Thank you to all readers and members of the Conservative Treehouse fellowship for your continued support. Without your help, this little corner of research and discussion on the internet just could not exist. I will always work earnestly to be deserving of that support and fellowship.
Unfortunately, on an almost exact timeline as previously outlined (maximum 2024 election interference planned), Google and Big Tech have shifted approaches exactly as we predicted they would by mid-April.
They have been unable to take down The Conservative Treehouse over platform content, so they shifted strategies with the spider crawling. We are now under attack by Google Inc. for comments made by you. [see example below]:
You can tell from the flagged notes and highlighted search terms, the spider crawl was given specific phrases to search out. Apparently, Eliot Ness provided them on March 23rd.
This comment by Eliot Ness is being used by Google Inc. to outline a violation of terms of service, and Ness’s threats to violence reported to DHS for operational CTH targeting therein. Note, it is not the content of CTH that is the problem; comments are now the source of infractions that can lead to CTH deplatforming.
You do not need to be a deep weeds thinker to see the issue here. After years of unsuccessfully targeting our research directly, the Google overlords are now targeting us based on reader content. They are turning fellowship into a vulnerability. I am furious and working earnestly to develop a solution.
Obviously, the above comment was deleted and removed, but the shift should explain why so many websites have dropped the comment system completely.
We need your help.
There is a flagging system for the discussion community to self-police. If you notice a comment outside the rules and guidelines for comments, flag it by hitting the flag icon next to the comment. As soon as 20 flags are received, the comment is automatically removed. You can well understand why that feature is present.
I will fight the big tech targeting using every resource to keep CTH from being taken down. However, the process is the punishment in this corrupt system. Fighting these creeps is expensive, and this activity by them takes place at the same time they demonetize us by removing our small advertising funding.
We are fortunate, blessed and protected by a loving God, who has abundant confidence in our ability. If you can help financially, it is appreciated.
Making yesterday’s notifications even more annoying, March and April are the months when all the annual fees for licensing, email notification systems, data security, legal retainers and background stuff associated with the building of CTH 2.0 are paid. Thank you to everyone who helps offset these costs and keeps our voice in the fight.
Financial support through PayPal remains the most efficient and stable way to support CTH. I know they have received a lot of criticism, much of it well placed; however, my own experience with PayPal has been solid. When CTH was deplatformed and under attack from Big Tech (eye of Sauron), to their credit, PayPal stood firm and supported CTH in providing their service. They would NOT demonetize us.
While my experience with PayPal seems to run counter to the outcome described by others, the unexpected supportive position from PayPal made a strong impression on me. Again, perhaps unique, not sure why, but my experience with them has been very good. If that ever changed, I would immediately let you know. The data security and convenience of their system is also solid and useful.
Regardless, there are now two options: (1) PayPal and (2) Proprietary. Due to legal caution and the data privacy construct, the Proprietary alternative has a 30-day access lag built in. Meaning, if you use that option, in approximately 30 days the funds become accessible, whereas support through the preferred PayPal option is immediate.
The alternative financial support appears directly below the PayPal link in a yellow box as highlighted. Some have said browser settings can block visibility, and I have also heard it doesn’t show up on some mobile devices. I am not sure what the technical issue might be other than ISP filters (now becoming more problematic) and/or Adblocking software.
Due to my personal requirements for Treehouse user privacy, and my firm stance on not retaining user data lists, the alternative system does not provide a subscriber option. If you use the alternative support function, each time you would want to support CTH you would have to click it and reenter your information. No data is saved.
Thank you to everyone who helps offset these costs and keeps our voice in the fight…
~ Support CTH Here ~
Eyes of a mouse/Ears of an elephant…. and don’t forget to live your best life!
We cannot allow this new tactic to win. Guidelines for Comments Here.
Love to all,
Sundance
I think going back to a point when you think the trolls may have signed up because of that directive and create a waiting period for no posting from that point forward that would last at least till after the election. Then ban anyone from posting if they violate the rules. Or just ban posting. Members could create a private reddit account where people could share thoughts.
Simple – read Sundance’s content and forego the comments. I personally love the comments, so many intelligent, thought-provoking insights. I’ve learned a lot from everyone here.
I think you’re stirring a pot for some reason.
Aaaaand we’re off to the races. 🙄
I will do what I can Sundance.
Do you know the vile, violent, racist, death threats I’ve seen from liberals on Yahoo News, Newsweek, etc.??? Liberals can swear and threaten all they want. They can include links, gifs, and pictured on their comments. We cannot. They playing field is NOT level!
Yes, ness commemt wasn’t a reason, it was just an excuse.
trolls are like death and taxes they are always with us.
Sorry for the typos! I was still half asleep.
oddly enough, my ISP (the one that starts with “V”),
which had been making it impossible to read here for months without a workaround, quit interrupting apprx. two days ago.
do they no longer feel the effort is needed because….?
this is such a shame.
my condolences to our host and ad rems on the extra work now involved, and a resounding “good job” to you all.
it’s spring, so i will do my part in checking the “vegetation” that appears to be proliferating. 😉
Has a company ever been more ripe antitrust action?
The Google inc monopoly needs to be shattered into many tiny pieces.
“for”
monoply
An excessively/obsessively hungry one.
The goog can be relegated to the trash bin of history in the blink of an eye.
This site is facing resistance because of it’s utility in maintaining and facilitating Our freedom of speech. Aka, being over the target. Key word being ‘over’.
Good job SD and crew.
Trust God. Fear not.
I have several Google blogs since 2006. One of them is reviewing fiction books and movies where I sometimes post political news. Comments need my approval on those blogs.
I rarely visit my About/Profile Page and found out recently Google added at the bottom of my profile “Report This Blog”. I got paranoid and immediately disabled my Profile Page.
Biden is going after Apple instead. Wonder why?
“Eliot Ness” maybe a visitor stirring things up a bit.
The “untouchable” implication is more than ironic. It’s boastful.
It’s in the Alinsky Playbook:
Also: Accuse others of what you yourself are doing.
Rinse and repeat.
can be used against them too…
It also could serve the purpose of unhinging already unhinged types, although this site doesn’t attract those types very often. It’s too cerebral for them and there aren’t nearly as many as the Deep State wants us to think.
The more serious threat, after annihilating the site and/or its resources, is that it can serve to falsely mollify people into complacency. This is not a time to presume ‘someone’s going to take care of things.’ No one is. We have only ourselves and to whatever extent in our personal lives, each other. Making the Treehouse into a steam valve is the secondary motivation for those types of tactics, methinks.
THAT as much as anything else highlights just how much has changed, at least in our awareness. Because (for one thing) the things that need to be taken care of are things THEY THEMSELVES are doing.
That was my thought also. The only protection against such an attack by “troublemakers” is our own vigilance.
Of course, designed to stir things up. Gubermint trolls are on every website which hosts comments.
A bot/troll AI. is going to continue to make this type of cyber assault much worse
Big clue there. Bots have existed for 10-15 years and they were a great training ground for AI.
So we are to red flag trolls. Check.
Most likely whatever, whoever they are, they work for and with G00GIE like hand in glove, collectively to attack any site whose ‘brand’ is a threat to the status quo.
Will help all I can.
Thanks to SD, thanks to mods and thanks to all for making CTH what it is.
Our tree needs to be a forest.
Just saying what you mean in plain simple English would do for us. We get the message. They cannot hold you responsible for some out of line comments if your stipulations are clear. It is your manifest that goes against the grain. Money is what you need. Money to hold on to the end of the beginning.
They cannot hold you responsible for some out of line comments if your stipulations are clear
But they will because they can.
We all know tat, but we know enough. Laws have made you redundant. I can only shake my head if I look at your problems. a Constitution that gives you everything ‘but’ plausible deniability. Who will use plausible deniability?
People are people and you cannot interfere. They are who they are. It’s us. Plausible deniability should be judged by “Julius Caesar”. OOPS?
Am thinking of Ricky Vaughn – in jail for reposting a meme. This is the worldwide move to abolish free speech and this is the western world’s way of implementing mind control through public struggle sessions, trials for former political office holder because of markings on a document that at one time was classified, but no longer was by virtue of his right to have that document. On trial for markings on a piece of paper.
My dad once told me the reason those German’s did what they did was because they could. Same thing with what we’re seeing now with words, creating an artificial bot farm to scroll for words, not actions, just mere words, is being done because they can.
They just did. Remember the world is as it is, not as we want it to be…Be of good cheer, God wins. Live your best life.
I can see it now.
Comments ARE free speech. To eliminate them or self-censor is compromise. Compromise is PARTIAL SURRENDER.
We can be tactical in this if we think through our posts and review before sending. What could be more fun than outing the gubmint traitors that visit? Consider it an investment in FREEDOM!
Comments used to be free speech, when the US was actually free. Stalin, Hitler, Lenin are all laughing at us now because they have finally won. God bless the USA and her freedom loving citizens.
Free Speech is a government, constitutional issue.
“Private” corporations can do as they please.
There in lies the rub – Shakespeare
How easily this is overlooked or forgotten.
OTOH, as the First Amendment begins with just “Congress”, our world has bullied guv into applying it to everything said or done in the public eye. And even out of it.
And yet we have “hate” (thought and word) crimes and, thanks to the current swamp creatures, we now have a federal red flag law.
I don’t necessarily think it was a “false flag” or planted comment.
What I think it more likely was, and what I commonly see especially during major election year cycles, is the natural product of a constant drumbeat of increasingly outrageous “news” and social commentary, both here and elsewhere.
It’s the predictable loss of “cold anger”, as rational people start snapping into more aggressive responses to the increasingly provocative stimuli they are seeing day in and day out.
All you have to do is come here every day and read the daily thread, and see page after page of reposted tweets displaying the escalating insanity, violence and immorality around us. Police shooting escaping victims, constant institutional injustices, invasions, in-your-face blatant corruption, theft, lies and blasphemy. Day after day after day, month after month.
All of this is bound to provoke and stoke outrage in even the most sensible of souls.
That’s why it is a good and healthy mental practice to occasionally take a break from the “news” and current affairs, if only to step back and survey the simplicity of life and those near you. To recharge and refocus and clear the eyeballs.
This particular post by ‘Eliot Ness’ appears in response to the horrific massacre of over 150 innocent Russians by a terrorist attack. It was a horrific slaughter of innocent men women and children who were not bothering anyone and just living their humble lives. Even Russian officials have flatly proclaimed that all those responsible should be executed.
The news today is outrage provoking. Corporate news in particular is nothing but outrage ‘porn’. And perhaps increasingly rightly so in some instances, such as over this past Easter.
And it is probable that some of us are going to snap – verbally – from time to time in response. Keeping cool is sometimes hard to do in these end times, and especially so in 2024, perhaps a watershed cycle for America, Christianity, and humanity.
Unfortunately, this is one of the strategies of the evil-doers. To behave increasingly outrageously, and then go after anyone who is provoked, to destroy all meaningful opposition to them.
Keep your powder dry, and your anger cold. Don’t let them make you lose your cool. That’s what they are counting on.
Goodness, Christ and the light are slowly winning the global battle for hearts, minds and souls across the planet over this attempted takeover by the darkness. And they hate it, and they hate the people for it.
Ditto. Absolutely ditto.
This !
“outrage porn”- nice, plan to use it.
Public posts advocating extermination of an ethnic group or race have never been acceptable or proper.
What ethnic group and race in Eliot Ness’ post is being suggested for extermination?
I see an angry comment seeking to execute a group of terrorists in a particularly humiliating way. You seem to see a genocide instead.
Proper, acceptable, or not, it’s still his opinion, and it’s still protected speech under the First Amendment.
Pearl clutching can be just as bad as someone losing their cool.
True.
I take a sabbatical on Sundays and don’t turn on my computer.
Also I never use my cell phone to look at news.
It helps to take a day off from the madness of the world.
Powder dry and anger cold.
Methinks you should insert the word “wiser” in the middle of your moniker. You nailed it.
Thank you Oldersoul. I was just reading through many posts from yesterday and am so grateful fo being able to read what you wrote. Blessings to you as well for your kind words and “common sense.” 🙂
(back in the old days, before the days of CSS and every developer dependent on javascript for bells and whistles, we could exclude blocks of IP addresses belonging to spyders or bad actors [that messed up the hit logs] with back end scripts)
(just sayin’)
They censored Jesus. They did not like His speech either.
“They censored Jesus.”
This comment makes me smile. He was indeed censored in a final and cruel way. Yet, surely it shows how successful censorship actually is in the face of Truth.
Thru the years we’ve learned to bite our tongues now it looks as if that has migrated to our fingers.
Thank you, Sundance. I can now make donations. I hope to continue to be able to assist you in all the work you do that has vastly expanded my understanding of what the heck is going on within my beloved country. The work done by the CTH team is something I have enjoyed immensely since 2013. I’ll never be able to truly compensate you all for everything you’ve done. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. God bless you all.
Sundance,
Asked and answered. Thanks for all you do.
Eyes of a mouse/Ears of an elephant AND HEARTS OF A LION …….. and NEVER EVER FORGET TO LIVE YOUR BEST AND ONLY LIVES! 😉
❤️🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🙏🏼🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸❤️
John 9:25 👀👀👀
I remember shortly after Google came onto the scene there was a saying (Google is your friend) going around. Now, that appears to be true ONLY if you are a bug eating, visibility lover. Google is the friend of the most evil radicals and buries deep in its TOS the right to invade your emails, comments, site visits and transactions. Microsoft and Apple enable them. They have us dependent on the internet because Big Media doesn’t want us to know the truth any way, form or fashion (only their truth, which is neither factual nor honest)!
Google literally wrote a censorship platform for the CCP. Think of the evil in that. Handing absolute power to the communists to help them maintain power and control over all messaging.
Never had a problem with Paypal, so used it again 🙂
So, if anonymous folks flag a comment 20 times, it is eliminated. Censure case closed.
Magogle
Monticello commented that our tree needs to be a forest, Sadly, The Mother/Big Brother Of Censorship has an endless supply of cyber Agent Orange… But they will never extinguish HIS light of spirit and truth.
On that subject, I humbly implore that everyone, including Sundance, stop using the exhortation to “live your best life now”. This phrase is the battle cry of the “prosperity gospel”. It is our great, sovereign God who directs our steps in faithful, righteous/honest living; the following says it all: https://concerningthetimes.com/best-life-now-later/
Ours is a tree house of the Lord!
I will not stop using the “Live your best live now” phrase. I like it so much it’s in my Outlook email signature at work.
Sundance’s brilliant advocacy is a useful, and necessary, means to counter all the negativity we see around us.
Step back from that negativity and counter it with that positive message.
Something was wrong in Elliot’s message? It may not have been eloquently stated, but it does outline a viable strategy for Russia to move forward. A strategy which they are currently executing. So perhaps the Maoists in the tech companies are willfully blind to actual politics, or simply are uncomfortable with the truth. The tech companies need to be broken up and scattered to the wind, and a parallel economy built for real people.
That’s one of the problems, with both the Big Tech bots, and a few pearl clutching apologists here.
They both seem to lack a broader perception of context, both in the subject post, and in the subject of the post.
Mr. Ness was clearly talking about what he hoped Russia would do, in apparent response to a terrorist attack. He didn’t say that he himself was going to do anything. It was an angry post, about an outrageous news story and event.
But Google was maliciously careful to only highlight the words “rag head”, “kill” and “Russia”, to concoct a half-ass violation of terms of service argument.
The issue is not the post. The issue is that Big Tech is at their censorship and silencing tricks again.
The solution is not to gag the commenters here. It is to reduce dependence on Big Tech as much as possible. Our host is asking for some financial independence to insulate the website from Google, not commenter Eliot Ness.
We are dealing with an entity here — Google — whose own corrupted AI painted a black Pope and George Washington.
The problem is not CTH. It is Google.
I fully concur. The issue is that the Maoists will use any means to “win” and normal people do not. It does not matter what you say, you will be punished because of your tribal affiliation.
Are Sundance and the moderators “pearl clutching apologists”? You dance around the problem like a jailhouse lawyer. Saying people should take another specified group, kill them and feed them to hogs might be acceptable talk around my kitchen table or yours but we are guests here.
If I say a certain group should rape your grandchildren, but I don’t say that “I” want to … that is suddenly defensible to you? We should print that? Can you hear yourself?
The big problem here is lazy, inconsiderate, immature people with no respect for someone else’s property.
I just flagged your comment. See how slippery that slope is?
This website already has a very good self-censorship system in place to deal with comments it deems inappropriate or which violate its own internal Guidelines. The Guidelines are at the top of every page, and we have a very dedicated group of ad rems and visitors that generally self-police the place well. I know I try to follow them.
The bigger issue is that Google is now intervening with the owners, with their own unevenly applied flag word standards, which must be putting tremendous additional pressure on the owners. And using the very few posts that slip through moderation to build a potential de-platforming scenario. And we know Google is probably hostile to this website, especially in 2024, and is looking for a reason to do so.
We need to get CTH out from under Google’s thumb, if that is the situation. That was something I was not aware of before today.
You seem obsessed with “property” today. Instead of focusing on the one example comment that slipped through, why don’t you focus on ideas giving CTH the financial and functional independence it needs to assure its future survival?
Wish I knew how to flag your comment.
Sundance, the problem you have is that the left will log on a conservative site with a sock account and make inflammatory remarks. Then they’ll use the left’s comments pretending to be a conservative to have us all labeled as dangerous or racist. It’s been happening for years
Were the Ness comments an intelligence community plant so they could attack?
or maybe media matters?
Or maybe just a regular news reader who let his righteous anger boil over into warmer than usual language. Saying the word “kill” is still protected speech in this America. He’s entitled to his opinion.
Don’t lose sight of the event he was commenting about: a thoroughly bloody slaughter of over 150 Russians who were just going about their lives. Women and children massacred in cold blood, by terrorists fleeing back to Ukraine.
Want someone to blame? Blame the corporate media propaganda-peddling hate mongers. They have the left hating the right, and increasingly, the right hating the left. They do it intentionally. They are intentionally provoking outrage.
Interestingly, these media demons walk hand in hand with the Big Tech censors to attack all those they provoke. But the Tech and Government attacks are only on one side: a final outrageous injustice to inflame the victims even more.
They celebrated trannies on Easter. At some point, even the most reserved are going to get pushed too far by the outrageous insanity. Hot words are to be expected when tempers break.
Righteous anger is best served cold.
The commenter dehumanized and called for the extermination of an ethnic group. The First Amendment does not protect a right to incite actions that would harm others. If blogs can not sensor comments that are out-of-bounds effectively, then the privilege to use pseudonyms to make and publish comments may end up being forfeited. I use my real name because I started commenting online back before people started commonly using pseudonyms. And I take responsibility for my remarks.
What group and how? And by whom? What did Eliot Ness specifically say?
Be specific. Until you do, your characterizations are just word play.
It is so easy to play the broad brush game. They play that game against PDJT all the time.
The old “hate speech” game.
“Rag heads.” “They can be exterminated.”
The mean tweet argument. Maybe Eliot Ness should have called them “animals” instead.
Honestly, I have heard far worse on public transportation. If that’s all it takes to break your pearls, then you need to grow up. The other side is actively calling for “wet works” against PDJT.
But if Eliot Ness had only said “brought to justice”, like Dick Cheney did 20 years ago, you would feel so much better. But those terrorists would be just as dead.
Those murdering terrorists should be exterminated. Go argue with those Russian families if you think it the wrong word.
Because that’s who Eliot Ness was clearly referring to: Terrorists, and the people who planned the attack.
Sundance is asking us to tone it down and report people who won’t. So now you’re a mindreader and can speak as to what “Eliot Ness” meant?
You conflate then project.
Reading is fundamental. Comprehension albeit, is apparently lacking.
He used some slurs, hopefully just out of unchecked anger.
And looking at the parent post he was responding to, it appears to be from the Russian terrorist attack thread from that day. That was a very charged event for many people.
But I did not read a call for genocide in that post. It was an angry, slur-laden post about the terrorists.
The extrapolation to a genocide (extermination of an ethnic group) that some are making diminishes their own posts.
Lots of good advice. Here is what I do. Every time I post anything anywhere, when I think it is done, I stop and try to find that inner voice. “Should I post this?” I am quite surprised at the number of times that inner voice says, “You better not, not today.” My own personal Ad Rem. YMMV.
Right over target Sundance! Thank you for what you do each and every day!
And with that comes the censorship, gubermint watchdogs of the internet and the targeting of our 1st amendment rights(…abridging the freedom of speech)
Contribution in-bound.
doesn’t it feel like that comment was a plant I haven’t noticed people here talking like that….
shut down comments until you can get it sorted out Sundance. what we say is not as important as the content you are putting out.
Elliot Ness, we can find you. Never forget, there are more of us than you. Ya’ll hanging out with Ray Epps?
More of Gaggle “not being evil.” SD, sorry you have to wait another 30 days to access my donation. I have been stuck in PayPal hell for a couple of years. I’m done with them–I do not have a current card listed with it even though PayPal never misses a month to send me a statement and will not give me access to read.
I was getting a refresh on this site every five minutes or so. Was wondering if the powers that be were involved.
Its evident there will need to be a lot of picking here at the tree. There are those who want to place rotten apples to be picked from the ground so the keeper will lose his crop. Good luck Sundance. I’ll try to help but I’m not much at flagging.
FYI:
I use the web browser BRAVE which is excellent at ad-blocking.
(I haven’t seen a YouTube ad in 3 years)
I do NOT see the alternative method.
Switching to Duck Duck Go or Chrome…
I DO see the alternative method.
Accessing CTH still crashes the Brave browser if you run Windoze 7. Yeah, I haven’t “upgraded” to Win 10 or 11. (I have my reasons.) YouTube also will shutdown Brave on that operating system. Started last Friday, IIRC. Something to do with the Shields part of Brave. I doubt they will fix it for older operating systems such as 7.
Drop Brave shields (Red Lion icon, top of page)
Locate “donate section” on page.
Donate
Raise Brave shields.
Fin
Donated now. Did see what looked like an error on submit but I’ll check card later. Hopefully it went through. I do enjoy the comments section but if it goes away I’ll still be here EVERY DAY.
Just sent $100. Thanks SD
Fully expect many/most of the inappropriate comments will not be from true Treehousers but from operatives that want the tree cut down.
This is just like many other conservative sites that no longer have comment sections, or at least free comment sections.
The Federalist’s is gone. American Greatness’s is gone. American Thinker’s is now paid.
Now we have to worry about FBI trolls saying racist things and advocating violence in the comment section. It’s what they do.
$$$ on the way!! Thank you seems inadequate for all you do – but THANK YOU!!!
The depth of their scanning must mean you are so near the target.
Badge of honor.
Fear of exposure drives them. We know who they are.
Big Tech interfered in 2020.
This is just the latest variant of that interference in 2024.
They and the State censor and shutdown political opposition, because they are running out of meaningful weapons to prevail intellectually.
The good news is, Big Tech and Big Media are increasingly exposed and disbelieved, even far more so now than in 2020.
You should look into Gab Pay. https://www.gabpay.info/
They’ve got some experience in building their own shit.
Twitter has definitely improved as far as allowing free speech, but I still consider Gab to be our last hope. They definitely have the right idea by building everything from scratch.
Hi Google, big tech, etc. Please highlight this: I love my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and I do wholly trust in Him.
You have a blessed day now, ya’ hear? Think I’m going out and touch some grass…you might want to try it too.
Back in 2012 I self published a memoir on Amazon. They gave my book significant attention due to the genre of an unsolved murder case. One of the very popular true crime authors gathered up a significant number of trolls to go after me, I’d never seen anything like this in my life! Until I found some other authors who had had the same experience, these people were absolutely vicious and constant. A friend tracked all of it for me, found out that the ring leader was a female teacher from a Catholic school in California….being Catholic myself, I was shocked. Eventually Amazon ended the drama, but it made me shut down as far as ever writing another book, I was stung by the trauma.
I have to say that liberals are mostly feminists who are now lonely, unmarried and unhappy. I’ve met so many of them in my personal life, it’s very real. The hatred is very real. Jealousy is also a major factor with liberals.
Nothing they do is useful or considered helping others. It just isn’t.
This feels spot on.
What is to prevent the enemy from planting violations in the comment section?
Nada. SD is appealing to us to avoid such posts ourselves and to help police the riff raff.
👍
Sundance
listten to Jarrin Jackson
He teaches fundamental law to defend rights
he is in telegram, x and rumble
https://rumble.com/user/JarrinJackson
Here is an example
https://rumble.com/v4m99sz-obedience-when-people-order-judges-in-the-law.html
Just donated…
I was unable to comment the other day using Romans 12:20. Now it makes sense. Godspeed to all Treepers