You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘censorship’ tag.
Many thanks to Martin Geddes for coming out with two very important graphics explaining the Democrats and the media.
I am unfamiliar with Mr Geddes but appreciate the time he put into them. (Click on each one to enlarge.)
Outside of The Daily Caller, Gateway Pundit and Breitbart, most of the heavy lifting for President Trump and his MAGA agenda is done by citizen journalists, everyday people like you and me, whereas the Democrats have most of Big Media at their beck and call:
Note the colour codes. Twitter gives everyone in Big Media a pass. Citizen investigative journalists, not so much.
And it’s not just citizen journalists who are banned. On November 26, 2018, The Daily Caller reported that Twitter permanently banned an American veteran who had a radio show (emphases mine):
Conservative veteran and radio host Jesse Kelly was permanently banned from Twitter on Sunday for allegedly committing multiple violations of the Twitter terms of service.
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller’s Amber Athey, Kelly said Twitter informed him that he was banned with no warning and no explanation of what rules he allegedly broke.
That day, Kelly appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight (Fox News):
The article says that Twitter banned a feminist, too:
Last week, the tech giant banned feminist Meghan Murphy for questioning the ideology behind the transgender movement.
The good news is that Kelly’s Twitter account appears to have been reinstated. Result! Thanks go to the senators who support freedom of speech:
Despite that success and a few others, Twitter can and does stifle those who do not support the leftist agenda. On July 29, The Daily Caller reported that Republican legislators also fell foul of the social media giant:
Twitter’s censorship problem looks like it’s here to stay.
The company faced a sharp backlash last week after a Vice News investigation revealed that Twitter was hiding several prominent Republicans from its search bar.
Those affected included four House Republicans: Rep. Devin Nunes of California, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mark Meadows of North Carolina. All four are members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. Democrats weren’t affected in the same way, Vice found.
Interesting, especially when the four who were censored are relatively young supporters of President Trump and MAGA. It’s as if Twitter doesn’t want Americans to know that younger legislators support the president. Why, that might influence others in that same age bracket to jump aboard the Trump Train.
The article says that Twitter claims their shadowbanning — hiding the congressmen’s accounts from the search bar — wasn’t to do with anything the congressmen tweeted, but rather their followers. Does the following sound totalitarian?
At the center of the company’s censorship problem is its decision to penalize “bad-faith actors,” who aren’t actually in violation of any rules but still threaten “healthy conversation.”
Much the sorting between good and bad actors on Twitter is done by an algorithm which takes into account criteria like whom you follow and tweet at, and who follows and tweets at you.
Twitter didn’t penalize the congressmen because of anything they said, but because the “wrong” accounts were engaging with their tweets, two Twitter executives conceded in a blog post Thursday. The Republicans were guilty of being followed by the wrong people.
Twitter has since restored the congressmen’s visibility on Twitter, but the underlying issue remains.
The company is still burying accounts it deems “bad-faith actors,” while remaining opaque about who does or doesn’t fit that classification — and which accounts follow or retweet you are still part of the criteria.
The Daily Caller attempted to find out more from Twitter, but the company did not reply.
Remember back in the old days, not so many years ago:
Twitter … once described itself as the “free speech wing of the free speech party” …
Earlier this year, Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey:
sparked controversy in April when he endorsed an article calling for a total Democratic victory the “new civil war.” He similarly raised eyebrows in June by apologizing for the sin of eating at Chick-Fil-A.
Moving along, the next graphic from Martin Geddes outlines the fundamental differences between the Democrats and Trump supporters:
Most people following my site will know that Q is a person or small group of people who probably work for President Trump. For over a year now, Q has asked readers via the Socratic method to analyse what has actually been happening in the United States behind the scenes over the past few decades.
Q’s slogan is ‘Where We Go One, We Go All’: WWG1WGA. In other words, we’re all in this together!
By contrast, the characteristics of the Democratic Party are all too destructive, corrupt — and, sadly, real. Please read them carefully.
The MAGA agenda welcomes everyone, regardless of race, colour or creed.
MAGA is a bit old school — a compliment — in that regard. We believe in freedom, duty, sacrifice and the ideals upon which America was founded. We remember and appreciate our history, good and bad. We like tradition and beauty.
Unlike the Dems, we’re not out to destroy. We’re out to conserve and, where necessary, rebuild with care and attention, in the way the Founding Fathers would have wanted.
Udo Ulfkotte was a German journalist who died of a heart attack in 2017 at the age of 56.
Strangely enough, he never studied journalism, but rather jurisprudence and politics.
He had a distinguished career, which included being assistant editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung for several years; he left the paper in 2003. Between 1986 and 1998, he lived in several Middle Eastern countries. He also wrote several investigative books during his lifetime.
One of his books that is nearly impossible to buy is Gekaufte Journalisten (‘Bought Journalists’), which appeared in English as Journalists for Hire: How the CIA Buys the News. It sells for a whopping $900 on Amazon.com.
Image credit: Amazon.com
It’s worth reading the comments on the aforementioned English language Amazon page for the various comments. In effect, the book is being censored. Here is a good representative comment, where the reviewer gave the book five stars (emphases mine below):
No, I haven’t read the book, because it is priced completely out of my reach. I am giving it five stars anyway because of what I’ve read *about* it, as I’ve followed its author’s saga — the blackout by German media of the original German edition Gekaufte Journalisten (Bought Journalists) for a couple of years now, raids by German police on the author’s house, his noting how he feared for his life, and his finally being found dead on January 13 of this year “from a heart attack” (he was only 56, and because it is possible to kill someone in ways that look like a heart attack, some people believe he was murdered).
The fate of a whistleblower against one of the world’s most powerful organizations in a controlled society being passed off as a democracy?
Two things are abundantly clear: (1) The English translation of this book has been “privished.” There are a couple of good recent discussions of what it means to “privish” a book, but Amazon will not allow me to link to them. So let’s just say: the purpose of “privishing” is make a book with an unwanted message disappear without a trace by limiting information about it, destroying its marketability by printing too few copies, and refusing reprint rights, so that the copies available are too expensive for readers of ordinary means (which is nearly all of us). (2) Anyone who claims there are no conspiracies, that there are no behind-the-scenes efforts by powerful people to suppress information that would expose their efforts at global domination, is full of crap.
Privishing = private + publishing.
Until I read that review, I thought the word had positive connotations, as in a publishing house saving a title and making it more affordable and better-known.
I could not have been more mistaken.
Privishing is meant to kill off a title.
On January 8, 2018, Off Guardian published a good post on the book and the implications of privishing; James Tracy’s ‘English Translation of Udo Ulfkotte’s “Bought Journalists” Suppressed?’ is a must read. A summary with excerpts follows.
A US-Canadian publishing house, Tayen Lane, released the title through their imprint Next Revelation Press in May 2017. Ulfkotte had died earlier, in January. However, in 2015, when James Tracy enquired as to whether there would be an English release, Ulfkotte responded:
Please find the link to the English edition here http://www.tayenlane.com/bought-journalists
The page, at that time, gave an expected publication date.
Today, the page no longer exists.
Tracy explains:
When a book publisher determines that it has acquired a politically volatile or otherwise “troublesome” title it may embark on a process recognized in the industry as “privishing.” “Privishing is a portmanteau meaning to privately publish, as opposed to true publishing that is open to the public,” writes investigative journalist Gerald Colby.
Also:
Privishing often takes place without the author knowing, simply because it involves breach of contract and potential liability.
Tayen Lane will likely not face any legal challenge in this instance, however. Ulfkotte died of a heart attack on January 13, 2017, at age 56.[4]
Tracy provided an update to his article to say — see the tweet below — that someone had ordered a copy of the book, only to receive a cancellation:
Tracy included a 2014 video of Ultkotte saying that he had to work with intelligence agencies at the risk of losing his job. Ultimately, intelligence agencies gave him articles to publish under his own name:
Tracy gives us more about the content of the video:
The German journalist explains how he was recruited during the 1980s to work in espionage. This began through an invitation proffered by his graduate school advisor for an all-expense-paid trip to attend a two-week seminar on the Cold War conflict in Bonn.
After Ulfkotte obtained his doctorate he was given a job as a reporter at “the leading conservative German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, oddly appointed despite no journalistic training and hundreds of other applicants.
Serving as a correspondent throughout the Middle East, Ulfkotte eventually became acquainted with agents from the CIA, German intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Britain’s MI6, and Israel’s Mossad, all of whom valued his ability to travel freely in countries largely closed to the West.
His editors readily collaborated in such intelligence gathering operations,”[5] for which journalist possess “non-official cover” by virtue of their profession.
“Non-official cover” occurs when a journalist is essentially working for the CIA, but it’s not in an official capacity,” Ulfkotte explains.
Tracy includes one of Ulfkotte’s last tweets prior to his death:
Tracy says that intelligence agencies’ ties to media outlets accounts for a) the CIA’s antipathy towards WikiLeaks (which could no doubt make all this public) and b) the media’s insistence on pushing the Trump-Russian collusion narrative.
An American Free Press article from October 2014 — the same year the RT video above was made — has more on Ulfkotte’s book and how he came to be part of the intelligence agency network. Ronald L Ray’s ‘Reporter Admits Most Media Work for CIA, MI6, Mossad‘ is also a must read.
While most of us would say ‘no’ to becoming part of an intelligence network, this is how Ulfkotte described his recruitment:
Prior to a particular semester break, when he hoped to visit Italy and meet young women, a professor asked if he would like to attend a two-week seminar in Bonn on the East-West conflict. This was during the Cold War in a divided Germany. Ulfkotte was not at all interested, but university professors in Germany were (and are) highly respected. It was difficult to refuse.
He was promised that his travel would be paid for, as well as lodging and meals, and he would receive spending money into the bargain. For a young man from poor economic circumstances, this was too much. Relates Ulfkotte, “I suddenly felt this deep feeling inside me that I had ‘always’ wanted to go” to such a seminar. Such “innocent” beginnings were the first bribes, which would draw him ever deeper into a widespread network of corruption and spying, where no one considered such behavior immoral, but rather “accepted practice.”
No one said, “I’m from the CIA,” or from the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND)—the German intelligence service. But the seminar leaders sorted out “who was communist and who was pro-Western” among the young attendees. After further similar events, someone asked Ulfkotte if he would work for the BND—the last thing on his mind. But again, a professor—his doctoral advisor—pressured him to “think about it.” And once more, a poor boy found a free automobile and a good salary very attractive.
Ronald L Ray relates that Ulfkotte’s journalistic career as a war correspondent was a good one in these terms:
Eventually, he did indeed meet agents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), BND, Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6 (Military Intelligence, Section 6), and Israel’s Mossad, who valued his ability to travel freely in countries largely closed to the West. His editors were knowing accomplices.
What follows is how Ray, using Ulfkotte’s experiences, describes the system working.
This is far worse than I had imagined.
There are the ‘unofficial covers’ — people who work with an intelligence agency but are not on their payroll as actual agents:
It is a broad, loose network of “friends,” doing one another favors. Many are lead journalists from numerous countries. This informality provides plausible deniability for both sides, but it means an “unofficial cover,” as Ulfkotte became, is on his own if captured.
Those involved leave their various connections and affiliations unknown. Ray says that Ulfkotte once accompanied then Chancellor Helmut Kohl to Jordan. There, he attended a function at which the president of Israel was also present. Ulfkotte began shaking the hands of journalists and officials he knew. All of them had intelligence agency ties:
He was ordered sharply back to his place. Otherwise, “everyone would know” who the other intelligence assets were. It must have been an appreciable percentage, because Ulfkotte then realized they were “all in the same boat.”
Ulfkotte’s ‘friends’ often asked for special favours, e.g. soil samples from various trips or a description of political opinions of leaders in certain countries.
But there was more — an ongoing bribery system of lavish favours — which he received when an intelligence agency or powerful institution approached him with an article to put under his own byline:
Large sums of money, gifts, public recognition and significant career advancement go to those journalists who provide useful information on people they meet or know, or on places to which they travel. Many times, the reporter, like Ulfkotte, need only put his name on an article written for him by some spy agency or financial institution. Money and gifts change hands; doors open to elitist groups, like the Trilateral Commission, Atlantik-Brücke, the Aspen Institute and the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Those who do not cooperate are fired.
Ulfkotte also believed that the CIA created Germany’s BND:
Because Iran has no U.S. embassy, he would enter the Turkish embassy and follow a then-secret, underground escape tunnel into the German embassy, where he would turn over his reports for the CIA or BND. In a recent RT interview, Ulfkotte noted that the BND was created by the CIA. To him, it is a symbol of Germany’s status as a “banana republic,” a “colony of the U.S.”
In closing, here is a direct quote from Ulfkotte that Ray included in his article (emphasis in the original):
“I’ve been a journalist for about 25 years, and I’ve been educated to lie, to betray—and not to tell the truth to the public. . . . The German and American media [is trying] to bring war to the people in Europe, to bring war to Russia. This is a point of no return, and I am going to stand up and say it is not right what I have done in the past, to manipulate people, to make propaganda against Russia, and it is not right what my colleagues do, and have done in the past, because they are bribed to betray the people not only in Germany, but all over Europe. . . . I am very fearful of a new war in Europe, and I don’t [want to see] this situation again. There are always people who push for war, and this is not only politicians, it is journalists too. We have betrayed our readers. . . . I’m fed up with this propaganda. We live in a banana republic [Germany], and not in a democratic country where we have press freedom.” — Udo Ulfkotte
Reading that quote from 2014 and thinking about President Trump’s attempts at negotiating world peace, one can better understand exactly why the media — not to mention the Left and their paymasters — want Trump de-legitimised and, ultimately, suppressed.
May the Hand of God continue to protect the American president, his staff and his family.
Further reading:
‘THE WORLD – upside down’ – Udo Ulfkotte article about his experience in the Middle East (2006)
‘Leading German Journalist: CIA Media Pushing for World War’ – Infowars (2014)
