By Corinne Weaver ~
YouTube has decided that its viewers and content creators are only allowed to believe what they decide is right — especially when it comes to climate change.
As reported by BuzzFeed, the video platform has begun “combating scientific misinformation” by putting Wikipedia entries at the bottom of all climate change videos produced by conservatives. PragerU’s video, hosted by Richard Lindzen, which discussed climate change, had a “fact check” about global warming placed at the bottom from YouTube.
YouTube deployed a similar strategy on a CNN video that hosted a debate between television host Bill Nye and founder of Climate Depot Marc Morano. This time a blurb about the “realities of global warming” appeared on the bottom of the screen. In a statement to the Media Research Center, Morano said, “The fact check completely misses the point.This is only the beginning of the appeasement of activists by YouTube.”
He went on to call the YouTube policy “virtue signaling” and said that “This is the end of any hint that the left has any tolerance. That notion is gone now that they are going after conservative content.”
YouTube clearly decided to pick a side in the controversial debate, using the sentence from Wikipedia: “Multiple lines of scientific evidence show that the climate system is warming.”
YouTube wants to make sure that any reason a viewer saw in Morano’s comments were undermined by content from Wikipedia. The irony is, even Wikipedia argues that it is not a reliable source of information. In its own article, Wikipedia states: “Wikipedia can be edited by anyone at any moment.” According to Buzzfeed, Wikipedia didn’t even know that YouTube was using its content for fact checks. Wikipedia once listed Naziism as the ideology for conservatives.
But of course, the liberal academics that would ordinarily discourage use of Wikipedia are all in favor of YouTube’s new policy. “It’s probably better than just accepting the denier video at face value,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change. Leiserowitz was deploying a common liberal tactic of trying to link climate skeptics to Holocaust deniers.
So far, even liberal content is affected, since YouTube hasn’t perfected the algorithm. The fact-checks are showing up on all climate science videos, regardless of the source.
PragerU’s chief marketing officer Craig Strazzeri told BuzzFeed, “Despite claiming to be a public forum and a platform open to all, YouTube is clearly a left-wing organization.”
Ref.: https://papundits.wordpress.com/2018/08/10/youtube-overrules-opposition-to-climate-change-via-wikipedia/
Who is Watching the Watchers & Fact Checking the Fact Checkers
With YouTube beginning the new “service” of providing a Wikipedia Link under videos it deems conspiratorial or wrong, I thought I would investigate the Wikipedia page that was linked under my video about climate change based on repeating cycles of solar activity ,not CO2. I found glaring inconsistencies between peer reviewed science and what is listed as fact in the Wikipedia Global Warming page.
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The Truth about DeSmogBlog And SourceWatch
Sources: Popular Technology and DiscoverTheNetworks
DeSmogBlog is a smear site founded by a scientifically unqualified public relations man, James Hoggan and funded by a convicted money launderer, John Lefebvre. The irony here is their favorite tactic is to attempt to smear those they disagree with as funded by “dirty money”. Since it’s creation in 2006 the site has done nothing but post poorly researched propaganda with a clear intent to smear respected scientists, policy analysts or groups who dares oppose an alarmist position on global warming. Their articles frequently reference unreliable sources such as Wikipedia and Sourcewatch since they are unable to find any fact based criticisms of those they criticize in respected news sources.
James Hoggan
About Us (DeSmogBlog)
“The DeSmogBlog team is led by Jim Hoggan, founder of James Hoggan & Associates, one of Canada’s leading public relations firms.”
Who is James Hoggan? (Financial Post, Canada, June 5, 2008)
“So who is James Hoggan? He’s a public relations man, based in Vancouver. His firm, James Hoggan and Associates, is positioned as a feel-good local operation with clients in all the “right” public and private sectors. He also sits on the board of the David Suzuki Foundation.
One of his side efforts is a blog operated out of Hoggan and Associates. Funded by retired Internet bubble king John Lefebvre, the blog has one full-time and three part-time staff. They spend their time tracking down and maliciously attacking all who have doubts about climate change and painting them as corporate pawns.
There has been no mention on the blog, nor on The Fifth Estate, of James Hoggan’s client list. They include or have included the National Hydrogen Association, Fuel Cells Canada, hydrogen producer QuestAir, Naikun Wind Energy and Ballard Fuel Cells. Mr. Hoggan, in other words, benefits from regulatory policy based on climate change science.”
John Lefebvre
About Us (DeSmogBlog)
“The DeSmogBlog team is especially grateful to our benefactor John Lefebvre, a lawyer, internet entrepreneur and past-president of NETeller, a firm that has been providing secure online transactions since 1999.”
Blog Funder Guilty of Money-Laundering (Heartland Institute, February 1, 2008)
“John Lefebvre, the top financial benefactor of the DeSmog Blog, is facing substantial prison time after pleading guilty to federal money-laundering charges. The DeSmog Blog is operated by a small group of public relations people who specialize in attempting to discredit respected scientists and policy analysts who disagree with alarmist global warming theory. Ironically, DeSmog Blog’s favorite tactic is to claim scientists and policy analysts who disagree with alarmist global warming theory are funded by “dirty money.” The revelation of the blog’s major source of funding as a convicted money launderer may undermine DeSmog’s attempts to smear the integrity of respected, law-abiding scientists who disagree with them.”
Ex-NETeller exec pleads guilty in gambling case (Reuters, January 10, 2007)
“A former president and co-founder of payment processor NETeller pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a conspiracy charge related to handling billions of dollars in illegal gambling proceeds.“
NETeller ex-directors on money laundering charges (Reuters, January 16, 2007)
“Two former directors and founding shareholders of NETeller Plc [Stephen Lawrence, John Lefebvre], a British online money transfer company, have been charged in the United States with laundering billions of dollars in illegal gambling proceeds.
SPPI NOTE: Russell Cook details Sheldon Rampton’s highly troublesome ties to DeSmogBlog’s Ross Gelbspan in his Breitbart.com articles, “How an Enviro-Advocacy Group Propped Up Global Warming in the MSM” and “Global Warming Nuisance Lawsuits Are Based on a Fatal Flaw“. Anti-skeptic book author Gelbspan has blogged at DeSmogBlog ever since its start back in January 2006, and is one of the central figures Cook details in his SPPI original paper, “Are Skeptic Scientists Corrupt? Or Does the Accusation Fall Apart Under Hard Scrutiny?“
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SourceWatch
SPPI note: CMD is funded by radical leftist George Soros
- Online “encyclopedia of people, issues and groups shaping the public agenda”
A project of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), SourceWatch describes itself as an “encyclopedia of people, issues and groups shaping the public agenda.” The subjects of these entries are individuals, issues, and organizations whose objectives and ideologies run the entire left-to-right political gamut.
SourceWatch also seeks to expose what it calls the “propaganda activities of public relations firms” and the activities of organizations working “on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests.” These “exposes,” which tend to be critical of their subjects, deal predominantly with conservative entities.
Founded in 2003 under the name Disinfopedia, SourceWatch (which took its current name in 2005) reports that from April 2006 to April 2007 it received some 73 million page views. As of April 2007, the SourceWatch database contained more than 15,600 entries.
As with the online reference Wikipedia, the contents of SourceWatch are written and edited by ordinary Web users. Says SourceWatch: “You don’t need any special credentials to participate — we shun credentialism along with other propaganda techniques.” While stating that it seeks to maintain fairness in the profiles and articles appearing on its website, SourceWatch does acknowledge that “ignoring systemic bias and claiming objectivity is itself one of many well-known propaganda techniques.”
The SourceWatch database is composed (as of early May 2007) of some 612 topics, 27 of which are classified as “main topics.” These include: Academia, Activism, Aviation, Communication, Corruption, Countries, Economics, Environment, Events, Government, Health, Human Rights, Ideologies, Industry, Information and Privacy, International Issues, Issues, Lists, Media, Organizations, People, Politics, Religion, Site Administration, Sociology, Sources, and War/Peace. Within each of these categories, SourceWatch provides information on related groups, individuals, and issues of concern. The perspectives are mostly leftist; the entries rely heavily on leftist and far-leftist sources.
Consider for instance the “Activism” category, wherein there is an article depicting expressions of concern about violent acts of ecoterrorism as nothing more than right-wing fear-mongering and selective outrage: “Since 1990, there have been numerous attempts by industry front groups, PR firms and conservative think-tanks … to associate environmental activism with terrorism. ? While conservative groups routinely denounce both peaceful protests and vandalism as the equivalent of terrorism, they remain silent about violent attacks against environmentalists and animal rights activists.”
Most of SourceWatch’s “Human Rights” category focuses on allegations of U.S.-perpetrated prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.
In the category titled “Axis of Evil,” SourceWatch derides President George W. Bush’s use of that term in reference to Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Declares SourceWatch: “To say that these nations are ‘evil’ depends in part on your theology and in part on your politics. There is no question that Iran, Iraq and North Korea have all committed significant violations of human rights, although Iran has recently been undergoing internal democratization (a process that may be disrupted as the U.S. invasion of Iraq fans the flames of Islamic fundamentalism). The singling out of these particular nations as evil, however, invites the question of why the Bush administration failed to include U.S.-supported nations that violate human rights on a similar scale, such as Saudi Arabia or Egypt ?In reality, ‘axis of evil’ is a term used to stigmatize countries against which the U.S. contemplates military action in the near future.”
The section on Hurricane Katrina focuses heavily on the Bush administration’s alleged indifference to the crisis. For example, one entry quotes Michael Giltz of AMERICAblog, who wrote in September 2005: “When the worst natural disaster in our nation’s history attacked us, George Bush STAYED ON VACATION ? in Crawford, Texas. ? [And] vice president Dick Cheney STAYED ON VACATION in Jackson, Wyoming. ? Sec[retary] of State Condi Rice WENT ON VACATION in New York City and went to a splashy Broadway musical and bought obscenely expensive shoes. She went shopping ?”
Consider also how SourceWatch describes the organization Holy Land Trust (HLT), which spreads false propaganda about Jews robbing Arab lands and brutalizing Arabs in a repressive state of military occupation. Rather than mention any of these facts, SourceWatch merely cites HLT’s self-descriptionas “a Palestinian not-for-profit organization established ? to promote and support the Palestinian community in its struggle ? to achieve political independence ? and ? to assist in building an independent Palestine that is founded on the principles of nonviolence, democracy, respect for human rights and the peaceful resolution of conflicts.”
The founder of SourceWatch is Sheldon Rampton, who also serves as CMD’s Research Director. Rampton was formerly an outreach coordinator for the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua, a group established in 1984 to oppose President Reagan’s efforts to stop the spread of Communism in Central America, and currently dedicated to promoting a leftist vision of “social justice in Nicaragua through alternative models of development and activism.”
Although its profiles and articles are user-created, SourceWatch employs an editor, Bob Burton, to oversee the project. Prior to his work at SourceWatch, Burton served as a researcher and campaigner on environmental issues for the Wilderness Society in Australia. He is the co-author of Secrets and Lies: The Anatomy of an Anti-Environmental PR Campaign.
Ref.: http://sppiblog.org/news/the-truth-about-desmogblog-and-sourchwatch
Tech’s push back against Pentagon giving US adversaries an advantage?
Anduril Industries Chairman Trae Stephens on the U.S. tech sector pushing back against the Pentagon.
Who are these companies working for?
