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March 5, 2021 - Epoch Times
24:19
Big Changes: Election Reform Bill Passes the Georgia House; Dr. Seuss Gets Canceled | Facts Matter
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Good evening.
It was just reported that Amazon has changed their policy to be able to ban books that they deem contain hate speech.
Now, what does that exactly mean?
I'm not sure.
In other news, cancel culture in this country has gotten very tenacious.
In fact, two days ago, the company that owns Dr.
Seuss, they canceled six of their titles because of what they call racist imagery.
The Harvard Business School Club, they were going to hold an event around cancel culture.
But after some people complained about the event, they canceled it.
They canceled the event that was going to be about cancel culture.
And then Rudy Giuliani, he had his YouTube channel temporarily suspended because YouTube claimed that he broke their rules around election integrity as well as around nicotine.
Meanwhile, down in California, the president of a teacher's union who was blocking the opening of public schools, he was filmed taking his own daughter to a private preschool.
And down in Georgia, the House of Representatives down there, they passed a bill which would reform a range of election rules, including ones around absentee voting, voter ID, time limits for voting, among many others.
Let's go through these stories together.
This is your daily Facts Matter update, and I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times.
So let's start today's discussion by talking about our friends over at Amazon.
So as you can see with the front page of the Epoch Times today, Amazon, they quietly changed their policy, which now allows them to ban books that they deem contains hate speech.
And by quietly, it means that they didn't tell anyone.
They didn't inform either their customers or the vendors who sell on their platform about this change in policy.
In fact, media outlets like the Epoch Times only found out about this change in policy because a few days ago, we reported on it in about two episodes ago, there was a book which criticized transgender ideology and it was banned from Amazon.
And after we looked into it, we discovered this new policy.
So what exactly does hate speech encapsulate for Amazon?
What does it mean?
It's not clear.
We actually reached out to Amazon for comment and clarification, and here is what they emailed back to us.
As a bookseller, we provide our customers with access to a variety of viewpoints, including books that some customers may find objectionable.
That said, we reserve the right to not sell certain content as described in our content guidelines for books, which you can find here, and they hyperlinked it.
All retailers make decisions about what selection they choose to offer, and we do not take selection decisions lightly.
However, what that statement omitted is the fact that they changed their rules, apparently, without telling their customers.
In fact, we found an archived version of their book policy from August 10th, and on that page there is no mention of anything related to something called hate speech.
However, sometime afterward, after August the 10th, it was changed to what it is now.
If you look at it today, under the section titled Content Guidelines for Books, and then in the subsection called Offensive Content, it starts by saying, quote, We don't sell certain content, including content that we determine is hate speech.
And so, in order for us to get clarification, we followed up with the Amazon spokesperson, and we asked them three questions.
When exactly was this new policy adopted?
What exactly constitutes hate speech?
And how were Amazon's customers informed about this change, if they were at all?
But he never got back to us.
However, we can potentially catch a glimpse of what is meant by hate speech by looking into what books are actually being banned.
A few weeks ago, Amazon purged a book which called into question transgender ideology.
That book was titled When Harry Became Sally, Responding to the Transgender Moment, and it is no longer available on Amazon.
According to a Princeton University review, here is what that book was about.
The book argues that the push to encourage individuals who feel like a different gender to undergo sex change procedures is driven by ideology rather than sound medical advice.
And after that book was banned, after it was kicked off the platform, the author of the book reached out to Amazon, but he could not get an actual explanation for why the book was banned.
In a tweet, the author wrote this, A week after they remove my book, Amazon still refuses to say which aspect of their content policy the book violates, after three years of not violating that policy.
And they refuse to say which page of the book commits the offense.
But that is sort of the beauty of having broad, opaque hate speech guidelines.
You don't really need to give anyone an explanation.
If you'd like to read more about this change of policy over at Amazon, that link will be in the description box below this video for you to check out.
And while you're down there looking for that link, take a quick moment to smash that like button.
Because you already know that censorship is not limited to Amazon.
All of these big tech giants, including YouTube here, censors content that talks honestly about what is happening in this world right now.
And so, when you smash that like button that's below this video, you are forcing the algorithm, the same algorithm that suppresses videos like this, you are forcing that algorithm to share this video out to potentially thousands of more people, letting the truth be known far and wide.
And now, while we are on the subject of Amazon, there is something else that is pretty interesting and I'd like to note.
If you go on over to the top sellers in the book category right now, at this moment, on Amazon, books by Dr.
Seuss make up a majority of the top 20.
Why?
Well, that actually stems from a backlash against cancel culture.
Dr.
Seuss Enterprises, which owns the copyright to the Dr.
Seuss books, decided to stop publishing six of Dr.
Seuss' titles because of what they called racist and insensitive imagery.
Here's what they released in a statement.
Dr.
Seuss Enterprises listened and took feedback from our audiences including teachers, academics and specialists in the field as part of our review process.
We then worked with a panel of experts, including educators, to review our catalog of titles.
They then continued by saying that, Now, the six books that they are specifically referring to are,
Now, in terms of why these books are getting canceled, here's an example.
In the book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, take a look.
An Asian person is portrayed wearing a conical hat and holding chopsticks and eating from a bowl.
In the book, If I Ran the Zoo, there is a drawing of African men wearing what appears to be grass skirts with their hair tied up above their heads.
Now, people are calling this just another manifestation of cancel culture, and as we saw with the book sales on Amazon, there is a significant blowback against the decision to cancel these books.
Although, ironically, an increase in Dr.
Seuss' books actually sends more money to the company who made the decision to cancel them in the first place.
So it's kind of a catch-22.
However, while we are on the topic of cancel culture, I'd like to discuss a few other stories as well.
The Hyatt Hotel was the host of CPAC over the weekend.
And because of that, because they hosted a conservative event, there was a call to boycott them.
In fact, on Saturday over the weekend, hashtag Boycott Hyatt was trending on Twitter.
However, they did not capitulate, and instead they released this statement.
We take pride in operating a highly inclusive environment, and we believe that the facilitation of gatherings is a central element of what we do as a hospitality company.
We believe in the right of individuals and organizations to peacefully express their views, independent of the degree to which the perspectives of those hosting meetings and events at our hotels align with ours.
Now, to me, that statement is the classical American response.
They're essentially saying that they don't have to agree politically with the people who use their venues.
So long as they are not violent, there is no problem.
In my view, that is the manifestation of the classic American ethos.
I might not agree with what you say, but I will defend with my life your right to say it.
Now, the Harvard Business School Club here in New York, they took a different approach.
They were going to host an event about cancel culture.
However, ironically, after people complained about the event, they decided to cancel it.
They canceled the event about cancel culture.
Now, one of the speakers of that event was this man here, James Lindsay.
He is the author of a book called Cynical Theories, and we actually interviewed him about a month ago on American Thought Leaders.
He said that the event was canceled because the school said that it did not align with their goals.
A spokesperson for Harvard added that, Now, we here at the Epoch Times, we actually reached out to Harvard for further comment, but we have yet to hear back.
Now, James Lindsay's book, Cynical Theories, actually discusses cancel culture and the woke movement, and in fact, he actually described both cancel culture and this woke ideology as a form of Leninism, where in Lenin, in Russia, he went around and killed dissidents, but today, here in America, dissidents are instead being canceled.
And so I have a feeling that Mr.
Lindsey does see the irony in his event getting canceled by Harvard.
And now let's talk a bit about Common Sense, which is the name of Rudy Giuliani's YouTube channel.
Two days ago, YouTube temporarily suspended Rudy Giuliani's YouTube channel because they claim he violated their policies surrounding the election.
Now, YouTube did confirm that this ban was not permanent and that Rudy Giuliani will be able to upload videos again after about two weeks.
He's basically in a timeout.
Here is what a YouTube spokeswoman said in a statement.
We remove content from Rudy Giuliani's channel for violating our sale of regulated goods policy, which prohibits content facilitating the use of nicotine and our presidential election integrity policy.
Additionally, in accordance with our long-standing strike system, we issued a strike against the Rudy Giuliani channel, which temporarily restricts uploading or live streaming.
Now, when she mentioned nicotine use, that probably refers to Rudy Giuliani's promotion of cigars as well as cigar companies as sponsors to his channel, which apparently is not allowed.
Now, we reached out to Mr.
Rudy Giuliani for comment on this matter, but he has yet to get back to us.
And based on YouTube's strike system, if he is suspended again after this time, his account will likely be permanently banned.
Now, this move by YouTube triggered quite a bit of criticism over big tech censorship of dissenting viewpoints.
Because, among other things, you know if you've been paying attention, this is the latest in a long string of censorship that has been enacted on this platform, on YouTube.
In fact, among other things, our own channel here, Facts Matter, we have been demonetized for well over a month now.
We can now no longer run any ads before, during, or after our program.
And in fact, this was something that was touched upon by President Trump during his speech over at CPAC. He said, And we will only have left-wing tyranny.
Now, what a lot of people are worried about, at least from my perspective on it, is that this form of censorship might eventually morph into something truly draconian.
And what would that actually look like?
Well, let's take a look at this story here from China as an example.
There was a 19-year-old kid who lived in a city in China.
He posted a video on TikTok supporting the Hong Kong protesters, and then he fled China and went to Europe for his own safety.
However, while he was living in Europe, he again posted on social media posts that were critical of the Chinese Communist Party.
He said that the Chinese Communist Party was underreporting the number of Chinese deaths in the border clash between India and China.
On Weibo, which is a Chinese social media platform, he wrote: "Why did you, the CCP, announce the death cell so late?
What on earth are you hiding?" Immediately after that, Weibo removed his social media post, and then soon afterward, the police, the city police, issued a wanted notice announcing that this young man's post insulted Chinese soldiers and that he was wanted for the crime of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble." He said that since he was in Europe, the police, instead of targeting him, targeted his family.
They detained his parents, raided his house, they fired his parents from their state-run company jobs, they assaulted them, all in an attempt to force this young man to stop talking and to come back to China to face punishment.
Here's what he said.
Within 15 minutes after the state-run media published the Wanted Notice, three police and three plain clothes from local Qin Shi Jiang police station in Chongqing entered my parents' house.
They handcuffed my parents and raided the house.
They took away many things from the house, such as a piece of rough jade, some foreign currency cash, my desktop and iPad.
They forced my parents to call me, forced them to ask me to go back to China, forced me to keep silent and don't talk to any media.
They asked me via my parents to post a confession video on Weibo.
I rejected all of these requests.
Now you might think it's a bit of a stretch to compare what's happening here in America with the cancel culture and the social media censorship with what is happening in China.
But a lot of people here are worried that this is the trajectory that we are on.
And I'd love to hear your opinion on the matter.
Please leave a comment in the comment section below and let me know what you think about censorship, about cancel culture, and about what the solution for all of it is.
Where do you see all of this going?
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Also, if you'd like to read any of the stories that we talked about thus far about cancel culture or censorship, about Dr.
Seuss, the Hyatt Hotel, Harvard, about Rudy Giuliani, or about this young man from China, all those links will be in the description box below this video for you to check out.
And now, before we move on to talk about Steve Bannon, I'd like to take a quick moment to introduce our channel sponsor for today's episode, and I will do so from the sound booth.
The sponsor for today's episode is AMAC, which stands for the Association of Mature American Citizens.
Now, I do consider myself a mature American citizen.
However, I'm about 20 years too young to join AMAC. However, if you or somebody else in your family is 50 years old or over, I would consider joining them because there are three main benefits to joining AMAC. The first one is the money-saving benefit.
Basically, if you're a member, they give you a ton of perks to restaurants across the country, to retail shops, on insurance plans, on vitamins.
It's a pretty long list.
Actually, it'll be in the link in the description box below this video.
You can check out the full list.
It's pretty long.
The second benefit is that they have an awesome magazine that they send to your door.
And even though I'm not a member, I have read their magazine, and it's really good.
It It's filled with a lot of thought-provoking articles.
And the third benefit, which a lot of people cite as their favorite benefit, is that they actually fight for conservative values on Capitol Hill.
Basically, they're fighting against what they're calling a socialist storm that is brewing in America.
I mean, they're basically the conservative alternative to the AARP, and you should consider joining.
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So you can click on the link in the description box below this video, or you can go to amac.us forward slash facts matter.
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AMAC, thank you so much for sponsoring this episode, and now Roman in the studio, back to you.
And now let's talk a bit about Steve Bannon.
If you remember, late last year, Steve Bannon, as well as three other men, were facing charges related to allegations that they had set up a campaign to build structures along the U.S. southern border, but that they had kept some of the money that they raised.
Now, in that case, Steve Bannon pled not guilty, and he called the entire thing a political hijab.
And earlier this year, right before he left office, President Trump actually issued an executive pardon to Steve Bannon, meaning that he wouldn't have to face any prison time.
However, it was just reported that the prosecutor in that case is still attempting to push forward the indictment.
Here is what the prosecutor told the judge in a newly filed motion.
The government respectfully submits that the pardon granted to Steve Bannon is not a basis to dismiss the indictment against him.
Were the court to dismiss the indictment against Steve Bannon, it could have a broader effect than the pardon itself, among other things potentially relieving Steve Bannon of certain consequences not covered by the pardon.
Now, that is a very, very interesting argument to make.
He is saying essentially that while Steve Bannon was pardoned, meaning that he will not face any prison time in the case, the indictment should still be pushed forward because there are certain other consequences that he might have to face that are not covered by the pardon.
Things like, for instance, the social stigma of being found guilty in a court of law.
Now, however, Steve Bannon's counsel, he submitted a letter to the court by email saying that Steve Bannon should be dropped as the defendant in the case and saying that the case is essentially moot.
So we'll have to see how it turns out.
We'll have to see what the judge in the case decides to ultimately do.
If you'd like to read the full statements from either the prosecutor or Steve Bannon's lawyer, that link will be in the description box below this video for you to check out.
And now let's move on over to California.
The head of a local teachers' union over in California has come under heavy, heavy scrutiny.
Why?
Well, the man's name is Matthew Meyer, and he is the president of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers.
And while he has continued to call for public schools to stay closed, a video of him surfaced on YouTube which showed him taking his two-year-old daughter to a private preschool for in-person lessons.
Take a look.
And by the way, his young daughter will be blurred out for her privacy.
Take a look.
Now, the parent group out in Berkeley that published that video initially on the Internet, they added this to their post.
Matt Meyer, Berkeley Federation of Teachers President, blocks opening public schools in person, yet has had his own child in in-person schools since June of 2020.
Stop the hypocrisy.
Our children are suffering.
Open schools full-time now.
Now, Matt Meyer, he came out publicly against this video of him.
In an interview with Fox News, he said that, for one, even though his daughter was blurred out, it was still very inappropriate and an intrusion of her privacy.
And secondly, he said that,"...there are currently no public options for kids her age.
There are major differences in running a small preschool and a 10,000 student public school district in terms of size, facilities, public health guidance, and services that legally have to be provided.
We all want a safe return to school." Now, we here at the Epoch Times, we reached out to the Berkeley Teachers Union for comment, but we have yet to hear back.
And for your reference, by the way, last month, the Berkeley School District reached an agreement with the Teachers Union to reopen public schools in March and April, meaning this month or next month.
However, that is contingent on whether staff members actually get the COVID vaccine or not.
So...
We'll just have to wait and see how it actually plays out.
Regardless, one representative from an organization called Reopen California Schools, he said that the fact that this video even came out suggests that parents are becoming increasingly frustrated with schools being continually locked down.
And also, I'd love your thoughts on this matter as well.
Do you think that schools should be locked down even until now?
And if you do, what threshold or what circumstance would need to change in order for them to be reopened?
I'd love to know your thoughts.
Please leave a comment in the comment section below this video.
I'd love to read them.
And actually, this is not only playing out in Berkeley.
A few days ago, the largest teachers' union in Los Angeles, they rejected the California governor's school reopening plan and labeled it as a recipe for propagating structural racism.
Why?
Well, the plan that was announced by Governor Newsom provides over $6 billion in taxpayer money to accelerate the school reopening process.
And here's how the governor's office described it.
$2 billion would fund safety measures to support in-person instruction, such as personal protective equipment, ventilation upgrades, and COVID-19 testing.
$4.6 billion would fund expanding learning opportunities, such as summer school tutoring and mental health services.
Furthermore, they said that if a school decides to remain closed past the end of March, they would lose 1% of eligible taxpayer funding for each day that they remain closed.
Here's how the governor's press release described it.
Schools in the state's red tier, or better, would be required to offer in-person instruction to all students in all elementary grades and at least one middle or high school grade, or risk the same penalty.
However, the Teachers Union of Los Angeles called this plan racist.
In a press release, they claimed that it benefited rich schools in white areas the most.
Here's what they said.
Educators are being unfairly targeted by wealthier and healthier people who are not experiencing this disease in the same way as students and families in our communities.
If you condition funding on the reopening of schools, that money will only go to white and wealthier and healthier school communities that do not have the transmission rates that low-income, black, and brown communities do.
This is a recipe for propagating structural racism, and it is deeply unfair to the students we serve.
Now, if you'd like to read the full statement from the Teachers Union, or if you would like to read the details surrounding the video out in Berkeley, all those links will be in the description box below this video for you to check out.
And now let's move on over to Georgia.
Two days ago, the Georgia House of Representatives passed a bill which would reform a range of election rules down in Georgia, including absentee voting, voter ID for absentee voting, the time limits for voting, among many others.
He said that this proposal was designed to restore voters' confidence in Georgia's election system, especially following what happened during the 2020 presidential election, which, according to him, saw numerous allegations of voting irregularities as well as allegations of voter fraud.
Now, what does this bill actually propose?
Well, for one, it sets up multiple requirements for absentee ballots, including replacing the simple signature match with a number of voter ID requirements.
And so, if this bill actually passes through the Senate, voters would have to submit their driver's license number, their state ID card, or the last four digits of their social security number on the ballot envelope.
And if for some reason the voter does not have a government ID, they would be required to show either a current utility bill, a bank statement, a government check, a paycheck, or some other document that shows their names and address in order to get an absentee ballot.
Now, there are other measures in the bill around things like drop boxes, the time frame of when you can receive an absentee ballot, how provisional ballots will be counted, and so on.
Now, the bill is now making its way through the Georgia Senate, where they were going to debate on it and ultimately vote to see whether it goes into law or not, and then it'll go to the governor's desk where you can sign off on it.
Now, if you would like to read the full list of election integrity measures that are contained inside of this bill, I'll throw a link to an article that goes through most of them into the description box below this video for you to check out.
Now, lastly, as we already mentioned, on the very same day that Joe Biden was sworn into office, YouTube made the unilateral decision to demonetize our program, to demonetize Facts Matter.
We can now no longer run any ads before, during, or after our program, and the Super Chat feature has just been disabled.
I mean, luckily we have sponsors to our show, but...
When YouTube makes that kind of a decision, when they cut off our ability to advertise, they basically are trying to stifle out our reporting.
They basically are smothering our independent journalism.
However, if you would like to support The Epoch Times, I will throw a link into the description box below this video to a page where you can subscribe to the digital subscription to The Epoch Times.
It only costs a few dollars every month.
You will get access to all of our deep investigations, all of our uncensored reporting, our video documentaries, our opinion pieces, our interviews, and if anything ever happens here on YouTube, you will have continued access to Facts Matter, Crossroads, American Thought Leaders, and all of our video channels.
Again, that link will be in the description box below this video.
I hope you go there and I hope you subscribe.
And actually, if you are old school, you can also check out the actual print newspapers, which it can be delivered directly to your doorstep every single week.
And it doesn't matter where you live.
We deliver to all 50 states.
We even deliver to Puerto Rico.
So if you're old school, and by the way, this is a very cool way to get news delivered to you.
Basically, it can be censored.
Once we print this newspaper, it goes to you.
Nobody can block the IP address of an article or cut something out.
It's funny how, as things have progressed, as technology has gotten so advanced, the printed newspaper is still actually, ironically, one of the ways to get uncensored information reliably.
So again, all those links will be in the description box below this video.
I hope you check out, I hope you subscribe, and I hope that you join us on this journey of exploring truth and tradition through honest reporting.
Now again, if you haven't already, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
Subscribe to this YouTube channel if you haven't already so that you can get honest news reporting delivered directly into your YouTube feed while you still can.
And until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times.
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