These are questions I have about certain topics many service providers attempt to keep “hidden” or “secret” by means of censorship. Their efforts are becoming extremely obvious in light of all the censorship out there nowadays. As a matter of fact, if you’ve been paying attention, you probably have experienced censorship in one way or another.
Think about it. Here in America, we’re known to be “the land of the free and the brave”. Except in today’s world many groups have to be extremely careful with the words they use. I know many people (myself included) who’s words have been flagged, blocked, or even removed. So much for freedom of speech. Right?!
My experience on my personal fb page.
Last spring, like most people, I was posting a lot about the virus and various aspects connected to it. It didn’t take long before my posts were getting “fact checked” out the wazoo. The proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back” was when CDC/WHO articles I posted began getting removed/flagged by “fact checkers”. Say What?!? Fb was now going to override our national and worldwide health organizations on health recommendations??? Seriously? Yep. That’s the craziness that started then, and has prevailed for more than a year now. (It’s actually sad.) Over time, I posted less and less on that platform. Ultimately, it’s gotten to the point that now I hardly post over there anymore simply because I’m shadow banned.
(If you haven’t heard of the term “shadow-banning”, it means your profile and posts are not removed. But the algorithm is set so no one else will see your posts. Yes, they are now hidden or kept “secret” from others. My husband and I compared views of my page side by side from each of our logins. You guessed it. My posts were not showing up on his view of my page.)
So, yes, it got to the point where none of my posts were seen by anyone. Well, they weren’t seen unless they were literally fluffy simpleton posts. It’s annoying. And begs the question “why am I bothering to post?” Therefore, I’ve found other places to be social online when it comes to my “controversial” social media activities. (I want to snort at that controversial label. The shadow banning ultimately only effects factual based links with multiple sources for confirmation of facts. It seems the stronger the evidence, the stronger the banning extends. Smh…)
Luckily, the people that really care still chat me up in real life, or find a way to connect with me off fb. Sad because I really like the connectivity fb provides. But, getting posts with CDC/WHO articles getting removed/flagged by “fact checkers”… Well, that tells you all you need to know. Fb is “fake news”, as our previous president would say. Have you noticed fb is mainly full of fluff memes, fake news, and a little bit of personal sharing? If so, and you want to get off milk and eat meat, you’re going to have to look outside fb.
Then there are the issues with my blog…
If you’ve been paying attention to the happenings here in Quirky-Land, you’ll have noticed I’ve ventured down many “rabbit holes” in recent months. Both literal and figurative rabbit holes. (Yep. You never really know what you’re going to get around here. Lol!) As such, I’ve encountered many a controversial topic. It’s been good for my blog in some aspects. Yet, its been bad in other aspects.
One of the bad aspects seems to be in blogging about big names in some controversial circles. Such a blog post is my “movie break” post. It has actually become my most popular post to date. Yay! (You can check it out here.) Nevertheless, after that post, funky things began interfering with my blog. It was weird little inconsistencies that occurred in the “mechanics” of running a website. The most prevalent of which is my ability to schedule blog posts to automatically post to my various social media pages. That feature simply does not work every time. Well, it’s more like it works about twenty-five percent of the time. Sigh.
Therefore, I have to find a work around every time I have a blog post published. Definitely annoying. And it’s becoming obvious its another form of censorship as well in that it makes it that much more difficult to get my blog out in front of my readers. I’m guessing they either eliminate you, or they make your job ten times harder. Either way, the censors are hoping us little guys will just give up and not fight back. It might be that simple if only the efforts to keep some facts secret were not so prevalent.
Speaking of… Have you paid attention to the censorship on video platforms?
More specifically, YouTube is becoming just as radically biased as other social media sites and news sources. I know many channels on YT that have been removed for mentioning certain things. You know. Key words tied to currently controversial topics. Examples include anything considered “anti” mask, vax, election, etc. Then there are videos with bleeps over “bad words”. Ummm… yeah. Not the bad words you’re thinking. Don’t believe me? Below is an example from this past week. In this video they’re having to “bleep” over words like election, vaccine, audit, and so on. And we, the consumers of videos platforms, are putting up with this mess. Why?!?
So! It’s obvious to see, if you’re paying attention, that there is some serious censorship going on out there. It all boils down to some entities joining forces to keep some facts from being shared openly with the public at large. There’s a “narrative” being spread. And anything and everything that bumps that narrative in the slightest is silenced quickly and succinctly. Think you cannot silence the truth? That’s not a problem for the censors. They just flip the coin and wholeheartedly attack and slander the messenger. Oldest. Game. In. History.
Hopefully, you’ve been lucky enough not to have experienced any of these many means of censorship. Although, if you haven’t noticed any censorship in the “powers that be” use to keep facts a secret, then you might need to question your priorities. It doesn’t really matter what the viewpoint on a controversy is. It all comes down to one side or the other side of a topic getting shut down. Cold. Zip. Zilch. Nada. It is then that society enters a solitary view vacuum.
And that my dear friends is tragic and extremely dangerous.
Don’t be part of the problem. It’s time the “silent majority” quit being silent. It’s time we quit letting “powers” silence our fellow man, even those with opposing views.
Peacefully and Legally Make A Stand Against Censorship.
Peacefully and Legally Speak Up Where You Can, Even If It Means Leaving Your Favorite Services Behind.
And Be Sure Empower Others To Do The Same.
Facts And Truth Should NEVER Be Kept Secret, They Should Be Shared Far And Wide So Each Of Us Can Decipher Them For Ourselves.
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As always, thanks for stopping by. Have something to add? Let me know your thoughts! Hit the comments and share. Talk to you soon!
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Case in point: I found several notifications of your posts in my spam folder.🤨 I’ve had a post taken down that was a photo and a Bible verse. And another one “fact checked” by anonymous people with unknown credentials. I’ve managed to get some of my writings through with misspellings of key words, like v@xeen, etc. I have friends who are in fb jail most of the time 🙄.
P.S. Another example: the video you tried to share here is “unavailable.” 😒
Thank you for corroborating and proving my point. Lol! As per the video… They disappear so regularly, I’ve gotten to where I try to go through my posts regularly to check for failed links and embeds. The censorship across platforms is frustrating to say the least. Thanks for the heads up!