Under US Pressure, Social Media Companies Suspend Venezuelan, Iranian & Syrian Accounts

thats what china said too

 

No one really is keeping anyone reading this from doing so. Get a site and make a fortune, you could be the next Zuckerberg. Trump might try to stop you but there is really no applicable law in the USA. Besides, they don't pay the big money if it's easy.

 

What do you mean?

 

You do know that according to the Courts the 1st Amendment only applies to Citizens and those in the US right? It does not apply to foreign countries or those outside of the US.

 

china use "national security" reason to block out ppls account. they play the national security reason for too many time, now trump is learning from china.

 

And according to the courts $ is speech and corporations are persons. So where does that leave us, in a Kafka novel?

 

Money is speech. :shrug: That's why people donate to candidates. They are voicing their support through their wallet.

As for corporations being a "person", I'm against Citizens United. SCOTUS isn't perfect.

Regardless though, that is currently how our system works whether we agree with it or not.

 

Using an external threat to get citizens to trade liberty for security is an age old tactic - one the founders warned us about. "Those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither liberty nor Security" -- Ben F.

The people need to adhere to the Establishment narrative - idea's to the contrary must be kept out !

 

Yes, that is the way the government operates, but I have no obligation to pretend such behavior is legal and in accordance with USC.

 

I don't see the relevance.

I do know that having lived as long as I lived when we were people interested in democracy we did value the freedom of the press. We did want to know what the situation was and we did confront our Government when we found it trying to keep things from us.

This is everyday now

https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1223696712637853696

 

Yes, that is what will happen. The US will just be a loudhailer for Neo Liberalism and the wars it fights for profit.

 

But you, somehow, know the truth.

How does that work? What can I do to know the truth? Believe everything you tell me?

 

You can understand that the vast majority of what you hear and read on the mainstream media is propaganda, both malicious and benign. What they are telling you is mostly false.

As William Casey of the CIA noted in 1981, 'when everything the American people believe is false, we will know the success of our misinformation efforts.'

If you can understand that you're being brainwashed, and if you are able to think for yourself, you have a chance at discovering the truth.

 

And that has been well understood for decades, centuries, millennia.

How is being able to think for one's self any help if you can't trust anything you are told? Indeed, the ability to think for one's self is easily harnessed by propagandists who can feed you partial and misleading information and lead you to come to the conclusion they want you to come to. You feel that it is your own conclusion, but it isn't.

And you know who is excellent at "thinking for themselves?" Conspiracy theorists. They are great at generating very novel ideas.

 

we should block all traffic in & out of those counties...

by traffic, i mean communications of all kinds/types, commercial aircraft...

let them go back to using smoke signals to communicate with eachother...

 

Well that is interesting. Generally the demands to cut off speech are coming from Governments as in this one. We see in particular an attack on left wing independent and investigative journalists. These social media are the ones which have been allowed to become the ones which everyone uses. It is about censorship. The topic of this thread being to make sure people only hear the US Government position on its murder of Soleimani. Similarly I notice the vast majority of Americans appear to believe that Juan Guaido is the legit President of Venezuela when nothing could be further from the truth. Even the rest of the Opposition who he is supposed to be the leader of made that clear a few weeks ago. US citizens live in the dark already. I doubt if it could be more obvious but if you don't want to see you don't want to see. Sure people are moving sites as I gave one example of in this thread and in the future there will be other sites created just as people who wanted to do investigative journalism had to leave mainstream press. It won't change the reality that the US is stopping people knowing what is going on basically so that they will believe their propaganda is the truth. Given that it is owned by people to make money then you may be assured their first interest is making money and they will do what is demanded of them.

I am sorry. I cannot see how people do not see what is totally obvious but I guess that is why people do not believe in climate change. We live in the world of post truth and that seeps into even supporting us being given indoctriated news where other viewpoints are erased.

One of the strongest myths that Western people particularly in my experience Americans have bought is that capitalism cannot coexist with totalitarianism.

 

LOL, you know we're all conspiracy theorists. Some, probably most, buy into the conspiracy theories offered by the government and media, while others are blessed with skepticism regarding the statements of known liars and go their own way, examining OTHER theories, ones based on the facts of the case.

All humans have different skill sets. Some are lawyers, some are doctors, some are farmers. So too, some are more perceptive than others, and of course some are less perceptive than others.

Some are able to think on their own, others need authority figures to tell them how and what to think.

 

Sorry for taking this time to reply to you. Gov pressure to sensor is going on, has been going on with social media for some time. I can remember in the mid 90's when I first got on the internet I wondered how long it would take for Governments to learn how to control it. They more or less have. This is all contained in what I heard someone call today the 'Political Cartel' which is part of our rule by Oligarchs.

In the video below Andrea Bernstein speaks about how google Facebook etc are totally open to doing what Trump wants.



Basically since Reagan/Thatcher, Britain and the US have been moving towards Oligarthy or a Plutocracy if you prefer. This has resulted in what has been called Managed Democracy or Inverted Totalitarianism. That is we appear to have a democracy, we get a more or less free and fair vote regularly...though I did read that Venezuela's system was more democratic than the US!... We appear to have the checks and balances, apparently a free press and independent Judiciary. I have read the US Judiciary is no longer. Britain's judiciary was tightened up for Independence during the one time we had a Labour Party seeing the situation which Thatcher/Regan had produced and trying to get Britian into a proper democracy. Unfortunately that Labour Leader died before he became PM and Blair who followed after and had no great love of democracy ignored most of what he had agreed to do before the other Leader, John Smith, died. At any point I am unsure how Independent the English System is. It has shown itself as good in refusing to ban people's Political Rights when attempts have been made to ban BDS or to say talking about Israel is antisemetic but look how it is acting towards Assange. We will need to wait and see.

The key point of Managed Democracy or Inverted Totalitarianism is that although people appear to have the bits and pieces of democracy, they are impotent to change. In both the US and the UK both major Parties became part of this system, that is both the Republicans and the Democrats and in the UK both Labour from Blair as well as the Conservatives. They sold us out and in particular they sold out Democracy and the left. It might be in that video that it is said that there is no longer any left in any of the US political Parties. People here call the Democrats 'the left' but they are nothing of the sort except for people like Cornwell West, Sanders 'the squad' etc. How is democracy made impotent under this system? Well through the Managed Corporate Press of course. If the information people get tell them only one side of the story then for the vast majority of the people that is what they are going to believe and it is the genuine left who they fear the most. Oligarchs would. Corbyn was destroyed by lies and slurs which were so bad that within a few months of him being elected Leader of the Opposition the London School of Economics did research and concluded that given that he was Leader of the Opposition and given that most of what was said about him was either lies of massive distortions this did not look like 'free speech' but looked much more like trying to destroy the person who was the Leader of the Opposition and in that was an attack on Democracy. Universities are another area where free speech has been attacked and Universities are the one place where people ought to be allowed to voice any position in any society which considers itself 'free'

The whole Saga with the sanctions against Venezuela which probably has now killed hundreds of thousands of civilians is as the Real News points out in part to prove again to the American people that sanctions don't work. This anti leftist viewpoint is shared by bothe the Republicans and the Democrats

https://therealnews.com/stories/us-sanctions-venezuela-socialism-work

Sheldon Wolin is probably the best to talk about Managed Democracy/ Inverted Totalitarianism. This is long but extremely good. You will notice that the ability to have control over media is mentioned by him also. It is essential and it is done. I think this was the last interview Wolin did before he died.




Maybe just watch the first few minutes and see if he gets you. You can also find shorter videos by him.

Thatcher was delighted when she Managed to get Murdoch to form his semi monopoly on the British Press.

https://constantinereport.com/thatcher-murdoch-made-secret-deal-guardian/

I can remember at that time everyone was going crazy saying he was getting a monopoly. Nowadays nobody even mentions such a thing. The one major British Paper which had maintained a level of Independence was the Guardian. They worked with Assange. They worked with Snowdon. But not now. The Guardian's left wing investigative journalists can now be found talking on the Jimmy Dore show or Democracy Now or the Real News, not the Guardian.

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/09/...utralized-countrys-leading-liberal-newspaper/

Sanders I hear is treated to some extent like Corbyn - though with thorough knowledge of what to expect.

This video only 3 mins!



So, most of the mainstream social media sites are open to Trump's whims and in general this view is supported by all the parties which are called 'centrist' or which today I heard someone call the Political Cartel and that was what was behind the OP here. In Europe as well as the US 'centrist' parties are no longer liked by the electorate. They follow a monetary system which increases inequality and cannot serve sufficient people to make it acceptable and people know they are corrupt.. In all of them, they and the media fight the 'left'. Corporate Capitalism of Oligarchy can work with forms of fascism though obviously it does not like social democracy or democratic socialism.


By the way The Telegram

https://telegram.org/

which Benjamin Norton above has moved to does look like a good service for people who wish to be free from censorship.


.

 

That was of course 'socialism' doesn't work, not 'sanctions don't work' above!.

 

While you need 'state action' to implicate first amendment issues, the actions we see against various forms of speech are simply part of the manipulation and efforts to have a free reign when it comes to propaganda by those who are actually the powers behind the occupants of the 'throne' in American politics. In the American model, propaganda and censorship is practiced as follows:

1- The machinery of government is used to brand certain ideas as illegitimate, as representing the enemy, etc. Active propaganda is employed by the government (the state) to promote this line.

2- Since the 'media' in the US, whether 'social media' or otherwise, isn't technically part of the state, they are free to engage in the propaganda, lies and whatever that fits their preferred narrative. The first amendment protects them in that regard, with the contours of 'free speech' rather broad. This would be a good thing if the countervailing forces were allowed to also present their own narratives and propaganda. But they are not.

What prevents these countervailing forces from standing up to the propaganda narratives, isn't state action (laws or regulation), although some of that is employed (and creates the battles which inform the history of first Amendment jurisprudence in the US). The real forces that prevent the 'market place of ideas' to give voice to 'the other side' (if the other side isn't part of the 'accepted' or 'loyal' opposition) are the same forces that enthrone politicians in America more generally. These are special interests groups who effectively control American politics, as well as the media organs, think tanks and the other forces within the 4th estate. The divisions within American politics often simply reflecting those areas where these 'special interests' diverge and compete with one another.

In the meantime, the biggest source of corruption in American politics, especially in the past couple of decades, has been the "pro Israel" lobby. This lobby isn't about "Jews" or even "Israel", but rather it is mostly about power and the corrupt means used to keep to this power and extend it. While there are many Jews, including many wealthy and prominent ones who have long collaborated to make up the 'pro Israel lobby", the actual force of the lobby comes as much (if not more) from its partnership and sponsorship from Christian Zionists and their allies within the imperialist, military industrial, complex. This lobby has also come close to legitimizing 'censorship' (even state sponsored censorship), the same way another manifestation of many of these same interest groups used to try to justify outright government censorship under the guise of 'fighting communism' during the cold war.

 

I remember when even youtubers were using some good ascii editing to bypass filters. Ahh good times.

 

Wonder where all the frozen peaches are.