Artificial Intelligence Defines the Political News Narrative

Understanding the reasons why mainstream political accounts express such a disconnect from facts, evidence and believability is compounded by the techniques of programmed reporting often absent of human judgment and ethics. The foremost propaganda rag for deceit,  disinformation and indoctrination, The Washington Post, is dedicated to mind control and does not even attempt to mask their publication as objective journalism. Utopia for Jeff Bezos, strives to perfect the synthetic technological revolution that inserts AI as the future of mankind. Joe Keohane in WIRED presents What News-Writing Bots Mean for the Future of Journalism.

“Strategists at the Post saw the potential for an AI system that could generate explanatory, insightful articles. What’s more, they wanted a system that could foster “a seamless interaction” between human and machine, says Jeremy Gilbert, who joined the Post as director of strategic initiatives in 2014. “What we were interested in doing is looking at whether we can evolve stories over time,” he says.

After a few months of development, Heliograf debuted last year. An early version auto­published stories on the Rio Olympics; a more advanced version, with a stronger editorial voice, was soon introduced to cover the election. It works like this: Editors create narrative templates for the stories, including key phrases that account for a variety of potential outcomes (from “Republicans retained control of the House” to “Democrats regained control of the House”), and then they hook Heliograf up to any source of structured data—in the case of the election, the data clearinghouse VoteSmart.org. The Heliograf software identifies the relevant data, matches it with the corresponding phrases in the template, merges them, and then publishes different versions across different platforms. The system can also alert reporters via Slack of any anomalies it finds in the data—for instance, wider margins than predicted—so they can investigate. “It’s just one more way to get a tip” on a potential scoop, Gilbert says.”

Using AI is a short leap from relying on the integrity and insightful wisdom of a seasoned professional and replace a restrictive filter to censor out any information that conflicts or departs from the official narrative. In this brave new journalism there is no place for a Seymour Hersh and certainly no account of a future My Lai Massacre could pass the algorithms.

Bernard Marr from Forbes writes in Another Example Of How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform News And Journalism.

“Leading UK news agency Press Association (PA) is betting that artificial intelligence can fill the gap left by redundant reporters and shuttered local newspaper offices. A new initiative sees them partnered with news automation specialists Urbs Media – and endorsed by a 706,000 Euro Google grant – to create 30,000 localized news reports every month.

The technology relies on natural language generation (NLG), a cornerstone of much of the progress which has been made in recent years thanks to artificial intelligence and automation. The principle is that humans and computers can work together much more effectively if we all speak the same language. And teaching ultra-fast, infallible machines to understand and communicate in our own human languages is more efficient than teaching slow, fallible humans to communicate with computers in their language (for example, by learning computer code).

It’s the technology behind iPhone’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa as well as “chatbots” which are increasingly taking on customer service roles. Only here instead of answering questions their job is to write news stories based on the data it is fed.”

Well, this method for specialization sounds nice at first glance; however, anyone who spends their lives talking to machines surely shows signs of lacking independent thought. Providing the details for contact info or a product review is simply not on a par level of reflection with the wealth of historic knowledge upon which an entire civilization is based .

PR News, a trade journal features a list of changes may influence how media relations professionals do their jobs. Ephraim Cohen discusses in What AI in the Newsroom Means for Media Relations Pros reliance on digital tech abstract reporting.

“Newsrooms’ appetite for data to feed AI software means a potential shift from thought leadership materials to thought leadership databases.

To develop stories, newsrooms feed databases into AI programs that uncover insights. As this use of AI increases, communicators may see journalists shift from looking for thought leadership materials they refer to in articles to databases they can connect to their AI programs. Media, research & analysis and innovations teams can collaborate to develop a tool or database that journalists can connect to via an API (application programming interface). The challenge will be to develop thought leadership databases and tools that will show AI-driven insights that are complementary to the attributed brand.”

Sure appears like pushing bland pavlov for feeding the Canis familiaris who still believe what they read or watch in the corporatist media and respond to their whistle blowing calls. Distorting   what is real is now an entire planetary encounter. What better way than to turn over the storyline to the machines since so few people have the ability to comprehend the meaning behind the script?

The implications for any society who purports to be based upon democratic principles is a topic that is just being scratched. Visar Berisha from the Uppsala of Universitet presents his paper on Theory attempts to address this subject.

“The analysis has shown that my initial worry might be justified, at least to some degree. An increase in the sophistication of AI, primarily through machine learning, perfected what the Obama campaign had initiated. Through the use of rich data from social media, online personality tests, consumer datasets, traditional polling and surveys on the one side, and sophisticated machine learning analyzes on the other, companies have been able to target voters on an individual level. This does not, in itself, present a new threat to democracy, in fact manipulation can be seen as a fundamental aspect of democracy (Le Cheminant & Parrish, 2011). There is, however, reason to believe that AI has the potential to increases the power of elites in this regard. As we have seen, certain individuals seem to have played a key role in both the UK EU-referendum and the 2016 U.S presidential election, while there is well-grounded suspicion that agencies connected to the Russian state have tried to affect the outcome in both cases. The problem, as I see it, is not manipulation itself, but rather its evolvement in the light of AI, becoming increasingly more sophisticated and effective, while at the same concentrated to a handful of people who have the technology and the economic means to employ this technology. Two particular concerns arise from this, supported by my analysis. The first is that the novelty of the method allows actors to operate covertly, undetected by the traditional institutions, like mass-media, which are to hold power accountable. The second is that micro-targeting communication isolates the voter further, by sending out signals in congruence with already held beliefs, and often supported by confirmatory ecosystems of online (fake) news-sites, it polarizes the debate and hinders an adequate understanding of the issues at hand. This threatens core elements of democracy as described above, and considering the rate by which the technology develops, it might become increasingly harder to both identify and understand these methods as they progress.”

Acknowledging the manipulative power of recurrent political bias reinforcement is a task well suited for machines that masquerade as internet bots. The routine of watching noisome talking heads that spiel their nonsense on their lamestream fake news venues is a powerful motive to turn off the conventional media.

Yet, the censorship found on approved internet sites is just as offensive. Artificial Intelligence is no substitute for the Socratic method of discourse. Since the globe exists in an anti-intellectual delusion, the promise for this factitious utopia is that the burden of individual reason is just too difficult for humans to bear. The AI android will release the culture of self-indulgence to even greater levels. The by-product results of this zombie society is that elites who implement their dehumanizing system have a hatred of countervailing opposition.

What passes for journalism today is found on late night TV comedy programs. The Roman Empire bread and circus distractions never enjoyed this same degree of diversions. Their citizens were plagued with civil war. Now armed rebellion is not tolerated because maintaining the populace as virtual slaves is so much easier.

Artificial Intelligence is a polite idiom for tightening chains without the appearance of a lock and key. People live for using the latest apps and go the distance to avoid the responsibility of challenging their current brainwashing. The internet has allowed news reporting to be a democratic function as citizen journalists joined the ranks. AI is designed to censor the pursuit of the truth. Do not be fooled. Bots are meant to dumb down the public, even more.

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A DIRE WARNING: The Cancer Industry Owns The Media And Your Mind

A report claims that millions of lives have been saved in the past two decades due to ‘early detection’ of cancer and improved treatment, but is it true?

In what can only be described as a cancer industry propaganda push, mainstream news outlets are declaring triumphantly “More than 1.5 million cancer deaths averted in last two decades” (CBS),  “Cancer death tolls fall, millions saved” (ABC), and “A 22 Percent Drop in Cancer Mortality Saved 1.5 Million People.” (Science World Report).

Really? What is this based on?

These media flourishes are supposedly based on a report just published in the journal CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians titled, “Cancer treatment and survivorship statistics, 2014,” which analyzed cancer treatment data from 3 sources: the National Cancer Data Base (NCDB), the SEER-Medicare linked database, and the SEER*Stat database.

However, if you actually take the time to read the research itself and read between the lines you will find it in no way justifies these optimistic characterizations; to the contrary, the national cancer outlook looks exceedingly bleak.

In the abstract summarization of the results, the first line reads:

“The number of cancer survivors continues to increase due to the aging and growth of the population and improvements in early detection and treatment.”

‘Early detection’ here refers to national screening programs such as x-ray mammography for breast cancer and PSA screening for prostate cancer, which we now know have not resulted in reduced mortality despite dramatically expanding ‘cancer diagnoses’ in the past few decades: a sure sign that the ‘cancers’ being diagnosed were never life-threatening and did not ‘save’ anyone from premature death; to the contrary, breast and prostate screenings have been the subject of great controversy because they have left behind millions of necessarily treated (read: harmed) individuals without resulting in any significant reductions in breast- and prostate-specific cancer mortality (prostate cancer mortality has actually increased!) — which is the only true measure of whether they are of benefit to the mostly asymptomatic populations being continually pressured through ‘awareness campaigns’ to undergo screening. An increasingly indubitable body of research shows that screening programs have dramatically increased the quantity of cancer diagnoses in healthy individuals, resulting in the illusion that they have been ‘saved’ through early detection, when in fact they have survived overdiagnosis and overtreatment and not cancer itself. This has falsely inflated the number of people ‘saved,’ which is reflected in the aforementioned outrageously distorted mainstream media headlines, while simultaneously obscuring the significant number of lives that have been lost due to the ineffectiveness of conventional treatment.

Consider that a ‘cancer survivor’ is anyone who was diagnosed with cancer who is still alive 5 years later.

Whether or not a newly identified prostate or breast cancer case was a victim of overdiagnosis is nowhere accounted for in these statistics. In other words, if a person who was identified through ‘early detection’ to have life-threatening cancer actually had a benign lesion, and then went on to be ‘treated’ anyway, they are not surviving cancer but rather the unnecessary surgery, chemotherapy and radiation they received. And yet they are lumped into the ‘survivor’ category nonetheless, even if they should be considered a victim of iatrogenesis and medical abuse.

Last year a study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine revealing that in the past three decades 1.3 million women in the U.S. were wrongly diagnosed with breast cancer when in fact they had a benign condition known as ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS).  DCIS lesions rarely if ever progress to cause harm nor death, but this was not factored into the data analysis of the latest report in question.  The report stated that “14.5 million Americans with a history of cancer were alive on January 1, 2014,” but it did not qualify the statement by acknowledging the great burden of cancer diagnoses that are now known to be intrinsically benign, e.g. ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) “breast cancers” and high-grade intraepithelial prostatic neoplasia (HGPIN) “prostate cancer” were identified in 2012 by a National Cancer Institute commissioned expert working group to be misclassified as “cancer” and which they recommended should be reclassified as benign lesions of epithelial origin, presumably better left untreated. This reclassification of certain ‘cancers’ to benign growths also encompasses so-called papillary carcinomas of the thyroid, a fundamentally harmless nodular growth the conventional medical establishment still calls thyroid cancer and treats aggressively.

What this essentially means is that instead of taking responsibility for the medical-induced harm (iatrogenesis) that breast, prostate and thyroid screening incurs, the conventional medical establishment counts these overdiagnosed cases as treatment successes (‘live saving’), despite the untold harm, physical and psychological, these diagnoses and subsequent unnecessary treatments exacted on their victims.  This unethical ‘oversight’ resulted in expanding the number of ‘cancer survivors’ far beyond those who were actually ‘saved from cancer.’

The report stated:

“The 3 most common prevalent cancers among males are prostate cancer(43%), colorectal cancer (9%), and melanoma (8%), and those among females are cancers of the breast (41%), uterine corpus (8%), and colon and rectum (8%).”

Considering that the primary cancers afflicting women (breast) and men (prostate) are the most overdiagnosed, the truth is that this report falsely represented the data, essentially covering up the medical tragedy, or worse, malfeasance that still goes on daily in thousands of hospitals around the world. After all, the profit generated by diagnosis and treatment of ‘cancer’ far exceeds most other disease diagnoses.

The report did acknowledge the extremely high survivorship rates of those diagnosed with so-called ‘early stage’ (aka localized) breast cancer:

“The 5-year relative survival rate for women diagnosed with localized breast cancer is 98.6%”

Why is that? One view is that localized (i.e. ductal carcinoma in situ) isn’t breast cancer at all, and therefore the relatively high 98.6% survivorship reflects the fact that these woman aren’t surviving cancer at all, rather, they survived an unnecessary treatment for an intrinsically benign condition. They are, in essence, surviving medical abuse motivated by shameless profiteering (e.g. breast cancer industry and cancer drug manufacturer funded pinkwashing campaigns to promote ‘early detection’ via mammography screening that result in converting healthy women into patients without proper biological justification).

The propaganda evidenced by this report, and the mainstream media amplifications of it, are extremely misleading. Trillions of dollars of liability rests on the shoulders of the conventional cancer industry for falsely diagnosing and (i.e. abusing) women and men with cancers they never had. Additionally, those who have fallen victim to unnecessary treatment often suffer from Stockholm syndrome, identifying with their aggressors, and then becoming willing brand ambassadors of ‘early detection’ via pinkwashing styled fund-raising campaigns (e.g. Susan G. Komen marches) to fear, for instance, other healthy, asymptomatic women into subjecting their breasts to highly carcinogenic x-ray wavelengths in the interest of ‘finding cancer early.’

In a world dominated by what can only be described as violent, almost pornographic marketing copy, e.g. Susan G. Komen sponsored PINK fracking drill bits, and KFC ‘Buckets for the Cure,’ it is the responsibility of all of us to take back control of our health and read behind the increasingly absurd mainstream news headlines. If you believe your breasts, prostate, thyroid, or whatever body part is increasingly targeted for cancer screening, are more than just an inevitable locus of carcinogensis, please join the growing movement to take back control of your health, starting with acknowledging that with clean food, water, and air, health is obtainable and your birthright.

Learn about authentic cancer solutions by watching the Functional Forum video (2 hour long) on ‘The Evolution of Oncology,’ featuring a panel discussion with our founder, Sayer Ji, at 48:00.

© April 21, 2018 GreenMedInfo LLC. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of GreenMedInfo LLC. Want to learn more from GreenMedInfo? Sign up for the newsletter here http://www.greenmedinfo.com/greenmed/newsletter.

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Reality Check: Media Consolidation and News Script Repeaters (VIDEO)

A viral video showing news anchors all over the nation reading the exact same words verbatim has people wondering, is this fake news?

The promotional content all comes from media giant Sinclair, who owns all of these local broadcast news stations. But is Sinclair the only broadcaster that controls what its anchors and reporters say?

This is a Reality Check you won’t get anywhere else.

It is the latest “outrage” over fake news, now a viral video of local TV anchors all reading the same copy.

Last week I explained in a Reality Check why this video isn’t about fake news. It’s a promo video.

The uproar over this video though is a little disingenuous because it is pointed solely at Sinclair, which is being painted as “pushing the Trump agenda.

News networks across the U.S., owned by various corporations, have been doing this for years. And it’s not just Sinclair that controls messaging.

Truth In Media Editor-in-Chief Annabelle Bamforth explained in an op/ed for our site that local news stations have been parroting familiar stories across the U.S.

“Among the most popular illustrations of this practice is a segment called “Media Reacts” from Late Night With Conan O’Brien, in which O’Brien pokes fun at the identical media messaging from local news stations. Note that a handful of stations in this clip ARE owned by Sinclair, but there are plenty of stations in these clips that are not; some are owned by Nexstar Media Group, Tegna, Heartland Media, Tribune and Raycom Media.”

In a report for Truth In Media from 2013, our writer quoted my experience as a TV anchor at multiple stations across the country. What I had to say then, I stand by today.

“In most of these cases where O’Brien uses anchors from different TV stations all over the country reading the exact same script word for word, the source of that script is some kind of wire service. This means those stations have subscribed to AP, Reuters, CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC, etc wire services. In those cases, the wire story will come down and a station reporter or producer will copy and paste it word for word into a newscast.

“The problem with this policy is that reporters and producers simply take that content as gospel and no one in any newsroom ever bothers to fact check or verify if the wire story is correct. Simply put, in a newsroom, if it is on the wire it has to be true.”

That was five years ago, well before the phrase “fake news” was trending in our culture.

The problem with newscasters using their news block to reading station promos or wire stories verbatim is that they are participating in a propagandizing of the population.

This demonstrates the danger of when one company—whether it’s Sinclair, Tribune, Cox, Meredith, or another—owns and controls so many stations around the country. If the corporate leaders decide to require stations to read news stories, without allowing anchors or reporters to fact check or edit their scripts, that’s a problem.

Now consider this: with media consolidation, more and more stations in America are owned by fewer corporations. Each corporation can control the station’s messaging. And here’s the kicker: most American’s don’t even know who owns their local news station.

What you need to know is that there is a solution to all of this. It’s called decentralization.

No matter what they say, all corporations that own news media, whether TV, radio or internet are controlling what content you see.  Period.

But under a decentralized funding model, news can be created that is accountable, not to some corporate suit that wants to impress his or friends, not to politicians, not to advertisers like Big Pharma, but accountable to the truth.

That’s Reality Check. Let’s talk about that on social media.

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The Mainstream Media Suddenly Loves Trump Now That He’s About to Bomb Syria

“Pundits and the media are making John Bolton’s wildest dreams come true: in his first week on the job, everyone is calling for a new war.” (COMMONDREAMS) With America’s major corporate cable outlets—particularly so-called liberal networks like MSNBC—continuing to uncritically provide generals and lawmakers a massive platform to beat the drums of war as President Donald Trump […]

How the Media Makes It Seem Like Gaza Deserves Israel’s War Crimes

(FAIR) As Adam Johnson (FAIR.org, 4/9/18) writes, media have engaged in extraordinary mental gymnastics to describe the Israeli military’s deliberate killing of Palestinian protesters in the Great Return March, framing long-distance sniper shootings as “clashes” in order to misleadingly “give the reader the impression of two equal warring sides.” Equally torturous are the linguistic contortions news outlets […]

Dept. Of Homeland Security Now Tracking Journalists, Creating Database of ‘Media Influencers’

The Department of Homeland Security is now in the Media surveillance business in which it will monitor activities of media professionals and influencers and track them in a database.

The post Dept. Of Homeland Security Now Tracking Journalists, Creating Database of ‘Media Influencers’ appeared first on The Free Thought Project.

The Media Lost Its Sh*t Over the Possibility of US Troops Leaving Syria

(FAIR) At a rally in Cleveland last week, President Donald Trump said that the US will get out of Syria “very soon.” It is now clear that the 4,000 US troops currently occupying Syria (Washington Post, 10/31/17) will in fact stay in Syria (Independent, 4/4/18), even though keeping troops in another country in defiance of that country’s government […]

Media Propaganda Doesn’t Begin or End With Sinclair Broadcasting

(TIM) In recent days, millions of viewers across the country have been subjected not only to a statement concerning “fake news” eerily repeated verbatim by dozens of local Sinclair-owned television stations across the country, but also to reports uncovering the fact that those stations had been instructed to recite this statement. How America"s largest local TV […]

Media Narrative Falling Apart: Only 10% of ‘March for Our Lives’ Protesters Were Teens

 

By The Daily Sheeple | 

Despite the mainstream media’s unending fixation on the “March for our Lives” protests, their narrative is beginning to crumble.  The media is giving the wrong impression about who made up the march last weekend and one researcher has done the survey to prove it.

It’s not a big surprise the media spins everything in favor of their agenda. They have used propaganda to brainwash the masses for years and this is just one more little bit of evidence that should erode their credibility further. On;y about 10% of those who marched in the “March for our Lives” were actually teenagers.

“My research tells a different story about who participated in the March for Our Lives — and it is more complicated and less well-packaged for prime time,” University of Maryland sociology professor Dana R. Fisher wrote in a Wednesday story for the Washington Post.

The students did not pull this off on their own either, as the media is leading everyone to believe.

With the help of some well-resourced benefactors, including Oprah Winfrey and George Clooney, the survivors organized an extraordinary rally in D.C. and sister marches around the country in a mere six weeks.

However, the young faces of the advocates have created an assumption that “youth” and “students” are the core of the movement. My research tells a different story about who participated in the March for Our Lives — and it is more complicated and less well-packaged for prime time. –Washington Post

While the media focuses solely on teenagers, the data tells a vastly different story. Approximately, 90 percent of the crowd was actually adults.

Fisher said that during the March for Our Lives, her team sampled 256 people who were randomly selected (about every fifth person according to her account). This gave the team the chance to provide evidence about who attended the March for Our Lives and why. The average age of adults in the crowd was just under 49. So far, the data set includes surveys collected from 1,745 protest participants.

Like previous gun-control marches, the March for Our Lives was also mostly women. Whereas the 2017 Women’s March was 85 percent, women, the March for Our Lives was 70 percent women.

Even more interesting was that the new protesters (those who hadn’t protested before) were not motivated by the issue of gun control. In fact, only 12 percent of the people who were new to protesting reported that they were motivated to join the march because of the gun-control issue, compared with 60 percent of the participants with experience protesting.  They claim to be protesting wars and Donald Trump in general.

Some, Fisher said, came for entertainment. The march offered a free concert which was done to draw a bigger crowd and many didn’t actually care much about the reason the march was even organized.

Unsurprisingly, 79 percent of those marching identified as “left-leaning” and 89 percent reported voting for Hillary Clinton.

It sure seems like marches are being organized just so people can publicly announce their offense at something and the media can blow it out of proportion.  Propaganda is a fascinating tool to control the public.

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Mainstream Media: The Historic Purveyors of Fake News

Fake news are not new and neither is its progenitor, Yellow Journalism.

Mainstream media have been, for a long time, the largest purveyors of fake news.

No one can debate such a reality.

Indeed, fake news go a longer way and spread faster than real news. It is just a matter of watching CNN for a few minutes to realize how easily fake news are put out and broadcast to thousands in 30 seconds.

In the last 30 years, wars have been promoted and advertised by the most recognised news outlets around the world. From the BBC to CNN, from FOX News to PBS, from MSNBC to ABC, from EL PAÍSto TVE, most mainstream megaphones have played a significant role in spreading “official” versions of reality, which in most cases were just fake news.

Somehow, however, fake news is now attached to alternative media, who are key in providing an alternative source of information to the corporate-controlled fake news.

Alternative media have given corporate media such a run for their money that corporate news sources are now openly attacking alternative media.

Censorship is the most common way of banning real news from being internationally discussed. All Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google impose bans on alternative media on a daily basis.

Video channels and accounts are blacked out without previous warnings or without showing valid reasons. Explanations for the attacks are as simple as “you have violated our publishing policies”, whatever that means.

Today, the mainstream media and governments who control them, label fake news anything that does not support the official story, no matter how extraordinarily fake that official story is. The latest example of fake news are so-called lone wolf mass shootings in the US.

Local and federal law enforcement, as well as mainstream media, push versions of reality that are difficult to believe. According to them, lone shooters are responsible for killing dozens of people in churches and schools, though witnesses always explain that several shooters were seen in military or police gear riddling unarmed children and parishioners.

While calling for more gun control, the mainstream media blame conservatives, gun owners and pro-gun organizations for the shootings, as they demand that the population be disarmed.

Coincidentally, all mass shootings take place in heavily disarmed areas and the cities with the strictest gun control policies are the hardest hit by mass shootings.

The media also refused to touch the mental health issue even though most shooters are mentally ill people under the effect of pharmaceuticals.

But it gets even worse. The media, in most cases, refuse to report that most mass shooters were already under surveillance by local and federal law enforcement agencies, but that somehow, they escaped police radars to carry out the shootings.

It has been only after the arrival of President Donald Trump to the White House that mainstream media have been exposed for what they are: an assembly line of fake news.

According to an article published in the journal Science, false information is disseminated “significantly farther, faster, deeper and more widely” than real news in all categories of information, and the effects are more pronounced when it comes to false political news more than in other areas that are also impressive or controversial, such as terrorism, natural disasters, science, urban legends or financial information.

Why is it that no one ever questioned fake news produced by mainstream media before? Because no one knew how fake their information was.

False information receives 70% more retweets than the truthful ones, that is to say, that the users share them much more among their followers, helping to multiply their diffusion.

From the detailed analysis of 126,000 affirmations spread on Twitter between 2006 and 2017, researchers have discovered that lies, moreover, succeed because they often provoke responses of fear, outrage and surprise.

The diffusion of falsehoods was favored by its virality, when infected with equals.

At the other extreme, truthful statements took six times longer to reach 1,500 people than to the hoaxes.

The political lies are not only shared more, they run like wildfire: they reach more than 20,000 people almost three times faster than it takes the rest of false news to reach 10,000 individuals, as calculated in this work.

“Falsehood spreads farther and faster than the truth despite these differences, not because of them,” the study says.

Just imagine. The mainstream media have been at the top of the pyramid for a hundred years, so they are deeply rooted in the core of a mindless society that used to believe everything they reported. But now, things are different.

Whereas it was thought that the media were responsible for keeping the government in check, now, alternative media keep both deceitful mainstream media and government in check.

The authors of the study come to a very striking conclusion about bots, those automated fraudulent accounts whose purpose is to deceive or generate confusion:

“Contrary to what is believed, robots accelerated the spread of true and fake news at the same rate, which implies that fake news is spread more than the truth because humans, not robots, are more likely to spread it.” Those humans include news presenters and their so-called panels of “experts”.

Unfortunately, the direct result of the discovery of fake news, most of which is created and distributed by mainstream media, has been a generalized call for censorship, instead of having a discussion about real issues.

Mainstream media, especially extreme Left outlets, attach themselves like leeches to real causes and problems that are of most people’s concern to exploit the public’s ignorance or thirst for attention.

Since most resistance to mainstream media fake news takes place on social media and the internet, they carry out daily campaigns to press social media platforms to censor users who dissent. That is why platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google constantly change their policies so that they accommodate official narratives and not dissenting explanations.

In a report published by Sputnik back in 2017, most people, independent of their political affiliation, now believe that mainstream media not only spread fake news, but that they actually manufacture them.

All Republicans, Democrats, and Independents are clear that mainstream media are filled with fake news.

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Trump Considering Action to Block ’60 Minutes’ From the American People: Report

(COMMONDREAMS) — As focus continues on the $130,000 payoff at the center of a non-disclosure agreement signed (or not signed) just before the 2016 election, Buzzfeed reports Sunday that lawyers associated with President Donald Trump are “considering legal action” to stop the airing of a 60 Minutes interview between journalist Anderson Cooper and Stormy Daniels, the porn actress whose lawyer said publicly last […]

Police Warn Reporters Not to Report News Until Cops Give Them Permission—Or Face Consequences

State police are demanding that local media outlets must wait until they have received official press releases before reporting on ongoing investigations.

The post Police Warn Reporters Not to Report News Until Cops Give Them Permission—Or Face Consequences appeared first on The Free Thought Project.

State of Disunion – Besieged on All Sides: Outline for My Portion of Tonight’s Webinar

 

I hope you can join us.

Oath Keepers will be hosting a webinar tonight on “The Florida School Shooting and How to Counter Renewed Efforts to Disarm Us.” I’ll be joining author Matt Bracken and Stewart Rhodes tonight at 9 Eastern.

These are the topics I intend to cover, presented here to give those undecided on participating an idea of information to be shared, and to keep things organized so that webinar attendees can follow along:

Opening remarks.

Media:

• Full court press to attack RKBA and scream for citizen disarmament (DSM)


• Calls to Repeal 2^nd Amendment (NY Times/Rolling Stone)


• Gun bans


• Licensing


• CNN anti “good guy with a gun” propaganda


• Negative spin on everything (FL gun show)


• Even “conservative media” offering concessions


• Social media squeeze-out

Politics:

• Democrats predictable


• Republican turncoats: Kasich, Rubio, Rice, and more, even Trump


• Midterms: Self-fulfilling prophecy?


• Expect more gun edicts


• Battleground -The states


• Likely “laws” and a word about the courts


• Compliance/Enforcement

NRA:

• Avatar for all gun owners – politicians and public treat as monolith


• Green light on bump stocks, “FixNICS” and mental health blanket dragnets


• Companies dropping partnerships


• Calls for censorship by gungrab groups

Police:

• The Only Ones


• School resource officer and multiple Broward County deputies


• Multiple warning and police interactions


• FBI dropped the ball (again)


• Unholy alliance between Broward schools and police


• Scott Israel

The Children’s Crusade:

• The Women’s March Alliance


• Emma and David


• Wild in the Streets

There will be a “Next One.”

The ultimate deterrent.

• The one “gun law” that would make a difference


• The big lie objecting “teachers” tell

What can you do?

• You are a leader


• Learn the truth


• Be force multipliers


• We will not disarm

I hope you can join us. Since this is my first time taking a role in one of these things and since I’m not the event organizer, I’m not sure how many attendees the system can accomodate, but if it’s possible to max it out, let’s do so.

—–

If you believe in the mission of Oath Keepers, to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, please make a donation to support our work.  You can donate HERE.

—–

David Codrea’s opinions are his own. See “Who speaks for Oath Keepers?”

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New YouTube Warnings: An Attempt to Dissuade Viewers From Watching RT, PressTV and More?

New YouTube warnings warn you’re about to watch info / news funded by a foreign government. Is this an attempt to soft censor alternative views online?

New YouTube Warnings have been rolled out recently – but only on some channels, and mostly those which challenge the official narrative. Google (founded by Zionists Sergey Brin and Larry Page), now run by Zionist Eric Schmidt, owns YouTube (run by Zionist Susan Wojcicki). YouTube claims its goal is to “equip users with additional information to help them better understand the sources of news content that they choose to watch on YouTube,” according to Geoff Samek, senior product manager of YouTube News. However, is this the real point? Or is the idea to cast doubt in the viewer’s mind? To get the viewer to think: “Is this information real? Can I trust it? Is it more fake news?” When you watch a video now on YouTube from a media outlet that is not sanctioned by, and in line with, the Anglo-American-Zionist official perspective of the world, you may see one of these new YouTube warnings right beneath the video where the title used to be. The title has actually been pushed further down the page…

New YouTube Warnings on RT, PressTV and Other Alternative Channels

The new YouTube warnings were rolled out on Feb. 2nd 2018. When you go to the YT channel of Iran’s PressTV, you will see this:

“Press TV is funded in whole or in part by the Iranian government”

The warnings were being displayed on RT (Russia Today), however as of today they are not appearing. Has YouTube backed down? Just yesterday it used to say:

“RT is funded in whole or in part by the Russian government”

Some alternative, non-Western media outlets claim they have editorial independence. Is YouTube going to evaluate that claim? Funnily enough (or not), there are few such warnings for the American MSM. PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) gets this new YouTube warning:

“PBS is a publicly funded American broadcaster”

Large media outlets of Britain and Canada got the new YouTube warnings also:

“BBC is a publicly funded American broadcaster”

“CBC is a publicly funded American broadcaster”

But what about other major channels?

US Establishment MSM Without New YouTube Warnings

However for the YouTube channels of CNN, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, Fox and others, there is no warning. Yet these media outlets, and many others around the world, have been infiltrated many decades ago. They are wholly owned by the CIA, ostensibly an arm of the American government, although in many ways above it. Operation Mockingbird was a CIA project to penetrate and covertly control the media. It began in the 1950s under then CIA director Allen Dulles, the very same one who had a key role in the hit on JFK.

Declassified files show how the CIA totally infiltrated the US MSM. It bought up journalists, reporters and newsmen, and once they were on the CIA payroll, it persuaded them to write CIA-sanctioned pieces, which were then inserted into TV, newspapers and journals everywhere as “news” when they were nothing more than lies and propaganda. Richard Salant, former President of CBS News, once said that “our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have.”

Former CIA Director William Colby confessed that “The Central Intelligence Agency owns anyone of any significance in the major media.”

Mockingbird was famously exposed in the 1975 Church Committee hearings (see an video excerpt here). Nothing much has changed today. Journalists worldwide are still on the payroll, and some were brave enough to talk about it, such as the late German reporter Udo Ulfkotte, who admitted he was being essentially forced to write anti-Russian pieces to better fit the New World Order narrative.

So why doesn’t YouTube give some warnings under the channels of the MSM, such as:

“CNN is funded in whole or in part by the CIA”

“NBC is funded in whole or in part by the CIA”

“MSNBC is funded in whole or in part by the CIA”

“ABC is funded in whole or in part by the CIA”

“Fox is funded in whole or in part by the CIA”

Don’t hold your breath waiting – you will suffocate.

Final Thoughts

Do you really think that the Alphabet-Google-YouTube behemoth want their viewers to be genuinely informed? That they care so much about you and just want to make sure you are getting unbiased news? Or is it more likely the new YouTube warnings are a thinly disguised effort by the technocracy to keep the internet free of alternative views by dissuading viewers from watching certain channels? Smells like more soft censorship. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

 

Sources:

*https://youtube.googleblog.com/2018/02/greater-transparency-for-users-around.html

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDCfTIapds0

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIaFkR9uriU

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Shooting Survivor: ‘CNN Gave Me A Scripted Question’ After Denying Question Of Armed Guards

This is yet another propaganda alert coming straight from one of the survivors of the Florida school shooting.  He says CNN gave him a scripted question after denying him the right to ask about armed guards.

According to Real Clear Politics, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student Colton Haab said he was approached by CNN to ask a question at Wednesday night’s town hall but decided not to after the network gave him a “scripted question,”  and quashing the one he wrote himself. Haab, a member of the Junior ROTC shielded students while the school was under attack from the shooter, said he was going to ask about using veterans as armed security guards. 

That doesn’t fit CNN‘s narrative, however, so they disallowed Haab from simply asking his question. “CNN had originally asked me to write a speech and questions and it ended up being all scripted,” Haab told WPLG-TV.  “I don’t think that it’s going get anything accomplished. It’s not gonna ask the true questions that all the parents and teachers and students have.”

“I expected to be able to ask my questions and give my opinion on my questions,” Haab said.

“Colton Haab, a member of the Junior ROTC who shielded classmates in the midst of terror says he did not get to share his experience,” WPLG’s Janine Stanwood explained. “Colton wrote questions about school safety, suggested using veterans as armed school security guards but claims CNN wanted him to ask a scripted question instead so he decided not to go,” Stanwood reported.

So what was CNN‘s response? “CNN did not, and does not, script any questions for town hall meetings, ever.”

Anyone believing CNN has an agenda other than that of the anti-gun global elites is not paying attention. Guns are not going anywhere.  We’ve been through this before.  And we’ll keep going through it until good people aren’t disarmed and made sitting ducks, or the highly offended left finally decides it’s important to protect our children with the same methods we protect our money.

Free Speech And Social Engineering In The ‘Land Of The Free’

A disturbing trend has been going on for quite some time now, and that’s the destruction of free speech.  Many college campuses even have safe spaces now, where certain speech is banned so college students can snuggle blankets.

Free speech is now the topic of several debates and they all revolve around social engineering/social tyranny. Take this article from The Week, for example.

On many college campuses, groups of left-leaning students insist that free speech should be conditional on speakers adhering to explicit standards of diversity and avoiding the infliction of emotional harm on the members of marginalized groups through the spreading of “hate.”

From the opposite ideological direction, President Trump believes that the government should “take a strong look” at libel laws to keep news organizations from subjecting his own administration to negative coverage.

Finally, from the center-left come calls to use anti-discrimination law to punish organizations that oppose the legitimacy of same-sex marriage and accommodations for transgender people. If that happens — either by passing new laws that explicitly add to existing anti-discrimination statutes or by courts treating the members of these groups as protected classes covered by existing law — the result will almost certainly be a significant constriction of speech, as those holding more conservative views will face sanction for expressing them in public. –The Week

The article asks the question: Is America Having Second Thoughts About Free Speech?  But Joe Joseph with The Daily Sheeple answers the question perfectly. “NO! America’s NOT having second thoughts about free speech. But the social engineers are cramming it down our throat like this is what we want.  But really, nobody wants it! It’s unfreakin’ believeable!”

Joseph’s take reflects all those who are individual minded.  Even offensive speech is only offensive to the emotionally weak. “I can’t believe that we’re even having this conversation in the land of the FREE!!!! What the heck is going on…. are we in the “Twilight Zone”? When did we go from a nation of bad ass mo fo’s to a nation of pansies?” says the caption on Joseph’s latest news shot video.

“How about we do this…how about these media organizations actually follow through with what their code of ethics say. How about they actually do what they say they’re gonna do! How about you practice the rules you’re taught day one in journalism school!” says Joseph about the media. He goes on to say laws dictating what speech is acceptable an what type of speech is not acceptable are not designed to fix the problem.  They are designed to divide the people and amplify the problems.

There should never be a question of whether or not humans have free speech. It’s a natural right to think and say whatever you want.  Words don’t do physical damage, and until someone is hurt or their property is damaged, no crime has been committed.

Journalist Protection Act an Unconstitutional and Shameless Political Ploy for Media Attention

Either that or it’s an unconstitutional power grab designed to gin up “progressives” against those they hate, plus get Rep. Swalwell lots of free publicity to make it look like he’s a credible leader, as opposed to a pandering political opportunist. And point of order, it ain’t “our democracy.” And that fist looks familiar. (Rep. Eric Swalwell – Facebook)

“Rep. Eric Swalwell (CA-15), a member of the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees, on Monday introduced the Journalist Protection Act to make a federal crime of certain attacks on those reporting the news,” the Congressman’s media flack team announced. “The Journalist Protection Act makes it a federal crime to intentionally cause bodily injury to a journalist affecting interstate or foreign commerce in the course of reporting or in a manner designed to intimidate him or her from newsgathering for a media organization.”

Why is he pushing this, aside from to ingratiate himself with the press (he’s got the Communications Workers of America and the News Media for Open Government coalition giving him thumbs up)?

“President Trump has created a climate of extreme hostility to the press by describing mainstream media outlets as ‘a stain on America,’ ‘trying to take away our history and our heritage,’ and ‘the enemy of the American People,’” the release claims.

You see what Swalwell’s doing here. Understanding that President Trump is an avatar for his supporters, this is an attempt to conflate them with violent haters. And for the life of me, I’m trying to see where Trump is wrong in his assessment.

Still we don’t want people beating up our crusading reporters, do we?

Mr. Benny?

No, of course not. No sane and honorable person believes in initiating violence in a Bill of Rights culture under rule of law.  Certainly no supporter of the Constitution does, and I’d challenge Rep. Swalwell to produce one who has. As a matter of fact, you don’t need to look far to find headlines like:

• Female Reporter for The Hill Allegedly Punched by ‘Antifa’ Protester in Charlottesville


• WATCH: Antifa Beats CBS Journalist In Richmond For Recording Them


• Reporter beaten, spared in Milwaukee riots: ‘Stop! He’s not white! He’s Asian!’

Anybody want to bet me I coudn’t find a dozen more similar links in a couple minutes?

Here’s a link to the bill itself.

First of all, as legal commentator Amy Swearer points out at The Daily Signal:

“The general police power—that is, the broad authorization to enforce criminal law—is reserved to the individual states by the 10th Amendment. The federal government’s ability to enact and enforce criminal statutes is limited, and must be based on one or more of its enumerated powers.”

And there are already laws in each state against assaulting and/or threatening people.

So Swalwell tries to get around that by claiming this involves interstate commerce. Unsurprisingly, considering he’s a California Democrat, his fidelity to the Founders’ understanding of the Commerce Clause is as fraudulent as his fidelity to their intent for all enumerated powers.

Case in point: Look what an oath-breaking usurper he’s proven to be on the Second Amendment.

Swalwell’s journalist bill raises two other glaring issues:

“Whoever … intentionally commits, or attempts to commit … an act … with the intention of intimidating or impeding newsgathering by such journalist…”

That leaves much open to interpretation. We’ve all seen “snowflakes” demand “safe spaces” because they claim “conservative” speakers make them “feel” unsafe. And I’ve seen plenty of “progressives” claiming to have been threatened by statements of sentiment, rather than intent. There’s a big difference between my saying I predict or hope something happens to you as opposed to I am going to do it to you. And that’s coming from someone who has endured anonymous “pop a cap in yo’ a$$” – type comments on numerous occasions over the years.

There’s also his qualifying definition for what constitutes a “journalist”:

“The term ‘journalist’ means an individual who— ‘‘(A) is an employee, independent contractor, or agent of an entity or service that disseminates news or information…”

In other words, if you’re an independent citizen journalist, what Juan Williams disparaged as “just a blogger,” guess who Swalwell doesn’t give a rip about?  More importantly, guess which story was broken by “independents” going where “professional” media did not?

I’ve been fighting that “Authorized Journalist” crap for years, and while I’ve since gained generally-recognized credentials, I’ll always remember the time before I did, 22 years ago. That’s when I was threatened with arrest for trying — as Swalwell’s bill requires — “to investigate events or procure material in order to disseminate to the public news or information concerning local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest…”

Fortunately, because it’s a lunatic bill everyone knows is just being introduced to get some ink (a lot, actually) to make him appear relevant, Swalwell’s attention-seeking gesture is going nowhere. While GovTrack hasn’t posted a likelihood of enactment prognosis yet, my prediction is the percentage will be in the single digits. Feel free to revisit that link in a few days and see if I’m close.

There’s another general observation that needs to be made, and that is how the press seems to believe it is above accountability for its role in promoting subversion. Per Pat Buchanan’s latest:

“These people are political enemies posturing as journalists who create ‘fake news’ to destroy me, says Trump. Enraged media, responding, reveal themselves to be not far removed from what Trump says they are.”

Instead of “MSM,” I’ve taken to calling them the DSM, which stands for “Duranty/Streicher Media.” Walter Duranty was The New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning (!) apologist for Stalin, who helped cover up the communist dictator’s engineered mass starvation in the Ukraine, and who portrayed Great Purge victims as guilty. And Julius Streicher was a prominent anti-Jewish propagandist for the Nazis who ended up on the end of a rope after being convicted at Nuremberg.

“Just a blogger,” colleague and friend, the late Mike Vanderboegh, on occasion saw fit to remind journalists that media figures like Streicher had been held to account before, and that doing so in time of conflict was now a U.S. policy initiated by one of their “progressive” political heroes. He called it “Bill Clinton’s Rules of Engagement,” observing:

“Bill Clinton changed the American rules of war as they then applied. The Serbs were being recalcitrant, so, in his frustration, he decided that the politicians, the news media and the intellectuals who laid the predicate for the enemy’s war effort were legitimate targets of war.”

In other words, it’s in their self-interest to not stoke the fires of rebellion to where American citizens are left with no choices but to surrender all pretexts of principles and obey clearly tyrannical orders — or say “Nuts” and start pushing force back with force of their own..

Swalwell and his media fanboys would probably consider that idea the kind of threat his bill would mete out severe punishment for. At the risk of becoming a target (I know, it’s probably a little late for that), I’d call trying to do that a huge mistake.

Let’s instead rely on the framework for peaceable redress designed by the Founders, one with limited delegated powers for the national government, powers compliant with “the supreme Law of the Land” for the states, and respect by all for the Bill of Rights.

Let’s make sure full due process — along with a right to keep and bear arms that shall not be infringed — applies to all: You, me, and hell, even politicians and journalists.

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David Codrea’s opinions are his own. See “Who speaks for Oath Keepers?”

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Media Scoundrels Slam FISA Memo Release

Lots more like it are needed, exposing corrupt practices in Washington – high-level officials responsible for serious ethical and legal breaches.

The swamp overflows with wrongdoing. Many officials in the nation’s capital are responsible for what goes on, few ever held accountable.

Deplorable practices continue unabated, release of the FISA memo not likely to change things.

The NYT went all-out to denigrate the Russiagate FISA memo, wanting its contents suppressed, continuing to wage editorial war on Trump for the wrong reasons.

Following the memo’s release, the Times continued its offensive with a barrage of articles and commentaries.

One column headlined “How Trump’s Allies Fanned an Ember of Controversy Into Flames of Outrage,” saying the memo’s release “was broadly greeted with criticism, including by some Republicans. They said it cherry-picked information, ma(king) false assertions…It didn’t live up to the hype.”

Read it and judge for yourself. It’s clear evidence of the Washington swamp filled to overflowing, unaccountable extrajudicial practices. The memo covered one issue. Countless others need exposure to the light of day.

Another Times column headlined “House Republicans Release Secret Memo Accusing Russia Investigators of Bias” – calling it “politically charged, national security officials and outraged Democrats…accus(ing) Republicans of misrepresenting sensitive government information through omissions and inaccuracies.”

What else would scoundrels and their supporters caught red-handed say!

Another headlined “Thank Progressives for the Nunes Memo,” saying:

“The move is nakedly partisan, and it certainly seems as if Republicans are trying to discredit the investigation into Russia’s 2016 election meddling.”

It should have been discredited months ago. No Russian meddling occurred. No evidence proves any.

A day earlier Times column before the memo’s release headlined “The Republican Plot Against the FBI,” saying:

“In a demonstration of unbridled self-interest and bottomless bad faith, the Trump White House and its Republican minions in Congress are on the cusp of releasing a ‘memo’ that purports to document the biggest political scandal since Watergate.”

“To pull it off, they are undermining the credibility of the law enforcement community that Republicans once defended so ardently, on the noble-sounding claim that the American public must know the truth.”

“Don’t fall for it.”

The FBI, DOJ and CIA are enemies of rule of law principles and freedom-loving people everywhere.

Times editors headlined “We’ve Got the Memo. Now What About Trump’s Tax Returns?”

One issue has nothing to do with the other. The Times wants the subject changed, diverting attention from what’s most important, supporting what demands condemnation.

The neocon/CIA-connected Washington Post quoted FBI director Christopher Wray telling bureau employees:

“The American people read the papers, and they hear lots of talk on cable TV and social media.”

“But they see and experience the actual work you do – keeping communities safe and our nation secure, often dealing with sensitive matters and making decisions under difficult circumstances.”

“And that work will always matter more. Talk is cheap; the work you do is what will endure.”

The FBI is America’s Gestapo. We’d all be better off if the bureau was disbanded, ending its longstanding abuses, its contempt for rule of law principles.

WaPo editors headlined “The Nunes memo is a giant, damaging distraction,” saying:

“(T)he infamous Nunes memo does nothing to discredit the Russia investigation, which was President Trump’s transparent aim in authorizing its release on Friday.”

“It also does little to show abuse of surveillance law, which was the pretext on which House leaders justified its disclosure.”

Shameful comments! The memo’s information speaks for itself. The sham Russiagate investigation is the most scandalous abuse of power since Joe McCarthy’s communist witch-hunts.

He hurt many people unjustifiably, ruined careers for political reasons, accomplishing nothing else, leading to his fall from grace and Senate censure. He died a broken man at age-48.

Today’s scandal is worse, aiming to prevent a presidential candidate from winning the nation’s highest office, then trying to oust him for the wrong reasons.

Instead of explaining flagrant abuse of power practices in Washington, media scoundrels want them suppressed.

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