I’ve just hit the DELETE button on my Facebook account. I wasn’t really using it, and attempts by other users to link to posts here at Hogewash! are being blocked because Facebook has determined that this site is offensive. While I’ve referred to being censored by Facebook as a badge of honor, I’ve decided it makes no sense to be where I’m not welcome. I’ve pulled the plug.
I’m still on social media. You can find my wjjhoge accounts on Gab (I’m a minor shareholder), Parler, MeWe, and Twitter.
When I first started using Twitter eight years ago, it was still a more-or-less open platform where I was able to interact with folks of all sorts of political persuasions, but by 2015, it had evolved into a space much less friendly to conservatives. I was one of the first conservatives permanently banned, allegedly because I was engaged in “targeted abuse” of a leftwing political operative. I was also one of the few to have one of my accounts restored when it turned out the allegations against me were false. Twitter appeared to have learned from that episode and became more careful in the way they describe their reasons for lockouts and bans. By being nebulous about their “Rules” they’ve managed to avoid making provably false statements about punished users, protecting the company from defamation claims.
That changed this year. Twitter is now willing to punish users who publish truthful material and to publicly state a false reason for the punishment. The case of the @nypost account lockdown is but one example. Yes, Twitter has now admitted that the Post‘s story was factual and based on documents that weren’t hacked, but as I write this, the @nypost account is still locked.
Based on what I can see, it looks as if Twitter is afraid of the likely changes in the regulatory and legal environments that could come during a second Trump administration, not just for the leftwing causes the company and many of its employees support, but also for the company’s own power in the marketplace. It’s not that Twitter has nothing to lose. It’s more like they feel they have everything to lose and are willing to sacrifice (the stock price tanked after @jack’s testimony this week) to save a failing business model—and their sense of importance and control. They’re all in.
Meanwhile in the Real World (and the part of the Internet that intersects with it), Twitter’s attempts at suppressing truthful reporting on the Hunter Biden story have backfired.
Barbara Streisand and Brett Kimberlin were unavailable for comment.
UPDATE—Twitter has unlocked the @nypost account without require the newspaper to take down it tweets to truthful news stories. Also, institutional investors took an aggregate loss somewhere north of 2 billion dollars over this week’s drop in Twitter’s stock price. The Gentle Reader may remember that I have suggested that the market may provide corrective action for the misbehavior of various social media companies faster than any government.
You only silence critics when you have something to hide.
—Huma Yusuf
From Twitter on our iPhones to Facebook on our laptops, a silicon curtain has descended across the face of the Internet. Behind it lie all the media outlets and individuals engaged in fair reporting. The NY Post and all its readers are but one example of those who suffer from what I must call Progressive censorship, and all of us are subject to one form or another of Progress influence over what we may hear and say, increasingly under the control of Silicon Valley.
For decades, the Left conducted what has been called its march through the institutions to place itself in control. They wish to stay in control, but in 2016 the Deplorables cheated by using the Electoral College to install Donald Trump as President. Trump, in turn, has worked to disrupt the Left’s control. The situation is intolerable. Therefore, the Left has pulled out all the stops and is using every means necessary to defeat Trump in 2020. At times, their naked use of their power to conceal one form of corruption has revealed another, but the Left doesn’t seem to care. Winning really has become the only thing for them.
Victor Davis Hanson has a post over at National Review about the Left’s efforts to retain control.
The progressive project is now hubristic, drunk with power and the belief that it can control an America that does not like it and that in turn it holds in contempt.
But with hubris comes nemesis, as we saw on all fronts last week. Joe Biden, the DNC, the media, Silicon Valley, the identity-politics industry, and the FBI were all shown to be not so much partisan and corrupt as, far more important, inept and ridiculous.
The corrupt can tolerate charges that they are dishonest, because such an accusation implies (they assume) a tacit compliment that they are also cunning and adroit in obtaining such power in the first place to use for such unethical purposes.
One of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is to hold the opponents to their own rules. Another is that ridicule is the most potent weapon. That’s why the Hunter’s Laptop and the Toobin Zoom stories are so important. As VDH notes,
But when they become so brazen that they are exposed as silly and absurd, they begin to fear. The Left doesn’t mind being portrayed as Machiavellian or even perhaps a little Rasputin-like. But they can’t tolerate being revealed as the buffoons they so often are.
If we want to win this November, we Deplorables would be well advised to follow an order given by a 19th-century Democrat, and “Keep up the skeer!” We need to keep confronting the Left with the incompetence of their corruption so that all voters understand the real nature of the choice before them.
Twitter’s ham-fisted attempt at censoring the New York Post has blown up in their face. @Jack tweeted this—
I’ve been sued for defamation because of posts here at Hogewash!, and I’ve won all of those suits because the plaintiff was never able to show that anything I wrote was false. The truth or a reasonable opinion based on evidence can’t be the basis for a defamation claim. The plaintiff also tried to claim that I was responsible for the content of remarks made by commenters here at Hogewash!, but Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides immunity for website publishers from third-party content. Neither this site nor Twitter is responsible for what a third party posts.
However, if Twitter adds “context” to a tweet or comments on it, Twitter will be responsible for what it posts—and could be held responsible for the its statements providing such context or commentary. By making its own comments, by speaking for itself, Twitter should become a speaker unprotected by Section 230 with respect to its own speech. Saying that an article contains hacked information when there is evidence that the information was obtained legally might be the sort of false statement that would trigger a defamation suit.
Twitter needs to keep its users satisfied. It makes money by selling ads, and driving users away with unfair censorship policies isn’t good for business. OTOH, keeping its users happy may make it difficult to operate as a progressive echo chamber, so we may have reached a market-based solution to Twitter’s unfair treatment of a large group of its users, many of whom have been leaving for Gab and Parler. Section 230 may need some legislative tweaking based on lessons learned since it was enacted in 1996, but the market may apply more pressure more quickly to drive Twitter toward better behavior.
Of course, Twitter may think that it is a monopoly that is too big to fail. That’s what America Online AOL thought.
Things are about to get interesting.
Stay tuned.
To whom do you award the right to decide which speech is harmful or who is the harmful speaker? … To whom would you delegate the task of deciding for you what you could read?
–Christopher Hitchens
Here’s a Tweet from the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee.
Here’s what you get when you click on the link.
I told you they’re all in on their censorship. Twitter is now deprecating links to official dot gov websites.
The Left has given up on any pretense of fair play for the coming election. They are lying brazenly, and they’re pulled out all the stops on their Internet censorship. The censorship of this morning’s Hunter Biden story from the NY Post by Facebook and Twitter show the Left really has reached the point where they feel they must use any means necessary to defeat Donald Trump.
In order to confirm the censorship was happening, I attempted to post a link to the Biden story on Twitter. I was blocked.
Then, I posted this tweet.
Twitter has suspended the New York Post‘s account and suspended or locked the accounts of several people who tried to link to the Biden article, including White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany. Twitter responded to users’ questions about the blocking and suspensions with tweets from @TwitterSafey containing various excuses, but while I was typing this post, this tweet from@Jack popped up in my timeline—
Twitter may be feeling some heat, but I’m pessimistic about their ultimate response. Based on my personal experience from having been unjustly banned for truthful reporting, I expect that Twitter will do its damnedest to continue its censorship. (I was banned for allegedly harassing Brett Kimberlin. I got the @wjjhoge account back when the false criminal complaint against me dropped for lack of evidence. I suspect that their lawyers figured out that I had an open-and-shut defamation case against them.)
The Left has pushed all their chips out on the table. If Trump wins the election, I expect the Left, including Facebook and Twitter, will go down swinging. Things have gotten ugly; I’m afraid they’re about to get uglier.
“Anonymous sources …” “A source close to …” “Experts say …”
I’m getting tired of fictional rumor mill “news” from the Main Stream Media. At least, the supermarket tabloids used to claim a source for their stories with headlines along the lines of Elvis Says Space Aliens Framed OJ.
Who, what, when, where, why, how and the truth, please.
I’m seeing tweets and posts on social media suggesting that the White House is issuing false information about the President’s health. The President’s physician is a Commander in the United States Navy, and the President is being treated at Walter Reed Medical Center, a military facility.
Given that it is a court martial offense under Article 107 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for a member of the Armed Forces to make a false official statement with the intent to deceive, I believe I’ll trust the statements made by CMDR Conley regarding President’s medical condition.
But to get to the point of this post, I have the following question for the those saying that we’re being given false information about the President’s medical condition, considering that such false statements would be criminal acts by some of the people making them: You may be accusing someone of committing a crime; do you have evidence for what you are saying or are you saying it with a reckless disregard for the truth?
The Democrats and the press (but I repeat myself) are in full handwringing mood over how Cocaine Mitch’s following of the established precedents of the Senate is somehow “violating norms.”
It turns out that Norm was available for comment; he just wants another beer.
I can think of several words, but the recent French-produced Netflix feature is a riveting visual antonym, especially considering the original French title of the film: Mignonnes.
Mignonne can be translated as an adjective meaning “small and delicately pretty” or as a noun meaning “sweetheart” depending on the context. It can also be translated as “cute”. An online translation app might translate L’orchidée est mignonne as “The orchid is cute,” but it could be missing a more subtile meaning.
Further, it’s not unreasonable to assume that a French filmmaker would be familiar with French literature, and one of the poems that most French students study is Ode à Cassandre by Pierre de Ronsard. It’s sensual poem that glorifies the game of seduction. Note how it begins.
Mignonne, allons voir si la rose
Qui ce matin avoit déclose
Sa robe de pourpre au Soleil,
A point perdu cette vesprée
Les plis de sa robe pourprée,
Et son teint au vôtre pareil.
Las! voyez comme en peu d’espace,
Mignonne, elle a dessus la place
Las ! las ses beautés laissé choir
Ô vraiment marâtre Nature,
Puis qu’une telle fleur ne dure
Que du matin jusques au soir
Donc, si vous me croyez, mignonne,
Tandis que votre âge fleuronne
En sa plus verte nouveauté,
Cueillez, cueillez vôtre jeunesse:
Comme à cette fleur la vieillesse
Fera ternir votre beauté.
Here’s an English translation.
Sweetheart, let’s see if the rose
That this morning had open
Her crimson dress to the Sun,
This evening hasn’t lost
The folds of her crimson dress,
And her complexion similar to yours.
Ah! See how in such short space
My sweetheart, she has on this very spot
All her beauties lost!
O, so un-motherly Nature,
Since such a beautiful flower
Only last from dawn to dusk!
So if you believe me, my sweetheart,
While time still flowers for you,
In its freshest novelty,
Do take advantage of your youthful bloom:
As it did to this flower, the doom
Of age will blight your beauty.
So the French title of what some are calling soft kiddie porn is an allusion to a well-known poem that celebrates seduction a young girl.
Cueillez, cueillez vôtre jeunesse
Do take advantage of your youthful bloom (lit., “Pick, pick your youth”)
Perhaps this tells us something about the filmmaker’s real intentions.
I fail to understand how anyone can defend such an abuse of young girls.
I’m so old, … oh, never mind.
Ms. Alcindor, you say that as if it were a bad thing.
BuzzFeed has a post up titled Facebook’s Preferential Treatment Of US Conservatives Puts Its Fact-Checking Program In Danger.
BTW, Hogewash! is one of the websites that Facebook censors. I’m informed that users have not been allowed to link to my posts.
Les fausses opinions ressemblent à la fausse monnaie qui est frappée d’abord par de grands coupables et dépensée ensuite par d’honnêtes gens qui perpétuent le crime sans savoir ce qu’ils font. False opinions are like false money, struck first of all by guilty men and thereafter circulated by honest people who perpetuate the crime without knowing what they are doing.
—Joseph de Maistre
Bill Schmalfeldt has managed to excel in one area far beyond any of the other members of Team Kimberlin. He’s used up even more, perhaps twice as many, Twitter handles than Brett Kimberlin has filed and lost lawsuits. Who could have seen this coming?
Well, he said modestly, I kinda hinted at what was coming in the TKPOTD for seven years ago today.
* * * * *
Blood on the Microphone
Radio Slappy
Derp Brain Radio
Radio WMS (old time radio)
Radio WMS (talk)
Etc.
And now, Radio Shiloh. I’ve lost track of the fits and starts of Cabin Boy Bill Schmalfeldt’s Internet radio career over the past few months. I went over to his new website to check things out (so you don’t have to), and I took a listen to his new Station ID.
It mentions poop.
* * * * * *
I was going to tag this with the French phrase plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, but on second thought the old GI expression abbreviated SSDD seems a better fit.
Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.
—Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
I see that the usual suspects are in a tizzy over the armed St. Louis couple who confronted BLM protestors outside their house. It appears that the pair are both lawyers, so I’m going to assume that they are aware of the elements of the crime of assault and that they would not have pointed their weapons at anyone who was not threatening them with severe injury or death.
However, their gun handling is clearly inept. They appear to have poor awareness of the direction their weapons are pointing, and the women never seems to be holding her Walther PPK properly. They both need more training in safe gun handling.
I haven’t had to shot anyone since I left Viet Nam in 1972, but I have been in several dangerous confrontations since then. In all of them, when the other people realized I was armed, they decided to withdraw. The sight of a holstered sidearm or a firearm slung over my shoulder or held at low ready was enough to influence their behavior.
The arms I keep for defensive purposes are not kept for offense. They are not kept to inflict my brand of justice on anyone else. They’re kept as a credible deterrent, tools that I am trained to use and willing to use.
One of the reasons Mrs. Hoge and I settled where we did was that the community was peaceful. I doubt that we’ll see much turbulence here, but if the rioters come to our small town, they’d be well advised to stay off my lawn.
Here’s another Blognet episode. This one’s from five years ago today, the time when Twitter’s so-called Safety operation was beginning to crack down on conservative users but could still be counted on to suspend dangerous harassers.
* * * * *
MUSIC: Theme. Intro and fade under.
NARRATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to hear is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.
MUSIC: Up, then under …
NARRATOR: You’re a Detective Sergeant. You’re assigned to Internet Detail. A group of bloggers and their commenters are being cyberstalked and harassed on Twitter. Your job … stop it.
MUSIC: Up then under …
ANNOUNCER: Blognet … the documented drama of an actual case. For the next few minutes, in cooperation with the Twitter Town Sheriff’s Department, you will travel step by step on the side of the good guys through an actual case transcribed from official files. From beginning to end, from crime to punishment, Blognet is the story of the good guys in action.
MUSIC: Up and out. Continue reading
Ron Coleman has a white paper posted over at Likelihood of Confusion which suggests using a state-based consumer protection process to reign in censorship abuse by social media companies.
Political or ideologically-based corporate censorship of social media content and users is a discernable social, economic and political problem. As private conduct, it is not a violation of the First Amendment’s speech clause. The problem appears intractable because of a combination of broad statutory protections for online service providers, one-sided terms of service and a lack of federal regulatory acknowledgment fo the problem. This paper suggests, however, that a state-base consumer protection initiative requiring “good faith” application of social media platforms’ terms of service to user bans could overcome these obstacles and would be consistent with a wide range of consumer-oriented remedial regimes that have survived constitutional and other attacks.
That’s the paper’s abstract. Read the whole thing.
I’ve been on the receiving in of Twitter’s bad faith. My business and personal accounts were permanently suspended as the result of a false claim of harassment. When the legal case against me collapsed for lack of evidence and it became obvious that the complaint had been based on false testimony, Twitter told me I could have one of my accounts back. One. Not both. I elected to have my business account reinstated.
None of the accounts related to my false accuser were sanctioned in any way.
The sort of regulation Ron Coleman proposes is overdue.
UPDATE—I received an email this morning from a friend who tells me that Facebook won’t allow her to share content from Hogewash! because it violates their “community standards.” I’ll take that as a badge of honor.
Mika haz sad …
… I remember when the Left fancied themselves to be the Reality-Based Community, people who adhered to facts.
These days, facts keep interfering with The Narrative.
Chuck Todd has been caught editing remarks by Attorney General William Barr to misrepresent what Mr. Barr really said.
Yawn.
There’s nothing novel about the Left’s crude attempts to edit Reality to their liking.
Neither Nikolai Yazhov nor Winston Smith were available for comment.
The initial reporting in the Main Stream Media is as I would expect.
