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
“As soon as 20 flags are received, the comment is automatically removed. You can well understand why that feature is present.”
One problem – If a poster offers good information, 20 trolls can cause an automatic removal. 20 people of any persuasion can control the whole tone of communication. So much for fellowship.
Yesterday, I offered very good information – article links to Kelleigh Nelson at News With Views – articles that talked about evil produced against Israel, in the world and in the Church. My post never saw the light of day.
Question – if it never saw the light of day there may actually have been something in the link which automatically causes a stay of being postable, as in, the link itself may have a suspicious piece of malware?
Might be a possibility since if it never saw the light of day there’s no way 20 people could have flagged it.?
Just questions, and wondering if there is some other thing at work there, at that site which caused itself to not be uploaded.
Here is Kelleigh Nelson’s link at the News With Views site. Let’s see if that’s true:
https://newswithviews.com/author/kelleigh/
Perhaps CTH can find the problem. I can’t find a problem.
Thanks – it showed up so it obviously isn’t a flagging issue; and no Malwarebytes caution notices, so clean sight.
When stuff like that happens often I figure “oh, my turn to be in the bin” where the mods spend a good amount of time diving into to find comments that, for whatever reason, ended up in there.
But, yes, that was my thought too about the 20 flags and Ad rem did answer that in an earlier reply to another Treeper’s question.
Often we do assume nefarious reasons when simple reasons, sometimes human error, sometimes the growing complexity of the bot farms, are best considered.
Yes, and the OP mentioned ‘links’, as in plural, often a trigger for auto-moderation.
My work-around is posting a quote and search terms for gentle readers, without posting a link. Or just reposting with one link if multiple were included.
FWIW, I get auto-moderated sometimes for links, even links to official government statistic sites. If the information is important, adapt and overcome 🙂
Thanks. Good to know. Yesterday, I did post two of Kelleigh Nelson’s links, with descriptions.
I get suspicious when a link is offered without a description.
Paul…
I found your disputed comment in our bin.
I apologize for any misdirection in its posting, because I can’t find anything wrong with the comment either. A possibility for its not posting could be a word(s) contained therein that would have given us a false positive match with other word(s) that ARE on our blocklist.
People use common words in their email addresses, and when we have to block that person, this can become a moderating problem.
I just found your approval in my spam bin. 🙂 Thank you. I don’t understand your comment about ‘common words in their e-mail address’.
I do appreciate all of David’s Israel posts. They are a highlight of the post thread.
Paul….I did find you on our moderation list. I don’t know who put you there or why, but that’s probably the reason for the comment not originally posting. I took your name and info off the list. Hopefully no more problems…
YAY! I’ve been released!
Psst. I think my ‘moderation list’ status originated from being Flagged constantly by a certain… group 😉
Yup, I regularly strip superfluous links from article quotations to avoid making more work for Admin, and to ensure my comment sees the light of day.
Welcome to the era of Controlled Speech.
I do know that. The sophistication of this control is growing. A few days ago, I was suspended at at technical board, partially for liking – giving a thumbs up – some truthful posts.
Get that? Now, if you like truthful posts, even if you like truthful and factual engineering posts, you can be suspended at a technical board.
I can’t wait for the next bridge or airplane that is built with this kind of newspeak thinking.
Welcome to the totally inverted world…
There is a lot of truth in what you have stated. Any individual or group with an agenda to control the conversation can easily bring in enough allies or create enough of bogus accounts and flag or down vote anyone who provides information they want suppressed. The down voting tactic has been happening for years. They will also use their allies or many accounts to up vote or praise the comments of other individuals in the group to create a herd effect. What I mean that someone who is not well versed on the topic being discussed will assume that a particular comment is true due to the number of up votes or thumbs up as used here at the CTH.
We had the similar problem when I was an IAD investigator. We would often see a rash of complaints against pro active officers who are making large numbers of drug arrests in a particular area. Apparently the local bad guys believed that with enough complaints, the officer would be forced to back off from making arrests or be suspended. Fortunately, the local bad guys were not the sharpest knives in the drawer. They would often make false complaints against officers when they were off duty or on other duties. Others would get their facts all screwed up during the interview and would lose their cool and stomp out of the office. I believe we have the same problem here due to a recent incident I had here at the Tree House.
Interesting times head, take care and stay safe
^^^^^
Two thumbs up if I could. 🙂
Today with social media, there a numerous ways to control a discussion and keep it within a controlled narrative. An individual with an agenda monitoring a site can see comment on that site that harms their narrative. This individual then contracts their fellow travelers via social media, having them open accounts, especially if sing up free like here at CTH, and then swarm the original comment with numerous flags/downvotes or with comments attacking the commenter, his beliefs, sources, intentions, etc.
This technique is similar to what young folks in certain locals do when stores, gas stations are overwhelmed and looted. These attacks are organized by social media. Example: Let’s meet at XXXXXX at 11PM and party! We see the results of this type of activity regularly on television.
We are dealing with folks that have no ethical anchor. For them anything goes. I don’t have a solution, but this is the challenge we face.
We shall comply to the overlords and keep our diction exactly as expected and we shall be ever cautious of our “flagged” phrases knowing big brother is watching in full cooperation with the 3 letter alphabet agencies demands.
Have a peaceful day and vote for the con-serv-a-tive presidential candidate as he is our only shot at making an escape of this censured society.
Hang tough as you always do brother, because all this means is that you are right over ‘the place where people at a range would focus their view on a piece of paper with a silhouette of a person or pattern of concentric circles ‘. You are their focus because you have been unraveling their complex games almost from the beginning and reporting on it.
Thank you, good luck, and stay well!
Excellent description of a term best avoided. Good example!
Am remembering the witness in the Colorado trial in the case to remove from primary ballots and that witness was convinced that even though certain words spoken by a particular candidate were clearly seen as ‘go in peace’ (just a basic example, can’t remember the actual words) the witness said those words really meant to ‘go do . . .’ (bad things).
It was a real headscratcher listening to the witness but he was convinced there is a secret language that only MAGA folk know so they can converse in code – stupidest thing I ever heard, but, that’s were we’re at, and where our legal system seems to be heading.
So when I see people continually post ‘voting will not get us out of this’ – that is a perfect example of what bots are looking for as in ‘code’ for doing something nefarious. So I will gladly flag that particular type of comment (just letting the Adrem’s etc. know why there will be flags on that) due to the ever growing onslaught of word manipulation by the algorithms. Adrem – if my understanding is not right on that example please let me know so you won’t be inundated with unnecessary flags, I don’t want to waste your time (wow – all of your days are going to get fuller chasing flagged posts).
Bessie, that particular phrase often is exactly what you suspect, and those that use it often typically have other tells, walking to the edge of calling for violence and consistently dismissing peaceful means; your instincts are entirely correct in this matter.
We have trolls promoting doom and despair and destructive behavior in many nefarious ways.
I am not a big Alex Jones fan, he’s no Andrew Breitbart, eloquence and equanimity have never met him, but he is correct that there is indeed a war for our minds taking place.
Thing is, EVEN IF what they were saying is accutate i.e. that “voting won’t get us out of this” what HARM or cost is there, in voting?
It literally costs NOTHING, so why WOULDN”T anyone who is MAGA, vote?
Hence, most assuredly anyone posting comments on a MAGA site like this, and posting comments obviously discouraging people from voting,…well ya gotta ask “whats their motivation? WHAT are they trying to accomplish, by posting such a comment?”
Indeed.
There are so many ways of changing a word or phrase – without diminishing the truth of it – that we can work around so much of this hog-wash without too much trouble. Still many ways of getting the magnificent truth across.
Perhaps one method would be to add spaces to ‘sensitive’ words, such as ppl did with i v e r m e c t i n, or to develop a code of some sort. Peggy Hall does this in her videos; virus = cooties, that kind of thing. My $0.02.
My spidey senses get activated when I see the same sort of comments that we saw 2 to 4 years ago as though the situation that we currently are in have not evolved from a few years ago. It is as though MAGA/Trump has not made any progress and the Uniparty has not suffered any losses.
We’re not going to vote our way out of this.
This tactic of MAGA is going to fail.
Is this true? (Why don’t you go find out and get back to us).
All is doomed.
Spiders might see this doom-y language as a call to violence because that is the only thing that we have left.
^^^100%^^^
My viewpoint only – MAGA does not “win” by using the weapons of the world.
This is what I see when I see that phrase – a yellow bellied sap sucker, chicken, soft bellied lounge lizard no different than being the person that encourages the actor in an old war movie where one is in the middle of battle, in their trench and completely looses it and jumps up, wildly waving their hands, holding the illusion they are submitting to the other side because it was just too much for them, and then they fall because the other side isn’t having any of that and
the lounge lizard, sitting in their easy chair, goes ‘yeah, that’s the ticket, encourage the people in the trenches to do stupid’ and see how many people that yellow bellied sap sucker (who would never take any action of themselves) can get to act –
otherwise known as undercover people of a certain agency that gets autistic kids to play the game of lets kid nap a g overnor!
that what I see when I see that phrase!
Questioning fraudulent elections is *not* advocating for violence. Never be afraid to question ballot fraud. And never be afraid to assert your Constitutional rights.
Just do so with intelligent thought and not knee-jerk anger. The commenting guidelines are clear.
Personal attacks detract from the conversation. Let the other person have their say and then refute the points you disagree with. This is called a rational debate or discussion.
When we stand *with* God and *with* our God-given human rights codified within the US Constitution, that is an unbeatable combination. We just can’t lose.
Nowhere in there did I even insinuate that “questioning fraudulent elections” is the problem. IN FACT, it is the solution.
I’ll spell it out for you: 3 years ago we “election deniers” were slapped down and told to shut up. NOW, thanks to many warriors that fought through legal means have exposed these demons again and again. Slowly but surely the truth is coming out and it was because of these slow but steady warriors.
Yet, we still have Eeyore types who act as though we have not made great strides in defeating these demons. They want us to feel like there is no reason to vote and that our ONLY recourse it to resort to violence.
I was talking about the “take up arms” insinuation because “you can’t vote your way out of it” complaining.
This is not January 2021 anymore. We are defeating them from the inside out.
So, sorry Judith that you misread my words. Not once did I commit “personal attacks”. The discussion is about bad actors here on the comment section purposely speaking “inciteful” speech in order to have the website taken down for hate speech, J6 type insurrection speech, and insinuating that our only recourse is to become violent.
Dante, I had expanded on your comment. I wasn’t insinuating that *you* had personally attacked a commenter, because you hadn’t. I was highlighting the *differences* between personal attacks and calls to violence, versus merely expressing one’s rightful opinion.
My aim, as I’m sure yours is also, is to defend our absolute right to having *and* expressing our own opinions, (yes, even opinions about fraudulent elections, for example) and exploring *Constitutional* remedies therein, versus random personal attacks or calls to violence.
Yes!
Thank you, Judith. Usually when I respond to a commenter I start it with the word “Yes!” so that they know that I agree with them. Tone, inflection, and other sort of social cues are not experienced through the keyboard.
No harm, no foul.
Or you could be doing their bidding by helping them maintain the fiction that we have a choice and not a uniparty. Or that our elections aren’t fraudulent.
It keeps people complacent, but worse it means that people say I hate that policy or worse war they are involved in but they “won” the election so I guess they get to do what they want for the next 2 to 4 years.
Sundance, why don’t you make the comments password-protected? That would stop most crawlers. My .02
I sent this article to zerohedge and got a response : that is why they went to the subscription model .
That’s good except when the comment section isn’t available for those who can’t subscribe to every news site they visit.
As well, the visibility of the conversation to a great many who find value in it without needing to chime in is very important.
This isn’t about creating an exclusive club few see.
How many millions have read here and had their own close held views ratified, gained understanding, took courage in their own corner of the world?
CTH is a treasure meant to be shared.
Thank you, Zoe….that would be exactly the category I fall into, although occasionally – whenever I can – I donate.
Thank you for standing strong for your beliefs. I wonder if there are technical things you can do to help alleviate this problem for you. Things like: editing your robots.txt file to tell google to not crawl your site. (many spiders ignore the robots.txt file nowadays, though). You could also not show comments to anyone unles they are logged in, which I THINK would block the spiders from being able to read the comments.
Good suggestions…. question…. back in the day, a log-in kept ‘official’ robots, the ones which showed up in our log files as robots, from accessing the forum(s) so protected. Does that still exist, officially? From reading Sundance, it appears it does.
However, we also got ad-hoc robots that were scripted to register and even defeat simple captcha, and then do their deeds. Or, humans who’d register, then crawl the site with a robot/script, and even post.
Back before IP spoofing and VPN’s and particularly cellphone text became common, we could track them via IP. My job, to a large degree, was doing that, chasing down bots and trolls. Very disruptive.
What I did was create a member group for members with under a certain amount of posts, requiring moderation review their posts until the threshold was reached. Also, time and posts to access certain sub-forums, forex 90 days and 90 posts to access xxx forum. We had a typical vB setup with a few dozen subforums and child forums.
CTH is thankfully pretty quiet compared to what I dealt with daily, even allowing. for what goes on behind the scenes that gentle readers never see. Really quiet for a political focused forum that gets over 2 million visits a month, IMO.
Don’t the bots just set up their own log in accounts?
I used to run a forum based gaming site… I blocked ALL robots and also blocked their IP addresses (because of a lot of the spiders don’t obey robots.txt) at the router level.
It works… but it can take some time to block them all.
My reason for doing so was because they caused huge CPU usage when they scraped my site and caused major issues with capacity… which I spent money to increase until I discovered the cause!
Glad to help, any way I can. And it’s EASY to avoid the nasty flag words. For me it became a habit decades ago, when I first learned how NSA does it – back when I knew people in that arena and the “urban legend” was very highly believable. Google is not original at all here.
A reminder, as I’ve alluded to this in a 2-3 other posts: PLEASE use ANY search engine beside google, and ANY browser other than Chrome. Of course gurgle makes money from both, and of course we can hurt them, in a small way at least, by not using the products. Sadly youtube can’t be so warfared because it’s just too prolific, too fat, too in-control. Like Microsoft.
Alternatives to Chrome… My go-to is Firefox (locked down heavily) or WaterFox, which is again in private hands and it gets semi-regular updates). There is Brave or Vivaldi, based on generic Chromium. I recommend Iridium over either of those. It’s lighter and has better default settings, no ads, no crypto-whatever. Also Epic Privacy Browser, another direct ungoogled clone.
Tor is excellent, but its privacy/security too easily defeated by doing basic things like downloading.
NOT Opera, owned by China since late 2016, or Edge, which (as improved as it is over Internet Explorer) reportedly remembers everywhere you go.
So sorry you need to go through this, just for trying to inform people.
TY for all you continue to do…
seems like Elliot Ness did that on purpose.
The problem is that those “trigger” words can evolve to words like “Trump” or “liberty” or “conservative” anytime Google wants it to.
Elliot Ness should be banned from posting and any other who abuse the rules.
No, I think you should be banned, because Teddy Roosevelt killed native Americans.
See how that slippery slope works?
So people who abuse the rules and risk CTH and Sundance losing it all should be allowed to stay?
Homes was bein’ ironic, ted. Ease up. Keep a sense of humor fresh & up front. This shix is grim enough as it is.
“The rules”? Whose rules?
You seem to want to play by Google’s rules. That is a game you are guaranteed to lose.
The issue is Google back to their censorship tricks, not the post used in the article that used a few trigger words.
The TREEHOUSE RULES!!! How hard is that to grasp? Sundance and the moderators want us to do one thing but you seem to think we should ignore their requests to spite google.
Good grief. No one should have to be told not to use words like that, google or not.
Having been an admin, a part of the team with Sundance when we started this site all those years ago, I can tell you from seeing him post, his editing of posts he’s preparing, his comments here and to us, that I don’t know when he sleeps, but I’d venture that it’s hardly ever more than four hours here or six there.
When we got kicked off WP, he put humongous money in the development and operation of this site, with the comment section a huge part of the expense. I don’t pay sites like Hotair to comment, but before they went to subscription, I don’t remember them hosting pictures, videos, or just the sheer number of conversations going on at one time like we do here.
Sundance travels now, which recently has been international as well as domestic. At his own expense, meeting with people to offer them research and sunlight on some things that our political leaders are simply too lazy to dedicate resources and time too.
However much all our readers think they know about the efforts and expense of keeping this Tree planted, it is probably not even close.
He’s a man who, like every one of us, has to make a living.
And yet, time and again, all that gets stomped on as if it were nothing, both by those who make stupid, absolutely illiterate comments, and those who like yourself seem to totally ignore the cost of your “principled argument.” It’s a clear cut choice, yeah. But someone has to not only pay to take the risk, but worry about losing all ability to say the things that need to be said.
Sundance himself takes issues on head on. He isn’t backing down. To defend a comment like Eliot Ness made as a few “trigger words” is a fine example of a number of people who get hosted here and take a helluva lot for granted.
Finally, I can tell you that the team of admins are volunteers and we spend hours on this site daily. We send hundreds of people emails. Everybody and their brother emails Sundance daily. Somebody has to sort that stuff out. We try to monitor discussions, heading off stuff like the comments in the post. Don’t always catch them.
This site is a huge endeavor for a number of people, especially Sundance. If people can’t be wise contributors to an intelligent conversation, the very least they could do is not be deliberate provocateurs.
I haven’t noticed Eliot Ness enough to know whether he’s legit or not. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he IS, and so that comment wasn’t intentionally designed to throw negative light on the Treehouse. I’ll assume he’s just really really angry (like most of us are) and didn’t use a lot of common sense in the words he chose.
I’ve been here 12 years, and I can’t even count the number of comments I STARTED to post and then thought better of it. And when I “censored” myself, it’s never really been over concern that I, personally, could get in trouble. Nope… it’s almost always that I’m worried how my comment might reflect on the Treehouse itself. THAT has always been my main concern. I mean anyone who’s been here as long as some of us have EXPECT to be attacked, to be THREATENED even, for simply expressing our views, so why give the scumbags any more ammo? We all know that Sundance has faced threats and REAL danger going way back to the Trayvon days, and it’s only gotten worse. Sundance (and the Treehouse community) is considered a huge THREAT to the powers-that-be. And our enemies are more than happy to try to take us down… and not just through the site, but on a PERSONAL level too. (Ask me how I know!)
So yeah, anyone who loves and cares about Sundance and the Treehouse needs to think of this place like a family. What you do as a member of that family can reflect on the rest of your family… and CAN effect their lives for better or worse.
I believe you are correct in that the poster with the handle Eliot Ness is an actual poster as I believe he was active back when the CTH was doing corroborative investigations. Like you suggested, he probably lost his cool and went on a bit of a rant being unaware his comment would be monitored.
Take care and stay safe
I think we all do that on our posts here: think about it some more, and then refuse to hit “Post Comment”, and leave our more angry/outraged thoughts to ourselves. I know I’ve done it here in the past.
I tend to agree with you here about the subject poster. I think he let his anger get away from him, and in the light of a particularly enraging and provocative event (a terrorist mass shooting of civilians), posted a comment that he probably now regrets.
Who hasn’t said something they haven’t later regretted? I’ll consider it a human lapse and not some orchestrated false flag.
I’m not so worried about posters such as Mr. Ness. We have a strong community and vigilant ad rems here. We handle our own here. Follow and enforce the Guidelines, and the rest will follow.
The bigger issue here is Google. I was unaware that CTH was so dependent on Google at this point. This post and a handful of others among thousands of decent ones appears to be enough to give Google an opening on what is a discriminatory TOS attack, IMO.
And Sundance and the website needs our help to get more freedom away from that bigger threat.
I know I am barnstorming that second point today.
I may be crazy, but I’ve literally typed out some really harsh comments even though I KNOW I’m never gonna post them. I have a separate Word doc that I type out my “darkest” thoughts into, and there they stay. Just the act of typing them out and fantasizing about how the intended target would react if they actually read it… that all by itself can sometimes “get it out of my system”. Yep, like I say… I could be a bit crazy. 🙂
I think you are misunderstanding my comments.
I am not suggesting that CTH or its owners are backing down from anything. And I took from Sundance’s instant post two main points: some comments here are now causing CTH trouble with Google. And CTH needs a stronger financial path to not be so dependent on Google.
The existing Comment Guidelines here have been well thought out and good ones. And for the most part, this remains one of the most well-policed political commentary websites on the Internet, as a result of both the efforts of its owners and many of the visitors to enforce those Guidelines. If you’ve visited some of the others, I’m sure you would agree. This place is among the very best managed already.
I don’t post as often as in past, but I read here most every day. And I mainly read the comments of the visitors. The vast majority are reasonable and respectful. I fairly guess that the annual operations cost now easily exceeds seven figures, not including the enormous volunteer time required. That is a serious operation built up over many years. And it should be carefully guarded.
I am not defending the subject comment, which was admittedly angry and aggressive. I explained elsewhere what tends to provoke those sorts of comments, even among normally rational people. We are living in an outrage media era that never lets up. People will lose their cool on occasion given enough saturation of that constant outrage reporting and hysteria. The daily thread here contains dozens of provoking tweets and news reports every single day. Some of them verge on outrageous.
And compared to what is going on elsewhere on the Internet, much of which Big Tech allows and encourages, it is clear this was a discriminatory TOS assault on CTH by Google.
While the continued observance of CTH’s own Comment Guidelines are always the best way, trying to guess what magic words may offend Google in future may not be. One of the words flagged in the subject comment by Google was just the word “Russia”. That shows how impossible satisfying Google may turn out to become if that becomes the focus. And that was my first point. We don’t need another layer of censorship here. You ad rems and the community do a pretty admirable job already keeping the conversation civil. And you are never going to satisfy Google if their objective is hostile.
Because Google views this very successful political website adversarially, and the suppression of 2020 is their history, it may become impossible to satisfy them in 2024. They would love to shut down CTH, or to turn it into a comment-less blog.
So yes, as Sundance’s guests here, we must continue to do our part under the CTH Guidelines. I have always tried to do so, as have 99% of the other visitors here. We’ve policed the website well in the past. I don’t see that changing in the future.
But the other point of Sundance’s post was even more salient and worthy of conversation: that Sundance and CTH needs the additional financial support to be more independent of Google. To stop the Big Tech attacks altogether if possible.
That is the best goal, independence. So the only Guidelines we ultimately follow are CTH’s well thought out common sense ones, and not a secret set of flag words set out by Google as so many land mines to neuter the conversation. “Russia” or “kill” should never set off an algorithm.
And that was my main point. We need to focus on getting Sundance the additional financial support he needs and is asking for. Whether that is via PayPal or some other model is a good conversation to have in this thread. I have mentioned the success of GWP and Gab elsewhere as other examples where they have survived the Big Tech attack. There may be some solutions in their models.
What I’ve seen in this thread is more of a pile on the subject commenter (some calling it a government plant or a setup), and not so much about giving the website that additional financial independence it is asking for.
Let’s have that latter conversation. We’re already quite civil here, thanks in good part to you. How can we make this place more independent of Google and Big Tech?
You should take some time and read the rules here for commenting:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/guidelines-for-comments/
Much as we might frown on Eliot Ness’ gratuitous slurs and careless exhortations, you will note that Sundance did not express anger at him, Sundance is angry at Google.
Sundance has not asked us to be angry at every one Google targets, merely to engage in prudent self-policing to minimize our vulnerability to Goolag, while he pursues solutions.
I leave the banning decisions in the capable hands of our Beloved Cat Herders, I could not do their job, their patience is other-worldly, their judgment is more fair than I could ever manage; I am quite certain their decisions are superior to Goolag’s as well, so no, I don’t think we should automatically ban anyone Goolag cites as problematic.
For what its worth. I suspect that the user comment you flagged in your note above is one comment in a carefully constructed false flag operation whereby Google, Big Teach and the IC Community may “bomb” the Treehouse with multiple suspicious and questionable comments in order to reinforce the false case they are building against the website. A “full court press” of “fake” users injecting unacceptable comments in order to further paint the picture of an out of control user base thereby justifying, in their minds, the de-platforming attempt. It will not be random comments from users, it will be a well coordinated attack that will increase in scale and intensity as the election approaches.
I wondered myself, when I would see comments such as that where advocacy for kiling and ethnic slurs are used freely, whether the poster knows what he or she is doing.
Unfortunately, there are valid reasons to use words like kill, which draw attention even when used in a descriptive way.
In Yahoo’s comment sections user use an incredibily lot of slurrs.
We will know them/federales by their fruit. Brand new poster, no comment history =fed from washingstan
I’m convinced this happens to many conservative sites. The comments are dominated by bots, trolls, and provocateurs intentionally making incendiary statements. This is done specifically to target, attack, and diminish the effectiveness of the information contained on the site.
Oh absolutely.
The troll infestations have been epic, and clearly engineered.
Sundance, is there a way to just send cash? Perhaps a P.O. Box? I don’t feel I should trust PayPal. Visa and Mastercard regularly share information with the government, and I think that means credit card donations also make donors vulnerable, so that doesn’t feel safe to me either. Until they make cash illegal, I think that would be safest. I hope you will consider making that possible.
at this rate…..just how long do you think you will maintain this “condition of no difficulties” ? cash by mail???
i’m old and i know that’s ridiculous!! it’ll never make it. LET THEM KNOW!
Why do you keep pushing this?
It would be an inordinately dangerous proposition for CTH to have to have someone access a physical PO box, deal with a physical bank, leave their places of safety to deal with what could have been easily transacted securely online, and expose their and our addresses to doxxing and the attendant hazards thereof.
You have never heard of the mail as a vector for terroristic attacks?
Your distrust of PayPal pales to nothingness in light of the hazards you demand CTH take on to satisfy your selfish squeamishness.
Just donated, but not through PP. I feel bad about the delay, but I’ve had trouble with them as well.
With you, MAGA Brother.
You are over the target!!
Write On!!
👊👊🇺🇸🇺🇸🙏🏻🙏🏻❤️❤️
How do you keep trolls from posting comments?!?
Sundance, can we do a private, paid for access that allows comments…. Then others can read content, but not post?!
This is a set up.
I read a few sub-stax for which only paid can comment.
Okay by me if I can only read comments.
If there is an article or information I run across that I think merits attention, there is an e mal lnk with an invitation to say hello.
I find that most of what I might want to share finds its way here anyway, SD says it best about the characteristics of the folks who are here: informed & smart.
Does anyone remember when we had a right to assemble?
Before the Patriot Act, yes.
Oh, puhleeze…that so 1776/s.
Okay, I will stop, for now….
Be careful they search for 1776. It’s considered a call to violence.
O.k. 1788.
They are trying to take that away with the “Preventing Private Paramilitary Activity Act of 2024” that has been submitted for action by Congress.
A red flag law was already included in the recently passed in the funding bill
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/03/breaking-biden-regime-launches-federal-gun-grab-operation/
Another gift from Matt,Gaetz and his creation Speaker Johnson,…don’t you just love how they are looking out for us, and working to keep us safe and secure?
We still do. The reality is that government and fascist corporations and the humans which work for them, directly or indirectly, are infringing on our elemental rights. We recently read the next step in that progression, CBDC, that’s coming.
Watch how the Communists conduct economic warfare. It’s in evidence right here in this thread. Very clever. We can learn from that, and improve on it. No violence is necessary. Guile, deceit and cunning are, along with the willingness to go to the mat and make the sacrifices and struggle for the victory.
Lasting peace, historically, is not without struggle. Never. Discussing history is also a great way to get the site flagged. Imagine all the loaded words in that discussion. 🙂
Are you a 5013c?
Although I try to be cognizant of how it can be used against us, how do we discuss issues like treason and crimes against humanity without a) getting angry, and b) talking about what penalty people deserve?
their penalty is obvious; your anger solves nothing but pounding on Heavens door is effective.
Edifying > Emoting.
Made a mistake meant to post in reply elsewhere
What if the CIA or FBI make these comments so this site gets deplatformed? American Thinker makes posters subscribe before they can post. Maybe this site should do that as well. I would gladly pay a subscription fee.
Good idea.
Good suggestion…. leave articles and posts visible to anyone but subscribe in order to add posts.
However, we should be aware that the enemy is well funded and their operatives are often paid by the character, post, reply or quote and can afford the cost of admission and their employers have the means to anonymize their real identities.
Still, a good idea.
I remember when our site had a ‘member’ program which added perks. One of those perks was unlimited PM’s (private messages). Some enterprising spammers ‘bought’ memberships and proceeded to spam the PM system with robot adverts. Imagine the missives moderation received on that one!
Humans are always looking for angles. Put a limit on them and it’s natural to seek a way around it. Human nature. The challenge is in the economics of squelching interlopers without driving those hearts and minds we desire to change away.
I like Lisa’s suggestion up-thread “ private, paid for access that allows comments…. Then others can read content, but not post?! “
I think the name of the commenter made it clear what organization made the comments.
I didn’t see any threats of violence in that post.
You are willfully blind. There’s a threat about “exterminating” and another about crippling people and feeding them to hogs.
Huh? Where did Eliot threaten to do it, or something? Anything?
I can’t make you see what is just sitting there in black and white … plain as day.
Wow – stirring up the hornets nest so early in the day!
Good reminder – if someone cannot see what is obviously the point of the whole article – there are
a) people who very much enjoy pretending to not see things and
b) people who enjoy the glow; and
sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.
BS
Oh my! Is that like a mean tweet or something?
Like PDJT calling someone “animals”? Or when he called another group “rapists” eight years ago? And the fact is, PDJT was RIGHT both times. Because there, you granted context.
But here, you will not grant any context.
It is patently obvious that the subject poster was talking about a terror cell that had just slaughtered 150 Russian civilians. It was on an article that had just raised the death toll on the terror attack. It is an outrageous incident.
Those terrorist butchers who slaughtered those children should be exterminated. Even the Russian Government has said all involved should be killed. Are the Russians advocating a genocide?
You would feel so much better if only Eliot Ness and the Russians had said “brought to justice”, and then slaughtered a million Afghans and Iraqis, like W and the Neocons did.
Euphemisms, the word tonic for the foolish afraid of reality.
You are the one who is blind. You are using the same tactics as those attacking PDJT over his words. You are no better than the Washington Post or the NYT in that regard here. Or some other echo chambers that self define what is “appropriate” and what is not. It’s pearl clutching and self-censorship.
Selective pearl clutching to silence the public square is a very bad look.
Meanwhile, the other side is constantly, actively, encouraging someone to assassinate PDJT. James Carville was actively asking for “wet work” the other week. maybe you should focus your efforts there, and not against some guy who wants to kill murdering terrorists.
And yes, Virginia, hate speech is protected speech under the Constitution. Whether a private entity wishes to enforce tighter speech “codes” is up to them.
If I say in a comment that “Trump should take Creepy Joe behind the gym and beat him up” does that mean the FBI will bust down my door and arrest me for threatening Creepy Joe? …ok -so maybe that isn’t a good analogy because they would try to do that anyhow- because I’m a conservative…
lol
Exactly, but people like their euphemisms and fictions. People also love to police others thoughts and beliefs.
If you support capital punishment or war, you’ve supported just what the 3 lett er agency poster posted you just like to pretend that your support of those activities is honorable because you pretty up your language.
It’s similar to how people say things like dang, gosh, etc. and pretend they aren’t using the cuss words.
Wondering why would you read Sundance’s post and choose to do the opposite of Sundance’s plea by repeating the very words that Eliot used and adding as many other potentially flaggable words as possible in your comment?
We’ve been warned that comments may lead to the Treehouse being deplatformed. Let’s give Sundance time to work on a solution by heeding his request.
Oldersoul my reply landed a way down the page …. I’m replying to your reply to Boogywstew.
I used the exact words PDJT has used. Is that now the censorship standard: PDJT’s own words?
What Sundance is asking for, first and foremost, is the financial support to get away from Google. Because nothing is going to satisfy Google in this situation.
Give him that support. And maintain the usual posting standards here, which are already among the most genteel on the Internet.
Please reread Sundance’s post re comments putting the Treehouse at risk.
So now the opposition can post comments that are deemed inappropriate, then act on the comments.
They always have.
They’ve been doing it to sites for years. It’s a fixed game and you will eventually lose because they have control as private companies – that’s how the government manages to censor Americans without accountability or acknowledging the Constitution.
Now approved and left-leaning sites can call for all the violence in the world or say any bigoted thing they want with no repercussions.
Heads you win, tails I lose.
Spoken like a true rugged individualist. However, you don’t have to do it all yourself. Get in with Gab, Dan Bongino, Truth Social, and others that are fighting for free speech. This is a huge problem the “far right” has, they don’t understand teamwork.
Also, get the word out! Advertise on TV during libtard TV shows with adds that sound libtarded but are really full of traditional American values.
Be aggressive, we need more offense!
There are no threats in Eliot Ness’s comment. Imagining what another entity should or would do is not a threat unless a qualifier such as “if they dont it, I will” was added.
You’re right. Sundance doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Saying that one group of people SHOULD KILL another group of people would sure sound like a threat to the group of people that is being targeted. If watching your speech is just such a burden, go elsewhere.
This is no different than when the Leftists attacked Trump for using the word “Bloodbath.” There was no threat with Trump’s use of “bloodbath” when he used it, and there was no threat (direct or otherwise) made by Eliot in his post. IMHO
They make crap up that isn’t there for political gain and for targeting opposition voices.
I own a white car therefore I’m a racist.
And what group of people is the subject poster saying should be killed?
I think his post makes it plain, especially in the context of the March 23 story and thread in which it was posted, that he was talking about a group of terrorists that had just slaughtered 150 Russian civilians. And all those who supported the terrorists.
And you have a problem with that? That says a lot more about you than about Eliot Ness.
“Pretending” is over. Sundance is giving us what the current status on the ground is – not what we wish it to be, not what we think/know it should be….but how it is.
All our railing and pronouncements are meaningless/wasted space when we are not google or the government.
I would be sure to use a VPN if I were you. Google and the government are watching.
Perhaps a smaller font to be less noticeable. You don’t want to get J6ed for using the wrong word. That way, you can keep pretending.
Sundance wants some more financial support to break free of Google and Big Tech. If you want to avoiding having to pretend here, you should send him a little something.
Easy for you to be brave when you’re risking someone else’s property. Why don’t you establish your own political opinion website and we can go there and feel free to say anything we please?
I’m not risking anyone’s property.
But you are risking turning this place into another The Right Scoop, and destroying it just as effectively with your rush to censor, based on keywords the opposition decides.
Give the website operators some financial support.
I am not asking or suggesting that we take Sundance’s request one iota further. I am defending Sundance’s position.
Duh! You are risking SUNDANCE’S stake … his property!
As for me-
I didn’t post that comment therefore I didn’t risk anything of Sundance’s.
I guess free speech really is over. Everywhere.
We need the Navajo Code Talkers gambit once again it seems.
Thank you, Sundance and your support staff.
You’re in trenches for us every day, and I appreciate you more than you know.
From beginning to end, first to last, the battle in this old world is between God’s Good and Satan’s Evil. God our Father has promised to “never leave us or forsake us” but he still allows His apostate son, Lucifer, to try and break our will, break our heart. This is war. Every battle in it, small or great, is real & ongoing. Satan lies about the war.
Those who attempt to stand against Satan’s evil in their own strength cannot hope to win. Remember what Jesus said to Peter, “Satan wants to have you and sift you like wheat.” Imagine particles of wheat flour. Imagine Satan combing thru every particle of your consciousness looking for a weakness, a way in. We win the battles, “Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit says the LORD of hosts.” (Zechariah 4)) The Battle is the LORD’s. Learning how to fight it in His Strength is what THIS LIFE is all about. God’s Love prevails. Satan’s evil is turned to ashes from within. God’s judgment of Satan: https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/eze/28/14/s_830014
Here’s a search tool that leaves google clean out of the loop: https://yandex.com/
Control the language, control the people. Goes hand in hand with constantly redefining terms to whatever they believe they should be at the time.
If big tech google has decided to censure CTH what’s going to stop them from making comments that get CTH taken down? These people play dirty.
This place is like a church social hall compared to most of the Internet fora.
Have you ever been to some of the others? The profanity alone would make your hair stand up.
That anyone is considering restraining the speech here, of all places, is patently ridiculous.
It is very well self-policed here by the commenters and the hosts. And the subject comment was angry and aggressive, but hardly actionable.
This is nothing but a Big Tech ambush of a very effective website they don’t like. Don’t take the bait.
“Oldersoul”: “That anyone is considering restraining the speech here, of all places, is patently ridiculous.”
Go to the top of this page and all the other pages in this thread and read what Sundance asks us to do in the 8th paragraph. The paragraph after the stand alone sentence asking for our help.
He is asking you first and foremost to give him financial support, to break free of Google.
Several commenters have suggested a subscription to CTH. If putting CTH on a subscription basis would stop these big tech shenanigans, I would be more than willing to subscribe.
Making CTH a subscription service insures the reach is limited to the existing echo chamber which will shrink over time until nothing is left.
That’s how they win.
And more importantly, the other side will be delighted to spend a meager subscription fee to infiltrate and then sabotage what they can call a “closed echo chamber” aka “radicalized group”.
The public square model is the best forum. Nothing to hide, it’s an open book for all.
Subscriptions can be quite a pickle, particularly subscriptions to read, and especially when getting the information out to change hearts and minds is the goal, which I believe it is here.
I would posit that only a tiny minority of the 2+ million visits here per month are people who post in the comments. The vast majority simply read the site. The question is, would they pay to read the entire site and, barring that, would they pay to read only Sundance’s articles and be unable to read any discussion or feedback?
Beyond that, would people be willing to give up personal information necessary to, at bare minimum, read the site? By paying money, they are, to some degree, doing that. Regular posters may not have a problem with that but I’ll again posit they make up a tiny, tiny minority of site visitors.
Fortunately, the site administrators have a good grasp of the metrics. That info is out there.
Be interesting to see if trolls bombard the treehouse with “spider words” to we*pon*ze the process.
Wife and I went online ‘waaaaaay back when Google had those words, “DON’T BE EVIL” on gigantic display in their lobby. When we first saw that Wife said, “Yeah, right. I give that six months or less before it’s gone, gone, gone.”
Effin google’s business model is based on evil. People like google’s are evil’s devotees. The hate the light.
The perfect anagram of their now abandoned motto: Bend To Evil.
Gibbs Rules then, don’t apply?
I hereby pledge to do my very best. I promise.
CTH Paid subscription all the way. Totally worth it.
I could more easily do pay to comment/unpaid read only…or pay a small annual sub.
Nobody uses those terms anymore (rag + part that includes the skull) or provokes the elimination of a particular group with that kind of wordage. Anybody with a hand full of brain cells knows what not to say. Don’t feed the deep state, just like any other troll.
I am going to try to buy a pre-paid card and see if I can make a donation with that. Cash would be a better method, I think, but we’ll see how this works.
*This is an old reader with a new computer set up, can’t find old log on. Using other fake name. What a world we live in.
I’d pay for a subscription if I could pay with cash or money order.
Also, I believe the off ramps and on ramps of the internet freeway are being tampered with in the last few days by those who have control over them. Browsers have just closed while trying to view this site and TGP.
They’ve been harassing me for a while now. My keyboard starts clacking LOUDLY as I type in my comments, almost on a delay. I’ve also had the keypad inexplicably backpedal to erase my entire comment – letter by letter- as I’m in the middle of typing it!
Only on this website, too. I use an iPhone, not a PC.
I guess I should feel honored the Communists are so triggered by my comments. I’m obviously in very good company.
It’s all about God and country, in that order. I’m *peaceful* as a dove! And I will never, *ever* back down to tyrants. Ever.
Donated again. Also, this video is related and shows the lengths they are going too, to harass us.
They dress so badly these days. I would not answer the door to people dressed like that – they look like bums.
cy·ber·net·ics
[ˌsībərˈnediks]
noun
Back in the summer of 1988, I was in between jobs and took a job working for an airport shuttle service. One day I was dispatched to pick up someone at a warehouse-looking building just outside a Joint Reserve Base.
The guy I picked up was dressed in a dark suit. We got to talking and during our conversation I asked him what kind of profession he was in. He said he was a government computer scientist. I said I had been studying scripture about the end times and that it seemed to me that cybernetics (a word that I had recently become familiar with) would be used by the
Antichrist.
He said, “You are not wrong.”
You know what? The Bible is not wrong, either.
And so, the Antichrist World System is fulfilling the Word, “It is written”, in its “communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things” so “that no man may buy or sell save he that has the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name”.
CTH and the rest of us experience it all day everyday. We live in a world that CONTROL is the GOAL!
But there is Good News! We celebrated it last Sunday. WE have a risen Saviour in heaven, a righteous King soon to return to earth and straighten out all this mess. His Name is Jesus, Faithful and True, The Word of God, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS!
Thank you, Sundance, for standing for the Truth.
The Federalist website eliminated comments on their posts for this exact reason.
That was a terrible loss, excellent articles with extremely thoughtful comments. I miss it.
AmericanThinker also had to eliminate comments for awhile, also had very enlightening comments, and when they returned they’re about half full of trolls.
Leftists are non-stop aggressive in their desire for power. At one point Disney was a company which made family style movies, safe to watch with your children or your elderly parents, with morals and staying power; now they are hotly pursuing the most vile of the vile. They haven’t produced anything watchable in years, maybe decades. And I say that as someone who actually inherited stock in the company.
If they can so easily destroy a family oriented company they can destroy anything.
Good to know this sundance and staff. We are entering a period of American history when the Bolsheviks are going to try and take over and anyone who speaks out may be disposed of, by any means necessary. Let’s fight back intelligently.
I think a discussion of an ‘intelligent fight’ would be fruitful.
Forex, is it intelligent to engage ‘Bolsheviks’ and defeat them with words/facts? Or, is it intelligent to leave them twisting in the breeze of silence? Or, police the site with moderators removing them and their posts aggressively? Or, attempt to defeat them by making everyone pay to view and/or post? Or?
What are your suggestions?
In my prior life of forum administration I always felt the solution to free speech being abused was more free speech. However, in a largely anonymous environment with seemingly few to no consequences and where society appears to be headed, that can be quite a pickle to resolve. What do you suggest?
I have no suggestions. Imo the county is already lost to the radical left Bolsheviks. I’m at the point I hope Trump doesn’t win the election because he will be the fall guy when it all collapses.
That’s a pretty damn sad position to take.
Even worse to spread it about.
I live in the real world Maquis, not LaLa land. Kind of like Rush who was the mayor of Realville. But let me add something to my thinking; I see our once wonderful patriotic Christian country as fallen. We are sending the bombs to Ukraine that have killed 500,000 young men and we supply Israel with the bombs that are committing a genocide in Gaza. But it doesn’t stop there. We have bombed and killed people all over the globe since WW2 ended, in Vietnam, Serbia, Iraq, Syria, Lybia and many more. We claim to be the good guys, spreading democracy. That is nothing but horse dung; our politicians and military industrial congressional complex are getting real wealthy with all of the killing. How many Americans are living in mansions funded by the war machine of death and destruction?
So imo we have become the Great Satan, modern day Sodom and we are going down, hard. So I am spreading my beliefs whether you like it or not.
Not gonna try to save it huh?
No matter the price the world pays?
That’s quite selfish of you.
Do you really believe typing comments on a website is going to change anything? The Bolsheviks did a 50 year march through our institutions and now control media, politicians, education and government along with the judiciary. My opinion is we aren’t changing a damn thing. Prepare for the worse and pray for the best.
Here at CTH we prepare for the worst and pray for the best.
We also fight for the better.
This very thread is evidence that our enemies judge what we do here a threat, n’est-ce pas?
Im sorry i haven’t read all 501 comments so maybe this has been asked 50 times already….
I dont mean to insult Elliot Ness but what is the likelihood that google or some other bad actor has agents purposely and purposefully making the exact comments the spider crawl is seeking out?
I, personally, would guess that there is a HIGH probability that nefarious bad actors would do that purposely. I don’t gamble but even I would take that bet.
Well, ask yourself what is the likelihood that a CTH commenter reveres the 3 lett er agency that Ness worked for enough to use the name Elliott Ness?
It’s obvious who made the comment and why.
They do love their tongue in cheek mockery.
Duper’s Delight.
Itd be more likely id use the name lois lerner
Is Mr E. Ness a regular poster or was this a HALO
F _ _ Sigh…
“Eliot Ness” posted at least a few times before that I saw but I’m not here every day.
The answer of course is to make the general public aware of Google’s attempt to become the word/thought police which of course is a violation of the First Amendment. These people really are despicable.
How do you know for sure if you have successfully flagged a comment? I may have done this accidentally while scrolling through the comments.
Does the flag change color? Is there anything to indicate that the comment is flagged?
Yes, it ceases being red and becomes gray.
Thank you! If I do it again at least now I can leave a mea culpa!
Twenty flaggings before consequences is quite a significant buffer against accidental removals.
If I hit one on accident I just quietly tip-toe away with none the wiser!
What stops partisans, etc., from posting “unapproved” threatening phrases like “election fraud undermines democracy” just to get your site trouble? What stops Google from planting trouble so they can shut you down for it?
I recall the ‘stick’ back in 2020 over the ‘disinformation’ op was Google would pull their ads, or demonetize them, if a site didn’t follow their policy of squelching their described parameters of disinformation, thereby cutting off that revenue stream to the site owner.
We saw this blatantly go on with Alphabet’s own portal, YouTube, where content creators were sanctioned, demonetized or outright banned for opposing views to or information on the Covid op. That program carried over into their AdSense program for other web sites.
Money and bullets always tell the truth. All one needs to do is follow them. Nice livelihood you have there. Hate to see something happen to it. 🙂
Just donated! Appreciate all you guys do SD and ADMINS!
(Wonder how many donations tptb would allow come cbdc. ) cringe emoji.
So, I met this Russian, on the side of the road.
He had cut his head, and tied a rag around it, so I called him raghead, as I couldn’t pronounce his name.
He had hit his head on the hood, trying to figure out what had killed his car.
Turned out it was the points, and I helped him sand them, enough to get his car to run.
Isn’t it great to have fun at someone else’s potential expense!
This reminds me of the summer of 2020 when the riots were going on all over. There were live streamers at all of them. There were also a bunch of re-streamers who put up one or more live streams along with their running commentary. Followers of their re-streams could also post their comments in real time.
The re-streamers I followed were all opposed to the riots. Problem was, people who supported the rioters would go on their re-streams and post horrible and obnoxious comments, some of them racist comments pretending to oppose the riots, to deliberately get the re-streamers knocked off their streaming platforms for violating the platform content rules. My favorite re-streamer was a strong believer in free speech, and resisted moderating the comments on his streams, until it became overwhelmingly obvious that the only way he could stay up was to heavily moderate the comments in real time, and permanently ban some commenters.
I see a similar theme in the WarRoom live comments.
So, self censorship is the solution? We’re doomed.
Some of us would call it impulse control, or phrasing thoughts the way you would when speaking to your grandmother.
That’s what several here seem to be pushing. It causes me to start questioning …
The much better solution is to give Sundance the financial support he needs and is asking for, and keep self-policing the place as we have been. This place is frankly pretty mild as the comments go if you’ve seen some of the other public forums.
While I question the loyalty of PayPal over time, if that’s what Sundance wants to use, it’s easy enough to use it.
Otherwise, his dependence on Google is a poison pill no matter what the posting policies here may be. It’s a pro-PDJT website in an election year.
I’ve been lurking in the background at CTH for years. Never posting and just learning so I guess it’s time for a donation. I keep pointing people to this site for the best information that most people don’t know. Let’s all keep supporting so it will not go away…
Having read a few dozen comments, it *appears* that some are under the impression that Sundance is doing the deed.
It’s NOT. It’s driven by 0s and 1s, programmed by those who would cast us off. AKA sociopath-ic 0verlords.
As I understand it:
It’s not humans who are performing the initial inspection. Those non-human tools (AI probably) are programmed to search for terms deemed exemplary of in-sur-exion-ists, maybe even tailored to this tree house, assuming our discussions have been studied for a long time in order to write the scripts in that tailored fashion.
It’s a team of youngsters who have been thoroughly ensconced in the pub ed system then the ensuing environments* who are watching and flagging and notifying. Or maybe they program these steps to be automated as well?
I dunno, but it misses the point of how absolutely everything including repub loving ‘ hysterical ‘ refrences is being used to separate, segregate, suppress.
It’s all going to occur much more quickly. Desperation drives unpredictable and dangrous action.
*fish don’t know what water they swim in
It took me years, this is now among most important sites with comments in my info environment. If I could read content and had to subscribe to comment, that would be perfect for me. If this implemented, regular reminders to donate to the site should still occur (other sites have ‘buy me a coffee’).
Got some negotiation to do before I make my appreciation known in $$. Others have said what I have to say about PP, so I will negotiate for more than usual to help with delay.
May the Peace of the King of the Universe which passes all understanding be with us all.
Adding on to say I would still donate even if didn’t subscribe.
More than 20 years ago everyone working tech at a big corporation knew that they could buy their employer’s way to the top of the search results. Google was never an impartial purveyor of search results. Its bias was originally mercenary, which is just a short hop away from its current ideological bias.
The people who search for offensive comments are the very same people who place them. It is bolshevism at work.