In the past few years, social media sites like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have declared a war on information that conflicts with the mainstream narrative or fable that is desired to be accepted by the populace. This war on alternative information ends up being a war on truth and freedom.
Sources: wikimedia/public domain; Credit: Bill Kerr/flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0; pixabay
The war on so-called "fake news" has taken many forms. YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have been purging conservative-leaning content for a while, and this has recently expanded to natural health and alternative medicine. Independent health media has already been targeted by Google, where they have buried independent media stories in order to manipulate readers and the established protect powers in society. Google's slogan of "don't be evil" has been applied to many areas of information they consider to be harmful, with a cannabis oil video being banned on YouTube.
These media giants are attempting to delegitimize information that can be lifesaving through their powers of censorship and banning access to information. They want to control what you're allowed to read or hear. Dissenting thought is not desired, and they will do what they can to scrub it from the Internet.
Facebook's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has recently announced that Facebook will be hiring an additional 3,000 employees to help regulate control information people get to access. Facebook is also following in the footsteps of Google, as it begins to target and dismantle natural health pages from its site. Facebook has new rules that covertly target the natural health community. The "fake news" agenda is being applied to groups that use labels like organic, natural, traditional and wellness among others to flag their content and take down pages.
Some of the pages taken down in June include those in this list provided by Health Freedom Idaho:
- Viral Alternative News (500K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Organic Health (230K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Natural Cures From Food (120K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Heart Centered Rebalancing (3.9M followers) –
- Living Traditionally (570K followers) – Unpublished on June 5th, 2018.
- Organic Wellness (600K followers) – Unpublished on June 5th, 2018.
- Chocolate Socrates (608K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Earth We Are One
- Meditation Masters – Deleted in early June, 2018
- Global Freedom Movement (27K followers) – Deleted on June 19th, 2018.
- Health & Alternative Medicine (550K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Pure Nature (1.7M followers) – Deleted on June 3rd, 2018.
- Nature Gallery (654K followers) – Deleted on June 3rd, 2018.
- Mesmerizing Nature (912K followers) – Deleted on June 3rd, 2018.
- Nature’s Touch (150K followers) – Deleted on June 3rd, 2018.
- Healthy Life Box (1.8M followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Healthy Food House (3.4M followers) –
- Health Awareness (2.5M followers) –
- Healthy Life And Food (350K followers) – Deleted on May 23rd, 2018.
- Check These Things (80K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Health Care Above All (90K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Health and Healthy Living (450K followers) –
- Health & Alternative Medicine (550K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Healthy Living Motivation (644K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Alternative Health Universe (420K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Natural Medicine Corner (411K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Organic Health Team (490K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Global Health Care (130K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Healthy Alternative Medicine (140K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Natural Healthy Team (190K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Organic Food Medicine (30K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Love, Health and Happiness (10K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Healthy Organic Life (25K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Healthy Lifestyle (55K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Guardian of Health (160K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Daily Health Keeper (190K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Health & Love Page (720K followers) – Deleted on June 5th, 2018.
- Diabetes Health Page (180K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- The Beauty of Power (170K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Nutrition Facts and Analysys (170K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- Deeper Perspectives (32K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
- My Own Little World (1.5m) – Deleted on June 21, 2018
- Brighten Your Soul (100k plus) – Deleted on June 21, 2018
- Essence OF Spirit ( 12k) – Deleted on June 21, 2018
- We really like animals (544k) – Deleted on June 21, 2018
- Nature’s Majesty (191k) – Deleted on June 21, 2018
- Nature Magic (33k) – Deleted on June 21, 2018
- Floral Photobook (160k) – Deleted on June 21, 2018
Some pages had hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of followers. But it doesn't matter what value information can provide to people as long as Facebook determines it to be a threat to the established consensus of "truth". It seems like the agenda isn't the real "fake news" or false information, but more about alternatives that don't promote Big Pharma.
Independent health content is only the latest category to be targeted by the dictators of information. In efforts to control political information, ads relating to political content are expected to be required to go through a verification process.
This is all likely stemming from the last presidential election, where "fake news" was used to blame the Democrats losing. In order to "safeguard" the political process they will be fighting and controlling ads related to "national legislative issues of public importance". This can be for subjects like taxes, or even health or values that they want to promote or deny people the access to learn about.
Taxes, health or anything related to the way of life of a nation and its politics seem to be fair game. They don't want allow just anybody to openly talk about subjects that are giving a message contrary to the establishment narratives. Facebook now has "carte blanche" to target whoever they want for whatever justifications they may have. But these reasons won't be clearly defined since Facebook wants to prevent "bad actors" from being able to game or get around their enforcement system.
Snopes and PolitiFact are also likely to be used as alleged "fact checking" sources to help eliminate "fake news" from being propagated or even remain posted for people to see. These sites have already been exposed for their bias against conservative or Republican-leaning informational sources. Their conclusions aren't always based in truth, but are instead based in their own political agendas as they spin stories rather than evaluate statements for facts.
The image being given to the public is that social media sites are being transparent about their alleged "concern" for facts, but it's all a smokescreen. They are silencing content. They are "burning books" so-to-speak, by removing access to information. A mass censorship has been underway in recent years, and control over the information we can get access to is increasing. Will the Internet stop being a source of free access to information at some point? Will everything eventually end up being controlled?
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
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I hate all these tech companies stealing our info! Man what are they gunna do to us one day?? It’s weird
Whatever they want !
Facebook is not stealing your information, you are giving it to them for free.
Oh well it’s good that I don’t use Facebook lol
problem solved ;)
@krnel i will vote you for witness. I like your work a lot.
Motherfuckers. I will not stand quiet. I will launch a attack on facebook. I am sick of those fuckers. I am pissed!
Great information! This so called 'fake news' is also a mechanism to confuse and control the masses. Recently in India, more than 30 peoples were killed in different incidents, within a month by spreading rumors on Whatsapp. Some anti social elements spread a news on Whatsapp that gangs of child abductors were working in particular areas. It warned people against strangers and outsiders. Mob lynched more than 30 innocent persons in different part of the country mere on suspicion. Before that other rumors spread in social media which also took innocent lives.
Is this being done intentionally? Isn't it reminds of Hollywood movies 'Kingsmen Secret Service' and 'Resident Evil series'? Is this being done deliberately so that people start killing each other and they may not head towards the action of the government? Is this not a start of zombie apocalypse?
On one hand fake news is spreading freely while voices of the truth are being gagged. In the name of fighting against fake news, governments are working towards controlling the news which can be uncomfortable for their masters. First they create terrorists and then in the name of fighting against them, they make draconian laws which are used against opposition. Similarly, fake news are created and in the name of controlling them, a censorship is imposed. This is the reality of present day fake capitalistic demo(n)cracies.
I see that they have "restored" some of these sites. Maybe thanks to articles like yours and the Idaho one - which I posted directly on the Facebook page I almost never use.
Re-steeming this very important post. Thanks for sharing!
Bingo. Just as all the anti gun bullshit from the media is just another smokescreen for their advertisers in big pharma. The gun industry doesn't buy billions worth of ads from them. And of course guns take only a small fraction of the lives that prescription drugs do.
I didn't realize you were a witness, witness vote cast.
Facebook has turned to shit.
Glad I quit it using it a while back.
Politics steps into the peaceful internet world and it turns into a royal rumble! Now, manipulations of all sorts will take the center stage.
Oh, what fun!
Actual healing isn't profitable, so that must be silenced. We want people to have treatment. Teaching people to live healthy lives is WRONG, we need them to take diet pills and have stomach reduction surgery.
Unfortunately we have built a "machinery" that now depends on exploitation to sustain itself... and anything that doesn't sustain the machine is a threat. And fear lies at the heart... and yet, the system needs to be "allowed" to collapse...
DEFINITELY TIME FOR EVERYONE TO DUMP FACEBOOK!!
How many more proofs do we need of their evil intentions???
At this rate, i feel there is need to raise a brow; everything seems to be going over board...
It's too sad to see most social medias turning sour by the day.
It’s unfortunate in one sense that there are many people who won’t see the content but in another aspect the creators of this content are then forced to search out alternatives to spread their message and knowledge. It gives a chance for them to hopefully then hear about Steemit and bring them into the fold of our community and the permanence of decentralized blockchain.
The thought police routine will reach its limit and there will be enough people that get sick of it and it will change in my opinion but to what I don’t know.
Oh my goodness, this is horrendous and an outright attack on the public! These aren’t even websites particularly ‘battling’ with the system, just stating obvious truths?! Surely big pharma can’t be so closely linked with Facebook that it’s shutting down all of the health pages... but it clearly is :/ this is ridiculous. F**k Facebook!!! It has turned into mind games on their anyway and people’s egos getting thrown about like mental.
It’s so crazy to look at just the past 5 years and see how drastically and rapidly things have changed. Then you look back 10 years and it’s totally different. Even just 15 years ago we didn’t all have phones in our hands and could go out and socialise, integrate, and use our minds like they used to... sure there was always ego and lies, just not widespread like this.
krnel very well organized content and message conveyed effectively :)
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I have mixed opinions on this.
There are times where I find that the internet has made it too easy for people too spread misinformation and earn money that way. And especially over the recent years, that has gotten even worse because some of the topics tackled can actually be quite dangerous, so there is that.
On the other hand, the iron grip the big boys have on information is quite horrifying. Really makes you wonder if it may be time to just leave it all behind.
Yes, in my opinion Facebook and other centralised platforms are just earning money from the data and content of people and in my opinion they are studying the emotional behaviours and in that way they play the marketing games.
And centralised social media people easily spreading the Hate Speech and particularly Political views are really misguiding people inturn it's an big issue for the common people because common people are most effected due to these kind of centralised manipulation.
And another issues are data leak and data are used for the hidden agendas and that is not good thing and recently we heard many issues with these centralised social networking platforms.
And in my opinion YouTube also becoming so much censorship platform where people who are speaking truth they face the ban and all stuff and content creators face the abusive environment but these platforms are fail to control it even when they are so giant.
So, in my opinion it's good to stay away from the centralised social networking platform which just draining our energy and also in return just giving unwanted addiction and other stuff which is not needed.
Thanks for sharing this post with us and wishing you an great day. Stay blessed. 🙂
Hello Krnel. From the pages listed, I had had liked "Earth. We Are One". While I disagree with censorship*, I must say they were spreading false information. Cannabis oil is not 10,000 times more effective than chemotheraphy according to latest and most comprehensive study about the matter. It is almost harmless, the side effects are much more smaller than previously thought. But its positive effect is also much smalle than previously thought. And there no study comparing it to chemotherapy, but 10,000 is highly unlikely number.
Don't take me wrong. I stand on the side of alternative medicine. But I trust those who studied it and those who researched it more than people who just read a book or randomly came to some rumours. And a lot of pages rather spread random rumours than real accurate information. So the harm Facebook does is not as big as one might previously think, the good pages stay preserved, I have just checked. This doesn't change anything on the moral perspective of censorship.
Pages and books by ND Joseph Pizzorio, MD Michael Greger, MD Joseph Mercola and Prof. T. Colin Campbell are very recommended.
Yeah, but a centralized authority can't be trusted to filter out what we have access to. Things might be true. It's up to each of us to go find out if it is ;)
I've been collecting books about medicinal plants and herbs for a few years, for fear of losing access to information. I've been called paranoid (and worse) by a lot of people, but all of this kind of validates my concern. Thanks!
Minds.com seems to be only real alternative to censorship.
Sir this new post has been very beautiful This Facebook means a communication media nowadays is possible by Facebook Everywhere Facebook is a very good thing no one can follow without Facebook, so many videos are being made on Facebook. The video is talking about audio's video is a good thing in the messages
You didn't even read the post and now you are fishing for upvotes. Get lost. People like you are ruining this community. You deserve to be flagged to oblivion.