Archive for the Censorship Category

The End Of Innocence Hits The Big Five:  March 13, 2020.  Oh, And Happy Coronavirus Day! (March 10, 2025)

Posted in Censorship, Covid / Coronavirus, Totalitarianism on March 10, 2025 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “As I recall, we covered a lot last year.  But let’s never forget.”

J          “We may both not want to forget something different.”

. . .

K          “‘jour’ is ‘day’ in French.  ‘dia” is ‘day’ in Spanish.  e-commentary was a weekly Covid Journal and a Covid Diary for years.  e-commentary chronicled the daily developments and the developing trends.  What a time.”

. . .

K          “Remember noting that friendships today are flat, fried, frayed, frazzled, frozen, fractured, fissured, fatigued and finished?  We are so profoundly and permanently broken, wounded and defeated.”

J          “Everyone is tweaky.  Everyone is on the edge.  Everyone is on the ledge.  We are still plagued.”

. . .

[e-commentary served as a weekly Covid Journal (“jour” is “day” in French) and a Covid Diary (“dia” is “day” in Spanish) for years.  Type “Covid” in the search box.  See the e-commentary at The End Of Innocence:  March 13, 2020.  Oh, And Happy Coronavirus Day! (March 11, 2024), Covid: One Year (March 8, 2021), Covid-19:  “The Answer?!?!? Pandemic controlled.  Economy saved.  (April 7, 2020)”  The First Draft Of History A Score Months Later (December 6, 2021), Covid-19 PanICdemic:  It Is Real . . . And Unreal . . . And Surreal (March 16, 2020), Covid-19 PanICdemic/Plague:  The Plague Of Lies Is Pandemic;  Everyone In The Know Knows;  Does Trumpi Know Something? (April 6, 2020) and pieces on who we have become at On Friendship Today:  Flat, Fried, Frayed, Frazzled, Frozen, Fractured, Fissured, Fatigued, Finished?  Oh, And Happy Thanksgiving! (November 20, 2023), Edward Hopper:  The Mirror For Our Age (January 22, 2024) and “Everything Is A Fight Today.” Please répondez s’il vous plaît. Oh, And Happy Solstice! (June 17, 2024) and many, many, many other pieces. ]

Bumper stickers of the week:

We are still plagued

Stand up for what is right even if you stand alone

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“Rage Against The War Machine”:  Saturday Noon DC; “Rescue The Republic:  Join The Resistance”: Sunday Noon DC (September 23, 2024)

Posted in Censorship, First Amendment, Immigration, Justice, Medicine, MIC, MICAC, Wall Street, War on September 23, 2024 by e-commentary.org

“Why is our Republic worth preserving? WHAT IS THE WEST?”

“At its heart, it is an agreement to distribute opportunity as widely as possible. Today, the foundation that makes up the West is under attack.  This moment demands radical change and requires liberals, conservatives, and independents of every color and creed to unify to rescue the West.”

Rescue The Republic – Join The Resistance will kick off at 12 pm on Sunday, September 29. 

“The stage will be located northeast of the WWII Memorial (east of 17th Street) and open viewing will extend all the way to the Washington Monument.  The program will consist of a mix of musical artists, comedians and thought leaders who alternate in a fast-paced program.”

THE 8 PILLARS:

War is always the last resort v. Military Industrial Complex

Sanctify/recodify informed consent v. Medical Industrial Complex

Banish state media control, surveillance and propaganda v. Censorship Industrial Complex

Enact a rational border policy v. Immigration Industrial Complex

End Lawfare and abuse of the judicial system v. Injustice Industrial Complex

Secure monetary freedom v. Finance Industrial Complex

Restore family sovereignty v. Developmental Industrial Complex

Return to truth-seeking and open dialogue v. Academic Industrial Complex

Bumper stickers of the week:

Keep it simple; avoid complexity

Rage Against the War Machine on Saturday; Rescue The Republic:  Join The Resistance on Sunday.

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Zuckerberg: “I did exactly what the Supreme Court refused to condemn or even criticize.  And got away with it!” (September 9, 2024)

Posted in Censorship, Facebook, First Amendment on September 9, 2024 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “That is what I wrote in an e-mail to a friend.  That is not exactly what he said.  Zuckerberg admitted that his company succumbed to ‘repeated’ pressure by the Biden-Harris administration to censor posts.  His actions amount to actionable election interference that no one in power will act on.”

J          “A little friendly censorship of misinformation is a good thing.”

K          “The government is never going to condemn its own interference.  The Supreme Court failed.  I have no doubt that we will all suffer in the intermediate run.”

. . .

[See “Why Did Zuckerberg Choose Now to Confess?” by Jeffrey A. Tucker in “Brownstone Institute” dated August 30, 2024 and “Facebook: A Seneca Collapse Ahead?  Why I’m Gradually Quitting the Beast” by Ugo Bardi in “senecaeffect.substack.com” dated August 12, 2024.]

[See the e-commentary at Murthy v. Missouri:  AMA v. AAPS; Flaccid Amendment v. First Amendment.  The Speakers’ Corner And The Public Square. (March 18, 2024) and “Supreme Court backs Biden administration in social media dispute with red states”  Biden 1; People 0.  Oh, And Happy Canada Day! (July 1, 2024).]

Bumper sticker of the week:

Propaganda is not just about creating fake news.  Propaganda is also about hiding real news.

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Murthy v. Missouri:  AMA v. AAPS; Flaccid Amendment v. First Amendment.  The Speakers’ Corner And The Public Square. (March 18, 2024)

Posted in Censorship, First Amendment, Journalism, Supreme Court on March 18, 2024 by e-commentary.org

. . .

J          “The American Medical Association (AMA) provides the soundest diagnosis and prescription.”

K          “The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) provides the soundest diagnosis and prescription.”

. . .

J          “In brief, the AMA encourages the dissemination of accurate information and enforces the censorship of misinformation and disinformation.”

K          “In brief, the AAPS promotes the First Amendment and protects free speech.”

. . .

[See the discussion “AMA? BITFD!” by Ben Hunt in “Epsilon Theory” dated November 24, 2020.  (“I thought I was immune to being shocked by corporate mendacity and greed.  Then I started digging into the AMA.”)  See “Technocensorship: When Corporations Serve As a Front for Government Censors” by John Whitehead, the recipient of the Second Annual Noble Prize In Jurisprudence (October 16, 2017), and Nisha Whitehead at The Rutherford Institute dated February 27, 2024.  Their amicus brief is more poetry than prosaic turgid legal prose.  (“The facts of this case are positively Orwellian.”)]

[See the e-commentary at Graduation Advice:  Find The First Amendment (May 15, 2023).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

The Supreme Court hears oral argument in Murthy v. Missouri this morning.

Questions presented: (1) Whether respondents have Article III standing; (2) Whether the government’s challenged conduct transformed private social-media companies’ content-moderation decisions into state action and violated respondents’ First Amendment rights; and (3) Whether the terms and breadth of the preliminary injunction are proper.

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The Westminster Declaration:  The Right To Free Speech; The Right To Information.  Oh, And Happy Halloween!  It Is Spooky Out There. (October 30, 2023)

Posted in Censorship, First Amendment on October 30, 2023 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “If I prayed, my prayers would be answered.  I sought to circulate a petition protecting one’s right to petition for redress, yet no one was interested.”

J          “You know my concern.  There is too much misinformation.  Information must be mediated by someone responsible.  You know my other concern.  No individual or institution is responsible enough to mediate.”

K          “The marketplace of ideas can handle it.”

. . .    

K          “Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger and Bari Weiss, the three recipients of the Eighth Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2023 (May 8, 2023), are on board.  Julian Assange, the recipient of the Third Annual “Cameo In Courage” Award For 2018 (April 9, 2018) and the Fourth Annual “Cameo In Courage” Award For 2019 (April 8, 2019), is on board.  Edward Snowden, the recipient of the First Annual “Cameo In Courage” Award For 2016 (May 9, 2016), is on board.  There are still courageous folks on this planet willing to take a stand.” 

. . .

K          “Last week, Consortium News filed a lawsuit in federal court to challenge Newsguard and the U.S. government for violating the First Amendment and defaming the authors.  Newguard has been acting on behalf of the U.S. Government to censor information.”

. . .

K          “Tomorrow on the morn of Halloween in Lindke v. Freed, the Supreme Court is addressing the following question:  ‘Courts have increasingly been called upon to determine whether a public official who selectively blocks access to his or her social media account has engaged in state action subject to constitutional scrutiny.  To answer that question, most circuits consider a broad range of factors, including the account’s appearance and purpose.  But in the decision below, the court of appeals rejected the relevance of any consideration other than whether the official was performing a “duty of his office” or invoking the “authority of his office.”  App. 5a.’”

J          “The answer will be long, too.”

. . .

J          “Misinformation concerns me.”

. . . 

[See “US Government & NewsGuard Sued by Consortium News” in “Consortium News” dated October 23, 2023.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

The Westminster Declaration

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”  Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Knowledge is power.  No, knowledge is not power.  But ignorance is powerlessness.

“Scientia potentia est”  Sir Francis Bacon / Thomas Hobbs

“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”  Noam Chomsky

“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”  George Orwell

“The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.”  Sigmund Freud

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The Obscene Crime That Is Censorship And Shadow Banning (April 10, 2023)

Posted in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Censorship, Google, Internet on April 10, 2023 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “Every week for many months for many years, when I typed in “www.e-commentary.org” to review the weekly e-commentary, Google regurgitated a list of biblical babble.  Even scrolling through all the Google pages rarely provided access to “www.e-commentary.org”.  A few workarounds to gain access worked at times.  Ten years ago or so, an early and rudimentary form of censorship blocked the site before anyone even suspected the extent of the rampant censorship.  AI likely was not sophisticated enough.  What is most troubling is that a person or persons had to review the content and then program the algorithm to block the site.  The censorship today is much more subtle and much more pervasive and much more pernicious.”

. . .

K          “If I type in “The Two Great Geopolitical Elections:  China in 2014-15; Russia in 2022-23 (March 20, 2023)”, a neutral algorithm should return “The Two Great Geopolitical Elections:  China in 2014-15; Russia in 2022-23 (March 20, 2023)”.  However if I type in “The Two Great Geopolitical Elections:  China in 2014-15; Russia in 2022-23 (March 20, 2023)” and even add “www.e-commentary.org”, the Google algorithm shanghaies the viewer to other sites that pay it lucre and purvey official narratives.  Google violates the public trust and breaches the social contract and breaks the law.  Try it at home.  Try it right now.  Try it again later tonight.  Try it again later this week.  Any person can replicate the results.”

. . .

J          “I tried it at home.  I typed in “The Elections Clause And The Independent State Legislature Theory Confront Sound Logic And Settled Practice (December 12, 2022)” and expected Google to respond with “The Elections Clause And The Independent State Legislature Theory Confront Sound Logic And Settled Practice (December 12, 2022).”  Nope.  Other sites are linked.  I get it.  The Internet is not your friend.  Not mine either.”  

. . .

[See “Fighting Shadow-Banning. The Seneca Blog Lands on Substack” by Ugo Bardi in “The Seneca Effect” dated March 23, 2023 (“‘Shadow Banning’ (also ‘soft banning’, or ‘ghost banning’) is a clever way to make someone disappear from the Web, without giving the impression that he or she has been censored (*).  It simply consists in making one’s website disappear from the first pages of the search engines.  It works:  you get lost in the vast prairies of the Internet and your readers can’t find you anymore.  It happened even to Donald Trump when he was still president.”] 

[Google and DuckDuckGo and Brave all respond to a search for https://assangedefense.org/ with a . . . “504 Gateway Time-out”.  Censored again and again and again.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

“As of my knowledge cutoff date in September 2021, e-commentary.org does not appear to be a widely recognized or influential website within the realms of finance, economics, or politics.  It is possible that the website has changed or gained prominence since then, but I don’t have any specific information about its content or mission.” ChatGPT-4.

“Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.” Isaac Asimov

The Internet is not your friend.

April 11:  Rallies for Julian Assange in various cities

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The War On Truthful Journalism Marches On;  U.S. Carpet Bombing Propaganda And Censorship Campaign Rages On (August 1, 2022)

Posted in Censorship, First Amendment, Propoganda on August 1, 2022 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “The U.S. is being the U.S. again and funding a ‘blacklist’ of journalists and commentators who ask hard questions and demand honest answers.  The U.S./Ukraine ‘Enemies List’ list includes individuals who are on the short list for a Pushitzer Prize and for the highly coveted Cameo In Courage Award.”

J          “I disapprove of what they say, but I will defend to the death their right to say it.”

. . .

[See the “US Should Not Fund Ukrainian ‘Blacklist’” reprinted in “Consortium News” dated July 27, 2022 by Scott Ritter.]

[Take some time reading and reflecting on the e-commentary six years ago on the concerted attacks on independent journalists at A “Journalist” Declares War On Journalists . . . And Journalism (November 28, 2016) and Dispatches From The War On Journalism: The New “Nixon’s Enemies List” (December 5, 2016).  See the propaganda war waged by even NPR at N. Propaganda R. Transcribed:  “Get Vaccinated.  Attack Russia.”  Oh, And Happy Presidents’ Day! (February 21, 2022) and Washington Wants War In The Worst Way:  Dust Off The IOSAT Or Return To The Status Quo Ante Bellum? (January 24, 2022).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

“I disapprove of what you say, but [I] will defend to the death your right to say it.”  Voltaire

“To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.”  Henry Kissinger

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Disinformation Governance Board / Ministry Of Truth (May 2, 2022)

Posted in Censorship, Information / Disinformation, Internet, Newspapers, Press/Media on May 2, 2022 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “Information should be unfiltered.”

J          “Information should be curated.”

. . .

K          “Almost all of our current problems spring from information interference.”

J          “Almost all of our current problems spring from a failure to interfere with misinformation.”

. . .

K          “The people must be obligated to filter information.”

J          “The government must be obligated to curate information.”

. . .

Bumper sticker of the week:

DGB = KGB?

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