Facebook Censorship
If you haven’t already heard, Facebook deleted more than 550 pages and more than 250 personal accounts in a wave of censorship before the midterm elections. Facebook claimed it targeted pages that spammed or trolled, but among the casualties were “The Free Thought Project” and “Police the Police.” The two had a combined reach of over 5 million people, and obviously all anti-authoritarian. While some point to the low-credibility of “The Free Thought Project” as a reason for its deletion, it’s worth noting that “World News Daily Report” is still up. It’s no secret that Facebook has seriously ramped up their censorship efforts both since the 2016 “Russian hacking” allegations and since the Senate hearing.
Without getting into the merits of the Russian interference claims, there’s a discussion to be had about all of this. Many libertarians were quick to claim “private company” when Alex Jones was blacklisted from social media. I haven’t seen so many since libertarian pages were attacked, but in case there are lurkers, here’s my problem with that argument: Facebook isn’t doing this out of good will. They didn’t care when Obama utilized their platform to boost his campaign in 2008 and 2012, so why would they care now? No, Facebook is only doing this now because they know that if they don’t do as Washington pleases, Washington will strike them down.
Hurricane in Florida
The biggest news of the week for most Americans, and especially those in the Southeast, was Hurricane Michael making landfall in the Florida Panhandle. The storm ripped through from the Gulf of Mexico northeast through Georgia before dissipating in the Atlantic Ocean. The storm killed at least 14, a number that is expected to rise as search-and-rescue teams enter the area. Panama City is at the center of the path and is predictably reporting massive damages and little-organized relief. Relief should start coming in this week, as the area settles down and the risk level goes down for rescue workers. Still, the whole area is powerless and essentially stranded. To those wanting to help out, the Red Cross is always the first on the scene. You can donate directly to the Michael relief effort here.
Orrin’s Bill Hatches
Donald Trump signed what our own Killian Hobbs called “The Devil of IP Law.” You can read his explanation there, but to summarize, it retroactively renews copyrights “classic” music all the way back to 1920, preventing them from re-entering the public domain until 2067. Trump signed the bill in the presence of Kanye West and Kid Rock, and the bill was written by Senator Orrin Hatch, who is steeped in music lobbyists himself. Did you know Orrin Hatch used to write music? He even managed a Mormon folk group called “The Free Agency.” Anyways, go read Killian’s article if you wanna hear how the government is screwing us. Continuing reading mine if you want to hear how “private companies” are doing it, too!
Vacancy At The UN
Nikki Haley stepped down from her role as Ambassador to the UN. I, like many libertarians, approached the former South Carolina governor’s appointment skeptically (given her stances on foreign involvement stances), but I was pleased with her tenure. She was a willing arm of the anti-globalist Trump administration and a welcome break after 8 years of Obama’s international cuckolding. That said, I have two big issues with her leaving. The first is that she will want back in the administration in the future, and I can’t see any other role I could rest easy about her occupying. I’m sure she’s eyeing the Secretary of State position, and I think that’d be a huge mistake for an administration that’s actually done pretty well in foreign policy. The second issue is that I don’t know who will replace her. The media immediately spread rumors about Ivanka that the President was all too willing to entertain, but she took herself out of the running. That’s good, too, because she is much more globalist than her father. I fear Trump once more going back to Bush’s bench, and hiring some war-hungry, New-World-Order endorsing has-been.
And on that note, I leave you to the week. With Congress out of session until the election, real news will slow over the next month. Hopefully, though, we’ll get plenty of campaigning blunders to laugh about as the world burns.
You can read more from Ian Scar on Think Liberty here.
