This site’s visitor numbers are currently around one third normal levels, stuck at around 20,000 unique visitors per day. The cause is not hard to find. Normally over half of our visitors arrive via Facebook. These last few days, virtually nothing has come from Facebook:
What is especially pernicious is that Facebook deliberately imposes this censorship in a secretive way. The primary mechanism when a block is imposed by Facebook is that my posts to Facebook are simply not sent into the timelines of the large majority of people who are friends or who follow. I am left to believe the post has been shared with them, but in fact it has only been shown to a tiny number. Then, if you are one of the few recipients and do see the post and share it, it will show to you on your timeline as shared, but in fact the vast majority of your own friends will also not receive it. Facebook is not doing what it is telling you it is doing – it shows you it is shared – and Facebook is deliberately concealing that fact from you.
Twitter have a similar system known as “shadow banning”. Again it is secretive and the victim is not informed. I do not appear to be shadow banned at the moment, but there has been an extremely sharp drop – by a factor of ten – in the impressions my tweets are generating.
I am among those who argue that the strength of the state and corporate media is being increasingly and happily undermined by our ability to communicate via social media. But social media has developed in such a way that the channels of communication are dominated by corporations – Facebook, Twitter and Google – which can in effect turn off the traffic to a citizen journalism site in a second. The site is not taken down, and the determined person can still navigate directly to it, but the vast bulk of the traffic is cut off. What is more this is done secretly, without your being informed, and in a manner deliberately hard to detect. The ability to simply block the avenues by which people get to see dissenting opinions, is terrifying.
Furthermore neither Facebook nor Twitter contact you when they block traffic to your site to tell you this is happening, let alone tell you why, and let alone give you a chance to counter whatever argument they make. I do not know if I am blocked by Facebook as an alleged Russian bot, or for any other reason. I do know that it appears to have happened shortly after I published the transcript of the Israeli general discussing the procedures for shooting children.
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For thirteen years now it has operated with a policy of not accepting donations, except for occasional legal funds. It has now reached a size and cost, not least because of continual attacks, that make income essential. It is also the case that due to change in personal circumstance I am no longer in a position to devote my time to it without income – the need to earn a living caused the blog to go dark for almost five months last year, and the last six weeks this journalism has stopped me doing anything else to pay the rent. So, with a certain amount of pride swallowed, here is your chance to subscribe:
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I share few things on Facebook. If what I share is, lets say, a quote from a poem or a music piece, I get, at least from my close friends, a dozen likes or comments. But when I make a comment or share something with political content (since I am an asiduos reader of Craig you might guess the kind of things I share or comment) there is virtually no reaction. I have tried using screen shots, sharing as an image with no linked article, avoiding political terms or keywords that might be filtered, and the exact same thing happens; which points to the employment of sophisticated image analysis and/or algorihtms specially designed to censor.
I am afraid Craig just got blacklisted and is up to us to keep the readers and the donations coming.
Cheers.,
Maybe your facebook “friends” simply aren’t interested or disagree with the politics of your posts.
Nope. Same thing happens to me. Fishook basically decides what it will & will not distribute to my list.
Oh well, it was good while it lasted.
As of normal, I share what Craig shares with me, after all we want to see more people get an alternative, truthful view visa vie the neocon/liberal claptrap, lies and bitch/cock fighting that is currently going on.
What to do about it when FB has 2 billion used users. I suggest to start a campaign to leave Mr. Zuckerman to play with those who try and manipulate us, Cambridge Analytica, who will do it again. I suspect that they also have worked for political parties during elections in the past, it would not be surprising.
last night the BBC managed to question whether it was Amber Rudd Plc.’s predecessor that might have been responsible for the mistakes, obfuscation, shredding of boarding cards and general drift to exclude people from the country who lived here all their life’s. I give Mrs. May until the autumn, if that long.
Mrs. May thought that offshore Amber would fall on her sword yesterday, but she just
carries on blundering along knowing full well the facts are there for all to see.
Mrs. May is weak, she won’t fire anyone, not Boris or offshore Amber. By her inaction she weakens her very own standing.
And Amber no tax is ambitious and eager for the top job there is no doubt about that. I wonder whether Kwame gave her a hard time over the windrush deportation scandal?
Nevermind, Cambridge Analytica certainly did work for political parties during elections – I think they are referenced in the article in the Observer about them. They were involved in Indonesia, Ukraine and various others I believe – including of course, our very own Brexit vote an David Cameron’s re-election. I don’t know how Rudderless and Treason are still there to be honest with you. I live in hope the shambles they continue to make of Brexit will skewer the stake into their coffins
I should have said that my wife, on the other room, rarely gets these posts either; and that I have started asking, people if they saw what I posted, the answer is no.
And by the way, disagreement in politics is not a reason to ignore a post, but all the opposite, I miss the days where I was getting death threats instead of being ignored.
This appears to be true the same thing has been happening to me with my political posts. I’m not sure how long it’s been going on. People have said they can’t see what’s been posted on my timeline. So far posting to groups has been fine.
Generally, if you want to play that game, you have to tailor your message in such a way that generates a desire among a general user base to click “like” or “share”. Unfortunately, this is 99% marketing (or bullshit, as I prefer to call it) and 1% journalism. All I’d say about it is don’t take it personally.
The whole of social media tends to work against the idea of providing meaningful journalistic content, creating a consensus-driven media or, indeed, creating the well-informed public required for democracy to function properly at all. Trump was a wake-up call in that regard. Most people, for better or for worse, tend to gravitate towards “cat video” journalism and stare at holiday snaps from people they’ve barely met. 90% of people don’t use Facebook for anything more challenging than that. Most Facebook users are non-participants.
For the activist left-wing, Facebook looks very much like the John Carpenter film “They Live!” as soon as you put the sunglasses on. It obviously promotes a certain anti-intellectual consumerist lifestyle, it is interested principally in promoting certain values. It is also interested in self-preservation (there was NO content about recent Facebook scandals about the very issue on Facebook itself. The irony was not lost on me.), and they have enough information on people to exile people who don’t fit into a certain model.
Of course, people self-censor as well, and find it difficult to click “like” on a piece of journalism about an atrocity, for example. Or something that promotes a strong, nuanced or complex political view. That, combined with the rule that we’ve been inculcated with: “don’t mention politics!”, will generally mitigate against people clicking “like” on your political posts.
My ranting on there rarely gets more than 3 likes, but I’ve learned not to care and to use other tools as well as Facebook. As for readership, I’m not privy to those details. I know that my friends aren’t freelancers like me, so don’t have the advantage of being able to say whatever they like. (They also don’t have the freedom to starve, but that’s a different matter.)
The lack of readership details is, of course, a major part of the problem, and something that needs to change with social media in general. Facebook should be required, by law, to provide analytic data on how they’re using and distributing the data that you provide for them. That’s something definitely worth fighting for. It would help the platform as well as helping users determine how Facebook prioritises certain information.
For a detailed precis of how the algorithm filters dissent (a couple of years old, but still relevant), here’s a very useful and detailed analysis from New Left Review.
https://newleftreview.org/II/99/rodrigo-ochigame-james-holston-filtering-dissent
Saying all of that, I was referred by Jonathan Cook to this article via Facebook. But I’ve set up a donation (which everybody should do, even if it’s only a few pence a month or whatever). Also, fully aware of my own limitations when confronted by Facebook and the wallpaper effect that its “news feed” can have, I have also created an old-school website that uses very basic HTML to link to sites that contain quality journalism.
I think that’s probably a useful way to stay informed personally and to stop yourself forgetting where the good stuff on the internet is. As a rule, we shouldn’t really be using social media to filter all of our media content anyway. What tends to get lost in the quagmire is the journalistic integrity of the person writing the article.
I think it’s a good idea to grab the decent links off there while it lasts. Meanwhile, we can try to work out how to create a platform that promotes, supports and funds good investigative journalism. It’s all out there already, and the internet provides an unprecedented opportunity to inform the public – the hard part is getting them interested.
Cheers for listening,
That’s all very impressive, Paul, and since I took the time to read it maybe you ought to take the time to read what others saying here about Facebook. Even the thickest people on here, and I don’t claim to speak for them, understand that Facebook users generally are more likely to on kittens than some leftist diatribe about Syria. That has got nothing to do with the sort of new, selective, filtering they are discussing though.
Try and keep up.
@ Paul Stanway April 26, 2018 at 22:29
You seem to miss the point. This is a NEW DEVELOPMENT.
If Craig’s results have plunged to 1/3 of previous, sounds very strange indeed.
If I post on friends timelines (which seems to be on a single basis) I get a number of likes, as I do when I comment on sites like ‘Frome Stop The War’; ‘Red Line Syria’ and ‘The truth about the wars in Syria and Ukraine’.
Yet my own timeline virtually never gets a hit.
I’m useless at techno-stuff; I know virtually nothing about how to properly operate my Facebook account, but from what I do know, I certainly smell a very big pack of rats.
Take a look at my timeline, perhaps you can tell me where I’m going wrong (IF it’s me ‘going wrong’).
Paul, yes it’s interesting as Craig can almost pinpoint it to the article he posted of the radio interview with the Israeli General. That says a lot. The issue is, can it be redressed and reversed. I don’t do any social media at all and I like it that way but this site has became a staple for me.
Hi Paul, this is a really interesting detailed article. Since I have been on Craig’s site, which is only really since the Skripal incident and I heard him on radio as the first person to come forward and say it probably wasn’t Assad, I have delved and delved and learned alot from some very talented contributors to this site and the links they provide. What I have learned, although I am very much in the here and now and am politically motivated, I realise I have been going around my life in blissful ignorance of the state of the world and international politics and of the creeping censorship and fascism that is now coming to the fore. Your article is interesting inasmuch as you seem to be able to get around some of it and have the know-how. I hope you stay blogging on this site.
M,
Thank you. You have confirmed for me what I’ve suspected for a while. Similarly, I will post family stuff, or occasional comments or sayings, and there will be many “Likes.”
When I post Craig’s blogs, there are rarely any comments. Why would that be? Is it because one’s friends don’t want to be seen liking controversial writings, or truth telling or what?
Does anybody know the answer?
There is a concerted campaign by Israel to pressure Silicon Valley companies including Facebook, Twitter and Google to censor Palestinians and their supporters on its behalf.
Facebook has admitted that it deletes accounts at the direction of the US and Israeli governments.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/paypal-freezes-out-palestine-activists-france
which you have undoubtedly run foul of . Any pro Palestinian sites, BDS, or posting of videos of the occupation are liable to be censored and taken down. Israel is determined to keep the brutality of its occupation and the impunity of its army as hidden as possible from the world at large. As ever, Palestinians pay the price, unable to even get Paypal thanks to Israeli pressure – a service which the desperately poor economy could really use. Palestinians are isolated quite deliberately from just about every ‘normal’ advantage of the modern world.
In view of what is now known about FaceBook, surely only idiots would use it. The time seems ripe for the emergence of less manipulative social media platforms. Sensible people, if they feel a need for that kind of disembodied community, will then, presumably, quit FB if they haven’t already. The more exploitive, politically motivated, and corrupt FB becomes the better.
I am one of those idiots who occasionally post on Facebook. I posted a link to your chilling piece quoting the Israeli General. There were 7 ‘likes’ which is a reasonably high number for political pieces I sometimes put up.
By the way, Craig, if you read this, I might have been in Aviemore at the same time too – a wee bit younger and having not yet read any Graeme Greene. I have also subscribed – through PayPal. Thanks again for the blog – ‘a wee bit of hard truth’ (to quote Rhona Munro) in the miasma of media obfuscation.
Sorry Can Speccy – that was supposed to be a general comment and not a response to yours. Like many of us, I am very concerned about the phenominal power that Facebook has, and the whole Cambridge Analytica scandal. We are all merely handy data for the pernicious machine!
Any programmers here? Let’s start FreeBook, with content restricted only inasmuch as that is required by law, and with ads placed as in Google, automatically, based on word search of individual pages, with user data held in absolute confidence,
Sure there’d be all sorts of crap, anti-Semitism, porn, Islamophobia, Christophobia, anti-white, red, black or blue racism, etc., but that’s no different from the Internet as a whole, yet how many people feel “unsafe” using Google or any other search engine where the crassest rubbish is only a click or two away? If you don’t like someone’s page, don’t go to it. And if you tire of the whole thing, or revise your beliefs, change your interests, or decide to become a Trappist, then you will have a simple means to delete everything you ever said.
Block chain technology? IP to IP messages?
Good idea CanSpeccy!
I agree with you completely at least as far as it goes. I do use Facebook for several reasons. But, I use all of these Social Media platforms knowing full well it is controlled and monitored. There are a few groups where I can keep up with technical improvements to cameras (I have a MadV 360 VR camera ) and I subscribe to groups that have similar (non-political) interests such as sailing or 3D printing. These are easy for me to see what others are doing. I also use it to keep abreast of what my adult millennial children are up to. I also connect to my extended family although most are far left liberals so have either unfriended me or ignore my posts. It is very interesting to talk to Americans living in the US as they are completely oblivious to anything of real significance. Very few are aware that the US is at war in 9 countries. They are completely unaware that we were (and still are) the closest to nuclear conflict than at any time in human history and that should Trump have targeted an Russian bases we wouldn’t be having these conversations today as all humanity would be in jeopardy.
But, the main reason I keep it is to actively mess with the US deep state. I must maintain a Top Secret clearance (for life) because I am one of a very few people who are actual experts at biological warfare and especially practical use, feld detection, pathogenesis, acquired resistance, vaccines, animal modeling, aerosol delivery etc. But, I do not like the major shift that has occurred in my government over the years. In the US it is still “okay” to have private opinions but as we see here they are actually actively filtered. I left the US to live in Europe and am fully aware that I am under periodic surveillance which must include social media. So, I actively promote articles which demonstrate the shift of the US to a rogue aggressor state. To make it worse, I am married to a Russian who also holds a US government clearance. I am aware that my country kills people they don’t like but I am also aware that there really aren’t any others in the US who can do what I can do. This must frustrate the hell out of them.
My alternate military occupation was PSYOPS (now called MISO [Military Information Support Operations] as PSYOPS scares people and sounds nefarious [because it is]). All officers in the US military must remain competent in two distinct military skills although typically it is related to your primary job function. For example I was a Microbiologist (both clinical and research) and typically I would second as a Clinical Laboratory Officer. I was enlisted for 12 years and was in Special Forces so PSYOPS was a nice shift for me (back into the SF realm) as my father owned an advertising agency in California so PSYOPS is actually just marketing. What this all boils down to is that I recognize propaganda attacks against the US and larger world and it is so far extremely successful. I put myself into their shoes and try and work backwards from what I am observing to try and determine the real target audience and the long term goals. For me it seems to boil down to it all being solely directed towards American Hegemony of the planet. Anything that gets in the way of that goal is categorized as an existential threat and dealt with in that fashion. There are countries that attempt to defy this unipolar world order and they become the main targets for all of this massive effort. Because these countries (basically the 5 eyes plus Israel) are working together and have incorporated rich partners in the civilian world (Soros etc.) we are seeing a very unique situation. On the other side we have primarily Russia and China as the main resistance. There are others but as they are weaker they are easily dealt with. Examples are Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, South Africa, etc. All of those countries aligned with Russia and China become major targets and the ones I listed are all in chaos now. Others such as India, Libya, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan are facing (or have faced) assaults on multiple levels. Others in the mix at the moment include Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan all surrounding Russia to apply pressure. You can add in Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,and Finland as well which are putting direct pressure on Russia as well. The latter are easier and these manipulations are through NATO. The others require finesse and money poured into efforts to create insurgencies. This was IMHO the main reason Russia helped Syria as all those FUKUS (plus Israel and KSA) funded jihadists would be heading North to Russia once Syria was destroyed and allied to the Sunni axis.
I digressed as usual and apologize. The main point I am trying to make is that social media is yet another tool in the PSYOPS tool kit as are Google searches, Hollywood, etc. If you look closely at the startup funding for these companies you will see that they all received a great deal from the CIA and still continue to do so. Anyone who believes that the massive effort in the MSM which now includes all social media and everything out there on the internet is not all part of the Hegemonic effort is delusional. It will get worse, maybe a lot worse. It seems to me we have reached a point in the process where they are literally betting the farm and have completely stopped even trying to remain civilized. These are very dangerous times. Places and people like Craig are important but the impact is being deliberately contained. Perhaps if Russia/China build a separate internet not under control of the US, we might see some actual freedom but China is not keen to giover their own citizens those kinds of libertes. So on both sides we have tight controls as to content.
Posting here got rid of my security clearances, but I agree, it is demonstrably the agencies who have shifted their stated national security protection obligations in seemingly outsourcing C&C and policy to other nations!
Luckily I only know one ‘official secret’ which is the specific intermediate frequency in MHz of the 3-D frequency agile megawatt radar that Thatcher illegally sold to the apartheid South African regime for “civilian air traffic control”, really. I helped design just a little bit of it, it was supposed to protect us from the Soviet threat, not defend the inhuman ideas of the Cape non-Boers led by Cecil Rhodes, Theophilus Shepstone et al.
In other news, the Czechs are about to report on whether Novichock ( “a type of sausage, I believe?), was stored there, and Theresa has found a whopping seven pence-ha’penny down the back of her sofa to support the false-flag town in the aftermath of whatever SNAFU actually went down there
https://www.spirefm.co.uk/news/local-news/2564527/210k-to-support-businesses-hit-by-salisbury-spy-poisoning/
With those sorts of funding levels available from HMG, perhaps the Skripals will now be installed in a BnB in Hull, rather than their promises Florida Villa.
Another person to lose their security clearance over false-flag-fuckups is a token famous female ‘slamic baker, never to be heard of again, I suppose.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5643001/Great-British-Bake-star-Nadiya-Hussain-brands-Theresa-monster.html
Bye Nadia.
I’d like to subscribe but worry as to who will be handling our bank details, and is it secure?
The transaction is handled by PayPal and this site doesn’t get your card details.
Paypal is very secure, professional and convenient in my experience and transparently converts currency conversion from yours to whatever Craig is using (Uzbek soms?). Is paypal less or more PC worse than a Wells Fargo cheque? (Don’t mean to touch off a raging debate here.)
This site is not secure — even though “your email address [required field] will not be published”, it might as well be as far as GCHQ is concerned, not that they don’t know all about you already from the bios-driven keystroke logger they installed on your device before it ever reached you. However no site is secure to a nation-state (or determined teenager).
Does Facebook sell your data to NSA/GCHQ/Mossad/FSB or just let them harvest it for free via the thousands of identity-stealing apps? Once I got a ride hitchhiking: the glove box had a sticker saying “gas, grass, or ass: nobody rides for free”.
“No one is listening to your phone calls.” — B Obama
“If you aren’t doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.” — NSA surveillance
Maybe not just then but they can go back later and listen to your stored phone calls, read your texts or make them up if an algorithm changes to decide you thought something slightly off-narrative.
Tom, Tom, Tom…
I hardly know where to start.
Let me ask you a simple question okay?
Q) do you think kids playing fifa football on Xbox and PlayStation has resulted in kids playing more real football or less?
Of course, the answer is less. We know this. Why would politics be any different?
The NSA and all those people you imagine that are watching you, actually don’t give a toss what you think and from their perspective it is almost ideal that we keep off the grass and sit at home talking crap on forums like this. It keeps us out of the way.
I’m officially exempt from criticism on this score because I’m here to try and talk you all into playing real football. You get the idea…
Exactly and they limit who gets to see what you are writing to other members of what they dismiss as the “tinfoil hat” club. I have often wondered why I never get shut down and this is the only real explanation. Basically, we are harmless although Craig recently has risen into the realm of being seen out there in the real world. I notice a few other sites I follow like Pat Lang’s site http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/ or b’s site http://www.moonofalabama.org/ and Unz Review http://www.unz.com/ are all more visible now. How long that lasts I can’t tell but it must be serving a purpose to let them into mainstream media.
@H The NSA and all those people you imagine that are watching you, actually don’t give a toss what you think and from their perspective it is almost ideal that we keep off the grass and sit at home talking crap on forums like this. It keeps us out of the way.
completely wrong, I performed a reverse stake-out using a newly minted ResearchGate account. I then forensically monitored my followers there when I revealed my science based history. Having excluded the followers who similarly worked in R&D/academia, I was left with two american and four brit stalkers , using the available ResearchGate Gmbh tools. Quite likely UKUSA spooks, but not guaranteed.
When I mentioned my documented HoneyTrap in internal company emails to colleagues, the next week the affiliation of my non-R&D/academia stalkers changed, brilliantly, to Syrian and Ukrainian followers. Therefore Guaranteed UKUSA spooks, with a sense of humor!
so 3 take home points IT IS NOT IMAGINATION, we are being stalked
plus THEY DO CARE WHAT WE THINK, I dunno why. I support my gov, but criticise them, I objectively seek truth.
I was most impressed with how few spooks actually were doing the reading/analysis of my scientific portfolio, just (probably) six. That was surprising to me as they do have , as resources, the majority of western Doctoral mathematicians, the biggest ever installed networked computer processing & storage systems; all of our collated thoughts online, our private information and our ‘personal secret information’ as well as whatever PSYOP processing on the Bulk personal datasets palantir, Cambridge analytica, SLC, etc – to what end?
After having posted here on Craig’s excellent blog for a while, there was an serious attempt to disbar me from employment.
so final point THE MESH OF INTERWOVEN SECURITY AGENCIES DO ATTACK, quietly, but not imperceptibly.
This is so orthogonal to your posting @H, that possibly you have had a different path, or have been less focussed on the UKUSA activities? I follow the “we are harmless” idea, but counter that the security empire does seem rather aggressively paranoid as you get close to them – perhaps they fear that they are but one escaped viral message away from egg on their face?
Presumably, in true follow-the-money speak, it’s only a trillion dollar budget that they are defending, after-all
I’ll gladly concede that you may be more worth watching than me…
You sound kinda scientific and political and that’s never a good mix. If they aren’t keeping an eye on you, we deserve a blooming refund, truth be told.
If they’re watching me, I wish they’d offer me a job or something. I’m flexible, can work nights and/or part time. Pretty good team player… ok that’s crap, I hate teams. I’ve actually got a little experience in uniform though, Boys Brigade for 4 years, the 99th.
Hypothetically speaking, am I prepared to help attack you harmless countries in the Middle East? Define harmless eh? Get it? Nudge, nudge.
Listen, put me in a militant Islam forum or something and I guarantee I’ll piss a few of them off, you won’t need any false flags. Maybe Craig could provide a reference on that score.
Sigh, true-ish
The Bulk Personal datasets are watching *everyone*, I’m admittedly rather scientific however I am apolitical, but ‘gifted’ with an annoyingly innate character ‘self’ requirement that freedom, justice should be balanced with security, as the agencies claim on their homepages. I deal in purely open source data, and I have no wish to overthrow any particular government, tho’ I worked in MENA for a while, and “illegally” crossed into Yemen a few times (KSA claimed even then that it wasn’t a border)
SIS NZ are currently advertising for spooks, you’d fit in well, but you’d have to stop typing here for a while
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/103454067/Nows-your-chance-to-be-a-spy-NZ-SIS-is-hiring
personally, I just block some of the new media blip-verts using the libre program add-on “Privacy Badger” offered by the US E.F.F, its quite an effective plug-in freely available for Chrome and Firefox/Mozilla.
Here on Craig’s Blog, my Privacy Badger is stopping the slurping of our data by these elements:-
graph.facebook.com
http://www.facebook.com
http://www.google-analytics.com
fonts.googleapis.com
secure.gravatar.com
http://www.paypalobjects.com and
c.statcounter.com, denied to all, automatically by PrivacyBadger
tho’ I obviously permit Craig’s cookies.
Using Chrome V.66 with the specialised recent settings “Do not allow sites to see text and images copied to the clipboard”
and strict site isolation, https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/7623121?hl=en
there are at least ten other essential Privacy/Security tweaks that are sett by Default in Chrome – which need to be adjusted to protect the internet new media user, not just for mild freedom-of-speech use, but for shudder, home banking. good luck!
Tried to donate but its not working.
The Facebook block is coming as a result of the Israel post. It’s happening everywhere and reflects a working arrangement between Facebook and Israel to limit the spread of “anti-Semitic” “fake news.” I recall that the new arrangement was announced a couple months or so ago.
Here it is: started in Jan 2018 or thereabouts.
https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Social-Media-Imperialism-Facebook-Bans-Palestinian-Content-at-Behest-of-Israel-US-20171230-0023.html
Shocking assault on free speech.
There was a piece in the New Left Review, a couple of years old now, that covered this issue and what the reasons were for systematised exclusion of “dissenting” voices back then. Obviously, since that date, any notion that the algorithms used to filter content do not involve any human activity (which apparently “prove” impartiality in some spurious way) appear to have been quietly dropped from the argument.
https://newleftreview.org/II/99/rodrigo-ochigame-james-holston-filtering-dissent
Obviously, we need a new system. Unfortunately, quality journalism has never been much of a money-spinner – it’s never been ‘popular’ and has always run at a loss. The collapse of the old media networks has only made investigative journalism harder to bankroll. The problem, of course, is reaching out to new audiences as well as maintaining connections to old ones. Facebook, Twitter and so on are not geared toward generating this kind of loyalty, since they mix together mature news content with the personal activity of friends, family and so on. I fear that what Web 2.0, the rise of social media, along with the dot com bubble bursting created was an environment more concerned about generating clicks at any cost than maintaining any of the democratic or liberal virtues that “don’t be evil” Google initially founded it’s platform on but has, predictably enough, dropped as the spec money rolls in – spec money that really envisions a future where these platforms control everything in our reality.
What we’re left with is a rather lonely and confused base of users who find it increasingly difficult to separate the personal and the intimate from the broader political currents. In essence, we’re all being turned into very stupid citizens by these social networks. This isn’t even mentioning the cognitive effects that the online popularity contest of “likes” is having on people who have learned that quantity is everything and quality is nothing.
Well Craig
Here it is…
Iraqi oil for Isr*el
https://www.juancole.com/2018/04/iraqi-israel-years.html
Clark April 26 20:55
Can you recommend an ad blocker to download?
For the iPhone and Mac Wipr or Adblock
For Android and PC Adblock plus
For web browser on a mac desktop, Opera works just great. System-level blockage. I have not seen an ad for years. I block cookies as well and get on and off Firefox for that. I do not do Tor or VPN or encryption or dark web or even lock the doors at night. Why? Like R Feynman said, it’s easy to fool people and the easiest person of all to fool is yourself.
Adblock Plus hands down, has been my dependable companion for years (on occasion, an ad on Stackoverflow manages to slip by) .
For a desktop, that is — wouldn’t know for smartphone.
.
Hiya Doug, I saw your comment a bit late…
Yes, on desktops or laptops, Adblock or a variant; I’ve often used these. Recently I’ve been using UBlock Origin, because an installation of Trisquel I was using installed it by default (the Trisquel team are hot on privacy), and it seems fine, and it also blocks off-site scripts.
I don’t use a tablet or smartphone device.
uBlock Origin is smoother than Adblock Plus, and works for Facebook.
@ Paul Stanway April 27, 2018 at 02:46
I’ve just downloaded uBlock Origin, and the icon has appeared at the right hand top of my PC screen.
Does it work automatically, or do I have to click on it on each new page or site I visit?
We need to keep some analogue / print traditions going, Indy publishers, newspapers and revive others like public and community meetings..
You don’t appear to exist on Facebook as far as I can see – which is flat out blocking.
I’ve set the block up as an RSS feed on G2Reader which means I should get to see the blog at least
Hi Craig
Thanks for continuing to be an excellent source of information on issues of vital importance. There is no doubt in my mind that you could have had a very comfortable life if it weren’t for your commitment to truth, justice and fighting the good fight.
You are not the only one having problems with social media shenanigans, there are people on YouTube being demonetised for providing drug education and harm reduction, holding certain political views and I’m sure many other reasons that go against the grain, They may demonetise the content creators, but the ads they show on these channels are still paid for.
Fortunately, there is hope. Aside from the fact that the abusive practices of the major social media platforms just keep piling up makes them less appealing to their existing users, people are getting ever hungrier for alternatives. Steemit is one good example of social media where one can earn crypto currency by people up voting their posts, (there are people making decent money for content far less insightful than your own) it is very easy to change the cryptocurrency into cash once set up. Is this something you’ve looked into?
Steemit is only one example of where we’re headed, at least as a model for payment where the person creating the value gets the reward. Unfortunately, it is not decentralised, but there are those that are, steemit certainly has value though. Mithril is brand new social networking and conceptually seems pretty sound, (rewards for content,decentralised) the value of the circulating token supply is upward of $325 million dollars! Another is LBRY, decentralised, pays for content peer to peer, and vitally, very difficult to censor. For the record, I don’t own any of these particular tokens, I just despise Facebook and google and hope we all pull together and invest our time in technologies that serve rather than abuse.
There are many other wonderful ideas being built on blockchain tech and some dreadful ones too, but I take heart that some of the finest minds in the world are choosing blockchain to help solve some of the worlds problems and to fund ideas. As adoption increases and blockchain technology asserts itself, immutable records of almost anything can be kept and censorship could become almost impossible. MP’s expenses on the blockchain? I’d like to hear their reasons for that being a bad idea!
There are so many great ideas in the blockchain space that are superior alternatives to the status quo, all it takes is for us to contribute to them. If you are interested, I’d be happy to share what little I know of the technologies that may be of use to you.
Thanks again!
Excellent points from Andrew. The solution to this sort of censorship is decentralised alternatives to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google. These blockchain-inspired enterprises cannot happen soon enough, but be sure they are coming. In the meantime Craig, get up to speed on what the blockchain means and what it can do for you now. Accept donations for your work in Litecoin, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and use Steemit. I would imagine that the people who set up Steemit would love your work, as would the vast majority of people in the blockchain space. I hope I am not overstating the case for blockchain technology, but my belief right now is that it offers at least the prospect of completely changing the rules of the game by enforcing honesty on the monetary system, politics, business and beyond.
“…be sure they are coming.“
Really? An alternative to YouTube? Can you even imagine the sort of investment it would require to build a system like that, with all that capacity, bandwidth, and functionality?
Something like one million videos per day are uploaded to YouTube.
And even if you did build that alternative, they’d just block it at the ISP level if it ever presented any sort of threat. This is their playing field, not ours. We are here to press “buy now” and watch road rage videos.
The good news is that they really don’t care what a few armchair activists think and say to each other on Twitter. To that extent, you can more or less day what you want.
Hatuey, I don’t think you’re quite getting the “decentralised” bit.
In principle, you don’t need to “build a system” like the massive monolithic thing you’re describing, because the “architecture” is already on millions of people’s laptops in unused CPU power. It’s just a case of writing the code that links all of this decentralised architecture, along with a decentralised currency, together. Which is what those “armchair activists” are busy doing. Along with making all of the source code publicly available to protect users from the kinds of abuse these centralised networks are meting out on their user bases.
That was what the internet was supposed to be in the first place, if you can remember back that far. Social media and the centralisation of power and wealth that has come from that just happens to be an unfortunate detour. People will probably still use THAT internet for bullshit and entertainment purposes. But there will be, and already is, a massive brain drain on those social networks that have made them barely usable for anybody with an IQ higher than a grape. Ultimately, it’ll be a moron’s economy, which is what you’re describing with YouTube. It will probably still tick along. Like MySpace still ticks along.
You can’t block anything at the ISP level without blocking the entire internet. Have you heard of VPN filters or Onion routing? All you need is a communications network capable of transferring digital information in packets and you have, thanks to the above, an entirely secure cryptographic network.
Okay, so I create a video and upload it to your new decentralised version of YouTube. It gets broken up and distributed in much the same way torrents worked. So far, so good.
But who takes responsibility for the content? Can anyone upload anything? What if people start using it to upload things like Robin’s Nest or The Good Life?
This might be wishful thinking or it might take much longer than I think it will, but another internet – a Chinese built quantum (unhackable) internet is on its way. Already China has quantum communications to and from satellites and quantum is being used between Beijing and Shanghai. A solid backbone could be done in short order should the Chinese decide to do it – and I think they will. Remember ten years ago China had no high speed rail today it has over 12,000 kl of high speed rail.
The current interned owned and controlled by the fusion of corporations and government (known as fascism) is full of swill and spies. Nothing is safe on the existing internet exactly as planned.
I am still receiving posts, but have disabled Platform on Facebook. No techie though.
Research has shown that many of the social giants are playing unfairly with OUR data
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/research-shows-googles-search-manipulations-tried-to-rig-election-for-hillary_04252018 (illegal, surely?)
More research is needed, and social giant splitting – like Ma Bell generating BabyBells on January 8th 1982, is long overdue.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/ma-bell-gets-her-family-back-together/article20409268/ (2006 background perspective)
I have just attempted to log into the Je,ish anti-Zionist site Jewdas.
Bandwidth limit exceeded.
Does that suggest anything under the current topic? I am not thechinacaly minded.
Fine. Then I will share you myself. Lets’ all do it.
Although not strictly the subject of CM’s latest post, for security/privacy (they are now almost synonymous) your first stop should always be PrismBreak (https://prism-break.org/en/).
Recommendations of this site in the Guardian under relevant Jack Schofield (a notorious Microsoft brown-noser and tech dilettante since the early-1980s) articles, when not actually removed (always a good sign), usually remained ‘untouchable’ (zero upticks whilst all around soared), with the occasional “Got your tin-foil hat on today, matey?” oh-so-original quip. The site also returns minimal hits on search engines (Google is far better than DuckDuckGo in this instance). But I digress.
The site deals with Android and iOS (mobile) and BSD, GNU/Linux, MacOS and Windows (desktop) software under the following headings:
Anonymizing Networks
Bookmark Sync
Disk Encryption
DNS
Email Accounts
Email Alternatives
Email Clients
Email Encryption
Enterprise Suite
File Storage & Sync
Finance
Instant Messaging
IRC
Mail Servers
Media Publishing
Mesh Networks
Operating Systems
Operating Systems (Live)
Password Managers
Productivity
SIP Servers
Social Networks
Video & Voice
VPN Accounts
VPN Clients
Web Browser Addons
Web Browsers
Web Hosting
Web Search
World Maps
as well as router and server software.
In the case of Social Networks on Windows, the (free) recommendations are:
diaspora (https://diasporafoundation.org/)
Hubzilla (https://project.hubzilla.org/page/hubzilla/hubzilla-project)
Mastodon (https://joinmastodon.org/)
Movim (https://movim.eu/)
RetroShare (http://retroshare.net/)
Stndie (http://syndie.i2p2.de/)
The following note is also appended:
“If you have system administration knowledge, please strongly consider running an instance of pump.io (or something else) for your friends, family, or favorite community. Many of them would be willing and grateful to escape Facebook if you provide them a way out.
For those of you without your own server, RetroShare is the easiest way to start your own encrypted social network.”
The site BrowserSpy (http://browserspy.dk/) is nifty for observing ‘leakage’ from your machine, as is the site Panopticlick (https://panopticlick.eff.org/) from the excellent Electronic Frontier Foundation (https://www.eff.org/).
On a different subject, pretty fucking unimpressed with the modding lately. Too many snowflakes?
What a shocking bunch of conspiracy theorists we have here.
It’s quite obvious that visitors numbers fell off a cliff *exactly when* Craig introduced the idea of an outrageous £2 a month. That’s nearly half my Labour Party subscription!
In the end though, I decided that there are only two decent bolsheviks* in the Labour party, so pricing was probably about right.
By the way, when I was at school – a very long time ago – I asked my Dad if we could have the Daily Worker. (It was for a social history project.) Good for him that it was duly delivered, because in those days newsagents were obliged by Plod to keep a record of those ordering the scurrilous rag.
Plus ca change eh . . .
(* Dennis Skinner and er, um, the other one . . . can’t remember)
Isn’t Craig simply saying that notifications of posts on Facebook are not being made to all his followers ?
> usually remained ‘untouchable’ (zero upticks whilst all around soared),
> with the occasional “Got your tin-foil hat on today, matey?”
There’s nothing crooked about the Guardian’s commenting system. Posts that are abusive or libelous are removed by independent moderators (not by writers, who have no access to the moderation system), and comments that attract the tin hat comment are usually deranged enough to deserve them.
You may find this helpful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoYjIDwbzLY
Incidentally, why are you masquerading as a respected American composer? I can’t see anything honest or decent about abusing a real person’s name…. unless you can prove you’re really him, of course.
I’m actually Terry Riley, but I just post under Morton’s name so he catches any flack.
More seriously, I really don’t care about the Guardian’s policies on anything: as a (now ex-) reader since 1968 of both the UK and the overseas/airmail ’tissue paper’ editions, I can testify to the vertiginous decline in quality over that period, particularly since the Miners’ Strike. It has become, in short, a sneering, pseudo-intellectual, war-mongering, liberal rag exhibiting complete contempt for the manual working class.
And since your career coincided exactly with that decline, here’s a snippet from one of my long-deleted Guardian accounts:
“For decades, the likes of Noam Chomsky and Armand Mattelart were lone voices in calling out the ideological complicity/corruption of the liberal MSM. The Right didn’t care because, as well as being fundamentally pro-Capitalist (witness the longest, most intense fake news campaign of the 20th Century: the defamation of Communism), this liberal MSM also supported their tactical agenda: the post-WW2 global US interventions and all the rest of it.
However, as Wolfgang Streeck has outlined (https://newleftreview.org/II/104/wolfgang-streeck-the-return-of-the-repressed), something changed in the last couple of years: the manual working class started re-engaging with politics (reversing a trend of withdrawal since the early-1950s) but outside ‘acceptable’ liberal limits, i.e. via ‘populist’ avenues, Brexit and the election of DT being the most spectacular demonstrations of the process.
The Right has always been split into at least two major fractions: (a) a bloc favouring ‘pure’ Capitalism (in which private enterprises really do stand or fall on their own merits), and (b) a bloc amenable to “privatising profit but socialising loss”. The latter is how State systems in the West have largely operated since the early-20th Century, particularly in the neo-liberal period from the early-1970s onwards (a reaction to the gains made by the working class following WW2).
The recent rise of ‘populist’ political movements in reaction to the success of (b) above in re-establishing the balance of reward in favour of the capitalist class has been attacked by the largely pro-globalist liberal MSM on just about every spurious ground imaginable, from the ‘serious’ (neo-fascism) to the risible (‘Trump-Russia collusion’).
These attacks have had two effects: (a) reducing the liberal MSM’s appeal to a very narrow range of opinion (they have become, in effect, echo chambers where members of the ‘cult’ talk to one another and not to the outside world), and (b) allowing (finally, under the rubric of “fake news”) their corruption to become apparent to those on the Right as well as to those on the Left.
Thus, the ‘old reality’ whereby the liberal MSM sought to, and for many decades did, “set the agenda” for the ‘chattering classes’ has finally been shattered not just by the rise of social media but also by their alienation of a class fraction they really care about: the Right. Hence their hysterical (and Freudian) reaction to the fake news charge from the latter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=NoXGV4Vw-VA.”
But don’t take my word for it: for those with the wit and perspicacity to search it out, there is a wealth of online material on the subject, from ‘old hands’ like Noam Chomsky and John Pilger to the likes of Mark Blyth, David Harvey and their ilk. The comment sections of this blog are also an excellent resource. Enjoy!
1. ‘Flak’ not ‘flack’, of course.
2. “There’s nothing crooked about the Guardian’s commenting system.”
Really? Then you are either remarkably ignorant or remarkably cynical. With respect just to the question of Israel, the activities of CiFWatch (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22CiFWatch%22&t=ffab&ia=twitter), now ‘tastefully’ renamed UK Media Watch (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22UK+Media+Watch%22&t=ffab&ia=web), in combination with the bent, semi-literate editorship of Alan Rusbridger ensured that BTL comments on the vanishingly small number of articles covering the activities of that neo-fascist, racist State open to such were ruthlessly culled, the final impression being left, when comments closed, of pained acceptance that, while tragic, Israel was justified in slaughtering however many innocents it was that particular time. In other words, typical liberal hypocrisy.
An additional phenomenon was that comments not towing the ‘party line’ would be ‘disappeared’ Soviet-style without the usual hand-wringing, liberal bullshit “This comment has been removed…” statement. A supreme irony in view of the Guardian’s past and present attitude towards Russia.
3. “…comments that attract the tin hat comment are usually deranged enough to deserve them.”
And then I checked out your Twitter feed since the election of Donald Trump (https://twitter.com/jackschofield). Obsessed much? Nurse!!!
For the alternative newsmedia to have relied for so long upon non-transparent corporate-owned social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, … has been a costly mistake.
One possible way to overcome the social-media thought-police is for those, who publish or comment on alternative web-sites (including this site and my own, https://candobetter.net), to make links to other related pages from their own articles. If people learn to bookmark informative web-sites and install RSS feeds on their own browsers and make and follow links, their dependence on Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc, would be hugely reduced.
At some point in future, it should be possible to for Internet users to group together and form their own alternatives to Facebook, Twitter and Google, which are accountable and transparent
I don’t undertand why Russia and Iran, for all the informative and insightful reporting and discussion they have made possible on rt.com, sputniknews, com and presstv.com, have yet to set up their own alternatives to Facebook, Twitter and Google. It would surely only cost a small fraction of what those countries are now forced to spend on their military defence.
Given how much a better informed population of the West would reduce the risk of military aggression, the expense of setting up alternatives to Twitter, Facebook, Google etc. would easily pay for itself very rapidly.
James
April 27, 2018 at 00:22 wrote:
“I don’t understand why Russia . . . .. have yet to set up their own alternatives to Facebook . . . etc”
But they have. VK (VKontakte) is the world’s second largest social media site. (Yulia Skripal was on VK, not Facebook.) Live Journal was always the preferred blogging platform in the East, vastly outperforming WordPress or Blogger.
The fact is, no politicians, East or West, like independently minded people expressing their own views.
Russia also has Yandex.ru, an excellent search engine which I often used for technical results that I knew were out-there but for some reason Slurp(Google) refuses to deliver.
I just checked quickly at infosniper.net & it isn’t a ‘front’ for Slurp, as are some of the other search engines.
https://yandex.ru
Of course, the peskie russkies will them own all your data, but as I have no intention of ever visiting the RF, I can’t see how that can hurt?
I was a bit surprised by your categorical statement never to visit RF. As a consequence of the general demonization of all things Russian I decided to go to Moscow last summer to get an impression of the place and I can assure you that it was a very pleasant surprise.
The people were friendly, helpful and good looking and the city was in an excellent state of repair. Perhaps most surprising there seemed to be far less police presence on the streets than in Western cities such as London, Paris and New York and then of cause there are the fine museums and historical sites so all in all very well worth a visit
Thanks Sven, it’s basically a work constraint, a very very very senior work colleague mentioned to me that the RF is currently considered an autocratic regime, and I think a holiday there would not help my promotion chances! I did visit Leningrad and Moscow in ~ 1975, during the grey Soviet time. The people were, as you say, great, friendly and puzzled by a strange British guy wandering by themselves all over the capital {I waited until the дежурная in my intourist hotel was absent for a second, then jumped on a passing tram, probably without even a KGB trail?}
I’ll re-evaluate my categorical HeT, in a decade or so, once my work colleagues won’t mind. I respect their current point of view. I don’t wish to annoy my employer *too much*, they have explicitly given me permission to write here on Craig’s blog, provided I never mention @@#@@@@, as I’m exercising one of my inherent freedoms here, but within reasonable limits.
Vk.com is an equivalent to Facebook
On a relatted matter — interestingly enough, just heard George Galloway make the case that Jeremy Corbin should just go ‘over the heads’ of the mean MSM, let them bleed to their deaths, and take to Twitter to get out his message and viewpoints.
George accredited –with all due disgust– Pres. Trump for doing exactly that, when the hulk just stopped bothering with the MSM altogether, and just started twittering to the world directly.
I want to protest, but … he might have a point.
“…take to Twitter to get out his message and viewpoints.”
Hmmmmmm. That’s a bad idea. He’s probably winning hands down on twitter anyway.
The problem is that people above the age of say 60 don’t really go near it. Many don’t even use the web except to check lottery numbers and compare funeral costs.
And, at the end of the day, that’s the age group that has most clout in elections. They read papers like the express and mail and go around full of hate. The only pleasure they get in life is derived from voting to screw up the country and the prospects of young people in a world that they despise.
So maybe taking to Twitter is maybe making the best of the worst (as described by you) situation?
I can’t believe I’m devils-advocating Twitter here; I have no presence on any of the major ‘Soclal’ Media — and proud of it.
Then again, I don’t read any of the major MSM newspapers either — and even prouder of that.
If you look at UK post-election survey data over the last 37 years, you’ll see the proof clearly in terms of who really calls the shots. Basically old,people. Demographic research shows that it was around 1980 that the population became more predominantly old. That was somewhat inevitable with the development towards nuclear family sizes.
Basically the country is hostage to these angry old English people, many of whom are middle class, and they they are motivated by hatred. Why else would you vote Thatcher and Brexit and love it (as verified in polls) when we start bombing Johnny foreignor?
The annoying thing is we are talking about the most pampered generation in the history of the UK. Jobs, welfare, NHS, cheap houses, free school meals, free university education, you name it, they had it. By today’s standards they are total welfare queens and yet they despise the idea that young people today might get any sort of support or state help.
It was that same demographic that stood in the way of Scottish independence in 2014. Yes, they exist in Scotland too although in smaller numbers because Scottish people don’t live as long as people down south. They are really anti-progress. If they support the monarchy or anything it’s to distinguish themselves from people with more than 2 brain cells whom they genuinely hate.
And they’re pretty racist, as evinced by voting behaviour and the papers they read; they openly condemn gays, intellectuals, and a bunch of other people who, as they see, conspire to give emphasis to their vile value system.
Corbyn will never, ever, win these people over. Basically any politician who doesn’t want to launch nuclear missiles on humanity tomorrow is a socialist coward who can’t be trusted.
Stereotyping at its worst!
And nasty with it too.
What Steph said.
Very accurate description of middle England and its attitudes. I’d only add that they see themselves as the world’s biggest victims rather than the most pampered people in history. With Brexit, the whole world has seen the hate that infests these people.
All based on what polls and election results suggest, except the pampered stuff which is historical fact.
If there’s an argument against socialism and even democracy, old people are it (generally speaking, based on poll and election data, no harm was caused to any old person during the making of this comment, your statutory rights are not affected. MMXVIII all rights reserved).
Hatred is too strong a word to use about these people. It’s fear based. Fear that non-whites actually have some power.ditto for gays. Ditto for Islam Fear that their world will be gone forever
From our Counterculture site IT which has been hacked a few times over the years by the forces of Awe and Boredom.
“America’s unsavory record of violent interventions in Syria — little-known to the American people yet well-known to Syrians — sowed fertile ground for the violent Islamic jihadism that now complicates any effective response by our government to address the challenge of ISIL. So long as the American public and policymakers are unaware of this past, further interventions are likely only to compound the crisis. Secretary of State John Kerry this week announced a “provisional” ceasefire in Syria. But since U.S. leverage and prestige within Syria is minimal — and the ceasefire doesn’t include key combatants such as Islamic State and al Nusra — it’s bound to be a shaky truce at best. Similarly President Obama’s stepped-up military intervention in Libya — U.S. airstrikes targeted an Islamic State training camp last week — is likely to strengthen rather than weaken the radicals. As the New York Times reported in a December 8, 2015, front-page story, Islamic State political leaders and strategic planners are working to provoke an American military intervention. They know from experience this will flood their ranks with volunteer fighters, drown the voices of moderation and unify the Islamic world against America.
To understand this dynamic, we need to look at history from the Syrians’ perspective and particularly the seeds of the current conflict. Long before our 2003 occupation of Iraq triggered the Sunni uprising that has now morphed into the Islamic State, the CIA had nurtured violent jihadism as a Cold War weapon and freighted U.S./Syrian relationships with toxic baggage. ”
http://internationaltimes.it/why-the-arabs-dont-want-us-in-syria/
Hi Craig sorry this is happening. I put an amount in and my email. Will that make the donation?
Your work and contribution to this ongoing challenge is brilliant. Thank you for everything you have done
Facebook is basically useless. Everybody, Delete Your Account. For the record, I stumbled across Craig in the old fashioned way – he was cited in a book, so I checked his website. I believe it was Chomsky btw (props for the citation). If FB and Twitter are just going to censor, and dick everyone around, then wave goodbye.
Honestly? If they both disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn’t care. Twitter is kinda amusing, especially now Trump is causing mayhem. But it’s ultra censorious, and partially owned by a Saudi crook. So, cheerio.
I don’t know enough to explain the difference, but Wee Ginger Dug sends me an e-mail when he posts anew article on his site. Could you do the same?
I check your blog online, not on facebook, but your posts are appearing on my FB page OK.
Craig I wonder if the change is due to your having decided to accept donations on your blog – which you announced exactly when the drop in traffic took place?
If FB can pick that up automatically, either from your blog or from a reference to donations in one of your FB posts, FB may now have you classified as a business, which means they will curtail shares in an effort to force you to pay for service.
My wife runs a small charity, and complains about this all the time.
I’m surprised you haven’t commented on the story at the OPCW yesterday.
Russia has proved the entire attack on Douma was staged, even before the OPCW has set foot in the second site of “attack”.
https://news.sky.com/story/live-russia-proves-syria-attack-was-staged-11347363
@ James Kier April 27, 2018 at 08:37
‘Russia ‘won’t allow’ another US military action in Syria based on false flag – OPCW envoy’:
https://www.rt.com/news/425256-russia-wont-allow-attack-syria/
The Russians and Syrians know the truth: obviously the perps in the West will never admit or accept it.
The only thing that will stop or temper the West’s abominations is force, or the threat of it. They have been getting away with invading, occupying or attacking sovereign countries on the basis of ‘False Flag’ attacks or hoaxes, or just plain lies, for so long (because of MSM complicity with their lies) that they may think Russia is bluffing, a very risky assessment.
Only strange thing about this is this: the OPCW delegation calling it, not the Foreign Office, .e. Lavrov.
PS. The links I’ve posted on Facebook have successfully worked for this site.
Maybe you’re one of them or they hope to flip you and turn you into a tinker, tailor, soldier, or spy.
This would be easy to verify by experiment. Post something “controversial” and email your friends to see how many of them receive it as a shared item. We can then distinguish between avoidance behaviour and censorship.
Simples …
All the more reason for people to set this site with a bookmark, and make their visits directly.