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founding

The number one lesson of history, the omnipresent lesson is - governments oppress their people. This informed the American experiment, this is America‘s gift to the world, remember - “of” “for”and “by” the people.

I blame the left for this. Guns and God conservatives have not gone this way. The left has gone nuts, they don’t believe history applies to them, they believe they are in possession of superior knowledge and are morally correct so trifling matters such as freedom of speech and due process can be suspended in the name of what is right.

Any proper lefty should have been howling when Alex Jones and Trump were de-platformed.

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Psaki definitely blew up the whole, "it's a private company, build your own platform" argument.

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So, I guess these censorship types also get to define what constitutes “Hate” speech as well? It’s a sad day in America.

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The New York Times and WaPo appear to think this is fine.

How has the news become so corrupted?

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I am not surprised that they are (and have been?) doing this. I am surprised that they decided to publicize this during a White House press briefing. They went so far as to release policy guidance for platforms. They must be really confident about their polling numbers on this issue. I thought that this was something that would be confined to authoritarian regimes like Canada or New Zealand.

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The misinformation on Hunter Biden's laptop must be extremely dangerous, it was banned from the internet instantly. Same with democratically elected Presidents who say the wrong things. We're already in a post free speech era. It will be very hard to reverse. Those in power will use speech controls to become more powerful and then use their powers to censor even more. Every tyranny starts that way.

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"I was a loyal Soviet citizen until age 20. What it meant to be a loyal citizen is to say what you are supposed to say, to read what you are permitted to read, to vote the way you are told to vote and, at the same time, to know that all this is a lie"

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/activi

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Michael, this unbelievably spot on. I was dumbfounded (well, not really coming from her, but you get my point) when I heard Psaki's comments last week. The Gov "helping" FB decide is unbelievably scary and smells of Marxism as much if not more than any comments made by the current administration. History has shown over and over again that "misinformation" and "propaganda" in the wrong hands can be melded together for nefarious purposes. Replace nefarious with political, depending on which sounds worse.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think some 20-something FB employees should decide what to censor either, but having the Gov "help" is clearly worse.

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There’s no question Fauci is the single biggest disseminated of covid disinformation. No one else comes close. Proof comes from his own mouth, repeatedly admitting lies while being applauded for it. I’d be in favor of silencing Fauci because of his malicious hidden agenda.

The Guardian is another disinformation spreader that needs silencing. Again, it needs silencing because of its undisclosed commercial and non commercial conflicts of interest. It lyingly reported this week that reports of ivermectin’s efficacy are based on fraud. WHO data analyst Tess Lawry showed live on air on Bret Weinstein’s podcast the effect of removing the single questionable study from her meta analysis. Surprise, the overall weight of evidence still shows Ivermectin is effective.

This is fast on the heels of yet another Russiagate fraud perpetrated by the Guardian just this week, one so egregiously fraudulent even its #resostance fellow travelers often refused to pick up. If we’re going to silence people for mis- or disinformation, the Guardian should definitely be closed down.

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First they came for Alex Jones and Milo. Then they went for Tulsi Gabbard by Google stopping her AdSense account. Next came the President. Do you think us poor deplorables stand a chance?

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Right now, it’s information they seek to control, but through it, they seek to control YOU (for your own good and the betterment of mankind, of course)…

Great article, Michael, as always..

Keep it up…

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That was great and very informative -- THANK YOU. There are also bipartisan taboo themes though.

Much reported, including Ed Snowden "Topic of this year – Pegasus, etc.", is disclosure of continuous over time surveillance ability of all smart-phones of all conversations and pin-point location-accuracy even when phone is turned off.

Therefore, certainly many governments (certainly of Israel and the US) know EXACTLY and for ALL Epstein's associates and "guests" -- who, when, where, how long, and why they were with pedophile Epstein !! Yet we still don't know, after all this time, for example, even what Epstein's multiple passports show.

As courageous Eric Weinstein stated -- Epstein was "a construct" - by one or more intelligence services. And – the buck for these spywares for authoritarian governments stops -- at Israel apartheid government.

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The white liberal progressive is a power hungry, short sighted jackass. They aren't stupid, yet when the wind blows the other way they scream and howl about "injustice". No wonder areas are breaking away that are openly unfriendly to this most unappealing sector of the human race.

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"Please don’t even try to argue that Psaki’s dictum is somehow going to be limited to “misinformation” surrounding vaccines . . . "

I 100% agree. I also got the vaccine (in my case the J&J). I'm 64 and would definitely recommend that older people get it because the risks are so much greater. But I wholeheartedly agree that available information should not be limited to the government approved party line. ALL vaccines involve some health risks. Even if the risks are generally rare, that doesn't mean they don't exist. The paternalist attitude, and bent towards propaganda, from the White House is dangerous. First, it assumes people are too stupid to figure out what information is reliable, and what is questionable. Second, anyone who relies on government to provide them with "the truth" is, ipso facto, an idiot. How many times during the Covid-19 pandemic has the CDC and NIH reversed course on "the truth"? Don't wear masks, wear a mask, wear two masks, etc. No way the virus came from the Chinese lab, maybe it did come from the lab. Dr. Fauci change his tune repeatedly.

I don't want to be protected by the government. I want to be protected FROM the government!

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This insane dictate by the government is also an opportunity to challenge the idea in court. What stranger evidence of a 1st Amendment violation is there than the Administration press secretary claiming, on video, that they are scouring SM for “misinformation” and then working directly with SM to have them banned? It’s a gift. I’m not shocked in the slightest bit by this action. Progressives are hell bent on some pretty radical action, and Biden’s seemingly pliable mental status is their opportunity. I could be wrong, obviously, but I find it hard to believe that the Biden of the Obama admin would think this is a wise and legally sound maneuver. He may have been a partisan democrat, and a demagogue, but he was usually politically wise. So, what’s shocks me right now is that I haven’t heard a peep about a lawsuit. Not a single peep. That’s more disturbing to me. They government handed us an opportunity to challenge massive state overreach, and the ACLU is silent - not so surprising - but not even one of the 12 individuals that was temporary or permanently switched off have opened a civil rights suit against the government.

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This is bad for Facebook & Twitter & YouTube.

It's good for Substack & Urbit.

To the extent that centralized social media usage declines as a result & censorship-resistant options become more popular, it's good for the American public too.

So I'm cautiously optimistic about this whole thing.

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