Politics

Independent filmmaker: Pres. Trump must call out Twitter over censorship at SOTU

As we and others have reported, James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas has released a series of scathing videos in which employees of the social media site Twitter have admitted to “shadow-banning” and censoring those with a point of view that runs contrary to the politically-correct Silicon Valley culture.

Many have expressed outrage and one independent filmmaker says it’s time for President Trump to publicly call out social media sites like Twitter — a platform which played a huge role in his electoral victory, and one he continues to use as a tool to bypass a hostile and biased mainstream media — at the upcoming State of the Union speech.

David Rosler, creater of the faith-based 3D movie “Orbiter,” told the Conservative Firing Line on Monday that he believes the social media giant is censoring links to his movie’s website, which can be seen here.

“They’re deliberately trying to hurt our business interests,” he said.  “They’re trying to keep us from getting funds and gaining traction.”

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Rosler has posted several tweets on his site that seem to prove his point.  General tweets get noticed, liked and even re-tweeted — something that only began to happen after the Project Veritas videos were released.  Tweets that mention his project, however, get absolutely no notice whatsoever, something he maintains is statistically impossible without interference from company engineers.

The pictures on his site weren’t cherrypicked, he said, adding that “…many Tweets without Orbiter links were posted and received at least a few likes and often a few retweets (meaning sent to all their friends as bulk messages). All Orbiter-associated tweets, despite the very obvious manner in which they attract extremely unusual and unique attention, among audiences that appreciate the Christian theme, get statistically-impossible zero reaction whatsoever. No compliments, no questions, no critiques, every critic on social media we are supposed to believe has gone silent.”

The only explanation that makes sense to him is that someone and/or something — perhaps an algorithm specifically designed by an engineer — is suppressing those tweets.

“What they’re doing is writing algorithms to censor people on a wholesale basis simply according to the words they use,” he told me.

Moreover, he said, “there’s already a law in place” to keep that kind of activity from happening, specifically 18 U.S. Code § 241 – Conspiracy against rights.

That law reads:

If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or

If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured—

They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

In short, he said, what the site is doing violates the law.  Meanwhile, leftists are permitted to send death threats and advocate Trump’s assassination.

And, he added, the company’s “intent is malicious,” and “what they’re doing is criminal.”

Lawsuits, he said would cost millions of dollars. Moreover, he said the situation has become critical.

“It’s not something that can wait for years,” he added.

Instead, he advocated calling Congress’ attention to the problem using the Veritas videos and established federal law.  He also supports a measure proposed by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., that if passed, would help take a bite out of online censorship.

Additionally, he said, Trump can make a huge difference by mentioning it during the State of the Union, a speech seen around the world by millions of people.

“I think everybody should demand President Trump expose Twitter and call them out by citing the evidence presented by Project Veritas,” he said, suggesting that those who support the concept of free speech regardless of their political viewpoint call the White House or reach out through other means, such as email.

“Trump needs to speak generically about the millions of people and the thousands of businesses being targeted by social media,” he added.

“Free speech is something that should be embraced by everyone regardless of political and religious persuasion,” Rosler said, explaining that Twitter has been shown in O’Keefe’s videos to be ideologically driven and hostile to opposing points of view.

“They’re trying to ruin our business with malicious intent — that’s a crime,” he said. “Their terms of service do not trump federal law.”

Those who wish to support Rosler’s current project can do so here.

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Banned: How Facebook enables militant Islamic jihad
Banned: How Facebook enables militant Islamic jihad – Source: Author (used with permission)

 

Joe Newby

A 10-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, Joe ran for a city council position in Riverside, Calif., in 1991 and managed successful campaigns for the Idaho state legislature. Co-author of "Banned: How Facebook enables militant Islamic jihad," Joe wrote for Examiner.com from 2010 until it closed in 2016 and his work has been published at Newsbusters, Spokane Faith and Values and other sites. He now runs the Conservative Firing Line.

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