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On 25 AUG 2022, Mark Zuckerberg admitted on Joe Rogan’s podcast that Facebook erred in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story on the Facebook platform after the FBI visited him to warn against false political stories, retroactively saying that it now "it sucks" the story wound up being verifiable. Astoundingly, he still defended the lengthy silencing of the story saying it was a “hyper-political issue.”1
In early 2021, Facebook and Twitter allowed discussion about the potential Wuhan Lab Leak Theory to resume on social media after suppressing it for over a year under the pretense that it was then believed to be false and misleading. The list of censored topics from covid to climate change to political figures is extensive.
It is well known that Facebook gave over $300 million towards drop boxes and other election measures that were concerning for enabling voting fraud and assisting Joe Biden to win the election. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s attempts to acquire Twitter in 2022 unearthed Twitter employees acknowledging political bias. Netflix hired former President Obama to be a producer of political content. Elon Musk commented that Netflix’s “woke mind virus is making it unwatchable.”2 Hulu offers news streaming that cherry picks leftist news for viewers, at the moment hyping Biden’s great loan forgiveness program with no opposing news or analysis.
In addition to choosing the content that the public is allowed to view, mass media continues to use ‘fact checkers’ and inflammatory language such as ‘baseless’ and ‘false’ to immediately sway public opinion against dissenters. Politifact has been owned by the Poynter Institute since 2018 and is funded by Facebook, Craig Newsmark (Craigslist founder and known democrat party megadonor), Washington Post, Gannett, etc, almost all left leaning organizations. Another fact checker is Snopes, whose 50% owner confessed to plagiarizing 60 articles in 2021 and shows that it is not only left leaning but also incompetent. Facebook and YouTube use the IFCN (International Fact Checking Network) to verify data, but IFCN is also funded by the Poynter Institute.3
Even beyond overt political/financial bias, fact checkers themselves frequently have their own inherent bias. Fact Checking writers are human and all humans have opinions and biases. Scientific American published a piece in October 2020 called “The Psychology of Fact Checking.” The author alleges that “fact checkers aim to get closer to the truth, but their biases can shroud the very truth they seek. “ “It would be a valuable antidote to the tendency of Americans to base their views on sources solely within their “bubble.” Such an adversarial arrangement challenges the presumption that there can be no doubt about the validity of fact-checkers’ conclusions, as implied by CNN’s Facts First feature: “CNN holds elected officials and candidates accountable by pointing out what’s true and what’s not,” as if determining the truth is somehow a psychologically straightforward process.”
In the medical lane, large medical organizations persist in threatening doctors who dare counter Dr Fauci’s covid directives with loss of licensure and livelihood. Despite the government ending covid medical funding and deaths plummeting, these groups are ramping up their rhetoric on their websites, publications, and messaging to practicing physicians. The CDC recently announced that it was reorganizing its staff for more efficient pandemic messaging; the public should be very concerned about that development. The seeds are being sewn to ensure that the next pandemic will receive even less resistance from ‘awakened’ providers and citizens.
Freedom depends on an educated public that is allowed to view current events and ideas. All sides of issues must be released for public consumption and deliberation. False ‘facts’ can and will be found out the right way, through analysis and discourse. Filters on information, particularly biased ones, need to be removed. As egregious as it sounds, the field of medicine is increasingly relying on non-medical technological fact checkers and censorship to judge medical merit.
Truth is systematically under assault. Whether for nefarious reasons or a desire to shield the masses from information they may not understand, censorship is alive and well in nearly every facet of our society. From mass media to medical establishments to US service academies, the public is being denied all sides of the story and receive an incomplete picture of current events. No matter which political party prevails in November, the fight is far from over. The forces restricting truth are deeply entrenched. Change from within these entities is getting increasingly more difficult to achieve. It will take a complete top down political and social revolution to stamp out impediments to truth. Science, personal freedom, and our republic depend on it.
John Hughes, MD
Emergency Physician
USMA Class of 1996 (#1 graduate)
3rd Generation West Pointer
4 combat tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan
1https://www.newsmax.com/politics/mark-zuckerberg-fbi-laptop/2022/08/25/id/1084687/
2https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/elon-musk-netflix-woke-virus-subscriber-loss-1235236688/
3https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1170
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