The censorship is ramping up as YouTube has begun deleting channels at a rapid rate including more recently a friend of Activist Post, Health Ranger Mike Adams of Natural News. I spoke to YouTube alternative BitChute for their opinion on the recent purge against independent thoughts and how we are literally walking into George Orwell’s 1984, where YouTube, Google, Twitter, Facebook and other companies are playing the purveyors of truth.
But first, here is a rundown of a list of accounts that have been suspended by YouTube in the past few weeks, many of whom this author is friends with – Health Ranger, Anti-School, Bombard’s Body Language, Charlton, Charles Walton, Defango, Dustin Nemos, David Seaman, Destroying The Illusion, Ron Johnson, Richie Allen, Titus Frost and of course Activist Post’s own YouTube channel which was suspended months ago was one of the first to go.
A full list according to this writer’s knowledge is available at toolsforfreedom.com:
- According to Joe
- Adamic Amethyst
- AmericanEveryman
- animal farm
- Anti-School
- aplaintruth
- Arthur Koestler
- ashtonbirdie
- Back to the Constitution
- Barry Soetoro
- Blackstone
Bombard’s Body Language*- Brave New World
- Charles Walton
- Charlton
- Colin Flaherty
Crow777*- Darkness at Noon
- David Seaman
Defango*- Destroying the Illusion
- Dr. Jerome Corsi
- Dr. of Common Sense
- Dustin Nemos
- Edgy Sphinx
- Elliott Marxx
- Eric Dubay
- Factions of Freedom
- FAKE NEWS REPORT
- Free Radio Revolution Revived
- FromDeath2Life
- Gematrianator
- HowISeeTheWorld
- InTruthbyGrace
- Jake Morphonios
- Jay Myers
- Jim Marrs
- Joanne Steen
- Johnny Supertramp
- JYW420
- Kalika from “For the People”
- Kearn Kearsy
- Kevin K Johnston
- Kinningan
- Lawarewolf
- Liberty Columnist
- Mag Bitter Truth
- Matrix Breakout
- Max Malone
- McFly
- McSimonius
- mgtow is freedom
- Mlordandgod
- Murdoch Murdoch
- Operation Hal
- Peekay
- Peekay Boston
- Psyched Substance
- Redd Dog Truth
- Richie Allen Show
RichieFromBoston*- Ron Johnson
- Russian Vids
Sargon of Akkad*- The Black Child
- The Kepler Telescope Channel
- The Ochelli Effect
- The Paulstaul Service
- Titus Frost
- TruthmediaRevolution
- Urban Moving
- Victurus Libertas VL
- WAP tech
- Willy Myco
Of course, this all comes after Google hired 10,000 people to clean up its subsidiary company YouTube and has been blamed as a mistake by new employees banning the “alt-right,” Bloomberg reported.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center is assisting YouTube in policing content on their platform,” The Daily Caller reported. “The left-wing nonprofit — which has more recently come under fire for labeling legitimate conservative organizations as “hate groups” — is one of the more than 100 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and government agencies in YouTube’s ‘Trusted Flaggers’ program, a source with knowledge of the arrangement told TheDC.”
However, it is interesting to note that this purge comes after mainstream media stated that “YouTube’s conspiracy video problem is just getting worse researcher says,” and after several questions were asked regarding the latest shooting spree in Parkland, Florida. Some of those questions Activist Post proposed in an article entitled: “5 Reasons To Question The Official Narrative Of The Florida School Shooting.”
Asking logical questions is critical thinking and as Carl Sagan once said:
There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question.
Everyone should be free to express their thoughts, especially those who take on the responsibility of independent journalists; people should be free to make up their own minds or else we walk into an Orwellian society where we are told what to watch read and believe. Without that right of freedom of expression, tyranny becomes prevalent; everyone has an opinion, even though it is important to source and back up your reasoning. Can 10,000 people at YouTube and others elsewhere really be put in charge of determining what information should and shouldn’t be decimated by the public?
Ironically, Activist Post reported months ago that since Google was heading towards targeting critical thinkers demonized as “Conspiracy Theorists” who ask the difficult questions in its rating guidelines, YouTube wouldn’t be too long to follow behind those actions.
Considering that the origination of the word “Conspiracy Theorist” comes from the CIA, I would say using a derogatory word to discuss those who think is dangerous. More modernized, in fact, it is also straight out of the JTIRG playbook that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed.
Misinformation is plaguing the Internet, but who is to decide what is and isn’t misinformation? The readers themselves need to, because policing thought and opinion opens a door to the avenue of a Truth Council and information oversight where admins (the purveyors of truth) decide what is and isn’t fact. What happens when one of these people doesn’t dig deep enough and just dismisses something without looking at the evidence, due to lack of information or understanding? Censorship of not only ideas, but also people as a whole who are effectively removed from the discussion.
Questioning is healthy; and as writer Naomi Wolf exposed, you should think before it’s illegal to do so. “It’s no longer crazy to assess news events to see if they are real or not real,” she stated in the video below. As history has shown through declassified documents (overthrow of Mossadegh), leaked diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, and reporting by murdered journalist Michael Hastings who exposed propaganda used against the Senate and Congress, “all over the world, it’s well-established, the State Department intelligence agencies engage in theatre, and it’s what they do, it’s spycraft, to create spectacles and events that people may not realize are spectacles and events…”
Hastings exposed the use of propaganda to get into Afghanistan in his report entitled: “The Afghanistan Report the Pentagon Doesn’t Want You to Read.” The article was surrounding a leaked unclassified Pentagon report. The report took the shroud off the U.S. military’s psyops operation command revealing several techniques the group uses in psychological warfare to manipulate the public, including but not limited to fake intelligence information, lack of information and social media manipulation, according to Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis. The kicker is that not only were those tactics used against the American people but the tactics were used against senators.
It is an extremely worrying fact that the Military Industrial Complex would manipulate elected officials with fake news, especially considering that propaganda wasn’t legalized in America again until 2012. Previous legislation had been passed to protect citizens during the Church Committee hearings as part of a series of investigations into intelligence abuses during the mid-1970s, amended by the Smith-Mundt Act. Smith-Mundt was repealed in 2012 under Obama, as Business Insider reported, “The NDAA Legalizes The Use Of Propaganda On The US Public.”
As Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright stated, VOA, Radio Free Europe, and many others “should be given the opportunity to take their rightful place in the graveyard of Cold War relics.” Fulbright’s amendment to Smith-Mundt was bolstered in 1985 by Nebraska Senator Edward Zorinsky, who argued that such “propaganda” should be kept out of America as to distinguish the U.S. “from the Soviet Union where domestic propaganda is a principal government activity.”
Zorinsky and Fulbright sold their amendments to Congress on the sensible composition that “American taxpayers shouldn’t be funding propaganda for American audiences.”
(IMPORTANT NOTE: That’s not to say that this author feels the Florida Parkland shooting was a false flag; there is not enough information available to determine that assumption, rather the point of mentioning the now legal use of propaganda is more about a recent town hall event by CNN, which shows how legitimate events can be biased and manipulated for a political agenda afterward without being fake. The second point to make is just because you are asking questions about an event doesn’t necessarily mean to assume that you believe that any event is staged or didn’t happen. That’s the beauty of keeping an open mind and thinking for yourself.)
Further, suppressing someone’s beliefs only makes them stronger because people question why you are suppressing an individual or group’s thoughts, thus drawing attention, as the Guardian recently noted.
So, with all that background, the problem is now well defined that there is a growing censorship of certain ideas and thoughts, as well as people being suppressed and even dangerously being labeled conspiracy theorists. The solution now is to use alternatives for YouTube such as DTube and BitChute; and for social media to use Steemit and onG.Social.
I recently sat down to interview one of those alternatives, BitChute, about this growing problem of suspension of free thought, what they are doing about it, and why users should trust them with their data, and more…
1. Question:
What is your opinion of the recent YouTube ban wave and censoring of users’ opinions, ideas, and thoughts?
Answer:
It’s part of a trend that’s been getting progressively worse each year and will continue to get worse. Last year we had the Adpocalypse, to which people adapted and found other means to earn money such as patreon and crypto. We also saw the banning of select channels such as Activist Post. If I had to label the types of channels that have been worst hit then I would say it’s freedom lovers, and it’s people who aren’t afraid to challenge establish norms and speak up for their rights.
2. Question:
How does BitChute hope to capitalize off of YouTube banning users and the ongoing censorship?
Answer:
Freedom of expression is how we resolve our societal problems and keep the people who govern us in check, you don’t need to look too far back in history to find examples of where censorship has resulted in disaster, such as 1930s Germany. On top of that, the existing social media companies have far too much power and really need some competition and independent voices speaking out against their many bad practices. The only effective way to fight bad ideas is with good ideas, the answer to hate speech is more free speech not less.
3 & 4. Questions:
What is your view on the censorship of individuals and beginning to put everyone into an echo chamber where only certain information is okayed like George Orwell’s 1984, do you view the ongoing censorship as dangerous?
You plan on launching an ICO utilizing the power of the blockchain to reward users for their content, do you see this as a means to combat the ongoing demonetization by YouTube, making BitChute a better alternative?
Answer:
We’ve laid out our principles and we apply our rules fairly and openly, in addition to that we believe in greater decentralization, we’re already using torrents and we’re working on moving the indexing of those to a blockchain and will have an on-site crypto that can be used for various things such as tipping. We’re also designing the platform so that we do not take editorial privileges, what’s trending or what’s popular is what our users decide we see our role in that as preventing gaming or abuses and let people do the rest.
5. Question:
Are there plans to allow users to live-stream content like how YouTube allows users to live-stream?
Answer:
First stop is monetization, live streaming is definitely in our plans along with mobile apps, and many other features.
***
I would also encourage readers to see Ben Swann’s important coverage of the Internet purge of dissenting voices below:
Aaron Kesel writes for Activist Post. Support us at Patreon. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Steemit, and BitChute. Ready for solutions? Subscribe to our premium newsletter Counter Markets.
Mar 8 2018, Aaron Kesel, ActivistPost