All Out Assault On Libertarians Both Online And On The Streets Continues
Jeff Berwick
Daily attacks on Libertarian sites are not a coincidence. They come just weeks after the mainstream press made much to do about "super flaggers."
Yesterday Josie The Outlaw's Facebook page was taken down. And just a few hours ago Adam Kokesh's page was deleted by Fedbook.
When will it stop? And what's behind the madness?
Alex Jones' material has been censored multiple times.
Mark Dice's YouTube page was taken down.
Then Stefan Molyneux's YouTube page. (see Anarchast here)
Then Josie The Outlaw's Facebook page. (see Anarchast here)
And now Adam Kokesh's Facebook. (see Anarchast here)
Why?
SUPER FLAGGERS
In March The Wall Street Journal reported that approximately 200 people and organizations, including a British police unit, had been given by Google the ability to "flag" up to 20 YouTube videos at once to be reviewed for violating the site's guidelines. Since then, we've seen the wave of freedom-minded websites being taken down, if not by government agencies themselves, then by tattle-tale liberals of the keyboard variety.
Google for sure allows the UK government to censor videos that it doesn't like. Google was forced to offer more details about the program. Any user can ask for a video to be reviewed, but participants in the super flagger program can ask for as many as 20 (!) videos to be reviewed at once. And most of these videos ultimately get taken down for good. In that respect, we libertarians have been lucky! The UK Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit, for instance, sought reviews of videos it considered extremist. It justified this by evoking The Terrorism Act.
Over 90% of the videos identified by super flaggers are either completely removed for violating guidelines, or restricted as not appropriate for younger users. This percentage is far higher than regular users who occasionally flag dubious content.
LIBERTARIAN SUPERSTARS DOWN THE MEMORY HOLE
Since that article was published, major libertarian names have had their social media property compromised. Presumably websites like YouTube and Facebook have this program automated, so when a super flagger flags some media or entire page, the page is taken down until reviewed.
Libertarians have had a far greater success rate in having their content restored than other genres, according to the aforementioned 90% figure. Instead, none of our websites have stayed down because of the quick and swift pressure felt by companies like Facebook and YouTube when a Stefan Molyneux, Mark Dice, Alex Jones, Christopher Cantwell, Adam Kokesh, Josie the Outlaw or other freedom-minded person's content gets compromised. Why?
Because we've made a fuss. Libertarians and truth speakers must stick together and support each other. All sites have been put back live due to the overwhelming pressure put on Facebook and YouTube. We also need to support the individuals putting together a decentralized Internet before The Powers That Be take us down for good.
The most recent page to be temporarily thrown down the memory hole is Adam Kokesh's Facebook page. Adam explained overnight in a post on his website that a meme showing a young girl badly burned in a drone strike was reported for "Nudity or Pornography."
Shortly after the admins for Adam's page were notified of the post being removed, they were unable to log into their personal accounts. This is something new. Usually this does not happen. What happens next, we will have to wait-and-see. I predict that their accounts will ultimately be restored.
THE FREE MARKET HAS AN ANSWER
YouTube and Facebook, and websites like them, have lost virtually all credibility. There is now increasing demand for platforms that allow for free speech and don't let governments, corporations and busybodies spoil everyone else's right to speak their mind. I don't really see many liberal websites being taken down, and perhaps that is because I am not in that "scene," but something tells me that is not the case. Something tells me we libertarians aren't the type to tattle-tale. If something seems wrong to us, we leave a rational comment and leave it at that.
THE BOTTOM LINE
These battles we are forced to wage online are indicative of the battles we will all face in the analog realm. That's why constitutionalists and freedom-minded people are now considered "terrorists" according to real state and federal documents.
Many of us have already ended up in jail. Adam Kokesh spent months in solitary confinement. Amanda Billyrock was also arrested on false charges. In St Kitts I myself was arrested and facing serious jail-time, but because of the outpouring of support we were all let off on lesser charges or no charges at all. So there is clearly a disturbing trend afoot and each one of our safety and well-being is compromised. That's why we must all stick together.
We must continue to adapt.
In addition, the United We Stand festival to be held in Los Angeles this weekend to which I will be appearing had their statist university venue at UCLA cancel just three days before the event under very suspicious circumstances. Libertarian and freedom-minded events are being stymied at almost every level now. But, United We Stand has stated they will relocate the event with just days to go...much like how the Woodstock festival in 1969 had their venue be cancelled at the last minute leading them to hold the festival on a farm leading to one of the most important events of that era. United We Stand with awake musical acts like Public Enemy and Immortal Technique may also end up being a defining moment in the liberty movement if they can find a new venue on such short notice.
OTHER INTERNET OPTIONS
The Dollar Vigilante is looking for new sites to place all of its content where it won't be compromised like on Facebook and YouTube. We have already moved our DNS to Canada with EasyDNS which is run by an anarchist and moved our servers to Iceland to Orange, also run by a libertarian. Both also accept bitcoin.
As well, all past Anarchast videos have now been uploaded to Vimeo.
In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to our blog, Facebook page, YouTube page and Twitter so that if one is taken down, another will still be up and you'll know what's going on.
The state cometh.
Link:
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/05/all-out-assault-on-libertarians-both.html
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