Posts Tagged ‘censorship’

Net Neutrality is back just in time for the 2024 Election

Posted: May 2, 2024 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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There is nothing that Democrats, or any other Marxists, fear more than individuals freely communicating with each other.  Leftists become apoplectic whenever they encounter someone expressing ideas that conflict with established progressive orthodoxy. They firmly believe that freedom of speech only extends to ideas they agree with, everything else they consider hate speech, which should be censored at all costs.  If you think I am exaggerating, try espousing conservative or libertarian thoughts on a college campus or on Facebook when you have liberal friends.

Leftist elites fear freedom of speech because an informed electorate cannot be controlled or hoodwinked.  Dangerous and truthful ideas such as the fact that the 2020 election was stolen from President Trump, that Covid mRNA vaccines cause dangerous blood clots, and that manmade catastrophic climate change is actually as fictional as an effective government that does not trample on everyone’s rights, must be eradicated.

Democrats know that enough Americans still treasure freedom of speech that they have to be circumspect about their efforts to silence us.  Net Neutrality under President Obama was such an effort.  Thankfully for everyone, President Trump repealed Net Neutrality.  Unfortunately for America, with just over six months left before the election, the Biden Regime resurrected this odious pile of refuse: DOC-402082A1.pdf (fcc.gov)

WASHINGTON, April 25, 2024—The Federal Communications Commission today voted to restore a national standard to ensure the internet is fast, open, and fair. Today’s decision to reclassify broadband service as a Title II telecommunications service allows the FCC to protect consumers, defend national security, and advance public safety.

Through its actions today, the Commission creates a national standard by which it can ensure that broadband internet service is treated as an essential service. Today’s vote also makes clear that the Commission will exercise its authority over broadband in a narrowly tailored fashion— without rate regulation, tariffing, or unbundling—to foster continued innovation and investment.

Of course everything in that press release is just window dressing to disguise the true purpose of this unconstitutional executive order.

With today’s vote, the Commission restores fundamental authority to provide effective oversight over broadband service providers, giving the Commission essential tools to: • Protect the Open Internet –

  • Internet service providers will again be prohibited from blocking, throttling, or engaging in paid prioritization of lawful content, restoring the rules that were upheld by the D.C. Circuit in 2016. •
  • Safeguard National Security – The Commission will have the ability to revoke the authorizations of foreign-owned entities who pose a threat to national security to operate broadband networks in the U.S. The Commission has previously exercised this authority under section 214 of the Communications Act to revoke the operating authorities of four Chinese state-owned carriers to provide voice services in the U.S. Any provider without section 214 authorization for voice services must now also cease any fixed or mobile broadband service operations in the United States. •
  • Monitor Internet Service Outages – When workers cannot telework, students cannot study, or businesses cannot market their products because their internet service is out, the FCC can now play an active role.

This Breitbart article does a fantastic job explaining the ins and outs of Biden’s Net Neutrality Executive Order.

The Democrat majority at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted on Thursday to restore the Obama-era net neutrality rules.  During President Donald Trump’s administration, then-Chairman Ajit Pai had repealed

Essentially, net neutrality regulations seek to prohibit internet service providers (ISPs), such as Comcast and Verizon, from blocking, slowing down, or allowing for “paid prioritization,” by which users can pay for faster, more consistent service.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr told Breitbart News in an interview in April that net neutrality represents a leftist “power grab by the administrative state” and an “unlawful overreach.”

The author of this Breitbart Article offered some very insightful commentary on this unconstitutional mess.

The law of common carriage, mandated by the Title II regulations demanded by Democrats, is one of the solutions recommended by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to address tech censorship. Yet Democrats want the rule applied to service providers, which are not in the habit of kicking off internet users for their political viewpoints, while not recommending similar regulations on the companies and platforms that are actually responsible for suppressing online discourse over the past five years — companies like Google, YouTube, Twitter/X, and Facebook.

Progressives and Democrats lost their minds when the FCC repealed Net Neutrality under Trump, predicting the end of the internet as we know it, and a variety of other disasters. As Breitbart News predicted at the time, none of these doom-laden predictions came true, and in fact broadband speeds across the country improved.

Despite the doom saying by Democrats, President Trump’s repealing of Net Neutrality had a positive effect on the Internet.

Here’s what the data show. Internet speeds are up 430% since 2017 on the fixed broadband side, and they are up 647% on the mobile side. In real terms, the prices for Internet services have dropped by about 9% since the beginning of 2018, according to BLS CPI data. On the mobile broadband side alone, real prices have dropped by roughly 18% since 2017, according to BLS and industry data. And for the most popular broadband speed tiers, real prices are down 54%, and for the fastest broadband speed tiers, prices are down 55%, over the past 8 years, according to BLS and industry data.30

The FCC’s vote to restore Net Neutrality is a net loss for Americans. Net neutrality is Bidenomics for the web – an expensive government takeover of the internet that would increase costs, limit choice, and stifle innovation. Despite claims that the world would end without these burdensome internet rules, the contrary occurred. Since 2017, internet speeds have increased, prices have gone down, and consumers have more options than ever before.

To imagine what hell the United States would be without the First Amendment we just need to examine the rest of the world

Posted: March 21, 2024 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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What completely boggles the mind is how rabidly the political left despises freedom of speech.  Sadly, the United States was the only nation who’s founding fathers sought to protect that most fundamental God-given Natural Right.  The genius of the First Amendment has been abundantly evident for over two centuries.  Unfortunately, no other nation sought to emulate it completely.  Tragically the Marxists who call themselves Democrats have been chipping away at the First Amendment for over a century.  Most tragically they have very nearly succeeded at completely obliterating it.

I encountered two articles this past week that lay bare just how appalling life here in the United States would be if the political left succeeded in erasing the First Amendment. 

As you can see this first article is from Scotland: ‘Target Comics’: Scotland’s New Hate Crime Law Makes Us Grateful for the First Amendment – Twitchy

Police officers in Scotland are being given training to target social media posts, including re-tweets, of material deemed “threatening and abusive.” Under the county’s new hate crime law, actors and comedians are not given a free pass to make jokes about sensitive subjects that offend people, either.

The new training provided to officers, which was leaked to The Herald, requires police officers to go after anyone who produces material deemed “threatening and abusive,” which can also be communicated through “public performance of a play.” 

Under the new hate crime law, people who make fun of or misgender trans people, make racial jokes or criticisms of certain religions, or criticize migrants can be prosecuted. 

In Scotland no one will dare to say or share anything that is remotely controversial or that contradicts progressive orthodoxy in any way.

The different ways in which a person may communicate material to another person are by: displaying, publishing or distributing the material, for example on a sign, on the internet through websites, blogs, podcasts, social media etc., either directly, or by forwarding or repeating material that originates from a third party, through printed media such as magazine publications or leaflets.” 

The hate crime law goes on to state that “giving, sending, showing, or playing the material to another person” listing examples such as “through online streaming, by email, playing a video, through public performance of a play.” 

So repeat a joke you heard online, or show someone a spicy meme or commentary of a transgender person or mass migration on your livestream, and, and you too will be arrested. 

Canada is now as hostile to freedom of speech as the old Soviet Union: Trudeau’s Canada: Law May Allow Life Imprisonment for Speech ‘Crimes’ (breitbart.com)

A proposed law in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Canada will reportedly allow judges to throw adults in jail for life if they advocate for genocide online.

The Biden regime has worked tirelessly to annihilate the First Amendment, going as far as to deputies social media companies.  The regime’s efforts are now being challenged in front of the Supreme Court.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is proving exactly why she was nominated by the Biden Regime and just how much she despises the First Amendment. Justice Jackson Tells GOP Officials: Your View of First Amendment Is ‘Hamstringing the Government’ (westernjournal.com)

“So not every situation in which the government engages in conduct that ultimately has some effect on free speech necessarily becomes a First Amendment violation, correct?” Jackson queried.

“My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways in the most important time periods,” Jackson said.

Disney’s Fahrenheit 2023

Posted: June 11, 2023 by John Ruberry in business, entertainment, media, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Ray Bradbury in a way predicted Disney’s latest outrageous move.

Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953, is a dystopian novel that is overshadowed by two other great 20th century works about an unpleasant future, Brave New World and 1984. Fahrenheit 451’s lead character is Guy Montag, a fireman, only in Bradbury’s world, buildings are fireproof; Montag and other firemen are dispatched to homes to burn books. Nearly of them. Only comic books are permitted in that unhappy future. 

Michiko Kakutani, in a New York Times career appraisal written on the day after Bradbury’s death in 2012, remarked that Fahrenheit 451 “is at once a parable about McCarthyism and Stalinism, and a kind of fable about the perils of political correctness and the dangers of television and other technology.” Yep, Kakutani said “political correctness,” the term for “woke” from that not-too-distant time.  In a 1994 interview Bradbury, in very blunt language even for the 1990s, attacked that PC culture while discussing Fahrenheit 451. “Political correctness is the real enemy these days,” he said. “The black groups want to control our thinking and you can’t say certain things. The homosexual groups don’t want you to criticize them. It’s thought control and freedom of speech control.”

In a memorable passage from Fahrenheit 451, Montag’s boss explained–without government involvement mind you–how books became toxic. 

The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic books survive. And the three-dimensional sex-magazines, of course. There you have it, Montag. It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals. 

Last week, Hollwood Elsewhere noticed the omission of the “N-word” from the Gene Hackman classic police thriller The French Connection from the Criterion Channel streaming service. The use of the racial slur helps define Hackman’s character, Popeye Doyle, as a great cop but a flawed man. 

Not as controversially, Doyle regularly refers to two French criminals as “Frog 1” and “Frog 2.” Those ethnic putdowns remain in the film. So does the iconic scene of Hackman gunning down Frog 2 on a set of stairs. For now, at least. 

It’s widely believed that Disney, which owns the rights to The French Connection, is behind the stealth editing. To use Bradbury’s words, “It didn’t come from the Government down.”

Disney of course has gone full-blown woke in recent years, the outrage prior to this one, from last month, involved a mustachioed man wearing a dress and eye shadow, a fairy godmother’s apprentice named Nick, greeting guests, including children, at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique at Disneyland. Before that, Disney’s prior woke atrocity there was an anti-white people song performed in the Disney+ children’s series, The Proud Family.

Disney’s theme parks are supposed to be “the happiest place on earth.” That’s it? Humans are only about happiness?

Back to Bradbury and Fahrenheit 451:

You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can’t have our minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, what do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn’t that right?

We won’t be happy, I believe, as dumbed down dolts.

The entertainment industry, a fortress of the left, constantly reminds us, especially during award ceremonies, that they are the vanguard for free expression. Sure, a censoring of the “N” word doesn’t seem like a noble hill to die on but remember the dystopian world of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. The slippery slope began in order to placate a few people who were offended.

Why stop with the “N” word? What about the French Connection’s Frog 1 and Frog 2? Smoking in movies? And what Donald Trump’s cameo in Home Alone 2?

Viewers might get triggered.

Don’t laugh about that Trump scene. The star of Home Alone 2, Macaulay Culkin. wants the Trump bit cut. And he’s not alone.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

New YouTube, same as the old YouTube

Posted: June 2, 2023 by datechguy in internet/free speech, Uncategorized
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As of Yesterday Youtube has supposedly reversed it’s position on commentary on the 2020 elections that they disagree with. Accordingly I attempted to log back into my youtube account and when I failed I sent them this email via their system:

I understand that you have now changed your policies on election commentary due to the curbs it made on free speech. As you banned me based three commentaries I made on election 2020 (all of which had under 100 views each) coincidently just as I was about to reach 1000 subscribers, I am asking if my over a decades worth of work including thousands of hours of interviews and reports, covering not only elections local state and national all over the nation but events from CPAC to Pinball festivals to quilt shops to religious gatherings will now be restored.

Let’s see if you actually meant these words:

“In the current environment, we find that while removing this content does curb some misinformation, it could also have the unintended effect of curtailing political speech without meaningfully reducing the risk of violence or other real-world harm.”

I pass the ball to you.

Their answer took less than 30 minutes:

Hi DaTechGuyBlog,
We have reviewed your appeal for the following:
Channel: DaTechGuyBlog
We reviewed your channel carefully, and have confirmed that it violates our Community Guidelines. We know this is probably disappointing news, but it’s our job to make sure that YouTube is a safe place for all.


In other words it’s BS.

I didn’t find it a surprise, dishonorable and dishonest people don’t suddenly start acting honorable and honest just because they put up a new stated policy. It’s a tad of a pain and it’s cost me some potential revenue at a time when things are tight but I can be proud that I didn’t compromise the right or the truth in the hope for a few dollars or some views. I got along fine long before Youtube ever existed and Rumble will do fine for me. I’ll give the last word to the English Poet Charles Mackay:

You have no enemies, you say?
Alas! my friend, the boast is poor;
He who has mingled in the fray
Of duty, that the brave endure,
Must have made foes! If you have none,
Small is the work that you have done,
You’ve hit no traitor on the hip,
You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip,
You’ve never turned the wrong to right,
You’ve been a coward in the fight.
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