Facebook removes 'Convoy to DC 2022' group
washingtonexaminer.com
washingtonexaminer.com
Mastodon is federated. You can host your own node if you want to. Matrix too, but I wouldn't call it a platform. It's more like XMPP.
Anyway this is all about politics: Biden says that he is for small blue collar workers (aka truck drivers) but he also does not want be shown as wrong and lifts COVID restrictions.
The bottom line is this: this is all about politics and Facebook is making mistake of not allowing pages like this.
Their original gripe was about lifting the order that unvaccinated truckers needed to test and isolate on re-entering Canada. Which was then made a moot point, since the US introduced a rule that says that truckers entering the US must be vaccinated.
Since then the group organizing the trucker protest has published a "memorandum of understanding" that demands that the entire government dissolve itself and hand over power to the truckers[1]. It is a wild document that seems to be a written request for a coup.
I'm against these protests but extremely wary that FB etc. would shut them down.
GoFundMe locked the donations to the Canadian protest.
The 'powers that be' need only point at a 'canard' to do so, in the case of GoFundMe they cited 'police reports' ... imagine them doing thee same for BLM protests which, which largely peaceful, often had violent components.
It's reasonable to have policies to ban COVID liars and QAnoners etc. but it gives a lot of legitimacy to 'regular truckers who want to protest' to shut them down from wanting to communicate.
I can't imagine a more powerful way to permanently damage ostensibly legitimate authority than those getting shut down.
TikTok has not shut down the truckers live feeds from Ottawa, they're generally a good bunch that have utterly bad views on covid and vaccines, but their hesitation is partly rooted in 'the government lying to them' and the way the press has covered them, the way FB, GoFundME etc. have closed ranks on them, I'm fearful that it will just even further justify their actions now, and in the future as they entirely turn away from trusting the state, medical authorities etc..
It's a tricky game we are in.
Food for thought.
If for instance, that is the plan, how would you as a free nation defend against this? Their ham handed answer is censorship. But this is backfiring. So what do you do? Serious answers only.
That will kneecap this convoy before they can even start.
Again, this is all about politics. Some people are sick of these restrictions and they want to vent their frustration. Facebook is making mistake of not allowing pages like this. I do not think these people are nuts or QAnon. They are just frustrated.
But nothing is ever all about politics.
Hybrid warfare exploits legitimate fault lines.
So to defend against the weaponization of these protests, what do you do? I’m this case, capitulating to the demands may work. But next time? How do you protect against trolls trying to start fights and cause real issues?
Oh mate, I got news for you:
https://twitter.com/WillieHandler/status/1487838826915860481
https://mobile.twitter.com/Justin_Ling/status/14876671774613...
https://mobile.twitter.com/CaptCanuck6/status/14882634301759...
https://mobile.twitter.com/MarcCossette/status/1488168403575...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/02/freedom-conv...
https://mobile.twitter.com/notandrea/status/1487871040231546...
Just look at a comparison of covid hospitalizations and deaths between the US and those countries. Adjusted for population, they're super high in the US. Once those go dow, the covid restrictions will go away. If they were as high as in the US in England, Sweden or Denmark, they wouldn't have lifted the restrictions. It's so simple.
Attempts to silence Joe Rogan is just another nail in that coffin. They can’t control what he says, so they need to stop him from saying it at all costs. Ideally before the next election.
Everything liberals don’t like is “literally fascism” and people who disagree with them are “actual nazis.” And this is regarded as Very Serious Discourse among the self proclaimed highly intelligent.
All misinformation a year ago and reality today.
But that’s besides the point. After they started deplatforming right wingers, they quickly started targeting socialists too.
Going after the hard right makes building the infra to silence people palatable. Then they get everyone else they didn’t like.
Just say - "we were wrong by claiming that vaccinated cannot spread COVID so we will lift COVID restrictions". Also since data shows that it is unlikely that kids will get sick we will lift mask mandate in schools.
But data clearly shows that "vaccinated people are less likely to get seriously ill". So please do get vaccinated. ASAP.
Very simple - just follow science and maybe, just maybe, you will be able to convert some people to belive the science.
https://about.fb.com/news/2020/08/addressing-movements-and-o...
That said, I thought the internet would be the end of pseudoscience, but there's apparently no profit in debunking pseudoscience like there is promoting it.
Mysteries of the human mind. Enact a law that forbids even for some good reason that it's illegal say to wear hats made of dried artichokes, and although nobody would have wanted to wear one before, suddenly you'll see flocks of protestors with dried artichokes hats claiming democracy is dying because some very clever manipulative actor told them so.
Mandatory vaccination for many diseases is already in place since many decades in many countries, and some those vaccines in their first days could have been "young and not thoroughly tested" as anti vaxxers claim of Covid-19 vaccines (which are not), yet nobody made a drama or thought to use mandatory vaccination as political leverage. Back in the day, however, we had no such thing as this amplifier of human idiocy called social media, in which every matter can be abused to divide people in factions in order to exploit their tendency to become defensive, see enemies everywhere, compact their herd and ultimately also becoming sources of manufactured consent (votes).
So, I hereby swear that as soon as I'm being in power I'll ditch that absolute nazi-like law that prevents us from wearing our traditional beloved dried artichokes hats. Now vote me, thanks.