August 6th was one of darkest days in the history of the Internet. When I learned that Facebook, YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Pinterest and others had colluded to take down content from Alex Jones all on the same day, I knew exactly what was happening. They timed their attack so that it would hit the press at the beginning of the weekly news cycle on Monday so that their purge would have maximum societal impact. And the fact that there was such overt collusion was obviously meant to send a message. We were supposed to understand that if they can do this to Alex Jones, they can do it to any of us, and so we better shut up and fall in line. I can’t even begin to tell you how sick I feel right now. The big tech giants have made it abundantly clear how they feel about all of us, and there is no future for alternative points of view on any of their platforms.
The current purge of conservative voices has been going on for months, but this is the biggest bombshell by far. The following excerpt from a Los Angeles Times article is a typical example of how the mainstream media covered this story…
Major technology companies including Apple, Facebook and YouTube deleted years of content from conservative conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his Infowars platforms over allegations of hate speech, a sudden clampdown that is fueling the growing debate over how big technology companies choose to censor.
The move was unusual for its sweep and speed, suggesting a new assertiveness by technology companies that in the past have worked to avoid alienating conservatives, who often assert that left-leaning Silicon Valley is biased against them. The removals appeared to be prompted by more users flagging Infowars content for policy violations.
In addition to the “big three”, Spotify and Pinterest pulled down content from Infowars as well, and there is no way that this could have been done simultaneously unless it was planned well in advance. Lawyers have to be consulted, CEOs have to give their approval, etc. This was a cold-blooded move that was carefully calculated down to the finest details.
So is there anything that conservatives can do?
This coordinated, illegal censorship is clear proof of an organized criminal racket being conducted by the tech giants. The RICO Act allows for federal prosecution of such criminal conspiracy.
The internet Dark Ages has now descended upon us, where radical left-wing tech giants run by deranged, mentally ill communists will decide whether your content qualifies as “hate speech.” What is hate speech? It’s anything uttered by a conservative.
And it is quite noteworthy that this comes almost exactly three months before the mid-term elections.
Do you think that is just a coincidence?
After all of the uproar about “election interference”, now the big tech companies are overtly doing it very publicly and in a way that nobody can misunderstand.
The biggest reason why they are lashing out at Alex Jones, Mike Adams and a whole host of other top conservative voices is because Donald Trump would never have gotten elected without them. I guess they figure that if they can start silencing some of those voices that they can turn future elections in their favor.
If it was just a few conservative voices that were being censored, that would be one thing. But the truth is that hundreds and hundreds of conservatives have had Facebook pages taken down, YouTube accounts terminated and Twitter accounts shadowbanned. I won’t repeat all of the information that I have previously published on this topic in this article. Instead, if you would like to learn more I would recommend checking out some of my previous articles…
In the end, this is not about Alex Jones.
This is about a once free society that is becoming more Orwellian with each passing day.
Now that they have come for Alex Jones, they aren’t going to stop.
It might not be tomorrow, but eventually, they are going to come for you.
I would like to end this article with a few words from Dr. Michael Brown’s excellent article about all of this censorship…
Let me repeat what I said in my earlier article about Infowars: Whether you’re an Infowars fan or you find their work distasteful, their potential removal from YouTube should concern you.
Otherwise, soon enough, we’ll have our own version of Martin Niemöller’s famous poem, which will now sound something like this:
First they came for Infowars, and I did not speak out—because I found them offensive.
Then they came for Geller and Spencer, and I did not speak out—because I found them obnoxious.
Then they came for Prager U, and I did not speak out—because I found them opinionated.
Then they came for a host of others, and I did not speak out—because I have my own life to live.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
If the US government prosecutes Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, it will mark a point of no return.
The fate of Julian Assange is the fate of one man, but it is also the fate of one of our most important freedoms. There won’t be shattered plate glass from vandalized businesses littering the streets, synagogues smashed, graves unearthed, or people herded onto trains. But his prosecution by the US government would destroy an inestimable value, one enshrined in the First Amendment, for which generations of Americans have fought and died: the right of the people and its press to inform the people and to hold their government to account.
Aside from armed resistance and revolution, the one defense individuals have against governments is intellectual: the concept of individual rights. There is an argument as to whether those rights come from our Creator (Thomas Jefferson) or from our basic nature as humans and the requirements of our survival (Ayn Rand). Despite starting from different premises, both arguments lead to the same conclusion: individuals have inherent, inalienable, inviolable rights, and the only legitimate function of government is to protect those rights.
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were explicit attempts to delineate a set of principles that recognized individual rights and tried to restrain government power. Though real-world implementation has fallen short, often far short, they were towering conceptual achievements.
Property and contract rights are out the window; the government routinely abridges them. You have no right to your own income, or to conduct your legitimate business or trade free from government regulation and interference. Much of the Bill of Rights is either irrelevant now or has been rendered a dead letter. In terms of individual rights, only the Second Amendment’s much infringed right to bear arms, and the First Amendment—the prohibition against the government establishing a religion, free speech, press, and assembly, and the right to petition the government—are still hanging by a thread.
Which is why the fate of Julian Assange takes on such significance. While the government has prosecuted those like Chelsea (formerly Brad) Manning who have stolen government secrets and classified information, it has not prosecuted the press individuals and organizations who have published them. That is WikiLeaks’ business model: it receives, vets, and publishes stolen information, often from governments.
Pompeo called WikiLeaks “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.” Most press organizations, and almost all that consistently challenge the state, are non-state. WikiLeaks has published state secrets, undoubtedly considered hostile acts by those states, but how is it an intelligence service? Pompeo is arguing that WikiLeaks cannot be considered part of the press, consequently it’s not protected by the First Amendment.
As for the “abetted by state actors like Russia,” WikiLeaks has consistently denied it received the DNC emails from Russia, and nobody has proven otherwise. The best technical evidence indicates those DNC emails were directly downloaded to a portable storage device, indicating an inside job, and not remotely hacked, by Russians or anyone else.
Pompeo argued that “we have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us.” This is straight from Orwell: you are free to say what you want, as long as you don’t say anything against the government. He claimed that WikiLeaks “pretended that America’s First Amendment freedoms shield them from justice,” and, “they may have believed that, but they are wrong.” Now where would WikiLeaks get such a crazy idea? How about the plain language of the First Amendment?
Freedom of the press protects the rights of the press, but more importantly protects the right of all of us to be informed, especially about what was once considered “our” government. It amplifies the freedom of speech. Even a small newspaper reaches more people than someone shouting from a street corner.
If Assange and WikiLeaks are tried and convicted in a US court as “a non-state hostile intelligence service,” the government can slap that label on any person or organization publishing or otherwise disclosing its secrets. The case would probably make its way to the Supreme Court. If the court accepted the Pompeo exception to the First Amendment, freedom of the press and speech would become two more of the Constitution’s dead letters.
Just the prosecution of Assange and WikiLeaks would have a chilling effect. Not that most of the US’s supine mainstream and social media would be chilled. The mainstream media that have spoken out about Assange and WikiLeaks have come down on the side of the government. The social media companies, de facto arms of the government, are shutting down politically incorrect voices. Neither mainstream or social media have anything to lose from the termination of First Amendment freedoms because they don’t say, or allow anyone else to say, anything the powers that be don’t want heard.
Few totalitarian regimes take their people’s rights away all at once. It’s done gradually to reduce dissent, until that Kristallnacht moment where it’s impossible to evade the reality: there are no rights left. If the Trump administration prosecutes Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, that sinking feeling in your stomach will be the realization that the last remnant of your rights are gone, that the government and Trump are your enemies.
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) is calling on social media monopolies to “do more than take down one website,” meaning take down more websites on top of InfoWars, which was de-platformed by YouTube, Facebook, and others on Monday.
“Infowars [sic] is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart,” Murphy tweeted Monday afternoon. “These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it.”
Infowars is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart. These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it.— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) August 6, 2018
Obviously, what Murphy sees here is an opportunity to go around the First Amendment, to kill free and open speech he disagrees with, and to accomplish that using social media giants as his hit squad.
Democrats and the establishment media are desperate to return America back to the pre-Internet days when a very few corporations controlled the free flow of information, those corporations being the four television networks and a handful of newspapers and wire services.
Conservatives now find themselves, once again, in the precarious position of being at the mercy of just a handful of companies: Twitter, Facebook, Apple, YouTube, Pinterest, etc… And what Murphy and his left-wing confederates want is to crush speech, to control the flow of information, to strangle certain ideas in the crib, and to use these monopolies as a way to go back to the “good old days” when the left-wing establishment fully controlled the dissemination of news.
If America had a media that was worth a damn, Murphy would be asked for a list of these “websites” he would like to see de-platfomed and disappeared. Unfortunately, the same media outlets that claim the First Amendment is being violated whenever they are criticized, have joined in this unholy and un-American crusade to silence their critics on the political right.
What’s more, Murphy’s call for these big companies to remove websites is not a small deal. As a sitting United States Senator, he has the power to threaten and regulate these corporations to do his bidding.
In more ways than one way Alex Jones and InfoWars are the canary in the coalmine of free speech.
While I personally find InfoWars ridiculous and dishonest (although there are some good people working there), as a free speech extremist, I want to protect the rights of those who lie and spread nonsense in the same way I want to protect the rights of pornographers and even an outlet like CNN that spreads hate and foments violence.
If InfoWars and pornographers and CNN are safe from censorship, than so are you and I. Moreover, there is no speech out there (unless it’s an open call for violence) that results in something worse than what we see when speech is regulated or silenced.
In other words, I prefer a world where people are allowed to lie to a world where someonedecides what is and is not a lie.
InfoWars being silenced tightens the free speech circle, brings the line closer to you and I, especially in a terrifying and chilling climate where the left-wing establishment are deciding what “lies and hate” are.
Killing the InfoWars canary, however, will also embolden the censors at CNN and those like Murphy in the political world. They see that dead canary as a success, and as a blueprint to come after the rest of us. And make no mistake, we are all next.
Finally, and this is important, what Murphy is calling for is even more extreme than what happened to InfoWars.
Murphy is calling for “websites” to be taken down — entire websites.
In deleting their accounts, what Facebook and YouTube did to Infowars is bad enough, but Jones still has his own site, his own outlet; and now we have a sitting United States Senator is calling for that to be removed.
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