A recent article written primarily by a medical doctor in Alabama claimed that, “The way in which the media has pushed fear nonstop amounts to psychological warfare against this country.” He added, “If it hasn’t occurred to you that we have heard one story and essentially one story alone for literally two months, well, that should have aroused suspicion.” Is this doctor correct? Or is the media doing its best to be responsible in the midst of an unprecedented crisis?

I’m quite confident that nothing I write here will influence what the media is doing for two reasons. First, who am I that massive media organizations should listen to me? Second, fear sells and money talks.

That being said, the question remains: Is the media responsible in its reporting, helping its audience to act wisely during a pandemic? Or is the media using fear tactics to get more viewers, listeners, and readers? And if the latter is true, does this amount to sustained psychological warfare?

Obviously, “the media” is such a generalized term that almost anything good or bad can be said about it. But if we focus on the major, secular voices on TV, we can fine tune both our questions and our answers.

One of the secrets of psychological warfare (called psywar by the military) is to try to convince enemy troops that surrender is sweet, that it is better to capitulate than to continue to fight, that defeat is inevitable.

In keeping with this, an Air Force colonel shared with me that during World War I, psywar pamphlets were airdropped among the German troops.

Shortly after the end of the war, Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg, the Chief of Staff of the Kaiser’s Army, complained:

“In the shower of pamphlets which was scattered by enemy airmen our adversaries said and wrote that they did not think so badly of us; that we must only be reasonable and perhaps here and there renounce something we had conquered. Then everything would soon be right again and we could live together in peace, perpetual international peace. As regards peace within our own borders, new men and new Governments would see to that. What a blessing peace would be after all the fighting. There was, therefore, no point in continuing the struggle.” (From the USAF Special Operations School: Psychological Operations.)

And what were the results of this strategy? Military historian Stanley Sandler writes:

“As German Army discipline wavered or broke, these leaflets became responsible for defections on a large scale. Not surprisingly, Adolph Hitler termed Allied military psywar ‘psychologically efficient.’”

Today, we are not having pamphlets dropped on us from the sky in order to break our spirits. But we are hearing a constant flood of bad news. Of distressing and depressing news. Of fearful statistics. And we are reminded daily of the danger of violating the status quo.

Does this mean that all these media outlets are ill-intentioned and motivated only by financial gain? Certainly not.

Does this mean that the talking heads all share a nefarious agenda and are under some hidden, central control? Not at all.

Does it mean that none of them are trying to do some good? Absolutely not.

But it does mean that, for whatever reason, we are basically being told that COVID-19 is the only story out there, that America is a real mess, and that things could get even worse in the days ahead.

Really now, is all of that meant to be helpful? Encouraging? Useful?

Or, to approach this from a different angle, ask yourself this: If the goal of the media was to help Americans function in a healthy and hopeful way during this difficult time, would their reporting be the same?

Doing a daily talk radio show, and with lots of interaction with the public on social media, I have been sounding a “fear not” message for the last two months. Yes, the virus is very serious, but it’s not the end of the world, and there’s no need for panic.

At the same time, I have had to counteract the attitude of fear and panic that arises by being subjected to day and night negative reporting. (Add in partisan politics, and you have a real toxic mix.) And in order to starve our fears and feed our faith and our practical wisdom, we cannot sit glued in front of the TV or computer screen.

But this is part of the vicious cycle of 24-hour news networks. The same stories get repeated endlessly, seriously undermining our ability to think for ourselves. Are we not getting brainwashed by it all?

But there’s another angle to consider, and that’s the angle of control.

Dennis Prager recently wrote that “the ease with which police state tactics have been employed and the equal ease with which most Americans have accepted them have been breathtaking.”

Could this have happened without the media’s incessant, fear-producing drumbeat?

Prager pointed to four principle signs of a police state, one of which was, “A Mass Media Supportive of the State’s Messaging and Deprivation of Rights.”

He explained,

“The New York Times, CNN and every other mainstream mass medium — except Fox News, The Wall Street Journal (editorial and opinion pages only) and talk radio — have served the cause of state control over individual Americans’ lives just as Pravda served the Soviet government. In fact, there is almost no more dissent in The New York Times than there was in Pravda. And the Big Tech platforms are removing posts about the virus and potential treatments they deem ‘misinformation.’”

Recently, YouTube removed a viral video by two medical doctors in California who disputed the state’s safety recommendations.

According to YouTube, “We quickly remove flagged content that violate our Community Guidelines, including content that explicitly disputes the efficacy of local healthy authority recommended guidance on social distancing that may lead others to act against that guidance.”

In other words, disputed opinions offered by medical doctors (in this case, emergency room doctors) will be banned.

Does this concern you? What might be banned next? Can you not assess the information for yourself and make an informed choice?

A colleague with a massive Facebook page (I can’t share more details at this moment) had a viral post removed because a so-called fact checker deemed it false. Yet the content was entirely spiritual in nature.

So, not only do we have the 24-hour droning drumbeat of fear-based, often sensationalistic reporting, but we have a dangerous form of censorship as well.

Does that constitute a form of psychological warfare? You can decide for yourself.

This article was originally published at AskDrBrown.org.

Well, well, well, the Facebook Overlords were busy censoring even on Sunday. Neither peace nor rest for the wicked, it seems.

Sunday, IFI was notified that the Overlords, in their infinite ignorance, had determined that a post written and posted on IFI’s Facebook page by me on Thursday night violated their “Community Standards” on “Hate Speech.” The post was about the openly homosexual, flamboyant, cross-dressing actor Billy Porter’s upcoming appearance on Sesame Street—a PBS television program for preschoolers paid for by the public (Add this appearance to the swelling list of ways the normalization of sexual deviance affects everyone, despite the claim from liars who have long said it would affect no one except those who directly engage in it).

The Overlords falsely claimed that the post was “Hate Speech,” which is defined by the Facebook Overlords as “dehumanizing speech, statements of inferiority, or calls for exclusion or segregation” based on “what we call protected characteristics — race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, caste, sex, gender, gender identity, and serious disease or disability.” (emphasis added)

Here’s the banned post:

Sesame Street is all in on inculcating the nation’s little ones with the dogma of sexual anarchists. They’ve announced on their FB page that openly homosexual, cross-dressing, faux-married actor Billy Porter will be a guest.

“It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin (Luke 17:2).”

Christian Parents: Get your kids out of government indoctrination hellholes. No Christian should have their child in a “school” that introduces egregious sexual deviance to little children, that presents sexual deviance positively, and that sexually integrates private spaces. In Illinois, starting next fall, that’s every school at every level.

Churches: Make it possible for your families to get their kids out of government indoctrination hellholes. They share the same damnable mission to promote the same damnable ideology that Sesame Street does.

Christian Teachers Working in Government Indoctrination Hellholes: No Christ-follower has a moral right to teach evil ideas to children or to use incorrect pronouns when referring to students who seek to pass as the sex they aren’t.

By calling theologically orthodox views of sexual immorality “hate speech,” Facebook engaged in “hate speech” based on “religious affiliation,” thereby violating its own Community Standards.

Word to the Overlords: Expressions of moral disapproval of volitional acts that you Overlords celebrate do not constitute hatred of persons no matter how many times you claim they do.

Our time is so dark that society rejoices in exposing toddlers to cross-dressing and homosexuality, and heaps condemnation on those who call such perversion wicked.

Hey Christians, you know those lumps you keep tripping on in the darkness? They’re dead canaries.

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20)

“Please share this article before Facebook deletes it.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Facebook-Removes-IFI-Post.mp3

IFI is hosting our annual Worldview Conference on March 7th at the Village Church of Barrington. This year’s conference is titled “Thinking Biblically About Our Corrosive Culture” and features Dr. Michael Brown and Dr. Rob Gagnon. For more information, please click HERE for a flyer or click the button below to register for the conference.

Everyone who’s conscious knows that Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are in the tank for “progressivism”—also known as “Cultural Regressivism that Undermines Decency” (CRUD). While the hive at Google manipulates its algorithms to hide information that regressives don’t like, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook Overlords censor with the kind of tyrannical oppression that in the good old days liberals and radicals feared and loathed. Now that liberals and radicals control the levers of power, they have abandoned all previous philosophical commitments to freedom and liberty. A new explosive undercover video by Project Veritas exposes the extraordinary and deceitful machinations of Google to manipulate access to information in order that regressivism can gain and maintain yet more power. In other words, Google—like its fascistic government precursors—exploits its monopolistic power to propagandize, thereby securing its iron grip on power. Resistance is almost futile.

With his face and voice concealed, a Google insider warns about the implications of the confluence of Google’s power, reach, and bias:

What’s scary is that Google’s deciding what’s important and what’s not important. They are… effectively deleting conversations from the national narrative. It reminds me of… a book called 1984. That should have been a warning…. Google’s… deciding what gets read, what gets consumed, what people are able to click on, what appears. It reminds me a lot of fascism…. When videos get pulled off of a platform, that’s… a form of censorship…. People have no idea that it’s happening. They still think that Google’s an objective source of information and it’s not.

Secretly recorded conversations with Google executive Jen Gennai reinforces the claims of the Google insider, further revealing Google’s Leftist bias, arrogance, and determined efforts to use its power to influence the next presidential election:

The reason we launched our [Artificial Intelligence] principles is because people were not …. saying what is fair and what’s equitable, so we’re like, “Well, we are a big company. We’re going to say it.”… [M]y definition of fairness and bias specifically talks about historically marginalized communities, and that’s who I care about. Communities who are in power, and have traditionally been in power, are not who I’m solving fairness for. Our definition of fairness is one of those things that we thought would be like obvious, and everybody would agree to, and it wasn’t…. [T]he same people who voted for the current President did not agree with our definition of fairness.

Gennai’s/Google’s—let’s just say Gennoogle—Gennoogle’s definition of fairness differs not only from the definition held by the “people who voted for the current president” but also from the definition held by many others. Many people understand “fairness” to mean “impartial or just treatment without favoritism” or “the quality of treating people equally.”

“Historically marginalized communities” refers to identity-peddlers’ four favorite categories of humans:  blacks, women, homosexuals, and cross-sex “passers.” Leftists like Gennoogle have been forced to add “historically” to marginalized, since these groups have pushed from the margins to the center which will not hold.

Clearly Gennoogle has no interest in genuine fairness. “Fairness,” like hatred, inclusivity, safety, tolerance, and equality, means exactly what the googley Humpty Dumptys choose it to mean. Who cares if theologically orthodox Christians or political conservatives are treated unfairly. That’s their problem to solve, dagnabbit!

Gennai reveals the supreme arrogance of Google, which presumes to make “things more fair” by supplanting the will of the people as expressed through the duly elected executive and legislative branches of the government with Gennoogle’s reconceptualization of “fairness”:

The White House and Congress won’t play a role in making things more fair, so people are holding us accountable to fill the gap of what should be done.

Gennai makes clear the presumptive supremacy of the Google hive mind over the elected representatives of the people:

We got called in front of Congress multiple times, and we’ve not shown up because we’re like, we just know they’re going to just attack us. We’re not going to change our mind. There’s no point in just sitting there being attacked over something that we know we’re not going to change…. They can pressure us, but we’re not changing.

Gennai adds more flesh to the bones hinted at in her allusion to Trump, his supporters, and “fairness”:

Elizabeth Warren is saying that we should break up Google…. [S]he’s very misguided. That will not make it better, it will make it worse because now all these smaller companies who don’t have the same resources that we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump situation…. a small company cannot do that.

We all got screwed over in 2016…. so now we’ve rapidly been like, “What happened there? How do we prevent it from happening again?”

Evidently in panic mode after the exposé was released, Gennai penned a futile effort to recast her damning words and malign Project Veritas:

[T]hese people lied about their true identities, filmed me without my consent, selectively edited and spliced the video to distort my words and the actions of my employer, and published it widely online.

While Google engages in unconscionable, secretive efforts to manipulate public opinion and to silence conservative employees through fear of loss of employment, she’s outraged about being secretly recorded?

Surely a smart human like Gennai knows that all documentaries and exposés “selectively” edit. The ethical issue is not whether an exposé is selectively edited. The ethical issue is whether it was edited in such a way as to distort someone’s words. Gennai tries to prove that Project Veritas distorted her words about the 2016 election, saying she never suggested Google objected to Trump’s election per se but rather to “foreign interference”:

In a casual restaurant setting, I was explaining how Google’s Trust and Safety team (a team I used to work on) is working to help prevent the types of online foreign interference that happened in 2016.

If Gennoogle’s concern were really with online foreign interference, what sense did her statement about being “screwed” mean, since Russian attempts at foreign interference didn’t affect the election outcome. Leftists like Gennoogle believe they were “screwed” by Trump’s winning. They were not “screwed” by Russian attempts to interfere. Does Gennai think all Americans just fell off the turnip truck?

Project Veritas asked the Google insider about the meaning of this statement from an internal Google document:

In some cases, it may be appropriate to take no action if the system accurately affects current reality. While in other cases, it may be desirable to consider how we might help society reach a more fair and equitable state via product intervention.”

The Google insider translated into plain English what “helping society” looks like in the Google hive:

What they want to do is they want to act as gatekeepers between the user and the content that they’re trying to access. They’re going to come in, they’re going to filter the content. They’re going to say, “Actually, we don’t want to give the user access to that information because it’s going to create an outcome that’s undesirable to us.”

This exposé will come as no surprise to former Google employee Mike Wacker, recently fired for publicly criticizing Google’s “outrage mobs and witch hunts.” Wacker shared that the Google outrage mobs (OMs) demanded Google have nothing to do with the conservative Heritage Foundation, calling its president Kay Cole James the Grand Wizard of the KKK. For those who don’t know, Kay Cole James is black and endured egregious racist attacks when growing up.

You may wonder exactly how the OMs could justify calling a black woman the Grand Wizard of the KKK. Well, this particular OM has concluded, apparently with no scientific proof, that masquerading as the opposite sex is analogous to race, and, therefore, opposing things like co-ed restrooms and locker rooms—which the Heritage Foundation does—is analogous to racism.

Wacker revealed that one Google employee was reported to Human Resources (HR) for sharing a National Review article, and another was reported for appearing “to be promoting and defending Jordan Peterson’s comments about transgender pronouns,” which allegedly made some Google employee “feel unsafe at work.” #eyeroll

What other subjective, often-changeable feelings will Google OMs conclude are analogous to race? Will those employees who disagree with the hive’s assumptions about those other feelings be safe in that “nonpartisan,” inclusive space to express their views? And what if the OMs are wrong? What if cross-sex identification, cross-sex hormone-doping, surgical mutilation, and co-ed private spaces are, in reality, neither good nor right?

While Wacker lost his job, Blake Lemoine retains his job as senior software engineer at Google. The name Blake Lemoine may sound familiar. He made the news in 2018 for calling Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn a terrorist for writing an op-ed critical of the obvious bias against conservatives and Republicans within tech companies like Google and Facebook.

Wacker reports that in internal Google employee forums, Lemoine also said this:

If you think that trans women aren’t women then you can either keep it to yourself or GTFO [Get the f**k out]. Google’s corporate policies are crystal clear on that.

While Google employees are free to say that “transwomen”—who are objectively, immutably, scientifically verifiably men—are women, others are not permitted to say “transwomen” are men. Deviate from the deviant narrative and off with your head!

Trouble seems to follow Lemoine—who identifies variously as a pagan priest and Gnostic Christian—wherever he goes. The “bisexual” Lemoine who is in a “non-monogamous” relationship with his wife enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2003 and then in 2004 “realized he did not like working with U.S. Army troops.” When the Army refused to allow him “to quit the Army,” he went on a work strike and then a hunger strike. He was court-martialed and discharged for bad conduct.

Before whistle-blower Mike Wacker, there was former Google engineer James Damore who was fired in 2017 after he wrote and distributed a measured internal memo replete with evidence in which he criticized Google for, among other things, being “an ideological echo chamber.” Can’t have any Google employee pointing out that the emperor brooks no dissent. Off with his head!

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Dark-Underbelly-of-Google.mp3

IFI Fall Banquet with Franklin Graham!
We are excited to announce that at this year’s IFI banquet, our keynote speaker will be none other than Rev. Franklin Graham, President & CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christian evangelist & missionary. This year’s event will be at the Tinley Park Convention Center on Nov. 1st.

Learn more HERE.

We all know about the leftist leanings of the so-called masters of the universe, the internet giants. We all know about the discriminatory treatment that many of us on the right are experiencing. The question is: How do we respond? Do we pick up our marbles and leave? Do we build our own platforms? Do we stand up and fight? Or perhaps it’s a combination of all of the above?

Recently, Lawrence Jones, editor-in-chief for Campus Reform, opined that conservatives are being lazy here. In his words, “Go create your own platforms.”

Jones, who is a libertarian, believes that the social media giants are free to run their companies however they want to, and if we don’t like it, we should go elsewhere.

In the end, we may have no choice but to do that very thing, and at this moment, millions of dollars are being invested in the development of new platforms.

As for Campus Reform, it is one of the most important voices today when it comes to exposing the radical leftist agenda on our college and university campuses.

That being said, I take issue with Jones’ assessment for a few reasons.

First, we helped build these very platforms. Conservatives like you and me helped build YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and Google.

Some of us have spent thousands of hours developing videos or posting blogs or making comments, getting our message out with regularity and interacting with millions of others in the process.

Why should we simply walk away without pushing back? Why should we concede defeat when we have hardly begun to stand?

Second, when we came on board, no one told us that these platforms would be biased against us.

Had we known this up front, many of us would not have gotten involved in the first place.

Instead, what we understood was that these were neutral platforms. These were networks where we could connect with our friends. These were accessible places where we could share our videos. These were settings where we could intersect with people from all backgrounds.

It would be akin to a new bank opening in our city, offering the most attractive interest rates and the best customer options. So, we gladly switch our accounts to that bank.

It is only then, once the bank has our money, that we find out they are using the profits to fund radical, anti-Christian causes. And to add insult to injury, in the fine print, there’s a severe penalty for early withdrawal.

Obviously, the analogy is not meant to be exact. (So, please back off, dear critics.) But it is meant to convey a point: Had we known the facts at the outset, we would not have put our money in that bank.

At this point, having made substantial investments of time and energy, building our audiences and our platforms, we’re not ready to simply walk away.

Third, for some of us, the whole goal is reach and impact. In my case, AskDrBrown is a non-profit ministry, so we live and breathe to reach others with our message. We’re here to make the maximum impact on the maximum number of people, and that means not just preaching to the choir.

So, as long as YouTube allows us to post our videos, we will continue to use that platform, since we reach millions of people who otherwise would not know about us.

Day and night, we receive hateful, ugly comments from critics and bashers. Day and night, quite literally 24/7, we receive comments from dissenters and from seekers.

So, since it is one of our goals to shine God’s light in dark places, we’re not prepared to walk away just because we are being unfairly treated.

I’m sure many other conservatives, be it for moral or spiritual or ideological reasons, feel the same way.

Fourth, there is something that everyone can do, and it’s quite simple.

Focusing on YouTube in particular, if you like the content you’re watching and the channel has been demonetized, then support that channel directly.

At present, the moment one of our videos goes live, it gets flagged by YouTube as not suitable for all advertisers, forcing us to request a manual review. In some cases, the videos are approved; in other cases, not. (So, to be clear, the videos are not being blocked or removed. They’re being demonetized.)

As much as possible, we are challenging YouTube to be fair and consistent. That’s all we’re asking for.

Again, the day might come when these doors will close to us entirely. Or new and better platforms might be developed. Or the whole face of the internet might take a dramatic new turn.

But for now, let’s stand up and speak out and push back. The door is not yet slammed in our face.

This article was initially published on AskDrBrown.org

I hope, kind readers, that you will read this true tale of the Facebook (FB) Overlords to its troubling end.

Caution: This article contains obscene language (not mine)

Part I of A True Tale of the Facebook Overlords

In a pre-dawn raid on January 27, with virtual guns a’blazing, countless faceless Facebook Overlords scooped me up and threw me in the slammer. The indictment charged me with “violation of community standards”—very peculiar standards, as I came to learn. More on that later. The Overlords’ sentence: 3 days in the hole and the threat of exile to a secret penal colony in Australia.

Below are my three Facebook posts, posted between Dec. 5 and Jan. 27, that I was told “violate community standards.” I was also told that Facebook has “Community Standards to encourage people to express themselves and connect with each other in a way that’s respectful to everyone” (asterisks added to avoid FB jail):

1.) Tr*nnies and their ideological allies relentlessly bring up intersex disorders in an attempt to refute the claim that the human species is sexually binary. Intersex disorders of sexual development are irrelevant to discussions of people who have no intersex disorders. Saying the human species is sexually binary even though there exist disorders of sexual development is no more incorrect than saying the human species is bipedal even though there are humans born with only one or no legs, or saying humans have brains and skulls even though some are born with anencephaly. Disorders are disorders—not evidence of a new type of human. In fact, disorders illuminate and point to the original design for the human body. For example, sterility accompanies many intersex disorders, thus highlighting the disordered-ness of intersex disorders.”

2.) My thoughts on yet another tr*nny-penned New York Times commentary, this time about Twitter and “misgendering.” 🙄

3.) This is just a test post, folks: TR*NNY

I was banned for no reason other than my use of the word “tr*nny.” Don’t believe me? Try posting “tr*nny” on your FB page and make it public.

There is nothing threatening or bullying about my comments. Nor was I—to use the Overlords’ language—“purposefully” targeting “a person with the intention of degrading” him. I don’t know how the Overlords can discern someone’s intentions. Maybe FB Overlords possess Jedi force-sense.

Part II of A True Tale of the Facebook Overlords

This is where the tale gets more disturbing.

On Jan. 4 at 11:23 a.m., someone identified as Chicago DJ “Mike Lowe” publicly posted the following in the comments section under an Illinois Family Institute Facebook post on the legalization of marijuana:

Laurie Higgins, what the f*** is your problem?… Dumb f***ing b****…. Go f*** off and tell your pharmaceutical backers they are going to lose. They ARE LOSING, f***ing c*** 🖕 (asterisks added)

I banned him from IFI’s FB page and copied his comments onto my personal FB page, so people could see the tolerance of a Leftist. Then at 4:19 p.m. that same day under a fake Facebook account with the name “Mitch McDougalsworth,” Lowe sent this FB message to me:

So, you block me, then copy my Statement on your page for your loser friends? You’re f*cked btw. Should’ve thought before acting. See you soon!

DJ Mike Lowe/Mitch McDougalsworth wasn’t done with me. He sent another message under a new FB account with the fake name “Clarissa Pollack“:

That’s a good girl. Using your head for once I see? You get a cookie AND a special gold star treat for being a smart, good girl next time I get a chance to see you!! 🙂 Use YOUR F***ING HEAD. “YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHO IS WHO, WHAT IS WHAT, OR WHAT LIES IN THE WORLD BEYOND YOUR LITTLE RELIGIOUS, BRAINWASHED FANTASY. Have a blessed day! Watch it now! 😉 Ya hear?

After receiving the first two messages, I reported him to Facebook, and here’s where our story gets yet more disturbing. Facebook responded with this:

Hi Laurie,

Thanks for letting us know about this.

We reviewed the content you reported and found that it doesn’t go against our Community Standards. Community standards violations for messages include:

-Direct threats: serious threats of harm to public and personal safety, credible threats of physical harm, specific threats of theft, vandalism, or other financial harm.

-Sexual violence and exploitation: content that threatens or promotes sexual violence or exploitation, including solicitation of sexual material, any sexual content involving minors, threats to share intimate images, and offers of sexual services.

-Bullying or harassment: content that appears to purposefully target a person with the intention of degrading or shaming them, or repeatedly contacting a person despite that person’s clear desire and action to prevent contact.

Facebook Overlords have deemed the use of “tr*nny” a violation of community standards, but calling a woman an f***ing c*** and implying a threat does not. Got it.

I wonder, could ideological bias be involved in the Overlords’ peculiar community standards? hmmm…

For the uninitiated, “tr*nny” is not universally viewed as an epithet by members of the “trans” cult. Four years ago, some in the “trans” cult took the infamous cross-dresser Ru Paul to task for using the word “tr*nny” on his loathsome “reality” television show Ru Paul’s Drag Race to which he responded,

I love the word “tranny.” It is not the transsexual community [who objects]. These are fringe people who are looking for story lines to strengthen their identity as victims…. They’ve used their victim-hood [to say] “I want you to see me the way you’re supposed to see me”.…  [D]on’t you dare tell me what I can do or say. It’s just words. Yeah, words do hurt… You know what? … You need to get stronger…. because…  if you’re upset by something I said, you have bigger problems than you think.

While Ru Paul’s view may be illuminating, it has no bearing on my choice to occasionally use “tr*nny” on my personal FB page.

Some may wonder why I ever use the verboten “t” word. There are two reasons: First, it’s shorter and less cumbersome than “transgender.”

Second, and more important, capitulating to yet another rhetorical demand by the “LGBTQQAP” community, aided and abetted by other tyrannical Leftists, is dangerous. George Orwell warned us what this kind of language control is intended to do in his description of Newspeak “the official language of Oceania” which “had been devised to meet the ideological needs of IngSoc, or English Socialism”:

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of IngSoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all… a heretical thought… should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meaning and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meaning whatever….

[T]he special function of certain Newspeak words… was not so much to express meanings as to destroy them….

[W]ords which had once borne a heretical meaning were sometimes retained for the sake of convenience, but only with the undesirable meanings purged out of them.

How long before “trans”-cultists decide that “transwoman” is an epithet and must be banned? After all, they have proclaimed that men who masquerade as women are women. What if they decide that “transwoman”—which implies a distinction between fake-women and real women—is offensive and must be banned? Will we acquiesce again out of fear or in the service of some sickeningly sweet, insalubrious imitation of real love?

If one group gets to decide what language others may, may not, or must use (e.g., goofy or grammatically incorrect pronouns), why aren’t the desires of conservatives similarly respected? Conservatives don’t like “transphobe” or “homophobe,” both of which imply irrational fear and hatred of persons. While I hate the ontological and moral beliefs of the homosexual and “trans” ideology, I don’t hate persons, so those terms are offensive, false, and potentially dangerous. Do the FB Overlords throw users of those terms in FB prison?

We owe no ignorant and destructive ideology respect. What we owe people is biblical love, which is inextricably linked to truth. Biblical love does not entail refraining from criticizing immoral, body- and soul-destroying behavior. And it does not require us to speak the truth using only language that affirmers of egregiously offensive behavior deem inoffensive. #CivilDisobedience

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/New-Recording-3.mp3

Christian Life in Exile
On February 22^nd, IFI is hosting a special forum with Dr. Erwin Lutzer as he teaches from his latest book, “The Church in Babylon,” answering the question, “How do we live faithfully in a culture that perceives our light as darkness?” This event is free and open to the public, and will be held at Jubilee Church in Medinah, Illinois.

Click HERE for more info…

The hate business may not be what it used to be – at least on the government level.

The Defense Department has become the latest federal agency to sever ties with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an Alabama-based, hard-left group whose “hate map” is being used against Christian groups.

Well, bully for the Pentagon for showing that bully to the door.

The DOD’s pullback from the SPLC was reported by the Daily Caller, which said that a Justice Department attorney stated in an email that the DOD “removed any and all references to the SPLC in training materials used by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI).”

In 2014, the FBI dropped the SPLC from its resources page after congressional staff, acting on behalf of the Family Research Council (FRC) and other Christian groups on the “hate map,” met with FBI officials to discuss their concerns, according to the Daily Caller.

Once hailed for tracking the Ku Klux Klan and other extremists, the SPLC has in recent years been wielded against mainstream Christian organizations over their defense of Biblical sexual morality and marriage.

If you say out loud that men are different from women, you just took a big step toward the “hate map.”  If you say that marriage necessarily involves both sexes, bingo.  And if you say that it’s not loving to steer boys into identifying as girls, you might earn an SPLC mention alongside skinheads and Neo-Nazis.

The SPLC also targets those who oppose illegal immigration and those who believe Islamic expansionism is a threat to freedom.  All in all, the SPLC might want to consider changing its name to Hate, Inc.

In 2015, the SPLC placed presidential candidate Ben Carson, who now heads the Department of Housing and Urban Development, on an “extremist” hate watch list.  After taking considerable flak, the SPLC removed the citation and apologized to Dr. Carson.

But this guilt-by-association ploy is having a huge effect in Silicon Valley, where cyber giants who fancy themselves do-gooders look to the SPLC for guidance.

“Right now, [the SPLC is] cutting off hate groups from sources of financing by pushing digital companies like Amazon not to allow hate groups to use their services,” said SPLC’s founder, direct-mail wizard Morris Dees.

Google, Facebook and Twitter are under congressional scrutiny for allegedly “shadow banning” conservative and religious postings.

“The most dangerous aspect of this high-tech offensive on pro-faith groups and individuals is buried deep in the algorithms of these gatekeepers for the new economy,” said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel.

Google now supports a “hate news” database that links to articles referencing Liberty Counsel and other Christian groups on the SPLC “hate” list.  The SPLC’s smears have led Amazon Smile, a charity donation program run by Jeff Bezos’ Amazon company, to ban pro-family Christian groups.

Last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced a $1 million Apple donation to the SPLC and added a portal so iTunes buyers could donate directly. Big Tech, meet Big Hate.

The SPLC’s perfidy has led to “hate” labels on Christian groups listed in GuideStar, the charity group database, which removed some labels after a public outcry.  Discover/Diners Club is now blocking transactions with some pro-family groups, according to Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver.

Making false accusations of hate is profoundly hateful, but it’s also lucrative. The SPLC, which has raised millions since its 1971 founding, has fattened its endowment to more than $477 million, according to its latest Form 990.

In August 2017, D. James Kennedy Ministries, for which I have written several books, finally had had enough and filed a defamation lawsuit against the SPLC in Alabama and also sued GuideStar and Amazon.com, Inc.  The ministry withdrew the GuideStar suit but continued the other litigation.  Liberty Counsel also sued GuideStar, but that suit was thrown out last January by U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson, a Bill Clinton appointee.

In August 2012, Leo Johnson, the building manager at FRC headquarters in Washington, D.C., was shot while preventing an attempted mass murder by a man who said he was inspired by FRC’s presence on the SPLC’s “hate map.”

The shooter, Floyd Lee Corkins II, planned to kill as many people as possible and jam Chick-fil-A sandwiches into their faces to protest Chick-fil-A’s and FRC’s support for natural marriage.  He was sentenced to 25 years in prison in September 2013 for committing an act of terrorism while armed and other offenses.

Apparently, the SPLC did not find this compelling enough to remove FRC from its “hate map,” where it remained until very recently.  However, FRC – along with D. James Kennedy Ministries, the American Family Association, Alliance Defending Freedom, the Ruth Institute, the American College of Pediatricians and many other reputable Christian groups, along with the Jewish-led parents group MassResistance – is still listed on the SPLC’s “Hate Watch” page.

For pro-family activists, it’s become a badge of honor.

Among the reasonable and fairly well-defined criteria Twitter uses to censor content is this more ambiguous criterion: content “that incites fear about a protected group” or that “degrades someone.”

Does Twitter think it’s degrading to say “homosexual acts degrade persons”? What if homosexual acts do degrade persons? What words constitute an incitement to fear? Does it incite “fear about a protected group” to say that allowing biological males in women’s private spaces is an assault on decency and puts at risk the safety of girls and women? Does Twitter think saying “polyamory is wrong, and its normalization harms society” would incite fear about polyamorists?

Similarly, Facebook includes this expansive and ambiguous definition of banned “hate speech”:

We define hate speech as a direct attack on people based on what we call protected characteristics — race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, caste, sex, gender, gender identity, and serious disease or disability….We define attack as violent or dehumanizing speech. (emphasis added)

Like obscenity (which Justice Potter believed he could recognize, but “progressives” clearly can’t), the powers-that-be at Facebook will apparently know dehumanizing speech when they see it.

This may explain why IFI has had so much trouble getting many of our articles boosted on Facebook. “Boosting” is, in effect, advertising. IFI pays Facebook to create an ad which is then shown to our target audience. The most recent article about which we have been battling Facebook is titled “Will ‘Progressives’ Affirm the Identity of Christ-Followers?”

We requested a boosted ad for this article and were declined. We appealed that decision, were approved for a few hours, and then our ad was taken down. We appealed that decision, were approved for a few more hours, and then the ad was taken down again. We appealed a third time, and moments before this writing, after a week and three appeals, it was approved. We wait with bated breath to see if this one sticks.

The criteria used by Twitter and Facebook to justify ideological-screening remind me of the criteria high school English teachers use to do the same. The text-selection criteria exploited by “progressive” change-agents in public high school English departments around the country are so flexible, so malleable, so protean as to justify including any resource that affirms, espouses, or embodies their biases and exclude any resource that dissents from their biases.

The Left is fond of declaiming that Twitter and Facebook are private companies that have the right to establish whatever criteria they deem fit for censoring content. True, but such a declamation ignores the monopolistic nature of these two social media behemoths.

Facebook has claimed to be a neutral social media platform that merely enables or facilitates “communication and distribution of information.” Because of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, if Facebook were a neutral platform, it would not be liable for content. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is “US legislation that paved the way for the modern internet by asserting that platforms cannot be liable for content users post on their sites.”

But both in court and before Congress, Facebook has acknowledged it is a publisher and “responsible for content.” In conjunction with its shutting down accounts and censoring posts for what appear to be ideological reasons, Facebook may have lost its legal immunity. And maybe that’s just the slap upside Zuckerberg’s pecuniary noggin that’s needed to restore his commitment to a neutral platform and to protect the First Amendment rights of conservatives that are eroding right before our gullible, obsequious eyes.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Facebook-Censoring-Say-It-Aint-So.mp3

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois! 

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A Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) investigation discovered that the left-wing nonprofit is closely tied to four of the largest tech platforms on the planet, which routinely consult or collaborate with the SPLC in policing their platforms for “hate groups” or “hate speech,” and the findings were corroborated by Facebook itself.

“[The SPLC is on a list of] external experts and organizations [that Facebook works with] to inform our hate speech policies,” Facebook Spokeswoman Ruchika Budhraja informed the DCNF in an interview.

Facing users away from the right

Budhraja explained how outside groups are consulted by Facebook through one to three meetings in order to fashion its hate speech policies, but she would not name which specific organizations it worked with and insisted that they represent all political affiliations.

She then used a May 8 SPLC article that accused Facebook of inadequately censoring “anti-Muslim hate” in an attempt to prove the social media giant does not fully submit to the SPLC.

“We have our own process, and our processes are different and, I think, that’s why we get the criticism [from the SPLC], because organizations that are hate organizations by their standards don’t match ours,” Budhraja insisted, according to the DCNF. “That doesn’t mean that we don’t have a process in place, and that definitely doesn’t mean we want the platform to be a place for hate, but we aren’t going to map to the SPLC’s list or process.”

Following right-leaning users’ numerous complaints over the years about the bias of Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube, dozens of nationally renowned conservative leaders banded against the Internet platforms last month by issuing a statement condemning them for their censorship and suppression of conservative speech.

“Social media censorship and online restriction of conservatives and their organizations have reached a crisis level,” their joint statement read, according to Newsbusters. “Conservative leaders now have banded together to call for equal treatment on tech and social media.”

At the time, the SPLC was already suspected for contributing to the platforms’ liberal bias.

“The participants called for the tech giants to address the key areas of complaint, including lack of transparency, when removing content and deleting accounts and the imbalance of liberal content advisers – such as the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Fox News reported.

Amazon and the SPLC – a perfect left match

But Amazon trumps Facebook when it come to collaborating with the SPLC.

“Of the four companies, Amazon gives the SPLC the most direct authority over its platform, the DCNF found,” the DCNF’s Peter Hasson reported. “While Facebook emphasizes its independence from the SPLC, Amazon does the opposite: Jeff Bezos’ company grants the SPLC broad policing power over the Amazon Smile charitable program, while claiming to remain unbiased.”

In fact, an Amazon spokeswoman announced where the Internet giant gets its final word, but she would not say whether her company considers its leftist source as being unbiased.

“We remove organizations that the SPLC deems as ineligible,” the company’s spokeswoman told the DCNF. “[Amazon grants the SPLC that power] because we don’t want to be biased whatsoever.”

One of Amazon’s charitable programs under scrutiny for being in cahoots with the SPLC’s political agenda was targeted.

“The Smile program allows customers to identify a charity to receive 0.5 percent of the proceeds from their purchases on Amazon,” Hasson pointed out. “Customers have given more than $8 million to charities through the program since 2013, according to Amazon. Only one participant in the program, the SPLC, gets to determine which other groups are allowed to join it.”

It was found that the Smile program frowns upon conservatives, Christians and Jews, alike.

“Christian legal groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom – which recently successfully represented a Christian baker at the U.S. Supreme Court – are barred from the Amazon Smile program, while openly anti-Semitic groups remain, the DCNF found in May,” Hasson noted. “One month later, the anti-Semitic groups – but not the Alliance Defending Freedom – are still able to participate in the program.”

Another excuse was also given by Amazon for the way it directs its users to charities using its own – and the SPLC’s – standards and criteria.

“Charitable organizations must meet the requirements outlined in our participation agreement to be eligible for AmazonSmile,” an Amazon spokesperson told Fox News. “Organizations that engage in, support, encourage or promote intolerance, hate, terrorism, violence, money laundering or other illegal activities are not eligible. If at any point an organization violates this agreement, its eligibility will be revoked. Since 2013, Amazon has relied on the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Southern Poverty Law Center to help us make these determinations. While this system has worked well, we do listen to and consider the feedback of customers and other stakeholders, which we will do here as well.”

Tweeting for the SPLC

The other social media giant also determines its enemies and allies, according to the SPLC.

“Twitter lists the SPLC as a ‘safety partner’ working with Twitter to combat ‘hateful conduct and harassment,’” Hassan impressed. “The platform also includes the Trust and Safety Council, which ‘provides input on our safety products, policies and programs,’ according to Twitter. Free speech advocates have criticized it as Orwellian.”

Twitter admitted it worked with some social policy groups, but would not single out the SPLC.

“[Twitter is] in regular contact with a wide range of civil society organizations and [nongovernmental organizations],” a Twitter spokeswoman told the DCNF.

Googly over the SPLC

And the world’s biggest web browser also taps into the SPLC’s political profiling scheme.

“Google uses the SPLC to help police hate speech on YouTube as part of YouTube’s ‘Trusted Flagger’ program … citing a source with knowledge of the agreement, [and] following that report, the SPLC confirmed [in March that] they’re policing hate speech on YouTube,” Hassan recounted. “The SPLC and other third-party groups in the ‘Trusted Flagger’ program work closely with YouTube’s employees to crack down on extremist content in two ways, according to YouTube.”

The strategic process effectively weeds out conservatives so users can get their fill of leftist content.

“First, the flaggers are equipped with digital tools allowing them to mass flag content for review by YouTube personnel,” he continued. “Second, the groups act as guides to YouTube’s content monitors and engineers who design the algorithms policing the video platform, but may lack the expertise needed to tackle a given subject.”

But this underhanded scheme has gone virtually undetected – with good reason.

“The SPLC is one of over 300 government agencies and nongovernmental organizations in the YouTube program – the vast majority of which remain hidden behind confidentiality agreements,” Hassan divulged.

The SPLC’s fake labels abound

Adding insult to injury, the SPLC has a track record showing that its designations are based more on left-leaning sentiments and emotions than on fact.

“The SPLC has consistently courted controversy in publishing lists of ‘extremists’ and ‘hate groups,’” the DCNF reporter maintained. “The nonprofit has been plagued by inaccuracies this year, retracting four articles in March and April alone.”

The SPLC’s anti-Trump agenda was recently exposed when it had to retract a series of its stories a few months ago.

“The well-funded nonprofit – which did not return a request for comment – deleted three Russia-related articles in March after challenges to their accuracy followed by legal threats,” Hassan recalled. “All three articles focused on drawing conspiratorial connections between anti-establishment American political figures and Russian influence operations in the United States.”

Its pro-Muslim bias was exposed the following month.

“The SPLC removed a controversial ‘anti-Muslim extremist’ list in April, after British Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz threatened to sue over his inclusion on the list,” Hassan continued. “The SPLC had accused the supposed-extremists of inciting anti-Muslim hate crimes.”

Those who have been vocal against Islamic Sharia law and Muslim militancy have regularly been targeted by the SPLC – including Somali-born women’s rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who also made SPLC’s list.

“Ali – a victim of female genital mutilation who now advocates against the practice – is an award-winning human rights activist, but according to the SPLC’s since-deleted list, she was an ‘anti-Muslim extremist,’” Hassan informed.

Last August, Ali condemned Apple CEO Tim Cook for donating major funds to the SPLC and described the leftist nonprofit the following way:

“[The SPLC is] an organization that has lost its way, smearing people who are fighting for liberty and turning a blind eye to an ideology and political movement that has much in common with Nazism,” Ali declared, according to the DCNF.

United States Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Benjamin Carson was emblazoned on the SPLC’s “extremist watch list” in 2015 because his political worldview aligns with conservatives.

“When embracing traditional Christian values is equated to hatred, we are approaching the stage where wrong is called right and right is called wrong,” the neurosurgeon Carson proclaimed on Facebook after discovering his name on SPLC’s list. “It is important for us to, once again, advocate true tolerance. That means being respectful of those with whom we disagree and allowing people to live according to their values without harassment. It is nothing but projectionism when some groups label those who disagree with them as haters.”

It took four months of backlash from conservatives for the SPLC to apologize and remove the “extremist” label from the 2016 Republican presidential candidate, who is now serving under the Trump administration.

And there have been severe consequences to the SPLC’s intentional mislabeling, as witnessed six years ago.

“Floyd Lee Corkins – who attempted a mass shooting at the conservative Family Research Center in 2012 – said he chose the organization for his act of violence because the SPLC listed them as a ‘hate group,’” Hassan noted.

Anyone or any group not aligned with the SPLC’s ultra-leftist ideas is a prime candidate for the nonprofit’s smear campaign, and its credibility has been challenged on a regular basis.

“The SPLC receives criticism from across the political spectrum for its smearing of conservative and centrist individuals and organizations,” Breitbart News reported.

As a result of the smears, some nonprofit organizations are hit financially by receiving less contributions.

“Conservative groups, like the Alliance Defending Freedom, also face regular smears by the SPLC,” Breitbart’s Allum Bokhari stressed. “As a result, they are barred from Amazon’s charity program.”

Even former President Barack Obama at one time chastised the SPLC for its extremist agenda.

“The far-left Southern Poverty Law Center was [even] too extreme for the Obama administration – but it’s just fine for Silicon Valley,” Fox News commented. “The Obama-era Justice Department once scolded the SPLC for overstepping ‘the bounds of zealous advocacy,’ after the organization labeled the non-profit Federation for American Immigration Reform a ‘hate group.’”

This article was originally published at OneNewsNow.com

Last week the people of Ireland voted to repeal Ireland’s Eighth Amendment that granted “equal protection of the right to life of the preborn child and his or her mother.” After the repeal, “legislators will have the power to legalize abortion for any reason up to birth.”

Leading up to the vote, however, Facebook, Twitter and Google all weighed in — arguably on the side of the pro-abort forces:

Google, Facebook, Twitter ban pro-life ads on Ireland abortion referendum

Leading up to the May 25th referendum in Ireland on repealing the Eighth Amendment, Google announced that it would suspend all advertising related to the subject. The move has been condemned by pro-life groups as an attempt “to rig the election.”

In the announcement, Google claimed the decision came as part of “our update around election integrity efforts globally.” Pro-abortion groups applauded the decision, but as observers have noted, the only ads related to the referendum appear to be pro-life ads, so the ban would effectively benefit the pro-abortion campaign and harm campaign efforts for life in Ireland.

Also, from the article:

The repeal campaign has benefitted from marked pro-abortion bias in the media, celebrity endorsements and significant funding from the international abortion lobby. As such, the pro-life campaigners are at a disadvantage and have used online advertising on Google and social media platforms to reach voters with their message. The pro-life groups Save the 8th and the Iona Institute issued a joint statement that read in part, “Online was the only platform available to the No campaign to speak to voters directly. That platform is now being undermined in order to prevent the public from hearing the message of one side.”

And this:

Twitter has also announced that it will suspend ads related to the referendum ahead of the May 25th vote. Twitter has a confirmed history of censoring pro-life content.

Facebook also “jumped on the bandwagon” to ban ads. The article notes that “the pro-abortion side is far from immune from outside influence as this side has received significant monetary support from George Soros and other globalist elites.” The question whether the social media giants would’ve issued the restriction “if a surge in advertising had come from the Yes [pro-abortion] side?” is worth asking.

Facebook claimed “neutrality” in a statement: “We understand the sensitivity of this campaign and will be working hard to ensure neutrality at all stages… Our goal is simple: to help ensure a free, fair and transparent vote on this important issue.”

Do you believe them?

There is plenty of reason not to. After all, the way the social media giants have been caught censoring conservatives, the claim of neutrality isn’t believable in the least. To read more about that — skim the many articles linked here.

After the 2016 elections, those social media giants realized that if their political agenda was to be advanced, they were going to have to clamp down even further on the information being provided by conservative organizations. Here was a headline at The Daily Signal: “After Royally Screwing Up the Election, the Media Want Control Over Your Facebook News.”

If the social media giants are indeed Leftists and committed to silencing conservatives, what is to be done?

An interesting article recently posted at National Review about whether those big tech companies are violating anti-trust laws. Here is an excerpt:

There is a strong Republican antitrust tradition.

The big digital monopolies demand that we conform to their worldview and shut us down when we dissent. They have too much power. They are are threat to this country. Congress is doing nothing about it. It’s time to complain, while we still can. #Tucker @FoxNews

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 27, 2018

When he tweeted these words, Carlson was expressing a sentiment that many on the right have come to embrace. People are concerned, with good reason, that big tech companies discriminate against conservatives. Numerous conservative outlets have had their videos demonetized on Google’s YouTube. PragerU is appealing their loss in a lawsuit over that. A study by The Western Journal showed that a change to Facebook’s algorithm disproportionately harmed conservative sites.

In normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be a problem for government to solve, but social media has come to dominate our national conversation. Large political websites thrive or die based on changes to Facebook and Google algorithms. Everyone from cable news to newspapers to online-only publications create and tweak their content based on how they think it will play on social media. A study has also shown that Google search results can have a frighteningly large impact on elections:

Randomized, controlled experiments conducted with more than 10,000 people from 39 countries suggest that one company alone — Google LLC, which controls about 90 percent of online search in most countries — has likely been determining the outcomes of upwards of 25 percent of the national elections in the world for several years now, with increasing impact each year as Internet penetration has grown.

Keep in mind that we’re not talking about individuals or even whole industries here; we’re talking about unaccountable monopolies with detailed information about hundreds of millions of Americans, billions in cash reserves, and the capability to shape what is discussed and what is not discussed in America in a way that no book, radio show, television show or individual has ever had.

The entire article can be found here.

Not everyone agrees. You can read an opposing view here.

Earlier this year, IFI asked the question “What is the Conservatives Movement’s Answer to Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube’s ‘Viewpoint Discrimination’?‘” That question is still on the table.

So many smaller groups often rely on the relatively inexpensive social media advertising options to help make more people aware that there are other arguments other than those coming from the Leftist “mainstream” media, Hollywood, and any number of other outlets.

This issue, and this challenge, isn’t going away any time soon. There is plenty of talent and resources available on the conservative side of the aisle. Eventually that talent and those dollars will have to get serious about winning the information war — with the help of Leftist social media giants or not.

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Last year brought a flurry of news reports about how Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have been actively working to suppress the conservative message. Their actions are not new — all the big four tech/social media giants are run by Leftists. Some speculate that the election of Donald Trump increased their motivation to step up their efforts.

The arguments in the public square and in the courts about the First Amendment, free speech, and religious liberty are common — and now another discussion is gaining momentum — this one is about viewpoint discrimination.

The government is not permitted to engage in it, nor are taxpayer funded entities. To what degree, however, are private companies allowed to do so because of public accommodation laws?

The “literature” on the topic, as they say, is growing. As the courts and commentators hash it out, it is worth excerpting from a must-read article last November by Ben Weingarten at The Federalist. Here is how it opens:

PragerU Sues YouTube For Discriminating Against Conservative Videos

PragerU’s suit against Google and YouTube alleging unlawful censorship and free speech discrimination has the potential to be groundbreaking.

Those blackballed from social media platforms for sharing views dissenting from prevailing progressive Silicon Valley orthodoxy have to date had little recourse against the tech speech police. That is why PragerU’s newly filed suit against Google and Google-owned YouTube alleging unlawful censorship and free speech discrimination based on the educational video purveyor’s conservative political viewpoint has the potential to be groundbreaking.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in California, details upwards of 50 PragerU educational videos that YouTube has, in PragerU’s view, unjustifiably slapped with “restricted mode” or “demonetization” filters, violating its First Amendment right to free speech. These filters limit or otherwise prevent viewers, based on characteristics like age, from consuming content deemed “inappropriate.”

Weingarten goes on to address whether basic conservative ideas can be called “inappropriate.” YouTube told PragerU that it “can’t share more details about our review process, as doing so could benefit channels that do not play by the rules (those who game the system).”

Weingarten writes:

Indeed, PragerU’s suit confirms what conservatives have recognized for some time: the rules that govern banning users, taking down content, or otherwise disadvantaging posts and tweets on the basis of the sharer’s ideology or the message’s bent have been capriciously written and arguably even more capriciously applied.

The section of Weingarten’s article regarding “Free Speech Rights Can Apply in Private Contexts” is important and informative:

PragerU’s argument rests on the idea that modern social media behemoths constitute the digital equivalent of today’s public square. Thus, their users must be provided the same free speech protections in cyberspace as in the town green.

The suit reads in part:

The United States Supreme Court…recognized more than a half-century ago that the right to free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution can apply even on privately owned property. One of the most important places to exchange and express views is cyberspace, particularly social media, where users engage in a wide array of protected First Amendment activity on any number of diverse topics.

Where, as in the case of Google/YouTube, a private party operates as one of the largest internet forums for speech and expression in the history of the world and such forum is accessible to and freely used by the public in general, there is nothing to distinguish it from any other forum except the fact that title to the property on which the forum exists belongs to a private corporation. As the highest court in the nation has made clear, ‘[t]he more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it.’

“Time will tell what the courts make of this argument,” Weingarten writes.

Later in the article he says:

To the degree to which there is still a relatively free market in technology, there are plenty of measures we can take to challenge Silicon Valley’s speech muzzles. Unlike the Left, which knows how to organize and strategically execute its political campaigns, to date conservatives have not committed to such a concerted effort to protect free speech in cyberspace. We should. These efforts would have to encompass extensive, highly coordinated and unceasing.

Click here to read the bullet points that follow. They provide examples of what I’ve been writing for years about our side’s failure in the information war. And that gets back to the question asked in the title of this article: what is the conservative movement’s answer to the big four social media outlets?

Weingarten applauds PragerU’s efforts, but notes that they are “by no means a sufficient and sure safeguard of our rights.” Putting our hopes in the decision of judges, some of whom (may I say it?) are unmoored from reality and the U.S. Constitution, is not a winning strategy.

Preserving free speech, like all of our cherished freedoms,” Weingarten writes, “requires constant vigilance and persistent defense.”

What does that mean? It can’t mean more of the same when it comes to the marketing and messaging efforts on the part of conservatives. One way to accelerate that process would be for big conservative donors to learn about the groups such as Illinois Family Institute and Illinois Family Action that are willing to innovate, fight and finally win the information war.

If you wish to read many more examples about how the “big four” treat conservatives, you can scan through these links: Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.

IFI Worldview Conference Feb. 10th

We are excited about our annual Worldview Conference featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet on Sat., Feb. 10, 2017 at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Join us for a wonderful opportunity to take enhance your biblical worldview and equip you to more effectively engage the culture:

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

A National Review article warns of a troubling new collaboration between the European Union (EU)and social media sites including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Microsoft to police and censor the Internet.

In a document with Orwellian overtones titled “Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech Online,” the EU announces this unholy alliance. While offering a token commitment to free speech,  assuring protection of even ideas “that offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population,” the dominant commitment is to suppressing “hate speech.”

This document makes clear that part of the motivation for global censorship is combatting the use of the Internet to advance terrorism, which is certainly a worthy goal. Unfortunately, the presumptuous “progressive” project to impose leftist moral and political views on the entire world corrupts even worthy goals.

For clarification of what constitutes “illegal hate speech,” this new alliance (henceforth referred to as Big Brother) directs readers to a document titled “Acts Adopted Under Title VI of the EU Treaty” which states that “‘Hatred’ should be understood as referring to hatred based on race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin.’” “Hatred should be understood as hatred”? Say what?

The initial structure of the sentence suggests a definition of “hatred” is forthcoming, but instead what follows is a list of conditions (i.e., “race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin”) toward which rhetorical hatred may not be expressed.

But what constitutes hatred? Does criticism of the tenets of Islam—moderate or radical—constitute hatred? Does criticism of Judaism constitute hatred? Do the vulgar rantings of homosexual bigot Dan Savage who referred to orthodox Christians as “bat sh**, a**h*le, dou**ebags” constitute ban-worthy hatred? (Read more about Savage HERE.)

The list of conditions that these Internet language police seek to protect from public expressions of “hatred” is neither exhaustive nor fixed. Big Brother’s anti-First Amendment Code of Conduct concludes with this portentous statement:

To this end, regular meetings will take place and a preliminary assessment will be reported to the High Level Group on Combating Racism, Xenophobia and all forms of intolerance by the end of 2016.

It’s not just undefined “hatred” that is being banned from the Internet. It’s undefined “intolerance” as well. And it’s not just the aforementioned six privileged conditions toward which no Internet-user may express hatred or intolerance, but all other conditions or identity groups toward which “intolerance” could conceivably be directed.

This sentence is poorly constructed in that a grammatically correct reading suggests that it is condemning the forms intolerance could assume. The forms of intolerance could be, for example, hurling epithets at or urging assaults on members of the six groups. But since the phrase “all forms of intolerance” is included in a list that alludes to conditions for which persons may be hated (i.e., racism alludes to race and xenophobia alludes to national origin), it is clear that Big Brother is expanding the groups toward which “intolerance” may not be expressed.

So what might those unnamed groups be? What other groups identifiable by some shared trait might the Internet censors believe must be free from “intolerance”? Perhaps a speech given by the EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality can help us discern the gerrymandered boundaries of Internet safe spaces.

Here is an extended excerpt from a speech delivered last October by EU commissioner Věra Jourová to the European Region of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA-Europe):

I am pleased to lend my support to this vibrant space for discussion on LGBTI rights in Europe and beyond.

We have recently seen homophobic statements made by a number of political leaders. At the United Nations General Assembly in September, First Vice-President Timmermans made it clear that human rights are for everyone and LGBTI people must not be an exception. I fully endorse his views and will not hesitate to speak out against homophobia and transphobia.

We are also seeing that a narrative undermining LGBTI rights is quietly spreading, often disguised as so-called religious principles. This is unacceptable.

First Vice-President Timmermans and I recently held a conference in Brussels on antisemitism and islamophobia, where we also discussed online hate speech and how to combat it. It is clear that we must fight all hate speech, online and offline, whatever group of society it targets. We will work with internet providers to ensure hate speech is taken off the web as soon as it’s reported.

…

[W]hen it comes to social acceptance of LGBT people in daily life situations, respondents are less accepting. Less than half of respondents (44 percent) say they would be comfortable if their son or daughter had a relationship with a person of the same sex, and only 49 percent are comfortable with gay couples showing affection in public. For transgender people, the levels of acceptance are also low….

What we need is to raise awareness of the benefits of diversity. To this end I will launch an EU-wide campaign to promote LGBTI-equality in 2016….The campaign will be part of Commission’s wider effort and actions I plan to implement in coming years to ensure the rights of LGBTI people and their acceptance are enforced.

…

If we want to move the equality agenda forward, we need a united effort from civil society, businesses, straight allies and national governments.

Lest the naïve among us mistakenly believe that Jourová is solely concerned with existential threats against particular groups, take note of one of her concerns: In this speech in which Jourova condemns hate speech and commits the EU to wiping it off the Internet, she offers parental “discomfort” with a son’s or daughter’s homoerotic relationship as something that society, the world of commerce, and national governments should unite to change.

Another clue as to what constitutes “intolerance” can be found in an EU document titled “Homophobia and Discrimination on Grounds of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in the EU Member States”:

The term ‘hate speech’, as used in this section, includes a broader spectrum of verbal acts drawing upon or expressing homophobia and/or transphobia in degrading or disrespectful public discourse. Based on available data, it is possible to identify at least three types of hate speech as having particular importance in a homophobic context: hate speech by public figures, hate speech by public religious figures and hate speech published, often anonymously, on the Internet.

…

[A]nti-LGBT statements are mainly articulated by conservative politicians and religious (Catholic, Lutheran or Evangelical Christian) public figures. These statements draw mainly upon the theme that LGBT persons and ways of living constitute a threat to society….it became clear that certain types of arguments were being used over and over again to speak out against lesbians and gays’. Among these are arguments:

• aiming to preserve the ethnic homogeneity and integrity of the nation and the state by excluding or subordinating gays and lesbians;

• drawing upon Christian belief to support the exclusion of gays and lesbians from the ‘moral community’ which is understood as encompassing the entire nation;

• referring to an unspecified morality, often invoking family values to argue for the exclusion or subordination of gays and lesbians. [emphasis added]

To the EU, any expression of the belief–including religious belief–that homoerotic activity is immoral or contrary to the health and integrity of the family and the larger community constitutes hate speech. Chew on that subversive idea for a while.

What do “progressive” leaders of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Microsoft view as evidence of hatred? What do they view as evidence of intolerance? Do they view expressions of disapproval of homoerotic activity or relationships as evidence of hatred or intolerance that should be banned? Do they view condemnation of the legal recognition of homoerotic unions as “marriages” as evidence of hatred or intolerance of those who believe differently and act in accordance with those beliefs? Do they view criticism of leftist assumptions about gender-dysphoria as hateful and intolerant?

To tolerate means to put up with or endure something objectionable. It does not mean approving of all actions or ideas or refraining from criticism of actions or ideas. And hatred of pernicious ideas does not constitute hatred of persons who espouse those ideas. Will this newly formed alliance of speech vigilantes make these distinctions? Doubtful.

Rather, it appears that in the service of expunging from the global public square ideas leftists don’t like, this alliance will, with Comstockian fervor, whitewash the Internet.

When liberal journalists come out and confess their bias, it’s tempting to say, “The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.” But don’t. This is good news.

Writing at the New York Times recently, columnist Nicholas Kristof took that hard first step. The title of his piece says it all: “A Confession of Liberal Intolerance.”

“We progressives,” he writes, “believe in diversity, and we want women, blacks, Latinos, gays and Muslims at the table, so long as they aren’t conservatives.” (Or, one might reasonably add, evangelical Christians).

Kristof and fellow liberals profess a love for tolerance and diversity. But when it comes to the most important kind—diversity of thought—he admits that the gatekeepers in academia and the media actively stigmatize those who hold views different from their own.

“We’re fine with people who don’t look like us,” he writes, “as long as they think like us.”

Universities, once recognized as bastions of tolerance and diversity, bear perhaps the greatest blame. Kristof cites studies showing that just 6 to 11 percent of humanities professors are conservatives. Fewer than one in ten social-studies professors call themselves conservative. For perspective, consider that twice that number identify as Marxists!

And lest anyone blame this on conservative self-selection, a third of academics openly admit that they would be less likely to hire a qualified candidate who voted Republican. Black, evangelical sociologist George Yancey says he faces more discrimination on campus for his Christian beliefs than he does off-campus for the color of his skin. This aggressive bias turns classrooms into hard-left “echo-chambers” where only one side of any debate is ever heard.

Kristof took his concerns to Facebook, where he asked his mostly liberal followers why those who pride themselves on tolerance can be so intolerant. The replies he got were stunning.

“Much of the ‘conservative’ worldview consists of ideas that are known empirically to be false,” commented one fellow liberal.

Why stop with conservatives? asked another. “How about we make faculties more diverse by hiring idiots?”

Wow. Kristof was understandably dumbfounded. “My Facebook followers have incredible compassion for war victims in South Sudan, for kids who have been trafficked, even for abused chickens, but no obvious empathy for conservative scholars facing discrimination.”

Speaking of Facebook, Kristof wasn’t the only one this month coming clean about left-wing bias. Several former Facebook employees recently told Gizmodo that the social media titan’s “news curators” “routinely [suppressed] conservative news” on the site’s trending module.

Rather than serving as an unbiased meter of what people are talking about, concluded Gizmodo, “Facebook’s news section reflects “the biases of its workers and the institutional imperatives of the corporation.”

Whatever your political persuasion, this skewing of education and news to push an agenda is toxic to free societies. It’s gotten so bad that even a few brave liberals are asking, “Is this really what we stand for?”

And we should applaud them! But it’s only a start. If we want other voices heard in academia and the media, we have to make the case for why that’s crucial—both by helping our friends and neighbors recognize the bias, and by offering our own voices in answer to the echo.

Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News
Michael Nunez | gizmodo.com | May 09, 2016

Facebook news selection is in hands of editors not algorithms, documents show
Sam Thielman | The Guardian | May 12, 2016

This article was originally posted at BreakPoint.org

Over the weekend, I was made aware of the Facebook comments of two of Illinois’ elected lawmakers in response to my article on the impending marriage redefinition vote in which I examined the appeals to emotion that are relentlessly exploited by the Left to divert attention from the intellectual shallowness and inconsistency of the Left’s poor arguments.

These Facebook responses illustrate both the dishonesty and lack of maturity that also inform the movement to normalize homosexuality and pervert the legal definition of marriage.

The first was a comment from the bill’s chief sponsor State Representative Greg Harris (D-Chicago) who either completely misunderstood one of the central points of my article or, more likely, intentionally misrepresented what I actually said.

Harris wrote that I believe:

Family values don’t include church going, homemaking, raising children, doing chores together or helping your spouse go through cancer if you happen to be a lesbian.

What I actually argued is that caring for children, managing finances, attending church, doing chores, and caring for one another during an illness does not mean the adults engaged in those activities are married. Note, I never claimed that those activities are unrelated to family life or family values. I said the presence of those activities does not mean that those engaged in them are in a marital union. I said that the presence of those activities does not mean that marriage is wholly unrelated to sexual complementarity. My point was clear that marriage is not constituted solely by those activities.

It is neither honest nor helpful to misrepresent an opponent’s argument. The public deserves more from the elected employees whose salaries they pay.

Moving from the dishonesty of politicians to the lack of maturity of politicians, we can look to the Facebook post of lesbian State Representative Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago) who wrote this about me:

This is the same woman who described me [Cassidy] as a ‘perfervid promoter of all things homosexual.’ She [Higgins] definitely got a word of the day calendar for Christmas last year.

The response of this public servant who is pushing to radically change the legal definition of society’s bedrock social institution—a change that will diminish religious freedom; undermine the inherent right of children to be raised by a mother and father, preferably their own; inevitably lead to the legalization of plural unions—is to mock the fact that I know words that she apparently does not.

What Harris, Cassidy, Alderman Deb Mell, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and Governor Patrick Quinn should do is respond to the questions about marriage that IFI has posed: What is marriage? Why is the government involved? If marriage is constituted solely by intense loving feelings, why should it be limited to two people? What is the origin and reason for the requirement that only two people may marry? If marriage is constituted solely by love with no inherent connection to reproductive potential, why shouldn’t close blood relatives or platonic friends be permitted to “marry”? Do children have an inherent right to be raised by a mother and father—preferably their own biological mothers and fathers?

Mockery, dishonesty, appeals to emotion, and a relentless refusal to respond to these central questions about marriage do not reflect well on our public servants and do not well serve the public.

We need to fight for marriage with intelligence, honesty, seriousness, tenacity, courage, conviction, and prayer.

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