Facebook blocks Jon Rappoport’s articles
February 18, 2013 http://www.pakalertpress.com/2013/02/18/facebook-blocks-jon-rappoports-articles/
Jon Rappoport
I became aware of the block and
censorship a few days ago, soon after I wrote and published the article:
“Ruthless State of the Union: current crime boss speaks.”
That article was about Obama, and it was
also about every president as far back as Nixon. It mainly described
the absurdities implied by Obama’s vague notion that “we all have to
work together.”
Readers began letting me know they
couldn’t Facebook-share my articles. This became: no one could share any
article that included: “jonrappoport.wordpress.com.”
As a reporter for 30 years, I know a little about the 1st
Amendment. Criticizing the president, or the medical cartel, or any
number of other institutions I’ve taken on is par for the course. If
some Facebook readers are marking these articles spam or abusive, they
should think again.
Lots of people these days believe it’s
part of the game to try to censor their perceived opponents. “Why debate
or even allow a different voice? Let’s just block it out.”
Blocking the FB posting of my article
links could also be part of the Facebook management purge of political
activists, particularly those who defend the 2nd Amendment
and private gun ownership. This happened to a number of people at
infowars.com last December, and it also happened at Natural News.
At the moment, I have a workaround in
place, and my site and blog are working just fine, but the basic wider
issue of blocking dissident opinion isn’t going away.
Some people have pointed out that
Facebook is a private company, and therefore it has the right to define
acceptable speech any way it wants to. This may be true, but blocking
and censoring political viewpoints is a very bad policy. Claiming, for
example, that Facebook is only for making and communicating with friends
is a cop-out. If friends can’t share information about political
realities, it’s a hollow situation.
Many reporters, including myself, came
to the Internet because we were sick and tired of trying to convince
editors at newspapers and magazines that our work should see the light
of day. Editors routinely shot down (and still do) article ideas that
wandered too far off the mainstream reservation.
That was the censorship we were leaving in the dust. Now, here it is again.
Every day, I read articles I don’t like. The idea of somehow censoring them would be absurd.
In this country (and other countries),
we have people who believe in and support free speech. Then we have True
Believers, whose cause in their minds outdistances any considerations
about liberty. They would trample liberty at the drop of a hat to make
the world over in their image. Finally, we have organizations who enter
into covert political alliances to advance their own interests. These
organizations also care nothing about the 1st Amendment.
Where is Facebook in all of this? Are
they just a front for gathering personal information on a billion
people? Are they just another wing of the vast surveillance apparatus
that is operating from a playbook that wants androids instead of
thinking citizens?
It’s time for the bosses at Facebook to
step out into the light and explain, in detail, exactly how they block
information and on what grounds. How are reports of spam and “abusive
content” processed by their algorithms? What is their position on the 1st Amendment?
Failure to make this clear is evidence of purposeful concealment.
Perhaps an article I wrote and published last August, “Facebook, the CIA, DARPA, and the tanking IPO,” will help put this situation into perspective:
The big infusion of cash that sent Mark
Zuckerberg and his fledgling college enterprise on their way came from
Accel Partners, in 2004.
Jim Breyer, head of Accel, attached a $13 million rocket to Facebook, and nothing has ever been the same.
Earlier that same year, a man named
Gilman Louie joined the board of the National Venture Capital
Association of America (NVCA). The chairman of NVCA? Jim Breyer. Gilman
Louie happened to be the first CEO of the important CIA start-up,
In-Q-Tel.
In-Q-Tel was founded in 1999, with the
express purpose of funding companies that could develop technology the
CIA would use to “gather data.”
That’s not the only connection between
Jim Breyer and the CIA’s man, Gilman Louie. In 2004, Louie went to work
for BBN Technologies, headed up by Breyer. Dr. Anita Jones also joined
BBN at that time. Jones had worked for In-Q-Tel and was an adviser to
DARPA, the Pentagon’s technology department that helped develop the
Internet.
With these CIA/Darpa connections, it’s
no surprise that Jim Breyer’s jackpot investment in Facebook is not part
of the popular mythology of Mark Zuckerberg. Better to omit it. Who
could fail to realize that Facebook, with its endless stream of personal
data, and its tracking capability, is an ideal CIA asset?
But now the Facebook stock has tanked.
On Friday, August 17, it weighed in at half its initial IPO price. For
the first time since the IPO, venture-capital backers were legally
permitted to sell off their shares, and some did, at a loss.
Articles have begun appearing that
question Zuckerberg’s ability to manage his company. “Experts” are
saying he should import a professional team to run the business side of
things and step away.
All this, despite the fact that
Facebook’s first posted revenue as a public company has exceeded
analysts’ predictions, according to the LA Times.
This has the earmarks of classic
shakeout and squeeze play. It’s how heavy hitters gain control of a
company. First, they drive down the price of the stock, then they trade
it at low levels that discourage and demoralize the public and even
semi-insiders. As the stock continues to tank, they quietly buy up as
much of it as they can. Finally, when the price hits a designated rock
bottom, they shoot it up all the way to new highs and win big.
And they hold enough shares to exert more control over the company itself.
That is how Facebook will survive. Zuckerberg’s grip on Facebook will loosen.
The company is too important as a
data-mining asset of the intelligence community to let it fall into
disrepair and chaos. The CIA and its cutouts will save it and gain more
power over it. It’s what they’ve wanted all along.
From the time Mark Zuckerberg was a
child and attended the summer camp for “exceptional children,” CTY
(Center for Talented Youth), run by Johns Hopkins University, he, like
other CTY students, Sergey Brin (co-founder of Google), and Lady Gaga,
have been easy to track.
CTY and similar camps filter
applications and pick the best and brightest for their accelerated
learning programs. Tracing the later progress of these children in
school and life would be a standard operation for agencies like the CIA.
When Zuckerberg founded an interesting
little social network at Harvard, and then sought to turn it into a
business, the data-mining possibilities were obvious to CIA personnel.
Through their cutouts, as described above, they stepped in and lent a
helping hand.
Now it’s time for Zuckerberg to pass the
baton to his handlers, so they can maximize the economics of Facebook
and utilize it to spy even more extensively.
The media will play along, pretending
the eventual upswing-recovery of Facebook stock happens for fundamental
reasons connected to the company’s “better level of performance.” The
media take this approach to every stock and every company, to avoid
letting the public know how massive manipulation actually runs these
trading markets.
End of the August 2012 article.
People might ask, “Then why, Rappoport, do you use Facebook at all?”
That’s a legitimate question. My answer
is simple. Since I began working as a reporter in 1982, I’ve used every
possible opportunity and venue to put my information out there.
There’s a big difference between that and overtly supporting all those venues.
When I admire a writer, broadcaster, or
organization, I say so, and I have. Even then, that doesn’t mean I have
to agree with everything they say or stand for.
That’s a distinction with a meaning.
It’s exactly the distinction I’m asking Facebook to clarify: what will
they allow, whether they agree with it or not?
Do I expect them to spell it out in sufficient detail? No. But then that means something, too.
None of this will change one iota of what I write or say.
Jon Rappoport
The author of an explosive collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon was a
candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of
California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an
investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics,
medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine,
Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has
delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and
creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his
free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com
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