Silencing and Censoring Conservative Voices- It Happened To Me!

I consider myself a moderate, always have. So I never thought I'd see the day that any of my social media accounts would be censored. But it happened. Today. On Twitter.

I haven't been blogging or Tweeting for a good long while, since caregiving my mom these past 4 plus years has taken its toll as far as time commitment goes. Plus taking care of someone else leaves one less than inspired to sit down and write. But recent events, including the upcoming midterms and the upswing in uber progressive candidates winning primaries, and the current Kavanaugh travesty, I felt compelled to get back into it.

So I've been Tweeting. A LOT these past few weeks. And today was no exception. It's hard not to respond to liberal tools who have their heads so firmly stuck in the sand of ignorance.

 I was on Twitter for a while after breakfast, took a break, did an errand, and was inspired to thank Sen Susan Collins for her speech this afternoon when I noticed something odd on my page- it wasn't refreshing, and every time I tried to tweet the Senator, I got the following message:

Automated? What? I was totally flummoxed because I don't use any kind of software to post for me. I use my little fingers and my keyboard to write. I'm certainly not a spammer- I wish they'd all curl up and die. I have no malicious intent- trying to enlighten liberals I consider a service not malice.

I googled and figured I must have been 'locked out' for some unknown reason.  I immediately contacted Twitter and received the following message from some unknown Twitter entity:

Hello,

Your account appears to have exhibited automated behavior that violates the Twitter Rules: https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311.

In order to continue safely using Twitter, please follow these steps:

Log in to your account on the web or open your Twitter app (iOS or Android).
You’ll see a prompt letting you know your account has been locked. Click or tap “Start”.
Select your country/region from the drop down menu, and then enter your phone number.
Click “Send code” and Twitter will send you a text message with a confirmation code (note that your standard message rates may apply).
Enter the code you received in the “Your code” box and click “Submit”.
You will see a confirmation message that your account is now unlocked.
Once you confirm your identity, it may take up to a few minutes for your account to be unlocked.

If you’re still experiencing an issue after confirming your identity, please reply to this message and provide us with specific details of the problem you're experiencing. We’ll do our best to help!

Thanks,
Twitter Support

I have a measly 178 followers, quite a few of whom have followed me from my recent Twitter posts and comments. I have reciprocated. Certainly not enough to have violated Twitter TOS. And I have done nothing else out of the ordinary.

None of their suggestions work. No prompt. Nothing. My page is stuck in locked down mode. I can see it, but I can't do anything with it. I wrote back and am now awaiting another response.

This is what I see when I use another unrelated Twitter account.

Maybe I was flagged by one or more of those liberals I was trying to educate and enlighten.  Or maybe it was Twitter censoring me, but censoring it most definitely is. I'm sure this would not have happened had I not been standing up for Brett Kavanaugh.

YouTube Invites 200 "Super Flaggers" To Police Videos

YouTube has invited a select group of snitches. About 200 of them. Government agencies, organizations and individuals who have the power to flag videos (up to 20 in one go) and, as a result, take down someone's channel.

Apparently the YouTube team that monitors videos 24/7 doesn't have the time to catch all the ones someone in Google-land deems inappropriate, so they they have added these "super flaggers." YouTube will then review those flagged videos, 90% of which get dumped or given restricted access.

Some of the government agencies include the British police unit who are on the lookout for extremist videos which are not allowed on YouTube, but which are plentiful.

"We have a zero-tolerance policy on YouTube towards content that incites violence," YouTube told the Financial Times. "Our community guidelines prohibit such content and our review teams respond to flagged videos around the clock, routinely removing videos that contain hate speech or incitement to commit violent acts. To increase the efficiency of this process, we have developed an invite-only program that gives users who flag videos regularly tools to flag content at scale."

According to Google, less than 10 of those flaggers are affiliated with a government agency or NGO. Apparently, the rest are just people who have plenty of time on their hands to spend flagging videos.

One of the casualties of these super flaggers was Mark Dice, at least that's what Luke Rudkowski of WeAreChange thinks might have happened.  Dice's YouTube channel was taken down without warning. Mark Dice is a loony conspiracy theorist (as is Rudkowski, though they differ on some issues), but Dice made some interesting man-on-street videos proving just how stupid the average Democratic voter is, here and here.

Rudkowski discusses the situation in his latest video.

On the one hand, freedom of speech is one of our inalienable rights, but do we give lunatics and terrorists a public voice? Do we keep these people in the public eye so they can be monitored, or do we drive them further underground? I'm not sure how I feel about this.

7 Saudi Men Sentenced For Posting About Protests On Facebook

According to Human Rights Watch, seven Saudi men were sentenced from 5 to 10 years in jail (plus travel bans) for criticizing the government on Facebook. They were arrested in 2011, and have only now been sentenced.

Saudi authorities arrested the men between September 23 and 26, 2011, then detained them in the General Investigations Prison in Damman for a year and a half before charging them and putting them on trial on April 29. They were tried before the Specialized Criminal Court, set up in 2008 to deal with terrorism-related cases. Authorities did not accuse the seven of directly participating in protests, and the court failed to investigate their allegations that intelligence officers tortured them into signing confessions.

[snip]

In the court judgment, which Human Rights Watch obtained, the charges against the seven varied. But the court convicted them all of joining Facebook pages to “incite protests, illegal gathering, and breaking allegiance with the king” and of “assisting and encouraging these calls and corresponding with the [Facebook pages’] followers and concealing them.” All seven were also convicted of violating article 6 of the Anti-Cyber Crime Law, which prohibits producing, sending, or storing any material via an information network that “harms public order.”

Abd al-Hamid al-Amer received the longest sentence for founding two Facebook pages

None of the charges accused the seven of using or advocating violence, as the presiding judge confirmed in the judgment, saying, “Breaking allegiance [with the king] comes by way of arms and it comes by way of protests, marches, and writing articles and publications … the behavior of the [second] course … is sometimes the more dangerous and more malicious method.”

The Facebook groups that prosecutors cited, including the “al-Ahsa March 4 Youth Movement” and “The Free Men of al-Ahsa,” arose in early 2011 after the authorities arrested Tawfiq al-Amer, a prominent Shia sheikh and religious leader in the al-Ahsa region of Eastern Province who had publicly called for a constitutional monarchy. His arrest provoked widespread protests and the authorities arrested dozens of his supporters in al-Ahsa in March 2011. The same court sentenced the sheikh to four years in prison in April 2013 and banned him from writing and public speaking.

The seven men all admitted to participating in the Facebook pages in support of al-Amer, but told the court they were unaware that it was a crime. They denied having any intention to break allegiance with the king or harm public order.

More details here, including the list of the seven men and their sentences.

Conservative Canadian Blogger Needs Help With Legal Defense Fund

Conservative Canadian blogger BlazingCatFur is being sued. Here's a little background on the Section 13 he refers to. It's gone now, but he's still being sued by Richard Warman, who worked for Section 13. Here's a website dedicated to Richard Warman and his witch hunts.

If you have a little extra cash, maybe you can put a few bucks into his kitty for his legal defense fund.  This could happen to any of us, we need to rally around our fellow bloggers when in need.

Hi All,

As many of you are aware my legal tussle, the fallout from our victory over Section 13 (1), with Richard Warman continues. Warman is suing for libel, largely for comments made by multiple readers. Trial is approaching in the New Year and anticipated costs will escalate by a very significant degree.

While I take no pleasure in asking for your help I must if we are to continue to fight. If everyone who visits this blog on a daily basis were to donate 20 Dollars our situation would be vastly improved.

If you enjoy reading Blazingcatfur please donate, your help is needed.

I want to thank all of you for your ongoing support, it means a great deal to both K and I. It isn't always an easy task to provide a forum such as this where the voices of ordinary people can be heard without fear or censure by the petty tyrants in our midst. I will keep on keeping on so long as you want me.

Merry Christmas everyone from Me, K and Pip.
***

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Donations may also be made via email/interac money transfers, again using blazingcatfur@gmail.com.

If you wish to make a donation by cheque and send it via the mail:

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Bersenas Jacobsen C/O Blazingcatfur Legal Defense Fund
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