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Collusion Writ Large
If you had any doubt that big tech has been colluding with the federal government, the feds have confirmed their attack on the first amendment without any apologies.
US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has jumped into the fray of overplaying government power by publicly calling for all media outlets to edit out or refuse to publish what he calls “misinformation”; this term is a substitute for “information we don’t like or don’t agree with.” His behavior is an attack on the Constitution, an insult to our citizenry, and a demonstration that the federal government will use any tactics, legal or illegal, to achieve its agenda. He issued a 22-page document trying to justify his actions. It said, in part:
Misinformation tends to spread quickly on these platforms for several reasons. First, misinformation is often framed in a sensational and emotional manner that can connect viscerally, distort memory, align with cognitive biases, and heighten psychological responses such as anxiety. People can feel a sense of urgency to react to and share emotionally charged misinformation with others, enabling it to spread quickly and go “viral.” In recent years, the rapidly changing information environment has made it easier for misinformation to spread at unprecedented speed and scale.
Second, product features built into technology platforms have contributed to the spread of misinformation. For example, social media platforms incentivize people to share content to get likes, comments, and other positive signals of engagement. These features help connect and inform people but reward engagement rather than accuracy, allowing emotionally charged misinformation to spread more easily than emotionally neutral content. One study found that false news stories were 70 percent more likely to be shared on social media than true stories.
Third, algorithms that determine what users see online often prioritize content based on its popularity or similarity to previously seen content. As a result, a user exposed to misinformation once could see more and more of it over time, further reinforcing one’s misunderstanding. Some websites also combine different kinds of information, such as news, ads, and posts from users, into a single feed, which can leave consumers confused about the underlying source of any given piece of content.
The irony is that the experts have themselves distributed misinformation, changed their directives and recommendations, and ignored the science. And yet we are supposed to comply with their demands.
The announcement of the Surgeon General is no surprise; big tech and the media have been censoring information for a couple of years, under the guise that they are protecting the public. This is the first time, however, that the government is publicly calling for these organizations to join forces to deprive us of our rights.
In an appearance on Fox News, Ben Domenech called out the government on its behavior. I share his frustration and outrage.
Whether our protests make any difference—your guess is as good as mine.
Published in Law
This goes much deeper then suppressing false information about Covid. This is about keeping power – what ever it takes. More to come.
Thought this was a great comment . . .
The search for truth inevitably involves some missteps along the way. Banning all information, hypotheses, and theories that challenge pre-existing theses prevents the development of new information, and prevents the discovery of truth.
Born in England and lived in Canada where the medicine is run by socialists and where free speech is already hated.
“Inch”? We seem to be galloping at full tilt toward the Ministry of Truth.
On a podcast I heard today the podcasters juxtaposed some of Jen Psaki’s statements with statements by the Prime Minister of New Zealand telling people to believe only information provided by the government, and not to trust any information that differs from government-provided information. It is not much of a step from what Ms. Psaki is saying and what the New Zealand Prime Minister said.
I voted to get rid of Trump and knew that there would be lots of policy things I didn’t want. Trump is more right on the issues, but he has been trying to steal the election by promoting The Big Lie and by cheering on the 1/6 attack on our capitol. Before the election, I had a strong sense of Trump’s complete lack of integrity and his authoritarian impulses. Those have been proven by Trump’s behavior since the election. Even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff met with other military brass and talked about how to stop a Trump coup. I made the absolute right decision to vote against Trump which has been fully confirmed since the election.
The stupid policies of the Democrats can be reversed and should be reversed. But if Trump had been successful with his attempted steal and coup, that would have caused irreparable damage. France is on their Fifth Republic, and the United States is on our first constitution, despite a civil war. Trump could have been the literal end of the United States Constitution.
I totally respect this choice of yours.
Gary, what in the world does your comment have to do with collusion between the government and media?? Are you on the wrong post? If not, please don’t try to sidetrack this one.
And most of the “misinformation” that they censor isn’t statements like “The vaccines contain microchips from Bill Gates which will allow you to be tracked.”
Most of it is people just pointing out overlooked information and asking inconvenient questions.
Blah blah balh
You voted for Biden.
Everything he does is on your hands sir.
You are pathetic in your attempts to avoid they bitter truth of your betrayal of America.
Excuse me. I got attacked by Bryan who told me that this was all my fault and that I voted for this. I had no need to file my comment until Bryan attacked me in Comment #19, and then doubled down in Comment #41. Your quarrel is with Bryan, not me, If Bryan will stop hijacking your post by attacking me and will delete his attacks, I will delete my comments defending myself for his attacks.
Please stop hijacking Susan’s post.
He has to protect his own.
If I am attacked by name in Ricochet or in life, I will respond. For better or worse, like Trump, I am a counter-puncher.
President Trump says he doesn’t do coups. He does voting. Unlike China Joe.
And if you’re not alarmed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff calling President Trump “Hitler” and his voters “Brown-shirts,” then you’re not any sort of conservative at all. (And Milley is an existential threat to the United States.)
This is utter insanity.
Bryan, please stop. Gary is correct–you started it. I feel like I’m talking to two kids.
Only because it serves the interests of your masters in the Democrat Party.
But it’s on the Main Feed now, Gary!
Interesting how some just don’t seem to care that the extra $6 -$8 TRILLION cannot be unspent when this joke is over. They seem to care so little for the tax burden on future generations as long as they get to stick to their fantasy scenarios about Trump. My contempt for these pathetic tools is complete.
Look, we have the Biden Administration silencing free Americans for having opinions they don’t like, we have the Joint Chiefs of Staff calling more than half of Americans “brownshirts” and declaring the former President to be Hitler. We have homeland security declaring Trump supporters to be domestic terrorists. We have Democrats holding political prisoners in Washington. And people are still worried about Trump?
This is how the media brainwashes people. The mind-control project (via the media) has been so successful. Our freedoms are peeled away 0ne by one, authoritarianism and tyranny descend on the United States, and all some can talk about is the former President.
Once you’ve convinced people that all conservatives are Nazis, that pretty much justifies anything you do to them, right?
How is what the Biden Administration any different from what the Chinese government has been doing? The government in collusion with the big tech oligopolies to squelch free speech is underway. If you think these power-hungry autocrats will stop at Covid, you are beyond naive. They have weaponized the security apparatus of this country to squelch information on the sleaze of the Biden family. They squelch the investigation of Hunter Biden through the DOJ. This is only the beginning. And yet we have a fool who talks about Trump and coups when the coup is ongoing.
These are people who squelched the idea that Covid was transmitted person to person.
These are people who squelced the idea the virus resulted from a lab leak in Wuhan.
And we are to trust these people?
Yup. From the blog Status451.com in 2017:
Now with the Feds colluding with FB, Twitter, etc., it’s even worse.
(ETA link to Staus451.)
Early in 2020, Twitter’s ‘fact checked’ of President Trump’s tweet about the risks of fraud with vote-by-mail. Is vote-by-mail more susceptible to fraud than is conventional voting? Considerable evidence can be amassed to suggest that it is indeed so susceptible, counter-evidence and arguments can also be presented. It is a legitimate topic for public discussion, yet Twitter chooses to treat is as if it is a matter of absolute black-and-white truth-versus-falsity on which they have to weigh in, as if it were a question of the spherical vs flat shape of the earth or the value of the acceleration of gravity. (Although I *have* seen actual flat-earth tweets up on Twitter.) And I haven’t seen any Twitter fact-checking of the feed from the People’s Daily of China, or the official Twitter account of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran…or, for that matter, of the statements of Joe Biden.
A conservative TV commentator just suggested that Biden’s drive for ‘fact checking’ of Covid-19 posts is a dry run for much more extensive ‘fact checking’ during the upcoming election seasons. But as the Twitter example cited above shows…along with Facebook actions such as the minimization of information about Hunter Biden…such electoral interference was already going on, more than a year ago.
Actually, it is the Navy uniform.
True information that we don’t like is misinformation. True information that leads where we don’t want people to go is misleading information.
Not all misinformation is true information, and not all misleading information is true information, but some is.
It’s dangerous for government officials to be using those terms. If we’re going to ban anything, maybe we should ban the use of those words.
Oh, that is so gracious of you to condescend to give a like to something that almost meets your standards. Your humble servants are grateful that you deign to look down on us and favor us with a kind word.
Their election campaign was about “unity over division.” This is unity.
Or government officials.
The Left’s definition of unity is capitulation
Steve Herman at the link quotes (I’m paraphrazing) Psaki as saying “There’s no “secret list” of people on Facebook that the government is monitoring.
Of course not. They’re monitoring everyone.
Almost by definition, the Pentagon would have to be involved for there to be a Trump coup.
If the government has the resources to monitor Facebook, it has too much money.