CNN demands censorship, then calls it 'conspiracy theory'
WND
Senior Media Reporter Oliver Darcy stated on CNN.com that President Donald Trump on Friday morning “claimed in a tweet that social media companies are ‘silencing millions of people,’ exacerbating a longstanding paranoia from conservatives who have for years erroneously accused social media companies of bias and censorship.”
“With his tweet, and others before it, Trump has signaled that he and his Republican allies would continue to paint tech giants like Facebook and Twitter as villains in a longstanding culture war used to excite the conservative base,” Darcy said.
But Paul Joseph Watson, a contributor to Alex Jones’ InfoWars, which recently was banned by major social-media sites, noted Darcy has repeatedlylobbied YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to censor InfoWars while asserting “there is no political agenda to censor conservatives.”
“His article is absent the admission that Facebook, YouTube and other Big Tech outlets banned InfoWars after months of intense lobbying by CNN, a competitor network, to shut down their competition,” Watson wrote.
He said Darcy began, months ago, “abusing his CNN platform to lobby YouTube to shut down the Alex Jones Show, an effort that was almost successful at the time, before the channel finally was shut down earlier this month.”
Facebook invited me to an event today where the company aimed to tout its commitment to fighting fake news and misinformation.
I asked them why InfoWars is still allowed on the platform.
I didn’t get a good answer.https://t.co/WwLgqa6vQ4
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) July 12, 2018
One of Darcy’s Twitter posts stated InfoWars should be banned.
At an event held by Facebook, Darcy wrote that he asked Twitter why InfoWars is still allowed on its platform and “didn’t get a good answer.”
Wrote Watson: “Not content with YouTube, Facebook, Apple and Spotify banning Jones completely, Darcy kept up the pressure, demanding to know why Twitter had only slapped Jones with a 7 day ban.”
He said Darcy’s “campaign to have InfoWars banned even led some commentators to speculate that CNN’s senior media reporter had a creepy obsession with Alex Jones.”
Congress has held hearings on the censorship, and Darcy noted the companies “maintained they do not discriminate.”
That, Darcy wrote, was a “nuance.”
“Republicans and right-wing media outlets have been all too happy running with the narrative that social media companies are censoring conservatives, the facts be damned. Fox News, the Drudge Report, Breitbart, and other outlets have amplified claims that conservatives are under fire and that their freedom of expression is under threat on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms. In addition to the president, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump Jr. have been among some of the Republicans to promote this narrative,” Darcy wrote.
He claimed that reports of censorship “fall apart under a light touch of scrutiny” and “right-wing media outlets continue to advance the narrative, irrespective of the facts.”
Watson wrote: “While Darcy asserts that social media giants are not censoring anyone because of their political opinions, he fails to point out the numerous examples where precisely that happened, such as when Gavin McInnes was banned by Twitter shortly before a right-wing rally in Washington, D.C., despite McInnes and his Proud Boys group repeatedly disavowing violence.”
Watson pointed out British anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson was also banned by Twitter for his political activism, while Project Veritas journalist Laura Loomer was banned by Facebook after she confronted two Muslim candidates at a political event.
WND reported the recent wave of censorship of conservative voices by tech giants follows a plan concocted by a group of progressive organizations funded by leftist billionaire George Soros.
A confidential, 49-page memo for defeating President Donald Trump by working with the major social-media platforms to eliminate “right wing propaganda and fake news” was presented in January 2017 by Media Matters founder David Brock at a retreat in Florida with about 100 donors, the Washington Free Beacon reported at the time.
The Gateway Pundit blog noted the memo’s relationship with recent moves by Silicon Valley tech giants to “shadow ban” conservative political candidates and pundits and remove content.
The Free Beacon obtained a copy of the memo, “Democracy Matters: Strategic Plan for Action,” by attending the retreat.
The memo spells out a four-year agenda that deployed Media Matters along with American Bridge, Shareblue and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to attack Trump and Republicans.
The strategies are impeachment, expanding Media Matters’ mission to combat “government misinformation,” ensuring Democratic control of the Senate in the 2018 midterm elections, filing lawsuits against the Trump administration, monetizing political advocacy, using a “digital attacker” to delegitimize Trump’s presidency and damage Republicans, and partnering with Facebook to combat “fake news.”
Media Matters met with Facebook, according to the memo, to discuss how to crack down on fake news.
The social media giant was provided with “a detailed map of the constellation of right-wing Facebook pages that had been the biggest purveyors of fake news.”
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URL to article: http://www.wnd.com/2018/08/cnn-demands-censorship-then-calls-it-conspiracy-theory/