Google and other companies in the Silicon Valley are no longer content to simply donate as much spare cash as possible to anti-gun candidates for federal office. The tech moguls in the bluest of blue districts in the United States have chosen a side in the culture wars and are taking direct aim at the 2nd Amendment. Here is how Google and other tech giants are actively working to turn people against your gun rights.
Google
eBay was the first tech giant to ban firearms sales from its platform, but Google was not far behind. This should come as no surprise considering the eight-year game of “musical chairs” between Google and the notoriously anti-Second Amendment Obama administration. A staggering 258 executives and government employees rotated jobs through the revolving door between the Obama White House and Google between 2009 and 2016. At the end of Barack Obama’s first term, Google suddenly banned the sale of firearms from its shopping platform, declaring guns and ammo to not be “family safe.” Not family safe? That bigoted statement alone has the power to shape public perception about firearms. Then consider the creepy report from the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology in 2015. Researchers discovered that Google’s search algorithm can manipulate 20 percent or more of undecided voters to switch their votes!
Robert Epstein, the senior research psychologist on the study, told Politico that Google has the ability to “control a wide variety of opinions and beliefs … [more] than any company in history has ever had.” If Google can trick people into switching their voting preferences, it’s easy to see that it could be doing the same thing with opinions on gun rights.
Facebook
This social media giant has been moving toward becoming an online shopping platform more and more in recent years, but in 2016 Facebook suddenly began treating gun owners as pariahs. To this day, Facebook refuses to say how many gun enthusiast pages it took down in a massive purge when it rolled out a new policy to ban the private sales of firearms — which are legal in most states.
Facebook has assigned a liaison to help bring gun enthusiast pages into compliance with its policy, but many gun owners simply abandoned the platform and went elsewhere, according to Forbes. This is just another instance of a giant Silicon Valley company treating gun owners as second-class citizens, with a separate set of rules and regulations that other retailers do not have to abide by. This is compounded by anti-gun activists poring over Facebook posts and flagging anything related to guns as “offensive” until Facebook takes the post or a user’s entire page down.
Shadowbanning
Insiders at Twitter admitted in 2016 that the company has been shadowbanning the tweets of prominent conservatives, including many Second Amendment patriots. A “shadowban” is simply a form of censorship in which the tech giant that censors you never tells you that you’ve been censored. You can still tweet a picture of that new sidearm you purchased, but none of your friends or family members will ever see it because it was shadowbanned. Many Facebook users have reported that their posts have been shadowbanned as well.
Payment Platforms
Online services PayPal, Stripe and Square have all banned gun stores from using their platforms for business. Never mind that these are lawful businesses operated by federal firearms license holders who conduct background checks before all sales.
Gladwin Guns and Ammo in Merced, CA filed a lawsuit against the three Silicon Valley money transfer services in June of 2017. Owner Blair Gladwin told the Merced Sun-Times, “They flat-out shut me down. My livelihood is on the line, because my revenue is going to drop.” 2nd Amendment enthusiasts will want to keep an eye on this case, because it could have a nationwide impact on whether lawful gun stores are allowed to use the same services as most other businesses.
Conclusion
Google and other tech giants are sending gun owners, gun shops and people who simply support gun rights to the “back of the bus” in 2017. Constant discrimination like this against gun owners does have an impact on public perception and this is a problem that all gun owners should be concerned with — especially knowing the tremendous power that the Silicon Valley wields with its vast troves of data on Americans.
This should be of no surprise, as Northern California (and California in general) is a bastion of liberal political thought. It is surprising that Amazon (farther North in Washington State), while not selling firearms, does allow sale of accessories, stocks, lubricants and novelty items (a chocolate Glock?).
The problem is, unless we ‘protest’ these entities by going off the grid (no cellular telephones, tablets, payment platforms or social networking, or using their services), they will continue to make huge dollars unabated. And continue to ‘control’ the masses.
CBS excluded the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks from a statistic on the number of terrorism “incidents” in the U.S. during an interview Monday with Attorney General Jeff Sessions on “CBS This Morning.” (August 14, 2017)
CBS used a graphic to illustrate the number of terrorist attacks committed by far-right and Islamic extremists since 2001. The graphic showed that “far-right extremists” were responsible for 62 incidents that resulted in 106 deaths, while “Islamic extremists” launched 23 attacks that resulted in 119 deaths.
The graphic noticeably left out the Sept. 11 terror attacks, with CBS only counting extremists attacks from Sept. 12, 2001 to Dec. 31, 2016.
The graphic appears at the 2:53 mark in the video.
CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell asked Sessions what the Justice Department needs to do since attacks by far-right extremists have been more frequent.
“This is believed to be the largest white supremacy demonstration in over a decade,” O’Donnell said, referring to the violence perpetrated by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va. over the weekend. “We went and looked at the data, and in fact, between 2001 and 2016, there were nearly three times as many attacks by right-wing extremists than Islamic extremists in the U.S. What does the Justice Department need to be doing?
Sessions said the Justice Department is focused on domestic terrorism and will continue to make it a high priority.
“The Justice Department is focused on that. I’m briefed three times a week by the FBI on terrorism and terrorism related issues,” Sessions said. “That includes briefings on domestic terrorism. And we will continue to focus on that. It will be a high priority of the Department of Justice.”
Late in the interview, CBS aired another graphic that listed the number of hate groups operating in the United States. The source for CBS’ information was the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which has a history of bias and being a left-wing advocacy group. It has been reported that SPLC overstates the number of hate groups and classifies organizations with which it disagrees as hate groups.
Screenshot/YouTube
CBS was not the only network to omit the Sept. 11 terror attacks from its reporting.
MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle did not include 9/11 on Monday when she claimed that right-wing extremists have killed three times more people than Islamic terrorists.
“Reverend Al [Sharpton], I want to start with you. Between 2001 and now, we have seen three times more deaths caused by right-wing extremists than Islamic terrorists,” Ruhle said.
Ruhle did not cite the source of her claim.
Several reports show that since 9/11, Islamic terrorists have killed more Americans than right-wing extremists. According to New America, a Washington, D.C. think tank, Islamic terrorists have killed 95 people in the 15 years after 9/11, while far-right extremists have killed 67 people in the same time period.
BuzzFeed also recently published an article on a report that left out a major Islamic terrorist attack.
BuzzFeed published a piece last week titled, “This Report Says More LGBT People Were Killed so Far in 2017 Than in All of 2016.” The report from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs claimed there have been 33 hate-violence-related homicides targeting LGBT people so far in 2017, while there were 28 such hate-violence-related homicides in 2016.
The report left out the June 2016 Pulse Night Club shooting in Orlando, Fla, which took the lives of 49 people. There is no indication why the group left out the shooting, during which a man named Omar Mateen pledged allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before opening fire on the gay nightclub.
BuzzFeed noted the absence of the Pulse shooting in the subhead.
“Advocates said the statistic — which doesn’t include the Pulse nightclub shooting — ‘should be a wake-up call.'”
I see NO mention of BLM murdering Police Officers either. What else would you expect from FAKE NEWS!! AND what an insult to all those who were murdered on 9/11 by Radical Islam!!
h/t Liberty Headlines, The Washington Free Beacon
Who says MSM doesn’t edit what they report toward a political end? Agenda, anyone?
Of course, This is CBS, former home of Dan ‘I make it up as I go along’ Rather, so no surprise here.
The post-it-note says “Suck it up, pussies!” Whoever wrote it also drew a winking, tongue-out smiley face…
. . .
Students had been invited to express their feelings about the election by writing them on post-it-notes and placing them on a designated table. The post-it-note in question appeared in the window of the Office of Student Diversity and Inclusion instead, according to Campus Reform.
College Vice President Tony Chambers sent a letter to campus condemning this “act of cowardly hatred” and “intimidation.” He wrote:
A group of cross-functional college staff representing campus security, student conduct, human resources, Title IX enforcement, and diversity and inclusion measures convened Tuesday morning to discuss how to address the hateful message. This group determined that the message constituted a Hate Crime…
College officials informed the Madison police, and now the cops are investigating. They are investigating a post-it-note. With a non-threatening message and a smiley face on it. After inviting students to express their feelings via post-it-note.
Ye Gods and little fishes . . . hysterical over-reaction, anyone? I wonder what they’d do with a real hate note?
“the Office of Student Diversity and Inclusion”
I think that says it all. Someone’s college money is going to pay for said office.
I’m not a believer in ‘hate speech’. There’s speech. It may be colorful, laudatory, or vile. But so-called Freedom of Speech supports it. It’s protected.
Unless it’s an actual threat of criminal violence, libel, slander, or child porn – it’s protected.
Waa! He called us a name and drew an inoffensive cartoon is protected.
Some students wore sombreros to a tequila-themed birthday party at Bowdoin College — and others were so offended that the school had to provide them with safe spaces and counseling to deal with it.
According to the school’s newspaper, the Bowdoin Orient, the e-mail invitation to the event called it “a ‘tequila’ party” and then added, “we’re not saying it’s a fiesta, but we’re also not not saying that 🙂 (we’re not saying that).”
This phrasing was, presumably, aiming to poke fun at the way the PC police often lose their minds over pretty much any party where tequila is present — which wound up being exactly what happened with this one.
Yep. According to the Orient, one student (1) reported that some of the attendees had been wearing sombreros at the same time as they were drinking tequila at the party, and all hell broke loose.
In an e-mail to National Review Online, sophomore Richard Arms states that there have been “3 school-wide emails from deans and our president, and there have been several ‘safe-space’ opportunities on campus for students to discuss how they were hurt and offended” by the party.
. . .
Yes — safe spaces for people who have been hurt by the very existence of tequila parties and punishment for the people responsible for them.
I’m not for outright hatred of either the participants, nor those offended, but SERIOUSLY?
Should we revert to the days of minstrel shows with White folk in Black face eating watermelon, or Speedy Gonzales cartoons with mice in sombreros with stereotypical accents (all performed by a Jewish guy) winning against the cat? (Even though they always WON?)
Probably not.
HOWEVER, should we be so offended by drunken college hi-jinks more about tequila than being stereotypically Mexican?
Was anyone maimed or killed?
Were those in sombreros summarily sent back across a symbolic border without due process?
SKIN – White, Brown, Black, Yellow, or some variant or combination NEEDS TO BE THICKER!
I’ve been seriously rail thin – skinny – in my lifetime (140 pounds), and also obese. Just over six foot and 350 pounds! And have been physically disabled since age 12.
You think I’ve not been called skinny, fatty, crippled, Forrest Gump, a ‘fat f**k’ and a number of other unkind things. Sure, it hurt at the time, but I know myself and my character have atoned for my mistakes and moved on.
And I never needed a ‘safe space’ to discuss how these epithets affected my life!
What’s going to happen when these bubble-wrapped snowflakes enter the real world? (I’m thinking a melt down.)
I’ve a dear friend who is less than average height. I’m disabled. On occasion, we’ve been known to address one another as shorty and gimpy. No harm or disrespect meant.
Those of you who know me, or who have read this blog at any length, know I love TV, movies, etc. In spite of this, I’ve come late to the table on many popular shows (original Star Trek, Firefly/Serenity to name a couple) and am now dogged by the idea that anything I truly enjoy is doomed to be canceled.
Person-Of-Interest, for example.
Here is a show with interesting characters, good acting and an engaging theme with caught my interest a few years ago.
The government (and others) are spying on us ALL through public surveillance cameras, traffic cameras, ATMs, personal computers, security systems, cellular telephones ad infinitum, and crunching the data to use for their ‘purposes’ (propaganda, ‘nudging’, marketing, politics).
The lead actor (Jim Caviezel) who plays a spec-ops former CIA guy in the show, even took it upon himself to train with Navy Seals near his home to learn realistic weapon handling and unarmed combat techniques.
Sounds fantastic, right? (from the root word fantasy)
Now, approaching the delayed beginning of Season Five, we’ve been told this will be a truncated season (13 episodes) starting later this year, and probably the last.
Damn.
I’ve never written a letter to a production company (as an adult – I remember writing Sky King when I was age 7 for an autograph! :-)) but I am considering writing one now.
But, a comment by another fan of the show on an entertainment website may have said it all:
Here in the United States, we pretend to have ‘Freedom of Speech’. The First Amendment and all that.
Of course, even that has it’s limitations. Child pornography for example. Yelling fire in a crowded theater. Criticizing a President, who happens to be Black.
Other countries, even those vanquished by us in war whom we rebuilt – not so much.
Germany, who placed restrictions on religion (Scientology). And, until recently, politics (National Socialism).
I don’t know if this is backlash to the influx of Muslim refugees, who obviously include some terrorists, or the resurgence of anti-Semitic thoughts and actions rising throughout Europe (and the World) during the past 20 years.
Or perhaps the ubiquitous yin-yang battle between Jews and Arabs…
But something new has been added. or perhaps re-added.
It’s one of the most talked about publications of the year. It’s not a new book. And it’s not even a well-written book. But Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler, which hits German bookshops for the first time in 70 years on Friday, is certainly attracting attention.
Hitler’s anti-Semitic tirade is seen as the forerunner to the Holocaust. But that is also why historians want it republished.
Hitler wrote it mostly while in prison in the mid-1920s, and academics say it helps explain the Nazis’ crazed ideology when they came to power less than a decade later.
As such, they say, it’s a crucial academic text. Not pleasant reading, but essential to understanding the Holocaust and Hitler’s brutal rule.
Surprisingly, some Jewish groups have also supported this edition.
This is an annotated, critical version, with thousands of academic notes.
And without this republication, the only hard copies available in Germany would be the pre-1945 Nazi editions, still found in second-hand bookshops or online. Those are certainly not critical.
The idea is that republishing Mein Kampf will help undermine it.
Until now, the copyright has been in the hands of the Bavarian government. But because 70 years have now passed since the the death of the author – in this case, Adolf Hitler – that copyright has expired.
Ban counter-productive
Germany could ban it. After all, the swastika and other Nazi symbols are outlawed here, under incitement-to-violence laws.
Germans see that not as an infringement of free speech, but as a way of guaranteeing it, by not allowing fascist groups to intimidate minorities.
But the problem with banning Mein Kampf is that this could simply increase its power. (taken in part from BBC-World-Europe)
Is censorship bad, prima facie?
Or does Europe need to look it’s demons in the face, full-on?
University officials personally destroyed pocket constitutions after an undercover reporter posing as a student claimed she felt “triggered” by their circulation on campus. Vassar College’s Kelly Grab implied that restricting the distribution of pocket constitutions was perfectly acceptable if such censorship prevents hurt feelings amongst students.
“…We don’t want to limit people in exchanging ideas or having opposing viewpoints, but when it’s disruptive or causing harm…,” she told the Project Veritas reporter.
After claiming the pocket constitution gave her a “panic attack,” the reporter asked Grab if she could shred it for her, to which she cheerfully agreed.
“…Yes, I think we have a shredder in the front office there,” Grab replies. “Did you want to do it with me?”
I wonder if Mao’s Little Red Book, Mein Kampf and Das Kapital are thought of in the same vein? Probably not. If they are known to the offended college student at all, they are probably revered!
Even more sickening is the allegedly ‘educated’ ‘adult’ university official.
For-the-record, I’m all about learning about and expressing ‘diverse’ opinions. But one of the principles on which this Republic was founded involved allowing others to speak their truths – even if disgusting to ourselves!
Obviously, this college official didn’t get that message…
(and yes, I know Info Wars is sometimes a questionable source)
There was yet another s***** shooting Thursday morning at Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff. One student was killed. Three injured. For once, a suspect was arrested. Turns out, it was the result of dispute between frat boys, not some random wacko as we are gettingused being directed to hearing about.
And this is my point. WHY is this being reported as another s***** shooting? Would it have had the same reportage off campus? Or if they were simply young men who were NOT in school? And WHY are ‘we’ (the media) focused on s*****s, in particular? And shootings altogether?
There are certainly more potential victims in shopping malls. In hospitals. OH, the age factor – innocent (college) youth. How about day-care centers?
And other physical assaults. Knives. There have been numerous knife assaults on people in China. And knife crime is rampant in the U.K. Bombs?
These are in no way suggestions.
Is it the mass murder possibility that draws our attention? Gun free zones (like Fort Hood – NOT a school)?
In many jurisdictions, possessing a firearm on a school campus is verboten. Except by the ‘authorities’, of course. We have seen how well that system has worked.
Using the moniker s***** is much the same as the term g** violence. It draws attention to a specific venue and tool, to exclusion of all others! Skewing the statistics.
And, recent FBI statistics show that a large increase in legal firearms ownership has decreased crime. (I put ‘legal’ in there to exclude Chicago, wherein there were many more shootings and fatalities over the past XX weekends. Involving gangs and stolen firearms.
Pick a weekend.
And most of those involved B**** on B**** violence, as long are we’re being exclusive.
But, ‘we’, ‘the media’ are reluctant to mention that…
I’d two thoughts when Dave the genius mechanic forwarded me this cartoon. (Hi, Dave! Hope Dallas is treating you well?)
I remembered junior high, wherein a couple-times-a-year, some fool would either pull the fire alarm or call in a bomb threat. This was 1963-66. There was a perfunctory evac while the school was checked, and we went back to class, in an orderly fashion.
I imagine the kid who was trying to avoid taking a test had to anyway. This was not terrorism.
2. The Ray Bradbury book (and the film) Fahrenheit 451. Once a futuristic tale of government sponsored book-burning, foiled by people who made it their life’s work and duty to memorize the banned books in toto, to pass on to future generations.
Now, yet again, the sedan of censorship is driving over the works of people like Mark Twain, using the wheel of political correctness. And people are wanting to excise symbols of the Confederacy, as though not being reminded of slavery and federal government takeover of State power will make it not have existed.
Guffaw in AZ 