John R. Houk, Blog Editor
Posted May 28, 2020
FINALLY! Conservative Free Speech is about to be protected
from Leftists twisting facts to fit their agenda to fundamentally transform
America. Free Speech loving Conservatives ironically can thank Jack Dorsey’s
Twitter for placing a twisted fact checking banner on a President Trump tweet
about the corruption often linked to mail-in balloting touting only the Leftist
line claiming mail-in ballot safety.
JRH 5/28/20
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Trump Takes on Social-Media
Censorship
The president will sign an executive order aimed at
preventing leftist speech suppression.
May 28, 2020
On the heels of
being “fact-checked” by Twitter’s
clearly biased “right opinion” police, President Donald Trump announced on
Wednesday that he would soon be issuing an executive order that would hold
social-media companies to account for infringing on Americans’ right to free
speech. “Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence
conservative voices,” Trump said, warning, “We will strongly regulate, or close
them down, before we can ever allow this to happen.”
Trump’s contention is made that much more relevant given the
fact that Twitter has
not “fact-checked” any of the
demonstrably false COVID-19 propaganda posted from Chinese communist officials.
This glaring inconsistency serves to expose the fundamental problem with these
self-appointed arbiters of “truth”
— they are playing off opinion-checking as fact-checking.
This reality has been demonstrated by the fact that Twitter’s
“Head of Site Integrity,” Yoel Roth, who is responsible for “fact-checking”
(which he got wrong, ironically) Trump’s tweet on the problem of fraud
associated with mail-in ballots, is an avid anti-Trump and anti-Republican
leftist based upon his own social-media history. Roth has called the Trump
administration “ACTUAL NAZIS,” derided Trump supporters in “fly-over states”
because they “voted for a racist tangerine,” and labeled Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell a “personality-free bag of farts.” He donated to Hillary
Clinton in 2016, tweeting that “I just gave $100 to Hillary for America. We
can’t f___ around anymore.”
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey lashed out after Roth was unmasked
as chief of Twitter’s opinion police, telling critics to “leave our employees
out of this.” [Blog Editor: Boo Hoo] Dorsey then ridiculously
asserted, “We’ll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about
elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.”
Actually, Twitter has yet to correct its erroneous labeling of Trump’s tweet on
mail-in voting as a false claim despite the existence of numerous reports
showing that those ballots are indeed susceptible to massive fraud.
Dorsey then hit overdrive in his double-speak, claiming,
“This does not make us an ‘arbiter of truth.’ Our intention is to connect the
dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people
can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can
clearly see the why behind our actions.” How exactly haranguing critics for
exposing Twitter’s “Head of Site Integrity” for leftist bias equates to “more
transparency” Dorsey failed to explain.
In truth, Trump’s decision has been a long time in the
making, as his administration has increasingly raised alarms over the growing
censorship practices by social-media giants Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The
Wall Street Journal reports, “As drafted, the White House order would seek to
reshape the way that federal regulators view Twitter and other social-media
companies — not as hosts of speech but as monopolies that control millions of
Americans’ daily experiences on their platforms. … It could also lay groundwork
for treating them as public squares where individuals’ First Amendment rights
are protected. The draft order is far-reaching in scope.”
Following Trump’s announced crackdown on social media, it
comes as little surprise that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg quickly came out
criticizing Twitter. “I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn’t be
arbiter of truth of everything that people say online,” Zuckerberg (rather
hypocritically) insisted. “Private companies probably shouldn’t be, especially
these platform companies, shouldn’t be in the position of doing that.” In other
words, Thanks for screwing this up for us, Dorsey.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Twitter’s Trump ‘Fact Check’ Does
Not Disclose Company Partnered with Groups Pushing Mail-In Ballots
27 May 2020
Twitter for the first time put a fact-check label on tweets
from President Trump, using the controversial tactic on messages in which the
president complained there is “no way” that “mail-in ballots will be anything
less than substantially fraudulent.”
It may be instructive that Twitter seized on the mail-in
balloting tweets as the first issue from Trump’s rapid fire social media feed
to slap with a fact-check label. Twitter did not disclose in its so-called
fact-check it is partners with two groups financed by leftist donors that
engage in voter participation efforts, including drives pushing mail-in
balloting.
Twitter sits on the “Premier Partner” list of one of those
groups alongside ViacomCBS, the merger of Viacom and CBS. Twitter’s so-called
fact-check
about Trump’s mail-in balloting cited CBS political reporter Grace Segers
vouching for mail-in voting.
Analysts have posited such proposals help the Democratic
Party. Republicans specifically
fear the
prospect of voter fraud, since mail-in voting would be harder to authenticate.
Yesterday, Trump tweeted the following, earning him the
badge reading “Get the facts about mail-in ballots”:
There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than
substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged
& even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of
California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone.....
....living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will
get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these
people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for
whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!
Twitter did not disclose it is an active “Premier Partner”
of Vote Early Day 2020, an election advocacy group seeking to educate voters
that they can cast their ballots prior to Election Day, including via the
vote-by-mail option.
The front page of the group’s website promotes mail-in
balloting, telling voters that “more states are adopting additional Vote Early
options, such as vote-by-mail, and we are expecting these changes to increase
voter turnout. We want everyone to know their options.”
The organization
suggests voters “throw a party or
parade” so “friends can come together to fill-in their mail-in ballots.”
The website states:
Through parties at the polls and
community parades to early voting sites, organizations across the country will
inspire more Americans to vote early. Even in states without in-person early
voting, friends can come together to fill-in their mail-in ballots.
The group’s mission statement includes mail-in options
(emphasis added):
When Americans vote early, they
ensure that last minute problems will not prevent them from casting their
ballots – and help shorten voting lines on Election Day for everyone. But
voting early rules – both for in-person and by-mail options – vary
widely all over the country, causing confusion and preventing voters from
casting their ballots. We’re here to make voting early easier. Given our
current conditions with COVID-19, having multiple options to safely cast your
ballot is critical.
Vote Early Day openly states it is supported by one
organization: “Vote Early Day is a holiday for all Americans supported by a
project at New Venture Fund.”
The New Venture Fund, or NVF, is in turn
managed under
an administrative agreement with the shadowy, massively funded Arabella
Advisors strategy company that pushes the interests of wealthy leftist donors.
Arabella specializes in sponsoring countless dark money
pop-up organizations advocating progressive policies and designed to look like
grassroots activist groups, as exposed in a recent
extensive report
by conservative watchdog Capital Research Center.
Billionaire activist George Soros’s Open Society
documents
that it provided financing to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, one of four nonprofits
run by Arabella Advisors, another being the NVF. Arabella nonprofits also
evidence close financial workings
with initiatives for the Democracy Alliance, another network of highly influential
donors, including Soros.
Meanwhile, Twitter serves as a “Premier Partner” of Vote
Early Day 2020 along with ViacomCBS and other media firms.
Twitter’s “fact-check” about Trump’s mail-in balloting cited
Segers, the CBS political reporter, tweeting the following about mail-in
voting:
Other listed media companies that are “Premier Partners” of
Vote Early Day are BuzzFeed, MTV, Univision and USA Today.
More “Premier Partners” include leftist groups such as the
League of Women Voters, the Democracy Fund, Alliance for Youth Organizing and
Rise.
MTV recently
partnered
with Michelle Obama to host a virtual prom with the subtheme of increasing
voter turnout. The television event is produced in partnership with When We All
Vote, an organization for which Obama serves as a co-chair and that seeks to
increase voter participation.
Organizers of the MTV event with Obama said in a
statement the
television Prom-athon would include a “special focus on commemorating another
important milestone for young people this year: registering and voting in the
national election in November.”
Becoming a “Premier Partner” for Vote Early Day, as Twitter
did, requires activism on the part of each partner organization.
The group’s website
states that to join as a “Premier
Partner” an organization must (below are all direct quotes):
- Agree
to include their name or logo in public materials (e.g. press release and
website);
- Share
their Vote Early Day activation plans with the Steering Committee in
advance;
- Report
back successes and feedback;
- Commit
to a flagship on-the-ground activation, mobilize a national network of at
least 50 partners, or reach 1 million people through digital or platform
integrations
Vote Early Day is not Twitter’s only involvement in election
advocacy. The social media giant along with Google and Facebook is also a 2020
partner for the National Voter
Registration Day, which says it “wants to make sure everyone has the
opportunity to vote.”
The National Voter Registration Day also pushes mail-in
ballots,
saying
it seeks to educate citizens to “request mail-in ballots, learn about early
voting options, and more.”
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, National Voter Registration
Day says it’s
working on “incorporating
supplemental resources and messaging in our toolkits, posters, and trainings
about how to vote by mail.”
The National Voter Registration is
sponsored by
the Democracy Fund, a charitable foundation created by eBay founder and liberal
billionaire Pierre Omidyar.
Omidyar’s self-styled “philanthropic investment firm” the
Omidyar Network, is also a
funder of the International
Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which
has partnered with Facebook to draft principals in an initiative to help
determine whether a certain news story is “disputed.”
The Omidyar Network has
partnered
with the Open Society on projects and it has given
grants to
third parties using the Soros-funded Tides Foundation as a “fiscal sponsor.”
Tides is one of the largest donors to left-wing causes in the U.S.
Twitter’s “fact-check” of Trump’s tweets on mail-in
balloting, meanwhile, also cited the ACLU of Nebraska claiming “voting by mail
is secure. It’s effective. It led to record turnout.”
The ACLU has been
pumping materials urging
Congress to pass coronavirus voting legislation that pushes mail-in voting.
Soros’s Open Society Foundations
donated $50
million to the ACLU.
Breitbart News extensively
reported a slew of other
progressive groups tied to Soros money have been working overtime to push
mail-in voting.
Joshua Klein contributed
research to this article. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein
++++++++++++++++++++
Exclusive: Matt Gaetz Drafting
Bill to Drop Big Tech’s Legal Immunity over One-Sided ‘Fact Checks’
27 May 2020
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) will announce today that he is
working with Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee to craft legislation
that would strip social media giants of their Section 230 legal immunity if
they fact check content on their platforms, according to a copy of his podcast
which Breitbart News exclusively obtained.
On the Florida conservative’s podcast,
Hot Takes with Matt Gaetz, he
said that he is working on a bill that would prevent social media giants such
as Facebook, Twitter, and Google from fact-checking content on their platforms.
Gaetz’s announcement follows as Twitter decided to fact check President Donald
Trump’s tweet on Tuesday.
Twitter
tried to fact check the president
over Trump’s tweet, claiming that mail-in ballot would lead to increased voter
fraud.
After Twitter fact-checked Trump’s post, the president
threatened to regulate or shut down social media companies such as Facebook and
Twitter.
“Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally
silence conservatives voices,” Trump
wrote on Wednesday. “We will
strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to
happen.”
Gaetz noted that social media companies such as Twitter and
Facebook enjoy a special liability protection under Section 230 of the
Communications Decency Act. This immunity shields them from lawsuits if they
were to remove and host content.
Gaetz said:
A lot of people don’t see that
Facebook and Twitter … you see Twitter disadvantaging the president, they enjoy
liability protections that are not enjoyed by your local newspaper or your local
TV station, or Fox News, or CNN, or MSNBC. They have special benefits under
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as digital platforms because
they’re not creating content for which they should be liable. They’re not
making decisions about content, they’re simply saying come one, come all with
your content. And as a consequence of that, they’re getting a bunch of
protections.
The Communications Decency Act
stipulates that a platform, such as
Twitter, cannot be sued for what users post on their platform as long as they
act as platforms and not publishers.
Noting that the social media companies have become
increasingly biased against conservatives, Gaetz questioned whether social
media companies deserve to keep their Section 230 immunity.
He asked rhetorically, “Well now, it really begs the
question with what Twitter is doing. Do they deserve that? Do they deserve it?
And I would suggest that they don’t.”
Gaetz added that it is not “good for the country” regardless
of politics when these social media companies cease to stay neutral platforms.
Gaetz said that he is working with members of the Judiciary
Committee to work on legislation to remove big tech’s Section 230 immunity if
they continue to fact check on their platforms.
He said, “I am currently working with my Republican
colleagues on the Judiciary Committee to craft legislation to say that if you’re
going to opine as to the truth or falsity of that which is put on your
platform, for the sake of its viewers, you don’t get the protection of Section
230. You are not a platform. You are doing something else, you are
editorializing.”
Gaetz’s office told Breitbart News that the legislation
would make big tech companies’ legal immunity contingent on not offering
editorial judgments, such as fact-checking content.
“If Twitter is going to fact-check President Trump, that
really begs the question of who those fact-checkers and if they are groups of
people that shown bias against the president,” Gaetz said.
Sean Moran is a congressional
reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
_______________________________
Trump Takes on
Social-Media Censorship
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Twitter’s Trump ‘Fact
Check’ Does Not Disclose Company Partnered with Groups Pushing Mail-In Ballots
AND
Exclusive: Matt Gaetz
Drafting Bill to Drop Big Tech’s Legal Immunity over One-Sided ‘Fact Checks’
