What is the legal and ethical answer?

Let me see if I can put my point in reply this way.

Suppose I start up a blog on some platform and it runs for a few years.

Then suppose whoever runs the blog’s platform decides that they do not like the contents of the blog.

Is it permissible, either legally or ethically, for the platform host to close down the blog and trash all of the blog’s history?

Whether it is or it isn’t, should it be?

If it’s not illegal to say it, it should be illegal not to transmit what is being said

This was from August 26, 2017: It must be made illegal on “social media” to deny service to people who say things that are not illegal to say. Then by coincidence almost exactly a year later, on August 29, 2018, I wrote this: If it’s not illegal to say it then it should be illegal to prevent it from being said. Then on June 10, 2019, I wrote this: If it’s not illegal to say it then it should be illegal to stop it from being said. On July 29, I wrote another on the same subject, under the title: Twitter too. That was followed two days later with this: There is a constituency on the right for forcing media tech giants to become even-handed.

And now I will say it again. This is the problem. The people who run Facebook, Twitter and Google are some of the most powerful people I know. Although there is no doubt about their sincerity in trying to make a ton of money, more to the point is that there is even less doubt about their relentless efforts in also doing all they can to suppress opinions on the right side of the political divide they do not agree with. It would not make any difference which side of the politics they happened to be on in seeing a fault in their program, but in this case they happen to be on the left, and of their intentions there is not the slightest doubt. As in every institution of the left, if you disagree with what they think, they will do what they can to prevent you from putting your views into the public arena. I am at a loss that anyone who believes in free speech should not see this point. If it is some form of misguided right to private property, then I cannot even begin to see the point. Property is regulated at every turn while suppression of free speech is the primary means to wipe out our freedoms in general.

These platforms arose as a promise to connect people up with each other, so millions across the world signed on. And once millions had signed on, it became like the phone company. The service was then not private and individual, but came with the the promise to connect each customer up to their friends and associates. Nor could there be a multiplicity of such businesses if everyone was to be connected to everyone else. Now these same companies, now that they have connected these vast networks, tell us that they will only connect some people, that if they don’t like what you say – legal though it is to say it – they won’t make the connection. They have thus first broken the law by running a publishing house rather than a platform which forbids them to interfere with the speech of those who use their service, and then second, by lying to their customers by misrepresenting the product they originally offered.

I’ll go back to my first post on this: if it’s not illegal to say it, it should be illegal not to transmit what is said. Speaking for myself, I am happy to see some kind of action finally being taken, and it’s not before time.

If it’s not illegal to say it then it should be illegal to prevent it from being said

The post below is from August 29, 2018. I said it again a year later here. And now I will say it again. This is the problem. The people who run Facebook, Twitter and Google are some of the most powerful people I know, although there is no doubt about their sincerity in trying to make a ton of money, but more to the point, in also doing all they can to suppress opinions on the right they do not agree with. It would not make any difference which side of the political divide they happened to be on in seeing a fault in their program, but in this case they happen to be on the left. As in every institution of the left, if you disagree with what they think, they will prevent you from putting your views into the public arena if they can stop you. I am at a loss that anyone who believes in free speech should not see this point. If the point is instead some form of misguided right to private property, then I cannot even begin to see your point, since property is regulated at every turn. These platforms arose as a promise to connect people up with each other so millions across the world signed on. And once millions sign on, it’s like the phone company. The service is then not private and individual, but the promise to connect each customer up to their friends and associates. Now they tell us that they will only connect some people, and if they don’t like what you say – legal though it is – they won’t make the connection. They have thus first broken the law by running a platform and then second, by lying to their customers by misrepresenting the product they offered. If you want to leave them without government intervention, you will need a much much stronger case than any I have seen so far. The rest is from a year ago.
_____

TRUMP WARNS FACEBOOKGOOGLETWITTER
BIAS, CENSORSHIP FIRESTORM

Trying to find a positive story about PDT that is a week old on Google is often impossible. Sometime Duck Duck Go will allow me to access what I know is there, but sometime not. Google is virtually a certainty to be a dry well. Saying things on Facebook and Twitter that offend the left can get you shut down. From the above story, taken from Drudge:

Trump: Facebook, Twitter, Google are ‘treading on very, very troubled territory and they have to be careful’

  • Trump said in a tweet that Google’s search engine had “rigged” news story search results to show mostly “bad” stories about him and other conservatives. He later criticized Facebook and Twitter.
  • He says Google is prioritizing left-leaning outlets and warns that the situation “will be addressed.”
  • The president’s comments come a week before Google, Facebook and Twitter testify before Congress.
  • Larry Kudlow, Trump’s economic advisor, says the White House is “looking into” whether Google suppresses positive articles about the president.

News stories about Australia are usually findable since Google probably doesn’t care what we read. But they do care about what Americans read and prevent what they can from showing up in those narrow corridors inhabited by the wilfully ignorant. Try this story: China reportedly hacked Hillary Clinton’s home server and read all her emails, FBI agent Peter Strzok yawned. It begins:

This is from the Daily Caller because the mainstream media won’t pick up on it until they can figure out a way to say that China only did this at the behest of Russia and Trump.

Now simply routine for stories not to appear in the mainstream media and to disappear from various search engines in no time flat.

What to do is a hard issue since it is clear that an unbiased media would wipe the left out. The truth may set you free, but where will you find it if bias, distortion and fake news are your bread and butter?

AND NOW THIS: Facebook blocks ad for upcoming Diamond and Silk ‘Dummycrats’ movie ridiculing Pelosi, Waters.

FB&T must reckon they are beyond any chance of being made to play by the rules of being an open platform available to anyone. And they may be right, but they might also be wrong. They are certainly tempting fate.

There is a constituency on the right for forcing media tech giants to become even-handed between left and right

This was the title of the post: I am tired of conservative bleating over social media, with this his basic point.

Conservatives are going to get nowhere good with their unending complaints over big tech and the internal policing of content…. Worse still, it’s boring. What proportion of conservative content on social media is now about the censorship of conservative content on social media? Enough!… This isn’t heading towards a freer, healthier online environment. This is opening the door to regulation and government watchdogs.

These were the comments which could be read as stand-alone statements. Every comment, whether reprinted here or not, went in the same direction.

This is certainly one of the biggest loads of crap posted on the Cat.

I don’t think you realise just how big Google and Facebook are and how far their reach is. Not to mention the honey pot they present for enemy foreign governments. Government have already granted them their status. They are effectively a guild being considered a ‘platform’. They only way to be considered a ‘platform’ is to be granted such status from government. In order to actually compete with them, you too need to be a ‘platform’.

FFS what is so difficult to understand about the rule of law? We have laws that “publishers” who pick and choose their content are responsible for what they choose to publish, and that, in very broad terms, “common carriers” who don’t pick and choose but just provide a service don’t have that type of liability. Why is it so hard to understand that the internet giants shouldn’t be allowed to keep sheltering from responsibility by falsely claiming to be common carriers when they’re very clearly operating as publishers? That is, why is it so hard to understand that the law should be enforced?

This person should have adult supervision while using the internet. FFS. PayPal bans you – stop complaining damn you, build your own payment network. Wells Fargo closes your accounts – build your own bank. MasterCard cancels your credit cards – build your own credit card from scratch. Google won’t let you advertise your business – build your own search engine etc etc etc. No wonder our side never wins. All want to lose with grace. Go lose elsewhere knave – we’re fighting now.

Your proposed approach assumes that we can innovate – and entrepreneur our way forward faster than the woke corporatocracy and their government-funded SJW chums can screw us. On evidence to date, that’s a bad bet. Sure, we need to build our own platforms, etcetera, and a lot of that work is well underway. But at the same time we need to fight back against open political discrimination by a range of businesses that happen to be operating under actual or de facto government licenses. For example, WestPac will close your account if they don’t like your politics. Is the answer to create our own bank? No, that’s silly. WestPac needs to either be forced to provide an evenhanded service, or else have their license pulled. Likewise, the social media oligopoly operates under a de facto license, by which government allows them to be common carriers when they defame us, and allows them to be publishers when they deplatform us. The natural response to this sort of predatory, prejudiced oligopoly is a boot up the bum from the Commonwealth. Like it or not, we live in a heavily-regulated society in which we pay over the odds for a meddlesome government. We aren’t calling it into existence, it’s already here. So it’s only sensible to fight back against licensed bullies by using the force of the government that licenses them. Either we use the government while we can, or there’ll come a time when we can’t use it at all.

No point banging our heads against a wall trying to explain reality to these low info posters. The statement above says it all. He is unaware of the numerous SocMed start ups crushed by the likes of Visa and Mastercard and Pay Pal et al, who refuse to handle on-line transactions of conservative start ups. He thinks even though almost all avenues that lead to the info highway have been closed off by these tech giants, we can just have a few meetings and start our own tech giants and interweb thingies. Imagine a small innovator having his electricity cut. No problemo, get yourself a generator. But hey, no one will sell me a generator. No problemo, just build yourself a generator. It’s a free World right? I build a generator but no one will sell me the diesel to power it. No worries mate, start drilling, get your own oil and distill it into diesel. It’s a free World right? This is the result of believing that if it’s in a textbook, if it’s theoretically correct, then it must work in the real World. Libertarians. If the left wasn’t so evil, I’d say libertarians were worse for humanity. (Only because they are so naive, yet act like geniuses.)

I am not sure you understand the risks here. Not surprising, given that the discussion in the media and by the politicians has not yet figured it out.

Why would a future progressive government seek to monitor and control online content, when the big corporations (google, facebook, reddit etc) are already doing so for them?

It’s already quite clear that these platforms can be used to significantly enhance a political campaign. Obama proved that in 2012. Barack Obama’s digital operation was key to his re-election effort. Google “Inside the Cave,” if you want to know how that worked. In part, it centred on Facebook allowing its platform to be used, by that campaign only, in a way that significantly invaded the privacy of users. How? Whenever a facebook user made a donation, their list of friends was published to the campaign, and those friends were also approached for donations/spamming and so on. The campaign also was able to mine the vast data repository behind facebook to identify anyone who might be responsive. Sure, all political parties maintain databases, but very few have access to the wealth of information held by facebook and google. It’s a decisive advantage, especially when only one political flavour is allowed to use it.

Speaking of vast databases, facebook and google are not alone. Other very large vendors (outside of social media) have seen the value (so far, mainly for figuring out what type of ads a person on the internet might respond to) of maintaining as many cross-referenced records on people as they possibly can. One I am aware of has extensive records of billions of individuals. By extensive, I don’t mean just name rank and serial number. They have all of that, plus personal preferences, political interests, credit history, internet history, app usage and so on. Hundreds of facts about each individual, across the world. Facts derived from sneaky surveillance, cookies, ad-trackers and many other methods that would fly under most peoples radar. Any source of data is sucked up, correlated, then marketed for profit.

As an example of how troubling this is, consider any credit record you might have at any of the standard financial reporting agencies. It has been sold to one or more of the bigger global players, then cross-referenced with other data, building a detailed picture of your credit worthiness, social positions, academic capabilities, political positions, family relations, and any other personal feature that might somehow be marketable in the future. Think of the value of that for law enforcement, intelligence and the like. And as for the social engineering possibilities, the only difference between China’s social credit system and what is sitting in western data centres, is that China announced it, and proclaimed what they would use it for. The west already has the data at least, and is using it for purposes that don’t extend to managing “social credit”, but that is just a short tweak from where they already are. So, why would any conservative seek to build their own version of the same thing, to get around a current leftist / statist / autocratic monopoly on big data, when the whole idea goes against a number of things I hold dear. Many western governments are constrained by law as to how they can interconnect and cross link their databases. The commercial world is not. They have had a lot of time to consider how big data can be monetised. Think it through. The issues and risks are much bigger than you think. Foundational principles such as freedom and privacy are at risk. I don’t know the answers, but the last thing I would do is “start building explicitly conservative” versions.

Go back to your room and look up the meaning of these words: Monopoly, Cartel, Publisher, Carrier.

There’s lots of payment processors out there, but if the big guys really manage to put their foot down most of those little payment processors will be forced to abandon customers too. There’s always cheques and bank transfers as a fallback … at a significant nuisance factor. Interesting question whether a big payment processor can legally cut off a smaller payment processor from the transaction network, not for violating any rules, but merely for having a customer that isn’t politically correct. For example, the “David Horowitz Freedom Center” is politically outspoken for sure, but has never done anything illegal to the best of my knowledge. So you have one big player in the marketplace who not only refuses to do business with XYZ (under a “free society” that’s would probably be OK), but also applies pressure on everyone else to refuse to do business with XYZ (which is certainly anti-competitive and probably an unfair trade practice).

I am tired of conservatives not acting, because they worry about what the left might do or say.

I just don’t know where to start with this crap… “In fact, they may just be opening the door for future progressive governments to start monitoring and controlling online content.” Well it isn’t the future sunshine, it’s happening now…from both progressive and not so progressive governments…..after Christchurch….Bitchute, 4chan and various other sites were blocked in this country…..I think Gab was also blocked here for a while…it might even still be blocked….you have to get a VPN or know how to change your computer to access Bitchute. “Stop whinging and start building explicitly conservative organisations.” Well yes…..all well and good but those “conservative platforms and organisations” that have been built…such as Gab (a free speech platform) or Minds (a Facebook alternative)…or those that are currently being such as the one that Jordan Peterson is building….are constantly subjected to attacks from the left….smeared as platforms for the fascists, far right, the hard right, the extreme right, nuttzies, white supremacists, incels and all the rest of the crap that they throw at the centre and the right.

Here’s just a smidgeon of “conservatives” who have been banned from platforms….platforms that still host Antifa, far left groups and organisations (that preach violence), religion of pieces extremist organisations, Hamas, Hezbollah…..and I could go on and on and on…. Sargon of Akkad…hardly conservative or far right….banned from twitter, banned from Patreon..oh and after his “banning” from Patreon….he moved to a startup run by Russians called “Subscribestar” which was then blocked temporarily by Mastercard and Paypal because both Mastercard and Paypal were being subjected to pressure from far left pressure groups. His youtube channel has now been demonetised. Robert Spencer…hardly far right…he runs a website that monitors the religion of pieces…..he had his account closed by Mastercard and Paypal…….because of activism by a religion of pieces organisation….I kid you not.

David Horowitz…..account closed by Mastercard
Lauren Southern..banned from Patreon
Milo..banned from everywhere
Alex Jones….banned from everywhere
Laura Loomer…banned from everywhere
Pamela Geller…banned from everywhere and doxed by Antifa
Paul Joseph Watson..banned from Facebook and Instagram…still active on Youtube…but for how long?
Avi Yemeni….banned from Facebook and Instagram…still active on Youtube…but for how long?

And I could go on and on and on. Oh and closer to home…we have a television network called Sky News…which during the evening has the AUDACITY to host some conservative/right wing/libertarian commentators….haven’t you heard about Sky after Dark? For hosting conservative commentators Sky is constantly under siege from pernicious and very ugly far left activist groups such as “Sleeping Giants”…or as I prefer to call them…”Sleeping Midgets”…..because of their far left activism…many advertisers have pulled business from Sky…..I have personally fought back at an advertiser that succumbed to pressure from those midgets and this particular advertiser is now back on Sky advertising….but what I am trying to say is that even if conservatives set up a completely new television station…it needs money and thus it would require advertisers…..and yet those advertisers would be subjected to the same pressure from far left scum to cease advertising. I think that it’s entirely appropriate to “whinge”…..actually it’s better to be angry.

The non-left in the West has not yet woken up to what they are dealing with: the left who don’t play by the rules. If you play by the rules you’re stuffed. So far Trump has got this; Farrage maybe and a few other leaders and potential leaders in Europe and Brazil. To beat the left you have to act like the left.

Conservatives seem to be bound by the “conservatives should act by their principles” mantra. it’s a losing proposition as we have been watching steadily unfold for the last few decades. conservatism is pretty much dead and buried, it’s only the sheer stupidity of the left that allows the odd conservative to get into power these days. or look at the UK, conservatives are labor light. A take no prisoners approach is what is required. scorched earth policy when it comes to any forms of marxism.

I have long thought that we should play them at their own game. Turn the other cheek and they will stomp all over anyone who disagrees with them. Reasoning does not work with them, they just change the rules as they go along, to get their own way.

For the 3 zillionth time (exactly – I’ve been counting): NOTHING will change unless we engage in some creative destruction. All strictly legal, of course. As I posted a few days ago, those self-proclaimed strategic masterminds who vow that all we need to do is sit back and ‘let them trip themselves up,’ are utterly deluded. Sun Tzu didn’t proclaim that ‘magic happens’ or ‘let the universe provide. Chillax dude!’ Neither did he advocate that letting your enemies make their own mistakes was a passive, solitary, one-size-fits-all tactic. Change does not just ‘happen.’ It needs to be forced. You have to MAKE change take place. That all begins with attitude. The conservative attitude – with a minute number of exceptions – seems to be that the moral high ground precludes any aggression or even assertion, in the face of threat from an enemy. Dazzled by our own righteousness, we are oblivious to the fact that the moral high ground on which we proudly pose, has been surrounded, and is being progressively undermined by the industrious vermin we gaze down upon. ‘Primitives!’ we sneer, crossing our arms, shaking our head, and closing our eyes. All the while, those ‘primitives’ are building a human pyramid, and before too long, their ‘primitive’ sharpened sticks will be thrust through our flabby flesh from all sides. But let’s continue to pretend the threat is not existential. Let’s not get our hands dirty, or – heaven forbid! – crack a fingernail. Plan, scheme, strategise, undermine; neutralise the enablers first, to weaken the enemy’s ability to withstand the barrages that will follow. This is a head-thing. Get over the head-thing, and the capacity is present to dominate.

A summary of my post above for those with short attention spans: We will not win this by only focusing on how we can get to the finishing line (it’s a metaphor – just stay with it) – we need to reduce our opponent’s ability to compete with us. Whether it’s switching urine samples in the change room, getting in their face with yo-mama insults, or stepping it up and actually smashing a kneecap, there is no such thing as fairness or sportsmanship in this race. The meek will be mercilessly crushed. We are being crushed.

I think this person has blown more than a valve. I think the head gasket is a goner. For some real world perspective, here is the co-founder of Facebook (clearly a MAGA hat wearing knuckle dragger) who says that Faceborg MUST be broken up for plenty of very good reasons, all of which have nothing to do with being conservative, or whingeing or whatever else. If these are good reasons (and I think they are), then why are reasons of unequal play not good enough for a debate about changing the status quo?

FFS, it isn’t hard. Alinsky rule 4: ″make them live up to their own rules”. Yes we are in an existential fight for civilisation. No prisoners, no mercy. That’s what the left is doing. Time the right realised it and did the same but we have the odd ideologically pure fools who want to impose Alinsky 4 on us and hence tie our hands.

Many here mentioned Gab so I checked online,this summary is from Wikipedia. Gab is an English-language social media website known for its far-right user base. The site has been widely described as a “safe haven” for extremists including neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the alt-right. The site was launched in 2017 and claimed to have around 850,000 registered user accounts by December 2018. It primarily attracts far-right and alt-right users who have been banned from other social networks. The platform populace is mainly populated by users who are “conservative, male. Is this a fair summary? or could Wikipedia be a wee bit biased?

Folk have already pointed out the many alternatives to Facebook etc. that are already up and running. You can also support individuals who are setting up their own channels. And, like Vox Day, you can fight back (eg. his Indigogo battle). The only other thing I’d like to mention is the idea of government & private companies as seperate entities that have differing goals. So – imagine there’s a group of people behind both, manipulating or using both, to their own ends, whatever they many be. We don’t know what happens in those meetings of government officials, mega-rich, and big company owners when they get together. What do they discuss? What do they plan? What are their goals/dreams/ambitions? Well, we can take a guess. As Roger pointed out, when Chad Robichaux’s ads were taken off Youtube, they told him the offensive word was ‘Christian’. When he changed the word to ‘Muslim’ and submitted again, Youtube were happy with it. I suggest we’re thinking in wrong categories.

Regulating to prevent censorship and discrimination, enforcing 1st amendment rights is not opening the door to regulation that requires censorship and rewards discrimination. A basic tenet of a free society is that you cannot discriminate in commerce because of prohibited grounds. We don’t want Woolies denying food and Energy Australia cutting off the power because they don’t like LNP voters. We don’t want Dr Mohamed, Dr Muhammad or Dr Mohammad at my local medical centre saying “begone kufr, we only treat people who keep halal here.” If I don’t agree with Joyce Allan, I shouldn’t have to start my own airline to be flown to Perth.

If it ain’t illegal it ought to be illegal to censor it. Pretty simple.

Twitter too

Big tech must be treated like media: Sims.

ACCC chair Rod Sims has described technology giants Facebook and Google as publishers, who should be regulated in a similar way to traditional media.

Following the release of the ACCC’s final report into the market power of digital platforms, Mr Sims said Google and Facebook should be subject to the same laws as publishers and broadcasters.

And not before time. Moreover, it might even become a bi-partisan issue. At least you can hope.

Yesterday, presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard’s campaign sued Google, alleging that the company wrongly suspended the campaign’s Google Ads account during the critical hours following the first Democratic debate. The Complaint is venued in federal court in central California.

Its allegations are explosive. Gabbard accuses Google of trying to sabotage her presidential campaign because she, like Elizabeth Warren, has argued in favor of reining in the tech monopolies, including Google. Here are some of the Complaint’s allegations:

4. In the June 26-27, 2019 Democratic Party presidential debates, tens of millions of Americans got to hear Tulsi Gabbard’s voice for the first time. And people liked what they heard: Gabbard quickly became the most searched-for Democratic presidential candidate on June 27-28. In the crucial post-debate period—a time when presidential candidates receive outsize interest, engagement, and donations—Americans around the country wanted to hear more from Tulsi Gabbard.
***
7. On June 28, 2019—at the height of Gabbard’s popularity among Internet searchers in the immediate hours after the debate ended, and in the thick of the critical post-debate period (when television viewers, radio listeners, newspaper readers, and millions of other Americans are discussing and searching for presidential candidates), Google suspended Tulsi’s Google Ads account without warning.

8. For hours, as millions of Americans searched Google for information about Tulsi, and as Tulsi was trying, through Google, to speak to them, her Google Ads account was arbitrarily and forcibly taken offline. Throughout this period, the Campaign worked frantically to gather more information about the suspension; to get through to someone at Google who could get the Account back online; and to understand and remedy the restraint that had been placed on Tulsi’s speech—at precisely the moment when everyone wanted to hear from her.

Utterly unacceptable. People go onto these platforms because they are suckered in with the promise that they will not be censored and once the network is built up find themselves sandbagged by a bunch of ignorant techies. Let them be sued, and as far as the eye can see.

Candace Owens too hot for Playboy

An interview with Candace Owens that almost disappeared due to a rising tide of political correctness inside the once-unrestrained and uncensored Playboy magazine. Candace Owens is the founder of Blexit and the “Red Pill Black” YouTube Channel. She currently hosts “The Candace Owens Show” on PragerU.

On the 18th of August, 2018, Playboy magazine flew me out to Washington D.C. to interview Candace Owens; it was to be an interview conducted in the time-honored tradition of Hugh Hefner’s libertarian philosophy. But for the next nine months, the interview was placed in a state of limbo. After nearly a year of confusion and obstruction, I began to ask questions: one source inside Playboy told me that the suppression of the interview was timed with a politically-motivated purge by the President of Media and other executives; other sources alerted me to the fact that archived articles were being expunged from the website, while columnists were being replaced and interviews with conservatives were suddenly being cancelled. This was the same publication that had contracted me as a conservative columnist. This was the same publication that once published William F. Buckley Jr. With over a decade of media experience, I’ve never once lobbed a protest relating to editorial malpractice, but what troubles me is that while my editor wanted to publish the interview (which Playboy had commissioned and paid for), pressure groups from within Playboy did not. Upon investigation, it seemed the same censorious executives who had been rewriting the Playboy philosophy since 2017 were now at odds with the editors and readers of Playboy…..With the Bunny Empire being pulled in different directions by repressive ideologues, which one source described to me as “Gloria Steinem feminists,” I asked to publish the interview independently. On May 16th, I was given the legal right to do so. It’s being published as an indelible protest of ideological discrimination and unofficial forms of censorship.

Picked up from Rafe with gratitude.

So interesting to see

Still in North America and this PDT tweet is the most intense issue in American politics at the moment, especially on the right. Of course the left is thundering on about it, but many of those whom I read among right-side bloggers think this is the greatest blunder Trump has made and will cost him the election. Everyone who has said so has had 90% of their commenters disagreeing with the bloggers and agreeing with Trump. The tweet:

So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!

This issue is still running across the page at Drudge which is now anti-Trump and has been anti-Trump for quite a while.

‘YOU CAN’T LEAVE FAST ENOUGH’

 

If it’s not illegal to say it, it should be illegal to stop it from being said

Comes with this: ‘The Five’ song about politics hits NUMBER ONE, so Twitter BANS IT!

And let me add this from Instapundit as well. It’s the comments thread that is of particular interest.

THE NEW RULES DON’T ONLY WORK ONE WAY: The woman who screamed ‘Nazi’ at a Trump supporter has been hounded out of a job. I don’t approve of people being hounded out of jobs for what they say, or even scream. But I didn’t make the new rules, and they won’t change back to something more civilized unless they’re uncomfortable for the left as well as the right.

This is the top comment.

Going by their fulminations on Twitter, it seems some right-wingers think this is about playing the left at its own game, as right-wingers have been the targets for myriad twitch-hunts in the past. But these people are just dressing up their own lack of principle and shrill, pearl-clutching authoritarianism as tactical nous.

The author of that article needs to read a treatise on the Prisoner’s Dilemma in game theory. Then perhaps he would see that tit-for-tat is necessary to deter bad actors.

Nobody likes outrage mobs. But the left pushed outrage mobs into the mainstream, and for a long time they had that particular tactic to themselves. They also pushed the concept so far that trivial things caused outrage, or even in some cases made up things.

Outrage became a weapon, a cudgel they gleefully wielded. I contend that it’s impossible to curb their use of that weapon unless they see it used against them.

Free speech, but on any platform like Twitter or Facebook, if it’s not illegal to say it, it should be illegal to prevent it from being said.

PDT interview with Piers Morgan

THE VIDEO HAS BEEN FOUND: The interview can be viewed via Bing here. We’ll see how long this lasts but at least it is available so you can watch it for yourself. Still not on Youtube. My thanks to Eddystone for picking it up.

And in a further update, here is the video once again restored to life.

BUT THIS IS THE MORE IMPORTANT QUESTION – WHY ISN’T THIS THE SCANDAL IT OUGHT TO BE: What the interview showed was how knowledgeable and sensible the President is. It also brought out a warmth you never normally see portrayed. The comments thread at Powerline where the interview was also shown is divided between those who watched the interview as I had, and those who found the video had been removed by Youtube. Here are a couple from the latter group.

This flushing of this video should be a big story, as it clearly demonstrates intention to smother and suppress any story involving Trump that is NOT full-blown accusation. You can find out-of-context quotations from this interview on CNN’s site that follow their narrative. Shocking! I’m SHOCKED!

If Trump came off looking ‘human’ then it’s been relegated to the internet trash can………….never happened.

The video is now unavailable. I can’t find the full version, or transcripts anywhere. I suspect this has been done to prevent anyone from checking on the narrative of his comments that has been/is being spun. Free press, people. An interview with the President is…unavailable.

Wow. They took it down. I watched it just in time. Really impressive interview- Morgan was civil and Trump is just so impressive: both with his grasp of wide-ranging topics and his self-deprecating humor. This video made me like him even more. Could that be why it was taken down?? 🤔

And this is the last of the comments from someone who was able to watch the interview:

What strikes me is how this puts the lie to the idea, universally proclaimed in the mainstream media, that President Trump is an ignorant, uneducated buffoon. Morgan touches in quick succession upon a very wide range of topics, presumably without the President having being informed in advance so that he could have brushed up on those matters, and I don’t detect one time when Trump stumbles. In particular, with regard to an area I have studied extensively, Trump gets the history and details discussed of World War II and Winston Churchill quite correct, such as Churchill’s reaction to Pearl Harbor, which he relates dramatically in his history of World War II. Morgan on the other hand stumbles on a major historical point when he mistakenly says repeatedly that Churchill declared war on Germany from the Cabinet War Rooms where the interview was filmed. It was in fact Neville Chamberlain who declared war on September 3, 1939, and he did so not from the Cabinet War Rooms — which had only just started operating a week before — but via a BBC broadcast from 10 Downing Street. That same day Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and did not replace Chamberlain as Prime Minister until May 10 the following year.

The notion that we get anything remotely like a reflection of reality from the media has seldom been more clearly shown. This is what you get instead if it shows the President in a positive light.

Topics covered:

Meghan Markle
Climate change
Winston Churchill
Ronald Reagan
Jeremy Corbyn
Conservative Party leadership
D-Day
Vietnam War
LGBT in the military
Iran
Nuclear weapons
John McCain
2020 election
Guns
Who’s the British Trump?

The video has gone. So this:

And this:

Watching the human side of the President where he explains himself and his policies is apparently not seen as suitable for television. Same problem shown at Powerline where I found the interview in the first place.