This is not an April Fool's Day joke

I wish it were. In France the popular party leader Marine Le Pen has been banned. Why? Because she's been deemed "Far Right".  Europe is pretty much dead. Maybe not Italy and Eastern Europe but the traditional Western Europe is anything but Western now. Maybe it is a joke; not the story, but rather Western Europe.

How to Get KICKED OFF Bluesky...

Sharing for fun.  I'm pretty sure you don't want on there to begin with...

How many ways is this wrong? Please comment.

I have an unfortunate relationship with Google and YouTube, as in one that exists.  Millions of people do.  So when their brain trust come up with stuff like this, you can't do much to prevent it, even though you are using their applications.

Why is this wrong?  I have plenty of my own thoughts, but please add your thoughts in the comments. It would be great to play with their algorithm on a video like this.  That's about the best form of protest I can come up with.

More on the Crowder situation

 Crowder Bits, the workaround for the YouTube ban.

If you disagree with YouTube, you are banned.  That does not sound like a platform, it sounds like a publisher.

UPDATE: And the Bits got banned too...

Back when Fox was banned by Obama

A good call-back to when then president Obama trying to cull Fox News from the media herd.  Now CNN is being treated the same way by the Trump administration. It's not exactly a tit-for-tat response, but the hypocrisy of the faux (or real) outrage, is cast in a truer light when you have all of the facts at hand.

Psy video banned in South Korea

Here are a couple of quick social observations about Psy (Gagnam Style) and his latest video, which has apparently been banned in his native South Korea.

First the reason for the ban, via Miss Malini,

KBS has banned the new video from airing, due to Psy’s less-than-gentlemanly treatment of public property in a scene where he kicks down a traffic cone and laughs. In a statement, the broadcaster noted,

KBS’s review standards … are different from the Internet, online broadcasters or cable channels. This is because network TV is watched by everyone regardless of gender and age. Infants or children haven’t fully developed a standard for judgment and tend to believe and follow what’s shown on television.

If you take a look at the video, it is pretty tame compared to a lot of other music videos you see on MTV.  Despite all of the executive orders issued by the president, the continual over reach of the Congress and all the judicial activism in the United States, the banning of a video like this would not happen.

That says a few things.  It says that freedom of speech is still alive in the United States.  It says that Korea has a more interventionist approach to child-rearing.  It says that South Korean sensibilities are different from American sensibilities.  South Korea is turning itself into an economic powerhouse.  If they have a more puritan approach to society than America now does, does that mean that their rise corresponds to America's rise during more puritan times?  Is there a correlation?  Is Korea right to limit free speech to this extent? 

Another observation - It seems like not everyone in South Korea is really worried about the threat posed by North Korea.  After all, they've got time to consider whether kicking over a pylon is safe for kids to watch.