Over the weekend, Facebook prevented people from sharing two conservative articles on the unraveling case of Empire star Jussie Smollett, which seems to be a hate hoax. Both Rod Dreher, author of The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation, and Daily Caller reporter Jen Kerns saw their articles censored on Facebook.
“You are not allowed to say on Facebook that Jussie Smollett carried out a hate hoax,” Dreher tweeted on Sunday with a screenshot of Facebook blocking his article at The American Conservative.
According to the screenshot, Facebook blocked the article because it appeared to be “spam” and said the post “goes against our Community Standards.”
Facebook lifted the ban later on Sunday.
On Saturday, lawyer Harmeet K. Dillon shared the news that Jen Kerns’s article had been blocked, also allegedly for “violating community standards.”
Rudy Takala also reported that Jen Kerns had been banned on Instagram.
Jen Kerns shared screenshots of the ban with PJ Media. Kerns told PJ Media that Facebook would not allow her to post the article as early as Friday.
Then when she tried to put the article in her Instagram bio, Instagram booted her from the account until she removed the link.
Rod Dreher’s article merely shared the previous reporting on the case, with a few paragraphs of his opinion sprinkled in. Jen Kerns compared the Jussie Smollett apparent hoax with the 1980s hoax perpetrated by Tawana Brawley.
In a follow-up article about the Facebook ban, Rod Dreher attempted to make sense of Facebook’s decision.
I fully support Facebook or any other social medium having a policy of banning certain material (porn, neo-Nazi propaganda, etc.). But when you can’t talk about hate hoaxes in general, or about a celebrated hate hoax in particular? Presumably my blog post violated Facebook’s “hate speech” prohibition (I can’t find any of their other Community Standards that it might have violated).Facebook’s policy on “hate speech” is here.This, I suppose, is what my blog post violated:
But the entire reason for the post is new evidence indicating that Jussie Smollett was NOT a victim of a hate crime, but rather faked a hate crime!
The move indeed seems rather head-scratching.
Facebook also censored a pair of conservative articles last August as news broke surrounding the Paul Manafort conviction and the Michael Cohen guilty plea. Both articles countered the prevailing liberal narrative about these events.
It seems these bouts of censorship are likely caused by liberal Facebook users marking articles as “spam.” The social media company later removed the blocks, but censoring articles in the hours after their publication does a serious disservice in the news industry, where fresh information has the most pertinent impact.
Even if Facebook is not behind the initial decision to block, the company should make sure the posts are “spam” before blocking them, rather than allowing some Social Justice Warrior to silence news on the internet.
A CNN reporter covering the Kamala Harris campaign ignited a firestorm of criticism this weekend after she tweeted a video of herself helping Harris try on a colorful sequined jacket – with many questioning the reporter’s commitment to journalistic objectivity after appearing to pal around with the subject of her reporting.
The incident occurred during a campaign trip to a boutique purportedly owned by a female entrepreneur who turned to entrepreneurship as a “way out” of poverty and dire life circumstances.
In the clip, CNN national political reporter Maeve Reston can be seen laughing and joking with Harris as she helps her try on the jacket. In the caption for her tweet, Reston wrote that “we kind of forced” Harris “to try on this awesome oversized rainbow sequin jacket…She snapped it up,”
Meanwhile, CBS News political reporter Caitlin Huey-Burns also posted footage of the impromtu fashion shoot with the hasthtag #campaignfashionreport.
Fox News Brit Hume was one of the first to criticize the “journalists” for “going shopping” with the subject of their coverage, calling the incident “embarrassing.”
Though at least one other journalist who was present for the “jacket” incident stepped up to defend her colleagues by retweeting a tweet reminding the world of similar incidents involving male reporters.
The Federalists’ Maggie Hemingway joked that, if readers paid close attention, they could detect a slight difference in how the media covers different politicians.
Responding to the torrent of criticism, CBS’s Huey Burns defended her coverage by clarifying that she had asked several hard-hitting questions and that the boutique tour was part of a tour of shops run by economically disadvantaged women.
But while responses to the controversy have unsurprisingly diverged down partisan lines, at least the reporters involved can rest easy knowing that if their respective networks carry out a Buzzfeed style purge of their reporting staff, they might have a future working as fashion consultants on the Harris campaign.
In an earlier post, Jim warns readers not to forget about the video that was produced after news broke of Jussie Smollett’s “attack.”
'Our truths cannot be erased. Our lives must not be erased. We will not be erased.' — Celebrities and activists are speaking out against hate after the racist, homophobic attack on Jussie Smollett pic.twitter.com/YZzbBJ7iXN
It’s an awful piece of propaganda that perfectly encapsulates what it’s like to be a conservative Trump supporter, living in an oppressive Progressive culture. Their bigotry is only matched by their arrogance.
The truth is, ever since the rise of cultural marxism, anyone who isn’t progressive has been under attack by bigoted and racist leftists.
(Twitter bio) Journalist | Sr.Producer | Latina | Feminist | FL. CA. TX. UT. NY. | Sarcasm with sincerity. @nowthisnews
This isn’t Carly’s first time propagandizing a leftist hoax.
(Twitter bio) Producer @nowthisnews || Journalist || New Californian || Email me if you have a story to tell scout@nowthismedia.com
Happy Valentines Day with extra love for anyone and everyone who has ever been teased, taunted, punished, or otherwise persecuted for loving who they love. Hopefully one day the whole world can see that #loveislove but until then #lovewins ❤️… https://t.co/rG6uH0HCBC
Happy valentines Day, Scout. And yes, EXTRA love for all those who are teased, taunted, punished, or otherwise persecuted for loving who they love…POTUS TRUMP!
Carly and Scout should apologize immediately for what they’ve done. Maybe they can make a clever video saying they’re sorry!
An Islamic State-supporting group shared a chilling photoshopped image to social media on Friday which appears to threaten a terrorist attack on a skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles.
In the foreground of the photoshopped picture, a camo-clad masked figure appears to be holding a furled Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) flag in one hand, while the explosion emanates from a high-rise behind them. They also appear to be wearing something akin to a suicide attack vest.
The SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks the social media and online activities of extremist groups, says that the image was shared to threaten attacks in the US“and the west.”
The LAPD tweeted that although it takes the social media post seriously, “at this point we have not been able to find any credible threat against buildings in our city.”The police force urged city residents to“heighten their awareness”and report any suspicious activity to an anti-terrorism hotline.
The key building depicted in the doctored image appears to be the Aon Building, a striking 62-story fixture in downtown LA. In a statement to Fox 11, Aon said that its security team “has confirmed with the Department of Homeland Security that this is a non-credible threat.”
Facebook has suspended several accounts operated by Maffick Media without prior warning, right after CNN ran a report about the company’s perceived ties to the Kremlin.
In what seems to be a new step in the social media giant’s fight against perceived ‘Russian propaganda’, Facebook took down, without prior notice, several pages offering video content. The social media network said it would ask the administrators of Soapbox, Back Then and Waste-Ed to disclose their “Russian affiliations.” Facebook also suspended another Maffick page, In the Now, which was originally a show aired by RT.
“People connecting with Pages shouldn’t be misled about who’s behind them. Just as we’ve stepped up our enforcement of coordinated inauthentic behavior and financially motivated spam over the past year, we’ll continue improving so people can get more information about the Pages they follow,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement.
However, no official requests were filed with Maffick Media, the German-based company operating all three pages. They were not notified before the fact, which prompted an angry response (posted on Maffick’s front page at the time of writing) in which they branded Facebook policies “new McCarthyism.” All three pages remained offline on Monday.
The accounts were suspended shortly after CNN aired a report with the catchy headline “Kremlin funds viral videos aimed at millennials,” in which it listed all three pages as part of the Kremlin’s “influence campaign” targeting unsuspecting young American adults. CNN stated that German-based Maffick Media is “mostly owned” by Ruptly video news agency – a subsidiary of RT – and is thus in the Kremlin’s back pocket.
An open secret
CNN also repeatedly accused Maffick of concealing its suspected ties to Russia to mislead its audience. While, indeed, none of the pages bore a glowing stamp that said “paid for by the Kremlin,” they were never told that they were required to do so. Besides, no special effort was made to hide the funding sources – as proved by the CNN reporters themselves, who used an online commercial registers database to acquire documents showing that Maffick is 51 percent (which CNN generalized as “mostly”) owned by Ruptly.
The remaining near-half belongs to Maffick CEO Anissa Naouai, an American journalist of Tunisian descent. Before launching her independent project, Naouai founded the show In The Now, which was aired by RT International (and whose Facebook page was also suspended), and before that, worked as a reporter and presenter for RT. She says the company only fully employs people in Berlin and hires Americans as freelancers. Notably, In The Now had over 2.5 billion views on Facebook.
Incidentally, CNN’s own report was based on a tip from the German Marshall Fund, financed by the US, German, and other governments. Among the Fund’s other accomplishments is the questionable Hamilton 68 ‘Russian propaganda tracker’– a website that labels Twitter accounts as ‘Russian influence’ operations and tracks their activities based on an undisclosed methodology that is impossible to verify – but is still embraced by multiple US mainstream media outlets as a reliable tool.
Unexplained ban
Facebook’s decision to shut down the pages run by Maffick has gone unexplained so far. The company did not break any of the social media network’s rules, which as of now do not demand that anyone post funding details on their Facebook pages. On top of that, numerous other media companies supported with government money – including NPR, PBS, BBC, DW, CBC, and AJ+ – never had to deal with similar treatment, Maffick notes.
Maffick was singled out for the sole reason that Russia is the supporting government, the company says.
Maffick Media says it is editorially independent – but, as per the CNN report, “much of [its] content seemed to be perfectly aligned with much of the propaganda coming out of the Kremlin” – that is to say, the content does not align with the mainstream view of American policies.
If I oppose a US war, does that automatically mean I am going to be accused of being aligned with the Kremlin? With this Russia hysteria we are experiencing now I feel like this is a very, very dangerous McCarthyist tactic to start saying that leftist views, anti-war views are just the Kremlin government’s talking points.
This is what Rania Khalek, the American host of Soapbox – one of the video shows Maffick ran on Facebook – told CNN when asked about her alleged connections to Moscow.
Each of the suspended pages had tens of thousands of followers on Facebook, while their videos were viewed “tens of millions of times,”according to CNN – a level of popularity which possibly spurred Facebook to take such drastic and swift measures to silence them.
Lara Logan, foreign correspondent for CBS’s 60 Minutes, said Breitbart News offers “the other side” of news media relative to what she described as a mostly left-wing and partisan Democrat news landscape in the U.S. and abroad.
She offered her remarks in an interview published last Friday with the Mike Drop podcast, hosted by retired Navy SEAL Mike Ritland.
Ritland characterized U.S. news media as “absurdly left-leaning” and supportive of Democrats, further describing the status quo of American news media’s left-wing and partisan Democrat biases as a “huge fucking problem” and “disaster for this country.”
Logan concurred, “I agree with that. That’s true.” She described U.S. and international news media as “mostly liberal,” adding, “most” journalists are left.
“The media everywhere is mostly liberal, not just the U.S.,” assessed Logan.
Logan grouped Breitbart News and Fox News as dissident outlets relative to the “mostly liberal” news media landscape. She said:
Visually, anyone who’s ever been to Israel and been to the Wailing Wall has seen that the women have this tiny little spot in front of the wall to pray, and the rest of the wall is for the men. To me, that’s a great representation of the American media, is that in this tiny little corner where the women pray you’ve got Breitbart and Fox News and a few others, and from there on, you have CBS, ABC, NBC, Huffington Post, Politico, whatever, right? All of them. And that’s a problem for me, because even if it was reversed, if it was vastly mostly on the right, that would also be a problem for me.
My experience has been that the more opinions you have, the more ways that you look at everything in life — everything in life is complicated, everything is gray, right? Nothing is black and white.
News media homogeneity cripples many people’s desire for getting to the truth about political goings on, determined Logan:
How do you know you’re being lied to? How do you know you’re being manipulated? How do you know there’s something not right with the coverage? When they simplify it all [and] there’s no grey. It’s all one way. Well, life isn’t like that. If it doesn’t match real life, it’s probably not. Something’s wrong. For example, all the coverage on Trump all the time is negative. … That’s a distortion of the way things go in real life.
Logan warned:
One ideological perspective on everything never leads to an open free diverse tolerant society. The more opinions and views … of everything that you have, the better off we all are. So creating one ideological position on everything throughout your universities, throughout academia, in school and college, in media, and everywhere else, that’s what concerns me. I don’t have to agree with everybody.
Logan added, “Although the media has historically always been left-leaning, we’ve abandoned our pretense — or at least the effort — to be objective, today. … We’ve become political activists, and some could argue propagandists, and there’s some merit to that.”
Logan cast Breitbart News as a useful barometer of “the other side” of news media:
This is the problem that I have. There’s one Fox, and there’s many, many, many more organizations on the left. … The problem is the weight of all these organizations on one side of the political spectrum. When you turn on your computer, or you walk past the TV, or you see a newspaper headline in the grocery store If they’re all saying the same thing, the weight of that convinces you that it’s true. You don’t question it, because everyone is saying it. Unless you seek out Breitbart on your computer, you’re probably not even going to know what the other side is saying.
Most news media outlets ignore the origins of ostensibly grassroots political activism, stated Logan. She pondered the geneses of such campaigns, speculating on technology firms’ roles in amplifying such campaigns:
We don’t even question if what we see on social media is real or not. We don’t even question if a grassroots movement is really grassroots. You know, there’s a way to start a grassroots movement. You write an algorithm, and you create all this outrage, and you’re basically throwing out all the sparks that light the fire, so then it becomes a grassroots movement because it takes nothing to set that in motion. But did it really begin as one? And if it didn’t begin that way, but was manipulated and paid for by someone and serves someone’s political purpose, is it really what we believe it is?
…
People were manipulated into doing that. … Who’s behind it? Who’s doing it, and why are they doing it? And what else are they doing? Those things are profoundly significant, and we’re not even trying to find out who it is. That really bothers me.
Logan dismissed news media claims allegedly rooted in singular anonymous government sources as unreliable. “That’s not journalism, it’s horseshit,” she said.
“Responsibility for fake news begins with us,” said Logan, referring to journalists and reporters.
Logan recalled for Media Matters for America (MMFA) targeted her following a 60 Minutes report she filed related to the September 11, 2012 Islamic terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. “I made one comment about Benghazi,” remarked Logan, ” [then] I was targeted by Media Matters for America, which was an organization established by David Brock, who has dedicated himself to the Clintons. It was their known propaganda organization.”
In February of 2011, Logan was sexually assaulted — and nearly murdered — by numerous men in Cairo, Egypt, while reporting on the ousting of then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. She shared some details of the attack’s nature, including
“Piece by piece, they tore all my clothing off, and just tore my body almost to pieces, and tore my insides apart,” recounted Logan. “I saw people taking pictures. … I remember fighting, being raped, and being able to sometimes push people away, and then I remember just realizing that there were too many of them — and it was over and over and over again — and that there was always someone else when you could fight one person.”
Towards the end of the interview, Logan quipped, “This interview is professional suicide for me.”
Disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner has been released from prison and placed in a residential re-entry facility. He had been sentenced to 21 months in prison for sending sexually explicit messages to a minor.
Weiner had been sending graphic and sexually explicit messages to a 15-year-old North Carolina girl in 2017.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons has Weiner listed as being in the custody of a Residential Re-entry Management office in Brooklyn, New York, according to a report from the Associated Press.
The investigation into his chats with the girl led to a laptop being seized from the home Weiner shared with his wife Huma Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Clinton. Two weeks before the election, FBIDirector James Comey announced that emails related to the candidate’s private email server may have been found on a laptop used by both Weiner and Abedin, prompting the agency to reopen their probe into the scandal.
Weiner’s predatory messages to the teen were not his first sex scandal.
In 2011, Weiner tweeted a photo of his crotch, which lead to his resignation from Congress.
During his run for mayor of New York, Weiner’s weiner made headlines once again after porn star Sydney Leathers went to the media with their explicit chats.
During the 2016 election season, the New York Post obtained new graphic chats between Weiner and a “busty brunette,”including a photo of his crotch — taken with his five-year-old son sleeping in the bed in the background.
Weiner’s wife Huma Abedin has worked closely with Clinton since the 1990s, during Bill Clinton’s presidency. She has been a top aide to the former First Lady ever since.
Weiner’s sexual scandals were chronicled in a now-popular documentary called Weiner, in which Abedin’s contempt for him was impossible to miss.
Left-wing Hollywood wasted no time in politicizing and blaming President Donald Trump and his supporters for an alleged hate crime attack on Empire actor Jussie Smollett — an encounter that police now reportedly believe to have been staged.
CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz reported Saturday, “Chicago Police believe Jussie Smollett paid two men to orchestrate the assault. The sources tell CNN that the two men are now cooperating fully with law enforcement.”
Smollett had previously claimed that at 2am in downtown Chicago, he was attacked by two men, had a rope wrapped around his neck, and chemicals thrown on him and claimed he was called racial and homophobic slurs. He also said that the attackers yelled “This is MAGA country!” at him.
Left-wing Hollywood, of course, used the alleged attack to cast blame on President Trump and the United States in general.
Empire co-creator Lee Daniels said, “We have to love each other regardless of what sexual orientation we are because it shows we are united on a united front and no racist fuck can come in and do the things that they did to you.”
“Hold your head up, Jussie. I’m with you. I’ll be there in a minute. It’s just another fucking day in America,” he said.
Singer Cher roared, “VILLAINY, RACISM,HOMOPHOBIA, PROMOTED BY MOST INFAMOUS [clown] IN [the world],IS THE POISON THAT KILLS [America].”
“[America] IS PPL OF COLOR,” she added. “GOP GOES DOWN WITH SHIP djt.”
“Standing with and sending love to @JussieSmollett today… this is a racist hate crime and is disgusting and shameful to our country,” pop star Katy Perry said.
Actress Olivia Munn claimed, without evidence, “Jussie Smollett was violently attacked by two white men who poured bleach on him and put a noose around his neck.”
“He was targeted for being black and for being gay. THIS is why we have to have zero tolerance against homophobia and racism. Jussie’s life matters.”
Actor Billy Eichner used the incident to cast blame on Trump and “all MAGA lunatics.”
“Heartbroken and furious reading about the attack onJussieSmollett. I want Trump and all MAGA lunatics to burn in Hell,” the Billy on the Street star said.
In a now-deleted tweet, Rosie O’Donnell cast blame on “maga assholes.”
Rob Reiner chimed in with his usual vitriol, “The horrific attack on Jussie Smollett has no place in a decent human loving society. Homophobia existed before Trump, but there is no question that since he has injected his hatred into the American bloodstream, we are less decent, less human,& less loving. No intolerance! No DT!”
Hollywood director Barry Jenkins also blamed Trump, saying, “Thinking of Jussie. Saddened. Heartbroken. Angry. ALL of it. Wouldn’t matter that he is the kindest soul. But he IS the kindest soul. And this is FUCKED. This is what all that hateful mongering has wrought. Are you PROUD???”
“for the love of god, how how how can people still be supporting the ‘president’ ? I beg of you . please can we put aside politics and fight together to overcome disgustingly vile hate ?” actress Beth Behrs said.
for the love of god, how how how can people still be supporting the “president” ? I beg of you . please can we put aside politics and fight together to overcome disgustingly vile hate ?https://t.co/nlZVlIK0Sl
Indeed there was no shortage of leftist celebrities who blamed innocent Americans for an alleged attack they had no part in, all without evidence. Check out more celebrity reactions below.
I’m horrified by the vicious attack on @JussieSmollett Not surprised that the cowards in masks yelled “This is MAGA country.” Our country deserves better than the kind of morally bankrupt people who have taken our democracy hostage and condone hate crimes. Sending love to Jussie.
The horrific story of Jussie Smollet makes this important point:
While some are whipping up tales of danger coming over the border, the real and documented danger to America is coming from home-grown right-wing racist, homophobic and antisemitic movements.
A former London gangbanger offered his own confirmation that England’s capital city is rife with violent crime during an interview with the BBC.
Robert Bragg, 26, told Radio 1 Newsbeat that stabbing people was an integral part of his way of life in London prior to serving a six-year prison sentence.
“I started carrying a knife when I was 12 because everyone was doing it at the time,” Bragg said. “To fit in more you had to do certain things so I started to stab people. I didn’t do it because I wanted to be bad.”
“To be honest with you, I’ve stabbed quite a lot of people.”
“If I was to sit here and count I wouldn’t be able to. People remind me, to this day, about people I’ve stabbed that I don’t remember,”Bragg continued. “It’s just one of them things: you wake up, you have your breakfast, you stab someone. It’s mad because we’re not actually thinking about damaging a life.”
Some 285 homicides were carried out via knife or sharp object in a single year ending March, 2018 — far outpacing any other type of killing, according to government statistics.
Victims and suspects in stabbing deaths are predominantly young men.
Bragg asserts he has found redemption through church and a search for God.
“I said to myself before I kill myself I’m going to try God and see if God has a plan for my life,” he said. “I went to church one day and I lifted my hands and said: ‘God if you’re real, help me.’”
Writer Luke Thompson was temporarily suspended by Twitter for calling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez out on giving her boyfriend a job in her Congressional office.
Thompson had discovered that Ocasio-Cortez’s boyfriend, Riley Roberts, is now listed as staff in the House directory and tweeted “while you were having a nice Valentine’s Day, @AOC decided to put her boyfriend on staff – drawing a salary on the taxpayer’s dime. Nice to see her adapting to the swamp so quickly.”
Twitter claimed that a screenshot of his House directory listing violated the rules against posting private information.
Ocasio-Cortez responded to Thompson’s claim by saying that he only has an account so that he can access her schedule.
“Actually this cal designation is a permission so he can have access to my Google Cal. Congressional spouses get Gcal access all the time. Next time check your facts before you tweet nonsense,”Ocasio-Cortez responded — though her claim was quickly debunked by the writer.
Thompson responded by noting that he is listed in the directory as “staff”— not as a boyfriend or spouse. He additionally noted that the House doesn’t use Google.
Unclear at what title or pay grade he was hired as he isn't in Legistorm yet. But it's a bad look. pic.twitter.com/yUbRPik4Vt
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