have tyranny.

Now you realize the purpose of the citizens in the George Orwell book, 1984 who were in fear of reprisal from the government utilized what was called, “Double-Speak” to be able to communicate.

JorgeNorberto Pedace

ACALLAR LA VOZ DE LOS MEDIOS,NO LE HACE BIEN AL PAÍS,SOLO LE DA VENTAJA A QUIENES DESEAN IMPONER SUS PRETENSIONES,ES EL CAMINO,HACIA LA PERDIDA DE LIBERTADES.-