KEN: Many of us have been saying it for a while that free speech is dead. I know that’s a very drastic comment, and I know that, you know, people who have not been banned, libeled, slandered, censored, targeted, abused, fired, et cetera, deplatformed… If you don’t fall into that category — if you’re just minding your own business driving around with an “I’m with Her” sticker on your car or a Biden-Harris sticker — maybe you don’t even care about free speech.
But today the oversight board of Facebook, which is… This is something else that people in this audience… You know this ’cause you know history and you listen to Rush, and he knows history. Over the years, oversight boards and committees and bureaus — those are all groups of people, unelected, and those are… That’s the foundation of Big Government. It’s the foundation of communism. It’s the foundation of the left.
It’s very Soviet Union when you say, “We’re gonna take… We’re gonna take what you said and we’re gonna let the board decide.” What? (summarized) “The Facebook oversight board ruled to uphold Facebook’s decision to suspend former President Donald Trump from Facebook and Instagram, but the board said indefinite time frame of suspension not necessarily appropriate.”
So we first had Facebook because Zuckerberg is a liar. Okay? He lied to Congress. He lies to us. Maybe he’s lying to himself; I don’t know. If you’re worth that much money, can you? I guess you could do whatever you want. So Facebook passed the buck to the board, and then the board passed the buck back to Facebook. So here we are with the 45th president of the United States of America still banned from Facebook and Instagram.
However, the president of Syria is there. He has a page if you’d like to follow some of his illegal activities. I think he has a quarter million followers. Meanwhile, the smaller potatoes like me or you, just American citizens… I’ve been restricted. This is my third go around. I am still restricted. If I click on my Facebook account now, Ken Matthews, “Account restricted: Only you can see this. You are unable to post.”
So just a little heads-up, ’cause sometimes they’ll message me and then they’ll email me. “You know, I messaged you about nine times on Facebook; you didn’t get back to me.” That’s because I don’t have access to it because I’ve been banned from Facebook until further notice. So part of me says, “Oh, this is a bragging right. It’s a sense of pride. You know, the Big Government, the leftists, the commies have banned me.”
But, on the other hand, you realize your opportunity to freely communicate with others on a platform of your choice is getting less and less, smaller and smaller. This is a very, very dangerous thing. Now, again, the fact that the news media is complicit with it drives me crazy. The news media should be the first group of people to say, “Wait. Wait. What’s going on here?”
Now, a lot of people will say (and this happens a lot), “Facebook is private. They can do what they want.” We’re not arguing about that. We’re arguing about what is the cornerstone of leftism and the Democrat Party of the twenty-first century, and that’s the double standard. We know it’s private, and we follow the rules.
But whether it’s a comedian, whether it’s a congresswoman or senator or whether it’s Obama or the president of Syria, most people that are woke and don’t like Donald Trump can pretty much say and do whatever they want on most any platform, from LinkedIn to Facebook to Instagram. And you conservatives know what I’m talking about. There’s a whole list of things you’re not allowed to question, and you’re not allowed to debate.
This is a very dangerous time in this country.
Here’s a comment this morning from Fox & Friends. It’s Joe Concha.
CONCHA: I would imagine this morning that the ban will continue because Facebook, just like many in the media, serve at the pleasure of the Democratic Party. And look, when you say, “Well, how could Facebook get away with this?” Well, they’re a private business, and the bottom line is that their bottom line is very good. Facebook’s stock is up a hundred points. If you look at May 5th, 2020 compared to now, that’s more than a 50% jump.
And before anybody says, “Well, they gotta be broken up,” well, who’s gonna do that, exactly? You have a Democratic house, a Democratic Senate, and a Biden administration that is gratefully indebted to Facebook for all the help they gave them during the campaign, as did Twitter. So we’re not gonna see too much action as far as breaking up these companies or Section 230 being at least amended or removed at this point because there’s no incentive to do so.
KEN: And if the news media was on their game — which when have they been? Think about it. When was the last time the mainstream media news media broke a story? See how hard that question is to answer? They should be breaking every story out. They have the resources. They have the networks. They have the connections. We should be the most informed society on earth because of all the news shows and news products.
But, no, it’s just… It’s a puppet show. It’s a narrative. It’s just propaganda. It just gets repeated. That’s why I moved over to Gab. This is not an advertisement for Gab. I’m just telling you, people were like, “Why’d you leave Facebook?” ‘Cause I can’t use Facebook because I’m in Facebook, quote, “jail” all the time. Because if you mention the wrong thing, if you talk about the election, if you talk about, “I don’t think we should wear face masks anymore because that’s not following the science, if you go after Barack Obama…”
For example, if you were to post an unflattering article on President Obama, bye-bye. I mean, that’s a scary time in this country, and there’s some good things coming out of this, but not enough yet. “Young Americans have little faith in Facebook to do the right thing.” They had a new poll from Rasmussen, and so often is the case when you hear comments about law enforcement or free speech, young Americans are…
To their credit, they’re coming along better than a lot of us think. So I have to stand corrected, ’cause I always make the assumption that all young Americans are buying into this brainwashing from the news media. But most people don’t trust the news media. In fact, most people dislike the news media more than they dislike Congress. I don’t even know how that’s possible. But, anyway, Rush had a great thing about Facebook, and this is the other part of Facebook that I think people are not aware of, the international influence against America that can be first time through Facebook.
RUSH: Headline: “Facebook Employs Trust Ratings for Users But Will Not Tell You Your Score — The social network is predicting your trustworthiness in a bid to fight fake news. Users receive a score on a scale from zero to one that determines if they have a good or bad reputation… Your Facebook usage is being monitored and may be converted in a trustworthiness score. The rating system was revealed in a report by the Washington Post … which says it’s in place to ‘help identify malicious actors.’
“Facebook tracks your behavior across its site and uses that info to assign you a rating. Tessa Lyons, who heads up Facebook’s fight against fake news, said: ‘One of the signals we use [at Facebook] is how people interact with articles.'” Oh ho! So you’re on Facebook and you’re reading articles, and what you do afterwards is what Facebook is monitoring. Do you enthusiastically recommend that article? Do you ignore that article?
Do you share it with others? Do you print it? Do you amplify it? Facebook knows. If Facebook thinks the article is fake news, then you get a negative score, and you are considered to be untrustworthy with fake news. Facebook is engaging in the identical behavior that the ChiCom government is engaging in, and both of them are leftist organizations. The ChiComs, of course, epitomize modern-day communism — and Facebook seeks to epitomize modern-day communism.
At Facebook, everyone and everything will be judged and categorized and politics will be a factor. This is how collectivists think and operate. This is why they are dangerous when they’re in power. Now, remember when Obamacare was being debated? I remember making a prediction. I issued a warning to people. I said, “I want you to stop and think about this: The way this is shaping up and the hoops that you have to go through to get insurance and how much you have to pay for it, and then when you have to get treated.”
Remember they’re gonna have death panels and all this. They’re have limited resources. You’re standing in line somewhere at the hospital or the emergency room. All of a sudden whether or not you’re Republican or Democrat might matter. People said, “Come on, Rush! You unnecessarily get people frightened and worked up over something that would never happen.” Never happen, huh? Well, it’s happening right now apparently with the ChiComs, and Facebook’s not far behind.
They are studying how you interact with news — and if they think that you believe fake news and that you spread it, you amplify it, you share it, then you are not considered trustworthy, and your ability to use Facebook and interact will thus be limited. Politics will be a factor, Facebook openly admits, in their determination of your trustworthiness. Now, does anybody…? When you hear this, is anybody alarmed at the similarities in policy, behavior, attitude, all of it, between the ChiCom government and Facebook?
KEN: They are almost identical, and they’re propaganda machines, and Facebook has been that for a long time. It started with shadow banning. And this is what Rush knew then, and you knew it long before that, because we all… It happened a little bit at a time, and we got complacent, and we were always… When I say “we,” I mean so many of us in America.
Because we have it so good, over the decades we would say, “It’s never gonna happen. It’s never gonna be like Turkey here. It’s not gonna be like Yugoslavia or Hungary under the Russians. It’s not gonna be that way.” Well, it is that way. It’s that way now. You have no free speech. You might think you do but trying having a conversation on this in the teachers lounge today, if you’re even allowed to return to school.
That’s the other thing. You have no freedom of movement, either. But think about that. It started out of the as you cannot be violent you cannot make horrible threats you cannot be vulgar. Understood. Completely understood. Now it’s, “I heard you supported Trump. I don’t know if you should be on our platform.”
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
KEN: We covered this a few times today, and in case you missed it, Facebook’s oversight board — about two dozen people, obviously uninformed and unfamiliar with the law. Anyway. Well, a lot of them are lawyers; so that proves that many are uninformed and unfamiliar with the law. However, they voted to keep President Trump off of Facebook for another six months. Yes.
REPORTER: Facebook —
KEN: Yes.
REPORTER: The social media giant’s oversight board deciding to keep Mr. Trump banned from all platforms.
REPORTER: He is banned from Facebook for at least six more months. But the panel said the company has no rules in place to justify a permanent ban.
REPORTER: We now know Facebook will keep former president Trump off its platform. At this point, though, it is still not clear whether this ban is going to be permanent.
REPORTER: Facebook oversight board voted to uphold their ban on “you know who.” Should he be allowed back at some point? Sometimes you do stuff, and you are banned for life.
REPORTER: Facebook is a private company, and that’s why Facebook can make this kind of decision.
KEN: Some of the great political minds of the Democrat Party. Whoopi Goldberg. Uh, some of the great thinkers of this century. Uh, I’m being facetious, of course. Basically, you heard a whole bunch of hacks who are compromised or sold out or are just biased, don’t know how to do research, and then none of them said, “Well, you know, it is a little… It is a little concerning that the former president’s free speech is being attacked like this.”
And then they used the private company angle, which we understand. We understand that the private company has control over that, but it’s a double standard. You know, like when someone does not want to make a cake if it violates their religion, like a wedding cake. We had a caller. I believe his name was Reece. It’s a great example that the Democrats have double standards, and the standard of them getting to tell you what you have to do regardless?
Well, that’s permitted. But they get every freedom on earth. In fact, whatever’s taking place, you better accommodate them no matter what it is. Now, the good part is, the president’s starting his own platform. Knock on wood. The problem with this is, is this is the continuing escalation of targeting people by the left they just don’t agree with.
And instead of the news media being competent and unbiased and a true place — the real place we could go for truth and objectivity and context — it’s not. It’s just the promotional arm, the propaganda arm of a giant machine that leans so far to the left, China is thrilled with them. So that’s what’s sad. Nobody, with the exception of a handful of people on Fox… I would imagine Tucker’s in there and a handful of others.
And, you know, Newsmax and One America News and a few others. When I say mainstream media or the majority of the media, excuse me, a Rush Limbaugh listener knows I’m not talking about the handful that actually report the truth. But the fact that a bunch of people that claim to work in a free press are thrilled that a former president can no longer communicate for another six months on another social media platform, it’s beyond absurd.
It should worry us all.