Category: Social Disease

Let That Sink In

National Review;

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the Biden administration likely violated the First Amendment by pressuring social-media platforms to censor posts about Covid-19 and elections.

The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling says that the White House likely “coerced the platforms to make their moderation decisions by way of intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences.” The panel of three judges found that the administration “significantly encouraged the platforms’ decisions by commandeering their decision-making processes, both in violation of the First Amendment.”

A lower court previously placed restrictions on the Biden administration’s communications with social-media platforms; those restrictions applied to a number of government agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the State Department, Homeland Security, and the U.S. Census Bureau.

After temporarily blocking the order, the Fifth Circuit judges have now modified the order to apply only to the White House, the surgeon general, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the FBI.

More here.

Plus, a blow by blow from Tracy Beanz: I want to stop for a second (again) and go over how monumental this actually is. This is the first time ever that a normal “user” or American has submitted evidence of social media censorship and had their concerns ADDRESSED at all by a COURT OF LAW.

Let That Sink In

Biden Administration Ordered Facebook to Change Algorithms to Suppress Conservatives

In one meeting on April 14th, 2021, Flaherty asked Facebook if it was possible to artificially promote outlets such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, instead the Daily Wire and Fox News, particularly commentator Tomi Lahren.

“If you were to change the algorithm so that people were more likely to see NYT, WSJ, any authoritative news source over Daily Wire, Tomi Lahren, polarizing people,” Flaherty asked. “You wouldn’t have a mechanism to check the material impact?” […]

“Never-before-released internal documents subpoenaed by the Judiciary Committee PROVE that Facebook and Instagram censored posts and changed their content moderation policies because of unconstitutional pressure from the Biden White House,” said Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, on Twitter.

Constitutional scholars have also raised the alarm over the revelations, with George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley saying that he has “asked Congress to pass a law barring federal employees from engaging in censorship and targeting of citizens.”

“Agencies have a right to speak in their own voices,” Turley added. “Instead, the Biden Administration sought to engage in what I have called ‘censorship through surrogate.’ This is part of that pattern.”

Fruiti Kaputi

NY Post;

Vegan influencer Zhanna Samsonova has allegedly “died of starvation” after subsisting exclusively on a diet of exotic fruit in Malaysia, according to her friends and family.

She was 39.

The Russian national — who frequently promoted raw foods on social media where she was known to her millions of viewers on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram as Zhanna D’Art — reportedly died July 21 after finally seeking medical treatment during a tour in Southeast Asia, according to local media outlet reports.

“A few months ago, in Sri Lanka, she already looked exhausted, with swollen legs oozing lymph,” one unidentified friend told Newsflash. “They sent her home to seek treatment. However, she ran away again. When I saw her in Phuket, I was horrified.”

The Facebook Files

Jonathan Turley;

Months ago, I testified before Congress on censorship after Elon Musk’s release of internal Twitter communications, also known as the Twitter Files. I warned that the government was engaging in “censorship by surrogate,” using corporate allies to do indirectly what it is legally prevented from doing directly.

Facebook had refused to open its own files on government censorship efforts. That came to an end when the House Judiciary Committee finally moved to hold Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress.

The resulting Facebook Files confirmed what many of us have suspected for years. Indeed, the emails proved to be a mirror image of what had occurred at Twitter — a massive effort by the government to pressure the company to censor its critics and other dissenting voices. […]

In an April 2021 email, Nick Clegg, Facebook’s president for global affairs, wrote to colleagues that Andy Slavitt, a senior adviser to Biden who was steering COVID-19 policy, “was outraged — not too strong a word to describe his reaction — that [Facebook] did not remove this post.”

The post was actually a humorous meme shared by a user named Timothy McComas. It featured actor Leonardo DiCaprio’s character from the film “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood,” pointing at a TV with a beer and cigarette in hand. The caption read: “10 years from now, you will be watching TV and hear…. ‘Did you or a loved one take the COVID vaccine? You may be entitled…’”

Slavitt was not amused. More importantly, he was irate that others were amused. Hundreds of thousands of others.

Libs Gotta Lib

National Post- Ottawa, Quebec pull advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

The federal and Quebec governments will stop advertising on Meta-owned platforms Facebook and Instagram as the conflict between the company and Ottawa heats up over legislation that would force web giants to share revenues with news publishers.

Not so fast there buckaroo…

But the Liberal government’s decision does not extend to the party. Liberal Party of Canada spokesperson Parker Lund said in a statement that the party would continue to advertise on Meta-owned platforms. According to the company’s ad library, the party spent nearly $15,000 on over 1,000 ads in the past month.

Let That Sink In

Ed Morrissey;

Happy birthday, America — and RIP to its newly erected “Ministry of Truth.” That term comes directly from federal Judge Terry Doughty in the Western District of Louisiana, who issued an injunction a couple of hours ago that takes direct aim at the government-media censorship complex. Concluding that plaintiffs in the lawsuit have a strong likelihood of proving that the US government suppressed dissent — and particularly conservative dissent — Doughty ordered the Biden administration and its executive agencies to cease any coordination with social-media companies…

Smart Homes are Dumb

Brandon Jackson- A Tale of Unwanted Disruption: My Week Without Amazon

I have a smart home, and my primary means of interfacing with all the devices and automations is through Amazon Echo devices via Alexa. This incident left me with a house full of unresponsive devices, a silent Alexa, and a lot of questions.

The sequence of events that led to this digital exile began innocuously enough. A package was delivered to my house on Wednesday, May 24, and everything seemed fine. The following day, however, I found that my Echo Show had signed out, and I was unable to interact with my smart home devices.

When I connected with the executive, they asked if I knew why my account had been locked. When I answered I was unsure, their tone turned somewhat accusatory. I was told that the driver who had delivered my package reported receiving racist remarks from my “Ring doorbell” (it’s actually a Eufy, but I’ll let it slide).

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