In the news today on RT is the statement that Infowars has been banned from a group of social media sites for “hate speech”. Spotify, Facebook, YouTube and Apple. Despite something like 1.2 Billion views of his videos.
First off, I’m very much “put off” by the blatant antisemitism I’ve seen in comments on his blog. I’ve not read much of his stuff, nor watched more than one or two videos. I’m not endorsing him or his speech. I’ve generally found it far too “conspiracy theory” and under supported by evidence.
That said, I also firmly believe as Noam Chomsky put it, that freedom of speech is for speech you find reprehensible. If there is freedom of speech only for speech with which you agree, then there is no freedom of speech. Simply put: I find the whole idea of a special category of “hate speech” reprehensible. Like “hate crime”. (Show me the “love crime” that it is opposite…) ALL crime has an element of hate or dislike in it. Were the criminal empathetic with the victim they would not be doing the crime.
In the interest of real free speech, I’m putting up this pointer to where Infowars videos can now be found. It is simply the result of a web search on “bitchute infowars”. There may well be other sites too.
https://www.bitchute.com/channel/9c7qJvwx7YQT/
I hope BitChute can handle the sudden surge of demand that a billion view channel brings with it ;-)
Being based on a distributed Torrent design where things are shared Peer To Peer it ought to scale directly with use as every user adds to the capacity as both a consumer of the video and another peer sharing it.
Here’s Alex Jones blog site:
Musings from the Chiefio 
Found a rather good video on the InfoWars site itself that does a pretty good job of explaining just why it is a Very Bad Idea to ban folks for political views and speech:
https://www.infowars.com/the-purge/
Makes the interesting point that InfoWars had a hand in getting Trump elected and that the ban came just months before the mid-term election. Meddling? Sure sounds like it.
Also of interest is the point that the 4 bans all happened inside 12 hours. Collusion? Clearly…
I’ve been trying to get DTube to play on my Mac and it won’t. Don’t know if it is the very very old browsers or that the blockchain processes it uses can’t work through a firewall. Whatever.
This article implies some of the Banned folks are going to Dtube as well as BitChute:
https://steemit.com/censorship/@lifttheveil411/fbd12yyo
Steemit is the underlaying tech for DTube… Most of that article is a video on DTube that I can’t play on this box. (Later I’ll give it a try on the R.Pi with newer browser…)
This ought to be a video:
https://d.tube/#!/v/lifttheveil411/fbd12yyo
And this ought to be a top page:
https://d.tube/
but both come up blanks on this kit. Maybe I’ll (GASP!) boot up one of my old Windoz boxes and see what they think of the links ;-)
Whatever… just be advised that DTube is a blockchain based censorship resistant video service that tries to tie video serving with blockchaining. Don’t know if digital currency is in the mix or not…
UPDATE:
Looks like some kind of digital rewards are in the mix. Per the wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steemit
So “Steem Dollars”….
Oh Gosh! There’s a “youtube alternatives” site:
http://youtube-alternatives.wikia.com/wiki/Dtube.video
Who knew…. The web adapts, the bits flow around obstructions and reform… can’t stop the bits…
I don’t watch or follow Alex Jones. I’ve seen a clip or two or four of his and some quotes and that’s it.
Some commenters on Treehouse were discussing the ban and the anti-Semite comments under, not only Alex Jones posts, but other popular conservative or pro-Trump sites.
They discussed paid trolls that were to appear to be Trump supporters or conservatives, but then throw in anti-Semite or racist, or sexist or gay-bashing comments to dirty up the site to put off people from going to the site.
I guess the paid smear-trolls have not been very successful as numbers on pro-Trump sites keep climbing.
I believe ‘real’ commenters see the smears and say, “Hey, I hang out with like-minded people and none of my friends and acquaintances are talking that crap. Must be a troll.”
Knowing the progressives, they keep doubling down and throw more and more and more paid trolls at a targeted site, and then it becomes painfully obvious what’s going on. People are waking up to the Alinsky tactic of “Isolate and smear or ridicule” and just aren’t buying it anymore.
Looks like DTube works on the R. Pi (if slowly – but all video is slow on it). So “old browser” issues on the Mac. Had many of those before so not a big surprise. (Once it gets bad enough I’ll put Linux on the Mac…and bypass the “Apple No New OS buy a new machine” process…)
Did a search on Infowars and found 10 hits, mostly ABOUT Infowars… So looks like they are not on it as a channel.
https://d.tube/#!/s/infowars
@H.R.:
I just stopped reading the comments. I did look at a couple of his stories, and some of it was interesting; but the lack of care in supporting evidence had me making a “time vs value” decision. It would be good for getting ideas, but then I’d need to do all the digging to show proof. That was my decision point to “move on”. Very limited time and all. Not wanting to spend it sorting dross from gems.
Good point about the paid smear army… I’ve a tendency to forget about them (though I’ve seen it and rejected the smearers…). It is part of why I have the “No insults to the person” rule and generally tsk-tsk at rude comments to an identity group. Polite is important in many ways.
I moved to Gab, dusted off my Minds account, started torrent activity on Bitchute as of yesterday. I am done with regressive social media platforms, I don’t have any leverage over them but for my own personal choice to use them. Never been a big Alex Jones follower – he yells too much for my taste – but has some pretty brilliant moments of clarity in my opinion.
Gab? Minds? Pointers or brief intro? Are they Tweet Like or Video shares or …
Article describig how Dtube and BitChute work… tech and administrative.
http://thelazygeeks.com/steemit-providing-alternative-for-the-youtube-purge/
gab is a twitter like social media account that refuses to censor accounts. It got a lot of new accounts yesterday. I have had an account since they first opened trial accounts but have not been very active until recently.
They are gradually getting enough participation to rival twitter – if twitter’s antics continue they will get replaced.
The big problem is that news sources like NBC, ABC and CNN etc. find Gab abhorrent so they do not directly post to it. That has recently been side tracked by setting up mirror accounts that mirror their twitter posts to Gab.
These aggregation accounts are like:
Trump’s Tweets @RealTrumpTweets
Daily Caller Tweets
One America News Tweets
ABC News Tweets
NBC News Tweets
/pol/ News Network @PNN
Voice of Europe @Voice_of_Europe
Alex also has an account there:
Alex Jones @RealAlexJones
So it is getting to the point for major media you can follow their twitter accounts without ever logging on to twitter. You still have the down side that local media and things like local fire departments and police agencies don’t get mirrored, but the process is underway to side step Twitter’s dominance, just like snapchat replaced facebook it will take a while.
Oops forgot to add the link – in the beginning you could pick any user id you wanted on gab because it was new may not be possible now, but it is a back door escape hatch for many of the social media accounts that periodically get banned or muted on twitter, they just move their activity to Gab so you can’t shut them down.
https://gab.ai/
Hmmm apprently this is an international move by Twitter to cull out the non-conforming voices.
Bolovo do Povo š
ā@BolovoDoPovo
11 minutes ago
More
I don’t know if it’s happening the same thing over in the US, but twitter is banning a lot of conservative accounts today in Brazil. Did you see that, @getongab?
Infowars app is now ranking number #4 on the Apple store listing.
Their efforts to censor have backfired, and lots of people are signing up and following infowars just to spite the big media censors.
https://www.infowars.com/infowars-official-app-jumps-to-number-4-dominates-cnn-nyt-abc/
I am like you. I had never heard of infowars until some clowns started using it as a pejorative. So I checked out a couple of links and found it too much on conspiracy, and not much on facts. So I have not been there in years. Just never had the use for it.
But he is free to say what he wants. That is what Free Speech is all about. I am also free not to waste my time. That is why I do not read the NYT, WaPo, CNN, LaT, NBC, CBS, or ABC. I place them all in the same bucket – a waste of time.
The disease is spreading to other companies as everyone wants to jump on the virtue signalling band wagon.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/08/infowars-is-not-just-being-censored-basic-business-infrastructure-now-being-stripped-as-mailchimp-bans-their-email/
infowars per se does not do a thing for me – he is sort of like the old National Enquirer scandal sheet news papers from the super market check out lines. They did sometimes break real stories, and it is good to have someone out there wiling to look under rocks no one else is looking at.
The principle is however very important. If they can black list infowars and destroy his business because he crosses some PC threshold they can shut down anyone for any reason at any time.
There needs to be a discussion about how much notification a service needs to give before it pulls a critical business function service like email.
I cannot do much about Mail Chimp. But I can shut down my Linked in – Bye Microsoft. I do not patronize organizations that are totalitarian.
“Info Wars”
And comments
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2018/08/07/info-wars/#comments
Opinion follows:
I already use Linux, even on my Chromebook so- I can actually ignore google after I get off my lazy butt and make some changes.
Listed below are fully functioning, easy to use and growing social media sites that are designed from the ground up to counter some of the largest issues in controlled regressive social media. **These are just my list of choices – not a definitive list, of course!**
I heartily recommend giving them a looksie and some consideration. The descriptions below are from each site, not my authorship.
Gab
https://gab.ai/
———————-
Alternative to Twitter
Gab is an ad-free social network dedicated to preserving individual liberty, the freedom of speech, and the free flow of information on the internet. A free and open internet is essential to the future of a free world. Freedom is creative. It produces. It generates. From freedom flows truth, beauty, wisdom, and growth.
Censorship and closed systems are ultimately about two things: destruction and control. Censorship does not create value, it annihilates it. It corrals human thought into the direction of its choosing. It attempts to bend the global consciousness to its will. This has always historically been the case. Censorship is nothing new.
The difference is we don’t have to stand by and watch it happen. We don’t have to watch the free and open internet be manipulated by 4-5 smug elites in Silicon Valley.
Minds
https://www.minds.com/
———————-
Alternative to Facebook
Minds is a free, open source, crowdfunded, highly innovative and encrypted social networking platform. On Minds, people are rewarded with digital currency for their activities and can exchange that currency for ad space or use it to trade with others on the site.
The goal of Minds is to help create a free and open Internet where privacy is ensured and people are fairly compensated for their efforts online with viral reach and revenue opportunity.
BitChute
https://www.bitchute.com/
———————-
Alternative to Youtube
BitChute is a peer to peer video sharing platform. Its mission is to put people and free speech first. It’s free to join and create and upload your own videos to share with others.
BitChute is run, developed and supported by a small team who have chosen to dedicate their time, energy and money to challenge the corporate social media monopoly.
We have big plans including monetization streams for our channel owners, live streaming, mobile applications, block-chain and much more.
Search Engines:
DuckDuckGo
https://duckduckgo.com
—————————
We donāt follow you around with ads.
We donāt store your search history. We therefore have nothing to sell to advertisers that track you across the internet. We donāt track you in or out of private browsing mode.
Other search engines track your searches even when youāre in private browsing mode. We donāt track you ā period.
Mojeek
https://www.mojeek.com/
—————————-
We like to do things differently…
That’s why we’re on a mission to build the world’s alternative search engine; a search engine that does what’s right, that values and respects your privacy, whilst providing its own unique and unbiased search results.
Search is often considered the gateway to the Web, which is why we believe it’s critical that choices exist, choices that take a different approach. By putting the people who use Mojeek first and using technology built from the ground-up, we’re here to offer that choice.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-07/four-person-nato-funded-team-advises-facebook-flagging-propaganda
@Ossqss:
That’s a fascinating article. Shows Facebook taking a page from Soros’ book and trying to hide their manipulation behind an outside NGO… yet inside that organization we find the same links and players. Even a UK Connection… ala:
So from the zerohedge link:
So donate money to an external agency that does what you want, but provides isolation / cover. Just happens to have a UK Govt. connection and works in the space of TLAs and misdirection.
Why do I not feel comfy with that?
Then the fact their donors are folks like J.P.Morgan, the Rockefellers, Bloomberg, US Dept. of State, the EU… All the same Globalist Players wishing to shut down Trump and “Nationalists”.
@EM, then this kinda thing pretty much closes a loop. Ya think?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-07/senate-democrats-are-circulating-plans-government-takeover-internet
It looks like the GEB (Globalist Evil Bastards) are getting antsy and starting to go to a full court press defense of their schemes. The UK is suddenly going completely over the edge on free speech as well as Australia (shut down the Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux events).
We have known some of those “outside” organizations were shills but it seems that they are not engaging in the usual quiet development and multiple layers of misdirection that they used to, and now they are slapping these things together with only minimal separation from the organizations they are shilling for.
Info wars it is.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zahrahirji/youtube-climate-change-denial
@Ossqss:
From your link:
So again we have a British connection…. but then Wikipedia as your voice of truth? Sheesh…
OK, I need to find out if there is some way to embed DTube or BitChute videos like you can YouTubes. So far I’ve only posted links, but the embed ability matters too..
Looks like it can be done, but it’s a little more complicated than the usual media embed:
https://bitchute.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/22000205013-how-to-embed-a-bitchute-video-into-a-wordpress-post
An interesting page with video that describes the impact of the YouTube purge on a smaller provider and lists some added folks who’ve been axed. Does look like a full on purge:
https://tvclip.biz/video/E3AskYJhgs0/how-to-follow-me-after-massive-youtube-purge-read-my-note-in-the-comment-section-asap.html
Commentary from Instapundit
From Gab.ai
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/304187/
Well, I tried to embed a BitChute video but it needs an “iframe” plug-in. To get that I must “upgrade” to the “Business” version of WordPress. That costs $25 / month, billed annually, so a $300 pop. Not gonna happen…
Oh Well… Links will have to do.
Here’s the link I was using for my test case. The guy uses Fahrenheit 451 move cuts to make his case visually… while describing the Election Meddling being done via the YouTube Purges… (though he doesn’t call it that exactly…) Like Red Pill and Blue Pill, we have Black Pilled:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/KjcH6vhZ2LD4/
As a not-particularly-video-orientated person, I prefer video done as plain links. One of the major irritations of the modern net is unexpected videos blaring into life when you go to a page – it’s one of the main reasons I keep blockers running at all times. If you want to see a video, far better to click to see it than be forced to find and then click something to stop it if you don’t. Maybe it’s not so bad if you’re going to a video site page specifically to see its video, but it’s a royal PITA when you go to, say, a newspaper “front page” and get a pile of unwanted junk vids playing from way down the page.
I first came across Alex Jones a fair few years ago, when he was to be found on “The Power Hour” on shortwave. After the initial surprise at such non-mainstream views getting air time, I realised that (as he has admitted himself) he’s more an actor playing a part than a true revolutionary, but as I’m always happier to hear as wide as possible a range of viewpoints, I keep an eye on him. Our own “Tommy Robinson”, and others, likewise.
Slightly surprised (2nd comment) to see a reference to firing up old Windoze machines “to see what they make of the links” – hell, now I’ve got Linux going, all “link-based activity” avoids Windoze altogether, and I feel a lot more secure thanks to that! Maybe ’tis a few decades of sysadmin that makes the difference … ;-)
I do in fact use an old Win machine myself as a “media machine” (mainly audio, of course), mainly because no Linux media player I’ve yet tried seems able to join two mp3 (etc) files together properly (i.e. inaudibly. With classical tastes, this is a routine requirement for me, and I find that “Good old” Winamp plays perfectly every time, even 5 years after its official death – yep, it (still) really whips the lama’s ass!
(There is a price to pay. Since its last rebuild a couple of years ago, something in that box now cranks up one of the fans to a penetrating whine the moment you ask it to do any more than just play a file off the HD. Even just plugging in my external USB-powered archive drive winds it up after a couple of minutes. Yes, the idea of a completely silent, 12V-powered media machine appeals a great deal!)
Fair comment here on “conspiracy to kill free speech”
“Robert Smith says:
August 8, 2018 at 1:36 am ”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/08/08/august-8th-2018-presidential-politics-trump-administration-day-566/comment-page-1/#comment-5757196
They are very very cleverly using the “Fake News” & “Election Interference” to bring about a Globalist Coup on the Internet news to maatch their hold over the MSM, most of the major globalist powers are involved,
USA
Germany
UK
Australia
This is a silent WAR and they are currently winning.
Methinks these ‘swamp’ things of the internet need to understand ‘the Streisand Effect’.
@ossqss says: 8 August 2018 at 2:42 am
Re: Congress democrats trying to take control of the Internet.
And thus they demonstrate their stupidity! Up thread, there is the link about how Facebook is using shell corporations to wash its hands of censorship. The democrats already control the Masters of the Universe! But if they bring it in house, and they lose control of government (Trump), they will lose their mastery!
If they left it alone, then they could do the facebook routine and deny accountability while at the same time achieving the same results.
And that is why they are stupid.
I was just caught by the name abiguity of the ‘bitchute’ url… it made me wonder what a ‘ute’ was.
Steven, Ute is Australian slang for Utility Vehicle – a pickup truck for example – that may be apt in your (mis)reading ;-)
@Steve C:
I hate the auto-play video junk too. But there is a 1/2 way between a text link and auto-play. A video that lets you see the top image, but does not auto-play. It gives a much better idea what the video is about most of the time.
But clearly I’m not too upset about not having it. It isn’t worth paying for, IMHO…
Per using Windoze: I use it for testing things only because EVERYONE makes their stuff work on Windows of some era (and often several eras). It is a way to disambiguate Windows specific code from “buggy in general”. Think of it as a QA tool to test a specific instance / use case. Also, as folks do things like push “new improved” standards, using an older test case can show that they just have not moved to the newest thing while others have dropped the old one. (Most recently seen in the https security choices and signing certs issues).
@Steven & Ian:
Hmmm… A Ute in which you haul around your… um, “hunting dog”, yeah, that’s it ;-)
@Per Internet Control:
The “solution” already exists and is in full play. The Dark Net
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darknet
Note that there are similar but different terms such as
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_web
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_web
Deep Web is stuff like inside of a corporation or your online banking. You must sign in to get there, but it isn’t exactly nefarious.
compare dark web:
At most, obstruction of the ClearNet can drive more users to the DarkNet. Most Web traffic is now https (so encrypted) and more folks are moving to encrypted email ( which reminds me I need to get on that…). I’ve set up and tested VPNs so that I can originate from many parts of the world if I so choose. I’m in the planning stages of a Cloud Hosted VPN box that will be my filtered DNS server and a personal VPN target & proxy server; thus letting ME control all aspects of my Web Presence (basically my link to it will be 100% encrypted and hide all information about me other than my login negotiation that itself happens over an encrypted connection – then “I” originate from that VPN hosting provider and can, from there, bounce off other VPN / Tor networks as I desire it). Eventually the end game is Peer 2 Peer encrypted traffic and personal servers.
So look at BitChute. It is P2P. There are a few “seed servers” but as folks use the service they also ARE the service. (Being behind a firewall blocks your ability to also serve up the bittorrent slices but just open a port and you are golden). Now you can’t tell who is serving what to whom and there is NO Central Authority to intimidate, control, or close.
Now consider that we can’t even really know how many darknets there are. Tor and Onionland are well known and Central Authority is actively trying to crack them (and did manage after several years to take down Silk Road) but have not been able to get to most of it. Now realize there are a 1/2 dozen others known to exist (though smaller) and consider than any group can set up their own too. How many of those? Nobody knows.
Part of my job, for a couple of decades, was connecting the “deep web” private sides of Corporate Networks to each other. One company buys another and you need to connect them NOW, not in 4 months after the Telco installs your leased line. So I’ve set up LOTS of VPN deep web links on the private corporate sides of their networks. (At one company, we had 16 ‘partner nets’ for a specific set of products and partners, all VPN to those companies, but with a firewall between each and every company. A “dark net” of 16 players inside their private side Deep Web networks.
The point of that story? It is NOT some exotic unknown thing to set up a private Dark Net. It is mainstream business day in and day out. Nearly trivial for just about any I.T. guy to do.
The only “hard bit” is that typically there isn’t a web search engine on such networks. It’s for business after all. BUT, look at the structure of some of the P2P search engines and that their code is published. It would not be hard at all to set up a Dark Net Search Engine for any given darknet as the citizenry of it desired.
Simply put:
To the extent the ClearNet becomes hostile, folks will just move to P2P DarkNets.
The bits WILL flow. Can’t stop the flow…
The rate at which I build out my own personal Darknet infrastructure is directly proportional to the hostility I sense in the ClearNet world. I could have it set up and running in a week without too much work. Just have not felt the need. But need and feelings change… Already I’m about 1/2 shifted to BitChute from YouTube and MoJeek from even DuckDuckGo (and completely off of Google AND my DNS server blocks lots and lots of Google monitizing / ad stuff and snooping). The more they push, the faster I go…
As one old programmer to another, you totally blew it this time. We share so many common experiences that I see myself when I read your postings. InfoWars.com is an easy target for those that have never watched it. I study many sources every day and compare / contrast them in an effort to understand what is happening. Like it or not, InfoWars is often the most reliable source available as an early warning of what will be talked about on the news about three days later. I still can not understand why you were linking to other sources, when InfoWars.com was the direct access. Personally, I am laughing my ass off!
[Reply: Simple, really, the blatant antisemitism especially in comments and the “shout and rant” style both offend me. I don’t hang out nor quote nor link to places that offend me. -E.M.Smith P.S. “Blew It” is entirely subjective and not very polite. ]
Looks like Infowars is on gab.ai as well, with a live feed portion.
https://gab.ai/tv/watch/6671
Yes many of the high profile accounts that have been having problems on twitter and face book etc. set up backup accounts on gab.ai so if they got shut down or banned for a day or weeks they still had access to their clientele. (sort of an emergency backup)
Here is a starter kit of gab.ai handles to check out. These are accounts that “at the moment” I am following – not necessarily a recommendation just that they caught my eye and some of them will be dropped if I think they are obnoxious or junk. Many of them are known personalities on twitter who populate the alternate media space there, and via the “six degrees of separation” concept, each of them follow some dozens of other accounts and periodically bring interesting things to my attention.
Some of them turn out to be junk after watching them for a while and get dropped, but this will get you in touch with the alternate media if you want to back door the major media and get a glimpse of what is happening that they can’t be bothered to cover.
Mike Cernovich
@Cernovich
Stefan Molyneux
@stefanmolyneux
Donald J. Trump
@reaIDonaldTrump
Tim Pool
@Timcast
The Beltway Times
@beltwaytimes
Jack Posobiec
@Posobiec
Lauren Southern
@LaurenSouthern
Breitbart News
@BreitbartNews
Drudge Report
@drudgereport
Thomas Wictor
@Thomas_Wictor
Trump’s Tweets
@RealTrumpTweets
Imperator_Rex
@Imperator_Rex
Brian Cates
@drawandstrike
Michelle Malkin
@MichelleMalkin
James Woods
@RealJamesWoods
Bill Warner
@PoliticalIslam Ā· Follows you back
WND.com
@WND
Paul Joseph Watson
@pauljosephwatson
Voice of Europe
@Voice_of_Europe
Chicks on the Right
@chicksonright
Katie Hopkins
@KTHopkins
Laura Loomer
@lloomer
James O’Keefe
@jamesokeefeiii
Brittany Pettibone
@BrittPettibone
Raheem Kassam (very good access to middle east happenings)
@Raheem
PeterSweden (reports on northern europe – Sweden Norway some Germany etc.)
@PeterSweden
Sebastian Gorka
@DrG
Steven Crowder
@StevenCrowder
Faith Goldy
@FaithGoldy
Kim Dotcom
@kimdotcom
Sharyl Attkisson
@SharylAttkisson Ā· Follows you back
Michael G Flynn
@mflynnJR
PrisonPlanet
@PrisonPlanet
Milo Yiannopoulos
@m
Andrew Torba
@a
Lucas Nolan
@ln
Marc Geppert
@Wolf
Emily Selby
@Emily
Ann Coulter
@AnnCoulter
Gab Support
@support
#GabTutorials
@tutorials
WeSearchr
@WeSearchr
Chuck C Johnson
@Chuckcjohnson
John E. Nantz
@TheJohnNantz
The Sentinel
@thesentinel Ā· Follows you back
Wayne Dupree
@WayneDupreeShow
Generation Identity
@Generation_Identity
/pol/ News Network
@PNN
Spain Brexit
@SpainBrexit Ā· Follows you back
Brigitte Gabriel
@BrigitteGabriel
Geert Wilders
@GeertWilders
Pamela Geller
@Pamela
Tommy Robinson
@TommyRobinson
Donald J Trump Jr Tweets
@DonJrTweets
Tucker’s Tweets
@TuckerCarlsonTweets
James Woods Tweets
@RealJamesWoodsTweets
Ann Coulter Tweets
@AnnCoulterTweets
Alex Jones
@RealAlexJones
INFO WARS NEWS
@INFOWARSNEWS
Free Speech Radio
@FreeSpeechRadio
NBC News Tweets
@NBCNewsTweets
One America News Tweets
@OANNTweets
ABC News Tweets
@ABCTweets
Instapundit.com
@instapundit
The Daily Caller Tweets
@DailyCaller
FOX Business Tweets
@FoxBusinessTweets
GOA Tweets (gun owners of America)
@GunOwners
I just did a new scan for some more interesting handles on gab.ai, add these to the above list for a starter kit of alternate media handles on gab.ai
(I periodically go link surfing and poach links followed by other accounts – basically using their follower list as a curated list of likely links – sort of a low tech search engine to cull out links that someone else has found interesting enough to follow)
Beanz
@Tracybeanz
Breaking911 Tweets
@Breaking911Tweets
FoxNews Tweets
@FoxNewsTweets
zerohedge Tweets
@zerohedgeTweets
DRUDGE REPORT Tweets
@DRUDGE_REPORT
Candace Owens Tweets
@RealCandaceO
Breitbart News Tweets
@BreitbartNewsTweets
Sarah Sanders Tweets
@PressSec
Secretary Pompeo Tweets
@SecPompeo
Breitbart News Tweets
@BreitbartNewsTweets
TheNewAmerican Tweets
@NewAmericanMag
Mark Dice Tweets
@MarkDiceTweets
Just for grins, I did a search for “Infowars” on the Roku.
Turns out there are 2 channels of it. One is the official channel and has you enter a “code” to sign up for it. It also warns “may have additional fee” that may mean fee or may just mean it has the sign up process… It claims to have a live feed plus several recorded options, but I can’t say for sure what is in them as I didn’t sign up / enter the code.
Theo other is called “Infowars” with a tag of free at the top level, but when installed, the app name in the token is “Treasure Valley Community Television”. It is free, but only has the one live feed. It also has a lot of recorded episodes of “The Corbett Report”. I remember having seen it before, but don’t know much about it. IIRC it’s another independent news channel with a conservative bent.
Now the presenter on this infowars is not (at the moment) Alex Jones. It looks like the same overall channel, but David Knight is speaking. I’m thinking maybe it’s a time shift of the live one?
Interesting that just by bothering to look for it, it seems like InfoWars is all over the place.
Looks to me like that whole censorship thing “has issues”…
Info wars also broadcast on shortwave so if you want to hear his spiel you can also go that route, with shortwave talk radio.
infowars on shotwave how to video
http://www.wwcr.com/
Click to access WWCR_Program_Guide.pdf
Unless they can get to the owner of WWCR they can’t do anything about this shortwave broadcast short of jamming.
The one time I stumbled on it via HF broadcast here in Colorado it was clear as an AM radio for most of the broadcast mid day.
Well the Treasure Valley Roku station is now showing Alex Jones as the presenter. I think it is an hour or two lag behind the BitChute live (but I wasn’t paying close enough attention to say for sure).
Having watched more hours of it than I though I would tolerate, I’m pleasantly surprised at the lack of antisemitism. Don’t know if it was just a bad batch in the comments a few years back at the web site, if I’m conflating it with a memory of Zerohedge, or what. He’s still a shouting screamer and I’m not fond of that… there’s also a lot of commercials for his herbal supplement stuff.
The content is still a bit “conspiracy theory”, OTOH, we clearly DID have a conspiracy (since you can’t get 4 bit tech companies to do the same thing at the same time even with a Project Manager) and he HAS been the target of it. so I’m also having trouble holding that against him.
It is easiest to just launch on the Roku (the Mac has memory fill up then swap jitter after too much video), plays well, and it’s a really nice big screen (with MUTE for those endless commercials…)
Don’t know that it will become a “regular”, but given how unwatchable CNN, MSNBC, etc. have become, how repetitive and tedious ABC, NBC, CBS and related have become, and how even Sky, France24, and RT have long gaps of The Aw Story, Sport I don’t follow, Weather on the other side of the planet, and not enough relevant news for me; I could see trying it from time to time over morning coffee.
As it is now, Reuters has the same basic stories of the day as all the others, in 30 minutes, and I can skip half of it anyway. (I hit skip once the news sentence is said; when they switch to the Trump Bashing spin- that’s their pattern). Lately they have been trying to insert commercials but have tech issues with it. If they go to too many commercials, I’ll just not bother and get the same stories from ABC.
I keep hoping that NewsMax will have some decent news, but they seem to do a lot of talk-talk while not saying much. “Shows” more than news. So it hasn’t been an adequate option. I’d like to find a straight news program like Fox was about a decade ago; but it is just not out there on the free services that I’ve used.
@Larry:
Thanks for the SW pointer. I’ve got a couple so will check it for this coast. I’ll need to string my antenna again.
Hmmm this is interesting – from twitter:
Gab.ai
āVerified account
@getongab
Following @getongab
More
BREAKING: Gabās hosting provider, Microsoft Azure, has given us 48 hours to take action on two posts or they will pull our service and Gab will go down for weeks/months.
Looks like this will be interesting to watch how this shakes out. If they can cut you off before you even get to the web back bone by cutting off hosting services your only option would be to set up your own web hosting operation but do they control outright to the web infrastructure?
@Larry:
Well that’s distressing…
Microsoft Azure, eh? YACASS … Yet Another Cloud And Services System pronounced Yak Ass…
Easy enough to recandle to another Cloud provider. (What kind of provider is that, anyway? They are supposed to just keep the computers running, not police what bits are on them…)
Well, I guess the era of Cloud Services will be drawing to an end now too, as people realize it always was a Bad Idea to hand all their compute functions and data over to some third party off in some unknown location.
The point behind Peer 2 Peer is that there is no central server to attack (not even on a Cloud Service provider). Seed servers (that can be anyone if desired, or can be provided by the company setting up the operation) start the sharing, but once shared; the slices of data can be anywhere or everywhere in the user base.
That’s why I’ve said the “End game” is a P2P system. Like with BitChute.
So the solutions are known. The “problem” is that most folks, especially those in management, are much more interested in centralized solutions and especially those a “Cloud Providers” where someone else has the job of owning the facilities and keeping them running well.
On my “to do list” (though at a very low level until now…) has been to set up my own mini-Cloud services set on a machine in my DMZ at home. (That part is easy to do, the hard part is to do all the stuff around it to assure it stays secure and isn’t hacked…) Then play with using “Cloud Services” for various things like DNS customized to block ads and VPN from anywhere to both “be at home” as far as my web presence is concerned AND to be able to bounce off it to a remote VPN to “be all over the world” on demand. And more. Basically a Cloud I can Trust.
That DNS server is important for more than just ads. The key underlayment of traffic on the internet is the IP address and that gets assigned by the DNS server (by looking upstream to “root servers” that are the ultimate authority). By running your own DNS server you can be your own authority. That prevents a “malicious authority” from deciding who gets to exist on the DNS level. So that whole .onion domain exists outside the “approved” DNS system as an example.
(There’s actually another level of you can go too. The IP address can have extra bits added and then you put different code in your router to handle it. That way you can have your own transport layer that won’t route over the regular net and that regular inspection engines can’t handle as they see it as a broken IP address and broken packets. Generally that isn’t needed… but it has been shown to work; and you can even put those packets inside an IP packet so you can tunnel through an IP net with your own entirely custom packets for further routing on from your ‘special’ routers).
Yes, it’s a PITA to set up all this stuff yourself. Yes, it is much easier to just toss some money at a “Cloud Provider”. But then you are controlled by your Cloud Provider if they so choose… as evidence that Azure bleat asserting “must or else”.
Would be interesting to know what the two messages are that are so “offensive”… Maybe they need to be posted and discussed widely…
Looks like they’ve been there before. Their registry (folks who hold the key to matching their name to an IP address and put it in the authoritative DNS server) had a “take it down or else”. Back in 2017 and per racism near as I can tell from this:
http://bitchspot.jadedragononline.com/tag/gab-ai/
As long as there is some central authority who can take down a video or text message, this kind of thing will continue. Those who can not stand the idea of real free speech will demand it. That’s why I think solutions like Gab.ai and BitChute are only 1/2 way on the process. They fix some of the issues but not all of them. That’s why eventually you end up at a full on Dark Net like Tor and a domain like .onion (since those folks were already driven to the end game by police efforts to arrest them; so had to “go there”…)
It will be interesting to watch the “learning process” as this plays out and “normal folks” find out just why Tor and .onion are important.
Well, I’ve had Infowars running on the Roku during my morning cycle (wake up, coffee, feed dogs, feed me, clean dishes / kitchen, …) and it’s been an interesting experience.
Too much shout. Too many commercials. Too loud a background music. Yet better than Reuters…
Yes, it is heavy with Conspiracy (can we really call it “theory” now? since there was a conspiracy to ban him?) and is rather repetitive ( today a lot of it about his ban, and his ban, and the evils of banning, and …) with a heavy seasoning of “China runs the world” with emphasis on Apple cooperation with China as their factories are in China, control of major media in Hollywood by China, control of media… yet no actual evidence given for the mechanism of the control of media… Don’t know if he presented it a few months back, or just hasn’t bothered.
Yet I have less desire to “skip” stories than I do on Reuters. Not as much mindless fluff and without the clear propaganda Trump Bashing.
Don’t know if I can take more than an hour of this in the morning, though. That much adrenaline, shouting, and angst is just more than my “quite type” can take…
The David Night show was on earlier and I can see watching it every day (on Infowars). A more low key actual news oriented show.
Orthogonal to that:
Given that Linkedin, Facebook, YouTube, Apple, et. al. have clearly stated their intent to be Radical Left Censors By Proxy: I wonder if a window has been opened for a clearly Right Wing set of services? Is there now a niche (a few millions person / billions views “niche”) for a blatantly “anything non-Left” provider of Instant Messages & Videos with social networking? Would a “go fund me” or similar be enough to make it happen? Hmmm….
@E.M.: Yakass. That’s the Swedish pronunciation, yust like the Swedes pronounce Jurinalist.
š
You asked for it you got it –
Here comes the social media legislation that was inevitable as a consequence of the abuse of trust and fair play by the major media players.
From twitter:
Attorney Josh Smithās Social Media Anti-Censorship Act (#SMACA) proposal would prohibit censorship of lawful speech on major social media platforms.
Here is a summary of the legislation:
Response by Gab.ai owner Andrew Torba to questions about hosting alternatives.
Andrew Torba @a
Yes Patrick, we will look into this provider, but our longterm goal is building out our OWN infrastructure to prevent this from ever happening again. Thank you.
Let’s try that summary image again with a different image extension and see if it works.
@Larry – Both extensions seem to work perfectly for me, on Pale Moon browser / Linux. No visible difference between the two images.
Well that is really bazaar, same here blue moon works just fine but here on fire fox they are broken images. Also work just fine in Brave browser – what the heck is fire fox doing?
This has been bugging me for quite a while but I thought it was a word press thing never crossed my mind it was firefox as I don’t have any add blocker or anything running on it except https anywhere.
Hmmm down the rabbit hole now to see if I can figure it out.
Okay found the culprit it was a setting in firefox under privacy and security.
Tracking Protection Tracking Protection blocks online trackers that collect your browsing data across multiple websites.
I had to set that to Never for the issue with those images to go away, so that implies that the link to those images which is a twitter short link triggers that behavior as Firefox considers twitter images a “known online tracker”
Classic! ;-)
https://mobile.twitter.com/SteveSGoddard/status/1027656525290954753
Yes I find Infowars hard to listen to for the same reasons –
It is sort of like listening to an audio stream of nothing but Southern California used car sales pitches. Too much high volume, too much over the top exageration etc. etc. but on principle, it irritates me that they decided to take him off the air. I consider him a really big canary in the coal mine (insert mental image of a yellow Alex Jones in a cage). If they can crush a huge audience media stream like his, they can shut down anyone anywhere any time. Small independents have no chance against that sort of a full court press attack by the leftist media.
I do check him out every once and a while for the entertainment value and he does occasionally show up as the only media outlet willing to discuss certain topics, so he establishes a far right boundary to media that is not blatantly off in the weeds completely. Sometimes I think he is an agent provocateur of some power groups himself, as sometimes his propaganda pitches fit very well with the agenda of folks like the Russians who just want to sew discontent (FUD) with the US government and put a malicious spin on everything. There certainly is plenty of malicious spin that ages well, no need to manufacture it and imply complex conspiracies when stupid and self serving corruption gets the job done without needing to invoke some master puppet master in some dark mansion some place.
I personally have never heard any hard core anti-semetic stuff from him. He does attack the globalist banker types and wall street but I interpret those remarks as being against a specific group of individuals and their business model, not against everyone that shares their religion.
There are hard core jerks and mercenary folks in all those sub-groups, and the stereotype has some basis in fact as a caricature of a certain style of doing business, and certain high finance characters. I never broaden that sort of caricature to include average folks who happen to adhere to the same religion any more than I apply a similar caricature to Christians (some of which do fit the leftist caricature of pompous hypocritical self righteous folks hiding behind a label who use the term Christian as nothing but virtue signaling.) But complaining about a minority in a group that behaves badly need not necessarily paint the whole group.
@Larry L;
Both are working on the FireFox on my Linux Devuan 2.0 Pi… (whatever is the newest one on Devuan 2.0).
Ah, read the tracker comment. Yes, ANYTHING Twitter is a tracker.
Thanks for reminding me I need to set that config on this new install of Devuan 2.0 ;-)
FWIW, I’ve got Infowars back on again, after lunch, via the Roku. Now it’s an Oliver Stone segment on a show run by some young folks (sorry, not paying enough attention to learn the names… a “20 something” looking guy with a beard, a mixed race black guy with dreds in a head band, and a black woman… Clearly “racist” does not apply…
I do have to hit mute about 1/2 the time as the repetitive “Used Car Guy” self-promos and ads get to me…
But in fact there’s 3 non-Alex shows that I’ve found that seem to have decent political news with guys that don’t shout…
So, curiously, the attempt to ban Infowars has now made me a “sometime watch” – and I’ll have more hours of exposure to it than to Reuters and ABC combined… It’s also sent me off to BitChute where I’ve found “more of what I want” with lower search costs (in time) than on YouTube.
Overall, I think I can hear Barbara singing Very Very Loudly! ;-)
Hmmm… This FireFox only lets me turn on “block trackers” for Private Windows. Not for all windows. Wonder if that varies from release to release…
My main reason for having Infowars on follow on YouTube was for Steve Pieczenek – I hate how Alex does interviews…
Guess I’ll be watching for Steve Pieczenek to check out his show… ;-)
Steve has his own YouTube channel – not sure if heās on BitChute…his latest: https://youtu.be/Xc7WuIItPgk
So it appears that Facebook and Amazon Web Services have gone even further to block the gun plan down loads, to the point of blocking posting of a link to where the plans can be located or the original site.
https://freebeacon.com/issues/gun-rights-activists-posted-gun-files-say-facebook-amazon-censored-site/
And Twitter is talking about including off site behavior in their terms of service, so they can drop people if on another web site they affiliate with groups the “Ministry of Truth” finds objectionable.
https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/08/twitter-has-dystopian-plans-to-include-off-platform-behaviour-in-their-terms-of-service/#.W2zjAS_IKV9.twitter
Never allow others to tell you how to think. Always use original sources. If you have a problem, post a link to the entire video and identify the minute mark where you actually had a problem. You and I share so much in common, that reading your life experiences often sounds like my own biography. Welcome to the club and keep your eyes and ears open. That is all that anyone could ask of you.
Since I only use the original sources (infowars.com) I have absolutely no idea what racist comments you were so upset about. Were your comments actually about InfoWars.com or from the secondary sources that you have been watching?
@Steve R. H.:
It isn’t clear to whom you are speaking. Also the “what racist comments you” isn’t clear either what comment or who “you” might be.
Can you clarify what you are saying and to whom?
I’m pretty sure I’ve not accused anyone of being racist (the very concept of calling someone “racist” is repugnant to me) so either it is someone else, or a quote of someone shouting “racist” was being attributed to the quoter, or..?
I did assert InfoWars might be antisemitic (mostly in comments) based on a foggy memory from a decade or so ago; but in watching the show it clearly is NOT antisemitic. So I also stated that fact, and that now I was not sure if it as a very old memory, or a mis-attribution of Zerohedge comments to InfoWars (as they often swim in the same waters and sometimes one is quoted in the other, I could see getting the pointer wrong). But really, I’ve not cared enough to go back and disambiguate all that. (Show it existed in comments a decade ago? How?; Show a conflating ZeroHedge memory with InfoWars memory? How? etc…. So better to just say “Might have had it wrong. Reset opinion point to TBD and move on”.
In any case, it isn’t clear to whom you are talking and about what claim of “racist” you are reacting.
Dear friend, I was only replying to your comments since you obviously were not using primary sources of information.
[Reply: Simple, really, the blatant antisemitism especially in comments and the āshout and rantā style both offend me. I donāt hang out nor quote nor link to places that offend me. -E.M.Smith P.S. āBlew Itā is entirely subjective and not very polite. ]
Stephen R. Huntwork says:
8 August 2018 at 11:17 pm
As one old programmer to another, you totally blew it this time. We share so many common experiences that I see myself when I read your postings. InfoWars.com is an easy target for those that have never watched it. I study many sources every day and compare / contrast them in an effort to understand what is happening. Like it or not, InfoWars is often the most reliable source available as an early warning of what will be talked about on the news about three days later. I still can not understand why you were linking to other sources, when InfoWars.com was the direct access. Personally, I am laughing my ass off!
[Reply: Simple, really, the blatant antisemitism especially in comments and the āshout and rantā style both offend me. I donāt hang out nor quote nor link to places that offend me. -E.M.Smith P.S. āBlew Itā is entirely subjective and not very polite. ]
“I did assert InfoWars might be antisemitic (mostly in comments) based on a foggy memory from a decade or so ago; but in watching the show it clearly is NOT anti-Semitic”
Then we will call it even dear friend!
@Steven R. Huntwork:
So your whole “blew it” assertion is based on your ASSUMPTION I’d not watched InfoWars but was instead reacting to “secondary sources”? So what did I “blow”? Oh, that I don’t like shouting and used car salesman style? Or at best that I’d said ~”I don’t endorse something where I’ve only watched a few times and didn’t like it much and that was a few years ago, and the style offends me..”?
Really?
You think I ought to endorse with enthusiasm something I’ve watched and evaluated only a couple of times and didn’t like the style of all that much?
You think my saying what I like is somehow “blowing it” as I can’t know what I like?
So what did I do? I said “I don’t really like it much and don’t endorse it”. A Truth. Then I said where you can find it (including links). A YMMV moment.
Now you assert I’m working from “secondary sources” (without any evidence)? Um, no. per InfoWars I’m working from personal experience, if a bit of a long while ago. For articles I cite sources and often cite their sources as it is my habit to follow the citation chain upstream to the start.
Now I’ve clearly stated where i think I may have made an error. That being the accusation of antisemitism. (I’ve even explained why that might be as ZeroHedge has a lot of it, especially in comments, and I might well have conflated the two as they often travel together in folks references and in my initial exposure to both.) But really I can’t go back to a decade ago and see if the comment sections on InfoWars then was as I thought I’d remembered it. I’ve also taken pains to point out this one minor potential mis-attribution.
So, just to be painfully clear:
I find it PAINFUL and DIFFICULT to sit through the SHOUT and RANT and OVER THE TOP overly emotive and PAINFULLY REPETITIVE and saying THE SAME THING AGAIN AND AGAIN, and more than once REPEATING THE SAME SHOUT, and ITS GLOBAL WAR!!! and such style.
That, even standing alone, is more than enough for me to never watch InfoWars. That is a necessary consequence of my being what in psych terms is called an “Augmenter”. Colors are too bright, sounds are too loud, spices are way strong, etc. etc. So no, I’m not ever ever ever going to be OK with the SHOUT AND SCREAM!!! style. It just physically is not possible for me to do so. That is a VERY Primary source.
Now, all that said:
At no time did I say Alex Jones was a liar, or that his “stuff” was a day late and a dollar short, or that he was WRONG. It may well be THE most timely and THE best and THE most accurate thing EVER!!!!! But when I have to hit MUTE 1/2 the time it is on, and find the other half a bit of a trial to get through: At that moment to say “it isn’t my kind of show” is entirely and completely reasonable and true.
Now: You have avoided addressing your assertion of a racist claim. Is it withdrawn?
Just giggling, because I triggered something that was never intended. And no, I have nothing to retract my friend. Time to calm down and understand that we actually do support each other. I grew up in Walnut Creek California and went to college at Berkley and have been programming computers since 1972. We share so many mutual memories that is it almost embarrassing. Keep your eyes and ears open and listen to Americans outside of the California insanity. We are out there for you!
@S.R.H.:
You asserted a claim of racism being asserted:
“Since I only use the original sources (infowars.com) I have absolutely no idea what racist comments you were so upset about.”
I’m quite happy to accept that you conflated “racist” with “antisemitic” just as I likely conflated “zerohedge” with “infowars”; but I’m not happy to pretend you never posted that quoted statement.
BTW, I’m not “picking a fight” and I’m not being your enemy. I am only defending precision in statements and understanding. You assert things about me that are not true, it is an obligation on me to confront them. Even if innocently said.
Per “listen to America outside California”:
I’ve spent roughly 1/2 of the last decade living in Florida… with stops in Texas on trips back and forth to spend time with the Texas Family (spouse is “out of Texas” so I’m now an “Honorary Texan” per my Texas in-laws ;-) No problem with me listening to the insanity that is California…
I don’t watch local news. I don’t have a lot of local friends outside my spouse. My Son has left the State and when offered the house here said “No. Too many crazies in California.” so not even interested in a free ride if it is here. We are in active preparation to Get The Hell Out. (Today was spent going through 1/2 my office sorting out “give away” vs “keep and pack” vs “Keep for now”… ) I take no local papers. I basically “checked out” about 5 years ago when I headed to Florida and I’m only back now to “clean up, pack up, and leave”.
Yes, it will take me another year to finish the Escape from California… but I’ll be back in Florida at least 2 times during that interval…
IMHO, the only thing good about California today is the weather.
Looks like twitter is expanding the purge of conservative voices.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/twitter-suspends-proud-boys-and-founder-gavin-mcinnes
They have not figured out that it is like whack a mole all they are doing is pushing them to alternate media sites like gab and they will take lots of followers with them.
It will be interesting to watch both twitter and facebook stock over the next 6 months to see if the decline continues in their value. Their stock fell off a cliff just a short time ago
Some people are recommending this video site as a site that does not actively censor videos that do not conform to the PC dogma. I have not checked it out in detail but just an option for you all to check out.
https://www.real.video/
@Larry:
The basic stupidity is the hubris of thinking there is no option.
The entire Open Source movement arose to be a giant middle finger “option”.
The rise of Bittorrent was a giant middle finger “option”.
There will be more “options”.
We are here.
We are options.
The bits WILL flow.
They can not be stopped.
I am but one but we are many.
We are anonymous and we will not be silenced.
“We are options.”
We are the Borg. You will be assimilated
“The bits WILL flow. “
The spice must flow!
Does anonymous have any original thoughts?
“
My brother watches a lot of Alex Jones (and seems to believe a lot of it, too). I don’t because I dislike the shouting. I don’t look at Breitbart much because I find the comments largely mindless and non-informative, and I’ve often seen some anti-semitic and other dumb racial/political comments there. Could be, as EM suggests, that there’s some astroturfing and bots putting those sorts of comments in just to tar the whole site with that distasteful veneer, but I suppose they don’t want to apply censorship and that is the result. Still, removing the impolite comments and the dumb ones would improve the experience a lot.
On EM’s blog, on the other hand, politeness is valued and at times enforced. I don’t know what I’m going to learn, but some is interesting and some may be critically important. Most people use their real names, too, which makes for more trust. It’s why I read everything here even if I don’t always comment.
Anonymity leads to some pretty shitty comments, but anonymity is also necessary to get news out that TPTB don’t want to be broadcast. There may not be a way to ensure that the truth gets out without also allowing that astroturfing, so finding out what the truth actually is will likely be a problem in any system. The only way I know to be reasonably certain is have an account from someone you know and trust who was there or had the experience.
I’ve been hesitant to install apps that make my machine a server-client because I don’t know what sort of content might pass through my machine and if that will make me liable for some “crime.”
But the way things are shaping up, that appears to be the best work-around from centralized control that is “the cloud.” The double-edged sword of the internet is now chipping away at our Constitutional freedoms. I don’t give a good Tinker’s damn that they are private companies, either. They are simply too big and competition isn’t at play because the people who run them are too like-minded.
I hate to say it, but I think they should be declared monopolies and broken up. Devil in the details, I know. And if there is a Dimowit government in place, we are back to square -100.
From the article:
Gab isn’t the only company suffering from Big Tech censorship. Freestartr, a free speech crowdfunding site, is still shut down after losing its payment processor for similar reasons. According to founder Charles Johnson, Wells Fargo is behind the shuttering of conservative sites like his because the bank uses the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate group” lists to discriminate against the people the SPLC tells them to. The SPLC’s lists have already gotten people shot. Wells Fargo has not responded to attempts to contact them.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/microsoft-threatens-to-shut-down-gab-after-anti-semitic-posts-by-user/
@Simon Derricutt: “Most people use their real names, too, which makes for more trust.”
Something I’ve neglected to post here, though I have mentioned it on other blogs, is why I post as H.R.. The H.R. is short for “Highly Recruited,” which is the handle I used on the first topic I ran across on the internet that fascinated me and pissed me off a bit. The topic was deceptive recruiting and sales practices of a specific multi-level marketing company that sold term life insurance and offered mortgage re-financing.
I had just received my MBA and was considering changing fields from Manufacturing Engineering. I went to a job fair and left my resume with several companies that interested me, one being a “Financial Services company” which was “looking to open 30 new offices in the area.” and needed managers. They invited me to interview at their offices about 2 days later, IIRC. I also had posted my resume online.
Well, the interview was a group ‘interview’ with about 25 other people and it was a presentation designed to incite greed in the attendees to sell you on the idea of a $100,000+/year income in their multi-level marketing organization.
You started as a straight commissioned insurance sales associate and created your own office by recruiting a team. Your recruits had the same opportunity to recruit, as did their recruits, and their recruits recruits, and etc. (anyone spot the problem with that?). Each level received a cut of the commission made by their ‘downline’ recruits. It was the Amway of insurance sales. Turnover in the organization was roughly 150% per year and it is by far the most cynical and deceptive organization I have ever run across. Recruits = Sales.
From that one interview and my online resume, I received 15 phone calls in the following couple of weeks, from ignorant recruits they had convinced to jump on board, trying to recruit me to their ‘downline.’ Thus, ‘Highly Recruited’ which was shortened to H.R. by other commenters on the comment threads where I posted.
I have no doubt that I cost that company a lot of business by explaining the deceptive, cynical business model to new recruits or prospective recruits, who were suspicious of the ‘interview’ they just attended, and that came online looking for information on just what they were really getting into.
The General Counsel for the corporation was ‘not amused’ by my writings and was seeking my identity with, and I have no doubt, a SLAPP suit in mind.
I still post as H.R. just to remind the corporation that I’m still around, as I know that a periodic search is made by that General Counsel for the small group of people that were a major thorn in their side.
Because I post anonymously, but try to be as ethical as possible, I refrain from attacks on, or insults “to the person.” No doubt I’ve failed from time to time, but I try to maintain that standard.
I also post anonymously because there are some seriously unhinged people who have access to the internet, particularly ‘true believers’ of CAGW and the hopelessly brainwashed recruits of that insurance company, who would seek to do harm to my property, my family, or me. And there are also untold numbers of nuts that just happen to land on a site and see a comment that may set them on an obsessive quest to ‘get me.’
I am alert well trained, well armed, carry concealed, and in an easily defended position. So for safety’s sake, mostly for theirs more than mine, I post anonymously.
I really don’t care if the regulars on this site know who I am. I should be having the opportunity to meet up with ossqss and E.M. in Florida at some time and perchance a few others who post here. I pass through North Carolina two or four times a year and Gail Combs has told me of a place where she and her hubby (The Man of Mystery) set up shop to promote their business, so if I am in the neighborhood, we could meet and greet. p.g. graciously offered to ship me some manzanita wood if I paid shipping. I have no problem giving him my name and address, but I’m getting some local woods to clutter my garage and annoy my wife first before I import some wood. š
I’d jump at the opportunity to at least meet and greet the regulars on E.M.’s site just to learn a little more about the person behind the posts. That’s much easier to do after a few hours chatting in person rather than trying to remember and piece together a portrait of someone from comments that are most often specific to a topic, and only occasionally a snippet about the person.
So, Simon, you just served up the opportunity for me to explain to all why I post as H.R., and as you can see, it takes a little bit of explaining. That, itself, explains why I’ve not bothered to do it before.
Pseudonymous is not anonymous. I use the same name everywhere. I can be identified by it. But I don’t care for any casual reader to know my real name. They google you. They work out where you live. They can make trouble. I reckon a little paranoia is appropriate considering the downside. I’d never use net anonymity to post nasty stuff, that’s the moral deal I’ve made with myself.
H.R. – nice to know the back-story. For me, the anonymity wasn’t that necessary since although the various Free Energy scams we exposed on R-G might have been somewhat annoyed, they couldn’t take me to court over telling the truth. Or at least they couldn’t win if they did. Our host is naturally anonymous by virtue of his name, so provided it remains not tied to an address he’d be difficult to pin down. Somewhat dangerous to try, too. Though you can find my address on the net, finding it on the ground is a bit more difficult – no house names or numbers here. I don’t have any guns here, but there are a lot of somewhat-lethal tools lying around handy. Darwin awards for the foolhardy.
Meeting and greeting the regulars here would be fun, but somewhat of a long flight for me and I still get very travel-sick, so I avoid travel unless really necessary. I’ll thus stick with writing, and reading what they write. I’ve learned a lot about politics here that may well be useful, since I couldn’t make sense of a lot of things that happened. I hope my excursions into what’s wrong with some fundamental physics has helped others here, too. Unlikely anyone else will actually do something experimentally, but knowing there’s a question about the validity may be useful. Though it could be that this knowledge may later be restricted in who is allowed to know, at the moment it’s simply not believed and so it’s safe to tell people. We each bring something different to the party, and the nice thing about sharing knowledge is that there’s more of it at the end.
@Phill:
Since anyone can be a “member” of Anonymous by proclamation, then yes.
BTW, the above was all from me and at the end was my proclamation…
The point is simple, that when push comes to shove, some folks go to Aikido…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aikido
I studied it for a while…
While I’ll not damage my opponent if it can be avoided, I’ll not let them deter me from my path…
Also, do note that “we are options” says that a lot of folks are going to find ways to AVOID being indoctrinated into The One Official Truth; it is exactly opposite from The Borg.
Also, do note that “the bit will flow” to provide thought freedom is exactly opposite to “the spice will flow” that brings addiction and chemical imprisonment.
Read the thoughts, not just the word patterns…
@Simon:
How to allow truth:
Police the style and behaviour but do not police the meaning and content. Check and point out clear errors, do NOT enforce “authority” (at most point out it exists in counterpoint).
In short “I don’t care what you believe as long as you are polite about it”.
So IF someone wanted to assert Blacks were stupider than Whites, I’d not censor them. I would ask some pointed questions ( such as “when” and “where” since diet in the Slave Areas was horrible and that alone can knock 20 points off an I.Q. score) and I’d ask if they thought it was genetic or environmental, and then I’d ask why they thought it mattered since a whole lot of folks with lesser IQ are a whole lot more successful than me…
FWIW, due to the well established Hybrid Vigor, crossing two varieties that have be separated for a long time typically results in a better product than either parent. Most Blacks in America are a mix of white and black, so have a lot of hybrid vigor on their side. I would expect them to out-perform either base stock on various metrics (variable by individual).
Now those last two paragraphs would get me thrown out of several dozen institutions. Just discussing real differences is forbidden in places with P.C.Police. Like the 10% greater bone density in blacks that makes them sink in the swimming pool but also makes for great running, jumping, and fighting bone strength. (As my Black Buddy demonstrated when we were swimming together and I’d float easy and he had his legs sink like a stone…) So my body fat and light bones makes for better survival at sea if I fall off a boat, his makes for better survival OUT of the water running away from the crocodiles and jumping over the snakes… Yet to SAY that in many places will get you vilified and tossed out. So a stern enforcement of the right to state a truth is essential, and P.C. “rules” must be forbidden instead.
Per Anonymity:
There is a value in it. When P.C. Police and loonies are attacking anyone who does not toe their line, it is essential to have anonymity available for some folks to speak truth.
On the other side, some folks need to be known as real people to show validity and lend authority.
It’s a balance thing…
Anonymity is essential and ought to be allowed when the person needs protections, but so also must real identity be allowed when the person is comfortable sharing it.
(BTW, this is also why the proposed Internet laws requiring real identities be known is a very bad idea. It will stifle contributions from anyone who is not promoting the “accepted party line”.)
So it is important to allow anonymity but police the “shitty behavior”…
@Jim2:
Well that’s an interesting set of oppression to explore. Wells Fargo, eh? Not like they have been in tn the news for illegal and abusive business practices already…
OK, add “financial services” to the list of things to provide in a distributed manner… Oh, Wait, that’s already been done with BitCoin and similar…
Clearly there’s a lot of tentacles to this octopus that need chopping and turned into sushi…
@H.R.:
A great example of the importance of having anonymity available. Folks must be able to choose if they want to be a “public person” or not.
I am willing to use my real name largely because it is functionally anonymous anyway. One per 2000 of working population in Silicon Valley. Even with that I’ve had some evidence of folks trying to “get me”… The hazard of saying no to the Official Beliefs pushed by the politically powerful… (the good thing is that I was in Florida when the California address was SWATted…though nobody will tell me why, I only found out from a neighbor.)
Let’s just say it is a feature to be “bi coastal” with ambiguity about addresses… ( I have at least 3 at any one time… )
I guess having been under constant attack for decades as a site manager has made me a bit jaded about the whole thing. “I’m not paranoid, they ARE out to get me. I’m the Sys Admin!” has been my truth for about 35 years… So being protective is a fundamental behaviour for me. Just part of the daily grind…
@Rhoda: H.R. is a pseudonym I use to protect my anonymity. Using H.R. just identifies me as a particular anonymous person. From my viewpoint, it’s a distinction without a difference.
I’m with you 100% on the ethics and the moral obligation to not attack anonymously. Not to mention the cowardice and lack of personal integrity and responsibility of those who do so. Oh! I make an exception for Al Gore. He’s fair game in my book.
Oh, and per the problem of having “stuff” on a P2P service originating from your IP address: Yes, it is a real issue. But IIRC has been found to be innocent behaviour.
Still, folks running things like Tor outlet servers (as opposed to just intermediary ones) often site them at co-location facilities. I’m going to be getting a VM from a Cloud Services provider for similar reasons. Anyone tracing the IP will end up at a major provider of services, not my neighborhood. Anyone looking for my identity will find a burn phone and a PO Box on the contact info. (Costs about $250 / year for the alternative address & phone… well worth it.)
FWIW, first get the burn phone. Second get an anonymous email address. Third get the P.O. Box. Then you can work on the rest…
Interesting – I hadn’t heard of the “greater bone density in blacks” issue before, and I say that as a white man who sinks in water. (Or used to, though a degree of middle-age spread may have improved the situation …)
On anonymity, I agree that “some” people on the interweb make it downright necessary if personal unpleasantness is to be avoided. When words are heard around the world, it’s not only “the local nutter” who can take immediate offence, but thousands of them, with no assurance that none of them is dangerous.
For what it’s worth, I am genuinely a Stephen, and my surname does start with a C, so there are a reasonable number of others for me to blend in with. And my paid-for email address (not the one I use for blogs and fora) includes not only my name but my amateur radio callsign, my globally unique ID for almost half a century, so I can be about as unanonymous as you can get.
On censoring views antithetical to your own, I entirely agree with my late Mum, who always said that we should “let people damn themselves out of their own mouths”. Quite. If you really don’t like what somebody is saying, get out there and argue with them and show everyone why your position is better and theirs worse. If you try and just shut them up, they will go underground, now with a grudge, and be that much more trouble.
Parting thought. D’you know, thje only thing that really worries me about Tor is that, in German, the word means fool. Mmm … 0_o
@H.R. – I got roped into MLM back in 1990 (or they tried to). And from several directions (I was recently laid off and looking). But I backed out of it quickly (yes, I saw the trap). But that was before the Internet for me (I actually got on the Internet about 6 months later when I had a real job in Education).
I do not really post much about my personal information and do not do social networking, so have had no reason to hide. Although several trolls have tried to DOX me. The lack of personal information has so far thwarted them. Although I am sure a knowledgeable person probably could find out who I am. But then they are usually going after bigger game.
@E.M. – Sorry, I did not mean to impugn you. You sounded enough like Anonymous, that I assumed it was anonymous. And I was just reading the patterns, not assigning content.
My apologies for my erroneous assumption. As you can tell, I am not a fan of anonymous. The only difference between them and SJWs is the technical expertise. They are basically the same folks, just different talents.
Per the floating thing, I am also a white guy that does not float well – swimming is not recreation to me it is a struggle to survive. I was told by a swim instructor in the US Navy when they were teaching me how to pass the Navy swim test (they did – barely), that blacks fail the Navy swim test at significantly higher rates than northern Europeans because of higher bone density and lower buoyancy.
My brother floated like a cork, but I have a great deal of difficulty even floating on my back.
In fresh water, only my mouth and nose are out of the water while I am on my back and that is with lungs full and only if I keep all of my arms under water, and my back arched to expand my chest.
I also have to take very rapid shallow breaths, as even a partial exhale causes my face to go underwater. I cannot tread water (water line would be about my forehead only above water), and I can only stay afloat on my back while slowly swimming backward to “plane a bit on my back”
Rescue swimming for me, would be to swim as far as possible underwater in the direction of shore or something that floats and hope I can grab onto something or touch bottom when I need to get air. I probably float better now as I have gotten older and put on more body fat but when young lean and in shape it was almost impossible.
@phil: If you got a taste of MLM, then you’ll understand when I say that CCAGW True Believers in the Church of Environmentalism are just about on par with MLM True Believers.
The same brainwashing techniques used by various cults are employed by multi-level marketing (MLM) organizations. When I first got interested in finding out more about CO2-caused Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warning, it wasn’t long before I realized that it was just more MLM cloaked as science and, at that time, the main hook used by the One World Evil Bastards.
,
The leaders are cynical, heartless, soulless, Evil Bastards in it only for the money and power. Control of the True Believers is critical to success and cult brainwashing techniques are wonderfully suited to establishing that control. In both cases, the end goal is to be the richest EBs on the face of the earth. The only difference is that the MLM EBs goal is to own the world as the head of MLM, Inc. with the entire world as their downline and the goal of the Globalist Socialist EBs heading the cult of CCAGW is to own the world as the head of One World Government, Inc.
When actively posting against the harm of particular MLM mentioned above, I posited that there was such a thing as MLM equilibrium. What that means is that the MLM will reach everybody at some point and there will only be enough adherents in the downlines to support a given number of EBs at the top. A huge number of people will have been burned or warned off about the MLM so the pool of potential MLM recruits dwindles to the number of young people who are coming to the age where they can be recruited as participants. Of those, the ones who will stick after recruitment determines the number of MLM EBs that can be supported.
To get around the problem of MLM Equilibrium, the EBs change the name of the MLM and the hook (product) so they can make another pass through the general population.
We see this as CCAGW morphed into Climate Change which morphed into Coastal Flooding which is morphing into Extreme Weather. The Globalist EBs hit Alarm Equilibrium at each point and so it is necessary to change the name in order to make another pass at the people who rejected the preceding hook into the cult.
The one difference is that MLMs use greed for their hook and the Globalists use altruism as their hook. Either hook works and a combination of both works best, as some MLMs have discovered.
@H.R.; It’s called Community Organizing, and it seems to work very well. Get people to think you are on the side of their pet POV and then nudge them to move in the direction of your needs.
Of course it helps if you have access to funding that you can direct into their cause. Often you can then get them to help you by working to raise money for your continuing manipulations of others.
Most people want to be “Fans” and part of the herd. From an early age they are taught to get into that community, RAH – RAH – RAH ! spirit of common purpose, “Back our Team” All training to be the tools of the “Community Organizer” Tools of the “Common Cause” of saving the World from imminent Destruction caused by XYZ…pg
@H.R.
“I really donāt care if the regulars on this site know who I am. I should be having the opportunity to meet up with ossqss and E.M. in Florida at some time and perchance a few others who post here. I pass through North Carolina two or four times a year and Gail Combs has told me of a place where she and her hubby (The Man of Mystery) set up shop to promote their business, so if I am in the neighborhood, we could meet and greet. p.g. graciously offered to ship me some manzanita wood if I paid shipping. I have no problem giving him my name and address, but Iām getting some local woods to clutter my garage and annoy my wife first before I import some wood. š”
I met our fearless leader a few of times when we were both living in Florida. A pleasure and a privilege. I hope he still wears the T shirt I gave him from time to time. I still drink out of the fine “Charlie & Jake’s” beer mug he gave me.
Awesome researchers Gail Combs and her hubby occasionally show up at the VRWC (Vast Right Wing Conspiracy) breakfasts that take place at 0900 every Friday at the Bob Evans restaurant located on the intersection of I-40 and 15-501. I look forward to meeting you there. Our chapter of the VRWC was founded in 2000 with four members but it has steadily grown since.
I loved your story about the Amway of insurance sales!
@H.R.
“The same brainwashing techniques used by various cults are employed by multi-level marketing (MLM) organizations. When I first got interested in finding out more about CO2-caused Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warning, it wasnāt long before I realized that it was just more MLM cloaked as science and, at that time, the main hook used by the One World Evil Bastards.”
Opposing those “Evil Bastards” makes one feel tiny and insignificant…….definitely an ego-buster but you have to try. I used to write about CAGW but seldom bother any more given that the scam is collapsing before our eyes.
My main battle is reforming K-12 by putting it under local control. Tilting at that windmill is looking more promising since Trump became president.
I am also active in fighting “Big Pharma” which is price fixing on a massive scale. Probably the biggest single scam is Colchicine which was first described as a treatment for gout in 1500 BC. Fast forward 3,300 years and you will find accounts of Benjamin Franklin using the drug. Fast forward another 200 years and you can buy the pills for $0.10 each in any pharmacy. Now the list price is $203 for 30 tablets each with o.6 mg of the active ingredient. Even with coupons and discounts you will have to pay at least $80 for something that should cost $3.
EVIL!!!!!!!
I got d.tube to work (just noticed your mention above). While browsing around I found this guy.
Stream of consciousness video series as he goes completely off grid. Dropped off out at an abandoned farm and just trying to put it all back together as best he can.
Kind of slow if you want fast concise delivery but I have hopped around to various videos and just “dropped in for a listen” as he learns things. Might be a good way to kill time if you can’t sleep or just want to do something totally away from the media political frenzy for a while.
https://d.tube/#!/c/jacobpeacock
@galloping camel: That’s good to know. Maybe I’ll have time to drop in for a meeting!
We’ve been going down to Hilton Head Island, SC in the Spring and/or the Fall since… about 2006? Until we got our travel trailer last year we’d just make the trip in one day and I would joke with Gail, telling her I’d wave as we crossed I-40 in NC traveling on I-77South. (I actually do wave to Gail and hubby at I-40 every time we go through NC. (Wife says, ” Get your arm back in the car and stop waving. The people coming the other direction will think you’re waving at them for some reason.”)
We now stop overnight in North Carolina. The truck and trailer is slow through the mountains so we take an extra day. It’s very bad form to pull into a campground much after 8:00 pm or so. We stay at a campground just off I-77 so we can easily continue on our way. We do cut over to I-95 just south of Columbia, SC using I-26.
If the stars, moon, and planets align just right, I’m considering it may work out to cut across I-40 to I-95 to do a two night stop specifically to catch a VRWC meeting. My wife is very political and the VRWC sounds right up her alley. It would be my cup of tea too, but for me it has the added bonus of the chance to meet two people whose writings I have followed and admired for quite some years now.
We haven’t set dates for our Fall trip to Hilton Head Island this year, so I might be asking in a W.O.O.D. thread in September or October about a VRWC meeting and then try to schedule a trip that coincides. We’ll see.
gallopingcamel
‘Active ingredients Size Drug tariff price
Colchicine 500 microgram 100 Ā£12.12’
That’s about 15 cents. That’s the current UK price. Not the best, just the top hit. US drug prices are a complete ripoff and while drug corps lobby politicians it is not going to be fixed.
@Rhoda
*Shocked Face* š² (not kidding)
That’s insane! The cost is peanuts compared to the selling price. They don’t even have a word for that kind of profiteering yet. “Price Gouging” is totally inadequate.
Rhoda,
There are many generic drugs that are ten or more times cheaper in the UK than in the USA. For example, Clobetasol Propionate 0.05%, 60 gram tube of ointment contains $0.0375 of active ingredient and the US wholesale price was $0.90 in 2010. Retail ~$2.00.
Take a look at the prices around the world in May 2018:
Walmart (North Carolina)………………..$249.05
Walmart (on-line, with coupon)…………$138.63
Canadian on-line pharmacy……………..$40.00
Oxford on-line pharmacy (UK)……………$9.99
Sfarma (Bogota, Colombia)………………..$7.94
But there is good news relating to generic drugs, if the FDA can be curbed:
https://www.centerforbiosimilars.com/news/fda-commissioner-gottlieb-forms-fda-working-group-focused-on-generic-competition
H.R.
It will be a blast to meet with you at the VRWC and hopefully Gail and her better half will be there too! The only problem is that they are a noisy bunch……sometimes it is hard to make yourself heard. Did I mention the fifty foot American flag flying above the restaurant?
In the early days we needed an āAnti-Hillaryā who would be more female, more blond, more smart and at the opposite pole of the political spectrum. We chose Ann Coulter and her photo was displayed at the head of our table at all our meetings. While we still like Ann Coulter we are asking Laura Ingraham to send us her photo to display alongside Ann.
Saw on NewsMax that Vimio has also banned Alex Jones…
Pingback: W.O.O.D. 14 August 2018 | Musings from the Chiefio
There’s a discussion of Alex Jones on Shortwave being banned here:
Oh just too precious. A left wing nut site that cheered banning Infowars, complaining they got banned… Likely for referencing InfoWars…
Strong language included… Timcast:
Pol Pot. How many times do we have to see that scenario played out before the stupids get it?
The answer is – there is no answer.
I really like Tim Pool, (@timcast) he is one of a very small universe of young new media journalists who has a good grasp of principles and how things really work rather than thinking their agenda is some how a protected agenda not realizing that to others it is the same sort of crap they see in Alex Jones.
@Larry have you watched any Sargon of Akkad?
Yes I like Sargon of Akkad as well although I don’t watch him regularly, I like his biting sarcasm.
He actually articulates what a lot of people are thinking of the SJW folks.