Tag Archives: censorship

A Warning to Writers

03 Wednesday Jul 2019

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In a world and nation where reading goes by the wayside, it’s nice that sometimes a few writers poke their heads in here. Hey, y’all! Read this about some 1984ish changes to Word.

I’ve been a writer for thirty years. I have over two hundred thousand MS Word docs on my computer. But now, I’m converting all those files to a different word processor.

I don’t want to do it. But I have no choice. MS Word — the default application for novelists, poets, journalists and playwrights — has just become Big Brother. No serious writer can use it anymore.

The problem: Microsoft now “offers” an AI tool designed to “improve” my writing. For example, if I type, “We need some fresh blood around here,” Word now changes that phrase to “We must hire some qualified employees.” Or, if I type the word “waitress,” Word now changes it to “waitperson.” (see HERE and HERE and HERE.)

We’ll assume that it converts “Robert E. Lee” to “Satan.” I haven’t used Word in years, before being a WordPerfect fan. That too got a little tedious. Now, like so many I’m either directly in the editing side of WP or – and, yeah, really stupid – using Gdocs. Who knows how much longer any of the platforms will be safe.

I’m not ready to revert to a manual typewriter, though I really am open to the idea. More likely, in the near future, I’ll hard set something like Scrivener on a dumb device or get a restored Tandy running AmiPro. The conversion and publication thingies are a little more complicated with those options, but there are viable workarounds.

Anyway, wordsmiths beware.

No Freedom of Thought on YouTube

05 Wednesday Jun 2019

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My channel’s languishing and I don’t really care. But, there are good videos in danger. I already know of a few removed. SJWs don’t sleep.

YouTube announced Wednesday it would ban videos promoting or glorifying racism and discrimination as well as those denying well-documented violent events, like the Holocaust or the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting.

The announcement by the Google-owned video-sharing platform was the latest of a series of tech industry moves to filter out hateful and violent content, which have spurred calls for tougher regulation.

“YouTube has always had rules of the road, including a longstanding policy against hate speech,” a company statement said.

“Today, we’re taking another step in our hate speech policy by specifically prohibiting videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status.”

Blah, blah, blah. Hang yourselves faster, social masters. The alternatives are out there.

Moral Duty and The Great Charter

08 Monday Apr 2019

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In this sense, they don’t go together.

‘MORAL DUTY’

Last week, Mr Zuckerberg told politicians in Ireland that the company would work with governments to establish new policies in a bid to regulate social media.

The Home Secretary, Sajid Javid added that tech firms had a “moral duty” to protect the young people they “profit from”.

“Despite our repeated calls to action, harmful and illegal content – including child abuse and terrorism – is still too readily available online,” he said.

“That is why we are forcing these firms to clean up their act once and for all. I made it my mission to protect our young people – and we are now delivering on that promise.”

A 12-week consultation of the proposals will now take place before the Government will publish its final proposals for legislation.

The Government said the proposed regulator would have a legal duty to pay due regard to innovation, as well as to protect users’ rights online.

Social networks have failed to prioritise children’s safety and left them exposed to grooming, abuse, and harmful content

Peter Wanless, NSPCC

Peter Wanless, chief executive of children’s charity the NSPCC – which publicly backed the idea regulation in February, said the proposals would make the UK a “world pioneer” in protecting children online.

“For too long social networks have failed to prioritise children’s safety and left them exposed to grooming, abuse, and harmful content,” he said.

“So it’s high time they were forced to act through this legally binding duty to protect children, backed up with hefty punishments if they fail to do so.

“We are pleased that the Government has listened to the NSPCC’s detailed proposals and we are grateful to all those who supported our campaign.”

However, former culture secretary John Whittingdale warned minister risked dragging people into a “draconian censorship regime” in their attempts to regulate internet firms.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, he said he feared the plans could “give succour to Britain’s enemies”, giving them an excuse to further censor their own people.

“Countries such as China, Russia and North Korea, which allow no political dissent and deny their people freedom of speech, are also keen to impose censorship online, just as they already do on traditional media,” he said.

“This mooted new UK regulator must not give the despots an excuse to claim that they are simply following an example set by Britain, where civil liberties were first entrenched in Magna Carta 800 years ago,” he said.

FB outrage of the day (again, told ya so) and woe unto GB.

A Prediction I Hope Is Wrong

21 Friday Dec 2018

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Last month I predicted Tucker Carlson’s imminent departure from Faux News (formerly, the Legs Network):

“If this behavior is maintained, then look for Carlson’s departure from Faux News early next year. I’m sure the pretext has already been manufactured.”

The pretext in civic nationalistic defense of mass (third world) migration. Carlson’s advertisers are leaving over his simple adherence to the truth:

More than a dozen companies have announced they will either pull or suspend their advertising from Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show over comments about immigration he made last week.

Land Rover, IHOP, Ancestry.com, Just For Men, Minted, Smile Direct, Pacific Life, ScotteVest, Nerd Wallet, TD Ameritrade, Bowflex, CareerBuilder, Zenni and the Chase United MileagePlus Explorer card had as of Tuesday afternoon all released statements saying that they would no longer advertise on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

The retreat from Carlson’s program came as liberal activists and organizations pressured companies to abandon the show.

Faux, for their dull part, says they won’t stand for censorship. Hmmmm. For our part, these are more companies to add to the list of enemies, who hate you, whom you should not $upport. Pancakes are better at Village Inn anyway.

Anti-Social Media

12 Monday Dec 2016

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Facebook is building a network of “informers” to keep users in line.

One of the tools being tested will enable users to inform Facebook if certain news stories are using “misleading language”. Some users posted images of a Facebook survey asking them the following question: “To what extent do you think that this link’s title withholds key details of the story?”.

It is still unclear what kind of actions will be carried out after this additional user data is collected, but it is likely that some sort of a database, containing the list of “misleading” news websites, will be generated.

In a not so distant past, content curators from Facebook confirmed that they received direct orders from the company to decrease the relevance or even hide from the newsfeed stories and content with conservative language. While this happened in the US, similar stories have been reported in Brazil, the United Kingdom around the time of the Brexit, and in other countries.

Informers. Like Stalin.

Twitter has banned or run off half of its customers. Word has it the system is only held up now by the near-maniacal tweets of Donald Trump. If Trump jumps to Gab, it’s over for the little bird.

Gab, still in test mode, is roaring along. And the ever-baffled MSM isn’t happy about it. They, “diversity” mongers all, dismiss the real diversity at Gab with slanderous calls of “racist”, “Nazi”, and so forth. All lies.

Sanduja points to the startup founders’ backgrounds as a reflection of diversity.

He is a Canadian Hindu with roots in India. The other co-founders include Ekrem Buyukkaya, a Muslim of Kurdish origin, and Andrew Torba, the chief executive who calls himself a “Christian conservative.”

However, that kind of symbolism does little to mollify the concerns of those worried that services such as Gab keep users inside “filter bubbles” that reinforce their own ideas and block out other viewpoints.

“The service that they have created is an echo chamber for extremely conservative opinions,” says Lauren Copeland, associate director of the Community Research Institute at Baldwin Wallace University [and irrelevant SJW].

“It may be open to everybody, but it certainly doesn’t appeal to everybody.”

Translation: if we can’t control it, it is evil. Up is down. War is peace… Whatever.

I never got Twitter and left the service years ago. I’m still plodding through Gab though I find it energetic at a minimum. Facebook is becoming a place where I promote blog posts and occasionally chat with a few friends.

If you’ve been driven off Twitter or if you fear the FB SS will come knocking over that video of your cat playing with balloon, consider Gab. Sorry about the wait. That’s the popularity of freedom.

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