John R. Houk
© January 25, 2018
Yesterday I stumbled upon a Fox News story in which
Dems Senator Feinstein and Rep. Schiff have publicly called for Twitter,
Facebook and now I read – Google, to investigate Russian bots spreading the
meme #ReleaseTheMemo. My least favorite Fox host Shepherd Smith seemed to move
story to agree with the Dems. Here’s the 4:30 minute segment on Youtube:
Posted by Fox News
Published on Jan 24, 2018
Rep. Schiff and Sen. Feinstein say
the classified memo prepared by staffers working for Devin Nunes is misleading
and is being pushed online as part of a smear campaign against law enforcement
officials investigating Team Trump; insight from Axios reporter Alayna Treene.
FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour
all-encompassing news service dedicated to delivering breaking news as well as …
READ THE REST
In essence my first reaction the Dems were trying to get off
the hook about corruption among Obama/Hillary cadres in the FBI and DOJ.
Indeed, after Googling “Russian Bots,” I found MSM after MSM site pushing the
Dem meme of Russian Bots. Just like loyal Leftist Pravda spreading Communist
propaganda, the MSM pushed the Dem assertion Russia was involved in the
American legal system to taint the FBI and the Mueller investigation
purportedly investigating the Trump Campaign for President colluded with Russia
to win said Campaign.
I felt the Dems were pulling the Russia-Russia-Russia load
of crap to deflect from the real collusion story of Dems and Dem-favoring FBI
and DOJ trying to discredit President Trump for an idiotic excuse to impeach
him on FALSE evidence.
It turns out I am CORRECT! The Daily Caller picked up on a
story from the Left-leaning Daily Beast which substantiates that an
overwhelming majority of the viral message of “#ReleaseTheMail” was driven by
red-blooded Americans rather than Russian Bots:
DC VIDEO: No
Russian Bots …
…
According to The Beast:
A knowledgeable source says
that Twitter’s internal analysis has thus far found that authentic American
accounts, and not Russian imposters or automated bots, are driving
#ReleaseTheMemo. There are no preliminary indications that the Twitter activity
either driving the hashtag or engaging with it is either predominantly Russian.
In short, according to this
source, who would not speak to The Daily Beast for attribution, the retweets
are coming from inside the country. (No, Russian Bots Weren’t Behind The
#ReleaseTheMemo Hashtag; By Chuck Ross; Daily Caller; 1/23/18 6:27
PM)
Now you realize that Twitter management is not exactly a
Right-leaning Social Platform, right? Ergo, you must understand that the Dems –
particularly Senator Feinstein and Rep. Schiff – are calling for Twitter,
Facebook and Google to censor Conservative dialog on the Social Platforms used
by Americans.
The best details I have found pertaining to the Dem Fake
News propaganda trying to Censor my fellow Conservatives is at The
Federalist.
**********************
The Russia ‘Fake News’ Scare Is All About Chilling Speech
JANUARY25, 2018
Last week Republicans began
to call for the release of a memo authored by House Intelligence Committee
Chair Devin Nunes that purports to lay out a series of abuses connected to the
FBI surveillance of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. As often happens
these days, a Twitter hashtag evolved around the effort, #ReleaseTheMemo, and was widely
retweeted by Republicans and elected officials.
It didn’t take long for
a report to emerge claiming
that Russian-sponsored Twitter accounts and bots were the real driving force
behind the viral call for the release of the memo. Without worrying about the
veracity of this convenient claim, all the usual suspects giddily spread the
story across social media — probably because they have such a deep reverence
for truth in the Era of Trump.
The report also prompted Sen. Dianne
Feinstein and Rep. Adam Schiff, both Democrats, to pull out every fearmongering
catchphrase available to demand that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg perform an “in-depth forensic examination” on the “ongoing
attack by the Russian government through Kremlin-linked social media actors
directly acting to intervene and influence our democratic process.”
It’s difficult, it seems, for
some people to embrace neutral principles nowadays. But if you genuinely
believe that Donald Trump’s distasteful tweets are attacks on the foundations
of free expression, how can you not be alarmed by a pair of powerful elected
officials demanding social media companies hand over information about their
users? What would they say if the president had sent a letter to Google
insisting they give the executive branch an “in-depth forensic examination” of
his political opponent’s searches?
As it turns out, reports today say that
Twitter’s internal analysis found that it was mostly Americans, not creepy
Slavic mind-control robots, who were behind the hashtags. Not that it really
matters, anyway. If a group of Americans have a legitimate issue to rally
around, how are they supposed to control what outsiders do? It’s not as if
#ReleaseTheMemo was a secret or illegal. Republican politicians were openly
using it.
Yet, if Feinstein and Schiff
had their way, Twitter and Facebook would have moved to quash the #ReleaseTheMemo
hashtag for what turned out to be apparently solely partisan reasons. Sounds
like a power that can be abused. Even if the two had been genuinely troubled by
Russian hashtags — yes, suspend your disbelief — the source of fake news is not
always easily discernible. Sometimes it comes to you from an anonymous Russian
bot, and sometimes it’s retweeted by a prominent journalist.
Democrats have manufactured
panic over amateurish Russian propaganda to not only claim that Vlad Putin was
“meddling” in the election, but also to argue that interference had the power
to turn the election to Trump. With this risible idea in hand, they have
created paranoia about social media interactions and rationalized infringements
on expression.
Not long before demanding
forensic investigations into hashtags, Feinstein was demanding Twitter,
Facebook, and Google more tightly restrict its content, threatening, “Do something
about it — or we will.” Democrats have attempted to control interactions
through Fairness Doctrines or the IRS, and now the Russia scare. Part of living
in a free country is dealing with messy, ugly misinformation.
The difference an ocean makes: UK Prime Minister announces rapid response unit to tackle 'fake news': https://t.co/kL54AWeaC8 - via:@pressgazette— Jill Lawrence (@JillDLawrence) January 23, 2018
Lots of people in the United
States seem pretty impressed by how they do things in Europe. In Britain, Prime
Minister Theresa May is launching “a rapid
response unit” run by the state to “battle the proliferation of ‘fake news’
online.” A “National Security Communications Unit” will be tasked to combat
misinformation — as if it has either the power or ability to do so. In France,
President Emmanuel Macron is working on a plan to combat “fake news,” which
includes the power to “emergency block” websites during elections. What
could possibly go wrong.
Me? I’d rather we live with
Russian troll bots feeding us nonsense than authoritarian senators dictating
how we consume news. I mean, has anyone yet produced a single voter who lost
his or her free will during the 2016 election because he had a Twitter
interaction with an employee of a St. Petersburg troll farm? Or do voters tend
to seek out the stories that back their own worldviews?
If your argument is that
American are uninformed and easily misled, I’m with you. Just look at all
the people who believe that a $46,000 buy on Facebook by
the Russians was enough to destroy the pillars of our democracy. But if you
want to live in a free and vibrant nation, you have to live with the
externalities of that freedom.
David Harsanyi is a Senior
Editor at The Federalist. Follow him on Twitter.
________________
Dems Want Social Platform Censorship by Blaming Russians – AGAIN
John R. Houk
© January 25, 2018
__________________
The Russia ‘Fake News’ Scare Is All About Chilling Speech
Copyright © 2018 The
Federalist, a wholly independent division of FDRLST Media, All Rights
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