RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/29/why-conservatives-dont-trust-media-cnn/

On July 27, CNN reported that Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, would be willing to tell Special Counsel Robert Mueller that the president knew in advance of the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his campaign and a Kremlin-linked lawyer who was allegedly selling dirt on Hillary Clinton. This revelation not only contradicted Trump’s denials, but also Cohen’s testimony to Congress. It was quite the exclusive—the closest we’ve come to ferreting out “collusion” since the last time CNN botched a big scoop.

The story, bylined by Carl Bernstein, Marshall Cohen, and former Obama administration political appointee Jim Sciutto, cited numerous “sources” with knowledge of the supposed bombshell. The Washington Post, chasing the same story, soon outed Cohen’s lawyer, the preternaturally mendacious Lanny Davis, as the source of the contention.

But Davis was forced to walk back the claim, first conceding that he “should have been more clear” and that he “could not independently confirm what happened,” and then he sort of apologized. (It’s worth noting that anyone who trusts Davis as a primary source for any story is likely to be either consciously allowing themselves to be duped or irreparably incompetent.)

Well, on Monday BuzzFeed ran another article in which Davis admitted to being CNN’s source as well, even though the network had initially claimed that Davis had declined to comment for the article—which turns out not only to be untrue but a ham-fisted way to hide the story’s origin.

“We stand by our story, and are confident in our reporting of it,” the network responded. Brian Stelter, CNN’s sometimes censorious media reporter, argued that “pro-Trump web sites are claiming that the CNN story was a ‘lie,’ and that it’s been ‘debunked.’ They might want it to be ‘debunked,’ but it’s not. The critics don’t know who CNN’s sources were.”

https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/29/how-social-media-

Whether it is Twitter’s “shadowban,” Facebook’s news-sifting algorithm, or YouTube’s concern for user “safety,” social media gatekeeping is now deployed shamelessly in the service of leftist politics. The latest victim is Alex Jones. While he is bombastic, prone to conspiracy theories, and, um, loud, that’s not why they banned him. He supports President Trump and is a critic of elite conventional wisdom. That’s his crime.

The Establishment Is Trying to Prevent a Repeat of 2016
In the early days of the World Wide Web—almost 20 years ago now—the watchword was freedom, whether freedom from censorship, freedom from local governments’ sales taxes, or freedom from government surveillance. The emerging tech companies then expressed reasonable concern that restrictions from these quarters would cripple the industry, defeating the emerging benefits of the instantaneous, nearly anonymous, and highly connected network that is the internet.

Then the election of 2016 happened. It was a wake up call to the tech world’s emerging establishment. It particularly traumatized those who thought Obama’s election was a permanent elevation of his politics, his style, as well as the “emerging majority” that brought him to power.

As they previously have done in talk radio, on social media the far right has shown acumen and effectiveness. While this may seem merely like preaching to the converted, it also encourages supporters and the uncommitted by undermining the dominant Left’s pretentions of inevitability and unanimity. Twitter in particular was a great equalizer. Whether president or peon, the accounts looked the same. It soon was overrun by a highly motivated army of right-leaning critics and trolls, hilarious anonymous memes, Pepe the Frog, Trump’s Taco Bowl, and, ultimately, their collective efforts contributed to his electoral victory.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271172/instagram-makes-free-speech-disappear-lloyd-billingsley

Project War Path, a clothing company owned by Navy SEALs and Army Special Forces combat veterans, Charlie Nash of Breitbart News reported Monday, “has been permanently suspended from Facebook’s Instagram platform for ‘hate speech’ after criticizing NFL players who kneel during the national anthem.”

The post in question read, “This sums it up, Veteran’s defend our freedom and keep us safe. Meanwhile overpaid turds throw a leather ball around in an overpriced stadium and shit on all the men and women who have been killed defending our country.”

Project War Path co-owner Tej Gill, a Navy SEAL veteran, told Breibart “players kneeling really hits home with me and my teammates, I think it’s disgusting, an insult to all veterans, Americans, and especially families of veterans that have been killed and wounded during war.”

The same post on Twitter was not removed but Instagram took it down. As Gill explained to Breitbart, “I tried to reinstate my account, the form I filled out said my account was permanently suspended for hate speech. I have not heard anything back from Instagram since.”

Gill cited “a very aggressive censorship operation that is being conducted by Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the mainstream media.” Instagram, as it happens is owned by Facebook, which purchased the upstart in 2012 and turned it into a profit center.