NB Commentary: This guy! We are being hoodwinked again with this proposition that we need "Big Brother" to censor "Fake News"!
No, we don't need discernment.
We don't need our own ability to sort through and sift through the BS.
No we are not mature enough or able to critically think for ourselves.
We need to have it done for us.
So, under the guise of protecting Democracy, whose greatest tenet is freedom of speech, let's start sorting through the "Fake News", shut them down, censor them on social media and decide for the ignorant masses what they need to or don't need to know, read or discern.
Facebook, you fail at doing this for the masses.
Twitter, you are so awful we need to tell you what to keep out of your feeds.
Oh, we won't look at the color revolutions that took place because of social media. In fact, when they happened we were cheering and jumping up and down about how wonderful it was that we were able to use social media to get the word out in a moments notice. People on the streets in mass, like never before.
And when we were able to get the word out on social media about the never ending threats posed by ISIS and their (fake) beheadings, we were very confident that the viewing public would be certain that what they were seeing was true. Without a doubt.
Let's go all the way back to the Bin Laden videos while we are at it. Or how about 9/11 CGI. That news was so real we were able to go to war on it and kill millions of people.
I am not talking about the "news" that accused Assad of gassing his own people and the picture of the dead bodies that turned out to be "fake" news.
No, it doesn't apply when the government is behind the propaganda. It is just when the alt-right and alt-left do not parrot the party line, that's when we need to determine which one of those characters are faking it till they make it.
Hillary started this ball rolling when she spoke out against Info-Wars and Brietbart.
The major networks did their stories so well that when the Donald won, they were shocked!!! So who faked those polls? Certainly not alternative media. In fact it was there that folks could get the real news.
These people are always coming up with some way to counter a movement when it is not in their favor, but will surely feel really happy about a movement that is in their favor.
The majority of folks, especially here in America, barely read any other news except what comes from mainstream. They believe the lies the MSM tells them that is blasted at them thru their televisions. If you mention to them something that was not on Television, a counter perspective or simply a different one, they look at you like you have 2 heads, they dismiss you as a kook or a conspiracy theorist.
So this is an attack on Democracy! This is censorship! This is a big fat lie, to say freedom of speech needs to be monitored and by whom may I ask. Will the government get a think tank together to determine who's fake and who's not? According to what criteria??
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
What’s going on? Both Internet companies claim they’re changing their advertising policy to counter misinformation, indicating they’ll monitor content to assure it. Is censorship intended instead? Will reliable information sources challenging the official narrative be targeted? Will other similar online companies operate the same way?Is net neutrality threatened? Is online freedom and openness at risk - content available without restrictions, limitations, or discrimination, a level playing field for everyone, the essence of democratic free expression?A pre-election article discussed covert Google support for Hillary - its searches rigged for her, a way to sway undecided voters to choose her over Trump, while suppressing negative search terms about her.Media scoundrels, Google, Facebook, and similar online operations and powerful tools for what power brokers want disseminated, restricting or blocking content they want suppressed.Speech, press and academic freedoms are vital elements of free societies. Without them all other rights are endangered.
We the
poor sheeple, who read newspapers, watch television and get our news from
social media, may be in peril when it comes to being able to determine what is
really going on in our world. I guess they see how easily we can be lead
astray, in fact, haven't they done it more times than we can count.
The
history of this country is over populated with propaganda to support an agenda.
Let's just start with the profusion of false flags for starters. However, what
they did not expect was that outlets like Facebook and Twitter, which they
thought they could manage by infiltrating them with CIA agents, has gotten off
the ground running faster than the speed of light, and too fast for them to
keep up with, so now we need to crack down on them more and more, because
Democracy is now in peril, as if this was ever a Democracy anyway.
How many
times have folks been censored or demonized because they offered an alternative
perspective to what the MSM has given us? How often has policies, laws and
codes been instituted based on what was given to us in the MSM? How many times
did they "Wag the Dog" to make a
point and affect public sentiment? Not the so called "fake
news" outlets but the so called "Real News", the mainstream
Media.
Now,
social media, has become a runaway locomotive and it is not doing what they
initially thought it would do. It is allowing folks to fact check, to research,
to look deeper into the narrative that is being given by the MSM and now it's a
threat.
Ironically,
these outlets have been censoring content since before he felt threatened by
it. They have also been moving content around so that it could be viewed under
circumstances that would get the most traction. People have resorted to the
Blogosphere in order to get the news out due to the already entrench
censorship.
So what
are we looking at here?
YouTube,
creating a rewards program to encourage folks to become "flaggers" of
content.
Facebook
dropping folks into the Facebook jail and giving police access to the ability
to shut down your live stream.
And
Twitter, stopping content from being in their streams.
Is he
just parroting what is already taking place. Or does his words sanction it?
Forget
the BS around Democracy or fake news threatening. Has fake news become the new
ISIS?
I really
hadn't intended on ranting on this one, but hypocrisy really gets me hyped!!
“In an age where there’s so much active misinformation ― and it’s packaged very well, and it looks the same when you see it on a Facebook page or you turn on your television ― where some overzealousness on the part of, you know, a U.S. official is equated with constant and severe repression elsewhere, if everything seems to be the same, and no distinctions are made, then we won’t know what to protect,” Obama said.
“We won’t know what to fight for, and we can lose so much of what we’ve gained in terms of the kind of democratic freedoms and market-based economies and prosperity that we’ve come to take for granted,” he added.
President Barack Obama on Thursday pointed to the profusion
of fake news on social media as a sign
that people should not take democracy for granted.
In a
joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Obama warned that
the ease with which people can promulgate fraudulent news stories threatens
basic democratic principles.
“In an
age where there’s so much active misinformation ― and it’s packaged very well,
and it looks the same when you see it on a Facebook page or you turn on your
television ― where some overzealousness on the part of, you know, a U.S.
official is equated with constant and severe repression elsewhere, if
everything seems to be the same, and no distinctions are made, then we won’t
know what to protect,” Obama said.
“We
won’t know what to fight for, and we can lose so much of what we’ve gained in
terms of the kind of democratic freedoms and market-based economies and
prosperity that we’ve come to take for granted,” he added.
Facebook in particular has come under fire for not
distinguishing between credible and false news sources, helping to fuel misinformation on political issues and
candidates. The site’s algorithm doesn’t filter out articles from websites
presenting slanted or blatantly false coverage ― instead, when users post those
links, they look as if they were from reliable news outlets. The company
announced on Monday that it
would take steps to address the problem.
If we can’t discriminate between serious arguments and
propaganda, then we have problems.President Barack Obama
In a veiled criticism of President-elect Donald Trump, Obama spoke more broadly on the state of democracies
around the world, cautioning both Americans and Europeans to “not take for
granted our systems of government and our way of life,” advising that
“democracy is hard work.”
He
also urged a greater emphasis on facts and reason.
“If we
are not serious about facts and what’s true and what’s not, and particularly in
an age of social media, where so many people are getting their information in
sound bites and snippets off their phones, if we can’t discriminate between
serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems,” Obama said.
“If
people, whether they are conservative or liberal, left or right, are unwilling
to compromise and engage in the democratic process and are taking absolutist
views and demonizing opponents, then democracy will break down,” he added. “And
so I think my most important advice is to understand, what are the foundations
of a healthy democracy and how we have to engage in citizenship continuously,
not just when something upsets us, not just when there’s an election or when an
issue pops up for a few weeks. It’s hard work.”
Fake news threatens democracy, Obama says
Obama, With Angela Merkel in Berlin, Assails
Spread of Fake News
Mark Zuckerberg may not think fake
news is a problem on Facebook. President Barack Obama disagrees.
Barack Obama on fake news: 'We have problems' if
we can't tell the difference
Facebook staff mount secret push to tackle fake
news, reports say
Facebook’s failure: did fake news and polarized
politics get Trump elected?
Rather than
connecting people – as Facebook’s euphoric mission statement claims – the
bitter polarization of the social network over the last eighteen months
suggests Facebook is actually doing more to divide the world.
In the
memo, staffers weighed the pros and cons of accepting an invitation to the G20,
if it were extended. On one hand, the meeting just 11 days after the election
would “afford you an early and efficient
opportunity to evaluate the positions of leaders from other economically
important countries,” they wrote.
The report is a work
of fiction published by a fake-news website that calls itself Fox News the FB
Page. In fact, the parody website has no connection to Fox News whatsoever.
Nor is it a Facebook Page. Nothing published on the site should be taken seriously.
The result of the
popular vote is, I'm sure you know, immaterial to the result of the
Presidential election – but it carries a undeniable moral weight. Equally
obviously, the claim is simply untrue. Clinton will ultimately win between one
and two million more votes than Trump.
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Thanks for your comment. Peace, NB