U.S.A. – -(AmmoLand.com)- The internet has been a bonanza for Second Amendment supporters. In essence, it has allowed them to bypass the mainstream media to give them the facts needed to show the logic in pro-Second Amendment public policies. Well, the gun-grabbers got tired of it, and they’re starting to make moves to end this channel of information.
The internet made a lot of changes. The good was how much information was placed at people’s fingertips. However, while we were busy organizing and relying on the internet, several companies grew so big they became the shot-callers online. You know the names: Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter.
In the wake of the 2016 election, sore losers who oppose our Second Amendment rights were among those calling on Silicon Valley to do something. They started to do just that. Google issued new rules for its YouTube subsidiary in the wake of the Parkland shooting, cracking down on videos that included instructions on how to modify a firearm.
YouTube has also been willing to de-monetize various videos, usually, ones with viewpoints counter to that of Google execs. Meanwhile, Facebook has been cracking down on so-called “fake news.” Twitter has allowed vicious shots taken at pro-Second Amendment activist Dana Loesch to stay up, while acting quickly against disfavored viewpoints.
Those are just a few examples, but the existential danger is clearly there. If Silicon Valley is able to censor pro-Second Amendment activists, then the field is ceded to the mainstream media – as it was until not so long ago. But they don’t have to resort to outright censorship. Silicon Valley can be much more subtle – and still do damage to our right to keep and bear arms.
Fiddling with search results can be one way to do so. If you type in “why semiautomatic rifles should be legal,” you’d probably expect to see the NRA at or near the top. But the first result is for anything the NRA has to say on this issue is pretty far down the page, and the top result is a CNN commentary saying a ban on certain semi-automatic firearms would be constitutional.
Keep in mind, the search was for why they should be LEGAL. Yet, Google’s first offering is a commentary on why a ban is constitutional. There is obviously something at work here, and it isn’t about providing the consumer with a straight answer to the question.
The good news is that there is something that can address this. It is already a matter of law, and it can be enforced with a pen and a phone. It’s known as Section 230. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, this provision, enacted in 1996 as part of the Communications Decency Act, protects online intermediaries from legal liability for passing information on from other users.
There is a catch – these entities have to be honest brokers. They can limit for intellectual property claims or for violations of the law, but efforts to restrict must be taken in good faith to “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.” It is an open question as to whether Google’s algorithm putting a commentary favoring a semi-auto ban at the top of the list of results in search for why semi-automatic rifles should be legal is really operating in good faith.
When the fact about Second Amendment issues get out there, Second Amendment supporters tend to win far more often than not. If Silicon Valley succeeds in muzzling pro-Second Amendment voices, Dianne Feinstein may well get the chance to say, “Mr. and Mrs. America, turn `em in.”
About Harold Hutchison
Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.
I disallow what I think is anti American, anti 2nd amendment communist/socialist talk at my home. I’m the owner and I set the rules. I’ve kicked more than one person off my property and there may very well be more. I simply do not tolerate it on my property. They can rant and rage all they want somewhere else; that’s the American way. Just not on my property. I don’t use any social media as I disagree with the whole expose your boring life thing, but if I did and I ran a popular completely privately funded site I can… Read more »
Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can’t vent any anger against them; I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence. – Charles Bukowski
A second civil war is very near. Those who attempt to take away our rights are target No. #1. We will fight until the end so they best be ready for the END
That same search on Bing brings up articles directly relevant to the search inquiry – NRA-ILA article is first.
You name four shot-callers online, but you tell us how they are shot-callers for only three of them. How do you think Apple is calling the shots on the Internet? They’ve never stopped me from going anywhere on the Internet, nor have they hidden anything from me. They sell electronic devices, but don’t have Internet search software. Speaking of which, if you don’t like Google, then STOP using Google! There are other search engines; use some of them. (Nothing from Microsoft—they’re as bad as Google.) Google’s power comes from people using them instead of some other search engine. Personally, I… Read more »
They banned alex jones app from being sold on apple after it became the highest selling app in the short term ,while alex has been nanned by awhole bunch of internet pimps paypal face book and others,the only way to hear jones is on his apps ,which you can no longer get on i tunes ,thats just one that i know of.
Seriously, just that one thing? Apple dropped Jones’ iTunes app, so that makes Apple one of the Big Four in restricting Internet access?
Jones can get his own Internet domain name and set up his own website. Anyone can. And Apple won’t have a thing to do with stopping him. Exaggeration does not help us persuade others.
Communists will use every means to silence those that have differing views.
This is why I refuse to use google or facebook.
We need to somehow organize a boycott of these malicious and misleading media companies.
Organizing a boycott is easy; getting people to participate in numbers that will be effective is something else entirely. All the passive actionless statements in the world never accomplished anything. All you need to do is take the same approach taken with Kellogg’s and Target when they maligned have the country’s population … and it’s working. I look forward to your actions in this matter. I’ll be the first to joining the boycott. No wait, I’ve never used social media so all I can do is express passive support. Sorry.