Candace Owens is suing the “fact checkers” because they keep checking the facts in her videos. How dare they! In the name of free speech, she is therefore suing a couple of news sites to silence them.
Our freedoms are being stripped away. The overlords of Big Tech are determining what Americans can and cannot say, share, like, and post. Support our legal efforts today as we fight back against Facebook’s fact-checkers, confronting those who are suppressing free speech, thought, and expression across our great country.
We have begun pursuing two of Facebook’s fact checkers, Lead Stories & USA Today, for wrongfully “fact checking” posts that I put up earlier this year. Both USA Today & Lead Stories silenced me when I posted a different opinion on Covid – in their minds there is only one opinion: theirs. Censorship of conservatives across the world of social media is rampant and without challenging these alleged “fact checkers” we will all be silenced, disenfranchised and marginalized.
As a result, we have filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of Delaware against Lead Stories LLC, a Colorado company & Gannett Satellite Information Network LLC, d/b/a USA Today for malicious publication of false “fact check” articles, wrongfully leveraging their power as Facebook Third Party Fact-Checking partners for the purpose of redirecting web traffic away from me, abusing Section 230 of the Communications Deceny Act and interfering with the commercial enterprises of Candace Owens LLC. Access the lawsuit HERE.
We will be seeing them in Court in 2021.
She made this announcement on multiple social media outlets. On Instagram, she has 3.1 million followers; on Periscope, the video got 1.2 million views; on Facebook, she has 4.5 million followers; she has 2.6 million followers on Twitter. She uses her social media clout to spread misinformation about the coronavirus and BLM and the election. The announcement video itself is a fancy production shot in a professional studio, with what seems to be multiple camerapersons, slick lighting, and a backdrop with glowing letters spelling out “Candace” — there is clearly a lot of money backing her. Yet she claims she is being silenced, disenfranchised and marginalized
.
Meanwhile, over here in the real world, here’s the status of my last YouTube video.
Maybe you couldn’t hear me over the sad trombone playing loudly in the background, but who do I sue? I’m clearly being oppressed.
Also, I’m putting myself in great danger here. Notice that I did not link anywhere to any of Candace Owens multiple sites, and I’m telling you that she is a dishonest fraud, and that her message is string of lies — she’s an anti-vaxxer, a Trump enabler, an anti-democratic propagandist, and a shill for the rich. Next thing you know, she’s going to sue me. You are not allowed to criticize Candace Owens or expose her mendacity!
Isn’t she basically a grifter? I thought she did a 180 as soon as the prospect of money and fame appeared. But I could be wrong, there are too many grifters to keep track of.
At this point I think every visible figure in the conservative movement is a grifter.
Actually we could just take it to its natural conclusion that the conservative movement is a grift.
Now I know who Candace is.
I’m not usually one to advocate for clickbait, PZ, but I do note that of your two spider gorging videos, “Parasteatoda having lunch” has scored about half as many views as “Death comes on eight legs HD 1080p”.
There’s got to be some more edgy title than Evolution of Color Patterns, that sounds like it was lifted right out of a textbook. Maybe a racy thumbnail like a spotted kitten showing off its belly.
:)
j/k
Some idiot republicans want to file articles of impeachment against Biden . I wonder what they’ll claim he did .
“Witness the violence inherent in the system! ‘elp, ‘elp, I’m bein’ repressed! Did you see that? Did you see ‘im repressin me?” — C. Owens, probably
tytalus: you jest but seriously, a tiny bit of marketing can make a huge difference to getting people to take a peek in the door. And when you get your first whiff of science, you don’t go back.
“First they came for the white nationalist conspiracy theorists, and I did not speak out for I am not a white nationalist conspiracy theorist” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Candace Owens is probably not a grifter, she really does appear to have come to identify with the very same people that would not care if she died a horrible death – much like how she and her Republican colleagues haven’t given a damn when Herman Cain died from COVID.
If these Republicans weren’t the single greatest threat to humanity, it’d almost be funny how many of them are shouting in YouTube videos, their personal websites, Twitter, Fox News interviews, and on the floor of the House of Representatives that they’re being silenced.
Candace Owens – another product of the American educational system. Maybe considering civics classes as “capitalist imperialist brainwashing” was a bad idea after all?
“The overlords of Big Tech are determining what Americans can and cannot say”
Big Tech is not taping duct tape over your mouth, and if they did so without your consent maybe you’d have a point.
As for the other stuff, if you tweet vile stuff on twitter, you are implicitly associating the name of twitter with the vile stuff you tweeted. You are using twitter’s network/infrastructure to do so, and anyone who would want to see your tweet also sees the name “Twitter” next to it. If enough people tweet vile stuff on twitter, twitter will get a reputation as “that place where vile stuff gets said” (in my opinion, that point has long been reached, but okay…)
Twitter certainly gets to have a say in whether they want that.
Well, those pesky fact checkers are just ignoring all my wonderful alternative facts!
@PZ
Well, my most watched video has got 37 views, still waiting for the big money to come!
Facts are opinions and opinions are facts.
How very postmodern.
Delete Facebook.
As a reminder, Candace Owens is who the Christchurch New Zealand terrorist explicitly named as his inspiration (New Zealand Mosque Shooting: Black Conservative Commentator Candace Owens Reacts to Her Alleged Influence on White Supremacist Attacker, March 2019).
In addition, Owens is apparently a supporter of Marion Maréchal-Le Pen (Candace Owens, invitée de Marion Maréchal : « Macron n’est pas un leader fort », September 2019 (Candace Owens, guest of Marion Maréchal: :
“This rising figure of the American extreme right will be the guest star of the ‘convention of the right’ organized by the relatives of the former deputy”)). Now known as Marion Maréchal, she is generally seen here in France as the most extreme of the Le Pen nazi troika. The founder and wannabe-führer is her grandfather Jean-Marie Le Pen. Her niece Marine Le Pen is the current leader of teh le penazis (formerly the national front (front national), now the national rally (rassemblement national)), and is seen as — or at least presents herself as — slightly less nuts than Jean-Marie but still an extremely dangerous facist loon. However, Marion Maréchal is so deeply into facist lunacy she makes the original führer of c.80 years ago seem a “progressive liberal”.
But we ostensibly live in free western societies whose institutions serve the people, not the other way around. She can say what she wants as long as it doesn’t violate hate speech laws.
Who is fact checking WHO, NIH, Twitter and FB to keep them honest?
@blf:
She’s also the person who first hit prominence years ago with her idea to stop cyberbullying by essentially doxxing the cyberbullies. When told by people who were actually experiencing online harassment that not only would this not work (because some people are quite happy to harass others under their real names anyway) it would actually backfire badly (because it would be used as another form of harassment by bullies reporting their targets), Owens decided that the people like Zoe Quinn who were attempting to educate her on why it wouldn’t work were obviously also behind the harassment mobs she was getting for being a black woman daring to talk about stopping cyberbullying.
(This was in the middle of Gamergate, which was what had actually started harassing her, and before the average Gamergater had realized that Owens’ idea could actually be used to their benefit. Once they realized that, and realized that Zoe Quinn was trying to stop Owens, suddenly Owens was their greatest friend and shield.)
A fact is something someone can present to me to determine for myself. If it’s just a disparaging characterization or something else that can’t be independently looked at it’s just an opinion. Or barely an opinion if I want to reflect disparagement.
And they google their their own facts. If they feel so strongly about things they can represent their arguments because I’m interacting with another human, not a link. It’s the opposite of advocacy, it’s political peer pressure.
You sue Alphabet dba YouTube. Alphabet/YouTube has lots of money. They might even given you money to settle your suit out of court.
steve1 @ 4 — “Now I know who Candace is” Sounds like a song to me.
Did you bother to read the OP? Owens is trying to punish others for what they say. No-one is trying to stop her saying what she wants, she is demanding that they not contradict her.
“No-one is trying to stop her saying what she wants, she is demanding that they not contradict her.”
She is complaining that FB is silencing her. This is something I have heard from a lot of people, that FB and Twitter have come down hard on censoring any opinion that differs from what officialdom dictates shall be shared.
Which is why so many people are now moving to Parler and Gab which are not so oppressive.
Candace Owen’s whiney complaints are hilarious. And she made them in a very professionally produced video that must have cost a lot to make. She complains about being suppressed and marginalized in a video that has been viewed millions of times. She whines about her free speech rights being suppressed by a private company!! Does Owens not understand that a private company is not bound by the First Amendment? Does she not realize that a private company may have a few problems with someone who spreads lies about the Election etc., and has also spread the lie that the Capital Insurrection was an Antifa operation and other stupidity. I note she is massively more upset over over being fact checked etc., than over an attempt to overturn a free and fair election by outrageous lies, (Which she has helped to spread.), and violence similar too if not the same has a Banana Republic Coup!! Does she deny that media such as Twitter was used to help organize Wednesday, January 6ths events?
And I note that, it appears, that she still has access to Facebook Twitter etc., and she has so far given no examples of any Tweets or videos of her’s that have been deleted. Has for Parler and Gab well they are hives of hate and violence planning and Parler has no more right to Amazon’s servers than any other private company.
Oh I forgot to mention. The Right Wing Persecution complex is very similar to the Christian Persecution complex. Isn’t it so amazing that so many of these people are such snowflakes and care so much about their feelings.
@21 If they wish to leave Facebook, I’m sure they will find the audacity to go. With 2.7 billion users, I’m sure FB won’t be crying in their beers if they do.
Honestly, I’m not sure how to square what you’re saying with the fact that the creator of the blog here, along with most of the readers, have already abandoned Facebook as a haven for cryptofascist propaganda.
data42@21 FB and Twitter have their problems, but “oppressive” is not a word I would use for a service you can opt out of whenever you like.
Another serial killer troll. It just torched another poor strawperson.
No one is claiming that she can’t say what she wants.
We don’t even have hate speech laws in the USA. You are an ignorant idiot.
Everyone and their dog every day.
Whoever wants to whenever they want.
You could do it yourself if you had a brain, an education, an IQ above room temperature and most importantly, some basic human honesty.
PS Cthulhu, even for a troll this one is stupid.
data42 @16:
So misinformation and disinformation are OK? Those are, in large part, responsible for what happened on Jan 6, and for tens if not hundreds of thousands of deaths in the US from covid. And climate change, anti-vaxxers, etc, etc. Lies kill.
“So misinformation and disinformation are OK? Those are, in large part, responsible for what happened on Jan 6, and for tens if not hundreds of thousands of deaths in the US from covid. And climate change, anti-vaxxers, etc, etc. Lies kill.”
But how do you know that what these individuals are saying is disinformation whereas what authorities are saying isn’t? Many people contend that WHO and NIH promote disinformation which has unnecessarily cost hundreds of thousands of lives over the last year. For example, to this day, the NIH still has absolutely no recommendation for people to follow to help prepare their body to avoid infection with Covid, and to better fight the infection should they, God forbid, actually contract it. I find it odd, even suspicious, that after 100’s of years of development in western medical science in general and with over a year to study this virus’ effects on our bodies, they have not a single suggestion other than to be afraid, wear a mask, hide in your basement and wait for a vaccine. I know that this is false because there is much evidence that there are many things you can do and take to help your body fight the virus. If this evidence is censored by the social networking sites, then how can the discussion progress?
“The COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel (the Panel) recommends against the use of any agents for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), except in a clinical trial (AIII).
The Panel recommends against the use of any agents for SARS-CoV-2 post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), except in a clinical trial (AIII)”
https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/overview/prevention-of-sars-cov-2/
I guess what it comes down to is: what does one personally trust to decide what is true? What authority says? Or what science and scepticism suggest? I choose the latter.
I see using [free speech] as motivation to shut down criticism as a bizarre form of cognitive dissonance. I also see gaslighting when writing an article disputing assertions is called censorship.
the reason for the 1st Amendment’s protection of free speech was the aphorism of the day: the answer to bad speech is more speech (of relevance).
Seems to be the GOP strategy to attack the people reporting crimes rather than the perpetrator of the crime. Here she is saying the fact checkers (nb) are wrong, without saying which facts of hers are correct, which the fact checkers are mistaken about.
tangent: has everyone heard about the (R) rep who is saying she will file for Biden”s impeachment the first day of session
after inauguration?
Citations needed for the emboldened parts. Particularly the second about — those citations must include what to do if you do not have a basement or cannot enter the basement (e.g., are insufficiently mobile).
Many other bits of — essentially all of — that comment needs supporting citations, but here we are concentrating on two very specific claims.
data42 @29:
Is that the same “many people” Trump keeps babbling about?
Another proud “skeptic” who can’t tell their arse from their elbow.
“Citations needed for the emboldened parts”
Does this make you happy? Does it change my argument at all?
“they have not a single suggestion other than to radically alter your life, wear a mask, hide in your place of residence as much as possible, and wait for a vaccine.”
data42 — what kind of idiot are you?
Did you see what I wrote? She has 4.5 million followers on Facebook.
? — I find nests of Nazis pretty oppressive.
By the way, I don’t tolerate Nazi enablers here. BYE!
@33
Wait, you had an argument?
I am not sure of the NIH’s official stance, but here is Dr. Fauci voicing his own viewpoint:
And hey, you know what? In the absence of a vaccine, this has kept me and my family well and not exposed me to the virus like some knucklehead in Trump’s floating chickenpox party. I have indeed been fortunate to be able to work from home. My kids have finished two terms of high school remotely, and while it’s a suboptimal means of education, they are still making progress (my son did well in three AP tests for coursework he completed remotely last year).
Nobody needs to hide in the basement. We shop less frequently than before but have a well-stocked pantry. My daughter and take bike rides as inclined. It is true that some people have jobs that make this lifestyle impossible. It’s also true that younger kids are less likely to benefit from remote education. But for crying out loud, this is just not that hard, and yes it’s what a reasonable person would do in the absence of a vaccine or cure in response to something like a 1% fatality risk. I am 55, so I suspect my risk is higher than that.
The Trumpist death cult is another thing entirely. Particularly among national-level Republican politicians, contracting coronavirus seems to be a taken as a sign of loyalty, and as in any gang, people will take risks to join the trusted circle.
it sure looks to me that all these conservative complaints about free speech and censorship that are freely disseminated to incredibly wide audiences on numerous outlets are not about free speech at all but are complaints about the fact that they are not universally accepted and as this person complains about getting fact checked and are openly disagreed with and disputed.
They do not want nor understand vigorous debate . They only want one voice theirs to be heard everyone else should agree or just be silent I see no other conclusion possible given their actions.
F’um
uncle frogy
I had jumped to the conclusion that data42 was a one-off troll, but when I checked I was surprised to see their comment in the Ice Whiskers thread, so I held back. Still, referring to fact-checking policies as “oppressive” is a clear give-away. Tech companies do commit abuses (though the ones who exploit their own employees like Uber bother me more). Oppression is not the word for potentially biased enforcement of editorial discretion.
Fallacy of argument from personal ignorance.
This guy is so stupid and uneducated that every sentence is just wrong.
.1. This is a false statement.
Standard medical advice is to not get infected with viruses in the first place. The easiest virus infections to fight off are the ones that never happen.
Also, standard medical advice you can do is maintain your general health, eat right, keep fit, get enough sleep, avoid stress, etc..
Also, the Covid-19 virus is worse in people with what is now identified as risk factors. Try to avoid being obese, high blood pressure, diabetes, COPD, cardiac problems, etc..
There is no magic advice for your body to “fight virus infections.” If there were NIH would have already told everyone what it is. You are looking for magic. Magic doesn’t work in the real world!!!
.2. If you do get the Covid-19 virus there is a huge amount we have learned to do in a year for treatment.
Respiratory support including oxygen, high flow oxygen, ventilators, ECMO.
There are three antiviral drugs, two mabs and remdesivir, a steroid for immune overreaction, anti-blood clotting agents to avoid a major symptom of virus infection.
Medical science, NIH, and docs have done a huge amount to fight the Covid-19 virus and save people’s lives.
Ignorant people like you just get in the way.
You and your kind are just plague rats.
I doubt there is anything that isn’t known already about good health. Or are we talking about health scams or old ideas that have been discredited, like taking vitamin C or zinc when you don’t have a deficiency?
Oh really?
You are posting on a public forum while complaining about censorship.
Anyone with a grade school diploma could see the contradiction in a few seconds.
So tell us all how we can take whatever to fight off the virus.
I’m sure it will be of minor amusement.
Also, a year, is a pitifully short period of time to grasp the full effects of a new disease. What amazes me is the way people are so certain they know all the risk factors. If I were betting, I would say the longterm effects are not serious for the majority of people who get the disease and recover, but that’s pure speculation until the long term really happens.
Don’t forget about hydroxychloroquine or MMS, also known as bleach.
The quacks rarely come up with anything new.
I saw a recent report that Covid-19 is worse in people with short telomeres. So a relationship to age, but also to how well you repair your telomeres.
Likely true but not very relevant.
The data we have now is that about 10% of patients end up long haulers.
It looks like maybe half of those will eventually recover.
If you do the numbers that is a lot of people, in the millions in the USA.
One of my friends had to go to Florida for Thanksgiving to see her daughter. Caught Covid-19.
She ran into clotting problems and lost parts of both lower limbs and is now learning to walk with prosthetics.
Think about it. She is never going to completely recover from Covid-19.
You won’t know what will happen to you until you get Covid-19.
Unless you get the vaccine and then that risk goes away.
@42, Indeed. For example, Ginger root and meteorite dust: the Steiner offered in Germany.
That’s not the most loony suggestion — hair furor’s drinking bleach and shinning a light up yer arse is hard to beat for totally lunatic (as well as extremely dangerous!) — but it’s probably on the shortlist. Naturally-obtained “herd immunity” (i.e., without the use of vaccines) is another one on that shortlist of teh completely bonkers.
Data42 is another troll who doesn’t believe in expert advice. They pretend all opinions are equal. Those of us who are the real skeptics won’t go to our barber (a non-expert) for medical advice; we go to our MD and listen to the expert. Likewise we listen to our mechanic about the car, and listen to lawyer about drawing up a trust.
I knew Covid was going to be bad. It’s not hard to wear a mask properly when shopping, although I’m down to next-to-last industrial N-95 dust mask, but they should last until I get vaccinated. Which might be in the next couple of months as Governor Pritzker lowered the age for group 1b to 65, so I’m now in the group with teachers, who will start receiving the vaccine in February.
A lot of ignorant folks distrust Science since it always seems to change its mind. Science is quality system, where continuous improvement is occurring, as more and better data become available. Changing conclusions with better data is its strength, and not a weakness as some ignorant folks think. Being able to say you were wrong is a sign of honesty and integrity. Too many politicians, religious leaders, and conspiracy fableists are unable to admit they wrong. A true skeptic shouldn’t trust anybody who can’t admit they made a mistake.
raven@44 Yes, well I guess my statement is vacuous depending on the meaning of “recover.”
This is firsthand knowledge I’m happy to forgo.
A friend posted this Gizmodo article about an Amazon court filing recording some of the death threats that prompted them to shut down Parler. Here are some excerpts:
• “We are going to fight in a civil War on Jan.20th, Form MILITIAS now and acquire targets.”
• “Shoot the police that protect these shitbag senators right in the head then make the senator grovel a bit before capping they ass.”
• “After the firing squads are done with the politicians the teachers are next.”
• “White people need to ignite their racial identity and rain down suffering and death like a hurricane upon zionists.”
• “We need to act like our forefathers did Kill [Black and Jewish people] all Leave no victims or survivors.”
• “This cu** [United States Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao] should be… hung for betraying their country.”
• “Hang this mofo [Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger] today.”
robro@48 I am most definitely white, and I count on the sun’s ultraviolet rays to ignite my racial identity and rain down suffering (ideally not death, but I have been putting off a dermatology check way too long). I had no idea I needed the other stuff. Is there a way to opt out?
I too am wondering how whites should ignite their racial identity. I am a shade or two off of vampire in the melanin category, and American descended from various barbarian hordes in the ethnic category.
Am I supposed to explode into a flock of bats, while pillaging the countryside and extorting Rome?
liar.
Just that simple. you. are. a. liar.
@48 Please tell me the usage of the gender-neutral pronoun WRT Chao indicates there’s at one person in the mess seeing just how crazy these people can get.
@52 That’s a good catch, and it says something about habits of language. It may not occur to them (note my gender neutral) that they could say “her” in this context. They’re probably so used to it in their other life pretending to be a normal human being that they forgot to go pronoun Nazi.
Or they’re overcorrecting and cursing the PC oppressors who forced them to do it. It’s further proof of their victimhood.
Alternatively “betraying their country” might be thought of as name for a specific charge. It would be too much trouble to have to change the phrase each time you level the accusation against a new person (admittedly this is far-fetched and makes less sense to me now than it did before I started to type it).
It’s pretty common for the fascists to appropriate the language of the SJWs.
I have very little sympathy that someone who took a cabinet seat in support of the head white supremacist while being married to the enabling senate majority leader is now being called names and hopefully crapping themselves at being targeted by the scum balls they’ve empowered.
I very much dislike gendered insults, but it is schadenfreude to see those two actual traitors to democracy feel actual danger. I hope they aren’t harmed, yet continue to be very afraid. There are few people more deserving of their just rewards as trump toadies.
I
@53 Maybe. Hopefully, someone sees this and starts to get totally paranoid about infiltrators, agents provocateur and spies in their midst. If there’s any time that this movement will go Full Metal JG Ballard, it’s now.
So what would this political mass plan after this much time? They are largely incompetent and ignorant but that is a distribution of things. The military and law enforcement will stop anything related to imeadiate court dates but how aware are they and what is likely?
Candace Owens is…well, I don’t know the polite way to put this, but it’s a two-word phrase involving the difference between getting stuck in the fields and working indoors. If you take my meaning. I hope there’s an entire circle of Hell devoted just to people like her, who will sell out the well-being and indeed very survival of an entire ethnic group just for their own selfish ends. Clarence Thomas will be there too. Maybe they can rent a double-wide in Hell and save some money. Though I imagine it’s a bit cramped already what with Antonin Scalia’s skeletal hand up Thomas’s ass all the way to the shoulder, pulling on his vocal cords and brain stem…
I just can’t comprehend what would make someone do this, what would make them cynically and knowingly sell out not just millions of other humans but millions of the most socially and politically vulnerable. How does she sleep at night?
Interesting. My take of using ‘they’ instead of ‘their’ was vernacular that you don’t necessarily hear much anymore. The use of ‘mofo’ (as in ““Hang this mofo…”) and the bit about putting a “cap” in someone’s ass also sounds like appropriated tough talk — meant to mock black people while sounding tougher than tough. Anyway you look at it though, the hatred is palpable.
Meanwhile Republican crisis acting “victims” are very concerned that Democrats only wanted impeachment because of some mysterious manifestation of evil hatred that arises out of their innate evil liberalness.
Professional projecting, it’s the fundamental ingredient in the Republican arsenal of bullshite.
@57
Champagne and Ambien?
Susan Montgomery @ #52 — I assume your being factitious, but nah. Not a chance. Besides, they aren’t crazy. All the liberals and turncoat rinos are.
Nerd of Redhead… @ # 42: … teachers, who will start receiving the vaccine in February.
What optimism! Please note all vaccination plans based on information provided by the Trump™ maladministration are now null and void.
Pierce R. Butler @61
My information on vaccination plans is based on information supplied by the Lake County (IL) Health Department, who is managing the vaccine distribution locally. They appear to have their act together, unlike the feds. They have registered over 200,000 people for vaccinations. Since the vaccines are administered by appointment only, they can adjust for slower or faster delivery than expected.
Nerd of Redhead… @ # 62 – Glad to hear your local health leaders are better than those at the national level.
I also live in a county where the closest authorities seem functional, but the Governor of Florida (a Trumpista who works hard at emulating his idol) in effect forces them to tear up their plans and start over every few days.