Meanwhile the Mainstream Media Completely Ignores the March Against Monsanto Event,
Corporate America is dominating the airwaves, while the majority can't afford to pay the big money to even try to get ad time, assuming they would be accepted; and they're increasingly trying to suppress criticism through other sources as well. Some of these attempts may seem like an incompetent attempt to some who pay enough attention to the alternative media outlets but many people that don't might not be aware of it.
In practice it is becoming increasingly obvious that modern interpretations of the first amendment mean that a small number of corporations can have virtual monopoly, or oligarchy control of the mainstream media that reaches the vast majority of the public.
While the vast majority of the public only has the right to free speech as long as they either repeat the corporate ideology or only attempt to speak where no one is listening, perhaps in "free speech zones!"
One of the latest attempts at censorship by Monsanto and Facebook is the deletion of a March Against Monsanto Event, as described in the following article:
March Against Monsanto Event Removed by Facebook By Lauren Berlekamp
Facebook has been accused of being a facade for free speech as it has been known to censor controversial content. For example, earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg was called out for practicing censorship when a Facebook ad by CREDO Mobile was pulled for criticizing his financial and political ties to the Keystone XL pipeline.
The group March Against Monsanto announced yesterday on their Facebook page that Facebook removed an event page promoting a rally in St. Louis, MO, where the biotech giant is headquartered.
The rally is set to take place on Saturday, Oct. 12, with a broad coalition of regional groups and solidarity activists planning to converge at the company’s corporate headquarters. While the event did not contain derogatory or inappropriate content, it was removed for violating Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. The group has since created a new event page for the rally. Complete article
Facebook has been accused of being a facade for free speech as it has been known to censor controversial content. For example, earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg was called out for practicing censorship when a Facebook ad by CREDO Mobile was pulled for criticizing his financial and political ties to the Keystone XL pipeline.
The group March Against Monsanto announced yesterday on their Facebook page that Facebook removed an event page promoting a rally in St. Louis, MO, where the biotech giant is headquartered.
The rally is set to take place on Saturday, Oct. 12, with a broad coalition of regional groups and solidarity activists planning to converge at the company’s corporate headquarters. While the event did not contain derogatory or inappropriate content, it was removed for violating Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. The group has since created a new event page for the rally. Complete article
ExxonMobil has also been involved in attempts to censor another satire as described in the following article:
Law Firm Behind Removal of YouTube Tar Sands Satire Fundraiser Tied to Big Oil by Steve Horn
DeSmog Canada recently revealed Andy Cobb and Mike Damanskis - two political satirists in the spotlight for their ongoing spoofery of the Alberta tar sands project - had an Indiegogo fundraising promotional video for their upcoming "vacation" to the Alberta tar sands ordered removed from YouTube due to an alleged copyright violation.
Alleged because under U.S. legal precedent (YouTube is a U.S. company), it's almost impossible to claim copyright damages for parody and/or satire. That won't keep Travel Alberta, the province's tourism bureau, from trying. Complete article
DeSmog Canada recently revealed Andy Cobb and Mike Damanskis - two political satirists in the spotlight for their ongoing spoofery of the Alberta tar sands project - had an Indiegogo fundraising promotional video for their upcoming "vacation" to the Alberta tar sands ordered removed from YouTube due to an alleged copyright violation.
Alleged because under U.S. legal precedent (YouTube is a U.S. company), it's almost impossible to claim copyright damages for parody and/or satire. That won't keep Travel Alberta, the province's tourism bureau, from trying. Complete article
All these large corporations have a history of censoring smaller grass roots organizations even though they don't have nearly as much opportunity to get their points across and if their claims are false the corporations could easily refute them. Past examples of censorship include attempts to censor autistic children and their mother, a Gandhi quote about guns and another satire about how pollution is killing children as indicated in the following excerpts:
Facebook wages censorship war against moms of autistic children who protest GMOs: Exclusive interview with Andrea Lalama by Mike Adams
(NaturalNews) When Facebook suspended the account of a mom of two autistic children who held anti-GMO signs at the recent rally, it became national news. Drudge Report linked to our Natural News story which documented Facebook censoring multiple accounts for sharing a photo Facebook absurdly called "abusive."
That photo, it turns out, was nothing more than a picture of two children holding up hand-made signs at the March Against Monsanto. One of the signs read, "Biopesticides = Autism, Say No to GMO" and the other sign read, "Organic Food It's My Medicine, Label GMOs" (see videos, below).
This defiance against GMOs was apparently too much for Facebook to tolerate, so it took immediate action to censor the account of the mom, Andrea Lalama. Complete article
Facebook bans Gandhi quote as part of revisionist history purge by Mike Adams
(NaturalNews) The reports are absolutely true. Facebook suspended the Natural News account earlier today after we posted an historical quote from Mohandas Gandhi. The quote reads:
"Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest." - Mohandas Gandhi, an Autobiography, page 446.
This historical quote was apparently too much for Facebook's censors to bear. They suspended our account and gave us a "final warning" that one more violation of their so-called "community guidelines" would result in our account being permanently deactivated. Complete article
“ExxonMobil Hates Your Children” and This Ad by Marcia G. Yerman
There are a plethora of ads put forth by oil companies to promote the “social good” they are doing. As a writer on environmental issues, I happen to be aware of the flip side of the story. So while British Petroleum pushes their “Voices from the Gulf” tourism travelogues about how great it is to visit the southern states afflicted by their oil spill, the fact that I think about is that the oil spill was the most significant to date in American history, with between 17 and 39 million gallons spilled in the Gulf of Mexico. When Chevron showcases a suite of presentations entitled, “We Agree,” which riffs off of the concerns that average people have for the planet, I think about the ruling handed down from an Ecuadorean court for an $18 billion judgment against them, in response to violating the health and human rights of Indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon. ExxonMobil had their Oil Sands and the Economy promo, which was debunked in a piece by ThinkProgress for its failure to acknowledge the repercussions of global warming. (ExxonMobil has a series of videos posted on YouTube, for which all comments have been disabled.). However, the damage lives on.
So it was with interest that I looked into the story about three organizations that took a page from the PR books of the oil companies. They created a tongue-in-cheek ad of their own. It’s called, “Exxon Hates Your Children.” It features a man in a suit facetiously explaining the ExxonMobil business philosophy, the $10 billion in federal subsidies the oil companies receive annually, all while exuding an air of indifference about the climate crisis. A mixture of sardonic humor and razor-sharp political theater, the content is poised to become the focal point of a conversation that is much larger than solely environmental issues. It’s about who gets to put their message out to the public. Complete article
(NaturalNews) When Facebook suspended the account of a mom of two autistic children who held anti-GMO signs at the recent rally, it became national news. Drudge Report linked to our Natural News story which documented Facebook censoring multiple accounts for sharing a photo Facebook absurdly called "abusive."
That photo, it turns out, was nothing more than a picture of two children holding up hand-made signs at the March Against Monsanto. One of the signs read, "Biopesticides = Autism, Say No to GMO" and the other sign read, "Organic Food It's My Medicine, Label GMOs" (see videos, below).
This defiance against GMOs was apparently too much for Facebook to tolerate, so it took immediate action to censor the account of the mom, Andrea Lalama. Complete article
Facebook bans Gandhi quote as part of revisionist history purge by Mike Adams
(NaturalNews) The reports are absolutely true. Facebook suspended the Natural News account earlier today after we posted an historical quote from Mohandas Gandhi. The quote reads:
"Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest." - Mohandas Gandhi, an Autobiography, page 446.
This historical quote was apparently too much for Facebook's censors to bear. They suspended our account and gave us a "final warning" that one more violation of their so-called "community guidelines" would result in our account being permanently deactivated. Complete article
“ExxonMobil Hates Your Children” and This Ad by Marcia G. Yerman
There are a plethora of ads put forth by oil companies to promote the “social good” they are doing. As a writer on environmental issues, I happen to be aware of the flip side of the story. So while British Petroleum pushes their “Voices from the Gulf” tourism travelogues about how great it is to visit the southern states afflicted by their oil spill, the fact that I think about is that the oil spill was the most significant to date in American history, with between 17 and 39 million gallons spilled in the Gulf of Mexico. When Chevron showcases a suite of presentations entitled, “We Agree,” which riffs off of the concerns that average people have for the planet, I think about the ruling handed down from an Ecuadorean court for an $18 billion judgment against them, in response to violating the health and human rights of Indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon. ExxonMobil had their Oil Sands and the Economy promo, which was debunked in a piece by ThinkProgress for its failure to acknowledge the repercussions of global warming. (ExxonMobil has a series of videos posted on YouTube, for which all comments have been disabled.). However, the damage lives on.
So it was with interest that I looked into the story about three organizations that took a page from the PR books of the oil companies. They created a tongue-in-cheek ad of their own. It’s called, “Exxon Hates Your Children.” It features a man in a suit facetiously explaining the ExxonMobil business philosophy, the $10 billion in federal subsidies the oil companies receive annually, all while exuding an air of indifference about the climate crisis. A mixture of sardonic humor and razor-sharp political theater, the content is poised to become the focal point of a conversation that is much larger than solely environmental issues. It’s about who gets to put their message out to the public. Complete article
Thanks to their army of lawyers, lobbyists and propagandists large corporations have an enormous advantage, at least in the short term, when it comes to getting their point across, even though it is often much less reliable than their oppositions points which are often legitimate even if they aren't always perfect. Technically the satire about ExxonMobil "hating your children" might not be true but they clearly care much more about their profits than the lives of children and they are making an enormous amount of money off of the pollution that is already killing thousands if not millions of people around the world. As I indicated in Trade Secrecy laws provide license to commit negligent mass murder many corporations have been in many more environmental disasters than the mass media seems to imply since they report each one as an isolated incident and they often only report many of them in the local news without informing the public of the cumulative amount of damage which is already much worse than they let on.
The commercial media is presenting so much propaganda from the oil companies and allowing Monsanto to avoid any scrutiny and fly below the radar while many of the best researched critics are only able to present their research to those that seek them out. Monsanto successfully convinced the public in California to vote against their best interest with their expensive advertising campaign that controlled a lot of the information that the public had available to them. Part of what they did is convince people that their food would become more expensive if they had to add on the cost of labeling to it; this is only party true and ignore a much bigger expense that also has to be added on to the price of food, the cost of their own propaganda as well as the cost of regular advertising which is also deceptive in most cases. To pretend they have to pass on the cost of accurate information without acknowledging the fact that their inaccurate information is also a business expense that has to be passed on is the height of hypocrisy; and that is exactly what they did. they will almost certainly add more to the cost of food to cover their deception and now the consumers won't have accurate information to make their decisions so they lose both ways.
This tactic may be working with a large number of complacent people but it isn't working with those that pay more attention and if a growing number of people see the protests and hear from more alternative media outlets that actually do try to report the news then they will lose what little credibility they have left, assuming you think they have any left.
Montauk March Against Monsanto Gandhi quote
The following are some related articles including some from Timing Logic and Earth first who first pointed out some of the articles contributing to this blog:
Earth First: Facebook Removes March Against Monsanto Event
Timinglogic Facebook Censors Freedom Of Expression - Mom Who Protests Genetically-Modified Food
Reversing Autism on Facebook
Earth First: Removal of YouTube Tar Sands Satire Video Tied to Big Oil
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