Facebook – Black & Blonde Media

The ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ Offended Are Banning the Wrong ‘Music’

You can lay this right at the feet of the exploitive leftists in what was once called the “music industry”. It took talent and skill to compose and perform music. You actually had to be able to sing to be in what was called the music industry. You also had to know your potential audience and create music that would hopefully be universally appreciated.

Today, too many are looking for reasons to be offended about anything; almost to the point of the absurd.

Continue reading “The ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ Offended Are Banning the Wrong ‘Music’”

Is ‘Social Media’ Really Worthy of Your Most Valuable Asset: Time?

That’s What Friends Are For

As much as it’s nice to have a number of people who “like” your presence on Facebook, let’s be real. Out of the dozens or hundreds or more of people who are your “friends”, how many do you really know personally? How many did you know and hang out with years ago? Just a wild guess, I’d say that number is less than five percent. Ironically, the more popular you are on Facebook, that percentage goes down.

We have no control over who our social media “friends” really are. Their profiles, unless you really want to take the time to truly vet every single person who sends you a request, can be real or a fiction. As you’ve not had personal interaction with them, you don’t know if that’s someone you’d really want to be around or not, yet by accepting a friendship with them, you’re now associated with their words and activities, good or bad.

And there’s the superficial.

For example, way too many conservative men will be enamoured and will defend those women who call themselves “conservative” solely on the only thing presented: physical appearance first. We’ve seen many examples of female newcomers to the conservative movement with questionable, if not hostile, backgrounds being embraced mostly by conservative males who dismiss any vetting of the desired only because of the subjective “hotness” of that female. When their true motivations are exposed, they dissolve into online obscurity only after they’ve personally profited and the credibility of conservatives again become a laughstock to our political opponents.

Bang For the Buck

Many organizations have budgets allocated exclusively for Facebook promotion that will hopefully bring eyes to their websites. Facebook, depending on the amount of people who see a post, will ask if you’d like to give them money to “boost” said post.

There are many tech experts who’ve written exhaustive articles on just how to get people to actually go to a link on a Facebook or Twitter post. Almost all are in agreement that the vast majority of consumers read only what’s on the Facebook and Twitter post and very seldom click on a link (approximately 3%). Despite hundreds of hours taken to promote posts on this site, the most recent numbers verify their conclusions.

As of 9/10/18 around 11:30am in this very piece shared on Facebook, out of 193 people who saw it…

… only fifteen clicked on this link; a .077 percentage clearly in the waste-of-time category. The same probably goes for the dozens of memes, posts and Tweets with links to our page. Unlike others, we’re not stupid enough to pay Facebook to “boost”.

Then again, Facebook and Twitter gets all the activity, mines your topics, sends that information to their client advertisers and we get bombarded with the content they paid for.

Getting Personal

There was a time before Facebook when a man would have the enjoyment of planning a special day for the woman in his life. He could plot, plan and at the end of the day, have a nice evening out with her.

But how many men today have that cloud hanging over them: if they don’t stay up until 11:59 the night before a special day and be the FIRST to post a message on Facebook… not good.

Of course, that’s not important to most women but it’s now an issue that can have dire consequences; even if you did buy flowers or take her out to a nice restaurant, if you didn’t post your acknowledgement on Facebook, there’s something wrong.

All this because of the social media pressures of sending a message to (again) dozens or more people you’ve never personally met.

Held Hostage

The beauty of owning your own website is that you can post whatever you want, whenever you want from wherever. You are not subject to arbitrary “community guidelines” thus are subject to the objections of our political opponents which can result in shadow-banning or worse.

Think about the hundreds of hours invested in social media pushback that can be erased after being flagged by an anonymous butthurt, acted upon by a like-minded employee “monitor” at Twitter or Facebook, which can result in punitive measures including having your account deleted. Sadly, not everyone can afford or wants the headache of updating their own website and the social media gatekeepers know this as well, so you have to tread very carefully to exercise your First Amendment right on a private company’s platform where speech IS regulated at the personal whim of whomever is tasked with surveillance and enforcement.

And we all know how conservatives are fairly approached….

Artificial Importance

How many very successful businesses have had to alter their models and issue very public responses because of an outcry on social media? We see and heard news reports of “millions” of Tweets and hashtags created to exert pressure on a company because of something “trending”.

We had a restaurant in Washington, D.C., in an attempt to protect female patrons using their restrooms, take a major hit because of a transexual who claimed to have “hundreds of thousands” of “followers” objected and received media coverage. Did this person really have the backing of so many people who utilized the simple convenience of clicking on a “like” button on a post claiming victim status? Out of those “hundreds of thousands” of followers, how many real friends does this person have? A couple dozen or more?

We’ve seen CEOs from very successful companies have to step down because of personal political activities that inflamed certain groups; activities that had zero effect on the product used. All because of a pushback by many on social media that involved nothing but a click on a mouse.

We’ve seen issues blown up to international prominence in social media; issues based on an incorrect premise (see #Kony2012). Seeing how too many people don’t take the time to read beyond, it’s way to easy for an ignorant mob to be whipped up into a frenzy over something that never happened.

We continue to see others propped up as megastars, going back to Kim Kardashian; not because she did anything of real value, but merely because she exists and can successfully promote herself and family members with pictures on social media. We see others who’ve done nothing of real value (outside of talk), given a platform in the broadcast media because of a social media following of thousands who’ve never met them personally. In too many cases, it’s again their profile of selective imagery that has was too many swooning, like male congressional candidates and “pundits” who’ve achieved little politically but women on Facebook come right out and comment on his “hotness”.

Do You Really NEED Facebook and Twitter?

Don’t get me wrong. Facebook and Twitter is a convenient way to keep in touch with personal friends and family members as to your activities; something that was routinely done by email and/or a phone call. Would all communication cease if you couldn’t upload some photos and include the whereabouts? Obviously not, but also Facebook and Google now knows where you were and you now get notifications from restaurants and other places to frequent.

While many would argue that social media is a valuable promotional tool that leads to wonderful results, the results that lead to wild success are few and far between. But what do we really get out of it.

Aside from meeting my wonderful wife on Facebook, we really haven’t gotten a significant bang for the many hours spent promoting content on this website. Despite the many “offers” of interest and “exposure”, the last real job I had came as a result of physical content created; not a result of the amount of social media presence “likes” and “followers”.

And it came via email.

Laura once told me time is the most important thing we have in life is time because we never get it back.

Facebook and Twitter knows how many hours we’ve all given to them and if you were to see that number, would you really think it was worth it?

Dirty Little Secret

Have you noticed you never see any reference to social media in certain movie genres?

Obviously in a post-apocalyptic world with few resources, the Internet is non-existent meaning a lot of millennials wouldn’t last long. After all, how could they make a fire without a YouTube video cheatsheet?

Or maybe in science fiction fantasy, humans grew out of the need for instant gratification through that intoxicating quest for… likes.

I Need to ‘Start the Movement’…? No, Thanks

With good reason, it’s a wise move to do the minimum of vetting nowadays when it comes to anyone who is presented as the new “it” in the conservative movement. More times than not, people portraying themselves as conservatives are new to the fight as there are potential promotional and monetary rewards that are the prime motivators, and too many of those people converted very recently, if that conversion was really sincere at all.

As a response to a comment on Facebook where I asked the poster when she was going to sponsor a “Black Male Walk”, seeing how she was now highlighting a black woman who may be a part of this trendy #WalkAway “movement”, I got the following….

You should start the Movement. Don’t wait for someone else to do it.

In 1995, I walked away from the Democrat Party and did so publicly in liberal Hollywood. There is political discrimination and being a vocal, black conservative in the entertainment industry quickly closed all doors for employment. I later was approached and asked to run for United States Congress in California; an unopposed Republican candidacy that only failed as it was dependent on a succession liberal Democrats made sure never happened for obvious reasons.

City Hall politicians have raised millions to defeat Valley Cityhood because they will lose power if decision-making is returned to local communities! We all demand better government in the Valley and Los Angeles. Don’t hold onto the Valley against our will!
— Special Reorganization of the San Fernando Valley Area of the City of Los Angeles, 2002

By 2003, I moved back home to Massachusetts and was hired by a local cable access station where almost all of the programming was pro-Democrat. The audience for the television channel was almost 90% liberal and there were no programs available to counter the constant progressive bombardment aimed at their like-minded and pliable young people.

As a counter, I created a television show, not like “rant” videos that speak to the choir for social media likes are created today. This was years before YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or any other Internet entities that could widely promote a message.

You should start the Movement. Don’t wait for someone else to do it.

Unlike the relative physical safety of social media ranting today, I had to walk amongst those whom I was rebutting. And yes, I mocked them when any opportunity presented itself to call out stupidity and/or blatant lies. I walked amongst sneering liberals in the local supermarket, at the gas station, local post office, and at the school where my sons were in attendance. It was never about being popular. It was always all about “the movement”.

The show won three Northeast Regional Awards (New England and New York State), an honor I humbly note because the judges were almost all liberal. Maybe I offered perspectives they never considered, maybe because I was a token; I like to credit superior production value. But those awards resulted in numerous requests from cable access channels in other states for DVDs of my weekly show be sent to them for airing in their locales; all without social media promotion as in 2004, neither YouTube, Facebook or Twitter existed.

I never got paid to do my shows. I created and produced them on my own time and received no gratuities from the other stations that aired them. As the liberal mantra of the day was that all Republicans are racist, I deemed it important that my black face was explaining ‘conservative’ ideas. I wrote, produced, created the graphics and edited ALL of my television programs; an achievement very few of the in-demand conservative icons today can put on a resume.

You should start the Movement. Don’t wait for someone else to do it.

Years prior to my television program, I started writing opinion pieces online in 2002, some later shared by notables. By 2005, one of my pieces caught the eye of someone at CNN where I was later interviewed and got to rebut the liberal excuse that black people didn’t know any better and the looting in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was justified.

I was later approached by Project 21, a national network of black conservatives and was appointed a national spokesman that later resulted in my addressing the controversy of a black Harvard professor’s arrest on The O’Reilly Factor.

I met the president of the conservative Massachusetts Republican Assembly and was later voted in as their Vice President to help assist in messaging. During that time, I also ran for chair of the Massachusetts Republican Party in an attempt to counter the divisive election tactics of David Axelrod who was running the Deval Patrick for governor campaign and that other half-black guy running for president.

You should start the Movement. Don’t wait for someone else to do it.

In 2008, I saw a need in my six-town district for desperately-needed economic development; a need blown off by the two-term Democrat incumbent. I didn’t win, but I damaged him, which, at the end of the day, is something any loyal Republican should do to an opponent. I didn’t run for attention or monetary gain. I certainly didn’t run to be an ignored Republican in a super-majority Democrat Massachusetts Legislature. It was all about trying to address a need.

In 2009, a D.C. think tank contacted me about moving to Virginia to create a video department. I did so and when the online platform was launched, some of the technical and style skills learned in Hollywood and successfully utilized in Massachusetts were implemented, many conservative sites recognized my videos, tried to copy and are used to this day.

You should start the Movement. Don’t wait for someone else to do it.

I always sought to inform the public of the dubious politics in both parties and movements. I never sought to make it all about me, co-opt the achievements of others to promote myself, surround myself with so-called celebrities for my own self-aggrandizement, and create events that only those with money and influence could attend.

I defended the Tea Party against false allegations of racism, did so on their turf and without the desire and/or need for social media likes and retweets.

Genuine conservatives reached out and offered the opportunity to share my ideas with a larger audience, again not for expected monetary gain or personal ‘exposure’.

My activism has always been self-funded. I don’t have the luxury of a pension or other means that would give me the time to indulge my pet projects. With that, I believe we should all be wary of those who appear on the scene, saying all the right things in front of the right people. Conservatives continue to look like fools for embracing and promoting those who saw us as cash cows. We try and do the very vetting that should have been done initially, we’re usually told we’re jealous, and when the truth about these usurpers finally emerges, those who blindly embraced them say they knew it all along.

Yeah, sure.

You should start the Movement. Don’t wait for someone else to do it.

Do I need to start a movement? By today’s definition of “movement”, no. I will not be lumped in with those who are doing so, not to advance a cause that really doesn’t need their help. I will continue to share the knowledge via experiences accumulated since 1995, not just since the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. I will continue to speak, to whomever invites me, like I have on dozens of radio and television programs, friendly and hostile. As a conservative and United States Navy veteran, I still believe I have a lot of untapped insights to share.

I was trying to get the message out when mainstream Republicans ignored us because there were no social media rewards to be garnered for such showcasing. I attempted to inspire and there was no price of admission sought.

I remember reading the website ‘Black & Right’ when I was on duty assignment in Afghanistan for two and a half years. It was a very integral source of political analysis and helped me to formulate my own personal policy perspectives and insights. Bob Parks has always been a very poignant, straight shooting political voice and at a time when the failure of liberal progressive socialist policies are clearly evident, we need more conservative luminaries to educate, inform, and inspire a resurgence of conservatism.

Bob and his website blazed a trail and made my emergence possible.
— Allen B. West, Lieutenant Colonel (US Army, Retired), Member of 112th US Congress (2011-2013)

You should start the Movement. Don’t wait for someone else to do it.

I “walked away” years before likes and hashtags were created and sought for coveted social media validation. I did so, not to be followed, but because to do nothing with tools available would be irresponsible as a conservative.

I didn’t need to “start a movement” to do that.

How Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter Silenced B&R and B&BMedia

Black & Right, now Black and Blonde Media, has always been an outspoken site for conservative opinion. We have NEVER been a straight party-line regurgitator as we’ve often called out misguided Republicans because their actions almost always reflects badly on the base. However fair we’ve attempted to be, it’s become increasingly clear our website’s presence on the Internet has been targeted and damaged by those who serve as gatekeepers to access and can make a website prominent or virtually invisible.

Like it or not, social media is the communication form of the future — not just in the U.S., but worldwide. Just Facebook and Twitter combined reach 1.8 billion people. More than two-thirds of all Americans (68 percent) use Facebook. YouTube is pushing out TV as the most popular place to watch video. Google is the No. 1 search engine in both the U.S. and the world.

War is being declared on the conservative movement in this space and conservatives are losing — badly. If the right is silenced, billions of people will be cut off from conservative ideas and conservative media.
— Newsbusters, 4/16/18

We can only look at our own numbers and see that our downward slide coincided with our consistent criticism of candidate/President Barack Obama since 2008.

Black & Right/Black & Blonde Media views, 2008-2016

What could this be attributed to?

Has the content and opinions that was reflected changed drastically over the years? We don’t think so, in fact we’ve exposed as much (if not more) more hypocrisy, exploitation, self-serving, incompetence on government, campaign officials, nonprofits, the media, political campaigns and parties.

Our YouTube channels have been targeted on several occasions for violating “community standards” while anyone with access to a mouse can cruise the video platform and easily find gratuitous sex, violence, music videos with intentionally offensive language and imagery, but we’ve been target as confirmed earlier this month.

Someone at YouTube has been “manually reviewing” our video content, looking for… something.

In order to reduce the possibility of visibility from those at YouTube looking for any excuse to penalize or shut us down, we demonetized most of the videos on our various YouTube channels around a year ago, so we find the excuse YouTube claims is the reason for “manually reviewing” a 2008 video in 2018 as suspicious at best.

Google’s YouTube site had created its own problems with conservative content. YouTube moderators must take their cues from the rest of Google – from shutting down entire conservative channels “by mistake” to removing videos that promote right-wing political views.

We have no account linked to Google thus we have no money coming from any Google ads or YouTube channels.

Unlike some YouTube channels where you can find nothing less than filth that’s monetized and some people live comfortably off that “content”.

Our presence has been reduced and to a great extent, also by our doing everything possible to stay off YouTube’s radar to our monetary detriment. This is why we rely solely on those who deem our time worthy of contribution.

We’re also being censored, shadowbanned what have you, as whenever we send out a Tweet with a link, the visual thumbnail no longer shows and we know full well, pictures are very important in gaining the attention of some people.

Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions, whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules.
— Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO 9/4/18 statement

We had to go back to August 2, 2018 to find a Tweet with a link to a post (about a deranged, anti-Trump liberal) to see the link with a missing thumbnail.

Since August 2nd, whenever we Tweet and include a link, there is no box with the link. Just the url.

Of course, should we Tweet with a link to another site or a YouTube video, the thumbnails and/or link box shows just fine.

Facebook is now no different.

A 2016 Gizmodo story had warned of Facebook’s bias. It had detailed claims by former employees that Facebook’s news curators had been instructed to hide conservative content from the “trending” section, which supposedly only features news users find compelling.

When we try and link to one of our posts, the thumbnail showing up is now a crapshoot.

So if we are to use the word “collusion” in our daily vernacular, the more insidious collusion is between those whose platforms are being used to squelch conservative speech on websites Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter don’t like.

Unlike many conservative entities, we try and not rely on social media platforms to drive the majority of traffic back to our website because after exhaustive research on many tech sites, there’s a consensus that roughly 3% of those who see a post on Facebook and/or Twitter actually click on a link. Since people get enough from a title and could be bothered to take on the arduous task of clicking on a link to receive more information, only a fool would rely on social media for traffic.

And as we have our own website, Facebook and Twitter holding the ever-possible threat of account deletion over our heads is a mere nuisance and not panic inducing.

When Bob first created his television program; a good three or four years before the existence of YouTube and later Facebook and Twitter, it was aired primetime on Friday and Saturday nights in a deep blue Massachusetts district for a 90% liberal audience. Unlike videos created today that preach to the choir, Bob’s programs were aimed directly at the left and as (according to the liberals) blacks are supposed to be Democrats, this site has always been a target.

It’s now been confirmed that direct damage has been directed to Black & Right and Black & Blonde Media by Google who buries our posts, Facebook and Twitter who are reducing our visuals.

Yet, we #persist.
(#Resist Democrats’ fascism.)

Progressive Facebook’s Endorsement, Fundraising for Liberal Nonprofits

Depending on the topic of a given post on Facebook, a button suddenly pops up.

Should you find yourself in an altruistic mood, Facebook offers you a selection of nonprofits they deem worthy of your support. As you may have guessed, almost all are far-left.

Like the Southern Poverty Law Center is hurting for donations….

Aside from the fraud-ridden Wounded Warrior Project nonprofit, there doesn’t appear to be any choice offered for a nonprofit many on the right would donate to and few are any run by minorities. Not like this is really a surprise.

Should you wish to donate to a “personal cause” other than that which Facebook endorses, here’s their screening process to determine worthiness.

Looks harmless enough.

Now, here’s where things get interesting.

You’re offered a limited amount of choices and hope you fit into one of their categories.

If your fundraiser doesn’t fit into any one of the above, things now become subjective.

If approved, any donations that do come in may go through Facebook first. Maybe not for an outright “fee”, but they may hold onto your cash for a couple of days or so they can accrue interest before forwarding the donation to you. It’s probably also a given the same interest gathering process occurs should you donate to one of their endorsed, chosen nonprofits.

How benevolent and generous.

#SocialMedia is THE Cause of Public Incivility (or Worse)

When it comes to the level of incivility in our public discourse, we shouldn’t blame people who wrote something years ago now declared egregious by the self-declared consciences of society, or activists who ramp up heated emotions to the point of violent action, or the sanctimonious media who look down on all of us and dictate how we should look at any event they decide worthy of coverage, or even the President of the United States.

We should examine those who create the means of communication through their shortsighted visions, motivated by delusions of grandeur and monetary reward before thinking-through the ramifications on their potential consumers and society as a whole.

If those who created the social media platforms used widely from the early 2000’s through today had given just a little thought on how their websites would impact our methods of talking to each other, things today could’ve been a whole lot different. When the technology of cloning was being discussed, scientists and ethicists debated for years, not whether it could be done but should it.

For example, immature, forward thinking-challenged Harvard students created what we now call Facebook (Facemash.com) as a means of ranking the physical attributes of campus women. Odds are the males doing the ranking did so under the protection of cowardly anonymity.

From MySpace through YouTube through Facebook through Twitter, if users were required to provide their verified real name, verified age, most recent portrait and city location to initially “sign up”, just imagine how conversations would be conducted today as the abused shield of anonymity would not be a factor.

Because their identity would be a public and could be scrutinized by family members, friends, employers, and law enforcement if necessary, a mob of the anonymous would not exist to pressure anyone to say or take back anything they didn’t want to do. In far too many instances today, a person who says something on Facebook or Twitter is inundated with tens of thousands of virulent responses from “people” who may or may not have piled on if their friends and family (who may not agree with their take) could see not only their message but how they chose to respond.

Would most parents object to a son or daughter telling someone they didn’t know to go kill themself? Probably.

Would an employer have a problem with an employee posting an obscenity to a local politician who could directly and adversely affect their business? Probably.

But when someone can say some of the most vile things to another person that they’d never have the guts to say to their face, it emboldens the coward, emboldens the mob mentality, and the negative results are documented.

When people using aliases can now do criminal activities to others and/or their property and can broadcast it all live purely for the sake of hundreds of thousands of “likes”, it dehumanizes those they victimize and inspires the copycats as well as those who wish to take things further.

Unfortunately, the toothpaste is out of the tube. The arrogant bully can create any name not his or her, any graphic representation not of their true likeness, and can jump right in and ramp up any issue they want at any person they wish and make that person act and think the way they want them to. Should that person succumb to the demands of the empowered anonymous, the cowards are again emboldened to look for the next they wish to victimize. If it results in apologies, that becomes the next “trending” success narrative. If it results in a suicide, retrospection and apologizes are optional. If it results in violence, those who cheered events on can now pivot and pile on to whichever side convenient to their narcissism.

We will not have a return to a semblance of civility in society until social media realizes their platforms are THE major contributing factor and a total reboot is past due.

Until the cowardly anonymous are disarmed and thus held responsible for what they post on all platforms, we will see people’s careers destroyed, businesses impacted, and violent responses on the uptick. Those who hide behind false names will continue to tell us all how THEY want us to think and express ourselves or else or face a merciless horde.

Just a couple short generations ago, we didn’t experience the incivility seen today because we were social media. We didn’t have the luxury of being able to tell everyone we knew, and hundreds more we’ve never met face-to-face, something negative about someone we knew or never met. Speech required introspection. We had to know if it was something we really wanted to say to someone’s face and if we really wanted it known that it was said.

In other words, we were held responsible for what we said and it actually forced us to think if it was something that should be said at all.

Today, throw all that out the window. Comments are now impulsive, at times not well thought out if at all, and can be issued by people who can’t be personally identified and held accountable. Showing their real cowardice, they can delete their posted attacks after the damage is done, free to move on to their next subjects.

Social media has empowered the gutless and when the weak can destroy the strong, we have a really fucked up mess to fix.

Unsolicited Facebook Message From an Idiot on the Fourth of July

One of the perils of social media is being approached by people you never met.

Some of them are NOT very smart and what’s worse, they think they are….

Rush Smith: let me guess..u voted for Obama and u now are a republican..?

You can only imagine how taken aback I was receiving a Facebook message like this from someone who clearly doesn’t know me.

Bob: Obviously you know absolutely nothing about me to make such an absurd introduction.

Rush Smith: how about if u tell me
How about if you answer my question and stop beating around the bush?

He thought he had me.

Bob: No, I didn’t vote for Obama and I’ve been a Republican for most of your life.

Rush Smith: Okay..I wanna make sure the recycled democrats stay in the DNC..and before u say the world ” gorilla” u should have known the spanish lingo or slang to know what i really meant there..
word*

Here’s where the narcissism started becoming apparent and narcissism is always annoying.

Bob: Excuse me, YOU “wanna make sure the recycled democrats stay in the DNC”. Exactly who are you, considering you go after people not knowing who you’re talking to?

Rush Smith: I have been a life long republican..and want to make sure the recycled dems and rinos stay where they are. Nothing really personal ..I have also pics with rush limbaugh,, allen west and bob snerdley

I guess I was supposed to be impressed.

Bob: Hot shit. Your pics must be awesome considering some of us have dealt with these people beyond selfies and YOU made it personal.

Rush Smith: Again,,I dont want recycled dems in my party

Bob: Again, who the fuck are YOU?

Rush Smith: who the fuck are YOU?
Rush Smith..

Yes, on what was supposed to be a quiet, uneventful Fourth of July, my blood pressure was rising.

Bob: Someone who doesn’t introduce himself in a message with a clearly racist sentiment.

Rush Smith: are you in Massachusetts?
no, I am not racist.

Now, where would I get that impression?

Bob: Why would you send “let me guess..u voted for Obama and u now are a republican..?” to a black man… but you’re not a racist.

Rush Smith: lol..are u one of the 8 % who voted for Mitt ?
or the 6% who voted for Mccain?
Most black republicans voted for brother Barack

Wow.

Bob: Again, you clearly can’t read or you wouldn’t STILL be asking stupid questions and writing even more stupid shit.

Rush Smith: i think u are the racist bob..

One of the ongoing problems with social media is having just anyone claiming to be speaking for all of us; in this case someone who wanted to assure himself of the purity of the Party while in no way being ready for primetime himself.

Rush Smith: i know u voted for obama
bull shitter

Happy Fourth of July!

The Tyranny of the Uncivil, Social Media Anonymous Cowards

There was a time in this country, a hundred and fifty or so years ago, when you’d be called out for saying something negative to someone else. Negative comments or actions were resolved by duels in the streets that resulted in maiming, if not death, and bullies ruled until it was universally decided there were better ways to resolve petty conflicts.

Nations are run by those who initially portray themselves as the more level-headed amongst us, yet wars are initiated by the very “educated” elites who never have to pick up a weapon themselves and their words lead to consequences that have profound ramifications for those they call the “collateral”. But for the most part, prior to the public accessibility to the Internet in the very early 2000’s, people wouldn’t say to others what they wouldn’t say to their face.

Then came MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.

People could create an account, create a fictitious name, an avatar that was whatever physical representation that person wanted, and they can now add to the public debate in any fashion they wish; for the positive or negative. The effects vary between a classmate hounded by hundreds to businesses that have to alter their business models because of a real or false misstep, ramped up by a social media campaign of thousands of people; many who hide behind anonymity and some who may not even exist.

Some people fool the public into making us believe they’re more relevant than they really are.

Famous people on social media—actors, models, athletes, influencers—like to brag about the size of their follower count. But a New York Times investigation published Saturday found that a number of those celebrities buy at least a portion of their social media followers. At the center of the investigation was Devumi, a company that allegedly sells what the Times calls “amplification bots,” which follow the accounts of paying customers and are programmed to like and retweet their missives. The company also claims it can help its customers get more views on YouTube videos, more listens on SoundCloud and more endorsements on LinkedIn.
— Newsweek, 1/29/18

Today, we’ll have an incident and a participant can almost instantly become the center of the news cycle based purely on the amount of times his or her social media “message” is repeated. We’d like to believe the sharing is organic, but we also know numbers can be rigged to the benefit of a cause, even to crowd-funding financial benefit.

Unfortunately, the toothpaste can’t be put back into the tube and at the onset of the use of social media, anyone who signed up for an account had to display their actual name and portrait (preferably no more than a couple years old). As many of us would never approach someone bigger, get in their face and let loose with personal, unrestrained expletives, the anonymity of social media has provided cover for cowards those who have little respect for the feelings of others, bolstered by the possible false impression that those sentiments are shared by thousands, if not more.

Men normally don’t say things to another man’s face they can’t back up physically. However, women enjoy the luxury of that time-honored privilege of not having to face the physical ramifications of their outbursts. Social media has enabled members of the public to attack others at will from hundreds of miles away and force a subject to alter positions. Sometimes a subject willingly succumbs, may lose a job, a livelihood or business, have to find a new place to live, all because someone who was too chicken shit to use their own name was able to arouse the public and have it repeated by a so-called media that lazily refers to social media as a source of daily content.

While our news would be more uniform if those who disseminated it (on all levels) had to do so under oath under penalty of perjury, imagine a social media platform where those who participated had to show their real names and faces, thus were personally accountable for their posts.

It would be a very different world, indeed.

Obama 2012 Mined 190M Unsuspecting Facebook Users’ Data to Liberal Awe

While Mark Zuckerberg plays victim off the media narrative that the Trump campaign used data provided by Cambridge Analytica; data supposedly from (depending which news reports you read) between 50-87 million unsuspecting Facebook users.

The problem is campaigns using data from Facebook to target potential voters is nothing new. While Zuckerberg and Senate Democrats are acting all shocked the activity happened, all was different in the ramp up to 2012’s Obama reelection campaign and Facebook was all too willing to assist.

TIME: Friended: How the Obama Campaign Connected with Young Voters

According to Obama’s former 2012 “director for media analytics” Carol Davidsen….

The media didn’t appear to object to the Obama campaign’s ability to obtain access to Facebook users and even got higher-ups within to almost brag about what they did.

The Obama leaders not only wanted all the lists to be able to talk to one another, they also wanted people to be able to organize their friends and family members.

But this third piece of the puzzle provided the campaign with another treasure trove of information and an organizing tool unlike anything available in the past. It took months and months to solve, but it was a huge breakthrough. If a person signed on to Dashboard through his or her Facebook account, the campaign could, with permission, gain access to that person’s Facebook friends. The Obama team called this “targeted sharing.” It knew from other research that people who pay less attention to politics are more likely to listen to a message from a friend than from someone in the campaign. The team could supply people with information about their friends based on data it had independently gathered. The campaign knew who was and who wasn’t registered to vote. It knew who had a low propensity to vote. It knew who was solid for Obama and who needed more persuasion — and a gentle or not-so-gentle nudge to vote.
— Washington Post, 7/28/13

Facebook’s allowing the Obama campaign to “do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side” may or may not have been legally ethical, but despite how Zuckerberg and the Democrats are portraying what happened in 2016, it’s been done before and on a far greater scale. This was also another example where the media said one thing (“the campaign could, with permission, gain access”) and reality being something else entirely.

Zuckerberg faced some rather uncomfortable music on Capitol Hill on the topic….

In 2012, the Obama campaign encouraged supporters to download an Obama 2012 Facebook app that, when activated, let the campaign collect Facebook data both on users and their friends. According to a July 2012 MIT Technology Review article, when you installed the app, “it said it would grab information about my friends: their birth dates, locations, and ‘likes.’ “

The campaign boasted that more than a million people downloaded the app, which, given an average friend-list size of 190, means that as many as 190 million had at least some of their Facebook data vacuumed up by the Obama campaign — without their knowledge or consent.
— Investors Business Daily

Maybe the hashtag #FacebookObamaCollusion is more apropos.

Social Media Accounts of Mass Killers Should Remain Public, Not Scrubbed

How many times have we had a speculation storm after a mass killer’s name is released, his or her social media accounts are quickly removed leaving the general public at the mercy of the reckless speculation (and/or agendas) of the media.

Obviously a person in custody for such criminality would incur the wrath of the social media anonymous-brave, so it would be proper and understandable if the person’s comments were disabled and the “friends” of that person were made invisible, but the public would still be able to go back and piece together possible motivation without the faux-intellectual speculations of the media; at times in gross error to the detriment of the innocent.

Aurora Shooting: ABC’s Brian Ross Incorrectly Suggests Tea Party Link
Blaming The Wrong Lanza: How Media Got It Wrong In Newtown
Florida Sheriff: No Known White Supremacist Connection in School Shooting

If the Facebook and Twitter accounts weren’t so quickly removed, the media couldn’t have so easily spread an incorrect profile because the truth would be there for all to view. Obviously, lawyers would be screaming about the accused privacy and who knows, maybe there would be enough within that person’s profile to clarify a true motive?

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Is the public’s right to know more important than the perils of media speculation, seeing how they’ve been known to sit on important details that offend their politically correct tendencies?