This usually means fiddling with the algorithm, the computer code that decides what posts people do and do not see. If the writer uses a certain word more often than others, for example, a programmer at a social media platform could write the algorithm in such a way that it hides most mentions of that word. Then, all of a sudden, the writer effectively disappears from the timelines of his followers, and from the digital public square altogether.
As this process is highly technical and requires expertise in computer science just to understand, it can be difficult for most people to detect. Think about it. Even if you or I were sitting at Facebook’s headquarters looking at an account we know was being “shadow-banned,” we likely wouldn’t know what to look for. Luckily, there have been a few whistleblowers from inside who understand how it’s done and they have come forward to expose this.
One of them, who chose to remain anonymous, spoke to the Washington Examiner in 2018, just a few weeks after he left his job at Facebook. This was just one year after Mark Zuckerberg had famously defended the rights of all people on his platform to express their views without censorship, regardless of whether those views were “deeply offensive.” Even Holocaust deniers, according to Zuckerberg, should be allowed to express their opinions because, in his words, “they’re not intentionally getting it wrong.”28
According to his former employee, however, Zuckerberg and his team at Facebook were not willing to extend that same benefit of the doubt to the average conservative. He described a kind of digital tool kit he often came across on accounts he monitored for Facebook. Inside this tool kit were a series of digital commands that could make a Facebook account behave differently.
One of these tools, he said, was a line of code called “ActionDeboostLiveDistribution.” When applied to the live-stream of a video on Facebook, this code would drastically reduce the number of people who saw the video.29 A video that would normally get hundreds of thousands of views would suddenly receive far fewer. The former employee said he only saw this tool being used on the accounts of prominent conservatives such as Mike Cernovich, Steven Crowder, and the Daily Caller website. As far as he could tell, it was never used against liberal accounts. So, conservatives were being secretly filtered out of existence online, often without knowing why their audiences no longer seemed to see them or their content.
What’s no secret is that just about everyone who works at these major platforms is liberal, but the leaders of these companies still maintain that having entire staffs of young, brainwashed liberals does not lead to biased editorial decisions on the parts of these companies.
Some of them may actually believe this. Thanks to Project Veritas, we know for certain that the liberal bias of companies like Facebook is so entrenched that most people probably don’t even realize it. In 2018, the organization obtained a presentation given by two Facebook engineers named Seiji Yamamoto and Eduardo Arino de la Rubia called “Coordinating Trolling on FB.” Trolling, in case you don’t know, is the practice of saying something inflammatory just to get a reaction out of someone.
Both liberals and conservatives do it all the time, and it’s generally accepted as part of online conversation. In the presentation, however, these two engineers outlined the steps that engineers at Facebook could take to suppress content that didn’t align with their views. In one scenario, they gave a list of terms that are often used by conservatives—from MSM for “mainstream media” to SJW for “social justice warrior”—and then described a whole cache of special tools to censor accounts that use those terms. There was even a system for rating how dangerous these accounts were called the “troll score.” According to a former Facebook employee interviewed by Project Veritas, “they created the troll score so they could help identify, using words they would post, pictures… to determine whether this person should be on the platform or not.”
In September 2018, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce to discuss shadow-banning and other alleged political biases.30 While he categorically denied that his company intentionally engaged in such a practice, he would later admit that the company had been “way too aggressive” in banning the accounts of conservatives or people who defined themselves as “right-wing.”31 Dorsey did admit to Congress that employees at Twitter had “failed [their] intended impartiality.” Apparently, in trying to crack down on what liberals often call “hate speech,” the engineers at Twitter made it so that about 600,000 accounts were “filtered” out—meaning hidden, or shadow-banned—from the feeds of Twitter users all over the world.32 Some of these accounts, he said, belonged to Republican members of Congress. Most of them belonged to conservatives.
Regardless of how we solve this problem, one thing is clear: the Left has an agenda to silence conservative voices, to ensure to the extent they can that no one sees or hears any alternative view to their twisted, un-American agenda. Donald Trump took advantage of a relatively free marketplace of ideas to get his message out without obfuscation, distortion, or spin by the liberal media. That played a large part in the most shocking political victory in American history. They want to make it impossible for something like that to ever happen again.
This is not a two-way battle. There is no movement, online or off, to silence liberal speech. You don’t see conservatives storming lecture halls on campuses to prevent liberal speakers from having their say. You don’t see conservative media outlets, few as they are, trying to destroy the careers of liberal media figures. There is no conservative equivalent to Media Matters. And no conservatives are trying to make liberals disappear online. It’s just not in our DNA.
There are reasons for that. First, conservatives are committed to a free society, where even controversial or offensive speech is tolerated, so that productive conversations occur. We know the importance of the First Amendment and would rather tolerate the Left’s hate than call in the government to ban anything just because it makes us feel uncomfortable.
Second, we know our ideas will win, as long as they get a fair hearing. Just take a look around, less than three years after Donald Trump’s inauguration. The economy is booming, ISIS is destroyed, international rivals are on their heels, and America has retaken its place as the preeminent leader of the free world. The only way for the Left to fight results like that is to silence anyone who talks about them. We cannot allow ourselves to be gagged and bound by these maniacs. This is a fight for the God-given right of free speech. It’s a fight for the soul of America. It’s time to go to war and fight for the right to say whatever we damn well please.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
In Closing
I imagine every generation thinks things are worse than ever and, for some, rightfully so.
The generations that lived through the Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II are among those who lived through extremely grueling times. I’m sure that during the worst of it they wished they could go back in time to the way things used to be.
As I think about these difficult times when brother fought brother, times when there wasn’t enough food on the table, and times where every day was fraught with the possibility of hearing a loved one would not be coming home, fear, anxiety, and desperation were the norm every day.
But when I think about distressing periods in our history, I am always reminded of America’s resilience, her ability to fight through our darkest days and come out better, stronger, and more determined. Like the phoenix, we rise from the proverbial ashes time after time. The dawn always does follow the night.
What is it about America that makes her so resilient and able to withstand these difficult hardships? Maybe it’s in our DNA, or maybe it’s in our history. Our forefathers were willing to give up everything—fame, fortune, even family—to start a new nation free of British rule. The houses of twelve of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were burnt to the ground. Nine signers died of wounds during the Revolutionary War.
These were not power-hungry people. They were
willing to put everything on the line. They were willing to work as hard as needed for their new country. There were no demands. There was no arrogance. They were willing to logically explain why they wanted to be free and why they wanted to start their own country. There was no ambivalence, and there was certainly no political correctness. They spoke their minds and put all they had behind their words. They were clear and unashamed in their convictions.
In 1776, the Founding Fathers were prescient enough to state that all men are created equal and possess certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There was no doubt that it was our Creator, not any government, that endowed us with these natural rights. They understood that government does not give us rights, but rather we give our consent to be governed.
Here we are on the eve of the 2020 presidential election, and the campaigns have already begun. It’s been a whirlwind two and a half years since Donald Trump became president. Since I started this book talking about the nonstop news cycle, I’d like to end it noting that so much has happened it’s almost impossible to keep up, let alone record it all. Suffice it to say things are drastically different than when President Donald Trump took office.
ISIS seemed to be everywhere, not just in the Middle East massacring Christians and Muslims, but lone wolves were slaughtering Americans while they shouted “Allahu Akbar.” Not only has ISIS been defeated in the Middle East, but thank God we have not experienced a lone wolf attack since Donald Trump has become president. These attacks were hard for ordinary Americans to understand when the FBI would refer to slaughters such as these as workplace violence, denying the reality of what they were. But then again Obama had a habit of calling Muslim slaughters workplace violence.
We were told manufacturing jobs were a thing of the past when Obama lost over 200,000 manufacturing jobs. Obama even made fun of Donald Trump, asking if he would wave his magic wand and create manufacturing jobs. Apparently, he did, because under Donald Trump, we have gained 600,000 new manufacturing jobs.
We were told that 1 percent growth was the new normal GDP, and yet Donald Trump has shown that a consistent 3 percent plus GDP growth is not only a possibility, but a reality.
We all have a tax cut because of the tax reform bill, although the Democrats try to deny it. But just look at your paycheck and you’ll see there’s a difference. We have more money in our pockets and in our 401(k)s. Unemployment is at a 50 year low.
The Left refuses to give the president credit for any of this. The Left no longer stands for anything but hate. They hate us, they hate America, and they hate the president we elected. How many of you have lost friends because they have deleted you from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram—literally deleted you from their lives? There is no tolerance, no room for dialogue. The radicals simply don’t care what you think. If you are not like them, watch out.
In their effort to remake America, they are trying to banish conservatives from the public square, both online and in person, rioting at university campuses whenever a conservative is scheduled to speak. And as we approach the 2020 election, you can bet they will continue their efforts to curb the speech of anyone who disagrees with their narrative. If you are not for reparations, you are a racist. If you don’t agree with any one of their beliefs, you’re a racist or a fascist. Be wary. If you’re a fascist in their minds, they will tell law enforcement to stand down while Antifa is allowed to attack you. The justification for their verbal and physical hatred is that you are a racist or a fascist, which they assume simply because you’re a Trump supporter wearing a red MAGA hat.
They want late-term abortion rights. They want sanctuary cities so that illegals who are criminals are protected from our legal process.
They are angry and they are jealous. They want what you have, but they’re not willing to make it for themselves. They want the government to take it from you and give it to them and to illegals who have no right to be here to begin with. Illegals simply walk into our country, claiming they want asylum, and then don’t show up for scheduled court hearings. They just expect us to provide for them and give them de facto amnesty.
These angry Democrats say that Donald Trump colluded with the Russians, who supposedly put their fingers on the scale and got him elected, even after it’s been proven categorically false. Yet they won’t bother to look at whether any Americans had their fingers on the scale to tip it against Donald Trump. They won’t acknowledge either the Deep State or their illegal actions to spy on and attempt to take down the President of the United States.
They say our president is a warmonger, that he can’t wait to pull the trigger, when the truth is he has exhibited restraint when it comes to our enemies. When Iran shot down one of our unmanned military drones over international waters, the president didn’t overreact. He was thoughtful and decisive. His response was to put additional sanctions on Iran. Unlike the past two presidents, he wants to keep us out of unnecessary military conflicts. He’s pursuing peace through strength, the same strategy that won the Cold War.
Donald Trump loves America. His Fourth of July celebration on the National Mall before a cheering crowd chanting “USA! USA!” celebrated America while the radical Left was busy denigrating the Betsy Ross flag, the same flag flown during Obama’s second inauguration ceremony in 2013, calling it offensive because of its connection to an era of slavery. President Trump’s Fourth of July celebration on the mall was the first in almost seventy years. He recounted great moments in our history: the Revolutionary War, the fight by the suffragettes to get the vote, and the work of the civil rights movement. Donald Trump doesn’t just believe America is great; he believes America is the most exceptional nation in history. He has built our military back to being number one. He displayed military tanks, stealth bombers, and F-22 Raptor stealth fighters, but it was the flyovers, including Air Force One (although he wasn’t on it), that brought thunderous applause from the massive crowd.
But it wasn’t just military might the president was showcasing. He highlighted the innovation of the moon landing and the NASA space program. He lauded the development of an effective treatment for childhood leukemia and honored Clarence Henderson, who took part in the 1960 civil rights sit-in at the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.
The Left was apoplectic days before the holiday, comparing his patriotic celebration to a North Korean military display. How ludicrous. It was nothing of the sort. It was vintage Donald Trump, the man who came from the outside, selected by the forgotten men and women of America, reminding us that American success is a choice worth celebrating, that American innovation is worth encouraging, and that America’s military is always worth honoring.
As we approach 2020 you have a decision to make. You can sit back and hope that the radical Left, committed to remaking America, doesn’t succeed. Or you can do something about it. Donald Trump was elected to do something about it. We need to give the man the opportunity to continue his mission, fighting to keep America on its path back to greatness. We need to elect a Congress that will work with him rather than resist him. And we need to continue to speak out, despite the Left’s efforts to silence us. We cannot allow them to destroy the truth nor the America we love.
Acknowledgments
I told you the man moves faster than the speed of light, so I needed a few people to help create some cosmic interruption.
My thanks to Al Pirro, my lawyer, always generous with his time and ready to jump in and help, thanks for always having faith in me.
As we embark on our second book together, I want to express my deep gratitude to the team at Hachette led by publisher Rolf Zettersten and marketing and sales VPs Patsy Jones and Billy Clark. I thank them and everyone in sales, marketing, publicity and production for all their support. I am truly proud to be one of your authors.
To Editorial Director Kate Hartson, thanks for always being available and willing to work above and beyond what’s needed, and always with a smile. Your support and enthu
siasm are bright lights for me.
To Tom Mullen, thanks for your research and fastidious attention to detail as well as your availability, given both our crazy schedules.
And finally, to the newest member of my family, Stella, who like Sir Lancelot, huddles with me whenever I sit to write, providing unending warmth and loyalty. Although they are standard poodles, in spite of their size, they are really lap dogs. But don’t tell anyone!
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ALSO BY JUDGE JEANINE PIRRO
PUBLISHED BY CENTER STREET
LIARS, LEAKERS, AND LIBERALS:
THE CASE AGAINST THE ANTI-TRUMP CONSPIRACY
Endnotes
CHAPTER ONE: HERE’S MY OPEN
1. John Solomon, “Lisa Page bombshell: FBI couldn’t prove Trump-Russia collusion before Mueller appointment.” The Hill, September 16, 2018. https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/406881-lisa-page-bombshell-fbi-couldnt-prove-trump-russia-collusion-before-mueller.
2. Ian Schwartz, “Brennan: I Smell More Indictments Coming from Mueller, I Hope He Uncovers More,” RealClear Politics, March 8, 2019, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/03/08/brennan_i_smell_more_indictments_coming_from_mueller_i_hope_he_uncovers_more.html.
3. Paul Krugman, “Days of Greed and Desperation,” New York Times, November 17, 2017, https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/11/17/days-of-greed-and-desperation/.
4. Daniel K. Williams, “What Happened on Election Day,” New York Times, November 9, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/opinion/election-night-2016.
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