Social Media Censoring Christianity?

Today I found a startling article at The Christian Post -- Is it possible that Facebook, Google, and Apple are on a campaign to stamp out religious free speech?  Here's the story from Stephanie Samuel (emphasis added):

Facebook, Google, Apple Censoring Religious Speech?

WASHINGTON – The National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) group sounded the alarm Thursday about new media outlets such as Facebook, Google and Apple, which they say have written policies that violate the fundamental rules of free expression, particularly concerning religious free speech.

The NRB released a report at the National Press Club Thursday analyzing the various content policies of social networking websites. What they found was disturbing: new media platforms Facebook, Apple, Comcast, AT&T and Google have adopted policies to censor lawful viewpoints expressing Christian views or controversial ideas on “hot button issues.” Some platforms, such as Apple’s iTunes App Store and Google’s search engine, have already started to use those policies to remove orthodox Christian viewpoints considered “offensive” or too controversial.

Former Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth said, “The irony is the companies listed in this report are some of the most open companies in the world.”

In a January 2010 interview with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg praised social networking for opening people up to share “more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people.”

However, Zuckerberg’s social network has removed content deemed “anti-gay,” according to the NRB report. It is unclear whether that censored material contained any religious expression. However, the NRB report warns, “The position of Facebook on the issue of homosexuality and its collaboration with gay right group the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination (GLAAD), coupled with its troublesome written policies, are all strong indicators that its social networking platform poses a high index of risk for anti-Christian discrimination.”

The Associated Press caught Comcast blocking or at least delaying peer-to-peer file sharing of the King James Bible.

Google has also committed a number of free speech violations, the NRB report alleges. The world’s most powerful search engine initially prohibited the English Christian Institute from purchasing space for an advertisement about abortion. It also allegedly blocked a Massachusetts pro-family website because of its conservative Christian content. Google also has also excluded churches and other faith groups from free or discounted use of its web tool Google for nonprofits.

Colby May, senior counsel and director for the American Center for Law and Justice, said of new media’s apparent split personality, “Something else is in play.” He and others attending a panel discussion of the report suggested that social networking platforms are under a tremendous amount of pressure from various special interest groups.

For example, Google removed pages of a Norwegian anti-Church of Scientology site after it was pressured to do so by Church of Scientology lawyers.

And when Facebook, citing its outlined responsibility policies, abruptly yanked a fairly innocuous photo of two fully clothed male actors kissing from the blog post of gay rights activist Richard Metzger, it sparked criticism in the gay community, leading Facebook to repost the photo.

Facebook issued a formal apology and reposted the picture. The report contrasts this incident with several others where Facebook “has permanently and unapologetically removed sexual content.”
The grossest act of anti-Christian censorship, according to the report, is Apple’s removal of the Exodus International and Manhattan Declaration apps.

Gay rights protesters demonized Exodus’ app as the “gay cure app,” although the app primarily advertised the date, times and locations of its upcoming events. They rallied more than 107,000 sign petitions asking Apple to remove the app from the iTunes store. Gay activists also successfully petitioned the removal of the Manhattan Declaration.

May lamented Apple’s skewed judgment, saying it rejected an app for a document that upholds the sanctity of life and marriage as “offensive,” but maintains an app for the violent videogame Grand Theft Auto.

The panelists all expressed the fear that selective censorship may silence not just Christianity, but all religions.

May stated that the religious community must demand that companies such as Google and Facebook open their media platforms to more kinds of speech. “When we say ‘open,’ we mean open ... don’t give the heckler veto,” he urged.

Roth urged the religious community to educate the public about the importance of free speech. He said those in academia – millennials such as Zuckerman and the early makers of Google who launched their companies while attending college – may not be aware of why censorship, however small, is problematic.

NRB Senior Vice President and General Counsel Craig Parshall told The Christian Post it plans to send the report to the offending companies along with an invitation for dialogue and discussion. Parshall and others on the Thursday panel made clear their preference for change through dialogue rather than resorting to legislative or regulatory means. However, if the companies do not respond, Parshall says the NRB reserves the right to begin talks with the FCC.

Wow ... and all the Apple products I've bought over the years ... I don't to, but if this Big Brother behavior continues, I may have to take my business elsewhere ... I don't wanna have to buy a PC!

UPDATE: Why The U.S. Was Downgraded

[Thanks, Mom!]

U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000

Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
New debt: $1,650,000,000,000
National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
Recent budget cut: $38, 500,000,000

Let's remove 8 zeros and pretend it's a household budget:

Annual family income: $21,700
Money the family spent: $38,200
New debt on the credit card: $16,500
Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
Total budget cuts: $385

Does this clarify it?


Ha!  Today on FoxNews' website, that Bastion of Evil as we know, has a version of the above:

Tea Party Group Casts National Debt as a Household Budget

By Perry Chiaramonte

Published September 27, 2011 | FoxNews.com

America's ever-growing debt crisis is in the trillions -- more than $14 trillion, give or take a few billion.
That's a lot of zeros, numbers so large they're sure to make Americans numb when trying to get their arms around what it means to them.

But what would the federal debt crisis look like if you set it up as a household budget?

A heck of a lot simpler, according to new figures from one Tea Party group, which estimates the government "household" spends nearly twice as much as it takes in every year, has a credit card bill nearly seven times annual income and cuts back less than 2 percent of that spending in an effort to control the debt.

"We had discussed about how any citizen needs to understand what the proposed cuts mean," said Laurie Newsom, president of the Gainesville, Fla., Tea Party. "One of our members had figured it out and put it in terms of a household budget. If you ran a household with these numbers, you would see that it's simply not enough."

The group looked at some key figures, mainly tax revenue, the current federal budget, debt and budget cuts, and divided each figure by $100 million, in an effort to break it down into simple terms that most Americans can comprehend. The group posted its findings online and came up with a household with an average family income of $21,700. But that "family" spent nearly twice that -- $38,200 -- and has an existing credit card balance of a whopping $142,710.

"Everyone tries to keep things extremely simple for these things meant for general public consumption and of course there's a give-and-take with that," said Seth Rabinowitz, a partner with Silicon Associates, an economics-focused management consulting firm based in California. "I would make it clearer for the layman.They used the line 'Money the family spent'...but really that means, 'Money the family spent (last year and intends to spend this year again).' "

"However, when you remove those eight zeros, the $385 spending cuts obviously aren't even visible. They don't even make a dent," he said.

The bottom line, according to Newsom: "Cuts won't take care of it. You need business growth, which we wouldn't have in a regulatory environment."

Obama Administration on the Hunt for "Smear Campaigns"

Jeez, can you get any more pathetically Stalin-era-esque, folks?  Another witch hunt being perpetrated by Obama and his goons, embarking on a seek-and-destroy missiong to snuff out any and all dissent.  I heard about this website this morning on my drive in to work, and then found the following article in FoxNews ... which I'm sure will eventually be shut down by Dear Leader's regime:

Reelection Campaign Launches Reporting Site for 'Phony Attacks' on Obama

President Obama's reelection team is looking for scouts to report would-be "smears" against the president, urging supporters to submit criticisms they read or see to a new campaign website called Attack Watch. 

"Here's the deal: We all remember the birth certificate smear, the GOP's barrage of lies about the Affordable Care Act  and the string of other phony attacks on President Obama that we've seen over the past few years," Obama for American Campaign Mirector Jim Messina wrote in an email released Tuesday.

"There are alot of folks on the other side who are chomping at the bit to distort the president's record. It's not a question of if the next big lie will come, just when -- and what we're prepared to do about it."

The site, a compendium of claims with rebuttals by the president's team, is a throwback to the 2008 campaign's Fight the Smears site.

AttackWatch lists a "news feed" where people can click over to find analyses from liberal groups like Media Matters and Think Progress that offer defenses of the president's position. 

Among the "attack files" cited so far are those from Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry and others, who've suggested Obama is not a strong ally to Israel. Another rebuttal is aimed at criticisms by Republican congressional leaders like Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor, who accuse the president of creating job-killing regulations

In each instance of an "attack," the site gives news articles explaining the president's side of the story.

In the email, which also solicits donations to the president's reelection campaign, Messina writes that the site is a resource that "allows us to nip these attacks in the bud before they show up on the airwaves and in emails."

The scouts will then become the first line of defense to "spread the truth" to friends. 

The new campaign site also lets people vote whether they've seen the "attack," and has a Twitter feed, @AttackWatch, for people to follow for updates.

So, I went to the website and snapped this:

Kinda freaky, ain't it?

This brings to mind back when the White House website had a spot where you could report "fishy" info, websites, e-mails, etc.  Two prior incidents that I've blogged about:

1) "Fact Are Stubborn Things" on White House website:

"There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

2) Obama Truth Squads