I Hope Americans Read Just One Paragraph ...
… To learn everything they need to know about how endemic Censorship in America really is.
The mountain of evidence proving beyond a reasonable doubt officials in the Biden White House bullied Facebook (and other social media) executives to perform Orwellian censorship has now reached Mt. Everest elevations.
Yesterday, I spent several hours reading media reports and Twitter comments after Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) published the third installment of the “Facebook Files.”
Forget the Hunter and Joe Biden influence-peddling operations, if the revelations in these files don’t qualify as “impeachable offenses” nothing will.
Officials throughout government (like Rob Flaherty and Andy Slavitt) need to be filling prison cells. Social media companies like Facebook also need to be sued into bankruptcy, prosecuted criminally, disgraced, shamed and humiliated.
I hope a few of my subscribers will read articles published by The Washington Stand, Fox News and this Twitter-thread summary to learn more details regarding this scandal and egregious violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Instead of re-hashing the evidence in these articles, I decided to simply parse one brief “note” composed by an unnamed Facebook executive who attended Censorship meetings with White House officials. (These notes were subpoenaed by Rep. Jordan’s committee.)
This paragraph might be all readers need to grasp the scale of this operation and to learn how eager Facebook executives were to do the bidding of Big Brother (the government of the United States of America.)
The One Paragraph that Tells Us Everything …
Facebook employee (name redacted for some reason) - July 16, 2021:
“And we attack virality aspect through feed demotions. We remove content that can lead to imminent physical harm. For content that doesn’t meet that threshold, we instituted borderline demotions. For example, someone sharing negative side effect posts. Similarly, posts questioning whether you get a vaccine under a mandate, whether it’s government overreach. We demote those. That’s not false information but it leads to a vaccine negative environment. When it comes to looking at COVID misinformation, it’s a different approach. What we normally do is just remove or leave to fact checkers. Here, we introduced a middle ground.”
What follows is my sentence-by-sentence parsing of information one can glean from this one stunning paragraph:
“…we (Facebook) attack virality aspect through feed demotions.”
My comment: Here we have Stanford University’s “Virality Project” in operation. The goal is to prevent certain information from “going viral,” to prevent Facebook’s contrarian users from reaching (and thus influencing) more than a handful of the platform’s one billion users.
For the record, the information Facebook ensured did NOT go viral turned out to be truthful information, information that could have saved millions of lives or prevented millions of people from suffering medical (or economic) harm.
As it turns out, almost every post that was blocked or demoted contained information which, if widely disseminated, could have perhaps debunked all the false narratives the government was committed to spreading.
I’ve written this 50 times, but let’s make it 51: The government and its many narrative-protecting “partners” are the actual spreaders of toxic and dangerous misinformation/disinformation.
A Giant Protection Racket …
The entire censorship operation was an effort to protect the organizations that were spreading false and misleading information.
The entire operation was/is a massive and coordinated disinformation project conceived and executed by at least 50 organizations that comprise the Censorship Industrial Complex - the most important players in this Complex being the U.S. government and social media companies that have billions of followers.
As the first sentence in this paragraph reveals, Facebook admits (brags?) that it accomplished this objective via “feed demotions.”
Trust me. I have first-hand knowledge of every censorship tool referenced in this paragraph … as I was one of the critical-thinking skeptics Facebook and our government worked tirelessly to make sure had no real influence on my fellow citizens.
That is, none of my criticisms of any Covid responses ever went viral. In fact, these posts kept getting my account banned, suspended or de-boosted. Also, my potential “influence” in democratic debates is still being blocked by Facebook today.
(Aside: Many readers question why I remain on Facebook given how repulsive this company’s activities are. In today’s Reader Comments, I list some of the reasons I’ve decided to keep my account active. For example, I know FB is still censoring or de-boosting my Covid posts only because, technically, I’m, still a FB user … to better keep an eye on what FB is doing and how it’s doing this … I need to be on FB.)
“… We remove content that can lead to imminent physical harm …”
My comment: Note here that Facebook (or the government) decided on its own what speech (“content”) “can” lead to “imminent physical harm.”
All conclusions - expressed as statements of fact - are actually highly-subjective and all tacitly accept that government sources and social media companies get to be the final arbiters of what is or isn’t “misinformation” or “disinformation.”
Again, everything the company said “can” lead to imminent physical harm … would not have led to imminent physical harm.
FWIW, semantically, the word “can” implies that “cannot” or “does not” are also possibilities.
The first three words of the sentence simply say, “We remove content.” Again, the company is admitting what it did. This is as brazen as censorship gets.
As the social media company is still removing content today, I have concluded Facebook is not afraid of Rep. Jim Jordan or this Committee.
(As one Twitter wag noted, what’s the Committee going to do about any of this? Send a “strongly-worded letter” to Facebook?)
“For content that doesn’t meet that threshold, we instituted borderline demotions.”
My comment: So if Facebook decided it couldn’t remove certain content, the company can at least “institute borderline demotions.” So the two possibilities are “total removal of speech” or “borderline demotions.” Got it.
For emphasis, Door Three: “Let people say what they want to say” or “don’t muzzle the speech of your users” … was not an option.
“… For example, someone sharing negative side effect posts.”
My comment: In America and on Facebook - per the non-stop coercion and threats of Biden White House officials - someone literally could not “share” with all their Facebook followers that they experienced a “negative side effect” from a “vaccine.”
These Facebook users would simply be “sharing” a truth as they perceive it … but they couldn’t do this - per Facebook and the Biden government.
Which is our government. A government created by the U.S. Constitution, whose First Amendment (allegedly) protects “free speech” and says the government can never bully citizens or companies into saying only what the government demands.
Let that sink in.
In a later note, one of the government’s key censorship henchmen (Rob Flaherty) actually says it’s his “dream” that Facebook would “play ball” with Big Brother (a dream that came true.)
My dream is that more Americans would wake up and understand that our “right” to free speech is being eviscerated by a coordinated and massive conspiracy of criminals and lying virtue-signalers.
“… Similarly, posts questioning whether you get a vaccine under a mandate, whether it’s government overreach.”
My comment: Here we learn that Facebook users also couldn’t fully share the opinion that “vaccine mandates were government overreach.”
Apparently our government has not “over-reached” when it tells citizens and companies that they can’t share certain opinions.
Whether people realize this or not, statements like this mean we might as well be living in North Korea or 1978 East Germany. Basically, one cannot accuse our own democratically-elected government of “over-reaching” - per government decree!
“We demote those.”
My comment: Well, of course you do. Big Brother was watching you and you were watching every one of your billion customers … No unauthorized speech was going to “go viral” under your watch.
Facebook could (accurately) claim this company was bullied and threatened by the government, but its executives can’t claim they were overly troubled by this. Or that they forcefully pushed back against this bullying. What they did was roll over like a puppy.
When one of the largest and most influential companies in the world - one that has tens of millions of intelligent users who could have used this speech platform to push-back against “government over-reach” - lacks the guts to do this … this should tell us all something about:
A) How captured all Big Corporations are and …
B) That not ONE of these companies has any brave or principled true “leaders” who are willing to publicly call-out a tyrannical government.
“That’s not false information but it leads to vaccine negative environment.”
My comment: So, per official Facebook posting policy, the social media company knew this wasn’t false information - which means it was very likely/possibly “true information. Still, Facebook replies it had a great or valid reason to censor true speech … because said speech “leads to vaccine negative environment.”
Here we reach the censorship bottom-line …
Nobody in the world (at least on Facebook) is allowed to to say anything that might create a “negative vaccine environment.”
Even if said vaccine has killed millions of people (which these non-vaccines probably have by now), no Facebook user can say anything “negative” about such a vaccine.
And vaccine deaths and adverse events were not and are not “hypothetical.” They were real and began occurring the first day the shots were administered.
Jews, gypsies and political dissidents were being killed, harmed or falsely imprisoned from the day the first Nazi concentration camp opened. But - per government policy (endorsed by every important organization in Germany) - nobody in Germany could say this was happening.
Does anyone get this analogy? If I tried to make this analogy on Facebook, I’d be banned.
Language in this same paragraph highlights the great concern of censors about preventing potential “imminent physical harm.” Facebook users who were trying to report to their fellow citizens that his harm was not only “imminent” - it was happening right now - couldn’t say this.
“When it comes to looking at COVID misinformation, it’s a different approach.”
My comment: I’m a writer and try to choose my words carefully. This sentence should have at least said, “When it comes to looking at alleged COVID misinformation …”
Facebook just accepts that everything “contrarian” users such as myself tried to post about the vaccines was definitely “misinformation” … because the government said it was. And Facebook believed the CDC over Bill Rice, Jr., plenty of authentic scientists and medical professionals and millions of other people who were trying to cry out, “This is NOT the truth! Do NOT trust these alleged experts!”
The Back-up Plan …
“What we normally do is just remove (such content) or leave it to fact checkers.”
My comment: Note that by this time in the pandemic, removing such content was “normal” operating procedure for Facebook. By early in the vaccine rollout, Facebook had already gotten very good at “removing content.”
Still, as emerging documents reveal, Facebook and other social media companies still weren’t removing nearly enough (true) content to satisfy the Censorship Pit Bulls working for Joe Biden and the more than 50 organizations that make up the Censorship Industrial Complex.
Thank you, Redacted Employee, for also mentioning the vital role played by the designated “fact checkers” of the Censorship Industrial Complex. What Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube might not have censored, these companies “left it to” the “fact checkers” to shut down or “flag.”
The “fact checkers” were like outfielders backing up infielders in case a ground ball got under the second baseman’s glove.
I hope more Americans are now beginning to sense the massive team effort involved in making sure unauthorized speech either didn’t get posted or was demoted so such true speech didn’t reach hardly anyone.
And the last sentence …
“Here, we introduced a middle ground.”
My comment: “Middle ground?!” This is the compromise Facebook came up with so its executives, employees and army of 15,000-plus “content moderators” could sleep comfortably at night? Are they spinning their massive censorship operation to mean they fought back a little?
If this is the “middle-ground” solution, one wonders what the more extreme solution was or is.
I don’t want to think about that solution … but it’s probably coming.
WHY I KEEP A FACEBOOK ACCOUNT ... FB, as much as I hate their Censorship efforts, is still "useful" to me:
1. It's produced revenue and income for me to help my Substack newsletter (my only business) grow subscribers and expand awareness (in a tiny level) that I have a Substack newsletter.
2. I use it to keep up with friends so I know if they've started a new job or had a death in their family or if one of their kids has done s/thing noteworthy. (One friend's son is a Major League baseball pitcher, and from his updates, I know this kid is tearing it up at the moment).
3) I use it learn about upcoming events. For example, had leading roles in two youth plays, and I made posts about the upcoming performances to try to boost attendance for same.
4) I use it to monitor if Facebook is still doing their censorship algorithms and, if so, how are they doing this? I can confirm by experimenting with different type posts, which ones are completely de-boosted and which one's are only partially de-boosted.
Bottom-line: I know (from first-hand experience) that FB isn't backing down from its censorship program. This tells me many important things I can use in future articles and have already used in previous articles.
For example, I don't think FB executives are worried about Missouri v. Biden. If this company was, they'd be throttling back on Censorship. Instead, they are "full-speed ahead." This anecdote/deduction actually tells me the whole world is probably captured and this company's braintrust must somehow know nothing bad is going to happen to their company in the future because of all their past Censorship. When I think about how they might have reached such a prediction/conclusion, this is kind of scary to me.
I can also compare FB's actions and Censorship Efforts to those of Twitter, which HAS changed course since Elon Musk bought that social media company.
5) I can also look at who is advertising on Facebook and reach the conclusion that all of these companies must support the eradication of the First Amendment or are avid support of rampant Censorship. In my opinion, such companies should perhaps be boycotted or called out for supporting a Brazen and Proud Censor.
6) It's also interesting to see when my posts are "flagged" and what "message" I get when my posts are flagged. This tells me what BS FB is still believing and who their "fact-checkers" are and what their infallible sources are.
7) "Fish where the fish are." If your goal as a writer and thinker is to influence the debate in the "town square," you better try to reach as many people as possible in the ... town square. And those people are on FB whether we like this or not ... and some posts slip through the algorithms. Again, Facebook has one billion users. I haven't reached a billion people via Facebook ... but I've reached several hundred, maybe thousands. That's better than zero people.
So these are several of the reasons I still use Facebook, but it certainly doesn't bother me that many other people do not. In fact, it wouldn't bother me if the company went broke. I've probably written more scathing articles about them than any other Substack writer - but I still want to "keep an eye on them" and see what they're doing.
And I can use them ... for a few good purposes ... while doing this.
.... I also tried to embarrass them with that "hidden message' article/experiment I did a couple of months ago. This message - "Facebook Censors Me" - DID get through to a good number of people. So I used Facebook itself to go after Facebook!
Thank you for keeping an eye on Facebook. I cancelled my account in August of 2020 because people were already getting mean-spirited about the upcoming election and because I was spending too much time on it. Now I spend too much time on Substack, but the clientele are friendlier and better informed.