Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

The US government has to come up with very very strong legislation for social media, and it has to do that very soon. Because if it doesn’t, it risks those same social media inciting a civil war (that’s no hyperbole, that is real) on American soil.

And beyond as well, but as Donald Trump said about European efforts to curtail Twitter, Facebook et al’s activities, they’re American companies and hence America’s responsibility. Well, cool, but that means you have to do your job, and you ain’t doing it. Those EU efforts by the way were all about financial issues, tax paying etc., not inciting civil wars or being undemocratic. In short, Brussels doesn’t get it yet either.

Now, the Automatic Earth was kicked off Facebook years ago and never received an explanation for why an account with 1000s of followers was just choked in the bud, so I can’t be expected to celebrate its great achievements for mankind. We still have a Twitter account, but how much longer after I post this essay? There’s no telling, and that is the heart of the entire issue. If I, or you, say anything that anyone at these companies don’t like, they can ban us.

Facebook and Twitter continue to operate on the notion that they are private companies who are entitled to ban anyone they don’t like. In the case of Facebook, that covers half the world population. It’s like running the UN as a private enterprise. And it’s not even the owners or the board, they don’t have time to check who they like or not. Instead, they have hired 10s of 1000s of young -because cheap- kids to do the (shadow-) banning for them.

The companies are all based in Silicon Valley, i.e. California, i.e. NOT Trump territory, and the cheap young kids hired to decide what people can and cannot say on their so-called private platforms reflect that territory and its ideas. But Washington can no longer tolerate that. It must act now. The question is: will it?

Why wouldn’t it? Because Facebook, Twitter, Instagram et al have become the US Intelligence’s dream tools to spy on their own people as well as those abroad. The CIA couldn’t even ever have dreamt of a platform that encompasses 3.5 billion people. But Mark Zuckerberg handed it to them on a platter. My idea is Trump would love to go against them, because they go against him and his voters, but US Intelligence, CIA, FBI, may be holding him back from it. Bad, bad idea.

Picked up Charles Nenner on his war cycles at Greg Hunter’s USA Watchdog site, and I wasn’t terribly convinced at first sight, but that was before I read about Mitch McConnell being threatened at his own house.

Civil War Cycle Heating up in America

“Years ago when we talked about my war cycles, I said I am more worried about internal social war in the United States than outside wars. I think there is a bigger chance in the United States than in Europe. They say it’s Trump’s fault . . . . I say it’s the other way around. If the Democrats would just get things organized and people would not get that angry. . . . The media will always take the other side, so they will never solve it. I think it is the Democrats whose fault it is that all these killings are there and not the Republicans. . . . So, there is a cycle of social unrest in the United States, which is 60 years old. So, you go back to what happened in the 1960’s. It could explode, and I think it is going to explode, and there is going to be a major problem. . . . I don’t know how bad it is going to be, but based on cycles, it has to be worse than the 1960’s. Each cycle always is worse. . . . WWII was worse than WWI, so every cycle becomes worse than the first cycle. . . . I don’t feel comfortable living in the United States anymore because people are so aggressive on everything.

Nenner also talks in that piece about how he visited Putin, who is interested in the war cycles idea, so maybe I should read up on those war cycles.

But that Mitch McConnell story interferes and disperses into the whole tale. There apparently were groups of people outside his home, caught on video, who were calling for him to be violently attacked. And when his campaign posted a video of these people on Twitter, the campaign’s account was shut down.

“Just Stab The Motherfu*ker”: Twitter Suspends McConnell Campaign For Posting Video Of Violent Threats

“I just want him to have a stroke, that is all,” the woman added. “One of those heart attacks where they can’t breathe, and they’re holding their chest and they fall backwards” “He’s in there nursing his broken arm. He should have broken his raggedy, wrinkled-ass neck,” she said at one point in the video. “Everybody needs to show up wherever this ho is at and make him just regret his fucking life, period,” she added. At one point in the protest, a male protester commenting on McConnell’s recent injury said that he may have been the victim of a “voodoo doll” curse. -Daily Caller Kevin Golden, McConnell’s 2020 campaign manager noted that “Twitter will allow the words of ‘Massacre Mitch’ to trend nationally on their platform, but locks our account for posting actual threats against us.” Golden says that they appealed to Twitter, which stood by their decision, saying that the account will remain locked until they delete the video. Daily Wire reporter Ryan Saavedra was similarly locked out of his Twitter account for posting the video. “Twitter asked me yesterday to delete this tweet,” Saavedra recounted in a massive tweetstorm. “It showed a person allegedly calling for violence against Mitch McConnell. The person appears to be a BLM activist who has met with Elizabeth Warren.”

And I know, people are going to react to this saying: Oh, it’s Daily Caller, Mitch McConnell, Ryan Saveedra, it’s right wing, but that is so far beyond the point it disqualifies you from any conversation at all. Mitch McConnell, aka MoscowMitch or MassacreMitch, is very far removed from being my favorite person on the planet, but he’s the Senate Majority Leader, and as such an important part of the American political system.

If you don’t like that, there’s a mechanism to express that: the ballot box. Calling for him to be physically attacked right outside the place where he and his family live is not done. Unless perhaps you want the same to happen to you at your residence. But you don’t, do you?

This has nothing to do with left vs right anymore. This is about people who have convinced themselves they are so right in their ideas that anything at all is justified to get their views and their points across, including violence. Well, there’s the seeds of your civil war then.

Now, note that this started well over 3 years ago with the invention out of thin air of Russiagate. Now that that ‘theory’ has been debunked, where are the inventors, i.e. losers, going to hide? Apparently in front of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s home.

And what’s next? Right-wing protesters setting up camp outside Mark Zuckerberg’s home, or Adam Schiff’s, Jerry Nadler’s, Elijah Cummings’? We may not be that far removed from that happening. And if it does, Facebook and Twitter will be crucial in organizing it.

Which is why Trump and AG Bill Barr must come up with very strong rules, very soon, defining what social media are allowed to do and what not. And barring Mitch McConnell’s campaign from posting direct threats to the man uttered mere feet away from where he lives doesn’t seem to be the way forward.

The Age of -corporate- Innocence that Zuck and @jack keep trying to hide behind while counting their billions has long gone. They have become bigger political players than the New York Times, CNN and Jeff Bezos. Stop them now or you risk the 2020 elections leading to outright warfare. Mr. Trump, sir, this is your responsibility more than anyone else’s. You have no choice. But you do have the power.

Not many Americans, far as I can see, take the threat of a civil war seriously, including you, Mr. Trump. But you really should. Take on the social media, and you’re halfway there to preventing it.

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