My Youtube channel was demonetized yesterday and eight of my videos were removed for violating their community guidelines (no specifics were provided, I appealed all of them).
Michael Tracey writes: “Online journalists and their activist friends lack any awareness that their culturally liberal sensibilities are 100% in sync with Silicon Valley, and they therefore possess hegemonic power. They constantly act like they’re victims, but they’re actually the ones calling the shots.”
A new protected class by @YouTube: those now immune from criticism due to their “immigration status.” In other words, @YouTube is banning speech critical of illegal immigration. pic.twitter.com/9bersTWNNa
— Robert Barnes (@Barnes_Law) June 5, 2019
* YouTube is simply being “jumped into” the Bilderberg gang. YouTube has been made to — or been made to want to — live in harmony with the preexisting powers-that-be. The people who inherited the Megaphone don’t want 2016 to ever happen again. Getting YouTube to shape up is critically important to them.
* On the contrary, it turns out that oligarchic rentier-state economics and the globalist-oriented modern Left go quite nicely together. Both naturally enhance the goals of the other, neither contradicts the priorities of the other.
This explains why we seem to have such fierce debates about hot-button issues in Washington, but little actually changes on fundamental policy. The two parties are getting what they really want from each other. Everything else is for show.
* This is SO dumb on YouTube’s part. Do they really think it’s a good idea to do this right as they’re coming under scrutiny from the FTC? Are they so convinced that the basic terms of being a business don’t apply to one side of the political spectrum?
And I really hope YouTube’s hypocrisy comes to the full attention of the public. It’s bad enough to demonatize channels you don’t like arbitrarily, but it’s quite another to do it when your suggestion algorithms have built the platform by pushing a lot of *highly* questionable content.
* I watched a couple of streams about the fallout. A lot of fairly large dissident-right channels that you would think would get the ax (Red Ice, AmRen) are still up. In fact, almost all of them are. But a lot of relatively mainstream conservative channels like Steven Crowder and Jesse Lee Peterson got demonetized. This seems to have been more of a mass-demonetization than a mass-banning, at least so far.
It’s possible that this was aimed more at conservative/non-narrative-compliant content creators in general and they’re just selling it as a crackdown on extremism.
* OT NYU have cancelled (due to lack of interest) a course on “Reporting the far right”, by Talla Lavin, the former New Yorker fact-checker who falsely accused an ICE agent of having a nazi tattoo.
She also recently harassed the family of 14 year old youtuber “Soph”, going as far as phoning her (Hillary-voting) dad at work to accuse him of raising a nazi.
* Ashkenazi Jews have European origins but are genetically distinct from other European populations, for the same reason that African-Americans have African origins but are genetically distinct from other African populations. Hundreds or thousands of years of geographic separation, admixture and different selection pressures cause separate evolution. That’s where “race” comes from.
Ashkenazi genes are probably European mixed in with some Mediterranean, which explains the higher-than-Euro gluten tolerance and lower-than-Euro lactose tolerance.
* The Establishment want to dial things back to 2006 or even 1998. They want to narrow the Overton window so that the folks in flyover country get no say in the future.
They want a time when 90% of media is under their thumb, and no competing narratives get daylight. If the Democrats get back total control, hate speech laws will be implemented to tightly police the entire internet. The time for political solutions to defy “invade the world-invite the world” is running out.
* The right is unwilling to use boycotts, both due to the corrupted nature of leadership, and the anti-collectivist strain of its followers.
* It’s unreal that we can’t organize any significant boycotts. We have a tremendous amount of economic potential that is just going to waste because our side is unwilling to use boycotts.
* I look back only 10 years ago when internet was much freer in amazement. A lot of very young kids will grow up in a fundamentally unfree environment.
There are a lot of paralells here to the early days of radio. The big monopolies – mostly run by jews – shut down Father Coughlin too when he got too popular. We’ll see if internet is as easily controlled. One thing is for sure: all the “liberals” and leftist claiming to care about free speech, and human rights (of which free speech is a fundamental value) are exposed as frauds as they are either silent or cheering this on.
The West is no different from the regulated internet of China and now soon Russia. It only differs in the content it censors/controls.
* I think this pretty much ends the debate going on in “conservatism” at the moment and the David French side has definitively lost. As his critics have charged, the Left are indeed dangerous authoritarians who cannot be negotiated with; the guy who started this campaign has a long history of demanding his political enemies be deplatformed, harassed, and doxxed*, so his motives are clear. Unless these people are stopped using their own tactics, we’ll end up in a Soviet Union 2.0 by mid-century (probably much sooner)**. What they want: their political enemies destroyed and freedom of speech revoked for all but themselves and their propaganda officially supported on major platforms (already happening as YouTube gives preferential treatment to democrat-voting mainstream media and late night propaganda which nearly always has “Trump lies” in the video description); this includes possible legal sanction for problematic speech as many figures on the Left have publicly embraced European-style speech crimes laws.
Why aren’t conservative legislatures working with Chinese companies to publicly fund alternatives to Google and YouTube and perhaps even physical aspects of the internet such as fiber optic cables and ISPs? Those same governments can’t then do to the left what they are doing to everyone else – ban them on grounds of promoting hate speech while simultaneously promoting material advertising our side? Why don’t conservative state legislatures enact policies purging Microsoft, Google, Twitter, and Facebook products off government computers, eschewing them for open source software when possible and Japanese alternatives when that’s not an option? Why not simply ignore the US government’s ban on Huawei phones and import them to provide healthy competition to Apple, a company whose CEO donated tens of millions of dollars to the SPLC? We can’t hurt Apple’s bottom line by passing right to repair laws that will be copied by others in short order? We can’t copy Chinese payment apps that cut out the banks – perhaps directly managed by conservative state legislatures to prevent deplatforming? That would immediately strike back against banks who deny service based on political belief. And what about a UBI that gives normal people a measure of financial protection against left-wing harassment?
All it would take is a single guy to introduce the bill. The publicity alone would ensure copycats and eventual successful adoption elsewhere. Again, there are plenty of options for those with both the inclination and the imagination to do something.
Further, why don’t we have groups dedicated to deplatforming left-wing hate and harassment websites? Or at least pressure their advertisers and reveal their funding? Leftists have been doing this for years, so fair is fair. We can’t accelerate anti-masking laws and mandatory minimum sentences to get antifa off the streets? If the FBI won’t prosecute their proxy thugs, what stops local republican DAs from stepping in and adding state charges or legislatures from enacting lengthy mandatory minimums? We can’t demand YouTube censor videos from Leftist creators who promote racist conspiracy theories such as “white privilege?” or put derogatory words like “loser” in the title of their videos when connected to our elected officials? How is it okay for TYT to harass DT with “loser” but I can’t call out some Vox POS with negative language? The point is that there are definitely lots of things that can be done if you have both the will and the imagination.
Unfortunately, much of what people consider the right these days is merely controlled opposition – guys who advocate losing gracefully while ignoring policies that might hurt the financial interests of their donors or the federal government. The Washington Generals right still wants to be respected and still wants to be invited to cocktail parties while reveling in the self-esteem conferred by thinking they are socially influential. They have little or no faith in their values and merely want the social cache that comes with being famous (and the money, too). Conservatism is a class association, a lifestyle or maybe a hobby to guys like David French and George Will. In contrast, Leftism is a religion that determines who is worthy of continued existence to the radical Left.
The genesis of any counteroffensive against these extremists starts with abandoning the David French / William Buckley ideology of the past. It’s a recipe not only for loss, but for oppression. That means embracing government power and employing the same unscrupulous tactics they use against us. The government has a place in this effort because it is the only area of life where we have even a modicum of influence. A salient, and recent, example of this comes from Texas. Leftist-wing fascists in Austin harassed Chick-fil-a because they didn’t like the personal opinion of someone connected to the company and the state legislature slapped them down in response. Why can’t we repeat that example elsewhere?
How was it ever smart to allow the Left to base all our big media in just three democrat-voting cities – NYC, LA, and DC? How was it smart not to ensure conservatives have representation in the below-the-line positions at CNN, the NYT, and the WaPo? We can’t fund journalism scholarships for our people? How was it smart to allow big tech companies to amass effective monopolies over the public square without opposition or regulation? This action by YouTube and Vox proves the David French “muh private company” ideology wrong; no one person can fund an alternative internet infrastructure and the Left has already proved they will deplatform anyone who tries (Gab). Letting your enemy take the high ground was really dumb, but I’m sure it paid The National Review well.
It also means abandoning civic nationalism / loyalty to the national government because that government is definitely not on your side. I wouldn’t be surprised if the intelligence services/secret police had something to do with this and merely used Vox as a front. The FBI, for instance, has had a long history of undermining the government’s political enemies: anti-war protestors, conspiracy theorists (who sometimes turn out to be right: TWA Flight 800 & Iraqi WMD), white racial groups, black racial groups (on the occasion the democrats need it to win elections), socialists … The government has also been caught paying journalists in the past to spread misinformation and they continue to fund social media disinformation efforts now: https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-suspends-funding-for-twitter-account-on-iran-that-trolled-critics/
*He advocated those things for his enemies publicly but then complained when someone did it back to him. Funny how that works. It’s almost as if these people are all hypocrites who lack principles. How exactly does the right (normal people) fight back against that kind of thing while also having one hand tied behind its back with the doctrine of “muh private corporashuns”?
**Consider what we already have seen: (1) the US government requires political commissars at nearly all large companies and sources of finance that could be used to oppose them through HR and diversity requirements; China does something very similar (2) selective social media censorship of the government’s political enemies (no censorship of MTV and their “Dear White People” hate speech content on YouTube) (3) under Obama, whites were chased off the campus of Evergreen State with the threat violence at the hands of Leftist students and his FBI did nothing in response (4) under Obama, we saw a dramatic decline in willingness to enforce standards of behavior, leading to a massive 23% increase in the murder rate in some big cities (5) BLM, antifa and other street thugs are routinely used as proxies by the US government to attack their enemies while the FBI offers sweetheart deals to perps and prosecutes targets of violence (6) political commissars now review newly authored manuscripts to make sure they don’t contain “problematic” content (7) an endless purity spiral results in a nearly continuous stream of “get whitey” (8) a mass invasion of the United States is under way while the military does nothing while Leftist judges and media do everything they can to facilitate the arrival of these future ballot box busting voter scabs (9) selective censorship of government critics (10) the US denies entry to people based on political beliefs …
The list goes on. Either fight back using tactics that work or get yourself a new country.
* We can’t use boycotts because, unlike the left, we don’t have cover to do so from the government and the media. Also, much of the right is infected with National Reviewesqe grift; they took money from Google, IIRC, to oppose government regulatory actions. The right is also infected with libertarian individualism, which is a losing strategy in the long-run. In contrast, the left has the media and the government to shield them from boycott blow back and they have no such equivalent ideology to prevent them from acting in their group’s best interests. Conservatives of all stripes (left authoritarian, social conservatives, libertarians, economic populists, religious people) are also generally decent folks, so that additionally handicaps them. Extreme Leftists are dangerous because they have no moral restraints on their religious beliefs, leading them to ever greater acts of depravity.
There is one way the right could effectively strike back, however. I would suggest we use our state and local legislative bodies to begin the effort to boycott and deplatform the left. That will set a copycat precedent among the general population while giving ordinary people cover for their own boycott efforts. We could start by nationalizing ISPs on the local level, and then following up by forming partnerships with Chinese tech companies to build state-funded alternative internet structures. Once we have a competing platform for Facebook, Twitter, Google, and YouTube, we can deplatform them under the guise of stopping leftist hatespeech or whatever.
Here’s the rough draft of a plan conservative-controlled state legislatures could enact if not for libertarianism:
1) Immediately nationalize internet ISPs on the state level.
2) Work with Chinese tech companies to build additional internet architecture, including state-run and funded platforms to counter outfits such as YouTube and Facebook.
3) Once those platforms are up and running, deplatform their competition. Also, deplatform the left in general using the guise of hatespeech – Huff Post, TYT, The Guardian and a slew of others can say bye bye on our internet.
4) State governments should also announce they will no longer respect the Huawei import ban, nor will they cooperate with federal authorities in prosecuting companies and persons who – somehow – import the company’s technology and are able to use it. It’s not very practical, but this will at least serve as a morale blow to the deepstate while ingratiating ourselves with the Chinese.
5) State governments should announce all government computers will dump Microsoft products for open-sourced alternatives such as Linux and Open Office. Additionally, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and YouTube will be blocked on these computers using any number of excuses (worker productivity). Duckduckgo will then be the default search engine. This will serve as an important morale booster similar to Doolittle’s Raid on Tokyo after Pearl Harbor: little actual damage but a confidence booster and a trendsetter for future bold action nonetheless.
6) States can copy Chinese payment apps – run by the government – to cut out the ability of banks to deplatform the right. This would also damage opposition bank finances and at least some sources of left-wing funding along with them. It will likely also be popular among economic populists and racial minorities who can’t afford bank fees.
7) States can pass right to repair laws which will greatly damage Apple’s bottom line while infusing local areas with jobs and wealth.
8) Using the Israel boycott example, legislatures could make it a crime for any company to boycott our states over politics or doxx or fire our people. Even the worst case scenario of them not doing business with us could be mitigated by working with the Chinese to create local alternatives that keep jobs and money in the area.
Why would the Chinese do any of this? Well, we’re paying them, obviously (and they get access to our market). But there is also the return on investment angle: it would be worth it to spend a relatively small amount of money and effort only to get lots of positive feeling and political capital on your enemy’s home turf in return (and perhaps a hedge against Washington belligerence in the future). Unfortunately, we’ll have to reach out first because the Chinese have a very limited, superficial understanding of the United States at the moment.
* People are being ‘investigated’ for saying what some might consider to be mean, uncouthful or even hateful stuff. What effect does that have when you yell at a black driver in the grocery store parking lot for taking up two spaces? You probably shouldn’t (as a matter of civility) yell, but when the cops knock on your door and ask you questions?
Already seeing this with the (mostly liberal) white women being called out on social media for reporting black misbehavior, or at least non-normative behavior, i.e. selling water bottles on the street, or a student sleeping in the dorm common room.
Deplatforming works, and lefties know this. They know that although they aren’t as powerful as they once were, they’ve got every major newspaper (NYT, WaPo, are givens, but Hearst and McClatchly, and AP are lib as hell), and every national TV outlet except Fox.
I’m sure a bunch of you have told friends, fam, etc. (people you trust) ‘hey check out this Steve guy,’ and if they do, they then treat you like you wear a sheet on weekends. Long ways to go, still.
