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Ted Nugent has railed against large social-media companies that block users from their platforms.

The outspoken conservative rocker is an ardent supporter of former U.S. president Donald Trump who was famously suspended from his social accounts in January 2021 over public safety concerns in the wake of the Capitol riot.

During his YouTube livestream on Thursday (January 20), Nugent once again upped his unsubstantiated accusations that tech companies are censoring his speech as Facebook and other tech companies have attempted to limit coronavirus vaccine misinformation.

"Boy, does Big Tech crush the First Amendment, like some kind of devil grease gangbangers," Nugent said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

"Hey, Big Tech fact checkers, you're lying scum. And they all have to put up a COVID alert misinformation. No, no, no everything from Big Tech and the media and the government, that's the misinformation.

"When I share [information from physician group] Frontline Doctors and epidemiologists and virologists, experts, lifetime dedicated, professional healthcare specialists, doctors and scientists, when I express their findings, that's not misinformation; that's pertinent information," he continued.

"Big Tech, the media and the government, academia and Hollywood, when they identify stuff coming out of me 'cause I don't have any medical or science hunches; I'm cocky but I'm not that stupid. So I go to the professional healthcare, dedicated Frontline Doctors, and I share truth, logic and medical common sense. And when they identify it as misinformation, that's the misinformation. Okay? So let's be forewarned."

Addressing the fact that he is still able to share his views on most of the major social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even YouTube, Ted said: "I can't believe they haven't kicked me off yet. Twitter has kicked off Shemane [Nugent, Ted's wife]. She's like Mother Teresa, Joan Of Arc. She's the greatest, sweetest, harmless woman that ever walked the earth, and she's kicked off Twitter because she said something positive about Donald Trump inconsequential; just a compliment.

"By the way, you know the First Amendment? That was not given to us by the government," Ted added. "That didn't start when they wrote it in the Constitution. Tell me you know that when they wrote down self-evident truth in the Constitution and the Bill Of Rights that those rights and those freedoms didn't begin there; they already existed. We didn't need a man to put it to paper. We got 'em from God, from the Creator. We were born with all those freedoms, all those self-evident-truth rights. We just wrote it in the documents in case we experience some prick like King George Joe Biden who's gonna try to play tyrannical emperor kingpunk. We just want it on paper just to reference those punks that would try to pry it from our soul. But we know we have it when we're born, whether it's on paper or not."

Last May, Nugent said that he beat COVID-19 by following "intelligent, professionally guided care from the Frontline Doctors," referring to the aforementioned group of doctors who made a video in July 2020 calling for the use of hydroxychloroquine to battle the novel coronavirus, despite warnings from public health experts.

In the above-mentioned video, a group of people wearing white lab coats calling themselves "America's Frontline Doctors" staged a press conference in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. and made a number of dubious claims, including that "you don't need masks" to prevent spread of the coronavirus, and that studies showing hydroxychloroquine is ineffective for the treatment of COVID-19 are "fake science" sponsored by "fake pharma companies." According to Politifact, many of the doctors' claims contradicted recommendations from public health organizations and experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci. The video quickly went viral on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube before it was taken down for promoting misinformation.

Last month, Nugent told the Des Moines, Iowa radio station Lazer 103.3 that he beat COVID-19 by "listen[ing] to what the government told me to do and [doing] just the opposite. And whatever the government told me not to do, that's exactly what I did do, and I was cured in about two days."

Nugent, an outspoken conspiracy theorist who has refused to take the vaccine, also once again falsely claimed that public health measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic violate the Nuremberg code, a set of medical experimentation guidelines set after World War Two, as the vaccine is experimental.

In April, Nugent talked about the darkest days of his battle with COVID-19, saying that he had "never been so scared" in his entire life. The 73-year-old pro-gun activist, who had previously claimed the virus was "not a real pandemic," said: "It was really scary. I didn't think I was gonna make it. I literally couldn't function for about 20 hours, and then they came and they rescued me The six-foot-two, 225-pound headache [this time] was like nothing I have ever experienced. I mean, from my tip of my toes to the top of my hair, I literally was dizzy and weak and struggled to get up to go to the bathroom. And I would lay in the bathtub a couple of times a day with the water as hot as I could take it just to divert."

In the past, Nugent had referred to the virus as a "leftist scam to destroy" Trump. He had also repeated a narrative pushed by conservative media and disputed by health experts that suggests the official death count from the coronavirus is inflated.

Continue reading here:
TED NUGENT Rails Against Big Tech Censorship: 'I Can't Believe They Haven't Kicked Me Off Yet' - BLABBERMOUTH.NET

School officials from the Canyons School District changed their book review and selection policy and returned nine titles they removed from the shelves a few months ago. These books were first removed after Utah parents asked school officials in various emails and letters to censor the books because they contained pornographic material. (Andrea Zapata)

Canyons School District school officials returned nine titles to bookshelves after removing them last November because of Utah parents denouncing their pornographic and obscene content.

Utah parents sent several emails and letters to the Canyons School District at the end of 2021, asking them to remove from the shelves some books with content parents claimed were explicit.

We do not want explicit pornographic materials in schools, said Nichole Mason, president of Utah Parents United. Sex does not belong in a public school library, she added, referring to the nine titles parents have targeted for displaying illustrations and content they oppose.

Utah Parents United is one of the groups that led this advocacy mission and was vocal about the schools moral obligation to protect children and remove any harmful material school libraries may have, Mason said.

Utah Parents United has a list of books featuring content they label as pornographic and explicit.

We have been on the news with this, and when we show them the images of these books, they need to blur them out, Mason said. Yet this is what is on our public school library shelves.

In response to the large number of requests and emails Canyons School District received from groups like Utah Parents United, school officials decided to remove the nine most controversial titles from public school library shelves. This action violated the content review policy to which Canyons School District was subject.

There was a feeling that we needed a pause, Canyons School District spokesperson Kirsten Stewart said when asked about why books were pulled off the shelves without following the review process stipulated in their policy.

Librarian associations and First Amendment advocacy groups have been outspoken about the seriousness and illegality of Canyons School Districts actions.

We do believe there is a place for a parent to question what books should be in a library, Utah Library Association Executive Director Mindy Hale said. The problem with these recent attacks and book removals is that they are not following the policies.

Katie Wegner, the Intellectual Freedom Committee co-chair at Utah Library Association, said these actions by the Canyons School District would open the schools to possible civil lawsuits.

One of the groups investigating the situation is the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah.

This action violated the rights of students, said John Mejia, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. It gave us great concern, particularly because a lot of these books were about marginalized and oppressed identities, and its important that students with these identities have access to books that relate to them and put them in a positive light.

According to several librarians from the Utah Library Association, the real motivation of the Utah parents is not to remove obscene content, but to target those books dealing with race and LGBT issues. Many books out of the nine titles removed have queer or people-of-color protagonists such as Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin and Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison.

Mason said these allegations are completely false.

These books clearly violate Utah state code, as they are pornographic in nature, she said. It doesnt matter what race or sexuality it is: That is irrelevant, as those images are still pornography.

The new Canyons School District policy for the School Library Materials Selection and Review was published on Jan. 4, and as of Jan. 20, the books pulled off the shelves have been returned to libraries.

No action has been taken on any title at the moment, Stewart said. Those books are now back on the shelves and will be reviewed by the new policy by the board of education.

She said the new policy is balanced and provides clarity and transparency in how school officials select and review books.

Upon being informed of the action to return the books to the shelves, Mejia said the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah is still in the process of investigating and reaching out to school officials. However, Mejia said since the situation changed and there is a new policy, We will most likely not sue them because our priority is that they reconsider, and although we need to confirm that, it seems like they have by returning the books.

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Pornography and censorship: Controversial books returned to Utah school libraries' shelves - The Daily Universe - Universe.byu.edu

Google has asked the High Court of Australia to overturn a 2020 ruling it warns could have a devastating effect on the wider internet. In a filing the search giant made on Friday, Google claims it will be forced to act as censor if the countrys highest court doesnt overturn a decision that awarded a lawyer $40,000 in defamation damages for an article the company had linked to through its search engine, reports The Guardian.

In 2016, George Defteros, a Victoria state lawyer whose past client list included individuals implicated in Melbourne's notorious gangland killings, contacted Google to ask the company to remove a 2004 article from The Age. The piece featured reporting on murder charges prosecutors filed against Defteros related to the death of three men. Those charges were later dropped in 2005. The company refused to remove the article from its search results as it viewed the publication as a reputable source.

The matter eventually went to court with Defteros successfully arguing the article and Googles search results had defamed him. The judge who oversaw the case ruled The Ages reporting had implied Defteros had been cozy with Melbournes criminal underground. The Victorian Court of Appeals subsequently rejected a bid by Google to overturn the ruling.

From Googles perspective, at issue here is one of the fundamental building blocks of the internet. A hyperlink is not, in and of itself, the communication of that to which it links, the company contends in its submission to the High Court. If the 2020 judgment is left to stand, Google claims it will make it liable as the publisher of any matter published on the web to which its search results provide a hyperlink, including news stories that come from reputable sources. In its defense, the company points to a 2011 ruling from the Supreme Court of Canada that held a hyperlink by itself is never a publication of defamatory material.

Weve reached out to Google for comment.

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Google claims court ruling would force it to 'censor' the internet - Yahoo Tech

Politicians need to focus on issues that have an impact on Iowans lives, not enforcing the pledge of allegiance.

Yet again, Iowa Republicans are introducing harmful and unnecessary bills in the Legislature.

In an effort to uphold blind patriotism, Sen. Adrian Dickey introduced a bill that would require teachers to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Teachers would also be barred from talking about the pledge in an unpatriotic manner. The only exception is if the teacher has a disability that prevents them from standing and reciting the pledge.

This bill infringes on the freedom of speech of teachers and enforces the harmful censorship that has been used to erase marginalized identities.

Besides the freedom of speech and censorship concerns, teachers respecting the pledge doesnt even seem to be a problem in Iowas public schools.

Without any legislation in place, we started every morning with the Pledge of Allegiance when I was in elementary school. Most students stood and mindlessly recited the words. However, some students did not due to religious beliefs. Nevertheless, it was a daily practice that my teachers never commented on, and students paid very little attention to.

This is not the first time in recent Iowa history that Republicans introduced a bill about the Pledge of Allegiance. At the end of last years legislative session, a bill was passed that required schools to present the flag and require the school to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day.

Ultimately, students cannot be forced to recite the pledge because of their right to free expression. This was established in 1943 with the Supreme Court ruling case, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette.

Because it is established that students cannot be forced to recite the pledge, why would teachers be any different? In fact, this bill takes these free speech infringements a step further by censoring the language used surrounding the pledge.

Instead of improving the public school system in Iowa, this seems to be another attempt to uphold conservative ideas of patriotism, which often means erasing minority voices.

Through this proposal, teachers would not be allowed to say any unpatriotic commentary on the United States, or language that has any political influence on students. Along with possible infringement on free speech, this bill is further complicated by how we view patriotism.

Republicans have made attempts left and right to censor teachers. However, it all seems rooted in the same silencing of minorities. Bills were put into place last year to bar teachers from teaching the 1619 Project in schools because of concerns it is not historically accurate and misrepresents the values of America. Iowa schools are also facing increasing attention and possible bans of several books being taught, mostly ones highlighting minority experiences, such as The Hate u Give, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian.

The abundance of censorship and backlash when it comes to language or teaching that involves minority experiences suggests this legislature is not about protecting students its about continuing to erase and censor certain identities.

Censoring the language teachers use about the pledge is a step in the same direction, attempting to control unpatriotic language in the classroom. But what do we define as unpatriotic, and who is creating these definitions?

It seems Republicans focus is less about unifying the country and more about making sure certain ways of thinking about America are controlled. This is being done through book bans, attempting to erase the 1619 Project, or controlling speech surrounding the pledge. Conservative powers are infringing on what information can be shared or spoken.

Classrooms can be powerful places to grow through education. Instead of investing in bettering the education system, Republican senators are focused on censoring language and upholding their definition of patriotism.

Columns reflect the opinions of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Editorial Board, The Daily Iowan, or other organizations in which the author may be involved.

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Opinion | Iowa Republicans need to focus on real issues rather than patriotism - UI The Daily Iowan

The Biden administration is determined to appoint partisan left-wingers to key positions in the federal bureaucracy. In addition to Alvaro Bedoya, the George Soros linked, pro-illegal immigration professor that Biden has selected as his nominee for FTC commissioner, the Biden administration also wants the pro-censorship radical Gigi Sohn to serve on the Federal Communications Committee (FCC).

With jurisdiction over internet and telecoms policy, the FCC is an increasingly important arm of the federal government. During the Trump administration, it was at the center of the Presidents efforts to fight back against Big Tech censorship.

US President Joe Biden buys ice cream as Michigan Senators Debbie Stabenow (R) looks on at Moomers Homemade Ice Cream in Traverse City, Michigan on July 3, 2021. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

But the FCC is a double-edged sword. Just as the commission can protect consumers from tech censorship, it can also use its regulatory might to pressure tech companies to submit to a partisan left-wing agenda.

There is a convention that the five commissioners should remain relatively nonpartisan, even though they are allocated along party lines, with three commissioners from the party occupying the White House and two from the opposition.

The Biden administration has broken that convention, sending a far-left radical, Gigi Sohn, to the Senate for confirmation.

Sohn was the co-founder and CEO of the leftist advocacy group Public Knowledge, which recently called on cable and satellite providers to drop the conservative One America News Network (OAN).

As an FCC commissioner, Sohn will be in a position of influence over cable and satellite providers.

She has also personally called on the FCC to investigate whether the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a conservative-run network of local TV stations, should hold a broadcast license. As a commissioner, she will be able to do just that.

She has also said that both Fox News and social media are dangerous to our democracy, arguing that Fox is the greater danger and calling for a hearing about the network, which she labeled state-sponsored propaganda.

She has also denied even the possibility that Big Tech companies might be engaged in censorship, or otherwise biased against conservatives, even though leaks from inside the tech companies have repeatedly shown this to be the case.

Instead, Sohn accused tech companies of trying to appease President Trump, whom she labeled a right-wing extremist.

Beyond internet and broadcast issues, Sohn has revealed her far-left attitudes in other areas.

She labeled Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh an angry white man during his confirmation hearing, and has accused Republicans of packing the courts and trying to suppress the vote in elections.

Republican Senators are speaking out against Sohn.

Gigi Sohn is a complete political ideologue who has disdain for conservatives. She would be a complete nightmare for the country when it comes to regulating the public airwaves, said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) earlier this week.

Sohn, obviously, her views are going to be very far apart from where mine are on all the issues, Sen. John Thune (R-SD) told Politico earlier this month. Shes very left, shes going to be a heavy hand in regulation.

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News.He is the author of#DELETED: Big Techs Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.

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Biden Pushes Pro-Censorship Partisan Leftist Gigi Sohn for ...