Posted on 08/19/2018 8:20:00 AM PDT by Perseverando
What’s become abundantly clear over the past few months is that liberals are now jumping on the anti-fake news bandwagon and using it as an excuse to censor political speech that doesn’t align with their radical agenda. This strategy is perhaps most prominent on social media and various websites across the Internet, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and is implemented by teams of leftists and extremists like George Soros who show zero regards for the freedom of speech outlined in the First Amendment. It’s as if the ability to control what information is spread across the Internet and what information gets suppressed is more important than the United States Constitution, which completely contradicts everything that our country was founded upon.
It appears that the most recent Internet-based assault on the First Amendment comes from the popular web browser Mozilla Firefox, which just days ago announced that it would be launching an effort to combat what it considers to be “fake news” and misinformation.
According to Business Insider, Mozilla said that it was launching a Mozilla Information Trust Initiative, or MITI. The web browser explained that it is going to be “investing in people, programs and projects” to “disrupt misinformation online.”
Mozilla went on to say that the “internet’s ability to power democratic society suffers greatly” as a result of fabricated stories like “Pope endorsing Donald Trump for the U.S. presidency” or “Dead FBI agent killed in a mysterious fire with information on former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.” While both of these articles turned out not to be true, it is still a wonder why Mozilla believes it has the authority to censor stories like these in the first place.
“You only have to look at the number of initiatives that have risen up to address this challenge [of fake news], either by tech companies or other organizations to see how worrying this phenomenon is to so many,” said Mozilla’s innovation director Katharina Borchert in a recent interview with AFP.
What many of these websites and Internet-based companies don’t understand is that the United States Constitution is the law of the land, and no person or group of people is above it. The freedom of speech is an inalienable right, meaning that man didn’t give it to us and man can’t take it away either. Mozilla makes the argument that the spread of fake news on the Internet causes our democratic society to suffer, but in reality, it’s the suppression of these news articles that is the real threat. The truth is that each time an article or a website gets censored by companies like Mozilla, liberty erodes and America takes one step closer to an authoritarian state.
Not all web browsers and Internet-based companies are going in this direction, however. One of these companies is Brave, a relatively new Internet browser that was founded by former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich. On their website, Brave states that its goal is “to transform the online ad ecosystem with micropayments and a new revenue-sharing solution to give users and publishers a better deal, where fast, safe browsing is the path to a brighter future for the open web.”
Incredibly, Brave was able to raise $35 million from its Initial Coin Offering, or ICO, in under 30 seconds back in June, according to a report put together by Tech Crunch. For more information about Brave web browser, visit Brave.com.
As the United States begins to look more and more like George Orwell’s famous book 1984, the American people are desperately trying to hold on to as much of their individual liberty as they possibly can. Censorship has become all too common, and if we don’t put an end to it and stand up for the Constitution, it’s only going to get worse.
It seems we are moving from Freedom of Speech to Freedom to listen.
Why are these others better?
The Bush Rule: “Pissing off your Base is not a winning strategy”
I don’t want anyone else deciding what I can and cannot see. It is insane, who are these people who will actually decide? Why would anyone think someone else should decide what another is “allowed” to see?
If something is illegal, sure it should be blocked but this is so far beyond that...this is “for your own good” we will decide what you can see.
The left already does this through the MSM, decisions are made what to report and what not to report, then the slant is decided. That is the main reason so many no longer watch or read what the media is producing. It ceased to be news years ago, became at best opinion and now is in the propaganda realm.
The left is determined to shut down media that is not in lock step with their agenda before the midterms. That is obvious. I have no idea what we can do about it, but there it is, that is the plan.
Trying to “reeducate” those of us that are not brainwashed to their standards.
ping
I use Firefox and it blocks nothing.
I have been a firefox/mozilla for many years now. But recently it has begun to change. I started becoming concerned when they put this Pocket thing on the toolbar. Now they want you to share your links with them. Of course you can opt out, but it bothers me that they would even ask.
I tried Brave a while back. It seemed kind of unpolished, but it is run by the guy would was driven out of Mozilla by the PC police. I am going to try it again.
I use Brave.
Recently Firefox has been giving me problems.
Disable ‘Pocket’ - about:config > extensions.pocket.enabled > false > you’re done.
Rush Limbaugh has more money than God. Why doesn’t he start a new conservative search engine that is the Conservative anti-google. Seriously, how much would it really cost to create. You just needs some servers, engineers to maintain everything and write the algorithms. Seriously, how much money would it really cost Rush to start up a conservative version of google. Within 5 years, it would be huge as all conservatives would be using it exclusively. Rush would not have to dedicate all his own money. He could raise funds from other rich conservatives like Sean Hannity.
I am constantly stupified how rich conservatives talk such a good game, but they just refuse to put their money where their mouth is. Meanwhile, the Marxists are kicking our ass because they are out there DOING SOMETHING about it. Google is the model. A Rushgle search engine would dominate internet searches in 5 years or less. But he won’t lift a finger to do it.
“Is the press then free to block the truth or dissenting opinions on their public sites without forewarning the public of what they are doing,,,?
It appears that Firefox just forewarned us what they are doing.
Roy Orbison is missing.
The DNS servers are controlled by your Internet Service Provider. So Mozilla is probably nit filtering via the website’s IP address. The search engine is another way to do it. But usually the user, not the browser, selects that. I wonder how Firefox is going to do this filtering? Are they creating a VPN and filtering that way? How’s that going to work for people who need to establish their own VPN to their remote workplace?
DNS replacement: Cloudflare DNS primary 1.1.1.1 and 9.9.9.9 (Quad9) for the secondary.
This may be helpful also: Free new tool could help keep your data private AND speed up your internet
“I use Firefox and it blocks nothing.”
I used Firefox (Still have #4 on an old machine) and it just started blocking ( Gave me a Warning re FR) Free Republic !
So long Firefox !
Thank you
Bye-bye firefox, hello Brave.
Thank you
I tried Brave a while back and it was unwieldy. The fact that I could not navigate using the backspace button finally drove me away.
I switched to Opera, but now it seems that is controlled by the chinese.
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