False Information

Independent Fact Checkers

Facebook is a total mess. I hear that Mark Zuckerberg is apologizing for censoring people, I find that really strange. If he was truly sorry than why is there so much censorship there still?

I guess people don't see it the same as I do. When an image is blurred and a warning is put onto it, that is censorship. When there is shadow ban, that is censorship. This is happening on a large scale. I don't understand why he is apologizing for something that he continues to do.

Here is an example that I came across recently.

Paulo Wenceslao Aquino, who has 92,000 followers on Facebook posted a short video where Catherine Austin Fitts explains the concept of CBDC. This video has been watched 3.5 million times and has nearly 66000 likes. This is what it looks like:

After you click on “see why”, the next screen says this:

If you click on “see fact check”, the next screen that comes up is this one:

If you had clicked on see post then you would not have been taken to the last screen where you could access the Fact Check. Here is a link to the fact check:

FACT CHECK: Digital bank transactions NOT restricted 5 km away from home

The fact check article says that the video is false information because there is currently no law in place that would restrict a person from conducting digital bank transactions more than 5 kilometers away from their homes. This is ridiculous because if you watch the posted video, that is not at all what she says. Her presentation is clearly about a hypothetical situation.

Here is the video:

In the video she uses the term “if”. This means that she is talking about something that might happen and how it might happen. She is not saying that it has happened. It is a warning.

The fact check for this video does not seem to understand what a hypothetical situation is.

I personally think that the reason the fact check was necessary was because of how popular the video was. They were desperate to slow it down, too many people were watching it and finding out about this hypothetical situation.

So this is where we are at. I don’t think it was like this in 2019. It only seemed to get this bad in 2020 and on. Snopes has been around for awhile, but they were never able to blur out images and put warnings onto them.

I doubt that very obedient people would ever click through to watch the video.

My concern is that we are seeing more and more censorship, while people like Zuckerberg apologize for censorship, as they continue to censor.

There is the saying that goes ‘Wherever books are burned, men also, in the end, are burned.’ Why wouldn’t we expect the same thing to happen as has happened in the past with censorship?

Another problem with censorship is that it ties up a lot of brain power. People are constantly trying to speak without being censored and they have to guess at what might get censored. What is allowed or not allowed is not clear or obvious.

This tweet by @DrNickA seemed to explain this well:

People overly reduce the idea of freedom of speech down to what you can and can’t say.

When actually it’s more about a culture of free thought.

As lecturer I trained for years to be able to respond to questions quickly. It’s literally brain training. Synthesising knowledge and expressing it clearly is an art form. The closer the gap between formed thought and it leaving your mouth the closer to that persons truth you are.

When you’re in a guarded environment “be careful what you say”. You think differently, it adds extra steps to thought processes.

It limits expression. It limits thought.

That’s what we should be worried about.

It’s about culture, freedom of expression, being able to openly vocalise your true thoughts and have them tested by your peers. It’s about the environment we create.

My preference is one of openness.

I agree with Dr. Nick, my preference is for openness. I don’t need to be surrounded by people who all think and say the same things that I do. I want to be open and free, the alternative is not something I will ever accept.