The insidious nature of censorship under the guise of “hate speech is not free speech” has infected Craigslist. Craigslist is a great place to buy and sell, as many of us know, yet there is another side to CL that few use. It’s called “Community,” and it is a public forum for unfettered free speech. Categories abound, from politics and religion to pets and senior issues; one can find questions and answers on just about anything. The section called “Rants and Raves” originally was for kudos and complaints on local issues; now it is where conversations go to be unpacked and explored in depth.
Or so I thought.
Having used CL and these forums for years, I got used to the occasional post flagging, but in the last week or so, it appears censorship has taken the place of reasoned dialogue. I write mainly on Islam, Israel, jihad, immigration, Trump and progressive liberalism, and since May 10, virtually all my posts have been removed and never allowed to be posted. In other words, when I hit the “publish” button to post my latest piece, within 30 seconds it appears on my account page as “removed,” but never appears publicly. If a piece gets flagged, it takes longer than 30 seconds for the flag to take effect. There is no way my posts would be flagged and removed in 30 seconds, unless it is done internally by CL staffers or admin.
Of 142 posts in April and May, only 26 are still up, the rest removed before being posted. The subject matter of those removed posts include mention of the decision by Trump to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, the jihad turmoil in Gaza, creeping sharia in the US and Europe, the return of three Americans from North Korea, no-go zones in Sweden, German rape statistics, the sharia-compliant suburb of Molenbeek, Belgium, and I post every reported jihad attack. None of these violate CL terms of use, and every one is carefully researched and sourced.
Of course, the left does not want these facts to be made public; we know this from the years of obfuscation, misdirection and outright lies from the media, water carriers for Islam and liberal pundits who continuously tell us that right-wing media is the biggest cause of all our problems, including the dreaded Islamophobia.
More frustrating than having posts deleted before being posted, which I am now convinced is coming from inside Craigslist rather than being flagged by other posters, is the fact that there is no way to contact CL to register a complaint. Both corporate and customer service numbers ring through to the same message tree, the only selections being for flagging, business ads and creating a paid account. Yes, one can send an email, as I have done, but there has been no reply from anyone within CL. I know my posts are not being flagged. I can only assume that my posts, and those of other conservatives I have spoken to about this are being censored by CL administration and their site monitors.
To one especially nasty detractor who accuses me and anyone disagreeing with them as being under the influence of Fox and Breitbart, I responded with a list of the news sources I regularly read, which included Jihad Watch. Wouldn’t you know, this person went to Jihad Watch and then came back on CL to mock the story about the $2,700,000 paid to jihadis who kill Israelis and the piece on Turkish/Swedish meatballs, using those stories as fodder to attack mse, Robert Spencer and anyone who reads the site. This is just one example of the rabid vitriol beginning to infect Craigslist today. Of course their post stayed up, mine did not.
If indeed Craigslist is following the dictates of the left and censoring speech they find offensive, we are in for dark times. History is being made, and whether we will be able to read and study this point in history down the road is at the least in peril, at worst to be deemed not worthy of study if the left, through social media and now Craigslist, gets its way.
In 2010, Barry Sommer was removed as an instructor at Lane Community College in Oregon after complaints from the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) over his class “What Is Islam?”