Top Democrats Demand Censorship & Blame Russia For #ReleaseTheMemo Movement

Top Democrats penned a letter to Twitter and Facebook last week demanding the censorship of those who use the hashtag #ReleaseTheMemo.  The Democrats claimed Russia is behind the movement, and therefore seek censorship.

The hashtag began after word broke of the jaw-dropping memo on the United States government’s surveillance abuses. Republicans have been working to release the memo to the public, which supposedly contains damning evidence the Obama administration used FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) warrants to spy on the Trump campaign and his transition team ahead of the president’s inauguration.

So far, the battle to make the memo public has been hard fought and uphill.  But those who want the government to be transparent and release it so we can decide for ourselves what’s in it face censorship by Democrats who are begging social media outlets to kill the accounts of those who use the hashtag.

Senator Diane Feinstein and Representative Adam Schiff sent the letter to both Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, and Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter demanding the censorship while claiming it’s “Russia-backed.” Meanwhile, Twitter’s internal analysis of the hashtag has thus far found that authentic American accounts, not Russians, are driving #ReleaseTheMemo, according to The Daily Beast.

Democrats have been invoking Russia to try to shut down the free speech of those desiring transparency.

They [Feinstein and Schiff] relied on a report from the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy claiming that #ReleaseTheMemo had become the favorite hashtag of Russian-sponsored Twitter accounts. (The report did not make any judgements about such activity on Facebook.)

“If these reports are accurate, we are witnessing an ongoing attack by the Russian government through Kremlin-linked social media actors directly acting to intervene and influence our democratic process,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Adam Schiff, two California Democrats, wrote to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

But a knowledgeable source says that Twitter’s internal analysis has thus far found that authentic American accounts, and not Russian imposters or automated bots, are driving #ReleaseTheMemo. There are no preliminary indications that the Twitter activity either driving the hashtag or engaging with it is either predominantly Russian. -The Daily Beast

How dare people want the truth! Especially when living in times when the media lies to our faces, is biased in their reporting, and hides documents from the public to try to sway opinion. All these things are what they accuse Russia of doing, but they themselves are deceiving everyone.

Are Democrats just going to cry “Russia” when there’s any sign of public dissent?

Twitter Revises Terms Of Service, No Longer Believes In "Speaking Truth To Power"

Having been caught in a crossfire over internet free speech and Russian conspiracy theories, Twitter has quietly made a significant change in its stated "Twitter Rules" terms of service.

Following several Congressional hearings meant to root out "Russian interference" by Twitter accounts, as well as an incident in which a disgruntled, now former employee, disabled Donald Trump"s twitter account for 11 minutes, it appears that Twitter no longer believes in "speaking truth to power."

The change can be seen in Twitter"s TOS, in the “Abusive Behavior” section, which currently states that “We believe in freedom of expression and open dialogue, but that means little as an underlying philosophy if voices are silenced because people are afraid to speak up.”

This is a material change from what this section stated as recently as November 2, when the section read “We believe in freedom of expression and in speaking truth to power"...

... with believing in "speaking truth to power" replaced with "open dialogue."

The change took place just two days after November 1, when Twitter, along with Google and Facebook, were questioned by Congress in the ongoing witch-hunt, as dubbed by Donald Trump, for “Russian influence” that may have led to interference in the 2016 presidential election. As @Jack twitted at the time, the changes to Twitter’s rules were made as part of a November 3 attempt to “clarify” them.

We just published a clearer version of the Twitter Rules to clarify our policies and how we enforce them https://t.co/gPv9nt3y1M

— jack (@jack) November 3, 2017

In a statement, the company said that it wanted to make it clear that “context is crucial when evaluating abusive behavior and determining appropriate enforcement actions.”

In its testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Twitter unveiled that it used a vast array of tenuous criteria to define accounts as “Russia-linked,” and also admitted it had censored the hashtags #PodestaEmails and #DNCLeaks tweets during the 2016 US presidential election campaign in an effort to limit public exposure to leaked documents describing the Democratic National Committee’s efforts to boost Clinton as the Democratic Party’s  preferred candidate during the primaries, a process which was subsequently defined as rigged by none other than Elizabeth Warren following blockbuster claims by interim DNC chair Donna Brazile. Twitter Associate General Counsel Sean Edgett claimed many of those tweets were “automated” and hidden by anti-spam systems. He also admitted that less than 4 percent of them came from potential “Russian-linked” accounts.

Last week Twitter also announced it was banning all ads from RT and Sputnik, citing the same allegations of meddling in the 2016 US election. That, despite the company previously trying to engage RT in a special US election advertising package, which RT said it had declined.

Later on the same day Twitter revised its TOS language, Twitter announced that while it may no longer speak "truth to power", the reason why power was not allowed to speak for 11 minutes, i.e. when Donald Trump"s account was deactivated for 11 minutes, was due to a departing employee"s decision that it was in Twitter"s best interest to shut up the US president.

Earlier today @realdonaldtrump’s account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee. The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again.

— Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017

Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee’s last day. We are conducting a full internal review. https://t.co/mlarOgiaRF

— Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017

A separate update will be issued on November 14 with more details on how the company reviews and enforces policies, according to Twitter.

Twitter Admits It Buried "Podesta Email", DNC Tweets Ahead Of The Presidential Election

It was approximately one year ago, when angry tweeters alleged that Jack Dorsey et al., were purposefully censoring and "suppressing" certain content on Twitter, namely anything to do with the leaked DNC and John Podesta emails, as well as hashtags critical of Hillary Clinton while "shadow-banning" pro-Donald Trump content. We can now confirm that at least one part of the above was true, because during today"s Senate hearing, Twitter admitted it "buried", which is another word for censored, significant portions of tweets related to hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta in the months heading into the 2016 presidential campaign.

As Daily Caller"s Peter Hasson reports, Twitter’s systems hid 48 percent of tweets using the #DNCLeak hashtag and 25 percent of tweets using #PodestaEmails, Twitter general counsel Sean Edgett said in his written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

Before the election, we also detected and took action on activity relating to hashtags that have since been reported as manifestations of efforts to interfere with the 2016 election. For example, our automated spam detection systems helped mitigate the impact of automated Tweets promoting the #PodestaEmails hashtag, which originated with Wikileaks’ publication of thousands of emails from the Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s Gmail account.

 

The core of the hashtag was propagated by Wikileaks, whose account sent out a series of 118 original Tweets containing variants on the hashtag #PodestaEmails referencing the daily installments of the emails released on the Wikileaks website. In the two months preceding the election, around 57,000 users posted approximately 426,000 unique Tweets containing variations of the #PodestaEmails hashtag.

 

Approximately one quarter (25%) of those Tweets received internal tags from our automation detection systems that hid them from searches.

 

As described in greater detail below, our systems detected and hid just under half (48%) of the Tweets relating to variants of another notable hashtag, #DNCLeak, which concerned the disclosure of leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee.

And yet, this glaring act of censorship was not aimed at the sources of the alleged propaganda, but the content: Just 2% of the tweets using the #DNCLeak hashtag came from “potentially Russian-linked accounts,” Edgett said.

He also explained that Twitter hid the tweets as “part of our general efforts at the time to fight automation and spam on our platform across all areas.”

...And Hillary still lost?

Just over a year ago, on the same day that Donald Trump"s "grab them by the pussy tape" was released, WikiLeaks dumped over 30,000 hacked Podesta emails, which were damaging to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, throughout the election. A prior Wikileak of DNC emails, which revealed party officials secretly aided Hillary Clinton during her primary battle against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders , eventually cost then-DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz her job. The leaks also exposed supposedly "neutral" journalists as pro-Clinton partisans.

The U.S. intelligence community concluded that Russian operatives were behind the original hacking of both the DNC and Podesta emails, which were part of Russian influence operations meant to disrupt the American electoral system.

*  *  *
A question emerges: did Jack Dorsey, with his arbitrary decision to censor specific content damaging to Democrats, interfere with the election, and a funnier question: if Hillary lost with Twitter censoring anti-Hillary content, what would the outcome have been if Twitter actually respected the First Amendment?

Connecticut Campus Shut As Professor Flees Following "Let Them F**king Die" Tweet

A professor at a Connecticut college said he was forced to flee the state after he received death threats for appearing to endorse the idea that first responders to last week’s congressional shooting should have let the victims "f**king die” instead of treating them, according to the Hartford Courant.

Trinity College Professor Johnny Eric Williams shared a link to a medium post which suggested that “bigots” should be left to die in life threatening situations. The medium article was accompanied by a photo of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, who was wounded in the shooting, along with the title “Let Them F**ing Die,” which Williams later used as a hashtag in his ill-conceived posts.

In the post, the author describes a list of disturbing situations in which “bigots” should be left to die, while also encouraging readers to “smile a bit” as these figurative deaths unfold.

“If you see them drowning. If you see them in a burning building. If they are bleeding out in an emergency room. If the ground is crumbling beneath them. If they are in a park and they turn their weapons on each other: do nothing,” the article instructs readers."

“Least of all put your life on the line for theirs, and do not dare think doing so, putting your life on the line for theirs, gives you reason to feel celestial. Save the life of those that would kill you is the opposite of virtuous. Let. Them. Fucking. Die. And smile a bit when you do.”

Williams also expressed his rage toward white people in a series of tweets. In one, Williams said he was “fed the f**k up” with white “bigots” who demean minorities, immigrants and LGBTQ people. In another, he said the time had come to “put end to the vectors of their destructive mythology of whiteness and their white supremacy system.”

As a result of the posts, which gained national attention, Williams said he has received more than 1,000 threats. The situation briefly forced the closure of Trinity College’s campus in downtown Hartford Thursday morning. The campus had reopened by late morning, though Hartford police provided heightened security.

Unlike the administration at Evergreen State College in Washington, which has been willing to countenance threatening behavior and other provocations from its students, Trinity’s administrators have promised to hold Williams accountable for his actions, promising in a statement that there would be “an investigation" into Williams" conduct.

"The Dean of the Faculty will review this matter and advise me on whether college procedures or policies were broken. I told Professor Williams that in my opinion his use of the hashtag was reprehensible and, at the very least, in poor judgment. No matter its intent, it goes against our fundamental values as an institution, and I believe its effect is to close minds rather than open them."

Williams said he regrets the affect his actions have had on his family.

"It was overwhelming for my family," Williams said. "I have to look out for family. I"ve got young kids."

But rather than apologize for offending millions of Americans - not to mention the families of Scalise and the other four victims of the rampage shooting at an early-morning practice of the House Republicans baseball team – Williams claims his tweet was misinterpreted. He says the tweet was a response to the fatal shooting of a pregnant woman in Seattle who was armed with a knife.

And what’s worse, he has committed 100% to playing the victim, saying that he’s considering filing a lawsuit.

"This is about free speech as well as academic freedom," he said. "From my perspective, I"m considering whether I should file a defamation against Campus Reform, the site that first shared Williams’ posts.

"The black community is beside itself all over the country with the constant killing. It doesn"t matter what we do, we still be killed, we still go to jail. Just being black and living is a crime. That"s what seems to be the problem," Williams told the Courant.

Read the full text of Trinity"s statement below:

Dear Members of the Trinity Community,

As many of you are aware, a set of social media posts by one of our faculty members has resulted in a loud and public rebuke and landed Trinity College in a national spotlight, both in the media and across various social media platforms. I understand the concerns many have expressed, and I’m especially grateful for the inquiries we’ve received from members of our community who’ve asked whether what they’re reading and hearing is accurate. To be clear, both personally and on behalf of the College that I represent, I do not condone hate speech or calls to incite violence.

I’ve spoken with Johnny Williams, who has been a sociology professor at Trinity since 1996. I wanted to hear directly from him about the messages he posted and what has transpired since. It is important to clarify a few details. On June 16, a writer who goes by the name “Son of Baldwin”—and who is not Johnny Williams—wrote a piece for Medium.com that cited another writer’s perspective on the shooting that occurred at the Congressional baseball practice in Virginia last week. The Medium piece went on to explore broader issues concerning race and the relationship between “victims of bigotry” and “bigots.” The piece culminated with a call to show indifference to the lives of bigots. That call was reprehensible, and any such suggestion is abhorrent and wholly contrary to Trinity’s values.

While Professor Williams did not write that article, he did share it on his personal social media accounts this week, and he did so with the use of a hashtag that connected directly to the inflammatory conclusion of that article. Professor Williams, who teaches about race and racism, shared the article on his personal Twitter account using that hashtag; he also shared it on his personal Facebook page.

The Dean of the Faculty will review this matter and advise me on whether college procedures or policies were broken. I told Professor Williams that in my opinion his use of the hashtag was reprehensible and, at the very least, in poor judgment. No matter its intent, it goes against our fundamental values as an institution, and I believe its effect is to close minds rather than open them.

I want to underscore that what we seek is to build a diverse college community that is welcoming to all viewpoints and backgrounds and that engages in civil discourse on even the most vexing issues. That requires that we continue to uphold our fundamental belief in academic freedom and support our community members’ constitutional right to free speech. But our aspirations for the community we want to be also demand we take particular care with the words we use and the contexts in which we use them.

This incident has caused distress on our campus and beyond; threats of violence have been directed to Professor Williams and to our campus community, neither of which is an acceptable response.

I denounce hate speech in all its forms, I will explore all options to resolve this matter, and I will be back in touch with our community members with our decisions.