The Left's Long War on Conservative Free Speech
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
In the competition of ideas, you can't win the game if you're not on the playing field.
That's why Silicon Valley bigwigs' stubborn refusal to put business above their own personal partisan biases doesn't just rankle. It reeks. Equal access to social media is not just about sharing food pics, pet videos, makeup tutorials and travelogues. It's about ensuring the ability to disseminate and distribute political speech on the world's biggest platforms.
Although I started in the metro newspaper industry in 1992, my years as an independent conservative blogger and internet entrepreneur have been the most journalistically enriching. I launched my first website in 1999, my namesake blog in 2004, my first group blog and video content platform HotAir.com and my YouTube channel in 2006 (where I broadcast reports from Iraq), my Twitter account in 2008, my second group website Twitchy.com in 2012, and my documentary-style web series, "Michelle Malkin Investigates," for CRTV.com in 2016.
I don't just preach the First Amendment. I practice it for a living.
Early adopter status was important for us non-leftists who saw the disruptive influence and narrative-setting opportunities that new media and social media offered. I was ridiculed by mainstream media colleagues for wasting time on the internet, derided as "just a blogger" (which I proudly turned into a hashtag), and mocked for starting a Twitter aggregation business long before corporate media outlets copied the idea.
Over the years, I've joined other independent conservative social media users in exposing coordinated "flag-spamming" campaigns against right-wing personalities and causes. Pro-life, pro-border security and anti-jihadist journalists and activists have all been selectively gagged on Google/YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. I've worked with a few good-faith employees at these companies who tried to treat conservatives fairly. But in the unhinged era of the anti-Trump resistance, intermittent purges, "accidental" suspensions and suspicious deletions of conservative content have spiked to a level of systemic censorship.
Twelve years after its founding, Twitter has abandoned its corporate motto of "Defend and respect the user's voice." Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, set to testify before Congress in two weeks, admitted his company's left-wing bias and dismissed revelations from his own engineers, who confided to undercover Project Veritas journalists that they were creating algorithms to "ban a way of talking," "down rank" users based on politics and employ "machine learning" to create special triggers and keywords -- "the majority of (which) are for Republicans."
In April, the brilliant anti-leftist street artist Sabo disappeared from Twitter without warning or explanation.
My friend and CRTV.com colleague Gavin McInnes was silenced on Twitter recently for absolutely no good reason and remains suspended.
Prager University, with whom I collaborated on a new video about immigration and border security, has been suppressed on Facebook and it's clear it was no accidental glitch. One of the videos yanked was conservative millennial vlogger and CRTV.com host Allie Stuckey's piece called "Make Men Masculine Again."
Author and philosopher Stefan Molyneux, whose video podcasts have 250 million views, was also silenced by speech suppressors on YouTube, which arbitrarily issued community guideline violation strikes against him for videos including an interview with British journalist Katie Hopkins and a discussion on the Death of White Males.
My friend and conservative social media guru Nick Short, of the Security Studies Group, was one of thousands of conservative activists who discovered they've been throttled by Twitter's use of a "complex and opaque Quality Filter algorithm that has the effect of disproportionately restricting the voices of conservatives under the guise of limiting harmful or abusive users."
Same as it ever was. For three decades, the far-left has waged continuous war on conservative free speech in every available space.
They have organized militant boycott campaigns against the right's most effective advocates on talk radio -- including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and Laura Ingraham. They pressured advertisers to withdraw from Dr. Laura Schlessinger's national TV show when she was at the height of her popularity and mainstream commercial success.
Democrats have exploited national tragedies from the Oklahoma City bombing to the Tucson massacre to try to regulate lawful, peaceful conservative free speech and enact an Orwellian Fairness Doctrine under the guise of decency, diversity and equality.
The "new" war on conservatives on the internet is the same old attempt by desperate liberals to shut down their competitors in the marketplace of ideas. If you can't beat 'em, deplatform 'em. That's the progressive way.
The right-wing solution is not to lie down, but to win over more converts, find new ways to disseminate our news and views, and turn up the heat. I've been doing it for 25-plus years and have no intention on cooling off, giving in or shutting up. Speak for those who have no voice. Support those speaking for you.
And one last action item: Remember this in November. The ballot box is one of the mightiest platforms we have. Use it or lose it.
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“Over the years, I've joined other independent conservative social media users in exposing coordinated "flag-spamming" campaigns against right-wing personalities and causes. Pro-life, pro-border security and anti-jihadist journalists and activists have all been selectively gagged on Google/YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. I've worked with a few good-faith employees at these companies who tried to treat conservatives fairly. But in the unhinged era of the anti-Trump resistance, intermittent purges, "accidental" suspensions and suspicious deletions of conservative content have spiked to a level of systemic censorship.
Twelve years after its founding, Twitter has abandoned its corporate motto of "Defend and respect the user's voice." Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, set to testify before Congress in two weeks, admitted his company's left-wing bias and dismissed revelations from his own engineers, who confided to undercover Project Veritas journalists that they were creating algorithms to "ban a way of talking," "down rank" users based on politics and employ "machine learning" to create special triggers and keywords -- "the majority of (which) are for Republicans."
Hey teapublicans, does the beginning of the phrase "Do unto others..." ring any fucking bells? Capitalism is a 2 way street in the USA, no matter how many Koch suckers say it isn't, and It's traffic flows better when that street is level. Don't like it? Too fucking bad. They're free to create their own half assed sites to compete in the marketplace.
Your free speech rights have never been threatened because you haven't been arrested or fined for your speech by the government, so drop the hyperbole. If you have bothered to read the TOS on any site when you register they put limits on what they will be a platform for. Start your own alternative sites for conservatives if you have a problem with Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube/Google.
No. We are going to put public and government pressure on them, shine the spotlight of public humiliation on them, and do none or less business with them and help depress their stock and net worth value. So, no we will not be silent about those internet platforms.
WHY ?
Do you think that they will care about the whining of conspiracy theorists, religious bigots, and Neo-nazis who got banned from their sites?
wait... the party of "less government" is now advocating to use the government to bully private companies into running their business the way they feel is best when the businesses violated no laws in the first place ? are you an advocate for a business being able to legally run however they want or not ? i see that government is all good to many of the conservative minded when they can use it to bully others who have done nothing legally wrong - they just disagree with others opinions and politics so they want to force them to lockstep with their line of thought.
Teapublicans want less government for themselves and more government for others.
That isn't right.
Then they will lose market share as we create competition or take our business to their foreign competition.
Like Conservapedia?
Walking on water will be easier for most thumpers than trying to publically humiliate people that don't believe in revised fairy tales written by wealthy slave owners to keep the poor from killing them.
It is simply ridiculous that you would equate all conservative speech with religious bigots, conspiracy theorists, and neo Nazis. It is really hate speech directed at mainstream religious and conservative people these internet sites are shadow banning and making it impossible to communicate a mainstream message.
Lol good god, you are insane! First of all, the government will not bring any pressure because it cannot, the courts will shit all over them. Secondly, yeah, if news that Facebook is selling people's data to the highest bidder for whatever reason doesn't cause people to drop it, then you shitting yourself because they enforce their TOS won't either. Your suggestion honestly is the very last thing they are worried about.
What's 'simply ridiculous' is that you characterized epistte's comment in that way. Not ALL conservatives ' got banned from their sites' DID they HA. In FACT, the author of your seed has accounts with both Facebook AND Twitter.
Really? You DO know that 'mainstream religious' people have an EXCLUSIVE venue to disseminate their POV right? They are called 'houses of worship'. Oh and just about every one of them have Facebook accounts...
Oh and did you read about Trump telling religious leaders to tell their congregations to vote Republican or expect Antifa to use violence against them? Talk about hate speech and fear mongering...
Again, there are 'conservative people' all over the internet. Proof of that right here are the PLETHORA of seeds that you post by different conservative people EVERY DAY. So pretending that it's 'impossible to communicate' is total bullshit.
BTW, the author of your seed has a delusional definition of journalism. She isn't a 'journalist' and neither are the scum @ Project Veritas.
Prager University was thrown out of court so the author of your seed is beating a dead horse. Typical for her.
Michelle Malkin - LOL - 'Nuff said!
I fully agree, This conservative natitive is getting really old.
No, we’re not asking for too much. And if the shoe were on the other foot and businesses were treating progressives poorly strictly because of their ideology you all would be throwing fits and organizing boycotts.
Google is a private company, do you believe a private company is governed by the first amendment ? It doesn't seem to be.
Do conservatives have a right to have a competing web site ? Sure they do.
So why not create one ?
Conservatives want corporations to be deregulated, except when something happens to them and then they suddenly support sweeping corporate regulations.
I've never seen such a bunch of entitled hypocritical whiners as American conservatives, who somehow also claim to be small government libertarians.
Or.... If one is actually paying attention... Conservatives want intelligent regulation from the onset.
What is your idea of intelligent regulations?
If you don't like the website then don't use it or create your own competition, but don't whine about the rules of a website when you are there voluntarily. Twitter, Facebook and Google/YouTube aren't selling anything and don't charge a fee for use to the users so public accommodation doesn't apply. There are no free speech protections on the 'net because that only applies between people and the government.
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Well we certainly didn’t favor net neutrality regulations. The providers don’t need to be made into a protected regulated monopoly.
Quite the sweeping generalization you’ve got going there comparing all conservative speech on line to that source which is not at all conservative.
Except it is and it is.
Because whining is so much easier.
You don't know what net neutrality is, but that has been obvious for a looooong time now.
That's what I figure as well. When IMO: The responsible thing to do is what I did when fox censored me.I walked away and found other places to spread my opinions. Do I bitch about it..well yeah, did I become obsessed about it, well no. The world is a huge place and I accept that not everywhere is what I want it to be.
I have comments deleted here all the time and I have been suspended a few times, but I never whine about it because A) I am not a little bitch, and B) I know the rules and knowingly, willingly violated them. IF I had been banned for good, well whatever, I will move on.
you seem to understand, Good. As do I. I also understood the rules at fox but seriously the rules really didn't seem to come into play. while I was not breaking any rule the content was evidently not acceptable and Poof it would go.
I'm pretty observant and logical I could see what was being poofed before I even started posting anything myself, so I played a little game, I slammed Obama !! I did that for a while. No problem no poofing, then I slowly switched to the centerline ideology that I really am and I watched as my posts started disappearing...being poofed .. This was not a slow process (I played the Game for hours) but once I started changing my ideological appearance there was sure a big change in their censorship of me.
all true.
Heah I moved on, I dont go far down one way streets.
And Fox had every right to do that
How is it that so few of us understand this?
I don’t know, I figured out long ago the world is not what I always want it to be. And as far as Fox evidently not appreciating my presence… too bad for them but I really didn’t fit into their echo chamber very well anyway so no big lost to me either.
You obviously don't know what net neutrality is. Net neutrality allows ISPs to determine what you can view by throttling internet speeds or even limiting what sites you can access.
Throwing fits and organizing boycotts is TOTALLY different than Trump threatening GOVERNMENT action against a business unless it shows him in a favorable light.
It is time that Alphabet, Facebook, Twitter All face the antitrust division of the justice department.
The day of separate but equal on line sites for different ideologies may be coming. I have no problem with public exposure of what the progressives are doing to speech on line. No problem with Trump using the bully pulpit to guilt shame them either. He already said they won’t regulate.
Because trump can't regulate them.
Why don't you just form a private Facebook group for conservative extremists? Or does the FB ban on hate speech and fake news extend to private groups too?
I suppose you could get your own domain and create a site just for conservatives. You could call it "townhall" or "breitbart" or "lifesitenews" or something like that.
Or the Freepers.
LOL.....I always get confused between the Freepers and the Detroit Free Press which is a great progressive paper with the unfortunate domain name of "freep.com"......I wonder if they chose that domain on purpose to confuse Freepers.
Freepers is short for the Free Republic. It makes Townhall seem intelligent. They haven't updated the site since 2000.
I like the Detroit Free Press.
They did a really awesome job on the water problems in Flint. They deserve a Pulitzer for that given the corrupt politics involved and the national implications.
You don't actually have a right to speech online. I mean look at me, I get censored all the time for insulting you and I doubt you have a problem with that. Really you are simply taking completely contradictory positions, as usual.
You mean whine and complain about a problem that has to be shown even exists? Trust me, they are not worried in the slightest.
He can't. He constitutionally cannot. Unless of course you are advocating for socialism or fascism.
I don't understand this whining. Trump (and most republicans) say whatever the hell they want, whenever they want, to whoever they want. We hear it all the time 'we like people to tell it like it is', and 'say what's on their mind'. When we take them at their word, they go straight to victim mode and start whining. Conservatives control everything, literally. How much more do you think they need, FFS? If conservatives are on the right side of the public, they have nothing to bitch about. If not, oh well, this is what happens when a majority of the country disagrees. Nothing to do with a 'long war on conservatives' (because its projection of what they are doing, not real). Is there a reason you expect conservatives to be able to do and say anything with no repercussions?
Exactly. I have yet to hear of any of them being sent to prison. Part of me seems to suspect that many of them do not actually understand the US Constitution.
Actually we have all heard of quite a few of Trump's people going to jail for utilizing their 1st Amendment right of free speech to lie to the FBI.
I fail to see how conservatives are worried about attacks on their brand of free speech when their brand is neither free or speech. Birtherism comes to mind. The Sandy Hook shootings being a set up and the rest of conservatism's inane proclamations.
Why don't these new conservatives just cut to the chase and admit that all they want is a bible up everyone's nose and an end to choice for women, especially those women who just aren't interested in the whole birthing experience.
Didn't realize being were being fined or imprisoned by the government for what they say.
AS A HYPOTHETICAL, I AM NOT ACTUALLY DOING THIS....
HA, if I hypothetically called you a total fucking idiot (for the millionth time I know) do you think that comment should be deleted?
AGAIN WE ARE IN THE HYPOTHETICAL ZONE HERE
If you are talking about the seeder (hypothetically) I think it should be deleted for insulting idiots around the world.
Glad you got it. Hypothetically.
Im just glad that the President is calling out google and that their stock value took a hit as a result. Don’t need regulations to impact those sleazes.
I doubt Google is too worried about our current president complaining about their business practices considering their market net worth of approximately $715 billion dollars.
Lol! Damn, they are only down to 1254 a share, whatever will they do?! The will be back up to 1270ish tomorrow.