Social media censorship of undesirable truth has been growing in the past few years. YouTube has purged many "truther" users who spoke about various issues that run counter to the establishments narrative of how they want everyone to believe reality to be. People can complain to the social media authorities in order to censor content or shutdown users.
A recent censorship ban on Facebook came as the result of posting a section of the US Declaration of Independence. The Vindicator is a Texas-based newspaper with an online presence. It's self-described as "[t]he oldest continuously printing news source in South Liberty County since 1887", using the slogan "liberty country" above their site name as they are located in Liberty. Texas. They had been posting sections of the Declaration of Independence and posting them to FB:
Leading up to Independence Day, The Vindicator challenged its Facebook followers to read the Declaration of Independence. To make it a little easier to digest that short but formidable historic document, the newspaper broke the Declaration down into 12 small bites and one to post each morning from June 24 to July 4.
On their July 2nd posting, Facebook banned the post for "hate speech", asking them to remove anything that doesn't comply with Facebook's policies. The banned post was of paragraphs 27-31 of the Declaration of Independence:
"He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions."
Critics began to put pressure on Facebook as a result of this ban on the Declaration of Independence. Facebook has buckled under the pressure and has since apologized for flagging a section of the Declaration as "hate speech".
The Vindicator thinks it was an automatic filter in place at Facebook which took the phrase "Indian savages" as the hate speech. Yet, they conclude that the passage could have more "that could be thought hateful." The Vindicator seems to be tolerant of what Facebook did, stating:
Facebook is a business corporation, not the government, and as such it is allowed to restrict use of its services as long as those restrictions do not violate any laws. Plus, The Vindicator is using Facebook for free, so the newspaper has little grounds for complaint other than the silliness of it.
For a paper that boast of being in "Liberty County", they don't seem too concerned about being free speech issues, so long as it's not about the government doing the restricting. The Vindicator goes on to say that they are too dependent on Facebook to reach it's readership. Their thousands of page views for stories only come at the behest of links being shared on Facebook. As such, they even thought of foregoing their last two posts of the Declaration of Independence, because:
Should Facebook find anything in them offensive, The Vindicator could lose its Facebook page.
After Facebook restored their post that shouldn't have been taken down in the first place, the Vindicator applauded Facebook, saying "the good folks at Facebook restored the post". I guess tyrants are "good", as long as they sometimes reverse their tyrannical behavior.
Posting excerpts of a significant historical document and it getting banned isn't an issue anymore. Facebook is so nice. Forget about all the other pages that are being taken down because they are deemed to be spreading "fake news", i.e. information Facebook deems doesn't comply with the establishments "version" of truth.
This is a paper that touts it's location being in Liberty, Texas, yet bows down to Facebook tyranny and the banning of a text that was about ending tyranny. The Declaration talks about no longer having to serve a King, for all people to be free from that control and being able to speak freely. Yet the Vindicator is bowing to the Facebook King and fears speaking about the Declaration on Facebook as they might get their account closed by the tyrannical king.
A vindicator is supposed to be someone who vidicates, from Latin vindicātus, with such meanings as set free; protect, avenge, punish; to liberate; to act as avenger. It doesn't seem like the Vindicator is living up to the name it uses. It's cowering to Facebook, rather than protecting, avenging or fighting for freedom of speech.
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
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