We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day – True but censored But now, Facebook is censoring accurate information about the relationship between industrial wind energy development and the increase in whale deaths off the East Coast.
Yesterday, Facebook and Instagram censored my post linking whale deaths to wind energy off the East Coast of the United States. The censorship came in the form of a “FactCheck.org” article from March 31, 2023, which relied entirely on U.S. government sources.
The censorship came on the exact same day that Public and Environmental Progress released a new documentary, “Thrown To The Wind,” which proves that the FactCheck.org article is false.
– Michael Shellenberger
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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When will someone sue Facebook for defamation? They called Shellenberger a liar and he will likely suffer actual damage.
I took a quick spin through the Facebook EULA and did not find any release of tortious conduct and their right to remove ‘Misinformation’ doesn’t seem that broad.
Shellenberger should sue. He’s in Berkley, California a socialist hotbed, but also a hotbed of crazy and he might find a panel of Berkley jurors prepared to give him a couple of hundred million in punitives.
What is the meaning of “true” anyway? “True” is what the party says. Doesn’t Shellenberger know this?
To me, “censor” means denying the venue, removing the speech, cancelling the tweet.
But – if I’m reading Twitter correctly – they appended someone else’s opinion onto the bottom of MS’s tweet, while leaving his tweet up and intact.
By doing so, I’d guess they about tripled the reach of MS’s tweet (Streisand effect is real!) and left themselves open to ridicule.
All in all, it works out as a win for MS.
Which facebook kinda did, as they made it less visible to search algorithms. Of course that doesn’t stop venues like this site going “fuck you” and linking to the story not via facebook. Biatch.
Is it worth saying that people who rely on social media for their truth, their information, probably aren’t all that smart or engaged? I mean do you see how much utter garbage is out there? I just read someone telling me I should use an ethernet cable instead of wifi to reduce the amount of radiation I am subjected to. Or another person telling me that this month has two full moons which only ever happens every 763 years, and that women should take particular care of themselves because of the extra load this places on their menstrual cycle. Or this one telling me that as an Aquarius I should be very careful spending time with Sagitariuses. Or my God, please stop asking me the value of 8÷2(2+2)!
The idea that they are fact checking some stuff and not the avalanche of piffle tells you all you need to know.
But the truth is that a LOT of people rely on this for their primary if not only source of news. Which surely should make us all despair for humanity. I’m afraid de-censoring isn’t going to put a scratch on the paint of such utter vacuity.
If I might reiterate a theme I have been on here: the problem isn’t the system or the polticians or the “elites”, it is the utter madness of the people as a whole. And, as I said, there ain’t no fixin’ stupid.
Anyone relying on FakeBuch or any of the other “social media” sites is really just demonstrating that they’re too damn stupid to live as a free citizen in any sort of self-governing society.
Sorry if that hurts any feelings, but there it is. It is true. You’re equally stupid if you fail to grasp the essential fact that in any situation where there’s a “free” service? You’re the product. If you want the questionable benefits of FakeBuch access and participation, you are basically signing away your personal privacy and God alone only knows what else.
Friend of mine in Military Intelligence was death on the whole “social media” thing. His contention was that they were all likely fronts for the three-letter intel agencies, and that they couldn’t have come up with a better means of monitoring the general public if they tried. After all, if you can scam people into telling you everything they’re doing, who needs to have a thousand and one Stasi types eavesdropping on them…?
I’ll lay you long odds that, for the idiots on FakeBuch, there are probably more detailed and intrusive files held on them than the Stasi ever had on their most “dangerous” dissidents. And, you fools just gave all that away… How do you think they’re tracking all the January 6th defendants? Most of those idiots did their “plotting” right there in the open, on social media. The only reason they’re not making more of a deal over that in open court is because the people running these scams are smart enough not to tip everyone off as to the actual nature of the beast, with “social media”.
Fraser Orr got it right. If someone is basing his vote on a meme or news article that links to some website no one has ever heard of, that person really shouldn’t be voting in the first place.
@ Steven R,
To play devil’s advocate to both your post and my own, I’d point out that not everyone is engaged with what’s going on in the world around them. Many go through their days without ever looking up from the grindstone they’re putting their noses to, and they just don’t care about what the various numpties in DC are up to. I think it’s the same everywhere… The masses simply don’t care what the idjit class gets up to, until it impinges on their lives and they have to notice.
So, the unfortunate fact is, the social media “news sources” can play a definite role in shaping what happens out there in the wider world. The problem is, once people start to notice…? The lies become abundantly clear, and then the whole thing starts to shake and shimmy. I don’t know what the hell they’re going to do, once everyone is looking at things and paying attention. While everyone was busy buying their boats and so forth, living their lives, the idjit class was able to get away with literal murder. Once that changes? LOL… It’s gonna be very, very different.
I don’t think they’re going to like having everyone’s attention. And, they’re likely to wish they’d let sleeping dogs lie.
Back in the day, I spent a modest amount of time looking into the myriad of ‘factcheckers’ that Facebook uses to legitimize its censorship. You’ll invariably find that a large fraction of their income is actually granted by Facebook. It used to be a legal axiom that one should not sit in judgement in your own cause. But the modern totalitarian parallel state doesn’t care for such things any more.
There is also a sprinkling of the the Koch brothers and GAVI, which is Bill Gates instrument of ‘pestilence’ and authoritarian control.
In short, apart from being annoying, Facebooks fact checking is a fraudulent enterprise financed by a rag tag of Western oligarchs.
Facebook censors or “shadow bans” (restricts the number of people who see) posts that dispute the establishment Collectivist “Progressive” narrative – on any subject. And the problem is at the top – Mark Zuckerberg, like so many “educated” people now, holds that Freedom of Speech only applies to “Progressive” opinions – and that “reactionary” opinions must be crushed by “Independent Fact Checkers” and other liars, because “reactionary” opinions “harm disadvantaged and marginalised groups” – Herbert Marcuse.
It is weird that “Capitalist” Big Business backs far left doctrines, and censors or “shadow bans” anyone who disputes the Collectivist ESG and DEI agenda – but that is the world we live in.
As for this specific case – saying anything negative about Wind Turbines, or “renewables” generally, is going to be censored or restricted (or lied about by the “Independent Fact Checkers”) as it is against the ESG agenda – soon anyone who tells the truth will be punished as a “Denier”.
The free market is like a tram. You ride it until you arrive at your destination, then you step off.
I find Facebook works just fine if you use it as a family and friends site.
As a site for news and political discussions, it’s a complete waste of time.
To me, “censor” means
denying the venue,
removing the speech,
cancelling the tweet
As I said in some other context, sure the traduced/ sinful text is still technically available to be read — by the determined. It’s still censored tho, cos the gatekeepers have smeared every possible approach to it with a light coating of feces. That’s the effect, anyway, of appending a note to every iteration of the speech saying ‘this is a lie’. As to shadowbanning/ downranking disapproved speech, I’ve heard it argued that is not censorship either — again, the reviled words are still technically available — to the determined. I’d say there must be a mathematical point where such techniques do become true, complete, definitional censorship, tho. What if you shadowban a post such that only 1 in 1,000 people might encounter it? 1 in 100,000? 1 in a million? Censorship doesn’t necessarily mean destruction/ elimination of the censored object, I’d say — mere attempted suppression has much the same effect.
They control speech on the social media platforms most people use. Sites like this one are currently fine, we don’t mind the occasional contrary opinion or 77th Brigade attempts to suppress anti-narrative comments. But soon they will come for us, and the sites we use will simply not be available. Links to them or direct access just will not work. For your own good, of course.
Cayley Graph.
Liberty only lasts as long as people understand it and support it.
That is why the F.A. Hayek line (whether he got it from Hume or Ferguson – or whoever) about “human action, but not human design” is wrong.
People do not get liberty without understanding it and supporting it – and if they cease to understand and support liberty, they lose it.
That is why, as Ronald Reagan often said, liberty is never more than one generation away from being lost.
Yeah, I was going for a cynical explanation for why ‘”Capitalist” Big Business backs far left doctrines’ is common.
Fascism is the organised attempt to introduce socialist planning with the consent of big business
– Edward Conze (1934)