Listen to a reading of this article:
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Facebook restricted visibility of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story in the lead-up to the 2020 election after receiving counsel from the FBI, according to Facebook/Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
“So we took a different path than Twitter,” Zuckerberg said during a Thursday appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience. “Basically the background here is the FBI, I think basically came to us — some folks on our team and was like, ‘Hey, um, just so you know, like, you should be on high alert. There was the — we thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election. We have it on notice that basically there’s about to be some kind of dump of — that’s similar to that. So just be vigilant.’”
Zuckerberg said a decision was made to restrict that information on Facebook’s multibillion-user platform. He said that unlike Twitter, which banned the sharing of the article entirely, Facebook opted for the somewhat subtler option of censorship by algorithm.
“The distribution on Facebook was decreased,” he said, adding when pressed by Rogan that the decreased visibility of the article happened to a “meaningful” extent.
As we’ve discussed previously, censorship by algorithm is becoming the preferred censorship method on large Silicon Valley platforms because it can be done to far more people with far less objection than outright de-platforming and bans.
https://twitter.com/minds/status/1562927481945980928?s=20&t=Cz9A8bzpldbXtHYfLCSJLg
In addition to being censored across social media platforms, the Hunter Biden laptop story was first ignored and dismissed by the mainstream news media, then spun as a Russian disinfo operation. Those media outlets eventually came around to admitting that the leaked emails were probably authentic, and Hunter Biden tacitly authenticated them himself when he acknowledged that the information “could” have come from his laptop. Nothing that came from that laptop was anywhere near as scandalous as the unified front presented by the news media and Silicon Valley in reducing the political impact of an October surprise before a presidential election.
And now we know that the reason the world’s largest social media platform censored that particular story was because they were cautioned by the FBI against allowing such information to circulate. How many of those other institutions suppressed that news story because they were told to by the FBI or other government agencies? How often are US government agencies involving themselves in the act of censorship? What other information is being suppressed in this or similar ways? What other information will be suppressed in the future?
Because of the veils of government and corporate secrecy which obscure our view of the behaviors of power, we don’t get to have answers to these questions. All we get to have is what oligarchs like Mark Zuckerberg choose to tell us, in whatever way and to whatever extent they choose to tell us about them.
But even what we’ve been told is pretty ugly. A government agency and a social media platform of unprecedented influence teaming up together to silence impactful political speech is censorship by any sane definition. Mainstream liberals can come up with all kinds of arguments for why the continually expanding justifications for online censorship are fine and normal and not really censorship, but are they able to maintain those justifications when government agencies are actively involved? Is it really better when political speech is being censored by a collaboration of government operatives and billionaires than censored directly by the government alone?
https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1539364282520969218?s=20&t=oHv5tQnbv_RxGK0TLz5Urw
Alan MacLeod has been putting out a number of reports with Mintpress News documenting the way many veterans from the FBI, CIA, NSA and other government agencies have been recruited to work for tech companies like Google/YouTube, Facebook/Meta, and Twitter. The intimacy with which these government and corporate entities are working together is growing closer and closer, and they’re making less and less effort to conceal it.
In a power structure without clear boundaries separating corporations from the government, corporate censorship is state censorship. The mightiest power structure on earth is growing more and more brazen and shameless about this reality.
You know you are living in an oligarchy when Mark Zuckerberg has more political influence over your country than any elected official. Democracy is an illusion. Those who live under the US empire are a propagandized and politically impotent population who only think they are free because they’ve been given the illusion of freedom, and less and less effort is being made to sustain that illusion.
We are ruled by unelected sociopaths who have no wisdom, no compassion, and no intention of ever relinquishing their rule. This will continue unless and until enough of us wake up to what’s going on to stop them.
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23 responses to “When Billionaires And The Government Work Together To Control Information”
What other information will be suppressed in the future?
The Plutocratic-Oligarchs, using their discretionary-powers, will suppress any and all information necessary to implement their endgame: The Great Reset/Global-Governance/Win Great-Power-Competition
The idea of the Great Reset derives from the New World Order which is still alive in the minds of the establishment or who we can call the globalists from people like Henry Kissinger to the current US president, Joe Biden. Of course, there are many others on the top levels of the pyramid whose ideas range from establishing a police state, to implanting microchips the day we are born to track and trace us, to depopulating the planet. I know it all sounds insane but that’s what the globalists have planned for us for a very long time. (The Cult of Globalism: The Great Reset and Its “Final Solution” for “Useless People”- globalresearch.ca – 8/28/22).
The Pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world (Klaus Schwab – The Cult of Globalism: The Great Reset and Its “Final Solution” for “Useless People” – globalresearch.ca – 8/28/22).
“The CDC, once a model for health agencies worldwide, has been totally integrated into the political establishment during the COVID-19 pandemic. As with both capitalist political parties, it serves the interests of the corporate and financial elites.” (CDC director announces reorganization of agency after COVID-19 debacle – wsws.org – 8/18/22).
UK Data Reveals the Jab Is Attacking the Vaxed, COVID Jab Impairs Immune System & Spike in The Blood (thelastamericanvagabond – 3/25/22 – Ryan Cristian).
Self-Spreading Vax Underway, Rockefeller “Sustaining the Next Normal” Covid Roadmap & Graphene Oxide (thelastamericanvagabond – 3/20/22 – Ryan Cristian).
Policing the world inevitably invites defensive and deterrent responses, which are then used as pretenses to counter so-called “aggressive” actions. It also makes fortunes for military contractors. The result is perpetual war in which liberty and prosperity must suffer (Imperial America, Which Never Left, Is Back (antiwar.com – 2/8/21- Sheldon Richmond).
Biden Hides Behind ‘Great Power Competition’ To Maintain the Bankrupt Status Quo (antiwar.com – 6/20/22 – Daniel Larison).
The term oligarch is tossed around so much that the other day that I thought that I’d look up its meaning when I saw part of the word used to describe a certain class of chemical structures when I stumbled upon this;
“No democracy can exist unless each of its citizens is as capable of outrage at injustice to another as he is of outrage at injustice to himself.”
— Aristotle
So, obviously, these cretins have been around for a long time and all the democracies of the world have failed because too many of us aren’t much better than the plutocrats
So FBI now stands for Face Book Intervention & Zuck is always looking for patsies to blame.
Whoever would want to use a system of communication in which you could be muzzled, silenced, censored or told to shut up at any time on any issue? Sadly, this is the way that Facebook and Twitter seem to be run. Anyone who uses and thinks they DEPEND upon these modalities for the acquisition and dissemination of truth are being fools. Plus you are being exploited by the likes of the billionaire owners of these organs, like Zuckerberg (FB), Bezos (WaPo), or Murdoch (NYP) who have a major vested interest in how American politics play out and how they affect the economy.
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At least half of political speech is clearly understood to be no more than opinion, interpretation, exaggeration or half-assed analysis as matters stand. Your recourse to remedy such a situation should not be to silence the sources (more likely quite limited select sources not in good standing with the mainstream) with which you disagree, but rather to engage them, presenting facts and making arguments to counter them, not forbid them to be spoken or written about. The only way that you and your argument can ever truly defeat what you perceive to be the opposition is to dismantle them logically or factually, not by censorship or threat of force. Unless competing ideas can directly engage, they have never had their respective measures taken, let alone claim any right to an intellectual or popular victory.
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Zuckerberg, you run a goon squad at the behest of a fascist spook agency that protects the interests of select insider elites and puts at risk the wellbeing of the masses. You are, in fact, undermining the “freedoms” in this self-acclaimed “land of the free.”
Well that’s it then. Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg’s stammering response, the United States of America is run by fascists. Don’t let anyone tell you different.
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The headlines say he blamed the FBI. He was a willing collaborator. And that in the WW2 sense of the word.
Next we’ll have a blame the FBI fest and then a big call to reorganize it and it will reappear bigger, more powerful, and nastier than ever. Maybe under another name. Zuckerborg will censor anybody who complains.
“All we get to have is what oligarchs like Mark Zuckerberg choose to tell us, in whatever way and to whatever extent they choose to tell us about them.”
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This is a great read. The true connections, the links between Homeland Security and Social Media are hidden from us but we know they are there shaping public opinion every day.
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All to maintain existing arrangements, As I wrote about today.
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https://chasingthesquirrel.com/
In the last American census more than 40% of American cities were left out of any visit to be counted for statistics purposes. According to the government back in the day a new super statistic algorithm would compensate it and save money. I guess after the statistics made by this super algorithm involving climate change, the pandemic and anti Russia policies something big is missing about the how far below 300 millions of American are the real number of Americans living in America. I will not be surprised to see more illegal immigrants in America than citizens. Still, it is not enough to fill the abyss. My city before the pandemic was already having a hard economic struggle. Business closing and people moving to other places for better conditions to live. Today my city is about 40% of what it was a four years ago. Lies cannot hide reality.
“In a power structure without clear boundaries separating corporations from the government, corporate censorship is state censorship. ”
That sentence says it all.
Psychopaths, probably, but it’s possible that there is no one, no Dr. Evil or Mr. Burns, in the big chair or behind the curtain. It may be a self licking ice cream cone. Tech listens to suggestions by Security State to get along, Security was founded to deter communism and needs to justify it’s budget, Pentagon grooms empire managers to slip seamlessly onto corporate boards, politicians play the game and grow wealthy, the Constitution is impossible to change, so politics will continue to serve the wealthy and ignore the rest. Politics seems like theater because it is. The system will change when ten million people descend on DC and write a new Constitution that serves the citizens. Our bosses are confident that will not happen.
The current Constitution is perfectly fine. If our rulers are allowed to disregard it, why would they not do the same to a replacement?
When the Ukrainian military is in total collapse in the near future maybe the truth will come out. Russia will grant public access to everyone see the judgement and verdicts carry out over all military and political Ukrainian establishment involved in war crimes, sabotage, espionage, terrorism against Ukrainians and Russians. Perhaps Joe Biden will slap some economic sanctions on any western ally having second thoughts about to broadcast this future event where the names of people in America, UK and Europe will pop up as flies partying around horseshit. Political agreements to protect the names of those directly involved fueling war crimes will not benefit anyone but the criminals.
No western media outlet is talking about the huge setback the USSA-UK-EU had on the last UN assembly called by Ukraine to condemn Russia and to celebrate Ukraine independence. There is world war 3 in the horizon for the USSA to launch nukes without support from the world. Can you imagine something surreal like this – “UN votes to support USSA nuclear Armageddon towards Russia.”
“Kislitsa’s resolution also fell short of the support Kiev had back in March, right after the start of the Russian military operation. At the March 2 General Assembly session,141 member countries – or 73% of the UN – voted for a nonbinding resolution to condemn Moscow.
This week, however, that support stood at 30%, with no African, Persian Gulf or BRICS countries on board – and only two Latin American governments, Colombia and Guatemala, standing with Ukraine.”
There were two major bits of news roiling the waters in Ukraine yesterday that seem to have been blatantly ignored by the Western media, especially since they are always desperate for new ways to slam Vladimir Putin and his awful tyrannical policies for world conquest.
Caitlin is usually quite good at catching the next wave to be surfed in these “media wars” poisoning the minds of “free” peoples everywhere, so I anticipate hearing her opinion on the shutdown of the nuclear power plant in Southern Ukraine that has been occupied by the Russians (to prevent its destruction, meltdown and subsequent release of radiation) recently being bombarded by the Ukrainians to create any form of negative news they can speciously blame on the Russians. Shutting this plant down pre-emptively is only prudent should it take a hit from Ukie rockets, lose cooling and poison half of Europe with lethal radionuclide after the cores melt down like they did in Fukushima. Of course, now the Ukies are bellyaching that Russia is trying to starve the populace for electric power and thus life itself! I never expected to heard a word of rational analysis from Washington or the West, but we wild-eyed free-thinking rebels should make some commentary before it is too late.
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I also expect to hear some reaction on the train station near Kiev that was hit with a barrage of cruise missiles, destroying an entire train and killing numerous people. Of course, the Ukies claim this was an act of pure terrorism to disrupt their national independence day yesterday. (Happy 31st birthday, Ukmonsters everywhere! I thought you folks were born yesterday based on how y’all think and act.) The Ukes claim that 22 people so horribly died, most likely all children commuting to pre-school in the Kiev suburbs. The Russians, as per usual, seem to have a more rational explanation for this regrettable deed. They claim the action cost 200 lives, but here’s the beauty part: they were all Ukie military, and we know that this bloody war is NOT gonna end until the entire rotten country is demilitarised. Moreover, so sayeth the Great and Powerful Zelensky. That’s exactly what he means when he says, like they did in Galaxy Quest, that we will never give up, never surrender! Ipso facto, the Russkies are doing them a favor by ushering along their inevitable surrender and the dawning of peace. You know, age of Aquarius and all that. Sour cream for their pierogis and powdered sugar for the Kolaczki, a regular Ukie heaven but still on this planet!
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Extra credit: Yes, Daria Dugina’s assassination was critical too, and you would think it should motivate mostly the Russian side into acting more radically–taking up more skullduggery, more cloak and dagger genuine terrorism. Yet it has been the Ukies that have promised to double down on such activities, vowing now to assassinate, not just Russians, but high profile Westerners who advocate for the Russian positions on this war, er, military operation. A famous British rock star from outta the 60’s or 70’s was publicly put on Ukraine’s Fatwah list. I’m at least as old as he is, so I forget his name. Before you know it, we boomers will have more to fear from Slava Ukrainya than from the covid.
How could you forget Roger Waters’s name? He is STILL a famous rock star who is currently on tour, in case you somehow missed it. It is a terrific show, completely anti-capitalistic, antiwar and pro-Julian Assange. I’m the same age. You, on the other hand, seem to have lost touch.
“Everything’s going according to plan”
https://youtu.be/nMykX1X98Bc (Grazhdanskaya Oborona)(Civil Defense)
https://youtu.be/y2DSv0oI_9k (Massive Attack)
https://youtu.be/wGFMciPlRLQ (Yegor Letov) (author)
https://youtu.be/8z4oPn_cYwo (ditto)
Slightly OT, but they are shelling the big nuclear power plant in Ukraine again, and blaming Russia again. And it appears most Americans are believing it. Just to be clear, even if it wasn’t a nuclear power plant the Russian soldiers wouldn’t have any motive to use artillery against their own guys, and they wouldn’t stand still if their own guys were using artillery against them.
Joe Biden is the perennial favorite that was installed as the Potus with the help of intelligence agencies because he is brainless.
Also because he and Obama gave more funding to the FBI, CIA and other government agencies to expand. Under Obama Federal government became the largest employer in the US.
Now we just have to reveal who are these intelligence agencies working for. Since they are telling Mark Z what to do, they are not working for this new crop of American billionaires. And this is why I think they are working for trillionaires abroad.
ah, that’s the zillion dollar question: who or what exactly is in control of the deep state? like so much about surreality, it blows my mind to think that tptb are clever and powerful enough to control much of the ‘world’, and yet stupid or crazy enough to maintain business as usual in spite of overwhelming scientific evidence that it’s leading to certain civilizational collapse, out of control climate chaos, and probably the largest mass extinction event ever. this gives new meaning to the term ‘idiot savants’, and makes me wonder whether aliens from outer space might be calling the shots. perhaps it’s entertainment to them.
It feels absolutely hopeless. We can’t even get a sliver of truth in mainstream media which is what most of humanity consumes. If I bring this Hunter Biden issue up with liberals I will be called a conspiracy theorist from Russia for days. I really enjoy you so much. Your truths are like ointments for my wounds.
Light that candle.
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