Tag: censorship

SPEECH FOR ME BUT NOT FOR THEE: Facebook Suspends Trump Account Until At Least 2023

by Breck Worsham, posted in news, politics

SAN FRANCISCO (The Hill) — Facebook announced Friday that it is suspending former President Trump until Jan. 7, 2023, a full two years after he was first barred from the platform.

After that date, Facebook will evaluate whether the “risk to public safety” of restoring Trump’s account has abated.

If the suspension is then lifted, Trump will be subject to a “strict” set of sanctions for future policy violations, Facebook said.

“We know that any penalty we apply — or choose not to apply — will be controversial,” Facebook’s Nick Clegg said in a blog post. “We know today’s decision will be criticized by many people on opposing sides of the political divide — but our job is to make a decision in as proportionate, fair and transparent a way as possible, in keeping with the instruction given to us by the Oversight Board.”

The suspension is being made under new enforcement protocols announced Friday in response to the company’s independent Oversight Board ruling that the initial indefinite suspension was not appropriate.

Trump in a statement called the decision “an insult” to Americans who voted for him while repeating his false claim that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.

“They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this censoring and silencing, and ultimately, we will win,” the former president said. “Our Country can’t take this abuse anymore!”

The Oversight Board said it is “encouraged” by Facebook’s adoption of some of its policy recommendations.

“The Board believes the steps Facebook has committed to today will contribute to greater clarity, consistency and transparency in the way the company moderates content, and promote public safety, defend human rights and respect freedom of expression. The Board monitors Facebook’s implementation of all its decisions and recommendations, and intends to hold the company to account on its commitments,” the board said in a statement.

Facebook also announced Friday that it will be providing more clarity about its newsworthiness policy, which allows posts that would otherwise violate platform policy to stay on the site “if it’s newsworthy and if keeping it visible is in the public interest.” The platform claims that, moving forward, it will no longer apply the newsworthiness standard differently to politicians. 

The platform is also publicly publishing its strike system that it uses to determine the severity of punishment that can be doled out to successive infringements of Facebook policies.

Trump was initially suspended for posts made about the 2020 election and deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Other platforms, including Twitter, went further than Facebook and instituted a permanent ban on the former president. 

The Oversight Board — a collection of academics, former journalists and politicians — said that while the decision to suspend Trump was justified given the situation, the lack of clarity around the length of the suspension and what policy explained the duration was problematic.

Facebook said that it will fully implement 15 of the board’s 19 recommendations.

Notably, it is only partially accepting a suggestion to review its own role in facilitating the spread of the narrative that the 2020 was stolen.

“Ultimately… we believe that independent researchers and our democratically elected officials are best positioned to complete an objective review of these events,” the company wrote in its responses to the recommendations.

Facebook also made clear it believes the responsibility for the events of Jan. 6 “lies with the insurrectionists and those who encouraged them.”

The platform was rife with posts about both the election and plans for Jan. 6 in the weeks leading up to the deadly riot, and critics have said Facebook did not do enough to proactively address them.

Facebook critics slammed the platform’s announcement that leaves open the possibility of Trump coming back onto the platform ahead of the 2024 election.

“Facebook’s decision to reinstate Donald Trump’s accounts just in time for the 2024 presidential election puts the public and our democracy in danger,” Muslim Advocates’s senior policy counsel, Madihha Ahussain, said in a statement.

James Steyer, CEO and founder of Common Sense Media, said Facebook’s failure to permanently ban Trump underscored the need for a “comprehensive tech agenda.”

“A two-year ban gets us past the 2022 election cycle, but does not protect Americans from his interference in the next presidential election, which is why Facebook should, and can, permanently ban Trump,” Steyer said in a statement.

The Real Facebook Oversight Board, a group of tech advocates critical of Facebook and its oversight body, slammed Facebook’s Friday announcement as “accountability theater.”

“This is more evidence that we need actual independent oversight where the terms are enforceably set for Facebook, not just optional recommendations from a body they created and fund,” the group said in a statement.

The Oversight Board that advises the company is funded through a $130 million trust from Facebook to cover the operational costs, but has its own staff independent from the social media giant.

The Hill’s Chris Mills Rodrigo and Rebecca Klar contributed to the contents of this report.

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SOCIAL MEDIA SHOWDOWN: ‘Diamond and Silk’ take on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over ‘anti-Conservative discrimination’

by Breck Worsham, posted in news, politics

MENLO PARK, CA — As if it needed any more bad press, social media giant Facebook has found itself facing a new round of woes, courtesy of Conservative commentators Lynnette “Diamond” Hardaway and Rochelle “Silk” Richardson.

The outspoken sisters, who self-proclaim to be two of President Trump’s “most outspoken & loyal supporters” took to Fox News on Sunday to blast Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for acts they claim discriminatory toward Conservatives after the pair’s work was removed from Facebook’s platform for content deemed “unsafe to the community”.

“They gave us no rationale,” the duo told “Fox & Friends”. “The only thing they told us is that we are unsafe for the community. We are two women of color, how are we unsafe? We don’t sell drugs, we don’t belong to no gangs. It’s offensive, it’s appalling, it taints our brand. Why are you censoring two black women? Why are you not allowing our viewers to view our content?”

The pair added they first suspected they were being censored several months ago when they “noticed that there was a pause on our page, one day we were doing good and then it just dropped. People were not receiving notifications, our posts were not showing up on their feed.”

In a statement posted to their Facebook page, Diamond and Silk updated their
1.2 million Facebook followers of the latest developments, writing:

“Diamond And Silk have been corresponding since September 7, 2017, with Facebook (owned by Mark Zuckerberg), about their bias censorship and discrimination against D&S brand page. Finally after several emails, chats, phone calls, appeals, beating around the bush, lies, and giving us the run around, Facebook gave us another bogus reason why Millions of people who have liked and/or followed our page no longer receives notification and why our page, post and video reach was reduced by a very large percentage.

Here is the reply from Facebook. Thu, Apr 5, 2018 at 3:40 PM: “The Policy team has came to the conclusion that your content and your brand has been determined unsafe to the community.” Yep, this was FB conclusion after 6 Months, 29 days, 5 hrs, 40 minutes and 43 seconds. Oh and guess what else Facebook said: “This decision is final and it is not appeal-able in any way.” (Note: This is the exact wording that FB emailed to us.)

So our questions to Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg) are:
1. What is unsafe about two Blk-women supporting the President Donald J. Trump?
2. Our FB page has been created since December 2014, when exactly did the content and the brand become unsafe to the community?
3. When you say “community” are you referring to the Millions who liked and followed our page?
4. What content on our page was in violation?
5. If our content and brand was so unsafe to the community, why is the option for us to boost our content and spend money with FB to enhance our brand page still available? Maybe FB should give us a refund since FB censored our reach.
6. Lastly, didn’t FB violate their own policy when FB stopped sending notifications to the Millions of people who liked and followed our brand page?”

In a released statement a Facebook spokesperson said, “We are aware of this issue. We are reaching out to the creators of Diamond & Silk to try and resolve this matter.”

The Diamond and Silk matter is just the latest in a string of bad PR for Zuckerberg, who is expected to testify this week as to how the social media giant allowed a data-mining company to obtain personal information from at least 87 million Facebook users without their consent.

Calls to Zuckerberg’s personal spokesperson for comment were not immediately returned.

Courtesy Diamond and Silk

 

CONSERVATIVES UNDER ATTACK: War on right continues as social media sites target Conservative press

by Breck Worsham, posted in Uncategorized

KNOXVILLE, TN — The latest attack in the war on Conservatives has taken it’s latest victim…Your’s truly.

After posting to my official Facebook page on Wednesday plans by Antifa to target Arlington National Cemetery over its burial of Confederate soldiers, I was notified that the post had been removed because it “violated” Facebook’s “community standards”.

Moments later, I was notified that another post had been deleted and my account suspended for 30 days over my sharing of a collage of mainstream media headlines in which pedophilia was being openly advocated.

This is not my first time at the rodeo. Over the course of the last year, my Facebook account has been shut down on four separate occasions, my Twitter account suspended and my Instagram account closed due to what censors of the sites deemed “offensive content”.

Ironically, I’ve had it pretty good compared to other conservative journalists and political commentators. In the last year, Fox News hosts Bill O’Reilly and Eric Bolling have been forced from their high-profile gigs at the once right-leaning news network after being targeted by the left with unsubstantiated claims of sexual harassment.

In an interview with NBC’s Today, O’Reilly called his removal from the network the result of a “hit job” by the left (https://www.today.com/news/bill-o-reilly-sexual-harassment-allegations-against-him-was-hit-t116460).

“In 42 years, I’ve been in this business. I’ve worked for 12 companies. Not any time have I had any interaction with HR, any complaints filed against me,” O’Reilly told NBC host Matt Lauer, adding: “Nobody is a perfect person but I can go to sleep at night very well knowing that I’ve never mistreated anyone on my watch in 42 years.”

Bolling also denied allegations that he had engaged in sexual harassment after reports surfaced that he had sent unwanted “sext messages” to three women (http://deadline.com/2017/08/fox-news-eric-bolling-lewd-photos-sexual-harassment-1202143178/).

“Mr. Bolling recalls no such inappropriate communications, does not believe he sent any such communications, and will vigorously pursue his legal remedies for any false and defamatory accusations that are made,” Bolling’s attorney, Michael J. Bowe, said in a statement.

In a separate statement to Breitbart News, Bowe said, “The story is based on anonymous sources and not true. No such unsolicited communications occurred.”

Many conservative journalists who were essentially forced to work undercover during the 8 years of the Obama administration had hoped that the election of Donald Trump would result in a new found freedom of expression.

To date, that has not happened.

If anything, the bloodthirstiness of the left has only increased as a majority of the mainstream media, still reeling with anger over the election loss of their beloved Hillary Clinton, seek to destroy anyone who aids President Trump in his “America First” agenda.

To them, American values, as they once stood, simply can not be permitted to return.

However, what social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter fail to realize is that for every conservative commentator or journalist with a high profile that they shoot down, there are millions of hard core patriots behind them who are willing to make their own voices be heard. The men and women of America who are sick and tired of being told that they are “bad” or “evil” for being a Christian or for even simply being white. Men and women who work hard, pay taxes and all they want in return is to give their own children a better hope for the future.

I am just one voice in a sea of many. My voice may have been silenced (temporarily), but the powers that be are soon to be deafened by the screams of those who stand for the same as I.

To protect our borders. To protect our flag. To protect our children. And to protect our future.

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PARENTS ANGERED AFTER PRO-TRUMP TEES DIGITALLY ALTERED FROM HIGH SCHOOL YEAR BOOK PHOTOS

by Breck Worsham, posted in Uncategorized

WALL TOWNSHIP, N.J.– Some parents at one central New Jersey high school are up in arms after discovering that their children’s High School year book photos were digitally altered by someone who did not agree with the students’ pro-Trump beliefs.

The parents of 17 year old Grant Berardo say they had no problem with their son’s decision to wear a Make America Great Again photo on school picture day in October. They were baffled, however, they say when they discovered that the logo had been edited out when their son brought his high school year book home.

“He just wanted to memorialize what was going on in the country at the time,” the boy’s father, Joseph Berardo, told The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2017/06/12/parents-outraged-after-pro-trump-messages-were-edited-out-of-this-high-schools-yearbooks/?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.8e1c7fb4dd4e). Bernardo says he was astounded because the shirt did not violate the school’s dress code in any way and contained no reference to drugs, alcohol or weapons.

Shockingly, Bernardo’s shirt was not the only pro-Trump shirt to be altered.

At least two other shirts were changed to remove pro- Trump messages. According to their parents, a Trump logo on a shirt worn by junior Wyatt Dobrovich-Fago and a quote by the president that was meant to appear beneath sister Montana’s picture were also missing from the teens’ year book photos. “I like thinking big. If you are going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big,” the quote was supposed to read.

Janet Dobrovich-Fago, the mother of the siblings whose photos were altered, told NJ.com (http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2017/06/students_trump_shirt_black-out_in_high_school_year.html) that she’s outraged by what she calls a clear case of political censorship.

“We’re very angry,” Dobrovich-Fago said. “When we saw that Montana’s quote dropped out, we thought it was a mistake because all the other class presidents’ quotes were still there.

“But when we saw that Wyatt’s shirt was photoshopped and we heard about Grant, I knew this was not a coincidence. This was purposeful, and it’s wrong.”

A spokesperson for Wall Township schools has refused to comment on who may have been behind the edits, but in a statement (http://www2.wall.k12.nj.us/superintendent/2017/06/10/yearbook-investigation/) school superintendent Cheryl Dyer said the district does not condone censorship.

The statement in its entirety reads:

“The administration of the Wall Township Public Schools is aware of an allegation of censorship and the possible violation of First Amendment rights in the high school yearbook this year. This allegation is being taken very seriously and a thorough investigation of what happened is being vigorously pursued.

As of today, two parents have notified the school district of ways in which the attire of their children was altered in yearbook photos. Further, there are claims that comments or quotes offered for inclusion in the yearbook were not published. References to and support of President Trump were involved in each of these incidents.

While the investigation is ongoing, the administration of the Wall Township Public Schools would stress three initial points:

First, there is nothing in Wall Township High School’s student dress code that would prevent a student from expressing his or her political views, or support for a political figure, via appropriate clothing and attire. Indeed, the administration applauds students for becoming involved in politics, making their voices known, and taking an active part in our democracy.

Second, the administration of Wall High School was not aware of and does not condone any censorship of political views on the part of our students. This includes statements that students might make, or clothing that advocates for specific political views, candidates, or public officials. Our dress code does, however, prohibit references to illegal activity such as the use of drugs, alcohol or weapons.

Third, the administration and staff of the Wall Township Public Schools strongly value the principles of free speech and inquiry in our schools and society, viewing them as the bedrock upon which our community and educational system is built. The allegations referenced above are disturbing, and any inappropriate challenge to these principles will be rectified as swiftly and thoroughly as possible. The actions of the staff involved will be addressed as soon as the investigation is concluded.

Thank you for your concern and continued support.”

As for Joseph Berardo, he feels that’s just not good enough. Instead, the outraged father is demanding that the school reissue the yearbook, complete with an admission of guilt.

“I want the yearbooks to be reissued and I want a letter from the administration explaining why they are reissuing the yearbook,” he said.

Berardo added that the school could utilize the incident to express the importance of the First Amendment.

“There is an opportunity to use this as a teaching moment for the kids, and for the teachers as well,” the father said. “This is a First Amendment, freedom of speech issue.”

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