Conservative outlets are aflame with what appears to be the intentional move of Internet giants Facebook, Google and Twitter to close out conservative viewpoints on their platforms. This is significant because the big five Internet companies collective worth is estimated to be about $4 trillion, a total that places them above the GDP of nearly all countries. Since they are the major vehicles through which all information is disseminated globally, should they succumb to a collective political view, they could control the world. If conservatives are correct, this may be in progress.
We are free to the extent we tolerate opposing viewpoints. How does one know he is free unless everyone is free to express himself?
In July, Facebook suddenly dropped a campaign ad from California Republican congressional candidate Elizabeth Heng claiming the ad, showing scenes of Cambodian genocide experienced by her family, was "disrespectful" content. No such barometer is used on left-of-center outlets. Something similar happened, conservatives argue, to other conservatives this year, notably Diamond and Silk (said to be "unsafe to the community"), Ben Shapiro, Dave Ruben and Dennis Fraser.
But the incident bringing this to a head nationally last week was when Internet giants ganged-up on Alex Jones. Apple pulled several of his podcasts from the iTunes store, Facebook unpublished four of his pages, and YouTube "suspended the Alex Jones channel which has $4 million subscribers," all charging that he violated their "hate speech" policies (Laura Ingraham, The Ingraham Angle, Aug. 7, 2018). Hate speech has become synonymous with opposition speech.
All this begs the question: "Is the next move of the globalist to close out all opposition media?"
Ingraham told her audience that this Internet heavy handedness began in earnest last February when "Facebook launched a new algorithm that would cause top conservative pages to see a dramatic drop in traffic, and this included personal pages. President Trump's Facebook page saw a 45 percent drop." She asked, "Why do leftists ... always seem to escape big tech censures?"
"But this isn't about Alex Jones," she argued, "This is about freedom and our access to information from the sources we as individuals trust and like. If big tech can control the information flow, then it can also perhaps even influence the outcome of the midterms and even future presidential elections ... And that is the point! Controlling who has a voice and who doesn't on these monster platforms is tantamount to limiting speech."
In the national media war, it is increasingly obvious that the Establishment Media, mostly the over 300 Council on Foreign Relations members who have dominant power in it, seriously threaten the 15 percent (as reported on The Tucker Carlson Show Aug. 8) not yet controlled by them. The fact that still half of Americans have not heard of this ever-growing influence over the last nearly 100 years, because they are already hooked on only Establishment News sources is evidence of its power expansion. A very real possibility exists that those who do not already know of CFR control over the media and government never will, allowing a future existence of no opposition media. We would have entered an Orwellian society from which there exists no exit.
But when this dominance moves to Internet giants Facebook, Google and Twitter, this threat becomes global. The conservatives panic, watching their diminished ability to resist the "secret combination" chorus of the globalist, the Deep State and the Establishment media for ending free speech opposing them is not new to those who read or view more than just Establishment sources.
Internet bias against alternative news has been going on for more than a decade. Matt Drudge, Alex Jones, Steve Bannon of Breitbart and Mike Adams of Natural News have all talked about it. Over a year ago, The New American reported: "Breitbart News, the Drudge Report, InfoWars, Natural News and dozens of other Internet-based news providers have already been targeted and are feeling the impact of the corporate-government jackbooted heel on their jugulars" (News: Alternative, Real, Fake, May 8, 2017, p. 11).
But bias against alternative news sources was not enough. A second tier of the attack has been to cut off conservative advertisers. Each has complained about this -- even Rush Limbaugh. AppNexus, who specializes in Internet ad delivery and handles about $2.5 billion in ad spending, has also adopted the "ideological squeeze play," as have Omnicom and AdRoll, "two additional huge advertisement buying networks that have joined the thought police."
Over a year ago, ADRoll informed InfoWars that its advertising campaigns were suspended. "All content on your website should be relevant, accurate, informative and up to date. Any claims should be easily verifiable" (Ibid.). Using this criterion, anything could be excluded. Since so much of MSNBC, NBC, CNN and other news sites dominated by CFR globalists are not accurate or verifiable, as per the Trump Russian Collusion story, why should they get a pass? That is the point.
As reported, the latest ploy in the "ideological squeeze play" is the current practice of Internet giants Facebook, Google and Twitter's intentional move to closeout conservative viewpoints on their platforms by removing their pages or even, in the case of Alex Jones, suspending his channel. It does appear that the present move of the globalist is to close out all opposition media.
Harold W. Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for more than 30 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Editorial on 08/22/2018