Ya can’t make it up. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul uploaded a video to YouTube from an interview he did with Newsmax. The subject: Dr. Anthony Fauci’s handling of COVID-19. The Senator is famously a Fauci critic and has sparred repeatedly with Fauci
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Ya can’t make it up. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul uploaded a video to YouTube from an interview he did with Newsmax. The subject: Dr. Anthony Fauci’s handling of COVID-19. The Senator is famously a Fauci critic and has sparred repeatedly with Fauci in Senate hearings.
You can guess what happened next. YouTube pulled the video. But of course they did.
But Senator Paul was a few moves ahead of the lefties who run YouTube. He quickly posted this response video to Rumble titled It Is Time For Unfiltered News. NewsBusters reported this:
“Paul criticized YouTube censorship in his response video calling it “very dangerous.” He added:“[I]t stifles debate and promotes groupthink where the truth is defined by people with a political agenda.” Paul later called the incident as a “badge of honor” in a tweet and said that the platform not only removed the second video but also suspended his channel for seven days.
A badge of honor . . . leftwing cretins at Youtube banning me for 7 days for a video that quotes 2 peer reviewed articles saying cloth masks don’t work.
If you want to see the banned video go to Liberty Tree https://t.co/gsTUwuLZGL
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) August 10, 2021
The senator told viewers the reasons YouTube purportedly gave for removing the Newsmax interview. ‘YouTube said the video violated their policy because of my comments on masks and that they don’t allow videos that contradict the government’s guidance on COVID,’ he said.
…He also expressed his concerns about Big Tech’s growing power. ‘YouTube may be a private entity, but they’re acting like an arm of the government censoring those who present an alternative view to the science deniers in Washington,’ he said in the video.”
Meanwhile, conservative radio host John Fredericks reported this:
“Sioux Falls, South Dakota – Yesterday, my email distribution vendor of 15 years, Mailchimp suspended our account for six hours and blocked the distribution of our newsletter.
In so doing, our content to our opt-in subscriber list was delayed for half a day. Our account was locked, and we were not able to send out any form of communication.
The reason given: our content apparently “violated the terms of service.”
No other explanation was provided. We were forced to file an appeal, and finally, Mailchimp unlocked our account, after causing disruption and delay.
While we are well aware of email list or subscriber issues that periodically go under review, we were shocked at our first content lockdown.
Is our non-descript email vendor now deciding on what can go in my newsletter? Are they monitoring political views or determining what events we can cover?
We came within hours of pulling our account and placing it with another vendor.
…The cancel culture is now creeping its way into all aspects of your life, including your electronic communication. It’s real, and it’s scary. It’s George Orwell 1984. Only he was 33 years too early.”
Bingo.
As the old astronaut phrase use to go, “Houston, we have a problem.”
Indeed we do. And it’s a very big problem.
The question, of course, is what to do about this very big problem.
Over at The Washington Times, my old CNN friend Jason Miller, a decided ally of former President Trump (which is why he too is no longer at CNN!), has written a piece that accurately summarizes what has been happening. He writes:
“Over the last year, we’ve seen Big Tech put their thumb on the scale of a U.S. presidential election, censor a president, collude with another president to silence conservative voices, “shadowban” or even de-platform tens of thousands of additional voices, suppress the origins of COVID-19, cancel many who questioned the shifting “science” of Dr. Anthony Fauci, and most egregiously, cover for the dreaded Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as the COVID-19 pandemic spread throughout the world.”
Jason’s creative answer to this was to set up GETTR. He describes the new site this way:
“On GETTR, users worldwide can engage in a marketplace of ideas on a platform that challenges Big Tech’s control on information sharing and the public discourse. And the past year has highlighted the need to challenge the status quo now, more than ever.”
Exactly.
I would add, that is exactly the reason this site exists. There is no hesitation here at TheJeffreyLord.com or in my podcasts – The Word of the Lord – to shy away from publishing or talking about those things YouTube and others in Big Tech wish to suppress.
So thanks to Senator Paul for standing up to YouTube and calling them out. We’re only too happy to run his video here. And thanks to John Fredericks for going public with his censorship episode and to Jason for setting up GETTR.
The fight-back against Big Tech is on.
Joe Biden’s Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy attempted to support the administration’s plan to push social media companies and SMS carriers to censor private messages the government decides is “misinformation.”
“There have been some positive steps taken by these technology companies. Some of them have worked to try to promote accurate sources like the CDC and other medical sources,” Murthy said on Fox News Sunday. “But what I’ve also said to them, publicly and privately, is that it’s not enough. We are still seeing a proliferation of misinformation online.”
“And we know that health misinformation harms people’s health, it costs them their lives,” he continued. “And the platforms have to recognize that they’ve played a major role in the increase, speed, and scale with which misinformation is spreading.”
“And we know that health misinformation harms people’s health, it costs them their lives … and the platforms have to recognize that they’ve played a major role in the increase, speed, and scale with which misinformation is spreading,” Murthy concluded.
Murthy’s statements come after the Biden administration announced last week they planned to push social media companies to censor speech the government says is “disinformation.”
“This is a big issue of misinformation, specifically on the pandemic. In terms of actions, Alex, that we have taken or we’re working to take I should say from the federal government, we’ve increased disinformation research and tracking within the Surgeon General’s office,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said. “We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation. We’re working with doctors and medical professionals to connect to connected medical experts who are popular with their audiences with accurate information and boost trusted content. So we’re helping get trusted content out there.”
A recent Politico report also revealed the Biden administration would be pushing SMS carriers to censor text messages.
“Biden allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee, are also planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively and work with SMS carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text messages,” Politico reported.
Chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures and what was then 20th Century Fox says the movie industry is dead. “The movie business is over,” said Barry Diller in an interview with NPR at a media and technology conference in Idaho.
“The movie business as before is finished and will never come back,” said Diller who made his way in the film industry in two of Hollywood’s top movie-producing studios. “There used to be a whole run-up,” said Diller about the time, money and investment studios put into distribution and publicity campaigns.
Generating excitement and anticipation for a movie to be released is now “finished” he said. Not only has streaming services altered the industry substantially, but so has the way companies measure the success of a film.
“I used to be in the movie business where you made something really because you cared about it” he said. But today’s multibillion-dollar streaming industry has created competition, and therefore incentives in the entertainment business have also changed.
“The system is not necessarily to please anybody” which NPR reports is Diller suggesting Prime Video’s primary purpose is to get more customers on Amazon Prime. “It is to buy more Amazon stuff. That’s not a terrible thing. It just doesn’t interest me” he added.
Diller says streaming services have also diminished the quality of production. “These streaming services have been making something that they call ‘movies.’ They ain’t movies. They are some weird algorithmic process that has created things that last 100 minutes or so” he said.
The definition of “movie…is in such transition that it doesn’t mean anything right now” lamented Diller.
On Tuesday night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson responded to the statement from the National Security Agency (NSA) that was a response to allegations the organization had been spying on Carlson.
“Last night on this show, we made a very straightforward claim: NSA has read my private emails without my permission, period. That’s what we said,” Carlson began. “Tonight’s statement from the NSA does not deny that.”
“Instead, it comes with this non sequitur, in part, quote, ‘Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the agency.’ Okay, glad to know,” Carlson continued. “But the question remains, did the Biden administration read my personal emails? That’s the question that we asked directly to NSA officials when we spoke to them about 20 minutes ago in a very heated conversation.”
“Did you read my emails? And again, they refuse to say, again and again,” he added. “And then they refused even to explain why they couldn’t answer that simple question. We can’t tell you and we won’t tell you why we can’t tell you. My emails. And the message is clear. We can do whatever we want. We can read your personal texts; we can read your personal emails; we can send veiled threats your way to brush you back if we don’t like your politics; we can do anything.”
Tucker addresses Psaki's refusal to deny his claim the NSA is spying on him in order to "intimidate" his show and discusses his "very heated" phone call earlier today with top NSA officials in which they refused to say whether or not they read his personal communications: pic.twitter.com/BMiFzbg92t
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) June 30, 2021
After Carlson’s original allegations on Monday night, the NSA released a statement Tuesday saying, “Tucker Carlson alleged that the National Security Agency has been ‘monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air.’ This allegation is untrue. Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the Agency and the NSA has never had any plans to try to take his program off the air.”
Along with Carlson’s response, many people online criticized the NSA’s statement, pointing out how it was carefully constructed to only deny that Carlson was never a “target” and they never planned on trying “to take his program off the air.”
The NSA’s statement added, “NSA has a foreign intelligence mission. We target foreign powers to generate insights on foreign activities that could harm the United States. With limited exceptions (e.g. an emergency), NSA may not target a US citizen without a court order that explicitly authorizes the targeting.”
Journalist Glenn Greenwald, who famously met with former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and exposed the “scale of domestic surveillance under Obama” done by the NSA, blasted the NSA’s “non-denial denial” on Twitter.
Greenwald made it a point to emphasize he was “in no way ratifying or supporting the claim that NSA collected the communications of Carlson or any Fox host,” but stated what he “know[s] for sure is that this is NSA’s non-denial denial, using the same false framework they always use to mislead the public.”
Greenwald pointed out how the “NSA has used this same deceit for years: they can spy on US citizens’ communications without ‘targeting’ the American,” and the “NSA has extremely broad authorities to collect communications without ‘targeting’ a person.”
First, it's bizarre that @NSAGov allow no replies.
Second, NSA has used this same deceit for years: they can spy on US citizens' communications without "targeting" the American.
Third, NSA has extremely broad authorities to collect communications without "targeting" a person. https://t.co/vAgaSS0x1k
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 30, 2021
On Tuesday, the National Security Agency (NSA) released a statement responding to the allegations that they are spying on Fox News host Tucker Carlson by claiming they were “untrue,” and he was never the “target” of any NSA operations.
“On June 28, 2021, Tucker Carlson alleged that the National Security Agency has been ‘monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air,’” the statement said. “This allegation is untrue. Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the Agency and the NSA has never had any plans to try to take his program off the air.”
“NSA has a foreign intelligence mission. We target foreign powers to generate insights on foreign activities that could harm the United States,” the statement added. “With limited exceptions (e.g. an emergency), NSA may not target a US citizen without a court order that explicitly authorizes the targeting.”
However, the NSA has notoriously violated restrictions it has been given, with a major scandal the last time President Biden was in office during the Obama administration. The Hill reported, “National Security Agency and FBI violated specific civil liberty protections during the Obama administration by improperly searching and disseminating raw intelligence on Americans or failing to promptly delete unauthorized intercepts.”
The NSA intercepted “hundreds of thousands of specific phone numbers and email addresses the agencies intercepted through the so-called Section 702 warrantless spying program created by Congress in late 2008.”
In addition, “the NSA also admitted it was slow in some cases to notify fellow intelligence agencies when it wrongly disseminated information about Americans. The law requires notification within five days, but some took as long as 131 business days and the average was 19 days.”
Carlson made the allegations Monday night, claiming that “the NSA captured that information without our knowledge and did it for political reasons. The Biden administration is spying on us.”
Carlson added that they had “filed a FOIA request — Freedom of Information Act request — asking for all information that the NSA and other agencies have gathered about this show. We did it mostly as a formality. We’ve also contacted the press office of both NSA and the FBI.”
