Some of you may have noticed the huge blank spaces on the site. This is my punishment for publishing “dangerous and derogatory” material; articles such as The Turbo Tax – which was “flagged” by Dagoooog for being . . . “dangerous and derogatory.”
I committed the Write Crime of explaining to people why all of a sudden so many new cars – and even trucks – are coming from the factory with very small, highly turbocharged engines. I dared to connect this with federal fuel economy fatwas, which are orders issued by the busybodies and control freaks who constitute “the government” that all cars achieve X miles-per-gallon, or else. The “or else” being fines imposed on the car companies, passed on to you, the buyer. The other cost being reduced choice as the industry is pressured to do away with certain types of vehicles, or build fewer of them.
Very, very “dangerous and derogatory” of me.
Another article that got “flagged” was the one I wrote about my refusing to bend knee to Obamacare titled Shared Responsibility Update. In it, I wrote about the threatening letters I received from the busybodies and control freaks who constitute “the government,” demanding I pay almost $800 for declining to buy unaffordable health insurance I have no need of.
It is “dangerous and derogatory” to openly criticize being ordered to hand over money to the health insurance mafia, or object to being threatened by the busybodies and control freaks who constitute “the government” for not handing it over.
Wondering aloud why I and others who aren’t harming anyone else by our actions are ourselves threatened with harm is exceptionally “dangerous and derogatory.”
The online Panopticon also did not like – and “flagged” – Sniffing a Scandal, an article from several months back (they are researching my Write Crimes now) which was about the crucifixion of VW over the “cheating” on the emissions certification tests of the busybodies and control freaks who constitute “the government.”
“Dangerous and derogatory,” again. But all factual. No actual harm caused by what VW did has ever been adduced. Everything alleged is on the basis of computer hypotheticals and hysterical assertions. Of a piece with the related hystericization regarding “climate change” – another “dangerous and derogatory” thing to criticize.
A really excellent German investigative report can be viewed here:
I heretically put into print that the “cheating” at issue involved fractional differences of already minuscule “emissions” – negligible differences, in other words. To my knowledge, I am the only journalist writing about cars or otherwise who has deconstructed the actuality of just how much – or rather, how little – VW’s “cheating” diesels “emitted.”
I also wrote about the extreme reaction by the busybodies and control freaks who constitute “the government” to VWs “cheating ” – which harmed no one as far as has been proved – as opposed to the casual attitude of the busybodies and control freaks to the serial killing of known-to-be-defective air bags. I also wondered aloud – or online – about whether the viciousness of the attack on VW might have anything to do with the brilliance of the company’s low-cost, very high-mileage diesels, which presented an affordable and practical threat to the Electric Car Agenda.
Which is an agenda.
EVs are not naturally occurring phenomenon. They are the top-down Frankensteinian creation of fatwas issued by the busybodies and control freaks who constitute “the government,” arguably for the obvious reason that EVs are much easier to control and will impose great costs on the rank-and-file population.
White-hot searing “dangerous and derogatory”commentary.
The fourth article of mine recently “flagged” by them was Who Runs Barter Town? – which was about the taxation-in-perpetuity on our homes and land, rendering ownership thereof a farcical concept.
Nothing in any of these articles was untruthful and there was no call to violence – as opposed to the violence inherent in the policies I criticized. My Write Crime was to state in plain language the unmentionable things.
This is what’s “dangerous and derogatory.” Truth. Facts. Unorthodoxy.
All of these “flagged” articles are also among the most widely read on the site – some with more than 10,000 page views – and that is a real problem for the Panopticon. Even though people reading means people viewing ads, which means money for the Panopticon. The Panopticon is less concerned about making money than silencing the expression of facts – not merely opinions – which stand in opposition to its politics.
The politics of suppression – not by Hut! Hut! Hut! raids (yet) but by economic crippling.
The Hobson’s choice presented to journalists – not just me – is to shut up or go broke. I am advised I must “take down” the offending articles else no serving of ads for me.
Hence the white spaces you see.
I will not bend knee to this outrage. Which is far more than a personal affront. This is an attack on all of us – on our right to speak (and write) our minds, especially about facts – without being threatened and punished for doing so. Whether those facts are annoying to busybodies and control freaks or not.
Hence this Write Crime, which will probably call down a drone strike on me.
Others might bend knee. I have been advised to bend knee – and remove the “flagged” articles. But if I remove them, then not only have I bent knee, I have assured I will have to bend knee again. Other Write Crimes will be uncovered by the beetle-like creatures who I suspect are at this very moment pouring over everything I’ve written, preparatory to “flagging” more of it.
My choice is to give up the live – and let live – ideals of Libertarianism and embrace with both arms the postmodernist/transgendered/collectivist agenda in toto – or rely on my readers to back me up.
Until they make Write Crime a literal crime – and haul me off to the clink, Julian Assange-style, I am still free to commit Write Crime, with your help.
I have never published a main page article asking for your support. I do so now because it is critical. It is the only way we can fight back against the attempt to stifle everything that isn’t orthodox – as decided by the Panopticon, without even the courtesy of a specific objection that might be addressed.
Just “dangerous and derogatory.”
If you’d like more such, please consider supporting this site as well as any other media outlets that are resisting by truth telling.
Thank you.
. . .
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It’s the same old same old “kill the messenger “ if you don’t like the message, nothing new under the sun.
It looks as though spellcheck srtuck at your prose while you were composing it, eric:
“pouring over everything I’ve written”
As you probably know, the term is “poring over”, which is meant to suggest examining skin pore by pore. Just a little heads up.
Eric, would you be able to sign up for the “Brave Rewards” program? I don’t know how much income it would generate but it might at least be another avenue. https://brave.com/faq/#unclaimed-funds
Hi Patrick,
I’ve never heard of this; will have a look!
Good to have you with us in our “dangerous and derogatory” club!
It’s pretty new I think. But glad to be part of the club
Unfortunately your writing is unclear on what exactly you are complaining about. Your personal website here isn’t being blocked that I can see. So you must be referring to Google ad placements. But that is an assumption.
Yes, Google’s Big Brotherism is bad and getting worse. But they are paying you something for their ad placements and it is not crazy for them to be picky about where those ads go. The advertisers are given some measure of control over that, leaving it up to Google (usually) to police sites under their terms for placement. Of course you have no independent recourse other than to complain to Google. I assume ads you may independently place on your site are not affected.
“He who pays the piper names the tune.” Yup. Google’s standards seem to be typically leftist BS and I’m sure what you write here is unfairly categorized. Google is notorious for that. But as every media outlet that relies on advertising income knows, if you piss off the advertisers or agencies, you get hurt. Not to say you shouldn’t complain about Google, but you need to be clear. You can’t force others to advertise on your website, no matter how hypocritical or biased the ad agency is about that. Google isn’t neutral, no surprise.
Another good little Clover heard from
No argument attempt made here. Just some weak personal attack. This is a sign of defeat. BTW: my point was made respectfully and sincerely.
Your personal slight here is an embarrassment for Eric.
Hi Muggles,
That’s just the problem – Dagooo never specifies what, exactly, is “dangerous and derogatory”! It’s just a vague, blanket assertion – and as such I have no way to answer, other than by wholesale removal of “offending” articles…
It would be another thing if – for the sake of discussion – they took issue with X and gave me the opportunity to defend X. Or if – at least – there were some specific standard or “no go” rules that could be followed.
But there aren’t.
This Star Chamber-style attempt at stifling speech ought to disturb any fair minded person.
No one stifled your speech on the ad matter. They just aren’t letting you earn revenue via their ad selling platform. That’s hardly Star Chamber stuff.
I understand your anger and frustration, but as I noted in my post, advertisers are fussy and often pull ads in media where they feel customers might be offended by content. Corporate America is hardly heroic about dissent.
I’m not defending their standards or their lack of response to you. But Google, Yahoo or others have no positive obligation to sell ad space for you on your website. Likewise you have no obligation to run their ads.
I personally dislike Google’ and their neo commie blather about content.
You must have never dealt with google in any capacity which involves the exchange of money. They’re impossible to deal with.
Eric has a lot of pages on site written over many years, with comments on all of them. Google comes in and says “we’re pulling your advertising because we don’t like something on your entire site”. You ask them, oh yeah, what is it that’s against your standards? They don’t tell you! They give you a link to a very vague set of standards, and say you’re in violation somewhere.
Imagine if the advertiser you defend never told you what they didn’t like, so that you can’t make amends, or take it down. Eric should have the choice to tell them to f-off, I don’t want your dollars, or to take down or censor the content they don’t like – but he needs to know which content isn’t up to their standards!
Anyhow, I donate from time to time. This screed made me hit the donate button again.
Thanks, OppositeLock!
Dagoog is insufferable; in addition to the Kafkaesque “violations” never specified, they also try to stomp what they don’t like via screwing with search rankings and so on – which have nothing to do with the advertising. It is plain as day they are attempting to suppress speech. I use that term specifically. They have every right to not publish or financially support what they don’t like – but that isn’t what they are doing. They are trying to suppress what they don’t like – and punish those who publish it.
Hi Muggles,
Libertarians need to think much more deeply about the, all too common, “but…private” dismissal of corporate power in general and social media/tech power in particular. I realize that your post was more nuanced than the typical “beltway” libertarian still, the underlying assumption needs to be challenged.
Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc… are not private in any meaningful sense. They receive tax money, special legal protection and, most importantly, they are censoring views and people deemed hostile to the interests of the elite class, on behalf of the government. The government is outsourcing censorship activities to pseudo private companies specifically to avoid first amendment challenges. I realize that my claim is considered a nut-job conspiracy by the mainstream, but the proof is out in the open. Numerous congressman openly state that these companies must censor themselves, lest “we” be forced to intervene. Of course, there is unlikely to be a formal agreement but, the expectation is obvious.
When libertarians recognize this and criticize these companies, it is not a call for regulation. There are some good lefties on this issue, but most of them want these companies to be reclassified as public utilities which, to them at least, would bar them from content discrimination. Libertarians realize that this hope is absurd. Expecting the government that is pressuring these companies to censor inconvenient views to also prevent those companies from censoring inconvenient views represents a naïveté that would be charming, were it not so dangerous.
As I said in an earlier post, “Any libertarian analysis of this issue must offer some meaningful definition of a private company. At the least, it should receive the vast majority of its’ income through voluntary transactions, refrain entirely from acting on behalf of the State and never solicit firm or industry specific subsidies.”
Cheers,
Jeremy
You claim these companies aren’t private (w/o evidence) yet you can buy shares in all of them on the stock exchange. There is no evidence that the US govt. owns any significant amount of shares in them. Likewise you assert they receive “tax money” but fail to provide evidence. True, governments may purchase ads on these platforms (don’t know if they do) but they are no more less private for selling to the government than any other government vendor.
You go on to make other assertions (such as outsourcing censorship, etc.) but there is zero evidence that the government is doing this or controlling these tech companies. What you should have cited is the false representation under FCC and libel laws where tech giants enjoy exemption from “publisher liability.” They claim to be neutral content carriers but obviously are no longer neutral and brag about censoring actions. This is a special government privilege not enjoyed by Eric here or others who do publish. This doesn’t make them monopolies or government controlled, but it does make them beneficiaries (via Congress) of special corporate welfare. That is what should be eliminated.
Hi Muggles,
I think you missed what I was trying to get across. I said these companies are not private in a meaningful sense. Your response that shares can be traded and that government doesn’t have an ownership stake is not germane to that observation. Whether targeted tax breaks meaningfully differ from subsidies (tax money) is a valid question for debate. But, it is undeniable that these companies receive and benefit from these policies.
I never claimed that the government is controlling these companies. I claimed that they are using the threat of regulation to encourage these companies to censor themselves. Here’s an example of Diane Feinstein doing just that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlX2bvziYoY Her relevant comments start at around 1:10. The fact that there is not a formal agreement is irrelevant to that point.
You state, “What you should have cited is the false representation under FCC and libel laws where tech giants enjoy exemption from “publisher liability.” I thought this was apparent when I pointed out that they enjoy “special legal protection”. I’m sorry that wasn’t clear. Again, I never claimed that they were government controlled or that they were monopolies. My point is that libertarians need to think more deeply about what makes a company private, qua libertarian theory, instead of merely legal classification. I think this is important, if you don’t or think I’m wrong, debate that.
My response to you was civil and respectful. I’m hoping to spur discussion, from a libertarian perspective, about these issues that explores the idea that “private” is more complex than a simple legal definition. For instance, the idea that GS4 (formerly Wackenhut) is “private”, in a meaningful sense, seems absurd to me.
Kind Regards,
Jeremy
Yes, you are polite but continue to try to rebut my arguments made by shifting the grounds so where anything a big tech firm does can be somehow attributed to evil government pressure. Or magic. Others here claim all corporations are created by the government and thus somehow statist instruments. Way too much claim w/o foundation.
What Eric and everyone here should focus on is the Clinton era “Communications Decency Act of 1996” which granted big tech internet providers immunity from publisher liability (for hosting say, porn) under the theory that they are neutral content carriers. This is the crux of the problem. As Eric and others find out, they are not neutral content carriers any longer. In the last decade Google, Facebook, et.al. are choosing what to host and what to ban, like a publisher does. They are “having their cake and eating it too.”
Still, what Eric does is host a “web magazine” that features ads furnished (and which pay him something) by a third party (Google, etc.) If the ‘ad agency’ gets pissed, no more ads. That is the Google business model (and Facebook). They sell ads. They are also run by PC creeps and easily yield to the PC web mob over various imaginary Thoughtcrimes. Until big internet tech is held to the standards of a neutral content provider, not publisher, they will continue to censor sites their owners dislike.
You will remember perhaps that the Internet boom occurred post 1996 when Big Tech gained their legal protection. No coincidence. Now over 20 yeas later, we are supposed to forget about all of that.
Like we’re supposed to forget section 230, which gives Big Tech their liability protection for being neutral content carriers? If they want to act like publishers, fine; then they can lose their liability protection.
Hi Muggles,
My response to your original post was not intended as a rebuttal, but as an expansion. In my subsequent post, I didn’t shift the grounds, I responded to what I saw as your inaccurate representation of my view.
In your first response you assert that I make three specific claims that lack evidence.
– that these companies aren’t private
– that they receive tax money
– that the government outsources censorship to these companies
To the first point, I qualified my statement with, “they are not private in any meaningful sense”. By which I meant that, qua libertarian theory, they are not “private”. I never claimed that they were not private in a technical, legal sense, yet that is how you responded to my claim. I thought this was clear when I suggested a starting point for what “private” should mean in “any libertarian analysis”.
To the second point, I admit, I should have been more clear. I do not consider a targeted tax break, as opposed to a general tax break, to be substantially different from a subsidy. This is what I meant when I claimed that “they receive tax money”. I admit that this can be debated.
– To my third point, I realize that there is not a formal arrangement. But, government often pressures business to get what it wants. This is undeniable. Congress recently had hearings for the purpose of getting social media companies to censor themselves. The threats were not merely implied they were out on the open. This is what I meant by “outsourcing censorship”.
The 1996 Communications Decency Act was, in part, created to regulate/censor content deemed indecent or obscene. (this section was eventually declared unconstitutional). I’m aware of section 230 and the neutral carrier vs publisher distinction.
You write: “Until big internet tech is held to the standards of a neutral content provider, not publisher, they will continue to censor sites their owners dislike”.
Who do you propose do this? Congress is not interested in them being neutral. They want them to censor views that they don’t like. Of course, individual congressman differ as to what they don’t like, and they do squabble over whether there’s an anti-conservative bias, but they agree that “extreme”, “hateful” or “fake” content should be quashed.
Government pressure does exist, corporations do collude with government in return for benefits. This idea is not magical or fanciful. Public Choice theory in economics specifically explores this relationship. Also, I never said this explains everything tech companies do.
Finally, you’ve ignored the central point of all of my posts and focused on technical trivialities. In my first post I wrote, “Any libertarian analysis of this issue must offer some meaningful definition of a private company. At the least, it should receive the vast majority of its’ income through voluntary transactions, refrain entirely from acting on behalf of the State and never solicit firm or industry specific subsidies.” I’m aware that this goes far beyond the legal definition of private. It is an opinion, not a statement of fact. If you think I’m wrong, or that the topic is not worthwhile, fine.
Kind Regards,
Jeremy
Censorship in the USA is done by using regulation and government-corporate partnerships. The idea is that under the present economic system there will only be a few major players. Pretty much everyone else cannot get traction because they are economically disadvantaged by the system, they can’t get the licenses, they can’t get tax breaks, etc and so on. Those major players then will do the censoring government can’t overtly do. Then the ‘but they are a private company’ excuse is then deployed.
It works very very well and has been that way well for a very long time.
Muggles, the whole idea of a corporation as it is now understood was created by the Supreme Court decision Thomkins vs Erie Railroad. It created the concept of Corporate Personhood, if memory serves me correctly. In that sense, Facebook, Twitter, Google etc are like all big corporations; products of big government.
Uhh, Marsh vs. Alabama says that, even if the company owns the town square, they CANNOT OBVIATE THE FIRST AMENDMENT! Since Google, Facebook, Twitter, et al are the 21st town square, Marsh vs. Alabama is on point, meaning that they cannot ban speech and press that they don’t like.
Also, as of right now, section 230 gives these platforms exemptions from liability; they cannot be held liable for what posters say; they are purveyors, not publishers. However, if they go about setting standards and banning people who don’t meet them, then they become publishers, not mere platforms. Big Tech cannot have it both ways.
Fascinating case I’ve never heard of, thanks for bringing it up. I like Justice Reed’s dissenting opinion: property rights, which are also protected by the Constitution, “are not outweighed by the interests of the trespasser, even though he trespasses in behalf of religion or free speech.”
The State attempted to analogize the town’s rights to the rights of homeowners to regulate the conduct of guests in their home. The Court rejected that contention, noting that ownership “does not always mean absolute dominion.” (This part reminds me of that hot air balloon/eviction example, you must land before you evict) The court pointed out that the more an owner opens his property up to the public in general, the more his rights are circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who are invited in. (Does sound a lot like social media, though I don’t think Marsh was invited in, just allowed to travel through the town based on other court rulings. “The Court noted that the residents of these non-Gulf neighborhoods were freely allowed to use the company-owned streets and sidewalks to access the town’s businesses and facilities.” Marsh was not there to access the town’s businesses or facilities, but to use them (or their access routes) to distribute literature. So you could argue Marsh was in violation of this clause. However, the distribution and consumption of literature/speech/content, I would argue, is the core business/facility of the Facebook, YouTube, social media company towns.)
So you can restrict others’ rights in your home, but what about your backyard? What if you have a large plot of land? Or a park? Where is the distinction made? I’m guessing whatever is defined as the public square, if it is ever possible to agree on that.
I think the ruling went this way because it was a corporation’s property rights verses an individual’s free speech/press/religion. Although corporations are legally considered people… I wonder how an individual’s property rights would fare, both here and in a libertarian society.
Whether this is the best moral choice or not, in this country, the precedent has been set with this case. Free speech, etc, trumps property rights if they are the public square, which the tech firms will argue they’re not.
Big Tech are in fact publishers but protected as platforms. They’re having it both ways.
By the way, a Twitter employee was caught on a project veritas video saying the government contacts them all the time and tells them (under threat of, ultimately, violence) to remove content. Are any rights subverted if a government tells a private company or individual to do it? I don’t think it is morally correct or even in the spirit of the bill of rights but that’s the way they’re going.
“The farther a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.” — George Orwell
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
– George Orwell
Morning, libertyx!
Orwell was a socialist, but an honest one. See Road to Wiggan Pier, for instance. He was the kind of guy who acknowledged facts – something few modern socialists can tolerate.
He was a man of his time. Socialism was regarded to be the logical outcome of society, mostly because of the work done studying small groups and figuring everything would scale, just like what had happened with industry and media. And it sounded so nice to the intelligentsia, since it was assumed a meritocracy would form naturally and they’d be part of it.
But no one has ever really solved that pesky problem of the dissenter…
Indeed, RK!
Nor, for that matter, the “problem” of inherent inequality. Of natural talent. Of drive. Of bodily strength. Of practically everything. And all that must follow. The bright, industrious person will inevitably achieve (and have) more than the dull, lazy person. This is characterized as “unfair” and may be, in some sense. But it is also natural – and unnatural to chain the better to the mediocre or the worse. They will tear each other apart.
Actually, at least two people solved the inequality problems, Stalin and Mao. Nothing like a few years at the “education center” to get the lazy to be more productive. And a number of “doctors” did a fairly good job of culling the herd in the US too. Oh sure, it sucks if you were one of the few who didn’t measure up to the homo-superior vision, but hey, gotta break some eggs if you want an omelet, right?
(Yes, that’s sarcasm, kids)
Eric,
Here’s an article about BMW’s changeover to EVs:https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2019-bmw-electric-car-german-engines/?srnd=hyperdrive. Discussing this, even though it’s from a ‘respectable, mainstream source (i.e. Bloomberg), will make you even MORE of a pariah…
Hi Mark,
BMW – and other European based manufacturers literally have no choice. In their home countries, IC is being systematically restricted on the way to being banned outright.
And the same is on deck here as well.
I know. They’ll have to be producing and selling only EVs by 2040 or so; IIRC, they won’t be ABLE to sell ICEVs after that…
Eric,
I came across this Bloomberg article when I signed out of my e-mail: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-04-16/the-world-s-biggest-electric-vehicle-company-looks-nothing-like-tesla?utm_source=pocket-newtab. As you read it, you’ll find insight into how we’ll be pushed into EVs here. In Shanghai, China, if you want to purchase an ICEV, you have to take part in a license plate auction; your plate can cost up to $14,000! Yes, you read that right; the license plate alone for your ICEV in Shanghai will set you back $14,000! However, if you want a license plate for your EV, it’s free. Our control freaks could do the same thing here…
Hi Mark,
I suspect this is exactly what they will do. It will be of a piece with the “rain tax” in NJ. Only it will be styled a “carbon tax” or some such similar thing. We’ll be allowed to keep our IC cars, provided we can pay extortionate fees – which, of course, most can’t afford.
Mission Accomplished.
If EVs were more affordable and just a bit more capable, I’d have bought one. As you know, I’m a fan of the technology, but it’s not COST EFFECTIVE-at least not yet. When I bought a new car (new for me, anyway) in November of last year, I opted for a gently used 2015 Ford Focus. It gets 30 mpg city and 40 on the highway-plenty good enough for me. Plus, it offers spirited performance and handling. My Focus cost 1/3 of what a Tesla Model 3 would have cost me, so the decision was a no-brainer. There’s NO WAY I could have recouped the cost differential with gas savings, especially when the Model 3 was three times more expensive…
Of course, I would have LOVED IT if VW’s diesels were still available. One of the big car mags did comprehensive comparo between the diesel and gas powered Golf on a road trip all around Germany. The diesels did well both in terms of fuel economy and performance. VW had real WINNERS in their diesel lineup. I’d have bought one, because they’d have suited my needs and desires perfectly. Alas, thanks to Uncle, they’re no longer available… 🙁
Hi Eric,
I didn’t know where to post this so I just picked the most recent post. I thought you and your readers might find this interesting. I read it, Im not sure what to think of it. It kind of makes me think that tptb are trying to shift the thoughts of those of us that can think.
https://reason.com/2019/04/16/are-socialists-more-like-libertarians-than-wed-like-to-admit/
Hi Adam!
I read the whole tedious thing… and not once did the “libertarian” writer mention the only thing that matters. The key thing, which separates libertarians from the people at this conference: The always-implicit coercion in everything collectivists tout. These people are anti-matter to the libertarian ur principle of voluntary interactions; of not forcing peaceful people to do (or not do) anything, regardless of the supposed wonderfulness of whatever is being pushed.
I know I harp on this – but it’s important to always call out the other side, which isn’t asking us but telling us. And wants to punish us if we say no thanks.
I was just discussing this apparent future where the big media monopolies who now also own the internet pipelines will go after truthful media outlets. The gas company controlling what appliances you use that connect to their service is the analogy I use. I fear that this is the next front to be waged in our American Bolshevik Revolution.
Traditional media has lost all legitimacy. With the ownership of FOX by Disney and a stake owned by Saudi Arabia we witnessed after the burning of Notre Dame the erasure of even the controlled media opposition as anchors on both FOX and FOX Business cut off the parties they were interviewing as soon as they mentioned the likelihood of there being arson in the face of over 300 churches being torched in France alone.
As the very populations targeedt by this systematic assault turn off their telescreens (I proudly canceled cable this month and am without for the first time in 30 years happy in the knowledge that not one single penny of mine will subsidize CNN, MSNBC etc et all). We turn to online media free of the official narrative and complete with actual video of events that concern us. Of course now that each major telecom owns or is owned by a media giant the next step would be to crush online media and information resources.
What you are experiencing are the outliers of this attack using monetization, deplatforming and bank blacklisting. Ultimately, it will be the very pipeline that is severed. I imagined such a scenario 15 years ago, but thought then it would need to be hidden and attributed to “user illiteracies and technological deficiencies” ie you were too stupid to use the internet and your computer was too old and broken. Such crackpots being easily dismissible – alas they are going full Bolshevik and entering Mao/Stalin mode.
Godspeed Mr. Peters, for where you go we all will soon follow.
Thanks, ThoughtCriminal!
There is still hope because we are still free to act. Among other things, I am going to stop using Dagoo search engine and instead, DuckDuckGo or some other. Dagoo can be rendered irrelevant – or at least, reigned in – if enough people would only do a few easily done things. Stop Facebooking. Cancel the cable. Support the independent media you value – and let the others twist in the wind. Don’t buy the products/services of businesses who actively oppose your moral sensibilities (e.g., Dicks sporting goods).
We still have time. Lets use it!
eric, I have used DDG since ’08 when it started and used a couple other non-tracking search engines before that. DDG will use G and countless other search engines but it’s customizable and you can remove any you want.
BTW, DDG is the default search engine for Firefox.
Actually, it depends on what you set as default. You can choose whatever search engine you want to use on Firefox. You go into the ‘Tools’ menu, select ‘Options’, then click the magnifying glass; that takes you to the search settings. Under ‘Default Search Engine’, you choose which one you want.
As I said, when you download Firefox, DDG is the “default” search engine. You can remove and add search engines…..but DDG saves no searchers or searches. If you choose to use a result from the G, then you are tracked. But others don’t track you either.
Actually,8, when you download the latest version of Firefox, your preferences for search engine default is carried over to your new version.
AFAIK, Google is the default if you have never set another default on a version of FF. Google has its claws dug into everything, like MS has.
I believe Google is the default, but that’s easy enough to change.
I recall a few years ago Firefox announcing DDG would be the default search engine.
Every computer I’ve set up with Ff has had DDG built in and you can choose to use the same bar for searching DDG as the URL.
I know you can change that aspect and can change what search engines DDG uses but I’m not aware that Google “is” the default search engine. I have had times I opted to keep G from even being one of the search engines. I probably should try that again since Yahoo and Bing are much more than they used to be.
Not sure how much difference there is in G and Y. Try a search with each and the results will be nearly identical. But that doesn’t mean DDG doesn’t use a plethora of search engines.
Like the old song goes, or would go if I wrote it, It’s not love, but it’s not “as bad”.
As an aside, I have decided to now use a VPN because we now have high speed internet service.
I used Tor back in late ’08 and it worked great but was slow even with high speed. I had a friend and her husband drive 600 miles in one day to have me show them how to use Tor. The next year I was living in Odessa and had high speed internet via ATT. It would commonly be 500Kbps, definitely not high speed but ATT never helped at all, in fact, I spoke with two old black nannies straight out of the massa’s plantation to hear them speak and they were both hostile as hell. I thought, after speaking to the IRS a year before, they were the same ones I spoke with then. They were also hostile as hell and didn’t know the answer to a yes/no question I asked.
The second Aunt Jemima I spoke with made a veiled threat of having me audited if I kept asking the question.
No telling what sort of money I’d get back if audited since I probably wasn’t taking advantage of many things.
My best friends mother taught me typing, Texas law and a couple other courses. She was sharp as a nail. One year she and her husband got audited. The IRS agents were sitting with her at the kitchen table pouring over her records looking for improprieties. She kept finding things she’d originally missed. She got a great deal of money back after the audit. No doubt nobody would ever go back to mess with her. it’s one of the few “good” outcomes I’ve heard of when audited. But this was early 60’s when the IRS didn’t target people for political reasons, well, not regular people.
Yeah, Ducks is included in the search engines with FF, but I set up FF my wife’s laptop to get her away from Windoze Exploder (or whatever they call it these days) and Google was the default. That was with FF 50 something, so it might have changed since then.
I always set mine for Ducks, but wifey loves her some Google. She insisted on Google for her default.
She’s weird like that. She pays $180 a month for her Dish Network with a premium network or two, but she watches almost nothing except the old Big 3 networks. I guess she loves commercials and propaganda.
Whatever you do…DO NOT Apologize or give in to the “Ban all the Things Mentality”. The sharks will smell blood, and tear you to pieces…self fund, and keep up the PR campaign…Don’t know if they are attacking yet on the TubeofU yet, but expect that as well…have an alternate plan for your videos if you like producing them…Best of Luck…
Stuck
Count on it, Stuck!
I was talking with my computer guy the other day about it. If I “pull” the “flagged” articles, it will never end. They will demand I “pull” more articles. They will insist I censor comments – and so destroy the freedom of speech of the readers, as well as my own.
Nope. More weight.
They can chew on cold fish heads.
The cost of electronic communications has dropped 99% since 1980. Because the old print media model had advertising paying for editorial and subscription fees paying for distribution the assumption was that content could be offered for free. Because setting up an ad sales department and all the people needed to run ad sales is expensive, that was farmed out to companies like Doubleclick.net and others. Before Google bought Doubleclick they really didn’t have much of a business model, just a nice search engine and groovy workplace. To this day the only real revenue source at Google is Doubleclick and some ancillary revenue from Android services. Nothing else they do earns them a nickel. Pay per click schemes led to click farms and other dubious practices to goose up the revenue.
Over time advertisers figured out that they weren’t getting what they had been paying for all these years and started demanding real readership/viewership numbers. This meant Google has to prove the clicks are real, not just count them. This requires a lot of intrusion, and puts up a ton of red flags. Europe leads the way with consumer protection, mostly because Google, Amazon and Facebook have a very large presence in Washington, so they get a pass when they pinky swear to keep data private. In exchange they have to police speech on their web sites. It only takes a little pressure from congress on the FCC to use regulatory powers they don’t possess but claim anyway to shut things down. So FB and Google and the rest all get in line. Then the highly regulated by the FCC mainstream companies supply the “outrage” and the banning begins.
Rantings of a conspiracy nut? Perhaps. But just remember everything you read today has been on a wire at one time or another. A wire that’s under the control of the FCC in one form or another.
It probably makes no difference but googhul’s patrols of websites also include the comments and links there in. I’ve noticed a variety of commenters going where it is sure to trigger googhul’s wrath. My guess is the comments’ “key words” were probably as much or more so the cause of googhul’s ire.
I’ve also noticed rules and making links plain text on websites to avoid the googhul’s detection. On some sites comment sections and articles use their own words for things as well. A human will figure it out after a bit but googhul doesn’t have that intelligence yet. However hiring software has already transcended that barrier. As a result it was turned off at the tech giants. It started behaving in politically incorrect and realistic manners to do its job as good as possible.
Yeah, I’m afraid some of the “spirited” discussions revolving around who is or isn’t to blame for our current predicament and what groups have what characteristics have resulted in posts that would bring down the Goog’s wrath. Even racial ephithets made in jest (even those which used to be a common part of comedy) are probably enough to trigger a bad reaction in today’s hair-trigger environment. (And I’m one of the guilty parties.) But dang, it should be possible to have these discussions without fear of being throttled by some Big Brother monopolist.
I have not been able to send anything in for a while due to funds being extremely tight, but do have couple of jobs in the offing that should return enough to send a few bucks Eric’s way.
Hey Eric,
Here’s more to get you hot water: another Tesla spontaneously combusts, taking four HOURS to put out.
https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2019/04/17/monroeville-tesla-fire/
They’re doing this to all truth telling sites. Many are now asking for donations. They (PTB) know most today cannot spare $XX to twenty or thirty or more sites. Like me they will support “maybe” a few, Still that leaves hundreds of truth telling sites going down. After they accomplish that then they’ll come gunning for the remaining few. Easy their by just pulling their domain and/or harassing your web host. Either way your toast.
They have turned the Internet into a billboard. Try to find ‘real’ information…. unpossible! Find a toaster oven reveals 100,000 hits. They even want to turn the sky into a billboard.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/glowing-space-billboards-could-light-up-the-night-sky-in-2020/
When Alex Jones moved his entire platform to the Internet I commented that it was a mistake and that they would eventually control him. It happened to him just recently. In the beginning one could purchase anything by money order even checks. Today its mostly Pay Pal and Pay Pal is widely known to stop services of sites that don’t …. conform.
Land of the Free and home of the Brave? I don’t think so, Tim.
More like Land of the Fee and Home of the Oppressed.
I have always maintained that Digital was humans worst invention. And this is why.
At least Jones is on radio and TV stations too, so he’s not only on the web. Before the Internet and the web grew, he was on TV, AM, FM, and shortwave radio. Finally, he has his OWN website, which was how we used to do things; now, with the changes online, Big Tech has become the gatekeeper because people are too lazy to go to sites directly; they can’t even be bothered to bookmark them, so they can later go to a site directly; by going to a site directly, you can bypass the Big Tech gatekeepers.
Alex Jones once said that Gooh-gul was a CIA or DIA creation, that it was their seed money that started Dagoog. What’s particularly distressing, in addition to their censorship, is how they refused to help our gov’t with AI, but they’re going out of their way to help the Chinese. The Chinese communists are considered the IDEAL SOCIETY for the new world order or whatever you want to call it…
BTW, I’m backing you up because I value free speech and free press.
Thanks, Mark!
If another 100 or so readers out of the tens of thousands who come here regularly would chip in a few bucks each month, Dagoog would lose its economic chokehold over independent media.
I’m betting they will!
I wish I could put more into the pot, but I do put in something…
I am going to resume my monthly donations. About 6 months ago I had some problems with my bank account which got hacked. It’s resolved now, and I will begin the process. I can’t believe this. Nothing you have ever published can be remotely considered dangerous and derogatory. Imagine what they say about Alex Jones.
Thanks, Swamp – and to all of you. I get behind this laptop every day because of all of you. I will not go quietly into the night – and I suspect I have good company!
MM, the reason Jones said that was because many years ago a CIA whistleblower said as much. Was I the only one to wonder how G got so much start-up money and made money in staggering amounts? It was obvious they were using federal funds, quite probably a significant amount coming directly from CIA drug money. Seriously, how do you get heroin from Afghanistan into the US in such large quantities and from S. America too?
I’m reminded of a black guy in the hood being interviewed because of being accused of being a large cocaine dealer. He rightly pointed out he was chump change. He said “I don’t have an airplane or a boat…..so how did it get to my hood?”. No shitsky feller, it came into the US back then through Mena Ark. on C 130’s of which Ollie North had no clue of such going on. Reagan didn’t either…..and he really didn’t since he couldn’t remember who members of his cabinet were when told their names. It would have been sad had he not been plenty guilty of other bad things. It was, after all, RR who came up with the first gun ban that went viral from Ca. to the rest of the nation and he did it because he was scared of black men with guns, not black guns, just any gun.
Remember, George H.W. Bush’s nickname is “Poppy”…I don’t think it came from his grandchildren.
I have NO IDEA where George H.W. Bush got that nickname, and I’ve read Roger Stone’s book about Jeb! and the Bush Crime Family…