Shadow Ban: PragerU Reveals Immediate 99.9999% Drop in Facebook Reach

www.breitbart.com ^ | 17 Aug 2018 | Lucas Nolan

[Red Badger]

Conservative non-profit group PragerU appears to be facing Facebook censorship, as many recent posts from group are suffering from a 99.9999 percent drop in engagement based on Facebook’s own dashboard. The Social Media Masters of the Universe also pulled down two PragerU videos, which it labeled “hate speech.”

Echoing the apparent page limitation of conservative commentating duo Diamond and Silk, the conservative non-profit group PragerU — which produces educational videos on conservative issues — appears to have found its Facebook page’s reach drastically limited. The group’s Facebook page boasts three million followers, but its most recent posts have been seen by almost none of its followers, according to the Facebook dashboard.

PragerU social media influencer Will Witt posted a screenshot of the Facebook page’s dashboard which shows a number of statistics relating to posts from the page, including the reach posts have and how many users have clicked on links in the posts. According to the photos posted by Witt, PragerU’s last nine posts have reached between one and three of their followers. Previous posts have reached between 50,000 and 95,000 of PragerU’s followers.

Witt also posted a number of screenshots of PragerU videos that have been removed by Facebook for “hate speech.” The videos that were removed include one titled “Make Men Masculine Again,” and “Where are the Moderate Muslims?”

Witt said in his Facebook post: “Our last 9 posts have been completely censored reaching 0 of our 3 million followers. At least two of our video posts were deleted last night for “hate speech” including a post of our recent video with The Conservative Millennial, Make Men Masculine Again.”

[Crusher138]

A friend of mine was telling me about his son’s new job at Facebook. Among the benefits for working at the headquarters in the SF area:

1. Free meals - breakfast, lunch and dinner. Free snacks, too.
2. On site free dry cleaning and laundry
3. Free gym with climbing wall
4. Free laptop and phone, new one every year
5. Free shuttle service if you live within 10 miles.
6. A $35,000 “relocation” account for you to use as you wish while you are moving.
7. A $35,000 signing bonus
8. Fantastic stock options
9. 21 days vacation plus 11 holidays (to start)
10. A mandatory 30 day paid vacation/sabbatical every 3 years.
11. A $15,000 annual bonus if you live within 10 miles.

I could go on and on, but those were the ones I remembered. Dad bragged that his son was starting at $175K, but with the different bonus packages, he was going to be making over $300K a year.

All I could think was “it is going to suck for him when Facebook crashes and burns...”

[Tammy8]

I never lost them, but you have to post on them to keep getting them. Even just a like will work, no need to comment. If you comment then more people will see them, everyone on your fb will have them on their feed. I found them originally because a family member was liking and commenting on them.

There are obvious actions being taken by fb to shut down conservatives, but there are ways to use their own buttons and whistles to help against that.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Bingo.

[SE Mom]

Dennis Prager and hate speech do NOT belong in the same sentence.

He’s always worthwhile listening because I learn from him.

I can’t believe this is happening. Where’s some competition? It takes time to build, but some freedom-loving techies should be on it.

[freedomjusticeruleoflaw]

Question for those “level-headed” conservatives who didn’t come to Infowars defense... Do you care now?

[DoodleBob]

There is no explicit, enumerated Constitutional power granted to Congress or ANY branch of the federal govt to break up free enterprises. Indeed, the Congress didn't seek to break up US offices of the East India Company. The Sherman Antitrust Act draws its legal underpinning from the Commerce Clause, perhaps the most abused element of the Constitution. To give sanction to a federal break up "monopolies" via the Sherman Antitrust Act, i.e. the Commerce Clause, is to give sanction to every other abuse of the Commerce Clause from the New Deal up to the Lopez decision.

In 1995 many people (including Robert Bork...while on Netscape's payroll) argued that Microsoft should be broken up. It wasn't. In response, several firms had to rely on innovation and the free market. The result? I can post to FR while commuting to work, while Microsoft isn't the Master of the Universe anymore.

I don't like what FB et al are doing. But the same means by which many want to grant the government the power to regulate a few servers and wires that NOBODY IS FORCED TO USE is the same means by which guns can be regulated out of existence, dissent can be quashed, and state socialism/governmental choosing of winners and losers can be enacted.

Usually people weidling phrases like "monopoly" and "anti-trust" - which are found NOWHERE IN THE CONSTITUTION with regard to congressional power - aren't free marketers. Now, right is left...Indeed, when conservatives start talking like philosophical cousins of Al Franken then we have a problem.

Does anyone really think the Deep Staters and this colossus giving us the IRS, Obamacare, the EPA, DACA, the IRS, and the Kelo ruling etc would really make the FB and Google et al situation better? As I wrote elsewhere, empowering this govt to go after these private actors could result in some twisted result where all citizens are then REQUIRED to have a FB and Google account or else you'll have to pay a fee/tax. It can't happen here? Look at all the legal rulings blocking Trump's efforts on immigration. Look at Roberts' Obamacare opinion.

Asking today's Deep State-backed Leviathan to save us from FB and Google is like asking Hillary to protect our embassy in Benghazi.

We little people have to solve this with private action. I'm sorry...I'll chose the Founders' intent and freedom over state socialism any day.

[BenLurkin]

bttt

[miss marmelstein]

Really???? Wow. I know freepers can be weird...

[conservative98]

There are several threads on it. It’s so annoying.

[miss marmelstein]

Who are these people? I’ve missed something!

[the_Watchman]

Monopolistic public utilities such as Facebook need the heavy breathe of the federal government on their necks.

And when the next Democrat administration comes, the political climate will dictate that conservatives will be banned again. Unless, a court rules this a civil rights issue, then conservatives will just have to organize their own social media channels.

[freedomjusticeruleoflaw]

So you think Jones should have been deplatformed?

[Theoria]

They are freeloading. They don't have to put in the resources to create a company like fb or twitter. They could try. But as of now, they and many others have been content to stay on youtube and such and use its resources.

[semimojo]

But, I also wondered why Prager or anyone else, can’t “broadcast” if that’s the right terminology, in a different manner, from different sites, and bypass the gatekeepers of Facebook.

They can and do - just go to prageru.com.

So does Alex Jones and everyone else whining about censorship.

This whole thing isn’t about free speech, it’s about people being able to make a lot more money if they have the free sites Facebook and Twitter carry their stuff.

They don’t want free speech - they have it.

They want to force private businesses to broadcast that speech whether the business agrees with it or not.

[nitzy]

Like most issues, this one is very easy to solve with common sense actions.

Imagine there was a magazine that had a letters to the editor section and only allowed neo-nazi letters to be published. Every week there were letters calling for the death of Jews and gays. Then one day one of their subscribers acted on it and killed a bus load of Jews. How should the government react?

Now, imagine there was a magazine that had a letters to the editor section and randomly picked 30 letters each month to put in the magazine. Some letters were about kitty cats. Some were about video games and a very small percentage were about killing Jews. Then imagine one of their subscribers kills a bus load of Jews. How should the government react?

The solution to the social media censorship question is this....

Pass a law saying that these companies can either 1.) Allow anyone to post anything (that is legal) and be absolved of any responsibility over the content OR 2.) Actively censor, edit and curate the content of their site and be held responsible for the content. By censoring conservative speech and allowing left wing speech, that is exactly what they are doing. They are actively picking which content they want to be on their site.

The next time a left wing nut shoots up a congressional baseball practice, the police will subpoena his social media activity. If he was viewing posts on Facebook or Tweets or videos on Youtube that advocated violence against Republicans, those content providers will be held accountable for actively curating the content of their site and PURPOSELY allowing the content he saw before he committed his crime.

On the other hand, they can simply remove and report to police any content which breaks the law such as human trafficking, child pornography, child abuse, evidence of violent crimes or property crimes, etc... and allow all other content. This way they are not responsible for what is on their site. They are truly a “public forum” where any opinion can be expressed regardless of how ridiculous.

They are trying to have it both ways. They are saying, “Free speech does not apply to private companies. We can censor whoever we want.” Then they turn around and say, “We can’t be held responsible for what these lunatics post on our forums.”

Of course, since this would actually solve the problem you won’t hear anyone propose it.

[a fool in paradise]

These sites claim tgat if you pay them for promotion you may see greater reach expect fakebook’s numbers are inflated.

[nitzy]

See my post 35.

I am curious to know your opinion on how much responsibility these companies have over the content on their site when they actively pick and chose what can and can’t be on them as opposed to when they simply allow everything that is legal.

Let’s say there was a very large and very vocal ISIS group on a new social media platform calling for the death of Christians. Let’s say these groups were using this new platform to egg each other on to commit terrorist acts. The platform knew the groups were actively doing this. The platform had censored other groups and removed their content but intentionally chose NOT to remove the ISIS content.

Should they be held accountable for the violence perpetrated by followers/subscribers/viewers of the ISIS group?

Have you seen some of the left wing hate content that IS allowed on these sites? From the Black Lives Matters groups to the anti-Trump groups to the wacko LGBTQ groups, they are nuts and actively calling for violence every single day. Considering these companies are CHOOSING WHICH CONTENT THEY WANT ON THEIR SITE, shouldn’t they be responsible for the violence that is committed by people who view the content they intentionally allow?

[Tea Party Terrorist]

I do understand the difference b/w this website and social media, but at the end of the day social media is still in private hands and can ban whom they please.

That being said, it deserves discussion on whether social media shoul dbe allowed to manipulate information the way they do in terms of silencing voices.

[a fool in paradise]

It’s a commerce concern. Some content is freely promoted while other political content is suppressed unless you cough up mney gor each and every post (and then is goes to people other than those who’ve already opted into the group/page).

And then there are the pages that are refused service without appeal.

Bakrle the cake laws apply because they bill for services.

[Personal Responsibility]

I can’t wait to hear how it was just an honest mistake.