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Monday, July 15, 2019

The Revolving Door Between Core Democrat Officials and Social Media

With the widespread de-platforming of conservatives and alternate voices from Alex Jones to Steven Crowder to YouTube gun channels, a lot attention has been focused on how Facebook, Google/YouTube, Twitter and the rest of the Big Social are eliminating conservative viewpoints.

A remarkable piece of investigative journalism appeared today on the website Spinquark - which I'd never heard of and only learned of by coverage on Glenn Beck's radio program today.  The article investigates the revolving door between the power players in the Democratic Party inner circles and the top levels of the social media platforms and is called "Welcome to Social Government".  The most common former employer was the Obama administration or campaign.  The second most common former employer was the Hillary Clinton campaign. 

It's long and it's important.  As usual, let me snip some pieces to whet your appetite.
How is it that Facebook, who refuses to dox any of the violent Antifa terrorists that use its platform, are happy to give up the personal details of the Facebook user who anonymously uploaded a slowed video of Nancy Pelosi, within minutes, to some rando journalist on the phone? (How do you even call Facebook?)

Well what if I told you a Policy Director at Facebook was Nancy Pelosi's Chief of Staff before taking said job directing policy at Facebook? What if I told you the head of algorithm policy at Facebook worked for Hillary at The State Department? Or that the Head of Content Policy worked for the Hillary presidential campaign? What if I told you the person in charge of privacy policy at Facebook used to work for Al Franken, before he worked for Senator Bonoff, before he worked for Congressman Oberstar? Or that the Director in charge of "countering hate and extremism" at Facebook came from the Clinton Foundation? ...
There's more in that paragraph - and that's just one example.
How about YouTube? How does Laura Southern's documentary about the border get removed from YouTube within 24 hours of posting without any reason or explanation? What if I told you a Policy Manager at YouTube, before becoming a Policy Manager at YouTube, was employed by Hillary for America and was a manager in Obama's campaign before that? What if I told you YouTube's Global Content Policy Lead previously worked at the DNC? Did you know the person responsible for "growing the next generation of stars" on YouTube worked in the Office of Digital Strategy at the White House under Obama? Or that the person in charge of developing the careers of YouTube creators was the Director of Video for Obama? Speaking of helping the careers of creators, did you know Vox, the company that got Steven Crowder demonetized, was one of the companies that YouTube doled out $20 million dollars to, for 'educational videos'?

Ten people, directly connected to the progressive Democrat political machine who are now controlling our conversations online. Sounds like an important alarm, no?

What if I told you there were nearly a hundred more?
 From there, he goes to Twitter and finds the same sorts of links.
What about Twitter? The "primary spokesperson and communications lead for the 2016 U.S. Presidential election" at Twitter was previously Kamala Harris' Press Secretary. A Trust & Safety manager who "developed operations and policies related to privacy and free expression" previously worked at the Clinton Global Initiative and at the State Department under Hillary Clinton. A Twitter Director of Public Policy was originally a Press Secretary for John Edwards (D), and Erskine Bowles (D), and Senator Salazar (D), and Senator Barack Obama (D), he was a Policy Director for Obama's Presidential campaign, a Policy Advisor at the White House, Special Assistant to the President, and then he spent three short months on the Clinton-Kaine Presidential Transition Team before deciding to take a job directing public policy at Twitter.
You probably realize that this is no coincidence.  After the 2016 election, one of the lessons that Democrats thought they learned was that Trump's campaign used social media better than Hillary's team did.  The obvious conclusion was they needed to get better at social media! 

Just kidding.  Work at getting better?  Don't be silly!  That's too rational and even has the wretched odor of free markets.  The obvious conclusion is to bar anyone with conservative sounding ideas from social media!  The government can't do that, but these private companies can remove whomever they want from their platforms, so all these Democratic insiders rushed to be executives in social media companies. 

They need to control thoughts to keep another upset like the Trumpening from happening.  After all, they're better than you, smarter than you, and know what's best for the country better than you! 


 (from Big League Politics)

In the beginning of the conclusion, Spinquark talks about the big picture.
Progressive Democrats using social media companies to stifle our free speech online should be the most important discussion of this generation. Who has the power to silence Americans at YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook? Who are the people setting up the guardrails to our free speech?...
Does their monopoly status require they undergo more Federal regulation to ensure access?  Is access a "civil right"?  (This guy at Human Events thinks so)  It really is the big argument of our day. 

For those who are regular readers, or who are but haven't picked this up from me: these are private companies invented and developed by individual citizens.  They have every right to kick anyone and everyone off their platform.  Further, the leftist leaning politics of Silicon Valley companies should be apparent to anyone - which means they'll attract these Democrats.  My solution is to not use Facebook or Twitter and just use YouTube and Google for the few ways I want.  While I don't particularly think YouTube access is a civil right, reframing that question by asking what if YouTube banned all blacks or all gays or all of any other group instead of conservatives seems to lead to a different conclusion.



9 comments:

  1. Kind of like the incestuous revolving door setup the GOP/Conservatives have long had with the "military industrial complex".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are several revolving doors - it's why I chose that analogy. The financial industry and their Fed.gov regulators is probably most notorious. Then there the environmentalist groups and the EPA - most of those groups sue the EPA to get their agendas. There are more.

      I resisted the temptation to get into these for two reasons - mainly to keep the column lengths reasonable but also because I've written about them for years.

      Delete
  2. Social media is still media. The Democrats and the Media are one and the same. Remember, controlling the media is step #1 for any Leftist takeover.

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  3. "these are private companies invented and developed by individual citizens. They have every right to kick anyone and everyone off their platform."

    Suppose you and I had accounts on Facebook (God forbid). I decided I do not like you and posted on my account that you work for Jeffrey Epstein procuring girls for his rape parties in his Palm Beach mansion. Furthermore you took part in them.

    You decide you do not like this and want to sue for slander. But I am broke. So your lawyers say, Facebook allowed this to be published, they have deep pockets so we will sue them. Facebook says, sorry no can do, we are just even-handed content publishers and Federal law shields us from lawsuits pertaining to content from other people that we publish.

    Any other private company is liable for content that they publish. Should not conservatives be able to go after them because they are not "even-handed?"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Any other private company is liable for content that they publish.

      An argument we hear is the difference between being a publisher and a platform. A publisher is liable, a platform is not. The social media companies refer to themselves as platforms but are acting as publishers. Platforms are specifically protected from legal action by the Communications Decency Act.

      In this hypothetical, if the social media were really platforms, they couldn't be liable.

      Paradoxically, by doing what they're doing in censorship, they are opening themselves to that liability.

      Delete
  4. Top half of quoted article proves: they aren't listening to you. Bottom half of quoted article recommends: attempt to talk to them in respectful tones and and convince them to change their minds. It's like a Ron Paul book. The last chapter about how to fix things wasn't written by someone who's read the rest of the book.

    I heard an analogy which compared US conservatives and liberals to boys in a British boarding school: US conservatives are like underclassmen sent in the bathroom to sit on cold toilet seats and warm them up before the upperclassmen use them.

    US conservatives are politicians who aren't smart enough to be US liberals.

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  5. The result of this banning/bias should be either making them publishers and liable for the things published or regulating them as public utilities because they are engaging in voter information suppression and are, de facto, making unlimited contribution to the campaigns of the Left.

    Simple.

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  6. "these are private companies invented and developed by individual citizens." Wrong. These used to be private companies which were operated based upon free market/capitalist principles. Now their activities are motivated by progressive politics and they work in collusion with the Democrat party. They are a form of political action committee.

    Their goal is not commerce, but the advancement of a political party with the immediate objective of biasing the public sphere so no progressive agenda derailing Trump-like event ever happens again. They want to politically and socially and financially disenfranchise people who oppose them - people like you.

    The sooner people realize the progressives are not playing by your rules, the sooner people will take their blinders off and see reality.

    That was the entire point of the work by Spinquark.

    P.S. - your captcha takes forever to pass. I've tried several times to post here and gave up after captcha wore me out.

    ReplyDelete
  7. P.S. - your captcha takes forever to pass. I've tried several times to post here and gave up after captcha wore me out.

    I've looked into that before and have no control over it. Even if I try to turn it off, it stays and is unchanged.

    If I was paranoid, I'd suggest that Google was making it harder to be involved with my blog because of the things I post. If they wanted to get rid of me they could just make it disappear.

    ReplyDelete