Nov. 30, 2018 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
25:11
4257 Laura Loomer Protests Twitter!
"Far-right activist Laura Loomer handcuffed herself to Twitter's New York City headquarters for about two hours on Thursday afternoon to protest the company's banning her from the social media platform, then asked police to remove her.Loomer attached herself to the building's front door, blocking the entrance to the building in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood in a protest that was livestreamed on Periscope, which began at about 3:45 p.m. ET.The video stream showed Loomer wearing on her chest a yellow Star of David such as many European Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust, and a sweatshirt that read on the back, "#STOPTHEBIAS."Twitter closed the conservative firebrand's account a week ago after she posted a tweet criticizing Minnesota Rep.-elect Ilhan Omar, a Democrat, and her Muslim faith, calling Omar "anti Jewish" and pro-Sharia law.At one point Thursday, Loomer yelled through the doors of Twitter's building, telling its employees that they worked for an "evil" company.She also yelled to a group of people who stood across the street, "They don't want you guys to know the truth.""I am not going to stand by as people like Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg [try to] silence the voices of millions of conservatives," Loomer said.She asserted that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey banned her as a "Jewish conservative journalist," a phrase she yelled repeatedly while chained to the building.Twitter released a statement during her protest, saying, "We have notified the relevant authorities who are responding. The account holder was suspended for violating our policies. We apply the Twitter Rules impartially and not based on ideology..."https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/far-right-activist-laura-loomer-handcuffs-herself-twitter-s-new-n941891▶️ Donate Now: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate▶️ Sign Up For Our Newsletter: http://www.fdrurl.com/newsletterYour support is essential to Freedomain Radio, which is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by making a one time donation or signing up for a monthly recurring donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate▶️ 1. Donate: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate▶️ 2. Newsletter Sign-Up: http://www.fdrurl.com/newsletter▶️ 3. On YouTube: Subscribe, Click Notification Bell▶️ 4. Subscribe to the Freedomain Podcast: http://www.fdrpodcasts.com▶️ 5. Follow Freedomain on Alternative Platforms🔴 Bitchute: http://bitchute.com/stefanmolyneux🔴 Minds: http://minds.com/stefanmolyneux🔴 Steemit: http://steemit.com/@stefan.molyneux🔴 Gab: http://gab.ai/stefanmolyneux🔴 Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stefanmolyneux🔴 Facebook: http://facebook.com/stefan.molyneux🔴 Instagram: http://instagram.com/stefanmolyneux
There is a lot to talk about with regards to the Laura Loomer situation that came down today at the Twitter headquarters in New York City.
NBC News reported far-right activist Laura Loomer handcuffed herself to Twitter's New York City building.
Police removed her. So, first two syllables, they have to identify her as far-right, which she's not, but they have to.
Now, you never hear, with regards to Rosa Parks, Communist-trained Rosa Parks.
Far-left Rosa Parks.
No, it's just Rosa Parks, right?
So they have to say that she's far-right, which is just a synonym for Nazi and is not an argument, but they have to put that out there.
So it says, far-right activist Laura Loomer handcuffed herself to Twitter's New York City headquarters for about two hours on Thursday afternoon to protest the companies banning her from the social media platform, then asked police to remove her.
Now, she's not...
I'm not going to speak for Laura.
I'm just going to tell you what I think.
She's not protesting being banned.
She's protesting being unjustly banned.
See, that's really, really...
It's like saying, well, Rosa Parks was just...
No, she was protesting bus routes.
She was just protesting seating arrangements on buses.
Come on, right? Luma attached herself to the building's front door, blocking the entrance to the building in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood in a protest that was live-streamed on Periscope began 3.45 p.m.
Eastern. The video stream showed Luma wearing on her chest a yellow Star of David, such as many European Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust, and a sweatshirt that read on the back, Stop the Bias.
Okay, so I know it's controversial that she wore the yellow star.
Again, I don't want to speak for Laura, but this is what I imagine is going through her mind.
It was not during the Holocaust, in particular, that the Jews were forced to wear the yellow star.
It was, in fact, for many years beforehand to identify them as Jews.
In other words, what Laura is probably saying is there's a thin edge of the wedge, and it's a lot easier to stop something when it's just beginning than when it has real momentum.
Because people say, oh, it's not such a big deal, it's just a Twitter account, it's just this, it's that, it's not the same.
Yes, but the whole point is if you stop it early...
If you push back early, then bad ideas, bad actions don't gain momentum and then become much harder to stop later on.
So yeah, you want to stop things early.
Twitter closed a controversial Firebrands account a week ago after she posted a tweet criticizing Minnesota representative-elect Ilhan Omar, a Democrat, and her Muslim faith, calling Omar anti-Jewish and pro-Sharia.
So now, of course, what you'd want to do if you were a responsible reporter, which you wouldn't be working at NPC News otherwise, is you'd want to dig in deep to figure out what Laura's criticisms were of Ilhan Omar and find out whether this woman is pro-Sharia law and so on.
In other words, Is there an anti-Jewish sentiment?
Is there pro-Sharia stuff going on?
You'd want to look that up so that you could find out.
But you see, the moment that you hear someone's faith is being criticized, then that immediately, because faith has such a feel as if there's hope.
Faith has such a positive feeling.
Mindset in people's heads that this is no actual, well, is she pro-sharia law?
Has she said things that are anti-Jewish?
Can we actually get some facts here?
No. We just refer to her, that is, Laura, as a firebrand, right?
So it's out of control. It's crazy.
At one point Thursday, Luma yelled through the doors of Twitter's building, telling its employees that they worked for an evil company.
She also yelled to a group of people who stood across the street, they don't want you guys to know the truth.
Now, given that NBC News is not giving you any of the truth, well, that would seem to be kind of important, right?
Looma said, I'm not going to stand by as people like Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg try to silence the voices of millions of conservatives.
She asserted that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey banned her as a Jewish conservative journalist, a phrase she yelled repeatedly while chained to the building.
I'm sorry, it's so prejudiced.
It's so prejudiced.
Yelling while chained to a building.
Well, she's protesting, and this is what the left does all the time, and this is what the left used to love and respect when it was the left that was doing it.
Twitter released a statement during her protest, saying, New York police officers at first asked Loomer to uncuff herself from the building's door, citing a fire hazard, but she refused.
We're asked what the police were going to do.
One officer told NBC News, it's not my call, it's up to my supervisor.
Another officer told NBC News he had no idea who Loomer was.
Now, that's not even remotely newsworthy, of course, but the reason that it's mentioned, you see, is it makes Laura seem less important because some policeman doesn't know who she is, right?
Police at the scene prevented journalists from approaching Loomer.
Loomer, but did allow people who appeared to be working with her to help her post on social media.
Officers also turned away a pizza delivery which someone had apparently ordered for Loomer.
At about 6 p.m. Eastern, police at Loomer's request used a bolt cutter to cut through her handcuffs.
She was not arrested. Twitter in recent months has banned from its platform some other far-right figures such as conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for violating its terms of service.
Now that's interesting. And it's a clue, right?
Anybody with half a brain knows that that's a huge red flag, right?
Because why only far-right figures?
Because if they say they do it regardless of ideology, well, there's, of course, a lot of hateful people on the extreme right.
There's a lot of hateful people on the extreme left.
And I'm not putting either Alex Jones or Laura Luma in this category, because everyone's called far-right these days, if you're to the right of Pol Pot.
But where are the far-left figures who have been banned, right?
Loomer's protest came as Twitter has faced growing conservative backlash for what some far-right activists have claimed is the platform's liberal bias.
You see, it's a backlash.
Again, that's a negative word.
It sounds reactionary. It sounds hysterical.
So, you know, you're going to get this negative word.
It's a conservative backlash for what some far-right activists have claimed is the platform's liberal bias.
So again, this is... How could there be liberal bias?
Because there's liberal bias all over this.
Particular article. So let's just talk about some of the big picture stuff, because people are very confused on Twitter about all of this.
So, first of all, there are these very vague terms of service in these social media platforms, right?
Speech which is offensive.
Speech which is upsetting. I mean, who knows?
So, how can you navigate these things?
There's no objective methodology for determining whether what you post is good or not, unless you're posting, I like cookies.
So... What are you supposed to do?
The way it works in the law is, at least in America, as far as I understand it, you can say whatever you want, but you can't incite riots, and you can't shout fire in a crowded theater, and you can't utter death threats, and you can't, right?
All of these things, right? So, outside of that, First Amendment's pretty much got you covered.
There's no such thing as hate speech in America, and, well, the rest of the world could learn a lot from that.
But instead seem to be trying to shut down speech in America as fast as humanly possible, because when you invite more and more fools into public discourse, the fools have to silence the smarter people for fear of being revealed as, well, fools of course, right?
So, how do you know whether what you do is allowed or not?
One of the things that you do is you look at other people's tweets, and you say, oh, well, that guy's tweet is still up, so that must be okay, right?
That guy's tweet is, well, that guy, wow, that seems pretty extreme to me, but that guy's tweet's been up.
People have even said they've reported it, and it's still up, so it must be okay.
And the sort of antiquity here for Laura Looma is one Louis Farrakhan, who's posted some pretty outrageous stuff over the years, and...
It's still up, and it's supported, and you can see a lot of controversial stuff coming out of the left on Twitter.
I've seen death threats, I've seen incitements to riots, I've seen plots for attacks.
Lots of things going on, and some of it's taken down, but some of it isn't.
So all you can really do is say something like this.
Well, I don't know what is allowed and what is not allowed, but this stuff seems to be doing fine.
So because this stuff is doing fine, I guess it's...
Okay. So then you post like that.
And then if your stuff, which is milder than the stuff that's left up from the left, if your stuff gets taken down, then that's a clear indication of bias.
And that means that you have no possible way to navigate what it is that you post on social media.
You have no way to navigate and to understand what you post.
Because there's different standards for you than there are for other people, for other groups, for other ethnicities, for other religions, for other, you name it, right?
And then that's clear evidence of bias.
Now, people say, but they're private companies.
They should be allowed to have people on their websites or not have people on their websites.
They shouldn't have to be forced to do business with anyone.
Okay. Well, that's an interesting argument because, I don't know, people must think that I have no memory whatsoever because for the last forever, people have been enthusiastically championing People's right to force themselves upon companies, right? So there's affirmative action, there's equal pay for work of equal value for women, which is one of these Semi-fascistic misnamed bills and so on.
There is just a huge amount of interference in people's freedom of association.
You can be forced to join unions even if you don't want to for purposes of collective bargaining.
You can be forced to pay union dues even if you hate what the union's doing.
I mean, there's so much violation.
A freedom of association from a business standpoint that it seems to me kind of odd, if not downright ridiculously hypocritical, for people to suddenly say, well, no, no, no, it's a free market.
And it's just a kind of eh, it's a shifts in the side gotcha.
Oh, you all conservatives, you're so much into the free market.
But the moment someone doesn't want to do business with you, you think it's terrible and you want to change it and you want to whatever, right?
Come on. The left...
Has been, and to some degree the right, but it's a little bit more on the left.
The left has been for decade after decade after decade saying, well, you've got to hire this person, you've got to pay this person this, you can't fire this person, you can't ask this question in the interview process.
They've been micromanaging just about every conceivable aspect of people's business relationships.
And now suddenly it's, no, I'm a free market!
Nobody believes. Nobody believes you.
Like nobody with half a brain believes you that you're suddenly into these free market...
Principles. So, unless you've really railed very hard against things like affirmative action, don't talk to me about my free market and the principles that you suddenly now have found that the prejudice appears to be against conservatives.
So, that's one point. Here's another point.
Of course, people have the right to do business or not to do business in a free market with whoever they want.
But here's the thing.
You have to be honest about what it is that you're doing.
That's all. You have to be honest.
So let's say that there is a leftist bias at social media company XYZ or Some other grouping of the alphabet.
But let's say that there is some social media bias at these companies that is left-leaning, right?
Okay, then they just need to be honest about that and say, well, you know, if you're on the left, you can pretty much do whatever you want.
If you criticize Israel, that's okay.
If you attack white people, that's fine.
But, you know...
If you're really into the free market, if you're pro-Israel, if you criticize minorities or whatever, you're going to have a problem.
If that's in the terms of service, then people can make their rational decisions accordingly.
Right? Because the terms of service say, and Twitter themselves just confirmed all of this, they said, we don't apply our standards based on ideology.
Okay. There's data out there that seems to suggest that might not be as perfectly true a statement as could be potentially ideal.
Boy, that's a nice way of putting it.
And so, even in this, they say, well, a lot of far-right people getting banned.
And Laura put up her tweet next to Louis Farrakhan's tweet on the entrance to Twitter's New York City offices, saying, why is this allowed and mine is not allowed?
Why is what Louis Farrakhan said allowed, and why is what I said not allowed?
That's a reasonable question to ask.
So it's not that she violated the terms of service, because who knows what the terms of service are, other than you can kind of feel your way, you know, like if you have to go through a room, you know, there's furniture, and you kind of just walk slowly so as not to bark your shin on a Barker lounger.
You have to kind of feel your way, and you have to say, okay, well, what else is allowed?
Okay, well, I've got to be okay.
If they allow this, it must be okay, because it's kind of right.
So, in terms of predictability, if there is a leftist bias at a social media company, I'm not specifying any in particular, but if there is a leftist bias, then people just need to be honest about that and say, you know, we are pro this, we're anti that, we're kind of a lefty sort of place, so, you know, and that's fine.
You know, there are forums out there that are specifically dedicated to leftist causes.
There are forums out there for libertarian causes and rightist causes and you name it, right?
And those forums is like we're unapologetically feminist, or we're unapologetically leftist, or here we talk about the joys of communism and hunger.
And so that's all fine.
That's right there.
You know, this is dedicated to this, right?
There are pro-Donald Trump sites out there, and, you know, they're all MAGA this and MAGA that.
And so, yeah, if you go on there and you start talking about how wonderful it is to Try and get the socialist who seems to comb his hair with a balloon into power.
Well, yeah, you're going to run into some cross currents.
You're going to have to swim a little bit against the current to get your point across because they're up front.
They're open.
You know, you don't go into a Gap store and ask them where their sushi section is, right?
Because it's the Gap store.
They don't have a sushi section.
So if you have a leftist company, then just say, we're a leftist company.
Leftists can post anti-right stuff and it's fine.
Blacks can post anti-white stuff and it's fine.
Women can post anti-male stuff and it's fine.
Muslims can post anti-Jewish stuff and it's fine.
But the other way, no, we don't accept that.
Okay. Then people can make their choices accordingly.
But here's the thing. People have invested.
Like, I've been at this game.
I was like YouTube user number four or something like that.
Back in 2005, I signed up.
I've been doing this for a long time.
And I remember... I remember, oh, I sound like an old guy whittling a stick on a porch with my suspenders up to here.
But I remember back in the day, you never had to worry about what you posted.
Obviously, you don't post anything illegal or criminal or anything.
But I could make wild arguments, and it never crossed my mind to say, oh, well, I can't say this or I can't say that, right?
And that's changing. And that's changing a lot.
And it's not changing equally for everyone.
I mean, everyone knows that, right?
But it's not changing equally for everyone.
for everyone and it's a big issue it's a big problem not because anybody wants to force association on others but simply because if you invest time in growing your platform on a particular site because that site says we're into free speech and then it turns out or it seems to be the case That the site is not enforcing any kind of free speech edicts fairly,
that seems to me kind of a violation of trust, a violation of honesty, a violation of commitment.
You know, if you order an iPad and you get some crappy knockoff, you're upset, right?
Because you didn't get what you bargained for.
You didn't get what you signed up for.
And people on YouTube and Twitter and lots of other places, people who've been doing this for a while, like we really helped grow these platforms.
We drew people into the site.
We helped sell a lot of advertising.
Not me, I don't monetize, but most people did.
And even with me, people would come to me and then click through and see other web videos which had ads and so on.
So we who've been around for a while have really been instrumental in getting these platforms Companies to the market cap valuation that they've achieved.
And it's not very fair or very reciprocal to suddenly say, well, you guys, sorry, you're just on the wrong side of the political spectrum.
And so we're not even going to be honest about it or direct about it.
It's going to be like, well, it's not because you are on the right.
It's because you violated some terms.
You just said something nasty.
It's like, well, what about these 20 people on the left who said nastier stuff?
Nothing, right? Because you can't talk to people at these companies for the most part.
And here it is, right? Thin edge of the wedge.
Here comes the question.
And this is what you really need to ponder.
And this is what Laura's actions are so powerful in illuminating.
Social media has become pretty essential for people.
It's not... The same as electricity.
It's not the same as food or essential healthcare and so on, but it has become pretty important.
Would we say to a book publisher, it's okay to not publish...
Some people just can't go to any book publisher, right?
Because sometimes it happens, like with Alex Jones, it's just like all the dominoes go down at once, like in a pre-coordinated strike, it almost seems, right?
So our book publishers just, well, you can't, like, they say, you know, write for us, we'll publish whatever, right?
And then they just, can they just bar people from publishing books?
That seems quite an important question.
Because there is not that much competition that's available.
And, you know, people say, oh, we'll start up the competition.
And then you get harassed in other ways, and you get deplatformed in other ways, right?
You can have DNS issues.
Who knows, right? You get chased off ISPs and so on.
So this has become a pretty essential place.
And the reason we know that it's become essential is because the left is really working very hard to try and control it.
And if it wasn't essential, as it wasn't back in 2005, to say 2010, it really was basically since Hillary lost to Trump, that things have gone.
Because, you know, everybody knows how important social media was in that whole election cycle.
So now it's become really, really important.
And are we comfortable with companies denying what are becoming increasingly fairly essential services based upon political ideology?
Would we be comfortable with banks saying, sorry, man.
You know, we've done a review of your social media posts and you've got some nasty stuff out there, man.
I don't think we'll be able to help you.
We can't give you a loan.
You can't open an account here.
You can't get a mortgage.
You can't get a car loan.
Sorry. It's just not going to happen.
Too bad. Would we be comfortable with people not renting houses or apartments or cars to people who had unsavory Or what were perceived to be unsavory posts on social media?
Would we be comfortable with doctors refusing to treat patients who had unpleasant things or perceived unpleasant things on social media?
Where exactly is this going to stop?
Now, at some point, we all recognize that it's pretty bad.
Like, let's say all doctors refuse to treat people who've ever talked about race and IQ. That's vicious.
That's brutal, right? Say, oh, well, you can't force people down.
Okay. Well, let's say it's not all doctors.
Let's just say it's large hospitals.
Oh, it's that guy. He talked about raising IQ. Oh, you know, we don't want him here.
People are going to get upset. Okay, well, is that bad?
Is that... What if you can't get a credit card?
What if you can't buy things?
What if a mall says you can't shop here?
What if a grocery store? What if every grocery store in 10 miles and you don't have a car say you can't get your groceries?
What if they all say you can't come here because of your unsavory whatever, whatever, right?
I mean, at some point you understand it gets bad, right?
At some point it's going to get really, really bad.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of economic ostracism for wrongdoing, but we don't live in a free society.
In a free society, I'm all for it, and you can check out my books on the subject if you want, but we don't live in a free society.
We live in a monopoly society, a government monopoly society.
What if universities say, oh, man, no, sorry, uh, You're a Trump supporter.
We're not going to admit you to the political science department.
At some point, don't you get this?
Like, at some point, it's really bad.
Now, wherever it is for you that it gets really bad, you can't get hired, you can't get a credit card, you can't get a loan, you can't open a bank account, you can't...
Do business with X, Y, and Z. You can't get groceries.
You can't maybe... What if the phone company...
Oh, you can't use a cell phone.
Sorry, man. I've seen what you posted on social media.
We're not going to give you a cell phone.
Or if we do give you a cell phone, the SIM card company won't transmit the data or whatever it is, right?
I mean, at some point, you understand, it's bad.
It's really, really bad.
So... At that point, where we are together, whatever it is going to be, healthcare, food, shelter, whatever it is, power, whatever it is for you, it's like, well, denying that based on political ideology, that's really bad.
Okay, so wherever we are there, all we have to do is walk it back, right?
And that's what people are seeing down the horizon.
That's why this is a big issue.
So wherever it is for you that it bumps up against, well, that's bad.
That can't be right.
We can't allow that to happen.
We can't end up with this... Black Mirror, Chinese-style social credit score which allows you to function or not function in a society that's run by the government.
So, wherever that is for you, where it bumps up against what's unacceptable, okay, just walk it back.
It doesn't start there, you understand.
I mean, nothing ever starts there, right?
Nothing ever starts at the end.
It always starts way, way back at the beginning.
And... Is it easier to prevent society going in that direction now or five years from now?
Is it easier to try and nip this bad tendency in the bud now when we can do it peacefully, when we can do it humorously, when we can do it vocally?
Or is it easier to try and stop it now when you've created an underclass of desperate people who can't access social resources, who have nothing to lose, and...
Who are probably going to be pretty testy with their society as a whole.
Is that how we want to...
The problem is it's going to be pushed back.
We can either do it now in a civil way or we can do it later in a way that is not going to be as civil.
It never is in history.
So, yeah, just get to that point where you say, well, that, yeah, that's really bad.
Just walk it back from there and say, okay, let's give some props.
