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Feb. 16, 2021 - Epoch Times

20:24

Gina Carano Hits Back at Critics, Announces New Movie Project | Facts Matter

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	Good evening.
	Today, let's focus our discussion on the topic of censorship.
	Yesterday, it seems like all of the major players, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, enacted some form of further censorship on their platforms.
	Even Disney, the Walt Disney Company, got into the action.
	Let's discuss these stories together, and then talk about where all of this is possibly leading America.
	This is your daily Facts Matter update, and I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times.
	Now let's start today's discussion by talking about what happened over at Disney.
	Gina Carano, who is an actress in the Mandalorian TV series, she was stripped from her role after she made social media posts that was flagged as being controversial.
	According to Lucasfilm, which is a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios, here's how their spokesman put it.
	Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm, and there are no plans for her to be in the future.
	Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.
	So when I first read that statement, I was really interested.
	I thought, okay, so what are these social media posts?
	And so naturally, probably like most people, I thought that these social media posts must have been really bad for her to have been fired over them.
	So let's read them together.
	Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers, but by their neighbors.
	Even by children.
	Because history is edited, most people today don't realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews.
	How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?
	And that was the controversial and, as Lucasfilm called it, abhorrent post that got her fired.
	Now, prior to her getting fired, that post, that social media post, was widely being spread on social media with the hashtag, hashtag, fired Gina Carano becoming a trending topic the day before she actually got fired.
	And that is what is colloquially known as a Twitter mob.
	Now, fans of Gina were outraged over this move, calling it both hypocritical as well as just another example of cancel culture.
	Now, just earlier today, Gina has come out and announced that she will be working alongside Ben Shapiro in producing a new film.
	Here is the statement that she released.
	And by the way, when she refers to The Daily Wire, that is Ben Shapiro's media company.
	She says, And actually, here, I would actually like to turn it around for a moment and ask you, the viewer, a question.
	Was her social media post as controversial and abhorrent as Lucasfilm described it to be?
	Let me know in the comments section below what your thoughts are, because in my opinion, after studying what happened in China under the Chinese Communist Party, as well as in Germany under the Nazi regime, It seems to me like what she said is a statement of fact.
	Before any type of persecution, especially a government-sanctioned persecution, the government needs to foment hate against the group.
	And that group can be anyone.
	A religious group, a certain race, or a certain political entity, or a certain political group like in China.
	Landowners, the bourgeois intellectuals, all types of groups were...
	All types of groups were...
	The public was made to hate all types of groups before they were officially persecuted.
	Now let me know what you think about it in the comments section below.
	I would love to know your thoughts.
	Let's chat about it down there.
	And also, if you'd like to read anything more about this story, that link will be in the description box below this video for you to check out.
	And now, before we go on, while you're down there looking for either the comment section or those links, take a quick moment to smash that like button.
	Because you know that videos that are like this, talking honestly about what is happening in this world, are routinely censored by big tech.
	That's the topic of today's episode, censorship.
	However, when you smash that like button that's below this video, you are forcing the YouTube algorithm to share this video out to potentially thousands of more people, letting the truth be known far and wide.
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	American Heart for Gold, thank you so much for sponsoring this episode.
	And now Roman in the studio, back to you.
	And now let's talk about our favorite subject, big tech censorship.
	It seems like yesterday, which was Thursday, all of the major players, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, as well as YouTube, enacted some form of further censorship on their platforms.
	Let's go through them one by one, starting with Twitter.
	Yesterday, Project Veritas, their page, was suspended from Twitter.
	Their account was just disabled.
	The reason that they were suspended was because they posted a certain video to their page.
	And I would actually love to show you the video...
	But I can't.
	Because YouTube has also labeled the video as being a form of bullying or harassment, and they took it down.
	So, I'm afraid that if I show it to you here on this episode, they will take down this video as well.
	So, let me describe the video for you then, I guess.
	And let me give you a bit of context before I do.
	About a week ago, Project Veritas caught a Facebook executive on hidden camera, where during an internal Facebook meeting, he said this...
	We have a system that is able to freeze commenting on threads in cases where our systems are detecting that there may be a thread that has hate speech or violence.
	These are all things we've built over the past three, four years as being part of our investments into the integrity space, our efforts to protect the election.
	So that quote came from about a week ago, and then yesterday, in the video that was posted on Twitter, Project Veritas, one of their reporters, came to this Facebook executive's home, outside of his home, and he asked him some questions, such as, how do you define hate speech?
	Is it just speech that you hate?
	Are you freezing your own comments now?
	The Facebook executive turned around and then went back into his home without responding to the questions.
	And after this video was taken down, a Twitter spokesperson sent us this email.
	The account, Project Veritas, was permanently suspended for repeated violations of Twitter's private information policy.
	The account James O'Keefe, which is Project Veritas' CEO, was temporarily locked for violating our private information policy.
	The account owner is required to delete the violative tweet to regain access to their account.
	Now, we asked him, that Twitter spokesperson, for further information, but he did not provide it to us.
	Now, to note here, in that video that was taken down, it does briefly show the street number of that Facebook executive's home.
	However, it does not show the street name or any other information regarding where he actually lives.
	And Project Veritas did blur out, they used the mosaic, over the license plate numbers of the cars in the video, both in the driveway as well as cars that were driving by.
	And here's what James O'Keefe, who is the founder of Project Veritas, had to say about the incident to us via email.
	Twitter claimed the video published private information, which is false.
	Twitter invited Project Veritas to, and we did, appeal that decision with Twitter.
	In an apparent act of retaliation for daring to question their authority, Twitter responded to our appeal by suspending our account, continuing to tell us that Project Veritas could delete the tweet and have our account reinstated.
	And furthermore, we actually had a phone call with James O'Keefe where he told us that Project Veritas will actually blur the street number in the video.
	However, he questioned how this could qualify as grounds for having an account suspended since asking public figures for comment in front of their homes has been a standing journalistic practice for a very long time, which you might know if you watch nightly news.
	It happens all the time.
	And right now, as we're filming this episode, the Project Veritas Twitter page does still seem to be offline.
	However, the story of big tech censorship yesterday did not end there, because YouTube made the move to completely remove LifeSite News from its platform.
	They permanently suspended the group's channel and removed all of their videos without warning or explanation.
	Now, by the way, in case you haven't heard of LifeSite News, they are basically a pro-life group that describes themselves on their page as a non-profit internet service dedicated to issues of culture, life, and family.
	And they were actually pretty popular on YouTube prior to getting kicked off, and they had about 300,000 subscribers on their channel.
	Now, according to an announcement on their website, YouTube just completely removed the LifeSiteNews YouTube channel.
	This is not a temporary ban.
	Every single one of our videos is completely gone.
	Thankfully, we have backups of all of our videos, but this means hundreds of thousands of people have lost access to our truth-telling content.
	Now, as to why specifically they were banned, here's what YouTube told us in an emailed statement.
	In accordance with our long-standing strike system, we terminated the channel Lifesite News Media for repeatedly violating our COVID-19 misinformation policy, which prohibits content that promotes prevention methods that contradict local health authorities, or the WHO, Any channel that violates our COVID-19 misinformation policy will receive a strike, which temporarily restricts uploading or live streaming.
	Channels that receive three strikes in the same 90-day period will be permanently removed from YouTube.
	And that seems to be what happened to LifeSite News.
	Now, LifeSite News said that they had been facing increasing censorship from YouTube over the past about three months, with their videos on COVID-19 vaccines being flagged by YouTube as violating their policies.
	A journalist for LifeSite News, however, described it this way.
	It's crystal clear.
	YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and the others have now fully weaponized their platforms against conservatives in general and Orthodox Christians in particular.
	Emboldened by the advent of the Biden-Harris regime's takeover of the White House, social media has ramped up its fascist silencing tactics.
	Now, specifically on this case, in regards to the clampdown on vaccine-related coverage, YouTube has actually been joined by Facebook.
	A few days ago, Facebook announced that they will take down posts with claims about vaccines that either health organizations or their independent fact-checkers deem to be false.
	Here's what they said in their new policy post.
	Today, we are expanding our efforts to remove false claims on Facebook and Instagram about COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines and vaccines in general during the pandemic.
	Since December, we've removed false claims about COVID-19 vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts.
	And they then continued.
	Today, following consultations with leading health organizations, including the WHO, we are expanding the list of false claims we will remove to include additional debunked claims about the coronavirus as well as vaccines.
	Now in that same post, Facebook also said that they will begin to enforce this policy immediately, adding that they will focus on publishers, groups, and accounts that violate these new rules.
	The post said this.
	We are also requiring some admins for groups with admins or members who have violated our COVID-19 policies to temporarily approve all posts within their group.
	Claims about COVID-19 or vaccines that do not violate these policies will still be eligible for review by our third-party fact-checkers, and if they are rated false, they will be labeled and demoted.
	Now, by the way, that reference to independent fact-checkers, I want to touch a little bit more on that.
	In a previous episode, we discussed in depth how one of Facebook's main fact-checkers is an organization called Lead Stories, which is a company that has received funds from Facebook, Google, as well as TikTok, whose owner is a Chinese company called ByteDance, which has deep ties with the Chinese Communist regime.
	Now by the way, this is not the only way that Facebook will be engineering what conversations are allowed to take place on their platform.
	In a separate announcement earlier this month, Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook will start to reduce the amount of political posts that you see.
	Here's what he said.
	We're also currently considering steps that we can take to reduce the amount of political content in the newsfeed.
	One of the top pieces of feedback that we are hearing from our community right now is that people do not want politics and fighting to take over their experience on our services.
	Now, one interesting thing to note here is that this new policy, reducing the amount of political content on Facebook, took place right as there has been a change in administration.
	Funny how that happened.
	However, the story of big tech censorship didn't even end there yesterday, because Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, announced that they will begin disabling the accounts of people who repeatedly send hateful direct messages.
	And by direct messages, by the way, they mean private messages.
	According to them, if you are a first-time offender, you will not be able to send messages for an undefined period of time.
	However, if you then get reinstated and then send hateful messages again, your account will be permanently disabled.
	Now, this, of course, raises two very important questions.
	The first question is whether this means that Instagram is reading your private messages.
	And given this policy, the answer to that is almost certainly yes, in one way or another.
	The second question is what exactly defines hate speech?
	Because, as we already discussed in the case of Gina Carano and Disney, what's labeled as hate speech can be a moving target based on who is doing the labeling, right?
	Well, according to Instagram's hate speech policy, they ban attacks on people based on protected characteristics, including race or religion, as well as more implicit forms of hate speech, like content depicting blackface and anti-Semitic tropes.
	However, if you have ever used Instagram yourself, you have probably experienced that what they cover up, what they label as either being fact-checked and correct, or what they label as being things you shouldn't look at, doesn't always fall into those neat little categories.
	Now, to wrap up our discussion on censorship, I would like to discuss why people are so concerned with it.
	Maybe you're watching this program and thinking to yourself, hey, you know what, banning hate speech is not a bad idea.
	And you know what?
	In theory, maybe, you might be right.
	But the question that naturally arises from that is this.
	Who gets to determine what hate speech actually is?
	Who gets to make that decision?
	Who gets to decide what can or cannot be said on a public forum?
	Which, by the way, that's what these big tech platforms technically are, right?
	According to Section 230, they are open platforms for public discourse.
	The danger here is that this can lead, incrementally, slowly, but surely, to a place where speaking your mind is no longer allowed.
	If you open up Pandora's box of censorship like this, if you allow any form of censorship to take place, because at that moment you might agree with what's being censored, Well, that's a very dangerous course of action, because who's to say that you will always agree with it?
	When there is a mechanism in place to censor people, you can't always assume that that mechanism will be used benevolently.
	And actually, I want to read you a short excerpt from this article here.
	I found it about two days ago.
	It is phenomenal.
	It discusses what's happening in China right now, and the title of the article is, Students in China Brainwashed to Hate God and Force Parents to Renounce Faith.
	So for a little bit of context on this article is that the Chinese Communist Party is officially atheist.
	They not only stand in direct opposition to organized religion, but also in direct opposition to the belief in God itself.
	And so in order to incite hatred towards religions, schools in China have implemented various measures that are dictated to them by the state to threaten students and tell them that their parents or their family would be detained if they visit a church or another place of religious worship.
	For instance, listen to this absolutely heartbreaking story that came from this article.
	One child came home and told this to his Christian mother.
	My teacher says that Christianity is an evil cult.
	If you believe in it, you will leave home and not take care of me.
	You might set yourself on fire too.
	The story then goes on.
	The little boy then pulled out a morality and society textbook from his bag and flipped to the pages that mentioned evil cults and how to resist such groups, adding that his teacher had said that evil cult groups are terrible.
	Influenced by what he was indoctrinated with, he urged his mother to tear up her Christian leaflet.
	The Christian mother, in hopes to not escalate tensions, hid all religious items in the house.
	However, a month later, the son again found a religious flyer and poked it with a fruit knife, making various holes while threatening his mom to give up her belief, stressing that Christianity is an evil cult and she mustn't believe in it.
	Shocked by the son's aggressive behavior, she said, "Before starting school, I told my child about God's creation and he believed it.
	But after being taught at school, my child is like a different person.
	In atheistic China, these pure and innocent children have been taught to hate God." Unbelievable.
	Here's a statement in this article, an official statement from a bureau in China.
	Quote, Christianity is competing with the Communist Party for territory and people's hearts, the work being carried out through churches and religious meeting venues.
	It is therefore essential that every primary and middle school, as well as kindergartens, expanded ideological work on young people to improve their political standing.
	Now, you might think that it's a stretch to compare the current big tech censorship happening here in America with this type of indoctrination happening in the schools run by the Chinese Communist Party.
	But this did not happen overnight.
	Over a long course of time, after many political movements and many purges within China, this is what they've gotten to.
	They've gotten to a point where you can publish stories like this.
	And these are not isolated cases.
	This is happening throughout all of China.
	And so honestly, when I read stories about people celebrating censorship in America, particularly young people, I'm worried that it's heading towards a pretty bad path.
	If you agree, or if you disagree, leave a comment in the comment section below.
	I'd love to have a discussion about it.
	I will be checking them later tonight.
	Now lastly, as we already discussed in a previous episode, just like all the people we've mentioned prior in this episode, we've also been demonetized by YouTube.
	YouTube, on the very same day that Joe Biden was sworn in, made the unilateral decision to cut off our funding.
	We can now no longer run any advertising before, during, or after our episodes, and the Super Chat feature has been totally disabled.
	However, if you would like to support Honest Journalism, if you would like to support Epoch Times, I'll throw a link in the description box below this video.
	To a page where you can subscribe to The Epoch Times.
	By subscribing, it doesn't cost much, by the way.
	It's only a few dollars every month.
	But you will have access to all of our investigative reports, all of our deep reporting, and all of our video programs.
	So that if anything ever happens on YouTube, you can always check out Facts Matter, Crossroads, American Thought Leaders, and all the rest on theepictimes.com.
	I hope you check it out and join us on this journey of exploring truth and tradition through honest journalism.
	Now lastly, if you haven't already, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
	Subscribe to this YouTube channel while you still can.
	And until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times.

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