View Full Version : Facebook Purge of Prominent Conservatives and Alternative News Sources
DavieD55
10-12-2018, 21:38
Facebook Purges Over 800 Accounts With Millions Of Followers; Prominent Conservatives Vanish
by Tyler Durden (https://www.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden) Fri, 10/12/2018 - 05:22
Just in time for midterms, Facebook has removed 559 pages and 251 accounts they claim have been spreading misinformation and spam. Several of the pages however - some with millions of followers, were pro-Trump conservatives who had spent years cultivating their followings.
Facebook has unpublished our page
After 5 years of building fans Facebook has officially unpublished our page (3.1 million fans) so we can't post on it anymore. This is truly an outrage and we are devastated. We will do everything we can to recover our page and fight back. pic.twitter.com/H3AmHTT8Qo (https://t.co/H3AmHTT8Qo)— Free Thought Project (@TFTPROJECT) October 11, 2018 (https://twitter.com/TFTPROJECT/status/1050456314093002752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Facebook claims that "domestic actors" have been creating "fake pages and accounts to attract people with shocking political news," reports Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-11/facebook-removes-over-800-accounts-spreading-u-s-misinformation?srnd=premium).
"The people behind the activity also post the same clickbait posts in dozens of Facebook Groups, often hundreds of times in a short period, to drum up traffic for their websites," Facebook said in a Thursday blog post (https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/10/removing-inauthentic-activity/). "And they often use their fake accounts to generate fake likes and shares. This artificially inflates engagement for their inauthentic pages and the posts they share, misleading people about their popularity and improving their ranking in news feed.
Some pages Facebook removed had large followings of real and fake accounts. Nation in Distress, a conservative meme page, was followed by more than 3 million people, according to the Internet Archive, which stores historical versions of websites and other online content. -Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-11/facebook-removes-over-800-accounts-spreading-u-s-misinformation?srnd=premium)
Full Article (https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-11/facebook-purges-over-800-accounts-millions-followers-including-conservative-meme)
This is my surprised face. Sucks for people that have a lot invested into their Facebook page.
GeorgeandSugar
10-13-2018, 07:29
No surprise here. FB and the entire social media platforms are all leftists in their ideology. Too bad, they are not open to new ideas or political and social debate.
IMHO, it suggests their viewpoints are weak and unsupported. I have found they live in a bubble of their own making devoid of reality and consequences of their thoughts.
In other words, they have no answer to the problems we see in society. They claim to be virtuous, but rather indifferent to the plot of the average American outside their leftists bubble.
Mark Zuckerberg is classic if you have listened to him. Basic income was suggested at a commencement address. However, basic income was tried elsewhere in Finland and was an abject failure.
Typical leftist belief system. Emotional based and without facts. He has no idea that human behavior will seek the path of least resistance and take advantage of anything provided “free of charge” and with no strings attached.
These leftists have no concept of the meaning of freedom and liberty.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Unrestricted freedom and liberty (read: license, as the words get misused) are/is what led to the state of affairs we see today. The liberals understand this, and use it to push a false narrative. In unshackling the fetters of falsity, out of a misguided, truly classical liberalism, we have opened the box of leftist fascism. The strong will always overcome the weak. The milquetoast conservatism we see wrapped in the fetid decoration of words like "freedom" and "liberty" is exactly the tactic used by infiltrators into the right wing of America.
68Charger
10-13-2018, 09:09
This is why I call it 'socialist media'
We've discussed this a fair bit...
The goal was to move all discourse to a environment Libs could 100% control. Once we were fenced in they would start the ratcheting. This kind of control would have been impossible in meatspace.
In the UK, for example, people are being jailed for comments critical to Islam. People have also been charged for "liking" such a comment. This would have been difficult without the documentation socials provide the police state. They've also got algos which have mapped out entire networks of "bad thinkers" and over represent the speech of "good allies."
The people (especially young) getting too wrapped into socials are being harmed in many ways. Lots of info online about that.
Ironically our distrust of corporate media has given the socials more sway; people are more interested in what others think than #FakeNews "journalists."
I'm not sure what the future is but for now socials are the marketplace of ideas. And if they didn't matter you wouldn't see BigTech compromising themselves to censor and control.
I don't understand the outrage - Morons.
Facebook is a known leftest organization. Any conservative organization that invested time and energy into Facebook was just being stupid - and they made Facebook grow in power and influence through their participation.
These conservative organizations most likely have their own website apart from Facebook, and can now invest in something they have control over - and stop bitching about how their investment in liberalism has turned on them - Morons.
I don't understand the outrage - Morons.
Facebook is a known leftest organization. Any conservative organization that invested time and energy into Facebook was just being stupid - and they made Facebook grow in power and influence through their participation.
These conservative organizations most likely have their own website apart from Facebook, and can now invest in something they have control over - and stop bitching about how their investment in liberalism has turned on them - Morons.
An example of how sophisticated the plan is... If the traffic went to individual websites, they would be targeted too. If Conservatives build their own socials, those get targeted.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/6/16259150/gab-ai-registrar-andrew-anglin-daily-stormer-crackdown
The "white supremacists" were mostly trolls. It's the easiest way the Left can attack and delegitimize. Since political speech must also allow for anonymous speech there is no way to police this.
At any rate, as ugly as it is, Americans do have a 1A right to be racist. So shutting down a site because of racism is hardly Constitutional.
But if ICANN and/or the registrars are in on it, what exactly is the solution again? Do we have to build our own internet where trolls can't be used to take it all down?
Here's where we went over the examples/problems (including example of DNS delisting)...
https://www.ar-15.co/threads/167322-Digital-Censorship
I should have kept that thread updated but had hoped it was obvious.
An example of how sophisticated the plan is... If the traffic went to individual websites, they would be targeted too. If Conservatives build their own socials, those get targeted.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/6/16259150/gab-ai-registrar-andrew-anglin-daily-stormer-crackdown
The "white supremacists" were mostly trolls. It's the easiest way the Left can attack and delegitimize. Since political speech must also allow for anonymous speech there is no way to police this.
At any rate, as ugly as it is, Americans do have a 1A right to be racist. So shutting down a site because of racism is hardly Constitutional.
But if ICANN and/or the registrars are in on it, what exactly is the solution again? Do we have to build our own internet where trolls can't be used to take it all down?
Here's where we went over the examples/problems (including example of DNS delisting)...
https://www.ar-15.co/threads/167322-Digital-Censorship
I should have kept that thread updated but had hoped it was obvious.
Thanks for the recap - I had not been paying attention to the fact certain websites were being denied across the board.
I'd suggest bankrupting the big guys with accessory to _____________ (assault, murder, child sexual assault, etc.) for providing links and platforms for these various crimes. Just a thought.
Thanks for the recap - I had not been paying attention to the fact certain websites were being denied across the board.
I'd suggest bankrupting the big guys with accessory to _____________ (assault, murder, child sexual assault, etc.) for providing links and platforms for these various crimes. Just a thought.
As shitty as this sounds, the only solution I see is to acknowledge BigTech succeeded in moving the marketplace of ideas to cyberspace and treat these socials like a utility which includes end-to-end access from posting to unrestricted audience.
And that is exactly what is being explored right now hence the Congressional hearings.
If the socials are peer-to-peer communication networks then this makes sense as they are communication facilitators. If the socials are content owners (which is what they claim by ToS) then they have a big problem because (like you said) they have to own the illicit content they allow. They have also acted (together) to maintain a monopoly on social media communication even collaborating their political attacks together.
JohnnyDrama
10-14-2018, 07:58
The left does not tolerate dissenting thoughts or speech.
We've discussed this a fair bit...
The goal was to move all discourse to a environment Libs could 100% control. Once we were fenced in they would start the ratcheting. This kind of control would have been impossible in meatspace.
In the UK, for example, people are being jailed for comments critical to Islam. People have also been charged for "liking" such a comment. This would have been difficult without the documentation socials provide the police state. They've also got algos which have mapped out entire networks of "bad thinkers" and over represent the speech of "good allies."
The people (especially young) getting too wrapped into socials are being harmed in many ways. Lots of info online about that.
Ironically our distrust of corporate media has given the socials more sway; people are more interested in what others think than #FakeNews "journalists."
I'm not sure what the future is but for now socials are the marketplace of ideas. And if they didn't matter you wouldn't see BigTech compromising themselves to censor and control.
Reminds me of reports of how the "Arab Spring" rose in 2011. IIRC, and this may have even been driven by an agenda based media, most of the "word" about protests was spread on social media because the governments controlled other sources. As Skip stated above, "socials are the marketplace of ideas". So far most of the mobs have only been virtual - look at the MeToo/Kavanaugh thing. But on the other hand, much of the protest against Trump (Womens March) was organized and executed entirely through social media with participants only having enough time to knit a pussy hat or two.
Karl Denninger weighs in
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=234352
Private Business? Not So Fast....
There's been plenty of discussion over whether services such as Apple's iTunes, Google Play, Facebook, Twitter and similar can ban users on a purely-discretionary basis.
The common argument is that because they are private companies they can create whatever policies they'd like so long as they do not violate existing civil rights law (e.g. you can't ban someone because they're black.)
But this isn't merely about services such as Facebook, Twitter and similar -- now the ability of content creators to monetize their work is at stake. As of the 21st of September Infowars has been notified that Paypal is refusing to process payments for subscriptions as well as merchandise.
If you remember in 2017 the notorious neo-Nazi web site Daily Stormer was basically run off the Internet -- first by GoDaddy and then in rapid sequence multiple other firms, including Google. They were denied the ability to buy DNS and hosting service as they were effectively black-balled by dozens of providers of these basic utility-class services more or less "all at once."
More recently Microsoft threatened Gab.ai with loss of their cloud computing provider, Microsoft's Azure, unless they made changes to their operations. Microsoft was and remains unwilling to provide a specific list of changes they required or specifics of any alleged violations of their terms of service.
The premise that a private company can refuse service (or sales) to anyone is a fundamental part of Capitalism; the theory is that if one retailer does not wish to do business with you then another will. But these campaigns of harassment are far more sinister and troubling because they now encompass the utility services that underlie the Internet's infrastructure.
This must not be allowed to stand.
Here's an example. A hypothetical neo-Nazi wishes to buy a domain and purchase web services to air his views. However repugnant the right to hold those views and express them is protected by the First Amendment.
Do businesses involved in selling Internet utility services have the right to refuse to sell to him?
To put your views on the Internet you need several different services, not just one.
1. A circuit or means of delivery and interchange with other users on the Internet. Your cellphone or cable modem is an example of the "end connection" in this regard; in the publisher category this is either an ISP or some sort of a cloud provider. This circuit is not just a line; in some way you have to connect to an interchange point, much like a phone on a physical wire is useless unless it connects to a switch so you can call other people.
2. A DNS or "nameserver" service. This is what turns "vile-nazi.com" into an IP address in the format "1.2.3.4" or, in the Pv6 vernacular, "2501:......". This is an essential service for the modern web because it is not only commonplace it is virtually always true on shared hosting or services of any sort that multiple names are bound to one IP address. For example "vile-nazi.com" and "sweet-kitty.com" may both point to the same numerical IP address; the server determines which request goes where by the presentation of the domain name.
3. A computer (server), either a physical device or a virtual piece of a larger physical computer. These days most small and moderate sites are run on virtualizations, not physical machines -- it's much less expensive and most small and moderate-sized sites simply don't need the entire power of a modern computer, so spreading it among other clients makes it less expensive for everyone.
4. The software that takes the message(s) you provide and formats and delivers them to others. In the web world this is often Apache (a freely available piece of code) although not always by any means -- there are many other packages, some free and some commercial, that perform this function. In addition there are services that perform this function in other ways (which are software packaged up with a "brand") such as Facebook and Twitter.
The question before us today is where is the line between a company able to refuse service to anyone and not?
I think we can agree that the neo-Nazi cannot be refused electrical service at his house. Nor can he be refused water, sewer and trash pickup. He also cannot be refused access to a toll road or bridge, even if privately run, so long as he pays the tolls like everyone else.
But he can be refused seating in a local restaurant.
What's the distinction?
Simple: The neo-Nazi's views are not implicitly endorsed by the establishment in the case of electrical, sewer and toll road service.
It is instantly obvious to an observer that the neo-Nazi's words on Facebook are in fact associated with the company Facebook. Ditto for those on Twitter. But it isn't obvious to the public that the neo-Nazi bought his DNS or Web Service from GoDaddy or Amazon. If one was curious you would have to dig for the information. Even so these providers bear little risk of being co-branded with that neo-Nazi.
As such we should draw through regulation and law some simple bright-line tests.
Facebook can ban whoever it wants, for whatever reason. So can Twitter.
GoDaddy, however, cannot ban a user from DNS registration no matter the purpose so long their site is legal. Ditto for Amazon's AWS, Microsoft's Azure or any other cloud or hosting provider. Nor may providers refuse traffic interchange based on the viewpoints contained in their, or their customers, communications.
Twitter, in short, may ban anyone it wishes. However, should they do so to any material degree there will be created an opportunity for a new Twitter, and anyone may start a competing service with essentially the same feature set.
What do we do with utility services that handle the flow of funds?
Traditional banks or fintech outfits such as PayPal must not be allowed to discriminate against customers simply because they don't like their political views. Banking and monetary exchange is inherently a utility service and to deny same to any US Citizen as a consequence of their views is to attempt to "starve" a citizen for exercising their constitutionally-protected rights.
Thus the recent PayPal ban of Alex Jones must not stand, Master Card must not be able to ban Robert Spencer and neither can the decision of the bank that recently said "no" to a Florida candidate who supports the legalization of cannabis. All of these are issue positions used to deny utility services.
We would not allow Florida Power and Light to cut off Nikki Fried's electricity because she supports the legalization of marijuana. We must not also allow banks and modern utilities such as ISPs, domain providers and similar to effectively destroy people and political speech because they don't like the message, even though it's lawful.
^ Yup.
Karl is noting that distinction between content owners and facilitators (services). Facilitators shouldn't be held accountable for what a user says anymore than a gun manufacturer should be sued for a mass shooting. Content owners can and should (in some instances) be held accountable for what they say.
And I'll rephrase what I said earlier: If the platforms want to be only content owners then they have no business colluding to lock out others thus eliminating any facility for free speech.
Karl puts a box around these, but I'm not so sure that is appropriate given what we are learning about BigTech.
Supreme Court agrees to hear a case that could determine whether Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies can censor their users
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/16/supreme-court-case-could-decide-fb-twitter-power-to-regulate-speech.html
The case, Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, No. 17-702, centers on whether a private operator of a public access television network is considered a state actor, which can be sued for First Amendment violations.
The case could have broader implications for social media and other media outlets. In particular, a broad ruling from the high court could open the country's largest technology companies up to First Amendment lawsuits.
[snip]
In making the argument to the justices that the case was worthy of review, attorneys for MNN said the court could use the case to resolve a lingering dispute over the power of social media companies to regulate the content on their platforms.
Applying a decision on a public broadcaster (facilitator) to content owners bridges the gap.
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