DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE: Simply censored – and other tales of wonder in America

Well, I can now say I have effectively been censored.

Never thought it would happen to me in America.

And yet, it happened to me in America.

Those darn silly fact checkers and integrity police at TikTok (I know everyone says TikTok is owned by China, but actually it is not that easy of an explanation).

Newsweek reported in October that “TikTok is owned by its Chinese parent company ByteDance, which is based in Beijing.

However, the company is not actually registered in China, but is incorporated in the Cayman Islands. Although ByteDance and TikTok both have offices in China, neither is owned by the ruling Communist party and both insist they are not controlled by the government.”

Nevertheless, TikTok has censored 11 of my posts now in the past few months because I “dueted” or basically reposted posts from other users on my account regarding the vaccine, the government, and other topics that apparently wasn’t the appropriate TikTok narrative they want to push out.

As well, I was in account warning for days with the threat of having my account banned if I posted what this platform says, “lacks integrity.”

Has anyone over TikTok way bothered to look up the definition of integrity – because what I am reading into that narrative is basically they ban anything that does not promote the agenda TikTok is promoting.

As in they are not promoting valuable information regarding what is going on in the real world that isn’t the narrative the platform has been instructed to allow.

What I find suspicious too is that in the last weeks in case you haven’t read, Elon Musk’s Twitter has been releasing information about how the FBI apparently worked with Twitter (just as many people were saying but had no proof) to suppress free speech by people posting to their Twitter accounts.

More on that in just a minute.

For the moment let’s just say the TikTok censoring is suspicious. 

It was also recently reported a Texas Court did uphold a social media law on censorship in the state. That was reported by a Texas Attorney who said he was banned from TikTok for no reason.

Even so, the US Supreme Court has paused that law, so it won’t go into effect until an appeals law decides if it follows the US Constitution.

Hey folks, look up the definition of censorship. I can assure you my content was harmless if not truthful.

Also suspicious is the fact the US government is trying to get rid of TikTok in America.

A recent news report in November stated, “The head of the FBI says the bureau has “national security concerns” about the U.S. operations of TikTok, warning that the Chinese government could potentially use the popular video-sharing app to influence American users or control their devices.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray told a House Homeland Security Committee hearing about worldwide threats just days after Republican lawmakers introduced a bill that would ban the app nationwide.

So back to Twitter and what we have recently found out was going on there before Musk concluded his acquisition of that the platform back in October.

Since then, there have been some interesting reveals I think should shock all of us about the silencing of the news on the Twitter platform due to, apparently FBI involvement.

A Newsweek columnist Ben Weingarten wrote Monday “The FBI is gaslighting the American people over the stunning – if unsurprising – evidence that it engaged in a conspiracy with Big Tech to silence wrong thinkers in violation of the First Amendment, as the Twitter Files have revealed. 

Meanwhile, in attacking those who refuse to be gaslit, the bureau is also telegraphing that it would respond to Congress investigating its hyper-politization and weaponization with relentless information warfare.

The gaslighting comes in the preeminent law enforcement agency’s “move along, nothing to see here” response to the Twitter Files.

It stated, “... correspondence between the FBI and Twitter show nothing more than examples of our traditional, longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements.”

The FBI states, “provides critical information to the private sector in an effort to allow them to protect themselves and their customers.”

The New York Post also revealed the involvement with the FBI hushing Twitter accounts, and in an article from Dec. 24 stated, “The CIA has been meddling in Twitter’s internal content moderation for years, according to the latest dispatches from Elon Musk’s Twitter Files – which also revealed ‘mountains of insistent moderation demand’ from the Democratic National Committee, but not from the GOP.”

Two separate threads in the ongoing Elon Musk-sponsored deep dive into the social media’s internal documents were released Saturday by independent journalist Matt Taibbi, documenting how the platform has frequently bowed to government and political pressure.

On June 29, 2020, Taibbi shows, the FBI’s Elvis Chan – who has played a starring role in past Twitter Files releases – asked company executives to invite an OGA to an upcoming conference.

“OGA, or ‘Other Government Organization’ can be a euphemism for CIA, according to multiple former intelligence officials and contractors,” Taibbi explains.

One week later, Stacia Cardille, a senior Twitter legal executive, made the link explicit with “I invited the FBI, and the CIA virtually will attend too,” Cardille wrote to her colleague – and former FBI chief counsel – James Baker on July 8, 2020. “No need for you to attend.”

Then the FBI released a statement, “It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.”

Remember, if you aren’t aware, the CIA is the agency that coined the term “conspiracy theory.”

Just to wrap this little mess up and remind everyone, do your research, because it has also been released the FBI paid Twitter $34-million “in US tax dollars for administration costs related to the staff’s time spent working with the FBI.”

Fox News reported in the Twitter Files Part 7 drop, “The intelligence committee pressured news and social media outlets to discredit evidence of information peddling regarding Hunter Biden on the Hunter Biden laptop.

“This despite the evidence that the news was known for over a year before the Post story dropped.”

Fox News reported, “Throughout 2020 the FBI was repeatedly warning Twitter that stories about Hunter’s laptop was a Russian hack and leak operation. They knew otherwise since they had the laptop since October of 2019.”

An FBI agent, according to Fox News, also emailed Twitter’s Head of Security a trove of documents just one day before the Post story came out.

There is a House Oversight Committee looking into this and the Chairman of that Committee Kentucky Congressman James Comer said, “More evidence of wrongdoing. In the beginning I thought there were two or three rogue employees who were orchestrating this coverup of the Hunter Biden laptop story, but now we know the FBI had a division of at least 88 agents.

“We also know that the FBI paid Twitter over $3 million for their time – all the time they took over the past couple of years telling them who to suppress, who to ban, it is just things the government has no role in, and the FBI was never granted the authority to create any type of disinformation task force to police the social media sites. 

“This we know with Twitter. We have heard similar stories with Zuckerberg and who knows what went on at YouTube and Google.

“This is an agency that is out of control and the most frustrating thing for me is in this Omnibus Bill that is increasing funding for the FBI plus a $1.75 billion headquarter for the FBI.”

Comer said he believes all funding should be halted regarding the FBI until the agency comes forward and explains to Congress what they were doing, why and who gave them the authority to do it [at Twitter].

As a note, five days ago the Omnibus Bill did pass – thanks to Republicans too – to the tune of trillions of dollars.

The Senate voted to pass the $1.7 trillion omnibus package that “funds the federal government through September, provides Ukraine with $45 billion in military and economic aid and sets aside $38 billion for emergency disaster assistance. It also includes reforms to the Electoral Count Act in response to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, clarifying that the vice president does not have the power to overturn the results of a presidential election,” reported The Hill on December 22. 

My two takeaways; trillions of dollars the American people are funding and even better, if you haven’t seen it, try to find a video of the Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaking to Congress in truly casual attire.

But, in the true spirit of the west instead of people noticing how much money our country just gave to Ukraine instead of spending it here at home, well, instead people went out an bought the tasteless green casual sweater Zelensky wore to address Congress in since everyone wants to make a fashion statement, but apparently far less people care where in fact, the billions of dollars is coming from that we are giving away.

Sniff, sniff, you can’t make this stuff up – even on your best day!

Rita Cook is a freelance writer for The Ellis County Press. She can be reached at rcook13@earthlink.net.