If you dare to watch Joe Rogan’s podcast with Mike Rowe, you’re going to be treated to a new jingle sponsored by your tax dollars via Homeland Security. The lines of the jingle include the idea that you should only trust the government, well, I mean since it’s put out by the government…
it includes lines that I could’ve written had I known they were looking for low quality lyrics. It goes something like this:
“-Is it credible to share, Claire?
-Is the story true, Lou?
-Did you read the whole story, Corey?
-Is it fake, Jake?
-Did you check the domain, Jane?
-Is the story biased, Elias?
Check the source.”
This commercial is rich. I guess the government forgets that information came out that they had been threatening social media companies like Facebook and Twitter. Like Chuck Schumer said of just one branch of government, the Intelligence Community, that it had, "Six Ways from Sunday to get back at you."
In many ways I don't blame companies like Facebook and Twitter for caving to the government. They didn't feel like they had any choice when it came to backing speech that might have threatened the government’s take was on things like:
-the withdrawal from Afghanistan
-President Joe Biden’s mental health
-Hunter’s laptop
-How to prevent the spread of COVID
-the efficacy of the vaccine
-side effects of the vaccine
- anything anti-Trump
I could no doubt go on and on.
Do the people putting out this jingle know that they are the very reason that critical thinking types watch conversations held on Joe Rogan’s show? Ironically if the domain tells me it’s a .gov domain, I’m looking somewhere else. Usually I look for other sources because as President Ronald Reagan said, “trust, but verify.”
I think there is hope for the country. But the people who write for 'The Rolling Stone' is big mad at Mark Zuckerberg now. They are flat out saying, in their headline, “MARK ZUCKERBERG AND META ARE FINDING NEW WAYS TO KISS TRUMP’S ASS.” They forget that business like politics is a game, and I think Zuckerberg is playing it. He's all of a sudden supposedly realizing that “What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas,” he said. “And it’s gone too far. So I want to make sure that people can share their beliefs and experiences on our platforms.” He added that it’s “been so difficult over the past four years when even the US government has pushed for censorship by going after us and other American companies.”
He was probably the largest target when it came to social media. He was a pioneer in giving every day Americans their own platforms to say whatever they wanted. When he did that, the government came in and said, "We need to talk about that."
I can give him a little grace. Even on this itty bitty site, there are folks that think this shouldn't have so much of that free speech stuff going on. Our society has gotten used to only being allowed to say certain things and to think in certain ways. If you are one of those people who thinks independently, reads and listens to information from several sources and then you dare to come up with an opinion that's not popular you are still considered "wrong."
Is Zuckerberg sincere? As you age you become wiser, or you should. Maybe watching Elon Musk go all crazy with this free speech thing has helped him to also realize that this is still America. Free speech is a very important aspect of who we are. Without it, we aren't America, land of the free, and home of the brave.
Maybe Zuckerberg needed to see Musk dare the government to try to take that away. It was okay if little people like you and I say it, but when a rich man stands up and dares the government, he realized that he had someone in the same boat he was in. But now he had someone with a backbone and a large set of balls daring the government that understood where he was coming from.
Let's hope that it sticks. Let's hope that this is an eye opening experience for Zuckerberg in realizing that maybe he should be shutting down things like human trafficking and drug use on the site.
Just for the record, I'm not sure if I trust Musk either. Sure it looks good now.To be fair, I've been told that I have trust issues. There are a lot of reasons for this. From a personal standpoint to just watching the way things work, I've taken that "trust but verify" thing to heart. It's caused some grief over the years, because, well, I found there shouldn't be trust at times.
So, when you see the government's latest attempt to tell you to "Check the source" there should be a huge red flag that goes up when you check the source of the "Check the source" campaign.
https://homelandsecurity.iowa.gov/resources/check-source#check-the-source-of-course
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If they refuse to do so, then they must do what they were “supposed” to learn in Kindergarten; “If you can’t speak your difference of opinion with respect, then shut the hell up!”
You are confusing a company's policies with laws. Laws. You never defined if you were defining state laws or federal laws. Regardless, they are not the same thing as the policies a company has. Moving on.. .when the government becomes involved in the business of pressuring social media to suppress free speech, it becomes a constitutional violation of a person's free speech by the government. Not the company. Hope that helps you my friend.
Later
Dave
There is a big difference between private property, such as real property and the internet. I know of no "Law" that prevents free speech on the internet unless of course you represent yourself as an agent of your employer and you post something that could reflect negative on your employer which is not protected speech. So you can easily follow along, if you work for the Cedar Rapids Fire Deartment, you could not identify yourself as a employee of that department and then post a bunch of negative material against that department that inhibits its ability to function. That is not protected speech. If you are referring to the Biden Administrations attempt to pressure social media and the press to suppress the story on the Hunter laptop, it was unconstitutional for the Biden Administration to suppress free speech as well as violating a right to a free press. There are other laws that protect against slander and flat out reporting lies but that wasn't what happened with the story on Hunter's laptop. In that case the Government clearly violated the Constitution by suppressing free speech. I hope that helps you to have a better understanding of the US Constitution.
Kind Regards,
Any social media company can make this same policy for their business. Cyber Space is property just like an acre of land is property. Banning a person from going on that space, for saying something against the policy, is no different. They can still say whatever they were saying. They just have to do it elsewhere. THAT'S THE LAW! Any business can change their policies as they see fit. But, the NEVER have to sit back and let a citizen destroy their business.
Once again, the 1st Amendment says that Congress can make no law that limits the right to free speech. It doesn't say anything about a citizen being able to say what they want to say, wherever they want to. Nor does it say that a person expressing their opinion is protected from someone expressing their opinion about that other person's opinion.
The problem is that for too many people "if the domain tells me it's a .gov domain, I'm looking somewhere else" means "if 'somewhere else' says the opposite of even different, it's therefore true".
Corporations have more reason to lie to you than the government : $$$$$$$$$.
Foreign governments have more reason to lie to you than your own. You lived through the Cold War, that shouldn't be something you need reminded of.