Social Media: the Good, Bad and Ugly -

Plus a clip of my recent War Room interview.

Today’s Substack is a compilation of news stories and analysis about social media. Important, because social media impacts all of us.

For those that are following the Pseudo-mRNA inoculation science, I end with a brief clip from me on the War Room last night.

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It is more than a rumor on the street: data shows Threads is tanking big time.

Despite all the media hype on how Zuckerburg’s Threads was going to be the liberal wave for social media of the future, the new upstart has seen a massive decline in users. Threads went from an estimated 100 million people signing up during the first week to less than 12 million active users today. Ouch.

Another huge problem for the new upstart is that bots were used to inflate initial sign-up numbers. However, they are now just spamming up the works for the legitimate users.

These are not good trend lines for the new platform, only a month+ into operations.

Of course, Zuck’s proclamations that Threads was going to be the social media platform where “kindness” <taking the form of censoring and banning users> would make people want flock to the site has not helped. Talk about being tone deaf. By the way, Zuck already has two platforms for censorship kindness, they are called Facebook and Instagram. Does the world really need another one?

Speaking of biases, notice how when Musk personally acts with X, the media cries foul, with anguished cries of outrage and handwringing about how his biases will both rule and ruin the platform. But for a decade, Zuck has aggressively and unapologetically played the same game that Musk is accused of, and the liberal media laps it up. However, the public isn’t eating the new dog food this time. As Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives said "I would rather eat broccoli for the full day" than use Threads.

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Also this week, it was affirmed by none other than the #3 newspaper in the USA, the Wall Street Journal (Epoch Times is now #4 and climbing), that Facebook censored posts that the White House wanted to be censored in 2021. This include factual postings, including how the virus was man-made.

At the same time, Facebook officials appeared to feel pressure to address the White House’s concerns. As Clegg prepared to meet the U.S. surgeon general about vaccine misinformation in late July 2021, he emailed colleagues: “My sense is that our current course—in effect explaining ourselves more fully, but not shifting on where we draw the lines…is a recipe for protracted and increasing acrimony.” 

“Given the bigger fish we have to fry with the Administration—data flows etc—that doesn’t seem a great place for us to be, so grateful for any further creative thinking on how we can be responsive to their concerns,” he said.  

Facebook at the time was hoping to facilitate an agreement between U.S. and European officials allowing user data to flow across the Atlantic in compliance with privacy laws.  

Basically, Facebook was worried that their ability to have Facebook EU and Facebook USA interact and mirror each other would be restricted unless they went along with the censorship. So, a quid-pro-quo. Otherwise known as black-mail by the US government. Now we need to get the receipts to prove that (more FOIAs will be required).

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For more on the “Facebook Files”, I recommend following the many threads on Representative Jim Jordan’s (R, Ohio) twitter feed @Jim_Jordan as well as Matt Taibbi’s Racket News Substack (click on images for links) :

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X

According to Musk, “X” has just reached a new high in users as the new CEO begins to hint at bigger plans.

One theory for why Musk is less interested in advertising revenue than other social media platforms, and for why he is so invested into getting people to pay for a blue check, is because he is more interested in building a user base that can be easily converted into banking and payments transactions. His need to grow his own personal fortune appears to be boundless.

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Finally, the EU’s new censorship tool will be used here. Because “user data flow” is more important than free speech. Besides, this is going to make the administrative state very happy. They will no longer need to censor, because the EU is set to do it for them.

Politicians who posture like totalitarian wannabes might well be giving us glimpses of their intentions. That brings us to European Union (E.U.) Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, who threatens to wield a law that goes into effect August 25 as a censorship tool. In response, digital organizations and civil liberties groups—some of which previously warned about the Digital Services Act's (DSA) far reach—demand "clarification" by Breton and ask E.U. authorities to exercise restraint in enforcement…

"The Digital Services Act will essentially oblige Big Tech to act as a privatized censor on behalf of governments — censors who will enjoy wide discretion under vague and subjective standards," Jacob Mchangama, head of Justitia, a Danish think tank and signatory to the letter, cautioned in December 2022. "Add to this the EU's own laws banning Russian propaganda and plans to toughen EU-wide hate speech laws, and you have a wide-ranging, incoherent, multilevel censorship regime operating at scale."

Censorship Contagion

"With non-EU countries embracing DSA-like regulations, Breton's comments, without the requested clarification, threaten to reinforce the weaponization of internet shutdowns around the world, and give cover to governments using arbitrary blocking to shroud violence and serious human rights abuse," notes the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Copycat authoritarian legislation predates the DSA, so the new law is almost certain to encourage even more censorship emulating democratic (but not so free) Europe.

Even those of us in the land of the First Amendment are likely to be affected because it's easier for companies to inflict universal restrictions than to apply different rules in free and unfree jurisdictions.

"The European policies do not apply in the U.S., but given the size of the European market and the risk of legal liability, it will be tempting and financially wise for U.S.-based tech companies to skew their global content moderation policies even more toward a European approach to protect their bottom lines and streamline their global standards," according to Mchangama.

As the organizations signing this last-ditch letter know, nobody can claim they weren't warned about the DSA's potential dangers. Not only have civil liberties advocates pointed out the law's excessive reach, but European officials repeatedly telegraph their desire to wield it as a tool for censorship.

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After about two months of farm work, I am slowly easing back into more travel, writing, broadcasting and interviews. I guess it is a good thing? Jill thinks so. Me? I like working outside and with my hands. But I also love my duel life as an intellectual - that is, using my mind and educating. I am blessed to be able to do both, as this keeps me as nimble as I can be in my dotage.

Last night I was on the War Room (Bannon) with Natalie Winters. Here is a clip of my response to the supremely arrogant Dr. Paul Offit’s acknowledgment that the genetic vaccines DO cause myocarditis and pericarditis after all - he just gets the mechanism of action wrong, and of course many of us have known this for years now. Just for your own situational awareness, in addition to being a full professor at U Penn and having played a role in the re-designed rotavirus vaccine which eventually was approved for children, Dr. Offit is a member of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee; an external advisory committee that guides the FDA.

What I see in this clip is a limited hangout and gradual normalization attempt which acknowledges what many have been saying for quite a while now. Truths for which we have been falsely factchecked, defamed and accused of lying for speaking and writing such at a time when the Biden administration was actively seeking to censor us for merely providing the public with the “informed consent” information which was denied to them by the corrupt academic, FDA and CDC vaccine cabal for which Dr. Offit has long been a key leader.