New Research Reveals Exactly Why Social Media Giants Are Censoring Conservatives

By Lisa Payne-Naeger


Sharing of information is probably the most powerful influence there is among human beings. Perhaps social media giants know this better than anyone. They’ve made fortunes from their internet empires, collecting data and luring the public into their information hubs.

Of late we have seen just how these internet moguls have used their power to control information, and discriminate against those with whom they disagree.

There is new information out now that may have these social media power moguls shaking in their shoes. As it turns out, all of their efforts to control the narrative may be falling short of presumed desired ends, and it’s fair to ask: Could this lead to an eventual destruction of their social media dynasties?

Barack Obama’s 2008 election was probably the first time we saw the power social media had at influencing a nation, politically. You’ve got to give credit where credit is due. Obama and his team correctly identified social media as an effective platform with which to reach a badly needed demographic to put him over the top in his presidential race.

And President Trump has managed to keep the liberal media in a tailspin with his use of Twitter to directly reach his audience and circumvent their ability to spin news coverage.

Over time conservatives awoke to developments and benefits of social media technology and began to grow in numbers and influences there, only to be met with roadblocks thrown up by liberal social media giants who wanted to diminish conservative thought, speech and influence.

Could they have already known what Pew Research just released in their latest round of polling? Americans are highly influenced by social media. At least 14 percent will flip on an idea or previously held beliefs based on what they see on social media platforms.

This is certainly something that should have Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai worried about their current business strategies because while 14 percent may not seem like a lot of people, it’s certainly enough to flip an election — especially if the flip is to the right. And the research shows the demographics influenced most are generally those traditionally secure in the liberal camp.

According to the poll, men 18 to 29 are an easier flip than women on political or social views due to social media influence. Race and ethnicity reportedly also have a role to play.

“Certain groups, particularly young men, are more likely than others to say they’ve modified their views because of social media. Around three-in-ten men ages 18 to 29 (29%) say their views on a political or social issue changed in the past year due to social media. This is roughly twice the share saying this among all Americans and more than double the shares among men and women ages 30 and older (12% and 11%, respectively).”

“There are also differences by race and ethnicity, according to the new survey. Around one-in-five black (19%) and Hispanic (22%) Americans say their views changed due to social media, compared with 11% of whites.”

And it’s got to be the data on how those folks flip within their own parties that is the most troubling to companies, for example, like Google and Facebook.

“Social media prompted views to change more among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (17%) than among Republicans and Republican leaners (9%). Within these party groups, there are also some differences by gender, at least among Democrats. Men who are Democrats or lean Democratic (21%) are more likely than their female counterparts (14%) to say they’ve changed their minds. However, equal shares of Republican and Republican-leaning men and women say the same (9% each).”

Breitbart reported last year that 67 percent of Americans get their news through social media. That’s a huge percentage of the population focused on a targeted information source. Is it any wonder why social media giants are fighting conservative speech to the degree with which we see today?

Can you imagine what kind of damage a message like #WalkAway could do to the progressive narrative from someone like Brandon Straka, a former liberal?

Straka started the social media #WalkAway movement this year after he left the Democratic Party. The young, formerly liberal male speaks quite effectively to the left about why liberal agendas have fallen short of their promises because he walked lockstep within its platform his entire life. Now he’s using social media to get that message out to the 29 percent of men and 18 percent of women who are black, hispanic and white before the midterms in November.

His Facebook page has grown to more than 75,000 followers in just a few months and a grassroots movement  has expanded to Canada. All this, through the power of social media.

I’m going to go out on a limb here to guess this isn’t quite what Zuckerberg planned when he started Facebook. But here’s hoping the latest polling results and campaigns like #WalkAway are a bigger testament to the power of American exceptionalism than it is to social media influence and power.



Report: Liberal News Outlets Dominate Google Search Results with 96 Percent of ‘Trump’ Stories

by Jack Davis


New evidence that technology’s giants are muzzling conservatives has emerged after the web site PJ Media wanted to find out if Google did in fact lurch to the left when users wanted the latest information on President Donald Trump.

Writer Paula Bolyard on Saturday reported on the results of her experiment, which the site was fully upfront about admitting was not scientific.

The headline of her article said it all: “96 Percent of Google Search Results for ‘Trump’ News Are from Liberal Media Outlets.”

The concept was simple. Bolyard typed “Trump” using Google’s “News” tab and let Google do the rest. “I was not prepared for the blatant prioritization of left-leaning and anti-Trump media outlets,” she wrote, noting that no single right-leaning site appeared on the first page of search results, and that CNN, dubbed by Trump as “Fake News” for its coverage of him, is far and away the leading site listed

She then looked at the first 100 items, and the trend continued. There were 21 articles from CNN, 11 each from The Washington Post and NBC, and 8 from CNBC. Other sites at the top of the list included The New York Times, Atlantic, Politico, Vox, CBS and the Wall Street Journal.

Fox News was listed twice.

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk said that tech giants are trying to influence the midterm elections.

“This is their great offensive to try to silence differing opinion,” he said Monday on “Fox & Friends,” Fox News reported. “And make no mistake, it’s not because the conservative voices are offensive. It’s because they are effective.”

Kirk said conservatives must fight the tech giants.

“We need to push back because it could be a huge, huge problem moving forward,” he said.

“The very bottom line is the left hates the idea that there are other ideas. And they control these public forums or these vehicles of conversation. They’re going to use every piece of power and influence they can to try to suppress our voice. And we cannot stand for it,” he added.

Bolward was hardly the first to suggest that Google buries the right while promoting the left.

A 2017 study by the website “Can I Rank” said that the bias in Google was clear.

“Among our key findings were that top search results were almost 40% more likely to contain pages with a “Left” or “Far Left” slant than they were pages from the right. Moreover, 16% of political keywords contained no right-leaning pages at all within the first page of results,” the study said.

“Our analysis of the algorithmic metrics underpinning those rankings suggests that factors within the Google algorithm itself may make it easier for sites with a left-leaning or centrist viewpoint to rank higher in Google search results compared to sites with a politically conservative viewpoint,” it added.

Google denies doing anything to skew the results.

“Google does not manipulate results,” said Google spokeswoman Maggie Shiels. “There are more than 200 signals taken into account when someone does a search which include freshness of results.”

Bolyard’s conclusion was that Americans need to be aware that their searches are being manipulated.

“With all the talk and hand-wringing about fake news and bad foreign actors using social media outlets to attempt to manipulate election results, far too little attention has been paid to power brokers like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube and their ability —  and perhaps even desire — to manipulate public opinion and shape the world into their own Silicon Valley image,” she wrote.




The White House under Trump

submitted by LeRoy C


On Friday, the Trump administration released their annual report to Congress on White House Office Personnel.  It includes the name, status, salary and position title of all 377 White House employees.

The report also said that Trump decided not to take a dime of his salary; instead he donated it to an amazing cause! See below.
 
The report also showed that President Trump is far better at saving money than Obama was. The total annual White House salaries under Trump are 35.8 million vs. $40.9 million under Obama, a savings of $5.1 million.  Here are some other key findings:
 
There are 110 fewer employees on White House staff under Trump than under Obama at this point in their respective presidencies.
 
Nineteen fewer staffers are also dedicated to The First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS).  Currently, there are only two staffers dedicated to Melania Trump vs. 22 staffers who served Michelle Obama (FY2009).
 
However, it's what the report said Trump did with this salary that has everyone talking.
 
Instead of taking his salary, Trump donated all $400,000 to the Department of the Interior where it will be used for construction and repair needs at military cemeteries!  AMAZING! It's so great to have a President who loves our brave military men and women so much!
 
Oh, and where's the media coverage of this? That's right, they don't cover anything decent that the President does...

The Real “Fake News” from Government Media

By Scott Lazarowitz



Image credit: Pixabay

Facebook has announced its campaign against “fake news.” But, according to some workers’ own admission, conservatives are being censored.

And Google also wants to censor “fake news.” But Google also was shown to treat conservative websites, but not liberal ones, as “fake news.”

The same thing seems to be going on with Twitter. And again, conservatives are complaining.

But who is to decide what is “fake news”? Who will be Facebook and Google’s sources for real news?

In 2013 the U.S. Senate considered a new shield law to protect journalists. In the lawmakers’ attempts to narrow the definition of a journalist, some Senators including Sen. Dianne Feinstein only wanted to include reporters with “professional qualifications.”

“Professional” publications such as the New York Times, the “Paper of Record,” would apparently be protected.

So one can conclude that the New York Times can be a source of “real” news for Facebook or Google, despite all the Timeserrors, screw-ups, and corrections, right?  According to one NYT former reporter, the Times has been a “propaganda megaphone” for war. Also a partner with the CIA to promote Obama’s reelection bid.

Or CNN, “The Most Trusted Name in News” which wins its own “fake news” awards with its errors, screw-ups and corrections.  During the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign, there were collusion s between then-CNN contributor and DNC operative Donna Brazile, who was outed by WikiLeaks in her giving candidate Hillary Clinton questions in advance for a CNN Town Hall.

Other emails that were leaked to WikiLeaks informed us that reporters obediently followed instructions from the Hillary Clinton campaign on how to cover the campaign. These include reporters from the New York Times such as Maggie Haberman who said the campaign would “tee up stories for us,” and Mark Leibovich, who would email Clinton flunky Jennifer Palmieri for editing recommendations.

And Politico reporter Glenn Thrush asked Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta for approval of stories on Clinton. Thrush was then hired by the New York Times. After Thrush was then suspended from NYT over allegations of sexual misconduct, the Times ended the suspension, stating that while Thrush had “acted offensively,” he would be trained to behave himself. Hmm.

But all this from the 2016 campaign reminded me of the “JournoLists,” the group of news journalists who participated in a private forum online from 2007-2010. The forum was to enable news reporters to discuss news reporting and political issues in private and with candor, but also, it was revealed, to discuss ways to suppress negative news on then-2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama.

For instance, according to the Daily Caller, some members of the group discussed their criticism of a 2008 debate in which Obama was questioned on his association with the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The Nation‘s Richard Kim wrote that George Stephanopoulos was “being a disgusting little rat snake.” The Guardian‘s Michael Tomasky wrote that “we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy.”

Spencer Ackerman, then with the Washington Independent and now of the Daily Beast, wrote, “If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us. Instead, take one of them — Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.

The Nation‘s Chris Hayes wrote, “Our country disappears people. It tortures people. It has the blood of as many as one million Iraqi civilians — men, women, children, the infirmed — on its hands. You’ll forgive me if I just can’t quite dredge up the requisite amount of outrage over Barack Obama’s pastor.”(But has Hayes criticized Obama’s assassination program, or Obama’s bombings or the blood on Obama’s hands? Just askin’)

In an open letter, according to the Daily Caller, several of the JournoList members called the ABC debate a “revolting descent into tabloid journalism,” because of the moderators’ legitimate questions on Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

So, in today’s Bizarro World, objectively questioning a candidate on a controversial issue is now “tabloid journalism,” but making things up like “Trump-Russia collusion” and repeating the propaganda over and over – that’s not “tabloid journalism.”

The JournoLists also included reporters from Time, the Baltimore Sun, the New Republic, Politico, and Huffington Post.

Now, are those the sources of “real news” that Facebook, Google and Twitter want to rely upon to combat “fake news”?

And who exactly were the “JournoLists” promoting? Obama?

Regarding Obama’s own crackdown on actual journalism, Fox News reporter James Rosen was accused by the feds of being a “co-conspirator” with State Department leaker Stephen Jin-Woo Kim in violating the Espionage Act.  Rosen’s correspondences with Kim were seized by Obama’s FBI, along with Rosen’s personal email and phone records. The FBI also used records to track Rosen’s visits to the State Department.

Apparently, then-attorney general Eric Holder went “judge-shopping” to find a judge who would approve subpoenaing Rosen’s private records, after two judges rejected the request.

Commenting on James Rosen and the FBI’s abuse of powers, Judge Andrew Napolitano observed that “this is the first time that the federal government has moved to this level of taking ordinary, reasonable, traditional, lawful reporter skills and claiming they constitute criminal behavior.”

And there was the Obama administration’s going after then-CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, possibly for her reporting on Benghazi and Fast and Furious. Attkisson finally resigned from CBS news out of frustration with the company’s alleged pro-Obama bias and with CBS’s apparently not airing her subsequent reports.

In 2013 CBS News confirmed that Attkisson’s computers had been “accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions.” In 2015 Attkisson sued the Obama administration, claiming to have evidence which proves the computer intrusions were connected to the Obama DOJ.

In Attkisson’s latest lawsuit update, after her computer was returned to her following the DOJ Inspector General’s investigation, her forensics team now believes her computer’s hard drive was replaced by a different one.

Now back to “fake news.”

After Donald Trump locked up the Republican Presidential nomination in May, 2016, there were significant events in the next two months. Fusion GPS and former British spy Christopher Steele colluded to get opposition research on behalf of Hillary Clinton, the FBI applied for FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign associates, and Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner had a possibly set-up meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower.

Also within that same period, the DNC claimed that its computers were hacked but the DNC wouldn’t let FBI investigate. The Washington Post published an article claiming, with no evidence presented, that “Russian government hackers” took DNC opposition research on Trump.

It was very shortly after the November, 2016 Presidential election that the Washington Post published an article on a “Russian propaganda effort to spread ‘fake news’ during the election.” To escalate the media’s censorship campaign perhaps?

The campaign against “fake news” coincided with Obama minions at FBI, DOJ and CIA apparently panicking over a possible Trump presidency and allegedly abusing their powers to attempt to take down Trump.

So the news media seem to be on a crusade to fabricate “Trump-Russia collusion” and repeat it over and over, and to vilify, ignore and squash actual investigative research and reporting on what exactly the FBI and DOJ bureaucrats have been doing. Call such real investigative reporting “fake news,” “conspiracy theory,” and so forth.

In the end, Facebook, Twitter and Google might want to reconsider relying on the mainstream news media led by the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN, and instead include citizen journalists and non-government-sycophant media to provide news and information.

UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh has noted that the Founders generally viewed the freedom of the Press to apply to every citizen to print, publish or express accounts of events. We really need to highlight that kind of old-fashioned, honest journalism.

Scott Lazarowitz is a libertarian writer and commentator. Please visit his blog.





Scott Lazarowitz is a libertarian writer and commentator. Please visit his blog. The article is republished under a 2018 Creative Commons License.