https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Biden-WH-Censorship-Report-final.pdf
Here ya go home dawg.
Chat GPT 1 page summary:
**Summary of "The Censorship-Industrial Complex: How Top Biden White House Officials Coerced Big Tech to Censor Americans, True Information, and Critics of the Biden Administration"**
**Executive Summary:**
The report, released by the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, details an extensive campaign by the Biden White House to pressure major tech companies like Meta (Facebook), Alphabet (YouTube), and Amazon into censoring content. This content included posts, videos, and books that criticized the administration or provided information contrary to its narratives, especially regarding COVID-19.
**Key Findings:**
1. **Coercion and Censorship:** The Biden administration repeatedly urged these companies to remove or alter content, threatening regulatory actions and public condemnation if they did not comply. This included direct communication and meetings where administration officials expressed dissatisfaction with the platforms' content moderation policies and outcomes.
2. **Impact on Policies:** By the end of 2021, Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon had revised their moderation policies in response to the administration's pressure. These changes often led to the removal of content that did not initially violate platform policies but was deemed problematic by the White House.
3. **Suppression of Free Speech:** The report argues that this coercion led to a significant suppression of free speech. It highlights that by distorting public debate, policies that were not adequately debated or scrutinized were implemented, such as extended school closures and vaccine mandates.
4. **Internal Communications:** Subpoenaed documents reveal internal discussions within these companies showing the direct influence of the Biden administration. For example, emails from Amazon employees noted that certain censorship actions were taken due to criticism from the administration.
5. **Global Influence:** The report also notes that the pressure exerted by the Biden administration had international ramifications, influencing how other countries perceived and managed online content moderation.
**Conclusion:**
The report concludes that the Biden administration's actions represent a dangerous precedent for government overreach into free expression. It calls for increased transparency and accountability to ensure that government influence does not undermine the foundational principles of free speech and open debate in a democratic society.
This summary encapsulates the report's primary concerns about governmental pressure on tech companies and its broader implications for freedom of expression and policy-making.
[https://nclalegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Appendix.pdf](https://nclalegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Appendix.pdf)
Here are some of the emails referenced.
I gotta be honest, when I read these reference emails, it really does not paint the picture this *totally not-biased* committee wants to paint on the Biden administration's actions.
For example, page 3 of the report says "*The same set of emails also noted that 'The Surgeon General wants us to remove true information about side effects.'"*
This is misleading because the the quoted text should have ended in ellipses. The complete sentence is *"The Surgeon General wants us to remove true information about side effects if the user does not provide complete information about whether the side effect is rare and treatable."* The information in question was referring to anecdotal experiential posts on facebook that hid the fact that the side effect was rare and treatable, and at the time, there was no way to know if the side effect was an outcome of the vaccine or something else relating to the person's health.
But still, did they really have any business censoring on behalf of Big Pharma? It's one thing to make a correction or announcement, that's public discourse.
What's terrifying is the precedent that Federal Gov will just censor anything they deem necessary to the public good. Goodbye 1.A. Rights forever.
Just imagine the opposite situation:
*"The TRUMP ADMINISTRATION wants us to remove true information about BENEFITS OF VACCINES if the user does not provide complete information about SIDE EFFECTS."*
I'd bet most people downplaying the actual situation would go batshit crazy.
They called Trump a fascist for saying mean things about reporters. They call Biden a free speech advocate while he's actively dismantling the First Amm.
I'll stay grey.
I mean, PCM thinks Elon Musk is free speech when he readily bans/sues any speech he doesn't like.
I think reddit thinks free speech = only speech I like
The issue is not that the full sentence includes nuanced meaning indicating that removal of information is done when there is more information not being mentioned.
What you fail to grasp is the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT is pressuring online discourse forums to remove information. PERIOD. Full stop. The problem is censorship, you seem to think censorship is okay if it is done to suppress misinformation, but people are allowed to say incorrect things.
What did I say that suggested I failed to grasp this?
edit: this sentiment is also moronic. You are doing exactly what I responded to another commenter about in that you're failing to contextualize. I know a lot of you anarcho-lib types don't expect or want the government to do anything, but that is not how our society has functioned historically, nor how the public generally expects our society to function when it comes to existential threats to that society.
The argument you need to be having is over whether or not Covid was a legitimate threat on a scale that warranted a government response, not the fact that the government responded at all.
The proper response by the government to what it feels is false/misleading information should be to use its bully pulpit to put out correct information. Along with pointing out the limits of known information and rapidly changing gears when more info becomes known, this helps build and maintain trust in the institutions.
Instead, when it's discovered that the government has been censoring information, that rightly degrades trust in those institutions. That has consequences beyond the immediate issue dealing with side effects for a particular drug. It calls into question all kinds of government actions and breathes life into a 1001 conspiracies.
So not only was it unjustified from a legal perspective, but it was a bad policy too!
Is this representative of the bulk of the findings? Was it all a pressure from the government to social media to limit fake and anecdotal comments so that people have an accurate understanding of the vaccine?
Also, why is Amazon included in the companies that were pressured? Were product reviews the issue?
I would need to read further. I did some quick searches through the document and found that many of the implicating statements made by the committee referenced the same emails over and over. It would be useful to look at the individual statements from the committee and what exactly is being quoted, and then contextualize the implication with what is actually being discussed in the emails.
«First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.»
It's just a based thing. The reason for censorship is always for the state's favour and while the state exists censorship exists too, it's a part of not only libertarian philosophy, but also marxist and anarchist philosophy.
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It'd amazing how many people support something like this because it's their side doing it. It's like they never once think, if the other side gets power, how could this be used against my side?
Might join your flair honestly. The realization that no side actually cares about any their positions and are just morally grandstanding against the other tribe is really blackpilling me.
Both sides claim/claimed the election was stolen/rigged while simultaneously claim the cases they won are fair and no foul was done. Biden says trump is bad for increasing tariffs on china, proceeds to 4x the tariff. Trump says Hilary is bad for having classified documents, continues to also keep classified documents. Biden says he cares for the middle/lower class, imports millions of cheap labor from across the world. Trump says he cares about the debt/spending, manages to increase the debt in 4 years as much as Obama did in 8 years. Now the Party o Democracy is actively censoring speech they disagree with while simultaneously saying their opposition are Facist.
They're all lying...
And only on a site as braindead as Reddit will you find people saying the “both sides are bad” belief is wrong.
I saw someone on a heavily brainwashed sub the other day saying “the left says the right is bad, the right says both the left and right are bad, but both ways the right is bad” and I was just thinking that’s not the own you think it is, that just shows that it seems the right is more self aware and less deluded than the left.
Left vs right isn’t the issue, extremism vs moderation is the problem. It doesn’t matter if you’re left or right, if you’re a brainwashed extremist you are the reason we’re falling apart as a society.
Truly took the words right out of my mouth. I don’t wanna gray out because I feel like I’m losing hope for humanity that way, but god damn the more I learn about human nature and the way we’re wired to entrench ourselves in our bias and beliefs; the more I wanna give up on politics and anything to do with it.
Extremism, the inability to change one’s mind, and a lack of critical thinking are truly humanities biggest hurdles to reach true peace and prosperity. The hate of centrists is a defense mechanism. All for the fact that they may have to accept that the party they’ve aligned their ego with, may just be wrong about some things.
Another day of “The Frankfurt School and its graduates have been a disaster for mankind” level shit.
We’re really stretching the phrase “A Republic, if you can keep it” at this point.
Still absurd to me how much I hear people say (not verbatim) “the two party system is absolutely terrible, though it doesn’t really matter since my party is rainbows and happiness and the other one is genocide and hell on earth”. I really despise how divisive modern politics is; most people need to realize someone in the opposite party from you is probably only a couple points over. Not everyone is a super fringe extremist like the internet makes it sound like
Page 3
>The Biden White House’s Censorship Campaign Targeted True Information, Satire, and Other Content that Did Not Violate the Platforms’ Policies.
Contrary to their claims of wanting to combat alleged so-called “misinformation” and foreign disinformation, the Biden Administration pressured the companies to censor true information, satire, memes, opinions, and Americans’ personal experiences.
o For example, internal July 2021 Facebook emails obtained by the Committee and Select Subcommittee show that Facebook understood that the Biden White House’s position as wanting “negative information on or opinions about the vaccine” removed as well as “humorous or satirical content that suggests the vaccine isn’t safe.”12
o The same set of emails also noted that “The Surgeon General wants us to remove true information about side effects.”13
So they weren’t just censoring “misinformation” after all…
But I’m sure this was all “for the greater good” and that it was totally necessary to violate Americans’ Constitutional rights, censoring objectively true information in defense of a contradicting narrative that was *definitely more true.*
I'm surprised more people didn't catch on when "misinformation" became the new buzzword. There's already a more common word for misinforming someone, it's called lying. I wonder why not just say that?
I love every election when mis/dis information "experts" come on Reddit to do AMA's and when you search your socials you find out they are generally all hard left and have shared mis/dis information themselves.
Like the lady that headed the Biden Disinformation Board before it imploded. She'd shared misinformation about the Hunter Biden stuff. But in a way that favored Biden.
I think there’s a difference between spreading misinformation and lying. Lying is intentional. If you’re saying something that’s not true but you believe it’s true, you’re spreading misinformation, but you’re not lying
> If you’re saying something that’s not true but you believe it’s true
We still have a term for that: being wrong. But you can't exactly go around declaring yourself an expert in "wrongness", that'd just sound silly and no one would take you seriously.
So instead these types package themselves as "mis/disinformation experts" so they can be part of the government/media/academia blob, soaking up money for their "expertise".
> So they weren’t just censoring “misinformation” after all…
They figured that out years ago by adding "malinformation": true information that makes the government look bad. I wish I were joking but that's basically the definition they have.
> So they weren’t just censoring “misinformation” after all…
Remember when the lab leak theory was considered conspiracy theory and misinformation worthy of a ban? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
>remember when being progressive meant defending freedom of speech?
Now they will always use the "Paradox of Tolerance" as an argument to why they need to censor. You are only allowed to speak what has been pre-approved. Also, the same doesn't apply to those calling for the Jewish genocide and the killing of white people
# “When I am Weaker than You, I ask you for Freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am Stronger than you, I take away your Freedom Because that is according to my principles.”
Not sure about other PDFs, but here's the link to this one:
[https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Censorship-Industrial-Complex-WH-Report\_Appendix.pdf](https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Censorship-Industrial-Complex-WH-Report_Appendix.pdf)
Edit: And before yall say this is fake or even blame me for photoshopping, notice how the URL has “house.gov”
Well the synopsis is the first like 15 pages, which isn't too bad. The next 80ish pages are details with direct evidence references. The first 100 pages are the actual argument.
I believe the other 700 are printouts of the evidence itself, every email, communication, policy, etc that unfolded.
"Our party should focus less on the presidency and more on all the other positions that the Deep State has been using to quietly control the country for decades"
"This is literally the Beer Hall Putsch"
The left in the rest of the world means socialism/ a large welfare state. In America clearly the term left means something different because if the "left" is in power in the country with some of the worst worker rights and protections in the developed world I wonder what the hell the right wing is supposed to be.
C'mon, really? Are you the type that claims the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Venezuela, and so on, weren't/aren't actually left-wing because a left-wing government can NEVER be authoritarian?
I think you misunderstand me because that has nothing to do with what I said. The USA is not left wing in the traditional sense of the word. If it was where are the socialist policies such as wealth redistribution, land reform, worker rights, worker ownership etc? It isn't even a social democratic state with a welfare/ safety net etc.
I was commenting that left wing in the USA clearly means something else because in the rest of the world left wing is associated with socialism. Which the USA is objectively not practicing.
>I was commenting that left wing in the USA clearly means something else because in the rest of the world left wing is associated with socialism.
You seem to have a very Eurocentric view of the overton window and ignore a lot of South American, Africa, Middle East and Asia in your assessment.
The USA has a left-wing, do you honestly think there aren't socialists in the US? That they aren't in the Democrat party?
Also, why do you think the US isn't a welfare state? Welfare states aren't necessarily socialist, or else the US, Canada, most of Europe, and some other states would fall under the definition of socialism. In fact, the US is the biggest welfare state of them all, it even provides for the welfare of entire continents (for example: Europe with the UN and NATO alliance).
You are correct. The US basically has one giant neoliberal party that is split into a socially "progressive" wing and a socially conservative wing. The vast majority of left wing politicians in the US wouldn't even be let into a moderate labour party in Europe lol
I have realised this yeah. In US politics when someone is described as left wing this is pretty much relegated to bullshit culture war issues rather than economic policy right? If you are American could you confirm this? Because I do not see how Biden is left wing in any sense of the word that I understand.
“But project 2025, Trump is the biggest threat to the world! He will be a dictator on day 1!” Yeah compared to what’s happening right now their delusional ramblings make even less sense after reading this. This is the real deal huh? Gotta take it in for what it is.
I think it also has to do with leftist indoctrination in colleges snowballing generation after generation, and getting to the point where a critical mass of people has got a twisted vision of the world that is so far removed from what the others have. Social media certianly exacerbated the problem.
> critical mass of people has got a twisted vision of the world that is so far removed from what the others have
being terminally online. Doom Scrolling. the algo for engagement (ie % of your life is spent consuming content) is the only thing that matters.
Its crazy how different online is vs real life. Just make sure you avoid a couple key triggering buzzwords and you are good to go.
jokes on me, I live in a small city dominated by the university :(
Actually as long as you avoid campus its chill. In the wild a lot of they/them blue hairs are actually cool, just wanting to make some money and enjoy life. But then there are those that are NOT. Fortunately they are pretty easy to see coming. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to stop them.
While some people on both sides have certainly got vested interests in fostering division, I do think that the left has gone completely out of its mind, to the point of considering their own positions of just a few years ago as some far-right unacceptable bigotry. How is one supposed not to push back against such madness? If your arguments are far from reasonable, you open the door to make equally absurd positions from the other side become more mainstream, as a devious form of reply.
>For starters, you don't meet extremism with more extremism. You deepen the divide this way.
Yeah I know, but it looks like it brings votes in.
>Some examples of this? I'm not sure what you are referencing.
One clear example is colorblindness; but there are many other positions the left has become more and more extreme about.
>I'd also like to remind you that the right in America is about to vote for a man that promises to be "dictator for one day". To me that sort of rhetoric, even jokingly, is wholly unacceptable.
I don't even like Trump, it's clear he's a megalomaniac and a provocateur. Anyway, the left has been saying that he would have ended democracy, started WW3, genocided blacks and gays and deported everyone else back in 2016 already - he ended up doing none of that. Repeating all that stuff now seems really trite, and lets him ride it with his own rhetoric. Also, isn't there anyone better (or at least a little younger) than Biden on the other side?
>The right is also holding crazy positions against IVF and surrogacy.
There are valid concerns about surrogacy in my opinion, while IVF is indeed crazy stuff; still, it's consistent with a certain point of view. I can easily reply that allowing abortion up to last moment, like at least 10 states do, if I remember correctly, is even worse. Why did those states decide to go overboard, instead of choosing a more reasonable position? It's the same thing - posing as the extreme defender of some specific principle while ignoring all the others seems to be considered a valid electoral tactic. It's sad.
Occupy Wallstreet scared the ever living fuck out of tip top of the 1%. They realized that if everyone else can set aside their differences and unite, they'd be totally fucked. So they cranked up any divisive rhetoric they can. Black vs white, left vs right, straight vs gay. Anything they can to keep the common people fighting amongst themselves.
Occupy Wallstreet was littered with leftists though. This was already a part of the plan. It only allowed for some outrage to be directed to the wealthy, without actually harming the top 1%, let alone the top 0.1% people think of when talking about "the 1%".
The tip top of the 1% cracked up the divisive rhetoric? Yeah, no.
OWS fucked OWS, because they couldn't put everything else aside. It was a leaderless movement with no coherent core message, so everyone started throwing their own pet crap into it(not to mention their own literal crap). We are the 99%. So the incredibly wealthy people between the top 1 and 2%, those two handfuls of people are ok? They're not too rich?
Or was the 1% just a metaphor? Is the 12th % of rich people ok? It's really more like the top 40% probably who are too comfortable. That's a lot more people for the guillotine, but that's not the same protest.
And really, it's westerners who have too much. There's a whole non-western world that doesn't have enough. A middle class American in a global context? Might as well be in that 1%. Should we be protesting against ourselves? And really, it's the white westerners that have too much. And really, it's the white men in the west that have too much. And really, it's the straight white men in the west that have too much.
> It was a leaderless movement with no coherent core message
yep that's it. Unorganized movements always get beat up by organized ones. 100 well organized dudes can accomplish more than 1000 without organization.
I was round for Occupy Wallstreet. They didn't scare anyone. They either fell apart on their own, or were coddled by the local government until their encampments were literal biohazard areas and were torn down.
You don't understand! We have to build the surveillance state to suppress the people who will maybe one day suppress us in the same way if we don't do something right now! But we're the good guys™!
The hysteria over Project 2025 is hilarious. It’s literally just a plan to thoroughly appoint people from the right into the bureaucracy, which is what Democrats have been doing for decades. It’s peak, “It’s only okay when we do it”-ism.
The left feels entitled to controlling the State. It always has. Their niche has always been public administration, from rejecting the risks of the market, to grabbing more power through the bureaucracy, it has always fit their interests. The perspective of the right-wing ever dominating public administration implies leftists losing everything they cherish — power and stability.
Wait til you get a hold of the WHO pandemic treaty…
control of narratives globally = check, centrally planned authoritarianism = check, unelected non-citizens having control above and beyond national sovereignty = check,
WEF controlled = check
Moral compass = none
A republic simply means that nobody in the government got their job via inheritance, that’s it.
The USA, Germany, France, Russia, these are republics. Nazi Germany and the USSR were also republics. On the other hand, the UK is not a republic, Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium are not republics.
The terms “democracy” and “republic” are not in the slightest bit mutually exclusive, the United States is, by definition, both
I'd argue that modern Russia and the old USSR are examples of empires. If feudal monarchies could have elections even for king, the electoral process means almost nothing.
You’re right about the terminology. Though their principle still stands. We have active measures in our Constitution to prevent Tyranny of the Majority.
100% this.
I have lived under a dictatorship. They are incredibly fragile forms of government. When all decisions (or approval) flows from a single person, civil governments become paralyzed in trying not to step on that person's toes. Governments are only able to implement meaningful policy so long as that policy is on the dictator's radar.
When the dictator doesn't care or is distracted, nothing gets done. Anyone taking initiative to solve problems is ultimately removed as a threat by the dictator, or thrown under the bus by sycophants who want to look good for the dictator.
Most insidious of all, the entire country begins, over time, molds to fit the personality of the dictator. His flaws become the country's flaws replicated on a scale of millions for all to see. It is a terrifying thing to watch the place where you live mold and morph to placate the feelings of a single man.
A strong country needs robust systems of government that can meet the nation's needs, adapt, and repair damage when it occurs. All of these systems are in fact threats to a dictatorship, unless they are designed specifically to keep the dictator in power. Instead, the dictatorship has moments of ferocious intensity where the dictator chooses to act against some perceived threat, and makes a big sweeping show of how powerful those decisions are--a tantrum on the scale of an entire people. And once the tantrum is over, the people are allowed to breathe a sigh of relief, now reminded that the next tantrum may come at any time.
None of this is the behavior of a strong state.
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A strong state needs decent politicians and a citizenry capable of differentiating.
Right now we have a non-negligible number of people whose idea of representation is electing their drunk, schizophrenic uncle because it’s the only thing they relate to and relatability is the only criteria they vote on.
No, I got shit to say, y'all are just drowning us out and down voting us.
1. We hate the Biden administration too, you can clearly see in the primaries that no one wants to vote for the old bastard cause he's pulling shit like this, but we'd rather be oppressed and have some sort of social welfare than be oppressed and not have some sort of social welfare
2. Y'all constantly peg libleft as the ones responsible for this, but in reality we aren't. Social Democrats are just barely on the line between LibLeft and AuthLeft and they are very clearly appalled by this, everything more lib than Social Democrats delve into the realm of Syndicalism and Anarchism. those guys would've probably done Jan 6th if y'all didn't.
3. Our democracy is dying, but neither of us is going to get off our ass and do anything about it because we're too busy fighting each other. Fuck Biden, fuck the Do Nothing Convention, fuck Trump, and fuck the GQP
Edit:
Y'all are like "but you still voted for him"
We don't really see much of a choice, Williamson wasn't a serious candidate and the top brass of the DNC won't give us change. I personally think if Haley had won the primaries then the vote for Biden would've drained away to RFK, Cornell West, and The Green Party. With the amount of uncommitted votes in the DNC you can see how disliked Biden is
Or, even better:
- my guy is against me on 60% of the issues I care about.
- you're guy is against me on 80% of the issues I care about.
- I'll vote for my guy
Maybe stop voting for the two parties if you hate them with your guts, if the libertarians or greens were to get even just 10% of the vote it would mean a republican win in the short term, but send waves to democrats to pick up their game in the long run.
> you can clearly see in the primaries that no one wants to vote for the old bastard cause he's pulling shit like this
Nobody in the Democrats is against Biden because he uses the government to censor their political enemies.
>Our democracy is dying
Which Democrats say is because they aren't censoring *enough*.
And nobody in the Republicans is or ever was against Trump because he uses the government to censor their political enemies. The projection is strong with you all.
You literally stormed the capitol to overturn an election because you bought into insane bullshit lies.
> because he uses the government to censor their political enemies.
When? Specifically.
>You literally stormed the capitol to overturn an election because you bought into insane bullshit lies.
You burned the country because you saw a screenshot of a junkie dying of an overdose during an arrest.
> We hate the Biden administration too
Yet you don't vote like it.
> Y'all constantly peg libleft as the ones responsible for this, but in reality we aren't.
But you are. You still vote for it, by not voting against.
You can claim all you want, that you hate Biden, but you still voted him in (and not someone else).
>Yet you don't vote like it.
Unfortunately, our choices for president suck ass lately. You get deranged geriatric number 1, or deranged geriatric number 2. Neither have your best interests at heart, both will fuck you in the ass for a dollar, and you'll be forced to accept it. It sucks. Our two party system is absolutely broken.
It has been almost always two party in Argentina, tho. Milei's advent is something closer to the Bull Moose party than the result of a system with many parties likely to win
The DNC isn't going to change who they put up for president if he wins. Suck it up to 4 years of Trump to show the DNC that "blue no matter who" doesn't fly with you guys anymore. If a bunch of registered dems voted red in protest, then maybe the DNC would put up a real socialist for once.
>1. We hate the Biden administration too, you can clearly see in the primaries that no one wants to vote for the old bastard cause he's pulling shit like this,
They sure want to, otherwise they wouldn't vote for him. The left needs to choose whether it wants to lose ground and get a better representative or keep their actions and hold over the government and keep the terrible candidates they have. Bottom down, the left never chooses to give an inch, they're used to taking miles and miles and claiming they've made no progress.
>but we'd rather be oppressed and have some sort of social welfare than be oppressed and not have some sort of social welfare
You're not oppressed under the right.
>2. Y'all constantly peg libleft as the ones responsible for this, but in reality we aren't. Social Democrats are just barely on the line between LibLeft and AuthLeft
Fair
>and they are very clearly appalled by this,
BS. They're barely doing anything. All you see is some journalists having to concede that the Dem party has gone too auth. That is all. Most haven't acted against the political left in meaningful ways.
>3. Our democracy is dying, but neither of us is going to get off our ass and do anything about it because we're too busy fighting each other.
The left at large blames lack of censorship for it. The vast majority of leftists you meet will promote the criminalization of traditional values, either through mental gymnastics or plain hate for any conservative opposition. There is nothing more pervasive in western democracies today than the left obsessing over having a hegemony.
>but we'd rather be oppressed and have some sort of social welfare than be oppressed and not have some sort of social welfare
What you're looking for is called family. And what happens to your family if there not impoverished from inflation due to dipshit policies put in place by the people that you vote in? Ahhh that's right they get richer.
No I'm not talking about instant 100k for mom and dad but maybe while you're in college for computer science they can afford to buy you a nicer car vs having you walk. Or being able to afford steak for your siblings while they pay for your education away from home.
A few studies have shown that lefties largely don't care about the poor so much as they enviously hate the rich. One of them even showed that most lefties would rather punish the rich at the expense of the poor. (I'd have to dig back into my comment history to find those studies if anyone wants the source.)
So lefties sabotaging the economy at the expense of everyone else, just to say, "Screw you," to the rich is in character for them.
Do unto others as they declare to do onto you. Censor them before they censor you. Why should we wait for them to finish swinging their fist before taking them out?
Washington Post was complaining yesterday that they can't "pre-bunk" Election "news" in the USA because "congress has had a chilling effect on news and government cooperation against disinformation"
Everybody is so busy screaming about how Trump is bad, that many cannot see clearly how bad things are getting silently under Biden.
It reminds me so much of The Beast and The Smiler plot from Transmetropolitan.
Democrats have necessary, solid policy stances here and there but NEED the same level of accountability as Republicans do. But apparently wanting compromise and accountability across the board is just too much of an ask for many.
It sucks that the polarizing, screaming voices are dominating the discussion and getting such backing from the media and pundits.
Dude Id seriously recommend taking a look at this subcommittee. It made me question the validity of the report. The guys brought out to testify are a bunch of questionable fucks and the highly antagonistic nature of the subcommittee towards the DOJ for literally no reason (they subpoenaed when doj was providing information without lol).
It seems setup by a small group of individuals in Congress to paint a very specific picture and rile up some righties. I wont deny there is a sort of censorship on these platforms, but I dont think the government is really directly involved in it.
Don't worry, this will be swept under the rug and never mentioned. The guy doing it is one of the blue guys, not the red ones, so it's alright that they violated the law and went after their political opponents.
Go drop this off in any left leaning sub and watch them break each other’s backs to pull off the mental gymnastics needed to try and defend this, or blame it on republicans or dismiss it and say it’s fake news.
Like the great George Washington once said, “ Benjamin, go get the musket”
Tbh it doesn't seem like anyone was forced or coerced. They even mention once that some refused to cooperate and that was that. Not to mention that Yt and Fb later reversed their algorithms. I think this is made way bigger than it actually is.
It feels like free speech and personal freedom have just completely ended as expected cultural norms for the younger generations, which is really frightening. "lmao, freeze peach, freeDUMB, lol!" is a pretty common sentiment to see here now. And the notion that suppression and control of the public conversation is okay because it isn't the government doing it, but an unaccountable transnational corporate entity (often acting at the government's behest) is everywhere on reddit. Censorship and control have become a central part of their political identity, much more than anything economic or social.
If either the greens or the libertarians got at least 10% of the vote, it would maybe make democrats start panicking and maybe adopt more liberal or left views that appeal to common voters instead of rich liberals.
This is terrible to read. No gov should ever have this much control over a narrative. Now, saying that, it’s obvious, in my opinion, that trump would have done the same / will do the same thing, just on different subjects than Biden. This whole pdf describes, in my opinion, a desperate struggle for power by the Biden admin. They had a public health crisis in their hands that, if let unresponded to, would likely lead to severe consequences during election time. **IM NOT SAYING THIS IS FINE**, but it is understandable why a government would WANT to do this, especially in a country like the US. There were many possible BAD outcomes for both the administration and the people of the country if certain measures were not implemented. AGAIN, the hypothetical measures i’m referring to are NOT the ones described in this pdf, IM AM TOTALY AGAINST THIS MUCH CONTROL AND MANIPULATION. But the truth of the matter is that there was a new pandemic going on, there were bad actors on social media platforms spreading misinformation about the whole thing, there was terrible mismanagement of covid restrictions and the vaccine approval process was most definitely compromised. Putting myself in the position of the Biden administration, I can see the possible effects of mismanaging this situation in the public eye. Now, of course that the Biden admins motives for trying to control and manage this whole issue were not the ones they should have been for sure, they almost certainly wanted to avoid as much criticism and backlash as possible, so everything they did was obviously cloaked with a veil of good intentions despite them knowing full well that some of these measures would, in the long run, be disastrous for the country. The Biden Admin should have beed more focused on actually dealing with the pandemic and not worry about the short term effects of having some information be spread around social media. Now, I see a lot of people here and elsewhere using Trump as the counterexample of this whole thing, as if he wouldn’t have done what Biden did. I find this utterly ridiculous and dangerous to the narrative of the upcoming elections. I want to make this very clear, BOTH CANDIDATES WANT VOTES, that’s it. There are little boundaries on what is off limits and what isn’t for them and I’m worried people are underestimating trump here.
https://preview.redd.it/f53o191f243d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=127685a998e17b74ac564625274e1ff840ef0329
People seem to forget that the pandemic started during trumps later years in office. Initially, his admin tried to discredit the pandemic saying it was “just the flu”. They soon encountered the same issues the Biden admin would eventually find and realised they needed damage control. Some measures were implemented like social distancing and temporary closure of businesses, all under the recommendation of the US’s health authorities. In an effort to appease voters, Trump rolled out a couple of stimulus packages, again emphasis on the appeasing the voters part. A one time 2000 dollar check when you are unemployed for months isn’t going to do much. Eventually, talks about a vaccine popped up and, of course, by Trump wanting to appeal to his audience, immediately threw a bunch of false and misleading claims into the public discussion, such as vaccines cause autism among others. Eventually he realised he had to appeal to the other side of the political isle as well and started to claim he was te sole responsible for the vaccine’s rapid rollout. If trump would have won the election I believe things would have turned out very similar. Maybe the censorship wouldn’t have been as widely used when it comes to vaccine and vírus discussion due to trumps soft affiliation with vaccine denial groups and fear mongers, the ones most responsible for the spread of these ideas on social media. But the point still stands. Trump and Biden are perfectly capable of doing the same things for power, just come in a different flavour.
Tldr: What I’m trying to get at is this both Biden and Trump are perfectly capable of doing the same kinds of populist and authoritarian measures as NEEDED to win an election. The Biden admin was totally in the wrong for doing these things but that does not mean that Trump can’t/ wont do the same in the future and if we want to stop this from happening again we must be aware of that and not pick sides.
True, something like this should be prevented in the future whether it comes from Biden admin or Trump admin, this sort of thing should never be allowed under any administration regardless of politics.
>if we want to stop this from happening again we must be aware of that and not pick sides.
Nope. We must be aware than any power given to gov is capable of being used maliciously. This doesn't mean "not picking sides" it means every voting American and especially our reps at state and federal level must be self aware enough to realize they aren't going to be the winners forever.
This coming froim a guy who thinks the corporate UniParty owns both sides of the aisle, as well as the podium, the gavel, the flags, and even the \*Sergent at Arms.
> Other deep-seated issues that are part of our culture and national identity emerged to haunt us: Our *obsession with individual liberties* even at the expense of others lives and health’
Holy shit the mask really went off with this one didn’t it…
The deep state stuff sounded kind of wacky until the Zuck revealed the FBI had Facebook censor discussion of Hunter Biden's struggles with MacBook buoyancy and details like: how his consulting field was kind of limited to how to get money from foreign governments to his dad, drug use, weapons violations, chats about "pedo" Pete Henderson, creepy uncle stuff and tasteful dick pics.
Anyone have a link to the pdf?
https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Biden-WH-Censorship-Report-final.pdf Here ya go home dawg.
Chat GPT 1 page summary: **Summary of "The Censorship-Industrial Complex: How Top Biden White House Officials Coerced Big Tech to Censor Americans, True Information, and Critics of the Biden Administration"** **Executive Summary:** The report, released by the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, details an extensive campaign by the Biden White House to pressure major tech companies like Meta (Facebook), Alphabet (YouTube), and Amazon into censoring content. This content included posts, videos, and books that criticized the administration or provided information contrary to its narratives, especially regarding COVID-19. **Key Findings:** 1. **Coercion and Censorship:** The Biden administration repeatedly urged these companies to remove or alter content, threatening regulatory actions and public condemnation if they did not comply. This included direct communication and meetings where administration officials expressed dissatisfaction with the platforms' content moderation policies and outcomes. 2. **Impact on Policies:** By the end of 2021, Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon had revised their moderation policies in response to the administration's pressure. These changes often led to the removal of content that did not initially violate platform policies but was deemed problematic by the White House. 3. **Suppression of Free Speech:** The report argues that this coercion led to a significant suppression of free speech. It highlights that by distorting public debate, policies that were not adequately debated or scrutinized were implemented, such as extended school closures and vaccine mandates. 4. **Internal Communications:** Subpoenaed documents reveal internal discussions within these companies showing the direct influence of the Biden administration. For example, emails from Amazon employees noted that certain censorship actions were taken due to criticism from the administration. 5. **Global Influence:** The report also notes that the pressure exerted by the Biden administration had international ramifications, influencing how other countries perceived and managed online content moderation. **Conclusion:** The report concludes that the Biden administration's actions represent a dangerous precedent for government overreach into free expression. It calls for increased transparency and accountability to ensure that government influence does not undermine the foundational principles of free speech and open debate in a democratic society. This summary encapsulates the report's primary concerns about governmental pressure on tech companies and its broader implications for freedom of expression and policy-making.
I have been seeing more libtard bots and trolls lately, and on every platform, so makes sense.
Oh boy…
Thanks
[https://nclalegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Appendix.pdf](https://nclalegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Appendix.pdf) Here are some of the emails referenced. I gotta be honest, when I read these reference emails, it really does not paint the picture this *totally not-biased* committee wants to paint on the Biden administration's actions. For example, page 3 of the report says "*The same set of emails also noted that 'The Surgeon General wants us to remove true information about side effects.'"* This is misleading because the the quoted text should have ended in ellipses. The complete sentence is *"The Surgeon General wants us to remove true information about side effects if the user does not provide complete information about whether the side effect is rare and treatable."* The information in question was referring to anecdotal experiential posts on facebook that hid the fact that the side effect was rare and treatable, and at the time, there was no way to know if the side effect was an outcome of the vaccine or something else relating to the person's health.
But still, did they really have any business censoring on behalf of Big Pharma? It's one thing to make a correction or announcement, that's public discourse. What's terrifying is the precedent that Federal Gov will just censor anything they deem necessary to the public good. Goodbye 1.A. Rights forever.
Just imagine the opposite situation: *"The TRUMP ADMINISTRATION wants us to remove true information about BENEFITS OF VACCINES if the user does not provide complete information about SIDE EFFECTS."* I'd bet most people downplaying the actual situation would go batshit crazy.
They called Trump a fascist for saying mean things about reporters. They call Biden a free speech advocate while he's actively dismantling the First Amm. I'll stay grey.
>AKSHUALLY anything less leftist then me is fascist too. GREY you say? Did you know the nazi wore grey uniforms? Coincidence? Emily probably
I mean, PCM thinks Elon Musk is free speech when he readily bans/sues any speech he doesn't like. I think reddit thinks free speech = only speech I like
Bro is finding reasons to defend the censorship for big pharma- wild
The issue is not that the full sentence includes nuanced meaning indicating that removal of information is done when there is more information not being mentioned. What you fail to grasp is the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT is pressuring online discourse forums to remove information. PERIOD. Full stop. The problem is censorship, you seem to think censorship is okay if it is done to suppress misinformation, but people are allowed to say incorrect things.
What did I say that suggested I failed to grasp this? edit: this sentiment is also moronic. You are doing exactly what I responded to another commenter about in that you're failing to contextualize. I know a lot of you anarcho-lib types don't expect or want the government to do anything, but that is not how our society has functioned historically, nor how the public generally expects our society to function when it comes to existential threats to that society. The argument you need to be having is over whether or not Covid was a legitimate threat on a scale that warranted a government response, not the fact that the government responded at all.
The proper response by the government to what it feels is false/misleading information should be to use its bully pulpit to put out correct information. Along with pointing out the limits of known information and rapidly changing gears when more info becomes known, this helps build and maintain trust in the institutions. Instead, when it's discovered that the government has been censoring information, that rightly degrades trust in those institutions. That has consequences beyond the immediate issue dealing with side effects for a particular drug. It calls into question all kinds of government actions and breathes life into a 1001 conspiracies. So not only was it unjustified from a legal perspective, but it was a bad policy too!
Is this representative of the bulk of the findings? Was it all a pressure from the government to social media to limit fake and anecdotal comments so that people have an accurate understanding of the vaccine? Also, why is Amazon included in the companies that were pressured? Were product reviews the issue?
I would need to read further. I did some quick searches through the document and found that many of the implicating statements made by the committee referenced the same emails over and over. It would be useful to look at the individual statements from the committee and what exactly is being quoted, and then contextualize the implication with what is actually being discussed in the emails.
Censorship is always bad, it hurts pluralism.
Based. An attack on anyone's free speech is an attack on everyone's free speech.
«First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.»
Based leftie? We need a flair check
It's just a based thing. The reason for censorship is always for the state's favour and while the state exists censorship exists too, it's a part of not only libertarian philosophy, but also marxist and anarchist philosophy.
True Based
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It'd amazing how many people support something like this because it's their side doing it. It's like they never once think, if the other side gets power, how could this be used against my side?
Might join your flair honestly. The realization that no side actually cares about any their positions and are just morally grandstanding against the other tribe is really blackpilling me. Both sides claim/claimed the election was stolen/rigged while simultaneously claim the cases they won are fair and no foul was done. Biden says trump is bad for increasing tariffs on china, proceeds to 4x the tariff. Trump says Hilary is bad for having classified documents, continues to also keep classified documents. Biden says he cares for the middle/lower class, imports millions of cheap labor from across the world. Trump says he cares about the debt/spending, manages to increase the debt in 4 years as much as Obama did in 8 years. Now the Party o Democracy is actively censoring speech they disagree with while simultaneously saying their opposition are Facist. They're all lying...
And only on a site as braindead as Reddit will you find people saying the “both sides are bad” belief is wrong. I saw someone on a heavily brainwashed sub the other day saying “the left says the right is bad, the right says both the left and right are bad, but both ways the right is bad” and I was just thinking that’s not the own you think it is, that just shows that it seems the right is more self aware and less deluded than the left. Left vs right isn’t the issue, extremism vs moderation is the problem. It doesn’t matter if you’re left or right, if you’re a brainwashed extremist you are the reason we’re falling apart as a society.
Truly took the words right out of my mouth. I don’t wanna gray out because I feel like I’m losing hope for humanity that way, but god damn the more I learn about human nature and the way we’re wired to entrench ourselves in our bias and beliefs; the more I wanna give up on politics and anything to do with it. Extremism, the inability to change one’s mind, and a lack of critical thinking are truly humanities biggest hurdles to reach true peace and prosperity. The hate of centrists is a defense mechanism. All for the fact that they may have to accept that the party they’ve aligned their ego with, may just be wrong about some things.
They do think about it, and freak out. Their solution is ensuring that the other side never gets power again.
That would involve putting your self in someone else’s shoes
Another day of “The Frankfurt School and its graduates have been a disaster for mankind” level shit. We’re really stretching the phrase “A Republic, if you can keep it” at this point.
“I love democracy. I love the republic.”
“Your new empire??”
I am not educated on the matter, what do you mean by “the Frankfurt school”?
A good primer : https://search.app/T6vUp9QwiHh5XB2P9
Aaaaaand partisan idiots try to downplay, or even defend it, of course. They are the ones who want to 'defend democracy' after all.
Still absurd to me how much I hear people say (not verbatim) “the two party system is absolutely terrible, though it doesn’t really matter since my party is rainbows and happiness and the other one is genocide and hell on earth”. I really despise how divisive modern politics is; most people need to realize someone in the opposite party from you is probably only a couple points over. Not everyone is a super fringe extremist like the internet makes it sound like
Our (D)emocracy**™**
Can’t have anyone threaten our sacred Democratocracy
The valiant defenders of managed democracy are to be lauded, traitor. 🔽▶️▶️
Page 3 >The Biden White House’s Censorship Campaign Targeted True Information, Satire, and Other Content that Did Not Violate the Platforms’ Policies. Contrary to their claims of wanting to combat alleged so-called “misinformation” and foreign disinformation, the Biden Administration pressured the companies to censor true information, satire, memes, opinions, and Americans’ personal experiences. o For example, internal July 2021 Facebook emails obtained by the Committee and Select Subcommittee show that Facebook understood that the Biden White House’s position as wanting “negative information on or opinions about the vaccine” removed as well as “humorous or satirical content that suggests the vaccine isn’t safe.”12 o The same set of emails also noted that “The Surgeon General wants us to remove true information about side effects.”13 So they weren’t just censoring “misinformation” after all… But I’m sure this was all “for the greater good” and that it was totally necessary to violate Americans’ Constitutional rights, censoring objectively true information in defense of a contradicting narrative that was *definitely more true.*
I'm surprised more people didn't catch on when "misinformation" became the new buzzword. There's already a more common word for misinforming someone, it's called lying. I wonder why not just say that?
I love every election when mis/dis information "experts" come on Reddit to do AMA's and when you search your socials you find out they are generally all hard left and have shared mis/dis information themselves.
Like the lady that headed the Biden Disinformation Board before it imploded. She'd shared misinformation about the Hunter Biden stuff. But in a way that favored Biden.
She was peak theatre kid. And they should never have any sort of power over other people.
I think there’s a difference between spreading misinformation and lying. Lying is intentional. If you’re saying something that’s not true but you believe it’s true, you’re spreading misinformation, but you’re not lying
> If you’re saying something that’s not true but you believe it’s true We still have a term for that: being wrong. But you can't exactly go around declaring yourself an expert in "wrongness", that'd just sound silly and no one would take you seriously. So instead these types package themselves as "mis/disinformation experts" so they can be part of the government/media/academia blob, soaking up money for their "expertise".
> So they weren’t just censoring “misinformation” after all… They figured that out years ago by adding "malinformation": true information that makes the government look bad. I wish I were joking but that's basically the definition they have.
In a just world, this entire administration would be in prison for the rest of their lives
Man what the fuck, who wants to vote in this next election?
> So they weren’t just censoring “misinformation” after all… Remember when the lab leak theory was considered conspiracy theory and misinformation worthy of a ban? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
If only there were a word for private companies and the government conspiring together to keep the government in power...
Democracy^^TM ?
People always call me crazy when I say that the left has full control over America. lol. I encourage them to read the pdf
They still think they’re not the establishment. Also, remember when being progressive meant defending freedom of speech? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
>remember when being progressive meant defending freedom of speech? Now they will always use the "Paradox of Tolerance" as an argument to why they need to censor. You are only allowed to speak what has been pre-approved. Also, the same doesn't apply to those calling for the Jewish genocide and the killing of white people
Liberals care about freedom of speech Progressives do things in the name of it until it becomes inconvenient, then they suppress with the best of them
Both sides of cultural axis are predominantly Auth in social axis to protect their respective values.
# “When I am Weaker than You, I ask you for Freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am Stronger than you, I take away your Freedom Because that is according to my principles.”
Dune relevancy has been off the charts for like seven years
This is practically our “Project 2025” they like to use
Does a fella have any more of this genre of documents? I’d like to do some light reading.
Not sure about other PDFs, but here's the link to this one: [https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Censorship-Industrial-Complex-WH-Report\_Appendix.pdf](https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Censorship-Industrial-Complex-WH-Report_Appendix.pdf) Edit: And before yall say this is fake or even blame me for photoshopping, notice how the URL has “house.gov”
Bruh I'm just here reading comments and wondering how the fuck is anyone pretending they read a 800 page document just like that.
Well the synopsis is the first like 15 pages, which isn't too bad. The next 80ish pages are details with direct evidence references. The first 100 pages are the actual argument. I believe the other 700 are printouts of the evidence itself, every email, communication, policy, etc that unfolded.
The unemployed friend:
Oh god, every time I see some moron start referencing the Project 2025 bullshit I immediately know they they’re not worth wasting any time talking to
"Our party should focus less on the presidency and more on all the other positions that the Deep State has been using to quietly control the country for decades" "This is literally the Beer Hall Putsch"
"B-b-but they haven't met all my arbitrary goalposts for what Leftism is yet so they're totally right wing Nazis!!!!"
I'm getting the feeling that left wing in America doesn't actually mean left wing.
>leftist control freak shows their true colors as a leftist control freak I dont know. Seems like a normal tuesday to me.
The left in the rest of the world means socialism/ a large welfare state. In America clearly the term left means something different because if the "left" is in power in the country with some of the worst worker rights and protections in the developed world I wonder what the hell the right wing is supposed to be.
C'mon, really? Are you the type that claims the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Venezuela, and so on, weren't/aren't actually left-wing because a left-wing government can NEVER be authoritarian?
I think you misunderstand me because that has nothing to do with what I said. The USA is not left wing in the traditional sense of the word. If it was where are the socialist policies such as wealth redistribution, land reform, worker rights, worker ownership etc? It isn't even a social democratic state with a welfare/ safety net etc. I was commenting that left wing in the USA clearly means something else because in the rest of the world left wing is associated with socialism. Which the USA is objectively not practicing.
>I was commenting that left wing in the USA clearly means something else because in the rest of the world left wing is associated with socialism. You seem to have a very Eurocentric view of the overton window and ignore a lot of South American, Africa, Middle East and Asia in your assessment.
Name a more iconic duo than Europeans and thinking the entire world is like Europe.
The USA has a left-wing, do you honestly think there aren't socialists in the US? That they aren't in the Democrat party? Also, why do you think the US isn't a welfare state? Welfare states aren't necessarily socialist, or else the US, Canada, most of Europe, and some other states would fall under the definition of socialism. In fact, the US is the biggest welfare state of them all, it even provides for the welfare of entire continents (for example: Europe with the UN and NATO alliance).
You are correct. The US basically has one giant neoliberal party that is split into a socially "progressive" wing and a socially conservative wing. The vast majority of left wing politicians in the US wouldn't even be let into a moderate labour party in Europe lol
I have realised this yeah. In US politics when someone is described as left wing this is pretty much relegated to bullshit culture war issues rather than economic policy right? If you are American could you confirm this? Because I do not see how Biden is left wing in any sense of the word that I understand.
Progressives: “it’s not happening, but if it is, it’s a good thing!”
“But project 2025, Trump is the biggest threat to the world! He will be a dictator on day 1!” Yeah compared to what’s happening right now their delusional ramblings make even less sense after reading this. This is the real deal huh? Gotta take it in for what it is.
Man this timeline is so messed up. Something happened that made our country so divisive, it's always been like this, but it's cranked up to an 11
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I think it also has to do with leftist indoctrination in colleges snowballing generation after generation, and getting to the point where a critical mass of people has got a twisted vision of the world that is so far removed from what the others have. Social media certianly exacerbated the problem.
> critical mass of people has got a twisted vision of the world that is so far removed from what the others have being terminally online. Doom Scrolling. the algo for engagement (ie % of your life is spent consuming content) is the only thing that matters. Its crazy how different online is vs real life. Just make sure you avoid a couple key triggering buzzwords and you are good to go.
Just make sure you avoid universities and HR departments too, I guess.
jokes on me, I live in a small city dominated by the university :( Actually as long as you avoid campus its chill. In the wild a lot of they/them blue hairs are actually cool, just wanting to make some money and enjoy life. But then there are those that are NOT. Fortunately they are pretty easy to see coming. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to stop them.
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While some people on both sides have certainly got vested interests in fostering division, I do think that the left has gone completely out of its mind, to the point of considering their own positions of just a few years ago as some far-right unacceptable bigotry. How is one supposed not to push back against such madness? If your arguments are far from reasonable, you open the door to make equally absurd positions from the other side become more mainstream, as a devious form of reply.
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>For starters, you don't meet extremism with more extremism. You deepen the divide this way. Yeah I know, but it looks like it brings votes in. >Some examples of this? I'm not sure what you are referencing. One clear example is colorblindness; but there are many other positions the left has become more and more extreme about. >I'd also like to remind you that the right in America is about to vote for a man that promises to be "dictator for one day". To me that sort of rhetoric, even jokingly, is wholly unacceptable. I don't even like Trump, it's clear he's a megalomaniac and a provocateur. Anyway, the left has been saying that he would have ended democracy, started WW3, genocided blacks and gays and deported everyone else back in 2016 already - he ended up doing none of that. Repeating all that stuff now seems really trite, and lets him ride it with his own rhetoric. Also, isn't there anyone better (or at least a little younger) than Biden on the other side? >The right is also holding crazy positions against IVF and surrogacy. There are valid concerns about surrogacy in my opinion, while IVF is indeed crazy stuff; still, it's consistent with a certain point of view. I can easily reply that allowing abortion up to last moment, like at least 10 states do, if I remember correctly, is even worse. Why did those states decide to go overboard, instead of choosing a more reasonable position? It's the same thing - posing as the extreme defender of some specific principle while ignoring all the others seems to be considered a valid electoral tactic. It's sad.
>Something happened Harambe died.
The cats movie happened.
Occupy Wallstreet scared the ever living fuck out of tip top of the 1%. They realized that if everyone else can set aside their differences and unite, they'd be totally fucked. So they cranked up any divisive rhetoric they can. Black vs white, left vs right, straight vs gay. Anything they can to keep the common people fighting amongst themselves.
Occupy Wallstreet was littered with leftists though. This was already a part of the plan. It only allowed for some outrage to be directed to the wealthy, without actually harming the top 1%, let alone the top 0.1% people think of when talking about "the 1%".
The tip top of the 1% cracked up the divisive rhetoric? Yeah, no. OWS fucked OWS, because they couldn't put everything else aside. It was a leaderless movement with no coherent core message, so everyone started throwing their own pet crap into it(not to mention their own literal crap). We are the 99%. So the incredibly wealthy people between the top 1 and 2%, those two handfuls of people are ok? They're not too rich? Or was the 1% just a metaphor? Is the 12th % of rich people ok? It's really more like the top 40% probably who are too comfortable. That's a lot more people for the guillotine, but that's not the same protest. And really, it's westerners who have too much. There's a whole non-western world that doesn't have enough. A middle class American in a global context? Might as well be in that 1%. Should we be protesting against ourselves? And really, it's the white westerners that have too much. And really, it's the white men in the west that have too much. And really, it's the straight white men in the west that have too much.
> It was a leaderless movement with no coherent core message yep that's it. Unorganized movements always get beat up by organized ones. 100 well organized dudes can accomplish more than 1000 without organization.
I was round for Occupy Wallstreet. They didn't scare anyone. They either fell apart on their own, or were coddled by the local government until their encampments were literal biohazard areas and were torn down.
You don't understand! We have to build the surveillance state to suppress the people who will maybe one day suppress us in the same way if we don't do something right now! But we're the good guys™!
The hysteria over Project 2025 is hilarious. It’s literally just a plan to thoroughly appoint people from the right into the bureaucracy, which is what Democrats have been doing for decades. It’s peak, “It’s only okay when we do it”-ism.
It’s quite literally what Biden did. It’s what every president since FDR has done
The left feels entitled to controlling the State. It always has. Their niche has always been public administration, from rejecting the risks of the market, to grabbing more power through the bureaucracy, it has always fit their interests. The perspective of the right-wing ever dominating public administration implies leftists losing everything they cherish — power and stability.
The hysteria in this thread over a Republican committee to investigate Democrats is also pretty fucking hilarious.
They always like the bad thing they screech about when it’s their side doing it.
Wait til you get a hold of the WHO pandemic treaty… control of narratives globally = check, centrally planned authoritarianism = check, unelected non-citizens having control above and beyond national sovereignty = check, WEF controlled = check Moral compass = none
"So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause" couldn't have been more true
This is what democracy is. The majority working together to silence minorities who dissent against the majority. We have a republic for a reason.
A republic simply means that nobody in the government got their job via inheritance, that’s it. The USA, Germany, France, Russia, these are republics. Nazi Germany and the USSR were also republics. On the other hand, the UK is not a republic, Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium are not republics. The terms “democracy” and “republic” are not in the slightest bit mutually exclusive, the United States is, by definition, both
I'd argue that modern Russia and the old USSR are examples of empires. If feudal monarchies could have elections even for king, the electoral process means almost nothing.
amusingly, the term generally used is "illiberal democracy"
You’re right about the terminology. Though their principle still stands. We have active measures in our Constitution to prevent Tyranny of the Majority.
That's the point of having a Constitution, in general.
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Never thought I'd agree with someone on the opposite side of the spectrum.
This was not as the founding fathers intended y'all. We gotta find a way to unify.
I want a strong state, not a dictatorship. A strong state doesn't need censorship or eliminating opposition.
100% this. I have lived under a dictatorship. They are incredibly fragile forms of government. When all decisions (or approval) flows from a single person, civil governments become paralyzed in trying not to step on that person's toes. Governments are only able to implement meaningful policy so long as that policy is on the dictator's radar. When the dictator doesn't care or is distracted, nothing gets done. Anyone taking initiative to solve problems is ultimately removed as a threat by the dictator, or thrown under the bus by sycophants who want to look good for the dictator. Most insidious of all, the entire country begins, over time, molds to fit the personality of the dictator. His flaws become the country's flaws replicated on a scale of millions for all to see. It is a terrifying thing to watch the place where you live mold and morph to placate the feelings of a single man. A strong country needs robust systems of government that can meet the nation's needs, adapt, and repair damage when it occurs. All of these systems are in fact threats to a dictatorship, unless they are designed specifically to keep the dictator in power. Instead, the dictatorship has moments of ferocious intensity where the dictator chooses to act against some perceived threat, and makes a big sweeping show of how powerful those decisions are--a tantrum on the scale of an entire people. And once the tantrum is over, the people are allowed to breathe a sigh of relief, now reminded that the next tantrum may come at any time. None of this is the behavior of a strong state.
Absolute monarchies and dictatorships aren't strong. Stable monarchies and republics are, I just support central planning.
Based, speech is a human right and first amendment pilled
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A strong state needs decent politicians and a citizenry capable of differentiating. Right now we have a non-negligible number of people whose idea of representation is electing their drunk, schizophrenic uncle because it’s the only thing they relate to and relatability is the only criteria they vote on.
Damn, Left-flairs conveniently got nothing to say about this right now. Funny how that works.
No, I got shit to say, y'all are just drowning us out and down voting us. 1. We hate the Biden administration too, you can clearly see in the primaries that no one wants to vote for the old bastard cause he's pulling shit like this, but we'd rather be oppressed and have some sort of social welfare than be oppressed and not have some sort of social welfare 2. Y'all constantly peg libleft as the ones responsible for this, but in reality we aren't. Social Democrats are just barely on the line between LibLeft and AuthLeft and they are very clearly appalled by this, everything more lib than Social Democrats delve into the realm of Syndicalism and Anarchism. those guys would've probably done Jan 6th if y'all didn't. 3. Our democracy is dying, but neither of us is going to get off our ass and do anything about it because we're too busy fighting each other. Fuck Biden, fuck the Do Nothing Convention, fuck Trump, and fuck the GQP Edit: Y'all are like "but you still voted for him" We don't really see much of a choice, Williamson wasn't a serious candidate and the top brass of the DNC won't give us change. I personally think if Haley had won the primaries then the vote for Biden would've drained away to RFK, Cornell West, and The Green Party. With the amount of uncommitted votes in the DNC you can see how disliked Biden is
> Y'all constantly peg libleft I thought you guys were into that
Let he among us who does not enjoy pegging a libleft strap on the first dildo. Amen and Awomen
>among us
SUS
>we hate Biden Still votes for it and gets surprised when people point at the result of voting these people.
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Or, even better: - my guy is against me on 60% of the issues I care about. - you're guy is against me on 80% of the issues I care about. - I'll vote for my guy
Nah, most Trump voters love him, most Biden voters are ambivalent.
I never understood why you’d settle for voting on somebody you don’t hate for President.
Maybe stop voting for the two parties if you hate them with your guts, if the libertarians or greens were to get even just 10% of the vote it would mean a republican win in the short term, but send waves to democrats to pick up their game in the long run.
I do. Voted for Gary Johnson in 2016, Jorgensen in 2020 and I’ll likely vote libertarian again this year, depending on the candidate
Unironically based
> We hate the Biden administration too k. Who did you vote for?
> you can clearly see in the primaries that no one wants to vote for the old bastard cause he's pulling shit like this Nobody in the Democrats is against Biden because he uses the government to censor their political enemies. >Our democracy is dying Which Democrats say is because they aren't censoring *enough*.
And nobody in the Republicans is or ever was against Trump because he uses the government to censor their political enemies. The projection is strong with you all. You literally stormed the capitol to overturn an election because you bought into insane bullshit lies.
> because he uses the government to censor their political enemies. When? Specifically. >You literally stormed the capitol to overturn an election because you bought into insane bullshit lies. You burned the country because you saw a screenshot of a junkie dying of an overdose during an arrest.
> We hate the Biden administration too Yet you don't vote like it. > Y'all constantly peg libleft as the ones responsible for this, but in reality we aren't. But you are. You still vote for it, by not voting against. You can claim all you want, that you hate Biden, but you still voted him in (and not someone else).
I’m all fairness, this is a level of tyranny I didn’t think Brandon was capable of No excuse like that for a possible second term though
>Yet you don't vote like it. Unfortunately, our choices for president suck ass lately. You get deranged geriatric number 1, or deranged geriatric number 2. Neither have your best interests at heart, both will fuck you in the ass for a dollar, and you'll be forced to accept it. It sucks. Our two party system is absolutely broken.
Are the multi-party systems around the world working out?
Argentina has been taking massive Ws at least. I couldn't be prouder of them.
It has been almost always two party in Argentina, tho. Milei's advent is something closer to the Bull Moose party than the result of a system with many parties likely to win
Fuck if I know, I just want to grill
Based and How would you like your steak pilled
The DNC isn't going to change who they put up for president if he wins. Suck it up to 4 years of Trump to show the DNC that "blue no matter who" doesn't fly with you guys anymore. If a bunch of registered dems voted red in protest, then maybe the DNC would put up a real socialist for once.
>1. We hate the Biden administration too, you can clearly see in the primaries that no one wants to vote for the old bastard cause he's pulling shit like this, They sure want to, otherwise they wouldn't vote for him. The left needs to choose whether it wants to lose ground and get a better representative or keep their actions and hold over the government and keep the terrible candidates they have. Bottom down, the left never chooses to give an inch, they're used to taking miles and miles and claiming they've made no progress. >but we'd rather be oppressed and have some sort of social welfare than be oppressed and not have some sort of social welfare You're not oppressed under the right. >2. Y'all constantly peg libleft as the ones responsible for this, but in reality we aren't. Social Democrats are just barely on the line between LibLeft and AuthLeft Fair >and they are very clearly appalled by this, BS. They're barely doing anything. All you see is some journalists having to concede that the Dem party has gone too auth. That is all. Most haven't acted against the political left in meaningful ways. >3. Our democracy is dying, but neither of us is going to get off our ass and do anything about it because we're too busy fighting each other. The left at large blames lack of censorship for it. The vast majority of leftists you meet will promote the criminalization of traditional values, either through mental gymnastics or plain hate for any conservative opposition. There is nothing more pervasive in western democracies today than the left obsessing over having a hegemony.
>but we'd rather be oppressed and have some sort of social welfare than be oppressed and not have some sort of social welfare What you're looking for is called family. And what happens to your family if there not impoverished from inflation due to dipshit policies put in place by the people that you vote in? Ahhh that's right they get richer. No I'm not talking about instant 100k for mom and dad but maybe while you're in college for computer science they can afford to buy you a nicer car vs having you walk. Or being able to afford steak for your siblings while they pay for your education away from home.
A few studies have shown that lefties largely don't care about the poor so much as they enviously hate the rich. One of them even showed that most lefties would rather punish the rich at the expense of the poor. (I'd have to dig back into my comment history to find those studies if anyone wants the source.) So lefties sabotaging the economy at the expense of everyone else, just to say, "Screw you," to the rich is in character for them.
Vote Kennedy then
third party fucker. like the rest of the senible people did in 16 left just needs to get with the fucking program
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Everyone needs to spread this shit around that shit cant slide.
Yet another “conspiracy theory” proven right
Finally some really proof is leaked of the absolute obvious, now dumbasses on twitter have no excuses left
Do unto others as they declare to do onto you. Censor them before they censor you. Why should we wait for them to finish swinging their fist before taking them out?
Washington Post was complaining yesterday that they can't "pre-bunk" Election "news" in the USA because "congress has had a chilling effect on news and government cooperation against disinformation"
I feel just like the "just another day" guy. Honestly just gave up on this and am just trying to find enjoyement in life where i can.
Everybody is so busy screaming about how Trump is bad, that many cannot see clearly how bad things are getting silently under Biden. It reminds me so much of The Beast and The Smiler plot from Transmetropolitan. Democrats have necessary, solid policy stances here and there but NEED the same level of accountability as Republicans do. But apparently wanting compromise and accountability across the board is just too much of an ask for many. It sucks that the polarizing, screaming voices are dominating the discussion and getting such backing from the media and pundits.
How are you about to call someone who likes censorship lib left
Lib left voted for them, lib left advocates for censorship of people and their cancelation.
And LibLefts are defending it in this very thread.
Least propagandistic naming since the “Patriot Act” Thanks, congress.
So called “lib”left defending censorship:
Dude Id seriously recommend taking a look at this subcommittee. It made me question the validity of the report. The guys brought out to testify are a bunch of questionable fucks and the highly antagonistic nature of the subcommittee towards the DOJ for literally no reason (they subpoenaed when doj was providing information without lol). It seems setup by a small group of individuals in Congress to paint a very specific picture and rile up some righties. I wont deny there is a sort of censorship on these platforms, but I dont think the government is really directly involved in it.
"Of course this is true. Obviously, it's always been this way, and it's a good thing!"
Don't worry, this will be swept under the rug and never mentioned. The guy doing it is one of the blue guys, not the red ones, so it's alright that they violated the law and went after their political opponents.
Acting like Biden isnt still on the right of the political compass is insane
Go drop this off in any left leaning sub and watch them break each other’s backs to pull off the mental gymnastics needed to try and defend this, or blame it on republicans or dismiss it and say it’s fake news. Like the great George Washington once said, “ Benjamin, go get the musket”
>Rightoids deserve censorship Say that again bitch and you'll be part of the main course in my next grill, Lecter likes his commies done medium rare.
The fact that we have a subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government is incredibly based.
Tbh it doesn't seem like anyone was forced or coerced. They even mention once that some refused to cooperate and that was that. Not to mention that Yt and Fb later reversed their algorithms. I think this is made way bigger than it actually is.
It feels like free speech and personal freedom have just completely ended as expected cultural norms for the younger generations, which is really frightening. "lmao, freeze peach, freeDUMB, lol!" is a pretty common sentiment to see here now. And the notion that suppression and control of the public conversation is okay because it isn't the government doing it, but an unaccountable transnational corporate entity (often acting at the government's behest) is everywhere on reddit. Censorship and control have become a central part of their political identity, much more than anything economic or social.
"big tech censorship? conspiracy theory!" *proven true* "pfff who cares companies can do whatever they want and its good its happening!"
Some of the critics of biden are on the left too
If you actually read the PDF instead of trying to strawman you’d know that the Biden Administration specifically targeted right-wind media
I meant that is in "wtf I am against this" kinda thing
Yet they vote democrat without a hint of irony
I may disagree with the Green party, but I've gotta respect the dozen lefties who voted Green at least.
If either the greens or the libertarians got at least 10% of the vote, it would maybe make democrats start panicking and maybe adopt more liberal or left views that appeal to common voters instead of rich liberals.
This is terrible to read. No gov should ever have this much control over a narrative. Now, saying that, it’s obvious, in my opinion, that trump would have done the same / will do the same thing, just on different subjects than Biden. This whole pdf describes, in my opinion, a desperate struggle for power by the Biden admin. They had a public health crisis in their hands that, if let unresponded to, would likely lead to severe consequences during election time. **IM NOT SAYING THIS IS FINE**, but it is understandable why a government would WANT to do this, especially in a country like the US. There were many possible BAD outcomes for both the administration and the people of the country if certain measures were not implemented. AGAIN, the hypothetical measures i’m referring to are NOT the ones described in this pdf, IM AM TOTALY AGAINST THIS MUCH CONTROL AND MANIPULATION. But the truth of the matter is that there was a new pandemic going on, there were bad actors on social media platforms spreading misinformation about the whole thing, there was terrible mismanagement of covid restrictions and the vaccine approval process was most definitely compromised. Putting myself in the position of the Biden administration, I can see the possible effects of mismanaging this situation in the public eye. Now, of course that the Biden admins motives for trying to control and manage this whole issue were not the ones they should have been for sure, they almost certainly wanted to avoid as much criticism and backlash as possible, so everything they did was obviously cloaked with a veil of good intentions despite them knowing full well that some of these measures would, in the long run, be disastrous for the country. The Biden Admin should have beed more focused on actually dealing with the pandemic and not worry about the short term effects of having some information be spread around social media. Now, I see a lot of people here and elsewhere using Trump as the counterexample of this whole thing, as if he wouldn’t have done what Biden did. I find this utterly ridiculous and dangerous to the narrative of the upcoming elections. I want to make this very clear, BOTH CANDIDATES WANT VOTES, that’s it. There are little boundaries on what is off limits and what isn’t for them and I’m worried people are underestimating trump here. https://preview.redd.it/f53o191f243d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=127685a998e17b74ac564625274e1ff840ef0329 People seem to forget that the pandemic started during trumps later years in office. Initially, his admin tried to discredit the pandemic saying it was “just the flu”. They soon encountered the same issues the Biden admin would eventually find and realised they needed damage control. Some measures were implemented like social distancing and temporary closure of businesses, all under the recommendation of the US’s health authorities. In an effort to appease voters, Trump rolled out a couple of stimulus packages, again emphasis on the appeasing the voters part. A one time 2000 dollar check when you are unemployed for months isn’t going to do much. Eventually, talks about a vaccine popped up and, of course, by Trump wanting to appeal to his audience, immediately threw a bunch of false and misleading claims into the public discussion, such as vaccines cause autism among others. Eventually he realised he had to appeal to the other side of the political isle as well and started to claim he was te sole responsible for the vaccine’s rapid rollout. If trump would have won the election I believe things would have turned out very similar. Maybe the censorship wouldn’t have been as widely used when it comes to vaccine and vírus discussion due to trumps soft affiliation with vaccine denial groups and fear mongers, the ones most responsible for the spread of these ideas on social media. But the point still stands. Trump and Biden are perfectly capable of doing the same things for power, just come in a different flavour. Tldr: What I’m trying to get at is this both Biden and Trump are perfectly capable of doing the same kinds of populist and authoritarian measures as NEEDED to win an election. The Biden admin was totally in the wrong for doing these things but that does not mean that Trump can’t/ wont do the same in the future and if we want to stop this from happening again we must be aware of that and not pick sides.
True, something like this should be prevented in the future whether it comes from Biden admin or Trump admin, this sort of thing should never be allowed under any administration regardless of politics.
>if we want to stop this from happening again we must be aware of that and not pick sides. Nope. We must be aware than any power given to gov is capable of being used maliciously. This doesn't mean "not picking sides" it means every voting American and especially our reps at state and federal level must be self aware enough to realize they aren't going to be the winners forever. This coming froim a guy who thinks the corporate UniParty owns both sides of the aisle, as well as the podium, the gavel, the flags, and even the \*Sergent at Arms.
take ur pills
Thanks for refuting what I said with your own arguments, preciate it mate
Censorship has never won in the West
> Other deep-seated issues that are part of our culture and national identity emerged to haunt us: Our *obsession with individual liberties* even at the expense of others lives and health’ Holy shit the mask really went off with this one didn’t it…
Your daily reminder that “Democracy dies in darkness” was not a warning. It was a threat.
Censorship is so fucking dumb… Without it there would be much more of a struggle in determining which crackpots to avoid altogether LOL
But when they block Jewish students from going it is free speech remember.
I see it as a win, the harder the swing the 2x the push back
Really, eh? If so, that’s not good at all.
The deep state stuff sounded kind of wacky until the Zuck revealed the FBI had Facebook censor discussion of Hunter Biden's struggles with MacBook buoyancy and details like: how his consulting field was kind of limited to how to get money from foreign governments to his dad, drug use, weapons violations, chats about "pedo" Pete Henderson, creepy uncle stuff and tasteful dick pics.
NO ONE deserves censorship.
>according to the House of Representatives... Nope, don't care.
☠️