Democrats and Media Do Not Want to Weaken Facebook, Just Commandeer its Power to Censor
greenwald.substack.com
"Whistleblower" Frances Haugen is a vital media and political asset because she advances their quest for greater control over online political discourse.
Not surprisingly, this charade began with a focus on how social media is harming children, particularly young girls. That's the hook that everyone can get on board with. Censorship is good if it's for the sake of the CHILDREN. Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain.
Her treatment seems just a bit different from what I have come to expect from actual whistleblowers against the rich and powerful. It usually involves less fawning and more harassment and threats. Oh, could it possibly be, Mrs. Haugen is as fake as they come?
And this is why I no longer support the Democratic Party. The overreach and constitutional violations are staggering in efforts to stifle public debate, dissenting opinion, and free flow of information. She isn’t a whistleblower. She is just a whiner.
A free society can only exist with the informed consent of the governed. When a critical mass of the governed lack the capacity to offer informed consent a free society is impossible.
Censorship can backfire. The Streisand Effect is a real thing. If you tell people that they're not allowed to see something, they're going to want to see it even if they had no interest in seeing it before.
In China researchers have found that when people learn that something has been censored they are more likely to believe that it's true. The censorship actually serves to enhance the credibility of the thing that's being censored.
I think that a lot of vaccine hesitancy is being driven by censorship. People are far more skeptical of the vaccine than they otherwise might be because nobody is allowed to criticize it.
I agree with your assertion in the title. They do not want to hurt Facebook, just make sure the tow the party line. Facebook is one of the biggest enablers of these speech tyrants.
Even if they take my beloved Glenn Greenwald and my other independent media away from me, I'm never going to go back to mainstream media. I'll just watch cat videos instead.
I think she was only at Facebook for a year, yet she was able to figure out the whole structure enough to steal the right documents and leak them to the WSJ. It just seems like she went there for that specific purpose. Someone’s behind her I’m sure.
The fear Mr. Greenwald has for regulation leading to further dominance by Facebook and Google is well founded. Years ago I was walking through an industrial plant, with the company CEO and owner. The company was in an environmentally sensitive industry, with lots of "mom and pop" competitors. This guy's company was one of the largest in the industry. The topic of new environmental regulations came up in our conversation. The CEO at first bemoaned the cost, but went on to say it would drive out the mom and pop competitors. This would allow pricing (and profits) to improve. At that point he had an aw-shucks smile on his face. Beware of this Trojan horse.
This "Whistleblower" narrative is so obviously manufactured. This woman is just another person whining about the very obvious -- indeed, cliched -- problems with spending too much time social media. (They get social anxiety, tend to seek out sources of confirmation bias, blah, blah . . .) Acting like this is suddenly a new "scandal" for which FB must reform is Fake News 101.
This is a replay of the Summer of 2020, when the New York Times and its ilk started attacking FB relentlessly for anything and everything, from privacy breaches, to "hate speech," to alleged sexual harassment in its workplace, to hit pieces on Sheryl Sandberg. It could not have been more obvious that this was all to intimidate FB to get on board with the left's plans to manage information flow during the 2020 election. It worked. And now they are at it again.
Most pathetic of all are the mainstream Republicans, who just watch their constituents getting censored and screwed yet again, and can only mutter that it's all fine because it's just a "private company." What losers.
PLEASE stop referring to these people as “liberals” - they are not. Call them leftists or the totalitarian left because there are of course leftists, perhaps yourself among them, that oppose this.
It's a cynical ploy to establish Orwellian groupthink in America. It reminds me of that quote from Martin Niemoller, a Lutheran pastor in Berlin during the 1930s, explaining the rise of Nazis: "First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist. 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 to speak for me." They came for Alex Jones. He was an easy target given how toxic he was about the Sandy Hook massacre. But the real issue was freedom of speech. I still remember how the ACLU in the 1970s won in court the right of Nazis have a march in Skokie, Illinois where many residents were Holocaust survivors. Not one of these "liberals" spoke out for Jones. In fact, most cheered for this censorship. And it quickly went downhill from there. Of course, Europeans spoke out when corporate media deleted President Donald Trump from social media. A former President became almost a non-person. Now that's bizarre, because no matter what you may think of Trump, he is a former President. They want to erase history. They wish they could throw Trump down the memory hole into the incinerator like Winston Smith did with newspaper clippings and photographs of former apparatchiks for Big Brother at the Ministry of Truth in 1984. But Europeans remember the dark times when they lived under Nazi surveillance during their occupation in the Second World War; and even more so, East Germans who lived under Soviet Communism as a satellite state during the Stasi. They saw in virtual reality the handwriting on the internet wall. Of course, most Americans are historically illiterates. Even the ones who have prestigious diplomas from Ivy League colleges. They went to these colleges not to learn how to think, but what to think. Their diplomas were passports into the ranks of the ruling elites. They lust after power. Not the laborious and frustrating search for truth. Who wants to be like Sisyphus pushing that boulder up the mountainside every day? The cherished ideal where truth will win out in the marketplace of ideas has become a tattered and worn cliche for them. He who wins is out by any means necessary following the party line is, ipso facto, an anointed cleric and guardian of establishment. Just look at the scandal of what happened to Glenn when he came under attack and quit the Intercept. Or look at "liberals" who have marginalized Professor Noam Chomsky. America in decline is starting to remind me of the Soviet Union during its death throes, sleepwalking into the abyss of its collapse. Being a Vietnam veteran, I shake my head in disbelief, when I look at these elites pointing their fingers at each other looking for the culprits that caused the fall of Kabul. It's obvious to me. It's just a repetition of a bankrupt foreign policy that caused the debacle in Vietnam. But they can't face up to how decadent they have become. So they go on these witch hunts since Salem We had this ditty about when we came under mortar attacks in Vietnam: "When in trouble and in doubt / Run in circles / Scream and shout." Of course, we were making fun of ourselves for being fools on a fool's errand. And I hate to admit this, but if I had been killed during a mortar attack, it would have been poetic justice. I had no one to blame but myself. But these elites don't even have a sense of humor about themselves and who they really are. What fools they are. If this censorship continues, goons eventually come for them, and they will have no one to blame but themselves. But by then, I'm sure the federal government will have built "reeducation camps" in the deserts in the Southwest. The McCarran National Security Act of 1950 established six interment camps. One was a former camp for Japanese Americans in the Second World War when no one spoke for them. What goes around, comes around.
Yet the actual whistleblowers Assange and Snowden are facing life in prison, and in exile, respectively.
Not surprisingly, this charade began with a focus on how social media is harming children, particularly young girls. That's the hook that everyone can get on board with. Censorship is good if it's for the sake of the CHILDREN. Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain.
My faith in the commitment of Americans to their liberties is at a very low point. Prosperity has raised a 200 million head herd of sheep.
Her treatment seems just a bit different from what I have come to expect from actual whistleblowers against the rich and powerful. It usually involves less fawning and more harassment and threats. Oh, could it possibly be, Mrs. Haugen is as fake as they come?
And this is why I no longer support the Democratic Party. The overreach and constitutional violations are staggering in efforts to stifle public debate, dissenting opinion, and free flow of information. She isn’t a whistleblower. She is just a whiner.
Frances Haugen is the latest iteration of Christine Blasey Ford
A free society can only exist with the informed consent of the governed. When a critical mass of the governed lack the capacity to offer informed consent a free society is impossible.
Censorship can backfire. The Streisand Effect is a real thing. If you tell people that they're not allowed to see something, they're going to want to see it even if they had no interest in seeing it before.
In China researchers have found that when people learn that something has been censored they are more likely to believe that it's true. The censorship actually serves to enhance the credibility of the thing that's being censored.
I think that a lot of vaccine hesitancy is being driven by censorship. People are far more skeptical of the vaccine than they otherwise might be because nobody is allowed to criticize it.
I agree with your assertion in the title. They do not want to hurt Facebook, just make sure the tow the party line. Facebook is one of the biggest enablers of these speech tyrants.
Even if they take my beloved Glenn Greenwald and my other independent media away from me, I'm never going to go back to mainstream media. I'll just watch cat videos instead.
I think she was only at Facebook for a year, yet she was able to figure out the whole structure enough to steal the right documents and leak them to the WSJ. It just seems like she went there for that specific purpose. Someone’s behind her I’m sure.
This whistleblower looks very suspicious to me.
The fear Mr. Greenwald has for regulation leading to further dominance by Facebook and Google is well founded. Years ago I was walking through an industrial plant, with the company CEO and owner. The company was in an environmentally sensitive industry, with lots of "mom and pop" competitors. This guy's company was one of the largest in the industry. The topic of new environmental regulations came up in our conversation. The CEO at first bemoaned the cost, but went on to say it would drive out the mom and pop competitors. This would allow pricing (and profits) to improve. At that point he had an aw-shucks smile on his face. Beware of this Trojan horse.
This "Whistleblower" narrative is so obviously manufactured. This woman is just another person whining about the very obvious -- indeed, cliched -- problems with spending too much time social media. (They get social anxiety, tend to seek out sources of confirmation bias, blah, blah . . .) Acting like this is suddenly a new "scandal" for which FB must reform is Fake News 101.
This is a replay of the Summer of 2020, when the New York Times and its ilk started attacking FB relentlessly for anything and everything, from privacy breaches, to "hate speech," to alleged sexual harassment in its workplace, to hit pieces on Sheryl Sandberg. It could not have been more obvious that this was all to intimidate FB to get on board with the left's plans to manage information flow during the 2020 election. It worked. And now they are at it again.
Most pathetic of all are the mainstream Republicans, who just watch their constituents getting censored and screwed yet again, and can only mutter that it's all fine because it's just a "private company." What losers.
PLEASE stop referring to these people as “liberals” - they are not. Call them leftists or the totalitarian left because there are of course leftists, perhaps yourself among them, that oppose this.
It's a cynical ploy to establish Orwellian groupthink in America. It reminds me of that quote from Martin Niemoller, a Lutheran pastor in Berlin during the 1930s, explaining the rise of Nazis: "First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist. 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 to speak for me." They came for Alex Jones. He was an easy target given how toxic he was about the Sandy Hook massacre. But the real issue was freedom of speech. I still remember how the ACLU in the 1970s won in court the right of Nazis have a march in Skokie, Illinois where many residents were Holocaust survivors. Not one of these "liberals" spoke out for Jones. In fact, most cheered for this censorship. And it quickly went downhill from there. Of course, Europeans spoke out when corporate media deleted President Donald Trump from social media. A former President became almost a non-person. Now that's bizarre, because no matter what you may think of Trump, he is a former President. They want to erase history. They wish they could throw Trump down the memory hole into the incinerator like Winston Smith did with newspaper clippings and photographs of former apparatchiks for Big Brother at the Ministry of Truth in 1984. But Europeans remember the dark times when they lived under Nazi surveillance during their occupation in the Second World War; and even more so, East Germans who lived under Soviet Communism as a satellite state during the Stasi. They saw in virtual reality the handwriting on the internet wall. Of course, most Americans are historically illiterates. Even the ones who have prestigious diplomas from Ivy League colleges. They went to these colleges not to learn how to think, but what to think. Their diplomas were passports into the ranks of the ruling elites. They lust after power. Not the laborious and frustrating search for truth. Who wants to be like Sisyphus pushing that boulder up the mountainside every day? The cherished ideal where truth will win out in the marketplace of ideas has become a tattered and worn cliche for them. He who wins is out by any means necessary following the party line is, ipso facto, an anointed cleric and guardian of establishment. Just look at the scandal of what happened to Glenn when he came under attack and quit the Intercept. Or look at "liberals" who have marginalized Professor Noam Chomsky. America in decline is starting to remind me of the Soviet Union during its death throes, sleepwalking into the abyss of its collapse. Being a Vietnam veteran, I shake my head in disbelief, when I look at these elites pointing their fingers at each other looking for the culprits that caused the fall of Kabul. It's obvious to me. It's just a repetition of a bankrupt foreign policy that caused the debacle in Vietnam. But they can't face up to how decadent they have become. So they go on these witch hunts since Salem We had this ditty about when we came under mortar attacks in Vietnam: "When in trouble and in doubt / Run in circles / Scream and shout." Of course, we were making fun of ourselves for being fools on a fool's errand. And I hate to admit this, but if I had been killed during a mortar attack, it would have been poetic justice. I had no one to blame but myself. But these elites don't even have a sense of humor about themselves and who they really are. What fools they are. If this censorship continues, goons eventually come for them, and they will have no one to blame but themselves. But by then, I'm sure the federal government will have built "reeducation camps" in the deserts in the Southwest. The McCarran National Security Act of 1950 established six interment camps. One was a former camp for Japanese Americans in the Second World War when no one spoke for them. What goes around, comes around.