Online publications such as WND (formerly World Net Daily)
face economic woes largely due to the Leftist monopoly of Online Media. In a
recent WND e-newsletter David Kupelian writes about the effects of this media
stranglehold. Among other Leftist entities that Conservatives are nearly forced
to use due to a monopolistic Media, Kupelian uses Google and Facebook as prime
examples.
At the end of the newsletter WND provides a link enabling
you the reader to circumvent the demonetizing tendencies of monopolistic Media
Left. As for this small potato blog, you can show your support HERE.
JRH 5/7/19
Your generosity is always appreciated:
***********************
The surprising road ahead for WND
David Kupelian on defeating the left's stealth takeover of the Internet
David Kupelian on defeating the left's stealth takeover of the Internet
E-Newsletter sent May
6 at 10:08 AM
Sent via WND
Dear WND reader,
Today, Monday, May 6, 2019, is WND’s 22nd anniversary as
America’s first online journalism company. Thank you for your readership,
loyalty and support over all these years. We deeply appreciate it. WND was here
before Facebook, before Google, before almost all the other Big Tech companies
that have come to dominate – and unfortunately, control – today’s Internet.
Following is my candid assessment of where we are, the challenges we face in a
much more hostile environment, and the clear road ahead for WND.
The Democratic Party – whose presidential candidates proudly advocate allowing convicted mass-murdering terrorists to vote, destroying America's oil, gas and coal industries, ending private insurance, killing babies after they're born, inviting never-ending hordes of illegal aliens to invade our country, and imposing socialism on the most successful free-market nation in history – could win the presidency and Congress next year.
How is that possible?
How could such an obviously lunatic – and catastrophic – worldview prevail in the United States of America, you ask?
There are several reasons, but let's start with a big one: Lies take hold in the absence of truth, and the left is now deeply engaged in a campaign to eliminate truthful free speech and a free press in our beloved country.
I'm talking about the ongoing censorship and predatory monopolistic suppression of genuinely truth-based journalism.
You no doubt are already somewhat familiar with this. Every day, it seems, Facebook or Twitter or YouTube has banned or suspended or demonetized yet another conservative, Republican or Christian.
But behind such headlines, something far deeper and more consequential is happening.
The left in America – with its increasingly blatant totalitarian tendencies – already dominates most of our nation's major institutions, from our colleges and universities, to today's Democratic Party, to Hollywood, to the "mainstream media." Well, now the same "progressive" left has succeeded in taking over yet another gigantic institution: the Internet.
Although WND has published many stories over the last year and a half exposing Google, Facebook and the other tech giants' campaign to extinguish free speech and independent journalism, we probably understated the problem.
As the original online journalism organization, going way back to 1997, WorldNetDaily – like other independent news enterprises – has been enduring a powerful, concerted, multi-pronged attack.
First, there's the all-out assault on our operating revenues.
"Journalism, sustained by traditional advertising, is dying," confirms the respected Washington, D.C.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC. In the research center's recent written testimony to Congress's Subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection, EPIC summarized its findings starkly: "Two companies [Google and Facebook] dominate the market. The privacy of internet users is under assault. The revenue model that sustained journalism is broken. The ad platforms are manipulated by foreign adversaries. Secrecy and complexity are increasing as accountability is diminished."
To understand exactly how the "Digital Cartel" has managed to wreak so much havoc, read EPIC's letter to Congress here.
Bear in mind that what enabled Google and Facebook to accomplish this – to essentially steal the life-sustaining advertising revenues from WND and other online news organizations – is their scandalous practice of invading your privacy and harvesting and monetizing your private, personal information. Totally unrepentant over this, Facebook is now going after your bank account.
But vanishing revenues are just part of the problem.
While Google and Facebook vacuum up four-fifths of all digital advertising, thereby depriving news sites like ours of their traditional lifeblood, these same mega-companies are simultaneously censoring, suppressing and "shadow-banning" independent, right-of-center news and opinion sources. It is now utterly indisputable that the Internet gatekeepers' leftwing bias is fully baked into their algorithms, which is why – in an era when the Trump economy is expanding, with manufacturing finally returning to the U.S. and employment at record highs – for the past two years, it is almost exclusively stories claiming Trump is a traitorous Russian double-agent that have populated the Google or Facebook news feeds where tens of millions congregate to get their "news."
Worse, you've no doubt heard that many of these Internet mega-companies now rely on the same corrupt hate group, the Southern Poverty Law Center, as their go-to expert on whom to discriminate against as purveyors of "hate speech." (This, even though the SPLC's top leaders have recently been ousted amid revelations of internal racial and sexual harassment!) The SPLC is best known for its "hate group" lists where it delights in lumping together genuinely honorable Christian/conservative organizations – like the American Family Association, Liberty Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Research Council and yours truly, WND – with actual hate groups like the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations and the Westboro Baptist Church.
WorldNetDaily has long been featured on the SPLC's ridiculous "hate/extremist" label. And since the Southern Poverty Law Center now determines what is "hate speech" or "fake news" for Google, Facebook and others, is it any wonder that these days, WND rarely shows up on a Google search unless you specify "WND" in your search, or else enter the exact WND headline?
There is much more going on, but hopefully it is now absolutely clear to you that, in a multitude of ways, the leftwing appropriation of the Internet is intent on accomplishing what it already has in America's universities, popular culture, Democratic Party and establishment press. That is, to take it over, impose politically correct speech (and therefore thought) codes, and suppress dissident voices – in this case, making it extremely difficult for journalists animated by American, constitutional, biblical, commonsense values to do their job of digging out the truth and reporting it to you.
So, what does the future hold for WND and other independent media?
It's no secret that WND has been severely impacted by this ongoing assault and is having to reinvent itself in many ways, from painful cost reductions including layoffs and pay-cuts, to optimizing remaining revenue sources, to inventing new and outside-the-box strategies in every part of our company.
Is there hope? Well, consider this.
Revered economist and technology futurist George Gilder, in his new book "Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy," predicts Google will one day come to an end. Why? Because, says Gilder, at root Google's "philosophy attempts to lay an axe to the root of human creativity, free will and man's uniqueness as created in God's image."
Let me explain. Gilder, whose track record of anticipating future technology trends is impeccable, predicts that today's extreme centralization of data, power and wealth will one day give way to a new age of decentralization, restored privacy and individual empowerment. That would mean Google-Facebook's predatory monopolistic destruction of competitors, wanton invasion of privacy and ideological censorship also come to an end.
However, there's a catch. Key to that better future, says Gilder, is understanding that the whole idea of "free" is an illusion. As we all have recently learned, when we access Facebook and Google for "free," it's only because it turns out we are the product being sold! In place of "free" services that exploit, monetize and censor us, says Gilder, new developments like blockchain technology, cryptocurrency and micropayments will one day play a crucial role in keeping the public square of information open, decentralized, healthy and thriving.
If all this still sounds a bit esoteric, let's boil it down to its essence: Only one thing is immune to Google/Facebook's censoring, stifling, starving and shadow-banning independent, pro-American news and analysis like WND. Only one thing can counteract Amazon sucking up all the ecommerce and crippling everyone else.
That one thing that trumps all the predatory business practices, censorship and utopian fantasies of the current Internet gatekeepers is the creativity and goodness of real people acting under the inspiration of Almighty God. Arrogant, wealthy mega-companies cannot interfere with genuine virtue and generosity working through human beings committed to helping each other.
We at WND would love nothing more than to be able to continue working our hearts out doing what we've been doing for you for the past 22 years. If you agree, help us. It's just as simple as that.
The Digital Cartel – and for that matter, the rest of the dark forces of this world – cannot destroy an honorable relationship between you and us. We give to you, and you give back to us. There is no "free." "It is always a lie," says Gilder, "because on this earth nothing, in the end, is free."
Timing is everything. Gilder's hopeful predictions – that the tech giants will succumb to the self-destruct code they have unknowingly created, and that one day what he calls the "cryptocosm" will usher in a new era of unfettered Internet freedom where ideological censorship is no more, privacy is restored, and sovereign individuals happily pay a tiny amount for the content they like – may take years to come about.
But for WND to survive, that future has to be now.
Please help us today. Otherwise, we will not be around.
WND has a very large readership, millions of people who have freely benefited from its tireless and courageous journalism for two decades. If every reader chipped in just $10, or even as little as $3, we would have no financial problems at all, and in fact could expand our efforts to do even more! If you are able and inclined to donate more (to make up, very frankly, for the majority of people reading this who, for whatever reasons, will not respond), that would be wonderful. And most urgently, if you choose the monthly option for your donation, that helps us enormously as it provides a regular revenue base we can count on.
If you prefer to send a donation check, please mail it to: WND, 580 E. Street PO Box 100, Hawthorne, NV 89415-0100.
Please help us. Time is short. This is a time for action – for all of us. Our adversaries are not holding back, and we need to not hold back either. I pray you will be inspired to join us. Thank you and God bless you.
The Democratic Party – whose presidential candidates proudly advocate allowing convicted mass-murdering terrorists to vote, destroying America's oil, gas and coal industries, ending private insurance, killing babies after they're born, inviting never-ending hordes of illegal aliens to invade our country, and imposing socialism on the most successful free-market nation in history – could win the presidency and Congress next year.
How is that possible?
How could such an obviously lunatic – and catastrophic – worldview prevail in the United States of America, you ask?
There are several reasons, but let's start with a big one: Lies take hold in the absence of truth, and the left is now deeply engaged in a campaign to eliminate truthful free speech and a free press in our beloved country.
I'm talking about the ongoing censorship and predatory monopolistic suppression of genuinely truth-based journalism.
You no doubt are already somewhat familiar with this. Every day, it seems, Facebook or Twitter or YouTube has banned or suspended or demonetized yet another conservative, Republican or Christian.
But behind such headlines, something far deeper and more consequential is happening.
The left in America – with its increasingly blatant totalitarian tendencies – already dominates most of our nation's major institutions, from our colleges and universities, to today's Democratic Party, to Hollywood, to the "mainstream media." Well, now the same "progressive" left has succeeded in taking over yet another gigantic institution: the Internet.
Although WND has published many stories over the last year and a half exposing Google, Facebook and the other tech giants' campaign to extinguish free speech and independent journalism, we probably understated the problem.
As the original online journalism organization, going way back to 1997, WorldNetDaily – like other independent news enterprises – has been enduring a powerful, concerted, multi-pronged attack.
First, there's the all-out assault on our operating revenues.
"Journalism, sustained by traditional advertising, is dying," confirms the respected Washington, D.C.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC. In the research center's recent written testimony to Congress's Subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection, EPIC summarized its findings starkly: "Two companies [Google and Facebook] dominate the market. The privacy of internet users is under assault. The revenue model that sustained journalism is broken. The ad platforms are manipulated by foreign adversaries. Secrecy and complexity are increasing as accountability is diminished."
To understand exactly how the "Digital Cartel" has managed to wreak so much havoc, read EPIC's letter to Congress here.
Bear in mind that what enabled Google and Facebook to accomplish this – to essentially steal the life-sustaining advertising revenues from WND and other online news organizations – is their scandalous practice of invading your privacy and harvesting and monetizing your private, personal information. Totally unrepentant over this, Facebook is now going after your bank account.
But vanishing revenues are just part of the problem.
While Google and Facebook vacuum up four-fifths of all digital advertising, thereby depriving news sites like ours of their traditional lifeblood, these same mega-companies are simultaneously censoring, suppressing and "shadow-banning" independent, right-of-center news and opinion sources. It is now utterly indisputable that the Internet gatekeepers' leftwing bias is fully baked into their algorithms, which is why – in an era when the Trump economy is expanding, with manufacturing finally returning to the U.S. and employment at record highs – for the past two years, it is almost exclusively stories claiming Trump is a traitorous Russian double-agent that have populated the Google or Facebook news feeds where tens of millions congregate to get their "news."
Worse, you've no doubt heard that many of these Internet mega-companies now rely on the same corrupt hate group, the Southern Poverty Law Center, as their go-to expert on whom to discriminate against as purveyors of "hate speech." (This, even though the SPLC's top leaders have recently been ousted amid revelations of internal racial and sexual harassment!) The SPLC is best known for its "hate group" lists where it delights in lumping together genuinely honorable Christian/conservative organizations – like the American Family Association, Liberty Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Research Council and yours truly, WND – with actual hate groups like the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations and the Westboro Baptist Church.
WorldNetDaily has long been featured on the SPLC's ridiculous "hate/extremist" label. And since the Southern Poverty Law Center now determines what is "hate speech" or "fake news" for Google, Facebook and others, is it any wonder that these days, WND rarely shows up on a Google search unless you specify "WND" in your search, or else enter the exact WND headline?
There is much more going on, but hopefully it is now absolutely clear to you that, in a multitude of ways, the leftwing appropriation of the Internet is intent on accomplishing what it already has in America's universities, popular culture, Democratic Party and establishment press. That is, to take it over, impose politically correct speech (and therefore thought) codes, and suppress dissident voices – in this case, making it extremely difficult for journalists animated by American, constitutional, biblical, commonsense values to do their job of digging out the truth and reporting it to you.
So, what does the future hold for WND and other independent media?
It's no secret that WND has been severely impacted by this ongoing assault and is having to reinvent itself in many ways, from painful cost reductions including layoffs and pay-cuts, to optimizing remaining revenue sources, to inventing new and outside-the-box strategies in every part of our company.
Is there hope? Well, consider this.
Revered economist and technology futurist George Gilder, in his new book "Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy," predicts Google will one day come to an end. Why? Because, says Gilder, at root Google's "philosophy attempts to lay an axe to the root of human creativity, free will and man's uniqueness as created in God's image."
Let me explain. Gilder, whose track record of anticipating future technology trends is impeccable, predicts that today's extreme centralization of data, power and wealth will one day give way to a new age of decentralization, restored privacy and individual empowerment. That would mean Google-Facebook's predatory monopolistic destruction of competitors, wanton invasion of privacy and ideological censorship also come to an end.
However, there's a catch. Key to that better future, says Gilder, is understanding that the whole idea of "free" is an illusion. As we all have recently learned, when we access Facebook and Google for "free," it's only because it turns out we are the product being sold! In place of "free" services that exploit, monetize and censor us, says Gilder, new developments like blockchain technology, cryptocurrency and micropayments will one day play a crucial role in keeping the public square of information open, decentralized, healthy and thriving.
If all this still sounds a bit esoteric, let's boil it down to its essence: Only one thing is immune to Google/Facebook's censoring, stifling, starving and shadow-banning independent, pro-American news and analysis like WND. Only one thing can counteract Amazon sucking up all the ecommerce and crippling everyone else.
That one thing that trumps all the predatory business practices, censorship and utopian fantasies of the current Internet gatekeepers is the creativity and goodness of real people acting under the inspiration of Almighty God. Arrogant, wealthy mega-companies cannot interfere with genuine virtue and generosity working through human beings committed to helping each other.
We at WND would love nothing more than to be able to continue working our hearts out doing what we've been doing for you for the past 22 years. If you agree, help us. It's just as simple as that.
The Digital Cartel – and for that matter, the rest of the dark forces of this world – cannot destroy an honorable relationship between you and us. We give to you, and you give back to us. There is no "free." "It is always a lie," says Gilder, "because on this earth nothing, in the end, is free."
Timing is everything. Gilder's hopeful predictions – that the tech giants will succumb to the self-destruct code they have unknowingly created, and that one day what he calls the "cryptocosm" will usher in a new era of unfettered Internet freedom where ideological censorship is no more, privacy is restored, and sovereign individuals happily pay a tiny amount for the content they like – may take years to come about.
But for WND to survive, that future has to be now.
Please help us today. Otherwise, we will not be around.
WND has a very large readership, millions of people who have freely benefited from its tireless and courageous journalism for two decades. If every reader chipped in just $10, or even as little as $3, we would have no financial problems at all, and in fact could expand our efforts to do even more! If you are able and inclined to donate more (to make up, very frankly, for the majority of people reading this who, for whatever reasons, will not respond), that would be wonderful. And most urgently, if you choose the monthly option for your donation, that helps us enormously as it provides a regular revenue base we can count on.
If you prefer to send a donation check, please mail it to: WND, 580 E. Street PO Box 100, Hawthorne, NV 89415-0100.
Please help us. Time is short. This is a time for action – for all of us. Our adversaries are not holding back, and we need to not hold back either. I pray you will be inspired to join us. Thank you and God bless you.
David Kupelian
Vice President and Managing Editor, WND
Editor, Whistleblower magazine
Author, "The Marketing of Evil," "How Evil Works"
and "The Snapping of the American Mind"
Vice President and Managing Editor, WND
Editor, Whistleblower magazine
Author, "The Marketing of Evil," "How Evil Works"
and "The Snapping of the American Mind"
____________________
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20006
