Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg says he wants to preserve freedom of expression, but actions speak louder than words
The line between inciting hate or violence and informing others about that hate and violence is being blurred. Facebook’s recent heavy-handed actions against Caldron Pool, and Caldron Pool contributor, Evelyn Rae, suggest that the social media platform is happy to unfairly conflate reporting or fair criticism of an event with endorsement of that event. There is a difference between advocacy and commentary. If we apply descriptive and prescriptive linguistics to how newsworthy events or commentary are presented, we can see that companies like Facebook will inevitably hurt their customer base, because they continue to blur the descriptive and the prescriptive,…
How environmentalism became a religious cult
If you own a screen, chances are you’ve heard about this week’s climate strikes in a city near you. Chances are you were also recently introduced to a 16-year-old called Greta Thunberg. So what’s all the hype about? The protests have been organised by Extinction Rebellion (XR), whose website states: We are facing an unprecedented global emergency. Life on Earth is in crisis: scientists agree we have entered a period of abrupt climate breakdown, and we are in the midst of a mass extinction of our own making. Greta Thunberg, a Swedish school student, spoke at the group’s ‘Declaration of Rebellion’ held in London…
Pinterest bans pro-life group, blacklists Christianity-related terms and Bible verses
Pinterest has permanently suspended pro-life advocacy group Live Action and accused the organisation of spreading “harmful misinformation” that could “have immediate detrimental effects on a Pinner’s health or public safety.” A whistleblower at Pinterest told Project Veritas the social media company were suppressing and censoring pro-life and Christian content prior to Live Action’s ban. After reviewing Pinterest’s “Sensitive Terms List”, Project Veritas discovered that Christianity-related terms like “Christian Easter” and “Bible verses” were marked as “brand unsafe.” The whistleblower explained that such terms are removed from Pinterest’s auto-complete search results, while other material is either “hidden” or “silently removed.” According to…
New footage exposes dishonest media, busts claim that MAGA students taunted Native American.
This week CNN claimed, “A crowd of teenagers surrounded a Native American elder and other activists and appeared to mock them after Friday’s Indigenous Peoples March at the Lincoln Memorial.” A CNN tweet linking to the report also claimed: “Video shows a crowd of teenagers wearing ‘Make America Great Again’ hats taunting a Native American elder…” The video, which was widely shared by numerous news media outlets, shows a student from a Catholic high school staring at a Native American man as he chants and beats a drum in the young man’s face. What’s been implied is that the student…
Hate speech is a myth: It’s a shaming control technique used by those who can’t debate the issue.
By no means is this a conclusive run down on what I see as the need to find, and advocate for, a fair use of the vehicles we choose to communicate, and receive information through. By pointing out inconsistencies, and connecting them to a possible cause, my purpose here is primarily an attempt to suggest, that when it comes to social media, we practice the proverb of looking before we leap. A few years back an incident showed me the contrast between hard reality, and cheap comment. Comments from people, who in the comfort of relative security, only seem to be far more concerned with the side of the story that sells best, than with finding balance. Surely,…