Dear WND reader,

Starting a year ago, back in January 2018, WND was almost alone in warning America that Google, Facebook, YouTube and the other tech giants have been trying to shut down independent news and opinion voices like ours.

Many didn't believe it. Some thought it was sour grapes – blaming others for our problems. Others were put off because our stories often ended up asking readers for money. Still others, while realizing it was all true, didn't care that much because, after all, WND is imperfect and in some way had offended, or let them down, in the past.

Fast forward to today. The truth of what we've been warning the world about for over a year is now as clear as the noonday sun, with daily headlines announcing Facebook or Twitter or YouTube has banned or suspended or demonetized yet another conservative, Republican or Christian. It's endless.

But behind all the headlines, here's what's really going on.

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As you already know, the progressive left in America – with its increasingly obvious totalitarian tendencies – already dominates most of our nation's major institutions, from our colleges and universities, to the entertainment world and popular culture, to the "mainstream media" and even much of government itself (think "deep state").

Well, now the same progressive left has succeeded, for the present at least, in taking over yet another gigantic institution: the Internet.

Indeed, if WND's year-long series of stories exposing Google, Facebook and the other tech giants' campaign to extinguish free speech and independent journalism are inaccurate, it's only insofar as we have understated the problem.

As the original online journalism organization, going way back to 1997, WND – like other independent news enterprises – has been enduring a powerful, concerted, multi-pronged attack.

First is the all-out assault on our operating revenues.

"Journalism, sustained by traditional advertising, is dying," confirms the respected Washington, D.C.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC. In the research center's recent written testimony to Congress's Subcommittee on Digital Commerce & Consumer Protection, EPIC summarized its findings starkly: "Two companies [Google and Facebook] dominate the market. The privacy of internet users is under assault. The revenue model that sustained journalism is broken. The ad platforms are manipulated by foreign adversaries. Secrecy and complexity are increasing as accountability is diminished."

To understand exactly how the "Digital Cartel" has managed to wreak so much havoc, read EPIC's letter to Congress here.

Bear in mind that what enabled Google and Facebook to accomplish this – to essentially steal the life-sustaining advertising revenues from WND and other online news organizations – is their scandalous practice of invading your privacy and harvesting and monetizing your private, personal information. Totally unrepentant over this, Facebook is now going after your bank account.

But vanishing revenues are just part of the problem.

While Google and Facebook vacuum up four-fifths of all digital advertising, thereby depriving news sites like ours of their traditional lifeblood, these same mega-companies are simultaneously censoring, suppressing and "shadow-banning" independent, right-of-center news and opinion sources. It is now utterly indisputable that the Internet gatekeepers' leftwing bias is fully baked into their algorithms, which is why – in an era when the Trump economy is expanding, with manufacturing finally returning to the U.S. and employment at record highs – only left-of-center stories claiming Trump is a racist (or Nazi, or Russian super-spy) tend to populate the Google or Facebook news feeds where tens of millions congregate to get their "news."

Worse, you've no doubt heard that all of these Internet mega-companies now rely on the same lunatic hate group, the Southern Poverty Law Center, as their go-to expert on whom to discriminate against as purveyors of "hate speech." The widely discredited SPLC is best known for its "hate group" lists where it delights in lumping together genuinely honorable Christian/conservative organizations – like the American Family Association, Liberty Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Research Council and yours truly, WND – with actual hate groups like the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations and the Westboro Baptist Church.

Like all patriotic, God-fearing Americans, we at WND wear the ridiculous SPLC "hate/extremist" label as a badge of honor.

Nevertheless, since the Southern Poverty Law Center now officially determines what is "hate speech" or "fake news" for Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, is it any wonder that these days, WND rarely shows up on a Google search unless you specify "WND" in your search, or else enter the exact WND headline?

I could continue on in this vein – there is much more – but hopefully it is now absolutely clear to you that, in a multitude of ways, the leftwing appropriation of the Internet is intent on accomplishing what it already has in America's universities, popular culture and establishment press. That is, to take it over, impose politically correct speech (and therefore thought) codes, and suppress dissident voices – in this case, making it extremely difficult for journalists animated by American, constitutional, biblical, commonsense values to do their job of digging out the truth and reporting it to you.

So, what does the future hold for WND and other independent media?

For our part, WND, severely impacted by this ongoing assault, is having to reinvent itself in many ways, from painful cost reductions including layoffs and pay-cuts, to optimizing remaining revenue sources, to inventing new and outside-the-box strategies in every part of our company.

Is there hope? Well, consider this.

Revered economist and technology futurist George Gilder, in his new book "Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy," predicts Google will one day come to an end. Why? Because, says Gilder, at root Google's "philosophy attempts to lay an axe to the root of human creativity, free will and man's uniqueness as created in God's image."

Let me explain. Gilder, whose track record of anticipating future technology trends is impeccable, predicts that today's extreme centralization of data, power and wealth will one day give way to a new age of decentralization, restored privacy and individual empowerment. That would mean Google-Facebook's predatory monopolistic destruction of competitors, wanton invasion of privacy and ideological censorship also come to an end.

However, there's a catch. Key to that better future, says Gilder, is understanding that the whole idea of "free" is an illusion. As we all have recently learned, when we access Facebook and Google for "free," it's only because it turns out we are the product being sold! In place of "free" services that exploit, monetize and censor us, says Gilder, new developments like blockchain technology, cryptocurrency and micropayments will one day play a crucial role in keeping the public square of information open, decentralized, healthy and thriving.

If all this still sounds a bit esoteric, let's boil it down to its essence: Only one thing is immune to Google/Facebook's censoring, stifling, starving and shadow-banning independent, pro-American news and analysis like WND. Only one thing can counteract Amazon sucking up all the ecommerce and crippling everyone else.

That one thing that trumps all the predatory business practices, censorship and utopian fantasies of the current Internet gatekeepers is the creativity and goodness of real people acting under the inspiration of Almighty God. Arrogant, wealthy mega-companies cannot interfere with genuine virtue and generosity working through human beings committed to helping each other.

We at WND would love nothing more than to be able to continue working our hearts out doing what we've been doing for you for the past 21 years. If you agree, help us. It's just as simple as that.

The Digital Cartel – and for that matter, the rest of the dark forces of this world – cannot destroy an honorable relationship between you and us. We give to you, and you give back to us. There is no "free." "It is always a lie," says Gilder, "because on this earth nothing, in the end, is free."

Timing is everything. Gilder's hopeful predictions – that the tech giants will succumb to the self-destruct code they have unknowingly created, and that one day what he calls the "cryptocosm" will usher in a new era of unfettered Internet freedom where ideological censorship is no more, privacy is restored, and sovereign individuals happily pay a tiny amount for the content they like – may take years to come about.

But for WND to survive, that future has to be now.

Please help us today. Otherwise, we will not be around.

WND has a very large readership, millions of people who have freely benefited from its tireless and courageous journalism for two decades. If every reader chipped in just $10, or even as little as $3, we would have no financial problems at all, and in fact could expand our efforts to do even more! If you are able and inclined to donate more (to make up, very frankly, for the majority of people reading this who, for whatever reasons, will not respond), that would be wonderful. And most urgently, if you choose the monthly option for your donation, that helps us enormously as it provides a regular revenue base we can count on.

Thank you so much for your readership and your support.

David Kupelian

Vice President and Managing Editor, WND

Editor, Whistleblower magazine

Author, "The Marketing of Evil," "How Evil Works"

and "The Snapping of the American Mind"