If you value the first amendment, NOW is the time to pay attention. Democratic policy makers are making some very sneaky moves in hopes they will gain complete control of the content that you see on social media. Want to get rid of news sites that lean too far right? Just call it “fake news” and demand social media companies like Facebook and Twitter ban it.
Free Beacon details the moves they are making right now:
A group founded by liberal operative David Brock spoke of the need to force policy changes at Google, Facebook, and YouTube to combat the “proliferation” of “fake news” at the left’s largest dark money donor conference, according to an agenda obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The Democracy Alliance, a secretive group of deep-pocketed donors who each push hundreds of thousands of dollars to progressive groups approved by the network, held their spring investment conference this week at the five-star InterContinental Buckhead Hotel in Atlanta.
Top Democrats such as Terry McAuliffe, who is often floated as a potential 2020 candidate for president, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez, and billionaire “Need to Impeach” campaign leader Tom Steyer were in attendance.
They make it clear what their agenda is in this statement.
“Media Matters will continue our core mission of disarming right-wing information, while leading the fight against the next generation of conservative disinformation: The proliferation of fake news and propaganda now threatening the country’s information ecosystem,” the group’s documents read. “Utilizing our capacity as the nation’s premier progressive media watchdog and rapid-response research center, Media Matters will further increase our visibility in the ecosystem, strengthen the ability of our supporters and partners to influence it, and improve the infrastructure on which it rests.”
Within Brock’s agenda, Media Matters said that over the next four years the group would focus on exposing “serial misinformers and right-wing propagandists inhabiting everything from social media to the highest levels of government.”
The group said that platforms such as Google and Facebook would “no longer uncritically and without consequence host and enrich fake news sites and propagandists” and vowed to “innovate against fake news and propaganda” by using big data analysis and an “early warning system,” using predictive technology and collaborating with social media platforms.
Media Matters wrote of consulting Facebook on right-leaning media sites.
“After Facebook responded to our campaign by acknowledging the problem of fake news and agreeing to do something about it, we began a dialogue,” the documents read. “It became clear from these conversations that Facebook needed our help in fully understanding the problem and identifying concrete solutions.”
“Further, it also became clear that we had information and insight that they didn’t have that was helpful in educating them on the full scope of the problem.”
Media Matters said that their map of the “constellation of right-wing Facebook pages that had been the biggest purveyors of fake news” was an example of them helping to educate Facebook.
The organization takes credit for getting founder Mark Zuckerberg to commit to fixing the problem and said they had “been engaging with Facebook leadership behind the scenes” to share their expertise and “offer input” on developing solutions.
This is deeply disturbing. When we start saying this or that opinion needs to be silenced the first amendment might as well not exist.
Please STAY INFORMED and SPREAD THE WORD on this troubling movement to take away free speech.
