America Faces No Greater Threat Than Joe Biden and the Democrat Party. Their Assault to Our Borders Is As Great As Their Assault to Free Speech and Free Elections
Sunday, March 26, 2023
JOE BIDEN - RED CHINA'S RENT BOY - Biden Blunder: ‘I Applaud China for Stepping Up’ - BLUNDER? THE FACTS SUGGEST OTHERWISE!!! OTHER THAN SEN DIANNE FEINSTEIN, NO ONE HAS WORKED HARD TO MAKE CHINA GREATER!
BANKSTER JANET YELLEN PROTECTS BIDEN FOREIGN MONEY TRANSFERS FROM THEIR FOREIGN PAYMASTERS
KID GLOVE TREATMENT': Johnson slams Bidens' 'troubling financial transactions'
“Protect and enrich.” This is a perfect encapsulation of the
Clinton Foundation (TWO GAMER LAWYERS) and the
Obama (TWO GAMER LAWYERS) book and television deals.
Then there is the Biden family (THE CHINESE - BIDEN -
PENN INSTITUTE) (THREE GAMER LAWYERS) corruption,
followed closely behind by similar abuses of power and office by
the Warren (GAMER LAWYER) and Sanders families, as Peter
Schweizer described in his recent book “Profiles in
Corruption.” These names just scratch the surface of
government corruption (ADD GAMER LAWYER KAMALA
HARRIS AND HER LAWYER HUSBAND AND THE
BANKSTERS’ RENT BOY, LAWYER CHUCK SCHUMER).
According to the article, Falun Gong and its associated media, including the Epoch Times, have engaged in "conspiracy narratives" targeting Democrats and the Chinese Communist Party and of "links" between Joe Biden and the CCP. In fact, a great deal of evidence is emerging in the Comer investigation to show that those links are far from being conspiracy narratives. (See also a 2020 New York Times article, which labels Falun Gong"a leading purveyor of right-wing disinformation.")
“Today, I applaud China for stepping up,” President Joe Biden accidentally said in a speech in Canada on Friday, adding another public gaffe to his legacy of public speaking miscues that have gone viral on social media.
“Excuse me. I applaud Canada,” Biden then said, prompting laughs from the members of the Ottawa parliament.
Biden had been addressing Canada’s immigration policies, The New York Post explains:
“The US leader made the error while discussing how Canada’s government agreed to accept more migrants from Latin American countries — immediately after not mentioning China at all while discussing fentanyl, which is driving a surge in US overdose deaths.”
“You can tell what I’m thinking about China,” Biden added. “I won’t get into that, yet.”
“Protect and enrich.” This is a perfect encapsulation of the
Clinton Foundation (TWO GAMER LAWYERS) and the
Obama (TWO GAMER LAWYERS) book and television deals.
Then there is the Biden family (THE CHINESE - BIDEN -
PENN INSTITUTE) (THREE GAMER LAWYERS) corruption,
followed closely behind by similar abuses of power and office by
the Warren (GAMER LAWYER) and Sanders families, as Peter
Schweizer described in his recent book “Profiles in
Corruption.” These names just scratch the surface of
government corruption (ADD GAMER LAWYER KAMALA
HARRIS AND HER LAWYER HUSBAND AND THE
BANKSTERS’ RENT BOY, LAWYER CHUCK SCHUMER).
According to the article, Falun Gong and its associated media, including the Epoch Times, have engaged in "conspiracy narratives" targeting Democrats and the Chinese Communist Party and of "links" between Joe Biden and the CCP. In fact, a great deal of evidence is emerging in the Comer investigation to show that those links are far from being conspiracy narratives. (See also a 2020 New York Times article, which labels Falun Gong"a leading purveyor of right-wing disinformation.")
I have rarely heard it mentioned in the mainstream media, but, according to reports, during the 1990s in communist China, thirty thousand members of Falun Gong were rounded up and executed. The founder of Falun Gong, Li Hongzhi, fled China and now lives in the U.S., while in China members of the order went underground. According to Freedom House, "Falun Gong practitioners across China have since [July 1999] been subjected to widespread surveillance, arbitrary detention, horrific torture, and extrajudicial killing — abuses which continue today." Nonetheless, there are still some 100 million practitioners worldwide, and the movement continues to grow.
Information concerning the repression of Falun Gong is a Chinese state secret, with severe penalties for anyone attempting to obtain data. As the Falun Data Infocenter puts it: "The CCP has also used political and financial influence around the world to either keep journalists silent, or drive false narratives about Falun Gong." With total control inside China and compliance by foreign journalists, the Chinese Communist Party has driven a false narrative that minimizes the number of Falun Gong practitioners and hides data on the number of those abducted, tortured, killed, and killed for their organs, thus totally obscuring the record. At the same time, Chinese and foreign media continue to suggest that the victim is the abuser: the false idea that Falun Gong is a cult with dangerous potential.
For anyone who has studied the history of or practiced Falun Gong, the enormity of this continuing abuse and misinformation is obvious. Falun gong is a benign practice of meditation, exercise, and moral instruction with no political ties of any sort, but it is often represented, even by well-meaning Western journalists, as a "cult" or as a right-wing anti-CCP organization, as in a recent article in the Guardian, relying heavily on statements by Media Matters. According to the article, Falun Gong and its associated media, including the Epoch Times, have engaged in "conspiracy narratives" targeting Democrats and the Chinese Communist Party and of "links" between Joe Biden and the CCP. In fact, a great deal of evidence is emerging in the Comer investigation to show that those links are far from being conspiracy narratives. (See also a 2020 New York Times article, which labels Falun Gong "a leading purveyor of right-wing disinformation.")
If those journalists would do their homework, beginning with studying Falun Gong websites and the book Zhuan Falun by Li Hongzhi, instead of relying on the well funded Chinese "zero out" campaign, they would realize that Falun Gong is an uplifting instruction based on traditional, conservative Chinese practices.
The story of the Chinese government crackdown on Falun Gong is a classic example of totalitarian intolerance of competing ideas, and it involves both propaganda and physical terror. A careful examination of the record proves that the response of the communist Chinese regime is not very different from that of ancient regimes toward their own enslaved peoples. Despite their vast power, totalitarian leaders are fearful and at times even paranoid, as was Stalin, and the flip-side of fear is repression.
In reality, Falun Gong is a complex spiritual practice involving qijong-like exercises, positive thinking, and moral belief based on truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. As a practitioner myself, I know how Falun Gong can transform an individual from illness to health, confusion to knowledge, and intolerance to open-mindedness. It is obvious to me how a totalitarian regime would view Falun Gong as a threat, as indeed it would be to any form of deceit, corruption, or intolerance. As Falun Gong spread in China during the 1990s, at one point with 60 to 100 million followers in China alone, the practice became a threat to a government that had once encouraged it as a healthy "money-saving" vehicle and a social safety valve for a dissatisfied citizenry. Yet within months, beginning in July 1999, perhaps 100,000 followers were arrested and 30,000 executed. Even now, nearly 4,000 practitioners were arrested in 2021 (latest figures).
It is critical to consider the magnitude of this repression, with between two and four million Falun Gong followers "detained" in forced labor camps between 2000 and 2008 alone. Chinese policy toward Falun Gong is similar to the more widely publicized repression of Uyghurs, 1.5 million of whom have reportedly been detained in China, with hundreds of thousands of others subjected to forced sterilization, forced abortion, and religious suppression, and with the razing or damaging of 16,000 mosques. Like totalitarian regimes of the past, the CCP appears willing to employ the most ruthless tactics in order to secure its hold on the country.
Though Falun Gong is not a political movement, the exponential growth of Falun Gong during the 1990s might well have pressured authorities to change, and as soon as China's leaders recognized this threat, they suppressed Falun Gong with a heavy hand. One could hardly be truthful, compassionate, and forbearing and lend one's support to a communist regime governed by a few thousand members of the political elite intent on benefiting from their rule at the expense of the general population. Falun Gong teaches a form of gentleness and goodness that threatens the lies and violence of any totalitarian government.
One must ask: if the Chinese communists are willing to imprison millions of ethnic and religious minorities and to murder tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, what are they capable of in the future? How many lives are they willing to expend in a takeover of Taiwan? And once Taiwan is taken, how many Taiwanese will they imprison and execute? In the event of a war with Japan or with the United States, how many are they willing to see die, on both sides? And if Chinese communism were ever to achieve world domination, what kind of future could we expect? As Christians, probably something not unlike what the Uyghurs and Falun Gong have already experienced.
At the same time, the specter of Chinese repression should open our eyes to the remarkable value of our own system of democratic capitalism. The CCP has diminished Falun Gong in China, but, like all religious and spiritual practices, Falun Gong has found a safe home in America, at least in principle, though the Biden administration continues to restrict religious practice, to challenge religious rights in the courts and in agency practices, and to unleash the power of agencies like the Justice Department and IRS against the open practice of religion. Many of the same tactics adopted in communist China are accepted by progressives in our own country, including the encouragement of birth control and abortion, even late-term abortion and infanticide after birth.
For the present, there is still a difference between totalitarianism and democracy as practiced in the USA. Now is a time when American citizens, media, government, and corporations need to see clearly that communist China is a totalitarian government and to recognize what it is capable of. China's record toward Falun Gong, a violent repression that continues today, is one element in a string of crackdowns and arrests. We do not need to send a balloon over China to understand the nature of their regime, but we do need to recognize the enormity of its abuses and take appropriate actions to defend ourselves.
Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture, most recently Heartland of the Imagination (2011).
Try the reality that illegal immigrants are routinely given free public housing by the U.S., based on the fact that they are uneducated, unskilled, and largely unemployable. Those are the criteria, and now importing poverty has never been easier. Shockingly, this comes as millions of poor Americans are out in the cold awaiting that housing that the original law was intended to help.
Thus, the tent cities, and by coincidence, the worst of these emerging shantytowns are in blue sanctuary cities loaded with illegal immigrants - Orange County, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, New York...Is there a connection? At a minimum, it's worth looking at. MONICA SHOWALTER
Fentanyl's scourge plainly visible on streets of Los Angeles
In a filthy alley behind a Los Angeles doughnut shop, Ryan Smith convulsed in the grips of a fentanyl high — lurching from moments of slumber to bouts of violent shivering on a warm summer day.
When Brandice Josey, another homeless addict, bent down and blew a puff of fentanyl smoke his way in an act of charity, Smith sat up and slowly opened his lip to inhale the vapor as if it was the cure to his problems.
Smith, wearing a grimy yellow T-shirt that said "Good Vibes Only," reclined on his backpack and dozed the rest of the afternoon on the asphalt, unperturbed by the stench of rotting food and human waste that permeated the air.
For too many people strung out on the drug, the sleep that follows a fentanyl hit is permanent. The highly addictive and potentially lethal drug has become a scourge across America and is taking a toll on the growing number of people living on the streets of Los Angeles.
Nearly 2,000 homeless people died in the city from April 2020 to March 2021, a 56% increase from the previous year, according to a report released by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Overdose was the leading cause of death, killing more than 700.
Fentanyl was developed to treat intense pain from ailments like cancer. Use of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that is cheap to produce and is often sold as is or laced in other drugs, has exploded. Because it's 50 times more potent than heroin, even a small dose can be fatal.
It has quickly become the deadliest drug in the nation, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Two-thirds of the 107,000 overdose deaths in 2021 were attributed to synthetic opioids like fentanyl, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The drug's toll spreads far beyond the streets.
Jennifer Catano, 27, has the names of two children tattooed on her wrists, but she hasn't seen them for several years. They live with her mother.
"My mom doesn't think it's a good idea because she thinks it's gonna hurt the kids because I'm not ready to get rehabilitated," Catano said.
She has overdosed three times and been through rehab seven or eight times.
"It's scary to get off of it," she said. "The withdrawals are really bad."
Catano wandered around a subway station near MacArthur Park desperate to sell a bottle of Downy fabric softener and a Coleman camping chair she stole from a nearby store.
Drug abuse can be a cause or symptom of homelessness. Both can also intersect with mental illness.
A 2019 report by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority found about a quarter of all homeless adults in Los Angeles County had mental illnesses and 14% had a substance use disorder. That analysis only counted people who had a permanent or long-term severe condition. Taking a broader interpretation of the same data, the Los Angeles Times found about 51% had mental illnesses and 46% had substance use disorders.
Billions of dollars are being spent to alleviate homelessness in California but treatment is not always funded.
A controversial bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom could improve that by forcing people suffering from severe mental illness into treatment. But they need to be diagnosed with a certain disorder such as schizophrenia and addiction alone doesn't qualify.
Help is available but it is outpaced by the magnitude of misery on the streets.
Rita Richardson, a field supervisor with LA Door, a city addiction-prevention program that works with people convicted of misdemeanors, hands out socks, water, condoms, snacks, clean needles and flyers at the same hotspots Monday through Friday. She hopes the consistency of her visits will encourage people to get help.
"Then hopefully the light bulb comes on. It might not happen this year. It might not happen next year. It might take several years," said Richardson, a former homeless addict. "My goal is to take them from the dark to the light."
Parts of Los Angeles have become scenes of desperation with men and women sprawled on sidewalks, curled up on benches and collapsed in squalid alleys. Some huddle up smoking the drug, others inject it.
Armando Rivera, 33, blew out white puffs to attract addicts in the alley where Smith was sleeping. He needed to sell some dope to buy more. Those without enough money to support their habit, hovered around him, hoping for a free hit. Rivera showed no mercy.
Catano couldn't sell the chair, but eventually she sold the fabric softener to a street vendor for $5.
It was enough money for another high.
As a result of countless stories like this, Los Angeles County leaders came together on Tuesday to announce the creation of a working group to address the fentanyl crisis "through prevention, education and enforcement."
The group consists of local law enforcement, District Attorney George Gascón and Los Angeles Unified School District officials, who will work to develop strategies that can fight the crisis head on.
"This is the number one killer of people between 18 and 45 years of age," said Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore, who said that it's time to go after suppliers of the drugs. "The prosecution of these individuals must be at the highest level."
THE FENTANYL COMES OVER THE OPEN BORDER FROM JOE BIDEN'S CRONIES IN RED CHINA THEN THROUGH NARCOMEX
Ryan Smith, a 36-year-old homeless addict, falls asleep after smoking fentanyl in Los Angeles, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. Nearly 2,000 homeless people died in the city from April 2020 to March 2021, a 56% increase from the previous year, according to a report released by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Overdose was the leading cause of death, killing more than 700. Jae C. Hong / AP
A NATION IN MELTDOWN AS DEMOCRATS FLOOD THE COUNTRY FROM BORDER TO OPEN BORDER WITH ILLEGALS
THIS IS WHAT THE GLOBALIST NAFTA DEMOCRAT PARTY HAS DONE TO ONE SANCTUARY CITY
I Went To Every Single Homeless Camp In Los Angeles
In a filthy alley behind a Los Angeles doughnut shop, Ryan Smith convulsed in the grips of a fentanyl high — lurching from moments of slumber to bouts of violent shivering on a warm summer day.
When Brandice Josey, another homeless addict, bent down and blew a puff of fentanyl smoke his way in an act of charity, Smith sat up and slowly opened his lip to inhale the vapor as if it was the cure to his problems.
Smith, wearing a grimy yellow T-shirt that said "Good Vibes Only," reclined on his backpack and dozed the rest of the afternoon on the asphalt, unperturbed by the stench of rotting food and human waste that permeated the air.
For too many people strung out on the drug, the sleep that follows a fentanyl hit is permanent. The highly addictive and potentially lethal drug has become a scourge across America and is taking a toll on the growing number of people living on the streets of Los Angeles.
Nearly 2,000 homeless people died in the city from April 2020 to March 2021, a 56% increase from the previous year, according to a report released by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Overdose was the leading cause of death, killing more than 700.
Fentanyl was developed to treat intense pain from ailments like cancer. Use of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that is cheap to produce and is often sold as is or laced in other drugs, has exploded. Because it's 50 times more potent than heroin, even a small dose can be fatal.
It has quickly become the deadliest drug in the nation, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Two-thirds of the 107,000 overdose deaths in 2021 were attributed to synthetic opioids like fentanyl, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The drug's toll spreads far beyond the streets.
Jennifer Catano, 27, has the names of two children tattooed on her wrists, but she hasn't seen them for several years. They live with her mother.
"My mom doesn't think it's a good idea because she thinks it's gonna hurt the kids because I'm not ready to get rehabilitated," Catano said.
Related video: Addressing the rise of fentanyl overdose
Rep. Gimenez: U.S. Must 'Decouple' From China Because 'We Are Feeding This Dragon'
Russian President Vladimir Putin and China's President Xi Jinping toast each other following their talks at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 21, 2023. (Photo by PAVEL BYRKIN/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images)
(CNSNews.com) - As she often does, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to answer a question at Wednesday's press briefing, this one about Chinese President Xi telling Russian President Putin that "change is coming that hasn't happened in 100 years" and "we are driving this change together."
"What do you think that means?" Fox News's Peter Doocy asked Jean-Pierre:
"You would have to ask them," she responded.
On Thursday morning, Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) -- a member of the new House select committee on China -- said he has no doubt what Xi meant:
"Change is coming means that China will become the dominant economic and military power in the world, and so that change is not going to good for the United States. That's a pretty easy answer," he said.
Gimenez said the U.S. must "decouple" from China because "we are feeding this dragon."
"We've made this dragon what it is, and we need to put this dragon on a diet in order for them to feel the squeeze and also to stop funding the build-up, the unprecedented military buildup that China is doing in order to supplant the United States as the dominant economic and military power of the world.
"Now, Russia is going to be used as one of China's pawns in this...They used to be the major partner with China. Now they're the minor partner, and Putin has to do what XI says or else, you know, he's not going to buy his oil and his gas and not fund the war in Ukraine and other things that Putin wants to do.
"And so, yeah, it's pretty easy for me to answer that question. The change is, China is going to be dominant, we're not."
Gimenez said the U.S. should "incentivize" American companies to come back to the United States -- or at least to our own hemisphere:
"There's plenty of good, cheap labor down in South America," he said.
"We need to look at our neighbors to the south as a solution to this problem of the supply chain. And, unfortunately, we have been looking to the Far East for that. We need to come back home.
"And, again, put this dragon on a diet, because it's needed, and we can't continue to feed the dragon that eventually is going to gobble us up. And we need to face that, and we need to face it right now."
Gimenez noted that the U.S., by making China a trading partner and introducing capitalism into the communist system, acted in the belief that we could change China:
"Yeah, they changed all right. We made them stronger," Giminez said:
"We made the Chinese Communist Party stronger. Politically they haven't changed at all. They are persecuting their own people. They are committing genocide. Unfortunately, American companies have, you know, made excuses for them.
"It's time that stops. It's time for these companies to come back to America."
NSC Spokesman John Kirby: ‘In Some Cases, We Have Significant Concerns About China’s Behavior’
National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby speaks during the daily briefing in the James S Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 21, 2023. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
(CNSNews.com) - The Biden administration has “significant concerns” in some cases about China’s behavior when it comes to abiding by the international rules of the road, NSC spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are meeting on Tuesday in Moscow.
Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy asked, “Quickly about the meeting today, the Xi-Putin meeting. In November when President Biden met with Xi, he said, I want to make sure that every country abides by the international rules of the road. Does he think China is abiding by the international rules of the road?”
KIRBY: In some cases, we have significant concerns about China’s behavior, particularly their coercive and aggressive behavior for instance in the South China Sea and pursuing false maritime claims, concerns about intellectual theft, and some trade practices, and the president’s been very open and honest about that, and he was when they met in Bali, but there are other areas where we believe there’s room for cooperation with China, and we want to be able to pursue that too, but in order to do that, Peter, you got to keep those lines of communication open.
You gotta have that ability to talk particularly when things are tense like they are right now, and that’s what the president wants to get back to.
Doocy asked about the COVID-19 Origin Act of 202 (S.618), which Biden signed on Monday.
Today, I am pleased to sign into law S. 619, the “COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023.” I share the Congress’s goal of releasing as much information as possible about the origin of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID–19). In 2021, I directed the Intelligence Community to use every tool at its disposal to investigate the origin of COVID-19, and that work is ongoing. We need to get to the bottom of COVID-19’s origins to help ensure we can better prevent future pandemics. My Administration will continue to review all classified information relating to COVID–19’s origins, including potential links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In implementing this legislation, my Administration will declassify and share as much of that information as possible, consistent with my constitutional authority to protect against the disclosure of information that would harm national security.
“About the bill President Biden signed yesterday, he says he will declassify COVID origins intel except info that would harm national security. Is there a bigger national security threat than something that killed 1.1 million people in this country?” Doocy asked.
KIRBY: I’ve seen some of the commentary on your network about this. The president obviously has to balance transparency with national security, Peter. Of course he does. When coming into office, ordered the declassification of what the DNI had on COVID origins, ordered the entire intelligence community and added the Department of Energy to that list–
DOOCY: Where is it?
KIRBY: Let me finish my answer.
DOOCY: We’re talking about the beginning of his term.
KIRBY: Added the Department of Energy and national labs, told them to keep studying it. We have kept Congress informed. Some of that has to be in a classified way right now, but it’s always a balance between the public’s right to know, right - not need, right - and our obligation to protect national security.
So one should not read into that statement that he’s sort of laying a foundation here to be overly secretive. He believes strongly that we’ve got to find the roots and the origins of COVID so that we can prevent a future pandemic, and through his actions, just judging him on what he’s done, through his actions, he’s proven that he’s going to be as transparent as possible with the American people, because he believes that’s important.
DOOCY: Does the White House hope that the lab leak theory is not true?
KIRBY: We don’t have a hope one way or the other, Peter. What we want is the ground truth, wherever that takes us, wherever the science takes you, wherever the facts takes you. President Biden wants to know so that he can help work with the scientific community to prevent a future pandemic. We’re not– there’s no thumb on the scale here, Peter. It’s not about not wanting a certain outcome. We just want the best possible outcome that we can get.
The annual death toll from fentanyl poisoning among Americans now equals the annual death toll of American soldiers in World War II. But Biden has made no effort to deter the Chinese from poisoning Americans citizens by, for example, ending the subsidies we provide to their economy or revoking China’s Most Favored Nation trade status (PERPETRATED BY DIANNE FEINSTEIN), or closing all the Confucius Institutes in our universities set up to steal our technologies. From the Chinese Communist point of view, this alone would be worth the tens of millions of dollars they have poured into the Bidens’ pockets. DAVID HOROWITZ
For starters, let's define the "fentanyl crises" for what it really is: Chemical warfare, effectively perpetrated on the American people by the Chinese communist government and their Mexican-cartel allies. This administration's open border, which is clearly an intentional policy, marks Biden and Harris as co-conspirators in what's arguably the CCP's chemical-weapons assault on U.S. citizens. RICHARD MORSE
Democrats Focus on Woke Grievances During TikTok Hearing, Not National Security
While most lawmakers focused on TikTok’s ties to communist China at today’s hearing with its CEO, Shou Zi Chew, Congresswomen Doris Matsui (D-CA) and Yvette Clarke (D-NY) focused on what, for them, appeared to be a more important priority: stopping algorithms from becoming racist.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee called the hearing amid widespread concerns on Capitol Hill that TikTok, the product of Chinese company ByteDance, represents a national security risk to the United States.
WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 14: TikTok CEO, Shou Zi Chew is interviewed at offices the company uses on Tuesday February 14, 2023 in Washington, DC.(Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
While committee member Rep. Matsui briefly acknowledged the China issue, the bulk of her remarks focused on woke grievances about racist algorithms.
“Make no mistake, the Chinese government represents a real and immediate threat. Look no further than the vulnerable gear still in our telecom networks that still needs to be ripped and replaced.”
“But we can’t lose sight of the important internet governance issues TikTok and other social media companies represent. I’m especially committed to demanding transparency from large platforms about the algorithms that shape our online interactions, especially for teenagers and young users.”
“And that’s why I introduced the Algorithmic Justice and Online Platform Transparency Act, to bring greater visibility into this ecosystem. My bill would prohibit algorithms that discriminate on the basis of race, age, gender, ability, and other protected characteristics.”
“This bill would require online platforms to publish annual public reports detailing their content moderation practices, which I believe should be a baseline requirement to establish meaningful oversight and consumer choice.”
The bill, which Rep. Matsui co-sponsored with far-left Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), would create an inter-agency task force consisting of the FTC, Department of Education, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Commerce, and Department of Justice, to investigate “discriminatory algorithmic processes.”
Rep. Matsui also advanced a common talking point used by the post-2016 online censorship machine: that social media is responsible for fueling “political extremism.”
“Over the past few years, alarming information brought to light by whistleblowers have shown that social media companies are intimately aware of the effect their products have on young women, political extremism, and more. Despite this, they withheld those studies or declined to investigate further. In either case, it shows a pattern of evasive or negligent behavior that I find concerning or extreme.”
Speaking later in the hearing, New York congresswoman Rep. Yvette Clarke expressed similar woke concerns.
“The problems of social media platforms’ content moderation, algorithmic discrimination and safety are neither new nor unique to TikTok.”
“I share the concerns raised by my colleague, Congresswoman Matsui, related to algorithms. I believe that without mitigation against bias, platforms will continue to replicate, exacerbate discrimination that is illegal under civil rights law, as well as exclude important dialogue about sensitive topics like race from occurring on the platform.”
Rep. Clarke went on to ask the TikTok CEO whether he agreed that there should be transparency requirements for social media platforms to “identify whether policies have a disparate impact on communities that are protected classes, like race, religion, national origin, or gender.”
“It is vital that the diverse culture of the United States is represented online,” said Clarke, alsostating that social media platforms like TikTok need to do better at removing “hate speech” and “domestic terrorism” — a label increasingly applied by Democrats to Trump supporters.