Why Go On?

     With blogging, that is. Believe it or not, it’s not an autonomic function completely controlled and supervised by my medulla oblongata.

     I’m asked that question fairly often, including by friends and acquaintances of some intelligence. Of its several varieties, there’s one I find particularly humorous:

“Why don’t you just use Facebook like everyone else?”

     Perhaps those who phrase their query in those terms are unaware that Facebook ruthlessly censors views like mine. Whether in op-ed or fiction, I write to express ideas of which Facebook’s censors disapprove. I know it; they know it. Indeed, I once established a Facebook account solely to promote my novels…and was ejected from the platform within a few days, no reason given.

     So much for doing “like everyone else.”

     At this time, all the major “social media” platforms are owned and controlled by hard-Left organizations. Robert Conquest’s Second Law of Politics has operated on all of them. So there’s no salvation in going to any of Facebook’s competitors. To the extent I exploit any of the supposedly free-speech alternatives, it’s to promote my novels and my emissions here. I have no faith that they will prove immune to Leftist infiltration, colonization, and conquest.

     But wait: there’s more! Censoriously inclined governments have decided that the control of social-media platforms by Leftists is a means to their most cherished end:

     The California Secretary of State’s office pressured YouTube to remove Judicial Watch’s videos on election integrity.
     Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch received 165 pages of new documents showing the California Secretary of State directly emailing YouTube to remove Tom Fitton’s videos on election integrity.
     The video titled “ELECTION INTEGRITY CRISIS — Dirty Voter Rolls, Ballot Harvesting & Mail-in-Voting Risks!” was removed three days after California government officials made the request.
     Judicial Watch had previously sued California over its dirty voter rolls and Los Angeles County agreed to remove 1.6 million inactive voters.
     Judicial Watch reported:

     In an email exchange beginning on September 24, 2020, Social Media Coordinator Akilah Jones of the California Secretary of State’s office contacts Civics-outreach@google.com and copies four Google employees with the subject line, “REPORT VIDEO: **ELECTION INTEGRITY CRISIS** Dirty Voter Rolls, Ballot Harvesting & Mail-in-Voting Risks!”
     Jones’ email falsely characterizes Judicial Watch video in her email:
     Hi YouTube Reporting Team,
     I am reporting the following video because it misleads community members about elections or other civic processes and misrepresents the safety and security of mail-in ballots.

     Thank you for your time and attention on this matter.

All the best, Akilah.

     YouTube removed the Judicial Watch video immediately. Thus, an official of California’s state government used a private organization to stifle the distribution of a private party’s video production. No doubt Miss Akilah Jones – yes, yes, of course she’s black – would argue that that wasn’t censorship. It was just a private organization exercising its prerogatives. California’s state government didn’t impose a legal penalty on Judicial Watch, after all, so how could it be classified as censorship?

     This has been happening quite a lot lately.

***

     The big social media platforms – most notably, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube – have by their attractions decimated the Internet’s older modes of expression, most notably blogging. (Note that Google acquired Blogger early in the game, to have a position in that medium as well.) They’ve used their dominance of their media to suppress opinions and positions their masters oppose – inevitably anything that goes against the Left’s agenda, or the agenda of one of its mascot-groups. Nominally independent platforms such as WordPress.com are coming into Leftist conformity, as well. No one whose opinions the Left dislikes shall be permitted to disseminate them…and no organization is immune to Robert Conquest’s Second Law.

     I moved Liberty’s Torch to an independent host in the hopes that it will not fall prey to this trend. So far, so good…but that’s what the man said as he fell past the tenth floor of the Empire State Building, too. Should Hosting Matters be colonized and suborned, I have no idea where I’ll go next.

     It’s a one-day-at-a-time existence for one who dissents from the “received wisdom.” But it beats looking over my shoulder all the time, which is what I’d be doing were I to remain on Blogger, or confine myself to Facebook etc.

     Now I must find a way to play videos from my own media library. Once I have that, I’ll copy any important videos that might be censored and host them here, so that readers can play them from my own, uncensored online storage.

     Have a nice day.

3 comments

    • peter R Bickford on July 2, 2021 at 9:59 AM

    If you ever run into trouble with your current situation, just reach out–would be happy to host you ourselves. Keep up the good work! -Pete

    • Sage Grouch on July 2, 2021 at 2:24 PM

    Excellent post. Please know that your efforts to keep a channel open for ideas and opinions that the Elites frown upon, are much appreciated by the rest of us.

  1. This site, and others like it, would not – immediately – be missed, should the ProgStasi defeat the Free Americans.

    It’s later on, when the younger ones are querulously asking, “Why doesn’t someone DO something?” about The Oppressive Benevolent Providers of All Good’s latest abuses, that someone older, who remembers the Freedom Days, will respond, “They did, a long time ago. You cheered the TOBPAG’s minions shut them down. You said, ‘Serves them right for their terrorism. How DARE they criticize the people who are fighting Literal Fascists!’ You allowed the Somebodies to be shut up.”

    “And, now, we have tyrants.”

Comments have been disabled.