Big Tech Is Back on a Censorship Binge
The websites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have become hopelessly fixated on who should be allowed as members of their social media club. The membership rulebook is under constant revision. If you are someone who holds to leftist views, you might not notice the changes. That is because conservatives and Christians are the only ones being restricted.
A couple weeks ago, there were headline reports about Twitter’s effort to “shadow ban” conservatives. A “shadow ban” involves blocking a website account in a way where the account’s content is not readily available to others on a website. The user is unaware that their content is blocked.
When a YouTube page that hosts The Hal Lindsey Reports sends out a notification about his latest video, I don’t always receive the message. Since I’m on his contact list, I should be alerted every time he adds a new post. I don’t receive the notice because someone has decided to limit the number of people who can access his material.
Last week, there was an outright ban on Alex Jones by Facebook, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. Jones was marked as an easy target because he is the source of many conspiracy views. He believes that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was fake, the 9/11 attack was planned by the U.S. government, and the moon landing was staged in a Hollywood studio.
I think it is very dangerous to free speech to allow Jones to be banned. The Silicon Valley is the most liberal region of America, and it’s very obvious that these companies would like to silence all voices on the right.
Tech companies such as Facebook, Senator Ted Cruz said, have “a degree of power and an ability to censor that William Randolph Hearst at the height of yellow journalism could never have imagined. They have the ability, if there is a speaker who is disfavored, simply to silence the speaker — to shadow ban them so that you might speak, but your words float off into oblivion and nobody hears them.”
Several years ago, I decided against posting Rapture Ready’s content on Facebook and Twitter because I knew that censorship would eventually become a problem. Lately, I’ve read numerous letters that detail how social media has largely destroyed platforms that people spent years building up. Last week, I read an email from Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily. He said the Internet Cartel had caused a profound shrinking in his site’s traffic and revenue. “WND.com, for instance, saw drops in revenue from more than $10 million in 2016 to $6 million last year to perhaps as little as $4 million in 2018,” said Farah.
Martin Niemöller was a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. He wrote the following poem that should be applied to this current situation:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
The only thing to keep us from falling into a situation where Big Brother controls access to all web platforms is the fear of public opinion. These big tech firms have gone through several steps where they would restrict someone and then back away from criticism, and then they would censor the same person in a different way. With each cycle, the restrictions become progressively worse.
If the Democrats win control of the government, they have promised to add controls to the web. Senator Chris Murphy said censorship of websites is so vital the “Survival of our democracy depends on it.”
Other Senate Democrats are already circulating plans for a government takeover of the internet. The paper suggests forcing social media platforms to identify and track the person behind all user accounts. To protect us from Russia agents, they want the federal government to act as a tyrannical gatekeeper of the worldwide web.
If we continue down this path, the day will eventually come when President Trump’s Twitter account is deleted. I’m sure Jack Dorsey, the head of Twitter, gets asked each day why he hasn’t already made this move. When Facebook had its last earnings report, reporters were constantly badgering the firm on why it allows Fox News to have a platform. I think these so-called reporters have become so evil, they’re incapable of realizing they are acting like Nazis.
I firmly believe that God is going to hold things together until the very end. If we reach the point where the web authorities have decided to label and ban all Christian sites as purveyors of hate speech, the rapture will occur right before they get a chance to throw the switch. Since this demonic cabal is obsessed with finishing its task, we have a strong indication that time is very short.
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).
–Todd
Catalyst for Cataclysm
Economics on a worldwide scale continue to broil under intensive pressures exerted by America’s president. It is such squeezing, I am convinced, that will help induce the prophesied Tribulation era. That time, known as Daniel’s Seventieth Week, looks to be on the near horizon.
The pressure has forced what many experts of the fiscal sort–before the advent of Donald J. Trump–would have said could not have resulted in movement away from the globalist model. An example I have in mind is seen in a current story out of Germany.
A transfer of nearly $400 million in cash to Iran has been blocked by Germany’s central bank in what appears to be a response to efforts by the U.S. ambassador to Germany.
Last month, Ambassador Richard Grenell urged Berlin to prevent Iran’s withdrawal of large sums of cash from German bank accounts in an effort to offset U.S. sanctions that took effect following Washington’s withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. (Source: “‘This is huge’: US Ambassador Grenell quietly blocks $400 million transfer from Germany to Iran,” by Frieda Powers, Conservative News, August 3, 2018)
Ever since the new American president began to deal with the likes of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in such matters, the dynamics of economic interaction on the international scene has been in dramatic flux. While it has been, in my opinion, good for the United States and our position economically, the president’s influence has continued to drive the one-worlders crazy. But, they nonetheless seem to have no choice but to go along with Trump’s pressure–to this point, at any rate.
At the same time the caterwauling increases from those opposed to Trump in everything he does, the stock market, despite bumps and grinds, continues to be bursting at the seams to advance. This, many financial experts both welcome and fear.
They welcome the powerful forces trying to move things upward, but they have an innate fear of pending fiscal cataclysm.
I had a friend email me a week or so ago, including in the email an advisory from the emailer’s financial expert. The advisory said the following:
The stock market has been responding positively to better than expected earnings, “The Melt Up is officially here. This is the boom we’ve been waiting for. And this phase should last 12 to 18 months”, said Steve Sjuggerud, Stansberry Research. He went on to say, “The Melt Up will propel U.S. stocks to fantastic heights. The Melt Up is the final push of a bull market. It’s when the leading companies of this near decade long boom really take off and propel the overall market dramatically higher.”
As I have written before, do not be complacent; you must be vigilant. Please enjoy the melt-up as you prepare for a melt-down. I don’t know what the catalyst might be for a reversal of fortune, but we all see the huge elephant in the room.
The friend went on to say simply, “We know what the catalyst might be.”
That pleased me very much. My friend instinctively realized, because of her study of Bible prophecy, what the expert’s advice contained but could not understand or explain.
We have gone over time after time in these commentaries the catalyst the expert mentioned that he himself instinctively knew was poised to bring economic cataclysm upon the world. That catalyst is wrapped up in Jesus’ “days of Noah, days of Lot” prophecy found in Matthew 24:36-42 and Luke 17:26-30.
Jesus said the world will be in an economic uptick when he is next “revealed.” It will not be at a time when as much as three-fourths of humanity on earth has been killed through judgment and wrath.
The catalyst for that coming cataclysm–the Tribulation–will be the Rapture of the Church, I am convinced.
We covered in last week’s column the fact that five top hedge-fund billionaires sensed the coming cataclysm. They had questions for their futurist expert questions he wasn’t prepared to answer. They wanted to know how to best survive a world-rending collapse that was, they obviously thought, imminent.
I wrote in that commentary: “The world is indeed moving toward some climactic event that will bring about a world more horrific than any yet
experienced by earth’s inhabitants. But, those mentioned here have no idea of what that ‘event’ is or the signals of its approach. They simply sense that something is on the brink of bringing their world crashing down around their ears.”
Again, in a chapter in my newest book, Essays in Apocalypse: Some Thoughts On the End of Days, the chapter called “The Coming Economic Boom” presents an in-depth look at the catalyst for cataclysm that is even now coming into view within our hourly news.
–Terry
***Terry’s new book Essays in Apocalypse: Some Thoughts On the End Of Days***
Please check out Terry James’ just released book . With Foreword by Jan Markell, president of Olive Tree Ministries and host of a nation-wide radio program with more than 830 stations across America.
Chapters exploring whether: America is Mystery Babylon; President Donald J. Trump might be positioned to help bring prophetic conditions for Rapture; Vladimir Putin likely is Gog of Ezekiel 38…
Additionally, each brief essay dissects the rapid prophetic progression of these troubled days, providing insight as this generation moves toward the Tribulation era!